Read Online The Tar-aiym Krang by Alan Dean Foster - Free Book Online

followed his gaze with their own.
    Flinx shifted his position on the floor uncomfortably. He had managed to hear as much as he had by remaining utterly inconspicuous while in plain sight, an art he had learned from a certain patient and very sneaky old man. Aided by his own odd abilities, it had served him importantly more than once. These three, however, were far more observant than the folk one encountered in the marketplace. He could see clearly that he would have to leave. Why not voluntarily?
    “Uh, sirs, I could do with some . . . if you, honored host, would point me in the direction of a pantry, I will endeavor to make myself instantly and painlessly nonpresent.”
    Malaika chuckled deafeningly. “Astuteness is laudable, youth. So instead of sending you home . . . I could wonder where
that
might be . . . you go back to the hall, to your right, second door. You should find in there enough nourishment to keep even you busy for a few minutes!”
    Flinx uncurled from his lotus position on the floor and departed in the indicated direction. He felt their eyes and minds on him until he was out of view, at which point the pressure relaxed. Malaika’s conviviality did not fool him. He might already have heard more than would prove healthy. He was intensely interested in the answers to a good many questions that Malaika was now undoubtedly putting to his guests, and entertained thoughts of locating a good listening place at a thin section of wall. However, the death’s head had reappeared and stationed himself by the entrance to the porch-room. The blue eyes had passed over him once, as though he were not worthy of a second glance. Flinx bridled, then sighed. He would have to make do with what he could pick up without visual contact. Might as well enjoy the other opportunity while he had it. He walked on.
    The pantry was all of fantastic. He almost forgot the unusual progression of incidents that had brought him here while he gorged himself and the minidrag on the store of luxuries. He had gotten as far as debating between Terran champagne and pine mint from Barrabas when a short series of extremely odd thoughts drifted across his open mind. He turned and noticed that the door to the room on his right was slightly open. The teasing sub-vocalizations came from beyond there. He did not for a moment doubt that that door should be securely locked. Cautiously, with a quick glance at the kitchen entrance, he made his way over to the door and slid it back another inch.
    The room next to the kitchen was narrow but long. It probably ran the whole length of this radius of the tower. Its function, at least, was unmistakable. It was a bar. With an eye towards locating an even more palatable drink and his curiosity piqued he prepared to enter, only to catch himself quickly.
    The room was already occupied.
    A figure was hunched over by the opposite wall, its head pressed tightly against it. He could make out the outlines of a ventilating grid or something similar on the other side of the head. The face was turned away from him and so hidden. The metal and wood he could see there was thin and light. The voices from the next room sounded clearly to him even from where he stood in the kitchen.
    He eased the door back, as slowly and easily as possible. Apparently totally engrossed in the conversation taking place on the other side of the wall, the figure did not notice his quiet approach. The grid itself could now be seen to be much larger than would be required for ventilating purposes. It looked loose and was probably hinged. Garbage could be passed through it from the other room, and thence shifted to nearby disposal units. He had a hunk of spiced Bice cheese in one hand and a pheasant leg between his teeth. His free hand started down for the stiletto hidden in his boot, then paused. The thoughts of the figure did not have the coldness nor the death-clear logic of the professional spy or assassin. Quite the contrary. Deaf killers