The Icarus Hunt

CHAPTER 7

"BUT IT DOESN'T make sense," Ixil protested.

"On the contrary, it makes perfect sense," I countered. "It has to. We justdon't know what that sense is yet, that's all."

Ixil muttered something in his own language, rubbing a fingertip along thecorner of my locker. We had retired to my cabin as the most private place onthe ship to talk after I'd gotten us into hyperspace and turned the bridge over toTera. Technically, it was Shawn's shift, with Chort on watch in the engineroom, but given the shape Shawn had been in when I left earlier I wouldn't havetrusted him to butter bread for me, let alone watch over a ship I was on.

And between then and now, I'd had time to do some serious thinking. "Look, it's very simple," I went on. "At least, the basics of it are. The archaeologicaldigon Meima found something big—that much is clear from the fact that Cameronhimself came out there to take a look. They brought in the Icarus—"

"Wait a minute," Ixil put in. "How did they bring it in without the PortAuthority having a record of it?"

"Probably in pieces," I said. "You've seen what this thing looks like—odds areCameron flew it in in sections, along with some of his tech people to put ittogether, and maybe with the archaeological team helping with some of thegruntwork. They probably built it underground, which would explain why none ofthe normal incoming traffic noticed it on the surface."

"Then that massive explosion Director Aymi-Mastr told you about was to blowthe roof off one of those underground caverns and let the ship out."

"Right," I nodded. "Along with conveniently scrambling the spaceport sensorsso that its departure wouldn't be noticed. I'd give a lot to know what they addedto the explosive or the dirt strata to pull that off—again, it was probablyCameron's techs who handled that one."

"So why didn't they just leave then?"

I shook my head. "I don't know. Either they didn't have a crew put togetheryet, or else they wanted an official spaceport stamp to add legitimacy to things."

"Or perhaps were planning to bring the entire archaeological group outtogether," Ixil suggested. "There's certainly plenty of extra carryingcapacityaboard."

"Good point," I agreed, glancing over at the three-bunk tier. "And theycouldn't all get on board and leave right then because they knew the authorities wouldcome to investigate the explosion. Finding the site deserted would raise redflags from here to Thursday, which was exactly what they didn't want.

"Anyway, so the Icarus lifted up under cover of the cloud, maybe circled theplanet once, and joined the line of incoming ships waiting clearance to land.

They put down, showed their forged Gamm Port Authority sealed-cargo license, and were in. The crew left the ship, planning to take off again in the morningwith the whole crowd aboard and a genuine lift document that would get them back toEarth with no raised eyebrows from anyone."

"Except that something went wrong," Ixil said heavily. "The question is, what?"

"Somebody tumbled to the scheme, obviously," I said. "Not the Patththemselves, I don't think. Or if it was, they didn't realize right away the fullsignificance of what Cameron's people had dug up—if they had, they'd havepushedthe Ihmisits into locking down the port completely."

"The Lumpy Brothers or their friends, perhaps?"

"Possibly," I agreed, "though I'm still not sure how they fit into this. Butwhoever it was, and however they tumbled to it, they were interested enough toraid the dig, grab everyone in sight, and send the Ihmisits hunting for anyonewho may have slipped through the net."

"Like Cameron?"

"Like Cameron," I nodded. "And so there he was, alone on Meima, with theauthorities on his tail, a hot ship locked away behind a fence where hecouldn't get at it, and no one to fly it even if he could."

Ixil shook his head. "Not a situation I'd want to find myself in."

"The way things are going, you may get your chance at it yet," I warned.

"Still, Arno Cameron didn't build a multitrillion-commark industrial empire by lyingdown and giving up when things got tough. He started going through theperipherytavernos, probably very systematically, looking for enough spacers at looseends to put together a new crew."

"And to all appearances he succeeded," Ixil said. "Which leads immediately tothe question of why he didn't fly out with you."

"That one's got me stumped, too," I conceded. "Clearly, they hadn't caught himyet—Director Aymi-Mastr and her frog-eyed heavies grabbing me on the way intothe port proved that much. He may have decided that trying to walk through arelatively narrow port gate under the gaze of a pair of Ihmis door wardenswould be pushing his luck too far."

"Even if staying behind meant they would eventually run him down?"

"He might have decided that giving the Icarus a head start was worth thatrisk."

I grimaced. "Which he may now have lost. Unlike the Lumpy Brothers, ourgenerousPatth agent with the stack of hundreds knew the Icarus's name."

"Possibly," Ixil said. "On the other hand, we presume they had the rest of thegroup already in custody. Perhaps one of them finally talked." He paused, hiseyes narrowing in thought. "There is, of course, another possible explanationfor Cameron's absence, given the accidents that have happened on board.

Perhapsone of the spacers he hired was not the innocent out-of-work drifter heseemed.

Particularly now that we know that the Patth do have non-Patth agents onretainer."

"That thought has spent a lot of time twirling around my brain, too," Iacknowledged. "The problem is, why hasn't he done anything recently? If he'strying to damage the crew or slow down the ship, why haven't there been moresuch accidents?"

"Be careful what you wish for," Ixil warned.

"I'm not wishing for it," I assured him fervently. "I'm just trying tounderstand it. Okay, he killed Jones and shook up Chort a little, but that wasabout it. He certainly wasn't busy throwing wrenches in the gears while wewere on Xathru and Dorscind's World."

"He didn't call in the authorities at either place, either," Ixil agreed. "AsI see it, there are two other possibilities we haven't yet addressed. First, that the attack on Jones was personal to Jones. Once he was dead, the perpetratorstopped perpetrating because his job was finished."

"But why pick on Jones?" I countered. "No one aboard knew anyone else prior toboarding."

"So we assume," Ixil said. "That may turn out not to be the case. Second, andpossibly more intriguing, the attack on Jones may have been staged by Joneshimself."

I frowned. "To what end?"

"To the end of allowing him to jump ship without any attached suspicion," Ixilsaid. "Think about it. If the carbon monoxide hadn't killed him, you wouldcertainly have put him off the ship on Xathru for a complete medical check.

That would have left him with names and complete descriptions of you and the restof the crew, details of the Icarus itself, and very possibly the itineraryCameron had planned for the trip to Earth. And he would have had complete freedom ofmovement."

"The itinerary wouldn't have done him any good," I said mechanically. Thisanglehad never even occurred to me. "We're already way off Cameron's plan, and willbe staying that way as long as the docking-fee bribe money holds out. You'resuggesting he just miscalculated, then?"

"I don't know." Ixil paused. "There is, of course, one other possibility wehaven't touched on. Did you think to search Jones's body before it was takenoff the ship?"

A tight knot formed in the center of my stomach. "No, I didn't," I said. "Itnever even occurred to me."

"It's possible whoever killed him did so in order to use his body as areceptacle for passing information," Ixil suggested. "Hard data, perhaps, suchas photos or schematics that couldn't easily be sent via phone."

"But why bother?" I asked. "They all had complete freedom of movement onXathru.

Why not just deliver it in person?"

"Perhaps the murderer didn't want to risk being seen in the company of thewrongpeople."

I mulled that one over. "Which would imply we were dealing with a genuineprofessional here."

Ixil nodded. "Yes. It would."

I hissed thoughtfully between my teeth. There were indeed people out there, Iknew, who would go to such lengths to complete a mission. But to have one ofthem just happen to be aboard the Icarus was pushing the bounds of credibilityway beyond even their normal elasticity range. "Again, though, if someonewanted the Icarus badly enough to slip that kind of professional aboard, why haven'twe been stopped already?"

"That is indeed a key question," Ixil conceded. "I'm afraid, Jordan, thatthere are still too many missing pieces to this puzzle."

"The biggest of which is sitting back there in our cargo hold," I agreedgrimly.

"I'm starting to think it's about time we had ourselves a close look at it."

Ixil rubbed his cheek. "I don't know," he said doubtfully. "I've looked overthe schematics Tera pulled from the computer. There aren't any access panels shownat all."

"You've got a cutting torch in the mechanics shop, don't you?" I pointed out.

"An access hole is basically wherever we want to make one."

"I wasn't thinking so much about getting in as I was of covering up afterwardthe fact that we'd done so," Ixil said mildly. "If Jones didn't engineer hisown accident—and to be honest, I really don't think he did—then whoever did isstill aboard. We may not want to set up a situation where he would be able to get alook of his own into the hold."

Unfortunately, he was right. "All right," I said reluctantly. "We'll playalonga while longer. But you might want to get your cutting equipment ready justthe same. At some point I don't think we're going to be able to afford to continueflying blind."

"Perhaps," Ixil said. "How much of this are you planning to tell the others?"

"As little as possible," I said. "I've already told Tera I ran afoul ofsomeone back there who had decided to make it his business to hijack the Icarus."

"Which is more or less true."

"Eminently true," I agreed. "I also mentioned the murder charge againstCameron to her, just to see what kind of reaction I'd get."

"And that was?"

"Protests of surprise, but no visible evidence of it," I told him. "Though I'mnot sure where exactly that leaves us. I think that the rest of the details, including the fact that the Patth are involved, should be left out of the storyfor the moment. We've got enough trouble as it is explaining why we're runningunder fake IDs and why no one should mention the name 'Icarus' in groundsideconversations. There's no need to scare them, too."

"I agree," Ixil said, looking around and snapping his fingers twice. Pix andPax scampered out from under my bunk and whatever they'd found to explore thereand climbed up his legs and torso back to his shoulders. "I'll go up and..."

He trailed off, an odd look on his face. "What is it?" I asked.

"I don't know," he said slowly, the look still there. "Something's not quiteright. I can't put my finger on it."

I was on my knees now, plasmic in hand, my full attention on the deck wherethe ferrets had emerged from beneath the bunk. Carefully, one hand on the edge ofthe bunk to steady myself, I leaned over and looked underneath.

Nothing. No one scrunched up in hiding, no mysterious packages ready to goboom in the quiet watches of the night, no indication of hidden bugs or bottles ofpoisonous spiders, no evidence of tampering at all. Just a plain metal deckwith a plain metal hull beyond it.

I got back to my feet. "Nothing there," I reported, brushing off my knees withmy free hand.

"Of course not," Ixil said, his face wrinkling in a different way. "We wouldcertainly have seen and recognized anything obvious."

I knew that, of course. On the other hand, it wasn't his bunk in his cabin.

"So how unobvious is it?" I asked.

"Very," he said, shaking his head. "It's rather like one of those ideas ormemories that floats around the edge of your mind, but which you can't quitetease out into the open."

"Keep trying," I told him.

"I will," he promised, throwing one last frown at the bunk and turning towardthe door. He was reaching for the release pad when, beside the middle bunk, the intercom crackled. "Captain McKell, this is Chort," the Craea's familiar voicewhistled through the speaker, the rhythmic thuds and hums of the engine roomin the background. "Is Mechanic Ixil there with you?"

I stepped around the bunks to the intercom and tapped the key. "Yes, he is," Itold him. "Trouble?"

"Nothing serious, I don't think," Chort assured me. "But I am in need of hisassistance. The readings indicate an intermittent fault in the Darryenmodulator relay, with possible location in the power-feed couplings."

"Probably the connectors," Ixil rumbled from behind me. "Those go out all thetime."

"So I understand," Chort agreed. "I thought perhaps you and your outriderscould either confirm or deny that possibility before I wake Drive Specialist Nicabarand ask him to open the conduit."

"No problem," Ixil said, tapping the door-release pad. "I'll be right there."

He stepped into the corridor and headed for the aft ladder. "Thank you," Chortsaid as the door closed again. The intercom clicked off, and I was alone.

For a few minutes I stood there, listening to the various hums and clanks andthrobbings, staring at my bunk and the wall behind it. I've never had any particular problems with the loneliness or unpleasant self-evaluation that forsome people make solitude something to be avoided. For that matter, given thatmuch of my human interaction lately had been with people like Brother John, solitude was in fact something to be actively sought out. I was tired, I'dbeen running low on sleep since even before that taverno run-in with Cameron, andunder normal circumstances I would have been on my bunk and asleep in threeminutes flat.

But if there was one thing certain about the Icarus, it was that nothing hereever approached what one might consider normal circumstances. And at thispoint, the latest express delivery of abnormal circumstances seemed to be whateverthe nameless oddity was that existed around, under, or inside my bunk.

Plasmic still in hand, I eased carefully onto my stomach on the deck again andjust as carefully wiggled my way under the bunk. It was a tight squeeze—athree-tier bunk hasn't got a lot of space underneath it—but I was able to getmyhead and most of my upper body under without triggering any bouts of latentclaustrophobia. I wished I'd thought to snag the flashlight from my jacket, but enough of the cabin's overhead light was diffusing in to give me a fairlyreasonable view.

The problem was, as I'd already noted, there was nothing there to see. I wassurrounded by a bare metal deck, a bare metal wall, and a wire-mesh-andmattress bunk of the type that had been around for centuries for the simple reason thatno one yet had come up with a better compromise between marginal comfort andminimal manufacturing cost.

I wiggled my way back out, got to my feet, and spent a few more minutes goingover the entire room millimeter by millimeter. Like the area under the bunk, there wasn't anything to see.

Nothing obvious, at least. But I knew Ixil, and if he said his outriders hadfound something odd, then they'd found something odd; and suddenly I decided Ididn't much care for the silence and solitude of my cabin. Replacing myplasmicin its holster, I pulled my jacket on over it and left.

I didn't expect there to be much happening aboard the Icarus at that hour, andas I climbed the aft ladder to the mid deck I discovered I was right. Tera wason bridge-monitor duty—with, typically for her, the door closed—Chort and Ixilwere back in the engine room, and Everett, Nicabar, and Shawn were presumablyin their cabins on the upper deck. I thought I might find someone in the dayroom, either eating or watching a vid, but the place was as deserted as the corridoroutside it. Either everyone had felt more in need of sleep than food, or elsethe camaraderie temperature reading aboard the Icarus was still hovering downaround the liquid-nitrogen mark. Somewhere in the same vicinity, I decidedsourly, as my progress at figuring out what was going on.

Just aft of the dayroom was the sick bay. On impulse, wondering perhaps ifEverett might still be up, I touched the release pad and opened the door.

There was indeed someone there, dimly visible in the low night-light setting.

But it wasn't Everett. "Hello?" Shawn called, lifting his head from theexamination table to peer across the room at me. "Who is it?"

"McKell," I told him, turning up the light a bit and letting the door slideshut behind me. "Sorry to disturb you—I was looking for Everett."

"He's on the bridge," Shawn said, nodding toward the intercom beside the table.

"Said it was his turn to earn his keep around here and told Tera to go to bed.

You can call him if you want."

"No, that's all right," I said, suppressing a flicker of annoyance. Strictlyspeaking, Tera should have cleared any such shift changes with me, but she andEverett had probably thought I was trying to catch up on my own sleep andhadn't wanted to disturb me. And the ship's medic was supposed to be available forswing shifts if any of the regular crewers were unable to cover theirs. "Howcome you're still here?" I asked, crossing the room toward him.

He smiled wanly. "Everett thought it would be best if I stayed put for awhile."

"Ah," I said intelligently, belatedly spotting the answer to my question. Withthe dim light and the way the folds in his clothing lay, I hadn't seen untilnow the straps pinning his arms and legs gently but firmly to the table. "Well..."

My discomfort must have been obvious. "Don't worry," he hastened to assure me.

"Actually, the straps were my suggestion. It's safer for everyone this way. Incase the stuff he gave me wears off too quickly. I guess you didn't know."

"No, I didn't," I admitted, feeling annoyed with myself. With the unexpectedentry of the Patth into this game dominating my thoughts, I'd totallyforgottenabout Shawn's performance at the airlock. "I guess I just assumed Everett hadgiven you a sedative and sent you off to bed in your own cabin."

"Yes, well, sedatives don't work all that well with my condition," Shawn said.

"Unfortunately."

"You did say he'd given you something, though, right?" I asked, swinging outone of the swivel stools and sitting down beside him. Now, close up, I could seethat beneath the restraints his arms and legs were trembling.

"Something more potent at quieting nerves," he told me. "I'm not sure exactlywhat it was."

"And why do your nerves need quieting?" I asked.

A quick series of emotions chased themselves across his face. I held his gaze, letting him come to the decision at his own speed. Eventually, he did.

"Because of a small problem I've got," he said with an almost-sigh. "Sort of qualifiesas a drug dependency."

"Which one?" I asked, mentally running through the various drug symptoms Iknew and trying without success to match them to Shawn's behavior patterns. Ixilhad suggested earlier that the kid's emotional swings might be drug-related, butas far as I knew he hadn't been able to nail down a specific type, either.

And Shawn's answer did indeed come as a complete surprise. "Borandis," hesaid.

"Also sometimes called jackalspit. I doubt you've ever heard of it."

"Actually, I think I have," I said carefully, the hairs rising unpleasantly onthe back of my neck even as I tried to put some innocent uncertainty into myvoice. I knew about borandis, all right. Knew it and its various charmingcousins all too well. "It's one of those semilegit drugs, as I recall.

Seriouslycontrolled but not flat-out prohibited."

"Oh, it's flat-out prohibited most places," he said, frowning slightly as hestudied me. Maybe my uncertainty act hadn't been enough; maybe he didn't think a

simple cargo hauler should even be aware of such sinful things, let alone knowany of the details. "But in most human areas it's available by prescription.

If you have one of the relevant diseases, that is."

"And?" I invited.

His lips tightened briefly. "I've got the disease. Just not the prescription."

"And why don't you have the prescription?"

He smiled tightly. "Because I had the misfortune to pick up the disease in aslightly illegal way. I—well, some friends and I went on a little private tripto Ephis a few years ago."

"Really," I said. That word wasn't the first thing that popped into my mind; the phrase criminal stupidity held that honor. "That one I've definitely heard of.

Interdicted world, right?"

His smile went from tight to bitter. "That's the place," he said. "And I cantell you right now that not a single thing you've heard about that hellhole ishyperbole." His mouth twitched. "But of course, sophisticated college kidslike us were too smart to be taken in by infantile governmental scare tactics. Andwe naturally didn't believe bureaucrats had any right to tell us where we couldor couldn't go—"

He broke off, a violent shiver running through him once before his bodysettled back down to its low-level trembling. "It's called Cole's disease," he said, his voice sounding suddenly very tired. "It's not much fun."

"I don't know many diseases that are," I said. "Are the rules for interdictedplanets really that strict? That you can't even get a prescription for yourmedicine, I mean?"

He snorted softly, and for a moment a flicker of the old Shawn pierced thefatigue and trembling, the arrogant kid who knew it all and looked down withcontempt on mere mortals like me who weren't smart or educated or enlightenedenough. "Strict enough that even admitting I'd been to Ephis would earn me anautomatic ten-year prison sentence," he bit out. "I don't think a guaranteedsupply of borandis is quite worth that, do you?"

"I guess not," I said, making sure to sound properly chastened. People likeShawn, I knew, could often be persuaded to offer up deep, dark secrets for nobetter reason than to prove they had them. "So how do you get by?"

He shrugged, a somewhat abbreviated gesture given the strictures of therestraints. "There are always dealers around—you just have to know how to findthem. Most of the time it's not too hard. Or too expensive."

"And what happens if you don't get it?" I asked. Drugs I knew, interdictedworlds I knew; but exotic diseases weren't part of my standard repertoire.

"It's a degenerative neurological disease," he said, his lip twitchingslightly.

"You can see the muscular trembling has already started."

"That's not just the borandis withdrawal?"

"The withdrawal is part of it," he said. "It's hard to tell—the symptoms kindof mix together. That's followed by irritability, severe mood swings, short-termmemory failure, and a generally high annoyance factor." Again, that bittersmile. "You may have noticed that last one when I first got to the ship onMeima. I'd just taken a dose, but I'd pushed the timing a little and it hadn'tkicked in yet."

I nodded, remembering how much calmer, even friendly, he'd been a few hourslater during Chort's ill-fated spacewalk. "Remind me never to go into aspaceport taverno with you before your pill," I said. "You'd get both ournecks broken within the first three minutes."

He shivered. "Sometimes I think that would be a better way to go," he saidquietly. "Anyway, if I still don't get a dose, I get louder and moreirrational and sometimes even violent."

"Is that still a mixture of withdrawal and disease?"

"That one's mostly withdrawal," he said. "After that, the disease takes overand we start edging into neural damage. First the reversible kind, later thenonreversible. Eventually, I die. From all reports, not especiallypleasantly."

Offhand, I couldn't think of many pleasant ways to die, except possibly inyoursleep of old age, which given my early choices in life wasn't an option I waslikely to face. If Shawn persisted in pulling stunts like sneaking ontointerdicted worlds, it wasn't likely to remain one of his options, either.

Still, there was no sense in letting the old man with the scythe get at any ofus too easily. "How long before the neural damage starts?" I asked.

He gave another of his abbreviated shrugs. "We've got a little time yet," hesaid. "Nine or ten hours at least. Maybe twelve."

"From right now?"

"Yes." He smiled. "Of course, you probably won't want to be anywhere around mewell before that. I'm not going to be very good company." The smile faded. "Wecan get to a supplier before then, can't we? I thought I heard Tera say it wasonly about six hours away to wherever the hell we're headed."

"Mintarius," I said, making a show of consulting my watch. In reality, I wasthinking hard. I'd originally picked Mintarius precisely because it was close, small, quiet, and unlikely to have the equipment to distinguish our latestship's ID from a genuine one. A perfect place to slip in, get the fuel ourunexpectedly quick exit from Dorscind's World had lost us, and slip out again.

Unfortunately, Mintarius's backwater status also meant that illegal drugsuppliers would be few and far between. And those who were there were likelyto concentrate on the lowest common denominators like happyjam, not the moreesoteric, semimedicinal ones.

I thought about that, and about the increasingly serious Patth search for us, and about the fact that Shawn's decision to go to Ephis had been a voluntarysigning of his own death certificate anyway. But no matter how I sorted themout in the balance, there really wasn't any choice.

"It's actually a little farther than that," I told Shawn, getting to my feet.

"Don't worry, though, we should make it in plenty of time. Assuming things goas planned—"

I broke off suddenly, turning my head and stretching out with all my ears.

Barely heard over my own voice had been a faint dull metallic thud. The sameunexplained sound, as near as I could tell, that I'd heard in the wraparoundjust after we'd left Xathru.

"What?" Shawn demanded, making no attempt to keep his voice down. "What's theproblem?"

"I thought I heard something," I told him, suppressing the exceptionallyimpolite word I wanted to say. There might have been a follow-up sound, oreven a lingering echo that could have given me a chance of figuring out itsapproximate direction. But both those chances were gone now, buried underShawn's inopportune and overly loudmouthed question.

"What, you mean that thunking sound?" he scoffed. "It's nothing. You hear itevery once in a while."

I frowned, my annoyance with his bad timing vanishing into sudden newinterest.

"You've heard it before?"

"Sure," he said, some of that old Shawn arrogance creeping into his tone.

"Couple of times just while I've been lying here today. You want my opinion, it's probably something in the flush equipment in the head."

"Could be," I said noncommittally. He could have whatever opinion he wanted, but I'd been flying for half my life and there was absolutely nothing in a ship'splumbing that could make that kind of noise. "You said Tera went back to hercabin?"

"All I said was that Everett relieved her," he corrected me, his tone suddenlytesty. "She could have gone outside for a walk for all I know." He waved ahand impatiently around the strap. "Look, what does any of this have to do with mymedicine? Nothing, that's what. You are going to be able to get it, right?"

"I'll do what I can," I said, reaching down and swinging the swivel stool backinto storage again. Clearly, the obnoxious stage of Shawn's withdrawal wasstarting, and I'd already had as much of that as I needed for one trip. "I'llsee you later. Try to get some rest."

"Yeah," he muttered as I made my way to the door. "Sure—easy for you to say.

What a bunch of—"

The sliding door cut off the noun. Just as well. I started to turn toward thebridge; but as I did so I caught the soft sound and faint vibration of a heavyfootstep from behind me. I turned to see Ixil come into the corridor from thewraparound, a toolbox in his hand. "Trouble?" he murmured.

"No more than usual around here," I told him, not wanting to get into Shawn'sproblems just now. "I thought I might as well go and relieve Everett on thebridge."

Pix and Pax twitched at that, Ixil no doubt wondering what our medic was doingon bridge watch when Tera was supposed to be holding the fort there. But heclearly wasn't any more interested in holding serious conversations in opencorridors than I was, and merely nodded. "We found the problem with themodulator relay," he said, continuing on down the corridor toward me. "Allfixed."

"Good," I said, lifting my eyebrows and nodding fractionally behind me and tomyright, toward the door to the mechanics shop. He nodded back, just asfractionally. Now, when everyone seemed to have taken themselves elsewhere, would be an excellent time for him to see what kind of cutting equipmentCameron had left us.

We went the rest of the way forward together in silence, Ixil breaking off tothe left to the mechanics-room door aft of the bridge, me continuing the restof the way past the forward access ladder to the bridge door. I tapped therelease pad, and the door slid open.

For a moment I just stood there, staring in disbelief at the sight before me.

Everett, his bulk nearly filling the small space between the command consoleand nav table, was half-turned to face me, his arms and right leg lifted in what looked like a grotesque parody of some kind of ballet step.

For a moment we stared at each other, and behind those blue eyes I watched hisself-conscious embarrassment change almost reluctantly to a sort of stubbornpride. Then, very deliberately, he looked away and lowered his right foot backto the deck, his hands and arms tracing out a complicated design in the air ashe did so. Just as deliberately, he moved his left foot around behind hisright, his hands shifting again through the air.

And suddenly, belatedly, I realized what he was doing. Not ballet, not someodd playacting posturing, but a martial-arts kata.

I waited where I was, not moving or speaking, until he'd finished the form.

"Sorry about that," he said, breaking the silence at last as he straightenedupfrom his final crouch and squeezed back into the restraint chair. "I wasfeelinga little dozy, and a bit of exercise always perks me up."

"No apology or explanation needed," I assured him, stepping into the bridgebut leaving the door locked open behind me. Back when we'd first met, I rememberedthinking his face had that slightly battered look of someone who'd done timewith high-contact sports. Apparently, that snap judgment had been correct.

"What form was that? I don't think I've ever seen it before."

"It's not one usually put on display," he said, rubbing a sleeve across hisforehead. Not that there'd been any sweat there that I could see. Maybe hekeptit all inside the wrinkles. "Are you a practitioner or connoisseur of themartial arts?"

"Neither," I said. "I got a smattering of self-defense training when I was inEarthGuard, but there was no particular style involved and I was never allthat good at it. But my college roommate was a certified nut on the subject, watchingeverything he could find, and I picked up some of it by sheer osmosis." Inodded toward the empty section of deck where he'd been performing. "Actually, whatthat reminded me of most was throw-boxing."

Everett lifted his eyebrows. "Very good. Yes, that was indeed a throw-boxingtraining kata. I did a bit of the professional circuit when I was younger." Hesnorted gently. "And in better shape, of course."

"Very impressive," I said, and meant it. I'd dealt with professionalthrow-boxers once or twice in my life, and knew the kind of tough breed thosemen and women were. "How long ago was that?"

"Oh, a good twenty years now," he said. "And you wouldn't be nearly soimpressedif you knew my win/loss record." He frowned at me. "What are you doing here, bythe way? I thought you were asleep."

"I came up to check on things and happened on your patient still strapped tothe examination table," I told him. "You know what's wrong with him?"

"He told me it was a borandis-dependency problem," he said. "Coupled with achronic case of Cole's disease."

"You believe him?"

He shrugged. "The diagnostic confirmed the withdrawal aspects," he said. "Themedical database isn't complete enough to either confirm or refute the Cole's disease."

"Close enough," I told him, my last lingering suspicion that Shawn might havebeen faking the whole thing fading away. Muscle tremors and obnoxiousness wereone thing, but a med diagnostic computer wasn't nearly so easily fooled.

"Unfortunately, that leaves us with a problem," Everett went on. "According tothe database, borandis is a controlled drug. It's going to take more than justa ship's medic's certificate to get some for him on Mintarius."

"I know," I said. "Don't worry, we'll figure something out."

"I hope so," he said. "The prognosis for untreated Cole's disease isapparentlynot a very positive one."

"So he told me," I nodded. "Small wonder, I suppose, that he was at loose endson Meima." I lifted my eyebrows slightly. "Speaking of which, I've beenmeaningto ask how you wound up in that same position. At loose ends, I mean."

He made a wry face. "Caught in the middle of a jurisdictional dispute, I'mafraid. One of the crewers on my previous ship pushed the captain one time toomany and wound up rather badly injured. A troublemaker—I'm sure you know thesort. At any rate, I helped him get to the med facility at the Meima spaceportfor treatment; and while we were out, the captain apparently decided he coulddo without both of us and took off."

"Yet another Samaritan winds up with the splintered end of the stick," Imurmured.

He shrugged. "Perhaps. Frankly, I was just as happy to see their thrustersfading into the sunset. When Borodin came into the restaurant where I waseatinglooking for someone with a med certificate, I jumped at the chance."

"Well, we're certainly glad to have you here," I said, glancing around thebridge. "Look, we're not more than a few hours from landing, and I can't sleepanyway. Why don't I take over and let you go hit the sack."

"Oh," he said, sounding and looking surprised. "Well... if you're sure."

"I'm sure," I told him. "There's nothing you can do for Shawn at the moment, and you might as well be rested when we hit ground."

"I suppose," Everett conceded, heaving himself out of the chair. I steppedforward out of his way as he moved to the doorway. "Do call me if you changeyour mind and want to at least catch a catnap."

"I will," I promised.

He left the bridge, turning right at the ladder and plodding his way up to thetop deck. I waited until his feet were out of sight, gave him another tencount, then closed the bridge door behind me and stepped over to the nav table.

Given the set of parameters I was stuck with on this, I wasn't expecting thetask ahead to be an easy one. I needed a world that was large enough anddecadent enough to have an illicit drug-distribution network in place, withthe kind of laissez-faire attitude toward paperwork that would let us slip inunder our false ID, and yet wasn't a haven for the kind of career criminals whowould be sporting crisp new hundred-commark bills and keeping their eyes peeled foranyone resembling my Mercantile Authority file photo. And it had to besomewhere within, say, nine hours of our present position.

It took only five minutes to conclude that there was exactly one place on the charts that even came close to fitting my requirements: the Najiki colonyworld of Potosi, currently seven hours distant. It had the kind of cosmopolitanpopulace that promised that vices of all sorts would be in evidence, and itwas run by beings with such keen eyesight—and such a stratosphericself-confidence—that they seldom used scanners to check ships' papers.

There was, in fact, just one small factor that kept Potosi from beingabsolutelyideal. It was also a major hub for the Patth shipping industry.

I stared at the listing for a while, perhaps hoping that in my tiredness I wasimagining things and that if I looked long enough it would go away. But nosuch luck. Certain parts of Potosi, including the sky above it, were going to becrawling with Patth, and that was just the way it was.

But there was nothing for it. Not unless we wanted to sit around and watchShawn die.

It was a matter of two minutes to cancel the Mintarius course and recalculate a

vector to take us to Potosi instead. Listening carefully, I was just able tohear the subtle shift in thrust tone from the drive as we swung over thetwenty-three degrees necessary to make the course change.

And I'm convinced that it was precisely because I was listening so carefullythat even through two closed doors I heard the muted pop and the equally faintand choked-off scream.

I was in the corridor half a second later, heading for the mechanics-room doorfive meters away. I crossed the distance in two seconds more, hearing a softbut ominous hissing sound that grew steadily louder as I neared it. I slapped thepad, and the door slid open.

And with a roar like a rabid dragon a wall of flame blew out of the doorwaytoward me.

An instant later I was rolling to my feet from three meters farther down thecorridor with no clear memory of how I'd gotten there. I spun back to the opendoorway, the terrifying image of Ixil trapped in the midst of that infernoparalyzing my entire thought process. I clawed my way back to the doorway, thesmell of burning acetylene filling my nose and mouth, a small and stillfunctional part of my mind noting with some confusion that there was now notrace of the wall of flame that had sent me diving instinctively away. Ireached the doorway, bracing myself for the worst, and looked inside.

It was bad enough, but not nearly as bad as I'd feared. Off to the left, thetwin tanks of the Icarus's oxyacetylene cutting torch were sitting uprightbeside the main workbench, the pressure of the compressed gases sending theirconnected hoses writhing together along the deck like a pair of dementedSiamese-twin snakes. From the open ends of the coupled hoses was spewing anawesome spray of yellow flame. Even as I took it all in I was forced to onceagain duck back as the skittering hoses swung past the doorway and sentanother burst my direction—clearly, that was what I'd mistaken earlier for anall-encompassing wall of flame. The blast swept past and I looked back inside.

And it was only then, in the back of the room beyond the flopping hoses, that spotted Ixil.

He was lying against the line of equipment-storage lockers that made up theback wall, his torso half-propped up against the lockers, his eyes closed. Therewas no sign of Pix and Pax; odds were they were cowering in a nook or cornersomewhere. If they were even alive, Ixil's right pant leg was smoldering abovehis low boot, but otherwise the fire didn't seem to have marked him.

But that bit of grace wasn't going to last much longer. Even just since I'dstarted watching I could see that the hoses' gyrations were swinging widerwith each oscillation, and within a minute or less they would be twisting around tothe point where the fire stream would be washing directly over my unconsciouspartner.

"God and hellfire," a voice breathed in my ear.

I twisted my head around to find Nicabar standing just behind me, staringwide-eyed into the room. "I heard the commotion and smelled the fire," hesaid.

"Where's the damn suppression system?"

"There isn't one," I bit out, jabbing my finger toward the bridge door.

"There's an extinguisher just inside the bridge to the left."

He was off before I'd even finished the sentence. I turned back to the mechanics room, dodging back just in time as the semirandom fire spray once again didits best to take my eyebrows off. There was another extinguisher, I knew, justinside the door to my right; the question was whether I could slip into theroom and get to it without incinerating myself.

Unfortunately, at that point came an even bigger question: What could I dowith the thing if and when I got to it? Shipboard fire extinguishers used a two- prongapproach, the foam smothering the air away from the flames whilesimultaneouslypulling out as much of the heat as possible. But that acetylene fire had a lotof heat built up already, possibly more than a small extinguisher canistercould handle; and given that the blaze had its own built-in oxygen supply, thequestion of smothering was even more problematic.

There was a breath of sudden movement beside me. "Got it," Nicabar said, holdingthe half-meter-long orange canister ready in the doorway. "Straight in?"

"Straight in," I told him. He squeezed the handle, and a stream of yellowishfluid sprayed toward the writhing hoses, its loud hissing joining the crackleof the flames. Joining, but not eliminating. For a few seconds the blaze falteredas the droplets sucked heat away from it, but then seemed to gather itsstrengthagain in defiance. The hoses twisted around in their unpredictable way, sendingthe tip skittering off the edge of Nicabar's spray, and with analmost-triumphant roar the fire blazed fully back to life.

But those few seconds were enough. I jumped into the room and ducked to myright, grabbing at the bright orange object at the edge of my peripheralvision as I kept my main attention on the fire and Nicabar's attack on it. Thequick-releases holding the extinguisher to the bulkhead worked exactly as theywere supposed to, though in the mood I was in I would have had the canister off the wall no matter how it was fastened there. I continued to my right, twistingthe canister around into position in my hands as I moved. I got it lined upjustas the hoses started to shift toward me, and squeezed the handle.

My spray joined Nicabar's, and the tanks and hoses all but vanished into aroiling cloud of mist. But the fire itself was still clearly visible, diminished but a long way yet from being quenched. And with the gas pressure driving itserratic movements completely unaffected by the foam, it was still just asdangerous as it had been before.

There was only one chance, and I had to take it before the extinguishers randryand the flame roared back to full strength again. Squeezing the handle hard, keeping my stream of foam aimed as best I could, I charged straight in towardour adversary. Nicabar shouted something from the doorway, but I couldn't makeout what he was saying over the noise. The hoses finished their oscillationthe other direction and started swinging back, and in about half a second theflame would get its chance to incinerate me on its way to doing the same to Ixil.

And at the last moment, with my best effort at the long jump since failing tomake my college track team, I leaped over the flame and landed squarely on theend of the hoses, pinning them in place on the deck.

I heard Nicabar give an encouraging whoop, and suddenly the billowing mistfrom his extinguisher was flowing coldly around my legs, a sharp contrast to thebackwash of heat that already seemed to be trying to cook my feet inside myboots. But for that final two seconds I didn't care about either the fire or Nicabar's efforts to put it out. Dropping my own canister onto the deck, Igrabbed the valve handle on the acetylene tank and twisted for all I wasworth.

And with one final indignant gasping wheeze from the hoses, the fire went out.