Judgment at Proteus (38 page)

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.”

NINETEEN

The transport was piloted by a couple of the specialized server-class Spiders who usually ran the Tube’s maintenance skiffs. Five minutes after we said our quick farewells to Emikai, Doug, and Ty, we were headed back out toward deep space. A half hour later, the tension aboard finally stared to ease.

Their tension. Not mine.

Because of those aboard, I was the only one who understood the enormity of the task facing us.

An unknown number of Shonkla-raa, in unknown locations. All of them endowed with tremendous personal strength and power, not the least of those powers being their ability to control the Modhri and confuse the Spiders. The whole lot of them bent on galaxy domination.

And standing against them, me.

I was resting in my seat with my eyes closed when a subtle wave of air across my face told me I had company. I opened my eyes to see Bayta sink wearily into the seat beside me. “How is she?” I asked.

“Still pretty upset,” she said. Her voice was as tired as the rest of her. “But I think she’s starting to calm down. A little.”

“Don’t expect her to get it all sorted out overnight,” I warned. “It’s not every day you find out you’re carrying Rosemary’s baby.”

“Rosemary’s baby?”

“Dit-rec horror drama you haven’t seen. Never mind.” I nodded toward the front of the transport and the two stationmaster-sized Spiders crouching behind the two pilots. “Anyone ask about the other passengers yet?”

“Minnario looked at them, but didn’t say anything,” Bayta said. “Terese has other things on her mind.”

I nodded. Minnario’s restraint was mere politeness, of course. He had to be desperately curious about the Spiders whom Bayta had called into a probable confrontation with the Shonkla-raa.

And if Minnario himself wasn’t curious, the Modhri inside him certainly was. Distantly, I wondered what the Modhri’s response would be if and when he finally saw a defender Spider in action.

Or if, indeed, he ever did. The Shonkla-raa could already stun defenders into immobility. If they ever found the right tone to take them over completely …

“Is this later yet?” Bayta asked.

I frowned. “Come again?”

“You said you’d tell me later why you thought the Modhri was on our side,” she said. “Is this later yet?”

“It’s close enough,” I said. “It was something Wandek said when he was congratulating himself on how they’d figured out you could talk telepathically to the Spiders and how they were going to strap you down until they figured out how you did it. In and around all the gloating, he also bounced several suggestions off me, starting with the thought that you might be a Human/Spider hybrid, then suggesting that you were an unknown alien encased in a Human shell, and finally speculating that maybe you were one of the people who actually ran the Spiders and the Quadrail.”

Bayta shivered. “Way too close. With all of them.”

“That he was,” I agreed. “But that’s the point. In retrospect, I can see he was throwing out every possibility he could think of in the hope that one of them would spark a reaction. He didn’t really know who or what you were.”

“And?”

“Think back,” I said. “He didn’t know who runs the Quadrail …
but the Modhri does
. Remember, back with EuroUnion Security Service agent Morse, when we were trying to beat the Modhri to the third Lynx sculpture?”

“The Quadrail siding,” Bayta murmured, her face suddenly rigid. “He saw a Chahwyn.”

“And since we know Morse is a deep-cover walker, it follows that the Modhri has surely figured out by now what it was he saw,” I said. “Furthermore, by now that information has certainly spread to every mind segment across the galaxy. If the Shonkla-raa don’t know who’s running the Quadrail, it can only be because the Modhri hasn’t told them.”

Bayta looked across the transport at the back of Minnario’s head. “But why not?” she asked. “Can’t the Shonkla-raa force him to talk?”

“Probably, but only if they think to ask the right questions,” I said. “In this case they didn’t, and the Modhri clearly didn’t volunteer it. That also means the Shonkla-raa’s telepathy is one-way, by the way—they can implant commands while they’re whistling their happy little tune, but they can’t read their slaves’ minds. Anyway, the point is that if the Modhri’s not on the Shonkla-raa’s side, he’s on ours.”

“Or on his own.”

“True,” I conceded. “But right now, I think that’s as good as we’re going to get.”

Bayta shook her head. “I hope you’re right.”

“Me, too,” I admitted. “But we’re safe, Terese is safe, and the Shonkla-raa haven’t got you to experiment on. I’m ready to call that enough victory for one day.”

For a moment Bayta was silent. “They wouldn’t have gotten what they were looking for, you know,” she said. “The Chahwyn auditory and telepathic frequencies. If they’d gotten close…” She trailed off.

I felt my stomach tighten. “Your symbiont?”

“Would have chosen to die,” Bayta said simply.

“Ah,” I said, the complete uselessness of the word making my stomach tighten even more. “I mean—”

“I know what you mean, Frank,” she said. She hesitated, then reached over and took my hand. “I do understand you, you know. Maybe better than you think I do.”

I gazed into her eyes, once again completely at a loss for words. What did she mean by that?
I
understand? Or
we
understand? What was it like, her life with a Chahwyn symbiont inside her, or interwoven with her, or however it worked? Were they truly one being, as she’d described it to me?

If so, what would have been the cost to her for her Chahwyn part to die?

I didn’t know. I couldn’t begin to know.

But I would fight, and I would die, to prevent her from ever having to find out. “It won’t happen,” I said. “I won’t let it.”

“I know,” she said. She lowered her eyes. “By the way. That kiss earlier?”

I swallowed. Here it came. “Yes?” I said warily.

“I just wanted to say that I enjoyed it. Very much.” Her lips puckered mischievously. “So did she.”

I was still trying to find something to say to that when she stood up and crossed back to where Terese was curled up in her seat.

She had resumed her place beside Terese, and I could tell from their head movements that they were talking again in low tones, when Minnario activated his chair and floated back to me. “May I have a word?” he asked.

“Certainly,” I said, shifting over to the aisle seat so that I would be closer to him. “I was just thinking about Emikai.”

“I’m sure the Shonkla-raa are doing likewise,” Minnario said soberly. “I believe he’ll prove to be a formidable opponent for them, provided he survives Director
Usantra
Nstroo’s investigation. To have had so many
santras
and
msikai-dorosli
slaughtered in his presence may be difficult to explain.”

“That shouldn’t be a problem,” I assured him. “He’s going to blame the whole thing on me.”

Minnario’s eyes widened. “On
you
?”

“Why not?” I said. “I was the one everyone saw waving my reader outside Hchchu’s office just before they were attacked by a group of watchdogs. Obviously, I must have used the same gadget against Wandek and his buddies.”

“Interesting,” Minnario murmured. “Simple, effective, and impossible to disprove.”

“Unless someone takes a close look at the watchdogs’ bodies,” I said with a grimace. “Even for Fillies, I’m guessing that kind of knife-hand engineering is pretty unorthodox.”

“
Isantra
Kordiss and the surviving Shonkla-raa should have sufficient rank to discourage any such investigations,” Minnario said. “You need not worry about the station’s remaining
msikai-dorosli
, either. Now that the Shonkla-raa are aware of my mind segment’s presence, they’ll certainly realize it’s in their best interests to keep the animals alive.”

“Ready to be pressed into service should the need arise,” I said ruefully. “One more good reason to avoid Proteus Station in the future. I hope Emikai hasn’t bitten off more than he can chew.”

“Only time will tell,” Minnario said. “But he may yet find unexpected aid in his battle.”

I eyed him. There was an odd hint of grim amusement about his face. “Is there a joke here I’m missing?” I asked.

“Yes,” Minnario said. “But the joke is not on you.”

I frowned … and then, I got it. “Which one of them is it?” I asked. “No, wait,” I interrupted myself. “It’s Kordiss, isn’t it? Our old buddy Blue One.”

“Exactly,” Minnario said. “You are amazing, Mr. Compton. Simply amazing.”

“Hardly,” I said with a snort. “I should have figured that one out hours ago. How else could you have known where the Shonkla-raa were keeping Bayta?”

“How else, indeed?” Minnario said with a nod. “Though I will admit I had a bad moment during her rescue when you threatened him with death.”

“Good thing Bayta zapped him with the
kwi
before it came to that,” I agreed. “Doubly good, actually, since that meant he missed the party in the docking bay. And the Shonkla-raa even provided the hypo you used to inject a piece of coral into him while he was unconscious in your room. I suppose the coral was hidden in the central cylinder of your chair’s thruster array?”

“Correct,” Minnario said. “Don’t be concerned, though. It’s not there anymore.”

“I know,” I said as another bit of the puzzle fell into place. “All those bathroom breaks you made Emikai stop for on your way to the docking bay. You dumped the rest of the coral into the station’s water system.”

“Where it will cement itself to the inside of one of the water reclamation tanks,” Minnario confirmed. “Thus avoiding the normal purification procedures.”