by Timothy Zahn
“None of these will do?” JhanKla asked, gesturing to his array of beverages as, behind him, one of the servitors hovered in tense silence. “I’m told there are three other Human whiskeys available.”
“And fine ones they are,” I agreed, though two were brands I’d never even heard of. “But this is a Chattanooga nightcap, also known as an Uncle T Special. It’s a cultural thing,” I added, knowing that with JhanKla that would trump all other arguments.
“Very well,” he said, throwing an unreadable look at the servitor. Unreadable to me, anyway; the servitor’s flat face seemed to shrivel just fine beneath it. “I will send a servitor for a bottle.”
“Actually, I’d rather go choose it myself,” I said, getting to my feet “There are several factors to consider—age and blend, for starters—and I’ll have to see what they have in stock before I know which one to get.”
“Very well,” JhanKla said again. “I will summon YirTukOo to accompany you.”
“No, that’s all right,” I said quickly. The last thing I wanted was to try to get a data chip from the Spiders with JhanKla’s big guard-assistant hovering over me. “I’ll be fine.”
“I’ll go with you,” Rastra volunteered. “Without a ticket you’ll need someone with diplomatic authority to allow you into the first-class section.”
I suppressed a grimace. With the Spiders’ diamond-edged pass in my pocket I didn’t need his or anyone else’s help to go wherever I wanted. But I could hardly tell him that. Still, he should be easier to get rid of than YirTukOo. “Sure,” I said casually. “Let me get my jacket and we’ll go.”
Sixty seconds later I was back in the lounge, with my jacket on and a hastily scribbled note for Bayta lying on my bed: Contact Spiders—tell them to bring data chip to first-class bar. Rastra was also ready and together we headed forward.
The two cars immediately ahead of us were baggage cars, filled with stacks of crates held together by safety webbing. Unlike the hybrid baggage/passenger car I’d started this trip in, the crates here weren’t merely lined up along the walls. They were instead arranged in individual clumps, rather like tall islands surrounded by a maze of narrow access corridors that zigzagged around and between them. One cargo island per stop, I guessed, with the access corridors there in case the Spiders needed to get at the ones in back.
Ahead of the baggage cars were four third-class coaches, then the second/third-class dining car, four second-class coaches, one of the first-class coaches, and finally the first-class dining car. “Is it my imagination,” Rastra commented as we threaded our way between the restaurant tables, “or are these Quadrails getting longer?”
“It’s your imagination,” I assured him, glancing around. There were no conductors here in the dining section, but I could see one beyond the smoked-glass divider in the bar. “If there’s anything your taste-tendrils have been missing during the past two days, here’s your chance to get it.”
“Actually, I rather enjoy Halkan cuisine,” Rastra said, diplomatic as always. “Is there something I can get for you?”
“To be honest, I’ve really been missing my onion rings,” I said. “You remember, back on Vanido, the little crunchy round things some of the people in our party were always special-ordering?”
“Yes, I remember,” he said. “Shall I see if they have them?”
“Yes, thank you,” I said. “While you do that, I’ll go get the Jack Daniel’s.”
Rastra headed toward the carry-away counter, and I continued on through the divider into the bar. The Spider I’d noted, I saw now, was part of a pair, with the second standing near the end of the bar pretending to be a decorative planter.
Mentally, I shook my head. The Spiders might be terrific at running interstellar transport, but they had no sense of subtlety whatsoever. Still, Spider behavior was murky enough that I doubted anyone in here would worry about it one way or the other.
I headed toward a barstool a couple of meters in from the end where the Spider was standing, glancing around the room as I went. Three Cimmaheem were sitting off to one side with a skinski flambé going full-blast in the center of their table and a wide berth of empty space around them. A pair of Halkas paused in their conversation long enough to look me over, then returned to their drinks and conversation. A couple of tables over from them, a pair of humans wearing gold-trimmed banker’s scarves didn’t even bother to look up as they discussed something in low, intense tones. In one of the other back corners sat a lone Bellido, the grips of his shoulder-holstered status guns poking out from beneath his armpits with the same kind of silent ostentation as the bankers’ scarves.
And there was something about him that seemed vaguely familiar.
I reached the stool and sat down. The petite server Spider tending bar took my order and disappeared into a storage area behind the bar. Out of the corner of my eye I saw the loitering conductor Spider stir and start to move my direction—
“Greetings to you, Human.”
I turned my head the other direction. The Bellido had left his table and was settling himself unsteadily onto a stool an arm’s length away from me. “Greetings to you and your kin,” I replied, hoping fervently that the Spider would have the sense to back off.
For a wonder, it did. As I turned back to the bar, I saw it take a multilegged step backward and go back to waiting. The bartender reappeared, one leg curled around a flexible plastic bottle of Jack Daniel’s, which he set on the bar in front of me. “Ah,” the Bellido said knowingly. “Stomach trouble?”
“No,” I said, frowning. “Why do you ask?”
“Jack Daniel’s,” he said, gesturing at the bottle. “An excellent stomach tonic. Very good at clearing out intestinal mites.”
“Interesting usage,” I said, studying the brown and tan facial stripe pattern on his chipmunk face. Unlike some species, Bellidos were fairly easy for human eyes to differentiate between; and up close, I was even more convinced I’d seen this one before. “We use it more like you would use aged Droskim.”
“Really,” he said, sounding surprised. “Interesting. Tell me, what brings you out into the galaxy?”
I resisted the impulse to roll my eyes. In terms of flat-out, words-per-minute chattiness, Bellidos were even worse than Halkas when they drank. “I work for a travel agency,” I told him, getting a grip on my bottle and trying to figure out how to make a graceful exit without him watching me the whole way out. Maybe if I signaled the Spider to follow me to the restaurant area and we made the handoff there—
And then, right in the middle of my planning, it suddenly hit me. This was the same Bellido I’d passed on the way to my seat in the hybrid Quadrail car I’d taken out of Terra Station. The Bellido whose casual look had sent an unidentified but unpleasant tingle up my back.
My eyes flicked to the soft plastic grips of the status guns beneath his arms. Bellidos didn’t just roll out of bed in the morning and decide which set of weapons would best suit the day’s wardrobe. Those guns were as much a declaration of his societal position as a human banker’s scarf or a Cimma’s lacquered coiffure. These in particular were copies of Elli twelve-millimeters, a caliber that placed their owner somewhere in the upper middle class, and Bellidos of that class never took off their guns in public, not even if they wound up traveling beneath their class.
Back on the hybrid car he hadn’t been carrying these guns. In fact, he hadn’t been carrying any guns at all. Which meant he’d either been lying to the universe then, or he was doing so now.
And Bellidos never lied like that. Not without a damn good reason.
A renewed tingle ran up my back. Could he be a con artist? Possibly. But in my experience professional criminals were usually smart enough not to get this tipsy in public. A social pretender, then, intent on knocking back the good times and rubbing shoulders with the elite before he got caught? There were severe penalties for such things on Belldic worlds, but of course Belldic law didn’t apply on the Quadrail.
“A travel agency,
you say?” he prompted.
“Yes,” I said, getting back to my explanation and my exit-strategy planning. Now, more than ever, I didn’t want him to see me getting a data chip from a Spider. “I’m looking for unusual vacation experiences to offer my fellow humans.”
“An enjoyable profession, no doubt,” he said. “What is your next destination?”
“A Halkan system named Sistarrko,” I said. “There’s a resort on a moon there that’s been recommended to me.” I glanced at my watch. “And I need to get back and prepare for my change of trains.”
“Oh, there are hours yet to go,” he chided. “Tell me, have you ever tasted properly aged Droskim?”
“It would probably eat a hole in my stomach,” I told him. “And I really must go.”
His expression fell a little. “Then a pleasant journey to you, sir.” Lifting his glass in salute, he stood up and made his unsteady way back toward his table.
I stood up, too, picking up my bottle and turning toward the restaurant section. As I did so, the Spider loitering at the end of the bar unglued itself from the floor and started toward me.
I swallowed a curse and picked up my pace. With my Bellido would-be best friend on one side and Rastra’s imminent reappearance on the other, I might as well try to make this secret handoff onstage at the Follies.
But Rastra wasn’t here yet, and the Bellido was still on his way to his table with his back toward me. If I could do this quickly enough …
I cut across the Spider’s path, and as I did so one of its legs curled up from the floor and stretched out toward me. I caught the glint of a data chip, and without breaking stride I let my arm swing slightly out of line to pluck it from the pad. Pressing it into temporary concealment in my palm, I continued on, glancing back just as the Bellido dropped heavily into his chair.
I nearly bumped into Rastra as I crossed into the restaurant. “Ah—there you are,” he said. “My apologies, but it appears they are out of onion rings. Apparently, they’re a delicacy among Pirks as well as humans.”
“Too bad,” I said, lifting my bottle with one hand as I surreptitiously slipped the data chip into my jacket pocket with the other “The important thing is that they had the Jack Daniel’s. Let’s get back to the others.”
“I’m afraid you’ll have to begin without me,” Rastra said regretfully “I’ve been informed that one of the first-class passengers has a problem that needs to be dealt with. As senior Resolver aboard, I must see if I can help.” The scales around his eyes and beak crinkled slightly. “Try to remember to save me some.”
“No problem,” I said, a creepy feeling rippling across the skin between my shoulder blades. “Don’t be long.”
“I won’t.”
I watched until he’d passed through the door into the vestibule leading forward. Then, for no particular reason, I looked back over at the corner table.
The Bellido’s drink was still there. The Bellido himself was gone.
I looked around the room, the creepy feeling turning into a full-fledged unpleasant tingle. The way he’d been moving earlier, he should have had trouble even finding the door, let alone moving stealthily enough to slip out without me noticing. Like the two Halkas before him, he’d apparently decided that the best way to fool a Human was to pretend to be drunk. Unlike the Halkas, he’d had all the nuances of the role down cold.
Which strongly implied he wasn’t simply a social pretender, either. So what the hell was he?
I didn’t know; but suddenly I wasn’t feeling very good about hanging around here anymore. Trying to watch every direction at once, I headed back toward the Peerage car.
No one accosted me as I passed through the first- and second-class cars. I paid special attention to the Bellidos scattered among the passengers, but none of them seemed the least bit interested in me.
Which actually wasn’t all that surprising. There was no way the fake drunk could have gotten past me while I was talking to Rastra, which meant he was still behind me somewhere in the forward part of the train. Comms didn’t work aboard Quadrails, or anywhere else inside the Tube for that matter, which meant there also wasn’t any way for him to have communicated with any confederates he might have farther back.
Unless, of course, he didn’t need to communicate with them because they already had their orders. Trying not to look too much like I was hurrying, I left the last second-class car and crossed the vestibule into the third-class section.
I hadn’t focused on the passengers on my way forward, but to the best of my memory nothing much seemed to have changed since then. Again, I paid special attention to the Bellidos; again, they didn’t seem to be paying any attention back.
I was midway through the last of the passenger cars when my eyes fell on a set of three empty seats in the last row.
There had been occasional empty seats on my way forward, their occupants presumably either out having dinner or else communing with nature in one of the pair of restrooms at the front of each car. But there hadn’t been any threesomes in the second/third-class dining car just now, and the chances of three passengers in the same row deciding to hit the head at the same time had to be pretty small.
Much smaller, I suspected, than the chances that those same three passengers had drifted off to the privacy of one of the baggage cars to arrange some kind of unpleasant surprise. Still, unless I wanted to wait for the fake drunk to catch up and turn three-to-one odds into four-to-one odds, there was nothing to do but keep going.
But like I’d told Bayta earlier, alcohol was a good equalizer. As my playmates were about to learn, that equalizing capability also extended to nonsocial events.
Anywhere in the galaxy except aboard a Quadrail, there would have been no question about how I would do that. A typical glass whiskey bottle made a natural club, which was probably why the Spiders were careful to package all their beverages in this flimsy plastic instead. One good thump, and the bottle would split along its tear lines and dump its contents all over the floor.
But the warped minds at Westali had been mulling over this for a few years, and they’d come up with a couple of tricks. With luck, maybe I could give any waiting footpads a surprise of their own.
I reached the end of the car and stepped through the door into the vestibule. There, momentarily shielded from view from either direction, I pulled the stopper from the bottle and replaced it just tightly enough to keep it closed. Now, with a good squeeze, I could send the stopper flying straight into an assailant’s face, with a slosh of whisky right behind it. I couldn’t remember how Bellido eyes reacted to alcohol, but even if it didn’t temporarily blind him it should at least slow him down long enough for me to be faced with only two-to-one odds. Still not good, but better than nothing. Holding the bottle at its base, I opened the door and stepped into the first baggage car.
My natural instinct was to pause there, peering down the stacks of safety-webbed crates and listening for some clue as to where they might be hiding. But I overrode the reflex. Showing I was aware of their presence would only make them treat me with professional respect, and I would rather they assume I was stupid and oblivious and hopefully let their guard down a little. Without breaking stride, I headed in, trusting in my peripheral vision to give me enough warning for whatever was about to happen.
It didn’t. I was halfway down the car when something exploded against the side of my head and the universe went black.
NINE:
I woke with an ache behind my right ear, an unpleasant half pain across the whole right side of my face, and the odd sensation that I’d been sleeping standing up.
For another minute I stayed as I was, listening for any signs of activity around me. But all I could hear was the rhythmic clicking of the Quadrail’s wheels. Apparently, my assailant or assailants were already gone. Carefully, I opened my eyes.
My inner ear hadn’t been lying to me. I was indeed standing up, my back pressed solidly up against something hard, my head turned to my left. From the f
aint light seeping in from below me, I could see I was inside one of the taller crates, which had had a narrow space cleared out for me. The mystery of how I had managed to stay upright while still unconscious was quickly solved: My playmates had simply worked the crate’s access panel free—probably sliding it upward—manhandled me in face-first against the safety webbing already stretched around this group of crates, then slid the panel back in place behind me.
It was, I had to admit, a quick and creative way of putting an opponent temporarily out of action. The first person who really focused on the arrangement would instantly spot the webbing anomaly, but people doing a quick search for a wayward Human could easily miss such details.
Still, clever or not, they’d missed an obvious bet: They’d forgotten to gag me. Once the search reached my vicinity, a good shout would bring my rescuers straight to the spot. Experimentally, I started to take a deep breath.
They hadn’t missed a bet after all. The webbing was tight enough that I couldn’t expand my chest that far. Short, shallow breaths were unfortunately going to be the order of the day.
The little knife in my multitool could cut through this stuff with ease, of course. But the multitool was in my right pocket, and my captors had thoughtfully positioned me close enough to the right wall that I couldn’t bend my elbow far enough to get my hand into that pocket.
I studied the cargo pressed up against me, or at least the small percentage of it I could see with my head turned to the side. It was too dark to read any of the labels, or even to tell what language they were in, but from the delicate aromas I guessed they were mostly exotic spices. No chance of identifying my assailants by unexplained quantities of merchandise in their possession, then—spices were one of those items that could easily be flushed down the nearest toilet, with their packaging shredded and dumped out the same way. There was no way of knowing my crate’s destination, but if my attackers had done their job right it would be someplace far down the line, past Jurian territory and possibly out of Halkan space as well. If they’d been feeling generous, they might have arranged things so that I’d be found before I died of thirst. I wasn’t ready to bet on that, though.