'
'You'll need to find another opportunity to talk,' he said. Again, ir was more order than suggestion. 'In the meantime, the Nemuti sculptures as bombs cannot be the whole story.'
'Why not?' I asked, my eyes and half my attention still on Bayta's stiff back.
'If he seeks to reproduce the effect, he needs only one sculpture to experiment with,' Fayr said. 'He certainly would not need to go to this much risk to obtain the last Lynx.'
Resolutely, I shook Bayta and her anger at me out of my mind. Fayr was right. 'Unless he doesn't think he can duplicate the technology,' I said. 'In that case, he'd want every one he can get hold of.'
'No ' Fayr said, shaking his head. 'Something is still missing.'
'Maybe we can figure it out once we have the Lynx,' I said. 'Earlier you said—'
I broke off as his left hand suddenly snapped up in a gesture for silence. He spun to face the archway leading out of our gallery into die rest of the museum, his Rontra popping into view from beneath the concealing poncho.
I resisted the urge to make extraneous noise by hauling out my own gun, opting instead to freeze in place and listen. The typical sounds of a large, mostly hollow, mostly deserted building whispered across my ears.
And then my ears and brain edited out the background noise, and I heard the slow, measured footsteps coming our way.
Bayta heard the footsteps, too. She turned back toward Fayr and me, her eyes wide with sudden urgency. I motioned for her to stay put, and got a grip on my gun. The footsteps came closer …
'Compton?' a familiar voice called softly from somewhere beyond the archway.
It was Gargantua.
Fayr threw me a sideways look. I threw him one back, making sure mine had a little curdle to it. So much for his sunburst grenade knocking Gargantua and the other Halkan walker out of the game for the rest of the night.
'Compton?' Gargantua called again, a little louder this time. 'Please come out. I plan no action against you, but wish merely to talk.'
Bayta was shaking her head, pointing insistently at the service door we'd used on our way in. I looked at Fayr again, saw my own ambivalence reflected there. Bayta's choice of a fast cut and run seemed the logical response. Certainly it would be the smart military move.
But if the Modhri wanted to take us, he would have cops surrounding the building by now. Actually, he would probably have had them lobbing in sleep gas already. Chances were good that, for once, he was telling the truth.
Fayr was still waiting for my call. Keeping hold of my gun, I gave Bayta a reassuring smile and made my way across the gallery. Carefully, I peeked around the corner.
I was looking into another gallery, this one every bit as elegant as the one I was standing in. More elegant, actually, since no one had set of a bomb in the middle of it.
Seated on one of the contemplation benches about twenty meters away was Gargantua.
He was, to put it bluntly, a mess. His eyes were heavily bandaged, the bandage riding over the top curve of his snout and half covering his ears. The facial skin the bandage didn't cover had gone a deep purple, the Halkan version of serious sunburn. Gripped in his hands was a sensor cane, its bottom end planted firmly in the softfloor, its aperture swiveling back and forth across the width of my archway.
'Hello, Modhri,' I greeted him as I came the rest of the way around the corner. 'You're looking good.'
'You lie,' Gargantua said calmly. The hand resting on the top of the cane rotated a little, swiveling the sensor aperture to point directly at me. 'A very effective weapon, that.'
'Especially against someone like you who shares pain and all the other unpleasantries of life,' I agreed. 'How are you doing with the Tra'ho'seej vertigo? I notice you decided to sit down.'
His lips curled back to reveal his teeth. 'I'm not in a position to force you to my will, if that's what you mean,' he said. 'Still, never forget that I can eliminate that particular effect whenever I choose.'
Translation: at any point the Modhri colonies inside the Tra'ho'seej could simply kill themselves and their hosts, eliminating the vertigo flowing through the local Modhri mind segment by eliminating the central nervous systems that were generating it. Rather like curing dandruff by cutting off your head, except that in this case it would actually work. 'I don't think that would be a good idea,' I pointed out. 'By my count, you're down to two functioning walkers at the moment.'
'That, too, is easily changed,' he said. 'But I didn't come here to talk about me. I came to talk about your Human friends.'
I felt a lump rise into my throat. Penny …'How are they doing?'
'They are in pain,' the Modhri said. 'Also frightened. Also very angry.'
I grimaced before I could catch myself. 'I imagine so,' I agreed, wondering fleetingly what kind of visual resolution he was getting from his cane. With Humans, it took a month or more of practice before the brain learned to read the input stream well enough to decipher faces and read expressions. I didn't know how long that adaptation took with Halkas, and had even less of an idea how long it took with the Modhri.
Apparently not as long as I would have liked. 'You seem distressed,' he said.
'I've seen you in action,' I reminded him. 'I dislike the thought of any civilized being falling into your hands.'
'As well you should,' he said coldly. 'But at the moment there is no need for concern. The only damage perpetrated on either of them was that inflicted by the Human McMicking.'
'Who?' I asked innocently.
And this time I
'Do not play innocent,' Gargantua admonished me. 'I saw him throw that grenade.'
'Actually, all you saw was a street drifter fumbling with something,' I corrected him. 'You never saw the actual grenade.'
Gargantua snorted. 'This is a foolish lie,' he said. 'I know you had no such device with you.'
'Do you?' I countered, raising my eyebrows.
For a long minute he remained silent, his face turned to me as if he was trying to stare straight through his bandages into my mind.
Because I was right. All he actually knew was that he'd had me under surveillance since before we'd left the Quadrail, and that I hadn't had a chance to pick up any military hardware along the way.
And of course, he knew that no one was permitted to carry such things aboard a Quadrail.
But he also knew that I was in league with the Spiders …and allies of the Spiders might operate under entirely different rules.
'I know what I saw,' he said at last. 'But even with the Human McMicking's aid, it will not be possible for you to locate the other Humans.' His face hardened. 'I would presume you won't wish the Ghonsilya authorities to call you in to identify the Human Auslander's body.'
He was bluffing, of course. We both knew that. He couldn't afford to damage the only levers he had to use against me.
But even so I still felt a tingle of dread ripple through me at the thought of what he might do to Penny.
And we also both knew that I couldn't and wouldn't let anything happen to her. 'There won't be any need for that,' I said between dry lips. 'There's an art auction scheduled here for tomorrow evening. Bring Morse and Ms. Auslander with you.'
He leaned the cane a little toward me, as if trying to read my face. 'You have the Lynx?'
'I will by then,' I promised. 'A straight trade: the Humans for the Lynx.'
'I accept,' he said. 'But be warned. If you don't have the Lynx, things will not go well for your friends.'
'I'll keep that in mind,' I said. 'There's just one more thing, then. Since I can't have you following me—'
He never even had time to react as I pulled out my gun and shot him.
He slumped limply over the back of the bench, his cane thudding to the softfloor, as the snoozer's drug hit his bloodstream and knocked him cold. Mindful of what Fayr had once told me about a Modhran colony's resistance to
