The Icarus Hunt (53 page)

“No, of course not,” I bit out, a flood of emotion suddenly washing over me. An innocent man had died, all because of me. “Jones was exactly as advertised: a mechanic Cameron hired off the street for the
Icarus
. And that’s where Everett made the mistake that so muddied the water that it took me until now to figure it out. He was so convinced that my partner and I were both jumping ship and abandoning Ryland’s contraband on Meima that he just assumed that the
Icarus
’s mechanic was my partner. Add to that Jones’s natural friendliness and social ease, and it probably looked to him like we’d known each other for years.

“And so, knowing that it was traditionally the mechanic’s job to assist with any spacewalks, he sabotaged the rebreather on the suit that was Jones’s size and sat back to wait for the inevitable.”

I gestured toward Everett with my plasmic. “But then you made a slip, a small one, which I didn’t catch until a comment Revs made on Palmary jogged it back to mind. We’d gone to Xathru to turn Jones’s body over to the port authorities and incidentally to pick up Ixil. While we were all out of the ship you called Ryland to report that the foul deed was done, but also told him I’d said something about bringing yet another
partner aboard to fill Jones’s slot. Ryland confirmed that you’d missed your intended target, but since his cargo had indeed been delivered on schedule it was all cool now and to just stay aboard and keep an eye on me.”

“So where was the slip?” Shawn asked. “I don’t see any slip.”

“The slip came later,” I said, watching Everett’s face. “When you came into the ship while I was talking to Ixil in the wraparound. You took one look at him and said, ‘So
this
is your partner.’ There’s no reason for you to have put it that way unless you’d already believed someone else was my partner.”

Everett’s expression didn’t change, but there was just the slightest twitch of his lip. Enough to show that, despite his protests, I’d hit the mark.

Nicabar cleared his throat. “Question. If everything was so cool, why did he try to kill Ixil on Potosi?”

“Because between Xathru and Potosi the situation suddenly stopped being cool,” I told him. “The first thing I did when we reached Potosi was to call Ryland to get the location of a dealer I could buy borandis from. By that time the swirl of Patth activity around the
Icarus
was starting to heat up, and Ryland was none too happy that one of his people—me—was at the center of all the attention.”

“Why didn’t he just tell you to jump ship?” Shawn asked.

“Because he knew I wouldn’t do it,” I said. “I’d already told him that part of my cover as a poor but honest ship’s pilot was to stick with the
Icarus
, and he knew better than to argue the point with me over a StarrComm link. Besides, he already had a plan that would preempt the whole decision.

“You’d all been told to stay aboard ship while I went to get the borandis. But Everett had orders to check in with Ryland, so he loosened Shawn’s restraints
enough that he’d be able to work his way free and escape. Then, while the rest of you were out searching, Everett headed to the StarrComm building. Maybe you even called while I was still talking to him; he was off the line a long time looking up the location of a drug dealer to steer me to.

“Anyway, Ryland told him to do two things. First, to phone in an anonymous tip to Najiki Customs that we had smuggled gemstones aboard; and second, to kill Ixil, who Everett told him was still sleeping off his burns. When customs found a dead body aboard and locked the
Icarus
down for investigation, Ryland reasoned, I would be out by default.

“Unfortunately for all his cleverness, everything went wrong from that point on. Cameron caught Everett preparing to kill Ixil, clobbered him, and put the chemical vials inside Ixil’s room where Everett couldn’t easily get at them again.”

I looked at Tera. “Do you remember, Tera, when you cut into my phone conversation with Everett to tell us you’d found Shawn? Do you remember how he sounded?”

“He did seem a little odd,” she said, her forehead wrinkled with thought. “A little blurry, as I recall.”

“He was a lot blurry, actually,” I said. “At the time, I assumed it was because Shawn had hit him during his escape. Now, I know it was because he hadn’t yet recovered from your father’s one-two punch.”

“Dad keeps in pretty good shape,” Tera said. “I’ll bet he still can pack a wallop.”

“Especially when properly inspired,” I agreed. “I’ll have to look up your throw-boxing record, Everett, and see if you had a history of easy knockouts or whether Cameron was just lucky. At any rate, when Everett came to, he knew he wouldn’t have time to come up with a Plan B before the Najik arrived, so he hightailed it off the ship, remembering to lock the
hatchway behind him the way it had been when you’d all scattered to look for Shawn.

“Sure enough, the Najik arrived in force and prepared to open the ship the hard way. And there Everett’s second stroke of bad luck came in: Chort returned to the ship about the same time and decided they shouldn’t go in without the captain being there. So he blocked their path; and
no
one in the Spiral goes out of their way to irritate Crooea. The Najik were probably in the process of discussing protocol with their HQ when the third and final bit of bad luck arrived.”

“You?” Nicabar suggested.

“Me,” I confirmed. “Ryland knew how far across the city he had sent me for the borandis, and figured the whole thing would be over and done with long before I could make it back. What he didn’t know was that the sky was going to open up and rain small mammals, and that as a result I would hire a cab instead of using the more anonymous public transports the way his employees are supposed to. At any rate, I got back in time to bluff the Najik out of a real search, and we were off again.”

“An amazing bit of deduction,” Everett commented, shaking his head in feigned wonderment. Apparently, he still wasn’t ready to give it up. “Seriously flawed, of course, but still interesting to listen to. Tell me this, then, Mr. Detective: If I was so determined to get you or Ixil, why did I risk my life to help get you away from the Patth on Palmary? To the point of even getting shot, as you may recall?”

“Oh, I recall, all right,” I said with a nod. “And the reason is simple, even if the rest of the details are a little murky. You didn’t hurt Ixil or me because by then you knew just how valuable the
Icarus
really was and that Ryland would definitely want to get hold of it himself. You needed a pilot to get off the planet; hence, the selfless volunteer work.”

With my free hand I gestured to Nicabar. “Revs,
however, was a different and more serious matter entirely. You needed a pilot and an engine specialist to fly the
Icarus;
but with Ixil and Revs both around, you had
two
engine specialists. Under other circumstances you probably would have been happy to have the duplication; but sometime in the preparation for my rescue Revs must have let it slip that he was an ex-EarthGuard Marine. That was great for getting me out, but not so great when you looked further down the line.

“And so, when Ixil left you in the main club room as rear guard, you propped up one of the dead Iykams in a likely position behind some of the tables, picked out a spot nearby, and then shot yourself in the leg.”

“He shot
himself
?” Chort whistled. “But why?”

“Two reasons,” I said. “First, because he needed an excuse for why he was out of sight when Revs and Ixil brought me in from the back room. Remember, he had to shoot at Revs from concealment near where he’d set up the dead Iykam, then move a couple of tables away from there and shoot the corpse in the back if it was to look plausible. The only possible reason he could have for lying down on the job was if he’d been shot.”

I shrugged. “As it happened, he wasn’t as good or as lucky as he’d hoped, and was only able to wound Revs instead of killing him. Still, for putting him more or less out of action it was good enough.”

I was looking directly at Everett as I spoke; and so it was that I caught the flicker of relief that crossed his face just before the quiet and all-too-familiar voice came from the archway behind me. “Very clever, Jordan,” the voice said. “Very clever indeed.”

I took a deep breath as the rest of the people around the table once again became stunned marble statues. “And the second reason he shot himself,” I added, letting the breath out in a resigned sigh, “was that he wanted an excuse to stay aboard the
Icarus
after the
rest of us came up here to the lodge. That StarrComm call he’d made, you see, wasn’t to any doctor friend.”

With my free hand, not turning or even looking around, I gestured to the archway behind me. “May I introduce you all to Johnston Scotto Ryland.”

“I’m impressed, Jordan, really I am,” Brother John said, his voice accompanied by the sound of measured footsteps coming toward me across the wooden floor. “So that’s why you were sitting on the portico all afternoon, was it? Waiting to see if I’d show up?”

“Not really,” I told him. “No—don’t try it,” I added, shifting my aim toward Nicabar as he began to ease one hand toward the edge of the table.

“Yes, do listen to the man,” Brother John agreed. “At least, if you want to live. You can put your gun down, too, Jordan, there’s a good boy. So you didn’t expect me to show up?”

“Not while I was watching, no,” I said, laying my plasmic on the table and only then half turning to look around behind me. Brother John was standing in the archway, beaming with apparent ease in our direction, as six of the biggest and meanest-looking thugs I’d ever seen strode purposefully toward us. Their faces were without a doubt those of casual killers; the large black guns they were pointing at us made my plasmic look
like a toy in comparison. “I assumed Everett was watching the cliffs behind the lodge, waiting for you to arrive.”

“Don’t be absurd,” Brother John said. His voice was still cheerful, but there was a sudden undercurrent of menace beneath it. “You don’t really think I’d have let you get here ahead of us, do you? We’ve been waiting in the back wing of the lodge for almost a day now. No, I think you were waiting for Everett to get tired of his vigil and come inside.”

“What exactly is going on here?” Tera asked, her voice trying hard to be calm but not entirely succeeding.

“I should think that was obvious,” Brother John said, his gaze still on me. “We’re taking the
Icarus
and its alien stardrive off your hands.”

“I’m afraid I hadn’t gotten to that part yet,” I said apologetically, turning back to the table. The bodyguards had reached us now, and as four of them stood watch the other two hauled Ixil and Chort to their feet and began a quick but thorough frisking. “Everett was told to lure us here with the promise of a safe haven. Mr. Ryland and his people were, we know now, waiting in hiding here in the comfort of the lodge. As soon as the rest of us were inside out of the way, the plan was to sneak out to the ship and take off, leaving us stranded.”

The thugs found no weapons on Ixil or Chort, pushed them back down into their chairs, and moved on to Tera and Shawn. “I’m surprised they didn’t just line us up and shoot us,” Tera bit out, glaring ice-shredders at Brother John and ignoring as best she could the hands moving over her body.

“You underestimate Mr. Ryland,” I told her.

“Yes, indeed,” Brother John seconded. “After all, you already owe me your lives once over. It was my people on Palmary who stood guard over the spaceport
during your mad rush off the planet. As well as in the control tower, I might add.”

“I wondered why we got away so easily,” Nicabar murmured. “The least the Patth should have done was lock down all departures.”

“They tried,” Brother John said, beaming some more. “Indeed they did. The pressure was applied, and the governmental authorities had given the orders. Somehow, though, the controllers were able to see through to a better and more enlightened reasoning.”

“We do owe him that,” I agreed. “But when I said you’d underestimated him, Tera, I was referring to something else entirely. Mr. Ryland would never think of killing us here. Not when he can make a little extra money by turning us over to the Patth.”

Tera stared at me, her mouth dropping open. “Are you saying—?” She looked back at Brother John. “You
are
a slime.”

“I’d warn your lady friend to be quiet, Jordan,” Brother John said, a mid-November chill in his voice. “Particularly since the value of your lives has decreased markedly in the past three minutes.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Nicabar asked calmly. The thugs had relieved Tera of her pepperbox shotgun pistol; and now it was Nicabar’s and my turn.

“He means he wasn’t planning to sell us to the Patth just to pick up a little spare change,” I explained, wincing as the searching hands ran afoul of my assortment of sore muscles and joints. “It was mainly to buy him more time to get the
Icarus
out of here and bury it somewhere. Since none of us would know what had happened to the ship, the Patth could interrogate us until June without learning anything that would do them any good.”

“Nice guys,” Shawn muttered, shying back as one of the thugs sent him a warning look.

“You know, Jordan, I do believe I’ve been guilty of underestimating you,” Brother John said as one of the
searchers found Nicabar’s Kochran-Uzi and tucked it away. “No, no, don’t sit,” he added as they started to push the two of us back into our seats. “You and your alien partner are coming with me. You realize you never told me he was an alien?”

“Yes, I know,” I said. “Which was why Everett was able to mistake Jones for my partner in the first place. You hadn’t told him Ixil was an alien because at the time you didn’t know it yourself.”

“I hate aliens,” Brother John said conversationally. “Almost as much as I hate alien-lovers. Everett, you might as well come with us, too. The rest of you will stay here while we decide what to do with you.”

“You might want the girl, too, Mr. Ryland,” Everett said, gesturing toward Tera as he got to his feet. “McKell says she’s Arno Cameron’s daughter.”