Lost and found_ a novel - Alan Dean Foster [116]
“I can’t stay here,” he mumbled, a bit surprised to finally hear himself say it.
“Oh, for Lassie’s sake!” Standing up, George began walking in circles around the hovering flames. Humping clumsily across the floor, his rug made futile attempts to catch up with him. “What is wrong with you? What were you back home? A movie star? A billionaire? The elephant king? A southeast Asian drug warlord? What did you leave behind that you can’t find a substitute for here? This is a terrific setup! All play, pretty much, with no work. And here’s another one to chew on: Think you’ll live longer under Sessrimathe care, or when poked and cut by pill-prescribing quacks back on Earth? Corned beef sandwiches? Sports results? Give me a break, man!
“So the Sessrimathe and their friends might be growing a little bored with us. So we’re becoming yesterday’s news. Doesn’t everything, and everybody, anywhere? What matters is how they take care of us, and as far as I’m concerned, this is the best anyone has ever taken care of me! I don’t give a cat’s ass how many arms they’ve got—or eyes, or other appendages. You remember what Cheloradabh said: ‘There’s a fund for this sort of thing.’ Predicament of the moment or not, exotic alien flavor of the week or not, I don’t see why we can’t play off being the poor, primitive former captives of the barbaric Vilenjji for the rest of our natural days. The Sessrimathe, for one, are too civilized to let it be otherwise.” With that he went grumpily silent, allowed his exhausted rug to catch back up to him, and flumped back down onto its welcoming coils.
Except for the crackle of floating flames, it was quiet in the common room. Outside, the myriad lights of Autheth twinkled through the night. Walker checked his watch: one small, ever-present touch of home, and one for which he was every day thankful. In half an hour’s time, the immense and diverse alien metropolis would begin to receive two hours of precisely calibrated rain. A voice made him look up. It was as deep as it was tentative, as musical as it was imposing.
“Uhmmgghh, it may seem ungrateful of me to say this, but—I now experience, from day to day, feelings similar.”
Rising and whirling, George gaped at the Tuuqalian. “What? Not you, too!”
With the two massive tentacles on his left side, Braouk gestured toward the window. His eyestalks were hanging so low they nearly touched the floor where he was squatting.
“Sad it is, the refrain bears saying, home calls. I find welcome here, but not inspiration. And,” the giant added touchingly, “there is the matter of unrequited longing for family left behind.”
“The mark not necessarily of homesickness,” Sque piped up, unlimbering a sufficiency of appendages to emphasize her words, “but of necessity. While I have applied myself to learning what I can during our extended sojourn here, it must be admitted that there is only so much our well-meaning hosts can teach a K’eremu. While their physical science is undeniably impressive, they are plainly lacking when it comes to the higher facets of philosophy, natural science, and many other areas of advanced cogitation. Only among my own kind can I expand my mind fully, and properly engage and exercise all its resources, even though the unique genius that is myself is not always recognized as such even by my own kindred. For those reasons and not for any primitive sense of ‘home illness,’ I see an increasingly urgent need to return to K’erem.”
“Well, fine, that’s just fine. Fine for all of you.” Turning back to Walker, the dog fixed him with a stare that was suddenly challenging instead of consoling, penetrating rather than affectionate. “Aside from the fact that what you’re all wishing for is impossible, what about me?”
Walker blinked. “I don’t get you, George. What about you? You’d be able to go home, too, of course.