Night Train to Rigel

surprising given the proximity of the Cimmal Republic. I eliminated those, plus the dozen civilian Jurian systems, and finally the two Pirkarli ones.

And that was all. There was nothing with the Peerage-type patterns that a Halkan high official like JhanKla would use. There was also nothing that followed any standard Belldic patterns, military or civilian.

There was a movement at the corner of my eye, and I looked up as Bayta slid into the chair across from me. “Is anything wrong?” she asked. “You said an hour.”

“Nothing’s wrong,” I told her, keying off the reader and pulling put the chip. “I just got tired early. How sure are you that JhanKla or one of his people didn’t get on our Quadrail at Jurskala?”

“The Spiders said they’d all stayed behind.”

“So we’re as sure as the Spiders are,” I concluded, wishing I felt reassured by that. “Fine. Hear anything interesting out there?”

“Not really,” she said, frowning slightly. “They mostly seemed to be talking about whatever game they were playing.”

“Yeah, I got a lot of that, too,” I said. “You happen to listen in on any Cimman conversations?”

“There was one,” she said. “They were talking about taking a submarine cruise to an underwater cave a few kilometers from here.”

“So were mine,” I said. “Interesting.”

“Doesn’t sound very interesting to me,” Bayta said. “None of it did.”

“My point exactly,” I said, looking out past the low wall at the milling gamblers. “When did you ever wander around this many people and not find someone talking business?”

She pursed her lips. “Maybe they save all their business talk for somewhere else.”

“Maybe,” I said. “But I didn’t hear anything about family or politics, either. They save all that for somewhere else, too?”

She gave a hooded look to the side, toward a pair of Halkas sitting two tables away. “What are you implying?” she asked in a low voice.

“I’m not sure,” I said. “Normally, you never make the assumption that everyone’s in on a gag except you. But in this case, I’m starting to wonder.”

“You mean like a conspiracy?”

“I admit it’s an overused presumption,” I said. “But you said yourself that I had no friends out here. And Apos Mahf did say the ultra-rich were a close-knit community.”

“Apos Mahf?”

“The Bellido you pointed out earlier,” I told her. “He claims to know me.”

“A friend?” she asked, her tone suddenly cautious.

“So he claims,” I said. “He named a ceremony I was at several years ago, but he apparently doesn’t know how good my memory is for faces. Even Belldic faces.”

“But how could he have known you were at the ceremony unless he was there, too?”

“Because some of the news footage of the VIPs happened to catch a couple of us security grunts in the background,” I told her. “I got chewed out royally about it afterward, in fact. As if it had been my fault.” I stroked my lip as a sudden thought struck me. “Come to think of it, it was our old friend Colonel Applegate who did most of the chewing. Our old acquaintance, that is,” I corrected myself.

It was a small joke, and I hadn’t expected much of a response. Bayta didn’t give me any response at all. “What did you and Mahf talk about?” she asked instead.

“He tried to renew our nonexistent acquaintanceship and then asked me about the incident aboard the Jurskala Quadrail. Interestingly enough, he mentioned details about that trip that he has no business knowing. That’s why I asked if the Spiders could have missed someone following us from Jurskala.”

“No.” Bayta was positive.

“Then someone must have sent one hell of a detailed message here ahead of us,” I grunted, slipping my reader back into my pocket. “Come on, let’s get back to the room and check the submarine tour schedule.”

She seemed taken aback. “The what?”

“Submarine tours seem to be the hot item today,” I pointed out. “Why, is there a problem?”

“No, of course not,” she said, suddenly sounding flustered. “It’s just…”

“It’s just that you don’t like being led around by the nose?” I suggested.

Her lips compressed. “Something like that.”

“I don’t much like it myself,” I said pointedly. “But someone has again gone to a lot of effort to lay out a trail of bread crumbs. I want to see where it leads.”

“What if it leads into a trap?”

I shrugged. “Hopefully, we’ll figure that out before we get there ”

The hotel offered three different submarine cruises, two of them traveling to distant coral formations and one hitting the caverns Bayta and I had heard so much about in the casino. All of the day’s cruises were full, but there was a cavern trip scheduled for early the next morning that still had a half dozen vacancies. I booked us two seats on that one, and while I was at it made reservations for an early evening dinner.

With a couple of hours to kill, Bayta went into the bedroom for a nap. Drawing myself a drink from the room’s dispenser, I settled down at the computer desk to learn all there was to know about Cassp, the Modhra Binary, and the Modhran resort.

Dinner that evening was very much in the five-star range I would have expected from a place like this. Afterward, we browsed through one of the rows of shops for a while, and I bought Bayta a set of hair fasteners and a compact travel makeup kit.

I could tell she wasn’t particularly impressed with the gifts. For that matter, it was clear that the whole idea of a leisurely shopping trip bored her to tears. I could sympathize, but it was something a good travel scout would be expected to do.

Not that I thought anyone out there really believed that story anymore. But by sticking with the cover, it might be possible to fool them into thinking I still thought I was covered, which might lead them to underestimate my competence. Sometimes this got too complicated even for me.

Finally, our token shopping out of the way, we returned to our suite and locked ourselves in for the night. It was still too early to go to bed, so we opaqued the walls and floors and I pulled up another classic Hitchcock dit rec drama to show her. This one was called North by Northwest, a story of a man on the run pursued by shadowy forces he didn’t understand. If the theme tugged at Bayta’s conscience, it didn’t show.

With an early wake-up required for the tour, we made a point of turning in early. As I had already noted, the bed was huge and very comfortable-looking. Fortunately for me, the living room couch was comfortable, too.

TWELVE:

“And now it is the time for the adventurous among us to leave the safety of our vehicle and explore the caverns,” the guide intoned, switching from Halkan to English for our benefit. “I must warn you, though, that the caverns are extensive, and only a small percentage has been explored and mapped. Please stay in the areas with marker lights.”

I nodded to Bayta, and we put on our helmets. Only a half dozen of the twenty passengers seemed interested in joining us, I noticed, the rest content to stay aboard the sub for another pass around the outer sections of the caverns. I also noted that, despite their verbal enthusiasm of the previous day, there were in fact no Cimmaheem on our sub.

We finished our preparations and lined up at the exit. Each of us was given a quick equipment check by the guide, then sent two by two into the airlock. Bayta and I received our check, listened to one final warning about staying on the marked paths, and went outside.

The water was icy cold, I knew, but the pressure suits were well designed and only a hint of that chill made it through to my skin. With Bayta beside me, I touched my jet control, and as the pressurized water streams brushed