Beyond the door was a wide service corridor with the utilitarian look of service corridors everywhere. Fayr led us through a maze of several more, each getting progressively narrower as other corridors branched off the main one to other parts of the museum.
Finally, we reached one that dead-ended at a normal-sized door. Fayr eased it open, looked inside, then gestured us in.
Up to now all we'd seen of the museum's interior were the staff and worker sections. With this room we'd finally made it into the public display areas, and I saw that the same people who'd designed the exterior had extended their schizophrenic triple architectural theme inward. The gallery we were in was quite large, with curved marble walls and a cupola-type ceiling with moldings and frescoes and whatnots thrown in everywhere by the shovelful. The carpeted softfloor had an embedded pattern of tiny starlights that could probably be programmed to give a viewer a customized tour, while strategically placed benches allowed the serious art connoisseur to linger in his or her contemplation.
It was truly a place of elegance and beauty. Or at least it had been. Now, squarely in the center of all that splendor, the gallery had become a blackened, ruined mess.
"The damage I spoke of," Fayr said. "Tell me what you make of it."
I walked across the floor, eyeing the destruction as I ran through my mental list of things that go bump in the night. It had been caused by an explosion—that much was obvious. But the radius of the blast and the progressive damage pattern didn't match anything I was familiar with. "What did the police report say?" I asked.
"That there had been an explosion," Fayr said. "Specific cause unknown."
"Any witnesses or security records?"
"The security cameras had been shut down," Fayr said. "Suspicion has fallen on one or both of the two guards on duty that night, neither of whom has been seen since then."
"Neither of them?"
"No," he said. "But traces of their nucleic matter was recovered at the site, along with that of an unidentified Jurian."
I rubbed my jaw as I measured distances with my eyes. The explosion had caused nearly complete destruction within a three-meter-radius sphere, even chewing up the floor, the subflooring, and the concrete foundation. But outside that radius, the damage dropped off dramatically to the point where the floor, display easels, and pillars ten meters away weren't even scorched. "The first part seems straightforward enough, anyway," I said. "The Modhri turned one of the guards into a walker and used him to shut off the cameras and open the door for the Jurian thief."
"But then what of the explosion?" Fayr asked. "Did the second guard surprise them and a grenade accidentally go off?"
"Does seem awfully sloppy on somebody's part," I agreed. "Besides, all short-range grenades I know of leave a lot more body residue behind. Do we know where the Viper was displayed?"
Fayr pointed across the room. "It was in a case against that wall with several other Nemuti artifacts."
"So the thieves were heading for our service door," I concluded, a funny feeling starting to grow in the pit of my stomach. "But before they could reach it, the second guard came in and confronted them. Shortly thereafter, the whole group got themselves vaporized."
There was a long, heavy silence. Bayta broke it first, with the conclusion all three of us had obviously reached. "The Viper exploded," she said, her voice tight. "That's what the Nemuti sculptures are. They're bombs."
"And the Modhri already has seven of them," I added, the funny feeling in my stomach changing to a knot as the full implications of that began to trickle in.
"Apparently so," Fayr said. "Still, unless the Modhri can create a more powerful version, I don't see how this gains him very much."
"That's because you don't know the whole story," I told him. "I had the opportunity to do a scan of one of the Hawks on the trip here. It turns out the things are sensor chameleons. Put one of them in a bag, maybe even just wrap a towel around it, and it takes on the characteristics of that object as far as sensors are concerned. It might work with liquids, too. I never got a chance to test that."
Fayr's facial stripes had gone dark. "Are you saying," he said slowly, "that they can be taken aboard a Quadrail train without detection?"
"You got it," I said grimly. "Aboard a Quadrail, through a transfer station, probably even onto a warship. The Modhri doesn't have to learn how to enhance the effect, Fayr. If he can figure out even just how to duplicate it, this war is about to take a very nasty turn."
"He's going to use them against the Spiders," Bayta murmured, a shiver running through her. "He can't infiltrate them or take them over, so he's going to kill them."
"Actually, he's not," I assured her. "Because we're going to stop him."
She turned hot eyes to me. "Will that be before or after we rescue Ms. Auslander from him?"
"Why not do both together?" I said tartly. "I am capable of thinking about more than one thing at the same time, you know."
"It's not the thinking part I'm worried about," she countered.
"Then what are you worried about?" I demanded. "That Penny's going to steal me away from you?"
I knew the instant the words were out of my mouth that it was the absolutely wrong thing to say. But the words were already gone, and it was an eternity too late to call them back. Bayta's throat tightened, her eyes again those of someone who's just been slapped. Without a word, she spun around and stalked away from us across the room.
I started to follow her, paused; started to speak; paused again. Indecision and inertia won out and I didn't do anything. "That was helpful," Fayr murmured.
"Thank you," I growled back.
"You'll need to find another opportunity to talk," he said. Again, ir was more order than suggestion. "In the meantime, the Nemuti sculptures as bombs cannot be the whole story."
"Why not?" I asked, my eyes and half my attention still on Bayta's stiff back.
"If he seeks to reproduce the effect, he needs only one sculpture to experiment with," Fayr said. "He certainly would not need to go to this much risk to obtain the last Lynx."
Resolutely, I shook Bayta and her anger at me out of my mind. Fayr was right. "Unless he doesn't think he can duplicate the technology," I said. "In that case, he'd want every one he can get hold of."
"No " Fayr said, shaking his head. "Something is still missing."
"Maybe we can figure it out once we have the Lynx," I said. "Earlier you said—"
I broke off as his left hand suddenly snapped up in a gesture for silence. He spun to face the archway leading out of our gallery into die rest of the museum, his Rontra popping into view from beneath the concealing poncho.
I resisted the urge to make extraneous noise by hauling out my own gun, opting instead to freeze in place and listen. The typical sounds of a large, mostly hollow, mostly deserted building whispered across my ears.
And then my ears and brain edited out the background noise, and I heard the slow, measured footsteps coming our way.
Bayta heard the footsteps, too. She turned back toward Fayr and me, her eyes wide with sudden urgency. I motioned for her to stay put, and got a grip on my gun. The footsteps came closer …
"Compton?" a familiar voice called softly from somewhere beyond the archway.
It was Gargantua.
Fayr threw me a sideways look. I threw him one back, making sure mine had a little curdle to it. So much for his sunburst grenade knocking Gargantua and the other Halkan walker out of the game for the rest of the night.
"Compton?" Gargantua called again, a little louder this time. "Please come out. I plan no action against you, but wish merely to talk."
Bayta was shaking her head, pointing insistently at the service door we'd used on our way in. I looked at Fayr again, saw my own ambivalence reflected there. Bayta's choice of a fast cut and run seemed the logical response. Certainly it would be the smart military move.