“I’m not a child, Frank,” she snapped. “Don’t talk to me as if I were. I’ve watched you enough times to know the kinds of questions to ask.”
“All right,” I said as calmly as I could. A fight right now wouldn’t help either of us, or the situation, in the slightest. “What kinds of questions did you ask?”
“I first confirmed that he did talk a great deal with Master Colix,” she said. Her tone was a near-perfect copy of a junior Westali agent reporting to a superior. “I also confirmed that Master Colix was able to speak both English and Juric. Apparently, Master Colix spent a lot of time talking to Tas Krodo about the Path of Onagnalhni.”
“The—? Oh, right.” I nodded. “Kennrick’s Path of the Unpronounceable and Untranslatable. Not entirely unpronounceable, I see.”
“Pretty close, though,” Bayta said, relaxing slightly. For all her stubbornly defiant talk about doing her own bit of investigating, she really had been worried about how mad I would be at her. “He also said that Master Colix had a dark brown bag of what he thought were some kind of fruit snacks.”
“He tasted one?”
“No, Master Colix never offered to share,” Bayta said. “But they had a fruity scent.”
“Sounds harmless enough,” I said.
“Yes, it does,” Bayta said. “But when I went to look for them in the overhead and underseat storage compartments, I couldn’t find them.”
I frowned. “The locked overhead and underseat compartments?”
“Those compartments, yes.” she said grimly. “Only by the time I got to them they weren’t locked anymore.”
“Well, now, that’s very interesting,” I murmured, picking up another onion ring and chewing thoughtfully at it. “Did you notice anything unusual about the locks? Any damage to the catches or scratch marks anywhere?”
“I didn’t see anything.” Bayta’s lips compressed briefly. “But I probably don’t know what to look for, do I?”
“You’d have noticed if the locks had been forced,” I assured her. “That’s usually pretty obvious. But the differences between key and keypick aren’t nearly so blatant.”
“Keypicks don’t work on Quadrail locks,” Bayta said.
“If something can be coded to be unlocked, somebody will eventually find a way to fake that code,” I said, picking up the last two onion rings and cramming them into my mouth. “That, or they’ll get hold of a copy of the actual key.”
“The passenger’s ticket is the only key.”
“So I’ve heard,” I said. “So unless the thief forced the locks, we arrive at the conclusion that he also absconded with Colix’s key.”
“Before he died?”
“Or afterward,” I said. “Dead people are much less argumentative when you’re going through their pockets.”
Bayta shivered. “Sounds awful,” she murmured.
“It isn’t high on anyone’s pleasant-activities list,” I conceded as I stepped into the half-bath to wash the onion ring breading off my hands. “But there’s still a chance that someone simply broke in. We’ll need to go take a look to be sure.”
“All right,” Bayta said slowly. “But why would anyone want to steal Master Colix’s fruit snacks? You can get things like that in the dining car.”
“Maybe you can’t get his specific brand,” I said. “Or maybe there’s some other reason entirely.” I scratched my head as a sudden ferocious itch ran through my scalp. “But one question at a time. Let’s figure out first how the compartments were opened. Then we can tackle the who and why of it.”
My plan was to first check out the late Master Colix’s storage compartments and then hunt down Kennrick to see what, if anything, he’d learned from Witherspoon about heavy-metal poisoning symptoms in Humans.
Like most of my plans these days, this one didn’t survive very long.
We were passing through the last first-class coach when we spotted both Kennrick and Witherspoon. They had pulled up a pair of chairs to face di-Master Strinni. Witherspoon was examining the Shorshian, who was gesturing oddly as he talked in a low voice.
And from Witherspoon’s expression, I could tell something was wrong.
The doctor glanced up as we approached. “Mr. Compton,” he greeted me absently, his mind clearly elsewhere.
“Dr. Witherspoon,” I nodded back. “We having a conference?”
“Not exactly,” Witherspoon said as he peered closely into Strinni’s eyes.
“Di-Master Strinni is feeling strangely stressed and nervous,” Kennrick explained. “He asked the conductor to allow Dr. Witherspoon into first to administer a sedative.”
I eyed Strinni. His muscles were trembling beneath his skin, his breath was coming in short bursts, and his eyes were darting back and forth between the four of us. He certainly looked stressed. “How long before it takes effect?” I asked.
“I haven’t given it to him yet,” Witherspoon said. “This is something more than simple stress.”
I felt my throat tighten. “You mean like—?”
“No,” Witherspoon interrupted, throwing me a warning look under his eyebrows. “The symptoms aren’t right for that.”
“What are they right for?” I countered. “No—never mind. Let’s just get him to the dispensary and see if—”
[No,] Strinni cut me off. His voice was harsh and dark and as shaky as his musculature. [I will not be poisoned by Spider medicine. The Spiders seek to destroy us all. I will not be placed within their metal claws.]
I frowned. Granted that I hadn’t spent more than a few minutes with him before now, such a rabidly anti-Spider attitude was still a surprise. “I’m just suggesting a visit to the diagnostic table,” I said. “They’re Fibibib design, actually—nothing Spider about them.”
[On such a table is where my comrades expired,] Strinni countered. [I do not wish to join them in the silence of death.]
“I’m sure their deaths had nothing to do with the table,” I said, deciding to skip over the fact that Master Bofiv, at least, had died long before he reached the table.
“And we won’t take you there against your wishes,” Kennrick added, his eyes on Witherspoon. “Doctor?”
“I don’t know,” Witherspoon murmured, touching the edge of Strinni’s armpit where the most prominent Shorshic pulse was located. “His pulse is thready, his skin conductivity is bouncing around, and he’s so weak he can barely walk. But what that all adds up to, I don’t know.”
“Seems to me that it’s time for a full-press consultation,” I said. “Let’s get Dr. Aronobal up here and see if she’s got any ideas.”
[No!] Strinni spat before Witherspoon could answer. [I will not be treated by a Filiaelian!]
“I’ve already suggested that Dr. Aronobal be brought in,” Witherspoon told me grimly. “But di-Master Strinni absolutely refuses to see anyone but me.”
[I will not be debased so,] Strinni insisted, his arm flailings widening their range.
“No one will force that on you, di-Master Strinni,” Witherspoon said, holding out his hands. “Please, try to stay calm.”
“We’re just trying to help you,” I added, catching Kennrick’s eye and giving him a questioning frown. Wordlessly, he gave me a helpless shrug. Apparently, Strinni’s freshly exposed bigotry and paranoia was a new one on him, too.
But my attempt at soothing noises had come too late. [You’re with them!] Strinni snarled abruptly, leveling two fingers at my chest. [You serve and obey them!]
And without warning he heaved himself to his feet, knocked Witherspoon sideways out of his chair with a sweep of his right arm, and lunged straight at me.