Judgment at Proteus

by Timothy Zahn

Snoozer rounds were designed to be fired through normal clothing from at least a couple of meters’ distance, and putting one directly into his throat this way was probably going to cause a significant amount of damage. But right now, I didn’t give a damn. As he gurgled and started to fall, I did a quick two-step around him to put him between me and the other four attackers and started methodically putting snoozers into their unprotected noses.

  The old Shonkla-raa might once have been the undisputed lords of the galaxy, but I doubted that many of them had ever done any of their own actual fighting. This bright new generation probably hadn’t done any, either, and I fully expected that the sight of my exposed back would be more temptation than the two Fillies standing by Building Eight could resist.

  I was right. Even as I dropped the last of the first wave and spun around again, I found the two of them charging full tilt toward me. An extremely vulnerable position, and one which a trained fighter like me could take full and devastating advantage of.

  Except that there were two of them, and I was down to a single snoozer.

  The thudwumper half of my magazine still had fifteen rounds in it. But killing or maiming would be to take the fight to a new level, and I wasn’t ready yet to push things that far.

  But while my attackers were Shonkla-raa, they were also normal sentient beings, with all of a sentient being’s reactions. Flipping the selector to the thudwumper side of my magazine, I aimed at the floor ahead and just to the side of the leftmost Filly and squeezed the trigger.

  Thudwumper rounds weren’t nearly as loud as those from larger and heavier-caliber handguns. But the flat crack of the shot, the dull thud of the impact, and the scream of a near-miss ricochet were just as intimidating. I gave the Fillies a quarter of a second to realize I was no longer firing snoozers, then lifted the gun to point squarely at the one whose foot I’d just missed.

  His reaction was exactly what one would expect from anyone not in a suicidal frame of mind, and exactly what I’d hoped for. Reflexively, he skidded to a confused halt, leaving his companion to continue their charge alone.

  The first Filly came at me like a Quadrail engine, all speed and power and no finesse whatsoever, and I had the brief impression that he hadn’t yet realized that his partner had temporarily opted for the better part of valor. Once again, I did a quick sidestep out of his path. But this time, instead of spending a snoozer on him, I did a quick sweep with my leg and knocked his own legs out from under him.

  He hit the ground with a grunt and bounded up again, his body armor cushioning his fall enough to keep from having the wind knocked out of him. But if he was expecting me to stick around for another round, he was severely disappointed. Even before his final bounce along the ground I was on my way again toward Bayta’s building, keeping my Beretta trained warningly on the other Filly as I sprinted past him. I reached the building, yanked open the door, and went in.

  I’d expected to find a state of chaos, and I was right. The receptionist, who was leaning forward talking urgently into her comm, straightened up so fast she slammed herself and her chair into the wall behind her. I strode past her into the main corridor, Beretta held ready as I watched doctors and techs scrambling desperately out of my way or ducking out of sight into offices, labs, and patient rooms. One of the doctors held his ground, apparently with the idea of standing up to me, changing his mind only when I put another thudwumper into the equipment tray beside him. Amid the spray of shattered plastic and glass he joined his fellows in disappearing through the nearest doorway. I continued on, glancing into each room as I passed it, and finally arrived at Terese’s room.

  There, just as the Modhri had said, I found Bayta.

  She was in Terese’s old bed, her arms and legs strapped to the sides, her eyes closed, her face pale and drawn. Dr. Aronobal was standing beside her, a hypo in her hand clearly on its way toward Bayta’s arm. Flipping my Beretta’s selector again, I put my last snoozer into the center of her blaze.

  And barely got the gun turned back around as a movement to my left caught the corner of my eye. “Hold it,” I bit out, flicking back to thudwumpers.

  I’d rather expected Wandek personally to be handling this one. But instead, the lone figure standing silently by the equipment table was my old friend Blue One. “Well, hello there, Isantra Kordiss,” I greeted him coolly as I took a hasty step backward. “I’d stay right there if I were you.”

  “And if I don’t?” he challenged, matching my move with a more leisurely step forward.

  “No, Frank, don’t,” Bayta said weakly.

  Keeping my eyes on Kordiss, I backed across the room. Kordiss stayed put, his eyes on me the whole way. “You all right?” I asked Bayta as I reached her bedside.

  “I’m fine,” she assured me. “All they’ve done is taken some blood and checked my brainwaves. Nothing that will tell them anything.”

  “Lucky for them,” I said, risking a quick sideways look at her. Her eyes were open now, half lidded with probably drug-induced fatigue, but they were bright and aware and defiant despite that. “Otherwise, I’d have to kill all of them.”

  “No, don’t,” Bayta said earnestly. “Please. I think that’s exactly what they want you to do.”

  “So that they can haul me up on major felony charges and have the patrollers lock me up and leave you defenseless,” I said, switching the Beretta to my left hand and starting to undo the strap around her left arm. “Yes, I know. They’ve already tried that with Chinzro Hchchu.” I raised my eyebrows at Kordiss. “Whom Usantra Wandek murdered in cold blood while I watched.”

  “Of which claim you have no proof,” Kordiss scoffed. “The patrollers are hardly going to take the word of a Human over that of a Filiaelian usantra.”

  “That’s the second time you’ve tried that argument,” I reminded him. The strap was turning out to be trickier than it had looked, especially given that I was trying to unfasten it by touch alone. But there was something in Kordiss’s expression that warned me not to take my eyes off him. “It didn’t hold much water then, either,” I continued. “So how come I’m off the patrollers’ bad-guys list? Usantra Wandek afraid the techs would run their blood tests and conclude Chinzro Hchchu died five minutes after the patrollers started packing up his body?”

  “Do you really think you can escape Kuzyatru Station?” Kordiss asked, almost conversationally. “Because you’ll have to kill me to stop me.” He cocked his head slightly as if listening. “Along with many others. Do you hear that?”

  I heard it, all right: multiple footsteps out in the corridor, heading determinedly this way at a fast walk. “I hear them,” I acknowledged. With a final effort, I ripped the restraint free. “But as it happens, I’m not going to have to kill you or them.”

  And as the first of the approaching Shonkla-raa appeared in the doorway I reached into my jacket pocket, pulled out the kwi I’d taken from Hchchu’s desk drawer, and pressed it into Bayta’s newly freed hand.

  The Filly in the doorway was the first to go, collapsing without a sound as Bayta fired the kwi at him. The second Shonkla-raa in line flailed in sudden disorientation as he tripped over the unexpected obstacle in front of him, and from the sounds of confusion coming from behind him I gathered the rest of the group were slamming into each other like the characters in an old dit-rec comedy. Kordiss himself had just enough time to snarl something and start into a tiger leap of his own before Bayta zapped him to the floor to join his friend.

  “Keep them busy,” I ordered Bayta as I got her left leg free. Ducking around the end of the bed, making sure I stayed below the kwi’s line of fire, I got to work on the right-hand straps.

  By the time I finished, two more of the group had strayed into range and view and joined the growing pile of unconscious Shonkla-raa stretched out on the floor. “You up to traveling?” I asked as I took Bayta’s arm and helped her off the bed.

  “I think so,” she said. She staggered once, then seemed to find her balance. “Yes, I’m all right,” she
said, reaching for the kwi wrapped around her hand. “You’d better have this.”

  “Keep it,” I said, shifting my gun to my right hand and taking her arm with my left. “There are a lot of open spaces here, and the kwi doesn’t have nearly as much range as the Beretta.”

  “You do realize they’re still hoping you’ll kill one of them, don’t you?” she warned.

  “Absolutely,” I said grimly. “And if they keep this up they might just get their wish. Let’s go.”

  “Wait a minute,” Bayta said, pulling back against my grip as I started us across the room. “What about Terese?”

  “No time,” I said. “Besides, I don’t know where she is.”

  “We can’t just leave her here.”

  “We won’t,” I assured her, thinking hard. “I’ll get you to safety, and then our new everywhere-friend and I will spread out and look for her.”

  Bayta’s forehead creased slightly, probably wondering about this new profession of friendship on my part, possibly also wondering just how far we could push the Modhri on something like this. But she merely nodded. “Do you have a plan?”

  “Mostly,” I said. “Stay close to me, and shoot anything that moves.”

  There were four more Shonkla-raa waiting for us outside the room, huddled behind equipment carts in the corridor or lurking in doorways. Bayta and the kwi made short work of all of them. We made it through the building, past the now abandoned receptionist’s desk, and headed out into the dome.

  I’d expected to face more opposition out there, but to my mild surprise no one was moving or even visible. Either the Shonkla-raa were running out of troops, or else Wandek had finally realized that his strategy was overdue for restructuring and pulled back. Bayta and I crossed the dome unhindered and headed past another deserted reception desk into the corridor.

  Waiting half in and half out of an open doorway six doors down was Doug.

  “Is that Doug?” Bayta asked, breathing hard.

  “Our native guide, yes,” I confirmed, wondering fleetingly why the Modhri wanted us to go to ground this close to the dome. But he hadn’t steered me wrong yet, and I was willing to trust him a little farther. Doug ducked back into the room as we approached, and I got us in behind him just as the door slid shut again.

  Only then did I discover that what I’d assumed was a standard guest room or meeting area was in fact a maintenance and storage repository. A repository, moreover, with a set of stairs peeking coyly out from behind a tool rack at the rear.

  Doug led the way, bounding up three flights, pausing there to give us time to catch up, then heading off through the maze of industrial equipment. Bayta and I followed, weapons still at the ready, until we reached yet another of the small service elevators. “All the way back up?” I asked as I pressed the call button.

  Doug woofed a confirmation. The doors slid open and I got Bayta inside. I punched in the authorization code I’d used at the service elevator near Hchchu’s office, then the same floor number, and as Doug slipped inside with us the doors closed and we headed up.

  Bayta turned to me. “Thank you,” she said quietly.

  I looked back at her, my eyes flicking across that face I knew so well, my memory flashing with a hundred images of her cheerful, angry, frightened, or determined. I thought about the Modhri, sitting there watching, and about all the other reasons why it was dangerous for a soldier in enemy territory to allow himself to get too close to someone else.

  Taking Bayta in my arms, I kissed her.

  The first time I’d done this, back on the super-express Quadrail, the kiss had been a half-reflexive, half-furtive expression of relief that she was alive, tinged with guilt that I’d let Muzzfor get as close as he had to killing us both. This time was different. This time, there was no reflex or furtiveness about it. This kiss was one-hundred-percent passion.

  And to my slightly disconcerted astonishment, Bayta held me close, giving back every bit as good as she got.

  The last time I’d taken this particular elevator ride, with a murder charge hanging over my head and my mind filled with fear for Bayta’s safety, the trip had seemed to last forever. This time, with my mind and arms filled with Bayta herself, it was a whole lot shorter.

  Still, I wasn’t so enraptured that I didn’t remember to break off the kiss and snap up my Beretta toward the doorway as the doors slid open.

  There was no one there. “Sorry,” I said, a bit gruffly, to Bayta. Not because I was, but because I somehow felt I should to be.

  “Don’t be,” Bayta said, her own voice serenely calm. “We’re going to Docking Bay 39, right?”

  “As per your instructions,” I said, trying to compose myself. “Good job with that clue, by the way.”

  “Thank you,” she said. “Hadn’t we better be going?”

  With a flush of embarrassment, I realized we were still standing inside the elevator, my Beretta still aimed at the industrial landscape outside, my other arm still wrapped around Bayta’s waist. “I’m waiting on the Modhri,” I improvised, dropping my arm hastily to my side as I looked down at Doug. “Well?”

  Doug gave a woof and trotted out of the car.

  And I could swear I saw an amused grin plastered across his canine snout.

  * * *

  We didn’t do a lot of talking during the trek across the station. The whole area was still hot and dusty, there were still scattered bands of techs and random security cameras to be avoided, and I was still not convinced the Shonkla-raa were going to concede this leg of the trip to us without finding some way to make trouble.

  But I did make sure, as we walked, that Bayta got the whole story of Hchchu’s murder and Wandek’s efforts to frame me for it.

  She was silent for a long time after I finished. “You really think the Modhri’s on our side?” she asked at last.

  “If he’s not, he’s going to way too much effort here,” I pointed out. “Unless running people in circles is how the Shonkla-raa get their entertainment, it seems pretty pointless.”

  “Not impossible,” she murmured.

  “But unlikely,” I said. “As to why the Modhri’s helping us, I wish I could tell you. Maybe he sees the Shonkla-raa as competition in his drive to conquer the galaxy, and for the moment we’re the best tool he has to whack them with. If there’s some other deep, dark secret involved…” I trailed off as something suddenly struck me. “Oh, hell.”

  “What?” Bayta asked tensely.

  “No, it’s okay,” I hastened to assure her. “Something just finally occurred to me.” I gestured at Doug, busily scouting out the path ahead. “Remember I told you I named Doug and Ty after a pair of actors in dit-rec dramas involving an old mythic character named Zorro? I may not have mentioned that this particular hero ran with a dual identity: harmless upper-class citizen by day, masked defender of justice at night.”

  “Dual identities,” Bayta murmured. “Msikai-dorosli and Modhri.”

  “I was just thinking that,” I confirmed. “Either my subconscious has figured out a way to pick Modhran walkers out of a crowd, or as far back as that first security office the Modhri was able to nail me with at least that much of a thought-virus suggestion.”

  “And you still think he’s on our side?”

  I hesitated. If the Modhri had infected me, or even just filled my mind with thought viruses, what good were any of my mental processes? I could sit here with my eyes wide open and not even see a trap closing around me.

  But if reason and perception were of no use, I still had logic to fall back on. And logic still told me there was no reason for the Modhri to go through all this effort just to betray us.

  And maybe, there was one thing more. “Yes, I do,” I said. “And I think I can prove it.” I looked around us, at the hundreds of places an eavesdropper could be hidden. “Ask me about it later.”

  * * *

  The journey took close to two hours, and by the time Doug finally led us onto an elevator I was on my last legs. The heat had lon
g since plastered my shirt against my skin and my hair across my head, fatigue and dehydration had put a small but noticeable shaking into my arms and legs, and overall I felt like something the cat had brought in to play with.

  “I hope the ride you called made it through all right,” I commented as our elevator headed down. “I don’t know about you, but I’m ready for some cool air and a nice, comfy seat.”

  “It should be here soon,” Bayta said as she wearily brushed some stray hairs away from her face. All in all, she didn’t look a whole lot better than I felt.

  I hadn’t had a chance to look up Bay 39’s exact location, but from the floor number Doug had had me push it appeared it was nearly at the bottom edge of Proteus’s main disk. Once again, the trip seemed to take forever, but finally the elevator came to a halt and opened into another maintenance area. Doug led us through a few more narrow walkways until we came to a pressure door. Holding my Beretta ready, I punched the release, and waited as the heavy door swung open.

  Beyond it, exactly as advertised, was Docking Bay 39.

  It was a very small docking bay, I saw as we walked inside, smaller even than I’d expected. It was only about sixty meters long, no more than forty wide, with a ceiling that couldn’t top out at more than three meters. Rows of equipment and storage lockers lining the walls made the place feel even more cramped, as did the massive hatch that took up most of the bay’s far end.

  And waiting for us in the center of the room were Emikai, Minnario, and Ty.

  “Welcome,” Emikai called, lifting a hand to beckon us over. “I am pleased and gratified that you have made it through safely.”

  “We’re kind of pleased and gratified about that ourselves,” I assured him. “I presume Minnario has been keeping you apprised of our progress?”

  “Yes,” Emikai said, with markedly less enthusiasm as he shot a sideways look at Minnario in his hovering chair. Small wonder, since after hearing my impassioned plea in the courtroom that morning he was probably having trouble adjusting to the idea of the Modhri as an ally. “It has been most … interesting.”