by Timothy Zahn
“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.”
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“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.
“And they won’t be of much use to him for at least the rest of the night, either,” Fayr considered. “Of course, when it comes time for us to leave the system, it will be a far different story. He’ll have time to alert walkers from other worlds and bring them to the Quadrail station long before you can return there by torchliner.”
“One problem at a time,” I said. “What’s so interesting at the art museum?”
“You’ll understand when you see it,” he said. “In the meantime, who are Daniel Stafford and Daniel Mice?”
“Daniel Stafford is a person of extreme interest,” I said. “Both to the Modhri and to Earth’s EuroUnion Security Service.”
“How so?”
“I told you I met the late owner of one of the Lynx sculptures, a Mr. Rafael Künstler. The general consensus is that Daniel Stafford is probably the one actually in possession of the Lynx at the moment.”
The color in Fayr’s facial stripes seemed to deepen. “And Daniel Mice?”
“Mr. Künstler’s dying words,” I told him. “The Modhri believes that’s the alias Stafford is running under at the moment.”
“You don’t think it is?”
“I know it isn’t,” I assured him.
“Do you know the correct name?”
“Very likely,” I said. “I’m not entirely sure, but I think so.”
Fayr pondered a moment. “Perhaps we won’t need a name,” he said. “You know what this Human looks like?”
I nodded. “Unfortunately, so does the Modhri.”
“The Modhri is not particularly good at distinguishing between Human faces,” Fayr said thoughtfully. “At any rate, for the moment at least we have the initiative. We must do our best to reach the Lynx before he does.”
“For whatever that’ll gain us,” I said. “Best guess at the moment is that he’s already picked up all the other sculptures.”
“No,” Fayr murmured. “Not all of them.”
I was about to ask what he meant by that when the draped fabric on the other couch gave a soft ping. “Someone approaches,” Fayr said, his voice suddenly clipped and professional as he bounced to his feet. “Quickly—under the cloakcloth,” he continued, pointing to the drape with one hand as he drew one of his guns with the other. “I’ll get Bayta.”
He was only a couple of steps along the path when the door opened and Bayta slipped hurriedly back into the room. “There’s a police car coming this way,” she announced tightly.
“Under the cloakcloth,” Fayr ordered her, reversing direction back to the couch. Taking the edge of the cloth from me, he pulled it over and up. Bayta sat down beside me and he sat down on her other side, draping the cloth over all three of us.
And a taut silence descended on the room. “What is this?” Bayta whispered, gingerly touching the inside of the cloth.
“Cloakcloth,” Fayr told her, his voice low, his eyes on a row of small red lights built into his edge of the cloth. “It absorbs our infrared signatures and shifts them so that detectors will read us as Tra’ho’seej.”
“Clever,” I murmured. Of course, these particular Tra’ho’seej were supposed to be out of town. I hoped this wasn’t one of those areas where citizens had to register their travels with the local police database. “What about your own sensors?” I asked, nodding toward his row of lights.
“Passive detectors only,” he assured me. “Slender wires pressed into the ground in various places around this neighborhood. Virtually undetectable.”
The uncomfortable silence resumed. I looked sideways at Bayta’s profile, at her tight cheek muscles and her eyes focused on the piece of cloakcloth directly in front of her.
Make the time, Fayr had all but ordered me. And he’d been right. Conflict between allies was potentially disastrous. “Bayta—”
“He wouldn’t have hurt her,” she interrupted me, her voice as stiff as her expression. “He wouldn’t risk losing the advantage she gives him. You should have just kept quiet.”
I sighed. So now we had two problems to deal with. “You’re mad at me for caving in so easily?” I asked, deciding to deal with the simpler one first.
“The oathlings have already begun the search,” she said. “The effects of Korak Fayr’s sunburst grenade won’t interrupt that. By now probably hundreds of nonwalker oathlings will have joined the effort.”
“Good for them,” I said. “The more of Ghonsilya’s official attention is tied up looking for a mythical Human named Daniel Mice, the less they’ll have left to focus on us.”
Her eyes flicked reluctantly sideways toward me. “Are you saying Mr. Stafford’s not on Ghonsilya?”
“Oh, he’s here, all right,” I assured her. “Or at least, he was—it’s possible he’s flown the coop. But he’s not traveling under the name Mice.”
“A modification of the word, then?” Fayr suggested.
I shook my head. “I don’t think Künstler was trying to give me Stafford’s traveling name,” I said. “I think he was going for something else.”
“What?” Bayta asked.
“Think about it,” I said. If the Chahwyn were going to kick me out, Bayta needed to work on her detective and deduction skills. “Stafford’s supposedly been spinning his wheels through umpteen years of college, taking every class in the catalog, refusing to graduate, and meanwhile spending buckets of mo
ney along the way. What sort of parents put up with that?”
“Rich ones,” Bayta said. She still sounded cross, but I could hear a growing interest in her voice. “Agent Morse’s report said his father was one of Mr. Künstler’s business managers.”
“Who undoubtedly has better things to do with his money than support a lazy professional student,” I said. “But the report also said Stafford continues to have a good relationship with his parents, with no indication they’ve ever given him any graduate-or-else ultimatums.”
“Someone else is funding his education,” Fayr said suddenly.
“Exactly,” I said. “And once we have that, we can look at his course work with a new eye. Bayta, do you remember the list of the majors Stafford’s gone through?”
“Agent Morse’s report listed business, economics, electronics, medical technology, history, psychology, art appreciation, alien sociology, and advertising,” Bayta said, frowning in concentration.
“What do all those taken together add up to?” I prompted. “Considering especially that Künstler’s business empire includes medical equipment and a wide range of electronics products and services.”
“That Mr. Stafford is being prepared to be a manager of an interstellar business?”
“Bingo,” I confirmed. “Only he isn’t being prepped to be a manager. He’s being prepped to be the manager.”
Bayta swiveled around to look at me. “Are you saying . . .?”
“I am indeed,” I said, nodding. “The whole Stafford name and family identity have been a scam right from square one. Probably a deal Künstler worked out with his manager before Daniel was born.”
“Mr. Künstler wasn’t saying Daniel Mice,” Bayta said, her voice tight. “He was trying to say Daniel, my son.”
“You’ve got it,” I said. “Daniel Stafford is, in reality, Daniel Künstler.”
There was a long moment of silence as Bayta and Fayr did their individual siftings through the potential implications of that revelation. “We must make certain the Modhri never learns that truth,” Fayr said at last.
“Absolutely,” I agreed. Whenever the Modhri decided to make a full-bore move against humanity, the young heir to a trillion-dollar estate would be high on his list of potential targets. “A more immediate concern at the moment is that it will eventually occur to him that all he has to do is get the cops to haul in every Human on Ghonsilya for a visual check against Morse’s picture. There can’t be that many of us here.”