Judgment at Proteus

had not been to give the enemy any inkling that the warships were right here in the Ten Mesas region, and especially not that they were buried under the mesas themselves.

Had the Shonkla-raa already made their move? I’d expected Riijkhan to at least wait until Bayta and I arrived. “Is anyone moving out there?” I asked.

There was a soft click as McMicking switched the scope to infrared. “Got a foxhole sentry line,” he said. “Heat shields ready but not deployed.”

“Any signs of visitors?”

“Nothing showing outside the perimeter,” he said. “Could be hiding behind the mesas we didn’t pass.”

“Maybe,” I said, the uneasy feeling growing stronger. I would have sworn we’d anticipated all of the Shonkla- raa’s possible gambits. Was there one we’d missed? “What about the tents?”

“Afternoon deserts are hard to read,” McMicking said. “But it looks like only a few of the smaller ones are occupied, again mostly around the perimeter. Most of the heat’s coming from the two big tents in the middle.”

I exhaled loudly. That could be the Hardin team, the Shonkla-raa, the Hardin team plus Shonkla-raa prisoners, or the Shonkla-raa plus Hardin team prisoners. With all the heat confusion out there, and my strict order to maintain radio silence, there was no way to find out which except to go in and take a look for ourselves. “Okay,” I said as I straightened out of my curve and started us inward. “Let’s go see what we’ve got.”

A few Humans appeared from the outer tents as we neared the encampment, shading their eyes as they watched our approach. As we passed the outer perimeter three men emerged from the two large tents: Morse and two of the team leaders. The team leaders, like the others we could see, had stripped down to their armored jumpsuits. Morse, like us, was in full gear, complete with vest and gun belt.

He spotted us against the low sun and lifted his own rifle scope to his eye. I waved through the windshield, and he lowered the scope and pointed to an open spot beside the spot where he and the team leaders were standing. Giving the distant mesa to the east one final look, I brought the aircar in and set it down.

Morse came over as I popped the door, the two team leaders beside him. “Welcome to Proteus,” Morse greeted me, his voice slurred a little.

“Thank you,” I said, frowning. Morse’s cheeks seemed to be sagging, and there was something odd about his eyes and voice.

But there was no sign of the Shonkla-raa command tone. Could the strain on his face be due to the heat?

It was only as Morse’s hand dropped to his Beretta that I noticed the small earpiece nestled in his left ear. His ear, and the ears of the two men beside him. “McMicking!” I snapped, snatching out my Glock.

I was bringing the weapon to bear on Morse when the tent door behind him opened and a stream of jumpsuited men and woman strode out into the sunlight, all of them moving in the same rigid lockstep. “You wish to shoot them?” Morse asked, his voice still slurred. “Please—indulge yourself. They’re all unarmed.” In an almost leisurely manner he drew his gun and pointed it at the sky. “Or shoot me. I won’t even shoot back.”

I sighed. How the hell had the Shonkla-raa pulled this one off? “You know, I really thought you’d at least wait until I got here,” I commented.

Morse lowered his gun and twitched it to the side. “Outside, all of you,” he ordered. His eyes flicked to the two defenders hunched down in the rear of the aircar. “The Spiders too.”

“Bayta, give them the order,” I said grimly, holstering the Glock and popping my restraints. “McMicking, just play it cool.”

“One at a time,” Morse said, lowering his Beretta again. “You first, Compton.”

I climbed out onto the sand. The desert air was shimmering with heat, and I could feel sweat popping out all over my skin as the two team leaders silently relieved me of my vest and gun belt. Morse ordered me to the front of the aircar, then gestured to McMicking.

A minute later McMicking was standing beside me, his own arsenal also confiscated. Bayta was next, and then Morse watched closely as she directed Sam and Carl outside and sent them to the rear of the vehicle. “What happens next?” I asked when we were all finally lined up where Morse wanted us.

Morse shook his head. “You are indeed a fool, Compton—”

“—if you have not already guessed,” a new voice finished the sentence from behind Morse.

And the door of the big tent opened again and Osantra Riijkhan stepped into view.

“But don’t worry,” he continued as he walked toward us, four more Fillies filing out of the tent behind him. “We want you and your companions alive.”

His eyes glittered with malice and anticipation. “For the present.”

THIRTY-ONE

“A well-conceived plan,” Riijkhan said approvingly as he came to a halt a couple of meters behind Morse. The four other Shonkla-raa took up positions behind him as another silent stream of men and women poured from the tent. They and the original dozen whom Morse had invited me to shoot gathered themselves into two groups, one on either side of the Fillies. “Well-conceived, and subtly executed,” Riijkhan continued. “You first spin this tale of a great prize waiting at Proteus Station, thinking we will perhaps be too hasty to dig deeper into the words. Then you send out your team of pilots, a few at a time, in hopes of reaching the true location while we hurriedly gather our forces at Ilat Dumar Covrey.”

He gestured toward Morse. “Did you truly think we wouldn’t notice the presence of Agent Morse as he left Terra Station?”

“It was a calculated risk,” I said evenly, nodding at the newly minted Modhran walkers behind him. “I see I should have taken the lesson of your last attack more seriously.”

“Ah, and therein lies the true genius of your plan,” Riijkhan said. “A subtle and layered plan, indeed. Because you did anticipate that Morse might be noticed. You also anticipated that we would still have Modhran coral we could use against you.”

One of the team leaders beside Morse lifted his hand. “The skin coating was brilliant,” Riijkhan continued, as the other showed me a callused but otherwise unmarked palm. “A thin layer of carefully tailored poison that would be driven into the wound made by a coral scratch, thus killing any polyps so introduced. Not only would such a sheath protect your pilots from all such attacks, but the attacks themselves would betray ourselves or our agents to them.”

I felt my throat tighten. Naturally, once Morse and the others had been taken, the Shonkla-raa would have easily been able to dig out all the various layers of my plan.

Only how in hell had Riijkhan managed to take them in the first place? Hardin’s medical techs, and the Modhri himself, had assured me that the skin coating would work. “Yes, you’ve been very clever,” I said. “But I can’t help noticing that aside from Morse none of them are carrying any weapons. Worried about another slave revolt like the one that killed off your forebears?”

Riijkhan’s blaze darkened a couple of shades. Apparently, he didn’t like hearing about unpleasant subjects. I might be able to use that. “Focus on the future, Compton,” he said stiffly. “Not the past.”

I took a deep breath. I still had a hole card, I reminded myself firmly. Maybe two of them.

Out of the corner of my eye, I caught the glint of sunlight off Carl’s metal globe. Maybe even three of them.

But before I could play them, I needed Riijkhan to come a little closer.

“How about I just concentrate on the present?” I suggested. “Such as my former teammates here. Are you grooming them to be a future army? Or are you picking up where Usantra Wandek left off?”

Riijkhan snorted. “Slander not the dead, but Usantra Wandek’s plan was wasted effort,” he said. “Why spend time creating future slaves when a touch of Modhran coral can create the same slaves today?”

“I don’t mean Wandek’s supposed plan,” I corrected. “I mean his real plan.”

Riijkhan took a step closer to me. “You know nothing about Usantra Wandek’s