Flinx Transcendent by Alan Dean Foster Read Free Book Online Page A

traditional hunter of all the AAnn was close on its trail.
    More movement, this time off to his left, caught his attention. Could it be a ssentoom? The brief flash of motion certainly suggested something considerably larger and more active than the harmless and unlucky bhrossod. For an instant Kiijeem, self-anointed mighty hunter that he was, hesitated. Nothing so large ought to have been able to slip past the property's security perimeter. Was part of the barrier down along with its attendant warning electronics? If so, it might be time to call a premature halt to his nighttime stalking and alert an adult. What if some addled ambler had found a hole in the fence and come looking for loot, challenge, or trouble of an unspecified nature? Kiijeem might hunt ssentoom in the middle of the morning, but he was not sure he was ready to challenge a trouble-seeking adult.
    What was this?
he chided himself. Was he not Kiijeem AVMd, fourth of a titled litter, progeny of a noble family? Were the weapons he carried nothing more than decoration; a boost to an ailing confidence, a sop to a frail ego? Why should he, who hunted the deadly ssentoom (if only in his imagination), fear a trespassing citizen? One who was probably mentally deficient or unstable or both? Steeling himself he pressed on, secure in the likelihood that he would have the element of surprise on his side, the justification of an affronted property owner in reserve, and the knowledge that come what may he was a very fast runner.
    He had detected the movement on the far shore of the west pool, the one that was home to his family's prized collection of rare southern temperate river water-dwellers. Was the intruder a common thief?Would someone intent on pilfering small aquatic animals embark on such an activity heavily armed? It seemed superfluous. With that comforting thought in mind Kiijeem continued his advance.
    In keeping with the aesthetics of the high-priced landscaper, the tailored terrain grew more rugged as he approached the pool. Moonlight outlined a figure standing there. Raising the bengk, Kiijeem started forward. As the outlines of the figure grew more defined, he began to slow. In a reflex gesture reflecting his utter astonishment, his tongue slid out of his mouth to hang down the right side of his jaw. The only sound he emitted was a soft metallic
tap
as his tail muscles relaxed and the sheathed tip slumped to the ground. He halted.
    He could not believe what he was seeing.
    Standing before him was a bipedal being he recognized instantly from the standardized component of his formal studies. It was much, much taller than he would have expected. Perhaps an unusual example of its kind. It was slender but well muscled and, just as the relevant imagery had taught him, completely tailless. It was one thing to learn in studies that a tall biped could stand upright without a tail and not fall over, quite another to see the phenomenon in person. While the eyes that were staring back at him were somewhat flattened in their orbits, the pupils were impossibly round.
    Something far smaller and much more colorful was hovering in the air nearby. An alien flying creature, it resembled Kiijeem far more closely than it did its owner. A pet of some kind, or symbiote. The young nye did not recognize the Alaspinian flying snake, having never encountered Alaspin or minidrags in his studies. The tall biped he knew well, however. It was a human. An ally of the thranx, a cofounding race of the hated Commonwealth, and therefore also an implacable enemy. A mixture of fear, loathing, and revulsion churned through the AAnn's digestive organs. The creature's most distinctive defining characteristic was far more obvious in the flesh than it had ever been in the course of his studies.
    It looked so … so
soft
.
    The pulpy flesh had no covering. No scales, as would be natural. No chitin, as did the thranx and many other creatures. Virtually no fur. Even in the poor light Kiijeem thought he