Timothy Zahn: The Icarus Hunt

"Just what it says," he told me. "The cargo hold is situated in the aft-centersection of the ship, and was sealed on Gamm against all entry or inspection.

The Gamm port authority license is there."

"Came in from Gamm, did you?" I commented, finding the license on the nextcard down. "Quiet little place."

"Yes. A bit primitive, though."

"It is that," I agreed, stacking the cards together again. I glanced at thetopcard again, making careful note of the lift and clearance codes that had beenassigned to the Icarus, and handed them back across the table. "All right, you've got yourself a captain. What's the up-front pay?"

"One thousand commarks," he said. "Payable on your arrival at the ship in themorning. Another two thousand once we make Earth. It's all I can afford," headded, a bit defensively.

Three thousand in all, for a job that would probably take five or six weeks tocomplete. I certainly wasn't going to get rich on that kind of pay, but Iprobably wouldn't starve, either. Provided he picked up the fuel and port dutyfees along the way, of course. For a moment I thought about trying to bargainhim up, but the look on his face implied it would be a waste of time. "Fine,"

I said. "You have a tag for me?"

"Right here," he said, rummaging around inside his jacket again, hisexpressiontwitching briefly with surprise that I had not, in fact, tried to squeeze himfor more money as he'd obviously expected me to do. Briefly, I wondered whichdirection that had moved his opinion of me, but gave up the exercise as bothunprofitable and irrelevant.

His probing hand found what it was looking for, and emerged holding athree-by-seven-centimeter plastic tag covered with colored dots. Another Ihmisquirk, this one their refusal to number or in any other way differentiate thetwo hundred-odd landing squares at their spaceport. The only way to find aparticular ship—or a particular service center or customs office or supplydepot, for that matter—was to have one of these handy little tags on you. Slidinto the transparent ID slot in a landing jacket collar, the tag's dot codewould be read by sensors set up at each intersection, whereupon walk-mounted guidelights would point the befuddled wearer in the proper direction. It madefor rather protracted travel sometimes, but the Ihmisits liked it and itwasn't much more than a minor inconvenience for anyone else. My assumption had alwaysbeen that someone's brother-in-law owned the tag-making concession. "Anythingelse you need to know?"

I cocked an eyebrow at him as I slid the tag into my collar slot in front ofthe one keyed to guide me back to the Stormy Banks. "Why? You in a hurry?"

"I have one or two other things yet to do tonight, yes," he said as he setdown his cup and stood up, "Good evening, Captain McKell. I'll see you tomorrowmorning."

"I'll be there." I nodded.

He nodded back and headed across the taverno, maneuvering through the maze oftables and the occasional wandering customer, and disappeared through thedoor.

I took a sip of my vodkaline, counted to twenty, and headed off after him.

I didn't want to look like I was hurrying, and as a result it took me maybehalf a minute longer to get across the taverno than it had taken him. But that wasall right. There were a lot of spacers roaming the streets out there, but theoverhead lights outside were pretty good, and with all that white hair heshould be easy enough to spot and follow. Pushing open the door, I stepped out intothe cool night air.

I had forgotten about the Yavanni. They hadn't forgotten about me.

They were waiting near the entrance, partly concealed behind one of thedecorative glass entryway windbreaks that stuck a meter outward from the wallon either side of the door itself. Recognizing a particular alien is always adiceyproposition, but obviously this bunch had mastered the technique. Even as Istepped out from the shelter of the windbreaks, they began moving purposefullytoward me, the one in front showing a noticeable forward slouch.

I had to do something, and I had to do it fast. They'd abandoned theirpreviousterritorial game—that much was obvious from the way they bunched together asthey moved confidently toward me. I'd shamed them in front of the wholetaverno, and what they undoubtedly had in mind was a complete demonstration as to whythat had been a bad decision on my part. I thought about digging inside myjacket for my gun, realized instantly that any such move would be suicide; thought about ducking back into the taverno, realized that would do nothingbut postpone the confrontation.

Which left me only one real option. Bracing myself, I took a quick steppartwayback into the windbreak, turned ninety degrees to my left, and kicked backwardas hard as I could with my right foot.

In most other places windbreaks like these were made out of a highly resilientplastic. The Vyssiluyas preferred glass—tough glass, to be sure, but glassnonetheless. With three angry Yavanni lumbering toward me I was understandablyin no mood for half measures, and the force of the kick seemed to shootstraightthrough my spine to the top of my head. But I achieved the desired result: the glass panel blew out, scattering a hundred pieces across the landscape.

I caught my balance and jumped backward through the now mostly empty boxframe.

A large wedge of jagged glass that was still hanging tentatively onto the sideof the frame scraped at my jacket as I went through. Trying to avoid slicingmyfingers on the edges, I got a grip on it and broke it free. Brandishing itlike a makeshift knife, I jabbed at the Yavanni.

The Yavanne in front stopped short, generating a brief bit of vaguely comedicconfusion as the other two bumped into him. For all their bulk andaggressiveness, Yavanni are remarkably sensitive to the sight of their ownblood, and the thought of charging into a knife or knifelike instrument cangiveeven the hardiest a moment of pause. But only a moment. Like most otherunpleasantries, anticipation is often worse than the actual event, and as soonas their molasses minds remembered that they'd be all over me.

But I wasn't planning to be here when that happened. With the windbreak goneand the Yavanni bunched together, I now had a completely clear exit route at myback. Flipping my shard of glass at the lead Yavanne, I turned and ran for it.

I got only a couple of steps before they set up a startled howl and lurchedinto gear after me. They'd eventually get me, too—in a long straightaway human legscouldn't outmatch Yavannian ones. But for the first few seconds, until theygotall that body mass moving, I had the advantage. All I had to do was findsomething to do with it.

I knew better than to waste time looking over my shoulder, but I could tellfrom the sounds of their foot thuds that I still had a reasonably good lead when Ireached the corner of the taverno and swung around into the narrow pedestrianalleyway separating it from the next building over. An empty alleyway, unfortunately, without what I'd hoped to find there. The Yavanni hove aroundthe corner; lowering my head, I put all my effort into getting every drop of speedI could out of my legs. They would probably get me, I knew, before I couldcircle the building completely. If what I was looking for wasn't around back, I wasgoing to be in for some serious pain.

I rounded the next corner with the Yavanni uncomfortably close behind me. Andthere it was, just as I'd hoped to find it: a pile of half-meter-long logs forthe taverno's big fireplace, neatly stacked against the wall and reachingnearlyto the eaves of the roof. Without slowing my pace, I headed up.

I nearly didn't make it. The Yavanni were right on my heels and going far toofast to stop, and their big feet slammed into the logs like bowling diskshitting the pins. The whole pile went rippling down behind me, and if I'd beena fraction of a second slower I'd have gone down right along with it. As it was, I