The Icarus Hunt

CHAPTER 10

BESIDE ME, SHAWN made a strangled sort of sound deep in his throat. "Oh, God," he breathed. "We're dead."

"Quiet," I muttered back, taking a second, closer look at the scene, hoping itwasn't as bad as I'd first thought.

It was. The ten Najik were still there, tall and spindly, with those hairyarms and legs that always made me think of giant four-limbed tarantulas. They werestill wearing the customs uniforms, and there was an impatient look in theirmultiple eyes as they glanced over our direction through the pouring rain.

On the other hand, it could also have been worse. Locks or no locks, customsofficers on the prowl normally didn't bother to wait for the captain beforegoing inside a target ship, but simply popped the hatch and apologized laterfor the damage if apologies were called for. Now, with my second look, I saw whythey were still out here getting rained on.

Standing square in the center of the ramp, looking for all the world like afeathery-scaled Horatius holding the bridge, was Chort. From the water runningsteadily off his fingertips it was clear he'd been there for a while; from thesettled look of his stance, it was equally clear he was prepared to stay aslongas necessary.

Normally, the presence of such an obstacle wouldn't have slowed down a customsofficer any more than a locked hatch would. But Chort was hardly your normalobstacle. He was a Craea; and with Crooea and their spacewalker skills sohighlyin demand around the Spiral, I could understand why the Najik were reluctantto offend him by shoving their way past into the ship. Especially a locked andapparently unoccupied ship.

Except that it wasn't strictly unoccupied, and for a brief, time-stretchedsecond I tried to think of how to turn that to our advantage. If Tera, Shawn, and I could walk casually past the Icarus as if we weren't connected with itat all; and if I could get Ixil on the phone—

We hadn't gotten two steps before any such decisions were taken out of my hands.

"There," Chort called out, pointing to me. "There is the captain. You mayaddress your questions to him."

I sighed. "You two stay back," I murmured to Tera and Shawn. There was arustle as Tera took Shawn's left arm, pulling him subtly to a halt as I continued ontoward the ramp. The Najik in the center of the group took a step toward me inresponse, and now that he was facing me I could see the insignia of a gokra—

the equivalent of a senior lieutenant—on his collar. Apparently, Customs HQ wastaking this very seriously.

"Good day, Gokra," I greeted him as we sloshed through the puddles to within afew steps of each other. "Is there a problem?"

"You are the captain of the Sleeping Beauty?" he asked. His tone was decidedlyneutral.

"I am," I said, wondering fleetingly if Chort might have slipped up and giventhem my real name, realized immediately that he hadn't. If he had—if the Najikknew beyond a doubt what they had here—they wouldn't be bothering with a fewmeasly customs officers. They'd have an army battalion here, plus the localPatth ambassador and his staff, plus probably a military marching band thrownin for color. "Is there a problem?"

"You will unseal the hatch," he said, waving back toward the Icarus. "You willtell your crewer to move aside, and you will allow us to go in."

"Of course," I said, not moving. "May I ask what the problem is?"

For a moment he seemed disinclined to tell me, but apparently decided therewas no harm in playing by the proper Mercantile Code rules. "We have received areport that this ship is engaged in illegal smuggling activities," he said.

The rest of me was soaking wet. My mouth, however, was suddenly dry.

"Smugglingactivities?" I managed, hoping I sounded more bewildered than guilty.

"Yes," the gokra said. "Specifically, that you have unregistered gem-stoneshidden aboard."

I stared at him, not needing to feign any bewilderment this time. "Gemstones?"

I echoed. "That's crazy. We're not carrying any gemstones."

"You will please tell your Craea to stand aside," the Najik said, not evenbothering to acknowledge my protest. I couldn't blame him; he'd probably heardvariants of it twice a day throughout his entire career. "Then you will unsealthe hatch and allow us inside. I will need to see your personalidentification, as well."

"Of course," I said, brushing some of the water out of my eyes and trying tofigure out what the hell was going on. The gemstone story was utter nonsense, of course—you could fill fifty ships the size of the Icarus from deck to ceilingwith Dritar opals without so much as lifting a Patth eyebrow. But if theysuspected the ship in front of us might be the Icarus, why bother with thissubterfuge?

Answer: they wouldn't. Which meant that they didn't know it was the Icarus.

Which further meant the Patth weren't involved in this; that it was a purelyNajiki affair, with the whole gemstone thing being either a ridiculousbureaucratic error or else a horrifying coincidence. I'd chosen the nameSleeping Beauty for our current ship's ID on the assumption that few people inthe Spiral were going to name their ships after obscure nineteenth-centuryRussian ballets. It would be the height of irony if I'd not only guessed wrong, but had managed to pick the name of a bona fide smuggling ship in the bargain.

Unfortunately, in about five minutes the how and why of it weren't going tomatter anymore. There were a dozen different numbers etched on engines andconsoles all over the ship, numbers that were on various lists all across theSpiral. If Cameron had done a proper job of creating a history for his phantomfreighter, those numbers would be in a Mercantile file labeled Icarus, and theminute the Najik started checking them we would be finished. If Cameron hadn'tfiled the numbers, it would simply take a little longer for the soap bubble toburst.

The Najik were still waiting. "Of course," I said again, turning back andstepping to where Tera was still clinging to Shawn's left arm. There was onevery tenuous hope here, a hope based on Brother John's off-handed commentearlier about the Najik, and my own hopefully not-too-cynical interpretationof it. "Let me get the hatch unlocked first and get us in out of the rain.

Especially Geoff here—he's not well."

Someone in the group gave a deep-bass rumble, the Najiki equivalent of aguffaw, as I took Shawn's right upper arm. Not an unreasonable response, given thatShawn looked more drunk than he did sick, and I took it as a good sign.

Customs HQ might be taking this seriously, but apparently not all the officersthemselves were. Together Tera and I led Shawn through the Najiki cordon tothe near end of the ramp. I keyed in the combination on the pad and, behind Chort, the hatch swung open. Without waiting for permission from the Najik, I movedus forward onto the ramp.

"Keep going," I murmured to Tera, letting go my grip on Shawn's arm andslidingmy left arm through his, freeing up that hand while still giving theappearancethat I was holding on to him. Extending my reach as much as I could, I dippedinto my side jacket pocket for the folded city map I'd stuffed in thereearlier.

My other hand had already slipped inside my jacket for my pen; and as wepassedout of the rain into the shelter of the wraparound I scribbled briefly on thefront of the map.

"An interesting ship design," the gokra commented from right behind me. Hemightbe courteous enough to let me precede him into my own ship, but that didn'tmean he was going to let me get too much of a lead on him. "Ylpea-built, Ipresume?"

"I really don't know," I said. Now that he mentioned it, I could see an echoof the Ylpean love of French curves in the Icarus's double-sphere shape. Had thatbeen what Cameron had been going for? Regardless, something worth remembering.

"I'm just the pilot, not the owner. I don't know anything about its history."

"Ah."

We had moved along the wraparound, and were now coming up on the main sphere.

Behind the gokra the rest of the Najik had filed in, with a silent Chortbringing up the rear. "But you're not here for a history lesson anyway," Iadded, pulling my ID folder from inside my jacket and surreptitiously slidingthe map inside it. "Here's my ID."

I handed it to him, mentally crossing my fingers. If I'd guessed wrong, itwasn't even going to take until the Najik started calling in console numbersfor me to be in big trouble.

He took the folder and opened it. The multiple eyes twitched in unison as hesaw the map nestled inside; twitched again as he spotted the note I'd written onit.

For a long minute he just stared at it. Once again I was suddenly conscious ofthe weight of my plasmic against my ribs, knowing full well that opening firein such a confined space against ten armed opponents would be a quick way ofcommitting suicide. Beside me, Shawn seemed to have stopped breathing, and Icould sense a similar tension in Tera on his other side.

Then, almost delicately, the gokra closed the folder without even lookingbehind the map at my actual ID and handed it back to me. "Thank you," he said, almostprimly. "We won't be long."

And they weren't. They wandered up and down the various corridors, glancedaround the engine room and bridge, casually examined the curving metal of thecargo compartment and confirmed there was no entry hatch, and made a copy ofCameron's fake Gamm sealed-cargo license to take for their files. Nicabarreturned while they were poking around; I told him to get dried off and thengetthe thrusters ready to go. At one point, almost as an afterthought, the gokraalso presented me with the bill for our fueling, explaining that he'd taken itfrom the ground crew when he arrived and found them waiting for my return. Hedidn't seem surprised that I paid the bill in cash, or that there were fiveextra hundred-commark bills in the stack I gave him. And that was it. Tenminutes after they'd come in out of the rain, they were out in it again, striding briskly toward the slideways and headed home.

"All right, I give up," Tera murmured from my side as she and I stood in thewraparound and watched them go. "Who is Mr. Antoniewicz, and why won't he behappy if they find anything?"

I grimaced. I hadn't thought she would be able to read the note from her angleas I'd scribbled it on the map. "He's just someone I know," I said evasively.

"He has a certain amount of influence around the Spiral."

"I'd say he has a great deal of influence," she said, eyeing me in a way Ididn't much care for. "You know him personally or professionally?"

"I've done some business with his people," I said. A movement outside caughtmyeye: Everett, our last crewman still unaccounted for, had appeared around thebow of one of the nearby ships and was plodding our way, his big feet kickingupimpressive splashes with each step. He looked tired; he must have worn himselfout looking for Shawn. Not surprising, really, given that he probablyconsidered it his fault the kid had gotten away in the first place. "Here comes Everett," added to Tera, hoping to forestall any further questions, as I dug out thefake cassette. "Tell him to check Shawn and see if he needs another dose yet—here'sthe borandis. As soon as he's aboard, seal the hatch and get to the computerroom."

I left her there and headed to the bridge, feeling both cautiously relievedand cautiously pleased with myself. I'd been right: Brother John's grudging admiration for the Najik had indeed been based on the fact that theAntoniewicz organization was able to do business with them. Clearly, our customs gokra wasin on the deal, and dropping Antoniewicz's name had been enough to wave himoff us. I still didn't know why the Icarus had been fingered for a search, but assoon as we were out of Potosi space that wouldn't matter.

Assuming we did get out of Potosi space, of course. If the gokra had merelytaken the extra cash in order to add attempted bribery to the charges againstme, he should be rounding the corner any minute with that army battalion I'dbeen expecting earlier.

But for once, my pessimism proved unfounded. We got clearance to lift, theport's grav beams lifted us smoothly out and up, and within a few minutes wewere once again in space. I had cut us into hyperspace and was doing a quickcheck of the systems when the door opened and Everett came in. "We safelyaway?" he asked.

"Unless the hull decides to collapse, we are," I told him.

He made a face. "Considering the way things have been going, that's not veryfunny."

"I suppose not," I conceded. "Sorry. How's Shawn doing?"

"Seems to be recovering," he said. "Fortunately, the reversible Cole's diseasesymptoms begin long before the irreversible damage kicks in. And the borandisdependence itself is more or less reversible at any point. Rather like scurvyin that respect."

"That's handy," I said. "How much of his current trouble is related to thedependence and how much to the disease?"

He shook his head, peering at the displays. "I don't know. The two problemsintermix so tightly it takes a specialist to disentangle them. We're going toMorsh Pon next?"

"Yes," I said. "After that little run-in back there, I thought it might benice to refuel someplace where they don't bother at all with customs formalities."

"If you live to get back out," he said dubiously. "I've heard stories aboutthat world—bands of pirates and smugglers roaming the streets looking for trouble."

"We'll be all right," I told him with a confidence I didn't much feel myself.

"I'll make you a small wager that it won't be as bad as you think."

"Um," Everett said noncommittally, still looking doubtful. "Still, you're thecaptain; power of life and death over your crew, and all that. Speaking ofwhich—the crew, I mean—I haven't seen Ixil since before we landed on Potosi."

"Neither have I," I said. "But I'm sure he's all right."

"Yes," he said hesitantly. "The reason I asked, you see, was that I triedchecking on him and his cabin door wouldn't open."

"That's okay—I set it that way to make sure he had some privacy," I assuredhim.

"I just hope it didn't slam on your fingers."

"What do you mean?" Everett asked, looking puzzled. "It didn't slam. It didn'topen at all."

I stared at him, a sudden chill running through me. "It didn't open a fewcentimeters and then shut again?"

"I told you: it didn't even budge," he insisted. "I thought maybe it hadgottenjammed—"

I didn't wait to hear any more, jumping out of my seat and dodging past him tothe ladder out in the corridor. I slid down it without touching any of the rungs, my heart pounding suddenly in my throat. I reached Ixil's door andtried the release pad.

Everett was right. It didn't budge at all.

I had my multitool out and was unfastening the pad's cover by the time Everettcaught up. "You think something's wrong?" he puffed as he came up beside me.

"There's something wrong with the door, anyway," I said, fighting hard tospeakcalmly, to keep my fear and rage out of my voice. If the saboteur had beenhere while Ixil was lying helpless... but maybe the control chip had simply burnedout. With my fingers fumbling slightly in their hurry, I got the cover off.

The control chip hadn't simply burned out. The control chip wasn't there atall.

What was there looked like it had been attacked by a gorilla with a smallsledgehammer.

Beside me, Everett gasped. "What in hell's name—?"

"Our friend who wrecks cutting torches does doors, too," I snarled, droppingthe cover on the deck and hurrying to the door to my own cabin. One glance was allI'd needed to know Ixil's release pad was going to need some major work, and Icould replace it with the one from my door in a fraction of the time. "Go tothe computer room and tell Tera to take the bridge," I called back over myshoulder as I set to work on the fasteners.

I had my release pad off and was starting on Ixil's when Everett returned, afirst-aid kit clutched in his hand. "I thought we might need this," he saidgrimly, setting it down out of my way. "What can I do?"

"Hold this," I said, thrusting the damaged pad into his hands. A first-aid kitwasn't going to do a damned bit of good. Not now. Our saboteur had had plentyof time to make this one a leisurely killing. "What exactly happened after Shawngot loose?"

"He ran out of the ship," Everett said, rubbing at the side of his neck. "I'mafraid he got past me—"

"What about the others?" I cut him off. "Where were they when all this washappening?"

"Well..." He fumbled slightly. "I'm not exactly sure. The intercom still isn'tworking, so I had to go find them one by one. Chort was in his cabin, Nicabarwas in the engine room, and I found Tera in the mechanics shop."

"And then?"

"We went outside to see if he was still in the area of the ship. He wasn't, orif he was we didn't see him, so we split up and went looking for him."

"You all left together?"

"Except Nicabar," he said. "The fuelers had arrived, and he stayed behind fora few minutes to get them started."

One of the door's control wires was too tangled to connect properly. I cut offthe end, stripped it, and started wrapping it around its contact. "Whosebrilliant idea was it not to tell me?"

"Mine, I'm afraid," he said, his voice wincing. "I thought it would justdistract you, and you had enough to do at the time already."

I grunted. "Did you see any of the others while you were out hunting?"

"Of course not—we all went off in different directions," he said. "We kept intouch by phone, of course."

Which meant that any of them could easily have doubled back to the Icarus with murder on his mind and no one would have been the wiser for it. He wouldn't even have had to dodge the fuelers, who would have been busy on the opposite sideof the ship.

The last contact dropped into place, and I heard the faint transient hum asthe system integrated. I touched the pad, and the door slid open.

The room was dark. Bracing myself for the worst, I reached inside and turnedon the light.

Ixil was lying on the bunk just as I'd left him, Pix and Pax rousingthemselves sleepily from beside him in response to the light. Cautiously, I movedforward, studying Ixil as I approached. There were no marks of violence on him, atleast none that I could see from my angle.

And then, without warning, he inhaled sharply, like a sigh going in reverse, and his eyes fluttered open. "Hello," he said, blinking up at me.

I stopped short. "You're not dead," I said stupidly.

Ixil's face registered mild surprise. "Were you expecting me to be?" he asked.

His eyes flicked around the room, paused briefly on Everett standing in thedoorway behind me, then shifted down toward the deck. "What are those?" headded, extending a finger.

I followed the direction he was pointing. Sitting on the deck just inside theedge of the door were three objects. One was the missing control chip from thedoor release pad; the other two were small glass bottles the size and shape ofthose in the Icarus's limited pharmacopoeia.

I stepped over and picked them up. One of the bottles held a brown liquid, Inoted, the other a fine whitish powder. Both bottles had safety-seal lids; both lids were still securely fastened. "What are they?" I asked Everett, handingthem to him.

He frowned at the labels. "Well, this one is prindeclorian," he said, liftingthe brown liquid. "It's a broad-spectrum viral inhibitor. The other one'sqohumet, a parasite-control dust for feathered or scaled beings like ourfriend Chort. What they're doing here together I can't imagine."

"I can," Ixil said, his voice suddenly very thoughtful as he rose from thebunk and crossed over to Everett. "If you mix the two of them together and then setfire to the resulting mixture, you get something quite interesting."

The cold chill was starting up again. I knew that tone Ixil was using. Knew itfar too well. "And that is?" I prompted.

He took the bottles from Everett and gazed at the labels. "Cyanide gas."

"ALL RIGHT, THEN, try this," I suggested, scowling at the bridge displays.

There wasn't anything there worth scowling at—they were looking just fine—but I wasfeeling the need to scowl at something. "They were put there as a warning tous."

"To us?" Ixil asked pointedly from the swivel stool across from me, the wordsmangled by the enormous sandwich he seemed to be trying to line-feed into hismouth. Kalixiri healing comas were unarguably useful things, but they did come with a certain physical cost. That was already Ixil's second such sandwich, and he would probably demolish a third before his hunger even started to abate.

"All right, fine: it was a warning to you," I said, scowling some more. "Thequestion is, why bother? What did our saboteur have to gain by slapping a redflag across our noses? Sorry—across your nose?"

"If it was the saboteur," he said, breaking off a small piece of the sandwichand leaning over to give it to Pax. Both ferrets were on the floor: Paxcrouching where he could see the corridor outside the open bridge door, Pixcircling the room by the inner hull listening for any eavesdroppers who mightwander in from that direction. Ixil and I had already made sure that theintercom system, conveniently reactivated sometime during or immediately aftermy borandis search, couldn't be used against us again. "Maybe it was someonetrying to warn us there's a saboteur aboard."

"If it was, he should learn how to compose letters," I said sourly. "Let's tryit from a different angle. Who else aboard might know about that trick withthe qohumet and whatever?"

"Prindeclorian," he said around another bite of sandwich. "Hard to tell, unfortunately. It was a favorite of armchair revolutionaries twenty years ago, along with a host of other common-chemical concoctions, and it received a fairamount of word-of-mouth publicity. But it never really caught on, mainlybecause you either need a small area to contaminate or a large supply of the necessarychemicals."

"And because the fact that you have to set it on fire limits its subterfugevalue?"

"Definitely," he agreed. "Most people seeing a bright yellow flame spewing acloud of greenish smoke won't stick around to see what the smoke might do tothem."

"Unless the person in question is in a Kalixiri coma in a cabin the size of alarge shoe box," I concluded with a grimace. "You suppose there are otherequally handy chemicals aboard?"

Ixil paused to chew. "I imagine almost anything in sick bay would be lethal ina high enough dose," he said when he got his mouth clear again. "Unless you wantto throw all of it overboard, there's not much we can do about it."

"That might not be such a bad idea," I growled. "I'm starting to wonder if theonly reason you're alive is that Shawn's escape interrupted our would-bekiller in his work."

Ixil paused in the act of taking another bite. "Excuse me? I thought yourcurrent theory was that the saboteur released Shawn so that he could chaseeveryone else out of the ship while he came back and did his dirty work."

"That was the old theory," I told him. "This is the new theory. He'd gottenyourdoor open, but then heard the commotion on the mid deck and decided he'dbetter be found someplace else when they came looking for him. Not wanting to becaughtwith his pockets full of chemicals, he stashed them inside the room forsafekeeping, hied himself off to someplace innocent, and just never got achance to come back."

"And also put the control chip inside the room so that he wouldn't be able toopen the door again himself?"

I glared at him. "That's right, let yourself get mired down in facts. Never mind the simple elegance of the theory."

"My apologies," Ixil said, an odd look on his face as he set the remains ofhis sandwich on the nav table. "An idea. I'll be right back."

He left. I started another systems check, just for something to do, and didsome more glaring at the various instruments. Unfortunately, he was right: If thesaboteur planned to come back later, why take out the control chip? Not tomention the rest of the damage he'd done to the release pad.

Unless that had happened since we'd returned. Maybe he'd tried to come backearly and found the ship surrounded by Najik customs officers. He wouldn'thave had a chance to act after that until the Najik had come and gone, while therest of us were busy getting the Icarus ready to fly.

But why smash the pad at that point? What did it gain him?

Unless he'd already gotten into the cabin and wanted to make sure no one wasable to get in to interrupt him. With the inside release pad intact, he wouldhave had no trouble leaving whenever he wanted to.

So what had he done in there?

There was a clumping of heavy footsteps, and Ixil reappeared, carrying a largeobject wrapped in a folded cloth in his hand. "Have you checked with Pix andPax since you woke up?" I asked. "I'm wondering if they might have seen someoneelse in there with you."

"Yes, I have; and no, they didn't," he said, sitting down again. He set theobject in his lap and started to unwrap it. "Except for seeing you come in forthe ship's schematics, of course. On the other hand, they were both asleepmuch of the time, so I can't absolutely state that no one else got in."

Dead end. "You need to train them to sleep one at a time."

"If I'd been more alert before I went under I would have tried," he said.

"Though it might not have worked. Instructions like that often get lost when Idon't have any neural contact with them for a few hours and can't reinforcethe orders."

I gestured toward the object in his hand. "What's that?"

"Exhibit A." He pulled back the last fold of cloth, and I found myself lookingat what had to be the biggest universal wrench on the ship, the kind used forunbolting thruster casings.

"Ah," I said. "And the significance of it is...?"

"Look closely, right here," he said, pointing at a spot about midway along therectangular cross-sectioned handle. "See the black streak?"

I leaned forward. It was there, all right: a faint black vertical mark, with awider and fainter echo beside it as if a charcoal line had been smeared. "Let me guess," I said, leaning back again. "A mark from the rubber edge of your cabindoor?"

"Very good," he said, lifting the wrench up by the cloth for a closer look ofhis own. "Those doors hit pretty hard when the buffer doesn't engage. Myassumption is he hit the release pad, then shoved this into the gap when itopened."

And it was still moving as the door hit it; hence, the smeared streak. "Thatwould have left enough of an opening for the bottles, but not enough to gethis arm through," I pointed out. "Probably why they weren't farther from the door.

Unless he was hoping someone would kick them on the way in or out."

"That wouldn't have done him any good," Ixil reminded me. "You have to ignitethe mixture, remember?"

"None of this does him any good," I growled, mentally giving the whole thingupas hopeless. There was some vital information we didn't yet have—I was sure ofit. And until we found out what it was all we were going to accomplish bychasing our meager data around was to make ourselves dizzy.

Apparently, Ixil had figured that out, too. "As you suggested in an earlierconversation, it all makes perfect sense," he said, starting to wrap up thewrench again. "We just don't yet know what that sense is."

I nodded to the wrench. "You planning to check it for fingerprints?"

"I was thinking of it," he agreed. "Knowing the Icarus, though, I suspectwe'll need to use it before we ever get within hailing distance of a properfingerprinting expert."

"Knowing the Icarus, I'd say you were right," I agreed. "So what now?"

"I thought I'd see about fixing my door," he said, tucking the wrench underone arm and snapping his fingers as he reached for the remains of his sandwich.

The two ferrets came at his call, scampering up his body to his shoulders. "Yourdoor, rather, since your outer pad's on my cabin now. I can take the pad offthe empty Number Two cabin on the top deck and replace the whole thing."

"What if we want to get in there?" I asked.

"What for?" he asked reasonably. "Anyway, we can always move a pad from one ofthe other cabins temporarily if we need to."

"Point," I conceded. "Okay, go ahead."

"Right. I'll see you later." Stuffing another large corner of his sandwichinto his mouth, he headed out.

For a couple of minutes, ignoring my own resolve not to waste time and effortdoing so, I chased our meager data around in a couple more circles. It didn'tget me anywhere.

And then, behind me out in the corridor, I heard the steady tread ofapproachingfootsteps. Two pairs, from the sound of it, neither of them Ixil's.

It was probably something totally innocent, of course. But I'd had enoughunpleasant surprises for one day, and I wasn't interested in having any moreof them. Folding my arms across my chest, I slid my right hand out of sightbeneath my jacket and got a grip on my plasmic, then swiveled my seat around to facethe open doorway.

The first in line was Tera, stalking onto the bridge like she owned it.

"McKell," she said in terse greeting. There was nothing the slightest bitfriendly about her expression. "We need to talk to you."

Before I could reply, the other half of the "we" stepped into sight behindher: Nicabar, looking even less friendly than she did. Not a good sign. "Come in," said mildly, ignoring the fact that they were already in. "Revs, aren't yousupposed to be on duty in the engine room?"

"Yes," he said, his eyes flicking once to my folded arms. If he suspected I was holding my gun, he didn't comment on it. "I asked Chort to watch things for afew minutes."

Strictly speaking, that was a violation of the Mercantile Code, me being thecaptain and not being informed and all. But so far this trip I'd been fairlycasual about the duty roster, and there didn't seem much point in complainingabout it now. "Fine. What can I do for you?"

Tera glanced at Nicabar, who glanced in turn out into the corridor and thenunlocked the release, letting the door slide shut beside him. "You can startwith some honesty," Tera said as they both looked back at me. "This Mr.

Antoniewicz whose name scares off customs inspectors. Who exactly is he?"

It was a trap, of course. And with someone else, it might have worked. ButTera didn't have the facial control or sheer chutzpah to pull it off. "You alreadyknow the answer," I said. I shifted my gaze to Nicabar. "Or rather, you knowit.

I see you've already given Tera your version; how about doing the same forme?"

"He's a dealer in death and misery," Nicabar said, his voice as dark as hisexpression. "He buys and sells drugs, guns, customs officials, governments, and people's lives."

His eyes bored into mine. "And we want to know what exactly your relationshipis to his organization."

"Nice speech," I complimented him, stalling for time. I'd known from the startthat the relative ease with which I'd obtained Shawn's borandis would inevitablygenerate speculation among the others as to how I'd pulled it off. But Ihadn't expected that speculation to turn into full-blown suspicion so quickly or sobluntly. This could be very awkward indeed. "Did you work it up specially forthis occasion? Or is it left over from the last ship you worked that had tiesto Antoniewicz? Or the one before that, or the one before that?"

"What exactly are you implying?" Nicabar asked, his tone the unpleasantstillness of the air when there's a thunderstorm brewing in the distance.

"I'm saying that you and everyone else aboard the Icarus has worked forAntoniewicz at one time or another," I told him. "You had no choice.

Antoniewicz's fingers stretch into so many nooks and crannies across theSpiralit's practically impossible to engage in any business that doesn't touchsomething he's involved with."

"That's not the same," Tera protested.

"What, if you don't know what you're doing it doesn't count?" I scoffed.

"There's a very slippery slope beneath that kind of moral position."

"Speaking of slippery, you still haven't answered our question," Nicabar putin.

"I'm getting to it," I said. "I just wanted to make sure the answer was in theproper context. One of the ways Antoniewicz got a slice of so many pies was bybuying up legitimate businesses, especially those in serious financialtrouble.

I was a legitimate business. Thanks to the Patth shipping monopoly, I got intoserious financial trouble. Antoniewicz bought me up. End of story."

"Not end of story," Nicabar said. "He didn't just buy your business. He boughtyou."

"Of course he did," I said, putting an edge of bitterness into my tone. "Ixil and I are the business."

"So you sold your soul," Nicabar said contemptuously. "For money."

"I prefer to think of it as having traded my pride for a little bottom-lineintegrity," I shot back. "Or do you think it would have been more honorable tohave declared bankruptcy and left my creditors holding an empty bag. Well?"

"How much debt are we talking about here?" Tera asked.

"Five hundred thousand commarks," I told her. "And let me also say that Itried every single legitimate way to get the money before I finally gave up and letAntoniewicz's people bail us out." Which wasn't strictly true, of course. Butthere was no need to muddy the water here.

"What about now?" she asked.

"What about now?" I countered. "You think I wouldn't love to pay off the debtand be out from under his thumb? Antoniewicz has done this before, you know, and he's quite good at it. The way he's got things structured, we're going to bein servitude to him till about midway into the next century."

"There must be another way," she insisted.

I felt my forehead creasing. For someone who'd come in here ready to accuse meof being the scum of the Spiral, she seemed awfully concerned about mypersonalensnarement in this web. Maybe even suspiciously concerned. "Such as?" Iasked.

"You could turn him in," she said. "Go to one of the police or drug- enforcement agencies. Or even EarthGuard Military Intelligence—if he deals in weaponsthey're surely interested in him, too. You could offer to testify againsthim."

I sighed. "You still don't get it. Look, Tera, every police force in theSpiralhas been trying to get their hands on Antoniewicz for at least twenty years.

EarthGuard, too, for all I know. The problem isn't evidence or even persuadingsuicidal fools to testify; the problem is finding him. No one knows where heis, and at the rate things are going, no one's going to figure it out anytimesoon, either."

"But—"

"And furthermore, blowing the horn on him would end it for me permanently," Icut her off. "He's got my debt held with a bank on Onikki, under theircharmingdebtors' prison laws. All he has to do is call it in, and I'll spend the nextthirty years working it off at fifty commarks a day. Sorry, but I have otherplans."

"Like spending the same thirty years working for Antoniewicz?" Nicabar saidpointedly.

"The choices stink," I agreed. "But at least this way I'm not doing hardlabor, and I still get to fly."

"As Antoniewicz's wholly owned drink-fetcher."

I shrugged. "Like I said, the choices stink. If you've got any others, I'mlistening."

"What if you could find someone to pay off the debt?" Tera asked.

"Like who?" I demanded. "If the banks wouldn't look at me before, they surearen't going to start now. Unless one of you has half a million in sparechange, it's not going to happen."

The corner of her mouth twitched. "It sounds like you've already given up."

"What I've done is accepted reality." I cocked an eyebrow. "The question is, are you two prepared to do the same?"

Both of them frowned. "What do you mean?" Tera asked.

"I mean you have to decide whether you're going to rise above your finicky scruples and continue to fly with me," I said. I was taking a risk, I knew, bringing up the subject that way. But only a slight one—that was, after all, what they'd come here planning to confront me with in the first place.

Besides, if they could be blunt, so could I.

And Tera, at least, could certainly be blunt. "I would think it's a matter of whether you will be allowed to continue flying with us," she retorted.

"Afraid it doesn't work that way," I said, shaking my head. "I'm the pilot, hired for the job by Borodin. None of you has the position or rank to replace me."

"Under the circumstances, I doubt you'd have the gall to file a complaint,"

Nicabar pointed out.

"Oh, I might have the gall," I said. "But I wouldn't, mainly because there wouldn't be anything to gain. You and the Icarus would already be gone, taken by the hijackers I've already told you about."

"Assuming there was any truth to that story," Tera scoffed.

"Why would I make something like that up?"

"Maybe you're hoping to scare us all into jumping ship," she said. "Maybe you've got another crew lined up ready to move in when that happens, like you had Ixil ready when Jones got killed. Maybe you're the real hijacker."

"Then why didn't I move my crew in on Dorscind's World while you were all out sampling the sights?" I countered. "Why bother with any story at all?"

"And you don't know who these hijackers are?" Nicabar asked.

"All I know is that they're very well organized," I said. "And that for whatever reason, they think they want the Icarus."

"They 'think' they want it?"

"Well, I sure can't see any good reason for chasing us this way," I told him.

"Any cargo that would pass muster well enough on Gamm to earn a sealed-cargo license can't be all that exciting to anyone. Maybe it's the ship itself they want, though personally I find that even less plausible."

I looked back at Tera. "But whatever the reason, it boils down to the fact that you're stuck with me. You try finding a replacement pilot from this point on, and you'll never know whether it's someone the hijackers deliberately dangled in front of you, either one of their own or someone they've hired for the occasion.

Not until it's too late, anyway. Have you noticed that none of your cabin doors have locks?"

They exchanged glances. Unhappy glances; trapped-and-not-liking-it-at-all glances. But they were stuck, and they knew it. At the moment the only people they had even a hope of trusting were already aboard the Icarus. And it was for sure that none of them could fly this front-heavy fitter's nightmare.

"If this is supposed to make us feel better about trusting you, it isn't,"

Nicabar said. "How do we know you aren't just sticking around hoping to get abetter deal?"

"How do I know you won't sell out?" I countered. "Or that Tera won't, or anyof the others? Answer: I don't. If there were better odds to be had anywhereelse, I'd grab them. But there aren't. Not here, not now."

"So why should you care what happens to the Icarus?" Nicabar persisted. "Or toany of the rest of us?"

I looked him straight in the eye. "Because I took a contract to fly this shipto Earth. And that's what I intend to do."

"And we can believe that or not?"

I sighed, suddenly weary of this whole stupid game. "Believe whatever youwant,"

I told him. "But if and when we make it to Earth I'll want a full apology."

It would be overly generous to say that he smiled. But some of the impliedthreat did seem to drain out of his face. I reflected briefly on his formercareer with the EarthGuard Marines, a career that wouldn't really have trainedhim how to read people. "I'll remember that," he promised.

"I may even expect a little groveling," I warned, shifting my attention backto Tera. "How about you? Willing to rub shoulders with the drink-fetchers alittle longer, or are you going to jump ship at the next port?"

I'd thought the words, or at least the tone, might get another facial reactionout of her. But she simply studied me, those hazel eyes holding more pity thanloathing. "I'll stay," she said. "I took the contract, too."

"Good," I said briskly. "Then we're all one big happy family again. How nice.

Revs, I believe you're still on duty?"

"I'll stay with the ship for now, McKell," he said quietly. "But remember whatI told you earlier. If I find out we're carrying drugs or guns, I'm out."

I nodded. "I'll remember," I promised.

He regarded me another moment, then nodded back and tapped the door-releasepad.

It opened, and he disappeared back out into the corridor.

Tera started to follow, but then paused in the doorway. "You're not trapped, Jordan," she said, her voice quiet. Quiet, earnest, and idealistic as allget-out. Generally, it was a combination I hated. On her, oddly enough, itseemed to fit rather naturally. "There's a way out somewhere. You just have towant to find it badly enough."

"I once thought that way," I told her. "Thought there was a quick and simplesolution to every problem."

"I didn't say the solution would be quick or simple," she said impatiently, the idealism level dropping but the earnestness increasing to more than make upthe difference. "I just said that it was there if you really wanted it."

"I'll keep that in mind," I said. "And while I'm doing that, perhaps you'lltryto remember that job security of any sort is a damn sight better than thestarvation diet everyone but the Patth is on these days. It's easy for acomputer jock like you—you don't have to fly on star-ships; there arecomputerseverywhere. But I can't very well fly an accounting firm's desk, now can I?"

"I suppose the question is how much security is worth to you," she said.

"Compared with, say, self-respect." Turning back to the door, she started tostride out of the room.

"By the way, Tera?" I said.

Almost reluctantly, probably annoyed at my ruining her dramatic exit, shestopped. "Yes?"

"Everett told me you were in the mechanics shop when he came to alert everyoneabout Shawn's escape," I said. "What were you doing in there?"

She regarded me coolly. "I was looking for a jeweler's screwdriver set," shesaid. "One of my displays was going funny and I thought it might need someadjustment."

"Ah," I said. "Thank you."

She gazed at me another heartbeat. "You're welcome," she said, turning againand making her exit.

I watched the door slide closed behind her, gave her and Nicabar a minute togetout of the corridor, then went over and locked the door open again. I like myprivacy as much as the next man, but if anyone was planning to go for a strollaround the mid deck, I wanted to hear them doing it.

Returning to my chair, I resumed my regimen of scowling at the displays. Teraand Nicabar had at least been up front about their suspicions about me. Howmanyof the others, I wondered, were having the same thoughts, only weren'tinterested in a confrontation?

I didn't care about being popular. Well, I did, actually, as much as anyoneelse, but I'd long since resigned myself to the knowledge that people wholiked me were going to be few and far between. The vital question right now, though, was not popularity but trust and obedience. If there was any chance at all ofmaking it through the ever-tightening Patth noose, it was going to require allof us working together.

All of us. Including our mysterious saboteur.

It would help enormously if I could figure out what exactly he was going for.

But while I could hammer any three or four of the incidents into a workabletheory, trying to put all of them together simply refused to work. If someoneknew what was in the Icarus's cargo hold, and if it was as valuable as we allthought, why hadn't he turned us in to the Patth on Potosi and claimed thereward? Or had the gem-smuggling tip to Najiki Customs been an abortiveattemptto do just that? And how did the attacks on Jones and Ixil fit in?

Abruptly, I sat up straighter in my chair, my mind flashing back to what Imyself had said not ten minutes earlier to Nicabar about the hijackerspossiblyhiring a pilot for the occasion. The Patth might very well be doing justthat—they certainly had enough money to spread around, and I was the onepersonthey knew was aboard. A single well-placed shot could take me out of thepicturepermanently, and make it vital for the rest to find a new pilot.

And if the Patth were dangling high-denomination bills in front of ships'pilots, why not ships' mechanics as well? Our resident saboteur, no matterwhat his secret talents and certificates, probably couldn't fly a ship this sizeand shape by himself. But two such talented and certified men just might be ableto pull it off.

And if this second man was also a mechanic, then the simplest way to get himaboard was to create an opening in that slot. Our saboteur had succeeded ineliminating Jones; but I'd already had Ixil standing in line to fill thevacancy. Was the implied threat of cyanide poisoning a heavy-handed attempt toscare Ixil off?

If so, he was going to be sorely disappointed. Kalixiri in general didn'tscare very well, and Ixil was even worse at it than the average.

Which unfortunately still left the question of why the Icarus wasn't alreadyin Patth hands; and maybe I'd now come up with an answer to that one, too. UncleArthur had said the Patth Director General was personally calling the variousgovernments along our route; but what if he was not, in fact, speaking for theentire Patth government? I'd always assumed the Patth were fairly monolithic, at least insofar as their relations with other species were concerned. But whatif that wasn't the case?

In that event our saboteur might not have turned us in to the Patth simplybecause he hadn't yet run across the right Patth to turn us in to. Maybe thecustoms flap on Potosi had indeed been an attempt to alert someone, only theyhadn't gotten the message in time. Or else my maneuver with Antoniewicz's namehad gotten us out of trouble and off the planet faster than anyone hadanticipated.

The politics of the situation, I knew, I didn't have a hope of unravelingwithout more detailed information about the Patth, which I didn't expect to begetting anytime soon. However, with this assumption came an unexpectedopportunity. Unless our saboteur had been recruited on the spot at the Meimaspaceport—which seemed unlikely—it meant that he must have had previous tiesto the Patth. Ties that, if I was lucky, would show up in the background reportsUncle Arthur had promised to deliver to me at our next stop.

I looked over my instruments and displays again, and despite the extra fuelcost involved edged our speed up a little. Suddenly, I was very anxious to get toMorsh Pon.