Phylogenesis - Alan Dean Foster [129]
He tried to cheer himself up. If the poachers and the bug just kept their heads this wouldn’t turn out so bad. Didn’t he need to hide out for a while? Wasn’t that what he was doing down in the untrammeled rain forest in the first place? What better place to lie low—after he had finalized arrangements for his future with Ehrenhardt, of course—than the private zoo or collection of some incredibly rich patron who had just made a very expensive and very illegitimate purchase? As he had so many times in his desperate, frenetic life, he set about trying to mentally arrange events to his advantage. Even the bug was cooperating, maintaining silence while pretending to examine every object within the building.
He was giving Desvendapur too much credit. The thranx was not pretending. While the poachers ignored him, he took the time to study each individual example of human manufacture in great detail, paying particular attention to how the two humans operated their manifold devices. Once, the one called Hapec caught the thranx peering over his shoulder as he ran the cooker. The human gestured clumsily and ordered him to step farther back. Maintaining the fiction that he could not understand the man’s speech, the poet obediently interpreted the gestures and moved away.
By mealtime Cheelo, though still nervous and worried about the poachers’ state of mind, had resigned himself to his captivity. He cooperated while Hapec fed him listlessly, and he watched with as much interest as the poachers while Desvendapur picked through the assortment of rehydrated fruits and vegetables he was offered. When their prize captive seemed satisfied, the two men sat down to their own meal. Dinnertime conversation on their part consisted of coarse jokes, inconsequential natterings, and an impassioned discussion of how much money they were going to clear for selling the only representative of a recently contacted intelligent species into involuntary captivity. While salt, pepper, and hot sauce played a part in their dining, their conversation was seasoned by neither ethics nor morals.
When Desvendapur had eaten his fill, he stepped back from the exotic but nutritious banquet his captors had laid out before him, ambled over to a far corner, and casually picked up one of their rifles, cradling the lethal device in his right truhand and foothand. It took a moment before Hapec noticed the alien aiming the muzzle of the weapon at him.
“Hey. Uh, hey, Maruco!” The human’s lower jaw descended, and his mouth remained open to no apparent purpose.
“Shit!” His eyes darting rapidly back and forth between his two prisoners, the other poacher pushed carefully away from the table. “Cheelo! Man, you tell the bug to put that down. It’s holding a full charge, and the safety is off. Tell it it’s liable to hurt itself. What’s it doing, anyway? We’re its friends, helping it to see and study more of our world. Go on, man: Remind it!”
“I can’t tell him anything,” Cheelo replied tersely. “My hands, remember?”
This time Maruco didn’t hesitate. Rising slowly from his chair and keeping his eyes on the enigmatic thranx, he nervously edged his way over to where his other prisoner was secured. Using his knife, he once again released the captive’s arms.
A relieved Cheelo promptly began rubbing circulation back into his wrists. “Hey, what about my legs?”
“What about your legs?” the poacher growled. “You don’t talk to it with your feet.”
“Free his legs.” Desvendapur gestured with the rifle. Designed for thicker-digited, clumsier human hands, the weapon felt light in his arms. Manipulation and activation would be a simple matter.
“Sure, just be careful with that…” Maruco paused, the knife halting in midswipe, as he stared wide-eyed at the alien. “Son-of-a-bitch-whore!”
“You can talk!” Both poachers were gazing in open-mouthed disbelief at the suddenly voluble alien in their midst.
“Not very well, but my fluency is improving