JhanKla, in contrast, had been born pretty much at the top of the food chain, to one of the Halkan Peerage families. He’d been schooled and trained in the art of being an aristocrat, and upon completion of those studies had been handed a commissioner’s job on Vlizfa. He’d served there for three years, apparently with at least a modicum of competence, then moved on to a succession of more important posts on various Halkan worlds. The details of his promotion to High Commissioner weren’t given, but with Halkas that could be a result of merit, a fluctuation in family prestige, or even the serendipity of the right person dying at an opportune moment. Most of his Quadrail travel over the past five years had consisted of trips within the Halkavisti Empire.
As near as I could tell, comparing the two sets of records, there was no indication that he and Rastra had ever even been in the same solar system together prior to this extended visit to the Jurian Collective.
Something seemed to flicker at the edge of my vision. I looked up, but whatever it was had apparently passed. I looked around the room for a moment, then turned my attention back to the reader and swapped out the chip for the one holding the Tube security data.
I’d had just a few minutes to study the chip earlier, but even through a throbbing head I’d hit enough of the high points to be impressed. Now, as I dug into the details, I found myself even more so.
The Tube sensors spotted explosives, of course, including the explosive loadings of projectile handguns. Everyone knew that much. What I hadn’t spotted on my first pass was that the detectors also picked up a wide range of the more innocuous components that could be assembled into things that could go bang in the night. Even homemade explosives were apparently out.
There was also a wide variety of chemical and biological poisons and disease organisms on the list, both fast- and slow-acting varieties, many of which I’d never even heard of. Some were reasonably general threats to the galaxy at large, items like Saarix-5 or anthrax that attacked pretty much every carbon-based metabolism to one degree or another. Things that were more species-specific, like HIV or Shorshic shellbeast toxin, were also screened for.
All the standard tools of mayhem were on the list, from plasma and laser weapons with their huge energy signatures, to the thudwumper and shredder rounds I was most familiar with, to more subtle devices like dart throwers and even such passive devices as nunchaku fighting sticks and police billy clubs. If there was a weapon the Spiders hadn’t included, I couldn’t think what it might be.
There was obviously way too much for a single set of hatchway sensors to look for, but the chip had the answer to that long-standing puzzle as well. There were definitely hatchway sensors that checked passengers as they arrived from the shuttles, but the deeper and more subtle scanning was done as they made their way to the platforms, via sensors built into the Tube’s flooring and support buildings. In effect, each Quadrail station was a massive sensor cavity, discreetly protecting the passengers from each other.
And that was certainly not included in the building supplies that made up the major part of a station’s trillion-dollar price tag. All of it had to be added afterward, put in by the Spiders themselves. Perhaps, I decided grudgingly, the cost of a new station wasn’t quite the extortion I’d always thought.
Above the top of the reader, something again seemed to flicker at the edge of my vision. Again I looked up, and again there was nothing.
But this time I spotted something I hadn’t noticed before. Preoccupied with the data chips and my own musings, I’d neglected to opaque the window.
Frowning, I set the reader aside and turned off the room lights completely, and as my eyes adjusted to the darkness I could see a faint luminescence begin to fill the window. For a moment I wondered where it was coming from, then realized that I was seeing a reflection of the Coreline glow from high overhead on the curved Tube wall surrounding us.
Getting to my feet, I walked over to the window, and for a minute I leaned against it and gazed out into the perpetual night of the Tube. How many thousand light-years of Quadrail track was there out there? I wondered distantly. Enough to link all the known inhabited worlds, certainly, with other lines probably already in place waiting for up-and-coming species like us to stumble across. Soon, perhaps, there would be Thirteen Empires, and then Fourteen, and Fifteen—
And without warning, a spot of brilliant red light flashed across my sight someplace far to the rear of the train.
I jerked in surprise as the light winked out again. It hadn’t been all that bright, I realized now, except relative to the soft Coreline glow and my own dilated pupils. I stared at the spot where it had been, wondering if that had been what had caught my attention earlier and what in the world it could be. Some kind of erratic running light? But Quadrails didn’t carry running lights, at least as far as anyone knew. Some kind of warning beacon, then? Out here in the middle of nowhere, I hoped to God not.
The light flashed on again. Experimentally, I turned my eyes slightly away, and this time I thought I could detect a slight flicker in it.
And as it winked off again, I suddenly understood.
My jacket was hanging beside me on the cleaning rack. I dug madly into the pockets, pulling out my reader and data chip pack and swearing under my breath as I tried to read the chips’ labels by the dim reflected Coreline light. Finally, I located the right one. Jamming it into the slot, I turned the reader on and pressed it against the window.
It was obvious now, with the crystal clarity only hindsight could bring to a situation. My playacting Bellido back on the Jurskala train hadn’t needed anything so esoteric as a tap into Spider computer or control systems to keep in touch with his buddies back in third class. He’d had a compartment window, a simple low-power laser pointer, a fluctuation modulator, and the whole Tube wall to bounce messages off of. No wonder his friends had been ready for me—they’d probably had their orders before I’d even made it out of the last first-class coach.
The red light came on again, and I pressed the reader hard against the window, keeping it as steady as possible. The modulation sequence was far too fast for human eyes to register, but the sensor built into the reader ought to be able to capture it and slow it down enough for me to make some sense of it later.
The light came and went three more times in the next few minutes. Apparently, the Bellidos were feeling chatty today. Three minutes later it flashed one final time, then went silent.
I waited by the window another half hour before finally calling it quits. Making my way back to the bed, I turned the lights up to a dim glow and got to work.
With the basic mode of their communication so unlikely to be spotted, I’d hoped the Bellidos might have gone with something simple like digitized text or voices. But no such luck. The modulation turned out to be some sort of Morse-style code, and it wasn’t following any of the usual Belldic encryption systems.
Still, at least I knew now how it had been done. That was worth a lot right there, especially since it offered a little more insight into the people I was up against. Cleverness and simplicity seemed to be their style. I’d do well to remember that.
But for now, my head was starting to hurt again and fatigue was dragging at my eyelids. Going to the tiny washroom, I got some water and took another painkiller and QuixHeal, then turned off the light and got undressed for bed.