And there he was, barely visible in the shadows behind the vent's crosshatchedgrating: Pix or Pax, I couldn't tell which, his head turned to the side as ifhe was grooming himself or gnawing at an itch. Just as slowly, I turned back tothe desk again, not wanting my interest in that part of the room to spark anyunwelcome curiosity.
Nicabar was looking sideways at me, still talking to Nask. I dropped oneeyelida millimeter and got an equally microscopic nod in return from him before he seemed to notice his ID still lying on the desk and returned it to his pocket.
Not his ID, rather, but the one I'd taken off the Patth agent on Dorscind'sWorld after my old buddy James Fulbright's attempt to cash in on the reward.
Clearly, my original estimation of Thompson as little more than a glorifiedPatth accountant had been seriously off target.
"I suppose you're wondering what we've got planned," Nicabar spoke up into mythoughts.
"Oh, no, don't tell me," I said, remembering to put the same bitterness intomyvoice that I'd been feeling two minutes earlier. "I just love surprises."
"I'd be a little less flippant if I were you," Nicabar said reprovingly.
"Whether the rest of the Icarus crew lives or needlessly dies is going todependentirely on you. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that—what the hell?" Hejumpedaway from the desk toward the wall, just as Nask let out a yelp of his own.
And for good reason. The air vents, upper and lower both, were suddenlyspewinga dense, pale yellow smoke. "We're on fire!" Enig gasped.
"You three get out of here!" Nicabar snapped. He'd reached the area of thelower vent now, his head and torso disappearing as he bent down into the smoke.
"You—defenders—get that top vent sealed!"
Two of the five Iykams were already scrambling against the wall, straining toreach the upper vent's sealing lever. From Nicabar and the lower vent came ateeth-grinding screech of torn metal; and then abruptly he was standinguprightagain out of the cloud of smoke, a cloud that seemed already to be starting todissipate.
And in his hand was Fulbright's Kochran-Uzi three-millimeter semiautomatic.
His first two shots took out two of the Iykams still standing guard over me.
The third guard nearly got his own weapon up and aimed in time, but lost the lastchance he would ever have as I leaned sideways and kicked his gun arm out ofline. I swiveled back around as Nicabar systematically took out the rest ofthe guards, heaving myself up with the chair on my back again, and hurled myselfacross the desk at Nask.
The Patth threw his own chair backward as he saw me coming, making one lastfutile grab for something in the drawer he'd opened as he got out of my way.
But the desk was higher than the table in the back room had been, and with theadditional barrier of the monitors along its edge I only made it about halfwayacross before I ran out of momentum. Nask, belatedly seeing that his reflexivedodge had been unnecessary, killed his own backward momentum and dived out ofhis chair toward the open drawer.
"Don't," a familiar voice warned from the doorway.
Nask froze, his head twisting to look in that direction, his hand stilloutstretched toward the drawer. I looked, too, trying to ignore the fresh redhaze my sudden bit of exercise had sent swimming across my vision. Ixil stoodin the doorway, the plasmic in his hand pointed squarely at Nask, his wideshoulders and settled-looking stance blocking any hope of escape for the twoPatth pilots standing rigidly in shock in front of him.
"I see," Nask said. I looked back to find he had straightened up again, hishand fallen empty at his side.
"It's like a class reunion in here," I said, my voice sounding distant in myears through the trip-hammer that had apparently finished its lunch break andstarted up work again on the back of my head. "I hope someone thought to bringsome painkillers along."
"We did better than that," Ixil assured me, motioning Brosh and Enig backtoward Nask and closing the door behind him. "We've got Everett waiting outside."
"Everett?" I echoed. "I told him to stay with Shawn."
"Tera and Chort are with Shawn," Nicabar told me. He was at my side now, examining the handcuffs. "It occurred to us that you might need medicalattention more urgently than he did."
"I don't, but I might have," I admitted, nodding toward one of the guardslyingdead on the floor. "That one. Keys in his belt pouch. How did you find me, anyway?"
"We never really lost you," Nicabar said, dropping to one knee and digginginto the pouch. "Tera wanted to know just where you were going to go on yourerrand."
I looked at Nask, who was standing stiffly glowering at us. "Don't worry aboutgiving anything away," I told Nicabar. "They were staking out pharmacists, after all. Like he said, they're putting together the pieces."
"And we already have most of them," Nask said quietly. "Sooner or later wewill get you."
He drew himself up. "And when we do, you will wish you had bargained here andnow. You will wish it very much."
"I'll make you a small wager that we don't," I offered. But the words wereautomatic, and ninety percent bluster besides. For at least the foreseeablefuture, the smart money was definitely still on the Patth. "So what, after Ileft she called and had you tail me?" I asked, turning back to Nicabar.
"Actually, we'd already set it up," Nicabar said. He found the keys and set towork on my cuffs. "After the Iykams jumped you, I followed your party backhere and then called Ixil. He brought the chemicals I needed, and while I mixed upthe smoke bombs and time fuses he sent his ferrets in to reconnoiter. Theycame back, and we rigged them with harnesses to drag the bombs and gun inside."
The last cuff came loose. "You certainly had me going," I said, massaging mywrists. So that was what the ferret in the vent had been doing: chewingthroughhis harness straps so that he wouldn't have to be sitting on top of the smokebomb when it went off. "How exactly does the rest of the plan go?"
Nicabar nodded at the three Patth. "We cuff our friends together and get outof here."
"Good plan," I said. "There's only one problem. This ship of theirs, theConsiderate. It must be pretty good-sized, or Nask wouldn't have thoughtthey'dbe able to handle the Icarus. If they get loose before we make it off-planet, they might take it into their heads to try and intercept us."
"A good point," Nicabar admitted. "Well... if you want, I'll deal with it."
"Be warned," Nask said. Suddenly every trace of smarminess was gone from hisvoice, leaving nothing but simmering threat in its place. "The murder of aPatthaaunutth citizen is punishable by the most severe consequencesimaginable."
"And how would they know who'd done it?" Nicabar scoffed.
"There are ways," Nask said, still in that same tone. "There are always ways."
"Doesn't matter," I said before Nicabar could reply. "We can't shoot downunarmed civilians in cold blood anyway."
"Then what do we do?" Nicabar demanded. "Just leave them here like this?"
"We leave them here," Ixil said, stepping forward and handing me his gun. "Butnot precisely like this. Jordan, if you'd be so kind as to watch them; andRevs, I'd appreciate it if you'd get that upper vent open so that Pix can get out."
"What are you going to do?" I asked, keeping one eye on the three Patth andthe other on Ixil. He had retrieved one of the corona guns and was fiddling with apair of control settings.
"This will be an experiment," Ixil said. "I found this setting when I wasexamining the weapons you brought from your encounter on Xathru. It's quitelow-power—far too low, in fact, to possibly serve as a credible weapon."
"What's it for, then?" Nicabar asked, grunting as he tore the grating from theupper vent. Pix was more than ready, diving out of the opening almost beforethe grating was all the way off. Hitting the floor, he dodged around the Iykams'bodies and scampered up Ixil's leg.