Odd Girl Out

'I do,' he said firmly

'In that case, let me make you a counteroffer,' I said. 'You back off, and let me find it.'

His sag-faced expression actually shifted a bit. Surprise? Suspicion? 'Why?' he asked.

'For one thing, because I'm the one offering the deal,' I said. 'For another, I'm better at finding things than you are.' I cocked my head. 'Or hasn't your particular mind segment caught up with the news of the past few weeks?'

The Modhri shifted his gaze to Bayta. 'I am aware of those events.'

'Good,' I said. 'Really does save time when everyone's up to speed. Is it a deal?'

His eyes searched my face, shifted again to Bayta, then came back to me. 'It is,' he said. 'I will accompany you to the Tube and pass on word of our new agreement.'

'You can pass it on later, after we're on our way' I gestured back toward the Customs area. 'Speaking of being on one's way …?'

'It would be a gesture of good faith,' he said, not budging. 'On your part as well as mine.'

'I said no,' I told him, dipping my hand into my pocket and getting a grip on the kwi. 'Don't make me insist.'

'Violence will not help you,' he pointed out calmly. 'Not now. If you had shot all my Eyes when they stood together by the Customs counter, you might have achieved something. But not now. Not when another of my Eyes can immediately call the pilot and alert him that there is a madman loose in the station.'

I grimaced. But he was right. As soon as I realized the clerk was a walker, I should have zapped the whole bunch of them unconscious.

But wild and possibly indiscriminate shooting wasn't a good idea even at the best of times, not even with a nonlethal weapon. Besides, I couldn't have been sure there weren't more walkers lurking elsewhere among the station's personnel and guests.

For that matter, I still couldn't. 'So I have to zap the pilot, too,' I said, wondering why I was even bothering to run with this bluff. 'I can fly the shuttle myself if I have to.'

He gave me a faint smile. 'Come now, Compton,' he chided. 'Do you really wish to draw that kind of attention to yourself? Besides, what would it gain you?'

'Apart from the satisfaction, it would let us start our trip with a little peace and quiet,' I said.

'Is that your concern?' he said. 'Very well, then. As I said: a gesture of good faith.' He nodded behind him. 'Shall I bring you your luggage?'

'If you'd like,' I said.

Actually, there wasn't anything in the carrybags except some tablecloths we'd scrounged from the server Spiders in our last train's dining car. Our clothing and other personal items were currently in plastic bags in the stationmaster's office, along with my allegedly missing lockbox.

Still, as long as the play was blown anyway, we might as well have our bags back.

'Frank?' Bayta murmured tautly.

'I don't like it either,' I conceded. 'But there isn't much we can do about it. The station has a crew of probably twenty or thirty, at least some of whom are probably walkers. We can't take down everyone, and it would be lunacy to try.'

'Besides, there's no need,' the Modhri added. 'For the moment, at least, we have a common goal.'

'The destruction of the Abomination.'

'Correct.' He reached into his pocket. 'Oh, and you may find this useful.' He opened his hand.

My stomach wrapped itself into a tight knot. Nestled in his pudgy palm was a silver necklace. The match to the ring I was carrying in my own pocket.

The necklace Lorelei had been wearing when she was killed.

'Thanks,' I said, forcing my voice to remain calm as I plucked it out of his hand. If the Modhri was looking for a reaction from me, he wasn't going to get the satisfaction.

'You're welcome.' He turned his head to look behind us.

And as he did so, the skin of his face tightened up again out of its sag. 'Sorry,' Braithewick said, his voice back to normal. 'Sorry. Zoned out on you there for a minute.'

'That's okay,' I murmured, slipping the necklace into my pocket. 'I wasn't saying anything important.'

'At any rate, as I was starting to say, dealing with the Spiders can take a little professional finesse,' he said briskly. 'I was thinking that it might take some time and—ah; your luggage.'

The Customs official came into sight, looking like a dit rec comedy bellhop as he struggled with two people's worth of travel bags. 'I took the liberty of suggesting to him that it would look better if you had your bags with you,' Braithewick explained, a slight frown creasing his forehead.

To me, that made no sense whatsoever. Judging by Braithewick's frown, it didn't make any sense to him, either. I thought about calling him on it, decided I'd heard enough Modhran pretzel logic for one day, and merely switched on my leash control. Bayta did the same, and as the clerk thankfully lowered the bags to the floor they rolled over to us. 'There you go,' the clerk said, his own forehead a little furrowed. 'Have a good trip.'

He turned and walked back around the curve and out of sight. 'Shall we?' Braithewick asked, gesturing ahead.

'Certainly,' I said. 'After you.'

We reached the Tube without incident and collected our clothing bags from the Spiders. We couldn't get the lockbox, of course—no weapons allowed in the Tube, and all that—but the stationmaster confirmed that it would be put aboard our next train.

'Well, that went well,' Bayta commented evenly as we stood together watching the laser light show playing between our incoming train and the Coreline that ran down the center of the Tube. 'Tell me again what this stop at Yandro was supposed to accomplish?'

'Anyone ever tell you that sarcasm ill befits you?' I countered.

'I was just wondering,' she murmured. 'I was also thinking that if the Modhri hadn't been alerted before to what we were up to, he certainly is now.'

'No, all that he knows is that we're on the move,' I corrected. 'But he knew that way back in New York, when those walkers followed me home from the precinct house. Maybe he knew it even sooner, when he saw Lorelei leave my apartment. But none of that means he actually knows what we're up to.'

'He will soon,' Bayta said, an edge creeping to her voice. Clearly, she was blaming me for this fiasco. 'Now, instead of us just slipping away quietly, we'll have an entire Quadrail's worth of walkers watching.'

'We'd probably have had that anyway,' I pointed out, putting a bit of an edge in my voice, as well. It wasn't my fault my gambit hadn't worked. 'In case you hadn't noticed, you and I are living in a fishbowl these days.'

Bayta sighed. 'I know,' she said quietly. 'I'm sorry.'

'I'm sorry, too,' I said, glancing back over my shoulder. Braithewick was standing well back from our platform, giving us at least the illusion of privacy. 'Don't worry. Whatever he's got up his sleeve, we'll be ready for him.'

The train pulled up beside us and came to the usual brake-squealing stop.

And I was treated to the most extraordinary sight I had ever seen.

The train began disgorging passengers. Not just the one or two who might be expected to disembark at a minor Human colony world like Yandro, but an entire stream of them. Passenger after passenger stepped out of the cars, their bags rolling behind them: Juriani, Bellidos, Halkas, even a pair of Shorshians from the far end of the galaxy. Some of them glanced around the station as they stepped onto the platform, but most of them gazed straight ahead as they walked stolidly out into the Coreline's pulsating glow.

And every one of them was coming from the train's first-class cars.

Walkers.

Bayta pressed tightly against me, her hands squeezing my left upper arm in a death grip as the walkers continued to come. My right hand had a similar grip on the kwi in my pocket, and I could feel the familiar tingling as Bayta telepathically activated the weapon.

But the walkers merely continued to file past us, none of them so much as looking in our direction as they headed away from the train. Not toward the shuttle hatchways, I noted, or even toward Braithewick, but just away