by Timothy Zahn
“A gentleman never considers the distance,” I said, standing up and offering her my arm like all the best gentlemen heroes from the dit-rec classics.
A minute later we said our final good-nights, and her door closed in front of me. I waited until I heard the snick of the lock, then went back to my own compartment.
I had a plan, all right, or at least the beginnings of one. One that had a fair chance of success.
The problem was that I was also pretty sure no one on my list of allies was going to like it. Bayta, probably not. The Chahwyn, almost certainly not.
The Modhri, absolutely not.
But the clock was ticking, and we were running low on time. Even as we headed toward Human space at a light-year per minute, whatever was left of the Proteus group would be madly throwing message cylinders in all directions, messages that would travel a thousand times faster than we could. By the time we reached Venidra Carvo two weeks from now, they could very well be ready to make some kind of move against us. By the time we reached Homshil six weeks after that, their entire army could be on the move.
I had until then to finalize my plan. Or to come up with something better.
* * *
The first hurdle, at least, turned out to be easy. Six hours later, at the next station, I left the Peerage car along with a trickle of other passengers. Weaving my way through the waiting clumps of Fillies, Shorshians, and others to the Spiders’ message center, I added my handful of messages to the queue.
Neither Bayta nor the Modhri liked the idea of me going out all by myself. But I wasn’t worried about it. If there were any Shonkla-raa agents aboard our train, I knew there would have been no time at Ilat Dumar Covrey to give them any instructions more complicated or aggressive than to lie low and watch our movements.
And, of course, to report those movements. On my way out of the message center I spotted four Fillies heading toward it. One of them, I had no doubt, would be sending a quick report to Proteus and beyond. But as I expected, none of them tried to interfere with me.
Half an hour later, we were off again.
The next hurdle, unfortunately, wouldn’t be nearly so easy. As soon as the Shonkla-raa leadership learned that I wasn’t just running for home but was sending off messages along the way, they might well decide that their first priority should be to get those messages stopped.
If they found a way to steal or destroy the messages, we were going to lose valuable time. If they decided they’d rather destroy the messenger, we might lose something considerably more valuable. Me.
The days passed slowly. Most of our waking hours were idled away with conversation, meals, music, and dit-rec entertainment.
And slowly, as I gazed unseeingly at the current dit-rec or stared up at the darkened ceiling above my bed in the middle of the night, I hammered out my battle plan.
It was my one, single focus in life. Every other part of our day-to-day schedule—eating, socializing, exercising, even the occasional evening card marathon—ran almost completely on mental autopilot.
Which was probably why I didn’t notice the change that had come over Terese. Not until it was almost too late.
* * *
With a final creaking of brakes, the train pulled into Venidra Carvo Station.
“According to the schedule, we have another six hours before the super-express departs for Homshil,” ChoDar said as we watched out the lounge display windows at the drudge Spiders detaching our car from the rest of the train. “If you would like to take some exercise around the station during that time, please feel free.” He smiled. “I’m accustomed to the close quarters of this car, but others sometimes find it a bit stifling.”
“Yes, I think we will take a short stroll,” I said, taking Bayta’s arm and starting us toward the door. “I should at least go to the message center and see if there’s anything waiting for me.”
“As should all who are about to embark upon the great silence of that long journey,” ChoDar agreed. “If you’re willing to wait until YhoTeHeu has prepared the diplomatic bag, perhaps the three of you can travel together.” He smiled. “Here in the midst of Shorshian territory, it would be wise for non-Shorshians such as ourselves to stick together.”
I smiled at the small joke, a mostly untranslatable play on the Halkan term for stick. It was a traditional favorite of Halkas who were relatively new to the oddities of English. “A wise precaution, lest we get stuck,” I agreed, making the traditional counterjoke in return. “We would be honored by YhoTeHeu’s companionship.”
Ten minutes later, YhoTeHeu, Bayta, and I left the car and trooped across the platform toward the stationmaster complex and the Spider message center.
The Shorshic Congregate was the second biggest of the Twelve Empires, a huge place that was nearly the size of the Filiaelian Assembly, and Shorshian pride was right up there with that of their Filly neighbors. The Venidra Carvo station might not be as ostentatious as Proteus, but that didn’t mean the Shorshians hadn’t done a thorough job of tricking it out. Shops, restaurants, and hotels lined the platforms, tucked in between stands of vibrant flower hedges and the Quadrail tracks that lined the entire circumference of the two-kilometer-diameter station. Some of the buildings were fifteen stories tall, with elaborate facades and typical Shorshic heptagonal windows. The biggest buildings, especially the official ones, were decorated with Shorshic artistic flourishes: pointy anglecrons, undulating wave-shaped sweeplets, and others whose names I didn’t know. The overall effect was that of being in a field of underwater thornbushes.
But I didn’t have any attention to spare for cultural evaluation. The majority of the travelers milling about the station were Shorshians, but probably a quarter of them were Fillies, earnest, haughty, and well-dressed.
And every one of them who crossed our path got my complete and undivided attention for as long as it took to get a good look at his or her throat.
The good news was that none of the Fillies I saw had Shonkla-raa throats. The bad news was that way too many of them gave our little party the same kind of brief but intense scrutiny that I was giving them.
Most of that attention was innocent, of course. The vast majority of Fillies, even well-traveled ones, never made it to our end of the galaxy. Humans and Halkas were rarities, and it was only natural for them to stare.
Unfortunately, I was pretty sure not all of those eyes were friendly. Even more unfortunately, I had no idea yet which ones were which.
But we had no choice. I couldn’t risk giving my collection of messages to any of the Spiders roaming the station, not with Shonkla-raa possibly on the loose. Comms didn’t work inside the Tube, and the messages were too long and complex for me to have Bayta transmit them telepathically from one Spider to the next all the way to the message center.
On the other hand we weren’t nearly as helpless as we looked. My Beretta was still in its under-train lockbox, of course, but the kwi wrapped around the hand I had casually buried in my jacket pocket was already tingling with its activation signal. A Shonkla-raa who tried to freeze Bayta with his control tone would hopefully be too late to keep me from zapping him right off his feet.
And should anyone try the more direct approach, we had YhoTeHeu striding along beside us. Not only was he a combat-trained veteran of the Halkan military’s special forces, but he was also not carrying a Modhran colony. Here in the weaponless Tube, YhoTeHeu’s brawn and my kwi should make short work of anything the Shonkla-raa tried to throw at us.
Still, the last thing I wanted was to make a scene here, even if someone else started it. The Spiders might officially control the Tube and the station, but there were also plenty of Shorshic authorities on hand, none of whom would be happy at my use of an unknown weapon knocking their people and guests around. With our super-express leaving in a few hours, this was pretty much the Shonkla-raa’s last chance to keep Bayta and me here on their side of the galaxy.
But either they weren’t worried about our departure or else they didn�
�t want that scene any more than I did. We reached the message center with nothing more serious than a slightly bruised shin where I’d misjudged the path of a hard-edged footlocker rolling past me. Three minutes of waiting in line got us to the counter, where I delivered my encoded data chip to the stationmaster Spider on duty. Six lines over, I watched out of the corner of my eye as YhoTeHeu received the chip containing ChoDar’s messages and secured it inside his boss’s tamper-proof diplomatic bag. We retraced our steps past the Shorshians and Fillies still waiting in line, rendezvoused with YhoTeHeu outside the building, and with Bayta walking between us we started back toward the Peerage car.
We’d gone maybe fifty meters when I spotted two Fillies ahead and to our right, walking in military lockstep, their heads held high, their eyes alert.
And they were heading straight toward us.
Bayta spotted them the same time I did. “Frank?” she murmured.
“I see them,” I murmured back, taking her arm and angling us slightly to the left.
I hadn’t bothered to inform YhoTeHeu of my course change, and for a couple of steps he kept going in the wrong direction. But we’d only made it another couple before he was back beside us again. [Is there trouble?] he rumbled in Halkora.
“Two Filiaelians right-forward,” I told him, scanning the area for more of them. The Shonkla-raa must surely have been able to dig up more than a measly pair of agents to make trouble for us.
They had. Thirty degrees around front from the original twosome were another pair, and a quick glance behind me showed two more coming up slowly but steadily from behind. Another quick sweep showed a second layer, again in pairs, about five meters behind the inner three groups and offset from them. Twelve very obvious potential foes, who now had us neatly boxed in.
Except for the conveniently open area to our left.
[Do they pose a threat?] YhoTeHeu asked in an ominous tone, shifting the diplomatic bag from his right to his left hand.
“They might,” I told him, picking up our pace as I gave another careful look to our left. Not a single junior military cadet visible anywhere over there. Either the Shonkla-raa employed the most incompetent henchmen in the galaxy, or they were simply hoping we would think that.
YhoTeHeu was on the same page I was. [They’re trying to herd us to the left,] he said, his voice dropping half an octave into the low-pitched command/combat voice I’d sometimes heard from Shorshic military attachés during my Westali days.
“That they are,” I agreed, studying the area in that direction. There was a block of buildings over there, including a five-story hotel, two café-type restaurants, an imported-clothing store, and a music/dit-rec shop. On both sides of the building cluster were stands of exquisitely sculpted shear-layered trees and shrubs.
In other words, whether this group preferred to stage their ambushes indoors or out, they’d picked a good spot for it.
I looked back at the Filiaelians coming in from our two o’clock position. Their stride had picked up an almost jaunty air, the cockiness of a pack of wolves who’ve spotted their prey and are mentally choosing which fork would go best with elk.
Which struck me as a little odd, because of all the Fillies in the ring, that particular pair had the least cause for cockiness. One of them was big and strong and no doubt would be a match even for the specialized Filly combat techniques Emikai had taught me on the trip in to Proteus. But the other of the pair was short and thin, not very muscular at all, and in fact rather delicate and scrawny.
A commander facing weaponless combat typically chooses his biggest and strongest soldiers for the job. A less than impressive perimeter point was practically an engraved invitation to break out, especially when the hunter knew the prey would see the leftward pressure as an obvious trap. If so, it was likely that the Shonkla-raa had placed their best fighters as Scrawny’s backup, hoping I would pick Scrawny as the breakout point and thus walk directly into their arms.
Still, they may not have expected YhoTeHeu to be with us. At any rate, we really didn’t have any choice. [There are the two, then two behind,] I warned YhoTeHeu, switching to Halkora in case the Shonkla-raa had been smart enough to send henchmen who understood English after me.
[I see them,] YhoTeHeu said. [I will take the larger of the foremost. I will attempt to push him into the smaller one, entangling them together, then move against the rearmost pair while you finish off the foremost.]
[Accepted,] I said. It wasn’t the greatest plan I’d ever heard, but we didn’t have a lot of options right now. If we could dispatch our opponents quickly enough, their reinforcements shouldn’t have time to reach us before we were clear of them.
At that point, of course, they would still outnumber us. But once we were no longer surrounded, at least they’d only be coming at us from a single direction. [On three we charge,] I said.
[Accepted,] he said. [One, two—]
And even as I started to shift my balance, a slender Tra’ho wearing elaborately embroidered clothing shot past on my left, running like an Olympic sprinter carrying a barrel of gunpowder with a drip fuse burning just a shade faster than he was running. (Stand clearing!) he shouted in mangled Shishish, the ultrasonics in his voice buzzing across my head as I jumped aside to keep from getting run over by the rolling luggage careering along behind him. Directly ahead, the ambling masses of Quadrail passengers spent a precious half-second gawking, then galvanized themselves into a mad scramble to get out of his path. (Stand clearing! I am trying to miss not my train!)
(Stand clear!) another Tra’ho voice came from my right, and a second Tra’ho whipped past YhoTeHeu, moving with the same speed and determination as the first one. He tore past, scattering his own group of passengers, leaving YhoTeHeu, Bayta, and me standing in a narrow corridor of calm between two barriers of rapidly moving Tra’ho luggage.
And with the inspiration born of utter obviousness, I grabbed Bayta’s arm and took off after them.
Our Filly opponents realized instantly what we were up to. But it was already too late for them to do a damn thing about it. One of them made a single attempt to get through the obstacle course as we passed and was nearly crippled as a footlocker even bigger than the one I’d tangled with earlier clipped his leg. At that point even the two in the rear, who’d been angling to get into our safe corridor before the two Tra’ho’seej passed, seemed to think better of it and joined the rest of the station in getting out of the way.
But all the rolling luggage in the galaxy couldn’t prevent them from glaring at us as we hurried past. Scrawny was particularly good at it, and from the look on his face as we charged past I decided that the sooner we got ourselves back inside the Peerage car, the better.
I made sure we’d left the Fillies comfortably far behind before slowing us down, letting the Tra’ho’seej and their luggage continue their hurried journey by themselves. Ahead and to the left, I caught an unexpected sight: a fellow Human emerging from a beverage shop in the middle of yet another row of buildings.
On second glance, I saw that the figure wasn’t so much emerging from the building as it was staggering from it. Clearly, whoever it was had had way too much alcohol, particularly for such a relatively short, slender Human.
A short, slender Human wearing the same color sweater and jeans as Terese had been wearing when Bayta and I left for the message center.
“Oh, hell,” I breathed, grabbing Bayta’s arm and pointing.
Just as the figure gave one final stagger and collapsed onto the ground.
“Bayta?” I snapped as we broke into another run, toward the bemused spectators starting to gather around Terese’s limp body.
“Two drudges are on the way to take her to the medical center,” she panted back. “The Spiders are alerting the doctors now.”
[Why is she out here?] YhoTeHeu demanded. [She had no errand to perform.]
“Oh, she had an errand, all right,” I snarled, swearing silently over and over to myself. “She had a murder to commit.”
His bulldog snout turned sharply to me. [A murder?]
“Yes,” I said grimly. “Her own.”
TWENTY-ONE
Throughout the ages, countless Humans had fatally overdosed on alcohol, though granted most of them had done so accidentally. The modern era of Quadrail travel, which had opened up whole new vistas of non-Human alcohol products, had added its own numbers to that total.
Still, for the most part, the Shorshic varieties were pretty unattractive to Human taste buds. You had to be seriously determined to kill yourself that way.
Terese hadn’t been that determined. But she’d been damn close.
(She will recover,) the Shorshic physician assured Bayta and me as we stood together on the other side of the treatment table. (I’ve filtered the alcohol from her bloodstream, and have induced the flushing of the remainder from her liver and other tissues. One hour, no more, and she should be recovered enough to travel.)
“Thank you, Doctor,” Bayta said quietly.
(My pleasure, as well as my profession,) he said. (The machines will complete the rest of the procedure. I will be at the monitor station should you have any other concerns.)
“One question before you go,” I said. “If we hadn’t gotten her here when we did, what would have happened?”
A Human doctor, coached in tact and bedside manners, might have hesitated. Not this one. (She would be dead,) he said flatly.
I grimaced. It was the same conclusion I’d already come to. “Thank you.”
He gestured a polite farewell and left the room. “Interesting,” I commented to Bayta.
“Not the word I would have used,” she said soberly. “This makes no sense, Frank. Why would she want to do something like this to herself?” She shot a sudden frown at me. “Or did you just say that for YhoTeHeu’s benefit?”
“No, I meant it,” I told her. “Or at least I did at the time. Now, I’m not so sure. Rather, I’m not sure Terese herself was her intended target.”
“But then—?” Bayta broke off, her throat tightening. “Oh.”
