now on duty,” Hchchu said.
“I’m so pleased,” I said, trying not to sound too sarcastic as I looked down at the pineapple top of my new watchdogs’ heads. “Do they have names?”
“Could you pronounce them even if they did?” Hchchu countered.
“Probably not,” I said. Most Fillies I’d met had made a point of modifying their own names slightly to make them more pronounceable to the non-Fillies they dealt with. Here in the middle of the Assembly, Hchchu himself apparently felt no need to be so accommodating. “How good are they at learning new ones?”
“They will understand.” Hchchu snapped his fingers twice. {The Human will give you new names.} “Proceed,” he said in English.
The first watchdog looked up at me, I swear with the same expectant look as a two-year-old Human who’s been promised a magic trick. I looked back, trying to think up something appropriate. The watchdogs obviously couldn’t talk, so something from the dit-rec comedy silent era? Buster and Charlie? Charlie and Harold?
I focused again on the watchdog’s face. Those raccoon masks around their eyes … “Doug,” I said, pointing to him. I shifted my finger to the other watchdog. “Ty.”
Doug snuffed once, then lowered his head again. “What about their care and feeding?” Bayta asked.
“Their food and beds will be delivered to your quarters,” Hchchu said. He looked at Minnario. “When you have signed the contract, you may go.”
I looked at Minnario. [It seems in order,] he said as he handed me the paper. [You may sign.]
“Thanks.” I took the contract and held out my hand to Hchchu. “My pen left with my reader case.”
His blaze darkened, but without a word he pulled his contract pen from its tailored pocket in his tunic and slid it across the table to me. I signed on the first line and handed both the paper and the pen back to him. He signed the second line and slid the paper into another slot on the desk. “You may go,” he said, putting the pen away.
“We first need to know where Ms. German was taken,” I reminded him.
Hchchu tapped a few keys on the desk’s computer and peered at the display. {Escort them to Sector 25-F,} he said in Fili. “The
I looked down at Doug’s head. “A map would also be handy,” I suggested.
“They will take you,” Hchchu said. “Good day, Mr. Compton.”
Apparently, we were dismissed. “Right,” I muttered. “Heel, Doug. Or whatever.”
{Go,} Hchchu added.
The two watchdogs turned and trotted toward the door. “You coming?” I asked Minnario.
[I need to wait until the station’s legal representative arrives,] he said. [After I’ve learned the full weight of the case, I’ll find you.] He eyed me closely. [At that point, we can discuss the matter further.]
“I’ll look forward to it,” I said. The watchdogs had reached the door and were standing there expectantly, eyeing me over their shoulders. “My masters call,” I murmured, closing our carrybags and setting them on the floor beside us. “Let’s go.”
* * *
According to the material I’d read aboard the Quadrail, Proteus was divided into a number of sectors of different sizes and shapes, each acting like a combination hospital floor and New York City neighborhood. Most of the medical sectors were arranged with the testing and treatment facilities grouped in the center, surrounded by patient and staff quarters, which were in turn surrounded by shops, restaurants, and entertainment facilities. The non-medical sectors, the ones set up for meetings and conventions, had similar layouts, except that the rooms were considerably fancier and the restaurants and entertainment facilities correspondingly pricier.
Living areas for the workers were scattered throughout the disk, most of them consisting of a dozen corridors’ worth of apartments grouped around a community-center dome that cut through several decks to give the locals a taste of open space. The brochures were a little vague about how those domes were arranged, and what was in each one, but hinted that the decor was largely up to the inhabitants of the neighborhood.
All of the various living and working sections were in the hundred and fifty decks that ran through the central part of the station’s disk, with the domed areas above and below the disk dedicated to storage, recycling, power generation, maintenance, and the vectored force thrusters that kept the station from losing position and starting a long, leisurely fall toward the sun a billion kilometers away.
Sector 25-F was about a quarter of the way around the disk and two kilometers inward from the edge. Fortunately, we didn’t have to walk the whole way. The station was equipped with a network of automated bullet trains that ran along their own array of corridors and covered both center-to-rim and circle routes.
Even more fortunately, there was no charge for their use. Just as well, since I wasn’t sure where our watchdogs would have carried transit passes.
The Filly at the reception desk by the 25-F bullet train terminus gave us Terese’s room number, which turned out to be fifteen floors above us and twenty corridors from the edge of the medical treatment cluster. We took an elevator up and finally arrived at her room.
“I thought you’d been hauled off to jail,” she greeted us sourly as she stood in the middle of her doorway.
“Time off for good behavior,” I said. “Mind if we come in?”
“I don’t know.” She nodded to my new pseudo-canine companions. “Are they housebroken?”
I looked down at Doug. “You two housebroken?”
Doug twisted his head to look up at me and gave a little woof. “He says of course,” I translated, looking back at Terese.
Reluctantly, the girl stepped aside. “Thanks,” I said. I started to walk in, but Doug was faster, slipping in ahead of me. Briefly, I wondered what would happen if I closed the door with him inside and me outside.
But I didn’t wonder enough to actually try it. Ty, after all, was still out here with all of those teeth. I waited until Doug was all the way in, then walked in behind him and gave the room a quick once-over.
It was small, not much bigger than a first-class Quadrail compartment, with a bed, computer desk, couch, half-bath, a wall-mounted entertainment center, a narrow closet that ran the full length of one of the walls, and a compact food-prep and dining area. “Cozy,” I commented.
“And only big enough for one,” she said pointedly.
That wasn’t strictly true, I noticed: while the bed was narrower than a standard Earth queen, king, or emperor, it would be adequate enough for two. “Don’t worry, we’re not planning to move in,” I assured her.
“Then what
“I told you that back at Venidra Carvo,” I reminded her. “
“With his dying breath, and violins swelling in the background,” she said sarcastically. “Fine. I’m here, I’m safe, and I’m happy. So hit the road.”
“Unfortunately, it’s not that easy,” I said. “We still have to meet your doctors, find out what procedures they’re planning, double-check the prognosis—basically, make sure you stay as safe and happy as you are right now.”
Somewhere in the middle of all that Terese’s face had gone rigid. “You’re joking,” she said. “What if it takes weeks? Or months? What if it takes
“Then we’ll be here for weeks or months or years,” I said calmly. “We made a promise.”
“Oh, no, you don’t,” she growled. “You are
“Actually,
“Maybe it would help if you told us why you’re here,” Bayta put in quietly.
“Why?” Terese shot back. “So you can fix it and make me all better?”
I was working on a reply to that when there was a buzz from the door. “You want me to get that?” I asked.
Terese glared her way past me and hit the door release. The panel slid open to reveal Dr. Aronobal, who had changed from her traveling clothes into the crisp tans of a proper on-duty Filiaelian doctor. “Mr. Compton,” she said, her blaze darkening briefly as she caught sight of me. Her eyes slipped to the watchdogs, then came back up again. “I didn’t know you’d be here.”
“We were charged with Ms. German’s safety and well-being,” I reminded her. “Can you tell me when she’ll be
