Flinx of the Commonwealth(1983)

Alan Dean Foster

Omnibus edition of For Love of Mother-Not, The Tar-Aiym Krang and Orphan Star.

He's just an 8-year-old orphan when Mother Mastiff notices him on the Drallar City auction block, as unkempt and unremarkable as any street urchin she's seen in her uncountable years on planet Moth. But beneath the freckles and red hair--not to mention dirt--are a pair of wide green eyes that awaken previously unknown feelings. And before she knows it, she finds herself buying the strange small boy named Flinx.

Just another mouth to feed, say Mother Mastiff's second thoughts, but she stops resenting her inexplicable purchase when she witnesses Flinx's psychic influence on the customers of her rattletrap gift-shop. She even lets him keep Pip, the brightly hued--and deadly--Alaspinian mini-drag Flinx finds...and with whom he bonds as if they were of one mind. For as time goes by, Mother Mastiff comes to love the boy as her own, nurturing him, teaching him everything she knows--and hoping he'll survive into adulthood.

That may prove more dicey than she'd care to admit. By the age of sixteen, Flinx is as lithe, quick and quiet as any jungle cat--traits that make him a superb thief and con-artist. But far more deadly than his affinity for the Commonwealth underworld is his unknown history, a past destined to rear its head in terrifying ways, sending him on a wild journey in search of his true self.

In For Love of Mother-Not, the renegade group of scientists responsible for Flinx's psychic gifts scheme to get him back--by holding hostage the only person he ever truly care for: Mother Mastiff. In The Tar-Aiym Krang, Flinx must find an ancient otherworldly device that could hold the key to his true nature--or become the deadliest weapon in the Commonwealth. And in Orphan Star, Flinx comes closer than ever to learning about his biological parents--and a family tie to power that can either strengthen or destroy them.