For Love Of Mother-Not Part 1

FOR LOVE OF MOTHER-NOT.

by Alan Dean Foster.

For Michael and Audrey and Alexa Whelan; good neighbors...

Chapter One.

"Now there's a scrawny, worthless-looking little runt," Mother Mastiff thought. She cuddled the bag of woodcarvings a little closer to her waist, making certain it was protected from the rain by a flap of her slickertic. The steady drizzle that characterized Drallar's autumn weather fled from the water-resistant material.

Offworlders were hard pressed to distinguish any difference in the city's seasons. In the summer, the rain was warm; in autumn and winter, it was cooler. Springtime saw it give way to a steady, cloying fog. So rare was the appearance of the sun through the near-perpetual cloud cover that when it did peep through, the authorities were wont to call a public holiday.

It was not really a slave market Mother Mastiff was trudging past. That was an archaic term, employed only by cynics. It was merely the place where labor-income adjustments were formalized.

Drallar was the largest city on the world of Moth, its only true metropolis, and it was not a particularly wealthy one. By keeping taxes low, it had attracted a good number of offworld businesses and, trading concerns to a well-situated but mostly inhospitable planet. It compensated by largely doing away with such annoying commercial aggravations as tariffs and regulations. While this resulted in considerable prosperity for some, it left the city government at a loss for general revenue.

Among the numerous areas that were rarely self-supporting was that involving care of the impoverished. In cases in which indigence was total and an individual was isolated by circ.u.mstance, it was deemed reasonable to allow a wealthier citizen to take over responsibility from the government. This thinned the welfare rolls and kept the bureaucracy content, while providing better care for the individual involved-or so the officials insisted-than he or she could receive from underfunded and impersonal government agencies.

The United Church, spiritual arm of the Commonwealth, frowned on such one-sided economic policies. But the Commonwealth did not like to interfere with domestic policies, and Drallarian officials hastened to a.s.sure the occasional visiting padre or counselor that legal safeguards prevented abuse of "adopted" individuals.

So it was that Mother Mastiff found herself leaning on her cane, clutching the bag of artwork, and staring at the covered dispers.e.m.e.nt platform while she tried to catch her breath. One curious attendee moved too close, crowding her. He glowered when she jabbed him in the foot with her cane but moved aside, not daring to confront her.

Standing motionless on the platform within the Circle of Compensation was a thin, solemn boy of eight or nine years. His red hair was slicked down from the rain and contrasted sharply with his dark skin. Wide, innocent eyes, so big they seemed to wrap around the sides of his face, stared out across the rain-dampened a.s.sembly. He kept his hands clasped behind his back. Only those eyes moved, their gaze flicking like an insect over the upturned faces of the crowd. The majority of the milling, would-be purchasers were indifferent to his presence.

To the boy's right stood a tall, slim representative of the government, who ran the official sale-an a.s.signment of responsibility, they called it-for the welfare bureau. Across from her a large readout listed the boy's vital statistics, which Mother Mastiff eyed casually.

Height and weight matched what she could see. Color of hair, eyes, and skin she had already noted. Living relatives, a.s.signed or otherwise-a blank there. Personal history-another blank. A child of accident and calamity, she thought, thrown like so many others on the untender mercies of government care. Yes, he certainly would be better off under the wing of a private individual, by the looks of him. He might at least receive some decent food.

And yet there was something more to him, something that set him apart from the listless procession of orphans who paraded across that rain-swept platform, season after season. Mother Mastiff sensed something lurking behind those wide, mournful eyes-a maturity well beyond his years, a greater intensity to his stare than was to be expected from a child in his position. That stare continued to rove over the crowd, probing, searching. There was more of the hunter about the boy than the hunted.

The rain continued to fall. What activity there was among the watchers was concentrated on the back right corner of the platform, where a modestly attractive girl of about sixteen was next in line for consignment. Mother Mastiff let out a derisive snort. Government a.s.surances or not, you couldn't tell her that those pus.h.i.+ng, shoving snots in the front row didn't have something on their minds beyond an innocently altruistic concern for the girl's future. Oh, no!

The ever-s.h.i.+fting cl.u.s.ter of potential benefactors formed an island around which eddied the greater population of the marketplace. The marketplace itself was concentrated into a ring of stalls and shops and restaurants and dives that encircled the city center. The result was just modern enough to function and sufficiently unsophisticated to attract those intrigued by the mysterious.

It held no mysteries for Mother Mastiff. The marketplace of Drallar was her home. Ninety years she had spent battling that endless river of humanity and aliens, sometimes being sucked down, sometimes rising above the flow, but never in danger of drowning.

Now she had a shop-small, but her own. She bargained for objets d'art, traded knicknacks, electronics, and handicrafts, and managed to make just enough to keep herself clear of such places as the platform on which the boy was standing. She put herself in his place and shuddered. A ninety-year-old woman would not bring much of a price.

There was an awkwardly patched rip at the neck of her slickertic, and rain was beginning to find its way through the widening gap. The pouch of salables she clutched to her thin waist wasn't growing any lighter. Mother Mastiff had other business to transact, and she wanted to be back home before dark. As the sun of Moth set, the murky daylight of Drallar would fade to a slimy darkness, and things less than courteous would emerge from the slums that impinged on the marketplace. Only the careless and the c.o.c.ky wandered abroad at such times, and Mother Mastiff was neither.

As the boy's eyes roved over the audience, they eventually reached her own-and stopped. Suddenly, Mother Mastiff felt queasy, unsteady. Her hand went to her stomach. Too much grease in the morning's breakfast, she thought. The eyes had already moved on. Since she had turned eighty-five, she had had to watch her diet. But, as she had told a friend, "I'd rather die of indigestion and on a full stomach than waste away eating pills and concentrates."

"One side there," she abruptly found herself saying, not sure what she was doing or why. "One side." She broke a path through the crowd, poking one observer in the ribs with her cane, disturbing an ornithorpe's ornate arrangement of tail feathers, and generating a chirp of indignation from an overweight matron. She worked her way down to the open area directly in front of the platform. The boy took no notice of her; his eyes continued to scan the uncaring crowd.

"Please, ladies and gentlebeings," the official on the platform pleaded, "won't one of you give this healthy, honest boy a home? Your government requests it of you; civilization demands it of you. You have a chance today to do two good turns at once; one for your king and the other for this unfortunate youth."

"I'd like to give the king a good turn, all right," said a voice from the milling crowd, "right where it would do him the most good."

The official shot the heckler an angry glare but said nothing.

"What's the minimum asking?" Be that my my voice? Mother Mastiff thought in wonderment. voice? Mother Mastiff thought in wonderment.

"A mere fifty credits, madam, to satisfy department obligations and the boy is yours. To watch over and care for." She hesitated, then added, "If you think you can handle as active a youngster as this one."

"I've handled plenty of youngsters in my time," Mother Mastiff returned curtly. Knowing hoots sounded from the amused a.s.sembly. She studied the boy, who was looking down at her again. The queasiness that had roiled in her stomach the first time their eyes had met did not reoccur. Grease, she mused, have to cut down on the cooking grease.

"Fifty credits, then," she said.

"Sixty." The deep voice that boomed from somewhere to the rear of the crowd came as an unexpected interruption to her thoughts.

"Seventy," Mother Mastiff automatically responded. The official on the platform quickly gazed back into the crowd.

"Eighty," the unseen compet.i.tor sounded.

She hadn't counted on compet.i.tion. It was one thing to do a child a good turn at reasonable cost to herself, quite another to saddle herself with an unconscionable expense.

"Ninety-curse you," she said. She turned and tried to locate her opponent but could not see over the heads of the crowd. The voice bidding against her was male, powerful, piercing. What the devil would the owner of such a voice want with a child like this? she thought.

"Ninety-five," it countered.

"Thank you, thank you. To you, both, the government says." The official's tone and expression had brightened perceptibly. The lively and utterly unexpected bidding for the redheaded brat had alleviated her boredom as well as her concern. She would be able to show her boss a better than usual daily account sheet. "The bid is against you, madam."

"d.a.m.n the bid," Mother Mastiff muttered. She started to turn away, but something held her back. She was as good a judge of people as she was of the stock she sold to them, and there was something particular about this boy-though she couldn't say precisely what, which struck her as unusual. There was always profit in the unusual. Besides, that mournful stare was preying unashamedly on a part of her she usually kept buried.

"Oh, h.e.l.l, one hundred, then, and be d.a.m.ned with it!" She barely managed to squeeze the figure out. Her mind was in a whirl. What was she doing there, neglecting her regular business, getting thoroughly soaked and bidding for an orphaned child? Surely at ninety her maternal instinct wasn't being aroused. She had never felt the least maternal instinct in her life, thank goodness.

She waited for the expected rumble of "one hundred and five," but instead heard a commotion toward the back of the crowd. She craned her neck, trying to see, cursing the genes that had left her so short. There were shouts, then yells of outrage and loud cursing from a dozen different throats. To the left, past the s.h.i.+elding bulk of the ornithorpe behind her, she could just make out the bright purple flash of uniformed gendarmes, their slickertics glaring in the dim light. This group seemed to be moving with more than usual energy.

She turned and fought her way forward and to the right, where a series of steps led to the platform. Halfway up the stairs, she squinted back into the crowd. The purple 'tics were just merging into the first wall of office and shop complexes. Ahead of them a ma.s.sive human shape bobbed and dipped as it retreated from the pursuing police.

Mother Mastiff permitted herself a knowing nod. There were those who might want a young boy for other than humanitarian purposes. Some of them had criminal dossiers on file that stretched as far back as her lifeline. Obviously someone in the crowd, a salaried informer, perhaps, had recognized the individual bidding against her and had notified the authorities, who had responded with commendable speed.

"One hundred credits, then," the disappointed official announced from the platform. "Do I hear any more?" Naturally, she would not, but she played out the game for appearance's sake. A moment pa.s.sed in silence. She shrugged, glanced over to where Mother Mastiff still stood on the stairway. "He's yours, old woman." Not "madam" any longer, Mother Mastiff thought sardonically. "Pay up, and mind the regulations, now."

"I've been dealing with the regulations of this government since long before ye were born, woman." She mounted the last few steps and, ignoring the official and the boy, strode back toward the Processing Office.

Inside, a bored clerk glanced up at her, noted the transaction-complete record as it was pa.s.sed to his desk-top computer terminal, and asked matter-of-factly, "Name?"

"Mastiff," the visitor replied, leaning on her cane.

"That the last name?"

"First and last."

"Mastiff Mastiff?" The clerk gave her a sour look.

"Just Mastiff Mastiff," the old woman said.

"The government prefers multiple names."

"Ye know what the government can do with its preferences."

The clerk sighed. He tapped the terminal's keys. "Age?"

"None of your business." She gave it a moment's thought and added, "Put down old old."

The clerk did so, shaking his head dolefully. "Income?"

"Sufficient."

"Now look here, you" the clerk began exasperated, "in such matters as the acquisition of responsibility for welfared individuals, the city government requires certain specifics."

"The city government can shove its specifics in after its preferences." Mother Mastiff gestured toward the platform with her cane, a wide, sweeping gesture that the clerk had the presence of mind to duck. "The bidding is over. The other bidder has taken his leave. Hastily. Now I can take my money and go home, or I can contribute to the government's balance of payments and to your salary. Which is it to be?"

"Oh, all right," the clerk agreed petulantly. He completed his entries and punched a key. A seemingly endless form spat from the printout slot. Folded, it was about half a centimeter thick. "Read these."

Mother Mastiff hefted the sheaf of forms. "What are they?"

"Regulations regarding your new charge. The boy is yours to raise, not to mistreat. Should you ever be detected in violation of the instructions and laws therein stated"-he gestured at the wad-"he can be recovered from you with forfeiture of the acquisition fee. In addition, you must familiarize yourself with-" He broke off the lecture as the boy in question was escorted into the room by another official.

The youngster glanced at the clerk, then up at Mother Mastiff. Then, as if he'd performed similar rituals on previous occasions, he walked quietly up to her, took her left hand, and put his right hand in it. The wide, seemingly guileless eyes of a child gazed up at her face. They were bright green, she noted absently.

The clerk was about to continue, then found something unexpected lodged in his throat and turned his attention instead back to his desk top. "That's all. The two of you can go."

Mother Mastiff harrumphed as if she had won a victory and led the boy out onto the streets of Drallar. They had supplied him with that one vital piece of clothing, a small blue slickertic of his own. He pulled the cheap plastic tighter over his head as they reached the first intersection.

"Well, boy, 'tis done. Devil come take me and tell me if I know why I did it, but I expect that I'm stuck with ye now. And ye with me, of course. Do you have anything at the dorm we should go to recover?"

He shook his head slowly. Quiet sort, she thought. That was all to the good. Maybe he wouldn't be a quick squaller. She still wondered what had prompted her sudden and uncharacteristic outburst of generosity. The boy's hand was warm in her gnarled old palm. That palm usually enfolded a credcard for processing other people's money or artwork to be studied with an eye toward purchase and even, on occasion, a knife employed for something more radical than the preparation of food, but never before the hand of a small child. It was a peculiar sensation.

They worked their way through crowds hurrying to beat the onset of night, avoiding the drainage channels that ran down the center of each street. Thick aromas drifted from the dozens of food stalls and restaurants that fringed the avenue they were walking. Still the boy said not a word. Finally, tired of the way his face would turn toward any place from which steam and smells rose, Mother Mastiff halted before one establishment with which she was familiar. They were nearly home, anyway.

"You hungry, boy?"

He nodded slowly, just once.

"Stupid of me. I can go all day without food and not give it a second thought. I forget sometimes that others have not that tolerance in their bellies." She nodded toward the doorway. "Well, what are ye waiting for?"

She followed him into the restaurant, then led the way to a quiet booth set against the wall. A circular console rose from the center of the table. She studied the menu imprinted on its flank, compared it with the stature of the child seated expectantly next to her, then punched several b.u.t.tons set alongside the menu.

Before too long, the console sank into the table, then reappeared a moment later stacked with food; a thick, pungent stew dimpled with vegetables, long stalks of some beige tuber, and a ma.s.s of multistriped bread.

"Go ahead," she said when the boy hesitated, admiring his reserve and table manners. "I'm not too hungry, and I never eat very much."

She watched him while he devoured the food, sometimes picking at the colorful bread to a.s.suage what little hunger she felt herself, barely acknowledging the occasional greeting from a pa.s.sing acquaintance or friend. When the bottom of the stew bowl had been licked to a fine polish and the last sc.r.a.p of bread had vanished, she asked, "Still hungry?"

He hesitated, measuring her, then gave her a half nod. "I'm not surprised," she replied, "but I don't want ye to have any more tonight. You've just downed enough to fill a grown man. Any more on top of what you've already had and you'd end up wasting it all. Tomorrow morning, okay?" He nodded slowly, understanding.

"And one more thing, boy. Can ye talk?"

"Yes." His voice was lower than- antic.i.p.ated, unafraid and, she thought, tinged with thankfulness.

"I can talk pretty good," he added without further prompting, surprising her. "I've been told that for my age I'm a very good talker."

"That's nice. I was starting to worry." She slid from her seat, using her cane to help her stand, and took his hand once again. "It's not too far now."

"Not too far to where?"

"To where I live. To where ye will live from now on." They exited the restaurant and were enveloped by the wet night.

"What's your name?" He spoke without looking up at her, preferring instead to study the dim storefronts and isolated, illuminated shops. The intensity of his inspection seemed unnatural.

"Mastiff," she told him, then grinned. " 'Tis not my real name, boy, but one that someone laid upon me many years ago. For better or worse, it's stuck longer with me than any man. 'Tis the name of a dog of exceptional ferocity and ugliness."

"I don't think you're ugly," the boy replied. "I think you're beautiful."

She studied his open, little-boy expression. Dim-witted, dim-sighted, or maybe just very smart, she thought.

"Can I call you Mother?" he asked hopefully, further confusing her. "You are my mother now, aren't you?"

"Sort of, I expect. Don't ask me why."

"I won't cause you any trouble." His voice was suddenly concerned, almost frightened. "I've never caused anyone any trouble, honest. I just want to be left alone."

Now what would prompt a desperate confession like that? she wondered. She decided not to pursue the matter. "I've no demands to make on ye," she a.s.sured him. "I'm a simple old woman, and I live a simple life. It pleases me. It had best please ye as well."

"It sounds nice," he admitted agreeably. "I'll do my best to help you any way I can."

"Devil knows there's plenty to do in the shop. I'm not quite as flexible as I used to be." She chuckled aloud. "Get tired before midnight now. You know, I actually need a full four hours' sleep? Yes, I think ye can be of service. You'd best be. Ye cost enough."

"I'm sorry," he said, abruptly downcast.

"Stop that. I'll have none of that in my home."

"I mean, I'm sorry that I upset you."

She let out a wheeze of frustration, knelt and supported herself with both hands locked to the shaft of the cane. It brought her down to his eye level. He stood there and gazed solemnly back at her.

"Now ye listen to me, boy. I'm no government agent. I don't have the vaguest notion what possessed me to take charge of ye, but 'tis done. I will not beat you unless you deserve it. I'll see to it that you're well fed and reasonably warm. In return, I demand that ye don't go about braying stupid things like 'I'm sorry.' Be that a deal?"