“Mr. Kennrick isn’t an investigator,” I said.
“No. but he seems to know something about you,” Witherspoon said. “Maybe there are some dark secrets in your past—”
“Just a minute,” Bayta spoke up suddenly, her eyes unfocusing. “Usantra Givvrac is in great pain. He’s asked a conductor to bring him a doctor.”
“You sure it’s Usantra Givvrac, and not one of the other Filiaelians?” Witherspoon asked, a sudden anxiety in his voice.
“I’m sure,” Bayta said. “But one of the other Filiaelians in his car is also feeling ill.”
“I’d better go,” Witherspoon said, gesturing to the Spider to hand him his bag.
“I’ll do it,” Aronobal said calmly, laying a hand on Witherspoon’s shoulder. “I have more experience with Filiaelian medicine than you.”
“You both need to go,” Bayta said. “A Filiaelian four cars back, Osantra Qiddicoj, is also calling for a doctor.”
“Four back?” I repeated, mentally doing my own count of the cars. “Di-Master Strinni’s car?”
“Yes,” Bayta confirmed.
Where Strinni had been poisoned with both heavy metal and a hallucinogen. Interesting. “Sounds like we suddenly have plenty of patients to go around,” I said, looking back and forth between Witherspoon and Aronobal. “How do you want to sort it out?”
“Dr. Witherspoon can treat Osantra Qiddicoj,” Aronobal said, already halfway to the door. “I will treat Usantra Givvrac and the other in his car.”
“And I’ll go with Dr. Witherspoon,” I volunteered, falling into step behind Witherspoon as he headed toward the door.
“That’s not necessary,” Witherspoon said.
“I don’t mind,” I assured him.
Witherspoon stopped dead in his tracks. “Let me make it clearer,” he said coldly. “I don’t want you along.”
“Sorry to hear that,” I said. “Let me make it clearer: I don’t give a damn what you want. You’ve got a sick patient. We both want to see him. You want me to stay here, you’re welcome to try and make me. Otherwise, stop complaining and get moving.”
He pressed his lips tightly together. “Fine,” he said. “You first.”
I rolled my eyes and moved into the doorway in front of him. “Bayta, stay here and watch di-Master Strinni’s body,” I said. “We’ll be back in a minute.”
We headed out, Aronobal hitting the corridor and branching left. Witherspoon and I branching right. “What is it with all this Filly stomach trouble?” I whispered over my shoulder to Witherspoon as we reached the first coach car and passed through the sea of canopied seats and sleeping passengers. “More heavy-metal poisoning?”
“It’s not acting like it,” Witherspoon whispered back. “But with gleaner bacteria in their intestines doing the bulk of waste processing and removal, Filiaelians are highly susceptible to digestive trouble.”
“Like Terese German?” I asked.
He didn’t answer. “I said—”
“I heard you,” he interrupted. “And I already told you my dealings with her are confidential. Quiet, now—we don’t want to wake anyone.”
We passed through the rear vestibule and entered the first-class entertainment car. From the faint reflections of flickering light I could see from the various dit rec cubicles as we passed, it was clear there were still a few night owls up and about. We finished with that car, passed through another coach car full of canopied seats and sleeping travelers, and arrived at last at Osantra Qiddicoj’s car.
Most of the passengers here had deployed their canopies, though a few seats contained Shorshians who, like di-Master Strinni, apparently preferred sleeping in the open air. Near the rear of the car, I spotted the soft glow of a conductor call light on one of the uncanopied seats. The scat itself was turned away from us, hiding its occupant from view, but I doubted that the call light was marking someone who merely wanted to know when the dining car started serving breakfast. “There’s our boy,” I murmured, heading toward it.
We were halfway back when I heard a soft thud behind me. Frowning, I started to turn—
Something exploded against the side of my neck, and the darkened Quadrail car went completely black.
I woke up slowly, with the nagging but persistent feeling that I wasn’t at all comfortable.
I tried to bring my hands up to my eyes to help rub them open. But the hands didn’t want to move. In fact, I wasn’t even sure where exactly my hands were. I tried turning my head to look tor them, but my head wouldn’t move either.
Was I paralyzed?
That delightful thought snapped me fully awake. With my heart pounding, I opened my eyes.
In front of me was an unrelieved curtain of dark gray, and for another horrible second I thought I’d gone blind as well as paralyzed. Then my eyes focused, and I realized that what I was staring at was exactly that: a curtain of dark gray. I was sitting in a first-class seat with the sleep canopy deployed around me.
And the reason I’d thought I was paralyzed was that my wrists, ankles, and forehead were taped to that selfsame seat.
I looked downward as far as I could. There were at least four windings of tape around each of my wrists, possibly as many as five or six. I couldn’t see my ankles or, obviously, my forehead, but I had no reason to suspect my assailant had been any less generous there than he had with my wrists.
Experimentally. I tried twisting my arms, hoping I could break free. Nothing. I tried the same move with head and feet, with the same lack of results. At this rate, I’d be pinned here like a prize butterfly until lunchtime tomorrow.
My gut gave one of its now all-too-familiar rumbles. The thought of lunchtime, or of food in general, was almost painful. I listened to the fresh growling, trying to figure out if this was the same problem as before or if my assailant had decided to go ahead and poison me while he had the chance. It certainly felt like I was dying from the inside out.
I stiffened, the sudden tightening of my stomach muscles adding a fresh burst to the intestinal turmoil lower down. There it was, damn it—so obvious I should have fallen over it. Dying from the inside out …
And then, outside my canopy, I heard something. I strained my ears, and the sound resolved itself into a set of quiet footsteps and the equally quiet but very distinctive tap-tap-tap of a Spider.
It was Bayta. It had to be. Clearly, I’d been gone long enough to arouse her misgivings and she’d grabbed a Spider to come looking for me. Feeling a surge of relief, I opened my mouth to call to her.
Only to discover that my friend with the tape had thoughtfully taken the time to gag me, too.
I heaved my shoulders back and forth to the sides, trying to shake the seat enough to catch Bayta’s notice. But it was anchored solidly in place, and I doubted I was getting up enough momentum to even disturb the canopy. I tried grunting through the tape over my mouth, but even to my own ears the muffled sound sounded pretty pathetic. Looking in all directions, I searched for inspiration.
And then, my gaze fell on the music controls by my left hand.
It was a long shot, I knew. Quadrail audio systems were heavily focused, precisely to prevent everyone else in the car from being disturbed by someone else’s music. I would have to crank it up to eardrum-damaging levels for anyone out there to even hear it.
But it was a risk I had to take. If I didn’t get Bayta’s attention now. it could be hours before one of the other passengers wondered why this particular traveler was sleeping in so late, and got curious enough to investigate. There were already at least three Fillies out there in serious medical trouble, with possibly more to come. Unless I got out of here, and fast, we were going to have more deaths on our hands.