Running from the Deity by Alan Dean Foster Read Free Book Online

ill, Ebbanai?”
    “No, I’m not.” Coming closer, he extended all eight gripping flanges. “At least, I don’t think I am.”
    Inclining his head forward, he extended the two fleshy antennae that protruded from its forepart. They made contact with those of his mate. The emotional charge that coursed through him and into her was strong enough to shock. Startled, she untwined her antennae from his as fast as if they had been greased, and drew back. This time her eyes were wide, having expanded considerably within their flexible sockets.
    “Mersance!”
she exclaimed, her attitude toward him completely altered by the emotions he had conveyed. “What happened, mate-mine? What
did
you see out there?” Her characteristic sarcasm had now given way entirely to concern.
    “I’m not sure. A miracle, or a bad dream, or maybe something else. Something impossible, that’s for certain.” Moving past her, he slumped into a collapsed crouch beside the entrance to the kitchen. When she acknowledged the gesture with one of her own, he entered. But though the night-stew she had boiled for him beckoned, he found he was too nervous to sup. Instead, he edged cautiously toward the single window to stare out into the night. Coming up behind him, she placed both sets of right flanges on his shoulder.
    “I had set the thoralls and was casting the first net of the evening,” he told her without tearing his gaze away from the view, “when something came down out of the sky.”
    Her expression was pinched. “Down out of the sky?”
    His antennae wove patterns in the air. “I thought a fourth moon had appeared and was falling toward me. When it drew nearer I saw that it was not a moon, but a machine of some kind.” Seeing the look on her face, he hurried his explanation. “It touched down not far from the place where I ran and hid. Even as I was staring at it, it changed and became a line of large dunes. Then a hole appeared in the side of one of these new dunes. It was filled with light, from which a strange being emerged.” Though she was now looking at him with something less than concerned compassion, he resolutely soldiered on.
    “This creature was unlike us, but not unrecognizably so. It stood upright, but had upper and lower limbs that did not properly divide. Though no taller than I, it was much broader. It had two absurdly small eyes, and skin as smooth as a sheet of fabric, and a thick cluster of red tendrils atop its head, though because of the distance and the darkness I could not tell if they were for feeding or had some other purpose.” His antennae bobbed significantly. “Certainly they were too numerous, too small, and too thin to serve for touching.
    “The being was not alone. It was companioned by a small, brightly colored winged creature that seemed to respond to its mouth-noises. Or maybe to the gestures the larger creature made.” He shuddered again at the remembrance of that unnatural, monolithic arm and its multiple digits gesturing into the night sky.
    “When it turned to look back at its dune-machine, I took the opportunity to run away. I didn’t stop running until I came through our portal.”
    She stared at him for a long time, the stew simmering on the cookbin behind her. “Well,
something
certainly scared you.” Her antennae twitched expressively in his direction. “I felt the truth of that. The question is, what?”
    He was breathing without effort now, if not necessarily more confidently. “I told you, Storra. It is just as I’ve told you.”
    “Is it?” Two sets of gripping flaps were clasped together in front of her torso. “Who ever heard of such a thing? Falling machines that turn into dunes. Lumbering beings who have lost arms and legs and don’t even have Sensitives.” The pair protruding from her head rubbed against each other. “Would not any creature capable of mastering such marvels have to be of a high order of intelligence?”
    “
Vyst,
certainly,” he agreed, wondering