Pip recognized the tell-tale gesture as well as the position of her companion’s fingers. Darting forward, she positioned herself carefully, took precise aim, and from the single forward-facing fleshy ridge that formed a narrowing tube on the underside of her upper jaw, dribbled a few drops of minidrag venom on the indicated place on the band that encircled Flinx’s throat. Instantly the flexible, machine-woven alien material began to sizzle. Turning his head away from the rising wisp of toxic fumes, Flinx waited for several minutes. No stranger to the potent effects of the flying snake’s poison, experience allowed him to estimate the speed of the advancing decay. Still, when he reached up to take hold of opposite sides of the collar with both hands, he was careful to keep his fingers away from the spot where Pip had drooled.
He did not have to pull very hard. In addition to being a powerful neurotoxin, the minidrag’s venom was also highly corrosive. The collar broke apart easily in his fingers. Inspecting the remains, he saw that it had been eaten almost completely through. There had been some risk of the caustic liquid activating the powdered explosive that was integrated into the material, but he felt the odds to be in his favor. In order to render it safe and easy to handle, such lethal material was usually quite stable until precisely ignited—in this case by a remote electronic signal. Had he guessed wrong, he would not have had time to realize his mistake.
Shorn of the deadly neckpiece, he was free to leave. Or would be, as soon as the sinuous visitor from the Pyrassisian underworld finished its inspection of the storage room and returned to its hole. Trying to keep as much distance between himself and the probing, multitongued head as possible, and having finally freed himself, he rose and began to work his way around the back of the room. Bulky intruder notwithstanding, he would soon have a clear path to the doorway.
That portal promptly and unexpectedly popped open wide. Light poured into the room, silhouetting a pair of AAnn figures. The opening of the door was punctuated by a florid hissing of syllables immediately recognizable as an AAnn curse of first-degree consternation.
The invading echinoderm’s front end whipped around in response to the infringing illumination. A fifth appendage, narrow and tubular, emerged from the midst of the multiple tongues as the creature’s entire upper length suddenly inflated. The pistol that flared in the intermittent darkness missed its target. The now frightened visitor did not.
From the central protuberance there issued a stream of gut-polished, fine-grained quartz sand no bigger in diameter than a pin. Sprayed at murderous velocity by air that was highly compressed within the whole of the intruder’s unseen length, the slender stream of sand cut through polymer containers, a metal tank, and eventually, the right leg of Tenukac LLBYYLL. The AAnn xenologist hissed sharply at the searing pain. As he fell, he managed to fire his weapon again. His aim was no better the second time, and the shot struck only the ground, penetrating the ancient hard black material of the transmitter. As he struck the unyielding surface he lost his grip on the pistol. It flew from his fingers to bounce once before skidding out of sight beneath a massive ceramic container.
Faltering in the doorway, his mate Nennasu BDESSLL struggled to train her own gun on the writhing, convulsing intruder. A muscular coil whipped around her waist and knocked the weapon from her clawed fingers. While Tenukac struggled to stanch the flow of blood from the hole that went all the way through his leg, his now helpless mate was elevated into the air and brought slowly toward the head of the curious creature. A second set of tongues appeared inside the first layer. Smaller than the others, they were black instead of bright red, lined with tiny, backward-facing hooks, and framed a dark, efficient-looking gullet.
Between the agitated, frantic hisses of the two AAnn, the thrashing of the visitor’s coils, and the hum of Pip’s wings, the noise in the enclosed space was terrific. The female xenologist’s weapon lay on the floor where she had dropped it. Hoping that the invader, its truly terrifying nature now fully revealed, could concentrate on only one potential prey at a time, Flinx dove forward, snatched up the fallen gun, rolled, took aim in the light pouring through the now vacant doorway, and fired. It was a very unpretentious weapon, and he was concerned even as he activated the firing mechanism if it would have much effect on so substantial an adversary. He needn’t have worried.
Tongues and hook-lined tendrils flew in all directions as the head blew apart, splattering the floor, the stacked supplies, a good part of the room, and its remaining intact occupants with greenish red blood, Pyrassisian flesh, and bits of fractionated organs. A convulsing coil caught Flinx and knocked him to the ground, but he held onto the weapon. It would be another ten minutes before the rest of the attenuated organism would give a final, last twitch.
The female rushed to attend to her mate’s injury. Neither of them paid much attention to their former prisoner, being wholly engaged in trying to stanch the flow of blood from the puncture in his leg. Flinx took the opportunity to examine the nearby metal container that had been pierced as cleanly as if with a laser by the fine stream of sand ejected by the now expired trespasser. Some kind of highly developed giant nematode or land-based echinoderm, he decided as he turned to examine the motionless carcass. Evolved into an efficient killer capable of slicing apart any enemy or prey by employing the most common component of its environment—common, everyday, ordinarily harmless sand.
By now the two AAnn had had enough time to realize that the human had not only saved their lives, but that the collar that had heretofore restrained his movements no longer hung around his neck. The female straightened.
“Truly, we are prepared to die. More than mosst, I believe, having sspent sso much time in thiss place. Allow uss if you will a few momentss to exchange our death chantss. We have been complementary for an honorable time, and our ancesstral liness require implementation of the formality before we die.”
Offended as well as tired, Flinx gestured absently with the weapon. The AAnn were alien in more than shape—truly. “No death chants. I didn’t shoot this thing just to end up killing you myself.”
“You killed it to ssave yoursself.” The female watched him intently out of slitted, reptilian eyes.
“That too,” Flinx readily admitted. “If your conditioned natures simply can’t countenance an act of altruism on the part of a human, then accept instead the excuse that I need your help.”
His face contorted in pain, the male used his tail to lift himself into a shaky squatting position. “That we can believe. You have obvioussly sstrayed much too far from your camp, and it iss only through our good gracess that you are sstill alive.” It was a pithy summation of the AAnn xenologist’s perceived reality, coupled with an indirect plea for the human who was now in control of the situation to spare their lives. It also conveniently ignored the fact that they were in the process of turning him over to the local military authorities and had threatened to shoot him dead if he made the slightest wrong move.
Though their reasonable assumption that he had come from a camp was entirely wrong, Flinx chose not to enlighten them. Let them think that he had a real base of operations, shared perhaps with companions who were searching for him even now. As he considered how best to proceed, he noticed that the female’s tail was probing beneath the edge of a massive container—where her mate’s weapon had slid. The corners of his mouth turning up ever so slightly, he gestured with the gun he held and hissed a caution. The full length of the xenologist’s tail immediately snapped back into view.
“It iss eassy to ssee why you were chossen to come and study here.” Unable to divert the human’s attention long enough to retrieve the second gun, the elderly female knelt to examine the new skin that was forming atop her mate’s wound. “You sspeak the language of Empire almosst as if you had a proper tongue in your head.” By way of emphasis, her own flicked in his direction. Pip reacted with a fluttering of wings, and Flinx had to calm her with several strokes of his free hand.
The AAnn lingua, so important in speech for lengt
hening syllables, was at once narrower and five times longer than that of any human, rendering Flinx’s articulate approximation of the reptiloids’ speech even more admirable. Over the years, he had learned to compensate for his shorter tongue by employing excellent breath control.
Glancing up from her work, the female gestured with third-degree interest at where the two halves of the bisected collar lay on the floor. “How did you get out of that?” Unaware that the explanation she sought was presently examining the dead body of the intruder worm, neither of his former captors paid any but cursory attention to Pip.
“Bit through it,” Flinx responded without hesitation.
The AAnn exchanged a glance before the female replied. “Not with thosse pitiful calcified chipss you call teeth.” She hissed disparagingly. The AAnn, Flinx knew, were famed for their skill at organization, their technical expertise, and their rigid, tightly knit society based on the structure of the extended family and a contemporary derivative of ancient reptilian nobility. They most assuredly were not noted for their tactfulness.
“I’ll need water and a suitable container in which to carry it, some food, and new clothing. Then I’ll leave you.”
The female rendered a gesture of third-degree animosity. “We have little enough here to provide for oursselvess, and need all that we have to facilitate our work. We have toiled too long and too hard on thiss project to turn over our preciouss ssuppliess to a roving human!”
Flinx knew that such words and gestures were for show, part of the elaborate ritual of which the AAnn were so fond. The two scientists were in no position to bargain—or to object. But so long as it would facilitate his departure, he was content to play the role. He waved the gun, deliberately exaggerating the gesture.
“If you don’t give me what I need, I’ll shoot you both and take it anyway.”
“Then as you are in possession of the only weapon, we have no choice but to acquiessce to your demandss.” Both AAnn bowed and gestured ceremoniously.
They would have given him the supplies anyway, he knew, but having formally registered a semblance of defiance, they felt better about having to do so. The male abruptly straightened to his full height, causing Flinx’s fingers to tighten on the pistol’s double trigger. Between his injured leg and his age Tenukac did not pose much of a threat to the human and the flying snake, but Flinx was wary all the same.
The AAnn was not even looking at the liberated prisoner, however. His gaze had been caught by something on the floor behind Flinx. Realizing it might be a simple ruse, Flinx chanced only a quick glance back and down. What he saw nearly made him forget about the two AAnn.
A small section of sand-flecked black flooring where the male’s second shot had gone astray was alive with flickering light. The white sparks raced through the material in utter silence, providing enough subdued illumination to read by.
“What’s this?” he heard himself murmuring as he stared at the shifting fragment of entombed dazzle.
“Vya-nar—I do not know. With your permission, human.” Helped by his mate, who braced his limping form with a supporting arm and tail, the male hobbled forward and crouched to examine the unexpected phenomenon. Reaching out and down, he tried to catch the scampering embers, but had to settle for gently stroking the black material with the scaly surface of his open palm. “Cold lightning. But what hass prompted it?”
“Your gun.” The female had also knelt to investigate the twinkling radiance. “You fired at the ssand burrower and missed, sstriking the ssurface here insstead.”
“I wonder,” the male declared, “what would happen if the energy level could be increassed?”
“How do you mean?” Flinx was more intrigued by the imprisoned lights than he cared to admit. He ought to have been concentrating on gathering supplies and resuming his trek to the Crotase encampment. Instead, he found himself drawn by his assertive curiosity into sharing the pair of AAnn xenologists’ budding excitement.
“Sshoot it again.” Straightening with difficulty, the male stepped back, away from the place where the lights were rushing through the isolated corner of floor. “Sseveral timess. Full power.”
Flinx gestured with the gun. “So that in doing so I’ll fully discharge your weapon and thereby equalize the situation? I don’t think so.”
Tenukac indicated his leg with a gesture of second-degree assertion coupled with scrupulous regard. “I am barely able to sstand. We are not ssoldierss.”
“All AAnn are trained in the arts of warfare,” Flinx attested.
“Our training wass long ago, human. We are academicss, not fighterss.” His tone was agitated. “We may inadvertently have made an important disscovery here. It sshould be purssued. Of coursse,” he hissed diffidently, “nothing may happen.”
“The energy bursst from the gun penetrated and entered the material of the floor without caussing any vissible damage,” Nennasu pointed out. “We musst ssee what ressult the accretion of additional energy will yield.”
“Probably a big hole in the floor.” Flinx was worn out and hungry. But even as a child he had always been a sucker for logic, even if it originated from an alien source. Raising his hand and taking aim, he fired at the flickering spot on the ground. Pip immediately spread her wings, ready to take flight, but in the absence of any directly perceivable threat retained her perch on his shoulder. He fired a second time and a third in rapid succession.
The floor ought to have shattered, or melted, or been otherwise visibly marred. Instead, it reacted as if the power of the gun was irrelevant. The showy embedded discharges swiftly propagated, then exploded in all directions, spreading through the entire floor of the storage chamber and filling the enclosed space with sparkling, cold light.
“Outsside!” Ignoring the fact that he was ostensibly a prisoner in his own camp, Tenukac whirled and stumbled for the open doorway as fast as he could limp while continuing to rely on his mate for support.
The sun was not yet up. Would not be up for another few hours, Flinx knew. Nevertheless, outside it was almost as bright as day. Every ebony prominence, rim, jutting knob, disc, block, and arch was alive with swirling cold flame. Salvos of inborn lightning shot through every looming overhang and configuration as well as through the ribbed raven surface beneath their feet.
“Elevation,” the female declared briskly as she turned, half hauling her mate with her. Lost in the fever of scientific discovery, they had all but forgotten Flinx and the weapon he held. He trailed behind them, Pip clinging to his shoulder.
A wide-beamed ladder designed to accommodate splayed AAnn feet stood propped against a tall black rectangle. Ignoring the glittering radiance that now cavorted beneath its pitted surface, the two AAnn started to climb, the injured male having to use his arms to pull himself upward.
A small observation platform from which an observer could look out over much of the surrounding synthetic terrain had been erected atop the sooty shaft. Surmounting the last step, Flinx found himself standing just behind the two xenologists. They were gazing wordlessly at the hitherto somber surface of the entombed transmitter.
As far as the eye could see, in every direction, it was resplendent with silent, eruptive light.
“All thosse repetitive energy bursstss from the weapon triggered ssomething.” Tenukac’s voice was hushed in the presence of discovery. “Woke ssomething up.”
“Perhapss.” Ever the conservative scientist, the AAnn Nennasu BDESSLL was not yet ready to concede sweeping pronouncements. “Certainly there iss ssome kind of activity being generated from an unknown ssource.”
Her mate gestured second-degree impatience coupled with first-degree interest and underscored by an astute flick of uncertainty. At that point the entire exposed domain of the transmitter ignited in a storm of frozen pyrotechnics. It was as if every one of the millions of shimmering lights shooting through the dark surface had suddenly chosen to align themselves along the same axis and intensify at the same time. The turbulent, breathtakingly fierce bur
st actually lasted less than a second and was, like the display that had led up to it, resolved in total silence.
When a momentarily blinded Flinx could finally see again, he found himself gazing out across a barren blackness shadowed by hundreds of enigmatic ebony shapes, illuminated once more only by the light of the two bilious Pyrassisian moons.
“That wass . . . interessting.” Nennasu’s tail switched reflexively from side to side as she rubbed at her outraged eyes. “Ssomething happened, assshusss, but what?”
“Based on our ressearch to date, we have determined that thiss vasst field of blackness is the ssurface of ssome kind of transsmitter. Truly.” Tenukac was already hobbling back toward the ladder. “I believe we may have jusst been witness to a transsmission.”
“To where?” Flinx inquired sharply. It was as if he had not spoken. The AAnn ignored him, and likely would have continued to do so until he actually shot one of them. Although they did not know it, he had no intention of doing anything so radical except in desperate self-defense.
There was nothing, he reflected as he followed his excited former reptiloid captors down the wide ladder, to distract a person from their avowed purpose like a two thousand square kilometer effusion of cold, soundless energy from an unknown source. What the xenologists had not yet asked, and what was particularly beginning to interest him, was not whether the vision-numbing discharge had been some kind of transmission, but whether there was anyone or anything on the presumed other end to receive it . . .
All was quiet aboard the Teacher. Recycling elements kept the air clean and the water pure. The food preparator stood ready to deliver a variety of healthful, nutritious, and frequently tasty meals upon request. Thermosensitive paneling maintained the internal environment at a mean temperature suitable for a certain species of bipedal, binocular-sighted, somewhat fragile mammals. Other apparatus hummed softly, carrying out a multitude of essential functions, keeping the ship and its internal systems alert, primed, and ready for immediate activation.
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