Read The Tar-aiym Krang for Free Online Page B

coupling to find here.”
    “They’ve been in every night for four nights running now, and they drink steadily, although it seems to have about as much effect on them as water. But to the point. As is plain to a
Mottl-
bird, they are strangers here. Yesterday they first began inquiring after a guide, saying that they wish to see more of the city. I was at a loss to help them until I thought of you. But now, since you are grown as rich as the king. . . .”
    “No, no. Wait.” Flinx was feeling expansive. Perhaps it was the beer. “They should be good for a few stories, if nothing else. Yes, I’ll assume the conveyance.”
    Symm grinned and ruffled the boy’s hair roughly. “Good! I thought a glimpse of them might persuade you, as your interest in things off-world is notorious. Why it should be, though, the Tree knows! Wait here, I’ll go tell them.”
    He went out from behind the bar and over to the booth. Through the faintly puce haze induced by the beer he could see the giant part the curtain and murmur to the two beings within.
    “Well,” he muttered to himself. “One thing’s helping, anyways. At least they’re not common tourists. Perhaps I’ll be spared the agony of watching them chortle over buying shiploads of junk at three times the honest price.” He made a sound that was a long hiss ending in a popped bubble. A scaly, smug head popped up from the bowl of demolished pretzels, which had shrunken considerably in volume. The minidrag slid out onto the table and up the proffered arm, curling into its familiar position on Flinx’s shoulder. It burped once, sheepishly.
    Symm returned with the two off-worlders in tow. “This youth is called Flinx, sirs, and offers to be your guide. A finer or more knowledgeable one cannot be found in the city. Do not be misled by his comparative youth, for he has already acquired more information than is good for him.”
    Here at close range Flinx was able to study his two charges better. He did so, intently. The tall human was a fair sixth meter shorter than the huge Symm, but the thranx was truly a giant of its kind. With its upper body raised as it was now, its eyes were almost on a level with Flinx’s own. The entire insect was a full 2 meters long. One and a half was normal for a male of the species. That their eyes were busy in their own scrutiny of him he did not mind. As a performer he was more than used to that. But he found himself looking away from those great golden orbs. Meeting them was too much like staring into an ocean of shattered prisms. He wondered what it was like to view life that way, through a thousand tiny eyes instead of merely two large ones.
    When the man spoke, it was with a surprisingly melodious voice. “How do you do, youngster. Our good dispenser of spirits here informs us that you are practically indispensable to one who wishes to see something of your city.”
    He extended a hand and Flinx shook it, surprised at the calluses there. As the effects of the mildly hallucinogenic brew wore off, he became increasingly aware of the uniqueness of the two beings he was going to be associating with. Each exuded an aura of something he’d not encountered before, even in his wanderings among the denizens of the shuttleport.
    “My name is Tse-Mallory . . . Bran. And this, my companion, is the Eint Truzenzuzex.”
    The insect bowed from the “waist” at the introduction, a swooping, flowing motion not unlike that of a lake-skimmer diving for a surface swimming fish. Another surprise: it spoke Terranglo, instead of symbospeech. Here was a learned and very polite bug indeed! Few thranx had the ability to master more than a few elementary phrases of Terranglo. Its inherent logical inconsistencies tended to give them headaches. The insect’s pronunciation, however, was as good as his own. The rasping quality of it was made unavoidable by the different arrangement of vocal cords.
    “High metamorphosis to you, youth. We’ve been in need of a