Timothy Zahn - The Icarus Hunt

"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..."