Judgment at Proteus

TWENTY-EIGHT

“Have you, now,” I said, trying to sound casual and suave, the way a proper dit-rec detective would sound under these circumstances. “It’s so nice to bring happiness into people’s lives.” I started toward him and his hostages.

And two steps later, I abruptly spun to my left and broke into a flat-out sprint.

Only to discover a double line of walkers already standing between me and the engine.

I slowed to a halt again, letting my lip twist as I looked back at the Shonkla-raa. “I seem to have been anticipated,” I said lamely.

“Did you really think such an obvious attack point would escape our notice?” the Shonkla-raa asked contemptuously. “Look also at the train cars behind you.”

I turned. About thirty of the walkers who’d retreated in that direction in the face of my earlier kwi attack were standing alertly alongside the compartment car, ready to counter any move I might make in that direction. The rest of the group, another fifteen or twenty of them, had wedged themselves into the wheels of the compartment car and the first-class coach car behind it. “You see,” the Shonkla-raa continued. “Even had you reached the engine, your efforts would have been futile.”

“I suppose,” I said, letting just enough chagrin make it into my voice to look like I was stifling a whole lot more.

And trying very hard not to smile.

Because my impromptu gambit had actually worked. In an effort to counter the ridiculous plan I’d spun for Terese, the Shonkla-raa had now made twenty percent of their remaining force unavailable for a quick response.

I looked up at the window of our appropriated cabin, making sure to keep the same stifled chagrin on my face. Bayta and Morse were gazing out at me, Bayta’s face tense, Morse’s that of a poker player who’s just put all his chips into the pot but has no idea what his hole card is.

And then, as I started to look away, something else caught my eye. In the compartment next to theirs a large piece of paper covered with alien writing was being pulled away from the window, and I caught a glimpse of another of the scrawny Fillies who’d been dogging our trail ever since at least Venidra Carvo.

So that was how the Shonkla-raa out here had been apprised of my charge-the-engine plan. I let a little more chagrin into my expression, just in case the Filly or anyone else in that compartment was also watching.

I heard the sound of footsteps over the noise of the command tone, and turned as half a dozen of the walkers who’d been blocking my path to the engine came up to me. My official reception committee, apparently. The two in front, a Jurian diplomat and a pudgy Human wearing a banker’s scarf with a half-open courier’s briefcase still slung across his chest, took my wrists and turned me toward Losutu and Hardin and their Shonkla-raa keeper. “Okay, I’m here,” I called. “You can let them go now.”

“In good time,” the Shonkla-raa called back. The Juri and Human gave simultaneous tugs on my wrists and we headed across the platform, the other four walkers following close behind us.

I glanced around the station as we walked. The non-walkers who’d been watching bemusedly from afar when this whole thing started had vanished, probably cowering in disbelief and horror in the cafés and gift shops, wondering what in hell was going on.

There was no sign of McMicking. Wherever the others had gone to ground, he’d apparently gone with them.

The Spiders, in contrast, were still standing where they’d been when our train pulled in, just as frozen and useless as before. A pity, I thought, that Bayta hadn’t been able to do something with them when the command tone was off. But then, she’d only had a pair of ten-second intervals to work with, and I doubted the Shonkla-raa would have missed any sort of concerted action. Even if Bayta had found anything that the permanently nonviolent creatures could actually do for us.

And then, something caught my eye. The Spiders were indeed still where they’d been standing. But their postures had subtly changed. Every one of them was now standing on only six of their seven legs, with the seventh leg folded up beneath their domes.

And all of those folded legs were pointed off to my left.

Casually, I let my gaze wander in that direction. The Spiders were pointing toward a pair of drudge Spiders about a hundred meters away along the axis of the station from where Losutu and Hardin were standing. The drudges were also perched on six legs, leaning toward each other in unstable-looking poses, their unused legs pointed downward toward a partially open service access airlock.

The implication was clear. It also made no sense.

Because the airlock didn’t actually go anywhere. Not unless there was a maintenance skiff attached to the other side. Even if there was, we would have no way of getting into it. We would need a Spider to close the airlock’s upper hatch and open the lower one, and thanks to the Shonkla-raa all the Spiders were temporarily out of service. All we could do, even assuming I could free the hostages and get to the airlock ahead of the Shonkla-raa, would be to stand there in the pit and wait for the walkers to stroll over and pull us out again.

But the signs were too clear to be misinterpreted. Clearly, Bayta wanted me to go there.

I squared my shoulders. She’d trusted me often enough during our time together. Now it was my turn.

The Shonkla-raa was still gripping his hostages’ necks when my escort and I arrived. “Okay, I’ve made good on my half of the bargain,” I said. “Your turn.”

“In good time,” the Shonkla-raa said, eyeing me curiously. His nose blaze, I saw now, had the same sort of slanted lines through it that I’d also seen on Osantra Riijkhan. Coincidence? Or were the Shonkla-raa blaze-coding their field commanders?

“That’s what you said about seventy meters ago,” I reminded him, nodding over my shoulder toward the train. “You’ve got me. Let them go.”

“You are not what I expected,” Slant Nose continued. “A hero of the Humans should be taller.” He cocked his head. “He should also have a longer nose.”

“Now you’re just being ridiculous,” I growled. “You never intended to let them go, did you?”

“A hero of the Humans also requires proper motivation if he is to cooperate with his new masters,” Slant Nose said. “I have no intention of allowing this mission to fail as have others.” His blaze darkened. “Nor will I allow the deaths of my comrades to go unavenged.”

My throat tightened. So it was going to be a quick death after all. “Osantra Riijkhan won’t like it if I arrive in damaged condition,” I warned, trying to stall for time. Where the hell was McMicking?

“Even Osantra Riijkhan does not obtain everything he desires,” Slant Nose countered. Behind me, one of the men from my escort detached himself from the group and stepped in front of me. His hand dipped into the banker’s briefcase and pulled out a mite Spider, its slender legs sticking out rigidly from its fist-sized globe.

And in a single smooth motion, the man turned and jammed the Spider into Slant Nose’s neck, burying the stiffened legs in the other’s oversized throat.

Without a word, or even a dying gurgle, the Shonkla-raa dropped to the ground.

I had just enough time to let my mouth drop open in surprise when the man spun back around and dropped my two handlers with quick jabs to the Juri’s throat and the Human’s solar plexus. “You can thank me later,” McMicking said, deftly snatching the briefcase from around the banker’s neck and shoulder as he fell. “Everyone—to the café. We’ll make our stand there.”

“No,” I said, spinning around as the three remaining walkers in my escort—or rather, their distant Shonkla-raa controllers—broke free from their shock and attacked. I dropped one with a side kick to the knee, evaded another’s arms as he tried to throw a bear hug around me, then jabbed him in the ribs and then behind his ear. The third gave a sudden whimper and staggered backward, clutching at a pale red liquid that had suddenly appeared on his face.

“Here,” McMicking said, thrusting a bright yellow restaurant condiment squeeze bottle into my hand. “Why not the café?”

“We go by those two drudges,” I said, pointing. Back by the train, the line of walkers broke into a concerted charge toward us.

“You heard the man,” McMicking said, giving the still goggling Losutu and Hardin a shove each. “Move it.”

“Come on,” Losutu said. He slapped Hardin’s shoulder for emphasis, and the two men took off, running as if all of hell was after them.

Which, in a very real sense, it was.

“Nice timing, as always,” I said to McMicking as we watched the approaching wave of walkers. I felt a flicker of satisfaction as I watched the ones jammed into the train’s wheels struggling madly to extricate themselves so that they could join in the party. “Any other useful items in your bag of tricks?”

“One or two,” McMicking said, reaching into the briefcase and pulling out a familiar set of nunchakus. “Here—Fayr let me keep this as a souvenir.”

“Amazing the sort of things that end up in a banker’s briefcase,” I commented, taking the nunchakus and tucking one of the sticks in ready position under my arm. Even with a weapon, I was going to have my work cut out for me.

And not just with the walkers, either. The four remaining Shonkla-raa were on the move too, their layered tunics flapping in the breeze as they charged toward us.

“No one ever said it was the banker’s briefcase,” McMicking pointed out. “I just slipped it over his neck in the crowd and the Shonkla-raa came to the correctly wrong conclusion. They really do need to learn to ask the right questions.”

“And to take an occasional roll call?”

“And to work out the bugs in their overlapping chain of command structure,” McMicking agreed. “With five of them giving orders to different groups of walkers, I figured I could slip into the group without anyone noticing. Go easy on that squeeze bottle, by the way—that’s chili sauce, full strength, courtesy of the station gift shop. You want to put the walkers out of action, not blind them outright.”

“Right,” I said, glancing back at Hardin and Losutu. “You think they’ve got enough of a lead yet?”

“Give it another couple of seconds,” McMicking said. “Our long-nosed friends are nearly through the crowd.”

They were, too, I saw, their legs pumping hard as they caught up to the walkers’ leading shock front. I half expected the Shonkla-raa to simply charge straight through the crowd in their wrath, scattering Humans and aliens to all sides.

But even in their fury at McMicking and me they weren’t stupid enough to waste allies that way. The line of running walkers opened smoothly up in front of each of the Shonkla-raa in response to their telepathic orders, letting the faster Fillies through. “I hope you’re not expecting them to run themselves too ragged to whistle their happy little tune,” I warned.

“Not exactly,” McMicking said. “What’s over there with the drudges?”

“An open service hatchway,” I told him. “What we do once we’re there, I haven’t a clue.”

He grunted. “Well, the Spiders have already proved themselves useful today,” he said. “I’m willing to see what else they’ve come up with. Okay, here we go. Your job is take out anyone still standing.”

I frowned. Still standing?

And as the four Shonkla-raa closed to within five meters, McMicking thrust the open banker’s briefcase toward them, sending a clattering wave of hundreds of clear plastic marble-sized spheres bouncing and rolling across the floor toward them.

The Shonkla-raa didn’t have a chance. They hit the rolling hazard at a dead run, their feet flying as the ground suddenly slid out from under them. Three of the Fillies went down instantly, slamming hard onto torsos and backs, the impact sending more of the marbles scooting off in all directions. The fourth was fighting to stay upright when my nunchaku slammed across the side of his head, putting him down with the others. Behind the sprawled Shonkla-raa, the incoming wave of walkers hit the marbles, and Humans and Juriani and Halkas joined the Fillies in twisting and thudding helplessly to the ground.

And then, even as I aimed my nunchaku toward the next Shonkla-raa in line, he rose half up onto his hands and screamed.

It was a scream unlike any I’d ever heard from a Filly, loud and ululating and enraged, and it froze me in my tracks as effectively as the thunderclap from a stun grenade. With a supreme effort I shook off the paralyzing effects and raised my nunchaku again—

The blow went wide as McMicking grabbed my arm. “Time to go,” he snapped, shooting a healthy glob of chili sauce from his own squeeze bottle into the Filly’s eyes. “More company coming.”

I looked over at the station buildings as I abandoned my attack and headed after McMicking. Pouring out of the café and gift shops were more Fillies, at least two dozen of them, all heading our way.

The next time you come after me, I’d told the late Usantra Wandek at Proteus Station, you’d better bring all of you.

Someday, I really should stop delivering challenges like that.

“I hope,” McMicking called over his shoulder, “that the Spiders have one hell of an ace up their sleeves.”

“Me, too,” I said grimly, my heart sinking as I did a quick reassessment of the situation. The drudges, I’d already noted, were about a hundred meters away. Losutu and Hardin had covered over half that distance, and even though they were slower than McMicking and me they would make it to the access hatchway well before either what was left of the line of walkers or the new wave of Shonkla-raa. The timing for McMicking and me was a little iffier, but unless the Shonkla-raa were significantly faster than the standard Filly—which they very well could be—we ought to make it all right.

Which still left the question of what we were going to do once we got there.

We’d covered about half the distance, and Losutu and Hardin had reached the drudges and were slowing to a somewhat uncertain stop, when the wind in my face suddenly disappeared.

I frowned as I realized the strangeness of that. The wind was caused by me running through the air. I was still running. How could the wind stop?

I was still trying to figure it out when the wind started up again.

Only now it was blowing against the back of my head. As if I’d unknowingly started running backward, or as if the station air itself was on the move.

And with a horrified jolt, I understood.

Shifting my attention from the drudges and hatchway, I peered down the long axis of the station. In the distance, nearly masked by the Coreline’s own coruscating multicolored light show, I could see the faint ring of flashing red warning lights around the far end of the station.

The Spiders had opened the atmosphere barrier.

“McMicking!” I called.

“I know,” he called back. “Save your breath for running.”

I grimaced as the wind at my back began to intensify. Save my breath for running, and for survival.

I don’t know when the Shonkla-raa figured it out. Probably not long after I did. Possibly even before. But as the wind started to edge toward gale strength I heard the command tone filling the station becoming fainter. Not just from the rapidly thinning atmosphere, but also because the Shonkla-raa also recognized their need to conserve air and were alternating the command tone between them, each Filly whistling for only a few seconds at a time before passing it on to the next.

Losutu and Hardin were still standing by the open hatchway as McMicking and I ran up to them. “The air!” Losutu barked frantically, the words almost inaudible in the turbulent wind blowing against him. He jabbed a finger at the end of the station.

“We know,” McMicking shouted back. “Get into the airlock—now.”

“There are air tanks down there,” I added.

It took another half second for that to penetrate. Then Losutu’s face brightened with sudden hope, and he grabbed Hardin’s arm and jumped them both through the hatchway.

“Hang on,” I called as McMicking started to follow, my eyes on the frozen drudges looming over us. Up close, they looked even more precariously balanced than they had from a distance, leaning over the airlock hatchway as if they’d been turned to statues just as they were about to fall in.…

On impulse, I jumped up beneath one, grabbing one of the inward-leaning legs at the top of my arc. A second later, I landed with a thud beside a startled Losutu as the drudge crashed down across the hatchway above me, its tangled legs neatly blocking half of the airlock opening.

McMicking was nothing if not a fast learner. I’d barely recovered my balance when he landed a couple of meters away from me, bringing the other drudge down across the rest of the gap. “We need to tether them!” he called.

“First things first,” I said, looking around the airlock. My vision was dancing with flickering white spots, a telltale sign that I was within a few seconds of blacking out from oxygen deprivation. I spotted a row of oxygen tanks along one wall and hurried over to the first one in line.

The valve was screwed on tight, and for a moment I thought I was going to die right there with my hand still on the valve. But then it came free, and a flood of cold, dry, delicious air blew across my face.

“Over here,” I called to the others, taking a few more deep breaths and then moving to the next tank in line and opening it. “I don’t see any masks—you’ll have to just stick your faces into the flow.”

“And go easy,” McMicking warned as he maneuvered Hardin and Losutu into the twin streams I’d set up. “We don’t know how much we’ve got, or how long we’ll need it. Compton?”

“Right.” I took a couple more breaths, then crossed to where McMicking was unhooking a coil of safety line from one of the other walls. I took one end and jumped up to thread it over two of the drudge’s legs.

And twitched my arm violently away as a Filly hand darted through one of the gaps and tried to grab me.

I dropped back to the floor, crouching down as a second hand jabbed toward me. Across the airlock, I saw that McMicking had the other end of the coil looped around the other drudge’s legs and was tying it to a large lock ring fastened to the wall.

Or rather, trying to tie it. His hands, I noticed suddenly, were fumbling uncertainly with the line.

There was a blast of air in my ear, and I turned to see Losutu coming toward me, one of the oxygen tanks in his arms with the nozzle pointed toward me. I took two quick breaths and jerked my thumb toward McMicking. Losutu nodded and headed toward the other, and I bent to the task of fastening my end of the line to another of the lock rings. I finished it and turned around.

And stiffened. McMicking was lying on the floor, unmoving, the oxygen tank near him but spraying its air uselessly in the wrong direction. Losutu was hanging just beneath the drudge, fighting weakly against the Filly hand that had reached through another of the gaps and was holding him by his neck.

Two seconds later, I was at McMicking’s side, crouching low in case there were more Shonkla-raa out there still conscious enough to go fishing for Humans. I rolled the oxygen tank over, positioning it so that it was spraying its air supply toward McMicking. Standing up again, I pulled the squeeze bottle of chili sauce from my pocket, aimed as best I could, and sent a stream of the fiery liquid squarely into the Shonkla-raa’s face.

There would probably have been a bellow of pain if the other had had enough air to bellow with. The hand around Losutu’s throat slackened, but before I could pull it free it tightened up again.

Grimacing, I gave the Shonkla-raa’s face another squirt of sauce. This time, the hand didn’t even twitch.

There was another stream of air at the back of my head. I turned to find Hardin coming up behind me, the other oxygen tank hissing toward me.

And as I inhaled the splotchy white spots out of my vision, he slapped the grip of a long, narrow-bladed screwdriver into my hand.

I turned, and with a silent snarl I jabbed the tip of the screwdriver with all my strength into the back of the Shonkla-raa’s wrist. With a violent spasm, the hand finally opened, dropping Losutu to the floor.

I tried to catch him. But the lack of air had dulled my speed and strength, and the best I could do was partially break his fall. He landed heavily beside the tank that was slowly reviving McMicking. I motioned Hardin to get down beside him, then finished tying off the tether line.

Not that the Shonkla-raa were likely to be coming in after us. Not now. The Shonkla-raa I’d stabbed was lying across the drudge’s legs, his bloodied arm still hanging limply through the opening. He was dead, or close enough. So presumably were the rest of his colleagues.

So was Losutu.

We were huddled together on the floor, one of us dead, the rest of us barely alive, pressed close around the second to last of the airlock’s oxygen tanks, when the Spiders finally came for us.