Odd Girl Out

door. 'One more thing,' I added, catching her arm. 'Let me have the kwi.'

That earned me a long, speculative look. But again, she merely handed the weapon over without argument and left the cockpit. I rechecked the autopilot, confirmed the long-range scanners were clear of any other ships, and headed back to the dayroom. Picking the chair that faced the door, I sat down at the table and settled in to wait.

I'd told Bayta five minutes, but it was closer to fifteen before she reappeared, a bleary-eyed Rebekah in tow. 'Hello, Rebekah,' I greeted her. 'Sorry I had to wake you.'

'That's all right,' she said as she and Bayta sat down across from me. 'I owe you both a great deal for getting me off New Tigris.'

'So it would seem,' I said. 'Seem being the operative word.'

'What are you talking about?' Bayta asked, frowning.

'I'm talking about Little Miss Sunshine here, the girl who's everyone's friend,' I told her. 'I'm talking about the Modhri, and the Oscar-level performance he put on down there.'

I lifted my hand from my lap and rested the butt of my Beretta on the table, leveling the weapon at Rebekah's chest. 'And I'm talking about fraud,' I concluded quietly. 'You've been manipulating us ever since Lorelei showed up in my apartment.'

'Frank, have you lost your mind?' Bayta demanded. 'This poor little girl—'

'This poor little girl is a Modhran walker,' I cut her off. 'And I want to know what the game is.'

I thumbed off the Beretta's safety, the click sounding abnormally loud in the sudden silence. 'Now.'

FOURTEEN :

For a long moment no one moved or spoke. I counted the heartbeats—there were eighteen of them—before Bayta finally broke the silence. 'I assume you have some proof of this?' she asked.

'I have enough,' I said, watching Rebekah closely. The initial shock of my accusation had passed quickly, leaving a sort of watchful calm in its place. A calm well beyond the capability of any ten-year-old Human I'd ever known. 'Pointer number one: the Filly walkers were supposedly able to locate her.'

'We discussed that earlier,' Bayta said. 'You came up with at least two possible theories on that.'

'Both of which were incredibly lame,' I said. 'Pointer number two: the Filly at the spaceport said Rebekah's boxes contained Modhran coral.' I raised my eyebrows at Rebekah. 'Shall we go take a look?'

'Lieutenant Bhatami did that already,' Bayta reminded me.

'Which is what finally clinched it,' I said coldly. 'The Modhri couldn't care less about smuggled Siris brandy. Ergo, there must be something else of value in the rest of the boxes, with those three just there as decoys.'

I cocked an eyebrow. 'So how did Bhatami know which three were safe for him to open?'

Bayta caught her breath. 'A thought virus?'

'Can you think of a more perfect setup for one?' I asked. 'Sweet, helpless little girl, who everyone in town is already madly in love with?'

'Maybe Lieutenant Bhatami just knew where the safe boxes were,' Bayta suggested.

'How?' I countered. 'Karim and I were the ones who loaded them into the trunk, and I guarantee we weren't following any special prearranged pattern. You were with Rebekah every minute after that—you tell me when she had a chance to clue our good lieutenant in on the layout.'

For another five heartbeats Bayta didn't answer. Then, reluctantly, she turned to Rebekah. 'Rebekah?' she asked gently.

'Very good, Mr. Compton,' Rebekah said quietly, her eyes on me. 'We were right to choose you as the one to help us.'

'Flattery noted and ignored,' I said. 'Just tell Bayta I'm right, and we can move on.'

Rebekah pursed her lips. 'You're right,' she acknowledged. 'But you're also wrong.'

'Well, that's clear,' I said sarcastically, forcing myself to remember this was a deadly enemy who was sitting across from me. The minute I started to think of her as a young Human girl I'd be opening myself up to the same thought-virus attack she'd used on Bhatami. 'How about a simple yes or no?'

'This is going to be difficult,' she murmured, almost as if she was talking to herself. 'All right. I do have a polyp colony inside me. That part you were right about. But I'm not a walker.'

'So you're a soldier?'

'I'm not that, either,' she said. 'I'm more of a—'

'It is a Modhran polyp colony, right?' I asked.

She hesitated. 'Technically, also no,' she said. 'The colony started out Modhran, but it isn't anymore.' She looked at Bayta. 'Actually, I'm more like Bayta than a walker.'

Bayta shot a look at me. 'In what way?' she asked.

'I'm a symbiotic pair,' Rebekah told her. 'Human and polyp intelligences in the same body.'

I snorted. 'Basic definition of a walker.'

'Yes, but in the case of an Eye—what you call a walker—the Modhran mind segment is a parasite, with its host unaware of its presence,' the girl said. 'I, on the other hand, am completely aware of my symbiont, just as she is of me.'

'She?' I echoed. 'I thought the Modhri only came in a masculine flavor.'

'As I said, I'm not part of the Modhri,' Rebekah said. 'We were an experiment he began about thirty years ago.' She gave me a somewhat strained smile. 'An experiment that's gone horribly wrong, at least from his point of view.'

I ran my eyes over her expression and her minimal body language as she sat quietly at the table. If this was a scam, at least it was a fresh approach. That alone made it worth hearing out. 'I think we're going to have to back up and start at the beginning,' I said.

Her eyes flicked to the gun in my hand, and I had the distinct impression she was considering asking me to put it away. But if she was, the question remained unasked. Not that I would have, anyway. 'As I said, it began about thirty years ago,' she said. 'The Spiders had tried to close off Quadrail service to the Modhran homeworld, and the Modhri had finally realized that it was the Spiders who had been behind all the efforts to find and destroy him. He started looking for a new way to operate, and came up with the idea of planting polyp colonies into infants, where they could grow up together aware of each other as a symbiotic pair.'

I felt my stomach tighten. When I'd first heard about the Chahwyn using this symbiont trick on Bayta it had made me seriously wonder whether or not they truly held the high moral ground in their war against the Modhri. Hearing that the Modhri had pulled the exact same stunt was equally disgusting. 'How many did he use?' I asked.

'There were only eight Humans in the project,' Rebekah said. 'Lorelei and I were the youngest of them. There were also nearly three hundred non-Human symbionts created over the twenty years the project was in operation.'

'Why bother with this when the Modhri's walkers already worked fine?' Bayta asked. 'Was he afraid the system might break down?'

'The problem is that his Eyes are essentially slaves,' Rebekah said. 'Slavery has certain advantages for the master, but also carries equally serious risks. For one thing, there's no loyalty or real cooperation between the Eye and the mind segment. There's also the danger that if the Eye isn't used carefully he could become aware of his condition. That would be disastrous for the Modhri.'

'You're amazingly articulate for a ten-year-old,' I commented. 'I take it this is actually your coral speaking?'

Rebekah reddened slightly. 'She's helping me find the right words, yes,' she admitted. 'But just helping. She's not controlling me, if that's what you're thinking.'