Odd Girl Out

by Timothy Zahn

  “It will leave when scheduled,” the Resolver said, a hint of mild rebuke in his voice. If there was one thing in this universe you could absolutely count on, it was that the Spiders would keep their trains running on schedule. “Until then, we would appreciate it if you would accompany us to the stationmaster’s office to await his decision.”

  Leaving Bayta and Rebekah alone and helpless, perhaps? But they were hardly that. Bayta had the kwi and a ton of Spiders around she could call on to run interference if needed.

  Besides, at the edge of my vision I could see three knots of Halkas loitering on our platform, their flat bulldog faces turned in my direction, their heads leaning back and forth toward each other as they muttered among themselves. Getting out of the public eye for a while might not be a bad idea. “Very well,” I said. “But I accompany you voluntarily, with full freedom to leave whenever I choose.”

  “That will be for the stationmaster to decide,” Tas Yelfro said. Taking a step to the side, he gestured me past him. “This way, please.”

  It was the perfect setup for a good dit rec drama mob scene, as the alleged murderer was led on foot past simmering groups of the victims’ countrymen. But the Modhri was apparently not interested in trying to tear me limb from limb today. The two Juriani and I reached the stationmaster’s office without collecting anything more dangerous than a few glowers, and we all went inside.

  “Mr. Frank Compton,” the stationmaster greeted me solemnly.

  “That’s me,” I confirmed, listening carefully to his voice. To my ears, unfortunately, all Spiders sounded alike. “Have we met?”

  “No,” he said briefly. “Has the current situation been explained to you?”

  “I’ve had the Jurian version,” I said. “But it seems to me that the only one I need to concern myself with is yours.”

  The Spider didn’t answer, but merely curled up one of his seven legs from the floor and plucked a reader from the desk. I studied him as he held that pose, paying particular attention to the scattering of white spots on his globe. It was, I decided, a different pattern from the one I’d seen on the stationmaster aboard our Quadrail.

  The stationmaster everyone from Bayta on down claimed hadn’t been there at all.

  This one held up the reader another moment, then laid it down again. “Very well,” he said. “Mr. Compton, you may sit. Tas Yelfro, you may speak.”

  Tas Yelfro’s case, as one would expect from a professional Resolver, was lucid, well organized, and delivered with the kind of panache achieved elsewhere only by the lawyers in well-written dit rec dramas. I listened with one ear, most of my attention on our train across the way, watching as the Spiders continued the task of switching out the baggage car.

  And wondering why exactly they were going to so much effort to keep the crime scene here.

  Because they hadn’t been nearly so cooperative with the locals the last time I’d gotten tangled up with a murder aboard a Quadrail. In that case, in fact, I’d had every indication that they’d planned to just move out the victim’s effects, clean up the bloodstains, and send the car merrily on its way without so much as a preliminary forensic sweep.

  Was it the potential for a three-way political tug-of-war that was making them so cooperative? Or was it merely the fact that this was a baggage car instead of a first-class compartment car, which meant there were no VIPs they would have to shift around?

  Or did everyone else know something that I didn’t?

  Tas Yelfro had launched into his final summing-up when Bayta slipped through the door into the office and sat down beside me. “You all right?” she whispered.

  Falc Bresi, listening to the Resolver’s speech from the side, sent us an annoyed look. But since neither the stationmaster nor Tas Yelfro seemed all that worried about Bayta’s quiet interruption, I decided not to be, either. “I’m fine,” I whispered back. “What are you doing here?”

  “It’s all right,” she assured me. “Rebekah’s in a secure storage area along with our crate.”

  “What about my lockbox?” I asked, knowing she would pick up on the unasked question. “That’s the only gun I’ve got left, and I don’t want it going off on a tour of the galaxy without me.”

  “Don’t worry, it’s safe,” she said. “The Spiders took it off the Quadrail and set it aside by one of the underfloor hatchways where they’re collected for shuttle transport to the transfer station.”

  An underfloor hatchway near where Bayta had put Rebekah? I didn’t dare ask, not with the two Juriani standing right there. But there was enough of a knowing expression on Bayta’s face that it was clear we both knew what we were actually talking about. The Melding coral was safe, hopefully close enough to Rebekah to continue behaving itself. “Good enough,” I said. “If I end up heading in-system, I’ll definitely want it with me.”

  Bayta looked over at Tas Yelfro, who was still holding forth. “If the Juriani allow that,” she warned.

  I tuned back in to the oratory. To my surprise, somewhere along the way the Resolver had apparently switched from requesting a simple court of discovery to asking for a full-fledged criminal trial. “Uh-oh,” I murmured.

  “Is there really enough evidence to hold you for trial?” Bayta asked, sounding confused.

  “Not even close,” I said. “From our noble Resolver’s expression, I’d say he doesn’t think so, either.”

  “But then why—?” She broke off.

  “Right,” I confirmed grimly, studying Tas Yelfro’s face. Though the polyp colony under his brain was clearly feeding him instructions, the lack of an altered expression and vocal pattern meant the Modhri hadn’t yet escalated his control to the point of physically taking over his body. Either he didn’t feel it was necessary to go to that extreme, or else he was hoping he could keep the identity of the Resolver’s true master under wraps. “What does the stationmaster make of all this?” I asked Bayta.

  “He’s uncertain,” she said. “He’s not going to simply turn you over to the Juriani, of course. But he’s concerned that letting you go free without an investigation would bring unwelcome attention.”

  “To us?” I asked. “Or to him?”

  “Neither would be a good thing,” she said diplomatically.

  “I suppose,” I said. “Let’s see if we can help him out a little.” Squaring my shoulders, I stood up.

  Tas Yelfro noticed me immediately, of course. But Jurian protocol concerning official presentations required him to finish his current thought before he acknowledged me. I, for my part, had the equally rigid obligation to wait silently until he found that end point and invited me into the discussion.

  Two sentences later—two very convoluted sentences, as it happened—he reached his stopping point. “You have something to add?” he asked me.

  “Actually, I have a suggestion,” I said. “It’s obvious now that this matter can’t be resolved until long after my train has left the station. Therefore—”

  “Do you insult the abilities of a Jurian Resolver?” Falc Bresi interrupted.

  The scales around Tas Yelfro’s eyes wrinkled in a grimace. Cutting me off in the middle of my turn was a clear violation of protocol, and I would be well within my rights to demand an apology.

  But I was a gracious sort of alien, and I let it pass. “Therefore, I suggest you confine me here on the station,” I continued, “under Spider guard and protection, until we have sufficient information to decide how best to proceed.”

  Falc Bresi opened his beak—”Such information to include a full examination of the bodies and the location of their death?” Tas Yelfro asked before the governor could say anything.

  “Exactly,” I said, watching as Falc Bresi closed his beak again without speaking. Either the governor didn’t know the first thing about how detailed and time-consuming real-life criminal investigations were, or else he simply didn’t believe that upstart aliens like me deserved that kind of consideration. “I wouldn’t expect it to take more than three or four days.”r />
  “The Juriani have no objections to such a path,” Tas Yelfro said. “Stationmaster?”

  “It will be as suggested,” the stationmaster said.

  Tas Yelfro bowed. “Thank you.”

  “I recommend a room at the Eulalee Hotel,” I said. “They have room service, so I won’t need an escort to take me to my meals.”

  “Don’t overreach your status,” Falc Bresi growled. “You are a criminal, and will spend your time in a holding cell at the detention center.”

  “Stationmaster?” I invited. “This is your jurisdiction and decision, not his.”

  “He will be placed in the Eulalee Hotel,” the Spider said.

  “Make it a top-floor room on the west side,” I added. “That way I can keep an eye on what the examiners are doing with the baggage car.”

  “Very well,” the stationmaster said. “Tas Yelfro, you and Falc Bresi may accompany Mr. Compton and his Spider escort to his holding area, if you wish.”

  “Oh, yes,” Falc Bresi said, glaring coldly at me over the top of his beak. “We most certainly do so wish.”

  The Eulalee Hotel was the tallest public building in Jurskala Station, a five-floor showcase of Jurian architectural prowess rising over the mostly single-story cafes and shops around it. The exterior was done up in Neo-Revival, a style I’d always found both pretentious and ugly. One of the minor advantages of staying there was that, once inside your room, you didn’t have to look at it.

  The hotel’s elevators weren’t nearly big enough for our entire party to squeeze into together, so Falc Bresi insisted we take the stairs. The demand was probably designed to annoy me, but I had more urgent things on my mind than Jurian cheap shots and agreed without complaint.

  Still, I couldn’t help wondering what the travelers relaxing in the hotel’s atrium lobby thought as they watched two Humans, two Juriani, and two conductor Spiders making their way all the way up the wide wrought-iron switchback staircase toward the fifth-floor landing. It just begged for a reference to Noah’s ark, but given that our escort probably wouldn’t get the joke I decided not to bother.

  The stationmaster had sent a message ahead, and two more Spiders were waiting when we reached my assigned room. “I assume you’re taking the first shift of guard duty?” I asked them as we approached.

  In answer, one of them unfolded a leg he’d had tucked under his globe and produced a key. He stuck it into the lock, and the door popped open. “So you are,” I confirmed, looking at the two Juriani. “I guess that means your services will no longer be needed,” I added as I pushed the door open.

  “Yet we would not wish that the entire burden for your security would rest with the Spiders,” Tas Yelfro said smoothly. “Therefore, Falc Bresi has authorized a Jurian security team to be assembled from the transfer station. It will be here within the hour.”

  I grimaced. As if I didn’t have enough enemies and potential enemies to keep track of. “That’s very generous of you,” I said, taking Bayta’s arm and easing her through the doorway into the room. “We’ll speak again when the investigation is finished.”

  “We’ll look forward to it,” Tas Yelfro promised.

  I nodded to him and started into the room. Falc Bresi started to walk in behind me, but stopped short as I stood my ground in the doorway. “We’ll speak again when the investigation is finished,” I repeated, a little more firmly.

  For a couple of seconds he just stared at me, as if memorizing the features of my face against the day when he had his people rearrange them. Then, without comment, he turned and headed toward the elevators. Tas Yelfro nodded again at me and followed.

  I cocked an eyebrow at the four Spiders now grouped around the door. “Your turn,” I said.

  “They’ll be staying for a while,” Bayta said quietly from somewhere behind me.

  I looked over my shoulder. While I’d been verbally sparring with Falc Bresi, she’d made her way across the room and was standing with her back to me, staring out the window. Closing the door on the Spiders, I crossed over to her. “You okay?” I asked.

  “This isn’t going to work, Frank,” she said, her voice almost too soft for me to hear. “Every minute we stay here is another minute the Modhri has to bring in more walkers. In three days—” She shook her head, a shiver running through her.

  Unfortunately, she had a point. “It’ll work out,” I said.

  She didn’t answer. She didn’t have to. Grimacing, I stepped around to her side and put my arm around her shoulders. The muscles beneath my hand tensed reflexively at the touch, then softened again. Lifting my eyes from the colorfully dressed Humans and aliens scurrying among the tracks and platforms below, I focused on our train.

  The Spiders had finished transferring the cargo from the old baggage car to the new one, and had maneuvered the new car into position between the other two baggage cars. I wondered briefly why they hadn’t just put the remaining two cars together and stuck the new one on the end, decided it probably had something to do with keeping the cargo stacks in the properly positioned cargo cars. Through the open roof of the old baggage car I could see a group of smaller tech-type Spiders, both the knee-high mites and the even smaller twitters, moving slowly along the floor as they searched for evidence of how the two Halkas had died. I looked again at the open roof.

  And felt my breath catch in my throat. “Bayta, you told me the Spiders took our crate off the train,” I said, forcing my voice to stay casual. “Where exactly was it? Somewhere near where we found the Halkas?”

  “No, actually, it was in the third baggage car,” she said. “The one at the end of the train.”

  The tingle running up my back went a little more tingly. “Could they tell if it had been opened?”

  “I didn’t ask them,” she said, frowning at me. Casual tone or not, she knew what it meant when I started asking odd questions this way. “But they must have. Otherwise, why would the Modhri have killed them?”

  “Is that what you think?” I asked. “That the Modhri killed his own walkers?”

  “I assumed he wanted an excuse to keep us here,” she said, frowning a little harder. “It’s not like he hasn’t killed walkers before when he needed to.”

  “He certainly made use of the situation to make trouble for us,” I agreed. “But I think it was mostly pure luck that things turned out that way for him. Do you know where the autopsy is being carried out?”

  “In one of the medical center’s operating rooms, I think.”

  “We need to go talk to the doctors.” I turned from the window and started toward the door.

  “Wait a minute,” she said, catching my arm. “We’re not going anywhere. You’re under arrest, remember?”

  “So un-arrest me,” I said. “This is important.”

  “So is your life,” she said firmly. “I thought the reason we agreed to this was to keep you away from angry Halkas until we could prove you didn’t kill their countrymen. What do you want me to tell the doctors at the autopsy?”

  I grimaced, but she was right. “Tell them to check for evidence of asphyxiation.”

  Her eyes widened. “Asphyxiation?”

  “And then,” I went on, “have the Spiders check all the air seals on that baggage car.”

  She looked back out the window. “You mean the whole thing was just an accident?”

  “Well, the Modhri certainly didn’t kill them himself,” I said, carefully sidestepping her actual question. The deaths hadn’t been an accident, not by a long shot. But this wasn’t the time to go into that. “You didn’t see the way those four Jurian walkers came charging in at me after the Halkas died. The Modhri was mad, way madder than he should have been if he’d snuffed the Halkas himself. I think he was convinced I’d killed them, and was going to make it very clear what he thought of that.”

  Bayta took a deep breath. “All right, I’ll go tell the doctors. What do you want me to do after that?”

  “We get out of here as fast as we can, before the Modhri can br
ing in more walkers,” I said. “I don’t suppose that tender the New Tigris stationmaster told us about would happen to be anywhere nearby?”

  “Actually, I think it’s right here,” Bayta said, leaning a little toward the window and peering past the passenger platforms and buildings. “Yes, I can see it over there.”

  I looked where she was pointing. It was there, all right: three windowless passenger cars sandwiched between two engines pointed in opposite directions. It was sitting on the second track past the passenger section, in one of the Spiders’ service areas. “Then we’re good to go,” I said. “As soon as you get me officially cleared of the Halkas’ deaths, have the Spiders collect the crate and lockboxes and put them aboard the tender. Once everything’s there, you and I and Rebekah will join them, and we’ll be out of here.”

  Bayta’s lips puckered. “It sounds too easy,” she said doubtfully.

  “Well, the first part certainly is,” I said. “You said Rebekah’s in a secure storage facility, which should include dozens of crates waiting to be transferred to different trains. And of course, the Spiders are always moving lockboxes around. Even if the Modhri’s watching like a hawk, it should be no trick to get the Melding coral ready to travel.”

  “But?” she prompted.

  “But getting the three of us aboard won’t be nearly so simple,” I conceded. “We’ll need to come up with a really good diversion to keep all those walker eyes pointed in the wrong direction at the critical moment.”

  “You have any ideas on how to do that?”

  “Not yet, but I will,” I said. “You just get me off the hook so that I don’t have a mob of Halkas breathing down my neck when we make our break.”

  “Medical center, stationmaster’s office, then back here,” she said, heading toward the door. “Anything else?”

  “No, that should do for now,” I said. “And be careful. Some of the Halkas may have seen us together, and the Modhri certainly has.”