From half his height the iridescent-gold compound eyes gazed back at him thoughtfully. Feathery antennae inclined in his direction.
“I am Counselor Second Druvenmaquez,” the thranx informed him, “and you are Philip Lynx.”
“I’m honored. Also very surprised.” He slipped the sidearm replacement for the one Coerlis had taken into the empty holster attached to his belt. “How did you get here, sir? I see only this shuttle and the one belonging to—”
“We know who it belonged to,” the Counselor interrupted him. “I arrived by means of personal flier, escorted by appropriately armed military personnel who through dint of considerable effort managed to keep me from being devoured by overly enthusiastic representatives of the local aerial fauna. A more extraordinary assortment of wings, teeth, and claws I have never seen before and hope never to encounter again.
“An electronic bypass allowed me to enter your shuttle, whereupon my escort returned to their waiting craft. With great eagerness, I should imagine.
“What an astonishing world this is. Do you know that in the time I have been waiting for you I have witnessed over a hundred life-and-death battles involving the local flora and fauna, and that on two occasions extremely large predators actually attacked this landing vessel? Fortunately its hull resisted their energetic but primitive assaults. Needless to say, I have not spent much time outside.” He shook his head to express wonderment, a gesture the thranx had picked up and adopted at the beginning of their long and intimate association with humans.
Using his tongue against his upper palate, Flinx responded with a clicking sound to indicate understanding, responding to the human gesture with one utilized by the thranx. He did it automatically and without thinking, as would have any human in the presence of a thranx. The relationship between the two species had progressed beyond clumsy, heavy-handed etiquette.
“Imagine a creature of the air big enough to try and fly off with a shuttlecraft! I wonder what its young must look like! Thank the Hive this vessel was too heavy for its intentions. You would think such a formidable predator would realize instinctively that metal and ceramic composites are not very nutritious.” The Counselor made a gesture with both truhands.
“I am glad you finally came. I am no explorer and this is not a posting I looked forward to eagerly.”
Flinx spoke as he led the Counselor forward and activated the shuttle’s food unit. It had minimal capacity, but he was hungry enough for something familiar to eat, whatever the unit chose to dish out.
“If you think the struggle for survival is competitive up here, sir, you should see what it’s like down in the jungle.” The unit whined and gave birth to a seasoned soy patty, bread, and some steamed, reconstituted carrots. Flinx attacked them as if he hadn’t eaten in weeks and had suddenly been presented with the specialty of the house from the finest restaurant on New Riviera. Occasionally he would pause to pass a choice bit to Pip.
“Yet you have survived in its depths.” The Counselor was studying the young human thoughtfully. “I have been able to follow your progress with this craft’s instrumentation because your positioner has been on continually. You have been moving around quite a bit.”
Flinx spared a glance for the tiny device attached to his belt. “I didn’t dare fool with it, sir. If I’d lost the signal I never would have been able to find my way back here.” He shoveled in a mouthful of carrots. “I suppose it’s unnecessary to point out that there’s an AAnn vessel in orbit. Probably a warship.”
Counselor Druvenmaquez’s antennae flicked significantly. “Wrong tense, my young human friend. There was an AAnn warship in orbit. Though this is an unpopulated and overlooked world, it still lies within Commonwealth space.”
“Wrong adjective,” Flinx informed him. “It’s not unpopulated.”
“There is native intelligence?”
“In a manner of speaking.” He finished the last of the soy patty and followed it with more bread. “Must have been one of the first human colony ships to go out. If it was pre-Amalgamation, that means the people here have been surviving, on their own and completely out of touch with the rest of humanxkind, for something like seven hundred years.
“The descendants haven’t completely forgotten their origins, but they’ve been living here long enough to revert to a semiprimitive condition. When word of this world gets out, Commonwealth anthropologists are going to have a field day.” A small smile broadened his expression. “If they can survive long enough in the field to complete any work, that is. As for the taxonomists, there are billions of new life forms here that will need to be classified. Whole new classes, maybe even new phyla.
“There’s also evidence of a comparatively recent, illegal attempt at settlement and exploitation. It didn’t succeed. Nothing survives here for very long unless it learns to cooperate with the world-forest. Try to dominate it and you’re plant food.”
“Remarkable.” The Counselor’s antennae bobbed with excitement. “This world will have to be reentered into the Commonwealth catalog. I would think ‘for study only—no development,’ would be the most appropriate classification. What is the population of survivors?”
“I don’t know. They’re split into half a dozen tribes. The one I made friends with seems to be doing fairly well.”
“Friends. That explains how you have been able to survive in this rain forest of all rain forests.”
Flinx bit into the last of the bread. “Wouldn’t have lasted long without them. They’ve not only learned how to survive in the forest, they’ve evolved the better to fit in to the particular niche they’ve chosen.”
“Humans are extraordinarily adaptable,” the Counselor agreed.
Having no antennae to wave, Flinx gestured with the remnants of his bread. “Wait till you meet your first furcot, sir.”
“Furcot?” Truhands semaphored anxiously. “Please, this is all too much to digest at once, and in any event I am not the one to whom you should be elucidating. I am no xenologist.” A truhand and foothand gestured pointedly. “I came here searching for you, not alien mysteries, human or otherwise.
“Arriving here we encountered first the AAnn interloper and subsequently another vessel registered to a noted mercantile House on Samstead, in addition to your own craft. When the second vessel did not respond to normal hailings, it was boarded. The presence of the AAnn was self-explanatory, as is that of most trespassers.” The triangular, golden-eyed skull cocked sideways. “Perhaps you can explain the presence of the other?”
“I was involved in an altercation with the owner. A personal dispute that he chose to pursue beyond the bounds of reason. He and his people chased me all the way to this world and down into the forest.”
“What happened to him?”
“The forest.”
The Counselor Second nodded knowingly, executing another useful acquired human gesture. So fond of such gestures were the thranx that Flinx knew they used them often among themselves, even when no human was present. There was a certain cachet to it, just as there was among humans who utilized the click-speech of High thranx as a favorite party patois.
“Having spent much time under difficult circumstances in this remarkable environment, I suspect you would like to immerse yourself in warm water.” The thranx understood the philosophy behind water cleaning but had a positive horror of baths, understandable for a species that could not swim and whose air intakes were located just below their necks. A thranx could stand with its head well above water and quietly drown.
“Actually, I’ve had access to a warm shower every night, sir, but without any kind of cleanser. I’d enjoy that very much.”
The shuttle’s facilities were Spartan but serviceable. More welcome still was the change of clothing he found in the bottom of the storage locker.
“What happened to the AAnn?” he asked as he changed. The elderly thranx had not even an academic interest in his naked form, and Flinx suffered from no nudity phobia, anyway.
“Ah, the
Keralkee. I’m afraid we had an altercation of our own. They refused to comply with a request to allow boarding or to cooperate in any way. You know the AAnn. There was a certain Lord Caavax LYD—”
“I made his acquaintance.”
“Did you?” The Counselor’s eyebrows would have risen if he’d had any. “A typical AAnn aristocrat. Noble of bearing, arrogant of mien. Stubborn and devious.
“They tried to run, covering their flight with undeclared fire. Their vessel suffered a reactive implosion before they could activate their drive. Presently their components are dispersing throughout this system. It is to be regretted.”
So Lord Caavax had survived his ordeal in the forest and made it safely back to his ship, only to run afoul of a Commonwealth peaceforcer. A fight had ensued that he and his crew had lost. No doubt it had pleased him to go out in that fashion. His line would acquire honor from the manner of his passing.
Remembering the icy, emotionless tone of the AAnn’s voice when he’d ordered one of his soldiers to kill Dwell and Kiss, Flinx was unable to summon a twinge of regret at his demise.
“For an unknown world, it has been very crowded here of late.” The Counselor regarded the much taller human thoughtfully. “How did you find it?”
“I didn’t. When I was fleeing Samstead I asked my nav system to take me to the next inhabitable world on whatever vector we happened to be pointing.” He spread his hands wide. “This is where I ended up. It wasn’t planned and there was no intent behind it.”
“That’s very interesting.” The Counselor considered his prosaic surroundings. “As this world has been uncharted and utterly overlooked, its location shouldn’t be in your vessel’s navigation files. Unless whoever programmed the system knew something Commonwealth Central did not.”
The Counselor was quite correct. The Teacher shouldn’t have known the location of this world, much less that it was capable of supporting humanx life. However, the Teacher’s assembly had not been supervised by a recognized humanx concern. The ship had been cobbled together by the Ulru-Ujurrians, who did indeed have access to knowledge that was denied even to Commonwealth Central.
Had his arrival here been as much an accident as he’d come to believe? Or was it part and parcel of another of the Ulru-Ujurrians cryptic and incomprehensible “games”?
Raising his gaze, he stared past the attentive Counselor Second, half expecting one of the massive, furry Ulru-Ujurrians to pop into the cabin expecting to sample the food. It would be wholly in keeping with, say, Maybeso’s unpredictable nature. How that singular species negotiated space-time was something so far outside known science as to verge on magic.
Maybe if he played his part in the Great Game to their satisfaction, they would teach him that trick some day.
“What are you thinking?”
Flinx blinked at the Counselor, who was eyeing him closely. “Nothing, sir. Actually, I was remembering a game.”
The thranx emitted the clicking sound that passed for laughter among his kind. “Did you win or lose?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know if there are winners or losers in this game. All you can do is keep playing and hope someday to find out.”
“Someday you’ll have to tell me more about it.” Reaching into his slim backpack, the Counselor withdrew a sealed thranx drinking utensil and sipped from the traditional coiled spout.
“Speaking of telling things,” Flinx pressed him warily, “what brings a Counselor Second to this unrecorded world? You know my name, too.”
The Counselor made a gesture of polite acknowledgment. “Why, I should think it obvious. You bring me here, Philip Lynx.”
Flinx kept his voice and expression perfectly neutral. “It seems a long and difficult way to come just to make my acquaintance. I’m nobody important.”
“That remains to be seen. Do you recall a brief but interesting conversation you had recently with a Padre Bateleur on Samstead?”
Flinx remembered the kindly father. “So he reported my situation? That was good of him, but I wouldn’t have expected a Counselor Second in charge of peace enforcement to take an interest in one person’s problem, much less command a peaceforcer to try and protect him from the likes of Jack-Jax Coerlis.”
“I am not with peace enforcement,” declared Druvenmaquez quietly. “I am Counselor Second for Science, with a particular interest in astronomics.”
Flinx blinked. “Astronomy?”
“You spoke to the padre of a recurring dream. The average human or thranx would have thought it nothing more than that and soon forgotten all about it, but Padre Bateleur providentially decided to pass it along for analysis. It was deliberated by a couple working for Commonwealth Science on Denpasar, on Terra, before being passed along to Bascek on Hivehom.
“By this time it had acquired a lengthy file of opinion and relevant facts. When it finally came to my attention I was instantly intrigued, and set a formal study circle to working on it. When I was presented with their summation, I became even more intrigued by how someone such as yourself, with no access to extensive scientific facilities, had managed to come to similar conclusions.”
Flinx frowned “And that’s what you came all this way for? That’s what brought you all the way out here?”
Druvenmaquez nodded, the artificial light gleaming off his blue-green, exoskeleton. “That is correct.”
“How did you find this planet?”
The Counselor made the thranx equivalent of a shrug. “I expect that once he had committed to an interest in you, the good padre Bateleur had your position monitored in case he wanted to talk to you again. This interest would extend to recording the departure vector taken by your vessel as well as that of the contentious human pursuing you.
“This solar system was an obvious conclusion, since no others lying anywhere along your chosen outsystem vector contain worlds capable of supporting life. It was assumed that you had come here because there was nowhere else for you to go.”
It struck Flinx then that the Counselor knew nothing of the Teacher’s unique abilities. He wondered how many AAnn had known, in addition to the now deceased Lord Caavax. Maybe none save his immediate courtiers and family. Humanxkind’s traditional enemies could be secretive even among themselves. Perhaps he could yet keep the secret a while longer.
Within the Commonwealth, at least, it seemed he would still be able to travel freely, without drawing undue attention to his vessel.
Meanwhile he still had to deal with the problem of drawing undue attention to himself. How much did they know about him? About the Meliorare Society and his damnable personal history? If the Counselor was in any way familiar with such matters, he was, for the moment at least, keeping such knowledge to himself.
“What I told Father Bateleur was the subject of a recurring dream. I don’t know what else to tell you. I didn’t realize it had any basis in scientific reality.” Ignorant of the Counselor’s skill level at interpreting human expressions, he adopted his most innocent.
“The Astronomy section of the Commonwealth Science Department believes it does.” Druvenmaquez carefully set his drinking vessel aside. “You spoke to Padre Bateleur of a great evil, ‘out there.’ Not a particularly scientific observation. Researchers in Astronomy and Ethics rarely have occasion to consult with one another.
“However, the section of sky you singled out is the location of a cosmological phenomenon that has been known for some time as the Grand Void. For the sake of convenience in the course of this discussion, I will employ human terms of reference.
“The Grand Void is an area of the cosmos that is barren of the usual astronomical phenomena. No stars, no planets, no nebulae. No light. What may lie beyond is the subject of occasional speculation. We have no way of knowing because the Void is obscured by a stupendous concentration of dark matter consisting largely of stable, massive, electrically charged particles left over from the beginning of the Universe. ‘Champs,’ in the common human terminology.
“The result is a
gravitational lens of unparalleled extent which effectively distorts any light in the vicinity. Studies of the nonvisible spectrum have been similarly ineffective in detecting what lies behind this lens . . . if anything does.
“You spoke to Father Bateleur of experiencing a ‘jolt’ immediately prior to perceiving this evil. This leads the imaginative, or perhaps merely the lighthearted, to speculate on whether or not a gravitational lens might distort thought or perception much as it does light. I have heard humans speak of the ‘gravity of someone’s thoughts’ without ever realizing I might someday be compelled to consider it literally.
“All this is so much extreme conjecture. At my age, a charming hobby. In discussing it, I find it necessary to invent new terms in order to be able to forge ahead with further speculation. In meeting you, I was hoping for exposition if not outright explanation. From a scientific standpoint, this Void should not endure. Even allowing for a universe in which matter is not distributed evenly, a vacant region of this size should not be possible.
“Yet it manifestly exists. And you insisted to Father Bateleur that something evil lurks within, although our best instruments insist it is utterly empty. Aside from that subjective determination, your vectoring of the Grand Void was not only accurate, it fully accords with the latest facts and hypotheses, many of which have yet to be released to the lay population. If the mental ‘jolt’ you say you received accords in any fashion with the location of the recognized gravitational lens, then perhaps the rest of your tale is grounded in something sturdier than mere metaphysics. Truly now, how did you come to know these things?”
Flinx responded instantly. “I have sources.” There, that ought to satisfy him! And without giving anything away.
“Ah. The reply that does not answer. Let us try another approach. You have your own KK-drive ship. The registration has been checked and is in order. Personally, I have difficulty reconciling your obvious youth with such an expensive possession. Perhaps you could enlighten me?”
Again Flinx didn’t hesitate. “I have friends.”
“Sources and friends.” A small whistling sigh escaped the Counselor Second. “You are not under arrest or restraint, so I cannot compel you to elaborate. Is this to be my reward for coming all this way, and saving you from the attentions of the AAnn in the bargain?”