Flinx Transcendent Part 30

"Now get dressed. Tru and I are anxious to hear in detail everything that happened to you while you were out of contact. Or at the very least, everything that you think think happened to you." happened to you."

"And I will make it my responsibility to check on our guests." Sylzenzuzex started out of the dispensary. "They will be very unhappy to learn that we believe that Flinx has, with the aid of the Xunca apparatus, eliminated the rationale for the continued existence of their disagreeable Order."

When the others had departed, Clarity once again moved close to Flinx, looking on as he slowly continued dressing. Utterly fatigued, Pip remained sprawled on the now empty table. Spreading his wings, an energetic Sc.r.a.p glided down to join her.

"Is there anything, Flinx, I can get you? Anything I can do for you?"

Sealing the front of the jumpsuit, he smiled tenderly down at her. What this woman had been through because of him no human being ought to have had to endure, he thought. That she had done so, had done all of it, of her own free will and out of love for him did not to any degree mitigate the sacrifices she had made on his behalf.

It was a good thing he kept such musings to himself, because had he voiced them aloud she would have told him he was being seriously silly.

Putting her arms around him, she placed her head against his chest and squeezed tight. He hugged her gently and rested his head lightly on hers.

"You may have saved civilization," she murmured. "Time and time again you've risked your life to preserve it, and no one except those on board this s.h.i.+p will ever know what you've done." Leaning back slightly, she looked up to meet his gaze. "You're fated to be the Commonwealth's ill.u.s.trious but anonymous savior, Philip Lynx."

He nodded slowly, thinking how utterly, supremely, incomparably beautiful she was.

"Clarity, that suits me just fine."

The physicians and the secure medical sh.e.l.l at the advanced long-term care-and-repair facility on Earth to whose guardians.h.i.+p they commended Mahnahmi accepted the unique case without too many questions. Preliminary diagnostics hinted at severe long-term paralysis of selected neural connections. There was a significant chance, Flinx and his companions were told, that even if repairs could be effected to the damaged areas, full recovery of memory and other functions was unlikely. The patient would live-after a fas.h.i.+on, and with her capacity for higher cognition much reduced.

Without suffering so much as a twinge of irony, Flinx made arrangements to pay for her extended treatment and care.

The downcast surviving members of the Order of Null were repatriated to their respective homeworlds and set free to spread the word that the whole foundation for their continuation as an organized society had vanished. The same surrept.i.tious monitoring of sophisticated Commonwealth astronomical instrumentation that had originally established that phenomenon as a reality now confirmed its disappearance. Having nothing left to work toward, the Order's chapters disbanded one by one.

Despite that, lingering die-hard elements that either did not receive the word or chose to disbelieve it continued to pose a potential threat. Bearing that possibility in mind, it was decided not to return to New Riviera/Nur. Having previously spent time on and caused a certain amount of trouble on Earth, Flinx felt that humankind's homeworld should also for the foreseeable future remain out of his purview. Booster was too remote and desolate to const.i.tute a realistic refuge. Both he and Clarity had flawed memories of Longtunnel. Of the other worlds that he was familiar with, Jast was too unstable, Visaria downright unpleasant, Repler pregnant with discomfiture, Gestalt too cold and full of meaning, and Midworld-as much a part of him as it had become, it was still not the kind of place where one would want to spend a honeymoon.

Honeymoon? Wasn't he getting a little ahead of himself?

Then he noticed Pip and her son, Sc.r.a.p, writhing and play-striking at one another on the folded towel and he knew he had his answer.

It was, to say the least, an uncommon ceremony.

As just one example, few couples could boast of a full thranx Eint as the Conductor of Services. Though he had never before presided over such a rite, much less one involving humans, Truzenzuzex was fully qualified and considered it a privilege to do so. Tse-Mallory was equally tickled to be asked to give away the bride. And no one could recall when a thranx, not to mention a full padre in the Security Services of the United Church, had been asked to serve as a bridesmaid at the peculiarly human ritual. Though uncertain as to her exact role, Sylzenzuzex was willing to be so conscripted.

Standing in a field of green surrounded by one of the many extensive stretches of rain forest on Alaspin, the early-morning wedding party was serenaded by a cacophonous a.s.sortment of indigenous life-forms that had not the slightest idea as to the nature of the strange exercise taking place in their midst. Tolerating occasional inspection from the occasional curious wild minidrag, Pip and Sc.r.a.p looked on from a particularly well-sited tree.

It was left to the ring-bearer to fill out the multispecies character of the ceremony. Though its purpose was utterly unfamiliar to Kiijeem, Fourth-born of the Family AVM and present on Alaspin thanks to a special diplomatic dispensation arranged by Truzenzuzex and Tse-Mallory, the modus operandi was straightforward enough. Walk a few steps, maintain a serious mien, hand over a circlet of bright metal, and in the process try not to hit anyone with your tail. Having concluded this undertaking without inflicting any damage or outrage, the young AAnn n.o.ble was surprised at how relieved he felt when he was finally able to step clear of the others.

A few very close acquaintances of the group looked on from nearby. Among them was a short, gimlet-eyed, seriously antique woman who kept the integrated cooling setting on her clothing cranked as cold as possible while she waited impatiently for the seemingly interminable proceedings to end.

"Knew that boy would spend too much on frivolities. d.a.m.ned unnecessary expensive get-together!" Brought from Moth, Mother Mastiff could hardly wait for it all to end so she could get back to Drallar. She did not trust the man she had left in charge of her shop. Though a lifelong friend, he would not have been offended by her a.s.sessment. Mother Mastiff trusted no one and n.o.body.

"At least," she muttered to herself as she used a handkerchief to mop dribs of the omnipresent heat and humidity from her forehead, "it looks like he found himself a nice girl. Maybe she'll be able to keep him from wasting his life."

An unpretentious reception followed the formal ceremony, after which the exceedingly dissimilar members of the party departed to diverse and sometimes distant regions of the Commonwealth and beyond. Tse-Mallory and Truzenzuzex to Hivehom, where closing studies of the Great Evil and its inexplicable disappearance were being hotly debated among those select scientists who had been aware of its existence. Kiijeem, Fourth-born of the Family AVM, having gained much status from his unprecedented excursion to and experience of a Commonwealth world previously unvisited by his kind, set out upon his long and carefully monitored journey homeward.

Sylzenzuzex returned to her work with United Church Security, vowing to stay in touch with her new friends as well as with her esteemed Eighth. At Alaspin's only large shuttleport, Mother Mastiff deigned to deposit a peck on Flinx's cheek and a slightly longer one on Clarity's prior to her departure for Moth.

"A strange boy, he is," she grumbled as she prepared to take her leave. "Always was. But he has a good heart. I was never able to keep him out of trouble. Maybe you'll have better luck." Before Clarity could offer a reply the old woman let out a disdainful snort and turned away, heading for the final boarding area as her last words lingered behind her. "But I doubt it."

Looking for a safe place to relax at last, the new couple chose to settle on Cachalot. It proved the perfect choice. The small human population was too busy to have time to pry into the lives of new arrivals. Flinx and Clarity could spend the majority of their time on an automated sailing s.h.i.+p out of sight and out of contact with the rest of the civilization he had saved, and whenever they found themselves isolated or in need of company there always seemed to be a chatty cetacean escort ready to accompany their rented craft. The climate was semitropical, the alien sea idyllic, and for the first time in memory Flinx was untroubled by his persistent headaches.

So it was that after several weeks Clarity was surprised to find him sitting one morning on the prow of their craft, staring out to sea and looking uncertain and depressed. Pip lay coiled sound asleep around his right arm and shoulder, her iridescent scales s.h.i.+mmering in the sun.

"Flinx?"

He looked back at her and mustered a halfhearted smile. She could not have surprised him, she knew. You couldn't surprise Philip Lynx, who felt your feelings coming. She sat down beside him, letting her bare legs dangle off the front of the boat. White spume gurgled merrily beneath the bow. Gliding skalats, the sunlight s.h.i.+ning through their quadruple membranous wings, hovered off the starboard side, riding the same breeze that drove the boat forward.

"Is everything all right?" Sudden alarm shot through her. "The thing that was coming this way, the Great Evil-it is is gone, isn't it? All of it?" gone, isn't it? All of it?"

He nodded. "It's gone, Clarity. All of it."

"Then," she inquired uncertainly, "what's wrong?"

Turning away from her so she would not have to gaze upon his melancholy visage, he stared out to sea. The horizon was distant, flat, and calm. Only when after a while her hand came up to rest gently on his arm did he look back at her. Though she felt that by now she knew him as well as anyone possibly could, his expression at that moment was quite unreadable.

"Is it me?" she asked in a timid, apprehensive voice.

"No. Oh, no, Clarity!" The verve of his reaction rea.s.sured her, though it did nothing to reveal the source of his apparent discontent. "Nothing about you could ever ever disappoint me." disappoint me."

"Well then," she prodded him a little more forcefully, "what is is it?" it?"

He looked away again and it struck her then that he was not upset. It seemed, actually, that he might in fact be just a little embarra.s.sed. He did not, could not, meet her eyes.

"I'm-bored."

ALAN DEAN FOSTER has written more than a hundred books in a variety of genres, including hard science fiction, fantasy, horror, detective, western, historical, and contemporary fiction. He is the author of the New York Times New York Times bestseller bestseller Star Wars: The Approaching Storm Star Wars: The Approaching Storm and the popular Pip & Flinx novels, as well as novelizations of several films, including and the popular Pip & Flinx novels, as well as novelizations of several films, including Transformers, Star Wars Transformers, Star Wars, the first three Alien Alien films, and films, and Alien Nation Alien Nation. His novel Cyber Way Cyber Way won the Southwest Book Award for Fiction in 1990, the first science fiction work ever to do so. Foster and his wife, JoAnn Oxley, live in Prescott, Arizona, in a house built of brick that was salvaged from an early-twentieth-century miners' brothel. He is currently at work on several new novels and media projects. For more about the author, go to won the Southwest Book Award for Fiction in 1990, the first science fiction work ever to do so. Foster and his wife, JoAnn Oxley, live in Prescott, Arizona, in a house built of brick that was salvaged from an early-twentieth-century miners' brothel. He is currently at work on several new novels and media projects. For more about the author, go to www.alandeanfoster.com.

By Alan Dean Foster

Published by The Random House Publis.h.i.+ng Group

The Black Hole

Cachalot

Dark Star

The Metrognome and Other Stories

Midworld

Nor Crystal Tears

Sentenced to Prism

Splinter of the Mind's Eye

Star Trek Logs OneTen Logs OneTen

Voyage to the City of the Dead

...Who Needs Enemies?

With Friends Like These...

Mad Amos

The Howling Stones

Parallelities

Stories:

Impossible Places

Exceptions to Reality

The Icerigger Trilogy:

Icerigger

Mission to Moulokin

The Deluge Drivers

The Adventures of Flinx of the Commonwealth:

For Love of Mother-Not

The Tar-Aiym Krang

Orphan Star