Night Train to Rigel

She grimaced, but nodded. “All right,” she said, moving toward the door. “I’ll get my reader.”

She was gone just long enough for me to confirm that the chip registered on my own reader as nothing but an innocuous set of travel guides. “Any chance they could have made a copy?” I asked as she took the chip and plugged it into hers.

“No.” She did something with the scroll buttons, peered at the display, and nodded. “There,” she said, handing it to me.

Where before there’d been nothing but tourist fluff, the display now showed over fifty files relating to Quadrail security and sensors. “Perfect,” I said. “Something to read on the way to Modhra.”

“You still want to go there?” Bayta asked, her voice suddenly cautious. “I mean… shouldn’t you see a doctor first?”

“I’m fine,” I assured her. I started to shake my head, quickly changed my mind. “Besides, this is starting to get very interesting.”

“Interesting?” she echoed. “You call being attacked interesting?”

I shrugged. The gesture turned out to be only marginally less painful than shaking my head. “People don’t usually attack you unless they feel threatened,” I said. “That must mean we’re getting close.”

“Close to what?” she persisted. “All we’ve got is a name—Modhra—and JhanKla telling us we should go there.”

“Plus all the maneuvering it took them to get him to drop us that name,” I reminded her.

“Which could have just been to get us out of Kerfsis,” she reminded me back. “Or to keep us away from somewhere else, for that matter.”

I hesitated, once again trying to decide just how much I should tell her. I still didn’t know what was really going on, or whose side she was on.

Still, she was clearly in league with the Spiders, or at least some group of them. If I froze her out of my investigation, I’d be completely on my own. Considering what had just happened, even questionable allies were better than nothing. “No, it’s Modhra, all right,” I said. “I didn’t want to say anything with Rastra and JhanKla listening, but there was a chatty Bellido in the bar when I was getting the Jack Daniel’s. He asked where I was going—”

“And you told him?”

I stared up at her, my head throbbing in time to my pulse, my eyes and ears taking in her expression and her tone and her body language, my Westali-trained brain taking the pieces and putting them together.

And in that single stretched-out moment in time, all my vague suspicions suddenly coalesced into a hard, cold certainty. Whatever was going on with JhanKla and Modhra and the Bellidos, Bayta knew all about it. “It didn’t seem like a big deal at the time,” I said, keeping my voice even. “The point is, the next thing I knew he’d disappeared somewhere into the first-class cars. And the next thing I knew, I’d been clobbered and locked in a spice crate.”

“And you think the incidents are related?”

“Absolutely,” I said, wondering how much of this she already knew. Still, I couldn’t afford to let her know that I knew she knew. “They weren’t after the data chip, because I still have that. They weren’t after my cash stick, because I still have that. What else is there but someone not wanting us to go to Modhra?”

“But how could he have communicated with anyone at the rear of the train?” she asked. “You said he’d gone the other direction.”

“That part I haven’t figured out yet,” I admitted, watching her closely. But she had herself fully under control again, and her face wasn’t giving anything away. “My guess is that he used the Quadrail computer system somehow, or else found a way to piggyback a signal onto the control lines.”

She shook her head slowly. “I don’t think either is possible.”

“Well, whatever he did, he did send a message,” I growled. “I’m sure of that.”

“But I still don’t see the point,” she said. “What did they hope to accomplish?”

“They hoped to put me on ice long enough for us to go past Jurskala and the Grakla Spur,” I said. “That’s the only thing that makes sense. Someone, for whatever reason, doesn’t want us going to Modhra.”

The corner of her lip twitched. “So, of course, that’s where you intend to go?”

I shrugged. “I’m following a trail. That’s where it leads.”

She seemed to brace herself. “I don’t want to go to Modhra.”

“No problem,” I said calmly. “You can wait for me at Jurskala.”

“What if I have the Spiders revoke your pass?”

I lifted my eyebrows. “Are you threatening me?”

“There could be danger there,” she said evasively. “Terrible danger.”

I thought about the Saarix-5 in my carrybag handles. “There’s danger everywhere,” I said. “Life is like that.”

She seemed to brace herself. “You could die there.”

So there it was, right out in the open. Modhra was indeed the key … and our enemies were prepared to be very serious indeed about protecting that key. “I could die anywhere,” I countered. “I could fall over a Cimma in the dining car and break my neck. You know something about Modhra you’re not telling me?”

A muscle in her jaw tightened briefly. “It’s just a feeling.”

“Fine, then,” I said, pretending to believe her. “I’m going. You’ve got five hours to decide whether you’re coming with me.”

“Mr. Compton—”

“In the meantime,” I cut her off, “do these feelings of yours include any hints as to which direction the danger might be coming from?”

She looked away. “It could be from anywhere,” she said quietly. “You have no friends out here.”

“Not even you?” I asked, pitching it like it was a joke. “At least you care whether I live or die, don’t you?”

She straightened up. “I’m not your friend, Mr. Compton,” she said, her voice and face stiff. “And no, I don’t care.” Brushing past me, she escaped into the corridor.

For a long moment I stared at the closed door, a hard, bitter knot settling into my stomach. I’d hoped for something—anything—that would indicate we were at least on the same side, even if we weren’t exactly staunch allies.

But no. I’m not your friend. And no, I don’t care.

Fine. Then I wouldn’t care, either, when I did what I was going to do to her precious Spider friends.

And I would laugh in her face when I did it.

Swiveling my feet up onto the bed, I positioned my throbbing head carefully against the pillow. It would be another half hour before the painkiller I’d taken kicked in and let me get some sleep.

Pulling up the first of the Spiders’ security files, I began to read.

TEN:

The Quadrail pulled into Jurskala Station, and with a round of farewells to Rastra and JhanKla I left the Peerage car and headed across the platform toward the track where the Grakla Spur train would be arriving in two hours. Bayta, silent and wooden-faced, was at my side.

I had thought about trying to find a clever way to sneak off the train, but had decided it wouldn’t be worth the effort. Even if the Bellidos hadn’t yet figured out that I’d escaped their impromptu holding cell, there would be plenty of time for them to spot us as we hung around the station waiting for our next Quadrail. The alternative, to spend that time hiding in one of the Spiders’ buildings, would probably just make things worse. Clearly, there were multiple players in this game, and I saw no point in advertising my cozy relationship with the Spiders for anyone who hadn’t already figured it out.

Especially when we could use that relationship to other advantages.

“Three more Bellidos have joined with the two from first class,” Bayta murmured as we approached the first of