With a suddenness that startled me, Chort looked back up at me. "This threatto the Patth," he said. "Could it be of benefit to the Crooea?"
"If it actually is the threat the Patth think it is—and that's the part I'mnot sure of—then the answer is yes."
"Would it be of benefit to the Crooea?"
I hesitated. "I don't know," I had to admit. "If it were up to me, you wouldcertainly be one of those to benefit, given your help on this trip. But Ican't even begin to make a promise like that."
"Ship Master Borodin implied that would be the case," he reminded me. "Is henot trustworthy?"
"Oh, he's trustworthy enough," I assured him. "But we don't know where he isright now, and the decision may be taken out of his hands. Especially ifsomeone else gets hold of the Icarus before we can deliver it to Earth."
He seemed to consider that. "And if we are able to deliver it to Earth?"
"Again, I can't make any promises," I said, feeling sweat breaking out on myforehead. With the perceived future of his entire race hanging in the balance, Chort was clearly figuring the odds and weighing his options.
Unfortunately, there were only three options I could see for him to choosefrom: jump ship, help us fly the Icarus to Earth, or betray us to the Patth thefirst chance he got in the hopes of buying economic security for his people. Onlyshort-term security, of course—in the long run the Patth were no more gratefulthan any other species. But balanced against their demonstrated ability forlong-term animosity, even a short-term gain was probably the most logical wayto go. In Chort's place, it was probably the way I would take.
And if he did...
I was suddenly and uncomfortably aware of the weight of my plasmic against myrib cage. We couldn't afford to have Chort jump ship. Period. Whether heplannedto turn us in or simply hoped to vanish into the sunset before the Patth foundus, we couldn't have him running loose with what he knew about the Icarus andits crew. We would have to keep him aboard, locked up or tied up if necessary, until this macabre little hide-and-seek game was over.
Abruptly, Chort turned his head toward the back of the dayroom and the hullthat lay beyond it. "There is another hull ridge forming," he said. "You had beststop the ship."
I hadn't heard or felt anything, but I didn't doubt his judgment. I was on myfeet even before he finished talking, and was out the dayroom door and halfwayto the bridge before it even occurred to me that I hadn't doubted hisjudgment.
I was on the bridge and reaching for the red KILL button when thecharacteristic screech echoed in from the hull.
It was only much later, after the ridge had been repaired and we were on ourwayagain, that I realized he hadn't come back to finish our conversation.
Or, rather, we had finished the conversation, and I simply hadn't known it.
Just as I didn't know now which way he had decided to jump on the three choices setout in front of him.
For a while I thought about calling him on the intercom, or even confrontinghim about it in his cabin. But on further reflection I decided against doingeither.
I still couldn't offer him any of the assurances he obviously wanted, andwithout any such promise there was nothing more I could say to induce him tostick with the Icarus. Pressing him further would accomplish nothing except tomake both of us feel uncomfortable at the effort.
Anyway, we were less than three days out from Utheno. Sometime within thefirst hour after landfall, it would be easy enough to figure out which way he'djumped.
CHAPTER 14
I DIDN'T FIND out within the first hour after landfall on Utheno. I didn't find out for the simple reason that we never made landfall on Utheno. Though Ididn't know it then, it was going to be a long time before we made landfall anywhere.
My first hint of trouble should have been the cacophony of radio transmissionsthat lit up the official-frequencies section of my comm board as thehyperspacecutter array sliced the Icarus back into space-normal. I couldn't read any ofit through the encryption, of course, but the sheer volume of messages shouldhave told me something big was happening.
At the same time the comm board was lighting up with chatter, the visualdisplays were also listing out a horrendous tangle of ship traffic wrappedaround the planet in a hundred different holding orbits. A recorded message onthe main inbound-information channel apologized for the delay, cited a pair ofcollisions and a ground-station sensor failure as the cause of the backup, andpromised to speed things up as quickly as possible.
And in an uncharacteristic burst of credulity, I believed them. Given thatofficial confusion was made to order for us, I keyed in the orbit slot I wasgiven and headed in.
"Crowded," of course, was a relative term when applied to planetary holdingorbits. Our designated slot was a good fifty kilometers from anything else, with the only two ships at even that distance being a Najiki freighter fiftykilometers to port and a bulky Tleka cargo hauler the same distance tostarboard. More from habit than anything else, I keyed for mid-rangemagnification and had a good look at both ships. And it was as I was lookingat the Tleka cargo hauler that the warning bells belatedly started going off inthe back of my head.
I keyed the intercom for the engine room. "Revs, what's status on thestardrive?"
"Down and green," he said. "Why?"
"Get it up and green," I told him shortly. "Fast."
There was just the barest hesitation. "Startup procedure begun," he said.
"What's the trouble?"
"We're being directed into a slot fifty klicks from a Tleka cargo hauler," Itold him, still studying that display. "I can't be certain, but it looks to melike there's something lurking around the side of the hauler where I can't seeit."
"As in a Najiki Customs cruiser?"
"Or something even bigger," I agreed tightly.
"So why head in at all?" he asked. "Turn around and get us out of here."
"And let them know we know they're there?" I countered. "And that we've gotguilty consciences to boot?"
"You're right," he conceded reluctantly. "So we act innocent?"
"As the driven snow," I said. "At least until you've got the stardrive up andrunning. Let's just hope they can't pull any of the telltales with their ownsensor readings."
"These thrusters are pretty noisy, and across a big chunk of the spectrum," hepointed out. "That ought to mask the stardrive, at least at a fifty-klickdistance. Okay; I read thirteen more minutes to full green. I'll see if I canshave a couple of minutes off that."
"Good. Do it."
I took my time bringing us in the rest of the way, managing to eat up nearlyfive of Nicabar's thirteen minutes before we finally settled into ourdesignatedslot. I kept two of my displays trained on our companions to either side, wondering which of them would make the first move.
The Najiki freighter took that honor. Even as I ran thrust to the forwardmaneuvering vents to kill some of our momentum, I saw a large side hatch slideopen, and three dark gray starfighters appeared. They paused a moment as ifgetting their bearings, then grouped into formation and headed straight forus.
I keyed the intercom for all-ship. "This is McKell," I announced. "Everyonegetstrapped down and find something to hang on to. We've got unfriendly company.
Revs?"
"Still at least six minutes to go," he reported. "Probably closer to seven.
How long till they get here?"
"Depends on how much of a hurry they're in," I told him, watching the fightersclosely, hoping even now that it was a false alarm, that they were actuallyinterested in someone else entirely. But they were still coming, and showed nosign that they might suddenly veer off somewhere else. "Keep those thrustersrunning hot—they get even a hint that we're firing up the stardrive andthey'llbe all over us."
The words were barely out of my mouth when the Najik made it official.
"Freighter Icarus, this is Utheno Military Command," a calm Najiki voice cameover the comm speaker. "You are ordered to shut down your thrusters andprepareto be boarded."