Flinx Transcendent_ A Pip & Flinx Adventure - Alan Dean Foster [41]
On a human world a widow could obtain privacy by wearing a full head covering in black, Flinx knew. Here, the wearing of the brown, bronze-trimmed, veiling fabric signified a death of a different kind. No wonder Kiijeem had confidence in the simple disguise. To the ever-aggressive AAnn the loss of reproductive capability would be second only to death itself. Seeing one of their own so publicly garbed they would feel only pity and would go out of their way to respect the wretched nye's lamentable condition.
Turning away from where Pip was slinking through the depths of the lightweight accessory, Flinx leaned slightly to his right for a better view of the distant, sunken main residence. “How will you get free to escort me? I doubt I could find your friends on my own.”
“Truly alsso, Flinx-friend. Additionally, a more perssonal introduction iss necessary if your appearance iss not to sspread panic and confussion. It iss important, I think, that I perssonally explain your pressence here lesst fright and alarm enssue. To address your concern: desspite my resstrictive sstudiess, I am permitted ssome sself-time. I have not in quite ssome time vissited in persson the friendss of whom I sspeak. We communicate electronically. Iss it not the ssame with my age counterpartss among your kind?”
“Depends on the individual. I never did much electronic communicating myself.” Or communicating of any kind, he added silently. “I'm more the listening than the talking type. I like to know how individuals—feel.”
“You will feel confident, I think, once we are outsside my ressidence compound and back among ssmall packss of my people.” Reaching down, he picked up the ijkk. As she slithered to one side, Pip raised her iridescent emerald-hued head and hissed at him. Kiijeem had no idea how fortunate he was that she did not perceive him as an enemy.
The young AAnn looked on in absorbed fascination as Flinx began the slow process of donning the simsuit. The interior lining was essentially one large spray-woven sensor. Picking up the slightest twitches of his muscles, ligaments, and tendons as well as the movements of his bones, millions of minuscule sensor points instantly transferred that information to the artificial counterparts that lined the interior of the suit. While Flinx moved like a human, the suit's interwoven computational system logics automatically transcribed the actions into the correspondingly appropriate movements for an adult nye. Fed to the suit's silent servos and other integrated systems, it allowed the wearer to simulate the physicality of an AAnn to a degree no actor could equal.
Slipping into her built-in internal pouch, Pip folded her wings tightly against her sides, curled up, and went to sleep against her master. While there was room for her to move around inside the simsuit without sacrificing its believability, unless something roiled Flinx's emotions she was quite content to rest and do as little as possible.
Only after the suit's ventral self-seal melded itself invisibly into its scaly milieu and the ocular pickups activated was the illusion complete. Turning to face his young host, Flinx spread his arms, at ease as the suit's sensors and servos were instructed by the integral woven computer to force his limbs into the AAnn gesture that best approximated his physical intent. The artifice was uncanny. Kiijeem's unmitigated astonishment at the comprehensiveness of the consequent masquerade did not surprise Flinx. He had been fooling far more perceptive and mature nye for many days now.
“Truly I ssee,” the youth hissed softly, “and yet it iss sstill hard to accept. I know you are within. I ssaw you don the array mysself. Yet the russe iss sso complete that I think if I ssaw you on a city path I would not be able to ssingle you out from among the horde.”
“I should hope not,” Flinx told him. “If anyone does, then you won't have to worry about how your friends will