Flinx Transcendent_ A Pip & Flinx Adventure - Alan Dean Foster [84]
“I know, I know,” Flinx muttered irritably. “I swear, you're like an old mother hen sometimes!”
“An important function of my programming, though in no wise avian. You yourself have repeatedly remarked on its importance.”
“I know that, too.” Flinx chugged the rest of his drink, deliberately chilling his mouth and throat. The headache that was coalescing at the back of his skull had nothing to do with the temperature of the liquid he was imbibing. “First Jast, then Visaria, then Gestalt, and now here.” Not for the first time he wished for a face he could look into, talk to, evaluate. But there was only the interior of the ship, with its molded walls and silent, compliant instrumentation. From the time he had accepted the ship from its builders, the Ulru-Ujurrians, he had refused to assign it a visible avatar.
He saw enough faces in his dreams.
“I've learned something from each of those visits to each of those worlds, ship. And the one thing I've decided is that I can't go on with this search by myself. I've got to have help. Support. And not just moral support of the kind offered by Bran and Tru. I don't think I can go on with this alone.”
“You are the only one who might establish contact with the wandering Tar-Aiym weapons platform that is the object of the search.” The ship's tone was simultaneously cool, unforgiving, and sympathetic. “What kind of help could you possibly need? Or find useful?”
“I'm trying to clarify.” Wrestling with words and concepts, Flinx struggled to explain himself to a machine. “It's just—it's too much for one person. It's too much for me anymore.” Looking up he found himself staring, in lieu of a face, at one of the several visual pickups that lined the room. “Maybe, at heart, that's the real reason I've kept off going back into the Blight.”
The ship lapsed into silence. When it felt that enough time had passed and the stillness had endured long enough, it inquired just as if there had been no discussion preceding its request, “Vector?”
Without hesitation this time, Flinx supplied one.
The Teacher did not delay in reacting. “You gainsay your own words. You contradict your own emotions. You do not seek the indicated destination in search of help. You have another motive. Reasons that have nothing to do with the critical search on which we are embarked.” Programming aside, the ship's tone was unabashedly accusatory.
“I understand your reaction, but you're wrong,” Flinx insisted. “Or half wrong. Yes, I have an ulterior motive for wanting to go there. But it's also where I hope to find help. The kind of help I most need. Once we're safely back in space-plus I'll fill you in on the details and try to make you understand. I know it's not an easy concept for a machine to grasp.”
“I already understand,” the shipmind grumbled. “You can parse all you want, but it will take some effort on your part to convince me that I have left anything out of my judgment. A detour is still a detour.”
That was all the Teacher had to say on the subject. Despite Flinx's demurral it knew enough about humans to follow his reasoning.
Just as it knew enough to recognize an equivocation when it heard one….
Not only was Clarity Held all wrapped up in her work, she was all worked up in her wrap. Whereas her irritation and impatience were on open display, the half-body bandage that extended from neck to waist and covered much of her torso was not. It would have taken a knowledgeable physician to spot the extensions and connectors where they emerged from the opening of the sleeveless tanning top.
Though much of the injury she had suffered in the fight to try to leave Nur with Flinx had long since healed, the bandage ensured that the skin on her back would redevelop without scars. Certainly it was more comfortable than the spray of synthetic chitin the Eint Truzenzuzex had initially used to stanch