Judgment at Proteus

FIFTEEN

Bayta answered on the second ring. “Where are you?” I asked without preamble.

“On the bullet train heading back to our quarters,” she said, her voice suddenly taut. “What’s wrong?”

“Pretty much everything,” I said grimly, walking over to the door and trying the release. It was locked, all right. “There’s been another murder, the Shonkla-raa are trying to frame me for it, and you’re in danger,” I continued, turning and heading for the desk. “You need to get off that train at the next stop and find a place to hide. Is Emikai with you?”

“Yes, he’s right here,” she said. “Do you want to talk to him?”

Minnario’s hand twitched. “There’s a place nearby that will serve,” he said.

“No, that’s all right,” I told Bayta, nodding to Minnario in acknowledgment. “I don’t think the Shonkla-raa particularly want him, so he should be safe enough for now. But tell him he has to make a choice—”

“This is Emikai,” Emikai’s voice came abruptly. “What has happened?”

“The people who killed Tech Yleli have killed again,” I told him, walking around the side of the desk and trying to activate the computer. It was as solidly locked down as the door.

“Who was murdered?”

“Why?” I asked suspiciously. “You going to call it in if I tell you?”

“Of course,” he said. “I have no choice.”

“In that case, I can’t tell you,” I said. “The killers are trying to frame me for the murder. I have to get away from the crime scene before the whole Proteus security system piles on top of me.”

“Leaving the scene will not help you,” he warned. “You will have left samples of your nucleics behind.”

“In this case, that won’t matter,” I said. “Put Bayta back on, will you?”

“Wait.” There was a brief pause. “What do you want me to do?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” I said. “What can you do?”

The pause this time was longer. “Assuming you escape the scene, how much evidence will there be against you?”

“If I get out fast enough, none,” I assured him, looking at the locked door and then at Hchchu’s desk. “In fact, depending on how much noise I make, and how fast the patrollers get here after me, they’re going to be left with one hell of a puzzle. Don’t ask me to explain—it’s way too complicated.”

“No explanation is necessary,” he said, and I could hear the relief in his voice. “If you are innocent, and if the evidence will show that, there is no requirement for me to hinder your movements.”

“That’s good to hear,” I said, going over to where Minnario’s empty chair was quietly hovering. Taking one of its arms, I pulled it over beside the desk. “I’d like you to accompany Bayta to a place of safety. She’ll show you where.”

“Understood,” he said. “We will await your arrival.”

“Thanks,” I said. “Now put Bayta on.”

There was a pause— “Frank?”

“Okay, we’re all set,” I told her, searching the chair’s control board for the off control. “Emikai will go along and help keep you safe until I can catch up.”

“Where do you want me to go?”

“I don’t know yet,” I said, looking at Minnario. “Minnario?”

The Nemut’s fingers twitched again. “Ty can guide her.”

I grimaced. Of course Ty could guide her. Sometimes I forgot just how useful a group mind could be. “Ty will show you where,” I told Bayta. “Just follow him.”

“Ty will show me?”

“Yes,” I said. I found the control and twisted it, and the chair settled smoothly to the floor. “It turns out our super-express ally had an extra card up his sleeve.”

Even over the comm I could hear the hiss as she inhaled sharply. “Minnario?”

“Bingo,” I said. “Fortunately, the truce appears to still be on. Doug and Ty are also members of the club—go ahead and follow him.”

“Are you sure?” she asked, her voice strained. “I mean—”

“I know, I know,” I cut her off. “But go back and think about everything that’s happened here. He’s been running interference for us against the Shonkla-raa ever since we set foot on the station. Including having Ty stay with you for protection, despite the fact the animal had been ordered to stay with me.”

“Yes, but—”

“More to the immediate point, up until thirty seconds ago Wandek and his buddies had me in an airtight frame-up,” I went on. “There’s no game the Shonkla-raa and Modhri could possibly be playing that would put us in a worse predicament than they already had us in. So just go—I’ll join you as soon as I can.”

“All right,” she said, still reluctant but with a firmness in her voice that meant she was ready to go along with the new plan.

“And watch yourself,” I added. “See you soon.”

I keyed off the comm and slipped it into my pocket. “How is he?” I asked as I tipped the chair over on its side and started removing the thrusters. The central stabilizer Minnario had mentioned the first time we’d taken the chair apart was visible from this angle: a plain cylinder the size of the other thrusters, but with six vertical lines of hash vents instead of the thrusters’ three.

“He’s very much unconscious,” the Modhri said grimly. “At the very least he has a mild concussion. It may be more severe than that.”

“Can you do anything to help?” I asked. Freeing two of the thrusters, I slid them up under two of the desk’s corners, giving them just enough juice to lift that side of the desk half a meter off the floor.

“Do you think I function as a medical implant?” the Modhri retorted.

“So that’s a no,” I said as I pulled two more of the thrusters from the chair. “That means we’ll have to find someplace where we can get him proper medical attention.”

“If you think that’s wise,” the Modhri said doubtfully. “It’s certainly not necessary—I can function well enough without him.”

“That’s the kind of talk that makes people not like you,” I admonished as I set the thrusters beneath the desk’s other two corners.

“Yes, of course,” he said. “I understand. Forgive me.”

I paused, frowning around the corner of the desk at Minnario’s unmoving form. Had the Modhri actually apologized to me? “It’s okay,” I said as I keyed in the thrusters and cranked up the other side of the desk. “Besides, unless Doug’s a lot better at charades than he looks, we definitely still need Minnario, or at least his mouth. Speaking of which, how are you hearing me right now? Or isn’t Minnario really deaf?”

“Yes, he is,” the Modhri said. “I’m hearing you through Doug’s ears.”

“Ah,” I said, detaching two more of the chair’s thrusters and looking for some way to attach them to the rear of the hovering desk. “So how come you didn’t join the party when Muzzfor called up everyone else back on the super-express? You could hear his siren song through the other walkers’ ears, couldn’t you?”

“I don’t know the answer to that,” he said. “But I suspect that the sound works on an Eye’s polyp colony directly through his auditory system. Hearing it through the group mind isn’t the same as having the physical effect of the physical sound coming through the Eye’s own ears. But whatever the reason, I wasn’t affected that way.”

Minnario’s body gave a sudden shiver. “You don’t know what it was like, Compton. You can’t possibly know. I could feel the tug of his orders, could feel the helplessness and horror of it filling my mind. For the first time in any part of my experience this particular part of the mind was cut off from all the rest. It was terrifying.”

“It’s called being alone,” I said, pulling out the two middle desk drawers and probing with my hand at the panels at the back ends. The wood seemed thick enough to handle the pressure the thrusters would be exerting. “Very popular among all the rest of us.”

“So I understand,” the Modhri said, some of the horror fading away. “But it’s not something I’m accustomed to. What’s your plan?”

“To get us the hell out of here before the receptionist gets back,” I said, sliding one of the thrusters into each of the empty drawers. “Any idea how we’re doing on time?”

“If Usantra Wandek’s numbers were right, we have another five minutes.”

And Wandek’s estimate could easily be off by a minute or two. “Okay, here’s the rundown,” I said as I stood up and turned Minnario’s chair upright again. “The door’s locked, and it may be soundproof, but it isn’t particularly thick or strong.”

“So you’re going to ram the desk into it?”

“Right,” I said, looking at the controls. Earlier, when we’d been moving the unconscious Kordiss inside Yleli’s file cabinet, I’d watched how Minnario had operated the detached thrusters. I wouldn’t have nearly his finesse, but I was pretty sure I could duplicate his technique as far as I needed.

Only with four of the thrusters now taking the desk’s weight and two more positioned to push it across the room, there were only two thrusters left to power the chair. The chair that Minnario had said required three to function.

“Is there a problem?” the Modhri asked.

“Minnario’s chair is one thruster short,” I told him as I lugged the chair over to Minnario’s sprawled body and got a grip under his arms. My brief Westali medical training had mentioned the risks of moving someone with a head injury, but it would be a hell of a lot more dangerous to leave him here. “If we’ve got time to retrieve at least one of the thrusters after we crash the desk, we’ll be okay,” I went on as I carefully lifted Minnario and eased him into his chair. It was harder and a lot more awkward than it looks in dit-rec dramas.

“Why won’t there be time?” the Modhri asked.

“Because if Wandek has any brains at all he’ll have someone loitering out there to make sure things go as planned,” I said. “In which case, we’ll have a very limited number of seconds in which to barrel our way over, around, or through him.”

“And thus may not have time to retrieve the thrusters,” the Modhri said. “Yes, I understand. Have you a plan?”

“We’ll find out in a second.” I adjusted Minnario so that he was more or less upright, and keyed the switch. The chair rose a few centimeters on the remaining thrusters and stopped, hovering a bit uncertainly. Functional, but barely, and only if there weren’t any obstacles along the way taller than someone’s foot.

Which meant we were going to have to get creative. “Doug?” I called, beckoning to the watchdog. “Front and center.”

For a second the animal hesitated, and I could swear I could see an inquisitive frown on his face. Then the look cleared away. He trotted over, nudged his muzzle under the edge of the chair, and slid the whole thing up onto his back.

“Even with the thrusters taking some of the weight, he won’t be able to carry it very far,” the Modhri warned.

“He shouldn’t have to,” I said. “I just need you to be able to make a run for it if I end up tangling with one of Wandek’s buddies.”

“You mean you would fight him alone?” the Modhri asked, his voice suddenly tense. “No, you mustn’t. I’ve fought against Shonkla-raa. You can’t possibly survive such a battle.”

“I fought him too,” I reminded him, “and I’m very open to suggestions. You think Doug could take one of them?”

“By himself, no,” he said. “But he could delay a single enemy long enough for us to escape.”

“You mean before the Shonkla-raa killed him?”

“Well … yes,” the Modhri conceded.

I grimaced. It made sense, I knew, certainly if it came down to a question of Doug or Minnario and me. But the idea of deliberately sending even an animal to die in my place didn’t feel very good. “Let’s see how it plays out,” I said. Switching to the proper section of the chair’s control panel, I ran a little more power to the four supporting thrusters.

The desk rose to waist height. I lowered it back down to knee height and got a grip on the power controls for the remaining two thrusters.

And paused as an odd thought suddenly struck me. Before he was murdered, Hchchu had said he had been studying me. He’d also had my reader right there in his top desk drawer.

And if he’d wanted to take a closer look at my reader …

“Only three minutes left,” the Modhri said urgently. “Is there a problem?”

“Hang on,” I said. Mentally crossing my fingers, I stepped to the desk and pulled open the drawer.

And found my lips tightening in my first genuine smile in a long, long time. Collected neatly together in the drawer were all the items Hchchu had taken from Bayta and me our first hour aboard the station: my multitool, watch, lighter, and data chips; Bayta’s jewelry, her reader and data chips, and the kwi.

And, most wonderful of all, my Beretta.

“No problem at all,” I told the Modhri as I grabbed everything and stuffed it all into my pockets. I checked the Beretta’s magazine, then flicked the selector to the snoozer side and chambered a round. “Brace yourself,” I warned as I stuck the gun into my belt and resumed my grip on the chair’s thruster controls. “This is probably going to be loud.”

I keyed the driving thrusters, and the desk took off like a carved wooden bat out of hell. It shot across the room and with a thunderous crash slammed into the door, bending and then shattering the panel as it was itself bent and shattered. Thumbing off the Beretta’s safety, I charged.

The Modhri was faster. Doug leaped out in front of me, loping along the floor like a greyhound who’s spotted a rabbit. He reached the crumpled remains of the desk, still hovering on its thrusters, and leaped up and over it.

Minnario wobbled violently as the animal negotiated the wreckage now wedged into the doorway, but remained in his seat. Landing on the far side, Doug paused just long enough for the chair to mostly come back to balance, then took off down the hallway. I did a sort of half jump, half climb over the desk that wasn’t nearly as graceful as the watchdog’s and followed.

I had just registered the fact that the receptionist’s desk was still unoccupied when Jagged Nose suddenly charged into view from around the corner.

Whatever he’d expected to see in the aftermath of all that noise, the sight of Doug and Minnario bearing down on him like an undersized elephant carrying a howdah on his back was definitely not it. Even at this distance I could see the Shonkla-raa’s eyes widen and his blaze pale as he took a reflexive step backward.

But almost before he’d finished that step he was back on mental balance. He set one foot behind him, bracing himself into combat stance, stretching one hand in front of him to take the brunt of the impending collision. He stiffened the other hand into a knife and cocked it back at his waist, ready to skewer either Minnario or Doug when they reached him.

Cursing, I threw myself flat on my belly on the hallway. “Veer right!” I snapped, bringing my Beretta to bear.

Instantly, Doug dodged to the side, Minnario’s chair again threatening to fall off with the sudden change of direction. Jagged Nose spotted me and my gun, and he had just enough time to do the eyes-widening thing again before I dropped him onto the floor with three snoozers to the chest.

I scrambled back to my feet as Doug came to a wobbly halt beside the unconscious Filly, his head darting back and forth. “We’re alone,” Minnario called softly. “But others are coming. Come quickly.”

“Thirty seconds,” I called back. Stripping off my jacket, I laid it out on the floor beside the hovering desk wreckage, then crouched down and reached to the rear of the desk, shutting off and retrieving one of the supporting thrusters back there. I laid it on top of the jacket and then pulled out the second rear thruster, that end of the desk dropping to the floor with a muffled thud as its support disappeared. I set the thruster on the jacket beside the first, then repeated the procedure with one of the front thrusters, leaving the desk balanced precariously on a single point.

“Now!” the Modhri called, his voice urgent. “Come now!”

“Go,” I ordered, eyeing the fourth thruster and reluctantly concluding that as the last support for the hovering desk it would be tricky and time-consuming to extricate. Wrapping the sides of my jacket around the three thrusters, I tied the sleeves together and tucked the bundle under my arm.

Doug had disappeared from the intersection as I scrambled back to my feet. Getting a grip on my Beretta, I sprinted down the hallway, passed the reception desk, and charged around the corner into the wider intersecting hallway.

And came to a screeching halt. There were others coming, all right: five Jumpsuits, hurrying toward me from that end of the corridor. A quick look over my shoulder showed four more coming from behind me, as well.

I breathed out a curse, wishing to hell that I’d been a little more circumspect in my approach to the intersection. If I’d seen the patrollers before they saw me, I would have been able to duck behind the receptionist’s desk, and with a little luck they might have all charged past into Hchchu’s office and missed me completely. Too late for that now.

Which left me facing nine armed opponents with twelve snoozers and fifteen thudwumpers in my Beretta and a pair of badly untenable options. I could open fire here and now, leaving my back open to one group or the other but offering the hope that the cross-fire landscape would encourage them to take out a few of their own number for me. My other choice was to retreat back to Hchchu’s office, where I would be trapped with a freshly murdered assistant director, and hope I could hold out long enough to come up with something clever.

Whichever option I chose, I had only seconds to implement it. The Jumpsuits had already picked up their pace as they spotted what could only be interpreted as a suspicious figure with ill-gotten loot in hand. All five of the Fillies I was currently facing had dropped their hands to the grips of their holstered beanbag guns, and the patroller slightly in the lead was already in the process of drawing his. {Halt, Human,} he ordered sternly.

I had just about decided that I had no choice but to have it out right here when a half-dozen watchdogs suddenly appeared behind the Jumpsuits, filtering into our corridor from different offices and cross-corridors. I glanced behind me and saw the same pickup posse closing on the other group.

“Damn,” I muttered, turning back to the first group of Jumpsuits. A nice, straightforward plan, and under other circumstances I would have welcomed the Modhri’s help.

But not here, and not now. There was no rational reason why a whole bunch of otherwise peaceful domesticated animals would suddenly gather and attack a group of Proteus security personnel. The news of such an event was bound to flash across the station with the kind of speed that only rumors and bizarre news could achieve, certainly long before Bayta and I could find a way off the station.

And even if the patrollers themselves never figured out what had gone wrong with their pets, the Shonkla-raa certainly would. And the minute they realized how and where the Modhri had been hiding aboard Proteus and started singing their siren song to the four-footed walkers, it would be all over. They would have Bayta, and they would have me, and death would be the best either of us could hope for.

There was only one chance I could see to get out of this before it was too late. It would mainly be the unprovoked nature of the impending attack, I judged, that would clue in the Shonkla-raa. Ergo, I needed to come up with some kind of plausible yet obvious explanation for their actions. Something that would fool the Jumpsuits, and might at least give the Shonkla-raa pause.

And I had all of two seconds to pull it off.

The only thing within easy reach was Bayta’s reader, tucked into my jacket pocket just in front of my left arm on the outside of my bundle of thrusters. I snatched it out, made a show of quick-punching a half-dozen keys at random, and held it high above my head.

And even as the rest of the patrollers drew their weapons in response, both groups of watchdogs slammed full tilt into them from behind.

It was as impressive a scene of utter chaos as I’ve ever had the chance to witness. In an instant every Jumpsuit had been knocked to the floor, yelping or screeching with shock, anger, and bewilderment as the watchdogs ran back and forth over their bodies as if they’d all gone insane.

All of them, that is, except one. He was hanging back behind the general pandemonium, standing motionless and gazing steadily at me.

I held my pose for another three seconds, knowing that the more Jumpsuits who spotted the reader and came to the intended conclusion, the better. Then, lowering my arm, I again tapped a couple of keys at random and charged into and through the bedlam and down the hallway. My guide waited until I was almost to him, then turned and loped off, staying just ahead of me.

“Stop the attack and send them back to where they all came from,” I ordered the watchdog quietly as he led me around a corner into a cross-corridor. “Have them look shocked and bewildered, like they’ve just come to their senses and have no idea what just happened. Even better, if you can pull it off, have them look embarrassed or frightened.”

The watchdog gave an acknowledging yip and picked up his pace. Ahead, I could see an open service-elevator door off the corridor to the right. My guide gave me another yip and put on a final burst of speed, skidding a little on the floor as he cornered, and disappeared through the open door. With a final glance over my shoulder, I followed.

Doug and Minnario were waiting, the other watchdog panting beside them, when I ducked through the doorway. “Keypad beside the floor-selector panel,” Minnario murmured. “Enter the code 33951 and then Floor 201.”

I nodded and punched the keys as instructed, relieved that the Filly obsession with nucleics and nucleic locks hadn’t extended to their maintenance equipment. Though that was probably because there were too many people using the gear to make something like that practical. “Thanks for the assist, by the way,” I said as the door slid shut and we headed up. “But next time, clear it with me first, will you? The last thing we can afford is for the Shonkla-raa to realize—”

“There is trouble, Compton,” Minnario murmured. “They have her.”

My heart seized up in my chest. “What?” I demanded.

“They have her,” he repeated miserably. “They have Bayta.”