Flinx Transcendent_ A Pip & Flinx Adventure - Alan Dean Foster [159]
The dark shadowed section of space that was the Great Emptiness drew near. That, at least, he was ready for because he had penetrated it before. Within lay an immensity of nothingness. Beyond, on the far side, lay that mindless smothering of reality it was better for sane minds not to acknowledge. Instinctively, he shunned it, turned away from it, tried his best to ignore its baleful existence.
As he struggled to keep his pitiful inner self clear of the crushing malevolence, he perceived via his massively attenuated but in no wise diminished core essence something impacting that galactic pool of horror. For the first time since he had been compelled to awareness of it, a light appeared at its forefront. Glowing argent, the collected projected discharge of the Tar-Aiym weapons platform struck the Great Evil and sliced a curving trail along its leading edge. The gash that was extending itself before Flinx's real-time acuity was hundreds of parsecs in length—and no greater in diameter than his thumb. As the space-time rip lengthened in both directions like a flash of lightning against a moonless sky, the first glimmer of radiance ever to appear on that dark shadow began to eat into it.
The Evil screamed.
Had Flinx been present physically that reaction would have shredded the atomic bonds holding together his being. It would have sent stars into overload, with novae breaking out everywhere like radiant popcorn. But in that darkness there was nothing extant, nothing solid to be destroyed. His sanity was protected by the very inimitability that allowed him to be present and to observe in the first place.
A small portion of the unidentifiable thing that was the Evil was destroyed. The parsecs-long silvery split flickered, and then faded to blackness. Having no center, no nexus, the oncoming horror could not be shattered by a single well-directed assault no matter how powerful. As a questing filament of darkness reached for him Flinx felt himself falling, falling, being drawn swiftly backward and away. Back through the Great Emptiness. Back past intervening galaxies. Back to reality. Though still in the comatose state induced by the fiery contact platform, all of him was soon back within himself.
Lying there, breathing long and deep, he remembered what he had perceived. As always, the strenuous mental journey left him sweating, exhausted, and instilled with fresh insight. The galaxy had always seemed immense. But whenever he passed witness to thousands more, it was reduced to homeliness.
WHAT CONSEQUENCE?
It took Flinx a moment to realize that the great planetary weapons platform was asking for his assessment of what had just transpired. It was seeking the opinion of a lone and lowly dust mote composed of water and a few twisted proteins that dared to aspire to cognizance.
“You hit it,” he thought without hesitation. “You hurt it. But not enough, I'm afraid. It's still coming.”
The gigantic machine voiced no disappointment. Guns do not sulk when they fail to kill.
SUCH WAS THE PREDICTION. BUT IT HAD TO BE TRIED. IT IS DIFFICULT TO FIGHT SOMETHING THAT EXISTS OUTSIDE OF THE KNOWN LAWS OF PHYSICS.
Flinx twisted slightly on the platform. “Can't you attack again?”
SEVERAL TIMES, YES. BUT OPTIONS ARE LIMITED. IF NO SUBSTANTIAL DAMAGE WAS DONE THIS TIME IT IS UNLIKELY ADDITIONAL EFFORTS WILL BE SIGNIFICANTLY MORE EFFECTIVE.
“You have to try,” Flinx entreated.
NO I DO NOT.
It was a perfectly cold and perfectly valid response. A device, the ship saw no reason to sustain an effort that was unlikely to produce a desired result. To do so would be to waste energy and effort. But not to do so, Flinx knew, meant subscribing to the inevitability of the demise of everything, the ship itself included. Then he realized that was not necessarily the case. Able to travel through space-minus at