Judgment at Proteus (57 page)

A normal glass whiskey bottle would simply have thudded against head or torso and dropped clattering onto the ground. But Quadrail bottles were deliberately designed to be useless as an impact weapon. Instead of thudding into the close-packed people back there, the bottle’s flimsy plastic split across its tear lines, scattering the alcohol and burning fuse across the crowd.

My second and third firebombs were in the air before the first one ignited.

Group pain shared through a group mind was one thing. Individual pain—real, live, and immediate—was something else entirely. The forward surge against my barrier seemed to hesitate as I sent my fourth and fifth bombs sailing into the crowd to explode into their own patches of fire.

With a normal mob, under normal circumstances, I would be hearing multiple screams of agony by now. But not this mob. Not these circumstances. Under Shonkla-raa rule the standing order was apparently not to speak unless spoken to. The shock front wavered, then pressed ahead even as the blue-edged flames danced across the hair and shoulders of those behind them.

Over the whistle of the command tone, I heard a sort of gurgling sob. Like the Shonkla-raa, Terese also hadn’t expected me to be willing to do whatever needed to be done. But there were no words of reproof or horror, and that single sob was all I heard, and even as I threw my last Molotov cocktail I saw her move two of the uncapped bottles forward into my reach.

But for the moment I wouldn’t need them. The attack had hesitated at my second and third bombs. Now, as my sixth detonated into flame, the entire crowd wavered, then drew back a little as the pain flooding the mind segment briefly overrode even the Shonkla-raa’s control over it. They only moved a little, not more than half a meter and for no more than a couple of seconds before their new masters regained control and forced them back under their telepathic whip.

But that half meter was all I needed. With the forward pressure from the rear of the crowd no longer pressing the front line against the train and my defender barrier, I leveled the
kwi
at our attackers and squeezed the trigger.

My first target’s knees buckled, dropping him into a heap on the platform. I held down the trigger, sweeping the
kwi
back and forth across the line, collapsing them like legs of an overloaded table.

The Shonkla-raa tried to surge them forward again, trying furiously to regain the initiative. But they were too late. With the front line down, the stacks of unconscious bodies had become an impediment to further forward movement, slowing the advance still farther and giving me that much more time to mow them down. If the Fillies were stupid enough or determined enough to keep at it, they would quickly run out of troops.

Unfortunately, they were neither. I’d just started on the third row, with maybe twenty out of the hundred walkers down for the count, when the rest abruptly scattered to the rear and to both sides. I managed to nail three more of them as they ran, and then they were out of range or my line of fire.

I took a deep breath, instantly regretting it as the distant stink of burned clothing and flesh assailed my nostrils. Now that the crowd had dispersed I had a clear view of the burn victims I’d created, lying or writhing on the platform with wisps of smoke curling up from their smoldering bodies. I fired a
kwi
blast into each of them, to at least give them the temporary respite of unconsciousness.

“Clever, Compton,” a Filly voice called. “But surely you realize it’s all futile. You don’t truly think you can hold out against us forever, do you?”

“I don’t have to hold out nearly that long,” I called back. “Just until the next express train coming through here sees us, figures out something’s wrong, and sends an alert to the orbiting transfer station out there. There’s a whole contingent of Human soldiers aboard who’d love the chance for a little exercise.”

“And will they come into a Quadrail station willing to shoot everyone in sight, including their own people and visiting non-Humans?” the Shonkla-raa countered.

“An interesting question,” I agreed. “Shall we find out?”

For a moment the other was silent. I listened to the persistent and increasingly annoying command tone as I peered back and forth through my barrier, trying to figure out where all the walkers had disappeared to. But they’d all gone to ground somewhere out of sight. Only the four Shonkla-raa were still visible, still standing in their generals’ line, out of range of my
kwi
.

But if I could get out there and close some of that distance before they could get their walkers close to me …

“Your words demonstrate true Shonkla-raa spirit,” the spokesman said. “But I do not believe your strength of will is of the same magnitude.”

“I just firebombed a dozen of my own people,” I reminded him.

“I grant your willingness to wound or kill Humans you do not know,” the Shonkla-raa said. “But what about friends and allies? Are you willing to sacrifice them, as well?”

I snorted under my breath. “I think you may be missing the point of why I’m sitting here in this doorway.”

“I do not refer to those allies aboard the Quadrail,” he said. “I refer to
these
allies.” He shouted something in a unfamiliar Fili dialect.

“What’s he talking about?” Terese murmured in my ear.

“I don’t know,” I said, frowning as two Humans and a fifth Filly appeared through the door of one of the cafés. They headed across the line of platforms toward us, and I saw now that the Shonkla-raa was pushing the Humans ahead of him with his hands wrapped snugly around the backs of their necks.

“Who are they?” Terese asked.

“Can’t tell yet,” I told her. But both men definitely seemed familiar. They continued forward, the Humans’ faces slowly coming into focus—

I caught my breath. One of the men was UN director Biret Losutu. The other was my former employer Larry Cecil Hardin.

I stared at them, a sudden sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach. Losutu, the one man on Earth who knew enough about this war and had the authority to recruit the army I needed. If the Shonkla-raa murdered him, that would be it for any and all help from my own people.

Larry Hardin, the high-profile industrialist whom I’d blackmailed out of a trillion dollars and who would gladly see me twisting in the wind. If the Shonkla-raa murdered
him
, it would be a race as to whether the Shonkla-raa or Hardin’s own security force got to me first.

“I don’t think either of those are what I’d call a friend or an ally,” I called out to the Shonkla-raa, forcing my voice to stay calm and detached. “You got anything else?”

“I offer you a trade,” the newcomer called as he brought Losutu and Hardin to a halt, again staying well out of
kwi
range. “These two Human males for the female Terese German.”

Behind me, Terese gripped my arm tightly. “Sorry,” I called back. “Ms. German and her baby aren’t for sale.”

“Then we will kill the males,” the Shonkla-raa said, his voice darkening. “And then we will kill all the other innocents in the station. And all for nothing, because no help will come from your transfer station. Not ever.”

The knot in my stomach tightened another turn. “You don’t seriously expect me to believe you’ve taken over the whole transfer station.”

“And you think we could not?” He gave a contemptuous whinny. “Perhaps someday. This day we content ourselves with controlling the Spiders, who in turn control the docking hatchways. No help will arrive, for no help can enter the station.”

I grimaced. I’d hoped he wouldn’t realize that. “Except that unlike your Quadrail stations,
ours
have manual overrides,” I said, trying one final bluff.

“They do not,” the Shonkla-raa said flatly. “I make the offer again: Terese German for these two males.”

“Compton!” Losutu called. “Don’t—” He broke off with a strangled gurgle.

“What are we going to do?” Terese asked tensely.

I chewed at my lip. Unfortunately, the Shonkla-raa was right. We were trapped here, with no hope of help from Earth or the Spiders, facing five Shonkla-raa and probably seventy-five or more functional walkers. No matter what kind of defenses we were able to cobble together, sooner or later they would find a way through or else would overwhelm us with sheer numbers.

There was nothing more I could do in here except stall for time. Out there, though, I might find a weakness I could exploit. “Counteroffer,” I called. “You release the two males, forget about Ms. German, and you can have me.”

Terese’s grip on my arm tightened. “Do you then consider yourself worth as much as the female?” the Shonkla-raa called.

“
Osantra
Riijkhan seemed to think so,” I said. “He offered to give the whole Terran Confederation a get-out-of-tyranny-free card if I came over to your side.”

“Is that what you offer in exchange for these Humans?”

“I’m offering to leave the train in exchange for them being allowed to join my friends in here,” I said. “Whether I’ll actually work for you is a different negotiation for a different day.”

There was another pause. Then, below the whistling of the command tone I caught the low murmur of hurried conversation in that same Fili dialect. They knew I was up to something, and were probably trying to decide whether the risk of me springing some trap was worth getting me out of the train.

Terese was clearly thinking along the same lines. “You can’t leave us,” she murmured. “If you do, they’ll get us. All of us.”

“Don’t worry,” I said, wishing I had an iota of reason for her not to. If the Shonkla-raa still hoped they could turn me, I might have enough time to find the weakness I was hoping for.

If they’d decided I wasn’t worth any more of their effort, I’d be dead thirty seconds after I stepped out onto the platform.

“We accept your offer,” the Shonkla-raa holding Losutu and Hardin called, switching back to English. “Open your barrier and come out.”

I took a deep breath. This was, I knew, very possibly the last stupid mistake I would ever make. But stupid or not, it was the only chance we had. “You’ll have to drop your command tone for a minute,” I called back. “The Spiders are wedged in the doorway. I can’t move them—they’ll need to be mobile enough to move themselves.”

There was another silence. “Shonkla-raa?” I prompted. “Come on, read the logic. You want me out there, you’ll have to drop the tone.”

“You will leave the Spiders and exit from a different door.”

“The Spiders have been ordered to keep the other doors closed,” I said. “Bayta can’t override them from the compartment here.”

“Then she may leave the compartment.”

“When hell freezes over,” I retorted. “It’s this door, or none at all. Now shut off the damn command tone.”

The Shonkla-raa snarled something I couldn’t hear. “You will have ten seconds,” he said, his voice low and dark.

“I’ll try,” I said. “But they’re pretty well wedged.”

“You will have ten seconds.”

Abruptly, the command tone stopped, leaving a sort of auditory afterimage ringing in my ears. “You heard him,” I said, tapping Sam’s globe. “Or maybe you didn’t. Whatever. Come on, time to untangle yourselves.”

And then, to my surprise, the tingling of the
kwi
wrapped around my hand stopped.

I threw a reflexive glance at the wall of the compartment beside me. Surely Bayta wouldn’t have deactivated the weapon now, with the defenders about to move out of the door and us at our most vulnerable. Had something happened to her?

Apparently not. A fraction of a second later, with the usual tingle, the
kwi
came back on.

And then went off again. And then on, and then off, and then on and then off. I lifted my hand, peering closely at the weapon, wondering if the thing was finally starting to fall apart. That would be just perfect, for us to lose our single best weapon right when we needed it most—

I frowned. The
kwi
wasn’t just sputtering. It was sputtering in a pattern. A bit clumsy and amateurish, but a pattern nonetheless. A pattern that Bayta didn’t know, but was probably being dictated to her by someone else in the compartment.

Someone like, say, a EuroUnion Security Service agent who’d probably been teased the entire week he and his fellow trainees were learning the aptly named Morse code.

And the message itself—

McMicking here.

The message began to repeat. Casually, I lowered my hand again, my heart thudding with new hope. Hope, and a bit of embarrassment. Of course McMicking was here—Larry Hardin was here, and McMicking was his chief troubleshooter. It only made sense that McMicking would be here with him.

And with that, we now had a genuine chance. The Spiders obviously knew about McMicking, and it was only because of the Shonkla-raa tone freezing out their system that they hadn’t been able to pass that information on to Bayta until now.

The Spiders knew, and now we knew. More importantly, the Shonkla-raa
didn’t
know.

Of course, the Spiders probably didn’t know what McMicking’s plan was, and I sure as hell didn’t. But whatever it was, there might be a way to help it along a little.

“Here’s the plan,” I said quietly to Terese. “Go to the compartment and tell Bayta—”

I broke off as the Shonkla-raa tone resumed, again freezing the defenders in place. “Not done,” I called, peering out through the tangle of Spider legs. “I need more time.”

“You have had all you need,” he called back.

“You want me out there or not?” I countered. “If you do, I’m going to need more time.”

The Filly’s mouth moved as he muttered something under his breath. “Ten more seconds.”

The tone again shut off. “Go back to the compartment and tell Bayta I’m going to try to get to the engine,” I told Terese as I continued helping the defenders untangle themselves. “I’ll pull out as many of the walkers as I can out from the wheels and drive mechanism. With luck, I’ll get enough of them clear that she’ll be able to get the train moving again before the Shonkla-raa can react.”