“There’s no risk to anyone,” I said firmly if not entirely truthfully. “As I said, this is just a routine maintenance check.”
But it was no use. A low-level murmur was already rippling through the rest of the onlookers, some of whom had probably ridden this line before and knew that there was nothing routine about what we were doing. “If there is risk, we deserve to know the truth,” the Filly said firmly, his volume rising to a level that would reach most of the car instead of just the group assembled here at the rear.
“There is no risk,” I said again, letting my gaze drift over the crowd as I tried to think up an answer that would satisfy them. “But you’re right, you deserve to know the truth. If you’ll all be quiet a moment?”
I stopped, waiting for them to pick up on the cue. I could feel Bayta’s eyes on me, and her concern as she wondered what exactly I was doing.
I wondered what I was doing, too. Telling them there was a murderer aboard the train was definitely out—we could wind up with a riot on our hands, with nowhere anyone could escape to. But I’d had enough experience with rumor mills to know that if we didn’t give them something the situation would only get worse, possibly leading to the same riot I was hoping so hard to avoid.
Ergo, I had to give them some truth. The trick, as always, would be to figure out how much.
Slowly, in bits and pieces, the mutterings faded away. “Thank you,” I said. “I presume you’re all aware that two of your fellow travelers died yesterday.”
The last mutterings abruptly vanished. I had their full attention now. all right. I heard Bayta mutter something under her breath, but it wasn’t like the rest of the passengers wouldn’t have noticed the two newly empty seats. “What I’m doing here is checking for the presence of what are called after-elements,” I went on. “Those are bits of nucleic acid residue, antibodies, mucousids—the sorts of things that might have been exhaled by a person in his last battle against a lethal congenital defect.”
The Filly’s nose blaze darkened a bit. “A congenital defect? In both victims?”
“I can see no other likely conclusion,” I said, noting in passing his unusual use of the word victims. “No one else in the car has shown any signs of illness, which eliminates the possibility that they died from some contagious disease.”
I gestured toward a pair of Shorshians near the rear of the crowd. “It can’t even be something specific to Shorshians, since other Shorshians in the car haven’t been affected.”
“So you say it was a congenital disease,” the Filly said, his tone a hit odd.
“As I said, there’s no other likely conclusion.” I repeated. “Nothing for any of you to be concerned about. So please, return to your seats and try to put these unfortunate events from your minds.”
A fresh set of mutterings began to circulate through the onlookers. But the tone was definitely calmer, and at the rear of the group the passengers began obediently heading back toward their seats. Within a minute, the whole crowd had joined the mass migration.
Everyone, that is, except the Filly whose questions had gotten everyone riled up in the first place. He stayed right where he was, his eyes never leaving my face, as the rest of the passengers dispersed. “Was there something else?” I asked.
He took a step closer to me. “You are lying,” he said quietly. “If you sought a congenital disease, a proper investigation would begin with samples taken from the bodies of the victims.”
“I’d like nothing better,” I said. “But there are questions of religious protocol, and the leader of their group has prohibited me from taking direct samples.”
The Filly looked at Bayta, his blaze darkening a little more. “Perhaps that prohibition will yet be lifted,” he said.
“Perhaps,” I said.
He took another step toward me. “But should you discover a different cause of death.” he went on, lowering his voice still more, “I would urge you to let me know at once.”
“In such an unlikely event, I’m sure the Spiders will let everyone know at the same time,” I assured him.
“I would appreciate it very much,” he said, putting an emphasis on the last two words. “Even small bits of preliminary knowledge would be worth a great deal to me.”
“I’ll keep that in mind,” I promised. “If I should happen to learn anything, whom shall I ask for?”
He studied me another couple of heartbeats. “I am Logra Emikai,” he identified himself. “My seat is four coaches forward, in the car just to the front of the dining car.”
“Understood,” I said. “A pleasant evening to you, Logra Emikai.”
“And to you.” With a brief nod of his head, he turned and headed down the aisle toward the front of the car and his own seat four coaches away.
“Interesting,” I murmured, catching Bayta’s eye and nodding toward the departing Filly. “You catch all that?”
“You mean the fact that he just tried to bribe us?” Bayta asked, her voice stiff.
“Well, yes, that too,” I said, turning back to watch Emikai’s progress. He was moving briskly, adroitly dodging around the slower-moving passengers who weren’t in nearly so much of a hurry. “I was mostly referring to the fact that he seemed to know we’d already taken samples from Master Bofiv’s body.”
“How do you know that?” Bayta asked, her moral outrage at the bribery attempt starting to fade into fresh interest.
“From his reaction to my comment that di-Master Strinni hadn’t let us take samples,” I said. “The question is, how did he know? Okay—let’s see what he does.”
“With what?” Bayta asked, craning her neck to see over the crowd.
“Not with what,” I corrected. “With whom. Specifically, with Master Tririn. Or hadn’t you noticed that Tririn didn’t bother to come back here to see what we were doing?”
“Maybe he’s just tired.”
“Or he already knows what we will or won’t find,” I said. “Or he didn’t need to come himself because he already had a friend on the scene.”
“Logra Emikai?”
“Could be.” I said. “You have any idea what sort of rank logra is?”
“Not in that form,” Bayta said. “It could be a dialectal variant of lomagra, one of the middle artisan classes.”
“Or else it’s something new, something private, or something he made up out of thin air.” I said.
“And you think he and Master Tririn are working together?”
“We’ll know in a second,” I said. “Even if they just know each other, there ought to be some signal or at least recognition as Emikai passes him.”
But to my disappointment, the Filly passed by Tririn’s seat without so much as a sideways glance in the Shorshian’s direction. “Or not,” I said. “Well, that tells us something, too,” I added, turning away.
“Wait a second,” Bayta said, her voice suddenly urgent.
“What?” I asked, turning back.
“Logra Emikai’s head dipped to his right just there,” Bayta said. “Like he was saying something to—”
And right on cue. Terese German stood up and stepped into the aisle.
“To our young friend with the bad stomach?” I suggested.
“Exactly,” Bayta said. Terese made a show of stretching as she casually but carefully looked around her, then headed after the departing Filly. Logra Emikai reached the vestibule and disappeared inside, heading for the next car. A few steps behind him, Terese did likewise. “Coincidence?” Bayta asked.
“I don’t think so,” I said. “I’ve been assuming that when we were in the bar earlier she just grabbed the first likely-looking lug to protect her from me. The whole incident makes a lot more sense if the choice wasn’t nearly that spur-of-the-moment.”