The End of the Matter

by Alan Dean Foster

  “Truzenzuzex!” he shouted, stumbling forward past a dumbfounded September. “Bran Tse-Mallory!”

  Chapter Ten

  The two partners, prospector and archeologist, stared blankly as their young visitor exchanged noisy greetings with the two peculiar saviors.

  Tse-Mallory was smiling his thin little smile, which masked more enthusiasm than it ever revealed. The Eint Truzenzuzex made clicking sounds in High Thranx indicative of greeting mixed with great pleasure, then added in Terranglo: “Again to see you is a delight, young Flinx.”

  September gazed open-mouthed at the evident reunion; then his brows furrowed in concentration and he simply watched and listened.

  “I am warmed mentally and emotionally, though I cannot be physically,” announced the thranx philosoph. “So I must . . . ask you to remove your arms from . . . around my b-thorax . . . so I can . . . breathe.”

  “Oh, sorry,” Flinx apologized, removing his arms from around the old insect. Once again the eight breathing spicules pulsed freely. “But what are you doing here, Old friends? Of all the places in the universe, this is the last that I’d expect—”

  “Everything in its proper time plane, lad,” Tse-Mallory broke in, making calming motions with both hands. “At present, I suggest we remove ourselves from this confined place. The aborigines who are left may elect to return. We would not be able to properly direct our skimmer’s weapons from this deep in the earth.”

  “I’m for that,” grunted September, willing to accept salvation without explanation. “The rent on this rat hole’s been paid.” He gathered up his Mark Twenty.

  Led by Tse-Mallory, the little party of saviors and survivors started back down the tunnel.

  Hasboga increased her stride to come up alongside Flinx. She was relieved, confused, and wary all at once. “You obviously know these two,” she murmured accusingly.

  “They’re old friends, as I said,” Flinx readily confessed.

  “What are they doing here? Not that I’m sorry they appeared, you understand,” she added hastily, lest she seem ungrateful, “but you told us you were here alone, except for the one dead in the temple.”

  “I told you the truth,” Flinx insisted easily. “I was as surprised to see them as you and September were.” At a sudden thought, he glanced back over his shoulder. Sure enough, Ab was still sitting back in the alcove, playing with rocks.

  “Move it, Abalamahalamatandra!” he shouted impatiently.

  Ab looked up from where he was squatting near the rear of the wide place in the tunnel. “Come some, fly high,” he murmured, perhaps to himself, maybe to Flinx, possibly to nothing and no one in particular.

  Twelve stones were arranged in a neat circle in front of Ab. With additional stones the addled alien was creating an abstract and seemingly meaningless design in the center of the circle. He had found the stones in a small hollow in the floor where his foot had fallen through during the fighting.

  At his master’s urging, he rapidly pushed the stones, diamonds, tanzanites, and a couple of fist-sized black emeralds back into the little hole. They fell the half meter to the bottom of the hollow. One of them bounced off an Alaspinian doubledevil mask, a meter high and wide, made of solid platiniridium and faced entirely with faceted jewels. It lay atop a small hillock of similar artwork.

  “Go flow,” ordered Ab as he scrambled to his feet and gamboled down the corridor after Flinx.

  Emerging into the central temple chamber they had abandoned earlier, the tired survivors were greeted by the warmth and friendly daylight filtering in through the gallery window high above and through the once-dark doorway. Fragments of broken wood from the shattered makeshift door lay strewn all over the floor.

  Hasboga took one look and moaned at the sight of the supplies they had been unable to take with them into the tunnel. Everything edible was gone, everything nonorganic broken, torn, battered into uselessness. The sleeping mattress was tiny flakes of plastic drifting in the gentle jungle breeze. Their autochef, the sole means of synthesizing a decent meal, was scrap metal, the smaller sections missing. Undoubtedly the cannibalized metal would find its way into hundreds of Otoid arrowheads.

  “That’s the end of it,” she sighed, bending over and picking listlessly through pieces of a shredded dream. “I’ve no grant money to replace this.” She probed through the rubble and held up a bent, half-unwound spool of study tape.

  “How they hate us,” she murmured. “Why?”

  A hand the size of a good book covered her right shoulder. September looked down at her with a mixture of paternal and nonpaternal affection. “We’ll scrape up the credit somewhere, Isili, if you really want to come back here one day. It’s only money. I’ve been richer and broker than this a couple of dozen times in my life. The scale always balances.”

  “Not for me it doesn’t,” she replied viciously, throwing the tape into the rest of the vandalized pile. She sniffed loudly. “I will not cry. It’s unscientific and unbecoming and solves nothing.”

  “Damn right,” agreed September, turning away from her so she could let the tears flow without embarrassment. “I said we’d raise the credit from somewhere, and we will!” He studied the Otoid bodies which lay strewn about the chamber. Several black-lipped holes showed in the temple walls. Both were testimony to the effectiveness of whatever weapons the two odd newcomers claimed to have in their skimmer. “They paid for it,” the giant finished, examining the Otoid dead.

  “Our sorrows to you,” Truzenzuzex clicked, making a gesture which looked much like a sign of blessing, “but we should hurry. Those who would return would be angrier than the ones who lie quietly here.” The aged philosoph watched as September moved to comfort Hasboga. “We don’t know you and you do not know us,” he pointed out. “We have access to certain funds. Your loss touches me.” The valentine head swiveled slightly; he looked up at the tall human standing nearby. “Bran, may we not aid these two?”

  Hasboga brightened and looked uncertainly from man to insect. “Noble sirs, we’d be forever in your debt!”

  “We are not nobles,” Tse-Mallory corrected briskly. “My name you now know. My companion”—he touched the insect’s b-thorax lightly—“is a theoretical philosopher holding the rank of Eint among the thranx. We were both once of the United Church and served it.”

  “Who do you serve now, Tse-Mallory?” asked September.

  The slightly wrinkled face smiled cryptically. “Our own curiosities. Your names, sir?”

  “Isili Hasboga, my boss,” September responded, ignoring the disgusted look she gave him, “and I’m Skua September. We’d appreciate any loan you could make us, humanx.”

  Tse-Mallory found himself looking eye to eye with a man twice his own mass. “September . . . that name I know from something.”

  The giant grinned. “Can’t imagine how or where from, Tse-Mallory, sir.”

  “I see you are not violently opposed,” Truzenzuzex told his friend. “We can discuss matters of money and memory later, after we have left this dangerous place. If you will all hurry,” he once more urged them, “our skimmer is hovering just outside.”

  Everyone moved . . . less one.

  Flinx had not heard much of the preceding conversation. He stood off to one side, staring down at the eyeless body of Pocomchi. Now he turned sharply.

  “Just a minute.” While the others stopped to stare at him, he moved as if he had all the time in the world and started brushing dirt and dust and gravel off Ab. As always, the alien allowed himself to be cleaned without comment.

  “Everyone’s in too much of a hurry,” he continued. “Me, I’m not going anywhere with anyone until I get some things straight in my own mind.” Truzenzuzex stared at him disapprovingly, but Flinx was firm. “Not with you or with Bran, until we . . .” Something clicked and now he spoke rapidly. “You’ve both been following me. You must have been following me, or you wouldn’t be here now. Unless you have some dealings with September or Isili, and judging from the little excha
nge I just overheard, you didn’t know each other until just a few minutes ago.”

  September looked curious, Hasboga merely confused.

  “I don’t know why you’ve been following me,” Flinx went on forcefully. “I want to know.” After a brief pause, he added, almost indifferently, “It was you two who killed all those Qwarm back in the warehouse on Moth, when I was on my way to the shuttleport.”

  Hasboga’s confusion gave way to the kind of worry and nervousness that mention of the assassin clan always engendered. “Qwarm? What’s this about Qwarm?” She eyed Flinx as if he had suddenly turned into a dangerous disease.

  “Quiet,” instructed September. “Let them talk it out, Isili.”

  “Oh no,” she objected, “not this lady. Credit loan or no credit loan, I don’t want anything from anyone who’s had dealings with the Qwarm.” She smiled gratefully but cautiously at Tse-Mallory. “Thanks for your offer of aid, sir, but you can keep your money and your arguments with the Qwarm to yourselves. We’ll raise the credit elsewhere.”

  Tse-Mallory finished listening, then turned back to Flinx as if Hasboga had never opened her mouth. “Yes, we killed them before they could kill you, Flinx.”

  That explained the fading mental screams and sounds Flinx had sensed while fleeing from the warehouse. Tse-Mallory and Truzenzuzex, those aged beings, had been concluding their grisly work. No doubt the Qwarm had been very much surprised.

  “Then you have been following me,” he declared, more curious than accusing.

  “All the way from Moth,” Tse-Mallory replied, “but you are only partially correct, Flinx.”

  Truzenzuzex raised a truhand and foothand, pointed to Flinx’s left and behind him. “Primarily, Flinx, we’ve been trying to catch up with it.”

  For a second Flinx stood staring blankly at the philosoph. Then he turned and gazed silently behind him. So did September and Hasboga.

  Ab noticed all the silent attention, giggled his alien giggle, and began to rhyme noisily at his new audience.

  Flinx turned away from his charge, to eye the myriad corpses scarring the temple floor, the ruins of September and Hasboga’s camp, and discovered that try as he might he couldn’t find a thread of logic in anything that had happened.

  September was apparently of the same mind. “You two have been chasing that crazy four-legged whatsis,” he announced in disbelief, “and killing Qwarm because of it?” He shook his massive head in amazement, that great proboscis cleaving the air like a fan. “You don’t look like madmen.”

  “Neither are the Qwarm,” Flinx added dazedly. “Why is Ab’s death so important to them?”

  “Abalamahalamatandra, you called to it back there in the tunnel,” Tse-Mallory mused maddeningly, ignoring everyone’s questions. “Ab for short. It has a name. Interesting.”

  “You’re avoiding me, Bran,” Flinx half snapped at the tall Oriental. “That’s not the Tse-Mallory I know who pondered the inner workings of the Krang. Why do the Qwarm want Ab dead?”

  “Not the Qwarm,” corrected Truzenzuzex quietly. “Never the Qwarm. If they want anyone dead, it’s you, Flinx, because of the trouble you’ve caused them. But to them Ab is only a statistic at the end of a voucher. They are hired by those who want others dead, in this case your accidental companion.” The philosoph looked sad, angry. “The Qwarm clan is a lingering evil from unenlightened, pre-Amalgamation times. Why the Church and Commonwealth tolerate it I have never understood. As for Ab there are impressive forces that want him extinguished. Not simply dead, but obliterated, disintegrated.”

  “But why?” Flinx pleaded, uncomprehending. “Look at him.” He gestured at the innocent, versifying creature. “Why would anyone want such a harmless creature killed, and why take such pains to do it?” Turning back to face Truzenzuzex, his next question revealed how much he had grown since they had last seen him. “Even more interesting, why would two individuals of your abilities want to go to the trouble of preventing it?”

  “Why did you bother to rescue him that first time, before we could do so?” Tse-Mallory asked.

  Flinx didn’t book at him as he replied irritably, “I have a talent for getting my nose stuck in other people’s business. I spend a lot of time trying to yank it out. Actually, I didn’t intend to interfere. It was Pip who—” He broke off in mid-sentence.

  “I do not see the minidrag,” Truzenzuzex admitted. “Your pet is dead?”

  “Not dead,” Flinx corrected him. “But I don’t really know. This is the planet of Pip’s birth. The man who guided me here also had a tame minidrag, Balthazaar. Both flew away together, in the middle of the night. Possibly forever, although,” he added hopefully, “there’s always a chance they’ll return.” His tone grew firm. “You’re both trying to distract me. I’m not setting foot in any kind of skimmer with you two devious old men”—Truzenzuzex made a clacking noise—“until I find out why someone wants poor Ab killed and why you both want him alive.” He shook his head in puzzlement. “It doesn’t seem to me that either Ab or myself is worth all the attention that’s been given to us.”

  Bran Tse-Mallory responded by glancing impatiently from Flinx to the rubble-and-body-littered temple entrance. “This isn’t the place or time, Flinx.”

  Flinx folded his arms and took a seat on a nearby stone. “I disagree.”

  Isili Hasboga was picking sadly through the remnants of her scientific equipment. As she spoke, she brushed strands of hair from her face. “I have to agree with your friends, Flinx. The Otoid will come back, twice as many the next time. When they do return, I don’t want to be here.”

  “Sorry, silly,” said September. “I have to side with the boy.” He flashed Flinx a look of support. “You’ve got some interesting friends for one your age, feller-me-lad. Stay obstinate. I’ll stay, too.”

  “Very well then,” whistled Truzenzuzex exasperatedly. “Bran?”

  Tse-Mallory made a negative sound. He eyed September, who was rocking on his heels, humming to himself and supremely indifferent to the possibly imminent arrival of several thousand rampaging aborigines. “If you’ll pick up that formidable-looking Mark Twenty, Mr. September, and come outside with me, we’ll keep watch while these two chatter.” September nodded his acquiescence and moved to shoulder the rifle. “Try to be brief, will you, Tru?” Tse-Mallory asked his companion.

  “If there is one among us who is guilty of persistent loquacity,” came the reply smoothly, “it is not I.”

  “Debatable” was Tse-Mallory’s simple retort, as he followed September up the steps leading out of the temple.

  “Not without being guilty of the crime of debating!” shouted Truzenzuzex, but by that time Tse-Mallory and September were out of hearing range.

  On the grass outside, both men took up positions on board the skimmer. “The lad indicated the thranx is an Eint and philosoph,” September said conversationally. “What of you?”

  “I mentioned we were at one time both in the service of the Church. I was a Chancellor Second.”

  September appeared impressed, though not awed. “Pretty high. Wouldn’t have guessed it. Myself, I never had much use for the Church.”

  “Nor did Tru and I, after a while. That’s why we left it.” Jungle sounds drifted innocently out of the green wave, helped them relax a little. “And you, sir?”

  “Oh, I’ve done a little bit of everything,” September replied modestly, “and had a little bit of everything done to me.” He did not elaborate, and Tse-Mallory did not pry.

  Settling himself down on his four trulegs, Truzenzuzex folded truhands and gestured with foothands as he talked. Behind Flinx, Ab was arranging stones in a circle (ordinary stones, this time) and singsonging softly to himself.

  “Flinx, what do you know of the double-world system Carmague-Collangatta and the planet Twosky Bright?”

  Flinx thought a moment, then looked blank. “Little more than what you’ve just told me, their names. I’ve never been to either. I think they’re all well-populated, hig
hly developed worlds.”

  “Correct,” said Truzenzuzex, nodding. “All three are important contributors to the Commonwealth economy; stable, advanced worlds. They’re all going to die . . . or at least most of the people on them are—probably the worlds themselves, also.”

  “Their suns are going nova,” Flinx guessed. He frowned. “That would be quite a coincidence.”

  “I would expect you to be an expert on coincidences, boy. Your assumption is incorrect. The situation is this. Many years ago, but not too many, a Commonwealth science probe mapping behind the dark nebula called the Velvet Dam discovered a sun disappearing into nothingness. Of course, it wasn’t disappearing into nothingness, only into something that partook of the aspect of nothingness.”

  “I don’t think I understand,” Flinx admitted.

  “You will. Your Lewis Carroll would have. He was a physicist himself, I think? No matter. The star in question was being smashed down into a rogue black hole. Such an object has been theorized, but this is the first one detected. Its course has been determined. We know enough to predict that only a small percentage of the populations of all three worlds could be rescued before their respective suns vanish into the rogue.”

  Flinx’s own problems were forgotten as he tried to conceive of disaster on the scale Truzenzuzex was describing to him. He sat quietly, thinking, before it occurred to him to ask, “But why tell me this? What does it have to do with your being here?”

  Truzenzuzex shifted his stance slightly, his claws making tiny scratching sounds on the tunnel. “Because your acquisition, your acquaintance, your ward, or whatever you wish to call him”—he pointed with a tru-hand at the rhyming Ab—“may be the one possible chance for those worlds’ salvation.”

  Having nothing intelligent to respond to that incredible bit of information with, Flinx kept silent.

  “A black hole is the ultimate state of collapsed matter, usually a star which has fallen in on itself,” the philosoph explained. “In the case of the rogue, we believe that it may consist of not one but many collapsed stars. Dozens, perhaps hundreds. We do not have instrumentation capable of telling us by direct measurement, but we can approximate from the speed with which the star detected by the probe was absorbed. For a collapsar, the mass of the rogue is immense.”