Night Train to Rigel

FOURTEEN:

The morning work crews dribbled into the ready room as I sat on the far side of a nearby lounge pretending to read the latest Quadrail-delivered Intragala News. Promptly at six-two-thirds, they came out again in a group, forty-five of them, all properly vac-suited, and made their way out the airlock in groups of four. I waited another third of an hour to make sure there weren’t any stragglers, then tucked my reader into my side pocket and casually wandered over and slipped through the door.

Ten minutes later, attired in a vac suit only slightly too large for me, my faceplate darkened enough to hide my features, I followed them onto the ice.

I headed up the hills along the line of red pylons, listening to the Halkan chatter coming through the helmet speaker. All the discussion seemed to be about the two new toboggan tunnels, but as I flipped through the various frequencies I discovered three more clusters of conversation. Apparently, there were a lot of Halkas out on the surface today.

But wherever they were, they were keeping out of sight. Aside from a group of lodge guests heading toward the ski slopes, I saw no one until I came within view of the new tunnels. There, in the staging area between the openings, were a pair of workers, one handling a spurting drain hose, the other squatting by an open pump and fiddling with the equipment inside.

I started down the slope, making my stride and gait as much like a Halka’s as I could. From the number of voices and names I could pick out of the chatter, I estimated there were fifteen to twenty other workers at the site. That should be enough of a crowd for me to lose myself in. I could burn a peephole through the ice with the plasma torch on my tool belt, have a quick look, and be out again before anyone even started wondering. A quick wink-and-wag, easy as pie.

Maybe a little too easy.

I studied the two workers in the staging area as I continued down the slope, quiet alarm bells starting to chime in the back of my head. There was no reason to tie up a worker on water-dump duty—a couple of anchor staffs, and the hose could take care of itself. As for the lad at the pump, he seemed to be doing more staring and poking than actual repair work. He did, however, have an open toolbox sitting conveniently beside him, which could conceal any number of unpleasant surprises. And to top it off, they were facing opposite directions, giving themselves a panoramic view of all possible approaches.

They weren’t workers at all. They were sentries. Apparently, my attempts at sneakiness had been a waste of time.

My first impulse was to turn around and head straight back to the lodge. But doing a sudden about-face would clue them in that I was on to the charade.

Still, there was no point making it easy for them.

I reached the staging area; but instead of heading into the north tunnel, I turned to the south. If someone was expecting me to instantly damn myself by making a beeline for the Bellidos’ work area, he’d now have to wonder if I was genuinely involved or just an inquisitive but stupid tourist.

The south tunnel looked much the way it had the previous day except that now the lights were on. I worked my way down the walkway, mentally running through the Halkora phrases I would use to explain myself if and when someone demanded to know what I was doing.

And with my mind and attention preoccupied, I made it perhaps thirty meters into the tunnel before it dawned on me that something was wrong.

I stopped. Twenty or more Halkas, I’d estimated earlier from the comm chatter, all of them packed into two fairly compact work sites. And yet, I hadn’t seen a single person since leaving the staging area.

Yet the comm continued to crackle with orders and comments and casual conversation. Had the whole troop gathered over in the north tunnel? I took a few more steps, trying to sift through the rapid-fire Halkora blaring from my helmet speaker, and rounded a sharp turn in the tunnel.

I’d been wrong about the tunnel being empty. There were two vac-suited figures waiting silently for me around the curve, legs spread in low-gravity marksman’s stances, their guns held in double-handed grips.

Pointed at me.

I froze in midstep, keeping my hands open and visible. They’d darkened their faceplates even more than I had, and despite the bright light I couldn’t see even an outline of the faces inside. But guns had been my business, and these were definitely Belldic design.

I’d hoped to get in and out before the Bellidos made their move. Apparently, I was too late.

One of the Bellidos shifted to a one-handed grip on his gun, lifting the other hand vertically to his faceplate in the Belldic version of a finger to the lips. I nodded understanding, and he shifted the hand to point behind me. I half turned, saw nothing, and turned back. He pointed again, stepping toward me in emphasis, and this time I got it: We were going back outside. Turning, I headed up the slope.

We reached the surface, and my escort pointed past the two workers toward the other tunnel. I nodded and started across the staging area, noting peripherally that my escort was making no move to follow. The workers ignored me as I circled around them, and as I reached the north tunnel I looked back and saw the other Bellido turn and disappear back down his tunnel.

For a moment I wondered what would happen if I changed direction and instead headed back toward the lodge. But only for a moment. Taking a deep breath, I started down the tunnel.

Two more Bellidos were waiting just around the first curve, their transparent faceplates and quadruple shoulder holsters leaving no doubt of their identity this time. The one in the lead stepped up to me, flicking off my suit comm with one hand and pressing the small black disk of a short-range remora transceiver to the bottom of my faceplate with the other. “Can you hear me?” a voice called faintly from that direction.

“Yes,” I replied, feeling my lip twitch as I recognized the stripe pattern across his chipmunk face. It was my fake drunk from the Quadrail, the one whose buddies had stuffed me into the spice crate. “One of us seems to be the bad penny that keeps coming back.”

“Whose side are you on?” he asked.

“Mine, mostly,” I said. “Other than that, I’m not even sure what the sides are.”

“Not good enough,” he said, his voice firm. “You stand with us and the galaxy, or you stand with the Modhri.” His shoulder dipped; and suddenly the muzzle of one of his guns was pressed against my faceplate. “Choose now.”

My first impulse was to do a slipstep and take the gun away from him, or at least try to get it pointed in a different direction. But he had three more guns, he had a partner standing nearby with another four, and their low-gravity combat training was probably a lot more up-to-date than mine was. “You know whose side I’m on,” I said as soothingly as I could. “I’m working with the Spiders. They’re trying to stop the war before it gets started.”

He snorted, a high-pitched barking sound. “It is far too late for that.”

I thought about Hermod, and the secrets hidden behind Bayta’s troubled eyes. “Apparently I was misinformed,” I said.

For a long moment he just stared at me, his expression impossible to read. Then his whiskers stiffened once and relaxed, and he returned his gun to its holster. “Spiders,” he said, his voice edged with contempt. “Come.”

He turned and headed down the walkway. I followed, the second Bellido bringing up the rear. “Where are all the Halkas?” I asked as we headed down.

“Under guard at the tunnel face,” the first Bellido said. “We took them silently as they arrived for work.”

“And you left their comms on?”

“Of course not,” he said. “One of us monitored and recorded several days’ worth of their conversation and created a compilation.”

“Which you’re now broadcasting on the appropriate channel,” I said, nodding. “With one of your people no doubt standing by with a voice synthesizer to handle any direct questions from base. Very neat.”

“Though perhaps pointless,” he said grimly. “These workers are supposed to all be newcomers. If that’s untrue, then the alarm is already out.” He half turned to look at me. “Though with you here even that may now be irrelevant.”

“I haven’t said anything about you,” I assured him, wondering what that comment about newcomers had been all about.

“That, too, may not matter,” he warned. “He almost certainly has been on to you from the beginning.”

“Possibly,” I said, wondering who he was. “Of course, so have you.”

“Yes,” he said. There was no boast or malicious amusement in his voice; he was simply stating a fact. “Still, perhaps it’s too late for him to stop us.”

“We can hope,” I agreed. “I don’t suppose you’d like to tell me who we’re talking about?”

“The Modhri, of course,” he said, his voice suddenly as cold as the tunnel around us. “He and his walkers.”

“You mean the big conspiracy going on at the resort?”

He stopped so abruptly I nearly ran into him. “You see this as merely a conspiracy?”

“Well, it’s definitely a good conspiracy,” I floundered, startled at the intensity of his reaction. “They’ve got excellent lines of communication, for starters.”

He snorted a sort of barking laugh. “Human humor in the midst of danger,” he said. “A strange but interesting gift.”

We continued on in silence, the Bellido apparently no longer interested in conversation, me trying to figure out what the hell he’d meant by that last comment. If this wasn’t a conspiracy, what was it? And if this so-called Modhri wasn’t one of the Halkas, then who was he?

It had been obvious from the instant that first gun had been pointed at me that the Bellidos had already had a busy morning. It wasn’t until we reached the area I’d found yesterday that I saw just how busy they’d been. A two-by-three-meter section of the tunnel wall had been melted away, revealing a good-sized cavern carved out of the ice behind it. Two more Bellidos were standing inside, training plasma cutters on the floor around a pair of massive telescoping elevator beams poking vertically through the cavern.

And as the water runoff flowed out into the tunnel to be siphoned away by the drain hoses, I saw a wide metal plate working its way upward. I studied it through the swirling mist of condensing ice crystals, trying to figure out why it looked familiar.

Then, suddenly, I got it. It was the upper surface of a maintenance submarine. Most likely the very submarine the Bellidos had tried to convince everyone was hidden in the underwater caverns Bayta and I had visited.

Only here it was, magically transported hundreds of meters up from where it had last been spotted. And through solid ice, yet.

I turned to my guide, to find that he in turn was watching me. “You seem surprised,” he said.

I looked back into the cavern, scowling. My professional pride was at stake here. I studied the sub’s emerging upper surface, particularly where it connected to the elevator beams, noting the interesting texture of the beams themselves. “Not really,” I said. “Those elevator beams are rigged with microwave surface/point heaters. You got them in place here, walled them up where they wouldn’t be seen, then sent them telescoping downward, melting the ice as they went. Once they broke through to open water, you stole a sub, attached it to them, and started it melting its leisurely way back up again. Nice and quiet, no massive energy spikes for detectors to latch on to, and the water even froze again beneath the sub as it went up so that it wouldn’t leave a telltale hole in the icepack.”

“Excellent,” he said, and I thought I could detect a note of respect in his voice. “And now?”

“You got me,” I admitted. “A submarine a hundred meters from actual water seems kind of useless. Unless you’re building a clubhouse.”

“Your sense of humor is—” He broke off, his head tilting slightly to one side as if listening… and when it straightened again, I could see his whiskers had gone rigid. “They’re calling for you,” he said.

There was something in his tone that sent a sudden chill up my back. “Who?”

“Your friends.” Reaching to my helmet, he flipped on my comm.

“—ton,” a familiar voice called tautly. “Repeating: Terrance Applegate calling Frank Compton. Damn it, Frank, I know you’re out there somewhere.”

I flipped off the comm. “What do you want me to do?” I asked.

“What do you want to do?” the Bellido countered.

I grimaced, but I didn’t have much choice. “I have to go,” I said. “I know Applegate, and he won’t quit looking until he finds me.”

“Then go,” the Bellido said.

I’d always thought of Bellidos as being somewhat abrupt, but even by their standards it was a pretty curt dismissal. “Fine,” I answered him in kind. Turning around, I brushed past his friend still standing behind me and started up the slope.

I was thirty meters away before I noticed I still had his remora transceiver attached to my helmet. Pulling it off, I tucked it away in my top pocket.

I waited until I was within sight of the entrance before I turned the suit’s regular comm back on. Applegate was still burning up the frequency, his tone sounding more worried now than angry. “I’m here, Applegate,” I called the first time he paused for air. “Stupid comms in these things aren’t worth—”

“Forget the comm,” he cut me off. “There’s been an accident with the Balercomb tour.”

I felt my heart seize up. “Bayta?” I demanded, breaking into a gliding, bobbing run.

“I don’t know,” he said. “Where are you?”

“Over by the new toboggan tunnels, at the far end of the red pylon line,” I told him as I emerged onto the surface. “I’m heading back.”

“Just stay put,” Applegate ordered. “I’ll be right there.”

I frowned; and then, belatedly, I noticed the faint sound of Shorshic thrusters in the background. I turned toward the lodge and saw a sleek Chafta 669 starfighter settle onto the ice twenty meters away. “Come on!” Applegate’s voice barked in my helmet.

He had the canopy popped by the time I reached him. “Take the ops seat,” he ordered, gesturing over his shoulder at the padded chair above and behind him.

“What’s this doing here?” I asked as I pulled myself up the handholds along the side and dropped into the seat. “I thought we were going to Modhra II to see them.”

“Losutu’s idea,” he grunted as the canopy swung closed and we lifted from the surface. “He thought it would save time if we brought one of the starfighters here for you to look at. Never dreamed we might actually need it for anything. Hang on.”

He kicked in the drive, the acceleration shoving me back into my seat. “What happened?” I called over the roar coming from behind me.

“Sounds like the driver lost control somehow and rammed the bus into one of the ice pillars,” he said. “I heard that Bayta was calling for you, and that no one could find you, so I fired up the Chafta and headed out to look.”

I felt a sudden crawling on my skin. Bayta had called for me? Knowing where I was and what I was doing, she’d still called for me? Not likely.

“Your turn,” he said. “What were you doing in a restricted area in a resort worker vac suit?”

“I wanted to check out the work on the new toboggan tunnels,” I said, sliding into liar mode with half my brain while the other half sifted through the potential traps. “If I’m going to recommend this place, I have to know everything about it, including how it’s being expanded.”

“Why didn’t you just ask for a tour?”

“Tours only show what the management wants you to see,” I said, peering out the side of the canopy. We were passing over the lodge, and I saw that the morning torchferry from the Tube had landed and was cooling down in preparation for the return trip.

But there was a second ship on the ice, as well, a ship with the boxy lines and soft-focus anti-sensor hull of a military troop carrier. Pressing my helmet against the canopy, I caught a glimpse of figures in dark green Halkan military vac suits moving toward the lodge.

And then, even as I craned my neck to try to see more, Applegate rolled the starfighter a few degrees to port, cutting off my view. “Hey!” I protested.

“Hey, what?” he called back.

I clenched my teeth. “Nothing,” I said. “How much farther?”

“About thirty kilometers,” he said. “Don’t worry, I’m sure she’s all right.”

The crash site was bustling with activity when we arrived. Three ambulances were already on the scene, clustered around the bus, with half a dozen Halkas helping passengers out of the damaged vehicle. The bus itself was tipped nearly up onto its left side, its nose crunched into a huge ice stalagmite. Applegate set us down fifty meters away and popped the canopy. “What frequency are we on here?” I asked as we hurried toward the scene. “I’m still on the workers’ channel.”

“General Two,” Applegate told me.

I switched over, and the silent scene erupted with the terse orders of command, the moans and whimpering of injured or scared tourists, and the soothing voices of the medics themselves. “Bayta?” I called.

“She’s over here,” a Halkan voice replied, and a medic squatting by one of the ambulances raised a hand. The figure sitting limply at his feet looked up, and I saw that it was indeed Bayta, her face tense and pinched. But at least she was alive. I started toward her—

And came to an abrupt halt as a tall Halka suddenly loomed in my path. “You are Compton?” he demanded. He was wearing one of the military vac suits, with major’s insignia around the collar.

“Out of my way,” I growled, trying to get around him.

But he wasn’t about to be gotten around. “You are Compton?” he repeated.

“Yes, this is him,” Applegate spoke up, taking my arm. “Sorry, Frank, but we’ve got a situation here.”

“No kidding,” I said, trying to pull away.

“Bayta’s all right,” Applegate soothed, steering me toward the wrecked bus. “This will just take a minute.”

He led me around the back of the bus to where we could see the underside, the major staying close behind us. Up close, the damage to the vehicle’s nose looked worse than it had from the air, and I found myself wondering what speed the lunatic had been doing when he rammed the ice. “There, beneath the overhang,” Applegate said, pointing to the chassis between the two right-hand wheels. “You see it?”

“Of course I see it,” I said with as much patience as I could manage. From this angle, with the bus tilted up on its side, the long plastic-wrapped package would have been hard to miss. Given the three Halkas standing there poking and prodding at it, the thing was as obvious as a Times Square holodisplay. “So?”

“You know what it is?”

“I left my X-ray glasses in my other suit,” I growled. “You consider just unwrapping it?”

“No need,” the major put in, his tone dark. “It is a phased sonic disruptor, designed for underwater dredging and shock-mining.”

“Okay,” I said. “And this concerns me how?”

In answer, the Halka gestured to two of the three figures who’d been inspecting the disruptor. They walked over to us; and before I could react, there was a glint of metal and a sudden flurry of hands, and my arms had been neatly pinioned in front of me in a set of wristcuffs.

My heart, which had already been doing overtime over Bayta, kicked into full jackhammer mode. “What the hell are you doing?” I snarled.

“You are wanted at the lodge,” the major said, getting a grip on my upper arm and leading me toward the ambulance. The medic had Bayta on her feet now, I saw, and was helping her inside. “You and your female both.”

“Yeah, whatever,” I muttered. In the distance I could see the bumblebee shape of a heavy lifter approaching, its underside grapples looking like giant insect legs. “This had better be good,” I warned.

“It’s not good, Frank,” Applegate said quietly. “It’s not good at all.”