Odd Girl Out q-3

by Timothy Zahn

  I raised my gun, then lowered it again, the taste of defeat in my mouth. I'd been able to keep the Modhri away from Rebekah at Karim's bar, and had blocked his effort to bring his outpost and her boxes together in the police evidence room.

  But this time he had me. Even if Bhatami was willing to let me go without further investigation—and I was pretty sure he wouldn't—the Modhri would still get to the transfer station ahead of us. At that point, he would simply arrange for his coral and Rebekah's boxes to be shuttled over to the Tube together. Whatever the Modhri had in mind, a nice little hundred-kilometer trip together in a shuttle's cargo compartment would probably do the trick.

  We could, of course, bypass the transfer station entirely by sneaking around behind the Tube and pulling the backdoor entry we'd used on a couple of previous occasions. But I doubted that would really help us any. The Modhri could simply split up his own coral boxes between the transfer station and the Tube and be ready to pounce with either the minute we showed our faces.

  Besides, once we reached the Tube we still had to actually go somewhere, and once in the Quadrail system the Modhri had a very definite edge in numbers. All Bayta and I would have would be the kwi, and given the Modhri's obsession with Rebekah I doubted that would be enough.

  We would just have to come up with some other clever trick. Unfortunately, at the moment I didn't have the faintest idea what that might be.

  And in the meantime, I still had a few other hurdles to clear before we could get off the planet. Holstering my Beretta, I headed back to see how Bhatami was doing.

  I had just reached the mangled section of fence when the whole landscape lit up around me.

  I spun around, my first reflexive thought that the torch-yacht had somehow exploded. But the light was already fading, and as I squinted through the afterimage I realized that the ship had merely cut in its ion-plasma drive for half a second or so. It was already back on its normal atmospheric thrusters before the rumble of the brief high-energy pulse rolled over me.

  I was still wondering what that was all about when I reached Bhatami. The rest of the backup crowd had arrived in my absence, and a pair of medics were getting the lieutenant settled onto a stretcher. A few of the cops eyed me warily as I came up, but no one actually pointed a gun in my direction. "How's he doing?" I asked the medics.

  "He's doing just fine," Bhatami said. His voice had that slightly distant quality that often resulted from a system full of pain meds. "I see they got away."

  "Only two of them," I said. "What's left of the third is over by the corner of the building."

  Bhatami nodded and gestured weakly to one of the cops loitering nearby. "Sergeant, take a couple of men and check it out."

  "Yes, sir," the cop said, and headed away.

  "We have any police presence on the transfer station?" I asked Bhatami.

  He shook his head. "Irrelevant question," he said. "You see that flash a minute ago? No—of course you saw the flash. That was their ion-plasma taking out our communications laser."

  I grimaced. "I don't suppose you have a backup."

  Bhatami puffed derisively. "On New Tigris?"

  "I didn't think so," I said. So our last chance of putting even that much of a roadblock in the Modhri's path was gone. If he'd done the job properly, the laser would be out of commission far longer than the five days it would take the torchyacht to reach the transfer station.

  "But at least they didn't get Rebekah," he went on. "Thank you for that."

  "You're welcome," I said. The Modhri didn't have her yet, anyway. "She's a popular girl, isn't she?"

  "Everyone who knows her likes her," he said simply.

  "Really," I said, a wisp of something unpleasant curling through me.

  "Absolutely," he said. "Her and Lorelei both."

  The medics finished their prep work and rolled the stretcher into position behind the ambulance. "What happens to me now?" I asked.

  "Not much," Bhatami said. "You'll need to come down to the station and make a statement about this evening's activities. I understand that along with Mr. Veldrick, we have two more bodies at Karim's bar."

  "Those were self-defense," I said, peering across the parking area toward where Karim had been run over.

  Bhatami caught the look. "He's already been taken away in another ambulance," he said. "He'll need to make a statement, too, once he's sufficiently recovered."

  "Of course," I said, wishing I'd had a chance to work out a common story with Karim. "What about the two murdered police officers?"

  Bhatami's gaze hardened. "We'll check the weapon used by the Filiaelian you say you shot just now. If it's one of the ones stolen from Sergeant Aksam or Officer Lasari, you'll be in the clear. If the two that got away took those particular weapons aboard the torchyacht with them—" He shrugged slightly. "Things might take a little longer."

  Inside my pocket, my comm vibrated. McMicking, telling me he'd finally finished whatever puttering he'd gone off to do and was ready to come to our aid? "Hello?" I answered.

  "Are you still at the spaceport?" Bayta's voice came.

  "They're about to take me downtown," I said. "You and Rebekah all right?"

  "We're fine," she said. "You need to come over here before you leave. Rather, you need to come to Mr. Veldrick's van. It's over by where the Filiaelians' torchyacht was parked."

  "My hosts may not want me taking a walk just now," I pointed out.

  "They will," Bayta assured me. "You'll want a couple of them with you."

  I looked at Bhatami. "Bayta has something on the field she wants me and a couple of your officers to take a look at."

  He frowned but gestured. "Go ahead. Darrian, Joachem—go with him."

  With the two cops in tow, I retraced my steps through the hole in the fence. On the way we passed the three others Bhatami had sent to examine the Filly body I'd tapped on my final futile attempt to stop the torchyacht. "You carry a Glock?" one of them called to me, holding up a familiar-looking gun in his gloved hand.

  "Usually," I said. "You'll note I'm not the one who's been shooting that one."

  He grunted and dropped the gun carefully into an evidence bag. One of his partners, I noticed, was similarly bagging another sidearm, probably one of the guns appropriated from the dead cops the Modhri had run over earlier. I spotted the nose of Veldrick's van half hidden behind one of the two remaining torchyachts, and my escort and I headed over.

  We reached the vehicle to find the rear loading door wide open and the crates of coral gone. Wondering which of those completely unsurprising facts Bayta had found so interesting, I walked around the rear of the van to its other side.

  And stopped. There, lying motionless on the pavement, were the two Fillies I'd last seen heading for their torchyacht. Their hands had been strapped securely behind their backs with plastic cargo ties, and in the reflected light from the spaceport building I could see the small wet stains of snoozer wounds.

  "What the hell?" one of the cops beside me muttered as he caught sight of them.

  "You'll want to check those," I said, pointing to the three guns lying by the bodies. "Two of them are probably the ones that were stolen from Sergeant Aksam and Officer Lasari."

  Wordlessly, the cops pulled out some evidence bags and set to work. I stepped back out of their way, looking up at the stars in the direction the torchyacht had taken.

  So that's where McMicking had gotten to.

  Three hours later, less than twenty-four since our arrival, I eased our torchyacht into the air and headed for space.

  "Just like that?" Bayta asked, sounding like she didn't quite believe it.

  "Just like that," I confirmed. Double-checking that we were far enough out from the planet, I keyed in the scoop and the ion-plasma drive. "Besides, what were they going to charge me with?"

  "Well, there were those two dead Filiaelians in Mr. Karim's bar," she reminded me.

  "Killed by an unidentified assailant with an unknown gun," I reminded her. "Not my
gun. Not my fault."

  "How about the theft of the Filiaelians' torchyacht and the destruction of the planet's communications laser?"

  "Again, nothing to do with me," I said. "The Customs official who passed the thief through this evening has the man's name, the security cameras have his face, and neither of them match anyone connected to you or me."

  "No, of course not," she murmured. "And Mr. Veldrick?"

  I grimaced. Even knowing there was nothing I could have done to stop it, that one still bothered me. "Killed with my Glock," I conceded. "But since the last two Fillies were found with the two murdered cops' guns, and since those selfsame cops had already reported having confiscated my Glock long before Veldrick was killed, it logically follows that all three guns were stolen as a set."

  "Logically, but not conclusively," she pointed out. "It would have been better if the two Filiaelians could have been found at the scene of his murder."

  "Certainly wasn't from any lack of effort on my part," I said. "Two snoozers each should have put them down for the count. Remind me to be more generous if we run into Filly walkers again."

  "Or at least Filiaelians who've been genetically designed for special hunting duty."

  I nodded agreement. "Speaking of hunting, where's Rebekah?"

  "Asleep in her stateroom," Bayta said. "The poor girl was exhausted."

  I looked at the status readouts. We were already nearly a thousand kilometers out from New Tigris, and adding to that distance with every passing second. A few more minutes ought to be more than enough. "Wake her up," I said.

  Bayta's eyes widened. "Wake her up?"

  "Why not?" I asked. "She's probably had more sleep in the past twenty-four hours than either of us have."

  "Which means we need sleep even more than she does," Bayta countered. "Can't whatever this is wait?"

  "It could, but it's not going to," I said. "Go on—I'll meet the two of you in the dayroom in five minutes."

  She looked as if she very much wanted to say something else. But she just nodded and started to turn to the door. "One more thing," I added, catching her arm. "Let me have the kwi."

  That earned me a long, speculative look. But again, she merely handed the weapon over without argument and left the cockpit. I rechecked the autopilot, confirmed the long-range scanners were clear of any other ships, and headed back to the dayroom. Picking the chair that faced the door, I sat down at the table and settled in to wait.

  I'd told Bayta five minutes, but it was closer to fifteen before she reappeared, a bleary-eyed Rebekah in tow. "Hello, Rebekah," I greeted her. "Sorry I had to wake you."

  "That's all right," she said as she and Bayta sat down across from me. "I owe you both a great deal for getting me off New Tigris."

  "So it would seem," I said. "Seem being the operative word."

  "What are you talking about?" Bayta asked, frowning.

  "I'm talking about Little Miss Sunshine here, the girl who's everyone's friend," I told her. "I'm talking about the Modhri, and the Oscar-level performance he put on down there."

  I lifted my hand from my lap and rested the butt of my Beretta on the table, leveling the weapon at Rebekah's chest. "And I'm talking about fraud," I concluded quietly. "You've been manipulating us ever since Lorelei showed up in my apartment."

  "Frank, have you lost your mind?" Bayta demanded. "This poor little girl—"

  "This poor little girl is a Modhran walker," I cut her off. "And I want to know what the game is."

  I thumbed off the Beretta's safety, the click sounding abnormally loud in the sudden silence. "Now."

  FOURTEEN :

  For a long moment no one moved or spoke. I counted the heartbeats—there were eighteen of them—before Bayta finally broke the silence. "I assume you have some proof of this?" she asked.

  "I have enough," I said, watching Rebekah closely. The initial shock of my accusation had passed quickly, leaving a sort of watchful calm in its place. A calm well beyond the capability of any ten-year-old Human I'd ever known. "Pointer number one: the Filly walkers were supposedly able to locate her."

  "We discussed that earlier," Bayta said. "You came up with at least two possible theories on that."

  "Both of which were incredibly lame," I said. "Pointer number two: the Filly at the spaceport said Rebekah's boxes contained Modhran coral." I raised my eyebrows at Rebekah. "Shall we go take a look?"

  "Lieutenant Bhatami did that already," Bayta reminded me.

  "Which is what finally clinched it," I said coldly. "The Modhri couldn't care less about smuggled Siris brandy. Ergo, there must be something else of value in the rest of the boxes, with those three just there as decoys."

  I cocked an eyebrow. "So how did Bhatami know which three were safe for him to open?"

  Bayta caught her breath. "A thought virus?"

  "Can you think of a more perfect setup for one?" I asked. "Sweet, helpless little girl, who everyone in town is already madly in love with?"

  "Maybe Lieutenant Bhatami just knew where the safe boxes were," Bayta suggested.

  "How?" I countered. "Karim and I were the ones who loaded them into the trunk, and I guarantee we weren't following any special prearranged pattern. You were with Rebekah every minute after that—you tell me when she had a chance to clue our good lieutenant in on the layout."

  For another five heartbeats Bayta didn't answer. Then, reluctantly, she turned to Rebekah. "Rebekah?" she asked gently.

  "Very good, Mr. Compton," Rebekah said quietly, her eyes on me. "We were right to choose you as the one to help us."

  "Flattery noted and ignored," I said. "Just tell Bayta I'm right, and we can move on."

  Rebekah pursed her lips. "You're right," she acknowledged. "But you're also wrong."

  "Well, that's clear," I said sarcastically, forcing myself to remember this was a deadly enemy who was sitting across from me. The minute I started to think of her as a young Human girl I'd be opening myself up to the same thought-virus attack she'd used on Bhatami. "How about a simple yes or no?"

  "This is going to be difficult," she murmured, almost as if she was talking to herself. "All right. I do have a polyp colony inside me. That part you were right about. But I'm not a walker."

  "So you're a soldier?"

  "I'm not that, either," she said. "I'm more of a—"

  "It is a Modhran polyp colony, right?" I asked.

  She hesitated. "Technically, also no," she said. "The colony started out Modhran, but it isn't anymore." She looked at Bayta. "Actually, I'm more like Bayta than a walker."

  Bayta shot a look at me. "In what way?" she asked.

  "I'm a symbiotic pair," Rebekah told her. "Human and polyp intelligences in the same body."

  I snorted. "Basic definition of a walker."

  "Yes, but in the case of an Eye—what you call a walker—the Modhran mind segment is a parasite, with its host unaware of its presence," the girl said. "I, on the other hand, am completely aware of my symbiont, just as she is of me."

  "She?" I echoed. "I thought the Modhri only came in a masculine flavor."

  "As I said, I'm not part of the Modhri," Rebekah said. "We were an experiment he began about thirty years ago." She gave me a somewhat strained smile. "An experiment that's gone horribly wrong, at least from his point of view."

  I ran my eyes over her expression and her minimal body language as she sat quietly at the table. If this was a scam, at least it was a fresh approach. That alone made it worth hearing out. "I think we're going to have to back up and start at the beginning," I said.

  Her eyes flicked to the gun in my hand, and I had the distinct impression she was considering asking me to put it away. But if she was, the question remained unasked. Not that I would have, anyway. "As I said, it began about thirty years ago," she said. "The Spiders had tried to close off Quadrail service to the Modhran homeworld, and the Modhri had finally realized that it was the Spiders who had been behind all the efforts to find and destroy him. He started looking for a new way t
o operate, and came up with the idea of planting polyp colonies into infants, where they could grow up together aware of each other as a symbiotic pair."

  I felt my stomach tighten. When I'd first heard about the Chahwyn using this symbiont trick on Bayta it had made me seriously wonder whether or not they truly held the high moral ground in their war against the Modhri. Hearing that the Modhri had pulled the exact same stunt was equally disgusting. "How many did he use?" I asked.

  "There were only eight Humans in the project," Rebekah said. "Lorelei and I were the youngest of them. There were also nearly three hundred non-Human symbionts created over the twenty years the project was in operation."

  "Why bother with this when the Modhri's walkers already worked fine?" Bayta asked. "Was he afraid the system might break down?"

  "The problem is that his Eyes are essentially slaves," Rebekah said. "Slavery has certain advantages for the master, but also carries equally serious risks. For one thing, there's no loyalty or real cooperation between the Eye and the mind segment. There's also the danger that if the Eye isn't used carefully he could become aware of his condition. That would be disastrous for the Modhri."

  "You're amazingly articulate for a ten-year-old," I commented. "I take it this is actually your coral speaking?"

  Rebekah reddened slightly. "She's helping me find the right words, yes," she admitted. "But just helping. She's not controlling me, if that's what you're thinking."

  I shrugged noncommittally. "So what went wrong? I assume something went wrong?"

  "Very wrong," Rebekah agreed. "No one knows exactly how it happened, but one day we all just …changed."

  For a long moment the word hung in the air like a tethered sports zeppelin. "What do you mean, changed?" Bayta asked at last.

  "We weren't connected to the group mind anymore," Rebekah said. "We were our own, brand-new person. Or rather, we were our own persons, plural. We were still connected together in a group mind like the Modhri, but at the same time we were also still individuals." She looked at Bayta. "Like you and the Spiders."

  "Not exactly," Bayta said. "I'm not connected to the Spiders in any permanent way. I can communicate with them, but we certainly don't form any kind of group mind."