Judgment at Proteus

The pause this time was longer. “Assuming you escape the scene, how much evidence will there be against you?”

“If I get out fast enough, none,” I assured him, looking at the locked door and then at Hchchu’s desk. “In fact, depending on how much noise I make, and how fast the patrollers get here after me, they’re going to be left with one hell of a puzzle. Don’t ask me to explain—it’s way too complicated.”

“No explanation is necessary,” he said, and I could hear the relief in his voice. “If you are innocent, and if the evidence will show that, there is no requirement for me to hinder your movements.”

“That’s good to hear,” I said, going over to where Minnario’s empty chair was quietly hovering. Taking one of its arms, I pulled it over beside the desk. “I’d like you to accompany Bayta to a place of safety. She’ll show you where.”

“Understood,” he said. “We will await your arrival.”

“Thanks,” I said. “Now put Bayta on.”

There was a pause— “Frank?”

“Okay, we’re all set,” I told her, searching the chair’s control board for the off control. “Emikai will go along and help keep you safe until I can catch up.”

“Where do you want me to go?”

“I don’t know yet,” I said, looking at Minnario. “Minnario?”

The Nemut’s fingers twitched again. “Ty can guide her.”

I grimaced. Of course Ty could guide her. Sometimes I forgot just how useful a group mind could be. “Ty will show you where,” I told Bayta. “Just follow him.”

“Ty will show me?”

“Yes,” I said. I found the control and twisted it, and the chair settled smoothly to the floor. “It turns out our super-express ally had an extra card up his sleeve.”

Even over the comm I could hear the hiss as she inhaled sharply. “Minnario?”

“Bingo,” I said. “Fortunately, the truce appears to still be on. Doug and Ty are also members of the club—go ahead and follow him.”

“Are you sure?” she asked, her voice strained. “I mean—”

“I know, I know,” I cut her off. “But go back and think about everything that’s happened here. He’s been running interference for us against the Shonkla-raa ever since we set foot on the station. Including having Ty stay with you for protection, despite the fact the animal had been ordered to stay with me.”

“Yes, but—”

“More to the immediate point, up until thirty seconds ago Wandek and his buddies had me in an airtight frame-up,” I went on. “There’s no game the Shonkla-raa and Modhri could possibly be playing that would put us in a worse predicament than they already had us in. So just go—I’ll join you as soon as I can.”

“All right,” she said, still reluctant but with a firmness in her voice that meant she was ready to go along with the new plan.

“And watch yourself,” I added. “See you soon.”

I keyed off the comm and slipped it into my pocket. “How is he?” I asked as I tipped the chair over on its side and started removing the thrusters. The central stabilizer Minnario had mentioned the first time we’d taken the chair apart was visible from this angle: a plain cylinder the size of the other thrusters, but with six vertical lines of hash vents instead of the thrusters’ three.

“He’s very much unconscious,” the Modhri said grimly. “At the very least he has a mild concussion. It may be more severe than that.”

“Can you do anything to help?” I asked. Freeing two of the thrusters, I slid them up under two of the desk’s corners, giving them just enough juice to lift that side of the desk half a meter off the floor.

“Do you think I function as a medical implant?” the Modhri retorted.

“So that’s a no,” I said as I pulled two more of the thrusters from the chair. “That means we’ll have to find someplace where we can get him proper medical attention.”

“If you think that’s wise,” the Modhri said doubtfully. “It’s certainly not necessary—I can function well enough without him.”

“That’s the kind of talk that makes people not like you,” I admonished as I set the thrusters beneath the desk’s other two corners.

“Yes, of course,” he said. “I understand. Forgive me.”

I paused, frowning around the corner of the desk at Minnario’s unmoving form. Had the Modhri actually apologized to me? “It’s okay,” I said as I keyed in the thrusters and cranked up the other side of the desk. “Besides, unless Doug’s a lot better at charades than he looks, we definitely still need Minnario, or at least his mouth. Speaking of which, how are you hearing me right now? Or isn’t Minnario really deaf?”

“Yes, he is,” the Modhri said. “I’m hearing you through Doug’s ears.”

“Ah,” I said, detaching two more of the chair’s thrusters and looking for some way to attach them to the rear of the hovering desk. “So how come you didn’t join the party when Muzzfor called up everyone else back on the super-express? You could hear his siren song through the other walkers’ ears, couldn’t you?”

“I don’t know the answer to that,” he said. “But I suspect that the sound works on an Eye’s polyp colony directly through his auditory system. Hearing it through the group mind isn’t the same as having the physical effect of the physical sound coming through the Eye’s own ears. But whatever the reason, I wasn’t affected that way.”

Minnario’s body gave a sudden shiver. “You don’t know what it was like, Compton. You can’t possibly know. I could feel the tug of his orders, could feel the helplessness and horror of it filling my mind. For the first time in any part of my experience this particular part of the mind was cut off from all the rest. It was terrifying.”

“It’s called being alone,” I said, pulling out the two middle desk drawers and probing with my hand at the panels at the back ends. The wood seemed thick enough to handle the pressure the thrusters would be exerting. “Very popular among all the rest of us.”

“So I understand,” the Modhri said, some of the horror fading away. “But it’s not something I’m accustomed to. What’s your plan?”

“To get us the hell out of here before the receptionist gets back,” I said, sliding one of the thrusters into each of the empty drawers. “Any idea how we’re doing on time?”

“If Usantra Wandek’s numbers were right, we have another five minutes.”

And Wandek’s estimate could easily be off by a minute or two. “Okay, here’s the rundown,” I said as I stood up and turned Minnario’s chair upright again. “The door’s locked, and it may be soundproof, but it isn’t particularly thick or strong.”

“So you’re going to ram the desk into it?”

“Right,” I said, looking at the controls. Earlier, when we’d been moving the unconscious Kordiss inside Yleli’s file cabinet, I’d watched how Minnario had operated the detached thrusters. I wouldn’t have nearly his finesse, but I was pretty sure I could duplicate his technique as far as I needed.

Only with four of the thrusters now taking the desk’s weight and two more positioned to push it across the room, there were only two thrusters left to power the chair. The chair that Minnario had said required three to function.

“Is there a problem?” the Modhri asked.

“Minnario’s chair is one thruster short,” I told him as I lugged the chair over to Minnario’s sprawled body and got a grip under his arms. My brief Westali medical training had mentioned the risks of moving someone with a head injury, but it would be a hell of a lot more dangerous to leave him here. “If we’ve got time to retrieve at least one of the thrusters after we crash the desk, we’ll be okay,” I went on as I carefully lifted Minnario and eased him into his chair. It was harder and a lot more awkward than it looks in dit-rec dramas.

“Why won’t there be time?” the Modhri asked.

“Because if Wandek has any brains at all he’ll have someone loitering out there to make sure things go as planned,” I said. “In which case, we’ll have a very limited number of seconds in which to barrel our way over, around, or through him.”

“And thus may not have time to retrieve the thrusters,” the Modhri said. “Yes, I understand. Have you a plan?”

“We’ll find out in a second.” I adjusted Minnario so that he was more or less upright, and keyed the switch. The