Flinx Transcendent (26 page)

The friend in question was in reality much more than that, and she had not seen him off. One moment the battle to reach Flinx's shuttlecraft had been raging in full fury, with weaponry erupting all around them. A bright flash had wiped out consciousness, vision, and sound. The next thing she remembered was waking up in the hospital, dazed, immobilized, swathed in protein bandages, hooked up to an assortment of imposing and intimidating instrumentation, and in spite of a sufficiency of numbing pharmaceuticals and soothing radiation, in considerable pain. That the only face looking down at her at that moment happened to be hard-shelled, antennaed, and boasting large compound eyes was not completely reassuring.

Flinx would be back, Truzenzuzex had assured her when she was coherent enough to understand. Between the need to find the wandering Tar-Aiym weapons platform and escape the attentions of the murderous Order of Null, it would have been foolish as well as counterproductive for him to linger on Nur. Hard as it had been for him to leave her, he had given in to the greater need and resumed his journey and search. But not before extracting promises from Truzenzuzex and Tse-Mallory to stay behind and look after her. This they had done while at the same time managing to continue their own research into the looming menace.

They were, doubtless, pursuing it right now, she told herself as she adjusted the trim on the sunfoil. Her right shoulder ached as the wind rippled the featherweight material. It did not matter that her doctors insisted that by now she should feel no pain in that area of her body.
Physicians be damned
, she thought. When she exerted too much pressure, it
hurt
.

Hurt almost as much as Flinx's absence. She pushed him out of her mind. It had been many months now since she had regained consciousness in the surgical ward in Sphene, only to learn of his departure. Yes,
his need to flee without her had been forced on him by circumstances beyond their control. But this ongoing business of seeing her beloved only once every couple of years or so was beginning to grow old.

She shook her head even as she fought with the phototaxic craft's simplified control bar. Billowing sheets of light-sensitive material gathered energy that lifted the slim bar of reinforced aerogel out of the water. Sitting on the single seat, her legs pointed forward down the length of the craft, she shot eastward at high speed. With a shake of her head, half a dozen tightly bound blond braids trailed out behind her. Shaved into the hair on the left side of her head was the outline of a Terran scorpion, while the right side displayed an ancient swear word sheared in runic. One image pictorial, one written, both shouting a very personal kind of defiance at the universe.

She squinted ahead. Time to turn back. Clouds on the horizon hinted at the impending onset of bad weather. Of course, as a general rule, “bad weather” for the temperate reaches of paradisiacal Nur meant nothing worse than a steady, tepid rain. Still, that would not be the best time to be out sunfoiling, especially on a lake as big as Sintram. Rain would not harm her body bandage, but its sensors would report the drop in surface temperature and consequent stress on her body, just as they were doing right now. Taking a deep breath, she twisted her arms and brought the sunfoil around sharply. The triple sails adjusted accordingly, and a minute later she was shooting back toward the shore in the direction of the recuperation facility.

Momentarily taken aback by the sudden shift of direction, a brilliant pink and blue winged shape had to bank sharply and hurry to catch up. Wrapping a coil around the topsail, Scrap promptly buckled its upper half.

“Get
off
there!” Clarity waved crossly up at the uncomprehending minidrag. There was no danger, even if the flying snake collapsed the entire sail, but its loss would slow the rider's return.

Riding the curling bow wave of the sunfoil's three-centimeter-wide keel, native harru repeatedly broke the surface, their multiple horizontal fins giving them enough lift occasionally to take to the air.

Abandoning his momentary perch atop the sail, whose shape rebounded nicely, a diving Scrap snapped up a harru in his jaws, spun gracefully in midair, and dumped the squirming, eel-like water-dweller
in Clarity's lap. Squealing involuntarily, she flailed at the flapping, convulsing creature until it slid back into the water.

“Just don't
help
, okay?” Patting her lap, she directed the minidrag to land there. It refused, preferring soaring to soaking.

Tambrogh Barryn was waiting for her at the dock. He was in love with her, she knew. So was Mandrassa, her chief physician, and at least half a dozen others at the convalescence complex. To each and every one she was polite, she smiled, she engaged in courteous conversation; and she brushed them all off. They could not understand why. Exceedingly attractive, well educated, with an enviable career, and unmated, she evinced none of the psychological signs of someone obsessed with personal privacy or captivated by the prospect of permanent solitude. On a social basis she mixed freely and enjoyably with the other patients as well as with those responsible for her treatment.

For a while, rumors persisted that she might be the tacit cohort of the tall, powerfully built scientist who called in regularly to check on her progress. It seemed unlikely. Not only was the untalkative visitor significantly older, no one ever observed them engaged in any physical intimacy beyond an occasional affectionate hug of the kind a brother might give to a sister. The frequent concomitant presence of an equally mature thranx during such visits further seemed to belie any deeper relationship.

Then why, patients and medical personnel and service attendants alike wondered as they continued to ponder her situation, did she continue to refuse any measure of social interaction beyond the purely civil? When frustrated would-be suitors finally inquired directly, she inevitably responded that she already had a swain. The ongoing nonappearance of this mysterious individual only further whetted the curiosity of the perpetually hopeful.

She let Barryn help her collapse the sunfoil and stow it in its locker. As they worked he admired the play of her muscles beneath the translucent bandage that covered most of her upper body. It would be coming off next week, she had told him. He shared her anticipation. Maybe some of her importunate inhibitions would disappear along with the bandage.

His gaze rose beyond her to take in the lake's flat horizon. “Rain coming.”

“I think so, too,” she agreed, “so I thought I'd better come back. Not that I couldn't have handled it.” Genuinely violent storms on New Riviera
were confined to the polar regions; it was a world with a climate more benign than any humankind had yet to discover. “Anyway, I was getting hungry.” Reaching up, she stroked the back of the minidrag that rode on her neck and shoulder.

More than one potential courtier had been put off by the faithful presence of the flying snake. Its species hailed from a world called Alaspin, she told Barryn when he had first inquired about the minidrag. She further explained that they shared a deep empathetic relationship. One that the flying snake itself had initiated. The vividly colored minidrag was a constant companion, friend, and protector.

“Protector?” he responded dubiously. “It's barely as long as my arm.”

“He's not a constrictor,” she told him while caressing the sinuous shape. “His kind spits poison from a special mouth-throat sac. Not only is it an incredibly powerful neurotoxin, it's also highly caustic. On a very primitive level, individuals of the species are true empaths. He can sense my emotions and react to them.”

Upon being enlightened as to the flying snake's capabilities, it was no wonder that so many of her would-be suitors neglected to ask for a second date. Tambrogh Barryn was not so easily intimidated. He thought the exceptional patient more than worth pursuing, even at the risk of disturbing her unusual pet. Mindful of the depth of his feelings toward her, he had no fear of the minidrag detecting and responding to them—assuming there was more to the business of it being an empathetic telepath than just a clever attempt on her part to deflect unwanted attention. A check of the Nur Shell came up with very little information on the world of Alaspin and next to nothing on the reptilian creature she said had come from there.

Much more than the ever-present minidrag, which after all was nothing more than an odd pet, he was displeased by the unremitting attention that was lavished on her by the peculiar pair of visitors, who came all too frequently. His associates at the complex seemed a little afraid of the large old man and his thranx companion. Barryn could not understand why. The man was big, but also old, while the thranx was merely small and old. Just because they doted on Clarity, he pointed out to his friends, did not mean they would interfere should she choose to enter into a relationship. As to the perpetually absent paramour of whom she sometimes spoke, that entity might be as much an invention as the flying snake's toxicity, with both intended for the same purpose:
to ward off unwanted attention. He should be glad of both minidrag and make-believe suitor, he knew. Otherwise the interest that would have been shown to Clarity Held would have been insufferable, and the competition for her attention far more congested.

“Can I buy you lunch?” He did not try to take her arm as they strode inland and up the slight slope that led away from the dock. Having seen her shrug off physical approaches from others he knew better than to force the issue.

She smiled up at him. Despite what others said, he chose to take every smile as an encouragement. “You know that between insurance through Ulricam and aid from friends my stay here is fully paid for. Including meals.”

He made light of her rejection. “So you'd deny me the pleasure of paying for it twice? If I pay, you can have two desserts.”

This time she laughed. Even better than a smile, he mused. The portents were promising. Perhaps later, under cover of the storm clouds and the warm rain that would come with them, he might make bold enough to try to share more than a dessert.

“You're very sweet, Tam.”

“Hey, who else but a sweet guy would offer a woman two desserts?”

Even as he said it, a voice in his head was telling him to shut up. He was big and strong and words had never been his forte—as he had just proved. That had never caused him any trouble with women, however. They never seemed to catch on to the fact that his frequent silences arose not from a sensitive desire to listen to what they had to say but from an inability to put coherent sentences together. This manifest intellectual deficiency seemed to perturb them not at all. They could talk all they wanted to and he would sit in silence. And when they chose not to talk, they could stare at his chiseled features unaware of the silly grins that parasitized their features.

For reasons he could not fathom, this time-tested methodology had failed to make an impression on Clarity Held. It was almost as if she
wanted
to have an intelligent conversation, wanted him to talk. He did his best to comply. Usually he did better than “Who else but a sweet guy would offer a woman two desserts.” He knew he had to progress, even if the strain made his head hurt.

Pick a subject she enjoys talking about
, he thought.
Even if you couldn't care less about it. That always works
.

“So—tell me more about this guy you're engaged to.”

“We're not engaged,” she replied quickly. That surprised him. It also, of course, did not displease him. “Our relationship goes deeper than that. We don't have to have a formal engagement. We have—shared experiences.”

A safely enigmatic retort, he decided. Could mean anything or nothing. Or it could be another evasion, like the scientific gibberish about the flying creature's venomous capabilities.

“I can't figure it out, Clarity. If you're so tight with this guy, how come nobody ever sees you with him?”

She shook her head and her tight blond braids flew from side to side, sending the last adhering droplets of lake water flying. They were halfway to the nearest building, climbing the walkway that split a lawn of cultured, ankle-high catharia. Thumb-sized beurre flowers of azure and gold sprang from the three-sided flanks of tapering blue-green stems.

“He has to travel a lot.”

“On business? What is he, based in Sphene?”

This generated a broad smile. What had he said, Barryn wondered, that was so amusing?

“Not exactly,” she murmured casually. “His work takes him a little farther afield than that.”

Barryn persisted. “The southern continent? He still ought to be able to make it up here to see you once in a while while you're convalescing. If he really cared for you, that is.”

At that, the flying snake lifted its head from her shoulder to stare fixedly at him. Could it have sensed something? True telepaths were only tall tales—the empathetic kind as much as any other.

“His work is difficult and very demanding,” she told him, not smiling now. “There's a lot of stress. The kind of stress no one can imagine.”

Barryn took mild offense. “I work with seriously hurt people. That involves a lot of stress, too, you know.”

“I know, Tam. You're a good person and you work hard.” Reaching out, she gently patted his right arm. He would have accounted it a small triumph had he been able to escape the feeling that she was patronizing
him. The prospect of killing lunch notwithstanding, he decided the time had come for directness.

“Look, you know how much I like you, Clarity. What is it about this guy, who can never find the time to visit you when you're hurt? Why can't you just shake him? Is he better looking than me? Smarter, richer? What? I at least deserve to know what I'm up against.”

She stopped, staring out across the lake whose hues so often mirrored what she was feeling. “Philip and I go back years, Tam. We've been through a lot together. More than I can explain.” Turning back to him, she met his gaze with a look that was at once compassionate and unyielding. “If you want me to be specific, yes: he's richer than you and smarter than you. None of which matters. Nothing matters except what's inside him. I've been lucky enough to have been allowed to see that. I've been damned to have been allowed to see that. You know how people sometimes say they feel like they have the weight of the world on their shoulders? Well, Philip has the weight of the whole galaxy on his.”