Odd Girl Out

Every Quadrail passenger car came stocked with an emergency oxygen repressurization tank, a complete self-contained and self-controlled supply/scrubber/regulator system that was ready to swing into action in the highly unlikely event of a loss of air pressure in the car. The repressurization of the baggage car where the two ill-fated Halkan walkers had asphyxiated indicated that the non-passenger cars probably had the same setup.

We found the large cylinder and its associated control system in the rear car's front left-hand corner. Getting the tank off the wall, we manhandled it into the vestibule between the two baggage cars. Stripping it of its regulators took longer than I'd expected, but at last we were ready

"I don't understand how this is supposed to work," Rebekah said as I made one last check on the tank's stability as it leaned against the vestibule wall. "I thought these doors only locked when there was vacuum on one side."

"Actually, the Tube isn't quite a vacuum," I corrected. "Seven hundred years' worth of leakage through the atmosphere barriers of multiple thousands of Quadrail stations has left a thin atmosphere out there. Not enough to breathe, but enough to keep your brains from boiling out through your ears."

Rebekah shuddered. "Frank!" Bayta admonished me.

"Sorry," I apologized. "To answer your question, your typical pressure lock doesn't know what the actual air pressure is it's dealing with. It doesn't know, and it also doesn't care. All it cares about is whether one side has significantly more pressure than the other. If and when that happens, a purely mechanical switch kicks in and locks the doors closed."

Reaching to the top of the tank, I opened the valve, sending a hiss of cold oxygen into the vestibule and wafting into our faces. "And as the saying goes, if you can't raise the bridge, lower the river," I added, letting the door slide shut again. "There should be enough air in that tank to raise the vestibule pressure at least fifty percent, probably more. The pressure lock will kick in, and at that point there'll be nothing the Modhri can do but break in the door."

"I see," Rebekah said. "Though once he does that, he'll be able to get through both vestibule doors, right?"

"Actually, once he's got even a small hole or crack to let the pressure out he can get through both doors," I said. "But I figure it'll buy us a couple of hours."

"Meanwhile, he's got a coral outpost out there," Bayta murmured.

"It won't help him any," Rebekah said.

"I don't think Bayta was referring to your coral, Rebekah," I said. "She was thinking about the fact that if this mind segment wants to, he could turn the entire train into walkers."

Rebekah's face went rigid. "Oh, no," she breathed. "But he wouldn't do that. Would he?"

"He did it once before," Bayta said grimly. "It nearly killed both of us."

"But not quite," I pointed out. "But I don't think he will. Not this time. He already has plenty of walkers aboard for what he needs, and creating a bunch of new ones won't really gain him anything."

"Unless he does it just to spite us," Bayta said.

I shook my head. "The Modhri doesn't seem to care that much about spite or revenge. He has a pretty good soldier mentality, actually, which is one of the things that make him so dangerous. He's too focused on his mission of galaxy domination to bother with petty distractions."

"That might be true for the Modhri as a whole," Rebekah said. "But remember, all we have aboard this train is a single mind segment."

"And you hurt him pretty badly back there," Bayta agreed. "The way Mr. Braithewick looked at you …Standing orders notwithstanding, he might decide to bend the rules a little."

I hesitated, gazing at their faces, at their eyes filled with fear and compassion for all the innocent people riding our train. In theory, of course, they were right. A single mind segment, especially one that was out of touch with all the other mind segments, had a certain degree of autonomy. If it was out of touch long enough, as it would be on a long Quadrail trip, it could conceivably drift away from whatever the overall Modhran party line was at the moment.

In fact, that could be the very same mechanism that had caused the drastic change in Rebekah's batch of coral when it came under the influence of her group of rogue symbionts. If so, I could see why the Modhri was so afraid of them, and why he was going to such lengths to find and destroy them.

Should I tell them the truth? Bayta would have to be told eventually, I knew. And it might help alleviate at least this one concern for both her and Rebekah.

But this was something the Modhri definitely didn't want getting out …and he still might decide to take a prisoner for questioning. "I doubt the Modhri's discipline is nearly that lax," I said instead. "Personally, I think we've got better things to worry about than having the whole train rise up against us."

I turned back to the vestibule. "That should be long enough," I said. "Let's give it a try." Mentally crossing my fingers, I pressed the door release.

Nothing happened. I tried again, and once more just for luck. The door was indeed locked up tight. "Perfect," I said briskly. "That should hold him for a bit."

"We need to hold him longer than just a bit," Bayta warned, giving me one of those thoughtful looks she did so well. She was smart enough to realize I'd deflected her concern without genuinely addressing it, but she was also smart enough to know when I was telling her to drop a subject. "It's still several hours to the next station."

"True enough," I said, looking at the stacks on either side of the vestibule door. Both were composed of oversized crates with machinery labels on them and double layers of safety webbing. Not a chance in the universe the three of us would be able to knock those over. "Scavenger hunt time. What I want is a crate with a vertical side-sliding panel instead of the usual top-opening lid. It also needs to be on the bottom of its particular stack. First one to find me a crate like that wins a prize."

"What kind of prize?" Rebekah asked.

"I'll think of something," I said. "You two head back; I'll check the ones up here."

The crate I'd described for them was important, but it wasn't actually my first priority. As soon as the two of them were out of sight, I headed to the side toward the spot where the Jurskala Spider contingent was supposed to have loaded my special crate.

It was, thankfully, right where it was supposed to be, sitting on top of a short and easily climbable stack of other crates. I pried open the top, made sure my special cargo was inside, then closed it again. The crate had been a vital part of Plan A, and it was going to be an equally important part of Plan B.

It would probably be necessary even if we had to go to Plan C. Whatever Plan C might end up being.

I was back down on the floor, prowling among the crate islands, when Rebekah won the hunt.

"What's in it?" she asked as I worked the safety webbing up and away from the bottom of the crate. It would have been faster to cut it, but this particular webbing I wanted left intact.

"Typically, side-opening crates contain one of two types of items," I told her. "Either machinery designed to be rolled out at its destination, or stuff that'll flow out into a bin or other container when you pull up the panel. Hold this webbing up, will you?"

She reached up and got a grip on the webbing, keeping it out of my way. "Which is it in this case?" she asked.

"No idea, but I'm hoping it's the former," I said. Popping the catches, I got my fingertips under the bottom of the panel and pulled upward.

I would have been happy with pretty much anything. As it was, I was quietly ecstatic. Packed inside its molded foam spacers was a beautifully restored classic Harley-Davidson motorcycle. "Bingo," I said.

"We're planning on riding somewhere?" Bayta asked, looking confused.

"Like where?" I countered, getting a grip on the front wheel and pulling. For a moment the bike resisted, then reluctantly rolled toward me, its spacers mostly coming along with it. "Besides, it won't be fueled up."

"Then why do we want it?" Rebekah asked.

"Because this is no longer a classic motorcycle," I told her as it came free. "This is a neatly organized collection of spare parts."

I gave the clutch grip an experimental squeeze. "A collection of spare parts," I added quietly, "that can be turned into weapons."

Bayta and Rebekah exchanged looks. "I see," Bayta said, her voice sounding uncomfortable.

Small wonder. For seven hundred years the Spiders had gone to extraordinary lengths to keep weapons off their Quadrails. Now here I was, proposing to create an arsenal out of something that had sailed right through their filters. "It's not a big deal," I told her. "In the real world, almost anything can be turned into a weapon if you work at it hard enough."

"I suppose," she said. "It just makes the whole no-weapons thing seem rather futile."

"Hardly," I assured her. "Keeping guns and knives and plague bacteria off the trains is what's kept the peace through the galaxy for the past seven centuries. Let's not throw out the heirloom silver just because there's a little tarnish on it here and there."

"You're right." She took a deep breath. "What do you want Rebekah and me to do?"

"Right now, nothing," I said. "With only one multitool among us, this is going to be pretty much a one-man job. You and Rebekah can go find yourselves a nice place to sit down and relax."

"What about my prize?" Rebekah asked, a hint of the ten-year-old girl once again peeking through. "You said there would be a prize if I found you the right crate."

"That I did," I agreed, bracing myself. Someone was really going to hate me for this.

He would just have to get in line. Reaching to the Harley's right-hand mirror, I snapped it off. "There you go," I said, handing it to Rebekah. "Don't spend it all in one place."

She gazed at it a moment, then looked up at me again. "Thank you," she said gravely.

And with that, the ten-year-old was gone again. "You're welcome," I said. "Now scoot, both of you. I'll let you know when I need you again."

I had never taken a motorcycle apart before, and the very first thing I discovered was that my multitool wasn't much of a substitute for a proper mechanic's kit. Many of the parts came off with difficulty, or thoroughly mangled, or both. Other components never did give up their death grip on the bike, despite the force, ingenuity, and threats I threw at them.

One thing was crystal clear, though: this particular bike would never run again. I hoped the owner had popped for the full-coverage insurance.

Somewhere midway through my work, I heard the first faint thudding sounds from the other side of the vestibule. The walkers had made it past our crate barrier and were tackling the pressure-locked door.

Our time was running out.

The rhythmic banging had been going on for probably half an hour by the time I decided I'd stripped everything I could from the bike. The front fork and rear shock absorbers would serve nicely as clubs, the wheel rims could be used as throwing disks, and I'd worked a section of the exhaust pipe into an arm protector for my left forearm. I'd also collected enough bolts and nuts to make for a couple of good barrages with the slings I'd constructed from the rubber of the tires.

As the final touch, I cut some long pieces of safety webbing and attached the remainder of the bike frame to the crate stacks on either side of the vestibule, leveled at the center of the doorway. With Bayta's help, I hauled the machine back and up, securing it high off the floor with more webbing fastened with a quick-release knot. The first walker to come through that door was going to be in for a very unpleasant surprise.

And after that, there was just one more thing to do.

"I can't," Rebekah protested, staring into the now empty crate that had once housed the Harley. "Please don't make me."

"You have to," I told her firmly. I could understand her reluctance—the crate wasn't shaped like a coffin, but it didn't have much more than a coffin's worth of space inside. But it would be light-years better than being out in the open when the walkers broke through the door. "The Modhri wants to get his hands on you. We don't want him to. It's that simple."

"Trust us, Rebekah," Bayta said, her voice low and earnest. "We'll be back to get you. I promise."

I winced. Unfortunately, there were only two ways that we would be able to keep that promise: if we won the imminent fight, or if the Modhri captured us alive and made us talk. I wasn't counting too heavily on the first, and I didn't much want to dwell on the second.

Maybe Rebekah was thinking about the two options, too, and their respective odds of becoming reality. "All right," she said reluctantly. "If I have to." Bending over, she eased herself into the crate.

I gave her a couple of seconds to settle herself in as best she could, then slid the panel down to close her in. "Start moving those foam spacers somewhere else in the car," I instructed Bayta as I smoothed the safety webbing back into place along the side of the crate. "I'll give you a hand as soon as I'm finished here."

The crate's appearance was back to normal, the foam spacers were on the other side of the baggage car, and we were in position at the door when the Modhri finally broke through.

The first in line was a Halka, probably the biggest walker the Modhri had available at the moment. He came charging through the door, faltering a bit in obvious surprise to find the floor in front of him clear of crates or other obstacles. His eyes flicked upward, the Modhri clearly wondering if one of the nearby stacks was about to come down on top of him.

He was still standing like that when the Harley frame swung in from in front of him and nailed him squarely in the chest.

With a grunt of agony he fell backward into the doorway, slamming into the next Halka in line. Before they could untangle themselves I was on them, hammering at both heads and every limb I could reach with my fork club. The longer I could keep them trapped in the vestibule, where they had limited freedom of movement, the better.

But the same lack of space that hampered the Halkas also limited the amount of power I could bring to bear with my club. The Halkas shrugged off my blows with surprising ease, regained their mutual balance, and started back out at me.

"Frank!"

Bayta called. I dropped into a low crouch as a swarm of nuts and bolts came flying into the lead Halka's face. He snarled something, the snarl followed immediately by a bellow as I swung my club backhand across his knees. He fell forward, landing full-length with a resounding thud, and instantly rolled onto his side as he clutched at his knees.

One down. God only knew how many to go.

Bayta's second salvo, and my second kneecapping, took out the second Halka, dropping him on top of the first. But the third walker in line was a much smaller and quicker Juri. Instead of trying to bull his way through the doorway as the first two walkers had, he leaped up onto the suspended bike's front fender, grabbed the safety webbing rope tied to the handlebars, and swung himself onto the floor on the far side of the double heap of Halkas. I jabbed my club at him over the bike's saddle, but I was only able to deliver a glancing blow to his back before he skipped out of range.

I had just slammed my club across the face of the next Juri in line when the escapee ran around the wounded Halkas and hurled himself at me.

I ducked back, swinging furiously back and forth to try to keep him at bay. But this was a walker, and none of the normal instincts for self-defense applied. He took three punishing swipes across the head and torso before I managed to put him down for good.

But by then it was too late. My forced inattention to the doorway had allowed in three more walkers, two Halkas and a Juri.

And in that handful of seconds I was suddenly on the defensive.

"Bayta—retreat!" I shouted as I ducked into the maze of narrow passageways between the stacks. Over the clacking of Quadrail wheels I could hear the thudding of heavy Halkan feet as the walkers took off after me down the passageway. "Rebekah, get on top of the crates and hide!" I added.

There was no reply from either of them. But then, I hadn't expected any. Rebekah was hidden away in her crate, as safe as she would be anywhere, with no reason to go anywhere else. As for Bayta, she knew perfectly well what my coded retreat order really meant. I passed a distinctive pair of stacks and braked to a sudden halt, turning around and raising my club as if I had decided to make my stand right then and there.

And as the line of walkers charged toward me, the first Halka hit the trip line that had magically snapped up to knee height between the stacks.

He hit the floor with an even more impressive crash than those of the two I'd laid out by the vestibule. The Halka immediately behind him was going way too fast to stop, and landed full-length on his companion's wide back.

The Juri behind them didn't even try to slow down, but merely charged up onto the downed Halkas' backs and leaped at me like a gymnast coming off a springboard. He got a crack across the side of his rib lattice for his trouble, and another across the back of his head as he hit the floor in front of the Halkas. I stepped to the Halkas and gave each of them a crack on the head to keep them quiet.

Bayta was still crouched by the side of one of the crates, gripping the end of the safety webbing trip line. She dropped the line and jumped to her feet as I came up to her, and together we headed off into the maze.

We had just completed the second zig of a planned three-zigzag maneuver when the Modhri nailed us.

It was a well-planned and well-executed attack. The walkers, mostly Juriani and Bellidos, came at us from three different directions, three assault lines of three aliens each, all of them charging ahead with the by-now familiar disregard for their own personal safety. Bayta and I fought them off as best we could, the confined fighting space around us becoming even more cramped with every fresh body that staggered and then fell stunned or unconscious at our feet.

Fortunately, like most of the beings the Modhri had chosen to infect with himself, these walkers were from the upper classes; rich, powerful, up in years, and not in particularly good fighting trim. Even with their numerical advantage Bayta and I held our own, keeping our attackers back as we steadily whittled them down. I managed to clear out one of the lines of attackers, opening up an exit vector, and grabbed Bayta's arm with my free hand. "Come on," I panted, pushing her behind me as I turned to cover our retreat.

And without warning, something slammed into me from above, bouncing the back of my head off the nearest stack of crates and shoving me to the floor.

The next few minutes were a blur of hands and bodies and movement. By the time the haze lifted from my mind, I found myself back in the relatively open area by the baggage car's forward door and the suspended Harley, sitting on the floor with my back to one of the stacks of crates. There was a Juri towering over me on either side, and a line of Halkas and Juriani and Bellidos staring silently down at me from three meters away. Halkas, Juriani, Bellidos, and one lone Human.

Braithewick.

I took a careful breath, checking out the state of my chest as I did so. There was some serious bruising down there, but it didn't feel like anything was broken. "Well, that was fun," I said casually, focusing on Braithewick's sagging face. "Round One goes to you. Shall we set up for Round Two?"

"Where is the Abomination?" he asked.

"That's hard to say," I said. "I think I may have misplaced it."

Braithewick cocked his head, and from my left came a muffled gasp.

I turned that direction, craning my neck to look around the Juri standing guard on that side. Bayta was two stacks down, being pressed against the safety webbing by a pair of seriously bruised Halkas. One of them was gripping her right forearm with one hand and bending her hand back at the wrist with his other. "Leave her alone," I growled. "You want to torture someone, torture me."

"I think not," Braithewick said calmly. "You are a strong Human, Compton. I make you the compliment that breaking your bones will not gain me anything." He gestured toward Bayta. "But you are not strong enough to stand by and watch the slow destruction of the Human Bayta's life. Tell me where the Abomination is, or I'll begin by pulling out her fingers."

Bayta looked at me, her face taut but determined. "There's no need to get melodramatic," I told the Modhri. "Let her go, and I'll tell you."

"Tell me first," Braithewick said.

"Let her go first," I repeated.

Braithewick seemed to consider. Then, almost reluctantly, the Halka holding Bayta's arm relaxed the pressure on her wrist. "Where is the Abomination?" Braithewick asked.

I looked consideringly at the ceiling. "It should be right about …there," I said, pointing upward.

Braithewick didn't speak, but Bayta suddenly gasped again in pain. "Stop it," I snapped. "I'm telling the truth."

"The Abomination is not on the roof," Braithewick snapped back.

"I didn't say it was on the roof," I countered. "I said it was out there." I pointed again.

"You lie," Braithewick insisted. "It is here. I can feel its presence."

"Fine—have it your way," I said. "There are probably three to four hundred crates in here. Go ahead—knock yourself out."

Braithewick eyed me, his expression turning from angry to puzzled. "Why do you play such games, Compton? Do you truly believe I will hesitate to destroy the Human Bayta's life?" He cocked his head. "Or is it that you fear her agonizing death less than you fear the other fate I hold within my power?"

A cold chill ran through me. Other Modhran mind segments over the years had threatened to infect Bayta and me with polyp colonies and turn us into two more of his puppets. It was a possibility that held a special horror for Bayta, one she would gladly and unhesitatingly give up her life to avoid.

When Braithewick had threatened torture, I'd hoped that the far more terrifying scenario had somehow passed him by. But I saw now that the torture gambit had been merely a game, a psychological ploy to progressively raise the stakes of noncooperation.

And with a supply of coral already aboard the train, this new threat was anything but idle. If I didn't give him the Abomination, Bayta could be part of the Modhri within the hour. Probably we both would.

There was just one small problem. The Abomination really wasn't aboard the Quadrail.

I was searching desperately for something else to do or say when, behind the line of walkers directing their cold Modhran stares at me, I saw something that made my breath catch in my throat. A shadowy figure was flitting between the stacks of crates, moving in the direction of the forward door.

Rebekah was out of her crate, and making a break for it.

"Turning her into a walker won't do you any good," I warned Braithewick, raising my voice a bit to try to cover up any noise Rebekah might make. "I already told you the Abomination's not here."

"Then where is it?" Braithewick demanded. He reached into his pocket and pulled out the lump of coral the Halka in the other baggage car had tried to throw at me. "Tell me. Now."

I braced myself. If the Modhri had been angry before, this was going to make him furious. "The fact of the matter is—"

"Bayta!" Rebekah's voice called from somewhere behind the walkers. "Bayta—catch!"

The Modhri sprang into instant action, half the walkers turning toward the sound of Rebekah's voice, the other half surging toward Bayta, their eyes angled upward to spot and intercept whatever it was Rebekah was preparing to throw. At my sides, my two Jurian guards each put a hand on my shoulder, pressing me to the floor to prevent me from leaping to my feet and taking advantage of whatever the situation was that was about to unfold.

And as everyone looked and moved in all the wrong directions, an object came sliding across the floor, neatly passing through the gauntlet of shuffling feet, and came to a halt right in front of me.

It was my kwi.

The walkers jerked to a halt as one of their number spotted it, the whole bunch swiveling back toward me as my two guards dived simultaneously for the weapon.

But they were already too late. I scooped up the kwi, feeling the familiar activation tingle against my hand as I turned it upward and fired at the guard on my right.

I hadn't had time to check what setting the kwi was on, but from the violent shudder that arced through the walker's body as he tumbled uncontrollably to the floor across my leg it was clear that Rebekah had put the weapon on its highest pain setting. I fired twice more as I got the kwi into proper position on my hand, peripherally aware that all the walkers were shaking and twitching with the shared pain I was pumping into the group mind.

I fired a fourth time as I shoved the Juri off my leg and surged to my feet. I was barely vertical before I had to duck to the side to avoid a Halka who had managed to keep enough control of his body to throw himself at me. He slammed face-first into the stack of crates I'd been seated against, sending another ripple of pain through the mind. I fired one last jolt on the pain setting, then switched the kwi to its full knockout setting.

It was, to use the old phrase, like shooting ducks on the water. The walkers tried desperately to scatter, but the pain throbbing through their individual nervous systems had reduced their muscles to twitching jelly and their escape efforts into something halfway between laughable and pathetic. I strode among them, sending them one by one off to dreamland, occasionally shifting back to pain setting just to make sure those still conscious wouldn't recover enough to mount some kind of counterattack.

Three minutes later, it was all over.

Bayta was still standing by the crate stack where I'd left her, her face tight, her right wrist cradled in her left hand. "You all right?" I asked her, nudging back her fingers so I could get a look at her wrist.

"Mostly," she said, wincing. "I think it might be broken."

"Looks more like just a sprain," I said, gently touching the swelling skin. "We'll try to find someone to look at it in the next few hours."

Abruptly, she stiffened. "Frank, there are more first-class passengers coming this way," she said tightly.

"Interesting," I said, handing her wrist back into her care again. "I think that's the first time the Modhri's bothered to keep any of his walkers in reserve. I guess he can learn."

"Never mind whether or not he can learn," Bayta bit out. "What are we going to do?"

"Don't worry, we're covered," I assured her, hefting the kwi. "Speaking of which." I turned around. "Rebekah? You can come out now."

There was a pause, followed by a slight shuffling noise as Rebekah peered cautiously from around one of the stacks. "He's down?"

"Down and out, and going to stay that way for quite a while," I confirmed.

She breathed a sigh of relief as she came over to us. "Thank you," she murmured.

"Thank you," I countered. "How'd you find our kwi, anyway?"

"It was in his pocket," she said, pointing to the first Juri I'd clobbered in the Modhri's initial surge through the vestibule.

"How did you know he had it?" Bayta asked.

"I didn't," Rebekah said. "I'd already searched the ones you knocked out just before they caught you." She shivered. "I'm just glad it wasn't on one of the ones still standing."

"That would have been a little tricky," I agreed. "Meanwhile, Bayta says there are more walkers on the way, which means it's time to think about blowing this pop stand. Any word on when that might be?"

"Five minutes," Rebekah said. "There's a crosshatch just ahead."

"A crosshatch?" Bayta echoed, frowning.

"A section of spiral-laid tracks that allow a Quadrail to quickly switch from one track to another," I explained.

"Yes, I know what it is," Bayta said, a little tartly. "What do they have to do with anything?"

"Because we need the tender that's currently on Track Fifteen to come over to our track so it can pick us up," I told her. "The tender that's been paralleling us for the past two days, by the way."

Bayta's eyes flicked back toward the rear of the train with sudden understanding. "You put Rebekah's coral aboard a tender?"

"Specifically, the tender the Spiders had on tap when you got snatched at Jurskala," I said. "This way we could keep it close enough for the Modhri to sense it and think it was aboard the train, but at the same time keep it completely and permanently out of his reach."

"Yes," Bayta murmured, staring off into space. "Yes, I can sense the Spiders aboard now." She focused on me again. "There is still one problem, though."

"Actually, it's covered," I said. "Three stacks back from the front along the left-hand wall is a crate with three oxygen masks and tanks in it."

"That'll only solve the first part of the problem," Bayta cautioned.

"Trust me," I soothed. "You and Rebekah head to the rear door while I get the oxygen masks. As soon as I've done that—whoa," I interrupted myself. "What have we here?"

One of the Jurian walkers, the first one I'd stunned a few minutes ago, was moving. Not very much, more like a person shifting around in a dream than someone clearing the decks for action.

But with a six-hour kwi jolt in him, he shouldn't have been moving at all.

"Something's wrong," Bayta murmured.

"Agreed," I said. I double-checked the setting and shot the walker again, and the dream-like movements stopped.

But for how long? "Maybe it's losing its effectiveness," I said, peering at the kwi. "It is several hundred years old, after all."

"I sure hope that's not it," Bayta said, wincing. "Maybe you'd better give them all another shot, just to be on the safe side. Rebekah and I can get the oxygen masks."

"Okay, if you think your wrist can handle it."

"It can," Bayta assured me. "Three stacks back from the front?"

"Right," I said. "Top crate on the stack, green stripe pattern around the label. I've already loosened the lid."

Bayta nodded and headed off, Rebekah trailing along behind her. I fired another kwi bolt into the next walker in line, watching the two women out of the corner of my eye.

As soon as they were gone, I knelt down beside the one I'd just zapped and started going through his pockets.

He didn't have what I was looking for. Neither did the second walker I checked.

The third one did.

I was back on my feet, systematically zapping everything in sight, when Bayta and Rebekah returned with the oxygen masks. "They're here," Bayta announced as she handed me my mask. "As soon as we're ready, they'll open the roof to release the rear door's pressure lock."

I grimaced. Depressurizing the car would of course kill all the walkers lying asleep around us. By most of the galaxy's legal codes, not to mention most of the galaxy's ethical standards, that constituted murder.

But we had no choice. There was no other way for us to escape, and there wasn't nearly enough time for us to first drag all these sleeping bodies back into the other baggage car. Not with more walkers on the way.

Besides, even if we did, the Modhri probably wouldn't let them live anyway. By their very nature walkers had to be kept ignorant of their role, and there was no way in hell that even the most persuasive rationalization would explain away the blank spots or the broken bones. Either he would have their polyp colonies suicide, or he would permanently take them over and turn them into soldiers. The first was death. The second was worse.

But all the cold logic in the universe didn't make it any easier to take. Collateral damage, unavoidable or not, was still collateral damage.

We were waiting by the rear door, our oxygen masks in place, when there was a creaking from above us and the roof began to open.

For a moment we felt some buffeting as the car's air rushed out into the near-vacuum of the Tube. I felt my ears pop; from Rebekah's sudden twitch, I guessed hers had done the same. Then the mild windstorm dropped away, and the roof closed over us again, and Bayta touched the door release.

We were facing the gleaming silver nose of a Quadrail engine, holding position about half a meter back from the rear of our train. Straddling the gap, with two of his seven legs braced on each of the two vehicles, was a dot-marked stationmaster Spider. Behind him, stretched out in a line all the way back across the top of the engine, were four of the slightly smaller conductors.

Bayta didn't hesitate. She stepped forward, holding her arms slightly away from her sides. The stationmaster got two of his remaining three legs under her arms, holding the third ready in case of trouble, and lifted her across the gap. He passed her off to the next Spider in line, then swung his arms back to Rebekah and me.

I nudged Rebekah and gestured. What I could see of her expression through her mask wasn't very happy, and her grip on my hand as she stepped to the edge of the short baggage-car platform was anything but gentle. But at least she went without having to be pushed. The Spider lifted her up and over, and then it was my turn.

And as he lifted me up, I took a good look at his dot pattern.

The trip over the speed-blurred tracks below us was mercifully short. A few seconds later, the first Spider handed me off to the next in line, and I was bucket-brigaded across to the rear of the engine.

Two more Spiders were waiting there, hanging on to rings set into the side of the first of the tender's three passenger cars. They got their legs under my arms and lifted me over the coupling, maneuvering me through the open door on the side. Bayta and Rebekah were already inside, and as the Spider withdrew his legs the door irised shut and I heard the faint hiss as the car was repressurized.

I watched the gauge on the inside of my mask, wincing as my eardrums again struggled to adjust to the pressure change. The gauge reached Quadrail standard, and I closed the valve and took off the mask.

The air smelled sweet and fresh and clean. I took several deep breaths as Bayta and Rebekah removed their own masks, trying to wash away the emotional grime and sweat and guilt of the battle with the Modhri and his slave warriors.

"Are we safe now?" Rebekah asked.

I gazed at her face, searching in vain for the ten-year-old girl I'd seen only briefly in all our time together. What lofty goal was it, I wondered distantly, that deprived a child of her childhood? "Yes, we're safe," I said. "It's all over." Without waiting for a reply, I turned away.

Because it wasn't over. Not by a long shot.

At least, not for me.

The car was similar to the ones Bayta and I had traveled in a couple of times before. It was laid out like a double Quadrail compartment, only without the central dividing wall and with a food storage and prep area taking the space where the second bathroom would be. There were two beds at each end, and it wasn't long before all three of us had claimed our bunks and collapsed into them. Bayta and Rebekah were exhausted, and it wasn't long before they were fast asleep.

I wasn't in any better shape than they were, and I could feel fatigue tugging at my eyelids. But I couldn't go to sleep. Not yet. I waited until their breathing had settled down into a slow rhythm, then gave it another five minutes just to be sure. Then, getting up from my bed, I crossed to the car's rear door It opened at a touch of the control, and I stepped through the vestibule into the next car back.

It was a cargo car, unfurnished, unadorned, and mostly empty. The only cargo were the seventeen coral lockboxes we'd spirited off New Tigris, sitting together in the middle of the floor. At the far end was a door leading into the tender's third passenger car.

Standing beside the car's rear door like a Buckingham Palace guard was the white-dotted Spider who had carried us across the gap to safety. The same white-dotted Spider I'd run into before, in fact, the one I'd privately christened Spot.

I walked the length of the car, feeling a creepy sense of unfriendly eyes watching my every move. Spot stirred as I approached the door, moving sideways to stand in my way. "I need to see him," I said, coming to a halt a couple of steps away.

"He will not see you," Spot said.

"I think he will," I said. "Tell him I know everything."

There was a short pause. "He will not see you," Spot repeated.

So he was calling my bluff. I'd expected nothing less. "He has two choices," I said. "He can see me now, alone, or I can walk back to our car and wake up Bayta, and he can see the two of us together."

There was another pause, a longer one this time. I waited; and then, slowly, Spot sidled back to his place beside the door. Stepping past him, I touched the door release, crossed the vestibule, and opened the door behind it.

"Good day, Frank Compton," a melodic voice called as I stepped into the car.

Melodic, but with an unpleasant edge beneath it. Anger? Annoyance?

Fear?

"Hello, Elder of the Chahwyn," I said, nodding to the slender, pale-skinned being seated on a chair in the middle of the room between a pair of Spiders. "You are an Elder, I assume?"

"I am," he confirmed.

Good—someone with authority. "Elder of the Chahwyn, we need to talk," I said.

"About what?"

"About this fraud you've perpetrated on us," I said. "This fraud called the Melding."

There was a stiffening of the cat-like whiskers on the ridges above his eyes. "There is no fraud," he insisted. "The Melding is as Rebekah has described it."

"Except for one small but critical fact," I said. "The small fact that the Modhri didn't create the Melding."

I leveled a finger at him. "You did."