Timothy Zahn - The Domino Pattern

The door didn’t budge. “That would have to be one hell of a distracted Spider,” I said, turning back to Kennrick. “Besides, wasn’t Master Colix showing symptoms of poisoning before they even brought him in here?”

“Symptoms can be counterfeited,” Kennrick said. He looked at the body on the table. “Or faked.”

“You mean Master Colix might have faked his own poisoning so as to get brought in here so he could get pumped full of something lethal from the Spiders’ private drugstore?” I asked.

“Well, yes, if you put it that way I suppose it sounds a little far-fetched,” Kennrick admitted. “Still, we need to cover all possibilities.”

I turned to Tririn. “Did Master Colix have any addictions or strange tastes?”

[I don’t truly know,] Tririn said, a bit hesitantly. [I wasn’t well acquainted with him.]

“You were business colleagues, correct?”

[True,] Tririn said. [But he had only recently joined our contract team.] He ducked his head to Kennrick. [I would say that Master Kennrick probably knew him as well as I did.]

“And I only met him a couple of months ago.” Kennrick put in.

Mentally. I shook my head in disgust. Between di -Master Strinni, Kennrick, and Tririn, this was about as unhelpful a bunch as I’d run into for some time. “How about Master Bofiv, then?” I asked. “Did he know Master Colix?”

[I don’t know,] Tririn said. [I believe di -Master Strinni knew him best.]

I looked at my watch. I’d already had to awaken Strinni once tonight, and I wasn’t interested in trying it again. “We’ll start with Master Bofiv,” I decided. “Where is he?”

“Four cars back,” Kennrick said. “I’ll take you.”

“Just tell me which seat.” I said, taking Bayta’s arm and steering her toward the door. “You should stay with Master Tririn.”

“I’m going with you,” Kennrick said firmly. “These people are my business colleagues. Whatever happened to Master Colix, we need to resolve it before it poisons relations between us.” He winced. “Sorry. Poor choice of words.”

“I’ll stay here with Master Tririn.” Witherspoon volunteered. “There may be a couple of tests I can do that don’t involve cutting.”

“I’ll stay, too, then.” Bayta said. “I’d like to watch.”

I eyed her. Her face was its usual neutral mask, but there was something beneath the surface I couldn’t quite read. Probably she didn’t like the idea of the body being left alone with a couple of strangers with no Spider present. “Fine,” I said. “Come on, Kennrick.”

Second-class seats weren’t as mobile as those in first class, but they were movable enough to allow families and friends to arrange themselves into little conversation and game circles. Those circles usually remained into and through the nighttime hours, which gave a cozy sort of sleeping-bags-around-the-campfire look to those cars when everyone set up their privacy shields.

Not so in third. In third, where the seats were fixed in neat rows of three each on either side of the central aisle, the rows of cylindrical privacy shields always looked to me like the neatly arranged coffins from some horrible disaster.

“He’s down there,” Kennrick murmured, pointing.

I craned my neck. Master Bofiv was in one of the middle seats to my right, his seat reclined as far as it would go, his privacy shield open. “I see him,” I confirmed. “Quietly, now.”

We headed back, making as little noise as possible. Third-class seats weren’t equipped with sonic neutralizers like those in first and second, leaving it up to the individual passenger to spring for his or her own earplugs or portable neutralizers or else to hope for quiet neighbors.

Bofiv was lying quietly when we reached his row. One of the passengers three rows up from him had his reading light on, which had the effect of throwing the Shorshian into even deeper shadow than he would have been in without it.

Still, I could see him well enough to tell that his inner eyelids were closed. “I woke up di -Master Strinni.” I whispered to Kennrick. “It’s your turn.”

“But you’re so good at it.” Kennrick said, gesturing. “Please; go ahead.”

“You’re too kind,” I said, frowning. On Bofiv’s left, against the car’s side wall, was an empty scat, presumably that of his compatriot Master Tririn.

But on Bofiv’s right, where I would have expected to find the empty scat of the late Master Colix, was the smooth half-cylinder of a closed privacy shield. “Who’s that?” I asked, pointing at it.

“A Nemut,” Kennrick said. “He’s not part of our group.”

“Why isn’t that Colix’s scat?” I asked. “Didn’t he want to sit with his buddies?”

“I don’t know,” Kennrick said, frowning. “Huh. I hadn’t really thought about that. You think maybe the others didn’t like him?”

“Or vice versa,” I said, making a mental note to ask Bofiv and Tririn which of the party had come up with the seating arrangements. “So where was Colix sitting?”

“There.” Kennrick said, pointing to an empty middle seat across the aisle and two rows forward of the sleeping Bofiv.

I backtracked for a closer look. The late Master Colix’s seat was flanked by a pair of privacy shields. Irreverently, I wondered it one of the shields concealed an attractive female Shorshian. Maybe that was why he’d chosen to ditch his colleagues.

And then, as if on cue, the aisle shield retracted to reveal a young Human female.

A really young female, in fact. She couldn’t be more than seventeen, and even that was pushing it. Her face was thin and drawn, with the look of someone who’d just gone two rounds with food that didn’t agree with her.

Make that three rounds. Even before the privacy shield had retracted completely into the armrest and leg-rest storage lip she was on the move, heading toward the front of the car at the quick-walk of the digestively desperate.

I eyed the remaining privacy shield in that particular three-seat block. Maybe that was the knockout Shorshic female.

“Well?” Kennrick prompted.

“Well, what?” I countered, turning around to watch the girl. She reached the front of the car and disappeared into one of the restrooms.

“Are we going to ask Master Bofiv about Master Colix’s habits and appetites?” Kennrick elaborated.

“In a minute,” I said, a sudden unpleasant tingling on the back of my neck as I stared at the closed restroom door. Colix had gotten sick and died …and now one of his seatmates had suddenly made a mad dash tor the facilities?

Kennrick caught the sudden change in my tone. “What is it?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” I said. “Maybe nothing.”

“Or?”

“Or maybe something,” I said, glancing at my watch. Five minutes, I decided. If the girl wasn’t back in five minutes I would grab a Spider and send him in to find her.

It was something of an anticlimax when, three minutes later, the door opened and the girl reappeared. She started a little unsteadily back down the aisle toward her seat, looking even more drawn than she had before.

“Or nothing. I take it?” Kennrick murmured.

“So it would seem,” I agreed. The girl’s eyes were fixed on me as she came toward us, a wary and rather baleful expression on her pale face. I waited until she was about five steps from us and then tried my best concerned smile on her. “You all right, miss?” I asked softly.

“I’m fine,” she said, clipping out each word like she was trimming a thorn hedge. If my concerned smile was having any effect, I sure couldn’t detect it. “You mind?”