Judgment at Proteus

“I believe the title translates to the Human word bulwark,” Aronobal said.

“Right,” I said, nodding. “A defender of the people, or some such, I think was how Logra Emikai defined it for me once.” I reached up and gave Aronobal a conspiratorial pat on her shoulder. “You just concentrate on taking care of Ms. German. I’ll poke around and see what I can come up with.”

We had left the dome and were walking along the corridor toward our quarters before Bayta spoke again. “You’re not serious,” she said.

“Oh, come now,” I said reproachfully. “I get a perfectly good, wonderfully polite invitation into a trap, and you want me to just ignore it?”

“You shouldn’t joke about things like that,” Bayta said, her tone suddenly tight.

I looked sideways at her. Her face was grim, her eyes shiny with suppressed tears. “Hey,” I said softly. “You okay?”

“Of course I’m not okay,” she bit out. “They’re here, Frank. The people who once enslaved half the galaxy, slaughtered billions—”

“Hey, hey,” I interrupted, catching her hands and pulling her to a stop facing me. “Calm down. I may not have had the same history course you did, but we really are on the same page here.”

“Are we?” she shot back, glaring at me with a simmering passion that looked to be equal parts anger, frustration, and fear.

This time I didn’t say anything, but just held her hands in silence and watched as she pulled herself back together. “Here’s the deal,” I said when her emotions were safely back in the dark trunk where she usually stored them. “Someone who was on Earth when the New Tigris reports came in brought a heavily edited version of those reports to Proteus. The most likely candidates for that role are Emikai and Aronobal.”

“I know that.”

“Right,” I acknowledged, glancing both ways down the corridor. This particular hallway didn’t seem all that well-traveled, and there was currently no one else in sight. But sooner or later that would change. “In the same way, Aronobal’s pitch just now has two possibilities. It could be an innocent concern over something she’s seen in Building Twelve, or it could be deliberate bait. We don’t know which, so we play along. If it is a trap, it’ll eventually get sprung, at which point we can probably safely assume that Aronobal was the one who fingered me. Does that make sense?”

“Everything except the part about the trap springing,” she said. “What if you get caught inside it?”

“That’s the tricky part,” I admitted. “The usual technique is to do something they don’t expect and hopefully haven’t prepared for.”

“Like going in through the service crawlways?”

“Exactly.” A motion caught the corner of my eye, and I turned to see a pair of Fillies strolling toward us down the corridor. “So for now we head back to our room,” I continued, shifting to a one-handed grip on Bayta’s arm and starting us moving again toward our quarters. “Actually, it might be smart to start by messaging Minnario that I have someone who would like an audience—or whatever the Protocols call it—with His Royal Highness Chinzro Hchchu.”

“You want to bring Minnario into this?” Bayta asked, puzzled.

“Sure, why not?” I said. “It’s not like defending me hasn’t put him into the crosshairs alongside us anyway. Besides, making an effort to go through proper channels is the sort of thing a helpful but naive bystander might do.”

“Thereby adding a little extra confusion to Usantra Wandek’s assessment of who and what you are?”

I shrugged. “Every little bit helps.”

*   *   *

Minnario, when I finally got through to him, wasn’t very encouraging about my chances of getting a meeting with Hchchu, particularly since I wouldn’t give him the name of the party requesting the audience. But he promised to do what he could. He reminded me that we were due in court at ten o’clock the next morning, and bade me a pleasant evening and a restful night’s sleep.

Bayta and I spent the rest of the afternoon and early evening poring over the various station schematics I’d been able to access, looking for any possibilities I might have missed. The level immediately above the dome floor would be my best shot, and I considered taking a stroll around the dome area to see if I could spot the access hatchways. But Bayta didn’t like the idea of me roaming around looking devious before the bulk of the Proteus populace retired to their quarters, and I wasn’t sure how much it would gain me, either, so we dropped that part.

We’d had a large and late lunch, so instead of going back to restaurant row we found a small grocery store and bought the makings for sandwiches and fruit salad. Doug and Ty had shown themselves to be connoisseurs of Jurian cuisine at lunch, and now demonstrated an equal fondness for roast quipple on toasted poro bread. Between their eagerness and my generosity, they ended up polishing off an entire sandwich each.

Bayta pointed out that getting them used to expecting table scraps would probably not be appreciated once we returned them to the Proteus security force. As far as I was concerned, that was just one more reason to encourage them.

I’d already decided to start my foray two hours after the end of the lights-down ritual, which the computer’s day schedule informed me would begin at ten o’clock and be completed forty-five minutes later. I set the computer’s clock for a twelve-thirty wake-up call and lay down on my floor cushions to get some rest. Well before I drifted off to sleep Ty and Doug also settled into their preferred spots, the former at the head of Bayta’s bed, the latter curled in front of the door.

Bayta stayed up a while longer, working silently at the computer. I thought about asking what she was doing, but the set expression on her face wasn’t one that encouraged conversation. Besides, I was likely to be up half the night, and this might be my only chance to get some sleep for a while. Closing my eyes against the soft glow of reflected light from the computer display, I drifted off to sleep.

*   *   *

And awoke with a jolt.

Through my closed eyelids I could tell the room was dark and quiet. For a few seconds I lay still and listened, locating the three soft sounds of breathing coming from where Bayta and the two watchdogs should be. There were no stealthy footsteps, no extra sounds of breathing, no buzz of a sonic weapon or the scent of a gaseous one. Everything seemed fine.

Only it wasn’t. Somehow, I knew it wasn’t.

I eased my eyes open. Only then did I spot it: a subtle hint of red light flashing slowly across the walls and door. I studied as much of the room as I could without moving, then carefully rolled over.

It was the computer. Something on the display, which Bayta had left turned toward the wall, was flashing red.

I looked around the room one last time, using the light from the slow flashes to confirm that Bayta and Ty were indeed curled up on their parts of the bed and Doug was by the door. Rolling off my cushions, I went over to the computer desk.

There, in the lower corner of the display, were the flashing red words MESSAGE WAITING.

I sat down in the chair, mouthing a curse. The computer’s clock read 12:02, which meant the stupid message indicator had robbed me of half an hour of sleep. Mentally flipping a coin between a reminder from Minnario of our morning court date and a worried pestering from Aronobal about the mysterious Building Twelve, I keyed for the message.

The way is clear. Go now, before the evil ones close the path. The way is clear. Go now.

There was no signature.

I stared at the display, reading the message twice more, my brain skidding on its tracks. The way is clear? What the hell was that supposed to mean?

And then, abruptly, I got it.

I looked over at the door. My movements had awakened Doug, who was looking at me with the expectant air of