The Icarus Hunt (11 page)

Apparently lost in his own thoughts, Everett didn’t
even notice us standing in the shadow of the wraparound until he was halfway up the ramp. Judging from how high he jumped, he had indeed never seen a Kalix before. “It’s all right—don’t worry,” I said quickly, before he could turn tail and run for the hills. “This is Ixil. He’s with us.”

“Ah,” Everett said, regaining his balance and most of his composure and peering oddly at Ixil. “So
this
is your partner. Ixil, was it?”

“Yes,” Ixil said. “How did you know I was Jordan’s partner?”

Everett blinked. “He said he would be bringing his partner in to take Jones’s place,” he said, looking at me uncertainly. “Just before we set down. Didn’t you say that?”

“Yes, I did,” I confirmed. “Any problems with the drop-off?”

“Not really,” he said. “It was your basic fifteen-minute inquest. They did want to keep the suit and rebreather, though.”

“I figured they would,” I said. “Where’s Nicabar?”

“He headed off somewhere after the inquest,” Everett said. “Why, is that a problem?”

“It could become one,” I said. “Did you happen to see any of the others on your way back?”

“I passed Shawn at one of the vendor stalls a few minutes ago,” he said. “I haven’t seen anyone else.”

“Perhaps it’s time we called them,” Ixil suggested. “I presume you have their phone numbers, Jordan?”

“Yes, they’re programmed into list two,” I said, handing him my phone. “Give them a call, will you, and tell them to get back as soon as they can. I’ll make sure the refueling’s been finished and get the rest of the paperwork out of the way.”

“What can I do?” Everett asked.

You can tell me who out there has it in for this ship and its crew
, the suggestion ran through my mind. But
there was no point springing something like that on him. Odds were he hadn’t the faintest idea anyway. “Go make sure your gear’s ready for liftoff,” I told him instead. “As soon as the rest get back, we’re out of here.”

They straggled in over the next hour, Shawn and Nicabar clearly glad we were getting under way, Tera just as clearly annoyed that we’d cut short what had apparently been a successful shopping spree, at least judging from the number of bags she hauled aboard. Chort didn’t show any particular preference one way or the other.

With the ever-looming threat of hue and cry from the Port Authority over the deaths of my two assailants—and the associated threat that the port might be summarily shut down at any minute—I spent the entire time sweating as I fought upstream against bureaucratic inertia, trying to finish Jones’s death report and all the procedural preflight paperwork before the bodies were discovered.

To my surprise, we got cleared and headed out into space without any sign of official outrage or panic over the charred remains I’d left at the loading dock. Perhaps the spot the Lumpy Brothers had picked for my interrogation had been more private than it had
looked. Either that, or someone had done a very efficient job of sweeping the whole incident under the rug.

I’d had short conversations with each of the crewers on the trip from Meima, but most of them had either concerned basic ship’s business or were just casual chat. But now, with everything that had happened since then, I decided it was time to skip past the surface and find out what exactly these people were made of. If someone was out to get us, I needed to know which ones I could trust not to buckle under pressure.

And so, as soon as we’d made our slice into hyperspace and were on our way, I left Ixil watching the bridge and headed aft.

The
Icarus
’s engine room was just like the rest of the ship, only more so. The same odd arrangement of equipment and control systems was repeated back there, as if Salvador Dali had been in charge of the layout. In addition, though, the general attempt elsewhere to keep the various cables and fluid conduits tucked out of the way in the gap between the inner and outer hulls had seemingly been abandoned here. They were everywhere: a bewildering, multicolored spaghetti tangle that brushed against sleeves and shins and occasionally threatened to clothesline the unwary traveler.

And buried away at his control console near the middle of the sculpted chaos was Revs Nicabar.

“Ah—McKell,” he greeted me as I successfully negotiated past a final pair of thick conduits leading to the large, shimmery Möbius strip that was the heart of the
Icarus
’s stardrive. “Welcome to Medusa’s Lair. Watch your head.”

“And arms, legs, and throat,” I added, pulling out a swivel stool from the side of his console and sitting down. “How’s it flying?”

“Amazingly well, actually,” he said. “Rather surprising, I know, considering that it looks like a refugee from a Doolian scrap heap. But whoever the designer
was, at least the builder had the sense to install some decent equipment.”

“It’s like that on the bridge, too,” I said. “Good equipment, odd placement. I’ll make you a small wager that it was a working spacer who designed it, not some so-called expert. Tell me, did you have any problems out in the port back there?”

His eyes narrowed, just a bit, and I saw his gaze flick to the side of my head where the plasmic near miss had slightly singed my hair. I didn’t think the marks showed; possibly I was wrong. “None at all,” he said. “Of course, I was only outside a half hour or so—up till then I was sitting on the fuelers making sure they did their job properly. I take it there was some trouble I missed out on?”

“You might say that,” I allowed. “Tell me about yourself, Revs.”

I’d been hoping my sudden change of topic would spark a telling reaction. What I got was equally informative: no reaction at all. “What do you want to know?” he countered calmly.

“Let’s start with your background,” I said. “Where you picked up your drive certification, how long you’ve been flying, why you were at loose ends on Meima, and how you were hired for this trip.”

“I learned drive-jocking in the service,” he said. “EarthGuard Marines, stationed mostly out among the settlements in the Kappa Vega Sector. I was in for ten years, left six years ago to try my hand in the private sector.”

“Odd timing,” I said. “Considering that by then the Patth had already swallowed up the lion’s share of the Spiral’s shipping.”

“It was a gamble, but I’d had enough of military life by then and thought I could make a go of it. Mostly, I was right.” He shrugged. “As to the
Icarus
, I got signed up more or less simultaneously with my resignation from my previous ship.”

“Oh?”

“Yes.” His face hardened. “I’d just found out my freighter was actually mask-shilling for the Patth.”

I frowned. “That’s a new one on me.”

“It’s the latest Patth twist to get around local protection ordinances,” he said. “On some of these worlds twenty to forty percent of cargo tonnage has to be carried by local shippers. So the Patth hire a ship on the sly, load it to the gills with as much stuff as it can carry, and send it on in. It skews the numbers, the Patth pocket the profits, and it pulls business away from the people the ordinances are supposed to protect.” He shrugged. “Typical Patth connivery.”

“I take it you resigned in something of a huff?”

He grinned suddenly. “I don’t know if ‘huff’ quite covers it, but I made damn sure I was loud enough for everyone in the taverno to hear what was happening. Anyway, Borodin was there at the bar talking to someone else, and when I stomped out he followed and offered me this job.”

He glanced around. “Though if I’d known what I was getting into, I might have looked a little harder for something else.”

He looked at me, his eyes suddenly cool. “My turn for a question. Do you always carry a gun on board your own ship?”

I cocked an eyebrow. “I’m impressed. I didn’t realize it was so obvious.”

“Ten years in EarthGuard,” he reminded me. “Do I get an answer?”

“Sure,” I said. “Number one: It’s not exactly my ship. Number two: I was kidnapped in port by a couple of alien lads who wanted our cargo.”

“Interesting,” he murmured. “And you suspect someone aboard of complicity with them?”

“I can’t imagine why anyone would be,” I said. It was a perfectly true statement, even if it wasn’t precisely an answer to his question.

“No, of course not,” he agreed in a tone that implied he’d heard both the words I’d said and the words I hadn’t said and would be mulling them over later on his own. “In which case, I presume this visit is for the purpose of judging whether or not I’ll be helping you circle the wagons if and when the shooting starts?”

I had to hand it to him, the man was sharp. “Very good,” I said approvingly. “I hereby withdraw all the unkind thoughts I’ve had toward EarthGuard Marines over the years. Most of them, anyway.”

“Thanks,” Nicabar said dryly. “The answer’s a qualified yes. I’ve dealt with my share of pirates and hijackers, and I don’t like them much. You can count on me to help fight them off.
But
.”

He leveled a finger at my chest. “My support
and
my presence are conditional on the cargo being totally legit. If I find out we’re running drugs or guns or that we’re mask-shilling for the Patth, I’m out at the next port. Clear?”

“Clear,” I said firmly, hoping I sounded heartily on his side on this one. If he ever found out about my connection with Brother John, I was going to have some fancy verbal dancing to do. “But I don’t think you have anything to worry about on any of those scores. Borodin told me the cargo had been cleared through customs on Gamm, and one would assume they were reasonably thorough.”

“Borodin told me that, too,” Nicabar said darkly. “But then, Borodin’s not here, is he?”

“No, he’s not,” I conceded. “And before you ask, I don’t know why.”

“I didn’t think you did.” He peered at me thoughtfully. “If you ever find out, I presume you’ll tell me.”

“Of course,” I said, as if it went without saying, as I stood up. “I’ve got to get back to the bridge. See you later.”

I made my way back through the wiring undergrowth, wishing irreverently for a machete, and ducked
through the aft airlock hatch into the wraparound. Nicabar was sharp, all right. Maybe a little too sharp. Perhaps his lack of reaction to my story about being jumped was because he already knew all about it.

In which case, unfortunately, I ran immediately and solidly into the question of why he hadn’t then done something to keep the
Icarus
from leaving Xathru. Unless the Lumpy Brothers were just hunting cargoes at random, maybe working strictly on their own.

But that one didn’t wash at all. They’d known me by sight and name, and they’d known I’d come in from Meima. And they sure as hell hadn’t bought those corona weapons off a gun-shop rack.

I was halfway through the wraparound, still turning all the questions over in my mind, when I heard a dull, metallic thud.

I stopped dead in my tracks, listening hard. My first thought was that we had another pressure ridge or crack; but that wasn’t at all what the noise had sounded like. It had been more like two pieces of metal clanking hollowly against each other.

And near as I could tell, it had come from someplace immediately ahead of me.

I unglued myself from the deck and hurried ahead, ducking through the forward airlock and into the main sphere, all my senses alert for trouble. No one was visible in the corridor, and aside from the galley/dayroom three rooms ahead on my right all the doors were closed. I paused again, listening hard, but there was nothing but the normal hum of shipboard activity.

The first door ahead on my right was the computer room. I stepped up to it and tapped the release pad with my left hand, my right poised ready to grab for my plasmic if necessary. The door slid open—

Tera was seated at the computer, holding a hand pressed against the side of her head. “What?” she snapped crossly, glaring at me.

“Just checking on you,” I said, glancing around the
room. No one else was there, and nothing seemed out of place. “I thought I heard a noise.”

“That was my head banging against the bulkhead,” she growled. “I dropped a datadisk and ran into the wall when I leaned over to get it. Is that all right with you?”

“No problem,” I said hastily, backing out rapidly and letting the door close on her scowl. This was twice now, counting my spectacularly unnecessary floor dive back in that Meima hotel room, where I’d overreacted and made something of a fool of myself.

The difference was that Ixil was already used to that sort of thing from me. Tera wasn’t, and my face was hot as I glowered my way forward.

Ixil was seated in the restraint chair when I reached the bridge, Pix and Pax nosing curiously around the bases of the various consoles in their rodent way. “How was Nicabar?” he asked.

“Smart, competent, and apparently on our side,” I told him. “Tera, unfortunately, probably now thinks I’m an idiot. Did you hear a metallic clunking noise a couple of minutes ago?”

“Not from here, no,” he said, snapping his fingers twice. The two ferrets abandoned their exploration in response to the signal, scampering up his legs and onto his shoulders. “They didn’t hear anything, either,” he added. “Could it have been a pressure ridge forming?”

“No, it wasn’t anything like that,” I said. “Tera told me she’d bumped her head on the bulkhead. But that’s not what it sounded like to me.”

“Perhaps it was Shawn across the corridor from her in the electronics workshop,” Ixil suggested as the ferrets headed down his legs to the deck again. “He said he was going to be tearing apart and cleaning one of the spare trim regulators.”

“He came here? Or did he use the intercom?”

“He came here,” Ixil said. “He wanted to ask you to run a decision/diagnostic on the regulators already online,
not wanting to have one of the spares torn apart if there was any chance we might need it.”

“Unfortunately, this ship has all the decision-making capabilities of a politician up for reelection,” I said. “Tera’s computer back there is just this side of utterly useless.”

“Yes, he mentioned that,” Ixil agreed. “I did what I could in the way of a diagnostic, then told him to go ahead.”