Night Train to Rigel

Now.”

There was no answer. “You—Human!” Applegate called again, putting an edge to his voice. “Come now.”

“Just a minute,” a timid voice came at last. McMicking’s voice, but quavering like a frightened accountant. “Please. I’m not dressed.”

Applegate hesitated, probably wondering whether it would be safe to leave us alone while he went to the other compartment and dragged McMicking in by his neck. His eyes touched mine, and he apparently decided against it. “You have one minute,” he called.

Losutu cleared his throat. “You promised to tell me what’s going on, Compton.”

“Basically, Colonel Applegate has been turned into a sort of pod person,” I told him, making sure my voice was loud enough to carry to McMicking. “I say sort of because up to now he’s been completely unaware that he’s playing host to a section of a group mind called the Modhri.”

“Even now he isn’t aware of it,” Bayta said, her voice so low I could barely hear her. “The Modhri has taken control by putting his personality to sleep. When he releases him, Applegate will return, with no memory of what happened. He’ll think he simply blacked out.”

“Only this time that may be a problem,” I warned, eyeing Apple-gate thoughtfully. “He’ll remember that I was talking about you just before he suffered an unexplained blackout. He’s too good an intelligence agent not to connect the dots.”

“I doubt it,” Applegate said calmly. “Primitives like you are amazingly good at rationalizing away events you don’t understand.”

“Why are you doing this?” Losutu asked, and I had to admit a grudging flicker of admiration for the man. All of this dumped on him like a truckload of rocks, and yet he was already thinking like a diplomat. “What exactly do you want?”

“I want to be all, and to rule all,” Applegate said, as if it were obvious. “And that day will come. But to business,” he went on, shifting those dead eyes back to me. “You took three data chips from Modhra 1. Give them to me.”

“If you insist.” I gestured toward the lounge chair where Bayta’s reader and the chips were lying on a pull-out armrest table. “They’re right there.”

Applegate backed over to the chair, keeping his eyes on us, and picked up the chips. A quick confirming glance at them, and he dropped them into his pocket. “Now tell me what you’ve learned from them.”

I thought about playing dumb, but it didn’t seem worth the effort. “You’ve shipped out a hell of a lot of coral recently,” I said. “Aside from that, nothing.”

His eyes glittered. “Nothing?”

“Absolutely nothing,” I assured him truthfully. I hadn’t figured it out from his precious data chips, after all. “Though it wasn’t for lack of trying.”

“I see,” Applegate murmured. He started to turn away—

And before I could react, he stepped to the bed, grabbed a handful of Bayta’s hair, and yanked her upright. “You lie,” he said calmly, twisting her around and pulling her close in front of him. “Tell me where it is, and I’ll release her.”

“I don’t know where it is,” I protested, feeling sweat breaking out on my face as he shifted his grip, wrapping his right arm around her throat. “Leave her alone.”

“Where what is?” Losutu demanded.

“Fine,” Applegate said. “Have it your way.” His left hand dipped into his side jacket pocket and came out again.

Holding a lump of Modhran coral.

“Now,” he said, holding the coral up for my inspection. “Will you tell me the truth? Or do I simply scratch her so”—he pantomimed running an edge of the coral along her cheek—“and turn her into the thing she fears most in the universe?”

“Leave her alone, damn it,” I snarled, half rising to my feet. Applegate twitched the coral warningly; clenching my teeth, I sank back down again. “I tell you we don’t know.”

“Do you agree, servant of the Spiders?” Applegate asked Bayta, his lips almost brushing her ear.

She didn’t answer, her eyes blazing with anger and terror. “Well?” he prompted.

“You will die,” she said, her voice strained but firm. “Do you hear me?”

“I hear you,” Applegate said calmly. “A final chance: Tell me where the homeland is, or join us. I assure you —”

“I’m coming out,” McMicking called from the other compartment, his voice still trembling. “Please don’t hurt me.”

Applegate flicked a glance at the open wall, clearly annoyed at the interruption. “Just come,” he snapped. There was another moment of hesitation, and then McMicking appeared, sidling nervously through the gap.

He hadn’t changed his hair in the past twenty minutes. But even so, for that first couple of seconds I almost didn’t recognize him. The air of professional awareness and competence had vanished into a bubbling nervousness. His eyes were bulging in panic, his fingers and lips and throat working with barely contained terror, his face halfway to bursting into tears. “Please don’t hurt me,” he begged.

“Sit down,” Applegate said disgustedly, jerking his head toward the bed. He turned his eyes back to me, as if even the alien within him was embarrassed at the sight of such a pathetic excuse for a Human being. “Well?” he demanded, again lifting the coral toward Bayta’s cheek.

And in that moment, McMicking struck.

He threw himself at Applegate in a flat leap that covered the two-meter gap between them, his fist slamming hard into Applegate’s exposed right armpit. Applegate bellowed with pain, and Bayta twisted away from him as the arm holding her suddenly went limp. Applegate twisted around as well, his left hand slashing out with the coral toward McMicking’s face.

But McMicking was no longer there. Even before Bayta was completely free he had dropped into a low crouch; and as the coral swung through the air above his head he swiveled around, his right leg sweeping Applegate’s legs out from under him.

With a curse, Applegate toppled over, slamming hard onto his back on the floor. I jumped up to assist, but there was no need. McMicking finished his sweep and hop-switched legs, jabbing his left foot out like a Russian dancer to catch Applegate solidly behind his right ear. There was a sickening thud, and with a single convulsive spasm, Applegate collapsed and lay still. His left hand opened limply, the coral rolling a few centimeters away across the floor.

“Everyone okay?” McMicking asked, giving Applegate’s ribs a test nudge to make sure he was going to stay down.

“We’re fine,” I said, getting up and kneeling over Applegate. “Did he get you with the coral?”

“Not even close,” McMicking assured me.

“Be careful,” Bayta warned as I checked Applegate’s pulse. “Modhran walkers aren’t easy to knock out.”

“I don’t think we’ll have that problem,” I said grimly, getting back to my feet. “He’s dead.”

“What?” McMicking demanded, dropping down and checking for himself. “That’s crazy—I didn’t hit him that hard.”

“The colony must have suicided,” Bayta said with a shiver. “Like the two Halkas at Kerfsis.”

“This Modhri sounds like a sore loser,” McMicking said with a grunt, straightening up and prodding the coral with his shoe. “What should I do with this?”

“Don’t touch it,” I warned. Nudging him away, I kicked it under the bed where it would be out of the way. “I wonder where the hell he got it from.”

“From the Peerage car,” Losutu murmured mechanically, still staring at Applegate’s body. “JhanKla has a long spine of it in a pool in his sleeping compartment.”

So the Peerage car wasn’t just a walker’s convenient and comfortable transport. It was also a full-fledged mobile command center. “Should have guessed,” I said. “Bayta, do you know if it can hear us?”

“You mean the coral?” Losutu asked, breaking his gaze away from Applegate to stare up at me. “What in the—?”

“Director, please,” I said. “Bayta?”