The Domino Pattern

The rearmost compartment car was deserted. Moving as quietly as I could, I headed along the corridor to the front. Bracing myself, I touched the control to open the door to the vestibule.

Nothing happened.

I tried twice more, but it was just going through the motions. “He’s got us, Bayta,” I said. “Damn him. Damn me, too, for not catching on sooner.”

“He vented the tank into the vestibule?” Bayta asked.

“You got it,” I said bitterly. Thereby increasing the air pressure in the vestibule’s confined space, thereby engaging the automatic locks on both the vestibule’s doors. Now, the only way to get through into Kennrick’s car would be to drill, spike, or otherwise batter our way through.

Bayta and I had used the exact same trick against the Modhri not two months ago, and yet I’d never seen this coming. I must be slipping. “At least now we know why he’s got audio sensors laid out in the corridor,” I said, forcing back both the anger and the self-reproach. Now was not the time. “He knows we can’t batter our way through the vestibule without making a lot of noise.”

“That just means we’ll have to come up with a different plan,” Bayta said calmly. Or maybe the calm was just an artifact of Sarge’s transmission. “You have any ideas?”

I stared at the vestibule door, thinking hard. All right. We couldn’t get through without making a lot of noise. The noise would trigger the sensors, which would trigger the alarm, which would alert Kennrick to start lopping off Bayta’s fingers.

But only if Kennrick was able to hear the alarm …

“Fine,” I said slowly. “He wants to play cute? We can play cute, too. Here’s the plan …”

Sarge wasn’t thrilled by the plan, for at least three separate rule-breaking reasons. Bayta didn’t seem particularly enthusiastic, either, for a whole other set of reasons.

But neither of them could think of anything better. In the end, I got my way.

———

Our preparations took another hour. We waited another hour after that, just to give Kennrick time to settle down comfortably in the center of his new fortress of solitude.

I spent most of that final hour staring at the walls, running the plan over and over in my brain, trying to think of any alternative actions Kennrick might take that I wouldn’t be ready for.

There were, unfortunately, any number of things he might do, any one of which would wreck everything. But I knew the man now, hopefully well enough that I could anticipate his likely responses.

We would find out soon enough if I was right.

Finally, the hour was up. “He’s stretched out on the bed reading,” Sarge relayed Bayta’s words and voice as he and I stood at the rear of the last compartment car. “He looks calm and very much at home.”

“Good,” I said. “Let me know right away when that changes.”

“I will,” she said.

I touched Sarge’s leg. “Wait here,” I told him, and passed through the vestibule into the first coach car, the one I’d made into my operations base.

Krel Vevri and Osantra Qiddicoj were waiting there for me, both of them standing straight and tall, Qiddicoj’s long Filly face still a little pale from his earlier brush with death. “Well?” Vevri asked as I emerged from the vestibule.

Or rather, the Modhri within him said it. “It’s time,” I confirmed, looking back and forth between the flat eyes and sagging faces.

And it occurred to me, not for the first time, that this was the riskiest part of my plan. The Modhri had promised to cooperate, but if he decided he could do better by switching sides, this whole thing would collapse into disaster and death without warning.

The two aliens nodded in unison. “Let us get on with it,” Vevri said.

I shook away the unpleasant thoughts. I couldn’t make this work without the Modhri playing spotter for me, and that was that. I would just have to trust him, and watch my back. “Yes, let’s,” I agreed. “The Spider will take the Krel Vevri walker through the airlock into the tender. He’ll ride him up to the first compartment car—”

“You’ve already explained the plan,” the Modhri reminded me.

I grimaced. He was right, I had. Twice. “Just remember that once you’re in the compartment you’ll need to stay perfectly quiet if and when Kennrick passes by,” I said. “If he hears you—”

“Bayta will die,” Vevri interrupted again. “I understand. Again: let us get on with it.”

“Right.” I nodded to the defender. “Go.”

The defender didn’t speak as he led the way to the car’s door, but I was pretty sure I could detect some residual reluctance in his body language. Letting a passenger actually go aboard one of their tenders was bad enough. Letting a passenger aboard who was also a Modhran walker was unthinkable. Distantly, I wondered what kind of report he and Sarge would be sending back after this was all over.

They reached the car’s outer door and it irised open, revealing the extendable airlock leading to the tender. Vevri and the defender went inside, and the car door closed behind them. “You ready?” I asked Qiddicoj.

“Yes,” he said. “Don’t worry, Compton. I’ve agreed to help you, and will hold to that promise.”

“That makes me feel so much better,” I said, trying not to be too sarcastic. “Come on.”

Sarge was waiting for us in the rear compartment car by the vestibule door Kennrick had sealed. “Anything?” I asked as Qiddicoj and I came up to him.

“No,” he said.

I nodded. “Let me know when your buddy’s in position.”

He didn’t bother to answer. But then, I’d already gone over this part of the plan twice, too.

The minutes ticked by. I found myself staring at the vestibule door, tracing its edge with my eyes, trying to estimate the strength of the metal. Sarge had assured me that even with the air-pressure seal locked down tight he would have no trouble opening the thing. If he was right, we had a chance.

If he was wrong …

“My Krel Vevri Eye has entered the first compartment car,” Qiddicoj murmured suddenly. “He’s found the proper compartment and is unlocking the door.”

The compartment at the very front of the train, the one right beside that car’s emergency oxygen repressurization tank. I’d had to talk long and earnestly to the compartment’s proper occupant to get him to loan me that key. “Is he in yet?”

“Yes,” the Modhri confirmed. “He’s sealed the door behind him.”

I nodded and turned to Sarge. “Your partner ready?”

“He is in place,” Sarge said.

“Tell him to go, and then connect me to Bayta,” I ordered. “Bayta?”

“I’m here, Frank,” her voice came from Sarge’s metallic sphere. “Nothing new is happening here.”

“It’s about to,” I assured her. “Keep the relay open.”

“All right.”

I listened intently, but for the first thirty seconds nothing happened. “What’s happening?” I demanded at last.

“I can hear scraping,” Bayta reported, her voice tight. “Coming from the edge of the display window, I think. I can’t tell for sure—Mr. Kennrick has it opaqued.”

“Has he noticed the sound?”

“Yes, he’s looking around,” Bayta said. “He doesn’t look happy—wait; he’s figured it out. He’s clearing the window—”

“What the hell?” Sarge gasped, his voice abruptly switching to Kennrick’s. “What the bloody—get the hell off my window. You—Bayta—tell it to get off my window.”

“I can’t,” Bayta said aloud. “He’s a defender—Mr. Compton told you about them. He won’t listen to me.”

“Tell him to get off,” Kennrick snarled again. “Or by God, I swear—”

“He has a loop of wire twisted around her wrist,” Sarge reported.

Beside me, the Modhri hissed anger. “Coward,” he said contemptuously.