The End of the Matter (18 page)

“Don’t be too sure of yourself, September,” Flinx warned him. “Idealism’s an affliction I can put aside when I have to.”

“Take it easy, lad,” September cautioned him. “Isili, what say you, woman?”

Hasboga turned to stare at her associate, then looked across to Flinx. “The creature is the boy’s responsibility and property,” she declared, her gaze never wavering from Flinx’s face. “We still don’t know if the abos are fighting among themselves. Let’s wait and see what they do. I’m not ready to vote for anything drastic until we start running out of food and water. Ab stays, if that’s the way the youth wants it.”

“Musical, musical, think time contusional,” rhymed Ab, happily ignorant of the state of his fate and unaware that it had just been informally decided.

“We’ll wait on then,” September agreed, giving in gracefully. “I just don’t like waiting, that’s all.” He returned his attention to the tunnel. At least the cool air would slow the process of putrefaction. If not, the stench of decomposing corpses could force them to use the masks as efficiently as smoke would.

Quite unexpectedly, the far end of the tunnel seemed to become darker. Flinx squinted, unsure that his eyes were relaying the truth. September leaned over the edge of their wall and tried to see around the first bend. The darkness jumped a little bit nearer.

“What are they up to?” Flinx inquired anxiously. “Filling up the corridor?”

“No,” murmured the big man softly, “I don’t think so.”

It was Hasboga who first realized what the natives were doing. “They’re taking out the lights,” she informed them, even as another several meters of darkness appeared. “Rather than cover up the reflectors, they’re just taking them down and moving them out of the tunnel.”

“They won’t take out the last three,” September said grimly, hunkering down over the bulky stock of his rifle and shifting a little to his left. Howling and shrieking cut off further conversation as another mass of tightly packed natives came surging around the turn in the tunnel. September kept his weapon aimed near the precious light and shattered one alien after another as they tried to climb up to the unbreakable, self-powered sphere. Hasboga tried to hold back the rest of the screaming wave, and Flinx helped as best he could with his tiny pistol.

But they were so densely packed and there were so many of them that September was finally forced to bring his own weapon to bear in order to drive them from the corridor. One aborigine in the mob was able to reach the lamp. Triumphantly he wrenched it free from its mounting.

Shouting their victory, the mob retreated up the tunnel to safety, bearing the precious light with them. Now there were only two spheres left, one halfway down from the just-removed light to their position and the other a couple of meters in front of Hasboga. Beyond that, night had claimed the tunnel.

“They’ll be regrouping again,” September decided wanly, “for another charge. Buoyed up by their success. Some warrior-prime is in full control now.” He used a hand to indicate the second light, partway to the tunnel bend. “If they get that one we’re going to be in big trouble.”

That led him to revive the discussion of a few minutes earlier. He gestured back toward the singsonging Ab. “What about it?”

Hasboga eyed the alien, turned a speculative stare on Flinx, then sighted back down her own weapon. “Not yet. They may not get the next light.”

September growled softly but did not argue. As the prospect of death grew more real, Flinx noted, the big man’s sense of humor was suffering.

Several hours passed before the peace and quiet was shattered by a terrible screaming and mewling. Flinx didn’t jump this time, his ears were still numb from the last attack. But although they waited expectantly for the anticipated charge, it did not materialize.

“Why don’t they come?” muttered Hasboga tightly, trying to see around the distant bend of a now-dark section of tunnel.

“Trying to rattle us,” suggested September coolly, apparently unaffected by the spine-chilling cacophony. “Ignore it and stay ready. The noise can’t hurt us.”

“Not physically” was Hasboga’s response. “Primitive or not, that’s mind-tingling stuff.”

The bloodcurdling concert continued, unendingly. It was beginning to make Flinx twitchy when it started to fade. Once begun, the cessation of the shrieking and moaning accelerated rapidly, until all was quiet again. Almost too quiet.

“By O’Morion,” ventured September in amazement, “I think they’ve left.”

“Maybe they did start fighting among themselves,” guessed Hasboga, not daring to believe it.

“No, someone’s coming,” Flinx informed them, and then instantly cursed himself for saying it.

September’s eye went back to the sight of his weapon. Several seconds passed before he thought to glance uncertainly over at Flinx.

“How do you know, young feller-me-lad? I can’t see or hear a cursed thing.”

“I have unusually good hearing,” Flinx lied.

He was receiving impressions of some kind of mind up ahead. Beyond that he could sense nothing. His mind had been overloaded with input from emotionally wracked minds since the previous day, minds both advanced and aboriginal. Right now he couldn’t evaluate the ones approaching them any more than he could separate granite from gneiss.

“I hear something, all right,” Hasboga whispered, cuddling her pulsepopper tight as an infant. In the silence they heard the slight crunch of rock underfoot.

“Trying to slip a couple of good bowmen close to us, while we’re worn out from the last charge” was September’s decision. “One tactic that won’t work.” He adjusted the focus on his sight slightly and lowered the energy level—no sense wasting power on only a couple of the abos.

In the silence of the tunnel, only their own soft breathing could be heard. That made the gentle, pedantic voice that abruptly spoke sound louder than it actually was.

“Please don’t shoot,” it requested, in perfect terranglo but with a slight accent. “I do hope you are all uninjured.”

“That’s certainly a thranx voice,” a wondering, confused September said firmly. He stood up and peered into the darkness. “Come on ahead, whoever you are!”

The crunching resumed. Soon a pair of figures emerged into the light. One was a dignified thranx of considerable age, evidently the one who had called out to them. His antennae dropped, and his chiton was turning deep purple. Both wing cases had been treated for the cracking of maturation, but the insect walked with sureness, and the shining compound eyes still held a brightness few young thranx possessed.

His companion was a tall, slim human of comparable age. His eyes were simple, and there were no ommatidia to throw back rainbows at the stupefied watchers, but they gleamed a little in their own way from beneath slightly slanted brows.

“As fast as we come, it’s never been fast enough,” the thranx announced tiredly. “None of you are damaged?”

“No, no,” Isili Hasboga responded. She tried to see past the two figures into the darkness of the tunnel. “What happened to the Otoid?”

“I’d like to say,” the tall human replied, in oddly stilted Terranglo, “that we landed among them, discussed the situation pleasantly, and convinced them to leave in peace. Unfortunately, they are belligerent far in excess of their intelligence.” He appeared embarrassed. “Our skimmer is just outside the entrance to this temple. We have some heavy weapons in it.”

“Frankly, it wouldn’t disappoint us if you’d exterminate the little bastards completely,” September declared, rising and brushing rock dust from his hands and clothes.

“I am sorry,” responded the thranx, with frosty politeness, “we are not in the genocide business.”

For a thranx to speak such perfect Terrangbo was most unusual, Flinx knew as he moved for a better look at their rescuers. In fact, in his whole life he had only met one thranx who spoke the language of man like a native. That was . . .

“Truzenzuzex!”
he shouted, stumbling forward past a dumbfounded September. “Bran Tse-Mallory!”

Chapter Ten

The two partners, prospector and archeologist, stared blankly as their young visitor exchanged noisy greetings with the two peculiar saviors.

Tse-Mallory was smiling his thin little smile, which masked more enthusiasm than it ever revealed. The Eint Truzenzuzex made clicking sounds in High Thranx indicative of greeting mixed with great pleasure, then added in Terranglo: “Again to see you is a delight, young Flinx.”

September gazed open-mouthed at the evident reunion; then his brows furrowed in concentration and he simply watched and listened.

“I am warmed mentally and emotionally, though I cannot be physically,” announced the thranx philosoph. “So I must . . . ask you to remove your arms from . . . around my b-thorax . . . so I can . . . breathe.”

“Oh, sorry,” Flinx apologized, removing his arms from around the old insect. Once again the eight breathing spicules pulsed freely. “But what are you doing here, Old friends? Of all the places in the universe, this is the last that I’d expect—”

“Everything in its proper time plane, lad,” Tse-Mallory broke in, making calming motions with both hands. “At present, I suggest we remove ourselves from this confined place. The aborigines who are left may elect to return. We would not be able to properly direct our skimmer’s weapons from this deep in the earth.”

“I’m for that,” grunted September, willing to accept salvation without explanation. “The rent on this rat hole’s been paid.” He gathered up his Mark Twenty.

Led by Tse-Mallory, the little party of saviors and survivors started back down the tunnel.

Hasboga increased her stride to come up alongside Flinx. She was relieved, confused, and wary all at once. “You obviously know these two,” she murmured accusingly.

“They’re old friends, as I said,” Flinx readily confessed.

“What are they doing here? Not that I’m sorry they appeared, you understand,” she added hastily, lest she seem ungrateful, “but you told us you were here alone, except for the one dead in the temple.”

“I told you the truth,” Flinx insisted easily. “I was as surprised to see them as you and September were.” At a sudden thought, he glanced back over his shoulder. Sure enough, Ab was still sitting back in the alcove, playing with rocks.

“Move it, Abalamahalamatandra!” he shouted impatiently.

Ab looked up from where he was squatting near the rear of the wide place in the tunnel. “Come some, fly high,” he murmured, perhaps to himself, maybe to Flinx, possibly to nothing and no one in particular.

Twelve stones were arranged in a neat circle in front of Ab. With additional stones the addled alien was creating an abstract and seemingly meaningless design in the center of the circle. He had found the stones in a small hollow in the floor where his foot had fallen through during the fighting.

At his master’s urging, he rapidly pushed the stones, diamonds, tanzanites, and a couple of fist-sized black emeralds back into the little hole. They fell the half meter to the bottom of the hollow. One of them bounced off an Alaspinian doubledevil mask, a meter high and wide, made of solid platiniridium and faced entirely with faceted jewels. It lay atop a small hillock of similar artwork.

“Go flow,” ordered Ab as he scrambled to his feet and gamboled down the corridor after Flinx.

Emerging into the central temple chamber they had abandoned earlier, the tired survivors were greeted by the warmth and friendly daylight filtering in through the gallery window high above and through the once-dark doorway. Fragments of broken wood from the shattered makeshift door lay strewn all over the floor.

Hasboga took one look and moaned at the sight of the supplies they had been unable to take with them into the tunnel. Everything edible was gone, everything nonorganic broken, torn, battered into uselessness. The sleeping mattress was tiny flakes of plastic drifting in the gentle jungle breeze. Their autochef, the sole means of synthesizing a decent meal, was scrap metal, the smaller sections missing. Undoubtedly the cannibalized metal would find its way into hundreds of Otoid arrowheads.

“That’s the end of it,” she sighed, bending over and picking listlessly through pieces of a shredded dream. “I’ve no grant money to replace this.” She probed through the rubble and held up a bent, half-unwound spool of study tape.

“How they hate us,” she murmured. “Why?”

A hand the size of a good book covered her right shoulder. September looked down at her with a mixture of paternal and nonpaternal affection. “We’ll scrape up the credit somewhere, Isili, if you really want to come back here one day. It’s only money. I’ve been richer and broker than this a couple of dozen times in my life. The scale always balances.”

“Not for me it doesn’t,” she replied viciously, throwing the tape into the rest of the vandalized pile. She sniffed loudly. “I will not cry. It’s unscientific and unbecoming and solves nothing.”

“Damn right,” agreed September, turning away from her so she could let the tears flow without embarrassment. “I said we’d raise the credit from somewhere, and we will!” He studied the Otoid bodies which lay strewn about the chamber. Several black-lipped holes showed in the temple walls. Both were testimony to the effectiveness of whatever weapons the two odd newcomers claimed to have in their skimmer. “They paid for it,” the giant finished, examining the Otoid dead.

“Our sorrows to you,” Truzenzuzex clicked, making a gesture which looked much like a sign of blessing, “but we should hurry. Those who would return would be angrier than the ones who lie quietly here.” The aged philosoph watched as September moved to comfort Hasboga. “We don’t know you and you do not know us,” he pointed out. “We have access to certain funds. Your loss touches me.” The valentine head swiveled slightly; he looked up at the tall human standing nearby. “Bran, may we not aid these two?”

Hasboga brightened and looked uncertainly from man to insect. “Noble sirs, we’d be forever in your debt!”

“We are not nobles,” Tse-Mallory corrected briskly. “My name you now know. My companion”—he touched the insect’s b-thorax lightly—“is a theoretical philosopher holding the rank of Eint among the thranx. We were both once of the United Church and served it.”

“Who do you serve now, Tse-Mallory?” asked September.

The slightly wrinkled face smiled cryptically. “Our own curiosities. Your names, sir?”

“Isili Hasboga, my boss,” September responded, ignoring the disgusted look she gave him, “and I’m Skua September. We’d appreciate any loan you could make us, humanx.”

Tse-Mallory found himself looking eye to eye with a man twice his own mass. “September . . . that name I know from something.”

The giant grinned. “Can’t imagine how or where from, Tse-Mallory, sir.”

“I see you are not violently opposed,” Truzenzuzex told his friend. “We can discuss matters of money and memory later, after we have left this dangerous place. If you will all hurry,” he once more urged them, “our skimmer is hovering just outside.”

Everyone moved . . . less one.

Flinx had not heard much of the preceding conversation. He stood off to one side, staring down at the eyeless body of Pocomchi. Now he turned sharply.

“Just a minute.” While the others stopped to stare at him, he moved as if he had all the time in the world and started brushing dirt and dust and gravel off Ab. As always, the alien allowed himself to be cleaned without comment.

“Everyone’s in too much of a hurry,” he continued. “Me, I’m not going anywhere with anyone until I get some things straight in my own mind.” Truzenzuzex stared at him disapprovingly, but Flinx was firm. “Not with you or with Bran, until we . . .” Something clicked and now he spoke rapidly. “You’ve both been following me. You must have been following me, or you wouldn’t be here now. Unless you have some dealings with September or Isili, and judging from the little exchange I just overheard, you didn’t know each other until just a few minutes ago.”

September looked curious, Hasboga merely confused.

“I don’t know why you’ve been following me,” Flinx went on forcefully. “I want to know.” After a brief pause, he added, almost indifferently, “It was you two who killed all those Qwarm back in the warehouse on Moth, when I was on my way to the shuttleport.”

Hasboga’s confusion gave way to the kind of worry and nervousness that mention of the assassin clan always engendered. “Qwarm? What’s this about Qwarm?” She eyed Flinx as if he had suddenly turned into a dangerous disease.

“Quiet,” instructed September. “Let them talk it out, Isili.”

“Oh no,” she objected, “not this lady. Credit loan or no credit loan, I don’t want anything from anyone who’s had dealings with the Qwarm.” She smiled gratefully but cautiously at Tse-Mallory. “Thanks for your offer of aid, sir, but you can keep your money and your arguments with the Qwarm to yourselves. We’ll raise the credit elsewhere.”

Tse-Mallory finished listening, then turned back to Flinx as if Hasboga had never opened her mouth. “Yes, we killed them before they could kill you, Flinx.”

That explained the fading mental screams and sounds Flinx had sensed while fleeing from the warehouse. Tse-Mallory and Truzenzuzex, those aged beings, had been concluding their grisly work. No doubt the Qwarm had been very much surprised.

“Then you
have
been following me,” he declared, more curious than accusing.

“All the way from Moth,” Tse-Mallory replied, “but you are only partially correct, Flinx.”

Truzenzuzex raised a truhand and foothand, pointed to Flinx’s left and behind him. “Primarily, Flinx, we’ve been trying to catch up with
it
.”

For a second Flinx stood staring blankly at the philosoph. Then he turned and gazed silently behind him. So did September and Hasboga.

Ab noticed all the silent attention, giggled his alien giggle, and began to rhyme noisily at his new audience.

Flinx turned away from his charge, to eye the myriad corpses scarring the temple floor, the ruins of September and Hasboga’s camp, and discovered that try as he might he couldn’t find a thread of logic in anything that had happened.

September was apparently of the same mind. “You two have been chasing that crazy four-legged whatsis,” he announced in disbelief, “and killing Qwarm because of it?” He shook his massive head in amazement, that great proboscis cleaving the air like a fan. “You don’t
look
like madmen.”

“Neither are the Qwarm,” Flinx added dazedly. “Why is Ab’s death so important to them?”

“Abalamahalamatandra, you called to it back there in the tunnel,” Tse-Mallory mused maddeningly, ignoring everyone’s questions. “Ab for short. It has a name. Interesting.”

“You’re avoiding me, Bran,” Flinx half snapped at the tall Oriental. “That’s not the Tse-Mallory I know who pondered the inner workings of the Krang. Why do the Qwarm want Ab dead?”

“Not the Qwarm,” corrected Truzenzuzex quietly. “Never the Qwarm. If they want anyone dead, it’s you, Flinx, because of the trouble you’ve caused them. But to them Ab is only a statistic at the end of a voucher. They are hired by those who want others dead, in this case your accidental companion.” The philosoph looked sad, angry. “The Qwarm clan is a lingering evil from unenlightened, pre-Amalgamation times. Why the Church and Commonwealth tolerate it I have never understood. As for Ab there are impressive forces that want him extinguished. Not simply dead, but obliterated, disintegrated.”

“But why?” Flinx pleaded, uncomprehending. “Look at him.” He gestured at the innocent, versifying creature. “Why would anyone want such a harmless creature killed, and why take such pains to do it?” Turning back to face Truzenzuzex, his next question revealed how much he had grown since they had last seen him. “Even more interesting, why would two individuals of your abilities want to go to the trouble of preventing it?”

“Why did you bother to rescue him that first time, before we could do so?” Tse-Mallory asked.

Flinx didn’t book at him as he replied irritably, “I have a talent for getting my nose stuck in other people’s business. I spend a lot of time trying to yank it out. Actually, I didn’t intend to interfere. It was Pip who—” He broke off in mid-sentence.

“I do not see the minidrag,” Truzenzuzex admitted. “Your pet is dead?”

“Not dead,” Flinx corrected him. “But I don’t really know. This is the planet of Pip’s birth. The man who guided me here also had a tame minidrag, Balthazaar. Both flew away together, in the middle of the night. Possibly forever, although,” he added hopefully, “there’s always a chance they’ll return.” His tone grew firm. “You’re both trying to distract me. I’m not setting foot in any kind of skimmer with you two devious old men”—Truzenzuzex made a clacking noise—“until I find out why someone wants poor Ab killed and why you both want him alive.” He shook his head in puzzlement. “It doesn’t seem to me that either Ab or myself is worth all the attention that’s been given to us.”

Bran Tse-Mallory responded by glancing impatiently from Flinx to the rubble-and-body-littered temple entrance. “This isn’t the place or time, Flinx.”

Flinx folded his arms and took a seat on a nearby stone. “I disagree.”

Isili Hasboga was picking sadly through the remnants of her scientific equipment. As she spoke, she brushed strands of hair from her face. “I have to agree with your friends, Flinx. The Otoid will come back, twice as many the next time. When they do return, I don’t want to be here.”

“Sorry, silly,” said September. “I have to side with the boy.” He flashed Flinx a look of support. “You’ve got some interesting friends for one your age, feller-me-lad. Stay obstinate. I’ll stay, too.”

“Very well then,” whistled Truzenzuzex exasperatedly. “Bran?”

Tse-Mallory made a negative sound. He eyed September, who was rocking on his heels, humming to himself and supremely indifferent to the possibly imminent arrival of several thousand rampaging aborigines. “If you’ll pick up that formidable-looking Mark Twenty, Mr. September, and come outside with me, we’ll keep watch while these two chatter.” September nodded his acquiescence and moved to shoulder the rifle. “Try to be brief, will you, Tru?” Tse-Mallory asked his companion.