Quadrail 01 Night Train to Rigel by Timothy Zahn

Author:Timothy Zahn [Zahn, Timothy]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2011-04-01T02:06:10+00:00

FOURTEEN :

The morning work crews dribbled into the ready room as I sat on the far side of a nearby lounge pretending to read the latest Quadrail-delivered Intragala News. Promptly at six-two-thirds, they came out again in a group, forty-five of them, all properly vac-suited, and made their way out the airlock in groups of four. I waited another third of an hour to make sure there weren’t any stragglers, then tucked my reader into my side pocket and casually wandered over and slipped through the door.

Ten minutes later, attired in a vac suit only slightly too large for me, my faceplate darkened enough to hide my features, I followed them onto the ice.

I headed up the hills along the line of red pylons, listening to the Halkan chatter coming through the helmet speaker. All the discussion seemed to be about the two new toboggan tunnels, but as I flipped through the various frequencies I discovered three more clusters of conversation. Apparently, there were a lot of Halkas out on the surface today.

But wherever they were, they were keeping out of sight. Aside from a group of lodge guests heading toward the ski slopes, I saw no one until I came within view of the new tunnels. There, in the staging area between the openings, were a pair of workers, one handling a spurting drain hose, the other squatting by an open pump and fiddling with the equipment inside.

I started down the slope, making my stride and gait as much like a Halka’s as I could. From the number of voices and names I could pick out of the chatter, I estimated there were fifteen to twenty other workers at the site. That should be enough of a crowd for me to lose myself in. I could burn a peephole through the ice with the plasma torch on my tool belt, have a quick look, and be out again before anyone even started wondering. A quick wink-and-wag, easy as pie.

Maybe a little too easy.

I studied the two workers in the staging area as I continued down the slope, quiet alarm bells starting to chime in the back of my head. There was no reason to tie up a worker on water-dump duty—a couple of anchor staffs, and the hose could take care of itself. As for the lad at the pump, he seemed to be doing more staring and poking than actual repair work. He did, however, have an open toolbox sitting conveniently beside him, which could conceal any number of unpleasant surprises. And to top it off, they were facing opposite directions, giving themselves a panoramic view of all possible approaches.

They weren’t workers at all. They were sentries. Apparently, my attempts at sneakiness had been a waste of time.

My first impulse was to turn around and head straight back to the lodge. But doing a sudden about-face would clue them in that I was on to the charade.

Still, there was no point making it easy for them.

I reached the staging area; but instead of heading into the north tunnel, I turned to the south.

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