Flinx's Folly by Alan Dean Foster Read Free Book Online Page A

them gasped. Probably they did not scream. But a glance backward showed both pursuing repellers rocketing groundward as fast as their pilots could stand. By the time they finally touched down, safely and to all appearances intact, he was well on his way to the landing site at Memeluc town. They did not try to resume the pursuit. Getting a repeller off the ground was difficult even for professional pilots, which was why casual fliers and tourists were dropped from hoverers. He didn’t think they would try—at least, not until the emotions he had planted in their minds had worn off.
    Unafraid of death a person might be, but they could still be made to feel an overpowering fear of heights.
    As her master relaxed, so did Pip, tucking her head back beneath his rented flying suit. Gradually descending toward Memeluc, Flinx strove to analyze the lingering sensations he had gleaned from his would-be assassins. If only he could read thoughts instead of just emotions. They hadn’t been Qwarm. Having caught several glimpses of their attire, he was certain of that. The members of the assassin’s guild were quietly proud of their affiliation and lost no opportunity to display it at every opportunity. They would especially want to do so to a prospective target, so that the intended victim would know exactly who was about to do him in.
    Constables, whether uniformed or plainclothes, would have announced themselves before shooting. Staff from the hospital would have been told to bring him in alive. While certain elements of the Commonwealth government were more than casually interested in him, subsequent to his most recent hasty departure from Earth, they, too, would want to question him, not bury him. Legally, he was guilty of nothing worse than avoidance. And the one individual who might want him dead and was also strong enough to seriously threaten him was, to the best of his knowledge and perceptive talents, not on this world and knew nothing of his present whereabouts.
    Who then? As the rolling forested hills began to give way to the modest conurbation of Memeluc he found he was very tired, and not just from the effort he had expended aloft to avoid being killed. Local authorities, occasionally the Qwarm, and the Commonwealth government all had their reasons for wanting to exert one kind of control or another over him. And now this new element, these new people, whose origins and motives were a complete mystery to him. He sighed heavily. His was not a peaceful life. With every world he stopped at, with every passing year, the tranquillity he sought seemed to fade further into the future. Throw in the occasional encounter with the AAnn, and the only time he ever enjoyed any real peace was when he was traveling alone through space-plus aboard his ship.
    Why did these new would-be assassins want him dead? No effort had been made to communicate with him. They had taken shots without first trying to talk. It was not a case of mistaken identity. That much he had been able to divine from their emotions without having to know their exact thoughts. They had not been mentally unsettled, homicidal thrill seekers out to shoot down the first unsuspecting flier who happened to come their way. They had been waiting for him .
    Even the Qwarm feared death. What philosophical or ethical underpinnings had his pursuers possessed that enabled them to be so indifferent to the possibility of death? Flinx had never encountered anyone sane who had so lacked the basic instinct to survive. And his would-be killers had been sane. That, too, he had perceived.
    It didn’t matter, he decided firmly. Once he turned the repeller in to the rental agency he would take the first high-speed transport back to Reides. The capital’s main shuttleport was located a considerable distance from the outermost urbs. Having been forced more than once to gain access to his grounded shuttlecraft under far more difficult conditions, he had no doubt he would be able to successfully