The Third Lynx

Which meant that anyone who wanted to make trouble on someone else's turf would end up going against warships with the military equivalent of popguns. With the Tube in place, and the Spiders controlling the Tube, interstellar war was impossible.

With the Tube gone, all bets would be off. Anyone would be able to build warships and troop transports and self-guiding weapons and send them zipping along the Thread to the next empire down the line.

And they would. I knew enough about alien psychology, and more than enough about the Human version, to know that if interstellar travel was open and unrestricted we would soon have the sort of massive power struggles that had plagued Earth for most of its history. The Thread had enabled the Shonkla-raa to enslave most of the galaxy, and the Spiders and Chahwyn were determined not to let it happen again.

They'd been doing a pretty good job of it, too, until the Modhri showed up.

The first-class car Bayta and I found ourselves in was identical to all the others I'd seen during the months I'd been working with the Spiders. The seats were large and comfortable, with automatic cushion adjustments that could accommodate the full range of passenger rear ends. Each seat had its own reading light, drink holder, and music system, plus an eyeshade and sonic neutralizer for when the occupant grew tired of the genteel party atmosphere that usually pervaded first class and wanted to get some sleep. The chairs here were also mobile, and could be moved around to create conversation or game circles, swiveled for a view of whatever was playing on each of the car's display windows, or just moved off into a corner for reading or quiet contemplation.

The passenger roster was also pretty typical of what I'd seen before, consisting of the rarefied upper crust of a variety of the galaxy's species. In second and third class, travelers tended to segregate themselves by species. Not so in first. Juriani and Halkas, Bellidos and Pirks, Humans and Cimmaheem—we were all just one big happy family.

Of course, for the passengers the Modhri had co-opted, the family metaphor was literally true.

But if the Modhri mind segment I assumed was riding our train recognized Bayta and me, he apparently decided to play it cool. There were no obvious stares or scowls from any of the passengers, and certainly no attempts to make any trouble. In fact, aside from a few curious looks at our nonrarefied-upper-crust clothing, the rest of the car's occupants pretty much ignored us.

As for the fifteen Bellidos who'd arrived at Bellis Station under armed escort, they seemed to be keeping to their compartments one car forward.

Still, there was one amenity even a first-class compartment lacked, and that was personal food service. As the hours crept by. in ones and twos, the reclusive Bellidos began passing through our car on their way to the first-class dining car just behind us. Lounging in my seat, my legs propped up comfortably and my reader nestled in the crook of my elbow just for show, I took careful mental notes.

The first stop on our way back toward Human space was the Greesovra system, one of the Belldic regional capitals, seven hours out from Bellis. A few of our car's passengers, mostly Bellidos, got off there, to be replaced by a slightly more varied group of new arrivals. With a Spider conductor standing the usual watch at each of the train's doors, Bayta was able to confirm that all the passengers in the first-class compartments stayed put.

I'd hoped those seven hours would be long enough for the Spiders to do the Nemuti Lynx and Daniel Mice research I'd asked for. But the train pulled out of Greesovra Station without word being passed to Bayta that any such data chips were waiting to be picked up.

Three hours later we reached Dyar. the train's final stop in the Bellidosh Estates-General. Again, there was some shuffling of passengers, though not as much as we'd seen at Greesovra. Again, not a peep from the Spiders about my data requests.

But I'd made some progress of my own with our mysterious Gang of Fifteen, as I'd privately dubbed them. The stripe patterns of Belldic faces were fairly easy for Human eyes to distinguish between, and over the past ten hours most of the Bellidos had made at least one trip back to the dining car.

All of them, that is, except two.

'The conductor says they're in compartments two and three,' Bayta said as we had some dinner of our own in one of the dining car's back comers.

'Is that where the two carryout meals we saw ended up?' I asked.

'There weren't any Spiders in the car at the time, so I don't know for sure,' Bayta said. 'But it's a safe assumption.'

I cut off another bite of steak and popped it into my mouth. It was a very good steak, though I couldn't for the life of me identify which animal it had come from. Travel might be broadening for the mind, but it could be very confusing for the taste buds. 'Did those two have any special luggage?'

'There were four standard rolling carrybags between them,' Bayta said. 'One of them was also carrying a shoulder bag.'

With something inside he hadn't wanted to risk letting get even a meter away from him? 'Is there any way the Spiders can get them out of there?'

'You mean force them to leave their compartments?' Bayta asked, looking shocked that I would even make such a suggestion. 'No, of course not.'

'I'm not asking the Spiders to declare open war on them.' I said patiently. 'I just want them out for a few minutes so I can see what they're carrying.'

'No,' Bayta said firmly. 'There's nothing they can do.' Her cheek muscles tightened. 'Not will do. Can do.'

I grimaced. But she was probably right. The Spiders had been genetically engineered to be passive, just like their Chahwyn masters, which was why the whole group of them were forced to rely on less civilized beings like Fayr and me to handle the rough stuff for them.

Still, it was that same lack of aggression that had kept them from simply taking over the galaxy and everything in it after the Shonkla-raa were destroyed. It was, I supposed, a fair enough trade-off.

But it did mean Bayta and I were pretty much on our own. 'New question, then,' I said. 'Is there any way we can get them out of there? Maybe create some sort of disturbance, like a fake fire or something?'

I'd thought she'd hit her top scandalization level with my last suggestion. I'd been wrong. 'Are you serious?' she demanded, her eyes going even wider. 'There's never been a fire of any size on a Quadrail train. Ever.'

'I'm aware of the Spiders' enviable safety record,' I said. 'But this is war, remember?'

'If they're walkers,' she countered. 'We don't know that for sure. They might just be nervous businessmen or couriers.'

I glared across the bar at a petite serving Spider making his way between the tables. Catch-22. Unless and until I could prove the Gang of Fifteen were an immediate threat to us or the Spiders or the Quadrail, Bayta wouldn't support any drastic action against them. And without drastic action I probably couldn't get her that proof.

I would just have to do something clever.

Taking another bite of steak, I pulled out my reader and called up our schedule. From Dyar to the Human colony of Helvanti was seven hours, four of which had already passed. That left me three hours to talk Bayta into the scheme starting to take shape in the back of my mind.

The mood she was in, I suspected it would take every minute of those three hours to pull it off.

Helvanti had been the first of Earth's colonies, the original colonist survey teams having headed into the system nearly twenty-five years ago and the official Quadrail station being commissioned and built four years after that.

Unlike humanity's other three colonies, though, Helvanti was actually thriving, its people doing a brisk business in rare metals, exotic woods, even more exotic spices, and possibly the finest chocolate in the galaxy. Still, it was definitely a minor stop, and we were only scheduled to be in the station for fifteen minutes.

It had taken me an hour to talk Bayta into my plan. Now she had fifteen minutes to do likewise to the stationmaster.

As far as I could tell, as I looked back and forth through the display window beside me, she was the only one of us getting off here, with only a single young Human couple coming aboard back at the third-class end of the train. That was about the traffic volume I would expect for Helvanti. I watched Bayta disappear inside the stationmaster's office, then checked my watch and started my mental countdown.