Phylogenesis - Alan Dean Foster [138]
It was an eerie, chilling sensation, the touch of hard, cold limbs against his shoulders, as if a gigantic crab were scrambling up his back. By utilizing all four front limbs the thranx was able to obtain a secure grip on the human’s upper torso. Glancing down, Cheelo could see the gripping digits locked together across his chest beneath pack and straps. All sixteen of them. The embrace was secure without being constricting. The thranx was solidly built, but not unbearably heavy. He decided he could manage it for a while, especially since it was downhill all the way. The biggest danger would come from stumbling or tripping, not from collapsing beneath the moderate alien weight.
Twisting to look around and down, he saw the other four alien limbs hanging loose, two on either side of his legs and hips. Exquisite alien body scent filled his nostrils. Enveloped by perfume, he resumed the descent.
“Just hang on,” he snapped irritably at his motionless burden. “You’ll feel better as soon as it’s warmer.”
“Yes.” Sensing the four alien mandibles moving against the flesh of his shoulder, Cheelo tried not to shudder. “As soon as it is warmer. I do not know how to thank you.” The exotic alien syllables echoed eerily against his ear.
“Try shutting up for a while,” his human bearer suggested. The poet obediently lapsed into silence.
The more relaxed beneath the extra weight he became, the faster Cheelo found he could move. By afternoon the pace of their descent had increased markedly. True to his word, the thranx maintained a merciful muteness, not even requesting that they stop for a meal. The alien’s silent acquiescence suited Cheelo just fine.
By the time the shrouded sun had commenced its swift plunge behind the Andes in search of the distant Pacific, Cheelo estimated that they had descended almost halfway to the rain forest below. Tomorrow noontime would see them enter the outskirts of the lowlands, where the temperature and the humidity would reach levels uncomfortable to Cheelo but complaisant for the thranx.
“Time to get off,” he told his passenger. Reacting slowly and with deliberation, the thranx released its hold on the human’s torso and dropped to the ground.
“I could not have come this far without your aid.” Clutching tightly at the blankets with both tru- and foothands, the poet singled out a log on which to spend the coming night, painfully straddling it with all four trulegs. The dead wood was damp and chilly against his exposed abdomen.
“Ay, you have to be feeling better.” Without knowing why he bothered, Cheelo tried to cheer his companion. “It’s warmer here, so you ought to be more comfortable.”
“It is warmer,” the thranx admitted. “But not so warm that I am comfortable.”
“Tomorrow,” Cheelo promised him. Kneeling beside his own pack, he searched for one of the smokeless fire sticks he had appropriated from the poacher outpost. The stick was intended to help start a blaze, but in the absence of any dry fuel he would just have to burn one stick after another until they made their own tiny campfire. They were as likely to find dry wood lying on the floor of a cloud forest as orchids sprouting on tundra.
As he prepared his simple meal Cheelo noticed that the thranx was not moving. “Aren’t you going to eat?”
“Not hungry. Too cold.” Antennae uncurled halfway but no further.
Shaking his head, Cheelo rose and walked over to examine the contents of the alien’s pack. “For a space-traversing species you’re not very adaptable.”
“We evolved and still prefer to live underground.” Even the thranx’s usually elegant, graceful gestures were subdued. “It is difficult to adjust to extremes of climate when you do not experience them.”
Cheelo shrugged as he rehydrated an assortment of dried fruit. At least water for food rehydration was not a problem in the cloud forest. With the onset of evening it was already beginning to precipitate out on his skin and clothing. Blankets or not, they would be compelled to endure at least one chill, moist night on the steep mountainside.