Judgment at Proteus

TWENTY-SIX

The two defenders started toward me. “What are you going to do?” I asked.

“You cannot be permitted to share that knowledge with anyone,” the Chahwyn repeated. “We will take you to Viccai—”

“No, I know that part,” I interrupted, watching the approaching Spiders and trying to figure out what the hell I was going to do if this didn’t work. I knew something about Shonkla-raa, but I had no idea where defender weaknesses were. If they even had any. “I meant what are you going to do once I’m gone and Bayta and Morse have quit and the Modhri goes back to fighting on the side of the Shonkla-raa?”

“I have already told you our plan,” the Chahwyn said.

“You haven’t got a plan,” I said flatly. “You have a repeat of history. Shall I tell you why your ancestors created the Shonkla-raa in the first place?”

The defenders reached me, each shifting to a four-legged stance and lifting three legs toward me. “You created them to be your protectors,” I said. “As you’ve pointed out countless times, you Chahwyn can’t fight. So you created a group of beings that could, enhancing their telepathic abilities so you could more easily communicate with them.”

The defenders paused, their legs hovering in midair like a mobile cage waiting to come crashing down around me. “Do I have to remind you how well that worked out?” I added.

“It will be different this time,” the Chahwyn said. “We have better control of the defenders than we ever had with the Shonkla-raa.”

“No you don’t,” I said. “Maybe they’re obeying you right now, but I don’t doubt the Shonkla-raa did the same at the beginning. The problem wasn’t your engineering, but with the philosophical basis of the whole project.”

The Spider legs were still hovering over me. “Explain,” the Chahwyn said.

“What you did then—what you’re doing now—is creating independent beings with intelligence, strength, and the ability and desire to compete and fight,” I said. “Sooner or later, the defenders will inevitably conclude that they can do a better job of running things than you can.”

“They will obey us,” the Chahwyn insisted.

“Not when they feel the need to break the rules you’ve set for them,” I told him. “As a matter of fact, they’ve already started. Back on the super-express from Homshil I needed to get my Beretta from its under-train lockbox. A regular Spider would never have allowed such a thing. But the two defenders you’d sent saw that it was necessary, and they got it for me. Reluctantly and under protest, but they did it.”

“But they’re bred for loyalty,” the Chahwyn insisted, his voice almost pleading. “How can they defy us and our laws?”

“Because that’s what inevitable means,” I said. “Power corrupts, one way or another. That’s all there is to it.”

“The defenders are Spiders. Their essence is taken from our own flesh.”

“But then heavily modified,” I reminded him. “I’m sure your ancestors were using similar logic when they picked Filiaelians to use as their Shonkla-raa template. They’d probably seen how Filly soldiers could be genetically engineered for loyalty, and figured that would guarantee their new protectors’ compliance and cooperation.”

“Then why didn’t it?”

“Because just like your defenders, the Chahwyn designers were forced to tweak the formula,” I said. “The way the Fillies engineer their soldiers’ loyalty is by sacrificing some of their initiative, intelligence, and motivation. We got a taste of that with Logra Emikai, when the simple fact that a Shonkla-raa was also a Filiaelian santra meant Emikai couldn’t take any action against him. Filly soldiers are even worse—good fighters, but in some ways not much better than ants in an anthill. That kind of strategy requires huge numbers, something your ancestors couldn’t come up with. So instead they were forced to make each individual Shonkla-raa smarter and more independent.”

I gestured to the two defenders still frozen in their mousetrap positions. “You’ve done the same thing with the defenders, and it’s going to lead to the same end result.”

The Chahwyn gave a noiseless sigh. “Your reading of history is accurate,” he admitted. “Yet we have no choice but to try.”

“Sure you do,” I said in my most encouraging voice. “You can close down the project, deploy the defenders you already have for the protection of Viccai, and let me take out the Shonkla-raa.”

“With the aid of he who was once our sworn enemy?”

I frowned at him … and then, abruptly, I realized what this whole confrontation was really all about.

The Chahwyn knew perfectly well that they were playing with fire. They knew that the last time they’d tried this they’d failed spectacularly, to the tune of the devastation of thousands of worlds and the wholesale slaughter of dozens of races. They’d seen firsthand what the Shonkla-raa could do, and were utterly terrified by this new resurgence.

But they were just as terrified at the thought of deliberately making the Modhri into something smarter, more patient, more competent. Terrified enough that they would rather cross their extendable fingers and hope that this time the protector plan would work.

Their minds weren’t made up, the way Bayta had thought. Or rather, the way this Elder had tried to make it appear to her. They were divided and paralyzed with indecision, seeing nothing but death and destruction at the end of all possible paths and afraid to move in any of them. I was here not to batter myself against a monolithic stone wall, but to give them a good reason to choose my proposed path over all the others.

Whether my way was the best, I couldn’t say. But I was pretty sure I could prove all the alternatives were worse.

“Yes, I’m willing to work with the Modhri,” I said. “For two reasons. First, unlike the Shonkla-raa, the Modhri is highly vulnerable to attack. You can walk right up to his coral outposts and destroy them, and if you don’t mind slaughtering a whole bunch of innocents you can walk right up to his walkers and destroy them, too. That vulnerability makes him far less likely to start anything grandiose.”

“Yet for two hundred years he has been trying to conquer the galaxy.”

“Because that’s what you designed him to do,” I countered. “That’s all he could do. But that’s about to change. By combining him with the Melding, you’re opening him up to new possibilities and options, new ways of dealing with the universe around him.”

“Yet you’ve already said that intelligence and initiative leads to competition and the desire to rule,” the Chahwyn said.

“I also said that will be limited by his vulnerability,” I said. “But you’re also assuming that on some level he wants to be our opponent. It’s my considered opinion that he doesn’t.”

“What then does he want?”

I raised my eyebrows. “He wants friends.”

For a long moment the Chahwyn just stared at me. “Friends,” he repeated at last, his voice flat.

“Yes,” I said. “You don’t understand, because you Chahwyn are never really alone. But the Modhri is. He always has been.”

“He has a multitude of mind segments.”

“All of which are essentially him,” I reminded him. “He’s never had any friends, only enemies and potential enemies. He’s never had anyone outside himself to trust, or who trusted him. Until now.”

“We do not trust him.”

“That’s okay,” I said. “I do.”

Another silence settled into the car like fine grains of dust. “Let me offer you a deal,” I said into the gap. “Give me the Melding coral and let me try things my way. If I fail, you can always fall back on your defender plan.”

The cat whiskers twitched. “Even a short delay could prove fatal.”

“Perhaps,” I said. “But if you do head down that path, it will permanently alter the tone and texture of your people, the Quadrail system, and the galaxy. Personally, I like the Quadrail and the Spiders just the way they are. I don’t want to see them ruined.”

“Even at the cost of defeat?”

“There won’t be a defeat,” I said. “My plan will work.”

I gestured around me. “And the time here isn’t quite as critical as you think. Even if the Modhri and I fail, you can always shut down the whole Quadrail system, boxing up the Shonkla-raa on whatever planets they currently happen to be in. That should give you enough time to build up your defender force.”

The Chahwyn’s shoulders did a strange hunchy thing. “That assumes the Shonkla-raa won’t learn the secret of the Thread.”

I grimaced. That was a big, dangerous if, all right. If the Shonkla-raa ever realized that the Thread hidden inside the Coreline was the key to the Quadrail’s faster-than-light travel, and that the Tube and the trains were just window dressing, then shutting down the system wouldn’t even slow them down. All they would have to do would be commandeer a few of the big defense ships that guarded each Quadrail station in the Filiaelian Assembly, wreck the Tube to allow them to get close to the Thread, and they’d be free to travel any place the Thread went. “Hopefully, they won’t,” I said. “Or if they do, that they’ll have their own reasons for sticking to the train system. At least for a while.”

I stood up, being careful not to bump into the metallic legs still half birdcaged around me. “All the more reason why we need to get this show on the road,” I continued. “Let me get this coral to Yandro and start the Modhri on his path to civilization.”

I started to ease past the defenders’ legs. But the legs shifted positions, once again blocking my path. “You cannot return to the others,” the Chahwyn said quietly. “I’ve already said that.”

I clenched my teeth. What part of vital to the cause didn’t he understand? “How about a compromise?” I suggested.

“What kind of compromise?”

I gestured to the two defenders. “You send Sam and Carl here with me,” I said. “If I ever start to tell anyone about your deep, dark secret, they have my permission to tear my head off.”

The whiskers twitched a few times. “That may be acceptable,” the Chahwyn said cautiously. “I shall pass the suggestion on to the others.”

I shook my head. “We don’t have time for a round-table committee discussion. You’re the Elder on the scene. You have the facts. You make the decision.”

The twitching whiskers started twitching a little harder. Then, abruptly, they stopped. As they did so, the two defenders lowered their upraised legs back to the floor. “Very well,” the Chahwyn said. “The defenders will go with you. They will stay with you at all times. If you speak of this matter, they have been given orders to end your life.”

The whiskers twitched one final time. “And they will also end the life of any you have told. Is that acceptable?”

I felt my stomach tighten. Bayta, certainly, would want the details of what had happened out here. So would Morse. Whether the Elder had specifically planned it that way or not, he’d now pretty well guaranteed I wouldn’t say a single word about my visit to either of them. “It is,” I agreed reluctantly.

“You may return to the station,” he said. “The coral will follow.”

“Thank you.” I started toward the door, then paused. “One other question,” I said. “Why did you make the Shonkla-raa throats so big? You surely weren’t thinking ahead to Modhran command tones, were you?”

“Not at all.” The Chahwyn gave a little sigh. “They were given large throats so that they could sing. We very much loved their music.”

I probably should have made some sort of comment to that. But for once, I couldn’t find anything to say. Inclining my head to him, with my new watchdogs tapping along at my heels, I headed back to my tender.

* * *

I’d half expected the entire group to be anxiously waiting for me when the tender slowed to a stop at the Yandro station. But only Bayta was standing by the door as it opened, her face still pale but with only a little of her earlier tension still showing. Clearly, she’d already learned from the Spiders that I was coming back alive.

She’d also obviously already guessed that the meeting hadn’t been an entirely friendly one. The sight of my new watchdogs could only emphasize that. “These are the guards I’m told we’ve been assigned?” she asked, giving the defenders a dubious look.

“These are they,” I confirmed as I glanced around. The Melding was still sitting together around their pseudo campfire, and I could see that Terese and Rebekah had joined them. Morse, though, was nowhere to be seen. “This is Sam; I’m calling this one Carl.”

“I assume the names have a meaning,” she said.

“They’re from a dit-rec drama called Casablanca,” I explained. “Sam and Carl were two of the hero’s employees.”

“I suppose that makes you Rick?” Morse asked, coming around the side of the tender and striding toward us.

“I did always like his hat,” I agreed, looking past Morse’s shoulder. There was nothing in that direction but more empty station. “Communing with nature?”

“Communing with my colony,” he corrected. “I suppose that makes me Major Strasser?”

“I can see some similarities,” I said, frowning. “What is there for you and your colony to commune about?”

“We’re still sorting through the changes that the Melding has made in my colony’s attitude and our relationship,” he said.

“What sort of changes?”

“For one thing, we can disconnect a bit from the overall mind segment,” he said. “Not completely, not the way I assume Bayta can detach from the Spider network. But at the same time, interestingly enough, my colony and I actually seem to have become a little closer.”

“That sounds like the way Rebekah described her relationship with her symbiont,” Bayta said.

“Which, I believe, was the whole idea,” Morse said. “To make the Modhri more like the Spider and Chahwyn setups, with more individuality for the members but with the best aspects of the group mind still there.” He shook his head. “But it’s definitely going to take some time to sort out.”

Bayta cocked her head suddenly to the side. “Can he move?” she asked.

“What do you mean?” Morse asked.

“I was thinking about the Modhran colony Minnario planted in Isantra Kordiss,” she said. “The polyps were supposed to attach at his optic nerve, where the Modhri could tap into his vision but not control him.”

“Right,” Morse said, frowning as he probably only now accessed that tidbit from the Modhri mind segment. “Otherwise, when the Shonkla-raa fired off their magic whistle Kordiss would go marionette on everyone and they’d figure out what we’d done to him. Am I understanding it correctly?”

“Perfectly,” I confirmed as I realized where Bayta was going with this. “What Bayta’s saying is that if your colony can move to your eyes or ears and away from the motor nerves, then it won’t be able to take over you, either.”

“Bloody hell,” Morse breathed. “You know, that never even occurred to me. Hang on—I’ll check.”

“That’s why Bayta and I are the ones running this zoo,” I murmured, giving Bayta an encouraging smile. “We think about things like that. Good call, Bayta.”

She didn’t smile back.

Morse shook his head. “Sorry, but it’s no go,” he said regretfully. “Once the colony’s in place, it anchors itself and can’t be moved. Even if we could get it loose, it’s really too big to do any serious traveling. Nice thought, though.”

“Yes, it was,” I said. “Might be worth mentioning to the segment-prime for future reference.”

“I already have,” Morse said. “So what’s the story with the Chahwyn?”

“They’ve got a trainload of Melding coral on the way,” I told him. “Once it’s here, we’ll ship it down to Yandro proper. Hopefully, there will be enough to give the whole segment-prime this new and improved outlook on life.” I cocked an eyebrow. “Assuming he still wants this new outlook.”

Morse smiled tightly. “You mean the chance to go from an old black-and-white dit-rec drama to full-blown colored 3-D?” The smile faded. “You have no idea what it’s like for him, Compton. The Chahwyn should have put him together that way in the first place.”

“I’m sure they’d have liked to,” I said, watching Sam and Carl out of the corner of my eye. “But I don’t think the prospective owners were interested in their new weapon having any bells and whistles.”

Morse snorted. “Point,” he growled. “So what’s next on the big master plan?”

“We take Terese back to Earth,” I said. “And we start raising an army.”

His eyes widened. “An army? Where the hell from?”

“Given that the whole Terran Confederation is at risk, I think it’s time we brought the UN into play,” I said. “After we drop off Terese, we’ll go have a chat with Deputy Director Biret Losutu.”

“Director Biret Losutu, you mean,” Morse corrected. “Director Klein stepped down six months ago and Losutu took his place.”

“Ah,” I said. I hadn’t realized I was that out of touch with Earth’s current events. “Congratulations all around. Anyway, we bring Losutu up to speed and see what he can do about raising a quiet army.”

“How quiet?”

“Very quiet,” I said. “Because after that, the plan is to lure the Shonkla-raa to Earth.”

Morse’s eyes bulged. “You want them on Earth?”

“It’s the best place in the galaxy for a showdown,” I pointed out. “Thanks to all those restrictive coral-import laws there aren’t any Modhran outposts there for them to use, and therefore only a handful of Eyes. Though I suppose you know the numbers better than I do.”

“No, you’re right, there aren’t very many,” Morse acknowledged, his forehead wrinkled in thought. “Maybe a thousand, spread out over the whole planet. How exactly do you intend to lure them in?”

“By messing with whatever Riijkhan’s grand scheme is for the Confederation,” I said. “He essentially promised me he would keep his hands off Earth if I would join them, which undoubtedly means he’s already got some alternate plan under way. We find that plan, we start raining bricks down on it, and hopefully he and his buddies will come charging in to make us stop.”

“Okay,” Morse said doubtfully. “Sounds bloody iffy, if you ask me.”

“But I’m the boss?” I suggested.

“You’re the boss,” he agreed. “I suppose we can work out the actual details later.”

“Exactly,” I said. “Do me a favor, would you, and go tell Terese that she’s going home?”

“You don’t want to give her the good news yourself?”

“She tends to glower whenever I get near her,” I explained. “Which tends to obscure her other expressions and emotions.”

Morse’s lip twitched. “In other words, you also want me to try to figure out how she really feels about going back.”

“Exactly,” I said. “There’s a lot we still don’t know about her. More is always better.”

He nodded. “I’ll take care of it.”

He headed off toward the Melding circle. “He doesn’t know who she really is?” Bayta asked quietly.

I shook my head. “I asked Rebekah to keep it quiet for now.”

“I didn’t know she could do that.”

“Keep things private from the rest of the Melding?” I shrugged. “Apparently so. Not really surprising when you think about it. After all, you and I have kept secrets from the Spiders and Chahwyn.”

“Yes, we have,” Bayta said, her voice gone odd. “They’ve also kept a few from us.”

I winced. “Bayta—”

“It’s all right, Frank,” she said. Her voice still held some tension, but there was nothing but warmth and trust in her hand as she wrapped it gently around mine. “I just don’t like not knowing everything that’s going on. But I understand that’s how it has to be.”

“I appreciate that,” I said, searching for a way to change the subject.

For once, even if unknowingly, the Chahwyn came to my rescue. At the far end of the station, the long train of tenders I’d seen at the siding popped through the barrier and rolled down the slope toward us. “But right now, we’ve got work to do,” I said, squeezing Bayta’s hand and then letting go. “Let’s get the defenders organized and start unloading some coral.”

* * *

I’d assured the Elder that the Modhri would accept the Melding changes with open arms. The Elder had countered with the ominous possibility that the Modhri might be lying about that, for whatever presumably nefarious reason.

Only one of us would prove to be right. But neither of us would know which, not for a good, long while. The Modhri had managed to rent, buy, or otherwise finagle the presence of Yandro’s entire fleet of spacegoing vessels—all eight of them—but even at top speed those ships and their cargo of Melding coral would take over ten days to get to Yandro. After that would come whatever time the Modhri needed to adjust to the new coral and his new life, aided by the rest of the Melding members who were going down to the planet to help guide him through the transition. Once everything was settled, the new improved Modhri could have one of his Eyes laser a message to the station to confirm that he had adjusted, after which a message cylinder would be sent to wherever Bayta and I and the others happened to be at the time. I was guessing all of that would take at least another two weeks, and possibly longer.

“All I’m saying is that I don’t think we can afford to wait that long,” Morse argued as we watched the defenders and some of the stronger Melding members lugging crates from the tenders to the open hatchways where the commandeered torchyachts and cargo transports were docked. “I think we need to assume the acclimation will work and get started right away.”

“What do you suggest?” I asked.

“We know Yleli and his friends had me under full control back on the Sibbrava train,” he said. “But we also know that they had only partial control of Rebekah. What was the difference between us?”

“You’re the Modhri,” Rebekah said as she and Terese wandered over to us. “I’m the Melding.”

“Except that by then I was also part of the Melding,” Morse pointed out. “Had been since we touched down on that colony of yours.”

“It has to be the polyp colonies,” Bayta said. “Yours is original Modhran. Rebekah’s is the modified Melding version.”

“Exactly.” Morse looked at me. “Back before we went out to the Melding’s place you had the Modhri send Eyes to Homshil and some of the other stations to alert passing mind segments about the new alliance. I’m thinking maybe we should send each of those messengers a lump of Melding coral so they can—” He waved a hand. “Inoculate, I suppose, is as good a word as any. Inoculate all the passing Eyes against Shonkla-raa control.”

“How’s that going to help?” Terese asked, frowning. “Rebekah told me it took weeks or months to grow one of those colonies.”

“That’s if you start with a polyp hook from a casual touch of the coral,” Morse said. “If you scratch someone—I mean a really decent scratch—then enough polyps get in to quickly form a colony.”

“You’re kidding,” Terese said.

“No, he’s right,” I said, wincing with distant memories. “We had a whole trainload of people turned in just a few hours by a handful of determined Eyes with a supply of coral.” I looked at Bayta. “What do you think?”

For a moment her eyes unfocused as she communicated with the Chahwyn, who was apparently still back at the siding. Probably waiting to see if I’d be obliging enough to provoke Sam and Carl into killing me. “It sounds reasonable,” she said slowly. “I don’t know how we’d go about testing it, though.”

“I do,” Morse said.

And before I could do anything but stare in astonishment, he strode to the nearest crate, popped off the top with a quick flick of his multitool, and reached inside. Some of the water inside sloshed over the edge as he raked his hand across the coral—

“Damn,” he grunted, yanking his hand out of the crate.

“What is it?” Terese asked tensely.

“I forgot the bloody coral lives in salt water,” Morse said wryly as he gripped his hand. “Stings like—never mind.” He unclasped his hand and showed us the bright red line of oozing blood. “Okay, let’s see how this works. Depending on how long it takes for the polyps to find their way to my brain and join with the Modhran colony, we may need to tailor the size of the scratch a bit.”

I shook my head as I started my watch’s timer. “You are absolutely the most reckless lunatic I’ve ever worked with,” I told him.

“Coming from a former Westali, that means so much,” Morse said dryly. He peered at his scratch one more time, then dropped his arm to his side. “Well, what are we standing around for?” he demanded. “There’s work to be done. Let’s get to it.”

* * *

Yandro to Earth was about a nine-and-a-half-hour trip, a short enough run for us to do via tender. But I’d had enough of tenders, and I was way behind on my sleep, and the idea of getting to lie down in a real bed in a secure and semi-private Quadrail compartment was too good to pass up.

Besides, the way our group was growing, a tender would have been uncomfortably crowded. Morse and Terese were coming with us, of course, with Morse having volunteered to be Terese’s escort and protector on the torchliner trip from the Tube back to Earth. Terese and Rebekah both insisted that Rebekah be allowed to accompany us as well, so that the two girls could have a few last hours together.

And then there were Sam and Carl. The two defenders didn’t say anything, but I knew full well what would happen if I tried to leave without them.

I also knew what would happen if I tried to crowd them into a tender with the rest of us. For one thing, I would have to sit and look at their dot-patterned globes the whole way back to Terra Station. For another, I’d caught Morse throwing thoughtful looks in the defenders’ direction, and I knew that somewhere down the line he would be asking me about them. I didn’t want that happening in an open car with everyone else listening in.

So when all the coral and Melding members were loaded, and the transports and torchyachts safely on their way, the rest of us piled into the tender and I told Bayta to take us around the edge of the system to the main Yandro station.

From the way Isantra Yleli had talked I’d assumed the Shonkla-raa or their agents had scattered themselves among every Quadrail station between Sibbrava and Terra, plus probably a few more beyond it. In a place like Homshil, with upward of a thousand beings moving around at any given time, we’d never have spotted the presence of such agents. At Yandro, though, a loiterer would stick out like a giraffe at a polar bear convention.

I didn’t see Riijkhan as being that blatantly obvious, and so wasn’t surprised to find the station deserted when we arrived. There were two hours until the regular train, and we spent most of the time in the station’s lone gift-and-packaged-food shop, browsing the selection under the watchful and hopeful eye of a bored-looking Human clerk.

The train that pulled in again had only one double compartment left. I put Terese and Rebekah in one side, with Bayta on the other. I unashamedly called dibs on the other bed in Bayta’s half, leaving Morse to rough it in the first-class coach car.

I expected both defenders to try crowding into the compartment with Bayta and me. But that clearly wasn’t practical, so Sam moved in with us while Carl stayed outside. I wondered if he would go to ground somewhere in the service areas of the dining car, or whether he would simply spend the next few hours wandering the train looking for trouble.

I was too tired to really care. Locking the compartment door, I stretched out on the bed, and as the train pulled out of the station and headed for New Tigris I fell asleep.

I was working through a particularly eerie dream when I was startled awake by a sharp shake of my shoulder.

I snapped my eyes open. Bayta was standing over me, her face tight. Behind her, Rebekah and Terese were clinging tightly to each other. “What is it?” I demanded, swinging my legs over the edge of the bed and sitting up. A quick glance out the display window showed we were in Terra Station, and my inner ear told me we were slowing down as we headed for the passenger area.

“Agent Morse says there are walkers out there,” Bayta said tensely. “Nearly a hundred of them.”

“A hundred?” I echoed, taking another look through the window. The platforms were reasonably crowded by Terra Station standards, but there couldn’t be more than a hundred and fifty people out there. For a hundred of them to be Modhran walkers—

I looked back at Bayta, a sinking feeling in my stomach. “It’s a trap,” I said.

“Yes,” she said quietly. “And there’s no way out.”