by Timothy Zahn
I looked around again as she began to work her way into the garment. Gargantua didn't wait for her to finish, but headed silently back to where the fourth Halka was guarding Penny and Morse. Either the Modhri wanted to keep him back in reserve, or else he'd decided that Gargantua's presence at Penny's side would be more of an incentive for me to behave myself.
Or maybe I'd hurt him badly enough that the Modhri wanted to let him recover a little before throwing him into battle again. I rather hoped that was the case.
I looked around us. Now that the non-Modhran spectators had dispersed, the streets were nearly deserted. Two streets away, I could see a couple of Tra'ho'seej walking arm in arm, young lovers perhaps out for a romantic stroll in the evening rain. Occasional vehicles appeared briefly as they crossed the various intersections in the distance, though none came our direction. Half a block ahead, at the mouth of an alleyway on the far side of the Fraklog-Oryo Hotel, a lone figure in a rain poncho and badly worn clothing had broken into a public trash receptacle and pulled out several of the compressed blocks. Two of the blocks had already been prodded apart into little piles of assorted garbage at the edge of the sidewalk, and he was laboriously poking at a third with a crooked stick, searching for food or buried treasure or God only knew what.
And at the edge of the nearest pile to us, squarely in the middle of the sidewalk, was possibly the last thing I would have expected to see on an alien world: a bright yellow banana peel.
Bring with you that strange but interesting gift of Human humor, Fayr had said in his message. The whole galaxy seemed to be either intrigued or outraged by what we Humans considered funny. And without a doubt one of the strangest and most outrageous forms of Human comedy was classic vaudeville slapstick.
Including the venerable tradition of slipping on a banana peel.
I took another, harder look at the scavenger's back. It could be, I decided. It could very well be.
And suddenly our odds were looking a whole lot better
Bayta finished settling the poncho into place. "I suggest you hang back a little," I told the two Halkas as I stepped to Bayta's side. "Stafford isn't likely to come out if he sees a crowd."
Neither of them replied, but in unison they took a step closer to us. It was about the response I'd expected. "Fine—have it your way" I said. Taking Bayta's arm, which was oddly stiff and unyielding, I started us toward the museum.
We were about ten paces from the hooded scavenger when he gave a startled little yelp, his hands bobbling something in front of him as if he'd suddenly come into possession of a bird that was trying desperately to get away. A second later the unknown object shot out of his grasp, arcing high over our heads.
And as every other eye in the area automatically swung to track its flight, I grabbed the back of Bayta's head and buried her face against my shoulder. Pressing my own face against the side of her head, I squeezed my eyes shut.
The blast was surprisingly quiet, not much louder than a kid popping a paper bag. But the intensity of the flash more than made up for it. Even through closed lids and with my face turned mostly away it was bright enough to make me wince. God alone knew what it was doing to all those unshielded Tra'ho and Halkan eyes.
Though perhaps the strangled gasps from our two watchdogs were a clue. Getting a grip around Bayta's shoulder so I wouldn't lose her, I veered sharply to my right, hoping to get us out of grabbing range before the Modhri recovered from the shock and got his Halkas hunting us by sound and touch.
We'd made it barely three steps when a pair of louder cracks, the sound of large-caliber killrounds, rendered the point moot.
And then a strong hand grabbed my arm at the elbow, urgently pulling me along. Cautiously, hoping he didn't have a second sunburst grenade already on line, I opened my eyes to slits.
It was Fayr, all right. The stripe pattern on his chipmunk face had been radically altered, and there were the first signs of age-graying on his cheek fur. But his eyes were bright and steady as he peered over his shoulder from beneath his hood, and there was no mistaking the professional steadiness with which he held the large handgun pointed warily past my side. Turning my head, I looked at the crowd of walkers behind me.
It was as if Fayr had lobbed a concussion grenade squarely into their midst instead of just setting off a sunburst half a block away. All of the Tra'ho'seej had dropped to the ground and were writhing on their backs in agony. Writhing in perfect unison, actually, with each to and fro and squirm duplicated by all of them. It made the whole thing look like some strange dry-land version of synchronized swimming.
Gargantua and the other Halka weren't in much better shape. They weren't exactly writhing, but they had dropped to their knees and were swaying back and forth, their faces buried in their massive hands. Penny was half collapsed on Morse's shoulder, her body shaking with silent sobs, her face likewise buried in her hands. Morse himself had his back to us, and I couldn't tell what shape he was in.
But it didn't really matter whether he could see or not. With the whole cadre of walkers incapacitated, this was our chance to get them free. "Wait a second," I muttered toward Fayr, leaning against his guiding hand to try to stop us. "We've got friends back there."
We didn't even slow down. Fayr was stronger than his diminutive size suggested. "Leave them." he muttered back. "Too dangerous."
"They aren't walkers," I insisted.
"Are you certain?" Fayr countered.
I grimaced. But he was right. In this shadowy war, you could never tell for sure who the enemy was. "Not a hundred percent," I conceded.
"Then leave them," he repeated. "The Modhri won't hurt them without cause. Besides, there is no time."
He was right on that one, too. The sunburst had lit up the sky over the entire neighborhood, and already I could hear the sounds of sirens as the police headed back to see what the hell had happened now.
Their reaction when they found out the government oathlings had managed to lose their Human prisoner ten minutes after I'd been left in their custody would probably be highly entertaining. But it wasn't a conversation I wanted to hear with my hands cuffed behind me. "You have someplace to go?" I asked Fayr.
"No fears." He gestured with his gun toward the next side street. "There." As he drew back his hand, he slid the gun back into concealment inside his poncho.
I took one last look at the two dead Halkas lying crumpled behind us on the sidewalk. We have much better magic tricks now, I'd told the Modhri earlier. Such as making a pair of walkers disappear forever. "Hey, presto," I murmured.
FIFTEEN :
The sirens were still approaching when Fayr turned off the sidewalk onto a garden path leading to the back door of a modest house on a block full of similar residences. He opened the door and slipped inside, leading us through darkened hallways to a windowless room in the center of the house. "I had this place prepared in my mind in case the Modhri should locate me at the hotel," he explained as he turned on a small flashlight and set it in the corner to shine against the ceiling. "The family is on vacation and not expected to return for five more days."
I looked around. The place was decked out like a cross between a conversation room and a traditional Japanese garden. There were a couple of couches and a recliner chair in the center, accessible via curved flagstone paths winding their ways from each of the two doors. One of the couches had a shimmery gray cloth, window curtain-sized, draped casually over one end. The rest of the room's floor space was filled with potted plants of various types and sizes, with concealed fixtures in their bases that probably provided a muted, understated light. "Interesting place," I commented.
"It's a contemplation room," Fayr said, crossing to the other door. He opened it, peered briefly out, then closed it again. "The design is Filiaelian in origin, though the Tra'ho'seej have adapted it to their own cultural personalities."
"They must spend hours just keeping the plants watered," I commented, looking around.
"I believe that's one part of t
he contemplation aspect," Fayr said, returning to the recliner and sitting down. "That, plus the maintenance and the observation of the plants in general. Are either of you hungry?"
"I never pass up a chance to eat," I told him. I reached for Bayta's arm, but this time she was having none of it. Evading my grasp, she took a step away from me.
Fine. Whatever. "What have you got?" I asked Fayr as I headed alone along the flagstones toward the center, leaving Bayta to follow on her own.
"The pack is under there," he said, pointing to the couch without the gray drape. "Take whatever you wish."
"Thanks." I sat down at one end of the couch and pulled a thin shoulder bag from beneath it. "Bayta?" I offered.
"No, thank you," she said, coming up behind me and seating herself at the other end. "We're grateful for the rescue, Korak Fayr."
"No fears," he said grimly as he inclined his head to her. "I'm always looking for ways to strike against the Modhri."
"I'm glad we have such an ally," she said. "But I wonder if we should perhaps move a little farther from the hotel."
"We aren't going anywhere until the police finish poking around out there," I pointed out. "Especially not with a double homicide to keep them busy."
"Yes; the killings," she said, her eyes still on Fayr, a little color rising into her cheeks. "I wonder if that was wise."
I glanced at Fayr, noting the hard set to his chipmunk face. That and the large shoulder-holstered guns beneath his arms. "I'm sure Korak Fayr did what he felt necessary," I said diplomatically.
Bayta didn't take the hint. "They were just walkers," she continued. "They aren't responsible for their actions when—"
"They weren't walkers," Fayr interrupted her. "Not anymore. The preliminaries have ended, Bayta. The war has begun in earnest." He nodded in the direction of the hotel. "Those Halkas were soldiers."
"Only under the Modhri's influence," Bayta persisted.
"What do you mean, soldiers?" I asked. There'd been something extra ominous in Fayr's voice just then.
"The Modhri has changed tactics," Fayr said, shifting his attention from Bayta to me. "He knows he can no longer rely on untrained walkers to suddenly act when necessary. He has therefore begun to build a cadre of dedicated fighters under his continual control."
I felt a shiver run up my back. "Zombies," I murmured.
"What are zombies?" Fayr asked.
"Something from Earth legend," I told him. "Corpses magically reanimated and under the control of the voodoo priest who brought them back."
Fayr nodded. "That is exactly what these soldiers are. The beings those Halkan bodies once contained are long gone."
"Are those consciousnesses actually dead, then?" Bayta asked. Clearly, she still wasn't ready to concede this one. "Or are they merely suppressed, the way any walker's personality is when the Modhri takes control?"
"Does it matter?" Fayr asked.
"Of course it matters," Bayta shot back. "In the first case all you did was end the Modhri's use of innocent beings he'd already killed. In the second, you're the one who killed those innocent beings."
"What about what we did on the Quadrail train after Sistarrko?" I asked.
Her eyes flicked reluctantly to me, a bit of color again showing briefly in her cheeks. "We had no choice," she insisted.
"Neither did Korak Fayr," I said.
"The situations aren't the same," she said. "If we hadn't killed those walkers, we ourselves would have died." She looked back at Fayr. "Here, we could simply have run away."
"Leaving them alive and free to create more havoc about the galaxy?" Fayr countered. He seemed more puzzled than angry at her criticism. "A poisonous grounlyve is also not responsible for its actions as a predatory creature. Yet when a gardener finds one among his seedlings, he kills it without second thought."
For a few seconds the room was filled with a taut silence as he and Bayta stared across the room at each other. Then, abruptly, Bayta got up from the couch and strode to the door we'd come in through. "Bayta, I don't think that's—" I called softly.
She pulled open the door and stomped out, closing it behind her. "—a good idea," I finished, getting reluctantly to my feet. "I'll go get her."
"She'll be careful," Fayr said, his eyes hard on me. "While she's gone, perhaps you'll tell me what the difficulty is."
"We're on the trail of a sculpture that the Modhri wants for some reason," I said. "He's also taken hostages—"
"Not your mission," he interrupted. "Tell me what the difficulty is between you and Bayta."
I grimaced. I hadn't thought Bayta's snit was that obvious.
But then, Fayr was a trained observer. "She thinks I've been unprofessional with a client," I told him. "Actually, the lady's not really a client. She's a—well, we just sort of fell in with her along the way."
"This is the female Human I saw with the Modhran walkers?"
"Right," I said. "As I said, she's being held hostage. The other Human you saw is—"
"Have you been unprofessional with the female?"
"What kind of a question is that?" I growled.
"A quite reasonable one," he said calmly.
"And it's your business how?"
"Do you and Bayta intend to walk out of here right now and not contact me again?" he asked pointedly. "No? Then a problem between allies is very much my business."
I sighed. It had been a stupid thing for me to say "I know," I said. "I'm sorry."
He inclined his head, wrinkling his chipmunk nose a little in acceptance of my apology. "Then tell me. Have you been acting unprofessionally?"
"I was just being friendly to her," I said. "For some reason, Bayta's blowing the whole thing way out of proportion."
The second part, I told myself firmly, was certainly true. The first part was just as certainly open to legitimate debate, no matter what Bayta might think.
"You must talk to her," Fayr said. "You must listen to her complaints and straighten out the coldness between you."
"Right," I growled. "In case you hadn't noticed, we're a little busy right now, what with the Modhri and everything."
"You will make the time," Fayr said, the weight of command in his tone. "Lack of trust and care between allies carries a risk more deadly even than the enemy."
"I don't know about that," I muttered. But he was right, and we both knew it. "Fine. Next opportunity I get, I'll talk to her. Meanwhile, why exactly did you call us here?"
"You mentioned a sculpture a moment ago," he said. "I presume, then, that you have heard of the nine Nemuti sculptures called Vipers, Lynxes, and Hawks?"
I nodded. "As a matter of fact, I happened to be with the owner of one of the Lynxes when he died."
"Of natural causes?"
"Hardly," I said grimly. "He was beaten to death. In a Quadrail first-class compartment, no less."
"Interesting," Fayr said. "The price for these sculptures continues to rise."
"Tell me about it," I said. "How come you know about them?"
"I was approached by a Bellido collector who had one of the Hawks in his possession," Fayr said. "He offered a great deal of money if we would obtain the Viper for him from the art museum here in Magaraa City."
I felt my eyebrows climbing my forehead. "You were going to steal it?"
"You disapprove?" Fayr asked stiffly.
"Not really any of my business," I hastened to assure him. "Even for commandos operating alone, a war is expensive."
"Especially for commandos operating alone," Fayr said, sounding somewhat mollified. Probably wasn't crazy about hiring himself out as a thief, either. "At any rate, I came here to examine the museum and its contents in order to prepare a plan, only to discover the Viper had already been stolen."
"Apparently by the Modhri," I said.
"Apparently by the Modhri," he agreed. He cocked his head. "But perhaps only apparently stolen."
"Meaning?"
"The scene of the event has not been changed," he said. "When the
additional police presence in the vicinity of the hotel has been lifted, we'll go there and you can see for yourself."
"What, now?" I asked, glancing at my watch. It was only a little past seven, local time. "They don't stay open evenings?"
"Normally, yes," Fayr said. "Tonight they've closed early."
"Handy," I murmured. "On the other hand, I did tell the Modhri I wanted to go there."
"Yes, I heard some of that discussion," Fayr said. "Did you genuinely mean it?"
"Not all that genuinely," I said. "It was really only a cover story, first so I could get a ways ahead of the crowd, and second to give us a reason to move into range of your bag of tricks once I'd spotted you. But the Modhri might not realize that."
For a moment Fayr pondered in silence. "I think he will," he said at last. "The Modhri has had a great deal of experience with your tactical methods. He'll surely conclude that the museum request was the feint that it indeed was."
"He might still plant a couple of walkers in the area," I warned. "He has plenty to spare."
"In actual fact, he doesn't," Fayr said with a sort of grim satisfaction. "Not at the moment. Tra'ho balance is strongly tied to their eyes and vision. For the next three or four days, until the effects of the sunburst grenade fade away, the Modhri's local walkers will be largely confined to their beds."
"That's handy," I said. "Of course, that still leaves the rest of the walkers he's got on Ghonsilya."
"If there are more," Fayr said. "There may not be. Ghonsilya is a small and fairly unimportant world, with few people of great wealth and power. It's entirely possible that he drew in his entire walker contingent for this occasion."
I scratched thoughtfully at my cheek. That certainly jibed with the low status accorded to Ghonsilya by my encyclopedia's planetary info listing. There was a local government, of course, but I'd already noted how many of the walkers were government oathlings.
It also jibed with the Modhri's known urgency regarding the Lynx. He'd had several hours to collect his troops, and there was no particular reason for him to have kept any of them in reserve. Especially since being stingy that way might enable me to slip away from him. "If you're right, it would just leave Gargantua and his remaining Halkan buddy in relative working order," I said.