The Domino Pattern

“It is over?” Sarge asked.

I took a deep breath and let go of Kennrick’s arm. It dropped limply to his side, the impact sending a small ripple through the blood already spreading through the carpet. Find the murderer, Givvrac had appealed to me with his last breath. And kill him.

Sometimes people did indeed get what they wished for.

“Yes, it’s over,” I told Sarge quietly, gazing at the eyes now staring their residual astonishment at the compartment’s ceiling. “Tell the mites to get busy—I want them through the ceiling as soon as possible, and never mind the mess. And you can tell the other defender he can come back inside.”

I leaned forward and peered through the gap. Bayta was lying on the floor, her breathing slow and even, the loops of now useless strangling wire glittering around her neck. As I gazed at her, the scraping from the window stopped, replaced by a sort of mice-in-the-wall sound as the mites set to work on the ceiling.

Beneath my feet, I felt Qiddicoj stir. “May I?” the Modhri asked.

“Sorry,” I apologized, stepping clear and offering my hand.

He ignored it, getting to his feet without assistance. “A straightforward yet effective plan,” he commented, peering through the gap at Kennrick’s body. “My congratulations.”

“Thank you,” I said. “Much as I hate to say this, I owe you.”

“You know the repayment I desire,” he said, his voice hardening as he gazed into my eyes. “The method of death used by the Human Kennrick must never be allowed to become public.”

“It won’t,” I promised. “And now that we know how it was done, we should be able to tweak the Spiders’ sensors to keep it from happening again.”

“Good.” Qiddicoj’s long Filly face twitched in a wry smile. “After all, I hope someday to rule the galaxy. I can’t achieve that goal if the Quadrail system is destroyed.”

I felt my stomach tighten. “No, of course not,” I agreed. “You’ll forgive me if I don’t wish you luck with that.”

He inclined his head to me. “Then with your permission I’ll return to my fellow passengers.” He smiled again. “Osantra Qiddicoj will be chagrined to discover that he slept through these momentous events.”

“As will Krel Vevri, no doubt,” I agreed. “I presume he’s on his way back, too?”

“Yes,” Qiddicoj confirmed. “Farewell, Compton. I will most likely not speak to you again.”

“Likewise,” I said.

I watched as he crossed to the door and disappeared out into the corridor. “There will be repercussions from this,” Sarge warned.

“There are repercussions from every action,” I said. With the excitement over, I was suddenly very tired. “That’s the way of things.”

Sarge seemed to digest that. “I will take your weapon now.”

I’d almost forgotten the Beretta still hanging loosely in my grip. “Yes, of course,” I said, putting on the safety and handing it over. “Back to the lockbox, I presume?”

“Immediately,” he said, taking the weapon with one leg and folding it up beneath his metal sphere. Tapping his way to the door, he left the compartment.

I turned again to the opening. Yes, there would be repercussions. Possibly very serious ones.

But we would deal with them as they arose. Right now, all I cared about was that Bayta was alive.

With one last look at Kennrick’s frozen eyes, I settled down to listen to the mites working overhead, and to watch Bayta sleep.

TWENTY-TWO

It took the mites three hours of banging, pounding, and unfastening to clear a corner of the ceiling enough for them to squeeze through. Bayta was awake for most of that time, and I spent a good deal of it bringing her up to speed on what had happened, as well as how the devil’s bargain I’d made had worked out.

Even here at the payoff, I could tell she still wasn’t happy about the deal. But at least she had the grace to simply thank me for my efforts, and to not argue any further about my methods.

Once the mites were through, the rest was easy. They traced all of the wires that Kennrick had laid out, confirmed that all but the obvious ones were dummies, carefully cut the ones that weren’t, and Bayta was finally free.

We left the two defenders in the compartment with Kennrick’s body and headed back through the deserted compartment car to announce that the crisis was over and that everyone could start heading back to their compartments. “I was only off by an hour,” I commented to Bayta as we passed the jammed vestibule door that Sarge had wrecked. It wasn’t going to stay wrecked long; a half-dozen mites were already working on it. “I said things would be back to normal in six hours, and it only took us seven.”

“And you probably could have let them back while the mites were working on the ceiling,” Bayta pointed out.

“I didn’t want to risk any of them getting a look at Kennrick’s body as it was dragged out dripping blood,” I said. “Aside from the gruesomeness of the whole thing, I didn’t want them wondering what I’d used to open up that size hole in his chest. You’ll let me know when they’ve got him to the tender, right?”

“Yes,” she said. “A shame it had to end this way. We might have learned more about Mr. Hardin’s plan if we’d been able to question him.”

I shook my head. “Kennrick would have been trained to hold out against all the more popular forms of interrogation,” I said. “In retrospect, I’m guessing now that he was part of DuNoeva’s team, that spy Westali was after when we raided Shotoko Associates eleven years ago. In fact, he was probably the one who killed those Westali agents guarding the east door. How he hooked up with Hardin I can only guess.”

“I imagine a man with Mr. Hardin’s resources has many interesting contacts.” Bayta paused. “Thank you for not arguing over the reader, by the way.”

“You mean not arguing more than I did?”

“If you want to put it that way.”

“No problem,” I assured her, fudging the truth just a little. I’d really, really wanted a chance to go through Kennrick’s reader before the defenders took it away. Larry Hardin wasn’t the type to load all his oranges in one crate—the fact that he’d apparently had Kennrick already prepped and ready to take over my slot the minute I’d resigned from his payroll showed that much. I doubted this was the only plan he had in the works for taking over the Quadrail, and I wanted to see if Kennrick had taken any notes on possible future shenanigans.

But the defenders had been adamant about taking the reader and Kennrick together as a package, and I’d had enough fighting for one day. “So the plan is to load Kennrick aboard the tender, then take it back to the rear of the train and load in the other four bodies?” I asked.

Bayta nodded. “Officially, they’ll be removing the bodies for direct transportation to their families. Along the way, though, they’ll stop at a siding and take some tissue samples and readings.”

“Sounds good,” I said. Between the Spiders’ readings, the samples Emikai and I had run though my analyzer the previous evening, and the data in Kennrick’s reader, the Spiders and Chahwyn ought to have everything they needed to plug this new loophole in their security net.

We passed through the vestibule at the end of the third compartment car and entered the first coach car, the one I’d cleared out as my operations base.

Only it wasn’t completely cleared out anymore. Osantra Qiddicoj, Krel Vevri, and Tra’ho Government Oathling Prapp, the three Modhran walkers, were standing silently a half-dozen steps in front of us, obviously waiting for us to make our appearance. Just behind them stood Asantra Muzzfor, the contract-team Filly who had been Kennrick’s staunchest supporter and apologist. “It’s over?” Muzzfor asked as Bayta and I stepped into the car. “He’s dead?”

“Yes, he’s dead,” I confirmed, taking another, closer look at the walkers. All three were standing unnaturally stiff, their eyes looking odd in a way I’d never seen in a walker before.