Tra’ho intelligence community in hopes of getting inside information. Naturally, they’d gone to the Tra’ho’sej with whom they had the closest professional and personal relationships, and Modhran thought-viruses had done the rest. In rapid succession the upper levels of Belldic intelligence had fallen to the silent invasion, followed by the military leaders who controlled them, followed by the political leaders to whom they all reported. For the Modhri, it was just one more conquest, one more potential threat that had been eliminated.
Or so he thought. What he hadn’t realized was that the Belldic intelligence service was a strongly compartmentalized organization, consisting of many independent groups that had for centuries maintained their own identities for historical reasons that were only vaguely remembered. Fayr had been in one of those groups, and as he and some of the others had noticed odd behavior and decisions from their superiors they had started a fact- finding mission of their own.
They’d also attempted to contact the Spiders. The Spiders hadn’t been very enthusiastic, apparently still smarting over their failure with the Tra’ho’sej. Still, they had given the group some logistical support, including the encryption system I’d seen Fayr use with his pulse laser communications aboard the Quadrail. The Bellidos had moved with careful deliberation, bringing spices and gourmet foods and high-end electronics to Sistarrko over a period of two years as they studied the situation, building up their network of trading partners and black market contacts in the system for the time when they would be ready to make their move. They’d also sent members of the team to the Modhran resort, who mingled with the rich and powerful and scouted out the battle zone.
Fortunately for them, many of the resort’s patrons were of the newly rich and powerful whom the Modhri hadn’t yet had a chance to infect, which meant the uninfected Bellidos didn’t completely stand out of the crowd. By the time Fayr launched Phase Two, the theft of the resort maintenance sub, the infiltrators had become so much a part of the general background that the Modhri apparently couldn’t even figure out which species had been responsible.
As for me, I’d caught Fayr’s attention on the very first leg of my Quadrail journey. He had taken a seat in the hybrid passenger/baggage car so that he could keep an eye on their final shipment of antique jewelry, and his suspicions had been aroused when the Spiders unceremoniously promoted everyone except me up to the next car. When he’d subsequently seen Bayta slip back there, then discovered the door to the car had been locked, his suspicions had turned to near-certainty. By the time we reached New Tigris and he saw us head straight up to first class, he had concluded that the Modhri had ferreted out his plot. When Bayta and I had disembarked at Kerfsis, he’d taken four of the group and followed, sending the rest of the team on ahead with the jewelry to make the final arrangements on Sistarrko. When we’d returned to the Quadrail in the company of a high Jurian official, he’d made sure to place his three commandos in the rear coach where they could alert him if I made any movement out of the Peerage car.
His theory had then done a screeching bootlegger reverse when he’d spotted the conductor slipping me that data chip in the first-class bar. That had quieted his fears that I was a Modhran walker, but now he was faced with the possibility that the Spiders were launching an operation of their own that could easily blunder into his plan and wreck them both. Rather than take that risk, he had me waylaid on my way back to the Peerage car and stuffed in the spice crate where I would hopefully be out of the way long enough for his team to finish their job.
It hadn’t worked, though, and from that point on we’d been rather informal and slightly problematic allies, right up to the moment when he’d eavesdropped on the conference room conversation via the remora transceiver still in my pocket and decided I was worth the risk of rescuing.
We also spent a lot of time going over the data chips his people had taken from the harvesting complex. There were three of them, all of a slightly non-standard size which only Bayta’s reader could accept. They were also copy-proofed, which meant we had to either take turns sifting through the numbers or else stare at them over each other’s shoulders.
None of the staring did us much good. The Halkas had been shipping out Modhran coral for nearly a hundred fifty years, though these particular records only went back the last ten of those. Even so, that turned out to be a
My reasons for wanting the data I kept to myself. There was no point in worrying the others until I was sure.
And so matters stood when we reached Jurskala. Again, I expected some sort of reception to be waiting. Again, the Modhri was apparently still a couple of steps behind us. If that held until we made it aboard our next Quadrail, maybe I could relax a little.
It was as we went to check the schedule that the secret I’d been carrying since the New Pallas Towers finally caught up with me.
“No,” Fayr said firmly, gesturing at the floating holodisplay. “Agreed, the Bellis Loop will take several extra days to bring you to your people. But it will depart from here in less than an hour, three hours earlier than the direct Quadrail to your own empire. Equally important, it will also permit us to stay together until we are clear of Jurian territory.”
“Only to take us straight through the Estates-General,” I pointed out, hoping he’d get the inference. There were several other beings crowding around the three of us, also checking the listings, and I didn’t want to make any overt references to the Modhri. “I’m not sure what this gains us.”
“The Juriani have had the problem for nearly a hundred years,” Bayta murmured from beside me. “The Bellidos have had it for less than ten.”
“I suppose,” I said, studying the schedule. Actually, the most important difference as far as I was concerned was the fact that the Bellis Loop Quadrail stopped at fewer Jurian stations along the way than the next train to the Confederation. The fewer the stops, the fewer the opportunities for any Modhran walkers to put something together against us.
From my other side came a tentative plucking at my sleeve. I turned, tensing, but it was only a slightly hunched-over middle-aged Human with white-flecked brown hair tied back in a short ponytail, muttonchop whiskers, and a rather bewildered expression as he blinked at the schedule. “Excuse me, sir,” he said in a quavering voice. “I can’t seem to locate my train. Could you possibly help me?”
“I can try,” I said. “Where are you going?”
“I can’t pronounce it,” he confessed, pressing a folded and dog-eared piece of paper into my hand. “Here’s the name.”
I opened the paper. But there wasn’t any station name written there, pronounceable or otherwise.
I took a second, longer look at the man… and only then did I see past the whiskers and the slightly disheveled hair and the overall air of harmless helplessness.
It was Bruce McMicking, bodyguard and general trouble-shooter for multitrillionaire industrialist Larry Cecil Hardin.
My boss.
“It’s right there,” I said between suddenly dry lips as I pointed to a random line on the schedule. McMicking here… and Bayta stranding right beside me. This was not good. “Track Five in thirty-five minutes.”
“Thank you, sir,” he said. Plucking the paper out of my hand, he turned and made his uncertain way out through the other bystanders.
Fayr and Bayta were still waiting for my decision. “Fine, we’ll do the Loop,” I told them. “You two go make the reservations. I need to check on something—I’ll meet you at the platform in twenty minutes. Hang on to my carrybags, will you?”
I headed away before either of them could object, passing two of Fayr’s commandos on my way out of the crowd. One of them gave me a questioning gesture; I motioned for him to stay with Fayr and Bayta. If McMicking was here, there was a chance Hardin was, too, and I didn’t want even the Bellidos to see us together.
McMicking was about fifty meters ahead of me, walking with a sort of shuffling step that fit the rest of the persona he’d adopted for the occasion. I followed, keeping my distance, marveling again at the chameleonlike abilities of the man. I’d seen him in person three times now, and never did he look exactly the same twice. He changed his hair and beard like other people switched socks; whether he saw that as part of his job or whether it was some strange psychological quirk I didn’t know.
