by Timothy Zahn
All of the various living and working sections were in the hundred and fifty decks that ran through the central part of the station’s disk, with the domed areas above and below the disk dedicated to storage, recycling, power generation, maintenance, and the vectored force thrusters that kept the station from losing position and starting a long, leisurely fall toward the sun a billion kilometers away.
Sector 25-F was about a quarter of the way around the disk and two kilometers inward from the edge. Fortunately, we didn’t have to walk the whole way. The station was equipped with a network of automated bullet trains that ran along their own array of corridors and covered both center-to-rim and circle routes.
Even more fortunately, there was no charge for their use. Just as well, since I wasn’t sure where our watchdogs would have carried transit passes.
The Filly at the reception desk by the 25-F bullet train terminus gave us Terese’s room number, which turned out to be fifteen floors above us and twenty corridors from the edge of the medical treatment cluster. We took an elevator up and finally arrived at her room.
“I thought you’d been hauled off to jail,” she greeted us sourly as she stood in the middle of her doorway.
“Time off for good behavior,” I said. “Mind if we come in?”
“I don’t know.” She nodded to my new pseudo-canine companions. “Are they housebroken?”
I looked down at Doug. “You two housebroken?”
Doug twisted his head to look up at me and gave a little woof. “He says of course,” I translated, looking back at Terese.
Reluctantly, the girl stepped aside. “Thanks,” I said. I started to walk in, but Doug was faster, slipping in ahead of me. Briefly, I wondered what would happen if I closed the door with him inside and me outside.
But I didn’t wonder enough to actually try it. Ty, after all, was still out here with all of those teeth. I waited until Doug was all the way in, then walked in behind him and gave the room a quick once-over.
It was small, not much bigger than a first-class Quadrail compartment, with a bed, computer desk, couch, half-bath, a wall-mounted entertainment center, a narrow closet that ran the full length of one of the walls, and a compact food-prep and dining area. “Cozy,” I commented.
“And only big enough for one,” she said pointedly.
That wasn’t strictly true, I noticed: while the bed was narrower than a standard Earth queen, king, or emperor, it would be adequate enough for two. “Don’t worry, we’re not planning to move in,” I assured her.
“Then what are you planning?” she demanded. “Why are you even here?”
“I told you that back at Venidra Carvo,” I reminded her. “Asantra Muzzfor asked us to see you safely to Proteus Station.”
“With his dying breath, and violins swelling in the background,” she said sarcastically. “Fine. I’m here, I’m safe, and I’m happy. So hit the road.”
“Unfortunately, it’s not that easy,” I said. “We still have to meet your doctors, find out what procedures they’re planning, double-check the prognosis—basically, make sure you stay as safe and happy as you are right now.”
Somewhere in the middle of all that Terese’s face had gone rigid. “You’re joking,” she said. “What if it takes weeks? Or months? What if it takes years?”
“Then we’ll be here for weeks or months or years,” I said calmly. “We made a promise.”
“Oh, no, you don’t,” she growled. “You are not going to hang around making a royal pain of yourself. This is my last chance—” She broke off. “Okay, try this. If you don’t get lost, I’ll call Logra Emikai and tell him to throw you out.”
“Actually, Logra Emikai will probably be on my side,” I said. “He was contracted to keep you safe, too, you know.”
“Maybe it would help if you told us why you’re here,” Bayta put in quietly.
“Why?” Terese shot back. “So you can fix it and make me all better?”
I was working on a reply to that when there was a buzz from the door. “You want me to get that?” I asked.
Terese glared her way past me and hit the door release. The panel slid open to reveal Dr. Aronobal, who had changed from her traveling clothes into the crisp tans of a proper on-duty Filiaelian doctor. “Mr. Compton,” she said, her blaze darkening briefly as she caught sight of me. Her eyes slipped to the watchdogs, then came back up again. “I didn’t know you’d be here.”
“We were charged with Ms. German’s safety and well-being,” I reminded her. “Can you tell me when she’ll be seeing the doctors?”
“Right now,” Aronobal said. “Come, I’ll take you there.”
“Great,” I said, gesturing Terese through the open door. “After you.”
Aronobal stuck her hand out toward my chest. “I’m not certain the doctors will permit you to accompany her,” she warned.
“Do I have to go through this again?” I asked patiently. “I made a promise—”
“Yes, yes, I know,” Aronobal cut me off. “Very well. I shall ask them.”
She turned and headed down the hallway. I gestured again to Terese, and the teen stomped past me and caught up with the Filly. Bayta and I were right behind her, my watchdogs again settling in at my sides.
There were no bullet trains on our level, but two floors down was a major traffic corridor equipped with five-meter-wide fluidic variable-speed glideways at both edges, arranged as usual with the slower sections next to the central, non-moving part of the walkway and the faster ones at the far edges beside the walls. Aronobal got us to the corridor and onto the proper glideway, stepping nimbly across the flow until she’d reached the fast track.
I’d run into this kind of glideway in other places across the galaxy. Their main advantage over a sequence of solid walkways was that there were no abrupt transitions from one speed to another, which made it easier for those with less than perfect balance to get across without falling. Their main drawback was that, since it was variable-flow, an unwary rider who stood in a normal forward-facing stance with his feet shoulder-width apart would find the foot nearest the wall slowly but steadily pulling ahead of the other one. More experienced travelers knew to stand with their feet in a straight line, which limited the drift problems to one shoe edge trying to outpace the other and was much easier to compensate for.
I expected Terese to fall into the unwary category, and I was right. She nearly fell twice before Aronobal noticed her trouble and showed her the trick. I couldn’t see the girl’s face from where I was standing, but from the stiffness of her back I guessed that this wasn’t helping her mood.
I’d never seen a quadruped on one of these things, and I watched with interest as Doug and Ty casually kept their two faster feet walking backward to stay in position with the slower pair. Unlike Terese, it was clear they’d done this before.
It was also clear that if I ever decided I wanted to lose the animals, hitting the glideway wouldn’t be the way to do it.
We rode the fast track about half a kilometer before Aronobal started us moving back across toward the slow lane. We made our final transition to the stationary part of the corridor, walked up a one-level ramp to the regular corridor system, and arrived at a red-and-gold patterned archway leading into an open space that seemed to be one of the neighborhood domes.
{Ms. Terese German to see Dr. Usantra Wandek,} Aronobal announced us to the receptionist.
The receptionist peered at her screen. {You’re expected,} she confirmed, waving us all through. {Enter, and proceed to Building Eight.}
I’d expected the dome to be simply a large, gray-walled open space, six or seven decks up and a couple hundred meters across at the base, mostly there just to provide inhabitants and visitors a chance to stretch their eyes. To my surprise, I found myself walking into what appeared to be a EuroUnion Alpine valley, with rugged textured mountains rising up along the dome walls and giving way to an expanse of cloud-flecked blue sky at the top. Scattered across the dome floor were a dozen buildi
ngs of various sizes, designed to look like ski chalets. Aside from the corridor we’d entered by the dome had only one other exit, another corridor directly across from us that led farther inward toward the station’s core. “Impressive,” I commented as we passed the first of the buildings.
“We are pleased you approve,” a voice came from behind me.
I turned to see a heavyset male Filly in physician tans emerge through an open doorway of the chalet we’d just passed. His ears were noticeably wider than the average Filly’s, and his shoulders seemed broader, though that might just have been his general thickness.
More importantly, from my current point of view, there was no sign of the oversized throat that I now knew to be a telltale sign of our new up-and-coming Shonkla-raa. “I do indeed,” I told him. “I’m also surprised that you would build an entire Earth-style treatment center on the off-chance that a Human or two might travel to the Assembly for your services.”
“You speak nonsense,” he said with a snort. “The buildings and dome are of course regularly reconfigured for the comfort and convenience of each patient or group of patients.”
“Ah,” I said, nodding. Malleable materials were expensive, but hardly unknown across the galaxy. Apparently, the buildings here were cousins to the familiar self-adjusting Quadrail seats, though on a much grander scale. Typical Proteus showmanship.
The Filly’s eyes shifted to Bayta, then to Terese. “This is Ms. German, I presume?” he asked.
“It is,” Aronobal confirmed.
“Welcome, Ms. German,” the Filly said. “I am Dr. Usantra Wandek. I pledge on behalf of Proteus Station to do all within our power to relieve you of your trouble.”
“Thank you,” Terese said. Almost as startling as the Alpine décor, at least to me, was the sudden subdued courtesy in the girl’s voice. Apparently, she was capable of acting civilized. “I’m ready to begin.”
“As always, there will first be some tests to run,” Wandek said, gesturing to the building directly ahead of us. “Dr. Aronobal will take you.”
Aronobal nodded and gestured in turn to Terese, and the two of them started toward the building. “You must be Mr. Compton,” Wandek continued.
“Yes, I am,” I said, starting to follow Terese.
I stopped abruptly as Wandek reached out a hand and caught my arm. “I wished you to know,” he said, lowering his voice, “how much we appreciate you taking up Asantra Muzzfor’s duty after his untimely death.”
“It was my honor and privilege,” I assured him, my mind once again flicking to Minnario and the still unanswered question of what exactly he knew about that episode. “If you’ll excuse us—”
“Asantra Muzzfor was one of our colleagues,” Wandek continued, still gripping my arm. “His services will be sorely missed.”
“He was a doctor?” Bayta asked. “He never mentioned that.”
“We have many colleagues who are not doctors,” Wandek said. “Caregivers, lab techs, gene manipulation specialists, support workers—”
“Which of those was Asantra Muzzfor?” Bayta asked.
Wandek’s nose blaze did an odd mottling, a type of hue change I’d never seen in a Filly before. Part of his array of genetic alterations, no doubt. “Why do you ask such questions?” he asked. “I thought you knew Asantra Muzzfor.”
“Not as well as we would have liked,” I said, making a concerted effort to pull my arm from his grip.
I could have saved myself the trouble. His fingers were like a machine vise, and from their rigidity I had the impression that the joints had actually locked in place. More genetic fiddling? “Nice grip you’ve got there, doc,” I said. “You get that from all that micro-surgery?”
“I would appreciate a few minutes of your time,” he said, ignoring both of my question’s possible interpretations. He shifted his weight, pulling me back toward the building he’d first appeared from.
“I may not be allowed in there,” I warned, not bothering to resist his pull. He outweighed me by a good fifteen kilos, he still had his iron grip, and I had no real justification to try anything violent. “As you see, I’m under movement restrictions,” I added. “Doug and Ty may not allow me to go in there.”
I suppose I’d hoped the animals would pick up on the cue. But of course they didn’t. Doug and Ty walked docilely at my sides as Wandek pulled me along, without so much as a snort or growl. I threw one final look behind me, just in time to see Aronobal usher Terese into the other building, and then our own door swung open and Bayta and I went inside.
The building seemed deserted as we walked down a light blue corridor. Wandek led us to a double door and pushed it open.
At least now I knew where the building’s staff had gone. There were ten Fillies seated around the outer, convex edge of a half-hex table, watching silently as we filed in. “These are some of Asantra Muzzfor’s other colleagues,” Wandek said as he led me to the table’s inner edge and planted me in the center of all those silent stares. “While Dr. Aronobal begins Ms. German’s tests, we hoped you could spare a few minutes to tell us how it was our friend’s life was taken from him.”
“Of course,” I said, looking around the table. The group was a nice mixture of job specialties, four of the aliens wearing doctor’s tans, and two each in similar outfits in brown, blue, and green.
But the variation in wardrobes was the least of my concerns. Along with a host of other, minor genetic variations, all ten Fillies had the same enlarged throats that I’d seen on Muzzfor.
I’d found the Shonkla-raa.
They’d also found me.
THREE
“First of all, I want to say how deeply I grieve with you at Asantra Muzzfor’s passing,” I said, looking back and forth among the Fillies and memorizing their faces as best I could. “I didn’t know him well, but when the crunch came, he came through. Indeed, he saved my life.”
The leftmost of the aliens wearing physician’s tan stirred in his chair. {Explain,} he ordered.
“Sorry?” I asked, cocking my head slightly toward him. You never know when it could come in handy for people to think you don’t understand their language.
“He asked you to explain,” Wandek translated.
“Ah,” I said. “As you know—well, no, as you probably don’t know,” I amended, “there was a murderer aboard the super-express train from Homshil. He killed four of the passengers before we were able to identify him—”
“This we already know,” Wandek interrupted. “How exactly did he save your life?”
“My apologies.” So either Aronobal or Emikai had already filled them in on that. “As you may also know, the killer took my assistant Bayta hostage and barricaded himself in one of the first-class compartments. I was able to penetrate the area, but realized I couldn’t take him alone. A Filiaelian passenger named Osantra Qiddicoj offered to assist me, and persuaded two others, a Tra’ho oathling and a Juri Krel, to join us. When Asantra Muzzfor learned of our plans he also volunteered for the mission. We penetrated the killer’s compartment, and together succeeded in defeating him.”
“How did Asantra Muzzfor die?” Wandek asked. “We wish details.”
“I wish I could give them to you,” I said ruefully. “Unfortunately, I can’t. I was the first into the compartment, and the killer managed to deliver a blow that knocked me unconscious. When I came to, Osantra Qiddicoj, the Tra’ho, the Juri, and the murderer himself were all dead. Asantra Muzzfor was still alive, though just barely, but was too far gone for either of the doctors to help him.”
{Yet you did not call for them?} one of the green-clad Fillies asked.
“As I said, it was too late,” I said after Wandek finished his translation. “I sent word via the Spiders, and would have gone myself, but Asantra Muzzfor asked me to stay with him to the end. He told me that he had a contract to deliver Ms. German to Proteus Station, and asked me to fulfill that contract on his behalf.”
{Did you see the actual contract?} Tan One asked.
&
nbsp; I looked expectantly at Wandek. “He wishes to know if Asantra Muzzfor delivered his contract to you,” he said.
“No,” I said. “He said the killer had destroyed the contract. I don’t know for sure, but I had the impression that Asantra Muzzfor thought the killer might actually have been targeting Ms. German, with the other victims killed just to muddy the waters.”
The Fillies exchanged glances. Aronobal or Emikai would have given the group my explanation of the killer’s motives. But for all they knew I could have been wrong, and neither of them had any way of knowing if Muzzfor himself had come up with an alternative theory. “Why would the murderer have destroyed the contract?” Wandek asked.
“I assume he was hoping that Asantra Muzzfor would expire before I awoke, thereby leaving Ms. German and Dr. Aronobal stranded at Venidra Carvo with no knowledge of where they were to go next,” I said. “And of course, with the contract gone, I myself would have had no way of knowing I even needed to get in touch with them.”
{But Dr. Aronobal wasn’t summoned?} Green One asked again. {Asantra Muzzfor might not yet have been completely dead.}
“According to the LifeGuard, he was,” I said. “Anyway, at that point the Spiders intervened, wanting to get all the bodies out of the inhabited parts of the train as quickly as possible. There was some thought that the killer had used an unknown biological agent against his victims, and the Spiders were afraid it might spread.”
“But you did search for the contract?” Wandek asked.
“I gave the compartment a quick look, but didn’t find anything,” I said. So that was the real reason for this little interrogation. They wanted to know whether I’d found the evidence of Muzzfor’s true affiliation and the Shonkla-raa’s existence. “From the smell in the compartment, I’m guessing he burned it.”
{What was the smell like?} another of the doctors, whom I dubbed Tan Two, asked.
“Sort of like burnt almonds, with a hint of oregano,” I said. That answer I actually knew, because that was what the papers had smelled like when Bayta and I had burned them for real after we’d examined them. “Of course, I’d just been knocked on the head,” I amended. “My nose might have been a little off-kilter.”