Judgment at Proteus Read Free Page A

indication that it had noticed anything unusual. Bayta went through the procedure, followed by Aronobal, followed by me. There was plenty of room in the shuttle, I saw as I reached the deck, and we took three of the four empty seats right in front. Terese and Emikai, I noted, were already seated farther back. We strapped in, and I waited for the hatchway to seal so that we could get under way.
    Only it didn’t seal. It remained fully open, the muffled sounds of the station drifting down to us. “Hello?” I murmured.
    “There’s one more passenger still on his way,” Bayta murmured back, her eyes distant as she did some of her silent telepathic communication with the Spiders.
    And Terese thought Bayta and I had been slow. “What is he, crippled?” I growled.
    “Actually, yes,” Bayta said, her forehead suddenly wrinkled in concentration.
    I looked at the opening. “Trouble?” I asked, lowering my voice.
    And then, abruptly, Bayta caught her breath.
    “What is it?” I murmured, slipping my hand into my pocket and getting a grip on my kwi . Like Bayta herself, the brass-knuckle-shaped weapon was a nearly one-of-a-kind item, this one a relic from the Shonkla-raa war. Once telepathically activated by Bayta or a Spider, it was capable of inflicting three levels of pain or unconsciousness.
    Only Bayta wasn’t activating it. The kwi was just sitting in my grip, showing no sign of its usual start-up tingle. “Come on, girl, look alive,” I muttered.
    “No, it’s all right,” she said. But her voice was as tight as her face. “It’s not that kind of problem.”
    I was opening my mouth to ask what kind of problem it was when a shadow fell across the floor and a support chair appeared in the hatchway, descending into the shuttle in the grip of a couple of big drudge Spiders. Seated in the chair was a pale, frail-looking Nemut with an off-center hunch in one of his angled shoulder muscles, slightly watery eyes, and a noticeable distortion in his truncated-cone mouth.
    I felt my jaw drop. This wasn’t just some random cripple. This was Minnario, one of the first-class passengers on our ill-fated super-express train. “Minnario?” I called.
    He didn’t respond, but as his chair reached the shuttle deck and he started it swiveling around to face forward I saw a flashing light on the small display fastened to the chair’s control box. Minnario was deaf, I remembered now, with the display programmed to transcribe the speech around him. Apparently, it was also keyed to take special note if someone called his name. He continued to turn, bringing his chair around again to face the rest of the passengers, his eyes scanning the crowd for familiar faces. “Here,” I said, lifting my hand chest high. “Frank Compton. We met aboard the super-express from Homshil.”
    He peered at me, then looked down at his display’s transcription, and I saw sudden recognition in his face. [Mr. Compton,] he croaked, his Nemuspee marred by a slight lisp. [It’s good to see you again. You no longer chase murderers, I trust?]
    I felt a tightening in my stomach as the implications of Minnario’s presence suddenly flooded in on me. “Not right now,” I said carefully. “Tell me, what are you doing here? I thought you were on your way to a clinic for treatment.”
    [The most extraordinary thing has happened,] he said, his distorted mouth flattening in a distorted Nemuti smile. [I was traveling to Morak Trov Lemanab when I received a message that the genetic surgeons at Vibrant Station had accepted me for treatment.]
    “Vibrant—? Oh, right,” I said. The place officially known as Kuzyatru Station actually had thirty different names, one for each of the Twelve Empires’ official languages. Vibrant was the Nemuspee version, just as Proteus was its name in English. “Congratulations. I understand they’re the best in the Assembly. It was very wise of you to apply there.”
    [Ah! Therein lies the irony,] he said as he swiveled his chair