by Timothy Zahn
The whole thing gave me a strange and decidedly unpleasant feeling. Being ignored was nothing new to me, and over the past few years I’d been ignored by acknowledged experts in the field. But this was different. Bayta was a colleague, and ever since we’d embarked on this quiet war together I’d been the biggest thing in her life.
Except for the Spiders and Chahwyn, maybe. But they Mostly sat on the sidelines. I was the one Bayta had lived with and fought beside and risked her life for. Not the Spiders. Certainly not Rebekah.
Five days after leaving New Tigris we reached the transfer station. The vacation was over, and the danger was about to begin again.
I was almost glad.
The Customs official on duty was the same one who’d sent us through on our way sunward. Considering the relative trickle of customers who came through here, I wasn’t surprised that he remembered us.
“Ah—Mr. Donaldson,” he greeted me. “This is a surprise. I had the impression you’d be staying on New Tigris a bit longer.”
“That was the plan,” I agreed, handing over my ID. “But things fell into place more quickly than I’d expected.”
“Ah,” the official said, his eyes shifting to Bayta. “Good to see you again, too, ma’am.” He looked at Rebekah. “And you are . . .?”
“This is Rebekah Beach,” Bayta told him. “She’ll be traveling to the Tube with us today.”
“Good day, Ms. Beach,” the official said, smiling genially at her.
Rebekah didn’t smile back. She’d been pale and jumpy ever since we arrived at the transfer station, actually before I’d even finished the docking procedure. If she was trying to look like someone on the run, she couldn’t have done a better job of it. “We’ll need a shuttle ride to the Tube,” I said, trying to draw the official’s attention toward me instead of her.
“I’ll call the pilot,” he said, his eyes still on Rebekah. “Is this the young lady the gentlemen down the hall have been waiting for?”
An unpleasant tingle ran up the back of my neck. “Which gentlemen are those?” I asked.
“I believe they’re from the United Nations,” the official said. “They mentioned they were here to escort a young lady back to Earth.”
“I see,” I said, glancing around. There was no one else in sight, but that could change quickly enough. “And you’re supposed to let them know when she arrives, I presume?”
“As a matter of fact, I am,” he said, his tone drifting from friendly to guarded. “Why, is there a problem?”
“The polite term is jurisdictional poaching,” I said, pulling out my Hardin Security card and handing it to him. “I’m the one who’s supposed to escort Ms. Beach back to Earth, not some bureaucratic glory-hogs.”
“I don’t understand,” the official said, frowning uncertainly at the Hardin card. “They implied this was a very serious governmental matter.”
“They always imply that,” I growled, putting on my best professional-versus-amateurs face. “The fact of the matter is that I was the one sent to locate this girl and bring her back to Earth. Sent by Mr. Hardin personally, I might add. If the UN wants to interview her, they can ask politely. After we’ve finished talking to her.”
“I don’t know,” the official said hesitantly, gazing at Rebekah as he fingered the ID. “Their instructions were very specific.”
“Did they have a warrant?” Bayta asked.
The official pursed his lips. “Not that I saw.”
“Or any official paper at all?” I added.
“Again, not that I saw,” he conceded. “But they do have UN IDs.”
“Which means what?” I persisted, wishing I could just pull my gun and get us the hell out of here. If the UN flunkies were Modhran walkers, they’d probably sensed Rebekah’s renegade coral before I’d even finished docking the torchyacht. God only knew why they weren’t here already, flashing IDs and trying to confiscate everything in sight.
I frowned. Why weren’t they here, come to think about it? “But you’re right—maybe we should try to be civilized about all this,” I said.
I could feel Bayta’s eyes on me at this sudden change in tactics. But the Customs man himself showed nothing but relief. Caught between the UN and a multitrillionaire industrial giant wasn’t a comfortable place for a low-level career bureaucrat to be. “I’d appreciate that,” he said, reaching for his desk comm.
I caught his wrist before he could pick up the handset. “It might be better if I just go talk to them,” I suggested. “Keep you and the transfer-station management out of it, you know.”
“If you think that would be best,” the official said, looking even more relieved as he withdrew his hand. “They’re down the corridor to your left. Room Four.”
I looked down the corridor. Room Four was about midway along, in plain view of where we stood in front of the counter. “Wait here,” I told Bayta and Rebekah, and headed toward it.
The door still hadn’t opened by the time I reached it. Settling my shoulders, reminding myself that on this side of Customs the two of them were likely to be as well armed as I was, I pressed the buzzer.
There was no response. I tried again, then a third time. Nothing.
I looked back at Bayta. I could see her lips moving as she continued to talk to the Customs official, probably working out the details of our cargo transfer to the Tube. The official himself, I noted, was too far back to actually see the door where I was standing. Keeping an eye in that direction, I dug out my lockpick and got to work. A few seconds later, the door snicked open, and I slipped through into the room.
They hadn’t been dead long, I decided as I knelt over the bodies lying in the middle of the small room. No more than a couple of hours, probably less. The cause of death was pretty obvious: both men had had their necks broken. On the floor beside one of them lay a handgun with the distinctive aroma of recent firing about it.
The target of that fire was also obvious: a dead Pirk lying a meter behind one of the Humans, probably shot in the act of breaking the man’s neck. His chest had the small bloodstains of a pair of snoozer rounds, but there were no other signs of injury I could detect.
Ironically, I noted, he was as lacking in normal Pirk odor in death as he had been in life.
I made a single careful circuit of the room, looking for anything that might give me a clue as to what had happened here. But there were no signs of struggle, no documents lying around in the open that someone might have been looking at. Both victims’ IDs were tucked safely away in their jackets, with no indication they were being shown to anyone during their final moments. From all appearances, the Pirk had just buzzed the door, walked in when it was answered, and set about killing the two occupants.
Meanwhile, the gentleman at the Customs desk would be expecting me to return with glad tidings of jurisdictional agreement. I finished my circuit and headed back toward the door, giving the gun on the floor a final look. It was a Heckler-Koch 5mm, I noted, just like the one Lorelei had stolen from my Manhattan apartment.
I paused, my hand hovering over the doorknob. Then, slowly, I retraced my steps to the group of dead bodies and took a closer look at the gun.
It wasn’t just like the one Lorelei had stolen. It was the one she’d stolen.
I straightened up again, giving the Human bodies a second look. Detective Kylowski had said someone of my general description had been seen running from the scene of Lorelei’s death. Both of these latest vics were about my height and build, with similar dark hair in similar cuts as mine.
Under some sets of circumstances, Kylowski would probably be glad to hear I’d found the killer. Under this particular set, he probably wouldn’t.
The Customs man was just closing one of Rebekah’s metal boxes when I returned to the counter. From his lack of wide-eyed outrage at the discovery of illegal cargo, I assumed it was one of the three decoy Siris brandy boxes. “We wanted these crated up for Quadrail baggage car transport, didn’t we?” Bayta asked me, gesturing to the box
es.
“That’s right,” I said, forcing my voice to remain steady Out of the corner of my eye I saw Rebekah open her mouth, then close it again. “Oh, and I’ll need a lockbox for my gun, too. Did you need to see my importer’s license on the brandy?”
“Yes, thank you,” the official said as I pulled out the appropriate card. “Did you get everything settled with the two gentlemen?”
“No problems,” I said softly. “It’s all fine now.”
By the time we got Rebekah’s boxes settled inside a large cargo crate and wheeled it across the station the shuttle was ready for us. Half an hour later, we were inside the Quadrail station, our luggage and the crate piled on the Tube floor beside us.
And only then, with the three of us now officially outside Terran Confederation jurisdiction, did I tell the others what I’d found in Room Four.
They listened in silence, Bayta with her controlled shock and thoughtfulness, Rebekah with what I was pretty sure was guilty knowledge. “At least now we know who the walkers were who attacked Lorelei on Earth,” Bayta said when I’d finished. “Provided you’re really sure that was your gun.”
“Trust me, it was,” I assured her grimly. “Not that anyone else is likely to arrive at that particular conclusion. The Customs man will certainly testify that I was in the room with them, for a start.”
“After the killings.”
“If anyone bothers to refine the timeline that closely.” I turned to Rebekah. “You want to tell us what happened in there?”
She dropped her eyes away from the intensity of my stare. “Probably just what you’re already thinking,” she said with difficulty. “Drorcro was one of us.”
“Drorcro being our non-aromatic Pirk, I gather?”
She nodded. “He was supposed to wait for us at the transfer station and then accompany us to our new home. When the two Eyes showed up . . . he decided to sacrifice himself for me.”
“How nice and noble that sounds,” I growled. “Much better than that he simply panicked.”
“I don’t think—”
“You lied to us, Rebekah,” I cut her off.
She flinched back from my sudden anger. “Frank,” Bayta cautioned, starting to take a step in front of the girl.
“Keep out of this, Bayta,” I warned, keeping my glare on Rebekah. “A lie of omission is still a lie. Why didn’t you tell us about Drorcro before? Like, maybe, back on the torchyacht, when it could have done us some good?”
“I couldn’t,” Rebekah protested, her voice shaking, her eyes brimming. “I’m sorry, Mr. Compton. He was just trying to protect me.”
“By murdering two Humans in cold blood?” I shot back. “Yes, I know they were walkers. So what? I could have dealt with them in any number of other ways. But only if I’d known in time.”
“That’s enough, Frank,” Bayta said firmly.
“What, am I scaring her?” I snapped, throwing her a glare of her own. “Good. It’s about time she understood the rules here. She and the Melding.”
I looked back at Rebekah. She was trying hard to hold on to some shred of dignity, but her expression was nothing short of miserable and the tears were now streaming freely down her cheeks. “You say the Melding picked me to get you off New Tigris and to your new home,” I said, notching back the thunder and lightning a little. “Fine—I’m here. But if you want my help, you have to be completely honest with me. And that means telling me everything. You understand? Not everything that’s convenient. Not everything you think I need to know. Everything. Do I make myself clear?”
She nodded, a pair of jerky up-down twitches of her head. I looked at Bayta, whose own anger at my outburst had now cooled to merely smoldering. Clearly, she wasn’t very happy with me right now.
I wasn’t particularly happy with myself, for that matter. But Rebekah and the Melding needed to learn this lesson, and they needed to learn it right now. “All right, then,” I said, finally letting the storm clouds dissipate. “Dry your eyes, and tell me what this has done to your original plan.”
Rebekah sniffed a couple of times, her hands dipping into her pockets as she searched for a handkerchief. Bayta got to her own spare first, handing it to Rebekah and resting her hand reassuringly on the girl’s shoulder. “Go ahead, Rebekah,” she prompted.
“We were hoping you could arrange to put the coral in the front part of the forward baggage car,” Rebekah said, daubing at her eyes. “Drorcro was going to get one of the seats in the far back of the last third-class car.”
“So he could keep an eye on it?” I asked.
Rebekah shook her head, sniffing a little more. “I told you we need to stay near it to make sure it doesn’t revert to normal Modhri.”
“That’s not just if there’s other Modhran coral around?” I asked.
“We don’t know,” Rebekah said. “Now that Drorcro’s gone, I guess I’ll have to do that.”
“Out of the question,” Bayta said firmly “You’re going to be in a first-class compartment where you’ll at least be out of sight.”
“But I can’t,” Rebekah protested. “If he reverts—no, I have to be with him.”
I looked around us. The New Tigris Station amenities, as befit the colony’s lowly status, consisted of only a single shop/ restaurant/visitor center. If there was anyone on duty—and it didn’t look like there was—he wasn’t visible to us out here. There also were no other passengers hanging around the station. “Luckily for us, in this case we can have it both ways,” I said. “Bayta, whistle us up a couple of drudges or drones, will you?”
“All right.” She paused, and across by one of the freight tracks I saw a trio of medium-sized Spiders detach themselves from the rest of their work crew and start wending their seven-legged way toward us. “What’s the plan?” she asked.
“Luckily, Rebekah’s coral carriers are just about the size of Quadrail lockboxes,” I pointed out. “Lockboxes get loaded underneath the cars anyway, right? So let’s have the Spiders load them into standard lockboxes and make sure to put them right below our compartments.”
“Yes, that should work,” Bayta said slowly, her forehead wrinkled in concentration. “Of course, that assumes the storage areas under those particular compartments aren’t already full.”
“If they are, the Spiders can unfill them,” I said, running my eye down the schedule holodisplay floating above the station-master building. “A more crucial question is how fast it would take for any walkers aboard to zero in on their location.”
“They shouldn’t be able to at all,” Rebekah said. “The way we sense ordinary Modhran coral is like—well, think of a low-pitched hum like some machines make. You can hear it a long ways away, but it’s really hard to figure out where exactly it’s coming from. We could tell if there was an outpost aboard the train, or maybe only that it was just somewhere in the station. But that would be all.”
“And that’s the way the Modhri would sense your coral, too?” I asked.
Rebekah shrugged helplessly. “We assume so. We don’t know for sure.”
“But that would make sense,” Bayta said. “Why else would the Modhri have needed to bring in specially designed Filiaelians to find her?”
“That’s good enough for me,” I declared. Actually, whether it was good enough or not, it was probably all we were going to get. “Bayta, is there room for us on the coreward-bound Quadrail coming through in ninety minutes?”
Her eyes defocused briefly “Yes, there are two adjoining compartments available,” she confirmed.
“Book ‘em for us,” I ordered. “Then—”
“Wait a minute,” she interrupted, frowning in concentration. “The stationmaster says there should be a tender along soon, one that’s set up for normal people.”
“Really,” I said, frowning in turn. Tenders were workhorse trains, typically two or three cars with an engine on each end so they could move in either direction without having to go to a station or siding to turn around. Normally, the cars were stuffed wi
th equipment and spare track and Spiders, without any of the conveniences that Quadrail passengers usually demanded, such as food, restroom facilities, and a constant supply of oxygen.
But the Spiders did have a few tenders that had been tricked out for passengers. Bayta and I had traveled on them a couple of times. If there was one in the vicinity, it would be the perfect way to avoid the Modhri on our way to Sibbrava. “When’s it due?” I asked.
“About twenty hours,” she said.
I shook my head. “No good. In twenty hours half the transfer station personnel will be over here waving papers calling for my arrest on triple murder charges.”
“But they won’t be able to arrest you,” Bayta pointed out. “Not in here.”
“Maybe not, but they’ll sure be able to sit on me long enough to get my prints and biometrics and send them to Earth for a solid ID,” I reminded her. “The minute all that gets cross-linked to my real name and the circumstances around Lorelei’s death in New York come to light, I might as well kiss the Terran Confederation good-bye as far as a retirement home is concerned. Forget the tender—we’ll just take the next train.”
“All right,” Bayta said. She wasn’t any happier about the situation than I was, I could tell. But I wouldn’t be of any use to the Spiders and the war against the Modhri doing four or five life sentences for a bunch of murders I hadn’t even committed. “We’re confirmed aboard.”
“Good,” I said. “By the way, which direction is the tender coming from?”
“From rimward,” Bayta said. “It’s somewhere in the Greesovra area.”
One of the worlds of the Bellidosh Estates-General, and the opposite direction from the way we were going. No chance then of rendezvousing with it somewhere along our way.
Unless we took the next Quadrail headed back in that direction, met the tender at Helvanti or one of the minor Belldic colonies, and switched ourselves and our cargo aboard there.