For Love of Mother-Not - Alan Dean Foster [86]
The herd was beginning to lose some of its fury even as its members still hunted for the puzzling source of their discomfort. Females with young were the first to break away, retreating back into the forest. Then there were only the solitary males roaming the encampment, venting their frustration and anger on anything larger than a rock. Occasionally, Flinx passed the remains of those who had not succeeded in fleeing into the trees in time to avoid the rampaging Devilopes. There was rarely more than a red smear staining the ground.
He was heading for the hangar he and Lauren had identified from their hilltop. It was the logical final refuge. It didn’t take long for him to reach the building. As he strode single-mindedly across the open grounds, it never occurred to him to wonder why none of the snorting, pawing Devilopes paused to turn and stomp him into the earth.
The large doorway fronting the hangar had been pushed aside. Flinx could see movement and hear faint commands. Without hesitation, he walked inside and saw a large transport skimmer being loaded with crates. The loading crew worked desperately under the direction of a small, elderly Oriental woman. Flinx just stood in the portal, staring. Now that he had located someone in a position of authority, he really didn’t know what to do next. Anger and chaos had brought him to the place; there had been no room in his thoughts for reasoned preparation.
A tall black lady standing in the fore section of the skimmer stopped barking orders long enough to glance toward the doorway. Her eyes locked on his. Instead of hatred, Flinx found himself thinking that in her youth this must have been a strikingly beautiful woman. Cold, though. Both women, so cold. Her hair was nearly all gray, and so were her eyes.
“Haithness.” A man rushed up behind her. “We haven’t got time for daydreaming. We—”
She pointed with a shaky finger. Brora followed her finger and found himself gaping at a slim, youthful figure in the doorway. “That boy,” Brora whispered. “Is it him?”
“Yes, but look higher, Brora. Up in the light.”
The stocky man’s gaze rose, and his air of interested detachment suddenly deserted him. His mouth dropped open. “Oh, my God,” he exclaimed, “an Alaspinian minidrag.”
“You see,” Haithness murmured as she looked down at Flinx, regarding him as she would any other laboratory subject, “it explains so much.” Around them, the sounds of the encampment being destroyed continued to dominate everyone else’s attention.
Brora regained his composure. “It may, it may, but the boy may not even be aware that—”
Flinx strained to understand their mumblings, but there was too much noise behind him. “Where did you come from?” he shouted toward the skimmer. His new-found maturity quickly deserted him; suddenly, he was only a furious, frustrated adolescent. “Why did you kidnap my mother? I don’t like you, you know. I don’t like any of you. I want to know why you’ve done what you’ve done!”
“Be careful,” Nyassa-lee called up to them. “Remember the subject’s profile!” She hoped they were getting this upstairs.
“He’s not dangerous, I tell you,” Haithness insisted. “This demonstrates his harmlessness. If he was in command of himself, he’d be throwing more than childish queries at us by now.”
“But the catalyst creature.” Brora waved a hand toward the flying snake drifting above Flinx.
“We don’t know that it’s catalyzing anything,” Haithness reminded him, “because we don’t know what the boy’s abilities are as yet. They are only potentials. The minidrag may be doing nothing for him because it has nothing to work with as yet, other than a damnable persistence and a preternatural talent for following a thin trail.” She continued to examine the subject almost within their grasp. “I would give a great deal to learn how he came to be in possession of a minidrag.”
Brora found himself licking his lips. “We failed with the mother. Maybe we should try taking the subject directly