The End of the Matter (19 page)

“If there is one among us who is guilty of persistent loquacity,” came the reply smoothly, “it is not I.”

“Debatable” was Tse-Mallory’s simple retort, as he followed September up the steps leading out of the temple.

“Not without being guilty of the crime of debating!” shouted Truzenzuzex, but by that time Tse-Mallory and September were out of hearing range.

On the grass outside, both men took up positions on board the skimmer. “The lad indicated the thranx is an Eint and philosoph,” September said conversationally. “What of you?”

“I mentioned we were at one time both in the service of the Church. I was a Chancellor Second.”

September appeared impressed, though not awed. “Pretty high. Wouldn’t have guessed it. Myself, I never had much use for the Church.”

“Nor did Tru and I, after a while. That’s why we left it.” Jungle sounds drifted innocently out of the green wave, helped them relax a little. “And you, sir?”

“Oh, I’ve done a little bit of everything,” September replied modestly, “and had a little bit of everything done to me.” He did not elaborate, and Tse-Mallory did not pry.

Settling himself down on his four trulegs, Truzenzuzex folded truhands and gestured with foothands as he talked. Behind Flinx, Ab was arranging stones in a circle (ordinary stones, this time) and singsonging softly to himself.

“Flinx, what do you know of the double-world system Carmague-Collangatta and the planet Twosky Bright?”

Flinx thought a moment, then looked blank. “Little more than what you’ve just told me, their names. I’ve never been to either. I think they’re all well-populated, highly developed worlds.”

“Correct,” said Truzenzuzex, nodding. “All three are important contributors to the Commonwealth economy; stable, advanced worlds. They’re all going to die . . . or at least most of the people on them are—probably the worlds themselves, also.”

“Their suns are going nova,” Flinx guessed. He frowned. “That would be quite a coincidence.”

“I would expect you to be an expert on coincidences, boy. Your assumption is incorrect. The situation is this. Many years ago, but not too many, a Commonwealth science probe mapping behind the dark nebula called the Velvet Dam discovered a sun disappearing into nothingness. Of course, it wasn’t disappearing into nothingness, only into something that partook of the aspect of nothingness.”

“I don’t think I understand,” Flinx admitted.

“You will. Your Lewis Carroll would have. He was a physicist himself, I think? No matter. The star in question was being smashed down into a rogue black hole. Such an object has been theorized, but this is the first one detected. Its course has been determined. We know enough to predict that only a small percentage of the populations of all three worlds could be rescued before their respective suns vanish into the rogue.”

Flinx’s own problems were forgotten as he tried to conceive of disaster on the scale Truzenzuzex was describing to him. He sat quietly, thinking, before it occurred to him to ask, “But why tell me this? What does it have to do with your being here?”

Truzenzuzex shifted his stance slightly, his claws making tiny scratching sounds on the tunnel. “Because your acquisition, your acquaintance, your ward, or whatever you wish to call him”—he pointed with a tru-hand at the rhyming Ab—“may be the one possible chance for those worlds’ salvation.”

Having nothing intelligent to respond to that incredible bit of information with, Flinx kept silent.

“A black hole is the ultimate state of collapsed matter, usually a star which has fallen in on itself,” the philosoph explained. “In the case of the rogue, we believe that it may consist of not one but many collapsed stars. Dozens, perhaps hundreds. We do not have instrumentation capable of telling us by direct measurement, but we can approximate from the speed with which the star detected by the probe was absorbed. For a collapsar, the mass of the rogue is immense.”

“How could anyone, especially Ab, least of all the creatures in the galaxy, help you? Nothing can turn or destroy a collapsar. At least,” he added quickly, “nothing I ever heard of. I see no connection, Tru, sir.” For a moment he displayed the attitude of a schoolboy ignorant of the answer to a teacher’s question.

“I would not feel foolish at that failure,” Truzenzuzex confided to him. “You have much company.” Some bitterness crept into his voice. “Both the Commonwealth High Council and the Court of Last Resort of the United Church are of the opinion that nothing can be done to save the three worlds. They are attempting to rescue small groups of the three populations without causing panic, which will be inevitable. They refuse to consider the alternative.”

“There’s an alternative?” Flinx looked startled.

“We are hopeful” was all the philosoph would admit to. “But both Bran and myself feel that anything which might save billions of lives and uncounted trillions of credits, no matter how absurd it sounds, is worth serious and not jocular consideration. Our strongest assurance that we are on the track of something potentially helpful has been the frantic attempts of other parties to eliminate that hope. How your poetically inclined alien is involved in this I will tell you in a moment.

“While Bran and I are no longer connected to the Church, we still retain sympathetic connections in the bureaucracy. In the Commonwealth government, too. Through these we learned of the death sentence hanging over the three worlds in the path of the rogue. We felt as helpless and sorrow-filled as anyone. However, we elected to try to do something. Our specialty is the pre-Commonwealth, pre-Amalgamation history of this part of the galaxy. To make many weeks of tedious research brief, we learned of a possible connection between an ancient race and a similar destructive appearance of a rogue collapsar. Somehow, somewhere on this side of the galactic center, the menace was met and dealt with.

“That in turn led us to search for anything that might tell us what became of the device which dealt with the first rogue. Rumors of a being of unknown type were brought to us by our agents. The being was at that time reported to be in the city of Drallar, on Moth. This being sang nonsense rhymes and performed as a comic foil in a simple street entertainment. We were not on Drallar at the time, but we succeeded in obtaining copies of recordings from a tourist who witnessed the being’s performance. This intellectual expressed astonishment that Bran and myself should be interested in such things.

“We were very excited when we saw the first images of your Ab,” the philosoph went on. “He matches up with no known race. However, it was not his appearance, rather, one of his rhymes we heard while viewing the recording, which caused my breathing spicules to lock to the point of fainting and caused Bran to utter an oath I had not heard from him in eighteen years. You see, Flinx, one of the rhymes contained a mention of the race we believe successfully stopped the intrusion of a rogue collapsar approximately eight hundred thousand Terran years ago on the near side of the Shapely Center. That race was called the Hur’rikku.”

There was a gasp, followed by a metallic clattering. Isili Hasboga had dropped the armload of tapes she had so laboriously salvaged. They sprawled across the floor. Several of them had cracked, and thin microscopic tape had unreeled from the twisted spools.

She made no move to recover the tapes. Her expression showed shock; her eyes were wide in disbelief.

Flinx saw something moving nearby: A truhand was plunging into a pouch in the philosoph’s thorax vest. Perhaps it was the abrupt shock of Hasboga’s reaction—perhaps his talent chose that perverse moment to function—in any case, he sensed what was racing through the elderly thranx’s mind.

“No, Tru!” he shouted, rising and stepping between the insect and Hasboga. “She’s not a spy, she’s an archeologist. Wouldn’t she know of the Hur’rikku?”

Truzenzuzex turned blazing compound eyes on Flinx and considered his words. The hand relaxed; the concealed weapon in the pouch never emerged.

All at once, Hasboga came out of her moment-long trance. She turned her gaze to the floor, saw and remembered what had happened. Suddenly she was scrambling to retrieve her precious tapes. Occasionally she would glance back at the watchful Truzenzuzex, aware that something had upset him, but she never suspected that the old insect had been prepared to kill her simply on the basis of her reaction to what he had told Flinx.

“You are not a spy,” he decided, the fire fading from his eyes. “I see that now.”

“Me?” She looked back in confusion. “A spy? Spy for whom?”

“I will tell you in time,” he murmured. “When you indicated a familiarity with the Hur’rikku I . . . Excuse me.” He executed a thranx gesture of apology seasoned with contrition at his own stupidity. “Too many deaths are already involved in this matter. Bran and I can take no chances. The Commonwealth and the Church are already suspicious of our actions, and they dislike having others inquire into matters they consider wasteful. Then there are those who would like to see the rogue proceed unchallenged on its course of destruction.”

“Who or what are the Hur’rikku?” Flinx was still a bit shaken from the severity of the kindly philosoph’s murderous reaction to Hasboga’s knowledge.

His antennae still aquiver, Truzenzuzex proceeded to explain. “The Hur’rikku are the half-legendary race who, scientists postulate, erupted from the region near the galactic center some nine hundred and fifty thousand years ago.”

“They weren’t half legendary,” argued Hasboga. “They were completely legendary. Myths about them exist, but no physical proof has ever been found for which alternate explanations couldn’t be provided.”

“No physical proof, this is so,” admitted Truzenzuzex. “But they frightened the ovipositors off the Tar-Aiym.” His mandibles clicked in thranx laughter. “Of the Tar-Aiym we
do
have physical proof.”

Flinx knew the truth of that statement from his experiences of over a year ago.

“We know that about the time the Hur’rikku are rumored to have begun their expansion outward from the galactic center, this entire section of space was dominated by the Tar-Aiym. Roughly half a million Terran years ago, the indomitable Tar-Aiym were thrown into a racial panic. It seems reasonable to assume that the Hur’rikku were the cause of this.”

Hasboga made a derisive sound. Truzenzuzex ignored her and continued on. “The Tar-Aiym scientists constructed numerous new weapons to counter the Hur’rikku threat. One was the defensive weapon known as the Krang. Another was a simple plague. That destroyed not only the Hur’rikku but the Tar-Aiym themselves, and all life in the region we know today as the Blight, before finally destroying itself.

“At this point in time the Hur’rikku are mostly a legend. They exist because your friend Ab sings of them.” A truhand gestured to where the alien was delightedly juggling a dozen rocks. “The Hur’rikku are like the rogue. Like it, we have no direct perception of existence. But we can see how it acts upon other objects. Similarly, we know the Hur’rikku existed because we know of their effect upon the Tar-Aiym. In fact, that is
all
we know so far of the Hur’rikku—that they existed. That and the fact that perhaps they may have found a way to counter the danger posed by a wandering collapsar—and a few other less-impressive myths.”

“But you need physical proof!” Hasboga objected.

“Evidence need not be physical,” was the insect’s calm reply.

“You philosophical scientists are all the same,” she said in exasperation. “You support hypotheses with dreams embedded in foundations of supposition.”

Truzenzuzex was not upset by the disparaging of his chosen field. “So, Flinx, as little as we know of the Tar-Aiym, we know even less of the Hur’rikku. And yet . . . your alien talks of them.”

Flinx turned disbelieving eyes on the humming Ab. “You think that Ab might be . . . ?”

“No.” Truzenzuzex was quick to correct a blossoming misconception. “We do not think your Ab is a Hur’rikku. The last Hur’rikku died five hundred thousand years ago. What Bran and I believe is that he is more likely to be a very old member of some race living on the periphery of the Blight, a race that retains memories of both the Tar-Aiym and the Hur’rikku and their exploits. The legends of the Hur’rikku and the collapsar are known. It is part of one legend that the Hur’rikku threatened to use on the Tar-Aiym worlds the device which had stopped their rogue. If true, that would go far to explain the unprecedented panic among the warrior Tar-Aiym.”

Flinx turned to watch Ab’s juggling act. Noting the smoothness of the blue skin, the supple arms and legs, the clearness in the four limpid blue eyes, he reflected that the alien didn’t
look
old. He reminded himself that he was judging Ab’s appearance by human standards. Among Ab’s race, smooth skin and bright eyes might be signs of advancing senility.

“The legends seem to imply,” Truzenzuzex went on, “that beside this Hur’rikku device, something like the Krang is a larva’s toy.”

Flinx was pacing the floor worriedly. “Couldn’t we try to use the Krang against this new rogue?”

Thranx laughter spiced with sarcasm preceded the philosoph’s response. “Just how would you move it, Flinx? You’d have to move the entire world of Booster, on which the Krang is located and from whose core it draws its power. Besides, if my initial supposition is correct and the Krang does generate a Schwarzschild Discontinuity it would not harm a collapsar. Quite the contrary.”

He leaned forward and stared hard at Flinx. “Then there is the question of who could operate the Krang. I recall your saying that you had no idea how to operate it.”

“Well, that’s true also,” Flinx almost panicked, trying to cover his mistake. Truzenzuzex had always been suspicious of Flinx’s abilities. He hid his concern in wonder. “Something that would make the Krang seem to be a child’s toy . . . incredible.”

“An ultimate weapon.” Truzenzuzex nodded slowly.

A sharp laugh sounded from nearby. “Ultimate weapons indeed! You and your tall friend are madder than this alien. No such thing as an ultimate weapon can exist. If it did, it would have destroyed everything in the galaxy by now, once it had been activated.”