A heavy weight depressed his chest. His breathing had stopped, but not as a consequence of the a.s.sa.s.sin"s blow. The man had collapsed on top of him and it was his great weight that was inhibiting Flinx"s respiration. To the left of his head, the murderous strike had cracked the stone floor. Clarity was still screaming. Gasping and choking on her own anguish she stopped only when, grunting with the effort, he rolled the heavy body off to one side and slowly sat up.
"Flinx?"
"I"m okay. I"m alive. I guess." Sucking air, he eyed the ma.s.sive bulk that was now lying motionless on the floor next to him. The Qwarm was unchanged, provided one discounted the hole that pierced his cranium from forehead to back. The hole was notably smaller in front than in the rear, indicating that something superfast and lethal had penetrated the skull. No sound had accompanied the lethal shot. A sonic stiletto would make a hole like that, Flinx knew. Or an inertia plug. Professional that he was, the Qwarm could probably have identified the source immediately. Except that it had been focused on him, and now he was dead.
A pulsing, cylindrical shape slithered into his lap. A quick check of Pip"s right wing showed that the injury, while sufficient to bring her down, was not extensive. With appropriate treatment it should heal quickly. Lifting her, he slipped her carefully onto his right shoulder and waited until she had a good grip before he rose.
A voice parsing elegant symbospeech clicked melodically behind him.
"Still riding the grizel grizel, I see."
Still a little unsteady, he turned and looked behind him. What he saw and recognized made him smile.
Deus ex thranxic.u.m, he mused. Memories came flooding back.
Her chitin glistening a pure and brilliant aquamarine, feathery antennae inclined forward, twinned ovipositors forming a pair of perfect parallel arcs above the back of her abdomen, the young female thranx stood facing the center of the chamber. In addition to the customary carry-pouch slung over her thorax and a larger satchel strapped to her abdomen, she held four pistols: one in each truhand, the others in her raised foothands. The display of firepower was impressive. Even more so was the realization that she had needed only a single shot to bring down the Qwarm. The presence of all four vestigial wing cases indicated that she had yet to mate. Inlaid into her right shoulder was the gleaming enamel insignia of a full padre in the security service of the United Church.
Flinx doubted she would have been able to bring down the a.s.sa.s.sin, despite her bearing, maturity, and sharpshooting ability, had he not been fully engrossed in preparing to finish off his quarry. That total absorption had been just enough of a distraction to allow the new arrival to get off the fatal shot. Had she missed, Flinx feared the outcome might have been very different. But she had not missed. Still smiling, he started toward her. As he did so, she neatly holstered all four of her weapons.
"Your reflexes have gotten better," he told her.
Standing on her four trulegs, she had to tilt her head back to meet his gaze. The maroon bands that formed horizontal stripes across her shimmering gold compound eyes were darker than most.
"And you"ve grown taller. You humans and your disorderly growth variations: it"s enough to make those of other species who follow sane patterns of biological development believe your genetic code is packed with jokers."
"You wouldn"t get any argument on that from me." Lowering his gaze, he eyed a truleg. "You still limp a little."
She clicked her mandibles and kicked out slightly with the indicated limb. "The occasional limp is a psychological reflex I have not been able to shake. Structurally, the leg is fully restored. A little regenerated natural chitin, a little synthetic, and everything was made good as new. Memories, however, aren"t as easily repaired. Those are what sometimes cause me to miss a step." Almost as an afterthought, she leaned toward him. Bending low, he let the tips of her antennae caress his forehead. When he straightened, he extended a hand to contact them with his fingertips.
"You"re still human, I see," she commented when she stepped back. "Meaning that you"re still short the necessary number of appendages required to live a proper civilized life."
"My life has been anything but civilized." His tone darkened. "Or proper. I"ll fill you in and do my best to skip over some of the greater excesses."
A foothand reached up to indicate the insignia embedded in her shoulder. "No need. As you can see, I"m no longer a padre-elect. Working for Church Security, one encounters plenty of excess on a regular basis."
"Um-excuse me?"
At the sound of Clarity"s voice Flinx turned back toward her. In the excitement of the unexpected reunion he had momentarily forgotten that his beloved was still encased in a hardened container of highly volatile explosive material.
"You two know know each other?" each other?"
"Sorry, sorry." Flinx indicated the self-a.s.sured insectoid standing poised in front of him. "Clarity, this is Sylzenzuzex. An old friend and a distant relative of Truzenzuzex. She and I originally met under-difficult circ.u.mstances. That was something like ten years ago." He looked back at the waiting thranx. Her b-thorax pulsed slightly as she breathed, taking in air through spiracles far more advanced and oxygen-efficient than those of any Terran insect. Her personal bouquet was even more fragrant than that of the average thranx. Frangipani and rose, honeysuckle and huckleberry. It was all coming back to him.
He gestured in Clarity"s direction. "Syl, meet Clarity Held. The one human being in the universe who knows who and what I am, in more depth and detail than I used to think possible. She loves me in spite of that."
"That could change," Clarity growled, "unless you get me out of this coagulated goo before one of these fanatics wakes up and thinks to hit me with a rock, or a chair, or a good swift kick, and blow all of us to kingdom come."
"I do not know exactly what your intended mate is talking about, srra!!aut srra!!aut," Syl clicked, "but I can relate to the part about being blown up." Left truhand and foothand gestured in unison to take in their immediate surroundings. "What is all this about? Who are these people and how and why have they come to be so incapacitated?" She used a foothand to gesture back the way she had come. "There are others by the entrance and in the hallway. Seeing them in such a state and knowing you were somewhere here is what caused me to proceed with caution and weapons drawn."
"They"re members of something called the Order of Null. I-incapacitated them. They want me dead."
Her right truhand and foothand pointed to the body of the Qwarm. "And are apparently willing to pay well to accomplish that."
Flinx joined her in staring at the a.s.sa.s.sin"s mountainous corpse. "I"m glad you didn"t switch professions. He wouldn"t have given you a chance to explain yourself."
She gestured second-degree accord. "A senior Qwarm." Her gaze returned to search his face. "After all these years there are still those who wish you gone."
He shrugged. "Their ident.i.ty shifts and changes, but not their intent. It"s just my life, Syl. Later, when we have more time, I"ll tell you more about it than you want to know." He mustered up his earlier smile as he turned and started toward the immobilized, increasingly impatient Clarity. "Just as you have to tell me how you came to be here, and how you found me."
She nodded and moved off to check on the condition of the traumatized, fetally curled, and still overwhelmed members of the Order, as he hurried over to Clarity.
The Elder had told him that there were four of the small, disk-shaped detonators taped to her thighs and electronically attuned to the hardened foam. They would set off the explosive amalgam if anyone attempted to cut or break through it or if it was struck hard enough. He did not need the beseeching look in her eyes to tell him that whatever he did he would have to proceed with the utmost caution. As with the Qwarm, if he made a mistake there would be no second chance. For either of them.
But if the detonators were simply taped to her body ...
Smiling encouragingly, he stepped behind her and tried to slip his right hand down her front, starting at the neck where the foam stopped. No matter how hard or how carefully he wiggled his hand and no matter how deeply she inhaled, he could not get more than a finger or two into the restrictive s.p.a.ce between her throat and the inside layer. Fearful of cracking or setting off the gray amalgam, he was reluctant to push too hard. He could not take a chance on triggering one or more of the detonators.
He had no better results when he lay down on the floor and tried to slip a hand up a leg. The Order had done their work well. He couldn"t free Clarity without splintering or splitting the encasing foam. Doing that would undoubtedly set it off. And if the Elder was to be believed, the "simple" mechanical triggers taped to her upper legs could not be deactivated electronically without the risk of initiating the deadly reaction.
He needed something thin, narrow, and flexible that had a strong grasp, like the wormgrip the Elder had referred to. He could send Sylzenzuzex off to obtain one and bring it back, but that would leave him having to guard Clarity against any surprises the recovering acolytes might produce. Even disarmed they might prove dangerous. With the right tools he could shift both Clarity and her volatile sheath, but what if in the process of being moved it accidentally struck a wall or fell to the ground? The result would be as explosive as if he tried to cut into it.
As Syl continued to gather up the last of the Order"s weapons and communits, he wracked his brain for a solution that would not only be viable but quick. It finally struck him that he had at his disposal a tool that was even more flexible than a wormgrip. Turning and walking away from Clarity, he started searching through the pile of instrumentation Sylzenzuzex had collected. Clarity watched him intently.
"What are you doing, Flinx? You heard what the crazy old militant said: the detonators on my legs can"t be switched off electronically. They"re simple on-off switches. In order to disable them you have to get them off me." An edge crept into her voice. "Why aren"t you getting them off me, Flinx?" "Why aren"t you getting them off me, Flinx?"
"Because I can"t reach them without splitting or cracking the foam and setting it off. But there"s someone who can."
Digging through the growing pile of sequestered weaponry and personal instrumentation, he evaluated and discarded one item after another before finally settling on a miniholo disk. It was round, it was small, and it was the closest thing to a b.u.t.ton-sized detonator he had been able to scrounge from the pile. As a puzzled Clarity looked on, he grabbed Pip gently by the neck and drew her head downward. He showed her the disk, emphasizing its importance by emanating concomitant heightened emotions of longing and desire. Then he dropped it down the front of his shirt.
Clarity had heard him talk to the minidrag on numerous occasions. This, however, was the first time she had ever heard him use the word "fetch."
For an alien non-Terran pseudo-reptiloid whose body shape was an excellent example of interstellar parallel evolution, Pip was moderately intelligent. Even so, she was no dog, far less a dolphin. Flinx had to repeat the demonstration several times before she got the idea. His feeling of accomplishment when she finally wriggled down his shirtfront to recover the dropped disk and then slithered back out his open collar holding it in her mouth was the equal of any triumph he had experienced recently.
Leaving the mound of confiscated gear, he returned to Clarity. Gently unwinding Pip"s coils, he placed her on Clarity"s left shoulder with her triangular-shaped head facing the slight opening at her neck. Holding the miniholo disk in his other hand, he mimed dropping it into the narrow s.p.a.ce between her throat and the hardened explosive foam. Wings folded tightly against her sides, the flying snake immediately ducked down into the opening and disappeared into the gap.
A moment pa.s.sed. Clarity"s expression contorted. She gave every sign of trying to move, to get away, but imprisoned within the solidified froth she was unable to do little more than twitch. Flinx was suddenly concerned. She had not raised any objections to his serpentine stratagem, and living as she did with Sc.r.a.p the last thing he expected was for her to show any kind of irrational fear of intimate proximity to Pip.
"What"s wrong? Try not to move so much-you might accidentally impact the foam and set off a reaction."
"I am am trying!" she shot back, just before she lapsed into uncontrollable giggling. "I can"t help it-she tickles!" trying!" she shot back, just before she lapsed into uncontrollable giggling. "I can"t help it-she tickles!"
The laughter subsided along with the stimulation when Pip"s head reappeared beneath her chin. Flinx broke out in a wide grin. Gripped firmly in the minidrag"s sharp teeth, the thumbnail-sized detonator trailed shreds of the tape that had secured it to her right thigh. The empathetic warmth that now pa.s.sed between man and minidrag was as deep and true as any spoken expression of satisfaction.
He examined the recovered detonator closely. It was small, but not so small that it couldn"t conceal within its slim plastic body some kind of backup triggering system. He laid it carefully aside. At his urging Pip made three more trips down Clarity"s front, bringing forth the remaining three detonators along with concurrent bursts of uncontrollable laughter that gradually faded in intensity. When all four detonators had been recovered, he induced the flying snake to make one more exploratory slither. This additional excursion took three times as long as any of its four predecessors. Finally emerging, the minidrag radiated concern and uncertainty. Picking her up and settling her on his shoulder, he proceeded to soothe her both mentally and physically.
There was always the risk, he explained to Clarity, that the Elder had been lying. "Couldn"t take the chance that there might have been five detonators," he told her, "or more. Don"t worry. If there were, Pip would have found them."
Gathering up the four detonators, he turned and headed for the hallway. Behind him, Sylzenzuzex was busily trussing the hands and feet of the recovering Order members with a spool of wire-thin makesafe that was standard issue equipment for a Church Security operative.
His rented skimmer was parked where he had left it. Ten minutes later he was forty kilometers away and hovering a centimeter above the center of a small, shallow lake. Slipping out of his clothes, he picked up the detonators one last time, took a deep breath, and plunged into the cool water. Reaching the bottom, he proceeded to shove them as deep into the mud as he could. Lastly, he moved a large flat rock over the top of them before returning to the surface to gulp air.
Moments later he was back at the Order"s villa. No smoke rose from the middle of the building and insofar as he could tell, the central atrium had not collapsed. His relief was not complete, however, until he was once more in the central chamber.
Emerging from the individual paroxysms of pleasure induced by Flinx"s emotive projecting, the now bound and secured members of the Order were suffering from varying degrees of emotional hangover. The Elder in particular looked especially distraught. None of them were in any condition to confront him verbally, far less physically. Her training had taught Sylzenzuzex how to secure detainees. None of the Order members could stand, much less mount an a.s.sault.
"What do you want to do with them, Flinx?" One antenna waved in his direction while the other indicated the prisoners. "What did you do to put them in this condition, anyway-drug them?"
"Something like that." Years ago, when they had met on Ulru-Ujurr, his Talent had still been in its infancy. He had only been able to infrequently read the emotions of others-not to project his own onto them.
He realized with a start that dealing with the Order posed a tricky problem of its own. Their organization might be secretive, but that did not make it illegal. Attempted murder, of course, was another matter. But declaring the attempt on his life would require registering a formal complaint with the Nurian authorities, giving a relevant deposition, appearing before an adjudication automaton, and answering the kinds of questions he preferred not to answer. On the other hand, if he and his friends simply departed and left them bound as they were, eventually they would free themselves and come after him again. Perhaps less precisely next time: say, by locating him in a public place in downtown Sphene and then bombing it. That risk he could deal with, but not the prospect of endangering innocents.
It was Sylzenzuzex who proposed a solution. One that was temporary, to be sure, but temporary was all that was required. The members of the Order needed to be neutralized only until he and his friends were safely away from New Riviera.
"In my capacity as a Church Security officer I am allowed a certain amount of operational leeway." A truhand indicated the bound and now increasingly active throng of believers. "If I file a report stating that these confrontational humans are members of a potentially dangerous organization, they can be taken into official custody until the truth of the claim is adjudicated one way or the other. It is not necessary for me to mention that they have attempted murder and hired a Qwarm to do so. It should be enough to keep them in custody for a couple of days. Will that be sufficient for your purposes?"
He would have hugged her except that he was afraid of breaking a delicate truarm. He settled instead for swiping his hand across the tips of both antennae.
"Go ahead and file the necessary report. I"ll see to Clarity."
Recovering his service belt, he returned to where she still sat encased in the congealed sheath of explosive foam. Her tone, like her expression, had lost none of its impatience. "What was that all about?"
"I had to find a way to make sure that both these fanatics and the authorities wouldn"t interfere with us for a little while. At least long enough to allow us to leave Nur without having to chance another battle at the shuttleport." He turned his head to his left. "Syl a.s.sures me she has enough rank to take care of it. Hold still. And you might want to take a deep breath."
While Pip looked on with interest, he drew a small cutting tool from his belt. Under his experienced fingers it flared to life.
"Why take a deep breath?" she wondered aloud. "If this doesn"t work and you set off the amalgam it"s not going to matter how much oxygen I have in my lungs. Or you have in yours, either."
"Good point." He moved the dynamic end of the tool toward her left shoulder. The beam made contact and began to slice into the hardened grayish material. In spite of himself, he winced. But the beam continued to cut and nothing, least of all his life, flashed before his eyes. He was careful to work at an angle that would keep it well away from her skin.
Proceeding with care it took nearly an hour to free her from the last of the casing. When the final cut was made and he was able to remove the last piece of foam from her right leg, she collapsed forward into his arms. Unable to do more than twitch inside the sheath, her muscles were badly cramped. She was content to sit as he tenderly ma.s.saged her arms and legs, and he was more than happy to do so.
As soon as she was able to sit upright by herself he extracted a medikit and went to work on Pip"s damaged wing. Strands of all-purpose synthetic organocarbon bound the edges of the wound together as cleanly and expertly as if the repair had been woven by a spider with an M.D. A spray of mistskin was applied to sheath the fibers. Sitting back, he eyed his handiwork. The membrane should heal quickly as the flying snake"s own tissue replaced the artificial fibers and mistskin.
Returning to where Clarity was continuing to rub sensation back into her thighs and upper arms, he addressed the recovered communit that once more encircled his left wrist. The response to his call was immediate.
The image the unit projected in front of him showed a man and a thranx. Both evinced extreme agitation that began to diminish only when they saw that the caller was in good health and under no visible duress.
"First positive." Truzenzuzex was visibly relieved. "You are not dead."
"Yes, I can confirm that," Flinx replied blithely.
"And your consort?" Tse-Mallory added quickly.
"Clarity"s fine," Flinx a.s.sured him. "We"re all fine. Sylzenzuzex is here, too. Did you know anything about that?" Raising his arm and turning his wrist, he allowed the communit"s sensor enough room to image Clarity and then the young thranx.
At the unexpected sight of his youthful relation, Truzenzuzex promptly unleashed a stream of clicks, whistles, and wordings too fast and too furious even for Flinx, who was fluent in both High and Low Thranx, to decipher. Using her own communit, Sylzenzuzex latched on to the relevant channel and replied in kind. This alien dialogue continued until Flinx felt compelled to interrupt with his own version of what had just transpired. Tse-Mallory and Truzenzuzex listened in silence until he was finished.
"While your chronology is compelling and the details satisfying," the elderly thranx replied, "I can"t escape a feeling in my sphincter that certain important minutiae are missing. For example, while I am of course relieved to hear that my Eighth-Once-Removed has succeeded in rescuing you, I am much more interested to learn how she came to find find you." you."
"As am I," Flinx told him. "In fact, I think I"m going to ask her to explain that right now. We"ll rejoin you very soon. And Tru-you and Bran need to make preparations to leave Nur immediately."
"Interesting," Tse-Mallory"s image replied. "Tru and I were about to make the same suggestion to you. You see, we just had our own separate run-ins with the happy folk of the Order."
That explained why they had not come to his aid, Flinx surmised. It did nothing, however, to explain how and why Sylzenzuzex had done so.
"You"ll have to tell me all about it," he responded, "when we get back to Sphene."
"Wait!" As Tse-Mallory tried to maintain the link, Flinx cut his old mentor off-something he would never have thought of doing as recently as just a few years ago. But he was tired and sore, and concerned for both himself and for Clarity. There would be plenty of time for conversation and reflection later, once they were safely away from both New Riviera and the murderous Order of Null.
A hand touched his shoulder. Looking around, he saw Clarity gazing up at him. "Thanks for closing the conversation. Your fatherly friends are wonderful, and caring, and they watched over me all through my long convalescence." She smiled ruefully. "But they do do like to talk." like to talk."
"I know. Just, whatever you do, don"t ever call Bran Tse-Mallory "fatherly" Or Truzenzuzex either, for that matter." On his shoulder Pip was squirming for attention. When he turned to eye his serpentine companion, she lifted her upper body away from him and used her head to point.
"O"Morion"s Mother!" he exclaimed contritely. "I forgot about Sc.r.a.p."
The transparent container that restrained the young minidrag might be fashioned of impervious material, but it was secured by a pair of straightforward mechanical latches. Flinx unsnapped them and opened the box. Wind from the flying snake"s humming wings brushed the human"s hair as the Alaspinian rocketed past his liberator"s face. Darting about like an oversized hummingbird, the joyful minidrag swarmed Clarity.
"All right, all right!" she laughed. "I"m glad you"re out of that box, too!"
Rea.s.sured that his human was unhurt, Sc.r.a.p zipped over to confront the more mature minidrag resting on Flinx"s shoulder. Pip snapped playfully at her offspring as the other flying snake nipped in and out, his pointed tongue flicking at her as he danced blissfully in the static air of the circular chamber. Eventually exhausting himself, he finally settled back down on Clarity"s right shoulder. Reaching up and stroking him, she cooed softly to her pet as he folded his multihued wings against his ribs and rubbed his head against her bare neck.
Flinx walked over to Sylzenzuzex as she finished securing the last of the recovering Order members. Turning toward him, she gestured with a poise and confidence that had not been present in the young padre-elect whose insecurities he well recalled from a decade ago.
"Don"t worry," she a.s.sured him in perfect, crackling symbospeech. "I"ve been careful to disarm them all, and in any case they are well bound, kss!lpp kss!lpp. A task that is much simpler when one is securing beings with only four limbs instead of the normal eight." She indicated her communit. "I have summoned a security team to take them into custody." Gleaming in the light from overhead, golden compound eyes looked back into his own single-lensed oculars.
"I wasn"t worrying about your work," he told her. "You still haven"t explained your sudden, unexpected, and extraordinarily timely reappearance in my life."
She whistled archly: thranx laughter. "I can see where you would find it something of a surprise." She gestured with a truhand. "But I"m afraid the explanation is entirely prosaic.
"A couple of years ago, as a matter of family and clan etiquette, I finally made contact with my Elder Eighth-Once-Removed, the esteemed Eint Truzenzuzex. A polite correspondence ensued. Limited, as you would expect, by the twin exigencies of distance and expense. In the course of this ongoing communication he mentioned that he was in regular and close contact with someone who turned out to be a mutual acquaintance-you."
Flinx nodded. "I remember my surprise years ago when you told me you were related to Tru."
She gesticulated understanding. "Time pa.s.sed. Among the many postings available to those who work in Church Security, one eventually opened up here on Nur/New Riviera. I applied for it and was delighted to have my request honored. I am sure that hailing from the Hive Zu and having a renowned relative with the rank of Eint did not hurt my application. I was elated. The transfer offered an opportunity to finally meet and interact with my eminent Eighth-relation." Feathery antennae alternated switching slowly back and forth.
"It was also, I hoped, an opportunity to encounter once again the singular young human with whom I had shared so much trauma and travail so long ago." The valentine-shaped head looked him up and down. "You are less young. In many ways, I think."
"We"re all a lot less young, in many ways," he commented somberly.
She indicated third-degree concurrence. "While I had no difficulty making contact with my Eighth, I was disappointed to learn from him and his companion that you had left Nur to engage in vital research. I was told you had departed under difficult and rushed circ.u.mstances." She indicated the struggling bodies littering the floor of the chamber. "Conflict was alluded to, but this Order was not mentioned.
"More time pa.s.sed. Then I was informed by Truzenzuzex that you had finally returned in advance of resuming your important research." As she declaimed the latter she gestured with a truhand and a foothand to where Clarity was continuing to play with Sc.r.a.p. "And other matters."
"If Tru told you I was back," Flinx murmured, "then he must have also told you where I was staying. Why haven"t you come to see me?"