Judgment at Proteus

EIGHTEEN

For a long moment no one spoke. No one moved. I could feel Bayta’s tension to my left, and Emikai’s chagrin to my right. On Bayta’s other side, Doug had gone utterly still.

Wandek, too, remained still, and it occurred to me that he was probably waiting for me to offer some response. It seemed a shame to disappoint him. “I see you took my advice,” I commented into the silence.

He cocked his head. “What advice is that?”

I nodded to the silent Shonkla-raa behind him. “I said that the next time you came after me you should bring the whole crowd.”

Wandek smiled. “And now you think you have me?” he asked. “You and your Modhran ally?”

Abruptly, Doug and Ty launched themselves toward him, snarling like rabid dogs, their teeth gleaming in their open jaws.

But before they’d covered even half the distance, a sudden, high-pitched whistle burst out from the assembled crowd, the sound filling the bay. It seemed to cut straight through my ears and head, sending a bone-jarring tingle through my teeth.

And as abruptly as they’d launched themselves into battle, Doug and Ty screeched to a frozen halt.

“You’re a fool, Compton,” Wandek said contemptuously, raising his voice to be heard over the whistling. “Did you really think I hadn’t noticed the curious change in msikai-dorosli behavior that has taken place aboard Kuzyatru Station since your arrival? Did you think that such careless terms as everywhere friend would go unheard and unnoted?”

“You talk a good fight,” I told him. “But as you can see, your impressive little organic Modhri whistle doesn’t bother me any.” I hefted the Beretta. “I seriously doubt it’ll stop a thudwumper, either.”

“Do you propose to kill thirty of us with your thirteen remaining rounds?” he countered scornfully. “That would be remarkable marksmanship indeed. And as for your friend and her kwi…” He gestured to my left.

I looked at Bayta, my throat tightening. The Chahwyn part of her operated on a slightly different telepathic frequency than the Modhri did, and its audio response characteristics were also significantly different. The Shonkla-raa’s whistle didn’t give them the same kind of direct control over her that they now had over the two watchdogs.

But it was close enough for her to feel some of the same effects. Her face was flushed and rigid, her eyes staring unblinkingly at Wandek, her body trembling visibly as the waves of debilitating sound washed over her. With her mind half frozen in battle against the Shonkla-raa’s telepathic call there was no way she would ever be able to aim and fire the kwi, or even spare enough focus and energy to activate the weapon for me to use.

I turned in the other direction and looked at Minnario. His face was rigid, too, but not with the watchdogs’ loss of control or even Bayta’s frozen helplessness. Alone of everyone in the room his deaf ears were immune to the Shonkla-raa’s siren song, leaving him still free to act.

But his immunity did us no good. He had no weapons to use against the Shonkla-raa, no tools, no special skills. In one way he was as free as I was. In another, he was effectively as helpless as Doug and Ty.

“Okay, I’ll grant you the tactical high ground,” I said, turning back to Wandek. “But even if I can’t take out all of you, I can definitely put a serious dent in your ranks.” I lined up the Beretta on his nose blaze. “And I’m pretty sure I’d start with you.”

“I don’t think so,” he said, lifting a hand. Behind him, at the very rear of the group, there was a small stirring of commotion. Something was moving toward the front—someone was moving toward the front—

And from behind one of the Fillies Terese German stumbled into view. Before I could move or speak, Wandek grabbed her arm and yanked her roughly over to his side, planting her directly in front of him.

Emikai snapped something vicious-sounding in Fili. Wandek didn’t bother to acknowledge the comment. “Well, Compton?” he invited.

“You’re an awfully big target to try hiding behind a Human girl that small,” I pointed out. “Terese? How are you doing?”

“How do you think I’m doing?” she retorted, her voice shaking. “What the fleeking hell is going on here?”

“In a nutshell, these fine folks want to take over the galaxy,” I told her. “Their current plan is to do in vitro genetic manipulation on unborn Human babies so as to give them enough telepathic ability that they’ll be able to control them.” I gestured with my free hand toward Doug and Ty. “The same thing they’re doing to those two watchdogs right now.”

Terese’s face had gone white. “No,” she breathed. “That’s impossible.”

“Unfortunately, it’s not,” I told her. “That’s why they have all those other pregnant women stashed away in Building Twelve.”

“They have other women?” Terese said weakly.

“But you were a more ambitious experiment,” I continued. “What they did with you was hire a thug to attack you on your way home that evening, and after you were unconscious they injected you with sperm specially tailored to create the kind of telepathic Humans they’ve been trying to manufacture here.” I cocked an eyebrow at Wandek. “After all, why bother hauling pregnant Humans all the way to Proteus if you can simply rape them on Earth and get the same result?”

“Why, indeed,” Wandek agreed calmly. If he was upset at having his most sordid secrets dragged out in the open for everyone to hear, he was hiding it well. “My congratulations on your deduction. You’re more perceptive than I thought.”

I inclined my head. “You’re too kind.”

I’d thought Terese’s face was as white as it could get. I’d been wrong. “Oh, God,” she breathed, her chest heaving with shallow, rapid breaths, her body tensing as she tried uselessly to flinch away from the grip on her arms. “Oh, God. Oh, God.”

“So bottom line: your all-expenses-paid trip here was simply so they could follow up on the experiment and see if it worked,” I concluded. “Did it, Wandek?”

“We think so,” he said. “We’ll need to run a few more tests to be certain.”

“I’m sure those tests will be exciting to do,” I said, a fresh wave of disgust rolling through me. “A shame that you won’t be alive to see the results.”

“Please,” Wandek said contemptuously. “I can see your hands shaking from here, no doubt a result of all your recent strenuous activity. You won’t risk Ms. German’s life, not even for the satisfaction of killing me.”

“I don’t care,” Terese snarled. “Go ahead, Compton. Shoot him. Shoot him.”

“Sorry, Terese, but he’s right,” I admitted, lowering the Beretta. “But don’t give up—we’re not down yet.” I inclined my head to my right. “Emikai?”

“You expect Logra Emikai to help you?” Wandek said knowingly before Emikai could reply. “Again, you nurture useless hopes. I’m an usantra aboard Kuzyatru Station, and he’s a patroller in the same locale. He’s bound by his own genetics to obey my commands.”

“I wondered why you arranged for his reinstatement,” I said, nodding as that piece finally fell into place. “I should have known it would be something like that.”

“What he arranged, and why he arranged it, are not important,” Emikai said, his voice dark and stiff. “A Filiaelian’s identity is in his heart, his mind, and his soul. By your actions and words, Usantra Wandek, you have forfeited the right to that name.”

Wandek spat. {And you think I find sorrow at that loss?} he said in Fili, the first hint of actual anger coloring his voice. {Be assured that the name I carry now will be far longer remembered.} He glared at Emikai another moment, then turned back to me. “Logra Emikai’s betrayal is to no end,” he said, switching back to English. “He carries an expander weapon, which has no capability to kill or even seriously injure.”

“I have an enforcement officer’s training,” Emikai said ominously, taking a step forward.

“Don’t try it,” I said quickly. “I’ve seen Shonkla-raa fight. Any one of them could cut you to ribbons.”

“So we reach the end,” Wandek said. “If you come quietly, Mr. Compton, I promise to spare the traitor and the cripple.”

“Who said the negotiations were over?” I countered. I’d achieved my first goal, that of getting Wandek to admit the truth about Terese’s treatment in Emikai’s presence. But there was still one crucial card I had to get Wandek to play if we were going to get out of this alive. “Logra Emikai’s gun may not kill, but I’ll bet a beanbag to the throat would put a serious damper on your ability to control the Modhri.”

Wandek sniffed. “Perhaps,” he conceded. “But he has only eight shots. Even added to your thirteen, that still leaves you woefully short.”

“Which will be of great comfort to the thirteen who’ll be dead and the eight who’ll be slowly suffocating with crushed throats,” I said. “You want to call for volunteers? Or shall we pick them ourselves?”

Wandek smiled. “As a matter of fact,” he said, “I believe I can furnish you with some volunteers.”

“Compton,” Minnario’s voice wheezed.

I turned my head. The Nemut was leaning sideways in his chair, his face and body racked with pain and frustration. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I can’t … stop him. I’m sorry.”

“It’s not your fault,” I said. Out of the corner of my eye I saw the door behind the group of Shonkla-raa slide open.

And a line of watchdogs marched silently into the docking bay.

Beside me, I heard Bayta give an anguished choke. The animals threaded their way between the assembled Fillies, filed past Wandek and Terese, and arranged themselves in a semicircle centered on Bayta, Emikai, Wandek, and me. I waited, also silently, until the door was closed and the last of the animals took his place in Wandek’s new shock front. There were twenty of them, I noted, plus Doug and Ty. “There you are,” Wandek said equably. “Twenty-two msikai-dorosli. One for each of your shots, plus one left to tear Logra Emikai’s throat from his body.” He cocked his head. “Do you still wish to open fire?”

“Twenty of them here in just a couple of minutes,” I commented. “That’s very quick work. More of that fear and hopelessness thing you tried on me before?”

“I originally assembled them to deal with the Spiders who even now approach Kuzyatru Station,” Wandek said, eyeing me closely. “But I can bring more, if your plan was to deplete their numbers before the transport arrives.”

“Oh, no, I had no such plans,” I assured him. “I had wondered, though, how you knew which docking bay to come to. They called ahead to confirm their landing-bay assignment, didn’t they?”

“As must all ships approaching Kuzyatru Station,” Wandek said, his voice oddly distant, his blaze mottling. “Fear and hopelessness, you say, Compton. Yet I see neither in your eyes. Do you believe the Spiders aboard the transport can aid you in defeating me? If so, cleanse that hope from your mind. I’m quite certain that the same tone that commands the Modhri and freezes the alien female at your side will do similarly to them.”

“Actually, I wasn’t counting on the Spiders at all,” I said truthfully. “I think you aren’t seeing any hopelessness because you didn’t let me finish my question.”

He frowned. “What question?”

“The one I was starting to ask Logra Emikai a minute ago, before you brought in your Parade of the Watchdogs.” I raised my eyebrows. “May I?”

Still frowning, Wandek waved a hand in permission. “Thank you.” I turned to Emikai. “Tell me, what happened with the errand I sent you on earlier? The one in Tech Yleli’s neighborhood?”

Emikai’s eyes flicked to me, and for a pair of heartbeats his blaze darkened with confusion.

And then, I saw his face clear as he suddenly got it. “To the right,” he murmured. “Two o’clock.”

I nodded, my estimation of Emikai going up another notch at his use of that uniquely Human system of orientation, and turned my eyes in that direction.

There they were, just as I’d asked: eight large metal cylinders, stacked neatly together on their sides between a pair of equipment lockers.

I turned back to Wandek. “Before I forget, Usantra Wandek, I want to thank you for bringing Ms. German along,” I said, my eyes dipping briefly to the white-faced girl in front of him. “We wanted to get her off Proteus, but I had no idea where to even start looking. This simplifies things immensely.”

Wandek snorted. “You spoke earlier of fear and hopelessness,” he said. His earlier wariness was gone, replaced by a fresh wave of contempt. “I see now that you speak mostly of bluff.”

“Probably,” I agreed. “Do you know what I like about Filiaelians?”

The sudden change of topic seemed to throw him momentarily off balance. But he recovered quickly. “Tell me,” he invited.

“It’s the way our two cultures overlap, complimenting but not duplicating each other,” I said. “Take Tech Yleli’s funeral, for example. Do you know what Human children birthdays and Filiaelian funerals have in common?” I raised my eyebrows. “Helium balloons.”

And swiveling my Beretta to the two o’clock position, I emptied the magazine into the tanks of super-compressed helium.

The bursting metal sounded exactly like a cluster of bombs going off, which was exactly the way Wandek and the other Shonkla-raa reacted. Wandek dropped instantly into a crouch, dragging Terese down with him. The rest of the Shonkla-raa, apparently only now realizing how tempting a target their tight-packed group presented, began to spread out into the main part of the bay where the watchdogs held their stolid vigil. I stood motionless, my empty gun still pointed at the tanks, watching Wandek’s face, wondering distantly if this was actually going to work. A wave of coolness washed across my face as expansion-chilled helium mixed with the rest of the docking bay’s air.

And then, without warning, Bayta gave a choked gasp, her body sagging like a marionette with cut strings. “Frank—” she wheezed.

It was at that moment that Wandek realized what had happened. With a snarl, he jammed his hand into his tunic pocket and pulled out a small handgun I’d never seen him with before.

But he was too late. In unison, the whole group of watchdogs turned to their Shonkla-raa masters and attacked.

I leaped forward toward the sudden chaos, trying to get to Terese before Wandek got his gun into position. But I had barely started my charge when two of the watchdogs slammed in from opposite directions, nosing their way between Wandek and Terese and shoving them apart. Halfway through their charge, in perfect unison, the watchdog closest to Wandek turned violently into the Shonkla-raa, body-slamming him off his feet, while the other turned more gently but just as insistently the opposite direction to shove Terese into my arms. I grabbed her, spun her around, and shoved her in turn toward Bayta, then turned again to join the fight.

“No!” Minnario shouted over the oddly pitched cacophony of screams and shouts and snarls. “This is mine.”

And it was.

I’d been on the receiving end of Shonkla-raa hand-to-hand combat, and I knew how strong and cold and deadly they were. Their knife hands flashed as they fought against the watchdogs, jabbing through skin and scale and bone and sending their victims yipping and snarling to the deck to struggle weakly or to lie still in pools of blood.

But for once, all the Shonkla-raa’s strength of body and will wasn’t enough. Slowly, I backed up toward Bayta and Terese and Emikai, watching in fascinated horror as the watchdogs bled and died and yet systematically tore their way through the enemy ranks. Here and there a gun like Wandek’s appeared, but its owner never got more than a single shot before he was taken down, usually by sharp-toothed jaws around his neck.

A few of the Shonkla-raa, mostly those in the rear, recognized the inevitable and made a run for the door. A couple of them actually made it. The rest didn’t.

Three minutes later, it was over.

I gave the field of battle one final survey, mostly to make sure none of the Shonkla-raa was still showing signs of life or, more importantly, signs of weapons. Then, exhaling tiredly, I turned back to the others.

Bayta was holding a still white-faced Terese close to her, gently stroking the girl’s hair and murmuring soothing words. Emikai looked dumbfounded, his intellect and his genetic programming no doubt locked in a bitter philosophical battle over the slaughter of so many of his santra bosses right there in front of him. I wished him luck sorting it all out.

Minnario, in contrast, just looked grimly satisfied. So did the surviving watchdogs, including Doug and Ty, as they moved among the fallen. Probably, like me, checking for survivors and guns.

I walked over to Minnario. “Brilliant, Compton,” the Modhri said. “My congratulations.”

I shrugged modestly. “A little helium in the room, a little change in air density, and the Shonkla-raa’s finely tuned siren song goes straight to hell. Actually, it’s a game Humans have played with helium for generations.” I waved a hand behind me. “You happy now?”

His eyes drifted across the carnage. “Yes, I am,” he said. “You?”

“Mostly, I’m just relieved,” I said. “Whenever you’re ready, Bayta, call in the Spiders, and let’s get the hell off this station.”

“And after that, what?” Minnario asked.

I looked him straight in the eye. “I’m going to take them down,” I said flatly.

“Alone?”

“If necessary.”

He inclined his head. “We shall see.”