Soon there were hundreds.
Slitted eyes flicking open, Pip raised her head. Half a dozen dots of refulgence danced in front of her face. They hovered there, making no noise, occasionally changing color. The minidrag eyed them for a moment. Then she yawned hugely, lowered her head back down against her master, and went back to sleep. Beneath her relaxing coils Flinx stirred but did not wake.
There were now several thousand of the minuscule, intense lights dancing above the sleepers like so many cybernetic fireflies. Every so often several of the phosphorescent pinpoints would meet and merge. On other occasions one would split to become two. They did not linger long. After some ten minutes spent in what might have been silent inspection of the intruders the lights began to drift away. One by one, they fused back with the flowing streams of luminance that striped the opposing walls. Beneath a ceiling blacker than the night sky on any world, the visitors slept on.
The next morning, immediately after breakfast, they found a contact dais.
Located at the far end of a large, but not overpowering, cone-shaped, red-gold chamber with a sloping, ribbed floor and a pockmarked ceiling, the tilted platform was familiar in shape and size but not design. The gently slanted slab was roofed by four instead of the usual two transparent domes. Nestled one inside the other, these rose to crests that were acute instead of gently curved.
“I don't know about this, Flinx.” Tse-Mallory was clearly unhappy as he studied the configuration. “The design and layout is noticeably different from the operator's pulpit inside the Krang on Booster.”
Gazing speculatively at the beckoning rostrum, Flinx found himself nodding in agreement. “It's different from the one I utilized when I was on this artifact previously, too. But it has to be a communicator-contact.” He gestured in its direction. “The composition of the platform, the general size and shape—everything beneath the multiple domes is exactly the same.”
“Perhaps this arrangement is designed to allow even better communications and more control.” Truzenzuzex sounded hopeful as his antennae waved in the dais's direction.
Clarity stood close to Flinx. “Or maybe it requires more experience and skill to operate.” She looked up at him. “We can keep looking for a platform like the ones you've used before.”
He considered the options. Yes, they could keep looking. Yes, he would feel more comfortable placing himself beneath the twin transparent domes with which he was familiar. But in more than a day of probing they had encountered nothing else even remotely like a contact platform. Here right in front of them, almost as if it had been dropped there in response to their wishes, was something sufficiently similar to be worth a try. Maybe Truzenzuzex was right, and its apparent greater complexity would allow for cleaner communications and improved control. Certainly the atypical layout of the chamber hinted at something out of the ordinary.
That's me, he taunted himself in an effort to stiffen his resolve. Something out of the ordinary. If one proceeded from that premise, he was in exactly the right place.
“I'm going to give it a go,” he told Clarity and the others. “If it doesn't work, we'll keep looking. If it does, that doesn't necessarily mean I can contact anything from here. This room might be nothing more than an elaborate Tar-Aiym classroom, or kitchen.”
“It could also be a suicide chamber, or a specialized niche for performing some kind of religious self-immolation,” Clarity counseled him.
“That's my girl,” he shot back, “always encouraging.”
“Clarity's my name and Clarity's my game,” she countered in all seriousness. “I just don't want to see you end up dead because you chose to try activating a different piece of Tar-Aiym instrumentation without thinking it through as thoroughly as possible.”
“Then we're in complete agreement.” He found Tse-Mallory staring back at him. “Sir?”
The sociologist-soldier did not hesitate. “If you think there are sufficient similarities to the apparatus you have already operated, then I have to agree with Tru.” Raising an arm, he gestured toward the platform. “Greater schematic complexity implies a higher, not a lesser, level of importance. If you can't activate it and it looks like it's giving you trouble, Tru and I will be standing by to pull you out.”
Left unsaid were the potential adverse side effects, mental as well as physical, that he might suffer from such an abrupt and violent disconnect from the alien instrumentation. He did not raise the possibilities for discussion, nor did the two scientists, or Clarity, or Sylzenzuzex. There was no need to hold forth on an uncomfortable possibility of which everyone was already aware.
He conferred a kiss on Clarity, said nothing, found himself pulled back for a second, longer embrace. Thoroughly familiar with the peculiar courtship rituals of humankind due to the length of time he had spent among the species, Truzenzuzex paid no attention to the seemingly interminable physical give and take. In contrast to her jaded Eighth, Sylzenzuzex looked on in unabashed fascination. She was captivated by the intricacies of an affectionate exchange whose physical malleability no chitinous thranx could emulate.
Flinx finally forced himself to disengage. Lightly touching a forefinger to the tip of Clarity's pert nose, he murmured tenderly, “If we keep this up I won't be in any condition to attempt the contact.”
Her lips bonded briefly with his finger. “If we keep this up I won't let you.”
A last hug and he turned away, heading purposefully for the dais. She knew he had to do it, and the inexorableness found her hating the universe entire. She forced herself not to cry, not to call out. Why Flinx? Why not Bran Tse-Mallory, or Truzenzuzex? They were older, their lives were already on the downside of the inescapable slide to eternity. Why not them, or some other, instead of the only man she had ever loved? She knew the answer, of course, just as she knew it could not be any other way.
As for the universe, it did not care.
Unwittingly, she found herself edging closer to Sylzenzuzex. Did the female thranx feel this same kind of affection for a mate? What emotions emerged from larvahood that allowed one of them to bond with another of the same species? For all their common sense and sympathy, their goodwill and intrinsic kindliness, their gentle touch and exquisite body fragrance, one could not escape the fact that thranx still resembled giant bugs. Inside, deep inside, did they really feel anything like a woman did for the man she loved?
She felt something touch her. Looking around, she saw that the security officer had inclined both of her antennae to the right so that they could make contact with Clarity's bare left arm. It was like being caressed by a pair of fine-quality feather dusters. It also answered her question.
Flinx had approached to within a couple of meters of the raised platform when a subtle vibration in the floor reached him through his boots. At the same time the largest and outermost of the four domes came to life, turning translucent as light the color of thick cream washed over and through it. Flinx halted immediately. Never before on the three previous occasions when he had utilized such platforms had any luminescence manifested itself until he was within the outermost dome. Simultaneously alert, Pip raised her head off his shoulder and stared. The tension in the minidrag's coils pained him as they tightened around his shoulder.
This was new. What it portended neither he nor anyone else could tell. Was the preflux radiance a warning to keep away? Reaching out with his Talent, he felt, sensed, perceived nothing. The dais awaited. Behind him, Clarity and his friends looked on anxiously but said nothing. They were leaving him to his deliberation. Leaving him, as usual, to make the decision alone on how or whether to proceed.
Nothing to be gained by standing and dithering, he knew. There never was.
A voice finally sounded behind him—the august soldier-sociologist Bran Tse-Mallory. “Get a move on, boy. Apocalypse waits for no man.”
Flinx nodded and resumed his advance. As he drew close to the dais, tiny sparks of ashen lightning began to jump from the whitened outermost dome. One landed on his
bare left wrist. It burned and left a small scar as he hastily brushed it away. Not an auspicious beginning.
Get under the domes and lie down, he thought sensibly, and you'll be shielded from such discharges.
Climbing up onto the platform as the flickering intensified, he wasted no time in turning his back to the slab and lying down. As soon as his head made contact with the smooth surface Pip contorted and lunged upward. Contracting into a series of tight concentric coils, her body came to rest against the top of his skull.
An instant later a numbing electric shock tore through Flinx. His body spasmed and went still. Sight, sound, touch—all sensation vanished. It happened so quickly he did not even have time to think he might be dying, or to be scared. Yet he found he was not frightened. He felt completely at peace.
What transpired beyond ken of his now deadened senses was rather less pacific.
Tse-Mallory and Clarity threw up their hands to shield their eyes and the two thranx turned away as all four of the domes abruptly erupted with light and color. Letting out a cry, Clarity tried to run to the dais. Truzenzuzex caught her and held her back.
“This is as it is supposed to be, crl!!kk! And if it is not, there is nothing you or any of us can do now! Stand and hope, Clarity Held. Stand and hope!”
The philosoph was right, she realized as she peered through clenched fingers at the now fiercely illuminated podium. There was nothing she could do for Flinx. He lay out of reach of her reassuring touch, out of hearing of words of encouragement or support. She could only hope that wherever he was now, wherever he had gone to, the essence of him was still whole and intact. And that he would come back to her.
“Will he be okay?” She had to yell to make herself heard to Tse-Mallory above the crackling chaos that now filled the chamber and echoed off the curving walls.
“I don't know!” Bending, he placed his lips closer to her ear. “I hope so. Don't ask of me absolutes. I'm neither a pacifier nor a solipsist. Tru and I have survived as long as we have by responding only to reality and not to wishes.” Squinting against the cyclic detonations of light that continued to assault their eyes, he nodded in the direction of the dais, which was fully enveloped in erupting radiance. “That's all we can do. That's all any of us can do now!”
The deep-throated mechanical drone that filled the chamber was periodically interrupted by explosive discharges of energy. As the innermost dome above Flinx turned a shimmering, impenetrable violet, the outer three blazed with a continually shifting combination of hues that were shocking in their brightness. Flaring from formerly transparent surfaces, goblin globes of coherent energy and streaks of crazed lightning exploded in all directions. Even contained and restrained, the least of them fronted enough energy to reduce every one of the stunned onlookers to dust. But every time it seemed that one of the powerful discharges was flaring in their direction, it veered off or faded away.
So much free-flowing energy would have blown apart the walls of an ordinary room, or engulfed anything combustible in flame, or simply torn apart their simple organic molecular structure. But there was nothing ordinary about the chamber in which they found themselves. As soon as a blast of liberated force made contact with walls, ceiling, or floor, it was absorbed, soundlessly and without any visible damage to their surroundings. Gradually coming to the realization that they were not about to be instantaneously blasted out of existence, Clarity and her companions did not exactly settle down, but they did relax enough to marvel at the display. Though it continued unabated, they could detect no effect on their surroundings. There was one, however. Of some significance. Due to their present location it understandably escaped their notice.
The planet-sized Tar-Aiym weapons platform had begun to move.
Outside the room, past the enormous airlock, beyond the artificial atmosphere that shrouded the gigantic ancient artifact, the Teacher immediately detected the change that escaped those within. The ship's sensitive instruments reported readings that were unprecedented in its existence. Under different circumstances it might have tried to alter the existing equation, might have commenced some kind of rescue attempt. Two conclusions mitigated against doing so.
First, there was no indication from its master that he was in any kind of danger or difficulty. And second, there was very little a ship even as powerful as the Teacher could do against an artificial construct twice the size of the Earth. One might as well ask a paramecium to forcibly deflect the intrusion of the bacteriologist observing it.
So instead of trying to attack or follow, the Teacher maintained its position relative to Booster's sun while the great weapons platform began to slowly but unmistakably accelerate outsystem. If Flinx chose to go somewhere without notifying his ship, the ship assumed he would eventually return to resume command. No other reasonable course of action was open to it. Even had it wished to follow, the Teacher's controlling AI noted that the gigantic structure was propelled by an unknown drive system. Nothing like a colossal Caplis generator was in evidence. Whatever powered the ancient war machine, it was not a derivative or variation of the familiar KK-posigravity drive.
Just before the sphere vanished completely, the Teacher thought it detected a disruption in the continuum that was more nearly an effect of space-minus rather than space-plus. Communications and nothing else traveled through space-minus. No engineer of any intelligent species had ever been able to shunt anything more complex than a series of waveforms through space-minus. It was considered impossible, space-minus being a realm or dimension that was implacably hostile to anything solid.
It also appeared to be a transportation problem that the martial and endlessly creative Tar-Aiym had solved.
Once the weapons platform had gone, the Teacher was left to itself on the outskirts of Booster's system. It stayed there, isolated and alone, and settled down to wait for whatever eventuality should present itself. It was in no hurry and it did not lament its range of possible fates.
Unless specifically programmed to do so, artificial intelligences do not suffer from loneliness.
Flinx neither saw nor felt nor experienced any of the luminous pandemonium in which he, Pip, and the control platform on which they were lying were currently engulfed. It was as if he were peacefully asleep but in control of his dreams. The one containing him at the moment included a distinct point of light, which he immediately recognized as Pip. There was also another presence. It was stark, forthright, immense, and yet shallow. It was also familiar because he had encountered it once before, though without the present degree of transparency and precision.
CLASS-A MIND. He was informed in direct tones that bore no relationship to the reverberations of modulated air currents. WE REACH TOWARD THE DANGER THAT THREATENS ALL. A LESSER OF MYSELF HAS PROVIDED THE NECESSARY INFORMATION.
Flinx knew that the Krang on Booster had communicated with the colossal craft. That meant he would not have to explain anything. He began to wonder if it was necessary for him even to be aboard. Could he and his friends have remained behind on Booster while the weapons platform sallied forth to do battle with the oncoming Evil? Positing the question produced an immediate answer.
THERE ARE CERTAIN THINGS I CAN DO WITHOUT DIRECTIONAL ORGANIC INPUT, the vessel explained. I CAN SEARCH. I CAN TRAVEL. I CAN HIDE AND DEFEND. I CANNOT ATTACK.
Trigger, Flinx remembered. That's me. I'm the key, the trigger. It was what he had been told in his dreams by the Krang and by at least two other concerned and involved entities. Evidently that was what he was going to do and why his presence was necessary on board this immense ship. And yet—and yet—something about that explanation did not feel quite right. Not quite—complete. He set his unease aside. The Tar-Aiym planetary platform, perhaps the ultimate weapon that ancient martial species had ever built, needed the involvement of a Class-A mind in order to engage in battle. As a kid growing up in Drallar, on Moth, he had played more than his share of the ancient Terran childhood game of tag.
Unambiguously, he was it.
> Lying on the contact platform, asleep and yet aware, he had no notion of or feel for the passage of time. It might have been moments; it might have been years. It was conveyed to him that the ship was capable of covering far greater distances at a much higher velocity than anything powered by a mere KK-drive. Despite that, it would take far too long to physically impinge on the oncoming Great Evil. That force still lay far outside the Milky Way, separated from the Commonwealth by distances measurable in tens of thousands of parsecs.
But the planetary weapons platform could reach the Rim and utilize its weaponry to try to make an impact from there. The incredible destructive force it was capable of projecting would not travel through normal space. The disruption of reality created by the weapons platform's combined discharge would warp the continuum itself. The discontinuity it would emit would fold space and allow it to strike its target in chronoparts equivalent to real time.
Flinx grasped only the minimal amount of what he was being told, but it was enough to give him an idea of what was going to happen. He did not need to know the exact how and why of what the ship was going to do, only if it worked. Lying on the platform, feeling neither thirst nor hunger, pleasure or pain, he had time to wonder what it might be like to exist thus. Casually putting the query to his ancient physical and mental host, he was somewhat surprised to receive a reaction.
YOU CONJECTURE BOREDOM ON MY PART. THAT IS AN ABSTRACT CONCEPT. I DO NOT FEEL BOREDOM. I DO NOT FEEL. I EXIST AND I REACT TO MY SURROUNDINGS. NOTHING MORE.
“It's like that for you for millennia?” Flinx wondered silently in his sleep.
FOR FOREVER, the ultimate weapon of the Tar-Aiym told him.
“I have one other question,” Flinx thought.
ASK.
Flinx considered carefully as he shifted his body slightly against the smooth surface of the platform. Above his head, Pip reacted accordingly.