Flinx Transcendent_ A Pip & Flinx Adventure - Alan Dean Foster [202]
Stripping him out of the survival suit, they carefully laid him out in the Teacher's tiny, infrequently used dispensary and waited while the ship's instrumentation examined him. A pile of brightly colored iridescent blue and pink coils on a nearby folded towel, a twitching Pip was slowly returning to awareness.
Snuffling uncontrollably, Clarity peered down at the motionless figure on the padded table. Perched on her left shoulder, Scrap stretched out to lick tears from her master's cheeks. Flinx's eyes remained shut and his chest did not move.
“Is—is he dead?” She had to struggle to get her voice above a whisper.
“No.” The Teacher responded calmly as attenuated probes and medical scanners mounted on the ends of flexible mechanical arms passed back and forth over the lean masculine shape.
Clarity sucked in air. “Then he's alive.”
“No,” the ship declared, repeating itself.
“Explain your diagnosis,” Tse-Mallory demanded smartly.
The Teacher responded in the same unvarying tone it had employed since it had begun the examination. “He is barely taking in oxygen. Despite what you may see, his heart continues to beat, but at a rate slowed to five percent of normal. His pulse is present, but barely. Yet his brain exhibits functionality that is not merely normal but considerably heightened. Cerebral regions customarily quiescent in all humans are presently active.”
“My head is killing me,” a voice unexpectedly mumbled from the table, “but that's nothing new.”
“Flinx!” Heedless of any effect it might have on him, Clarity threw herself at the table and did her best to wrap him in her arms.
Responding to the contact, his chest suddenly gave a great swell upward. His mammoth intake of breath could have been heard all the way to the front of the ship. As his lungs contracted, he coughed violently.
“As an aid to improved respiration,” a startled but joyful Sylzenzuzex suggested as she looked on, “you might begin by removing a present impediment to his breathing.”
“Oh, right. Sorry.” Disengaging her mouth from Flinx's, an abashed Clarity stepped back. But she did not let go of his right hand, which continued to dangle over the side of the table. She wasn't sure she would ever let go of it again.
Placing a calloused palm beneath his young friend's back, Tse-Mallory helped Flinx to sit up. “How are you doing, m'boy?”
Flinx looked over at his mentor. “I'm not sure, but if my memory of recent events is valid, your ‘boy’ may just possibly have saved everything.” Searching his immediate surroundings, he located Pip. Leaning toward her, he used both hands to pick up the limp pile of coils. The minidrag's wings drooped with exhaustion, but when he placed her in his lap her head came up almost immediately. Slitted pupils met round ones. It was enough to reassure them both.
“Then it worked, zrin!!tt!”
Standing at the foot of the table where he had been monitoring Flinx's sluggish recovery, Truzenzuzex broke into a little dance. Though he had known his mentor for a very long time, Flinx mused that he had never witnessed anything like the philosoph's current physical expression of sheer joy. Looking on, he marveled at the elderly thranx's ability to execute intricate steps and twirls without getting all those legs tangled up.
“I think it did,” he affirmed. “I hope so. It felt—right. A great many things felt right.” Sudden thoughts of what was right and what was not caused him to look around sharply. Pip looked up in alarm.
“Mahnahmi,” Flinx said tightly.
Tse-Mallory met his concern as well as his gaze. “In a coma. Reverted to infancy, or a condition approximating it.” He stared hard at his young friend. “Your doing?”
Reaching up, Flinx felt gingerly of the back of his head. To his great relief, it was still there. “I can't say for sure, but I think it might be. There was a lot happening