Running from the Deity (23 page)

Nor was it for the first time.

“No, I’m not a god,” he muttered, remembering the counselor. “I don’t know exactly what happened, Treappyn. I never do, at such times.”

“Such times?”
Uncomprehending, the Dwarra stared at him. “This has happened to you before?”

“At least once,” he confessed. “Only, I didn’t have as much control over the consequences then as I seem to now. I expect that parts of me are—maturing. Changing. In ways I can’t predict. Funny,” he mused, thinking back, way back, “how similar the other situation was.” He indicated the flying snake now relaxing at his feet. “Then, as now, Pip was in immediate danger. When I came to—afterward, I was lying on the ground, just like this time, with her resting on my chest. I remember that it was raining. Those who had been threatening her, and me, had been in a building that ended up like this one—damaged.” He shook his head sharply, as if the action would loosen an explanation.

“I don’t know what happened then, or now. Only that something within me reacted reflexively to protect both of us. The bond between us is strong and very special. She’s an empathic lens,” he added, overlooking the fact that the counselor would have no idea what he was talking about.

His voice grew wistful as he gazed past the attentive Treappyn, who struggled to comprehend what the alien was telling him. “That was ten years ago, in a city called Drallar, on a world called Moth.” He blinked, nodded in the direction of the gaping tear in the wall opposite. “Now it’s happened again.”

Suddenly he bent double and clutched at his head as the pain he felt had been diminishing struck at him once again from the depths of his modified nervous system. It was bad, but not as bad as before. Pip looked up, alarmed, while concern once again flooded Treappyn’s mind.

“It’s—all right,” Flinx struggled to reassure the counselor. “These pains aren’t new, either. They’re at their worst whenever my, uh, abilities manifest themselves.”

“This Talent of yours is not necessarily always a blessing, then,” Treappyn commented perceptively.

Flinx met the counselor’s curious, sympathetic gaze. “That, my good friend, is an understatement. Every time it saves me, I think it’s going to kill me. It may yet.”

“You should seek treatment,” the Dwarra recommended solicitously.

Yes, Flinx thought. The next time I have the opportunity to see a doctor, human or mechanical, in addition to a standard checkup I’ll just ask him, or her, or it, to please undo the insidious prenatal manipulations of the wicked Meliorares and re-gengineer me to normal.

What he said was, “I’ll keep your advice in mind. Before I can act on it, though, I have other more pressing business to attend to.”

“So you told me. I am glad you will be able to continue with your work, whatever that might be.” As always, there was no guile in the counselor’s response, no veiled design hiding among other emotions. “I said to you before, when we talked at that net-caster’s homestead, that I would give much to see other worlds, other intelligent beings, other life-forms. But now, after this...” He gestured in the direction of the inexplicable but ominous breach in the far wall, with its intimation of incalculable forces unknown. “I don’t think I’m ready.”

That’s all right, Flinx thought to himself. Neither am I, and I have to live with that knowledge every waking moment of my life.

And some of the nonwaking moments, too.

It was not surprising that after receiving reports of the incident from the few survivors among their delegation to the conference and perusing the skin-flap-raising details therein, the senior officers who had been left in charge of the glorious combined invasion forces of Jebilisk and Pakktrine Unified quickly agreed to every one of the alien’s demands. Within the day they had begun breaking camp. Well before the end of the next eight-day their long lines of troops and supply vehicles could be seen traveling away from the borders of Wullsakaa, making the maximum speed of which they were capable; those of Pakktrine Unified wending their way southeastward, the riders of Jebilisk heading due north.

They had a good deal to think about and much to occupy their minds as they retraced their steps homeward. The ranking elders of Pakktrine, for instance, were already engaged in active political infighting as to who should be chosen to fill the sudden unexpected triple vacancies at the top of their government. Faced with no such conundrum, the Aceribb of Jebilisk had only to deal with recurrent nightmares in which he found himself standing at the critical moment just a little closer to the now demised former members of the Kewwyd.

While the joyous and much-relieved citizens of Metrel City celebrated, Flinx brooded. He had set down on this world intending only to permit the
Teacher
to conduct some necessary maintenance and repair. Curiosity and boredom had driven him to take a quick, informal look around. He had ended up giving of his time, knowledge, and skills to help hundreds of sick and crippled natives. His good intentions had resulted in war between three local realms and an untold number of deaths, the most recent of which he was directly responsible for.

Why, he thought to himself and not for the first time, can’t I learn to mind my own business?

Squatting nearby, Treappyn studied the silent alien. He was cognizant of the cause of the alien’s moodiness, having been privy to it for several days now. That did not mean he understood. Having grown comfortable, if still cautious, in the creature’s presence, he had learned that it responded most favorably of all to honest opinion straightforwardly rendered. No doubt because, thanks to its remarkable perceptiveness, it could invariably tell when someone was lying to it. Better to court the creature’s displeasure and disagreement, the counselor subsequently advised his colleagues and the Highborn, than to engage in mendacity that was doomed to failure from the start.

“I don’t understand, Flinx,” he told the alien. As always, the counselor tried to divide his attention between the visitor and the flying creature that was currently resting on the projecting shelf behind him. “The Kewwyd of Pakktrine deserved what happened to them. They sanctioned an attempt on your life.” Eyes respectfully wide, Treappyn thrust both Sensitives in the alien’s direction. “One that would have succeeded, if not for your invocation of magic.”

Sounding tired, Flinx glanced up from where he was sitting on the narrow stone hearth. “I keep telling you: it wasn’t magic, Treappyn.”

“Then what was it, friend Flinx?” The counselor’s curiosity was genuine. “I want to understand. If not magic, then what made the hole in the bastion’s inner wall? What blew the Kewwyd and those guarding them out through that hole, to fall to their deaths in the courtyard below? Tell me.”

Lowering its gaze, the alien entwined together the ten strange little bony digits it used for gripping things. “I can’t, Treappyn. I don’t know myself. Like I told you earlier, it’s happened to me before, under similar circumstances. I don’t know what happened that time, either.”

The counselor had to believe what the alien was telling him. For one thing, if he did not, the creature would sense his uncertainty and query him on the reason behind it. “It must be terrible,” he remarked thoughtfully, “to possess such powers, yet to be ignorant of how they work, or unable to control them.”

Startled, Flinx looked up at the counselor. He knew Treappyn was shrewd, but until this moment he had not realized the depth of the young, lumbering counselor’s insightfulness. “Yes, that’s exactly right, Treappyn.”

Gratified at this, the counselor continued to speak his mind. “If it was me, I would worry that such lack of knowledge and control might one day result in my hurting myself as well as others.”

Now there’s a promising thought, Flinx mused mockingly. Someday I’ll get angry at something and, without ever knowing how or why, blow myself through a wall. Or, worse, someone entirely innocent who’s just unlucky enough to be in the vicinity. He had been right in leaving Clarity Held behind on New Riviera. How could he ask someone to live with him when, in a bad moment or fit of pique or even during a dream, he might cause them unimaginable harm? He could not have a life, the ordinary life he so desperately wanted, until he learned how to master not just emotional perception and projection, but every aspect of his mutated abilities.

A rising susurration outside distracted him. Straightening and moving away from the hearth, he headed toward the nearest window. Like all Wullsakaan windowpanes it was tall and narrow, though fashioned of better-quality glass than most.

“Now what?” he inquired of his host with unbecoming irritability.

“It is the people of Metrel City,” Treappyn informed him. “And others who have come from distant reaches of the realm. I believe there are also contingents from Jebilisk and Pakktrine Unified.”

Flinx frowned. From her resting place on the shelf, Pip looked up curiously. “Contingents? Contingents of what?”

Familiar as he was by this time with the alien’s mind-set on certain matters, Treappyn looked distinctly uncomfortable. “Worshippers.” Flinx just stared at the counselor. “They have heard of what you did.”

Recovering, Flinx replied sharply, “How could they have
heard of what I did
? I don’t know myself what I did.”

“Perhaps not.” As the alien was obviously agitated, Treappyn did his best to employ a soothing tone. “But the
consequences
of whatever it was that you did are well known. The Pakktrinian assassin was there, and then he was not. The Kewwyd of Pakktrine Unified and their entourage were there, and then most of them were not.” Raising a pair of forearms and flanges, he gestured in the direction of the gaping rift in the bastion wall, where repairs had not yet begun. “There stood a solid wall of stone, and then it was not. All these things have been attributed to your intervention.” Four arms moved in a manner to suggest acceptance. “The ‘how’ of it has been subject to much speculation; some of it grounded on the eyewitness reports of those who were there, much of the remainder wild and imaginative.” He eyed the alien directly, in the fashion both preferred. “You cannot prevent people from speculating on such things.”

“Worshippers.” Flinx shook his head, a gesture Treappyn had come to recognize. “A stop has
got
to be put to this nonsense—now.”

At the alien’s insistence, Treappyn escorted him and his pet down a wide, winding stone staircase until they had descended almost to courtyard level. Entering a room that was impressive and lavishly decorated but far smaller than the Audience Chamber they had just left, the counselor indicated a double glass-and-wood door that opened onto a walkway that ran just above and parallel to the noise-filled courtyard. At this lower level, the shouts and yells of the surging crowd outside were much louder.

“Try what you will, friend Flinx. But having listened to and observed some of the talk, I have doubts as to whether even you yourself can succeed in putting an end to the conjecture. Myth begins to layer you like fine cloth.”

Disregarding the counselor’s pessimism, Flinx moved to the portal and pushed both narrow doors aside. Immediately, the roar of the crowd grew louder: both because he was outside, and because those in the forefront of the eddying, indecisive crowd caught sight of him and immediately raised the volume of their chanting. Echoing eerie and odd from the throats of dozens, perhaps hundreds of assembled Dwarra, cries of “Flinx, Flinx!” began to resound across the courtyard. Hitherto uninterested citizens turned from their tasks to search for the source of the rejuvenated commotion, and not a few interrupted their intended routine to join the multitude for a better look—and perhaps to see what might happen.

Gazing out at the sea of alien faces and bodies, noting the scattering of Pakktrinians and Jebiliskai among them, a despairing Flinx raised both arms. It had the intended affect of quieting, if not completely silencing, the crowd. From within the fortress chamber where he had been conversing with Treappyn, Pip flew out to settle herself on his shoulders and assure herself that the flood of emotion presently engulfing her master presaged no enmity.

“Listen to me!” he shouted in his best Dwarrani. “I am only a person, like you. A visitor, who will soon be leaving your world. You need to forget me and go on with your lives as before!”

“NO—NO—NO!”
The massed shouts were deafening. Instead of being dampened by his demurral, they grew louder.

“I am no god!”
he bellowed back heatedly.

It didn’t make any difference to the half-hysterical crowd. They jostled and shoved to get a better look at their new deity. To get closer to him. Wild eyes were expanded to the maximum. Gripping flanges tugged and grabbed. The weak and immature found themselves roughly pushed aside by eager worshippers locked in paroxysms of ecstasy. Frustrated at his inability to make them understand, much less get them to listen, he even tried to utilize his Talent to project feelings of discord and uncertainty onto the throng. But there were too many of them for him to achieve any kind of focus. The force of his conviction was dissipated by the numbers confronting him, and failed to persuade.

What a mess he had made of the present state of affairs, he told himself. It seemed that the longer he remained and the harder he struggled to clear things up, the worse they became. True, he had stopped a war. Equally true, he had been the cause of it in the first place. Action, reaction, no matter how aloof he tried to be. As the crowd roared and implored, he turned to look back at Treappyn. With a wisdom that belied his years, the hefty, well-meaning counselor gazed squarely back at him.

I can’t help you with this,
the Dwarra’s slightly flexing eyes seemed to say, and the emotions Flinx sensed pouring forth from within the alien advisor only served to confirm his helplessness.

No one could help him, Flinx realized. Like it or not, the well-intentioned visitor had become the all-powerful Visitant.

Unresolved or not, it was time to go before he made the situation any worse. All it took was a terse command whispered into the pickup on his wrist.