Former government agent Frank Compton foiled a plot to enslave the galaxy in Night Train to Rigel. But the Modhri, an ancient telepathically linked intelligence, has walkers, unwilling hosts that can be anywhere, anything…and anyone. And Compton is the only man who knows how to fight them, as they wage a secret war against the galactic civilizations linked by the Quadrail, the only means of intra-galactic transit.
Accompanied by Bayta, a woman with strange ties to the robot-like Spiders who run the Quadrail, and dogged by special agent Morse who suspects him of murder, Compton races the Modhri from station to station to acquire a set of valuable sculptures from a long-dead civilization. What the Modhri wants with them is anybody’s guess, but if Compton can’t outwit it, the whole galaxy will find out the hard way.
This is a sequel to Night Train to Rigel. I can't say too much about the plot of this book without putting you about two thirds the way through the first book. This was great, fast paced. The protagonist, Frank Compton, is ex-military/secret service type who got kicked of that because he opposed (and exposed) the Yandro project.
The galaxy is inhabited by a dozen sentient species. The movement between systems is done by quadrail, a system leftover from an ancient civilization and now run by the peaceful spiders. No weapons are allowed aboard the quadrail making interstellar conquest impossible. i.e. the defenders have weapons and the invaders nothing.
In Night Train to Rigel, Compton discovers a threat, and also gains allies. These people Bayta, the spiders, Korak Fayr, the Mohdri are main characters in Third Lynx. I guess what I can say is that the title refers to some artifacts, and the struggle between the good guys and the bad guys to get them. There's a mystery of what these things are. Vintage Zahn.
There is just this tinge of why doesn't the bad guy kill Compton when he has the chance. Always because there is the one thing that Compton has, but he always has a trick. I guess that just adds to the excitement. At least it's not the James Bond or Batman & Robin cliffhanger escape.
The gist is, that this novel is great. I read it in two days. I do say get Night Train to Rigel and read it first. Then get The Third Lynx.
