Was I paralyzed?
That delightful thought snapped me fully awake. With my heart pounding, I opened my eyes.
In front of me was an unrelieved curtain of dark gray, and for another horrible second I thought I’d gone blind as well as paralyzed. Then my eyes focused, and I realized that what I was staring at was exactly that: a curtain of dark gray. I was sitting in a first-class seat with the sleep canopy deployed around me.
And the reason I’d thought I was paralyzed was that my wrists, ankles, and forehead were taped to that selfsame seat.
I looked downward as far as I could. There were at least four windings of tape around each of my wrists, possibly as many as five or six. I couldn’t see my ankles or, obviously, my forehead, but I had no reason to suspect my assailant had been any less generous there than he had with my wrists.
Experimentally. I tried twisting my arms, hoping I could break free. Nothing. I tried the same move with head and feet, with the same lack of results. At this rate, I’d be pinned here like a prize butterfly until lunchtime tomorrow.
My gut gave one of its now all-too-familiar rumbles. The thought of lunchtime, or of food in general, was almost painful. I listened to the fresh growling, trying to figure out if this was the same problem as before or if my assailant had decided to go ahead and poison me while he had the chance. It certainly felt like I was dying from the inside out.
I stiffened, the sudden tightening of my stomach muscles adding a fresh burst to the intestinal turmoil lower down. There it was, damn it—so obvious I should have fallen over it.
And then, outside my canopy, I heard something. I strained my ears, and the sound resolved itself into a set of quiet footsteps and the equally quiet but very distinctive tap-tap-tap of a Spider.
It was Bayta. It had to be. Clearly, I’d been gone long enough to arouse her misgivings and she’d grabbed a Spider to come looking for me. Feeling a surge of relief, I opened my mouth to call to her.
Only to discover that my friend with the tape had thoughtfully taken the time to gag me, too.
I heaved my shoulders back and forth to the sides, trying to shake the seat enough to catch Bayta’s notice. But it was anchored solidly in place, and I doubted I was getting up enough momentum to even disturb the canopy. I tried grunting through the tape over my mouth, but even to my own ears the muffled sound sounded pretty pathetic. Looking in all directions, I searched for inspiration.
And then, my gaze fell on the music controls by my left hand.
It was a long shot, I knew. Quadrail audio systems were heavily focused, precisely to prevent everyone else in the car from being disturbed by someone else’s music. I would have to crank it up to eardrum-damaging levels for anyone out there to even hear it.
But it was a risk I had to take. If I didn’t get Bayta’s attention now. it could be hours before one of the other passengers wondered why this particular traveler was sleeping in so late, and got curious enough to investigate. There were already at least three Fillies out there in serious medical trouble, with possibly more to come. Unless I got out of here, and fast, we were going to have more deaths on our hands.
Cranking the volume all the way up, I set my teeth and touched the switch.
It was like sitting front-row-center at a live concert where each musician had made a bet with all the others that he could get the most sound out of his instrument. I left the music on maybe a quarter of a second before switching it off again, and even with that short an exposure it felt like the my ears were coming off at the lobes.
But I couldn’t stop now. I fired it up another quarter second, and then another. Then, bracing myself, I turned it on for a full second.
This time, it felt like the top of my head was joining my ears in their attempt to vacate the premises. I gulped a breath, fired off another full second, and another, and then thankfully returned to three more of the shorter quarter-second bursts of agony.
Bayta had had a sheltered upbringing among the Chahwyn, and had been playing a determined game of intellectual catch-up since then. Still, somewhere along the line, surely even she had learned the significance of a classic SOS.
I was midway through the third repeat, and was wondering if my ears were starting to bleed yet. when the canopy was pulled open, and I saw Bayta’s worried face looking down at me.
In the brief time I’d been away, the dispensary had become an emergency room.
Witherspoon was sitting on one of the fold-out seats along the side wall, pressing a cold pack against the back of his head, his posture that of a man who had just gone three rounds with a bulldozer. Two Fillies were twitching in obvious discomfort on fold-out slabs on the other side of the room. One of them turned his head as Bayta and I entered, and I saw it was my friend Rose Nose, the one who’d pulled me out of the scuffle with Strinni earlier in the afternoon, just long enough for Kennrick’s ribs to get cracked instead of mine.
Strinni’s body, which had been on the diagnostic table when I’d left, was nowhere to be seen. In its place, lying ominously still on the treatment table as Aronobal worked feverishly over him, was
“Whatever you’re doing, stop it,” I said, wincing as the sound of my words assaulted my sore ears. “It won’t work.”
“Compton!” Witherspoon exclaimed, looking up at the sound of my voice. “Are you all right? Someone hit me —”
“Save it,” I cut him off. “You need to get a load of gleaner bacteria from somewhere and inject it into his intestines.”
“What?” Aronobal asked, frowning down her long nose at me.
“Are you deaf?” I bit out. “Their gleaner bacteria’s been wiped out. The unneutralized waste is backing up and flooding their systems—that’s what’s making them sick.”
“Impossible,” Aronobal insisted. “What could they possibly have eaten that could have done so much damage?”
“They didn’t eat it, they inhaled it,” I said, disengaging myself from Bayta’s supporting arm and making my slightly unsteady way to the table. “I took a sample earlier from one of the train’s air filters and found traces of antibacterial sprays.”
“You can’t kill a Filiaelian’s gleaner bacteria that way,” Witherspoon said. “Everything they inhale is filtered through the respiratory system—”
“So is everything Humans inhale.” I interrupted him. “But Bayta and I are both feeling the effects of something on our own gut flora. Whatever this stuff was our killer was spraying around, it digs deep and packs one hell of a punch.”
Witherspoon looked at Aronobal. “Is this reasonable? Or even possible?”
“Do you have any other treatment to suggest?” Aronobal countered. “Very well, Mr. Compton. If your companion will ask the Spiders to find some Filiaelian volunteers, we’ll try your suggestion.”
“No,” a weak Filly voice said.
It took me a second to realize the voice had been Givvrac’s. “No what?” I asked, looking down at him.
“No need to find volunteers,” he said, his eyes nearly closed, his nose blaze gone so dark now as to be nearly black. “My contract team—
“Works for me,” I said, looking over at Bayta. “Can you get the Spiders on it?”
She nodded. “Already done.”
“Compton?” Givvrac murmured.
I looked back down at him. “Yes?”
“My final wish,” he said softly. “Find this murderer.”
“I will,” I promised, wondering distantly if Filly law listed any penalties for failing to deliver on a deathbed promise. “But you’re a long ways yet from any final wishes,” I added. “Half an hour, and you’ll be as good as new.”
“Find the murderer, Mr. Compton,” Givvrac repeated, his voice trailing off into a whisper. “And kill him.”
