by Timothy Zahn
“The passenger’s ticket is the only key.”
“So I’ve heard,” I said. “So unless the thief forced the locks, we arrive at the conclusion that he also absconded with Colix’s key.”
“Before he died?”
“Or afterward,” I said. “Dead people are much less argumentative when you’re going through their pockets.”
Bayta shivered. “Sounds awful,” she murmured.
“It isn’t high on anyone’s pleasant-activities list,” I conceded as I stepped into the half-bath to wash the onion ring breading off my hands. “But there’s still a chance that someone simply broke in. We’ll need to go take a look to be sure.”
“All right,” Bayta said slowly. “But why would anyone want to steal Master Colix’s fruit snacks? You can get things like that in the dining car.”
“Maybe you can’t get his specific brand,” I said. “Or maybe there’s some other reason entirely.” I scratched my head as a sudden ferocious itch ran through my scalp. “But one question at a time. Let’s figure out first how the compartments were opened. Then we can tackle the who and why of it.”
———
My plan was to first check out the late Master Colix’s storage compartments and then hunt down Kennrick to see what, if anything, he’d learned from Witherspoon about heavy-metal poisoning symptoms in Humans.
Like most of my plans these days, this one didn’t survive very long.
We were passing through the last first-class coach when we spotted both Kennrick and Witherspoon. They had pulled up a pair of chairs to face di-Master Strinni. Witherspoon was examining the Shorshian, who was gesturing oddly as he talked in a low voice.
And from Witherspoon’s expression, I could tell something was wrong.
The doctor glanced up as we approached. “Mr. Compton,” he greeted me absently, his mind clearly elsewhere.
“Dr. Witherspoon,” I nodded back. “We having a conference?”
“Not exactly,” Witherspoon said as he peered closely into Strinni’s eyes.
“Di-Master Strinni is feeling strangely stressed and nervous,” Kennrick explained. “He asked the conductor to allow Dr. Witherspoon into first to administer a sedative.”
I eyed Strinni. His muscles were trembling beneath his skin, his breath was coming in short bursts, and his eyes were darting back and forth between the four of us. He certainly looked stressed. “How long before it takes effect?” I asked.
“I haven’t given it to him yet,” Witherspoon said. “This is something more than simple stress.”
I felt my throat tighten. “You mean like—?”
“No,” Witherspoon interrupted, throwing me a warning look under his eyebrows. “The symptoms aren’t right for that.”
“What are they right for?” I countered. “No—never mind. Let’s just get him to the dispensary and see if—”
[No,] Strinni cut me off. His voice was harsh and dark and as shaky as his musculature. [I will not be poisoned by Spider medicine. The Spiders seek to destroy us all. I will not be placed within their metal claws.]
I frowned. Granted that I hadn’t spent more than a few minutes with him before now, such a rabidly anti-Spider attitude was still a surprise. “I’m just suggesting a visit to the diagnostic table,” I said. “They’re Fibibib design, actually—nothing Spider about them.”
[On such a table is where my comrades expired,] Strinni countered. [I do not wish to join them in the silence of death.]
“I’m sure their deaths had nothing to do with the table,” I said, deciding to skip over the fact that Master Bofiv, at least, had died long before he reached the table.
“And we won’t take you there against your wishes,” Kennrick added, his eyes on Witherspoon. “Doctor?”
“I don’t know,” Witherspoon murmured, touching the edge of Strinni’s armpit where the most prominent Shorshic pulse was located. “His pulse is thready, his skin conductivity is bouncing around, and he’s so weak he can barely walk. But what that all adds up to, I don’t know.”
“Seems to me that it’s time for a full-press consultation,” I said. “Let’s get Dr. Aronobal up here and see if she’s got any ideas.”
[No!] Strinni spat before Witherspoon could answer. [I will not be treated by a Filiaelian!]
“I’ve already suggested that Dr. Aronobal be brought in,” Witherspoon told me grimly. “But di-Master Strinni absolutely refuses to see anyone but me.”
[I will not be debased so,] Strinni insisted, his arm flailings widening their range.
“No one will force that on you, di-Master Strinni,” Witherspoon said, holding out his hands. “Please, try to stay calm.”
“We’re just trying to help you,” I added, catching Kennrick’s eye and giving him a questioning frown. Wordlessly, he gave me a helpless shrug. Apparently, Strinni’s freshly exposed bigotry and paranoia was a new one on him, too.
But my attempt at soothing noises had come too late. [You’re with them!] Strinni snarled abruptly, leveling two fingers at my chest. [You serve and obey them!]
And without warning he heaved himself to his feet, knocked Witherspoon sideways out of his chair with a sweep of his right arm, and lunged straight at me.
I did my best to get out of his way. But I was caught flat-footed, my attention still on Kennrick, and standing between Bayta and the next chair over with zero maneuvering room. My only chance was to hack up as fast as I could and hope I could get to a better position before he reached me.
But Strinni was already in motion, and my combat reflexes were sadly out of shape. I’d barely gotten a single step when he slammed into me like a Minneapolis snowplow, his momentum shoving the two of us backward toward whatever bone-wrenching obstacles might be lurking in our path. His big arms wrapped around my back and neck, squeezing my torso and crushing my face against his shoulder. I caught a whiff of something sickly sweet—
Abruptly the bear hug was lifted, and I found myself tottering backward alone. I blinked my eyes to clear them, and found that Strinni had gained two new attachments: Bayta and Kennrick, one of them hanging on to each of his arms like terriers on a bull.
A single sweep of Strinni’s arm had sent Witherspoon to the floor. Assuming Strinni was thinking at all, he was undoubtedly thinking he could shake off his new attackers with similar ease. With a bellow, he bent at the waist, half turning and swinging his arms horizontally like massive windmill blades.
Kennrick managed to hang on for about a quarter turn before he lost his grip and flew two meters across the floor to pile himself against the back of one of the other chairs, eliciting a startled bark from the Fibibib seated there. With one of his arms freed, Strinni now shifted his attention to freeing the other one.
But Bayta was stronger than she looked. She held on stubbornly as Strinni swung his arm and torso ponderously back and forth. I got my balance back, grabbed a quick lungful of air, and headed back toward the melee.
Only to be brought up short as a Filly forearm appeared out of nowhere to bar my way. “That is no way to behave toward one who is ill,” the alien chided as he glared down a distinctive rose-colored blaze at me. His skin was flushed, his pupils wide with too much alcohol or excitement or both, “He must he treated with respect and care.”
“You want to try respect and care, be my guest,” I bit out, trying to push his arm out of the way.
But Rose Nose was as determined as I was, and I still didn’t have all my wind back. For a couple of seconds we struggled, him still spouting platitudes, me trying very hard not to simply haul off and slug him.
It was just as well that I didn’t. The Filly’s delay meant that Kennrick recovered his balance and got back to Strinni before I did.
Which meant that it was Kennrick, not me, who caught a swinging Shorshic forearm squarely across the left side of his rib cage.
There was too much noise for me to hear the crack of breaking ribs, if there actually was such a crack. But even over Strinni’s paranoid gaspings and
Rose Nose’s admonitions I had no trouble hearing Kennrick’s strangled grunt as the arm sent him flying across the room again. He slammed hard into the floor, and this time he didn’t get up.
But his sacrifice hadn’t been for nothing. The rest of the car’s passengers had finally broken out of their stunned disbelief at Strinni’s bizarre attack, and even as I continued to struggle with my self-appointed Filly protector a Juri and a Tra’ho moved in from opposite sides and tackled the berserk Shorshian.
Even then Strinni didn’t give up. Still ranting, he continued to stomp around the floor, trying to throw off his attackers the way he’d disposed of Kennrick. But Bayta was still hanging on, and neither the Juri or Tra’ho was giving way, either, and Strinni began to stagger as he burned through his adrenaline-fueled energy reserves.
And then Witherspoon was on his feet again behind the clump of people, reaching past Bayta’s head to jab a hypo into the back of Strinni’s neck.
For another few seconds Strinni didn’t react, but kept up his bizarre unchoreographed four-person waltz. I finally got past my guardian Filly and headed in, balling my hands into fists as I aimed for a couple of pressure points in the Shorshian’s thighs that ought to drop him once and for all.
But even as I cocked my fists for a one-two punch, Witherspoon’s concoction finally reached Strinni’s motor control center. His legs wobbled and then collapsed beneath him, and he and the others fell into a tangled heap.
I looked at Witherspoon. “If this is so weak he can barely walk,” I said, still panting, “I’d hate to see what frisky looks like.”
“We need to get him to the dispensary,” Witherspoon said grimly. He was breathing a little heavily himself. “Can I get some help in lifting?”
“No need,” Bayta said, pushing herself out of the pile and getting carefully to her feet.
I looked toward the rear of the car. A pair of conductor Spiders had emerged from the vestibule and were hurriedly tapping their way toward us. “Everyone off and out of the way,” I ordered. “The Spiders can carry him.”
“He doesn’t like Spiders,” Rose Nose reminded me. With the excitement over, his eyes were starting to calm down.
“He’s unconscious,” I reminded him. “I won’t tell if you don’t.”
From across the room came a rumbling groan. I looked in that direction to see Kennrick pulling himself carefully up from the floor, one hand on the nearest chair armrest, the other pressed against his side where Strinni’s arm had slammed into him. “You okay?” I asked, stepping over to offer him a hand.
“Oh, sure—I do this every day,” he gritted out. “What the hell was that all about?”
“You tell me,” I said, looking back as the two Spiders picked up the unconscious Strinni, each of them using three of their seven legs to form a sort of wraparound hammock. “This sort of thing happen often?”
“If it does, it’s been the galaxy’s best-kept secret.” He winced as I helped him the rest of the way to his feet. “I’ve never heard di-Master Strinni even raise his voice in an argument.”
“Except maybe with Spiders or Filiaelians,” I said, easing Kennrick to the side as the Spiders maneuvered their burden past us toward the forward vestibule and the dispensary four cars ahead.
“Well, that was just plain crazy,” Kennrick said firmly. “We have four Filiaelians right here on his contract team. Ow!”
“Sorry,” I apologized. “How bad is it?”
“Like I’ve been kicked by a cow.” He smiled wanly. “And I worked summers on a dairy firm, so I know exactly what that feels like.”
“You need help getting to the dispensary?” I asked. Bayta was disappearing through the vestibule door, and I could see Witherspoon’s shock of white hair just in front of her. “I can get a Spider if you want.”
“No, I can make it.” he said. “Just give me a hand.”
“Sure,” I said, getting an arm around his shoulders. “Easy, now.”
“You see?” Rose Nose said sagely as we passed him. “I said that was no way to behave toward one who is ill.”
“Thanks,” I said. “I’ll try to remember that.”
SEVEN
Three of Kennrick’s ribs had been slightly cracked in the fight, fortunately not badly enough to require a cast or even a wrap. His side apparently hurt like hell, though. Witherspoon gave him a bottle of QuixHeals and another bottle of painkillers and ordered a regimen of rest and sleep. Kennrick allowed that he could probably manage that and toddled off toward his compartment.
Strinni’s case, unfortunately, wasn’t nearly so easy to fix.
“I’ve run the blood scan twice,” Witherspoon said as he gazed down at the Shorshian now securely strapped to the diagnostic table. “We’ve got not one, but two different poisons that have invaded his system. The first is a relative of printimpolivre-bioxene, which the analyzer lists as a sort of combination hallucinogen and paranoic.”
“That certainly fits his performance just now,” I agreed. “Is that the sickly-sweet odor I caught when he was trying to crush in my ribs?”
“Probably.” Witherspoon’s throat tightened. “The other poison appears to be a heavy metal. Probably the same cadmium that killed his two colleagues.”
“How surprising.” I murmured. “Are we in time to do something about this one?”
“I don’t know,” Witherspoon said. “I’ve got him on a double dose of Castan’s Binder, which should be able to bond to the metal still in his bloodstream. But if too much has already gotten into his deep tissues—” He shook his head.
I looked at Bayta. She was gazing down at Strinni’s closed eyes, absently massaging her right wrist. “Bayta, is there anything the Spiders can do?” I asked.
“Nothing that Dr. Witherspoon isn’t already doing,” she said. “I was just wondering if we should wake him up. Maybe he knows who did this to him.”
“That would definitely explain why they slipped him a Mickey,” I agreed.
“A Mickey?” Witherspoon asked, frowning.
“A Mickey Finn,” I explained. “Knockout drops, usually.”
“Yes, I’m familiar with the term,” Witherspoon growled. “But I’m the one who gave him the sedative.”
“I was referring to the hallucinogen,” I said. “Maybe the poisoner was afraid di-Master Strinni knew something important, so he made him go berserk in the hope that we’d go ahead and knock him out ourselves, thereby saving himself the trouble.”
“I suppose that’s possible,” Witherspoon said. “One problem: I believe printimpolivre-bioxene is on the Spiders’ prohibited list.”
I looked at Bayta. “Is it?”
“All hallucinogenic chemicals are supposed to be there,” she confirmed. “Unless it was already in di-Master Strinni’s system, it shouldn’t have gotten past the sensor screening.”
“It definitely wasn’t in his system,” Witherspoon said. “Like the heavy-metal poisoning, printimpolivre-bioxene’s effects would have shown up very quickly. Within hours, most likely. Certainly long before the two weeks we’ve been traveling.”
“This is starting to sound like a locked-door murder mystery,” I said. “So what about Bayta’s suggestion that we wake him up?”
“I don’t know,” Witherspoon said, rubbing his shoulder where Strinni’s first attack had landed. “I’d prefer to let him just sleep off the sedative instead of adding another chemical to the mix that his system’s already dealing with. Besides, until his kidney-primes are able to oxidize the printimpolivre-bioxene and flush it from his system, he’d most likely just wake up into the same frenzied state he was in before.”
Which would make anything we did get out of him fairly useless. “How long before that happens?”
Witherspoon shrugged. “Three hours. Maybe four.”
“We’ll come back then,” I said, taking Bayta’s arm. “If his condition changes, or you need anything, just tell the Spider.”
“And the word will somehow magically get back to you.”
Witherspoon commented, glancing at the server standing silently by the drug cabinet. “Yes, Dr. Aronobal told me you two seem to have an interesting relationship with them.”
“We travel a lot,” I said, steering Bayta toward the dispensary door.
“I don’t believe that any more than Aronobal does,” Witherspoon said, peering closely at us. “But it’s not really any of my business, I suppose.”
“You suppose correctly,” I agreed. “See you later.”
We headed out into the corridor. “Where are we going?” Bayta asked as I turned us toward the front of the train. “I thought you wanted to look at Master Colix’s storage compartments.”
“I do,” I said. “But first we both need to get something in our stomachs.”
She looked sideways at me. “Yours bothering you, too?”
“Yes, but that could just be the onion rings,” I said. “I gather you’re still running at half speed?”
“It’s not that bad,” she assured me. “Besides, I already told you that I had something to eat.”
“A whole vegetable roll,” I said, nodding. “And that after having missed breakfast and lunch.”
“The vegetable roll was lunch.”
“I’ve had Quadrail vegetable rolls,” I reminded her. “Those are appetizers, not meals. If you really don’t want to eat anything, fine. But at least come keep me company.”
“All right,” she said reluctantly. Maybe she was wondering about the propriety of stuffing our faces while Strinni was in the dispensary dying of cadmium poisoning.
But my gut was rumbling something fierce, and I needed to get something down there to keep it busy. Whether she thought so or not. Bayta probably needed something, too.
The main section of the dining car was mostly empty when we arrived. That wasn’t particularly surprising, since we were between the normal lunch and dinner hours and most of the passengers were elsewhere reading, chatting, playing games, or watching dit rec dramas and comedies.
The bar end of the car, in contrast, was packed with passengers, some having pre-dinner drinks, others possibly not yet finished with their lunchtime libations. I glanced in through the smoked plastic dividers as we entered the dining section, just as glad we weren’t going to try to get a table in there.
