by Timothy Zahn
Before I could react, Kennrick had swung back to face me. “Point two is I don’t want her giving you a running commentary on what I’m doing,” he said conversationally. “Good-bye, Compton.”
I lifted my gaze from Bayta to Kennrick’s face. “Goodbye, Kennrick,” I said. “Don’t forget what I said about the defenders.”
He was still smiling as he touched the control on the wall, closing the divider in front of me.
Sarge was waiting just inside the rear door of the last compartment car. “She is unconscious,” he said in his flat Spider voice. “Why is she unconscious?”
So much for my hope that Bayta had been faking. But then, she could hardly have done anything else. There were ways of telling if someone was truly unconscious. “Because she still needs to maintain the illusion that the kwi works like a normal weapon,” I told him. “Come on—we need to get out of here.”
Reluctantly, I thought, he backed into the vestibule. “What now?” he asked as I followed him in.
“The groundwork’s been laid,” I told him. “Time to go to work.”
We stepped into the first coach car. Many of the displaced passengers had opted to settle down there, I saw, instead of continuing on to coach cars farther back. No doubt they were hoping their proximity to the center of the action would give them a better chance of finding out what was going on.
They were going to be disappointed. “We need a base of operations,” I told the defender. “Tell the conductors I need everyone cleared out of this car.”
Considering the wealth and power of the travelers I was pushing around, they took the news remarkably well. Maybe the rumor mill had given a sufficiently dark cast to the situation to keep their indignation in check. Or maybe it was the look in my eyes. Either way, with a maximum of cooperation and a minimum of griping, they were soon gone. “What now?” Sarge asked when we were alone.
I checked my watch. Twenty minutes until we hit the crosshatch section, if Sarge’s earlier estimate had been correct. “Is your partner ready to move the tender alongside us?” I asked.
“He is,” Sarge confirmed. “You still wish it to parallel the center compartment car?”
“No, we’d better hold it back here for now,” I said. “I doubt Kennrick’s sensors are good enough to spot movement or heat all the way through the compartments on that side of the train, but I don’t want to risk it. Make sure the conductors know to opaque all the windows on that side of the train before the tender starts moving.”
“It will be done,” Sarge said. “What after that?”
“There’s one more preliminary job you’ll need to do,” I told him. “After that, we’ll just have to wait until Bayta’s awake again so that we’ll have a real-time tap into what Kennrick’s doing.”
“What is this preliminary job you wish me to do?”
Spiders, even defenders, didn’t exhibit a whole lot of body language. Even so, as I told him what I wanted, I had no difficulty sensing his stunned outrage. “No,” he said when I’d finished, his voice even flatter than usual. “Impossible.”
“Why?” I countered. “Because it’s against the rules? Trust me—we’re going to be breaking a lot of rules before this is over.”
“Which other rules?”
“Rules that you’re going to break so that Bayta lives and Kennrick doesn’t escape with information on how to kill people aboard Quadrails,” I said bluntly. “Are we all on the same page? Or will I have to go back to the Chahwyn and tell them that one of their own died because you wouldn’t cooperate with me?”
“But this is—” Abruptly, he stiffened. “Frank?” he said in Bayta’s voice.
“Bayta?” I said, glancing at my watch. It had been only forty minutes since Kennrick had zapped her, though a low-level kwi shot was normally good for at least an hour. Her unique mix of Human and Chahwyn physiologies coming into play again, no doubt. “Are you all—?”
“Something’s wrong,” she interrupted urgently. “The oxygen repressurization tank is gone.”
I frowned at Sarge. “What do you mean, it’s gone? Gone where?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “He must have moved it while I was unconscious.”
And then, suddenly, I understood. “Damn it,” I muttered, heading for the forward vestibule and the compartment cars beyond it. “Come on,” I called to Sarge over my shoulder.
The rearmost compartment car was deserted. Moving as quietly as I could, I headed along the corridor to the front. Bracing myself, I touched the control to open the door to the vestibule.
Nothing happened.
I tried twice more, but it was just going through the motions. “He’s got us, Bayta,” I said. “Damn him. Damn me, too, for not catching on sooner.”
“He vented the tank into the vestibule?” Bayta asked.
“You got it,” I said bitterly. Thereby increasing the air pressure in the vestibule’s confined space, thereby engaging the automatic locks on both the vestibule’s doors. Now, the only way to get through into Kennrick’s car would be to drill, spike, or otherwise batter our way through.
Bayta and I had used the exact same trick against the Modhri not two months ago, and yet I’d never seen this coming. I must be slipping. “At least now we know why he’s got audio sensors laid out in the corridor,” I said, forcing back both the anger and the self-reproach. Now was not the time. “He knows we can’t batter our way through the vestibule without making a lot of noise.”
“That just means we’ll have to come up with a different plan,” Bayta said calmly. Or maybe the calm was just an artifact of Sarge’s transmission. “You have any ideas?”
I stared at the vestibule door, thinking hard. All right. We couldn’t get through without making a lot of noise. The noise would trigger the sensors, which would trigger the alarm, which would alert Kennrick to start lopping off Bayta’s fingers.
But only if Kennrick was able to hear the alarm …
“Fine,” I said slowly. “He wants to play cute? We can play cute, too. Here’s the plan …”
Sarge wasn’t thrilled by the plan, for at least three separate rule-breaking reasons. Bayta didn’t seem particularly enthusiastic, either, for a whole other set of reasons.
But neither of them could think of anything better. In the end, I got my way.
Our preparations took another hour. We waited another hour after that, just to give Kennrick time to settle down comfortably in the center of his new fortress of solitude.
I spent most of that final hour staring at the walls, running the plan over and over in my brain, trying to think of any alternative actions Kennrick might take that I wouldn’t be ready for.
There were, unfortunately, any number of things he might do, any one of which would wreck everything. But I knew the man now, hopefully well enough that I could anticipate his likely responses.
We would find out soon enough if I was right.
Finally, the hour was up. “He’s stretched out on the bed reading,” Sarge relayed Bayta’s words and voice as he and I stood at the rear of the last compartment car. “He looks calm and very much at home.”
“Good,” I said. “Let me know right away when that changes.”
“I will,” she said.
I touched Sarge’s leg. “Wait here,” I told him, and passed through the vestibule into the first coach car, the one I’d made into my operations base.
Krel Vevri and Osantra Qiddicoj were waiting there for me, both of them standing straight and tall, Qiddicoj’s long Filly face still a little pale from his earlier brush with death. “Well?” Vevri asked as I emerged from the vestibule.
Or rather, the Modhri within him said it. “It’s time,” I confirmed, looking back and forth between the flat eyes and sagging faces.
And it occurred to me, not for the first time, that this was the riskiest part of my plan. The Modhri had promised to cooperate, but if he decided he could do better by switching sides, this whole thing would collapse into disaster and death
without warning.
The two aliens nodded in unison. “Let us get on with it,” Vevri said.
I shook away the unpleasant thoughts. I couldn’t make this work without the Modhri playing spotter for me, and that was that. I would just have to trust him, and watch my back. “Yes, let’s,” I agreed. “The Spider will take the Krel Vevri walker through the airlock into the tender. He’ll ride him up to the first compartment car—”
“You’ve already explained the plan,” the Modhri reminded me.
I grimaced. He was right, I had. Twice. “Just remember that once you’re in the compartment you’ll need to stay perfectly quiet if and when Kennrick passes by,” I said. “If he hears you—”
“Bayta will die,” Vevri interrupted again. “I understand. Again: let us get on with it.”
“Right.” I nodded to the defender. “Go.”
The defender didn’t speak as he led the way to the car’s door, but I was pretty sure I could detect some residual reluctance in his body language. Letting a passenger actually go aboard one of their tenders was bad enough. Letting a passenger aboard who was also a Modhran walker was unthinkable. Distantly, I wondered what kind of report he and Sarge would be sending back after this was all over.
They reached the car’s outer door and it irised open, revealing the extendable airlock leading to the tender. Vevri and the defender went inside, and the car door closed behind them. “You ready?” I asked Qiddicoj.
“Yes,” he said. “Don’t worry, Compton. I’ve agreed to help you, and will hold to that promise.”
“That makes me feel so much better,” I said, trying not to be too sarcastic. “Come on.”
Sarge was waiting for us in the rear compartment car by the vestibule door Kennrick had sealed. “Anything?” I asked as Qiddicoj and I came up to him.
“No,” he said.
I nodded. “Let me know when your buddy’s in position.”
He didn’t bother to answer. But then, I’d already gone over this part of the plan twice, too.
The minutes ticked by. I found myself staring at the vestibule door, tracing its edge with my eyes, trying to estimate the strength of the metal. Sarge had assured me that even with the air-pressure seal locked down tight he would have no trouble opening the thing. If he was right, we had a chance.
If he was wrong …
“My Krel Vevri Eye has entered the first compartment car,” Qiddicoj murmured suddenly. “He’s found the proper compartment and is unlocking the door.”
The compartment at the very front of the train, the one right beside that car’s emergency oxygen repressurization tank. I’d had to talk long and earnestly to the compartment’s proper occupant to get him to loan me that key. “Is he in yet?”
“Yes,” the Modhri confirmed. “He’s sealed the door behind him.”
I nodded and turned to Sarge. “Your partner ready?”
“He is in place,” Sarge said.
“Tell him to go, and then connect me to Bayta,” I ordered. “Bayta?”
“I’m here, Frank,” her voice came from Sarge’s metallic sphere. “Nothing new is happening here.”
“It’s about to,” I assured her. “Keep the relay open.”
“All right.”
I listened intently, but for the first thirty seconds nothing happened. “What’s happening?” I demanded at last.
“I can hear scraping,” Bayta reported, her voice tight. “Coming from the edge of the display window, I think. I can’t tell for sure—Mr. Kennrick has it opaqued.”
“Has he noticed the sound?”
“Yes, he’s looking around,” Bayta said. “He doesn’t look happy—wait; he’s figured it out. He’s clearing the window—”
“What the hell?” Sarge gasped, his voice abruptly switching to Kennrick’s. “What the bloody—get the hell off my window. You—Bayta—tell it to get off my window.”
“I can’t,” Bayta said aloud. “He’s a defender—Mr. Compton told you about them. He won’t listen to me.”
“Tell him to get off,” Kennrick snarled again. “Or by God, I swear—”
“He has a loop of wire twisted around her wrist,” Sarge reported.
Beside me, the Modhri hissed anger. “Coward,” he said contemptuously.
“Shall I order him to leave?” Sarge asked.
I squeezed my hand into a fist, emotion and logic doing a vicious tug-of-war with my soul. If this was a bluff, and I blinked, our best opportunity to nail Kennrick would be gone.
But if it wasn’t a bluff, Bayta was about to lose a hand.
“Compton?” Sarge asked again.
Abruptly, the decision was taken from me. “No,” Bayta’s voice came firmly from Sarge’s metal sphere. “Keep going. It’s our only chance.”
“Compton?” Kennrick’s voice demanded. “Compton? Call him off, damn you. You hear me?”
“Keep going,” Bayta said again.
“Compton? Compton?”
“He can’t do anything,” Bayta told him, her voice frightened and pleading. “Please—he can’t do any—”
Abruptly, her voice went silent. “Bayta!” I barked.
“She’s unhurt,” Sarge said. “He has shot her with the kwi.”
I braced myself. “What about her hand?”
“Also unhurt,” Sarge assured me. “The Human has opaqued the window again.”
“And?” I demanded.
“A moment.”
I rubbed a layer of sweat off my forehead, willing my heartbeat to slow down as the defender hanging on to the outside of the car did whatever changes were necessary to his sensor suite to let him see through an opaqued display window. “The Human has moved to the door and is working with some of the wires connected there,” Sarge reported.
“Which ones?”
“They appear to be the ones connected to Bayta’s neck,” Sarge said.
“It’s working,” the Modhri said.
“So far,” I agreed cautiously. It was still way too early for us to start congratulating ourselves. “What’s he doing now?”
“He has attached his reader to the motor fastened near the door,” Sarge said. “The wire from the motor reaches across the compartment to loop around Bayta’s neck.”
The automatic strangler Kennrick had warned me about. Our quarry was about to make a sortie out of his fortress.
“He is leaving the compartment,” Sarge said. “The door is closing … I can see no more.”
I took a deep breath. It was working. It was actually working. “Tell your partner to stop scraping,” I instructed Sarge. “Modhri, let me know the minute you hear movement outside Vevri’s compartment.”
“I will,” the Modhri promised, a note of what sounded like genuine awe in his voice. “You amaze me, Compton. How did you know he would behave in precisely this manner?”
“Because I have a good idea how people like that think,” I said. That, plus the fact that Kennrick had damn few options right now. If the Spider managed to break the seal around his window, his air would go rushing out into the near-vacuum of the Tube. Without keys to any of the other compartments, there was nowhere else he could relocate to, even if he was willing to leave his carefully laid defenses. Trying to camp out in the corridor wouldn’t be any better.
Which left him only one real option: buy himself some time, and hope he could figure out how to get the Spider off his window. Time, in this particular case, being oxygen.
And since he’d already used the tank in his own car to block the vestibule, he was going to have to go to the next car forward and steal theirs.
“You understand him, indeed,” the Modhri murmured. “My congratulations.”
“Let’s save the celebration until he actually gets to the tank,” I warned, still refusing to allow my hopes to get too high. “He could still decide to hunker down in the corridor while he tries to think up a new—”
“There!” the Modhri cut me off. “He’s outside the forward car stateroom, and has begun to
unfasten the oxygen tank.”
And with Kennrick a car and a half away from all his audio sensors and alarms, it was time to go. “Your turn,” I said, gesturing Sarge toward the vestibule door.
The words were barely out of my mouth when two of the defender’s legs lanced forward, their tips spearing hard into the edge of the door. Before my ears could recover from the sound he hit the door again, with an even harder double blow than before.
And then, through the ringing in my ears, I heard the angry hiss of escaping air. The Spider had dented the door just enough to break the seal, releasing the pressure that had kept it locked.
I stepped forward and hit the release. The door opened halfway, then faltered as the deformed metal hung up on its rollers. I grabbed the edge, and with the defender joining my effort we shoved it the rest of the way open. I crossed the vestibule, stepping over the spent oxygen cylinder Kennrick had put there earlier, and touched the control at the other end.
The door opened into a deserted corridor. I stepped inside the car and headed forward at a fast jog. “How’s he doing?” I asked over my shoulder.
“The sounds of disassembly have just finished,” the Modhri reported. “The sounds now are those of one hefting a large object … he’s starting back along the corridor.”
Which meant our grace period was nearly at an end. “Thanks,” I said, picking up my pace. “Get back into the vestibule and make sure the door closes behind you.”
I reached Minnario’s compartment door, keyed it open, and slipped inside. Sarge was right behind me.
It wasn’t until the door slid shut again that I discovered that Qiddicoj had followed us in. “I told you to go back,” I snapped.
“You may need me,” he said.
I cursed under my breath. But it was too late for him to go back now. “Just stay quiet and out of my way,” I growled.
I crossed the room to where the divider sealed against the wall. Kennrick had undoubtedly locked it from his side after my last visit, and in theory I couldn’t unlock it from here.
But Bayta and I had run into this problem once before, and we’d come up with an answer to it. “Ready,” I said, nodding to Sarge. “Have the conductors cut power now.”