Odd Girl Out

The typical Human response when hit like that would be to fold, jackknife-style, around the point of impact. The typical Jurian response, in contrast, was to go stiff as a board and fall backward. Except for his Modhran polyp colony, Tas Yelfro was indeed a typical Juri. He gasped again as he toppled backward like a frozen mannequin, the crash of his fall muffled by the thick carpet.

For a second he just lay there, looking like a molded lugeboard, staring at me in disbelief. I knelt down beside him and, just to show it hadn't been an accident, I hit him again in the same spot.

He shook with the impact, his eyes and beak widening with agony and even more disbelief and the beginnings of genuine anger. "I'm going to go find her now," I told him, gazing into his eyes with the most intimidating stare in my Westali arsenal. "If you try to stop me, I'll just have to hurt more of your walkers."

I lowered my face until it was only a few centimeters from his. "And if you hurt her," I added quietly, "I'll kill every walker in this station. You hear me? Every last one of them."

He was still staring back at me, his eyes still swimming with pain. Only now, I could see the first stirrings of fear, as well. If I really succeeded in killing all his walkers, this particular mind segment would die, vanishing without a trace and leaving the overall Modhran mind to forever wonder what had happened here today.

It wasn't an idle threat, either. I'd done it before, destroying the mind segment on an entire Quadrail train.

Or so he believed.

I held his gaze another couple of seconds, just to make sure he knew I was serious, pushing the bluff to the limit. Then, wrapping the kwi around my right hand, I stood up, crossed to the door, and eased it open.

My four Spider guards were still standing out there where I'd left them. Slipping out into the hallway, I closed the door behind me. "Can you locate Bayta?" I asked.

"You are ordered to remain in your compartment," one of the Spiders said.

"I know that," I said. "Can you locate Bayta? Yes or no?"

"No," he said.

I felt my stomach tighten. For one telepath not to be able to locate another telepath meant one of three things: out of range, unconscious, or dead.

Not dead, I told myself firmly. Not dead. The Modhri was way too smart to throw away his best leverage against me by killing her out of hand. No, she was surely only unconscious.

Unfortunately, she could also be literally anywhere on the station. "Alert the rest of the Spiders to watch for her," I ordered him. "You four start searching the passenger areas between here and the medical center."

None of them so much as budged. "Did you hear me?" I demanded.

"You are ordered to remain in your compartment," the Spider said.

"I have authority in Bayta's name to give you orders," I said, easing myself to the side where I would have a clear shot around his maze of legs. Actually, I wasn't really sure how much authority I had over the Spiders when Bayta wasn't with me.

"You are ordered to remain in your compartment," the Spider said, still not moving.

I grimaced. Apparently, not much. "In that case—" I began.

And right in the middle of the sentence, I ducked past him and sprinted for the stairs.

Spiders being the simple workers that they are, I hadn't expected them to react quickly enough to stop me. I was right, and was halfway down the first flight of the wide flowing staircase before they even made it to the landing.

Unfortunately, the Modhri wasn't nearly so slow on the uptake. I had reached the fourth-floor landing and was rounding the corner onto the next curve of stairs when I heard the sounds of a small crowd further down the stairway on its way up.

I was halfway to the third floor when the front of that wave reached me.

There were four of them, all middle-aged Juriani dressed in quiet, dignified, upper-class clothing, breathing heavily as they bounded up the stairs like children in a hop-clink game. Behind them, just starting up the flight of stairs, were two Halkas wearing the trilayered robes of the Halkan Peerage. Apparently the Juriani were the sacrificial lambs, designed to slow me down as I barreled through them so that the larger Halkas could safely corral me before I did any serious damage.

But I had no intention of playing nicely. I waited until I was only three steps away from the panting Juriani, then veered to the outside of the stairway, grabbed the top of the railing, and flipped myself over the edge. Shifting my grip in midair to one of the railing's vertical supports, I slid down until I was hanging straight over the railing of the next flight down. As my momentum swung me inward, I let go of the support and dropped to the stairs below.

Neatly putting me below the Modhri's attack line.

I could hear the sudden flurry of activity above me as the Juriani and Halkas screeched to a halt and reversed direction. But they were too late. I was already on my way down, taking the stairs three at a time. I reached the lobby and charged past the rest of the astonished travelers out into the station.

Jurskala Station was the Quadrail stop for the Jurian home system, and as such was large, elaborate, and teeming with travelers. Despite my desperate hurry, I forced myself to slow to a walk, knowing that nothing drew attention faster than someone running full tilt through a crowd. The Modhri was relying on alien minds and alien eyes, and it was likely that most of the people moving through the station had never bothered learning how to distinguish one Human from another.

Even so, I doubted I could slip past all the walkers, not with the Modhri bending every resource he had here toward locating me. Certainly I'd never stay below the radar long enough to find Bayta.

But then, despite the impression I'd worked so hard to leave with the Modhri up in my room, I had no intention of turning the station upside down until I found her. All I needed right now was to get to the stationmaster and make sure he didn't carry out the arrangements I'd sent Bayta to make.

A chipmunk-faced Bellido stepped into my path, a set of three guns holstered beneath the arms of his elaborately embroidered robe. "Excuse me—" he began.

I shouldered my way past him and picked up my pace, cursing under my breath. I'd hoped to get at least a little farther before I was spotted. Theoretically, I knew, I shouldn't have to physically confront the stationmaster, but should be able to relay my instructions to him via any Spider. But Spiders had varying degrees of imagination and autonomy, none of them very impressive, and I didn't dare risk that my message would get garbled or ignored.

Out of the corner of my eye I spotted two Tra'ho'seej angling toward me. I responded by shifting direction toward a bulky Cimma also coming toward me, did a quick sidestep around him, and headed off in another direction entirely. I ducked behind and around a pair of Halkas, passed by a Human wearing a Sorbonne collegiate scarf and jacket, and made a tight circle to put me again on a path to the stationmaster's office.

And suddenly a pair of metallic Spider legs came angling down from my right, hitting the floor directly in front of me.

I had no chance to sidestep or even stop. I slammed into them, feeling them flex a bit with the impact, and bounced back. Before I could do more than catch my balance the Spider swiveled around behind me and wrapped another of his legs, wrestler-style, around my waist. A second later two more legs lifted from the floor and poked their way horizontally under my armpits, and the damn thing lifted me up like a weightlifter doing biceps curls.

And I found myself staring at my distorted reflection in a shiny Spider globe.

But not just any Spider globe. As I looked at the pattern of white dots beneath my face, I realized this was the same Spider I'd done that trampoline off of in my previous train's baggage car.

Was that why he was here? Looking for payback?

He pulled me higher and closer until my cheek was pressed against his globe. I braced myself, wondering if he was going to try bouncing off of me now, just to show me what it felt like, or whether he'd just settle for playing kickball with me across the station.

But to my surprise, I just heard a quiet Spider voice in my ear, almost too quiet to hear. "What do you do here, friend?"

I felt my chest tighten. I'd never had a Spider call me friend. For that matter, I'd never heard of a Spider calling anyone friend.

And in that single numbing second I knew that my earlier speculations and suspicions had been right.

God help us all.

"What do you do here, friend?" the Spider asked again.

I took a deep breath. Whatever else this might mean—whatever the implications for the future—my first priority was to get Bayta away from the Modhri. "I need to get a message to the stationmaster," I said. "Can you do that?"

"Yes," he said.

I gave him the message, keeping it short and clear and as authoritative as I could make it. Hanging a half meter off a Quadrail station floor being stared at by hundreds of bemused aliens was no time to get long-winded. "Can he do that?" I asked when I'd finished.

"He will do that," the Spider said.

I grimaced, the sinking feeling in my stomach dropping another couple of floors. "Then I suppose I need to get back to my prison," I told him.

"Yes," he said.

I frowned, focusing on the station around me. To my surprise, I discovered that we were already in motion, though the Spider was walking so smoothly I hadn't even noticed when, we'd started up. The Eulalee Hotel's main entrance was in sight out of the corner of my eye, and I could see the two Halkas who'd tried to corral me on the stairs waiting watchfully off to the side.

Belatedly, I realized I probably looked like an oversized baby in its mother's chest carrier. "I can make it from here, Spot," I told the Spider.

There was a slight pause, as if he was pondering the nickname I'd just given him. "It is ordered that you be delivered to your prison," he told me.

"This is extremely undignified," I tried again. "Dignity is important to Humans."

He didn't answer. He also didn't put me down.

And considering the look on the Halkas' faces as we passed, maybe it was just as well that he didn't. The Modhri was apparently still mad at me.

The four Spider guards were back in their semicircle around my door when we reached my room. Spot set me down, one of the guards unlocked my door, and I went inside.

Tas Yelfro had managed to pull himself off the floor and drag himself up onto the couch in my absence. "Human fool," he rasped as I closed the door behind me. "Did you genuinely hope to accomplish anything useful?"

The voice was raspy, but the face and tone were still those of the Modhri. "You never know until you try," I said, pulling over a chair to face him and sitting down. "I have a deal to propose."

"What sort of deal?"

"One that'll benefit both of us," I said. "But first we need to clear the air a little. Specifically, I didn't kill your walkers aboard the Quadrail. The baggage car decompressed, and they simply asphyxiated."

He cocked his head to one side, the motion making him look more bird-like than ever. "Yes, I know," he said. "How did you decompress the car?"

"I didn't," I told him. "It was probably some malfunction of the seals—the Spiders are looking into it. The point is that there's no reason to blame me for any of that, or to try to take revenge."

"I never take revenge," he said. "Speak your proposal."

"I want Bayta back," I said.

"I want the Abomination," he countered. "Deliver it, and you may have the Human female."

"Actually, you don't want the Abomination," I said. "You want something far more valuable than that."

"There is nothing more valuable than the Abomination."

"You're confusing means with ends," I told him. "Tell me, if you had the Abomination coral right now, what would you do with him?"

"I would take it through the transfer station to Jurskala," he said. "I have many outposts on that world."

"And then?"

Something cold settled into the Modhri's eyes. "It would reveal to me the location of the others."

"No it wouldn't," I said. "You'll never get that information. Not from the coral."

"Once I surround the Abomination, it will have no choice."

"It'll never happen," I insisted. "The coral will suicide long before he lets you get him to your interrogation chamber. Or hadn't you heard about Lorelei Beach and what her symbiont colony did to itself on Earth?"

The Modhri's eyes might have flashed a little on the word symbiont. "The Abomination will not have access to any such convenient means of self-destruction."

"Who says he'll need it?" I countered. "You have your polyp colonies kill their hosts and themselves all the time. Who says the Melding's outpost can't pull the same stunt inside his coral?"

The Modhri clacked his beak. "For a Human who claims cleverness, you quickly argue yourself into your own trap," he said. "If the Abomination will not tell me where the others are hiding, then the only other source of that information is the young female. Do you wish for me to demand her instead in exchange for the Human Bayta?"

"Not at all," I said. "I wish for you to take a wider view of all this. I mean, really, what is the Abomination? A couple hundred symbionts and a few chunks of coral. What kind of threat can they possibly be to you?"

He gave a loud, derisive snort. It was followed immediately by a wince of pain from his still-tender abdomen and lung sacs. "Of course the Abomination is not a threat," he said. "This is not about threats."

"No, it's about principle, and cleansing the universe of a crime against nature," I acknowledged. "Believe it or not, I understand the concept. But the Abomination has something far more valuable to you than simple revenge."

"Explain."

"Think about it a minute," I urged. "The Abomination was hidden on New Tigris for close to ten years. In the past few months, he and his symbionts have been moving to some other location. You've probably been hunting him for a lot of that time, with every outpost and walker and soldier you've got." I raised my eyebrows. "And yet, with all those resources, you still haven't got a clue as to where they've all gone."

The Modhri snorted again, more gently and carefully this time. "If you have a point, make it."

"It's very simple," I said. "The Abomination has found a hiding place for his new homeland that no one has been able to find. Which is exactly what you want for your own homeland."

The Modhri made as if to say something, then stopped. "You suggest I destroy the Abomination and use its same location?" he asked at last. "A location which you already know?"

"Actually, I don't already know it," I corrected him, fudging the truth only a little. "And of course that would be silly. What I'm suggesting is that you figure out his method or technique and adapt that for your own purposes. Whether it's a matter of the location itself, or some kind of camouflage, if it works for Abomination coral it should work equally well for you."

"And what then of the Abomination?"

"What of it?" I asked. "We both agree it's no threat to you. Find out how they're doing this, then leave the Abomination to itself and go find a place where you can do the same thing. Live and let live, I always say."

His beak opened in a mocking gesture. "As you and I already do?"

"I offered that option to you once," I said. "I was nearly killed for my trouble." I gave him a tight, slightly mocking smile. "But you probably never knew about that."

"On the contrary, I know about everything," he said coldly. "And your subsequent actions show clearly that your offer was not sincere."

"Actually, it was," I said, feeling a shiver run through me. Bayta, I knew, still thought our brief side trip to the Yandro transfer station on our way to New Tigris had been a complete waste of time. Up to now, I had suspected differently.

Now it was no longer merely a suspicion. "But that's water under the bridge," I went on. "Do we have the making of a deal here?"

For a few seconds he eyed me in silence. "I will keep the Human Bayta," he said at last. "You will lead my Eyes to this place. When I have seen it and learned its secrets, I will release her."

"You'll release her into my direct custody," I said. "And you'll do it immediately after I've led your Eyes to the Abomination's hideout. If you want to stick around and root out its secrets, you can do it on your own time."

Again, he took a moment to study me. "Agreed," he said. "Which train do we need to take?"

"Whichever the next train is on the Kalalee Branch," I said. There was a fair chance that he'd seen the label on our crate, and I might as well keep my lies consistent and easy to remember. "We're heading to Benedais."

"Benedais," he repeated, his eyes boring into mine. "Be certain you speak truthfully to me."

"You be certain you have Bayta ready to hand over to me by the time we reach Benedais," I said. "And in mint condition. I presume you'll want to make the travel arrangements yourself. Rebekah and I will need a double adjoining compartment."

"No," he said flatly. "You will stay in a first-class coach car where I can watch you."

"Do you want Rebekah to take us to the Abomination's hideout, or don't you?" I asked patiently "Because if you do, she has to think that things are back to normal, and normal means a double compartment."

He considered. "And the Abomination?"

"It'll be in the compartment with us," I told him. "Just in case you get the urge to go poking around in baggage cars again."

He took a careful breath. "As you wish. What will you tell the young Human female?"

"I'll think of something," I said. "You just get the tickets for our train. While you're at it, you might want to expedite my getting out of here."

"It will be done." Tas Yelfro stood up. "I will take the weapon now," he added, holding out his hand.

I looked at the kwi still wrapped around my knuckles, "It's of no use to you," I said.

His beak clacked sarcastically. "While I have it, it's of no use to you, either."

There was no way around it. Slipping the kwi off my hand, I tossed it to him. "I'll want it back when this is all over," I warned.

"We shall see," he said, pocketing the weapon and moving toward the door. "I shall let you know which train you will be taking."

He opened the door and paused. "And," he added, "I will be watching."

"Yes," I said. "I'll just bet you will."

Even with the Modhri's assistance, it took nearly four hours for the stationmaster to officially release me from my hotel room. Or maybe the delay was because of the Modhri. There would be some preparations he would want to make for our trip, and he probably preferred me kept on ice until they were complete.

I headed down the stairs again to the hotel lobby. Tas Yelfro himself was nowhere in sight, but one of the Halkas on his backup team was waiting at the main door with the news that our train would be arriving in two hours. I assured him we'd be ready, then headed across to the Spider storage area where Bayta had said Rebekah was waiting.

I'd told the Modhri I would figure out something to tell Rebekah. Over the long hours of my forced idleness, I had.

I told her the truth.

She listened in silence as I described the situation. "What do you want me to do?" she asked when I'd finished.

"That depends on what you're willing to do," I told her. "Option one is that you put your neck into the noose along with Bayta's and mine. Option two is to say no thanks, and be home in time for dinner."

She wrinkled her nose. "That would be a good trick."

"Actually, at the moment it would be simplicity itself," I said, pointing toward the station's service area. "There's a Spider tender parked right over there, ready to go. Usually Bayta's the one who coordinates these special travel arrangements, but I could probably muddle through the process without her this once. You and your coral could be aboard and out of the station before the Modhri even knows you're gone."

She looked in the direction I'd pointed, as if she could see through the wall by sheer willpower. "What would happen to Bayta if I did that?"

"Do you care?" I asked bluntly.

She looked back at me and smiled, a sad, wistful sort of thing. "This is a test isn't it?" she asked. "You want to know if I'm willing to risk my life for her. Whether I and the rest of the Melding are truly worth saving."

"It's a fair question," I pointed out. "I do know you're wiling to risk your life for your chunks of coral. Otherwise, you could have destroyed it back on New Tigris and slipped away. That kind of loyalty certainly counts for something."

"But the coral is family?" she said.

"The coral is family," I agreed. "It's a different thing entirely to take the same risk for a relative stranger."

"And if I'm not willing, I'm no better than the Modhri?"

"Or you're young and scared, neither of which I could really hold against you," I said. "Besides, in the grand scheme of things, what does it really matter what I think?"

"It always matters what a friend thinks," Rebekah said quietly. "Do you have a plan for us to use?"

"I have the opening moves of one," I said. "The details will depend on what the Modhri decides to do. I'll need Bayta aboard the train with us when we make our move."

"What if he leaves her here instead?"

"Then we'll have to tour around the galaxy for a while until he decides I'm stalling and brings her aboard so he can threaten her to my face," I said.

Rebekah's eyes unfocused. "No, he'll bring her along," she said slowly. "He likes keeping his eggs in one basket."

"Yes, I've noticed that," I said. "Let's hope he stays to form on this one." I looked at my watch. "Our train arrives in just under an hour, with a forty-five-minute layover. Plenty of time for us to make our arrangements. We'll have our usual double compartment, by the way, which we'll be sharing with your supposed crate of Melding coral."

"And the real coral?"

"Don't worry, it'll be right there with us," I assured her, smiling tightly. "Just leave that one to me."

One hour and forty minutes later, our train pulled out of the station.

I stayed in my compartment with my face pressed to the window from the moment Rebekah and I got in until the moment the conductors stepped back inside the train and irised the doors closed. I saw no sign of Bayta.

Nevertheless, half an hour after leaving the station, when I took Rebekah on a brief walking tour up and down the compartment car corridor, she confirmed that Bayta was indeed aboard.

"She's in the first compartment, the one across from the car door," she told me as she sat down on the edge of the bed in her compartment. "I don't know why I couldn't sense her when we first came in."

"She was probably still unconscious," I said, stepping back and leaning an elbow on the crate I'd positioned on the midline between our two compartments. It was a fairly inconvenient place to put the thing, actually, and I anticipated a few stubbed toes and barked shins in my future. But if someone started to break into one of our compartments I wanted to be able to quickly shove the crate into the other one and close the dividing wall. It might only gain us a minute or two, but sometimes that made all the difference. "But at least that explains why the Modhri made sure to drag out the cancellation of my murder charge."

"It does?" Rebekah asked, frowning.

"Sure." I pointed toward the front of the car. "The Modhri wanted Bayta along, but he didn't want us seeing where he'd stashed her. So instead of all of us just boarding the train at Jurskala, he had his walkers put her on a train going the other direction, took her off at the next station, and then loaded her aboard this train when it came through. That way, by the time we check in, she's already in and hidden."

"Only he doesn't know I can sense her," Rebekah murmured.

"There are a lot of things he doesn't knew," I sad, feeling a little of the worry lifting from my shoulders. All our erudite expectations aside, the Modhri could still have decided not to bring Bayta aboard our expedition until we reached our supposed destination of Benedais thirteen and a half days from now. That would have been awkward, since Rebekah and I needed to get off at Sibbrava a week earlier than that. "Anyway, I'm hungry," I went on. "Let's go to the dining car and get something to eat."

"You think that's safe?" Rebekah asked, looking at the door.

"The Modhri thinks you're blissfully leading him to the Promised Land, remember?" I reminded her. "He won't bother us. Besides, now that Bayta's awake we need a Spider to see us so she knows we're aboard with her."

"Oh. Of course," she said, standing up. "Now that you mention it, I'm sort of hungry too."

"Good," I said, giving the crate a tap as I moved toward her door. "By the way, how's your coral doing?"

She frowned toward the rear of the train. "He's all light," she said.

"It's not going to be a problem, you being this far away from him, is it?"

"It shouldn't be," she assured me.

"Good," I said. "Then let's go eat. By the way, have you ever tried onion rings?"