Flinx eyed the immense bulk of the rocky spire that dominated the terrain to the immediate left of the advancing column. “How do you mean?”
“Why waste warmth forming the words? We have just escaped a ressaugg.” Though he could not be sure, Flinx thought his friend sounded slightly testy. “Those whu speak uv trouble often find it. Better tu focus on the way ahead, and tu think instead uv gud weather and safe traveling.”
It was an approach Flinx could understand, even if his ever-active imagination prevented him from dropping the subject as easily as Zlezelrenn. While a part of him wanted more of his curiosity concerning the nature of hazardous Gestaltian wildlife satisfied, the rest concurred with his host. With luck, he would remain ignorant for the remainder of the journey as to the precise makeup of the threat to which Zlezelrenn had alluded. They had already been lucky in their surprise encounter with the ressaugg, however.
As one who had counted on the Bank of Luck to bail him out of numerous difficult situations in the past, Flinx knew well that his account was seriously overdrawn.
While unlike his sensitive Tlel companions he could not detect the flii of a flea, his own singular Talent continued to function, interrupted only by the occasional pains that flashed through his head. As always, the frequency and intensity of these were utterly unpredictable. Sometimes he would go for days or weeks without so much as a twinge. Then there would come a morning when he felt as if his head were going to explode every hour on the hour. He dreaded his repetitive dreams because the worst cerebral attacks always seemed to follow close upon each occurrence. An ordinary day might pass, or two, or several, without any discomfort. But every time his somnolent visualizations interrupted his sleep, he knew that without fail a fiery, stabbing headache would not be far behind.
Having recovered fully from the most recent of the trance-like dreams, his mind was clear when he picked up the first faint stirrings of unsettled stress. They had the feel of emotions distant but closing, of the faraway coming inexorably nearer. Straining for clarification, he perceived hostility underlain with tension merged with apprehension. Considered as an emotional whole, not an altogether comforting mix.
He would have informed his companions, who continued onward entirely ignorant of the stress-laden feelings that were inclining in their direction. Doing so, however, would have meant revealing his ability. Justifying a warning by saying that he “just had a feeling” would carry no more weight with the Tlel than it did with any other intelligent species, including his own kind.
But as the line of gaitgos ambled through a section of particularly dense forest and growths from green to turquoise to near indigo in color closed in claustrophobically around them, he grew more and more uneasy. The enmity he sensed was thickening in his mind like a fog, threatening to drown out his perception of his amiable companions. That the hostility he was identifying arose from Tlel minds and not those of primitive carnivores rendered it no less troubling.
He finally decided that he could no longer keep his concerns to himself. If one of his friends questioned his “feelings” or means of perception, he would extemporize some kind of explanation or excuse. Debating how best to proceed, he leaned forward to address himself to Zlezelrenn.
He never got the chance.
Where his singular ability was concerned, continued silence would keep his secret safe. However, it would do him no good if he ended up dead. That seemed a very real possibility as the forest around them erupted with gunfire. Though not nearly as advanced as the gaitgos, the weapons that were being brought to bear on the line of travelers were more than adequate to accomplish their intended task. Rock-hard projectiles whizzed around his head as Zlezelrenn took immediate evasive action. Small projectiles of forced metal capable of killing simply by unlocking the kinetic energy they possessed slammed into the forest on all sides. Trees exploded noisily.
Zlezelrenn was yelling at him to stay down. Flinx needed no incentive. Though ignorant of the motivation and identity of the attackers, he still found himself wishing for his pistol. Regretfully, along with the rest of his equipment it lay somewhere at the bottom of the river that had swallowed the skimmer.
Still and as always, he was not entirely defenseless. There was his functioning Talent—and Pip. As sensitive as her master to threatening emotions, she had slithered out of his jacket and taken to the air before the first shot had been fired. Now she patrolled overhead, singling out potential targets, flying cover for Flinx, marshaling her venom. Instinctively aware that it was limited in quantity, she would not dive to his defense until her master was more openly threatened.
It was the appropriate, sensible reaction, he knew as he hunkered down in the back of the dodging gaitgo, but her efforts would arrive too late if he caught a stray shell from an assailant who was not intentionally aiming in his direction. That was the trouble with being caught in a random assault by many attackers who were not specifically hunting him. Flinx had been able to deal swiftly and effectively with whoever had attacked his skimmer because there had been only one assassin and that individual’s attention had been concentrated solely on him. In contrast, as just another gaitgo rider he was only one potential target among many for the unknown number of unidentified assailants.
Zlezelrenn’s words of the previous day returned to both enlighten and disturb. There were far more serious dangers in the mountains than avalanche-exploiting ressauggs, his friend had told him. Probably not like what yu think, the gaitgo driver had stated knowingly. Realizing from the storm of confrontational emotions he was currently perceiving the nature of what Zlezelrenn had meant, Flinx now knew why the citizens of Tleremot traveled with what at first glance seemed to be a surfeit of arms. Yes, weapons were needed to fend off impressive predators like ressauggs and kasollts.
But more significantly, and in yet another blow to his already badly battered sense of optimism, they were evidently also needed to defend in conflicts with others of their own kind.
As he was brooding over this disheartening state of affairs and the revelation that the cheerful Tlel were, like all too many supposedly sentient species, not above slaughtering their own kind when circumstances required, Zlezelrenn ran the gaitgo in behind a thick stand of particularly large growths.
“Stay here!” he admonished a dispirited Flinx. A touch on a control caused the protective cage that surrounded him and his guest to pop open like a blossoming flower. Climbing out, the Tlel first removed his brightly colored leggings and then the largely transparent poncho that covered him from neck to knee. Unclothed, he pulled a slender but lethal-looking weapon from its brackets on the side of the vehicle and began to weave his way forward toward the heart of the conflict that was now raging among the trees. As he moved away, his fur changed color. White and mottled brown shaded to white and mottled blue-green. Flinx looked on in surprise. He had not known that the Tlel were capable of chameleonic transformations.
It was certainly effective. Though the woods echoed with gunfire, from his place of concealment behind the trees he could not make out a single combatant. Not with his eyes, anyway. His Talent allowed him to perceive individuals as clearly as if with a field scope. It would have enabled him to greatly assist his friends—except that he was without a weapon. Pip continued to swoop back and forth above him, restraining herself from engaging hostile assailants who did not directly threaten her companion. Yet.
He considered trying to project on the attackers. While it was an aspect of his Talent that he had grown more adept at applying, most recently to overcome the hired killer who had shot down his skimmer, the presence of so many attackers was likely to render it much less effective. On a crowded battlefield where he could only sense rampant hostility, it was difficult to separate friend from foe. Straining, he found that he was able to recognize Zlezelrenn’s emotional signature, and Vlashraa’s, and to a lesser extent those of villagers such as Fluadann and Hluriamm with whom he had also had previous contact. Unable to identify and isolate the other members
of the expedition, he ran the risk of projecting on them if he tried to incapacitate their attackers.
He could attempt to generate a really serious, wide-ranging projection that would immobilize the entire field of conflict, friend and enemy alike. If successful in the effort, he could then pick through the dazed and revitalize only his friends, one at a time. There was no guarantee that this would work, however. The disabling projection might not be all-inclusive. Or, striving to revive his companions, he might inadvertently restore one or more of the attackers. Mentally projecting a disabling or distracting emotion was not the same as blanketing a combat zone in a soporific gas. His ability to focus his Talent had improved considerably, but it was still nowhere near as precise as an actual weapon.
He felt he had to do something, but without a gun of his own, let alone his own familiar pistol, he could not decide how to proceed. If he left the shelter of the trees and wandered out into the line of fire, Pip would immediately descend to take out any Tlel aiming specifically at him. That would work—so long as he was singled out by only one enemy combatant at a time. Eventually she would run out of venom. She would have to retire and wait for her body to produce more, an inescapable biological interval that would leave him without any personal protection beyond what he could conjure from his all-too-often unresponsive and erratic mind.
As was so often the case in the course of combat, circumstances eventually overwhelmed logic and reason and he was forced to defend himself.
Perhaps the duo who attacked him thought his human appearance was some sort of clever subterfuge on the part of their enemies. Plainly, they were not put off by the fact that he was non-Tlel. It was apparently enough that he was occupying a Tleremot gaitgo. Reasonable or not, that was sufficient to brand him an ally by association. Had some of his fellow humans participated in battles like these among the natives? Flinx wondered. The notion was too depressing to contemplate.
In any case, he didn’t have time.
Altering the color of their fur to take full advantage of the position of the sun, the group of assailants who came up behind him was camouflaged nearly perfectly. There was a good chance the well-conceived flanking movement could have fallen upon the rear of the villagers’ position without being detected until it was too late. Only one thing stood, or in this particular instance sat, between them and their intended targets—the tall, lanky, bundled-up visitor who would greatly have preferred not to get involved. Convinced they were well concealed, two of the stalkers broke off from the main body of silent infiltrators and came toward him. Even looking straight in their direction, they were difficult to make out against the rocks and snow.
Their homicidal emotions, however, burned like torches.
Flinx was not the only one to detect them. Pip perceived them also. Folding her wings against her sides, she dropped from the sky like an arrow, a blue-and-pink blur. Flinx’s stalkers never saw her.
The nearer of the two caught the full force of her venom square in the center of his eyeband. Letting out a high-pitched squeal, he dropped his weapon and fell backward onto the ground, kicking wildly with uncovered legs while frantic cilia fluttered futilely at his rapidly liquefying vision. Taken aback, his female companion hesitated, then tried to aim the pistol she was carrying at the darting, dodging, impossibly agile alien shape. She lowered her gaze just in time to get a faceful of the replacement strut that Flinx brought down across the top of her flattened skull. The disc-shaped head collapsed, folding inward like a pie plate chopped in the middle. Blood flew, splattering Flinx. Simultaneously stunned and disgusted, he stumbled backward. But he kept his grip on the now bloody strut.
Their position revealed and the surprise they had been counting on lost, the remainder of the flanking attackers rushed the villagers. Alerted by Flinx’s self-defense, not to mention the rapidly fading screams of the Tlel whom Pip had brought down, the travelers from Tleremot were ready. Flinx was spared the need to kill again as his friends began to gain the upper hand.
They did so by means of an advanced piece of technology that had been developed in concert with human and possibly thranx expertise. When its properties were explained to him, Flinx realized that the device had all the hallmarks of skillful thranx engineering. How it had come to be designed, sold, and deployed on bucolic Gestalt was one tale he preferred not to hear told.
There was no mistaking its efficacy. Wholly contrary to his profession, Healer Fluadann wielded the apparatus while being defended by armed villagers standing on either side of him. Observing its effectiveness, Flinx wondered why the device had not been brought into use at the start of the skirmish. Only later did he learn that it took some time to activate properly—because no one dared risk its accidental activation.
The weapon emitted a broad but intense electrical field strong enough to overwhelm any Tlel caught in its beam. An analogous human weapon would have been a sonic projector powerful enough to burst eardrums. That the attackers were overwhelmed was evidenced by the speed with which they fled. Not all made a successful escape. Those who caught the full force of the device went mad on the spot, the part of them that was able to sense flii shattered by a storm of discharge emitted by the weapon. Blood dribbled from mouths whose owners had lost control of the relevant musculature. Blood gushed from ears that led to hemorrhaging brains.
There was entirely too much blood, a dismayed Flinx observed.
The civilized, gentle, rustic citizens of villatic Tleremot did not enhance their stature in his eyes as they moved across the now quiescent battlefield, breaking the fragile necks of the wounded and scavenging their personal effects. Only when these grisly tasks had been concluded did they retire to redon their discarded leggings and ponchos. No matter where one traveled, he was forced to remind himself yet again, the veneer of civilization was very thin. Would it be so terrible if that sliver of sentience slipped into oblivion, obliterated forever by whatever was coming out of the Great Emptiness?
Then Vlashraa was at his side, and the emotion that poured forth from her reminded him yet again why consciousness and intelligence in this part of the galaxy were worth preserving.
“Yu are all right?” Her concern was sincere. She tilted back her head so that her eyeband was able to meet his binocular gaze. “The miserable GrTl-Keepers are not recognized. They are not frum this area, and came only tu foist their heresies on NaTl-Seekers such as urselves.” She eyed him intently. “Had they succeeded in proceeding undiscovered and unchallenged, they would have raided Tleremot. We owe yu much fur yur help, Flinx.”
“Always pleased when I can repay a debt,” he replied mechanically. He surveyed the section of forest where the bulk of the fighting had taken place. The snow was now spotted with death. “I’d nurtured hopes for—I didn’t know that the Tlel fought among themselves. I wasn’t prepared for such ferocity. Internecine warfare is rare within the Commonwealth, although not unknown historically.” He smiled tightly. “My own species offers ample proof of that. But except for small-scale, usually highly personalized conflicts, we no longer war among ourselves. We and the thranx are too busy dealing with, for example, the AAnn. And—other threats.” His tone reflected bewilderment as much as honest curiosity.
“Why do you fight?” He gestured in the direction of the recent field of battle. “You said these who attacked you came from outside the area. Is there some kind of dispute over land, maybe? Or is it an ancient rivalry of some kind that social maturation has failed to dispel?”
“Land?” Vlashraa looked at him askance. “Why would we fight one another over land? Yu have already been told that the world belongs tu all, and specifically tu those whu make use uv it. What an absurd notion, that intelligent beings should slay one another over dirt!”
Different species, Flinx mused, different motivations. “If not land, then what?”
“It is not ancient, as yu suggest,” she told him. “But the dispute isis old, and intense. It originated before yur kind came to Silvoun—though it must be acknowle
dged that participation in the Commonwealth has sharpened the divide between the two groups.”
Flinx made no effort to hide his confusion. Experiencing a sudden chill, he shivered sharply. The perspiration he had generated in the course of the fight was evaporating, leaving only cold behind.
“Two groups? What two groups?” For the second time, he pointed to the battleground. “Is it just between the people of Tleremot and these folk? Or is it more extensive and others are involved? You said it’s an old quarrel.”
She let out a soft whistle. “Regional affiliations have always been important tu the Tlel. Zlezelrenn, Klerjamboo, Hluriamm, myself, and everyone else on this journey is proud tu hail frum a village as progressive as Tleremot. If they were here, ur neighbors and friends would express similarly.”
Reflecting the uncertainty he felt, Flinx drew his brows together. “So this is a disagreement between towns? Something political?”
“Not political,” she corrected him. “Regional and civic affiliations are determined by birth. One does not get tu choose them and one cannot change them. Yu are a citizen uv where yu were born and that cannot be changed. What yu cancan change, and modify, and alter, are yur individual beliefs.”
As her words sank in, Flinx found himself more troubled than ever. Knowing from his pre-arrival research that the Tlel were a prosaic, largely nonreligious society, then what a somber Vlashraa was telling him suggested that…
“You’re fighting over philosophy?”
Gesturing with the cilia at the end of her right arm, she indicated in the affirmative. “Among the Tlel, how one thinks is far more important than where one happens tu have been birthed. Frum an early age, we form and are bound tu one another by sociels. Fur example, Zlezelrenn and Hluriamm are both part uv mine. Healer Fluadann and Elder Klerjamboo are not. A base sociel consists uv four individuals. Similar sociels promulgate similar philosophies. In this way are like-thinking groups expanded and developed. Among the Tlel there are at present tu great competing sociels.
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