Flinx Transcendent (47 page)

“Why are we stopping here?”
he inquired. He thought he had an inkling of the answer, but he wanted to hear it. The ship did not disappoint.

TO SAFELY DISCHARGE THE ENERGY FROM ONE OF MY WEAPONS I MUST BE A CERTAIN MINIMAL DISTANCE FROM ANY SOLID OBJECT. TO FIRE ALL OF THEM SIMULTANEOUSLY, TO GENERATE A COHERENT EFFECT, I MUST BE AT A CONSIDERABLY GREATER DISTANCE. HERE, FAR BEYOND THE NEAREST STAR, IS THE SAFEST PLACE.

“The Great Evil lies much farther away still,”
Flinx pointed out.
“I've touched upon it, but only through means I don't pretend to understand, and certainly not physically. I presume that to affect it, it must be impacted physically. Given the extraordinary distances involved, how can this be done?”

I HAVE TRAVELED HERE THROUGH THE SUB-DIMENSION YOU CALL SPACE-MINUS. IF A SUFFICIENT FORCE IS UNLEASHED THROUGH THAT IDIOSYNCRATIC INTERPLAY OF THE COSMIC CONTINUUM, IT WILL ACCELERATE EXPONENTIALLY. DISTANCE ITSELF, AS YOUR KIND UNDERSTANDS IT, CEASES TO HAVE MEANING. TWO POINTS IN SPACE-TIME CAN, FOR A BRIEF INSTANT OF TIME, BE MADE CONGRUENT. THE CONSEQUENCES CAN BE OBSERVED IN REAL TIME. BUT NOT BY ME. ONLY BY YOU.

Flinx swallowed. Sitting, talking, passing time away from the refulgent contact platform, none of his companions noticed the brief movement in his throat—not even Clarity.

“You're going to boost me out there mentally to perceive the result, aren't you?”

I—AND OTHERS.

“About these others…,”
Flinx began. He did not have time to finish the inquiry. The immense sphere was already focusing its energies elsewhere.

Deep within the core of the planet-sized machine, engines of destruction capable of generating energies that belonged more to the realm of poets than of physicists ignited for the first time in half a million years. Out on the methane-shrouded surface of the globe first one Krang came to life. Then two more, then a dozen. With no one in a position to note the spectacular, in less than a day more than a hundred of the towering devices were vibrating with readiness. Eons ago, when the Tar-Aiym did battle with their ancient enemies the Hur'rikku, the intent was for only one Krang at a time to be discharged. Such was the power of each radiant spire. Nothing in its design or programming prevented the gargantuan weapons platform of which they were a part from unleashing the energy of all of them simultaneously, however.

It did so now.

Each minuscule Schwarzchild discontinuity projected by a Krang was capable of swallowing an entire fleet. Several combined could implode an entire world into nothingness. More than a hundred discharging at once—there was no predicting what their combined effect might be because such an assault had never been unleashed before. There had never been the need for such a concentration of collapse. Defensively or
offensively, a discontinuity of such scale would have amounted to serious overkill.

Flung outward through space-minus instead of existing normality, the energy of the hundred-plus Krangs pooled at a safe distance from the hovering weapons platform. A slight quiver ran through the body of the entire ship. It was the only hint of the immense discharge. Blessed with more sensitive feet and a lack of intervening footwear, Sylzenzuzex and her Eighth experienced it as a negligible tremor, one so insignificant that neither thought it worthy of mention.

As soon as the collated strike had been hurled on its way, the ship relayed the information through a different fold of space-minus back to the single Krang situated on Booster. That device in turn contacted not one but two other entities with a deep interest in both the attack and its outcome. Responding, they merged their efforts to reach outward to the vessel that was drifting beyond the edge of the galactic disk. Taking hold of a certain singular mind they found there, the amalgamated tripartite entity boosted it outward at the speed of thought.

Flinx felt that he had prepared himself and that he was ready for anything. But he never was. How could anyone, regardless of whatever twists and tricks had been implanted or had evolved in their unique mind, be ready for such a literally mind-bending alteration of consciousness?

As he had on multiple previous occasions he felt his inner self being thrust outward. Already beyond the edge of his own galaxy, he had the sense of racing past others. Great glowing orbs and disks, whirlpools of gas and energy, sped past his awareness like so many snowflakes drizzled on black velvet.

The dark shadowed section of space that was the Great Emptiness drew near. That, at least, he was ready for because he had penetrated it before. Within lay an immensity of nothingness. Beyond, on the far side, lay that mindless smothering of reality it was better for sane minds not to acknowledge. Instinctively, he shunned it, turned away from it, tried his best to ignore its baleful existence.

As he struggled to keep his pitiful inner self clear of the crushing malevolence, he perceived via his massively attenuated but in no wise diminished core essence something impacting that galactic pool of horror. For the first time since he had been compelled to awareness of it, a light appeared at its forefront. Glowing argent, the collected projected
discharge of the Tar-Aiym weapons platform struck the Great Evil and sliced a curving trail along its leading edge. The gash that was extending itself before Flinx's real-time acuity was hundreds of parsecs in length—and no greater in diameter than his thumb. As the space-time rip lengthened in both directions like a flash of lightning against a moonless sky, the first glimmer of radiance ever to appear on that dark shadow began to eat into it.

The Evil screamed.

Had Flinx been present physically that reaction would have shredded the atomic bonds holding together his being. It would have sent stars into overload, with novae breaking out everywhere like radiant popcorn. But in that darkness there was nothing extant, nothing solid to be destroyed. His sanity was protected by the very inimitability that allowed him to be present and to observe in the first place.

A small portion of the unidentifiable thing that was the Evil was destroyed. The parsecs-long silvery split flickered, and then faded to blackness. Having no center, no nexus, the oncoming horror could not be shattered by a single well-directed assault no matter how powerful. As a questing filament of darkness reached for him Flinx felt himself falling, falling, being drawn swiftly backward and away. Back through the Great Emptiness. Back past intervening galaxies. Back to reality. Though still in the comatose state induced by the fiery contact platform, all of him was soon back within himself.

Lying there, breathing long and deep, he remembered what he had perceived. As always, the strenuous mental journey left him sweating, exhausted, and instilled with fresh insight. The galaxy had always seemed immense. But whenever he passed witness to thousands more, it was reduced to homeliness.

WHAT CONSEQUENCE?

It took Flinx a moment to realize that the great planetary weapons platform was asking for
his
assessment of what had just transpired. It was seeking the opinion of a lone and lowly dust mote composed of water and a few twisted proteins that dared to aspire to cognizance.

“You hit it,”
he thought without hesitation.
“You hurt it. But not enough, I'm afraid. It's still coming.”

The gigantic machine voiced no disappointment. Guns do not sulk when they fail to kill.

SUCH WAS THE PREDICTION. BUT IT HAD TO BE TRIED. IT IS DIFFICULT TO FIGHT SOMETHING THAT EXISTS OUTSIDE OF THE KNOWN LAWS OF PHYSICS.

Flinx twisted slightly on the platform.
“Can't you attack again?”

SEVERAL TIMES, YES. BUT OPTIONS ARE LIMITED. IF NO SUBSTANTIAL DAMAGE WAS DONE THIS TIME IT IS UNLIKELY ADDITIONAL EFFORTS WILL BE SIGNIFICANTLY MORE EFFECTIVE.

“You have to try,”
Flinx entreated.

NO I DO NOT.

It was a perfectly cold and perfectly valid response. A device, the ship saw no reason to sustain an effort that was unlikely to produce a desired result. To do so would be to waste energy and effort. But not to do so, Flinx knew, meant subscribing to the inevitability of the demise of everything, the ship itself included. Then he realized that was not necessarily the case. Able to travel through space-minus at speeds no humanx vessel could begin to approach, the weapons platform could take itself elsewhere. Out into the intergalactic gulf, perhaps even far and fast enough to avoid the oncoming Evil. The designers and builders to whom it owed allegiance were half a million years dead. If not for him, Flinx realized, the Krang on Booster and the weapons platform would not even have made the failed attempt.

He had tried. The weapons platform had tried. It was over, it was done. There was nothing left to do.

No, he told himself, that wasn't quite true. There were two things left to do.

“Take my friends and me back,”
he projected.
“Back to the system of Booster, back to my own ship. And one other thing.”

DECLARE.

“Let me wake up
—please.
”

So inured by now to the constant flaring lights and continuous underlying roar in the chamber were Clarity and the others that it was more of a shock when both abruptly ceased than it had been when they had initially exploded to life. The sudden, unexpected silence echoed almost painfully. Eyes that had become accustomed to the ubiquitous bursts of multihued lightning strove to readjust to far more muted illumination. Despite the transformation in their surroundings, her first thought was for the young man who had been lying so long on the alien platform.

Her concern was rewarded when he slowly sat up, wincing. Rocketing off her shoulder, Scrap shot across to the dais and was soon snuggling and sharing his body warmth with Pip. For the moment, the two minidrags totally ignored their respective humans.

Clarity shared more than body warmth as she all but threw herself against Flinx, hugging him and covering his face with kisses.

“I was starting to worry that you might not be coming back.” Her eyes glistened with moisture as she looked up at him. “I knew you weren't dead because you kept twitching and moving. But you didn't respond to words, and Tse-Mallory and Truzenzuzex warned me not to go under the domes while they were active.”

Rubbing at the back of his head, Flinx found it an effort just to sit up. She eyed him fretfully.

“One of your headaches?”

“No, not this time. I'm just tired.” Turning to his right he extended an arm. Disengaging from her reunion with her offspring, Pip used the limb like a pole as she slithered slowly back up to her familiar resting place on his shoulder. “And famished,” he added. “I feel like I haven't eaten for a week.”

Whirling, Clarity yelled back toward the anxiously watching other members of the little group. “He's okay! He's hungry!”

Leaning over, Tse-Mallory murmured to the two thranx standing beside him. “That's a human for you. No matter how farsighted and intellectually accomplished, we never forget the physical aspects of our being.”

“Our supplies grow dangerously low.” Truzenzuzex eyed the dais where Clarity was helping Flinx to stand. “Let us hope that despite the travails of his trial our young friend leaves something for the rest of us.”

In the restored silence the philosoph's words carried to the platform. “No need to worry about that, sir.” Though he was giving a reassuring response, Flinx did not smile. “We're already on our way back to the Booster system. We'll be back aboard the
Teacher
in a few days.”

It was not surprising that those on board had failed to notice the latest change in the weapons platform's position. Within the planet-sized sphere there was no sense of acceleration or movement.

Even with the fate of civilization at stake, the two scientists had patience enough to wait until their former charge had wolfed down two complete emergency meals before they began pressing him for particulars. Wanting a full and accurate report from the recently deployed instrument, they knew from experience that it was better to wait until the device in question was ready to operate on a full charge.

He was downing the last drops of a half liter of liquid supplement when Sylzenzuzex could stand the delay no longer.

“Srall!tt
, Flinx—what happened? Talk to us! Where did we go? What is the result?”

Lowering the partially imploded, pressurized drink container, he blinked at her. “You don't know?” He looked around at his companions. “You didn't see anything?”

Putting a hand on his arm, Clarity offered gentle clarification. “We only saw you lying under the dome and its spectacular reaction to your being there.” She nodded in the direction of the corridor that led back to
the landing deck. “When it became clear that you might be under for an extended period of time, Bran and Tru hiked back to the shuttle. None of its ranging instruments were able to take any readings beyond the airlock.” She smiled hopefully. “We couldn't tell what, if anything, was happening outside.”

Stepping forward, Truzenzuzex brandished impatient antennae at the tall young man. “Your comatose presence on the operator's platform spawned a great deal of impressive ancillary activity. Bran and I presume it was not merely for show. What, if anything, of consequence was accomplished during your period of unconsciousness?” A truhand gestured in the direction of the corridor. “We know only that we moved out of range of contact with your ship.
Did
you succeed in making contact with this artifact?”