nearest of the cylinders poking out from beneath his chair. He gave the cylinder a half turn, and to my astonishment the tube popped right out. [Not very,] he said, holding it up for my inspection.
“I’ll be damned,” I said, frowning as I took it from him. The whole chair was obviously designed to be operated from the main control board, yet this individual thruster also had its own on/off switch and level and focus controls. “It has its own power supply, too?”
[Yes, it’s fully self-contained,] Minnario said.
I shook my head in amazement as I handed the thruster back to him. “I don’t think I’ve ever heard of a chair design like this before.”
[As far as I know, it’s the only one,] Minnario said, a note of pride in his voice. [I travel a great deal, and had it custom-designed and built this way so I could swap out defective thrusters without having to take apart the entire chair.]
“Very efficient,” I said, bending over and peering at the underside of the chair. The thrusters were arranged down there in a three-by-three array. “You said there were eight of them?”
[Yes,] he said. [The central position of the array is a stabilizer, not a thruster. Oh, and even though each of the thrusters has individual controls, I can also control them directly from my chair while they’re detached, provided I’m close enough.]
I looked at Bayta. Her overt defiance was gone, but there was still a tightness in her throat and cheeks. “Do you want an apology now?” I asked. “Or would you rather save it until later when you can enjoy it more?”
She gave me a tentative smile, and as she did so the last of the stiffness faded away. “Later will be fine,” she said. “Right now, we have work to do.”
* * *
Having the means to carry our prisoner across Proteus was only the first half of the problem. We also had to somehow disguise the fact that we were carrying an unconscious Filly through busy hallways without someone becoming suspicious enough to call the Jumpsuits down on us.
Fortunately, Emikai had already laid the groundwork in his brief post-funeral questioning of some of Tech Yleli’s neighbors. One of the standard questions in a murder investigation always centers around the deceased’s employment history, which for Fillies would mean a list of his contracts. Yleli must have had a lot of such history, because each of the three drawers in his file cabinet was over half full. Naturally, the team investigating his murder couldn’t be expected to set up camp in his apartment, which meant the cabinet needed to be taken somewhere else.
The fronts of the file drawers were attached to the drawers themselves with simple screws, which Emikai’s multitool made quick work of. The cabinet was considerably shorter than Blue One, but it was deep enough that we were able to put him inside in a sort of half-sitting, half-crouching position that would probably have been pretty uncomfortable if he hadn’t already been asleep. After that it was simply a matter of putting the drawer faces back on and wedging them into place, turning the cabinet on its back onto four of Minnario’s thrusters, and we were ready to go.
Or so we thought. We had maneuvered the cabinet nearly to the door when it suddenly gave a hard twitch to the side and settled to the floor. “What happened?” I asked, reflexively grabbing for the side of the cabinet. “Minnario?”
[Yes, I set it down,] he said, frowning at his chair controls. [But I didn’t make it twitch. There’s something not right here.]
“What sort of something?” I asked. “Are the thrusters losing power?”
He shook his head. [No. Something seems to be interfering with the control signal.]
I looked down at the cabinet, the back of my neck tingling. Our first night here, when the Jumpsuits had gone crazy trying to find a non-missing Minnario, he’d mentioned that the locator in his comm interfered with his chair’s controls. “Emikai, you did relieve our friend of his comm, right?” I asked.
“Of course,” Emikai said. “It is over there on the side table.”
“Yeah.” I held out a hand toward him. “Multitool, please?”
We found the extra tracker pinned to the inside of Blue One’s inner tunic lapel. “Very cute,” I said, taking the device across the room and setting it beside the comm. “Minnario, how’s it running now?”
[It seems all right,] Minnario said, sending the cabinet on a few tango-like maneuvers around the living room. [Yes, that was the problem.]
“Good,” I said. There was a wafting of air as Bayta came up beside me. “Emikai, would you mind putting the drawer faces back on?”
He nodded and set to work. “So we were supposed to walk into a trap?” Bayta murmured.
“Or else they were just being careful,” I said. “Do you recognize our friend, by the way?”
She nodded. “He was one of the Filiaelians at the interrogation
“Could be,” I said. “I was trying to steer the conversation that direction when the noise from the funeral started up again and he tried to take me out.”
Bayta shivered. “If there isn’t a trap waiting out there now, there will be soon,” she said quietly. “They’ll be furious when they discover what we’ve done.”
I shrugged. “Just gives us more incentive to figure out how they fit into the murder, and then find a way to nail them for it.”
“
“It’ll be enough,” I assured her. “If not to nail the Shonkla-raa, at least to persuade Emikai to give us more time.”
Emikai finished wedging the last drawer face in place and straightened up. “Are we ready?” he asked.
“We’re ready,” I confirmed, taking Bayta’s arm and rejoining the others. “Let’s get this show on the road.”
“Where exactly are we going?” Bayta asked.
I looked at Minnario, busily maneuvering the file cabinet into line with the door. “Don’t worry,” I said. “We’ll find something.”
* * *
The bullet trains would have been the fastest way to get back across the station. But they would also harbor more prying eyes and idly inquisitive minds than I wanted to have staring at our party and our cargo. So instead we took the back route, traveling the regular corridors and hallways and avoiding even the major traffic lanes and glideways.
We did what we could to disguise the oddness of our party by letting Emikai walk alone beside the floating file cabinet, with Minnario hanging back at the very limit of his control range, while Bayta and I and the watchdogs hung back even farther.
The marching order was helpful, but it was also open to exploitation by any Shonkla-raa who might have tumbled to what had happened and managed to track us down. I kept a close watch, but while we got plenty of curious looks from the other pedestrians no one started any trouble.
And finally, we arrived at the hiding place I’d had in mind ever since Bayta and Minnario had first showed up at Yleli’s apartment.
Minnario’s room.
“I do not like it,” Emikai said flatly as I started pulling the drawer covers off the cabinet. “It is well known that you are Attorney Minnario’s client. This is the first place his allies will look for him.”
“The second place, actually,” I corrected, taking hold of one of Blue One’s arms. “The first place they’ll look will be my room. Give me a hand, will you?”
Together, he and I got the sleeping Filly out of his makeshift coffin and up onto the couch. He didn’t fit on this one any better than I had on the one in my room, but I wasn’t particularly worried about how comfortable he would be with his feet hanging off the end. “Good,” I said, reaching behind him to confirm that his wrist restraints were still secure. “Phase one, complete. On to phase two.”
“Which is?” Emikai asked.
[To prepare for trial,] Minnario spoke up. While Emikai and I had been getting Blue One out of the cabinet, he had settled in at the computer and was peering at the display. [I’m informed your next hearing will be tomorrow morning at ten o’clock.]
“I thought
