Phylogenesis - Alan Dean Foster [102]
“As do I.” Finishing the last of his drink, Keekil held the utensil high over his head. A cleaner swooped down to pluck it painlessly from his fingers. “Yet to ignore it sshould the information it containss mature to fruition could prove perilouss.”
It was a diplomatic way of saying that their titles, not to mention their tails, might be at stake. Buried as he was in administrative work, Huudra knew he could not ignore any report that commented upon human-thranx relations, no matter how seemingly ludicrous. Not when he and Keekil had been charged with keeping the emperor’s council informed of the matter. He hissed soft resignation.
“I will read it through, of coursse. Tell me, honored colleague: Sshould the leasst of it prove to have a basiss in fact, iss there anything we can do about it?” The thought of frustrating the aims of the pedantic but indomitable thranx raised his spirits.
Keekil blinked slyly. “Jusst possibly, honored associate. Jusst possibly. The thranx are not the only sspeciess capable of ssubtle interference in the affairss of other sspeciess of ssignificance. It iss amazing how with a little imagination and careful planning, one ssecret can be turned againsst another.”
Caucusing quietly, they exited the room as the rest of the assembly trickled out behind them. The more Huudra heard of Keekil’s intentions, the greater his professional admiration for his colleague. In the shifting sands where cunning slithered, none traveled more subtlely than the AAnn.
17
Cheelo knew he probably should have seen the anaconda. What such a big snake was doing in so small a stream he could not imagine, but the serpent’s motivation was not important. What mattered was that it was there, that it had been aroused by their passage, and that it struck.
Not him, but his unwary companion.
When the snake hit, the thranx emitted a loud, startled stridulation, the wing cases on its back vibrating like cellos. The blunt, reptilian head grabbed a middle leg, biting down hard, the small, sharp teeth gaining an immediate purchase without completely penetrating the chitin. Coil after coil emerged from beneath the cola-colored, tannin-stained water to wrap around the thranx’s rear legs and abdomen. It struggled, antennae and upper limbs flailing wildly, but it could no more break that steel-cable grasp than its vestigial wings could carry it aloft.
The mass of writhing alien limbs and constrictor coils went down in a heap. A loud, distinct crack split the humid, still air and the alien screamed a sharp, high-pitched whistle. Cheelo stood off to one side, wary and watching.
Doesn’t look like a very superior body now, he found himself thinking.
The alien was going to die. That much was clear. Whether the anaconda was capable of swallowing it was another matter, but it would quickly suffocate the thranx no matter how many lungs it had. The huge constrictor would continue to tighten its grip until its prey could no longer exhale. Cheelo wondered if the brilliant compound eyes would dim in death.
“Do something!” the alien was gasping. “Get it…off. Help me!”
Did he want to do that? Montoya mused. He had lived a long time without knowledge of or the company of aliens of any kind. He could certainly continue to exist in that same fashion. If he got too close, the snake might decide to forsake its present cumbersome, hard-shelled prey for something softer and more familiar. Why take the chance? He owed this garrulous representative of a race from a distant world absolutely nothing. It had intruded on his privacy, and he had graciously consented to allow it to accompany him. That did not imply in any way that he took any kind of responsibility for it. Besides, he had an appointment to keep.
If they happened to stumble across its indigestible, extruded remains, no searchers, human or thranx, could connect Cheelo Montoya to the fatality. More likely than not, the bug’s own people would come to the conclusion that their wayward