Timothy Zahn - The Icarus Hunt

"Sounds like him," I said. "He's always had a reputation for playing his cards all the way inside his vest."

"Only when it was necessary," Tera insisted. "And he never hid them from hisfamily and close friends." She looked past me at the access hole. "Which justmakes this all the stranger. Why would he go in there without telling me?

Especially after forbidding anyone else to do so?"

"Maybe he was afraid I would come into the 'tweenhull area after him again," Isuggested.

"But why didn't he tell me?" she persisted. "There was a day and a halfbetween that incident and our landing on Potosi. If he thought he needed to hide outfrom you, there was plenty of time for us to talk it over."

"Unless he thought I might drop in on him unexpectedly," I said. "Remember, there was nowhere else on the ship he could hide."

"Of course there was," she said. "The Number Two cabin on the top deck, theone Jones used before he died. After Ixil took the release pad off to put on hisown door, it would have been a perfect place for him to hide. We were planning tomove him in there while we were on Potosi."

"With access in and out through the inner hull?" I asked, feeling my face warmand hoping it didn't show. Once again, an angle I'd missed completely. Thoughto be fair, by the time I knew we even had a stowaway he was already gone.

"If he needed to move around, yes," she said. "We couldn't very well take thechance of letting one of the others see him, could we? We had some of the hullconnectors gimmicked so that he could get quickly in and out."

"Ah," I said, feeling even more like Nobel prize material. I'd been throughthat whole 'tweenhull area from starboard to port, and it had never even occurredto me to check for loose or missing inner-hull connectors. "But he never took upresidence there?"

She shook her head. "We were planning to move him in while you were outhuntingfor Shawn's medicine. But then Shawn escaped, and we all had to go out andlook for him. Then with the trouble we had with customs, I didn't get a chance tolook for Dad until we were long gone from there."

"Is that why you were in the mechanics room when Everett found you?" I asked.

"You were actually there to pick up a connector tool?"

She smiled tightly. "You are sharp, aren't you?" she commented. "Yes, that'sexactly why I was there. When Everett charged in on me I thought we'd beenfound out, but he just told me Shawn was gone and charged back out again withoutasking any questions about what I was doing there."

She shrugged. "Then, of course, after you asked and I'd spun you the computerstory, I had to take the computer apart and pretend there was a genuine glitchsomewhere. Just as well I did, I suppose, given all the sand that had gottenin.

That was as big a surprise to me as it was to anyone else."

There was a faint and distant-sounding noise like metal scratching on metal, and I looked hopefully back at the access hole. But there was no sign of Pax.

Probably one of the group outside had banged the hull or something. "Maybe oneof the others did see him," I suggested slowly. "That might account for hisdeciding he needed somewhere else to hide."

"But then why hasn't that person said something?" Tera pointed out. "I mean, after that note he left you about how he wouldn't be coming along, don't youthink seeing him aboard would have been worth at least a passing comment?"

"It should have," I agreed. "Unless that someone had a reason for keeping itsecret. Maybe your father caught him doing something that—oh, damn."

Tera got it at the same time I did. "The poison you found in Ixil's room," shebreathed. "Of course. Dad was going down the corridor for some reason andspotted him setting that up."

Abruptly, her eyes widened. "Oh, my God. McKell—maybe he didn't go in therevoluntarily. Maybe he was... put there."

I got to my feet. "I'm going in," I told her, snagging my flashlight andstuffing it securely into my belt. "There should be a couple of medkits overwith the sick-bay stuff. Go get me one."

She set off across the curved surface at a fast run, her footsteps echoingeerily through the mostly empty space. I headed off in nearly the oppositedirection, across the broken landscape that was what was left of the Icarus'sinner hull, toward the two piles of equipment from the mechanics andelectronics shops. Sorting through the piles, I picked out a tool belt, an electronic- field detector, a couple of rolls of insulator tape, and a handful of small tools.

Tera was already waiting by the computer by the time I started back. "Here'sthe medkit," she said as I came up to her, holding out a large belt pack. "I putin a bottle of water and some emergency ration bars, too."

"Thanks," I said, resisting the urge to remind her that wrapping me inunnecessary bulk would only make my trip through the sphere more difficultthan it was promising to be already. But she was only trying to help, and Icouldn't see how a single water bottle was likely to be the deciding factor one way orthe other. I strapped the pack around my waist where it wouldn't block accessto my tools, and settled everything in place. "All right," I said as casually asI could manage. "I'll see you later."

"Good luck," she said quietly.

I threw her a frown, wondering if I was imagining the concern I heard in hervoice. But then I realized that the fear wasn't for me, or at least notprimarily for me. It was for her father.

Turning away from her, I lay down on the floor beside the access hole. Takinga deep breath, I got a grip on the edge and pulled myself in.

THE FIRST LEG of the trip was uneventful enough. There was plenty of lightcoming in behind me, the zero gee made precision movement reasonably easy, andI had a mostly clear path up to the gap I'd pointed out to Tera. I held theelectronic-field sensor at arm's length in front of me the whole way like amystical talisman, keeping a close eye on its readings and pausing to checkout the source of anything that made its indicators so much as twitch.

There was current flowing in here, all right, plenty of it. Fortunately forpurposes of navigation, the strongest sources seemed to be the handful ofpanels spaced irregularly along the inner surface. From the limited view I'd had fromthe access hole the nature of the panels had been a mystery; up close anddirect, the situation wasn't much clearer. They might have been readoutdisplays, giving ever-changing equipment-status reports in a strange andincomprehensible alien script. Unfortunately, they could just as easily havebeen ever-changing mood lights there for the edification of whoever it was themindless electronics thought was on duty in here. All in all, I decided, Ishould probably stick with flying starships and leave the more esoteric alienevaluations alone.

After a few minutes I reached the gap, only to discover that my earlierinterpretation of its significance was not nearly as clear-cut as I'd thought.

It turned out, in fact, to be far from certain that the opening was proof of ahuman-sized body having gone through that direction at all. Partly it was amatter of that particular region being clearer than the surrounding area; partlyit was a trick of perspective that had made the spot seem more open than itreally was.

And it wasn't particularly open. There were at least a dozen wirescrisscrossingthe gap a half meter farther in, which I hadn't been able to see from myprevious vantage point. If Cameron had come this way, he'd done a good job ofsmoothing out his footprints behind him.

Which further meant that it was suddenly far from certain that Cameron hadever come in here at all, let alone that he was floating unconscious or deadsomewhere inside.

For a minute I played my light through the gap into the darkness beyond, watching the glints as the beam reflected off bits of alien metal or plasticor ceramic, wondering what I should do now. If Cameron wasn't in here, thencontinuing on would be not only unnecessary but probably dangerous as well.