“You do realize they’re still hoping you’ll kill one of them, don’t you?” she warned.
“Absolutely,” I said grimly. “And if they keep this up they might just get their wish. Let’s go.”
“Wait a minute,” Bayta said, pulling back against my grip as I started us across the room. “What about Terese?”
“No time,” I said. “Besides, I don’t know where she is.”
“We can’t just leave her here.”
“We won’t,” I assured her, thinking hard. “I’ll get you to safety, and then our new everywhere-friend and I will spread out and look for her.”
Bayta’s forehead creased slightly, probably wondering about this new profession of friendship on my part, possibly also wondering just how far we could push the Modhri on something like this. But she merely nodded. “Do you have a plan?”
“Mostly,” I said. “Stay close to me, and shoot anything that moves.”
There were four more Shonkla-raa waiting for us outside the room, huddled behind equipment carts in the corridor or lurking in doorways. Bayta and the kwi made short work of all of them. We made it through the building, past the now abandoned receptionist’s desk, and headed out into the dome.
I’d expected to face more opposition out there, but to my mild surprise no one was moving or even visible. Either the Shonkla-raa were running out of troops, or else Wandek had finally realized that his strategy was overdue for restructuring and pulled back. Bayta and I crossed the dome unhindered and headed past another deserted reception desk into the corridor.
Waiting half in and half out of an open doorway six doors down was Doug.
“Is that Doug?” Bayta asked, breathing hard.
“Our native guide, yes,” I confirmed, wondering fleetingly why the Modhri wanted us to go to ground this close to the dome. But he hadn’t steered me wrong yet, and I was willing to trust him a little farther. Doug ducked back into the room as we approached, and I got us in behind him just as the door slid shut again.
Only then did I discover that what I’d assumed was a standard guest room or meeting area was in fact a maintenance and storage repository. A repository, moreover, with a set of stairs peeking coyly out from behind a tool rack at the rear.
Doug led the way, bounding up three flights, pausing there to give us time to catch up, then heading off through the maze of industrial equipment. Bayta and I followed, weapons still at the ready, until we reached yet another of the small service elevators. “All the way back up?” I asked as I pressed the call button.
Doug woofed a confirmation. The doors slid open and I got Bayta inside. I punched in the authorization code I’d used at the service elevator near Hchchu’s office, then the same floor number, and as Doug slipped inside with us the doors closed and we headed up.
Bayta turned to me. “Thank you,” she said quietly.
I looked back at her, my eyes flicking across that face I knew so well, my memory flashing with a hundred images of her cheerful, angry, frightened, or determined. I thought about the Modhri, sitting there watching, and about all the other reasons why it was dangerous for a soldier in enemy territory to allow himself to get too close to someone else.
Taking Bayta in my arms, I kissed her.
The first time I’d done this, back on the super-express Quadrail, the kiss had been a half-reflexive, half-furtive expression of relief that she was alive, tinged with guilt that I’d let Muzzfor get as close as he had to killing us both. This time was different. This time, there was no reflex or furtiveness about it. This kiss was one-hundred-percent passion.
And to my slightly disconcerted astonishment, Bayta held me close, giving back every bit as good as she got.
The last time I’d taken this particular elevator ride, with a murder charge hanging over my head and my mind filled with fear for Bayta’s safety, the trip had seemed to last forever. This time, with my mind and arms filled with Bayta herself, it was a whole lot shorter.
Still, I wasn’t so enraptured that I didn’t remember to break off the kiss and snap up my Beretta toward the doorway as the doors slid open.
There was no one there. “Sorry,” I said, a bit gruffly, to Bayta. Not because I was, but because I somehow felt I should to be.
“Don’t be,” Bayta said, her own voice serenely calm. “We’re going to Docking Bay 39, right?”
“As per your instructions,” I said, trying to compose myself. “Good job with that clue, by the way.”
“Thank you,” she said. “Hadn’t we better be going?”
With a flush of embarrassment, I realized we were still standing inside the elevator, my Beretta still aimed at the industrial landscape outside, my other arm still wrapped around Bayta’s waist. “I’m waiting on the Modhri,” I improvised, dropping my arm hastily to my side as I looked down at Doug. “Well?”
Doug gave a woof and trotted out of the car.
And I could swear I saw an amused grin plastered across his canine snout.
* * *
We didn’t do a lot of talking during the trek across the station. The whole area was still hot and dusty, there were still scattered bands of techs and random security cameras to be avoided, and I was still not convinced the Shonkla-raa were going to concede this leg of the trip to us without finding some way to make trouble.
But I did make sure, as we walked, that Bayta got the whole story of Hchchu’s murder and Wandek’s efforts to frame me for it.
She was silent for a long time after I finished. “You really think the Modhri’s on our side?” she asked at last.
“If he’s not, he’s going to way too much effort here,” I pointed out. “Unless running people in circles is how the Shonkla-raa get their entertainment, it seems pretty pointless.”
“Not impossible,” she murmured.
“But unlikely,” I said. “As to why the Modhri’s helping us, I wish I could tell you. Maybe he sees the Shonkla-raa as competition in his drive to conquer the galaxy, and for the moment we’re the best tool he has to whack them with. If there’s some other deep, dark secret involved…” I trailed off as something suddenly struck me. “Oh, hell.”
“What?” Bayta asked tensely.
“No, it’s okay,” I hastened to assure her. “Something just finally occurred to me.” I gestured at Doug, busily scouting out the path ahead. “Remember I told you I named Doug and Ty after a pair of actors in dit-rec dramas involving an old mythic character named Zorro? I may not have mentioned that this particular hero ran with a dual identity: harmless upper-class citizen by day, masked defender of justice at night.”
“Dual identities,” Bayta murmured. “Msikai-dorosli and Modhri.”
“I was just thinking that,” I confirmed. “Either my subconscious has figured out a way to pick Modhran walkers out of a crowd, or as far back as that first security office the Modhri was able to nail me with at least that much of a thought-virus suggestion.”
“And you still think he’s on our side?”
I hesitated. If the Modhri had infected me, or even just filled my mind with thought viruses, what good were any of my mental processes? I could sit here with my eyes wide open and not even see a trap closing around me.
But if reason and perception were of no use, I still had logic to fall back on. And logic still told me there was no reason for the Modhri to go through all this effort just to betray us.
And maybe, there was one thing more. “Yes, I do,” I said. “And I think I can prove it.” I looked around us, at the hundreds of places an eavesdropper could be hidden. “Ask me about it later.”
* * *
The journey took close to two hours, and by the time Doug finally led us onto an elevator I was on my last legs. The heat had long since plastered my shirt against my skin and my hair across my head, fatigue and dehydration had put a small but noticeable shaking into my arms and legs, and overall I felt like something the cat had brought in to play with.