Flinx Transcendent

by Alan Dean Foster

  Complicating his flight were Pip's attempts to work her way free of the confining suit so that she could go to his defense. If at all possible, he needed to continue to keep her existence a secret. Just because it appeared that he had been turned in to the city authorities did not mean they knew their quarry was a masquerading human. It was much more likely that the concierge or automated manager had discovered that the line of Imperial credit he had been using was forged. Or perhaps, despite the individualized burrow security he had employed to secure his quarters, one of the dwellings' maintenance workers had discovered something incriminating in his luggage. While minimal in number and inconspicuous in size, he had brought with him certain personal accoutrements whose origin could not be disguised. The presence among a visitor's effects of certain objects of non-AAnn manufacture would be sufficient in and of themselves to inspire a further investigation.

  His mastery of the AAnn language might have enabled him to explain away the presence of the latter. But if the enforcers were there to pick him up for forgery, no amount of clever words would suffice to preserve his freedom. He would be hauled in for interrogation. Trapped within his clever cocoon, he would be able to keep his true identity confidential only until he was slipped under the first medical scanner. That was a risk he could not take—and so he ran. The loss of his personal effects did not trouble him. Regardless of value, inanimate objects could always be replaced.

  He was a fast runner and in excellent condition. But the suit slowed him, having to keep a tight rein on Pip slowed him further, and the AAnn were accomplished runners in their own right. Free of the simsuit he might outrun them, at least over a distance. If he removed the suit, however, he might as well surrender now and save his wind. In the confines of the Imperial capital city an exposed human would not last out the night. Not only did the suit provide some measure of visual anonymity, it also masked his distinctive human scent.

  He could hear them closing fast, hissing and shouting encouragement to one another. If he ducked into a park or building, they would act quickly to seal off the area, or else some resident was likely to point him out. There was one other option.

  He stopped and turned to face them.

  Half closing his eyes, Flinx called on his Talent as he strove to project. It was a technique he had used before, on everything from fellow humans to other sentients to lower orders of animals. As the weapons-wielding enforcers closed in on his unmoving shape he strained to cast fear in their direction, to coat their alien reptiloid minds with a thin but disquieting layer of alarm.

  It was not working. Through his squint he could see that they were not slowing in their advance. Weapons aimed forward, tails snapping whiplike from side to side, they would be on him in seconds. So close had they drawn that they did not fire. They saw no reason to do so, since in less than a minute they would be able to throw down the citizen under suspicion and pin him to the ground.

  Fear was a powerful emotion. It was one that required maximum exertion on his part to successfully deploy. But though this effort failed, he retained other options. Experience had taught him to always be ready to utilize a different approach. He could not render his foe fearful. Very well: he would try something else.

  Not twenty meters from Flinx the first enforcer suddenly began to slow. Double eyelids blinking, she lowered her weapon to her side as she came to a gradual halt. Her tail stopped switching. A second enforcer drew up alongside her. Bemused, he found himself staring down at his own gun. One by one they were joined by the rest of the flashily uniformed patrol. Querulous phrases of soft bafflement were exchanged. Dropping down into the distinctive AAnn squat, one enforcer methodically began taking his weapon apart. Next to him his companion started to disrobe.

  After considerable trial and error in the course of his frantic life Flinx had discovered that confusion was much easier to project than fear.

  Turning, he resumed his flight. How long the mental projection he had laid upon his pursuers would last he did not know. He never knew. The time frame was as unpredictable as everything else about his Talent. It didn't matter. Their befuddlement need last only long enough for him to get away.

  He knew he had made his escape when he was able to slow to a normal lope without any sign behind him of his pursuers. Moments later, he realized that same escape might be only temporary when he prepared to engage a transport, only to see that every nye in the hiring line in front of him was being required to present themselves before what was normally an inert, rarely used security scanner.

  Edging off to one side while carefully staying out of the scanner's range and away from the AAnn lined up ahead of him, he debated how to proceed. Was the suddenly enhanced security only local, or had it been extended citywide? What should he do next? What could he do? The energized security measures meant that he was effectively marooned in Krrassin. It was much too far, and too dangerous, to try to walk to his preferred pickup point far out in the desert park.

  It would be terribly ironic if his false alien identity proved to be his ultimate undoing. Designed and refined by the Teacher to such an extent that it was capable of deceiving native AAnn, it could not easily be altered by hand. Unlike with a human disguise, he could not effectively change its appearance by simply adding makeup or long hair. He could doff it entirely, of course, thereby eliminating all trace of the offworld credit thief whose identity he had adopted. Exposing himself as the only human in Krrassin, however, was unlikely to expand his freedom of movement.

  Somehow he had to find a way to make his way back to the vast, unpopulated desert park that lay outside the boundaries of the capital without being arrested or having his true identity discovered. There one of the Teacher's shuttles could touch down just long enough to pick him up. But even a perfectly disguised shuttle could hardly set down in the center of the sprawling city. If it could avoid detection and collision, there was room for it to do so at one of the four major shuttleports that served the metropolitan center of the Empire. The problem was that each of them lay almost as far outside the city limits as the much more amenable, less closely watched, and unpopulated recreation area.

  As he was trying to decide the best course of action a pair of airborne scrutinizers coasted into view above the line of waiting automated transports. Equipped with paralysis weapons as well as surveillance gear, they could not only identify a wanted individual but knock him down and stand guard over him until organic representatives of the municipal authorities arrived. Surveying his surroundings, while trying to appear as indifferent to the security machines' arrival as the rest of the increasingly impatient transport customers, he started to retrace his steps. Once he had drifted back to the far end of the queue he veered to his right and allowed himself to be swept up by a cluster of kicking, biting, tail-snapping revelers out to enjoy an evening post-work. On any given evening few such groups were to be seen. While the AAnn were perfectly comfortable moving about at night, where and when possible they much preferred to take their relaxation in the heat of midday.

  On a human-inhabited world, Flinx could have counted on being able to lose himself in a much bigger crowd. Here on broiling Blasusarr, the onset of night brought with it some relief from the heat of day but a consequent rise in individual visibility. While other AAnn were out and about, they did not gather in numbers adequate to fully occupy the attention of cruising security scanners and miscreant-seeking scrutinizers. If he did not soon get off the walking paths and out of sight, one or another of the relentless security devices was sure to spot him.

  Renting new quarters in order to have a place to hide out was not an option. By now the appearance of his simsuit and all related formal identification would have been distributed throughout the city's closely integrated financial network. Any attempt to spend even a quarter-orbit of Imperial credit would immediately set off every alarm in the system. All he had going for him was that the authorities knew him only as Pahmiit ERRUJKJNN, an offworld traveler who was visiting Krrassin and Blasusarr
on commercial business. They were still looking for a duplicitous fellow AAnn, not a masquerading human.

  If it became known that a human resident of the Commonwealth was wandering the sandways of the capital unauthorized, the quasi-reptilian equivalent of all hell would break loose. He had to find a way to rendezvous with one of the Teacher's shuttles before that happened.

  He also needed nourishment, as did Pip. While the illusion of nyeness the simsuit projected was superb, the costume was not faultless. He could not maintain the illusion of being an AAnn while eating. In order to consume food he had to unseal and remove the reptilian head. This had been a simple matter when safe in the privacy of his rented quarters. Out on the street, it presented a much more difficult challenge.

  The solution was to opt for a filling liquid meal; something that was not always easy to find on a world inhabited by highly evolved carnivores. Even so, locating a vendor would be the easy part. Paying for the food was where peril would enter into the equation. Any other human put in his position would have been at a loss as to how to proceed. Flinx, however, possessed one advantage the majority of his fellow primates did not.

  He was an accomplished and experienced thief with a unique Talent.

  Utilizing his ability to the same degree that he had on the pursuing enforcers, Flinx succeeded in confusing the operator of a small food shop into believing he had been paid in full for the flask of thick protein-rich soup Flinx accepted and tucked into his sidepack. The alien chowder would keep him fueled for a day or two, after which time he might well be forced to repeat the deception. Pip wouldn't like the strange-smelling gruel, but when she got hungry enough she would slurp it down just like her master. When it came to consumption of alien victuals, experience had taught Flinx that the prospect of imminent starvation was a wonderful motivator for the digestive system.

  Later, as he was sipping the thick, meaty broth through the flask's integrated straw-spout, a different pair of hovering scrutinizers came drifting down the street where he was idling. Already more than a little deserted with the arrival of full darkness, the walkway on which he found himself offered little in the way of cover. Except for the food shop he had recently exploited, few other establishments were open. He needed to get away from public venues, and fast.

  All the residential and commercial structures in his immediate vicinity were sealed for the night. Given time, he was confident he could defeat their integrated security systems. Time, however, was the one thing the implacable, fast-moving scrutinizers would not give him.

  At the next intersection a large public transport paused to unload a trio of passengers. Operating at cross-angles to the curving pedestrian pathways, it traveled on a fixed preprogrammed path. Private transport would have been faster and safer, but now he had no choice. Breaking into a run, he sprint-loped in the transport's direction. Behind him, the scrutinizers had paused to perform bio-interrogation on a mated pair of puzzled pedestrians. Pivoting in midair, one casually turned its secondary scanner in Flinx's direction. Would it be able to identify him from a rear view?

  He leaped through the open portal at the rear of the transport just before it started to close. The interior lighting was muted to suit AAnn visual tastes. Several of the half dozen or so passengers were resting in squatting position while the remainder stood erect. One Elder had to resort to the use of a fixed support brace that protruded from an interior wall. Lest they provoke an early evening challenge, none of his fellow riders looked in Flinx's direction. Not for the first time, he was glad of characteristic AAnn reticence in the presence of strangers. They tended to be much more cautious among themselves than when confronting his kind, or the thranx.

  It was good that they exhibited disinterest or one of them might have been moved to comment on his awkward, ungainly stride. A soft warning stutter sounded from a concealed rooftop synth membrane and the transport accelerated smoothly. Flinx waited as long as he dared before turning ever so slightly to look back the way he had come. What he saw filled him with relief, if not exactly confidence. Behind the departing transport, the two scrutinizers were now interviewing the remaining nye who had stood between Flinx and the public conveyance itself. Had he remained on the walkway, he would have been next to have been interrogated. And he would not have been able to use his abilities to confuse patrolling machines as he had pursuing enforcers and weary food merchants.

  Returning his attention to the center of the egg-shaped vehicle, he tilted his head back slightly and pretended to study the assorted glowing exhortations that formed a drifting nimbus within the concave ceiling. Two of the other passengers were doing likewise. There was no need to worry about his reactions as he perused the highly animated public notices. His AAnn visage masked the human expressions underneath.

  He had hoped to find himself on a transport headed toward the outer rings of the metropolis, or at least parallel to where he had been staying. Instead, he was trapped on a vehicle headed toward the city center. He was accelerating into the very heart of the Imperial environs. There he was likely to find his every move subject to greater scrutiny than ever. As a lone human confronting the Empire, even his singular abilities might not be enough to enable him to escape detection and disclosure.

  Well, he would worry about that tomorrow. One thing humans and AAnn had in common was diurnality. Both species required a certain amount of nighttime rest. The problem of nourishment had been solved, if only temporarily. As for water, though the AAnn needed less of it to function effectively than did humans, Flinx felt from his experience of the city that it would not be difficult to come by. Since he could no longer safely rent a place to sleep, he would find some sheltered place near a pathway. The prospect of sleeping out in the open did not disturb him. He had done it often enough as a child on Moth.

  As for the fact that he was about to do so on an entirely alien world, well, a dirty deserted alley was a dirty deserted alley irrespective of the species responsible for its aesthetics, design, and construction.

  Upon exiting the public transport he found himself in a district dominated by large individual dwellings. On a human world they would have been called estates. That none of the structures within the individually fenced, carefully demarcated areas rose higher than a single story was an indication of their owners' wealth. It meant that the owners could afford to live in traditional fashion with the majority of their living space comfortably situated below the surface. Except for a few isolated plots of native growth, local landscaping consisted of artfully sculpted stone and sand. The dominant neighborhood aesthetic demanded that the extensive uninhabited, undeveloped regions of Blasusarr be replicated here deep within the capital city as faithfully as possible. In the center of Krrassin this could only be accomplished through means that were both artificial and costly.

  Subdued radiance danced within the depths of the half-buried single-story structures. Without, lights were employed to indirectly illuminate expensive artificial pools and streams, miniature imitation buttes, and downsized mineral-stained synthetic escarpments. Some of the borders that separated wealthy neighbor from intransigent fellow resident were solid, some were ethereal, and others were as intangible as the electric current or light waves of which they were composed. Every aspect of the many habitats he slunk past, every individual feature and facet, proclaimed the power and position of their owners. He encountered no alleys here, dirty or otherwise.

  Forcing an entrance into one of the protected private domains would be difficult for a wandering transient irrespective of species. Those intending ill to the inhabitants would likely find themselves challenged by stringent security measures. As for Flinx, he was only searching for a quiet place to sleep away the night. If in so doing he also happened to chance upon a hiding place suitable for the longer term, he would happily lay claim to that as well. Safely inside the boundary of some scientist or noble or merchant's guarded sphere of influence, he would have a chance to catch his physical and mental breath safe from prying eyes both sl
itted and inorganic.

  Had he not been experienced from an early age at breaking and entering he could not have penetrated the property he eventually chose without setting off some kind of alarm. That he was able to do so quietly and unobserved was a testament not only to his skills as an infiltrator but to a decade and a half of exploration that included the accumulation of a great deal of arcane knowledge about the AAnn and their Empire. The security measures he encountered and defeated one by one were alien in origin but, for him at least, perfectly comprehensible. Physics makes no exceptions for different species. The same general rules applied to security devices whether developed for use by humans, the thranx, the AAnn, the Quillp, or any of the other known sentient races with a fetish for privacy.

  Once safely inside the property's fortified outer boundary and confident that his presence had not been detected, he went in search of more than just a square of ground on which to lay his head.

  While similar in design and construction to the artificial desert environments that dominated the grounds of most of the neighboring estates, the one he had entered was distinguished by several especially garish motifs. The reds of the synthetic sandstone canyonets he found himself wandering through tended to be brighter, the yellows more sunshine than subdued, the naturally pale hues of orange and ivory embellished with scintillating flourishes of embedded quartz minerals. Even for the AAnn, this estate's simulated desert décor approached the tawdry. Not that the overwrought alien aesthetics caused him any suffering. He barely paid attention to them as he sought a place to conceal himself that was equally out of sight of both the main structure and the surrounding pathways.

  As the night drew on, he finally found the perfect spot by nearly falling into it.

  A pool on the protected property had been gouged from the earth. If its perfectly symmetrical oval shape had not been sufficient to identify it as artificial, the well-camouflaged conduits running its full length would have confirmed the observation. The clear water was stocked with native aquatic life-forms that had been genetically modified to emit varying hues of transgenic light. Not sufficient light to illuminate anyone standing at poolside, but enough to provoke admiring comments from casual bystanders. Flinx's reaction was doubtless different from that of the average visitor to the property: he found himself wondering if any of the multitude of gaudy swimmers were edible.