Ларри Нивен - Crashlander

«You used to have the tobacco habit yourself.»

«But I gave it up to make Sharrol happy, and tanj if my sense of taste didn't come back. Ander, put those things away. Pacifica is a big spaceship.»

«Make you nervous?»

«Ander, don't tease the kzinti.»

The breath caught in his throat. The match and cigar disappeared with minimal motions of his hands. Then his head turned casually.

They looked at him, three big males with glossy orange coats and carefully closed mouths. Looked away again. They weren't doing anything threatening. Maybe they hadn't even noticed. Riiight. Kzinti living in Pacifica might never have smelled tobacco, but any who had would not forget.

Ander seemed calm, almost sleepy, except that his breathing was a little ragged and there was sweat trickling down his neck. The cigar had been for my benefit, but he really hadn't noticed the kzinti. Mankind had claimed this world, hadn't we? Kzinti didn't belong here, did they?

He sought the thread of conversation. «You don't know where Feather Filip is, and you last saw the magical autodoc a year and a half ago.»

«Exactly. I don't know that Feather hasn't been watching for me to come back and get it. There were lamplighter islands in line of sight. She could be watching for me with a pair of mag specs.»

«Or she could be anywhere on Fafnir. But if I find her, she can take me to the island.»

I kept silent.

«I can reach some funds. Tell you what,» Ander said. «Take my entire expense credit. Five thousand and change. I'll have to live on credit till Sigmund can send me more.»

«No, no, Ander. I want a hundred thousand.»

«I'd have to beam Sigmund. I'd have to tell him what it is for. Where does that leave me?»

«Tell him I want two hundred thousand. Keep half yourself.»

«Beowulf, what you have to sell is a tool that's been left under seawater. The technology is in records left behind by Carlos Wu.»

«Did he leave records of his research? You don't know that. Encrypted? You don't know. I don't, either. Could the Fafnir government get the techniques by studying the autodoc itself? We don't know.»

Ander laughed at that. «What are you going to tell the Fafnir bureaucrats? You stand five ten, maybe, but you can produce records that show you seven feet tall? Records can be faked, Beowulf. I'm your only customer.»

This was fun. I had his attention, finally. «What if we take a stunted kzinti — there are a few — and skin him, and before he suffers too much trauma, we shove him in Carlos Wu's 'doc. Would it rebuild him into a passable human? A perfect spy?»

He guffawed. «That is really ridiculous.»

«Oh, maybe. But there are wealthy kzinti families on Fafnir.»

«They don't know how tall you used to be, either! Anyway, dealing with kzinti is crazy dangerous. Beowulf, I've got nearly six thousand, and you can have it all. Otherwise you'll have to wait while I tell Sigmund Ausfaller what you're selling, and Sigmund makes a counteroffer, and you settle, and he finally sends credit, all by hyperwave across ten light-years. And if I find Feather while you're waiting, you get nothing.»

«Good enough. Tell him two hundred thousand stars —»

«One.»

«One. Half in advance, half when you've got the 'doc. I'll be here at the Pequod until the money comes in.» I stood up. «It's midnight. Pay my consultant's fee at the hotel desk.» I walked out, thinking I'd timed that nicely.

I stopped at the desk to learn my room number. I told them there would be a payment entered against room charges.

My backpurse was hanging in the sleeping plates. I checked through it. Someone might have searched it … someone had. Sharrol, looking for what might identify me as a family man. She'd found and removed my two holos of her, one with Tanya and Louis but not Carlos, the other more recent, pregnant, with Jeena at her breast.

Twenty minutes between the plates would do me a world of good, I thought. Four hours would be even better.

No time.

I rode an elevator to the roof. There I paused, gazing idly up into the black oceanic night.

Sanity check: Was I being watched? In what fashion?

ARM cameras are little transparent disks you apply with a thumb to a flat surface. They don't cost that much and are impossible to spot. My room would be a good place to scatter a few. So would the lobby doors and the line of transfer booths behind me on the Pequod's roof. But Ander had had no chance to set them … had he?

I wished that I'd known Ander Smittarasheed better. I hadn't learned much today. He had the instincts of a cop; he'd treated me as a felon ready to escape. He remembered me fairly well. Strong as hell. What else?

He had come here for me, he'd said. More likely he'd come for us. For Carlos, the valuable one; Feather, the dangerous one; Beowulf Shaeffer, the talkative one who knows too much; Carlos's children, both United Nations citizens; Sharrol Janss … could lead him to the rest. But I could do that for him, too. He didn't need Sharrol.

Ander must have reached Fafnir by tracking a sighting of Carlos's ship. Where had he begun his investigations?

He'd started where he had landed, at the Shasht spaceports, of course. A party of six, three of us flat phobes, would not have come to a weird world like Fafnir to stay. He would search through the hotels and spaceports and hiding places on Shasht, try to learn if we'd left, before he faced eleven hours worth of jet lag in the islands.

If he'd gone to Outbound, he'd have found the Graynor family all registered for flight. Those names and a phone file would have brought him to Pacifica.

The public booths in Pacifica are lined along the dome, with a view up into the underwater jungle, for its impact on tourists incoming from Shasht. Ander Smittarasheed must have just arrived from Shasht when he saw me looking down at him.

I didn't like that. It would mean Ander had placed cameras at Outbound. They would have been waiting when Sharrol came in with Jeena. They'd be there now, for me.

But I couldn't be wrong about this: Ander had been shocked stupid at the sight of me. If he had found records for the Graynors, he'd have everything: our transplant types, allergies, eye color, height.

Ander would have given up then or persuaded himself that Beowulf Shaeffer had made himself shorter. But he hadn't known that. He hadn't.

No, he hadn't followed a paper trail. He had followed one of six fugitives, the one he knew, through a chain of logic. Beowulf Shaeffer, albino. Track him through the regular purchase of tannin secretion pills. No? Then he must be living like a vampire: working a night shift at Shasht or the Islands, at any business that caters to jet-lagged travelers. No? Then … under the sea? Losing hope … and there he is!

He'd run up a long flight of stairs to catch me. He certainly hadn't phoned anyone on the way. He hadn't let me out of his sight since. Congratulations, Ander! Beowulf Shaeffer has not escaped.

But Ander hadn't had a chance to call for backup.

The curve of glass above me supported kilotons of seawater and a life older than planet Earth. Luminescent angler fish and eels and elaborately shaped jellyfish writhed through the blackness. I sat on a bench and watched. Perhaps something was watching me.

Ander would search in vain for Feather Filip.

That wouldn't stop his search. Using instruments on a ship or satellite, he would pick out every darkened island. Dead lamplighter, no glow of house lights. Choose among those for just two live islands in line of sight; then deep radar for a hollow object more massive than sand offshore. Carlos Wu's 'doc.

In the lamplighter pit: the scorched remains of an antique lander. He'd search out human remains. He'd find bits of my bones and read their DNA. If he found traces of Feather's blood, it would only confirm my story.