Flinx Transcendent_ A Pip & Flinx Adventure - Alan Dean Foster [25]
He considered donning the simsuit in preparation for the impending meeting, then decided against it. There was no reason for him to do so as long as he was careful to keep out of the direct glare of Blasusarr's star. True, he would be more comfortable inside the self-regulating, temperature-controlled suit, but why waste the power when he could cool off just as easily with a simple dip in the pool? So he stayed in the shadows and waited for Kiijeem to find him.
The youthful AAnn did so eagerly, greeting him with a far more casual gesture than he had employed in the course of their previous encounter. “You are ressted for hunting?” he inquired energetically.
“Rested to kill,” Flinx replied politely and in kind. They were neither going to hunt nor kill anything except time, he knew, but many revered AAnn traditions dated to a time when Kiijeem's ancestors had stalked prey in packs across the wide hot stretches of Blasusarr's unforgiving deserts and plateaus. As man and AAnn looked on, Pip decided to pursue one of the nearby pool's many aquatic life-forms.
“Your companion takess well to water,” Kiijeem commented. “I have read that it iss much the ssame with your sspeciess.”
Unlike the thranx, who had a disconcerting tendency to sink instead of float and as a consequence possessed (with a few daredevil exceptions) a visceral fear of water, the AAnn could swim. Not as efficiently as humans, but with the aid of their tails they could manage reasonably well. Flinx decided to postpone any demonstration. While the emotions the young AAnn was disseminating confirmed that his current amity was genuine, he was still no boon teenage acquaintance. The relationship between them could change at any moment, Flinx knew. The same instinctive wariness that had sustained him and kept him alive since childhood had taught him that when and where possible it was always best to keep one's abilities a secret from a potential foe, no matter how unlikely the prospect of conflict might seem at the moment.
So he did not offer to demonstrate the human ability to swim by going for a dip. Instead, he indicated the lumpy package that hung from a strap over Kiijeem's left shoulder.
“Food and drink, as I promissed.” Setting the fabric container down, the young nye proceeded to unseal it. Some of the contents he passed to Flinx while keeping the rest for himself.
The tidily prepared cubes and slabs had the look, smell, consistency, and taste of various kinds of meat. Flinx knew they had been grown in vast protein factories. Only a specialist could have told them from actual animal flesh. Dining on the latter had long since been a privilege reserved for those AAnn who had access to significant income. Kiijeem's family might be rich enough to afford real meat, but not to the point of allowing one of their offspring access to it for a casual midday meal.
Flinx dug into the alien offering with gusto. AAnn food was better than liquid supplements, which was all that his suit could supply. Having been forced to survive on it many times in the course of the preceding couple of weeks, his system welcomed the change. Small doses of the metabolic supplements he swallowed every morning allowed him to assimilate even the most exotic components of local fare without damage to his stomach or intestines.
Kiijeem looked on in amazement as the tall human downed cube after cube of local food. “Your teeth are flat and few are pointed. How can they prepare ssomething like kolipk for digesstion?”
In between chews, Flinx pulled back his lips to reveal his teeth to his host. It was a physical feat the stiff-jawed AAnn could not duplicate.