Flinx Transcendent (31 page)

Antennae weaving, the thranx stood up on his four trulegs, the better to bring his face closer to that of his human companion. “Flinx can take care of himself, I think. He has matured considerably in the ways of society, and repeated conflict has heightened his special senses while sharpening his singular abilities.”

Tse-Mallory looked troubled. “I wasn't worried—about Flinx.”

As the human turned his attention to his communit the full meaning of his observation struck home to Truzenzuzex.

“Clarity …,” the philosoph clicked through clenched mandibles.

They waited until Scrap had descended to land on his mistress's shoulder. Previous experience and subsequent research had shown that the safest way to neutralize the dangerous Alaspinian minidrag was to incapacitate it at the same time as its owner. Taking no chances, the self-sealing net they released from the boat was big enough to envelop the woman, the flying snake, and the male friend riding the sunfoil parallel to hers.

They were too far from shore for anyone on the beach or the slope below the medical convalescent facility to hear her screams or his curses. When the two captives tried to contact local emergency authorities via their separate communits, they discovered that all outgoing signals in their immediate vicinity had been blocked. The net that had been employed had been chosen with great care. It was flexible yet sturdy, self-sealing but not dangerously constricting. Insofar as their research had allowed them to determine, the members of the Order charged with carrying out the abduction believed that the material was impervious to the corrosive effects of the minidrag's venom.

A net had been utilized instead of direct deadly force because it was vital to keep the woman alive. Long enough, at least, to serve the purpose.

Seeing that there was nothing to be gained by screaming, Clarity went quiet as she, Scrap, and Barryn were hauled in like so many netted fish. The delicate sunfoils made faint crunching sounds as the net collapsed around them. At the same time as she was concentrating on her fear, hoping Flinx would perceive it, she spoke hurriedly to Barryn.

“I'm sorry, Tam, to get you mixed up in all this.”

In spite of Flinx's unexpected arrival he had insisted in seeing her through the last stages of her recovery. “I helped nurse you through the past couple of months,” he declared, “and even if you dump me for this creepy offworlder, I'm not giving up on you until you marry him or run off with him.”

She kept Flinx abreast of the medtech's persistence, of course.
“Give him credit for perseverance,” Flinx responded. “Let him down easy. I don't like to see people hurt, and I know you don't either.” For a brief moment his thoughts went somewhere else. “I've come to understand how complicated relationships can get, especially when you don't expect them to develop the way they sometimes do. Especially when you're apart from someone for a long time and thrust into difficult circumstances. Things—happen. We're all human. At least, I used to think so,” he added ruefully.

“It's going to take a few days to reprovision and refit elements of the
Teacher
. Meanwhile you might as well be nice to him. But not
too
nice,” he had concluded, admonishing her.

Struggling ineffectually with entangling strands of net as Scrap's wings beat alternately against her shoulder and his back, Barryn tried to twist around within their constricting prison to meet her gaze.

“Mixed up in
what?
What are you involved in, Clarity? Something illegal?”

“In a manner of speaking.” She spoke as they were pulled through the water toward a waiting boat. “But not on my part. Or on Flinx's, even though it's him they want.”

“‘They’?” The medtech looked further confused. Then his expression darkened. “I knew there was something wrong with that skinny offworlder the minute I set eyes on him. I could feel it.”

He could feel you
, she thought, but said nothing.

Having unexpectedly dialed into a scenario that fit his hopes, Barryn was loath to let it go. “What is it? Illegal pharmaceuticals? Unregistered genensplices? Straightforward smuggling? What's his line, this
skewnk
Flinx of yours? And how are you mixed up in it?”

“They're going to try to use me to get to him,” she explained with a serenity that was utterly alien to their present circumstances. “Or else maybe they're just going to kill me.”

That quieted him for a moment. “What do you mean, ‘get to him’? They want him? For what?”

They were very close to the boat now, she saw. Soon they would be hauled aboard. Or dispatched, though she was fairly confident her first assumption was the correct one: that their intention was to use her as bait.

“They want to eliminate him. Because he's trying to save the
galaxy. Trying to preserve civilization. They call themselves the Order of Null.” She swallowed water, coughed. How could she explain her personal involvement with the approaching apocalypse in the time remaining to them?

“There's something coming this way out of intergalactic space. It eats planets, suns, whole star systems. Whole galaxies. It will consume this one unless it can somehow be stopped or diverted. Somehow, in some way, Flinx believes he is the key to the one small, slim chance of doing so. Incredibly knowledgeable individuals of multiple species have confirmed this to me. They can't explain it, but they can confirm it.” She cringed as an unseen winch started to haul them up out of the water, crumpled sunfoils and all. Several times she and Barryn were banged against the side of the capture boat. Fortunately it had a low freeboard and their bumpy ascent was a brief one.

Initially too stunned by her words to comment, Barryn finally found his voice again. It was commendably calm. Or his composure might have been attributable to simple shock.

“That's the most insane thing I've ever heard, Clarity, and I've spent a lot of time working with mental patients. How can you believe such nonsense? In all the time we've known each other I've never seen or suspected that you harbored anything like that kind of intellectual frailty. I mean, step back if you can and look at what you just
said
. You don't really expect me to believe any of it, do you?”

Swinging around toward the stern of the capture craft, the power winch deposited its catch brusquely on the smooth, seamless surface of the rear deck. Peering out between the net's resilient fibers, she noticed a quartet of onlookers staring down at them from the boat's upper level. If they were aware of Scrap's capabilities, they were doubtless keeping their distance intentionally.

“You can believe as you wish or not, Tam.” She was tired from fighting the water and the net. The minidrag's wings beat furiously against her neck and shoulders as Scrap made futile efforts to free himself.

“Clarity Held!” Holding a small amplifier card in front of his mouth, a portly gentleman with a deceptively mild mien addressed her from the upper level. “We apologize for some roughness in the process of bringing you aboard, but this was deemed the safest and most inconspicuous way of remanding you to our charge. We are—”

“I know who you are.” She cut him off. “You're fanatics of the worst kind. You have no respect for logic or reason and you worship death and destruction.”

The man and his companions looked indignant. “We ‘worship’ nothing,” he took pains to correct her. “Seeing filth and ignorance and waste all around us, we welcome the Purity that is coming. That is all. Our philosophy is entirely practical and scientific. In contrast, yours, that of the great mass of deluded sentients, and most importantly that of your friend Philip Lynx, is to deny the impending cleansing. It does not really matter because nothing can stop it.

“We believe in leaving nothing to chance, however, and as there is a very slight theoretical possibility that this individual might somehow be able to interfere with the efficiency of the cleansing, we feel it is our obligation to brush away even so minuscule a probability.”

Struggling with the tangle of net, she managed to climb to her feet. The shroudlike nature of the overlapping folds did not escape her. “You've tried that before, more than once. Each time, some of you ended up dead.”

The man stiffened, but his demeanor remained unruffled. “Mistakes were made. The abilities of this Flinx person were underestimated. We will not make such mistakes again. Nothing has been left to chance. He will die. He has to die. The only difference between him and the rest of us is that he will die a fragment of time sooner.

“We could have killed you soon after he fled from Nur, Clarity Held. It was decided not to do so because it was thought that under certain circumstances you might prove more useful alive than dead. Events are soon to confirm this supposition.”

Where were Bran Tse-Mallory and the Eint Truzenzuzex? she found herself wondering. She was pleased when they had stopped hovering over her months ago. Now she felt their absence keenly. Had they already been slain by other members of the Order? Knowing man and thranx as she did, she found that hard to believe. But the Order was lethal, cunning, and most dangerous of all, subtle. After the battle at the shuttleport more than a year ago they had seemingly disappeared. With Flinx safely away offworld she had been lulled into what was now clearly a false sense of security. Despite their wisdom and experience, were her two venerable guardians equally susceptible to such deception?

A man and a woman emerged from the boat's forward cabin. Both were dressed in flexible, dull-gray security suits that looked robust enough to be military issue. As soon as they drew near enough, an enraged Scrap spat in their direction. The tiny stream of venom struck the suited woman square on her suit's faceplate. Startled, she stumbled backward a couple of steps. But the powerful toxin did not penetrate the special transparent alloy, although it did eat away a small part of the outermost layer.

As the man raised the pistol he was holding, a frantic Clarity moved to position herself inside the folds of the net between the muzzle of the projectile weapon and her pet.

“Don't shoot him! There's no need. I'll make sure he doesn't attack again.”

“It doesn't matter.” The man spoke casually to his companion. “The amount of venom it stores in its mouth is limited. Let him expel until the poison sac is empty and then we'll pull them out of the net.”

Barryn finally managed to get his legs under him and step forward. Or at least as far forward as the enfolding net would permit. “Look, I don't know who you people are or what kind of lunatic farce Clarity says you've chosen to venerate, but neither she nor I have anything to do with whatever trouble that redheaded offworlder has stirred up.” Using both hands, he held up two handfuls of the fine-mesh net in which he was imprisoned. “Just get us out of here and we can discuss whatever concerns you have like civilized human beings. If this Flinx person is mixed up in something illicit, maybe we can help you sort it, and him, out.”

Clarity looked at him sharply. She turned toward him just in time to see the woman point the pistol she was holding at the medtech and blow his head off. Not off, precisely. More into glutinous blobs of flesh and bone. In any event the effect was the same. The headless body remained standing for a moment, blood spurting from the severed neck like some perverted fountain. Then it collapsed in a broken heap, not unlike the sunfoils.

Clarity did not scream. Some time ago, Flinx had introduced her to something that was genuinely worth screaming about: the very incarnation and manifestation of evil and annihilation whose approach these people sought to facilitate. So the explosive, messy demise of the man
who had been standing next to her did not stagger her. Only filled her with emptiness.

“You didn't have to kill him,” she observed in dismay. “He was just a medtech who liked me. You could have let him go. He didn't believe in you even when I explained who you are and what you're about.”

“He saw us,” replied the rotund speaker through his amplifier card. “He saw faces. You are going to disappear, and it was apparent that he was enamored enough of you to follow up on your disappearance. Above nearly all else, we of the Order value our anonymity. Sometimes distasteful steps must be taken to preserve it.”

As the two suited figures reached the net and began working with the folds, Scrap kept spitting at them, trying to bring them down. His aim was impeccable, but the caustic venom could not penetrate the multiple layers of the military visors. As the man working the net had foretold, after a while the minidrag's store of venom grew exhausted. At that point they were able to handle the fighting, squirming serpentine shape without concern. Manipulated by four strong hands, Scrap was maneuvered into a transparent double-walled box whose airholes were offset to prevent him from spitting his toxin outside. Clarity had her wrists fastened behind her and her ankles secured with flexible straps to a small horizontal crossbar. Thus bound, she could walk but not run.

The forward cabin was large enough to accommodate all six of the boat's occupants. None struck her as experienced sailors, but on central Nur's placid and cultivated waters oceangoing skills were hardly a requirement for operating a watercraft. The boat's integrated automated systems handled any required seamanship, leaving its passengers free to enjoy the experience.

A large triangular
sprowel
had been thrown over Clarity's shoulders. As the thousands of filaments of the specially treated quasi-animate hydrophonic material reacted to the water on her skin and began to warm and dry her, firm hands guided her toward one of the boat's consoles. Beyond, through the craft's curving foreport, she could see the shoreline and in the distance the familiar profile of the rehabilitation facility where she had spent so many months and subsequent visits convalescing, healing, and recovering. For all that she could presently access, its facilities might as well have been situated in a different star system.

Poor Barryn
, she found herself thinking. If she'd had any inkling the Order was still interested in Flinx, she would have shunned the medtech from the first day he had paid any serious attention to her. It had been his misfortune to become infatuated. With a start she remembered what Flinx had once told her: people who found themselves swept up in his orbit often came to an unpleasant end. Exactly that had happened to the well-meaning Tambrogh Barryn. Now it appeared that the same was to be true of her.