He blinked. The brake systems in the rear four wagons have engaged, which triggered an overall braking incident/ he said, quickly and obediently.
'Did someone pull the emergency rope?'
'No, sir. We'd have a source for that, and anyway the train's entire brake system would have fired simultaneously. We believe it's ice in the aft units/
That would cause a partial brake lock?'
'Yes, sir/
'What about the door?'
'It opened just after we stopped. The chief steward thinks it was one of the engineers, opening the door to get out and check the brakes without informing the system he was unlocking the door/
'It wasn't forced?'
'It was opened from inside. With a key/ The effects of my will were ebbing and his jocular tone returned. We've got personnel out lineside now, sir, checking the brakes/
'Including this engineer who supposedly opened the door in his eagerness to find the fault?'
'I'm sure, sir/
'Find out/ I said, using the will more forcefully.
He ran back to the monitor panel, and his colleagues stood back, puzzled, as he operated the device.
Who has access to door keys?'
Who the hell are you?' one of the others asked.
'A concerned member of the public/ I said, blanketing them all with will power. Who has keys?'
'Only engineers of level two and higher, class one stewards and the guards/ said another, stammering in his desperation to tell me.
'How many people is that?'
Twenty-three/
'Are they all accounted for?'
'I don't know/ said Inex.
'Stand aside/ I ordered, and used my ring on the monitor. The train had a staff and crew of eighty-four. Each one had a sub-dermal tracker implant so that the train master could account for the location of his people at all times. The display showed a graphic map of the train, but the screen was so small I had to scroll along it, looking at the schematic bit by bit. Master personnel were shown in red, engineers in amber, stewards in green and guards in blue. Ancilliary staff like chefs, waiters, porters and cleaners were pink.
Red and amber dots clustered in the locomotive section, and blue and green ones were speckled throughout the wagons. The upper deck of car nine, the crew quarters, was full of pink lights. I saw a cluster of green and blue cursors that represented the men grouped around me at the back of car eight's lower deck, near door 34. A sub-menu listed the amber and blue lights that had left the train to inspect the running gear.
There was one green light amongst the pink ones in car nine. I called up more information. The green light belonged to Steward Class One Rebert Awins. He was in his quarters.
The express had made an emergency stop and all the staff apart from the ancilliaries were moving to secure the train. Except Awins.
Awins is class one. He'd have keys.'
'Yes, sir/ said Inex.
'Why isn't he assisting?'
They all looked at each other.
'When did you last see him?'
'He was on the morning shift today,' said one of them.
'I saw him in the rec room at shift change having his lunch,' added another.
'Since then?'
They shook their heads.
'He should have come on again at nine/ said Inex. 'Shall I check on him.'
No, I was going to say. Because he's dead. But there was no point scaring them.
I changed my mind. 'Do that, Inex/ I reached over and took the intercom headset off the man nearest me. He didn't protest. He didn't even notice.
'Go to his room and tell me what you find. Vox channel../ I studied the headset's small ear piece and adjusted the responder. '…six/
'Yes sir/ said Inex. As he turned to go, I reached out and touched him briefly on the forehead. He shuddered. My psi-imprint would stay with him for a good thirty minutes now, even once he was out of my vicinity.
Inex ran off.
I looked at the car door. It had been pulled to, but the 'unsecure' light was still blinking. There were thawing cakes of dirty ice on the metal deck inside the door.
'How many people went out?' I asked.
One of them checked the display. Twenty, sir/
'How many have come back inside since you got here?'
'None/ they all said.
They would be looking for me. For us. They knew we were on the train, and they'd got someone aboard at Fonette or Locastre. Someone who had befriended Rebert Awins, killed him and taken his pass keys. Someone with the technical expertise to trigger a partial brake lock, stop the train and then use Awin's keys to open an exterior door and let his associates aboard.
Someone who, by now, surely knew which cabins we were occupying.
I ran back down the train towards car three, using the lower deck hallways. I slid Barbarisater from its nedskin scabbard. It seemed so incongruous to be hurrying down a train's companionway brandishing a sword. But the cabins around me were full of innocent Imperial citizens and I didn't dare use my pistol.
I also didn't dare use the intercom.
I reached out psychically. Eleena was an untouchable blank, so I called to Aemos, Crezia and Medea.
I passed several train staff in the hall as I made my way past and they jumped back in alarm as they saw the blade.
I reached the front end of car four and prepared to go up. A Trans-Continental steward lay face down on the stairs, his neck snapped.
Just then, the frantic voice of Inex wailed into my earpiece. 'He's dead! Oh God- Emperor! He's dead! Rebert's dead! Sound the alarm!'
The distress klaxon started to warble and recessed light plates in the wall began to blink orange. I saw a third red light had lit up on the car-end monitor panel.
I jammed my signet ring against the reader and cued information.
■I clambered over the steward's corpse and made my way up the stairs.
