Orphan Star

  Flinx began hunting through the trees and was rubbing his hands together. Occasionally he would reach into his jumpsuit to fondle Pip. The minidrag also came from a hothouse world. It had grown still in an instinctive effort to conserve energy and body heat.

  "I'm not exactly at home here either, you know," Flinx told her. Glancing worriedly upward, he saw that the sun had been half swallowed by a mountain with a backbone like a crippled dinosaur.

  "We can freeze to death out here tonight, or go back and take our chances with that female," Sylzenzuzex stammered. "A wonderful choice you've given us."

  "I don't understand," he muttered puzzledly. "I was so certain. The voices were so clear."

  "Everything is clear in a dream," she philosophized. "It's the real world that never makes sense, that's fuzzy at the fringes. I'm still not sure that you're not a little fuzzy at the fringes, Flinx."

  "Ho, ho," a voice boomed like a hammer hitting the bottom of a big metal pot. It was. a real voice, not a telepathic whisper.

  "Joke, I like jokes!"

  Flinx's heart settled back to its normal beat as he and Sylzenzuzex whirled, to see an enormous wide shape waddle out from between two trees. There was little to distinguish one native from another physically.

  Flinx, however, now knew to hunt for something less obvious. It blinked brightly out at him, a strong, concentrated mental glow-like a firefly, he reminded himself.

  "Hello, Fluff. Yon have a sense of humor, but don't, please, sneak up on us like that again."

  "Sense of humor," the giant echoed. "That mean I like to make jokes?" On hind legs he towered above them. "Yes. What is better than making jokes? Except maybe building caves and eating and sleeping and making love."

  Flinx noticed that the broadly grinning month was moving.

  "You're talking," Sylzenzuzex observed simultaneously. She turned to Flinx. "I thought you said they were telepathic?"

  "Can do mind-talk too," something said inside her head, making her jump.

  "So that's telepathy," she murmured at the new experience. "It's kind of unnerving."

  "Why trouble with talking?" Flinx wondered.

  "Is less efficient, but more fun," Fluff husked.

  "Lots more fun," two voices mimicked. Moam and Bluebright appeared, shuffling toward the stream. Lowering to all fours, they began lapping the water.

  "Why don't you talk like this to the people at the base?"

  "Base? Big metal caves?"

  Flinx nodded, was rewarded with a mental shrug.

  "No one ask us to talk much. We see inside them that they like us to talk like this," and he proceeded to produce a few grunted words and snorted phrases.

  "It make them happy. We want everyone to be happy. So we talk like that."

  "I'm not sure I understand," Flinx admitted, sitting down on a rock and shivering. A monstrous shape materialized at his shoulder, and Sylzenzuzex jumped half a meter into the air.

  "No doubt about it," thundered Maybeso. One paw cuddled two wrinkled objects while the other held a large plastic case. Flinx felt a warm thought flow over him like a bucket of hot water and then Maybeso was gone.

  "What was that?" a gaping Sylzenzuzex wanted to know.

  "Maybeso," Flinx told her absently, examining what the mercurial Ujurrian had brought. "Thermal suits- one for you and one for me,"

  After climbing into the self-contained heated over- clothing they spent a few luxurious moments defrosting before they began their inspection of the big case's contents,

  "Food," Sylzenzuzex noted. "Two beamers ..."

  Flinx reached into the depths of the container, aware he was trembling. "And this ... even this." He withdrew his hand, holding a small, slightly battered spool.

  "How?" he asked Fluff, awed. "How did he know?" Fluff's smile was genuine and went beyond the one frozen into his features.

  "Maybeso plays his own games. Everything is a game to Maybeso, and he's very good at games. Better than any of the family. In some ways he's just like an overgrown cub."

  "Cub," agreed Moam, "but a big light."

  "Very big light," Bluebright agreed, raising his head and licking water from his muzzle with a long tongue.

  "It's fun to have someone who can talk back," Fluff observed playfully. Then Flinx had the impression of a hurt frown. "Others came bat did not land. Maybeso saw them and says they did some strange things with constructs-with instruments like those at the metal caves. They got very excited, then went away."

  "The Church exploration party," Flinx commented unnecessarily.

  "We didn't understand why they went away," a troubled Fluff said. "We wished they would have come down and talked. We were sad and wanted to help them, because they were frightened of something." Again the mental shrug, "Though we could have been wrong."

  "I don't think you're wrong, Fluff. Something frightened them, all right."

  Sylzenzuzex paid no attention to him. She was staring at Fluff, her mandibles hanging limp. Flinx turned to her, asked, "Now do you understand why this world was put Under Edict?"

  "Under Edict," Fluff repeated, savoring the sound of the spoken words. "A general admonition embodying philosophical rationalizations which stem-"

  "You're a fast learner. Fluff," gulped Flinx.

  "Oh sure," the giant agreed with childish enthusiasm. "Is fun. Let's play a game. You think of a concept or new word and we try to learn it, okay?"

  "It wasn't a game to the exploration party which took readings here," Sylzenzuzex announced suddenly. She looked over to Flinx. "I see what you were trying to tell me." To the giant: "They didn't land because ... because they were afraid of you, Fluff."

  "Afraid? Why be afraid of me?" He slapped his meters-wide torso with a paw that could have decapitated a man. "We only live, eat, sleep, make love, build caves, and play games ... and make jokes, of course. What to be afraid of?"

  "Your potential, Fluff," Flinx explained slowly. "And yours, Moam, and Bluebright, and you too, Maybeso, wherever you are."

  "Someplace else," Moam supplied helpfully.

  "They saw your potential and ran like hell instead of coming down to help you, Put you Under Edict so no one else would come to help you, either. They hoped to consign you all to ignorance. You have incalculable potential. Fluff, but you don't seem to have much drive. By denying you that the Church saw they could-"

  "No!" Sylzenzuzex shouted, agonized. "I can't believe that. The Church wouldn't ..."

  "Why not?" snorted Flinx. "Anyone can be afraid of the big kid down the block."

  "Is wrong to fear," Fluff observed mournfully, "and sad."

  "Right both times," concurred Flinx. Suddenly aware his stomach demanded attention, he dug a large cube of processed meat and cheese from the plastic container, sat down on a rock. After removing the foil sealer, he took a huge bite out of it, then started searching the container for something suitable for Pip.

  Sylzenzuzex joined him, but her inspection of the supplies was halfhearted at best. Her mind was a maelstrom of conflicting, confusing, and destructive thoughts. The khowledge of what the Church had certainly done was chattering beliefs she'd held since pupahood. Each time another ideal came crashing down, it sent a painful stab through her.

  Flinx had reached a decision. "You wanted to talk, to play a concept and words game?"

  "Yes, let's play," Moam snuffled enthusiastically, ambling over.

  "Let's talk," agreed Bluebright.

  Flinx looked grim, considered what he was about to do, and was gratified to discover that it made him feel more satisfied than any decision he'd made in his entire life.

  "You bet we'll talk...."

  Chapter Eleven

  "But not here," Fluff put m.

  "Definitely not here," Bluebright echoed. "Let's go to the cave." Turning away from Flinx, he and Moam started off into the trees, matching each other stride for stride. Fluff waddled after them, gesturing for Flinx and Sylzenzuzex to follow.

  "The cave?" Flinx inquired later as
he and the shaking thranx struggled to maintain the blistering pace. "You all share the same cave?"

  Fluff seemed surprised. "Everyone shares the same cave."

  "You're all part of the same family, then?" Sylzenzuzex panted.

  "Everyone same family." The big native was obviously puzzled at these questions.

  It occurred to Flinx that Fluff might have something other than immediate blood relationships in mind. A word with multiple meanings could be confusing to a human, to say nothing of an alien with a bare knowledge of the language.

  "Are we of the same family Fluff?" he asked slowly. Heavily furred brows wrinkled ponderously.

  "Not sure yet," their unassuming savior finally told him. "Let you know."

  Another hour of Scrambling hectically over rocks and ditches, and Flinx found himself becoming winded. It was much worse for his companion, who finally settled to an exhausted halt in the middle of a clump of flowering growth.

  "I'm sorry," she murmured, "I can't keep up. Tired and-cold."

  "Wait," he instructed her. "Fluff, wait for us!" Ahead, the three Ujurrians paused, looked back expectantly.

  Flinx knelt and gently examined the broken leghand. Though Sylzenzuzex wasn't putting any pres- sure on it, the joint didn't seem to be healing properly. "We're going to have to splint that break," he muttered softly. She nodded agreement.

  "Do at the cave," Fluff advised, having retreated to join them.

  "I'm sorry. Fluff," Flinx explained, "but she can't go any further unless we fix this break." He considered, suggested, "You three continue on-leave a trail of broken branches and we'll catch up with you later."

  "Foolish," the native advised. He moved nearer, his huge bulk dwarfing the slim youth. Flinx noted that Pip hadn't moved. If his pet expressed no concern, then it sensed no threat behind those advancing luminous eyes.

  Fluff studied the quaking Sylzenzuzex, asked curiously, "What to do, Flinx-friend?"

  "If you think it's foolish of us to follow your trail," he told the Ujurrian carefully, alert for any indication of outraged anger, "you could let us ride,"

  Bluebright scratched under his chin with a hind foot. "What is ride?" he asked interestedly.

  "Means to carry thems instead of gems," a deep voice snorted with mild contempt at Bluebright's slowness. Flinx spun just in time to see the slightly phosphorescent form of Maybeso vanish into someplace else.

  "Understand now," Fluff bubbled with satisfaction. "What do we do?"

  "Just stand there," Flinx instructed, wondering as he walked up next to that brown wall if this was going to turn out to be such a clever idea after all. The big ursine head swung to watch him. "Now lie down on your stomach."

  Fluff promptly collapsed with a pneumatic whump. Tentatively placing one foot against his left flank, Flinx reached up and grabbed a double handful of coarse hair and pulled hard. When no protest was forthcoming, he pulled again, hard enough this time to swing himself up on the broad back.

  "Okay, yon can get on all fours again," he told his jocular mount.

  Fluff rose with hydraulic smoothness, his mind ' smiling. "I see. This is a better idea."

  "A new fun thing," Moam agreed. She and Bluebright ambled over to Sylzenznzex and spent a minute arguing over who should have the privilege of trying this new experience first. Moam won the debate. She moved next to the watching thranx and lay down next to her.

  Sylzenzuzex studied that muscular torso apprehensively, glanced across at Flinx. He nodded encouragement, and she climbed carefully onto Moam, dug her claws into the thick fur, and hung on firmly.

  They discovered now how patiently the Ujurrians had walked before, to enable their two pitiful friends to keep up with them. If either Fluff or Moam noticed the weight on their backs it wasn't apparent, and the little group flew through the forest.

  They had only one further mishap, when Flinx was nearly thrown. He barely managed to maintain his seat when Fluff rose without warning onto his two hind legs. He ran on like a biped to the manner born, and at a pace which no Terran bear could have duplicated. With seven limbs to hold on with, Sylzenzuzex kept her perch much more securely when Moam likewise rose to match Fluff's long two-legged stride.

  It was impossible to tell how long or how far they had traveled when they descended into the last valley. From the beginning of the real run until the end, none of the ursinoids slackened their pace, though by then they were puffing slightly,

  This third valley was dominated by the stream they'd run parallel to during their retreat. It broadened into another lake here, though one much smaller than that bordering the miming encampment now far behind them. A new variety of tree grew here among the quasi-evergreens, It had broad, yellow-brown leaves. Certain varieties, Flinx saw in the moonlight, held different kinds of berries, though these were scarce. Others boasted clusters of oval-shelled nuts, some big as cocoanuts.

  "You eat those?" Flinx asked, pointing at the burdened branches.

  "Yes," Fluff informed him.

  "And you also eat meat?"

  "Only in snowtime," his host explained quietly, "when the baiga and magilwc do not bloom. Meat is no fun, and more work. It runs away."

  They were moving toward a steep hillside now. In the soft moonlight Flinx saw that it was bare rock, devoid of talus. Several circles made dark stains against the gray granite.

  Ujurrians of many sizes, including the first cubs they had seen, gamboled between the dark shoreline and the cave mouths.

  "If one doesn't eat meat for variety," Fluff went on, "one begins to feel sick."

  "Why don't you like to eat meat?" Sylzenzuzex wondered.

  Flinx prayed she wouldn't involve their impressionable hosts in some abstract spiritual dialogue.

  Fluff spoke as if to children. "Even the life of the najac or the six-legged ugly coivet is like a piece of the sun. When smothered, the warmth leaves it."

  "We do not like to make bright things dark," Bluebright elaborated. "We would rather make dark things bright. But," he finished mournfully, "we don't know how."

  They slowed to a walk, finally came to a complete stop outside the first of the caves. Flinx observed that the exterior of the entrance was composed of neatly piled boulders, chinked together with smaller rocks and pebbles in the absence of ferrocrete. Motioning for

  Fluff to lie down, he started to slide off the ursinoid's back.

  A glance behind him showed a long glass spear of moonlight broken into pieces by the ripples and eddies on the lake. A look into the cave ahead revealed nothing but blackness.

  "You said everyone shares the same cave. Fluff, but I see other openings in the mountainside."

  "Is all same cave," the native explained.

  "You mean that all connect inside the mountain somewhere?"

  "Yes, all meet one another." A warm mental smile came to him. "Is all part of the game we play."

  "The game?" Sylzenzuzex echoed, chilled despite the fact her thermal suit was set on high. When Fluff didn't comment, she wondered aloud, "Do you think we could build a fire?"

  "Sure," Moam said cheerfully. "What is building a fire? Is like building a cave?"

  Patiently, Flinx explained what was necessary, confident he would have to do so only once.

  "We will go and gather the dead wood," Moam and Bluebright volunteered, when he had finished his explanation.

  "What is this game you play, the one involving your warren. Fluff?" Flinx inquired when the other two had departed.

  Fluff ignored the question, urged them into the cave where he silently exchanged greetings with another huge native.

  "This is Softsmooth, my mate," he informed them in response to the question Flinx phrased in his mind. "You ask about the game, Flinx-friend? ... Our parents' parents' parents many times over-and-dead worried that one day the cold would stay forever, and many lights among the family would vanish.

  "I wouldn't call this a heat wave right now," Sylzenzuzex commented.

  "The cold comes when the sun is s
mothered by the mountains," Fluff explained, "Our many-times parents felt it was becoming colder each year. It seemed to them that each year the sun grew smaller than the year before."

  Flinx nodded slowly. "Your world has an elliptical orbit, Fluff, but it's not a regular orbit. According to the statistics I saw, it's swinging farther and farther away from your sun every century-though how your ancestors realized this I can't imagine."

  "Many new concepts," a frowning Fluff murmured. "Anyhows, our parents many times dead decided how to fix. Should move closer to sun in certain way."

  "They were talking about regularizing Ulru-Ujurr's orbit," Flinx husked. "But how did they know""

  "Have to ask ancestors," Fluff shrugged. "Very difficult to do."

  "I'll bet," Sylzenzuzex agreed readily.

  "Was a new way, though," the big native went on. "Diggers..."

  "The people at the mine?"

  "Yes. They make their own caves very warm. We asked them how we could make warm, too."

  "What did they suggest?" Flinx wondered. Fluff appeared confused. "They told us to dig big hole in the ground and then pull dirt in on top of our- selves. We tried and found it does make warm. But you can't move, and one gets bored that way. Also no light. We did not understand why they told us to do this way. They do not do for themselves. Why they tell us to do that, Flinx-friend?"

  "That's the AAnn excuse for humor at work," he replied with quiet fury.

  "AAnn?" Fluff queried. Moam and Binebright returned, each buried under enormous armload of dead branches.

  "Some of the people at the mine," Flinx explained, "the ones with-the ones with the cold minds."

  "Ah, the cold minds," Fluff echoed in recognition. "We did not see how such cold ones could give us knowledge on how to become warm. But we tried anyway."

  Flinx couldn't look at the amiable native. "How ... how many of the experimenters died?"

  "Experimenters?"

  "The ones who tried burying themselves?"

  "Oh, Flinx-friend worries wrongly. No one died," Fluff assured him, feeling relaxation in the human's mind at these words.

  "You see, we buried Maybeso. ..."