The Domino Pattern

“I suppose.” She hesitated. “Frank …about the way I talked to Mr. Kennrick back there. I’m sorry if I was out of place.”

“You weren’t out of place, and I’m not sorry at all that you slapped him down,” I assured her. “The whole idea of trying to pin any part of this on the Spiders is ridiculous. It was about time he heard that in a format he could understand.”

We reached the dining car and went in. “I suggest you eat well,” I advised Bayta as we seated ourselves at one of the tables. “I have a feeling we’re in for another long night.”

“You think someone else is going to be murdered?”

“Our killer didn’t clobber Witherspoon and me and take that hypo just for the exercise,” I reminded her grimly. “One way or another, he’s going to use it.”

———

We had our dinner, discussed the case without making any discernible headway, and retired to our compartments for the night. I hit the sack immediately, hoping to get at least a couple of hours of sleep before the inevitable alarm sounded.

Only the inevitable alarm never came.

I hardly believed it when I woke up eight hours later and realized that my rest hadn’t been interrupted by emergency calls from doctors, Spiders, or dying passengers. I checked with Bayta, confirmed that the Spiders hadn’t spotted any problems during the night, and grabbed a quick shower before taking her back to the dining car for breakfast.

The car’s acoustics prevented me from eavesdropping on my fellow passengers as we ate, but there was nothing to interfere with my eyesight. If there was any fresh tension out there, I couldn’t read it in anyone’s face. On the contrary, it was as if the rest of the travelers had also noted the passage of a quiet night, and were equally relieved by it.

After breakfast Bayta and I set off on a leisurely tour of the train. The three remaining contract team Fillies were back at their card game, giving the impression they’d never left it. Possibly they hadn’t. Asantra Muzzfor, the sole team member still on Pellorian Medical’s side, nodded gravely as we passed. Esantra Worrbin and Asantra Dallilo, in contrast, ignored us completely. Three cars beyond them, Osantra Qiddicoj also nodded in greeting as we passed. He was still a little pale after his brush with gastrointestinal death, but was definitely on the mend. A small victory, I noted cynically, floating bravely along amid a sea of defeats.

We passed through second class, where we didn’t know anyone, and reached third, Logra Emikai, the white-knight Filly who’d come to Terese German’s aid a couple of days ago, was ensconced in the bar, where I’d noticed he seemed to spend a lot of his time. He spotted us about the same time as I spotted him, and I could see his eyes following us as we passed by. Possibly he was thinking about his offer of a bribe for inside information on my air filter analysis and wondering if he should follow through on that. But I made a point of not slowing as we passed the bar, and he apparently thought better of it and returned to his half-finished drink.

Three cars farther back we passed Emikai’s damsel in distress herself, who ignored us as usual. Terese’s Jurian seatmate Tas Krodo, had his hawk beak buried in his reader, while two rows back Master Tririn was again staring moodily at the display window beside him. Still in private mourning for his late contract- team companions, I guessed, or else quietly plotting his next victim’s death. I didn’t spot either Dr. Witherspoon or Dr. Aronobal during our journey, but with the dining and entertainment cars up and running, there were a lot of passengers away from their seats.

And with our casual tour of suspect and acquaintance completed, we slipped back into the baggage cars for another look at the victims.

“Why exactly are we here?” Bayta asked as I started undoing Master Colix’s mummy wrappings.

“Trying to find something we might have missed,” I told her.

“Like what?”

“I have no idea.” I finished unwrapping Colix, this time going all the way down to his waist, and set off on a careful, square-centimeter-by-square-centimeter search of the body.

And in the end, after half an hour, I found nothing.

“Two hypo marks, exactly,” I reported, wincing as I straightened my back out of the crouch it had been in for most of the examination. “The killer’s, and the one Dr. Aronobal made while he and Witherspoon were trying to save his life.”

“Are you sure?” Bayta asked.

I looked down at the body. “Did you see something I missed?”

“No, I meant are you sure they were trying to save his life,” Bayta corrected. She was gazing at the hypo mark in Colix’s arm, an intense look on her face.

“Meaning?”

“I was just thinking,” she said slowly. “After Master Colix died, Mr. Kennrick suggested that neither Dr. Aronobal nor Dr. Witherspoon actually knew what was in the vials they were using.”

“I assumed the Spider read the labels for them.”

“Actually, the way it works is that the doctor asks for the drug he or she wants and the server pulls those ampoules from the cabinet,” Bayta said. “But what if Dr. Witherspoon had another drug with him that he added to the hypo when no one was looking?”

I scratched my cheek and tried to pull up the memory of the scene as Bayta and I had come charging in. It would have been tricky, but not impossible, particularly if Witherspoon picked his moment carefully.

Witherspoon or Aronobal. Now that I thought about it, I realized I hadn’t actually seen that injection take place, mainly because Kennrick had popped his face into and out of the dispensary and I’d gone charging off after him. “Did you see Aronobal give Colix the injection?” I asked Bayta.

“I saw her remove the needle from Master Colix’s arm,” she said. “But not the actual injection.”

“Because you were watching me take off after Kennrick,” I said thoughtfully. “Interesting timing.”

“It could just be coincidence.”

“True,” I agreed. “Especially since we know that Colix was showing symptoms long before the doctors started working on him.” I frowned at Colix’s body. “But there is something else here, Bayta. Something significant. I just can’t put my finger on it.”

“Maybe when we reach Venidra Carvo and can have a proper autopsy done,” Bayta suggested.

“If it’s even still there,” I growled. “I’m sure the Spiders did their best, but after three-plus weeks of less-than- perfect preservation some of the more subtle evidence will almost certainly be gone.”

Bayta sighed. “And even if it hasn’t, the killer himself will be long gone by then.”

“With probably a new identity and maybe even a new face to go with it,” I agreed. “Possibly new DNA, too. We are headed for Filly space, after all, land of the lunatic gene-manipulators.”

“We’ll get him,” Bayta said firmly, an edge of fire creeping back into her eyes. “And then we’ll prove—to everyone—that the Spiders had nothing to do with it.”

“Absolutely,” I said, wishing I believed that. The farther we got into the mess, the more elusive proof of any sort seemed to be. “Well, nothing more for us here,” I added, starting to rewrap Colix’s body. “Give me a hand, will you?”

———

The next few days passed quietly. No one else even got sick, let alone died, and life aboard the train settled back a bit gingerly into its normal low-key routine.

We reached the three-week midway point without incident and passed on to the back half of our journey. Bayta told me the next morning that Kennrick and Tririn had gone ahead and held their halfway-celebration meal, the one Kennrick had been discussing with Colix the night of the first two deaths. Under the circumstances, I suspected the event was somewhat more subdued than originally planned.

I spent most of those days in my compartment, coming out only for meals, exercise, and occasional flybys of my primary suspects. Most of the compartment time was devoted to reexamination of the spectroscopic data I’d taken from the air filters and the bodies. But it was all just wheels spinning in mud. If there was anything in there