by Timothy Zahn
“No,” Fayr said, shaking his head. “Something is still missing.”
“Maybe we can figure it out once we have the Lynx,” I said. “Earlier you said—”
I broke off as his left hand suddenly snapped up in a gesture for silence. He spun to face the archway leading out of our gallery into the rest of the museum, his Rontra popping into view from beneath the concealing poncho.
I resisted the urge to make extraneous noise by hauling out my own gun, opting instead to freeze in place and listen. The typical sounds of a large, mostly hollow, mostly deserted building whispered across my ears.
And then my ears and brain edited out the background noise, and I heard the slow, measured footsteps coming our way.
Bayta heard the footsteps, too. She turned back toward Fayr and me, her eyes wide with sudden urgency. I motioned for her to stay put, and got a grip on my gun. The footsteps came closer …
“Compton?” a familiar voice called softly from somewhere beyond the archway.
It was Gargantua.
Fayr threw me a sideways look. I threw him one back, making sure mine had a little curdle to it. So much for his sunburst grenade knocking Gargantua and the other Halkan walker out of the game for the rest of the night.
“Compton?” Gargantua called again, a little louder this time. “Please come out. I plan no action against you, but wish merely to talk.”
Bayta was shaking her head, pointing insistently at the service door we’d used on our way in. I looked at Fayr again, saw my own ambivalence reflected there. Bayta’s choice of a fast cut and run seemed the logical response. Certainly it would be the smart military move.
But if the Modhri wanted to take us, he would have cops surrounding the building by now. Actually, he would probably have had them lobbing in sleep gas already. Chances were good that, for once, he was telling the truth.
Fayr was still waiting for my call. Keeping hold of my gun, I gave Bayta a reassuring smile and made my way across the gallery. Carefully, I peeked around the corner.
I was looking into another gallery, this one every bit as elegant as the one I was standing in. More elegant, actually, since no one had set off a bomb in the middle of it.
Seated on one of the contemplation benches about twenty meters away was Gargantua.
He was, to put it bluntly, a mess. His eyes were heavily bandaged, the bandage riding over the top curve of his snout and half covering his ears. The facial skin the bandage didn’t cover had gone a deep purple, the Halkan version of serious sunburn. Gripped in his hands was a sensor cane, its bottom end planted firmly in the softfloor, its aperture swiveling back and forth across the width of my archway.
“Hello, Modhri,” I greeted him as I came the rest of the way around the corner. “You’re looking good.”
“You lie,” Gargantua said calmly. The hand resting on the top of the cane rotated a little, swiveling the sensor aperture to point directly at me. “A very effective weapon, that.”
“Especially against someone like you who shares pain and all the other unpleasantries of life,” I agreed. “How are you doing with the Tra’ho’seej vertigo? I notice you decided to sit down.”
His lips curled back to reveal his teeth. “I’m not in a position to force you to my will, if that’s what you mean,” he said. “Still, never forget that I can eliminate that particular effect whenever I choose.”
Translation: at any point the Modhri colonies inside the Tra’ho’seej could simply kill themselves and their hosts, eliminating the vertigo flowing through the local Modhri mind segment by eliminating the central nervous systems that were generating it. Rather like curing dandruff by cutting off your head, except that in this case it would actually work. “I don’t think that would be a good idea,” I pointed out. “By my count, you’re down to two functioning walkers at the moment.”
“That, too, is easily changed,” he said. “But I didn’t come here to talk about me. I came to talk about your Human friends.”
I felt a lump rise into my throat. Penny … “How are they doing?”
“They are in pain,” the Modhri said. “Also frightened. Also very angry.”
I grimaced before I could catch myself. “I imagine so,” I agreed, wondering fleetingly what kind of visual resolution he was getting from his cane. With Humans, it took a month or more of practice before the brain learned to read the input stream well enough to decipher faces and read expressions. I didn’t know how long that adaptation took with Halkas, and had even less of an idea how long it took with the Modhri.
Apparently not as long as I would have liked. “You seem distressed,” he said.
“I’ve seen you in action,” I reminded him. “I dislike the thought of any civilized being falling into your hands.”
“As well you should,” he said coldly. “But at the moment there is no need for concern. The only damage perpetrated on either of them was that inflicted by the Human McMicking.”
“Who?” I asked innocently.
And this time I did manage to keep my face from giving anything away. So the Modhri thought it was Larry Hardin’s troubleshooter Bruce McMicking who had thrown the sunburst grenade, and not the rogue Belldic commando Korak Fayr. A reasonable mistake for him to have made, and one that might prove to be useful.
“Do not play innocent,” Gargantua admonished me. “I saw him throw that grenade.”
“Actually, all you saw was a street drifter fumbling with something,” I corrected him. “You never saw the actual grenade.”
Gargantua snorted. “This is a foolish lie,” he said. “I know you had no such device with you.”
“Do you?” I countered, raising my eyebrows.
For a long minute he remained silent, his face turned to me as if he was trying to stare straight through his bandages into my mind.
Because I was right. All he actually knew was that he’d had me under surveillance since before we’d left the Quadrail, and that I hadn’t had a chance to pick up any military hardware along the way.
And of course, he knew that no one was permitted to carry such things aboard a Quadrail.
But he also knew that I was in league with the Spiders … and allies of the Spiders might operate under entirely different rules.
“I know what I saw,” he said at last. “But even with the Human McMicking’s aid, it will not be possible for you to locate the other Humans.” His face hardened. “I would presume you won’t wish the Ghonsilya authorities to call you in to identify the Human Auslander’s body.”
He was bluffing, of course. We both knew that. He couldn’t afford to damage the only levers he had to use against me.
But even so I still felt a tingle of dread ripple through me at the thought of what he might do to Penny.
And we also both knew that I couldn’t and wouldn’t let anything happen to her. “There won’t be any need for that,” I said between dry lips. “There’s an art auction scheduled here for tomorrow evening. Bring Morse and Ms. Auslander with you.”
He leaned the cane a little toward me, as if trying to read my face. “You have the Lynx?”
“I will by then,” I promised. “A straight trade: the Humans for the Lynx.”
“I accept,” he said. “But be warned. If you don’t have the Lynx, things will not go well for your friends.”
“I’ll keep that in mind,” I said. “There’s just one more thing, then. Since I can’t have you following me—”
He never even had time to react as I pulled out my gun and shot him.
He slumped limply over the back of the bench, his cane thudding to the softfloor, as the snoozer’s drug hit his bloodstream and knocked him cold. Mindful of what Fayr had once told me about a Modhran colony’s resistance to such drugs, I fired again, then put a third snoozer into him just to be on the safe side. Slipping the gun back beneath my poncho, keeping an eye on the archways leading off into other sections of the museum, I gave his clothing a quick search.
I’d had some faint hope that
the Modhri might have been careless enough to let Gargantua head off to our meeting with a hotel key or other significant clue on his person. But no such luck. Nothing in his pockets gave any indication of where he might have Penny and Morse hidden.
Keeping an eye on him over my shoulder, I returned to the other gallery. Fayr and Bayta had moved to the edge of the archway in my absence, no doubt the better to eavesdrop on the conversation. I gave them a thumbs-up, a finger across the lips for continued silence, and gestured toward the exit.
Five minutes later, we were back out in the rain, making our way across the museum grounds. I’d half expected the Modhri to have stationed his other Halkan soldier out here as backup, just in case I pulled something on Gargantua. But there was no sign of anyone hanging around, and neither Fayr’s sensors or the ones in my gimmicked reader indicated any evidence of electronic surveillance focused on us.
It retrospect, I decided I wasn’t really surprised the other Halka wasn’t here. Locking up a trained ESS agent like Morse somewhere was tricky enough without having to trust him to stay that way on his own. The Modhri had apparently decided keeping tabs on me was less important than making sure he held on to his bargaining chips.
Especially since the only way out of the Ghonsilya system was through the Quadrail station. If I double-crossed him and ran, he knew where I’d eventually have to turn up.
We were out of sight of the museum building itself before Fayr spoke again. “Do you know where the Lynx is?”
“Not yet,” I said. “But now that we’re here, I don’t think we’ll have any trouble laying our hands on it.”
“And you genuinely intend to trade it to the Modhri for your friends?”
“We’ll see what we can do,” I hedged. “But before we can cross that bridge we need to find Daniel Stafford. You said you know a place where these artist types hang out?”
Fayr was silent for a few more steps. Maybe he wasn’t sure anymore whether to trust me or not. “There’s a place a short distance away on the other side of the museum grounds,” he said at last. “It’s called Artists’ Paradise.”
I turned to glance down a side street as we passed, the movement tilting my hood just enough to send a rivulet of rain into my eyes. “Sounds interesting,” I said, brushing away the water with the back of my hand. “Lead the way.”
SEVENTEEN
We continued walking directly away from the museum for a couple more blocks, then changed direction and made a wide circle around the whole museum area.
I also discovered I’d been wrong earlier about the neighborhood buttoning up for the night. Now that the dinner hour was over, the streets and sidewalks were starting to fill up again as the locals ventured out into the rain and their evening activities. The increasing number of pedestrians made it harder to be sure we weren’t being followed, but at the same time it offered more cover if we needed to make a break for it.
The neighborhoods themselves also began to change again, this time definitely not for the better. Whereas on the other side of the museum the homes had ranged from lower-middle-class pleasant to full-blown high-class snooty, the real estate on this side seemed to be sliding rapidly toward the opposite end of the scale.
“Not what I’d consider your typical paradise-type area,” I commented as we walked past a row of houses that were little more than closely packed shacks. “Who named this place, the same real estate fogger who tagged a frozen wasteland as Greenland?”
“This is not the Paradise,” Fayr said. He pointed two blocks ahead, to a large structure looming over the smaller homes around it. “That is the Paradise.”
I eyed it. Even from this distance, I could see that the building included a few hints of the same architectural style as the art museum.
But where that place had been carefully and lovingly maintained, this one had been allowed to go straight to the dogs. “I don’t see a lot of improvement,” I told Fayr.
“It looks like a theater,” Bayta said.
“It’s an amphitheater, actually, with a central, open-air performance area,” Fayr said. “The reference listing states that after it fell into disuse and disrepair poor street artists moved in. They turned the dressing rooms and equipment shops into their homes and studios.”
I nodded. It was the same move-in-and-squat technique the down-and-out had been doing for centuries, probably everywhere in the galaxy. “The authorities couldn’t get rid of them?”
“On the contrary,” Fayr said. “Over the past decades the authorities have created an aura of local attraction around the Paradise and its residents. Many artists, particularly offworlders, have journeyed to Ghonsilya specifically to spend time here.”
“They want to live there?” Bayta asked.
“I’m certain they’re surprised at what they find,” Fayr said grimly. “But by the time they learn the truth, many aren’t able to leave.”
“I don’t understand,” Bayta said.
“It’s a matter of economics,” I said. The Chahwyn who’d raised her, I suspected, had passed over many of the more sordid facts of modern life. “Artists come to Ghonsilya, lured by the Tra’ho reputation as art lovers and maybe stories and out-of-date photos of the Artists’ Paradise.”
“The first part is true, certainly,” Fayr murmured.
“Absolutely,” I agreed. “The Tra’ho’seej are certainly eager to buy up their art—that hotel lobby was loaded to the gills with the stuff.”
“Then I don’t understand the problem,” Bayta said.
“The problem is that the Tra’ho’seej probably don’t pay very much,” I told her. “If they keep the prices low—and there are any number of ways to do that—then the artists end up stuck. They have to keep cranking out artwork to survive, but are never quite able to scrape together enough money to pull up stakes and go somewhere else.”
“I’ve heard that some of the poorest trade their art directly for food at the local restaurants and markets,” Fayr said.
“Where again the buyer gets to set the exchange rate,” I said. “When love turns to obsession.”
Bayta gave me an odd look. “What?”
“Art-loving becoming art-obsession,” I clarified.
“Oh,” Bayta said, the odd look not going away. “I thought you were talking about … never mind. But surely not all their work is traded by barter.”
“The more expensive pieces are sold directly to customers,” Fayr said. “In fact, many of the transactions take place right here in the Paradise.” He looked around at the lower-class Tra’ho’seej milling around. “Though only during the daylight hours.”
“We can’t afford to wait,” I told him. “With all those Tra’ho walkers lying in bed watching their ceilings spin around, the local Modhri mind segment is as weak and inattentive as it’s likely to get. We need to find Stafford tonight.”
“You believe he’s in the Paradise?” Fayr asked.
“If he’s not, he should be,” I told him. “If you want to find art, go where the artists are. If you really want to find art, live where the artists live.”
Fayr lifted his head to look at the top of the dilapidated building. “There’s a great deal of area here for three people to search,” he commented. “We’d best get started.”
“Right,” I said. “He’s my species. Let me do the talking.”
The Paradise main entrance was a large archway of the same style as the ones we’d seen in the art museum. Leading inward from the archway was an entrance tunnel lined by closed doors and a number of shabbily dressed Tra’ho’seej. Most of the loiterers were sitting around talking, inhaling aromatic censer smoke, or moodily watching everyone else. The tunnel also had a double row of light fixtures set about head height, but only one light in six or seven was actually lit. “I can see why the buyers only come during the day,” I murmured.
I’d barely finished the comment when a group of five Tra’ho youths leaning against the tunnel fifteen meters ahead detached themselves from their section of
wall and sauntered their way into a loose line across our path.
“Compton?” Fayr asked.
“It’s okay,” I told him as I studied the youths. All had long knives displayed prominently at their sides, but I didn’t see any of the telltale clothing bulges or strains that would indicate heavier weaponry. Focusing on the tallest of the five, I nodded a greeting. “Evening, young honoreds,” I called. “Is this the Artists’ Paradise we’ve heard so much about?”
[The Paradise is closed to business,] the Tra’ho said brusquely in Seejlis.
“All the artists have gone to sleep, have they?” I asked. “Nestled all snug in their beds, with visions of sugarplums and all that?”
[The Paradise is closed,] he repeated, dropping his hand warningly to his knife hilt. [Come back with the sunlight.]
“Sorry, but we can’t do that,” I said, watching his friends out of the corner of my eye as I continued forward. The whole group seemed a little confused by my strange inability to take the hint.
Which implied this was probably not just some random group of toughs looking for someone to rob. If they were, they’d be moving in for the kill instead of trying to wave us off. Guards, then, hired by the artists to protect them after dark?
If so, we might be able to work that to our advantage. “I’m afraid we’re running a tight schedule and have to be gone by morning,” I continued. I was about three steps away from the leader now, and his hand had wrapped around his knife hilt in preparation for a quick draw. “I’m told there’s a Human here who’s looking for the sort of thing we’re selling.”
His ears twitched with surprise. Apparently dealers didn’t come around at night, either. [What is it you sell?]
“An item one of the artists very much wants,” I said. “And is willing to pay a great deal of money for.”
That one got an ear twitch from all five of them. A Paradise artist with spare cash was probably something of a rarity.
For a gang of lower-class toughs, it would be an extremely intriguing rarity. [What Human could that possibly be?] the leader asked. He was clearly trying to be casual about it, but there was enough body language going on to light up a small city. [There are no such Humans here.]