Odd Girl Out

Tas Yelfro said smoothly. 'Therefore, Falc Bresi has authorized a Jurian security team to be assembled from the transfer station. It will be here within the hour.'

I grimaced. As if I didn't have enough enemies and potential enemies to keep track of. 'That's very generous of you,' I said, taking Bayta's arm and easing her through the doorway into the room. 'We'll speak again when the investigation is finished.'

'We'll look forward to it,' Tas Yelfro promised.

I nodded to him and started into the room. Falc Bresi started to walk in behind me, but stopped short as I stood my ground in the doorway. 'We'll speak again when the investigation is finished,' I repeated, a little more firmly.

For a couple of seconds he just stared at me, as if memorizing the features of my face against the day when he had his people rearrange them. Then, without comment, he turned and headed toward the elevators. Tas Yelfro nodded again at me and followed.

I cocked an eyebrow at the four Spiders now grouped around the door. 'Your turn,' I said.

'They'll be staying for a while,' Bayta said quietly from somewhere behind me.

I looked over my shoulder. While I'd been verbally sparring with Falc Bresi, she'd made her way across the room and was standing with her back to me, staring out the window. Closing the door on the Spiders, I crossed over to her. 'You okay?' I asked.

'This isn't going to work, Frank,' she said, her voice almost too soft for me to hear. 'Every minute we stay here is another minute the Modhri has to bring in more walkers. In three days—' She shook her head, a shiver running through her.

Unfortunately, she had a point. 'It'll work out,' I said.

She didn't answer. She didn't have to. Grimacing, I stepped around to her side and put my arm around her shoulders. The muscles beneath my hand tensed reflexively at the touch, then softened again. Lifting my eyes from the colorfully dressed Humans and aliens scurrying among the tracks and platforms below, I focused on our train.

The Spiders had finished transferring the cargo from the old baggage car to the new one, and had maneuvered the new car into position between the other two baggage cars. I wondered briefly why they hadn't just put the remaining two cars together and stuck the new one on the end, decided it probably had something to do with keeping the cargo stacks in the properly positioned cargo cars. Through the open roof of the old baggage car I could see a group of smaller tech-type Spiders, both the knee-high mites and the even smaller twitters, moving slowly along the floor as they searched for evidence of how the two Halkas had died. I looked again at the open roof.

And felt my breath catch in my throat. 'Bayta, you told me the Spiders took our crate off the train,' I said, forcing my voice to stay casual. 'Where exactly was it? Somewhere near where we found the Halkas?'

'No, actually, it was in the third baggage car,' she said. 'The one at the end of the train.'

The tingle running up my back went a little more tingly. 'Could they tell if it had been opened?'

'I didn't ask them,' she said, frowning at me. Casual tone or not, she knew what it meant when I started asking odd questions this way. 'But they must have. Otherwise, why would the Modhri have killed them?'

'Is that what you think?' I asked. 'That the Modhri killed his own walkers?'

'I assumed he wanted an excuse to keep us here,' she said, frowning a little harder. 'It's not like he hasn't killed walkers before when he needed to.'

'He certainly made use of the situation to make trouble for us,' I agreed. 'But I think it was mostly pure luck that things turned out that way for him. Do you know where the autopsy is being carried out?'

'In one of the medical center's operating rooms, I think.'

'We need to go talk to the doctors.' I turned from the window and started toward the door.

'Wait a minute,' she said, catching my arm. 'We're not going anywhere. You're under arrest, remember?'

'So un-arrest me,' I said. 'This is important.'

'So is your life,' she said firmly. 'I thought the reason we agreed to this was to keep you away from angry Halkas until we could prove you didn't kill their countrymen. What do you want me to tell the doctors at the autopsy?'

I grimaced, but she was right. 'Tell them to check for evidence of asphyxiation.'

Her eyes widened. 'Asphyxiation?'

'And then,' I went on, 'have the Spiders check all the air seals on that baggage car.'

She looked back out the window. 'You mean the whole thing was just an accident?'

'Well, the Modhri certainly didn't kill them himself,' I said, carefully sidestepping her actual question. The deaths hadn't been an accident, not by a long shot. But this wasn't the time to go into that. 'You didn't see the way those four Jurian walkers came charging in at me after the Halkas died. The Modhri was mad, way madder than he should have been if he'd snuffed the Halkas himself. I think he was convinced I'd killed them, and was going to make it very clear what he thought of that.'

Bayta took a deep breath. 'All right, I'll go tell the doctors. What do you want me to do after that?'

'We get out of here as fast as we can, before the Modhri can bring in more walkers,' I said. 'I don't suppose that tender the New Tigris stationmaster told us about would happen to be anywhere nearby?'

'Actually, I think it's right here,' Bayta said, leaning a little toward the window and peering past the passenger platforms and buildings. 'Yes, I can see it over there.'

I looked where she was pointing. It was there, all right: three windowless passenger cars sandwiched between two engines pointed in opposite directions. It was sitting on the second track past the passenger section, in one of the Spiders' service areas. 'Then we're good to go,' I said. 'As soon as you get me officially cleared of the Halkas' deaths, have the Spiders collect the crate and lockboxes and put them aboard the tender. Once everything's there, you and I and Rebekah will join them, and we'll be out of here.'

Bayta's lips puckered. 'It sounds too easy,' she said doubtfully.

'Well, the first part certainly is,' I said. 'You said Rebekah's in a secure storage facility, which should include dozens of crates waiting to be transferred to different trains. And of course, the Spiders are always moving lockboxes around. Even if the Modhri's watching like a hawk, it should be no trick to get the Melding coral ready to travel.'

'But?' she prompted.

'But getting the three of us aboard won't be nearly so simple,' I conceded. 'We'll need to come up with a really good diversion to keep all those walker eyes pointed in the wrong direction at the critical moment.'

'You have any ideas on how to do that?'

'Not yet, but I will,' I said. 'You just get me off the hook so that I don't have a mob of Halkas breathing down my neck when we make our break.'

'Medical center, stationmaster's office, then back here,' she said, heading toward the door. 'Anything else?'

'No, that should do for now,' I said. 'And be careful. Some of the Halkas may have seen us together, and the Modhri certainly has.'

'Don't worry,' she said, pulling the kwi out of her pocket. 'I'll see you soon.'

She opened the door, and I caught a glimpse of a forest of Spider legs out in the corridor before it closed again behind her. Pulling out my reader, I settled down in a comfy chair by the window and pulled up a station schematic. When setting up a diversion, the first thing to consider was geography.

I'd been working for about half an hour when the door chime sounded.

I looked up, frowning. Bayta wouldn't bother ringing—one of the Spiders out there had a key, and she would have no problem ordering him to open up.

The chime came again. Tucking my reader away, I got up and went to the door.

It was the Jurian Resolver, Tas Yelfro. 'Mr. Compton,' he greeted me solemnly. 'May I come in?'

'Certainly,' I said, stepping back out of his way and wondering what the Modhri was up to this time. Tas Yelfro came in, glancing around as if making sure I was alone.

And as I watched, the scales around his beak seemed to sag a little, and the sweep of his shoulders hunched just a bit farther back, and his head straightened and then settled back into its original position.