by Timothy Zahn
“Let us also not forget that di-Master Strinni’s final act was to form his hands into the sign-language symbols of your initials,” Aronobal added.
I had forgotten about that, actually, and I made a mental note to hit up the Modhri later and find out what the hell he’d thought he was doing with that.
Assuming there was a later. Most of the nearby passengers were listening intently to the conversation, and their expressions reminded me of sharks at feeding time. They were scared, they were frustrated, and, worse, after nearly four weeks on the road they were bored. If there was no justice in me getting my ears pounded, there might at least be some entertainment.
I came to a sudden decision. Aronobal wasn’t going to talk now anyway, not surrounded by indignant supporters who clearly thought I was out to add her to some phantom body count. There would be plenty of other opportunities to hit her up about her relationship with Emikai before we reached Venidra Carvo. “I get the feeling you really don’t want to talk right now,” I said, taking a casual step backward. “Fine. We’ll do this later.”
“Don’t let him go!” Terese snapped. “If he gets away, we’ll never find out what he did with Logra Emikai.”
She started toward me, and to my surprise I saw she had tears in her eyes. Either she was choking with rage or she really did feel something for the supposedly vanished Emikai. “I didn’t do anything with Logra Emikai,” I insisted.
But it was too late. Behind her, one of the two Halkas—the bigger one, naturally—shouldered her aside and strode toward me, the glow of righteous indignation in his eyes.
“Move it,” I murmured to Bayta, crowding backwards against her as I dipped my hand into my pocket. Unfortunately, while the kwi gave me the power to drop the Halka where he stood, I couldn’t use it, at least not openly. Kennrick already knew I had brought a supposedly forbidden weapon aboard, and Logra Emikai probably suspected it, and the last thing I wanted was for the rest of the train to find out, too.
But if I couldn’t use the kwi openly, maybe I could use it not openly.
The Halka was still lumbering forward as I pulled my hand out of my pocket, the kwi in position around my knuckles. The second Halka had fallen into step behind the first, with Terese now third in line. “Take it easy,” I said soothingly as I keyed the kwi for its lowest unconsciousness setting. “I don’t want any trouble here. Neither do you.”
The two Halkas merely picked up their pace a little. Knowing Halkas, I’d expected that. I continued to back up, keeping my hands moving in little circles to prevent anyone from getting a clear look at the kwi. The lead Halka got to within grabbing distance and reached out a large hand toward my neck.
And I slammed my right fist into his gut.
It wasn’t all that hard a slam, actually. In fact, the punch was over ninety percent pure noise, with as little genuine impact as I could get away with while still making it sound real. There didn’t have to be any impact, because an instant before my fist hit his torso I thumbed the kwi’s firing button.
The weapon worked with its usual gratifying speed, instantly sending the Halka off to dreamland. As his knees started to buckle beneath him I brought my left hand up and made a show of chopping him at the base of the neck. After that, my only job was to get out of his way as he collapsed with an impressive thud onto the floor.
The second Halka came to an abrupt halt. So did the various mutterings and twitterings that had been going on among the onlookers. Our entire end of the car, in fact, went deathly quiet.
And from behind me I heard Bayta give a short, strangled gasp.
I spun around, kwi ready, both hands coming up into combat position. But it was only Kennrick, his hands on Bayta’s shoulders as he moved her sideways out of his way. “What the hell are you doing back here?” he demanded, his voice taut, his eyes flicking to the line of potential attackers still facing me. “Come on—we’ve got to get out of here before you get lynched.”
I was opening my mouth to tell him that we had every intention of doing exactly that when the second Halka made his move.
Unfortunately for him, the same relative silence that had allowed me to hear Kennrick’s non-assault on Bayta also enabled me to hear him coming with his more genuine attack. I spun back around, evaded his pile-driver punch, and dropped him to the floor with a second kwi shot and some more martial-arts window dressing.
And then Kennrick’s hand was on my shoulder, pulling me backward toward the vestibule. “Come on,” he repeated urgently. “Let’s get the hell out of here.”
I took one last look at Terese’s stricken, disbelieving, anguished expression, and got the hell out of there.
We reached the next car and Kennrick slipped around past me, putting himself behind Bayta and me and between us and any potential follow-up trouble that Aronobal and Terese might choose to send in our direction. But no one came bursting through the vestibule in hot pursuit. The three of us retraced our steps back through third class, and again I could feel the eyes of the passengers on my back as we hurried forward. Fortunately, none of them did anything but look, and a few minutes later we made our escape from third class into second.
“Whew,” Kennrick puffed as we slowed our pace back to a normal walk. The passengers here, I noted, seemed to have no interest whatsoever in us. “That was way too close.”
“Close to what, I’m not sure,” I said, eyeing him over my shoulder. “What was all that about, anyway?”
“What, they didn’t tell you?” he asked. “There’s a rumor racing through third that you killed Logra Emikai during the night.”
“That much I gathered,” I said. “I was mostly wondering if this rumor has anything more to it. Like why I would do something like that or, better yet, how I managed to dispose of a body from a sealed Quadrail.”
“You really think anyone’s paying attention to actual logic?” Kennrick said sourly. “Especially when it’s a trusted member of the medical profession who’s telling you all this?”
“Dr. Aronobal started the rumor?” Bayta asked, frowning over her shoulder.
“Who else?” Kennrick said. “I’m just glad I got back there in time.” He grunted. “Not that you seemed to need me. That, uh, asset of yours is really something.”
“We like it,” I said. “Which isn’t to say that reinforcements aren’t always welcome. How did you happen to be there, anyway?”
“Pure luck,” he said. “Asantra Muzzfor went back to third earlier this morning to discuss the contract situation with Master Tririn. While he was there he got wind of the rumor about Emikai’s mysterious disappearance, though your name apparently wasn’t yet connected to it. He mentioned it to me when I stopped by his seat half an hour ago, along with the fact that he’d seen you heading that direction. I put two and two together and went charging back to try to stop you before you walked into a hornets’ nest.”
“Why would Dr. Aronobal start such a rumor?” Bayta asked.
“Obviously, to keep you two at bay while she locates Emikai and finds out what we know,” Kennrick said. “Or, failing that, to come up with another plan.”
“But that doesn’t make any sense,” Bayta insisted.
“Of course it does,” Kennrick said. “Like I said, she needs to find Emikai—”
“Why doesn’t it make sense?” I interrupted.
“Because if Dr. Aronobal knows Logra Emikai well enough to send him to break into your compartment, she should also trust him not to tell us anything,” she said. “Especially about whether or not the two of them are working together.”
Kennrick snorted. “I think the working together part was obvious as soon as Aronobal tried to lure Compton out of his compartment so that Emikai could break in.”
“Obvious, but not provable,” Bayta insisted. “We might suspect, but we couldn’t know for sure. Given that, wouldn’t Dr. Aronobal do better to pretend she was innocent, or had been set up, and try to find out what we know?”
There was an answer for that, I
knew. But I kept quiet. Bayta was doing just fine without my help, and I was curious to see how Kennrick would respond.
Not very well, as it turned out. “Look, I’m not here to defend her cleverness,” Kennrick said stiffly. “All I know is that the rumor is there, and that she’s the only one who benefits from it.”
“Or possibly Terese German,” I suggested. “They seem to have some kind of relationship going, too.”
“And the rumor also keeps you away from her,” Kennrick said with an air of vindication. “Like I said.”
“Yes, you’re probably right,” I agreed. Bayta frowned at me, and I gave her a small warning shake of my head. She grimaced, but turned back without another word. “So what are your plans for the day?” I added to Kennrick.
“First I need to find out from Asantra Muzzfor exactly what he and Master Tririn talked about,” Kennrick said. “I was about to do that when I found out you two were in danger and cut the meeting short. After that, depending on what he says, I’ll need to sit down with all three of the Filiaelians and discuss the contract status.”
“You don’t sound very hopeful,” I said.
“I’m not,” he admitted. “But I have to try.”
We reached the rearmost of the first-class cars, and as we entered I casually glanced around. Osantra Qiddicoj was seated in a corner by himself, his eyes closed, his breathing slow, his mind presumably emptied.
The Modhri was open for business.
“You go on ahead,” I told Kennrick, taking Bayta’s arm and bringing the two of us to a halt. “I want to see how Osantra Qiddicoj’s doing.”
“Yes, poor guy,” Kennrick said, peering over at Qiddicoj. “I hear those Filiaelian stomach things can drag you down for weeks. He’s looking better, though.”
“Hopefully, he’ll be recovered by the time we reach Venidra Carvo,” I said. “Thanks again for coming to our rescue.”
“Any time.” With a nod to Bayta, Kennrick continued on forward.
I could feel the taut muscles in Bayta’s arm as I steered us toward Qiddicoj’s seat. “You okay with this?” I asked her quietly.
“Would it matter if I wasn’t?”
“Sure,” I said. “I could take you back to your compartment and do it alone.”
She straightened her shoulders. “I’m all right.”
There were a pair of empty chairs nearby. I pulled them over to Qiddicoj and we sat down. “Hello, Modhri,” I said.
“Good afternoon, Compton,” the Modhri said, Qiddicoj’s eyes remaining closed. “And to you, Bayta, agent of the Spiders.”
Bayta didn’t answer.
“Let’s start with last night,” I said. “I’d like your take on just what the hell happened.”
For a long moment the Modhri was silent. “It was very strange,” he said at last. “I was … I could hear and see what I was doing, and I knew it was a lie. And yet, I could not stop myself.”
Which was, I knew, the hallmark of a good hypnotic drug. “At least you were able to slip in the clue about the hypnotic,” I commented. “So who was feeding you your lines?”
“I don’t know,” the Modhri said, a hint of frustration edging into his otherwise emotionless voice. “The voice spoke to my Eye Prapp, but spoke from behind him. I never saw who it was, neither before, during, nor after.”
“Did you recognize the voice?” I persisted. “Male, female, species—did you get anything?”
“Nothing,” he said. “But I do remember that a faint whistling sound seemed to underlie my attacker’s words.”
I looked at Bayta. I’d heard a whistling sound that evening, and so had Emikai. Now the Modhri had joined the club.
Obviously, that was significant. I just wished I knew how. “I don’t suppose you have any idea how the hypnotic got into your system. Any of your systems,” I amended. “I assume what gets into one walker affects the whole mind.”
“It does,” he confirmed. “Unfortunately, I have no idea how that was done.”
I sighed. If dead ends were money, Bayta and I could retire rich. “You really ought to try to be more alert,” I told the Modhri.
“I will,” the Modhri promised. “And may I say that I’m pleased you are still alive.”
“I’m reasonably pleased about that myself,” I said. “Okay, back to the business at hand. What can you tell me about Master Colix’s last day?”
“I’ve been pondering that question since his death,” the Modhri said. “Unfortunately, there’s little I can tell you that you don’t already know. He ate his sunrise and midday meals alone. No one approached his table during either time. Sundown was eaten with Master Bofiv and Master Tririn.”
“Master Tririn told us Dr. Witherspoon and Terese German were seated nearby at that latter meal,” I said. “Did Master Colix have a good view of them?”
“He did, and neither of them approached the table,” the Modhri confirmed. “They seemed interested only in each other.” Qiddicoj’s nostrils flared briefly. “Perhaps too interested.”
I felt my ears prick up. Terese, and Witherspoon? There was at least a forty-year age difference there. “What makes you say that?” I asked.
“He touched her in a very intimate way,” the Modhri said, and I could hear the contempt in his voice for primitive Humans who didn’t know any better than to display their affection in public.
“Where exactly did he touch her?” I asked.
A hand lifted limply from Qiddicoj’s lap. “Here,” he said, his fingertips touching his lower abdomen. “And here,” he added, moving the fingers upward a short distance.
I frowned. There wasn’t a single Human erogenous zone in either place. “Are you sure?” I asked, holding my hand a couple of centimeters above Bayta’s abdomen. “He was touching her right here?”
Qiddicoj’s eyes flicked briefly open, then closed again. “Yes,” the Modhri confirmed.
“I see,” I said, bringing my hand back. “Well, well.”
“What is it?” Bayta asked.
“At least one corner of this mess is suddenly making sense,” I said. “This dinnertime get-together wasn’t a meeting. It was a medical consultation.” I tapped my own abdomen. “Remember Terese’s stomach trouble?”
Bayta’s eyes widened a little. “Are you saying …?”
I nodded. “Our young friend Terese German is pregnant.”
Bayta shot a look at Qiddicoj. “What in the world is she doing alone on a Quadrail heading for the far end of the galaxy?”
“That’s the question, isn’t it?” I agreed. “And it’s clear now that our Filly friends Aronobal and Emikai are definitely involved with her.”
“Why do you say that?” the Modhri asked.
“Because if they are, a few more of the pieces fall into place,” I told him. “Emikai’s concern for the air in Terese’s car, for starters—air quality would be especially important for a woman carrying a baby. And then there’s Dr. Witherspoon’s reaction after di-Master Strinni’s death, when I asked him about his rendezvous with Terese.”
“Yes,” the Modhri murmured thoughtfully. “He was very reluctant to speak of her.”
I frowned. “You remember that?”
“The polyp colony within an Eye lives for a short time after the Eye’s own death,” he explained.
“Ah,” I said, a shiver running up my back. I’d always suspected that was the case, but to have it confirmed in such a coldly clinical manner was a little disconcerting. “What you couldn’t see was that Witherspoon kept looking at Aronobal during that conversation, as if he wasn’t sure how much he was allowed to say. Physician/patient privilege is pretty much a standard of Human law these days, but other species handle it in different ways. And Witherspoon was only brought in as a consultant, after all.”
“You think Dr. Aronobal was concerned about Ms. German’s stomach trouble?” Bayta asked.
“That’s my guess,” I said. “I’m sure she knows about morning sickness, but the duration and intensity of Terese’s
bouts may have thrown her enough to want a Human doctor to take a look.”
I looked back at Qiddicoj. “Speaking of death and Modhran afterlife, why did you try to finger me—no pun intended—with Strinni’s silly dying clue?”
“My apologies,” the Modhri said, a touch of embarrassment in his tone. “At the time I believed you to be the one killing off my Eyes. I wanted to raise that same suspicion in others so that they would keep watch on your future actions.”
“That makes sense, I guess,” I said. “You have no such suspicions now?”
“None,” the Modhri assured me. “To return to Master Colix’s sundown meal. His individual was birrsh, and the common was po krem, which he ate with prinn scoops.”
“Yes, Tririn’s already given me the menu,” I said. “Any chance either Bofiv or Tririn spiked any of the food?”
“None,” the Modhri said firmly. “I’ve replayed the memory of the entire meal through my mind many times since then. Neither of the others could have done so.”
I nodded. I’d already come to the same conclusion, but it was good to have it verified by a fresh source. “Let’s move on to the rest of Colix’s evening. He finished dinner and …?”
“He returned immediately to his seat,” the Modhri said. “His stomach was starting to bother him.”
I frowned. “By the time he reached his seat?”
“Even sooner,” the Modhri said. “He was feeling the first twinges before the end of the meal.”
“Really,” I said, tapping my fingertips on the arm of my borrowed chair. Heavy-metal poisoning hit Shorshians quickly, but not that quickly. “Let’s back up a bit. Did anything unusual happen that afternoon?”
“And did he have his throat lozenges with him all afternoon?” Bayta added.
I threw a sideways look at her. As distasteful as it might be for her to have to deal with the Modhri, she was obviously intrigued by the chance to access one of the murder victims’ memories. “Including during dinner,” I added, looking back at Qiddicoj.
“Mr. Kennrick visited him briefly in the early afternoon,” the Modhri said. “They discussed the halfway-celebration meal Mr. Kennrick was planning.”
