I stood up and got a grip on Blue One’s sleeve. “Feel free to help,” I offered, looking again at Doug.
He just looked back at me with his masked eyes. “Right,” I said, and started pulling.
Yleli’s apartment was at least three times the size of the one Bayta and I had been given, which made sense given that we were transients and techs like Yleli actually lived here. Leaving Blue One in the living room, I gave myself a quick tour, noting the nice but unpretentious furnishings, and making sure the place was, in fact, unoccupied.
I returned to the living room, and for a minute gazed down at my unconscious prisoner, the itching feeling of having just climbed on top of a tiger creeping through me. I’d beaten off this first overt attack by the Shonkla-raa, but what was I supposed to do now? Leave him here, knowing that someone would eventually come looking for him? The mood he would be in when he woke up wasn’t something I really wanted to face, certainly not with my Beretta locked away in Hchchu’s security office.
On the other hand, trying to move a Filly’s worth of deadweight across Proteus Station by myself presented its own set of challenges.
Doug padded over and nuzzled the sleeping Filly’s face. “No, no, we don’t want him awake yet,” I admonished, frowning at the watchdog. I’d always known he was the size of an adult Doberman, and I knew now that he was about as heavy as one, too. Wandek had told us they could carry light burdens, but I’d never gotten around to checking just how much weight they could handle.
Maybe it was time I did.
I glanced around the room, looking for Yleli’s computer. But even as I spotted it I realized that accessing Proteus’s network from a deceased person’s apartment would probably kick up red flags from here to Hchchu’s office and back again.
Fortunately, there was another way. Pulling out my comm, I punched in Bayta’s number.
She answered on the first ring. “What’s wrong?” she asked tautly.
“Nothing,” I assured her. “How about you?”
“I’m fine,” she said, her voice still tense. “I’m sorry, Frank, but I’ve had a bad feeling ever since you left.”
“Well, you can give your intuition full marks,” I said. “Our friends had a go at me, but so far I’m winning. Listen, I need you to look up something for me. Is there a computer you can get to without anyone noticing?”
“Yes, I think so,” she said. “What do you need?”
“I need to know how much weight these watchdogs can carry,” I said. “I’ve got a package I need to lug, and I don’t want to risk breaking Doug’s spine. I’ve already abused him enough for one day.”
“Just a minute.”
The comm went silent. I pulled a chair up beside Blue One and sat down, watching his slow breathing and wondering how long before that punch I’d given him wore off. Not long, probably, which meant I was going to have to come up with something a little more long term.
There was a click from the comm. “I think I can get you something even better,” Bayta said. “Where are you?”
“Why?” I asked warily.
“Why do you think?” she retorted. “I’m coming to give you a hand.”
“That may not be safe,” I warned. “Our friends could be back on the warpath at any time.”
“Then we need to get you and your package out of there as quickly as possible, don’t we?” she countered. “Where are you?”
I grimaced. “In Tech Yleli’s former residence,” I said, and gave her the number. “Maybe I should meet you halfway, though. Better yet, I’ll meet you at the bullet-train station at—”
“We’ll be fine,” she cut me off. “Wait there and watch your package.”
Once again, the comm went dead. Cursing under my breath, I put it away. Should I call her back and insist on meeting her along the way? Or should I just show up at the bullet-train stop and walk her the rest of the way, whether she liked it or not?
But whenever the Shonkla-raa realized their plan had gone awry and came out in force from under their rocks, it would be me they would be looking for. Much as I hated to admit it, for the moment Bayta might actually be safer without me.
I was still trying to come up with a good reason why she wouldn’t be safer out there alone when there was a chime from the door.
Silently, I got to my feet and headed across the room, grabbing the two hypos I’d stabbed Blue One with from the end table where I’d left them. By the time I reached the door, I had the hypos arranged in a V-shape in my right fist, the plungers set firmly against my palm, the needles angled outward on either side of my middle finger. If the Shonkla-raa were here for a rematch, the first one in line, at least, was going to hurt a lot. I pressed my ear to the door …
“Compton?” Emikai’s voice came softly through the panel. “Compton, are you in there?”
Sighing, I stepped back and keyed the release. Emikai caught sight of me as the door slid open, glanced both ways down the corridor, and stepped hurriedly inside. “I thought you might have found a way into—” he began.
And broke off as he caught sight of my prisoner. “What happened?” he asked in a subtly altered tone.
“He sent a few locals to try to beat me up,” I said. “When that didn’t work, he took on the job himself. You have any idea how to keep him quiet for the next hour or two? Apart from punching him behind the ear every ten minutes, I mean?”
“Possibly,” Emikai said, still staring in a sort of fascinated repugnance at the unconscious Filly. Probably wondering why I hadn’t called the Jumpsuits, and whether he should do it himself. “Have you looked in the medicine cabinet?”
“No, I just had the quick tour,” I said. “You think Tech Yleli might have left us some sleeping tablets?”
“It is likely,” Emikai said, finally tearing his eyes away from Blue One and heading toward the rear of the apartment. “He might have needed them himself, or kept some to sell to others.”
“To sell?” I echoed. “You mean he was dealing?”
“Not at all,” Emikai said huffily. “Filiaelian medical techs are often tasked with providing minor health care to neighborhood residents. It relieves some of the strain on doctors and other care providers.”
“Ah,” I said, wondering if I should take that explanation at face value or press the issue further. Still, I knew Filly warriors and cops had been genetically engineered for loyalty and professional ethics. Why not medical techs, too?
If Yleli had been a dealer, he was either very good at it or very bad. The medicine cabinet was nearly empty, with no more than a dozen vials and bottles of various sorts lined up on the shelves. “Not looking good,” I commented.
“On the contrary,” Emikai said as he lifted out one of the bottles. “Though primarily designed for relieving the symptoms of a vision disorder, this medication also carries powerful soporific qualities.”
“And you’d know that how?” I asked, taking the bottle from him and peering at the label. A complete waste of time—I could read the Filly characters, all right, but the words they spelled out were technical terms my Westali courses had never covered.
“Even enforcement officers must occasionally improvise,” Emikai said with a hint of dry humor.
“Ah.” I wasn’t entirely sure what he meant by that, and I was pretty sure I didn’t want to.
“But this form is a liquid that must be injected,” he continued. “Are the hypodermics you met me with at the door still functional?”
“Yes, but the needles have been bent a little,” I said, digging into my pocket. “Fortunately, I happen to have a spare.”
I pulled out my third hypo, the one with the pale amber liquid in it, feeling a twinge of regret as I got my fingers around the rests and my thumb on the plunger. So much for doing my own analysis of Terese’s condition. But it couldn’t be helped. Aiming the needle into the sink, I pressed the plunger.