Judgment at Proteus

by Timothy Zahn

  I suppressed a grimace. So Riijkhan was mad enough to do something stupid. Or at least to say something stupid. “So the Cimma diplomat pretending to be asleep was one of yours,” I said. “Yes, I thought so.”

  “You most certainly did not,” Riijkhan said, his voice stiff. Maybe he’d belatedly realized the foolishness of having let that slip. “Otherwise you would hardly have tolerated his presence after Isantra Yleli left him behind.”

  “Actually, I was mostly amused by the fact that his presence meant Yleli wasn’t at all sure he and the others would live through the whole experience,” I improvised. “That doesn’t speak well for your side’s confidence.”

  “Merely a reasonable precaution,” Riijkhan said. “Like your having a harmless-appearing agent there as well.”

  “Except that my precaution was also able to fight,” I reminded him. “Yours could only provide you with a postmortem report. I’ll ask again: are you ready to give up? It’s still not too late for you to retreat back to the Assembly and focus your efforts on taking over some backwater world there instead of trying for the whole galaxy.”

  A server Spider stepped up beside us. “Your order?” he asked in his flat voice.

  “I’m good,” I told him. “Osantra?”

  “Nothing,” Riijkhan said shortly. “You speak of retreat, Compton. Shall I tell you something about your employers, something that might well cause you to retreat from your current path?”

  “By all means,” I said encouragingly as the Spider moved away and headed toward one of the other tables. “Let’s hear it.”

  Riijkhan hitched himself a little closer to the table. “Bayta’s people, the ones who’ve hired you to destroy us,” he said. “They won’t permit you to live beyond the point where your usefulness to them ends.”

  I clucked reprovingly. I’d expected something a little more inventive from him. “Again with the defeatist attitude,” I warned. “Because the point where I’m no longer useful is the point where the Shonkla-raa have ceased to exist. Do you even understand the concept of troop morale?”

  “I never said you would win,” he growled, clearly starting to get angry again. “I said you would be eliminated once you are no longer useful to them. Whether or not we die, you certainly will.” He leveled a finger at me. “And I tell you right now: for you, death will come from a completely unexpected direction.”

  “You mean you won’t get to do it?” I asked. “How disappointing for you.”

  He exhaled, very slowly, his eyes locked on mine, as his pointing finger stiffened into a knife. “Don’t think I couldn’t,” he said, his voice almost too soft to hear. “I could lean over this table and stab you through your heart before you or any of your allies could even begin to stop me.”

  “Then why don’t you?” I asked, subtly adjusting my grip on my glass. The dishes and flatware used aboard Quadrail trains were specifically designed to break apart under stress and therefore be useless as weapons. But if push came to shove, half a glass of iced tea thrown into Riijkhan’s eyes might still gain me a crucial fraction of a second. “Because you know that a few seconds later you’d also be dead?”

  “The sacrifice might be worth it,” he said. He exhaled again, and his blaze lightened as some of the emotion passed. “But one does not kill one’s allies, and I still believe you may be persuaded to become such.”

  He pushed back his chair and stood up. “When Bayta’s people try to kill you, come and see me,” he said. “Assuming, of course, that you survive the attempt.”

  “I appreciate the offer,” I said. “I’ll see you around, Osantra Riijkhan.”

  “Perhaps.” He inclined his head toward me. “Perhaps not.” Turning, he left the bar.

  For another minute I stayed where I was, sipping at my tea and trying to get my pounding heart under control. I’d been pretty sure the meeting would go exactly the way it had, but there was always the chance that even someone like Riijkhan would give in to the passion of the moment.

  A Shorshian walked past my table, and as the breeze of his passage washed over me I caught the aroma of French onion soup. Glancing to my left, I spotted an elegant, turbaned Sikh sitting at the next table, prodding carefully at the steaming bowl with his spoon, waiting patiently for it to cool down.

  I turned away again, carefully suppressing a smile. I’d told Bayta to get Fayr, not McMicking, in case of trouble, mainly because at the time I’d had no idea what McMicking looked like.

  And if iced tea in the face would have slowed down Riijkhan’s attack, I could only imagine what the effects of a bowl of steaming French onion soup would have been.

  * * *

  The rest of the trip passed without incident. Riijkhan kept to himself, though I did spot him once with the thin Filly that I’d briefly mistaken for our old friend Scrawny. Apparently, Shonkla-raa agents came in all shapes and sizes.

  At Homshil Bayta, Rebekah, Terese, Morse, and I transferred again to a waiting tender, leaving McMicking and Fayr’s team to continue on in their roles for another few stops, or until the Shonkla-raa lost interest in that particular train and moved on.

  We arrived at the secondary Yandro station, to find that the Melding members who’d traveled the whole way via tender had arrived safely and were waiting for us. They’d been there long enough that they’d had time to set up something of a campground off to the side, complete with a Spider space heater and a circle of seats made up of the coral crates they’d brought with them. I half expected to find them singing folk songs and grilling sausages on thorn-twig spits, but they were making do with ration bars and bottled water. If there was any singing going on, it was happening mentally, via their group mind connection.

  Behind them, monitoring the whole thing at a watchful distance, were four defender Spiders.

  We filed out, to find that one of the Melding, a tall Tra’ho wearing the multiple earrings of the upper class, had left the group and was waiting by our tender. “It is good to see you alive and well,” he said gravely, nodding to each of us in turn. “Rebekah had already informed us of your successes in matters of intrigue and combat, Compton, but I confess that many of us thought it more a result of luck than of skill. I am pleased to learn otherwise.”

  “Nice to be appreciated,” I said, looking around the largely empty station. “Though no one in this business turns up their nose at luck if it happens to come our way. Where are our hosts?”

  “There,” the Tra’ho said, waving back toward the defenders.

  “Not them,” I said. “I was expecting other visitors.” Actually, I was expecting a hell of a lot more than just that. “Bayta, you want to ask them?”

  There was a moment of silence as Bayta spoke telepathically with the defenders.

  And then another moment. Then another. “Bayta?” I murmured. “What’s going on?”

  “They’re not coming,” she murmured back.

  I stared at her. The Chahwyn had a crucial role to play in this whole grand scheme. If they were suddenly backing out, we were finished. “This is no time for any of us to lose our nerve,” I murmured back, taking Bayta’s arm and moving us a few steps away from the others. “We need them.”

  “I know,” Bayta said. “But once they’ve made up their minds … I’m sorry, Frank. I warned you. They’ve made up their minds, and there’s nothing I can do.”

  I looked over at the four defenders, standing motionless behind the Melding. “I want to talk to them,” I told Bayta. “Now.”

  She shook her head. “The defenders won’t take you there.”

  “Then you do it,” I said. “You can control these trains. We get back on the tender, and we head to Viccai.”

  I felt her arm stiffen in my hand. “Frank, I can’t do that.”

  “You did once,” I reminded her. “And the stakes are a hell of a lot bigger now than they were then.”

  “I know,” she said. “But they’re not going to change their minds.”

  I looked over at Rebekah and Ter
ese. During the past few days, beginning after the failed Shonkla-raa attack, I’d noticed a subtle change in their relationship. The two girls were still friends, but the sight of Rebekah frozen in the Shonkla-raa’s mental grip had apparently awakened some deep maternal instincts in Terese that even the baby she was carrying hadn’t succeeded in doing.

  And the dagger-edged look Terese was giving me right now said that whatever the problem was, I’d better find a way to fix it. “You say they aren’t going to change their minds,” I said. “Is that a fact or an opinion?”

  Bayta sighed. “A fact.”

  “Good,” I said. “Because the only way you can know that for sure is if you’re in communication with them right now. So where are they?”

  She hesitated. “There’s a tender a little ways down the Tube,” she said. “One of the Elders is there.”

  I looked past Terese and Rebekah. This station was much smaller than most, with the atmosphere barrier that defined the edge no more than half a kilometer away.

  And now that I was looking, I could see the faint reflection from the globes of a group of Spiders waiting motionlessly just inside the barrier. More defenders? Or were they just the relay that was allowing Bayta’s telepathy to stretch down the Tube to the Chahwyn hiding down there?

  Either way, unless there was a line of Spiders strung out all the way to Viccai, Bayta’s telepathic limit meant the Elders’ tender couldn’t be all that far away. “Fine,” I told her. “If you won’t drive me, I’ll walk.”

  Bayta twitched with surprise. “What?”

  “If they won’t come to me, I’ll have to go to them,” I said, letting go of her arm. “Let me get the big oxygen tank from the tender and rig up a harness for it.”

  “Wait a minute,” Bayta said, grabbing my arm as I started to walk away. “This is crazy. You don’t even know how far away they are.”

  “They can’t be very far, or you wouldn’t be able to communicate with them,” I reminded her, trying to pull her hand off my arm. “Don’t worry, I’ll be all right.”

  But for once, my assurances weren’t enough. Neither was my strength. Bayta held on grimly, her fingers tightening against my attempts to pry them free. “No,” she said, her voice starting to tremble. “Frank, this is suicide.”

  I frowned at her, the unexpected word echoing through my mind. Reckless, maybe. Useless, probably. Stupid, almost certainly.

  But suicide? How on Earth could a short walk down the Tube be suicide? As long as I kept an eye on the oxygen tank’s gauge, I would know when to turn around and head back.

  Unless there was something else about to go down out there. Something that would be best handled in the dark loneliness of an empty Tube. Something that Bayta either knew or else strongly suspected.

  I looked at the cluster of Spiders by the atmosphere barrier, Riijkhan’s words echoing through my mind. Had he been right? Had the Chahwyn decided they no longer needed me? The only way that could happen was if they’d found someone or something that could take my place.

  Or if for some reason I’d suddenly become a liability instead of an asset.

  “You’re right,” I said, turning back to Bayta. “So just in case I don’t return, I guess I’d better make sure Morse and the Modhri know everything about my plan.” I looked her squarely in the eye. “And about everything else.” Firmly but gently, I pulled her grip from my arm and beckoned to Morse.

  “Wait,” Bayta said.

  I waited as her eyes became unfocused, and I counted out ten heartbeats before she finished her silent communication. “The Elder will see you,” she said with a sigh. “The defender will take you to him.”

  Out of the corner of my eye I saw one of the defenders detach himself from the Melding and head toward us. “I’d prefer you take me,” I said.

  Bayta shook her head, a short, choppy movement. “He won’t let me,” she said. “Only you and the defender.”

  The dark loneliness of an empty Tube … “Okay,” I said. “Whatever.”

  Morse came up to us. “What’s the trouble?” he asked.

  “No trouble,” I said. “The Chahwyn want to talk to me. Probably just a glitch or two that need ironing out.”

  His eyes flicked to Bayta, back to me. “Sounds good,” he said. “I’ll go with you.”

  “I don’t think you’re invited,” I said.

  “I don’t think I care,” he countered. “If we’re going to be allies, we have to trust each other.”

  “You can trust me,” I said.

  “You, yes,” he said pointedly. “But so far, only you.” He looked back at Bayta. “Make sure they know that,” he said gruffly. “The Modhri and I trust Frank Compton. No one else.”

  “They know,” Bayta said quietly.

  “He’s also the best excuse for a strategist that we’ve got.” Morse’s eyes flicked to the approaching defender, then back to me. “And whatever strategy you’re working now, good luck with it.”

  “Thanks.” I gave Bayta the most encouraging smile I could, then turned to the defender. “Let’s get to it,” I said, gesturing him to the tender.

  The typical cruising speed for a Quadrail was roughly a hundred kilometers per hour relative to the Tube, which translated to a light-year per minute relative to the universe at large. Usually tenders could pull a slightly better speed even than that.

  On this trip, though, the defender telepathically operating the controls didn’t seem in any hurry to build up speed. We rolled along the track toward the end of the station at an almost leisurely pace, no faster than the average Olympic distance runner would do. We angled up the slope and through the atmosphere barrier into the main Tube, at which point we slowed to little more than a fast walk.

  It was quickly clear why we weren’t bothering to pick up speed. Less than thirty seconds after leaving the station, we rolled to a stop. “They are waiting,” the defender said, lifting one of his metallic legs and gesturing toward the door.

  “Do I at least get an oxygen mask?” I asked, eyeing the door dubiously. Centuries of Quadrail travel and the slow but constant leakage through the atmosphere barriers of a thousand stations had left enough pressure throughout the entire Tube system to protect me against the more serious physiological effects of decompression. But there wasn’t nearly enough air out there for actual breathing.

  I was still contemplating the unpleasant possibilities when the door opened, bringing with it a gust of slightly stale air. I stepped outside and found myself in a siding, one of the small service areas the Spiders had stashed at various places off the main Tube. Behind my tender—or in front of it, depending on how you looked at it—was another tender, this one with two defenders flanking the door. I walked over to it, veering a little ways outward so that I could see behind it, mostly out of idle curiosity as to whether there might be more defenders hanging around back there.

  There weren’t any defenders, at least none that I could see. What was there was an entire train’s worth of tender cars, at least fifty of them plus a pair of engines at each end, nearly filling the rest of the siding track. Either the Chahwyn had indeed brought the modified Modhran coral that I’d asked for, or else we had one hell of a mass migration going on here.

  I was still staring at the train when the Chahwyn tender’s door irised open. “They are waiting,” one of the defenders said.

  “Right,” I muttered. Squaring my shoulders, I stepped inside.

  A single Chahwyn was seated in a chair at the far end of the car, his typically pale skin looking even paler today. The cat-like whiskers above his eyes were undulating in a way that I would have attributed to a restless breeze had there been any restless breezes around. Two more defenders flanked his seat, and I had the itchy sensation of a pair of attack dogs sizing me up. “Be seated, Frank Compton,” the Chahwyn said, gesturing toward a chair half a dozen meters in front of him.

  “Thank you,” I said, crossing to the chair and sitting down. “Do I have the honor of addressing an Elder of t
he Chahwyn?”

  “You do,” he said. Like the other handful of Chahwyn I’d met over the past two years, this one had a fluid, melodious voice.

  But I could also hear an edge of tension beneath the music. Something was definitely wrong.

  “Glad to hear it,” I said. “I see you’ve brought the coral I asked for. When can I arrange delivery down to Yandro?”

  “There will be no delivery,” he said. “Your plan has been rejected.”

  “Really,” I said, keeping my voice neutral. “Why?”

  “Your assumptions and calculations have been reexamined by the assessors,” he said. “It has been concluded that there is insufficient coral to carry out your plan.”

  “With all due respect, your assessors are wrong,” I said. “They’re assuming we need enough modified coral to overwhelm a Modhri who’s actively resisting the change. But as I made clear in my message, that’s no longer the situation. Not only is the Modhri desperately eager to cooperate with us, but if Morse’s colony is any indication the segment-prime will quickly realize the change is to his benefit and accept it with open arms.”

  “You assume in turn that Morse is telling the truth,” the Elder countered. “You assume that the Modhri will indeed see the Melding change as a gain to him and not as a loss.”

  “First of all, anything that keeps the Modhri from becoming a Shonkla-raa slave counts as a gain,” I said. “Second, I know Morse, and I know how Humans behave when they’re lying, and he wasn’t.”

  “Perhaps his Modhran colony was lying to him.”

  “I don’t think so,” I said. “In fact, if Morse’s current arrangement is anything like the one Bayta has with her Chahwyn symbiont, I doubt he and the Modhri can lie to each other. And third, since when is this just my plan? This has been your plan, too, dating back to at least when you started working on the Melding coral.”

  “Our involvement in that project is a secret,” the Chahwyn said stiffly. “You’re not to speak of it with anyone.”