by Timothy Zahn
But there was nothing for it now but to continue on. I’d made my bed, as the saying went, and now all I could do was make myself as comfortable in it as I could.
Unfortunately, for the moment comfort of any sort was out of the question. I’d suffered through yet another conversation with Brother John; and now I had to do what I’d been postponing for at least three worlds now.
It was time for a nice long chat with Uncle Arthur.
The call screener on Uncle Arthur’s vid was female, cheerful, and if not actually beautiful, definitely edging in that direction. Following on the heels of Brother John’s surly male screener with the plastic-surgeon-baiting face, it was a contrast that seemed all the vaster for the comparison.
Until, that is, you looked closely into her eyes. For all her attractiveness, for all her easy smile and aura of friendliness, there was something cool and measuring and even ruthless that could be seen in those eyes. Given the proper circumstances, I had long suspected, she would be able to kill as quickly and efficiently as any of the ice-hearted thugs in Brother John’s household.
But then, that was to be expected. She did, after all, work for Uncle Arthur.
“It’s Jordan, Shannon,” I greeted her, pushing such thoughts out of my mind as best I could. I had to prepare to talk to Uncle Arthur; and anyway, despite the eyes, she was really quite good-looking. “Is he available?”
“Hello, Jordan,” she said, her smile tightening just a bit. Unlike Brother John’s screener, she took my altered face in stride without blinking an eye. “I’ll see.”
A superfluous comment, of course; she would have signaled Uncle Arthur as soon as she recognized me. And if the tightening smile was any indication, I suspected Uncle Arthur was either sufficiently interested or sufficiently annoyed with me to take the call immediately.
I was right. Even as she turned toward her control board her face abruptly vanished from the screen and was replaced by one considerably less photogenic. An age-lined face, framed by a thatch of elegant gray hair and an equally elegant gray goatee with an unexpected streak of black down the middle, and topped off with a pair of pale blue eyes peering unwinkingly at me across the top of a set of reading glasses.
It was Uncle Arthur.
Judging from past experience, I fully expected him to get in the first word. I wasn’t disappointed. “I presume, Jordan,” he said in a rumbling voice that somehow went perfectly with the beard and glasses, “that you have some good explanation for all this.”
“I have an explanation, sir,” I said. “I don’t know whether you’ll think it good or not.”
For a moment he glared at me, and I could see his face tilting fractionally back and forth. The glasses, I’d long since decided, were about two-thirds necessity for an inoperable eye condition and one-third affectation, with the added benefit of giving him something he could use to subtly throw distracting flickers of light into people’s eyes while he was talking to them. That was what he was doing now, though through a vid screen it was a complete waste of his time. Probably pure subconscious habit.
He finished his glaring and leaned back a bit in his chair. “I’m listening,” he invited.
“I ran into Arno Cameron in a taverno on Meima,” I told him. He would be wanting details—Uncle Arthur always wanted details—but there was no time for me to go into them now. “He was in a jam, with a ship to fly to Earth and no crew. He asked if I would pilot it, and I agreed.”
“You just happened to run into him, did you?” Uncle Arthur rumbled ominously. “Did I somehow forget to mention that you weren’t supposed to do anything but watch him?”
“He was the one who accosted me, not the other way around,” I said. “I didn’t think challenging him to a duel for such an impertinence would be a proper response.”
He turned the shrivel power of his glare up a couple of notches, but I’d just faced down Brother John, and Uncle Arthur’s glares didn’t seem nearly as potent in comparison. “We’ll leave that aside for the moment,” he said. “Have you any idea of the furor you and that ship are causing at the moment?”
Almost the same question, and in very nearly the same tone, that Brother John had asked. “Not really,” I said. “All I know for sure is that there are agents of the Patth spreading hundred-commark bills through the Spiral’s sewers, with an extra five thousand for the one who fingers me for them.”
“Five thousand commarks, did you say?” Uncle Arthur asked, cocking an eyebrow.
“That’s what I was told a few hours ago on Dorscind’s World,” I said carefully. Uncle Arthur had a latent dramatic streak in him, which generally surfaced at the worst times. The fact that he had now slipped into that mode was a bad sign. “Have they upped the ante since then?”
“Considerably.” He picked up a sheet of paper, holding it up to the camera as if to prove he wasn’t just making it all up. “The Patth Director General has personally been in contact with at least fifteen different governments along your projected route in the past twelve hours,” he read from it in the precise, clipped tone he always used when delivering bad news. “They have been informed that a ship called the Icarus, with a human male named Jordan McKell in command, is to be detained immediately upon identification. It is then to be held until a representative of the Director General arrives, at which point it is to be turned over to him.”
I felt a shiver run up my back. “Or else?”
“Or else,” he added, in that same clipped tone, “the Patth will impose mercantile sanctions on the offending governments, the severity of the sanctions to be determined by the offending government’s perceived complicity in the Icarus’s escape. Up to and including a complete embargo against that species’ cargoes.”
He laid the paper back down again. “As you say, the ante has been upped,” he said quietly. “What in God’s name did Cameron’s people dig up out there, Jordan?”
“I don’t know, sir,” I said, just as quietly. “But whatever it is, it’s sitting in the Icarus’s cargo hold.”
Dramatically, it was the moment for a long, heavy silence. But Uncle Arthur’s dramatic impulses didn’t extend to wasting time. “Then you’d best find a way to learn what it is, hadn’t you?” he said.
“Actually, I think I already have,” I said. “Found a way, that is. Can you get hold of a personnel list from that archaeological dig?”
“I have it right here,” he said. “Why?”
“Because I suspect one of them is aboard the Icarus,” I told him. “Masquerading as a member of the crew.”
The beard twitched slightly. “I think that very unlikely,” he said, “since all of them are currently in custody on Meima.”
I felt like the floor had just been pulled out from under me. “All of them? You’re sure?”
“Quite sure,” he said, holding up another sheet. “Everyone involved was picked up in that one single night, even the crew of the private ship Cameron flew in on a few days before this all started. Cameron himself is the only one still at large, and the Meima authorities say it’s only a matter of time before they run him to ground. They think they spotted him at a Vyssiluyan taverno last night, in fact, but he gave them the slip.”
“Wait a minute,” I said, frowning. “If they’ve already got the whole team, why don’t they know what the cargo is? For that matter, why don’t they have an accurate description of the ship? And they don’t, because otherwise the fake IDs Ixil and I keep churning out sure wouldn’t fool them.”
“Good—you’re using fake IDs,” Uncle Arthur said. “I’d hoped you were being at least that clever.”
“Yes, but why are they working?” I persisted, passing over the question of whether or not there was an insult buried in there. “I trust you’re not going to tell me that a bunch of plunder artists like the Patth are squeamish about the classic forms of information gathering, are you?”
“In point of fact, the archaeologists are still in Ihmis hands,” Uncle Arthur said. “The Patth are trying to ge
t them, but so far the Ihmisits are resisting the pressure.” He grimaced. “But at this point it hardly matters who has them. Cameron took the precaution of having hypnotic blocks put on everyone’s memory of certain aspects of the operation. Including, naturally, the Icarus’s description and details of its cargo.”
I nodded. Obvious, of course, once it was pointed out. Not especially ethical, and probably illegal on Meima to boot, but it was exactly the sort of thing Cameron would have done. “And without the release key, all they can do is batter at the blocks and hope they crack.”
“Which I’m sure they’re already doing,” Uncle Arthur said darkly. “Not a pleasant thing to dwell on; but the point is that the maneuver has bought you some time.”
“Yes, sir.” So much for my embryonic theory that it was one of Cameron’s people who had been trying so hard to keep us out of the Icarus’s cargo hold. “Unfortunately, it’s also bought someone else some time, too.”
“Explain.”
I gave him a quick summary of the jinx that had been dogging us ever since leaving Meima. Or since before our exit, actually, if you counted Cameron’s failure to make it to the ship. “The incident with Chort and Jones might conceivably have been an accident,” I concluded. “But not the cutting torch or the lad skulking between hulls with the handy eavesdroppers’ kit. Having the Patth on our tail would have been plenty; but having this added in is way too much of a good thing.”
“Indeed,” Uncle Arthur said thoughtfully. “You have a theory, of course?”
“I have one,” I said. “But I don’t think you’re going to like it. You said the Ihmisits thought they spotted Cameron on Meima yesterday. How certain are they of that?”
“As certain as any of these things ever are,” he said, his eyes narrowing. “Which is to say, not very. Why, do you think you know where Cameron is?”
“Yes, sir,” I said. “I think there’s a good chance he’s dead.”
There was another twitch of the beard. I was right; he didn’t like it at all. “Explain.”
“It’s clear that someone doesn’t want us getting a look at the cargo,” I said. “I thought that that someone must be one of the archaeologists, but you’ve now told me that’s impossible. So it’s someone else. Someone who does know what’s in there, and who furthermore has decided that having sole proprietorship of that knowledge will be valuable to him.”
“It couldn’t be Cameron himself?”
“I don’t see how,” I said, shaking my head. “When I first arrived at the Icarus there was a time lock on the hatch, which didn’t release until after most of the crew had already assembled. I examined the lock later, and it had definitely been set the previous afternoon, well before the Ihmisits threw everyone out of the spaceport and locked it down for the night. There was no way for Cameron to have gotten aboard before the gates opened again, and he certainly didn’t get on after we were there.”
“And you think that was because he was already dead?”
“Yes,” I said. “One of the people he hired to crew the Icarus either knew something about it already or was sufficiently intrigued to take Cameron into a dark alley somewhere and find out exactly what was aboard.”
“That would have taken some severe persuasion,” Uncle Arthur murmured.
“Which is why I suspect he’s dead,” I said. “An interrogation that would have gotten him to talk would have left him either dead or incapacitated or drug-comatose. In either of the latter two cases, the Ihmisits or Patth would certainly have found him by now. In the first case …” I didn’t bother to finish.
“You may be right,” Uncle Arthur said heavily. “You will identify this person, of course.”
“I certainly intend to try,” I said. “It would help if I had some more information on this crew I’ve been saddled with.”
“Undoubtedly. Their names?”
“Almont Nicabar, drive specialist, onetime EarthGuard Marine. Geoff Shawn, electronics. Has Cole’s disease and a resulting borandis addiction. Any chance you can get some borandis to me, by the way?”
“Possibly. Next?”
“Hayden Everett, medic. Former professional throw-boxer twenty-odd years ago, though I don’t know if it was under his own name or not. Chort, Craea, spacewalker. Nothing else known.”
“With a Craea almost nothing else needs to be known,” Uncle Arthur put in.
“Possibly,” I said. “I’d like him checked out anyway. And finally Tera, last name unknown. She may be a member of one of those religious sects who don’t give their full names to strangers, but I haven’t yet seen her do anything particularly religious.”
“The practice of one’s beliefs is not always blatant and obvious,” Uncle Arthur reminded me. “A quiet look into her cabin for religious paraphernalia at some point might be enlightening.”
“I intend to take a quiet look into all their cabins when I get the chance,” I assured him. “Now: descriptions …”
I ran through everyone’s physical description as quickly as I could, knowing that it was all being recorded. “How fast can you get this to me?” I asked when I was finished.
“It will take a few hours,” he said. “Where are you now?”
“Potosi, but I have no intention of staying here any longer than I have to,” I told him. “I don’t know where we’ll be heading next. Someplace quiet and peaceful and anonymous would be a nice change of pace.”
“You may have to settle for anonymous,” he said, his eyes shifting to the side and his shoulders shifting with the subtle movements of someone typing on a keyboard. “Is there anything else?”
“Actually, yes,” I said. “We also seem to have a new group of players in the game.” I described the incident with the Lumpy Brothers on Xathru, and the coronal-discharge weapons they’d been carrying. “Have you heard of either this species or the weapons?” I asked when I finished.
“A qualified yes to both,” he said, his eyes still busy off camera. “You may recall hearing rumors about a failed covert operation a few years ago in which an elite EarthGuard task force tried to steal data on the Talariac Drive. Weapons very similar to those you describe were used against them, by guards who also match your description.”
I sighed. “Which makes the Lumpy Clan some kind of Patth client race.”
“Very likely,” he agreed. “Don’t sound so surprised. Certainly their first efforts to find the Icarus would be made quietly, through their own people and agents. It was only after that failed that they began to approach first the Spiral’s criminals and now legitimate governments.”
I thought about the three Patth Cameron and I had seen in that Meima taverno. So that was why they’d ventured out of their usual restricted hideouts. “Still, it strikes me that they gave up on the quiet approach rather quickly,” I pointed out. “Could my smoking the Lumpy Brothers really have rattled them that badly?”
“I doubt it,” he said soberly. “More likely it was a matter of new information as to what exactly the prize was they were chasing.”
And that knowledge had instantly pushed them into an open and increasingly public hunt. Terrific. “This place you’re finding for us better be real anonymous,” I told him.
“I believe I can make it so,” he said. “Can you make Morsh Pon from there in one jump?”
I felt my eyes narrow. “Assuming we can get off Potosi, yes,” I said cautiously, wondering if he was really going where I thought he was on this.
He was. “Good,” he said briskly. “The Blue District on Morsh Pon, then, at the Baker’s Dozen taverno. I’ll have the information delivered to you there.”
“Ah … yes, sir,” I said. Morsh Pon was an Ulko colony world, and the Ulkomaals, like the Najik, had a reputation for great talent at creating wealth. Unlike the Najik, however, the Ulkomaals relied heavily on the hospitality industry to make their money, specifically hospitality toward the less virtuous members of civilized society at large. Morsh Pon was a quiet refuge for smugglers and other criminal ty
pes, far worse than even Dorscind’s World, with the Blue District the worst area on the planet.
Which under normal circumstances, given my connection with Brother John and the Antoniewicz organization, would have made it an ideal place to go to ground. Unfortunately, the current circumstances were far from normal. “I trust you remember, sir,” I said diplomatically, “that the Patth have invited the entire Spiral underworld out for a drink?”
“I remember quite well,” he said calmly. “It will be taken care of. Now, I suspect time is growing short. You’d best get moving.”
It was, clearly, a dismissal. I didn’t particularly feel like being dismissed yet—there were still several aspects of this whole arrangement I felt like arguing some more. But when Uncle Arthur said good-bye, he meant good-bye. Besides, he was right; time was indeed growing short. “Yes, sir,” I said, suppressing a sigh. “I’ll be in touch.”
“Do that,” he said. The screen blanked, and he was gone.
I collected my change and left the booth. Once again, I half expected one of Brother John’s assassins to jump me in the corridor; once again, it didn’t happen. I snagged a city map from a rack by the main exit doors, located the street intersection called Gystr’n Corner, and headed outside.
The rain that had been threatening earlier was starting to come down now, a scattering of large fat drops that almost seemed to bounce as they hit the ground. I had already decided that Gystr’n Corner was too far to walk, and now with the rain beginning I further decided not to wait for the public rail system. Brother John wouldn’t like that; his standard orders were for us to take public transportation whenever possible, the better to avoid official backtracks. But then, Brother John wasn’t here getting wet. Hailing a cab, I gave the driver my destination, told him there would be an extra hundred commarks for him if he got me there fast, and all but fell back into the spring-bare seat as he took off like an attack shuttle on wheels.
With the way I’d been spending money like water lately, first with full-vid starconnects and now on cabs, it was just as well I’d relieved that Patth agent on Dorscind’s World of all those hundred-commark bills that had been weighing him down. Now, watching the city, startled vehicle drivers, and outraged pedestrians blurring along past my windows, it occurred to me that perhaps some extra travel-health insurance might have been a good idea, too. My map’s key estimated it to be twenty-three minutes from the StarrComm building to Gystr’n Corner. My driver made it in just over fifteen, probably a new land-speed record for the city, possibly for the entire planet.