“So they know how it’s supposed to be done,” I concluded. “That tells us they’re either highly placed locals, or else have a connection to highly placed locals. What gave away the show?”
“As it happened, I was working a deep-level analysis at the time and my search picked up an anomaly,” Emikai said. “I investigated, and discovered that instead of originating in the overseer’s office, the message had merely been echoed from that site.” He looked sideways at me. “It had originated from the computer in the late Tech Yleli’s apartment.”
“So they have a computer whiz on their team,” I said thoughtfully. “Bayta told me earlier that the station computer hadn’t been able to identify our friend Blue One. Now we know why. Either somebody slipped him into the station without the computer noticing, or else scrubbed him out once he was in.”
“An unpleasant and ominous ability, indeed,” Emikai mused.
“Yeah,” I grunted. “Tell me about it.”
We reached Doug and crouched down beside him. “What are these things, anyway?” I asked as I gave one of the red balls an experimental tug. It seemed to be glued solidly to both his feathery belly fur and his pineapple back. “I’d think something like this wouldn’t be welcome here.”
“The kristic is a weapon for hunting small game,” Emikai said. “Upon sharp impact the balls secrete a strong adhesive through micropores. And they are most definitely not welcome aboard. They are forbidden, in fact.”
“So whoever it is who sneaks people aboard Proteus also likes playing with cargo manifests,” I said. “Is there any way to get the things off him?”
“The security nexus will have a solvent,” Emikai said, pulling out his multitool and popping out a knife blade. “Cutting the cords should enable him to walk properly.”
“Good idea,” I said. “I’d rather not have to carry him.”
“Yes.” Emikai set to work cutting through the cords. “I have a question. One which you may not like.”
“I get those all the time,” I assured him. “Go ahead.”
“How well do you truly know your assistant Bayta?”
“Extremely well,” I said, frowning. “Why?”
“I told you I was working on a deep-level analysis when the drill order came through,” he said. “I was attempting to backtrack the message you told me appeared on your computer, the one that instructed you to go to the dome just prior to Tech Yleli’s murder.”
“What did you find?”
“That there is no record of you having received any such message,” he said. “Not through the Kuzyatru Station system, or from any computer aboard.”
“Which just means our friends are better at this stuff than I thought.”
“That is one possibility.” Emikai cut through one of the cords and started working on the next one. “There is another.”
“That I’m lying?”
“That the message did not travel through the system because it originated on your computer.”
I snorted. “Right,” I said. “Doug sent it. Or maybe Ty—he’s the more literary of the two.”
“Or Bayta did.”
I shook my head. “Not a chance.”
“Are you sure?”
I opened my mouth to tell him that of course I was.
Only I wasn’t. There was no way I could be. Not with all the battles and other contact we’d had with the Modhri since this whole thing began. Certainly not with him lurking somewhere aboard Proteus. There was always the possibility, however small, that he’d gotten to her.
Or that he’d gotten to me.
And if there was a Modhran colony inside me, then it was all over. Any thought I had, any conclusion I came to, any plan I hatched—I would never know whether any of it was truly real, or pure illusion. I would be nothing but a puppet dancing on the Modhri’s strings, carefully and cleverly rationalizing every order he gave me, no better than any of his thousands or millions of other walkers.
No better, and a whole lot worse. Because unlike all those other walkers, I was in a position of authority and power unlike anything the Modhri had ever had before. I was in contact with Bayta, agent of the Chahwyn, and through her with the Spiders and the Chahwyn themselves. My words and actions could fatally affect the Chahwyn efforts against not only the Modhri but also his Shonkla-raa masters. Like it or not, I was a pivot point around which the fate of the galaxy teetered.
And then, the dry ice that had formed in my veins turned to liquid nitrogen. Because there was another, even more horrifying possibility.
What if the Modhri wasn’t involved in this at all? What if it was Bayta’s other half, the Chahwyn symbiotically encased within her? What if the defender Spiders aboard the super-express had reported back on my flagrant breaking of Quadrail rules, and the Chahwyn had decided I’d become a loose cannon that needed to be dealt with? What if they’d decided it was time that they took over the operation personally?
What if they’d decided to start with Bayta?
I looked sideways at Emikai’s profile. The Modhri, I knew, could take direct control over his walkers’ bodies without their permission or knowledge. Could the Chahwyn inside Bayta do the same?
Or was such a thing even possible? The way Bayta described it, her Human and Chahwyn halves were in close, permanent, conscious contact. But now that I thought about it, I realized that my understanding of their relationship was built mostly on my own assumptions.
I shook my head, a short, violent, brain-clearing movement. No. Bayta was my ally, and my friend. She wouldn’t betray me that way. Not unless she herself had also been betrayed.
Meanwhile, Emikai was still waiting for an answer. “No,” I said as firmly as I could. “She’d never do something like that.”
Emikai tilted his head slightly. “I know you would prefer to think not.”
“It’s not a preference, it’s simple logic,” I insisted. “What reason could she possibly have had to do that? To give me a reason to go over to the dome in the middle of the night? Ridiculous. I’m not a prisoner—I don’t need an excuse or reason to leave my quarters.”
“I make no suggestion as to reasons or motivations.” Emikai nodded at Doug. “But do you not also find it curious that one of the two msikai-dorosli assigned to you by Chinzro Hchchu has chosen to remain instead with Bayta?”
I grimaced. So Emikai had picked up on that, too. And if he had, had Hchchu or the Shonkla-raa? If so, what had they made of it? “What makes you think Hchchu didn’t assign us one each?” I countered.
“Did he?”
“I’m actually not sure,” I said. “I was concentrating on other things at the time and wasn’t paying attention to the nuances of his words. Even though I’m the one under indictment, maybe he figured we both needed watching.”
“Perhaps,” Emikai said. “But surely you noticed that both msikai-dorosli stayed close to your side during the preliminary hearing, when Chinzro Hchchu was present. Clearly, they understood that they were both supposed to watch you.”
“Yes, I noticed that,” I conceded. “I assumed it was just the grandeur of the setting and circumstances that had them both sticking with me at the time.”
“Perhaps,” Emikai said. “But turn that thought around. Perhaps it is at other times, not in Chinzro Hchchu’s presence, that they sense your companion needs to be watched.”
“Even if they were ordered to do something else?”
He shrugged. “It is known that the lower animals sometimes have senses and instincts beyond those of us who are fully sentient. Those senses can allow them to perceive and understand things we ourselves cannot.”