by Timothy Zahn
Another pause as they again communed with each other. If defenders were the Chahwyn’s attempt to create Spiders with quick minds and the ability to take the initiative, I reflected, they still had a long way to go. “The nearest is three hours away,” Sarge reported.
“That should do,” I said. “When we hit the Crosshatch, bring the tender up alongside—let’s see—alongside the door into the center compartment car. Kennrick’s compartment is on the opposite side, so he won’t spot it.”
“Other passengers may notice its passage,” Sarge warned.
“Not if they’re all watching dit rec dramas at the time,” I said. “But you’re right. We’ll have the conductors opaque any open display windows before you move the tender, just to be on the safe side.” I braced myself. “Now we need an update from the inside. Can you get in contact with Bayta?”
Sarge seemed to straighten a little on his metallic legs. “Frank?” Bayta’s voice came.
I jumped. I’d never even heard of Spiders being able to do that. Something new the Chahwyn had come up with for their defenders? “Bayta? Is that you?” I called.
“Yes,” Sarge said, still in Bayta’s voice. “I hope things look better out there than they do in here.”
“I’m working on it,” I assured her. “Can you see where the other ends of your nooses are connected?”
“One’s attached to the door, the other to the curve couch,” she reported. “Both are running through pulley systems, so that if the door opens or the couch collapses into the divider …” She left the sentence unfinished.
“Understood,” I said quickly. I didn’t want to dwell on the consequences, either. “Is there any way to get to the wires from outside the room? Maybe open the door or divider just far enough to send in a mite with wire cutters?”
“No,” the response came immediately. “Opening the door at all will kill me. And the divider can only be opened about as far as it was earlier.”
Which hadn’t left enough of a gap for a mite to squeeze through. I wondered briefly about the even smaller twitters, but quickly abandoned the thought. Twitters were delicate creatures, designed for electronics repair and assembly, and I doubted they would have the strength to carry and operate something as big and heavy as wire cutters. “How about the ceiling?” I asked. “We’ve still got almost two hours’ worth of Spiders and moving passengers thudding around. Could the mites disassemble their way through enough of the ceiling so that they could get the rest of the way through later tonight while Kennrick’s asleep?”
“Two hours wouldn’t be nearly enough time,” Bayta said. “Besides, I think he’s put sensors up there. There are six lumps of what looks like clay attached to parts of the ceiling and wired into his reader.”
“Gray-colored clay?”
“Dark gray, yes.”
“They’re sensors, all right,” I confirmed. “Certainly audio, possibly motion, too. There are six, you say?”
“Yes, with four more lined up by the door,” Bayta said. “From the lengths of their wires, I’d guess he’s planning to put them out into the corridor after everyone’s left.”
I grimaced. The man had definitely thought this through. “Anything else?”
“He’s been stretching more wires like the ones around my neck over the floor,” she said. “I think they’re all just fastened to the walls, but I can’t be completely sure.”
“Probably just window dressing,” I told her. “The more wires he loads the room with, the harder it’ll be for us to know which ones we have to cut. Anything else?”
“I don’t know what it means,” Bayta said slowly, “but he’s brought in the oxygen repressurization tank from our car.”
I frowned. Every Quadrail car came equipped with a self-contained and self-controlled supply/scrubber/regulator system as an emergency backstop against a sudden loss of air pressure. Bayta and I had used them ourselves on occasion. “What’s he thinking, that we’re going to try to gas him?”
“I don’t know,” Bayta said. “He also spent a few minutes earlier cutting into the end of his ticket. Not the key end, but the other end—”
“You talking to Compton?” Sarge interrupted himself.
Only now his voice was Kennrick’s.
A shiver ran up my back. I could understand why the Chahwyn might have thought it a good idea to design their new Spiders to channel voices as well as words. But reasonable or not, it was definitely on the north end of creepy.
“If you are, be sure to tell him about the sensors on the ceiling,” Kennrick’s voice continued. “I don’t think he’d be stupid enough to try to get those little mite Spiders digging in from that direction, but better to err on the cautious side. Oh, and ask him how the evacuation’s going.”
“Frank?” Bayta’s voice came back anxiously. “What do I do?”
“Go ahead and tell him,” I said. “He already knows you can communicate with the Spiders. Don’t mention the defenders, though.”
“All right.”
Sarge’s mimicry shifted tone, presumably indicating that his relay had changed from Bayta’s thoughts to her verbal conversation with Kennrick. I listened with half an ear as she described how the passengers were being moved and listed how many were left to go.
“Sounds like it’s under control,” Kennrick said when she’d finished. “Just remind Compton that he needs to be back here in exactly—let’s see—one hour and forty minutes. If he’s not, the doors close and you’re going to be mighty hungry by the time we get to Venidra Carvo.”
“I’ll tell him,” Bayta’s voice came back. “Frank?” she said, Sarge’s tone again shifting as she switched back to telepathy. “Did you hear all that?”
“Yes, thanks,” I told her. “Overconfident SOB, isn’t he?”
“What do you want me to do?”
“For now, just try to relax,” I said. “And keep me informed as to what he’s doing.”
“All right.” There was a brief pause. “Frank …if it doesn’t look like it’s going to work out …”
“It’s going to work out,” I interrupted. “You just relax, okay? I’ll come up with something.”
“I’ll try,” she said. “Thank you.”
Sarge fell silent. As he did so, the other defender stirred. “One of the conductors has been asked how long the passengers will need to remain out of their compartments,” he relayed.
I stared out my compartment’s display window at the dull landscape of the Tube racing past, illuminated only by the coruscating glow of the Coreline above us and the faint light from our train’s own windows. Over two weeks to go before we reached Venidra Carvo. Over two weeks for Bayta to be trapped with a murderer.
I looked back at the defenders. Their white-dotted silver globes didn’t carry the faintest hint of an expression, but there was something about the way they were standing, something in their stance and stillness, that conveyed an unpleasant mixture of determination and ruthlessness.
The defenders weren’t going to let Bayta spend two weeks as Kennrick’s prisoner, either. The only question was whether I would come up with a plan to free her, or they would.
And which of our plans would get her through this alive.
“Compton?” Sarge prompted.
I took a deep breath. “Tell them six hours,” I said. “One way or another, they’ll be back in their compartments in six hours.”
TWENTY-ONE
Precisely two hours after being dismissed from Minnario’s compartment, I was back.
“Right on time,” Kennrick said approvingly as I came up to the narrow gap he’d again opened in the divider wall. “Excellent. All that Westali training, no doubt. You have your friend’s rations?”
“Right here,” I said, peering through the gap as I held up the package for him to see. He was back to his earlier cross-legged posture on the bed, this time with his reader propped up on the pillow beside him.
Bayta, in contrast, was now lying on her back on the floor with her fe
et toward me, the blanket covering her from neck to ankles, her head resting on the pillow. Her face was under control, but I could see the low-level nervousness beneath it. I also noted that there were now three loops of wire around her neck instead of two.
When Bayta had said Kennrick was stringing new lengths of wire around the room, she’d definitely been understating the case. The place was full of the damn stuff, most of it crisscrossing the room at shin height. Half a dozen of the wires ran over Bayta’s torso and legs, while the rest were arranged in front of the door and divider. Even if none of them were actually attached to Bayta’s neck loops, making a mad dash across the room to wring Kennrick’s neck was now out of the question.
“You like the new arrangement?” Kennrick asked.
“Looks like the hobby room of a tall-ship model maker,” I said. “Listen, the gap here is too small to fit the package through. Can you open it up a bit?”
“I could,” he said consideringly. “But it would be a bit tricky for her to eat with a sliced throat, don’t you think?”
I grimaced. “How about I open the package and send them through individually?”
“How about you do that,” he agreed. “Only be careful where they land.”
Tearing open the package, I started dropping the bars through the gap, making sure to miss all the wires. “I hope you’re not going to try to tell me all of those are connected to Bayta.”
“Some of them might be,” he said. “Others might be holding back other lines, so that her throat only remains intact if you leave them alone. Just in case you were thinking about sending in some twitters with instructions to cut everything in sight.”
“I wasn’t,” I assured him. “Look, Kennrick—”
“Hey, you have to see this,” he interrupted, reaching down to the bed beside him and picking up a flat piece of dull gray metal. “Especially since you asked about it earlier. This is part of the stiffening frame for my larger carrybag. Watch.”
Picking up his multitool, he used the needle-nosed pliers to get a grip on the corner of the plate. He pulled carefully to the side; and, to my amazement, a thin wire began to peel away from the metal. “Isn’t that cool?” he asked, continuing to pull wire from the plate until he’d reached the full extension of his arm. “It’s called knitted-metal something-or-other. The stuff’s perfectly solid and perfectly innocent until you need to garrote someone.” He smiled. “I’ll bet Mr. Hardin didn’t give you toys like this.”
“I wouldn’t have taken them if he had,” I said. “Kennrick, we may have some trouble here. Another side has joined the game.”
“What, Esantra Worrbin’s making threatening noises again on behalf of the Assembly?” he asked contemptuously.
“This has nothing to do with the passengers,” I said. “It has to do with the Spiders.”
“The Spiders are making threatening noises?”
“I’m not joking,” I growled. “There’s a new class of Spider that’s just come on line. They’re called defenders, and they’re like nothing you’ve ever seen before.”
“I’ll be sure to watch out for them,” Kennrick promised solemnly. “Along with the ogres and hobgoblins that have also been hiding aboard since we left Homshil. Really, Compton. I was hoping for something a little more imaginative.”
“Two of them came aboard an hour ago from a tender that’s pulled up behind us,” I went on doggedly. “Up to now, my experience with defenders has mostly consisted of being slammed up against a wall by one of them. They’re strong, they’re smart, they’re aggressive, and they’re not going to let you walk off this train. Not alive.”
I shifted my eyes to Bayta. “And unlike me, they don’t particularly care whether you die alone or with company.”
For a long moment Kennrick studied my face. “Okay, I’ll play along,” he said. “Let’s assume I’m sufficiently scared. What do you suggest I do next?”
“I suggest we get the hell off this train,” I said. “I suggest you and Bayta and I get aboard that tender, turn it around, and head back toward Homshil.”
“All three of us, you say?” Kennrick asked. “Interesting.”
“You and I can’t operate the tender,” I explained. “Bayta can. But you’ll need me as a hostage to guarantee her cooperation.”
“As well as guaranteeing a much more exciting ride, I assume?”
“You can tie me up for the whole trip if you want,” I said. “The point is that we have to get you off this train while we still can.”
“I’ll take it under advisement,” Kennrick said. “You about done with those?”
I flipped through the last of the ration bars. “Yes.”
“And the passengers are out of all three compartment cars?” he asked. “Except for you, of course.”
“Yes, everyone’s out.”
“Good.” Unfolding his legs, Kennrick got up from the bed. “See, here’s what I’m more concerned about at the moment than imaginary attack Spiders: the question of what you’re going to do when I close down that divider.”
“I leave the car like you told me to,” I said, frowning. “Why?”
“Don’t be naive, Compton,” he said, picking his way carefully between the wires as he walked toward me. “And don’t assume I am, either.”
“You can unfasten the wire from the door and watch me go,” I suggested.
“You mean open the door and discover to my chagrin that you’re standing right outside ready to punch me in the throat?” he countered. “No, thanks.”
He came to a stop just out of arm’s reach. “So let me explain how this is going to work.” He held up a small object. “This is the electric motor from my shaver,” he said. “I’m going to use it to rig up a device that’ll automatically strangle Bayta after a preprogrammed number of seconds or minutes.”
I felt my stomach tighten. “You don’t need to do that,” I said.
“Ah, but I do,” he countered. “You see, once you’ve gone I’m going to go through all three cars with the infrared sensor in my reader, and it’s a very good sensor. If I get even a hint that you or someone else is hiding in one of the compartments, I’ll come straight back here and make sure Ms. Bayta regrets your stupidity.”
“You kill her and you’ll have lost your hostage,” I warned.
“Oh, I wouldn’t kill her,” he assured me. “Not right away. I’d probably start by slicing off the end of a finger or two. I’m assuming she’s strong enough not to succumb to shock, but of course I don’t know that for sure.”
I took a deep breath. “Anything else?”
“Two things.” He dug into his pocket and pulled out his ticket, and I saw it was sliced about halfway through. “Point one: note the tear,” he went on. “If you or anyone else tries to jump me while I’m outside my compartment, all I have to do is tear it the rest of the way through and it becomes useless as a key. You might be able to put it back together, but not before the automatic strangler kicks in.”
“You don’t have to belabor the point, Kennrick,” I said. “I recognize that you’ve thought this whole thing through very carefully.”
“Good,” he said. “Point two …”
Without warning he turned halfway around, bringing the kwi on his right hand to bear on Bayta. His thumb pressed the switch, and Bayta’s eyes rolled up and closed as her body went limp.
Before I could react, Kennrick had swung back to face me. “Point two is I don’t want her giving you a running commentary on what I’m doing,” he said conversationally. “Good-bye, Compton.”
I lifted my gaze from Bayta to Kennrick’s face. “Goodbye, Kennrick,” I said. “Don’t forget what I said about the defenders.”
He was still smiling as he touched the control on the wall, closing the divider in front of me.
Sarge was waiting just inside the rear door of the last compartment car. “She is unconscious,” he said in his flat Spider voice. “Why is she unconscious?”
So much for my hope that Bayta had been
faking. But then, she could hardly have done anything else. There were ways of telling if someone was truly unconscious. “Because she still needs to maintain the illusion that the kwi works like a normal weapon,” I told him. “Come on—we need to get out of here.”
Reluctantly, I thought, he backed into the vestibule. “What now?” he asked as I followed him in.
“The groundwork’s been laid,” I told him. “Time to go to work.”
We stepped into the first coach car. Many of the displaced passengers had opted to settle down there, I saw, instead of continuing on to coach cars farther back. No doubt they were hoping their proximity to the center of the action would give them a better chance of finding out what was going on.
They were going to be disappointed. “We need a base of operations,” I told the defender. “Tell the conductors I need everyone cleared out of this car.”
Considering the wealth and power of the travelers I was pushing around, they took the news remarkably well. Maybe the rumor mill had given a sufficiently dark cast to the situation to keep their indignation in check. Or maybe it was the look in my eyes. Either way, with a maximum of cooperation and a minimum of griping, they were soon gone. “What now?” Sarge asked when we were alone.
I checked my watch. Twenty minutes until we hit the cross-hatch section, if Sarge’s earlier estimate had been correct. “Is your partner ready to move the tender alongside us?” I asked.
“He is,” Sarge confirmed. “You still wish it to parallel the center compartment car?”
“No, we’d better hold it back here for now,” I said. “I doubt Kennrick’s sensors are good enough to spot movement or heat all the way through the compartments on that side of the train, but I don’t want to risk it. Make sure the conductors know to opaque all the windows on that side of the train before the tender starts moving.”
“It will be done,” Sarge said. “What after that?”
“There’s one more preliminary job you’ll need to do,” I told him. “After that, we’ll just have to wait until Bayta’s awake again so that we’ll have a real-time tap into what Kennrick’s doing.”
