The Domino Pattern

were needed.

And she was right. She’d put her butt on the line for me time and time again. And those were only the times I knew about. “You’re right,” I acknowledged. “Let’s do it this way. I’II wait outside while you go in and look at the facility. I can tell you what to look for, and walk you through anything that needs follow-up.”

I could tell she was tempted. It would make life simpler, and give her one fewer telepathic battles to fight. “What would I have to do?” she asked.

I shrugged. “No way to know for sure until we get there. But probably nothing complicated.”

She hesitated, then shook her head. “I don’t think we can risk it.” she said with a sigh. “You’re the expert. You really need to look for yourself.”

“You sure?” I asked. “I wouldn’t want to be stuck on a Quadrail for four more weeks with a whole trainful of Spiders mad at us.”

She gave me a wry look, and as she did so some of the tension in her face went away. “Since when do you care what other people think?”

“Oh, I don’t care about me,” I said. “I was worried about you.”

“Well, don’t,” she said. “I can take care of myself.” She nodded ahead. “Come on—the server’s expecting us.”

FOUR

The third-class dining room was deserted when Bayta and I arrived, with only a single server Spider standing a lonely vigil behind the counter along the rooms back wall. The counter, in turn, was separated from the area behind him by a slat curtain.

“The door’s over here,” Bayta said, leading the way toward the side of the serving counter. As we approached, a concealed panel popped open in front of us. I nodded my thanks to the Spider, got the usual lack of reaction in return, and followed Bayta through the doorway.

One of the perennial topics of conversation aboard Quad-rails was exactly how the Spiders managed to prepare so many meals for so many travelers. Now, standing in the food preparation room, I finally had an answer to that question.

It was a definite letdown. The prep room was lined with shelves loaded to the gills with flat white boxes covered with Spider dot codes. “Prepackaged meals,” I identified them.

“Of course,” Bayta said, her tone making me feel a little ridiculous. “You didn’t really think we had full gourmet kitchens on each train, did you?”

“There were rumors,” I said, looking around. Along with the food storage shelves, there were other racks containing bottles of water and other liquid refreshments, plus a dozen cook stations that included microwaves, flash-heaters, and re-hydrators. Tucked away in one of the back corners was a closed trapdoor with what looked like a wide conveyor belt set vertically against the wall. “For bringing in fresh stock from the storage car?” I asked, pointing at it.

“Yes,” Bayta said. “It connects to a conveyor system that runs beneath the cars. We only have those on cross-galactic trains, of course.”

I looked back at the food shelves. “I guess we might as well start with the obvious. Which ones are the Shorshic meals?”

“There,” Bayta said, pointing to the third stack from the left. “Do you want a list of the meals Master Colix had in the past day? Dr. Aronobal got it from Master Bofiv and Master Tririn earlier while you were speaking with di-Master Strinni.”

“Did Colix eat the same thing every day?” I asked.

“I don’t think so.” Bayta said.

“Then I can get the menu later.” Stepping over to the Shorshic rack, I picked up the top box.

It was heavier than I’d expected, which probably meant it contained a complete meal instead of appetizers or desserts or something lighter. The box itself was made of a thin but sturdy plastic, sealed with a quick-release strip. Experimentally, I pulled the strip open a couple of centimeters and then tried to reseal it.

It didn’t reseal. I tried it again, just to be sure, then tried lifting the corner of the lid, hoping to get a look at the food inside.

But there was a wide flap in the way, and pulling on the corner merely gained me another couple of centimeters of open strip. “I presume the Spiders would have noticed if one of the meals had shown up unsealed?”

“Of course,” Bayta said. “Aren’t you going to open it?”

“No need,” I said, looking closely at the box in search of punctures or small tears. “What happens to the boxes once the food’s been served? Do they get flattened and stored somewhere for reuse?”

“No, they go directly into the recycling system,” she said. “The fibers are designed to serve as a catalyst for some of the waste breakdown.”

“When you say directly, you mean …?”

“I mean directly,” she said, frowning. “Yesterday’s packages are already gone. What do you mean, no need? I thought you wanted to check the food for contamination.”

“I do.” I confirmed. “Or rather, I did. But it’s clear now that if the food was tampered with, it didn’t happen at the kitchen where these things were cooked and packaged. It happened right here aboard the train.” I grimaced. “And it happened on purpose.”

Her eyes went wide. “Are you saying they were murdered?”

“I don’t see any way around it,” I said. “One death might be an accident. But not two. Not like this.”

“But Dr. Witherspoon said Shorshians are especially susceptible to poisoning.”

“Exactly my point,” I said. “Even small amounts of poisons typically generate obvious symptoms in that species. If Colix and Bofiv had ingested the stuff gradually, over the past few days, the symptoms would have shown up long ago. The only conclusion is that they were both nailed with large, lethal doses, all at once. That kind of dosage doesn’t usually happen by accident.”

For another few seconds Bayta remained silent. But I could see the shock fading from her face as she realized I was making sense. “All right,” she said slowly. “But why would anyone want to kill them?”

“I haven’t the faintest,” I conceded. “Actually, it’s worse than that. We don’t even know yet that they were specifically targeted.”

Her eyes did the widening thing again. “You mean the killings might have been random?”

“Or the killer was aiming at someone else and missed,” I said. “But one thing at a time. The easiest method for delivering poison is by food or drink, since everybody eats and nine out of ten people don’t pay that much attention to their food while they’re eating it.”

“Yes,” Bayta said thoughtfully. “Shorshic meals usually include a common dipping dish, don’t they?”

“That’s what the cultural profiles say,” I confirmed. “Which would certainly make surreptitious tampering easier. The downside is that the poisoner pretty much has to be in the same group as the victim—a stranger leaning in so he can sprinkle fairy dust into a dipping dish in the middle of the table would be a little obvious.”

“But if the poisoner was also a Shorshian, wouldn’t he run the risk of being poisoned himself?” Bayta asked.

“Absolutely,” I said. “Which is one of several intriguing questions about this whole thing. Namely, were both Colix and Bofiv murdered by a third party? Or could Bofiv have murdered Colix and then gotten caught in his own backfire?”

“Or vice versa?” Bayta suggested. “Master Colix murdering Master Bofiv?”

“Possibly,” I agreed. “Colix would have to be a particularly incompetent killer for that scenario to work, but I’ve known my share of inept criminals. Still, it’s more likely that the killer was someone else at their table.”

Bayta’s eyes went distant for a moment as she communed silently with the Spiders. “The servers don’t have that information.”

“That’s all right,” I said. “We’ll corner Tririn later and ask him for yesterday’s guest list.”