by Timothy Zahn
"And don't forget your promise," Stafford added. "Whenever your friends get done studying the thing, I'd appreciate it if they would let me have the Lynx back."
"If they'll allow it, I'll deliver it to you personally," I promised.
"Someday you'll have to tell me the whole story of how you ended up in this war," Morse said, glancing around the station. "You and your sniper friend. Be sure to thank him for me, by the way."
"I'm sure he thanks you, too," I said. "Your timing was perfect."
"Actually, I could probably have shown up two minutes earlier and no one would have objected," Morse said dryly. "How did you arrange for him to be up there, anyway?"
"I didn't actually arrange anything," I said. "I just told him where we were going and the day and approximate time I expected us to arrive. He worked out the rest of the details himself."
"Except that you did know he'd be on the easternmost mesa," Stafford said. "I assume that's why you wanted us to come in via the southern one."
"I didn't know that was where he'd be," I said. "But that was the most likely place for him to set up shop. He would want the sun at his back if he could manage it."
With a squeal of brakes, the Quadrail came to a stop on the track in front of us. The conductors took their places outside the doors, and the exodus of passengers began. "You be careful," Morse said. He hesitated, then held out his hand to me. "I'm sorry for—well, you know."
"I understand," I assured him, feeling an unpleasant tingle as I shook his hand. "Good-bye, Mr. Stafford; Ms. Auslander."
"Good-bye," Penny said, offering me her hand. "And thank you. You and Bayta both. I don't know how we'll ever repay you."
I took her hand and gazed into her eyes, trying to rekindle the attraction I remembered once having felt for her.
But there was nothing. The Modhri-induced feelings were gone, and I found myself wondering that I'd ever taken them seriously at all. "No problem," I told her. "Send me an invitation to the wedding."
Her eyes flicked sideways toward Stafford. "We'll do that," she promised.
The stream of disembarking passengers ended, and the conductors called the all aboard. "Say good-bye to Bayta for us," Morse called to me as the three of them climbed aboard. I waited, and after a minute Penny appeared at the window of her compartment. She smiled and waved, I waved back, and she disappeared out of my view, probably to start unpacking. The conductors went back aboard, the doors closed, and the Quadrail was once again on its way.
"Any trouble?"
I turned as Bayta came up beside me, her eyes following the train as it picked up speed along the tracks. "No, everything went fine," I said. "What kept you?"
"I was making our arrangements." Resolutely, she pulled her eyes away from the departing train. "The stationmaster says we'll be contacted somewhere between Trivsdal and Ian-apof for the transfer."
"Good." The sooner the Chahwyn pulled their little detached-car routine and took the remaining Shonkla-raa weapon components off our hands, the sooner I would be able to relax. A little. "The others said to say good-bye. And to thank you."
Bayta didn't answer, but turned and started walking. "We'll be leaving from Platform Eight," she said over her shoulder.
I caught up and fell into step beside her. "Come on, now," I cajoled. "It worked out all right, didn't it?"
"Did it?" she countered.
I sighed. "Look. I know I behaved like an adolescent idiot. I also know that I hurt you, and I'm really and truly sorry. But you know now that the whole thing was straight Modhran manipulation."
"How?" she countered. "What happened on Veerstu rather disproved your theory that Agent Morse is a walker. Are you going to suggest next that all that manipulation came from one of the Halkan soldiers?"
"No, of course not," I said, taking her arm.
She twitched it away from me. "It's none of my business," she said, trying to hide the trembling in her voice. "Whatever you feel for her—"
"Felt for her, past tense," I said. "And whatever I felt wasn't real."
"It's none of my business," she repeated in a low voice.
"It's every bit your business," I corrected, glancing around. None of the other passengers wandering the station was in earshot. "Because Veerstu didn't prove anything. Morse is, in fact, a walker."
She spun, her eyes angry and hurt and shimmering with tears. "Don't lie to me, Frank," she said fiercely. "You hear? Don't ever lie to me."
"I'm not lying," I said, catching her hands in mine and forcing her to a stop. She tried to pull away again, but this time I didn't let her. "It's the only way this makes sense."
"Unless you really did fall in love with her."
"Would you get off Ms. Auslander for a minute?" I growled. "I'm talking about the thought virus that got planted in me on the Bildim train."
"Which must have come from the Cimma."
"Which couldn't possibly have come from the Cimma," I shot back. "We've been through this, remember? Morse had probably already set up the thought virus for me to go to the baggage car, only there was no time to embed another one strongly enough to cancel it. All the Modhri could do was throw in the Cimma and hope I'd think it was him."
"Then why did Agent Morse help us on Veerstu?" she countered. "The Modhri was on the edge of winning it all when he showed up. If he's a walker, why didn't he help defeat us?"
"Because we made a mistake, Bayta," I said quietly. "All of us. A huge mistake." I braced myself. "We let Morse see a Chahwyn."
She stared at me, her face suddenly rigid. "Oh, no," she breathed.
"I'm afraid so," I said heavily. "The Modhri doesn't know who they are yet, of course, or where they're based, or even what their relationship is with us and the Spiders. But he knows now that there's another player in this game. And he's desperate to know more."
"Desperate enough to play Agent Morse against himself?" Bayta asked, clearly still having trouble believing it.
"No, it's much more subtle than that," I told her. "Don't forget, Fayr and I both have military training, and the Modhri knows it. Trying to choreograph a battle without one of us picking up on it would have been way too risky."
I looked back along the Tube, just in time to see the last car of Morse's Quadrail disappear through the atmosphere barrier into the depths of interstellar space. "No, the Modhri colony in Morse is now in what's called deep cover. That means no manipulation, no suggestions, no nothing. Morse is free to do exactly whatever he would if he'd never touched the damn coral at all."
"With the Modhri hoping we'll eventually start trusting him," Bayta said with a shiver. "And maybe show or tell him more."
"With pretty good odds that we would, actually," I conceded. "We don't have a lot of allies in this war. He probably figures that somewhere along the line we'll have to call on Morse for more help."
For a moment neither of us spoke. "The Chahwyn will have to be told," Bayta said at last, turning away from me and starting to walk again. "They won't be happy."
"It's partly their own fault," I reminded her. "The one we met with should have had the Spiders close the door before he came out onto the platform."
"Not that dividing up the blame makes any difference."
"No, it doesn't," I agreed, looking around again. "If it helps any, it could have been worse. A lot worse. The Modhri might have gone bird-in-the-hand and decided that the weapons dump on Veerstu was worth more than possible future information on the Chahwyn. We might still have gotten out, but we'd have left him in possession of the area."
"In which case we'd have invisible weapons to deal with," she agreed soberly. "Maybe other things, too. All those Viper power supplies must mean the place was a supply dump for other equipment besides just the trinaries."
"And nothing he might have dug up would have mattered in the slightest," I said grimly. "If the Modhri had held on to the region, invisible hand weapons would have been the least of our worries."
She flashed me a puzzled look. "What do you me
an?"
I closed my eyes briefly, visualizing again the horrible revelation I'd had on that horrible morning. "Remember the Ten Mesas, Bayta? Specifically, remember the three big ones with those odd spikes jutting up from one end? Have you ever heard of something that geologically odd that nevertheless repeats itself so similarly on three separate rock formations?"
"No, I don't think so," she said slowly. "Some kind of Shonkla-raa cannon or rocket launcher, maybe?"
I shook my head. "Think about the Quadrail tender we rode on," I said. "Think about the way the loop gantries stick up at one end so as to bring the car's closest bit of matter a little closer to the Coreline."
She frowned in concentration, her eyes gazing unblinkingly into mine. And then, abruptly, she caught her breath. "Are you saying the mesas are—?" She looked furtively around us. "They're spaceships?"
"Why not?" I asked. "Where better to hide Shonkla-raa battleships than at a Shonkla-raa equipment dump? Besides, we've already seen the Modhran tendency to put all his eggs in one basket. Ten to one that's a weakness that came straight from their creators."
"Oh, Frank," she said, her voice shaking openly now. "If you're right …Frank, we have to destroy them. We have to get in there with explosives and destroy them."
"I wish to God we could," I said heavily. "But that's the very last thing we can afford to do."
"We can do it," she insisted. "Even something that big. We can find a way."
"You don't understand," I said. "We could certainly destroy this bunch. But what if there are more hidden somewhere else? We can't afford for the Modhri to even suspect such a prize might exist out there."
"But—" Bayta took a deep breath, exhaled in a strained huff. "No, you're right," she said reluctantly. "This just gets worse and worse, doesn't it?"
"Life is like that sometimes," I conceded. "A lot of the time, actually. All you can do is deal with the problems as they pop up, and hope the ones you can't solve don't pop up until you can solve them."
I dug into my pocket. "And speaking of solving problems …" I pulled out a small box and handed it to her. "Maybe this will help."
Frowning, she took the box and opened it. "Oh," she said, sounding surprised and puzzled and pleased all at the same time. "Frank, they're—they're beautiful."
I looked over her shoulder at the matching set of necklace and ear cuffs, their intertwined strips of copper, gold, and silver glinting in the light from the Coreline. "I'm glad you like them," I said. "I got them from that Nemut in the Artists' Paradise. They're sort of a peace offering."
"You don't need a peace offering," she said, pulling out one of the ear cuffs for a closer look. "But thank you."
"You're welcome," I said. "Are we …?"
"Yes, we're friends again," she assured me, slipping the cuff onto her ear.
Friends. Earlier, I'd wondered if perhaps I might have drifted a little closer to her than just friendship. But if I had, I had apparently been moved back out again.
But that was okay. Bayta was a good companion, and a good ally, and very definitely a good friend.
We could leave it at that. For now.
"Meanwhile, we can start solving one of our other problems by getting these sculptures to the Chahwyn," she said as she slipped on the other ear cuff.
So it was back to business. Typical Bayta. "Right," I said. "After that, maybe we should look into those crates of coral the Modhri tried to bribe me with."
"Definitely," Bayta agreed. "We can check with the Chahwyn and see if they've learned anything from the Spiders."
"Good idea," I said. "And that, I think, should be enough for our plate for the moment." I cocked an eye at her. "That is, assuming you still want to share the same plate with me?"
"Of course." She gave me a tentative smile. "If you still want me as a partner."
"Well, it's either you or a Spider," I reminded her, patting the pocket where I had my kwi. "And you're definitely better company than any of them are."
She winced. "At least when I'm not being jealous."
"Even when you are." I took her arm. This time, she didn't fight me. "Come on—we've got an hour yet before our train," I said. "If Nemuti bars stock lemonade, I'll buy you a drink."
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