Part 30 (2/2)

It sounded like Pax.

I had my plasmic in my hand before I'd taken two steps toward the small sphere.

Pure reflex on my part, of course-Lord knew I had no idea what I was going to do with it. I certainly couldn't shoot or even threaten to shoot whoever or whatever I found in there. Not if I ever wanted to find out what the h.e.l.l was going on here.

I did the last three meters to the access hole in a low crouch, listening as hard as I could with the noise of my heart thudding in my ears. I could hear faint ferret snufflings now from inside; more to the immediate point, I could also hear the subtle sounds of something else moving around in there with him.

And if I didn't dare open fire indiscriminately, there was no guarantee that whatever was in there would have any such qualms itself. Dropping flat on the deck, I inched my way the last half meter and cautiously looked in.

At first glance the interior of the small sphere seemed to be nothing at all like the setup I'd seen back on the Icarus. A second, closer look showed that at least most of the apparent difference was due to the fact that all the couple of meters' worth of loose wiring I'd waded through in the Icarus's sphere was here neatly packed against the inner surface, held in place by a tighter version of the netting I'd had to maneuver through there. The same type of displays were scattered around various spots on the netting, their multicolored lights providing the glow I'd seen out in the larger sphere. The black-and-silver-striped arm I'd played alien water slide with was also there, stretching its slightly angled way from the mesh to the center.

In some ways having all the wiring squeezed together this way made it look even more tangled than it had when it was spread out over a larger volume. It certainly made the whole spectacle more colorful, which was probably why it took me another couple of seconds before I noticed the movement a little way to my right. It was Pax, all right, looking hale and hearty and perfectly at home ashe strolled across the netting toward me, sniffing curiously at everything in sight.

”h.e.l.lo, McKell,” a voice called out, the unexpectedness of it making me jump.

”You certainly took your time getting here.”

I looked in the direction of the voice. A quarter of the way around the sphere, almost hidden in the glare from one of the sets of displays, a figure was sitting on the netting. Gazing up at one of the other displays, he was scribbling madly on a notepad balanced across his knee.

It was Arno Cameron.

CHAPTER 17.

IT WAS A situation that called for a brilliant comment, a witty rejoinder, or complete silence. Not feeling either brilliant or witty at the moment, I kept my mouth shut, put away my plasmic, and concentrated instead on negotiating what I.

suspected would be a fairly tricky transition between the two spheres.

It turned out not to be nearly as difficult as I'd expected. This small sphere, unlike the one I'd had to burrow my way through on the Icarus, had its gravitational field pointed toward the surface rather than the center, so that aside from a little disorientation as I crawled around the edge of the access hole there was really nothing to it.

Between the maneuvering itself and a short face-licking attack from a Kalixiri ferret clearly relieved to see someone familiar, I managed to buy myself nearly a minute of recovery time before I had to try speaking. ”So,” I said, getting carefully to my feet on the netting and looking across at Cameron. The word was supposed to sound casual and debonair, as if I did this sort of thing all the time. Instead, it came out like the croak of a teenager facing down the parents of his very first date. So much for the efficacy of all that stalling.

But Cameron merely smiled as he turned off his notepad and laid it on the netting beside him. ”I screamed and cried for half an hour after I got here,”

he said. ”If that helps your dignity any.”

”Thanks, but my dignity is expendable,” I told him. This time the words came out much better. ”Right now I'm more concerned with life, liberty, and the pursuit of greedy Patth and their vindictive buddies.”

I glanced around. ”And frankly, anything that scares Arno Cameron that much is something I really hesitate to tangle with.”

”Don't worry, it's not as bad as I first thought.” His eyebrows lifted slightly.

”So you know who I am. What else do you know?”

I shrugged. ”I know our alleged computer specialist Tera is your daughter Elaina Tera Cameron,” I said. ”Is it safe to walk on this stuff?”

”Perfectly safe,” he a.s.sured me. ”I'd avoid stepping on the displays, but everything else is as solid as the commark.”

”The wires won't break or come loose?” I asked, dubiously eyeing the multicolored tangle beneath my feet.

”I've had a lot of time to examine them,” he said. ”Trust me, they're every bitas solid as the ones on the Icarus.”

”Ah,” I said, taking a cautious step toward him. ”So in other words, all that exaggerated care I took getting through the Icarus sphere was a waste of effort?”

”If you want to look at it that way,” he said with a shrug. ”Personally, I've never found any effort to be completely wasted.”

”Sure,” I said noncommittally. The cables and conduits made little squoos.h.i.+ng sounds as I walked over them, but aside from that it all felt firm enough.

Still, there was no point in taking chances, and I kept it slow and careful.

The gravity, I estimated, was about the same .85 gee as we had in the Icarus's large sphere.

”So Elaina told you who she was,” he commented as I picked my way toward him.

”I'm a little surprised by that. I was very clear she was to keep her ident.i.ty secret.”

”It was a bit more complicated than that,” I said, pa.s.sing over the details.

”Just to save time, I also know how you smuggled the Icarus onto Meima, both in its original disa.s.sembled form and then the orbital loop you did to bring it out of hiding and over to the s.p.a.ceport. I know the Patth are becoming very insistent about getting their little paws on it.”

I looked around the sphere. ”And I used to know why they wanted it.

Apparently, I was wrong.”

Cameron exhaled noisily. ”As were we all, my boy. Tell me, do you have any idea where we are right now?”

”Inside another of your alien artifacts, obviously,” I said. ”Which means that instead of a simple little stardrive, what your people dug up was actually the Holy Grail of the Einstein-Bashermain Unified Field Theory.”

”An interesting but succinct way of putting it,” Cameron said. ”Yes, we are in fact sitting inside the physical proof that all those exotic wormhole and teleportation theories are more than just mathematical constructs. There's going to be a considerable amount of both gloating and backpedaling in the halls of academia when word of this gets out.”

”a.s.suming word of it ever does get out,” I said darkly. I had reached him now, and gave him a quick and hopefully un.o.btrusive once-over as I sat down gingerly on the ma.s.s of wiring in front of him. His face was drawn and pale, his cheeks and chin peppered with an impressive collection of beard stubble. He hadn't yet stood up; I wondered if he was perhaps too weak to do so. ”If the Patth were willing to bribe, suborn, and kill for a stardrive that might or might not compete with theirs, imagine what they would do to get hold of a real working stargate.”

”The Patth or anyone else, for that matter,” he said with a grimace. ”Which makes it all the more urgent that we get the Icarus to Earth before anyone else does find out what it is.”

I cleared my throat. ”Yes, well, I can immediately see a problem or two with that. Do you happen to have any idea how far we are from the Icarus?”

”All I know is that it's a considerable distance,” he said, gesturing toward the large sphere. ”There are a handful of small viewports out in the receiverchamber-they're un.o.btrusive, but I found the controls to open them. I've spent a good part of the past two days searching for a constellation-any constellation-that I can recognize. There's not a single one I can find, not even in distorted form.”

”And I can a.s.sume you're not just talking Earth constellations?” I asked, just for the record.

The smile this time was very brittle. ”I've been from one end of the Spiral to the other, McKell,” he said. ”I say again: Nothing was recognizable.”

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