The Icarus Hunt

CHAPTER 1

THEY WERE WAITING as I stepped through the door into the taverno: three ofthem, preadult Yavanni, roughly the size of Brahma bulls, looming over me from bothsides of the entryway. Big, eager-eyed, and territorial, they were on theprowland looking for an excuse to squash something soft.

From all indications, it looked like that something was going to be me.

I stopped short just inside the door, and as it swung closed against my back Icaught a faint whiff of turpentine from the direction of my would-beassailants.

Which meant that along with being young and brash, they were also tanked tothe briskets. I was still outside the invisible boundary of the personalterritories they'd staked out for themselves in the entryway; and if I had any brains, I'dkeep it that way. Yavanni aren't very bright even at the best of times, butwhen you're outweighed by two to one and outnumbered by three to one, brainpowerratio isn't likely to be the deciding factor. It had been a long day and alonger evening, I was tired and cranky, and the smartest thing I could dorightnow was get hold of the doorknob digging into my back and get out of there.

I looked past the Yavanni into the main part of the taverno. The place waspretty crowded, with both humans and a representative distribution of otherspecies sitting around the fashionably darkened interior. It was likely tostaywell populated, too, at least as long as anyone who tried to leave had to passthe three mobile mountains waiting at the door. A fair percentage of theclientele, I could see, was surreptitiously watching the little drama about tounfold, while the rest were studiously ignoring it. None of either grouplooked eager to leap to my defense should that become necessary. The two bartenderswere watching me more openly, but there would be no help from that direction, either. This section of the spaceport environs lay in Meima's Vyssiluyanenclave, and the Vyssiluyas were notoriously laissez-faire where disputes ofthis sort were concerned. The local police would gladly and industriously pickup the pieces after it was all over, but that wasn't going to be much comfortif I wound up being one of those pieces.

I looked back at the Yavanni flanking my path, one a little way ahead and tomyleft, the other two to my right. They still hadn't moved, but I had the mentalpicture of coiled springs being tightened a couple more turns. I hadn't run, didn't look like I was going to run, and their small minds were simmering ineager anticipation of the moment when I put a foot across that invisiblebarrier and they got to see how many colors of bruises they could raise on me.

I wasn't armed, at least not seriously. Even if I had been, blasting away fromclose range at three full-size Yavanni was not a recommended procedure foranyone desiring a long and happy life. But there was a trick I'd heard about afew years ago, a nice little combination of Yavannian psychology andphysiology that I'd tucked away for possible future reference. It looked, as the sayingwent, like the future was now. Gazing at each of the Yavanni in turn, Icleared my throat. "Do your mothers know you boys are here?" I demanded in the deepestvoice I could manage.

Three jaws dropped in unison. "It's late," I continued before they couldrespond. "You should be home. Go home. Now."

They looked at each other, their earlier anticipation floundering inconfusion.

Talking like a Yavannian dominant male was probably the last response they'dexpected from an alien half their size, and the molasses they used for brainswas having trouble adjusting to the situation. "Did you hear me?" I snapped, putting some anger into my voice. "Go home."

The one on the left apparently had faster molasses than the other two. "Youare not Yavannian," he snarled back at me in typically Yavannian-mangled English.

A fresh wave of turpentine smell accompanied the words. "You will not speak tous that way." Paws flexing, he took a step toward me—

And I opened my mouth and let out a warbling, blood-freezing howl.

He froze in place, his alien face abruptly stricken as his glacial braincaughtup with his fatal error. I was stationary and he was moving, which meant hehad now violated my territory. I was the injured party, I had given out with theproper Yavannian accusation/indictment/challenge shout, and I was now entitledto the first punch.

By and by, of course, he would remember that I wasn't a Yavanne and thereforenot entitled to the courtesy of Yavannian customs. I had no intention ofgivingthat thought time to percolate through. Taking a long step toward him, Itightened my hands into fists and drove both of them hard into his lowertorso, into the slight depressions on either side of the central muscle ridge.

He gave a forlorn sort of squeak—a startling sound from a creature his size—

and went down with a highly satisfying thud that must have shaken the wholetaverno.

Curled around himself, he lay still.

The other two were still standing there, staring at me with their jaws hangingloosely. I wasn't fooled—flabbergasted or not, they were still in territorialmode, and the minute I stepped onto either's chosen section of floor I wouldgetmauled. Fortunately, that was no longer a problem. The left side of theentrywaywas now free territory; stepping over the downed Yavanne, I passed through theentryway and into the taverno.

There was a small ripple of almost-applause, which quickly evaporated as thoseinvolved belatedly remembered that there were still two Yavanni left on theirfeet. I wasn't expecting any more trouble from them myself, but just the same kept an eye on their reflection in the brass chandelier domes as I made my waythrough the maze of tables and chairs. There was an empty table in the back, comfortably close to the homey log fireplace that dominated that wall, and Isat down with my back to the crackling flames. As I did so, I was just in time to see the two undamaged Yavanni help their unsteady colleague out into thenight.

"Buy you a drink, sir?"

I turned my head. A medium-sized man with dark skin stood in the dim light tothe right of my table, a half-full mug in his hand, a thick thatch of whitehair shimmering in the firelight. "I'm not interested in company right now," Isaid, punching up a small vodkaline on the table's menu selector. I wasn'tinterested in drinking, either, but that little fracas with the Yavanni had drawn enoughattention to me as it was, and sitting there without a glass in my hand wouldonly invite more curiosity.

"I appreciate what you did over there," the man commented, pulling out thechair opposite me and sitting down as if he'd been invited to do so. "I've beenstuck here half an hour waiting for them to go away. Bit of a risky move, though, wasn't it? At the very least, you could have broken a couple of knuckles."

For a moment I gazed across the table at him, at that dark face beneath thatshock of white hair. From the age lines in his skin he clearly had spent a lotof his life out in the sun; from the shape of the musculature beneath hisjackethe hadn't spent that time lounging around in beach chairs. "Not all thatrisky,"

I told him. "Yavanni don't get that really thick skin of theirs untiladulthood.

Kids that age are still pretty soft in spots. You just have to know wherethose spots are."

He nodded, eyes dropping momentarily to the ship patch with its stylized "SB" on the shoulder of my faded black-leather jacket. "You deal a lot with aliens?"

"A fair amount," I said. "My partner's one, if that helps any."

"What do you mean, if it helps any?"

The center of the table opened up and my vodkaline appeared. "If it helps youmake up your mind," I amplified, taking the glass off the tray. "Aboutofferingme a cargo."

A flicker of surprise crossed his face, but then he smiled. "You're quick," hesaid. "I like that. I take it you're an independent shipper?"

"That's right." I wasn't all that independent, actually, not anymore. But thiswasn't the right time to bring that up. "My name's Jordan McKell. I'm captainof a Capricorn-class freighter called the Stormy Banks."

"Specialty certificates?"

"Navigation and close-order piloting," I said. "My partner Ixil is certifiedin both drive and mechanical systems."

"Actually, I won't be needing your partner." He cocked an eyebrow. "Or yourship, for that matter."

"That makes sense," I said, trying not to sound too sarcastic. "What exactlydo you need—a fourth for bridge?"

He leaned a little closer to me across the table. "I already have a ship," hesaid, his voice dropping to a murmur. "It's sitting at the spaceport, fueledand cargoed and ready to go. All I need is a crew to fly her."

"Interesting trick," I complimented him. "Getting a ship here without a crew, mean."

His lips compressed. "I had a crew yesterday. They jumped ship this morning after we landed for refueling."

"Why?"

He waved a hand. "Personality conflicts, factional disputes—that sort of thing.

Apparently, both factions decided to jump without realizing the other side was going to, too. Anyway, that doesn't matter. What matters is that I'm not going to make my schedule unless I get some help together, and quickly."

I leaned back in my chair and favored him with a sly smile. "So in other words, you're basically stuck here. How very inconvenient for you. What kind of ship are we talking about?"

"It's the equivalent of an Orion-class," he said, looking like a man suddenly noticing a bad taste in his mouth. Revising his earlier estimate of me downward, no doubt, as his estimate of how much money I was going to try to squeeze out of him went the opposite direction. "Not a standard Orion, you understand, but similar in size and—"

"You need a minimum of six crewers, then," I said. "Three each certified competent in bridge and engine-room operations. All eight specialty certificates represented: navigation, piloting, electronics, mechanics, computer, drive, hull/spacewalk, and medical."

"I see you're well versed in the Mercantile Code."

"Part of my job," I said. "As I said, I can cover nav and piloting. How many of the rest are you missing?"

He smiled crookedly. "Why? You have some friends who need work?"

"I might. What do you need?"

"I appreciate the offer." He was still smiling, but the laugh lines had hardened a bit. "But I'd prefer to choose my own crew."

I shrugged. "Fine by me. I was just trying to save you a little running around.

What about me personally? Am I in?"

He eyed me another couple of heartbeats. "If you want the job," he said at last, not sounding entirely happy with the decision.

Deliberately, I turned my head a few degrees to the left and looked at a trio of gray-robed Patthaaunutth sitting at the center of the bar, gazing haughtily out at the rest of the patrons like self-proclaimed lords surveying their private demesne. "Were you expecting me to turn you down?" I asked, hearing the edge of bitterness in my voice.

He followed my gaze, lifting his mug for a sip, and even out of the corner of my eye I could see him wince a little behind the rim of the cup. "No," he said quietly. "I suppose not."

I nodded silently. The Talariac Drive had hit the trade routes of the Spiral a little over fifteen years ago, and in that brief time the Patth had gone from being a third-rate race of Machiavellian little connivers to near dominationof shipping here in our cozy corner of the galaxy. Hardly a surprise, of course: with the Talariac four times faster and three times cheaper than anyone else'sstardrive, it didn't take a corporate genius to figure out which ships werethe ones to hire.

Which had left the rest of us between a very big rock and a very hard vacuum.

There were still a fair number of smaller routes and some overflow traffic that the Patth hadn't gotten around to yet, but there were too many non-Patth shipschasing too few jobs and the resulting economic chaos had been devastating. Afew of the big shipping corporations were still hanging on, but most of theindependents had been either starved out of business or reduced to intrasystemshipping, where stardrives weren't necessary.

Or had turned their ships to other, less virtuous lines of work.

One of the Patth at the table turned his head slightly, and from beneath hishood I caught a glint of the electronic implants set into that gaunt, mahogany-red face. The Patth had a good thing going, all right, and they hadno intention of losing it. Patth starships were individually keyed to theirrespective pilots, with small but crucial bits of the Talariac accesscircuitryand visual display feedback systems implanted into the pilot's body. There'dbeen some misgivings about that when the system first hit the Spiral—shippingexecs had worried that an injury to the Patth pilot en route could strandtheir valuable cargo out in the middle of nowhere, and there was a lot of nowhereout there to lose something as small as a starship in. The Patth had countered byadding one or two backup pilots to each ship, which had lowered the risk ofaccident without compromising the shroud of secrecy they were determined tokeeparound the Talariac. Without the circuitry implanted in its pilot—and with awhole raft of other safeguards built into the hardware of the driveitself—borrowing or stealing a Patth ship would gain you exactly zeroinformation.

Or so the reasoning went. The fact that no bootleg copies of the Talariac hadyet appeared anywhere on the market tended to support that theory.

The man across from me set his mug back down on the table with a slightlyimpatient-sounding clunk. Turning my eyes and thoughts away from the hoodedPatth, I got back to business. "What time do you want to leave?"

"As early as possible," he said. "Say, six tomorrow morning."

I thought about that. Meima was an Ihmis colony world, and one of thepeculiarities of Ihmisit-run spaceports was that shippers weren't allowedinside the port between sundown and sunup, with the entire port sealed during thosehours. Alien-psychology experts usually attributed this to some quirk of Ihmissuperstition; I personally put it down to the healthy hotel business thepolicygenerated at the spaceport's periphery. "Sunrise tomorrow's not untilfive-thirty," I pointed out. "Doesn't leave much time for preflight checks."

"The ship's all ready to go," he reminded me.

"We check it anyway before we fly," I told him. "That's what 'preflight'means.

What about clearances?"

"All set," he said, tapping his tunic. "I've got the papers right here."

"Let me see them."

He shook his head. "That's not necessary. I'll be aboard well before—"

"Let me see them."

For a second he had the expression of someone who was seriously consideringstanding up and going to look for a pilot with a better grasp of the properservility involved in an owner/employee relationship. But he merely dug intohis inside jacket pocket and pulled out a thin stack of cards. Maybe he liked myspirit, or maybe he was just running out of time to find someone to fly hisshipfor him.

I leafed through them. The papers were for a modified Orion-class freightercalled the Icarus, Earth registry, mastership listed as one Alexander Borodin.

They were also copies, not the originals he'd implied he was carrying. "YouBorodin?" I asked.

"That's right," he said. "As you see, everything's in order for a morninglift."

"Certainly looks that way," I agreed. All the required checks had been done: engine room, thrusters and stardrive, computer, cargo customs—

I frowned. "What's this 'sealed cargo section' business?"

"Just what it says," he told me. "The cargo hold is situated in the aft-centersection of the ship, and was sealed on Gamm against all entry or inspection.

The Gamm port authority license is there."

"Came in from Gamm, did you?" I commented, finding the license on the nextcard down. "Quiet little place."

"Yes. A bit primitive, though."

"It is that," I agreed, stacking the cards together again. I glanced at thetopcard again, making careful note of the lift and clearance codes that had beenassigned to the Icarus, and handed them back across the table. "All right, you've got yourself a captain. What's the up-front pay?"

"One thousand commarks," he said. "Payable on your arrival at the ship in themorning. Another two thousand once we make Earth. It's all I can afford," headded, a bit defensively.

Three thousand in all, for a job that would probably take five or six weeks tocomplete. I certainly wasn't going to get rich on that kind of pay, but Iprobably wouldn't starve, either. Provided he picked up the fuel and port dutyfees along the way, of course. For a moment I thought about trying to bargainhim up, but the look on his face implied it would be a waste of time. "Fine,"

I said. "You have a tag for me?"

"Right here," he said, rummaging around inside his jacket again, hisexpressiontwitching briefly with surprise that I had not, in fact, tried to squeeze himfor more money as he'd obviously expected me to do. Briefly, I wondered whichdirection that had moved his opinion of me, but gave up the exercise as bothunprofitable and irrelevant.

His probing hand found what it was looking for, and emerged holding athree-by-seven-centimeter plastic tag covered with colored dots. Another Ihmisquirk, this one their refusal to number or in any other way differentiate thetwo hundred-odd landing squares at their spaceport. The only way to find aparticular ship—or a particular service center or customs office or supplydepot, for that matter—was to have one of these handy little tags on you. Slidinto the transparent ID slot in a landing jacket collar, the tag's dot codewould be read by sensors set up at each intersection, whereupon walk-mounted guidelights would point the befuddled wearer in the proper direction. It madefor rather protracted travel sometimes, but the Ihmisits liked it and itwasn't much more than a minor inconvenience for anyone else. My assumption had alwaysbeen that someone's brother-in-law owned the tag-making concession. "Anythingelse you need to know?"

I cocked an eyebrow at him as I slid the tag into my collar slot in front ofthe one keyed to guide me back to the Stormy Banks. "Why? You in a hurry?"

"I have one or two other things yet to do tonight, yes," he said as he setdown his cup and stood up, "Good evening, Captain McKell. I'll see you tomorrowmorning."

"I'll be there." I nodded.

He nodded back and headed across the taverno, maneuvering through the maze oftables and the occasional wandering customer, and disappeared through thedoor.

I took a sip of my vodkaline, counted to twenty, and headed off after him.

I didn't want to look like I was hurrying, and as a result it took me maybehalf a minute longer to get across the taverno than it had taken him. But that wasall right. There were a lot of spacers roaming the streets out there, but theoverhead lights outside were pretty good, and with all that white hair heshould be easy enough to spot and follow. Pushing open the door, I stepped out intothe cool night air.

I had forgotten about the Yavanni. They hadn't forgotten about me.

They were waiting near the entrance, partly concealed behind one of thedecorative glass entryway windbreaks that stuck a meter outward from the wallon either side of the door itself. Recognizing a particular alien is always adiceyproposition, but obviously this bunch had mastered the technique. Even as Istepped out from the shelter of the windbreaks, they began moving purposefullytoward me, the one in front showing a noticeable forward slouch.

I had to do something, and I had to do it fast. They'd abandoned theirpreviousterritorial game—that much was obvious from the way they bunched together asthey moved confidently toward me. I'd shamed them in front of the wholetaverno, and what they undoubtedly had in mind was a complete demonstration as to whythat had been a bad decision on my part. I thought about digging inside myjacket for my gun, realized instantly that any such move would be suicide; thought about ducking back into the taverno, realized that would do nothingbut postpone the confrontation.

Which left me only one real option. Bracing myself, I took a quick steppartwayback into the windbreak, turned ninety degrees to my left, and kicked backwardas hard as I could with my right foot.

In most other places windbreaks like these were made out of a highly resilientplastic. The Vyssiluyas preferred glass—tough glass, to be sure, but glassnonetheless. With three angry Yavanni lumbering toward me I was understandablyin no mood for half measures, and the force of the kick seemed to shootstraightthrough my spine to the top of my head. But I achieved the desired result: the glass panel blew out, scattering a hundred pieces across the landscape.

I caught my balance and jumped backward through the now mostly empty boxframe.

A large wedge of jagged glass that was still hanging tentatively onto the sideof the frame scraped at my jacket as I went through. Trying to avoid slicingmyfingers on the edges, I got a grip on it and broke it free. Brandishing itlike a makeshift knife, I jabbed at the Yavanni.

The Yavanne in front stopped short, generating a brief bit of vaguely comedicconfusion as the other two bumped into him. For all their bulk andaggressiveness, Yavanni are remarkably sensitive to the sight of their ownblood, and the thought of charging into a knife or knifelike instrument cangiveeven the hardiest a moment of pause. But only a moment. Like most otherunpleasantries, anticipation is often worse than the actual event, and as soonas their molasses minds remembered that they'd be all over me.

But I wasn't planning to be here when that happened. With the windbreak goneand the Yavanni bunched together, I now had a completely clear exit route at myback. Flipping my shard of glass at the lead Yavanne, I turned and ran for it.

I got only a couple of steps before they set up a startled howl and lurchedinto gear after me. They'd eventually get me, too—in a long straightaway human legscouldn't outmatch Yavannian ones. But for the first few seconds, until theygotall that body mass moving, I had the advantage. All I had to do was findsomething to do with it.

I knew better than to waste time looking over my shoulder, but I could tellfrom the sounds of their foot thuds that I still had a reasonably good lead when Ireached the corner of the taverno and swung around into the narrow pedestrianalleyway separating it from the next building over. An empty alleyway, unfortunately, without what I'd hoped to find there. The Yavanni hove aroundthe corner; lowering my head, I put all my effort into getting every drop of speedI could out of my legs. They would probably get me, I knew, before I couldcircle the building completely. If what I was looking for wasn't around back, I wasgoing to be in for some serious pain.

I rounded the next corner with the Yavanni uncomfortably close behind me. Andthere it was, just as I'd hoped to find it: a pile of half-meter-long logs forthe taverno's big fireplace, neatly stacked against the wall and reachingnearlyto the eaves of the roof. Without slowing my pace, I headed up.

I nearly didn't make it. The Yavanni were right on my heels and going far toofast to stop, and their big feet slammed into the logs like bowling diskshitting the pins. The whole pile went rippling down behind me, and if I'd beena fraction of a second slower I'd have gone down right along with it. As it was, I

came within an ace of missing my flying leap upward at the eaves when mytakeoff log bobbled under my feet and robbed me of some hard-earned momentum. But Imade it and got the desired grip, and a second later had hauled myself over the edgeand onto the roof.

Not any too soon, either. I was just swinging my legs up over the edge whenone of the logs came whistling up past the eaves to disappear into the night sky.

Myplaymates below, proving themselves to be sore losers. I didn't know whetherYavanni were good enough jumpers to get to the roof without the aid of thewoodpile they'd just demolished, but I had no particular desire to find outthe hard way. Keeping my head down—there were plenty more logs where that firstone had come from—I got my feet under me and headed across the roof.

All the buildings in this section of the spaceport periphery were reasonablyuniform in height, with only those narrow alleys separating them. With alittle momentum, a gentle tailwind, and the inspirational mental image of irritatedYavanni behind me I made it across the gap to the next rooftop with half ameter to spare. I angled across that one, did a more marginal leap to the buildingabutting against its back, and kept going. Along the way I managed to get outof my jacket and turn it inside out, replacing the black leather with anobnoxiously loud paisley lining that I'd had put in for just this sort ofcircumstance. Aiming for a building with smoke curling out of its chimney, Ilocated its woodpile and made my way down.

The Yavanni were nowhere to be seen when I reentered the main thoroughfare andthe wandering groups of spacers, townspeople, come-ons, and pickpockets.

Unfortunately, neither was the white-haired man I'd been hoping to follow.

I poked around the area for another hour, popping in and out of a few moretavernos and dives on the assumption that my new employer might still betrolling for crewers. But I didn't see him anywhere; and the spaceportperipherywas far too big for a one-man search. Besides, my leg was aching from thatkick to the windbreak, and I needed to be at the spaceport when it opened atfive-thirty.

The Vyssiluyas ran a decent autocab service in their part of the periphery, but that thousand commarks I'd been promised weren't due until I showed up at theIcarus, and the oversize manager of the slightly seedy hotel where Ixil and Iwere staying would be very unhappy if we didn't have the necessary cash to paythe bill in the morning. Reluctantly, I decided that two arguments with largealiens in the same twelve-hour period would be pushing it, and headed back onfoot.

My leg was hurting all the way up to my skull by the time I finished the lastof the four flights of stairs and slid my key into the slot beside the door. Withvisions of a soft bed, gently pulsating Vyssiluyan relaxation lights, and aglass of Scotch dancing with the ache behind my forehead, I pushed open thedoor and stepped inside.

The soft bed and Scotch were still a possibility. But the lights apparentlyweren't. The room was completely dark.

I went the rest of the way into the room in a half fall, half dive that sentme sprawling face first onto the floor as I yanked my plasmic out of its concealed holster under my left armpit. Ixil was supposed to be waiting here; and adarkened room could only mean that someone had taken him out and was lying inwait for me.

"Jordan?" a smooth and very familiar Kalixiri voice called from across theroom.

"Is that you?"

I felt the sudden surge of adrenaline turn into chagrined embarrassment anddrain away through my aching leg where it could hurt some more on its way out.

"I thought you'd still be up," I said blackly, resisting the urge to trot outsome of the colorful language that had earned me a seat in front of thatcourt-martial board so many years ago.

"I am up," he said. "Come take a look at this."

With an amazingly patient sigh, I clicked the safety back on my plasmic andslid the weapon back into its holster. With Ixil, the object of interest could beanything from a distant nebula he'd spotted through the haze of city lights toan interesting glow-in-the-dark spider crawling across the window. "Be rightthere," I grunted. Hauling myself to my feet, I kicked the door closed androunded the half wall into the main part of the room.

For most people, I suppose, Ixil and his ilk would be considered as much avisual nightmare as the charming Yavanni lads I'd left back at the taverno. Hewas a typical Kalix: squat, broad-shouldered, with a face that had more thanonce been unflatteringly compared to that of a squashed iguana.

And as he stood in silhouette against the window, I noticed that thisparticularKalix was also decidedly asymmetric. One of those broad shoulders—the rightone—appeared to be hunched up like a cartoonist's caricature of a muscle-boundthrow-boxer, while the other was much flatter. "You're missing someone," Icommented, tapping him on the flat shoulder.

"I sent Pix up onto the roof," Ixil said in that cultured Kalixiri voice thatfits so badly with the species' rugged exterior. One of the last remainingsimple pleasures in my life, in fact, was watching the reactions of peoplemeeting him for the first time who up till then had only spoken with him onvidless starconnects. Some of those reactions were absolutely priceless.

"Did you, now," I said, circling around to his right side. As I did so, thelumpon top of that shoulder twitched and uncurled itself, and a whiskered noseprobed briefly into my ear. "Hello, Pax," I greeted it, reaching over toscritch the animal behind its mouselike ear.

The Kalixiri name for the creatures was unpronounceable by human vocalapparatus, so I usually called them ferrets, which they did sort of resemblein their lean, furry way, though in size they weren't much bigger than laboratoryrats. In the distant past, they had served as outriders for Kalixiri hunters, running ahead to locate prey and then returning to their masters with theinformation.

What distinguished them from dogs or grockners or any of a hundred othersimilar hunting partners was the unique symbiotic relationship between them and theirKalixiri masters. With Pax riding on Ixil's shoulder, his claws dug into thetough outer skin, Pax's nervous system was right now directly linked toIxil's.

Ixil could give him a mental order, which would download into Pax's limitedbrain capacity; and when he returned and reconnected, the download would gothe opposite direction, letting Ixil see, hear, and smell everything the ferrethad experienced during their time apart.

For Kalixiri hunters the advantages of the arrangement were obvious. For Ixil, a

starship-engine mechanic, the ferrets were invaluable in dealing with wiringor tubing or anything else involving tight spaces or narrow conduits. If more ofhis people had taken an interest in going into offworld mechanical andelectronic work, I'd often thought, the Kalixiri might well have taken overthat field the same way the Patth had done with general shipping.

"So what on the roof do you expect to find interesting?" I asked, giving Paxanother scritch and wondering for the millionth time whether Ixil got the samescritch through their neural link. He'd never commented about it, but thatcould just be Ixil.

"Not on the roof," Ixil said, lifting a massive arm. "Off of it. Over there."

I frowned where he was pointing. Off in the distance, beyond the buildings ofthe spaceport periphery and the more respectable city beyond it, was a gentleglow against the wispy clouds of the nighttime sky. As I watched, threethruster sparks lifted from the area and headed off horizontally in differentdirections.

"Interesting," I said, watching one of the sparks. It was hard to tell, givenour distance and perspective, but the craft seemed to be traveling remarkablyslowly and zigzagging as it went.

"I noticed it about forty minutes ago," Ixil said. "I thought at first it wasthe reflected light from a new community that I simply hadn't seen before. ButI checked the map, and there's nothing that direction except a row of hills andthe wasteland region we flew over on our way in."

"Could it be a fire?" I suggested doubtfully.

"Unlikely," Ixil said. "The glow isn't red enough, and I've seen no evidenceof smoke. I was wondering if it might be a search-and-rescue operation."

From the edge of the window came a gentle scrabbling sound; and with a softrodent sneeze Pix appeared on the sill. A sinuous leap over to Ixil's arm, aquick scamper—with those claws digging for footholds the whole way up—and hewas once again crouched in his place on Ixil's shoulder.

There was a tiny scratching sound like a fingernail on leather that alwaysmade me wince, and for a moment Ixil stood silently as he ran through the memorieshe was now pulling from the ferret's small brain. "Interesting," he said. "Fromthe parallax, it appears to be considerably farther out than I first thought. Wellbeyond the hills, probably ten kilometers into the wilderness."

Which meant the glow was also a lot brighter than I'd thought. What couldanyonewant out there in the middle of nowhere?

My chest tightened, the ache in my leg suddenly forgotten. "You don't happento know," I asked with studied casualness, "where exactly that archaeology dig isthat the Cameron Group's been funding, do you?"

"Somewhere out in that wilderness," Ixil said. "I don't know the precise location."

"I do," I said. "I'll make you a small wager it's smack-dab in the middle ofthat glow."

"And why would you think that?"

"Because Arno Cameron himself was in town tonight. Offering me a job."

Ixil's squashed-iguana face turned to look at me. "You are joking."

"Afraid not," I assured him. "He was running under a ridiculous alias—

Alexander Borodin, no less—and he'd dyed that black hair of his pure white, which madehim look a good twenty years older. But it was him." I tapped my jacket collar.

"He wants me to fly him out of here tomorrow morning in a ship called the Icarus."

"What did you tell him?"

"At three thousand commarks for the trip? I told him yes, of course."

Pix sneezed again. "This is going to be awkward," Ixil said; and then addedwhat had to be the understatement of the week. "Brother John is not going to bepleased."

"No kidding," I agreed sourly. "When was the last time Brother John waspleasedabout anything we did?"

"Those instances have been rare," Ixil conceded. "Still, I doubt we've ever seen him as angry as he can get, either."

Unfortunately, he had a point. Johnston Scotto Ryland—the "Brother" honorificwas pure sarcasm on our part—was the oh-so-generous benefactor who had bailedIxil and me out of looming financial devastation three years ago by adding theStormy Banks to his private collection of smuggling ships. Weapons, illegalbodyparts, interdicted drugs, stolen art, stolen electronics, every disgustingvariety of happyjam imaginable—you name it, we'd probably carried it. In fact, we were on a job for him right now, with yet another of his secretive littlecargoes tucked away in the Stormy Banks's hold.

And Ixil was right. Brother John had not clawed his way up to his exaltedposition among the Spiral's worst scum peddlers by smiling and shrugging offsudden unilateral decisions by his subordinates.

"I'll square it with him," I promised Ixil, though how exactly I was going todo that I couldn't quite imagine at the moment. "It was three grand, after all.

How was I supposed to turn that down and still keep up the facade that we'reimpoverished independent shippers?"

Ixil didn't react, but the ferrets on his shoulders gave simultaneoustwitches.

Sometimes that two-way neural link could be handy if you knew what to lookfor.

"Anyway, there's no reason why Brother John should get warped out of shapeover this," I went on. "You can take the Stormy Banks the rest of the way to Xathruby yourself. Then he can have his happyjam and guns and everybody can relax.

I'll look at Cameron's flight path in the morning and leave you a message atXathru as to where the most convenient place will be for you to catch up withus."

"Regulations require a minimum of two crewers for a Capricorn-class ship," hereminded me.

"Fine," I said shortly. It was late, my leg and head were hurting, and I was in no mood to hear the Mercantile Code being quoted at me. Especially not fromthe one who'd ultimately gotten me in this mess to begin with. "There's you, there's Pix, and there's Pax. That's three of you. The details you can work out withthe Port Authority in the morning."

With that I stomped out of the living area—being careful to stomp on my goodlegonly—and went into the bath/dressing room. By the time I'd finished my bedtimepreparations and rejoined Ixil I'd calmed down some. "Anything new?" I askedhim.

He was still staring out the window, the two ferrets perched on his shouldersstaring out right alongside him. "More aircraft seem to have joined in theactivities," he said. "Something out there has definitely piqued someone'scuriosity."

"Piqued and a half," I agreed, taking one last look and then heading for mybed.

"I wonder what Cameron's people dug up out there."

"And who could be this interested in it," Ixil added, turning reluctantly awayfrom the window himself. "It may be, Jordan, that our discussion of BrotherJohn's cargo will turn out to be moot. You may reach the Icarus in the morningto find it already in someone's hands."

"Not a chance," I said, easing my aching leg gingerly under the blankets.

"And why not?"

I lay back onto a lumpy pillow. Yet another lumpy pillow, at yet another lumpyspaceport, in what seemed to be an increasingly lumpy life. "Because," I saidwith a sigh, "I'm not nearly that lucky."