Night Train to Rigel by Timothy Zahn

said as a Spider arrived with our drinks. I handed Bayta her lemonade and took a sip of my iced tea. It was strong and sweet just the way I liked it. “It’s more likely that one of the Fillies’ neighbors will be the ones making the trouble,” I continued. “Serious grievances typically ferment close to home. Mostly, I want to see if the Jurian entry procedures have changed any in the couple of years since I’ve ridden the Quadrail.”
    She took a sip of her lemonade, her eyes fluttering with clear surprise at the tang. Her first experience with the drink? “May I ask why?” she asked.
    I nodded upward toward the bar’s slightly domed ceiling. Spread across it was a glowing map of the galaxy and the Quadrail system. “Here’s the problem,” I said. “The Fillies are all the way across the galaxy, about as far from Earth as you can get. Even if we take express trains the whole way, that’s still nearly two and a half months of travel. We simply don’t have the time to go there and start working our way back.”
    “We have four months.”
    “No, the Fillies have four months,” I corrected her “ We , on the other hand, do not… because the Fillies aren’t going to be the first ones attacked.”
    Her eyes narrowed. “What do you mean?”
    “I mean that whoever these warmongers are, they’d have to be insane to take on the Fillies first crack out of the box,” I said. “Filly soldiers are genetically programmed for loyalty, their overall defense network is second to none, and depending on who’s doing the counting, their empire is either the biggest or second biggest in the galaxy. Would you try out a brand-new attack plan on someone like that?”
    Her lips compressed briefly. “I suppose not.”
    “Following that same logic, the test subject is likely to be one of the newer, younger, and therefore less dangerous races,” I continued. “If we limit ourselves to those who’ve joined the galactic club in the last two hundred years, that means the Juriani, the Cimmaheem, the Tra’ho’sej, and the Bellidos.” I took a sip of my tea."And, of course, us.”
    For a minute the only sound was the muffled background hum of a half dozen different conversations and the click-clack of the Quadrail’s wheels beneath us. Quadrail dining cars, I remembered from previous trips, were acoustically designed in such a way that the volume and intelligibility of a conversation dropped off sharply half a meter away from the center of the table. It made for considerably more privacy than one would expect just from looking at the layout, which was why I’d been willing to talk about this here at all. “And whoever they decide on,” Bayta said at last, “they’ll need to make their test at least a couple of months before the Filiaelian attack.”
    “Right,” I said. “Which basically means any time from now on.”
    She took another sip of her lemonade. “All right,” she said. “But if it’s entry procedures you’re interested in, wouldn’t we do better to go straight to Jurskala?”
    “I don’t think so,” I said. “A homeworld station— any homeworld station—will be too crowded for us to get a really good look at their setup. A regional capital like Kerfsis should have all the same stuff, but without all the busyness. We’ll take the shuttle out to the transfer station, look around a bit, then come back, pick up the next train, and move on.”
    “To where?”
    “I’m not sure,” I said. “I’m guessing our warmongers will want a test subject a little more advanced than us or the Tra’ho’sej. That leaves the Juriani, Cimmaheem, or Bellidos.”
    She pondered a moment. “The Bellidos might be a good choice,” she offered. “They’re farther out on the arm than the Terran Confederation, which makes them even more isolated.”
    “Right, but at the moment we’re heading the wrong direction,” I reminded her. “Rather than spend time backtracking, we might as well continue on and check