Judgment at Proteus

NINE

The mourners in the dome had gone silent again, giving the air the quiet stillness of a midcontinental Western Alliance afternoon just before a thunderstorm. The Filly’s eyes were dark and malevolent, his hands large and ready, the whole package topped off with an unholy glitter of anticipation.

Which didn’t mean I should assume he knew everything. “Sorry—what did you say?” I asked, reprising my ignorant tourist role and wondering how far I could push the game this time.

As it turned out, not very. “Don’t play the fool, Compton,” the Filly said contemptuously, switching to excellent English. “We know all about you, and about your war against my servant the Modhri. A Human of your talents and experience most certainly is capable of understanding Fili.”

“Which you expect to be the language of the future?” I suggested, giving him a quick but careful study. Filly faces were tricky for Humans to tell apart, but I was almost positive that this was the Filly I’d dubbed Blue One, one of the group of Shonkla-raa that Usantra Wandek had dragged Bayta and me in to see when we first arrived at Terese’s medical facility.

“Of course,” he said. “As it was also the language of the past.”

“I’ll have to take your word for that one,” I said. He hadn’t bought my game of pretending not to understand Fili, but maybe I could still convince him I didn’t know the Shonkla-raa were on the rise again. “As to that comment about incompetent fools, what did you expect from local talent? What did you do, grab the nearest bunch of yokels and tell them I was going to trash Yleli’s place?”

“Something like that,” the Filly said, taking another step toward me. “But I didn’t expect anything more from them than to soften you up.”

“You might be surprised at how little softening has actually taken place,” I warned, taking a couple of hasty steps back.

“Oh, don’t look so concerned,” the Filly chided, coming to a halt. “At the moment, you’re worth more to us alive than dead.”

“That’s comforting,” I said, a hard knot forming in my stomach. Of course I was worth keeping alive. Why kill me when a touch of Modhran coral would turn me directly into one of their slaves? “How about you? Are you worth more alive, too?”

He smiled, a thin, evil thing. “If you wish for more combat, I can certainly oblige you.”

“I’m sure you can,” I murmured, trying desperately to think. He could almost certainly take me—that much we both knew. Yet for all that brimming confidence, he didn’t seem in any hurry to get things started. Was he waiting for backup to arrive? More locals, or another Shonkla-raa or two? In either case, giving them time to get into position was a guarantee that I would get my head handed to me.

But what were my other choices? Turning tail and trying to run for it wouldn’t work—from my fight with Asantra Muzzfor aboard the super-express Quadrail I knew that Shonkla-raa were pretty fast on their feet. Besides that, I didn’t much care for the image of being run to ground like an antelope on the Serengeti.

But facing him straight-up and unarmed this way wasn’t going to work, either. What I needed was to find a weapon.

Or maybe I already had one.

There was a slightly dazed-sounding rumble from somewhere to my left. “Doug?” I called, wanting to look and see how he was doing but not daring to take my eyes off Blue One. “Hey, boy. You okay?”

The watchdog rumbled again. Maybe he’d hit the deck harder than I’d realized. “Yeah, sorry about that,” I apologized.

“A most clever maneuver, by the way,” the Filly commented. “Although I expect Chinzro Hchchu will be annoyed if you permanently damage one of his msikai-dorosli.” He smiled thinly. “If you wish to try throwing him at me as well, feel free to do so.”

“Sorry, I never do a trick twice for the same audience,” I told him. “Speaking of tricks, why did you kill Tech Yleli? If it’s not a professional secret, of course.”

“If anyone bears the blame for his death, it’s you,” he said darkly. “You were the one who disabled the monitors in the dome. That was what allowed him to die unseen.”

I felt my forehead crease. I was the one who’d disabled the monitors? “An act of petty vandalism hardly rises to the level of murder,” I pointed out. “I also notice you’re ducking the question. What did he do? Or did he see something he shouldn’t?”

The Filly snorted again. “You Humans have such a narrow way of viewing the universe,” he said. “You insist on dealing with reality purely in terms of cause and effect.”

“And how should we deal with it?”

“By seeing through to the ultimate goal,” he said. “The path itself is meaningless. You must look to the goal, and to reach it no matter what obstacles lie in your way.”

“Ah, yes—the old end justifying the means,” I said, nodding. “We tossed that one into the ethical ash heap centuries ago.”

“Of course you did,” he said calmly. “You’re an inferior being, among a race of inferior beings. Your goals certainly don’t justify your path.”

“That’s only for superior beings like you, I gather,” I said. “My mistake. So which of your higher goals did Tech Yleli’s death serve?”

The Filly lifted his finger, his head half turned in the direction of the community center. “Wait,” he said. “Do you hear?”

I frowned. Then, drifting down the corridor toward us, came the first strains of music.

It began as a single voice lifted in quiet song. A few bars later a second voice joined in, then a third, then a fourth, and then an entire chorus in full Filiaelian five-part harmony.

“The time of meditation is over,” the Filly said, a grim satisfaction in his voice. “And with the raised voices to mask your screams of agony, we may finally proceed.” Settling his hands into the lock-jointed knives I’d faced aboard the super-express Quadrail, he started toward me. “Or would you prefer to come quietly?” he added.

“Careful,” I warned, backing up at his advance. “You and your friends want me alive, remember?”

“Alive can also mean not quite dead,” he pointed out. “It makes little difference to me.”

“I suppose not,” I said, still backing up. I passed Doug, who was standing more or less where I’d tossed him earlier. He turned to face me as I continued by, his eyes tracking me balefully, his mouth half open to show his teeth. I’d caught him by surprise the last time, but he wasn’t going to fall for my quick-grab tactics again. The Filly picked up his pace, closing the gap.

And I took a long step to my left, putting Doug squarely between the two of us.

The Filly stopped, his blaze paling a little with clear surprise at my maneuver. “You’re not serious,” he said, looking at Doug and then back at me.

“I’m not?” I asked. The Filly took a step to his right, and I responded with a step to mine, keeping Doug between us.

“Please,” the Filly said condescendingly. He did a little two-step, clearly enjoying the novelty and, probably, the ultimate uselessness of my stalling technique.

I did a mirror-image two-step and jammed my hand into my side pocket. “Okay, that’s far enough,” I said in as stern a voice as I could manage. “Back off, right now, or you’ll regret it.”

“You disappoint me,” the Filly said, a tone of regret in his voice as he feinted left and then took another step to the right. “Do you Humans truly believe your skill at bluffing is so potent a weapon? Chinzro Hchchu is barely intelligent enough to qualify as a sentient being, but even he knows how to properly disarm a potential threat to his precious station.”

I grimaced. “Someday you’re going to be wrong,” I said, reluctantly withdrawing my hand from the pocket. “I just hope I’m there—”

Right in the middle of my sentence he leaped toward me, his tucked feet clearing Doug’s head and back by a