by Timothy Zahn
Now came the tricky part. Exhaling as deeply as I could to give myself as much slack as possible, I angled my left foot up at the ankle and set it on top of the bottle. Mentally crossing my fingers, I pushed down.
With a gratifying clatter, the stopper popped out and skittered along the edge of the crate, and the delicate aroma of mixed spices vanished beneath the powerful smell of sour-mash whiskey. I took a breath, remembering in time to make it a shallow one, and settled down to wait.
I was just starting to wonder if you could get drunk on alcohol fumes alone when they found me.
“So you never actually saw them,” Rastra said.
“Not a glimpse,” I told him, gingerly daubing at the lump below my ear with one of the Peerage car’s first-aid cloths. “I don’t even know what they hit me with.”
Standing stiffly to the side, JhanKla made an angry bulldog rumble deep in his throat. “I should have insisted that YirTukOo accompany you.”
“Hey, stuff happens,” I said philosophically. “No permanent harm done, except that we lost the Jack Daniel’s. By the way, did anyone happen to notice where I was heading when you got that crate open? I forgot to check.”
“It was addressed to a spice wholesaler on Alra-kae at the inner edge of the Halkavisti Empire,” Rastra said. “Only a two-day journey, fortunately, but it still would have been uncomfortable.”
“Definitely,” I agreed. “You get that problem solved in first class?”
“Yes,” he said, the scales around his beak wrinkling. “One took offense at another, with the second unaware that he had even given cause for anger. A brief face-to-face conversation, and it was resolved.”
So the whole thing had indeed been a ruse, a heavy-handed but effective ploy to split us up so that they could beat me up in private.
Which had taken some advance planning, which meant that I wasn’t just a random victim. Not that I’d really thought that I was.
“I still think you should have that injury examined,” Rastra continued. “I’m informed that there are three Human physicians aboard this Quadrail.”
“I’ll be fine,” I assured him. “I got worse lumps than this when I played Sunday afternoon football at college. I just need to take a couple more QuixHeals and lie down for a while.”
“As you choose,” Rastra said, clearly not convinced. “But if you’re still feeling unwell when we reach Jurskala, I’m going to insist. There are specialists in Human medicine on duty at the transfer station.”
“Deal,” I said, getting a bit unsteadily to my feet. “Bayta, can you give me a hand?”
Silently, she stood up and crossed to my side. She hadn’t said a word since she and Rastra and the Spider they’d recruited for the search had pulled me out of that spice crate. Now, still without speaking, she gingerly took my arm. It was the first time she’d ever actually touched me, and even through my shirt I could feel the coldness of her fingers. Letting her take a little of my weight just for show, we headed down the corridor to my compartment.
The door had barely closed behind us when she let go of my arm like she’d been scalded. “How could you?” she demanded, her voice shaking, her rigid control suddenly gone. “How could you let them take it?”
“Relax,” I said, dropping onto the edge of the bed and digging the data chip out of my pocket. “They didn’t.”
She stared at the chip like it was a gold watch being offered back to her by a dinner theater magician. “But then…?” She trailed off.
“Why did they attack me in the first place?” I finished her question for her. “Good question. Before we discuss it, let’s just make sure they weren’t cute enough to switch chips on me.”
She grimaced, but nodded. “All right,” she said, moving toward the door. “I’ll get my reader.”
She was gone just long enough for me to confirm that the chip registered on my own reader as nothing but an innocuous set of travel guides. “Any chance they could have made a copy?” I asked as she took the chip and plugged it into hers.
“No.” She did something with the scroll buttons, peered at the display, and nodded. “There,” she said, handing it to me.
Where before there’d been nothing but tourist fluff, the display now showed over fifty files relating to Quadrail security and sensors. “Perfect,” I said. “Something to read on the way to Modhra.”
“You still want to go there?” Bayta asked, her voice suddenly cautious. “I mean… shouldn’t you see a doctor first?”
“I’m fine,” I assured her. I started to shake my head, quickly changed my mind. “Besides, this is starting to get very interesting.”
“Interesting?” she echoed. “You call being attacked interesting?”
I shrugged. The gesture turned out to be only marginally less painful than shaking my head. “People don’t usually attack you unless they feel threatened,” I said. “That must mean we’re getting close.”
“Close to what?” she persisted. “All we’ve got is a name—Modhra—and JhanKla telling us we should go there.”
“Plus all the maneuvering it took them to get him to drop us that name,” I reminded her.
“Which could have just been to get us out of Kerfsis,” she reminded me back. “Or to keep us away from somewhere else, for that matter.”
I hesitated, once again trying to decide just how much I should tell her. I still didn’t know what was really going on, or whose side she was on.
Still, she was clearly in league with the Spiders, or at least some group of them. If I froze her out of my investigation, I’d be completely on my own. Considering what had just happened, even questionable allies were better than nothing. “No, it’s Modhra, all right,” I said. “I didn’t want to say anything with Rastra and JhanKla listening, but there was a chatty Bellido in the bar when I was getting the Jack Daniel’s. He asked where I was going—”
“And you told him?”
I stared up at her, my head throbbing in time to my pulse, my eyes and ears taking in her expression and her tone and her body language, my Westali-trained brain taking the pieces and putting them together.
And in that single stretched-out moment in time, all my vague suspicions suddenly coalesced into a hard, cold certainty. Whatever was going on with JhanKla and Modhra and the Bellidos, Bayta knew all about it. “It didn’t seem like a big deal at the time,” I said, keeping my voice even. “The point is, the next thing I knew he’d disappeared somewhere into the first-class cars. And the next thing I knew, I’d been clobbered and locked in a spice crate.”
“And you think the incidents are related?”
“Absolutely,” I said, wondering how much of this she already knew. Still, I couldn’t afford to let her know that I knew she knew. “They weren’t after the data chip, because I still have that. They weren’t after my cash stick, because I still have that. What else is there but someone not wanting us to go to Modhra?”
“But how could he have communicated with anyone at the rear of the train?” she asked. “You said he’d gone the other direction.”
“That part I haven’t figured out yet,” I admitted, watching her closely. But she had herself fully under control again, and her face wasn’t giving anything away. “My guess is that he used the Quadrail computer system somehow, or else found a way to piggyback a signal onto the control lines.”
She shook her head slowly. “I don’t think either is possible.”
“Well, whatever he did, he did send a message,” I growled. “I’m sure of that.”
“But I still don’t see the point,” she said. “What did they hope to accomplish?”
“They hoped to put me on ice long enough for us to go past Jurskala and the Grakla Spur,” I said. “That’s the only thing that makes sense. Someone, for whatever reason, doesn’t want us going to Modhra.”
The corner of her lip twitched. “So, of course, that’s where you intend to go?”
I shrugged. “I’m following a trail. That’s where it leads.”
“No problem,” I said calmly. “You can wait for me at Jurskala.”
“What if I have the Spiders revoke your pass?”
I lifted my eyebrows. “Are you threatening me?”
“There could be danger there,” she said evasively. “Terrible danger.”
I thought about the Saarix-5 in my carrybag handles. “There’s danger everywhere,” I said. “Life is like that.”
She seemed to brace herself. “You could die there.”
So there it was, right out in the open. Modhra was indeed the key… and our enemies were prepared to be very serious indeed about protecting that key. “I could die anywhere,” I countered. “I could fall over a Cimma in the dining car and break my neck. You know something about Modhra you’re not telling me?”
A muscle in her jaw tightened briefly. “It’s just a feeling.”
“Fine, then,” I said, pretending to believe her. “I’m going. You’ve got five hours to decide whether you’re coming with me.”
“Mr. Compton—”
“In the meantime,” I cut her off, “do these feelings of yours include any hints as to which direction the danger might be coming from?”
She looked away. “It could be from anywhere,” she said quietly. “You have no friends out here.”
“Not even you?” I asked, pitching it like it was a joke. “At least you care whether I live or die, don’t you?”
She straightened up. “I’m not your friend, Mr. Compton,” she said, her voice and face stiff. “And no, I don’t care.” Brushing past me, she escaped into the corridor.
For a long moment I stared at the closed door, a hard, bitter knot settling into my stomach. I’d hoped for something—anything—that would indicate we were at least on the same side, even if we weren’t exactly staunch allies.
But no. I’m not your friend. And no, I don’t care.
Fine. Then I wouldn’t care, either, when I did what I was going to do to her precious Spider friends.
And I would laugh in her face when I did it.
Swiveling my feet up onto the bed, I positioned my throbbing head carefully against the pillow. It would be another half hour before the painkiller I’d taken kicked in and let me get some sleep.
Pulling up the first of the Spiders’ security files, I began to read.
TEN
The Quadrail pulled into Jurskala Station, and with a round of farewells to Rastra and JhanKla I left the Peerage car and headed across the platform toward the track where the Grakla Spur train would be arriving in two hours. Bayta, silent and wooden-faced, was at my side.
I had thought about trying to find a clever way to sneak off the train, but had decided it wouldn’t be worth the effort. Even if the Bellidos hadn’t yet figured out that I’d escaped their impromptu holding cell, there would be plenty of time for them to spot us as we hung around the station waiting for our next Quadrail. The alternative, to spend that time hiding in one of the Spiders’ buildings, would probably just make things worse. Clearly, there were multiple players in this game, and I saw no point in advertising my cozy relationship with the Spiders for anyone who hadn’t already figured it out.
Especially when we could use that relationship to other advantages.
“Three more Bellidos have joined with the two from first class,” Bayta murmured as we approached the first of the Quadrail tracks we needed to cross to get to our platform. “These three came from third class.”
“Are they talking?” I murmured back, resisting the urge to look over my shoulder. The whole point of having the Spiders relay this information to me via Bayta was so that I wouldn’t look like I had any suspicions about what was going on behind me.
“Yes,” she said. “But none of the Spiders are close enough to hear.”
“Let me know when they start moving,” I instructed her. “Anyone else taking any interest in us?”
We reached the next track, the low protective barrier folding up and over into a little footbridge for us and our trailing carrybags. “I don’t think so,” she said. “Wait. The five Bellidos have split into two groups again and are moving this way.”
“How fast?”
“Not very,” she said as we reached the far side of the track and the bridge folded back into its barrier form. “And they aren’t following us, exactly, just coming this general direction.”
Either being coy about their target or else simply heading for the Grakla Spur train, too. “What about Rastra and JhanKla?”
“They’ve left the Peerage car and are walking toward the stationmaster’s building,” she reported. “The guard-assistant, YirTukOo, is with them.”
“Probably making arrangements to switch the car to a different train,” I said. JhanKla had done his bit by nudging me toward Modhra, and he and his entourage were apparently now out of the game.
We reached the Grakla Spur platform, which was lined by the usual mix of restaurants, lounges, shops, and maintenance buildings. “You ever had a Jurian soda crème?” I asked Bayta.
“A—? No.”
“Then you’re way overdue,” I said, taking her arm and steering her toward the larger of the two restaurants.
“I’m not hungry,” she protested, trying to pull away.
“This is more like a dessert than a meal,” I assured her, not letting go. “More to the point, with all those Spider waiters wandering around in there, we’ll have a better chance of keeping an eye on everyone than we would in any of the regular waiting rooms.”
The resistance in her arm muscles evaporated. “Oh,” she said.
About half the restaurant’s tables were occupied, a nice comfortable percentage. Suppressing my usual impulse to sit where I could see the door, I led Bayta to one of the tables in the center. “You want me to order for you?” I asked.
She shrugged in silent indifference. I pulled up the menu, found the proper listing, and ordered two of the crèmes. “I gather you haven’t spent much time in the Jurian Collective,” I suggested, leaning back in my seat.
“Not really.” She hesitated. “Actually, not at all.”
“Ah,” I said, looking around. Unlike the Quadrail bar, this place hadn’t been designed with conversational privacy in mind. “How long have you been with your friends?”
“As long as I can remember,” she said, lowering her voice. “Is this really the right place for this?”
“Why not?” I countered. “I don’t especially like working with someone I know next to nothing about.”
She pursed her lips. “If it comes to that, I don’t know much about you, either.”
“Your friends seem to have the full inside track on me.”
“That doesn’t mean I do.” Her forehead creased slightly. “The Bellidos have all gone to one of the waiting rooms by the Grakla Spur platform.”
Passing up a possible chance to eavesdrop in favor of not taking the risk of being spotted and spooking the quarry. They certainly seemed to know what they were doing. “So what do you want to know?”
“About…?”
“About me.”
She studied my face, her forehead creased, clearly wondering if I was just baiting her. “All right. What did you do to get fired from Westali?”
I felt my throat tighten. I should have guessed she’d pick that particular knife to twist. “What, you’ve been asleep the past two years?” I growled.
The corner of her lip twitched. “I’d really like to know.”
I looked away from her, letting my eyes sweep slowly around the restaurant. Most of the patrons were Juriani, but there were a few Halkas and Cimmaheem as well.
And, of course, there was us. A pair of Humans, strutting around the galaxy as if we owned it. “Do you know how humanity got to be number twelve on the Spiders’ Twelve Empires list?”
“I presume the same way everyone else did,” she said. “When a race colonizes enough systems, the Spiders confer that
designation.”
“You colonize four of them, to be exact,” I told her, Colonel Applegate’s words from a few days ago echoing through my brain. And Yandro makes five. “Which gives you a total of five, including your home system. Yandro was the colony that put Earth over the bar and got us invited into the club.”
“And there was a problem with that?”
I sighed. “The problem, Bayta, is that there’s nothing of value there. Nothing. A few varieties of spice, some decorative hardwoods, a few animals we may or may not be able to domesticate someday, and that’s it.”
“And?”
“What do you mean, ‘and’?” I bit out. “The UN Directorate dumped a trillion dollars down the drain for that Quadrail station, for no better reason than so they could pretend they were important when they traveled around the galaxy.”
Her eyes widened with sudden understanding. “You’re the one who blew the whistle, aren’t you?”
“Damn straight I did,” I growled. “Between the faked resource reports and the carefully prepped enthusiasm of the colonists, you’d have thought Yandro was the next Alaska. I couldn’t let them get away with that.”
“Alaska?”
“The northernmost state of the Western Alliance,” I told her. “Formerly called ‘Seward’s Folly’ after the man who purchased it a couple of centuries ago for a lot of cash that most people thought was being thrown down a frozen mud hole. The ridicule lasted right up until they discovered all the gold and oil reserves.”
“You don’t think that could happen with Yandro?”
I shook my head. “The reports they released to the public were masterfully done. But I got hold of the real ones, and you could literally hear the increasing desperation of the evaluators as they came closer and closer to the end of their survey and still couldn’t find anything valuable enough to make it worth exporting in any serious quantities.”
