Flinx Transcendent_ A Pip & Flinx Adventure - Alan Dean Foster [106]
Clarity did not scream. Some time ago, Flinx had introduced her to something that was genuinely worth screaming about: the very incarnation and manifestation of evil and annihilation whose approach these people sought to facilitate. So the explosive, messy demise of the man who had been standing next to her did not stagger her. Only filled her with emptiness.
“You didn't have to kill him,” she observed in dismay. “He was just a medtech who liked me. You could have let him go. He didn't believe in you even when I explained who you are and what you're about.”
“He saw us,” replied the rotund speaker through his amplifier card. “He saw faces. You are going to disappear, and it was apparent that he was enamored enough of you to follow up on your disappearance. Above nearly all else, we of the Order value our anonymity. Sometimes distasteful steps must be taken to preserve it.”
As the two suited figures reached the net and began working with the folds, Scrap kept spitting at them, trying to bring them down. His aim was impeccable, but the caustic venom could not penetrate the multiple layers of the military visors. As the man working the net had foretold, after a while the minidrag's store of venom grew exhausted. At that point they were able to handle the fighting, squirming serpentine shape without concern. Manipulated by four strong hands, Scrap was maneuvered into a transparent double-walled box whose airholes were offset to prevent him from spitting his toxin outside. Clarity had her wrists fastened behind her and her ankles secured with flexible straps to a small horizontal crossbar. Thus bound, she could walk but not run.
The forward cabin was large enough to accommodate all six of the boat's occupants. None struck her as experienced sailors, but on central Nur's placid and cultivated waters oceangoing skills were hardly a requirement for operating a watercraft. The boat's integrated automated systems handled any required seamanship, leaving its passengers free to enjoy the experience.
A large triangular sprowel had been thrown over Clarity's shoulders. As the thousands of filaments of the specially treated quasi-animate hydrophonic material reacted to the water on her skin and began to warm and dry her, firm hands guided her toward one of the boat's consoles. Beyond, through the craft's curving foreport, she could see the shoreline and in the distance the familiar profile of the rehabilitation facility where she had spent so many months and subsequent visits convalescing, healing, and recovering. For all that she could presently access, its facilities might as well have been situated in a different star system.
Poor Barryn, she found herself thinking. If she'd had any inkling the Order was still interested in Flinx, she would have shunned the medtech from the first day he had paid any serious attention to her. It had been his misfortune to become infatuated. With a start she remembered what Flinx had once told her: people who found themselves swept up in his orbit often came to an unpleasant end. Exactly that had happened to the well-meaning Tambrogh Barryn. Now it appeared that the same was to be true of her.
Having put away the no-longer-needed amplifier, the deceptively innocent-looking man spoke to her as his hands brushed over the quaint manual controls on the console.
“I'm sure by now you're wondering what has happened to the singular pair of guardians who have been looking out for you these past many months. We're about to find out.” His smile was almost regretful. “As I said previously, sometimes steps must be taken.”
Even if she could have broken free of her captors there was nowhere to run, and she could not swim with her wrists and ankles bound. She could only stand and watch and listen as the speaker contacted the first of the Order's two specialized assassination squads. Outwardly she was as calm and composed as