by Timothy Zahn
“No.” Hchchu shook his head. “I have been studying you, Mr. Frank Compton, learning all I can about you.” He pointed at my reader. “That device, for instance, is more than it appears. No, you are not simply a lone, isolated soldier in this war. You also are more than you appear.”
I felt my stomach tighten. I knew how special I was, the Modhri and Shonkla-raa knew, and now Hchchu had figured it out as well. I might as well take out a full-page ad and paint a bull’s-eye on my back. “I’m flattered that you think that,” I said. “But in reality—”
{There you are,} a familiar voice growled from behind me.
I turned around, to see Wandek standing in the open doorway glowering at Hchchu. {I’ve been looking all over for you,} he continued, pushing the door closed behind him and striding across the room toward us.
{Is there a problem?} Hchchu asked, sounding confused.
{Indeed there is,} Wandek said. He strode past Minnario and continued around the end of the desk.
And without warning, he swept his right hand outward, catching Minnario with a backhanded blow across the Nemut’s conical mouth. The force of the impact spun him and his chair a quarter turn around and sent him flying out onto the floor.
I was still goggling at the sheer unexpectedness of it when Wandek took another two steps to Hchchu’s side and drove his stiffened hand into the assistant director’s torso.
“Don’t,” Wandek warned, turning to face me as Hchchu collapsed without a sound onto his desk.
I was already scrambling to my feet, kicking my chair backward out of my way. A quick leap up onto the desktop, a kick to Wandek’s head or torso before he could move away—
“No, no—let him try,” another voice came from the door.
I froze, my knees still bent for my leap, and turned my head. Stalking across the room toward me were a pair of Shonkla-raa. The one in the lead, the one who had spoken, was Blue One. “Please,” he said softly, his eyes burning with hatred as he stared at me, “let him try.”
FOURTEEN
I didn’t try. At three against one, trying would be suicide, and I wasn’t yet ready to die. Slowly, I straightened up again and stood perfectly still, raising my arms slightly away from my body just to prove I knew the proper drill. The second Shonkla-raa, thinner than the others and with an unattractive, jagged-edged nose blaze, strode up to me, gave me a quick pat-down, and took away my comm and my newly reacquired reader. Stuffing them into his belt bag, he headed over to Minnario, who was sprawled unmoving on the floor, his eyes closed, blood seeping through his skin beside his snout where Wandek had hit him. Jagged Nose patted him down as he had me, then crossed to the Nemut’s chair and started unfastening the storage pouches.
“Three of you this time, huh?” I said, looking at each in turn. “Is that your typical pattern, then? First you send one of you after me, then you send two, and now three. I suppose next time it’ll be four?”
“There will be no next time,” Wandek said. He waved toward my overturned chair, a few drops of Hchchu’s blood spattering from his hand onto the desk as he did so. “Please sit down, Mr. Compton. You have nothing to fear from us. As I’m sure Isantra Kordiss told you, we’d prefer to keep you alive for the moment.”
He looked over at Blue One. “Though he himself may not be feeling so generous at the moment. He didn’t appreciate the way you treated him, locking him in that file cabinet.”
“I’m sorry he feels that way,” I said, looking at Kordiss. His expression was still begging me to start trouble. “But if he’s not ready to run with the big dogs, he needs to stay on the porch.”
Kordiss took a step toward me, his blaze darkening almost to black. “What does that mean?” he demanded.
“Please,” I said, putting a little condescension in my voice. It was risky, I knew, goading him like this. But Wandek had already said they wanted me alive, and getting an opponent angry was still one of the best ways to get him to make a mistake. Right now, I desperately needed one of them to make a mistake.
But if Kordiss was poised on the brink of stupidity, Wandek wasn’t. “An excellent try, Mr. Compton,” he said approvingly. “But there’s no need. You can’t possibly win a fight, certainly not against three of us. And we really aren’t going to kill you. Not unless you absolutely insist on it.”
I eyed Kordiss. But Wandek’s interruption had given him time to think, and already I could see the blind fury fading from his face. I flicked a glance to the side, where Doug was watching the situation with the oblivious interest of a dumb animal who hasn’t realized that the situation requires him to act outside of his official orders. Still, if I could get to him and throw him at one of the Shonkla-raa …
“And I wouldn’t count on your msikai-dorosli to intervene on your behalf either,” Wandek added. “I’m fairly certain Chinzro Hchchu ordered him to prevent you from attacking others aboard Kuzyatru Station, not vice versa. Is that the correct use of the term, by the way? Vice versa?”
“Close enough,” I said. Reaching down, I picked up my chair from where I’d kicked it and set it upright again. “Tech Yleli showed you weren’t shy about murder,” I said as I sat down. “I wouldn’t have guessed you’d go as far as killing the assistant director of the whole station, though.”
“Great rewards are worth great risks,” Wandek said.
{Usantra Wandek?} Jagged Nose spoke up. He was peering into one of Minnario’s bags, his fingers sifting through the contents. {His comm is missing.}
{You’ve checked his clothing?} Wandek asked.
{Thoroughly,} Jagged Nose confirmed. {It’s not here.}
Wandek eyed me, probably wondering if he should have the other Shonkla-raa search me again, just in case I had somehow teleported the comm out of Minnario’s pocket and into mine. But he merely shrugged. {He must have left it in his quarters,} he said. {Get to your main task.}
{As ordered.} Closing up the bags, Jagged Nose tied them to his own belt like saddlebags, then crossed to the desk. Casually shoving Hchchu’s body out of the chair onto the floor, he sat down and started typing on the desk computer. “But then, you already know the magnitude of the rewards we seek,” Wandek continued, coming around the end of the desk and settling himself on the corner facing me.
“You’ve got ambition to burn, I’ll give you that,” I said. “But if you’ll pardon the observation, your methods stink like three-day-old fish. What exactly do you think Chinzro Hchchu’s murder is going to gain you? Control of the station?”
Wandek gave what was probably supposed to be a chuckle. “We’ve badly overestimated your intelligence, Mr. Compton,” he said sadly. “Even now, with all you’ve learned, you still have no idea what we’re actually doing.”
“You’re probably right,” I agreed, listening to my heartbeats count off the seconds. Even as we sat here talking, Hchchu’s blood would be coagulating along the well-defined curve Emikai had told me about yesterday. If I could keep the conversation going, the patrollers and techs who investigated the murder should be able to narrow down the time of death to the exact period when Wandek and his buddies were here in the room. I didn’t know how much that would help, but it certainly couldn’t hurt. “But I imagine you’re dying to tell me.”
“As it happens, I am,” Wandek agreed. “And since we have a few minutes to spare, I’ll indulge your curiosity. Do you have any idea why the Shonkla-raa left Earth alone two thousand years ago when they were busy conquering the rest of the galaxy?”
“No, and neither do you,” I said. “That’s why you’re experimenting with all those Humans in Building Twelve.”
“In point of fact, we do know why,” Wandek corrected. “We also know how to correct that deficiency. That’s why we brought the Human females here, so that we could turn their babies into our future servants.”
I stared at him. “Are you saying Building Twelve is full of pregnant women?”
“Building Twelve, and two of the others,” Wandek said. “You understand now why, after
your confederates disabled the cameras and we realized you would soon be arriving, I ordered Isantra Kordiss to kill the first likely person he could find and leave him in your path. If you’d seen the other pregnant Humans, even you couldn’t have failed to realize what it was we wanted with Ms. German.”
He waved again, a more expansive gesture this time. “You see, Mr. Compton, we of the Shonkla-raa don’t rule the way Humans or even most Filiaelians do, by way of spoken orders and written contracts. We are telepathic. Not very strongly, admittedly, but strongly enough to impress our thoughts and commands on other beings.” He lifted a bloody finger like a college professor trying to underline an important point for a dull pupil. “But only if those other beings have some telepathic ability of their own. Reception and transmission.”
“Like the Modhri,” I murmured.
Wandek’s face brightened. The dull pupil had gotten one. “Exactly like the Modhri,” he agreed. “Except that the Modhri is much more telepathic than most species—designed that way, of course—which gives him a higher resistance to us than other species. That’s where this”—he tapped his throat—“or rather those,” he corrected, pointing at Kordiss’s and Jagged Nose’s oversized throats, “come in.”
“Let me guess,” I said. I knew perfectly well what the throats were for, having seen Muzzfor in action aboard the super-express. But I wasn’t ready yet to show him that particular card. “You sing grand opera to calm him down?”
“We sing a set of very specific notes, a tonic plus several of its harmonics,” he said. “All telepathic species can theoretically be reached with the proper tones, though so far we have only discovered the frequency necessary for bringing the Modhri and Modhran walkers under our control. Though it may be that the Modhran tone will also affect a Spider, at least enough to confuse it,” he added thoughtfully. “We still need to experiment with that. It’s possible we’ll need to engineer specific Shonkla-raa with different throat specifications to deal with them.”
“Is that why you haven’t had one of your own installed?” I asked, nodding toward his own normal-sized throat. “You’re waiting to get a Spider throat?”
“I was actually waiting for a Human one,” he said, his eyes glowing. “My plan was always to become the prince of your world once we were again the rulers of the galaxy.”
“Really,” I said. “Out of thousands of possible worlds, you chose our modest little split-level? We’re flattered.”
“You speak sarcastically,” he said. “But you really have no idea. Earth and its solar system have resources beyond anything you can imagine, simply because you in your ignorance haven’t known to look for them.” He smiled. “One of those resources being your people themselves. If all Humans are as effective at combat as you, I will soon have a force that even the other Shonkla-raa will look upon with respect.”
He gestured in the direction of the medical dome, a quarter of the way around the station. “And those unborn Humans in Building Twelve will be yet another step toward achieving that goal.”
“Thanks, I’d already figured that one out,” I growled. “You’re trying to graft some telepathic ability into them, aren’t you?”
“Not trying,” he corrected mildly. “Succeeding. Another few weeks and we’ll be sending all of them back to Earth, their mothers secure in the belief that their babies’ alleged medical problems have now been corrected.”
“Genetic engineering at its finest,” I said sourly. “No wonder you went ballistic when we suggested Terese might abort her baby.”
“What, you mean this?” he asked, pointing to his nose. Suddenly his blaze began to go mottled, seething with the indications of emotions that clearly weren’t there. “A toy I had the engineers install when they turned my hands into weapons,” he said offhandedly as the blaze faded back to its normal shade. “It adds an additional level of supposed emotional depth to my performances, wouldn’t you say?”
“I would indeed,” I agreed. “Good thinking, that. I’m not so impressed by your army of toddlers, though.”
Wandek shrugged. “We have time,” he assured me. “As to Ms. German, yes, we had originally brought her here to create another slave from her offspring. But shortly after your arrival, we realized we had a far bigger prize waiting for us.”
I raised my eyebrows politely. “Me?”
“Of course not,” Wandek said. “Bayta.”
My stomach tightened into a hard knot. “You must be joking,” I said as contemptuously as I could manage through the pulse pounding in my throat. “She’s barely competent to be my assistant, let alone one of your junior world-conquerors.”
“Please,” Wandek chided calmly. “Did you really think Dr. Aronobal hadn’t noticed on your journey that Bayta could communicate with the Spiders? And since we know Humans aren’t telepathic, it immediately follows that Bayta is something different. A hybrid of Human and Spider, perhaps, since her nucleics are indeed Human. Or perhaps she’s a member of a species we haven’t yet discovered, which has encased itself in a Human shell to avoid detection.” He eyed me closely. “Or possibly she’s one of the beings we’ve always suspected are quietly controlling the Spiders and the Quadrail.”
“Or else Aronobal is just imagining things,” I offered.
“I don’t think so,” Wandek said. “Regardless, I’m sure Bayta will be a most interesting test subject.” His blaze mottled a bit. “Who knows? If it turns out she is one of the beings controlling the Spiders, I may decide to leave Earth in someone else’s control and—what is the term? Trade something?”
“Trade up,” I supplied. “But in all honesty, I really think Bayta’s going to be a big disappointment for you.”
“We shall see.” Wandek snorted. “Now that we’ll actually have a chance to find out.”
“Oh?” I asked. Behind Wandek, Jagged Nose was still fiddling with Hchchu’s computer, and I wondered uneasily what exactly he was doing. “What’s been stopping you?”
“Not you, certainly,” Wandek said. “The fact is that pure happenstance has thwarted our every move. First, we arranged to put the two of you in separate quarters, so that she would eventually be forced to travel the hallways of Kuzyatru Station alone. But then he”—he jabbed a finger contemptuously at the unconscious Minnario—“somehow was assigned one of those same rooms. Our next thought was that you would attend the preliminary hearings alone, which would again leave her vulnerable. But again, the Nemut brought her in as a witness.”
“Lawyers are often pests on our worlds, too,” I said. Suddenly, a lot of the strange things that had been happening aboard Proteus were starting to make sense. “And the reason you killed Tech Yleli instead of just trying to clobber me was so I’d be arrested for the murder and locked up, which would again leave Bayta alone. Only she spent the night with me in the security nexus, where you couldn’t get at her without going through a whole wall of patrollers first.”
“Indeed,” Wandek said, scowling at the memories. “Still, we knew you wouldn’t be under suspicion for long, not with that msikai-dorosli tagging along wherever you went. So we maneuvered Chinzro Hchchu into assigning you to investigate Tech Yleli’s murder, knowing it would take you far across the station.”
I grimaced. “That one nearly worked, too.”
“Yes,” Wandek agreed. “We even chose to risk our investment in Ms. German and her child by making her ill, hoping Bayta would stay by her side, out in the open where we could get to her, while you carried out your investigation.” He snarled an evil-sounding Fili phrase. “Only yet again this stupid Nemut spoiled it, coming in to prepare her to testify at your trial.”
“And then Isantra Kordiss tried to take me out and failed, and you chased everyone out of the subsector with a fake evacuation drill and sent two more of your goons after me, who also failed,” I offered helpfully. “And Ms. German’s disappearance was presumably again designed to split us up, with me handling the investigation while Bayta went off hunting for her.”
“
Correct,” Wandek confirmed sourly. “Only this time it was Chinzro Hchchu who intervened by restarting the trial.”
“Which again kept Bayta and me together,” I said. “You’re really not batting very well on this one, are you?”
“Perhaps,” Wandek said. “But as with all games, it’s only necessary for us to win once. And now we have.” He half turned. “Asantra Prllolim?” he invited.
“It is done,” Jagged Nose announced, tapping one final key on the computer and standing up.
“Excellent.” Wandek turned back to me. “Let me explain to you what is about to happen. In two minutes’ time my companions and I will depart, leaving the door locked. You have no comm, we have all the Nemut’s equipment, and Chinzro Hchchu’s computer and intercom are both frozen. Approximately ten minutes after that, the receptionist will return from the errand I sent her on and resume her position as guardian of Chinzro Hchchu’s office. I should mention that the office door is completely soundproof, so you won’t be able to call out to attract her attention. But you’re welcome to try.”
“Let me guess,” I said. “Eventually, she starts wondering why she hasn’t been called in to water the plants, and comes in to find Minnario and me all alone with Hchchu’s body.”
“Not at all,” Wandek said calmly. “Approximately ten minutes after she returns, the computer will send out an emergency signal, which will be received by both her and the nearby patroller office. One minute after that, to allow for their response time, the door will unlock. Then they will all enter to find you and the Nemut and the body.”
“Nice,” I complimented him. “There might be a couple of problems, though.”
“How so?” Wandek asked politely.
“First of all, the coagulation curve on Chinzro Hchchu’s blood will prove he was dead long before he supposedly sent out his distress call,” I said. A small part of me was screaming that warning him about potentially fatal errors wasn’t a particularly smart thing to do. But Wandek had such obvious contempt for Humans that I needed to let him know that, in my field of expertise at least, I was smarter than he was. “And second, it’ll be obvious to anyone with half a brain that my hands couldn’t possibly have made the wound that killed him.”
