Phylogenesis - Alan Dean Foster [120]
The other poacher stepped forward. After removing the pistol from its hiding place, he proceeded to pat the stranger down and remove his pack. Slinging Cheelo’s belongings over one shoulder, he stepped aside to regard the thranx.
“What the hell is this, cabrón?”
Cheelo dropped his hands to his sides as the point of the rifle lowered from his nose to his chest. “That’s an alien. A thranx. Don’t you ninlocos watch the tridee?”
“Yeah, man.” The other poacher laughed once, curtly. “And we have our own sensalude emporium here, too.”
“It’s a lonely life,” the poacher shouldering Cheelo’s backpack told him. “But it was good enough for my ancestors. Hapec and I do okay.” The man’s gaze darkened. “As long as nosybodies leave us alone to do our work.” Dropping the backpack, he knelt and began going through its contents. After a while he looked up at his companion. “Not a ranger. Not a scientist, either.” He eyed Cheelo speculatively as he rose. “He’s a pesadito, a nobody.”
“Good.” His companion gestured with his rifle. “That means nobody’ll miss him.” The man’s hard, unyielding gaze searched beyond the edgy Cheelo. “What do we do with the big bug?” Using the muzzle of the rifle he prodded Cheelo ungently in the stomach. “Where’d you get it, man, and what good is it?”
“Yeah,” added his comrade. “What’s an ugly alien thing like that doing in the Reserva, anyway? Does it speak Terranglo?”
Keeping a careful eye on the rifles, alert for any opportunity, Cheelo thought fast. “No, it doesn’t. Something that looks like that? Are you kidding? It doesn’t understand a word we’re saying.” Turning, he stared daggers at Desvendapur. “Its kind communicate by gestures. See, watch this.” Raising both hands, he contorted his fingers strenuously at the thranx. The poet eyed the human’s wiggling fingers askance. While he was not entirely sure of the newcomers’ intentions, the fact that they were pointing weapons at Cheelo was something other than a testament to peaceful intentions. Their comments about his appearance did not trouble him, but their words, which despite Cheelo’s ingenuous denial he understood with considerable faculty, caused him more than a little concern. The human’s expressions he still could not read, but his companion’s intent was clear enough: It might prove useful for one of them to feign ignorance of ongoing conversation. This he proceeded to do, replying to Cheelo’s aimless manipulations with contrastingly eloquent gestures of his own. None of the humans had a clue what he was elucidating, but that was not the point. All that mattered was that they believed he and Cheelo were communicating.
“What did it say?” the nearer of the two poachers demanded to know.
Cheelo turned back to them. “It wants to know your intentions. I’d like to know myself.”
“Sure,” responded the other poacher agreeably. “First we’re going to kill you, and then we’re going to kill it, and then we’re going to dump you both in the river.” The muzzle of the second rifle shifted to point at the silent poet.
“You don’t want to do that.” Cheelo fought to keep his voice from shaking. He’d never begged anyone for anything before and he wasn’t about to start now, but he wasn’t ready to die, either.
The nearer poacher glanced over at his colleague and smiled unpleasantly. “Hear that, Hapec? Now he’s telling us what we want.” The rifle in his hands hummed softly with barely contained death. “We know what we want, man.”
“I’m on my way up to Golfito, Costa Rica, to see Rudolf Ehrenhardt,” Cheelo declared importantly. “He’s expecting me on a matter of real importance.”
“Too bad,” responded the other poacher mirthlessly. “You’re not going to make it.”
He had wanted to lose himself, Cheelo reflected, and had done so. If these ninlocos didn’t recognize the name of Rudolf Ehrenhardt, then he was in the middle of