Flinx Transcendent (46 page)

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.

“What, exactly, is a ‘Class-A’ mind?”

The planet-sized ship showed him.

“He moved! I saw him move. I'm sure of it!” Rising so abruptly from where she had been sitting that a startled Scrap had to spread his wings to keep from falling off her shoulder, Clarity lunged toward the crackling, flaring, energy-engulfed dais. Heedless of any danger, she ignored the lambent, writhing bolts of distilled lightning exploding all around her.

Using both foothands and truhands, a pursuing Sylzenzuzex caught the distraught Clarity and gently but forcefully drew her back.

“It doesn't matter that he may have moved,” the security officer click-whistled. “I agree that any sign of life is a good sign. But we must wait to celebrate until he sits up and waves.”

Recognizing the truth of the thranx's observation as well as the danger inherent in approaching the furiously flaring platform too closely, a despondent Clarity reluctantly restrained herself.

Having lost contact with the
Teacher
and unable to influence the airlock exit, they had been moving back and forth between the shuttlecraft and the chamber containing the galvanized contact platform for over a week now. The shuttlecraft's limited stock of supplies had compelled them to ration their food and drink. Carefully allocated, they had enough to last several additional weeks. After that…

Meanwhile, the vivid electrical fury enveloping the dais and the young man lying at its center gave no indication of abating.

“I just wish I knew what was happening.” Pulling her knees up to her chest, Clarity wrapped her arms around them and lowered her face forward until her chin was resting on her forearms.

Though no less vexed, Sylzenzuzex tried to raise the spirits of her human friend. “You said that you saw him move.”

Clarity's head came up to meet the young thranx's multilensed gaze. “I did. I'm sure of it.”

“Then at least we know he's still alive.” Sylzenzuzex gestured second-degree encouragement.

“I regret to say that we know nothing of the sort.”

Truzenzuzex had walked over to join them. “The fact that Flinx's body may have moved is inconclusive. The nervous system of humans and thranx alike can continue to function for some time after the brain, for example, has been permanently shut down.”

“Thanks for that encouragement.” Clarity dropped her head back onto her arms.

“I did not say that was what I think to be the case.” Truzenzuzex gestured disapproval of her acrimony. “I only point out what is possible.” Looking past her, he gazed at the continuing barrage of light and sound. In his compound eyes was reflected a wealth of ejected color. “I believe that shrouded inside that wellspring of erupting energy Flinx not only lives but carries on.”

Wanting desperately to be encouraged, Clarity raised her head. “Carries on doing what?”

Reaching out, the four chitinous digits of a delicate truhand came to rest perceptively on her shoulder. “I'm sure Flinx will tell us when he emerges.”

The observation being optimistic without being in any way conclusive, she chose to take it with a grain of salt.

Several more days passed. To the watchful Clarity's increasing dismay Flinx did not move again. As to what was happening outside the minuscule fraction of the great ship they had explored, they had no way of knowing. The capabilities of the shuttlecraft's limited internal instrumentation had long since been exceeded. They had been able to deduce only that the immense weapons platform was moving and that it had passed beyond range of shuttle-to-
Teacher
contact. Unless the city-sized
portal that closed the airlock off from outside showed signs of irising open, they could not even use the shuttlecraft to explore the exterior of the alien vessel in their vicinity.

There was very little they could do, in fact, except husband their supplies, speculate on what was happening outside and around them, try to get some sleep amid all the sound and fury being discharged by the contact platform where Flinx lay, console one another—and wait.

The intergalactic void. The space between galaxies. Stars becoming few and far between even when measured by interstellar distances, until at last only a few scattered and isolated rogues and wanderers remain. A place seen but not experienced, vastness on such a scale that attempting to measure or quantify it becomes meaningless, just as the numbers one attempts to assign to it become meaningless. A region observed and studied for centuries by humans and thranx alike but never actually visited or touched upon.

Until now.

With his eyes closed Flinx saw by other means. The ship showed him, entering the perceptive information directly into his brain.

Behind: an immense disk of stars and nebulae, pulsars and novae, neutron stars and X-ray stars, and the entire panoply of other highly evolved stellar phenomena. Energy and life and consciousness all thrown together in a spectacular swirling spiral of existence and experience.

Ahead and far distant: much more of the same.

Except in one region. Except in one still far-off section of the cosmos closed to view by the Great Emptiness. Behind that and on the verge of emerging, a void so utter and complete that not even the glow of a match could be discerned within a square parsec of its lightless, menacing self.

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
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.

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.