For a long second Lumpy One seemed at a loss for words. Then his crack of amouth cracked a little wider in what I decided was probably his version of aslysmile. "Clever," he said. "But not clever enough. You are Jordan McKell, youcame here from Meima, and you have a highly valuable cargo aboard your ship.
We want it."
"Jordan who?" I asked. "Sorry, boys, but you missed completely on this one. Myname's Ivo Khachnin, I'm flying a ship called the Singing Buffalo, and I'mcarrying fifty cases of farm-equipment parts. Here—I can prove it." I reacheda hand into my jacket—
"Stop!" Lumpy One barked, leaping forward with knife held ready. "I'll getit."
"Sure, pal," I said, managing to sound both startled and bewildered by hisviolent reaction. In point of fact, I'd been counting on it. "Fine. Helpyourself."
He approached at a cautious angle, staying out of his partner's line of fire, which at least proved he hadn't picked up his street-mugging technique solelyfrom watching Grade-B star-thrillers. Carefully, he set the point of his wristknife against my throat and reached into my inside jacket pocket. The probingfingers located my ID folder and pulled it out, holding it cautiously by acorner as if expecting it to be booby-trapped.
And as it came free from my jacket, the bills I'd slipped carelessly inside inthe StarrComm booth slid out and fluttered colorfully to the ground.
It was a small distraction, but it was all I needed. As their eyes flickedinvoluntarily to the floating commarks, I jerked my head back and around, movingit out of contact with Lumpy One's knife, simultaneously snapping up my lefthand to catch his wrist behind the knife strap. Pushing his arm high, I duckedunder it and spun 180 degrees around, ending up standing behind him with hisknife arm between us, bent upward toward his neck at what I very much hopedwas a painful angle.
"Release him!" Lumpy Two spat. He was holding my plasmic straight out at menow, clutched in a two-handed grip, his whole body trembling.
"Make me," I grunted, looping my right arm around Lumpy One's throat andpullinghim hard back against me. If I'd guessed wrong about this—if he did not infact have a backup weapon—I was now officially in serious trouble.
But he did. There it was, a hard flat object pressing against my abdomen as Iheld him to me. Cranking his arm up another couple of centimeters, eliciting agasped phrase that was probably an unfavorable comment on my parentage, Itwisted the knife tip down and jabbed it into the fabric of his tunic. Withthe jammed knife preventing him from lowering his arm, and the limits of his owntendon structure preventing him from raising it, the limb was effectivelyself-immobilized, freeing my left hand. Reaching up the back of his tunic, Igrabbed his weapon.
Lumpy One shouted something, probably a warning, to his companion. But by thenit was already too late. Almost too late, anyway. Lumpy Two got off a shotthat nearly scorched the side of my face as the superheated plasma ball made a nearmiss, and fired another that would have seared my right arm and possiblykilled Lumpy One outright if I hadn't bent my knees suddenly, driving my kneecapsinto the backs of Lumpy One's legs and dropping us both halfway to the ground. Thejolt of the sudden movement sent the embedded knife tip tearing a couple ofcentimeters farther into the cloth and, judging from Lumpy One's gasp, intothe skin beneath it as well.
And then I had his weapon out and pointed over his shoulder. The gun wasn't remotely like anything I was familiar with, but I didn't have time to do anything except hope like hell it had some stopping power behind it. Flicking a
thumb key that I hoped was the safety, I squeezed the trigger.
From the size and shape of the weapon, I would have guessed it to be a flechette thrower or maybe a two-shot scattergun. It wasn't. My hair and skin tingled with electrical discharge; and suddenly Lumpy Two was writhing in agony in the middle of a sheathing of blue-white coronal fire.
The electrical firestorm lasted about two seconds. From the looks of things, Lumpy Two himself didn't last nearly that long.
Under other circumstances I would probably have taken a few seconds to gape at the unexpected display of firepower I'd just unleashed. But I wasn't given that chance. Mouthing obvious obscenities, Lumpy One broke out of my grasp with a sudden lurch and spun around to face me, the sound of tearing cloth warning that he was half a second away from freeing his knife hand. I jumped to the side, swinging the alien weapon around; and as he got his arm free and lunged toward me, I fired again.
With the same result. Three seconds later, I was standing alone over two alien bodies, both of them charred literally beyond recognition.
I had seen a lot of repulsive things in my years of knocking around the Spiral, but this one definitely took the cake. Glancing around for any sign of witnesses—our little confrontation seemed to have gone unnoticed—I squatted down beside the corpses, trying to breathe through my mouth as I forced myself to sift through what was left of their clothing.
But there was nothing. No ID folders, no cash wallets, not even any bank cards.
Or at least, I amended to myself, nothing that had survived the attack.
Lumpy Two was wearing a duplicate of the alien handgun in a half-melted holster at the small of his back. I managed to pry it loose and pocketed both weapons for future study. I retrieved my ID folder and cash from the ground—Lumpy One had dropped all of it when I jumped him—and returned my now scorched but still functional-looking plasmic to its holster. Taking one final look around, I headed away at a brisk walk.
IXIL WAS WAITING for me at the Icarus's entryway. "I thought you were going to be here in thirty minutes," he greeted me as I came up.
"I ran into a little trouble," I told him. "Why didn't you go inside?"
"I thought it would be better if you were here to introduce me," he said.
"Besides, the entryway appears to be double-locked."
"Great," I scowled, punching the new code I'd set up after leaving Meima into the keypad. A double-locked entryway in port either meant the rest of the crew had sacked out for a couple of hours' sleep or, more likely, they'd scattered to the four winds the minute my back was turned.
"Had you told them to stay with the ship?" Ixil asked as the hatch swung open.
"No, I was too busy making arrangements to get Jones's body to the Port Authority and worrying about what I was going to say to Brother John," I said.
"Under the circumstances, I wish I had, though."
"I thought you smelled a bit singed," he said. "Why don't we go inside and youcan tell me all about it."
"Let's talk here instead," I said, sitting down inside the wraparound where Icould look out into the docking area. "If people with guns start wanderingcasually toward the ship, I'd like to see them before they get here."
"Reasonable," Ixil agreed, sitting down a couple of meters away from me wherehe could cover a different field of view from mine. As he settled down, Pix andPax hopped off his shoulders and skittered down the ramp, vanishing in oppositedirections around the ship. "Now," Ixil said, "why don't you start at thebeginning."
So I started at the beginning, with my near arrest on Meima, and gave him thewhole story, finishing with my near death on Xathru half an hour earlier. Thetwo ferrets came in twice while I was talking, dumping their scoutinginformation on Ixil and presumably getting new instructions before scamperingoff again. Given that Ixil didn't know anyone involved in any of this, Iwondered what exactly he was having the outriders look for. Maybe it was justpure Kalix hunters' instinct.
"I seem to have missed all the excitement," he said when I finished. "A pity."
"I wouldn't worry about it if I were you," I warned. "It's still a long way toEarth."
"It is that," he conceded. "You said you took the aliens' weapons?"
I passed them over to him. He looked at the charred one for a moment, his nosewrinkling at the smell, then exchanged it for the other. "Interesting," hesaid, studying it closely. "Coronal-discharge weapons aren't exactly new—I presumefrom your description that that's what these are—but I've never heard of suchcompact ones before."