The Third Lynx

someone to sniff out the story and load it into a data cylinder bound for the nearest Intragala News office. By the time we make Bellis, the sensational story of Mr. Smith's murder will be on its way to every corner of the galaxy.'

'And Mr. Morse will make sure your name is in there somewhere,' she murmured.

'Definitely,' I said sourly. 'Which means that if the Modhri isn't already aware that we're on this train, he will be well before we reach Bellis.'

'Which means we can't go looking for Korak Fayr.'

'Not unless we want to do it with a parade of Modhran walkers behind us,' I agreed.

Bayta turned her head to gaze toward the compartment door. 'Do you think that was why he killed Mr. Smith? To alert the rest of the mind?'

'Who says the Modhri was even involved?' I countered. 'There is other crime still going on out there in the galaxy.'

'I suppose.' She shivered. 'It seems like such a horrible way to kill someone.'

'It's also very inefficient,' I said. 'That's why the only time you bother with it is for revenge or for information.'

'Information about what?'

I shrugged. 'All I know is what Smith said before he died. He said someone wanted the Nemuti Lynx. Or maybe the third Lynx—he used both terms. He also mentioned someone named Daniel Mice.'

'Do you know this person?'

'Never heard of him,' I said. 'But I'm starting to think I should correct that omission. Next station where we have time, I want you to get the stationmaster busy sifting through the master records. If there's a Daniel Mice riding the Quadrail right now, I want to know it.'

'All right,' she said. 'What about us?'

I grimaced. 'As far as Fayr is concerned, the best thing we can do is turn around and go somewhere else.'

'You have someplace in mind?'

'Not really.'

For a moment we sat together in silence. Then Bayta got up and walked to the display window, gazing out at the faintly lit Tube surface rushing past. 'Could Mr. Morse himself be involved?' she asked.

'There were no obvious blood spatters on his clothing,' I told her. 'And his hands didn't show any bruising or other marks.'

'Yet he seems very anxious to put the blame on you.'

'Unfortunately. I'm a very logical suspect.' I said. 'I was on the scene, and I have the training to know how to do this.'

'But you have no motive.'

'He's probably working on that as we speak,' I said. 'What's he doing right now, by the way?'

'He's in the first first-class coach car,' she said, frowning in concentration. 'He's asking one of the Halkas if he saw anyone going into or coming out of our car in the past three hours.'

'Can you get that conductor to stay with him?'

'He was already planning to do that.'

Which meant Bayta would be able to listen in on Morse's investigation via her handy little telepathic link. 'Good,' I said. 'Be sure to take notes.'

'I will.' Bayta hesitated. 'Frank …what did Morse mean when he said you were involved with the Yandro incident, too?'

'Obviously, he must have originally recognized my name from somewhere else.'

'Obviously,' she said patiently. 'I was asking where that someplace was.'

'I have no idea,' I said. 'Whatever it was, though, he wasn't remembering it fondly.'

Her throat tightened. 'He's not going to let you go on this, is he?'

'I'm sure he'll give it his best shot,' I said. 'But it's over twenty hours to Bellis. We'll think of something.'

THREE :

Twenty hours later, I still hadn't thought of anything.

Morse, unfortunately, had.

He was waiting on the platform with a pair of well-dressed Bellidos as Bayta and I disembarked from our car. The Bellidos were looking very solemn, their dark eyes staring hard at me out of their striped chipmunk faces.

The typical Bellido was shorter than the typical Human, which meant they were looking up at me. But that particular stare had an amazingly effective leveling effect.

Standing a few paces behind them was the lady politician who'd discovered Smith's body, still looking a little shaken. 'There he is,' Morse said to the Bellidos, pointing at me. 'That's Mr. Frank Compton.'

'Can I help you?' I asked, giving the Bellidos a quick once-over as Bayta and I walked up to the group. Along with their expensive clothing, each of the two aliens was wearing a double shoulder holster on each arm, making a total of eight small-caliber handguns between them.

Not real guns, of course. The Spiders banned weapons of any sort aboard their trains, and had a highly sophisticated layered sensor array in every Tube station to enforce that edict. The Bellidos' real guns were safely secured in lockboxes beneath the cars, which the drudge Spiders were busy packing aboard one of the outgoing cargo shuttles for shipment to the transfer station floating in space a hundred kilometers away.

But guns were an indication of Belldic social rank, and the soft plastic substitute guns currently riding the Bellidos' holsters were no less valid a mark of their status than were the real things.

Four guns apiece implied that status was pretty high. Whatever Morse had up his sleeve, I was pretty sure I wasn't going to like it.

I was right. 'Mr. Compton is under suspicion of felony murder.' Morse informed the aliens. 'I'm going to go and speak to the stationmaster about having him officially handed into my custody for return to the Terran Confederation. But in case I can't persuade him, I wanted to lodge a formal warning with the Bellidosh Estates- General as to who and what this man is.'

'Who he is and what he might be,' I corrected stiffly. 'Mr. Morse has absolutely no evidence against me.'

'Mr. Compton had both opportunity and ability,' Morse countered. 'Belldic law, if I'm not mistaken, allows extradition or temporary confinement under such indicators while an investigation is launched.'

'It does,' one of the Bellidos confirmed, eyeing me thoughtfully.

I eyed him right back with all the innocence I could dredge up at such short notice, and sent a few mental daggers in Morse's direction. I'd already decided we weren't going to Bellis, but there had still been the option of getting off somewhere else in the Estates-General and backtracking again after the uproar over Smith's murder had died down.

Now, that option was also down the plumbing. The minute I stepped onto a shuttle and headed for any Belldic transfer station I would be out of Spider jurisdiction. If Morse could persuade the Bellidos to arrest me and extradite me over to him, he could bypass the Spiders completely.

A little obfuscation was clearly called for. 'What Mr. Morse fails to mention is that everyone with a compartment on this train had the same level of opportunity that I had,' I pointed out.

'A moot point, since everyone else is continuing on,' Morse said before either of the Bellidos could respond. 'All we can do here is to send a warning on ahead to the various Belldic stations down the line.' He looked expectantly at me, and I could tell he was dying for me to also bring up the passengers in the other two first-class coaches as possible suspects.

Fat chance. I already knew from Bayta and her eavesdropping conductor that no one in either car remembered