CHAPTER 14
When light and awareness began to return in equal measure, Flinx found that he was not entirely mystified at what had happened. Because the same thing had happened to him several times before. Most recently on Visaria when an alien assassin had tried to kill him, and again on a previous occasion when the offending party had been comprised of human executioners. While he had confessed to Anayabi his abilities as an empathetic telepath, he had neglected to mention the singular and still-unknown attribute that had sporadically stepped in to defend him whenever he was on the verge of being killed. His impulsive and instinctive attempt to protect Pip had placed him in that position yet again, and had once more caused the mysterious mechanism to engage.
He wondered if Anayabi had survived long enough to be enlightened.
Pip was injured, but alive. She lay coiled on the floor, licking her perforated wing. Picking her up carefully, Flinx cradled her in his left arm while stroking her gently with his other hand and whispering soothing words. While comforting her, he studied the damage that had been done to the room. Though he had a good idea what had happened, he still had no clearer idea how he managed to wreak such havoc. As it had on all previous such occasions, the unidentified, innate mechanism that involuntarily engaged to protect his life had concurrently rendered him unconscious.
A perfectly round hole some two meters in diameter had appeared in the rear wall, about a meter above the floor and halfway between the still-smoldering fireplace and another doorway. Approaching the gap, he saw that another chamber lay beyond the one in which he was standing. Conspicuous in the next room’s far wall was a second hole. It was a perfect match to the one through which he was staring. Beyond it, another room and still another corresponding hole. Seen through this third consecutive circular gap, rocky landscape was visible. The faint rush of distant wind could be heard over the crackle of the fireplace. If his shadowy defensive ability had punched a hole in the weather, that was not visible.
Neither was Anayabi. There was no sign of the ex-Meliorare. That is, there was not if one discounted the revealing discolorations that stained the edges of the first hole. These sprayed outward from the still-crumbling periphery in a faint ray-like pattern, like a mottled sunburst. Some of the stains were pale white; others, a very faint red in hue. The explosive medium was comprised of bone and blood that had been powdered and vaporized.
Unaccountably, Flinx felt sick to his stomach. Having in his relatively short life already encountered far too much untidy death, he was no stranger to the ghastly fascia of gore. He had unavoidably been responsible for a portion of it himself. Then why should this one particular incident affect him so?
After all, Anayabi was not his biological father. In detailing Flinx’s origins, the Meliorare gengineer had callously admitted as much. He was no more Flinx’s father than Theon al-bar Cocarol had been. Their “relationship” to him had been that of manufacturers to a product, of scientists to an experiment. So what if they were the closest things Flinx would ever know to a paternal parent?
How many men, he mused mordantly, got to kill their father twice over?
The two Meliorares were not all that his visit to Visaria and now Gestalt had dispatched. Following Anayabi’s harsh and uncompromising explication, something else inside Flinx had died. Whereas previously he had only felt terribly, dreadfully alienated, there was now a vast emptiness within him, as if he had gone all hollow inside. You were made, the late, unlamented Anayabi had told him. You are a manufacture.
A manufacture. A human manufacture. Wasn’t that a contradiction in terms? But then, he told himself, what was Homo sapiens stripped of pretension and self-importance if not an organic machine? In the end, was it the process of manufacture that was important, or the product? Certainly the Meliorares had subscribed to the latter belief. If he believed similarly, was he the same as they? Was there in the final analysis anything to differentiate him from his cold, calculating progenitors?
Ethics, perhaps. Morals. A sense of purpose. The last, he knew, was in imminent danger of slipping away. Concern for others, certainly. He was sure that still held true because he spent the next hour searching the house for medical supplies with which to treat Pip’s injured wing. Careful scrutiny with the handheld scanner he found indicated that the damage was confined mostly to membrane. Given time and care, it should heal good as new. Pip would soar again. Would he?
A check of a chronometer showed that several hours remained until evening. That was when the transportation Anayabi had earlier unwittingly engaged to take his then as-yet-unidentified house guest back to Tlossene was due to arrive. Flinx would go out to meet the transporter as soon as it appeared. It would be more circumspect to do that than to allow potentially querulous visitors a look at the building’s violently altered interior.
While he was treating Pip, yet another unwelcome thought presented itself. Were the Meliorares the only ones who knew the truth of his origins? Could there be others who had been monitoring his progress, his life, his activities, all along? Had the Eint Truzenzuzex and Bran Tse-Mallory really just casually made his acquaintance in Drallar one day all those many years ago? For a moment, feverish suspicion and acute paranoia threatened to overwhelm all other thoughts.
Then his reflections turned to Mother Mastiff. There had been no guile in that gruff old woman, he was certain. If any of the deeply held sentiment she felt toward him was made up, he would long since have perceived its speciousness.
Take one step at a time, she had often told him, wagging a finger warningly in his face as she did so. Even if it’s a small step.
Very well. That was what he would do. Care for Pip, make his way back to Tlossene, board his shuttle, and rejoin the Teacher. Once more back in familiar, secure surroundings, he could then decide how to proceed. With the task Tse-Mallory and Tru had placed on him. With his life. If he decided the first was worth completing. If he decided the second was worth pursuing.
Lost within himself and just plain lost, he also lost track of the time. It seemed that mere minutes had passed since he had finished treating Pip when he heard the sound of the approaching transport. Setting and sealing her wounded wing as best he could, he wrapped her loosely in the same blanket that had warmed him earlier and carried her outside.
While he waited in the open alcove that fronted the residence, isolated flakes of pink snow swirled around him, perishing against the warmth of his face or lingering longer on his clothes. What thoughts he succeeding in mustering were focused elsewhere, on matters and people and worlds far from Gestalt. He had to decide whether to return to deal with them and if so, what questions to ask, what challenges to put forward. He had to decide not only how much he was willing to extend himself to help others survive, but also himself. It was going to be harder than ever to implement such tasks. Coming to Gestalt in hopes of expanding his own reality, he had been left instead with an empty shell.
The approaching skimmer did not bother to circle. Its confident pilot brought it down straight and true onto the small landing pad that fronted a large, nearby storage structure. Blinking away blowing snow, Flinx started jogging toward it, holding a squirming Pip as close to his chest as he could without risking further damage to her wounded wing. As he drew near, he automatically reached out with his Talent to perform a cursory scan of the craft’s interior. There was only the one male pilot, whose emotions were controlled, internally focused, and nonhostile.
As soon as the side portal opened he hurried on board, not wanting to delay, not wanting to give the pilot time to inquire as to the whereabouts of the person who had hired him. Once engaged in conversation, Flinx was sure he could talk his way around that absence. Like anyone operating in Gestalt’s wild and undisciplined backcountry, the skimmer’s pilot would be interested first and foremost in receiving payment for his services. As long as this was forthcoming, he was not likely to question the source of his recompense.
“Find yourself a seat, citizen,” a gruff, slightly irritated voice called back to Flinx from the vicinity of the forward console. “I’ll have you in Tlossene fast as weather permits.” As Flinx had hoped, the busy pilot did not even bother to inquire about Anayabi.
Once above treetop level, the skimmer pivoted cleanly and accelerated. Peering out a transparent portion of the canopy, Flinx watched as the dead Meliorare’s dwelling receded into the distance. The damage that had been inflicted by his mystifying, enigmatic defensive capability had never been visible from the craft.
“Don’t go wandering around unless you have to,” the pilot told him. “We might hit some chop, and I won’t be responsible if you go banging off the walls. Your passage has been prepaid, but I guess you already know that.”
Flinx had not, and was grateful to hear that was the case. It would allow him to settle back and enjoy the journey without having to worry about monetary negotiations.
Setting the skimmer on auto, the pilot swung his seat around to face the single passenger. “So tell me, how are things up in this part of the northlands? There’s talk that several NaTl-Seeker villages are going to combine their efforts to—”
His chatter halted abruptly. Preoccupied with Pip, Flinx had been paying only half a mind to the conversation. The other half now detected a pointed, unexpected spike in the pilot’s emotional state. Frowning, Flinx focused his perception. Indifference was replaced in the pilot first by uncertainty, then by excitement, and lastly by a briskly burgeoning antagonism. Without revealing that he was aware of any of these emotional developments, Flinx carefully set Pip and her blanket to one side. It wasn’t easy, because the flying snake was doing everything possible to free herself from the encumbrance of the blanket. Try as she might, however, she could not possibly rise on only one good wing.
By the time Flinx had placed Pip out of the way, the pilot had drawn his handgun and taken aim at his passenger. Flinx eyed him evenly.
“Have I done something wrong?”
“Hmm.” The pilot’s tone turned quietly mocking. “Let’s see. You almost destroyed my skimmer, forcing me to rely on this nondescript and thoroughly inadequate loaner until the very expensive repairs to mine can be completed. You did something to me that I still can’t figure out. If it feels like you’re trying to do it again, I won’t hesitate: I’ll shoot you before whatever it is can take effect. And you had the indecency not to die conclusively. That oversight can be fixed more cheaply than my skimmer.”
The account was detailed enough to tell Flinx whom he was dealing with. The more he perused the pilot’s emotions, the more the memory of his previous encounter with them strengthened, like a blurry picture slowly coming into focus.
“You’re the one who shot down the skimmer I hired to come up here,” he growled accusingly. “You’re the one responsible for Bleshmaa’s death.”
A blend of amusement and contempt filled Halvorsen’s face as well as his emotions. “You had a Tlel with you? Of course—an escort. Customary. Well, if it’s dead, then the planet’s a slightly cleaner place. It may be theirs by birthright, but frankly Gestalt is too good for the fetid little flat-heads.” The muzzle of the pistol did not shift. This man, Flinx saw as well as sensed, would not be easily distracted. He would have to proceed with great care.
He did not wonder why he had failed to detect the hunter’s true nature during the skimmer’s approach and touchdown, or immediately upon boarding. Unaware that the solo passenger he had contracted to pick up was the very one he had previously tried to kill, Halvorsen’s emotions had been devoid of aggression. Ironically, had he known that Flinx was his intended passenger, he would have been unable to mask his emotions and Flinx’s Talent would have provided advance warning. Halvorsen’s ignorance had proven his greatest advantage.
“I’ve had to keep busy lately and not hang around places like Tlossene,” the man behind the gun was saying. “My automatic monitoring software picked up a request for transport for one passenger. Take him from here back to the city. Since I was toiling up this way anyhow—looking for your body, as a matter of fact—I jumped on the offer. Chance to take a quick break and pick up some easy money. Just goes to show how being first in line can be good for business in ways you never expect.”
“Why were you still looking for me?” Flinx felt reasonably certain he already knew the answer, but anything that kept the man talking instead of shooting provided that much more time to consider how best to proceed.
“Certain people are willing to pay handsomely for your demise. Here on Gestalt my reputation would be enough to satisfy a client. They’re not from here, though, and they want incontestable physical proof that your life-force has been terminated. So I had to go to all the trouble and time and expense of trying to recover your remains.” When Halvorsen smiled, it made the deceased Anayabi’s crooked grin look positively jolly by comparison. “And here they are. The requisite remains-to-be.” The muzzle of the weapon lifted slightly, to focus squarely on Flinx’s forehead.
“This is even better. This skimmer’s internal recorder will not only show you dead, it will show me killing you, and will also include the record of this conversation. That ought to satisfy the smarmy tight-assed prigs.”
Why not just let him shoot and get it over with? a part of Flinx argued despondently. It would put an end to a life that had now become far emptier than it had ever been before. Terminate the anguish, end the despair—the worrying, the desolation, the responsibility. At least someone would benefit from his demise, even if it was only one miserable low-life slayer. Turning to take a final fond look at Pip, he heard himself mumbling, “Go ahead. I won’t stop you.”
Having previously found himself in similar situations on other equally mortal occasions, Halvorsen had been subjected to a wide-ranging assortment of Last Words. Usually they involved desperate pleading, or sometimes a flurry of furious, frantic curses. Despite his considerable experience, these were new to him. Curiosity made him hesitate.
“Stop me? You can’t stop me.”
Something flared within Flinx. It wasn’t particularly profound, but it was just enough to counteract, at least for the moment, for that particular moment, the utter feeling of futility that had temporarily overcome him.
“You shouldn’t kill me.”
Halvorsen blinked. It was clear to him now that the offworld Order of Null had contracted for the death of not only a dangerous man, but a crazy one. Still, he had always prided himself on his thoroughness. Having been surprised with an easy triumph, he was not one to overlook even the slightest chance that a greater one might possibly be lurking in the wings.
“Why not? If you’re going to offer me more money, forget it. I don’t know you, I don’t know anything about any resources you might be able to tap, and I don’t work that way. When I accept a contract, I stay with it until I can fulfill it. Sorry.” Both his smile and tone were tight. “However, there are exceptions to every policy and I’m always willing to be convinced otherwise. You have sixty seconds.”
An unblinking Flinx met the hunter’s gaze. “Something located behind an astronomical phenomenon known as the Great Emptiness is accelerating toward Commonwealth space. Where it passes, nothing remains. It eats galaxies. There is some tiny, infinitesimal chance that I might be the key to doing something about it. The only key.” He took a long, resigned breath. “I may be some kind of trigger.”
Halvorsen’s thin grin became a smirk. “You don’t look like any kind of triggerman to me.”
“Not triggerman,” Flinx corrected him. “Trigger.”
The hunter seated across from him laughed. “Trigger-chigger. You’re nothing but a tall, skinny offworlder who looks even younger than he is, and a deluded one at that. I’ve got to hand it to you, though: in all my years running down and terminating people whom other people wanted dead, that’s the wackiest deathbed plea I’ve ever heard. You’re no trigger, Philip Lynx—whatever you’re babbling about. You’re remains. You’re dead meat. You’re a meal ticket.”
“I only wish it was that basic.” A resigned, disconsolate Flinx was muttering as much to himself as to the edgy assassin. “I know I can’t convince you by talking. I wouldn’t be able to convince anyone just with words. So I’ll show you.” He closed his eyes. Wrapped tightly in the blanket, Pip looked up at him in alarm.
Remembering the inexplicable, overwhelming emotions that had overcome him in the course of their previous confrontation, Halvorsen did not wait any longer to see what might happen. The record of the confrontation that was now safely on the skimmer’s recorder was more than sufficient for his purposes. He started to fire, his finger convulsing on the trigger of his hand weapon.
Fire at what? He gaped openmouthed, jaw slack. His target had vanished. So had the skimmer. So, for that matter, had Gestalt. He was flying outward, traveling at incredible, impossible speed. Stars and nebulae and stellar phenomena for which he had no name and no experience flared and erupted around him. He was aware he was not alone. There was another presence with him, carrying him along. He could not see anything, but he could sense it. It was his quarry, unperturbed and in control.
I’m going to kill you now, he screamed, only to suffer another shock. Though he screamed, his voice made no sound. And how was he supposed to kill his victim when he could not even see him? Searching his stellar surroundings, he saw no other living thing. Glancing down, he found that he could not even see himself.
There was something ahead of him, coming nearer. Or he was approaching it. Whatever the explanation, the proper physical designation, it was clear the distance between him and it was shrinking. More than a darkness against the intergalactic vastness, it was a complete absence of light and life that redefined everything he thought he knew about emptiness. He started to make what he believed were kicking motions, flailing also with his arms, as if he could swim away from what was approaching. A sense of terrible disquiet began to waft over and through him, a palpable psychic poison. He knew only that he had to slow down, to stop, to reverse direction, to get away from…
Evil. A foulness on a scale unimaginable, of a kind beyond comprehension. He started screaming again, his voice low at first, then rising to a pitch his own throat had never before achieved, a shriek so high he would not have believed it possible for his lungs and larynx and lips to vomit it forth. He screamed and screamed, and heard nothing. The darkness was near. Soon it was proximate. Then it touched him.
Flinx had touched it, and survived. Inside the skimmer, a now completely mad Halvorsen clawed and scrabbled at the internal walls until he had torn the nails from his fingers. He slammed his head against the unyielding plexalloy dome until blood streamed from above his eyes. These had bulged outward until they were now halfway out of their sockets. Questing bloody fingers finally found their way to a portal control.
Halvorsen’s horrible screams did not cease until he hit the ground. By the time they did, the skimmer had traveled onward and out of hearing range, slicing smoothly through the falling flakes of pink snow.
Slowly, Flinx opened his eyes. When such episodes engaged his mind, there was always the fear that the part of him that had ventured outward would not come back. That it would remain out where his dreams and projections took him, condemned forever to drift in the vicinity of the galactic horror that was racing toward the Commonwealth, or be swallowed by it and destroyed. Small but strong emotions made him turn and look down. Pip was staring up at him.
If only you were sentient, he thought. If only we could connect on more than just the emotional level. What advice would you give me? What different perspectives on my condition could you vouch-safe? What suggestions on how to continue this miserable existence could you offer?
She could not do any of those things, of course. What she could do was comfort him, simply by her presence. Simply by being.
His head was throbbing. The effort of showing Halvorsen what no one deserved to be shown had triggered yet another of Flinx’s interminable headaches. What if for once he chose not to fight the affliction? What if he just allowed it to continue to build, to swell, to expand inside his skull? Would his head explode? Or would he finally and simply go mad, like the hunter?
The pounding intensified. It approached the limits of tolerability. Eyes squinched tight, teeth clenched, Flinx sat in the passenger seat as the skimmer cruised on through the darkening night. Having slithered to his side, Pip looked on helplessly. Through their most intimate connection she could feel his pain without exactly sharing it. But she could not do anything to stop it.
Slumping in the chair, Flinx slid to the floor, unconscious.
They were all there. All three parts of the triangle he had come to know from previous events. Clearer and sharper and easier to perceive than ever before. He knew them well by now. The incredibly ancient yet still functioning alien device, interaction with which had been what had first allowed him to see. The rich, unbelievably fecund greenness, cogitating on a scale and in a fashion no creature of flesh and blood ought to have been able to comprehend, yet he did. Last of all was the all-enveloping warmth, smothering and reassuring and more intimately familiar than either of the other two.
Resignation is no escape, insisted the Krang mind. This is a fact well known. I know it. I exist it every moment.
For every tree there is a seed, declared the planetwide forest that was the consciousness of Midworld. For every seed there is something that sparks life. Water. Sunlight. Something. A trigger. A Flinx.
We will be there, proclaimed the third component of the triangle. We will be with you always, as we have always been even when your kind could not see that clearly.
You cannot die. So insisted the artificial intelligence of the ancient Tar-Aiym weapon.
You will not be allowed to die. Thus spake the green sentience that girdled and encompassed the entire globe known as Midworld.
You will know death as do all living things—but not yet. Therefore concluded the collective consciousness that dwelled on a world called Cachalot.
When he awoke, Flinx found himself lying on the skimmer’s deck. His head was still intact and securely attached to his neck. Extricating herself from the blanket, Pip had worked her way over to lie half on, half off his chest. Thanks to the advanced medications he had found in Anayabi’s abode, the injured wing he had treated already showed signs of knitting. He sat up, rubbing at the back of his head, then screwing his knuckles into his eyes. Visual purple flashed before his pupils, his own private aurora. Around him the skimmer hummed softly, doing its job, taking itself home on autopilot, back to Tlossene. Little could be seen through the plexalloy canopy. It was now night outside and dark, but not as devoid of light and substance as the darkness he was projected to confront.
An alien machine thought he should do so. A green world-mind insisted that he do so. A combined consciousness that was intimately related to him devoutly wished for him to do so. It all fit the pattern of his life.
Even his death, it seemed, was not to be his own.
Machine, green, serene, he mused. Clarity.
Clarity. A galaxy of potential there, if not a literal one. He sighed. It didn’t matter. The triangle of his thoughts would not let him die. The tri-barreled weapon of unknown possibilities would not abjure its trigger. He would live. He would go on not so much because it was his desire to do so but because it was desired by others. His death was not his own and neither, it appeared, was his life. Like it or not, he was an immutable part of something bigger than himself, much bigger. He could not revoke, would not be allowed to revoke, that which minds vaster and more profound than his own had declared irrevocable.
He would continue to search for the gigantic Tar-Aiym weapons platform that disguised itself as a brown dwarf. He would not give up. Never-giving-up, no matter how hopeless things seemed, was something humans did. Only machines analyzed available evidence and, when all appeared hopeless, quietly conceded everything including their own existence. If he went on, if he did not give up, that was at least one indication of humanness he could cling to. No matter how much he had begun to doubt it.
Rising from the deck, he moved forward and settled into the pilot’s seat that had been so recently and hysterically vacated. Ahead lay a few hours’ travel time. Then Tlossene, his shuttle, and waiting patiently in orbit, the Teacher. Waiting for him to tell it what to do, where to go next, which planetfall it needed to plot.
No wonder he always got along so well with the ship-mind. It takes one artificial intelligence, he reflected with bitter irreverence, to know another.