Night Train to Rigel

by Timothy Zahn

  I felt my stomach tighten. A Resolver had been called in? “Thank you,” I said.

  We threaded our way through our fellow travelers toward the indicated door. “Did you mean for them to call in a Resolver?” Bayta asked in a low voice.

  “No, of course not,” I said. “I was hoping to keep this very unofficial. Too late now.”

  “We don’t have to go see him.”

  “If we don’t, we’ll be the ones they start looking for,” I pointed out “We’ll just have to play it through.”

  The door opened to admit us, and we stepped into a short corridor with a single door on either side and one at the far end. The door on the right stood open; deciding that was our cue, I walked over and stepped through.

  A tall, distinguished-looking Juri seated behind a dark purple desk rose as we entered the room. “Good day, Humans,” he said, nodding his head the same way the female in the kiosk had. His scales had the polish of someone of the professional classes, and his beak carried the subtle markings that identified a Resolver. “How may I assist?”

  The voice seemed oddly familiar. I took a closer look at the scale pattern of his face; and then, it clicked. “Tas Rastra?” I asked.

  The scales of his cheeks puckered as he frowned at me in turn. Then, suddenly, they smoothed out. “Mr. Frank Compton,” he said, his voice vibrating with the deep subharmonics of Julian surprise. “An unexpected meeting, indeed.”

  “For me, as well,” I agreed. “It’s been a long time since the governor’s reception on Vanido.”

  “Indeed,” he confirmed. “You were in command of security for the representatives of Earth’s Western Alliance.”

  “And you were the governor’s chief Resolver who made it possible for me to do that job,” I said.

  “Both our lives seem to have changed since then,” Rastra said, gesturing to Bayta. “Please, identify your companion to me.”

  “This is Bayta, my assistant on my journey,” I said.

  “Your presence honors the Jurian Collective,” he told her gravely. “You have no title of standing?”

  “None,” she said, her voice oddly tight.

  “No, Bayta’s not a dignitary,” I told Rastra, frowning as I looked at Bayta. Her face, I saw, was as tense as her voice. Had she spotted something I’d missed? “I’m finished with that sort of escort duty,” I went on, looking back at Rastra. “How about you? Are you working Kerfsis Station now?”

  “Actually, no,” he said. “My current position is to travel with a high official of the Halkan government, resolving any problems he might encounter.”

  “And I’ll bet you’ve had a few.” I commented. Halkas often had trouble with Jurian protocol, especially Halkas high on the rank scale.

  “Nothing too serious,” he said diplomatically. “But as a problem involving other Halkas has now arisen, and as High Commissioner JhanKla and I were awaiting the next Quadrail anyway, I thought I would lend my assistance to your problem.”

  “Ah,” I said. “Actually, it’s such a small thing that I hesitate to even mention it. I ran into two Halkas aboard the Quadrail and hoped to see them again before we parted company, that’s all.”

  “And why specifically did you wish this?”

  Fortunately, I’d had time during our earlier idleness to come up with what I hoped would be a plausible story. “My current position is with a Terran travel consortium, and the Halkas told me about an interesting recreational area somewhere in the Halkavisti Empire,” I explained. “It sounded like the sort of place I should check out; but somehow I never got around to learning its name and location.”

  “I see,” Rastra said, leaning back in his chair. “What sort of recreational area was it?”

  “Oh, basically the kind we humans really like,” I said, waving my hand. A nice, vague description was what was called for here. “Plenty of outdoor sports, fantastic views, gourmet food. That sort of thing.”

  “And unique, too, no doubt,” Rastra said, his beak flattening with a smile. “You Humans do seem to prize such qualities. Tell me, how did you meet these Halkas?”

  “We just bumped into each other, like people do on a Quadrail,” I said. “They’d been drinking a little, and we started chatting.”

  “Did you learn their names, homes, or where and why they were traveling?”

  I felt my skin starting to tingle. This was rapidly drifting out of the realm of casual conversation and on to the all-too-familiar territory of an official interrogation. “The conversation never went that direction,” I told him. “And before you ask, I’d never met either of them before.”

  For a long moment Rastra just gazed at me. Then he stirred and stood up. “Come,” he said, gesturing toward a door behind him. He started to turn that direction, then paused. “By the way, it’s Falc Rastra now,” he said. “The rank was conferred on me by the governor six lunes ago.”

  I had the sudden vertiginous sense of the cultural rug being yanked out from under me. With that almost offhanded comment Rastra had suddenly jumped two notches above me on the Jurian social scale, and with a sinking feeling I realized that every tone of voice and nuance of word I’d just used with him had been a violation of proper social protocol. “Congratulations,” I managed through suddenly stiff lips.

  Fortunately, like the good Resolver that he was, Rastra had already anticipated the problem. “Thank you,” he said, giving his beak a pair of distinctive clicks. “It was an unanticipated honor indeed.” Shifting his gaze to Bayta, he double-clicked her, as well.

  And as quickly as it had been pulled out from under me, the rug was back beneath my feet. With those double clicks officially designating Bayta and me as his social equals—which we most certainly were not—he had graciously relieved us of the onerous task of juggling the complicated forms of address and gesture that would otherwise have been expected of us. “Unanticipated it might have been,” I said. “But well deserved.”

  “Thank you,” he said. “But now come and tell me what you make of this.”

  The door opened as he stepped to it. I started to follow, but Bayta cut halfway in front of me. “This Juri,” she hissed in my ear. “He’s a friend?”

  It was the same question she’d asked about Colonel Applegate aboard the Quadrail. “Not anymore,” I murmured back. “When a Juri changes rank, he pretty much has to change all his friends, too. The class lines here are very strictly drawn.”

  “But he was once your friend?”

  I felt my throat tighten. “I don’t have any friends, Bayta,” I told her “I have acquaintances, former colleagues, and people who wish they’d never met me. Why? You auditioning for the part?”

  A muscle in her cheek twitched. Without another word, she turned and hurried to catch up with Rastra.

  We followed him along two more corridors and down a flight of steps to a small and dimly lit office, where we found a grim-faced Juri wearing the uniform and insignia of a midlevel army officer. On the wall behind him was a wide one-way window into a second, better lit room, where two Halkas sat under the watchful eye of apair of armed Jurian soldiers. “This is Major Tas Busksha,” Rastra said, indicating the officer. “Mr. Frank Compton of Earth, and his assistant Bayta.”

  “Mr. Compton,” Busksha growled. “Are these the Halkas you seek?”

  I went over to the window and studied the aliens, paying particular attention to the shapes of their ears and the pattern of wrinkles angling upward from the centers of their chins. “I think so, yes.”

  “How well do you know them?” Busksha asked.

  “As I told Falc Rastra, we met for the first time on the Quadrail,” I said. “I trust you didn’t detain them just for me.”

  Busksha rumbled in his throat. “Hardly,” he growled. “They were apprehended in the secure baggage area.”

  So my suspicions had been right. “Who are they?”

  “We don’t know,” Rastra said. “Neither was carrying identification when they were taken. We’re searching for it now
.”

  “Any idea what they were looking for?”

  “An interesting question,” Busksha said, eyeing me closely. “What makes you think they were seeking anything in particular and not merely searching for valuables?”

  I shrugged, thinking fast. To me, it was obvious that they were still interested in Bayta and me, and that they’d probably been looking for any secure luggage we might have brought aboard. But saying so would bring more official attention our way than I really wanted. “They don’t seem like your average professional thieves to me, that’s all,” I said.

  “They don’t seem?” Busksha echoed with an edge of sarcasm. “To you?”

  “Mr. Compton is a former member of Earth’s Western Alliance Intelligence service,” Rastra said mildly. “His hunches should not be dismissed without consideration.”

  The major’s beak snapped. “And what exactly do these hunches tell you?”

  I looked back at the Halkas. “They’re well dressed, and their fur shows signs of having been recently scissor-trimmed,” I said. “That puts them at least midlevel on the social scale, possibly a little higher, Do we know how they were traveling?”

  “First-class,” Rastra said. “Yet they arrived at the transfer station aboard a third-class shuttle.”

  Busksha rumbled in his chest. “Such fraud is the hallmark of thieves and other social outsiders. Why did you inquire of them in the entrypoint area?”

  “As I told Falc Rastra, I had a brief conversation with them concerning a recreation area in the Halkavisti Empire,” I said. “I wanted to find out where exactly it is.”

  “His current position is to search out such places,” Rastra added.

  “I see,” Busksha said. For a moment he studied me, then twitched a shrug. “Then let us go and ask them.”

  It was typical interrogation technique, I knew: Put supposedly unconnected people together and watch for a reaction. Unfortunately, showing myself to the Halkas and thereby proving I was on to them wouldn’t have been my first choice of action here.

  But having come this far, I could hardly back out now. “Thank you,” I said. “Bayta, you stay here with Falc Rastra.”

  Busksha led the way out the room’s side door and five paces down a short corridor to a similar door in the interrogation room. I watched the Halkas’ flat faces carefully as we went inside, but there were no signs of surprise or recognition that I could detect. “You have a new questioner,” the major said briefly, and gestured me forward.

  “Good day,” I said, stepping past him. “You may not remember me, but we met on the Quadrail.”

  “We met with no Humans,” one of them said, looking contemptuously up at me. “We do not associate with Humans.”

  “You were rather inebriated at the time,” I told him. “You may not remember.”

  “I am never so inebriated,” he insisted.

  “Nor am I,” the second Halka put in.

  But even as he said it, his brow fur creased uncertainly. So this one wasn’t so sure.

  “You can account for every minute of your journey aboard the Quadrail?” Busksha asked. Clearly he’d caught the twitch, too. “There are no gaps?”

  “Only while we slept,” the first Halka said truculently.

  “Or when you sleepwalked?” I suggested. “Because you did speak to me outside my compartment door right after we left Yandro.”

  The two Halkas exchanged looks. “No,” the first insisted again. “We would never associate with a Human that way.”

  “Fine,” I said. “So what were you doing in the secure baggage compartment?”

  “You have rights of Jurian prosecution?” the first Halka demanded contemptuously.

  “You will answer his question,” Busksha said gruffly. Jurian protocol, I knew, made allowances for this kind of guest questioner, whether the Halkas liked it or not. And the major knew as well as I did that the more irritated the prisoner, the less likely he was to think straight.

  The Halka shot a glare at Busksha, then made a visible effort to pull himself together. “We were looking for our luggage,” he said. “I needed to retrieve an item.”

  “You couldn’t wait for it to clear customs?” I asked.

  “It is my luggage,” he insisted.

  “It was inside our baggage area,” Busksha countered.

  “Is our luggage not ours?” the Halka insisted. “Have you a right to keep it from us?”

  “While still outside customs?” I asked, frowning. This was about as weak and pathetic a defense as I’d ever heard.

  The Halka seemed to realize it, too. “We have rights,” he muttered, his righteous indignation fading away.

  “I’m sure you’ll have all you’re entitled to,” I said. “How did you get into the baggage area?”

  “It was unlocked,” the second Halka spoke up. Something seemed to flicker across his eyes—”But tell me, Human. How is it you come to question us?”

  There didn’t seem much choice but to trot out my cover story again. “I wanted some information from you,” I said. “While we were aboard the Quadrail you mentioned a vacation spot in the Halkavisti Empire, a place with outdoor sports, a magnificent view—”

  And right in the middle of my sentence, the second Halka reached casually up into his sleeve, pulled out an elaborately decorated knife, and lunged at me.

  If I hadn’t so utterly been taken by surprise I might have died right there and then. But the sheer unexpectedness of the attack froze my brain completely, freeing the way for Westali combat reflexes to take over. I twisted sideways, taking a step back with my right foot and scooping my left arm down and forward. My wrist caught the Halka’s forearm, deflecting the blade past my ribs and throwing him off balance. Grabbing his wrist with my right hand, I slashed the heel of my left hand into the crook of his elbow while simultaneously bending his arm back toward his face.

  It was a maneuver that should have sent the knife arcing harmlessly over his shoulder as his entire arm went numb. But either I missed the pressure point I’d been aiming for or else someone had redesigned Halkan physiology while I wasn’t looking. The knife stayed gripped in his hand; and with a flash of horror I watched the point zip a shallow cut through the fur of his right cheek.

  And suddenly I was in very, very deep trouble. The fact that the Halka had been the aggressor was no longer relevant. I’d been the one to draw blood, and the full weight of Jurian justice protocol was about to come down on top of me.

  I let go of the Halka’s arm and stepped away from him. But it was too late. Both guards had drawn their lasers, one of them covering the Halkas, the other bringing his weapon to bear on me.

  “Don’t shoot it!”

  It took me a second to identify the voice as Rastra’s, coming from a speaker in a corner of the interrogation room. The guard hesitated; then, to my relief, he joined his partner in pointing his weapon at the Halkas.

  The door burst open and Rastra charged in, Bayta a step behind him. “Are you all right, Mr. Compton?” he asked anxiously. His expression seemed oddly puzzled, as if he couldn’t believe I would do such a thing aboard his station. Shifting his attention to the Halkas, he gestured to the guards. “Take them to the cells,” he ordered. “They are to be charged immediately with theft and assault.”

  “What about the Human?” Busksha demanded.

  Rastra’s cheek scales crinkled. He knew the protocol on this far better than I did. “He is blameless,” he told the major anyway. “The Halka’s own hand held the knife that drew his blood.”

  All things considered, it was a pretty weak loophole. But it was apparently strong enough. Busksha still didn’t look happy, but he touched his fingertips together in a gesture of acceptance. “Very well,” he said. Shifting his glare to the Halkas, he gestured sharply toward the door. “Come.”

  For a moment neither of the aliens moved. Then, almost delicately, both of them collapsed onto the deck.

  Rastra unfroze first. “Summon the medics,” he snapped as h
e moved forward and knelt down beside them.

  “No need,” I said, staring down at the crumpled aliens as a sickly sweet odor wafted through the room. They were dead, without a mark on them, and with no one having touched either one.

  No one, that is, except me.

  SEVEN

  “The protocol is clear,” Busksha insisted, pacing around the interrogation room like a caged tiger. “He was involved in the death of two sentient beings.”

  “The protocol is not clear,” Rastra countered. He didn’t look any happier than Busksha, but his voice was firm enough. “We are witnesses to both his actions and the subsequent deaths. There is no evidence that one had anything to do with the other.”

  Busksha snorted. “You wish only to save an old friend,” he accused.

  “I wish to prevent an unnecessary interstellar incident,” Rastra corrected stiffly.

  “Yet we saw him touch one of them.”

  “But not the other,” Rastra countered. “Yet both deaths came from the same source.”

  “Perhaps,” Busksha growled. “That is for the autopsy to say.”

  There was a soft twitter from somewhere, and Rastra pulled a small comm from his vest pocket. “Falc Rastra,” he identified himself, stepping off to one of the corners.

  “While he’s occupied, perhaps we can focus on the knife for a moment,” I suggested to Busksha. “Do you know yet where they got it?”

  “One of the weapons lockboxes in the baggage area,” the major said, frowning at Rastra’s back.

  “One of theirs?”

  “Neither of them had a claim marker,” he said. “We have not yet determined which lockbox they opened.”

  “Or how they opened it, I presume,” I said. “Interesting, isn’t it? First they get past a supposedly secure door, and then into a supposedly secure lockbox.”

  “As I said, professional thieves,” Busksha reminded me.

  “Or someone fed them the relevant combination numbers.”

  He bristled. “Do you challenge the integrity of Jurian workers?”

  “Not necessarily,” I said. “Some of your workers certainly know the keypad sequence for the room, but they wouldn’t know a private lockbox combination. A more interesting question is why the Halkas would go shopping at all before they’d even passed through customs.”