The Domino Pattern

alive.”

I shifted my eyes to Bayta. “And unlike me, they don’t particularly care whether you die alone or with company.”

For a long moment Kennrick studied my face. “Okay, I’ll play along,” he said. “Let’s assume I’m sufficiently scared. What do you suggest I do next?”

“I suggest we get the hell off this train,” I said. “I suggest you and Bayta and I get aboard that tender, turn it around, and head back toward Homshil.”

“All three of us, you say?” Kennrick asked. “Interesting.”

“You and I can’t operate the tender,” I explained. “Bayta can. But you’ll need me as a hostage to guarantee her cooperation.”

“As well as guaranteeing a much more exciting ride, I assume?”

“You can tie me up for the whole trip if you want,” I said. “The point is that we have to get you off this train while we still can.”

“I’ll take it under advisement,” Kennrick said. “You about done with those?”

I flipped through the last of the ration bars. “Yes.”

“And the passengers are out of all three compartment cars?” he asked. “Except for you, of course.”

“Yes, everyone’s out.”

“Good.” Unfolding his legs, Kennrick got up from the bed. “See, here’s what I’m more concerned about at the moment than imaginary attack Spiders: the question of what you’re going to do when I close down that divider.”

“I leave the car like you told me to,” I said, frowning. “Why?”

“Don’t be naive, Compton,” he said, picking his way carefully between the wires as he walked toward me. “And don’t assume I am, either.”

“You can unfasten the wire from the door and watch me go,” I suggested.

“You mean open the door and discover to my chagrin that you’re standing right outside ready to punch me in the throat?” he countered. “No, thanks.”

He came to a stop just out of arm’s reach. “So let me explain how this is going to work.” He held up a small object. “This is the electric motor from my shaver,” he said. “I’m going to use it to rig up a device that’ll automatically strangle Bayta after a preprogrammed number of seconds or minutes.”

I felt my stomach tighten. “You don’t need to do that,” I said.

“Ah, but I do,” he countered. “You see, once you’ve gone I’m going to go through all three cars with the infrared sensor in my reader, and it’s a very good sensor. If I get even a hint that you or someone else is hiding in one of the compartments, I’ll come straight back here and make sure Ms. Bayta regrets your stupidity.”

“You kill her and you’ll have lost your hostage,” I warned.

“Oh, I wouldn’t kill her,” he assured me. “Not right away. I’d probably start by slicing off the end of a finger or two. I’m assuming she’s strong enough not to succumb to shock, but of course I don’t know that for sure.”

I took a deep breath. “Anything else?”

“Two things.” He dug into his pocket and pulled out his ticket, and I saw it was sliced about halfway through. “Point one: note the tear,” he went on. “If you or anyone else tries to jump me while I’m outside my compartment, all I have to do is tear it the rest of the way through and it becomes useless as a key. You might be able to put it back together, but not before the automatic strangler kicks in.”

“You don’t have to belabor the point, Kennrick,” I said. “I recognize that you’ve thought this whole thing through very carefully.”

“Good,” he said. “Point two …”

Without warning he turned halfway around, bringing the kwi on his right hand to bear on Bayta. His thumb pressed the switch, and Bayta’s eyes rolled up and closed as her body went limp.

Before I could react, Kennrick had swung back to face me. “Point two is I don’t want her giving you a running commentary on what I’m doing,” he said conversationally. “Good-bye, Compton.”

I lifted my gaze from Bayta to Kennrick’s face. “Goodbye, Kennrick,” I said. “Don’t forget what I said about the defenders.”

He was still smiling as he touched the control on the wall, closing the divider in front of me.

Sarge was waiting just inside the rear door of the last compartment car. “She is unconscious,” he said in his flat Spider voice. “Why is she unconscious?”

So much for my hope that Bayta had been faking. But then, she could hardly have done anything else. There were ways of telling if someone was truly unconscious. “Because she still needs to maintain the illusion that the kwi works like a normal weapon,” I told him. “Come on—we need to get out of here.”

Reluctantly, I thought, he backed into the vestibule. “What now?” he asked as I followed him in.

“The groundwork’s been laid,” I told him. “Time to go to work.”

We stepped into the first coach car. Many of the displaced passengers had opted to settle down there, I saw, instead of continuing on to coach cars farther back. No doubt they were hoping their proximity to the center of the action would give them a better chance of finding out what was going on.

They were going to be disappointed. “We need a base of operations,” I told the defender. “Tell the conductors I need everyone cleared out of this car.”

Considering the wealth and power of the travelers I was pushing around, they took the news remarkably well. Maybe the rumor mill had given a sufficiently dark cast to the situation to keep their indignation in check. Or maybe it was the look in my eyes. Either way, with a maximum of cooperation and a minimum of griping, they were soon gone. “What now?” Sarge asked when we were alone.

I checked my watch. Twenty minutes until we hit the cross-hatch section, if Sarge’s earlier estimate had been correct. “Is your partner ready to move the tender alongside us?” I asked.

“He is,” Sarge confirmed. “You still wish it to parallel the center compartment car?”

“No, we’d better hold it back here for now,” I said. “I doubt Kennrick’s sensors are good enough to spot movement or heat all the way through the compartments on that side of the train, but I don’t want to risk it. Make sure the conductors know to opaque all the windows on that side of the train before the tender starts moving.”

“It will be done,” Sarge said. “What after that?”

“There’s one more preliminary job you’ll need to do,” I told him. “After that, we’ll just have to wait until Bayta’s awake again so that we’ll have a real-time tap into what Kennrick’s doing.”

“What is this preliminary job you wish me to do?”

Spiders, even defenders, didn’t exhibit a whole lot of body language. Even so, as I told him what I wanted, I had no difficulty sensing his stunned outrage. “No,” he said when I’d finished, his voice even flatter than usual. “Impossible.”

“Why?” I countered. “Because it’s against the rules? Trust me—we’re going to be breaking a lot of rules before this is over.”

“Which other rules?”

“Rules that you’re going to break so that Bayta lives and Kennrick doesn’t escape with information on how to kill people aboard Quadrails,” I said bluntly. “Are we all on the same page? Or will I have to go back to the Chahwyn and tell them that one of their own died because you wouldn’t cooperate with me?”

“But this is—” Abruptly, he stiffened. “Frank?” he said in Bayta’s voice.

“Bayta?” I said, glancing at my watch. It had been only forty minutes since Kennrick had zapped her, though a low-level kwi shot was normally good for at least an hour. Her unique mix of Human and Chahwyn physiologies coming into play again, no doubt. “Are you all—?”

“Something’s wrong,” she interrupted urgently. “The oxygen repressurization tank is gone.”

I frowned at Sarge. “What do you mean, it’s gone? Gone where?”

“I don’t know,” she said. “He must have moved it while I was unconscious.”

And then, suddenly, I understood. “Damn it,” I muttered, heading for the forward vestibule and the compartment cars beyond it. “Come on,” I called to Sarge over my shoulder.