Judgment at Proteus

TWENTY-FOUR

Terese was ecstatic at the thought of Rebekah joining our little group on the trip back to Yandro. I was a little taken aback by her enthusiasm until I discovered that Rebekah had promised her that the two girls could share a compartment, which meant Terese would have ten glorious days without having to look at either Bayta or me except at mealtimes.

I wasn’t happy about that. Neither was Bayta. But it was clear that this was the deal the Melding was offering, and I could take it or leave it.

We took the transport back to the unfinished station, where the twenty volunteer members of the Melding plus all their coral were distributed among the five tenders we’d seen parked there earlier. The Spiders had meanwhile brought in a sixth tender, which was soon loaded with the five members of my group and the three small crates of Melding coral that I’d asked for.

We gave the other tenders a three-hour head start, which I hoped would be sufficient to slip them past whatever observation net the Shonkla-raa had set up between us and Yandro. Then, with Terese and Rebekah chattering together like a couple of kids—which, of course, they were—we headed out.

We arrived at Sibbrava three and a half hours later. Once again, I’d timed things carefully, and the express train I’d been aiming for was no more than ten minutes out.

Unfortunately, aside from the double compartment that the Spiders routinely held in reserve whenever Bayta and I were in the area, the rest of the compartment car was booked solid. Apparently some major medical conference had just ended, and the first- and second-class sections of the express were bulging with Jurian, Halkan, and Belldic doctors. The latter group, according to the Spiders, had taken three double compartments all by themselves, using the fold-down upper berths as Bayta and I had with Terese to pack themselves two per compartment and four per double. I made a mental note that if I wanted to order any Belldic cuisine on this trip, I’d better grab it quick before everything got snatched up.

Back when we’d left Shorshic space for this end of the galaxy the Spiders had been able to add another compartment car to the train. Unfortunately, here at Sibbrava there was neither the time nor the car available for such a modification. That left half our reserved compartment for Terese and Rebekah, and the other half for Bayta, with ordinary first-class seats for Morse and me.

Bayta didn’t like that a bit, and offered several times to share her side of the compartment with me. Each time I gently but firmly refused. It wasn’t the arrangement I would have picked, but there were certain tactical advantages in having Morse and me separated from Bayta, but still in communication with her via Rebekah and the Modhri/Melding consciousness that she and Morse now shared.

I was careful not to point out that it also gave me a freedom of movement that I wouldn’t have if I was cooped up in a compartment with her.

We boarded, I got Bayta and the girls settled, made sure the crates of coral were secure, then headed back to the first-class coach car. Morse had found our seats, which had started out in opposite rear corners, and had moved them across the car to a spot where we could keep an eye on our fellow passengers and both the front and rear doors. He also gave me a quick head count on our current allies: two walkers in our first-class coach car, one of whom was among the crowd of Jurian doctors returning from the conference, plus eight more in second class who hadn’t been able to find seats in first.

The first day passed uneventfully. I kept an eye out for Riijkhan or any of the other Shonkla-raa whose acquaintance we’d already made, but I didn’t spot any of them. I did see a Filly who looked remarkably like our old friend Scrawny going into one of the compartments when I went forward to escort Bayta and the two girls to dinner. But later that evening, when I got a closer look, I realized it wasn’t him.

I’d expected to sleep badly that first night, stuck out in the open in a coach car. But to my surprise, I actually slept soundly and straight through. It wasn’t until I woke up in the morning that I recognized what my subconscious had already concluded: that the Modhran mind segment in our compartment was on guard, keeping close watch on Morse and me. The only way for the Shonkla-raa to short-circuit that watchfulness would be to take control of the walkers, and for that they would have to use their very obvious and distinctive control tone. I already knew that tone, and it was highly unlikely that I would sleep through it.

The second day also passed without incident. Morse periodically fed me updates from the Modhri, and on my frequent visits to the girls’ double compartment Bayta gave me similar reports from the Spiders. There were several Fillies aboard, with five in particular that I tagged as possible Shonkla-raa. Unfortunately, all five wore the high collars of the bishreol remak, a Filiaelian medical sect, and none of us were able to get a proper look at their throats.

Still, if they were Shonkla-raa, they were keeping their heads down. As the train settled down for the night I began to wonder if the enemy was still on their watch-and-wait game.

Late afternoon on the third day, the watchful waiting came to an abrupt end.

* * *

Morse and I had gone to the bar for a pre-dinner drink, and were in the middle of a quiet conversation on general strategy and tactics when he suddenly stiffened. “Uh-oh,” he murmured. “Here we go. One of our possible Shonkla-raa in first has just announced that there’s going to be a birthday celebration in the dining car in ten minutes, and the guest of honor is offering a certificate good for ten thousand free Quadrail light-years to everyone who shows up and offers a toast.”

“Nice,” I said, grimacing. Ten thousand light-years was the equivalent of a week’s journey. Even ultra-rich travelers who thought nothing of dropping hundreds of thousands on first-class Quadrail tickets weren’t likely to pass up a freebie of that magnitude. “They taking him up on it?”

“What do you think?” Morse said grimly. “They’re currently making a mad dash—a civilized mad dash, but a mad dash nonetheless—for the rear door. Do you want the Modhri to keep his two Eyes in there?”

“No, better let them go with the rest of the crowd,” I told him. The fewer potential obstacles to what was about to happen, the better. “Let’s head back and see what the Shonkla-raa have in store for us this time.”

We were nearly to the bar’s exit when the leading edge of first-class passengers appeared, heading past toward the dining half of the car. Rather than try to swim upstream against them, we stayed where we were. The last of them passed, and Morse slipped through the opening into the corridor. “You coming?” he asked.

“Go ahead,” I said. “I’ll catch up.”

A frown flicked across his face. But he nodded and disappeared around the corner as he headed forward.

I turned and hurried back to the server Spider behind the bar counter. “Relay,” I said quietly toward the expressionless gray globe hanging from its seven legs. “Now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of their country. Repeat: now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of their country. Acknowledge.”

The Spider hesitated, then dipped his globe in response. “Acknowledge,” he said in his flat voice. Nodding, I turned and hurried back across the bar and down the corridor to the vestibule. I popped the door, crossed the vestibule, popped the far door, and stepped into our coach car.

Morse was waiting for me about twenty meters in, his posture unnaturally stiff. Standing with him were three of the five Fillies we’d tentatively tagged as Shonkla-raa.

Only it wasn’t so tentative anymore. They’d thrown open their high-collar bishreol remak disguises, revealing the telltale Shonkla-raa throats.

And filling the car was the high-pitched whistle I’d heard way too many times recently.

“There you are,” one of the Shonkla-raa said conversationally as I stopped just inside the vestibule door. “Please, come in. The party’s just getting interesting.”

“I’m sure it is,” I said, looking around as I walked slowly toward them. The promise of free Quadrail travel had cleared out the car, all right. Aside from us, the only two passengers still here were a Cimma with his back to us, who seemed to be thoroughly engrossed in the dit-rec drama playing on the display window in front of him, and a thin, elderly Human male sleeping in his chair, a furry blanket on his lap and a matching pillow tucked behind his head. I couldn’t tell if his chair’s music player was running, but if it was I had no doubt that the free travel announcement had missed him completely.

In fact, if the volume was high enough, there was a good chance that whatever unpleasantness the Shonkla-raa were about to unleash would also go unheard. “You realize we were expecting something like this, don’t you?” I said, turning my attention back to the Shonkla-raa.

“For whatever good that preparation has done you,” the Shonkla-raa said, looking around the empty car. “Amazing, isn’t it, how easily manipulated the peoples of the galaxy are?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” I said. “I see two who managed to resist your bribe attempt.”

The Filly snorted. “Not because of any integrity on their part, I assure you. I have no doubt we would be completely alone right now had they been physically able to hear our offer.”

“Maybe,” I said, stopping a couple of long strides short of their little group. “Though considering your preferred method of attack physically able to hear is an interesting turn of phrase. Might turn out to be a significant metaphor, too.”

“You may cling to such hopes if it pleases you,” the Shonkla-raa said, his eyes flicking to the sleeping man. “But rest assured that if that Human was a Modhran Eye, all the music in the galaxy would not protect him from our call. He, too, would be standing here with us right now.” He gestured toward Morse. “As is your former ally.”

I grimaced as I studied Morse’s face. So much for the hopeful theory that Human walkers might require a different command frequency. He was clearly locked up, tight as a drum and ready to dance to the Shonkla-raa’s tune. “That’s one for your side, I suppose,” I conceded. “By the way, where’s Osantra Riijkhan? He always struck me as the sort who’d never miss an opportunity to gloat.”

“Unfortunately, our guess was slightly incorrect as to where these supposed new allies of yours were located,” the Shonkla-raa said. “Osantra Riijkhan was caught out of position and unable to join us in time. The honor of your final defeat has thus come to me.”

“Well, don’t go counting your chickens, because I’m not yet ready to hand over my sword,” I warned. “Regardless, it’s considered a basic courtesy for the challenger to offer the challenged his name.”

The color of the Filly’s blaze was fluttering a little, probably from all the Human cultural references I was throwing at him. But his voice was clear and steady enough. “Forgive me,” he said, inclining his head. “I am Isantra Yleli.”

I stared at him. “Yleli?”

“I’m pleased you remember his name,” Yleli said, clearly enjoying my bewilderment. “Yes, the late Tech Yleli was one of my kinsmen.” His blaze darkened. “That was why we knew his murder would be the ideal bait to draw you and the alien woman Bayta into our Kuzyatru Station trap.”

A shiver ran up my back. I’d known how ruthless the Shonkla-raa were. But this was a level of cold-bloodedness far beyond anything even I had expected.

And I’d deliberately brought Rebekah into reach of these people. Rebekah, Terese, and Bayta.

But there was still a chance. I had to hold on to that. “I’m constrained to point out that his murder, convenient though it might have been for you, didn’t exactly result in a Shonkla-raa victory. As I recall, it ended in a rather resounding Shonkla-raa defeat.”

His blaze went considerably darker this time. “They were careless,” he said stiffly. “We won’t make that mistake again.”

“Of course not,” I said. “But thank you for the demo. I imagine you’ll want to settle back in under your rocks before the rest of the passengers finish toasting the birthday boy and come trooping back.”

“There’s no hurry,” Yleli assured me. “It is, after all, a very long and complicated toast. And the demo is far from over.” He gestured to one of his two companions.

The other nodded silently and turned, heading forward toward the compartment car. He reached the vestibule, popped open the door, and stepped inside.

I tensed. The instant the door closed behind him, his contribution to the control tone holding Morse in place would be cut off. That would leave just the other Shonkla-raa still broadcasting. If I could get to him before Yleli could pick up the slack …

But Yleli was already a step ahead of me. The vestibule door was still sliding closed when he raised his own voice in the whistling control tone. “What now?” I asked, wondering if I could get him to stop whistling and explain or gloat some more.

But again, he was smarter than that. He ignored the question, keeping up his part of the siren song. Grimacing, with nothing else I could do, I settled in to wait.

The seconds stretched into minutes. Morse’s face changed once during that time, lines of puzzlement or concern rippling briefly across his face. But if Yleli noticed, he didn’t bother to ask about it. To my right, the Cimma snuffled a couple of times, and I realized he’d fallen asleep with the dit-rec drama still playing in his chair’s sound system. Maybe he’d been asleep all along. Behind me, the old man gave a wet-sounding snort of his own and shifted a little in his own journey through dreamland.

And then, after about three minutes, the vestibule door opened again and Terese stumbled into view, her face ashen white. Behind her was Rebekah, her eyes as glazed in their own way as Morse’s, walking toward our little group like a person in a slow-motion dream.

Behind them, her eyes not nearly so glazed, her expression a mixture of fear and determination, her arm held firmly in the Shonkla-raa’s grip, was Bayta.

“You said earlier that was one for our side,” Yleli said as the newcomers came up behind him. “I believe this is now four for our side.”

I studied Rebekah as she and the others came to a halt. The impression I’d first had of her as a sleepwalker was still holding. Her movements were slow and reluctant, and I noticed that she took an extra step after the Shonkla-raa came to a halt, as if she was slightly out of synch with her new masters’ commands. Maybe that was the Melding itself, or possibly her polyp colony plus the inertia of the extra coral tucked away in the compartment.

Still, the fact that Rebekah was moving, albeit slowly, didn’t add up to much of a victory for our side.

Not that I was going to admit that to Yleli. “Looks more like three and a half to me,” I said. “Or maybe two and two halves. Rebekah doesn’t look like she’d be of much use in a fight, and you’re barely getting Bayta to walk.”

“I admit your new allies are a challenge,” Yleli said. “But have no fear. We’ll have them under full control soon enough.” He half turned to look at Bayta. “As for Bayta, a bit of study on her and we’ll soon have her people’s command tone, as well.”

“Not likely,” I said. Out of the corner of my eye I caught a double flicker of subdued light from the Tube wall outside the display window on that side. “I also seriously doubt that Rebekah and her Melding cohorts will ever be of any practical fighting use to you.” I gestured at her. “You might as well attack Buckingham Palace with a bunch of stick puppets. In fact, let’s give it a try.” I started forward, veering to the side to avoid Yleli and Morse, and headed toward Rebekah.

The sheer unexpectedness of the move apparently caught Yleli by surprise. I got to within two steps of Rebekah before he took a quick step to his side, putting himself between her and me. “Stop!” he ordered, his hands snapping up into their stabbing configurations.

“What’s the problem?” I asked, stopping as ordered and forcing my hands to stay at my sides. The last thing I wanted right now was to give him even half an excuse to attack me. “You think you can control her well enough to fight? Fine. Prove it.”

“Move back,” Yleli said, all trace of his earlier mocking levity gone. He’d probably heard enough of my exploits from the Proteus survivors to know that even the most casual move on my part should be viewed with suspicion.

So had his two friends. Even as I obediently took a step backward they circled around Morse and the women to flank me. “You have the wrong idea,” I said mildly.

{Remove him to the baggage area,} Yleli said, his voice all icy business now as he switched from English to Fili. {Secure him there—we may yet have need of him alive. When you return we’ll transfer the coral to our compartment for closer study.} One of the other two Shonkla-raa acknowledged, and they both started toward me.

And at that moment, the vestibule door behind them at the forward end of the car slid open and a dozen Bellidos streamed in, chattering away among themselves, the soft plastic status guns in their shoulder holsters bouncing rhythmically against their sides as they walked. The whole Belldic doctor contingent had apparently decided to head en masse to the dining car for an early dinner.

One or two witnesses apparently weren’t a problem for Yleli, given that he hadn’t bothered to completely clear out the coach car before confronting us. But even a Shonkla-raa had to hesitate at the logistical challenge of killing and disposing of this many beings. He snapped a quiet order that stopped his two buddies in their tracks, flashed me a warning look, then went as still as a hunter in a duck blind as he watched the line of doctors strolling toward us.

Not that the Bellidos themselves showed the slightest awareness that anything unusual was unfolding in front of them. A couple of them glanced incuriously at our group, then returned to their conversations. A couple of others looked around and at the ceiling, frowns briefly crossing their striped chipmunk faces as they tried to locate the source of the command tone whistle filling the car.

But the sound had no medical ramifications, and their interest was idle and brief, and they too quickly turned their attention back to their colleagues. The leading edge of the stream reached us and split, each conversational group turning left or right at random, avoiding the motionless clump of humans and Fillies as they continued on their way in their quest for food.

And then, in front of me, I heard Yleli catch his breath.

Perhaps he’d belatedly realized that the Bellidos’ casual traffic pattern had flanked himself and his companions. Perhaps he’d suddenly noticed that the soft plastic guns bouncing at the doctors’ sides no longer had their long plastic barrels. {Alert!} he snapped.

But he was too late. As he brought his hands up into combat position, I threw myself forward and down, dropping onto my side on the floor and aiming a kick at his knees. Reflexively, he turned his eyes back to me, simultaneously dancing back to get out of kicking range.

As he did so, the two Bellidos passing us pulled nunchakus from beneath their tunics and whipped them with crushing force across his throat.

And pandemonium erupted.

I rolled up and leaped back to my feet as the rest of the Bellidos charged to the attack, their nunchakus whipping with devastating force across the other two Shonkla-raa’s heads, arms, and torsos as I tried to get to Bayta and the two girls. But Yleli was faster than I was. He slashed viciously at one of his two attackers and then jumped into my path, his other hand jabbing at my gut. I managed to twist out of his way in time, but the movement cost me my balance and I went crashing back onto the floor.

Yleli leaped at me again, aiming a kick at my head, but even as I ducked out of the way he staggered as a nunchaku slash caught his other knee. With his supporting leg under attack, he was forced to drop his kicking leg prematurely back to the floor. The other Bellido was already swinging his nunchaku at Yleli’s head, but the Filly managed to drop into a crouch in time, leaving the flail to whip harmlessly through the air above him. Before either of the Bellidos could recover for another attack Yleli shoved himself off the floor, again diving at me.

I was caught flatfooted, on my way back up to a standing position but not quite there yet. Desperately, I tried to throw myself to the side, knowing the move would again cost me balance and mobility but not having any other real options.

But I was too late. Yleli was hurtling toward me, his arm held rigidly in front of him like an organic spear. One of the nunchakus whipped past, slamming into his back hard enough to crack bone but doing little to alter his direction or speed. There was a blur of motion at my right.

And Morse’s body slammed sideways into Yleli’s shoulder, knocking him off-target and sending both of them sprawling onto the floor.

Somewhere in all that nunchaku flailing, while I’d been preoccupied with my own troubles, the Bellidos had managed to silence both of the other Shonkla-raa command tones.

I hit the floor and rolled back up to my feet. Morse was still on top of Yleli, trying to pin him down. But like all the rest of the Shonkla-raa I’d run into, Yleli had been genetically modified for strength. With a single violent shove he threw Morse half a meter into the air to crash down onto the floor beside him and started to scramble to his feet.

His eyes were glittering death in my direction when two nunchakus caught him one final time, one of the flails slamming again into his throat, the other hitting hard enough to splinter bone at the back of his skull. He sprawled face-first onto the floor.

This time, he didn’t get up.

I looked around, gasping in vast lungfuls of air. All three Shonkla-raa were down, all of them quite dead. Four of the twelve Bellidos were also down, one of them probably also dead, the other three making the small sounds and movements of the seriously wounded. The Bellidos still on their feet were gazing warily at the three dead Fillies, but I could see them starting to slowly come down from their adrenaline-driven combat frenzy. As I stumbled over to where Morse was lying on the floor, four of the Bellidos headed over to check their wounded. Across the room, a horrified Terese and a grim-faced but steady Rebekah were clinging to each other. Bayta was nowhere in sight.

The whole deadly melee, I estimated, had lasted less than thirty seconds.

Morse was starting to stir by the time I reached him. “You okay?” I asked, offering him a hand.

“Mostly,” he said, his voice dark as he pushed himself up into a sitting position. “Bloody hell, but that was weird.”

“Which part?” I asked, looking over at the wounded Bellidos. One of the others had retrieved the LifeGuard medical kit from the front of the car and was hurrying back with it. As he did so, the forward vestibule door opened, and Bayta entered, lugging the LifeGuard she’d retrieved from the compartment car.

“All of it,” Morse said, grunting as he carefully stood up. “Mostly the takeover. I knew about it from the Modhri, of course. But it’s one thing to get someone else’s memory of something and quite another to experience it yourself.”

“You heard about this from the Modhri?” one of the Bellidos asked, his eyes on Morse as he came up to us.

“Yes, he did,” I said, gesturing. “Morse, meet Korak Fayr, commando major of the Bellidosh Estates-General.”

“Currently gone rogue, running a private mission to destroy the Modhri,” Fayr added, still eyeing Morse closely. “And you?”

“Fayr, meet EuroUnion Security Service agent Ackerley Morse,” I continued the introductions. “Formerly a deep-cover Modhran walker, currently part of my private mission to destroy the Shonkla-raa.”

“Pleased to meet you,” Morse said, nodding.

“Not certain I can say the same,” Fayr said shortly. “Your message, Compton, said that the Modhri had gone neutral in this new war. It said nothing about working with him.”

“Because at the time I wasn’t sure he’d be willing to actively come onto our side,” I told him. “Now I am.”

“Your evidence?”

“Well, if the Modhri was on the Shonkla-raa’s side, I bloody well wouldn’t have stopped Yleli from killing Compton,” Morse said. “Especially at the cost of a cracked rib.”

I frowned. “You have a cracked rib?”

“Feels like it,” Morse said, gingerly indicating a spot on his lower left side. “We’ll find out for sure when one of those LifeGuards is free.”

I looked over at the injured Bellidos. “How are they doing?” I asked.

“Two will survive,” one of the other commandos said over his shoulder. “One is questionable. All three need medical attention.”

“Will you need a doctor?” I asked. “For once, there are plenty of them aboard.”

“We can deal with our injured by ourselves,” the Bellido said. “Once the LifeGuard has finished stabilizing them, we’ll need to get them to our compartments.”

“We can help with that,” I said, pulling out the gimmicked reader that Larry Hardin had given me two years ago when he’d hired me to figure out how to take over the Quadrail system from the Spiders. The disguised data chip that turned the reader into a high-tech scanner was already loaded. “Bayta, there should be a pair of defender Spiders out on the compartment car roof. Give them a whistle and have them pull up the tender they brought along with them. There are a couple more defenders riding inside that can help carry the injured.”

“It’s on its way,” Bayta said. There was a stiffness in her voice, a coldness that was no doubt due to me not having told her about my Belldic hole card in advance.

But the anger would fade. She knew as well as Morse did that I couldn’t risk giving out details to anyone the Shonkla-raa might have interrogation access to. “As soon as it’s in position, have them extend the airlock,” I continued as I stepped over to Yleli’s limp body. “Better make it to the compartment car door,” I added, glancing at the back of the sleeping Cimma’s head. “We don’t want anyone else noticing.”

“What are you doing?” Morse asked as I lowered my reader to within a few centimeters of the top of Yleli’s head and began tracking the device downward.

“Looking to see what other work they had done besides the knife hands and the oversized throats,” I told him. “Some of the normal Filiaelian nerve centers are still in their standard locations, but some of the others have been moved. I want to know which ones, where they went, and the locations of any other vulnerable spots.”

“And whether we can count on all Shonkla-raa having the same spots,” Fayr said, nodding understanding. “Hence, you choose to take out three at once.”

“The numbers were Yleli’s idea,” I said. “But I was pretty sure he wouldn’t do this all by himself. We think there are two more of them, by the way, back in the dining car pretending to toast someone’s health. Let’s try to get this done before they realize something’s gone wrong up here.”

“It’s too late,” Morse said grimly. “They already know … and they’ve killed all the other Eyes.”

“What?” Bayta asked sharply.

“He’s right,” Rebekah said quietly. Her voice, unlike Morse’s, held only sadness. “They’re all gone.”

“Take it easy,” I said, finishing with Yleli’s scan and heading over to the next body. “The other walkers are probably just fine. You can’t detect them because they’re all out of range.”

“How can they be out of range?” Terese asked. “Rebekah told me one of their group minds can cover a whole train.”

“It can,” I said, starting my second scan. “But at the moment we’re actually two trains. As soon as I got in here, the two defenders I mentioned unsealed the rear vestibule and unhooked the car, and we were pulled away from the rest of the train. The rest of the people back there won’t have noticed anything because there’s another engine pushing them along from the rear. But the point is that we’re currently a couple of kilometers out in front.”

“So that if the Shonkla-raa ask the Eyes what’s going on up here they won’t be able to tell them anything,” Morse said, nodding. “And even if they did suspect something, there isn’t a bloody thing they can do about it. Not from way back there.”

“Exactly.” I looked at Bayta. “It was my idea for the defenders not to tell you,” I added, bracing myself for her reaction.

But there wasn’t one. She merely nodded silently, in understanding or forgiveness, and let it go.

“But they’ll know soon enough,” Rebekah warned. “Even if they assume the Shonkla-raa killed Mr. Morse and me, sooner or later they’ll want to get back in here. What happens when they find out they can’t open the vestibule door?”

Abruptly, Bayta caught her breath. “They’ll use their command tone to freeze a server and try to use his leg to pry it open,” she said. “They’re doing it right now.”

“Damn,” Morse muttered. “What about the people in the car? Did they get them all out?”

“I don’t think so,” Bayta said, her eyes narrowed in concentration. Two kilometers was also a long stretch for her particular brand of telepathic communication, even given the higher number of Spiders in the train back there and the incoming tender that could function as a relay point. “No, the people are still there.”

“That tears it,” Morse said. “We’ve got to get back there and reconnect. If they get that door open now, everyone in the car will asphyxiate.”

I hissed between my teeth. I’d hoped to have the wounded Bellidos to their compartments and the dead Shonkla-raa safely tucked away in the tender before we reconnected. But Morse was right. If we delayed any longer, a lot of people were going to die.

But I could still make this work. Maybe. “Bayta, tell the defenders to start the reconnection procedure,” I ordered. “And send the tender back to the rear—we don’t want the Shonkla-raa having access to it. Fayr, can you get your wounded back to your compartments?”

Fayr gestured questioningly at one of the other commandos. “We shouldn’t move them any farther yet than absolutely necessary, Korak,” the other Bellido warned. “The narrowness of the vestibule in particular will be dangerous to them.”

“Understood,” Fayr said “Move them to the front of the car. We’ll make our stand there.”

He looked at me as if daring me to argue the point. But I just nodded as I moved to the final Filly. “Sounds good,” I said. “Let me finish this scan and I’ll help you move some of the chairs. Might as well make them come at us one at a time.”

“Good idea,” Fayr said, looking around the car as his men started moving their injured to a section of floor near the front vestibule door. “What about them?” he asked, nodding toward the two sleeping passengers.

“Leave them,” I said. “If we wake them up, they’ll just be inconvenient witnesses that the Shonkla-raa will have to kill. No point making this any more of a bloodbath than it has to be.”

Fayr eyed me closely. “Such words imply you expect the Shonkla-raa to win.”

“Well, they sure as hell have the numbers,” Morse said darkly as he unfastened one of the seats from the floor and began moving it toward where the Bellidos were setting up shop. “All of us together—with the element of surprise—barely took down three of them who weren’t expecting trouble. They’ve got two more back there, plus ten Eyes.”

“Eleven, counting you,” Fayr said pointedly.

Morse grimaced. “Good point,” he conceded. “Maybe you’d better take me out of the equation right now.”

“One walker more or less isn’t going to make that much difference,” I said grimly. “Especially one with a cracked rib or two. Besides, numbers or not, we still have the edge in weaponry.”

“So we do,” Morse said, frowning at the nunchaku in Fayr’s hand as he passed the Bellido on his way to another seat. “How in hell did you get those aboard, anyway?”

“Quite openly, in fact,” I told him. “All they are is a pair of status gun barrels, filled with water and sealed with pressure-threaded caps, then tied together with the guns’ decorative tassels.”

“Interesting,” Morse said. “The ESS experimented with stuff like that on occasion. But I don’t think they ever came up with anything nearly this effective.”

“You really have to be a Bellido loaded with status guns to get away with it,” I reminded him as I finished the final scan and put the reader away. “Let me know when you’re in contact with the rest of the mind segment, will you? It might be useful to know how the Shonkla-raa are lining up before they pop that door.”

“Bear in mind that if we can spy on them, they can also spy on us,” Fayr pointed out as he pushed another of the seats toward the barricade Morse and the others were putting together. “And if you don’t feel like disabling Agent Morse, you should at least order him to stand well away from us.” He turned to look at Terese and Rebekah. “And the female walker should go with him.”

I grimaced. The last thing any of us wanted was to have an enemy operative in our midst, and Rebekah qualified almost as much as Morse did.

On the other hand, Rebekah’s polyp colony was the modified Melding variety, which I’d already seen wasn’t quite as firmly under Shonkla-raa control as Morse’s standard Modhran colony.

Moreover, we already knew the Shonkla-raa wanted to get hold of both Rebekah and her crates of coral. If I put Rebekah on the enemy side of the car, the Fillies might decide to grab her and call it a day. I couldn’t risk that. “Morse can go away,” I told Fayr. “But Rebekah will stay with us. Bayta and Terese can hang on to her and make sure she doesn’t cause any trouble.”

“That’s dangerous,” Fayr warned. “Particularly since Bayta will be helpless once the control tone sounds.”

“Specifically, she’ll mostly freeze in place,” I said. “If she’s already got her arms locked around Rebekah, they should stay that way. And Terese will be there to help, too.”

“We’ll keep her from making trouble,” Bayta said quietly.

Fayr still looked dubious. But he nevertheless nodded. “Very well,” he said. “But Morse leaves.”

“No argument,” I agreed, catching Morse’s eye and pointing him toward the back corner near the Cimma. “Over there, Morse, if you please.”

“Let me help you finish the barrier first,” Morse said, heading for another seat.

“I’d rather you move away from us,” Fayr said tartly before I could answer. “We don’t know exactly when you’ll be fully under Shonkla-raa control.”

“It won’t be until they get in here with their damn command tone,” Morse said. But he obediently passed by the chair he’d been heading for and retreated to the car’s rear corner near the Cimma.

The rest of us were just putting the final touches on the barrier of chairs cutting across the front third of the car when Morse reported that his Modhran colony was once again in contact with the walkers behind us. I told him to inform the Shonkla-raa that we were on our way back, that we would let them in once the train had been reconnected, and to please stop trying to jimmy open the vestibule door.

But my effort was for nothing. The Shonkla-raa had apparently instructed the Modhri to keep quiet, which meant none of the walkers could speak without a direct question or invitation from their new masters. Unfortunately, that left us with no option but to try to get the train back together before they succeeded in forcing open the door.

Morse also informed us that the planned assault line would be five walkers, followed by one Shonkla-raa, followed by the remaining walkers and the other Shonkla-raa. A nicely logical arrangement, I decided, giving them the maximum level of control while allowing the thrust of our counterattack to fall on the walkers instead of their masters.

For all of their arrogance and megalomania, the Shonkla-raa unfortunately weren’t stupid.

Bayta was even less use, info-wise, than Morse and the Modhri. As I’d told Fayr, the tone that controlled the Modhri also paralyzed and dazed Spiders, effectively knocking them out of the telepathic communications network. Bayta could sense the overall physical state of the Spider that the Shonkla-raa were using to pry open the door, but that was about it.

The defenders on the roofs of both cars were unaffected, though, and Bayta was able to keep tabs on the reconnection procedure. By the time the cars had been locked and the vestibule reattached all of us except Morse were standing ready behind the barrier of chairs. Bayta and Terese were holding tightly on to Rebekah as I’d ordered, all three women pale-faced but clearly determined not to give up without a fight. I stood in the middle of the line of Bellidos, the kwi tingling in my hand as I pointed it toward the vestibule door.

The door slid open, and as the command tone burst out into the car I saw a line of figures in the vestibule behind a big Halka glowering at me from in front. Aiming at his torso, I opened fire.

The standard military strategy when you’re clustered together against incoming fire with no cover is to get clear of the choke point as quickly as possible. But the walkers didn’t do that. They instead stayed right where they were, huddled behind the Halka.

And to my bewilderment, the Halka wasn’t moving, either. Especially he wasn’t falling. He was still standing upright, apparently immune to the kwi’s effect.

I put two more shots into him before I belatedly realized what was going on. The Halka wasn’t one of the walkers, but was simply some first-class passenger who’d been grabbed and forcibly planted at the front of the line. My first shot had indeed rendered him unconscious, but the walkers behind him were holding or propping him up to act as a living shield.

I got off one final shot, trying to aim past the Halka’s bulk, before Bayta succumbed to the tone and the kwi went silent.

And the walkers finally made their move.

“Bayta!” I snapped, uselessly squeezing the kwi’s trigger as the walkers began to file into the car, the first one in line casually and uncaringly dropping the unconscious Halka off to the side out of their way. “Bayta! Defenders! Anyone!”

But Bayta was already helpless, her arms frozen around an equally frozen Rebekah, and the defenders on the roof couldn’t hear me though the haze swirling through Bayta’s mind and from hers into theirs. Swearing under my breath, I dropped the kwi back in my pocket and picked up the nunchaku I’d borrowed from one of the injured Bellidos.

I’d half expected the walkers to come charging in screaming at the tops of their lungs like Viking berserkers, hoping to overwhelm us with sheer momentum. But the Shonkla-raa in charge of this particular mob were more subtle than that. The walkers strode stolidly into our car in a complete silence that accentuated the whistling from the Filly behind them. The line moved to the center of the car, staying well clear of our barricade and weapons, and neatly spread out to both sides as the second wave marched in behind them. The second group similarly fanned out into a battle line. As they arranged themselves, Morse, standing stiffly in his corner, moved up to join one end of the first battle line.

The two Shonkla-raa themselves, I noted cynically, stayed a good five paces behind the walkers, where they were even more out of range of our nunchakus.

“Nice,” I complimented them, mostly just to get in the first word. “You do children’s parties, too?”

Deliberately, the Filly on the right lowered his gaze to the three dead Shonkla-raa still sprawled on the floor where we’d left them. Then, he looked up at me and gestured to his companion. I tensed, but the other Filly merely took a step backward, and I could hear him crank his command tone volume up a couple of notches. “Impressive, Compton,” the first Shonkla-raa said, his voice calm but icy cold. “Once again, we seem to have underestimated you.”

He waved a sweeping hand across the silent rows of walkers. “Yet at the same time you continue to underestimate us. Tell me, what did you think you would gain?”

“Information, of course,” I said. “That’s the key to all successful wars.”

“And what have you learned?” the Shonkla-raa countered. “That your new ally”—his eyes flicked to Rebekah—“is as vulnerable to us as the Modhri? That your ally Bayta and her Spider friends are no threat to us?”

“But you can’t control them,” I pointed out. “As for Rebekah, you don’t have nearly as good a grip on her as you might like. I watched the way she moved when Yleli and his buddies brought her in. It was like watching someone walk through knee-deep water. I daresay she and her friends aren’t going to do you much good as soldiers.”

“And you think to neutralize our hold on the Modhri by joining him with this Melding?” the Shonkla-raa scoffed. “A futile hope, Compton. You have neither the time nor the resources for such a move.”

“How do you know?” I countered. “Because Morse says we don’t?”

The Filly’s eyes flicked to Morse. “We’re well aware that you don’t tell Morse everything,” he said. “We’ve already concluded that you showed him only one of the Melding’s many bases and only a fraction of the available coral.”

He was right on that one, anyway. Or at least half right. Not that I was going to tell him that. “So given that you don’t know how much Melding coral we have, you can’t be banking on that to stop us,” I said. “Ergo, you must be banking on our supposed lack of time. But since you don’t also have any idea when we started this whole operation, that’s also just a guess on your part.”

“You did not begin this operation until you escaped from Kuzyatru Station,” the Filly said flatly. “But even if you had, your timing would be irrelevant. The Shonkla-raa are on the move, faster than you can possibly imagine. Within weeks at the most your small rebellion will be broken.”

“Very impressive,” I said. “Also carefully and conspicuously vague. How can you proclaim your victory when you don’t even have the full list of your opponents?” I gestured to Fayr and his commandos beside me. “For example, Korak Fayr here. As I said, every successful plan requires information, and you don’t have enough of it.”

The Filly’s blaze lightened. “Clever, Compton,” he said. “You seek to provoke me into speaking about our plans, knowing that whatever else happens today—whether you die or whether we choose to let you live—that Bayta and the Melding female Rebekah will certainly be taken alive. You hope they will find a way to pass any information that you glean to the Spiders or the Modhri or Bayta’s people.”

I shrugged. “It was worth a try.”

“It was indeed,” he said, eyeing me closely. “I will confess in turn that I thought Osantra Riijkhan was showing unnecessary caution in trying to bring you to our side. I see now why he thought you worth recruiting.”

“It took you this long to figure that out?” I asked. “I thought Proteus Station alone would have been a sufficient résumé.”

The Filly’s blaze darkened. “You were lucky.”

“Call it luck if you want,” I said. “The fact is that I’ve demonstrated a knack for killing Shonkla-raa. As you pore over your maps of the galaxy, I suggest you add that into your calculations.”

The blaze went even darker. “Indeed,” he said softly. “And you convince me. Osantra Riijkhan’s hopes notwithstanding, I think it best that your life ends today.”

“You’re welcome to try,” I said, stepping back from the barricade to where Bayta and the two girls huddled together in their frozen clump. “But let me add one other factor into your considerations.”

Abruptly, I flipped the nunchaku around in my hands and looped the cord around Bayta’s neck. “You’re not going to be dissecting or otherwise studying Bayta,” I said into the suddenly rigid atmosphere as I held the cord against her throat. “And she is most certainly not going to die in your hands. If I die, she’s dying with me.”

Maybe the Shonkla-raa really thought his troops could get through the barrier and the waiting commandos before I could carry out my threat. Maybe he’d simply had enough talk for one day and decided it was time to move on to the main event. Whichever, the eleven Modhran walkers standing in parade formation abruptly started forward, eight of them moving ahead of the others.

The intent was obvious. The front eight were to hurl themselves over the chairs and onto each of the Bellidos, dying or being incapacitated in the process but hopefully pinning down their targets long enough for the remaining walkers to move in for the kill. A simple, straightforward strategy, and one that the Shonkla-raa had the numbers to actually pull off.

But as the walkers moved forward, the old man curled up in his chair behind the Shonkla-raa opened his eyes.

For maybe two heartbeats he gazed at the scene in front of him. Then, sliding silently out of his seat, he headed toward the rearmost of the Fillies, curving back around to his rear to stay out of both Fillies’ peripheral vision. His hands dipped into his jacket as he headed forward and emerged with a pair of small handles. I caught a subtle glint of metal wire from between them.

And as he reached the rearmost Filly, he flipped the garrote wire over the other’s head and brought his hands together, simultaneously spinning a hundred and eighty degrees around to turn back-to-back with the Filly. The alien gave a choking gasp, his hands clutching uselessly at his throat as he was forced to bend over backward, his command tone cutting off as the garrote paralyzed his voice box.

The second Filly spun around, sheer stunned surprise freezing him for a fatal half second. Still hanging on to the handles, the old man twisted himself up off the floor, the movement tightening the wire even more around the Filly’s throat, and snapped a devastating side kick into the other Filly’s throat.

And as the whistling command tone went silent, all eleven Modhran walkers spun around in unison and charged.

The Shonkla-raa didn’t have a chance. By the time Fayr and his commandos made it to the scene the walkers had the Fillies on the floor, pinning them with sheer weight of numbers. All that was left for the Bellidos to do was beat the Fillies repeatedly across their heads and throats until both were finally dead.

I didn’t bother to join in the melee, but stayed behind with the women, helping Bayta and then the two girls to their feet as I watched the carnage. “What happened?” Terese breathed as I got her upright, peering uncertainly over the chairs that had been blocking her view.

“Like he said earlier,” I told her. “They underestimated me.” I gestured to Bayta. “Shall we?” I invited.

She nodded, her eyes steady on the scene in the other part of the car, a grim but wry awareness coming into her expression. She still didn’t like being left in the dark as to my intentions, I knew, but I could also tell she was starting to see the black humor inherent in my methods. “We should at least say hello,” she agreed.

“My thoughts exactly,” I said, weaving us through the barrier to where the Modhran walkers and the old man were climbing warily off the dead Shonkla-raa and getting back to their feet. Two of the walkers were limping, but otherwise didn’t seem to have been badly damaged. “Nicely done,” I said. “Introductions, I believe?”

“If you think it necessary,” the old man said.

His face was still wrinkled, his hair still gray, his hands still wizened. But his stance was straight and limber and combat-ready, and his eyes were no longer those of the aged. “Korak Fayr, I know by sight,” he continued, nodding to Fayr. “And I expect Agent Morse is smart enough to have figured it out.”

“I’m flattered,” Morse said, some of Bayta’s wryness in his voice. He hesitated, then held out his hand. “I’ve heard rumors of your existence and talents, Mr. McMicking. And may I say, I’m very pleased to have you on our side.”

“You flatter me in turn,” Bruce McMicking said as he took Morse’s proffered hand. “I look forward to finding out whether your side is indeed the one I’m on.”