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“Chilarr-ah-Ksa!!tt, so true it is,” the security officer agreed. Looking past Clarity, she found herself searching the area immediately behind her friend. She could not frown—inflexible chitin rendered thranx facial expression virtually nonexistent—but she gestured her sudden distress.

“Where is Flinx?”

“Speaking of optimism…” As her voice trailed away Clarity raised a hand and pointed.

Sylzenzuzex had no difficulty identifying the distant solitary figure mounting the dais. Responding to her loud, sharp whistle of exclamation, Truzenzuzex and Tse-Mallory hurried over to see what was happening.

Clarity sighed knowingly as they approached. “I guess we'd better get ready for another concert.”

“But what is he doing?” As he tracked the progress of the familiar tall biped, Truzenzuzex could not hide his puzzlement. “Why is he going to submit himself to the stress and strain of reconnecting with the alien device? It has already indicated it cannot do anything to inhibit the advance of the approaching peril.”

“I believe,” she explained, “that he intends to ask it a question.”

Tse-Mallory was also tracking the progress of the tall redhead. “What kind of question? A question about what?”

“I don't know. Flinx doesn't tell me everything that goes on in his head. I think he's doing his best to spare me.” She gestured in the direction of the platform. “You can ask him yourself when he's finished. Maybe he'll even get an answer to his question.”

“He didn't say what the question was?” Truzenzuzex persisted.

“No.” Despite telling herself that this time she was not going to watch, she felt herself turning to join the others in gazing at the distant dais. Flinx had assured her he was not going to be under its influence for very long. That was small comfort, but she would take what she could get.

“But doesn't… ?” Sylzenzuzex began. Then her antennae flattened back against her head as she winced.

Thunder filled the Krang's interior as tame lightning emerged from the structures protruding from its walls and began to crawl ceilingward. The deafening, clashing howls of alien music assailed their ears even as flaring bursts of luminosity skipped off their retinas like stones on the flat surface of a lake. The Krang was alive again; with sight, with sound, and with presentiment. Beneath the inner of the double domes, Flinx could be seen sprawled out on the operator's platform, Pip coiled tightly above his head. Young man and ancient machine were talking again.

Reduced to the status of mere onlookers, his companions could only shield their eyes and ears and wait for the esoteric conversation to end.

AGAIN, CLASS-A MIND. I HAVE COMMUNICATED WITH THE SHIP OF THE BUILDERS. THE ATTEMPT FAILED.

“Yes.” Flinx spasmed slightly beneath the inner dome. Above his head Pip twitched and contorted, acting as a lens for his projections.

YET YOU SEEK AGAIN. I AM A WEAPON. I HAVE NOTHING MORE TO OFFER.

“I disagree. You have knowledge. I would posit a question.”

ASK.

“There is a world inhabited by three indigenous intelligent species. My people call it Horseye, the locals call it Tslamaina. Buried near one of its poles is the visible portion of an extensive instrumental complex that was put in place by a race called the Xunca, who dominated this entire portion of the galaxy before the time of the Tar-Aiym and the Hur'rikku.”

I HAVE KNOWLEDGE OF THE XUNCA. SOME. THEY WERE A GREAT PEOPLE.

Already the Krang had confessed to knowledge beyond the fragments that had been laboriously accumulated over the centuries by Commonwealth xenoarchaeologists. So excited was Flinx by the machine's revelation that he put aside the question he had come to ask in favor of another. “What—what happened to them?”

THEY WENT AWAY.

Went away. The Ulru-Ujurrians had said almost exactly the same thing.

“How did they ‘go away’?”

THAT IS NOT KNOWN.

Dead end. He returned to his original question. “It's thought that the instrumental complex on Horseye is part of an incredibly old and advanced warning system. Even though