Judgment at Proteus

  What I wasn’t expecting was that Bayta apparently didn’t blame me for messing all that up.

  That worried me. Bayta and I had been through enough that I expected her to trust me. But Terese’s current situation was my fault, at least partially, which should realistically have given rise to at least a little annoyance or frustration on Bayta’s part.

  Only it hadn’t. Which strongly implied that she’d figured out what I was up to.

  And that didn’t just worry me. It scared the living spit out of me.

  Because sure as God made little gray sewer rats there would be Shonkla-raa aboard the train we would be boarding once we reached Homshil. I had no idea how well versed they were in the subtleties of Human psychology, but if they sensed any anomalies in Bayta’s behavior my entire plan could come crashing down around us.

  But there was nothing I could do. Not with Terese glowering across the tender where she could listen in on any conversation Bayta and I might have. I would just have to carry on as if nothing was wrong and hope the Shonkla-raa misinterpreted whatever data they managed to collect.

  There hadn’t been any way for Bayta to set up our new travel plans from the secret Yandro station. But I’d spent some time with the Quadrail schedule and had concluded we would have less than two hours to wait before the express train I wanted arrived at Homshil.

  For once, my timing was dead on. An hour and forty minutes after we stepped off the tender at Homshil we were on our way to Sibbrava.

  I’d hoped that our little side trip to Yandro might throw Riijkhan off the scent. No such luck. He hadn’t managed to score a compartment this time, but when I escorted Bayta and Terese to the dining car for our first meal of the trip I spotted him right there in the middle of the first-class coach car.

  Fortunately, sitting seemed to be the only thing he wanted to do at the moment. That, and staring unblinkingly at us as we walked past.

  Bayta spotted him, too, but limited herself to a single emotionless glance in his direction before turning her eyes away. Terese, equal opportunity grouch that she was, uncorked a defiant glare that was impressive even by her standards.

  Morse was waiting for us, having come in on his own from the second-class car just behind the dining car, the closest place Bayta had been able to get him a seat. “Any trouble getting in here?” I asked him as we sat down at his table.

  “None,” he assured me. “A first-class ticket gets you into first-class territory even if your seat is in second. What news from your end of the world?”

  “Riijkhan’s aboard,” I said. “I didn’t spot any of his original entourage, though. He may have split them off to cover the stations between Homshil and Earth.”

  “If he did, he didn’t split all of them,” Morse said, his eyes flicking briefly to his left.

  Under cover of pushing Terese’s fork and spoon closer to her, I looked in that direction. Seated with two other Fillies, trying to look inconspicuous, was a familiar face. “Well, well—our old friend Scrawny,” I commented, returning my attention to Morse. “At least with him we don’t have to worry about getting ambushed in the still of the night.”

  “Don’t be too sure,” Morse warned. “He could be a genetically enhanced fighter who’s deliberately chosen to look non-threatening.”

  “There’s that,” I conceded. “Well, it wasn’t like we weren’t going to keep an eye on him anyway. What exactly does that we consist of, by the way?”

  “There are eight Eyes in first, plus another six in second,” Morse said. “Bearing in mind, though, that the latter group would need Spider permission to come into first-class territory if we need them.” He looked at Bayta and raised his eyebrows invitingly.

  Bayta grimaced, but nodded. “If you need them, they should give the Spiders the password filigree.”

  “Filigree,” Morse repeated, nodding. “Got it.”

  A server Spider came up, and we gave our dinner orders. “So what’s the rest of the plan?” Morse asked after the server had gone. “Specifically, what happens when we hit Sibbrava?”

  “We get off and grab another tender that hopefully will be waiting for us,” I said, glancing reflexively at Scrawny and his dinner companions. Quadrail dining cars were acoustically designed to keep table conversations confined to those immediate environs, but checking for possible eavesdroppers was a habit trained security types like me found almost impossible to break. “We take a quick trip to the Melding’s secret location, present our case, and if we’re lucky an equally quick trip back to Sibbrava with some new passengers and a few crates of additional cargo.”

  “And if they politely decline to join in the fun?”

  “They won’t,” I said. “The essence of the Melding is about nurturing and cooperating with others. They consider the Modhri a somewhat dysfunctional member of the family, and want to help him.” I made a little hand gesture. “No offense.”

  “None taken,” Morse said, his voice more grim than offended. “I’m more concerned about … the point is, Compton, that I’m starting to wonder if this is really the right time to be turning the Modhri into a lapdog. Seems to me that the wolf version is exactly what we need right now.”

  “One: I said dog, not lapdog,” I reminded him. “Big difference. Two: you heard what I said about the Melding’s possible frequency shift.”

  “And I’m thinking that’s a crock,” Morse said flatly. “It’s the same coral, the same polyps, the same sense of hearing with everyone. I don’t see how the Eyes’ attitude or whatever can make two sticks’ worth of difference.”

  “Is that you talking, or the Modhri?” I asked.

  “It’s me,” Morse growled. “But the Modhri’s not so sure, either.”

  “You tell the Modhri he needs to remember who’s wearing the leader hat here,” I said. “And you both need to trust me.”

  “The Modhri does.” Morse’s eyes flicked to Bayta. “I gather Bayta does, too.”

  “And you?”

  He looked me square in the eye. “Not so much.”

  “That’ll change,” I promised him. “Sooner or later, that’ll change.”

  I hoped to hell I was right.

  TWENTY-THREE

  The ten-day trip from Homshil to Sibbrava translated, in this case, to ten days of watchfulness, dit-recs and cards, meals and drinks, and, as it turned out, unnecessary anxiety.

  Every time I left our compartment I expected Riijkhan or one of his friends to make some sort of trouble. But nothing of the sort ever happened. As far as I could tell, the whole Shonkla-raa community could have decided to give up and go away.

  Which just meant that what they were really doing was gathering their strength for some seriously massive attack.

  I could hardly wait.

  We reached Sibbrava and the four of us transferred to another of the Spiders’ modified tenders. Three and a half hours later, we pulled into the unfinished station in the still unnamed Cimmal system where the Melding had set up their new home.

  A long-range service vehicle, also modified for Human use, was waiting at the hatchway for us. With a service Spider at the controls, and a defender Spider standing beside him, we headed out into space.

  With a near-Earth-type planet beckoning invitingly from the inner system, plus any number of moons and large asteroids available for warren habitats, my assumption had always been that the Melding’s leaders had moved inward from the Tube. It was something of a surprise, therefore, when our transport instead turned outward, toward the vast emptiness of the outer solar system.

  In retrospect, though, it made sense. Quadrail Tubes typically touched their client systems far out in the local sun’s gravity well, putting ninety-nine-plus percent of the useful real estate on the inward side of the line. The handful of hardy knowledge-seekers who might go in the other direction would never even spot a lone, silent ship drifting through all that blackness.

  Or in this case, six ships: six old survey/sampling vessels, Cimman design, probably leftovers fr
om the system’s initial exploration sweep. The ships were linked together by wide transfer cylinders, with an industrial-sized fusion generator trailing along behind the whole thing like a pet dog on a leash.

  Docked beside one of the ships in the cluster was a torchferry, presumably the vehicle the Melding used to get back and forth to the Tube when necessary. None of the other ships’ docking ports had the glowing red outlining that would indicate it was receiving guests, but our Spider seemed to know where he was going. He maneuvered us alongside the ship on the opposite side of the cluster from the torchferry, and I felt the slight tremor as the docking collars engaged. “Okay,” I said, as our engines went silent. “You all sit tight. I’ll go in and make sure everything’s okay.”

  “No,” Morse said, his voice tight. “We go together.”

  “Morse—”

  “They want to see all of us,” he said. “Might as well go in together and get it over with.”

  Back when Bayta and I first sneaked Rebekah off New Tigris and out of the Modhri’s hands she’d said there were about three hundred of these Melding people. From the size of the crowd gathered in the shuttle hangar bay as we walked inside, it looked like the whole crowd had come out to greet us.

  And not all of them had friendly looks on their faces. Not even most of them.

  I cleared my throat. “Hello,” I called, my voice echoing strongly in the hangar despite all the people gathered there. “I’m Frank Compton.”

  “We know who you are,” a Jurian in the center of the front row said. “We know who all of you are.” His gaze swept over us, settled on Morse. “Why are you here?”

  “We need your help,” I said. “The Shonkla-raa have revived—”

  “Why are you here?” the Jurian repeated.

  Only then did I realize he wasn’t talking to me. He was talking to Morse. Or rather, to the Modhri inside Morse.

  I shifted my attention to Morse. He gave a little nod, as if giving silent permission to an unspoken question.

  And abruptly his face sagged subtly as the Modhri took over his body. “To see if I can be changed,” he said.

  “And if you can?” the Jurian asked. “Will all of you—the entire Modhri—accept this change?”

  “Why can’t they just make him?” Terese murmured from beside me, her usual shoulder-chip attitude momentarily eclipsed by the eerie gravity of the moment. “They’ve got to have hundreds-to-one odds on him.”

  The Jurian had good ears. “We won’t impose our will on anyone,” he said, his eyes flicking briefly to Terese before returning to Morse. “Will all of you accept this change, Modhri?”

  Morse braced himself. “I won’t hide from you that I fear this.” He looked at me, as if seeking reassurance. Or else reminding himself what was at stake. “But more frightening is the thought of being a slave to the Shonkla-raa,” he added. “Yes. All of me will accept the change.”

  The Jurian nodded. “Then open yourself,” he said. “Do not resist. Open yourself to us, and allow us to bring forth the person that you can be. The person you were perhaps meant to be.”

  I don’t know what I was expecting. Something dramatic, I suppose, something in line with life-changing events in the dit-rec dramas I’d watched over the years. But there was nothing of the sort. Morse’s head twitched back a bit, more like the precursor to a sneeze than anything else.

  And then, he turned to me, a look of utter bewilderment on his face. “I’ll be damned,” he said, the same bewilderment in his voice.

  “What?” I asked, reflexively shifting my feet into combat stance. “What happened.”

  “This,” Morse said, waving a hand vaguely around him. “You ever wear glasses, Compton?”

  I frowned. Did incorporating the Modhri with the Melding cause the former to go suddenly senile? “Sure, when I was a kid,” I said. “Most doctors won’t work on your eyes until you’ve stopped growing.”

  “I remember the first day I got my glasses, when I was eight,” Morse said, his eyes sweeping the room but not really focusing on anything. “I hated the thought of wearing the things, so I’d been faking it for at least four years. You know what the first thing was I discovered?”

  “That the things pinched your nose?”

  “No.” He gestured. “That trees have leaves. All the way to the top. Individual leaves. And I could see them.”

  He smiled. “I can see clearly now, Compton. Or rather, the Modhri can.”

  “I’m happy for you both,” I said cautiously. It couldn’t be this easy. It couldn’t possibly be this easy.

  Only, apparently, it was.

  “We need to get you and your people to Yandro as quickly as possible,” Morse went on, the sense of awe in his voice giving way to brisk professionalism. “Compton, I saw five tenders at the station back there—are those for us to use? Four per tender would mean twenty of them could go now, plus as much coral as they can squeeze in—”

  “Whoa, whoa,” I cut him off. “Let’s pause for a minute and think this through, shall we?”

  “What’s to think through?” Morse countered. “You were right. It works. We need to get some of this coral to Yandro and start getting the segment-prime up to speed.”

  “Don’t dampen his enthusiasm, Compton,” the Jurian said. I’d never heard a Jurian sound chiding, but this one managed it. “For the first time he sees what he’s been missing. He’s eager to share this discovery with the rest of himself.”

  “Yes—the leaves on the trees, and all that,” I said, thinking fast. I’d expected the trip from the station to the Melding’s hideout to take considerably longer than the three and a half hours it actually had. If we started back now, my timing was going to be dangerously off the mark. “But that doesn’t mean charging blindly ahead,” I went on. “There are logistics to consider—how much coral, who goes, what happens to everyone who’s still here. Once we get to Yandro, what then? Does everyone head inward to the planet for direct contact with the Modhran coral, or does the segment-prime send some Eyes out to meet with the Melding?”

  “Good questions, all,” Morse said, his forehead creasing. “And all of them except the ones about numbers and coral tonnage can be worked on en route.”

  “And besides that, I’m tired and hungry,” I said.

  “Two issues I believe we can solve,” the Jurian said gravely. There was movement at one side of the group.

  And our old friend Rebekah Beach stepped out into view.

  It had been less than six months since Bayta and I had said our final good-byes to her back at the unfinished Quadrail station. But even in that brief a time, the girl had undergone a dramatic change. She was noticeably taller, as generally happened with ten-year-olds. She’d also cut her hair into a shorter style, one that suited her face better than the old one had.

  But more impressive than her physical changes was the new air of calmness and maturity that hovered around her. Back when we’d been running from the Modhri, Rebekah had tried very hard to be all grown up, to face the danger and uncertainties as best she could. But those efforts had been only partially successful, like a set of ill-fitting clothes she’d hastily thrown on.

  Now, after only a few months, I could see her wearing those adult attitudes and responsibilities like a tailored suit.

  Back then, I’d wondered whether the Melding colony within her had cheated her out of her childhood. Apparently, whatever forces were at work in her were well on their way to depriving her of her teen years, as well.

  Which, as I remembered back to that period in my own life, wasn’t necessarily a bad thing.

  But despite all that maturity wrapped around her, I could see a hint of the excited child shining in her eyes as she saw Bayta and me.

  Not that that kind of excitement was solely the province of ten-year-olds. I was still only halfway through my observation and analysis when Bayta broke from my side, hurried forward, and attacked the girl with a huge bear hug.

  “Rebekah will take you to a room wher
e you may rest,” the Jurian continued. “Meanwhile, we’ll prepare food for you.”

  I inclined my head to him. “Thank you.”

  “Any idea how long this nap of yours is going to take?” Morse asked.

  “A few hours,” I said. “Maybe more. It’s been a long time since I felt genuinely safe, and I’ve got a lot of sleep to catch up on.” I turned back to Bayta and Rebekah, who had now disengaged from their hug and were talking softly together. “Whenever you’re ready, Rebekah,” I added.

  The girl gestured to a line of unoccupied floor that had opened up through the crowd behind her. “This way,” she said. Her eyes shifted to Terese. “Would you like to come with us, too, Terese?”

  “That’s okay,” Terese said. “I’m not very tired.”

  “Could we talk, then?” Rebekah persisted.

  The question seemed to take Terese by surprise. “About what?” she asked suspiciously.

  “Nothing special,” Rebekah said, her air of calmness faltering a bit. “Just about … things.” She hunched her shoulders. “There isn’t anyone else aboard even close to my age. I just thought we could … just talk, that’s all. Or maybe listen to music. There isn’t much Human music here. Do you have anything modern with you?”

  “Some,” Terese said. Her voice was still wary, but I could hear her warming to the idea of having some company that wasn’t Bayta, Morse, and me. Especially that wasn’t me. “You like Adam Pithcary?”

  “I don’t think I’ve ever heard him,” Rebekah said. “But I’d like to. Come on, we’ll show Mr. Compton to his room and then we can go to mine. Wait’ll you hear my player—it’s really good.”

  She took Terese’s arm, and the two of them headed toward a door in the hangar’s rear. It looked a little odd, the little girl leading the teenager, but somehow seemed both right and proper given their different personalities. Bayta walked behind them, hanging back to give them some space, and I dropped into position a couple meters still farther to the rear.