Timothy Zahn - The Icarus Hunt

Under other circumstances I would probably have taken a few seconds to gape at the unexpected display of firepower I'd just unleashed. But I wasn't given that chance. Mouthing obvious obscenities, Lumpy One broke out of my grasp with a sudden lurch and spun around to face me, the sound of tearing cloth warning that he was half a second away from freeing his knife hand. I jumped to the side, swinging the alien weapon around; and as he got his arm free and lunged toward me, I fired again.

With the same result. Three seconds later, I was standing alone over two alien bodies, both of them charred literally beyond recognition.

I had seen a lot of repulsive things in my years of knocking around the Spiral, but this one definitely took the cake. Glancing around for any sign of witnesses—our little confrontation seemed to have gone unnoticed—I squatted down beside the corpses, trying to breathe through my mouth as I forced myself to sift through what was left of their clothing.

But there was nothing. No ID folders, no cash wallets, not even any bank cards.

Or at least, I amended to myself, nothing that had survived the attack.

Lumpy Two was wearing a duplicate of the alien handgun in a half-melted holster at the small of his back. I managed to pry it loose and pocketed both weapons for future study. I retrieved my ID folder and cash from the ground—Lumpy One had dropped all of it when I jumped him—and returned my now scorched but still functional-looking plasmic to its holster. Taking one final look around, I headed away at a brisk walk.

IXIL WAS WAITING for me at the Icarus's entryway. "I thought you were going to be here in thirty minutes," he greeted me as I came up.

"I ran into a little trouble," I told him. "Why didn't you go inside?"

"I thought it would be better if you were here to introduce me," he said.

"Besides, the entryway appears to be double-locked."

"Great," I scowled, punching the new code I'd set up after leaving Meima into the keypad. A double-locked entryway in port either meant the rest of the crew had sacked out for a couple of hours' sleep or, more likely, they'd scattered to the four winds the minute my back was turned.

"Had you told them to stay with the ship?" Ixil asked as the hatch swung open.

"No, I was too busy making arrangements to get Jones's body to the Port Authority and worrying about what I was going to say to Brother John," I said.

"Under the circumstances, I wish I had, though."

"I thought you smelled a bit singed," he said. "Why don't we go inside and youcan tell me all about it."

"Let's talk here instead," I said, sitting down inside the wraparound where Icould look out into the docking area. "If people with guns start wanderingcasually toward the ship, I'd like to see them before they get here."

"Reasonable," Ixil agreed, sitting down a couple of meters away from me wherehe could cover a different field of view from mine. As he settled down, Pix andPax hopped off his shoulders and skittered down the ramp, vanishing in oppositedirections around the ship. "Now," Ixil said, "why don't you start at thebeginning."

So I started at the beginning, with my near arrest on Meima, and gave him thewhole story, finishing with my near death on Xathru half an hour earlier. Thetwo ferrets came in twice while I was talking, dumping their scoutinginformation on Ixil and presumably getting new instructions before scamperingoff again. Given that Ixil didn't know anyone involved in any of this, Iwondered what exactly he was having the outriders look for. Maybe it was justpure Kalix hunters' instinct.

"I seem to have missed all the excitement," he said when I finished. "A pity."

"I wouldn't worry about it if I were you," I warned. "It's still a long way toEarth."

"It is that," he conceded. "You said you took the aliens' weapons?"

I passed them over to him. He looked at the charred one for a moment, his nosewrinkling at the smell, then exchanged it for the other. "Interesting," hesaid, studying it closely. "Coronal-discharge weapons aren't exactly new—I presumefrom your description that that's what these are—but I've never heard of suchcompact ones before."

"I've never seen one of any size," I said. "I can tell you one thing, though: These things really mess up victim identification."

"I can imagine," he said soberly. "Face, retinas, and prints, plus any IDs ordatadisks the victim happens to be carrying, all destroyed or badly damaged. Aconvenient little side effect of the killing shot."

"You have such a way with words," I growled. "I just hope these things don'tcatch on with the taverno brawling crowd."

"I think that highly unlikely," Ixil assured me. "Aside from the tremendousmanufacturing costs involved and the relative ease of detection, coronaweaponsby their nature have a very short range. Three meters, I'd guess; four at theoutside."

I shivered. In an uncomfortably large number of situations, a four-meter rangewould be perfectly adequate for the purpose. "Remind me to practice up on mydistance shots."

"Good idea." He dropped the guns into his hip pouch. "I'll try taking oneapartlater and see if I can figure out where it was made. Right now, I'm morecurious about this deadly accident of yours."

"I'll admit right up front that it's got me stumped," I said, feelingdisgustedwith myself. Strange and unpleasant things were happening all around me, andso far I didn't have a handle on any of it. "I ran a diagnostic across the wholesystem, and I can't figure how the grav generator kicked in when it did."

"You are, of course, hardly an expert in such things," Ixil pointed out, not unkindly. "There are three main locations where the generator can be turned on: the bridge, engineering, and computer."

"Right," I said. That much I knew. "I was on the bridge—and I didn't do it—

Revs Nicabar was in engineering, and Tera was handling the computer."

"Both of them alone, I take it?"

"Nicabar definitely was," I said. "The only way back there is through the wraparound, which was serving as airlock at the time."

"Odd design," Ixil murmured, glancing around.

"Tell me about it," I said dryly. "I don't know if Tera was alone, but the only person who could have been with her was Hayden Everett, our medic."

"Who you also said helped Jones on with his suit before the incident," Ixil said thoughtfully.

"You think there's a connection?"

He shrugged, a human gesture he'd picked up from me. "Not necessarily; I merely note the fact. I also note the fact that if Everett wasn't with Tera, that means all the rest of the crew were alone."

"Actually, no," I corrected him. "Geoff Shawn, the electronics man, had come to the bridge to watch Chort's spacewalk on my monitors."

"Really," he said. "Interesting."

I cocked an eyebrow. "In what way?"

"I said there were three main places where the grav generator could be turned on," he said, stroking his cheek thoughtfully with stubby fingertips. "But there are probably several other places where someone could jump power into the system."

"I was afraid of that," I said heavily. "I suppose it would be too much to ask that there would be no way to set that sort of thing up with a timer."

"You mean so that Shawn's appearance on the bridge might have been solely to establish an alibi for himself?"

"Something like that."

He shrugged again. "If he could tap into the system, I see no reason he couldn't set it up on a timer, too." He paused. "Of course, for that matter, the same thing goes for Chort and Jones."

I frowned. "You must be kidding."

"Must I?" he countered. "Look at the facts. Chort wasn't injured in the fall, at least not very seriously. And if Jones set it up, he may have planned to catch him before he fell too far."