Judgment at Proteus

sweep with my leg and knocked his own legs out from under him.

He hit the ground with a grunt and bounded up again, his body armor cushioning his fall enough to keep from having the wind knocked out of him. But if he was expecting me to stick around for another round, he was severely disappointed. Even before his final bounce along the ground I was on my way again toward Bayta’s building, keeping my Beretta trained warningly on the other Filly as I sprinted past him. I reached the building, yanked open the door, and went in.

I’d expected to find a state of chaos, and I was right. The receptionist, who was leaning forward talking urgently into her comm, straightened up so fast she slammed herself and her chair into the wall behind her. I strode past her into the main corridor, Beretta held ready as I watched doctors and techs scrambling desperately out of my way or ducking out of sight into offices, labs, and patient rooms. One of the doctors held his ground, apparently with the idea of standing up to me, changing his mind only when I put another thudwumper into the equipment tray beside him. Amid the spray of shattered plastic and glass he joined his fellows in disappearing through the nearest doorway. I continued on, glancing into each room as I passed it, and finally arrived at Terese’s room.

There, just as the Modhri had said, I found Bayta.

She was in Terese’s old bed, her arms and legs strapped to the sides, her eyes closed, her face pale and drawn. Dr. Aronobal was standing beside her, a hypo in her hand clearly on its way toward Bayta’s arm. Flipping my Beretta’s selector again, I put my last snoozer into the center of her blaze.

And barely got the gun turned back around as a movement to my left caught the corner of my eye. “Hold it,” I bit out, flicking back to thudwumpers.

I’d rather expected Wandek personally to be handling this one. But instead, the lone figure standing silently by the equipment table was my old friend Blue One. “Well, hello there, Isantra Kordiss,” I greeted him coolly as I took a hasty step backward. “I’d stay right there if I were you.”

“And if I don’t?” he challenged, matching my move with a more leisurely step forward.

“No, Frank, don’t,” Bayta said weakly.

Keeping my eyes on Kordiss, I backed across the room. Kordiss stayed put, his eyes on me the whole way. “You all right?” I asked Bayta as I reached her bedside.

“I’m fine,” she assured me. “All they’ve done is taken some blood and checked my brainwaves. Nothing that will tell them anything.”

“Lucky for them,” I said, risking a quick sideways look at her. Her eyes were open now, half lidded with probably drug-induced fatigue, but they were bright and aware and defiant despite that. “Otherwise, I’d have to kill all of them.”

“No, don’t,” Bayta said earnestly. “Please. I think that’s exactly what they want you to do.”

“So that they can haul me up on major felony charges and have the patrollers lock me up and leave you defenseless,” I said, switching the Beretta to my left hand and starting to undo the strap around her left arm. “Yes, I know. They’ve already tried that with Chinzro Hchchu.” I raised my eyebrows at Kordiss. “Whom Usantra Wandek murdered in cold blood while I watched.”

“Of which claim you have no proof,” Kordiss scoffed. “The patrollers are hardly going to take the word of a Human over that of a Filiaelian usantra.”

“That’s the second time you’ve tried that argument,” I reminded him. The strap was turning out to be trickier than it had looked, especially given that I was trying to unfasten it by touch alone. But there was something in Kordiss’s expression that warned me not to take my eyes off him. “It didn’t hold much water then, either,” I continued. “So how come I’m off the patrollers’ bad-guys list? Usantra Wandek afraid the techs would run their blood tests and conclude Chinzro Hchchu died five minutes after the patrollers started packing up his body?”

“Do you really think you can escape Kuzyatru Station?” Kordiss asked, almost conversationally. “Because you’ll have to kill me to stop me.” He cocked his head slightly as if listening. “Along with many others. Do you hear that?”

I heard it, all right: multiple footsteps out in the corridor, heading determinedly this way at a fast walk. “I hear them,” I acknowledged. With a final effort, I ripped the restraint free. “But as it happens, I’m not going to have to kill you or them.”

And as the first of the approaching Shonkla-raa appeared in the doorway I reached into my jacket pocket, pulled out the kwi I’d taken from Hchchu’s desk drawer, and pressed it into Bayta’s newly freed hand.

The Filly in the doorway was the first to go, collapsing without a sound as Bayta fired the kwi at him. The second Shonkla-raa in line flailed in sudden disorientation as he tripped over the unexpected obstacle in front of him, and from the sounds of confusion coming from behind him I gathered the rest of the group were slamming into each other like the characters in an old dit-rec comedy. Kordiss himself had just enough time to snarl something and start into a tiger leap of his own before Bayta zapped him to the floor to join his friend.

“Keep them busy,” I ordered Bayta as I got her left leg free. Ducking around the end of the bed, making sure I stayed below the kwi’s line of fire, I got to work on the right-hand straps.

By the time I finished, two more of the group had strayed into range and view and joined the growing pile of unconscious Shonkla-raa stretched out on the floor. “You up to traveling?” I asked as I took Bayta’s arm and helped her off the bed.

“I think so,” she said. She staggered once, then seemed to find her balance. “Yes, I’m all right,” she said, reaching for the kwi wrapped around her hand. “You’d better have this.”

“Keep it,” I said, shifting my gun to my right hand and taking her arm with my left. “There are a lot of open spaces here, and the kwi doesn’t have nearly as much range as the Beretta.”

“You do realize they’re still hoping you’ll kill one of them, don’t you?” she warned.

“Absolutely,” I said grimly. “And if they keep this up they might just get their wish. Let’s go.”

“Wait a minute,” Bayta said, pulling back against my grip as I started us across the room. “What about Terese?”

“No time,” I said. “Besides, I don’t know where she is.”

“We can’t just leave her here.”

“We won’t,” I assured her, thinking hard. “I’ll get you to safety, and then our new everywhere-friend and I will spread out and look for her.”

Bayta’s forehead creased slightly, probably wondering about this new profession of friendship on my part, possibly also wondering just how far we could push the Modhri on something like this. But she merely nodded. “Do you have a plan?”

“Mostly,” I said. “Stay close to me, and shoot anything that moves.”

There were four more Shonkla-raa waiting for us outside the room, huddled behind equipment carts in the corridor or lurking in doorways. Bayta and the kwi made short work of all of them. We made it through the building, past the now abandoned receptionist’s desk, and headed out into the dome.

I’d expected to face more opposition out there, but to my mild surprise no one was moving or even visible. Either the Shonkla-raa were running out of troops, or else Wandek had finally realized that his strategy was overdue for restructuring and pulled back. Bayta and I crossed the dome unhindered and headed past another deserted reception desk into the corridor.

Waiting half in and half out of an open doorway six doors down was Doug.

“Is that Doug?” Bayta asked, breathing hard.

“Our native guide, yes,” I confirmed, wondering fleetingly why the Modhri wanted us to go to ground this close to the dome. But he hadn’t steered me wrong yet, and I was willing to trust him a little farther. Doug ducked back into the room as we approached, and I got us in behind him just as the door slid shut again.

Only then did I discover that what I’d assumed was a standard guest room or meeting area was in fact a maintenance and storage repository. A repository, moreover, with a set of stairs peeking coyly out from behind a tool rack at the rear.

Doug led the way, bounding up three flights, pausing there to give us time to catch up, then heading off through the maze of industrial equipment. Bayta and I followed, weapons still at the ready, until we reached yet another of the small service elevators. “All the way back up?” I asked as I pressed the call button.