Wait a minute, he thought. If this kid is crafty or controlling or powerful enough to do what he's done already, and seemingly without expending an effort, might he have a history of doing such things? If so, there should be some sort of trail. Maybe, Ormann mused silently, he was going about this all wrong. Being subtle, when what was called for was not subtlety but directness. By now he had acquired excellent visual and auditory records of Lynx. It should be a fairly straightforward matter to trace the recent history of his arrival on Nur. Learning how he had arrived and where he had arrived from, however transient, would at least give Ormann something solid to proceed from. Vendra was not the only accomplished investigator on New Riviera. Offering enough money always drew takers, no matter the perceived danger.
His standing in the business community had enabled him to build up an inventory of multiple contacts. It was time to call in some favors.
What he was about to learn would at once surprise and please him far more than anything he had discovered about his nemesis thus far.
"But I don't know how to dance. I've never danced."
Clarity found Philip's embarrassment at his professed lack of terpsichorean skill almost as amusing as his evident physical discomfort from the suit he was wearing. Going with him to buy it had been an adventure in itself. She had prevailed only because she insisted that if he didn't wear something different she would refuse to see him anymore.
"Don't you even own a formal outfit?" she'd challenged him.
"I have very few personal possessions," he had replied truthfully. Of course, one of those possessions happened to be a starship, but she already knew that.
Now he twisted and twitched like someone afflicted with an irritating skin disease. Having long since given up any hope of retaining even a semi-stable perch, Pip had retired to the retronouveau supports of the table, where she and Scrap blended so well with the sculpted flow of the multiple legs that anyone standing more than a meter away would have had a difficult time telling the living minidrags from the inorganic, flowering metal.
He looked good in the suit, she told herself. Light-traced, body-imaged, patterned, cut, and sealed, it had been composited and tailored on one of Sphene's trendiest shopping promenades in less than an hour. Next week it would be out of fashion, as was the norm. But for one night at least, Flinx looked like something other than a hub-switch repairman. The shimmering maroon material flashed only a minimum sufficiency of highlights. It stood out nicely in contrast to her more subdued forest green, off-the-shoulder casual gown. Sensitized to specific parts of the visible spectrum, significant portions of her attire blinked transparent when encountering anything shifted into the ultraviolet.
Now she discovered that not only couldn't he dress properly, but also he couldn't dance. That did not stop her from rising from her seat, taking one of his hands, and pulling him toward the crowded floor.
"Anyone can dance, Flinx. I've seen you move. You're agile and flexible. I know you can do it."
Feeling like a complete idiot, in which condition he had been preceded by the great majority of the male members of his species, he reluctantly allowed himself to be dragged toward the middle of the softly lit room. The nearer they drew to the dance floor, the more he felt as if his legs were turning completely nonfunctional. The fact that he loomed over nearly everyone else made him feel that much more conspicuous.
Clarity, on the other hand, reveled in the exposure. "Just follow me," she instructed him, her voice rising above the thumping yet melodious music. "Let yourself go."
"I've never been able to let myself go," he confessed frankly.
"Then it's about time you learned." Backing slightly away from him, she began to move, to twirl, and to rise slightly off the reflective surface as the repellers integrated into her silken shoes reacted to the push-pulse of the energized floor.
He would have been happy just to watch her, as several other male patrons of the club were already doing. Without question she was the most uninhibited gengineer he had ever met. Struggling with his ingrained inclination to remain unobtrusive, he began, in hesitant fits and jerks, to try and imitate her movements.
"That's it!" Shouting encouragingly above the roar of draums and the graduated timbalon, she moved closer, put her hands on his waist, and began to push and pull as if she were kneading a large, bipedal lump of taffy. He felt himself rising as the shoes she had insisted he purchase responded to the power flow from the floor.
"You smell wonderful," he told her even as he chided himself for the banality of the comment.
She accepted the compliment in the spirit in which it was given. Her smile was radiant. When certain flashes of light caught her phototropically streaked dress and rendered sections of it see-through, he caught his breath. Leaning into her, he inhaled deeply.
"You like the perfume? The test name is Shehwaru. I was one of the principal gengineers on the project."
"You made it?" Strange, he thought. The more one engaged in this tradition called dancing, the easier it became. He was certainly light enough on his feet, even without the aid of the repellers. Growing up as a thief had ingrained that in his movements. Lights flashed around them, sometimes becoming sound. Music metamorphosed into light. Above it all was Clarity, the sight and smell and closeness of her.
"I contributed," she told him. "The fragrance has oxytocin bound into the molecular structure. You know-the 'snuggling' hormone?" She moved away slightly, dervishing gracefully atop ten centimeters of perfumed, tinted air.
Flinx did not know what she was talking about. Pheromonics were not a particular interest of his. But while he was little familiar with the process, he admitted to taking delight in the results. At least, he did until an all-too-familiar pounding began in his forehead.
Clarity was immediately concerned when she saw him wince. She moved close to him, eyeing him with sudden alarm.
"Flinx?" A glance at their table showed the minidrags were moving.
"It's all right, Clarity." Placing the tips of the fingers of one hand against his forehead, he pushed firmly. Sometimes that helped. The throbbing receded a little. "I never know when they're going to hit. Most of the time it starts up and then just goes away." He mustered a reassuring smile. "I think I'm getting the hang of this dancing. Show me that last move again."
But before she could do so, a bolt of pain razored through his head that made him double over. In an instant, she had one consoling arm around his waist.
"That's it; we're done here. I know you well enough to recognize what's happening, Flinx. You came to me looking for understanding. Well, understand that we're leaving. Now."
That he offered no objection was proof enough of how unwell he was starting to feel. Twice more he bent double, clutching his head, before they could gather up their pets and leave. Maybe getting him away from the lights and music would help, she found herself thinking as she paid the bill.
He did feel a little better once they were outside in the cool night air.
"I don't care," she told him. "I'm still taking you back to your hotel."
Regret filled his reply. "I don't want to spoil your evening."
"We had a good time." Her bracelet was flashing, automatically hailing private transport. "There'll be other evenings. Right now the important thing is to get you to where you can lie down and rest."
The empty, cruising transport sidled up to them and politely asked their destination as it processed Clarity's credcard. Flinx had recovered enough to mouth the name of his hotel. As the transport slid away from the club, humming to itself, he found that Clarity was pressed so tightly against him that Pip and Scrap had to move to opposite sides of their masters to find adequate space in which to perch.
"I had fun." Snuggled into his right side, she let one arm slide across his waist. He twitched. Must be the effects of the Shehwaru, he told himself. Pip looked resigned to coiling up between him and the door.
"When was the last time you had fun, Flinx?"
A
ready reply formed on his lips. Trouble was, it was unsupported by memory. For the life of him, he could not recall the last time. Then the answer came to him. "A few minutes ago," he whispered to her. "Tonight."
"I meant before tonight, silly." She gave him a gentle punch on the shoulder.
His neck snapped back, his body arched, and his eyes momentarily gaped wide at the roof of the transport before squeezing tight. Next to him, Pip went rigid. His headache, she knew, had returned with a vengeance.
"Flinx!" She stared apprehensively at the now motionless body. "Is there anything I can do? Do you want me to... ?"
Her head wrenched backward, her torso convulsed, and a pain the like of which she had rarely experienced shot through her skull like a hot bullet through fresh meat. Alongside her, Scrap spasmed once before becoming as stiff as a blue-and-pink walking cane.
It is a strange thing to be in a dream and simultaneously be aware that it is a dream. As soon as she became conscious of the unreality in which she found herself, the pain began to go away. It never faded entirely, but it was greatly reduced.
She was in a black place, floating. Expecting to share Flinx's perceptions, half anticipating that she would again encounter the horrible dark thing that had touched her, she was bewildered and relieved when nothing hostile manifested itself. There was no awareness of Flinx, no sense of his proximity.
But there was something else.
Or maybe multiple something elses; she couldn't really tell if the presence she perceived was several or singular. It was not overtly hostile but neither was it welcoming. The impressions she was receiving were more of irritation than anger, as if they found her presence a nuisance. While unable to identify their awarenesses, she was mindful of what Flinx had told her of his own dreams.
There was the mechanism of which he had spoken-ancient beyond belief yet still functional. There also the greenness, vast yet finite, utterly alien yet curiously maternal. And lastly there was the warmth to which he had alluded; indistinct, indefinable, yet somehow vaguely familiar. These sensations remained indistinct but cohesive, commanding yet accommodating. And in the middle of it all she drifted, astray in a place she did not want to be.
Sensing the disapproval around her, she heard a hazy fraction of herself whisper, "Why?"
"Because you are a distraction," came the reply, "an extraneous diversion from That Which Is Truly Important. You affect his mind. You blur his reasoning. You divert his energies."
She did not have to wonder or ask who it/they were referring to. "What do you want with him? You cause him nothing but panic and pain." The warmth grew slightly more intense around her. Before then, she did not know such a thing could be made visible so that one could not just feel it but see it as well.
"We mean him no harm. But panic and pain advances on all, and must be countered. It reaches beyond him, and us and everything from white bacteria to red giants. It comes for all and must be resisted by all."
Flinx's nightmares. The blackness that had touched her and left her trembling uncontrollably. "What does such a hostile enormity have to do with poor Flinx?"
"He is the Key," it/they responded without hesitation.
In the nothingness that surrounded her, she felt lost in the multiple, vast presence. She had heard that before, from Flinx. Now she was hearing it again. "How can Flinx be the key to anything? He's just one frightened, lost, confused human."
"He is the Key," she was told again, more forcefully this time. "How, we do not know. When, we do not know. Where, we do not know. But he is the Key. That we do know."
"How can you be so certain? You don't sound very certain."
"We are deeply struck by the implausibility of it. There is much we do not know. But him we do know. Everything is changing. Nothing is stable. He is changing, too, in ways even we do not know and cannot predict. In the midst of such immense ignorance the last thing that is needed is a complication."
"Me," she heard herself replying.
"You," the consciousness concurred with infuriating certitude.
"I won't abandon him. You can't make me." This last was said with more determination than confidence. "I'm the only friend he's got. He's as much as told me so. So if you somehow force me to leave him now, then whatever else you are, his friend you're not."
"True," came the somewhat surprising communal response. "We are not his friend. Not in the way you define such an association. Yet he is needed. This thing that needs to be done cannot be done without him."
"What thing?"
"We are not certain. Not how, when, or where. Only that it needs to be done, and that the doing of it needs him."
"For something vast and powerful you're maddeningly imprecise."
"Do we not wish it were otherwise? Do you think we are comfortable with this and content with the options? Do you think we enjoy what we must do to ourselves, to others, to the human called Flinx? No pleasure is taken in this. No joy is to be found in it. There are times in existence when things must be done for the doing of them, without extraneous considerations. This is one of them. Now and later. Here and elsewhere."
"I don't care. I won't forsake him. He's my friend." Considering her present condition, she was as defiant as she could be. "You can't make me." Silently terrified of having thrown down the gauntlet, she waited for the threatening contradiction that she was sure would be forthcoming. It was not.
"We will not." Not, we cannot, but-we will not. "If you would be a friend to all and not just to one, do not try to divert him from what must be done."
"But he doesn't know what must be done, and he doesn't know how to do it. Neither do you."
"Entropy educates. Time tells. With every great precession, knowledge grows. The moment will come when we know what is to be done, and how, and where. At that instant, so will he. If you are present at that time, you must try to help and not interfere."
"How can I interfere when I don't know what's going to happen or how it's going to happen?"
"You will know. If you are present at that moment, you will know. We will all know, simultaneously and together." The presence began to diminish. "When that time comes, remember this: you chose your way."
She sat forward with a start. Something small and damp was tickling her face. Reaching up with one hand, she gently nudged the anxious flying snake's head aside. "It's okay. Scrap. I'm okay." Reaching down, she discovered that despite the hired transport's efficient climate control system, she was sopping wet with perspiration.
The vehicle had come to a stop. Peering out, she saw that they were in front of Flinx's hotel. How long they had been sitting there she did not know. It was still night outside, just as it was night within her. But the latter brightened as her awareness strengthened. She directed the transport to display a heads-up chronometer. It was very late.
A piteous moan emerged from the figure slumped in the seat alongside her. Pip was crawling all over her master, desperately trying to wake him. Clarity fumbled in her purse before extracting a scented cloth. As she dabbed his forehead and face with the length of cooling fabric, his eyelids fluttered and eventually rose. Divining her intent, Pip drew back to one side.
For a terrifying instant, Flinx saw something dreadful beyond his ken. Then he recognized her.
"Clarity." Reaching up with one hand, he drew the tips of his slightly trembling fingers down her cheek. Despite his condition and what he had likely just gone through, his voice was strong. "I-I had another bad dream."
Nodding understandingly, she continued to mop his brow. "I know. I did, too."
He sat up straighter. "I projected on you again? Clarity, I'm so sorry." His other hand absently stroked the back of Pip's head and neck.
"It was different this time. My dream, I mean. I don't think we had the same experience. At least, nothing horrible touched me. It was more in the nature of a conversation." She managed a weak smile. "And my head doesn't hurt."
He stared hard at her. "This isn't possible. What you're descri
bing is nothing like what I dreamed." He looked away. "Mine was the same as usual. Soaring outward, searching, finding, and perceiving, then rushing back into myself and waking up. You said your dream was like a conversation." Seeking answers he searched her face, but found only beauty. "Who were you conversing with?"
"Something doesn't want me to be with you, Flinx." Carefully, she refolded her inadequate cloth and resumed patting him down. "It-they-told me so in no uncertain terms. But they won't try to prevent me from being with you, either. The decision is up to me."
"They?"
"I think it's the same they who keep forcing these dreams on you. It's all bound up with the mysterious phenomenon that's coming this way. You and the ancient device, the green color, and the warmth you told me about. And now, it seems, me too."
Turning in his seat, he grabbed her shoulders and gazed into her eyes. "You can't be involved, Clarity. It's my nightmare, not yours."
She smiled regretfully. "Nightmares, it appears, can be shared, Flinx. Besides, as the voices in my head said, the choice is up to me. I told you I would try to help you. I'm not backing away from that because of a bad dream or two." They were rather more than that, she knew, but it made no difference to her. Theirs was a friendship she had determined would endure. One that no ethereal entities would be allowed to rend asunder.
He nodded slowly, gratefully. Then he put his long arms around her and squeezed, holding her tight. Tight enough so that even rampaging galactic horrors, even intrusive dreams, could not fit between them. Enfolded in his strong arms, she found that her fear, like a bad dream, faded away.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
As on every other developed Commonwealth world he had visited, Flinx was able to order everything he needed to restock the Teacher by working his way through the Nurian shell, accessing specific supply hubs as needed while simultaneously maintaining a certain degree of anonymity. Eventually, however, there inevitably came a moment when he had to present himself in person at the port where his shuttle was based. Ordering tens of thousands of credits' worth of goods was one thing; taking possession of them was something else-especially when the goods were intended for shipment off-world. That meant completing export forms.