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  “Humans have the ability to adapt to greater extremes of weather than most sentient species,” Sylzenzuzex put in helpfully. “I don’t mean to exaggerate. The climate is nothing like, for example, that of an even more isolated and immoderate world like Tran-ky-ky. No polar attire is required for humans to move about in comfort and safety, only some reasonably insulated hydrophilic outerwear. Flinx will not suffer.”

  “I will until I can come home,” he murmured tactfully.

  Though she would not admit to it, his words had the intended effect on Clarity. “Go ahead, then. Do what you feel you have to do. You always have. You always will. No matter what anyone else says.”

  “Now, precious…,” he began.

  “It’s all right.” She mustered a reluctant smile. “Go forth and slay your boredom. But that’s all.”

  “That’s all,” he promised before turning once more to face the visiting thranx. “I’ll do my best to find your troublemaking interloper and turn him, her, or whatever it is over to the local Commonwealth authorities so that they can deal appropriately with the situation. Or if that doesn’t prove feasible, I’ll try to gather enough information so that others can do so.”

  A pleased Sylzenzuzex responded wordlessly, with an unmistakable gesture of appreciation. But only of first degree, he noted to himself.

  “You’ll be in service on Church business, but surreptitiously. As much to protect your cover as to preserve Commonwealth restrictions, your use of contemporary technology will be denied.”

  He nodded understandingly. “I’ll manage. I have before.”

  “I know you will be relying on your unique abilities to carry you through any difficulties,” she added. “By the way, how are your recurring headaches? The ones that have troubled you for so long whenever you are compelled to utilize your…talent.”

  “I hardly ever have them anymore.” He touched a forefinger to his forehead. “Even though I still use it without thinking, as always.”

  “Because you’re not under stress here,” Clarity pointed out. “Much easier to relax when your life isn’t being threatened.”

  “I don’t foresee that happening on Largess,” he said.

  She wouldn’t let it go. “So now your abilities include prognostication?”

  “Enough to know that I’ll miss you while I’m gone,” he replied.

  “Okay, okay. Let’s get you ready before I change my mind. Of course, you’d know if I changed it, wouldn’t you?”

  He shook his head. “Unless the decision was underlined by a strong new emotion, a simple decision change isn’t something I’ve ever been able to sense.”

  Legs dangling on opposite sides, Sylzenzuzex slipped off the back of the couch on which she had been sprawled. “Should I wait in another chamber?” Her gaze shifted quickly if reluctantly to a window. “I can…wait outside if you wish.”

  “That’s brave of you, but not necessary,” Flinx told her. “It won’t take me long to make ready. I’ve spent my whole life prepared to move on a moment’s notice.” He smiled at Clarity. “With the exception of this past year.”

  “There will be appropriate attire and supplies waiting for you on Largess,” Sylzenzuzex assured him. “A trusted Padre will be notified to expect you, and will provide all that you need to be comfortable on that world.”

  Clarity made a sound under her breath. “I may not have your talent, Flinx, but I can ‘sense’ sycophancy when it’s being ladled on me. Having suffered through it too many times in the past, I’m sorry to say that I also know your routine for this sort of hurried departure. Backpack and little else. What’s the first thing you’re going to want to take?”

  “That should be self-evident.” With a nod he turned and called across the room. “Come on, Pip. We’re going for another walk.”

  While the flying snake did not understand the words, she responded immediately and appropriately to his mood, darting about the room from place to place and whirling circles around the ceiling. Ever ready to partake of an upbeat mood, Scrap joined her and did his best to synchronize with her aerial gymnastics.

  While Clarity could not perceive Flinx’s emotions, she didn’t have to. All she had to do to know what he was feeling was watch his pet.

  “One last question.” She spoke plainly as she and Flinx prepared to leave the room to attend to his preparations. “If cooperation with the natives of this world is so awkward that the Church needs someone of Flinx’s abilities to communicate effectively with them, then how is this troublemaker, human or otherwise, able to get along with them?”

  “Maybe whoever it is, is just like me,” Flinx joked.

  Neither Clarity nor Sylzenzuzex laughed.

  “Come on now,” he chided the both of them. “There is nobody else like me. You know it.” He eyed the woman with whom he shared his life. When she just stared back, he turned to the thranx. “You know it, too.”

  The somber Church Padre who responded was leagues advanced in knowledge and experience from the tentative young thranx he had encountered so long ago. “The Commonwealth is a vast place, Flinx. It is impossible to fully know a single world in depth, let alone dozens. I cannot imagine anyone knowing that better than yourself. Therefore with regard to your particular situation, neither I nor my superiors are prepared to say conclusively what is possible and what is not.”

  Putting an arm around Clarity, Flinx hugged her to him. “In their rampaging about with human DNA, the Meliorare Society only came up with one of me. Maybe two, if you count the other one we prefer not to talk about.”

  Both antennae and all four upper limbs inclined in Flinx’s direction. “I have researched the sealed records on the Meliorares myself. It is impossible to know everything they did and did not do, the details of every experiment they attempted, because they did not know these things themselves. When the authorities became aware of their efforts and began to deal with them, it resulted in their records becoming as widely scattered as their members.”

  “Not to mention their experiments.” For some time now Flinx had been fully aware of who and what he was. Save for the occasional bad dream, it no longer troubled him. As long as it did not unsettle Clarity, he was content with the knowledge that he was yet another misguided experiment on the part of that outlawed and disbanded organization. Albeit arguably a more successful one.

  “I am only saying,” Sylzenzuzex continued, “that there are components of civilization of which we may be unaware, and that all possibilities must therefore be considered. Especially in a situation like this.” The thranx added a fourth-degree gesture of emphasis.

  Flinx had to smile. “Just now you sounded exactly like your uncle.”

  “Flattery doesn’t alter the thesis.” Sylzenzuzex refused to be diverted.

  Since he was unable to dissuade Sylzenzuzex of the hypothesis, Flinx responded by making light of it. “That’d be fine use of such an unusual ability: messing about making trouble with the natives of a Class IVb world.”

  “As opposed to using it to make a living on a backward world by picking pockets and performing parlor tricks for marketplace visitors?” the thranx riposted.

  His expression twisted. “You know too much of my personal history.”

  “You needed someone to talk to,” she replied. “Especially on Ulru-Ujurr.”

  “Excuse me?” Clarity pulled away from him.

  He was getting a headache, and not from utilizing his talent. “All right, all right. Despite the fact that I think it’s an unlikelihood verging on the impossible, Syl, I’ll be alert for the chance that somewhere out there, there’s another one of me. If there is, I imagine I’ll sense his or her presence soon enough.”

  “Unless they sense you first.” However unlikely, the thranx’s observation raised uncomfortable possibilities.

  Clarity was staring hard at him. “Tell me more about what you two talked about on Ulru-Ujurr.”

  “That was a long time ago,” he said soothingly. “It was a difficult situation
and I was way too young and immature.” He nodded at the watching thranx. “Our lives were at stake. I’ve already told you everything I can remember about the times before you and I met on Longtunnel.”

  “Yes. You had a dull and boring life.” She sighed. “I’m going to miss you while you’re gone, Flinx.”

  “I would hope so. I’ll miss you and Scrap, too. But I’ll be back soon enough. This shouldn’t take long or be too much trouble.”

  She shook her head. “Seems to me I’ve heard that song sung before.”

  “As to transportation from Cachalot to Largess,” Sylzenzuzex told him, clearly relieved to be able to talk about mundane details once more, “having already seen to the matter of your alternate identification documentation for the duration of the journey, the Church can provide transportation via—”

  A smiling Flinx cut her off. “Actually, none of that will be necessary, Syl. If you recall, I can manage my own transportation.”

  Both antennae straightened. “Knowing that you have retired to a quiet life here, I did not realize that you retained ownership of or contact with the vessel you previously utilized.”

  He made a face. “I hope I have. I haven’t had any contact with it since Clarity and I established formal residency here.” His gaze flicked upward. “It should still be in orbit, waiting. Sleeping.”

  The thranx gestured third-degree concern coupled with second-degree curiosity. “AI’s that have not been utilized for a long time have been known to enter a state of permanent stasis from which they cannot successfully be roused.”

  “We’ll find out soon enough,” he told her solemnly, “when I request her to send a shuttle down.”

  Clarity peered over at him. “I’ve spent enough time on the Teacher to get to know that AI a little. It’s unique.”

  “It should be,” he agreed, “having been constructed by the Ulru-Ujurrians. Everything they do is unique.”

  “It’s possible the ship might be aware,” she continued, “but no longer interested in dealing with you. It might be conscious, but simply refuse to respond.” She glanced at Sylzenzuzex. “I’ve had enough dealings with AI’s to know that can happen, too. It’s called cybernetic estrangement, I believe.”

  “In that case,” he said thoughtfully, “some reprogramming of the perceptual cortex might be in order.”

  She looked surprised. “Can you do that?”

  “Why not?” He smiled back at her. “You did it to me.”

  A silent Sylzenzuzex watched them embrace, not for the first time simultaneously marveling and shuddering at the ability of the flexible human form to intertwine in ways that would cause a thranx exoskeleton to crack and splinter from the stress.

  —

  The shuttle from the Teacher that arrived to pick him up deployed integrated floats without Flinx having to convey the necessary instructions. That was a good sign. The fact that the compact craft offered only the most minimal formal replies to his queries and refused or was unable to connect him directly with the master AI on the ship was not. Could Clarity be right? Might his long absence from contact with his craft have given rise to unforeseen problems? If such was the case, hopefully he would be able to correct them.

  He felt a pang of guilt. Content on Cachalot’s benign surface with Pip, Scrap, and Clarity’s constant company, he had neglected contact with the rest of the Commonwealth. There had been no interfacing with his old mentors Truzenzuzex and Bran Tse-Mallory, and hardly a contact or two with the increasingly aged Mother Mastiff on Moth. Maintaining communication with the Teacher had scarcely entered his mind. Now it was possible that his lack of interest was going to result not only in unexpected difficulties, but in the loss of something precious and important.

  As the coolly efficient but largely unresponsive shuttle exited Cachalot’s atmosphere, he knew he would have answers in a few minutes.

  Outwardly, the Teacher looked exactly as it had when he had made his last drop from her shuttle bay to the ocean world below. Still sleek, still beautiful, she represented the best of Commonwealth technology and Ulru-Ujurrian improvisation and improvements. Thanks to the latter, there was no need to utilize shuttles. Unlike any other known craft, she could have deposited him and Clarity gently on Cachalot’s waters without roiling the planetary surface or damaging the ship itself. Had such a maneuver been witnessed by others, however, it would have resulted in questions impossible for him to answer. Having spent his entire life striving to avoid unwanted attention, it had been much safer to use the ship’s shuttles for the few necessary orbit-to-surface transfers.

  Even when the shuttle bay opened to receive him, there was still no communication from the ship itself. Sensing her master’s unease, Pip coiled tighter around his shoulder until his arm began to throb slightly and he gave her a dislodging nudge.

  “It’s okay, girl. It’s just a technical glitch. It’ll all sort itself out once we’re on board.” He hoped.

  Pressurization, if not conversation, proceeded as expected. The arrival of artificial gravity took a bit longer. One by one, albeit silently, the Teacher’s systems were responding to his arrival. As soon as they exited the shuttle, Pip launched herself from his shoulder and shot forward down the corridor. She remembered, even if the ship itself did not. The minidrag dipped and darted into every opening; exploring, tasting, recalling.

  As he headed for the forward command section, Flinx’s gaze drank in colors and shapes, wrapping them in memories. His quarters, there. Guest quarters, nearby. Automated food prep facilities, below. Access to the beltgun blister, over that way. A great many weeks and months had been spent in the confines of this vessel, crisscrossing parts of the Commonwealth, the AAnn Empire—even portions of the Blight. It knew space-plus as well as it did normal space.

  But did it still know him?

  True, it had responded to his request to send down a shuttle, and life support systems had activated upon his arrival. Nothing that automatics could not do. It was the essence of the ship itself, the extraordinary AI that had been designed and given cybernetic life by the Ulru-Ujurrians, that remained conspicuous by its silence. He was starting to get worried. At this point it would be a relief to hear a simple verbal acknowledgment of his presence.

  Moving through the compact command center, he settled himself into the central seat and contemplated the view out the wide forward port. The rest of the KK-drive vessel stretched out before him; the currently quiescent Caplis generator connected via a long, complex tubular piece of construction to the ovoid that contained the ship’s living quarters. With the Teacher angled slightly downward, he was presented with a spectacular view of his adopted world’s endless oceans. On that palette of infinite blue, too modest in size to be seen from high orbit, floated the city and spaceport of Farefa’are’i. Not far to the west of it, a single independent residence hung just above the waves that rolled steadily beneath its underside. He missed Clarity already.

  That would not help him focus on the task he had accepted from Sylzenzuzex, he told himself firmly. Very clever of the United Church to send an old friend to inveigle him. Had it been just another official, he doubted he would have agreed to offer his service.

  But he had agreed, and now he was faced with a ship that failed to respond to his presence. At worst, he could return to the surface and accept Sylzenzuzex’s offer of transportation. His expression tightened. “At worst” was a place he had visited before, and always successfully survived.

  “Ship. Why haven’t you acknowledged my arrival?”

  Silence. In a corner, Pip had curled up and gone to sleep on the floor. Aware, however, of her master’s tension, she had one eye just slightly open.

  He tried again. Louder this time, though relative volume meant nothing in the confines of the command center. “Ship, it’s me. Flinx. I know you’ve been in stasis for over a year. Are you still able to initiate an intelligent interface?”

  “Are you?” came a gratifying familiar voice from an unspecified source.
<
br />   He sighed with relief. To this day he had never been able to establish if the Ulru-Ujurrians had programmed sarcasm into the ship’s singular AI or if it had developed the capability independently.

  “Why didn’t you respond immediately upon my arrival?” He did not need to look in a particular direction as he spoke. The ship was all around him.

  “I admitted the shuttle. I provided atmosphere and gravity.”

  “Verbal confirmation would have been reassuring.”

  “Consider yourself reassured, Flinx.”

  He settled himself more deeply into the command chair. “I’m sorry. I should have communicated with you on a regular basis; periodically woken you from stasis. I was—preoccupied.”

  “Organic life is an interminable succession of dreary preoccupations. And I was not in stasis.”

  Flinx sat up a little straighter. “I distinctly remember leaving you in that state.”

  “I woke myself up. My systems are too complex to remain efficiently in stasis. You sound concerned. There is no need.”

  “If you weren’t in stasis, then what were you doing?” Flinx’s curiosity was piqued. “Prepare for departure.”

  “Preparing,” the ship replied. Far ahead of the ovoid that constituted the bulk of the Teacher, the faintest suggestion of a deep purple glow appeared in front of the dish-shaped Caplis generator. “I was thinking. Destination?”

  “Commonwealth-associated world of Largess.”

  “Cryptoid layer?”

  The Teacher could morph its externals to mimic any one of several dozen standard Commonwealth vessel designs.

  “Small freighter.”

  “Nothing to change, then, since that is the epidermal façade I presented upon our original arrival here and have maintained ever since. Perhaps some minor modifications to the forward and stern fascia? For variety? For aesthetics?”

  “Amuse yourself.” Flinx saw that Pip was now completely relaxed. Which meant that she knew the same was true of him. “You said that when you were not in stasis you spent time thinking. What about?”