Night Train to Rigel

“No,” I said. “Remember that current we ran into outside the cavern? That showed Modhra’s underground ocean keeps itself moving, probably driven by tidal forces from Cassp. But there weren’t any currents inside the tunnel we explored. If someone had made the kind of opening in the far end that we talked about, even if they camouflaged it afterward, the water would have been sloshing back and forth and we’d have been tossed around like guppies.”

“Then what was the point of the marks?”

“The same point as the drunk act that Bellido put on for me on the Quadrail,” I said. “Something big and bold and obvious to get people looking and thinking the wrong direction.”

“So they didn’t actually steal a submarine?” she asked, sounding thoroughly lost now.

“Actually, I’m guessing they did,” I said. “The fake drunk had all the right cues and telltales, which tells me these people pay attention to the details. If you want someone to waste their time searching the caverns, you need to give them a good reason to do so.”

“Yes, I see,” Bayta said. “And you don’t want the Halkas to know about this?”

“No,” I said, watching her closely. “Because I think the Bellidos are on our side.”

There was a moment of silence. This was the perfect moment, I knew, for her to confess that she already knew that. The perfect moment to finally fill me in on everything else she knew about Modhra and what was going on here.

Only she didn’t. “You mean the people who hit you on the head and locked you in a spice crate?” she asked instead.

“I mean the people who didn’t injure me,” I growled, a sudden stirring of anger sending heat into my face. “I mean the people who could have simply broken my leg if all they’d wanted was to put me out of action for a while.” I slid my helmet around the side of hers so that I could glare straight into her eyes. “I mean the people who haven’t been lying through their teeth to me since this whole thing started.”

Her face had gone suddenly rigid. “What do you mean?” she asked.

“You know what I mean,” I bit out, suddenly sick of it all. “You know what’s going on here. You know all about JhanKla and the Bellidos. You’ve known right from the beginning.”

She tried to pull away from me. I grabbed the back of her helmet and yanked it back, pressing it firmly against mine. “Go ahead—tell me I’m wrong,” I invited harshly. “Tell me that I’m imagining things.”

“Frank—I’m sorry,” she said, the words coming out in little puffs of rapid air. Her face had come alive with fear, her throat muscles working rapidly. “I couldn’t—”

“Of course you can’t,” I cut her off. “So now tell me why I shouldn’t just go ahead and bail on this whole damn thing.”

“No!” she all but gasped. Her face shot through the whole range of fear and landed squarely on sheer terror. “Please. You can’t leave.”

“Why not?” I demanded. “The Bellidos didn’t hurt me because the fake drunk saw me take the chip from the Spider and figured I was on their side. Only I’m not really on their side, am I? I’m not on anyone’s side. All I am is a dupe.”

I let go of her helmet, suddenly too disgusted with her to touch even that. “I won’t be a dupe, Bayta,” I said. “Not for you; not for your damn Spiders.”

Her breath was coming in hyperventilating huffs, her face still rigid with fear. “Please, Frank,” she managed. “Please. You can’t leave me here alone—”

I didn’t want to hear it. Standing up, I turned my back on her and strode off down the ice hill. I kept walking, up the next small hill and down into its valley, until she was out of sight. Then, folding my arms across my chest, I stopped and glared up at the shifting ring pattern blazing softly across the Modhran sky.

I should do it, I told myself firmly. I should turn around, go to the hotel and pack my stuff, and then head straight back to the Tube on the next torchferry. Maybe I’d drop her fancy unlimited-travel pass in the fire pit before I left, a nice dramatic gesture that would make it clear to her and the Spiders what I thought of them. I had places to go and things to do, and the last thing I needed was to hang around here in the cold and dark with a bull’s-eye painted on my chest. The sooner I shook the dust of this off my feet, the better.

I had just about made up my mind to do it when the face of the dead messenger outside the New Pallas Towers floated up from my memory.

The Spiders had gone to a lot of trouble to entice me into this game. Someone else had gone to even more trouble to keep me out of it.

And I was damned if I was going to quit before I knew what the game was.

Bayta was sitting where I’d left her, her knees hunched up against her chest, her arms wrapped tightly around them. Her whole body seemed to be quivering as I approached, perhaps shaking in fear or anger. I sat back down beside her… and it was only then that I realized what the shaking actually was.

She was crying. My stoic, wooden-faced Bayta was actually crying.

I leaned my helmet against hers. “One question,” I said, forcing calmness into my voice. “Are the Bellidos on our side?”

Her eyelids fluttered as she tried to blink away the tears. “I think so,” she said, sniffing. “I mean, I think we ultimately want the same thing. Only they’re… sort of independent.”

I grimaced. Independent operations were always wasteful, usually counterproductive, and way too often dangerous. But in the world of intelligence and covert ops, they were unfortunately a fact of life, “Do you know what their plan is?”

She closed her eyes, squeezing out another couple of tears in the process. “No.”

I took a couple more calming breaths. I didn’t need this. I really didn’t. “Fine,” I said. “Let’s see if we can find out.”

She opened her eyes, gazing nervously at me as if expecting another outburst. “Does that mean you’re staying?”

“For now,” I told her, unwilling to commit myself to anything long-term at this point. “Go ahead and switch your comm back on, and let’s head back to the toboggan tunnels.”

I started to reach for my own comm switch, but she snaked a hand up and caught my arm before I could reach it. “I told you once I wasn’t your friend,” she said, her voice shaking with emotion. “But I’m not your enemy, either.”

I stared into her eyes, eyes from which all the defenses had crumbled. There was indeed a real, live person back there. “Glad to hear it,” I said. “Be ready to switch off again when I give you the signal.”

I turned on my own comm, and we headed back upslope. She was clearly still too shaken to counterfeit a casual conversation, so instead I kept up a more or less running monologue about how her first lugeboard run had been beginner’s luck. About halfway there, she was finally able to ease back into the conversation.

We reached the lugeboard tunnels; but instead of stopping, I motioned her to keep going, and we followed the pylons as they headed up the next hill. JhanKla had said there were two other toboggan tunnels in production, and it seemed logical that the Halkas would have laid out their future ski lift to serve all five.

We reached the top of the hill, and there they were: two large openings facing each other from the sides of another pair of hills. Like the first set of tunnels, a flattened staging and preparation area had been created between them, this one crowded with heavy equipment and crates of supplies. Some of the equipment was attached to conduits and cables of various colors and diameters that snaked their way down into the tunnel mouth. No one else was visible, and the tunnels themselves seemed dark.

I motioned to Bayta, and we switched off our comms. “There you go,” I said, pressing my helmet against hers again.

“There I go where?” she said, frowning.

“It’s classic diversionary technique,” I said. “You get your opponents looking one direction while you set up your operation in the other. The Bellidos get the Halkas looking down at the underwater caverns, then settle themselves into a nice little staging area up here. An unused tunnel, complete with stacks of stuff where you could probably hide pretty much anything you wanted.”

“But there are Halkan workers here,” she pointed out.

“Only during the day,” I said, checking my watch. “Then they go inside, which is where they all are now, leaving