The Third Lynx

The return to the Quadrail went off without a hitch. I brought the torchyacht around in a big circle to make sure we avoided any curious eyes, then rendezvoused with the Tube a good thousand kilometers away from the station itself and the shuttle traffic associated with it. I eased us in along the back side, keeping it slow and unspectacular, finally bringing us to a floating halt half a kilometer away from the station. The torchyacht would be all right there until we finished up on Veerstu and sent word back to the rental company telling them where they could go to retrieve it. We all suited up and crossed the empty space to one of the service access airlocks near one end of the station, in a maintenance area a couple of kilometers from the passenger platforms. Bayta signaled the Spiders to open up, and a few minutes later we were inside.

The tender Bayta had requested was ready, fitted out pretty much like the one we'd used earlier on our trip to Jurskala. I'd wondered how it was the Spiders even had such rigged-out trains available, or I had until our last meeting with the Chahwyn. Apparently, these were the vehicles of choice for any of the Quadrail's masters who decided to venture out into the universe.

The Chahwyn had said the kwi's highest sleep setting would work for up to six hours. Just to be on the safe side, I gave Morse a new jolt every three. It would have been far more convenient to use one of the plethora of long-term sleep drugs specially developed for this sort of situation, but I had no access to anything like that and didn't have time to scare up a source.

It would have been equally convenient to simply kill him. But I was only ninety-eight percent sure that he had a Modhran colony lurking inside him, and without that other two percent I couldn't justify an execution. Even if I'd had the full hundred I knew I probably still couldn't do anything without an overt act against me or one of the others.

Maybe that was why the Modhri had kept quiet in the torchyacht instead of making a bid for freedom. Maybe, like me, he was learning how to play the short odds.

It was a five-hour trip back down the Claremiado Loop to Veerstu Station, and I spent most of that time bringing Penny and Stafford up to speed on the Modhri and his plans to take over the galaxy from the inside. I wasn't entirely happy about giving them the full picture this way, but they'd already stuck their necks way over the line for me and it seemed only fair that they know the truth.

Besides, if I was right about Stafford being Rafael Künstler's son, the kid stood to inherit a sizable financial empire. With Larry Hardin spreading hate mail about me throughout the Terran Confederation, it might be nice to have at least one trillionaire who was on my side.

I avoided any mention of the Chahwyn, of course, as well as the fact that the Quadrail system was fundamentally a fraud. That part of the picture no one else was going to get if I had anything to say about it. The galaxy's current struggle with the Modhri would pale in comparison to the chaos that would erupt if the Twelve Empires suddenly learned there was a way to go out conquering and pillaging among their neighbors.

Bayta spent most of the trip sleeping.

We reached Veerstu Station, again disembarking in the service areas far from the passenger platforms. The trick now was how to insert Stafford and me back into the general populace without the kind of unwelcome notice that would come if we simply strolled in from the far end of the station in plain sight.

Bayta solved that problem by diverting one of the Spider-run lockbox shuttles to our end of the station. Stafford and I got aboard and were transported directly to the transfer station, conveniently bypassing the Quadrail platforms, the passenger shuttles, and even the Veerstu customs setup. Stafford unloaded another stack of money at the torchyacht rental desk, and I flew us ostentatiously toward the inner system. As soon as we were off the local traffic control monitors, I circled back to the Quadrail station and picked up Bayta, Penny, and the dozing Morse. Three hours later, after another cautious skulk around the backside of the Tube, we were finally and truly on our way to Veerstu.

The Quadrail station was somewhat closer in toward the primary in this system, and in addition Veerstu was also about at its nearest orbital approach to the Tube. The result was that our flight took only four and a half days.

I let Morse wake up during most of the middle two days, making sure of course to wristcuff him securely to whatever conduit or large piece of furniture was handy. Bayta and the others weren't happy with the arrangement, but I felt it was only right to give the man the opportunity to eat, shower, and perform all those other necessary Human functions.

It also gave us a chance to test how long a single kwi jolt lasted. In Morse's case, it was just over five and a half hours.

In addition—and I didn't mention this one even to Bayta—I was also secretly hoping the Modhri would finally make some move that would clear away my last two percent of doubt. I'd seen the transition on two Human walkers and any number of alien ones, and I knew that when it happened he wouldn't be able to hide it from me.

But again, the Modhri refused to take the bait. Finally, a day out of Veerstu I gave up the effort and reinstated the three-hour zap regimen.

Veerstu was a much less developed world than Laarmiten, with only two spaceports capable of handling torchships. I landed us at the farther of the two from the Ten Mesas region and ran us through the entry procedure. It was largely a formality, given that our carrybags were properly marked with the customs stickers I'd managed to swipe from the transfer station while Stafford was renting the torchyacht. They were a little bemused by the coffin-sized box we'd put Morse into, but it had a sticker, too, and so they merely recorded its number along with the rest of them and let us pass.

Of course, when evening came and they lasered their updates to the central office the computer there would undoubtedly notice that stickers that had supposedly never left the transfer station had nevertheless managed to make it all the way to the planet's surface. Still, the first assumption would be computer or agent error, and we should have at least a couple of days before anyone began seriously looking for us,

Veerstu had only four suborbital transport routes, none of which took us close to our destination. Fortunately, there were aircars and trucks available for rent. Half an hour later, with Stafford's cash sticks depleted a little more, we were on our way.

It was as I was looking over the data chip I'd picked up from the travelers' desk at the spaceport that I discovered the Ten Mesas region had been closed to all visitors.

"That tears it," Stafford growled as he handed the reader to Penny. "He's on to us."

"Not necessarily" I said. "If he's got his walkers engaged in a major excavation, he wouldn't want anyone snooping around, not just established troublemakers like ourselves."

"Why not?" Stafford asked. "There are archaeological digs all over underdeveloped worlds like this."

"Only this isn't a standard archaeological dig," I reminded him. "Archaeologists sift through the landscape with a comb and a soft brush, looking for anything bigger than a good-sized piece of lint. The Modhri's looking for stuff the size of the Lynx, and he's not going to be shy about using rakes and shovels. Actually, I wouldn't be surprised if he's brought in gravel excavators to expedite the job."

"So what do we do?" Stafford asked.

"It only says the area's off-limits to visitors," I pointed out. "If we can find an official or quasi-official reason to go in, we might be able to bluff our way through the fence."

"What, a bunch of Humans on a Nemuti world?" Stafford scoffed. "Right."

"It's not as crazy as you might think," I told him. "The bureaucratic mind-set is pretty much universal among the Twelve Empires. All we have to do is find the right buttons to push."

"You know, it doesn't actually say that the whole region is closed," Penny spoke up, studying the reader. "If this boundary line is drawn correctly, the three biggest mesas are still accessible: the ones to the east, south, and southwest of the dig area."

Bayta craned her neck to look over her shoulder. "She's right," she confirmed. "Their outer edges are all outside the perimeter fence."

"If the Modhri's ignoring them, it's because you can't get up there," I said. "That, or you can't get down anywhere inside the fence once you are."

"Who says you can't get anywhere?" Penny countered.

"We do have an aircar ," Stafford added.

"'Which will be tagged, intercepted, and escorted out the minute we get within five klicks of the perimeter fence," I explained patiently.

"I wasn't talking about the aircar," Penny said, just as patiently. "I was thinking we could hike up the outer slope of one of the mesas, cross to the inner side, then rappel down into the dig area."

"You must be joking," I said, my stomach suddenly tightening.

"Why?" she countered. "The mesas are only a couple of kilometers long. And the outer edges don't look all that steep."

"The leading edge isn't the part that concerns me," I said. "Or didn't you notice those things they call the Spikes?"

"What, you mean those little peaks on the inner edge of the bigger mesas?" Penny scoffed.

"Those 'little peaks' are a good ten meters higher than the rest of the surface," I countered. "And very steep, and just a little tricky to get over."

"It won't be a problem," Penny assured me. "You can't tell much from these pictures, but there's always a way over or around something like that. I've done some rock climbing, and this is hardly a master-class slope."

"I don't think it's the over or around part that's bothering him," Stafford said, an all-too-knowing look on his face. "I think our courageous ex-Intelligence agent is afraid of heights. Didn't Westali train you to rappel down buildings and such?"

"They trained me as best they could," I said stiffly. "And for the record, it's not the heights that bother me. It's the possibility of falling from them."

"You'll be fine," Penny assured me. "This whole region is perfect for climbing, which means there'll be shops all over that'll carry the equipment we'll need. We can stop off somewhere along the way and I'll get us outfitted."

She gave me a pseudo-innocent look. "If you want, I'll even partner with you for the descent."

"You should instead make sure Mr. Stafford is safe," Bayta put in before I could think up a suitable answer. "I can partner with Frank."

Penny's smile went just a bit brittle. Bayta's attitude toward her, I'd noticed, had thawed somewhat since my public revelation earlier that the Modhri had been manipulating my feelings. But their relationship was still nowhere near warm. "Of course," Penny said. "I was just offering."

"You have a choice of which mesa we take?" Stafford asked.

"Let me look over the pictures a little more before I decide," Penny said.

"We'll take the south one," I told them.

"Why, is that the shortest?" Stafford asked.

"I have no idea," I said. "But that's the one we're taking."

"Don't you think—?"

"That's the one we're taking, Mr. Stafford," I said. "If you don't like it, I can drop you off at the next town. Ms. Auslander, get busy and figure out our best route."

I kept my eyes on the view out the canopy, but I could feel the sudden tenseness of the silence. Apparently, Stafford and Penny had started to think of themselves as full partners in this enterprise. The reminder that this was a benign dictatorship must have been a little upsetting. "Okay," Stafford broke the silence after a moment. "You're the boss."

I glanced over my shoulder at Bayta. She was watching me closely, a slightly troubled look on her face. But if she was also wondering what I was up to, she kept it to herself.

Turning back to the canopy, I returned my full attention to my flying. This, I knew, was about to get interesting.

A little before sundown we landed in a town at the foot of some craggy mountains to get some food and fuel, collect the gear Penny wanted, and buy some comms to replace the ones Gargantua and his buddies had taken from us back on Ghonsilya. Before we lifted off again I also gave the sleeping Morse another jolt from the kwi.

I could tell that both Penny and Bayta were a little concerned about the possible effects of such continual zapping on the man, but I brushed such worries aside. My only concern was whether we could land, get to our target mesa, hike across it, and rappel down again before our five-and-a-half-hour clock ran down and the polyp colony inside Morse woke up and alerted the rest of the local Modhri mind segment to our presence.

We flew most of the rest of the night. I dozed in the pilot's seat, awakening every half hour or so to check on our progress and make sure the autopilot was keeping us on track. The others, as far as I could tell, slept a bit restlessly but more or less straight through. Morse, with the usual help from the kwi, didn't wake up at all. During the quiet and privacy of the night I also made a small but significant adjustment to my newly purchased comm.

A couple of hours before sunrise, we arrived.

I set us down three kilometers outside the perimeter fence, landing in a shallow pit where the aircar would be partially concealed from casual observation. The whole region was arid and rocky, dotted with mesas and buttes and tall granite rock spines. Trees and clumps of vegetation were few and far between, concentrated mostly along streambeds and around natural springs, but nearly every minor dip and depression where dew might collect had sprouted stands of feathery, waist-high brown grass. It was easily pulled out of the loose soil, and I set Bayta and Penny to work gathering a few bunches to scatter across the top of the aircar. While they did that, Stafford and I got the unconscious Morse out of his carrying crate and set him up in one of the rear seats, wristcuffing him to the armrest to make sure he stayed put. It seemed unlikely we would make it to the dig and back before he woke up, but with luck by the time he did the local Modhri mind segment wouldn't be in any shape to respond to his warning. I gave him one last jolt from the kwi and we set off.

The air was bitterly cold, typical of arid regions with little ground and atmospheric water to hold heat. The sky was clear and the stars shone brilliantly down on us.

I particularly noticed the stars, as much of my attention was focused on the sky and any telltale occultations that might indicate curious aircraft nosing around. But I didn't spot anything, and in retrospect I decided that was as it should be. The Modhri wouldn't want to attract unwelcome curiosity by putting up nighttime sentry aircraft over a supposedly innocent archaeological dig.

An hour's walk brought us to the Ten Mesas area and the base of the mesa I'd chosen for our climb. Penny had assured us that the upward slope wouldn't be difficult, but looking at it from below in the dark it certainly looked daunting enough. But I needed to get in, and this was probably the simplest way.

Besides that, Penny was already striding briskly up the black rock, Stafford and Bayta right behind her. Taking a deep breath, deciding I hated this, I headed up after them.

The slope was every bit as challenging as I'd guessed it would be, and if I'd had any knee trouble at all I probably wouldn't have made it. As it was, we were all puffing to one degree or another by the time the slope began to level off onto the top of the mesa. Here the required level of physical exertion was much lower, but on the minus side much of the upper mesa surface was covered by the same waist-high grass we'd already encountered below. It was easy enough to push through, but because we couldn't see the ground below us we now had to pick our way carefully lest we twist an ankle on a hidden dip or pit or rock.

Once again, I kept an eye out for sentries. Once again, I didn't spot any.

The sky to the east was starting to show a faint reddish glow when we reached the northern end of the mesa.

"Yes, that's exactly what I was talking about," I commented in a low voice as we stood facing the Spike. It looked just the way the pictures had showed it: a sudden upward sweep of the mesa's surface into a steep-sloped, more or less pointed formation towering ten meters above us. At the same time, the sides of the mesa on either side of us also rose sharply, leaving us in a sort of natural cul-de-sac.

"No problem," Penny assured me, digging a coil of rope from her backpack. "We'll anchor the rope here and toss the coil over the lip around the side of the Spike. Its own weight, plus the friction of the rock up there, ought to give enough counterbalance for me to get to the lip. Once I'm there I'll anchor it, we'll all climb up, then we'll rappel down the other side."

To me it seemed more likely we would simply slice the rope in half on the edge of the lip. But Penny was already tying one end of the rope to a rock outcropping below the Spike. I checked my watch and peered across the wasteland at the easternmost of the mesas perhaps two kilometers away, its own Spike silhouetted against the increasing glow of the approaching sunrise like the prow of an ancient Viking dragon ship. Digging out the thick leather gloves Penny had bought with the rest of our climbing supplies, I pulled them on.

She finished securing the rope and heaved the coil up and over into the darkness. With one hand on the rope and the other searching out crevices and protrusions on the rock face itself, she started up.

I held my breath, but she made it without falling. "Okay," she called softly as she crouched down and got a grip on the rope. "Bayta?"

Bayta started forward, but I touched her shoulder and shook my head. "I'll go," I said. Getting a grip on the rope, I started up.

I made it to the top, to find that the razor-edged ridge I'd envisioned was instead a narrow but relatively flat shelf with plenty of room to stand or sit. Climbing up beside Penny, I eased a careful look over the other side.

That side, unfortunately, was every bit as dizzying as I'd expected it to be. It was nearly as sheer as a skyscraper wall, dropping sixty meters to the ground below. With an effort, I forced my mind and eyes away from the cliff and focused my attention instead on the archaeological dig spread out before me.

Even knowing what was at stake, I was surprised at the size of the operation. The glow in the east wasn't yet strong enough to shine any real light down there, but I could see the firefly glow of hundreds of small guide lights, some marking pathways across the area, others delineating the edges of pits or marking other hazards. In their faint reflected light I could see at least fifty tents of different sizes, plus the unmistakable shapes of a dozen portable sanitation facilities. There were vehicles, too: aircars and trucks, water and fuel tankers, and something that was probably a portable kitchen setup. Clearly, the Modhri was pulling out all the stops.

"I'll go first," Penny murmured beside me, starting to fasten the rope into her rappelling harness. "I'll tug the rope three times when I'm ready."

I took a careful breath. "That's okay," I told her. "I'll go first."

"It'll be easier for you if I'm down there belaying the other end."

"I'm the one in charge," I reminded her. "If there are any surprises waiting down there. I should be the one to find them."

I couldn't see her expression in the darkness, but I fancied I could perhaps sense a little new respect. "Okay," she said. "Let me help you with your harness."

A minute later I was ready. "Remember, three tugs," she said, giving the harness's rope channel one final check. "Then if you don't mind belaying it, it'll be easier for Bayta and Daniel."

"Got it," I said. "Don't panic if I don't tug right away—I'll want to check out the area a little first." Giving her an encouraging smile—a waste of effort since she couldn't see my expression any more than I could see hers—I got a grip on the rope, leaned backward, and fell off the edge of the cliff.

It was as bad as I'd expected. All my acrophobic feelings came rushing back as the wind swept past me and my feet bounced off the rock face like a vertical kangaroo in full emergency reverse. I could hear the faint and only marginally reassuring hiss of my harness feeding the rope through the channel exactly the way it was supposed to, and could feel the sliding of the rope on my palms even through the leather gloves.

And then, abruptly, it was over. The harness kicked into deceleration mode and slowed me to an almost gentle landing on the rocky ground. Helping myself to a few lungfuls of fresh air, I freed the rope from my harness and took a quick look around.

The terrain was basically the same as it had been on the other side of the mesa: rocks, stands of tall grass, no trees to speak of. More to the immediate point, the nearest of the tents was a good thirty meters away, and there was no one wandering around that I could see or hear.

Pulling out the comm I'd gimmicked during the flight, I plugged in its battery pack and I keyed in the code I'd set up. Making sure it was working properly, I slipped it back into my pocket. Then, removing my right glove, I snugged the kwi into position against my palm, adjusted it to its highest pain setting, and pulled the glove back over it. The weapon's bulk pushed rather blatantly against the leather, but if I kept my hand curved and at my side it shouldn't be too noticeable, especially not in this light. Given that the thing apparently worked just fine through the victim's clothing, I didn't expect the glove to impede it any. Then, wrapping the rope around my right forearm, I gave it three sharp tugs. Eyes turned cautiously upward so that I could move out of the way before I got landed on, I braced myself.

A few minutes later we were all down. None of the others, as near as I could tell, had had nearly as traumatic a time of the experience as I had. "What now?" Stafford whispered.

"We find the trophy room," I whispered back. The sky, I noted, had brightened considerably during this last stage of our trek. Most of the dimmer stars were already gone, and the predawn glow was hard at work engulfing the rest. "Should be one of the larger tents toward the middle of the camp. Keep it quiet—the walkers could start waking up anytime now."

We set off in single file, me in front, Stafford and Penny behind me, Bayta bringing up the rear. The rocky ground didn't lend itself to silent travel, but with me trying to pick out the best route and the others trying to stay in my footsteps it wasn't too bad. Fortunately, at this hour it shouldn't be unreasonable for an early riser or two to be up and about.

Of course, that misconception would only fool anyone if the site included nonwalkers who'd been pressed into digging duty. If the entire site was nothing but a single Modhran mind segment, the sound of extra footsteps in the camp would damn us instantly as intruders.

But we passed the outer lines of tents and equipment without incident. Directly ahead, nestled into the middle of the encampment as I'd predicted, were a pair of large tents that were obviously more than simple residences.

We were still fifty meters away when I heard a sharp intake of air from behind me. "Oh, no," Stafford murmured.

I turned sharply, opening my mouth to remind him to keep quiet.

The warning wasn't necessary. It was also too late. Standing at the doorways of each of the tents we'd already passed were three or four beings in rough work clothing, all of them standing stiff and silent.

The Modhri had us.