At least, that was the scenario he hoped would unfold. Anxiously as he anticipated it, he could not waste time or energy hoping it would come to pass.
Upon arriving in Sphene he had rented a skimmer in order to be able to easily visit Clarity at the outlying medical facility where she was finishing her term of convalescence. Even as he was climbing into it in the garage adjoining the hotel, he was sending the vehicle's AI the coordinates that had been supplied to him. Moments later he was outside the structure and airborne, climbing to the maximum allowable commuter height. Its destination programmed in, the craft turned and headed north out of the city.
Following the instructions he had been given, Flinx deactivated his communit's communications functions. He would speak with no one and allow no one to contact him lest Clarity's kidnappers somehow intercepted such a transmission, panicked, and decided to carry out their threat. His continuing silence would further confirm the significance of the recording he had left behind for Bran Tse-Mallory and the Eint Truzenzuzex.
Given luck and perseverance, he would be able to put off any irreversible action on the part of his expectant assassins until his friends arrived. In the absence of any direct communication between him and his mentors, their unexpected appearance would be a nasty surprise for the members of the Order. Everything depended, of course, on a concerned Bran and Tru seeking him out at the hotel, questioning the front desk, and recovering the memory splinter.
His head was pounding. The last thing he needed now was one of his severe headaches. He had only a general idea of how, in the event Tse-Mallory and Truzenzuzex did not arrive in time, he might save Clarity and himself. As their speaker had remarked, the members of the Order now realized he was capable of Certain Things.
With nothing more to do until the skimmer reached its destination, he forced himself to settle back in the pilot's seat. The grand and peaceful surrounds of the city of Sphene disclosed themselves around him, the sun-washed urban serenity in stark contrast to the emotions that were boiling inside him. He was only partly successful in his efforts to calm Pip. Those who wanted him dead would have to cope with her, too, he thought dourly.
As for his ability to do things, the Order of Null was about to find out the full extent of that Talent.
“I'm looking for a friend.”
The hotel clerk regarded the visitor equably. “I'll need a little more information than that.”
“Of course you will. His name is Philip Lynx. It's possible he is registered under a different name. But I can describe him easily. Quite tall, red hair, green eyes; and he is rarely without his pet: a small, brilliantly colored winged creature that often rides on his shoulder.”
The clerk's expression brightened. “Oh, yes. I know the gentleman.” He glanced to his left. “His rooms are vacant of life-forms at the moment.” The clerk hesitated. “Wait. You are his—friend?”
“Absolutely,” declared the stranger with fresh interest.
“Just a moment.” Reaching into a drawer behind the counter, the clerk removed a small clear plastic vial. “He said that a friend of his would come to pick this up.” One hand slid the container holding the black memory splinter across the polished blackwood. The visitor eyed it thoughtfully. “You are that friend, of course.”
The visitor hesitated momentarily, then brightened. “I suppose so.” The memory splinter disappeared into a carry pouch. “Thank you for your help. When I see my friend I'll thank him personally for your assistance.” With that, the visitor turned and headed for the front exit.
Always glad to be of help to a guest, the clerk turned back to his work, convinced he had done the right thing.
Not long thereafter a distinctive pair of beings entered the lobby and approached the same counter. One was a burly human, the other an elderly thranx. Looking up from his monitor projections, the clerk smiled at the newcomers.
“May I help you? Do you require habitation?”
“Just information.” The human was curt without being impolite. “A friend of ours has been staying here. We've been unable to contact him, which is not unusual. What is unusual is that his communit appears to have been shut down completely.”
“Completely?” The clerk was professionally sympathetic. “That is disconcerting.”
Tse-Mallory uttered a bad word. “It's worse than disconcerting, I'm afraid. Where our friend is concerned, and based on the kind of day my multilimbed friend and I have had so far, it could be a matter of life and death.”
“Our friend does not answer his personal communit and we have not been able to contact him via your interchange.” Standing back on his four trulegs, the thranx was just able to peer over the human-height counter. “Can you send someone to check his room, or allow us to go there with a member of your staff to look at it for ourselves?”
Anxious to please, the helpful clerk's right hand hovered over the relevant instrumentation. “What is your friend's name again?”
Tse-Mallory provided the alias Flinx had used when he had registered with Nurian Immigration upon arrival. At the mention of the name the clerk needed to wave only briefly at his instruments.
“The gentleman left here earlier. He did not check out and he hasn't returned.”
The two visitors exchanged a glance, the thranx punctuating his look with a sharp gesticulation the clerk did not recognize.
“Did he happen to mention his intentions, or where he was going?” Truzenzuzex inquired tersely. The clerk shook his head. “Did he happen to leave anything behind?”
At this the clerk smiled. “Yes. A memory splinter. A friend would come to pick it up, he told me.”
Man and thranx relaxed visibly. Tse-Mallory extended a gnarled hand palm upward across the counter. “That's good. I'll take it now, thanks.”
A bewildered expression came over the clerk's countenance. “You can't. That is, I mean—his friend has already picked it up. Quite a while ago, in fact.”
The tension among the pair of unusual visitors that the clerk had sensed a moment ago abruptly returned in full. “If you wouldn't mind,” the thranx enunciated in perfect, almost colloquial terranglo, “it's very important that you describe this ‘friend’ to us.”
“Everything you can remember about him.” The human's stare was so forceful that the clerk found himself awed—and a little frightened.
“Certainly—sure,” he stammered. “First of all, it was not a ‘he’ ….”
Flinx pushed the skimmer to its legal limits. Every additional minute it took him to cover the distance between the city and the coordinates he had been given was another moment that Clarity remained in the unpredictable, unpleasant hands of the fanatics of the Order of Null. While from the time of their first encounter long ago they had struck him as a group that tortured only for a purpose, he had no intention of relying on that initial impression. At the same time he had to take care not to draw the attention of the city authorities who regulated travel in Sphene's vicinity. The consequent enforced delay was agony.
Pip was all over him as well as the interior of the skimmer. Restless and edgy, she would dash from him to one part or another of the craft's transparent canopy and back again, searching for the source of her master's continuing distress. He tried to settle her down, with only limited success. Permanently joined to him empathetically, he could not calm her if he could not calm himself. And no matter how hard he tried, he could not do that.
The other airborne travelers he shot past might be ignoring his high-speed, somewhat erratic flight. Or they might be raging at him. With the rented skimmer's internal communications deliberately disconnected to comply with the instructions he had been given, he had no way of knowing. Nor could anyone contact him via the personal communit he wore on his left wrist. Also in accordance with the Order's commands, he had disabled all of its functions, including the integrated emergency locator beacon. He did not even reach out with his Talent to the passengers of the increasingly infrequent transports he passed.
Hav
ing programmed the coordinates into the skimmer and instructed it to take the fastest point-to-point possible, he raced across lake and river, greenbelt preserve and densely wooded low hills. The craft did not begin to slow until he unexpectedly found himself cruising within the boundaries of one of the capital city's most upscale precincts. Expensive custom villas dotted thickly vegetated hillsides above a gently meandering river whose banks had been channeled, landscaped, and decorated to resemble Earth's fabled Arno.
Descending, the skimmer settled gently to ground on autopilot, touching down on the oval landing pad that fronted one such residence. The structure's two-story portico was an incongruous, slightly absurd, but perfectly rendered reconstruction of the Nymphaeum at Sagalassos, complete to trickling fountains. There was nothing of the ancient Roman about the skimmer's acknowledgment of arrival and touchdown, however. And the generously proportioned middle-aged human who waited to greet him was not clad in a toga. Flinx recognized the man immediately: it was the representative of the Order with whom he had spoken earlier.
As soon as the engine shut down Flinx exited the skimmer and strode over to confront him. He paid no attention to the pistol the man was pointing at him. Exiting from the building's main entrance, several other armed men and women came forward to join them. Much as he wanted to lash out, to flay them with his Talent, to try to sow fear and terror among them, he held back. He dared not act precipitously, especially if they really did have some notion of what he was capable of doing. For one thing, he could not yet sense if Clarity was even in the vicinity.
While he held firmly on to Pip and kept her as calm as he could, one of the men searched him for weapons. His roving hands were quick and professional. After removing Flinx's tool-laden belt, the frisker stepped back.
“He's not carrying nothing dangerous. Nothing obvious, anyway.”
The portly speaker nodded. Looking up at the much taller, younger man who had emerged from the skimmer, he opened conversation. His tone was brisk and unafraid.
“Since we want you dead, you're probably wondering why we don't shoot you right here and now. Or why we are even taking the risk to meet with you in person.”
Flinx kept his expression as neutral as he could. On his shoulder, Pip squirmed, sensing quiet hostility all around her. “The thought had occurred to me.”
“First of all, we of the Order keep our promises,” his host explained. “When I communicated with you I said that there might be a way for us to reach an accommodation. While our beliefs limit the range of options that are open to us, some do exist. We are more open to discussion now that you are here and we can kill you anytime. Second, there is certain knowledge we would like to have that is apparently available only to you.”
Flinx became aware that the individual members of the armed faction surrounding him were eyeing him with a most peculiar mixture of anger and awe. Knowing who they were and the rough outlines of their beliefs, he could make a reasonable guess as to what kind of information the speaker was after.
“You want to know about the Great Evil that's coming this way. The ‘Purity,’ as you call it. The ‘cleansing’ that you worship.”
A couple of the men and one of the women surrounding him actually lapsed into silent prayer. It was left to the speaker to articulate their craving.
“Our contacts in Commonwealth Science have only been able to provide details of an astronomical nature. So many parsecs purified, so many suns and so much interstellar hydrogen swept away.” Never overtly belligerent even when the talk was of killing him, the speaker's voice abruptly took on a hint of unexpected longing.
“We yearn to know more about that which we strive to facilitate. We feel certain it cannot be wholly and absolutely inanimate. Surely something so vast and all-powerful must be controlled by a consciousness of equal magnitude! A thought process that underlies and directs. Unquestionably there must be more at stake than mere annihilation. There must be purpose, direction, rationale.” Eyes alight with the fire of fanaticism searched the face of the barely restrained young man standing before him.
Flinx finally nodded. “Yes. Yes, there is. You're right. I've seen it. I've perceived it.”
Excited looks and whispers were exchanged by his guards, though they were careful at all times to keep their weapons trained on him and the flying snake that remained wrapped around his right arm and shoulder.
“Alas, our sources have no access to such extra-physical possibilities.” With eyes as hungry as his intellect, the speaker stared at the prisoner. “You must, you have to share what you know with us.”
“So I will,” Flinx agreed. “I'll tell you everything. But first, take me to Clarity.”
“Yes, yes, of course! Even those who serve the Purity must not neglect good manners.” Turning, the speaker led the way into the villa. The other members of the Order formed up as an escort on either side of Flinx as well as behind him. Under this heavy guard he was marched into the building.
Slender jets of gel-infused water played in the artificial streams that flanked both sides of the central hallway. At the far end, high double doors opened into an antechamber whose walls and ceiling were decorated in the style of ancient Imperial Rome, albeit a Rome that had been lavished with the latest in contemporary furnishings. Faux Aurelian-era mosaics danced and played on both sides of Flinx as he was led inward.
The next room, the villa's central chamber, had been emptied of furniture, its animated wall mosaics and paintings deactivated. Still more members of the Order were waiting for him. Among them was a singular old man with a bent back. Flinx focused on him immediately. Physically, he was a relic. From the standpoint of emotional strength, however, he easily dominated everyone else in the room. It was also significant that he was one of the very few present who was not visibly armed.
Sitting off to one side on a bench of ersatz marble, a rectangular transparent box held a supine serpentine shape. In a flash Pip spread her wings and, despite Flinx's efforts to restrain her, bolted from his shoulder. The winged form imprisoned inside the perforated, impervious container was alert and active even before she landed atop it. Though they could not make physical contact, mother and offspring proceeded to engage empathetically.
The contemptible folk filling the room would take no more chances with her than they had with Scrap, Flinx realized. It didn't matter. Their number was not important and at least for the moment their armaments were of no interest to him. The only thing that mattered was the solitary figure sitting isolated in the center of the chamber.
Sunlight filtering through a circular pane in the ceiling lit Clarity from above. She looked much as she had sounded over his communit—exhausted and abused. The damage that had been inflicted was visible only in her face—and her eyes. It took them, and her, a long moment to recognize him as he rushed toward her.
“F-Flinx?” She shook her head, blinked, and tried without much success to sound angry. “You shouldn't have come. Now that you're here they'll kill us both.”
“Maybe,” he muttered as he knelt in front of her. “Maybe not.” He wanted to take her in his arms. He could have tried, though in her present state it would have been difficult to get even those rangy limbs around her.
From the neck down she was completely encased in a dirty gray foam that had hardened to a plastic-like consistency. Other than her head and neck, only her hands and feet had been left exposed. He started to reach for the foam casing. Her eyes widened.
“No, don't touch me!” She was trying hard not to cry. “If you try to tear or break or drill through the foam in any way, it will blow up!” She looked toward the watching Order members. “At least, that's what they told me when they were spraying it on.”
A deepening chill washed through Flinx as he straightened and took a step back. Her captors were taking no chances. She was encased in enough material to bring down the entire building: a possibility that apparently did not bother those who had gone to the trouble of fitting her with the untouchable, volati
le sheath.
A voice sounded nearby. The Elder had come up behind him.
“Having become all too familiar with your peculiar combative abilities, young man, we of course have taken appropriate steps.” He pointed the cane he was holding at the terrified, immobilized woman seated before them. “She is encased in a latex-based high explosive, which has been intermingled with sensitized nanowiring. Attuned to the microscopic cabling are four button-sized wireless detonators taped to her thighs, any one of which can by itself set off the entirety of the solidified amalgam. If you attempt to penetrate the material to retrieve the triggers, the material will detonate. The detonators themselves have been individually randomly coded and locked, so they cannot be deactivated remotely.”
Flinx digested this. “Then how can she be freed from the foam without setting it off?”
“An optical wormgrip can be slipped through the slight gap between her body and the encasement to safely remove the detonators. They can then easily be switched off.” The Elder smiled thinly. “Sometimes simple mechanical procedures are more expedient than complex electronics.” He indicated their surroundings. “We intentionally do not have a wormgrip anywhere on this property so you cannot take one of us hostage and demand that we bring it forth. We cannot be forced to turn over that which we do not have.” Eyes that had seen much and were the harder for it met Flinx's.
“Once you have unburdened yourself of the knowledge we seek, someone will be sent to obtain and bring back the tool necessary to free her.”
Flinx scrutinized the hardened explosive spume that had been sculpted around Clarity, looking for a weakness, looking for something the Order might have overlooked. The casing was not skintight—the Elder had explained that there was a gap between foam and body. They had to leave her room to breathe, to sweat, and to twitch a little. But there was no way he could get a hand, much less an arm, into and down the narrow gap between the solidified sheath and her neck, ankle, or leg. He could not get up inside the congealed foam to remove the detonators without the kind of flexible, specialized probe the old man had described. Even if he could have slipped a hand up inside he knew he would not be given the time to try.
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