The Domino Pattern

supporters who clearly thought I was out to add her to some phantom body count. There would be plenty of other opportunities to hit her up about her relationship with Emikai before we reached Venidra Carvo. “I get the feeling you really don’t want to talk right now,” I said, taking a casual step backward. “Fine. We’ll do this later.”

“Don’t let him go!” Terese snapped. “If he gets away, we’ll never find out what he did with Logra Emikai.”

She started toward me, and to my surprise I saw she had tears in her eyes. Either she was choking with rage or she really did feel something for the supposedly vanished Emikai. “I didn’t do anything with Logra Emikai,” I insisted.

But it was too late. Behind her, one of the two Halkas—the bigger one, naturally—shouldered her aside and strode toward me, the glow of righteous indignation in his eyes.

“Move it,” I murmured to Bayta, crowding backwards against her as I dipped my hand into my pocket. Unfortunately, while the kwi gave me the power to drop the Halka where he stood, I couldn’t use it, at least not openly. Kennrick already knew I had brought a supposedly forbidden weapon aboard, and Logra Emikai probably suspected it, and the last thing I wanted was for the rest of the train to find out, too.

But if I couldn’t use the kwi openly, maybe I could use it not openly.

The Halka was still lumbering forward as I pulled my hand out of my pocket, the kwi in position around my knuckles. The second Halka had fallen into step behind the first, with Terese now third in line. “Take it easy,” I said soothingly as I keyed the kwi for its lowest unconsciousness setting. “I don’t want any trouble here. Neither do you.”

The two Halkas merely picked up their pace a little. Knowing Halkas, I’d expected that. I continued to back up, keeping my hands moving in little circles to prevent anyone from getting a clear look at the kwi. The lead Halka got to within grabbing distance and reached out a large hand toward my neck.

And I slammed my right fist into his gut.

It wasn’t all that hard a slam, actually. In fact, the punch was over ninety percent pure noise, with as little genuine impact as I could get away with while still making it sound real. There didn’t have to be any impact, because an instant before my fist hit his torso I thumbed the kwi‘s firing button.

The weapon worked with its usual gratifying speed, instantly sending the Halka off to dreamland. As his knees started to buckle beneath him I brought my left hand up and made a show of chopping him at the base of the neck. After that, my only job was to get out of his way as he collapsed with an impressive thud onto the floor.

The second Halka came to an abrupt halt. So did the various mutterings and twitterings that had been going on among the onlookers. Our entire end of the car, in fact, went deathly quiet.

And from behind me I heard Bayta give a short, strangled gasp.

I spun around, kwi ready, both hands coming up into combat position. But it was only Kennrick, his hands on Bayta’s shoulders as he moved her sideways out of his way. “What the hell are you doing back here?” he demanded, his voice taut, his eyes flicking to the line of potential attackers still facing me. “Come on—we’ve got to get out of here before you get lynched.”

I was opening my mouth to tell him that we had every intention of doing exactly that when the second Halka made his move.

Unfortunately for him, the same relative silence that had allowed me to hear Kennrick’s non-assault on Bayta also enabled me to hear him coming with his more genuine attack. I spun back around, evaded his pile-driver punch, and dropped him to the floor with a second kwi shot and some more martial-arts window dressing.

And then Kennrick’s hand was on my shoulder, pulling me backward toward the vestibule. “Come on,” he repeated urgently. “Let’s get the hell out of here.”

I took one last look at Terese’s stricken, disbelieving, anguished expression, and got the hell out of there.

We reached the next car and Kennrick slipped around past me, putting himself behind Bayta and me and between us and any potential follow-up trouble that Aronobal and Terese might choose to send in our direction. But no one came bursting through the vestibule in hot pursuit. The three of us retraced our steps back through third class, and again I could feel the eyes of the passengers on my back as we hurried forward. Fortunately, none of them did anything but look, and a few minutes later we made our escape from third class into second.

“Whew,” Kennrick puffed as we slowed our pace back to a normal walk. The passengers here, I noted, seemed to have no interest whatsoever in us. “That was way too close.”

“Close to what, I’m not sure,” I said, eyeing him over my shoulder. “What was all that about, anyway?”

“What, they didn’t tell you?” he asked. “There’s a rumor racing through third that you killed Logra Emikai during the night.”

“That much I gathered,” I said. “I was mostly wondering if this rumor has anything more to it. Like why I would do something like that or, better yet, how I managed to dispose of a body from a sealed Quadrail.”

“You really think anyone’s paying attention to actual logic?” Kennrick said sourly. “Especially when it’s a trusted member of the medical profession who’s telling you all this?”

“Dr. Aronobal started the rumor?” Bayta asked, frowning over her shoulder.

“Who else?” Kennrick said. “I’m just glad I got back there in time.” He grunted. “Not that you seemed to need me. That, uh, asset of yours is really something.”

“We like it,” I said. “Which isn’t to say that reinforcements aren’t always welcome. How did you happen to be there, anyway?”

“Pure luck,” he said. “Asantra Muzzfor went back to third earlier this morning to discuss the contract situation with Master Tririn. While he was there he got wind of the rumor about Emikai’s mysterious disappearance, though your name apparently wasn’t yet connected to it. He mentioned it to me when I stopped by his seat half an hour ago, along with the fact that he’d seen you heading that direction. I put two and two together and went charging back to try to stop you before walked into a hornets’ nest.”

“Why would Dr. Aronobal start such a rumor?” Bayta ask

“Obviously, to keep you two at bay while she locates Emikai and finds out what we know,” Kennrick said. “Or, failing that, to come up with another plan.”

“But that doesn’t make any sense,” Bayta insisted.

“Of course it does,” Kennrick said. “Like I said, she needs to find Emikai—”

“Why doesn’t it make sense?” I interrupted.

“Because if Dr. Aronobal knows Logra Emikai well enough to send him to break into your compartment, she should also trust him not to tell us anything,” she said. “Especially about whether or not the two of them are working together.”

Kennrick snorted. “I think the working together part was obvious as soon as Aronobal tried to lure Compton out of his compartment so that Emikai could break in.”

“Obvious, but not provable,” Bayta insisted. “We might suspect, but we couldn’t know for sure. Given that, wouldn’t Dr. Aronobal do better to pretend she was innocent, or had been set up, and try to find out what we know?”

There was an answer for that, I knew. But I kept quiet. Bayta was doing just fine without my help, and I was curious to see how Kennrick would respond.

Not very well, as it turned out. “Look, I’m not here to defend her cleverness,” Kennrick said stiffly. “All I know is that the rumor is there, and that she’s the only one who benefits from it.”

“Or possibly Terese German,” I suggested. “They seem to have some kind of relationship going, too.”

“And the rumor also keeps you away from her,” Kennrick said with an air of vindication. “Like I said.”

“Yes, you’re probably right,” I agreed. Bayta frowned at me, and I gave her a small warning shake of my head. She grimaced, but turned back without another word. “So what are your plans for the day?” I added to Kennrick.

“First I need to find out from Asantra Muzzfor exactly what he and Master Tririn talked about,” Kennrick said. “I was about to do that when I found out you two were in danger and cut the meeting short. After that, depending on what he says, I’ll need to sit down with all three of the Filiaelians and discuss the