Timothy Zahn - The Icarus Hunt

They saw it coming, of course. But seated with their legs under the table, there wasn't a single thing they could do about it. We all went down together in aconfused and thunderous crash of splintering wood and alien curses. Stillhandcuffed to the chair, my movements were severely limited, but even so I wasin a far better fighting position than my opponents. Flailing back and forth, hammering them with the chair and keeping them pinned beneath me, I lashed outwith my feet, throwing kick after kick to head and torso and anything else Icould reach. After what seemed like forever through the haze of pain from myhead, they stopped moving. I gave them each another couple of kicks, just incase they were faking, then collapsed in a panting heap amid the carnage.

I didn't stay collapsed long, though. It had been a serious gamble on my part, taking them on just after waking up, but I hadn't had much choice in thematter.

Two-to-one odds were as good as I was likely to get; and if I'd waited forthem to call whoever was in charge with the news that the sacrificial Voodoo dollwas awake and ready to have pins stuck in him, I'd never have left the room alive.

An unhappy ending that could still very easily happen. The brief fight hadbeen anything but quiet, and the music I could hear in the distance meant thatthere was at least someone else in the immediate vicinity. My chair had sufferedsome damage in the fight, but enough of it had survived to keep me pinioned.

Rollingaround awkwardly, keeping an ear cocked for the inevitable reaction, I startedchecking my unconscious jailers for the keys to my handcuffs.

They were wearing the same sort of neo-Greek tunics as the two who'd jumped meon Xathru, and it didn't take long to find out that the limited pocket spacethat came with the outfits included no handcuff keys. One had a belt pouch, similarly bereft of keys. Neither was carrying a weapon.

But a couple of meters away on the floor where it had fallen at the table'scollapse was my phone.

My imprisoning chair had gotten itself caught in a slight hollow formed by thebodies of the two Iykams, but a little rocking broke me free. I rolled up ontomy knees, got to my feet, and picked my way through the debris to the phone.

At this range I could see the Iykams hadn't gotten any further in theirdisassemblyof the device than merely pulling the back off, though why they'd even donethat I didn't know. Perhaps they were hoping to tease a latent phone number or twoout of the memory that they could use.

If so, they were out of luck. That was the phone I'd taken from JamesFulbrighton Dorscind's World, and there were no incriminating numbers connected with meanywhere in there, latent or otherwise.

Still, I was glad they'd kept the phone around long enough to try, since ithad now put communication with the outside world in my hands. Easing onto my sideon the floor within reach of the phone, I rolled the device onto its back. I wasstill in big trouble, but a quick call to Ixil would at least alert the othersthat the Patth were here and on the hunt. With one final glance at the door, Ikeyed it on and reached an outstretched finger toward the keypad. And paused.

There was something too easy about this. Something far too easy. Where werethe alert reinforcements rushing in to save the day? Why were these two Iykamsfiddling with my phone instead of someone in a properly equipped workroom? Forthat matter, why only two guards in the first place?

I keyed off the phone and turned it over again, angling it so that I could geta really good look at the exposed circuitry. And this time, knowing what to lookfor, it wasn't hard to spot.

My clever little playmates had wired a repeater chip into the transmitterline, on the upstream side of the encryption sticker. I couldn't read the fine printon the chip, but it almost didn't matter. With the simpler Mark VI chip theywould be able to eavesdrop on any conversation I might have. With the more advanced Mark IX version and a properly equipped phone elsewhere in the citythey'd not only be able to listen in but could also triangulate through thelocal phone system to get the location of the other end of the conversation.

I'd been wrong about the Voodoo pins; they intended to get hold of the Icarus theeasy way.

I was willing to help out guards who wanted me to make trouble, but mycooperation with the enemy only went so far. Rolling back up to my knees, Ileft the phone where it was and headed toward where my plasmic lay next to my IDfolder.

I was just leaning down to pick it up when the door slammed open.

I dropped the rest of the way to the floor, my outstretched hand snatching upthe weapon as I hit the ground hard enough to reignite the blazing pain in myhead. Ignoring the red haze that had suddenly dropped in front of my eyes, Iswiveled both my body and the plasmic to face the door.

It was, I had to admit, an impressive sight. Four Iykams stood in a semicirclejust inside the doorway, each holding one of those nasty coronal-dischargeweapons, their alert motionlessness giving them the appearance of transplantedgargoyles. Behind them, I could see a couple more of the ugly beasts outsidethe door, undoubtedly waiting eagerly for their chance at me.

And standing right in the middle of the doorway between the two groups was agray-robed Patth.

"Don't bother with the weapon, Mr. McKell," he said. His voice was typicalPatth, managing to mix sincere, contemptuous, and smarmy into a sound that wasas distinctive in its own way as Chort's Craean whistling. "You don'tseriouslybelieve we would leave you a functional weapon, do you?"

"After that rather heavy-handed trick you tried with my phone, not really," Iagreed. It was hard to aim properly with my gun hand cuffed to a chair arm, but insofar as I was able I pointed the plasmic squarely at the center of historso.

"At least, not on purpose. You ever hear of a three-pop?"

There was a slight but noticeable rustling among the gargoyles. "I don't thinkso," the Patth said, adding a bit more amusement into the smarmy part of hisvocal mix. "But I'm sure you're dying to tell me."

"An appropriate choice of words," I said approvingly. "A three-pop is ahigh-power capacitor wired internally into a plasmic's fire circuit, keptcharged by the main power pack but otherwise independent of it. It holdsenoughjuice for two to four shots." I squinted consideringly. "That means you and upto three of your toadies will die if any of you comes any closer. If you'dlike to point out your least favorites among them, I'll see what I can do to obligeyou."

The four front Iykams had stopped looking like friendly little gargoyles. Allfour corona guns were up and aimed, held in taut-looking grips at the fullextension of taut-looking arms. But for once I had the advantage, and they allknew it. Lying there four meters away from them, I was right on the edge oftheir kill zones, while they were well inside mine. Add to that the point thatthey couldn't afford to kill me—and the equally important point that none ofthem was especially eager to get killed, either—and we had the makings here ofa good old-fashioned standoff.

And for a minute it looked as if I might actually get away with it. Very little of the Patth's face was visible in the shadow of that hood, but what I could see seemed to be in the throes of serious indecision as he weighed the merits ofrisking his personal skin against the reality that the Icarus still had a longway to go before we were home free. This was no professional bounty hunter, oreven a standard flunky used to obeying orders without the luxury of being ableto factor personal preference into the equation. Odds were this was areasonablysenior Patth citizen, pressed by necessity and desperation into this hunt forus.

But even as he hesitated a new voice from the outer room joined thediscussion.