The Icarus Hunt

CHAPTER 6

THE PORT FACILITIES on Xathru had been a couple of steps above those on Meima.

The single commercial port on Dorscind's World, in contrast, was at least fivesteps back down again.

Not that the equipment itself was a problem. On the contrary, the landingcradle was the best the Icarus had seen yet, with the kind of peripheral and supportequipment that a place like Meima could only dream of. It was, rather, theport's clientele that put Dorscind's World well below the standards set by theSpiral's tour cruise directors. Planned by its developers as a high-classgambling resort, things hadn't quite worked out that way for the colony. Ithad been slipping since roughly day two, with the big money and high-spinnersfadingequally rapidly into the sunset.

The only thing that had kept the place from vanishing from the map altogetherwas its gradual and reluctant transformation into the sort of place wherequestionable papers and shady cargoes were generally winked at. With the Patthshipping domination, the shady-cargo slice of the pie chart had been steadilygrowing among non-Patth carriers.

And as a result, business at the Dorscind's World port was booming.

There was of course no record of a freighter named the Second Banana havingfiled a flight plan for Dorscind's World. But as I'd expected, minortechnicalities of that sort didn't even raise an eyebrow here. The usualdockingfee, plus a few more of Cameron's hundred-commark bills, and we had ourlandingcradle. I paid off the port official who came to the ramp to collect, madearrangements for refueling, and ordered delivery of replacement foodstuffs andsome more of Chort's magic hull-repair goo.

And after that, it was time for me to venture out into the dubious charm ofthe port city. Leaving the rest of the Icarus's crew behind.

The rest of the crew wasn't happy about that. Not one bit. "This is insane,"

Shawn snarled as I faced down the pack of them at the forward wraparoundpressure door, a task made all that harder psychologically by the upward tiltof the Icarus's decks that had them all looming over me. "I've been to a dozenplaces like this—it's no more dangerous than downtown Tokyo as long as youmind your own business."

"It would be nice to get out into the open air," Everett seconded. "Medicallyspeaking, recycled air starts wearing on a person after a while. Besides, theexercise would do us good."

"The exercise could also get you killed," I told him bluntly, charitablypassingup the obvious comment about how his bulk hardly indicated that exercise wouldbe his top priority out there. "Or weren't any of you listening to what I saidabout what happened to me on Xathru?"

"We were all listening, McKell," Tera said. "As far as I'm concerned, that's areason for you to stay out of sight, not us."

"Believe me, I wish I could," I said with one hundred percent honesty. Thelast thing I wanted to do was face down more of the Lumpy Clan and theircoronal-discharge weapons. Though to be honest, without having a flightschedule to guide them, the chances they could have tracked me here were vanishinglysmall. "Unfortunately, I have an errand to take care of out there. One which Ihave to do personally."

Which wasn't quite as hundred-percent honest as the first part had been. Ixilcould make the long-overdue call to Uncle Arthur as well as I could. But Ixilhad made it abundantly clear that he really didn't want to field that one; more to the point, I wanted him and the ferrets here to watch over the Icarus. "Butnone of that matters," I went on. "What matters is that as pilot, I'm also thecaptain. And I say you're staying here."

"So that's where the pig stick goes, huh?" Shawn snarled, his face working ashe glared at me with blazing eyes. Once again, as it had when we'd first met, Shawn's veneer of civility had cracked badly, revealing the callously rudeyoungbrat underneath. "You little tin-plate dictator—you love this, don't you?

Well, forget it—just forget it. I'm not sitting here staring at the walls whileyou'reout having fun. Neither is anyone else."

"That's enough, Shawn," Nicabar said quietly. Quietly, but with the fullweightof all those years as an EarthGuard Marine in his voice.

Shawn either didn't notice or didn't care. "Well, runny muck to you, too," hebit out at Nicabar. His whole body was trembling now, his fists opening andclosing like relays in an unstable feedback loop, and out of the corner of myeye I saw Ixil ease a little closer beside him. "I'm not staying cooped up inhere—I'm not."

"Look, son, I understand how you feel," Everett said, laying a hand on Shawn'sshoulder. "But he is our captain—"

"I don't care," Shawn snapped, shrugging off the hand. "I'm going out. Now!"

And with that, he bunched his hands into fists and dived straight toward me.

He didn't get very far. Ixil was ready on his right and Nicabar on his left, and each of them grabbed an arm right in mid-leap. For a moment Shawn struggled intheir grip, mouthing obscenities and threats mixed liberally with snarls in analien language I didn't understand. But he might as well have tried to walkawaywith the Icarus resting on his foot. Ixil and Nicabar held on; and withoutwarning, Shawn suddenly collapsed in their grip, whimpering softly under hisbreath.

"Bring him back here," Everett said quietly, gesturing as he backed down thecorridor toward the sick bay. "I'll give him something."

Ixil caught Nicabar's eye; the tall man nodded understanding and shiftedaround behind Shawn, taking his other arm from Ixil and half guiding, half carryingthe moaning kid down the corridor behind Everett. They all disappeared inside, thedoor closed behind them, and Ixil looked back at me. "That was interesting," he said.

"Is he ill?" Chort asked, his alien face as usual impossible to read. "Perhapswe should take him to a full-service medical center."

"Let's see what Everett can do with him first," I said, throwing a glance atTera. Her face, too, was unreadable. "Look, I've got to go. I'll be back assoon as I can."

"Go ahead," Ixil said. "We'll handle things here."

I headed down the ramp—as on Xathru, the landing cradle here was concave, putting part of the Icarus's bulk beneath ground level and making a long climbunnecessary—and crossed to the edge of our landing square. A high-speedslidewayran past two landing squares over, with two short layers of lower-speedtransfer slideway beside it, and in a minute I was being carried briskly westwardtoward the edge of the spaceport where the map had said the StarrComm building waslocated.

The port was busy today, I noticed with some concern as I studied my fellowslideway travelers with the same casual and nonintrusive glances they wereusingback on me. The extra anonymity provided by a crowd was always useful, butcrowded slideways also often meant crowded StarrComm booths. Even before we'dlanded I had wanted to make this stop as brief as possible. Now, after Shawn'sperformance back there, I wanted it even more.

It took me nearly fifteen minutes to reach the StarrComm building, only tofind my fears had been realized. The entire place was in use, with estimatedwaitingtimes for a booth hovering around half an hour. I tried to talk my way higheron the waiting list, but on a place like Dorscind's World the operators were usedto much more serious threats and bullying than I was willing to try andwouldn't budge. Conceding defeat, I accepted the numbered card they handed me—no oneasked for or gave out names here—and retreated across the lobby to thewaiting-room taverno. Not surprisingly, it, too, was doing a brisk business, but I was lucky enough to arrive just as a pair of Mastanni were leaving a smalltable near the entrance and was able to grab it. I glanced at the menu, punchedup the cheapest drink they had, and sat back to glower at the large displayover the bar indicating which customers were currently next in line for the booths.

It wasn't an encouraging sight. At the leisurely rate the numbers werecrawlingupward, I decided darkly, the operator's estimation of thirty minutes wasentirely too optimistic. I hadn't wanted to make this call to Uncle Arthur, but being forced to sit here and wait for the chance to have myself verballyflensed was just adding insult to injury. I tried to come up with a clever way tocircumvent the system, but it was really only mental steam-venting. OnDorscind's World, the people I'd be cutting in line in front of would not bethe sort to greet such attempts with genial smiles. I had enough trouble in mylife already without going out and finding more.

A shadow passed over me; and to my annoyance a thin, wiry man with dark hairand a scraggly beard plopped himself down in the chair across from me. "Hey, oldbuddy," he greeted me expansively. "How's it going?"

"It's going just fine," I told him automatically, frowning. His tone andexpression implied we knew each other, and he did indeed look vaguelyfamiliar, but for the life of me I couldn't place him.

He apparently picked up on my uncertainty. "Aw, come on, Jordie old buddy," hesaid, sounding hurt. "Don't tell me you don't remember your old drinking pal."

And in that moment, it all came disgustingly back. James Fulbright, small-timegunrunner and smuggler, the only person I'd ever met who was either too stupidor too stubborn for me to break of using the hated nickname Jordie. I'd beentrying to negotiate a deal with his group when Uncle Arthur had fixed me upwith Brother John instead. The drinking bouts that had been a centerpiece ofFulbright's negotiations had been one of the definite low points in my life.

"Hello, James," I sighed. "Small Spiral, isn't it?"

"Small as you'd ever want," he agreed, grinning with a mouthful of uneventeeth.

Rumor had it they'd started out perfectly straight, but that every time onewas knocked out during a brawl he'd had it put back crooked just to make himselflook meaner. "Waiting to make a call, huh?"

"Yes," I said, bowing to the inevitable. "Can I get you a drink?"

"Oh, I think you can do better than one measly drink," he said. "How much cashyou got on you?"

I stared at him, warning bells belatedly going off in the back of my mind.

Fulbright was still smiling, but I could now see the hard edge beneath thegrin.

He was definitely not here just to cadge drinks. "What are you talking about?" demanded quietly.

"I'm talking about a shakedown," he said, lowering his voice to match mine.

"What'd you think? All for your own good, of course. So. You got ten grand onyou? That's what it's gonna take, you know. At least ten grand."

For a good three seconds I just stared at him, wondering what in hell wasgoingon. There he sat, alone, both hands on the table, his right casually holding a folded piece of paper, his left open and empty. His sleeves were too tight tobe concealing a quick-throw gun or knife, and there was no way he could beat meto a standard draw with his jacket zipped and mine half-open. It was possible hehad a backup somewhere in the room already targeting me; but even drawing aweapon in here would be begging for trouble, and starting a firefight would beeven worse. And why pick on me in the first place? "Maybe you don't know I'mnot running independent anymore," I said at last. "I'm connected with a pretty bigorganization. They wouldn't think much of this."

His smile went a bit more brittle. "Yeah, well, whoever they are, I canguarantee they won't lift a finger to help you on this one," he said. "Believeit or not, Jordie, I'm your only friend in this room right now." With a smoothmotion, he flipped open the paper in his hand and swiveled it around to faceme.

I glanced down. And found myself looking at my own Mercantile Authority filephoto.

I looked up at Fulbright, startled. "Go ahead," he said encouragingly. "Readit."

I looked back down at the flyer. It was an urgent request for informationabout the current location of one Jordan McKell, pilot/captain of the Orion-classfreighter Icarus, registry and configuration unknown. It didn't say why McKellwas being sought, but included two contact numbers, a local Dorscind's Worldphone number and a StarrComm vid connect—the latter, like Brother John'snumber, one of the anonymous types that gave no indication of which world it wasconnected to.

It also promised a reward to the one who fingered me. A straight five thousandcommarks.

"I don't know what you've done now, Jordie," Fulbright said softly, "butyou'rein one hell of a lot of trouble. Everyone in this place probably has one ofthese things by now—the guy was passing them out like free fruit sticks. Theonly reason you're still walking around is that that's such a lousy picture."

He grinned. "That, plus no one figured you'd come to a sleazepit like this.

I'd guess that's what's tying up the StarrComm lines—everyone's calling theirbuddies to pass the word."

"Probably," I murmured. But someone thought I might come to a sleazepit likethis; whoever was at the other end of that phone number, at the very least.

Someone was very intent here about covering all the bases, and from allindications he was covering them very well. And unlike the Lumpy Brothers, that same someone knew the name of the ship I was flying. "Tell me, was thiswalkingfruit-stick tray a bipedal alien with long arms and lumpy skin?"

Fulbright's forehead creased slightly. "Naw, he was a human. Short and kind ofwimpish—your basic accountant type."

"Doesn't sound like he really belongs in a place like this," I suggested. "Yousure it's not a scam of some sort?"

"At a hundred commarks a crack?" Fulbright scoffed. "Who cares?"

I frowned. "A hundred? The flyer says five thousand."

"That's the finder's fee," Fulbright said. "The guy's been handing out ahundred with each flyer. Just to make sure it gets read, I guess."

I felt cold all over. Five thousand commarks to find me—that could be anything, from anywhere. But for the hunter to be passing out additional thousands ofcommarks in cash just to generate interest meant something very big indeed wasgoing on.

And the only thing that had saved me so far was that abominably poor photo inmyMercantile file. That, and the fact that the one person here who did recognizeme was angling for a higher bounty. "Okay," I said to Fulbright. "Ten thousandit is. But I don't have it on me. We'll have to go back to the ship."

His eyes narrowed, and in the twitching of his eyebrows and lips I couldpractically read his line of reasoning: that if he was able to get a good lookat the Icarus, he might be able to peddle the description for another fewthousand from the unidentified accountant type. "Okay," he said, unzipping hisjacket and stuffing the flyer into an inside pocket. He stood up, giving me aglimpse of a gray handgun holstered at the left side of his belt, and noddedtoward the door. "Sure. Let's go."

We headed out of the taverno, crossed the lobby, and out the StarrCommbuildingdoor.

Halfway across the lobby he surreptitiously pulled his gun from itsholster and stuffed it and his right hand into his side jacket pocket. Formerdrinking buddies or not, he obviously didn't trust me very far. "Which landingcradle are you in?" he asked as I headed toward the nearest slideway, whichhappened to be headed north.

"You can read the number for yourself when we get there," I grunted, lookingsurreptitiously around for inspiration. This particular slideway didn't seemwell populated, and it didn't take a genius to see why: instead of being takento the main bulk of the docking squares, we were headed toward what appearedto be a maintenance area.

A fact which wasn't lost on Fulbright. "I hope you're not trying to pullsomething on your old pal, Jordie," he warned, stepping up close behind me andpressing the muzzle of his gun into my back. Even through the concealingjacketmaterial I imagined it felt very cold. "Because I wouldn't like that. Iwouldn't like that at all."

"You don't think I'd put a hot ship down in one of the regular cradles, doyou?"

I countered, looking down at my feet. The slideway was mainly solid, but justahead on our right was one of a number of holes where small patches of thematerial had worn off or torn away at the edge of the moving belt. Thisparticular tear was roughly triangular, leaving a gap about ten centimeterslongand five wide through which I could see the grillwork of the underlyingsupportand drive system zipping past. Every half second or so a bright blue lightwinked past, probably a glow that helped mark the edge of the slideway atnight.

"So where is it?" Fulbright demanded.

"Patience, James, patience," I said, gazing down at the triangular tear andthe grillwork underneath and doing a quick mental calculation. It would be tight, not to mention destructive, but it should work.

I half turned my head and gestured toward my jacket. "My phone's vibing," Itold him. "Okay if I answer it?"

Out of the corner of my eye I caught his frown. "Leave it," he ordered.

"Not recommended," I told him mildly. "My partner will come looking for me if don't answer. You don't want to mess with him. Certainly not for a measly five thousand commarks."

Once again, I could almost watch the gears turning in his head. He'd never actually met Ixil—we'd always been careful to keep Ixil in a low-profile position when dealing with gangs and their antialien biases—but I'd planted enough hints with Fulbright that he had a pretty good idea of my partner's capabilities. I waited patiently, letting him work it out for himself, not in any particular hurry. We were starting to get into the maintenance and supply areas now, where the only people around were generally working inside the various buildings. Working, moreover, with the kind of heavy machinery that would effectively drown out the sounds of trouble, up to and including gunshots.

The deeper we got into this area, the better I liked it.

"All right," he said suddenly, stepping close behind me and getting a grip on my jacket collar as he again jammed his gun warningly into my kidney. "Take it out slow—two fingers, left hand."

Carefully, I eased my jacket open and just as carefully pulled out my phone.

"Okay?" I asked, holding it up for his approval. Without waiting for an answer, I shifted my grip on the phone and brought it to my ear.

Or rather, tried to do so. Somewhere along the way my fingers suddenly fumbled and the phone squirted out of my hand to clatter onto the slideway in front of me.

"Damn!" I muttered, taking a long step forward.

If I'd given Fulbright half a second to think, he probably wouldn't have fallen for it. But I didn't; and he did. Just as it was perfectly natural for me to try to retrieve my phone, so, too, was it perfectly natural for him to courteously let go of my jacket to enable me to do so. I dropped to one knee and snagged the phone just as it was about to skitter off the edge of the slideway; and with a quick jerk I jammed the lower end through the hole in the belt and into the gridwork beneath.

For a split second the slideway faltered, just a brief instant before the sheer inertia of the system overcame the slender piece of plastic and metal and tore the phone to shreds. But it was enough. Caught completely flatfooted, Fulbright lost his balance and stumbled forward, his knees coming up short against my side, the impact sending him tumbling helplessly over my back to sprawl on the slideway.

I was on him in an instant, locking his right wrist in place with one hand and trying to get a clear shot at his neck or stomach with the other. He struggled furiously, mouthing curses that would have frosted glass, but he didn't have a chance and he knew it. He was lying on his free left arm, and with me keeping his right hand trapped in his pocket he couldn't even bring his gun to bear on me. Besides all of which, I was bigger than he was.

I got an opening and slammed my fist into his neck just behind his ear. He twitched and gave a weak roar that was more than half whimper. I hit him again, and he collapsed and lay still.

I took a few seconds to catch my breath and take a quick look around. No onewas visible. Keeping a cautious hold on his gun hand, I worked the weapon out ofhis grip and pulled it out of the pocket. It was a Kochran-Uzi compactthree-millimeter semiautomatic, a nasty enough weapon in a taverno fight butan extremely stupid thing to carry aboard a starship, where a bullet can gothroughmachinery and hulls with all sorts of unpleasant consequences. Dropping theguninto my pocket, I hauled the unconscious man half to his feet and half leaped, half fell off the slideway.

About ten meters to my right was a stack of empty forklift pallets piled upagainst the corner of one of the buildings. Getting a grip under Fulbright'sarms, I dragged him over and laid him down on the ground facing them. Hisjacket, like mine, was leather, but his shirt was made of a thick but morepliable cloth. I pulled his right arm out of the jacket sleeve, carefullysliced off the exposed shirtsleeve with my pocketknife, put the jacket back on him, and cut the sleeve into thick strips. Two minutes later, his hands were tiedsecurely behind him and he had a gag in his mouth. Another three minutes' workand I had manhandled one of the pallets down off the top of the stack and hadthe edge of it resting more or less comfortably across his legs, with most ofthe weight being supported by the stiff soles of his boots.

Fulbright wasn't going anywhere for a while, and for a long moment I wastemptedto leave it at that and get out while I could. But that five-thousand-commarkreward meant that someone out there had upped the ante on this game, and Istill didn't have the foggiest idea what the stakes were or even what the game was.

But with a little luck, maybe I could at least find out who some of the otherplayers were.

Fulbright's phone was in the same pocket as the flyer. I pulled out both, consulted the flyer, then punched in the local number it listed. A voiceanswered on the second vibe; a voice, I decided, that definitely fit with thewimpish accountant description. "Thompson," he said briskly.

"My name's James," I said, imitating Fulbright's voice as best I could. Oddswere Thompson wouldn't even remember James Fulbright, let alone his voice, butI'd already taken more chances than I cared to for one day. "That guy you'relooking for—Jordan McKell? You said five thousand for finding him. How muchfor delivering him all trussed up?"

He didn't hesitate. "Ten thousand," he said. "Do you have him there now?"

I felt my throat tighten, my somewhat snide preconception of the man vanishingin a puff of unpleasant smoke. No accountant I'd ever met was anywhere nearthat quick and free with the money they handled. Whoever Thompson was, he was nosimple flunky. "Yeah, I got him," I said. "I'll be waiting for you off thenorth spaceport slideway, next to the Number Twelve machine shop. Bring the money."

"We'll be there in fifteen minutes," he promised, and hung up.

I put the phone away, scowling to myself. We. That meant he was bringingfriends, almost certainly friends with muscle. I would have liked to have toldhim to come alone, but that would have looked suspicious—a man who passes outhundred-commark bills as a come-on would hardly try to stiff a customer, certainly not over ten grand. Once again, I considered that the better part of valor would be to run for it; once again, I made myself stay put. I set the stage as best I could, then settled down to wait.

HE WAS THERE well within his promised fifteen minutes, and he did indeed have muscle with him. Unpleasantly familiar muscle: two more members of the Lumpy Clan. Apparently these things liked to travel in pairs.

"Mr. James?" Thompson called toward me as he and the Lumpies hopped off the slideway.

"Right here," I called back, half turning to look vaguely over my shoulder at them as I waved a hand in invitation. I was squatting down facing the now conscious Fulbright with my back to them, a position I hoped would disguise any of the height-and-build cues that might give away my identity. "Come on, hurry,"

I added. "I think he's coming to."

Lying on his left side with his back also to them, Fulbright had his head twisted around and was glaring daggers up at me. But with his gag still in place, and his hands and feet still immobilized, there wasn't a lot he could do about the situation. Even without the gag he probably wouldn't have had much to say, not with my plasmic half-concealed inside my jacket digging into his side.

If we both made it off Dorscind's World intact, I suspected, he wasn't going to be smiling cheerfully the next time we ran into each other.

But at the moment I couldn't be bothered about such vague and uncertain futures.

Right now my sole concern was whether or not I could survive the next ten seconds.

I needn't have worried. Thompson might be more than a flunky, and the Lumpies were professional enough in their own right, but it apparently never occurred to any of them that their quarry might pull something this insane. They hurried incautiously forward, the Lumpies pulling a pace or two ahead of Thompson; and then, as they got within three steps of me, I snapped my head left as if I'd suddenly seen something and jabbed a finger toward a gap between two of the maintenance buildings. "Watch out!" I barked.

The Lumpies were professionals, all right. Braking to an instant halt, they jumped backward in unison, putting themselves between Thompson and the unknown danger. I jumped back, too, landing upright beside Thompson; and as the Lumpies yanked their guns out of their back holsters, I slid around behind Thompson, got an arm around his neck, and pressed my plasmic into his right ear. "Don't turn around," I said conversationally. "But do set your weapons on the ground."

Again in unison, and flagrantly ignoring my orders, they started to swivel around. I shifted my aim and sent a plasma blast directly between them to spatter off the ground ahead. "I said not to turn around," I reminded them, returning my plasmic to its previous resting place against Thompson's sideburn.

He flinched away from the residual muzzle heat, but I pressed it hard against the skin. It wouldn't damage him, and I'd always found that a little mild pain did wonders for cooperation. Especially with people who weren't used to it.

Thompson was apparently very unused to pain. "Don't move," he seconded hastily, his voice breaking slightly at the top. "Do what he says—he means it."

"I do indeed," I agreed. "Anyway, heroics would be wasted. I'm not going tohurt anyone unless I have to—don't forget I could have shot both of you in the backjust now. So be smart and put your guns on the ground in front of you—slowly, of course—and then take two steps past them."

They obeyed quickly and without argument, raising my estimation of Thompson'sstatus another couple of notches. He might look like an accountant with nostomach for even potential conflict; but when he talked, even in a squeakyvoice, people listened.

More importantly, they obeyed. The Lumpies became models of cooperation, dutifully stepping past their weapons and lying facedown as I ordered withtheir hands visible. I retrieved their guns—between them and Fulbright and the firstset of Lumpies, I was starting to make a nice little weapons collection here—

and had Thompson relieve them of the restraints I knew they would have broughtwith them.

He came up with two sets, which seemed to be one set too many unless theyeither had planned to stiff Fulbright or else intended to shackle me hand and footand carry me away draped over someone's shoulder like a bag of cement. Butwhatever the reason, it was certainly a convenient number for my purposes. A minutelater I had the Lumpies cuffed together through one of the slots in the bottompalletwith Thompson cuffed on the other side of the stack. With the weight of therest of the stack on top, and the utter lack of leverage any of them had to workwith, I was pretty sure they would stay put until someone happened by, whichfrom the evidence would probably not be until the next shift change at themaintenance buildings. Hopefully, that wouldn't be for at least another coupleof hours.

"You won't get away with this," Thompson warned as I went quickly through hispockets. "Not a chance in the universe. If you release me now, I promisenothingwill happen to you because of this incident."

"Nothing over and above what you planned to do to me anyway?" I suggested.

"Thanks, but I'll take my chances."

"Your chances don't exist, McKell," he said flatly. "And we don't want you, anyway. All we want is the Icarus. All of you are free to go." He cocked hishead to the side as he looked up at me, a gesture that somehow made him lookeven more like an accountant. "I'll do better, in fact. I can promise you thatif you'll turn the Icarus over to me, you'll profit quite handsomely on thedeal."

"Thanks, but this will do," I said, withdrawing a neat stack of hundredcommark bills from one of his inside pockets. "I know it's not nice to steal," Iadded, slipping the stack into my pocket, "but we're likely to have some unexpectedexpenses along the way. If you'll give me your name and address, I'll makesure you're properly reimbursed."

"Fifty thousand, McKell," he said, staring unblinkingly into my eyes. "Fiftythousand commarks to take me to the Icarus and walk away."

I gazed down at him, a hard lump forming in my throat. What in hell's namewere we carrying, anyway? "I appreciate the offer," I said, checking the otherinside pocket. This one yielded a phone and a slim documents folder. "But I'm alreadyunder contract."

"A hundred thousand," he said. "Five hundred thousand. Name your price."

I patted his shoulder and stood up. "You might be surprised sometime to findout what money can't buy," I said, tossing his phone onto the stack of palletswhere none of them could reach it and pocketing the documents folder. "See youaround."

"You're making a big mistake, McKell," he said. His voice was quiet, but itheld an absolute conviction that sent a chill up my back. "You have no idea whoyou're dealing with."

"Maybe this will tell me," I countered, tapping the pocket where I'd put hisfolder.

I passed around to the other side of the pallets, where Fulbright was stilllying trussed up glaring at me. "Sorry about this, James," I apologized. "I'llmake it up to you next time, all right?"

The look in his eyes made it abundantly clear what his plans were for the nexttime. But again, that was a future too distant to worry about right now.

I hopped on the southbound slideway and headed back toward the spaceportcenter, keeping an eye on the Lumpies and Thompson as long as they were in sight. Theminute they were lost to view I got off the slideway and headed east towardthe Icarus's landing cradle, walking quickly along until I reached a properlydirected slideway and getting on it.

And there, with finally a moment of breathing space, I opened Thompson'sfolder and started going through his papers. I was only halfway through when I putthem back into my pocket and pulled out Fulbright's phone.

"Yes?" Ixil's melodic voice answered.

"It's me," I said. "How's the fueling going?"

"Probably no more than a quarter finished," he said. "They only got herefifteen minutes ago."

"Tell them to quit and seal the ship back up," I told him. "And get the bridgeand drive preflights started. We're out of here as soon as I get back."

There was just the briefest pause. "What did Uncle Arthur say?"

"I never got to talk to Uncle Arthur," I told him. "And I'll explain as muchas I can when I get there. Just get us ready to fly, all right?"

"Got it," he said. "We'll be ready when you are."

The Icarus was buttoned down, with no fuelers in sight, by the time Iretracted the ramp and sealed the hatchway. Tera and Everett tried to collar me in thecorridor, demanding to know what the rush was; I ordered them back to theirstations in no uncertain terms and headed to the bridge.

Ixil was waiting for me there. "All set," he said, standing up and relinquishingthe control chair to me. "Nicabar is ready with the drive, the fuelers arepaidoff, and I've got lift permission from the tower."

"Good," I said, sliding into the chair and sounding the lift alert. "Let's getout of here."

We were off the ground, nearly out of Dorscind's World's atmosphere, anddrivingfor the blackness of space when he finally broke the silence. "Well?"

I leaned back in my seat. "Someone out there wants to get hold of the Icarus,"

I said. "They want it very badly."

He frowned. "Why?"

"I don't know why," I said, pulling Thompson's documents out of my pocket andhanding them over. "But I do know who."

He leafed through the papers, and stopped at the same place I had. Staring atthe plain ID card with its operative number and ornate governmental seal andnothing else, the ferrets on his shoulders twitching with his astonishment. "Idon't believe it," he said mechanically, looking up at me.

"I don't believe it either," I agreed grimly. "But it's true. We, my friend, are being chased by the Patth."