by Timothy Zahn
One or two witnesses apparently weren’t a problem for Yleli, given that he hadn’t bothered to completely clear out the coach car before confronting us. But even a Shonkla-raa had to hesitate at the logistical challenge of killing and disposing of this many beings. He snapped a quiet order that stopped his two buddies in their tracks, flashed me a warning look, then went as still as a hunter in a duck blind as he watched the line of doctors strolling toward us.
Not that the Bellidos themselves showed the slightest awareness that anything unusual was unfolding in front of them. A couple of them glanced incuriously at our group, then returned to their conversations. A couple of others looked around and at the ceiling, frowns briefly crossing their striped chipmunk faces as they tried to locate the source of the command tone whistle filling the car.
But the sound had no medical ramifications, and their interest was idle and brief, and they too quickly turned their attention back to their colleagues. The leading edge of the stream reached us and split, each conversational group turning left or right at random, avoiding the motionless clump of humans and Fillies as they continued on their way in their quest for food.
And then, in front of me, I heard Yleli catch his breath.
Perhaps he’d belatedly realized that the Bellidos’ casual traffic pattern had flanked himself and his companions. Perhaps he’d suddenly noticed that the soft plastic guns bouncing at the doctors’ sides no longer had their long plastic barrels. {Alert!} he snapped.
But he was too late. As he brought his hands up into combat position, I threw myself forward and down, dropping onto my side on the floor and aiming a kick at his knees. Reflexively, he turned his eyes back to me, simultaneously dancing back to get out of kicking range.
As he did so, the two Bellidos passing us pulled nunchakus from beneath their tunics and whipped them with crushing force across his throat.
And pandemonium erupted.
I rolled up and leaped back to my feet as the rest of the Bellidos charged to the attack, their nunchakus whipping with devastating force across the other two Shonkla-raa’s heads, arms, and torsos as I tried to get to Bayta and the two girls. But Yleli was faster than I was. He slashed viciously at one of his two attackers and then jumped into my path, his other hand jabbing at my gut. I managed to twist out of his way in time, but the movement cost me my balance and I went crashing back onto the floor.
Yleli leaped at me again, aiming a kick at my head, but even as I ducked out of the way he staggered as a nunchaku slash caught his other knee. With his supporting leg under attack, he was forced to drop his kicking leg prematurely back to the floor. The other Bellido was already swinging his nunchaku at Yleli’s head, but the Filly managed to drop into a crouch in time, leaving the flail to whip harmlessly through the air above him. Before either of the Bellidos could recover for another attack Yleli shoved himself off the floor, again diving at me.
I was caught flatfooted, on my way back up to a standing position but not quite there yet. Desperately, I tried to throw myself to the side, knowing the move would again cost me balance and mobility but not having any other real options.
But I was too late. Yleli was hurtling toward me, his arm held rigidly in front of him like an organic spear. One of the nunchakus whipped past, slamming into his back hard enough to crack bone but doing little to alter his direction or speed. There was a blur of motion at my right.
And Morse’s body slammed sideways into Yleli’s shoulder, knocking him off-target and sending both of them sprawling onto the floor.
Somewhere in all that nunchaku flailing, while I’d been preoccupied with my own troubles, the Bellidos had managed to silence both of the other Shonkla-raa command tones.
I hit the floor and rolled back up to my feet. Morse was still on top of Yleli, trying to pin him down. But like all the rest of the Shonkla-raa I’d run into, Yleli had been genetically modified for strength. With a single violent shove he threw Morse half a meter into the air to crash down onto the floor beside him and started to scramble to his feet.
His eyes were glittering death in my direction when two nunchakus caught him one final time, one of the flails slamming again into his throat, the other hitting hard enough to splinter bone at the back of his skull. He sprawled face-first onto the floor.
This time, he didn’t get up.
I looked around, gasping in vast lungfuls of air. All three Shonkla-raa were down, all of them quite dead. Four of the twelve Bellidos were also down, one of them probably also dead, the other three making the small sounds and movements of the seriously wounded. The Bellidos still on their feet were gazing warily at the three dead Fillies, but I could see them starting to slowly come down from their adrenaline-driven combat frenzy. As I stumbled over to where Morse was lying on the floor, four of the Bellidos headed over to check their wounded. Across the room, a horrified Terese and a grim-faced but steady Rebekah were clinging to each other. Bayta was nowhere in sight.
The whole deadly melee, I estimated, had lasted less than thirty seconds.
Morse was starting to stir by the time I reached him. “You okay?” I asked, offering him a hand.
“Mostly,” he said, his voice dark as he pushed himself up into a sitting position. “Bloody hell, but that was weird.”
“Which part?” I asked, looking over at the wounded Bellidos. One of the others had retrieved the LifeGuard medical kit from the front of the car and was hurrying back with it. As he did so, the forward vestibule door opened, and Bayta entered, lugging the LifeGuard she’d retrieved from the compartment car.
“All of it,” Morse said, grunting as he carefully stood up. “Mostly the takeover. I knew about it from the Modhri, of course. But it’s one thing to get someone else’s memory of something and quite another to experience it yourself.”
“You heard about this from the Modhri?” one of the Bellidos asked, his eyes on Morse as he came up to us.
“Yes, he did,” I said, gesturing. “Morse, meet Korak Fayr, commando major of the Bellidosh Estates-General.”
“Currently gone rogue, running a private mission to destroy the Modhri,” Fayr added, still eyeing Morse closely. “And you?”
“Fayr, meet EuroUnion Security Service agent Ackerley Morse,” I continued the introductions. “Formerly a deep-cover Modhran walker, currently part of my private mission to destroy the Shonkla-raa.”
“Pleased to meet you,” Morse said, nodding.
“Not certain I can say the same,” Fayr said shortly. “Your message, Compton, said that the Modhri had gone neutral in this new war. It said nothing about working with him.”
“Because at the time I wasn’t sure he’d be willing to actively come onto our side,” I told him. “Now I am.”
“Your evidence?”
“Well, if the Modhri was on the Shonkla-raa’s side, I bloody well wouldn’t have stopped Yleli from killing Compton,” Morse said. “Especially at the cost of a cracked rib.”
I frowned. “You have a cracked rib?”
“Feels like it,” Morse said, gingerly indicating a spot on his lower left side. “We’ll find out for sure when one of those LifeGuards is free.”
I looked over at the injured Bellidos. “How are they doing?” I asked.
“Two will survive,” one of the other commandos said over his shoulder. “One is questionable. All three need medical attention.”
“Will you need a doctor?” I asked. “For once, there are plenty of them aboard.”
“We can deal with our injured by ourselves,” the Bellido said. “Once the LifeGuard has finished stabilizing them, we’ll need to get them to our compartments.”
“We can help with that,” I said, pulling out the gimmicked reader that Larry Hardin had given me two years ago when he’d hired me to figure out how to take over the Quadrail system from the Spiders. The disguised data chip that turned the reader into a high-tech scanner was already loaded. “Bayta, there should be a pair of defender Spiders out on the compartment car roof. Give them
a whistle and have them pull up the tender they brought along with them. There are a couple more defenders riding inside that can help carry the injured.”
“It’s on its way,” Bayta said. There was a stiffness in her voice, a coldness that was no doubt due to me not having told her about my Belldic hole card in advance.
But the anger would fade. She knew as well as Morse did that I couldn’t risk giving out details to anyone the Shonkla-raa might have interrogation access to. “As soon as it’s in position, have them extend the airlock,” I continued as I stepped over to Yleli’s limp body. “Better make it to the compartment car door,” I added, glancing at the back of the sleeping Cimma’s head. “We don’t want anyone else noticing.”
“What are you doing?” Morse asked as I lowered my reader to within a few centimeters of the top of Yleli’s head and began tracking the device downward.
“Looking to see what other work they had done besides the knife hands and the oversized throats,” I told him. “Some of the normal Filiaelian nerve centers are still in their standard locations, but some of the others have been moved. I want to know which ones, where they went, and the locations of any other vulnerable spots.”
“And whether we can count on all Shonkla-raa having the same spots,” Fayr said, nodding understanding. “Hence, you choose to take out three at once.”
“The numbers were Yleli’s idea,” I said. “But I was pretty sure he wouldn’t do this all by himself. We think there are two more of them, by the way, back in the dining car pretending to toast someone’s health. Let’s try to get this done before they realize something’s gone wrong up here.”
“It’s too late,” Morse said grimly. “They already know … and they’ve killed all the other Eyes.”
“What?” Bayta asked sharply.
“He’s right,” Rebekah said quietly. Her voice, unlike Morse’s, held only sadness. “They’re all gone.”
“Take it easy,” I said, finishing with Yleli’s scan and heading over to the next body. “The other walkers are probably just fine. You can’t detect them because they’re all out of range.”
“How can they be out of range?” Terese asked. “Rebekah told me one of their group minds can cover a whole train.”
“It can,” I said, starting my second scan. “But at the moment we’re actually two trains. As soon as I got in here, the two defenders I mentioned unsealed the rear vestibule and unhooked the car, and we were pulled away from the rest of the train. The rest of the people back there won’t have noticed anything because there’s another engine pushing them along from the rear. But the point is that we’re currently a couple of kilometers out in front.”
“So that if the Shonkla-raa ask the Eyes what’s going on up here they won’t be able to tell them anything,” Morse said, nodding. “And even if they did suspect something, there isn’t a bloody thing they can do about it. Not from way back there.”
“Exactly.” I looked at Bayta. “It was my idea for the defenders not to tell you,” I added, bracing myself for her reaction.
But there wasn’t one. She merely nodded silently, in understanding or forgiveness, and let it go.
“But they’ll know soon enough,” Rebekah warned. “Even if they assume the Shonkla-raa killed Mr. Morse and me, sooner or later they’ll want to get back in here. What happens when they find out they can’t open the vestibule door?”
Abruptly, Bayta caught her breath. “They’ll use their command tone to freeze a server and try to use his leg to pry it open,” she said. “They’re doing it right now.”
“Damn,” Morse muttered. “What about the people in the car? Did they get them all out?”
“I don’t think so,” Bayta said, her eyes narrowed in concentration. Two kilometers was also a long stretch for her particular brand of telepathic communication, even given the higher number of Spiders in the train back there and the incoming tender that could function as a relay point. “No, the people are still there.”
“That tears it,” Morse said. “We’ve got to get back there and reconnect. If they get that door open now, everyone in the car will asphyxiate.”
I hissed between my teeth. I’d hoped to have the wounded Bellidos to their compartments and the dead Shonkla-raa safely tucked away in the tender before we reconnected. But Morse was right. If we delayed any longer, a lot of people were going to die.
But I could still make this work. Maybe. “Bayta, tell the defenders to start the reconnection procedure,” I ordered. “And send the tender back to the rear—we don’t want the Shonkla-raa having access to it. Fayr, can you get your wounded back to your compartments?”
Fayr gestured questioningly at one of the other commandos. “We shouldn’t move them any farther yet than absolutely necessary, Korak,” the other Bellido warned. “The narrowness of the vestibule in particular will be dangerous to them.”
“Understood,” Fayr said “Move them to the front of the car. We’ll make our stand there.”
He looked at me as if daring me to argue the point. But I just nodded as I moved to the final Filly. “Sounds good,” I said. “Let me finish this scan and I’ll help you move some of the chairs. Might as well make them come at us one at a time.”
“Good idea,” Fayr said, looking around the car as his men started moving their injured to a section of floor near the front vestibule door. “What about them?” he asked, nodding toward the two sleeping passengers.
“Leave them,” I said. “If we wake them up, they’ll just be inconvenient witnesses that the Shonkla-raa will have to kill. No point making this any more of a bloodbath than it has to be.”
Fayr eyed me closely. “Such words imply you expect the Shonkla-raa to win.”
“Well, they sure as hell have the numbers,” Morse said darkly as he unfastened one of the seats from the floor and began moving it toward where the Bellidos were setting up shop. “All of us together—with the element of surprise—barely took down three of them who weren’t expecting trouble. They’ve got two more back there, plus ten Eyes.”
“Eleven, counting you,” Fayr said pointedly.
Morse grimaced. “Good point,” he conceded. “Maybe you’d better take me out of the equation right now.”
“One walker more or less isn’t going to make that much difference,” I said grimly. “Especially one with a cracked rib or two. Besides, numbers or not, we still have the edge in weaponry.”
“So we do,” Morse said, frowning at the nunchaku in Fayr’s hand as he passed the Bellido on his way to another seat. “How in hell did you get those aboard, anyway?”
“Quite openly, in fact,” I told him. “All they are is a pair of status gun barrels, filled with water and sealed with pressure-threaded caps, then tied together with the guns’ decorative tassels.”
“Interesting,” Morse said. “The ESS experimented with stuff like that on occasion. But I don’t think they ever came up with anything nearly this effective.”
“You really have to be a Bellido loaded with status guns to get away with it,” I reminded him as I finished the final scan and put the reader away. “Let me know when you’re in contact with the rest of the mind segment, will you? It might be useful to know how the Shonkla-raa are lining up before they pop that door.”
“Bear in mind that if we can spy on them, they can also spy on us,” Fayr pointed out as he pushed another of the seats toward the barricade Morse and the others were putting together. “And if you don’t feel like disabling Agent Morse, you should at least order him to stand well away from us.” He turned to look at Terese and Rebekah. “And the female walker should go with him.”
I grimaced. The last thing any of us wanted was to have an enemy operative in our midst, and Rebekah qualified almost as much as Morse did.
On the other hand, Rebekah’s polyp colony was the modified Melding variety, which I’d already seen wasn’t quite as firmly under Shonkla-raa control as Morse’s standard Modhran colony.
Moreover, we already knew the Sh
onkla-raa wanted to get hold of both Rebekah and her crates of coral. If I put Rebekah on the enemy side of the car, the Fillies might decide to grab her and call it a day. I couldn’t risk that. “Morse can go away,” I told Fayr. “But Rebekah will stay with us. Bayta and Terese can hang on to her and make sure she doesn’t cause any trouble.”
“That’s dangerous,” Fayr warned. “Particularly since Bayta will be helpless once the control tone sounds.”
“Specifically, she’ll mostly freeze in place,” I said. “If she’s already got her arms locked around Rebekah, they should stay that way. And Terese will be there to help, too.”
“We’ll keep her from making trouble,” Bayta said quietly.
Fayr still looked dubious. But he nevertheless nodded. “Very well,” he said. “But Morse leaves.”
“No argument,” I agreed, catching Morse’s eye and pointing him toward the back corner near the Cimma. “Over there, Morse, if you please.”
“Let me help you finish the barrier first,” Morse said, heading for another seat.
“I’d rather you move away from us,” Fayr said tartly before I could answer. “We don’t know exactly when you’ll be fully under Shonkla-raa control.”
“It won’t be until they get in here with their damn command tone,” Morse said. But he obediently passed by the chair he’d been heading for and retreated to the car’s rear corner near the Cimma.
The rest of us were just putting the final touches on the barrier of chairs cutting across the front third of the car when Morse reported that his Modhran colony was once again in contact with the walkers behind us. I told him to inform the Shonkla-raa that we were on our way back, that we would let them in once the train had been reconnected, and to please stop trying to jimmy open the vestibule door.
But my effort was for nothing. The Shonkla-raa had apparently instructed the Modhri to keep quiet, which meant none of the walkers could speak without a direct question or invitation from their new masters. Unfortunately, that left us with no option but to try to get the train back together before they succeeded in forcing open the door.