“I believe you,” I assured him. Actually, I only believed him about eighty percent, but I wasn’t going to call him a liar to his face. “Any idea how it could have gotten into your system?”
His brief surge of passion faded away. [Perhaps it was placed within my food without my noticing,] he said.
“Perhaps,” I agreed. “Who have you shared a meal or drink with over the past three or four days?”
[Only the others of my contract team,] he said. [Those in first class, of course.]
“No one else?” I asked.
[Do you accuse me of lying?]
“Just double-checking,” I soothed. “Do you happen to know where Dr. Witherspoon is, by the way?” [He went for food,] Strinni said.
“For food?” I asked, frowning. Bayta and I had just come up from the rear of the train, and we hadn’t passed Witherspoon along the way. “When did he leave?”
[A few minutes only before your arrival.]
“He didn’t go back to third,” Bayta spoke up. “The Spiders are letting him eat in first tonight.”
“Ah,” I said, nodding. Unlike the third-class dining car, which was half a train back, the first-class dining car was just three cars away toward the front. All the same, I found it damned odd that Witherspoon would just take off and leave a desperately ill patient all alone this way. “He didn’t ask Dr. Aronobal to take over while he was gone?” I asked Strinni.
[l didn’t wont Dr. Aronobal to take over,] Strinni said, a flicker of life again pecking through the weariness. [I sent Dr. Witherspoon for his food, Mr. Compton. He didn’t abandon me, as you so obviously think. He’s already done all that he can for my broken body.]
“My apologies,” I said, not feeling particularly apologetic. Hungry or not, ordered out or not, Witherspoon still shouldn’t have deserted his patient. “If I may suggest, though, in a case like this two sets of eyes and minds are always preferable to one. I’m sure Dr. Aronobal would be happy—”
[I will not be treated by that Filiaelian,] Strinni cut me off. [I will not be so debased.]
He’d said the same thing earlier, during the drug-driven fracas in his coach car. At the time, I’d assumed it was the necrovri talking. Apparently, it wasn’t. “I understand your reluctance,” I said. “But still—”
“Frank,” Bayta said, touching my arm warningly.
Grimacing, I nodded and shut up. There was a lot of specism in the galaxy, lurking in the dark corners where supposedly civilized people didn’t like to look. In general, Shorshians and Fillies got along reasonably well, but there were fringe elements in any group. “Fine,” I said to Strinni. “I gather you don’t have any such reservations about Dr. Witherspoon?”
[Why would I?] he asked. [Dr. Witherspoon is part of our group.]
I stared down at him. “He’s what?”
[He’s a physician with Pellorian Medical Systems,] Strinni said. [He sat in with the contract team during many of our meetings, and travels now with us to Rentis Tarlay Birim to examine our facilities.]
“I didn’t know that,” I said, giving Bayta a quick look. Judging by her expression, this was news to her, too. “How come no one ever mentioned this to me?”
[Why was it any of your concern?] Strinni countered. [You’re not part of our group. Neither have you any official authority or investigative position—]
He broke off in a fit of loud, wet-sounding coughs. “Are you all right?” I asked as the coughing showed no sign of stopping.
And then, abruptly, the mottling of his skin dissolved into a chaotic flow of black, white, and gray as all semblance of a normal Shorshic color pattern disappeared. “Bayta!” I snapped, grabbing for Strinni’s arm as his body began convulsing.
“One of the conductors is getting him,” she said tightly. “Shall I have Dr. Aronobal brought up, too?”
“Yes,” I said. The hell with Strinni’s prejudices—his life was on the line here. “Where is she?”
“In her normal seat,” Bayta said. “Eighteen cars back.”
I swore under my breath. Eighteen cars was a long ways away. “Yes, get her here,” I ordered. Maybe Strinni was in better shape than he looked.
I had barely completed that thought when the Shorshian gave a final convulsion and collapsed into an unmoving heap on the table.
Not breathing at all.
“Get Witherspoon here now,” I snarled at Bayta as I grabbed the bright orange LifeGuard unit off the wall by the drug cabinet. I punched the selector for Shorshic configuration and hurried back to the table. “Here,” I said, pulling the arm cuff free of its holder.
Bayta took the cuff and fastened it around Strinni’s arm. “Ready,” she said. I made a final check of the breather mask I’d set over Strinni’s face and punched the start button.
The LifeGuard chugged to life. I gazed down at Strinni’s face, knowing full well that this was almost certainly an exercise in futility. But I had to do something.
And then, to my astonishment, Strinni’s eyes stirred and opened to slits. [Compton,] he murmured, his voice muffled by the mask.
I frowned at the LifeGuard. The device hadn’t finished running its diagnosis, but red lights were already beginning to wink on all across the display. This had to be the most heroic effort at last words on the books. “I’m here,” I said, leaning closer to him as I gazed into those half-closed eyes. “What is it?”
[Don’t desecrate …my …body,] he said, his voice fading until it was almost too soft to hear. His eyes closed again, and the lights on the LifeGuard’s display went solid red.
I looked at Bayta. “Don’t desecrate my body?” I echoed. “What in the world does that mean?”
“Probably that he doesn’t want an autopsy,” she said, her eyes aching as she gazed at this, the third dead body she’d seen in two days. “He’s a member of the Path of Onagnalhni, remember?”
“Right,” I murmured. “I’d forgotten.”
There was the sound of racing footsteps out in the corridor, and I turned as Witherspoon burst panting into the dispensary. “Don’t bother,” I told him as I stepped aside to let him see the unmoving figure on the table. “He’s dead.”
NINE
Witherspoon wasn’t willing to take my word for it. Or the LifeGuard’s electronic evidence, either. Silently, grimly, he set to work with analyzers and hypos and modern medicine’s magic potions.
In the end, he accepted the inevitable.
“I shouldn’t have left,” he said wearily, stepping over to the side of the room and touching a switch. A seat folded out from the wall, and he sank heavily onto it. “I should have stayed here with him.”
“He told us he’d ordered you to go get some food,” I reminded him.
“So what?” he countered. “I’m a doctor, not a servant.”
“No, but when your patient orders you away, there’s not a lot you can do,” I said.
“I could have ignored him,” Witherspoon said, dropping his gaze to the floor. “Or I could have stayed just outside in the corridor where I would have been available when he needed me.” He hissed between his teeth. “Instead, I was out feeding my face.”
“For whatever it’s worth. I don’t think you could have done anything even if you’d been here,” I said. “He already had too much cadmium in his tissues. We don’t have the facilities aboard to have cleaned it out fast enough.”
“I know,” Witherspoon said. “I should have been here anyway.”
For a minute the room was silent. I gave him another minute to mourn his companion, or to sandpaper his conscience, then got back to business. “Di-Master Strinni said you were part of his contract team.”
“Yes,” Witherspoon acknowledged without hesitation. “Though technically, Mr. Kennrick and I are with Pellorian Medical, not the contract team per se.”