The Domino Pattern

instance?”

“It wouldn’t be easy,” Bayta said thoughtfully. “At the very least you’d have to distract the server.”

“So he’d probably need an accomplice.” I concluded. “You have a list of passengers who have hypos on file?”

“Let me get it.” Her eyes unfocused as she consulted with the Spiders. I took advantage of the break to work some more on my waffle. “There are three in second and one in first,” she reported. “Interesting.”

“What is?”

“The first-class passenger is Esantra Worrbin,” she said. “Isn’t that one of the Filiaelians on the contract team?”

“Not only one of the team, but one of the team opposed to the contract,” I confirmed. “Just like Master Tririn. Do we know what Esantra Worrbin’s particular condition is?”

“It’s listed as Tintial’s Disease,” she said. “It’s a rare form of diabetes that only appeared a few decades ago.”

“Of course it is.” I said with a cynical smile. “Rare diseases are so convenient when you want to snow a doctor or investigator.”

“You think Esantra Worrbin and Master Tririn could be working together?”

“It’s something we’ll want to look into,” I said, stacking my two remaining bites of waffle onto the fork and stuffing them into my mouth. It was a stretch, but I managed it.

“So what do we Jo now?” Bayta asked as I chewed my way valiantly through the mouthful. “Go see if Esantra Worrbin can account for all his hypos?”

I swallowed the last of the waffle. “Not quite yet,” I said. “Something else occurs to me as a possible reason why Witherspoon and I were jumped last night. Which of the baggage cars is serving as our temporary morgue?”

“The third one back,” Bayta said. “There was enough room in there to set up the isolation tanks.”

“Okay,” I said, taking a last swallow of my tea. “Let’s go take a look.”

———

We set off on the long walk toward third class. Three cars behind the dining car we passed the dispensary, and I noted that for the first time in a bad couple of days the room was empty except for the server Spider on duty. I wondered it we would catch the killer before it started filling up again.

The next car back, Bayta informed me, was the one where Esantra Worrbin and the two remaining contract team members were seated. I spotted the group at once as we headed through the car: three Fillies with their chairs turned to face each other, a hand of push-pull cards dealt onto their extendable trays. For the moment, though, the game was being ignored, the aliens instead speaking together in low voices. One of them glanced up as Bayta and I passed, but turned back to the conversation without speaking to us. I thought about pausing to introduce ourselves, decided I wanted to check my hunch about the bodies first, and passed them by.

Three cars later we reached the coach car where the late di-Master Strinni had had his seat, and where Witherspoon and I had been attacked in the dark of night. My neck throbbed in memory and edgy anticipation as we made our way through the clumps of chairs, my senses alert for trouble.

But no one jumped out at us. We arrived at the rear of the car and I reached for the vestibule release—

“Mr. Compton,” a hoarse voice said from somewhere behind me.

A surge of adrenaline shot through my body and straight through my still tender neck and ears. I turned, trying to make the movement look casual, my hands ready to snap up into fighting stance if necessary.

It wasn’t. The speaker was merely Rose Nose, or rather Osantra Qiddicoj, the Filly Witherspoon and I had been on our way to examine when we were jumped. He was resting in his seat, a blanket spread out across his legs and tucked up around his torso. His face and blaze were still noticeably pale after his bout with the digestive trouble that had killed Givvrac, but he was definitely on the mend. “Good afternoon, Osantra Qiddicoj,” I greeted him, hoping I was remembering his name right. Fillies hated it when you called them something like Rose Nose to their long faces. “You’re looking much improved.”

“Thanks to you and your friends,” Qiddicoj said, inclining his head. “I’m told I owe you my life. My deepest thanks.”

“You’re welcome,” I said. “But your thanks should more properly be directed to Dr. Aronobal and Dr. Witherspoon. They’re the ones who actually cured you. All I did was point them in the right direction.”

“Yet without that direction, their skills would have lain fallow and unused,” he said. “Again, I stand in your debt.”

“Again, I’m glad I could help in my small way,” I said. “Rest now, and continue to heal.”

I turned and touched the release, and Bayta and I stepped into the vestibule. “Is extra modesty one of the necessities for detective work?” she asked as we crossed toward the next car.

“It wasn’t modesty,” I insisted. “I really didn’t say anything that Ar0n0bal and Witherspoon wouldn’t have caught on to eventually.”

“Maybe,” Bayta said. “But whether they would have or not, the fact is that you did save Osantra Qiddicoj’s life.”

“In a small way.” I gave her a sideways look. “Besides, it never hurts to be overly modest, especially where potential sources of information are concerned. People who consider themselves in your debt are often amazingly eager to help you out.”

“I thought so,” Bayta murmured.

We passed through the thirteen second-class cars without talking to anyone and entered third. Dr. Aronobal was seated in the first of the third-class coach cars, dozing in her seat after her grueling night, and I made a mental note to get the Spiders to pass her to first later so that Osantra Qiddicoj could give her his thanks in person.

Two cars farther back, we reached the scene of the first two murders.

I found myself looking at Master Colix’s scat as we approached, an empty spot between the Juri, whom Bayta had already talked to, and Terese German, whom I was frankly tired of talking to. The Juri looked up as we approached, nodding politely as he recognized us. Terese, her headphones firmly in place over her ears, ignored us completely.

I was starting to pass the row when Bayta nudged me in the side. “Master Colix’s storage compartments?” she prompted.

I looked at the upper set of compartments, then at Terese. She had slid down in her seat with her legs stretched all the way out in front of her. Getting to Master Colix’s storage compartments would mean stepping over her, and would probably earn me a withering glare at the least. “We’ll do it later,” I told Bayta.

“You said that yesterday,” she reminded me. “Don’t you care that someone stole Master Colix’s fruit snacks?”

Actually, I didn’t. Despite what the Spiders probably claimed, I was pretty sure this kind of petty theft went on all the time aboard Quadrails.

But if it came to facing someone’s irritation, it would be safer to deal with Terese’s than Bayta’s. “Fine,” I said, coming to a reluctant halt. “Excuse me,” I said to Terese’s headphoned cars. Not waiting for a response, or expecting one for that matter, I lifted one leg and stepped carefully over her outstretched body.

Her head snapped up with a quickness and preset glare that showed she hadn’t been nearly as oblivious of our presence as she’d been pretending. “You have a problem?” she growled, slipping the headphones down around her neck.

“I just need to get through,” I soothed, getting my first foot planted in front of Colix’s seat and lifting my other foot over her legs.

“For frigg’s sake,” she grumbled. “How many times are you people going to do this?”

I frowned as I brought my other foot back to the floor. “I don’t know,” I said. “How many times have we done this?”

“How about just talking to each other for once?” she bit out. “They’re gone, I didn’t take them, and I don’t know who did. Can you leave me alone now?”

“What didn’t you take?” I asked, sitting down in Colix’s seat.