For Love of Mother-Not - Alan Dean Foster [79]
“This isn’t working,” Lauren muttered, trying to see through the trees. “We’ll have to—” She paused, frowning at him. “Are you all right? You’ve got the most peculiar expression on your face.”
“I’m okay.” The coldness was at last fading from his mind; evidently he hadn’t been conscious of how completely it had possessed him. Her query snapped him back to immediacy, and he could feel anew the warmth of the skimmer’s cabin, of his own body. Not for the first time did he find himself wondering if his unmanageable talent might someday do him harm as well as good. “I was just thinking.”
“You do a lot of that,” she murmured. “Flinx, you’re the funniest man I’ve ever met.”
“You’re not laughing.”
“I didn’t mean funny ha ha.” She turned back to the controls. “I’m going to set us down. This skimmer really isn’t equipped for the kind of night-tracking we’re doing. Besides, I don’t know about you, but it’s late, and I’m worn out.”
Flinx was exhausted too, mentally as much as physically. So he did not object as Lauren selected a stand of trees and set the skimmer down in their midst.
“I don’t think we need to stand a watch,” she said. “We’re far enough from the camp so that no one’s going to stumble in on us. I haven’t seen any sign of aerial patrol.” She was at the rear of the skimmer now, fluffing out the sleeping bags they had brought from the lodge.
Flinx sat quietly watching her. He had known a few girls—young women—back in Drallar. Inhabitants of the marketplace, like himself, students in the harsh school of the moment. He could never get interested in any of them, though a few showed more than casual interest in him. They were not, well, not serious. About life, and other matters.
Mother Mastiff repeatedly chided him about his attitude. “There’s no reason for ye to be so standoffish, boy. You’re no older than them.” That was not true, of course, but he could not convince her of that.
Lauren was a citizen of another dimension entirely. She was an attractive, mature woman. A self-confident, thinking adult—which was how Flinx viewed himself, despite his age. She was already out of pants and shirt and slipping into the thin thermal cocoon of the sleeping bag.
“Well?” She blinked at him, pushed her hair away from her face. “Aren’t you going to bed? Don’t tell me you’re not tired.”
“I can hardly stand up,” he admitted. Discarding his own clothing, he slipped into the sleeping bag next to hers. Lying there listening to the rhythmic patter of rain against the canopy, he strained toward her with his mind, seeking a hint, a suggestion of the emotions he so desperately wanted her to feel. Maddeningly, he could sense nothing at all.
The warmth of the sleeping bag and the cabin enveloped him, and he was acutely aware of the faint musky smell of the woman barely an arm’s length away. He wanted to reach out to her; to touch that smooth, sun-darkened flesh; to caress the glistening ringlets of night that tumbled down the side of her head to cover cheek and neck and finally form a dark bulge against the bulwark of the sleeping bag. His hand trembled.
What do I do, he thought furiously. How do I begin this? Is there something special I should say first, or should I reach out now and speak later? How can I tell her what I’m feeling? I can receive. If only I could broadcast!
Pip lay curled into a hard, scaly knot near his feet in the bottom of the sleeping bag. Flinx slumped in on himself, tired and frustrated and helpless. What was there to