The weight on his back sent him tumbling forward on the hiking path. Whatever had struck him was bigger and heavier than any thranx. As it followed him to the ground he was already working to identify the shape. It could not be AAnn, not here on New Riviera. Judging from the mass and texture it was most likely a human. But why the assault? Truzenzuzex’s lower legs were pinned beneath the human bulk and his foothands had little room in which to maneuver. His truhands were all that remained free. Fragile though they were, he did not hesitate to strike out with both.

“Ow!” The offending human promptly rolled off the combative philosoph and clutched at its face. A thin red streak appeared on one cheek.

As he reflexively reached with one hand toward the long but shallow scratch, Flinx had enough presence of mind to grab an aroused Pip by the tail just as she started toward the scuttling thranx.

Scrambling up onto all four trulegs, Truzenzuzex used one foothand to pick up the compact reader he had been perusing while walking, picked up his dropped drinking vessel with the other foothand, and extended both truhands out in front of him as he assumed a fighting posture. Only then did he get his first good look at the intruder. Projector and spiral-mouthed goblet were immediately set aside.

“Grub, you are bigger each time I see you, and just as lamentably impulsive.” With all four hands now free he was able to punctuate his observation with an elaborate and eloquent gesture of second-degree stupidity.

Hurrying up behind him, Clarity had arrived at Flinx’s side and was examining the cut on his face. Having heard the commotion behind him, a grinning Bran Tse-Mallory had hurried back down the path to rejoin his friend. Standing behind Truzenzuzex, he carefully straightened a vestigial wing case that had been knocked askew in the course of the brief tussle.

“Whereas your reflexes aren’t quite as slow as you, my friend,” Tse-Mallory reflected aloud.

“Young fool!” Reaching up with a truhand to meticulously groom one downy antenna, the philosoph stared over to where Flinx was regaining his footing. “I might have killed him, crr!ltt!”

Flinx winced as Clarity touched the cut. Extending his upper body outward from his perch on her shoulder, Scrap let his tongue flick tentatively at the wound. Perceiving her master’s composure, Pip ignored both. The graze was superficial and would heal quickly.

“Nice to see you again, too, Tru.” The bleeding from the warning strike, Flinx noted, had already stopped.

Tse-Mallory stepped back from his insectoid companion. “I believe that with his leap from the bushes our young friend wanted to surprise you.”

With great dignity the Eint Truzenzuzex straightened his legs beneath him, lowering his thorax so his foothands rested on the fastidiously manicured, fungus-covered landscaping that paralleled the path down which he had been walking. Once again he stood sturdily on all six feet.

“I accept the explanation. Consider me surprised.” Ambling over to where Flinx stood, the philosoph leaned back on his four trulegs. Even in this altered, partially elevated posture, his head only came up to Flinx’s chest. Antennae fluttered impatiently.

Bending at the waist, Flinx let the tips of both feathery appendages make contact with his forehead before he reached out to gently touch them with his fingertips. Informalities concluded, the thranx stepped back to scrutinize his friendly assailant.

“You have succeeded in startling me with your presence.” The chitinous valentine-shaped head inclined in Clarity’s direction. “It’s evident that you’ve also already made contact with and no doubt also surprised your charming and now fully-recovered lady. I presume it would be too much to expect that you also intend to surprise us with the knowledge that your journey was successful and you have reestablished contact with the ancient weapons platform of the Tar-Aiym?”

“It would.” Strange, Flinx thought. Despite all he had been through, everything he had experienced, and as much as he had matured, he still felt like a little kid in the daunting presence of Tse-Mallory and Truzenzuzex.

“You searched extensively, I imagine?” the thranx pressed him.

As always with compound eyes, it was difficult to tell precisely where they were focused. “Not as extensively as I could have, I’m afraid. I—I got distracted,” he added evasively.

A scowling Tse-Mallory was clearly not pleased. “The fate of all civilization, of the entire galaxy, is potentially at stake and you allowed yourself to be distracted?”

Clarity turned quickly protective. “Let him explain. He’s under a lot of pressure.”

“No one here would deny that.” Truzenzuzex’s tone was as dry as the deserts of Blasusarr. “However, the gravity of the situation is such that there is little time remaining in which to indulge personal eccentricities.” Aware that he might be sounding too harsh, he added, “What about your headaches? Have they been as debilitating as ever? As frequent?”

“They come and go,” Flinx acknowledged. “Sometimes they’re incapacitating, sometimes no more than irritating. I can never tell at the beginning when one’s going to be really bad and when it’s just going to fade away.”

Tse-Mallory sat down gingerly on a nearby Otoidian fungus. The spongy brown and gray growth compressed beneath his weight but did not collapse. “You said you were distracted, Flinx. What distracted you?”

Sitting down on the stone path, Flinx crossed his legs and let his arms droop toward one another. Taking a seat, Clarity rested one hand possessively on his right thigh.

“At first it was just depression, a general malaise. The Teacher did its best to help me rise above it, but I found that the only solution was for me to immerse myself in civilization. In sentience. To learn some things about it, and about myself.”

“And what did you learn?” Tse-Mallory inquired thoughtfully.

A pair of silvery etelel whizzed past between young man and mentor, their brushlike wings rotating madly to keep them aloft. Though they were indigenous to the cultivated underground gardens of Nur/New Riviera, they reminded Truzenzuzex of the similarly evolved subterranean fliers of his native Hivehom.

“I learned that humankind, and humanxkind, is worth saving. That whatever its faults and immaturities, the spark of intelligence is worth fighting to preserve.” His gaze met that of the older man and locked. “Even if that intelligence is nonhumanx and hostile. I learned that sentience is essential to any kind of progressive evolution, irrespective of its origins. I learned”—he turned away from Tse-Mallory and back to Clarity—“I learned about myself.”

“And what did you learn about yourself?” Tse-Mallory asked again.

Flinx hesitated a moment. Then he smiled at Clarity and at his old friends. On his shoulder, Pip snuggled closer. “That I can be happy. Maybe. But that I have a responsibility that, much as I might like to disregard it, I can’t just set aside in order to selfishly further that happiness. And that if I’m to have any hope of fulfilling the responsibility I’ve taken on, I’m going to need the help and support of others.”

Picking idly at a gaudy spray of spore-filled spheres growing near his feet, Tse-Mallory nodded understandingly. “It’s a terrible burden you bear, Flinx. Tru and I worried and worried about how you would cope when you had to flee New Riviera alone and leave the rest of us behind.” He looked up. “It’s apparent from what you’ve just told us that you coped by avoiding. Well, from now on you won’t have to do that. Tru and I will be with you at all times.”

“As will I.” Clarity’s fingers tightened on Flinx’s leg.

Hearing this, the terrible anxiety that was his constant companion did not vanish; Flinx knew it probably never would. But he felt better, more confident, than he had in months of wandering aimlessly around the Blight and then the sundry worlds of the Arm. The likelihood was that despite his best efforts he would never again make contact with the wandering Tar-Aiym weapons platform, and even if he did, any attempt to make use of it against the oncoming Evil would prove as futile as it seemed on paper. But at least now he would no longer have to carry on by himself, alone in the vastness of space-plus save for the faithful company of a considerate but soulless shipmind.

“You’re not going to cry, are you?” Eyeing his young friend, Tse-Mallory looked suddenly alarmed. “Cry after the threat has been dealt with, weep once the danger has passed—but not now.”

Flinx rubbed at his right eye. Or maybe he hit himself. In any event, no tears were shed. “It’s just that I’m so glad to see you all again.” Reaching over, he put an arm around Clarity and drew her to him. Forced together, the two flying snakes slithered petulantly in opposite directions in search of more individual space.

“This time there’ll be no delay, no mistakes.” Tse-Mallory rose from his seat. Though comfortable in the underground park, which was designed to accommodate thranx, he much preferred the warm sunshine of Nur’s surface. “Tru and I can leave immediately.” He turned his attention to Clarity. “What about you? Have you made any arrangements?”

“Some, yes, but I can’t just vanish into the ether like you two. I need a little time to do it right.” Disdaining Flinx’s proffered hand, she rose easily to her feet. “There are people who would miss me and file reports if I simply disappeared.”

His characteristic self-control notwithstanding, Flinx’s expression darkened ever so slightly. “Tambrogh Barryn, for example?”

She made a face at him. “Don’t be a fool. I have to alert and prepare medical personnel who’ve worked on my case, coworkers at Ulricam, casual friends, and others.” She eyed Tse-Mallory. “We’re not all of us famous, independently wealthy scientists, philosophs, or interstellar vagabonds who can just take off on a moment’s notice to go gallivanting around the galaxy.”

“I do not ‘gallivant,’” Truzenzuzex commented primly. “I plan in haste.”

Tse-Mallory smiled considerately. “Will a couple of days be sufficient for you to get your affairs in order?” When she nodded, he turned to Flinx. “And you?”

Flinx did not have to think. He had worked through departure procedures many times, on many worlds. “There are supplies and provisions the Teacher can’t synthesize. There’s no telling where we’re going or how long we’ll be gone. It would be good to be able to start the search again knowing the ship is fully prepared.”

Instead of replying, Tse-Mallory glanced over at his companion. “Tru?”

The thranx gestured impatiently. “Humans invariably find a way to rationalize delay. But I suppose our young friend’s logic is sound. Very well then. A couple of days. I will use the time until our departure to compose and plant certain situation-sensitive messages with professional acquaintances.”

“What kind of messages?” Flinx asked curiously.

The thranx philosoph’s great golden eyes rose to regard him impassively. “The kind that might prove useful to friends and colleagues in the event we don’t come back.”

Effrom was out of breath by the time he reached the rendezvous. It was out in the open, of course, the better to ensure both anonymity and privacy. As soon as he showed himself beside the public healthirl, the others began to steadily gravitate in his direction. As they did so, like the several dozen other citizens caught up in the healthirl’s whirl, Effrom and his party breathed deeply of the supervised whirlwind’s heady atmospheric cocktail. Today’s broad-spectrum anti-retroviral was infused with the aroma of Terran peach. Effrom took care to inhale the respiratory prophylactic, though improving his health was not the reason for his visit.

Tuoela, Ambreleon, and the others were waiting for him inside the slow-speed domesticated cyclone. Drifting away from the other citizens, they collected in a small group near the center of the health-enhancing storm. There they could hear one another clearly while reasonably confident no one else could eavesdrop on their conversation, either in person or electronically.

“We received your alert.” Tuoela ran a small business that supplied decorations imported from different worlds for everything from birthdays to ceremonial government dinners. On any of the capital’s streets she would not have drawn a second look from the most suspicious policeman or chary government operative. Nor would any of her companions in the present circle. Their zealous ordinariness ensured their continued anonymity.

“Everyone is excited.” Canodoce was only slightly younger than the woman floating next to him. “We’ve waited and hoped for this. You can really confirm?”

Though he was no less excited than his comrades, Effrom controlled his emotions. “The one who endangers the Purity has indeed returned. I have seen him myself on multiple occasions. There is no mistaking his identity.” He breathed deeply of the invigorating, health-giving hurricane. “As if further authentication were required, the same small flying creature accompanies him.”

Ambreleon’s expression darkened. “That’s the kind of verification I could do without.” Reaching up, he touched the right side of his neck. Surgery had completely erased the damage he had suffered during the fight at the shuttleport, but no physician or medtech could eradicate the phantom pain that continued to haunt him. “The flying snake kills.”

“We’ll deal with it this time.” Tuoela was full of confidence. Their patience had, at last, been rewarded. “Deciding to monitor the woman’s recovery was genius. Our colleagues lost track of the man almost immediately. Based on what was known and could subsequently be learned, it was thought he might one day return to see her.” She smiled thinly. “Love is such a proficient betrayer.”

“It certainly makes it possible once again to carry out our sacred duty.” Longing for the all-inclusive great death that might follow his own, Canodoce verged on the ecstatic. “We can now act to preserve the Purity that is to come.”

“In order to do so we must separate the tall meddler from his small protector,” Tuoela pointed out.

“‘Protectors,’” an apologetic Effrom corrected her. “The others who were at the shuttleport and helped provide the cover that allowed him to get away have also returned.”

Tuoela was not pleased. “More complications. Still, we will prevail.” Squinting into the roaring wind of the rejuvenating airstream, she regarded her friends and colleagues. “We have waited too long for it to be otherwise. Let it begin here and now. First, to logistics.” She turned to face middle-aged M’dbane. “While I have no more fear of dying than any of us, if possible I would prefer to live to greet the coming end. As I am sure you all would.” Murmurs of agreement greeted her assumption. “Therefore I rule out suicide attacks unless we are left with no other choice. Such an attempt would likely fail in any event.”

“Why is that?” Though bigger and stronger than any of them, Canodoce was comparatively new to the Order.

She caught his gaze. “It has been determined that the meddler can read feelings. The stronger the emotion, the easier it is for him to perceive it. Whether in isolation or a crowd, an incipient suicide would stand out sharply. To a certain extent one’s emotions can be masked by medication. But while drugs can disguise feelings, they also tend to diminish skills. A proper balance must be struck.” She shifted her attention to the rest. “That much we have learned from several failed attempts to eliminate the meddler. We cannot fail again. We may never have another chance.”

“Bearing in mind our previous failed attempts to kill him, wouldn’t he be exceedingly watchful now that he has returned to Nur?” Beulleu had a face that reminded others of a stranded fish, and a personality to match.

“He gives no indication of it.” Effrom felt confident in sharing his assessment. “On the several occasions I observed him, I could not see that he was taking any special precautions save for keeping the flying creature always close by. Perhaps he feels that his elderly human and thranx friends are shield enough.”

“Or more likely,” Ambreleon declared, “he remains unaware of our strength and persistence and believes we were dealt a mortal blow during the fight at the shuttleport.”

Tuoela nodded. “So much the better for us if he thinks we are all dead, disabled, or disbanded. It is entirely conceivable he cannot imagine the depth of commitment those of us who survived have to the Order.” Muted but steadfast rumbles of affirmation rose from the congregation as she turned to a roly-poly employee of one of New Riviera’s most respected research companies.

“What news of the Purity?”

“It still comes.” The man’s voice was high and squeaky, as if he dwelled in a state of perpetual fear. His ruthlessness and ability were not compromised by his vocal shortcomings, nor by the fact that despite his intellectual skills he qualified as a borderline psychopath. “Continued corroboration comes from our covert contacts on Earth.” His eyes rolled heavenward. “Would that I might live to see its arrival and be drawn into the great nothingness! The meddler cannot stop it. Nothing can stop it.” In a quiet paroxysm of semireligious ecstasy he lowered his gaze and shut his deep-sunk eyes tightly. “All will be wiped clean and remade.”

“Nevertheless,” Tuoela reiterated sternly, “we of the Order are committed to ensuring that the Purity encounters nothing that could prevent or slow it from fulfilling its destiny in this small corner of the cosmos. That means removing the meddler and the enigma he represents from the scheme of possibilities.” As she addressed the gathering the fragrance of the wind whirling around them changed from peach to cupuracu.

“This should not be so difficult, now that we have a better idea of what we are dealing with. We do not have to confront an army. Two men, two flying creatures, one woman, and one thranx. Several times we have underestimated the ability of this small group to forcibly reject absolution. It is a mistake we will not make again.”

“How do you propose to proceed?” Though Canodoce dwarfed the rotund researcher, he did not consider himself the other man’s superior. Within the Order, all were equal. In death, in the Purity, they would be exactly the same. It was a soothing thought. Those who believed their mission was to prepare the way for death did not fear it.

“We must deal with them separately.” Tuoela was remembering. “When we tried to take them that day at the shuttleport they were able to concentrate their defenses and render help and support to one another. The big man and the thranx are clever, but they are old. I fear the small flying creatures more.” She nodded in M’dbane’s direction. “Though it seems that very little specific information is available on them, Olu has done some valuable research on the creatures that should aid us considerably when we confront them this time. The woman we nearly killed the first time. She presents no problem. It is the meddler himself who continues to present the real difficulty.”

“How do you plan for us to take him?” Truth be told, while helping to maintain the watch on the healing woman, Ambreleon had not given the winding up of the business much thought.

“There are a number of options, all of which will be exercised if necessary.” Tuoela’s unbending confidence was an inspiration to them all. “This time nothing is being left to chance.” She smiled grimly, more she-wolf than saleswoman.

“I have even made arrangements to bring in professional help.”