by Timothy Zahn
Unfortunately, the Shonkla-raa’s little fifth column weapon hadn’t died with them. The Modhri had remained dormant for centuries, until the coral had been rediscovered and the Modhri inadvertently unleashed on the galaxy. Before the Spiders and their secretive Chahwyn masters had finally tumbled to his existence, he’d gotten his claws firmly planted in the power centers of most of the Twelve Empires served by the Quadrail system.
The presence of an aggressive group mind hidden in clumps of coral would have been bad enough. What made the whole thing infinitely worse was that the polyps could also invade and live inside living beings: Humans and Bellidos and Juriani and pretty much everyone else in the galaxy. A polyp hook could move in with just a scratch of the coral and reproduce enough polyps inside their host to create a new Modhri mind segment.
In some ways it was like the terrorist wars of the early century. Only worse, because the newly created walker was completely unaware of the fact that he or she had been co-opted into the Modhri’s quiet war of conquest. Most of the time the colony lay quiet, occasionally making subtle mental suggestions that the host would usually obey and afterward find a reason to rationalize away.
But that was under normal circumstances. Under more urgent need, the Modhri mind segment could take complete control of his host, overriding the resident mind and turning the body into a sort of life-sized marionette. The host would have no memory of that period, but would merely end up with a strange blacked-out chunk of his or her day.
Even then, if the Modhri was clever, he could avoid suspicion. A short blackout could be rationalized in any number of ways, especially if the walker was accustomed to drinking intoxicants. Since most of the rich and influential who were the Modhri’s targets of choice had learned social drinking at an early age, it was an easy and obvious explanation for the Modhri to push.
If that wasn’t bad enough, each walker mind segment could also telepathically link up with the segments of other nearby walkers, or with outposts of the coral itself, creating a larger, smarter, more dangerous mind. A given Modhri mind segment was never static, but continually added pieces and information to itself as new walkers came into telepathic range and losing pieces as old ones moved away off the edge of its consciousness. The result was a fluid, ever-changing opponent that was as hard to pin down as a drop of mercury.
Fortunately, even slippery enemies weren’t infallible. One of our few allies in this war, a rogue Belldic commando squad leader named Korak Fayr, had taken upon himself the goal of ridding his own worlds of Modhran influence. To that end, he’d spent the last few months moving around the Bellidosh Estates-General, destroying every coral outpost he could get his hands on.
The Modhri had spent those same months trying his damnedest to find Fayr and throw a rope around him. Making Fayr’s job all the more difficult was the fact that the high monetary value of the coral meant that even owners and police who weren’t carrying Modhran colonies under their skins were trying to nail him to the wall.
Fayr was the sort who enjoyed a challenge. Still, I doubted he would turn down any reasonable offer of assistance, which was why Bayta and I were on our way to Bellis to offer him some.
Which brought me back to Bayta’s question. The Modhri was undoubtedly still looking for us, and might have a few walkers hanging around the transfer station where Quadrail passengers bound for the Bellis inner system went through customs. If Mr. Smith’s mysterious errand could provide Bayta and me with a legitimate reason to enter Belldic space, it might be worth a few days of our time to accommodate him.
The problem was the other side of coin … because if Smith himself was a Modhran walker, then no matter how legitimate he might think his offer, going with him would probably walk us straight into a trap.
Up to now the Modhri hadn’t shown himself to be a particularly vengeful sort. But that was before we’d destroyed his homeland. I wasn’t eager to find out what his new attitude toward us might be. “Forget it,” I told Bayta. “Not worth the risk.”
“But—”
“We’re not interested,” I said firmly, cutting off another bite.
“Maybe we aren’t,” Bayta said, a little crossly. “But someone else is.”
I knew better than to abruptly stop what I was doing and spin around. “Where?” I asked, putting the pili into my mouth.
Her eyes flicked over my shoulder, then returned to her own plate. “There are two of them: a man and a woman,” she said. “The man’s about your age, the woman about the same age as Mr. Smith.”
“How’s their meal going?”
“I think they’re almost finished,” she said. “But the man was definitely watching your conversation with Mr. Smith.”
And watching was pretty much all he could do at that distance. The acoustics in Quadrail dining and bar cars were designed to make eavesdropping from more than about a meter away effectively impossible. “Let me know when they get ready to leave,” I said.
I got three more bites of pili and had tried the accompanying cornleaf mash when Bayta murmured her warning. I looked down into my lap, pretending to adjust my napkin, and was gazing at the floor as they walked past.
Their shoes were the first items up for consideration. The woman’s were very much upper class, while the man’s were nice but nothing special. I let my eyes move upward as the two of them continued by, giving each article of clothing the same quick analysis, then checked out the backs of their heads and their hairstyles.
There was no doubt about it. The woman belonged here among the stratospheric wealthy of the galaxy. The man was just as definitely traveling first class on someone else’s budget.
And then, as they reached the corridor, the man turned and looked at me.
It was a short, expressionless glance. But it was enough. “Well, well,” I murmured as the two of them turned right toward the first-class car behind the dining car.
“You know him?” Bayta asked.
“No, but I know his type,” I said. “He’s someone’s Intelligence agent. Probably Westali or the EuroUnion Security Service—he doesn’t look Asian or African enough for any of their groups.”
“What’s he doing here?”
“The same thing I used to do way too much of,” I said. “He’s playing escort. The lady’s probably some ranking politician who decided her status demanded she get an official government guard dog to hold her hand out here in the big, scary universe.”
Bayta pondered that for another two bites. “So why was he watching us?” she asked.
It was the same question I’d been asking myself ever since Bayta mentioned them. That backward glance all by itself had been way too interested for a man who was supposed to be busy watching his client’s back.
There were, in fact, only a limited number of reasons I could think of why he might be that interested in me. Unfortunately, most of those reasons involved the Modhri.
“Maybe he just recognized me from somewhere,” I said, picking the least threatening of the possibilities. “I was in that same business, after all.”
“I don’t know,” Bayta said slowly. “He seemed interested in Mr. Smith, too.”
“Maybe Mr. Smith’s completely legal secret artwork transaction isn’t as secret as he thinks,” I said. “Either way, our best bet is to keep a low profile the rest of the way to Bellis and hope all of them forget about us.”
“It’s only twenty-five hours to Bellis,” Bayta pointed out.
“Then they’ll have to forget real fast.”
We finished our meal in silence against the steady clacking of the train’s wheels on the tracks beneath us as we traveled along at a steady hundred kilometers an hour. Or a light-year per minute, however one preferred to think about it. When we were finished, we headed back to our double compartment.
We reached the car to find Smith’s door was closed. I half expected him to jump out into the corridor as we passed and try his sales pitch on me again, but the door stayed shut. Either he’d gone to bed, or e
lse he’d given up on me. Either suited me fine.
I ushered Bayta into her compartment and then continued on to my own. I hung my jacket on the clothes rack for a quick cleaning, then settled down on the bed with my reader and the complete guidebook to Bellis I’d picked up at Terra Station before Bayta and I had left. As Humans we were going to look out of place enough among all those chipmunk-faced Bellidos. There was no point in looking like tourists, too.
I’d been reading for an hour, and was just thinking about taking a quick shower and getting ready for bed, when a piercing scream from the corridor knifed through the wall.
TWO
I was at the door in two seconds flat, slapping at the release even as a small, sane part of my mind warned that this was not a smart thing to do. There were probably at least a couple of Modhran walkers aboard, and uncorking a pitiful scream was a time-honored way of enticing a victim into a trap.
But the sane part of my mind wasn’t winning many arguments these days, and it didn’t win this one, either. Reminding myself that the Spiders were very good about keeping weapons off their Quadrails, I stepped out into the corridor.
Standing a couple of paces inside the car’s rear vestibule was the lady politician who’d passed us in the dining car earlier. Her mouth was open, her lungs filling for a reprise of her scream, her hands scrabbling at the corridor walls as if trying to find something to hold on to.
Her wide eyes were staring down at Mr. Smith’s battered body, sprawled on the corridor floor barely two meters from my door.
“What happened?” I demanded as I dropped to one knee beside Smith. He was still wearing the traveling suit I’d seen him in earlier, now badly rumpled. The front of his jacket was rising and falling feverishly with short, shallow breaths.
“I don’t know,” the woman managed. “I was—I think he fell—” Abruptly she turned and disappeared back into the vestibule.
I sent a brief hope skyward that she could hold on to her dinner long enough to reach the restroom at the front of the first-class car behind us, then put her out of my mind. Gingerly, I opened Smith’s jacket, trying to remember my Westali first-aid training. His shirt, I saw, was peppered with small bloodstains, a ghastly contrast to the diamond fastening studs.
The door to Bayta’s compartment slid open, and I glanced up to see her gazing out at us, her eyes wide. “Whistle up a conductor and have him find a doctor,” I ordered. “Then get the LifeGuard.”
“The conductors have been alerted,” she said as she stepped gingerly past me and over Smith’s body and hurried toward the bright orange box set into the corridor wall near the front of the car.
“Make it a trauma specialist if they have a choice,” I called, hoping at least one of the Spiders was close enough for Bayta’s telepathic link with them to work. Carefully, I unfastened the diamond studs and opened Smith’s shirt.
One look at the bruise pattern and oozing blood was all I needed. The lady with the excellent lungs might think he’d gotten this way tripping over his own feet, but I knew a professional beating when I saw one.
And then, to my surprise, his eyes fluttered open. “Who—?” he rasped, bits of blood flecking his lips as he spoke.
“It’s all right,” I soothed, the small sane part of my mind noting the banal stupidity of that comment. Traveling through interstellar space, hours away from a real medical facility, he was probably a goner. “It’s Compton. Who did this to you?”
“Know what’s … really funny?” he asked, his swollen eyes fighting to focus on my face.
I grimaced. Why did so many badly injured people get stuck on inessentials? “The Marx Brothers,” I said. “Who did this to you?”
“He hates you,” Smith gasped. “Funny thing is, that was … even better than Lo … Losutu’s rec … recommenda …”
“Recommendation,” I finished for him, wondering which of the collection of people who hated me he was referring to. Not that it mattered. “I’m glad my reputation is so solid. Now who did this?”
He shook his head weakly. “Never saw …” Abruptly, his right hand jerked upward and clutched at my sleeve. “Lynx,” he croaked.
Lynx? “His name’s Lynx?” I asked.
His face spasmed with pain. “Nemuti Lynx,” he said. “He wanted … third Lynx. Daniel—Daniel Mice—” He broke off, his face spasming again.
“Okay,” I said. The Nemuti part, at least, I understood. The Nemuti FarReach was one of the Twelve Empires, with territory stretching across a few thousand light-years near the galaxy’s central core area. The Lynx part I didn’t have a clue on. “Did Daniel Mice do this?”
He closed his eyes, and with one final heave his chest went still.
I swore under my breath as his hand dropped limply away from my sleeve. “Bayta!” I snapped as I rolled Smith onto his back and started to check his windpipe for blockages.
And suddenly the Quadrail became a cheap kaleidoscope as I was grabbed by the front of my shirt, hauled to my feet, and thrown violently backward down the corridor.
I slammed to the floor at Bayta’s feet, hitting hard enough to see stars. Bayta gave a little gasp as I grabbed a piece of floor and pushed myself upright again. Blinking to clear my vision, I looked back down the corridor.
Trouble was definitely on its way, striding toward me in the form of the biggest Halka I’d ever seen, two meters of short brown fur, back-jointed legs, and muscle. His flat bulldog face was simmering with righteous anger, his nostrils making little puffing sounds, his short claws extending whitely from their fingertip sheaths. Behind him, the Intelligence man I’d seen in the dining car was hurrying toward Smith’s body, the lady politician trailing shakily behind him.
“Easy,” I said, taking a step back and holding out my hands toward the approaching Halka. “We’re just trying to help.”
The Halka kept coming. “What you do to this Human?” he demanded.
“We didn’t do anything,” I said, taking another step back and hoping I could talk some sense into him before Bayta and I ran out of corridor. “We’re trying to get the LifeGuard.”
“Then get on with it,” the Intelligence man called, his unexpected British accent carrying an extra edge of authority as he knelt beside the body. “Make sure it’s set for Human. You—sir—out of his way, please.”
The big Halka rumbled something, but obediently stepped to the side of the corridor. Taking the orange box from Bayta, I punched the button marked “Human” and hurried back down the corridor.
The Intelligence man had gotten Smith’s head in position by the time I arrived. Up close, I could see that he was in his mid-twenties, a few years younger than my own thirty-two, with light brown hair and the smooth, unweathered skin of someone who preferred the indoor life. His pale blue eyes brushed over me like radar painting a target as I knelt down beside him. “Get the arm cuff on,” he ordered as he unlimbered the breather mask and oxygen tank. He took a quick look to make sure the mask had configured to Human facial shape, then fastened it over Smith’s face.
I got the cuff in place around Smith’s right jacket sleeve. “Ready,” I said.
He punched the start button. There was a brief hum that shifted into a soft chugging sound as the respirator kicked in. “You know how to read this?” he asked, peering at the LifeGuard’s display.
“Green is good; red is bad,” I said. “For anything more complicated, we’ll need a Spider.”
He grunted. “I think they’re all off hunting up a Human doctor,” he said. “What’s your name?”
“Compton,” I said. “Yours?”
“Morse,” he said. “What’s your relationship with him?”
“Haven’t got one,” I said.
“Really?” Morse asked, turning his blue eyes on me again. “You were having a rather intense conversation earlier in the dining car.”
“He invited himself to our table to offer me a job,” I said.
“What kind of job?”
“Unspecified,” I said.
“Also unaccepted. End of story.”
“Did he give you a name?”
“Smith.”
Morse grunted. “So what happened here?”
“I heard a scream and found him bleeding in the corridor.”
“Did you move him?”
“I rolled him onto his back to clear his windpipe,” I said. “Nothing more.”
Morse let out a hiss between his teeth and glanced over his shoulder at the vestibule. “Where the hell’s that doctor?”
“They probably had to go all the way back to third to find one,” I said. “Unless you know any working doctors who can afford first-class Quadrail seats.”
“Not many, no,” he conceded, his eyes shifting pointedly to my neat but hardly expensive suit. “Speaking of affording things, may I ask what you’re doing up here?”
“Traveling legally and minding my own business,” I said.
“Are you paying for your compartment yourself?”
“I have a rich uncle,” I said, pointedly running my eyes down his own suit. “What’s your excuse?”
He eyed me a moment as if wondering if he should challenge my conclusion. “I’m here on business,” he said instead.
“You have one hell of a generous boss,” I said. “You want to get Smith’s wallet, or should I do it?”
Morse gave me a measuring look, then slipped a hand inside the bloodied suit coat, probing one side’s pockets and then the other. “Not here,” he said. “Hopefully, it’s in his compartment and not in someone else’s pocket.”
The LifeGuard gave a soft beep, and the display lights went solid red. “Damn,” I said.
“Keep it going,” Morse said, pushing the start button again. “At least until the doctor gets here. What’s your business in the Bellidosh Estates-General, Mr. Compton?”
“What’s your reason for asking?” I countered. Maybe a little too tartly, but my back was aching where I’d hit the floor and I was getting tired of the interrogation.