“Easy, easy.” Still holding on to her, Flinx peered into the night, his eyes half closed, reaching out until he found what he was searching for. “He’s still alive. His feelings are—that’s odd.” He frowned.
Slowly regaining her wind, she stared up at him. “What? What!”
He blinked, turned his gaze back to hers. “As near as I can tell, emotionally he seems at ease.”
“That doesn’t make any sense.”
Flinx was not old—and as he would have been the first to admit, he was far from wise. But he was older, and a little wiser, than the young woman struggling to collect herself in front of him.
“Maybe it does.”
Still breathing hard, but easier now, she was able to step back and stand by herself. “I don’t underst—” She broke off, looking at him, then turned to stare out into the moon-illuminated night. “Oh,” she mumbled softly.
Flinx moved to stand next to her and join her in peering out into the darkness. He had detoured to Visaria out of a sense of despondency, a feeling that he might be embarked on the sacrifice of his life for something not worth saving. In his brief time exploring a small bit of the planet he had seen little to change that opinion. The scales remained weighted heavily against sentience that all too often seemed selfish, self-centered, and indifferent to the fate of others. If individual humans and the representatives of the other intelligent species were first and foremost inclined to pursue their own personal interests at the expense of everyone else’s, why should he forfeit his future on their behalf?
Street-bred Subar, the least likely of avatars, had shown him why. Out of love and on behalf of another, the otherwise wholly self-centered youth had performed that most remarkable of deeds: an utterly unselfish act. Contemplating an action that was as righteous as it was unexpected, Flinx knew that had Clarity Held been in Ashile’s place, he would have done exactly the same thing.
Recognizing this did not make him feel any better about himself, but it did make him feel a lot better about the species to which he belonged. Maybe even hopeful enough to think it worth saving.
He did not have to search for the captured youth, either visually or empathetically. Once he had escorted Ashile back inside the complex, Piegal Shaeb saved him the trouble. Boosted by a thumb-sized amplifier, the Underhouse master’s voice reverberated throughout the buildings. Flinx was able to understand the carefully enunciated ultimatum without straining. So was a shaky Ashile, and Tracken Behdulvlad from his position near the front door, and the rest of the frightened but resolute youths who continued to take shelter within the facility.
“Listen to me, Philip Lynx!”
Amazement at hearing his real name was such a shock to Flinx that Tracken, who was standing next to him at the time, wondered if the younger man was about to pass out. The emotional jolt her master suffered caused Pip to flutter her wings in alarm.
Shaeb gave him no time to wonder how the Underhouse master had learned his identity. “I don’t know what you are doing on Visaria, where you come from, or what your interest is in this miserable pod of street scrawn who have robbed and insulted me, but if you will pause a moment to take an objective look at your present situation, I think you will find your commitment misplaced. Despite your unjustified, unwarranted, and I must say inexplicable intervention on their behalf, I hold no animus against you. I am prepared to guarantee you safe passage away from this agricultural facility. All you have to do is step out and walk away. No one will shoot at you.” A pause, following which the Underhouse master’s words were embellished by a note of sardonic humor. “Do not mistake that I make this offer purely out of altruism. It is as much for the protection of my people as for yourself.”
Ashile was eyeing him apprehensively. To varying degrees, so were Zezula, Sallow Behdul, and Missi. Tracken Behdulvlad simply clutched his rifle and waited expectantly.
Flinx walked to a window. Like all its counterparts within the facility, it had been darkened by Tracken. A touch of an embedded control rendered the material porous. Designed to allow the entry of fresh air while keeping out pests, it now permitted his voice to carry.
“I have no quarrel with you, either, Piegal Shaeb! Let the pod come with me and I promise I’ll work to settle both your insult and your financial loss!”
There was no mistaking the incredulity in Shaeb’s reply. “From what I have seen and heard, you do not strike me as someone with access to the resources necessary to impart the necessary degree of compensation I seek.”
Darkened or not, Flinx kept clear of the window as he responded. “You would be surprised.”
“I have already been surprised by you, Philip Lynx. Or Flinx, whichever you prefer. That is why I am reluctant to trust anything you say. I am weighed down by the need to suffer no further surprises. Therefore, I make this proposal. All of you set aside whatever weapons you may possess and come out. I promise to discuss a variety of possible resolutions to this discomfiture, but only when I can sit face-to-face with those with whom I am in disagreement. In return, I promise not to vivisect millimeter by millimeter the polluted member of your precious pod whom my people are presently holding. If you doubt my resolve in this matter, I will be happy to send you a small portion of some significant portion of his anatomy, chosen at random.” Another pause, then, “You have five minutes to respond.”
Flinx turned back to the anxious faces waiting on him. Missi spoke up timidly. “Maybe we can talk our way out of this.” She stared hopefully at Flinx. “Did you really mean what you told him? That you could cover his financial losses from our boost?”
Expression glum, he nodded. “Yes, but it doesn’t matter. If we do as he asks, he’s going to kill all of us.”
Tracken frowned at his offworld visitor. “How do you know that?”
Flinx replied without hesitation. “I can perceive it. His speaking voice is unruffled and controlled, but his emotions are feral. There’s no safety to be found in complying with his demand.”
Zezula swallowed. She had been crying a lot and her face was badly swollen. “Then how do we respond?”
Flinx peered over at Tracken. “I’m afraid our praiseworthy host doesn’t have any more surprises in his agricultural bag of tricks. That shock has worn off.” Slowly he slipped his lustrous, stubby pistol back into its boot holster. “We have only two guns. Shaeb’s AAnn recruits have taken their leave and gone their own way, and some of his human subordinates have been put down, but I sense that he still has a dozen or so dedicated supporters with him.” His expression knotted. “Along with one other whose sentiments I can’t quite sort out.”
He nodded toward the agrigeneer. “Mr. Behdulvlad and I might be able to negotiate with them, and we might not. If we try and fail, Subar is become meat.” To her credit Ashile somehow maintained her composure, though he could sense that emotionally she was on the verge of a total breakdown.
He sighed heavily. Subar had given himself up to save Ashile—a gesture of profound nobility that would mean nothing if they threw themselves on Shaeb’s sham mercy. “I’m going to try something,” he told them, “but for it to have the best chance of success I have to go out there and confront him.” He looked at Tracken. “Stay here and do what you can. Don’t try to run. Shaeb’s no fool. Half a dozen of his people are spread out around the main residence, just waiting for someone to try to bolt. The rest are with Shaeb himself.” He turned away. “If I can deal with him in the manner I hope, I don’t think the others will see a vested interest in hanging around.” He started for a hallway that led to a side doorway.
Ashile took a step toward him, halted. “What are you going to do, Flinx?”
Sallow Behdul chose that moment to speak up. “I know what he’s going to do.” He was looking straight at Flinx, with a gaze that was not as simple as those who spent time in his company liked to think. “He’s going to make them fall down and cry, like he did to Chaloni and Dirran and me. Aren’t you?”
Flinx managed a slight smile. “Mayb
e not cry. But fiddle with feelings so that they don’t feel like shooting us, either.”
Ashile stared at him. “Subar told me about that. He said you could—could make people feel a certain way. Can you really do that to somebody like Piegal Shaeb?”
Shrugging, he turned away from her and started for the hall. “We’re about to find out.”
In response to his declared announcement that he was coming out, Shaeb responded favorably, but added a demand that the offworlder at all times keep his pet in view and on his person or she would be shot. Flinx complied, having to reach up once or twice to physically restrain the increasingly nervous Pip from taking flight.
“Relax.” Murmuring soothingly, he added something in the indigenous language of Alaspin as he reached up to stroke the back of her head. “Just relax. It’ll be all right. Everything is under control.” While he could manipulate his words, it was considerably harder to mask his true emotions. The resulting discrepancy between her master’s words and his feelings left her feeling edgy and ill at ease even while riding comfortably on his shoulder.
Appearing in the shadows, a tiny point of blue light rocked up and down, beckoning him to a spot around the side of the main storage building. Turning the corner, he found himself confronted by a clutch of armed men and women. Their presence was no surprise: he had sensed their location and number before he had exited the residence, just as he had detected the emotional resonance of those who had formed a perimeter around it to prevent any possible escape.
A figure that was innocuous in appearance yet commanding in attitude stepped forward into the moonlight. Piegal Shaeb looked Flinx up and down, reserving particular attention for the jittery flying creature curled around his left shoulder. Behind him, an older man pushed forward for a better look. Both his expression and his feelings were an agitated mix of awe, fear, and expectation. They simultaneously drew and puzzled Flinx, but he had no time to probe either them or the man who was projecting them.
The Underhouse master shook his head sadly. “All this trouble, so much intercession, on behalf of such unworthy scrims.”
“Unworthiness is a distinction founded on shifting perceptions.” Though Flinx sensed Subar’s presence, he could not see him. “Where’s the other one?”
“Such a waste of commitment.” Glancing back, Shaeb murmured a command.
A large, slantsuited figure ambled out of the shadows. In one hand he held the glistening, tapered shape of a neuronic pistol. The other clutched a still-stunned Subar by the collar, dragging the listless form forward. Indifferently, the operative released his grasp, letting the numbed captive crumple to the ground. Flinx studied the limp form for a moment, then returned his attention to Shaeb.
“You’re a very unpleasant person.”
The Underhouse Master pursed his lips. “I did not achieve my present prominence on account of a predilection to conviviality.”
Flinx’s expression stiffened. On his shoulder, Pip grew tense. Gradually, almost imperceptibly, he let his caressing fingers slip away from her scales. “You need, I think, to be nicer.” Deliberately, he reached forth with his Talent.
Nothing happened.
Staring at him, Shaeb’s head tilted to one side. “Interesting. I sense that you’re trying to do something. I know that is how you freed the other scrims from receiving the balance of the reprimand due them, though the nature of the method involved continues to elude me.” Turning, he spoke to the older man who continued to hover behind him. “You see? He is only a resourceful if peculiar young man. Not nearly so dangerous as you proposed.”
Flinx strained to engage his damnably erratic abilities and to project strongly onto the now confident individual standing before him. It was all to no apparent effect. His Talent had chosen that moment, as it sometimes did, to slip from his mental grasp. As if that were not enough, the worst headache he had experienced since touching down on Visaria threatened to split the back of his head.
The Underhouse master turned back to him. “Despite your apparent inability to affect this meeting, I have no intention of waiting until something does happen.”
While possessing only a fraction of her master’s potential, Pip’s perceptiveness had the advantage of being consistent. Sensing the lethal intent that was escalating in the speaker’s mind, she unfurled her wings preparatory to rising. A bolt from a carefully aimed and downtuned neuronic pistol caught her before she could rise from Flinx’s shoulder. Stunned, she fluttered to the ground. A traumatized Flinx immediately knelt beside her. His relief as he found that she was only paralyzed was overwhelming. Incensed beyond speaking, he turned to glare fiercely up at Shaeb.
The Underhouse master immediately put a hand to his forehead and took a step backward. Whatever the offworlder had sent forth and despite his earlier avowal, it had not made Shaeb feel “nicer.” Like a wave that had receded with the tide and was now flowing back inland, Flinx could feel his Talent returning. He readied himself to project forcefully.
Without waiting for orders, the same alert subordinate who had grounded Pip put a neuronic charge into the flying snake’s master.
Flinx felt himself crumpling. A second charge from another pistol struck him in the stomach before he hit the ground, further numbing him. Other underlings were on the verge of firing their own weapons, some of which were set to do considerably more than stun.
Shaken but still in control of himself, Shaeb threw up a hand. “Don’t kill him!” His voice returning to its more moderate, controlled level, he added, “Not yet.” Leaning forward, he frowned thoughtfully at the motionless young man now sprawled on the ground in front of him. His right hand was still rubbing at the front of his head.
“That was interesting, what you just did. I’d like to know how you did it.” Behind him, Theodakris was crowding cautiously close, striving for a better look at the paralyzed offworlder. Though unable to move, Flinx sensed that the older man was torn between desires: to approach even nearer or to turn and run away as fast as his legs would carry him.
“But interested as I am,” Shaeb was saying, “I don’t think I want to risk a repetition, or chance something even worse. My curiosity has its limits.”
I wish mine did, Flinx found himself thinking.
Stepping back, the Underhouse master addressed a man and a woman who were holding rifles that were designed to annihilate rather than stun. “You may kill him now.”
Unable to move a muscle, his entire body tingling from the dual neuronic charges his nervous system had absorbed, Flinx strove one last time to project. Though his Talent was returning, he could sense he was not quite there yet. Another ten or twenty seconds of recovery was all he needed. Or perhaps the unknown faculty that had saved him previously, most recently in the holding chamber in Malandere and prior to that on Arrawd, would bring about yet another inexplicable last-second miracle.
Something fiery tore into his right arm. The pain was excruciating, overpowering; worst of all, it overwhelmed any attempt on his part to concentrate. Dimly he heard a male voice mutter, “Damn—missed. Won’t this time, Mr. Shaeb, sir.”
Flinx tried to raise his head, and could not. Tried to focus his mind, and could not. Struggled desperately to rouse his Talent, and could…
A perfect circle of solid blackness appeared off to his right. Astoundingly, a figure stepped out of it. Then another, and another, and finally a third. Two of them appeared to be arguing even as they tumbled out, to the point that they were exchanging heavy, clawed, seven-digited blows with each other. While neither of the cantankerous combatants appeared to be suffering any damage from this contest, it was evident to any bystander that the slightest of their thunderous thumpings could easily take off a man’s head.
The muzzles of assorted weapons swung away from Flinx to aim in the direction of the three newcomers as Shaeb’s startled minions hastened to transfer their attention. As well as his suddenly unsettled emotional state, the expression on the face of the Underhouse master showed that for the
first time since arriving at the agricultural complex, he was completely taken aback. As well he ought. Not only was their means of arrival utterly and completely alien, so were the three beings.
While two of them continued to wrestle and argue between themselves without doing any actual damage, the third hulking, black-and-white-splotched, brown-furred figure leaned over to peer down at the still-paralyzed Flinx out of amber-hued, black-pupiled eyes that were the size of dinner plates. A voice sounded inside his head. One with idiosyncratically clear, bell-like overtones.
“Hello, Flinx teacher,” resonated the simultaneously joyful, child-like, wise, and uniquely telepathic greeting.
Fighting the effects of the twin neuronic bursts, Flinx fought hard to make his lungs, his lips, and his larynx cooperate. His mouth moved. A feeble gasp emerged. He tried again. Words formed. Words he had not spoken in a long, long time.
“Hello, Fluff.”
Since he was eight years old, Piegal Shaeb had never lacked for an appropriate response to even the most difficult and unforeseen situation. Now all he could do was stand and gawk. Those of his minions who were not doing likewise kept glancing nervously at him for orders. None was forthcoming.
Keeping a watchful eye on the three enormous ursinoids, all of whom continued to ignore their surroundings, several of Shaeb’s subordinates tentatively approached the black disc. It hovered a couple of centimeters off the ground, absolutely motionless. One of the more enterprising armed underlings walked behind it, noting that it was no more than a few millimeters thick. Pulling his monitor, he aimed it in the direction of the disc’s back and played the sensor across the eldritch apparition from top to bottom. No information appeared on the readout. No measurement of sound, no indication of photonic activity, no ambient radiation: nothing. This was patently impossible. As impossible as the three outrageous creatures to which it had given birth.