by Timothy Zahn
But a glance at the holodisplay torpedoed that one. The next Quadrail heading rimward wasn’t due for another twelve hours, which was no better than the twenty it would take the tender to get here under its own steam. “So that’s settled,” I said briskly. “Let’s get this crate unpacked and send the boxes of coral to wherever the Spiders keep lockboxes until they’re ready to be loaded aboard.”
“Do we just dump the crate completely, then?” Bayta asked.
I looked at the approaching Spiders. “No, let’s leave the three brandy boxes inside and have the crate loaded in the luggage car as Rebekah originally planned. When the Customs man back on the transfer station gets questioned about the murders, he’ll probably mention we took a crate out with us.”
“He’ll also tell them there were just some boxes of brandy inside,” Bayta pointed out.
“Which no one will believe,” I said, pulling out my reader. “The more eyes pointed at it, the fewer pointed at us. What’s a good stop on the Kalalee Branch, something well past Sibbrava?”
Bayta looked over my shoulder. “Benedais would work,” she suggested, pointing at a spot on my Quadrail map. “It’s reasonably large and quite cosmopolitan.”
“Benedais it is,” I agreed. “Have the Spiders label the crate for Benedais. While you’re at it, have them make us up another half-dozen labels for a few other random locations.”
“Which we can put over the Benedais one if we need to?” Bayta asked.
“Exactly,” I said. “The more effort we can put into making the crate look vitally important to us, the better our chances of keeping the Modhri focused on it until we’re ready to slip Rebekah and the coral off the train.”
I looked at Rebekah. She had a rather doubtful look on her face, clearly wondering about the possibility of keeping a group mind focused in only a single direction at all. But she merely nodded agreement. “Whatever you think is best, Mr. Compton,” she said.
“That’s the spirit,” I said. “Okay, then. Let’s get to it.”
SIXTEEN
I’d told Bayta that twenty hours was way too long to expect the three bodies on the transfer station to go undiscovered. Privately, I’d suspected even our ninety-minute wait would be pushing it.
So it was to my mild surprise that the Quadrail rolled to a halt at our platform without so much as a fact-finding crew making their appearance. Either the transfer station personnel knew trying to talk me out of my safe haven in Spider territory would be futile, or else no one had wanted to barge in on the men in Room Four to ask if they’d really agreed to let me take Rebekah and fly the coop.
I hoped they would at least find the bodies before the Pirk stopped being non-aromatic.
Whatever the reason for our reprieve, the train pulled in, we got aboard, and it pulled out again. I didn’t actually see the Spiders put the crate and lockboxes aboard—that was all handled on the opposite side of the train from the passenger doors—but even before the train started on its way again Rebekah was able to confirm that her mutant coral was snugged in safely beneath our compartments. None of us knew whether or not the crate had been brought aboard as well, but knowing Spider efficiency I had no reason to doubt that it had.
A conductor Spider showed up in Bayta’s compartment shortly after the train passed through the atmosphere barrier into the main part of the Tube. A couple of minutes later, he’d folded away the luggage rack above the bed and replaced it with a second bunk, converting the compartment from a single to a double.
We stayed put for the first few hours, lying low against the possibility of being spotted and identified by any walkers who happened to be traveling with us. Midway through the nine-hour trip to Yandro Bayta and I slipped back to the dining car to get something to eat.
Rebekah insisted on staying behind where she could be near her coral, which was fine with me. The less she was out in the open, the better. Bayta and I had a quick dinner, then got a carry-away meal to take back to Rebekah.
Yandro came and went, the last stop in Human space. The next stop, seven hours beyond it, was Homshil, one of the heavily traveled node points that linked up several different Quadrail lines, including a super-express that led across a large span of unoccupied territory to the Shorshic and Filiaelian empires at the other end of the galaxy.
Homshil was usually a stop where a lot of passengers got swapped out, and this time was no exception. Bayta and Rebekah and I stayed in our compartments while the do-si-do was going on, keeping our display window opaqued. The layover complete, we headed out again.
Sixteen hours out, and so far not a peep from the Modhri. But that wouldn’t last. McMicking would be holding off on his arrival at the New Tigris transfer station, I knew, giving us as much time as he could to make our escape. But he wasn’t exactly out of the woods yet himself, and he absolutely had to get through the station and to the legal protection of the Tube before the techs on the planet fixed the comm laser he’d wrecked and blew the whistle on him.
And of course, the minute he reached the Quadrail and the late Mr. Veldrick’s coral got within range of any other Modhran mind segments, the balloon would go up in spades.
We had to be as far away as possible before that happened. Unfortunately, we could only go so fast. Our train was what was informally called a local-express, which had fewer stops than a local but more than a regular express. An extra downside to that fact was that once the Modhri knew Rebekah and her coral were on the run, extra stops meant more opportunities for him to bring additional walkers aboard our train.
But there was nothing I could do about that. New Tigris and Sibbrava were both small enough to be served only by locals and local-expresses. Theoretically, we could switch to a faster express somewhere past New Tigris and then get back on a local as we approached Sibbrava. But that would mean two train changes, and two extra opportunities for walkers to notice and perhaps wonder about a whole bunch of lockbox transfers.
For the moment Rebekah’s coral was safely hidden out of the public eye. We needed to keep it that way.
Two hours after Homshil we reached the Jurian regional capital of Kerfsis, and an hour-long stop to transfer passengers and cargo. Once again the three of us spent the entire time in our double compartment with the windows opaqued. Kerfsis held some interesting memories for Bayta and me, and I wondered if she was sifting through them the same way I was.
At one point I considered asking her about it. But Rebekah would just want to know what we were talking about, and I really didn’t want to discuss it with her, and so I kept quiet. The stopover ended, and we headed out again, through the atmosphere barrier and back to our usual hundred-kilometers-per-hour, one-light-year-per-minute cruising speed.
By now, the trip had settled into a routine: eat, talk, watch a dit rec drama on one of the two computers in our double compartment, sleep, eat again, talk some more. From Kerfsis it was about a three-day journey to the Jurian capital system of Jurskala, though with the extra stops our train would be making it would probably be more like three and a half days. Somewhere in that time, I fully expected the Modhri to make his move.
We were six hours out from Jurskala when he did.
I was just thinking it was time I strolled back to the dining car to pick up a snack when Bayta suddenly sat bolt upright on her bed. “Frank, there’s a report of a fire!” she said sharply.
For a second I just stared at her. Fires and other natural disasters simply didn’t happen on Quadrails. And then my brain caught up with me, and I realized who had to be behind it. “Where?” I demanded, rolling off my bed onto my feet.
“Last third-class car,” Bayta said. “The Spiders are clearing everyone out now.”
The last passenger car, in other words, before the three baggage cars. “Nice,” I growled, grabbing my jacket.
“What do you mean?” Rebekah asked anxiously. She was sitting at the computer, her fingers poised tautly over the keyboard, her eyes wide and nervous.
“The Modhri’s bought into the idea that y
our coral is in one of the baggage cars,” I told her. “He also knows—or at least suspects—that one of your Melding buddies needs to be nearby to make him behave. He wants to split up the team. Ergo, the fire.”
“What are you going to do?” Bayta asked as I keyed open the door.
“I’ll figure that out when I get there.” I dug into my pocket. “Here,” I added, tossing her the kwi. “Just in case.” Checking to make sure no one was loitering near our compartment doors, I slipped out into the corridor and headed toward the rear of the train at a brisk walk.
I didn’t notice any particular excitement or anxiety as I passed through the first- and second-class sections of the Quadrail. Clearly, the Spiders were playing it cool, keeping the trouble as localized and isolated as possible.
Of course, that localization wasn’t going to last any longer than it took for the uprooted passengers to start spilling out of their car. Where the Spiders intended to stash them while they dealt with the problem I didn’t know, but it wasn’t likely to be pretty. Third-class Quadrail cars weren’t noted for having a lot of spare room, and second-class wasn’t much better. I tried to picture the reaction of my fellow first-class passengers to a flood of refugees from third, but my imagination wasn’t up to it.
Fortunately, the Spiders had already come up with a better plan. As I left the last second-class car and headed into the second/third-class dining car I found myself having to push through a mob of milling Humans and aliens. Clearly, the Spiders had directed the evacuees to the dining car, where they would at least have a little elbow room to spare.
Beyond the dining car, the hurried passage of the evacuees had left an atmosphere of frowns and low conversation and craned necks. Every eye seemed to turn to me as I strode past, the lone non-Spider going the opposite direction from everyone else.
A few people seemed to consider asking me what was going on as I passed. Fortunately, my brisk stride and carefully honed question-discouraging scowl kept them silent.
The last passenger car was empty except for a handful of Spiders and an acrid smell of smoke. The focus of the Spiders’ attention seemed to be a row of three seats in the middle of the car, and as I moved closer I saw the two Spiders nearest the area were spraying a pressurized stream of thick white mist over the center seat. “What was it?” I asked the room in general as I headed back.
The nearest Spider stepped into the aisle in front of me, blocking my way. He was a stationmaster, slightly bigger than the conductor Spiders gathered in the car, and with an identifying pattern of white dots across part of the surface of his globe. “You must return to the dining car,” he said in a flat voice. “It is not safe here.”
“No I don’t, and yes it is,” I said, taking another step forward.
The Spider didn’t budge. “You must return to the dining car,” he repeated. “It is not safe here.”
I stopped and gazed hard at the silvery globe as it hung in the middle of the network of spindly legs. “Do you know who I am?” I asked.
There was a moment of silence. “Frank Compton,” he said in the same flat voice.
“Then you know I have authority to go wherever in the Quadrail system I choose,” I said. “Please step aside.”
For a moment he seemed to think about that, no doubt telepathically consulting with the rest of the Spiders on the train. My mandate from the Chahwyn wasn’t nearly as broad as I’d made it sound, and I wondered if he was going to try to split hairs.
Apparently not. His moment of contemplation over, he tapped his way silently into the row of seats beside him, clearing the aisle for me. Nodding to him, I stepped past and made my way to the point of interest. The Spiders with the extinguishers had finished their work, and I peered through the rapidly dissipating white mist.
One look was all I needed. “Offhand, I’d say your sensor mesh needs a little work,” I commented.
“Explain,” the stationmaster said from behind me.
Pulling out my multitool, I flipped it to needle-nose pliers mode and carefully extracted a thin, pointy-ended plastic tube that had been embedded in the inboard side of the center of the three seats. “It’s called a whiffer,” I said. “It contains two vials of liquids which, when mixed, create a gas that can smell like pretty much anything you want.”
“It is not a weapon?” the stationmaster asked.
“Not really, which is probably why your sensor screen didn’t flag it,” I said. “But even harmless aromas can make good diversions.” I held up the whiffer for emphasis. “As you can see.”
“A diversion for what?”
“That’s the question, isn’t it?” I agreed, sniffing at the air. The smoky smell was all but gone. Whatever was in the Spiders’ fire-fighting mist, it was handy stuff. “You can go ahead and let everyone back in,” I told him, stepping away from the seat and heading toward the rear of the car. “You’ll want to make a note of who belongs in this set of seats, though.”
“Where are you going?” the stationmaster asked.
“There,” I said helpfully, pointing toward the door leading into the first of the baggage cars. “You just concentrate on getting the passengers resettled.”
I had the distinct impression that all of the Spiders were watching me as I made my way to the rear. But none of them interfered as I reached the back of the car and opened the door. I crossed the vestibule and punched the door release, and as the door slid open I stepped into the baggage car.
I’d spent more than my fair share of time in Quadrail baggage cars, and this one was typical of the breed. It was dimly lit, with stacks of safety-webbed crates arranged in seemingly haphazard islands throughout the car, the piles creating a twisting maze of narrow corridors meandering around and between them. Each stack consisted of cargo bound for a particular stop, the island configuration allowing the drudges to quickly extract the proper cargo through the roof at each station along the line. Our crate was supposed to be at the front of the car, in one of the “special handling” stacks, where we would have easy access to it and could keep up the illusion that it had some actual significance. Flashlight in hand, I went looking for it.
Only to discover that it wasn’t there.
I walked twice across the full width of the car, double-checking each crate as I went. After that I moved on to the next row of stacks back. Our crate wasn’t in any of them, either. Apparently, the Spiders who were supposed to load the thing aboard had screwed up.
Or else someone wanted me to think they had.
For a long moment I stood in the center of the main aisle, gazing at the intimidating archipelago of cargo stacks stretching to the rear of the car and trying to think. Checking out every crate in here would take hours, and there were two more baggage cars behind this one. I could easily be at this until we reached the far end of the Jurian Collective, which was probably exactly what the Modhri wanted me to do.
“Fine,” I muttered under my breath. Quadrail crates were pretty well sealed, which made breaking into one a lengthy proposition. A properly handled multitool on one corner of the lid would allow someone a peek inside, but of course with our crate all that would gain him would be a look at the three sealed metal boxes inside. To get any farther than that would require a crowbar—which he wouldn’t have been allowed to bring aboard—or else a lot of time and even more patience.
And he certainly wouldn’t want someone like me blundering into him while he worked.
Smiling to myself, I headed back toward the baggage car’s rear door. It was, I had to admit, a reasonably good plan for something that had to have been thrown together more or less on the fly. A walker plants a whiffer to clear out the car, including the coral’s assumed Melding watchdog. In the confusion, the walker and maybe a friend or two slip through the back door and manhandle the crate one or even two cars back.
It was, from the Modhri’s point of view, a win-win situation. If the Melding watchdog realized the coral had been moved and came running to find out what had happened to it
, the Modhri would gain instant identification of one of his enemies. If the watchdog didn’t come charging to the rescue, but tried to get a message to Bayta and me instead, the Modhri would have that much more time to break into the crate or whatever else was necessary to bring the wayward coral back into the happy Modhran family.
What he hadn’t counted on was that the Spiders would alert Bayta, who would alert me, and that I would be on the scene this quickly. By now he would barely have had time to even get the crate moved, let alone started working on it. If I could catch him in the act, not only would I have a pair of walkers identified, but I could have the Spiders kick them off the train as soon as we reached Jurskala.
I reached the door and punched the release. The door opened, and I stepped through into the vestibule and punched the inner door’s release.
Nothing happened.
I hit the release again, and again. But it was no use. The Modhri had anticipated me charging to the rescue, all right. He’d locked me out.
I muttered a curse under my breath. So he wanted to play cute? Fine—I could do cute, too. All I needed to do was get back to the passenger coaches and grab the first conductor I saw. Whatever the Modhri had done to lock the door, I’d simply have one of the Spiders undo it.
I was halfway back toward the front of the baggage car when I came around a curve in the pathway to find myself facing a group of four Juriani moving cautiously through the same pathway in my direction. They caught sight of me, the hawk beaks in their iguana-like faces clicked once in perfect unison, and they broke into a fast jog.
I picked up my pace, too, heading straight toward them. I caught a flicker of uncertainty on their scaled faces at the sight of a clearly insane Human rushing into four-to-one odds, and they reflexively slowed their pace a little.
Their uncertainty lasted exactly as long as it took me to clear the current crate stack I’d been passing and take off at full speed down a weaving cross pathway. I was half a dozen steps down it when I heard the sudden clatter of foot claws as they gave chase.