The Icarus Hunt Part 29

I shrugged, sitting down on the deck beside her. "There's not very much to tell."

"Of course there is," she said quietly. "You had hopes and plans and dreams once. Maybe you still do. What would you be doing now if you weren't smuggling?"

"Who knows?" I said. She didn't care about my hopes and dreams, of course. I knew that. She was just casting around looking for some mindless chatter, something to distract herself from the mental image of her father floating dead in there. "Once, I thought I might have a career in EarthGuard. That ended when I told a superior officer exactly what I thought of him."

"In public, I take it?"

"It was public enough to earn me a court-martial," I conceded. "Then I thought I.

might have a career in customs. I must have been a little too good at it, because someone framed me for taking bribes. Then I tried working for a s.h.i.+pping firm, only I lost my temper again and slugged one of the partners."

"Strange," she murmured. "I wouldn't have taken you for the terminally self-destructive type."

"Don't worry," I a.s.sured her. "I'm only self-destructive where potentially promising careers are concerned. When it comes to personal survival, I'm not nearly so incompetent."

"Maybe the problem is you're afraid of success," she suggested. "I've seen it often enough in other people."

"That's not a particularly original diagnosis," I said. "Others of my acquaintance have suggested that from time to time. Of course, for the immediate future my options for success of any sort are likely to be seriously limited."

"Until about midway into the next century, I believe you said."

"About that."

She was silent a moment. "What if I offered to buy you out of your indenture to that smuggling boss?"

I frowned at her. There was no humor in her face that I could detect. "Excuse me?"

"What if I offered to buy out your indenture?" she repeated. "I asked you that once, if you recall. You rather snidely countered by asking if I had a half million in spare change on me."

I felt my face warm. "I didn't know who you were then."

"But now you do," she said. "And you also know-or you ought to if you don't- that I have considerably more than a half-million commarks to play with."

A not-entirely-pleasant tingle ran through me. "And you're suggesting thatbailing me out of my own pigheaded mismanagement would be worth that much to you?" I asked, hearing a hint of harshness in my voice.

"Why not?" she asked. "I can certainly afford it."

"I'm sure you can," I said. This was not safe territory to be walking on. "The Cameron Group probably spends half a million a year just on memo slips. Which, if I may say so, is a h.e.l.l of a better investment than I would be for you."

"Who said anything about you being an investment?" she asked.

"Process of elimination," I said. "I don't qualify as a recognized charity, and I'm too old to adopt."

Somewhere along in here I'd expected her to take offense. But either she was too busy worrying about her father to notice my ungrateful att.i.tude, or she had a higher annoyance threshold than I'd thought. "Perhaps it's a reward for bringing the Icarus safely home," she said. "Payment for services rendered."

"Better wait until it's sitting safely on the ground before you go off the edge with offers of payment," I warned. "Unless, of course, you think I'm likely to weaken before we get to Earth and figure this is the best way to lock in my loyalty."

"Or else I just want to give you a new chance," she said, still inexplicably unruffled. "You don't belong with smugglers and criminals. You're not the type."

It was worse than I'd thought. Now she was sensing n.o.bility and honor and decency in me. I had to nip this in the bud, and fast, before there was trouble I couldn't talk my way out of. "Not to be insulting or anything," I said, "but the high-society life you grew up with is not exactly the sort of background you need for judging people in my line of work. I could tell you about a man with a choirboy face and manner who could order one of his thugs to rip your heart out and watch him do it without batting an eye."

"You seem awfully vehement about this," she commented.

"I don't want you to get hurt dabbling in things you don't understand, that's all," I muttered. "More than that, I don't want me to get hurt. Stick with corporate mergers or archaeological digs or whatever it is you do for your father, Elaina Tera Cameron. You'll live longer that way."

I frowned, an odd connection suddenly slapping me in the face. "Elaina Tera Cameron," I repeated. "E.T.C. As in et cetera?"

She smiled wanly. "Very good," she complimented me. "Yes, it was my father's little joke. I was the fourth of the three children they'd planned on. But the first three were boys, and Mom had always wanted a girl. And Mom generally got what she set her mind on."

"Hence, the et cetera?"

"She didn't even notice for four years," Tera said. "Not until I started learning to write and was putting my initials everywhere."

"I'll bet she was really pleased with your father."

"Actually, she was mostly just annoyed that she'd missed the joke. Especially since Dad was famous for that sort of wordplay."

"Nothing like that with your brothers' initials?"

She shrugged. "If there was, it was something so obscure none of us ever figured it out. Dad certainly never let on about any jokes hidden there."

"Sounds like him," I said. "He's always had a reputation for playing his cardsall the way inside his vest."

"Only when it was necessary," Tera insisted. "And he never hid them from his family and close friends." She looked past me at the access hole. "Which just makes this all the stranger. Why would he go in there without telling me?

Especially after forbidding anyone else to do so?"

"Maybe he was afraid I would come into the 'tweenhull area after him again," I suggested.

"But why didn't he tell me?" she persisted. "There was a day and a half between that incident and our landing on Potosi. If he thought he needed to hide out from you, there was plenty of time for us to talk it over."

"Unless he thought I might drop in on him unexpectedly," I said. "Remember, there was nowhere else on the s.h.i.+p he could hide."

"Of course there was," she said. "The Number Two cabin on the top deck, the

one.

Jones used before he died. After Ixil took the release pad off to put on his own door, it would have been a perfect place for him to hide. We were planning to move him in there while we were on Potosi."

"With access in and out through the inner hull?" I asked, feeling my face warm and hoping it didn't show. Once again, an angle I'd missed completely. Though to be fair, by the time I knew we even had a stowaway he was already gone.

"If he needed to move around, yes," she said. "We couldn't very well take the chance of letting one of the others see him, could we? We had some of the hull connectors gimmicked so that he could get quickly in and out."

"Ah," I said, feeling even more like n.o.bel prize material. I'd been through that whole 'tweenhull area from starboard to port, and it had never even occurred to me to check for loose or missing inner-hull connectors. "But he never took up residence there?"

She shook her head. "We were planning to move him in while you were out hunting for Shawn's medicine. But then Shawn escaped, and we all had to go out and look for him. Then with the trouble we had with customs, I didn't get a chance to look for Dad until we were long gone from there."

"Is that why you were in the mechanics room when Everett found you?" I asked.

"You were actually there to pick up a connector tool?"

She smiled tightly. "You are sharp, aren't you?" she commented. "Yes, that's exactly why I was there. When Everett charged in on me I thought we'd been found out, but he just told me Shawn was gone and charged back out again without asking any questions about what I was doing there."

She shrugged. "Then, of course, after you asked and I'd spun you the computer story, I had to take the computer apart and pretend there was a genuine glitch somewhere. Just as well I did, I suppose, given all the sand that had gotten in.

That was as big a surprise to me as it was to anyone else."

There was a faint and distant-sounding noise like metal scratching on metal, and I looked hopefully back at the access hole. But there was no sign of Pax.

Probably one of the group outside had banged the hull or something. "Maybe one of the others did see him," I suggested slowly. "That might account for his deciding he needed somewhere else to hide."

"But then why hasn't that person said something?" Tera pointed out. "I mean,after that note he left you about how he wouldn't be coming along, don't you think seeing him aboard would have been worth at least a pa.s.sing comment?"

"It should have," I agreed. "Unless that someone had a reason for keeping it secret. Maybe your father caught him doing something that-oh, d.a.m.n."

Tera got it at the same time I did. "The poison you found in Ixil's room," she breathed. "Of course. Dad was going down the corridor for some reason and spotted him setting that up."

Abruptly, her eyes widened. "Oh, my G.o.d. McKell-maybe he didn't go in there voluntarily. Maybe he was... put there."

I got to my feet. "I'm going in," I told her, snagging my flashlight and stuffing it securely into my belt. "There should be a couple of medkits over with the sick-bay stuff. Go get me one."

She set off across the curved surface at a fast run, her footsteps echoing eerily through the mostly empty s.p.a.ce. I headed off in nearly the opposite direction, across the broken landscape that was what was left of the Icarus's inner hull, toward the two piles of equipment from the mechanics and electronics shops. Sorting through the piles, I picked out a tool belt, an electronic- field detector, a couple of rolls of insulator tape, and a handful of small tools.

Tera was already waiting by the computer by the time I started back. "Here's the medkit," she said as I came up to her, holding out a large belt pack. "I put in a bottle of water and some emergency ration bars, too."

"Thanks," I said, resisting the urge to remind her that wrapping me in unnecessary bulk would only make my trip through the sphere more difficult than it was promising to be already. But she was only trying to help, and I couldn't see how a single water bottle was likely to be the deciding factor one way or the other. I strapped the pack around my waist where it wouldn't block access to my tools, and settled everything in place. "All right," I said as casually as I.

could manage. "I'll see you later."

"Good luck," she said quietly.

I threw her a frown, wondering if I was imagining the concern I heard in her voice. But then I realized that the fear wasn't for me, or at least not primarily for me. It was for her father.

Turning away from her, I lay down on the floor beside the access hole. Taking a deep breath, I got a grip on the edge and pulled myself in.

CHAPTER 16.

THE FIRST LEG of the trip was uneventful enough. There was plenty of light coming in behind me, the zero gee made precision movement reasonably easy, and I.

had a mostly clear path up to the gap I'd pointed out to Tera. I held the electronic-field sensor at arm's length in front of me the whole way like a mystical talisman, keeping a close eye on its readings and pausing to check out the source of anything that made its indicators so much as twitch.

There was current flowing in here, all right, plenty of it. Fortunately for purposes of navigation, the strongest sources seemed to be the handful of panelss.p.a.ced irregularly along the inner surface. From the limited view I'd had from the access hole the nature of the panels had been a mystery; up close and direct, the situation wasn't much clearer. They might have been readout displays, giving ever-changing equipment-status reports in a strange and incomprehensible alien script. Unfortunately, they could just as easily have been ever-changing mood lights there for the edification of whoever it was the mindless electronics thought was on duty in here. All in all, I decided, I should probably stick with flying stars.h.i.+ps and leave the more esoteric alien evaluations alone.

After a few minutes I reached the gap, only to discover that my earlier interpretation of its significance was not nearly as clear-cut as I'd thought.

It turned out, in fact, to be far from certain that the opening was proof of a human-sized body having gone through that direction at all. Partly it was a matter of that particular region being clearer than the surrounding area; partly it was a trick of perspective that had made the spot seem more open than it really was.

And it wasn't particularly open. There were at least a dozen wires crisscrossing the gap a half meter farther in, which I hadn't been able to see from my previous vantage point. If Cameron had come this way, he'd done a good job of smoothing out his footprints behind him.

Which further meant that it was suddenly far from certain that Cameron had ever come in here at all, let alone that he was floating unconscious or dead somewhere inside.

For a minute I played my light through the gap into the darkness beyond, watching the glints as the beam reflected off bits of alien metal or plastic or ceramic, wondering what I should do now. If Cameron wasn't in here, then continuing on would be not only unnecessary but probably dangerous as well.

Of course, if Cameron wasn't in here, then we were back to the sticky question of where in blazes he'd gotten to. If he'd left the Icarus at Potosi, voluntarily or otherwise, then he was likely in worse trouble than if he were in here. In fact, as I thought about it, I realized his abduction on Potosi might explain why the Najik had identified the Icarus so quickly at Utheno. Though that could equally be the Potosi customs report catching up with us.

On the other hand, whether Cameron was in here or not, we still had to figure out how the stardrive worked if we were going to p.u.s.s.yfoot our way out of the Patth net. Still, it would definitely be the better part of valor for me carefully to back out of here at this point and postpone any other plans until Pax came back with his report.

And then, even as I gave the light one last sweep around, I heard a soft, distant sound. Unlike the noise I'd heard while talking with Tera, though, this one was very familiar. It was the screech of a startled Kalixiri ferret, the kind of verbal reaction that usually went quickly up the tonal scale and then just as quickly back down again.

Only this one didn't. It went halfway up the scale, then abruptly cut off.

And with the sudden silence ringing in my ears, I stared into the darkness, feeling sweat beading up on my forehead and neck. There hadn't been even the whisper of a trailing edge to that call; no whimper, no gasp, no sigh. None of the sounds that should have come from the last escaping bit of air in Pax's lungs as he collapsed into sleep or unconsciousness.

Which meant he hadn't collapsed into sleep or unconsciousness. He was dead.

And something in here had killed him.I looked back toward the access hole, the movement of my head sending droplets of sweat flying off my face to drift their way to oblivion among the maze of circuitry. If Tera had heard that abbreviated death cry, she would be sticking her head into view any second now to demand an explanation. But the seconds ticked by, and there was no Tera, and I realized with decidedly mixed feelings that I alone knew what had just happened.

Which meant that the decision of what to do next was also mine alone. Probably just as well. Wiping the surface layer of sweat off my forehead with my left sleeve, I eased the blocking wires out of the way and headed cautiously in.

I'd told Ixil and Tera that we weren't in any particular hurry here. With Pax's screech echoing through my memory, I was even less inclined to take unnecessary chances. I kept it slow and careful, checking every wire and conduit in my path, both visually and with my field sensor, before getting anywhere near it.

Before moving it aside I also made sure to trace along it as best I could through the tangle, trying to see where it intersected the wall or other components and making sure it had enough slack for me to safely push it aside without straining anything. If it didn't have that slack, if it even looked marginal, I changed course and found another route.

It took me nearly an hour to work my way through that first three and a half meters; and I was just beginning to wonder if I was going to be able to do the whole ten meters to the center in one try when I eased through a gap in a fish-net-style mesh and abruptly found myself in open s.p.a.ce.

I held on to the mesh with one hand, balancing myself parallel to it in the zero gee, and played my light around. The s.p.a.ce wasn't quite as empty, I could see now, as it had looked in that first glance. A dozen different cable loops that had worked their way through the holes in the mesh were bobbing gently around the edges, looking like some exotic form of seaweed drifting in a calm current.

Half a dozen of the lighted displays I'd seen against the walls were also at the edge of the open area, fastened by wires through the mesh and facing inward toward the center; from one of them a slender, articulated black-and-silver-banded extension arm stretched right to the point six and a half meters away from me where the center of the sphere should be. All the display lights were red, giving the area an eerie, blood-tinged look. I moved my light around the room again, steeling myself for what would probably be the very unpleasant sight of a dead ferret. But there was no sign of his body.

Apparently, he hadn't made it through the wire maze before he died.

And then, abruptly, I caught my breath, swinging my light back toward the center again. So intent was I on looking for Pax's body that it had only now occurred to me that there should have been something else in here: the resonance crystal and control board that Nicabar and Chort said a stardrive like this was supposed to come equipped with.

Unfortunately, this one wasn't.

Carefully, I ran my light over every square centimeter of the place, a tight knot twisting like a case-hardened drill bit into my stomach. I'd pinned a loton Tera's a.s.sumption that the Icarus concealed an alien stardrive, but not until that moment did I realize just how much pinning I had actually done. If we couldn't get this thing to jump us past the Patth net, then we'd had it, pure and simple. I remembered Shawn's question on that point, and how glibly I'd brushed him off with the suggestion that we would be no worse off if Cameron's archaeologists had been wrong.