The Icarus Hunt (31 page)

“Interesting,” I murmured. “You sure it wasn’t just a case of bad management or overextension?”

“Not sure at all,” Ixil said. “Spiracia’s directors certainly had a reputation for corporate edge-walking. Don’t forget, too, that the Talariac didn’t even appear until a good six years after that fight and four years after the DiHammer scandal broke.
If
Everett was partially owned by the Patth, and
if
they took his defeat that personally, it would imply a long grudge on their part.”

“As grudges go, six years wouldn’t even be a regional record,” I told him. “Another question to put on our next wish list for Uncle Arthur. Who’s next?”

“Chort,” Ixil said, peering at the reader. “Full name … never mind, it’s unpronounceable. He’s been in the spacewalking business only four years, which puts him barely into journeyman status. That might explain why he was available for Cameron to hire on Meima.”

“Not to me it doesn’t,” I said. “Crooea are still the cream of the spacewalking crop; and just because Chort hasn’t got twenty years’ experience is no reason why he should have been free in the middle of nowhere like that.”

“Have you asked him about that?”

“Not yet,” I said. “Come to think of it, I never got around to getting Tera’s story, either. I’ll have to remedy that soon. Anything else on him?”

“No indication of any direct ties between him and the Patth, if that’s what you mean.” Ixil frowned suddenly. “Hmm. Interesting. Did you know that the Craean economy has been expanding at an annual rate of nearly sixteen percent over the past twelve years?”

“No, I didn’t,” I said. Considering the Spiral average, that kind of sustained growth was practically unheard-of. “Does it say what it was pre-Talariac?”

“Yes,” he said after a brief search. “Between one and two percent. And that was in their better years.”

I shook my head. “The stuff Uncle Arthur comes up with. Does he include an explanation for this remarkable economic boom?”

“Apparently, the Crooea grow and export a considerable range of perishable food delicacies that can’t handle normal preservation methods,” Ixil said. “The greater speed of the Talariac has vastly increased their potential market.”

I grimaced. “Which puts them right at the top of the list of governments ripe for Patth pressure.”

“Yes,” Ixil said. “Fortunately, I doubt they know a Craea is aboard the
Icarus
.”

“Unless they’ve gotten to Cameron and made him talk,” I said. “He’s presumably the only one who knows the whole crew list.”

Ixil frowned again. “I thought your current theory was that Cameron was in a shallow grave somewhere back on Meima.”

“I have no current theories,” I told him sourly. “All I have are useless, outdated ones that couldn’t hold glue with both hands.”

Ixil didn’t say there, there, but from the expression on his face he might just as well have. “Next on the list is Geoff Shawn,” he said instead. “For someone only twenty-three years old, he’s compiled a remarkable record: a long string of academic awards and honors, plus an almost equally long list of legal troubles.”

“Serious ones?”

“Not particularly. Traffic citations, semivandalistic pranks, some petty theft of university electronics property—that sort of thing.”

I grunted. “Typical hotshot student genius. Brilliant and knows it, and figures none of the usual rules apply to him. Does it mention anything about his jaunt out to Ephis?”

“Not a word,” Ixil said. “Of course, he did say no one knew about that, didn’t he?”

“That’s what he implied,” I agreed doubtfully. “But the more I think about it, the more I wonder if he and his buddies could really have pulled it off without at least being noticed.”

Ixil pondered that a moment. “In which case,” he said slowly, “it would raise the question of whether his borandis dependence is really a medical matter at all.”

“It would indeed,” I agreed. “Of course, Everett
did
confirm that was the diagnosis. But then, Everett apparently also didn’t recognize the symptoms of either the drug dependency or the Cole’s disease until Shawn really started getting twitchy. Is there anything there about Everett’s medical training?”

Ixil adjusted the document in the reader. “Looks like just the basic Mercantile course and certification.”

“How long ago?”

“Two years.”

“Which leaves a twenty-year gap between his throw-boxing and medical careers,” I said. “What was he doing to fill the idle workday hours?”

“A variety of different jobs,” Ixil said, scanning down the text. “Let me see. He did five years of throw-boxing instruction, two as a judge/referee, and six as a casino security officer. Then there was one year each as bartender on a liner, mechanics’ apprentice, and tour packager/guide on the throw-boxing circuit. After that he went in for his medical certificate.”

“By my count, that leaves us two years short.”

“That’s taken up by the instruction regimens for the various career changes,” Ixil explained. “One to eight months each.”

“I wonder what he wants to be when he grows up,” I murmured. Though to be fair, it didn’t sound a whole lot worse than my own employment résumé. “All right, back to Shawn. Anything in there that might suggest he’d dabbled with any other drugs besides borandis?”

“Nothing,” Ixil said. “Though nothing that would preclude it, either. Something else for our wish list?”

“Right,” I agreed, making yet another mental note. “Okay. That just leaves Tera.”

“Tera,” Ixil echoed, peering at the reader. “We start with a negative: Preliminary checks of appropriate religious-group listings fail to find anyone by that name with the description you gave. After that …”

He paused, his face going suddenly rigid. “Jordan,” he said, his voice studiously conversational, “would you say that Uncle Arthur has a tendency toward the dramatic?”

“Is moss slimy?” I countered, feeling the hairs tingling on the back of my neck as I swung my legs over the side of my cot and sat up. “How dramatic is he being this time?”

Wordlessly, he handed me the reader. I took it, glanced at the indistinct photo that might or might not have been our Tera, and with a feeling of nameless but impending doom plowed my way into the final section of the Kalixiri text.

It was as if I’d been slapped across the face with a wet rag. I read it twice, sure I must have gotten it wrong. But I hadn’t. “Where’s Tera now?” I asked, looking up at Ixil.

“Probably in her cabin,” he said. “She’s off-duty, and she hasn’t shown much tendency to sit around the dayroom.”

“Let’s go find her,” I said, making sure my plasmic was riding snugly in its holster.

I got up and headed for the door. Ixil was faster, hopping up from his place on the floor and blocking my way. “Are you sure this is a good idea?” he asked.

“Not really,” I said. “But I want to find out for sure, and I want to find out now. Confronting her straight-out seems to me the best way to do it.”

“Yes, but she’ll want to know how we found out,” he warned. “That could be awkward.”

“It won’t,” I said, shaking my head. “She already knows we run cargoes for Antoniewicz, and she knows he’s got his slimy fingers into everything. We can lay this at his feet, no problem.”

He still didn’t look convinced, but he nevertheless stepped aside. I tapped the release pad, confirmed there was no one loitering outside in the corridor, and headed for the aft ladder. Ixil stayed behind long enough to collect his ferrets from the floor, then followed.

We reached the top deck without seeing anyone; clearly, the
Icarus
’s antisocial atmosphere was still unsullied by anything resembling genuine camaraderie. Tera’s door was closed. Bracing myself, I tapped the release pad; and as the door slid open I dodged inside.

From my previous clandestine visit to Tera’s room I knew she used the lower of the three bunks, and that supposed knowledge nearly got me killed. Even as I aimed my charge toward the lower bunk, I belatedly saw in the light filtering in from the corridor that that particular bunk was in fact empty. My eyes tracked upward, caught sight of the body and sudden movement on the top bunk—clearly, she alternated bunks, probably for exactly this purpose.

I altered course in mid-charge, nearly wrenching my back in the process, reaching for her mouth to keep her from screaming. There was a faint glint of something metallic in her hand, and I shifted the direction of my hands toward the object as she tried to bring it around to bear on me. I won by a thin-sliced fraction of a second, and with a twist of my wrist wrenched it out of her hand. With my other hand I reached again for her mouth; but even as I could see her taking a deep breath Ixil’s left hand closed almost delicately across it, his right taking up a supporting position behind her head.

“It’s all right, Tera,” I assured her quickly. “We just want to talk.”

She ignored me, grabbing Ixil’s hand and trying to pry it away—considering Kalixiri musculature, a complete waste of effort. From the movements of her head I guessed she was also trying to bite him, another waste of effort. Behind us, the door slid shut, plunging the silent struggle into darkness. “Really, that’s all we want,” I said, stepping across the darkened room and switching on the light. “We thought it would be better if what we had to say was kept quiet from the others for the moment.”

Tera grunted something unintelligible but undoubtedly quite rude from behind Ixil’s hand, her eyes doing their best to skewer me. “Nice to see you’re armed, too,” I added, looking at the gun I’d taken from her. It was a short-barreled shotgun-style pepperbox pistol, capable of making a considerable mess of an assailant at the close range inherent in shipboard combat without the danger of accidentally rupturing the hull in the process. My earlier search of her room hadn’t turned it up; clearly, she made a habit of carrying it around with her. “Of course, this thing’s loud enough to have brought the whole ship down on us. Good thing you didn’t get a chance to fire. If Ixil takes his hand away, will you promise not to make a fuss until you hear what we have to say?”

Her eyes flicked to her gun in my hand. Reluctantly, I thought, she nodded. “Good,” I said, nodding to Ixil.

He pulled his hands away slowly, ready to put them back again if she reneged on her promise. “What do you want?” she said in a low voice. There was a fair degree of tension in her face, I saw, but whatever panic there might have been had already disappeared.

“Like I said, to talk,” I told her. “We want to find out what you know about this ship, Tera.” I lifted my eyebrows. “Or should I call you Elaina?”

The corner of her mouth twitched. Not much, but
enough to show I’d hit the bull’s-eye. Uncle Arthur had indeed come through. “Elaina?” she asked cautiously.

“Elaina,” I said. “Elaina Tera Cameron. Daughter of Arno Cameron. The man who put all of us aboard this ship.”

For the space of a dozen heartbeats I thought she was going to try to play out the masquerade. She lay there on her bunk, propped up on one elbow, and stared at me, a dozen expressions flicking across her face. And then, the one hand I could see tightened into a fist, and I knew she’d given up. “What gave me away?” she asked calmly.

“It wasn’t anything you said or did,” I assured her. “Though now in retrospect I can see hints that you were more than you seemed. That nicely fortuitous timing when you first came to the bridge, for instance, making sure that I didn’t just pocket the money your father had left for us and stroll casually off the ship. No, we simply picked up some additional information which included the interesting note that Cameron’s daughter hadn’t been seen for a while. Our informant was kind enough to include a photo that was just barely adequate.”

“I see,” she said. “Where exactly did this information come from?”

“You know how we’re connected,” I said, my voice heavy with significance. “Just leave it at that.”

She seemed to measure me with her eyes. “All right,” she said. “So. Now what?”

“Now what is that you tell us what the hell this is all about,” I said. “Starting with where your father is.”

“He’s back on Meima, of course,” she said. “You ought to know—you took off without him.”

I shook my head. “Sorry, but that won’t wash. The whole planet was looking to hang a murder charge on him, and there aren’t a hell of a lot of places there where a human could hide.”

“Which means he was already aboard when you left,” Ixil added. “I presume he was the one Jordan chased briefly around the ’tweenhull area?”

Tera grimaced. So did I, feeling like a complete fool. All the way up from the lower deck knowing she was Cameron’s daughter, and that part had never even occurred to me. “So he’s the one who tapped into my intercom,” I said. “And who tried to kill Ixil with the cutting torch.”

“Dad wasn’t trying to hurt him,” Tera snapped, her face flushing. “Not Ixil or anyone else.” She transferred her glare to Ixil. “He
thought
you’d be professional enough to check the torch before you tried lighting it.”

“I’d already done so,” he said calmly. “Under the circumstances, I should have known to check it again.”

“I’m sorry,” she growled, her expression one of anger mixed with guilt. “For whatever it’s worth, he felt very bad about you getting hurt.”

Ixil inclined his head. “I accept his apology.”

“Accept it in person, why don’t you,” I put in. “Elaina, we need to talk to your father right away.”

“Tera,” she corrected me. “And Dad’s not here. He got off at Potosi.”

I threw a glance at Ixil. The biggest Patth shipping facility in the entire region; and
that
was where Cameron had chosen to jump ship? “Why?” I asked.

“I don’t know,” she said. “He didn’t say anything about it to me beforehand. All I know is that when we all got back after looking for Shawn, he and his things were gone.”

Ixil rumbled in his throat. “You’ll forgive me if I say that makes no sense whatsoever.”

“You can search the ship yourselves if you want,” she countered tartly. “I tell you, he’s not here.”

“Let’s go back to the beginning,” I interrupted them, not about to let this degenerate into a reality-versus-logic argument if I could help it. “Let’s start with how you got to Meima and why you’re aboard the
Icarus
under this semiassumed identity.”