by Timothy Zahn
“I hope you reminded the Spiders that we need air to breathe,” Morse said. “Not to mention food and water and rest facilities. Even a regular Quadrail takes over three days to get to Jurskala—this one’s not likely to be any faster.”
“It’s probably faster than it looks,” I offered. In fact, I knew it was. The loop gantries on the two end cars extended at least two meters higher than the standard Quadrail. Since a train’s speed was determined by how close the closest bit of matter was to the Coreline’s quantum thread, this thing could probably do close to double the usual light-year-per-minute if it wanted to.
Assuming that the wheels and structural integrity could handle such speeds, of course. Still, even a modest percentage gain should give us what we needed.
The Spiders ushered us to the center of the three cars, where my original trust in our hosts was fully vindicated. Inside, the car was set up like a double first-class passenger compartment, though without the extendable dividing wall between the sections or the mirror-imaged curve couches that were normally built into that wall.
There were a few other alterations, as well. Instead of the usual overbed luggage racks there was another permanently fixed bunk, giving us upper and lower berths on both ends of the car. There was also only a single half-bath cubicle instead of the usual pair that a double compartment would have, with the space that had been thus freed up given over to a food prep/storage area.
“Interesting,” Morse said, setting down his carrybags and making a quick circuit of the car. “Looks like some kind of prototype.”
“It’s not decorated as nicely as the standard compartment,” Penny seconded. “No privacy, either.”
“Obviously, you’ve never ridden third class,” I said.
“We’ll give you all the privacy we can, Ms. Auslander,” Morse said. “It’s only for a couple of days.”
“I was thinking about Bayta,” Penny said, lifting her eyebrows at Bayta. “She seems more uptight about things than I am.”
Bayta’s face darkened a little. “I can handle it, thank you,” she said coolly.
For another few seconds the two women eyed each other. Then Penny shrugged and headed toward the rear of the car. “Fine,” she said. “Dibs on the lower bed.”
TEN
The trip to Jurskala took just under two and a half days, and was every bit as awkward as it had looked going in.
The lack of privacy turned out to be not as big a problem as I’d feared. The problem of showers, more specifically the dis- and re-robing before and afterward, was solved by dousing the lights during the process. The food was decent enough, too, though for the life of me I couldn’t figure out where it was from. My eventual best guess was that it was cuisine from the other end of the galaxy, Shorshian or Filiaelian delicacies that I’d never run across before.
The problem wasn’t with the accommodations. The problem was Morse and Penny.
Somewhere midway through the first day Penny apparently got over the initial shock of Gerashchenko’s death and started wondering what exactly had happened to him. Unfortunately, Morse got to her with his version of the story before I could get to her with mine.
It created an instant bias that no amount of subsequent explanation or damage control was able to alleviate. The sleeping arrangements, which had started out with Penny and Bayta at one end and Morse and me at the other, changed abruptly after the first night as Penny silently but firmly moved to Morse’s end of the car.
After that, the whole thing took on a distinct Us Versus Them flavor. Morse and Penny would sit together on the lower bunk on their side of the car, facing each other from opposite ends and having quiet, earnest conversations. Every time I tried to penetrate the invisible wall they’d built around them all talk abruptly ceased and two pairs of studiously neutral eyes followed my every move until I retreated back to my half of the car.
They didn’t think any better of Bayta, either because of her association with me or her mysterious influence with the Spiders.
Bayta spent most of the trip sleeping. I whiled away the hours lounging on my bunk and gazing at the earnest conversations going on at the far end, wondering what useful secrets they might be trading back and forth.
Still, I had some hard thinking to do. A little peace and quiet was just fine.
Besides, it wasn’t as if Bayta and I didn’t have a few secrets of our own.
I’d told Bayta I wanted to reach Jurskala at least half an hour before the train carrying the Hawk. She and the Spider driving the tender did me one better, getting us into the station nearly an hour ahead of Penny’s friends.
“We have seats in the first of the first-class cars,” Bayta informed me as we worked our way through the mostly Jurian crowd toward our platform. Now that the tension of Penny’s presence was gone, she was back to her usual cool, competent self. “That’s all I could get.”
“Any chance of switching later to a compartment?” I asked.
“Two of the members of Ms. Auslander’s group have compartments which they’ll be leaving at Ian-apof,” Bayta said. “They’re not connected, though. The stationmaster’s still pulling the records for the other compartments. He’ll let me know if he spots a double becoming available.”
“You okay with open seats?”
“I’ll manage,” she said. “Ian-apof is only two days’ journey away.”
It was a little more than that, actually, but I wasn’t about to quibble. “Fine,” I said. “What about Morse and Penny?”
“Mr. Morse didn’t want me making their arrangements,” Bayta said, a slight flush coming into her cheeks. “I told the stationmaster to reserve seats in our car for them in case it fills up before they reach the ticket counter.”
I nodded and looked around, automatically picking out the best dressed of the travelers milling around us. So far there was no indication that the local Modhri mind segment was aware of our presence. “Have the Spiders keep an eye on them,” I instructed her. “Watch especially for any attempt to split them away from us.”
“Are you sure we really need them?”
I took another, closer look at her. “She really got to you, didn’t she?” I asked.
“I don’t trust her,” Bayta said flatly.
“Because she doesn’t like us?”
“Because she trusts Mr. Morse too much.”
“She’s EuroUnion,” I reminded her. “Morse is EuroUnion Security Service. Of course she’s going to take his word over mine.”
“You do realize we still don’t know anything about him, don’t you?”
I did, and it was starting to worry me. It had been over three days since the Spiders had sent my message to Losutu. There could have been a reply as early as Homshil; there certainly should have been something waiting here at Jurskala.
But so far not a peep. Either Losutu was ignoring me—always a possibility—or he was too involved in his UN duties to bother with something this low profile.
Or else there wasn’t any data to be had on an ESS agent named Ackerley Morse.
“We do know that he wants Stafford and the Lynx, too,” I reminded Bayta. “For now, that makes him an ally.” I raised my eyebrows. “Ms. Auslander is one, too, whether she likes it or not.”
Ms. Auslander didn’t, of course. The suspicious look she sent Bayta and me as she and Morse settled into their first-class seats showed that abundantly. But she wasn’t annoyed enough to walk off the train.
Her friends—four girls and two guys—greeted her with the surprise and delight of someone meeting a long-lost cousin. Their enthusiasm faded considerably with the news of Gerashchenko’s death. The train was barely moving before they all disappeared together into one of the two compartments, no doubt to hear all the details. Before we hit the thirty light-year mark, I suspected, there would be six more people aboard whispering together as they gave me dirty looks.
It was just as well, I reflected, that government service had given me such thick skin.
Mean
while, I had more urgent matters to attend to. Settling our seats into one of the car’s corners, Bayta and I once again began to monitor the comings and goings from the compartment car ahead.
The walkers, as I’d surmised, had changed, with none of the original Gang of Fifteen aboard. But the Modhri’s basic strategy seemed to have remained the same. Once again, we were able to account for nearly everyone in there as they made their individual and group sorties to the dining car for food and drink. Once again, we observed meals being brought up from the rear.
But where the Gang of Fifteen had had two of their number on permanent guard duty, this batch of escorts seemed to have only one.
“Not really surprising,” I told Bayta as we compared notes in the bar. “On the first leg of the trip, the one from Bellis. the Modhri had time to plan everything out and make sure he got connecting compartments. This time, with the scramble to send the Hawk in a new direction, he had to take pot luck.”
“I’m not sure how that’s going to help us,” Bayta said doubtfully. “As long as there’s still a walker in there we’re not going to get in.”
“It’s going to help because there are now two ways into the compartment instead of one,” I said. “The connecting wall locks from both sides, right?”
She was starting to get that suspicious look again. “Yes,” she said cautiously.
“All handled electronically?”
“Yes.”
“And if there was a brief power outage, what would the default setting be?”
Her look changed from suspicious to aghast. “No,” she said firmly. “Not a chance.”
“Why not?” I asked. “Don’t walkers sleep?”
“The walkers sleep,” she said. “I’m not so sure about the polyp colonies inside them.”
“We’ll just have to chance it,” I said.
“Frank, you can’t—” She broke off, her eyes abruptly glazing over.
“Bayta?” I asked, resisting the impulse to wave my hand in front of her face like they always do in old dit rec dramas. Instead, I gave the bar a quick sweep, then shifted my attention to the corridor. There was nothing out of the ordinary that I could see.
Abruptly Bayta’s eyes came back. “Come on,” she said, standing up and heading for the corridor.
But instead of turning forward toward our seats, she headed aft. “Where are we going?” I asked.
“Just come.”
She led the way through the other first-class car, through the second-class section, and into third. We kept going, passing the Humans and aliens reading or talking or dozing in their seats, and into the first baggage car.
“We’re starting to run out of train,” I warned Bayta as she led us through the meandering passageway that led between the stacks of safety-webbed crates. “What are we looking for, anyway?”
“We’re not looking for anything,” she said over her shoulder as we went through the door and vestibule and entered the second baggage car.
And now we really had run out of train. “What now?” I asked as she finally came to a halt a few steps inside the car.
“We wait,” she said. Sitting down, she rested her back against the nearest crate and closed her eyes.
Thirty seconds later, while I was still looking around for some clue as to what we were doing here, there was a gentle lurch and my inner ear told me we were gradually but definitely slowing down. “Have we just been disconnected from the train?” I asked carefully.
Before Bayta could answer there was a second lurch, a stronger one this time, and the gradual deceleration switched back to an equally gradual acceleration. “Uh-oh,” I muttered.
Bayta nodded, her eyes still closed, tension lines tightening her cheeks. “The Chahwyn want to talk to you.”
The first time I’d had this particular detached-car trick pulled on me I’d been gassed and unconscious for most of the trip. Now, fully awake and alert, I decided being unconscious had definitely been the better way to go. Standing around a Quadrail baggage car, watching the stacks of crates swaying inside their webbing as we went around slight curves, was breathtakingly boring.
Which meant nearly a hundred percent of my available brain power could concentrate on the unpleasant question of what the Chahwyn had up their sleeves for me this time.
Fortunately, they’d timed things so that the trip didn’t take very long. We’d been trundling along for no more than twenty minutes when I again sensed that we were starting to slow down. Five minutes after that, with the usual creak of brakes, we came to a halt. “We’re here, dear,” I said to Bayta as she got back to her feet. “You want to get the luggage while I see about a rental?”
“This isn’t a joke, Frank,” she warned as we moved to the door near the front of the car. “Behave yourself.”
The door irised open as we reached it, and as we stepped out onto the platform I found that we were in one of the Spiders’ secret sidings: smaller than a standard station, with only four sets of tracks and lots of drab, functional-looking support buildings. Bayta walked us past the engine that had pushed us here, leading the way to one of the smaller buildings.
Inside, seated at the far end of the typical three-chair triangle setup and flanked by a pair of Spiders, was a Chahwyn.
“Hello, there.” I greeted him. “Nice to see some of you getting out a little.”
“Sit down, Mr. Compton,” the alien said in a grave but melodious voice. He extended a hand, the forefinger visibly lengthening as he pointed to one of the chairs.
Silently, I stepped to the indicated seat as Bayta took the third. The Chahwyn were a humanoid species with pale skin, mostly hairless except for tufts of catlike whiskers extending out from ridges above their eyes. Their limbs and fingers were long and thin, their facial features flat and bland.
Or at least they were normally flat and bland. Their whole physique was so malleable that the only other Chahwyn I’d ever met had been able to pass himself off as Human, at least for a short time. Like that first Chahwyn, this one was wearing soft shoes and an elaborately draped togalike robe.
The two Spiders standing stiffly beside him were also tantalizingly familiar. They were of a type I’d seen on my first visit to a Quadrail siding, about the size of a stationmaster but without the usual stationmaster markings. I still didn’t know what class they were.
The Chahwyn waited until Bayta and I were seated. “We had not wanted to have this meeting, Mr. Compton,” he said. “But the Elders have concluded we have no choice.”
One of the Spiders stirred and tapped its way toward me, and I saw now that it was walking on only six of its seven legs. As it reached me the seventh leg unfolded from beneath the shiny sphere and I saw that it was holding a folded piece of paper. “What’s this?” I asked as the leg extended itself toward me.
“The substance of a message between two of Earth’s leading Humans of wealth,” the Chahwyn said. “Read.”
I took the paper and unfolded it; and as I read I felt my eyebrows crawling higher up my forehead with each line. “What is it?” Bayta asked.
“Apparently our good friend Larry Hardin is still sore about that trillion dollars we squeezed out of him a few months ago,” I said, leaning over and handing her the paper. “He’s sent out a lovely little chain letter warning all his trillionaire buddies to steer clear of me.”
“I trust you see the problem,” the Chahwyn said. “Mr. Hardin’s friends will tell their friends, and their friends will tell their friends, and so on.”
“And what, the next thing you know people will be pointing to me in crowds and asking for my autograph?” I asked.
“There’s more,” the Chahwyn said. “I understand another Human has died violently in your presence aboard one of our Quadrails.”
“That wasn’t my fault,” I said stiffly. Having people turn up dead around me was definitely getting to be a bad habit.
“Regardless, the result is that it raises your visibility,” the Chahwyn said. “Your usefulness in this
war is dependent upon your ability to remain anonymous.”
“Anonymous to whom?” I countered. “The Modhri’s known about me for the better part of a year now. We’ve managed to muddle through.”
“Anonymous to those who might notice or detain you for purposes of their own,” the Chahwyn said. “The purposes of Mr. Morse, for example.”
“I can handle Morse,” I insisted. “And if it’s anonymity you’re worried about, just fix me up with a few false IDs. Names might stick for a while, but faces fade.”
“I’m sorry, but the decision is made,” the Chahwyn said. “We will regret losing your services.”
I looked at Bayta. Her face was set in a tight mask. “What exactly are you saying?” I asked.
“In the idiom of your people”—the Chahwyn’s eyes flicked to Bayta, as if probing her mind for the correct phraseology—”you have been fired.”
ELEVEN
For a long moment I just stared at him, unpleasant memories swirling into view. Two years ago Western Alliance Intelligence had fired me for rocking the boat on the Yandro affair. Six months ago, Larry Hardin had done likewise, though for very different reasons.
This one made three firings in a row. Another bad habit I needed to work on. “Bad idea,” I said, putting on my diplomat’s face. “This war is a long way from being over.”
“We know that better even than you do,” the Chahwyn said, a little stiffly. “As I say, we’ll regret losing your services.”
“You may do more than just regret it,” I warned. “Not to be insulting, but I don’t think you and the Spiders can handle the Modhri without me.”
“There are others with your capabilities,” the Chahwyn said. “A suitable new partner for Bayta will be found.”
I looked at Bayta, my throat tightening. Somehow, my brain hadn’t yet made it to the obvious conclusion that if I was finished with the Spiders and Chahwyn, I was finished with Bayta, too.
She’d obviously gotten there ahead of me. Her eyes were locked solidly on a patch of floor midway between her and the Chahwyn, carefully avoiding mine. “You bring in someone cold and you could end up regretting it,” I warned.
