Judgment at Proteus q-5

by Timothy Zahn

  The Shonkla-raa had wanted Bayta and her symbiotic Chahwyn to experiment on. Now, it appeared, they were going to get a few Spiders as well.

  And once they had controlling tones for the Spiders, the Modhri, and the Chahwyn, there would be nothing in the galaxy that could stand in their way. Nothing.

  “Compton?”

  I shook myself, forcing away that last image. It was a three-hour trip from the Tube to Proteus, with at least two and a half hours left since Bayta’s emergency message. We had that long to come up with a plan.

  And maybe, just maybe, I had one. “Yes, I’m here,” I confirmed. “Are you still willing to help me?”

  “In whatever way I can,” Emikai promised grimly. “Shall I have the patrollers launch a search for Bayta?”

  I looked at Doug, raising my eyebrows questioningly. He gave a low woof and shook his head side to side. “Not worth it,” I told Emikai. “The people who took her will have long since gone to ground. Do you know if Proteus has any docking ports besides the thirty-three big torchliner docking stations around the edge?”

  “Yes, there are also over two hundred small service ports scattered around the perimeter of the station,” he said. “They are designed to handle maintenance and construction vehicles.”

  “And as the ports themselves are smaller than the docking stations, I assume the bays they open into are also smaller?”

  “Again, correct.”

  “Good,” I said. “Then here’s what I want you to do. You’ll need to start by going to Sector 25-C and Tech Yleli’s old neighborhood.”

  I told him what it was I wanted him to do. To say he was dubious about the whole thing would have been a serious understatement. “I wish to help you,” he said stiffly when I’d finished. “I do not consider it help to be sent on a fool’s errand designed merely to keep me out of the way.”

  “It’s not a fool’s errand,” I assured him. “It is an absolutely vital part of my plan.”

  “Is it then designed to draw your enemies away from you?”

  I took a deep breath. “Look, we don’t have time for long explanations. If you don’t want to help me, just say so, and I’ll do it myself.”

  He rumbled into the comm. “I will do it,” he said.

  “Thank you,” I said. “Now. I’m guessing Bayta’s sent for a transport to come from the Tube to get us. Obviously, it’s going to want to avoid all the fuss and bother of the main docking stations, which is why I asked about service bays.”

  “How will we know which docking station it will arrive at?”

  I grinned tightly. That one, at least, was now obvious. “It’ll be Bay 39,” I told him. “After you dump the package from Yleli’s in there, I want you to check up on Minnario. He should be in an emergency node on Floor 142, Sector 16-J, right down the hall from the local security nexus. If he’s able to travel, bring him to the docking bay and wait there for Bayta and me. Got all that?”

  “Yes,” he said. “I trust you will eventually tell me meaning of all this?”

  “If we make it through, you’ll get the full explanation,” I promised. “If we don’t, it won’t matter anyway. Get going, and watch yourself.”

  “You, as well,” he said. “Farewell.”

  I keyed off the comm and looked at Doug. “Well? You know where she is?”

  He woofed and bobbed his head. “Good,” I said as I stood up. “Let’s go get her.”

  SEVENTEEN

  In theory, now that I knew I wasn’t on the Jumpsuits’ hunt-and-bag list, it should be safe for me to go back down to the public areas of the station, where there were bullet trains and glideways and all the other conveniences of home.

  In actual practice, I had no intention of reentering polite society until I absolutely had to. Wherever Wandek had Bayta stashed, he would be sure to have someone planted in the local security nexus to watch the displays and alert him the minute I showed my face.

  And so, with Doug leading the way, we set off across our nice, cozy jungle of pipes, filters, tanks, and high ceilings.

  It was slow going. The walkways were designed to give convenient access to the equipment, not to facilitate cross-station travel, and there were a number of times when a path I was following simply dead-ended in a supporting wall or large piece of equipment. At each such T-junction I tried to figure out logically which direction would work best, but I quickly discovered that a flip of a coin would probably do equally well. The Modhri, who I gathered had never had any of his walkers in this particular part of the station, was no better at picking routes than I was.

  But he was useful in other ways. Doug was all over the place, scouting ahead, sniffing out the various Fillies on duty and guiding me away from them, and making sure we stayed out of view of the occasional security camera.

  Finally, we arrived at a single elevator that had been wedged like an afterthought between a pair of thruster-driven portable extension cranes. Again, Doug’s claws weren’t strong enough to push the proper floor buttons, but he was able to get up on his hind legs and indicate which ones we wanted. I pressed them, and we headed down. Two minutes later, the doors opened on a narrow, much lower-ceilinged version of the service area we’d just left. A between-floors maintenance crawlspace, I guessed. Doug led the way along a couple more walkways, between consoles and equipment that seemed considerably grimier than the ones upstairs, and we arrived at last beside a horizontal, two-meter-diameter cylinder raised another half meter up off the floor. Its metal surface exhibited the kind of steady vibration that suggested there were one or more fans operating inside. Yet another part of the ventilation system, apparently.

  Doug continued on along a narrow pathway paralleling the cylinder. Ten meters later, we reached an outwardly curved wall with a small ventilation grille in it. Doug gave an expectant-sounding woof, and I went up to the wall and pressed my face to the grille.

  And felt my throat tighten. Spread out fifteen meters below me were the cedar-covered roofs of a small collection of EuroUnion-style ski chalets. Directly across from my peephole, on the far side of the dome, I could see the wall painting of rugged Alpine mountains.

  We were back at the medical dome.

  Doug gave a soft, questioning woof. “Sure, why not?” I replied. “With Wandek’s planned frame-up no longer pinning me down, he’s trying to get back to his preferred approach of stealth and secrecy. But he’s also running on borrowed time, and he knows it.”

  I leaned back and forth around the grille, studying the buildings and surrounding landscape as best I could from my current vantage point. As usual, there were a few Fillies moving between the buildings, but I could also see a couple of figures loitering within view of Terese’s old Building Eight. “That’s because he has no idea when I’ll pop up and try to take her away from him,” I continued, turning away from the peephole and looking around the area I was in.

  Against one of the side walls I spotted a row of storage cabinets and headed over to check them out. “Or worse, I might manage to get Director Usantra Nstroo interested enough to call out the whole Jumpsuit contingent and start hunting them down. Ergo, rather than tuck her away in some anonymous apartment somewhere, he’s opted to get right to work figuring out what makes her tick. The only place with the proper equipment is a medical facility; and the only place where a Human patient won’t raise eyebrows and unwelcome curiosity is this medical facility.”

  I reached the storage cabinets and opened the first. Inside was a collection of spare valves and fittings, plus a section devoted to replacement control cards. “Unfortunately, Wandek in a tearing hurry means we’re in a tearing hurry, too,” I said, moving to the next cabinet in line. Flexible ductwork in this one. “It also means we may have to wreck the whole building they’ve got her in if we’re going to make sure they don’t get away with any data worth having.” I went to the third cabinet and opened it.

  Bingo. The entire upper section of the cabinet was crammed to the brim with tightly coiled power cables. “Ok
ay, we’re in business,” I said, pulling out one of the coils. There was at least thirty meters there, I estimated. Perfect. “Now all we have to do is find a way through this wall,” I said, running my eye over the curved metal.

  Unfortunately, the only opening I could see that was big enough for me to fit through was currently occupied by the far end of the two-meter cylinder. The one with all the driving fans inside it.

  I chewed at the inside of my cheek. I could try working my way around the dome and see if I could find a more obvious way in. Alternatively, I could go down to the public area and just walk in past the receptionist. But the former would take time I didn’t have, and the latter would give the Shonkla-raa more warning than I could afford.

  I returned to the big cylinder and took a closer look. It was made up of individual two-meter-long segments, either welded together or else connected with some kind of fasteners. I rubbed my fingers along one of the junction lines, brushing off the accumulated dirt. Nothing. I moved to the next junction and repeated the process, then to the next.

  Finally, at the fourth junction, I found what I was looking for: a section that was notably shinier beneath the buildup of dirt. Clearly, this part was a replacement that had been added after the original cylinder was installed.

  And instead of welds, it was held in place by a set of standard klinckers, probably the galaxy’s best compromise between strength and ease of attachment. It was also something my multitool was designed to handle. “Go around to the other side and see if you can spot anything that looks like an access panel—they have to be able to get to the driving fans somehow,” I instructed Doug. “I’ll start taking this off.”

  With an acknowledging woof, Doug headed back toward the elevator. Pulling out my multitool, I set to work.

  There were six klinckers on this side of the cylinder. I had five of them off when I heard a soft yip from the other side. I finished undoing the sixth fastener, then retraced my steps to the elevator and went around to the cylinder’s other side. Doug was waiting at the end by the wall, his head held high in obvious triumph.

  There it was: a thirty-centimeter-wide cover panel, situated halfway between the wall and the cylinder section I’d begun loosening. Undoing the four klinckers that held the panel in place, I pulled it off.

  Not surprisingly, given the official purpose of the access hole, I was greeted by a blast of warm air from the edge of a spinning fan blade. Blinking against the dust, I peered inside.

  One glance was all I needed. The fan was an open design, which meant that once I stopped it I should be able to squeeze myself between the blades. Even better, once I was past the fan the only thing between me and the dome was a fragile-looking grille held in place by four more klinckers.

  I looked at Doug. “You’re absolutely sure she’s in there?”

  His woof was about as definitive as a woof could get. “Okay,” I said.

  There were also six klinckers fastening my target section on this side. I got them off, then worked the now freed section back along the main part of the cylinder until there was an opening big enough for me to squeeze through. Returning to the access panel, I swapped out the klincker tool for the small knife blade and reached gingerly through to the fan’s double power cable. Carefully, wondering distantly how much current the fan was drawing, I sliced through both cables.

  There was a muffled blue flash, a momentary tingle as some of the rerouted current traveled into my hand and arm instead of down the other wire, and with gratifying speed the fan blades slowed to a stop. I gave the cable one final slice, just to make sure, then turned to Doug. “Here’s the drill,” I murmured as I started tying my appropriated power cable to the fan housing. “In about two minutes I’ll pop open that grating, rappel down through the opening, charge inside, and grab Bayta.” I frowned. “She is in Building Eight, right? The one where they were keeping Terese?”

  Doug woofed and bobbed his head in an affirmative. “While I do that,” I continued, “I want you to find some stairs leading to the corridor down there, so that once Bayta and I are out we can sneak back up here. If there isn’t any such access, we’ll have to split up—you head to Bay 39 on your own, and we’ll do the same. Think you can do that?”

  Doug woofed again, and with a flick of his tail turned and headed back through the tangle of equipment. I finished tying the cable, slid the coil in through the access panel, then returned to the open section and squeezed through. The opening between fan blades was small, but the thought of Bayta in Shonkla-raa hands was a powerful motivator. A few seconds later I’d made it through and was at the grille.

  I had two of the four fasteners off and was starting on the third when Minnario’s comm vibrated in my pocket.

  I grabbed it, wondering if I dared take the time to get out of the cylinder before answering. All I needed now was to have one of the Shonkla-raa down there hear a Human voice wafting down at him from heaven.

  But the minute I entered the dome life was likely to get very hectic indeed. Keying the comm, I pressed it close to my ear and mouth. “Compton,” I murmured.

  “Emikai,” Emikai identified himself, an edge of grim satisfaction in his voice. “We have found her.”

  I peered through the grille. Nothing out of the ordinary seemed to be happening down there. “Where?”

  “A medical storage facility in Sector 18-B,” he said. “The patrollers are surrounding the area now.”

  I felt the sudden pounding of my pulse in my throat. Could the Modhri be wrong about Bayta being in the medical dome below me?

  Or had he never intended for me to find her in the first place? Had this whole thing been nothing but a scheme by the Shonkla-raa to get me out of the way while they dragged Bayta’s secrets out of her? “How did they find her?” I managed.

  “The locator in her comm,” Emikai said with even more satisfaction. “Most people who disable their locators do not realize that law enforcers can reactivate them.”

  I smiled tightly. So actually, they hadn’t found Bayta. All they’d found was her comm. An old trick, and a rather childish one at that, but Wandek probably figured that any time he could gain was worth the effort, even if it meant sending Bayta’s comm on a trip across the station. “I didn’t know that myself,” I lied. “Clever.”

  “Do you want me to join the patrollers in their sweep?” Emikai asked. “I have completed the first part of my errand. I could go to 18-B before I seek out Attorney Minnario.”

  “No, that’s all right,” I said. He had better things to do than join the rest of Proteus’s Jumpsuits in a wild-goose chase. “I’m closer to 18-B—I’ll go. You concentrate on getting Minnario to the bay without being spotted or stopped. Can you alert the patrollers that I’m coming and to hold off their raid until I arrive?”

  “I will try,” Emikai said doubtfully. “But it may be difficult to hold them back. Filiaelians do not like kidnappers.”

  “Neither does anyone else,” I said. “Tell them I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

  I keyed off the comm and peered again through the grille. All seemed normal down there. Apparently, they hadn’t heard me, after all.

  And then, the two Fillies I’d seen loitering along the approaches to Building Eight simultaneously strolled away from their posts. Their eyes moved casually around the upper part of the dome as they walked, as if they were merely admiring the mountain painting.

  But I wasn’t fooled by the carefully crafted nonchalance. They’d heard me, all right, or else the broken fan had clued someone in to the fact that trouble was skulking around up here.

  Either way, I was out of time. Wrapping the power cord once around my left leg, I got a grip on it with my left hand, pulled my right foot back, and kicked as hard as I could into the center of the grille.

  It popped out with gratifying ease and a clatter that could probably be heard three corridors away. Kicking the coil out of the cylinder, I shoved myself off the lip into the open air and slid toward the deck below.

>   The two Fillies were already racing toward my landing point, along with three others I hadn’t been able to see from my angle. I yanked out my Beretta as I slid toward the ground, lined the muzzle up on the nearest of them, and fired.

  The first shot was easy, the snoozer dropping the running Filly into a face-first sprawl and skid on the deck. Unfortunately, shooting while hanging from a rope meant the first shot was the only easy one you got. The gun’s recoil threw me into a sudden violent spin, and I wasted my second shot before I was able to nail one of the other Fillies with my third.

  And then my feet hit the deck, my bending knees dropping me into a crouch as they absorbed the impact. The remaining Fillies were still coming toward me, but now that I had a stable firing platform I was able to drop them with three quick shots. Dodging through the field of sprawled bodies, I headed toward Building Eight at a dead run.

  I was halfway there when the building’s door opened and two more Fillies stepped into view. They took a couple of paces toward me and stopped, waiting for me to come to them. I considered giving them a snoozer each, decided to wait until I was closer and could enjoy the thuds as they hit the floor, and kept going.

  I don’t know what it was that alerted me: an incautious step, a hint of reflection off a window, or just some sixth sense I’d developed during the long months of this war. Whatever it was, I suddenly felt unfriendly eyes on the back of my head, and half turned to look over my shoulder.

  All five of the Shonkla-raa I’d just put on the deck were on their feet again, loping silently toward me in an attempt to put me in a pincer that would take me down for good.

  And as I skidded to a halt and spun around to face them, the Filly in the lead hurled himself into a pouncing tiger leap straight at me.

  There was no time to line up a shot. I ducked to the side out of his path, dodged his flailing arm, and slammed the Beretta’s muzzle hard into his side as he passed.