I thought about Hermod, and the secrets hidden behind Bayta’s troubled eyes. “Apparently I was misinformed,” I said.
For a long moment he just stared at me, his expression impossible to read. Then his whiskers stiffened once and relaxed, and he returned his gun to its holster. “Spiders,” he said, his voice edged with contempt. “Come.”
He turned and headed down the walkway. I followed, the second Bellido bringing up the rear. “Where are all the Halkas?” I asked as we headed down.
“Under guard at the tunnel face,” the first Bellido said. “We took them silently as they arrived for work.”
“And you left their comms on?”
“Of course not,” he said. “One of us monitored and recorded several days’ worth of their conversation and created a compilation.”
“Which you’re now broadcasting on the appropriate channel,” I said, nodding. “With one of your people no doubt standing by with a voice synthesizer to handle any direct questions from base. Very neat.”
“Though perhaps pointless,” he said grimly. “These workers are supposed to all be newcomers. If that’s untrue, then the alarm is already out.” He half turned to look at me. “Though with you here even that may now be irrelevant.”
“I haven’t said anything about you,” I assured him, wondering what that comment about newcomers had been all about.
“That, too, may not matter,” he warned. “He almost certainly has been on to you from the beginning.”
“Possibly,” I said, wondering who he was. “Of course, so have you.”
“Yes,” he said. There was no boast or malicious amusement in his voice; he was simply stating a fact. “Still, perhaps it’s too late for him to stop us.”
“We can hope,” I agreed. “I don’t suppose you’d like to tell me who we’re talking about?”
“The Modhri, of course,” he said, his voice suddenly as cold as the tunnel around us. “He and his walkers.”
“You mean the big conspiracy going on at the resort?”
He stopped so abruptly I nearly ran into him. “You see this as merely a conspiracy?”
“Well, it’s definitely a good conspiracy,” I floundered, startled at the intensity of his reaction. “They’ve got excellent lines of communication, for starters.”
He snorted a sort of barking laugh. “Human humor in the midst of danger,” he said. “A strange but interesting gift.”
We continued on in silence, the Bellido apparently no longer interested in conversation, me trying to figure out what the hell he’d meant by that last comment. If this wasn’t a conspiracy, what was it? And if this so-called Modhri wasn’t one of the Halkas, then who was he?
It had been obvious from the instant that first gun had been pointed at me that the Bellidos had already had a busy morning. It wasn’t until we reached the area I’d found yesterday that I saw just how busy they’d been. A two-by-three-meter section of the tunnel wall had been melted away, revealing a good-sized cavern carved out of the ice behind it. Two more Bellidos were standing inside, training plasma cutters on the floor around a pair of massive telescoping elevator beams poking vertically through the cavern.
And as the water runoff flowed out into the tunnel to be siphoned away by the drain hoses, I saw a wide metal plate working its way upward. I studied it through the swirling mist of condensing ice crystals, trying to figure out why it looked familiar.
Then, suddenly, I got it. It was the upper surface of a maintenance submarine. Most likely the very submarine the Bellidos had tried to convince everyone was hidden in the underwater caverns Bayta and I had visited.
Only here it was, magically transported hundreds of meters up from where it had last been spotted. And through solid ice, yet.
I turned to my guide, to find that he in turn was watching me. “You seem surprised,” he said.
I looked back into the cavern, scowling. My professional pride was at stake here. I studied the sub’s emerging upper surface, particularly where it connected to the elevator beams, noting the interesting texture of the beams themselves. “Not really,” I said. “Those elevator beams are rigged with microwave surface/point heaters. You got them in place here, walled them up where they wouldn’t be seen, then sent them telescoping downward, melting the ice as they went. Once they broke through to open water, you stole a sub, attached it to them, and started it melting its leisurely way back up again. Nice and quiet, no massive energy spikes for detectors to latch on to, and the water even froze again beneath the sub as it went up so that it wouldn’t leave a telltale hole in the icepack.”
“Excellent,” he said, and I thought I could detect a note of respect in his voice. “And now?”
“You got me,” I admitted. “A submarine a hundred meters from actual water seems kind of useless. Unless you’re building a clubhouse.”
“Your sense of humor is—” He broke off, his head tilting slightly to one side as if listening… and when it straightened again, I could see his whiskers had gone rigid. “They’re calling for you,” he said.
There was something in his tone that sent a sudden chill up my back. “Who?”
“Your friends.” Reaching to my helmet, he flipped on my comm.
“—ton,” a familiar voice called tautly. “Repeating: Terrance Applegate calling Frank Compton. Damn it, Frank, I know you’re out there somewhere.”
I flipped off the comm. “What do you want me to do?” I asked.
“What do you want to do?” the Bellido countered.
I grimaced, but I didn’t have much choice. “I have to go,” I said. “I know Applegate, and he won’t quit looking until he finds me.”
“Then go,” the Bellido said.
I’d always thought of Bellidos as being somewhat abrupt, but even by their standards it was a pretty curt dismissal. “Fine,” I answered him in kind. Turning around, I brushed past his friend still standing behind me and started up the slope.
I was thirty meters away before I noticed I still had his remora transceiver attached to my helmet. Pulling it off, I tucked it away in my top pocket.
I waited until I was within sight of the entrance before I turned the suit’s regular comm back on. Applegate was still burning up the frequency, his tone sounding more worried now than angry. “I’m here, Applegate,” I called the first time he paused for air. “Stupid comms in these things aren’t worth—”
“Forget the comm,” he cut me off. “There’s been an accident with the Balercomb tour.”
I felt my heart seize up. “Bayta?” I demanded, breaking into a gliding, bobbing run.
“I don’t know,” he said. “Where are you?”
“Over by the new toboggan tunnels, at the far end of the red pylon line,” I told him as I emerged onto the surface. “I’m heading back.”
“Just stay put,” Applegate ordered. “I’ll be right there.”
I frowned; and then, belatedly, I noticed the faint sound of Shorshic thrusters in the background. I turned toward the lodge and saw a sleek Chafta 669 starfighter settle onto the ice twenty meters away. “Come on!” Applegate’s voice barked in my helmet.
He had the canopy popped by the time I reached him. “Take the ops seat,” he ordered, gesturing over his shoulder at the padded chair above and behind him.
“What’s this doing here?” I asked as I pulled myself up the handholds along the side and dropped into the seat. “I thought we were going to Modhra II to see them.”
“Losutu’s idea,” he grunted as the canopy swung closed and we lifted from the surface. “He thought it would save time if we brought one of the starfighters here for you to look at. Never dreamed we might actually need it for anything. Hang on.”
He kicked in the drive, the acceleration shoving me back into my seat. “What happened?” I called over the roar coming from behind me.
“Sounds like the driver lost control somehow and rammed the bus into one of the ice pillars,” he said. “I heard that Bayta was calling for you, and that no one could find you, so I fired up the Chafta and headed out to look.”