Read Online Midworld by Alan Dean Foster - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Alan Dean Foster
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ever tame that? ” she asked wonderingly.
Born considered in confusion, then understanding dawned. “You mean,” he said in amazement, “you have no furcots of your own?” He looked from a stupefied Logan to Cohoma.
“Furcots of our own?” echoed Logan. “Why should we?”
“Why,” Born recited without thinking, “every person has his furcot and every furcot its person, as every flitter its blossom, every cubble its anchor tree, every pfeffermall its resonator. It’s the balance of the world.”
“Yes, but that still doesn’t explain how you tamed them,” pressed Cohoma, staring after the departed carnivore.
“Tame.” Born’s expression twisted. “It’s not a question of taming. Furcots like persons and we like the furcots.” He shrugged. “It is natural. It has always been so.”
“It talked,” noted Logan aloud. “I distinctly heard it say ‘persons.’ ”
“The furcots are not very bright,” Born admitted, “but they talk well enough to make themselves understood.” He smiled. “There are persons who talk less.”
For some reason this caused both giants to launch into a long discussion between themselves, full of complex terms Born did not understand. This made him uncomfortable. Anyway, it was time they started Home, time he received the adulation and accolades due him.
“We must go now, but there is a condition.”
That veiled threat was enough to cause the giants to break off their argument and stare at him. “What condition?” Logan asked apprehensively. Born stared at Cohoma. “That he no longer calls me short stuff. Otherwise I will call him clumsy-cub every time his foot slips on a pathway.”
Cohoma managed a tight smile, but Logan guffawed openly. “He’s got you there, Jan.” The latter just grunted, muttered something about getting on their way, and started up the root after Born. “No time to waste,” he added gruffly.
As they moved upward, Born considered Cohoma’s last remark. The concept of “wasting time” was personally intriguing, since in the Home it usually had been applied only to him. Was it possible there were others who felt as he did about the way time was spent? If so, there was another reason for getting to know these giants better. He already knew of several others.
V
THE FOREST HAD BEEN burned back to leave a clear zone around the armored, domed station which sat in the largest open space— for that matter, the only open space—in the hylaea, a silver-gray bubble rising from an ocean of green, like the exhalation of a colossal diver swimming far below.
The circular, domed structure rested on the sheared-off trunks of three Pillar trees, whose neatly trimmed branches formed a system of braces and struts as strong as any artificial supports the builders could have provided. Eventually the cut-off giant trees would die and topple over, but by then the station would no longer be necessary, having been supplanted according to the master plan by much larger, more permanent structures built elsewhere.
The cleared zone around the station was designed to prevent any further deaths from the local sawtooth, hook-clawed predators, who had killed three of the station’s builders before its major defenses were installed and powered up. Discovering that no creature of the forest cared to cross an area open to the sky—and to the skyborne killers—the construction engineers had burnt back the green ramparts many meters from the station, as well as several meters down below its bottom level.
Two occupants of the station had been carried off by aerial predators while walking along the peripheral strollway. Again the station’s defenses were strengthened, until it resembled a small fortress. The lasers and explosive guns were hardly fitting to a structure dedicated primarily to research and exploration. The less lethal instrumentation was located within the gray building. It was that nexus of inner laboratories that the wall of weapons was erected
Born considered in confusion, then understanding dawned. “You mean,” he said in amazement, “you have no furcots of your own?” He looked from a stupefied Logan to Cohoma.
“Furcots of our own?” echoed Logan. “Why should we?”
“Why,” Born recited without thinking, “every person has his furcot and every furcot its person, as every flitter its blossom, every cubble its anchor tree, every pfeffermall its resonator. It’s the balance of the world.”
“Yes, but that still doesn’t explain how you tamed them,” pressed Cohoma, staring after the departed carnivore.
“Tame.” Born’s expression twisted. “It’s not a question of taming. Furcots like persons and we like the furcots.” He shrugged. “It is natural. It has always been so.”
“It talked,” noted Logan aloud. “I distinctly heard it say ‘persons.’ ”
“The furcots are not very bright,” Born admitted, “but they talk well enough to make themselves understood.” He smiled. “There are persons who talk less.”
For some reason this caused both giants to launch into a long discussion between themselves, full of complex terms Born did not understand. This made him uncomfortable. Anyway, it was time they started Home, time he received the adulation and accolades due him.
“We must go now, but there is a condition.”
That veiled threat was enough to cause the giants to break off their argument and stare at him. “What condition?” Logan asked apprehensively. Born stared at Cohoma. “That he no longer calls me short stuff. Otherwise I will call him clumsy-cub every time his foot slips on a pathway.”
Cohoma managed a tight smile, but Logan guffawed openly. “He’s got you there, Jan.” The latter just grunted, muttered something about getting on their way, and started up the root after Born. “No time to waste,” he added gruffly.
As they moved upward, Born considered Cohoma’s last remark. The concept of “wasting time” was personally intriguing, since in the Home it usually had been applied only to him. Was it possible there were others who felt as he did about the way time was spent? If so, there was another reason for getting to know these giants better. He already knew of several others.
V
THE FOREST HAD BEEN burned back to leave a clear zone around the armored, domed station which sat in the largest open space— for that matter, the only open space—in the hylaea, a silver-gray bubble rising from an ocean of green, like the exhalation of a colossal diver swimming far below.
The circular, domed structure rested on the sheared-off trunks of three Pillar trees, whose neatly trimmed branches formed a system of braces and struts as strong as any artificial supports the builders could have provided. Eventually the cut-off giant trees would die and topple over, but by then the station would no longer be necessary, having been supplanted according to the master plan by much larger, more permanent structures built elsewhere.
The cleared zone around the station was designed to prevent any further deaths from the local sawtooth, hook-clawed predators, who had killed three of the station’s builders before its major defenses were installed and powered up. Discovering that no creature of the forest cared to cross an area open to the sky—and to the skyborne killers—the construction engineers had burnt back the green ramparts many meters from the station, as well as several meters down below its bottom level.
Two occupants of the station had been carried off by aerial predators while walking along the peripheral strollway. Again the station’s defenses were strengthened, until it resembled a small fortress. The lasers and explosive guns were hardly fitting to a structure dedicated primarily to research and exploration. The less lethal instrumentation was located within the gray building. It was that nexus of inner laboratories that the wall of weapons was erected
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