Phylogenesis - Alan Dean Foster [135]
Pausing in his scavenging, Cheelo turned to regard the alien. “Okay, I can see where that could be a problem. But from here it’s all downhill into the Reserva. The lower we go, the hotter and more humid it’ll become and the better you’ll feel.”
The heart-shaped head slowly nodded acquiescence while truhands and antennae bobbed understandingly. “I know that is so. The difficult, and critical, question is: Will it become hot and humid enough soon enough?”
“I can’t answer that,” the human responded evenly. “I don’t know what your tolerances are.”
“I cannot answer it myself. But I fear to try it. By the wings that no longer fly, I do.”
From hidden, long-unvisited depths Cheelo dragged up what little compassion remained in him. “Maybe we can rig you some kind of cold-weather gear. I’m no tailor, and I don’t see an autogarb in this dump, but I suppose we could cut up some blankets or something. Your only alternatives are to wait here and hope you can talk faster than the people who are coming can shoot, or to strike out across this plateau and try and find another place far enough away that they won’t search it.”
The thranx indicated negativity. “If I am to walk, better to aim for a more accommodating climate than one I already know to be hostile.” Turning, he gestured at the terrain beyond a window. “I would not make it across the first valley before my joints began to stiffen from the cold. And remember: I have one bad leg.”
“And five good ones. Well, you think about it.” Cheelo returned to his foraging. “Whatever you decide to do, I’ll help you if I can—provided it doesn’t cost me any more time.”
In the end, Desvendapur decided that despite his increasing mastery of the human’s language, he was neither confident nor fluent enough to risk an encounter with the dead poachers’ customers. Already he had experience of the volatile nature of human response and its reaction to unforeseen events. Not knowing what to expect within the outpost that now failed to respond to their queries, whoever was coming in search of the absent poachers might well unload a rush of lethality in his direction before he could explain himself.
Whatever the chastisement meted out to him upon his return to the colony, it would not include summary execution. The question was, could he make it all the way down to the salubrious surroundings of the lowland rain forest? It seemed he had no choice but to try. Certainly the biped thought so. Having made the decision, the poet fell to scrounging supplies of his own from the outpost’s stores, relying on the human to elucidate the contents of the bewildering variety of multihued food packages and containers.
When their respective packs were bulging with supplies, human and thranx turned their attention to the question of how to insulate someone whose anatomy did not remotely resemble that of an upright mammal. Utilizing the clothing of the deceased proved impossible: None of it would fit over Desvendapur’s head or around his body. They settled for wrapping his thorax and abdomen as best they could in several of the high-altitude, lightweight blankets that covered two of the station’s beds. Unfortunately, these relied for their generous heating properties on picking up waved energy from a broadcast coil located in the floor of the single bedroom. Outside the buildings and beyond the coil’s limited range, the caloric elements woven into the blankets would go inert.
“That’s the best I can do,” an impatient Cheelo assured his chitinous companion. “There’s nothing else here that’d work any better. It’s all tech stuff. Stands to reason they’d bring in the most basic of everything they’d need. In a town we could probably find some old-style, heavier wrappings.” He nodded curtly toward the nearest window. “No telling how far it is to the nearest village. I know I didn’t see one on the way here.”
“Nor did I,” conceded Desvendapur. Wrapped in the blankets that the human had clumsily cinched around him with cord, the thranx knew