For Love of Mother-Not - Alan Dean Foster [109]
“Somebody’s let themselves in for a nest o’ trouble,” the oldster muttered. “Storing explosives or volatiles inside the city limits. Bad business. Bad.”
“Someone told me they felt it all the way to the inurbs,” the younger man said conversationally. “I wonder what the devil was stored in there to cause an explosion like that? Piece of building went past me like a shot. It’s stuck in our front door, no less, if you want to see it. As I was getting up, I saw you lying there in the street. Either something mercifully small hit you or else you got knocked out when your head hit the pavement.”
“I didn’t see him get hit,” the oldster said.
“Doesn’t mean anything, as fast as stuff was flying.” The executive looked at Flinx. “I’ll bet you never even felt it.”
“No,” Flinx admitted, still terribly confused. “I didn’t. But I’m okay now.”
“You’re sure?” The man looked him over. “Funny. Whatever it was that knocked you down must have whizzed right past. I don’t see any bruises or cuts, though it looks like your pet got a little banged up.”
“Can do you like that,” the oldster said. “’Nother centimeter and maybe you’d have a piece of metal sticking out of your head. Conversation piece.” He chuckled.
Flinx managed a weak grin. “I feel all right now.” He swayed a moment, then held steady.
The executive was still studying the minidrag coiled around Flinx’s left shoulder. “That’s an interesting pet, all right.”
“Everybody thinks so. Thanks for your concern, both of you.” He staggered forward and joined the ring of spectators gawking at the obliterated building.
Slowly, reluctantly, his brain filled in the blank spaces pockmarking his memory. Third floor, he’d been up there, and the Meliorares . . . Yes, the Meliorares—that was their name—were getting ready to run some tests on him. Then the Peaceforcers had broken in, and Pip had gotten loose, and one of them had been ready to shoot it, and the head Meliorare—Flinx couldn’t remember his name, only his eyes—had panicked and rushed the Peaceforcer, and Flinx remembered screaming desperately for the woman not to fire, not to hurt Pip, not to, not to—!
Then he had awakened, soaked and stunned in the street, an old man bending solicitously over him and Pip licking his mouth.
His hand went to the back of his head, which throbbed like the drum he had dreamed of being imprisoned inside. There was no lump there, no blood, but it sure felt like something had whacked him good, just as the executive had surmised. Only the pain seemed concentrated inside his head.
People were emerging from the burning warehouse: medical personnel in white slickertics. They were escorting someone between them. The woman’s clothes were shredded, and blood filled the gaps. Though she walked under her own power, it took two medics to guide her.
Suddenly, Flinx could feel her, for just an instant. But there was no emotion there, no emotion or feelings of any kind. Then he noticed her eyes. Her stare was vacant, blank, without motivation. Probably the exposion had stunned her, he thought. She was the Peaceforcer who had been about to shoot Pip.
In a hospital that blankness would doubtless wear off, he thought. Though it was almost as if she had been mind-wiped, and not selectively, either. She looked like a walking husk of a human being. Flinx turned away from her, uncomfortable without really knowing why, as she was put in a hospital skimmer. The vehicle rose above the crowd and headed downtown, siren screaming.
Still he fought to reconstruct those last seconds in the warehouse. What had happened? That unfortunate woman had been about to kill Pip. Flinx had started toward her, protesting frantically, and her companion had started to aim his own weapon at him. The weapons themselves functioned noiselessly. Had the woman fired? Had the man?
The instrumentation that had filled the storage