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more lubricious than a handshake held long, but his mouth burned as if he'd
gargled with sambal sauce.
Before he could react or say anything, she'd pivoted and returned to the
controls. "Watch your step. And by that I don't mean look at your feet all the
time. I don't want to go back to running the station solo."
The fire on his mouth lingered, and he wanted to say a great many things. What
he said instead was "I will en-deavor to keep myself intact." Though he
commanded a large army of words, in the presence of women the ones he wanted
to use always seemed to be AWOL when he was most in need of them.
After backing the skimmer out of the inlet, she threw him a perfunctory wave
as she headed for the distant reef line. She'd find a sandy islet with shade
and make herself comfortable until it was time to return and pick him up. It
was how he'd first encountered her; exposing her naked-ness to Senisran's
tropical sun, blissfully indifferent to potential onlookers. Combined with the
lingering taste of her on his lips, it kept him from concentrating on the task
at hand.
He allowed himself to remain distracted for approxi-mately four minutes. Only
then did he put the delight-fully unsettling farewell out of his mind and get
to work.
A quick check of his equipment revealed that all was as he'd stowed it.
Activated, his handheld showed the skimmer moving steadily out to sea.
Disabling the unit's integrated vorec, he used silent manual controls to call
up a detailed map of his present position. It indicated that it was a short
but rugged hike to the small village housing the nearest sacred stone.
He eyed the steep, thickly vegetated slope in front of him and sighed. Better
get going, he told himself. The sooner he obtained a couple of good specimens
and had Fawn pick him up, the sooner he would be able to relax. At his request
file:///F|/rah/Alan%20Dean%20Foster/Foster,%2...%20Flinx%208%20-%20The%20Howli
ng%20Stones.txt (71 of 129) [1/16/03 6:53:44 PM]
file:///F|/rah/Alan%20Dean%20Foster/Foster,%20Alan%20Dean%20-%20Flinx%208%20-%
20The%20Howling%20Stones.txt the handheld mapped out the easiest route up the
ridge. Among other functions, the compact device could pinpoint his position,
Fawn's, and that of potential specimens; compose a respectable weather
prediction on-site; translate all known
Parramati terminology; let him communicate with his colleague, the base
station, or Ophhlia; access the small but rapidly growing Encyclo-pedia
Senisran; and run a fairly thorough health check on human, thranx, or native.
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But it could not walk for him.
Keeping an eye peeled for dangerous animals and toxic plants, he slipped the
pack onto his back and started up. In hopes of avoiding unwanted attention, he
had selected a route that would take him to the most isolated stone
repositories first. Only if these attempts failed would he risk borrowing from
the larger villages. With luck, his first couple of tries would be successful,
and he and
Fawn would be back at base in time for lunch.
He encountered no one in the jungle. The rocky, heavily eroded terrain where
the skimmer had touched shore was not conducive to terrace farming, and the
vegetation was too tangled for good hunting. He welcomed it as an ally since
it would slow communications when astonished stone masters began to spread the
news to the rest of the island of stones gone missing.
Some of the plants and forest dwellers he encountered in the course of his
climb were familiar to him. Others, being endemic to the Vounea, were new.
Ignorant of their properties and capabilities, he treated anything unfamil-iar
with the greatest respect.
One who assumes that everything bites or stings is less likely to get bitten
or stung, he knew. It would be worse than ironic if he were to effortlessly
make off with a couple of prime stones and not be seen at all, only to be laid
low through careless confrontation with a ravavuaa or tesamau. Incapacitation
from natural causes would do nothing to protect him from Parramati wrath if
they found him with the missing stones in his possession.
So he checked every burrow, every overhanging branch, every coarse leaf and
stem, while his sweatcap struggled silently to cool his head and the back of
his neck. In the rugged terrain the humidity seemed magnified. Accli-mated he
might be, but his body was less persuaded than his mind.
He could have chosen an easier route to more accessible targets, but the same
topography that was presently mak-ing him curse under his breath would help to
conceal him when he fled. Occasionally he was forced to change di-rection when
confronted by a grade too steep to ascend or ground too broken to cross, but
the handheld always brought him back on line.
The first stone was kept in a well‑built but that was lo-cated slightly
upslope and isolated from a community of less than a dozen buildings. As he
crept toward the back of the structure, he could hear the villagers' gentle
bark-ing speech rising from below. From its tone he inferred the presence of
only infirm elders and immature cubs.
Vegetation grew right up against the hut, ideal for his purposes. He searched
for a tractable section of wall, care-ful to watch where he put his feet.
Seeking shelter from sun and weather, aggressively large arthropods with
dis-agreeable demeanors often made their homes beneath the shady undersides of
raised native dwellings. Neither querulous native nor inimical fauna
materialized to inter-dict his efforts, however.
The back wall being high and well made, and having heard not a sound from
within, he decided to try around front. The typical traditional wooden porch
was likewise deserted. Still, he advanced with caution. Might be some-one
sleeping late inside, he knew, or an enfeebled oldster, or a sickling at rest.
With a glance in the direction of the village, he whis-pered a generic
Parramati greeting. No response was forth-coming. Stepping through the open
portal, he took note of sleeping quarters off to the left, living space in the
center, and storage to the right. Hygienic facilities would be located
elsewhere, somewhere deeper in the forest. It was a standard floor plan,
repeated with minimal varia-tion throughout the archipelago.
Heading to his right, he found himself in the family storeroom. There was no
food. Dried seafood, meat, flour, fruits, vegetables, and other comestibles
were kept in special communal storage buildings. What he did find were
personal effects, fancy attire and accouterments carefully hung or laid out
for use on ceremonial occasions, fishing gear, eating utensils, and cooking
ware. There
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