The End of the Matter Read Online Free PDF Page B

through cautiously.
    A quick glance revealed that this floor was being lived on. It was sparsely but comfortably appointed. In a far, dark corner an attractive but tired-looking young woman was huddling on cushions, cuddling a much younger girl protectively in her arms. She was staring fearfully at the Qwarm.
    Flinx returned his attention to the assassins. While her companion held the shade back, the woman was readying the black pistol, her arm resting motionless on the windowsill. Without question, she was about to murder the alien.
    He had learned everything he could here; there was no point in staying around. As he started to retreat back down the stairs, the woman in the dark corner saw him and drew in a startled breath. No normal person would have noticed it, but to the Qwarm it might just as well have been a scream. Both whirled from the window, startled. Pip was off Flinx’s shoulder before the youth could restrain the minidrag.
    Reaching for his boot top, Flinx heard a slight
phut
from the supposed dart pistol. The explosive shell blew apart the section of floor he had just been leaning against. Then he rose and threw the knife in one smooth motion at the other Qwarm, who was fumbling at a belt pouch. It struck the man in the neck. He went down, trying to staunch the flow of blood from his severed artery.
    The female hesitated ever so slightly, unable to make up her mind whether to fire at Flinx or at the darting, leathery little nightmare above her. The hesitation was fatal. Pip spat, and the minidrag’s venom struck the woman in the eyes. Unbelievably, she didn’t scream as she stumbled about the room, clawing frantically at her face. She banged into the wall, fell over the twitching body of the man, and began rolling on the floor.
    Fifteen seconds later, she was dead.
    The man continued to bleed, though he had stopped moving. Flinx entered the room and rapidly inspected side rooms and closets. He was safe—for the moment. The little girl in the corner was crying softly now, but the woman holding her merely stared wide-eyed at Flinx, still too terrified to scream.
    “Don’t tell a soul of this,” Flinx admonished her as a nervous Pip coiled once more around his right shoulder.
    “We won’t . . . please, don’t kill us,” the woman whispered in fear. Flinx gazed into blank, pleading eyes. The little girl stared at the two motionless bodies, trying to understand.
    Flinx found himself staggering back toward the stairway. Without even bothering to recover his knife, he plunged down the steps. Somehow he had completely lost control of events and as had happened too often in the past, events had ended up controlling him.
    At the bottom of the stairs he paused, regarding the open doorway as an enemy. A glance right and left showed that this floor was still deserted. There had to be a back way out; he went hunting and found a little-used exit opening onto a narrow, smelly alley. The pathway appeared empty. After a careful search, he started down it at a brisk trot. Soon he was back on the streets. The moment he was convinced he wasn’t being followed, he turned and angled back toward the stage, approaching it from a new direction.
    As for the woman with the child, he suspected she would find new lodgings as quickly and quietly as possible. She might notify the police and she might not.
    By the time he reached his destination, the show was concluding. He slipped easily into the protective wall of bodies. Nothing had changed: The trainer was still making jokes at the dopey alien’s expense and the alien was bearing it all with the serenity of the softheaded. And that oval head
did
look soft, Flinx reflected. So why had the Qwarm felt it necessary to use such dangerously identifiable explosive projectiles?
    A respectable amount of applause and some tossed coins were awarded at the end of the show, as much for uniqueness as for polish, he suspected. The trainer scrambled about after the coins without regard for