Flinx in Flux

by Alan Dean Foster

  She looked at him steadily. “But you’ve been there. You said the people who lived there built this ship.”

  “Yes. My friends, the Ujurrians.” His eyes flicked beyond her as if expecting to see something else. Perhaps something three meters tall and furry. But he saw only plants and fountain.

  “Why is it Under Edict?”

  “If I told you, I’d be in violation of the Edict itself.”

  “I won’t tell. I owe you my life. I can keep your secrets.”

  He considered, then looked away and sighed. “I’m getting to the point where I don’t care who knows what anymore. The Ujurrians are a physically large ursinoid race, paragons of ingenuousness by our standards. At least they were when I met them. They are also potentially the most advanced people ever encountered.”

  Clarity frowned. “That’s no reason to put them Under Edict.”

  “They are natural telepaths,” Flinx told her. “Mind readers. Not empathic telepaths like the flying snakes.” And myself, he added, but not aloud.

  She whistled meaningfully. “You mean true mind-to-mind communicators? Like the people in the tridee plays and in books?”

  He nodded. “The one thing we’ve always feared more than anything else in an alien race. People who could read our minds when we couldn’t read theirs. And not just our minds. There was an AAnn installation on UlruUjurr. The Ujurrians could read them as well. They chased the AAnn away. I think they can even read Pip’s mind, as much of a mind as she has.” The flying snake looked up briefly from his shoulder before lying back down. “And that isn’t all.”

  “Isn’t that enough?”

  “They learn on an exponential curve. When I met them, it was almost level. They were living in caves. Now it’s heading upward, and fast. By the time I left they’d learned enough from the files at the AAnn station to start an impressive little city. Also to build the Teacher, though I still haven’t figured out how they put the necessary infrastructure together so fast. They also have other abilities.” He smiled slightly. “They like to make jokes, play games, and, dig tunnels.”

  “Tunnels? That’s funny.”

  “Why is that funny?”

  “You’ll find out soon. But they’re not hostile?”

  “On the contrary. They’re fluffy and rather amusing-looking and roly-poly—if you can conceive of something three meters tall massing out around eleven or twelve hundred kilos as roly-poly. We got along real well.”

  “I would think so.” She was trailing her fingers in the water again. “If they built a ship as a gift for you. How many ships do they have?”

  “As far as I know, the Teacher is the only ship they’ve ever built.” That reminded him of a certain Ujurrian who was so peculiar that even his fellow Ujurrians found him strange. “There was a male named Maybeso who didn’t need one, though I suppose I shouldn’t say that because I don’t know what his range was.”

  Her eyes widened. “Teleportation, too?”

  “I don’t know. They call it something else. I think they can do other things as well, but I didn’t know enough to ask the right questions. It’s been a long time, and I need to go back.” He blinked. “You can understand why the Church would put a world like that Under Edict. The Ujurrians are a race of telepathic, possibly teleportational innocents with limitless mental potential. You know how the Outreach Bureau thinks. Just because they’re friendly now doesn’t mean they’ll be friendly tomorrow. ‘Pananoia is survival,’ and that sort of nonsense.”

  She nodded slowly, and he turned from her to gaze moodily at the pond. “You don’t have to worry about any pursuit now. The Teacher’s very fast, and we’re armed, though I’ve no idea if the armament is functional. I’ve never had to use it.”

  “Unlike the people who took me,” she said quietly.

  He checked the readout strapped to his left wrist. “We’ll be far enough out to engage the drive pretty soon. Once we’re in space-plus, nobody can touch us.”

  He did not tell her that the Teacher was the only ship in the Commonwealth capable of taking off and landing directly from a planetary surface. Those innocent geniuses, the Ujurrians, had solved in a week a problem that had tormented the Commonwealth’s best physicists since the development of the KK-drive. There were still a number of secrets he intended to keep from his guest. One would be the fiction that his ship was no different from similar vessels.

  “If it was Under Edict, how did you come to be on this world and ingratiate yourself tightly enough with its inhabitants to make them want to build you a ship?”

  He was examining the ceiling. Amazingly, there were bugs up there, establishing themselves in the vines. He could not imagine how and when they had come on board. They were the real dominants in this universe, he thought. Not humans, not thranx, not the AAnn. It was always the little ones who ruled. Insects had managed to colonize everything but vacuum. Now they had taken the Teacher for their own. They added to the common room’s homey feel—except when one of them dropped off a vine onto his head. Thus far nothing dangerous had hitched a ride in his hair. Anyway, insects rarely bit him. Perhaps he was not as tasty as other people.

  He remembered her question and replied absently. “I was looking for someone, and I visited a lot of peculiar places.”

  “Can I ask who you were looking for?”

  “My father and my mother.”

  “Oh.” That was not the reply she had been expecting. “Did you find them?”

  “I found out that my mother was dead. I still don’t know what happened to my father, or even who he was.”

  “Are you still searching?”

  He shook his head violently, surprised at how tense he was. “I’ve crossed a lot of void, touched many worlds trying to come up with an answer. The searching sapped a lot of the passion for it. Now my interests are changing. What was critical to me a few years ago isn’t critical to me anymore. While I’d still like to know, I don’t see the point in devoting all my attention to finding out.”

  “So you grew up an orphan?”

  That made him smile, as memories of his childhood always did. “I had an adoptive mother. Mother Mastiff. A lying, cheating, foul-mouthed, filthy, unattractive old lady whom I love very much.”

  “I can see that,” she said softly.

  “You know,” he told her suddenly, “all I ever wanted was to be left alone. I didn’t ask to be given this ship, just as I haven’t asked for all the problems I’ve had to deal with. Deity, I’m not even twenty yet!”

  “You’re a lot more mature, Flinx, than most of the older men I’ve known.” So deep was he in contemplation of himself that the implications of her comment flashed right past him.

  “I’m just beginning to have, a glimpse of the forces that move the universe, Clarity. The sentient portion of it, anyway. Nothing is exactly as it appears. There are barely perceptible undercurrents swirling about our affairs, and for some damned reason a lot of them seem to be swirling around me. The more I try to run from them, the more they wash up against me.”

  It was her turn to smile. “Now you’re talking nonsense.”

  “I wish I were. Maybe I am. Maybe you’re right.” After all, he thought, as messed up as his nervous system was, his imaginings might seem as solid as reality without his being able to tell the difference.

  “So you think the universe is out to get you?”

  “It’s not out to get me. It just won’t leave me alone. All I ever wanted from it were the identities of my mother and father. While trying to find that out, a number of people have died around me. Yes, died,” he said emphatically in response to her skeptical look. “It’s a burden I can’t off-load. Violence follows me. Look at you. You’re a perfect example.”

  “Meeting you was sheer coincidence,” she argued. “A lucky one on my part. Surely you can’t think there’s some grand cosmic scheme devoted to making your life miserable?”

  “I know it sounds insane. Sometimes I don’t know what to believe. There are times wh
en I think I should just stay aboard the Teacher, choose a vector at random along the galactic plane, and rush off at top speed until the drive gives out. At least then I’d have peace.”

  She let the resulting silence linger for a long time before speaking again. “It seems to me you’re going to have to choose between peace and answers to all your questions.”

  He turned back to her. Gradually the tension drained out of him. “That’s a very perceptive observation, Clarity.”

  “Hell, I’m a very perceptive kind of person. Besides being a biological genius. Self-damnation’s no more a solution to anything than self-pity.”

  “What can you know of either? Still, it’s nice of you to try to make me feel better. Considering your own situation, it’s nice of you to think of me at all.”

  “Yes, you’re really in sad shape, aren’t you, Flinx? You’re independent, wealthy enough to operate your own private starship, and you’re all of nineteen. It’s pretty difficult to feel sorry for someone who moans and groans about a setup like that.”

  She only analyzes what she sees, Flinx thought. She doesn’t consider the internal variables. But it was thoughtful of her nonetheless.

  “Whether you believe it or not, I’m sick of all this. I just want to be left to myself, to do my thinking and my studying. The Ujurrians called this vessel the Teacher in my honor. They should have named it the Student because that’s what I am: My primary subject is myself. I want to know who and what I am. Maybe I already know and I’m either too stupid or too scared to recognize it.”

  At that she rose and walked over to him. Her hands moved. “I think you’re just fine, if you’ll put aside some of this silliness you’ve gone and burdened yourself with.” He retreated a step, and she actually pouted.

  “Where do you want to go?” he muttered uneasily.

  She took a deep breath. “Ever hear of a world called Longtunnel?” He shook his head. “Call it up on your holo map. You think Alaspin’s a frontier world? There’s only one outpost on Longtunnel, and it’s understaffed. With good reason, as you’ll see for yourself when we get there. That’s where I need to go.”

  “If I take you back to where you were, won’t your kidnappers be looking for you there?”

  “I’m sure they will, but I need to tell my colleagues what happened so they can take steps to protect themselves.” She smiled. “You’ll understand immediately why I reacted so sharply to your reference to your Ujurrian friends being fond of tunnel digging. I don’t think they’re responsible for any of the excavations on Longtunnel.”

  “Probably not. Though it’s hard sometimes to understand them clearly, mind-to-mind communication notwithstanding. Extreme guilelessness and extreme sophistication are a tough combination to handle.”

  They might not be so guileless now, he told himself. Not after he had introduced them to the game of civilization. Though knowing them as he did, they might by now have moved on to another game entirely. He ought to find out—once he had handed this young woman back to the safe custody of her friends.

  He murmured into the concealed pickup, disdaining the time-consuming use of the keyboard this time. He might be ignorant of Longtunnel’s location, but not the Teacher. Stored within its memory were the whereabouts of every known world in the Commonwealth.

  Flinx jumped slightly as Clarity came up behind him. Pip left his shoulder in favor of a decorative sculpture on the far side of the pool. Scrap was playing with the fish in the water, darting and striking harmlessly when they neared the surface. A scaly, misplaced kingfisher, Flinx mused.

  Her arms slipped around him and gently drew him against her body. He could have disengaged himself but this time felt no compulsion to do so.

  “So we’re on our way to Longtunnel?”

  “On our way, yes. What are you doing?”

  “It’s better to show,” she whispered into his ear, “than to tell.”

  What she showed him was a means for shrinking parsecs. For once he was not bored during the long journey through space-plus, nor was he forced to retire regularly to the ship’s library for surcease. The library had been limited to what the Ujurrians had had access to when they had built the ship. During his visits to other worlds Flinx had expanded it substantially. He introduced Clarity to it when they had time.

  He did not fall in love with her, though he easily could have. There was too much still buried inside him for that. It was not a worrisome concern since she showed no signs of falling in love with him. All she was doing was making the jump from Alaspin to Longtunnel the most enjoyable journey he had yet taken on the Teacher.

  There was a great deal to be said for not traveling alone, for not shutting oneself off from the rest of humanity. Particularly when humanity took the form of someone as lively, vivacious, intelligent, and attractive as Clarity.

  Even from orbit Longtunnel looked abnormal. There was a lone beacon on the surface. Linking with it, the Teacher estimated average wind speed in the temperate zone at a hundred fifty kph.

  “Comparatively calm day.” Clarity was reading over Flinx’s shoulder. “It blows much stronger than that.”

  They stood on a traditional anachronism: the ship’s bridge. Since Flinx could address the ship’s computer from anywhere, including the bathroom, the existence of a bridge was nothing more than a sop to archaic design. But it felt good to sit before a control console and inspect the line of manual instrumentation. He understood some of the functions, but nowhere near enough to enable him to fly the ship in an emergency. Piloting an interstellar vessel was so complicated that humanx pilots rarely had anything to do and were glad of it. They were little more than a backup for a supposedly fail-safe system.

  The controls and the view through the broad sweep of plexalloy were at least attractive, and it was a good place to watch incomprehensible information come in. The screens on the bridge were larger than those in the staterooms and commons.

  “How windy does it get down there?” he asked.

  “Three, four hundred kph. Maybe more. Nobody pays much attention unless there’s a supply shuttle due in.”

  “I’d think if you were living in it you’d notice it all the time.”

  “That’s just it. We don’t live in it. The surface of Longtunnel’s uninhabitable.”

  “You live in underground structures?”

  “You’ll see.” She nodded toward a readout. “Just follow the navbeacon down.”

  “All right.” He did not move.

  She waited a while longer. “Aren’t we going to the shuttle?” she asked finally.

  “Of course.” He rose smoothly. “Just checking a few last things.”

  As much as he enjoyed seeing new worlds and meeting new people, he always felt a pang of regret whenever it came time to leave the Teacher. In a universe of insanity it was his one refuge: always compliant, always comforting.

  They made a clean drop and cut a tight curve around the northern hemisphere, homing in on the single landing beacon. Since there were no other vessels in orbit, there was no need to request clearance, and Clarity assured him there were no aircraft based at the outpost.

  “That means our arrival will be noted not only by your friends and port Security but also by any local contacts your kidnappers may have established.”

  “You could always repackage me again for delivery,” she said with a grin.

  “True. Ribbons and bows this time.” He studied the shuttle readouts. “They may have given up on you by now, or they may be concentrating all their energies on Alaspin.”

  “The latter’s possible, but not the first.” Her expression was somber. “I don’t think these people give up on anything.”

  The little vessel shuddered as it sank through angry atmosphere. High-altitude winds buffeted them from side to side. Despite its compensators, they found reason to be grateful for their landing harnesses. Jetstreams warred with one another, treating the intruder with rude indifference. Pip and Scrap wrapped themselves around the two empty s
eats and held on tightly.

  Lightning troubled him more than the wind. It was thunderous, continual, and struck sideways between the clouds as often as from cloud to surface. The shuttle was hit twice, but the only damage was a scorched wing.

  “Is it always like this?” The steady roar and rumble reached them even through the shuttle’s superb soundproofing.

  “So the climatologists say. I wouldn’t have their job for anything. They have to stay near the surface and go outside every so often to monitor their instruments.”

  Locally it was midday, but when the shuttle finally broke through the bottom layer of clouds it was as dark as early evening. Lightning continued to flash all around. Flinx was grateful that all they had to do was sit back and hang on while the ship’s brain conversed at high speed with the mind of the landing computer below. The two machines calmly sorted out angle of approach and descent, landing speed, wind direction and shear, and the thousand other vital details that had to be determined and agreed upon in order to get two fragile humans down intact. Despite the best efforts of both mechanicals, the little craft bucked and heaved.

  There was just enough light to enable Flinx to see through the front viewpoint. The terrain was worse than unpromising: tall pillars of pale stone, a jagged network of broken spires and crags, unhealthy-looking vegetation clinging grimly to exposed rock or hiding in the few sheltered places as it tried to avoid being mugged by the unrelenting gale. It was raining lightly.

  As they dropped lower and closer to the menacing outcrops, Flinx strained for sight of a light, a building, anything to indicate they were coming down in the right place.

  The shuttle’s engines roared unexpectedly, slamming him back in the pilot’s chair, the harness pressing tight against chest and legs. As they rose and banked, he had a brief glimpse of blue lights lined up in the darkness. That was all: no field, no hangars or blast pits or any of the other numerous appurtenances of a regular shuttleport.