by Timothy Zahn
We were met by four other militarily vac-suited Halkas when we touched down outside the lodge. One of them took a moment to put wristcuffs on Bayta, then they formed a standard escort box around us as the major led us through a cargo airlock big enough to accommodate the whole group. Once inside, our escort handed us off to two more armed Halkas in regular army uniforms, the vacsuited batch then returning outside. Applegate and the major popped their helmets and slung them onto their shoulder clips, then did the same for Bayta and me. With our new escort flanking us, we went through a series of service corridors to a door marked WATERCOURSE CONFERENCE ROOM.
As the ready room had been of typical layout, so, too, was the conference room. In the center was a long rectangular table ringed by nicely padded rolling chairs, while the far end was dominated by a media setup with all the equipment necessary for a business or social dit rec presentation. A few sculptures and paintings were scattered around, and along one wall was a narrow water channel with a babbling brook running over more of the ubiquitous Modhran coral.
There were three people seated on the side of the table nearest the coral, obviously waiting for us. One of them was a Halkan Peer wearing a tricolor scheme I didn’t recognize, with a Halka in an upper-class layered suit seated beside him. The third was my Belldic acquaintance Apos Mahf. “Mr. Compton,” the latter said, nodding as our two Halkan escorts took up positions just inside the door. “Again we meet.”
“So we do,” I agreed as Applegate led me to a chair across from Mahf and sat me down, taking the seat to my left. “Perhaps you would like to explain what exactly is going on.”
“I think you know,” Mahf said darkly, his eyes shifting to Bayta as the Halkan major put her at the end of the table by the door and sat down beside her. “Perhaps your companion will begin by telling us what happened aboard the tour bus.”
“I really don’t know,” Bayta said, her voice trembling. I’d watched her as they’d marched us from the ambulance into the lodge, and as far as I could tell through a vac suit she didn’t seem particularly injured. But she was obviously still pretty shaken. “One minute we were traveling along the ice and the driver was describing some of the formations. The next minute we were all suddenly thrown against the seats and walls as the bus crashed and fell over on its side.”
“You saw none of your fellow passengers approach the driver just before this happened?” Mahf asked.
Bayta shook her head. “I was looking out the window.”
“You saw no one struggle with the driver, or try to take the control wheel from him?” Mahf persisted. “Nor did you see anyone try afterward to escape onto the ice?”
“No, nothing like that,” Bayta insisted. “I was looking out—”
“Out the window,” Mahf finished for her. “Of course you were.” Abruptly, he shifted his glare to me. “What about you?”
The quick-change attack was a time-honored way of throwing interrogation subjects off step. Unfortunately for Mahf, I’d read the same manuals he had. “What about me?” I countered calmly. “I was thirty kilometers away when it happened.”
“In an area where you had no business being,” the non-Peer Halka put in.
I focused on him. “And you are…?”
“This is Superintendent Prif Klas,” Applegate said. He had the look and sound of a man in the middle of trouble not of his own making who would rather be almost anywhere else. “The administrator of the resort.”
“Ah,” I said, looking him up and down. “My apologies. I was under the impression that Apos Mahf was the one in charge here.”
Prif Klas bristled—”I’m here solely as an advisor,” Mahf said hastily. “Full Colonel AvsBlar of the Halkan army is the commander on the scene.”
“And where is he?”
“Deploying his troops,” Mahf said.
“Not that this is any of your business,” the Peer said.
“And you are…?” I asked.
“My name is unimportant,” he said. “Superintendent Prif Klas asked me to sit in on the proceedings.”
“Ah,” I said, turning back to Prif Klas. “So where exactly did you scare up a full colonel on such short notice?”
“From the garrison on Modhra II, of course,” Prif Klas said, a note of malicious satisfaction in his voice. “You didn’t know we had a garrison here, did you?”
Beside me, I sensed Applegate squirm in his seat. Perhaps he and Losutu had overstepped their bounds when they’d told me about the Modhran military presence. Still, they’d never actually mentioned a garrison. “No, I didn’t,” I said truthfully.
“Good,” Prif Klas said. “Now tell me why you were at the work site.”
“I wanted to see how the resort expansion was progressing,” I said.
“Even though that area is strictly off-limits to guests?”
“I saw no such signs to that effect,” I said. “Besides, what could you be doing out there you’d want to hide?”
Beside Bayta, the major snorted, a wet, whispery sound. “You are here to answer questions, Human, not to ask them.”
I shrugged. “Fine. So ask.”
“I told you he was a cool one, Superintendent,” Mahf murmured. “Very cool, very professional. More than ever I see the hand of Korak Fayr in this.”
I pricked up my ears. Kora was the Belldic equivalent of major; adding the final k made it a major of commandos. That sounded rather like the sort of person I’d been shadowboxing with for most of this trip.
“Yet you have no proof Fayr is even on Modhra,” Prif Klas countered.
“He’s here,” Mahf assured him grimly. “And he will hardly let a mishap like this discourage him. You’ve moved all submarines away from the hotel?”
“Yes, and have deployed them around the caverns,” Prif Klas confirmed.
“And the troops?” Mahf asked, looking across at the major beside Bayta.
“Deployed around the formations.” The major launched into a list of numbers and map coordinates.
And as he did so, I eased my bound wrists beneath the edge of the table. The Halkas had put the cuffs on while my vac suit was fully pressurized, and no one had bothered to refasten them since I’d had my helmet removed. If the suit depressurization had left enough slack, there was a chance I could pop them and get free.
There was indeed a little slack. Not much, but maybe enough.
Beside me, Applegate cleared his throat softly. I turned to find him gazing at me, a knowing expression on his face as he glanced down at my wrists. He gave me a microscopic nod, then turned casually away.
The major finished his recitation. “Which again brings us to you,” Prif Klas said, turning back to face me. “You’ll find things much easier if you cooperate.”
“I’d love to,” I said. “But I have no idea what this is all about.”
“Actually, Superintendent, he may be telling the truth,” Mahf spoke up reluctantly. “I’ve read his file, and cannot envision him involving himself in something like this. Do you agree, Colonel Applegate?”
“I never knew him all that well,” Applegate hedged. “He was just one of many investigators under my overall command.”
“Yet if he is innocent, how do you explain his presence?” Prif Klas demanded.
“We were invited,” I told him. “High Commissioner JhanKla of the Fifth Sector Assembly recommended the place.”
“And all the rest is pure coincidence?” Prif Klas asked sarcastically.
“All the rest what?” I asked.
Prif Klas snorted. “So now you play a waiting game.”
“Or he is in fact an innocent dupe,” Mahf persisted. “If so, he would have no reason to protect information that might lead us to Fayr.”
For a moment the two of them locked eyes, and I had to suppress a cynical smile. Did they really think I would be so easily taken in by the old good-cop/bad-cop routine? Especially with Applegate, the obvious good-cop candidate, clearly not interested in playing along? “You may try,” Prif Klas
said grudgingly. “Be brief.”
Mahf turned to face me. “We believe there to be a rogue Belldic commando team in the area,” he said, his voice low and earnest. “They are most likely already on Modhra I, though some may still be offworld. They have come”—he grimaced—”to destroy the coral beds.”
I felt my eyebrows crawling up my forehead. Of all the possible scenarios running through my mind, ecoterrorism was probably the last one that would have occurred to me. “What in the world for?”
“We don’t know,” Mahf said. “An imagined Halkan offense, or perhaps he has simply lost his mental soundness. It began two months ago with the theft of one of the resort’s maintenance submarines. From small bits of evidence, we believe it is hidden somewhere in the cavern complex you visited two days ago.”
“Yes, I wondered about that myself,” I agreed, deciding to pretend I didn’t know they’d already heard me come to that conclusion via the bugs in our suite.
“That was where matters rested until today,” Mahf continued. “The Halkas have attempted scans of the caverns, but none was successful—too much rock, and Modhran water is heavy with dissolved minerals. Still, a single submarine wasn’t thought to be a serious threat, particularly since we were now keeping a close watch on all approaches to the caverns.”
“Ah,” I said, noting with interest his continued use of the word we. Apparently, he’d been working with the Halkas on this longer than simply since this morning. “Why didn’t you just watch for Fayr to show up at the resort? You do know what he looks like, don’t you?”
“Of course,” Mahf said. He pulled out a reader, tapped a couple of keys, and slid it across the table to me. “Do you recognize him?”
It was my fake drunk, all right, the one I’d left chopping ice in the new toboggan tunnel an hour ago. “I saw him on the Jurskala Quadrail,” I said, sliding the reader back. “So why haven’t you arrested him?”
“Because until this morning we didn’t even know which species was involved in this plot,” Prif Klas growled. “Let alone which individuals.”
“And you’re sure Fayr’s the one?”
“Very sure,” Mahf said grimly. “It was one of his commandos whose attempt to wrest control from the bus driver caused the crash.”
I frowned. “You’ve lost me.”
“Really,” Prif Klas said, his voice cold. “You hadn’t noticed that those ice formations are situated directly over the caverns where the stolen submarine is hidden? Or that the ice there is barely thirty meters thick, easily shattered by a series of properly shaped thermistack charges?”
“No, I hadn’t noticed any of those things,” I said evenly. Seen from their point of view, there was definitely a certain logic to it.
Except for the possibly inconvenient fact that the sub was nowhere near where they thought it was. What was Fayr up to, anyway?
“Really,” Prif Klas bit out again. “Is it also pure coincidence that you just happened to be out on the surface, in a place where you had no business being, at the precise time all this was happening?”
And with that, it finally clicked. “Wait a minute,” I said. “Are you suggesting I was Fayr’s diversion?”
“Why not?” Prif Klas demanded. “Particularly since you performed the same task yesterday, and in the same place, when the commandos concealed the disruptor aboard the bus. Why not use a successful feint twice?”
“Except for why anyone should have been distracted by my movements in the first place,” I countered stiffly “What did I do to justify you putting me under surveillance?”
“It’s nothing specific, Frank,” Applegate spoke up. “But you have to admit there’s been a whole pattern of strange things that have happened around you since you came aboard the Quadrail at Terra.” He gestured toward Mahf’s reader. “And now we hear that you actually rubbed shoulders with this Fayr character. What should we think?”
“One: There wasn’t any rubbing of shoulders,” I said, lifting up my bound hands and ticking off fingers. “I saw him in the bar, period. Two: Bayta and I wouldn’t even be on Modhra if JhanKla hadn’t suggested we come here. You want to blame somebody, blame him. Three: If you’ve got one of Fayr’s people in custody, why aren’t you interrogating him instead of me?”
Mahf looked over at the Halkan major scowling at me from beside Bayta. “Do you care to respond?” he invited.
The major scowled a little harder. “He is no longer in custody,” he said, his tone a swirling mix of anger and embarrassment. “He was brought to the lodge, but escaped his guards. We’re searching for him.”
“Really,” I said, swallowing a three-course meal’s worth of sarcastic remarks that very much wanted to come out. “At least you can’t blame me for that one.”
“Don’t be so certain,” Prif Klas warned. “Halkan conspiracy laws are both clear and unforgiving.”
“Which means this is the time to cut a deal,” Applegate urged. “If you have any idea where Fayr is, or how he’s planning to get to that sub, you need to tell them. Now.”
I looked over at Bayta. She was gazing back at me, her throat tight, her eyes pleading.
But pleading for what? That I should give in and tell Mahf and Prif Klas about the gimmicked toboggan tunnel? Or that I should keep quiet and give Fayr and his people time to complete their mission, whatever the hell that mission was?
For that matter, why should I even care what Bayta wanted? She’d lied to me from the start, claiming not to be in league with Fayr and yet using the same encryption system he did. I didn’t owe her any loyalty. Turning back to Mahf, I opened my mouth—
And paused. He was gazing hard at me, his whiskers stiff, an almost breathless anticipation on his face.
And it occurred to me that, once again, I was rationalizing.
Mahf was still waiting. “I was just thinking,” I said, speaking slowly as if my hesitation had been due to a long train of thought. “Even if Fayr gets to the sub, doesn’t he still have to smuggle in some explosives or something if he’s going to damage the coral beds?”
Some of the stiffness went out of Mahf’s whiskers. “Not if he has a second sonic disruptor,” he said, a hint of disappointment in his voice. Clearly, he’d been primed and ready for me to spill my guts. “With that he could shatter the coral matrix, scattering and killing the polyps inside.”
“This is a waste of time,” Prif Klas cut in harshly. “Tell me, Compton: How much longer were you planning to stay here?”
“I reserved our suite for another two days,” I told him. “As I presume you already know.”
“Then how do you explain this?” Reaching down to the floor by his feet, he hauled up my carrybags and slammed them triumphantly onto the table beside him. “Or do you claim this is not your luggage?”
I suppressed a grimace as he retrieved Bayta’s carrybag from the floor and added it to the lineup. Of course Bayta would have packed our bags before heading out on the tour; I’d told her we’d be leaving on the afternoon torchferry. “No, it’s our luggage, all right,” I conceded.
“And how do you explain that you have packed if you intend to stay two more days?”
“Bayta’s the one who handles our transportation schedule,” I said. “She must have learned that our original plans wouldn’t mesh with the Quadrail schedule and decided we had to leave this afternoon.”
A flicker of annoyance crossed his flat bulldog face. Naturally, they would already have pulled the resort’s long-range comm schedule from last night and learned she’d sent a message to the Tube. Nothing there they could use to trip me up.
But that didn’t mean they wouldn’t try. “And what precisely was this scheduling conflict?” Prif Klas demanded.
Beside him, the Peer stirred in his seat. “With all due respect, Superintendent, we are getting nowhere,” he said.
“Yes, Honored One,” Prif Klas said, going instantly servile. “Your suggestion?”
The Peer gave a microscopic nod behind him. “There is a bed
of coral right here,” he pointed out. “It is time we used it.”
And with that, the atmosphere in the room abruptly changed.
It wasn’t anything specific I could put my finger on; no pregnant silences or sharp inhalations, no stunned changes in expression or restless shifting of chairs. But in that moment, somehow, something changed. Something vitally important.
“Yes,” Prif Klas murmured, looking back at me with the same subtle fire I’d just seen in Mahf’s eyes. “Very well.”
“Wait a minute,” Applegate put in cautiously, his eyes flicking back and forth between them. “I don’t think this is something you really want to do.”
“You presume to speak to us thusly on our own world?” the Peer asked. His voice was calm, but his eyes were focused on Applegate like a pair of plasma torches.
“He’s a citizen of the Terran Confederation,” Applegate said, refusing to shrivel. “As such, he has certain rights.”
“You may lodge a protest when this is over,” the Peer said, motioning to the two soldiers flanking the door. “Guards: Remove his vac suit.” He cocked his head thoughtfully. “And the female’s suit, as well.”
“I can find him for you,” Bayta spoke up as the two soldiers started forward.
All eyes turned to her. “You mean Fayr?” Prif Klas asked.
“Yes,” she said. Her voice was tight, her expression that of someone facing a firing squad. “I just need the reader from my carrybag.”
I frowned, trying to read past the taut skin and haunted eyes. There couldn’t possibly be anything on her reader that would tell her where Fayr was. What was she up to?
“Very well,” Prif Klas said slowly, standing up. Turning her carry-bag on its side, he popped it open.
And then, with a sudden rush of heat across my face, I understood. Rather than let them make me touch the coral, she was going to trigger the Saarix-5.
I looked back at Prif Klas as he rummaged through Bayta’s carry-bag, freshly aware of the gentle weight of the vac helmet hanging from my shoulder clip. Depending on the poison’s dispersion radius, Bayta and I might be able to get our helmets on and sealed before the Saarix reached us. Applegate might possibly manage it, too, if he figured it out and reacted quickly enough.
