The Domino Pattern Read Free

from that, the layout was the same. Super-express trains might include a plethora of extra cars, but the basic passenger accommodations had largely been left alone.
    But there was something about the compartment that seemed subtly different. I took a couple of turns around the small room, studying the bed, the lounge chair and swivel computer, the curve couch, and the half-bath as I tried to figure it out.
    And then it hit me. The compartment smelled fresher. Fresher, cleaner, and somehow more sprightly.
    I stepped to the display window and looked out. The tracks in the super-express Tube were arranged slightly differently from those in ordinary Tubes. There were only six main tracks, for one thing, with the Tube itself being correspondingly somewhat narrower. A set of auxiliary service tracks paralleled each of the main tracks about five meters to the right, which the official brochure said were for tenders and other emergency equipment. That made a certain amount of sense, given the thousands of light-years we were about to traverse without a single station along the way.
    Still, I couldn’t help feeling an ominous undertone to the emergency-vehicle idea. I’d never heard of a Quadrail engine failing during a run, but just because it never had didn’t mean it never would, and with my luck it would probably happen on a train I happened to be aboard at the time. It would be bad enough riding for six weeks with a Modhran mind segment without throwing in an extra week sitting dead on the tracks waiting for a new engine to be brought up.
    There was a subtle puff of displaced air, and I turned to see the wall separating my compartment from Bayta’s sliding open. The curve couches on either side folded into the wall as it collapsed, the whole thing depositing itself neatly into the narrow space between our half-baths.
    Bayta was standing by the computer chair in her compartment, gazing out the display window at the crowds milling around Homshil Station’s platforms. “What do you think?” she asked.
    “About the compartment?” I asked. “Very nice. Smells fresh off the assembly line. Do they just build these trains from scratch when they need one?”
    “There are a few hours scheduled between cross-galactic arrivals and departures,” she said, still looking out the window. “The Spiders need time to unload and reload the cargo cars and to restock the food and supply areas. Because of that, there’s time for a complete cleaning of the passenger spaces instead of just making do with the regular self-cleaning systems.”
    She turned to look at me. “But that wasn’t what I meant. I meant what do you think of this idea now?”
    “What do you want me to say?” I asked. “That I suddenly feel happy to be aboard? I don’t. But I still don’t see any practical alternative.”
    “Not even with that man aboard?” she asked. “The one who recognized you?”
    I grimaced. “I was hoping you’d missed that.”
    Her eyebrows went up. “You were hoping I’d missed it?”
    “Only because I knew you’d worry, and that there was nothing we could do about it,” I hastened to assure her.
    “Except maybe find out from the Spiders who he is before we leave the station?” she countered tartly.
    “Touché,” I admitted. “Okay. Who is he?”
    She took a deep breath, and I could see her forcing herself to calm down. Even that mild touch of annoyance was more of an emotional display than she usually seemed comfortable with. “His ticket’s under the name Whitman Kennrick,” she told me. “He boarded the Quadrail at Terra Station, ultimate destination the Filiaelian Assembly system of Rentis Tarlay Birim.”
    “What about his four Filly buddies?” I asked, pulling out my reader and plugging in the encyclopedia data chip. “Did they all come aboard together, or did he meet up with them somewhere between Terra and Homshil?”
    Bayta’s eyes went distant, and I took the opportunity to punch Rentis Tarlay Birim into my