For Love of Mother-Not - Alan Dean Foster [38]
Prepare yourself properly, then proceed. That’s what Mother Mastiff had always taught him. I’ll go home, he told himself. Back to the shop, back to the marketplace. The kidnapers had switched to a mudder. Such a vehicle was out of Flinx’s financial reach, but he knew where he could rent a stupava running bird. That would give him flexibility as well as speed.
His legs still throbbed from the seemingly endless run across the city the previous day, so he used public transport to return home. Time was more important than credits. The transport chose a main spoke avenue and in minutes deposited him in the marketplace.
From the drop-off, it was but a short sprint to the shop. He found himself half expecting to see Mother Mastiff standing in the entrance, mopping the stoop and waiting to bawl him out for being gone for so long. But the shop was quiet, the living space still disarranged and forlorn. Nonetheless, Flinx checked it carefully. There were several items whose positions he had memorized before leaving; they were undisturbed.
He began to collect a small pile of things to take with him. Some hasty trading in the market produced a small backpack and as much concentrated food as he could cram into it. Despite the speed of his bargaining, he received full value for those items he traded off from Mother Mastiff’s stock. With Pip riding his shoulder, few thought to cheat him. When anyone tried, the minidrag’s reactions instantly alerted its master and Flinx simply took his trade elsewhere.
Flinx switched his city boots for less gaudy but more durable forest models. His slickertic would serve just as well among the trees as among the city’s towers. The outright sale of several items gave his credcard balance a healthy boost. Then it was back to the shop for a last look around. Empty. So empty without her. He made certain the shutters were locked, then did the same to the front door. Before leaving, he stopped at a stall up the street.
“You’re out of your mind, Flinx-boy.” Arrapkha said from the entrance to his stall, shaking his head dolefully. The shop smelled of wood dust and varnish. “Do you know what the forest is like? It runs from here to the North Pole. Three thousand, four thousand kilometers as the tarpac flies and not a decent-sized city to be found.
“There’s mud up there so deep it could swallow all of Drallar, not to mention things that eat and things that poison. Nobody goes into the north forest except explorers and herders, hunters and sportsmen—crazy folk from offworld who like that sort of nowhere land. Biologists and botanists—not normal folk like you and me.”
“Normal folk didn’t carry off my mother,” Flinx replied.
Since he couldn’t discourage the youngster, Arrapkha tried to make light of the situation. “Worse for them that they did. I don’t think they know what they’ve gotten themselves into.”
Flinx smiled politely. “Thanks, Arrapkha. If it wasn’t for your help, I wouldn’t have known where to begin.”
“Almost I wish I’d said nothing last night,” he muttered sadly. “Well, luck to you, Flinx-boy. I’ll remember you.”
“You’ll see me again,” Flinx assured him with more confidence than he truly felt. “Both of us.”
“I hope so. Without your Mother Mastiff, the marketplace will be a duller place.”
“Duller and emptier,” Flinx agreed. “I have to go after her, friend Arrapkha. I really have no choice.”
“If you insist. Go, then.”
Flinx favored the woodworker with a last smile, then spun and marched rapidly toward the main avenue. Arrapkha watched until the youngster was swallowed up by the crowd, then retreated to his own stall. He had business to attend to, and that, after all, was the first rule of life in the marketplace.
Flinx hadn’t gone far before the smells of the market were replaced by the odors, heavy and musky, of locally popular native transport animals. They were usually slower and less efficient then mechanized