The Third Lynx

I winced a little at the frost in her tone. She very definitely didn't like Penny. 'And?'

'It was from Deputy Director Losutu,' she said. 'Agent Morse is indeed who he claims to be.'

'He's sure?'

'He sent us Agent Morse's complete ESS personnel file,' Bayta said, handing me a data chip. 'From what I glanced at, it looked fine. But you'll be able to tell better than I can.'

So much for the possibility that the Modhri had tried to throw in a ringer. Still, that had never been more than an outside chance anyway. With modern technologies making a person's identity easy to check, a charade like that wouldn't hold up long enough to be very useful. 'I'll look it over later,' I said.

The restaurant's outside wilderness decor unfortunately carried over to the interior, with the added bonus of a whistling-wind soundtrack running in the background. The floor was painted to give the illusion that your table was halfway up the side of a cliff that even a mountain goat would avoid. Idly, I wondered how many acrophobes they got who took one look and ran out screaming.

Our iced tea, lemonade, and onion rings had just arrived when the door opened, and I looked up to see Morse hurrying toward us. 'Where is she?' he demanded.

'Where is who?' I asked, frowning.

'Don't play the fool,' he snapped. 'She's been trying for the past hour to get me to order you to come to Ian- apof with us.'

'Like you could actually do that,' I said, looking past him out the window. There were maybe twenty or thirty other waiting passengers milling around out there. None of them was Penny Auslander. 'When did you see her last?'

'She went to the washroom about fifteen minutes ago,' Morse said, turning to follow my line of sight. 'When she didn't come out, I sent one of the other girls in to check on her. She must have sneaked out the other door.'

I looked at Bayta. Sneaked out, or was helped out. 'Where are the rest of them?' I asked, pulling out a cash stick and plugging it into the table's jack to pay for the drinks and onion rings that it looked like we weren't going to be enjoying.

'At the shuttle waiting room,' Morse said. 'I told them to stay together and not move until I got back.'

'Were they good with that?' I asked as the three of us headed for the door.

Morse made a noise in the back of his throat. 'Who knows? I don't exactly have authority to order them to do anything, either. Are you telling me Ms. Auslander didn't come looking for you?'

'If she did, she didn't find me,' I told him, pausing outside the restaurant to take stock of the situation. 'Okay. She didn't get on a shuttle, because you would have seen her.'

'Correct,' Morse said. 'Besides which, none have docked since we arrived.'

'Ditto for any trains,' I said. 'Ergo, she's still somewhere in the station.'

'Brilliant, Holmes,' Morse growled. 'Problem: there are fourteen buildings, not counting the Spiders' private ones, and only three of us to search them all. If she cares to, she can play hide the button all day.' He looked at Bayta. 'Unless you can persuade your Spider friends to join in the hunt.'

Bayta looked along the curved Tube floor to a pair of cargo trains with Spiders swarming busily around them. 'They're all already occupied,' she told him. 'We'll have to do it on our own.'

Morse grunted. 'Lovely. Any suggestions as to where we begin?'

'We begin by splitting up,' I said. 'Like you said, there's a lot of ground to cover.'

'I thought you'd probably say that.' Morse pointed toward one end of the station and a triad of gift shops clustered around a restaurant. 'I'll start with that end.'

'We'll take the other,' I said. 'I suggest you start at the far side and work your way back toward the middle.'

'Thank you; I do know something about the technique,' Morse said acidly. Giving the area around us one final visual sweep, he strode off toward his target buildings.

I took Bayta's arm and headed us off in the other direction. 'You think she's in danger?' Bayta asked quietly.

'I don't know why she would be,' I said. 'The Modhri must have realized by now that she doesn't know where Stafford is.'

'Maybe Mr. Kunstler told them he didn't know where the Lynx was, either.'

I grimaced. At which point the walkers had beaten him to death just to make sure. 'Point,' I conceded. 'The Modhri doesn't seem to be the trusting sort.' Directly ahead of us, a wiry Pirk with an expensive plumed headdress came to a halt in front of one of the schedule holodisplays, his hands idly preening his feathers as he gazed up at the listings.

It was the sort of thing Quadrail travelers did all the time. Problem was, this particular traveler had been looking at an identical display when Morse and Bayta and I had first emerged from the restaurant not two minutes ago. Either he had the galaxy's worst short-term memory, or he wasn't here to look at schedules. 'But we can sort out the details once we find her,' I continued, keeping my voice casual. 'Why don't you start with those two cafes over there'—I pointed to the buildings nearest the working Spiders—'and I'll hit the dit rec and sleeping-room buildings.' I indicated the two windowless structures directly past the Pirk. 'If she's not there, we'll expand the search to the service buildings.'

'You think we should split up?' Bayta asked, her tone making it clear that she herself didn't think much of the idea.

'We'll be all right,' I soothed, patting her shoulder and then giving her a gentle push. 'Go on, get going. Meet me here when you're done.'

She studied my face a moment. But whatever her doubts or suspicions, they weren't strong enough to override her basic tendency toward obedience. Turning, she headed toward the two cafes.

I let her get a few steps away, then continued toward the Pirk. He was still studying the display, standing in fact directly between me and the dit rec building. As I veered a little to go around him, he swiveled and tufted his ear feathers in the traditional gesture of greeting. [Ah—a Human,] he said in scratch-voiced Karli. [May your day be rich with joy and profit.]

'May your day be likewise,' I said, touching my hand to the top of my ear in the proper response by those of us whose biomechanical design had somehow neglected the need for full-range ear movement. 'You are well?'

[Well and most content,] he replied. [I have just finished savoring the pleasure of one of your classic Human dit rec dramas. Its name—what was its name again?]

'I'm afraid I can't help you on that,' I said politely. This Pirk seemed even more aromatic than usual for his species, and I had to force myself not to widen the circle I was already making around him.

[Ten Angry Men,] he said suddenly, his ear feathers making little circles. [That was the title. Ten Angry Men.]

'An excellent drama,' I agreed. The other standard response to Pirkarli aroma, aside from creating more distance, was to talk a lot, permitting more air to bypass the nose on its way in and out of the lungs. 'But I believe you'll find the title is actually Twelve Angry Men.'

[Ah, yes, indeed,] he said. [That was the number. Thank you. We shall have to remember that.] His ears flattened slightly. [Rather, I shall have to remember. You have no such need, as you already know.]

'You're welcome,' I said, nodding as I finished my half circle and thankfully started widening the distance between us. 'A fine furtherance of the day to you.'

[And to you. Human.] Briskly, he strode away.

Mentally, I shook my head. A dit rec drama, and the number twelve. If they ever handed out prizes for unsubtlety, the Modhri would take the top three places.

From the outside, as I'd already noted, the dit rec building looked like a miniature Matterhorn. Inside, I discovered, its designers had gone even more overboard. The central corridor, instead of carving a clean, straight line through the middle of the building, twisted like the meandering path of a drunken sailor trying to find the door. Its walls were craggy and angled, the light overhead dim and diffuse, the overall effect that of a narrow northside mountain crevice straight out of some Icelandic saga.

Even more impressive, it came complete with a set of Icelandic trolls.