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Shoff's grasp on my arm retightened. If she thought I was going to make a break for it with the change of scenery, however, she was mistaken. The towering walls of the alley threw the narrow slit into heavy shadow, triggering a flashback of childhood terror in me. Back to Spacertown. To places I never wanted to step foot inside again.
It took me several breaths to fight down the panic, clear my thoughts, and come up with a reason for stepping into that murky nightmare.
The High Jerak had, oddly enough, saved me from a Tabisee attempt at betrayal, Mathet had not turned me over to him, and—most important—Saura was safe. Of course, our partnership was over. I would never get her back from her people now. Which was for the best, since, without my wetware, I was useless to her.
My thoughts left me hollow. And angry. Which was not constructive. I had heard that from so many doctors and analysts: redirect your energy. Find a way to channel it positively.
Okay. A little kid was wandering this world, alone and in danger. If I found her, she might point me in the right direction so I could exact a little vengeance—justice—from someone.
Was it possible to claim any justice for the three of us, or for those dead people on the shuttle? Nothing could give back the things we had lost.
I had to try.
I was not helpless.
I was—out on the surface of the world! Now I had to lose the Tabisee, find some other disguise—I refused to wear the Tabisee torture device one moment longer than I had to—and find the kid. I would figure out the next step after that when the time came.
People were moving in the distant, brighter light at the mouth of the alley. It was a colorful mix of species. Some were walking, some were running. The runners were all going one direction.
I suspected we were going that way, too.
The street was a wide, deep groove, lined on one side by massive, blank-walled warehouses and on the other by what looked to be multi-storied housing units. It sliced off in a straight line in both directions to a distant haze. The structures could have used a coat of paint, but I had seen dingier streets in glitzier neighborhoods on other worlds.
There was a cluster of activity and a growing crowd up the street to our right, but that wasn't what snared my attention. In the distance, beyond all the commotion, rose an enormous, dark arch.
I was used to seeing massive structures and towering walls on space stations. Unrestrained by planetary gravity, architecture sometimes extended for kilometers inside or outside rings or platforms. This was different. This thing sat on the surface of a world, subject to gravity. It was immense, its crest arching into the sky, and it was threatening.
"Whoa!" I stopped walking. "What the hell is that?"
Shoff jerked me back to movement. "If you want to know something, check your world feed!"
"Apparently there is no feed compatible for an illegal Human." I snapped back.
"Be silent and keep moving," she hissed as she pulled me to the right, into the flow of the crowd.
I glimpsed black shapes in the alley behind us as we turned. They were closer than I expected. "The Endar are following us."
"Of course they are, idiot. If you screw this up for us, I will personally gut you."
If I screwed this up, she'd have to get at the back of a long line to gut me.
Ahead of us, through the throng of onlookers, black-armored Tabisee security troops were moving around a line of bedraggled alien beings. Judging from the range of body postures, from slumped to rigidly upright, I was seeing the unfortunate remnants of the Tabisee raid.
A troop transport sat on the street in front of an apartment building while a crowd was forming on the warehouse side, opposite it. For now, the observers were giving the troops a wide margin on the street, but the numbers were growing rapidly, pushing the front edge out toward them.
Most of the prisoners in the queue looked like short tree trunks with several long, thin, branchy arms and a mass of short, bare roots on which they motivated.
"What are they?"
"Carquetchians," she said. "The thieving underbelly of the universe."
It was a new species for me. "So the raid is for real."
"Of course it is. No one makes a move on this world they can't back up with reason and evidence."
"Is this a police state?" This was the Moneyworld, the commercial and marketing jewel in the crown of the Whooex Union of Stars. An iron glove clenching its throat did not fit the image I—or anyone else in the EA—had formed about it.
"The Endar aspire to make it so."
Damn. But that problem belonged to EA. I had other concerns, like staying viable and mobile. "You planned to shove me into the SAC. Why?"
"Humans," she said bitterly. "You have no clue of the problems you create."
"I'm listening. Enlighten me."
She made a sound of disgust and increased our pace.
Meanwhile, the number of onlookers opposite the carrier continued to grow. As we passed through them, they merely gave us a glance and moved aside, but ahead, along the front edge of the crowd, I could see scatterings of more excited behavior.
It seems there are a few members of every species, anywhere in the universe, who behave the same way in a volatile situation. They move in an agitated manner, mutter to anyone who will listen, wave their appendages, and raise the general stress level of everyone around them. They are the fans that fire the embers of riot.
It appeared they were doing their best to work this crowd into an explosion of flame.
One of the Carquetchians in the Tabisee prisoner line made a break for freedom, moving surprisingly fast on those little roots. It made it halfway across the open zone between the Tabi and the crowd before a trooper got a manacle clamped on its middle and stopped its flight.
A cheer went up around us.
Despite the valiant scurry of its little multi-feet, a tazer brought it down.
A groan of disapproval rose from the observers.
'Can't fight the taze, my brotha', my fellow marines always joked as we rounded up perpetrators on the Outer Rim. I would wager Tabi armor could negate the nerve-scrambling blast if I found an opportunity to run.
The Endar likely had a weapon to take down anything that moved, armored or not.
A couple of black-clad troopers dragged the tree-creature back and manacled it at the end of the line.
During the brief excitement, a small med-evac ship had appeared overhead. It dropped between the buildings and settled in the cleared space the Tabisee claimed at the center of the street. A side panel on the unit slid open and more gray-furred Tabisee, this time dressed in white, hopped out pulling a stretcher behind them. Mathet split off from us, striding toward the troop carrier, while Meeroush hurried to the med-evac team with Saura.
A medic was shoving needles into her neck and hands before they even put her on the stretcher. My partner was safely in her peoples' hands.
I had a grasp on how things worked here: the Endar controlled the show, and the Tabisee had to look out for their people's interests. They were already on bad footing because of their ties with the EA, and they didn't need me to make things worse.
I felt like I was betraying Saura when I glanced around, looking for a way to slip away from the churn of activity. But the only allies I expected to find on this world had already locked me in a stone cell, and, even with proof to back my story, had planned to shut me away in the SAC. I had no reason to believe they would change their tactics when we returned to their compound.
They might cuff Saura's furry little ears, but she was no longer at the mercy of a failing ship system and the deep dark. Almost certainly, as one of their cherished astrogators, she would find her way back into their system quickly enough.
She could back up parts of my story. But not about the kid. She hadn't witnessed that.
It was time to cut ties with my reluctant allies and find the kid. I flexed muscles in preparation for action.
"Ow!" The armor plates bunched, pinching my buttock so hard I stumbled sideways into Shoff.
"Idiot!" She shoved me upright.
I think we both saw the black leather and red silk hovering over our shoulders at the same time. The High Jerak was following only a few steps behind us.
"Perhaps I can be of assistance," he said lifting a long-fingered hand toward me.
If he got his bony fingers on my arm, he would not feel hard, coiled Tabisee muscle.
Shoff thrust me forward, out of his reach. "No need to trouble, ser. She's going out on the med-evac." Managing a sort of half-bow to the Endar, she increased her pace, shoving me, stumbling, toward the med-evac.
Seok stared after us.
"Take it easy! You're making the situation look worse," I said as I half-limped, half-ran beside her.
"You will destroy all of us with your behavior—"
"This damned armor doesn't fit!"
As if in retaliation for the complaint, it pinched my butt again.
"Son of a—!"
"Stop it! This is not a game."
No, it wasn't. I blinked back tears of pain. "They can't arrest someone for reacting to an injury!"
"They are Sat Quar. Whooex Union Trade Consortium Security. They can arrest any of us for any reason, or for no reason. Now, get in the evac, sit down, and be silent. And keep the helmet on!" She hoisted me up the two steps into the med-evac with the strength of one arm and slammed the door closed behind me.
Gentler hands inside caught and guided me across to a seat.
I had just lost all chance for escape.
Activity buzzed around me. I watched the medics working on Saura. "Is she all right?"
"She's good," one of the techs said over his shoulder.
The evac door beside me on the opposite side of the air ship suddenly slid open. Meeroush caught me by the back of the neck and yanked me off the med-evac while Shoff clambered up past me. The door slammed behind her.
"What are you doing? I need to—"
"Shut up and walk normally. Your life depends upon it," Meeroush ordered.
Several black-clad Tabisee moved up to fence me from the view of the crowd on the far side of the med-evac as it ramped its engines to lift away. The Tabisee and the people gathered to our right side ignored what had just happened.
As the medical transport slowly began to rise, a Frairy dressed in a ground-dragging red coat, with a silky green scarf wrapped around its head, suddenly burst out of the crowd. It raised a heavy club and slammed it against the side of the evac, bashing the metal surface beneath the cockpit. He hit it several times, making a deep dent before it rose beyond his reach. He waved the club above his head, let out a furious whoop, and dived back into the crowd. The bystanders on our side screamed with what sounded like delight.
"What—?"
"Keep moving."
The craft lifted away to reveal a different situation on the far side of the street. The crowd there was now focused on the four rod-carrying Endar standing along their front edge. The High Jerak stood in the open area, talking fast to someone somewhere else while he watched the med-evac speed away.
I locked my eyes forward, onto the prisoner chain.
"You have Frairies here?" I growled in an aside to Meeroush.
"So?"
"They're telepaths!"
"No, they're not. Shut up and get on the troop carrier."
At that moment, a fight broke out between two Carquetchians in the line and the effort to break it up stopped our forward progress. We took a step back, away from the tussle.
"Where are they taking Saurubi?"
"They have orders to take First Astrogator Syrhas to our embassy for medical care. The Endar will attempt to divert the ship to a hospital, where they can take custody of any patients who are on board. Which is why we pulled you off. Shoff is nearly as dusty as you, so they won't be aware we made a switch unless you mess things up. Satisfied? Now move!" The Tabisee troops had sorted out the fight and were dragging two limp bodies to the transport.
Was I satisfied? No. There was a Frairy on this world, and I was pretty sure one of them was telepathic no matter what Meeroush said.
Meanwhile, hoots of support and derision rolled through the crowd. Curiously, the scattered bits my translation software picked up told me most of it was targeted at the five Endar and not the Tabisee.
As the multiple, rooty feet of the last Carquetchians slid into the Tabi carrier, a fist-sized piece of crumpled scrap metal whirled over the heads of the crowd and landed in the street.
I was sure no one heard it strike the surface, but the sight of it hitting the pavement sent a shockwave of silence through the throng. I counted two breaths before the noise rose again, louder. If this mob had access to rocks or other dense debris, someone was in real trouble.
A little chaos right about right now worked for me. Once the Tabisee took me back inside their compound, I was destined to disappear into a stone cell forever. Or worse.
Now, however, because of Mathet's story in the warehouse, the Endar were looking for a criminal in Tabisee armor out on the street.
I looked at all the shouting, squeaking, appendage-waving bipedals on my right. Some were shorter or taller than me. Some were rotund, others, skinny. A scattering wore some type of headgear. I could find a disguise somewhere in that mix.
Meeroush planted his hand on my back and shoved me the last few steps to the carrier hatch.
Across the space, the Endar had spread out along the front of the mob, obviously confident in their presence to intimidate and subdue them. The High Jerak stopped talking, his eyes locked on our group.
As he took a step toward us, drawing one of his troops with him, a piercing howl rose above the clamor.
The street noise abruptly silenced as all heads turned, almost as one, to look behind the mob. The howl sounded again, this time closer. Cries of pain, protest, and outrage tracked its approach.
Damn! I recognize that howl. Someone had pumped up on adrenalin or drugs and released their state of red rage on the gathering. Humans called them berserkers. A lot of people were going to feel some real pain unless someone brought the thing down fast.
The Tabisee and Endar were also reacting. Troops stationed at the hatch hastily grasped the arm of the guy ahead of me and hauled him on the ship while the Endar lining the street took a step away from the crowd and leveled their purpled-tipped weapons in the direction of the sound.
In that frozen heartbeat of a second the mob to our right, where the Frairy had disappeared, broke under the pressure of the panicked beings at their backs and surged into the open space around us.
It was not the distraction I would have ordered up, but it was the distraction I needed. I twisted out of Meeroush's grip and dived toward the wall of alien flesh rushing toward us.
I made it twenty steps into the onrush before a charge of energy rattled through my body and I collapsed into oblivion.