"I'm sure Mr. Hardin has friends, too," Bayta said diplomatically.
"And we'll do our very best to avoid them," I said. "Anyway, the point is that Hardin's round-robin diatribe is at least partially responsible for getting us onto the trail of the Lynx in the first place. That's the kind of intangible asset the Chahwyn aren't taking into account."
Bayta shrugged. Clearly, she didn't see much benefit in having a trillionaire for an enemy, either. "What are we going to do?"
"I still have a week of free Quadrail travel," I reminded her. "That should be more than enough to get us to Ghonsilya and find Fayr. The next move will depend on what he has to tell us."
"What about Mr. Stafford and the Lynx?"
I ran the question a couple of turns around my brain. Should I tell her, or not?
Not, I decided. "If we're lucky, we'll be able to pick him up along the way," I said instead. "The line out of Ian-apof should take us to Ghonsilya with only one or two train changes."
"I suppose we can do that," Bayta said, and I could see in her face that she was wondering what I would do if I was on Ghonsilya when the time limit on my pass ran out. Quadrail traffic, even back in third class, didn't come cheap.
I didn't blame her for her unspoken concerns. I was wondering about it, too. "In the meantime," I went on, "we'll see about taking a crack at the Hawk the walkers are sitting on."
Bayta gave me that patented strained look of hers again. But she was apparently too drained by the encounter with the Chahwyn to argue the point. "We'll see," she said instead. Lowering herself to the floor, she put her back against a stack of crates and closed her eyes.
I sat down, too, and did likewise.
Because there was another reason the Chahwyn might want to reconsider firing me. A very important one.
But I wasn't ready to let Bayta in on that secret, either. Not yet.
Especially since I might be wrong.
An hour later we reconnected with our train. As far as I could tell as we worked our way forward, no one had missed us.
The server Spiders had, of course, long since cleared away our half-empty glasses from the table where we'd left them. I ordered us two more drinks, lemonade for Bayta. iced tea for me. "Where were we?" I asked as we settled into our chairs. "Right—I was asking about the separation wall's default settings."
"And you were talking insanity," she said. "The Modhri would never have put the Hawk on board unless he had enough walkers here to protect it. If we try to steal it, we might trigger the same thing that happened on our trip back from the Sistarrko system."
"I doubt it," I said. "Remember, there he had a source of Modhri coral to work with. I doubt he has anything like that here. Besides, who said anything about stealing the Hawk?"
She was still frowning at me when the server tapped up and delivered our drinks. "You want to break into the compartment and not steal it?" she asked at last.
"Of course not," I said, putting some dignity into my voice. "Stealing's against the law. So if there's a power glitch do the wall locks stay on or go off?"
For a moment she continued to stare at me. Then, her eyes flattened as she consulted with the experts. "They'd go off," she said. "But the wall would still stay closed."
"Not a problem, provided the Modhri inside doesn't notice the power glitch," I assured her. "And provided we're already on the other side of the wall."
"Which would mean breaking into the other half of that compartment."
"Possibly," I said. "Let's find out first which compartment the Hawk's in, and who has the other half."
Neither bit of information proved difficult to collect. As with every Quadrail, conductor Spiders were continuously roaming the aisles, and a few minutes of silent interrogation and cross-checking on Bayta's part did the trick.
"The Jurian in compartment seven is the one who hasn't been outside since we left Jurskala," Bayta said. "The connecting compartment is occupied by another Jurian, a diplomatic consul."
"We can work with that," I said. "I don't suppose we're lucky enough for one of Penny's friends to have the compartment across the corridor from him."
"No," she said. "But Giovan Toya, one of the group, is two down from it. Will that help?"
"Not really," I said. "But that's okay. We'll just have to do it on the fly."
"How?" she asked.
"Just leave it to me," I said, patting her hand. "Order me another iced tea, will you? I need to go find Morse."
Morse was not amused. Not even close.
"You have got to be joking," he growled when I'd finished outlining my plan. "You're talking about breaking and entering. That's a felony. Two felonies."
"One: there won't be any breaking involved," I corrected. "You're going to get him to leave; I'm going to get inside before the door closes. So no breaking. Two: the Quadrail is under Spider jurisdiction. Human and Jurian laws don't apply."
Morse snorted. "Somehow, I don't think the consul will see it that way."
"And three," I added, "this may be the key to nailing down this whole Nemuti sculpture mystery. Possibly including the key to Rafael Künstler's murder."
His lip twitched at that one. No doubt he still thought I was involved with Künstler's death. "It's still lunatic," he insisted. "Why would a ranking Jurian diplomat get himself involved in theft and murder?"
"Why does anyone get involved in that sort of mess?" I countered, looking quickly for a reason that didn't require me to mention the Modhri. "Greed, blackmail, bad judgment, even just being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Pick one."
"Wrong place and rime certainly seems to be my problem these days," Morse muttered.
"A quick look inside his compartment, and I'm done," I promised.
"And that's all you're doing?" he asked, gazing hard at me. "Fair is fair, Compton. I'm sticking my neck out here, far enough to look backward down the Chunnel. I need the whole story."
"You have it," I assured him, stifling a twinge of conscience. He didn't have the whole story, of course. He barely had the first page. But I couldn't give him all of it. Not yet. "I get in, I look for the Hawk, and I get out."
"And you promise that this is it?" Morse persisted. "That if the Hawk's not there you aren't going to want to work your way through all the rest of the compartments?"
"Scout's honor," I said. "If the consul hasn't got it, the entire theory department's back to square one."
For a moment he continued to measure me with his eyes. Then, he shook his head. "Losutu had better be right about you," he said. "All right. Tell me what you want me to do."
We waited until late in the Quadrail's night schedule, hoping to increase the chances that the Hawk's courier would be sleeping. Whether the Modhri colony inside him would also be asleep, unfortunately, was anyone's guess.
Morse didn't know about that part, of course. My rationale to him was that the late hour would catch the Jurian consul in the other compartment in a half-awake state where he might be more easily manipulated.
It was a few minutes after one o'clock when Morse carefully positioned himself in front of the consul's door and touched the chime button.
A minute went by. Nothing. Morse glanced over at Bayta and me as we leaned against the corridor wall five meters farther forward, pretending to be engaged in a heartfelt conversation. I nodded toward the door, and Morse keyed the chime again. Another half minute went by, and then the door slid open and a Jurian face leaned out. eyes blinking groggily above his beak. "What is this you do, Human?" he demanded.
"My name's Morse," Morse said, holding up his ID wallet. "Terran Confederation EuroUnion Security Service. We have a situation two cars back that requires the assistance of a Resolver."