Flinx Transcendent_ A Pip & Flinx Adventure - Alan Dean Foster [158]
“The Great Evil lies much farther away still,” Flinx pointed out. “I've touched upon it, but only through means I don't pretend to understand, and certainly not physically. I presume that to affect it, it must be impacted physically. Given the extraordinary distances involved, how can this be done?”
I HAVE TRAVELED HERE THROUGH THE SUB-DIMENSION YOU CALL SPACE-MINUS. IF A SUFFICIENT FORCE IS UNLEASHED THROUGH THAT IDIOSYNCRATIC INTERPLAY OF THE COSMIC CONTINUUM, IT WILL ACCELERATE EXPONENTIALLY. DISTANCE ITSELF, AS YOUR KIND UNDERSTANDS IT, CEASES TO HAVE MEANING. TWO POINTS IN SPACE-TIME CAN, FOR A BRIEF INSTANT OF TIME, BE MADE CONGRUENT. THE CONSEQUENCES CAN BE OBSERVED IN REAL TIME. BUT NOT BY ME. ONLY BY YOU.
Flinx swallowed. Sitting, talking, passing time away from the refulgent contact platform, none of his companions noticed the brief movement in his throat—not even Clarity.
“You're going to boost me out there mentally to perceive the result, aren't you?”
I—AND OTHERS.
“About these others…,” Flinx began. He did not have time to finish the inquiry. The immense sphere was already focusing its energies elsewhere.
Deep within the core of the planet-sized machine, engines of destruction capable of generating energies that belonged more to the realm of poets than of physicists ignited for the first time in half a million years. Out on the methane-shrouded surface of the globe first one Krang came to life. Then two more, then a dozen. With no one in a position to note the spectacular, in less than a day more than a hundred of the towering devices were vibrating with readiness. Eons ago, when the Tar-Aiym did battle with their ancient enemies the Hur'rikku, the intent was for only one Krang at a time to be discharged. Such was the power of each radiant spire. Nothing in its design or programming prevented the gargantuan weapons platform of which they were a part from unleashing the energy of all of them simultaneously, however.
It did so now.
Each minuscule Schwarzchild discontinuity projected by a Krang was capable of swallowing an entire fleet. Several combined could implode an entire world into nothingness. More than a hundred discharging at once—there was no predicting what their combined effect might be because such an assault had never been unleashed before. There had never been the need for such a concentration of collapse. Defensively or offensively, a discontinuity of such scale would have amounted to serious overkill.
Flung outward through space-minus instead of existing normality, the energy of the hundred-plus Krangs pooled at a safe distance from the hovering weapons platform. A slight quiver ran through the body of the entire ship. It was the only hint of the immense discharge. Blessed with more sensitive feet and a lack of intervening footwear, Sylzenzuzex and her Eighth experienced it as a negligible tremor, one so insignificant that neither thought it worthy of mention.
As soon as the collated strike had been hurled on its way, the ship relayed the information through a different fold of space-minus back to the single Krang situated on Booster. That device in turn contacted not one but two other entities with a deep interest in both the attack and its outcome. Responding, they merged their efforts to reach outward to the vessel that was drifting beyond the edge of the galactic disk. Taking hold of a certain singular mind they found there, the amalgamated tripartite entity boosted it outward at the speed of thought.
Flinx felt that he had prepared himself and that he was ready for anything. But he never was. How could anyone, regardless of whatever twists and tricks had been implanted or had evolved in their unique mind, be ready for such a literally mind-bending alteration of consciousness?
As he had on multiple previous occasions he felt his inner