Flinx Transcendent Part 22

WE GO NO FARTHER. EVEN IF I COULD CROSS THE GULF, WHAT CONFRONTS US IS NOT A MATTER OF DISTANCE BUT OF TIME.

Flinx did not venture a thoughtful response. He was too awed by the vision offered up by the weapons platform. He and his friends were the first of their kind to step outside the realm of the Milky Way. The first to be able to view the home galaxy from outside and not via artificial constructs or artfully imagined images. It was big, it was beautiful, it pulsed with the fever of stars dying and being born. It was life itself. It could not be allowed to be extinguished, like a candle casually snuffed.

He was only one man, and biotechnically not even that. What could he he do? Lying on the slant, he twitched slightly. He could do what human beings had always done. do? Lying on the slant, he twitched slightly. He could do what human beings had always done.

He could try.

"Are my companions seeing any of this?" As always, he framed the thought carefully before allowing it to drift outward. As always, he framed the thought carefully before allowing it to drift outward.

NO. I CANNOT PUT IT INTO THEM. THEY HAVE NOT THE RIGHT TYPE OF MINDS.

What a shame, Flinx reflected sadly. So much beauty and it could not be shared. He would have to describe it to Clarity and the others as best he could when he emerged from his present state. If he emerged. Another might find it unsettling, being forced to lie motionless and helpless while contemplating the possibility of imminent death. Not Flinx. He'd been there before.

"Why are we stopping here?" he inquired. He thought he had an inkling of the answer, but he wanted to hear it. The s.h.i.+p did not disappoint. he inquired. He thought he had an inkling of the answer, but he wanted to hear it. The s.h.i.+p did not disappoint.

TO SAFELY DISCHARGE THE ENERGY FROM ONE OF MY WEAPONS I MUST BE A CERTAIN MINIMAL DISTANCE FROM ANY SOLID OBJECT. TO FIRE ALL OF THEM SIMULTANEOUSLY, TO GENERATE A COHERENT EFFECT, I MUST BE AT A CONSIDERABLY GREATER DISTANCE. HERE, FAR BEYOND THE NEAREST STAR, IS THE SAFEST PLACE.

"The Great Evil lies much farther away still," Flinx pointed out. Flinx pointed out. "I've touched upon it, but only through means I don't pretend to understand, and certainly not physically. I presume that to affect it, it must be impacted physically. Given the extraordinary distances involved, how can this be done?" "I've touched upon it, but only through means I don't pretend to understand, and certainly not physically. I presume that to affect it, it must be impacted physically. Given the extraordinary distances involved, how can this be done?"

I HAVE TRAVELED HERE THROUGH THE SUB-DIMENSION YOU CALL s.p.a.cE-MINUS. IF A SUFFICIENT FORCE IS UNLEASHED THROUGH THAT IDIOSYNCRATIC INTERPLAY OF THE COSMIC CONTINUUM, IT WILL ACCELERATE EXPONENTIALLY. DISTANCE ITSELF, AS YOUR KIND UNDERSTANDS IT, CEASES TO HAVE MEANING. TWO POINTS IN s.p.a.cE-TIME CAN, FOR A BRIEF INSTANT OF TIME, BE MADE CONGRUENT. THE CONSEQUENCES CAN BE OBSERVED IN REAL TIME. BUT NOT BY ME. ONLY BY YOU.

Flinx swallowed. Sitting, talking, pa.s.sing time away from the refulgent contact platform, none of his companions noticed the brief movement in his throat-not even Clarity.

"You're going to boost me out there mentally to perceive the result, aren't you?"

I-AND OTHERS.

"About these others...," Flinx began. He did not have time to finish the inquiry. The immense sphere was already focusing its energies elsewhere. Flinx began. He did not have time to finish the inquiry. The immense sphere was already focusing its energies elsewhere.

Deep within the core of the planet-sized machine, engines of destruction capable of generating energies that belonged more to the realm of poets than of physicists ignited for the first time in half a million years. Out on the methane-shrouded surface of the globe first one Krang came to life. Then two more, then a dozen. With no one in a position to note the spectacular, in less than a day more than a hundred of the towering devices were vibrating with readiness. Eons ago, when the Tar-Aiym did battle with their ancient enemies the Hur'rikku, the intent was for only one Krang at a time to be discharged. Such was the power of each radiant spire. Nothing in its design or programming prevented the gargantuan weapons platform of which they were a part from unleas.h.i.+ng the energy of all of them simultaneously, however.

It did so now.

Each minuscule Schwarzchild discontinuity projected by a Krang was capable of swallowing an entire fleet. Several combined could implode an entire world into nothingness. More than a hundred discharging at once-there was no predicting what their combined effect might be because such an a.s.sault had never been unleashed before. There had never been the need for such a concentration of collapse. Defensively or offensively, a discontinuity of such scale would have amounted to serious overkill.

Flung outward through s.p.a.ce-minus instead of existing normality, the energy of the hundred-plus Krangs pooled at a safe distance from the hovering weapons platform. A slight quiver ran through the body of the entire s.h.i.+p. It was the only hint of the immense discharge. Blessed with more sensitive feet and a lack of intervening footwear, Sylzenzuzex and her Eighth experienced it as a negligible tremor, one so insignificant that neither thought it worthy of mention.

As soon as the collated strike had been hurled on its way, the s.h.i.+p relayed the information through a different fold of s.p.a.ce-minus back to the single Krang situated on Booster. That device in turn contacted not one but two other ent.i.ties with a deep interest in both the attack and its outcome. Responding, they merged their efforts to reach outward to the vessel that was drifting beyond the edge of the galactic disk. Taking hold of a certain singular mind they found there, the amalgamated tripart.i.te ent.i.ty boosted it outward at the speed of thought.

Flinx felt that he had prepared himself and that he was ready for anything. But he never was. How could anyone, regardless of whatever twists and tricks had been implanted or had evolved in their unique mind, be ready for such a literally mind-bending alteration of consciousness?

As he had on multiple previous occasions he felt his inner self being thrust outward. Already beyond the edge of his own galaxy, he had the sense of racing past others. Great glowing orbs and disks, whirlpools of gas and energy, sped past his awareness like so many snowflakes drizzled on black velvet.

The dark shadowed section of s.p.a.ce that was the Great Emptiness drew near. That, at least, he was ready for because he had penetrated it before. Within lay an immensity of nothingness. Beyond, on the far side, lay that mindless smothering of reality it was better for sane minds not to acknowledge. Instinctively, he shunned it, turned away from it, tried his best to ignore its baleful existence.

As he struggled to keep his pitiful inner self clear of the crus.h.i.+ng malevolence, he perceived via his ma.s.sively attenuated but in no wise diminished core essence something impacting that galactic pool of horror. For the first time since he had been compelled to awareness of it, a light appeared at its forefront. Glowing argent, the collected projected discharge of the Tar-Aiym weapons platform struck the Great Evil and sliced a curving trail along its leading edge. The gash that was extending itself before Flinx's real-time acuity was hundreds of pa.r.s.ecs in length-and no greater in diameter than his thumb. As the s.p.a.ce-time rip lengthened in both directions like a flash of lightning against a moonless sky, the first glimmer of radiance ever to appear on that dark shadow began to eat into it.

The Evil screamed.

Had Flinx been present physically that reaction would have shredded the atomic bonds holding together his being. It would have sent stars into overload, with novae breaking out everywhere like radiant popcorn. But in that darkness there was nothing extant, nothing solid to be destroyed. His sanity was protected by the very inimitability that allowed him to be present and to observe in the first place.

A small portion of the unidentifiable thing that was the Evil was destroyed. The pa.r.s.ecs-long silvery split flickered, and then faded to blackness. Having no center, no nexus, the oncoming horror could not be shattered by a single well-directed a.s.sault no matter how powerful. As a questing filament of darkness reached for him Flinx felt himself falling, falling, being drawn swiftly backward and away. Back through the Great Emptiness. Back past intervening galaxies. Back to reality. Though still in the comatose state induced by the fiery contact platform, all of him was soon back within himself.

Lying there, breathing long and deep, he remembered what he had perceived. As always, the strenuous mental journey left him sweating, exhausted, and instilled with fresh insight. The galaxy had always seemed immense. But whenever he pa.s.sed witness to thousands more, it was reduced to homeliness.

WHAT CONSEQUENCE?.

It took Flinx a moment to realize that the great planetary weapons platform was asking for his his a.s.sessment of what had just transpired. It was seeking the opinion of a lone and lowly dust mote composed of water and a few twisted proteins that dared to aspire to cognizance. a.s.sessment of what had just transpired. It was seeking the opinion of a lone and lowly dust mote composed of water and a few twisted proteins that dared to aspire to cognizance.

"You hit it," he thought without hesitation. he thought without hesitation. "You hurt it. But not enough, I'm afraid. It's still coming." "You hurt it. But not enough, I'm afraid. It's still coming."

The gigantic machine voiced no disappointment. Guns do not sulk when they fail to kill.

SUCH WAS THE PREDICTION. BUT IT HAD TO BE TRIED. IT IS DIFFICULT TO FIGHT SOMETHING THAT EXISTS OUTSIDE OF THE KNOWN LAWS OF PHYSICS.

Flinx twisted slightly on the platform. "Can't you attack again?" "Can't you attack again?"

SEVERAL TIMES, YES. BUT OPTIONS ARE LIMITED. IF NO SUBSTANTIAL DAMAGE WAS DONE THIS TIME IT IS UNLIKELY ADDITIONAL EFFORTS WILL BE SIGNIFICANTLY MORE EFFECTIVE.

"You have to try," Flinx entreated. Flinx entreated.

NO I DO NOT.

It was a perfectly cold and perfectly valid response. A device, the s.h.i.+p saw no reason to sustain an effort that was unlikely to produce a desired result. To do so would be to waste energy and effort. But not to do so, Flinx knew, meant subscribing to the inevitability of the demise of everything, the s.h.i.+p itself included. Then he realized that was not necessarily the case. Able to travel through s.p.a.ce-minus at speeds no humanx vessel could begin to approach, the weapons platform could take itself elsewhere. Out into the intergalactic gulf, perhaps even far and fast enough to avoid the oncoming Evil. The designers and builders to whom it owed allegiance were half a million years dead. If not for him, Flinx realized, the Krang on Booster and the weapons platform would not even have made the failed attempt.

He had tried. The weapons platform had tried. It was over, it was done. There was nothing left to do.

No, he told himself, that wasn't quite true. There were two things left to do.

"Take my friends and me back," he projected. he projected. "Back to the system of Booster, back to my own s.h.i.+p. And one other thing." "Back to the system of Booster, back to my own s.h.i.+p. And one other thing."

DECLARE.

"Let me wake up-please."

So inured by now to the constant flaring lights and continuous underlying roar in the chamber were Clarity and the others that it was more of a shock when both abruptly ceased than it had been when they had initially exploded to life. The sudden, unexpected silence echoed almost painfully. Eyes that had become accustomed to the ubiquitous bursts of multihued lightning strove to readjust to far more muted illumination. Despite the transformation in their surroundings, her first thought was for the young man who had been lying so long on the alien platform.

Her concern was rewarded when he slowly sat up, wincing. Rocketing off her shoulder, Sc.r.a.p shot across to the dais and was soon snuggling and sharing his body warmth with Pip. For the moment, the two minidrags totally ignored their respective humans.

Clarity shared more than body warmth as she all but threw herself against Flinx, hugging him and covering his face with kisses.

"I was starting to worry that you might not be coming back." Her eyes glistened with moisture as she looked up at him. "I knew you weren't dead because you kept twitching and moving. But you didn't respond to words, and Tse-Mallory and Truzenzuzex warned me not to go under the domes while they were active."

Rubbing at the back of his head, Flinx found it an effort just to sit up. She eyed him fretfully.

"One of your headaches?"

"No, not this time. I'm just tired." Turning to his right he extended an arm. Disengaging from her reunion with her offspring, Pip used the limb like a pole as she slithered slowly back up to her familiar resting place on his shoulder. "And famished," he added. "I feel like I haven't eaten for a week."

Whirling, Clarity yelled back toward the anxiously watching other members of the little group. "He's okay! He's hungry!"

Leaning over, Tse-Mallory murmured to the two thranx standing beside him. "That's a human for you. No matter how farsighted and intellectually accomplished, we never forget the physical aspects of our being."

"Our supplies grow dangerously low." Truzenzuzex eyed the dais where Clarity was helping Flinx to stand. "Let us hope that despite the travails of his trial our young friend leaves something for the rest of us."

In the restored silence the philosoph's words carried to the platform. "No need to worry about that, sir." Though he was giving a rea.s.suring response, Flinx did not smile. "We're already on our way back to the Booster system. We'll be back aboard the Teacher Teacher in a few days." in a few days."

It was not surprising that those on board had failed to notice the latest change in the weapons platform's position. Within the planet-sized sphere there was no sense of acceleration or movement.

Even with the fate of civilization at stake, the two scientists had patience enough to wait until their former charge had wolfed down two complete emergency meals before they began pressing him for particulars. Wanting a full and accurate report from the recently deployed instrument, they knew from experience that it was better to wait until the device in question was ready to operate on a full charge.

He was downing the last drops of a half liter of liquid supplement when Sylzenzuzex could stand the delay no longer.

"Srall!tt, Flinx-what happened? Talk to us! Where did we go? What is the result?"

Lowering the partially imploded, pressurized drink container, he blinked at her. "You don't know?" He looked around at his companions. "You didn't see anything?"

Putting a hand on his arm, Clarity offered gentle clarification. "We only saw you lying under the dome and its spectacular reaction to your being there." She nodded in the direction of the corridor that led back to the landing deck. "When it became clear that you might be under for an extended period of time, Bran and Tru hiked back to the shuttle. None of its ranging instruments were able to take any readings beyond the airlock." She smiled hopefully. "We couldn't tell what, if anything, was happening outside."

Stepping forward, Truzenzuzex brandished impatient antennae at the tall young man. "Your comatose presence on the operator's platform sp.a.w.ned a great deal of impressive ancillary activity. Bran and I presume it was not merely for show. What, if anything, of consequence was accomplished during your period of unconsciousness?" A truhand gestured in the direction of the corridor. "We know only that we moved out of range of contact with your s.h.i.+p. Did Did you succeed in making contact with this artifact?" you succeed in making contact with this artifact?"

It struck Flinx forcefully that his friends had absolutely no idea of the momentous events that had transpired while he had been, to their eyes, insensible. He considered how best to enlighten them.

"You could say that. Yes, I made contact. The situation we all face was discussed. The weapons platform agreed to a plan of attack." He tried to meet each of their gazes in turn. "You're correct in a.s.suming that our position changed. While I was-elsewhere-the artifact was not static. We took a little trip. In order to mount a maximum effort, the s.h.i.+p traveled through s.p.a.ce-minus, or something akin to it, to a location outside the galaxy."

"'Outside'?" Tse-Mallory was staring evenly at him.

Flinx nodded. "It was very beautiful. Even under the circ.u.mstances I was able to look back and see-everything."

"Outside the galaxy." Truzenzuzex gestured a mix of awe and disbelief so radical that Flinx was unable to identify it. "The first humanx to travel beyond the Rim, and we have not even a crude image to commemorate the visit."

"There may be nothing to memorialize." Tse-Mallory was less given than his old friend to the need for memorialization. "You spoke of the s.h.i.+p mounting a 'maximum effort.' This was done?"

Flinx nodded again. "The artifact brought together the combined energy of all its weapons systems and unleashed them through a non-conforming variant of s.p.a.ce-minus at the oncoming threat. I was able to observe the consequences in real time."

Tse-Mallory did not hesitate. "And the consequences were-are?"

Flinx did not try to hold back or to minimize what he knew. There would be no point, and he doubted he could deceive either of the highly perceptive scientists in any case, even if he believed doing so might be to their benefit.

"I'm afraid there weren't any. No," he corrected himself, "that's not entirely true. There were some corporeal consequences. The Evil was affected-a little. It was slightly damaged. An insignificant amount, I think. Insofar as I could tell, both its structure and its course remain intact." He glanced down. "It's still coming this way."

The two scientists conferred briefly. "You say it was damaged." Truzenzuzex used all four hands to indicate their surroundings. "What went wrong? Could the great weapons platform not sustain the attack?"

"It could," Flinx told the philosoph, "but it won't. It believes that any further a.s.saults would be useless. It says that it can't effectively do battle with something that exists outside known physics."

"Known Tar-Aiym physics," Tse-Mallory pointed out. "Not that the distinction matters if it stated that it won't continue to fight. I presume that you did your best to try and convince it otherwise." Flinx said nothing-and in so doing, said a lot.

"It's taking us back to the Booster system," he finally announced. "That much it's willing to do."

Tse-Mallory exhaled resignedly. "Well then, I guess that's that." Raising his gaze, he surveyed their extraordinary surroundings. "This artifact was our last, best hope of overcoming the annihilation that's heading toward us. Tru and I have felt that way ever since you first told us about it." Reaching out, he lightly tapped a nearby wall. "Compared to the forces this relic can bring to bear, every weapon in the Commonwealth is little more than a conventional firecracker. If the best it could do was irritate the menace, then I expect we all may as well make plans to live out the rest of our lives and enjoy them as best we can in the time we have left to us. As for our descendants ..." He left the inevitable unsaid.

"No."

Everyone's attention s.h.i.+fted to Truzenzuzex. The philosoph was standing on his four trulegs, rising as tall as he could.

"I refuse. So long as consciousness remains, so long as cognizance holds sway, so long as I can function as a thinking being, I repudiate the notion of capitulation." Gleaming compound eyes fixed on his longtime companion and fellow researcher. "However fruitless the effort may appear, we will continue to search for possibilities, my old friend. We will do this not because we must, or because we see avenues that may lead to success, but because it is what we do. Evolution has given us the ability to reason. If we choose to abjure it, we surrender the one thing that makes us worthy of continuance."

A somber Tse-Mallory stared down at his wholly inhuman, chitinous counterpart. Then he nodded, once.

"Up the universe," he murmured, and broke out in a wide grin.

"Up the universe," the philosoph echoed, not at all solemnly.

While the moment was inspiring for the two scientists, it had less effect on their younger companions. By the time they had all returned to the landing deck and their waiting shuttlecraft, a sense of dour inevitability had settled over Flinx, Clarity, and Sylzenzuzex.

"At least we won't see the stars go out in our lifetime," the padre whistled softly. "With luck, it won't happen during the life terms of my own offspring."

"There's no way of telling." Flinx was helping to sort their remaining supplies that had been laid out next to one of the shuttlecraft's landing skids. "Every time Tru and Bran's contacts in Commonwealth Science think they have its velocity verified, it keeps accelerating."

Clarity wore a contemplative expression. "Life must have been so much easier and more relaxing before Amalgamation, back in primitive times when people were confined to one world and believed it const.i.tuted the whole universe." She shook her head mournfully. "They never had reason to be afraid of the stars. Their only concern was first to look out for their own survival, then that of their tribe, then their village or nation. They never had to worry about the survival of a civilization composed of dozens of star systems and species."

"True," Flinx agreed, "but they also believed that shape, or smell, or language differences or belief systems were important. They didn't know that all that matters is sentience and sensibility."

"None of it will matter for long." Tilting back her head, Sylzenzuzex looked up toward the sweeping roof of the immense airlock. "When that thing thing gets here, it will all disappear. Everything. No more consciousness. No more exploration and explanation." She eyed Flinx. "According to what you've told us, there'll be nothing but-nothingness." gets here, it will all disappear. Everything. No more consciousness. No more exploration and explanation." She eyed Flinx. "According to what you've told us, there'll be nothing but-nothingness."

It was too depressing a precis on which to terminate the conversation. He nodded over to where Truzenzuzex and Tse-Mallory were conversing.

"Tru's not ready to give up. If he's not, then I'm not either."

"You saw what's coming," Clarity commented from nearby. "You, more than anyone, know what it's like. Dark and emotionless and horrible." She held back the hysteria that threatened to rise and engulf her. "I know you, Flinx. I know that you're a realist. Your life has made you that way, more so than most people. Given all that you've been through and all that you know, after all these years how can you find even a shred of optimism to cling to now?"

He considered briefly. "Old habit," he finally confessed. "Maybe that bit of DNA was manufactured into me, too. Special optimism gene. One more twisted strand of warped customization." He bent to pick up a water container. "How about giving me a hand here?"

"'Manufactured'?" Sylzenzuzex inquired quizzically from nearby. But Flinx did not hear her. Or maybe he did.

The weapons platform emerged from s.p.a.ce-minus back into normal s.p.a.ce far enough beyond the orbit of the Booster system's outermost world and high enough above the plane of the ecliptic that its gravitational influence did not perturb any of that system's attendant planets. That was fortunate because it also did not disturb the Teacher Teacher.

Flinx did not have to make formal contact with the Tar-Aiym s.h.i.+pmind to ask that they be allowed to leave. As soon as they had boarded their shuttlecraft and lifted from the vast deck, the barrier overhead irised open. Their departure was not contested as they accelerated outward. Once clear of the surface they were able to look back as the synthesized methane atmosphere coalesced above their point of departure, once more concealing the actual artificial sh.e.l.l from any simplified external view.

"It's moving again," Flinx quietly informed his friends.

"Yes." Along with everyone else, Truzenzuzex was staring out the forward port of the Teacher's Teacher's control room. "Have you any idea where it might be going this time, Flinx?" control room. "Have you any idea where it might be going this time, Flinx?"

"It didn't say, and I didn't think to ask it. I imagine that its programming includes contingencies for self-preservation. It can travel through s.p.a.ce-minus, or some kind of similar physical anomaly, so I guess it's heading-somewhere else. Maybe starting on a long journey outward, away from our doomed galaxy."