Flinx Transcendent_ A Pip & Flinx Adventure - Alan Dean Foster [194]
When neither scientist responded, she laughed loudly. With proper modulation the sound could have been as attractive as the rest of her, Tse-Mallory reflected. Except that it was cracked and broken, more a musical bray than an expression of delight.
“If you didn't follow the ship … ?” he prodded her.
Obsidian eyes looked right through him. “It seems that subsequent to our last encounter six years ago, I find it has become easier and easier to locate my brother.”
Sociologist and philosoph gaped. In his conversations with them, Flinx had more than once made offhand mention of a half sister. He had told them that she was an Adept like himself, the only other survivor of the outlawed and disbanded Meliorare Society's genetic experiments, a girl of unknown abilities. Except that the person standing before them was no longer a girl.
“You are,” Tse-Mallory whispered as he stared back at her, “Mahnahmi.”
“Not the same Mahnahmi Flinx has told you about.” Her gaze raked the room. “I'm older, stronger. More in tune with myself. I'm sure you're aware that as Flinx has aged he has gained more control of his abilities. Though we are different, in that respect we are the same. I can do things now that I could only inexactly envision the last time he and I—met. This, for example.”
Something caught Tse-Mallory's brain in a vise. Reaching up, he grabbed at the side of his head and staggered. Next to him, Truzenzuzex had half collapsed to the floor. The philosoph's antennae stood out straight and stiff from his skull and a steady low whistle emerged from his collapsing spiracles. As fast as it had hit, the pain went away.
Blinking to clear his blurred vision, Tse-Mallory stared at her. She was not smiling, not laughing quietly. Just studying the two of them the way he and Tru would have devoted similar attention to any experiment.
“Six years ago I was just learning how to do that.” She spoke as calmly as if she had just used a tissue to wipe at a speck of dirt. “I'm much, much better at it now.” She started toward him. A defiant Tse-Mallory held his ground, but she was not interested in a physical confrontation. Walking past him, she stopped to gaze out the foreport at the hovering, luminant red sphere.
“My brother. The only one like me. The only one who could reasonably give me trouble or cause me grief. My mind is linked to his. He's like a disease I can't shake. His continued existence infects me when I'm in important meetings, announces itself to me when I'm trying to make critical decisions, wakes me when I sleep.” She turned back to the two attentive scientists.
“Sometime after our last meeting I learned of these good people here and of their organization. Through various means and channels I informed them that there was one individual who might, just might, somehow be able to interfere with the impending apocalypse they revere. At first they didn't believe me. Nothing merely mortal, they insisted, could possibly affect in any way the coming cleansing. I was able to show them certain things, provide information that would otherwise have been unavailable to them. Though not all were convinced that he posed a danger to their agenda, I succeeded in convincing enough of them that there was no harm in taking precautions.
“Unfortunately, despite everything I told them and showed them, despite my warnings and admonitions, they did not prepare adequately when they attempted to eliminate Flinx on New Riviera. When I arrived, in hopes of cleaning up the mess they had made, I discovered that he had left for a world that, while not a part of the AAnn Empire, was dominated by it.” She turned introspective.
“I completely lost track of him there, on a world called Jast. It was exceedingly strange, almost as if he had died. For the first time in a very long while