Timothy Zahn - The Icarus Hunt

It was at about that point in my slow-motion cogitation that I suddenlynoticed the striped arm with the booby-trapped end was gone. So was the tangle ofwiringand geometric monitor shapes I'd been facing across the small sphere.

So, for that matter, was the small sphere.

Belatedly, I focused my eyes straight ahead of me on the now familiar curvinggray hull. So I had blacked out in there, at least long enough for the jolt tokick me out here to the center of the Icarus's big resonance sphere. I wincedas I thought of all the stuff I must have torn through on my way out—I wasprobablylucky I hadn't been electrocuted for real.

Though if I'd wrecked enough of the alien electronics to render the stardriveinoperable I would probably soon wish I had been crisped. Twisting around inthe catlike, half-swimming movements of standard zero-gee maneuvering technique, Iworked myself around toward the access hole, wondering why Tera wasn'tscreamingher head off at me.

The reason was very simple. Tera wasn't there.

Neither was the tool kit I'd left beside the opening. Neither was the ship'scomputer that had been more or less permanently mounted there. Neither, forthat matter, were the stacks of meter-square panels, the piles of mechanicalequipment, or the consolidated bits of personal effects.

I was in the large sphere, all right. Problem was, I wasn't in the Icarus.

A familiar sense of falling permeated my confusion: The sphere's gravitationalfield had taken hold and was pulling me gently down toward the inner surface.

Too slowly, or so it seemed, considering the .85-gee pull we had on theIcarus.

I had just about decided that this sphere's field was set lower when I gotwithin a meter of the surface and the field abruptly increased dramatically. Ibarely got my knees prepared for the impact before I was down, hitting themetal with a dull thud. Clearly, the gravitational field was a lot more radiallyvariable than I'd realized, though how they were managing that trick Icouldn't even begin to guess.

And then, as the echo of my landing faded away, I heard another sound. Faint, distant, but extremely familiar. A sort of thoughtful squeak, coming from thedirection of the access hole leading into the smaller sphere.

It sounded like Pax.

I had my plasmic in my hand before I'd taken two steps toward the smallsphere.

Pure reflex on my part, of course—Lord knew I had no idea what I was going todo with it. I certainly couldn't shoot or even threaten to shoot whoever orwhatever I found in there. Not if I ever wanted to find out what the hell was going on here.

I did the last three meters to the access hole in a low crouch, listening ashard as I could with the noise of my heart thudding in my ears. I could hearfaint ferret snufflings now from inside; more to the immediate point, I couldalso hear the subtle sounds of something else moving around in there with him.

And if I didn't dare open fire indiscriminately, there was no guarantee thatwhatever was in there would have any such qualms itself. Dropping flat on thedeck, I inched my way the last half meter and cautiously looked in.

At first glance the interior of the small sphere seemed to be nothing at alllike the setup I'd seen back on the Icarus. A second, closer look showed thatat least most of the apparent difference was due to the fact that all the coupleof meters' worth of loose wiring I'd waded through in the Icarus's sphere washere neatly packed against the inner surface, held in place by a tighter version ofthe netting I'd had to maneuver through there. The same type of displays werescattered around various spots on the netting, their multicolored lightsproviding the glow I'd seen out in the larger sphere. Theblack-and-silver-striped arm I'd played alien water slide with was also there, stretching its slightly angled way from the mesh to the center.

In some ways having all the wiring squeezed together this way made it lookeven more tangled than it had when it was spread out over a larger volume. Itcertainly made the whole spectacle more colorful, which was probably why ittook me another couple of seconds before I noticed the movement a little way to myright. It was Pax, all right, looking hale and hearty and perfectly at home as he strolled across the netting toward me, sniffing curiously at everything in sight.

"Hello, McKell," a voice called out, the unexpectedness of it making me jump.

"You certainly took your time getting here."

I looked in the direction of the voice. A quarter of the way around the sphere, almost hidden in the glare from one of the sets of displays, a figure was sitting on the netting. Gazing up at one of the other displays, he was scribbling madly on a notepad balanced across his knee.

It was Arno Cameron.

IT WAS A situation that called for a brilliant comment, a witty rejoinder, or complete silence. Not feeling either brilliant or witty at the moment, I kept my mouth shut, put away my plasmic, and concentrated instead on negotiating what I

suspected would be a fairly tricky transition between the two spheres.

It turned out not to be nearly as difficult as I'd expected. This small sphere, unlike the one I'd had to burrow my way through on the Icarus, had its gravitational field pointed toward the surface rather than the center, so that aside from a little disorientation as I crawled around the edge of the access hole there was really nothing to it.

Between the maneuvering itself and a short face-licking attack from a Kalixiri ferret clearly relieved to see someone familiar, I managed to buy myself nearly a minute of recovery time before I had to try speaking. "So," I said, getting carefully to my feet on the netting and looking across at Cameron. The word was supposed to sound casual and debonair, as if I did this sort of thing all the time. Instead, it came out like the croak of a teenager facing down the parents of his very first date. So much for the efficacy of all that stalling.

But Cameron merely smiled as he turned off his notepad and laid it on the netting beside him. "I screamed and cried for half an hour after I got here," he said. "If that helps your dignity any."

"Thanks, but my dignity is expendable," I told him. This time the words came out much better. "Right now I'm more concerned with life, liberty, and the pursuit of greedy Patth and their vindictive buddies."

I glanced around. "And frankly, anything that scares Arno Cameron that much is something I really hesitate to tangle with."

"Don't worry, it's not as bad as I first thought." His eyebrows lifted slightly.

"So you know who I am. What else do you know?"

I shrugged. "I know our alleged computer specialist Tera is your daughter Elaina Tera Cameron," I said. "Is it safe to walk on this stuff?"

"Perfectly safe," he assured me. "I'd avoid stepping on the displays, but everything else is as solid as the commark."

"The wires won't break or come loose?" I asked, dubiously eyeing the multicolored tangle beneath my feet.

"I've had a lot of time to examine them," he said. "Trust me, they're every bit as solid as the ones on the Icarus."

"Ah," I said, taking a cautious step toward him. "So in other words, all thatexaggerated care I took getting through the Icarus sphere was a waste ofeffort?"

"If you want to look at it that way," he said with a shrug. "Personally, I'venever found any effort to be completely wasted."

"Sure," I said noncommittally. The cables and conduits made little squooshingsounds as I walked over them, but aside from that it all felt firm enough.

Still, there was no point in taking chances, and I kept it slow and careful.

The gravity, I estimated, was about the same .85 gee as we had in the Icarus'slargesphere.

"So Elaina told you who she was," he commented as I picked my way toward him.