Flinx''s Folly

  Hypnotism, Clarity thought. Bill still thinks Flinx influences people through some form of hypnotism. She knew that binding, blinding, and gagging him would have no effect on his ability to reach out and affect the emotions of those around him. Of course, he could do nothing while unconscious. When he awoke, his ability would allow him to view those nearby without the need to actually see them. Everything was going to be all right.

  Provided, she thought worriedly, their captors didn't shoot them or throw them over one of the many nearby cliffs. She had no idea how much time remained to them. In the interim it might be useful to know what had happened. So she asked.

  The woman exchanged a glance with one of the men. "I don't see any harm in telling her. Ormann didn't say anything about keeping quiet." She smiled humorlessly. "Knowing him, I think he'd want her to know."

  The man shrugged. "Your call, Meru."

  "In case you've forgotten, though your boyfriend may hold an important managerial position within your company now, he was originally trained as a gengineer like you. He still knows how to work a lab." She grinned. "Pretty clever, your boyfriend."

  "He's not my boyfriend anymore," Clarity muttered.

  "You mean you're not enjoying this little drama he whipped up for you? Did you think he was going to rely on mechanicals and deceptions to ensure that a job like this got done? He's been busy, your boyfriend has." The woman turned momentarily reflective. "Shows sufficiently shrewd thinking to get a job in my line of work. But he hired me and the guys to wrap things up. After you took care of your friend first, of course." Her expression was a mask of professional indifference as she studied Flinx. "Nice looking. Too bad."

  Confusion swept over Clarity like an ill wind. "After I took care of him? I don't understand what you mean. I didn't do anything."

  "Oh, but you did, sweetie." Grinning, the older woman ran a gloved finger deliberately along Clarity's bare upper arm. Clarity flinched at a touch that carried with it a hint of something other than professionalism. "Though he doesn't know exactly how your boyfriend does it, Ormann warned us not to get anywhere near him unless he was already unconscious. He had to find a way to make that happen, and he did. Ingeniously, if I do say so, and with your help."

  "But I didn't do anything," a bewildered Clarity repeated.

  The woman continued to trace idle patterns on Clarity's bare skin. Observing this, one of her companions shook his head knowingly as he finished his own work.

  "Oh, but you did, sweetie. Passively, but you did. Since you were so busy with your boyfriend here, our Mr. Ormann had a lot of free time. Instead of fuming about the situation, he spent it in one of your company's labs, gengineering the modified molecular structure of an illegal but well-known and widely available epidural narcotizing agent. We were told to avoid contact with it at all costs. Absorbed through the skin, it's supposed to put even a healthy professional athlete under for four to eight hours."

  Four hours, Clarity thought apprehensively. Would they leave Flinx alive long enough to regain consciousness and bring his singular talent to bear? Aloud, she said, "I didn't put anything like that on him. I haven't touched him."

  "I believe you. But sweetie, he's touched you."

  Of course he had. To sit her up on the couch. To remove her bindings. To help her stand. Which meant, the chemical responsible had to be somewhere on her. "Why am I still conscious?"

  "I told you: Mr. Ormann gengineered the stuff. Did some rearranging of the molecular structure." Her grin returned. "Made the delivery vector site specific, you might say." Again the finger pressed against Clarity's exposed skin, only this time not across her arm. "You're the only one in this room who the agent won't knock out. Why do you think the back room where you were being held was kept so hot?" She peered eagerly into the captive's face, lapping up the hurt and confusion she found there.

  To make me sweat, Clarity realized. The dynamic agent that had drugged Flinx had been on her skin all along. Her perspiration had activated it and provided a vector. Driven by his cancerous obsession, Bill Ormann had overlooked nothing.

  Regrettably, Flinx hadn't worn gloves.

  The heavy-duty environment suits that had protected their captors from the venom of the minidrags had also allowed them to handle Clarity without fear of being contaminated by the agent Ormann had surreptitiously rubbed into her flesh. Once applied, it had plainly traveled throughout her body, to emerge and become actively dangerous when she had begun to sweat. Insidiously and skillfully he had made her, the one agent Flinx was least likely to suspect of posing a threat to him, the instrument of his downfall. She remembered now. Being knocked out by Bill. Being tied up.

  It had meant nothing to her at the time, hadn't registered as significant at all. Why should it have? Just because all the time he had been working on her, he had been wearing gloves?

  "Sweet, isn't it? You didn't have to do anything. We didn't have to do anything. All that was necessary was for your boyfriend to touch you, which our friend Ormann was certain he'd do at the first opportunity without thinking about it too much." The woman's tone reflected a calm, practiced admiration for the method that had been employed.

  "He's promised to help me and the boys out in the future, in case we need the compound rejiggered to work for another client. The beginning of a fruitful business relationship. You'll be around to enjoy it. Apparently, he doesn't want you harmed." The gloved finger moved. "I can see why."

  Clarity's bindings prevented her from flinching from the lugubrious caress. "What about Flinx? What are you going to do to him?" As much as she didn't want to know the answer, she had to ask.

  Her captor turned to eye the long-legged figure on the couch. Nearly mummified by his bindings, Flinx lay unmoving, his face hidden. For the first time since she had known him he appeared to be completely helpless, mentally as well as physically.

  "We were told that when we reached this point we should ask for final instructions. Thanks for reminding me."

  The last was unnecessary, Clarity knew. The woman would not have forgotten how to proceed. It was simply a deliberately sadistic fillip to the conversation. As the immobilized Clarity looked on, the woman chatted briefly with her companions before pulling out a com unit.

  She and Flinx didn't have the balance of four hours left; Clarity saw. They hardly had any time at all.

  Get up, Flinx! she thought furiously. Wake up! Can you feel my fear? You have to wake up.

  The body on the couch did not move. Within their minidrag-proof container, Pip and Scrap were growing even more agitated. Did they sense something about to happen, and were they reacting more vigorously because they were unable to influence it? Did she and Flinx have even an hour left?

  He might be dreaming, he might be traveling, but the tall redhead was definitely not perceiving her emotions. She did not have to try to falsify them in her silent efforts to bring him around.

  She was truly scared.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Ormann did not have to wonder at the source of the incoming call even though he was at work. It was on his private com line, encrypted and untappable. All he had to do to unscramble what anyone else receiving the call would hear as mindless gibberish was to answer it. He let it chime for his attention a few extra times. The anticipation was delicious. Because anyone calling him on that line would only be doing so if certain objectives had been successfully met, and he wanted the warm feeling to last as long as possible.

  When he finally did answer it, the voice he expected to hear was on the other end. For security reasons, there was no video. The words spoken were calm and assured. Though he had embarked on the project with confidence, and with much greater care and preparation than on similar previous attempts, he had learned the hard way not to take anything for granted where Lynx was concerned.

  It was with great pleasure that he heard the woman on the other end inform him that everything had gone as planned. Yes, the target had made his way past the outer defenses and survived attac
k by the chair and footstool. Yes, he had somehow solved the puzzle posed by the simulacrum and defeated it, only to be ensnared by Ormann's sublest ploy: the gengineered soporific applied to Clarity Held's skin.

  "What's he doing now?" Ormann asked. At last he could relax a little. It seemed that the redoubtable Philip Lynx's baffling bag of tricks was not bottomless after all. He did not ask about the flying snakes. If they had not been dealt with successfully, he knew he would not be receiving this call.

  "Sleeping. Maybe not like a baby, but sleeping. Looks like he went out exactly as you predicted. My compliments, Mr. Or-"

  "No names," Ormann snapped. Secure line or no, he was taking no chances.

  "Sorry. Listen, my associates and I are sufficiently impressed that we might like to engage your cooperation at some future time. We might even work out some kind of mutually beneficial barter agreement. Cost you a lot less."

  "I'll think about it." Ormann was flattered but preoccupied. "Let me pay you for this job first. I'll consider your offer later."

  "As you wish." She sounded disappointed. "You still want us to turn him over to the authorities?"

  "I've been thinking about that." Outside his office, the day was even more beautiful than usual. "You know how the court system can be. Even truth sensors can be deceived. After having gone to all this trouble to see justice done, it would displease me greatly to see the individual in question walk away subject to only some minor penalty."

  "And maybe come back to bother your girlfriend again? Not to mention tossing a few uncomfortable questions your way."

  "Exactly." He allowed the woman to reach her own conclusion. She did so with admirable promptness.

  "How do you want it done?"

  "Efficiently. I'm not vindictive. I just want it done. Make certain any evidence is eliminated as thoroughly as him. If she asks, tell Clarity you're going to have him boxed and shipped offworld unharmed."

  "We can do that, too, if you wish," the voice assured him.

  "Excellent." Ormann felt he was lingering. "Just make sure you seal airtight whatever container you use. I want nothing left for anyone to find."

  "It will be taken care of. We can..." There was a pause.

  Ormann waited impatiently. "What?"

  When it finally responded, the voice on the other end sounded less assured than before. "Not sure. One of the guys thought he heard something." Her assurance returned. "I'll get back to you when it's done."

  "Fine. Final payment will be made in the usual manner. If you have anything else to-"

  A loud crash echoed over the communicator. It was followed by several sharp crackling sounds, as if something carrying a lot of voltage had suddenly violently shorted out. Ormann frowned.

  "Hello?" He forgot his own admonition against using names. "Serale? Are you still there? Hello?"

  Another crackling, underscored by faint voices, as of people shouting in the distance. The woman's voice returned, breathy and with an underlying tension. "It's nothing. A minor disturbance. Nothing my people can't handle. We-"

  Ormann stared at the communicator. "What kind of disturbance? What are you talking about? What's going on there? Serale?"

  But Serale was busy. In fact, it sounded like everyone on the other end was busy. Ormann tried to activate the communicator's visual component. It responded immediately but with a blank screen. Either the Send on the other end still wasn't activated, or...

  No, he could still hear plenty of noise from the unit. Something was happening at the cabin.

  As time passed without either the line going dead or any response from Serale or anyone else, he grew increasingly agitated. The "nothing my people can't handle" was rapidly becoming, in his mind, a very real something that was giving them trouble. Did Lynx have friends on Nur he had neglected to mention, even to Clarity? Did he have associates on his ship who now had arrived to try to rescue him? The longer nothing but confused noise issued from the com unit, the greater became the executive's anxiety.

  Finally there was a response. "William Ormann? Am I speaking to William Ormann?" The query ended in a curious yet somehow familiar whistle.

  He said nothing, just stared at the com unit in his hand. It lay there, cool and inorganic. He started to formulate a reply but was having difficulty remembering his name.

  "I am going to assume I am speaking to William Ormann, a minor middle-level employee of Ulricam. Mr. Ormann, it has come to the attention of others that you intended to do Philip Lynx grievous bodily harm. We will not permit this."

  "You won't permit it?" Ormann finally found his voice. "Who-who are you? Are you crew from his ship?"

  A different, deeper whistling, distinctively modulated, emanated from the com. It might have been the wind or something else. "His crew. I find that amusing. Flinx would find that amusing. Although I'm sure your intention was anything but to amuse. It's not for you to wonder who we are nor is it necessary for us to inform you. From what this young female has been telling me, you've done some very bad things lately, Mr. Ormann. Bad business. Unhappily, steps must be taken."

  The com unit beeped once, indicating the transmission had ceased. Try as he might, Ormann could not raise the cabin again. The voice that had spoken to him presented unforeseen complications. It had not been Serale's voice. He suspected it was not that of one of her associates. It had certainly not been Clarity's voice or that of the thrice-damned Lynx.

  It had not even been human.

  Clarity had not been able to do anything to help Flinx. He remained unconscious as two of the men swathed him in enough police-grade plastic fetters to restrain an elephant. Serale, the woman who appeared to be in charge, was talking to Bill on a com unit. Pip and Scrap in their cage were unable to help.

  It was then that a figure had stepped through the open front door. The new arrival was well, even elegantly, ornamented, and, despite its evident age, carried itself with confidence. Looking around the room, gleaming golden compound eyes had taken in the seated figure of Clarity, the woman Serale standing nearby, the rattling cage on the kitchen table, and the tall young man being mummified on the couch. She thought she heard the visitor emit a small, resigned sigh. A trace of perfume emanated from him; she inhaled hints of ginger and frangipani. The two men binding Flinx halted. Serale looked over her com at the intruder.

  "You will let him go. Now." The arrival punctuated this command by reaching up with a truhand to preen his left antenna. The other truhand and right foothand cradled a sonic rifle, while the left foothand held a pistol.

  The fourth member of Serale's group, who had stepped outside a few moments earlier to attend to a call of nature, came in and leaped at the much smaller and lighter thranx from behind.

  The four-foot-tall insectoid sprang to his left, both sets of vestigial wingcases snapping out to knock the human aside. The chitinous coverings were, Clarity noted even as she began struggling to try to free herself from her bonds, the dark, deep purple of advanced age.

  Old or not, the agility and speed with which the thranx maneuvered himself on his four trulegs was wonderful to see. As Serale lowered her communicator and gaped at the intruder, two of her colleagues reached for their weapons. Firing pistol and rifle simultaneously, and without hesitation or fear of hitting Lynx, the multilimbed intruder shot them both.

  That gave the third man time to dodge and recover and Serale long enough to swap her com unit for a handgun. Both their first shots missed the rapidly dodging thranx, who ducked behind the kitchen counter. The two humans fired again, but since the counter was constructed of composite material designed to only look like wood, holes appeared in its front, but the shots did not penetrate.

  Serale directed her fire at the same spot on the counter in an attempt to punch a hole through. The noise of the small but powerful explosive charges she and her associate were firing was deafening.

  No answering fire came from behind the counter. Had the thranx been hit? Clarity wondered. Or was he biding his time, preparing a counte
rattack?

  Then Clarity noticed that the impervious container holding the two minidrags was inching its way backward. A moment later it fell behind the counter. Concentrating on breaking down the counter that was sheltering their adversary, neither Serale nor her associate noticed.

  "Look out!" Serale cried when two fast and very angry minidrags shot directly toward them.

  Serale pointed her weapon at the flying snakes. Her companion hesitated briefly, then dashed out the open door. A second later, the thranx's compound eyes and antennae appeared over the edge of the counter, followed by the muzzles of two weapons.

  Serale did not even have a chance to get off a shot at the minidrags before she was cut down by a burst from the thranx's sonic rifle. The shaped acoustic charge punched a sizable hole in her neck, nearly decapitating her. Not even the spurting blood could make Clarity avert her eyes. There was still the one remaining gunman.

  His scream was indistinct, showing that he had managed to run some distance. But not, clearly, far enough. Scrap returned moments later to rejoin his mother in inspecting the corpse of the woman who had been in charge. On the couch, Flinx slept on, oblivious to everything happening around him, and because of him.

  Working to steady her own breathing, Clarity watched intently as the four-legged thranx ambled around the ruined end of the kitchen counter and advanced on the limp, ragdoll body of Serale. Picking up her com unit, he spoke briefly into it, then set it aside and came to Clarity. As the elderly thranx drew near, its flowery natural perfume helped to mitigate the stink of dead and dying bodies. The visitor stopped only when very close. Both antennae dipped forward to lightly stroke her forehead. It was as if she had been caressed by a pair of feathers.

  "Who-who are you?" she finally stammered in symbospeech. Her eyes roved over the blue-green limbs and joints, took in the exquisitely embroidered thorax pouch and backpack. "I don't see any peaceforcer insignia."