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 Your ship s controlling AI has been placed in a rest mode. We
cannot manage changeover to space-plus. Only advanced electron-
ics can handle such calculations. But it is not necessary for us to
enter space-plus. We will activate the KK-drive manually and set a
course for Nur s sun. Even at sub-changeover speeds, final purification
will take place in a few days. Until then, Philip Lynx, you might
as well relax and dream happy dreams. He turned to the woman.
 Make sure the atmospheric concentration of added endorphin modi-
fiers stays at the appropriate level and that he gets another booster in
four hours. She nodded.
They left. Flinx struggled indifferently against his bonds. What
did it matter if he was tied up? What could be better than lying there,
with nothing to do, feeling contented and happy? Why struggle? The
visiting members of the Order were right, of course. In the end we
are all dead. What difference did it make if it was today or tomor-
row? The end was the same. As it would be for everyone and every-
thing when whatever lay behind the Great Emptiness began to affect
the galaxy. Why worry about it?
Clarity, he thought. Clarity would die, too. Without knowing
what had happened to him, without seeing him again, without his
seeing her, without his being able to hold her, to feel her body
against his, his arms wrapped around her, his lips against hers. He
started to weep. As he cried, he laughed, his system saturated with
pleasure-inducing chemicals.
In the darkness of space, a glow formed at the front of the
Teacher s Caplis generator. Ignoring preliminary queries from or-
bital control, the ship began to move. Those directing her did not
mind the warnings. If a government vessel capable of threatening
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2 62
FLINX S FOLLY
them appeared, they would use the Teacher s weaponry to shoot
back. Whether they fell into the sun or were blown apart made no
difference.
On his bed Flinx drifted in and out of consciousness. From time
to time one of the visitors came and injected him with something
soothing. Then his unease faded away and the angst that had begun
to build inside him popped like a soap bubble. Nearby, Pip snoozed
unconcerned. She knew that his emotions were only of peace and
contentment.
The Teacher accelerated, moving deeper into the Nurian system.
The yellow-orange main sequence dwarf star at its heart grew larger
in the curved foreport of the control room. While Flinx lay in un-
natural slumber his visitors ate and slept and gazed at the universe
they were soon to depart.
Days later they were sleeping soundly in one of the ship s guest
quarters when something like a quartet of green and vermilion ropes
entered their room. The cordlike appendages advanced across the
floor slowly and silently, carrying with them the aroma of cloves and
vanilla. None was more than a couple of centimeters thick.
They approached the visitors bed. It was dark in the room, but
that did not matter to the questing tendrils. They explored the mo-
tionless shapes, and two of the tendrils gently wrapped around the
neck of the woman while two encircled the throat of her companion.
Then they began to tighten. The man never woke up.
The woman did, choking and gasping for air. She frantically
tried to pull the constricting tendrils from her neck, but so tight was
their grip, so assured, that she couldn t get her fingers between ten-
dril and flesh. Turning blue in the darkness, she threw herself to her
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2 63
ALAN DEAN FOSTER
left, dragging the tendrils with her. Her fingers sought the small
needler she d left on the night table. Scratching weakly against its
smooth surface, they encountered nothing.
Another tendril was retreating across the floor. Like a long, spi-
dery finger, its end was wrapped around the barrel of the needler as
it dragged the weapon away.
Flinx woke up feeling happy but dirty. It struck him that he hadn t
had a shower in a long time. He realized he felt a little less wonder-
ful than he had during the preceding days.
He rubbed at his eyes. Then it occurred to him that his arms
were no longer restrained. Looking down, he saw that the straps that
had held him in place had been unfastened. Happy haze fogged his
memory. There was something he needed to do. He struggled to re-
member what it was.
Until he could think of it, he decided, he might as well have
something to eat. He was incredibly hungry. Forcing his muscles
to work, he rose from the bed and staggered into the corridor. See-
ing her master on the move again, Pip spread pleated wings and
followed.
The quiet hum of the Teacher enveloped him. As he stumbled
toward the relaxation lounge where he often took his meals he hap-
pened to pass the open door to one of the two guest rooms. Inside,
he saw both his visitors. The man was lying on the bed while the
body of his companion hung over the side, her hair brushing the
floor. Deep red welts around their necks suggested that both of them
had been strangled.
This insight oddly only improved his mood.
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2 64
FLINX S FOLLY
This must be what a three-day drunk feels like, he told himself
numbly. Staggering onward, he entered the lounge area. The sound
of the waterfall and the diminutive splashings of the imported fauna [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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