laser transmission to Earth.”
“Good,” I said again. “I’m hungry. Let’s get something to eat.” I started us toward the door, putting my hand in my side pocket as I walked.
And stopped. “Well, well,” I said. “What?” Bayta asked.
“Clever,” I said, feeling my stomach tighten. No wonder I’d gotten away so easily with picking that Halka’s pocket.
“What’s clever?” Bayta asked.
“The Modhri,” I said, pulling my hand out of my pocket. “I’d been wondering where I got my newly improved pickpocket skills. Now I know. Turns out the Modhri didn’t actually care about Morse’s ultrasecret ESS reading material after all.
“The data chip with Fayr’s message.” I opened up my empty hand. “It’s gone.”
Chapter Eight
Morse was waiting at the platform when we arrived there an hour and a half later. Our Quadrail was visible in the distance, the red glow of the laserlike beams flashing between the train’s front bumper and the Coreline and turning the Coreline’s already impressive light show into something frighteningly manic. The lasers winked out, the train angled down the Tube’s sloping side into the wider section that was the station, and a few minutes later it rolled to a brake-squealing halt beside us.
Our double compartment was, as usual, in the first car behind the engine. Morse’s seat was three cars back, just behind the first-class dining car.
Bayta and I stayed close to home during the trip, emerging from our compartments only for meals, to stretch our legs, and occasionally to check on Morse. As far as I could tell, he too seemed to be keeping mostly to himself in the midst of all that noisy first-class camaraderie.
I made a couple of attempts to wheedle the other data chip out of him, the one that had been hidden in his pocket. But it was a waste of effort. Now that he was finally on the Quadrail and had Bayta’s assurance that we could link him up with Penny and her friends, he wasn’t making even an effort to be civil to me anymore.
I spent the rest of my limited time outside my compartment eyeing the other first-class passengers and wondering which of them might be walkers. That was even more of a waste of effort. As long as the Modhri colony inside a person stayed dormant, there was no way, barring serious micro-level surgery, to know it was in there.
Twenty-one hours after leaving Terra, precisely on time, we pulled into Homshil Station.
Most Quadrail stations carried between ten and forty sets of tracks, spaced more or less evenly around the inside of the Tube. Homshil was different. Though its main purpose was to provide service to the Jurian colony world of Homshiltristia, it also happened to be one of the fifty or sixty node points in the Quadrail system where the Spiders had brought several different lines together. One of the most important was a set of cross-galaxy tracks that headed out of our spiral arm entirely and traversed a wide swath of relatively empty space before skirting the edge of the galactic core and Fibibib space and heading across to the Pirkarli, Shorshian, and Filiaelian territories in the other spiral arm. For anyone traveling to those empires, shifting lines at Homshil could cut two or more weeks off their transit time.
As a result, Homshil carried a lot of traffic, and the Spiders had built accordingly. The station was half again bigger than the usual Quadrail station’s diameter, with no fewer than sixty sets of tracks running along the floor. Between the platforms were dozens of restaurants, shops, waiting areas, and three full-service hotels for travelers who wanted to take a break before continuing their journeys. The stationmaster’s office had been expanded into a four-building complex that included the office itself, separate booking and message centers, and a small computer library where newcomers to this spiral arm could grab up-to-date information on the worlds and cultures they would be visiting.
Between and
“Good,” I said again. “I’m hungry. Let’s get something to eat.” I started us toward the door, putting my hand in my side pocket as I walked.
And stopped. “Well, well,” I said. “What?” Bayta asked.
“Clever,” I said, feeling my stomach tighten. No wonder I’d gotten away so easily with picking that Halka’s pocket.
“What’s clever?” Bayta asked.
“The Modhri,” I said, pulling my hand out of my pocket. “I’d been wondering where I got my newly improved pickpocket skills. Now I know. Turns out the Modhri didn’t actually care about Morse’s ultrasecret ESS reading material after all.
“The data chip with Fayr’s message.” I opened up my empty hand. “It’s gone.”
Chapter Eight
Morse was waiting at the platform when we arrived there an hour and a half later. Our Quadrail was visible in the distance, the red glow of the laserlike beams flashing between the train’s front bumper and the Coreline and turning the Coreline’s already impressive light show into something frighteningly manic. The lasers winked out, the train angled down the Tube’s sloping side into the wider section that was the station, and a few minutes later it rolled to a brake-squealing halt beside us.
Our double compartment was, as usual, in the first car behind the engine. Morse’s seat was three cars back, just behind the first-class dining car.
Bayta and I stayed close to home during the trip, emerging from our compartments only for meals, to stretch our legs, and occasionally to check on Morse. As far as I could tell, he too seemed to be keeping mostly to himself in the midst of all that noisy first-class camaraderie.
I made a couple of attempts to wheedle the other data chip out of him, the one that had been hidden in his pocket. But it was a waste of effort. Now that he was finally on the Quadrail and had Bayta’s assurance that we could link him up with Penny and her friends, he wasn’t making even an effort to be civil to me anymore.
I spent the rest of my limited time outside my compartment eyeing the other first-class passengers and wondering which of them might be walkers. That was even more of a waste of effort. As long as the Modhri colony inside a person stayed dormant, there was no way, barring serious micro-level surgery, to know it was in there.
Twenty-one hours after leaving Terra, precisely on time, we pulled into Homshil Station.
Most Quadrail stations carried between ten and forty sets of tracks, spaced more or less evenly around the inside of the Tube. Homshil was different. Though its main purpose was to provide service to the Jurian colony world of Homshiltristia, it also happened to be one of the fifty or sixty node points in the Quadrail system where the Spiders had brought several different lines together. One of the most important was a set of cross-galaxy tracks that headed out of our spiral arm entirely and traversed a wide swath of relatively empty space before skirting the edge of the galactic core and Fibibib space and heading across to the Pirkarli, Shorshian, and Filiaelian territories in the other spiral arm. For anyone traveling to those empires, shifting lines at Homshil could cut two or more weeks off their transit time.
As a result, Homshil carried a lot of traffic, and the Spiders had built accordingly. The station was half again bigger than the usual Quadrail station’s diameter, with no fewer than sixty sets of tracks running along the floor. Between the platforms were dozens of restaurants, shops, waiting areas, and three full-service hotels for travelers who wanted to take a break before continuing their journeys. The stationmaster’s office had been expanded into a four-building complex that included the office itself, separate booking and message centers, and a small computer library where newcomers to this spiral arm could grab up-to-date information on the worlds and cultures they would be visiting.
Between and
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