For Love of Mother-Not (31 page)

Even as the tall senior was shaking his hand and mouthing platitudes, Flinx was searching for the most likely escape
route. There seemed to be only one exit: the door through which he had entered. He had no idea where the door at the far end of the room led, but suspected that freedom was not one of the possibilities.

“What a great pleasure to finally meet you, my boy,” the old man was saying. His grip was firm. “We’ve gone to a great deal of trouble to arrive at this meeting. I would rather not have had to proceed in this fashion, but circumstances conspired to force my hand.”

“It
was
you, then”—Flinx gestured at the others—”who were responsible for abducting my mother?”

Cruachan relaxed. There was no danger in this skinny, innocent boy. Whatever abilities he might possess remained dormant, awaiting proper instruction and development. Certainly his attitude was anything but threatening.

“I asked him,” the man who had brought Flinx from the marketplace reported, “if he’d heard of the Society. He said no.”

“No reason for him to,” Cruachan observed. “His life has been restricted, his horizons limited.”

Flinx ignored that appraisal of his limitations. “Where’s Pip?”

“Your pet, I assume? Yes.” The tall man turned and called out toward the rear doorway. The section of wall containing the door creaked as hidden winches pulled it aside. Beyond lay still another of the endless series of storage chambers, packed with the usual containers and drums and crates. On a table in the forefront stood a transparent cube, perhaps a meter square, topped with several small metal tanks. Hoses ran from the tanks into the cube.

To the left of the table stood a nervous-looking old man holding a small, flat control box. His thumb was pressed hard against one of the buttons set in the box. His eyes shifted regularly from the cube to Flinx and back to the cube.

Pip lay in the bottom of the cube, coiled into itself apparently deep in sleep. Flinx took a step forward. Cruachan put out a hand to hold him back.

“Your pet is resting comfortably. The air in the cage has
been mixed with a mild soporific. Westhoff is regulating the mixture and flow of gases even as we speak. If you were to try anything foolish, he would increase the flow from the tanks before you could possibly free your pet. You see, the cage has been weld-sealed. There is no latch.

“The adjusted normal atmosphere inside the cube will be completely replaced by the narcoleptic gas, and your pet will be asphyxiated. It would not take long. All Westhoff has to do is press violently on the button his thumb is caressing. If necessary, he will throw his body across it. So you see, there is nothing you could do to prevent him from carrying out his assignment.”

Flinx listened quietly even as he was gauging the distance between himself and the cage. The elderly man holding the control box gazed grimly back at him. Even if he could somehow avoid the hands that would surely reach out to restrain him, he did not see how he could open the cage and free Pip. His stiletto would be useless against the thick pancrylic.

“You’ve made your point,” he said finally. “What do you want from me?”

“Redemption,” Cruachan told him softly.

“I don’t understand.”

“You will eventually, I hope. For now, suffice for you to know that we are interested in your erratic but unarguable abilities: your Talent.”

All Flinx’s preconceived ideas collapsed like sand castles in a typhoon. “You mean you’ve gone through all this, kidnapping Mother Mastiff and now Pip, just because you’re curious about
my
abilities?” He shook his head in disbelief. “I would have done my best to satisfy you without your having to go through all this trouble.”

“It’s not quite that simple. You might say one thing, even believe it, and then your mind might react otherwise.”

Crazier and crazier, Flinx thought dazedly. “I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about.”

“Just as well,” Cruachan murmured. “You are an emotional telepath, is that not correct?”

“I’m sensitive sometimes to what other people are feeling, if that’s what you mean,” Flinx replied belligerently.

“Nothing else? No precognitive abilities? Telekinesis? True telepathy? Pyrokinesis? Dimensional perceptivity?”

Flinx laughed at him, the sound sharpened by the tension that filled the room. “I don’t even know what those words mean except for telepathy. If by that you mean can I read other people’s minds, no. Only sometimes their feelings. That other stuff, that’s all fantasy, isn’t it?”

“Not entirely,” Cruachan replied softly, “not entirely. The potentials lie within every human mind, or so we of the Society believe. When awakened, further stimuli, provided through training and other means, can bring such abilities to full life. That was the—” He paused, his smile returning.

“As I said, someday you will understand everything, I hope. For now, it will be sufficient if you will permit us to run some tests on you. We wish to measure the probable limits of your Talent and test for other possible hidden abilities as yet undeveloped.”

“What kinds of tests?” Flinx regarded the tall man warily.

“Nothing elaborate. Measurements, electroencephalotopography.”

“That sounds elaborate to me.”

“I assure you, there will be no discomfort. If you’ll just come with me …” He put a fatherly hand on Flinx’s shoulder. Flinx flinched. There should have been a snake there, not an unfamiliar hand.

Cruachan guided him toward the instruments. “I promise you, give us twenty-four hours and you’ll have your pet restored to you unharmed, and you’ll never have to go through this again.”

“I don’t know,” Flinx told him. “I’m still not sure of what you want from me.” It seemed to him that there was an awful lot of instrumentation around for just a few simple tests, and some of it looked almost familiar. Where had he seen that tendriled globe before?

Over a table in a room far to the north, he realized suddenly.

What do I do? he thought frantically. He could not lie down on that table, beneath those waiting tentacles. But if he hesitated, what might they do to Pip out of impatience and anger?

Unexpectedly, as his thoughts were tied in knots and he tried to decide what to do next, a sudden surge of emotion burst into his brain. There was hate and a little fear and a self-righteous anger that bordered on the paranoiac. He looked up at Cruachan. The older man smiled pleasantly down at him, then frowned as he saw the expression that had come over the subject’s face. “Is something wrong?”

Flinx did not reply, methodically searching every face in the room. None of them seemed to be the source of the feelings he was receiving. And they were getting steadily stronger, more intense. They came—they came from—

He looked sharply toward the main entrance.

“Nobody move!” snapped a determined voice. The couple who burst through the door, having quietly circumvented the lock, were complete strangers to Flinx. A middle-aged pair dressed like offworld tourists, each holding a gun bigger than a pistol and longer than a rifle carefully balanced in both hands, they surveyed the startled occupants of the storage chamber.

Flinx did not recognize their weapons. That was unusual. His learning expeditions through the marketplace had made him familiar with most personal armament. But these were new to him. As new as this couple. They looked unrelentingly average. There was nothing average about the way they moved, however, or gave commands or held those peculiar guns. The Meliorares certainly seemed familiar with them.

“MO Section, Commonwealth Peaceforce,” the man barked. “All of you are under government detention as of this moment.” He grinned crookedly, almost savagely. “The charges against you, the specifics of which I’m sure you’re all quite familiar with, are many and varied. I don’t think I have to go into details.”

Flinx started gratefully toward them. “I don’t know how you people found me, but I’m sure glad to see you.”

“Hold it right there.” The woman shifted her weapon toward him. The expression on her face assured Flinx she was ready to shoot him if he took so much as another half step toward her. He froze, hurt and confused.

There was something new there, partly in her eyes but also in her mind: not so much fear as a kind of twisted hatred, a loathing. The emotion was directed squarely at him. It was so new, so alien and sickening, that he didn’t know how to react. He knew only that his would-be saviors held no more affection for him, and perhaps even less in the way of good intentions, than this insane society of Meliorare people.

His confusion was being replaced by anger, a frantic fury born of frustration and despair, compounded by helplessness and desperation. Through no fault of his own, desiring only to be left alone, he had become the focal point of forces beyond his control, forces that extended even beyond his world. And he didn’t know how, couldn’t begin to think how to deal with them.

Through all the confusion came one lucid realization: he wasn’t as grown-up as he had thought.

Near the back room the man named Westhoff had gone unnoticed by the Peaceforcers. He did not linger. Putting aside the control box he commenced a cautious retreat, utilizing crates and containers to make good his escape.

Pressure removed, the button he had been holding down rebounded.

“Over against that empty packing and away from the consoles. All of you,” the woman commanded them, gesturing meaningfully with her gun. Rising from their seats and showing empty hands, the Meliorares hurried to comply with her order.

“Anybody touches a switch,” the other Peaceforcer warned them, “it’ll be the last thing he ever touches.”

The woman threw Flinx a hard look. “Hey, you too. Move it.” Revulsion emanated from her. Disgust and pity washed over Flinx in waves. She was broadcasting them all. Flinx tried to squeeze the degrading emotions out of his mind.

“I’m not with them,” he protested. “I’m not part of this.”

“I’m afraid that you are, boy, whether you like it or not,” she told him. “You’ve caused a lot of trouble. But don’t worry.” She tried to smile. The result was a discomfiting parody. “Everything’s going to be all right. You’re going to be fixed up so you can live a normal life.”

A buzzer suddenly roared to life on one of the unattended consoles, filling the room with insistent discordance. Cruachan stared dumbly at it, then at Flinx, then at the Peaceforcers.

“For heaven’s sake, don’t threaten him!”

“Threaten me?” Flinx was almost crying now, ignoring Cruachan’s sudden terror, the buzzing, everything, as he spoke to the female Peaceforcer. “What does he mean, threaten me? What did you mean when you said you’re going to have me fixed up? I’m
fine.”

“Maybe you are, and maybe you aren’t,” she replied, “but these
Meliorares,”
she spat the word out, “seem to think otherwise. That’s good enough for me. I’m no specialist. They’re the ones who’ll decide what’s to be done with you.”

“And the sooner the better,” her companion added. “Did you call for backup?”

“As soon as we were sure.” She nodded. “It’ll take them a few minutes to get here. This isn’t Brizzy, you know.”

Flinx felt unsteady on his feet as well as in his mind. Where he had expected rescue, there was only new hurt, fresh indifference. No, worse than indifference, for these people saw him only as some kind of deformed, unhealthy creature. There was no understanding for him here in this room, not from his ancient persecutors or these new arrivals. The universe, as represented by organizations illegal and legitimate, seemed wholly against him.

Fixed
, the woman had said. He was going to be
fixed
. But there was nothing wrong with him. Nothing! Why do they want to do these unnameable things to me? he thought angrily.

The pain and confusion produced results unnoticed by the anxious antagonists facing each other across the floor. Prodded by the powerful emotions emanating from his master, half-awakened by the thinning quantity of soporific gas entering its cage, the flying snake awoke. It did not need to
search visually for Flinx—his outburst of hurt was a screaming beacon marking his location.

The snake’s wings remained folded as it quickly examined its prison. Then it rose up and spat. In the confused babble that filled the opposite end of the room, the quiet hissing of dissolving pancrylic went unnoticed.

“Let’s get them outside.” The male Peaceforcer moved to his right, separating from his companion to stand to one side of the entrance while she moved to get behind the shifting group gathered in the middle of the room.

“Single file now,” she ordered them, gesturing with her gun. “All of you. And please keep your hands in the air. No dramatic last-minute gestures, please. I don’t like a mess.”

Cruachan pleaded with her. “Please, we’re just a bunch of harmless old scholars. This is our last chance. This boy”—and he indicated Flinx—”may be our last opportunity to prove—”

“I’ve studied your history, read the reports.” The woman’s voice was icy. “What you did is beyond redemption or forgiving. You’ll get just what you deserve, and it won’t be a chance to experiment further on this poor, malformed child.”

“Please, somebody,” Flinx said desperately, “I don’t know what you’re talking about! Won’t somebody tell me—?”

“Somebody probably will,” she told him. “I’m not privy to the details, and explanations aren’t my department.” She shuddered visibly. “Fortunately.”

“Rose, look out!” At the warning cry from her companion, the woman whirled. There was something in the air, humming like a giant bumblebee, moving rapidly from place to place: a pink and blue blur against the ceiling.

“What the hell’s that?” she blurted.

Flinx started to answer, but Cruachan spoke first, taking a step out of the line and toward the Peaceforcer. “That’s the boy’s pet. I don’t know how it got out. It’s dangerous.”

“Oh, it is, is it?” The muzzle of the short rifle came up.

“No!” Cruachan rushed toward her, the console buzzer screaming in his ears. “Don’t!”

The Peaceforcer reacted instinctively to the unexpected charge. A brief burst of high-intensity sound struck the leader
of the Meliorares. His stomach exploded through his spine. No sound had come from the gun. There had been only a slight punching noise when the burst had struck home.