Flinx Transcendent_ A Pip & Flinx Adventure - Alan Dean Foster [139]
Within the impenetrable walls of the Krang there was no wind. It was dead quiet. Half a million years dead quiet, Flinx reminded himself. Unlike the previous visit, when he and his companions had been forced to hike across the vast space, this time they traveled across the immense amphitheater, passing its alien chair-lounges, to the far side of the structure in the seats of the comfortable skimmer. Their destination was a platform that rose slightly above the rest of the yellow-white floor.
He threatened to drown in the flood of memories that washed over him at the sight of it.
After the skimmer set down gently, he waited until everyone else had disembarked. Overcome by the sights surrounding her and by the moment, even Clarity did not linger to wonder what was holding him back. She and Scrap exited along with the others.
He followed in due course. The two scientists discoursed on their surroundings and how accurately they corresponded to their respective recollections. Clarity and Sylzenzuzex stood and marveled. But Flinx's attention was focused on the glassy, transparent dome that formed a canopy above the Tar-Aiym resting place. Like the rest of the Krang's interior, the platform was exactly as he remembered it: tilted slightly toward the amphitheater, a second smaller dome suspended above the lower, fibers and filaments and strands of alien conduit running from its pedestal to vanish into the walls and ground.
This had all happened yesterday, he told himself as he stared fixedly at the unassuming nexus of power and contemplation. In reality it had all happened more than a decade ago.
His, Bran Tse-Mallory's, and the Eint Truzenzuzex's memories were not the only ones that were stirring.
Deep within the heart of the unimaginable complexity that was the Krang, an awakening had begun. In response to the arrival of sentient beings, long-dormant connections were reestablished. Quiescent links flared to life. Illumination manifested itself in photonic blinks and flashes whose significance would have been lost on human or thranx. Bit by bit, section by section, element by element, core components of instrumentation that to an outsider would have appeared to owe their functionality more to magic than to known physics began to return to life.
At its core was a synthetic consciousness that was as different from the artificial intelligence that ran the Teacher as that simulated mind was from the brain of a fish. For the Krang, hardly any time at all had passed. Recently (“recent” being, to the Krang, in itself a highly relativistic term) there had been certain developments of significance on its watch. It divined that more of these were now in the offing.
The great machine that was the Krang had been conceived and fabricated to protect its builders and itself from external danger. The threat that now loomed, distant but all too real, was beyond its considerable capability to defeat. In consequence of that it had periodically reached through realities other than space-plus and space-minus in hopes of finding allies that might serve to counter the oncoming menace. In its devout and consistent searching it had located two. Both, it developed, were also aware of the threat. Both by themselves were equally as helpless as the ancient Tar-Aiym weapon to offer up or propose a defense against the danger.
Operating in unison offered more promising possibilities. Particularly if a force able to bind all three of them together could be found. Unfortunately, such a unique and specialized link capable of functioning over such great distances could not be engineered—certainly not in the time remaining before total annihilation arrived.
Astoundingly, unexpectedly, unpredictably, it turned out that such a force already existed. Incredibly, the necessary trigger, the requisite input, had already been contrived. Made aware of its astonishing existence, all three inconceivably