by Timothy Zahn
“I thought you wanted to see the security procedures.”
“I’ve seen enough,” I said, scowling as I looked around. There was no sign of the two Halkas I’d been trying to chase down earlier. Had their shuttle been diverted someplace else on the station?
But no. Just after the Halkas had reached their shuttle, I’d seen a little goose-feathered Pirk disappear down the hatchway behind them, and he was visible halfway across the room, standing in the little bubble of open space that tended to form around the aromatic creatures. The Halkas must have slipped out somewhere between the shuttle and the lounge.
Problem was, the only such duck-out places in the corridor we’d passed through had been a handful of official-use-only doors. Unless security for the third-class passengers was considerably looser, that meant they must have somehow disappeared into the bowels of Jurian officialdom.
“So where are we going?” Bayta persisted.
I looked over at the archway that would allow us to bypass customs and go directly across the station to the departure lounge. The simplest thing to do would be to take that corridor, fly back to the Quadrail, and chalk this whole thing up to coincidence and an overheated imagination.
But it wasn’t coincidence, my imagination was strictly room temperature, and what had started as a minor mystery was starting to take on some ominous aspects. Given the Jurian temperament, if my Halkas were sitting around someone’s office down there, there had to be a meticulously defined reason for it. “We’re going to find those Halkas,” I told Bayta. “Come on.”
I led her to the information kiosk nestled against the side wall. “Good day, Human,” the Juri behind the counter said, nodding her head with the slight sideways tilt that was the proper mark of respect toward an alien of unknown social rank. “May I assist?”
“Yes,” I told her. “I’m looking for two acquaintances—Halkas—who were supposed to be aboard the third-class shuttle. They haven’t shown up, and I wondered if there was some problem.”
“I will inquire,” she said, dropping her eyes to her display and tapping briefly at the keyboard. “No, there is no word of any problems or broken protocol.”
“May I see a floor plan of that section?”
The scales at the bridge of her beak crinkled slightly, but she worked her keyboard again without comment. “Here,” she said, and a display set beneath the countertop came to life.
I leaned over, studying it. There were several offices along the corridor, some maintenance and electrical access areas, and a small machine shop.
And one of the entryways into the secure baggage area.
“How is this door sealed?” I asked the Juri, pointing at it.
“Is this information that you need to know?” she countered, still very politely.
“This is the luggage that isn’t accessible to passengers during the trip,” I reminded her. “Valuables, oversized bags … and weapons.”
The beak scales crinkled again. “There is no entry into that area for outsiders,” she said firmly.
“I’m relieved to hear that,” I said. “Would you mind checking with security anyway?”
Her expression clearly indicated she thought I was crazy. But part of her job was to deal with crazy offworlders, and she merely turned back to her keyboard. “If you would care to wait?” she suggested as a padded bench extruded itself from the wall to the left of the kiosk.
“Thank you.” Taking Bayta’s arm, I led her over to the bench.
“I don’t understand,” she murmured as we sat down. “You think the Halkas are up to something?”
“All I know is that they’ve disappeared,” I said, looking back at the crowd. Still no sign of the Halkas. “Things like that bother me.”
We’d been sitting there for about fifteen minutes when the Juri called us back. “May I ask your precise relationship to these Halkas?” she asked when we arrived at her counter.
“Casual acquaintance,” I said. “I met them on the Quadrail and hoped to talk to them again before we went our separate ways, that’s all.”
“I see.” She seemed to study my face a moment. “If you’ll step through that yellow door at the rear of the lounge, the Resolver will see you.”
I felt my stomach tighten. A Resolver had been called in? “Thank you,” I said.
We threaded our way through our fellow travelers toward the indicated door. “Did you mean for them to call in a Resolver?” Bayta asked in a low voice.
“No, of course not,” I said. “I was hoping to keep this very unofficial. Too late now.”
“We don’t have to go see him.”
“If we don’t, we’ll be the ones they start looking for,” I pointed out. “We’ll just have to play it through.”
The door opened to admit us, and we stepped into a short corridor with a single door on either side and one at the far end. The door on the right stood open; deciding that was our cue, I walked over and stepped through.
A tall, distinguished-looking Juri seated behind a dark purple desk rose as we entered the room. “Good day, Humans,” he said, nodding his head the same way the female in the kiosk had. His scales had the polish of someone of the professional classes, and his beak carried the subtle markings that identified a Resolver. “How may I assist?”
The voice seemed oddly familiar. I took a closer look at the scale pattern of his face; and then, it clicked. “Tas Rastra?” I asked.
The scales of his cheeks puckered as he frowned at me in turn. Then, suddenly, they smoothed out. “Mr. Frank Compton,” he said, his voice vibrating with the deep subharmonics of Jurian surprise. “An unexpected meeting, indeed.”
“For me, as well,” I agreed. “It’s been a long time since the governor’s reception on Vanido.”
“Indeed,” he confirmed. “You were in command of security for the representatives of Earth’s Western Alliance.”
“And you were the governor’s chief Resolver who made it possible for me to do that job,” I said.
“Both our lives seem to have changed since then,” Rastra said, gesturing to Bayta. “Please, identify your companion to me.”
“This is Bayta, my assistant on my journey,” I said.
“Your presence honors the Jurian Collective,” he told her gravely. “You have no title of standing?”
“None,” she said, her voice oddly tight.
“No, Bayta’s not a dignitary,” I told Rastra, frowning as I looked at Bayta. Her face, I saw, was as tense as her voice. Had she spotted something I’d missed? “I’m finished with that sort of escort duty,” I went on, looking back at Rastra. “How about you? Are you working Kerfsis Station now?”
“Actually, no,” he said. “My current position is to travel with a high official of the Halkan government, resolving any problems he might encounter.”
“And I’ll bet you’ve had a few,” I commented. Halkas often had trouble with Jurian protocol, especially Halkas high on the rank scale.
“Nothing too serious,” he said diplomatically. “But as a problem involving other Halkas has now arisen, and as High Commissioner JhanKla and I were awaiting the next Quadrail anyway, I thought I would lend my assistance to your problem.”
“Ah,” I said. “Actually, it’s such a small thing that I hesitate to even mention it. I ran into two Halkas aboard the Quadrail and hoped to see them again before we parted company, that’s all.”
“And why specifically did you wish this?”
Fortunately, I’d had time during our earlier idleness to come up with what I hoped would be a plausible story. “My current position is with a Terran travel consortium, and the Halkas told me about an interesting recreational area somewhere in the Halkavisti Empire,” I explained. “It sounded like the sort of place I should check out; but somehow I never got around to learning its name and location.”
“I see,” Rastra said, leaning back in his chair. “What sort of recreational area was it?”
“Oh, basically the kind we humans really lik
e,” I said, waving my hand. A nice, vague description was what was called for here. “Plenty of outdoor sports, fantastic views, gourmet food. That sort of thing.”
“And unique, too, no doubt,” Rastra said, his beak flattening with a smile. “You Humans do seem to prize such qualities. Tell me, how did you meet these Halkas?”
“We just bumped into each other, like people do on a Quadrail,” I said. “They’d been drinking a little, and we started chatting.”
“Did you learn their names, homes, or where and why they were traveling?”
I felt my skin starting to tingle. This was rapidly drifting out of the realm of casual conversation and on to the all-too-familiar territory of an official interrogation. “The conversation never went that direction,” I told him. “And before you ask, I’d never met either of them before.”
For a long moment Rastra just gazed at me. Then he stirred and stood up. “Come,” he said, gesturing toward a door behind him. He started to turn that direction, then paused. “By the way, it’s Falc Rastra now,” he said. “The rank was conferred on me by the governor six lunes ago.”
I had the sudden vertiginous sense of the cultural rug being yanked out from under me. With that almost offhanded comment Rastra had suddenly jumped two notches above me on the Jurian social scale, and with a sinking feeling I realized that every tone of voice and nuance of word I’d just used with him had been a violation of proper social protocol. “Congratulations,” I managed through suddenly stiff lips.
Fortunately, like the good Resolver that he was, Rastra had already anticipated the problem. “Thank you,” he said, giving his beak a pair of distinctive clicks. “It was an unanticipated honor indeed.” Shifting his gaze to Bayta, he double-clicked her, as well.
And as quickly as it had been pulled out from under me, the rug was back beneath my feet. With those double clicks officially designating Bayta and me as his social equals—which we most certainly were not—he had graciously relieved us of the onerous task of juggling the complicated forms of address and gesture that would otherwise have been expected of us. “Unanticipated it might have been,” I said. “But well deserved.”
“Thank you,” he said. “But now come and tell me what you make of this.”
The door opened as he stepped to it. I started to follow, but Bayta cut halfway in front of me. “This Juri,” she hissed in my ear. “He’s a friend?”
It was the same question she’d asked about Colonel Applegate aboard the Quadrail. “Not anymore,” I murmured back. “When a Juri changes rank, he pretty much has to change all his friends, too. The class lines here are very strictly drawn.”
“But he was once your friend?”
I felt my throat tighten. “I don’t have any friends, Bayta,” I told her. “I have acquaintances, former colleagues, and people who wish they’d never met me. Why? You auditioning for the part?”
A muscle in her cheek twitched. Without another word, she turned and hurried to catch up with Rastra.
We followed him along two more corridors and down a flight of steps to a small and dimly lit office, where we found a grim-faced Juri wearing the uniform and insignia of a midlevel army officer. On the wall behind him was a wide one-way window into a second, better lit room, where two Halkas sat under the watchful eye of a pair of armed Jurian soldiers. “This is Major Tas Busksha,” Rastra said, indicating the officer. “Mr. Frank Compton of Earth, and his assistant Bayta.”
“Mr. Compton,” Busksha growled. “Are these the Halkas you seek?”
I went over to the window and studied the aliens, paying particular attention to the shapes of their ears and the pattern of wrinkles angling upward from the centers of their chins. “I think so, yes.”
“How well do you know them?” Busksha asked.
“As I told Falc Rastra, we met for the first time on the Quadrail,” I said. “I trust you didn’t detain them just for me.”
Busksha rumbled in his throat. “Hardly,” he growled. “They were apprehended in the secure baggage area.”
So my suspicions had been right. “Who are they?”
“We don’t know,” Rastra said. “Neither was carrying identification when they were taken. We’re searching for it now.”
“Any idea what they were looking for?”
“An interesting question,” Busksha said, eyeing me closely. “What makes you think they were seeking anything in particular and not merely searching for valuables?”
I shrugged, thinking fast. To me, it was obvious that they were still interested in Bayta and me, and that they’d probably been looking for any secure luggage we might have brought aboard. But saying so would bring more official attention our way than I really wanted. “They don’t seem like your average professional thieves to me, that’s all,” I said.
“They don’t seem?” Busksha echoed with an edge of sarcasm. “To you?”
“Mr. Compton is a former member of Earth’s Western Alliance Intelligence service,” Rastra said mildly. “His hunches should not be dismissed without consideration.”
The major’s beak snapped. “And what exactly do these hunches tell you?”
I looked back at the Halkas. “They’re well dressed, and their fur shows signs of having been recently scissor-trimmed,” I said. “That puts them at least midlevel on the social scale, possibly a little higher. Do we know how they were traveling?”
“First-class,” Rastra said. “Yet they arrived at the transfer station aboard a third-class shuttle.”
Busksha rumbled in his chest. “Such fraud is the hallmark of thieves and other social outsiders. Why did you inquire of them in the entrypoint area?”
“As I told Falc Rastra, I had a brief conversation with them concerning a recreation area in the Halkavisti Empire,” I said. “I wanted to find out where exactly it is.”
“His current position is to search out such places,” Rastra added.
“I see,” Busksha said. For a moment he studied me, then twitched a shrug. “Then let us go and ask them.”
It was typical interrogation technique, I knew: Put supposedly unconnected people together and watch for a reaction. Unfortunately, showing myself to the Halkas and thereby proving I was on to them wouldn’t have been my first choice of action here.
But having come this far, I could hardly back out now. “Thank you,” I said. “Bayta, you stay here with Falc Rastra.”
Busksha led the way out the room’s side door and five paces down a short corridor to a similar door in the interrogation room. I watched the Halkas’ flat faces carefully as we went inside, but there were no signs of surprise or recognition that I could detect. “You have a new questioner,” the major said briefly, and gestured me forward.
“Good day,” I said, stepping past him. “You may not remember me, but we met on the Quadrail.”
“We met with no Humans,” one of them said, looking contemptuously up at me. “We do not associate with Humans.”
“You were rather inebriated at the time,” I told him. “You may not remember.”
“I am never so inebriated,” he insisted.
“Nor am I,” the second Halka put in.
But even as he said it, his brow fur creased uncertainly. So this one wasn’t so sure.
“You can account for every minute of your journey aboard the Quadrail?” Busksha asked. Clearly, he’d caught the twitch, too. “There are no gaps?”
“Only while we slept,” the first Halka said truculently.
“Or when you sleepwalked?” I suggested. “Because you did speak to me outside my compartment door right after we left Yandro.”
The two Halkas exchanged looks. “No,” the first insisted again. “We would never associate with a Human that way.”
“Fine,” I said. “So what were you doing in the secure baggage compartment?”
“You have rights of Jurian prosecution?” the first Halka demanded contemptuously.
“You will answer his question,” Busksha said gruffly. Jurian protocol, I
knew, made allowances for this kind of guest questioner, whether the Halkas liked it or not. And the major knew as well as I did that the more irritated the prisoner, the less likely he was to think straight.
The Halka shot a glare at Busksha, then made a visible effort to pull himself together. “We were looking for our luggage,” he said. “I needed to retrieve an item.”
“You couldn’t wait for it to clear customs?” I asked.
“It is my luggage,” he insisted.
“It was inside our baggage area,” Busksha countered.
“Is our luggage not ours?” the Halka insisted. “Have you a right to keep it from us?”
“While still outside customs?” I asked, frowning. This was about as weak and pathetic a defense as I’d ever heard.
The Halka seemed to realize it, too. “We have rights,” he muttered, his righteous indignation fading away.
“I’m sure you’ll have all you’re entitled to,” I said. “How did you get into the baggage area?”
“It was unlocked,” the second Halka spoke up. Something seemed to flicker across his eyes—“But tell me, Human. How is it you come to question us?”
There didn’t seem much choice but to trot out my cover story again. “I wanted some information from you,” I said. “While we were aboard the Quadrail you mentioned a vacation spot in the Halkavisti Empire, a place with outdoor sports, a magnificent view—”
And right in the middle of my sentence, the second Halka reached casually up into his sleeve, pulled out an elaborately decorated knife, and lunged at me.
If I hadn’t so utterly been taken by surprise I might have died right there and then. But the sheer unexpectedness of the attack froze my brain completely, freeing the way for Westali combat reflexes to take over. I twisted sideways, taking a step back with my right foot and scooping my left arm down and forward. My wrist caught the Halka’s forearm, deflecting the blade past my ribs and throwing him off balance. Grabbing his wrist with my right hand, I slashed the heel of my left hand into the crook of his elbow while simultaneously bending his arm back toward his face.
It was a maneuver that should have sent the knife arcing harmlessly over his shoulder as his entire arm went numb. But either I missed the pressure point I’d been aiming for or else someone had redesigned Halkan physiology while I wasn’t looking. The knife stayed gripped in his hand; and with a flash of horror I watched the point zip a shallow cut through the fur of his right cheek.