Flinx Transcendent_ A Pip & Flinx Adventure - Alan Dean Foster [91]
Though appropriately abashed, he did not try to evade the issue. “A galaxy in need of saving, Clarity.”
She nodded briskly. “Uh-huh. We talked about it, remember? We also talked about you and me. We talked about that, too.” She indicated their surroundings, taking in the beurre lawn, the structural complex, the lake, and by inference the entire welcoming world of Nur.
“You were gone over a year. More than enough time for me to heal—physically. How long are you here for this time? A week? A month?” Her unhappiness was manifest in her tone as well as her expression. “I'm not letting you leave again. Ever. Not without me. I can't take it. I wouldn't have made a good wife to an ancient Terran sea captain, Flinx, waving understandingly as her husband disappeared over the horizon for two or three years to hunt cetaceans, or discover uncharted islands, or …”
She was crying now. Tenderly, he took her in his arms. One moment she was sobbing against his chest and the next she was pounding on it with both fists. “I won't let you leave me again, Philip Lynx! I won't! I'll have your heart if I have to cut it out and keep it next to me in a cryosac!”
He smiled affectionately down at her. “I've never met another woman capable of such an extreme degree of homicidal affection. You really think I would risk losing someone so unique? Okay.”
Sniffling, furious at her own emotional vulnerability, she rubbed crossly at first one weeping eye and then the other as she frowned up at him uncertainly. “‘Okay’? What the hell do you mean, ‘okay’?”
“I mean okay, that I concur.” He stared evenly into her damp eyes. “I'll never leave you again.”
Anger and ardor merged in confusion. “You're giving up your search? For the Tar-Aiym weapons platform? But what about the Great Evil, the danger that's coming toward us from out of the Great Emptiness? You showed it to me, I know it's real. Have you given up all hope of somehow confronting it?”
What is it you want me to do? he thought in bewilderment. Marry you or save civilization? Make up your mind. He felt a headache starting, only this time the basis was utterly different from the one that usually plagued him.
“No, I haven't,” he finally replied. “Here lately it seems I was always getting sidetracked by other matters, but that's all over and done with now. I've recommitted myself. I intend to do my utmost to relocate that example of ancient advanced technology—even though I don't think it will do any good. Not when pitted against what's coming this way. But I promised Tse-Mallory and Truzenzuzex that I'd try to find it, and that's what I'm going to do. With one adjustment.”
She blinked, waiting. “Adjustment? What adjustment?”
“You're coming with me. Just as you were supposed to do before the fanatics from the Order of Null attacked us at the shuttleport outside Sphene.” He lowered his eyes. “That is,” he mumbled awkwardly, “if you still want to.”
Staring back at him, she sounded incredulous. “You didn't stick around long enough for me to heal sufficiently or I'd have gone with you this last time. Do you really think I'd say no now?”
“I—I wasn't sure. After leaving you that way…. Clarity, everything was happening so fast. I felt I had no choice. Bran and Tru felt I had no choice.” He met her gaze once again. Strolling staff and patients were staring at them, murmuring and pointing. He ignored them.
“I've learned more about myself since I've been away. A lot more. Some of those things I needed to know, like whether civilization is really worth saving. Some were things I didn't want to know. Some I had to know the answers to whether I wanted to learn them or not. I'm still struggling to deal with the consequences.” He would tell her what he had discovered about his patrimony later, he decided.
She saw the pain in his face, heard it in his voice. “And,” she whispered as she put a hand on his arm, “what have you decided? Are you continuing with this crazy search to