Trouble Magnet by Alan Dean Foster Page A

emotions that filled Flinx to bursting stayed caged within him. Everything that had happened to him from an early age to the present—every experience, every disappointment, every confrontation and conflict to which he had been a participant, every iota of misery and unhappiness, of death and destruction, of malevolence and pure evil—remained put down and locked up in one small section of his mind he had reserved for that purpose. Now he let those emotions out. Just a trickle, the tiniest seep of forlorn despair. Let them out and projected them onto the emotional receptors of the three young men standing before him. He was very careful about how wide he opened the emotive tap. He did not want to kill.
    Tears began to leach from the corners of Chaloni’s eyes. His lips trembled like a little girl’s. His fingers went limp and the stiletto fell from his hand. It had not been activated or it would have cut its way through successive floors all the way down to the ground before its built-in safety finally shut it off. Chaloni started to sob. Pressing his clenched fists against his eyes, he began hammering against them as he dropped to his knees. To his right, Dirran was lying on the floor crying, holding himself, and rocking back and forth. On the other side of the gang leader, Sallow Behdul had not made a sound. Instead, he sat down, curled up into a tight fetal ball, and began sucking softly on the knuckles of his huge right hand.
    Subar discovered that his throat had gone dry. “What—what did you do to them?”
    “Nothing much.” Flinx’s eyes were once more fully open. “Gave them the tiniest taste of dark water.”
    Careful to avoid the glaze-eyed, blankly staring Behdul, Subar stepped forward and pivoted to confront his guest. “I didn’t see any water.”
    The thinnest of smiles creased Flinx’s face. “I turned it off. Listen, I’m pretty rested. Thanks for showing me your ‘place.’” He started to push past the staring youth, heading for the exit.
    Subar’s thoughts moved as fast as they ever had in his life. Somehow this offworlder, this Flinx, had put down the three toughest members of Subar’s acquaintance without laying a finger on any of them. It reminded him of another inexplicable moment; of what the visitor had done to him earlier. Something from within, the stranger had told him. It was, it had to be, some kind of trick. But what kind? And if he was right, could his guest possibly teach it to him? Useful—oh yes, the tall longsong could be useful. If he was going to learn anything, Subar knew he still had to figure out a way to keep Flinx around.
    “This isn’t my place,” he announced hurriedly.
    Pausing in the portal, Flinx peered back at him. “It’s not?”
    “No, no. It’s just our priv space, where we get together to, uh, socialize.”
    And plan muggings, and who knew what else. Flinx had been there before. Other times, other worlds. All of them equally disheartening.
    Taking the unknown by the know-nothing, Subar ignored his still-sobbing friends and rushed forward a couple of steps until he was standing in front of Flinx. “C’mon. Let me show you my place. You might find it interesting. It might make some things clearer to you.”
    Flinx hesitated. “I told you—I can’t stay.”
    Steeling himself in case whatever had touched him previously reached across the gap separating him from his visitor to touch him again, Subar entreated as earnestly as he could.
    “I don’t know what it is that you want here, but if I can help, I will. Because you saved me from the police,” he lied.
    Flinx knew the youth was lying. As long as his erratic Talent was functioning, he could always tell when someone was lying. But there was something else there, something more. A hunger that went beyond the simple simian emotions that had boiled blatantly within the minds of Chaloni and his companion hooligans. Was he right about the youth? Was there, after all, some hope for one who reminded