For Love of Mother-Not - Alan Dean Foster [77]
“It doesn’t matter,” she murmured, “because we don’t have any tunneling equipment handy. I’m going to hazard a guess that if they have the surface monitored so intently, the sky in the immediate vicinity will be even more carefully covered.”
“I’d bet on that, too.” Flinx gestured toward the tower. “Of course, we could just run the skimmer in on them. There aren’t that many buildings. Maybe we could find Mother Mastiff and get her out before they could react.”
Lauren continued to study the complex. “There’s nothing more expensive than a temporary facility fixed up to look permanent. I’d guess this setup supports between thirty and a hundred people. They’re not going to make this kind of effort to detect intruders without being damn ready to repel them as well. Remember, there are only two of us.”
“Three,” Flinx corrected her. A pleased hiss sounded from the vicinity of his shoulder.
“Surprise is worth a lot,” Lauren went on. “Maybe ten, but no more that. We won’t do your mother any good as corpses. Keep in mind that no one else knows we’re here. If we go down, so do her chances.”
“I know the odds aren’t good,” he said irritably, “but we’ve got to do something.”
“And do something we will. You remember that partially deforested section we flew over earlier today?”
Flinx thought a moment, then nodded.
“That was a trail line.”
“Trail line for what?”
“For equalization,” she told him. “For evening out the odds. For a better weapon than this.” She patted the sling of the dart rifle. “Better even than that snake riding your shoulder. I don’t share your confidence in it.”
“You haven’t seen Pip in action,” he reminded her. “What kind of weapon are you talking about?”
She stood and brushed bark and dirt from her coveralls. “You’ll see,” she assured him, “but we have to be damn careful.” She gazed toward the camp below. “I wish I could think of a better way, but I can’t. They’re sure to have guards posted in addition to monitoring the detection system you described. We don’t even know which building your mother is in. If we’re going to risk everything on one blind charge, it ought to be one hell of a charge.
“The weapon I have in mind is a volatile one. It can cut both ways, but I’d rather chance a danger I’m familiar with. Let’s get back to the skimmer.”
She pivoted and headed back through the forest. Flinx rose to join her, forcing himself away from the lights of the camp, which gleamed like so many reptilian eyes in the night, until the trees swallowed them up.
They were halfway back to the little grove where they had parked the skimmer when the sensation swept through him. As usual, it came as a complete surprise, but this time it was very different from his recent receptions. For one thing, no feeling of pain was attached to it, and for another, it did not come from the direction of the camp. It arose from an entirely new source. Oddly, it carried overtones of distress with it, though distress of a confusing kind.
It came from Lauren and was directed at him.
There was no love in it, no grand, heated follow-up to the casual kiss she had given him in the skimmer. Affection, yes, which was not what he had hoped for. Admiration, too, and something more. Something he had not expected from her: a great wave of concern for him, and to a lesser extent, of pity.
Flinx had become more adept at sorting out and identifying the emotions he received, and there was no mistaking those he was feeling now. That kiss, then, had not only carried no true love with it—it held even less than that. She felt sorry for him.
He tried to reject the feelings, not only from disappointment but out of embarrassment. This was worse than looking into someone’s mind. He was reading her heart, not her thoughts. Though he tried hard, he could not shut off the flow. He could no more stop the river of emotion than he could willingly turn it on.
He made certain he stayed