Flinx Transcendent_ A Pip & Flinx Adventure - Alan Dean Foster [94]
It was a festive reunion. Though the only sound that emanated from mother and son was the occasional joyous hiss, it was still noisier than the one that was taking place on shore.
There, conversation of any sort had ceased completely.
With its eight limbs, a thranx can put up a formidable defense against any attacker. Large compound eyes provide excellent peripheral vision and allow it to see potential threats approaching from angles that would be invisible to a human. Feathery antennae detect new smells and sudden changes in air pressure.
Though he was advanced in years and not as sensitive to his surroundings as he had once been, Truzenzuzex was in remarkable shape for a thranx his age. So he was startled when he was taken completely by surprise from behind. He had not sensed the approach of his assailant. Probably he had been too relaxed. The secure surroundings of the underground park had caused him to lower his customary guard. Age breeds a sense of security that metastasizes with indifference.
The weight on his back sent him tumbling forward on the hiking path. Whatever had struck him was bigger and heavier than any thranx. As it followed him to the ground he was already working to identify the shape. It could not be AAnn, not here on New Riviera. Judging from the mass and texture it was most likely a human. But why the assault? Truzenzuzex's lower legs were pinned beneath the human bulk and his foothands had little room in which to maneuver. His truhands were all that remained free. Fragile though they were, he did not hesitate to strike out with both.
“Ow!” The offending human promptly rolled off the combative philosoph and clutched at its face. A thin red streak appeared on one cheek.
As he reflexively reached with one hand toward the long but shallow scratch, Flinx had enough presence of mind to grab an aroused Pip by the tail just as she started toward the scuttling thranx.
Scrambling up onto all four trulegs, Truzenzuzex used one foot-hand to pick up the compact reader he had been perusing while walking, picked up his dropped drinking vessel with the other foothand, and extended both truhands out in front of him as he assumed a fighting posture. Only then did he get his first good look at the intruder. Projector and spiral-mouthed goblet were immediately set aside.
“Grub, you are bigger each time I see you, and just as lamentably impulsive.” With all four hands now free he was able to punctuate his observation with an elaborate and eloquent gesture of second-degree stupidity.
Hurrying up behind him, Clarity had arrived at Flinx's side and was examining the cut on his face. Having heard the commotion behind him, a grinning Bran Tse-Mallory had hurried back down the path to rejoin his friend. Standing behind Truzenzuzex, he carefully straightened a vestigial wing case that had been knocked askew in the course of the brief tussle.
“Whereas your reflexes aren't quite as slow as you, my friend,” Tse-Mallory reflected aloud.
“Young fool!” Reaching up with a truhand to meticulously groom one downy antenna, the philosoph stared over to where Flinx was regaining his footing. “I might have killed him, crr!ltt!”
Flinx winced as Clarity touched the cut. Extending his upper body outward from his perch on her shoulder, Scrap let his tongue flick tentatively at the wound. Perceiving her master's composure, Pip ignored both. The graze was superficial and would heal quickly.
“Nice to see you again, too, Tru.” The bleeding from the warning strike, Flinx noted, had already stopped.
Tse-Mallory stepped back from his insectoid companion. “I believe that with his leap from the bushes our young friend wanted to surprise you.”
With great dignity the Eint Truzenzuzex straightened his legs beneath him, lowering his thorax so his foothands rested on the fastidiously manicured, fungus-covered landscaping that paralleled the path down which he had been