I turned back to Wandek. “Before I forget, Usantra Wandek, I want to thank you for bringing Ms. German along,” I said, my eyes dipping briefly to the white-faced girl in front of him. “We wanted to get her off Proteus, but I had no idea where to even start looking. This simplifies things immensely.”
Wandek snorted. “You spoke earlier of fear and hopelessness,” he said. His earlier wariness was gone, replaced by a fresh wave of contempt. “I see now that you speak mostly of bluff.”
“Probably,” I agreed. “Do you know what I like about Filiaelians?”
The sudden change of topic seemed to throw him momentarily off balance. But he recovered quickly. “Tell me,” he invited.
“It’s the way our two cultures overlap, complimenting but not duplicating each other,” I said. “Take Tech Yleli’s funeral, for example. Do you know what Human children birthdays and Filiaelian funerals have in common?” I raised my eyebrows. “Helium balloons.”
And swiveling my Beretta to the two o’clock position, I emptied the magazine into the tanks of super-compressed helium.
The bursting metal sounded exactly like a cluster of bombs going off, which was exactly the way Wandek and the other Shonkla-raa reacted. Wandek dropped instantly into a crouch, dragging Terese down with him. The rest of the Shonkla-raa, apparently only now realizing how tempting a target their tight-packed group presented, began to spread out into the main part of the bay where the watchdogs held their stolid vigil. I stood motionless, my empty gun still pointed at the tanks, watching Wandek’s face, wondering distantly if this was actually going to work. A wave of coolness washed across my face as expansion-chilled helium mixed with the rest of the docking bay’s air.
And then, without warning, Bayta gave a choked gasp, her body sagging like a marionette with cut strings. “Frank—” she wheezed.
It was at that moment that Wandek realized what had happened. With a snarl, he jammed his hand into his tunic pocket and pulled out a small handgun I’d never seen him with before.
But he was too late. In unison, the whole group of watchdogs turned to their Shonkla-raa masters and attacked.
I leaped forward toward the sudden chaos, trying to get to Terese before Wandek got his gun into position. But I had barely started my charge when two of the watchdogs slammed in from opposite directions, nosing their way between Wandek and Terese and shoving them apart. Halfway through their charge, in perfect unison, the watchdog closest to Wandek turned violently into the Shonkla-raa, body-slamming him off his feet, while the other turned more gently but just as insistently the opposite direction to shove Terese into my arms. I grabbed her, spun her around, and shoved her in turn toward Bayta, then turned again to join the fight.
“No!” Minnario shouted over the oddly pitched cacophony of screams and shouts and snarls. “This is mine.”
And it was.
I’d been on the receiving end of Shonkla-raa hand-to-hand combat, and I knew how strong and cold and deadly they were. Their knife hands flashed as they fought against the watchdogs, jabbing through skin and scale and bone and sending their victims yipping and snarling to the deck to struggle weakly or to lie still in pools of blood.
But for once, all the Shonkla-raa’s strength of body and will wasn’t enough. Slowly, I backed up toward Bayta and Terese and Emikai, watching in fascinated horror as the watchdogs bled and died and yet systematically tore their way through the enemy ranks. Here and there a gun like Wandek’s appeared, but its owner never got more than a single shot before he was taken down, usually by sharp-toothed jaws around his neck.
A few of the Shonkla-raa, mostly those in the rear, recognized the inevitable and made a run for the door. A couple of them actually made it. The rest didn’t.
Three minutes later, it was over.
I gave the field of battle one final survey, mostly to make sure none of the Shonkla-raa was still showing signs of life or, more importantly, signs of weapons. Then, exhaling tiredly, I turned back to the others.
Bayta was holding a still white-faced Terese close to her, gently stroking the girl’s hair and murmuring soothing words. Emikai looked dumbfounded, his intellect and his genetic programming no doubt locked in a bitter philosophical battle over the slaughter of so many of his santra bosses right there in front of him. I wished him luck sorting it all out.
Minnario, in contrast, just looked grimly satisfied. So did the surviving watchdogs, including Doug and Ty, as they moved among the fallen. Probably, like me, checking for survivors and guns.
I walked over to Minnario. “Brilliant, Compton,” the Modhri said. “My congratulations.”
I shrugged modestly. “A little helium in the room, a little change in air density, and the Shonkla-raa’s finely tuned siren song goes straight to hell. Actually, it’s a game Humans have played with helium for generations.” I waved a hand behind me. “You happy now?”
His eyes drifted across the carnage. “Yes, I am,” he said. “You?”
“Mostly, I’m just relieved,” I said. “Whenever you’re ready, Bayta, call in the Spiders, and let’s get the hell off this station.”
“And after that, what?” Minnario asked.
I looked him straight in the eye. “I’m going to take them down,” I said flatly.
“Alone?”
“If necessary.”
He inclined his head. “We shall see.”
NINETEEN
The transport was piloted by a couple of the specialized server-class Spiders who usually ran the Tube’s maintenance skiffs. Five minutes after we said our quick farewells to Emikai, Doug, and Ty, we were headed back out toward deep space. A half hour later, the tension aboard finally stared to ease.
Their tension. Not mine.
Because of those aboard, I was the only one who understood the enormity of the task facing us.
An unknown number of Shonkla-raa, in unknown locations. All of them endowed with tremendous personal strength and power, not the least of those powers being their ability to control the Modhri and confuse the Spiders. The whole lot of them bent on galaxy domination.
And standing against them, me.
I was resting in my seat with my eyes closed when a subtle wave of air across my face told me I had company. I opened my eyes to see Bayta sink wearily into the seat beside me. “How is she?” I asked.
“Still pretty upset,” she said. Her voice was as tired as the rest of her. “But I think she’s starting to calm down. A little.”
“Don’t expect her to get it all sorted out overnight,” I warned. “It’s not every day you find out you’re carrying Rosemary’s baby.”
“Rosemary’s baby?”
“Dit-rec horror drama you haven’t seen. Never mind.” I nodded toward the front of the transport and the two stationmaster-sized Spiders crouching behind the two pilots. “Anyone ask about the other passengers yet?”
“Minnario looked at them, but didn’t say anything,” Bayta said. “Terese has other things on her mind.”
I nodded. Minnario’s restraint was mere politeness, of course. He had to be desperately curious about the Spiders whom Bayta had called into a probable confrontation with the Shonkla-raa.
And if Minnario himself wasn’t curious, the Modhri inside him certainly was. Distantly, I wondered what the Modhri’s response would be if and when he finally saw a defender Spider in action.
Or if, indeed, he ever did. The Shonkla-raa could already stun defenders into immobility. If they ever found the right tone to take them over completely …
“Is this later yet?” Bayta asked.
I frowned. “Come again?”
“You said you’d tell me later why you thought the Modhri was on our side,” she said. “Is this later yet?”
“It’s close enough,” I said. “It was something Wandek said when he was congratulating himself on how they’d figured out you could talk telepathically to the Spiders and how they were going to strap you down until they figured out how you did it. In and around all the gloating, he also bounced several suggestions off me, starting with the thought that you might be a Human/Spider hybrid, then suggesting that you were an unknown alien encased in a Human shell, and finally speculating that maybe you were one of the people who actually ran the Spiders and the Quadrail.”