The Third Lynx q-2

by Timothy Zahn

  I nodded and looked around, automatically picking out the best dressed of the travelers milling around us. So far there was no indication that the local Modhri mind segment was aware of our presence. "Have the Spiders keep an eye on them," I instructed her. "Watch especially for any attempt to split them away from us."

  "Are you sure we really need them?"

  I took another, closer look at her. "She really got to you, didn't she?" I asked.

  "I don't trust her," Bayta said flatly.

  "Because she doesn't like us?"

  "Because she trusts Mr. Morse too much."

  "She's EuroUnion," I reminded her. "Morse is EuroUnion Security Service. Of course she's going to take his word over mine."

  "You do realize we still don't know anything about him, don't you?"

  I did, and it was starting to worry me. It had been over three days since the Spiders had sent my message to Losutu. There could have been a reply as early as Homshil; there certainly should have been something waiting here at Jurskala.

  But so far not a peep. Either Losutu was ignoring me—always a possibility—or he was too involved in his UN duties to bother with something this low profile.

  Or else there wasn't any data to be had on an ESS agent named Ackerley Morse.

  "We do know that he wants Stafford and the Lynx, too," I reminded Bayta. "For now, that makes him an ally." I raised my eyebrows. "Ms. Auslander is one, too, whether she likes it or not."

  Ms. Auslander didn't, of course. The suspicious look she sent Bayta and me as she and Morse settled into their first-class seats showed that abundantly. But she wasn't annoyed enough to walk off the train.

  Her friends—four girls and two guys—greeted her with the surprise and delight of someone meeting a long-lost cousin. Their enthusiasm faded considerably with the news of Gerashchenko's death. The train was barely moving before they all disappeared together into one of the two compartments, no doubt to hear all the details. Before we hit the thirty light-year mark, I suspected, there would be six more people aboard whispering together as they gave me dirty looks.

  It was just as well, I reflected, that government service had given me such thick skin.

  Meanwhile, I had more urgent matters to attend to. Settling our seats into one of the car's corners, Bayta and I once again began to monitor the comings and goings from the compartment car ahead.

  The walkers, as I'd surmised, had changed, with none of the original Gang of Fifteen aboard. But the Modhri's basic strategy seemed to have remained the same. Once again, we were able to account for nearly everyone in there as they made their individual and group sorties to the dining car for food and drink. Once again, we observed meals being brought up from the rear.

  But where the Gang of Fifteen had had two of their number on permanent guard duty, this batch of escorts seemed to have only one.

  "Not really surprising," I told Bayta as we compared notes in the bar. "On the first leg of the trip, the one from Bellis. the Modhri had time to plan everything out and make sure he got connecting compartments. This time, with the scramble to send the Hawk in a new direction, he had to take pot luck."

  "I'm not sure how that's going to help us," Bayta said doubtfully. "As long as there's still a walker in there we're not going to get in."

  "It's going to help because there are now two ways into the compartment instead of one," I said. "The connecting wall locks from both sides, right?"

  She was starting to get that suspicious look again. "Yes," she said cautiously.

  "All handled electronically?"

  "Yes."

  "And if there was a brief power outage, what would the default setting be?"

  Her look changed from suspicious to aghast. "No," she said firmly. "Not a chance."

  "Why not?" I asked. "Don't walkers sleep?"

  "The walkers sleep," she said. "I'm not so sure about the polyp colonies inside them."

  "We'll just have to chance it," I said.

  "Frank, you can't—" She broke off, her eyes abruptly glazing over.

  "Bayta?" I asked, resisting the impulse to wave my hand in front of her face like they always do in old dit rec dramas. Instead, I gave the bar a quick sweep, then shifted my attention to the corridor. There was nothing out of the ordinary that I could see.

  Abruptly Bayta's eyes came back. "Come on," she said, standing up and heading for the corridor.

  But instead of turning forward toward our seats, she headed aft. "Where are we going?" I asked.

  "Just come."

  She led the way through the other first-class car, through the second-class section, and into third. We kept going, passing the Humans and aliens reading or talking or dozing in their seats, and into the first baggage car.

  "We're starting to run out of train," I warned Bayta as she led us through the meandering passageway that led between the stacks of safety-webbed crates. "What are we looking for, anyway?"

  "We're not looking for anything," she said over her shoulder as we went through the door and vestibule and entered the second baggage car.

  And now we really had run out of train. "What now?" I asked as she finally came to a halt a few steps inside the car.

  "We wait," she said. Sitting down, she rested her back against the nearest crate and closed her eyes.

  Thirty seconds later, while I was still looking around for some clue as to what we were doing here, there was a gentle lurch and my inner ear told me we were gradually but definitely slowing down. "Have we just been disconnected from the train?" I asked carefully.

  Before Bayta could answer there was a second lurch, a stronger one this time, and the gradual deceleration switched back to an equally gradual acceleration. "Uh-oh," I muttered.

  Bayta nodded, her eyes still closed, tension lines tightening her cheeks. "The Chahwyn want to talk to you."

  The first time I'd had this particular detached-car trick pulled on me I'd been gassed and unconscious for most of the trip. Now, fully awake and alert, I decided being unconscious had definitely been the better way to go. Standing around a Quadrail baggage car, watching the stacks of crates swaying inside their webbing as we went around slight curves, was breathtakingly boring.

  Which meant nearly a hundred percent of my available brain power could concentrate on the unpleasant question of what the Chahwyn had up their sleeves for me this time.

  Fortunately, they'd timed things so that the trip didn't take very long. We'd been trundling along for no more than twenty minutes when I again sensed that we were starting to slow down. Five minutes after that, with the usual creak of brakes, we came to a halt. "We're here, dear," I said to Bayta as she got back to her feet. "You want to get the luggage while I see about a rental?"

  "This isn't a joke, Frank," she warned as we moved to the door near the front of the car. "Behave yourself."

  The door irised open as we reached it, and as we stepped out onto the platform I found that we were in one of the Spiders' secret sidings: smaller than a standard station, with only four sets of tracks and lots of drab, functional-looking support buildings. Bayta walked us past the engine that had pushed us here, leading the way to one of the smaller buildings.

  Inside, seated at the far end of the typical three-chair triangle setup and flanked by a pair of Spiders, was a Chahwyn.

  "Hello, there." I greeted him. "Nice to see some of you getting out a little."

  "Sit down, Mr. Compton," the alien said in a grave but melodious voice. He extended a hand, the forefinger visibly lengthening as he pointed to one of the chairs.

  Silently, I stepped to the indicated seat as Bayta took the third. The Chahwyn were a humanoid species with pale skin, mostly hairless except for tufts of catlike whiskers extending out from ridges above their eyes. Their limbs and fingers were long and thin, their facial features flat and bland.

  Or at least they were normally flat and bland. Their whole physique was so malleable that the only other Chahwyn I'd ever met had been able to pass himself off as Human, at leas
t for a short time. Like that first Chahwyn, this one was wearing soft shoes and an elaborately draped togalike robe.

  The two Spiders standing stiffly beside him were also tantalizingly familiar. They were of a type I'd seen on my first visit to a Quadrail siding, about the size of a stationmaster but without the usual stationmaster markings. I still didn't know what class they were.

  The Chahwyn waited until Bayta and I were seated. "We had not wanted to have this meeting, Mr. Compton," he said. "But the Elders have concluded we have no choice."

  One of the Spiders stirred and tapped its way toward me, and I saw now that it was walking on only six of its seven legs. As it reached me the seventh leg unfolded from beneath the shiny sphere and I saw that it was holding a folded piece of paper. "What's this?" I asked as the leg extended itself toward me.

  "The substance of a message between two of Earth's leading Humans of wealth," the Chahwyn said. "Read."

  I took the paper and unfolded it; and as I read I felt my eyebrows crawling higher up my forehead with each line. "What is it?" Bayta asked.

  "Apparently our good friend Larry Hardin is still sore about that trillion dollars we squeezed out of him a few months ago," I said, leaning over and handing her the paper. "He's sent out a lovely little chain letter warning all his trillionaire buddies to steer clear of me."

  "I trust you see the problem," the Chahwyn said. "Mr. Hardin's friends will tell their friends, and their friends will tell their friends, and so on."

  "And what, the next thing you know people will be pointing to me in crowds and asking for my autograph?" I asked.

  "There's more," the Chahwyn said. "I understand another Human has died violently in your presence aboard one of our Quadrails."

  "That wasn't my fault," I said stiffly. Having people turn up dead around me was definitely getting to be a bad habit.

  "Regardless, the result is that it raises your visibility," the Chahwyn said. "Your usefulness in this war is dependent upon your ability to remain anonymous."

  "Anonymous to whom?" I countered. "The Modhri's known about me for the better part of a year now. We've managed to muddle through."

  "Anonymous to those who might notice or detain you for purposes of their own," the Chahwyn said. "The purposes of Mr. Morse, for example."

  "I can handle Morse," I insisted. "And if it's anonymity you're worried about, just fix me up with a few false IDs. Names might stick for a while, but faces fade."

  "I'm sorry, but the decision is made," the Chahwyn said. "We will regret losing your services."

  I looked at Bayta. Her face was set in a tight mask. "What exactly are you saying?" I asked.

  "In the idiom of your people"—the Chahwyn's eyes flicked to Bayta, as if probing her mind for the correct phraseology—"you have been fired."

  ELEVEN :

  For a long moment I just stared at him, unpleasant memories swirling into view. Two years ago Western Alliance Intelligence had fired me for rocking the boat on the Yandro affair. Six months ago, Larry Hardin had done likewise, though for very different reasons.

  This one made three firings in a row. Another bad habit I needed to work on. "Bad idea," I said, putting on my diplomat's face. "This war is a long way from being over."

  "We know that better even than you do," the Chahwyn said, a little stiffly. "As I say, we'll regret losing your services."

  "You may do more than just regret it," I warned. "Not to be insulting, but I don't think you and the Spiders can handle the Modhri without me."

  "There are others with your capabilities," the Chahwyn said. "A suitable new partner for Bayta will be found."

  I looked at Bayta, my throat tightening. Somehow, my brain hadn't yet made it to the obvious conclusion that if I was finished with the Spiders and Chahwyn, I was finished with Bayta, too.

  She'd obviously gotten there ahead of me. Her eyes were locked solidly on a patch of floor midway between her and the Chahwyn, carefully avoiding mine. "You bring in someone cold and you could end up regretting it," I warned.

  "You were brought in cold," the Chahwyn reminded me.

  "And you damn near ended up regretting it," I said bluntly. "You can't count on being lucky twice in a row."

  "Bayta will know whether or not he can be trusted," he said. "You will be returned to—"

  He broke off, his head turning sharply toward Bayta. Her eyes, I noted, had now risen to his.

  And as they stared at each other in rigid silence, I had the eerie feeling that a battle was taking place.

  I gave it about half a minute before I decided I'd been left at the kiddy table long enough. "Excuse me," I spoke up. "I hate to break in on a private conversation, but I think I can demonstrate that you need me, and not just some random leftover Intelligence hack."

  With an effort, the Chahwyn pulled his gaze away from Bayta. "There is nothing more you can say," he said, an edge of annoyance audible beneath the music of his voice. Probably as close to actual violence as a Chahwyn could get. "We'll regret losing—"

  "Yes, you said that already," I growled. "A word of advice: take a good look at the nine-pack of Lynx, Hawk, and Viper sculptures that were dug up on the Nemuti planet Veerstu a couple hundred years ago."

  "The Spiders have already concluded such a study," the Chahwyn said. "It has been delivered to you."

  "Yes, I read it," I said. "Now I'm telling you to do one."

  The eye-ridge tufts twitched. "What exactly do you expect us to find?"

  "I don't know," I said patiently. "That's why I want you to do the study."

  "You must at least have a theory."

  I'd already spun Unpleasant Theory Number One for Bayta, the idea that the Modhri might be planning to barter the Nemuti collection for a new homeland. Time to trot out Unpleasant Theory Number Two. "I'm simply wondering if there might be something in the sculptures—some rare mineral or enzyme or something—that would allow Modhran coral to grow in something besides arctic-temperature water."

  I heard Bayta's breath catch. I couldn't blame her. If the Modhri could create a homeland without that restriction, the oceans of the galaxy would literally be open to him. He could go to ground, and we wouldn't find him again in a thousand years of trying.

  "We will search the records," the Chahwyn said. His voice was still melodic, but I had the feeling that some of the air had gone out of his tires, too.

  "I suggest you do it fast," I said. "So …?"

  I held my breath. But no soap. "You will be returned to your Quadrail and your service will come to an end," he said. "As already stated."

  I grimaced. Apparently he wasn't authorized to reverse Elder decisions just because I'd just done them a major service. Again.

  The Chahwyn looked at Bayta, and I wondered if we were about to get a rematch of their earlier staring contest. But he then shifted his eyes back to me. "You have one week to return to Terra Station," he continued. "There you will surrender your travel document to the stationmaster."

  My handy little diamond-dust-edged first-class unlimited-use Quadrail pass. I'd been hoping he would forget about that. "One week's not much time," I said, stalling.

  "It's more than enough," he countered. "One week." With that he stood and walked back to the rear of the room. A door opened, and he disappeared.

  "I'm sorry," Bayta murmured.

  "Don't be," I assured her grimly. "It's not over yet."

  We headed back to the baggage car in silence. One week, the time limit whispered through my mind. One week left of freedom among the Quadrail's interstellar travelers and the lurking and conspiring Modhri mind segments. One short week.

  It might just be enough.

  Five minutes later we were on the move. "What did you mean that we need you and not someone else?" Bayta asked.

  "Does it matter?" I countered. "They've made up their minds."

  Bayta's eyes were steady on me. "I don't want another partner, Frank," she said quietly.

  Unbidden, unwanted, a lump rose into my throat. B
ayta had made it clear that she considered me her friend, though I still wasn't ready to make such a commitment myself. "You've got at least one more week to be stuck with me," I assured her. "What do you think of this latest dollop of irony?"

  "Which irony is that?"

  "Hardin's little hate-mail campaign," I said. "Or had you forgotten Künstler's dying words?"

  Bayta's eyes widened. "Is that what he meant by 'he hates you'?"

  "What else?" I said. "Given the circles a man like Künstler traveled in, I should have thought of Hardin right from the start."

  "They must not have gotten along very well," Bayta murmured.

  "Hardin's an ambitious multi-trillionaire, Künstler's a rabid collector, and neither type likes losing," I said. "Your basic cookbook recipe for making enemies. Maybe I wasn't so far off with that crack about getting stopped on the street for autographs."

  "I'm sure Mr. Hardin has friends, too," Bayta said diplomatically.

  "And we'll do our very best to avoid them," I said. "Anyway, the point is that Hardin's round-robin diatribe is at least partially responsible for getting us onto the trail of the Lynx in the first place. That's the kind of intangible asset the Chahwyn aren't taking into account."

  Bayta shrugged. Clearly, she didn't see much benefit in having a trillionaire for an enemy, either. "What are we going to do?"

  "I still have a week of free Quadrail travel," I reminded her. "That should be more than enough to get us to Ghonsilya and find Fayr. The next move will depend on what he has to tell us."

  "What about Mr. Stafford and the Lynx?"

  I ran the question a couple of turns around my brain. Should I tell her, or not?

  Not, I decided. "If we're lucky, we'll be able to pick him up along the way," I said instead. "The line out of Ian-apof should take us to Ghonsilya with only one or two train changes."

  "I suppose we can do that," Bayta said, and I could see in her face that she was wondering what I would do if I was on Ghonsilya when the time limit on my pass ran out. Quadrail traffic, even back in third class, didn't come cheap.

  I didn't blame her for her unspoken concerns. I was wondering about it, too. "In the meantime," I went on, "we'll see about taking a crack at the Hawk the walkers are sitting on."