Timothy Zahn - Judgment at Proteus

“He said they were reconfigured for the comfort of the patients.”

“Right,” I said. “So why, if Terese is the only Human patient around, did they bother putting together a whole dome’s worth of buildings? Especially since the things aren’t made of malleable material like he said they were?”

“They’re not?”

“Take a look,” I invited, lowering Doug’s foot back to the ground and pointing to the gouges I’d made in the wall with his claws. “Every malleable material I’ve ever seen automatically heals small tears like this. But not this stuff. This stuff is simple, ordinary wood.” I raised my eyebrows. “Which leads directly to the question of what the hell is going on in here.”

“The Filiaelian who showed us to our first quarters,” Bayta said slowly. “He needed to confirm who you were.” She looked at me. “But he shouldn’t have, should he?”

“Not if I was the only male Human in this part of Proteus.” I nodded across the dome. “I’ve been watching the Fillies going in and out of those buildings. The same buildings, maybe not coincidentally, that were still showing lights after I dropped you off at your first room last night.”

Bayta let out a sort of soft hiss. “There are other Humans in there.”

“That’s where the logic is heading.” I levered myself to my feet and offered a hand to her. “What do you say we go and find out?”

We headed across the dome toward the particular chalet I’d tagged as number one on my list of potentially interesting tourist attractions. We were within ten meters of it when the door opened and a Filly dressed in doctor’s tans stepped out.

Only this wasn’t just an ordinary Filly doctor. This was the alien I’d dubbed Tan One, one of the Shonkla-raa at Wandek’s informal interrogation yesterday afternoon.

Tan One hadn’t seemed all that friendly during that meeting. Today, he was even less so. {Where are you going?} he asked sternly.

“Good afternoon,” I greeted him cheerfully, not breaking stride.

{This building is off-limits to visitors,} he growled, planting himself directly in our path three meters in front of the building.

“Sorry, I don’t understand,” I said, still not slowing. I would maintain my course, I decided, until I was about half a pace away from him, at which point I would feint left with my shoulder and try to slip around him to the right.

“He said you were not permitted to enter that building,” Wandek’s voice came from behind me.

I swallowed a curse as I came to a halt and turned around. No chance now of pretending I simply didn’t understand what Tan One was blathering about. “Hello, Usantra Wandek,” I greeted him. “Did you and Logra Emikai sort out the security arrangements?”

“They are being dealt with,” Wandek said, eyeing me closely as he came up to us. “What are you doing here?”

“I was hungry,” I said. “I saw all the people going in and out of this building, and thought there might be a food service here like the one in the security nexus upstairs.”

“There are no public dining places in this area,” Wandek said. “The computer in your quarters can provide a list of nearby facilities.”

“Yes, I know,” I said. “I was just hoping we could grab something quick and get back to Ms. German.”

“She is resting now after her treatments,” Wandek said, taking my arm in one of his iron grips and pulling me gently but determinedly back the way Bayta and I had just come. “In an hour, perhaps two, she will be able to receive visitors. This would be a good opportunity for you to seek refreshment elsewhere.”

“And maybe get a little rest ourselves,” I conceded, pulling experimentally against his grip. Now that I was moving in the right direction, Wandek took the hint and let go. “Good day.”

I turned back to face Tan One. “And good day to you, too, Doctor,” I added, giving him a short bow of my head. Under cover of the movement I took a good, hard look at the door behind him.

Turning back again, I took Bayta’s arm, nodded a farewell to Wandek, and headed toward the corridor leading back to our quarters.

We were nearly there before Bayta spoke again. “We’re not really giving up, are we?” she murmured.

“Of course not,” I said. “But I am hungry. Let’s go find something to eat.”

We didn’t bother going into our room, but simply consulted the green-emblem directory in the main corridor leading out of the dome. With usual Filiaelian efficiency, it pointed us to what turned out to be a very nice row of restaurants of various types three corridors from our quarters. Bayta had no preference, so I chose a small Jurian café that was wafting the familiar scent of braised flirdring out into the corridor.

I found it interesting, considering my suspicions about what was going on in the rest of the chalet village, that there weren’t any Human restaurants among them. We ate, then returned to our room.

There, for the next two hours, I sifted through every bit of data I could find on the medical dome, the corridors and service ducts surrounding it, and the various types of locks used aboard Proteus Station.

Not that everything I needed was just sitting there waiting for the general population to access it. But part of my Westali training had been in the art of taking what was shown and filling in what wasn’t.

And after those two hours were over, mindful of the bugs that I still assumed were planted in our room, I took Bayta out on a nice, long walk.

“The cameras are the big problem,” I told her as we walked. “The locks, the building itself—no sweat. But unless we can disable the cameras, it’s not going to work.”

“They’re not that high off the floor,” Bayta pointed out. “Three meters at the most, at least the two are that are just inside the dome. Could you hit them or push them or something?”

“Theoretically, sure,” I said. “The way they’re set up on those gimbals, a good hard shove upward with a push broom ought to point them toward the top of the dome and away from the buildings. But it would have to be a really good shove, because from the images I saw in the security nexus last night it looks like they’re modified wide-angles, and a small nudge would still leave them with a view of the building we want to get into. And of course, since they’re within each other’s view, they’d both have to be taken out at the same time.”

“So dead end?” Bayta asked.

“Not necessarily,” I said. “There appear to be a whole bunch of service crawlways and ventilation ducts in the area around the dome. I may be able to find one that’ll get me to the cameras from behind, or at least to their power and signal cables. And even if I have to take out the camera itself, the access port ought to be small enough that I won’t be visible.”

“So you can take out one camera without being seen on the other,” Bayta said, nodding. “Then you could circle the dome and take out the other one.”

“Right,” I said. “Of course, that assumes that whatever self-checks the security system has for spotting broken equipment don’t instantly send a tech to the trouble spot. If company arrives on the scene too quickly, the whole thing will be a waste of effort.”

“Even worse if they catch you.”

“There’s that,” I conceded. “But I think it’s worth a try.”

Bayta was silent for another few steps. “When?” she asked at last.

“Tonight,” I said. “I’ll wait a couple of hours after the lights finish their dimming. That ought to have the corridors as empty as they’re going to get.”

“What will you want me to do?”