Odd Girl Out

The Modhri had taken over.

'Greetings, Mr. Compton,' he said, his voice altered as subtly but as indisputably as his appearance. 'I bring news and an offer.'

'Do you, now,' I said. 'If it's anything like the last seven or eight offers you've pitched to me, I think I'll pass.'

'But first,' the Modhri said, ignoring the gibe, 'I bring you a conversation piece.' Reaching into his tunic, he pulled out something small and lobbed it toward me.

Automatically, I reached out and caught it. It was a kwi, just like the one I'd conned out of the Chahwyn.

I felt my breath freeze in my chest. No. It wasn't just like my kwi. It was my kwi.

The kwi Bayta had been carrying.

I looked up at the mocking Jurian eyes gazing at me. 'Where is she?' I asked, forcing my voice to stay quiet and controlled.

'She is safe,' the Modhri said. 'There's no need to worry.' He cocked his head slightly to the side. 'Yet.'

I took a step toward him. 'Where is she?' I repeated, my voice quavering slightly with black anger. My brain was spinning at Quadrail speeds, trying desperately to come up with a plan.

'I said she is safe,' the Modhri said, matching my tone. 'For now, that's all you need to know.'

'I don't think so,' I said, taking another step toward him. Most people, I reflected grimly, would have started backing up about now, possibly doing a quick reevaluation on whether they really wanted to cross me or not.

But the Modhri didn't think like that. To him, Tas Yelfro was just another of his slaves, one more disposable body in his collection. If he died at my hand, the Modhri would simply find or make a replacement.

And then, as I continued moving toward him, the germ of an idea finally surfaced. A risky, shaky idea, way too heavy on speculation and suspicion and way too light on actual fact. But it was the best I had, and it would have to do. 'You'll tell me where she is, and you'll tell me now,' I continued, taking the one final step that put me within arm's reach of him.

His beak cracked open in a mocking smile. 'Really, Mr. Compton—'

The rest of the sentence disintegrated in an explosive gasp of surprise and pain as I drove my fist hard into his abdomen.

EIGHTEEN :

The typical Human response when hit like that would be to fold, jackknife-style, around the point of impact. The typical Jurian response, in contrast, was to go stiff as a board and fall backward. Except for his Modhran polyp colony, Tas Yelfro was indeed a typical Juri. He gasped again as he toppled backward like a frozen mannequin, the crash of his fall muffled by the thick carpet.

For a second he just lay there, looking like a molded lugeboard, staring at me in disbelief. I knelt down beside him and, just to show it hadn't been an accident, I hit him again in the same spot.

He shook with the impact, his eyes and beak widening with agony and even more disbelief and the beginnings of genuine anger. 'I'm going to go find her now,' I told him, gazing into his eyes with the most intimidating stare in my Westali arsenal. 'If you try to stop me, I'll just have to hurt more of your walkers.'

I lowered my face until it was only a few centimeters from his. 'And if you hurt her,' I added quietly, 'I'll kill every walker in this station. You hear me? Every last one of them.'

He was still staring back at me, his eyes still swimming with pain. Only now, I could see the first stirrings of fear, as well. If I really succeeded in killing all his walkers, this particular mind segment would die, vanishing without a trace and leaving the overall Modhran mind to forever wonder what had happened here today.

It wasn't an idle threat, either. I'd done it before, destroying the mind segment on an entire Quadrail train.

Or so he believed.

I held his gaze another couple of seconds, just to make sure he knew I was serious, pushing the bluff to the limit. Then, wrapping the kwi around my right hand, I stood up, crossed to the door, and eased it open.

My four Spider guards were still standing out there where I'd left them. Slipping out into the hallway, I closed the door behind me. 'Can you locate Bayta?' I asked.

'You are ordered to remain in your compartment,' one of the Spiders said.

'I know that,' I said. 'Can you locate Bayta? Yes or no?'

'No,' he said.

I felt my stomach tighten. For one telepath not to be able to locate another telepath meant one of three things: out of range, unconscious, or dead.

Not dead, I told myself firmly. Not dead. The Modhri was way too smart to throw away his best leverage against me by killing her out of hand. No, she was surely only unconscious.

Unfortunately, she could also be literally anywhere on the station. 'Alert the rest of the Spiders to watch for her,' I ordered him. 'You four start searching the passenger areas between here and the medical center.'

None of them so much as budged. 'Did you hear me?' I demanded.

'You are ordered to remain in your compartment,' the Spider said.

'I have authority in Bayta's name to give you orders,' I said, easing myself to the side where I would have a clear shot around his maze of legs. Actually, I wasn't really sure how much authority I had over the Spiders when Bayta wasn't with me.

'You are ordered to remain in your compartment,' the Spider said, still not moving.

I grimaced. Apparently, not much. 'In that case—' I began.

And right in the middle of the sentence, I ducked past him and sprinted for the stairs.

Spiders being the simple workers that they are, I hadn't expected them to react quickly enough to stop me. I was right, and was halfway down the first flight of the wide flowing staircase before they even made it to the landing.

Unfortunately, the Modhri wasn't nearly so slow on the uptake. I had reached the fourth-floor landing and was rounding the corner onto the next curve of stairs when I heard the sounds of a small crowd further down the stairway on its way up.

I was halfway to the third floor when the front of that wave reached me.

There were four of them, all middle-aged Juriani dressed in quiet, dignified, upper-class clothing, breathing heavily as they bounded up the stairs like children in a hop-clink game. Behind them, just starting up the flight of stairs, were two Halkas wearing the trilayered robes of the Halkan Peerage. Apparently the Juriani were the sacrificial lambs, designed to slow me down as I barreled through them so that the larger Halkas could safely corral me before I did any serious damage.

But I had no intention of playing nicely. I waited until I was only three steps away from the panting Juriani, then veered to the outside of the stairway, grabbed the top of the railing, and flipped myself over the edge. Shifting my grip in midair to one of the railing's vertical supports, I slid down until I was hanging straight over the railing of the next flight down. As my momentum swung me inward, I let go of the support and dropped to the stairs below.

Neatly putting me below the Modhri's attack line.

I could hear the sudden flurry of activity above me as the Juriani and Halkas screeched to a halt and reversed direction. But they were too late. I was already on my way down, taking the stairs three at a time. I reached the lobby and charged past the rest of the astonished travelers out into the station.

Jurskala Station was the Quadrail stop for the Jurian home system, and as such was large, elaborate, and