by Timothy Zahn
“I can see why the UN would be upset with you,” she murmured.
“Oh, they were upset, all right,” I agreed bitterly. “And the public was pretty upset with them right back. For a while. Problem was, they weren’t upset long enough for anything to actually get done about it. The Directorate made a big show of firing a few scapegoats, denied personal responsibility six ways from Sunday, and waited for the ruckus to die down for lack of interest. Then they quietly went ahead and signed up for the station anyway. With their friends and supporters getting most of the contracts for the materials and construction modules, I might add.”
“And then they made sure you paid for your opposition,” she said quietly. “I’m sorry.”
I shrugged, forcing my throat to relax. “It’s okay,” I assured her. “I’m over it.”
Which was a lie, of course. Even after all this time, just talking about it was enough to twist my blood vessels into macramé.
A Spider stepped up to our table, holding a tray with the frothy soda crèmes I’d ordered. “We’ve got raspberry and Jurian shisshun,” I told Bayta as I lifted the tall glasses onto the table. “Which one do you want?”
She chose the raspberry, and we settled down to eat in silence I wasn’t in the mood for more conversation, and she was either feeling likewise or was too busy communing with her Spider friends to spare me any attention.
It wasn’t until we were heading back toward the platform that I belatedly noticed that her question about my career had completely sidetracked my plan to find out something about her.
The train bound for the Grakla Spur was, not surprisingly, considerably shorter than the one we’d taken to Jurskala, reflecting the smaller volume of traffic and cargo involved. The Spiders had another double first-class compartment set aside for us, and we were settling in when the door chimed and a conductor paused in the doorway long enough to hand Bayta a data chip. “That the information on Rastra and JhanKla?” I asked as she pulled out her reader.
“The conductor didn’t know, but I assume so,” she said, plugging in the chip and peering at the display. “Yes, it is,” she said, handing it to me.
I glanced down the directory. “I don’t see anything here on the two Halkas who jumped me in the interrogation room.”
“They probably haven’t had time to pull that together yet.”
I grimaced. Still, half a loaf, and all that. “What’s happening with the Bellidos?”
“Two of them have the compartment just behind ours,” she said slowly “The other three have gone to the last of the third-class coaches.”
“We’ll want their profiles and history too,” I said. “Better add that to the Spiders’ things-to-do list.”
“All right,” she said, swaying momentarily for balance as the Quadrail started up. I looked past her at the display window, but there were only a few wandering drones on that side of our track. “I can talk to the stationmaster at the next stop,” she went on. “But it’s only four days to Sistarrko. They may not be able to get the data collected before then.”
“That’s all right,” I said, sitting down in the lounge chair. “I’ve got plenty to read already. You want to join me?”
“No, thank you,” she said, turning toward the door. “I’ll be in my compartment if you need me.”
“Hold it,” I said, reaching over and touching the switch that opened the wall between our rooms. “Let’s not use the corridor any more than necessary, okay? There are nosy neighbors down the hall.”
“Oh,” she said. “Right.” Stepping past me, she went into her compartment, pointedly tapping the control on her own wall as she passed it. I waited until the wall had closed; then, changing my mind, I got up from the chair and crossed over to the bed instead. Throwing my carrybags up onto the rack, I dimmed the lights, propped myself comfortably on the pillow, and started to read.
Given the haste with which the Spiders had thrown together the information package, I hadn’t expected anything too extensive or startling. I wasn’t disappointed. Rastra had been born to a good if not really highly placed family and had risen through the ranks of Guardians until he showed talent in mediating conflicts, at which point he’d been promoted to Resolver. He’d risen through the ranks there, too, being assigned to increasingly important posts until he’d been promoted to Falc and been given his current Resolver-at-large position, going wherever his government needed him. The Spiders had included his last five years’ worth of Quadrail travel, which confirmed he’d spent the past three months on the road with JhanKla, no doubt smoothing the High Commissioner’s path through the murky labyrinth of Jurian protocol.
JhanKla, in contrast, had been born pretty much at the top of the food chain, to one of the Halkan Peerage families. He’d been schooled and trained in the art of being an aristocrat, and upon completion of those studies had been handed a commissioner’s job on Vlizfa. He’d served there for three years, apparently with at least a modicum of competence, then moved on to a succession of more important posts on various Halkan worlds. The details of his promotion to High Commissioner weren’t given, but with Halkas that could be a result of merit, a fluctuation in family prestige, or even the serendipity of the right person dying at an opportune moment. Most of his Quadrail travel over the past five years had consisted of trips within the Halkavisti Empire.
As near as I could tell, comparing the two sets of records, there was no indication that he and Rastra had ever even been in the same solar system together prior to this extended visit to the Jurian Collective.
Something seemed to flicker at the edge of my vision. I looked up, but whatever it was had apparently passed. I looked around the room for a moment, then turned my attention back to the reader and swapped out the chip for the one holding the Tube security data.
I’d had just a few minutes to study the chip earlier, but even through a throbbing head I’d hit enough of the high points to be impressed. Now, as I dug into the details, I found myself even more so.
The Tube sensors spotted explosives, of course, including the explosive loadings of projectile handguns. Everyone knew that much. What I hadn’t spotted on my first pass was that the detectors also picked up a wide range of the more innocuous components that could be assembled into things that could go bang in the night. Even homemade explosives were apparently out.
There was also a wide variety of chemical and biological poisons and disease organisms on the list, both fast- and slow-acting varieties, many of which I’d never even heard of. Some were reasonably general threats to the galaxy at large, items like Saarix-5 or anthrax that attacked pretty much every carbon-based metabolism to one degree or another. Things that were more species-specific, like HIV or Shorshic shellbeast toxin, were also screened for.
All the standard tools of mayhem were on the list, from plasma and laser weapons with their huge energy signatures, to the thudwumper and shredder rounds I was most familiar with, to more subtle devices like dart throwers and even such passive devices as nunchaku fighting sticks and police billy clubs. If there was a weapon the Spiders hadn’t included, I couldn’t think what it might be.
There was obviously way too much for a single set of hatchway sensors to look for, but the chip had the answer to that long-standing puzzle as well. There were definitely hatchway sensors that checked passengers as they arrived from the shuttles, but the deeper and more subtle scanning was done as they made their way to the platforms, via sensors built into the Tube’s flooring and support buildings. In effect, each Quadrail station was a massive sensor cavity, discreetly protecting the passengers from each other.
And that was certainly not included in the building supplies that made up the major part of a station’s trillion-dollar price tag. All of it had to be added afterward, put in by the Spiders themselves. Perhaps, I decided grudgingly, the cost of a new station wasn’t quite the extortion I’d always thought.
Above the top of the reader, something again seemed to flicker at the edge of my vision. Again
I looked up, and again there was nothing.
But this time I spotted something I hadn’t noticed before. Preoccupied with the data chips and my own musings, I’d neglected to opaque the window.
Frowning, I set the reader aside and turned off the room lights completely, and as my eyes adjusted to the darkness I could see a faint luminescence begin to fill the window. For a moment I wondered where it was coming from, then realized that I was seeing a reflection of the Coreline glow from high overhead on the curved Tube wall surrounding us.
Getting to my feet, I walked over to the window, and for a minute I leaned against it and gazed out into the perpetual night of the Tube. How many thousand light-years of Quadrail track was there out there? I wondered distantly. Enough to link all the known inhabited worlds, certainly, with other lines probably already in place waiting for up-and-coming species like us to stumble across. Soon, perhaps, there would be Thirteen Empires, and then Fourteen, and Fifteen—
And without warning, a spot of brilliant red light flashed across my sight someplace far to the rear of the train.
I jerked in surprise as the light winked out again. It hadn’t been all that bright, I realized now, except relative to the soft Coreline glow and my own dilated pupils. I stared at the spot where it had been, wondering if that had been what had caught my attention earlier and what in the world it could be. Some kind of erratic running light? But Quadrails didn’t carry running lights, at least as far as anyone knew. Some kind of warning beacon, then? Out here in the middle of nowhere, I hoped to God not.
The light flashed on again. Experimentally, I turned my eyes slightly away, and this time I thought I could detect a slight flicker in it.
And as it winked off again, I suddenly understood.
My jacket was hanging beside me on the cleaning rack. I dug madly into the pockets, pulling out my reader and data chip pack and swearing under my breath as I tried to read the chips’ labels by the dim reflected Coreline light. Finally, I located the right one. Jamming it into the slot, I turned the reader on and pressed it against the window.
It was obvious now, with the crystal clarity only hindsight could bring to a situation. My playacting Bellido back on the Jurskala train hadn’t needed anything so esoteric as a tap into Spider computer or control systems to keep in touch with his buddies back in third class. He’d had a compartment window, a simple low-power laser pointer, a fluctuation modulator, and the whole Tube wall to bounce messages off of. No wonder his friends had been ready for me—they’d probably had their orders before I’d even made it out of the last first-class coach.
The red light came on again, and I pressed the reader hard against the window, keeping it as steady as possible. The modulation sequence was far too fast for human eyes to register, but the sensor built into the reader ought to be able to capture it and slow it down enough for me to make some sense of it later.
The light came and went three more times in the next few minutes. Apparently, the Bellidos were feeling chatty today. Three minutes later it flashed one final time, then went silent.
I waited by the window another half hour before finally calling it quits. Making my way back to the bed, I turned the lights up to a dim glow and got to work.
With the basic mode of their communication so unlikely to be spotted, I’d hoped the Bellidos might have gone with something simple like digitized text or voices. But no such luck. The modulation turned out to be some sort of Morse-style code, and it wasn’t following any of the usual Belldic encryption systems.
Still, at least I knew now how it had been done. That was worth a lot right there, especially since it offered a little more insight into the people I was up against. Cleverness and simplicity seemed to be their style. I’d do well to remember that.
But for now, my head was starting to hurt again and fatigue was dragging at my eyelids. Going to the tiny washroom, I got some water and took another painkiller and QuixHeal, then turned off the light and got undressed for bed.
My last act before crawling under the blankets was to set my reader on “record” and prop it up in the window. Just in case.
I slept long and deep and awoke ravenously hungry. I checked the other compartment, found Bayta already up. I had a quick shower and shave, and together we went back to the dining car.
None of the Bellidos were there at the moment. Bayta’s Spider friends reported to her that the two in first class had already eaten and returned to their compartment, while the ones back in third had eaten in shifts. I kept an eye on the handful of Halkas in the room wondering if JhanKla had put someone on our tail straight from the last station, or whether he’d just sent a message on ahead.
But no one seemed to be taking any particular interest in us. Which didn’t prove anything one way or the other, of course.
We finished eating and returned to my compartment, where we spent a few minutes sifting through the tourist brochures on the Modhra resort and discussing what exactly we would do when we got there.
Surprisingly, the choice of lodging turned out to be our biggest sticking point. Bayta wanted to take the lodge on the surface, where we would have a view of Modhra II and the gas giant Cassp, while I pushed equally hard for the underwater hotel JhanKla had mentioned. Eventually, Bayta gave in, though clearly not happily, and stalked back to her own compartment.
When the wall between us was closed again, I checked my reader to see if the Bellidos had transmitted any more secret messages during the night. They hadn’t.
The rest of the trip passed uneventfully. Bayta stayed alone in her compartment most of the time, joining me only for meals, and I did what I could to catch up on my sleep and healing.
It was only as I was repacking my carrybags in preparation for our arrival at Sistarrko that it belatedly occurred to me that information wasn’t the only thing I should have asked the Spiders for when this whole thing had started.
I should also have asked for a gun.
ELEVEN
JhanKla had described Sistarrko as a minor colony system, but from the size and design of its transfer station I would have guessed it to be more along the lines of a regional capital like Kerfsis. From the size of the two warships that had silently escorted us in from the Tube, I would have put it even higher than that.
Of course, the system was the home of the famous Modhran coral, and an up-and-coming tourist center to boot. Maybe that explained it.
Maybe.
We made it through customs without incident, the Saarix in my carrybag grips whispering right past their sensors. I didn’t spot any of the Bellidos, but that wasn’t surprising. The Halkas had separate customs areas for the different traveling classes, and I’d already seen how this bunch shifted class and status without batting a whisker. They were probably two levels below us, working their humble way through the third-class stations.
And of course, after they did that, they’d be getting their genuine status guns out of their lockboxes. The next time I faced them, they would be fully armed.
What a lovely thought.
Like Quadrail Tubes everywhere in the galaxy, the Grakla Spur cut through Sistarrko’s outer system, in this case just outside Cassp’s orbit. That would put the Modhra resort at a considerable distance from the station for much of any given decade, which I suspected would cause trouble for the tourist logistics a few years down the line. Fortunately, at the moment the planet was nearly at its closest approach, which meant the travel time would be measured in hours rather than days. The transport rep directed us to the proper departure lounge, where we found a fifty-passenger short-haul torchferry waiting, and we climbed aboard with thirty fellow travelers. I’d expected at least one of the Bellidos to join the party, if only to keep an eye on us, but none of them did.
We took off in a blaze of superheated heavy-ion plasma, and five hours later reached the delicately ringed gas giant. Shutting down the drive well clear of Modhra I’s icy surface, we switched to Shorshic vectored force thrusters, and a few minutes later settl
ed gently onto the light-rimmed landing pad.
The view was everything JhanKla had promised. Bulging up over the resort area’s horizon, Cassp had the same turbulent cloud bands and thousand-kilometer-wide storms as Jupiter and Saturn back in Sol system, but with a wider range of coloration than either of those two worlds. Its ring system was at least as impressive as Saturn’s, as well, with much of it extending well past us. Overhead, Modhra II moved across the sky, a glistening ball of stone and ice arcing its way along the Modhra Binary’s common orbit.
As an extra bonus, some quirk of celestial mechanics had put the Modhras’ combined orbit at right angles to Cassp’s ring system. That meant that as the two moons moved around their combined center of gravity, our view of the rings shifted from slightly above to a straight edge-on view to slightly below, then rose back through them again. It made for an ever-shifting, ever-changing panorama that all by itself would probably have justified the development of the place as a tourist getaway.
The lodge-style building we set down beside was a sprawling copy of an ancient Halkan High Mountain fortress, complete with distinctive star-shaped turrets. The modern airlock entrances spoiled the illusion a bit, but neither of the two moons was large enough to hold much atmosphere. Bayta and I joined the rest of the passengers in climbing into the torchferry’s vac suits, and a few minutes later we all headed out across the frozen surface.
The lodge’s interior décor was High Mountain style, too, with several centuries’ worth of Halkan armor replicas standing in front of equally ancient wall hangings. The motif was carried even to the check-in procedure, which was handled by desk clerks in half-scale mail instead of by self-serve computer terminals. When our turn came I asked about the underwater hotel and was directed to a bank of ornate elevators waiting across the entry foyer. We joined five of the other guests, and fifteen minutes later emerged into the hotel lobby and what could only be described as an undersea wonderland.