Phylogenesis - Alan Dean Foster [134]
That onerous duty done, they returned to the deserted outpost where Desvendapur did his best to assist the human in cleansing the garage floor of blood. When he was satisfied, Cheelo stepped back to survey their work, wiping sweat from his forehead. Though the exudation of clear fluid by the biped’s body as a means of maintaining its internal temperature was a process Desvendapur had already observed in the forest, he never ceased to be captivated by it.
“There!” Cheelo sighed tiredly. “When their buyers arrive, they won’t know where their favorite ninlocos have hopped off to. They’ll see that the airtruck is still here—we can’t do anything about that—but that won’t automatically lead them to assume that something’s happened to them. They’ll start a search, but one that’s considered and unhurried. By the time they find the bodies, if they find the bodies, and figure out that maybe they ought to be looking for somebody like us—or like me, anyway—we’ll both be safe and out of sight back down in the Reserva. I know if I follow the river it’ll take me into Sintuya, where I can book a flight back to Lima. I still have enough time to make it to Golfito.” Walking back to the wall, he yanked the sonic rifle free from the charging bracket.
“Expensive little toy, this.” He rotated the sophisticated weapon in his hands. “So our trip up here wasn’t a total loss. Let’s help ourselves to the pantry and get out of here before nanny shows up.”
“I cannot.”
Cheelo blinked at the alien. “What d’you mean, ‘you cannot’? You sure as hell can’t stay here.” He indicated a window that revealed the barren plateau outside. “Whoever comes looking for those two ninlocos won’t hesitate about shoving you in a cage.” Nobody’d make any money off it, either, he reflected.
“I will explain matters to them. That I wish to study them.” Antennae bobbed. “Perhaps a mutual accommodation can be reached.”
“You can take your goddamn studying for inspiration and…!” Cheelo calmed himself, remembering that the visibly flinching thranx was sensitive to the volume of the booming human voice. “You don’t understand, Des. These people who are coming, they’re gonna be nervous and on edge because they’re unable to contact their two guys here. They’ll come in fast and quiet, and if the first thing they see is a giant, big-eyed bug wandering around loose instead of properly caged up, they might not stop to smell the roses—or the alien that smells like one. They’re liable to blast you into half a dozen pieces before you get the chance to ‘explain matters’ to them.”
“They might not shoot first,” Desvendapur argued.
“No, that’s right. They might not.” He pushed past the thranx, striding toward the corridor that led to the outpost’s living quarters. “I’m going to start packing. You want to stay here and put your life in the hands of a bunch of senior ninlocos who aren’t exactly experienced in the formalities of unanticipated interspecies contact, you go right ahead. Me, I’d rather put my trust in the monkeys. I’m heading down into the forest.”
Left behind in the garage to meditate on his limited options, Desvendapur soon turned to follow the biped into the other part of the station.
“You don’t understand, Cheelo Montoya. It is not that I want to remain here. The fact is that I have little choice in the matter.”
Cheelo did not look up from where he was stuffing handfuls of concentrates from the outpost’s food locker into his backpack. “Ay? Why’s that?”
“Did you not notice that I was barely able to help you remove and dispose of the two cadavers? It was not because their weight was excessive. It was because the air here