by Timothy Zahn
The hatchway overhead closed, and there was a slight shudder as the clamps holding us to the station floor disengaged. A moment later the shuttle’s drive kicked in, angling us away from the Tube and bringing us around toward the transfer station a hundred kilometers away. “Frank?” Bayta asked, just loudly enough for me to hear over the engine noise.
I reached over and patted her hand. “Don’t worry,” I told her. “I’m on it.”
After all, we still had the shuttle ride, the usual customs procedures at the transfer station, and then a three-hour torchferry journey to Proteus itself. Surely in all that time I could come up with a new story that would cover anything Minnario might be able to tell them.
I’d better get started.
Kuzyatru Station, according to all the brochures and encyclopedia entries, was the diplomatic jewel of the Filiaelian Assembly, a high-visibility meeting area for conferences and interstellar meetings as well as a top-rated medical and genetic research facility. It was an odd combination, in my opinion, but it apparently worked well enough for the Fillies. Certainly the photos and holos of the place showed they’d considered it worth dousing with bucketfuls of money.
It wasn’t until our torchferry was on its final approach that I realized just how inadequate those holos and descriptions really were.
For starters, the place was huge. It was roughly disk-shaped, with a rounded top and bottom, the whole thing ten kilometers across and ranging in thickness from a kilometer at the edge to three at the center. I was a little vague on my high-school geometry, but I was pretty sure that gave it at least twice the volume of a typical Quadrail station.
That was impressive enough. Even more so was the fact that a Quadrail station was mostly empty space, whereas Proteus’s living areas were sliced into three-meter-high decks. That gave the place the carrying capacity of a small nation.
But more even than its size was its sheer grandeur. I had assumed that the huge historical panoramas decorating the areas around each of the thirty-three main edge-line docking stations were simple hull paintings. In fact, they were intricate mosaics, built of five-centimeter-thick tiles no doubt designed to be resistant to micro-meteor damage. The running lights that interstellar law required on every spacegoing vessel or station had here been tweaked into a laser light show that as near as I could tell never repeated itself once during the half hour it was visible from my torchferry window.
And if that hadn’t been enough to set it apart from the rest of the galaxy’s space habitats, Proteus wasn’t just orbiting its sun, but was actually holding itself in constant, stationary position relative to the equally stationary Quadrail station by a massive, brute-force application of Shorshic vectored force thrusters. That meant that, instead of tracing out a long orbital path that might put it anywhere from two hours to four weeks away from the Tube, it was always going to be a convenient three-hour flight for new arrivals to the system.
It was, in short, a huge, self-indulgent, self-aggrandizing stack of metal and plastic and ceramic.
And as I listened to the murmured oohs and aahs of our fellow passengers I felt my heart sink.
Because my plan had been to march into the station, loudly announce the arrival of Terese German, and watch for interested parties from the Shonkla-raa to pop out of the wainscoting. Now I realized that wasn’t going to work. Whichever docking station we ended up getting routed to, there was every chance that I would be so far away from the Shonkla-raa that they might not even hear the news that Terese was aboard until long after Reception had thanked me for my service and courteously ushered Bayta and me onto the next outgoing torchferry. Even if I could find some excuse for us to stay aboard, we could wander a facility this size for months without ever finding Muzzfor’s fellow conspirators. Especially since those conspirators probably didn’t want to be found.
“Frank?” Bayta murmured.
“I know, I know,” I murmured back. “I’ll figure out something.”
“What do you mean?” she asked, frowning. “I was going to ask why we’d changed course.”
I frowned in turn. I’d been so caught up with thinking about Proteus and the future of my plans I hadn’t even noticed the change in the torchferry’s insertion angle.
But Bayta was right. Whereas we’d been heading for one of the docking stations in the upper twenties—probably twenty-seven or twenty-eight—we had now come around and were heading instead into the mid-teens.
Had someone aboard the station belatedly spotted Terese’s name on the passenger list and rerouted us accordingly? If so, and if that someone was connected with the Shonkla-raa, Plan A might work after all.
Not surprisingly, the Proteus docking procedure was different from that at every other space habitat I’d ever visited. Instead of simply sidling up beside the station so that our hatchways lined up, we nosed directly into a huge docking bay, complete with clamps and restraints and a collar that looked like it could adjust to anything from our torchferry all the way up to a full-blown torchliner. Personally, I would have simply made a group of docking bays of different sizes, but once again Proteus’s designers had decided to go for the more flamboyant approach.
In some solar systems new arrivals had to go through customs twice, once on the transfer station and a second time at their final destinations. Fortunately, the Fillies had dispensed with that nonsense. Outside the wide doors leading out of the docking bay was a long line of desks that served merely as luggage-distribution points. A reader at the door scanned the marks that the passengers had been tagged with at the Quadrail shuttle, and holodisplays then directed each person to the proper pickup desk. Bayta and I were routed to a desk midway down the line, while Emikai, Terese, and Aronobal headed to one a few places farther over.
I maneuvered us through the crowd to our desk and smiled at the female Filly seated there. From the hovering presence of a much older male Filly behind her, I guessed this was probably her first day on the job and he was there to vet her performance. “I greet you,” I said, offering my hand to the reader to confirm my identity. “You have a very efficient—”
“Mr. Frank Compton?” the older Filly interrupted as he strode up to the desk.
“Yes,” I confirmed. “My bags are those two over—”
“I am Chinzro Hchchu, assistant director of Kuzyatru Station,” he interrupted, raising his hand like the Pope delivering a blessing. In response, three tall Fillies wearing gray and black jumpsuits, who had been loitering behind the row of desks to either side of us, started forward.
“Is there a problem?” I asked carefully, watching the approaching Fillies out of the corner of my eye. In my pocket, I could feel the kwi tingling as Bayta activated it.
“A very serious problem,” Hchchu said sternly. “You are under arrest.” He paused dramatically. “For murder.”
TWO
The entry bay was deathly silent by the time the three jumpsuited Fillies reached us. Two of them took my upper arms in a standard police control hold, while the third got a slightly more polite grip on Bayta’s arm. With Hchchu in the lead, we were marched off through the frozen tableau of our fellow torchferry passengers toward a door at the far end.
Which wasn’t to say that we went quietly.
“This is absurd,” I insisted loudly as we walked, trying to sound bewildered and outraged at the same time. “You obviously have me confused with someone else.”
“You are Mr. Frank Compton, New York City, New York, Western Alliance, Earth, Terran Confederation?” Hchchu asked over his shoulder.
“I’m a Frank Compton of New York,” I acknowledged. “But there must be dozens of us. Besides—”
“Then there is no mistake,” he said firmly.
“You have the wrong person,” I said, just as firmly. If the Modhri was on to me, none of this protesting would do any good. But it was the way an innocent man would behave and I had to play it through.
Besides, any doubt I could create would only help me. The local Modhran mind
segment had only Filly eyes and vision centers to work with, and Fillies in general weren’t all that good at distinguishing among Human faces. No matter how suspicious the Modhri might be, he couldn’t possibly be as certain as Hchchu sounded. At least, not unless he already had a sample of my DNA aboard.
“What are the specifications of the charge?” a new voice cut in, and I turned to see that Emikai had left Terese and Aronobal and had joined our little procession.
“And you are?” Hchchu challenged.
“Logra Emikai,” Emikai said. “These Humans are our escort.”
Hchchu did a sort of double take, and I caught a brief darkening of his nose blaze as he looked more closely at Emikai. “I welcome you, Logra Emikai,” he said. “I have words to speak with you, as well. But those words will wait.”
“As you wish, Chinzro Hchchu,” Emikai said. “Again I ask: what are the specifications of the charge against Mr. Compton?”
“Actually, this whole nonsense can wait,” I put in. “Logra Emikai and I have a task that we’ve promised to perform, to escort Terese Ger—”
“The charges are plural,” Hchchu said, his eyes still on Emikai. “Six counts of murder against citizens of the Assembly.”
Emikai looked at me, his blaze paling with surprise. “Six murders?” he repeated, sounding sandbagged.
I was feeling a little sandbagged myself. I’d assumed this whole thing was coming from Asantra Muzzfor’s death aboard our super-express. Where in the world had Hchchu found five more dead Fillies?
[I protest,] a thin voice called distantly from behind us.
I turned my head. It was Minnario, floating through the bay toward us, clearly gunning his support chair for all it was worth. On his distorted face was an expression of full-blown righteous indignation.
But all the determination in the world couldn’t make his chair go any faster, and at the rate we were walking he had no hope of catching us before we left the bay. Even if he decided to pursue this further, he wasn’t going to get to Hchchu until after Bayta and I had been dealt with and presumably sent elsewhere in Proteus.
And that would be a shame, because I was rather interested in hearing what the crippled Nemut had to say. Bracing myself, I abruptly leaned backward and dug my heels into the floor.
My two attached Fillies came to a jerking halt, stumbling as my unexpected move threw them both off-balance. “What do you do?” Hchchu demanded, spinning around.
“Someone’s calling you,” I said mildly. “It’s rude to ignore him.”
Hchchu’s eyes shifted to Minnario, still trundling determinedly toward us. “What does he wish to say?” he asked, looking back at me.
“If I knew that, we wouldn’t need to wait and hear him, would we?” I said, still leaning back against my handlers’ grips.
Hchchu looked at Minnario again, then gestured to my guards. Their pull eased, and I straightened up again.
[You must not do this,] Minnario said as he came up to us, bringing his chair to a gliding halt. [He’s an honorable Human, who risked his life to save all of us aboard the galaxy-crosser. He chased down a murderer who would have killed us all—]
“Peace, visitor,” Hchchu said. He really needed to work on his habit of interrupting people. “Mr. Compton is not under investigation for activities aboard your galaxy-crosser or any other Quadrail.”
[Then what do you do?] Minnario demanded.
“He is charged with the murders of six santra-class Filiaelians,” Hchchu said. “Specifically, the murders of Isantra Snievre, Isantra Golovek, Esantra Chavine, Asantra Morloo, Asantra Crova, and Asantra Vaermas.”
I frowned as he rattled off the names. This was getting more absurd by the minute. I’d never even heard of those Fillies.
“Isantra Golovek,” Bayta murmured suddenly. “New Tigris.”
I grimaced. Of course. I hadn’t known most of those Fillies, at least not by their actual names. But now I did recall Isantra Golovek’s name going by once or twice. He’d been one of the six Filiaelian walkers who’d tried to keep Bayta and me from sneaking a ten-year-old girl named Rebekah Beach off New Tigris and out of the Modhri’s grasp.
Which made the multiple murder charge even more ridiculous. I hadn’t killed more than one of those Fillies, and that had been in the middle of a firefight that the Modhri himself had started. In fact, now that I thought about it, I couldn’t remember more than four of the six actually dying. The other two had been taken down with snoozers and subsequently hauled off by the local cops to the Imani City lockup.
So I’d been told, anyway. At the time my main concern had been getting Bayta and Rebekah off the planet before the Modhri could regroup for another crack at us.
Minnario couldn’t know any of this, of course. But amazingly enough, that didn’t seem to matter. [I don’t believe it,] he said firmly. [There must be some other explanation or reason. An honorable person remains honorable in all things.]
“Your comments are noted,” Hchchu said, gesturing to his jumpsuited minions as he turned back toward the exit and started walking. One of the Jumpsuits gave me a nudge, and both Fillies started pulling at my arms.
I thought about digging in my heels again. But Minnario had had his say, and as nice as it was to have my own cheerleading section, it didn’t make much sense to antagonize Hchchu just for more of the same. Nodding to Minnario, I let them lead me away.
But Minnario wasn’t finished yet. [Where did these alleged crimes occur?] he asked, keying his chair forward to try to keep up.
“This is none of your concern, friend Nemut,” Hchchu said, clearly starting to get annoyed.
[Justice is everyone’s concern,] Minnario countered. [Where did the alleged crimes occur?]
“It was on New Tigris,” I told him. “One of the worlds of the Terran Confederation.”
[Then it’s a cross-empire proceeding,] Minnario said firmly. [Mr. Compton will require a legal defender certified in cross-empire law.]
“Is that what you need?” Bayta murmured.
“No idea,” I murmured back. My Westali training had included a unit in interstellar law, but only those sections that dealt with jurisdictional disputes. The fact that the New Tigris authorities didn’t want me for anything kicked this into an area I knew nothing about.
From the look on Hchchu’s face, I gathered this wasn’t his area of expertise, either. “I will make inquiries,” he said to Minnario. “Perhaps there is someone aboard whom we can consult.”
[No need.] Minnario reached into a pouch at the side of his chair and extracted a card. [I am Minnario chu-DeHak, Attorney of Blue Stature with the Nemuti Far-Reach,] he continued, handing Hchchu the card.
He turned his gaze on me. [If it’s acceptable to Mr. Compton, I will defend him.]
We ended up in a small room just off the entry bay, our luggage arriving with two more Jumpsuits half a minute behind us. From the room’s setup, I gathered that Hchchu’s original plan had been to frisk me, frisk my luggage, and then lock me up somewhere out of the way.
But with Minnario on the scene, all such bets were off. Instead, we all stood around waiting while Hchchu sat at the desk making call after call, trying to locate someone on the Proteus staff who knew something about cross-empire law.
Midway through the comm marathon Emikai gave up his part of the vigil and left, promising to check in with me again once he and Aronobal had Terese settled wherever she was supposed to go. I used the occasion to again remind Hchchu that I had my own obligations concerning Terese, but the protest didn’t even evoke a reaction, let alone a response.
And while I listened to Hchchu’s increasingly irritated conversations, I studied Minnario.
I hadn’t seen much of him during our trip aboard the super-express, partly because I’d had more urgent matters on my mind, mostly because Minnario had been a very solitary traveler. Even the Modhran mind segment aboard that train hadn’t gleaned more than his name and his reason for traveling to Filly space. I’d spoken to the crip
pled Nemut only once, just after the train’s resident madman had kicked him out of his compartment, and I’d noticed him later among the stream of subdued first-class passengers when they were all finally allowed to return. After that, he’d apparently settled back into his earlier hermit ways.
Yet now here he was, charging to my rescue, volunteering his professional services to a Human he barely knew.
And that worried me, because I knew that the late and unlamented Asantra Muzzfor had played his cards very close to his layered tunic. Logra Emikai and Dr. Aronobal had both worked for him, though Emikai hadn’t known that and Aronobal had given no sign that she had either.
Had Minnario been another of Muzzfor’s minions, knowingly or otherwise? More importantly, did he know about my role in Muzzfor’s death?
But whatever was going on behind those watery eyes, it wasn’t making it to the surface. He scrolled busily through a series of pages on the reader connected to his chair’s display, all the while sporting the same poker-faced expression that I’d seen on dozens of other lawyers across the galaxy. My knowledge of written Nemuspee was far too limited for me to follow what he was reading, but from the headings I gathered he was skimming through a compilation of cross-empire laws. Maybe it wasn’t really his area of expertise, either.
Finally, after nearly twenty minutes, Hchchu closed his comm and put it away. “Our legal representative is on his way with the full specifications of the case against Mr. Compton,” he said. “In the meantime, he tells me I have full authority to confiscate any of Mr. Compton’s possessions which may pose a threat.”
Minnario inclined his head. [You may proceed.]
“Take off your jackets,” Hchchu ordered as he lifted our carrybags onto the desk and opened them. “And remove all contents from your pockets.”
My Beretta was the first to go, of course, the gun that had served me so well on New Tigris and other occasions. Hchchu turned it over a couple of times in his hands as he examined it, and I could tell he was wondering if this was the very weapon that had slaughtered six of his fellows in cold blood. He also took a close look at the Hardin Industries ID card that our other ally Bruce McMicking had given me, which included a reciprocal galaxy-wide permit to carry the weapon.