Judgment at Proteus

NINE

The mourners in the dome had gone silent again, giving the air the quiet stillness of a midcontinental Western Alliance afternoon just before a thunderstorm. The Filly’s eyes were dark and malevolent, his hands large and ready, the whole package topped off with an unholy glitter of anticipation.

Which didn’t mean I should assume he knew everything. “Sorry—what did you say?” I asked, reprising my ignorant tourist role and wondering how far I could push the game this time.

As it turned out, not very. “Don’t play the fool, Compton,” the Filly said contemptuously, switching to excellent English. “We know all about you, and about your war against my servant the Modhri. A Human of your talents and experience most certainly is capable of understanding Fili.”

“Which you expect to be the language of the future?” I suggested, giving him a quick but careful study. Filly faces were tricky for Humans to tell apart, but I was almost positive that this was the Filly I’d dubbed Blue One, one of the group of Shonkla-raa that Usantra Wandek had dragged Bayta and me in to see when we first arrived at Terese’s medical facility.

“Of course,” he said. “As it was also the language of the past.”

“I’ll have to take your word for that one,” I said. He hadn’t bought my game of pretending not to understand Fili, but maybe I could still convince him I didn’t know the Shonkla-raa were on the rise again. “As to that comment about incompetent fools, what did you expect from local talent? What did you do, grab the nearest bunch of yokels and tell them I was going to trash Yleli’s place?”

“Something like that,” the Filly said, taking another step toward me. “But I didn’t expect anything more from them than to soften you up.”

“You might be surprised at how little softening has actually taken place,” I warned, taking a couple of hasty steps back.

“Oh, don’t look so concerned,” the Filly chided, coming to a halt. “At the moment, you’re worth more to us alive than dead.”

“That’s comforting,” I said, a hard knot forming in my stomach. Of course I was worth keeping alive. Why kill me when a touch of Modhran coral would turn me directly into one of their slaves? “How about you? Are you worth more alive, too?”

He smiled, a thin, evil thing. “If you wish for more combat, I can certainly oblige you.”

“I’m sure you can,” I murmured, trying desperately to think. He could almost certainly take me—that much we both knew. Yet for all that brimming confidence, he didn’t seem in any hurry to get things started. Was he waiting for backup to arrive? More locals, or another Shonkla-raa or two? In either case, giving them time to get into position was a guarantee that I would get my head handed to me.

But what were my other choices? Turning tail and trying to run for it wouldn’t work—from my fight with Asantra Muzzfor aboard the super-express Quadrail I knew that Shonkla-raa were pretty fast on their feet. Besides that, I didn’t much care for the image of being run to ground like an antelope on the Serengeti.

But facing him straight-up and unarmed this way wasn’t going to work, either. What I needed was to find a weapon.

Or maybe I already had one.

There was a slightly dazed-sounding rumble from somewhere to my left. “Doug?” I called, wanting to look and see how he was doing but not daring to take my eyes off Blue One. “Hey, boy. You okay?”

The watchdog rumbled again. Maybe he’d hit the deck harder than I’d realized. “Yeah, sorry about that,” I apologized.

“A most clever maneuver, by the way,” the Filly commented. “Although I expect Chinzro Hchchu will be annoyed if you permanently damage one of his msikai-dorosli.” He smiled thinly. “If you wish to try throwing him at me as well, feel free to do so.”

“Sorry, I never do a trick twice for the same audience,” I told him. “Speaking of tricks, why did you kill Tech Yleli? If it’s not a professional secret, of course.”

“If anyone bears the blame for his death, it’s you,” he said darkly. “You were the one who disabled the monitors in the dome. That was what allowed him to die unseen.”

I felt my forehead crease. I was the one who’d disabled the monitors? “An act of petty vandalism hardly rises to the level of murder,” I pointed out. “I also notice you’re ducking the question. What did he do? Or did he see something he shouldn’t?”

The Filly snorted again. “You Humans have such a narrow way of viewing the universe,” he said. “You insist on dealing with reality purely in terms of cause and effect.”

“And how should we deal with it?”

“By seeing through to the ultimate goal,” he said. “The path itself is meaningless. You must look to the goal, and to reach it no matter what obstacles lie in your way.”

“Ah, yes—the old end justifying the means,” I said, nodding. “We tossed that one into the ethical ash heap centuries ago.”

“Of course you did,” he said calmly. “You’re an inferior being, among a race of inferior beings. Your goals certainly don’t justify your path.”

“That’s only for superior beings like you, I gather,” I said. “My mistake. So which of your higher goals did Tech Yleli’s death serve?”

The Filly lifted his finger, his head half turned in the direction of the community center. “Wait,” he said. “Do you hear?”

I frowned. Then, drifting down the corridor toward us, came the first strains of music.

It began as a single voice lifted in quiet song. A few bars later a second voice joined in, then a third, then a fourth, and then an entire chorus in full Filiaelian five-part harmony.

“The time of meditation is over,” the Filly said, a grim satisfaction in his voice. “And with the raised voices to mask your screams of agony, we may finally proceed.” Settling his hands into the lock-jointed knives I’d faced aboard the super-express Quadrail, he started toward me. “Or would you prefer to come quietly?” he added.

“Careful,” I warned, backing up at his advance. “You and your friends want me alive, remember?”

“Alive can also mean not quite dead,” he pointed out. “It makes little difference to me.”

“I suppose not,” I said, still backing up. I passed Doug, who was standing more or less where I’d tossed him earlier. He turned to face me as I continued by, his eyes tracking me balefully, his mouth half open to show his teeth. I’d caught him by surprise the last time, but he wasn’t going to fall for my quick-grab tactics again. The Filly picked up his pace, closing the gap.

And I took a long step to my left, putting Doug squarely between the two of us.

The Filly stopped, his blaze paling a little with clear surprise at my maneuver. “You’re not serious,” he said, looking at Doug and then back at me.

“I’m not?” I asked. The Filly took a step to his right, and I responded with a step to mine, keeping Doug between us.

“Please,” the Filly said condescendingly. He did a little two-step, clearly enjoying the novelty and, probably, the ultimate uselessness of my stalling technique.

I did a mirror-image two-step and jammed my hand into my side pocket. “Okay, that’s far enough,” I said in as stern a voice as I could manage. “Back off, right now, or you’ll regret it.”

“You disappoint me,” the Filly said, a tone of regret in his voice as he feinted left and then took another step to the right. “Do you Humans truly believe your skill at bluffing is so potent a weapon? Chinzro Hchchu is barely intelligent enough to qualify as a sentient being, but even he knows how to properly disarm a potential threat to his precious station.”

I grimaced. “Someday you’re going to be wrong,” I said, reluctantly withdrawing my hand from the pocket. “I just hope I’m there—”

Right in the middle of my sentence he leaped toward me, his tucked feet clearing Doug’s head and back by a good half meter as he arced over the oblivious watchdog. I caught a motion-blurred image of his right hand extending toward my throat and his left cocked ready at his waist just in case he needed to kill me after all.

And flipping around the uncapped hypo I’d palmed, I twisted my head and torso out of the Filly’s path and stabbed the needle as hard as I could into his left thigh.

He shrieked, a resonating combination of pain and rage and disbelief that included a set of upper harmonics that nearly took off the top of my head. His left hand knifed reflexively toward me, as he perhaps momentarily forgot he wanted me alive, but the sudden jolt of agony had thrown off his timing and aim and the hand slashed harmlessly past my shoulder. He hit the ground, his newly paralyzed left leg collapsing beneath him and sending him tumbling toward the floor. I took a step toward him, my second hypo ready in my hand.

And dodged back barely in time as he twisted around at the waist and slashed his right hand viciously toward my torso. The blow missed, and he slammed shoulder-first against the deck. His hand slashed out again, this time aiming for my knee, and as I again dodged the blow I reached over and down and buried my second needle in his upper arm.

He was making another attempt to kill me with screeched sound waves as I pushed his long nose to the side with my foot and slammed my fist into the nerve center beneath his right ear. His screech abruptly cut off, and he collapsed limply onto the deck.

For a moment I stood there, one foot on his good wrist, the other on the side of his nose, breathing heavily and trembling as my adrenaline level slowly subsided. “To see it,” I finished my interrupted sentence.

I crouched down beside the Filly and looked over at Doug. “You okay, boy?” I asked. “He attacked first, you know.”

Doug gave a snuffle, and plodded a little unsteadily over to me. I tensed, but he merely pressed his snout against my sleeve as if reminding himself who I was. He had a sort of lopsided, dit-rec-cartoon look in his eyes, and I winced a little as I wondered briefly if my toss had done him any serious damage.

But he merely gave my sleeve another sniff and then sat back on his haunches. “Right,” I agreed. “Back to work.”

The singing from the dome was still going strong, making for an odd but pleasant counterpoint as I went through the unconscious Filly’s clothes. Lady Luck was definitely on my side today: the first two pockets I tried yielded a handful of plastic quick-lock restraints and one of the passkey cards that our Filly escort had used to let Bayta and me into our room two days ago.

I got the restraints securely onto his wrists and ankles, then took a moment to look around. Yleli’s apartment, where Blue One had lain in wait for me, was the one place within reach where I was pretty much guaranteed we wouldn’t be disturbed. On the other hand, it was also the first place his buddies would come looking for him when he failed to bring me in on schedule.

But I didn’t have much choice. The singing down the hall had all the earmarks of a finale, and I absolutely couldn’t be found out here in the open with a turkey-trussed Filly when the funeral broke up and people started returning to their homes. At this point, Yleli’s place was my best bet.

I stood up and got a grip on Blue One’s sleeve. “Feel free to help,” I offered, looking again at Doug.

He just looked back at me with his masked eyes. “Right,” I said, and started pulling.

Yleli’s apartment was at least three times the size of the one Bayta and I had been given, which made sense given that we were transients and techs like Yleli actually lived here. Leaving Blue One in the living room, I gave myself a quick tour, noting the nice but unpretentious furnishings, and making sure the place was, in fact, unoccupied.

I returned to the living room, and for a minute gazed down at my unconscious prisoner, the itching feeling of having just climbed on top of a tiger creeping through me. I’d beaten off this first overt attack by the Shonkla-raa, but what was I supposed to do now? Leave him here, knowing that someone would eventually come looking for him? The mood he would be in when he woke up wasn’t something I really wanted to face, certainly not with my Beretta locked away in Hchchu’s security office.

On the other hand, trying to move a Filly’s worth of deadweight across Proteus Station by myself presented its own set of challenges.

Doug padded over and nuzzled the sleeping Filly’s face. “No, no, we don’t want him awake yet,” I admonished, frowning at the watchdog. I’d always known he was the size of an adult Doberman, and I knew now that he was about as heavy as one, too. Wandek had told us they could carry light burdens, but I’d never gotten around to checking just how much weight they could handle.

Maybe it was time I did.

I glanced around the room, looking for Yleli’s computer. But even as I spotted it I realized that accessing Proteus’s network from a deceased person’s apartment would probably kick up red flags from here to Hchchu’s office and back again.

Fortunately, there was another way. Pulling out my comm, I punched in Bayta’s number.

She answered on the first ring. “What’s wrong?” she asked tautly.

“Nothing,” I assured her. “How about you?”

“I’m fine,” she said, her voice still tense. “I’m sorry, Frank, but I’ve had a bad feeling ever since you left.”

“Well, you can give your intuition full marks,” I said. “Our friends had a go at me, but so far I’m winning. Listen, I need you to look up something for me. Is there a computer you can get to without anyone noticing?”

“Yes, I think so,” she said. “What do you need?”

“I need to know how much weight these watchdogs can carry,” I said. “I’ve got a package I need to lug, and I don’t want to risk breaking Doug’s spine. I’ve already abused him enough for one day.”

“Just a minute.”

The comm went silent. I pulled a chair up beside Blue One and sat down, watching his slow breathing and wondering how long before that punch I’d given him wore off. Not long, probably, which meant I was going to have to come up with something a little more long term.

There was a click from the comm. “I think I can get you something even better,” Bayta said. “Where are you?”

“Why?” I asked warily.

“Why do you think?” she retorted. “I’m coming to give you a hand.”

“That may not be safe,” I warned. “Our friends could be back on the warpath at any time.”

“Then we need to get you and your package out of there as quickly as possible, don’t we?” she countered. “Where are you?”

I grimaced. “In Tech Yleli’s former residence,” I said, and gave her the number. “Maybe I should meet you halfway, though. Better yet, I’ll meet you at the bullet-train station at—”

“We’ll be fine,” she cut me off. “Wait there and watch your package.”

Once again, the comm went dead. Cursing under my breath, I put it away. Should I call her back and insist on meeting her along the way? Or should I just show up at the bullet-train stop and walk her the rest of the way, whether she liked it or not?

But whenever the Shonkla-raa realized their plan had gone awry and came out in force from under their rocks, it would be me they would be looking for. Much as I hated to admit it, for the moment Bayta might actually be safer without me.

I was still trying to come up with a good reason why she wouldn’t be safer out there alone when there was a chime from the door.

Silently, I got to my feet and headed across the room, grabbing the two hypos I’d stabbed Blue One with from the end table where I’d left them. By the time I reached the door, I had the hypos arranged in a V-shape in my right fist, the plungers set firmly against my palm, the needles angled outward on either side of my middle finger. If the Shonkla-raa were here for a rematch, the first one in line, at least, was going to hurt a lot. I pressed my ear to the door …

“Compton?” Emikai’s voice came softly through the panel. “Compton, are you in there?”

Sighing, I stepped back and keyed the release. Emikai caught sight of me as the door slid open, glanced both ways down the corridor, and stepped hurriedly inside. “I thought you might have found a way into—” he began.

And broke off as he caught sight of my prisoner. “What happened?” he asked in a subtly altered tone.

“He sent a few locals to try to beat me up,” I said. “When that didn’t work, he took on the job himself. You have any idea how to keep him quiet for the next hour or two? Apart from punching him behind the ear every ten minutes, I mean?”

“Possibly,” Emikai said, still staring in a sort of fascinated repugnance at the unconscious Filly. Probably wondering why I hadn’t called the Jumpsuits, and whether he should do it himself. “Have you looked in the medicine cabinet?”

“No, I just had the quick tour,” I said. “You think Tech Yleli might have left us some sleeping tablets?”

“It is likely,” Emikai said, finally tearing his eyes away from Blue One and heading toward the rear of the apartment. “He might have needed them himself, or kept some to sell to others.”

“To sell?” I echoed. “You mean he was dealing?”

“Not at all,” Emikai said huffily. “Filiaelian medical techs are often tasked with providing minor health care to neighborhood residents. It relieves some of the strain on doctors and other care providers.”

“Ah,” I said, wondering if I should take that explanation at face value or press the issue further. Still, I knew Filly warriors and cops had been genetically engineered for loyalty and professional ethics. Why not medical techs, too?

If Yleli had been a dealer, he was either very good at it or very bad. The medicine cabinet was nearly empty, with no more than a dozen vials and bottles of various sorts lined up on the shelves. “Not looking good,” I commented.

“On the contrary,” Emikai said as he lifted out one of the bottles. “Though primarily designed for relieving the symptoms of a vision disorder, this medication also carries powerful soporific qualities.”

“And you’d know that how?” I asked, taking the bottle from him and peering at the label. A complete waste of time—I could read the Filly characters, all right, but the words they spelled out were technical terms my Westali courses had never covered.

“Even enforcement officers must occasionally improvise,” Emikai said with a hint of dry humor.

“Ah.” I wasn’t entirely sure what he meant by that, and I was pretty sure I didn’t want to.

“But this form is a liquid that must be injected,” he continued. “Are the hypodermics you met me with at the door still functional?”

“Yes, but the needles have been bent a little,” I said, digging into my pocket. “Fortunately, I happen to have a spare.”

I pulled out my third hypo, the one with the pale amber liquid in it, feeling a twinge of regret as I got my fingers around the rests and my thumb on the plunger. So much for doing my own analysis of Terese’s condition. But it couldn’t be helped. Aiming the needle into the sink, I pressed the plunger.

Nothing happened.

I frowned, pressing the plunger a little harder. But it didn’t move. The fluid level stubbornly remained right where it was, without so much as a drop seeping out the end of the needle.

“Is there trouble?” Emikai asked.

“Yes, but I don’t know what,” I said, peering closely at the hypo. I couldn’t see anything wrong with it. “I can’t get the fluid to expel.”

“Let me see.”

I handed it over, and for a few seconds he carefully turned it over in his hands as he studied it. “Well?” I asked.

“I do not see any problem,” he said. “But it seems bulkier, somehow, than the hypos I have used in the past.”

“Interesting,” I said. “With Human equipment of this sort, the goal is usually to make things lighter and simpler rather than bulkier.”

“That is generally the same with us, as well,” Emikai said. “Can you tell me what fluid this is?”

I shook my head. “I can identify Human blood and a couple of other fluids by sight. But I don’t know this one.”

“But you did see it being withdrawn from Ms. German?”

“I—” I broke off, a strange thought tugging suddenly at the base of my skull. “I saw a tech stick the needle into one of the access tubes they’ve got plugged into her,” I said slowly. “I also saw him pull on the plunger. But that’s not what you asked, is it?”

“No, it is not,” Emikai said, and from the tone of his voice I could tell he was thinking the same thing I was. “Shall we perform an experiment?”

I gestured. “Go for it.”

He shifted the hypo to a two-handed grip, shot me a final look, and carefully pulled on the plunger.

The level of the amber fluid didn’t change, as it should have if there were a little of the stuff still inside the needle itself. Nor did bubbles appear in the fluid, as there should have if the needle was instead empty and Emikai was merely sucking air.

And then, as we watched, something did happen. A small droplet of a clear liquid oozed from the end of the needle.

I eyed the droplet a moment, then shifted my gaze back to Emikai. “Well, well,” I said. “Isn’t that interesting?”

“A reverse-valved hypo,” Emikai rumbled, still staring at the droplet. “But this makes no sense. She is in a hospital facility, where injections and medications are both expected and commonplace. Why use deception of this sort?”

“Precisely because she is in a hospital facility,” I said darkly. “Everything she’s officially given has to be identified, double-checked, and recorded. But with these, they can pump her full of stuff that’s completely off the radar, all under the guise of taking samples.”

I nodded toward the living room. “That also explains why there were two blood-sample hypos instead of just one. The first was a regular hypo, with a genuine blood sample, while the other was one of these tricked-out jobs.”

“Two reverse-valved hypos,” Emikai murmured thoughtfully. “One injection going to her and the other to her unborn child?”

“Or one intramuscular and one intravenous,” I said. “Or one into the bloodstream and the other into the intestines or liver. Take your pick.”

Emikai turned his gaze in the direction of the living room. “The santra you have taken prisoner. Is he one of those involved?”

“I think so,” I said. “If not directly, then at least peripherally. Who is he?”

Emikai shook his head. “I do not yet know.”

“You just said he’s a santra,” I said, frowning. “If you don’t know who he is, how do you know that?”

“It is obvious he has had a great deal of genetic work done,” Emikai said, gesturing toward his own throat. “From that it follows that he is a santra.”

“I thought santra was a social or political title,” I said. “It means exalted one, doesn’t it?”

“A more accurate translation would be distinguished one, and as such can also be applied to those with extensive genetic alterations,” Emikai said. “In actual practice, of course, those two populations largely coincide.”

“I suppose that makes sense,” I said, though the idea of getting your DNA remodeled just because you had the money and status to do it sounded slightly ridiculous. Still, it wasn’t any crazier than getting elaborate tattoos or jewelry implants, each of which had been fashionable for a time in various upper-class Human societies. “So what exactly does his status mean to all this?”

Emikai cocked his head. “I do not understand.”

“Back on the super-express you said that as an ex-cop you were still required to obey orders given to you by Filiaelian santras,” I reminded him. “Does that mean you have to take orders from him once he wakes up?”

I’d been hoping for a quick answer, a firm and automatic assurance that even santras weren’t above the law. The lengthening silence wasn’t a good sign. “Well?” I prompted.

“I can certainly restrain any Filiaelian who has clearly broken the law, santra or otherwise,” he said. “I also would have no difficulty in turning over a suspected lawbreaker to currently active enforcement officers.” He hesitated. “But I have as yet seen no evidence that this santra has committed any crime. I also infer that you do not wish to turn him over to the Kuzyatru Station patrollers at this time.”

“He did assault me,” I pointed out.

“A crime for which I have no proof other than your statement,” Emikai countered. “Proper protocol would call for an interrogation of both parties in an attempt to determine the truth.”

I grimaced. This was starting to get awkward. “If we turn him over to the patrollers, his friends will know he’s been taken,” I said. “They’ll also find out what happened between him and me, which they’ll then try to twist against me.”

“We could arrange to keep him incommunicado.”

“Trust me, they’d get around that,” I said grimly. “Once they’ve figured out what we know—which isn’t much, but they don’t know that it isn’t much—they would have two options. Either they would step up whatever they’re doing to Ms. German, or else they would shut down completely and go to ground. At this point, we aren’t ready for either option.”

“But there are legal requirements at play,” Emikai said. “You have no proof that this person has committed a crime.”

“We have that hypo,” I pointed out. “That proves some kind of crime is under way.” I snapped my fingers. “He also has a passkey that lets him into other people’s apartments. That can’t be legal for him to have, can it?”

For a long moment Emikai gazed down at the gimmicked hypo in his hand. “What do you wish from me?” he asked at last.

“Let me find a place where I can stash him for a few days,” I said. “Bayta’s on her way to help with the move, so you don’t have to be involved with that if it makes you uncomfortable. A couple of days will hopefully buy us enough time to figure out what they’re up to.”

“If he is allied with others, his disappearance will not go unnoticed,” Emikai pointed out.

“True, but a complete disappearance is a lot more enigmatic and disconcerting than having him pop up in the local nexus lockup,” I said. “Any uncertainty and hesitation on their part is to our advantage.”

“And if they counter by attacking Ms. German?” he asked, his voice dark and ominous. “My contract requires me to protect her.”

“It’s a calculated risk,” I admitted. “But right now, it’s our best option.” I hesitated. “If it helps any, I think they’re more likely to come after me than they are to go after Ms. German. After all, I was apparently the one on today’s menu.”

“Perhaps.” Carefully, Emikai laid the hypo down on the sink. “You ask for several days. I will give you one. If at the end of that time you have no further leads or proof of criminal actions, I must turn him over to the patrollers.”

“It’s a deal,” I said. One day wasn’t much, but it was better than I’d hoped for. “We should have one blood-filled hypo out there in the living room that’s actually real. Let’s go get it and see about sending our friend off to dreamland.”