Odd Girl Out

I'd told Bayta that twenty hours was way too long to expect the three bodies on the transfer station to go undiscovered. Privately, I'd suspected even our ninety-minute wait would be pushing it.

So it was to my mild surprise that the Quadrail rolled to a halt at our platform without so much as a fact-finding crew making their appearance. Either the transfer station personnel knew trying to talk me out of my safe haven in Spider territory would be futile, or else no one had wanted to barge in on the men in Room Four to ask if they'd really agreed to let me take Rebekah and fly the coop.

I hoped they would at least find the bodies before the Pirk stopped being non-aromatic.

Whatever the reason for our reprieve, the train pulled in, we got aboard, and it pulled out again. I didn't actually see the Spiders put the crate and lockboxes aboard—that was all handled on the opposite side of the train from the passenger doors—but even before the train started on its way again Rebekah was able to confirm that her mutant coral was snugged in safely beneath our compartments. None of us knew whether or not the crate had been brought aboard as well, but knowing Spider efficiency I had no reason to doubt that it had.

A conductor Spider showed up in Bayta's compartment shortly after the train passed through the atmosphere barrier into the main part of the Tube. A couple of minutes later, he'd folded away the luggage rack above the bed and replaced it with a second bunk, converting the compartment from a single to a double.

We stayed put for the first few hours, lying low against the possibility of being spotted and identified by any walkers who happened to be traveling with us. Midway through the nine-hour trip to Yandro Bayta and I slipped back to the dining car to get something to eat.

Rebekah insisted on staying behind where she could be near her coral, which was fine with me. The less she was out in the open, the better. Bayta and I had a quick dinner, then got a carry-away meal to take back to Rebekah.

Yandro came and went, the last stop in Human space. The next stop, seven hours beyond it, was Homshil, one of the heavily traveled node points that linked up several different Quadrail lines, including a super-express that led across a large span of unoccupied territory to the Shorshic and Filiaelian empires at the other end of the galaxy.

Homshil was usually a stop where a lot of passengers got swapped out, and this time was no exception. Bayta and Rebekah and I stayed in our compartments while the do-si-do was going on, keeping our display window opaqued. The layover complete, we headed out again.

Sixteen hours out, and so far not a peep from the Modhri. But that wouldn't last. McMicking would be holding off on his arrival at the New Tigris transfer station, I knew, giving us as much time as he could to make our escape. But he wasn't exactly out of the woods yet himself, and he absolutely had to get through the station and to the legal protection of the Tube before the techs on the planet fixed the comm laser he'd wrecked and blew the whistle on him.

And of course, the minute he reached the Quadrail and the late Mr. Veldrick's coral got within range of any other Modhran mind segments, the balloon would go up in spades.

We had to be as far away as possible before that happened. Unfortunately, we could only go so fast. Our train was what was informally called a local-express, which had fewer stops than a local but more than a regular express. An extra downside to that fact was that once the Modhri knew Rebekah and her coral were on the run, extra stops meant more opportunities for him to bring additional walkers aboard our train.

But there was nothing I could do about that. New Tigris and Sibbrava were both small enough to be served only by locals and local-expresses. Theoretically, we could switch to a faster express somewhere past New Tigris and then get back on a local as we approached Sibbrava. But that would mean two train changes, and two extra opportunities for walkers to notice and perhaps wonder about a whole bunch of lockbox transfers.

For the moment Rebekah's coral was safely hidden out of the public eye. We needed to keep it that way.

Two hours after Homshil we reached the Jurian regional capital of Kerfsis, and an hour-long stop to transfer passengers and cargo. Once again the three of us spent the entire time in our double compartment with the windows opaqued. Kerfsis held some interesting memories for Bayta and me, and I wondered if she was sifting through them the same way I was.

At one point I considered asking her about it. But Rebekah would just want to know what we were talking about, and I really didn't want to discuss it with her, and so I kept quiet. The stopover ended, and we headed out again, through the atmosphere barrier and back to our usual hundred-kilometers-per-hour, one-light-year-per-minute cruising speed.

By now, the trip had settled into a routine: eat, talk, watch a dit rec drama on one of the two computers in our double compartment, sleep, eat again, talk some more. From Kerfsis it was about a three-day journey to the Jurian capital system of Jurskala, though with the extra stops our train would be making it would probably be more like three and a half days. Somewhere in that time, I fully expected the Modhri to make his move.

We were six hours out from Jurskala when he did.

I was just thinking it was time I strolled back to the dining car to pick up a snack when Bayta suddenly sat bolt upright on her bed. "Frank, there's a report of a fire!" she said sharply.

For a second I just stared at her. Fires and other natural disasters simply didn't happen on Quadrails. And then my brain caught up with me, and I realized who had to be behind it. "Where?" I demanded, rolling off my bed onto my feet.

"Last third-class car," Bayta said. "The Spiders are clearing everyone out now."

The last passenger car, in other words, before the three baggage cars. "Nice," I growled, grabbing my jacket.

"What do you mean?" Rebekah asked anxiously. She was sitting at the computer, her fingers poised tautly over the keyboard, her eyes wide and nervous.

"The Modhri's bought into the idea that your coral is in one of the baggage cars," I told her. "He also knows—or at least suspects—that one of your Melding buddies needs to be nearby to make him behave. He wants to split up the team. Ergo, the fire."

"What are you going to do?" Bayta asked as I keyed open the door.

"I'll figure that out when I get there." I dug into my pocket. "Here," I added, tossing her the kwi. "Just in case." Checking to make sure no one was loitering near our compartment doors, I slipped out into the corridor and headed toward the rear of the train at a brisk walk.

I didn't notice any particular excitement or anxiety as I passed through the first- and second-class sections of the Quadrail. Clearly, the Spiders were playing it cool, keeping the trouble as localized and isolated as possible.

Of course, that localization wasn't going to last any longer than it took for the uprooted passengers to start spilling out of their car. Where the Spiders intended to stash them while they dealt with the problem I didn't know, but it wasn't likely to be pretty. Third-class Quadrail cars weren't noted for having a lot of spare room, and second-class wasn't much better. I tried to picture the reaction of my fellow first-class passengers to a flood of refugees from third, but my imagination wasn't up to it.

Fortunately, the Spiders had already come up with a better plan. As I left the last second-class car and headed into the second/third-class dining car I found myself having to push through a mob of milling Humans and aliens. Clearly, the Spiders had directed the evacuees to the dining car, where they would at least have a little elbow room to spare.

Beyond the dining car, the hurried passage of the evacuees had left an atmosphere of frowns and low conversation and craned necks. Every eye seemed to turn to me as I strode past, the lone non-Spider going the opposite direction from everyone else.

A few people seemed to consider asking me what was going on as I passed. Fortunately, my brisk stride and carefully honed question-discouraging scowl kept them silent.

The last passenger car was empty except for a handful of Spiders and an acrid smell of smoke. The focus of the Spiders' attention seemed to be a row of three seats in the middle of the car, and as I moved closer I saw the two Spiders nearest the area were spraying a pressurized stream of thick white mist over the center seat. "What was it?" I asked the room in general as I headed back.

The nearest Spider stepped into the aisle in front of me, blocking my way. He was a stationmaster, slightly bigger than the conductor Spiders gathered in the car, and with an identifying pattern of white dots across part of the surface of his globe. "You must return to the dining car," he said in a flat voice. "It is not safe here."

"No I don't, and yes it is," I said, taking another step forward.

The Spider didn't budge. "You must return to the dining car," he repeated. "It is not safe here."

I stopped and gazed hard at the silvery globe as it hung in the middle of the network of spindly legs. "Do you know who I am?" I asked.

There was a moment of silence. "Frank Compton," he said in the same flat voice.

"Then you know I have authority to go wherever in the Quadrail system I choose," I said. "Please step aside."

For a moment he seemed to think about that, no doubt telepathically consulting with the rest of the Spiders on the train. My mandate from the Chahwyn wasn't nearly as broad as I'd made it sound, and I wondered if he was going to try to split hairs.

Apparently not. His moment of contemplation over, he tapped his way silently into the row of seats beside him, clearing the aisle for me. Nodding to him, I stepped past and made my way to the point of interest. The Spiders with the extinguishers had finished their work, and I peered through the rapidly dissipating white mist.

One look was all I needed. "Offhand, I'd say your sensor mesh needs a little work," I commented.

"Explain," the stationmaster said from behind me.

Pulling out my multitool, I flipped it to needle-nose pliers mode and carefully extracted a thin, pointy-ended plastic tube that had been embedded in the inboard side of the center of the three seats. "It's called a whiffer," I said. "It contains two vials of liquids which, when mixed, create a gas that can smell like pretty much anything you want."

"It is not a weapon?" the stationmaster asked.

"Not really, which is probably why your sensor screen didn't flag it," I said. "But even harmless aromas can make good diversions." I held up the whiffer for emphasis. "As you can see."

"A diversion for what?"

"That's the question, isn't it?" I agreed, sniffing at the air. The smoky smell was all but gone. Whatever was in the Spiders' fire-fighting mist, it was handy stuff. "You can go ahead and let everyone back in," I told him, stepping away from the seat and heading toward the rear of the car. "You'll want to make a note of who belongs in this set of seats, though."

"Where are you going?" the stationmaster asked.

"There," I said helpfully, pointing toward the door leading into the first of the baggage cars. "You just concentrate on getting the passengers resettled."

I had the distinct impression that all of the Spiders were watching me as I made my way to the rear. But none of them interfered as I reached the back of the car and opened the door. I crossed the vestibule and punched the door release, and as the door slid open I stepped into the baggage car.

I'd spent more than my fair share of time in Quadrail baggage cars, and this one was typical of the breed. It was dimly lit, with stacks of safety-webbed crates arranged in seemingly haphazard islands throughout the car, the piles creating a twisting maze of narrow corridors meandering around and between them. Each stack consisted of cargo bound for a particular stop, the island configuration allowing the drudges to quickly extract the proper cargo through the roof at each station along the line. Our crate was supposed to be at the front of the car, in one of the "special handling" stacks, where we would have easy access to it and could keep up the illusion that it had some actual significance. Flashlight in hand, I went looking for it.

Only to discover that it wasn't there.

I walked twice across the full width of the car, double-checking each crate as I went. After that I moved on to the next row of stacks back. Our crate wasn't in any of them, either. Apparently, the Spiders who were supposed to load the thing aboard had screwed up.

Or else someone wanted me to think they had.

For a long moment I stood in the center of the main aisle, gazing at the intimidating archipelago of cargo stacks stretching to the rear of the car and trying to think. Checking out every crate in here would take hours, and there were two more baggage cars behind this one. I could easily be at this until we reached the far end of the Jurian Collective, which was probably exactly what the Modhri wanted me to do.

"Fine," I muttered under my breath. Quadrail crates were pretty well sealed, which made breaking into one a lengthy proposition. A properly handled multitool on one corner of the lid would allow someone a peek inside, but of course with our crate all that would gain him would be a look at the three sealed metal boxes inside. To get any farther than that would require a crowbar—which he wouldn't have been allowed to bring aboard—or else a lot of time and even more patience.

And he certainly wouldn't want someone like me blundering into him while he worked.

Smiling to myself, I headed back toward the baggage car's rear door. It was, I had to admit, a reasonably good plan for something that had to have been thrown together more or less on the fly. A walker plants a whiffer to clear out the car, including the coral's assumed Melding watchdog. In the confusion, the walker and maybe a friend or two slip through the back door and manhandle the crate one or even two cars back.

It was, from the Modhri's point of view, a win-win situation. If the Melding watchdog realized the coral had been moved and came running to find out what had happened to it, the Modhri would gain instant identification of one of his enemies. If the watchdog didn't come charging to the rescue, but tried to get a message to Bayta and me instead, the Modhri would have that much more time to break into the crate or whatever else was necessary to bring the wayward coral back into the happy Modhran family.

What he hadn't counted on was that the Spiders would alert Bayta, who would alert me, and that I would be on the scene this quickly. By now he would barely have had time to even get the crate moved, let alone started working on it. If I could catch him in the act, not only would I have a pair of walkers identified, but I could have the Spiders kick them off the train as soon as we reached Jurskala.

I reached the door and punched the release. The door opened, and I stepped through into the vestibule and punched the inner door's release.

Nothing happened.

I hit the release again, and again. But it was no use. The Modhri had anticipated me charging to the rescue, all right. He'd locked me out.

I muttered a curse under my breath. So he wanted to play cute? Fine—I could do cute, too. All I needed to do was get back to the passenger coaches and grab the first conductor I saw. Whatever the Modhri had done to lock the door, I'd simply have one of the Spiders undo it.

I was halfway back toward the front of the baggage car when I came around a curve in the pathway to find myself facing a group of four Juriani moving cautiously through the same pathway in my direction. They caught sight of me, the hawk beaks in their iguana-like faces clicked once in perfect unison, and they broke into a fast jog.

I picked up my pace, too, heading straight toward them. I caught a flicker of uncertainty on their scaled faces at the sight of a clearly insane Human rushing into four-to-one odds, and they reflexively slowed their pace a little.

Their uncertainty lasted exactly as long as it took me to clear the current crate stack I'd been passing and take off at full speed down a weaving cross pathway. I was half a dozen steps down it when I heard the sudden clatter of foot claws as they gave chase.

I made it around the back of the next island before they reached my branch point and came in after me. With my pursuers momentarily out of sight, I got a grip on the safety webbing of the stack I was facing and started to climb.

It wasn't easy. The webbing wasn't really designed for this, and the strands were a little too thin for a comfortable grip. But I was inspired, and up I went. I'd had a couple of serious confrontations in Quadrail baggage cars over the past few months, and neither had exactly ended to my complete satisfaction. My best bet for avoiding a repeat performance was to take the high ground and try to get back to civilization before I got myself surrounded.

I had my fingers on the top crate of the stack and was starting to pull myself up when a clawed hand grabbed my right ankle.

Instantly, I kicked sideways as hard as I could with my left foot, catching the Juri's fingers with the edge of my heel. There was a multiple screech from all four walkers as the pain of the blow shot across and through the entire Modhran mind segment. The Juri let go of my ankle, and I quickly pulled myself the rest of my way up and onto the crate.

The fortunes of necessity, I discovered, had ended up with me on top of one of the shorter stacks, one where I could stand nearly upright without bumping my head on the ceiling. From my new vantage point, I saw now that most of the stacks were a crate or even two crates taller than mine. That meant that some of the stacks had enough clearance between them and the ceiling for me to crouch or crawl, while others had a gap I could barely squeeze my arm into.

Unfortunately, the nature of the room's geography meant that I couldn't see from here which routes would lead me safely back to the car's forward door and which would instead funnel me into cul-de-sacs where the only way out would be to backtrack or drop to the floor. At that point, I'd be back to the same short odds I'd started with.

As I hesitated, a movement to my right caught my eye, and I turned to see one of the Juriani laboriously claw his way up onto the top of the crate two islands down from me. Picking the most likely-looking path forward, I set off.

The trip was like an echo of all those fun times on the Westali Academy obstacle course. Most of the islands could only be reached by a sort of leap/roll maneuver that I had to invent more or less as I did it, a trick which enabled me to land on my back or side instead of arriving with my head against the ceiling and my shins against the edge of the topmost crate. As I'd already noted, many of the gaps were too small even for that trick, and for those I had to jump to the stack's side, grabbing the top edge as I passed, and making my way along by sliding sideways hand-by-hand.

Getting to the next island in line from either of those positions was even more challenging. But I had no choice. From the clattering noises around me, and from occasional glimpses of struggling Juriani, it appeared that the Modhri had assigned two of the walkers to the job of chasing me across the rooftops, while the other two waited below to intercept me in case I dropped back to the floor and made a run for it.

On one level, the whole thing was bizarre. There was, after all, only a single door leading back to the rest of the train. In theory, all the Modhri had to do was position his four walkers at that exit and wait for me to get tired or hungry enough to come down from my perch. Bayta would eventually wonder where I was, of course, but if she didn't want to risk leaving Rebekah alone all she would be able to do would be to send a Spider out looking for me. Given the Spiders' inherent inability to fight, that wouldn't be a big help.

Yet here the walkers were, huffing and puffing their way up crates in a dusty Quadrail baggage car, chasing me to the ends of the earth and then some. All I could think of was that the Modhri—or at least this particular mind segment—must be really furious at me for breaking my promise to destroy the Abomination.

I had made it to within a couple of islands of the front of the car, and was starting to wonder what exactly I was going to do when I got there, when I heard the sound of the door sliding open.

I froze, straining my ears. Besides my current playmates who from their clothing were obviously third-class passengers, the Modhri undoubtedly had another half-dozen or more walkers up in first. If he'd decided to bring them back here to join in the fun, this was going to get very sticky indeed.

And then, over the sound of wheels on track beneath us, I heard the distinctive click-click-click of Spider legs on hard flooring.

I rolled to the edge of my current stack and looked over the side. It was the stationmaster I'd seen earlier at the scene of the whiffer diversion in the third-class car. He had stepped a couple of meters into the baggage car and then stopped, almost as if he was assessing the situation. Two of the Jurian walkers were standing to either side of him, watching him as warily as I could sense he was watching them.

I didn't hesitate. Bayta could probably recognize individual Spiders—for all I knew she could even call them by name—but to me they were a dime a dozen, and the Quadrail system had a billion of them. If I accidentally wrecked this one, the Chahwyn could take it out of my pay. I got a grip on the edge of my stack and rolled off the edge. As my legs swung around, I pulled up and then let go of the stack, sailing in a short arc toward the door.

To land feet-first squarely on top of the Spider's central metal globe.

I had no idea how strong stationmaster legs were, and I half expected him to instantly collapse under my weight, which would have helped cushion my landing but not much more. To my surprise, his legs instead absorbed the impact with ease, lowering the globe and me maybe a meter and a half before coming to a controlled stop. I had just a glimpse of startled Jurian faces, and then the Spider's legs flexed again, and I found myself being catapulted in another low arc toward the door.

The Modhri finally broke his stunned paralysis and the two walkers lunged toward me. But it was too late. I hit the floor, slapped the release, and was through and into the vestibule before they'd even gotten around the Spider's slightly splayed-out legs. I hit the release on the far end of the vestibule, and a second later was back in the third-class car.

The passengers were still in the process of returning to their seats after the fire scare, and I found myself in the role of a salmon on his annual upstream swim. Fortunately, a lot of the passengers were apparently still in the dining car, and the aisle wasn't nearly as crowded as it could have been. I was out of the car before any of the walkers reappeared from behind me.

To my lack of surprise, I also noted as I passed that the seats where the whiffer had been were still unoccupied.

Bayta was sitting stiffly on the edge of my bed when I finally made it back to our double compartment. "There you are," she said, some of the stiffness going out of her back as I entered and locked the door behind me. "I was starting to worry."

"As well you should have," I said, motioning her off the bed and sitting down in her place. With the adrenaline rush long past, my body was feeling the painful effects of my extended playtime on top of all those cargo islands. "The Modhri's finally made his move. The smoke bomb was just a diversion to let him slip a couple of walkers into the baggage car and make off with our crate."

"What do you mean, make off with it?" Bayta asked. "You mean he opened it?"

"No, I mean he picked the damn thing up and moved it," I said, as I took off my shoes. "Where's Rebekah?"

"Asleep in the other compartment," Bayta said, nodding toward the mostly closed partition. "Where did he move it to?"

"Into the second baggage car, I assume," I said, easing my legs up onto the bed and carefully stretching sore muscles and joints. "At least, that's the one he's locked me out of."

"He locked you—?" Bayta broke off, frowning. "Which door exactly did he lock?"

"Front door of the middle baggage car, like I said," I told her. "Why?"

"Because that's not possible," she said. "There aren't any locks on those doors."

I stared up at her, trying to visualize the way Quadrail doors operated. If there were no actual locks, then she was right—there wasn't any way to simply brace or block or jam the doors closed. "Could the walkers have been physically holding them closed, then?" I suggested doubtfully. "Bracing their hands on the—well, I don't know. Bracing their hands somehow."

"Not unless they had the strength of a drone or drudge," she said. "The door motors are quite strong, and they're sealed where no one can get at them."

"What about a stationmaster?" I asked.

"What about them?" she asked. "I doubt they're strong enough, either. Besides, there aren't any of them aboard."

"Sure there are," I said. "There's one, anyway. He was in the last third-class car, watching the conductors deal with the whiffer."

Bayta's eyes went unfocused for a few seconds. "No," she said firmly. "The Spiders say there aren't any stationmasters aboard."

A chill ran up my back. "You have the kwi?" I asked, swinging my legs back over the side of my bed and grabbing my shoes.

"Right here," Bayta said, patting her pocket. "What's going on?"

"I don't know," I told her, putting on my shoes. "Okay, I'll take it," I said when I'd finished.

"Should I wake Rebekah?" she asked, handing me the kwi.

"No, let her sleep," I said, sliding the weapon into place around my right-hand knuckles. "Come on."

Bayta's eyes widened. "You want both of us to go?"

"I can't fire the kwi without you there to activate it," I reminded her as patiently as I could. "Without you, it makes a fair paperweight, but that's about all."

"What about Rebekah?"

"She'll be fine," I assured her. "Just warn the conductors to keep a close eye on our compartments."

"But—"

"Bayta, the Modhri has at least four walkers aboard this train, plus whatever he's got here in first class," I interrupted her tartly. "Rebekah will have a locked door between her and whatever trouble he feels like making. All I'll have is you and the kwi. Now, come on."

Glaring at me, her lips pressed tightly together, Bayta stepped silently to my side. Giving the corridor outside a quick check, I led the way out.

The Modhri was apparently through making trouble for the day Bayta and I made it back to the last third-class car without so much as an odd look from anyone. Not even the four Juri-ani I'd met in the baggage car gave us more than an idle glance as we passed their seats in the last third-class car.

But then, that was how the Modhri worked his magic puppets. It was entirely possible that all four of them thought they'd been dozing in their seats the whole time they were actually chasing me, and were even now sitting there wondering why they felt so tired and achy.

Nowhere along the way did we spot the stationmaster.

We maneuvered through the twisty passageways to the rear of the first baggage car, and I touched the release to open the door into the vestibule. "That's the one," I told Bayta, pointing at the door leading into the next car.

She stepped in for a closer look, putting one hand against the side of the vestibule for balance. "It looks all right to me," she said.

"Except that it doesn't open," I said. Reaching past her, I pushed the release to demonstrate.

And without any fuss whatsoever, the door slid open.

For a long moment we just stood there, side by side in the cramped space of the vestibule, gazing through the open doorway into another maze of safety-webbed crate islands. "It doesn't open?" Bayta asked at last, her voice flat.

"Well, it didn't open," I growled as the door reached the end of its timed cycle and slid shut. I reached past Bayta and touched the release, and again the door slid open.

"I'll take your word for it," Bayta said diplomatically. "Now what?"

"First thing we do is find our crate," I said. Sliding past her, I stepped into the car and headed down the twisty path. With only a slight hesitation, Bayta followed.

I'd been wrong. The first thing we found wasn't our crate. The first thing we found, just around the first curve in the pathway, was a pair of Halkas.

Dead ones.

"What happened?" Bayta asked, her voice shaking a little as I knelt beside the bodies. No matter how many times death intruded on our lives, she never seemed to get completely used to it.

"No obvious marks; no signs of a struggle," I said, lifting one of the victims' heads for a closer look at the eyes and mouth. There was some kind of mucus at the corners of his mouth and eyes, I saw, which probably meant something. Unfortunately, I didn't have the slightest idea what. "Hopefully, some doctor at Jurskala Station will have time for an autopsy."

"What do you do here, Humans?" a voice demanded from behind me.

I spun around, jumping back to my feet as I did so. Three of the four Juriani who'd accosted me in the other baggage car were staring down their beaks in obvious horror at the sight before them. "Can I help you?" I asked cautiously.

The one in front snapped his beak a couple of times, then gestured to the Juri to his right. "Bidran, bring the conductor," he ordered. "Tell him what you have seen. Tell him what these Humans have done."

The other gulped something and turned, running with complete lack of normal Jurian dignity toward the passenger section of the train. "So, Humans," the spokesman said, his tone dark and ominous and still clearly shaken. "You do not merely come back here to steal. You come back here to murder."

"It's not what you think," I protested. "We just found them this way."

"That will be for a court of discovery to decide," the Juri said flatly.

The kwi tingled in my palm as Bayta activated it. Clearly, she assumed I would want to blast our way out of this.

But I couldn't. For one thing, the Juriani weren't under Modhran control, not this time. They were—or thought they were—just honest citizens who'd accidentally stumbled on a double murder and wanted to help bring the perps to justice.

Besides, it was way too late to cover this up by shooting. From the front baggage car I could hear the messenger screaming for assistance at the top of his lungs. Shooting these two would only give us two more bodies to explain when the mob of curiosity-seekers arrived.

"What do we do?" Bayta whispered tensely.

I grimaced. "We surrender to the Spiders," I told her.

I looked down at the bodies. Apparently, the Modhri wasn't through making trouble for the day.