by Timothy Zahn
"Never heard of them before yesterday," I told him truthfully. "Not until Künstler's dying words, actually."
His eyes widened. "Künstler talked to you? What did he say?"
"You first," I said. "Tell me about these sculptures."
His lips compressed. "There are nine of them," he said. "Smallish things, the size of your forearm or perhaps a bit smaller. They're very old, apparently from some vanished civilization that predates the Nemuti colonization of Veerstu. Even so, the art community doesn't put a lot of value on them." He tapped the reader. "I presume you read all this?"
"Enough to get the gist," I said, glancing over my shoulder as the door opened and Bayta slipped into the room. "I know about the attempted robbery and Daniel Stafford's mysterious disappearance. We both do." I added, nodding toward Bayta.
Morse turned a brief glare on Bayta. "What you don't know is that all nine of the sculptures have disappeared over the past year, stolen from various collectors or museums," he continued. "The last of them, one of the Hawks, was stolen from a Belldic collector just over three weeks ago."
"I thought the report said that the attempt on Künstler's Lynx failed," I reminded him.
"No, that group didn't get it," Morse said with a touch of impatience. "But it is gone. Odds are Stafford stole it, either at the time of the botched burglary, or else earlier, with the other attempt merely exposing its absence." He raised his eyebrows. "Curiously enough, in the five weeks since then Künstler never filed a missing-item report with his insurance agency. That tells me he knew where it was and thought he could get it back."
"From Stafford."
"Or whoever Stafford has sold it to," Morse said. "Unfortunately, there isn't enough actual evidence to issue a detention order."
"He is apparently traveling under a false ID, though," I said.
"Which we'll be happy to charge him with once we catch him at it," Morse agreed. "But we have to find him first. At any rate, when Künstler suddenly made plans to travel to Bellis right after the theft of the Hawk there we thought he might know something. Since Lady Dorchester already had plans to visit friends on Bellis, ESS put me aboard as her escort to keep an eye on him."
"Only Künstler never made it that far," I murmured. "Do we know if he had any communications from the Estates-General before he headed off there?"
"He received communications every day from all over the galaxy," Morse said patiently. "Barring a complete tap-and-strain, there's no way for us to tell if any of them mentioned the Lynx. Now, what did Künstler say before he died?"
"One more question " I said. "If you don't know where Stafford is, where exactly are you heading in such a hurry?"
"Stafford has friends," Morse said. "Eight of them are currently on their way to a ski resort in the Halkavisti Empire."
I looked at Bayta, noting the sudden tightening of her face. Our last visit to a Halkan ski resort had nearly gotten both of us killed. "Which one?" I asked.
"Carvlis Fang Mountain," he said. "It's on Ian-apof, one of the systems bordering the Tra'hok Unity."
Nowhere near Sistarrko, then. I started breathing again. "And you think they'll lead you to Stafford?"
"I don't know, but at the moment, they're all we have." Morse's lips compressed. "Unfortunately, they were on the express train that left an hour ago."
"Any of these friends particularly close to Stafford?" I asked.
"Penny Auslander," Morse said. "Twenty-three years old, daughter of the financier Charles Auslander of Zurich. She was Stafford's girlfriend all last school year, and there's no indication the relationship has cooled any."
"Really," I said. Penny's name had been the first one on ESS's list of Stafford's friends, but there hadn't been anything about them being snuggly. "How do you know?"
Morse smiled tightly, patting the side pocket on his slacks. "Not all the data chips end up in the data chip case," he said. "There was a set of follow-up information that came on its own chip."
"I'd like to see that."
"I'm sure you would," he countered. "Not going to happen."
I shrugged. We'd see about that. "Fine. What class are you traveling?"
"I have a six-week first-class pass," Morse said, his smile fading into a frown. "Why?"
"We need to know what kind of seats to get," I said. "Get your shoes and jacket and meet us in the lobby."
"Just a moment," he growled as he sat up. This time, he didn't fall over. "You haven't told me what Künstler said to you before he died."
"It wasn't much, actually," I said. "I told him who I was, he said he trusted me, then he told me about the Lynx—"
"Wait, wait, wait," Morse interrupted. "He said he trusted you?"
"Or words to that effect," I said. "He mentioned the Lynx, then he mentioned Daniel, then he died."
"Just Daniel?" Morse asked. "Not Daniel Stafford?"
Künstler's fading voice echoed again in my ears. Daniel—Daniel Mice. "No, just Daniel," I told Morse. "Now finish getting dressed while I get us some seats."
"You just get seats for wherever you're going," Morse said as he started putting on his shoes. "I can get my own."
"Fine," I said. Nudging Bayta, I moved us out into the corridor.
"Are we just getting two seats, then?" she asked as we headed toward the lobby.
"We're getting three," I told her. "We need to find Stafford and the Lynx before the Modhri does, and Morse has some of the pieces to that puzzle. I want to stay with him as long as we can."
"He may not like that."
"He's welcome to wait for another train," I said shortly. "First things first. I presume our friend Ms. Auslander will need to change trains at some point on her way to Ian-apof?"
"At least twice," Bayta said, frowning in concentration. "The first change will be at either Homshil or Jurskala."
"Have the stationmaster pull her itinerary and find out which it is," I said. "Then have him send a message ahead to the stationmaster there to keep her from getting on her next train."
Bayta blinked. "How is he going to do that?"
"Have the Spiders tell her there's some problem with her transfer," I said. "Or that her ticket record's been lost, or her ID's not reading right and they'll need to message back to Terra for confirmation."
She gave me the same look she'd used earlier when I'd suggested smoking the Gang of Fifteen out of their compartment with a fake fire. "I suppose they can do that," she said reluctantly.
"Don't worry, it won't go on anyone's personal record," I soothed her. "We just need to hold this girl in one place long enough to catch up with her."
"And then what?" Bayta asked. "What if she doesn't know where Mr. Stafford is?"
"Let's play this one move at a time, okay?" I said, a smoothly evasive way of saying I didn't have the foggiest idea. "Once you've got that in the works, see how fast you can get us moving after her."
Bayta's eyes defocused. "There's a local leaving in forty minutes, or an express leaving in two hours. Both of them stop at both Homshil and Jurskala."
"Let's try for the express," I told her. "Three first-class seats."
"You don't want a double compartment for us?"
"Homshil's less than a day away by express," I reminded her. "Hardly seems worth tying up two compartments for."
"I'd rather we had compartments."
I shrugged. "Fine. Whatever you want."
"Thank you." She paused. "By the way, Mr. Künstler didn't exactly say he trusted you," she said. "He said 'he hates you.' "
"Which is something we should probably avoid mentioning to Morse," I warned. "In case you hadn't noticed, he's the only one around who makes no bones about the fact that he hates me."
Bayta glanced over her shoulder. "You have any idea why?"
"I wish I did," I said. "Maybe I was part of some Westali operation that stepped on ESS toes."
But deep down, I knew that wasn't it. Morse's antagonism was way more personal than just misplaced professional rivalry.
Maybe there was a way to find out. "Can you get the Spiders to encode a message and send it to Earth?" I asked Bayta.
"If it's simple enough," Bayta said. "They'd prefer you to go to the message center and do it yourself."
"I'd rather not be seen at the message center right now," I told her. "Too many people might notice and wonder who I'm writing notes to. I just want a simple message sent to Losutu: 'Verify Ackerley Morse's bona fides—reply via Spiders.' Sign my name and send it."
"I suppose they can do that," Bayta said, a little doubtfully.
There was the sound of footsteps behind us, and I turned to see Morse hurrying down the corridor. "No need to rush," I called. "We've got your seat."
His expression darkened. "I told you not to do that," he growled. "You're not coming with me."
"No, you're coming with us," I clarified for him. "At least, if you want to catch up with Penny Auslander before she gets to Ian-apof."
His eyes narrowed. "What's that supposed to mean?"
"We're getting her pulled off the train at either Homshil or Jurskala." I told him. "Our train—"
"You're getting her pulled off?"
"Our train leaves in two hours," I went on, ignoring the question. "That gives us all time to get something to eat and compare notes a little."
For another few seconds Morse continued to eye me. Then, his lip twitched. "You've already seen most of my notes," he said. "And I don't especially care about yours. You really booked me a seat?"
"The ticket can be picked up at the stationmaster's office," Bayta said.
"You're not on this case," Morse warned. "This is official EuroUnion business, and you aren't involved in any way, shape, or form. Make very sure you understand that."
"We're just on the way to meet up with a friend," I said, stifling a sigh. There was something about Morse's attitude that was just plain tiring. "We just happen to be traveling on the same train as you, that's all."
He raised his eyebrows. "Imagine that," he said in mock surprise. "Frank Compton actually has a friend."
With that, he brushed past me and strode through the lobby to the exit. A moment later, he was gone.
I turned back to find Bayta gazing at me, a look of compassion on her face. "What?" I demanded. I didn't need friends, I certainly didn't need Morse, and the last thing I wanted right now was sympathy.
Fortunately for her. she got the message. "Nothing," she said, her expression going back to its usual neutral.
"Good," I growled. "The stationmaster get that message encoded?"
"It'll go out on the next scheduled laser transmission to Earth."
"Good," I said again. "I'm hungry. Let's get something to eat." I started us toward the door, putting my hand in my side pocket as I walked.
And stopped. "Well, well," I said. "What?" Bayta asked.
"Clever," I said, feeling my stomach tighten. No wonder I'd gotten away so easily with picking that Halka's pocket.
"What's clever?" Bayta asked.
"The Modhri," I said, pulling my hand out of my pocket. "I'd been wondering where I got my newly improved pickpocket skills. Now I know. Turns out the Modhri didn't actually care about Morse's ultrasecret ESS reading material after all.
"The data chip with Fayr's message." I opened up my empty hand. "It's gone."
EIGHT :
Morse was waiting at the platform when we arrived there an hour and a half later. Our Quadrail was visible in the distance, the red glow of the laserlike beams flashing between the train's front bumper and the Coreline and turning the Coreline's already impressive light show into something frighteningly manic. The lasers winked out, the train angled down the Tube's sloping side into the wider section that was the station, and a few minutes later it rolled to a brake-squealing halt beside us.
Our double compartment was, as usual, in the first car behind the engine. Morse's seat was three cars back, just behind the first-class dining car.
Bayta and I stayed close to home during the trip, emerging from our compartments only for meals, to stretch our legs, and occasionally to check on Morse. As far as I could tell, he too seemed to be keeping mostly to himself in the midst of all that noisy first-class camaraderie.
I made a couple of attempts to wheedle the other data chip out of him, the one that had been hidden in his pocket. But it was a waste of effort. Now that he was finally on the Quadrail and had Bayta's assurance that we could link him up with Penny and her friends, he wasn't making even an effort to be civil to me anymore.
I spent the rest of my limited time outside my compartment eyeing the other first-class passengers and wondering which of them might be walkers. That was even more of a waste of effort. As long as the Modhri colony inside a person stayed dormant, there was no way, barring serious micro-level surgery, to know it was in there.
Twenty-one hours after leaving Terra, precisely on time, we pulled into Homshil Station.
Most Quadrail stations carried between ten and forty sets of tracks, spaced more or less evenly around the inside of the Tube. Homshil was different. Though its main purpose was to provide service to the Jurian colony world of Homshiltristia, it also happened to be one of the fifty or sixty node points in the Quadrail system where the Spiders had brought several different lines together. One of the most important was a set of cross-galaxy tracks that headed out of our spiral arm entirely and traversed a wide swath of relatively empty space before skirting the edge of the galactic core and Fibibib space and heading across to the Pirkarli, Shorshian, and Filiaelian territories in the other spiral arm. For anyone traveling to those empires, shifting lines at Homshil could cut two or more weeks off their transit time.
As a result, Homshil carried a lot of traffic, and the Spiders had built accordingly. The station was half again bigger than the usual Quadrail station's diameter, with no fewer than sixty sets of tracks running along the floor. Between the platforms were dozens of restaurants, shops, waiting areas, and three full-service hotels for travelers who wanted to take a break before continuing their journeys. The stationmaster's office had been expanded into a four-building complex that included the office itself, separate booking and message centers, and a small computer library where newcomers to this spiral arm could grab up-to-date information on the worlds and cultures they would be visiting.
Between and around the various buildings, the Juriani who were responsible for maintaining the service structures had set up planters and air-vine hedges, providing decoration, agreeable aromas for those species who went in for that sort of thing, and a modicum of badly needed pedestrian traffic control.
Across from the main passenger areas, looking upside down as you gazed up past the Coreline, the station's cargo facilities were equally crowded, except that instead of restaurants and shops the space was filled with cranes and sidings and transfer pallets. Through it all bustled dozens of drudge Spiders, looking like seven-legged ants crawling on a distant ceiling as they shifted crates back and forth between freight cars and cargo hatchways. At both ends of the five-kilometer-long station, away from the passenger and cargo unloading areas in the middle, were the maintenance and assembly areas.
Once again, we found Morse already on the platform when we disembarked from our car. The man was nothing if not quick on his feet. "You told me she'd be here," he said. "Where?"
"Over there," Bayta said, pointing to a long, low waiting room with classic Jurian architectural curlicues at the roof line.
Morse grunted. "Would have been safer to put her in the stationmaster's office."
"It might also have clued her in that there was something serious going on," I countered. "Her and anyone else who might have been paying attention."
The waiting room was comfortably full. Most of the passengers sitting around reading or chatting or playing cards were aliens, but there was a fair scattering of Humans as well. Despite the crowd, Penny Auslander was easy to spot. She was seated in a far corner of the room, the only person in that entire block of seats,
flanked by a pair of watchful conductor Spiders.
We made our way through the aisles, dodging Juriani balancing frothing cups of pale yellow ale and Pirks carrying containers of some of the horrible things they liked to eat. Penny lifted her glare from the floor in front of her as we approached and transferred it to us. "About time," she said stiffly. "What took you so long?"
"My apologies for the delay, Ms. Auslander," Morse said, inclining his head in polite old-world manner.
"Apologies are cold comfort to the lost and vacant hour," she countered.
I winced to myself. Light-stick aphorisms, especially deep pithy light-stick aphorisms, always left me cold.
"I understand your distress," Morse said, still politely. Apparently he had a higher tolerance to brainless philosophy than I did. "But I think I can clear this up." He pulled out his badge wallet and flipped it open. "My name is Morse; EuroUnion Security Service."
Penny's glare slipped a little. "You're not with the Terran consulate?"
"No, ma'am," Morse said, tucking the wallet away.
Penny's eyes flicked to me, then Bayta, and finally back to Morse. "What's going on?" she asked.
"We're looking for your friend Daniel Stafford," Morse said. "We need to ask him a few questions."
He launched into a standard police-style explanation, a spiel tailored to evoke sympathy and cooperation without giving away any actual information. Listening with half an ear, I touched Bayta's arm and took a casual step backward. "Check with those conductors," I murmured to her. "Has she been alone this whole time?"
"They don't know," she murmured back. "They only came on duty fifteen minutes ago, replacing the others who'd been watching her. She was definitely alone then."
"Then find the ones who were here earlier and ask them," I said. "Her eyes shifted just a fraction to her left when Morse mentioned her friend Daniel."
Bayta shook her head. "I can't. They just left on one of the trains."
I swallowed a curse, looking around the waiting room. The Spiders really needed some training in proper police procedure. "Get everyone in the station looking for another Human," I ordered, pulling up my mental picture of Daniel Stafford. "Dark hair, mid-twenties, slender build—"
