His face drifted a few percentage points further onto the angry side. "We're more terriers than lapdogs, actually," he corrected. "Bred to drive burrowing animals into the open, where they can be properly hunted down and killed."
"And I take it I'm the rat du jour?"
"I'd like nothing better," he said. "Unfortunately, I have other more pressing matters to deal with. I merely stopped here to pick up my messages and arrange the transfer of Mr. Kün—Mr. Smith's body."
I felt my ears prick up. "So you've identified our victim?"
"Good day, Mr. Compton." Turning on his heel in an almost military-precise about-face, he stalked away, his bags trailing behind him.
And as he headed through the streaming travelers, three well-dressed Halkas casually turned in unison and set off after him.
Bayta touched my arm. "It looks like we want the express to—"
"Hold on," I told her, watching the procession. The Halkas were still following Morse, but with an air of leisure and unconcern that even professional Intelligence agents had trouble counterfeiting when they were on the hunt.
Only in this case, it wasn't an act. The Halkas genuinely didn't realize they were following anyone.
Walkers.
Beside me, Bayta inhaled sharply as she spotted the procession. "Frank—"
"I see them," I growled, handing her my leash control. "Wait here."
I headed into the flow of passengers, trying to look as casual as the three Halkas. There was a lot about Morse I didn't like, but that didn't mean I was going to just stand off to the side and let the Modhri have a free poke at him. Especially since there was at least half a chance that it was Morse's contact with the late Mr. Smith that had drawn the Modhri's attention to him in the first place.
The Modhri had bounced Bayta and me out of the Lynx investigation once. Maybe this was our chance to get back in.
A dozen meters ahead of Morse were a pair of Juriani with long hard-sided golf cases rolling along behind them. They paused, and one of them reached down and picked up his case. He tucked it under his arm and they continued on their way, their path now shifted subtly onto an intercept course with Morse's.
The pursuing Halkas, meanwhile, were steadily closing the gap. At current speeds, I estimated, the three of them and the two golfers would converge together on Morse in about ten seconds. Keeping an eye peeled for anyone else the Modhri might decide to throw into the mix, I picked up my pace.
Abruptly, one of the two Juriani who'd blocked Bayta at the Helvanti Station loomed in front of me. "Ah—my Human friend from last night," he said cheerfully, raising his arms wide in welcome.
I ducked beneath one of the outstretched arms and kept going. So the Modhri had spotted me, too. I thought about shouting Morse a warning, decided it would just distract him—
"Mr. Morse!" one of the Halkas behind Morse shouted. Morse half turned, slowing but not stopping.
And in that split second of inattention, the Modhri struck.
It was, from a professional standpoint, beautifully done. The two Juriani cut directly in front of Morse with no more than half a meter to spare, and the golf case still trailing behind them rolled into position just in time for Morse to trip over it. As he thrust out his hands to break his fall, the other Juri spun a hundred eighty degrees around, ostensibly to see what was going on, and slammed the end of his case solidly against the side of Morse's head.
Morse went down like a lassoed calf, rolling half over as he sprawled across the rolling case and slammed the back of his head solidly on the Tube floor.
The three trailing Halkas were there in an instant, dropping to their knees around him like solicitous Good Samaritan bystanders at an accident scene. Their positioning, probably not coincidentally, managed to block my view of Morse and anything they were doing with him. "Someone get a Spider!" the Halka whose shout had distracted Morse at the fatal moment called to the station in general. "We must find a Human doctor."
Cue for Compton. "I'm a doctor," I said, striding up. I dropped to one knee at Morse's side, deftly elbowing the nearest Halka out of my way.
And as I did so. out of the corner of my eye I saw his hand dip briefly inside his own inner vest and come out empty. The left side of Morse's jacket was open, I noted, as if someone had pushed the flap aside. "No—don't go," I said, grabbing the Halka's wrist as he started to get up. Pulling him firmly back down to his knees, I put his hand on Morse's left wrist. "Hold him right here," I instructed.
"But—" the Halka started to protest.
"And put your other hand up there on his right shoulder," I interrupted, putting some authority into my voice as I started to take off my own jacket.
Clearly wondering what this had to do with medical treatment, but just as clearly unwilling to argue from his ignorance of Human physiology, the Halka leaned forward and stretched out his hand. As he did so, he started to lose his balance—
"Careful," I warned, turning at the waist and putting a supporting hand on his chest. My jacket, which I hadn't yet pulled off that arm. dangled down across Morse's legs. "First shift your knee over there to his other side."
The Halka complied, and from his new position was able to get his hand to Morse's shoulder without trouble. I kept my hand protectively against his chest until it was clear he was stable again, then let go and finished taking off my jacket. I bunched it together and laid it beside me, making sure that the slim, flat case I'd removed from inside the Halka's vest was safely hidden inside it.
I had taken Morse's pulse—which seemed steady enough—and was making a show of checking for pupil dilation when a pair of drudge Spiders finally arrived on the scene.
"There you are." I said, grabbing my jacket and standing up. "He needs to be taken immediately to the medical center. Carefully, now."
I supported Morse's head myself, pillowing it on my wadded-up jacket as the drudges got three legs each under him and lifted him up. Feeling the stares of the Juriani and Halkas on my back the whole way, I snagged Morse's luggage and followed the Spiders through the crowd of onlookers.
Terra Station was a pretty unsophisticated stop, certainly when compared to the elaborate facilities and ornamentation of the other eleven empires' homeworld stations. But despite its backwater appearance, it included a pretty decent medical center. One of the doctors examined Morse, diagnosed a mild concussion, assured us that he would recover, and fitted him with a bandage and a QuixHeal injection. A few minutes later he was in a Fibibib-designed monitor bed in an otherwise unoccupied ward, sleeping soundly, and Bayta and I were seated in a couple of chairs across the room near the door where we could keep an eye on him.
Only then, with some time and privacy on our hands, did I dig out the flat case I'd stolen back from the Halka.
"Where did you get that?" Bayta asked as I pulled it from my jacket pocket.
"From the walker who'd just taken it from Morse," I told her.
From the feel as I'd picked the Halka's pocket I'd guessed it was a data chip case, and I was right. About fifteen centimeters long, two wide, and one deep, it could hold up to thirty data chips in protected, padded niches.
"Is that why the Modhri attacked him?" Bayta asked.
"Either that or he just felt like giving his walkers some exercise," I said, turning the case over in my hands and studying in particular its lock and hinge sides.
Bayta watched me in silence for a few more seconds. "Well?" she prompted.
"Patience," I said, pulling out my reader and inserting the data chip that turned it into a powerful sensor. "Data chip cases are sometimes booby-trapped to fry the chips if the wrong person opens it."
For once, my paranoia was unwarranted. The case wasn't rigged. "Let's see what the well-equipped ESS Special Agent is reading these days," I said, and popped it open.
Inside were a dozen data chips. None of them, I guessed, was light summer entertainment. "Let's assume he's the organized type," I suggested, pulling out the last one in the line. It was the same type of chip I'd gotten at Helvanti, the sort the Spiders used for cross-Quadrail messages and information packets lasered to the Tube from the collection center in the local transfer station. Wondering who was sending Morse fan mail, I inserted it into my reader.