The Icarus Hunt

CHAPTER 3

EVEN WITH THE clearance codes and papers Cameron had left with his note, I was fully expecting there to be trouble getting the Icarus off the ground. To my mild and cautiously disbelieving surprise, there wasn't. The tower gave uspermission to lift, the landing-pad repulsor boost got us up off the groundand into range of the perimeter grav beams, and a few minutes later we werehaulingfor space under our own power.

After Tera's revelation about the archaic computer system we'd been saddledwith, I had been wondering just what kind of shape the drive would be in. Butthere, too, my pessimism turned out to be unnecessary, or at least premature.

The thrusters roared solidly away, driving us steadily through the atmospheretoward the edge of Meima's gravity well, and with each of my periodic callsback to the engine room Nicabar assured me all was going just fine.

It wouldn't last, though. I knew it wouldn't last; and as the capacitors inthe nose cone discharged into the cutter array and sliced us a link hole intohyperspace, I warned myself that things were unlikely to continue running thissmoothly. Somewhere along the way, we were going to run into some serioustrouble.

Six hours out from Meima, we hit our first batch of it.

My first warning was a sudden, distant-sounding screech sifting into thebridge, sounding rather like a banshee a couple of towns over. I slapped the big redKILL button, throwing a quick look at the monitors as I did so, and withanother crack from the capacitors we were back in space-normal.

"McKell?" Nicabar's voice came from the intercom. "You just drop us out?"

"Yes," I confirmed. "I think we've got a pressure crack. You reading anyatmosphere loss?"

"Nothing showing on my board," he said. "Inner hull must still be solid. Ididn't hear the screech, either—must be somewhere at your end of the ship."

"Probably," I agreed. "I'll roust Chort and have him take a look."

I called the EVA room, found that Chort was already suiting up, and headedaft.

One of the most annoying problems of hyperspace travel was what the expertscalled parasynbaric force, what we nonexperts called simply hyperspacepressure.

Ships traveling through hyperspace were squeezed the whole way, the pressurelevel related through a complicated formula to the ship's mass, speed, andoverall surface area. The earliest experimental hyperspace craft had usuallywound up flattened, and even now chances were good that a ship of any decentsize would have to drop out at least once a trip to have its hull specialisttake a look and possibly do some running repairs.

Considering what I'd seen of the Icarus's hull back on the ground, I wasfranklysurprised we'd made it as far as we had.

Tera and Everett were standing in the corridor outside the EVA room when Iarrived, watching Jones help a vacsuited Chort run a final check on hisequipment. "Well, that didn't take long," Tera commented. "Any idea where theproblem is?"

"Probably somewhere here on the larger sphere," I said. "The computer didn'thave any ideas?"

She shook her head. "Like I said, it's old and feeble. Nothing but macrosensors, and no predictive capability at all."

"Don't worry," Chort assured us, his whistly voice oddly muted by his helmet.

"That screech didn't sound bad. Regardless, I will find and fix it."

"Someone's going to have to go into the wraparound with him, too," Jones put in.

"I checked earlier, and there aren't any of the connections or lifeline-feedsof a standard airlock."

I'd noticed that, too. "You volunteering?" I asked him.

"Of course," he said, sounding surprised that it was even a question. "EVAassist is traditionally mechanic's privilege, you know."

"I'm not concerned with tradition nearly as much as I am whether we've got asuit aboard that'll fit you," I countered. "Tera, pull the computer inventoryand see what we've got."

"I already checked," she said. "There are three suit/rebreather combos inLocker Fifteen. It didn't list sizes, though."

"I'll go look," Jones volunteered, checking one last seal on Chort's suit andsqueezing past him. "That's lower level, Tera?"

"Right," she said. "Just forward of Cabin Seven."

"Got it." Jones eased past me and headed for the aft ladder.

"So how will he handle it?" Everett asked. "Go into the wraparound and feedChort the lifeline from there?"

"Basically," I nodded. "There's a slot just outside the entryway where thesecondary line can connect, but he'll want Jones feeding him the primary lineas he goes along. Otherwise, it can get kinked or snarled on the maneuveringvents, and that eats up time."

"I've heard of snarled lines giving false readings on sensors, too," Tera putin. "He might wind up fixing a hull plate that didn't need it."

"That won't happen," Chort assured her. "I will know the damage when I reachit."

"I'm sure you will," Everett said, lumbering down the corridor toward the aftladder. "I'll see if Jones can use a hand."

There were indeed three vac suits in the locker, one of which fit Jones justfine, and with Everett's help he was suited up in fifteen minutes. Fiveminutes after that he and Chort were in the wraparound, the airlock doors at both endswere sealed, and I was on the bridge with the hull monitor cameras extended ontheir pylons.

And we were set. "Ready here," I called into the intercom. "Revs, go ahead andshut down the gravity."

"Right," Nicabar acknowledged from the engine room, and I felt the suddenstomach-twisting disorientation as the Icarus's grav generator went off-line.

I double-checked the airlock status and keyed for the suit radios. "It's allyours, Chort. Let him out easy, Jones."

Given that Jones had a Craea at the other end of his line, my automaticwarningwas probably both unnecessary and even a bit ridiculous. Before the outerhatch was even all the way open Chort was out on the hull, pausing briefly to snaphis secondary line into the connector slot and heading nimbly across thewraparound, using his hull-hooks and stickypads as if he'd been born in zero gee.

"Mind if I watch?" a voice asked from the doorway behind me.

I turned my head. Shawn was floating just outside the door, gazing past me atthe monitors, an intense but oddly calm look on his face. "No, come on in," Iinvited.

"Thanks," he said, maneuvering his way into the room and coming to a stophovering beside my chair. "There aren't any monitors in the electronics shop, and I've never seen a Craea spacewalk before."

"It's definitely a sight to behold," I agreed, trying not to frown as Istudied his profile. The twitchy, nervous, sarcastic kid who'd been such a pain in theneck while we were waiting outside the Icarus had apparently been kidnappedsometime in the last six hours and replaced by this near-perfect copy. "Howare you doing?"

He smiled, a little shamefacedly. "You mean how come I'm not acting like ajerk?"

"Not exactly the way I would have put it," I said. "But as long as you bringit up...?"

"Yeah, I know," he said, his lip twisting. "That's another reason I wanted totalk to you, to apologize for all that. I was... well, nervous, I guess. Youhave to admit this is a really strange situation, and I don't do well withstrange situations. Especially early in the morning."

"I have trouble with mornings sometimes myself," I said, turning back to themonitors. "Don't worry about it."

"Thanks. He's really good, isn't he?"

I nodded. Chort was moving slowly along the edge of the cowling that coveredthe intersection of the two spheres, his faceplate bare centimeters above the hullas he glided over the surface. Here and there he would stop for a moment, touching something with his long fingers and occasionally selecting one of thesqueeze tubes from the collection clamped to his forearms. I thought aboutgetting on the radio and asking what he was doing, but decided against it. Heclearly knew his business, and there didn't seem any point in distracting himwith a lot of questions. I made a mental note to pick up a set of zoomablehull cameras at our next stop.

The whistle from the radio speaker was so unexpected that Shawn and I bothjumped, a movement that the zero gee magnified embarrassingly. "There it is,"

Chort said as I grabbed my restraint straps and pulled myself firmly down intothe chair again. "A small pressure ridge only. Easily repaired."

He set to work with his squeeze tubes again. "I'll never understand about thatstuff," Shawn commented. "If it's so good at fixing hull cracks and ridges, whynot coat the whole hull with it?"

"Good question," I agreed, throwing him another surreptitious glance. Calm, friendly, and now even making intelligent conversation. I made another mentalnote, this one to restrict all my future interactions with him until afterhe'd had his morning coffee or whatever.

If Chort was a representative example of Craean spacewalking ability, it wasno wonder they were so much in demand. In less than ten minutes he'd sealed theridge, tracked two jaglines radiating from that spot, and fixed them as well.

"All secure," he announced. "I will check the rest of the sphere, but Ibelieve this is the only problem."

"Sounds good," I said. "Before you go any farther forward, you might as wellgoaft and run a quick check on the cargo and engine sections."

"Acknowledged," Chort said, turning around and heading back over the side of the cargo sphere. He paused once, moved down the side toward the wraparound—

And suddenly, with another stomach-wrenching disorientation, I fell down hardinto my chair.

Shawn yelped in surprise and pain as he dropped like a rock to the deck besideme. But I hardly noticed. Incredibly, impossibly, the Icarus's gravity fieldhad gone back on.

And as I watched in helpless horror, Chort slammed against the side of thecargosphere, caromed off the wraparound, and disappeared off the monitor screen.

"Revs!" I barked toward the intercom, twisting the camera control hard over.

"Turn it off!"

"I didn't turn it on," he protested.

"I don't give a damn who turned it on!" I snarled. I had Chort on the screennow, hanging limply like a puppet on a string at the end of his secondary lineat the bottom of the artificial "down" the Icarus's gravity generator hadimposed on this small bubble of space. "Just shut it down."

"I can't," he bit back. "The control's not responding."

I ground my teeth viciously. "Tera?"

"I'm trying, too," her voice joined in. "The computer's frozen up."

"Then cut all power to that whole section," I snapped. "You can do that, can'tyou? One of you?"

"Working on it," Nicabar grunted.

"Computer's still frozen," Tera added tautly. "I can't see him—is he allright?"

"I don't know," I told her harshly. "And we won't know until we get him back—"

I broke off suddenly, my breath catching horribly in my throat. Concentratingfirst on Chort's fall, and then on getting the gravity shut down, it hadn'teven occurred to me to wonder why Chort had fallen that far in the first place. WhyJones hadn't had the slack in the primary line properly taken up, or for thatmatter why he hadn't already begun reeling the Craea back into the wraparound.

But now, looking at the outside of the entryway for the first time since theaccident, I could see why. Hanging limply over the sill of the hatchway besidethe equally limp primary line was a vacsuited hand. Jones's hand.

Not moving.

"Revs, do you have a suit back there?" I called, cursing under my breath, tryingto key the camera for a better look inside the entryway. No good; Jones hadturned the overhead light off and the shadow was too intense for the camera topenetrate.

"No," he called back. "What's the—oh, damn."

"Yeah," I bit out, my mind racing uselessly. With the entryway open to space, the wraparound was totally isolated from the rest of the ship by the pressuredoors at either end. I could close the hatch from the bridge; but the wayJones was lying, his hand would prevent it from sealing.

The only other way to get to him would be to depressurize one side of the shipso we could open the door. But we couldn't depressurize the sphere—there wereonly two vac suits left for the four of us still in here, and I wasn't aboutto trust the room or cabin doors to hold up against hard vacuum. And without asuit for Nicabar, we couldn't depressurize the engine room, either. My eyes flickeduselessly over the monitors, searching for inspiration—

"He's moving," Nicabar called suddenly. "McKell—Chort's moving."

I felt my hands tighten into fists. The Craea's body was starting to twitch, his limbs making small random movements like someone having a violent dream.

"Chort?" I called toward the microphone, "Chort, this is McKell. Snap out ofit—we need you."

"I am here," Chort's voice came, sounding vague and tentative. "Whathappened?"

"Ship's gravity came on," I told him. "Never mind that now. Something'shappenedto Jones—he's not responding, and I think he's unconscious. Can you climb upyour line and get to him?"

For a long moment he didn't reply. I was gazing at the monitor, wondering ifhe'd slipped back into unconsciousness, when suddenly he twitched again; and asecond later he was pulling himself up the line with spiderlike agility.

Thirty seconds later he was in the wraparound, pulling Jones out of the way ofthe door. I was ready, keying for entryway seal and repressurization of thewraparound.

Two minutes later, we had them back in the ship.

THE EFFORT, AS it turned out, was for nothing.

"I'm sorry, McKell," Everett said with a tired sigh, pulling a thin blanketcarefully over Jones's face. "Your man's been gone at least ten minutes.

There's nothing I can do."

I looked over at the body lying on the treatment table. The terminallysociable type, I'd dubbed him back at the spaceport. He'd been terminal, all right. "Itwas the rebreather, then?"

"Definitely." Everett picked up the scrubber unit and peeled back thecovering.

"Somewhere in here the system stopped scrubbing carbon dioxide out of the airand started putting carbon monoxide in. Slowly, certainly—he probably didn'teven notice it was happening. Just drifted to sleep and slipped quietly away."

I gazed at the hardware cradled in those large hands. "Was it an accident?"

He gave me an odd look. "You work with air scrubbers all the time. Couldsomething like this have happened by accident?"

"I suppose it's possible," I said, the image of that massive search Ixil and Ihad spotted out in the Meima wilderness vivid in my memory. No, it hadn't beenany accident. Not a chance in the world of that. But there was no sensepanicking Everett, either.

"Hm," Everett said. For another moment he looked at the scrubber, thensmoothed back the covering and put it aside. "I know you're not in the mood right nowto count your blessings, but bear in mind that if Chort had died or broken hisneck in that fall, we'd have lost both of them."

"Blessings like this I can do without," I said bitterly. "Have you looked atChort yet?"

He grunted. "Chort says he's fine and unhurt and refuses to be looked at. Ifyouwant me to run a check on him, you'll have to make it an order."

"No, that's all right," I told him. I'd never heard anything about the Craeanculture being a particularly stoic one. If Chort said he was all right, heprobably was.

But whether he would stay that way was now open to serious question. With that phony murder charge someone had apparently succeeded in scaring Cameron offthe Icarus, and the guilt-by-association bit had nearly bounced me, as well. Now, Jones had been rather more permanently removed from the crew list, and Chorthad come within a hair of joining him.

And all this less than eight hours into the trip. The universe was spendingthe Icarus's quota of bad luck with a lavish hand.

"A pity, too," Everett commented into my musings. "Jones being the mechanic, Imean. He might have been the only one on board who could have tracked downwhat went wrong with the grav generator. Now we may never know what happened."

"Probably," I agreed, putting the heaviness of true conviction into my voice.

If Everett—or anyone else, for that matter—thought I was just going to chalk anyof this up to mysterious accident and let it go at that, I had no intention ofdisillusioning them. "That's usually how it goes with this sort of thing," Iadded. "You never really find out what went wrong."

He nodded in commiseration. "So what happens now?"

I looked over at Jones's body again. "We take him to port and turn him over tothe authorities," I said. "Then we keep going."

"Without a mechanic?" Everett frowned. "A ship this size needs all eightcertificates, you know."

"That's okay," I assured him, backing out the door. "Nicabar can cover for thefew hours it'll take to get to port. After that, I know where we can pick upanother mechanic. Cheap."

He made some puzzled-sounding reply, but I was already in the corridor anddidn't stop to hear it. Cameron's course plan had put our first fueling stopat Trottsen, seventy-two more hours away. But a relatively minor vector changewould take us instead to Xathru, only nine hours from here, where Ixil and theStormy Banks were due to deliver Brother John's illegal cargo. We needed areplacement mechanic, after all, and Ixil would fit the bill perfectly.

Besides which, I suddenly very much wanted to have Ixil at my side. Or perhapsmore precisely, to have him watching my back.