Phylogenesis - Alan Dean Foster [123]
After several minutes of aimless, meaningless writhing, Cheelo turned around to confront their captors. “It has accepted my explanation and wants to know when we’re going to leave.”
“Tonight, man.” The poacher gestured at his companion. Setting his rifle aside, Hapec moved off into the undergrowth. “I’m not going to tie you up because that might give your bug friend the wrong idea. Just don’t do anything stupid.”
Cheelo raised both hands, palms facing the poacher. “We’ve got an arrangement. Why should I risk it? If you can get me out of this hemisphere I’ll be better off than I would if we’d never met.” His gaze wandered to the patch of forest that had swallowed the other poacher. “We’re going to walk at night? A GPS will show you the right way, but it won’t light it for you.”
The poacher hesitated uncertainly, then laughed anew. “You think we’re going to walk? Man, if we had to rely on our feet the rangers would’ve caught us years ago. We’ve got an airtruck back in the trees. Mesyler two-ton carrying capacity, stealth construction, heat-signature-masked engine. Paid for, too. Not many people know this country like Hapec and me or how to get around the Reserva security net. We’re good, man. We’ll fly out. In an hour we’ll be at a little place we keep just outside the Reserva boundary. You get to rest there while we put the word out to our regular people that we’ve got something special for sale.” He grinned again. “You didn’t think we were going to march you into Cuzco and stick you in a street stall with a price tag on your forehead, did you?”
Cheelo shrugged, trying to appear neither too smart nor unreasonably ignorant. “I don’t know you vatos. I don’t know how you operate. I wasn’t assuming anything.”
“Good, that’s good.” Extracting a smokeless stimstick from a shirt pocket, the poacher waited for it to ignite before slipping the aromatic mouthpiece between his lips. “Just don’t assume that I won’t fry your head the first time you piss me off.”
20
While the poacher named Hapec busied himself breaking down the camp and carefully obliterating any memory of its existence, his colleague, whose name was Maruco, kept a watchful eye on their two prisoners. He concentrated his attention on the fidgety Cheelo, allowing Desvendapur to roam freely through the evaporating encampment. Whenever it looked as if the thranx might be wandering too far afield, Maruco directed his human prisoner to “call” the alien back. This Cheelo proceeded to do with much meaningless flailing of fingers. Desvendapur continued to fulfill his part in the masque by waiting for Cheelo to finish each charade before complying, not with the human’s gestures, but with the directives the poet had already perfectly comprehended.
In this manner the two poachers remained ignorant of the alien’s cognizance. Had Desvendapur possessed a weapon, he could simply have shot both of them. But all he had was the small cutting tool in his improvised survival kit. Granted complete surprise, he might have employed it successfully to incapacitate one of the two antisocials, but not both of them. They were too lively, too alert, too attuned to a life of imminent threat and danger. Additionally, while not directly suspicious of the alien in their midst, neither were they especially comfortable in the thranx’s presence. Consequently, he was never able to get within a few meters of either of them before they began acting uneasy.
One such experimental advance caused Maruco to comment. “Tell the bug to keep its distance, man. God, but it’s repulsive! Smells good, though. Myself, I think you’re personally bent, but your suggestion is straight: Somebody will pay plenty for it.” He shrugged, holding his rifle casually—though not casually enough. “Me, I wouldn’t keep another intelligence in captivity, but I never understood the people who do keep animals. Hapec and I, we don’t even keep monkeys.”
“Why do you guys stick with this?” Cheelo was genuinely curious. His attention wandered without ever