For Love of Mother-Not - Alan Dean Foster [33]
“I know,” Flinx said. “I’ve had to listen to her complaints lots of times.”
“So I thought best not to interfere. But I have known both of you for a long time, Flinx-boy, just as you say, so I thought, when I saw you moving about, that I ought to come and tell you what I’d seen. It’s clear to me now that I should have probed deeper.” He struck his own head. “I’m sorry. You know that I’m not the cleverest man in the marketplace.”
“It’s all right, Arrapkha. There’s no blame for you in this matter.” Flinx stood there in the mist for a long moment, silent and thinking hard.
Arrapkha hesitantly broke in on his contemplation. “So sorry I am, Flinx-boy. If there’s anything I can do to help, if you need a place to sleep tonight, ay, even with the devil thing on your shoulder, you are welcome to share my home.”
“I’ve spent many a night out on my own, sir,” Flinx told him, “but the offer’s appreciated. Thank you for your help. At least now I have a better idea of what happened, though not for the life of me why. Could you see if Mother Mastiff was among those running down the alley? She’s not here.”
“So I guessed from your look and words. No, I cannot say she was one of them. I saw only shapes that seemed to be human, or at least upright. But they seemed to run with difficulty.”
“Maybe they were carrying her.”
“It may be, Flinx-boy, it may be. Surely she would not go off on her own with strangers without leaving you so much as a message.”
“No, she wouldn’t,” Flinx agreed, “and if she went with the people you saw, it wasn’t because they were her friends. The inside of the house is all torn up. She didn’t go with them quietly.”
“Then surely for some reason she’s been kidnaped,” Arrapkha concurred. “Fifty years ago, I might could give a reason for such a thing. She was a beauty then, Mother Mastiff, though she has not aged gracefully. Grace was not a part of her, not even then. A hard woman always, but attractive. But for this to happen now—” He shook his head. “A true puzzle. Did she have access to much money?”
Flinx shook his head rapidly.
“Um. I thought not. Well, then, did she owe anyone any dangerous amounts?”
“She owed a lot of people, but no great sums,” Flinx replied. “At least, nothing that she ever spoke to me about and nothing I ever overheard talk of.”
“I do not understand it, then,” Arrapkha said solemnly.
“Nor do I, friend.”
“Perhaps,” Arrapkha suggested, “someone wished a private conversation with her and will bring her back in the morning?”
Flinx shook his head a second time. “I think that since she didn’t go with them voluntarily, she won’t be allowed to come back voluntarily. Regardless, one thing she always told me was not to sit around and stare blankly at the inexplicable but always to try and find answers. If she does come walking freely home tomorrow, then I can at least try to meet her coming.”
“Then you’re determined to go out after her?” Arrapkha lifted bushy black eyebrows.
“What else can I do?”
“You could wait. You’re a nice young fellow, Flinx-boy.” He waved toward the distant avenue. “Most everyone in the marketplace who knows you thinks so, also. You won’t lack for a place to stay or food to eat if you decide to wait for her. Your problem is that you’re too young, and the young are always overanxious.”
“Sorry, Arrapkha. I know you mean well for me, but I just can’t sit around here and wait. I think I’d be wasting my time and, worse, maybe hers as well. Mother Mastiff doesn’t have much time left to her.”
“And what if her time, excuse me, has already fled?’ Arrapkha asked forcefully. Subtlety was not a strong trait of the marketplace’s inhabitants. “Will you involve yourself then in something dangerous which has chosen to spare you?”
“I have to know. I have to go after her and see if I can help.”
“I don’t understand,” Arrapkha said sadly. “You’re a smart young man, much smarter than I. Why risk yourself? She wouldn’t want you to, you know. She’s not really your mother.”
“Mother or mother-not,” Flinx replied, “she’s the only mother I’ve ever known. There’s more to it than simple biology,