“If they can get hold of them, yes,” she said. “You have a plan?”
“Maybe,” I said. “Think back to The Lady Vanishes, that Hitchcock dit rec drama we watched with Rastra and JhanKla. Remember how they smuggled that other woman aboard the train?”
“They had her wrapped up as if she’d been in an accident,” Bayta said slowly. “But there isn’t supposed to be anyone except Spiders at this end of the station. If the Modhri sees someone coming from here, won’t he suspect something?”
“Right, which is why we won’t be coming from here.” I nodded toward the hangar. “First thing to do is crawl over to that hangar and get out of sight. Once we’re inside, whistle up a couple of drudges to retrieve our bags. After that, here’s what we’re going to need.…”
The trick, as always, would be in the timing.
There was every chance that the Modhran mind segment on the Bellis Loop train would quickly figure out that Bayta and I were no longer aboard, and probably be rather miffed about it. But by that time he would be well out of communication range of the Modhran mind segment still here in Jurskala Station. He would have to wait until the next stop, four hours away, before he could send a message back this direction.
At the moment, the rest of the walkers here were probably preparing to head home, believing whatever rationalizations they’d come up with to explain why they’d come here in the first place. Once the other mind segment alerted them, though, the hunt would be on again.
But an hour before that message could get here there would be a Quadrail leaving on a direct shot to Earth. If we could get aboard that train without anyone fingering us, we could be gone while the Modhran segment here was still trying to figure out where on Jurskala Station we might be hiding.
At first blush, that looked like a pretty serious if. We had limited time, limited resources, and the limited changes of clothing in our carrybags, plus whatever the Spiders could scrounge for us. And it was probable that any human male/female combination would automatically come under at least casual scrutiny.
But just as Halkas were difficult for humans to distinguish between, the reverse was also true. That would make the job much easier than if we were trying to slip past a group of other Humans.
As to the Modhran parasites inside them, I still remembered Falc Rastra’s own colony taking control of him long enough to shout don’t shoot it to the Jurian soldiers in the Kerfsis interrogation room.
Referring to me as it rather than him implied that the Modhri didn’t see us as much more than organic autocabs. A minimal bit of deception on our part ought to be adequate, provided we didn’t call attention to ourselves by strolling in from the Spider end of the station.
Fortunately, we wouldn’t have to.
The maintenance skiff they brought for us was small and cramped, designed mainly for transporting repair materials while drudges hung onto the outside. It normally wasn’t pressurized, but the Spiders had plenty of oxygen cylinders lying around to replenish the slow leakage through the atmosphere barriers at the ends of the stations. We had loaded a couple of them into the skiff with us, just in case, and the soft hissing added to the basic eeriness of the situation as the Spiders maneuvered us around the station. I’d specified that we use the hatchway closest to our departure platform; and with exactly fifteen minutes remaining until our Quadrail arrived, the skiff locked itself against the outside of the station.
I looked at Bayta, wrapped in a sterilizer gown and strapped to a self-powered medical stretcher. Her face was completely covered in white bandages, a false beak pressing up against them from the center of her face above the breather mask connected to the stretcher’s own medical oxygen tank. More makeshift prosthetics under the swathing disguised the shape of her forehead and chin, while others padded out her shoulders and created three-toed claws at her feet. “Ready?” I asked.
Her answer was a soft grunt around the oxygen mouthpiece, and I felt a pang of sympathetic edginess. To have to pass through a group of enemies was bad enough; to have to do so totally blind and strapped to a rolling table had to be a hundred times worse.
But we had no choice. The Modhri would be looking for a pair of humans, and only with her face and body completely covered could we transform her from a woman into a badly injured Juri.
I ran a hand carefully over my hair, darkened and slicked back with a few drops of motor oil, and smoothed out the slightly scraggly mustache I’d thrown together out of tack sealant and some bits of Bayta’s hair. That, plus the protective smock we’d taken from one of the emergency medical kits, would have to do for me. “Okay,” I said. “Here we go.”
I touched the hatch release. It slid open, the station’s hatch did likewise behind it, and I looked up to find a pair of drudges looming over us. “Quickly, now,” I said in my best dit rec medical professional’s weighty yet compassionate voice, standing upright and gesturing down into the skiff. Behind the Spiders, a small crowd had gathered, clearly curious as to what the two drudges were up to. “But carefully,” I added, stepping up out of their way. “Don’t jostle him.”
They reached in a pair of legs each and carefully retrieved the stretcher. I helped guide it up, some of my tension easing as the hatch closed beneath it. Any of the gawking bystanders who got a good look in there would have instantly spotted that it wasn’t a normal medical shuttle. But the drudges’ long legs had kept the crowd back far enough and long enough, and now that particular danger was past.
I touched the control at the stretcher’s side, unfolding its wheeled legs. “Thank you,” I said to the Spiders as they set it down onto the station floor. “I can take it from here.” Pulling the leash control from its clip, I started toward our platform, the stretcher rolling beside me.
The crowd, still staring in fascination at the spectacle, parted in front of us like the Red Sea in front of Moses. Out of the corner of my eye I spotted a couple of Peerage robes wandering in our direction, and forced myself not to speed up.
“What happened?” a short Juri on the sidelines asked, stepping close to the stretcher and gazing down his beak at Bayta, as if trying to glean through the bandages whether it was someone he knew.
“Acid accident,” I said, waving him back. “Please—keep your distance. He’s had terrible burns and his immune system is very weak.”
“Shouldn’t you take him to the transfer station?” someone in the crowd suggested. “It has the nearest hospital.”
“We’ve just come from the station,” I said. “This is a job for specialists.”
“Surely there are specialists on Jurskala?” someone else chimed in.
“Please,” I said between clenched teeth. Why couldn’t these people gawk in silence like every other accident crowd? “Just make room—”
“Thank God you made it,” a relieved voice cut me off, and a business-suited man stepped boldly to the other side of the stretcher.
I opened my mouth to tell him to back off— “I got your message, and I’ve been in contact with the office,” he went on before I could speak. “They’re collecting the specialists—should be ready by the time we arrive. And they repeat that absolutely no expense should be spared.”
I stared at him, a nondescript man with midlength hair and cleanshaven face… and then, abruptly, I got it. This was not some random raving lunatic, or even a bizarre case of mistaken identity.
The man facing me across the stretcher was Mr. Chameleon himself, Bruce McMicking.
My sudden confusion wrapped around my tongue, striking me momentarily speechless. Not that it mattered. McMicking’s own spiel was already in full gear. “How bad is it?” he asked as we wheeled our way onto the platform. “They told me it was mostly hydrochloric, but that there were some other chemicals involved.”