by Timothy Zahn
"Exactly," I said. "Though if I'm right, our mission will be over a lot sooner than that."
Stafford looked at Morse's motionless form. "Of course, you're assuming the Modhri colony in there is also unconscious. So unconscious that other colonies won't detect it once we're back at the Tube."
"That is the assumption," I conceded. "And since we've never used this gadget on a walker, we don't know for sure that that's true. We'll just have to play our odds as short as we can and keep our fingers crossed."
Stafford grunted. "Doesn't exactly fill me with confidence."
"As I say, we'll do the best we can," I said. "When we reach the Tube we'll circle around and approach the station from the far side, out of view of the transfer station and any other ships that happen to be wandering around. We'll enter through one of the access hatches in the maintenance end—"
"How do we do that?" Penny interrupted.
"We ask the Spiders nicely," I said. "Then, if things are on schedule, we'll board a special train"—I glanced at Bayta, got a slight confirming nod—"and head out to our real destination. There, Mr. Stafford and I will go to the transfer station, rent us another torch-yacht, and come around the back side of the Tube again to pick up Morse and the ladies."
"I don't know," Stafford said hesitantly, looking at Penny. "I don't like the idea of leaving the girls alone with Morse."
"They'll be fine," I assured him. "They'll have the kwi, and we'll want him to be unconscious the whole time anyway."
"I could stay here with them," he volunteered. "You could go get the torchyacht by yourself. I'm pretty sure I've got enough left on my last cash stick to cover it."
"Unfortunately, they'll also want to see the renter's ID," I reminded him. "If my name pops up on any official database from now on, it's going to set off alarms from here to Bellis and back again."
"I hadn't thought about that," Stafford said, making a face. "Okay, then. We'll get the torchyacht, and the girls will mind the store."
"They'll be fine," I assured him again. "Anyway, we should be back inside the Tube in a few hours. I hope you haven't unpacked yet."
"We haven't," Stafford said. "Do we get to know where we're going once we're aboard our Quadrail?"
"The place where the Modhri's taken the sculptures, of course," I said. "It turns out they're actually components of something called trinaries, with one of each type fitting together into some kind of exotic energy weapon."
Stafford gave a low whistle. "That sounds bad."
"It's worse than just bad," I said. "Which is why we have to get in there and stop it."
"And you know where they took them?" Penny asked.
"I know the exact spot," I said. "Remember the art auction at the Magaraa City Art Museum? It seems one of the Vipers blew up while the Modhri was trying to steal it a few weeks ago."
I paused, looking expectantly at them. But all I saw was blank stares. "Don't you get it?" I asked. "One of the Vipers blew up."
"Yes, you said that," Stafford said. "What does that have to do with anything?"
I suppressed a sigh. "Look. The sculptures form a trinary weapon, right? One Lynx, one Hawk, one Viper"
"You said that, too," Stafford said, starting to sound impatient.
"The third Viper is gone," I said. "So why does the Modhri even want the third Lynx?"
Penny caught her breath. "He knows where there's another Viper!"
"Exactly," I said. "And where are you most likely to find a tenth Nemuti sculpture?"
"The same place they found the first nine," Bayta said. "The Ten Mesas region of Veerstu."
"Which is just two Quadrail stops before Laarmiten," I said. "All the walkers bringing in the stolen Hawk from Bellis had to do was step outside their train and make a quick handoff to another group waiting on the platform. Then they could continue on to Laarmiten as if nothing had happened."
"So Veerstu it is," Stafford said. "I don't suppose there's time to whistle up any cavalry?"
"All the cavalry we could get would either be too late or too suspect," I said regretfully. "No, it's up to us. Well, it's up to Bayta and me, anyway. You two can stay with the torchyacht at Veerstu if you want. For that matter, once we have the torchyacht rented, you can just go home."
"Not a chance," Stafford said firmly. "They killed Uncle Rafael. This isn't just justice, not for me. It's also personal."
He considered. "Besides which, I still have to get my sculpture back."
TWENTY-FOUR :
The return to the Quadrail went off without a hitch. I brought the torchyacht around in a big circle to make sure we avoided any curious eyes, then rendezvoused with the Tube a good thousand kilometers away from the station itself and the shuttle traffic associated with it. I eased us in along the back side, keeping it slow and unspectacular, finally bringing us to a floating halt half a kilometer away from the station. The torchyacht would be all right there until we finished up on Veerstu and sent word back to the rental company telling them where they could go to retrieve it. We all suited up and crossed the empty space to one of the service access airlocks near one end of the station, in a maintenance area a couple of kilometers from the passenger platforms. Bayta signaled the Spiders to open up, and a few minutes later we were inside.
The tender Bayta had requested was ready, fitted out pretty much like the one we'd used earlier on our trip to Jurskala. I'd wondered how it was the Spiders even had such rigged-out trains available, or I had until our last meeting with the Chahwyn. Apparently, these were the vehicles of choice for any of the Quadrail's masters who decided to venture out into the universe.
The Chahwyn had said the kwi's highest sleep setting would work for up to six hours. Just to be on the safe side, I gave Morse a new jolt every three. It would have been far more convenient to use one of the plethora of long-term sleep drugs specially developed for this sort of situation, but I had no access to anything like that and didn't have time to scare up a source.
It would have been equally convenient to simply kill him. But I was only ninety-eight percent sure that he had a Modhran colony lurking inside him, and without that other two percent I couldn't justify an execution. Even if I'd had the full hundred I knew I probably still couldn't do anything without an overt act against me or one of the others.
Maybe that was why the Modhri had kept quiet in the torchyacht instead of making a bid for freedom. Maybe, like me, he was learning how to play the short odds.
It was a five-hour trip back down the Claremiado Loop to Veerstu Station, and I spent most of that time bringing Penny and Stafford up to speed on the Modhri and his plans to take over the galaxy from the inside. I wasn't entirely happy about giving them the full picture this way, but they'd already stuck their necks way over the line for me and it seemed only fair that they know the truth.
Besides, if I was right about Stafford being Rafael Künstler's son, the kid stood to inherit a sizable financial empire. With Larry Hardin spreading hate mail about me throughout the Terran Confederation, it might be nice to have at least one trillionaire who was on my side.
I avoided any mention of the Chahwyn, of course, as well as the fact that the Quadrail system was fundamentally a fraud. That part of the picture no one else was going to get if I had anything to say about it. The galaxy's current struggle with the Modhri would pale in comparison to the chaos that would erupt if the Twelve Empires suddenly learned there was a way to go out conquering and pillaging among their neighbors.
Bayta spent most of the trip sleeping.
We reached Veerstu Station, again disembarking in the service areas far from the passenger platforms. The trick now was how to insert Stafford and me back into the general populace without the kind of unwelcome notice that would come if we simply strolled in from the far end of the station in plain sight.
Bayta solved that problem by diverting one of the Spider-run lockbox shuttles to our end of the station. Stafford and I got aboard and were transported directly to the transfer station,
conveniently bypassing the Quadrail platforms, the passenger shuttles, and even the Veerstu customs setup. Stafford unloaded another stack of money at the torchyacht rental desk, and I flew us ostentatiously toward the inner system. As soon as we were off the local traffic control monitors, I circled back to the Quadrail station and picked up Bayta, Penny, and the dozing Morse. Three hours later, after another cautious skulk around the backside of the Tube, we were finally and truly on our way to Veerstu.
The Quadrail station was somewhat closer in toward the primary in this system, and in addition Veerstu was also about at its nearest orbital approach to the Tube. The result was that our flight took only four and a half days.
I let Morse wake up during most of the middle two days, making sure of course to wristcuff him securely to whatever conduit or large piece of furniture was handy. Bayta and the others weren't happy with the arrangement, but I felt it was only right to give the man the opportunity to eat, shower, and perform all those other necessary Human functions.
It also gave us a chance to test how long a single kwi jolt lasted. In Morse's case, it was just over five and a half hours.
In addition—and I didn't mention this one even to Bayta—I was also secretly hoping the Modhri would finally make some move that would clear away my last two percent of doubt. I'd seen the transition on two Human walkers and any number of alien ones, and I knew that when it happened he wouldn't be able to hide it from me.
But again, the Modhri refused to take the bait. Finally, a day out of Veerstu I gave up the effort and reinstated the three-hour zap regimen.
Veerstu was a much less developed world than Laarmiten, with only two spaceports capable of handling torchships. I landed us at the farther of the two from the Ten Mesas region and ran us through the entry procedure. It was largely a formality, given that our carrybags were properly marked with the customs stickers I'd managed to swipe from the transfer station while Stafford was renting the torchyacht. They were a little bemused by the coffin-sized box we'd put Morse into, but it had a sticker, too, and so they merely recorded its number along with the rest of them and let us pass.
Of course, when evening came and they lasered their updates to the central office the computer there would undoubtedly notice that stickers that had supposedly never left the transfer station had nevertheless managed to make it all the way to the planet's surface. Still, the first assumption would be computer or agent error, and we should have at least a couple of days before anyone began seriously looking for us,
Veerstu had only four suborbital transport routes, none of which took us close to our destination. Fortunately, there were aircars and trucks available for rent. Half an hour later, with Stafford's cash sticks depleted a little more, we were on our way.
It was as I was looking over the data chip I'd picked up from the travelers' desk at the spaceport that I discovered the Ten Mesas region had been closed to all visitors.
"That tears it," Stafford growled as he handed the reader to Penny. "He's on to us."
"Not necessarily" I said. "If he's got his walkers engaged in a major excavation, he wouldn't want anyone snooping around, not just established troublemakers like ourselves."
"Why not?" Stafford asked. "There are archaeological digs all over underdeveloped worlds like this."
"Only this isn't a standard archaeological dig," I reminded him. "Archaeologists sift through the landscape with a comb and a soft brush, looking for anything bigger than a good-sized piece of lint. The Modhri's looking for stuff the size of the Lynx, and he's not going to be shy about using rakes and shovels. Actually, I wouldn't be surprised if he's brought in gravel excavators to expedite the job."
"So what do we do?" Stafford asked.
"It only says the area's off-limits to visitors," I pointed out. "If we can find an official or quasi-official reason to go in, we might be able to bluff our way through the fence."
"What, a bunch of Humans on a Nemuti world?" Stafford scoffed. "Right."
"It's not as crazy as you might think," I told him. "The bureaucratic mind-set is pretty much universal among the Twelve Empires. All we have to do is find the right buttons to push."
"You know, it doesn't actually say that the whole region is closed," Penny spoke up, studying the reader. "If this boundary line is drawn correctly, the three biggest mesas are still accessible: the ones to the east, south, and southwest of the dig area."
Bayta craned her neck to look over her shoulder. "She's right," she confirmed. "Their outer edges are all outside the perimeter fence."
"If the Modhri's ignoring them, it's because you can't get up there," I said. "That, or you can't get down anywhere inside the fence once you are."
"Who says you can't get anywhere?" Penny countered.
"We do have an aircar ," Stafford added.
"'Which will be tagged, intercepted, and escorted out the minute we get within five klicks of the perimeter fence," I explained patiently.
"I wasn't talking about the aircar," Penny said, just as patiently. "I was thinking we could hike up the outer slope of one of the mesas, cross to the inner side, then rappel down into the dig area."
"You must be joking," I said, my stomach suddenly tightening.
"Why?" she countered. "The mesas are only a couple of kilometers long. And the outer edges don't look all that steep."
"The leading edge isn't the part that concerns me," I said. "Or didn't you notice those things they call the Spikes?"
"What, you mean those little peaks on the inner edge of the bigger mesas?" Penny scoffed.
"Those 'little peaks' are a good ten meters higher than the rest of the surface," I countered. "And very steep, and just a little tricky to get over."
"It won't be a problem," Penny assured me. "You can't tell much from these pictures, but there's always a way over or around something like that. I've done some rock climbing, and this is hardly a master-class slope."
"I don't think it's the over or around part that's bothering him," Stafford said, an all-too-knowing look on his face. "I think our courageous ex-Intelligence agent is afraid of heights. Didn't Westali train you to rappel down buildings and such?"
"They trained me as best they could," I said stiffly. "And for the record, it's not the heights that bother me. It's the possibility of falling from them."
"You'll be fine," Penny assured me. "This whole region is perfect for climbing, which means there'll be shops all over that'll carry the equipment we'll need. We can stop off somewhere along the way and I'll get us outfitted."
She gave me a pseudo-innocent look. "If you want, I'll even partner with you for the descent."
"You should instead make sure Mr. Stafford is safe," Bayta put in before I could think up a suitable answer. "I can partner with Frank."
Penny's smile went just a bit brittle. Bayta's attitude toward her, I'd noticed, had thawed somewhat since my public revelation earlier that the Modhri had been manipulating my feelings. But their relationship was still nowhere near warm. "Of course," Penny said. "I was just offering."
"You have a choice of which mesa we take?" Stafford asked.
"Let me look over the pictures a little more before I decide," Penny said.
"We'll take the south one," I told them.
"Why, is that the shortest?" Stafford asked.
"I have no idea," I said. "But that's the one we're taking."
"Don't you think—?"
"That's the one we're taking, Mr. Stafford," I said. "If you don't like it, I can drop you off at the next town. Ms. Auslander, get busy and figure out our best route."
I kept my eyes on the view out the canopy, but I could feel the sudden tenseness of the silence. Apparently, Stafford and Penny had started to think of themselves as full partners in this enterprise. The reminder that this was a benign dictatorship must have been a little upsetting. "Okay," Stafford broke the silence after a moment. "You're the boss."
I glanced over my shoulder at Bayta. She was watching me closely, a slightly troub
led look on her face. But if she was also wondering what I was up to, she kept it to herself.
Turning back to the canopy, I returned my full attention to my flying. This, I knew, was about to get interesting.
A little before sundown we landed in a town at the foot of some craggy mountains to get some food and fuel, collect the gear Penny wanted, and buy some comms to replace the ones Gargantua and his buddies had taken from us back on Ghonsilya. Before we lifted off again I also gave the sleeping Morse another jolt from the kwi.
I could tell that both Penny and Bayta were a little concerned about the possible effects of such continual zapping on the man, but I brushed such worries aside. My only concern was whether we could land, get to our target mesa, hike across it, and rappel down again before our five-and-a-half-hour clock ran down and the polyp colony inside Morse woke up and alerted the rest of the local Modhri mind segment to our presence.
We flew most of the rest of the night. I dozed in the pilot's seat, awakening every half hour or so to check on our progress and make sure the autopilot was keeping us on track. The others, as far as I could tell, slept a bit restlessly but more or less straight through. Morse, with the usual help from the kwi, didn't wake up at all. During the quiet and privacy of the night I also made a small but significant adjustment to my newly purchased comm.
A couple of hours before sunrise, we arrived.
I set us down three kilometers outside the perimeter fence, landing in a shallow pit where the aircar would be partially concealed from casual observation. The whole region was arid and rocky, dotted with mesas and buttes and tall granite rock spines. Trees and clumps of vegetation were few and far between, concentrated mostly along streambeds and around natural springs, but nearly every minor dip and depression where dew might collect had sprouted stands of feathery, waist-high brown grass. It was easily pulled out of the loose soil, and I set Bayta and Penny to work gathering a few bunches to scatter across the top of the aircar. While they did that, Stafford and I got the unconscious Morse out of his carrying crate and set him up in one of the rear seats, wristcuffing him to the armrest to make sure he stayed put. It seemed unlikely we would make it to the dig and back before he woke up, but with luck by the time he did the local Modhri mind segment wouldn't be in any shape to respond to his warning. I gave him one last jolt from the kwi and we set off.
