And without warning, something slammed into me from above, bouncing the back of my head off the nearest stack of crates and shoving me to the floor.
The next few minutes were a blur of hands and bodies and movement. By the time the haze lifted from my mind, I found myself back in the relatively open area by the baggage car's forward door and the suspended Harley, sitting on the floor with my back to one of the stacks of crates. There was a Juri towering over me on either side, and a line of Halkas and Juriani and Bellidos staring silently down at me from three meters away. Halkas, Juriani, Bellidos, and one lone Human.
Braithewick.
I took a careful breath, checking out the state of my chest as I did so. There was some serious bruising down there, but it didn't feel like anything was broken. "Well, that was fun," I said casually, focusing on Braithewick's sagging face. "Round One goes to you. Shall we set up for Round Two?"
"Where is the Abomination?" he asked.
"That's hard to say," I said. "I think I may have misplaced it."
Braithewick cocked his head, and from my left came a muffled gasp.
I turned that direction, craning my neck to look around the Juri standing guard on that side. Bayta was two stacks down, being pressed against the safety webbing by a pair of seriously bruised Halkas. One of them was gripping her right forearm with one hand and bending her hand back at the wrist with his other. "Leave her alone," I growled. "You want to torture someone, torture me."
"I think not," Braithewick said calmly. "You are a strong Human, Compton. I make you the compliment that breaking your bones will not gain me anything." He gestured toward Bayta. "But you are not strong enough to stand by and watch the slow destruction of the Human Bayta's life. Tell me where the Abomination is, or I'll begin by pulling out her fingers."
Bayta looked at me, her face taut but determined. "There's no need to get melodramatic," I told the Modhri. "Let her go, and I'll tell you."
"Tell me first," Braithewick said.
"Let her go first," I repeated.
Braithewick seemed to consider. Then, almost reluctantly, the Halka holding Bayta's arm relaxed the pressure on her wrist. "Where is the Abomination?" Braithewick asked.
I looked consideringly at the ceiling. "It should be right about …there," I said, pointing upward.
Braithewick didn't speak, but Bayta suddenly gasped again in pain. "Stop it," I snapped. "I'm telling the truth."
"The Abomination is not on the roof," Braithewick snapped back.
"I didn't say it was on the roof," I countered. "I said it was out there." I pointed again.
"You lie," Braithewick insisted. "It is here. I can feel its presence."
"Fine—have it your way," I said. "There are probably three to four hundred crates in here. Go ahead—knock yourself out."
Braithewick eyed me, his expression turning from angry to puzzled. "Why do you play such games, Compton? Do you truly believe I will hesitate to destroy the Human Bayta's life?" He cocked his head. "Or is it that you fear her agonizing death less than you fear the other fate I hold within my power?"
A cold chill ran through me. Other Modhran mind segments over the years had threatened to infect Bayta and me with polyp colonies and turn us into two more of his puppets. It was a possibility that held a special horror for Bayta, one she would gladly and unhesitatingly give up her life to avoid.
When Braithewick had threatened torture, I'd hoped that the far more terrifying scenario had somehow passed him by. But I saw now that the torture gambit had been merely a game, a psychological ploy to progressively raise the stakes of noncooperation.
And with a supply of coral already aboard the train, this new threat was anything but idle. If I didn't give him the Abomination, Bayta could be part of the Modhri within the hour. Probably we both would.
There was just one small problem. The Abomination really wasn't aboard the Quadrail.
I was searching desperately for something else to do or say when, behind the line of walkers directing their cold Modhran stares at me, I saw something that made my breath catch in my throat. A shadowy figure was flitting between the stacks of crates, moving in the direction of the forward door.
Rebekah was out of her crate, and making a break for it.
"Turning her into a walker won't do you any good," I warned Braithewick, raising my voice a bit to try to cover up any noise Rebekah might make. "I already told you the Abomination's not here."
"Then where is it?" Braithewick demanded. He reached into his pocket and pulled out the lump of coral the Halka in the other baggage car had tried to throw at me. "Tell me. Now."
I braced myself. If the Modhri had been angry before, this was going to make him furious. "The fact of the matter is—"
"Bayta!" Rebekah's voice called from somewhere behind the walkers. "Bayta—catch!"
The Modhri sprang into instant action, half the walkers turning toward the sound of Rebekah's voice, the other half surging toward Bayta, their eyes angled upward to spot and intercept whatever it was Rebekah was preparing to throw. At my sides, my two Jurian guards each put a hand on my shoulder, pressing me to the floor to prevent me from leaping to my feet and taking advantage of whatever the situation was that was about to unfold.
And as everyone looked and moved in all the wrong directions, an object came sliding across the floor, neatly passing through the gauntlet of shuffling feet, and came to a halt right in front of me.
It was my kwi.
The walkers jerked to a halt as one of their number spotted it, the whole bunch swiveling back toward me as my two guards dived simultaneously for the weapon.
But they were already too late. I scooped up the kwi, feeling the familiar activation tingle against my hand as I turned it upward and fired at the guard on my right.
I hadn't had time to check what setting the kwi was on, but from the violent shudder that arced through the walker's body as he tumbled uncontrollably to the floor across my leg it was clear that Rebekah had put the weapon on its highest pain setting. I fired twice more as I got the kwi into proper position on my hand, peripherally aware that all the walkers were shaking and twitching with the shared pain I was pumping into the group mind.
I fired a fourth time as I shoved the Juri off my leg and surged to my feet. I was barely vertical before I had to duck to the side to avoid a Halka who had managed to keep enough control of his body to throw himself at me. He slammed face-first into the stack of crates I'd been seated against, sending another ripple of pain through the mind. I fired one last jolt on the pain setting, then switched the kwi to its full knockout setting.
It was, to use the old phrase, like shooting ducks on the water. The walkers tried desperately to scatter, but the pain throbbing through their individual nervous systems had reduced their muscles to twitching jelly and their escape efforts into something halfway between laughable and pathetic. I strode among them, sending them one by one off to dreamland, occasionally shifting back to pain setting just to make sure those still conscious wouldn't recover enough to mount some kind of counterattack.
Three minutes later, it was all over.
Bayta was still standing by the crate stack where I'd left her, her face tight, her right wrist cradled in her left hand. "You all right?" I asked her, nudging back her fingers so I could get a look at her wrist.
"Mostly," she said, wincing. "I think it might be broken."