Night Train to Rigel

it.”

“Come on, come on,” McMicking said impatiently, eyeing the Spider as we arrived at the door. “You really want to bother with that thing?”

“Might come in handy,” I said. “Let’s swivel him around.”

A minute later we had the spider turned around so that it was resting on the top of the stretcher, its legs pointed forward. “Okay, open up,” I told McMicking. “Let’s see what we’ve got.”

I’d fully expected to find the crowd of walkers waiting in this, the last passenger coach before the baggage cars, ready to charge us the second we stepped inside. It was with a definite feeling of anticlimax that the door opened to show nothing but rows of empty third-class seats.

“Too easy,” McMicking muttered, eyeing the apparently deserted car. “He’s planning something.”

“I know,” I said. “Check the washrooms.”

He stepped to one of the doors and yanked it open. A quick look inside, and he closed that door and opened the other. “Clear.”

“No choice but to go for it,” I told him. “You first—watch yourself. Bayta, have the Saarix ready.”

McMicking started down the aisle, again checking each row as he passed. I kept us a couple of paces behind him, not wanting to let any of our group get too far ahead or behind.

We were halfway down the car when two Halkas suddenly leaped up from the row just ahead of McMicking and hurled themselves at him. McMicking staggered the first one back with a nunchaku blow across the top of his head, then danced back a step and turned to the second.

And as he did, the entire rear of the car erupted with Modhran walkers, three crammed into each side of each row. Each group had a piece of broken Spider; and in their usual perfect unison, they hurled them at us.

Their primary target was McMicking, who was instantly buried beneath a pile of debris. Reflexively, I grabbed Bayta’s arm and yanked her down behind the partial protection of the stretcher, stifling a curse as a section of Spider leg flew past and caught me squarely across the back. “Do it!” I snapped.

I didn’t have to give the order twice. Even as another round of flying objects slammed into the chairs all around us, I heard the sizzle-pop as she triggered the second carrybag handle. I held her tightly to me, hoping that McMicking had managed to keep his mask on.

The missiles stopped flying, and the commotion stilled. Cautiously, I looked up.

Once again, the Saarix had done the trick. The walkers were dead.

And our last trump card had now been played.

“Don’t just stand there,” McMicking’s muffled voice called from beneath a pile of twisted metal. “Get me out of here.”

Bayta and I squeezed around the stretcher and got to work, and a minute later we had him free. “You all right?” I asked as I helped him to his feet.

“I’m fine,” he grunted, shaking his arms experimentally as he bent down to retrieve his nunchaku. “That second Halka was kind enough to take some of the impact for me.”

“Nice of him,” I said, looking back. Losutu was just coming down the aisle toward us, his eyes frowning over his mask. “Come on, Losutu, shake a leg.”

“I was checking the medical kit,” he said, his voice tight. “The oxygen tank and mask are gone.”

“Terrific,” I said, my stomach tightening as I did a quick survey of the bodies draped across the seats and lying in the aisles. Other than ours, there were no masks in sight.

“We didn’t get around to checking the kit in the last car, either,” McMicking reminded me. “That means they could have two of them.”

“Three, if there’s one in the Peerage car,” I said. “I wonder what he’s done with them.”

“Nothing good,” McMicking growled. “The sooner we’re out of here, the better.”

“Definitely,” I agreed. “You want me to take point for a change?”

“No, I’ve got it,” he said, setting his nunchaku into fighting position again and moving ahead. “You might need to ditch the stretcher, though.”

I studied the narrow aisle and the mass of bodies lying in our path. He had a point. “Bayta, is our Spider still alive?”

“Yes, barely,” she said.

“You and Director Losutu grab it,” I said, manhandling the big oxygen cylinder off its rack and hoisting it up on the seat back next to me where I could get into the straps. “McMicking?”

“Looks clear,” he called from the rear door.

“Okay.” I got my arms into the straps and settled the cylinder onto my back. “Go.”

There was no one waiting for us in the baggage car. At least, not visibly. “Stay sharp,” I warned the others as I looked around.

“I’m on it,” McMicking said, moving forward and peering between the stacks of safety-webbed crates. “Where exactly are these hatches?”

“There,” Bayta said, pointing upward as she and Losutu eased the Spider onto the floor. “We might have to move some of the crates to make steps.”

“Or we could climb the webbing,” I suggested, craning my neck to look at the hatch. It was pretty big, and Bayta had already said it was heavy. “Any idea how we’re going to get it open?”

“Maybe we can use this,” Losutu suggested, lifting the pointed end of one of the Spider’s legs.

“Might work,” I agreed. “If we can get it up there—”

“Compton?” someone called from the far end of the car. “Frank Compton?”

I spun around. That voice… “Falc Rastra?”

“Yes,” Rastra called. “Please—I’m unarmed. I just want to talk.”

“No,” McMicking said before I could answer.

“Absolutely not,” Losutu seconded. “It’s a trick.”

He was almost certainly right, I knew. Still… “Come out where we can see you,” I called.

There was a moment’s pause, and then Rastra stepped out from between two stacks of crates at the far end of the car. “I’m unarmed,” he said again, holding his hands out as he took a step toward us. “You’re making a big mistake.”

“I do that all the time,” I assured him. “I’m used to it.”

“No, I mean it,” he insisted, taking another step forward. “The Modhri isn’t the evil, villainous creature you seem to think.”

“And all this comes from personal experience?” I asked, slipping the oxygen tank off my back and setting it down on the floor.

“Actually, it does,” he said, taking another step forward. “I’ve lived with part of him inside me ever since I was promoted to Falc.”

“What a coincidence,” I said, walking up behind McMicking. “I’ve lived with a whole bunch of him for the past hour myself. Can’t say I recommend the experience.”

“What did you expect?” Rastra countered. “You’re siding with people who are trying to destroy him.”

I reached McMicking’s side. “Go back to the others,” I ordered him quietly. Behind his back, out of Rastra’s sight, I slipped my multitool from my pocket and extended the blade. “If this is a diversion, that’s where the main attack will come.”

“You want me to just take him out and be done with it?” he murmured back.

“No, I don’t want you getting that far away,” I said, transferring the multitool to my right hand and covering the blade with my fingers. “I can handle him if there’s trouble.”

McMicking nodded and backed away. “They’re trying to destroy him because he’s trying to take over the galaxy,” I called to Rastra, lifting my right hand and resting it casually against the nearest stack of crates. Just around the corner where Rastra couldn’t see, I slipped the blade beneath the safety webbing and started to cut. “On a more personal level, he was trying to take over me.”

Rastra clicked his beak reprovingly. “He was trying to help you become part of a community,” he corrected. “Be honest, Compton—how long has it been since you truly felt yourself to be part of anything important?”

“That’s beside the point,” I said, sliding my hand casually up the corner of the boxes, slicing through the webbing as I went. I cut the strands as far up as I could conveniently reach, then shifted the knife to point down and started working on the lower ones. “Besides, I’ve never thought of slavery as much of a social club.”