by Timothy Zahn
But in that case why was I still alive? Surely the Modhri wouldn’t have tried to run me off the train and then had second thoughts about it. Would he? I stared at the engine chugging along ahead of me …
And then, suddenly, I had it. It hadn’t been the Modhri, after all.
It had been something far worse.
I don’t know how long I laid there. Long enough to start thinking again, anyway, and to remember my priorities. Rubbing my neck, I crawled up onto the car and made my way to the front.
The engine didn’t have a convenient vestibule to crawl down onto, but there was a wide connector fastening it to the rest of the Quadrail with plenty of hand- and footholds along the way. Moving carefully, I climbed down, stepped across the connector, and made it onto the back of the engine itself. The cab door, fortunately, faced the rear. I tried it, found it unlocked, and went inside.
I was waiting there, the big oxygen tank set up and ready to go in one of the front corners, when Bayta arrived.
“Whew!” she said as she climbed inside the cab and collapsed onto the floor beside the tank. “I’ve never been on top of one of these before. Not nearly as bad as I was afraid it would be. Don’t open that tank yet—the compartment doesn’t have an airlock.”
“Yes, I know,” I said. “You okay?”
“Yes, I’m fine,” she assured me. “Why, don’t I sound all right?”
“You sound nervous,” I told her. “You’re talking a blue streak, and you never do that.”
“I’m just tired,” she said quickly. Too quickly. “Too many emotional tumbles in the past hour.”
“Uh-huh,” I said. “As long as we have this moment alone together, let me ask you something. Back in the baggage car, after McMicking got hit by the coral, you said you couldn’t do anything to help him.”
Her eyes skittered guiltily away from mine. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry yet,” I warned. “To be precise, what you said was that the Spiders couldn’t do anything. You never said whether or not you could.”
“I don’t know what you mean,” she said carefully.
“Yes, you do,” I said. “You recovered from YirTukOo’s attack a lot faster than any of us expected. Including him.”
Her eyes had gone very still above her mask. “I’m not a Modhran walker, Frank,” she said, her voice steady.
“No, you’re not,” I agreed. “You’re one of the ones fighting the Modhri, as well as controlling the Spiders and the Quadrail and, apparently, pretty much the whole galaxy.” I lifted my eyebrows. “And I’m guessing both you and the Modhri came from something of the same stock. Tell me I’m wrong.”
For a long minute she just gazed at me. Fleetingly, I wished I could have waited until we’d had a room full of air, when I could have seen more of her face and maybe had a clue as to what she was thinking. But the cab was too small to provide any privacy, and I definitely didn’t want McMicking and Losutu in on this conversation. “What do you want?” she asked at last.
“I want your people to clean the polyps out of McMicking,” I said. “And I want to talk to one of your leaders and get the whole story about what’s going on here.”
She shook her head. “I can’t do that.”
“You have to,” I said, letting my voice harden. “Because I know your secret, Bayta. I know what you’ve been doing. And I think I know why, but I want to hear it from someone in charge.”
The lines around her eyes crinkled, and I pictured a wan smile beneath the mask. “You ask an awful lot, Frank Compton.”
“That’s because I have a lot to give,” I said. “Because I also know the secret the Modhri just killed a trainful of people to protect.”
She straightened up. “You know where his new homeland is?”
“I know where it is, how it got there, and maybe even how to destroy it.” I ducked my head to look out the viewport set into the cab door. “And you’ve got until the others get here to make your decision,” I added. “Yes, or no?”
She turned to look out the viewport, too. “All right,” she said at last. “But we can’t take the whole train there.”
“Then cut it loose,” I said. “Everyone aboard is dead anyway, remember? It might even be easier for the Spiders if the thing just disappears, with no bodies around to ask unpleasant questions about.”
She gave me a sharp look. But the sharpness faded, and she nodded reluctantly. “You’re right,” she said with a sigh. “What about Losutu and McMicking? What are you going to tell them?”
“Nothing,” I assured her. “Don’t worry, I can handle them. Where are you planning to take us?”
“You’ve asked to speak to the Chahwyn,” she said, bowing her head formally. “I’ll take you to our home.”
“Oh. Good,” I said, suppressing a shiver. So I’d been right about her. I’d rather hoped I’d been wrong. “They just better not be clear across the galaxy. I don’t think either McMicking or the facilities here are geared up for a long trip.”
“They’re very close,” she assured me, getting to her feet. “Let’s see if the others need any help.”
Losutu and McMicking were pretty worn out by the time we helped them maneuver the Spider into the cab. But their mood brightened considerably once we got the area pressurized and they could finally take their masks off.
It brightened even more when I told them where we were going.
“But I thought Bayta said there wasn’t anything they could do for me,” McMicking said, eyeing her suspiciously. “If this is some sort of soothey-smiley game, forget it.”
“It’s no game,” I assured him. “But it comes with a promise of secrecy.” I looked at Losutu. “On both your parts. The Spiders insist on it.”
“Understood, and promise given,” Losutu said gravely. “What about you?”
“Bayta and I have some strategy sessions to attend,” I said. “Among other things, there’s going to be hell to pay when that train out there vanishes into the mists with all aboard.”
“What do you mean?” Losutu asked, stiffening. “You can’t just—”
“They’re all dead, Director,” McMicking said.
Losutu’s lips compressed, but he just nodded. “Of course,” he murmured. “How will you do it?”
“It’s already done,” I said, glancing out the viewport at the rest of the train, decoupled now and falling slowly away behind us. Something about that glance belatedly caught my attention, and I turned back for a second look.
There, on top of the first car, was the lone figure of a Halka, standing straight and tall as he watched us pull away. His flat face was half covered by his oxygen mask, but his red/orange/purple Peerage robes were unmistakable as they flapped gently in the breeze.
And as I watched, I saw him lift his fist defiantly in our direction. JhanKla, High Commissioner of the Halkas, Modhran walker, and undisputed master of the engineless train that was even now coasting its way toward a silent, lonely death between the stars.
I wished him the joy of his victory.
TWENTY-THREE
We never actually made it to Homshil Station. Bayta took us onto a siding that had been shown on her private map, and from there onto another line that was definitively not on the map.
The hours passed slowly. The engine cab hadn’t been designed to hold more than a couple of Spiders at a time, and four human bodies pretty much filled the available space. Fortunately, after what we’d just been through, none of us felt much like exercise anyway. Mostly we sat or lay around, dozing when we could, conversing only occasionally.
Sometime in the first three hours, our rescued Spider quietly died. Bayta sat silently after that, wrapped in her own thoughts, not speaking to anyone even when spoken to.
I was just starting to worry about such things as food, water, and bathroom facilities when we arrived.
“Mr. McMicking will be taken to a facility here in the station for treatment,” Bayta informed us as the engine rolled to a stop in what I was
coming to recognize as a standard Quadrail siding. “Director Losutu will accompany him. You will stay with him at all times, and not attempt to leave,” she added, leveling a gaze at Losutu. “Is that understood?”
“Yes,” he said calmly. “Am I permitted to ask any questions?”
“Ask as many as you wish,” she said. “Most of them won’t be answered. Mr. Compton: Come with me.”
She turned and opened the cab door, and I felt a small twinge. Mr. Compton. After all the hell and fury we’d just been through, it was suddenly back to Mr. Compton. A not-so-subtle signal that I shouldn’t have forced her to bring us here?
Maybe. Still, her people couldn’t afford to kill me. Not yet.
There were eight Spiders waiting outside, two of them drudges and the rest the unknown class I’d first seen when Bayta took me to see Hermod. Two of the latter detached themselves from the group and led us fifty meters across the siding to a red-rimmed hatchway. It opened as we reached it, and Bayta led the way down the steps into a small shuttle.
“Do I get to know where we are?” I asked as we took seats in front of a bank of displays, labeled with markings consisting mostly of nested curves. There were no actual controls I could see; Spiders and Chahwyn alike apparently ran their various gadgets via telepathy.
“Would the system’s name tell you anything?” Bayta countered as the hatchway above us closed and we dropped away from the Tube.
“Probably not,” I conceded. There was a click, and all around us cabin panels irised open into viewports.
It was a typical starscape, the kind you could see from any of a thousand systems across the galaxy. In the center of our view was a small star, mostly white but with a strange greenish tinge. “Welcome to Viccai,” Bayta said, pointing toward a dark circle with a bright edge directly ahead. “It means ‘hope’ in our language.”
“I take it this isn’t your people’s original home?”
“No, we moved here after the Great Revolt, after we and the Spiders built the Tube,” she said. “There was no other life here, and no worlds anyone could ever want or use. It was the safest place we could be.”
“You might be surprised at what Humans want,” I said. “Whether or not we can actually use it.”
She shrugged. “Perhaps.”
“Trust me,” I assured her. “How long ago was this Great Revolt?”
“Sixteen hundred years,” she said. “But that’s a subject better left to the Elders.”
“I suppose,” I said, frowning as another piece fell into place. “The messenger who brought me my Quadrail ticket was another one like you, wasn’t he?”
“Yes,” she said, and I could hear the quiet pain in her voice. “We were sent to Earth to bring you to Hermod. He went off to meet you, while I made preparations at the skyport. We were supposed to all ride out to the Quadrail together.” She closed her eyes briefly. “And then you showed up at the skyport alone, and I didn’t have time to try to find him before I had to leave with you.”
“I’m sorry,” I said. “If it helps any, there was probably nothing you could have done to save him. If you’d been there, it would have been two of you dead instead of one.”
“I know that.” She took a deep breath, let it out tiredly. “But all the logic and reason in the world doesn’t help when someone was your friend.”
I turned away. “I’ll take your word for it.”
I could feel her eyes on me. “You have friends, Frank,” she said. “Or at least, they’re there if you want them.”
“I’ll take your word for it,” I said again, a little more brusquely this time. I didn’t need her sympathy. “So how exactly does the Modhri fit into all this?”
“The Elders will explain,” she said. “They’re the ones who best know the history.” She hesitated. “And they’re the only ones who can make bargains with you,” she added. “If they choose to do so.”
The planet Viccai, when we reached it, was every bit as cold and dark and cheerless as it had looked from a distance. If this was the Chahwyn’s idea of hope, I decided as we flew over the bleak landscape, I’d hate to see what they considered depressing.
But like Bayta herself, things here were not exactly as they seemed. We touched down, and even before Bayta had finished shutting off the systems the landing area began to sink into the ground. Within a few minutes we’d reached a subterranean city filled with lights and music and strange but pleasant aromas. Bayta led me to a nearby building and into a small room with sculpted walls and a ceiling designed to look like a normal daytime sky, complete with drifting clouds and a bright yellow sun. In the center of the room were nine chairs arranged in an inward-facing triangle.
“Sit there,” Bayta told me, pointing to one of the corner chairs as she sat down in one of the others. “The Elder who will speak to you is coming.”
The words were barely out of her mouth when a door I hadn’t noticed opened in the wall behind the third corner of the triangle and a single figure wearing soft shoes and an elaborately draped toga sort of robe strode in to join us.
I had been expecting some sort of alien being, something never before seen by mortal man. To my surprise and vague disappointment, the Elder was as human as the kid next door. He was of average height and build, with brown hair and eyes and a calm, almost beatific expression. “Good day, Frank Compton,” he said, inclining his head as he stepped into the triangle and seated himself in the third corner. His voice was as melodious as that of a trained Shakespearean actor. “Welcome to Viccai.”
“Thank you,” I said. Very Human … but not quite Human enough. Now, with a more careful look, I could see the vagueness of the details around his lips and ears, the false way the wrinkles at his eyes and mouth fell into place, the slight misjointedness of his wrists and fingers as he settled his hands into his lap. “But please,” I added. “Don’t go to all this trouble just for me.”
The Elder inclined his head. “Hermod was right,” he said. “You were indeed an excellent choice.” He smiled; and as he did so his skin seemed to melt, the facial features smoothing out, the fingers and arms thinning and lengthening. Most of the brown hair flattened and slid back out of sight beneath the flesh, while a handful of the tufts above the eyes stretched out into clusters of catlike whiskers.
And when the transformation was finished, he was every bit as alien as I had first expected.
“Thank you,” he said. Oddly enough, his voice was still melodious. Probably he’d decided to keep whatever adjustments he’d made to his vocal system. “It is so very difficult to maintain an unfamiliar form.” He gestured two bony fingers toward Bayta. “Which is why it was necessary to have genuine Humans to walk among you.”
“Bayta said you would tell me about the Modhri,” I said, deciding to let that one pass for the moment.
The Elder nodded. “The story begins four thousand years ago, with the rise of a race called the Shonkla-raa,” he said. “It was they who first discovered the secret of interstellar travel and began expanding their influence across the galaxy. Within fourteen hundred years they had mapped out the locations of all inhabited and inhabitable systems and begun a thousand years of conquest.” He paused. “I’m told you claim to know their secret.”
“I know your secret,” I told him. “I can only assume it’s the same as theirs.”
The Elder inclined his head. “Tell me.”
They couldn’t afford to kill me, I reminded myself firmly. “In a nutshell, your glorious Quadrail is a fraud,” I said. “The whole thing: the trains with their intriguingly mysterious fourth rail, the fancy laser connections bouncing off the front bumpers, even the big light show from the Coreline. It’s nothing but a carefully arranged set of window dressing designed to misdirect and obscure what’s really going on.”
The Elder had gone very still. “Which is?”
“That it’s nothing but the Coreline,” I said. “There’s something inside that fancy packaging that makes the whole thing work. Some kind of quan
tum thread, I’d guess—I don’t know enough physics to even take a stab as to what kind. The point is that once you’re in motion, the closer you get to the Coreline the faster you move. Quadrails move at a light-year per minute; information cylinders, which I gather get somehow kicked up onto that mesh framework around the Coreline, go a hell of a lot faster.”
I looked at Bayta. “You saw it, didn’t you? My accidental hop, when I was briefly disconnected from direct contact with the Quadrail. Even a fraction of a centimeter closer to the Coreline sent me leapfrogging nine cars ahead before I came back down.”
She nodded soberly. “I was hoping you wouldn’t realize what had happened.”
“So it’s true,” the Elder said, a strange melancholy in his voice. “The secret is lost.”
“Well, no, not necessarily,” I cautioned him. “There’s no reason that information has to leave this room. Because I think I also know why you went to all this trouble in the first place.” I waved a hand out toward the stars. “Back on the Quadrail, the Modhri tried to spin me a nice little spindrift about how he wanted peace for the galaxy. You Chahwyn, on the other hand, have actually done something to create it.”
“We had no choice,” the Elder said in a low voice. “We’d seen what uncontrolled access to the Thread led to. The Shonkla-raa were conquerors, arrogant and violent. Once they gained control of the Thread and learned how to ravel bits of it off to other star systems, there was no stopping them. They built huge warships and sent them rushing between worlds, dominating or destroying all other life.”
“So what finally stopped them?” I frowned as a sudden thought struck me. “Or is the Modhri the Shonkla-raa?”
The Elder’s eye-ridge tufts quivered. “Not at all,” he said. “The Modhri was merely the Shonkla-raa’s final weapon.”
Weapon. The word hung in the air for a moment like a scattering of black dust. I looked at Bayta, back at the Elder. “Maybe we’d better take this from the top.”
