“We had no choice,” Bayta snapped, glaring at me. “You saw Hermod, how big and fat and ungainly he was. That’s what happens if you try to meld a Human and Chahwyn later in life. We had no choice.”
She swallowed, her glare fading. “We were fighting for our survival,” she said. “And for yours.”
“We’re not talking about me,” I said. “We’re talking about you, and how you’ve cheated an innocent Human being of her right to live. How exactly was this so-called melding done?”
“It was simple enough, at least from a technical standpoint,” the Elder said. “Though despite what you say, we did think long and hard over the ethical questions. But as Bayta has said, we had no choice. So we took the Human foundling and introduced a newly born Chahwyn into her body.”
So they’d done the same thing to a baby of their own, too. “Just like that?”
“Just like that,” he agreed uncomfortably He extended a finger, stretching it out toward Bayta like an invisible hand pulling taffy. “Our bodies, as you’ve already seen, are far more malleable than yours,” he said, withdrawing the finger to its original size. “It didn’t hurt either of them, I assure you.”
“The Modhri within a walker is always a separate entity lurking in the background, looking for advantages for himself,” Bayta said. “With me, though the Human and Chahwyn parts are in some ways separate, we are at the same time truly one person. We are partners, companions, friends. We are stronger than the sum of our parts.”
“If you say so,” I said, looking back at the Elder. “What about the one who brought me my Quadrail ticket? Another foundling?”
The Elder hesitated. “He, too, was unwanted.”
“Was he another foundling?” I repeated.
He sighed. “He was purchased,” he admitted. “Another child whose mother didn’t want him. In his case, we worked through Hermod and an agency to obtain him.”
“So there you have it,” I said, the ashes of defeat in my mouth. I hadn’t really wanted to prove the worst about the Chahwyn. But it seemed I’d done so anyway. “You buy and sell and use people like commodities, just like the Modhri. So you tell me: Why should I even bother to pick sides?”
“We’ve kept the galaxy at peace for seven hundred years,” the Elder said, his voice tight as his hoped-for victory began to slip between his malleable fingers. “We don’t interfere with politics or commerce or—”
“Do you want the woman back?” Bayta asked abruptly.
I blinked. “What do you mean, do I want her back?”
“You said we’d cheated an innocent Human being of her right to live,” Bayta said. Her face was pale, but her voice was steady. “We can’t change what has been for the past twenty-two years. But if the Chahwyn part of me is willing to die and return the rest of her life to her, will that make sufficient amends for our injustice?”
I shot a glance at the Elder. He seemed as flabbergasted by the offer as I was. “I don’t know,” I said. “What would that do to her?”
Bayta took a deep breath. “It would return her to what she would have been,” she said. “She would be fully Human once more.”
“And?”
Bayta hesitated. “She would be fully Human,” she repeated. “Would that be sufficient amends?”
I studied her face. If there was any duplicity in her offer, I couldn’t see it. “Let me think about it. What’s happening with McMicking?”
“The work will take a few hours more,” the Elder said, floundering a little as he tried to get back on track again. “Fortunately, he was brought here while the Modhran infection was still small and localized. Do you—?” He shot a look at Bayta. “Bayta reminds me you still need food and rest. Perhaps you will allow her to show you to a place where you may obtain both.”
“Thank you,” I said, studying Bayta’s face. Two beings, separate yet one. I didn’t understand it, but it seemed clear that she found the arrangement both reasonable and comfortable.
Perhaps more than just comfortable. Partners, companions, friends, she had said.
Friends.
She had told me flatly that she wasn’t my friend. Yet for the sake of her people, she was willing to give up the closest friend she had …and that closest of friends was in turn willing to die.
If I demanded it.
I flipped my mental coin and watched it land where I knew it had to. No, the Chahwyn weren’t perfect. But then, which of us was? “Yes, I’d like something to eat,” I continued. “But let’s first get the matter of the Modhri’s new homeland out of the way.”
The Elder’s eye-ridge tufts fluttered. “I thought—”
“I know,” I said. “But in the end, I guess, everyone eventually has no choice but to pick sides. And like you said, you have kept the galaxy at peace.” I looked at Bayta. “Besides, Bayta has all the same clues I do. She could put it together if she wanted to. Question: What does the Modhri need in a homeland?”
“Cold and liquid water,” the Elder said. “The polyps can survive in many other environments, but only in cold water can they create more coral and expand his mind.”
“Okay, but you can get cold water almost anywhere,” I said. “What I meant was that he needs a place where he can avoid the kind of attack Fayr used against him.”
“I understand,” Bayta said, her forehead suddenly wrinkled in concentration. “He needs a place where you can’t bring in trade goods and buy weapons. Because there are no weapons to buy?”
“Exactly,” I said, nodding. “But at the same time, obviously, it has to be a place with Quadrail service. In other words, a primitive colony.”
“There must be a hundred such places in the galaxy,” the Elder murmured.
“At the very least,” I agreed. “Fortunately for us, the Modhri was kind enough to point us directly at it. Bayta, you told me Human society and government hadn’t been infiltrated yet, correct?”
“That was what we thought,” she said, her eyes gazing unblinkingly at me. “Yet we know now that Applegate was a walker.”
“So the Modhri has infiltrated,” I concluded. “Only he hasn’t infiltrated the top levels. Losutu, for instance, would have been an obvious target, yet he clearly hasn’t been touched. Why not? Answer one: The Modhri knew you were watching the people at the top level and would pick up on any moves he made. Answer two: He had more urgent fish to fry.”
“It’s on a Human colony!” the Elder exclaimed suddenly. “And you have only four of them.”
“Narrows the field considerably, doesn’t it?” I agreed. “But I can narrow it even further. Tell me, Bayta: When exactly did we suddenly become the focus of Modhran attention? Was it when that drudge grabbed my luggage at Terra Station in front of everybody? Applegate was there, and that incident would certainly connect me to the Spiders in the Modhri’s mind. Did it seem to bother him at all?”
“No,” she said slowly. “At least, nothing obvious happened there.”
“What about after you split off my car from the train and we had our chat with Hermod?” I continued. “That was what caught Fayr’s attention. Did the Modhri seem to notice?”
“Again, no.”
“And after we left New Tigris we went to the bar where Applegate was right across the room entertaining a couple of Cimmaheem,” I reminded her. “Yet he didn’t even bother to catch my eye and wave. Clearly, he didn’t care what I was doing or who I was doing it with.”
She caught her breath. “Yandro,” she breathed.
“Yandro,” I confirmed, feeling the heavy irony of having come full circle. “A useless, empty world that certain people behind the scenes were nevertheless hell-bent on colonizing. A useless world that I was fired over, in fact, when I tried to rock the boat. And a world where you set off red flags all across the local Modhran mind segment when you made that hurried visit to the stationmaster during a fifteen-minute stopover.”