For Love of Mother-Not - Alan Dean Foster [61]
This time, the penestral was struck just behind one crystal-like eye the size of a telescope mirror. It collapsed back into the water like a tridee scene running in reverse, sending up huge waves over which the retreating catamaran rode with ease. The waves were matched in frequency if not intensity by the palpitations of Flinx’s stomach.
This time, the fish didn’t sink back into the depths. It stayed on the surface, thrashing convulsively.
“Bring us back around,” Lauren directed Flinx. She was sweating profusely as she reloaded the harpoon cannon for the third time. Only the autoloading equipment made it possible for one person to manipulate the heavy metal shaft and its explosive charge.
This harpoon was slightly smaller and thinner than the two that had preceded it. As the boat swung back toward the penestral, Flinx heard the gun go off again. Several minutes passed. The penestral stopped fighting and began to sink.
Lauren touched another button. There was a hum as a compressor located inside the catamaran started up, pumping air through the plastic line that ran to the hollow shaft of the last harpoon. She unstrapped herself from the chair and began to oversee the reeling in of the colossal catch. “Air’ll keep it afloat for days,” she said idly, exchanging seats with Flinx once again. “Too big for darts, this one.”
“Why bother with it?” Flinx stared as the silver-sided mountain expanded and drew alongside the catamaran.
“You might be right—it’s not much of a fish. Bet it doesn’t run more than fifteen meters.” Flinx gaped at her. “But there are hungry people in Kaslin and the other towns south of the lake, and the penestral’s a good food fish—lean and not fatty. They’ll make good use of it. What they don’t eat they’ll process for resale further south. The credit will go to the lodge. “Besides, we have guests staying with us who come up to Patra regularly, twice a year for many years, and who in all that time have never seen anything bigger than a five-meter minnow. Your first time and you’ve participated in a catch. You should feel proud.”
“I didn’t catch it,” he corrected her quickly. “You did.”
“Sorry, modesty’s not permitted on this lake. Catching even a penestral’s a cooperative effort. Dodging is just as important as firing the gun. Otherwise, we end up on his trophy wall.” She jabbed a thumb in the direction of the inflated bulk now secured to the side of the catamaran.
A weight settled gently onto Flinx’s left shoulder. “I’d hoped you hadn’t gone off to try and attack it,” he said to the minidrag as it slipped multiple coils around his arm. “It’s good to know you have some instinct for self-preservation.” The flying snake stared quizzically back at him, then closed its eyes and relaxed.
Flinx inspected what he could see of the penestral while the jet boat headed back toward the southern shore. “Those people in the mudders, they didn’t stand a chance.”
“Never knew what hit them,” Lauren agreed. “I’m sure they weren’t carrying any kind of tracking equipment. No reason for it. If our tracker had been out of order, we’d have joined the mudders in the penestral’s belly.”
A quick death at least, Flinx thought. Death was a frequent visitor to the unwary in the Drallarian marketplace, so he was no stranger to it. Thoughts of death reminded him of Mother Mastiff. Would his persistence result in her captors’ deciding she wasn’t worth the trouble anymore? What might they have in mind for her, now that her presence had caused the death of a number of them? Surely, he decided, they wouldn’t kill her out of hand. They had gone to so much trouble already.
But the thought made him worry even more.
Exhilarated by the fight, Lauren’s voice was slightly elevated and hurried. She had reason to be short of wind, Flinx thought “One of these days, Flinx, after we’ve finished with this business, you’ll have to come back up here.