"If she did, she didn't find me," I told him, pausing outside the restaurant to take stock of the situation. "Okay. She didn't get on a shuttle, because you would have seen her."
"Correct," Morse said. "Besides which, none have docked since we arrived."
"Ditto for any trains," I said. "Ergo, she's still somewhere in the station."
"Brilliant, Holmes," Morse growled. "Problem: there are fourteen buildings, not counting the Spiders' private ones, and only three of us to search them all. If she cares to, she can play hide the button all day." He looked at Bayta. "Unless you can persuade your Spider friends to join in the hunt."
Bayta looked along the curved Tube floor to a pair of cargo trains with Spiders swarming busily around them. "They're all already occupied," she told him. "We'll have to do it on our own."
Morse grunted. "Lovely. Any suggestions as to where we begin?"
"We begin by splitting up," I said. "Like you said, there's a lot of ground to cover."
"I thought you'd probably say that." Morse pointed toward one end of the station and a triad of gift shops clustered around a restaurant. "I'll start with that end."
"We'll take the other," I said. "I suggest you start at the far side and work your way back toward the middle."
"Thank you; I do know something about the technique," Morse said acidly. Giving the area around us one final visual sweep, he strode off toward his target buildings.
I took Bayta's arm and headed us off in the other direction. "You think she's in danger?" Bayta asked quietly.
"I don't know why she would be," I said. "The Modhri must have realized by now that she doesn't know where Stafford is."
"Maybe Mr. Künstler told them he didn't know where the Lynx was, either."
I grimaced. At which point the walkers had beaten him to death just to make sure. "Point," I conceded. "The Modhri doesn't seem to be the trusting sort." Directly ahead of us, a wiry Pirk with an expensive plumed headdress came to a halt in front of one of the schedule holodisplays, his hands idly preening his feathers as he gazed up at the listings.
It was the sort of thing Quadrail travelers did all the time. Problem was, this particular traveler had been looking at an identical display when Morse and Bayta and I had first emerged from the restaurant not two minutes ago. Either he had the galaxy's worst short-term memory, or he wasn't here to look at schedules. "But we can sort out the details once we find her," I continued, keeping my voice casual. "Why don't you start with those two cafés over there"—I pointed to the buildings nearest the working Spiders—"and I'll hit the dit rec and sleeping-room buildings." I indicated the two windowless structures directly past the Pirk. "If she's not there, we'll expand the search to the service buildings."
"You think we should split up?" Bayta asked, her tone making it clear that she herself didn't think much of the idea.
"We'll be all right," I soothed, patting her shoulder and then giving her a gentle push. "Go on, get going. Meet me here when you're done."
She studied my face a moment. But whatever her doubts or suspicions, they weren't strong enough to override her basic tendency toward obedience. Turning, she headed toward the two cafés.
I let her get a few steps away, then continued toward the Pirk. He was still studying the display, standing in fact directly between me and the dit rec building. As I veered a little to go around him, he swiveled and tufted his ear feathers in the traditional gesture of greeting. [Ah—a Human,] he said in scratch-voiced Karli. [May your day be rich with joy and profit.]
"May your day be likewise," I said, touching my hand to the top of my ear in the proper response by those of us whose biomechanical design had somehow neglected the need for full-range ear movement. "You are well?"
[Well and most content,] he replied. [I have just finished savoring the pleasure of one of your classic Human dit rec dramas. Its name—what was its name again?]
"I'm afraid I can't help you on that," I said politely. This Pirk seemed even more aromatic than usual for his species, and I had to force myself not to widen the circle I was already making around him.
[Ten Angry Men,] he said suddenly, his ear feathers making little circles. [That was the title. Ten Angry Men.]
"An excellent drama," I agreed. The other standard response to Pirkarli aroma, aside from creating more distance, was to talk a lot, permitting more air to bypass the nose on its way in and out of the lungs. "But I believe you'll find the title is actually Twelve Angry Men."
[Ah, yes, indeed,] he said. [That was the number. Thank you. We shall have to remember that.] His ears flattened slightly. [Rather, I shall have to remember. You have no such need, as you already know.]
"You're welcome," I said, nodding as I finished my half circle and thankfully started widening the distance between us. "A fine furtherance of the day to you."
[And to you. Human.] Briskly, he strode away.
Mentally, I shook my head. A dit rec drama, and the number twelve. If they ever handed out prizes for unsubtlety, the Modhri would take the top three places.
From the outside, as I'd already noted, the dit rec building looked like a miniature Matterhorn. Inside, I discovered, its designers had gone even more overboard. The central corridor, instead of carving a clean, straight line through the middle of the building, twisted like the meandering path of a drunken sailor trying to find the door. Its walls were craggy and angled, the light overhead dim and diffuse, the overall effect that of a narrow northside mountain crevice straight out of some Icelandic saga.
Even more impressive, it came complete with a set of Icelandic trolls.
There were three of them, all Halkas, grouped loosely together in the corridor like watchful statues a few meters past the door marked 12. The biggest of them was an unexpectedly familiar face: the Halka on the Bellis-bound Quadrail who'd pulled me away from Künstler's dying body and tossed me down the Quadrail corridor.
One of the other two was the fifth walker from Jurskala, the one who'd conveniently disappeared during our mad chase after Pyotr Gerashchenko. Apparently, the Modhri was consolidating his best forces here. Probably not a good sign. Watching the Halkas out of the corner of my eye, I opened the door and went inside.
Public viewing facilities like this normally included a variety of room sizes, ranging from those suitable for single viewers to larger ones that could accommodate groups of ten to fifteen. Room Twelve was in the middle of that range, with five large seats arranged in a semicircle around the dit rec display. At first I thought the room was deserted, but as I walked around one end of the semicircle I saw there was a single middle-aged Human lying along the farthest of the seats, his head pillowed on one armrest and his knees angled somewhat awkwardly over the other. There was a silk scarf across his face, as if there to shield his eyes from the dim light, covering everything down to his upper lip. His mouth was slightly open, his breathing the slow and methodical rhythm of a man in deep sleep. Playing to itself on the display was a classic Harold Lloyd dit rec silent comedy.
"Nice choice," I commented quietly as I continued around the end of the seats and came to a halt facing the sleeping man. "A silent dit rec means no annoying soundtrack to interfere with your friend's nap."
"Thank you," the man said.
Though not really the man, of course. The stiffness of his shoulders, the subtle tightness of voice and jaw and throat muscles, were all I needed to know that I was once again speaking directly to the Modhri.
"You're welcome," I said. "You're both missing a good dit rec, though."
"He needed the sleep," the Modhri said. "And I find Human humor tedious." He stretched his arms once, the gesture somehow making him look even less Human than he already did. Unhooking his legs from the chair arm, he swiveled himself back up into a sitting position. The scarf covering his face started to slip off, but he got a hand up in time and readjusted it back into place. "Please; sit down."