Flinx Transcendent_ A Pip & Flinx Adventure - Alan Dean Foster [145]
Tse-Mallory did not blink, did not look away as he replied to her. “I'm afraid, my dear, that he is.”
“Well, I don't care what you think. I've been exposed to this impending horror in more depth than any of you, and I know it won't be here tomorrow, or the next day. There's nothing that can't wait a day or two.”
“The weapons platform whose assistance we seek may not wait,” Truzenzuzex told her. “In a day or two it may travel millions of units of distance. In a week, tens of millions.” He eyed Flinx as the latter sipped from a flexible, self-chilling liquids container. “One does not dawdle with the fate of civilization at stake.”
“It doesn't matter.” Draining the last of the bottle's contents, Flinx leaned against Clarity. Sliding downward, he ended up with his head in her lap. Pip took the opportunity to slither onto her master's body, forming a series of solid serpentine coils on his stomach.
In the absence of eyelids Truzenzuzex's gaze could not narrow, but his tone conveyed the same effect. “What do you mean, ‘it doesn't matter’? Are you once again sliding into depression even as you slide backward on your fundament?”
“No, not at all.” Flinx gazed contently up at Clarity, who bestowed on him the smile that never failed to improve all manner of injuries, physical and otherwise. “I mean that it doesn't matter because we don't need to hurry to make contact with the weapons platform.”
Tse-Mallory eyed the ever-unpredictable youth uncertainly. “Why not? What Tru just stated holds true.”
“I realize that.” With a pained sigh Flinx closed his eyes, this time, he hoped, to see, feel, and experience as little as possible. “I mean that we don't have to hurry to make contact with the weapons platform because it's coming here….”
Flinx knew what was coming because the Krang had communicated that much to him and because he had sensed it for himself, but a time frame had not been part of the exchange. The weapons platform was coming to Booster. If the Krang was to be believed, that much was a certainty. When it would arrive the great machine could not say. When Tse-Mallory gently suggested to Flinx that he go back under the dome and try to find out, Clarity Held went up one side of the brawny sociologist and down the other. Flinx himself had no way of knowing what another attempt so soon at communication with the ancient alien device might do to him. It might result in him receiving a dose of cerebral enhancement, as had the original connection years earlier. Or his simple organically wired human brain might finally snap under the strain.
So they waited. While they did so, Clarity and Flinx and Sylzenzuzex took to exploring the sprawling dead city while the two scientists amused themselves trying to extract harmonic fractals from the recording the skimmer had made of the Tar-Aiym music.
A week passed before the Teacher relayed an alarm from shuttlecraft to the skimmer and onward to their individual communits.
“Something has emerged from space-plus to assume a position beyond this system's outermost planet.”
“I know.” Flinx hastened to reassure his vessel's wary AI. “The visitor is expected.”
“Recognizing it and recalling its capabilities, I am most relieved to hear that, Flinx. Its parameters appear to be unchanged. It is as we encountered it previously, some six years ago. The exact time of concurrence …”
“Not necessary,” Flinx told his ship. “I remember.”
“You remember everything.” The ship was not trying to flatter, merely stating fact.
“The luxury of forgetfulness is one that always seems to escape me.” Twisting his head, he glanced down at Pip. The minidrag was sleeping soundly on his shoulder. Seeing his pet so often at peace, he regretted being unable to change places with her.
Rising from where he was sitting deep at the edge of the amphitheater, he tilted back his head to take what