by Timothy Zahn
“Yes, he’s dead,” I confirmed, taking another, closer look at the walkers. All three were standing unnaturally stiff, their eyes looking odd in a way I’d never seen in a walker before.
And there was something else: a faint, high-pitched dog-whistle sound hovering right on the edge of my hearing. I glanced at Bayta, noting the sudden uncertainty and pain-edged tension in her face. Apparently, she could hear the sound too, possibly better even than I could.
“So then you know,” Muzzfor said.
“I know lots of things,” I said, frowning. Muzzfor’s eyes were hard and cold, and I saw now that the oversized, genetically engineered throat tucked beneath his long Filly face seemed to be rapidly quivering. “Anything in particular you had in mind?”
“No matter,” he said calmly. “If not now, soon enough.” Without any word or signal that I could see, Prapp detached himself from the group and walked toward us. His eyes still looked odd, but as he approached I could see that there was a strangely bitter edge to his expression. “Forgive me,” he said as he stepped up to us, and out of the corner of my eye I could see the other two walkers saying the same words in unison.
And then, abruptly, Prapp swung his arm at the shoulder, slapping his hand with vicious strength against the side of Bayta’s head.
It was so unexpected that she never even had time to gasp as the blow sent her spinning to the floor. I had no time to do more than gape before Prapp turned his attack on me, his arms windmilling like a threshing machine gone berserk.
Reflexively, I gave ground, backing across the room as I blocked and deflected and dodged his blows, trying to get my brain on line. Treachery from the Modhri was nothing new, but treachery now? It made no sense.
Fortunately for me, Prapp was untrained and unskilled in hand-to-hand combat. Now that I was ready for him, I was able to deflect or block most of his punches and kicks with ease, and the few that made it through were weak and ineffective. Another minute to let him wear out his reserves, I estimated, and I should be able to take him down.
But I wasn’t going to get that minute. The other two walkers were moving in now, swinging wide in opposite directions to flank me. I shifted direction toward Vevri, hoping that after I took down Prapp I could similarly deal one-on-one with the Juri before Qiddicoj could reach me.
For a few seconds it looked like it was going to work. Then, over Prapp’s gasping and my own somewhat less strained breathing I sensed the strange ultrasonic sound change pitch and intensity. A moment later Qiddicoj suddenly increased his pace toward me while Vevri slowed his, with the obvious mutual goal of reaching me simultaneously.
I changed direction again, ducking around behind a pair of chairs and then suddenly jumping up on one of them and kicking at Prapp’s head. The blow I landed was only glancing, but it was enough to send him staggering backward out of the fight.
Just in time. I was hopping off the chair again when Vevri and Qiddicoj caught up with me.
Neither of them was any better trained than Prapp. But both were just as determined, and at two-to-one odds I found myself at a dangerous disadvantage. I kept backing and turning, using every bit of cover and blockage available, trying to work my way toward the end of the car where I could escape into the vestibule. At least there they could only come at me one at a time.
And then, out of the corner of my eye I saw the front vestibule door open. I backed a quarter circle, trying to bring the door into my direct view without having to take my eyes off my opponents. If this was another walker whom the Modhri had conveniently failed to mention, I was going to be in serious trouble.
It wasn’t another walker. It was Sarge.
For the first couple of seconds no one seemed to notice his arrival. Then, abruptly, Vevri and Qiddicoj abandoned their attack on me. Turning, staggering with muscle fatigue and gasping for breath, they charged full-tilt toward the defender.
I’d seen defender Spiders in action, and Sarge should have counterattacked like a runaway freight. But to my surprise, he didn’t. In fact, for those first crucial seconds he stood there, staring like a rookie at his first crime scene. By the time he stirred and lifted his three nearest legs into a sort of combat stance, it was too late. Vevri and Qiddicoj hit him like a matched pair of heat-seeking missiles, slamming into his remaining four legs and staggering him backward. Breathing hard, I shoved off the chair I had been pressed against and headed over to give him a hand.
And was suddenly shoved three meters to my left as Muzzfor slammed into my right side.
I hit the floor in a tangled mess, astonishment and exhaustion conspiring to throw off my usual hit-and-roll reflexes. I tried to get my legs under me, but before I could do so Muzzfor flung himself on top of me, nearly breaking my rib cage in the process.
And as I fought for breath, his hands closed firmly around my neck. “Foolish Human,” he said, his voice abruptly deep and resonant and no longer even recognizable as Filiaelian. It made for an eerie contrast with the high-pitched background hum that seemed to be rattling even louder against the base of my skull. “I tried to avoid this,” he continued. “I tried to turn you against Emikai, the Modhri—anyone except the Human Kennrick. But you would not be dissuaded.” His grip tightened around my throat. “So now do you pay the cost of your cleverness.”
My vision was starting to waver. But what most people didn’t know, and Muzzfor almost certainly didn’t, was that even with my breath cut off there was enough residual oxygen already in my muscle fibers for one good, solid, last-ditch punch.
And with his quivering, oversized throat hanging right over my face, there was only one logical target. Releasing my grip on his wrists, I curled my hands into fists and jabbed upward as hard as I could.
I had expected it to be like hitting a tube of slightly undercooked mostaccioli. To my dismay, it was more like slamming my fists into well-insulated plastic pipe. Whatever the Filly genetic engineers had done to Muzzfor’s throat, they’d put some heavy-duty musculature around it.
And with that, my last reserve was gone. My hands dropped back to Muzzfor’s wrists, but I had no strength left to try to tear them away from my throat. I couldn’t hear the high-pitched whine anymore, and in the distance the clatter of bodies against metal as Vevri and Qiddicoj beat themselves against Sarge likewise faded into the roar of blood rushing in my ears. Muzzfor’s face was an expressionless mask, the sort of face Bayta often wore. My thoughts drifted toward Bayta, wondering if Muzzfor and the others would leave her alive or if whatever I’d done to trigger the Modhri’s wrath would bring her the same sentence of death.
And then, without warning, something shot into view around Muzzfor’s arms and barreled full-tilt into the Filly’s side, hurling him off me and ripping his hands away from my throat. Gripping my neck, gasping in great lungfuls of air, I rolled onto my side.
I found myself faced with an incredible sight. Prapp was straddling a prone Muzzfor, pounding his fists against the Filly’s head and torso with the same determination he’d used in his earlier attack against me.
But even as I lay there trying to figure out what the hell was happening, Muzzfor seemed to get either his composure or his wind back. One hand slammed against Prapp’s throat, snapping his head forward like the clapper of a bell. Prapp went limp, and with a surge of legs and arms Muzzfor sent the Tra’ho sailing helplessly to slam into the floor three meters away. An instant later Muzzfor was back on his feet, his cold, soulless eyes turning back to his unfinished business with me—
Just as Vevri and Qiddicoj slammed into him in a perfectly coordinated high/low double tackle.
Muzzfor gave a bellow as he hit the floor again, a deep, furious ululation that momentarily froze me where I knelt.
If Vevri and Qiddicoj were affected by the roar, it didn’t show. They were all over their target, punching and clawing at him with an almost mindless fury.
I still didn’t know what the hell was going on. All I knew was that Muzzfor had tried to kill me, the Modhri was no
longer on his side, and I was damned if I was going to sit out the rest of this fight.
But even as I got to my feet, Vevri abruptly gave out a choked-off scream and rolled off the downed Filly. As I staggered forward Qiddicoj gave a similar scream and also fell backward, clutching at his stomach. He curled into a fetal position around himself, but not before I saw the blood spreading out across his clothing.
And then Muzzfor was on his feet again, his fingers dripping two different shades of red. He turned toward me, and as he did so his hands curved themselves into raptor talons. Something else the genetic engineers had no doubt graced him with.
For a moment we locked eyes. Then, lifting the talons to point at my stomach, he stalked toward me.
“At least tell me why you want me dead,” I croaked, taking an angled step backward. He continued toward me, and I matched him step for step, walking us around in a slow circle that was taking me back toward the rear of the car. I was still breathing heavily; with luck, he would assume I was just trying to buy time. “What did I ever do to you? Tell me, damn it. What did I ever do to you?”
Muzzfor didn’t answer, but just kept coming. I continued to back away, not daring to look behind me and see if I was about to back into a chair or some other obstacle. The Filly was getting closer, and I imagined I could see a fresh surge of bloodlust in those empty, empty eyes.
He was still coming when two of Sarge’s legs stabbed like twin spears into his back.
For a moment Muzzfor just stood there, his gaze on the bloodied metal legs poking out of his chest, a disbelieving expression on his face. Very much the way Kennrick had reacted to his own unexpected defeat and death, a small, detached part of my mind noted. Then, without a sound, the Filly’s eyes closed, and he sagged against the Spider legs still holding him mostly upright.
“He is dead?” Sarge asked into the silence.
“He’d damned well better be,” I said. Angling in cautiously from the side, just in case, I went up to Muzzfor to check.
The examination didn’t take long. Filly genetic engineers could do a lot of strange and interesting things to their clients, as Muzzfor himself had more than proved. But there were only so many places you could put the heart and lungs. “Yes, he’s dead,” I confirmed, stepping thankfully away from the dangling corpse. “Almost no thanks to you, I might add. What were you doing, waiting for scorecards to be passed out?”
“No,” Sarge said, an odd tone to his voice. “I could not … it is difficult to explain. I could not think, nor could I properly react to the threat facing me.”
“Compton,” a voice whispered.
I swore as I stepped past Sarge and Muzzfor and hurried toward the three bodies lying crumpled on the floor. In those last tense minutes, I’d completely forgotten about the Modhri.
Prapp and Vevri weren’t moving, but Qiddicoj was still breathing weakly. “Defender, get the doctors up here,” I snapped as I dropped to my knees beside the wounded Filly. “Now. And get me that LifeGuard,” I added, pointing to the orange case on the wall.
“No use,” Qiddicoj murmured. Or rather, the Modhri within him murmured. “I’m sorry, Compton. Please believe this was not my doing.”
“I know it wasn’t,” I assured him. “Lie still, now—the doctors are on their way.”
The Modhri shook his head. “No use,” he said again. “The other Eyes are already dead, and this one will soon join them. When that happens, I too will die.”
He looked down at his blood-soaked midsection, then up at me again. “It was a call in my mind and my ears,” he said. “The same as I heard two nights ago. Only this time, I was not ordered to lie, but to kill.” He coughed, bringing specks of blood to his lips. The blaze on his long face, I noted, had gone deathly pale. “Even knowing it ordered me to evil, I had no power to resist.”
Abruptly, a piece fell into place. “Was the compulsion tied to that high-pitched sound I kept hearing?” I asked.
“Yes,” Qiddicoj confirmed. “When it ceased … the orders were still there, but I no longer had to obey.”
And the sound had ceased right after I’d punched Muzzfor in his genetically modified throat. The damn thing hadn’t been created so that he could sing high opera. It had been created as a weapon.
But a weapon against whom? The Spiders? The Modhri?
A metal leg appeared in my peripheral vision, and I looked up as Sarge handed me the LifeGuard. I set it down beside Osantra Qiddicoj, keying the selector for Filiaelian, and started connecting the arm cuff.
“Compton.”
“Lie still,” I said. I finished the cuff and leaned over him with the breather mask.
His hand lifted, brushing weakly against the mask. “No use,” he said. “Compton. Remember our bargain.”
“I will,” I said, moving the mask around his flailing arm and pressing it over his nostrils.
“A shame it must end now,” the Modhri said as I keyed the LifeGuard. His voice was so weak I could barely hear it. “We worked … well … together.”
“Yes, we did,” I agreed, an odd feeling trickling through me. The Modhri was my enemy … and yet, this particular mind segment and I had somehow been able to unite against a common threat.
There was a lesson in there somewhere, but at the moment I couldn’t be bothered. The Modhri could have run away when I’d wrecked Muzzfor’s Pied Piper whistle, but instead he’d sacrificed his life to protect mine. I was not going to just sit back and let him die.
I was still talking soothingly to him when the LifeGuard’s lights went red. I punched the start button again, but it was pure, useless reflex. Qiddicoj was dead.
And then his eyelids fluttered. “Compton,” he whispered.
“I’m here, Modhri,” I said.
“A new bargain,” he whispered. “In return for saving your life. Learn the truth of what happened here.”
I nodded. “Bet on it,” I said grimly.
The eyelids fluttered again and went still.
For a minute I continued to kneel over the body, until the LifeGuard’s lights again went red. Taking a deep breath, wincing at the ache in my throat, I got tiredly to my feet. “You have made yet another bargain with the Modhri,” Sarge said.
“Doesn’t count as a bargain,” I said, crossing to where Bayta was still lying unconscious. “I’d already promised that to myself.”
I lowered myself to the floor beside Bayta, carefully touching the side of her neck. Her pulse was slow but strong, and her chest was moving up and down with steady breathing. There was an ugly handprint on the side of her face where Prapp had slapped her, but it didn’t look like anything was broken.
“Shall I move her to one of the seats?” Sarge asked.
“I’ll do it,” I told him. Getting an arm under her neck, I carefully lifted her head and shoulders up off the floor.
For a long moment I gazed into her face, my eyes tracing all those familiar features. My partner, my ally, my friend … and I’d nearly lost her.
Thought virus, the warning whispered through my mind. Too close, and we would both be dangerously vulnerable if one of us was ever infected with a Modhran colony.
I felt my lip twist. The hell with thought viruses.
Leaning close, I kissed her.
Her lips were softer than I’d imagined they would be, probably because I’d so often seen them pursed or stiff with disapproval over something I’d said or done. Her scent was subtle and exotic, with an equally subtle taste to her lips. I got my arm around behind her and held her close, savoring the kiss even as I shivered with what had almost happened to take her away from me.
And then, suddenly, I felt a slight change in the feel of her muscles. I opened my eyes.
To find her eyes were also open. Looking straight back into mine.
I jerked back, a sudden flush of embarrassment and guilt heating my face and neck. “Uh …” I floundered.
“Yes,” she said, and I could sense some of the same embarrassment in her own voice. “Uh �
� I think I’m all right.”
“Are you sure?” I asked, trying to shift my hands to a more professional grip on her arms. This sort of thing wasn’t supposed to happen. Especially since neither of us wanted it to.
“I think so,” she said. For another moment, her eyes held mine. Then, she tore her gaze away.
And I felt her stiffen. “Frank,” she gasped.
“Yeah,” I said grimly, following her stricken eyes to the four bloodied bodies scattered around the car. “Not a pretty sight, is it?”
“What hap—?” She broke off, and I had the impression Sarge was feeding her the entire blow-by-blow.
I looked at the bodies again, perversely glad for the distraction they provided, and wondered if Bayta would want to talk later about that impulsive kiss. Part of me hoped she would. Most of me hoped she wouldn’t.
“But it doesn’t make sense,” she said into my thoughts. “Why did Asantra Muzzfor do that? How did he do that?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “But I know where to start looking. You up to a little walk?”
“Of course,” she said. She got a grip on my arms, which were somehow still wrapped around her, and together we got her to her feet. “Where are we going?”
“Kennrick’s compartment,” I said. “From the way Muzzfor was talking, I think there’s something in there he assumed we’d already found. Something he thought was worth killing us for.”
“Something in Mr. Kennrick’s lockbox?” she suggested.
“That’s the logical place to start,” I agreed, tightening my grip on her arm as she wavered a bit. “Can you make it, or do you want to wait here?”
“I can make it,” she said grimly. “You think we’ll be able to open it?”
“Depends on how good Emikai’s bypass mimic really is,” I told her. “Easy, now—let’s go.”
Prapp’s attack, plus the ordeal that had preceded it, had apparently taken more out of Bayta than she’d realized. Emikai’s mimic was still only midway through its work on Kennrick’s portable lockbox when she went over to the bed to lie down. By the time I pulled the lockbox lid open, she was fast asleep.