Read Online For Love of Mother-Not by Alan Dean Foster - Free Book Online
Authors: Alan Dean Foster
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on so wet and dark a one. But he couldn’t go back to sleep without locating the source of the feelings that battered at him. Loneliness and hunger, hunger and loneliness, filled his mind with restlessness. Who could possibly be broadcasting twin deprivations of such power?
The open doorway revealed a wall of rain. The angled street carried the water away to Drallar’s efficient underground drainage system. Flinx stood in the gap for a long moment, watching. Suddenly an intense burst of emptiness made him wince. That decided him. He could no more ignore that hot pleading than he could leave an unstamped credcard lying orphaned in the street.
“That curiosity of yours will get ye into real trouble someday, boy,” Mother Mastiff had told him on more than one occasion. “Mark me word.”
Well, he had marked her word. Marked it and filed it. He turned away from the door and skeoded back to his little room. It was early summer, and the rain outside was relatively warm. Disdaining an underjacket, he took a slickertic from its wall hook and donned it; thus suitably shielded from the rain, he made his way back to the stall, out into the street, and closed the main door softly behind him.
A few lights like hibernating will-o’-the-wisps glowed faintly from behind unshuttered shop fronts on the main avenue where the idling wealthy night-cavorted in relative safety. On the side street where Mother Mastiff plied her trade, only a rare flicker of illumination emerged from behind locked shutters and windows.
As water cascaded off his shoulders, Flinx stood there and searched his mind. Something sent him off to his right. There was a narrow gap between Mother Mastiff’s shop and that of old lady Marquin, who was on vacation in the south, and by turning sideways, he could just squeeze through.
Then he was standing in the service alleyway that ran behind the shops and a large office building. His eyes roved over a lunar landscape of uncollected garbage and refuse: old plastic packing crates, metal storage barrels, honeycomb containers for breakables, and other indifferently disposed of detritus. A couple of fleurms scurried away from his boots. Flinx watched them warily. He was not squeamish where the omnipresent fleurms were concerned, but he had a healthy respect for them. The critters were covered in a thick, silvery fur, and their little mouths were full of fine teeth. Each animal was as big around as Flinx’s thumb and as long as his forearm. They were not really worms but legless mammals that did very well in the refuse piles and composting garbage that filled the alleys of Drallar to overflowing. He had heard horror stories of old men and women who had fallen into a drunken stupor in such places—only their exposed bones remained for the finding.
Flinx, however, was not drunk. The fleurms could inflict nasty bites, but they were shy creatures, nearly blind, and greatly preferred to relinquish the right of way when given the choice.
If it was dark on the street in front of the shop, it was positively stygian in the alley. To the east, far up the straightaway, he could make out a light and hear intermittent laughter. An odd night for a party. But the glow gave him a reference point, even if it was too far off to shed any light on his search.
The continuing surge of loneliness that he felt did not come from that distant celebration, nor did it rise from the heavily shuttered and barred doorways that opened onto the alley. The emotions Flinx was absorbing came from somewhere very near.
He moved forward, picking his way between the piles ofdebris, taking his time so as to give the fleurms and the red-blue carrion bugs time to scurry from his path.
All at once something struck with unexpected force at his receptive mind. The mental blow sent him to his knees. Somewhere a man was beating his wife. No unique circumstance, that, but Flinx felt it from the other side of the city. The woman was frightened and angry. She was
The open doorway revealed a wall of rain. The angled street carried the water away to Drallar’s efficient underground drainage system. Flinx stood in the gap for a long moment, watching. Suddenly an intense burst of emptiness made him wince. That decided him. He could no more ignore that hot pleading than he could leave an unstamped credcard lying orphaned in the street.
“That curiosity of yours will get ye into real trouble someday, boy,” Mother Mastiff had told him on more than one occasion. “Mark me word.”
Well, he had marked her word. Marked it and filed it. He turned away from the door and skeoded back to his little room. It was early summer, and the rain outside was relatively warm. Disdaining an underjacket, he took a slickertic from its wall hook and donned it; thus suitably shielded from the rain, he made his way back to the stall, out into the street, and closed the main door softly behind him.
A few lights like hibernating will-o’-the-wisps glowed faintly from behind unshuttered shop fronts on the main avenue where the idling wealthy night-cavorted in relative safety. On the side street where Mother Mastiff plied her trade, only a rare flicker of illumination emerged from behind locked shutters and windows.
As water cascaded off his shoulders, Flinx stood there and searched his mind. Something sent him off to his right. There was a narrow gap between Mother Mastiff’s shop and that of old lady Marquin, who was on vacation in the south, and by turning sideways, he could just squeeze through.
Then he was standing in the service alleyway that ran behind the shops and a large office building. His eyes roved over a lunar landscape of uncollected garbage and refuse: old plastic packing crates, metal storage barrels, honeycomb containers for breakables, and other indifferently disposed of detritus. A couple of fleurms scurried away from his boots. Flinx watched them warily. He was not squeamish where the omnipresent fleurms were concerned, but he had a healthy respect for them. The critters were covered in a thick, silvery fur, and their little mouths were full of fine teeth. Each animal was as big around as Flinx’s thumb and as long as his forearm. They were not really worms but legless mammals that did very well in the refuse piles and composting garbage that filled the alleys of Drallar to overflowing. He had heard horror stories of old men and women who had fallen into a drunken stupor in such places—only their exposed bones remained for the finding.
Flinx, however, was not drunk. The fleurms could inflict nasty bites, but they were shy creatures, nearly blind, and greatly preferred to relinquish the right of way when given the choice.
If it was dark on the street in front of the shop, it was positively stygian in the alley. To the east, far up the straightaway, he could make out a light and hear intermittent laughter. An odd night for a party. But the glow gave him a reference point, even if it was too far off to shed any light on his search.
The continuing surge of loneliness that he felt did not come from that distant celebration, nor did it rise from the heavily shuttered and barred doorways that opened onto the alley. The emotions Flinx was absorbing came from somewhere very near.
He moved forward, picking his way between the piles ofdebris, taking his time so as to give the fleurms and the red-blue carrion bugs time to scurry from his path.
All at once something struck with unexpected force at his receptive mind. The mental blow sent him to his knees. Somewhere a man was beating his wife. No unique circumstance, that, but Flinx felt it from the other side of the city. The woman was frightened and angry. She was
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