by Timothy Zahn
“Hey, what?” he called back.
I clenched my teeth. “Nothing,” I said. “How much farther?”
“About thirty kilometers,” he said. “Don’t worry, I’m sure she’s all right.”
The crash site was bustling with activity when we arrived. Three ambulances were already on the scene, clustered around the bus, with half a dozen Halkas helping passengers out of the damaged vehicle. The bus itself was tipped nearly up onto its left side, its nose crunched into a huge ice stalagmite. Applegate set us down fifty meters away and popped the canopy. “What frequency are we on here?” I asked as we hurried toward the scene. “I’m still on the workers’ channel.”
“General Two,” Applegate told me.
I switched over, and the silent scene erupted with the terse orders of command, the moans and whimpering of injured or scared tourists, and the soothing voices of the medics themselves. “Bayta?” I called.
“She’s over here,” a Halkan voice replied, and a medic squatting by one of the ambulances raised a hand. The figure sitting limply at his feet looked up, and I saw that it was indeed Bayta, her face tense and pinched. But at least she was alive. I started toward her—
And came to an abrupt halt as a tall Halka suddenly loomed in my path. “You are Compton?” he demanded. He was wearing one of the military vac suits, with major’s insignia around the collar.
“Out of my way,” I growled, trying to get around him.
But he wasn’t about to be gotten around. “You are Compton?” he repeated.
“Yes, this is him,” Applegate spoke up, taking my arm. “Sorry, Frank, but we’ve got a situation here.”
“No kidding,” I said, trying to pull away.
“Bayta’s all right,” Applegate soothed, steering me toward the wrecked bus. “This will just take a minute.”
He led me around the back of the bus to where we could see the underside, the major staying close behind us. Up close, the damage to the vehicle’s nose looked worse than it had from the air, and I found myself wondering what speed the lunatic had been doing when he rammed the ice. “There, beneath the overhang,” Applegate said, pointing to the chassis between the two right-hand wheels. “You see it?”
“Of course I see it,” I said with as much patience as I could manage. From this angle, with the bus tilted up on its side, the long plastic-wrapped package would have been hard to miss. Given the three Halkas standing there poking and prodding at it, the thing was as obvious as a Times Square holodisplay. “So?”
“You know what it is?”
“I left my X-ray glasses in my other suit,” I growled. “You consider just unwrapping it?”
“No need,” the major put in, his tone dark. “It is a phased sonic disruptor, designed for underwater dredging and shock-mining.”
“Okay,” I said. “And this concerns me how?”
In answer, the Halka gestured to two of the three figures who’d been inspecting the disruptor. They walked over to us; and before I could react, there was a glint of metal and a sudden flurry of hands, and my arms had been neatly pinioned in front of me in a set of wristcuffs.
My heart, which had already been doing overtime over Bayta, kicked into full jackhammer mode. “What the hell are you doing?” I snarled.
“You are wanted at the lodge,” the major said, getting a grip on my upper arm and leading me toward the ambulance. The medic had Bayta on her feet now, I saw, and was helping her inside. “You and your female both.”
“Yeah, whatever,” I muttered. In the distance I could see the bumblebee shape of a heavy lifter approaching, its underside grapples looking like giant insect legs. “This had better be good,” I warned.
“It’s not good, Frank,” Applegate said quietly. “It’s not good at all.”
FIFTEEN
Applegate and the major seated me between them in the forward section of the ambulance, while Bayta was taken aft to the pressurized treatment area. Ostensibly so the medics could check her over; in actual fact, I had no doubt they just didn’t want us within helmet-touching range of each other where we could compare notes without anyone else listening in.
We were met by four other militarily vac-suited Halkas when we touched down outside the lodge. One of them took a moment to put wristcuffs on Bayta, then they formed a standard escort box around us as the major led us through a cargo airlock big enough to accommodate the whole group. Once inside, our escort handed us off to two more armed Halkas in regular army uniforms, the vac-suited batch then returning outside. Applegate and the major popped their helmets and slung them onto their shoulder clips, then did the same for Bayta and me. With our new escort flanking us, we went through a series of service corridors to a door marked WATERCOURSE CONFERENCE ROOM.
As the ready room had been of typical layout, so, too, was the conference room. In the center was a long rectangular table ringed by nicely padded rolling chairs, while the far end was dominated by a media setup with all the equipment necessary for a business or social dit rec presentation. A few sculptures and paintings were scattered around, and along one wall was a narrow water channel with a babbling brook running over more of the ubiquitous Modhran coral.
There were three people seated on the side of the table nearest the coral, obviously waiting for us. One of them was a Halkan Peer, wearing a tricolor scheme I didn’t recognize, with a Halka in an upper-class layered suit seated beside him. The third was my Belldic acquaintance Apos Mahf. “Mr. Compton,” the latter said, nodding as our two Halkan escorts took up positions just inside the door. “Again we meet.”
“So we do,” I agreed as Applegate led me to a chair across from Mahf and sat me down, taking the seat to my left. “Perhaps you would like to explain what exactly is going on.”
“I think you know,” Mahf said darkly, his eyes shifting to Bayta as the Halkan major put her at the end of the table by the door and sat down beside her. “Perhaps your companion will begin by telling us what happened aboard the tour bus.”
“I really don’t know,” Bayta said, her voice trembling. I’d watched her as they’d marched us from the ambulance into the lodge, and as far as I could tell through a vac suit she didn’t seem particularly injured. But she was obviously still pretty shaken. “One minute we were traveling along the ice and the driver was describing some of the formations. The next minute we were all suddenly thrown against the seats and walls as the bus crashed and fell over on its side.”
“You saw none of your fellow passengers approach the driver just before this happened?” Mahf asked.
Bayta shook her head. “I was looking out the window.”
“You saw no one struggle with the driver, or try to take the control wheel from him?” Mahf persisted. “Nor did you see anyone try afterward to escape onto the ice?”
“No, nothing like that,” Bayta insisted. “I was looking out—”
“Out the window,” Mahf finished for her. “Of course you were.” Abruptly, he shifted his glare to me. “What about you?”
The quick-change attack was a time-honored way of throwing interrogation subjects off step. Unfortunately for Mahf, I’d read the same manuals he had. “What about me?” I countered calmly. “I was thirty kilometers away when it happened.”
“In an area where you had no business being,” the non-Peer Halka put in.
I focused on him. “And you are …?”
“This is Superintendent PrifKlas,” Applegate said. He had the look and sound of a man in the middle of trouble not of his own making who would rather be almost anywhere else. “The administrator of the resort.”
“Ah,” I said, looking him up and down. “My apologies. I was under the impression that Apos Mahf was the one in charge here.”
PrifKlas bristled—“I’m here solely as an advisor,” Mahf said hastily. “Full Colonel AvsBlar of the Halkan army is the commander on the scene.”
“And where is he?”
“Deploying his troops,” Mahf said.
“Not that this
is any of your business,” the Peer said.
“And you are …?” I asked.
“My name is unimportant,” he said. “Superintendent PrifKlas asked me to sit in on the proceedings.”
“Ah,” I said, turning back to PrifKlas. “So where exactly did you scare up a full colonel on such short notice?”
“From the garrison on Modhra II, of course,” PrifKlas said, a note of malicious satisfaction in his voice. “You didn’t know we had a garrison here, did you?”
Beside me, I sensed Applegate squirm in his seat. Perhaps he and Losutu had overstepped their bounds when they’d told me about the Modhran military presence. Still, they’d never actually mentioned a garrison. “No, I didn’t,” I said truthfully.
“Good,” PrifKlas said. “Now tell me why you were at the work site.”
“I wanted to see how the resort expansion was progressing,” I said.
“Even though that area is strictly off-limits to guests?”
“I saw no such signs to that effect,” I said. “Besides, what could you be doing out there you’d want to hide?”
Beside Bayta, the major snorted, a wet, whispery sound. “You are here to answer questions, Human, not to ask them.”
I shrugged. “Fine. So ask.”
“I told you he was a cool one, Superintendent,” Mahf murmured. “Very cool, very professional. More than ever I see the hand of Korak Fayr in this.”
I pricked up my ears. Kora was the Belldic equivalent of major; adding the final k made it a major of commandos. That sounded rather like the sort of person I’d been shadow-boxing with for most of this trip.
“Yet you have no proof Fayr is even on Modhra,” PrifKlas countered.
“He’s here,” Mahf assured him grimly. “And he will hardly let a mishap like this discourage him. You’ve moved all submarines away from the hotel?”
“Yes, and have deployed them around the caverns,” PrifKlas confirmed.
“And the troops?” Mahf asked, looking across at the major beside Bayta.
“Deployed around the formations.” The major launched into a list of numbers and map coordinates.
And as he did so, I eased my bound wrists beneath the edge of the table. The Halkas had put the cuffs on while my vac suit was fully pressurized, and no one had bothered to refasten them since I’d had my helmet removed. If the suit depressurization had left enough slack, there was a chance I could pop them and get free.
There was indeed a little slack. Not much, but maybe enough.
Beside me, Applegate cleared his throat softly. I turned to find him gazing at me, a knowing expression on his face as he glanced down at my wrists. He gave me a microscopic nod, then turned casually away.
The major finished his recitation. “Which again brings us to you,” PrifKlas said, turning back to face me. “You’ll find things much easier if you cooperate.”
“I’d love to,” I said. “But I have no idea what this is all about.”
“Actually, Superintendent, he may be telling the truth,” Mahf spoke up reluctantly. “I’ve read his file, and cannot envision him involving himself in something like this. Do you agree, Colonel Applegate?”
“I never knew him all that well,” Applegate hedged. “He was just one of many investigators under my overall command.”
“Yet if he is innocent, how do you explain his presence?” PrifKlas demanded.
“We were invited,” I told him. “High Commissioner JhanKla of the Fifth Sector Assembly recommended the place.”
“And all the rest is pure coincidence?” PrifKlas asked sarcastically.
“All the rest what?” I asked.
PrifKlas snorted. “So now you play a waiting game.”
“Or he is in fact an innocent dupe,” Mahf persisted. “If so, he would have no reason to protect information that might lead us to Fayr.”
For a moment the two of them locked eyes, and I had to suppress a cynical smile. Did they really think I would be so easily taken in by the old good-cop/bad-cop routine? Especially with Applegate, the obvious good-cop candidate, clearly not interested in playing along? “You may try,” PrifKlas said grudgingly. “Be brief.”
Mahf turned to face me. “We believe there to be a rogue Belldic commando team in the area,” he said, his voice low and earnest. “They are most likely already on Modhra I, though some may still be offworld. They have come”—he grimaced—“to destroy the coral beds.”
I felt my eyebrows crawling up my forehead. Of all the possible scenarios running through my mind, ecoterrorism was probably the last one that would have occurred to me. “What in the world for?”
“We don’t know,” Mahf said. “An imagined Halkan offense, or perhaps he has simply lost his mental soundness. It began two months ago with the theft of one of the resort’s maintenance submarines. From small bits of evidence, we believe it is hidden somewhere in the cavern complex you visited two days ago.”
“Yes, I wondered about that myself,” I agreed, deciding to pretend I didn’t know they’d already heard me come to that conclusion via the bugs in our suite.
“That was where matters rested until today,” Mahf continued. “The Halkas have attempted scans of the caverns, but none was successful—too much rock, and Modhran water is heavy with dissolved minerals. Still, a single submarine wasn’t thought to be a serious threat, particularly since we were now keeping a close watch on all approaches to the caverns.”
“Ah,” I said, noting with interest his continued use of the word we. Apparently, he’d been working with the Halkas on this longer than simply since this morning. “Why didn’t you just watch for Fayr to show up at the resort? You do know what he looks like, don’t you?”
“Of course,” Mahf said. He pulled out a reader, tapped a couple of keys, and slid it across the table to me. “Do you recognize him?”
It was my fake drunk, all right, the one I’d left chopping ice in the new toboggan tunnel an hour ago. “I saw him on the Jurskala Quadrail,” I said, sliding the reader back. “So why haven’t you arrested him?”
“Because until this morning we didn’t even know which species was involved in this plot,” PrifKlas growled. “Let alone which individuals.”
“And you’re sure Fayr’s the one?”
“Very sure,” Mahf said grimly. “It was one of his commandos whose attempt to wrest control from the bus driver caused the crash.”
I frowned. “You’ve lost me.”
“Really,” PrifKlas said, his voice cold. “You hadn’t noticed that those ice formations are situated directly over the caverns where the stolen submarine is hidden? Or that the ice there is barely thirty meters thick, easily shattered by a series of properly shaped thermistack charges?”
“No, I hadn’t noticed any of those things,” I said evenly. Seen from their point of view, there was definitely a certain logic to it.
Except for the possibly inconvenient fact that the sub was nowhere near where they thought it was. What was Fayr up to, anyway?
“Really,” PrifKlas bit out again. “Is it also pure coincidence that you just happened to be out on the surface, in a place where you had no business being, at the precise time all this was happening?”
And with that, it finally clicked. “Wait a minute,” I said. “Are you suggesting I was Fayr’s diversion?”
“Why not?” PrifKlas demanded. “Particularly since you performed the same task yesterday, and in the same place, when the commandos concealed the disruptor aboard the bus. Why not use a successful feint twice?”
“Except for why anyone should have been distracted by my movements in the first place,” I countered stiffly. “What did I do to justify you putting me under surveillance?”
“It’s nothing specific, Frank,” Applegate spoke up. “But you have to admit there’s been a whole pattern of strange things that have happened around you since you came aboard the Quadrail at Terra.” He gestured toward Mahf’s reader. “And now we hear that you actually rubbed shoulders with this Fayr
character. What should we think?”
“One: There wasn’t any rubbing of shoulders,” I said, lifting up my bound hands and ticking off fingers. “I saw him in the bar, period. Two: Bayta and I wouldn’t even be on Modhra if JhanKla hadn’t suggested we come here. You want to blame somebody, blame him. Three: If you’ve got one of Fayr’s people in custody, why aren’t you interrogating him instead of me?”
Mahf looked over at the Halkan major scowling at me from beside Bayta. “Do you care to respond?” he invited.
The major scowled a little harder. “He is no longer in custody,” he said, his tone a swirling mix of anger and embarrassment. “He was brought to the lodge, but escaped his guards. We’re searching for him.”
“Really,” I said, swallowing a three-course meal’s worth of sarcastic remarks that very much wanted to come out. “At least you can’t blame me for that one.”
“Don’t be so certain,” PrifKlas warned. “Halkan conspiracy laws are both clear and unforgiving.”
“Which means this is the time to cut a deal,” Applegate urged. “If you have any idea where Fayr is, or how he’s planning to get to that sub, you need to tell them. Now.”
I looked over at Bayta. She was gazing back at me, her throat tight, her eyes pleading.
But pleading for what? That I should give in and tell Mahf and PrifKlas about the gimmicked toboggan tunnel? Or that I should keep quiet and give Fayr and his people time to complete their mission, whatever the hell that mission was?
For that matter, why should I even care what Bayta wanted? She’d lied to me from the start, claiming not to be in league with Fayr and yet using the same encryption system he did. I didn’t owe her any loyalty. Turning back to Mahf, I opened my mouth—
And paused. He was gazing hard at me, his whiskers stiff, an almost breathless anticipation on his face.
And it occurred to me that, once again, I was rationalizing.
Mahf was still waiting. “I was just thinking,” I said, speaking slowly as if my hesitation had been due to a long train of thought. “Even if Fayr gets to the sub, doesn’t he still have to smuggle in some explosives or something if he’s going to damage the coral beds?”