The Domino Pattern (20 page)

And as she moved out of my line of sight, I saw that my assailant had not, in fact, escaped. He was lying in the middle of the corridor, his hooded cloak flapping like a wounded bird as he writhed in agony.

“You all right?” Bayta asked anxiously, her eyes flicking to me and then back to the thrashing Filly. Gripped in her hand, I saw, was the
kwi
I’d left with her.

“I’m fine,” I assured her, still breathing hard. “Nice work.”

“And then some,” Kennrick put in, his voice sounding stunned. “Special relationship with the Spiders, huh?”

I focused on him, to discover that he was gazing at the
kwi
.

Terrific. “Nothing special about it,” I said, putting an edge on my tone, acutely aware of all the other eyes and ears gathered around us. “She got in a good gut punch, that’s all.”

Kennrick tore his gaze from the
kwi
and locked eyes with me. A flicker of something went across his face— “Ah,” he said. “Right.”

I held his eyes a moment longer, just to make sure he’d gotten the entire message, then looked back at the Filly. “Want to make any bets as to which of your three Filly friends is inside that hood?” I asked as I levered myself back to my feet. “My guess is that it’s
Esantra
Worrbin.”

“No bet,” Kennrick said grimly. “Let’s find out.”

We headed down the corridor, and I noticed in passing that there was a small gray box lying on the floor beside my compartment door. I reached the Filly and leaned over him. “You going to cooperate?” I asked politely. “Or do we need to make sure you’ll hold still?”

The Filly didn’t answer. But he was clearly in no position to give any serious resistance. Straddling his torso, I slipped my hands inside his hood, found and disengaged the stiffening wires that had held it in place, and threw it back.

It was a Filly, all right. But it wasn’t any of the contract-team members, as I’d assumed. It was, instead,
Logra
Emikai: barstool warmer, protector of Human maidens in distress, and attempted briber of Spider agents.

“Huh,” Kennrick grunted from my side. “I guess I
should
have taken that bet.”

“Hilarious,” I growled, grabbing one of Emikai’s arms. “Come on—help me get him into my compartment. He has some explaining to do.”

Emikai was pretty heavy, and his legs still weren’t functioning all that well. But between Kennrick, Bayta, and me we got him into my compartment and seated more or less comfortably on the curve couch. Our next task was to remove his cloak and search for any other goodies or semi-weapons he might have on him. We confiscated another patch of clingcloth, a squeeze bulb filled with talcum powder like the booby trap he’d set up on the vestibule door, and, for good measure, the extra unlimited first-class pass that we’d known was wandering loose on our train.

We also confiscated the gadget he’d left lying by my door.

“So what now?” Kennrick asked when we’d finished our frisking.

“We start by calling in a couple of Spiders,” I said. “Bayta, I need a conductor and two mites. Have them wait out in the corridor until I need them.”

She nodded, her eyes unfocusing as she sent the message.

I watched Emikai closely during the silent communication, searching for signs of surprise or interest. But there was neither. Clearly, he already knew all about Bayta’s special relationship with the Spiders.

“They’ll be here in a few minutes,” Bayta reported.

“Thank you,” I said. “So,
Logra
Emikai. How are you feeling?”

“I have been worse,” he said stiffly.

“I’m sure you have,” I said, looking him over. His convulsions had mostly ceased, but he was still twitching occasionally from the aftereffects of the
kwi
. I wondered which of the three pain settings Bayta had used, but I wasn’t about to ask that question with Kennrick standing there listening. He knew way too much already. “I suppose we should first offer you the easy way. Would you care to make a statement as to what the hell you’ve been up to lately?”

For a moment Emikai gazed at me, possibly trying to decide which lie would be the most believable. “Several days ago I asked you for information about the air filter analysis you claimed you would be performing,” he said. “You never returned with that information.”

“So you thought you’d stop by and help yourself to the data?”

“I stopped by merely to inquire on your progress,” he corrected.

“Of course,” I said. “You must have forgotten that I’d already told you that if there was anything relevant the Spiders would inform everyone at the same time.”

“Perhaps,” he said. His eyes drifted around the room, pausing on the two carrybags sitting together on their rack above my bed. “But perhaps they fear to reveal the truth.”

“Has anyone else dropped dead?” I asked, watching his eyes. He was definitely interested in my carrybags. Probably wondering which of them held my alleged spectroscopic analyzer. “Has anyone else even gotten sick?”

“Not to my knowledge,” he admitted, shifting his gaze back to me. “But the two Shorshians were in equally good health for over two weeks before their sudden deaths.”

“Why are you even interested about the air in that car?” Kennrick asked. “I spent a fair amount of time back there with my associates, and I never once saw you put in an appearance. Is that even your car?”

“Should not one be concerned about the welfare of others?” Emikai countered. “Especially if one has the ability to guard that welfare?” He looked back at me. “Or claims to have that ability.”

“Are you suggesting I don’t actually have the spectroscopic analysis equipment Dr. Aronobal told you about?” I asked mildly.

His nose blaze lightened noticeably in reaction at Aronobal’s name. More aftereffects of the
kwi
—normally he probably would have tried to suppress such a giveaway. “The Filiaelian physician?” he hedged. “I have not spoken to her about any such equipment.”

“Oh, please,” I scoffed. “It’s painfully obvious that Aronobal’s midnight call just now was to get me out of the way so you could use your little first-class pass to come up here and burgle my room.” I gestured to the carrybags. “By the way, if you were hoping for a look at my analysis equipment, forget it. It’s not actually here at the moment.”

Again, his nose blaze lightened briefly. He’d been scoping out my bags, all right. “That may be,” he said, an edge of challenge in his voice. “In my view, until I have evidence of its existence, I also have no belief.”

“Wait a second,” Kennrick said, looking back and forth between Emikai and me. “Wait just a damn second. This guy has a
first-class pass
? I thought he was riding in third.”

“He is,” I confirmed. “Apparently, he likes slumming.”

“Why, you son of a—” He jabbed a finger at the Filly. “It’s him. It has to be.
He’s
the one who’s been killing off our contract team.”

“I have harmed no one,” Emikai insisted, his blaze lightening again in reaction. “I give you my word.”

“Like your word means camel spit,” Kennrick snarled, taking a step toward him. “Compton, this is the guy. It all fits.”

“Calm down,” I soothed, putting a restraining hand on his arm. “We’re a long way yet from accusing him of mass murder.”

“Are we?” Kennrick countered. “Who else had access to both third
and
first?”

“Well, for starters, everyone in first,” I reminded him.

He stopped in mid-tirade, his lip twisting. “Oh. Yes, I suppose…” He trailed off.

“But attempted breaking and entering is another story,” I went on, hefting the flat gray box we’d found outside my door. On the outside, it looked like a standard bypass mimic, the sort used by locksmiths when people lock themselves out of their apartments or cars. But I was betting its guts were considerably more sophisticated than that. “You have a license for this, I assume?”

“That device is not mine,” Emikai insisted. “I never saw it before.”

“Of course not,” I said. “And you attacked me why?”

“I did not attack you,” he said. “I saw something on the door explode into a white powder in front of you, and I was coming to offer my aid.”

“You mean this kind of white powder?” I asked, holding up the squeeze bulb.

“I do not know what kind of powder it was,” Emikai said, an edge of wounded indignation in his tone. “My powder is for relief of a painful rash from which I suffer.”

“Ah,” I said, nodding. With the effects of the
kwi
wearing off, he was proving himself a decent actor and liar both. I would have expected nothing less from the professional who’d snookered me into that trip wire in the baggage car.

The question was, what had he been looking for back there? And what had he hoped to find in my compartment?

But whatever the answers, we weren’t going to get them tonight. I’d seen Emikai’s type enough times to know that he was going to require a lot more persuasion, or the right lever, before he would give anything up. “Whatever,” I said. “You realize, of course, that you’re going to have to be locked up pending a full investigation.”

“Nonsense,” he said stiffly. “You have not reached the required legal bar for such action.”

“Maybe not by Filiaelian standards,” I said. “But in case you haven’t noticed, we’re aboard a Quadrail. Quadrails run under Spider rules.”

Emikai looked at Kennrick, then Bayta, then back at me, and I could see that the full nature of his situation was starting to sink in. “The Filiaelian Assembly will not tolerate the mistreatment of its citizens,” he warned.

“Oh, I don’t think they’ll have too much of a problem with it,” I said, waving him to his feet. “In general, Filiaelians dislike criminals every bit as much as Humans do.”

Slowly, Emikai stood up. His eyes flicked again to Bayta, probably checking on her alertness. Having been shot from behind, he couldn’t know what exactly she’d done to lay him out on the corridor floor that way. But from his expression and cautious movements it was clear that he wasn’t interested in having another go at it. “Where do you intend to take me?” he asked.

“Well, we don’t have a proper brig,” I said consideringly. “So I guess we’ll have to put you in the morgue.”

“The
morgue
?”

“Yes,” I said. “Unless you’re ready to have a serious talk?”

He drew himself up. “There is nothing to talk about,” he said. “Show me to my prison.”

“As you wish,” I said. “Bayta, let the mites in, will you?”

She crossed to the door and opened it, and a pair of the little Spiders came in. “What do you want with those?” Emikai asked, a hint of apprehension creeping into his voice as the mites skittered toward us on their seven slender legs.

“Unfortunately, wristcuffs aren’t allowed on Quadrails,” I said. “So we’re going to have to improvise. Turn around, please, and cross your wrists behind your back.”

I actually wasn’t at all sure this was going to work. But Bayta had caught on to the plan, and with a little experimentation—and probably a lot of silent communication—we got the mites wrapped solidly around Emikai’s arms, their slender legs interlocked to keep them in place. “I’ll have to remember this one,” I commented to Bayta as we headed out the door into the corridor.

Bayta nodded toward the waiting conductor. “What did you want him to do?” she asked.

“He’s to keep an eye on our compartments while we’re gone,” I said. “Just in case
Logra
Emikai and Dr. Aronobal have another friend aboard.”

“I am not associated with Dr. Aronobal,” Emikai insisted.

“Right—I keep forgetting,” I said. “By the way, Bayta, is the good doctor still waiting for me in the dispensary?”

“Yes,” she confirmed.

“Have the server tell her that I’m not coming and to go back to her seat,” I said. “He can tell her I’ll come by in the morning and talk to her then.”

“All right.” Bayta said doubtfully. “You sure you don’t want to deal with this tonight?”

“Positive,” I said. “This way, by the time we get back there, she’ll hopefully have her privacy shield up and won’t see us march Emikai past her. She’ll then have a few hours to miss her friend and wonder what went wrong before I go see her.” I nudged Emikai in the side. “Get moving—we’ve got a long way to go.”

It was a long, but fortunately quiet, walk back to the rear of the train. Emikai, probably still aching from the
kwi
blast, had apparently opted for the fight-another-day strategy and gave us no trouble along the way. I half expected him to stumble, cough, or otherwise try to signal Aronobal as we passed the doctor’s privacy-shielded seat, but he didn’t even try that.

I’d had Bayta send instructions on ahead, and by the time we reached the third baggage car I found the Spiders had set up everything just as I’d requested. There was a chair, a small table holding a box of emergency ration bars and bottled water, and a spare self-contained toilet the Spiders had scrounged from one of the storage cars, everything laid out neatly in front of one of the stacks of cargo boxes. We settled Emikai on the stool, and using the pieces of safety webbing he’d cut earlier, I tied his wrists to opposite ends of the crate stack. I adjusted the lengths carefully, leaving him enough slack to be able to reach his food tray and to shift himself over onto the toilet, but not enough for either hand to reach the other hand’s rope. With Humans or Shorshians I would also have had to keep him from biting through his bonds, but Filly teeth weren’t configured for that sort of thing.

“There we go,” I said, stepping back to examine my handiwork. “Enjoy the quiet,
Logra
Emikai. We’ll be checking on you every once in a while, in case you decide you want to tell us what you and Dr. Aronobal are up to.”

“Dr. Aronobal and I have nothing to do with each other.”

“Right,” I said. “Well, pleasant dreams. I hope you can sleep sitting up.”

Ushering Bayta and Kennrick in front of me, we left Emikai to his new home. “Aren’t you going to leave a guard?” Kennrick asked as we reached the vestibule and crossed into the next car forward.

“No need,” I assured him. “He’s not going anywhere.” I carefully avoided looking significantly at Bayta who, I was sure, was similarly smart enough not to look significantly at me. There
was
a guard team on duty, in fact: a pair of twitters, lurking in nearby shadows where they could watch for visitors or escape attempts.

“I suppose not,” Kennrick muttered. “Anyway, even if he gets loose, it’s not like he can jump from a moving train. You still going to wait until morning to brace Dr. Aronobal about this?”

“Why? You think I should do it now?”

“It might not be a bad idea,” Kennrick said. “She has to know that something has gone wrong. If you wait until tomorrow, she’ll have had all those extra hours to come up with a good story.”

“She’ll also have had those same hours to sweat about what’s happened to her accomplice and wonder what went wrong,” I pointed out.

“I still think it’d be better to do it now,” Kennrick said. “If you’re too tired, I could run the interrogation while you watched. I trained in law, remember—I know all the techniques for getting witnesses to say the wrong thing.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” I said. “It’s still not happening tonight.”

Kennrick hissed out a sigh. “Whatever.” He sent me a sideways glare. “Just remember that it was
my
contract teammates who were killed. Whenever you’re ready to try and get a confession—out of either of them—I want to be there.”

“You’ll be at the top of the visitors list,” I promised.

“Fine,” he said. “By the way, do you think I could have a look at that bypass mimic of his?”

“What for?”

“Just curious,” he said. “Early on in my career I handled a high-level corporate espionage case, and I ended up learning a lot about gadgets like that. I might be able to figure out if his would actually work.”

“So you can duplicate it?” I asked mildly.

“So I can find out whether I can sleep for the next three weeks,” he retorted. “Once Emikai and his buddies have finished off the rest of the contract team, who’s to say they won’t come after Dr. Witherspoon and me, too?”

“An intriguing thought,” I agreed. “Maybe after the Spiders have checked it out they’ll let you take a look.”

We walked the rest of the way in silence. When we reached our car, I sent Bayta through her compartment door, nodded a good-night to Kennrick as he and I reached mine, and opened my door as he continued forward to his.

I’d barely closed the door behind me when the divider opened and Bayta came in. “How long do we wait?” she asked briskly.

“How long do we wait for what?” I asked.

“To go back and confront Dr. Aronobal,” she said, frowning. “We
were
just dropping off Mr. Kennrick so he wouldn’t be there, weren’t we?”

“No, we were dropping off Mr. Kennrick so that we could all go to bed and get some sleep,” I said.

Her face fell a little. “Oh,” she said. “I thought…” She trailed off.

“You thought I was blowing smoke,” I said. “And under other circumstances, I might have been. But not this time.”

“Oh,” she said again. “Well, then… I’ll see you in the morning. Good night.”

“Good night,” I replied. “Sleep well.”

She disappeared back into her compartment, and the dividing wall between us again closed.

With a tired sigh, I checked my watch. Twenty minutes, I decided, would be enough for her to finish her bedtime preparations and fall asleep.

It wasn’t like I’d just lied to her, I reminded myself firmly. I really
wasn’t
going back to third to confront Aronobal.

The Modhri had clued me in on Emikai’s attempt on my compartment. Why he’d done that I didn’t know.

But twenty minutes from now I was going to find out.