Timothy Zahn - The Icarus Hunt

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.