Phylogenesis - Alan Dean Foster [139]
Despite its obvious disinterest in the food, the thranx ate, albeit slowly and with care. Scarfing down his own meal, Cheelo watched the alien closely.
“Feel better?” he asked when both had finished. As always, it was fascinating to watch the bug clean its mandibles with its truhands. It put Cheelo in mind of a praying mantis gleaning the last bits of prey from its razor-sharp jaws.
“Yes, I do.” A foothand traced a discreet pattern in the air while the two truhands continued their hygiene, causing Cheelo to reflect on the usefulness of possessing two sets of hands. “This gesture I am making is one of more than moderate thanks.”
“Like this?” Cheelo’s arm and hand contorted in an ungainly try at mimicry.
The alien did not laugh at or criticize the clumsy attempt. “You have the upper portion of the movement correct, but the lower should go this way.” He demonstrated. Once again, Cheelo did his best to imitate the comparatively simple gesture.
“Better,” declared Desvendapur. “Try it again.”
“I’m doing the best I can.” Muttering, Cheelo adjusted his arm. “Between shoulder and wrist I’ve only got three joints to your four.”
“Near enough.” The foothand extended and pulled back at a particular angle. “This is the gesture for agreement.”
“So now I’m supposed to learn how to nod with my arm?” Cheelo smiled thinly.
The lesson was an improvement over charades. In this manner they passed the time until total darkness. They had to keep the lesson simple. Not because Cheelo was insufficiently flexible to approximate the thranx’s gestures, but because there was no getting around the fact that the more elaborate ones required the use of two pairs of upper appendages. Despite his desire to learn, the thief could not see himself lying down and writhing all four limbs in the air like a beetle trapped on its back.
Morning arrived on the underside of a cloud, crisp and moist. Yawning, Cheelo turned over in his bedroll. The night had been clammy and cold, but not intolerably so. The temperature had stayed well above that common to the plateau high above.
He stretched as he sat up, letting his blanket tumble from his shoulders to bunch up around his waist. Glancing to his right, he saw that his alien companion was still asleep, huddled beneath its makeshift cold-weather gear, all eight limbs contracted tightly beneath its thorax and abdomen.
“Time to move,” he announced unsympathetically. Rising, he scratched at himself. “Come on. If we get a good start we’ll be all the way down by evening. I’ll rehydrate some broccoli or some other green shit for you.” Among the litany of terrestrial fruits and vegetables it had sampled, the thranx had proven particularly fond of broccoli. As far as Cheelo was concerned, this only reinforced the differences between their respective species.
When no response was forthcoming, either verbally or in the form of the by-now-familiar elegant gestures, Cheelo walked over and nudged the blue-green torso with a foot. “Rise and shine, Des. Not that you don’t shine all the time.”
To look at the thranx was to see nothing wrong. The same brushed, metallic blue-green sheen gleamed from wing cases and limbs, head and neck. The multiple lenses of the eyes, each as big as a human fist, threw back the early morning light in cascades of gold. But something was missing. It took Cheelo a long moment before it struck him.
It was an absence of fragrance.
There was no smell. The delicate, flowery miasma that was the thranx’s signature perfume had vanished entirely. Bending over, he inhaled deeply of nothing but fresh mountain air. Then he saw that along with the enthralling alien scent something else had departed. Leaning forward, he gave an uncertain shove with both hands.
Stiff as if frozen, the thranx fell over onto its side, scavenged blankets fluttering briefly like dark wings. They had become a funereal shroud. Rigid legs and arms remained fixed in the positions in which they had last been held, folded tight and close to the body.
“Des? C’mon, I got no time