For Love of Mother-Not - Alan Dean Foster [12]
Mother Mastiff did not smile back. She held out a hand. “My kill rings, if ye please.”
The man’s smile twisted even further. “Soon enough. But first I will need certain edibles. There are several fruits which will suffice, or certain standard medications. I will also need clean cloths and disinfectant. The boy is right, you see. I did swallow them. Provide what I need and in an hour or so you will have your cursed rings back.”
And forty minutes later she did.
After the thief and the little group of admiring shopkeepers had gone their respective ways, Mother Mastiff took her charge aside and confronted him with the question no one else had thought to ask.
“Now, boy, ye say ye didn’t see him swallow the rings?”
“No, I didn’t, Mother.” Now that the crowd had dispersed and he had been vindicated, his shyness returned.
“Then how the ringap did ye know?”
Flinx hesitated.
“Come now, boy, out with it. Ye can tell me,” she said in a coaxing tone. “I’m your mother now, remember. The only one you’ve got. I’ve been fair and straightforward with ye. Now ’tis your turn to do the same with me.”
“You’re sure?” He was fighting with himself, she saw. “You’re sure you’re not just being nice to me to fool me? You’re not one of the bad people?”
That was a funny thing for him to bring up, she thought. “Of course I’m not one of them. Do I look like a bad people?”
“N-n-no,” he admitted. “But it’s hard to tell, sometimes.”
“You’ve lived with me for some time now, boy. Ye know me better than that.” Her voice became gentle again. “Come now. Fair is fair. So stop lying to me by insisting you didn’t see him swallow those rings.”
“I didn’t,” he said belligerently, “and I’m not lying. The man was—he was starting to walk away from the case, and he was uncomfortable. He was, he felt—what’s the word? He felt guilty.”
“Now how do ye know that?”
“Because,” he murmured, not looking at her but staring out at the street where strange people scurried back and forth in the returning mist, “because I felt it.” He put his small hand to his forehead and rubbed gently. “Here.”
Great Ganwrath of the Flood, Mother Mastiff thought sharply. The boy’s a Talent. “You mean,” she asked again, “you read his mind?”
“No,” he corrected her. “It’s not like that. It’s just—it’s a feeling I get sometimes.”
“Do ye get this feeling whenever ye look at someone who’s been guilty?”
“It’s not only guilty,” he explained, “it’s all kinds of feelings. People—it’s like a fire. You can feel heat from a fire.” She nodded slowly. “Well, I can feel certain things from people’s heads. Happiness or fear or hate and lots of other things I’m not sure about. Like when a man and a woman are together.”
“Can ye do this whenever ye wish?” she asked.
“No. Hardly ever. Lots of times I can’t feel a thing. It’s clean then and doesn’t jump in on me, and I can relax. Then there’s other times when the feeling will just be there—in here,” he added, tapping his forehead again. “I was looking toward that man, and the guilt and worry poured out of him like a fire, especially whenever he looked at the jewel case. He was worried, too, about being discovered somehow and being caught, and a lot of other things, too. He was thinking, was throwing out thoughts of lots of quick money. Money he was going to get unfairly.”
“Emotions,” she mused aloud, “all emotions.” She began to chuckle softly. She had heard of such things before. The boy was an empathic telepath, though a crude one. He could read other people’s emotions, though not their actual thoughts.
“It’s all right, Flinx,” she assured him. She put out a hand and gave his hair a playful tousle. “Ye did right well. Ye saved me, saved us both, a lot of money.” She looked over at the small leatherine purse that now held the four recovered and cleansed rings. They still smelled of disinfectant.
“No wonder that thief couldn’t figure out how you’d spotted him. Ye really didn’t see him take the rings.”
“No, mother.