The tunnel was lined with smooth ceramic alloy. His feet would have clicked noisily against it if not for the several centimeters of dirty water that filled the curved surface underfoot. Patently unable to go back, he would go forward. As he ran he cursed his own self-confidence. Whereas his old friend Tse-Mallory never went anywhere without a weapon, the philosoph considered even a small gun an unnecessary encumbrance on a civilized world. Would that he were presently so encumbered!
Restive men and women gathered at the opening to the cavity. Heedless of his own safety, one man straightaway ducked inside. He was back in a couple of minutes, his clothes and hands stained with brown water and dripping muck.
“He's gone. I can't even hear him.”
The scholarly-looking older gentleman who was the nominal leader of the attack squad wore a grim expression as he surveyed the landscaped terrain to the north of the opening.
“We'll never catch him in the conduit. Its diameter restricts us to advancing hunched over, but it's plenty high enough for a thranx to run full out.”
“The philosoph is old,” another man pointed out. “He'll get tired and slow down.”
The leader turned to him. “You weren't at the fight at the shuttleport. I was. This is not your ordinary thranx elder.” Turning back to the park environment, he studied their immediate surroundings. “The police are liable to be here any minute. We can't be found together. Spread out. North and east, I think, are the most likely places for this conduit to emerge. Search the near shores of Town Lake and Claris Pond, find where drainage empties out, and wait there. Sooner or later, he'll show himself.”
The group promptly split up, some to search the shore of the nearby ornamental lake, others the park's decorative pond, two to wait by the opening where their quarry had taken refuge in case he decided to backtrack. The group leader was not worried about dividing his forces. A successful resolution to the ambush required only one weapon, one shot. As soon as the thranx stuck his antennaed head out of one of the conduit's openings, it would be blown off.
No one was more aware of that than their quarry himself. As soon as it became clear that he was not being followed, Truzenzuzex slowed his pace. The small beam that was part of the communit secured around his left truarm provided more than enough light for him to find his way. Waving back and forth above his head, his antennae kept him continuously apprised of the distance between his head and the conduit's ceiling. Unlike a human, he did not have to constantly look up to keep from bumping his skull.
While all of this was reassuring, it did not ensure his safety. If he was not being pursued down the drainage channel, he could simply halt and call for assistance from Tse-Mallory, Flinx, or the local authorities. On the other hand, if his attackers did come in after him, he would be trapped beyond help. And in the closed confines of the conduit their aim would not have to be very precise to take him out.
In such circumstances, waiting was rarely the best thing to do. Never concede the initiative to your enemy. He needed to get out. How to do that safely was a matter of some concern. He would be most vulnerable at the moment of emergence. The way forward might be devoid of assailants—or as soon as he stuck his head out he might find it locked in the crosshairs of their weapons. The trouble was that the only way to determine if there was any danger was to expose himself to it. From a very young age he had learned that inviting hostile fire was not the best way to ascertain the enemy's strength and position.
Squatting in the cold, dirty water he contemplated his options. He had come a considerable distance. There was no telling how far it was to the drain's exit. He certainly could not see the end. Confronted with such a situation a human would see itself as having two choices: to go forward or to go back. Since his attackers were all human, it was likely they would ponder the same two scenarios. However, he was not human. Other options were open to him. The sooner he settled on one, the more time he would have to explore its possibilities before it also occurred to his assailants.
While he was weaponless, his thorax pouch did hold a handful of useful instruments and tools. The cutter would be useful as a weapon only at very close quarters. Meanwhile, it did serve to burn a nice oval hole in the tough but thin ceramic ceiling of the conduit. Removing a meter-wide section and setting it to one side, Truzenzuzex began to dig. It was a skill at which his ancient ancestors had been especially proficient. Though there was not much call for it in the modern world, it was an ability that was innate and could not be forgotten. Helpfully, the soil overhead was soft and largely devoid of rocks—just what one might expect to encounter in a park that had been heavily and repeatedly landscaped.
More than an hour later, having avoided the attentions of the police who had been summoned in response to the earlier shooting, his intent pursuers were still guarding the entrance to the conduit where their quarry had vanished as well as the location where it drained into Claris Pond. They were fidgety but patient. The philosoph had to show himself sooner or later, via one exit or the other. When he did emerge they would be waiting for him.
None of them was watching the distant pedestrian intersection where Truzenzuzex rejoined Tse-Mallory. Having calmly covered the distance from the bloodbath in the clothing shop, Tse-Mallory had contacted his companion via communit. A few passersby glanced in the direction of the philosoph, their curiosity drawn not by his species but by his current personal appearance.
Upon first catching sight of his companion, Tse-Mallory reacted similarly. “What happened to you? You're a mess.”
“And you, tr!llk, are bleeding.” The philosoph gestured with a truhand at the shallow but unsettling crimson gashes that decorated his friend's arms and shoulders. “Were the choice up to me, I think I would opt for a tidier tailor.”
Reaching up to his face, Tse-Mallory rubbed at one bloody patch of skin. “These scratches aren't a consequence of a bad fitting. A handful of Sphene's everyday upstanding citizens just tried to kill me.”
The thranx nodded, a gesture his kind had long ago adopted soon after Amalgamation. “How interesting. Exactly the same thing just happened to me. What a coincidence—except that is most unlikely to be the case.” Resplendent compound eyes peered up at Tse-Mallory's brilliant blue single lenses. “Average-looking citizens wielding an uncharacteristic array of weaponry attempt to murder both of us in broad daylight. Do such circumstances remind you of anything?”
Tse-Mallory nodded slowly. “A certain day and time more than a year ago. The fanatics of the Order of Null who wanted to kill Flinx to keep him from trying to stop or divert the Great Evil. The same kind of nondescript but obsessed people we had to contend with at the shuttleport.”
He looked around. None of the pedestrians meandering through the intersection appeared threatening or on the verge of suddenly resorting to an orgy of unexpected violence.
Truzenzuzex gestured accord. “My feeling at the time was that once Flinx was safely offworld and on his way, then these deluded and confrontational folk would retire to whatever fatalistic conclaves they favor and we would hear no more from them.”
Tse-Mallory nodded. “Plainly an incorrect supposition. The only reason they'd have for trying to kill us would be to prevent us from being of assistance to Flinx.”
Antennae weaving, the thranx stood up on his four trulegs, the better to bring his face closer to that of his human companion. “Flinx can take care of himself, I think. He has matured considerably in the ways of society, and repeated conflict has heightened his special senses while sharpening his singular abilities.”
Tse-Mallory looked troubled. “I wasn't worried—about Flinx.”
As the human turned his attention to his communit the full meaning of his observation struck home to Truzenzuzex.
“Clarity …,” the philosoph clicked through clenched mandibles.
They waited until Scrap had descended to land on his mistress's shoulder. Previous experience and subsequent research had shown that the safest way to neutralize the dangerous Alas
pinian minidrag was to incapacitate it at the same time as its owner. Taking no chances, the self-sealing net they released from the boat was big enough to envelop the woman, the flying snake, and the male friend riding the sunfoil parallel to hers.
They were too far from shore for anyone on the beach or the slope below the medical convalescent facility to hear her screams or his curses. When the two captives tried to contact local emergency authorities via their separate communits, they discovered that all outgoing signals in their immediate vicinity had been blocked. The net that had been employed had been chosen with great care. It was flexible yet sturdy, self-sealing but not dangerously constricting. Insofar as their research had allowed them to determine, the members of the Order charged with carrying out the abduction believed that the material was impervious to the corrosive effects of the minidrag's venom.
A net had been utilized instead of direct deadly force because it was vital to keep the woman alive. Long enough, at least, to serve the purpose.
Seeing that there was nothing to be gained by screaming, Clarity went quiet as she, Scrap, and Barryn were hauled in like so many netted fish. The delicate sunfoils made faint crunching sounds as the net collapsed around them. At the same time as she was concentrating on her fear, hoping Flinx would perceive it, she spoke hurriedly to Barryn.
“I'm sorry, Tam, to get you mixed up in all this.”
In spite of Flinx's unexpected arrival he had insisted in seeing her through the last stages of her recovery. “I helped nurse you through the past couple of months,” he declared, “and even if you dump me for this creepy offworlder, I'm not giving up on you until you marry him or run off with him.”
She kept Flinx abreast of the medtech's persistence, of course. “Give him credit for perseverance,” Flinx responded. “Let him down easy. I don't like to see people hurt, and I know you don't either.” For a brief moment his thoughts went somewhere else. “I've come to understand how complicated relationships can get, especially when you don't expect them to develop the way they sometimes do. Especially when you're apart from someone for a long time and thrust into difficult circumstances. Things—happen. We're all human. At least, I used to think so,” he added ruefully.
“It's going to take a few days to reprovision and refit elements of the Teacher. Meanwhile you might as well be nice to him. But not too nice,” he had concluded, admonishing her.
Struggling ineffectually with entangling strands of net as Scrap's wings beat alternately against her shoulder and his back, Barryn tried to twist around within their constricting prison to meet her gaze.
“Mixed up in what? What are you involved in, Clarity? Something illegal?”
“In a manner of speaking.” She spoke as they were pulled through the water toward a waiting boat. “But not on my part. Or on Flinx's, even though it's him they want.”
“‘They’?” The medtech looked further confused. Then his expression darkened. “I knew there was something wrong with that skinny offworlder the minute I set eyes on him. I could feel it.”
He could feel you, she thought, but said nothing.
Having unexpectedly dialed into a scenario that fit his hopes, Barryn was loath to let it go. “What is it? Illegal pharmaceuticals? Unregistered genensplices? Straightforward smuggling? What's his line, this skewnk Flinx of yours? And how are you mixed up in it?”
“They're going to try to use me to get to him,” she explained with a serenity that was utterly alien to their present circumstances. “Or else maybe they're just going to kill me.”
That quieted him for a moment. “What do you mean, ‘get to him’? They want him? For what?”
They were very close to the boat now, she saw. Soon they would be hauled aboard. Or dispatched, though she was fairly confident her first assumption was the correct one: that their intention was to use her as bait.
“They want to eliminate him. Because he's trying to save the galaxy. Trying to preserve civilization. They call themselves the Order of Null.” She swallowed water, coughed. How could she explain her personal involvement with the approaching apocalypse in the time remaining to them?
“There's something coming this way out of intergalactic space. It eats planets, suns, whole star systems. Whole galaxies. It will consume this one unless it can somehow be stopped or diverted. Somehow, in some way, Flinx believes he is the key to the one small, slim chance of doing so. Incredibly knowledgeable individuals of multiple species have confirmed this to me. They can't explain it, but they can confirm it.” She cringed as an unseen winch started to haul them up out of the water, crumpled sunfoils and all. Several times she and Barryn were banged against the side of the capture boat. Fortunately it had a low freeboard and their bumpy ascent was a brief one.
Initially too stunned by her words to comment, Barryn finally found his voice again. It was commendably calm. Or his composure might have been attributable to simple shock.
“That's the most insane thing I've ever heard, Clarity, and I've spent a lot of time working with mental patients. How can you believe such nonsense? In all the time we've known each other I've never seen or suspected that you harbored anything like that kind of intellectual frailty. I mean, step back if you can and look at what you just said. You don't really expect me to believe any of it, do you?”
Swinging around toward the stern of the capture craft, the power winch deposited its catch brusquely on the smooth, seamless surface of the rear deck. Peering out between the net's resilient fibers, she noticed a quartet of onlookers staring down at them from the boat's upper level. If they were aware of Scrap's capabilities, they were doubtless keeping their distance intentionally.
“You can believe as you wish or not, Tam.” She was tired from fighting the water and the net. The minidrag's wings beat furiously against her neck and shoulders as Scrap made futile efforts to free himself.
“Clarity Held!” Holding a small amplifier card in front of his mouth, a portly gentleman with a deceptively mild mien addressed her from the upper level. “We apologize for some roughness in the process of bringing you aboard, but this was deemed the safest and most inconspicuous way of remanding you to our charge. We are—”
“I know who you are.” She cut him off. “You're fanatics of the worst kind. You have no respect for logic or reason and you worship death and destruction.”
The man and his companions looked indignant. “We ‘worship’ nothing,” he took pains to correct her. “Seeing filth and ignorance and waste all around us, we welcome the Purity that is coming. That is all. Our philosophy is entirely practical and scientific. In contrast, yours, that of the great mass of deluded sentients, and most importantly that of your friend Philip Lynx, is to deny the impending cleansing. It does not really matter because nothing can stop it.
“We believe in leaving nothing to chance, however, and as there is a very slight theoretical possibility that this individual might somehow be able to interfere with the efficiency of the cleansing, we feel it is our obligation to brush away even so minuscule a probability.”
Struggling with the tangle of net, she managed to climb to her feet. The shroudlike nature of the overlapping folds did not escape her. “You've tried that before, more than once. Each time, some of you ended up dead.”
The man stiffened, but his demeanor remained unruffled. “Mistakes were made. The abilities of this Flinx person were underestimated. We will not make such mistakes again. Nothing has been left to chance. He will die. He has to die. The only difference between him and the rest of us is that he will die a fragment of time sooner.
“We could have killed you soon after he fled from Nur, Clarity Held. It was decided not to do so because it was thought that under certain circumstances you might prove more useful alive than dead. Events are soon to confirm this supposition.”
Where were Bran Tse-Mallory and the Eint Truzenzuzex? she found herself wondering. She was pleased when they had stopped hovering over her months ago. Now she felt their absence keenly. Had they already
been slain by other members of the Order? Knowing man and thranx as she did, she found that hard to believe. But the Order was lethal, cunning, and most dangerous of all, subtle. After the battle at the shuttleport more than a year ago they had seemingly disappeared. With Flinx safely away offworld she had been lulled into what was now clearly a false sense of security. Despite their wisdom and experience, were her two venerable guardians equally susceptible to such deception?
A man and a woman emerged from the boat's forward cabin. Both were dressed in flexible, dull-gray security suits that looked robust enough to be military issue. As soon as they drew near enough, an enraged Scrap spat in their direction. The tiny stream of venom struck the suited woman square on her suit's faceplate. Startled, she stumbled backward a couple of steps. But the powerful toxin did not penetrate the special transparent alloy, although it did eat away a small part of the outermost layer.
As the man raised the pistol he was holding, a frantic Clarity moved to position herself inside the folds of the net between the muzzle of the projectile weapon and her pet.
“Don't shoot him! There's no need. I'll make sure he doesn't attack again.”
“It doesn't matter.” The man spoke casually to his companion. “The amount of venom it stores in its mouth is limited. Let him expel until the poison sac is empty and then we'll pull them out of the net.”
Barryn finally managed to get his legs under him and step forward. Or at least as far forward as the enfolding net would permit. “Look, I don't know who you people are or what kind of lunatic farce Clarity says you've chosen to venerate, but neither she nor I have anything to do with whatever trouble that redheaded offworlder has stirred up.” Using both hands, he held up two handfuls of the fine-mesh net in which he was imprisoned. “Just get us out of here and we can discuss whatever concerns you have like civilized human beings. If this Flinx person is mixed up in something illicit, maybe we can help you sort it, and him, out.”
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