Judgment at Proteus

TWO

The entry bay was deathly silent by the time the three jumpsuited Fillies reached us. Two of them took my upper arms in a standard police control hold, while the third got a slightly more polite grip on Bayta’s arm. With Hchchu in the lead, we were marched off through the frozen tableau of our fellow torchferry passengers toward a door at the far end.

Which wasn’t to say that we went quietly.

“This is absurd,” I insisted loudly as we walked, trying to sound bewildered and outraged at the same time. “You obviously have me confused with someone else.”

“You are Mr. Frank Compton, New York City, New York, Western Alliance, Earth, Terran Confederation?” Hchchu asked over his shoulder.

“I’m a Frank Compton of New York,” I acknowledged. “But there must be dozens of us. Besides—”

“Then there is no mistake,” he said firmly.

“You have the wrong person,” I said, just as firmly. If the Modhri was on to me, none of this protesting would do any good. But it was the way an innocent man would behave and I had to play it through.

Besides, any doubt I could create would only help me. The local Modhran mind segment had only Filly eyes and vision centers to work with, and Fillies in general weren’t all that good at distinguishing among Human faces. No matter how suspicious the Modhri might be, he couldn’t possibly be as certain as Hchchu sounded. At least, not unless he already had a sample of my DNA aboard.

“What are the specifications of the charge?” a new voice cut in, and I turned to see that Emikai had left Terese and Aronobal and had joined our little procession.

“And you are?” Hchchu challenged.

“Logra Emikai,” Emikai said. “These Humans are our escort.”

Hchchu did a sort of double take, and I caught a brief darkening of his nose blaze as he looked more closely at Emikai. “I welcome you, Logra Emikai,” he said. “I have words to speak with you, as well. But those words will wait.”

“As you wish, Chinzro Hchchu,” Emikai said. “Again I ask: what are the specifications of the charge against Mr. Compton?”

“Actually, this whole nonsense can wait,” I put in. “Logra Emikai and I have a task that we’ve promised to perform, to escort Terese Ger—”

“The charges are plural,” Hchchu said, his eyes still on Emikai. “Six counts of murder against citizens of the Assembly.”

Emikai looked at me, his blaze paling with surprise. “Six murders?” he repeated, sounding sandbagged.

I was feeling a little sandbagged myself. I’d assumed this whole thing was coming from Asantra Muzzfor’s death aboard our super-express. Where in the world had Hchchu found five more dead Fillies?

[I protest,] a thin voice called distantly from behind us.

I turned my head. It was Minnario, floating through the bay toward us, clearly gunning his support chair for all it was worth. On his distorted face was an expression of full-blown righteous indignation.

But all the determination in the world couldn’t make his chair go any faster, and at the rate we were walking he had no hope of catching us before we left the bay. Even if he decided to pursue this further, he wasn’t going to get to Hchchu until after Bayta and I had been dealt with and presumably sent elsewhere in Proteus.

And that would be a shame, because I was rather interested in hearing what the crippled Nemut had to say. Bracing myself, I abruptly leaned backward and dug my heels into the floor.

My two attached Fillies came to a jerking halt, stumbling as my unexpected move threw them both off-balance. “What do you do?” Hchchu demanded, spinning around.

“Someone’s calling you,” I said mildly. “It’s rude to ignore him.”

Hchchu’s eyes shifted to Minnario, still trundling determinedly toward us. “What does he wish to say?” he asked, looking back at me.

“If I knew that, we wouldn’t need to wait and hear him, would we?” I said, still leaning back against my handlers’ grips.

Hchchu looked at Minnario again, then gestured to my guards. Their pull eased, and I straightened up again.

[You must not do this,] Minnario said as he came up to us, bringing his chair to a gliding halt. [He’s an honorable Human, who risked his life to save all of us aboard the galaxy-crosser. He chased down a murderer who would have killed us all—]

“Peace, visitor,” Hchchu said. He really needed to work on his habit of interrupting people. “Mr. Compton is not under investigation for activities aboard your galaxy-crosser or any other Quadrail.”

[Then what do you do?] Minnario demanded.

“He is charged with the murders of six santra-class Filiaelians,” Hchchu said. “Specifically, the murders of Isantra Snievre, Isantra Golovek, Esantra Chavine, Asantra Morloo, Asantra Crova, and Asantra Vaermas.”

I frowned as he rattled off the names. This was getting more absurd by the minute. I’d never even heard of those Fillies.

“Isantra Golovek,” Bayta murmured suddenly. “New Tigris.”

I grimaced. Of course. I hadn’t known most of those Fillies, at least not by their actual names. But now I did recall Isantra Golovek’s name going by once or twice. He’d been one of the six Filiaelian walkers who’d tried to keep Bayta and me from sneaking a ten-year-old girl named Rebekah Beach off New Tigris and out of the Modhri’s grasp.

Which made the multiple murder charge even more ridiculous. I hadn’t killed more than one of those Fillies, and that had been in the middle of a firefight that the Modhri himself had started. In fact, now that I thought about it, I couldn’t remember more than four of the six actually dying. The other two had been taken down with snoozers and subsequently hauled off by the local cops to the Imani City lockup.

So I’d been told, anyway. At the time my main concern had been getting Bayta and Rebekah off the planet before the Modhri could regroup for another crack at us.

Minnario couldn’t know any of this, of course. But amazingly enough, that didn’t seem to matter. [I don’t believe it,] he said firmly. [There must be some other explanation or reason. An honorable person remains honorable in all things.]

“Your comments are noted,” Hchchu said, gesturing to his jumpsuited minions as he turned back toward the exit and started walking. One of the Jumpsuits gave me a nudge, and both Fillies started pulling at my arms.

I thought about digging in my heels again. But Minnario had had his say, and as nice as it was to have my own cheerleading section, it didn’t make much sense to antagonize Hchchu just for more of the same. Nodding to Minnario, I let them lead me away.

But Minnario wasn’t finished yet. [Where did these alleged crimes occur?] he asked, keying his chair forward to try to keep up.

“This is none of your concern, friend Nemut,” Hchchu said, clearly starting to get annoyed.

[Justice is everyone’s concern,] Minnario countered. [Where did the alleged crimes occur?]

“It was on New Tigris,” I told him. “One of the worlds of the Terran Confederation.”

[Then it’s a cross-empire proceeding,] Minnario said firmly. [Mr. Compton will require a legal defender certified in cross-empire law.]

“Is that what you need?” Bayta murmured.

“No idea,” I murmured back. My Westali training had included a unit in interstellar law, but only those sections that dealt with jurisdictional disputes. The fact that the New Tigris authorities didn’t want me for anything kicked this into an area I knew nothing about.

From the look on Hchchu’s face, I gathered this wasn’t his area of expertise, either. “I will make inquiries,” he said to Minnario. “Perhaps there is someone aboard whom we can consult.”

[No need.] Minnario reached into a pouch at the side of his chair and extracted a card. [I am Minnario chu-DeHak, Attorney of Blue Stature with the Nemuti FarReach,] he continued, handing Hchchu the card.

He turned his gaze on me. [If it’s acceptable to Mr. Compton, I will defend him.]

* * *

We ended up in a small room just off the entry bay, our luggage arriving with two more Jumpsuits half a minute behind us. From the room’s setup, I gathered that Hchchu’s original plan had been to frisk me, frisk my luggage, and then lock me up somewhere out of the way.

But with Minnario on the scene, all such bets were off. Instead, we all stood around waiting while Hchchu sat at the desk making call after call, trying to locate someone on the Proteus staff who knew something about cross-empire law.

Midway through the comm marathon Emikai gave up his part of the vigil and left, promising to check in with me again once he and Aronobal had Terese settled wherever she was supposed to go. I used the occasion to again remind Hchchu that I had my own obligations concerning Terese, but the protest didn’t even evoke a reaction, let alone a response.

And while I listened to Hchchu’s increasingly irritated conversations, I studied Minnario.

I hadn’t seen much of him during our trip aboard the super-express, partly because I’d had more urgent matters on my mind, mostly because Minnario had been a very solitary traveler. Even the Modhran mind segment aboard that train hadn’t gleaned more than his name and his reason for traveling to Filly space. I’d spoken to the crippled Nemut only once, just after the train’s resident madman had kicked him out of his compartment, and I’d noticed him later among the stream of subdued first-class passengers when they were all finally allowed to return. After that, he’d apparently settled back into his earlier hermit ways.

Yet now here he was, charging to my rescue, volunteering his professional services to a Human he barely knew.

And that worried me, because I knew that the late and unlamented Asantra Muzzfor had played his cards very close to his layered tunic. Logra Emikai and Dr. Aronobal had both worked for him, though Emikai hadn’t known that and Aronobal had given no sign that she had either.

Had Minnario been another of Muzzfor’s minions, knowingly or otherwise? More importantly, did he know about my role in Muzzfor’s death?

But whatever was going on behind those watery eyes, it wasn’t making it to the surface. He scrolled busily through a series of pages on the reader connected to his chair’s display, all the while sporting the same poker-faced expression that I’d seen on dozens of other lawyers across the galaxy. My knowledge of written Nemuspee was far too limited for me to follow what he was reading, but from the headings I gathered he was skimming through a compilation of cross-empire laws. Maybe it wasn’t really his area of expertise, either.

Finally, after nearly twenty minutes, Hchchu closed his comm and put it away. “Our legal representative is on his way with the full specifications of the case against Mr. Compton,” he said. “In the meantime, he tells me I have full authority to confiscate any of Mr. Compton’s possessions which may pose a threat.”

Minnario inclined his head. [You may proceed.]

“Take off your jackets,” Hchchu ordered as he lifted our carrybags onto the desk and opened them. “And remove all contents from your pockets.”

My Beretta was the first to go, of course, the gun that had served me so well on New Tigris and other occasions. Hchchu turned it over a couple of times in his hands as he examined it, and I could tell he was wondering if this was the very weapon that had slaughtered six of his fellows in cold blood. He also took a close look at the Hardin Industries ID card that our other ally Bruce McMicking had given me, which included a reciprocal galaxy-wide permit to carry the weapon.

Of course, the card was made out in the name of one Frank Abram Donaldson, not Frank Compton. It would have been nice to have gone with the Donaldson identity, but unfortunately Aronobal and Emikai already knew me as Frank Compton. Fortunately, Hchchu was apparently not well enough versed in written English to spot the discrepancy. Without comment, he set both the gun and the ID aside.

My multitool went next, even though not even the Spiders classified it as a weapon. Minnario argued that very point, but Hchchu argued right back that even a two-centimeter blade could kill quite efficiently if the handler knew what he was doing. My watch, lighter, and Bayta’s limited selection of jewelry went next, on even flimsier grounds: the necklaces could conceivably strangle, the ear cuffs and watch could be used as throwing weapons, and the lighter obviously would allow me to burn down the station. That was followed by our readers and data chips, with Hchchu not even bothering to float an excuse for those.

Last of all, to my quiet chagrin, went the kwi. I’d hoped to hang on to the weapon by claiming it was a bracelet or handwrap, but having already confiscated the rest of our jewelry Hchchu had neatly short-circuited that argument. I couldn’t think of anything else to say, and of course Minnario had no way of knowing this strange gadget needed to be argued over.

So in the end the kwi wound up sealed inside a lockbox with my Beretta and everything else. “It will be deposited in the security officer’s safe,” Hchchu said as two of the Jumpsuits took the lockbox and disappeared through a side doorway. “If you’re acquitted of the charges against you, it will be returned.”

“Can I have a contract to that effect?” I asked.

Hchchu touched a switch and a piece of code-marked paper slid out through a slot on the desk. “Read,” he said, offering it to me.

I grimaced as I took it. My knowledge of written Fili was probably right up there with Hchchu’s knowledge of written English. But I had no choice but to try to slog through it.

[May I?] Minnario asked, holding out a thin hand.

“Be my guest,” I said. I handed it over and then turned back to Hchchu. “I presume that I’ll now be permitted to fulfill my obligations on Ms. German’s behalf?”

[I trust you don’t intend to lock him away,] Minnario spoke up, his eyes still plowing through the Filiaelian legalese. [You’ve offered no weight of evidence sufficient for that.]

“Nor does it permit release on his own parole,” Hchchu said, a bit huffily. “But there is a third option.” He turned toward the doorway through which the lockbox had disappeared. “Bring them,” he called.

There was a short pause. Then, one of the Jumpsuits reappeared, leading two of the nastiest-looking animals I’d ever seen.

They were dogs for the most part, or at least that was how my Human eyes and cultural viewpoint reflexively tried to categorize them. They were about the size of adult Dobermans, and there was certainly a lot of canine in their torsos, legs, and snouts.

But with that the resemblance to Fido dozing on the hearth ended. Their ears looked like small seagull wings, their spines bristled with low diamond-shaped spikes, and their backs and the tops of their heads were covered with an organic armor somewhere between armadillo scales and the skin on a pineapple. Their lower torsos and legs were covered with a feathery fur, with an overall color scheme that reminded me of a tabby cat seen through a rose-colored filter. Their eyes, encircled by faint raccoon masks, were deep-set, greenish-white, and decidedly unfriendly. If anyone was planning a remake of the dit-rec mystery The Hound of the Baskervilles, I had the perfect casting for the title role. “And what on God’s green Earth are these?” I asked.

“They are called msikai-dorosli,” Hchchu said. “They are used as guard animals in many parts of the Filiaelian Assembly.”

“I can believe that,” I said. The animal closest to me opened its mouth a little, and I spotted a double row of sharp-looking teeth inside a cavernous opening. “So what’s the deal?”

“They will accompany you everywhere you go while aboard this station,” Hchchu said. It was a little hard to tell, but I was pretty sure there was some malicious amusement in his voice. “They will keep you out of places where you should not go and prevent you from harming anyone.”

“What will keep them from harming us?” I countered.

Hchchu snorted. “Do you take us for barbarians? They are not merely mindless beasts who rip and tear indiscriminately whenever they are hungry. They have sufficient intelligence to comprehend their duty and understand their orders. Observe.” He beckoned the animals forward.

Obediently, they trotted over to him. {Identify,} he said in Fili as he pointed to Bayta and me.

Both animals turned their heads and eyed us balefully. {Identify,} Hchchu repeated, gesturing again.

Reluctantly, I thought, the animals walked over to us. “Offer your hands,” Hchchu ordered.

Feeling like a sacrificial goat, I gingerly extended my left hand. Bayta did likewise, and the two animals spent a few seconds sniffing each of us in turn. One of them then turned back to Hchchu and emitted a startlingly dog-like woof. {Limit, and guard against trouble,} Hchchu said.

The lead dog gave another woof and stepped to my right, while his companion settled in on my left. “They are now on duty,” Hchchu said.

“I’m so pleased,” I said, trying not to sound too sarcastic as I looked down at the pineapple top of my new watchdogs’ heads. “Do they have names?”

“Could you pronounce them even if they did?” Hchchu countered.

“Probably not,” I said. Most Fillies I’d met had made a point of modifying their own names slightly to make them more pronounceable to the non-Fillies they dealt with. Here in the middle of the Assembly, Hchchu himself apparently felt no need to be so accommodating. “How good are they at learning new ones?”

“They will understand.” Hchchu snapped his fingers twice. {The Human will give you new names.} “Proceed,” he said in English.

The first watchdog looked up at me, I swear with the same expectant look as a two-year-old Human who’s been promised a magic trick. I looked back, trying to think up something appropriate. The watchdogs obviously couldn’t talk, so something from the dit-rec comedy silent era? Buster and Charlie? Charlie and Harold?

I focused again on the watchdog’s face. Those raccoon masks around their eyes … “Doug,” I said, pointing to him. I shifted my finger to the other watchdog. “Ty.”

Doug snuffed once, then lowered his head again. “What about their care and feeding?” Bayta asked.

“Their food and beds will be delivered to your quarters,” Hchchu said. He looked at Minnario. “When you have signed the contract, you may go.”

I looked at Minnario. [It seems in order,] he said as he handed me the paper. [You may sign.]

“Thanks.” I took the contract and held out my hand to Hchchu. “My pen left with my reader case.”

His blaze darkened, but without a word he pulled his contract pen from its tailored pocket in his tunic and slid it across the table to me. I signed on the first line and handed both the paper and the pen back to him. He signed the second line and slid the paper into another slot on the desk. “You may go,” he said, putting the pen away.

“We first need to know where Ms. German was taken,” I reminded him.

Hchchu tapped a few keys on the desk’s computer and peered at the display. {Escort them to Sector 25-F,} he said in Fili. “The msikai-dorosli will take you to the proper sector desk,” he added in English.

I looked down at Doug’s head. “A map would also be handy,” I suggested.

“They will take you,” Hchchu said. “Good day, Mr. Compton.”

Apparently, we were dismissed. “Right,” I muttered. “Heel, Doug. Or whatever.”

{Go,} Hchchu added.

The two watchdogs turned and trotted toward the door. “You coming?” I asked Minnario.

[I need to wait until the station’s legal representative arrives,] he said. [After I’ve learned the full weight of the case, I’ll find you.] He eyed me closely. [At that point, we can discuss the matter further.]

“I’ll look forward to it,” I said. The watchdogs had reached the door and were standing there expectantly, eyeing me over their shoulders. “My masters call,” I murmured, closing our carrybags and setting them on the floor beside us. “Let’s go.”

* * *

According to the material I’d read aboard the Quadrail, Proteus was divided into a number of sectors of different sizes and shapes, each acting like a combination hospital floor and New York City neighborhood. Most of the medical sectors were arranged with the testing and treatment facilities grouped in the center, surrounded by patient and staff quarters, which were in turn surrounded by shops, restaurants, and entertainment facilities. The non-medical sectors, the ones set up for meetings and conventions, had similar layouts, except that the rooms were considerably fancier and the restaurants and entertainment facilities correspondingly pricier.

Living areas for the workers were scattered throughout the disk, most of them consisting of a dozen corridors’ worth of apartments grouped around a community-center dome that cut through several decks to give the locals a taste of open space. The brochures were a little vague about how those domes were arranged, and what was in each one, but hinted that the décor was largely up to the inhabitants of the neighborhood.

All of the various living and working sections were in the hundred and fifty decks that ran through the central part of the station’s disk, with the domed areas above and below the disk dedicated to storage, recycling, power generation, maintenance, and the vectored force thrusters that kept the station from losing position and starting a long, leisurely fall toward the sun a billion kilometers away.

Sector 25-F was about a quarter of the way around the disk and two kilometers inward from the edge. Fortunately, we didn’t have to walk the whole way. The station was equipped with a network of automated bullet trains that ran along their own array of corridors and covered both center-to-rim and circle routes.

Even more fortunately, there was no charge for their use. Just as well, since I wasn’t sure where our watchdogs would have carried transit passes.

The Filly at the reception desk by the 25-F bullet train terminus gave us Terese’s room number, which turned out to be fifteen floors above us and twenty corridors from the edge of the medical treatment cluster. We took an elevator up and finally arrived at her room.

“I thought you’d been hauled off to jail,” she greeted us sourly as she stood in the middle of her doorway.

“Time off for good behavior,” I said. “Mind if we come in?”

“I don’t know.” She nodded to my new pseudo-canine companions. “Are they housebroken?”

I looked down at Doug. “You two housebroken?”

Doug twisted his head to look up at me and gave a little woof. “He says of course,” I translated, looking back at Terese.

Reluctantly, the girl stepped aside. “Thanks,” I said. I started to walk in, but Doug was faster, slipping in ahead of me. Briefly, I wondered what would happen if I closed the door with him inside and me outside.

But I didn’t wonder enough to actually try it. Ty, after all, was still out here with all of those teeth. I waited until Doug was all the way in, then walked in behind him and gave the room a quick once-over.

It was small, not much bigger than a first-class Quadrail compartment, with a bed, computer desk, couch, half-bath, a wall-mounted entertainment center, a narrow closet that ran the full length of one of the walls, and a compact food-prep and dining area. “Cozy,” I commented.

“And only big enough for one,” she said pointedly.

That wasn’t strictly true, I noticed: while the bed was narrower than a standard Earth queen, king, or emperor, it would be adequate enough for two. “Don’t worry, we’re not planning to move in,” I assured her.

“Then what are you planning?” she demanded. “Why are you even here?”

“I told you that back at Venidra Carvo,” I reminded her. “Asantra Muzzfor asked us to see you safely to Proteus Station.”

“With his dying breath, and violins swelling in the background,” she said sarcastically. “Fine. I’m here, I’m safe, and I’m happy. So hit the road.”

“Unfortunately, it’s not that easy,” I said. “We still have to meet your doctors, find out what procedures they’re planning, double-check the prognosis—basically, make sure you stay as safe and happy as you are right now.”

Somewhere in the middle of all that Terese’s face had gone rigid. “You’re joking,” she said. “What if it takes weeks? Or months? What if it takes years?”

“Then we’ll be here for weeks or months or years,” I said calmly. “We made a promise.”

“Oh, no, you don’t,” she growled. “You are not going to hang around making a royal pain of yourself. This is my last chance—” She broke off. “Okay, try this. If you don’t get lost, I’ll call Logra Emikai and tell him to throw you out.”

“Actually, Logra Emikai will probably be on my side,” I said. “He was contracted to keep you safe, too, you know.”

“Maybe it would help if you told us why you’re here,” Bayta put in quietly.

“Why?” Terese shot back. “So you can fix it and make me all better?”

I was working on a reply to that when there was a buzz from the door. “You want me to get that?” I asked.

Terese glared her way past me and hit the door release. The panel slid open to reveal Dr. Aronobal, who had changed from her traveling clothes into the crisp tans of a proper on-duty Filiaelian doctor. “Mr. Compton,” she said, her blaze darkening briefly as she caught sight of me. Her eyes slipped to the watchdogs, then came back up again. “I didn’t know you’d be here.”

“We were charged with Ms. German’s safety and well-being,” I reminded her. “Can you tell me when she’ll be seeing the doctors?”

“Right now,” Aronobal said. “Come, I’ll take you there.”

“Great,” I said, gesturing Terese through the open door. “After you.”

Aronobal stuck her hand out toward my chest. “I’m not certain the doctors will permit you to accompany her,” she warned.

“Do I have to go through this again?” I asked patiently. “I made a promise—”

“Yes, yes, I know,” Aronobal cut me off. “Very well. I shall ask them.”

She turned and headed down the hallway. I gestured again to Terese, and the teen stomped past me and caught up with the Filly. Bayta and I were right behind her, my watchdogs again settling in at my sides.

There were no bullet trains on our level, but two floors down was a major traffic corridor equipped with five-meter-wide fluidic variable-speed glideways at both edges, arranged as usual with the slower sections next to the central, non-moving part of the walkway and the faster ones at the far edges beside the walls. Aronobal got us to the corridor and onto the proper glideway, stepping nimbly across the flow until she’d reached the fast track.

I’d run into this kind of glideway in other places across the galaxy. Their main advantage over a sequence of solid walkways was that there were no abrupt transitions from one speed to another, which made it easier for those with less than perfect balance to get across without falling. Their main drawback was that, since it was variable-flow, an unwary rider who stood in a normal forward-facing stance with his feet shoulder-width apart would find the foot nearest the wall slowly but steadily pulling ahead of the other one. More experienced travelers knew to stand with their feet in a straight line, which limited the drift problems to one shoe edge trying to outpace the other and was much easier to compensate for.

I expected Terese to fall into the unwary category, and I was right. She nearly fell twice before Aronobal noticed her trouble and showed her the trick. I couldn’t see the girl’s face from where I was standing, but from the stiffness of her back I guessed that this wasn’t helping her mood.

I’d never seen a quadruped on one of these things, and I watched with interest as Doug and Ty casually kept their two faster feet walking backward to stay in position with the slower pair. Unlike Terese, it was clear they’d done this before.

It was also clear that if I ever decided I wanted to lose the animals, hitting the glideway wouldn’t be the way to do it.

We rode the fast track about half a kilometer before Aronobal started us moving back across toward the slow lane. We made our final transition to the stationary part of the corridor, walked up a one-level ramp to the regular corridor system, and arrived at a red-and-gold patterned archway leading into an open space that seemed to be one of the neighborhood domes.

{Ms. Terese German to see Dr. Usantra Wandek,} Aronobal announced us to the receptionist.

The receptionist peered at her screen. {You’re expected,} she confirmed, waving us all through. {Enter, and proceed to Building Eight.}

I’d expected the dome to be simply a large, gray-walled open space, six or seven decks up and a couple hundred meters across at the base, mostly there just to provide inhabitants and visitors a chance to stretch their eyes. To my surprise, I found myself walking into what appeared to be a EuroUnion Alpine valley, with rugged textured mountains rising up along the dome walls and giving way to an expanse of cloud-flecked blue sky at the top. Scattered across the dome floor were a dozen buildings of various sizes, designed to look like ski chalets. Aside from the corridor we’d entered by the dome had only one other exit, another corridor directly across from us that led farther inward toward the station’s core. “Impressive,” I commented as we passed the first of the buildings.

“We are pleased you approve,” a voice came from behind me.

I turned to see a heavyset male Filly in physician tans emerge through an open doorway of the chalet we’d just passed. His ears were noticeably wider than the average Filly’s, and his shoulders seemed broader, though that might just have been his general thickness.

More importantly, from my current point of view, there was no sign of the oversized throat that I now knew to be a telltale sign of our new up-and-coming Shonkla-raa. “I do indeed,” I told him. “I’m also surprised that you would build an entire Earth-style treatment center on the off-chance that a Human or two might travel to the Assembly for your services.”

“You speak nonsense,” he said with a snort. “The buildings and dome are of course regularly reconfigured for the comfort and convenience of each patient or group of patients.”

“Ah,” I said, nodding. Malleable materials were expensive, but hardly unknown across the galaxy. Apparently, the buildings here were cousins to the familiar self-adjusting Quadrail seats, though on a much grander scale. Typical Proteus showmanship.

The Filly’s eyes shifted to Bayta, then to Terese. “This is Ms. German, I presume?” he asked.

“It is,” Aronobal confirmed.

“Welcome, Ms. German,” the Filly said. “I am Dr. Usantra Wandek. I pledge on behalf of Proteus Station to do all within our power to relieve you of your trouble.”

“Thank you,” Terese said. Almost as startling as the Alpine décor, at least to me, was the sudden subdued courtesy in the girl’s voice. Apparently, she was capable of acting civilized. “I’m ready to begin.”

“As always, there will first be some tests to run,” Wandek said, gesturing to the building directly ahead of us. “Dr. Aronobal will take you.”

Aronobal nodded and gestured in turn to Terese, and the two of them started toward the building. “You must be Mr. Compton,” Wandek continued.

“Yes, I am,” I said, starting to follow Terese.

I stopped abruptly as Wandek reached out a hand and caught my arm. “I wished you to know,” he said, lowering his voice, “how much we appreciate you taking up Asantra Muzzfor’s duty after his untimely death.”

“It was my honor and privilege,” I assured him, my mind once again flicking to Minnario and the still unanswered question of what exactly he knew about that episode. “If you’ll excuse us—”

“Asantra Muzzfor was one of our colleagues,” Wandek continued, still gripping my arm. “His services will be sorely missed.”

“He was a doctor?” Bayta asked. “He never mentioned that.”

“We have many colleagues who are not doctors,” Wandek said. “Caregivers, lab techs, gene manipulation specialists, support workers—”

“Which of those was Asantra Muzzfor?” Bayta asked.

Wandek’s nose blaze did an odd mottling, a type of hue change I’d never seen in a Filly before. Part of his array of genetic alterations, no doubt. “Why do you ask such questions?” he asked. “I thought you knew Asantra Muzzfor.”

“Not as well as we would have liked,” I said, making a concerted effort to pull my arm from his grip.

I could have saved myself the trouble. His fingers were like a machine vise, and from their rigidity I had the impression that the joints had actually locked in place. More genetic fiddling? “Nice grip you’ve got there, doc,” I said. “You get that from all that micro-surgery?”

“I would appreciate a few minutes of your time,” he said, ignoring both of my question’s possible interpretations. He shifted his weight, pulling me back toward the building he’d first appeared from.

“I may not be allowed in there,” I warned, not bothering to resist his pull. He outweighed me by a good fifteen kilos, he still had his iron grip, and I had no real justification to try anything violent. “As you see, I’m under movement restrictions,” I added. “Doug and Ty may not allow me to go in there.”

I suppose I’d hoped the animals would pick up on the cue. But of course they didn’t. Doug and Ty walked docilely at my sides as Wandek pulled me along, without so much as a snort or growl. I threw one final look behind me, just in time to see Aronobal usher Terese into the other building, and then our own door swung open and Bayta and I went inside.

The building seemed deserted as we walked down a light blue corridor. Wandek led us to a double door and pushed it open.

At least now I knew where the building’s staff had gone. There were ten Fillies seated around the outer, convex edge of a half-hex table, watching silently as we filed in. “These are some of Asantra Muzzfor’s other colleagues,” Wandek said as he led me to the table’s inner edge and planted me in the center of all those silent stares. “While Dr. Aronobal begins Ms. German’s tests, we hoped you could spare a few minutes to tell us how it was our friend’s life was taken from him.”

“Of course,” I said, looking around the table. The group was a nice mixture of job specialties, four of the aliens wearing doctor’s tans, and two each in similar outfits in brown, blue, and green.

But the variation in wardrobes was the least of my concerns. Along with a host of other, minor genetic variations, all ten Fillies had the same enlarged throats that I’d seen on Muzzfor.

I’d found the Shonkla-raa.

They’d also found me.