The Icarus Hunt

CHAPTER 17

IT WAS A situation that called for a brilliant comment, a witty rejoinder, or complete silence. Not feeling either brilliant or witty at the moment, I kept my mouth shut, put away my plasmic, and concentrated instead on negotiating what I

suspected would be a fairly tricky transition between the two spheres.

It turned out not to be nearly as difficult as I'd expected. This small sphere, unlike the one I'd had to burrow my way through on the Icarus, had its gravitational field pointed toward the surface rather than the center, so that aside from a little disorientation as I crawled around the edge of the access hole there was really nothing to it.

Between the maneuvering itself and a short face-licking attack from a Kalixiri ferret clearly relieved to see someone familiar, I managed to buy myself nearly a minute of recovery time before I had to try speaking. "So," I said, getting carefully to my feet on the netting and looking across at Cameron. The word was supposed to sound casual and debonair, as if I did this sort of thing all the time. Instead, it came out like the croak of a teenager facing down the parents of his very first date. So much for the efficacy of all that stalling.

But Cameron merely smiled as he turned off his notepad and laid it on the netting beside him. "I screamed and cried for half an hour after I got here," he said. "If that helps your dignity any."

"Thanks, but my dignity is expendable," I told him. This time the words came out much better. "Right now I'm more concerned with life, liberty, and the pursuit of greedy Patth and their vindictive buddies."

I glanced around. "And frankly, anything that scares Arno Cameron that much is something I really hesitate to tangle with."

"Don't worry, it's not as bad as I first thought." His eyebrows lifted slightly.

"So you know who I am. What else do you know?"

I shrugged. "I know our alleged computer specialist Tera is your daughter Elaina Tera Cameron," I said. "Is it safe to walk on this stuff?"

"Perfectly safe," he assured me. "I'd avoid stepping on the displays, but everything else is as solid as the commark."

"The wires won't break or come loose?" I asked, dubiously eyeing the multicolored tangle beneath my feet.

"I've had a lot of time to examine them," he said. "Trust me, they're every bit as solid as the ones on the Icarus."

"Ah," I said, taking a cautious step toward him. "So in other words, all thatexaggerated care I took getting through the Icarus sphere was a waste ofeffort?"

"If you want to look at it that way," he said with a shrug. "Personally, I'venever found any effort to be completely wasted."

"Sure," I said noncommittally. The cables and conduits made little squooshingsounds as I walked over them, but aside from that it all felt firm enough.

Still, there was no point in taking chances, and I kept it slow and careful.

The gravity, I estimated, was about the same .85 gee as we had in the Icarus'slargesphere.

"So Elaina told you who she was," he commented as I picked my way toward him.

"I'm a little surprised by that. I was very clear she was to keep her identitysecret."

"It was a bit more complicated than that," I said, passing over the details.

"Just to save time, I also know how you smuggled the Icarus onto Meima, bothin its original disassembled form and then the orbital loop you did to bring itout of hiding and over to the spaceport. I know the Patth are becoming veryinsistent about getting their little paws on it."

I looked around the sphere. "And I used to know why they wanted it.

Apparently, I was wrong."

Cameron exhaled noisily. "As were we all, my boy. Tell me, do you have anyidea where we are right now?"

"Inside another of your alien artifacts, obviously," I said. "Which means thatinstead of a simple little stardrive, what your people dug up was actually theHoly Grail of the Einstein-Bashermain Unified Field Theory."

"An interesting but succinct way of putting it," Cameron said. "Yes, we are infact sitting inside the physical proof that all those exotic wormhole andteleportation theories are more than just mathematical constructs. There'sgoingto be a considerable amount of both gloating and backpedaling in the halls ofacademia when word of this gets out."

"Assuming word of it ever does get out," I said darkly. I had reached him now, and gave him a quick and hopefully unobtrusive once-over as I sat downgingerlyon the mass of wiring in front of him. His face was drawn and pale, his cheeksand chin peppered with an impressive collection of beard stubble. He hadn'tyetstood up; I wondered if he was perhaps too weak to do so. "If the Patth werewilling to bribe, suborn, and kill for a stardrive that might or might notcompete with theirs, imagine what they would do to get hold of a real workingstargate."

"The Patth or anyone else, for that matter," he said with a grimace. "Whichmakes it all the more urgent that we get the Icarus to Earth before anyoneelse does find out what it is."

I cleared my throat. "Yes, well, I can immediately see a problem or two withthat. Do you happen to have any idea how far we are from the Icarus?"

"All I know is that it's a considerable distance," he said, gesturing towardthe large sphere. "There are a handful of small viewports out in the receiver chamber—they're unobtrusive, but I found the controls to open them. I've spenta good part of the past two days searching for a constellation—anyconstellation—that I can recognize. There's not a single one I can find, noteven in distorted form."

"And I can assume you're not just talking Earth constellations?" I asked, justfor the record.

The smile this time was very brittle. "I've been from one end of the Spiral tothe other, McKell," he said. "I say again: Nothing was recognizable."

I felt a lump form in my throat. "Terrific," I murmured. "I hope like hellwe're not poaching on someone else's territory."

"That could be unpleasant," he agreed. "Still, I've been here eleven days, andno one but you and your little pet here has shown up."

He frowned suddenly. "It has been eleven days since we landed on Potosi, hasn't it? Time rather blends together here."

"Yes, eleven's about right," I confirmed. "I take it this little side tripwasn't part of your scheme?"

He snorted. "Why, did you think it might be?"

"Considering all the rest of the finagling you and your daughter have done onthis trip, I thought it worth asking," I said pointedly. "So how exactly didyouwind up falling down the rabbit hole?"

He grimaced. "I slipped into the Icarus's transmission chamber a little whilebefore we left Potosi," he said. "Right after my encounter with the would-bemurderer. I worked through the wiring—"

"Wait a second," I interrupted, the back of my neck tingling. "What do youmean, would-be murderer?"

"The man who was apparently planning to poison one of your crewers," he said.

"Cabin Seven, down on the lower deck. Didn't you know?"

Ixil's cabin. "We knew something strange had happened there," I told himgrimly.

"But we haven't been able to make sense out of it. How about filling in theblanks?"

He shrugged. "There's not much I can tell you," he said. "Elaina told meeveryone was leaving to look for a runaway crewer—Shawn, I think she said, theone with the medical condition. I had already decided to temporarily relocateto the small sphere, so I waited until the ship was quiet and headed to the lowerdeck to pick up some extra food supplies."

"How did you get out of the 'tweenhull area?" I asked. "Through Cabin Two, Jones's old cabin?"

"That's right," he said. "Elaina told you about that, too, I see. I take itthat was you who chased me around the 'tweenhull area?"

"That's right," I confirmed.

"I thought so. At any rate, after you nearly caught me, I realized the'tweenhull area wasn't a safe hiding place. I also didn't think it safe tostaypermanently in Jones's cabin, which was why I'd decided to move into the smallsphere. But when I reached the lower deck, I found that all the overheadlightshad been turned off and there was a man with a small finger-light working onthe cabin door."

"Could you see who it was?" I asked, feeling my heartbeat pick up. At last, Iwas going to have a name to connect with Jones's murder.

The anticipation was premature. "Sorry," Cameron said, shaking his head. "Thefinger-light was set very low, and he was nothing more than a shadowy shapecrouching by the doorway. From what little reflected backlight I was gettingon his face, though, he didn't look familiar. Possibly someone from the port areawho'd sneaked aboard while everyone was gone."

I clenched my teeth in frustration. "Unfortunately, the hatch was locked whenthey all left the ship," I said. "Which means one of the crew had to have comeback to let him in."

"Ah." He peered closely at me. "Jones's murderer, you think?"

"I think having both a murderer and the accomplice of an entirely differentmurderer aboard a ship the size of the Icarus would be pushing coincidence abit far," I said sourly. "All right, fine, so our murderer has friends. Whodoesn't?

What happened next?"

"He obviously thought the ship was deserted, because he was so engrossed inhis work that I was nearly to him before he even realized I was there," Cameronsaid. "He'd gotten a big wrench wedged into the doorway to hold it open. Oh, Ididn't mention that part. The door was only opening partway—"

"Yes, I know," I interrupted him. "I was the one who gimmicked it that way."

"Ah." He gave me an odd look, then shrugged. "At any rate, he turned just as Igot within about two steps of him. I frankly didn't think I would make it therest of the way, but he froze just long enough before straightening up andgrabbing for the wrench. Fortunately for me, it was jammed in fairly tightlyand he didn't have good leverage reaching over his shoulder that way, which meantI was able to step in close and get in the first punch. Edge-hand blow to theside of his neck."

I glanced down at his arms. Still well muscled, but to my perhapshypercriticaleye they looked thinner than they had when I'd seen him on Meima. "I gather itworked," I said.

"Rather to my amazement, it did," he said. "Especially since his light wasdazzling my eyes at the time, which limited my ability to pick my target. Imade sure to hit him again a couple of times on his way down, just to make sure.

Again fortunately for me, he hit the deck and stayed there."

"It's so gratifying when they do that," I agreed. "Do you think you'drecognizehim if you saw him again?"

"I doubt it," he said. "I really didn't get a good look at him. Besides, Iimagine it's a moot point by now. He surely hightailed it off the ship as soonas he woke up. Unless you and the Icarus have suddenly picked up a newpassenger, that is."

"No, no new passengers," I confirmed.

He spread his hands. "So that's that," he said. "You have to admit it's a bigSpiral for a single man to lose himself in."

"I once thought it was a big Spiral for a single starship to lose itself in,"

I countered. "I don't think so anymore. So then what did you do?"

"After he was unconscious, I spotted the bottles he'd been working with on the floor and looked them over," he said. "Any doubts I'd had about hitting himvanished at that point; they turned out to be the ingredients for a cyanide- gasbomb.

"I knew I didn't have much time before he either awoke or all of you cametrooping back aboard the ship, and I didn't have anything I could tie him upwith, so I decided all I could do would be to thwart this particular schemeand call it a draw. The cabin door was still wedged open, so I resealed thebottles and put them as far inside as I could reach and then pulled the wrench out andlet the door slam shut. Then, just to make sure he didn't have time to tryanything else, I pulled the opening mechanism's control chip and added it tothe pile and smashed what was left."

"Leaving a very thorny mystery in your wake," I said. "We were going nutstryingto figure out what happened there."

"I'm sorry," he said. "All I can say is that it wasn't my intent to be somysterious. My plan was to hide out just for a day or two, until you'd had achance to thoroughly search the 'tweenhull area and confirm there wasn'tanyonein residence there. At that point I expected you to conclude that it had beenone of the crew you'd chased around, give up your search for stowaways, and Icould come back out. Then I'd be able to tell Elaina the whole story, and shewould have found a way to warn you about future incursions into the ship fromoutside."

He shook his head, his throat tightening visibly. "Only it didn't quite workout that way. I made it through that tangled mess of a decompressed-wiring zoneand found myself in a nice clear space. But then gravity came on, pulling me intoward the middle. I grabbed that striped arm to try to slow myself down, hitwhat I now realize was the triggering mechanism in the end, and here I am."

"A long way from nowhere," I said heavily, studying his slightly sunkencheeks.

"Not to mention out of delivery range of the nearest grocery store. I'm alittle surprised you haven't starved to death."

"My meals have been a bit sparse lately," he conceded. "I wasn't planning onbeing here very long, though of course I made sure to leave myself a widemarginfor error. Not quite this wide, though. That's not a water bottle you havethere with your pack, is it?"

I'd completely forgotten about the water bottle and food bars I was carrying.

"Sure is," I said, feeling a twinge of admittedly selfish reluctance as Ihanded it over to him. This wasn't going to last even one person very long, let alonetwo of us. "Your daughter must be psychic," I added as he uncapped the bottleand drank deeply. "I was only planning a quick look into the small sphere, butshe still made me take a survival pack along."

There was a moment of silence as he drank. I looked around the sphere again, this time spotting his camper's mattress and catalytic waste handler half- hidden in the glare of one of the display boards.

"Bless her heart," he said when he finally came up for air. I noticed with another twinge that the bottle was now only two-thirds full. "Fortunately forus, we're not going to need it."

I frowned. "What do you mean?"

"I mean we're going home," he said. He raised the bottle and had anotherdrink, a shorter one this time. "Just as soon as we can gather my things together."

"Really," I said, my tone studiously neutral. I'd never heard of anyone goinginsane between eye blinks, which implied that he must have gone round the bendbefore I even got here. "Tell me how."

"No, my mind hasn't snapped, McKell," he assured me as he lifted an arm andpointed off to my right. "Look over there."

I followed the direction of his finger and found myself looking at one of thealien displays, this one marked with yellow-and-black squares. "All right.

What is it?"

"It's the destination setting," he said. "Destination being defined as theparticular stargate you'll be traveling to if you slide down the centering armand hit the trigger. Now; do you see the display to its left?"

"Such as it is," I said. The second display was an identical array of squares, except that all of them were black.

"That one gives the identification code for the stargate you just left," hesaid. "Unfortunately, whether by design or malfunction, it only stays lit fora few minutes after transport before going blank again. That's why I couldn'tgetback by myself; by the time I realized the significance of that particulardisplay, it had long since gone black. However—"

"Wait a minute," I said, frowning. "How do you know all this? Tera told me theMeima archaeologists didn't get very far in their analysis of the thing."

He shrugged. "Well, I have been here eleven days, you know," he reminded me.

"I couldn't just sit around and do nothing. And though you probably didn't knowit, I was once a Trem'sky Scholar in Alien Studies. I did quite a fair bit ofarchaeology and alien translation back in my youth."

It was a speech clearly and carefully designed to impress and lull thegullible.

But I wasn't in the mood to be impressed, and lulling was completely out ofthe question. "That's baloney, and you know it," I said bluntly. "You had onecourse in archaeology and three in alien language, all of which focused on knownspecies and didn't have a thing to do with interpreting unknown scripts. Andthat Trem'sky Scholarship was an honorary title Kaplanin University gave youafter you donated fifty million commarks to them for a new archaeologicalresearch center."

His face had gone rigid. "You're very well informed," he said softly. "Onemightwonder how. And why."

"The how is that I have friends with good memories," I said. "The why is justas simple: I like to know who it is I'm working for. I certainly won't find thatout by taking what you say at face value."

He eyed me speculatively. "You can see for yourself why I've been secretiveabout myself and my agenda," he said, waving a hand around him. "What's yourexcuse?"

"I like my life," I told him. "Not my current circumstances, necessarily, but the basic idea of continued existence."

"And what are your current circumstances?"

"Somewhat messy," I said. "But we're getting away from the point. How do youknow so much about the stargate?"

We locked gazes for another few seconds. Then his eyes drifted away from mine, as if he was too tired to keep up his end of the nonverbal battle. "Elainadoesn't know this," he said, "but the archaeologists had already cracked muchof the alien script before my people and I arrived on Meima to build the Icarus.

With that hurdle crossed, we were able to gain considerable knowledge of theinner workings of the artifact."

His lips puckered. "Though we still thought that what we had was a newstardrive, with the destination and incoming displays having to do withnavigation."

"So where is all this knowledge?" I asked. "I presume you're not going to tryto tell me you memorized it."

His expression had gone all speculative again. "Why do you need to know?"

"In case something happens to you," I explained patiently. "I don't knowwhether you know it, but you're the very last of the Mohicans now—the rest of yourgrouphas been rounded up and are in Ihmisit hands. Possibly Patth hands by now, actually; I haven't kept up-to-date on developments. If they get you, too, that'll be it as far as the good guys are concerned."

"And if you know where the data is, you might be tempted to trade it for thatlife you want so much to keep," he pointed out. "I think it might be safer ifI kept that little secret to myself for the time being."

I snorted. "Standing tall and stalwart against the invading hordes might begoodmelodrama, but it makes lousy real-world policy," I told him flatly. "Face it, Cameron, you're in a dangerous and completely untenable position here, andyou're going to have to bite the bullet and trust someone. At the moment, that's me."

Again his eyes drifted away. "I suppose you're right," he said with a sigh.

"All right. The data is stored in code in a file on my notepad here. If somethinghappens to me, either Elaina or my executive assistant Stann Avery will beable to locate and decode it."

"Got it," I said. It wasn't the entire truth, I knew—he'd given in much tooeasily for that. But it was probably at least a partial truth, and for themoment I could live with that. "All right, then. I'll send you in some morefood and water when I get back to the Icarus. Is your little toilet system workingokay?"

"Wait a minute," he said, his face suddenly gone taut. "What do you mean, whenyou get back? We can both go—no one has to stay here to operate the device."

I shook my head. "Sorry, but I'm afraid you can't show your face yet. I didn'ttell you: We've disassembled most of the ship's interior. Makes it a lot saferfor the return trip, but it also means there's no place left where you couldhave been hiding. You suddenly pop up now and someone's going to start puttingthe pieces together."

"What about the smaller sphere?" he asked, his voice taking on an edge ofpanicked insistence. "I could have been hiding in the smaller sphere."

"Besides which, you're the one who holds the key to this bombshell," Icontinued, gesturing at his notepad. "Don't forget, we've got a murdereraboard the Icarus. The farther you and your notepad stay away from him, the better."

He wasn't happy about it—that much was evident from the play of emotionsacross his face. But he could see the logic in what I was saying, and a few extradaysof isolation didn't stack up all that badly against the possibility of beingknifed in the back. Slowly, reluctantly, he gathered control of himself andnodded. "You're right," he said with a sigh. "All right, I'll stay. Any ideahow long I'll have to be here?"

"Until we find a safe place to put down," I said. "Don't worry, I'll let youknow."

"You'd better," he warned with a game attempt at a smile. "The view in heredoesn't really have all that much to recommend it."

"You can start naming the constellations," I suggested, getting to my feet.

"So.

How do I work this thing?"

He gestured to the articulated arm angling its way toward the center of thesphere twenty meters above us. "Once I've set the destination panel, I expectall you'll need to do is work your way along the arm to the trigger section atthe end," he said. "Basically the same as you did on the Icarus."

Except that on the Icarus the gravitational field had been pointing the otherway. It looked like I was in for a long climb. "Right," I said. "Don't worryif it takes me a couple of hours to get the supplies to you. There isn't a lot ofprivacy in the ship right now, and I don't want anyone to catch me putting asurvival pack together. Someone might jump to the wrong conclusion."

"Or even the right one?" he suggested.

I nodded. "Especially the right one."

A ghost of something flicked across his face. "You'll let my daughter know I'mall right, won't you? We've hardly spoken since the trip began—there justhaven't been any safe opportunities—but I know she's worried about me."

"And vice versa?" I suggested.

His lips compressed. "Very much vice versa," he agreed quietly. "I'dappreciateit if you'd watch over her for me."

"I will," I promised. "You can count on it."

For a moment he studied my face, as if trying one last time to see if I wasindeed someone in whom he could place this kind of trust. I met his eyesstolidly, not flinching away from the probe, exuding all the sincerity I couldmuster. And after a couple of heartbeats he nodded. "All right," he said witha sigh. "You'd best be on your way, then."

I nodded and gave a whistle. Pax emerged from a mass of wiring he'd beennosingthrough and bounded enthusiastically over to me. I managed to catch him beforehe could start with equal enthusiasm up my leg and settled him into a cradlingcarry in the crook of my elbow. "I'll let you know when you can come out," Itold him, crossing the sphere to where the arm was anchored. "I'll either comemyself or send in one of the ferrets."

"Understood," he said. "Good luck."

"You, too," I said. Reaching up with my free hand, I wrapped my legs around itand started awkwardly to climb.

The awkwardness didn't last long. I'd barely started my climb when I felt myselfrapidly going weightless. For about five seconds I hung there in zero gee, andthen the gravity began again, only this time pointed the opposite direction, toward the center of the sphere. I quickly turned myself around, noticing thatCameron was still glued, albeit openmouthed, to the inner surface. I don'tknow why finding a two-tier artificial gravity in our unknown aliens' bag of tricksshould have surprised me, but it did. The level of the pull stayed about whereit had been aboard the Icarus, keeping me moving inward without giving me thefeeling of uncontrolled falling. I looked over—up, rather—at Cameron once asPax and I slid down toward the center, wondering if he'd noticed that I'd somehownever gotten around to agreeing to his request that I tell Tera he was here.

Because there was no way I was going to let her in on what the Icarus reallywas. No way in hell; for the simple reason that that would require me lettingher know that I knew what it really was. As a possibly advanced stardrive thatmight or might not still function, the Icarus had a value that was potentiallyhigh but still nebulous. As a stargate with proven capabilities, that valuehad suddenly solidified to an astronomical level.

And I had no intention of letting Tera come to the realization that theIcarus's asking price was now light-years beyond the paltry half-million debt that heldme enslaved to Brother John and the Antoniewicz organization. Enough to buy meout of that contract, guarantee me immunity from prosecution for every illegalact I'd ever committed, and set me up for a lifetime of luxury on top of it.

I had reached the trigger. I took one last look at Cameron, who didn't knowanyof what his daughter had learned about me. But as I squeezed the trigger, andthe tingling and blackness closed in around me, I wondered oddly if he mightpossibly have guessed the truth.