The Icarus Hunt (34 page)

Now, suddenly, everything had changed. Half the sabotage had been done by Tera and her father, a character I hadn’t even known was on this particular stage of our little drama, and for reasons far less malevolent than their results would have suggested. And with that confession, my careful checklist of who had been where when went straight out the airlock. In fact, about all I
had left to explain was the gem-smuggling tip to the Najik on Potosi and the poison-gas components and smashed release pad on Ixil’s room.

And, of course, Jones’s murder.

And the damnable part of it was that those were precisely the incidents that no one had any possible alibi for. Anyone aboard could have sabotaged Jones’s rebreather prior to his accompanying Chort on his spacewalk; and everyone was out on their own during the time Ixil’s room was tampered with.

Everyone. Including Tera.

Because Ixil’s opinions to the contrary, I still hadn’t eliminated her as a suspect. Far from it. The photo Uncle Arthur had sent wasn’t nearly definitive enough for me to accept her claimed identity, and it was for sure that if the real Elaina Tera Cameron was running around the Spiral somewhere else we’d never hear about it here on the
Icarus
. True, she’d known about the hull’s alien grav generator; but if she was actually one of the archaeologists or techs, she would have also known about that. Uncle Arthur had said the Ihmisits had rounded up the whole group, but without knowing his source for that information I was forced to consider it incomplete if not downright suspect. As to the rest of her story, I hadn’t actually seen Cameron aboard the
Icarus
, and I sure couldn’t confirm that he was the one I’d chased leisurely around the ’tweenhull area.

And I couldn’t help noticing the interesting timing of the Patth infiltrating the Meima dig with a couple of Lumpies just when the
Icarus
was ready to fly. It could be coincidence, or something in their own external intelligence had caught the roving Patth eye; but it could also be that they’d had an agent inside the dig itself. We had only Tera’s word that she wasn’t that agent.

But then, we had only everyone else’s word for who they were, too. Tera had said Cameron had kept her presence on Meima close to the vest. Maybe he’d done the same with someone else as well, shielding this
agent’s presence even from his own daughter. It was the sort of double-blind stunt a man like Cameron might well have pulled; as Tera herself had said, you couldn’t tell what you didn’t know. Perhaps it was that second string to Cameron’s bow who had been suborned by the Patth, or had simply decided he was tired of a tech’s salary and that this was his big chance to retire in comfort.

And if that was true, it might finally explain why we were still free. Either our traitor hadn’t turned us in to the Patth yet because he was waiting for the price to go up, or else because he suspected another of Cameron’s people was aboard and didn’t want to show his hand until he’d figured out who it was.

So why was Jones murdered?

Had he known something damaging to the murderer? Or, conversely, had the murderer been afraid he might learn something that he, the murderer, couldn’t afford for anyone else to know? It had to be something that a ship’s mechanic might learn through his normal duties, or else the follow-up attack on Ixil didn’t make any sense.

Unless the poison-gas threat had been just a smoke screen. Maybe all Mr. X had wanted to do was get rid of Jones, and had pulled the cyanide threat on Ixil to make it look like he had a grudge against anyone who tried to fill the mechanic post on the
Icarus
. After all, Ixil hadn’t even come close to dying on that one.

I scowled some more at my displays. This was getting me nowhere except dizzy. What could a perfect stranger like Jones—a perfect stranger to the rest of the
Icarus
’s crew, anyway—possibly know that would be worth killing him over? Perhaps the fact that, despite his claims about his mechanical skills, Nicabar didn’t actually know one end of a wrench from another? But why would even an egregious bending of the truth be worth murder? Besides, Uncle Arthur’s profile on Nicabar
had shown that he did have those skills. Was it something about Chort, then? Or Everett, or Shawn?

A rumbling in my stomach intruded on my thoughts, an audible reminder that it had been a long time since my last meal. Giving the displays one last check, I got up and headed back to the dayroom just aft of the bridge. The ship could look after itself long enough for me to put together a quick sandwich, and maybe a liter or two of coffee would help me think. Though from the evidence to date, I doubted it.

I had assembled a sandwich from the rather unimaginative selection of ship’s stores, and was pouring coffee into a spill-proof mug, when I caught the sound of a light footstep outside the door. I turned, and to my complete lack of surprise found Chort framed in the doorway. “Excuse me, Captain McKell,” he said in his whistly voice. “I did not mean to intrude.”

“No intrusion at all,” I assured him, waving him in. “The dayroom’s common property, you know. Come in, come in.”

“Thank you,” he said, moving somewhat hesitantly into the room. “I know that the dayroom is usually a common area. But here it does not seem to be so.”

“The
Icarus
is an unusual ship,” I reminded him, picking up my plate and mug and settling down at the table. So far on this trip I hadn’t really had the chance to talk with Chort, and this seemed the ideal opportunity to do so. “And we’re flying under very unusual conditions,” I added. “Our crew doesn’t have the usual cohesion of people who’ve traveled a lot together.” I eyed him speculatively. “Though maybe that doesn’t mean all that much to you. You haven’t been at this sort of thing very long, have you?”

His feathery scales fluttered slightly. “Is it so very obvious?”

I shrugged. “Maybe a little,” I said. “I wouldn’t worry about it, though. You’re a Craea; and somehow you people have space travel in your blood.”

“Perhaps.” His beak clicked softly twice, the first time I’d heard him make that sound. “Or perhaps that is merely a myth.”

“If it is, there are an awful lot of people who’ve swallowed it,” I told him, taking a bite of my sandwich. “There’s a terrific demand out there for Craean spacewalkers.”

“Perhaps the demand is justifiable,” he said, eyeing me closely. “But perhaps it is not. Tell me, what did Ship Master Borodin tell you about this mission?”

“What do you mean?” I asked, frowning.
Mission
, he’d said. Not
trip
or
voyage. Mission.
“I was hired to fly the
Icarus
from Meima to Earth. Why, did he tell you something else?”

“Not something else, exactly,” he said, those pure white eyes still studying me with a discomfiting intensity. “But he said there was something more involved here.”

He stopped. “Go on,” I encouraged him, taking another bite of sandwich so as not to look too eager.

He gave it another couple of heartbeats before he finally went on. “Twelve others were trying to hire me at the Craean employment site on Meima,” he said. “Ship Master Borodin drew me aside and told me that while he could not pay as much as the others were offering, he could instead offer me a chance to do something for my people that would never be forgotten.”

“Really,” I said, fighting to keep my voice casual as I took another bite to hide the sudden shiver running through me. Idiot that I was, not until that moment had Tera’s revelation of the
Icarus
’s true nature made even the slightest connection in my mind with the data Uncle Arthur had sent regarding the boom the Craean economy had been enjoying since the Talariac had hit the space lanes. “What else did he say?”

Faced with a nonhuman audience, I’d apparently
overplayed my casual act. “You don’t believe me,” Chort said, starting for the door. “I’m sorry to have bothered you.”

“No, no—please,” I said, gathering my feet beneath me, ready to jump out of my chair if I needed to in order to stop him. Suddenly there were a whole new raft of possibilities opening up here, possibilities I very much wanted to explore. “I didn’t mean it that way. Of course I believe you. Did he say anything more?”

He stood there another moment, then slowly retraced his steps. “You do not understand,” he said. “You humans. You greatly dislike the Patth—I hear you talking. But you do not understand.”

“Help me understand, then,” I invited, gesturing at the seat across the table from me. “Why shouldn’t we dislike the Patth?”

He hesitated again, then slowly sat down in the indicated seat. “You spoke of space travel being in Craean blood,” he said. “Perhaps in some ways it is. We love free fall, and thrive in space habitats. We have five in our home system; did you know that?”

I nodded. “I hear they’re beautiful inside. I wish your government allowed non-Crooea to visit them.”

“They are indeed beautiful,” he said, the white eyes unfocusing oddly. “And it is in such places, or on our homeworld itself, that most Crooea would prefer to live if that was possible.”

His eyes came back to focus on my face. “But such is not the case. We have nothing in the fields of science or technology that can compete with the products of Earth or Basni or J’kayrr. Yet we must continue to create wealth if we are to have the benefits of that technology, or if we are to build more space habitats for our people.”

“You have your food exports,” I reminded him. “I understand they’re very much sought after.”

“But they can travel only a limited distance before
spoiling,” he said. “In the face of such a dilemma, what can the Crooea do?”

I sighed. I saw where he was headed now, all right. “They hire themselves out across the Spiral, of course,” I said. “Tell me, how much of your pay goes directly to the Craean government?”

His beak snapped hard. “Seven-tenths,” he said.

A seventy percent tax bracket. Indentured servitude, with the twist that the servitude was to their own government and people. “I’ve never heard anything about this before,” I said. “Why have you kept it such a secret?”

His feathers fluffed briefly. “Why would we tell it?” he countered. “It is not something we are proud of. To sell ourselves into service to aliens is not a pleasant thing.”

“Though it’s really no different from what the rest of us do,” I pointed out. “None of us are selling ourselves, exactly, just hiring our services and our expertise out to others. It’s what’s called a job.”

“It was never the Craean way,” he said firmly. “But it is our way now.”

He cocked his head to one side, a quick gesture that was very birdlike. “But even now that way may be changing. The Patth merchants have given us the chance to sell our foodstuffs in more markets than ever before. In only a few short decades, perhaps we will have the resources necessary for the habitats we yet wish to build. When that happens, we will once again be able to withdraw back to our homes, and our families, and our kind.”

I shook my head. “We’ll miss you,” I said. I meant it, too, even as I winced at how utterly banal the words sounded. “Why are you telling me this?”

He laid his delicate hands on the table, rubbing the fingertips gently together. “Once, it was thought that only our future freedom depended on the Patth and
their stardrive,” he said, dropping his gaze to his hands. “But now, many fear that our very lives are solidly in their hands. In the cycles since Talariac began service, more and more of our resources have been devoted to the growing of foodstuffs for export. If the Patth should suddenly refuse to carry them, our economy could collapse in a single sunrise.”

I felt a hard knot form in the center of my stomach. I had warned Ixil that the Crooea might be susceptible to Patth pressure; but I hadn’t realized just how big the economic stick the Patth were threatening them with was. “I think I understand the situation,” I said. “What is it you want from me?”

He seemed to draw himself up. “I want you to not aggravate the Patth.”

I suppressed a grimace. Lord knew the last thing I wanted to do was upset the Patth; the Patth
or
their lumpy friends with the handheld crematoria. Unfortunately, as far as that crowd was concerned, even my continued breathing probably constituted aggravation at this point. “What makes you think I would want to do something like that?” I hedged.

“You dislike the Patth,” he said again. “And it is the Patth who are seeking you and this ship.”

The hard knot in the center of my stomach tightened a couple more turns. “Who told you that?”

His feathers fluttered. “No one told me. The beings whom the young human female pointed out to us at the Baker’s Dozen taverno were members of a Patth client race.”

“How do you know?”

“It is common knowledge among the Crooea,” he said, sounding surprised that I even needed to ask. “All Patth merchant starships carry Craean spacewalkers. The Iykams also always travel with them as guardians and protectors. Unlike the Patth, they are crude and not very polite.”

“As well as sometimes violent,” I added, nodding.
At least the Lumpy Clan had a name now. Uncle Arthur would be pleased about that. “Still, just because the Iykams are mad at me doesn’t mean the Patth themselves are involved.”

The feathers fluttered again, this time fluffing out from his body. “Do not lie to me, Captain,” he said quietly. “The Iykams do not act without Patth permission. They do not move through these areas of space without Patth presence and guidance.”

“I’m not lying to you, Chort,” I assured him quickly, a creepy feeling running through me. If he was right, that meant the two Iykams I’d killed on Xathru must have had a Patth overseer somewhere in the vicinity. A Patth who had just missed capturing the
Icarus
right off the blocks.

And running the logic in reverse, it also implied that the three Patth Cameron and I had seen in that Meima taverno had probably had a couple of Iykams lurking in the shadows somewhere. Something to remember if I ever spotted another Patth out in the open.

“Perhaps it was not a direct lie,” Chort said. “But you are nonetheless attempting to distract me, to lure me away from the truth.” He cocked his head again. “What is the truth, Captain?”