Part 4 (1/2)

It was signed ”Alexander Borodin.”

My first thought was that Cameron really needed to cut back on those melodramas and star-thrillers he was watching in the evenings after work. My second was that this was one h.e.l.l of a hot potato for him to have dropped into my lap on no notice whatsoever.

”McKell?” a female voice called from behind me.

I turned to see Tera making her way uphill into the bridge. ”Yes, what is it?”

”I wanted to check out the bridge,” she said, glancing around the room. ”I was kind of hoping the main computer might be stashed in here.”

I frowned. ”What are you talking about? Isn't it back in the computer room?”

”Yes, I guess it is,” she said with a grimace. ”I was hoping that piece of junk was the backup.”

Those cold ferret feet started their wind sprints up my back again. The computer was very literally the nerve center of the entire s.h.i.+p. ”Just how bad a piece of junk is it?” I asked carefully.

”Noah had a better one on the ark,” she said flatly. ”It's an old Worthram T- No decision-a.s.sist capabilities, no vocal interface, no nanosecond monitoring.

Programming like I haven't seen since high school, no autonomic functions or emergency command capabilities-shall I go on?”

”No, I get the picture,” I said heavily. Compared to normal stars.h.i.+p operation, we were starting out half-blind, half-deaf, and slightly muddled-rather like a stroke victim, actually. No wonder Cameron had decided to jump s.h.i.+p. ”Can you handle it?”

She lifted her hands. ”Like I said, it's an echo from a distant past, but Ishould be able to work it okay. It may take me a while to remember all the tricks.” She nodded toward the letter in my hand. ”What's that?”

”A note from the camp counselor,” I told her, handing it over. ”You were right; it seems we're going on this hike by ourselves.”

She read it, her frown turning to a scowl as she did so. ”Well, this is awkward, I must say,” she said, handing it back. ”He must have left this last night, before the s.p.a.ceport closed.”

”Unless he managed to get in and out this morning,” I suggested.

”Well, if he did, he must have been really traveling,” she growled. ”I know I got here about as fast as I could. So what do we do now?”

”We take the Icarus to Earth, of course,” I told her. ”That's what we agreed to.

Unless you have a date or something.”

”Don't be cute,” she growled. ”What about our advance pay? He promised me a thousand commarks up front.”

”It's all here,” I a.s.sured her, patting the cash box. ”As soon as I get the preflight started I'll go pa.s.s it out and let the rest know about the change in plans.”

Her eyes lingered momentarily on the box, then s.h.i.+fted back to me. ”You think they'll all stay?”

”I don't see why not,” I said. ”As far as I'm concerned, as long as I get paid, a job's a job. I'm not expecting any of the others to feel differently.”

”Does that mean you're officially taking command of the s.h.i.+p and crew?”

I shrugged. ”That's how the Mercantile Code lays it out. Command succession goes owner, employer, master, pilot. I'm the pilot.”

”Yes, I know,” she said. ”I was just making sure. For the record.”

”For the record, I hereby a.s.sume command of the Icarus,” I said in my most official voice. ”Satisfied?”

”Ecstatic,” she said with just a trace of sarcasm.

”Good,” I said. ”Go on back to your station and start beating that T-66 into submission. I'll be along in a few minutes with your money.”

She glanced at the cash box one last time, then nodded and left the bridge.

I set the box and papers on my lap and got to work on the preflight, trying to ignore the hard knot that had settled into my stomach. Cameron's note might have been overly dramatic, but it merely confirmed what I'd suspected ever since he'd invited himself over to my taverno table and offered me a job.

Somewhere out in the Meima wasteland, that archaeological team had stumbled onto something. Something big; something-if Cameron's rhetoric was even halfway to be believed-of serious importance.

And that same something was sitting forty meters behind me, sealed up inside the Icarus's cargo hold.

I just wished I knew what the h.e.l.l it was.

CHAPTER 3.

EVEN WITH THE clearance codes and papers Cameron had left with his note, I was fully expecting there to be trouble getting the Icarus off the ground. To mymild and cautiously disbelieving surprise, there wasn't. The tower gave us permission to lift, the landing-pad repulsor boost got us up off the ground and into range of the perimeter grav beams, and a few minutes later we were hauling for s.p.a.ce under our own power.

After Tera's revelation about the archaic computer system we'd been saddled with, I had been wondering just what kind of shape the drive would be in. But there, too, my pessimism turned out to be unnecessary, or at least premature.

The thrusters roared solidly away, driving us steadily through the atmosphere toward the edge of Meima's gravity well, and with each of my periodic calls back to the engine room Nicabar a.s.sured me all was going just fine.

It wouldn't last, though. I knew it wouldn't last; and as the capacitors in the nose cone discharged into the cutter array and sliced us a link hole into hypers.p.a.ce, I warned myself that things were unlikely to continue running this smoothly. Somewhere along the way, we were going to run into some serious trouble.

Six hours out from Meima, we hit our first batch of it.

My first warning was a sudden, distant-sounding screech sifting into the bridge, sounding rather like a banshee a couple of towns over. I slapped the big red KILL b.u.t.ton, throwing a quick look at the monitors as I did so, and with another crack from the capacitors we were back in s.p.a.ce-normal.

”McKell?” Nicabar's voice came from the intercom. ”You just drop us out?”

”Yes,” I confirmed. ”I think we've got a pressure crack. You reading any atmosphere loss?”

”Nothing showing on my board,” he said. ”Inner hull must still be solid. I didn't hear the screech, either-must be somewhere at your end of the s.h.i.+p.”

”Probably,” I agreed. ”I'll roust Chort and have him take a look.”

I called the EVA room, found that Chort was already suiting up, and headed aft.

One of the most annoying problems of hypers.p.a.ce travel was what the experts called parasynbaric force, what we nonexperts called simply hypers.p.a.ce pressure.

s.h.i.+ps traveling through hypers.p.a.ce were squeezed the whole way, the pressure level related through a complicated formula to the s.h.i.+p's ma.s.s, speed, and overall surface area. The earliest experimental hypers.p.a.ce craft had usually wound up flattened, and even now chances were good that a s.h.i.+p of any decent size would have to drop out at least once a trip to have its hull specialist take a look and possibly do some running repairs.

Considering what I'd seen of the Icarus's hull back on the ground, I was frankly surprised we'd made it as far as we had.

Tera and Everett were standing in the corridor outside the EVA room when I arrived, watching Jones help a vacsuited Chort run a final check on his equipment. ”Well, that didn't take long,” Tera commented. ”Any idea where the problem is?”