“It will be taken care of. We can . . .” There was a pause.
Ormann waited impatiently. “What?”
When it finally responded, the voice on the other end sounded less assured than before. “Not sure. One of the guys thought he heard something.” Her assurance returned. “I’ll get back to you when it’s done.”
“Fine. Final payment will be made in the usual manner. If you have anything else to—”
A loud crash echoed over the communicator. It was followed by several sharp crackling sounds, as if something carrying a lot of voltage had suddenly violently shorted out. Ormann frowned.
“Hello?” He forgot his own admonition against using names. “Serale? Are you still there? Hello?”
Another crackling, underscored by faint voices, as of people shouting in the distance. The woman’s voice returned, breathy and with an underlying tension. “It’s nothing. A minor disturbance. Nothing my people can’t handle. We—”
Ormann stared at the communicator. “What kind of disturbance? What are you talking about? What’s going on there? Serale?”
But Serale was busy. In fact, it sounded like everyone on the other end was busy. Ormann tried to activate the communicator’s visual component. It responded immediately but with a blank screen. Either the Send on the other end still wasn’t activated, or . . .
No, he could still hear plenty of noise from the unit. Something was happening at the cabin.
As time passed without either the line going dead or any response from Serale or anyone else, he grew increasingly agitated. The “nothing my people can’t handle” was rapidly becoming, in his mind, a very real something that was giving them trouble. Did Lynx have friends on Nur he had neglected to mention, even to Clarity? Did he have associates on his ship who now had arrived to try to rescue him? The longer nothing but confused noise issued from the com unit, the greater became the executive’s anxiety.
Finally there was a response. “William Ormann? Am I speaking to William Ormann?” The query ended in a curious yet somehow familiar whistle.
He said nothing, just stared at the com unit in his hand. It lay there, cool and inorganic. He started to formulate a reply but was having difficulty remembering his name.
“I am going to assume I am speaking to William Ormann, a minor middle-level employee of Ulricam. Mr. Ormann, it has come to the attention of others that you intended to do Philip Lynx grievous bodily harm. We will not permit this.”
“You won’t permit it?” Ormann finally found his voice. “Who—who are you? Are you crew from his ship?”
A different, deeper whistling, distinctively modulated, emanated from the com. It might have been the wind or something else. “His crew. I find that amusing. Flinx would find that amusing. Although I’m sure your intention was anything but to amuse. It’s not for you to wonder who we are nor is it necessary for us to inform you. From what this young female has been telling me, you’ve done some very bad things lately, Mr. Ormann. Bad business. Unhappily, steps must be taken.”
The com unit beeped once, indicating the transmission had ceased. Try as he might, Ormann could not raise the cabin again. The voice that had spoken to him presented unforeseen complications. It had not been Serale’s voice. He suspected it was not that of one of her associates. It had certainly not been Clarity’s voice or that of the thrice-damned Lynx.
It had not even been human.
Clarity had not been able to do anything to help Flinx. He remained unconscious as two of the men swathed him in enough police-grade plastic fetters to restrain an elephant. Serale, the woman who appeared to be in charge, was talking to Bill on a com unit. Pip and Scrap in their cage were unable to help.
It was then that a figure had stepped through the open front door. The new arrival was well, even elegantly, ornamented, and, despite its evident age, carried itself with confidence. Looking around the room, gleaming golden compound eyes had taken in the seated figure of Clarity, the woman Serale standing nearby, the rattling cage on the kitchen table, and the tall young man being mummified on the couch. She thought she heard the visitor emit a small, resigned sigh. A trace of perfume emanated from him; she inhaled hints of ginger and frangipani. The two men binding Flinx halted. Serale looked over her com at the intruder.
“You will let him go. Now.” The arrival punctuated this command by reaching up with a truhand to preen his left antenna. The other truhand and right foothand cradled a sonic rifle, while the left foothand held a pistol.
The fourth member of Serale’s group, who had stepped outside a few moments earlier to attend to a call of nature, came in and leaped at the much smaller and lighter thranx from behind.
The four-foot-tall insectoid sprang to his left, both sets of vestigial wingcases snapping out to knock the human aside. The chitinous coverings were, Clarity noted even as she began struggling to try to free herself from her bonds, the dark, deep purple of advanced age.
Old or not, the agility and speed with which the thranx maneuvered himself on his four trulegs was wonderful to see. As Serale lowered her communicator and gaped at the intruder, two of her colleagues reached for their weapons. Firing pistol and rifle simultaneously, and without hesitation or fear of hitting Lynx, the multilimbed intruder shot them both.
That gave the third man time to dodge and recover and Serale long enough to swap her com unit for a handgun. Both their first shots missed the rapidly dodging thranx, who ducked behind the kitchen counter. The two humans fired again, but since the counter was constructed of composite material designed to only look like wood, holes appeared in its front, but the shots did not penetrate.
Serale directed her fire at the same spot on the counter in an attempt to punch a hole through. The noise of the small but powerful explosive charges she and her associate were firing was deafening.
No answering fire came from behind the counter. Had the thranx been hit? Clarity wondered. Or was he biding his time, preparing a counterattack?
Then Clarity noticed that the impervious container holding the two minidrags was inching its way backward. A moment later it fell behind the counter. Concentrating on breaking down the counter that was sheltering their adversary, neither Serale nor her associate noticed.
“Look out!” Serale cried when two fast and very angry minidrags shot directly toward them.
Serale pointed her weapon at the flying snakes. Her companion hesitated briefly, then dashed out the open door. A second later, the thranx’s compound eyes and antennae appeared over the edge of the counter, followed by the muzzles of two weapons.
Serale did not even have a chance to get off a shot at the minidrags before she was cut down by a burst from the thranx’s sonic rifle. The shaped acoustic charge punched a sizable hole in her neck, nearly decapitating her. Not even the spurting blood could make Clarity avert her eyes. There was still the one remaining gunman.
His scream was indistinct, showing that he had managed to run some distance. But not, clearly, far enough. Scrap returned moments later to rejoin his mother in inspecting the corpse of the woman who had been in charge. On the couch, Flinx slept on, oblivious to everything happening around him, and because of him.
Working to steady her own breathing, Clarity watched intently as the four-legged thranx ambled around the ruined end of the kitchen counter and advanced on the limp, ragdoll body of Serale. Picking up her com unit, he spoke briefly into it, then set it aside and came to Clarity. As the elderly thranx drew near, its flowery natural perfume helped to mitigate the stink of dead and dying bodies. The visitor stopped only when very close. Both antennae dipped forward to lightly stroke her forehead. It was as if she had been caressed by a pair of feathers.
“Who—who are you?” she finally stammered in symbospeech. Her eyes roved over the blue-green limbs and joints, took in the exquisitely embroidered thorax pouch and backpack. “I don’t see any peaceforcer insignia.”
“Me, a peaceforcer?” the thranx replied in perfect, remarkably unaccented terranglo. A
n amused fusion of clicks and whistles issued from behind the mandibles that formed the hard edges of its insectoid mouth. “What an amusing notion.” He set rifle and pistol aside. “I dislike guns. I would rather win a disagreement through debate.”
She nodded in the direction of three of her tormentors. “You certainly won your disagreement with them.” He wasn’t listening, she noticed. Instead, he had moved to stand over Flinx, and then he reached down to place a delicate truhand against the side of the unconscious human’s neck.
“Respiration and heart rate have slowed. Two hearts would have allowed him to recover faster, but he will be fine.” The lustrous, valentine-shaped head turned toward her. “What happened to him? I fear I was almost too late.”
“How did you know he was here?” She, apparently, was something of an afterthought to the thranx.
“All will be explained, when Flinx has awakened and can also hear and understand. Causation?”
“Oh.” She looked away, embarrassed. “My ex-boyfriend gengineered some kind of soporific that he applied to my skin but it’s activated only when I perspire. When Flinx touched me, he absorbed it through his pores.”
“Clever. It won’t affect me, of course.” The thranx took a small cutter from his thorax pouch and went to work on her bonds. “Our exoskeletons seal us against such dangerous invasions, we don’t perspire, and I’m sure the relevant chemical formulation is specific to human physiology anyway. There,” he declared a moment later.
Freed from her bonds, she rose shakily. Though of average height, she loomed over the thranx. “You still haven’t told me who you are. If not a peaceforcer, then what?”
“I am by avocation a Philosoph. My title is not peaceforcer or soldier but Eint. I am an old friend of this most interesting human. My name is Truzenzuzex. You may call me Tru.”
“True enough?” She smiled. He looked up at her but could not smile back, as his physiognomy was not designed for it. But she had the feeling he recognized the expression.
“I assure you I’ve heard all the wordplay on my name that you could possibly imagine. But if it amuses you to do so, please indulge yourself.”
“That’s all right.” This was a thranx Philosoph, she reminded herself, and one holding the exalted rank of Eint. Until she knew him better, it might be wise to confine herself to sensible speech and forgo any further jejune attempts at witticism.
She sat down beside Flinx on the couch and began to run her fingers through his hair. Wings humming, Scrap came to wrap himself around her neck. Pip settled down on her master’s hip and curled up, but remained watchful.
“How long have you known Flinx, Truzez—Tru?” Flinx’s hair, she noted not for the first time, was thick but remarkably soft, his skin still smooth and deepy tanned.
Looking around the room, the thranx stepped indifferently over the body of one of Serale’s fallen associates.
“Ever since he was an interesting boy. He’s not a boy anymore. That’s one reason we’ve spent some time trying to find him.”
“We?” Clarity frowned, glancing at the doorway behind the tranquil thranx. “You’re not alone?”
“Well, crrskk,” Truzenzuzex replied thoughtfully, “yes and no.”
Still staring in bewildered disbelief at the communicator in his hand, Ormann set it down on the desk. Up in the distant mountains, in that cabin, something had gone very, very wrong. But how? This time he had thought of everything.
At that moment, something else he had not thought of walked into his office. His visitor was taller than average, though not quite so tall as Flinx. Slim and dignified, he advanced into the room with the grace of a dancer. Very black eyes shining with intelligence peered out from beneath bushy brows in a face that was all sharp angles. Like a jumble of knives that had been overlaid with deeply tanned skin that was then pulled tight over the blades. The lips were thin, the mouth small. It was a visage that bespoke an Oriental, probably Mongolian ancestry. His hair was graying, with one streak of white running from front to back. Ormann guessed him, correctly, to be in his early eighties.
“How did you get in here?” Smiling pleasantly, Ormann’s right hand drifted toward the drawer that held a small pistol.
“Walked.”
A comedian, Ormann found himself thinking. An old comedian. “You know what I mean.” He furtively slid open the drawer. The gun lay flat in its charger. It was not a big gun. But then, given the charge it carried, it didn’t have to be.
“Your office manager let me in.”
“That will cost her. She knows not to let anyone in without first contacting me.”
“Don’t be too hard on her. She was very nice, and I can be very persuasive.”
“Can you, now?” Ormann tried not to look in the direction of the pistol. “Then maybe you can convince me why I shouldn’t have you thrown out.”
“First, because you couldn’t.” This was stated with such assurance and finality that Ormann was half tempted to believe it. “Second, because I’ve come a long way to deliver a short message.”
“Is that all?” Some of the tension in Ormann’s gut eased. “Well then, say your piece and leave. I’m very busy.”
“I know you are. My name is Bran Tse-Mallory. I am an old friend of Philip Lynx, the man you are trying very hard to get rid of. Stop.” He smiled thinly. “I told you it was a short message.”
Ormann’s brows drew together as he stared at the man who, though lean, appeared to be in excellent physical condition. He kept his hands in full view and his distance from the desk. A valet of some sort? Ormann wondered. Lynx had money, so why not a human servitor or two? However, something in the man suggested otherwise.
“I’m a sociologist.” The voice was dry, professorial. “I’m interested in all aspects of sentient behavior. Right now I’m concentrating on yours.” His voice fell. “Don’t disappoint me. Hatred hovers in the air of this room like rotting meat.”
“Not hatred,” Ormann corrected him, “determination. You say that you’re an old friend of Lynx. If that’s the case, then maybe you also know that he’s wanted by the authorities.” His fingers crept closer to the concealed pistol. “Maybe you’re even responsible for helping him in his illegal activities.”
“It’s been nearly seven years since my friend and I last saw Flinx. We came here to have a talk with him about an issue of considerable importance. A matter whose import far exceeds any personal concerns: his, mine, or yours. Leave him alone.”
“The argument between the young redhead and me is personal. It has nothing to do with you.” Fingers slowly closed around the pistol’s grip.
“It has everything to do with me. And with you, too, believe itor not.”
“I choose not to believe it.” The visitor’s empty hands were still in plain view. “I choose to believe that your friend Philip Lynx has somehow drugged or hypnotized my fiancée and that he plans on spiriting her away with him.”
For the first time, the visitor looked surprised. “The woman Clarity Held is your fiancée? I didn’t know that. There’s no record of an official engagement.”
“It hasn’t exactly been formalized. That is, I haven’t proposed a . . . No record of—you’ve been prying into my private life! Who are you, really? And who is this Philip Lynx, who the Commonwealth authorities want to talk to and who has strange friends who go around prying into things that are none of their business?”
Tse-Mallory was so still he hardly seemed to be breathing. “He was a very interesting boy who has grown into a very interesting man. He’s also very hard to track down. I’m not so sure he intends to run off with your fiancée. If you’d just let things settle down, they might take a course to your liking.”
“I’ve been letting things take their course.” Ormann’s tone was tense, threatening. “The result is that Clarity continues to see more and more of this Flinx and less and less of me. It’s reached the point where I feel I have no choice. I’ve decided that nothing is going to be allowed to come between
us. Not Philip Lynx, not anything or anyone. Especially not uninvited visitors.” In a swift move he drew the gun from the drawer and pointed it at Tse-Mallory.
“Get out of my office. You can leave the way you came in or horizontally. The choice is up to you.”
“It frequently is,” Tse-Mallory murmured. “So many times I wish that it weren’t.” Tse-Mallory dodged with astounding speed as he reached into a breast pocket and threw something that struck Ormann before he could pull the trigger. The small device contained a large electric charge that noiselessly discharged in a single burst.
Ormann convulsed and fell onto his desk, his eyes open, his gun still clenched in his hand, electrocuted. Calmly, Bran Tse-Mallory walked over to the collapsed form. Slipping on gloves, he gently removed the pistol from Ormann’s paralyzed fingers, placed the weapon back in its charger, and quietly closed the drawer. After a moment’s thought, he folded the executive’s hands on the desk in front of him, lifted the limp head, and rested it on the hands. To anyone entering the room, it would appear as if Ormann had fallen asleep at his desk. To anyone examining the body, it would seem that he had suffered a massive heart attack.
Tse-Mallory pocketed his now-harmless voltchuk and left the office. The office manager asked him how the important meeting had gone.
“We came to an understanding,” he informed her kindly. She replied that she was glad it had gone well.
It did not go well, Tse-Mallory thought as he headed for the nearest exit from the Ulricam complex. But we did come to an understanding.
He disliked having to kill. Discussion and debate were always better. His killing days were well behind him, back when he and Tru had formed the two halves of a stingship fighting team. But sometimes, sadly, logic and reason were not enough. Besides, Tse-Mallory had reason to believe that Ormann might have shot him in the back if he’d simply turned to leave.
Aim arguments at a man and he reacts one way, Tse-Mallory ruminated. Aim a gun at him and he is forced to react in another. He wondered how Truzenzuzex was getting along. No doubt his old friend and companion had enjoyed an easy time of it, sauntering in to greet a surprised Flinx and his female friend. Thranx had all the luck.
Flinx's Folly Page 18
