Judgment at Proteus (44 page)

Bayta’s lip twitched. “I was wondering about that,” she said. “He only sent the agents we already knew about.”

“Exactly,” I said, nodding. “Well, all except Scrawny, anyway.”

“Scrawny?”

“The Filly we were all set to charge through on Venidra Carvo if the Modhri hadn’t sent those two Tra’ho’seej to run interference for us,” I explained. “Not that he would have been much good in a fight anyway. But you’re right. The whole point of that exercise was to give us the illusion that Riijkhan was still being proactive without actually showing us any new cards.”

“So he’s still here to watch us?”

“That’s my guess,” I said. “And sneering bravado aside, he might also be a little bit worried. No matter how many minions he’s got on hand, the fact remains that he’s only one Shonkla-raa, and we’ve already demonstrated that we can take on lone Shonkla-raa and win. No, unless we push him too hard I think we can assume he’ll wait until Homshil before trying anything.”

“And then?”

I shrugged. “I don’t know,” I said. “Maybe I’ll take him up on his offer.”

Her eyes were steady on me. “You
are
joking.”

“There
is
something to be said for getting invited into the middle of your enemy’s planning sessions,” I pointed out. “But don’t worry, I’m not going to change sides.”

“He won’t be happy about that,” she warned.

“He can be as unhappy as he wants,” I said. “By the time the train reaches Homshil Station we’ll be long gone.”

Bayta frowned. “We’ll be—? Oh,” she interrupted herself, her forehead smoothing. “A tender?”

“Exactly,” I said. “One of the messages I sent from Venidra Carvo was to the Homshil stationmaster. About half an hour out from Homshil a tender is supposed to pull alongside and set up a—what did the defender call the thing the last time we did this? That portable airlock thingy of theirs?”

“A side-extendable sealable passageway,” Bayta supplied.

“Right—that,” I said. “The three of us—you, me, and Terese—will slip out the door into the tender. By the time the super-express hits the Homshil atmosphere barrier, we’ll already be past the station and on our way to Yandro.”

A small shiver ran through her. “You still want to go there?” she asked quietly.

“Not really,” I admitted. “But I don’t see any other option. We need to know how far the Modhri’s prepared to go to get out from under the collective Shonkla-raa thumb. If he’s willing to sign on to my plan, great. If he’s not … well, we’ll deal with that if and when it happens.”

“A plan you haven’t yet told me,” Bayta pointed out.

I gazed into her eyes, torn by indecision. How much should I tell her? How much could I afford to tell her? “The basic plan has two prongs,” I said. “The first part is to try to drop the Modhri out of the equation. If we can do that, the Shonkla-raa’s list of allies instantly drops by a factor of about a million.”

“All right,” Bayta said slowly. “But how are you going to do that? Persuade him to send all his walkers into hiding?”

“That’s one possibility,” I said. “I’m hoping to find something with a little more staying power, though.”

“Such as?”

“Still working that out,” I lied. “Anyway, once he’s out of the picture, all we need to do is raise ourselves an army.”

Her face suddenly became very still, and it didn’t take any great insight on my part to guess she was thinking about the Chahwyn’s defender Spiders. A few of them might be of great assistance in this confrontation with the Shonkla-raa.

An army of them would change the face and tone of Quadrail travel forever.

“And since there’s only one species we know the Shonkla-raa can’t control,” I went on before she could say anything, “that means our army will be composed of us lowly Humans.”

Her eyes did a quick double-take, and some of the fresh tension lines faded. But only some of them. “
Humans
?” she echoed.

“Yes,” I confirmed. “Ironic, isn’t it? After being looked down on by pretty much everyone else for the past thirty-odd years, we’re going to be the ones who come charging over the hill to save the day.”

“You really think…?” She trailed off, her usual impassive expression dropping back over her swirling uncertainties.

“It’ll work, Bayta,” I said. I took her hand and squeezed it, savoring the warmth and strength as she squeezed back. “We’ll make it work.”

She took a deep breath. “I hope so,” she said quietly.

“It will,” I said. With an effort, I looked her straight in the eye. “Trust me.”

TWENTY-TWO

The rest of the trip was uneventful. We kept busy with the usual diversions: dit-recs, games, music, and of course the consistently superb food and drink. Unlike many of the first-class passengers, Bayta and I also made regular use of the exercise equipment, visits that served the dual purpose of helping us work off the calories as well as giving Terese a few precious hours of solitude. Bayta was always a little nervous about leaving the girl alone that way, but as long as she made sure there was at least one Spider watching over the girl she was able to keep her concern mostly in check.

Through it all, I kept waiting for Riijkhan to make a return appearance. But having had his say he apparently saw no need to underline his point and went back to spending the bulk of his time in his compartment.

Scrawny likewise spent the rest of the journey making himself scarce. Riijkhan’s other three minions, in contrast, seemed to be everywhere, dogging my steps, throwing furtive glances in my direction, and otherwise doing the stuff you apparently learn in Shonkla-raa minion school.

For a while I tried watching them, hoping I could catch the subtle signs of recognition between them and the unknown agents I was still sure Riijkhan had aboard. But after a couple of weeks I gave up the effort. These three clearly had no clue who the rest of the team members were, and with Riijkhan not giving me the chance to watch his own reactions the hidden agents were likely to stay that way.

Bayta didn’t seem to be having much luck with her chosen project, either. Terese’s barriers were slowly coming down, but while she was willing enough to talk to Bayta their conversations still tended to be rather superficial.

But at least the girl was talking. More importantly, there were no repeats of her earlier suicide attempts, even with her method of choice easily available in any of the train’s bars. Maybe her close brush with death had made her realize that there were better solutions to her problems.

Or perhaps she simply realized that the Spiders were watching her even when Bayta and I weren’t.

Our surreptitious exit from the train came off perfectly. The tender pulled close beside the super-express and extended its airlock to our car door, and Bayta, Terese, and I slipped through. By the time the super-express rolled to a stop at its designated platform, just as I’d predicted, we were riding up the station slope to the atmosphere barrier and heading back into the main Tube.

After the luxury of Quadrail first class, and even more so after the hyper-luxury of the Halkan Peerage car, a Spider tender was a big step down. I watched Terese’s face as she looked around at the plain, open compartment: twin bunks at each end, a simple half-bath cubicle in the middle, and a compact food prep/storage area. It didn’t take a genius detective to see that she was seriously underwhelmed by our new accommodations.

Fortunately, it was only a few hours from Homshil to Yandro at the tender’s enhanced speed, which meant she wouldn’t have to endure the Spartan accommodations for long. Even more fortunately, even if Riijkhan and his buddies guessed we were headed for Yandro, they could lie in wait for us forever at the station without ever spotting us.

Because Yandro, unlike any other system in the entire galaxy, had
two
Quadrail stations.

It was the result of a deal Bayta and I had made with the Chahwyn and Spiders nearly two years ago. We’d identified Yandro’s Great Polar Sea as the Modhri’s new homeland, and we needed a clandestine staging area to assemble an attack force without tipping off the watchers he had manning the transfer station. Hence, this little back door, which we’d funded with the help of Bruce McMicking and a trillion dollars I’d blackmailed out of the coffers of McMicking’s industrialist boss Larry Cecil Hardin.

That attack had succeeded in destroying every shred of coral the Modhri had in that area. At the time, I’d naively concluded that that was the end of it, and that all we had left to deal with were the thousands of decorative coral outposts and millions of Modhran walkers scattered around the galaxy.

Only in recent months had we discovered that the Modhran homeland might be down but was far from out. Somehow, somewhere, he’d managed to stash away a lot more of his coral elsewhere on Yandro.

And now we were going to that same homeland, to face the segment-prime that we’d hit so hard and with such devastation.

I could only hope the segment-prime wasn’t the type to hold a grudge.

*   *   *

Seven hours after leaving Homshil, we pulled into Yandro’s second station.

The place was just the way I remembered it: a barely noticeable wide spot in the Tube with a single siding, a single hatchway leading out into the vacuum of space, and a handful of service buildings scattered around. If any passengers even spotted it as their train roared through, they would naturally conclude it was some sort of maintenance area.

Two Humans were waiting near the hatchway as the tender door irised open and Bayta, Terese, and I stepped out. One, an older woman with pure white hair, was stretched out on a sort of mobile recliner, her eyes closed, her chest rising and falling with the slow rhythm of sleep. Our sector-prime contact, presumably, once again by prearrangement via my messages from Venidra Carvo. The second Human, a male, was standing beside her with his back to us. Beyond the hatch, a pair of Spiders stood motionlessly. “Modhri?” I called as we approached the Humans.

“Yes,” the man confirmed, turning around to face us.

And as Bayta jerked to a stunned halt, I felt my eyes widen.

Because the man wasn’t just the old woman’s nurse or attendant. He was EuroUnion Security Service agent Ackerley Morse. A deep-cover Modhran walker, who also happened to hate my guts.

And his presence here was most certainly
not
by prearrangement. At least, not
my
prearrangement.

“Hello, Compton,” he continued, his voice calm as he nodded to me. “And to you, Bayta,” he added, nodding to her as well. “It’s been a while.”

“Indeed it has,” I managed, flicking my eyes quickly across his clothing in search of a concealed weapon. If the Modhri had in fact lured Bayta and me here in order to kill us, they couldn’t have picked a better tool than Morse.

Trained agent that he was, he picked up on my visual frisk. “Oh, relax,” he said, his tone in that irritating range between chiding and amused that I especially hated. “You must remember that even this little side door has the complete set of Spider weapons sensors.” He nodded at the two Spiders standing in the background. “
And
the complete set of weapons enforcement specialists.”

I focused on the Spiders for the first time, a chill running through me as I spotted the pattern of white dots across their spheres. Only stationmasters and defenders had such patterns.

And here, where no one came except by invitation, there were no stationmasters.

Once again, Morse read my glance and its significance. “Yes, they’re defenders,” he confirmed. “Or so I assume. If you’d like, I could pick a fight with one and find out for certain.”

“No, that’s all right,” I said. “Try not to take this the wrong way, Morse, but what the hell are you doing here?”

“I’m part of the Modhri delegation, of course,” he said, his civilized voice turning slightly brittle. “One of his representatives to these negotiations.”

“Really,” I said, not trying to hide my skepticism. Having a group of walkers spread out over a super-express or a Filiaelian space station could be very handy. Having a group of them at a conference was completely superfluous. “Are you expecting her to seize up and die or something?” I added, nodding toward the sleeping woman.

“No fears,” the woman murmured, her eyes still closed. “This Eye is healthier than she appears.”

Her hand lifted limply, gesturing toward Morse. “But Agent Morse is no longer merely an Eye. He is something new.”

I eyed Morse. “I can hardly wait to hear this.”

“Oh, you’ll like it,” Morse promised. “I’m now—” He paused, his eyes turning again to Bayta. “Actually, I’m now the Modhran version of you.”

I stared at him … and then, abruptly, it clicked. “You mean you’re
aware
of him?” I asked disbelievingly.

“Not only aware, but in something of a partnership,” Morse said dryly. “And I must say, Bayta, that it’s given me a much greater appreciation for the way you’ve had to live your life.”

“Wait a minute, wait a minute,” I said, feeling like I was still two steps behind. “You’re in a
partnership
? With the
Modhri
?”

“Correct,” the old woman said. “I have pledged to Agent Morse that he will have autonomy in all his actions, and that I will communicate with him but not control or influence him.”

I eyed Morse. “And you’re guaranteeing this how?”

“The same way anyone ever guarantees anything,” Morse said. “He’s given his word.”

“His word,” I said flatly.

“Like the word you gave him that you’d help his war against the Shonkla-raa,” Morse said pointedly. “Plus I know now how to spot the signs that he’s cheating.”

“Interesting experiment,” I said. “And we’re doing this why?”

Morse snorted. “Why do you think?” he demanded. “You’ve stated over and over that you don’t think the Modhri can survive without taking over everything in sight. This—me—is to show that he can.”

“Really,” I said, studying his face. Certainly there were none of the subtle signs of Modhran control that I was familiar with. “Well, as a good-faith gesture, I’ll admit it’s impressive.”