The Icarus Hunt.

by Timothy Zahn.

CHAPTER 1.

THEY WERE WAITING as I stepped through the door into the taverno: three of them, preadult Yavanni, roughly the size of Brahma bulls, looming over me from both sides of the entryway. Big, eager-eyed, and territorial, they were on the prowl and looking for an excuse to squash something soft.

From all indications, it looked like that something was going to be me.

I stopped short just inside the door, and as it swung closed against my back I caught a faint whiff of turpentine from the direction of my would-be a.s.sailants.

Which meant that along with being young and brash, they were also tanked to the briskets. I was still outside the invisible boundary of the personal territories they'd staked out for themselves in the entryway; and if I had any brains, I'd keep it that way. Yavanni aren't very bright even at the best of times, but when you're outweighed by two to one and outnumbered by three to one, brainpower ratio isn't likely to be the deciding factor. It had been a long day and a longer evening, I was tired and cranky, and the smartest thing I could do right now was get hold of the doork.n.o.b digging into my back and get out of there.

I looked past the Yavanni into the main part of the taverno. The place was pretty crowded, with both humans and a representative distribution of other species sitting around the fashionably darkened interior. It was likely to stay well populated, too, at least as long as anyone who tried to leave had to pa.s.s the three mobile mountains waiting at the door. A fair percentage of the clientele, I could see, was surrept.i.tiously watching the little drama about to unfold, while the rest were studiously ignoring it. None of either group looked eager to leap to my defense should that become necessary. The two bartenders were watching me more openly, but there would be no help from that direction, either. This section of the s.p.a.ceport environs lay in Meima's Vyssiluyan enclave, and the Vyssiluyas were notoriously laissez-faire where disputes of this sort were concerned. The local police would gladly and industriously pick up the pieces after it was all over, but that wasn't going to be much comfort if I wound up being one of those pieces.

I looked back at the Yavanni flanking my path, one a little way ahead and to my left, the other two to my right. They still hadn't moved, but I had the mental picture of coiled springs being tightened a couple more turns. I hadn't run, didn't look like I was going to run, and their small minds were simmering in eager antic.i.p.ation of the moment when I put a foot across that invisible barrier and they got to see how many colors of bruises they could raise on me.

I wasn't armed, at least not seriously. Even if I had been, blasting away from close range at three full-size Yavanni was not a recommended procedure for anyone desiring a long and happy life. But there was a trick I'd heard about a few years ago, a nice little combination of Yavannian psychology and physiologythat I'd tucked away for possible future reference. It looked, as the saying went, like the future was now. Gazing at each of the Yavanni in turn, I cleared my throat. "Do your mothers know you boys are here?" I demanded in the deepest voice I could manage.

Three jaws dropped in unison. "It's late," I continued before they could respond. "You should be home. Go home. Now."

They looked at each other, their earlier antic.i.p.ation floundering in confusion.

Talking like a Yavannian dominant male was probably the last response they'd expected from an alien half their size, and the mola.s.ses they used for brains was having trouble adjusting to the situation. "Did you hear me?" I snapped, putting some anger into my voice. "Go home."

The one on the left apparently had faster mola.s.ses than the other two. "You are not Yavannian," he snarled back at me in typically Yavannian-mangled English.

A.

fresh wave of turpentine smell accompanied the words. "You will not speak to us that way." Paws flexing, he took a step toward me- And I opened my mouth and let out a warbling, blood-freezing howl.

He froze in place, his alien face abruptly stricken as his glacial brain caught up with his fatal error. I was stationary and he was moving, which meant he had now violated my territory. I was the injured party, I had given out with the proper Yavannian accusation/indictment/challenge shout, and I was now ent.i.tled to the first punch.

By and by, of course, he would remember that I wasn't a Yavanne and therefore not ent.i.tled to the courtesy of Yavannian customs. I had no intention of giving that thought time to percolate through. Taking a long step toward him, I tightened my hands into fists and drove both of them hard into his lower torso, into the slight depressions on either side of the central muscle ridge.

He gave a forlorn sort of squeak-a startling sound from a creature his size- and went down with a highly satisfying thud that must have shaken the whole taverno.

Curled around himself, he lay still.

The other two were still standing there, staring at me with their jaws hanging loosely. I wasn't fooled-flabbergasted or not, they were still in territorial mode, and the minute I stepped onto either's chosen section of floor I would get mauled. Fortunately, that was no longer a problem. The left side of the entryway was now free territory; stepping over the downed Yavanne, I pa.s.sed through the entryway and into the taverno.

There was a small ripple of almost-applause, which quickly evaporated as those involved belatedly remembered that there were still two Yavanni left on their feet. I wasn't expecting any more trouble from them myself, but just the same I.

kept an eye on their reflection in the bra.s.s chandelier domes as I made my way through the maze of tables and chairs. There was an empty table in the back, comfortably close to the homey log fireplace that dominated that wall, and I sat down with my back to the crackling flames. As I did so, I was just in time tosee the two undamaged Yavanni help their unsteady colleague out into the night.

"Buy you a drink, sir?"

I turned my head. A medium-sized man with dark skin stood in the dim light to the right of my table, a half-full mug in his hand, a thick thatch of white hair shimmering in the firelight. "I'm not interested in company right now," I said, punching up a small vodkaline on the table's menu selector. I wasn't interested in drinking, either, but that little fracas with the Yavanni had drawn enough attention to me as it was, and sitting there without a gla.s.s in my hand would only invite more curiosity.

"I appreciate what you did over there," the man commented, pulling out the chair opposite me and sitting down as if he'd been invited to do so. "I've been stuck here half an hour waiting for them to go away. Bit of a risky move, though, wasn't it? At the very least, you could have broken a couple of knuckles."

For a moment I gazed across the table at him, at that dark face beneath that shock of white hair. From the age lines in his skin he clearly had spent a lot of his life out in the sun; from the shape of the musculature beneath his jacket he hadn't spent that time lounging around in beach chairs. "Not all that risky,"

I told him. "Yavanni don't get that really thick skin of theirs until adulthood.

Kids that age are still pretty soft in spots. You just have to know where those spots are."

He nodded, eyes dropping momentarily to the ship patch with its stylized "SB"

on the shoulder of my faded black-leather jacket. "You deal a lot with aliens?"

"A fair amount," I said. "My partner's one, if that helps any."

"What do you mean, if it helps any?"

The center of the table opened up and my vodkaline appeared. "If it helps you make up your mind," I amplified, taking the gla.s.s off the tray. "About offering me a cargo."

A flicker of surprise crossed his face, but then he smiled. "You're quick," he said. "I like that. I take it you're an independent shipper?"

"That's right." I wasn't all that independent, actually, not anymore. But this wasn't the right time to bring that up. "My name's Jordan McKell. I'm captain of a Capricorn-cla.s.s freighter called the Stormy Banks."

"Specialty certificates?"

"Navigation and close-order piloting," I said. "My partner Ixil is certified in both drive and mechanical systems."

"Actually, I won't be needing your partner." He c.o.c.ked an eyebrow. "Or your ship, for that matter."

"That makes sense," I said, trying not to sound too sarcastic. "What exactly do you need-a fourth for bridge?"

He leaned a little closer to me across the table. "I already have a ship," he said, his voice dropping to a murmur. "It's sitting at the s.p.a.ceport, fueled andcargoed and ready to go. All I need is a crew to fly her."

"Interesting trick," I complimented him. "Getting a ship here without a crew, I.

mean."

His lips compressed. "I had a crew yesterday. They jumped ship this morning after we landed for refueling."

"Why?"

He waved a hand. "Personality conflicts, factional disputes-that sort of thing.

Apparently, both factions decided to jump without realizing the other side was going to, too. Anyway, that doesn't matter. What matters is that I'm not going to make my schedule unless I get some help together, and quickly."

I leaned back in my chair and favored him with a sly smile. "So in other words, you're basically stuck here. How very inconvenient for you. What kind of ship are we talking about?"

"It's the equivalent of an Orion-cla.s.s," he said, looking like a man suddenly noticing a bad taste in his mouth. Revising his earlier estimate of me downward, no doubt, as his estimate of how much money I was going to try to squeeze out of him went the opposite direction. "Not a standard Orion, you understand, but similar in size and-"

"You need a minimum of six crewers, then," I said. "Three each certified competent in bridge and engine-room operations. All eight specialty certificates represented: navigation, piloting, electronics, mechanics, computer, drive, hull/s.p.a.cewalk, and medical."

"I see you're well versed in the Mercantile Code."

"Part of my job," I said. "As I said, I can cover nav and piloting. How many of the rest are you missing?"

He smiled crookedly. "Why? You have some friends who need work?"

"I might. What do you need?"

"I appreciate the offer." He was still smiling, but the laugh lines had hardened a bit. "But I'd prefer to choose my own crew."

I shrugged. "Fine by me. I was just trying to save you a little running around.

What about me personally? Am I in?"

He eyed me another couple of heartbeats. "If you want the job," he said at last, not sounding entirely happy with the decision.

Deliberately, I turned my head a few degrees to the left and looked at a trio of gray-robed Patthaaunutth sitting at the center of the bar, gazing haughtily out at the rest of the patrons like self-proclaimed lords surveying their private demesne. "Were you expecting me to turn you down?" I asked, hearing the edge of bitterness in my voice.

He followed my gaze, lifting his mug for a sip, and even out of the corner of my eye I could see him wince a little behind the rim of the cup. "No," he said quietly. "I suppose not."

I nodded silently. The Talariac Drive had hit the trade routes of the Spiral a little over fifteen years ago, and in that brief time the Patth had gone frombeing a third-rate race of Machiavellian little connivers to near domination of shipping here in our cozy corner of the galaxy. Hardly a surprise, of course: with the Talariac four times faster and three times cheaper than anyone else's stardrive, it didn't take a corporate genius to figure out which ships were the ones to hire.

Which had left the rest of us between a very big rock and a very hard vacuum.

There were still a fair number of smaller routes and some overflow traffic that the Patth hadn't gotten around to yet, but there were too many non-Patth ships chasing too few jobs and the resulting economic chaos had been devastating. A few of the big shipping corporations were still hanging on, but most of the independents had been either starved out of business or reduced to intrasystem shipping, where stardrives weren't necessary.

Or had turned their ships to other, less virtuous lines of work.

One of the Patth at the table turned his head slightly, and from beneath his hood I caught a glint of the electronic implants set into that gaunt, mahogany-red face. The Patth had a good thing going, all right, and they had no intention of losing it. Patth starships were individually keyed to their respective pilots, with small but crucial bits of the Talariac access circuitry and visual display feedback systems implanted into the pilot's body. There'd been some misgivings about that when the system first hit the Spiral-shipping execs had worried that an injury to the Patth pilot en route could strand their valuable cargo out in the middle of nowhere, and there was a lot of nowhere out there to lose something as small as a starship in. The Patth had countered by adding one or two backup pilots to each ship, which had lowered the risk of accident without compromising the shroud of secrecy they were determined to keep around the Talariac. Without the circuitry implanted in its pilot-and with a whole raft of other safeguards built into the hardware of the drive itself-borrowing or stealing a Patth ship would gain you exactly zero information.

Or so the reasoning went. The fact that no bootleg copies of the Talariac had yet appeared anywhere on the market tended to support that theory.

The man across from me set his mug back down on the table with a slightly impatient-sounding clunk. Turning my eyes and thoughts away from the hooded Patth, I got back to business. "What time do you want to leave?"

"As early as possible," he said. "Say, six tomorrow morning."

I thought about that. Meima was an Ihmis colony world, and one of the peculiarities of Ihmisit-run s.p.a.ceports was that shippers weren't allowed inside the port between sundown and sunup, with the entire port sealed during those hours. Alien-psychology experts usually attributed this to some quirk of Ihmis superst.i.tion; I personally put it down to the healthy hotel business the policy generated at the s.p.a.ceport's periphery. "Sunrise tomorrow's not until five-thirty," I pointed out. "Doesn't leave much time for preflight checks."

"The ship's all ready to go," he reminded me.

"We check it anyway before we fly," I told him. "That's what 'preflight'

means.

What about clearances?"

"All set," he said, tapping his tunic. "I've got the papers right here.""Let me see them."

He shook his head. "That's not necessary. I'll be aboard well before-"

"Let me see them."

For a second he had the expression of someone who was seriously considering standing up and going to look for a pilot with a better grasp of the proper servility involved in an owner/employee relationship. But he merely dug into his inside jacket pocket and pulled out a thin stack of cards. Maybe he liked my spirit, or maybe he was just running out of time to find someone to fly his ship for him.

I leafed through them. The papers were for a modified Orion-cla.s.s freighter called the Icarus, Earth registry, mastership listed as one Alexander Borodin.

They were also copies, not the originals he'd implied he was carrying. "You Borodin?" I asked.

"That's right," he said. "As you see, everything's in order for a morning lift."

"Certainly looks that way," I agreed. All the required checks had been done: engine room, thrusters and stardrive, computer, cargo customs- I frowned. "What's this 'sealed cargo section' business?"

"Just what it says," he told me. "The cargo hold is situated in the aft-center section of the ship, and was sealed on Gamm against all entry or inspection.

The Gamm port authority license is there."

"Came in from Gamm, did you?" I commented, finding the license on the next card down. "Quiet little place."

"Yes. A bit primitive, though."

"It is that," I agreed, stacking the cards together again. I glanced at the top card again, making careful note of the lift and clearance codes that had been a.s.signed to the Icarus, and handed them back across the table. "All right, you've got yourself a captain. What's the up-front pay?"

"One thousand commarks," he said. "Payable on your arrival at the ship in the morning. Another two thousand once we make Earth. It's all I can afford," he added, a bit defensively.

Three thousand in all, for a job that would probably take five or six weeks to complete. I certainly wasn't going to get rich on that kind of pay, but I probably wouldn't starve, either. Provided he picked up the fuel and port duty fees along the way, of course. For a moment I thought about trying to bargain him up, but the look on his face implied it would be a waste of time. "Fine,"

I.

said. "You have a tag for me?"

"Right here," he said, rummaging around inside his jacket again, his expression twitching briefly with surprise that I had not, in fact, tried to squeeze him for more money as he'd obviously expected me to do. Briefly, I wondered which direction that had moved his opinion of me, but gave up the exercise as both unprofitable and irrelevant.

His probing hand found what it was looking for, and emerged holding a three-by-seven-centimeter plastic tag covered with colored dots. Another Ihmis quirk, this one their refusal to number or in any other way differentiate the two hundred-odd landing squares at their s.p.a.ceport. The only way to find a particular ship-or a particular service center or customs office or supply depot, for that matter-was to have one of these handy little tags on you. Slid into the transparent ID slot in a landing jacket collar, the tag's dot code would be read by sensors set up at each intersection, whereupon walk-mountedguidelights would point the befuddled wearer in the proper direction. It made for rather protracted travel sometimes, but the Ihmisits liked it and it wasn't much more than a minor inconvenience for anyone else. My a.s.sumption had always been that someone's brother-in-law owned the tag-making concession. "Anything else you need to know?"

I c.o.c.ked an eyebrow at him as I slid the tag into my collar slot in front of the one keyed to guide me back to the Stormy Banks. "Why? You in a hurry?"

"I have one or two other things yet to do tonight, yes," he said as he set down his cup and stood up, "Good evening, Captain McKell. I'll see you tomorrow morning."

"I'll be there." I nodded.

He nodded back and headed across the taverno, maneuvering through the maze of tables and the occasional wandering customer, and disappeared through the door.

I took a sip of my vodkaline, counted to twenty, and headed off after him.