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  A nasty smirk played over Ormann’s face. It made him look less the handsome, successful executive and more like an antique ventriloquist’s dummy. “That’s not what the deposition of the security guard claims.” He shut off the pad. “Even if your friend was as you describe him when you knew him, how do you know he hasn’t changed? Six years is a long time. People sour, develop hatreds. Go bad.”

  “Is that the kind of person you’ve met?” she challenged him.

  He drew himself up slightly. “Actually, I haven’t been much interested in getting to know Lynx. If it wasn’t for your interest in him—and his obvious interest in you—he would pass completely beneath my notice. Forget the security guard for a moment. What about the other charges? How do they square with the person you claim as an old friend?”

  How much could she say? How much could she admit to that would extricate her from her present predicament without compromising Flinx’s safety and status on New Riviera? Was Ormann being malicious or simply jealous?

  “I know that Flinx has had some run-ins with authority. Given the life he’s led, something of the sort was probably inevitable. But I’m sure he had good reasons for everything he did.”

  Ormann gawked at her—the woman he expected to marry and bear his children. “You know about these violations?” Clearly he had expected his revelations of Flinx’s wrongdoings to anger or disconcert her. That they had not unsettled him. “And you haven’t reported him, have continued to see and counsel him?”

  She remained defiant. “He needs help, not incarceration. Whatever he’s done, I know there was a valid rationale for it. And despite what your little spy report may claim, I know that he’d never harm so much as a worm without good cause.” Outside, the sila langeur sang on, but now its trill was drowned out by Ormann’s outrage.

  “This is insane! How can you believe that? The man’s a fugitive, not an abandoned child!” He took a step toward her and she nearly flinched. “What is this, Clarity? What has this man done to you?” His voice fell, became at once more cautious and more compassionate. “That’s it, isn’t it? He’s done something to you—affected you with more than just talk.”

  “Now who’s talking crazy?” she argued. Ironically, she knew that had he wished to do so, Flinx could have done exactly what Ormann was hinting at. He had promised her he would not. So he hadn’t—had he? The twists and turns in the conversation were starting to make her dizzy.

  Ormann took her reaction as confirmation. “Now I understand. And believe me, Clarity, it’s a relief to know you’re not responsible for what’s been happening. All we have to do now is figure out what he’s done to you and how, and then reverse the effects.” He fell into deep thought. “Some kind of drug, applied subtly enough so that you wouldn’t know it was influencing you. Or maybe aural mesmerics. Certainly hypnotics of some kind must be involved.”

  She didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. “Bill, he hasn’t done anything to me! I’m the same person. I’m just trying to help him.”

  “Of course you are.” Ormann now spoke to her in the soothing tone one would use when addressing an idiot. “That’s exactly how he would want you to think. I was proceeding on the assumption that he was evil. Now I see it’s much more insidious than that.” He smiled reassuringly. “But don’t worry. I’ll take care of it, Clarity. Once he’s been dealt with, whatever he’s been using on you, dousing you with, will cease, and you’ll recover your senses.” The more relieved he looked, the more alarmed Clarity became.

  “Bill, all I can tell you is that you’ve got this whole thing backward. Whatever I’m doing, right or wrong, I’m doing of my own free will. I haven’t been mesmerized, drugged, or brainwashed. I’m the same person I was before Philip came here. And I know that Flinx is the same person I knew six years ago. More mature, more knowledgeable but the same person. We just, well, we just connect on a certain level.”

  “Is that a fact? Something special between the two of you, is it? Naturally he’d want you to think that.” He approached to within arm’s length and crouched down, so his face was on a level with hers. “Why don’t you tell me more about this special connection?”

  She searched his face. This was not the William Ormann she had known for over a year, the one whom she had contemplated marrying. The man squatting before her was obsessed. She considered pointing out again that her friendship with Flinx was purely platonic, but she suspected than even an allusion to the possibility of a physical relationship between them would add to Ormann’s paranoia. Besides, it wasn’t true.

  “I—I can’t tell you, exactly. It’s just a feeling.”

  “I see. A feeling. You have a feeling about this Lynx. A feeling about an accused criminal who—according to what I’ve been able to learn about him—is capable of extensive and highly sophisticated manipulation of sensitive information and those in charge of it. Not to mention strong individual personalities. And this doesn’t trouble you. Because you and he connect on a certain level. What level is that, Clarity? Hypnosis? Mind-altering drugs slipped into your drink? That would certainly constitute a connection.”

  What else could she say? she thought. How could she convince him that he was wrong about Flinx without giving away her friend’s secrets? Telling the truth was out of the question. For one thing, it would cause him to realize that Flinx could read his emotions. She knew Bill Ormann well enough to know how he would react to that.

  The longer she remained silent, the grimmer his expression became. Finally he rose, looming over her. Scrap was now thrashing around violently, beating his wings and tail against the transparent barrier, frantic to get out. Clarity tensed. But Ormann intended her no harm. He loved her. All he wanted to do, since she was so obviously sick, was to make her well again. To remove the poison the interloper had somehow planted in her mind.

  “I could simply report him to the local authorities and let them deal with him,” he murmured. “I’m sure they’d be delighted to know that there’s an important fugitive in their midst.”

  “What do you mean, important?” Anything, she thought, to get his mind off such a course of action. “Philip has never harmed anyone. He’s not a murderer, or an extortionist, or an embezzler.”

  “Are you sure? You’ve told me yourself that he bemuses and puzzles you. Who knows what this Philip Lynx may really be or what he may be capable of?”

  Not Flinx, she told herself. He’s as much in the dark as anyone. That’s the reason he’s here talking to me.

  “Turning him over to the authorities won’t help anybody,” she insisted desperately. To her surprise, Ormann agreed with her.

  “You’re absolutely right, my dear. I know from personal experience how our purportedly sophisticated legal system works, and someone with Lynx’s resources might easily buy his way out of trouble. Since I would dislike seeing that happen, I’ve decided not to inform the authorities. I’ll continue to deal with the situation myself.”

  She tensed. “What does that mean?”

  He frowned as he started for the door. “Why, I’d think it pretty straightforward. Unusual problems require unusual solutions. Rest assured I’ll come up with one and that no harm will come to you.”

  “You don’t know what you’re getting into, Bill. You don’t have any idea what you’re dealing with. There’s more to Flinx than what you see on the surface.”

  The door opened, framing her former paramour—and it was now definitely “former,” she had already decided—against the blue sky and scudding white clouds.

  “Wasn’t that what I was just saying? Which is why I’ve decided to be very, very careful when next I move against him. I didn’t get to be where I am, Clarity, without learning how to deal with excessive pride. I’m not afraid to learn from my lessons, and where this Lynx person is concerned, I’ve already had to absorb a few. I think I know what to do now. I’ll deal appropriately with him.” His gaze wandered to the container on the kitchen table. “And his lethal pet.

  “Don’t wor
ry, Clarity. This will all be over soon. And when it is, you and I can pick up right where we left off. It’ll be just like before. I’ll be back soon. Meanwhile, just sit tight.” He could not resist laughing at his own wit.

  “You’re going to die, Bill Ormann!” She didn’t say how because she didn’t know. Though this morning’s events had left her emotionally divorced from him, she still didn’t want to see him dead. Chastised, maybe, but not dead. Though Ormann was smart, experienced in his own way, ruthless in pursuit of a goal, that would not help him against Flinx.

  As she knew, those who went hunting for Flinx all too often found themselves dead.

  CHAPTER

  12

  The message that arrived at the hotel was rambling but unambiguous. William Ormann did not like Flinx. He especially did not like what Flinx had done to Ormann’s relationship with Clarity Held. She was not to blame, but it had become clear to Ormann that Flinx, through unknown means, had twisted the vulnerable mind of Ormann’s beloved. This was a condition that could with time and appropriate therapy doubtless be cured. Meanwhile, the message warned Flinx to keep away from them both and that it would be better for his health if he were to leave New Riviera as quietly and as soon as possible.

  As a warning, it had no effect. Flinx had been threatened by and had subsequently dealt with perils rather more extensive than those posed by a single aggravated, jealous executive. Even so, he did not underestimate Ormann. Not after having already found himself abducted once. He never underestimated anyone, or any danger. It was the hallmark of, among other things, a successful thief. His real concern was for Clarity. To Flinx’s practiced eye, the tone of Ormann’s communication suggested a mind increasingly clouded by envy and fear: a combination that, despite Ormann’s protestations of love, could pose as much a danger to her as to him.

  Flinx left the hotel in a hurry. Not to flee New Riviera and Sphene, as the message demanded, but to find Clarity. What might have seemed a daunting task to anyone else proved surprisingly easy for Flinx. Buried in the communication was a supposedly secure electronic signature that identified the location from which it had been sent. One of the clever little devices secured to his belt deciphered it immediately.

  The ease with which the trace had been performed only heightened his sense of danger. He made a couple of quick stops at specialized shops around the city. If a man does thee once, it’s his fault. If he does thee twice, it’s thy fault. Flinx had no intention of being done twice by Bill Ormann.

  It took some time for his rented aircar to find the exact spot from which the message had been sent. It was high in another convolution of Nur’s beautiful mountains, surrounded by taller takari trees than any Flinx had seen so far. He approached with caution. Just because the message had been sent from here did not mean he would find anyone alive. He relaxed slightly when he drew near enough to sense a flow of anxiety whose source he instantly identified as Clarity. It was accompanied by indications of discomfort, which angered him, but not of pain.

  He circled the house from above while Pip fretted on his shoulder. If the place was booby-trapped, neither he nor the instruments on board would be able to detect the method. Despite Ormann’s message, Flinx didn’t think Ormann wanted to hurt Clarity. He just wanted her, period. It was unlikely that someone else’s arrival would trigger an explosion intended to kill them both. Nevertheless, in proceeding, he had to assume a worst-possible-case scenario.

  He made several passes over the primitive-looking cabin while bathing it in scans from one of the devices he had purchased in town. Satisfied that nothing explosive lay within, he set down nearby and alighted from the aircar.

  “Pip, no!” Ignoring his warning shout, the minidrag immediately winged toward the house. He raced after her. It was entirely possible for traps to be sprung by mechanical means.

  But nothing erupted from the building, the purple-and-gold weeded grounds, or the nearby woods to blast the flying snake from the sky. He slowed as he approached the cabin. There was no mistaking who was inside: this close, he could isolate Clarity’s emotions as well as his own. Apprehension, unease, discomfort—these were present in abundance. But she was not in pain, nor did she radiate any fear of the threat of imminent physical harm. Most important, insofar as his talent could tell, she was alone.

  He became doubly wary.

  Accompanied by the dulcet songs of the puur javil and a couple of querulous, wide-eyed, long-armed drolgs watching from the nearby trees, he approached slowly on the cabin. From the outside it looked like nothing more than a retreat from city work and stress. The faux-wood logs had the advantage over real wood of providing excellent insulation, not leaking, and being impervious to bugs and fire. They were also conveniently easy to penetrate with the small scanner Flinx unlatched from his belt.

  The instrument reported two organic life-form signatures to be inside. One was clearly Clarity. Flinx assumed the other was Scrap. Pip’s agitation provided confirmation.

  He steathily circled the building, seeing nothing to threaten or impede his entry. He wouldn’t, of course. Ormann was jealous, not stupid. Clarity might have been left alone, but he would not have left her unguarded.

  Pausing behind a dense bush whose delicate long leaves curled away from his body heat, he slipped a filtering mask over his face. Ormann might assume that what had worked once would work again. The gun he had brought with him drawn and ready, Flinx sprinted toward the cabin.

  No one materialized to challenge him as he reached the back of the cabin. No sounds emanated from within. He edged carefully around the building, ducking below first one and then another window as he did. Peering around a corner gave him a good line on the only door. It might be locked or it might not.

  He removed and activated a custom-made packet from his belt. The result was an inflated, minimally articulated replica of himself. For something so light it gave a remarkable impression of solidity. The decoy was capable of only the most limited degree of programmed action, but all he needed was for it to approach the door.

  He waited with both hands on his gun. The inflated hand reached out and depressed the control buried in the old-fashioned door handle. The door swung open, and the ground erupted on either side of the decoy.

  The ambushing mechanisms were thin, tall, and lethal guns programmed so their deadly cross fire cut the decoy to shreds. Flinx sidled around the corner just far enough to take aim with his own gun. Having adjusted the weapon’s targeting settings from Organic to Mechanical, he fired twice. A neural disruptor makes very little sound—no loud percussive bang, no roar, just a soft crackle, like foil being crumpled.

  Each of the weapons at the door twitched as its circuitry was paralyzed, then collapsed. Flinx waited several minutes to see if they would move, heedful that they might be equipped with diversionary delay backups. When they did not, he advanced and shot them again. Standing over their camouflaged burrows, he methodically fried the subsurface instrumentation that had governed their actions. Only then did he scan the door for additional surprises. Finding none, he fingered the locked handle.

  For someone with his experience at breaking and entering, the lock might as well have been made of paper. In barely more than a minute it clicked open. Holding the disruptor, he pushed the door inward.

  He saw a great deal all at once: the kitchen to the left, a small den, and sitting area to his right. On the couch a familiar figure lay on her side, tightly bound and gagged, feet toward him, eyes wide as he started toward her. Simultaneously, Pip soared toward the container on the kitchen table. At her approach, it began to bounce and shake violently. Urgent, excited hisses issued from within.

  Every sense alert, he was halfway to Clarity when she managed to spit out enough of the gag to make herself understood. “Flinx, the chair—watch out!”

  He whirled just as it began a silent metamorphosis. At once simpler and more sophisticated than the guns outside, it unfolded multiple spiderlike limbs and came for him at astonishing speed. Some of
the arms were tipped with blades. Flinx took quick aim at its center and fired.

  It dodged smartly. One arm-mounted ceramic blade shot out a meter and with a single low, sicklelike swipe tried to reduce him in height by half a dozen centimeters. He leaped over it, used a stiffened left forearm to parry a second strike from a different cutting edge, and fired again. This time the transformed chair was flailing wildly, striking out in all directions, its circuits destroyed.

  While it was fizzing to a stop, the attendant footrest nearly got him. Spotting the padded stool advancing furtively on her master from behind, Pip spat at a vent in its rear. The corrosive minidrag venom wreaked sufficient havoc on the footstool’s innards to send it lurching off course toward the kitchen. A burst from Flinx’s pistol stilled it permanently.

  Clarity was smiling with relief. “Bill thought he could get to you with machines, with something you couldn’t hypnotize or drug.” She gestured with her bound wrists. “Get me out of this and I’ll give you all the details.”

  He moved toward her but stopped. “So he thinks I hypnotize people or drug them? As you do?”

  She nodded. “That’s what he believes.” She gestured with her hands a second time. “Feels like I’m bleeding. I’ve been stuck here since this morning. Can’t feel my legs, either.”

  “That’s not surprising.” With great deliberation, he raised his pistol and pointed it at her torso where the AI cortex would be located.

  She gaped at him. “Flinx? What are you doing? It’s me, Clarity!”

  It looked like Clarity. It acted and talked like Clarity. But it wasn’t Clarity. Having made use of self-motivating simulacra of himself on more than one occasion, Flinx was familiar with the sophisticated technology. Anyone else would have assumed this was the real Clarity Held. Certainly William Ormann believed that Flinx would do so. Except that there was one very important thing Ormann did not know. Flinx neither mesmerized nor drugged other people. He simply read their emotions, when his talent was functioning. And it was definitely functioning now.