But if the Modhri wanted to take us, he would have cops surrounding the building by now. Actually, he would probably have had them lobbing in sleep gas already. Chances were good that, for once, he was telling the truth.
Fayr was still waiting for my call. Keeping hold of my gun, I gave Bayta a reassuring smile and made my way across the gallery. Carefully, I peeked around the corner.
I was looking into another gallery, this one every bit as elegant as the one I was standing in. More elegant, actually, since no one had set of a bomb in the middle of it.
Seated on one of the contemplation benches about twenty meters away was Gargantua.
He was, to put it bluntly, a mess. His eyes were heavily bandaged, the bandage riding over the top curve of his snout and half covering his ears. The facial skin the bandage didn't cover had gone a deep purple, the Halkan version of serious sunburn. Gripped in his hands was a sensor cane, its bottom end planted firmly in the softfloor, its aperture swiveling back and forth across the width of my archway.
"Hello, Modhri," I greeted him as I came the rest of the way around the corner. "You're looking good."
"You lie," Gargantua said calmly. The hand resting on the top of the cane rotated a little, swiveling the sensor aperture to point directly at me. "A very effective weapon, that."
"Especially against someone like you who shares pain and all the other unpleasantries of life," I agreed. "How are you doing with the Tra'ho'seej vertigo? I notice you decided to sit down."
His lips curled back to reveal his teeth. "I'm not in a position to force you to my will, if that's what you mean," he said. "Still, never forget that I can eliminate that particular effect whenever I choose."
Translation: at any point the Modhri colonies inside the Tra'ho'seej could simply kill themselves and their hosts, eliminating the vertigo flowing through the local Modhri mind segment by eliminating the central nervous systems that were generating it. Rather like curing dandruff by cutting off your head, except that in this case it would actually work. "I don't think that would be a good idea," I pointed out. "By my count, you're down to two functioning walkers at the moment."
"That, too, is easily changed," he said. "But I didn't come here to talk about me. I came to talk about your Human friends."
I felt a lump rise into my throat. Penny …"How are they doing?"
"They are in pain," the Modhri said. "Also frightened. Also very angry."
I grimaced before I could catch myself. "I imagine so," I agreed, wondering fleetingly what kind of visual resolution he was getting from his cane. With Humans, it took a month or more of practice before the brain learned to read the input stream well enough to decipher faces and read expressions. I didn't know how long that adaptation took with Halkas, and had even less of an idea how long it took with the Modhri.
Apparently not as long as I would have liked. "You seem distressed," he said.
"I've seen you in action," I reminded him. "I dislike the thought of any civilized being falling into your hands."
"As well you should," he said coldly. "But at the moment there is no need for concern. The only damage perpetrated on either of them was that inflicted by the Human McMicking."
"Who?" I asked innocently.
And this time I did manage to keep my face from giving anything away. So the Modhri thought it was Larry Hardin's troubleshooter Bruce McMicking who had thrown the sunburst grenade, and not the rogue Belldic commando Korak Fayr. A reasonable mistake for him to have made, and one that might prove to be useful.
"Do not play innocent," Gargantua admonished me. "I saw him throw that grenade."
"Actually, all you saw was a street drifter fumbling with something," I corrected him. "You never saw the actual grenade."
Gargantua snorted. "This is a foolish lie," he said. "I know you had no such device with you."
"Do you?" I countered, raising my eyebrows.
For a long minute he remained silent, his face turned to me as if he was trying to stare straight through his bandages into my mind.
Because I was right. All he actually knew was that he'd had me under surveillance since before we'd left the Quadrail, and that I hadn't had a chance to pick up any military hardware along the way.
And of course, he knew that no one was permitted to carry such things aboard a Quadrail.
But he also knew that I was in league with the Spiders …and allies of the Spiders might operate under entirely different rules.
"I know what I saw," he said at last. "But even with the Human McMicking's aid, it will not be possible for you to locate the other Humans." His face hardened. "I would presume you won't wish the Ghonsilya authorities to call you in to identify the Human Auslander's body."
He was bluffing, of course. We both knew that. He couldn't afford to damage the only levers he had to use against me.
But even so I still felt a tingle of dread ripple through me at the thought of what he might do to Penny.
And we also both knew that I couldn't and wouldn't let anything happen to her. "There won't be any need for that," I said between dry lips. "There's an art auction scheduled here for tomorrow evening. Bring Morse and Ms. Auslander with you."
He leaned the cane a little toward me, as if trying to read my face. "You have the Lynx?"
"I will by then," I promised. "A straight trade: the Humans for the Lynx."
"I accept," he said. "But be warned. If you don't have the Lynx, things will not go well for your friends."
"I'll keep that in mind," I said. "There's just one more thing, then. Since I can't have you following me—"
He never even had time to react as I pulled out my gun and shot him.
He slumped limply over the back of the bench, his cane thudding to the softfloor, as the snoozer's drug hit his bloodstream and knocked him cold. Mindful of what Fayr had once told me about a Modhran colony's resistance to such drugs, I fired again, then put a third snoozer into him just to be on the safe side. Slipping the gun back beneath my poncho, keeping an eye on the archways leading off into other sections of the museum, I gave his clothing a quick search.
I'd had some faint hope that the Modhri might have been careless enough to let Gargantua head off to our meeting with a hotel key or other significant clue on his person. But no such luck. Nothing in his pockets gave any indication of where he might have Penny and Morse hidden.
Keeping an eye on him over my shoulder, I returned to the other gallery. Fayr and Bayta had moved to the edge of the archway in my absence, no doubt the better to eavesdrop on the conversation. I gave them a thumbs-up, a finger across the lips for continued silence, and gestured toward the exit.
Five minutes later, we were back out in the rain, making our way across the museum grounds. I'd half expected the Modhri to have stationed his other Halkan soldier out here as backup, just in case I pulled something on Gargantua. But there was no sign of anyone hanging around, and neither Fayr's sensors or the ones in my gimmicked reader indicated any evidence of electronic surveillance focused on us.
It retrospect, I decided I wasn't really surprised the other Halka wasn't here. Locking up a trained ESS agent like Morse somewhere was tricky enough without having to trust him to stay that way on his own. The Modhri had apparently decided keeping tabs on me was less important than making sure he held on to his bargaining chips.
Especially since the only way out of the Ghonsilya system was through the Quadrail station. If I double-crossed him and ran, he knew where I'd eventually have to turn up.
We were out of sight of the museum building itself before Fayr spoke again. "Do you know where the Lynx is?"
"Not yet," I said. "But now that we're here, I don't think we'll have any trouble laying our hands on it."
"And you genuinely intend to trade it to the Modhri for your friends?"
"We'll see what we can do," I hedged. "But before we can cross that bridge we need to find Daniel Stafford. You said you know a place where these artist types hang out?"