Timothy Zahn - Judgment at Proteus

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 are you planning?” she demanded. “Why are you even here?”

“I told you that back at Venidra Carvo,” I reminded her. “ Asantra Muzzfor asked us to see you safely to Proteus Station.”

“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 years ?”

“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 not going to hang around making a royal pain of yourself. This is my last chance—” She broke off. “Okay, try this. If you don’t get lost, I’ll call Logra Emikai and tell him to throw you out.”

“Actually, Logra Emikai will probably be on my side,” I said. “He was contracted to keep you safe, too, you know.”

“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 seeing the doctors?”

“Right now,” Aronobal said. “Come, I’ll take you there.”

“Great,” I said, gesturing Terese through the open door. “After you.”

Aronobal stuck her hand out toward my chest. “I’m not certain the doctors will permit you to accompany her,” she warned.

“Do I have to go through this again?” I asked patiently. “I made a promise—”

“Yes, yes, I know,” Aronobal cut me off. “Very well. I shall ask them.”

She turned and headed down the hallway. I gestured again to Terese, and the teen stomped past me and caught up with the Filly. Bayta and I were right behind her, my watchdogs again settling in at my sides.

There were no bullet trains on our level, but two floors down was a major traffic corridor equipped with five-meter-wide fluidic variable-speed glideways at both edges, arranged as usual with the slower sections next to the central, non-moving part of the walkway and the faster ones at the far edges beside the walls. Aronobal got us to the corridor and onto the proper glideway, stepping nimbly across the flow until she’d reached the fast track.

I’d run into this kind of glideway in other places across the galaxy. Their main advantage over a sequence of solid walkways was that there were no abrupt transitions from one speed to another, which made it easier for those with less than perfect balance to get across without falling. Their main drawback was that, since it was variable-flow, an unwary rider who stood in a normal forward-facing stance with his feet shoulder-width apart would find the foot nearest the wall slowly but steadily pulling ahead of the other one. More experienced travelers knew to stand with their feet in a straight line, which limited the drift problems to one shoe edge trying to outpace the other and was much easier to compensate for.

I expected Terese to fall into the unwary category, and I was right. She nearly fell twice before Aronobal noticed her trouble and showed her the trick. I couldn’t see the girl’s face from where I was standing, but from the stiffness of her back I guessed that this wasn’t helping her mood.

I’d never seen a quadruped on one of these things, and I watched with interest as Doug and Ty casually kept their two faster feet walking backward to stay in position with the slower pair. Unlike Terese, it was clear they’d done this before.

It was also clear that if I ever decided I wanted to lose the animals, hitting the glideway wouldn’t be the way to do it.

We rode the fast track about half a kilometer before Aronobal started us moving back across toward the slow lane. We made our final transition to the stationary part of the corridor, walked up a one-level ramp to the regular corridor system, and arrived at a red-and-gold patterned archway leading into an open space that seemed to be one of the neighborhood domes.

{Ms. Terese German to see Dr. Usantra Wandek,} Aronobal announced us to the receptionist.

The receptionist peered at her screen. {You’re expected,} she confirmed, waving us all through. {Enter, and proceed to Building Eight.}

I’d expected the dome to be simply a large, gray-walled open space, six or seven decks up and a couple hundred meters across at the base, mostly there just to provide inhabitants and visitors a chance to stretch their eyes. To my surprise, I found myself walking into what appeared to be a EuroUnion Alpine valley, with rugged textured mountains rising up along the dome walls and giving way to an expanse of cloud-flecked blue sky at the top. Scattered across the dome floor were a dozen buildings of various sizes, designed to look like ski chalets. Aside from the corridor we’d entered by the dome had only one other exit, another corridor directly across from us that led farther inward toward the station’s core. “Impressive,” I commented as we passed the first of the buildings.