For Love of Mother-Not - Alan Dean Foster [65]
“Yes, him I did see. Bright-red hair?”
“That’s the one,” she admitted.
“Say, is he dangerous or anything?” The assistant manager leaned forward in his chair, suddenly concerned.
“Why do you want to know?’ the man asked.
“Well, my superior here, the regular manager—Lauren Walder. She went off with him.”
“Went off with him?” The pleasant expression that had dominated the woman’s face quickly vanished, to be replaced by something much harder.
“Yes. Three, maybe four days ago now. I’m still not completely sure why. She only told me that the young man had a problem and she was going to try to help him out.”
“Which way did their mudder go?” the man asked.
“North, across Lake Patra,” Sal informed them. “They’re not in a mudder, though. She took the lodge skimmer.”
“A skimmer!” The woman threw up her hands in frustration and sat down heavily in a chair opposite the assistant. “We’re losing ground,” she told her companion, “instead of gaining on him. If he catches up with them before we do, we could lose him and the . . .” Her companion cut the air with the edge of his hand, and her words trailed away to an indecipherable mumble. The gesture had been quick and partly concealed, but Sal had noticed it nonetheless.
“Now you’ve really got me worried,” he told the pair. “If Lauren’s in some kind of trouble—”
“She could be,” the man admitted, pleased that the assistant had changed the subject.
Sal thought a moment. “Would she be in danger from these people who had the fight here, or from the redhead?”
“Conceivably from both.” The man was only half lying. “You’d better tell us everything you know.”
“I already have,” Sal replied.
“You said they went north, across the lake. Can’t you be any more specific than that?”
Sal looked helpless. “Lauren wouldn’t be any more specific than that.”
“They might not continue heading north.”
“No, they might not. Do you have a tracker for following other craft?” Sal asked.
The man shook his head. “We didn’t think we’d need one. The last we knew, the young man we’d like to talk with was traveling on stupava-back.”
“I think he arrived here in a mudder.”
The woman looked surprised and grinned ruefully at her companion. “No wonder we fell behind. Resourceful, isn’t he?”
“Too resourceful for my liking,” the man murmured, “and maybe for his own good if he backs those you-know-whos into a corner.”
The women sighed, then rose from her chair. “Well, we’ve wasted enough time here. We’ll just have to return to Pranbeth for a skimmer and tracking unit. Unless you think we should try to catch up to them in the mudder.”
The man let out a short, humorless laugh, then turned back to the assistant manager. “Thanks, son. You’ve been helpful.”
“I wish I could be more so,” Sal told him anxiously. “If anything were to happen to Lauren—you’ll see that nothing happens to her, won’t you?”
“I promise you we’ll do our best,” the woman assured him. “We don’t want to see innocent bystanders hurt. We don’t even want to see noninnocents hurt.” She favored him with a maternal smile, which for some reason did nothing to make the nervous assistant feel any better about the situation.
Chapter Eleven
The tracker hummed quietly, the single glowing dot showing clearly on its screen as the skimmer rushed northward. It was clipping the tops of the tallest trees, more than eighty meters above the bogs and muck that passed for the ground. They had crossed Lake Patra, then an intervening neck of dry land, then the much larger lake known as Tigranocerta and were once more cruising over the forest. A cold rain was falling, spattering off the skimmer’s acrylic canopy to form a constantly changing wet topography that obscured much of the view outside. The skimmer’s instruments kept its speed responsive, maintaining a predetermined distance between it and its quarry to the north.
Awfully quiet, Lauren Walder thought. He’s awfully quiet, and maybe something else.
“No, I’m not too young,” he said into the silence that filled