But in that case why was I still alive? Surely the Modhri wouldn’t have tried to run me off the train and then had second thoughts about it. Would he? I stared at the engine chugging along ahead of me…
And then, suddenly, I had it. It hadn’t been the Modhri, after all.
It had been something far worse.
I don’t know how long I laid there. Long enough to start thinking again, anyway, and to remember my priorities. Rubbing my neck, I crawled up onto the car and made my way to the front.
The engine didn’t have a convenient vestibule to crawl down onto, but there was a wide connector fastening it to the rest of the Quadrail with plenty of hand- and footholds along the way. Moving carefully, I climbed down, stepped across the connector, and made it onto the back of the engine itself. The cab door, fortunately, faced the rear. I tried it, found it unlocked, and went inside.
I was waiting there, the big oxygen tank set up and ready to go in one of the front corners, when Bayta arrived.
“Whew!” she said as she climbed inside the cab and collapsed onto the floor beside the tank. “I’ve never been on top of one of these before. Not nearly as bad as I was afraid it would be. Don’t open that tank yet—the compartment doesn’t have an airlock.”
“Yes, I know,” I said. “You okay?”
“Yes, I’m fine,” she assured me. “Why, don’t I sound all right?”
“You sound nervous,” I told her. “You’re talking a blue streak, and you never do that.”
“I’m just tired,” she said quickly. Too quickly. “Too many emotional tumbles in the past hour.”
“Uh-huh,” I said. “As long as we have this moment alone together, let me ask you something. Back in the baggage car, after McMicking got hit by the coral, you said you couldn’t do anything to help him.”
Her eyes skittered guiltily away from mine. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry yet,” I warned. “To be precise, what you said was that the Spiders couldn’t do anything. You never said whether or not you could.”
“I don’t know what you mean,” she said carefully.
“Yes, you do,” I said. “You recovered from YirTukOo’s attack a lot faster than any of us expected. Including him.”
Her eyes had gone very still above her mask. “I’m not a Modhran walker, Frank,” she said, her voice steady.
“No, you’re not,” I agreed. “You’re one of the ones fighting the Modhri, as well as controlling the Spiders and the Quadrail and, apparently, pretty much the whole galaxy.” I lifted my eyebrows. “And I’m guessing both you and the Modhri came from something of the same stock. Tell me I’m wrong.”
For a long minute she just gazed at me. Fleetingly, I wished I could have waited until we’d had a room full of air, when I could have seen more of her face and maybe had a clue as to what she was thinking. But the cab was too small to provide any privacy, and I definitely didn’t want McMicking and Losutu in on this conversation. “What do you want?” she asked at last.
“I want your people to clean the polyps out of McMicking,” I said. “And I want to talk to one of your leaders and get the whole story about what’s going on here.”
She shook her head. “I can’t do that.”
“You have to,” I said, letting my voice harden. “Because I know your secret, Bayta. I know what you’ve been doing. And I think I know why, but I want to hear it from someone in charge.”
The lines around her eyes crinkled, and I pictured a wan smile beneath the mask. “You ask an awful lot, Frank Compton.”
“That’s because I have a lot to give,” I said. “Because I also know the secret the Modhri just killed a trainful of people to protect.”
She straightened up. “You know where his new homeland is?”
“I know where it is, how it got there, and maybe even how to destroy it.” I ducked my head to look out the viewport set into the cab door. “And you’ve got until the others get here to make your decision,” I added. “Yes, or no?”
She turned to look out the viewport, too. “All right,” she said at last. “But we can’t take the whole train there.”
“Then cut it loose,” I said. “Everyone aboard is dead anyway, remember? It might even be easier for the Spiders if the thing just disappears, with no bodies around to ask unpleasant questions about.”
She gave me a sharp look. But the sharpness faded, and she nodded reluctantly. “You’re right,” she said with a sigh. “What about Losutu and McMicking? What are you going to tell them?”
“Nothing,” I assured her. “Don’t worry, I can handle them. Where are you planning to take us?”
“You’ve asked to speak to the Chahwyn,” she said, bowing her head formally. “I’ll take you to our home.”
“Oh. Good,” I said, suppressing a shiver. So I’d been right about her. I’d rather hoped I’d been wrong. “They just better not be clear across the galaxy. I don’t think either McMicking or the facilities here are geared up for a long trip.”
“They’re very close,” she assured me, getting to her feet. “Let’s see if the others need any help.”
Losutu and McMicking were pretty worn out by the time we helped them maneuver the Spider into the cab. But their mood brightened considerably once we got the area pressurized and they could finally take their masks off.
It brightened even more when I told them where we were going.
“But I thought Bayta said there wasn’t anything they could do for me,” McMicking said, eyeing her suspiciously. “If this is some sort of soothey-smiley game, forget it.”
“It’s no game,” I assured him. “But it comes with a promise of secrecy.” I looked at Losutu. “On both your parts. The Spiders insist on it.”
“Understood, and promise given,” Losutu said gravely. “What about you?”
“Bayta and I have some strategy sessions to attend,” I said. “Among other things, there’s going to be hell to pay when that train out there vanishes into the mists with all aboard.”
“What do you mean?” Losutu asked, stiffening. “You can’t just—”
“They’re all dead, Director,” McMicking said.
Losutu’s lips compressed, but he just nodded. “Of course,” he murmured. “How will you do it?”
“It’s already done,” I said, glancing out the viewport at the rest of the train, decoupled now and falling slowly away behind us. Something about that glance belatedly caught my attention, and I turned back for a second look.
There, on top of the first car, was the lone figure of a Halka, standing straight and tall as he watched us pull away. His flat face was half covered by his oxygen mask, but his red/orange/purple Peerage robes were unmistakable as they flapped gently in the breeze.
And as I watched, I saw him lift his fist defiantly in our direction. JhanKla, High Commissioner of the Halkas, Modhran walker, and undisputed master of the engineless train that was even now coasting its way toward a silent, lonely death between the stars.
I wished him the joy of his victory.
TWENTY-THREE:
We never actually made it to Homshil Station. Bayta took us onto a siding that had been shown on her private map, and from there onto another line that was definitively not on the map.
The hours passed slowly. The engine cab hadn’t been designed to hold more than a couple of Spiders at a time, and four human bodies pretty much filled the available space. Fortunately, after what we’d just been through, none of us felt much like exercise anyway. Mostly we sat or lay around, dozing when we could, conversing only occasionally.
Sometime in the first three hours, our rescued Spider quietly died. Bayta sat silently after that, wrapped in her own thoughts, not speaking to anyone even when spoken to.