Part 23 (1/2)

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 justpocket the money your father had left for us and stroll casually off the s.h.i.+p.

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 h.e.l.l 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 h.e.l.l 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 flus.h.i.+ng. ”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 circ.u.mstances, 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 s.h.i.+pping facility in the entire region; and that was where Cameron had chosen to jump s.h.i.+p? ”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 s.h.i.+p 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 semia.s.sumed ident.i.ty.”

Tera looked back and forth between us, a wary look on her face. ”Why should I tell either of you anything?” she demanded. ”You've already admitted your souls are owned by a crime boss. Why should I trust you?”

”Because you have to trust someone,” I told her, putting on my quietly earnestface and gunning it for all it was worth. ”And as far as this s.h.i.+p and crew are concerned, we're it. Did you know the Patth are hunting for us?”

She swallowed. ”Yes. There were hints even before we left Meima, and Dad heard you talking about it in your cabin.”

”All right,” I said. ”Then remember back to Potosi, where one of our fellow crewers called in a tip that nearly got us impounded by the Najiki Customs agents.”

”How do you know it was one of us?” she asked.

”Because no one except the seven of us knew we were running under the name Sleeping Beauty at the time,” I said. ”If I hadn't gotten us out of that when I.

did, the Icarus would inevitably have wound up in Patth hands. That ought to prove I'm on your side.”

”And which is my side?”

”The side of getting the Icarus and its cargo to Earth intact,” I told her. ”I could have turned you in on Dorscind's World, too. In fact, I risked getting shot in order not to.”

I waved a hand at Ixil. ”And as for Ixil here, someone aboard-and I presume it's all the same person-is apparently trying to scare him off the s.h.i.+p. While the rest of you were out searching for Shawn on Potosi, he left the makings for poison gas inside the door of Ixil's cabin. And then, for good measure, smashed the release pad to keep everyone else out.”

Tera stared at me. ”No. I don't believe it.”

I shrugged. ”You can ask Everett. He was there when we found the stuff.”

”The point is that someone's been operating behind the scenes,” Ixil said.

”But apparently, so have you and your father, for whatever reasons of your own.”

”And the only way we're going to figure out who this other person is,” I concluded, ”is for you to tell us which were Cameron and Daughter Productions and which weren't.” No doubt about it, I decided, Ixil and I could be dazzling in our logic when we wanted to be. ”So: back to the beginning. How did you end up aboard the Icarus?”

If Tera was dazzled, she was hiding it well. But if she wasn't totally convinced, she was nevertheless convinced enough. ”Dad was funding an archaeological dig on Meima,” she said, pulling off the blanket and swinging her legs over the side of the bunk. She was fully dressed, I noted, the sort of thing that someone who's expecting trouble automatically does. She hadn't needed our arguments to know there was trouble aboard. ”About three months ago they sent word that they'd found something big, something that could conceivably change the course of history.”

”Archaeologists do get a bit dramatic sometimes,” I murmured. ”Especially at funding time.”

”In this instance they may have understated the case,” Tera said, dropping onto the deck and sitting down on the middle bunk. ”Dad heard their description, and decided we needed to get it back to Earth as quickly and secretly as possible.

It took him a month to make the necessary preparations, after which he flew a tech team in with the Icarus packed in pieces in s.h.i.+pping crates. They a.s.sembled the s.h.i.+p underground, the only place they could do it where they wouldn't be seen. A week ago Dad and I flew into Meima ourselves to oversee the finalstages. He came in on his private s.h.i.+p, the Mensana, while I took a commercial liner under a false ID.”

”Why?” Ixil asked. ”Why did you come in by liner, I mean?”

”I was the ace up his sleeve,” she said, a tight smile touching her lips briefly before vanis.h.i.+ng again. ”Or so he said. None of the others were to know I was there-as he pointed out, you can't leak information you don't have. My job was to keep an eye on the Ihmisit authorities and try to get us a heads up if anyone started showing undue interest in our activities.”

”Having a stars.h.i.+p suddenly appear out in the middle of nowhere would probably do that,” I said.

”It wasn't supposed to happen that way,” Tera said, glaring at me. ”Give us a little credit. Dad had another team building a copy of the Icarus at one of his heavy construction plants on Rachna. The idea was for the copy to fly in, creating a nice official presence and data trail along the way, and get all legally inspected at the Meima port. Then it would fly out to the dig, we'd make a switch, and fly the original out. By the time anyone stumbled across the copy hidden in the cavern, we figured we'd be on Earth.”

”What went wrong?” Ixil asked.

Tera grimaced. ”Two of those b.u.mpy aliens that s.l.u.t Jennifer was trying to wake up at the Morsh Pon taverno sneaked into the dig somehow,” she said bitterly.

”They got Dr. Chou before they could be stopped. It was horrible-I wasn't there, but Dad said their weapons burned him alive.”

”Yes, I've seen them in action,” I said, feeling my own stomach turning with the memory. ”It is definitely not pretty.”