Night Train to Rigel

and now.”

I felt my heart try to seize up. “High Commissioner JhanKla?”

“We just left his Peerage car,” Losutu said, and even through his anger I could hear the self-satisfaction that he’d been afforded such an honor. “He was kind enough to give us a ride from Sistarrko Station after Superintendent Prif Klas ordered us off Modhra.”

“And who then called the other warship in from the transfer station to take you to the Tube,” I said as it finally came together. No wonder we hadn’t had any trouble with that second Halkan warship; it had been pressed into transport duty to get Losutu and Applegate to the Quadrail in time to shadow us. And of course, sneaking up around the back of the Tube as we had, we hadn’t seen that it was missing from its post.

“And thanks to you, we’ll be lucky if the Halkas don’t block our purchase of those Chaftas,” Applegate put in indignantly. “You’ve wrecked an entire diplomatic initiative—”

“Forget the Chaftas,” Losutu cut him off. “I’m still waiting for Compton’s explanation about Modhra.”

“Yes, sir,” Applegate said. “But again, we shouldn’t be discussing this out in the open. Perhaps the High Commissioner would permit us to continue the discussion in the Peerage car.”

“I’m sure he would,” I said, my brain finally starting to kick into gear. “But there’s no reason for us to go all the way back there. I have a very comfortable compartment two cars forward.”

“No,” Applegate said sharply before Losutu could answer.

A UN deputy director, I suspected, was not used to having his decisions made by underlings. “What did you say?” Losutu asked ominously.

Applegate flicked a look at me, the wrinkles around his eyes deepening briefly as if he were just as startled as Losutu that he’d spoken out of turn. “My apologies, sir,” he said. “But the High Commissioner needs to be a part of any conversation that deals with the Modhran attack.”

“You disappoint me, Colonel,” I said. “This isn’t the attitude you showed back on Modhra, when you were trying so hard to be my friend.”

“That was before you joined ecoterrorists and participated in an attack on Halkan soil,” Applegate countered stiffly.

“Is that what it was?” I asked. “Or is it that you were still trying to get me to trust you, hoping to give the Modhri one last crack at me?”

Applegate’s forehead wrinkled. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Actually, you probably don’t,” I conceded. “But you see, I’m on to your quiet little friend. You and he made a slip when we were all having dinner together in the Redbird. Not a big slip, nothing I noticed at the time, but something that came back to me later when I heard someone else comment that he couldn’t imagine anyone speaking well of grabbing a chunk of coral.”

“I didn’t say anything good about touching coral,” Applegate said, still frowning. “In fact, I think I said just the opposite.”

“Yes, you did,” I agreed. “The slip was in the specific words you used. You said that coral was such rough, pointy, scratchy stuff.”

“You have a point here?” Losutu put in. His voice hadn’t lost any of its anger, but there was a hint of curiosity starting to edge its way through. For all his dislike of me personally, he knew the kind of Westali agent I’d once been.

“Yes, sir, I do,” I assured him. “Because just one day earlier I’d used those same words, in that same order, when Apos Mahf was singing the praises of Modhran coral. Rough, pointy, scratchy. Tell me, Colonel: How likely is it for you to have come up with all three of those words on your own unless there was someone whispering them in your ear?”

“This is insane,” Applegate insisted. “Completely insane.”

“I agree,” Losutu seconded. “If you’ve got something to say, Compton, say it.”

“I’ll be happy to, sir, if you’ll just step over to my compartment,” I said. “And if JhanKla wants to join us, he’s also welcome.”

“So now you want a Halkan High Commissioner to leave the comfort of his Peerage car for your convenience?” Applegate demanded contemptuously.

“Is it his comfort you’re worried about?” I asked. “Or his safety?”

“His safety?” Applegate echoed, frowning.

“Yes,” I said, suddenly feeling tired of this whole thing. Applegate had never been a friend; but even so, it was strangely debilitating to fight a man who didn’t even know he was an enemy. Maybe that was where the true strength of the Modhri lay. “Tell me, Colonel, what’s he afraid of? Me? Bayta?”

“Stop calling him Colonel,” Losutu growled. “He’s a civilian now.”

I shook my head. “No, sir, he’s just with a different army. The army of the Modhri.”

“The what?” Losutu demanded.

But I wasn’t looking at him. Applegate’s eyes had gone oddly flat, the muscles of his face sagging visibly as if he had fallen asleep on his feet. Before I could react, his face tightened up again, and his eyes came back to focus.

Only now the eyes were too bright, his posture too stiff, his face a subtle parody of the man who had once gazed coolly at me across a Westali desk and told me I was fired. It was no longer Colonel Terrance Applegate who stood before us.

The real enemy had finally come out to play.

“Ah,” I said, trying to keep my voice conversational. “Do I finally have the honor of speaking directly to the Modhri?”

“You do,” Applegate said. It wasn’t quite his voice, either.

Losutu apparently heard the difference, too. “Applegate?” he asked uncertainly. The anger was gone now, a growing apprehension in its place. “What’s going on?”

“Shut up,” Applegate said. He stepped to Losutu’s side, and the other inhaled sharply as his right wrist was suddenly pinned in a control lock. “You win, Compton. Let’s go to your compartment.”

“What for?” Losutu asked, fighting to keep his composure as Applegate marched him across the dining car.

“We’re going to talk,” Applegate told him calmly. He looked at me, the strange eyes gone suddenly dead. “And then,” he added “I’m going to end it.”

The entire contingent of first-class passengers was in motion as we stepped through the connecting door into the coach car, their drinks and readers and cards abandoned as they strode purposefully toward us like soldiers marching into combat. I tensed, hardening my hands into fists; but to my surprise they merely swerved both ways around us and continued on, heading back through the vestibule toward the dining car. “Where are they going?” Losutu asked, craning his head to watch as the last of them filed out of the car. “Applegate?”

“It’s no concern of yours,” Applegate said. Or rather, the thing possessing Applegate said. When the time came, I would have to remember that it was no longer a human being that I would be facing.

We were halfway across the now-empty car when the door ahead of us opened and a second stream of passengers appeared, heading aft with the same air of purpose as the first. Apparently, the Modhri was clearing out his walkers from all of the first-class compartments, too.

By the time we reached the compartment car itself the corridor was empty. “Which one?” Losutu asked.

“These,” Applegate said, gesturing toward the doors of our two compartments. “They’re the only ones I didn’t control.”

“We’ll go in here,” I said, stepping to Bayta’s compartment and touching the door chime. “We might as well bring Bayta in on the conversation.”

“And your other companion, too,” Applegate said. “The one posing as another doctor.”

The door opened, and I saw a flicker of surprise on Bayta’s face as she realized I had company. A second flicker followed as she saw who the company was. “Yes?” she asked carefully.

“Sorry,” I said, gently easing her aside and stepping in. The connecting wall between the two compartments, I saw, was partially open, just the way I’d left it. “Afraid we’ve miscalculated.”

“What do you mean?” she asked as the others came in behind me, Applegate closing the door behind him.

“He means the game is over,” Applegate said, releasing Losutu’s wrist and giving him a shove toward the bed. “Sit down, all of you. I’ll make this as quick and painless as possible. You—in the other compartment! Come here.