Judgment at Proteus

leg folded up beneath their domes.

And all of those folded legs were pointed off to my left.

Casually, I let my gaze wander in that direction. The Spiders were pointing toward a pair of drudge Spiders about a hundred meters away along the axis of the station from where Losutu and Hardin were standing. The drudges were also perched on six legs, leaning toward each other in unstable-looking poses, their unused legs pointed downward toward a partially open service access airlock.

The implication was clear. It also made no sense.

Because the airlock didn’t actually go anywhere. Not unless there was a maintenance skiff attached to the other side. Even if there was, we would have no way of getting into it. We would need a Spider to close the airlock’s upper hatch and open the lower one, and thanks to the Shonkla-raa all the Spiders were temporarily out of service. All we could do, even assuming I could free the hostages and get to the airlock ahead of the Shonkla-raa, would be to stand there in the pit and wait for the walkers to stroll over and pull us out again.

But the signs were too clear to be misinterpreted. Clearly, Bayta wanted me to go there.

I squared my shoulders. She’d trusted me often enough during our time together. Now it was my turn.

The Shonkla-raa was still gripping his hostages’ necks when my escort and I arrived. “Okay, I’ve made good on my half of the bargain,” I said. “Your turn.”

“In good time,” the Shonkla-raa said, eyeing me curiously. His nose blaze, I saw now, had the same sort of slanted lines through it that I’d also seen on Osantra Riijkhan. Coincidence? Or were the Shonkla-raa blaze-coding their field commanders?

“That’s what you said about seventy meters ago,” I reminded him, nodding over my shoulder toward the train. “You’ve got me. Let them go.”

“You are not what I expected,” Slant Nose continued. “A hero of the Humans should be taller.” He cocked his head. “He should also have a longer nose.”

“Now you’re just being ridiculous,” I growled. “You never intended to let them go, did you?”

“A hero of the Humans also requires proper motivation if he is to cooperate with his new masters,” Slant Nose said. “I have no intention of allowing this mission to fail as have others.” His blaze darkened. “Nor will I allow the deaths of my comrades to go unavenged.”

My throat tightened. So it was going to be a quick death after all. “Osantra Riijkhan won’t like it if I arrive in damaged condition,” I warned, trying to stall for time. Where the hell was McMicking?

“Even Osantra Riijkhan does not obtain everything he desires,” Slant Nose countered. Behind me, one of the men from my escort detached himself from the group and stepped in front of me. His hand dipped into the banker’s briefcase and pulled out a mite Spider, its slender legs sticking out rigidly from its fist-sized globe.

And in a single smooth motion, the man turned and jammed the Spider into Slant Nose’s neck, burying the stiffened legs in the other’s oversized throat.

Without a word, or even a dying gurgle, the Shonkla-raa dropped to the ground.

I had just enough time to let my mouth drop open in surprise when the man spun back around and dropped my two handlers with quick jabs to the Juri’s throat and the Human’s solar plexus. “You can thank me later,” McMicking said, deftly snatching the briefcase from around the banker’s neck and shoulder as he fell. “Everyone—to the cafe. We’ll make our stand there.”

“No,” I said, spinning around as the three remaining walkers in my escort—or rather, their distant Shonkla-raa controllers—broke free from their shock and attacked. I dropped one with a side kick to the knee, evaded another’s arms as he tried to throw a bear hug around me, then jabbed him in the ribs and then behind his ear. The third gave a sudden whimper and staggered backward, clutching at a pale red liquid that had suddenly appeared on his face.

“Here,” McMicking said, thrusting a bright yellow restaurant condiment squeeze bottle into my hand. “Why not the cafe?”

“We go by those two drudges,” I said, pointing. Back by the train, the line of walkers broke into a concerted charge toward us.

“You heard the man,” McMicking said, giving the still goggling Losutu and Hardin a shove each. “Move it.”

“Come on,” Losutu said. He slapped Hardin’s shoulder for emphasis, and the two men took off, running as if all of hell was after them.

Which, in a very real sense, it was.

“Nice timing, as always,” I said to McMicking as we watched the approaching wave of walkers. I felt a flicker of satisfaction as I watched the ones jammed into the train’s wheels struggling madly to extricate themselves so that they could join in the party. “Any other useful items in your bag of tricks?”

“One or two,” McMicking said, reaching into the briefcase and pulling out a familiar set of nunchakus. “Here— Fayr let me keep this as a souvenir.”

“Amazing the sort of things that end up in a banker’s briefcase,” I commented, taking the nunchakus and tucking one of the sticks in ready position under my arm. Even with a weapon, I was going to have my work cut out for me.

And not just with the walkers, either. The four remaining Shonkla-raa were on the move too, their layered tunics flapping in the breeze as they charged toward us.

“No one ever said it was the banker’s briefcase,” McMicking pointed out. “I just slipped it over his neck in the crowd and the Shonkla-raa came to the correctly wrong conclusion. They really do need to learn to ask the right questions.”

“And to take an occasional roll call?”

“And to work out the bugs in their overlapping chain of command structure,” McMicking agreed. “With five of them giving orders to different groups of walkers, I figured I could slip into the group without anyone noticing. Go easy on that squeeze bottle, by the way—that’s chili sauce, full strength, courtesy of the station gift shop. You want to put the walkers out of action, not blind them outright.”

“Right,” I said, glancing back at Hardin and Losutu. “You think they’ve got enough of a lead yet?”

“Give it another couple of seconds,” McMicking said. “Our long-nosed friends are nearly through the crowd.”

They were, too, I saw, their legs pumping hard as they caught up to the walkers’ leading shock front. I half expected the Shonkla-raa to simply charge straight through the crowd in their wrath, scattering Humans and aliens to all sides.

But even in their fury at McMicking and me they weren’t stupid enough to waste allies that way. The line of running walkers opened smoothly up in front of each of the Shonkla-raa in response to their telepathic orders, letting the faster Fillies through. “I hope you’re not expecting them to run themselves too ragged to whistle their happy little tune,” I warned.

“Not exactly,” McMicking said. “What’s over there with the drudges?”

“An open service hatchway,” I told him. “What we do once we’re there, I haven’t a clue.”

He grunted. “Well, the Spiders have already proved themselves useful today,” he said. “I’m willing to see what else they’ve come up with. Okay, here we go. Your job is take out anyone still standing.”

I frowned. Still standing?

And as the four Shonkla-raa closed to within five meters, McMicking thrust the open banker’s briefcase toward them, sending a clattering wave of hundreds of clear plastic marble-sized spheres bouncing and rolling across the floor toward them.

The Shonkla-raa didn’t have a chance. They hit the rolling hazard at a dead run, their feet flying as the ground suddenly slid out from under them. Three of the Fillies went down instantly, slamming hard onto torsos and backs, the impact sending more of the marbles scooting off in all directions. The fourth was fighting to stay upright when my nunchaku slammed across the side of his head, putting him down with the others. Behind the sprawled Shonkla-raa, the incoming wave of walkers hit the marbles, and Humans and Juriani and Halkas joined the Fillies in twisting and thudding helplessly to the ground.

And then, even as I aimed my nunchaku toward the next Shonkla-raa in line, he rose half up onto his hands and screamed.