Odd Girl Out q-3

by Timothy Zahn

  Only to discover that it wasn't there.

  I walked twice across the full width of the car, double-checking each crate as I went. After that I moved on to the next row of stacks back. Our crate wasn't in any of them, either. Apparently, the Spiders who were supposed to load the thing aboard had screwed up.

  Or else someone wanted me to think they had.

  For a long moment I stood in the center of the main aisle, gazing at the intimidating archipelago of cargo stacks stretching to the rear of the car and trying to think. Checking out every crate in here would take hours, and there were two more baggage cars behind this one. I could easily be at this until we reached the far end of the Jurian Collective, which was probably exactly what the Modhri wanted me to do.

  "Fine," I muttered under my breath. Quadrail crates were pretty well sealed, which made breaking into one a lengthy proposition. A properly handled multitool on one corner of the lid would allow someone a peek inside, but of course with our crate all that would gain him would be a look at the three sealed metal boxes inside. To get any farther than that would require a crowbar—which he wouldn't have been allowed to bring aboard—or else a lot of time and even more patience.

  And he certainly wouldn't want someone like me blundering into him while he worked.

  Smiling to myself, I headed back toward the baggage car's rear door. It was, I had to admit, a reasonably good plan for something that had to have been thrown together more or less on the fly. A walker plants a whiffer to clear out the car, including the coral's assumed Melding watchdog. In the confusion, the walker and maybe a friend or two slip through the back door and manhandle the crate one or even two cars back.

  It was, from the Modhri's point of view, a win-win situation. If the Melding watchdog realized the coral had been moved and came running to find out what had happened to it, the Modhri would gain instant identification of one of his enemies. If the watchdog didn't come charging to the rescue, but tried to get a message to Bayta and me instead, the Modhri would have that much more time to break into the crate or whatever else was necessary to bring the wayward coral back into the happy Modhran family.

  What he hadn't counted on was that the Spiders would alert Bayta, who would alert me, and that I would be on the scene this quickly. By now he would barely have had time to even get the crate moved, let alone started working on it. If I could catch him in the act, not only would I have a pair of walkers identified, but I could have the Spiders kick them off the train as soon as we reached Jurskala.

  I reached the door and punched the release. The door opened, and I stepped through into the vestibule and punched the inner door's release.

  Nothing happened.

  I hit the release again, and again. But it was no use. The Modhri had anticipated me charging to the rescue, all right. He'd locked me out.

  I muttered a curse under my breath. So he wanted to play cute? Fine—I could do cute, too. All I needed to do was get back to the passenger coaches and grab the first conductor I saw. Whatever the Modhri had done to lock the door, I'd simply have one of the Spiders undo it.

  I was halfway back toward the front of the baggage car when I came around a curve in the pathway to find myself facing a group of four Juriani moving cautiously through the same pathway in my direction. They caught sight of me, the hawk beaks in their iguana-like faces clicked once in perfect unison, and they broke into a fast jog.

  I picked up my pace, too, heading straight toward them. I caught a flicker of uncertainty on their scaled faces at the sight of a clearly insane Human rushing into four-to-one odds, and they reflexively slowed their pace a little.

  Their uncertainty lasted exactly as long as it took me to clear the current crate stack I'd been passing and take off at full speed down a weaving cross pathway. I was half a dozen steps down it when I heard the sudden clatter of foot claws as they gave chase.

  I made it around the back of the next island before they reached my branch point and came in after me. With my pursuers momentarily out of sight, I got a grip on the safety webbing of the stack I was facing and started to climb.

  It wasn't easy. The webbing wasn't really designed for this, and the strands were a little too thin for a comfortable grip. But I was inspired, and up I went. I'd had a couple of serious confrontations in Quadrail baggage cars over the past few months, and neither had exactly ended to my complete satisfaction. My best bet for avoiding a repeat performance was to take the high ground and try to get back to civilization before I got myself surrounded.

  I had my fingers on the top crate of the stack and was starting to pull myself up when a clawed hand grabbed my right ankle.

  Instantly, I kicked sideways as hard as I could with my left foot, catching the Juri's fingers with the edge of my heel. There was a multiple screech from all four walkers as the pain of the blow shot across and through the entire Modhran mind segment. The Juri let go of my ankle, and I quickly pulled myself the rest of my way up and onto the crate.

  The fortunes of necessity, I discovered, had ended up with me on top of one of the shorter stacks, one where I could stand nearly upright without bumping my head on the ceiling. From my new vantage point, I saw now that most of the stacks were a crate or even two crates taller than mine. That meant that some of the stacks had enough clearance between them and the ceiling for me to crouch or crawl, while others had a gap I could barely squeeze my arm into.

  Unfortunately, the nature of the room's geography meant that I couldn't see from here which routes would lead me safely back to the car's forward door and which would instead funnel me into cul-de-sacs where the only way out would be to backtrack or drop to the floor. At that point, I'd be back to the same short odds I'd started with.

  As I hesitated, a movement to my right caught my eye, and I turned to see one of the Juriani laboriously claw his way up onto the top of the crate two islands down from me. Picking the most likely-looking path forward, I set off.

  The trip was like an echo of all those fun times on the Westali Academy obstacle course. Most of the islands could only be reached by a sort of leap/roll maneuver that I had to invent more or less as I did it, a trick which enabled me to land on my back or side instead of arriving with my head against the ceiling and my shins against the edge of the topmost crate. As I'd already noted, many of the gaps were too small even for that trick, and for those I had to jump to the stack's side, grabbing the top edge as I passed, and making my way along by sliding sideways hand-by-hand.

  Getting to the next island in line from either of those positions was even more challenging. But I had no choice. From the clattering noises around me, and from occasional glimpses of struggling Juriani, it appeared that the Modhri had assigned two of the walkers to the job of chasing me across the rooftops, while the other two waited below to intercept me in case I dropped back to the floor and made a run for it.

  On one level, the whole thing was bizarre. There was, after all, only a single door leading back to the rest of the train. In theory, all the Modhri had to do was position his four walkers at that exit and wait for me to get tired or hungry enough to come down from my perch. Bayta would eventually wonder where I was, of course, but if she didn't want to risk leaving Rebekah alone all she would be able to do would be to send a Spider out looking for me. Given the Spiders' inherent inability to fight, that wouldn't be a big help.

  Yet here the walkers were, huffing and puffing their way up crates in a dusty Quadrail baggage car, chasing me to the ends of the earth and then some. All I could think of was that the Modhri—or at least this particular mind segment—must be really furious at me for breaking my promise to destroy the Abomination.

  I had made it to within a couple of islands of the front of the car, and was starting to wonder what exactly I was going to do when I got there, when I heard the sound of the door sliding open.

  I froze, straining my ears. Besides my current playmates who from their clothing were obviously third-class passengers, the Modhri undoubtedly had anothe
r half-dozen or more walkers up in first. If he'd decided to bring them back here to join in the fun, this was going to get very sticky indeed.

  And then, over the sound of wheels on track beneath us, I heard the distinctive click-click-click of Spider legs on hard flooring.

  I rolled to the edge of my current stack and looked over the side. It was the stationmaster I'd seen earlier at the scene of the whiffer diversion in the third-class car. He had stepped a couple of meters into the baggage car and then stopped, almost as if he was assessing the situation. Two of the Jurian walkers were standing to either side of him, watching him as warily as I could sense he was watching them.

  I didn't hesitate. Bayta could probably recognize individual Spiders—for all I knew she could even call them by name—but to me they were a dime a dozen, and the Quadrail system had a billion of them. If I accidentally wrecked this one, the Chahwyn could take it out of my pay. I got a grip on the edge of my stack and rolled off the edge. As my legs swung around, I pulled up and then let go of the stack, sailing in a short arc toward the door.

  To land feet-first squarely on top of the Spider's central metal globe.

  I had no idea how strong stationmaster legs were, and I half expected him to instantly collapse under my weight, which would have helped cushion my landing but not much more. To my surprise, his legs instead absorbed the impact with ease, lowering the globe and me maybe a meter and a half before coming to a controlled stop. I had just a glimpse of startled Jurian faces, and then the Spider's legs flexed again, and I found myself being catapulted in another low arc toward the door.

  The Modhri finally broke his stunned paralysis and the two walkers lunged toward me. But it was too late. I hit the floor, slapped the release, and was through and into the vestibule before they'd even gotten around the Spider's slightly splayed-out legs. I hit the release on the far end of the vestibule, and a second later was back in the third-class car.

  The passengers were still in the process of returning to their seats after the fire scare, and I found myself in the role of a salmon on his annual upstream swim. Fortunately, a lot of the passengers were apparently still in the dining car, and the aisle wasn't nearly as crowded as it could have been. I was out of the car before any of the walkers reappeared from behind me.

  To my lack of surprise, I also noted as I passed that the seats where the whiffer had been were still unoccupied.

  Bayta was sitting stiffly on the edge of my bed when I finally made it back to our double compartment. "There you are," she said, some of the stiffness going out of her back as I entered and locked the door behind me. "I was starting to worry."

  "As well you should have," I said, motioning her off the bed and sitting down in her place. With the adrenaline rush long past, my body was feeling the painful effects of my extended playtime on top of all those cargo islands. "The Modhri's finally made his move. The smoke bomb was just a diversion to let him slip a couple of walkers into the baggage car and make off with our crate."

  "What do you mean, make off with it?" Bayta asked. "You mean he opened it?"

  "No, I mean he picked the damn thing up and moved it," I said, as I took off my shoes. "Where's Rebekah?"

  "Asleep in the other compartment," Bayta said, nodding toward the mostly closed partition. "Where did he move it to?"

  "Into the second baggage car, I assume," I said, easing my legs up onto the bed and carefully stretching sore muscles and joints. "At least, that's the one he's locked me out of."

  "He locked you—?" Bayta broke off, frowning. "Which door exactly did he lock?"

  "Front door of the middle baggage car, like I said," I told her. "Why?"

  "Because that's not possible," she said. "There aren't any locks on those doors."

  I stared up at her, trying to visualize the way Quadrail doors operated. If there were no actual locks, then she was right—there wasn't any way to simply brace or block or jam the doors closed. "Could the walkers have been physically holding them closed, then?" I suggested doubtfully. "Bracing their hands on the—well, I don't know. Bracing their hands somehow."

  "Not unless they had the strength of a drone or drudge," she said. "The door motors are quite strong, and they're sealed where no one can get at them."

  "What about a stationmaster?" I asked.

  "What about them?" she asked. "I doubt they're strong enough, either. Besides, there aren't any of them aboard."

  "Sure there are," I said. "There's one, anyway. He was in the last third-class car, watching the conductors deal with the whiffer."

  Bayta's eyes went unfocused for a few seconds. "No," she said firmly. "The Spiders say there aren't any stationmasters aboard."

  A chill ran up my back. "You have the kwi?" I asked, swinging my legs back over the side of my bed and grabbing my shoes.

  "Right here," Bayta said, patting her pocket. "What's going on?"

  "I don't know," I told her, putting on my shoes. "Okay, I'll take it," I said when I'd finished.

  "Should I wake Rebekah?" she asked, handing me the kwi.

  "No, let her sleep," I said, sliding the weapon into place around my right-hand knuckles. "Come on."

  Bayta's eyes widened. "You want both of us to go?"

  "I can't fire the kwi without you there to activate it," I reminded her as patiently as I could. "Without you, it makes a fair paperweight, but that's about all."

  "What about Rebekah?"

  "She'll be fine," I assured her. "Just warn the conductors to keep a close eye on our compartments."

  "But—"

  "Bayta, the Modhri has at least four walkers aboard this train, plus whatever he's got here in first class," I interrupted her tartly. "Rebekah will have a locked door between her and whatever trouble he feels like making. All I'll have is you and the kwi. Now, come on."

  Glaring at me, her lips pressed tightly together, Bayta stepped silently to my side. Giving the corridor outside a quick check, I led the way out.

  The Modhri was apparently through making trouble for the day Bayta and I made it back to the last third-class car without so much as an odd look from anyone. Not even the four Juri-ani I'd met in the baggage car gave us more than an idle glance as we passed their seats in the last third-class car.

  But then, that was how the Modhri worked his magic puppets. It was entirely possible that all four of them thought they'd been dozing in their seats the whole time they were actually chasing me, and were even now sitting there wondering why they felt so tired and achy.

  Nowhere along the way did we spot the stationmaster.

  We maneuvered through the twisty passageways to the rear of the first baggage car, and I touched the release to open the door into the vestibule. "That's the one," I told Bayta, pointing at the door leading into the next car.

  She stepped in for a closer look, putting one hand against the side of the vestibule for balance. "It looks all right to me," she said.

  "Except that it doesn't open," I said. Reaching past her, I pushed the release to demonstrate.

  And without any fuss whatsoever, the door slid open.

  For a long moment we just stood there, side by side in the cramped space of the vestibule, gazing through the open doorway into another maze of safety-webbed crate islands. "It doesn't open?" Bayta asked at last, her voice flat.

  "Well, it didn't open," I growled as the door reached the end of its timed cycle and slid shut. I reached past Bayta and touched the release, and again the door slid open.

  "I'll take your word for it," Bayta said diplomatically. "Now what?"

  "First thing we do is find our crate," I said. Sliding past her, I stepped into the car and headed down the twisty path. With only a slight hesitation, Bayta followed.

  I'd been wrong. The first thing we found wasn't our crate. The first thing we found, just around the first curve in the pathway, was a pair of Halkas.

  Dead ones.

  "What happened?" Bayta asked, her voice shaking a little as I knelt beside the bodies. No matter how many
times death intruded on our lives, she never seemed to get completely used to it.

  "No obvious marks; no signs of a struggle," I said, lifting one of the victims' heads for a closer look at the eyes and mouth. There was some kind of mucus at the corners of his mouth and eyes, I saw, which probably meant something. Unfortunately, I didn't have the slightest idea what. "Hopefully, some doctor at Jurskala Station will have time for an autopsy."

  "What do you do here, Humans?" a voice demanded from behind me.

  I spun around, jumping back to my feet as I did so. Three of the four Juriani who'd accosted me in the other baggage car were staring down their beaks in obvious horror at the sight before them. "Can I help you?" I asked cautiously.

  The one in front snapped his beak a couple of times, then gestured to the Juri to his right. "Bidran, bring the conductor," he ordered. "Tell him what you have seen. Tell him what these Humans have done."

  The other gulped something and turned, running with complete lack of normal Jurian dignity toward the passenger section of the train. "So, Humans," the spokesman said, his tone dark and ominous and still clearly shaken. "You do not merely come back here to steal. You come back here to murder."

  "It's not what you think," I protested. "We just found them this way."

  "That will be for a court of discovery to decide," the Juri said flatly.

  The kwi tingled in my palm as Bayta activated it. Clearly, she assumed I would want to blast our way out of this.

  But I couldn't. For one thing, the Juriani weren't under Modhran control, not this time. They were—or thought they were—just honest citizens who'd accidentally stumbled on a double murder and wanted to help bring the perps to justice.