Timothy Zahn: The Third Lynx

"Absolutely," I assured him. "I also know it's no less important than a close examination of the crime scene. You probably aren't going to get that , either."

Morse looked around the room as if suddenly remembering where we were. "You're right. I'll need the Spiders to detach the car."

"Good luck." I said. "Unfortunately, this train has a schedule to keep, and that schedule includes a compartment car pulling out with the rest of it. If they've got a spare at Bellis they can throw in on the spur of the moment, you might get lucky. Otherwise, forget it."

Morse threw a hooded glare at the conductor in the doorway. "There should be agreements to cover this sort of thing," he muttered.

"There should be free beer and onion rings at every roadside pub, too," I said. "You don't always get what you want."

" Look —"

"Meanwhile, what we do have is twenty-two hours until we reach Bellis and a couple of carloads of first-class passengers," I interrupted him. "We should probably start with interviews in the next car back. See if anyone remembers who's been coming in and out of this one."

" We should probably start?"

"You'd rather do it all yourself?" I shrugged. "Fine—you're the one with the badge. Have fun."

I started to turn away. As I did so his hand snaked out to catch my arm, a look of sudden recognition on his face. " Compton ," he said, making the name a curse. " Frank Compton? Damn—I knew you looked familiar."

"You're one hell of a detective," I said, twisting my arm out of his grip.

"And you're one hell of a bloody bastard," he shot back.

I blinked. Even Losutu hadn't reacted this strongly the first time I'd met him after the Yandro embarrassment. "So I've been told," I said. "What does Yandro mean to you, anyway?"

His forehead furrowed slightly, then cleared. "That's right," he said, still growling. "You were involved with the Yandro thing, too, weren't you?"

"It's been a busy few years," I said, frowning in turn. If he hadn't been talking about Yandro, what had he been talking about? Nearly everyone who knew me at all knew me because I'd tried to blow the whistle on the UN's Yandro colonization scam. "But this isn't about me," I added, gesturing to the wallet in his hand. "Did our mystery guest have a real name?"

For a couple of seconds Morse continued to stare at me. Then, almost reluctantly, he dropped his eyes back to the wallet. "According to this, his name was John Smith."

I cocked an eyebrow. At least he'd told the truth about that. "Really?"

"Really," Morse said, his voice odd. " Or it was Kevin Abrams, or Emile Dorfmann, or Homer LaGrange."

"Come again?"

"Four IDs; four credit tabs," Morse said. He held up a handful of cash sticks. "And just over a million dollars in cash."

"Interesting," I said. "Sounds like he was expecting to be on the buying end of the business transaction he mentioned." I pointed toward the wallet. "May I?"

He hesitated, then handed it over. I sorted quickly through the contents. "At least we know he wasn't murdered for his cash or credit tags," I said, handing it back.

"Unless there used to be more than just four of the latter," Morse countered. "Maybe someone was hoping to pick up a new identity."

I shook my head. "The indentation pattern in the leather doesn't show anything missing."

He took another look at the wallet. "Yes, of course."

"They're excellent forgeries, though," I said.

"That they are." He gave me a speculative look. "Rather the sort of documents a former Westali investigator might know how to get hold of."

"You'd better make up your mind as to which slot you want me in," I warned. "You can't tag me as his killer and as his loyal private watchdog, too."

"Of course I can," he said. "The case files are full of watchdogs who changed sides when the price was right."

"Right. Whatever you say." I turned and headed toward the Spider still standing in the doorway. "I still suggest you talk to the rest of the first-class passengers before we hit Bellis," I added over my shoulder.

"Don't worry," Morse assured me, "I will."

Motioning the Spider aside, I walked past into the corridor and returned to my compartment.

The divider between my room and Bayta's was still closed as I locked the door behind me. But as I took off my shirt the curve couch collapsed into the wall, and the wall itself retracted into the side of the half bath to reveal Bayta standing facing me, her hands making nervous little twitching movements.

"You get all that?" I asked as I hung the shirt in the sonic cleaner. I might have picked up a few traces of Smith's blood while we were working on him, and I wanted them gone before it occurred to Morse to confiscate my whole wardrobe as evidence.

"I was listening in through the conductor," Bayta said, her voice tight. "What are we going to do?"

"For starters, we're not going to worry about Morse," I said. Crossing into her compartment, I took her arm and eased her gently back toward the bed. "What do the Spiders think of all this?"

"They're concerned," Bayta said, still looking troubled as she let me sit her down on the edge of the bed. "They're really not sure what to do."

"I thought the Spiders had a procedure for everything."

She hunched her shoulders slightly. "The procedure in the case of a major crime is to turn the likely suspect over to his own people."

I grimaced. "Ah."

"Oh, don't worry, they aren't going to hand you over to Mr. Morse," she promised. "Even if they wanted to, I certainly wouldn't let them."

"Thanks," I said. That wasn't just plucky assistant talk, I knew. Bayta had been raised by the Chahwyn, and was herself a strange sort of amalgamation of Human and Chahwyn minds and bodies. As such, she could pretty well order the Spiders around if and when she needed to.

But doing so in any obvious way would draw unwelcome attention, and attention was something we very much wanted to avoid right now. Far better if I could arrange things so that blatant manipulation of the system wouldn't be necessary.

"But they can't just take a whole car out of service, either," she went on. "Keeping the trains on schedule is their first priority."

"I know," I said. "Any chance of substituting another car at Bellis, like I suggested to Morse?"

"Maybe, if they have a spare available," she said. "They can send a message ahead when we stop at Helvanti."

"Good." Though even if they had a substitute available, they'd have less than forty-five minutes to swap out the cars and transfer all the passengers and their stuff. Even for Spiders, that would be pushing it. "Looks like we may have to do without a full crime-scene analysis for once," I said. "Maybe that's a good enough reason all by itself to kill him here instead of somewhere else."

"Do you think we should mention that to Mr. Morse?"

"I'm sure it'll eventually occur to him," I said. "Meanwhile, we have more immediate problems to deal with. Starting with the fact that our plan of sneaking quietly into the Bellis system is now pretty well shot."

Her throat tightened. "Oh," she said.

"Well might you say 'oh,'" I agreed. "We've got three stops between here and Bellis. That's three chances for someone to sniff out the story and load it into a data cylinder bound for the nearest Intragala News office. By the time we make Bellis, the sensational story of Mr. Smith's murder will be on its way to every corner of the galaxy."

"And Mr. Morse will make sure your name is in there somewhere," she murmured.

"Definitely," I said sourly. "Which means that if the Modhri isn't already aware that we're on this train, he will be well before we reach Bellis."