Flinx Transcendent_ A Pip & Flinx Adventure - Alan Dean Foster [48]
Pip's head came up to focus on the young AAnn and Flinx hastened to calm the minidrag. “No insult was meant or intended. If I did not value Kiijeem as a friend, I would not be so hesitant to share this experience with him. I've had occasion to do so with another who was close to me, a very mature human whose affection I value more highly than you do Kiijeem's friendship, and it was a near thing that no lasting damage resulted.” He stared hard at her. “I don't want anything bad to happen to Kiijeem—nor do I want anything bad to happen to either of you. The kind of conclusive confirmation I have to offer will be hazardous enough for a mature member of your kind to experience. That is if, as Kiijeem believes, you can recommend one you think resilient enough to deal with it.”
“I sstill think you are a sspy desserving of interrogation and possible execution,” the brother stated straightforwardly. Flinx stiffened. If necessary, he was prepared to make his escape and flee the residence. The twin youths knew even less of his fighting abilities than did Kiijeem. Flinx was confident that if necessary he and Pip could deal with all three of them. It was the last thing he wanted to do—but as always, he was prepared to do it.
“But,” the brother continued, “the ressolution to this puzzle iss truly quite ssimple. We will introduce you to precissely the kind of mature, powerful nye whosse assisstance you require and leave the decission concerning what to do with you up to him.” He glanced at his sister, who gestured first-degree concurrence. “Tonight, when thiss individual will have time and you can be pressented to him, we will learn truly how much veracity there iss to the bizarrely extraordinary tale you have related. If you are telling truth, then it will be up to him to decide how to resspond. If you are nothing more than the clever fabricator of an elaborate falssehood, then we three here will acquire sstatuss for having identified you and turned you in.” Brother and sister turned their attention to the watchful Kiijeem.
Unmindful of what Flinx might think or how the human might react, the remaining young AAnn responded without hesitation. “That iss a ssumming-up with which I can willingly concur.”
The three of them waited for the softskin's response. While not wholly reassuring, they found it surprisingly worthy.
“If I were one of you,” Flinx told them simply, “I would do no less.”
It was not the first time Flinx had been inside an AAnn structure, but it was the first time he had been inside a private residence. That it was not a typical dwelling complex he knew from what Kiijeem had already told him of the wealth and standing of the Eiipul extended family. In point of fact, his young friend's predescription was unnecessary. Even someone utterly unfamiliar with AAnn culture would have been able to recognize the family's affluence from a casual stroll through the rooms.
The design of the central commons was followed throughout the complex: walls and ceilings soared in curves and waves that employed a minimum of straight lines. Light poured in from above instead of through side windows. Technological enhancements were artfully concealed within walls, floors, and ceilings. Poured floors were fashioned of welded sand, pebbled glass, and other natural desert materials. The hallways and portals that separated individual chambers tended to be high and narrow.
The cumulative effect was akin to walking through a series of small slot canyons of the kind common to water-eroded desert terrain on Earth—or Moth. As he trailed his young hosts through the complex, Flinx was reminded of the time he had found himself relying on the guidance of an elderly prospector named Knigta Yakus to help him survive an entirely different kind of journey on his own homeworld.
As they showed off their residence (and by inference the lofty status of their extended family), with the typical AAnn pride that