Toc238718027” class=“calibre9” id=“Toc238718027”>

It was an odd group.

Tse-Mallory noticed them as soon as they entered the shop. In the back, the two sets of simple clothing he had ordered were in the process of being soft-cast from the holo the proprietor had taken of his customer. Tse-Mallory could have come back when they were ready, but since the entire process took less than twenty minutes from customization to conclusion, he had decided to wait. To kill time, he amused himself examining, trying on, and pricing the vast assortment of accessories available for the outfits he had ordered.

The peculiar troupe that had wandered in did not look like they wanted to kill time.

Their very blandness nearly caused him to let down his guard. That was their intent, of course. A couple of matronly women; a decidedly senior citizen who flaunted his long, double-pointed beard; a chatty younger couple, and a single street singer radiating music from his headband did not at first glance appear to pose a threat to anyone or anything. What gave them away was the incongruity of their congress: one would never expect to encounter the street musician, for example, in the company of the old man, or the younger couple with the pair of matrons. Had they entered the shop separately, Tse-Mallory might never have taken notice. But they all came in together, almost pushing to get through the single portal. As soon as they were inside, they went from the comparative silence of their collective entrance to all talking at once.

Culturally and socially it was a bit off. Just sufficiently skewed to set off internal alarms in someone like Tse-Mallory. Evincing no outward unease, he ambled toward the back of the store. Perfectly normal for someone in his situation to want to check on the progress of his order. Perfectly natural for him to step behind the counter. The member of the staff he intercepted started to say something. As she did so Tse-Mallory smiled, leaned toward her, put a finger to his lips, and whispered, “Get on the floor. Now.”

Her eyes got very wide. “Is this a robbery? We have nothing to steal except equipment and fabric.”

“I wish it were a robbery. I think it’s something more. Something that doesn’t involve you or your establishment.” Out of the corner of an eye he detected movement behind him. “Not that it will matter to these people. Get down or get shot.”

Then he was whirling, spinning, and ducking all in the same incredibly rapid motion as he drew a pistol from his pocket.

The first shot, fired by one of the two matrons, was overeager. Though she took careful aim, in her hurry to extract her weapon she had fumbled the draw. It was that motion that had alerted Tse-Mallory to the fact that the curious cluster of presumed patrons was intent on something other than casual shopping. The discharge from his pistol sizzled air as it cleaved her skull just above an elaborately shadowed right eye.

Chaos erupted inside the small shop. Harkening to Tse-Mallory’s warning, the clerk had dropped to the floor. She had her hands over her ears and was undertaking, with some success, to scream. Sheltered behind the counter, constantly in motion, Tse-Mallory took out his assailants one by one. While it was apparent in the course of the firefight that all of them were experienced in the handling of arms, formal weapons training was not the same as actual battlefield experience.

Bits and pieces of counter and wall, but not of Tse-Mallory, went flying. One struck the poor prone employee hard enough to make her gasp. Her nonstop screaming was only one component of the auditory madness that filled the shop. In back, the proprietor and his assistant did the usual stupid thing by sticking their heads out to see what was happening. For their trouble the assistant acquired a hole in his chest and his employer a severe concussion.

Both of the older women were down. So was the senior citizen, who had proven surprisingly agile but far from invulnerable. The street singer’s severed head lay in one place and his body in another. The headband continued to pump out music. As for the young couple, they rose from the little available cover they had found to charge straight toward the counter. It was a suicide rush. Tse-Mallory’s interest in their motivation did not prevent him from rolling to his right out of their line of fire and shooting them both down.

Rising slowly amid the carnage, he took stock of himself. A couple of close calls had resulted in wounds that looked bad but were in reality little more than bloody nicks. Good thing he had new clothing on order, he mused. That was assuming he could persuade the stunned proprietor to finish the job.

Stepping out from behind the counter, pistol gripped tightly at the ready, Tse-Mallory checked those bodies that still had their heads. If these people wanted him dead so badly, why had they not simply bombed the entire building? But a bombing on peaceful New Riviera would doubtless have attracted investigative attention from all across the planet. Therefore it was reasonable to assume they did not want to draw that kind of attention to themselves. Which left hanging the critical question—who were ‘themselves’?

A quick check of the pockets of the dead told him nothing. What information and identification he was able to access was consistent in its uniformity. Based on what he found, it seemed as if he had been marked for assassination by as mundane a bunch of citizens as could be found in the city.

That was when old memories gave birth to a terrible suspicion. Still holding the pistol, he lifted his left arm to his mouth and addressed the communit on his wrist. Sartorial replacement could wait. With luck, his fear would not be confirmed. As he spoke to the pickup he was heading for the door. Behind him, the stunned shop owner was trying to render aid to his badly wounded assistant and shell-shocked salesgirl. Tse-Mallory would have to let him get on with it by himself.

His own concerns ran much deeper.

They closed in around Truzenzuzex while he was in the park. Lacking the need for any additional personal supplies for the forthcoming journey, he had chosen to wait in more amenable and relaxing surroundings for Tse-Mallory to finish his business in the nearby shopping arcade. The philosoph was taking his ease on one of the many longitudinal benches set out in the park to accommodate his kind when he noticed the trio coming toward him.

Their approach was restrained—and they had probably rehearsed it thoroughly—but that could not keep them from occasionally glancing furtively in his direction. One or two glances he could appreciate. Nur/New Riviera was a human colony world. Thranx, while they could be found in numbers in the equatorial regions, were not to be encountered everywhere. But his presence in Sphene was not so extraordinary as to draw nervous, fleeting looks one after another.

Then there was the couple approaching from the opposite direction. Though ostensibly wholly absorbed in each other, they too cast sporadic glances in the direction of the elderly thranx sprawled on the bench. Raising his head, he idly surveyed the remainder of his surroundings. His peripheral vision, far superior to that available to any human, quickly detected several individuals coming toward him from still another direction. Taken together, it was clear to him that the trio, the couple, and the advancing individuals had one thing and only one thing in common.

They happened to be converging on the spot where he was lying.

Easing off the bench, he gathered all six legs beneath him and started off in the one direction that was not occupied by humans coming toward him. While this corner of the park was not deserted, neither was it crowded. The three and two and more who were closing in on him might be doing so with the intent of meeting up with one another. Or it might be nothing more than a mathematical coincidence. Truzenzuzex did not like convergences that placed him at the center of strange coincidences. In any event, it would be easy enough to find out if he was the focus of their attention. He would walk away from them, they would pass behind and ignore him, or …

The sonic burst that shattered the trunk of the small tree he stepped behind was more than enough to confirm that last suspicion.

He was virtually surrounded and there was nowhere to run. Seeing weapons being drawn, the few other visitors in the vicinity began running in all directions or ducked down behind decorative boulders and trees. Ignoring these panicky citizens, the humans who had been closing in on the elderly thranx charged toward their quarry. Several of the bystanders who had taken cover were already using their communits to report the violent encounter to the police and to the media. While their rapid responses were to be commended, they would do the target of the belligerent humans no good. The philosoph would be diced and sliced before the first police arrived.

Off to his right, the fleeing philosoph noticed a hole in the ground. He had no idea what it was or where it might lead, but to a thranx salvation instinctively lies below. Cutting in that direction, he dove into the opening as sonic and neuronic bursts ripped up the landscaping in his wake.

The tunnel was lined with smooth ceramic alloy. His feet would have clicked noisily against it if not for the several centimeters of dirty water that filled the curved surface underfoot. Patently unable to go back, he would go forward. As he ran he cursed his own self-confidence. Whereas his old friend Tse-Mallory never went anywhere without a weapon, the philosoph considered even a small gun an unnecessary encumbrance on a civilized world. Would that he were presently so encumbered!

Restive men and women gathered at the opening to the cavity. Heedless of his own safety, one man straightaway ducked inside. He was back in a couple of minutes, his clothes and hands stained with brown water and dripping muck.

“He’s gone. I can’t even hear him.”

The scholarly-looking older gentleman who was the nominal leader of the attack squad wore a grim expression as he surveyed the landscaped terrain to the north of the opening.

“We’ll never catch him in the conduit. Its diameter restricts us to advancing hunched over, but it’s plenty high enough for a thranx to run full out.”

“The philosoph is old,” another man pointed out. “He’ll get tired and slow down.”

The leader turned to him. “You weren’t at the fight at the shuttleport. I was. This is not your ordinary thranx elder.” Turning back to the park environment, he studied their immediate surroundings. “The police are liable to be here any minute. We can’t be found together. Spread out. North and east, I think, are the most likely places for this conduit to emerge. Search the near shores of Town Lake and Claris Pond, find where drainage empties out, and wait there. Sooner or later, he’ll show himself.”

The group promptly split up, some to search the shore of the nearby ornamental lake, others the park’s decorative pond, two to wait by the opening where their quarry had taken refuge in case he decided to backtrack. The group leader was not worried about dividing his forces. A successful resolution to the ambush required only one weapon, one shot. As soon as the thranx stuck his antennaed head out of one of the conduit’s openings, it would be blown off.

No one was more aware of that than their quarry himself. As soon as it became clear that he was not being followed, Truzenzuzex slowed his pace. The small beam that was part of the communit secured around his left truarm provided more than enough light for him to find his way. Waving back and forth above his head, his antennae kept him continuously apprised of the distance between his head and the conduit’s ceiling. Unlike a human, he did not have to constantly look up to keep from bumping his skull.

While all of this was reassuring, it did not ensure his safety. If he was not being pursued down the drainage channel, he could simply halt and call for assistance from Tse-Mallory, Flinx, or the local authorities. On the other hand, if his attackers did come in after him, he would be trapped beyond help. And in the closed confines of the conduit their aim would not have to be very precise to take him out.

In such circumstances, waiting was rarely the best thing to do. Never concede the initiative to your enemy. He needed to get out. How to do that safely was a matter of some concern. He would be most vulnerable at the moment of emergence. The way forward might be devoid of assailants—or as soon as he stuck his head out he might find it locked in the crosshairs of their weapons. The trouble was that the only way to determine if there was any danger was to expose himself to it. From a very young age he had learned that inviting hostile fire was not the best way to ascertain the enemy’s strength and position.

Squatting in the cold, dirty water he contemplated his options. He had come a considerable distance. There was no telling how far it was to the drain’s exit. He certainly could not see the end. Confronted with such a situation a human would see itself as having two choices: to go forward or to go back. Since his attackers were all human, it was likely they would ponder the same two scenarios. However, he was not human. Other options were open to him. The sooner he settled on one, the more time he would have to explore its possibilities before it also occurred to his assailants.

While he was weaponless, his thorax pouch did hold a handful of useful instruments and tools. The cutter would be useful as a weapon only at very close quarters. Meanwhile, it did serve to burn a nice oval hole in the tough but thin ceramic ceiling of the conduit. Removing a meter-wide section and setting it to one side, Truzenzuzex began to dig. It was a skill at which his ancient ancestors had been especially proficient. Though there was not much call for it in the modern world, it was an ability that was innate and could not be forgotten. Helpfully, the soil overhead was soft and largely devoid of rocks—just what one might expect to encounter in a park that had been heavily and repeatedly landscaped.

More than an hour later, having avoided the attentions of the police who had been summoned in response to the earlier shooting, his intent pursuers were still guarding the entrance to the conduit where their quarry had vanished as well as the location where it drained into Claris Pond. They were fidgety but patient. The philosoph had to show himself sooner or later, via one exit or the other. When he did emerge they would be waiting for him.

None of them was watching the distant pedestrian intersection where Truzenzuzex rejoined Tse-Mallory. Having calmly covered the distance from the bloodbath in the clothing shop, Tse-Mallory had contacted his companion via communit. A few passersby glanced in the direction of the philosoph, their curiosity drawn not by his species but by his current personal appearance.

Upon first catching sight of his companion, Tse-Mallory reacted similarly. “What happened to you? You’re a mess.”

“And you, tr!llk, are bleeding.” The philosoph gestured with a truhand at the shallow but unsettling crimson gashes that decorated his friend’s arms and shoulders. “Were the choice up to me, I think I would opt for a tidier tailor.”

Reaching up to his face, Tse-Mallory rubbed at one bloody patch of skin. “These scratches aren’t a consequence of a bad fitting. A handful of Sphene’s everyday upstanding citizens just tried to kill me.”

The thranx nodded, a gesture his kind had long ago adopted soon after Amalgamation. “How interesting. Exactly the same thing just happened to me. What a coincidence—except that is most unlikely to be the case.” Resplendent compound eyes peered up at Tse-Mallory’s brilliant blue single lenses. “Average-looking citizens wielding an uncharacteristic array of weaponry attempt to murder both of us in broad daylight. Do such circumstances remind you of anything?”

Tse-Mallory nodded slowly. “A certain day and time more than a year ago. The fanatics of the Order of Null who wanted to kill Flinx to keep him from trying to stop or divert the Great Evil. The same kind of nondescript but obsessed people we had to contend with at the shuttleport.”

He looked around. None of the pedestrians meandering through the intersection appeared threatening or on the verge of suddenly resorting to an orgy of unexpected violence.

Truzenzuzex gestured accord. “My feeling at the time was that once Flinx was safely offworld and on his way, then these deluded and confrontational folk would retire to whatever fatalistic conclaves they favor and we would hear no more from them.”

Tse-Mallory nodded. “Plainly an incorrect supposition. The only reason they’d have for trying to kill us would be to prevent us from being of assistance to Flinx.”

Antennae weaving, the thranx stood up on his four trulegs, the better to bring his face closer to that of his human companion. “Flinx can take care of himself, I think. He has matured considerably in the ways of society, and repeated conflict has heightened his special senses while sharpening his singular abilities.”

Tse-Mallory looked troubled. “I wasn’t worried—about Flinx.”

As the human turned his attention to his communit the full meaning of his observation struck home to Truzenzuzex.

“Clarity …,” the philosoph clicked through clenched mandibles.

They waited until Scrap had descended to land on his mistress’s shoulder. Previous experience and subsequent research had shown that the safest way to neutralize the dangerous Alaspinian minidrag was to incapacitate it at the same time as its owner. Taking no chances, the self-sealing net they released from the boat was big enough to envelop the woman, the flying snake, and the male friend riding the sunfoil parallel to hers.

They were too far from shore for anyone on the beach or the slope below the medical convalescent facility to hear her screams or his curses. When the two captives tried to contact local emergency authorities via their separate communits, they discovered that all outgoing signals in their immediate vicinity had been blocked. The net that had been employed had been chosen with great care. It was flexible yet sturdy, self-sealing but not dangerously constricting. Insofar as their research had allowed them to determine, the members of the Order charged with carrying out the abduction believed that the material was impervious to the corrosive effects of the minidrag’s venom.

A net had been utilized instead of direct deadly force because it was vital to keep the woman alive. Long enough, at least, to serve the purpose.

Seeing that there was nothing to be gained by screaming, Clarity went quiet as she, Scrap, and Barryn were hauled in like so many netted fish. The delicate sunfoils made faint crunching sounds as the net collapsed around them. At the same time as she was concentrating on her fear, hoping Flinx would perceive it, she spoke hurriedly to Barryn.

“I’m sorry, Tam, to get you mixed up in all this.”

In spite of Flinx’s unexpected arrival he had insisted in seeing her through the last stages of her recovery. “I helped nurse you through the past couple of months,” he declared, “and even if you dump me for this creepy offworlder, I’m not giving up on you until you marry him or run off with him.”

She kept Flinx abreast of the medtech’s persistence, of course. “Give him credit for perseverance,” Flinx responded. “Let him down easy. I don’t like to see people hurt, and I know you don’t either.” For a brief moment his thoughts went somewhere else. “I’ve come to understand how complicated relationships can get, especially when you don’t expect them to develop the way they sometimes do. Especially when you’re apart from someone for a long time and thrust into difficult circumstances. Things—happen. We’re all human. At least, I used to think so,” he added ruefully.

“It’s going to take a few days to reprovision and refit elements of the Teacher. Meanwhile you might as well be nice to him. But not too nice,” he had concluded, admonishing her.

Struggling ineffectually with entangling strands of net as Scrap’s wings beat alternately against her shoulder and his back, Barryn tried to twist around within their constricting prison to meet her gaze.

“Mixed up in what? What are you involved in, Clarity? Something illegal?”

“In a manner of speaking.” She spoke as they were pulled through the water toward a waiting boat. “But not on my part. Or on Flinx’s, even though it’s him they want.”

“‘They’?” The medtech looked further confused. Then his expression darkened. “I knew there was something wrong with that skinny offworlder the minute I set eyes on him. I could feel it.”

He could feel you, she thought, but said nothing.

Having unexpectedly dialed into a scenario that fit his hopes, Barryn was loath to let it go. “What is it? Illegal pharmaceuticals? Unregistered genensplices? Straightforward smuggling? What’s his line, this skewnk Flinx of yours? And how are you mixed up in it?”

“They’re going to try to use me to get to him,” she explained with a serenity that was utterly alien to their present circumstances. “Or else maybe they’re just going to kill me.”

That quieted him for a moment. “What do you mean, ‘get to him’? They want him? For what?”

They were very close to the boat now, she saw. Soon they would be hauled aboard. Or dispatched, though she was fairly confident her first assumption was the correct one: that their intention was to use her as bait.

“They want to eliminate him. Because he’s trying to save the galaxy. Trying to preserve civilization. They call themselves the Order of Null.” She swallowed water, coughed. How could she explain her personal involvement with the approaching apocalypse in the time remaining to them?

“There’s something coming this way out of intergalactic space. It eats planets, suns, whole star systems. Whole galaxies. It will consume this one unless it can somehow be stopped or diverted. Somehow, in some way, Flinx believes he is the key to the one small, slim chance of doing so. Incredibly knowledgeable individuals of multiple species have confirmed this to me. They can’t explain it, but they can confirm it.” She cringed as an unseen winch started to haul them up out of the water, crumpled sunfoils and all. Several times she and Barryn were banged against the side of the capture boat. Fortunately it had a low freeboard and their bumpy ascent was a brief one.

Initially too stunned by her words to comment, Barryn finally found his voice again. It was commendably calm. Or his composure might have been attributable to simple shock.

“That’s the most insane thing I’ve ever heard, Clarity, and I’ve spent a lot of time working with mental patients. How can you believe such nonsense? In all the time we’ve known each other I’ve never seen or suspected that you harbored anything like that kind of intellectual frailty. I mean, step back if you can and look at what you just said. You don’t really expect me to believe any of it, do you?”

Swinging around toward the stern of the capture craft, the power winch deposited its catch brusquely on the smooth, seamless surface of the rear deck. Peering out between the net’s resilient fibers, she noticed a quartet of onlookers staring down at them from the boat’s upper level. If they were aware of Scrap’s capabilities, they were doubtless keeping their distance intentionally.

“You can believe as you wish or not, Tam.” She was tired from fighting the water and the net. The minidrag’s wings beat furiously against her neck and shoulders as Scrap made futile efforts to free himself.

“Clarity Held!” Holding a small amplifier card in front of his mouth, a portly gentleman with a deceptively mild mien addressed her from the upper level. “We apologize for some roughness in the process of bringing you aboard, but this was deemed the safest and most inconspicuous way of remanding you to our charge. We are—”

“I know who you are.” She cut him off. “You’re fanatics of the worst kind. You have no respect for logic or reason and you worship death and destruction.”

The man and his companions looked indignant. “We ‘worship’ nothing,” he took pains to correct her. “Seeing filth and ignorance and waste all around us, we welcome the Purity that is coming. That is all. Our philosophy is entirely practical and scientific. In contrast, yours, that of the great mass of deluded sentients, and most importantly that of your friend Philip Lynx, is to deny the impending cleansing. It does not really matter because nothing can stop it.

“We believe in leaving nothing to chance, however, and as there is a very slight theoretical possibility that this individual might somehow be able to interfere with the efficiency of the cleansing, we feel it is our obligation to brush away even so minuscule a probability.”

Struggling with the tangle of net, she managed to climb to her feet. The shroudlike nature of the overlapping folds did not escape her. “You’ve tried that before, more than once. Each time, some of you ended up dead.”

The man stiffened, but his demeanor remained unruffled. “Mistakes were made. The abilities of this Flinx person were underestimated. We will not make such mistakes again. Nothing has been left to chance. He will die. He has to die. The only difference between him and the rest of us is that he will die a fragment of time sooner.

“We could have killed you soon after he fled from Nur, Clarity Held. It was decided not to do so because it was thought that under certain circumstances you might prove more useful alive than dead. Events are soon to confirm this supposition.”

Where were Bran Tse-Mallory and the Eint Truzenzuzex? she found herself wondering. She was pleased when they had stopped hovering over her months ago. Now she felt their absence keenly. Had they already been slain by other members of the Order? Knowing man and thranx as she did, she found that hard to believe. But the Order was lethal, cunning, and most dangerous of all, subtle. After the battle at the shuttleport more than a year ago they had seemingly disappeared. With Flinx safely away offworld she had been lulled into what was now clearly a false sense of security. Despite their wisdom and experience, were her two venerable guardians equally susceptible to such deception?

A man and a woman emerged from the boat’s forward cabin. Both were dressed in flexible, dull-gray security suits that looked robust enough to be military issue. As soon as they drew near enough, an enraged Scrap spat in their direction. The tiny stream of venom struck the suited woman square on her suit’s faceplate. Startled, she stumbled backward a couple of steps. But the powerful toxin did not penetrate the special transparent alloy, although it did eat away a small part of the outermost layer.

As the man raised the pistol he was holding, a frantic Clarity moved to position herself inside the folds of the net between the muzzle of the projectile weapon and her pet.

“Don’t shoot him! There’s no need. I’ll make sure he doesn’t attack again.”

“It doesn’t matter.” The man spoke casually to his companion. “The amount of venom it stores in its mouth is limited. Let him expel until the poison sac is empty and then we’ll pull them out of the net.”

Barryn finally managed to get his legs under him and step forward. Or at least as far forward as the enfolding net would permit. “Look, I don’t know who you people are or what kind of lunatic farce Clarity says you’ve chosen to venerate, but neither she nor I have anything to do with whatever trouble that redheaded offworlder has stirred up.” Using both hands, he held up two handfuls of the fine-mesh net in which he was imprisoned. “Just get us out of here and we can discuss whatever concerns you have like civilized human beings. If this Flinx person is mixed up in something illicit, maybe we can help you sort it, and him, out.”

Clarity looked at him sharply. She turned toward him just in time to see the woman point the pistol she was holding at the medtech and blow his head off. Not off, precisely. More into glutinous blobs of flesh and bone. In any event the effect was the same. The headless body remained standing for a moment, blood spurting from the severed neck like some perverted fountain. Then it collapsed in a broken heap, not unlike the sunfoils.

Clarity did not scream. Some time ago, Flinx had introduced her to something that was genuinely worth screaming about: the very incarnation and manifestation of evil and annihilation whose approach these people sought to facilitate. So the explosive, messy demise of the man who had been standing next to her did not stagger her. Only filled her with emptiness.

“You didn’t have to kill him,” she observed in dismay. “He was just a medtech who liked me. You could have let him go. He didn’t believe in you even when I explained who you are and what you’re about.”

“He saw us,” replied the rotund speaker through his amplifier card. “He saw faces. You are going to disappear, and it was apparent that he was enamored enough of you to follow up on your disappearance. Above nearly all else, we of the Order value our anonymity. Sometimes distasteful steps must be taken to preserve it.”

As the two suited figures reached the net and began working with the folds, Scrap kept spitting at them, trying to bring them down. His aim was impeccable, but the caustic venom could not penetrate the multiple layers of the military visors. As the man working the net had foretold, after a while the minidrag’s store of venom grew exhausted. At that point they were able to handle the fighting, squirming serpentine shape without concern. Manipulated by four strong hands, Scrap was maneuvered into a transparent double-walled box whose airholes were offset to prevent him from spitting his toxin outside. Clarity had her wrists fastened behind her and her ankles secured with flexible straps to a small horizontal crossbar. Thus bound, she could walk but not run.

The forward cabin was large enough to accommodate all six of the boat’s occupants. None struck her as experienced sailors, but on central Nur’s placid and cultivated waters oceangoing skills were hardly a requirement for operating a watercraft. The boat’s integrated automated systems handled any required seamanship, leaving its passengers free to enjoy the experience.

A large triangular sprowel had been thrown over Clarity’s shoulders. As the thousands of filaments of the specially treated quasi-animate hydrophonic material reacted to the water on her skin and began to warm and dry her, firm hands guided her toward one of the boat’s consoles. Beyond, through the craft’s curving foreport, she could see the shoreline and in the distance the familiar profile of the rehabilitation facility where she had spent so many months and subsequent visits convalescing, healing, and recovering. For all that she could presently access, its facilities might as well have been situated in a different star system.

Poor Barryn, she found herself thinking. If she’d had any inkling the Order was still interested in Flinx, she would have shunned the medtech from the first day he had paid any serious attention to her. It had been his misfortune to become infatuated. With a start she remembered what Flinx had once told her: people who found themselves swept up in his orbit often came to an unpleasant end. Exactly that had happened to the well-meaning Tambrogh Barryn. Now it appeared that the same was to be true of her.

Having put away the no-longer-needed amplifier, the deceptively innocent-looking man spoke to her as his hands brushed over the quaint manual controls on the console.

“I’m sure by now you’re wondering what has happened to the singular pair of guardians who have been looking out for you these past many months. We’re about to find out.” His smile was almost regretful. “As I said previously, sometimes steps must be taken.”

Even if she could have broken free of her captors there was nowhere to run, and she could not swim with her wrists and ankles bound. She could only stand and watch and listen as the speaker contacted the first of the Order’s two specialized assassination squads. Outwardly she was as calm and composed as anyone in her situation could be. Inside she was as frightened and scared as anyone in her situation should be.

If not exactly reassuring, the first words to echo through the cabin at least did not send her into a panic.

“What of the old thranx?” the portly man inquired of the image of a slender female shape that materialized above the console.

The attractive woman sounded peeved. “We had him surrounded in Claris Park, but he ran into a drainage conduit. We have both ends blocked. Eventually he’ll have to emerge, and we’ll be here. Of course, we’re not waiting on that eventuality. We are presently assembling the appropriate materials to allow us to go in after him. One way or the other, the matter will be settled before tomorrow morning.”

“Compliments and blessings.” The speaker adjusted the controls. This time the image that appeared in the cabin was that of a young man who looked to be barely out of his teens—except for his eyes, which looked older than the rest of him.

“Salutations, passerby.” Like his tone, the youth’s expression was gloomy.

The speaker noted both immediately. “The esteemed researcher gave you trouble?”

The younger man’s reply was remarkable for its impassiveness. He might as well have been reciting a grocery list. “You might say that. Six of the Order tried and true—dead. As to the target I can report nothing conclusive. He may be dead within the shop. Or possibly wounded and on the way to hospital. I don’t know because we as yet have been unable to get one of our own inside to inspect the wreckage. The shop owner and his staff are reportedly traumatized and under constant police and medical watch. The police have also, not unexpectedly, sealed off the location and are proving uninformative. There is a lockdown on the scene that applies to the general media as well. As soon as we have more precise information it will be communicated.”

Following a further brief exchange the speaker signed off. It was only when he turned to the eldest of the boat’s passengers that Clarity realized for the first time that the man with whom she had been conversing was not the leader of the group.

The short, white-bearded senior to whom the speaker now deferred looked physically feeble. Despite the best efforts of modern medicine, he suffered from curvature of the upper spine. He had a long, lined, unyielding face that reminded her of a petulant camel. One hand rested on the rounded hilt of a cane fashioned from a dark copper alloy. Familiar as she was with the fanatical organization that had abducted her, she would not have been surprised to learn that the walking stick contained within its cylindrical body several self-propelled and highly volatile projectiles.

“Orel?” Along with the speaker, the attention of every acolyte on the boat was focused on the cane bearer.

The old man grunted softly. “The thranx is contained. The man is dead, injured, or on the run. There is nothing to be gained by delay. Events are put in motion. We should proceed.”

A general sigh rose from the assembled members of the Order; an exhalation of contented decay. Resting both hands on the top of the cane, one on top of the other, the Elder blinked across at Clarity.

“Since you know who we are, you know that we must deal with the anomaly who calls himself Flinx. We are bound to do this. We have no choice. Personally, I wish it could be otherwise. While the Order anticipates and welcomes the Purity that is coming, sometimes there is groundwork we dislike having to lay. The interference aura that has been blocking your communit will be deactivated. You will contact him and supply him with a location we will provide where he can find you.”

“So you can kill him,” she responded tightly.

The old man nodded resignedly. “Yes. So we can kill him.”

“And then you’ll kill me.”

His response was a shrug. “Perhaps. Perhaps not. Your fate remains a matter of some controversy. Once the anomaly has been eliminated, the matter of your continued existence essentially becomes moot.”

“Don’t play with me,” she growled defiantly. “You killed poor Tam just because he could maybe identify some of you later. Why should I think you’ll do any different with me?”

Casting an eye in the direction of the speaker, the Leader shook his head slowly. The latter looked abashed. “Poor tactics,” the old man murmured as he turned back to Clarity. “Once this Philip Lynx is dealt with, there may be some leeway in options. I can of course promise nothing until then.” And then, quite unexpectedly, his creased and furrowed visage broke out into an unmistakable leer.

Ever since she and Barryn had been seized, Clarity had felt a certain degree of fear. This was the first time she had felt as if she was going to lose her breakfast.

“I’m not going to call Flinx,” she declared rebelliously. “If you contact him, I’m not going to say anything.” She strove her hardest to make the glare she bestowed on the vile Elder actually sear his flesh. “I’m most especially not going to tell him to travel to any coordinates you provide!”

The hoped-for force of her glare had absolutely no effect on the old man. “Yes you are,” he demurred gently. Turning, he nodded at the semicircle of acolytes.

A young woman came toward Clarity. In her severe and unadorned fashion, the true believer was almost pretty. She was holding something in her right hand. A device.

“Hold her,” she instructed her associates. Ready hands moved to restrict Clarity’s freedom of movement. Her muscles contracted as she tensed. The device was pushed forward.

Out in the middle of the lake her shrieks went unheard except by a few startled, long-necked pinsoir gliders and a helplessly writhing, securely caged Scrap. While their volume was muted by the cabin’s soundproofing, the pitch of the recurrent screams was shrill enough to make the broad-winged fliers veer off to the west and give the source of the frightful noise a wide berth.