Ahead of the baggage cars were four third-class coaches, then the second/third-class dining car, four second-class coaches, one of the first-class coaches, and finally the first-class dining car. “Is it my imagination,” Rastra commented as we threaded our way between the restaurant tables, “or are these Quadrails getting longer?”
“It’s your imagination,” I assured him, glancing around. There were no conductors here in the dining section, but I could see one beyond the smoked-glass divider in the bar. “If there’s anything your taste-tendrils have been missing during the past two days, here’s your chance to get it.”
“Actually, I rather enjoy Halkan cuisine,” Rastra said, diplomatic as always. “Is there something I can get for you?”
“To be honest, I’ve really been missing my onion rings,” I said. “You remember, back on Vanido, the little crunchy round things some of the people in our party were always special-ordering?”
“Yes, I remember,” he said. “Shall I see if they have them?”
“Yes, thank you,” I said. “While you do that, I’ll go get the Jack Daniel’s.”
Rastra headed toward the carry-away counter, and I continued on through the divider into the bar. The Spider I’d noted, I saw now, was part of a pair, with the second standing near the end of the bar pretending to be a decorative planter.
Mentally, I shook my head. The Spiders might be terrific at running interstellar transport, but they had no sense of subtlety whatsoever. Still, Spider behavior was murky enough that I doubted anyone in here would worry about it one way or the other.
I headed toward a barstool a couple of meters in from the end where the Spider was standing, glancing around the room as I went. Three Cimmaheem were sitting off to one side with a skinski flambé going full-blast in the center of their table and a wide berth of empty space around them. A pair of Halkas paused in their conversation long enough to look me over, then returned to their drinks and conversation. A couple of tables over from them, a pair of humans wearing gold-trimmed banker’s scarves didn’t even bother to look up as they discussed something in low, intense tones. In one of the other back corners sat a lone Bellido, the grips of his shoulder-holstered status guns poking out from beneath his armpits with the same kind of silent ostentation as the bankers’ scarves.
And there was something about him that seemed vaguely familiar.
I reached the stool and sat down. The petite server Spider tending bar took my order and disappeared into a storage area behind the bar. Out of the corner of my eye I saw the loitering conductor Spider stir and start to move my direction—
“Greetings to you, Human.”
I turned my head the other direction. The Bellido had left his table and was settling himself unsteadily onto a stool an arm’s length away from me. “Greetings to you and your kin,” I replied, hoping fervently that the Spider would have the sense to back off.
For a wonder, it did. As I turned back to the bar, I saw it take a multilegged step backward and go back to waiting. The bartender reappeared, one leg curled around a flexible plastic bottle of Jack Daniel’s, which he set on the bar in front of me. “Ah,” the Bellido said knowingly. “Stomach trouble?”
“No,” I said, frowning. “Why do you ask?”
“Jack Daniel’s,” he said, gesturing at the bottle. “An excellent stomach tonic. Very good at clearing out intestinal mites.”
“Interesting usage,” I said, studying the brown and tan facial stripe pattern on his chipmunk face. Unlike some species, Bellidos were fairly easy for human eyes to differentiate between; and up close, I was even more convinced I’d seen this one before. “We use it more like you would use aged Droskim.”
“Really,” he said, sounding surprised. “Interesting. Tell me, what brings you out into the galaxy?”
I resisted the impulse to roll my eyes. In terms of flat-out, words-per-minute chattiness, Bellidos were even worse than Halkas when they drank. “I work for a travel agency,” I told him, getting a grip on my bottle and trying to figure out how to make a graceful exit without him watching me the whole way out. Maybe if I signaled the Spider to follow me to the restaurant area and we made the handoff there—
And then, right in the middle of my planning, it suddenly hit me. This was the same Bellido I’d passed on the way to my seat in the hybrid Quadrail car I’d taken out of Terra Station. The Bellido whose casual look had sent an unidentified but unpleasant tingle up my back.
My eyes flicked to the soft plastic grips of the status guns beneath his arms. Bellidos didn’t just roll out of bed in the morning and decide which set of weapons would best suit the day’s wardrobe. Those guns were as much a declaration of his societal position as a human banker’s scarf or a Cimma’s lacquered coiffure. These in particular were copies of Elli twelve-millimeters, a caliber that placed their owner somewhere in the upper middle class, and Bellidos of that class never took off their guns in public, not even if they wound up traveling beneath their class.
Back on the hybrid car he hadn’t been carrying these guns. In fact, he hadn’t been carrying any guns at all. Which meant he’d either been lying to the universe then, or he was doing so now.
And Bellidos never lied like that. Not without a damn good reason.
A renewed tingle ran up my back. Could he be a con artist? Possibly. But in my experience professional criminals were usually smart enough not to get this tipsy in public. A social pretender, then, intent on knocking back the good times and rubbing shoulders with the elite before he got caught? There were severe penalties for such things on Belldic worlds, but of course Belldic law didn’t apply on the Quadrail.
“A travel agency, you say?” he prompted.
“Yes,” I said, getting back to my explanation and my exit-strategy planning. Now, more than ever, I didn’t want him to see me getting a data chip from a Spider. “I’m looking for unusual vacation experiences to offer my fellow humans.”
“An enjoyable profession, no doubt,” he said. “What is your next destination?”
“A Halkan system named Sistarrko,” I said. “There’s a resort on a moon there that’s been recommended to me.” I glanced at my watch. “And I need to get back and prepare for my change of trains.”
“Oh, there are hours yet to go,” he chided. “Tell me, have you ever tasted properly aged Droskim?”
“It would probably eat a hole in my stomach,” I told him. “And I really must go.”
His expression fell a little. “Then a pleasant journey to you, sir.” Lifting his glass in salute, he stood up and made his unsteady way back toward his table.
I stood up, too, picking up my bottle and turning toward the restaurant section. As I did so, the Spider loitering at the end of the bar unglued itself from the floor and started toward me.
I swallowed a curse and picked up my pace. With my Bellido would-be best friend on one side and Rastra’s imminent reappearance on the other, I might as well try to make this secret handoff onstage at the Follies.
But Rastra wasn’t here yet, and the Bellido was still on his way to his table with his back toward me. If I could do this quickly enough …
I cut across the Spider’s path, and as I did so one of its legs curled up from the floor and stretched out toward me. I caught the glint of a data chip, and without breaking stride I let my arm swing slightly out of line to pluck it from the pad. Pressing it into temporary concealment in my palm, I continued on, glancing back just as the Bellido dropped heavily into his chair.
I nearly bumped into Rastra as I crossed into the restaurant. “Ah—there you are,” he said. “My apologies, but it appears they are out of onion rings. Apparently, they’re a delicacy among Pirks as well as humans.”