For Love of Mother-Not - Alan Dean Foster [66]
Lauren’s eyebrows lifted. “You can read minds?”
He responded with a shy smile. “No, not that.” Fingers stroked the head of the minidrag sleeping on his shoulder. “I just feel things at times. Not thoughts, nothing that elaborate. Just the way people are feeling.” He glanced up at her. “From the way I thought you were feeling just now, I thought you were going to say something along that line.”
“Well, you were right,” she confessed, wondering what to make of the rest of his declaration.
“I’m not, you know.”
“How old are you?” she asked.
“Sixteen. As best I know. I can’t be certain.”
Sixteen going on sixty, she thought sadly. During her rare visits to Drallar, she had seen his type before. Child of circumstance, raised in the streets and instructed by wrong example and accident, though he seemed to have turned out better than his brethren. His face held the knowledge withheld from his more fortunate contemporaries, but it didn’t seem to have made him vicious or bitter.
Still she felt there was something else at work here.
“How old do you think I am?” she asked idly.
Flinx pursed his lips as he stared at her. “Twenty-three,” he told her without hesitating.
She laughed softly and clapped both hands together in delight. “So that’s what I’m helping, a sixteen-year-old vengeful diplomat!” Her laughter faded. The smile remained. “Tell me about yourself, Flinx.”
It was a question that no stranger in Drallar would ever be so brazen as to ask. But this was not Drallar, he reminded himself. Besides, he owed this woman.
So he told her as much as he knew. When he finished his narrative, she continued to stare solemnly at him, nodding her head as if his words had done no more than confirm suspicions already held. She spared a glance to make sure the tracker was still functioning efficiently, then looked back at him. “You haven’t exactly had a comfortable childhood, have you?”
“I wouldn’t know,” he replied, “because I only have hearsay to compare it with.”
“Take my word for it, you haven’t. You’ve also managed to get along with the majority of humanity even though they don’t seem to want to have anything to do with you. Whereas I’ve had to avoid the majority of people who seem to want to have a lot to do with me.”
Impulsively, she leaned over out of the pilot’s chair and kissed him. At the last instant, he flinched, nervous at such unaccustomed proximity to another human being—especially an attractive member of the opposite sex—and the kiss, which was meant for his cheek, landed instead on his lips.
That made her pull back fast. The smile stayed on her face, and she only blinked once in surprise. It had been an accident, after all. “Take my word for something else, Flinx. If you live long enough, life gets better.”
“Is that one of the Church’s homilies?” He wondered if she wore some caustic substance to protect her lips from burning, because his own were on fire.
“No,” she said. “That’s a Lauren Walder homily.”
“Glad to hear it. I’ve never had much use for the Church.”
“Nor have I. Nor have most people. That’s why it’s been so successful, I expect.” She turned her gaze to the tracker. “They’re starting to slow down. We’ll do the same.”
“Do you think they’ve seen us?” Suddenly, he didn’t really care what the people in the skimmer ahead of them decided to do. The fire spread from his lips to his mouth, ran down his throat, and dispersed across his whole body. It was a sweet, thick fire.
“I doubt it,” she replied. “I’ll bet they’re close to their destination.” Her hands manipulated controls.
“How far ahead of us are they?” He walked forward to peer over her shoulder at the screen. He could have stood to her left, but he was suddenly conscious of the warmth of her, the perfume of her hair. He was very careful not to touch her.
She performed some quick calculations, using the tracker’s predictor. “Day or so. We don’t want to run up their tail. There’s nothing up in this part of the country. Odd place to stop, but then this whole business is odd, from what you’ve told me. Why bring