Timothy Zahn - Judgment at Proteus

Riijkhan gave a snort. “You seek to stall,” he said. “You hope to save the life of your friend.”

“No, my friend is going to die today,” I said quietly. “And you’re going to die with him. Because I know who your agent was, the agent you had planted on us. I also know that you lied to me earlier. Usantra Wandek’s plan wasn’t to overthrow the Shonkla-raa leadership. He had something much more subtle in mind.”

Reluctantly, Riijkhan finally turned to face me. “Then tell me, since you’re so eager to do so,” he growled. “What in fact was this subtle plan?”

There was more movement on the monitors, and I looked up to see a couple of the screens grow brighter as the Humans handling the Vipers powered up the rooms’ main lighting. “You were right about the pointlessness of creating Human slaves through telepathic manipulation,” I said, looking back at Riijkhan. “But there’s no point in trying to make them Shonkla-raa shock troops, either. We may have the voice to control the Modhri, but we don’t have the muscle to take down Filiaelian or Shorshian warriors.”

“Then what use did he see in you?” Riijkhan asked.

“You see, you slipped up, Osantra Riijkhan,” I said. “Just a little, but enough. Back when you first tried to recruit me, you said that Humans would be given free run of the galaxy, and that we would be roaming wherever we wished.”

I smiled tightly at him. “We were going to be your secret police, weren’t we? We were going to roam, all right, roam around the galaxy watching for slave revolts or other dangers to the Shonkla-raa master race.”

For a moment Riijkhan was silent. “I was right,” he said at last. “You’re indeed very clever.”

“All it took was knowing how you think,” I said. “You would never offer to leave Earth alone unless you had some better use planned for us. Your big throats are a dead giveaway. But Human spies would be completely anonymous, drifting casually along among all the rest of the ordinary tourists and businessmen, completely undetectable until they suddenly commandeered a group of Modhran walkers.”

I lifted a finger. “But Wandek knew he could only risk giving Human agents that kind of power if he had rock-solid control over them. Hence, the telepathy experiments and Wandek’s plan to set up a genetic farm with Martin von Archenholz on Earth.”

“So you reach the truth,” Riijkhan said. “But you reach it too late.”

I shook my head. “You aren’t paying attention. I’m not just coming to this conclusion now . I already said I’ve been on to you since Venidra Carvo. Because your spy was Terese von Archenholz’s unborn child, whose partially developed auditory apparatus was nevertheless capable of picking up muffled conversations going on near his mother. Your receivers of those relayed conversations were the scrawny little Fillies, whose physique is presumably a side effect of the genetic manipulation that made them able to link telepathically with properly prepared Humans.”

The four Shonkla-raa at the desks, I saw, had abandoned their own work and were listening intently to the conversation. “That’s why you always had one of them dogging our trail,” I continued. “That’s also why, whenever there was any kind of confrontation between us, the scrawny ones were never around. They were always stuck in their compartments, as close as they could get to Terese, hoping to get something useful.”

“Not always,” Riijkhan corrected, his voice unnaturally quiet. “On Venidra Carvo one of them joined our encirclement attack.”

“Because he was already on the scene, and because you needed everyone you could get to make the encirclement look real,” I said. “And I’m quite sure you knew at the time what a horrendous risk it was, given his value and knowing that he was the one we’d probably charge through on our way out of the circle. But you had no choice. He was on the scene because he’d been ordered to stay near Terese, and you needed to create a big, obvious threat in order to move us over to her before her attempt to poison herself robbed you of your inside man.”

“And so you spoke of these ships at Terra Station, knowing we would learn of them,” Riijkhan said, a growing edge to his voice. “You sought to draw all of us here, then set up an ambush with your Humans and your Bellidos allies.”

“Exactly,” I said. “The ships were the bait. You were the catch. And it worked.”

“Did it?” Riijkhan waved a hand. “Your ambush has failed. We remain in full control of the ship and the situation. How do you then speak as if we have failed?”

“Because you have,” I said. “You’re not in control of the ships. You’re not in control of anything.” I looked at Morse. Now , his tapping finger confirmed. “I believe Agent Morse has something to say.”

Riijkhan looked at Morse. “He will remain silent.”

“Fine,” I said, shrugging. “If you want to die without even knowing why, go ahead.”

Riijkhan flashed a look at me— “Compton,” Morse said, his voice gasping a little as the control over his mouth was suddenly released. “Thank you.”

I felt my throat tighten. But as I’d told Bayta, the cost was always set by the aggressors. There was nothing we could do now but pay it. “You’re welcome,” I said.

“For what do you thank him?” Riijkhan demanded.

“For his trust,” Morse said, his eyes still on me. “For his friendship. For the chance to see the leaves on the tree, if only for a brief time.” His eyes rested momentarily on Bayta, then returned to me. “You will watch over the rest?”

“Yes,” I promised, my thoughts flashing back to the scene at the warship door, and the sudden revelation I’d had there.

No, the Modhri was no longer on my side. Instead, I was now on his. With the failure of my plans, he had taken charge.

Don’t ever ask me to do that , the Modhri had said when I’d once dared to suggest that he order part of a mind segment to die. But he hadn’t said it because he wasn’t willing. He’d said it because he must have suspected even then that it might come to this, and he didn’t want even a hint of that thought floating around where the Shonkla-raa could pluck it from his mind or infer it from my words.

He had taken charge, and was about to make the ultimate sacrifice.

And when the mind segment died, the Shonkla-raa control over his hosts would vanish.

“And you were right,” Morse added with a small smile. “It was indeed the beginning of a beautiful friendship.”

“And it still is,” I said quietly. “Good-bye, Modhri.”

I don’t think it was until that moment that Riijkhan suddenly got it. {Attack!} he shouted, and leaped toward Morse.

He never made it. McMicking was ready, stepping between them and dropping into combat stance. Riijkhan snarled something and jabbed a knife hand viciously toward him. McMicking dodged the blow, flashing a side kick into Riijkhan’s abdomen. Riijkhan jolted back with the impact, then slashed another blow toward his opponent. Again, McMicking dodged, but this time he didn’t dodge quite far enough. The clawed fingers caught him across the forehead, gashing a line of bright red and knocking him out of the way.

Just as Morse fired three thudwumper rounds from his Beretta into Riijkhan’s chest.

The four Shonkla-raa at the control board were already in motion. But it was too late for them, too. I snatched one of my jumpsuit’s armor plates from its pocket, snapped it in half and pulled the pieces apart, then hurled them in a diverging pattern toward one of the Fillies. He was watching them go past on either side of him, no doubt wondering at my incredibly inept marksmanship, when the nearly invisible connecting wire sliced through his neck. The second Shonkla-raa died in exactly the same bloody way as McMicking’s wire bolo cut his throat, as well. The third was starting around the edge of the control board when McMicking broke open another plate from his jumpsuit, plucked out the throwing knife created as the metal shattered along its preset fracture lines, and hurled it squarely into one of the Shonkla-raa’s nerve centers. He was howling in blinding agony when my own knife put an end to the pain, and to him.