Judgment at Proteus

He was standing as rigid and emotionless as ever … but as I ran my eyes up and down him I saw that his right forefinger was moving. Not much, barely a quiver, probably the only freedom of movement he’d been able to find within the Shonkla-raa orders.

But it wasn’t random or nervous movement. The finger was twitching rhythmically, deliberately, tapping out code. Tapping out a single word, repeated over and over.

Stall.

“Fine,” I said with a sigh. “If you’re ordering out for Bayta anyway, I suppose I’ll have something, too. McMicking? Morse?”

“Morse has already eaten,” Riijkhan said. “And McMicking may not wish to weigh himself down.”

“I agree,” McMicking agreed evenly.

I felt my eyes narrow. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“I may yet need you, Compton,” Riijkhan said. “You’ve proved your value today, and there may be other small matters on which I’ll wish your advice. Bayta, as we both know, I’ll need to control you. Morse’s training also makes him of unusual value as one of my soldiers.”

His eyes glittered as he looked at McMicking. “McMicking, though, I don’t need.”

A shiver ran up my back. I’d hoped Riijkhan had forgotten about his casual offer of single combat with McMicking. “So make him one of your soldiers, too,” I said, a small part of my brain noting the incredible irony of me even suggesting such a thing. “You must still have some Modhran coral around.”

“Isantra Yleli was a loyal member of my force,” Riijkhan said. “So were the others of his group. McMicking killed them.”

“McMicking had nothing to do with Yleli’s death,” I insisted.

“No matter,” Riijkhan said. “He’s killed other Shonkla-raa. I’m curious to see his fighting technique.”

“It’s mostly just subterfuge and tricks,” McMicking said. “I’ll probably be a disappointment to you.”

“Do you refuse, then?”

“Not at all,” McMicking assured him. “Whenever you feel ready.”

For a moment they gazed at each other, Riijkhan looking like a tightly coiled spring, McMicking looking preternaturally calm. The room had gone very quiet, I noticed, not just because everyone had stopped talking but also because the sounds of men and Bellidos and Shonkla-raa in the corridor outside had faded away. A movement caught my eye, and I looked up at one of the hallway monitors to see a cluster of Fillies and their slaves walking briskly past on their way to their target room.

I looked at Morse. Almost, his twitching finger spelled out. Almost. “There is one problem with this,” I spoke up. “If you kill McMicking now, Osantra Riijkhan—or if he kills you, for that matter—one of you will never get to hear why I wasn’t surprised that you knew about these ships. Because I did know you were going to be told about them. In fact, I was counting on it.”

Riijkhan gave a snort. “You seek to stall,” he said. “You hope to save the life of your friend.”

“No, my friend is going to die today,” I said quietly. “And you’re going to die with him. Because I know who your agent was, the agent you had planted on us. I also know that you lied to me earlier. Usantra Wandek’s plan wasn’t to overthrow the Shonkla-raa leadership. He had something much more subtle in mind.”

Reluctantly, Riijkhan finally turned to face me. “Then tell me, since you’re so eager to do so,” he growled. “What in fact was this subtle plan?”

There was more movement on the monitors, and I looked up to see a couple of the screens grow brighter as the Humans handling the Vipers powered up the rooms’ main lighting. “You were right about the pointlessness of creating Human slaves through telepathic manipulation,” I said, looking back at Riijkhan. “But there’s no point in trying to make them Shonkla-raa shock troops, either. We may have the voice to control the Modhri, but we don’t have the muscle to take down Filiaelian or Shorshian warriors.”

“Then what use did he see in you?” Riijkhan asked.

“You see, you slipped up, Osantra Riijkhan,” I said. “Just a little, but enough. Back when you first tried to recruit me, you said that Humans would be given free run of the galaxy, and that we would be roaming wherever we wished.”

I smiled tightly at him. “We were going to be your secret police, weren’t we? We were going to roam, all right, roam around the galaxy watching for slave revolts or other dangers to the Shonkla-raa master race.”

For a moment Riijkhan was silent. “I was right,” he said at last. “You’re indeed very clever.”

“All it took was knowing how you think,” I said. “You would never offer to leave Earth alone unless you had some better use planned for us. Your big throats are a dead giveaway. But Human spies would be completely anonymous, drifting casually along among all the rest of the ordinary tourists and businessmen, completely undetectable until they suddenly commandeered a group of Modhran walkers.”

I lifted a finger. “But Wandek knew he could only risk giving Human agents that kind of power if he had rock- solid control over them. Hence, the telepathy experiments and Wandek’s plan to set up a genetic farm with Martin von Archenholz on Earth.”

“So you reach the truth,” Riijkhan said. “But you reach it too late.”

I shook my head. “You aren’t paying attention. I’m not just coming to this conclusion now. I already said I’ve been on to you since Venidra Carvo. Because your spy was Terese von Archenholz’s unborn child, whose partially developed auditory apparatus was nevertheless capable of picking up muffled conversations going on near his mother. Your receivers of those relayed conversations were the scrawny little Fillies, whose physique is presumably a side effect of the genetic manipulation that made them able to link telepathically with properly prepared Humans.”

The four Shonkla-raa at the desks, I saw, had abandoned their own work and were listening intently to the conversation. “That’s why you always had one of them dogging our trail,” I continued. “That’s also why, whenever there was any kind of confrontation between us, the scrawny ones were never around. They were always stuck in their compartments, as close as they could get to Terese, hoping to get something useful.”

“Not always,” Riijkhan corrected, his voice unnaturally quiet. “On Venidra Carvo one of them joined our encirclement attack.”

“Because he was already on the scene, and because you needed everyone you could get to make the encirclement look real,” I said. “And I’m quite sure you knew at the time what a horrendous risk it was, given his value and knowing that he was the one we’d probably charge through on our way out of the circle. But you had no choice. He was on the scene because he’d been ordered to stay near Terese, and you needed to create a big, obvious threat in order to move us over to her before her attempt to poison herself robbed you of your inside man.”

“And so you spoke of these ships at Terra Station, knowing we would learn of them,” Riijkhan said, a growing edge to his voice. “You sought to draw all of us here, then set up an ambush with your Humans and your Bellidos allies.”

“Exactly,” I said. “The ships were the bait. You were the catch. And it worked.”

“Did it?” Riijkhan waved a hand. “Your ambush has failed. We remain in full control of the ship and the situation. How do you then speak as if we have failed?”

“Because you have,” I said. “You’re not in control of the ships. You’re not in control of anything.” I looked at Morse. Now, his tapping finger confirmed. “I believe Agent Morse has something to say.”

Riijkhan looked at Morse. “He will remain silent.”

“Fine,” I said, shrugging. “If you want to die without even knowing why, go ahead.”

Riijkhan flashed a look at me— “Compton,” Morse said, his voice gasping a little as the control over his mouth was suddenly released. “Thank you.”

I felt my throat tighten. But as I’d told Bayta, the cost was always set by the aggressors. There was nothing we could do now but pay it. “You’re welcome,” I said.

“For what do you thank him?” Riijkhan demanded.

“For his trust,” Morse said, his eyes still on me. “For his friendship. For the chance to see the leaves on the tree, if only for a brief time.” His eyes rested momentarily on Bayta, then returned to me. “You will watch over the rest?”