Judgment at Proteus

lights after I dropped you off at your first room last night.”

Bayta let out a sort of soft hiss. “There are other Humans in there.”

“That’s where the logic is heading.” I levered myself to my feet and offered a hand to her. “What do you say we go and find out?”

We headed across the dome toward the particular chalet I’d tagged as number one on my list of potentially interesting tourist attractions. We were within ten meters of it when the door opened and a Filly dressed in doctor’s tans stepped out.

Only this wasn’t just an ordinary Filly doctor. This was the alien I’d dubbed Tan One, one of the Shonkla-raa at Wandek’s informal interrogation yesterday afternoon.

Tan One hadn’t seemed all that friendly during that meeting. Today, he was even less so. {Where are you going?} he asked sternly.

“Good afternoon,” I greeted him cheerfully, not breaking stride.

{This building is off-limits to visitors,} he growled, planting himself directly in our path three meters in front of the building.

“Sorry, I don’t understand,” I said, still not slowing. I would maintain my course, I decided, until I was about half a pace away from him, at which point I would feint left with my shoulder and try to slip around him to the right.

“He said you were not permitted to enter that building,” Wandek’s voice came from behind me.

I swallowed a curse as I came to a halt and turned around. No chance now of pretending I simply didn’t understand what Tan One was blathering about. “Hello, Usantra Wandek,” I greeted him. “Did you and Logra Emikai sort out the security arrangements?”

“They are being dealt with,” Wandek said, eyeing me closely as he came up to us. “What are you doing here?”

“I was hungry,” I said. “I saw all the people going in and out of this building, and thought there might be a food service here like the one in the security nexus upstairs.”

“There are no public dining places in this area,” Wandek said. “The computer in your quarters can provide a list of nearby facilities.”

“Yes, I know,” I said. “I was just hoping we could grab something quick and get back to Ms. German.”

“She is resting now after her treatments,” Wandek said, taking my arm in one of his iron grips and pulling me gently but determinedly back the way Bayta and I had just come. “In an hour, perhaps two, she will be able to receive visitors. This would be a good opportunity for you to seek refreshment elsewhere.”

“And maybe get a little rest ourselves,” I conceded, pulling experimentally against his grip. Now that I was moving in the right direction, Wandek took the hint and let go. “Good day.”

I turned back to face Tan One. “And good day to you, too, Doctor,” I added, giving him a short bow of my head. Under cover of the movement I took a good, hard look at the door behind him.

Turning back again, I took Bayta’s arm, nodded a farewell to Wandek, and headed toward the corridor leading back to our quarters.

We were nearly there before Bayta spoke again. “We’re not really giving up, are we?” she murmured.

“Of course not,” I said. “But I am hungry. Let’s go find something to eat.”

SIX

We didn’t bother going into our room, but simply consulted the green-emblem directory in the main corridor leading out of the dome. With usual Filiaelian efficiency, it pointed us to what turned out to be a very nice row of restaurants of various types three corridors from our quarters. Bayta had no preference, so I chose a small Jurian cafe that was wafting the familiar scent of braised flirdring out into the corridor.

I found it interesting, considering my suspicions about what was going on in the rest of the chalet village, that there weren’t any Human restaurants among them. We ate, then returned to our room.

There, for the next two hours, I sifted through every bit of data I could find on the medical dome, the corridors and service ducts surrounding it, and the various types of locks used aboard Proteus Station.

Not that everything I needed was just sitting there waiting for the general population to access it. But part of my Westali training had been in the art of taking what was shown and filling in what wasn’t.

And after those two hours were over, mindful of the bugs that I still assumed were planted in our room, I took Bayta out on a nice, long walk.

“The cameras are the big problem,” I told her as we walked. “The locks, the building itself—no sweat. But unless we can disable the cameras, it’s not going to work.”

“They’re not that high off the floor,” Bayta pointed out. “Three meters at the most, at least the two are that are just inside the dome. Could you hit them or push them or something?”

“Theoretically, sure,” I said. “The way they’re set up on those gimbals, a good hard shove upward with a push broom ought to point them toward the top of the dome and away from the buildings. But it would have to be a really good shove, because from the images I saw in the security nexus last night it looks like they’re modified wide-angles, and a small nudge would still leave them with a view of the building we want to get into. And of course, since they’re within each other’s view, they’d both have to be taken out at the same time.”

“So dead end?” Bayta asked.

“Not necessarily,” I said. “There appear to be a whole bunch of service crawlways and ventilation ducts in the area around the dome. I may be able to find one that’ll get me to the cameras from behind, or at least to their power and signal cables. And even if I have to take out the camera itself, the access port ought to be small enough that I won’t be visible.”

“So you can take out one camera without being seen on the other,” Bayta said, nodding. “Then you could circle the dome and take out the other one.”

“Right,” I said. “Of course, that assumes that whatever self-checks the security system has for spotting broken equipment don’t instantly send a tech to the trouble spot. If company arrives on the scene too quickly, the whole thing will be a waste of effort.”

“Even worse if they catch you.”

“There’s that,” I conceded. “But I think it’s worth a try.”

Bayta was silent for another few steps. “When?” she asked at last.

“Tonight,” I said. “I’ll wait a couple of hours after the lights finish their dimming. That ought to have the corridors as empty as they’re going to get.”

“What will you want me to do?”

“Basically, stay in the room,” I said. “If they get someone on the case faster than I can move, I might end up having to play a little hide-and-seek before I can shake them. You’ll need to cover for me when they call to make sure I’m innocently tucked away in bed.” I glanced furtively at her. “I meant, tucked away on my floor cushions.”

“I know what you meant,” she said evenly. “So that’s tonight. What about right now?”

“Let’s see if Terese is up and receiving,” I suggested. “That’ll give us an excuse to go back into the dome and maybe scope out that building some more. If we catch Wandek napping we might even find a way to sneak in right now. That would save us a lot of effort and sleep tonight.”

I sensed her shiver. “You really think the others won’t be watching for us to try that?”

I shrugged. “You never know. They might assume we won’t be dumb enough to try the straightforward approach twice in a row. Sometimes people outsmart themselves.”

Terese was indeed up when we arrived at her room. Not that she was receiving, or at least she wasn’t receiving us. Standing outside in the corridor, I could distinctly hear her tell Aronobal in no uncertain terms that she did not want any company, especially if that company consisted of Bayta and me.

Fortunately, I never let things like that bother me. She was still in the middle of her quiet tirade when I took Bayta’s arm and walked in.

The nap had definitely done Terese some good. Her cheeks had more color in them, and the fire in her eyes as she glared at me was several degrees hotter than the pale glow she’d been able to generate earlier. “Damn it all,