by Timothy Zahn
Assuming it was still Morse and I and not just I. Judging from the look he was giving me as the Halkas continued frisking him I wouldn't have bet large sums of money on it. "Lovely move, Compton," he growled acidly. "Lovely non-move, rather."
"Sorry," I apologized. "But I try not to start fights when I'm on the short end of ten-to-one odds. Little rule I have."
His glare slipped a little, his eyes flicking away from me. From the sudden change in his expression, it was clear he hadn't yet noticed our new outrider collection. "Bloody hell," he muttered.
"At the very least," I agreed. "I suggest we not make any sudden moves."
The Halkas finished their search without coming up with anything else and took a step back. "You through?" I asked, addressing Gargantua for convenience.
"For the moment," he said, eyeing me closely. "There will be no more trouble?" His eyes flicked significantly to Penny.
I followed the look. The Halka who'd taken Penny's comm had shifted his grip pointedly from her shoulder to the back of her neck. A squeeze, followed by a good solid twist, and she would die the way her friend Pyotr had. "Understood," I told Gargantua, a shiver running up my back. "Come on. We start at the art museum."
For the first time since I'd walked into the dit rec viewing room at Ian-apof the Modhri seemed genuinely startled. "Why?" Gargantua asked.
"Who's the detective here, you or me?" I countered. "You want the Lynx, or don't you?"
His eyes burned into me, but he nodded. "Lead the way," he said, gesturing me forward.
We set off again. Penny walking close beside me on my right, Bayta a bit farther away on my left, Morse bringing up the rear, the Halkas flanking, and the oblivious Tra'ho walkers wandering along more or less in formation. Half a kilometer directly ahead, I knew from the city maps I'd studied on the flight, our street dead-ended at the grounds of the art museum where the Viper had been stolen. Much closer than that, only a couple of blocks ahead, in fact, I could see the marquee of the Fraklog-Oryo Hotel.
Where Fayr's message had said he would be waiting for us.
I could feel Bayta's tension as we moved closer. She was onto the plan now, and preparing herself for action.
Or rather, she was onto half of it. I had the feeling she wasn't going to like the other half.
We were twenty meters from the hotel entrance when I stopped. "Look, there's no reason we all have to go there," I told Gargantua. "Why don't we leave the others here and you and I can go alone?"
Gargantua eyed me suspiciously. "Is the Human Stafford there?" he asked.
"Possibly," I lied. "If he is, all the more reason for us not to spook him by bringing a crowd. Besides, together we may be able to do the trade right there and then."
"What trade do you mean?"
"The obvious one," I said. "If he has the Lynx with him, you'll let Penny, Bayta, and Morse leave and join us. Once I see they're alone and unharmed, you can have the Lynx, and all of us will walk away. All of us plus Mr. Stafford, of course."
Gargantua flicked a measuring glance at Morse. "I accept," he said.
I had expected nothing less. Suspicious or not, he had more than enough eyes in place to risk lengthening my leash a little. "Then let's get on with it," I said.
"You can't leave us here," Penny said, her voice tight. "What if they—?"
"They won't hurt you," I assured her, taking her hand and giving it a squeeze. Morse and Bayta, I noticed peripherally, didn't miss a bit of the byplay. "Just hang in there. I'll be right back."
Gargantua and I started off again, leaving the others standing in the middle of the walkway like abandoned orphans. We walked in silence until we were at the level of the hotel entrance. "Oh, there was just one other thing," I said, stopping suddenly.
Automatically, Gargantua stopped and turned to face me. "What?" he asked.
Smiling sweetly, I buried my fist in his abdomen.
The sheer surprise of it froze him in place. I took advantage of the moment to hit three more of the most painful and incapacitating Halkan nerve centers I could reach, dropping him into a quivering heap on the walkway.
For a moment the shared pain rippling from Gargantua into and through the Modhri mind segment sent the rest of the walkers quivering. But it didn't hold them for long. A glance behind me showed that two of the other Halkas were on the move, charging toward me at full speed. Behind them, ten of the twenty Tra'ho'seej were closing their circle to bolster the fourth remaining Halka guard as the Modhri dropped his earlier subtlety and took direct control of their bodies. The rest of the Tra'ho'seej were spreading out, clearly planning to cut off my escape no matter which direction I decided to run.
And in that same quick glance I saw the fourth Halka draw a gun and press the muzzle into the side of Penny's neck.
Another shiver went through me to see her in danger that way, as it was clearly intended to. But I had no choice. Without Fayr we were all dead, and I had to alert him to the fact we were here. Jumping over Gargantua's twitching body, I sprinted to the hotel door and ducked inside.
The lobby was tastefully dark and quiet, its walls and end tables adorned with a wide variety of small paintings, sculptures, and other art works. A handful of Tra'ho'seej were seated in the various overstuffed chairs and couches, apparently in deep contemplation of the culture arrayed around them. All of them looked up with varying degrees of shock or outrage as I sprinted through their midst to the check-in desk and its self-service computer terminals.
I was still punching keys when Gargantua's two Halkan buddies caught up with me.
I'd fought against walkers enough times to have a fair idea of the sort of tactics the Modhri favored. This mind segment was no exception. The first Halka came at me with arms spread wide, ready to take the brunt of my attack and then immobilize me with a bear hug, leaving his partner free to mete out whatever punishment the Modhri decided I'd earned.
Naturally, I had no intention of playing it that way. Waiting until the last fraction of a second, I dodged to my right toward one of the unoccupied couches. The second Halka had anticipated the move, angling past the first in an attempt to cut me off. I reached the couch ahead of him, and as he jabbed a fist at me I ducked down and rolled over the couch back, landing on the cushions and continuing my roll off the couch and onto the floor.
The Halkas were already onto the change of plan. The first continued with his forward motion, probably aiming to circle around the far side of the couch, while the second braked and reversed to go around the near side. Two more seconds, and they would have me neatly corralled.
Or so they thought. Rolling back up to my feet, I killed my own momentum; and as they came charging around the ends I dived again for the couch, jumping on the cushions and leaping over the back.
At this point most normal opponents would probably have cursed or spat or otherwise shown some annoyance. Not the Modhri. He fought in silence, his Halkan walkers merely reversing direction in response to my move. I took a long step toward one end of the couch, and as the nearest Halka again reached for me I scooped up the delicate metal work sculpture from the end table and threw it into his face.
I was still dodging and sparring when the police finally arrived.
The hotel manager was livid.
[Payment from the criminal,] he kept repeating over and over in Seejlis as the cops cuffed my hands behind me, the normally fluid Tra'ho language sounding a lot less melodious than usual. [Payment in art and in money.]
The cops made the sort of soothing noises cops everywhere in the galaxy make to outraged victims and marched me out into the street.
Where I found myself smack dab in the middle of a jurisdictional dispute.
It was a beaut, too, as near as I could decipher from the rapid-fire argument going on. On the one side was the chief cop on the scene, who had me dead to rights and clearly wasn't interested in handing me off to anyone else. On the other side were two of the government oathlings I'd just run out on, whose Modhran controller wa
s equally adamant that I not be locked up where I couldn't help him find Stafford and the Lynx.
Of course, the oathlings had no idea of why they were fighting so hard to keep me out of jail, and it was weirdly amusing to watch the mental and verbal gymnastics they were throwing themselves into to make their point. Still, words and arguments were their profession, and I gave them five to three odds of winning.
I hoped they would, too, for the cops' sake. From the look on Gargantua's face as he gazed at me from one of the knots of gawkers it seemed likely that if the cops took me away their friends guarding the jailhouse might not survive the night.
Casually, I sent a gaze around the area. From the size of the muttering crowd out there it looked like my little fracas had roused pretty much everyone within a two-block radius. Certainly it should have roused anyone in the Fraklog-Oryo Hotel.
But there was no one in the streets except Tra'ho'seej, no one peering out the windows except more Tra'ho'seej, and no one on the rooftops at all.
Which meant I'd ruined a few perfectly good art objects, not to mention risking my neck, for nothing. Fayr was apparently out for the evening.
If he'd ever been here in the first place.
A light rain began while the argument continued, and everyone in sight proceeded to either pull out a fold-up hood from their coat collars or produce a compact hooded plastic poncho from some pocket. Apparently, sudden rains were a part of the local climate, part of the guidebook I must have missed.
The Halkan walkers didn't seem to notice. They stood there motionlessly, water running down their heads and dripping off their snouts, their eyes focused on me. Morse took off his jacket and offered it to Penny, who draped it hoodlike over her head for protection, while Morse himself held a forearm pressed to his forehead to at least keep the water out of his eyes. Bayta, for her part, seemed as oblivious of the precipitation as the Halkas, her eyes haunted as she gazed at the crowd surrounding us.
As for me, with my hands cuffed behind my back, I had no other option but to simply get wet.
It took a good fifteen minutes, plus at least three comm calls from each side of the argument, but eventually the cops gave up. My cuffs were removed, the hotel manager was soothed some more, and with baleful looks that were evenly distributed between me and the oathlings the cops piled back into their cars and took off.
That was apparently the signal the bystanders had been waiting for as well. A few of them shook the rain from their hoods or ponchos and trooped into the hotel with the manager, presumably to commiserate with him over a drink and survey the crime scene for themselves. The rest melted back away to their homes and gardens and cafés.
A minute later we were standing alone under the dripping sky. Penny, Bayta, Morse, me, and the Modhri's other twenty walkers.
"A waste of time and energy," Gargantua said. He was no longer glaring, but merely studying me expressionlessly. In some ways, his calm was more unnerving than the glare had been. "Did you really think you could escape me?"
Briefly I wondered what his reaction would be if I told him I'd merely been trying to make enough noise to attract the attention of a homicidal chipmunk-faced commando. But I was still hoping we might run into Fayr somewhere else along the way. "I wasn't trying to escape," I said instead, wiping some of the rainwater off my face. "I was curious to see how far you'd go with your walkers."
"And did you learn anything?"
I looked at the rich and powerful Tra'ho'seej still loitering around the area. Their expressions and eyes were back to normal, the brief episode of full Modhri control long since over.
But their attitude had definitely changed for the darker. No longer did they imagine—no longer could they persuade themselves—that they'd all simply stepped out for an evening stroll with friends and acquaintances. They were watching the four of us intently, apparently convinced that potentially dangerous aliens shouldn't be allowed to run free and wild without someone in authority guarding them. "I still wonder how you get away with these personality blackouts," I said, looking back at Gargantua. "You'd think someone would eventually catch on."
For a moment he gazed at me in silence. "I saw an old book on Human stage magic once," he said at last. "One of the illusions it described involved a large wheeled war device for hurling round shot at an enemy. I don't know the proper term."
"A cannon?" I suggested.
"Yes, that was it," the Modhri said. "In this case, it was to be loaded with a Human, who would then supposedly disappear as it was fired. After the Human entered the barrel, the cannon was swiveled completely around on the stage so that the audience could see that there were no tricks involved."
"And the trick was …?"
"The trick was that as the cannon finished its rotation, a set of false spokes slid into the openings between the lower spokes of the wheel facing away from the audience," the Modhri said. "They were so engineered that they appeared to be the spokes of the front wheel, which had just happened to block the observer's view of the rear of the stage."
I nodded as I understood. "And every observer simply thought he was the one in the bad seat," I said, "not realizing that everyone else was seeing the same blockage and was thinking the same thing "
"Exactly," the Modhri said. "With the audience's sight thus completely blocked, the Human was free to slip invisibly through a hidden door in the base of the cannon and lower himself behind the rear wheel to a concealed trapdoor in the floor without being observed." Gargantua's doglike snout curled slightly. "I trust you see the similarities."
I did, of course. As long as each Tra'ho in the group thought he was the only one having strange memory lapses, he wasn't going to think much about it, especially with the Modhri continually whispering soothing theories and rationalizations in his ears. If all of them ever got together and compared notes, they might begin to wonder.
But that would never happen. The Modhri would make sure of that. "We have much better magic tricks now," I said.
"Illusion is still only illusion," he said. "But I grow weary of this stalling. Take me to the Lynx."
"Fine," I said, gesturing down the street. "Like I said, we start at the art museum."
I took a step in that direction. Gargantua didn't budge. "You think me a fool?" he demanded, some of his earlier anger peeking out again.
"Don't worry, this time we can all go together," I said. Looking over his shoulder, I caught Penny's eye and beckoned.
She started to move forward, came up short as the Halka guarding her tightened his grip on her arm. "No," Gargantua said flatly. "You and two of my Arms."
"I need Ms. Auslander," I insisted. "Stafford won't show himself unless she's there."
"The other Human female is similar enough," Gargantua countered. "She will go with you."
I looked at Bayta. Her face was as expressionless as Gargantua's had been a minute ago, but her body language was tied in tension knots. She also didn't look a thing like Penny. "She's not nearly similar enough," I said. "Not to other Humans."
Two of the Halkas took Bayta's arms and walked her over to us. "If she does not go, then she will die," Gargantua said.
Bayta was staring unblinkingly at me. "In that case, I guess she goes," I said.
"And no others," Gargantua said.
"No others," I conceded, trying to avoid Penny's sudden look of stunned panic. Clearly, she'd expected me to fight harder for her freedom.
And I wanted to. Desperately, But there was nothing I could do against odds like these. I would leave to cooperate and hope the Modhri made a slip somewhere along the line.
"But first," Gargantua continued, "you will give me the name."
Bayta's face went suddenly very still. "What name?" I asked carefully.
"The name you were searching for in that hotel," Gargantua said. "The name the Human Daniel Stafford is traveling under." His snout curled back to reveal his teeth. "The name the Human Künstler gave you before he died."
I flicked a glance at Bayta, m
y back muscles twinging in memory. Apparently, Gargantua hadn't reached the scene in time to hear Künstler's actual last words. But he'd been in time to see the dying man's lips moving. "He didn't give me any name," I said.
From behind me came a sudden gasp. I spun around, my stomach tensing, to see one of the Halkas gripping the nerve center on Penny's forearm. Her face was contorted in surprise and pain. "I can hurt her much worse than that," Gargantua reminded me.
I took a deep breath. Penny was watching me closely. So was Bayta. "Daniel Mice," I said, "Now stop hurting her."
A flash of surprise and disbelief flashed across Bayta's face as Gargantua took a sideways step and gazed at my profile. "Speak the name again," he ordered.
"Daniel Mice." I repeated.
For a moment he was silent. Then, to my relief, the Haiku released Penny's arm. "Yes," he said at last. "Those were indeed the lip movements. Daniel Mice," he repeated, his voice gone thoughtful. "But Mice is a form of Earth vermin."
"It also refers to a famous cartoon figure you may have seen in dit rec animations." I said. "Apparently Stafford has a sense of humor."
Out of the corner of my eye I saw several of the Tra'ho'seej pull out their comms. The Modhri would have certainly already done a planetwide search for the name Daniel Stafford. Now, he was about to do the same for Daniel Mice, plus all the variants he could come up with.
One of the oathlings who hadn't hauled out his comm broke away from the rest of the group and came toward us, pulling off his poncho as he did so. [For the female,] he said, handing the poncho to Gargantua. He gave Bayta a courteous little bow, as befit a culture that held females of all species in high regard. Then, with a brief glower in my direction, he returned to his place in the informal picket line.
"Put it on." Gargantua said, handing the poncho to Bayta. "It will help disguise you."
So the Modhri conceded my point that Bayta and Penny didn't look alike. Interesting. "You might as well," I confirmed to Bayta. "That's the kind of sky that could rain on us all night."
