“Who says?” I countered. “Maybe I just don’t fancy an eight-day torchliner trip in the company of people who don’t like me. Maybe I’m planning on taking a later torchliner, or renting myself a private torchyacht.”
“Or maybe you already know where the Human Stafford is.” He cocked his head. “Tell me, do you find the Human Auslander an attractive female?”
“I hadn’t really noticed,” I said, trying to keep the sudden tension out of my voice. There was only one direction he could be going with this particular change of topic.
“Really,” the Modhri said interestedly. “I would have said she is. Certainly judging by my host’s reaction to her. She is also somewhat younger than you, I believe. Like most species, I’ve found Humans to be especially protective toward their young.”
“That only applies to children,” I told him. Probably a waste of effort, but I had to try. “Ms. Auslander is an adult. Who, I might add, can’t tell you anything about Stafford that you don’t already know.”
“Yet her presence might be useful in bringing him into the open.”
“Stafford’s on the run,” I reminded him. “He’s going to be suspicious of anyone who shows up with unknown friends in tow. Even Ms. Auslander.”
“So she is truly of no use to me?” The Modhri shrugged. “Pity. Then I suppose I might as well kill her.”
“Hardly seems worth the effort,” I said, keeping my voice even. If anything happened to Penny, there was no way in hell that Morse wouldn’t find a way to pin it on me. “Besides, vengeance is for the weak and smallminded. That hardly applies to you.”
“You flatter me,” he said. “Still, you’re right: I kill only when necessary. But perhaps in this case it
is
necessary. Why do you think I have my host’s face covered this way?”
I shrugged. The answer was pretty obvious, with some ominous implications. “I assumed it was because you
really
don’t like Human dit rec comedies,” I improvised.
“Come now, Compton,” he chided. “You surely know better than that. I still have use of this Eye, and don’t wish his identity to be compromised by your sight.”
“Ah,” I said, as if I hadn’t already figured that out. “He’s one of your spies in the UN, I suppose?”
He gave me what was probably intended to be a sly smile. “Please. No one gives away information for free. But I
will
trade you his identity for the Lynx.”
I snorted. “And then suicide him before we can get anything of value from him? No thanks.”
“Yet therein lies my dilemma,” he said. “It may be that the Human Auslander saw this Eye’s face. In that case, killing her would not be vengeance but a necessary act of self-preservation.”
“Did
she see his face?”
“It may be,” he repeated.
I puffed out a breath of air, the small sane part of my mind appreciating the neat little box the Modhri had put me in. If Penny had indeed seen the hidden face, the Modhri genuinely would be justified in killing her, at least from his point of view.
Of course, she was still on the station, which meant that Bayta and the Spiders still had a chance of finding her before the Modhri could do anything drastic. But even if they could, the Modhri had the advantage in position and recon setup, and it was a long way back to Earth. If he really wanted Penny dead there was probably no way any of us could stop him.
Which meant her life was now squarely in my hands, which was clearly where the Modhri wanted it. “I already told you I don’t have the Lynx,” I said.
“I believe you,” he said. “But you
do
know where the Human Stafford is. I would be willing to trade the female’s life for that information.”
“First bring Ms. Auslander here,” I said. “When I see she’s all right, I’ll tell you.”
For a moment the faceless face studied me through the filmy silk. “And then?”
“Then we say good-bye, Ms. Auslander goes skiing with her friends, and you and I race to see which of us can get to Stafford first.”
He smiled again. It was even more grotesque this time. “With the Spiders who control the Quadrail as your allies? I think not.”
Briefly, I wondered what his reaction would be if he knew the Spiders had already fired me. Probably best not to bring that up. “You want me to stay here, then?”
“We will go find the Human Stafford together,” he said. “You
and
the female, with my Arms accompanying you. She will be useful as leverage.”
“Against whom?” I asked. “I already told you she can’t help pry Stafford out of hiding.”
“Not leverage against him,” he said. “Leverage against you.”
Behind him, the door opened and Penny appeared, stumbling in as if some unseen person had given her a shove. “Mr. Compton!” she said as she recovered her balance. “What’s going on? They said I couldn’t leave—”
“It’s all right,” I interrupted her soothingly. “Just a misunderstanding.”
Her eyes narrowed slightly, flicked to my companion, then back to me. “Look, I don’t know what he’s been trying to sell you—”
“But it’s all cleared up now,” I said. “You ready to go find your fiancé?”
“—but this was no—” She broke off as her brain caught up to her ears. “What?”
“We think we know where Daniel is,” I said, watching the Modhri out of the corner of my eye. “He’s somewhere in Magaraa City on the Tra’hok Unity planet of Ghonsilya.”
Penny’s mouth dropped open a centimeter.
“Ghonsilya
?” she echoed. “What in the galaxy is he doing
there
?”
“We’ll ask him when we get there,” I said, taking a step around the chairs toward her. “Let’s go get your things and say good-bye to your friends.”
“I think Ms. Auslander deserves to know first why we’re going to Ghonsilya,” the Modhri said.
Or in other words, he wasn’t going to let me lead him across the galaxy on a wild goose chase without something solid to back it up. “If you insist,” I said, wishing briefly that Bayta was here. I always liked her to be around when I was being clever. “Everyone’s been assuming that Daniel stole Mr. Künstler’s Lynx. He didn’t. Mr. Künstler gave it to him.”
“He
gave
it to him?” Penny asked. “When?”
“Sometime before the attempted burglary.” I raised my eyebrows toward the Modhri. “Probably shortly after Mr. Künstler was approached by agents trying to buy it.”
The Modhri’s lip twitched, just enough to confirm my guess was right. Of course he would have tried the straightforward approach before attempting anything as risky as a burglary.
“Daniel never mentioned that,” Penny protested.
“Mr. Künstler probably told him not to tell anyone, including you,” I said. “The fact that the other two Nemuti Lynxes had already been stolen from their owners would have made him extra cagey with his. The point is that Daniel didn’t leave Earth running
from
anything. He left running
toward
something.”
“The Viper,” the Modhri said suddenly.
I nodded. “Exactly.”
“What Viper?” Penny asked. “You’re not making sense.”
“On the contrary, he makes perfect sense,” the Modhri said, as if unknown pieces were suddenly dropping into place. “Mr. Künstler was killed on his way to Bellis, where the last Hawk had been stolen. He was hoping to contact the thieves and buy the sculpture from them.”
I felt my stomach tighten. I’d already guessed that was the reason Künstler had been on his way to Bellis. But the certainty in the Modhri’s voice strongly implied that it hadn’t been entirely Künstler’s idea. “Or else he was lured with a promise to trade the Hawk for his Lynx,” I said. “The people who killed him clearly expected him to have the Lynx with him.”
If I could have seen the Modhri’s face I would have been ninety percent sure I’d nailed it exactly. As it was, I could only make it to about seventy percent. But it was enough. The Modhri had indeed enticed Künstler onto that Quadrail and to his death. “Unfortunately for them, the Lynx was already on its way in the opposite direction,” I continued. “Daniel was heading toward the art museum where one of the Vipers had also been stolen, probably also hoping to wheedle the sculpture out of the thieves.”
“Or also planning to falsely offer a trade,” the Modhri said darkly.
Penny was staring at me with horrified eyes. “Are you saying Mr. Künstler was killed over a stupid piece of
art
?”
I shrugged. “Collectors can get pretty fanatical.”
“No,” Penny said, her voice firm. Fire,
and
a sharp, intelligent mind. “There has to be more to it than that.”
“You can ask Mr. Stafford when you find him,” the Modhri said. “You’d best see now to your preparations—the Quadrail for Ghonsilya will be arriving in the station in a little over an hour. Good luck with your search, Ms. Auslander.” He turned his covered eyes to me. “And to you as well, Mr. Compton.”
The three Halkas were nowhere to be seen as Penny and I made our way through the twisting corridor and out again into the reassuring light of the Coreline. “We’ll find Bayta and have her get us reservations,” I told Penny as we headed toward the shuttle waiting area.
“That was weird,” Penny murmured, walking very close to me. “That man—he won’t be going with us, will he?”
“I’m sure he won’t,” I said. It was clearly the answer she wanted, even if it wasn’t entirely true. “But I imagine he’ll have friends aboard keeping an eye on us.”
“Keeping an eye out for Daniel and this stupid sculpture, you mean,” Penny said harshly. Her fright was fading away, leaving a growing anger in its place. “But it won’t work. Daniel’s too smart for them.”
“It’ll be all right,” I assured her. “Trust me.”
“I will,” she murmured. “I do.”
I looked sideways at her. She didn’t return my glance, but there was something in her profile I hadn’t seen before. A softness, and some actual genuine trust.
The Modhri had been right: she
was
an attractive woman. She was also rich, still single, and not all
that
much younger than I was.
Resolutely, I turned my eyes and mind away. I was here to protect her, Daniel, and the Lynx. Nothing more.
And I would. Because what the Modhri didn’t know was that Fayr wasn’t waiting for me on Laarmiten, as he’d read in the message chip he’d stolen at Terra Station. Fayr was on Ghonsilya, in the same Magaraa City neighborhood where we were all heading.
I hoped he’d brought all his guns with him. Knowing Fayr, I rather expected he had.
Penny’s friends didn’t understand the abrupt change of plan, of course. Given Penny’s vague and rather incoherent explanation, I probably wouldn’t have understood it either. One of the boys offered to accompany us, but it was a token offer and he was easily talked out of it.
Morse, in contrast, was grimly serious in his insistence that he go along. I’d expected nothing else, and didn’t even bother to argue with him. I had no illusions that he would ever stick his neck out for me, but I was pretty sure I could count on him to protect Penny when the shooting started. That made him worth putting up with.
Besides, when push came to shove against unknown assailants, he might even take my side instead of leaving me to sink or swim on my own. Stranger things had happened.
Paradoxically, for the moment at least, we were probably as safe as we were ever going to be. Certainly as safe as I’d been since I stumbled into this war. We had something the Modhri wanted, and until he got it he was going to take exceptionally good care of us.
Just the same, Bayta made sure to get us our usual double compartment for the trip to Ghonsilya. Lockable doors are a good thing to have. I had her upgrade to a compartment for Penny, too, for the same reason. Bayta wondered a little about that, but I pointed out the girl was our only solid connection to Stafford and that we therefore needed to make sure she was as safe as possible. Her daddy could certainly afford the extra cost.
I did let Morse take only the standard first-class seat his pass permitted. I figured he could take care of himself, and I knew the kind of conniption the ESS accountants would throw over any unauthorized expenditures. There was nothing to be gained in getting him into any more trouble than he was probably already in over all this.
Besides, he might very well have to spring the extra cash for that locked door on the way out of Ghonsilya.
It was a five-day trip from Ian-apof to Ghonsilya, and it went off as smoothly as any I’d ever taken. At Ghonsilya Station we collected our luggage and took the shuttle to the transfer station, where we breezed through customs and reserved tiny staterooms aboard the next torchliner headed for the inner system. Ghonsilya’s current positioning vis-à-vis the Tube translated to another six days of travel, and we all settled in to enjoy the ride as best we could.
It wasn’t nearly as easy as it sounded.
Morse, while cordial enough, was still nursing the secret resentment against me that he still refused to talk about. Penny was brooding with an equally potent nervousness about the situation she’d been unexpectedly drop-kicked into. Bayta was even quieter than usual, probably worried about the two of them in addition to her usual worrying about the two of us.
And as the forced idleness of torchliner travel built up toward boredom, I found my thoughts turning increasingly toward Penny.
It was absurd on the face of it. I knew that. Her family’s wealth created a social chasm between us that I could never hope to cross, she was already engaged to someone else, and despite her twenty-three years she was clearly a babe in the woods when it came to stuff like this. My focus needed to be on the Lynx: finding it, getting it away from the Modhri, and then
keeping
it away from the Modhri long enough to find out what he wanted with it. Anything that fell outside those parameters came under the heading of potentially lethal distractions.
It was a litany I repeated to myself at least once a day. Usually more than once. But the harder I tried to push my feelings into the background, the more they stubbornly popped out somewhere else. Somewhere along the line, I knew, this growing obsession was going to get me into trouble.
The last evening before we reached Ghonsilya, it did.