Timothy Zahn - The Icarus Hunt

"I noticed it about forty minutes ago," Ixil said. "I thought at first it wasthe reflected light from a new community that I simply hadn't seen before. ButI checked the map, and there's nothing that direction except a row of hills andthe wasteland region we flew over on our way in."

"Could it be a fire?" I suggested doubtfully.

"Unlikely," Ixil said. "The glow isn't red enough, and I've seen no evidenceof smoke. I was wondering if it might be a search-and-rescue operation."

From the edge of the window came a gentle scrabbling sound; and with a softrodent sneeze Pix appeared on the sill. A sinuous leap over to Ixil's arm, aquick scamper—with those claws digging for footholds the whole way up—and hewas once again crouched in his place on Ixil's shoulder.

There was a tiny scratching sound like a fingernail on leather that alwaysmade me wince, and for a moment Ixil stood silently as he ran through the memorieshe was now pulling from the ferret's small brain. "Interesting," he said. "Fromthe parallax, it appears to be considerably farther out than I first thought. Wellbeyond the hills, probably ten kilometers into the wilderness."

Which meant the glow was also a lot brighter than I'd thought. What couldanyonewant out there in the middle of nowhere?

My chest tightened, the ache in my leg suddenly forgotten. "You don't happento know," I asked with studied casualness, "where exactly that archaeology dig isthat the Cameron Group's been funding, do you?"

"Somewhere out in that wilderness," Ixil said. "I don't know the precise location."

"I do," I said. "I'll make you a small wager it's smack-dab in the middle ofthat glow."

"And why would you think that?"

"Because Arno Cameron himself was in town tonight. Offering me a job."

Ixil's squashed-iguana face turned to look at me. "You are joking."

"Afraid not," I assured him. "He was running under a ridiculous alias—

Alexander Borodin, no less—and he'd dyed that black hair of his pure white, which madehim look a good twenty years older. But it was him." I tapped my jacket collar.

"He wants me to fly him out of here tomorrow morning in a ship called the Icarus."

"What did you tell him?"

"At three thousand commarks for the trip? I told him yes, of course."

Pix sneezed again. "This is going to be awkward," Ixil said; and then addedwhat had to be the understatement of the week. "Brother John is not going to bepleased."

"No kidding," I agreed sourly. "When was the last time Brother John waspleasedabout anything we did?"

"Those instances have been rare," Ixil conceded. "Still, I doubt we've ever seen him as angry as he can get, either."

Unfortunately, he had a point. Johnston Scotto Ryland—the "Brother" honorificwas pure sarcasm on our part—was the oh-so-generous benefactor who had bailedIxil and me out of looming financial devastation three years ago by adding theStormy Banks to his private collection of smuggling ships. Weapons, illegalbodyparts, interdicted drugs, stolen art, stolen electronics, every disgustingvariety of happyjam imaginable—you name it, we'd probably carried it. In fact, we were on a job for him right now, with yet another of his secretive littlecargoes tucked away in the Stormy Banks's hold.

And Ixil was right. Brother John had not clawed his way up to his exaltedposition among the Spiral's worst scum peddlers by smiling and shrugging offsudden unilateral decisions by his subordinates.

"I'll square it with him," I promised Ixil, though how exactly I was going todo that I couldn't quite imagine at the moment. "It was three grand, after all.

How was I supposed to turn that down and still keep up the facade that we'reimpoverished independent shippers?"

Ixil didn't react, but the ferrets on his shoulders gave simultaneoustwitches.

Sometimes that two-way neural link could be handy if you knew what to lookfor.

"Anyway, there's no reason why Brother John should get warped out of shapeover this," I went on. "You can take the Stormy Banks the rest of the way to Xathruby yourself. Then he can have his happyjam and guns and everybody can relax.

I'll look at Cameron's flight path in the morning and leave you a message atXathru as to where the most convenient place will be for you to catch up withus."

"Regulations require a minimum of two crewers for a Capricorn-class ship," hereminded me.

"Fine," I said shortly. It was late, my leg and head were hurting, and I was in no mood to hear the Mercantile Code being quoted at me. Especially not fromthe one who'd ultimately gotten me in this mess to begin with. "There's you, there's Pix, and there's Pax. That's three of you. The details you can work out withthe Port Authority in the morning."

With that I stomped out of the living area—being careful to stomp on my goodlegonly—and went into the bath/dressing room. By the time I'd finished my bedtimepreparations and rejoined Ixil I'd calmed down some. "Anything new?" I askedhim.

He was still staring out the window, the two ferrets perched on his shouldersstaring out right alongside him. "More aircraft seem to have joined in theactivities," he said. "Something out there has definitely piqued someone'scuriosity."

"Piqued and a half," I agreed, taking one last look and then heading for mybed.

"I wonder what Cameron's people dug up out there."

"And who could be this interested in it," Ixil added, turning reluctantly awayfrom the window himself. "It may be, Jordan, that our discussion of BrotherJohn's cargo will turn out to be moot. You may reach the Icarus in the morningto find it already in someone's hands."

"Not a chance," I said, easing my aching leg gingerly under the blankets.

"And why not?"

I lay back onto a lumpy pillow. Yet another lumpy pillow, at yet another lumpyspaceport, in what seemed to be an increasingly lumpy life. "Because," I saidwith a sigh, "I'm not nearly that lucky."

THE SKY TO sunward was gaudy with splashes of pink and yellow when I arrivedat the spaceport at five the next morning. A crowd of spacers, humans and aliensboth, was already milling around the gates, most of them impatient to get totheir ships and head out on the next leg of their journeys. A few of the moreimpatient were making the standard disparaging comments about Ihmis customs; the Ihmis door wardens standing watch by the gates as usual ignored them.

There were no Patth in the waiting group, of course. Over the past few yearsthere had been enough of what the diplomats call "unpleasant incidents" aroundspaceports for most port authorities to assign Patth ships their own gates, service facilities, and waiting areas. Port authorities hate dealing with thepaperwork associated with assault and murder, and planetary governments areeven less interested in earning the sort of sanctions the Patth routinely dish outfor any affront to their people, real or imagined.

Which, come to think about it, made the three Patth I'd seen mixing with thecommon folk at the taverno last night something of an anomaly. Either they'dbeen young and brash, old and confident of local protection, or simply verythirsty. Distantly, I wondered if they'd run into any accidents on their wayhome.

At 5:31 the edge of the sun appeared over the horizon; and at that moment thegates unlocked and swung open. I joined the mass of beings flowing through, checking my collar once to make sure the tag Cameron had given me was stillthere. I hadn't spotted Cameron himself in the crowd, which either meant he was waiting at a different gate or that whoever had been searching hisarchaeological dig last night had already picked him up. Either way, I stillplanned to check out the Icarus, if only to see which species was standingguardover it.

A heavy, aromatic hand fell on my shoulder. "Captain Jordan McKell?"