Night Train to Rigel

SEVEN:

“The protocol is clear,” Busksha insisted, pacing around the interrogation room like a caged tiger. “He was involved in the death of two sentient beings.”

“The protocol is not clear,” Rastra countered. He didn’t look any happier than Busksha, but his voice was firm enough. “We are witnesses to both his actions and the subsequent deaths. There is no evidence that one had anything to do with the other.”

Busksha snorted. “You wish only to save an old friend,” he accused.

“I wish to prevent an unnecessary interstellar incident,” Rastra corrected stiffly.

“Yet we saw him touch one of them.”

“But not the other,” Rastra countered. “Yet both deaths came from the same source.”

“Perhaps,” Busksha growled. “That is for the autopsy to say.”

There was a soft twitter from somewhere, and Rastra pulled a small comm from his vest pocket. “Falc Rastra,” he identified himself, stepping off to one of the corners.

“While he’s occupied, perhaps we can focus on the knife for a moment,” I suggested to Busksha. “Do you know yet where they got it?”

“One of the weapons lockboxes in the baggage area,” the major said, frowning at Rastra’s back.

“One of theirs?”

“Neither of them had a claim marker,” he said. “We have not yet determined which lockbox they opened.”

“Or how they opened it, I presume,” I said. “Interesting, isn’t it? First they get past a supposedly secure door, and then into a supposedly secure lockbox.”

“As I said, professional thieves,” Busksha reminded me.

“Or someone fed them the relevant combination numbers.”

He bristled. “Do you challenge the integrity of Jurian workers?”

“Not necessarily,” I said. “Some of your workers certainly know the keypad sequence for the room, but they wouldn’t know a private lockbox combination. A more interesting question is why the Halkas would go shopping at all before they’d even passed through customs.”

The edges of the scales around Busksha’s eyes took on a slight purple hue, a color that in a human would probably point to imminent apoplexy. On a Juri, it merely indicated concentration. “The obvious conclusion would be that they intended violence on the station itself,” he said. “But against whom?”

Out of the corner of my eye I saw Bayta stir uneasily. “You’d know better than I whether there’s anyone aboard at the moment worth killing,” I told Busksha.

Busksha’s beak clicked once, very softly. “You mean other than you?”

For all his attitude, Busksha was clearly smarter than he looked. “What makes you think I’m worth killing?” I asked.

“I don’t know,” he said, the bridge of his beak wrinkling. “Why don’t you tell me?”

“I know of nothing I’ve done to these two Halkas to have provoked such an attack,” I told him, choosing my words carefully. “Or to anyone else of the Halkavisti Empire, for that matter.”

“Well and cleverly phrased,” Busksha said. “But not an answer.”

I lifted my hands, palms upward. “I’m sorry, but it’s the best I can do.”

Rastra stepped back to Busksha’s side. “The knife has been identified and claimed,” he said, his voice suddenly strange.

“By whom?” Busksha asked.

“By the same Halkan official who has forbidden an autopsy,” Rastra said. “High Commissioner JhanKla of the Fifth Sector Assembly.” His throat scales reddened. “The Halka whom I am currently escorting.”

“Wait a second,” I said, my mind still two sentences back. “What do you mean, he’s forbidden an autopsy?”

“The knife was stolen from his lockbox and used to attempt a killing,” Rastra said. “This brings shame onto the High Commissioner, which cannot be eradicated until the perpetrators’ bodies have been destroyed by fire.”

“He can’t claim jurisdiction on a Jurian station,” I insisted. “We need to know how those Halkas died.”

“It is true that he has no jurisdictional claim,” Rastra agreed heavily. “But as a Resolver my job is to smooth over conflicts between the Jurian Collective and the Halkavisti Empire. I have already given the order to permit cremation without autopsy.”

“But what about Mr. Compton?” Bayta spoke up. “How can he prove he had nothing to do with their deaths if the bodies aren’t examined?”

“High Commissioner JhanKla informs me that he can explain their deaths, though he will do so only in private,” Rastra told her. “He confirms that Mr. Compton is in no way involved.”

“Yet he drew first blood,” Busksha murmured.

“Yes,” Rastra said reluctantly. “Mr. Compton, did you intend to remain long in the Jurian Collective?”

I knew a cue when I heard it. “We could be moving along at any time,” I assured him.

“Then you shall,” he said. “We travel on the next Quadrail with High Commissioner JhanKla, aboard a private car of the Halkavisti peerage.”

I pricked up my ears at that one. I’d never seen any of the legendary Peerage Quadrail cars, but they were reputed to be rolling versions of the equally legendary Peerage palaces.

They were also definitely not the transport of choice for someone trying to keep a low profile. “The High Commissioner honors me greatly,” I said. “But I must humbly decline.”

“You have no choice,” Rastra said firmly. “I have vouched for your innocence in this matter, and protocol demands that I escort you personally out of Jurian space. Since I travel with the High Commissioner, you and your companion must travel with me. Otherwise, you could be taken into custody at any stop along the way.”

“That seems wrong,” Bayta said, frowning. “Doesn’t that only—”

“Of course it’s wrong,” I interrupted, throwing her a warning look. “I haven’t done anything.”

“I understand that,” Rastra said. “But the protocol must be followed.”

“I understand in turn.” I lifted my hands again. “In that case, we accept with gratitude.”

“Good,” Rastra said. “Then let us be off. The High Commissioner awaits us at the Tube. Have you any luggage besides your carrybags?”

“No, we’re ready to go when you are.” I looked at Busksha, who was still glowering at me. “And the sooner,” I added, “the better.”

We caught the next shuttle, and a few minutes later were back in the Tube.

“The car’s over here,” Rastra said, pointing to a warehouselike structure in the maintenance area two tracks around the cylinder from the last of the passenger waiting rooms. “The Spiders will be rolling it out in half an hour, just before our train arrives, and connect it behind the baggage cars. That will give us time to settle in.”

“Good,” I said, glancing around. If the Spiders had been able to pull together the sensor data I’d asked for, it should be waiting here somewhere.

Problem was, I’d asked for it to be delivered to us aboard whatever train we took out of Kerfsis system. Without a normal reservation, they had no way of knowing we were here and about to leave.

Or did they?

Behind Rastra’s back, I looked at Bayta and raised my eyebrows in silent question. She nodded slightly in return, then nodded again over her shoulder. Shifting my eyes that direction, I saw a drone ten meters away suddenly pause and change direction toward the stationmaster’s building.

Apparently, the Spiders had been informed of our change in plans.

The inside of the maintenance building was pretty much the same as the one I’d seen once at Terra Station: big and open, with enough room for a Quadrail engine or a couple of cars. Crane tracks crisscrossed the high ceiling, the cranes themselves looking hefty enough to pick up one end of a car without exerting themselves. The Quadrail tracks on the floor mirrored the crane tracks above them, with one set coming straight through the doors at either end while others angled off to miniature sidings along the walls. The walls themselves were lined with toolboxes and parts cabinets, everything clearly designed to be operated by a drone’s leg tips.

The Peerage car was sitting on the tracks by the door at the far end. At first glance it looked like every other Quadrail passenger car I’d ever seen, but as we moved closer I spotted the small touches that marked it as something special. An intricate design was etched subtly in the silver metal of the side, with an equally subtle reproduction of the royal Halkan crest beside the door. There was something about the wheels that seemed a little different, possibly an upgraded set of shock absorbers, and at the roof edge there were some embedded greenstone highlights. “Not quite what I expected,” I commented.

“It’s designed not to be ostentatious,” Rastra explained. “Even the most powerful among the Halkas prefer not to flaunt their position.”

“I would think the flaunting would be the best part of being in the Peerage in the first place,” I suggested.

“The Halkas have always had ambivalent feelings about such things,” Rastra said. “The car’s interior should prove more to your expectations.”

“How many does it sleep?”

“There are ten sleeping compartments, plus dining and lounge areas and a small kitchen,” Rastra said. “The staff consists of a chef, two servitors, and High Commissioner JhanKla’s guard-assistant. All Halkas, of course.”

With the three of us, that made for a total party of eight. “Do you have any other stops planned for Jurian space?” I asked.

“No,” he said. “I would not have burdened you with a long schedule if the High Commissioner hadn’t already planned to return home.”

I tried to figure out how Rastra would have juggled his stated obligations to both JhanKla and me if the Halkas hadn’t been heading home. But I gave up the effort. Resolvers had a knack for bringing mutually exclusive options together and making them work. “So we’re looking at, what, about a five-day trip?”

“Slightly less,” Rastra said. “We’ll be attaching to an express Quadrail which will stop only once, at Jurskala, before continuing directly on to Imperial Hub Twenty just inside Halkan space. From there you’ll be free to travel wherever you wish.”

We reached the door, which irised open at our approach, and went inside. Passing the elaborately carved doors of the first set of sleeping rooms, we entered the lounge.

Whatever ambivalence the car’s designer had been feeling while working on the exterior, he’d apparently gotten it out of his system well before he switched to the interior. The lounge sported a pattern of living filigree vines on the ceiling, whose delicate scent formed a nice counterpoint to the soft twittering and brilliant colors of the caged rainbirds in the four corners. The display windows were bordered by expensive velvette curtains, though there was no need for curtains of any sort on windows that could be opaqued on command. The chairs were made of hand-carved wood wrapped around memory cushions which, like the bar chairs Bayta and I had used on our last Quadrail, would configure to fit whoever happened to be sitting there. Unlike the bar chairs, though, these looked like they would be comfortable no matter how they were set.

In the center of the room was a low table that seemed to have been carved out of a single piece of geodium crystal. Like the seats in the regular first-class cars, both the table and chairs were set on sliders that would allow them to be moved freely around the room, yet locked securely in place wherever they were placed. Built into the front wall was a top-of-the-line entertainment center, ready to provide music and dit recs to help a traveler pass the time, while late-night thirst or munchies could be taken care of via the rack of beverages and finger foods on the opposite wall. The final touch was the floor design, done in a furstone mosaic that seemed to be commemorating some grand and glorious event in Halkan history.

“Ah,” a deep voice said from behind me. “My guests.”

I turned, setting down my carrybags beside the geodium table. A medium-sized Juri stood by one of the rainbird cages, poking slender green shoots through the bars for the birds to nibble on. “May I present High Commissioner JhanKla of the Fifth Sector Assembly of the Halkavisti Empire,” Rastra said formally. “This is Mr. Frank Compton and his assistant Bayta of the Terran Confederation.”

“Yes,” JhanKla said, his bulldog eyes gazing steadily at us from his flat face. He wore the distinctive tri-color layered robes of the Halkan Peerage, this particular red/orange/purple color scheme identifying him as a member of the Polobia branch. “The Humans who helped rescue my honor.”

The words were polite enough, but I could hear the underlying edge of blame for precipitating the trouble in the first place. “We were glad to assist, Your Eminence,” I replied, deciding that the polite thing to do would be to accept the statement at face value. “I’m sure you’d have done the same for us had the situation been reversed.”

“The situation would not have been reversed,” he countered. “Humans do not treasure honor as Halkas do.”

“No, some of us don’t,” I said, looking straight back into those eyes. “But others of us do.”

For a long moment he returned my gaze without speaking. I was working on a Plan B, something that would put us at the other end of the Quadrail, when he gave a short bark. “Correction accepted,” he said. Flicking his last shoot the rest of the way into the birdcage, he stepped over to join us. “You are not what I expected, Mr. Compton. Welcome aboard this small and unimpressive corner of the Halkavisti Empire.”

“We are honored, Your Eminence,” I said, making the sort of hunchbacked stoop that was the closest a human could get to a proper Halkan chest-bow. “And I apologize for whatever discomfort or embarrassment we may have caused you in this matter.”

JhanKla made a multifrequency rumble. “The fault lies with the criminals who perpetrated the act,” he said. “Their shame is even now being returned to the universe by fire.” He paused, then gave me a genuine chest-bow. “I apologize in turn for implying any dishonor rests with you for bringing their crime to light. If such were the case, no officer of the law could ever face his family and people.”

Indeed he could not,“ I agreed, starting to relax a little. In my admittedly limited experience with Halkas, I’d found they had a tendency to take offense way too quickly, but that most of them calmed down and saw reason if you gave them enough time. JhanKla seemed to be falling nicely into that pattern. ”My only regret is that we may never know what it was that killed them.“

“Not at all,” JhanKla said. “It was their own act of greed that brought their destruction. The knife stolen from my lockbox was an antique belonging to my family. Its blade was protected from corrosion by a chemical which also happens to be a deadly toxin.”

“Ah,” I said. “That would explain the one who was cut during the struggle.”

“Yes,” JhanKla said, his sideburn fur bristling in a Halkan shrug. “As to the other, he must have sustained a superficial cut earlier when they first broke into the lockbox.”

“Which would explain why the toxin took longer to work on him,” Rastra said.

“Yes,” I murmured. A nice, neat answer. Far too neat for my taste, especially since it completely sidestepped the question of how the thieves had managed to get into JhanKla’s lockbox in the first place.

But I wasn’t here to interrogate a member of the Halkan Peerage. Besides, I was pretty sure I already knew the answer. “Lucky for me he didn’t connect with that attack,” I said instead.

“Indeed,” JhanKla agreed, eyeing me curiously. “What exactly did you do to provoke him?”

“I wish I knew,” I said ruefully. “I was simply asking about a Halkan resort they’d mentioned to me aboard the Quadrail.”

“Which one?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “That was what I had hoped to learn from them.”

“You told me it was a place with outdoor sports and unique views,” Rastra said. “Does that sound familiar, High Commissioner?”

“There are only a few million such places in the Halkavisti Empire,” JhanKla said dryly. “But I will consider the question.” He looked at Bayta and me. “In the meantime, one of my servitors will take your belongings to your rooms.”

“Thank you, but we can handle them,” I assured him, picking up my carrybags again. “Besides, I’m looking forward to seeing my compartment.”

“As you wish,” JhanKla said. “They are the last two on the left at the rear of the car.”

“Thank you,” I said again. “Come on, Bayta.”

Beyond the lounge the corridor curved around a compact food prep area and then led into a dining room as lovingly and meticulously decorated as the lounge. Passing the carved-wood table and matching chairs, we reached the sleeping compartments at the other end of the car. “You take this one,” I told Bayta over my shoulder, nodding to the first of the two as I passed it. Reaching the second door, I touched the release and went inside.

The Spiders had made a career of moving people around the galaxy in compartments this size, and they’d obviously put a lot of thought into the design and furnishings. Form following function and all that, there had been little the Halkan designers had been able to do to improve on the basic layout, so they’d contented themselves with simply upgrading the pretension level. That meant more carved wood on the walls, more furstone mosaic on the floor, more gold and crystal and marbling everywhere else. But at least they’d passed on the caged rainbirds.

I had just heaved my carrybags up onto the luggage rack—hand-carved, naturally, with some kind of ivory inlays—when a delicate tone issued from the door. “Come in,” I called.

To my complete lack of surprise, it was Bayta. “That was quick,” I commented as she walked in. There was an odd hesitation to her step, I noted, as if she were afraid of damaging the furstone floor.

“We can’t stay here,” she said without prologue. “We shouldn’t even have visited.”

Oh, come, now,“ I chided. ”How could we be so ill-mannered as to refuse the High Commissioner’s hospitality? Especially since the Jurian Collective insists on it?“

“The Collective is wrong,” she said flatly. “Here in the Tube we aren’t in Jurian territory, and their protocol system has no legal authority.” Her lips compressed briefly. “I tried to tell you that, back on the transfer station. You didn’t let me finish.”

“Of course not,” I said. “I couldn’t let you ruin such a nicely executed setup.”

The skin of her face seemed to shrink back a little. “What do you mean?” she asked carefully.

“You don’t think all this happened by accident, do you?” I asked taking a quick pass by the computer and then circling to the curve couch and sitting down. No warnings from my watch; apparently the Halkan Peerage didn’t stoop to bugging the compartments of their guests. “Come on, sit down,” I said, patting the couch beside me. “We might as well be comfortable.”

Slowly, reluctantly, she sat down at the far end of the couch. “Do you know what’s going on?”

“I know some of it,” I said, flipping a mental coin. Bayta was still a big question mark, and my natural impulse was to play my cards as close to my chest as possible. But it might be instructive to give her the whole story, or at least all the story I had, and see if I could get anything from her reactions.

And after all, it was possible that she was genuinely on my side. “Bottom line,” I began, “is that we’ve been pinged.”

“Pinged?”

“Pinged, as in someone’s figured out that we’re not your average tourists or businesspeople,” I explained. “My guess is that it was when we made that big jump from steerage to first class at New Tigris. This someone has also decided he doesn’t like the idea of us poking around, or at least he doesn’t like us poking around Kerfsis system. He therefore sent those two Halkan goons into the baggage section to break into a lockbox and get themselves a weapon.”

Bayta’s face had gone very still, with none of the hints of guilty knowledge I’d been watching for. “They’re trying to kill us?”

“And this surprises you?” I countered. “People who are planning to start a war?”

“But—” She broke off. “Of course,” she said. “Please, go on.”

“Unfortunately for them, we picked up on their vanishing act and sicced the cops on them,” I said. “They got caught, but by immense good luck I then got hauled in there to talk to them.”

“Or maybe it wasn’t luck,” she said slowly. “Maybe this someone had more agents than just those two Halkas.”

“Very good,” I said. She had either a very quick mind or else a collection of prior knowledge. Unfortunately, at the moment I couldn’t tell which. “JhanKla, at the very least. Possibly Major Tas Busksha, too.”

“Or possibly your friend Falc Rastra?”

“No,” I said firmly, feeling a flash of annoyance. “I know Rastra. He wouldn’t be mixed up in something like this. And I already told you he’s not my friend.”

“Yet you say you know him?”

“Would you get off that?” I snapped. “I know all sorts of things about all sorts of people. That was my job.”

“Yes, of course,” she murmured. “I’m sorry.”

I took a calming breath. I was supposed to be watching for her reactions, and instead I was the one doing all the reacting. “Regardless, when the assassination attempt failed, they had to come up with a new plan.”

She frowned. “Are you suggesting those two Halkas aren’t dead?”

“Oh, they’re dead, all right,” I assured her grimly. “Nothing grabs official attention like someone who tries to kill you and then dies a mysterious death. Plan B was apparently for JhanKla to come charging in on a white horse and rescue us from Kerfsis and the united forces of Jurian legal displeasure.”

“But why wouldn’t they want us in Kerfsis system? What could be here they don’t want us to see?”

“Maybe this is the test system we talked about earlier,” I said. “Or maybe some of the preliminary work is being done here. All I know is that someone has gone to an enormous amount of effort to get us out of this specific system onto this specific Quadrail in this specific Quadrail car. I think it would be instructive to follow along for a bit and see where it all takes us.”

A sudden shiver ran through her. “Or maybe they just want to get rid of us. Maybe they brought us aboard so they could do it in private.”

“That possibility hadn’t escaped me,” I admitted. “But there are more anonymous ways of killing someone than luring the victims aboard a Halkan Peerage car. No, if it’s not Kerfsis itself, I’m guessing JhanKla thinks plying us with hospitality will help him find out how much we know or who exactly we’re working for. Speaking of whom, did your friends get that sensor data I wanted?”

“Yes,” Bayta said, her brain clearly still working on the possibility of our sudden and violent demise. “The stationmaster will deliver it to the train.”

“But not to us directly,” I warned. “I don’t want JhanKla to see us getting a data chip from a Spider.”

“No, of course not,” she said. “He’ll deliver it to one of the conductors. We can pick it up from him later.”

Given our current traveling situation, arranging such a handoff might be a bit awkward. But I had a few days to find an excuse to go wandering around the rest of the train. “Good enough,” I said.

“So what do we do once we reach Halkan space?” she asked.

“That depends on what happens between now and then,” I said. “If we can act cheerful and stupid enough, maybe we can convince them that it’s all a big mistake. That would take some of the heat off.”

“And if we can’t?”

“Then we’ll just have to be careful,” I said. “Either way, your next assignment is to get the Spiders busy finding out everything they can about our two freshly dead and cremated Halkas. I want their names, their families, their political affiliations, their business and social associates, their criminal records, their travel records over the past five years, and anything else that seems remotely interesting or unusual. Get the next Spider who wanders into range busy on it.”

“That’ll take time,” she warned. “And it may require sources they don’t have access to.”

I thought about my original Quadrail ticket with its forged photo and thumbprint. “I get the feeling there isn’t very much that’s beyond their reach,” I told her. “While they’re at it, let’s have them pull the same information on JhanKla.”

“And Rastra?”

My first impulse was to once again leap to Rastra’s defense. But she was right. “And Rastra,” I confirmed.

“All right.” She gazed out the window, her eyes unfocusing for a minute, then nodded. “It’s done.”

“Good.” I looked out the window myself at the drab walls and floor of the maintenance building, all nice and quiet and private. Distantly, I wondered if I might have overstated my assurances that this would be a poor locale for a couple of murders. “Let’s get back to the party.”