For Love of Mother-Not - Alan Dean Foster [39]
In a licensed barn, Flinx picked out a healthy-looking stupava. The, tall running bird was a good forager and could live off the land. It stood two and a half meters at its bright orange crest and closely resembled its far more intelligent cousins, the ornithorpes, who did not object to the use of ignorant relatives as beasts of burden. Flinx haggled with the barn manager for a while, finally settling on a fair price. The woman brought the bird out of its stall and saddled it for the youngster. “You’re not going to do anything funny with this bird, now?”
“Just going for a little vacation,” Flinx answered her blithely. “I’ve finished my studies for the year and owe myself the time off.”
“Well, Garuyle here will take you anywhere you might want to go. He’s a fine, strong bird.” She stroked the tall bird’s feathers.
“I know.” Flinx put his right foot in the first stirrup, his left in the second, and threw his body into the saddle. “I can see that from his legs.”
The woman nodded, feeling a little more relaxed. Evidently, her youthful customer knew what he was doing. She handed him the reins.
“All right, then. Have a pleasant journey.”
Flux had indeed ridden such birds before, but only within the city limits and not for any length of time. He snapped the reins, then gave the bird a serious whistle. It hooted back and started off, its long legs moving easily. Guiding it with gentle tugs of the reins and sharp whistles, Flinx soon had the stupava moving at a respectable rate up the first spoke avenue, jostling aside irritated pedestrians and avoiding faster public vehicles. The stupava seemed undisturbed by Pip’s presence, a good sign. It would not do to head into the great forest on an easily spooked mount.
In a gratifyingly short time, Flinx found they had retraced his frenzied marathon of the night before. A sawmill passed by on his left, the corn booth that had sheltered him somewhere behind it. Then only the forest loomed ahead. Trees, a hundred meters tall and higher soared above scattered smaller trees and bushes. Where the pavement vanished there was only a muddy trail. The stupava wouldn’t mind that—its splayed, partially webbed feet would carry them over the bogs and sumps with ease.
“Heigh there!” he shouted softly at the bird, following the command with a crisp whistle. The stupava cawed once, jerked its head sharply against the bridle, and dashed off into the woods. The regular flap-flap from beneath its feet gave away to an irregular whacking sound broken by occasional splashes as it spanned a deeper puddle. Sometimes they touched thick moss or fungi and there was no sound at all. In no time, the immense trees formed a solid wall of bark and green behind Flinx, and the city that was his home was for the first time completely out of his sight.
Chapter Seven
Joppe the Thief thought sure he had found himself a couple of fleurms. The man and woman he was stalking so intently looked to be in their midthirties. Their dress was casual, so casual that one not interested in it might not have identified them as offworlders. Their presence in that part of Drallar’s marketplace late at night proved one of two things to Joppe: either they had a great deal of confidence in their ability to pass unnoticed, or they were simply ignorant. Joppe guessed they were searching for a little excitement.
That was fine with Joppe. He would happily provide them with some excitement, something really memorable to relate to the neighbors back home on some softer world like Terra or New Riviera. They did not look like the kind who would be awkward about it. If they were, then they might have more than merely an interesting encounter to talk about.
Joppe was hungry. He had not made a strike in over a week. He regarded the strolling, chatting couple with the eye of a covetous farmer examining a pair of his prize meat animals.
As it was still comparatively early, not all the lights had been extinguished