Not quite a dead world, he reminded himself. Something was tugging at his arm.
“Where'd you go?” Clarity asked him intently.
“Hmm?” He blinked. “I've been right here.”
“No.” She smiled perceptively. “I know that self-inflicted stasis. You went somewhere. I'm sorry to break in, but I couldn't take it anymore. The silence, and the distance.”
“Sorry,” he apologized. “Something one of the Ulru-Ujurrians said got me to thinking.”
Her expression twisted. “I don't think I like the sound of that.”
“It just sparked a question,” he explained, a little too quickly, a little too disingenuously. “Not a solution. Just a question.” Looking past her, he nodded in the direction of the Krang's silent contact platform. “The only drawback is that I have to ask it of the machine.”
She looked around sharply, then back at him. “Again? If I didn't know you better and appreciate what putting yourself under those transparencies costs you in terms of physical and mental wear, I'd say you were getting addicted to the experience.”
He had to smile. “Hardly. It's every bit as tiring and draining as you say. But I don't have any choice. Even if we had access to the Terran Shell itself, the answer I need isn't available there. Or from any humanx knowledge resource.” His expression reflected the helplessness he was feeling. “I have to try, Clarity. It might be the last thing I can think of to try.”
She chewed her lower lip. “I wish you'd wait until the others are back.”
He shrugged. “Why? Would Bran somehow make the experience easier? Is Tru's presence going to lessen the strain? Can Syl find a way to keep me from burning axons?” He shook his head. “I'd rather do it and get it over with than have to listen to their advice and deal with their worries.”
Her tone was subdued almost to the point of inaudibility. “What about my worries?”
Reaching out, he did his best to reassure her. “This will be the least amount of time I've ever spent on one of those contact slabs, I promise. I'll just make contact, pose my question, receive an answer or a rebuff, and slip back out.”
She looked up at him. “You make it sound as harmless as requesting a zoning change on a piece of undeveloped property on Nur.”
“Okay,” he acknowledged, “so there's some risk involved.” He indicated their alien surroundings. “Look where we are. Consider where we recently were and what I experienced beyond the Rim. Compared to that and everything else you and I have been through, soliciting the answer to a single question from an alien machine I've already been in contact with counts as a minor diversion.”
She sniffed. “I don't know why I bother to raise concerns: you're going to do what you want to do anyway.”
He straightened. “I'm going to do what I have to do, Clarity. You, of all people, should know that.” Reaching up to stroke Pip, he started deliberately past her. As he headed down the wider-than-human aisle toward the distant dais, she watched him go.
It seemed like she was always watching him go.
As soon as the skimmer settled gently to ground and its loading ramp deployed just inside the entrance to the alien monolith, Truzenzuzex, Tse-Mallory, and Sylzenzuzex disembarked. Seeing the human female sitting by herself, Syl wandered over and proffered politeness.
“Sirrintt, Clarity. You are feeling well?”
“As well as can be expected, Syl.” She nodded past the thranx in the direction of the two senior scientists. “How did it go? Did you find the solution to everything—or anything?”
“I'm afraid not.” Settling back on all six legs, Syl used both truhands to pull down her right antenna and commenced preening. “There's certainly much to see and learn—there is an entire city to explore, after all—but we found nothing more remarkable than what was expected. As a xenoarchaeological expedition it has been a great success.” She gestured regret. “Insofar as finding something to use against the advancing threat, it has been a total failure.” Continuing to groom, she looked back over her thorax. “My Eighth and his companion try to exude optimism, but at hearts they are realists.”
Clarity nodded understandingly. “Well, as long as they search without expecting to find anything they won't be disappointed.”
“Chilarr-ah-Ksa!!tt, so true it is,” the security officer agreed. Looking past Clarity, she found herself searching the area immediately behind her friend. She could not frown—inflexible chitin rendered thranx facial expression virtually nonexistent—but she gestured her sudden distress.
“Where is Flinx?”
“Speaking of optimism…” As her voice trailed away Clarity raised a hand and pointed.
Sylzenzuzex had no difficulty identifying the distant solitary figure mounting the dais. Responding to her loud, sharp whistle of exclamation, Truzenzuzex and Tse-Mallory hurried over to see what was happening.
Clarity sighed knowingly as they approached. “I guess we'd better get ready for another concert.”
“But what is he doing?” As he tracked the progress of the familiar tall biped, Truzenzuzex could not hide his puzzlement. “Why is he going to submit himself to the stress and strain of reconnecting with the alien device? It has already indicated it cannot do anything to inhibit the advance of the approaching peril.”
“I believe,” she explained, “that he intends to ask it a question.”
Tse-Mallory was also tracking the progress of the tall redhead. “What kind of question? A question about what?”
“I don't know. Flinx doesn't tell me everything that goes on in his head. I think he's doing his best to spare me.” She gestured in the direction of the platform. “You can ask him yourself when he's finished. Maybe he'll even get an answer to his question.”
“He didn't say what the question was?” Truzenzuzex persisted.
“No.” Despite telling herself that this time she was not going to watch, she felt herself turning to join the others in gazing at the distant dais. Flinx had assured her he was not going to be under its influence for very long. That was small comfort, but she would take what she could get.
“But doesn't… ?” Sylzenzuzex began. Then her antennae flattened back against her head as she winced.
Thunder filled the Krang's interior as tame lightning emerged from the structures protruding from its walls and began to crawl ceilingward. The deafening, clashing howls of alien music assailed their ears even as flaring bursts of luminosity skipped off their retinas like stones on the flat surface of a lake. The Krang was alive again; with sight, with sound, and with presentiment. Beneath the inner of the double domes, Flinx could be seen sprawled out on the operator's platform, Pip coiled tightly above his head. Young man and ancient machine were talking again.
Reduced to the status of mere onlookers, his companions could only shield their eyes and ears and wait for the esoteric conversation to end.
AGAIN, CLASS-A MIND. I HAVE COMMUNICATED WITH THE SHIP OF THE BUILDERS. THE ATTEMPT FAILED.
“Yes.” Flinx spasmed slightly beneath the inner dome. Above his head Pip twitched and contorted, acting as a lens for his projections.
YET YOU SEEK AGAIN. I AM A WEAPON. I HAVE NOTHING MORE TO OFFER.
“I disagree. You have knowledge. I would posit a question.”
ASK.
“There is a world inhabited by three indigenous intelligent species. My people call it Horseye, the locals call it Tslamaina. Buried near one of its poles is the visible portion of an extensive instrumental complex that was put in place by a race called the Xunca, who dominated this entire portion of the galaxy before the time of the Tar-Aiym and the Hur'rikku.”
I HAVE KNOWLEDGE OF THE XUNCA. SOME. THEY WERE A GREAT PEOPLE.
Already the Krang had confessed to knowledge beyond the fragments that had been laboriously accumulated over the centuries by Commonwealth xenoarchaeologists. So excited was Flinx by the machine's revelation that he put aside the question he had come to ask in favor of another. “What—what happened to them?”
> THEY WENT AWAY.
Went away. The Ulru-Ujurrians had said almost exactly the same thing.
“How did they ‘go away’?”
THAT IS NOT KNOWN.
Dead end. He returned to his original question. “It's thought that the instrumental complex on Horseye is part of an incredibly old and advanced warning system. Even though those it was intended to warn have ‘gone away,’ the device they left behind continues to function. My people have been able to determine that it is monitoring the approach of the Great Evil and also the most energetic, dynamic region of known space, a phenomenon that we call the Great Attractor. But in addition to monitoring and recording these two events, the system also sends out a sporadic signal whose meaning and content we have not been able to decipher.
“I want to know, I need to know, where this signal is directed and if possible, the purpose behind it.”
The half-million-year-old machine that was at once an instrument of war and an instrument of art did not hesitate. Hesitation was a defect reserved for organic sentients.
SEARCHING NOW.
Flinx waited. Something remarkable happened.
Nothing happened.
It happened for a moment, then several moments. The several moments stretched into a period of time lasting longer than any comparable period of time he had spent on a Tar-Aiym operator's dais without anything happening.
Was it possible that just then and now, at that particular instant of time, the half-million-year-old mechanism had finally failed? It was a possibility he was allowed to ponder for barely an instant before a response was forthcoming. When it did, there was no indication on the part of the instrumentality in which he lay that anything unusual had transpired.
MUCH TO SEARCH. THEN HAD TO SIFT WHAT WAS SEARCHED.
“Did you learn—anything?” Muscles convulsed as Flinx arched his back against the unyielding composite material beneath him.
LEGEND. OF THOSE WHO WENT AWAY.
Flinx was patient. “Can you be more specific?”
ONE SIGNAL TO MONITOR THREAT. ONE SIGNAL TO MONITOR DEFENSE. ONE SIGNAL TO LINK THE TWO.
Was it possible? Was it even conceivable? Had the Xunca, before they “went away,” built something they believed might be capable of defending against the oncoming Great Evil? If that was the case, why hadn't this hypothetical weapon already unleashed its unknown potential on a threat that had now shifted nearer than ever? Flinx thought hard.
A menace looms. The threatened man raises a defensive weapon to protect himself. But he has a choice: he has time to flee. So instead of firing, he simply runs away. A safer option than standing and fighting when the outcome of the clash is unpredictable.
And in his haste to run away, he leaves his unused weapon behind. But the unfired weapon remains bound to the danger. Sporadically, if the Krang was to be believed.
Where was the weapon? What was the weapon? The Great Attractor? How did you fire, how did you pull the trigger, on a cosmic phenomenon that blazed with the energy of ten thousand trillion suns?
Very carefully, he decided. That was assuming the fantastic inferences he was making were in any way, shape, or fashion accurate, and he was not just wish-dreaming.
“The signal that intermittently reaches out from Horseye—it's not designed to activate the defense?”
NO.
“Why not?”
ASK THOSE WHO MADE IT.
Back to square one. “Do you know where this defense is?”
I CAN PROVIDE COORDINATES.
Flinx's spirits rose. Something solid, something tangible, at last!
“Please provide.”
Though the Teacher essentially flew and maintained itself, years of crisscrossing the Commonwealth and the AAnn Empire had given Flinx a certain amount of insight into the basics of interstellar navigation. When the Krang offered up a simplified set of stellar coordinates, Flinx quickly set them against what he knew. They made no sense. He projected his confusion.
I WILL SUPPLY VISUAL REFERENCE.
An image formed in Flinx's mind. It moved and shifted, changing size and perspective. Slowed, enhanced, enhanced again. Eyes shut tight, locked in communicative stasis, he inhaled sharply when it finally resolved.
“Useless,” he finally thought. “Impossibly far away. Of what conceivable use is something situated at such a distance?”
ASK THOSE WHO MADE IT.
Infuriating. If he did not know better he would have thought the machine was mocking him. It was doing nothing of the kind, of course. Simply responding with minimal waste and delay to his inquiries.
“I am patently unable to do that,” he replied as calmly as he could manage, “since those who made it have ‘gone away.’” Almost as an afterthought he added, “Perhaps you can suggest another means or method of ascertaining the potential usefulness of this hypothetical defense?”
The last thing he expected was a response. No, that wasn't quite correct. The last thing he expected was a positive response.
GO THERE.
Being locked in cerebral stasis did not prevent Flinx from coughing slightly. “I'm afraid I don't have adequate means of transportation. Even if I did, I wouldn't live long enough to complete the journey.”
BOTH LIMITS ARE WITHIN REACH.
If he had been in full control of his body, he would have sat up. “What did you say?”
THERE EXISTS A POSSIBILITY.
“I don't understand. Can you explain?”
TO ACTIVATE THE DEFENSE, THOSE WHO MADE IT HAD TO BE ABLE TO REACH IT. THEY LEFT BEHIND THE DEFENSE. THEY LEFT BEHIND THE WARNING SYSTEM. THEY LEFT BEHIND A MEANS BY WHICH SUCH THINGS WERE LINKED.
THE DESTINATION OF THE THIRD SIGNAL.
Flinx could hardly contain his excitement. His elation communicated itself to Pip. Her coils began to contract against the top of his head, playing havoc with his red hair.
“How can we tell if this link still works?”
The Krang's response was typically terse. GO THERE.
“How is that possible?”
I CAN PROVIDE COORDINATES.
For the second time in the past several minutes Flinx found himself mentally articulating an anxious appeal. “Please provide.”
The Krang proceeded to do so. This time Flinx was able to reference the location. Not only was it nowhere near as extreme as the set that had been given for the Xunca defense, the locality lay virtually next door, within the boundaries of the Commonwealth itself.
Somewhere to go. Something to seek out. Not a solution, not an answer, but at least a bona fide destination. He fought to make his muscles work, to slide free of the platform and out from beneath the blinding, binding influence of the glowing, luminescent domes overhead. Locked to his thoughts, sensitive to his emotions, the Krang sensed his struggle.
DO YOU WISH TO TERMINATE EXCHANGE?
“Yes!” Flinx all but shouted silently. “Terminate contact now, please.”
COMPLYING.
There was a brief instant of delay, a second of disorientation, and then he felt himself starting to emerge from stasis as contact was broken. At the last possible instant of contact, something remarkable occurred. It was not that the ancient weapon/instrument offered concluding words to the exchange so much as it was the nature of that parting, which was unprecedented in Flinx's experience with both the Krang and the much larger but related weapons platform. It was, however, characteristic in its conciseness.
GOOD LUCK.
He blinked. Gazing upward, he found himself looking through twin domes that were once more untinted and perfectly transparent. He could see the distant, permanent haze that hovered near the top of the Krang. His recovering ears still rang with the dying echo of ancient alien music. Sitting up, he swung his legs off the dais and stood. When he started to stumble, he heard a voice calling out to him from a figure that was now running in his direction.
“Flinx, Flinx! Are you … ?”
“I'm fine!” he shouted back to Clarity. “Just a li
ttle shaky, but okay!” Extending an arm back to the platform he waited while Pip used it to climb up onto his shoulder. All around him the Krang was silent and still. And conscious, though he alone of his entire species had shared thoughts with that cold, primal intelligence.
Mounting the dais with long, graceful strides, she was in his arms in a moment. “Please,” she pleaded as she hugged him tight, “please don't do that anymore! I can't take watching you lie there writhing and twisting like you're in constant pain all the time. If you have to talk to someone, talk to me. Leave sentient alien weapons to themselves.” Drawing back, she met his eyes and he could see the quiet anguish in her face. “It's aging you, Flinx. Every time you subject yourself to its influence, every time you make contact, you come out a little older.”
Bending down, he kissed her gently on the forehead and ran a hand down the back of her hair. “Clarity. Clarity, charity, emotional parity, if there's one thing you should know about me by now, it's that I was born older.”
As soon as Tse-Mallory set the skimmer down close to the dais, Truzenzuzex disembarked and hurried over to help Clarity. Sylzenzuzex was right behind her Eighth, and Tse-Mallory joined them moments later. The philosoph looked up at his visibly fatigued young friend.
“You've been chatting with the eons again, I see. I'm curious to know why and what for.”
As a weary Flinx proceeded to explain, the two scientists and Sylzenzuzex soon found themselves enthralled. When he finally finished it was left to Tse-Mallory to restate the obvious; something humans were more inclined to do than thranx.
“A functioning Xunca defense!” The sociologist-soldier's eyes glittered as he considered the potential ramifications. “Is it the Great Attractor?”