"I know," I said. "Don't worry, we'll figure something out."
"I hope so," he said. "The prognosis for untreated Cole's disease isapparentlynot a very positive one."
"So he told me," I nodded. "Small wonder, I suppose, that he was at loose endson Meima." I lifted my eyebrows slightly. "Speaking of which, I've beenmeaningto ask how you wound up in that same position. At loose ends, I mean."
He made a wry face. "Caught in the middle of a jurisdictional dispute, I'mafraid. One of the crewers on my previous ship pushed the captain one time toomany and wound up rather badly injured. A troublemaker—I'm sure you know thesort. At any rate, I helped him get to the med facility at the Meima spaceportfor treatment; and while we were out, the captain apparently decided he coulddo without both of us and took off."
"Yet another Samaritan winds up with the splintered end of the stick," Imurmured.
He shrugged. "Perhaps. Frankly, I was just as happy to see their thrustersfading into the sunset. When Borodin came into the restaurant where I waseatinglooking for someone with a med certificate, I jumped at the chance."
"Well, we're certainly glad to have you here," I said, glancing around thebridge. "Look, we're not more than a few hours from landing, and I can't sleepanyway. Why don't I take over and let you go hit the sack."
"Oh," he said, sounding and looking surprised. "Well... if you're sure."
"I'm sure," I told him. "There's nothing you can do for Shawn at the moment, and you might as well be rested when we hit ground."
"I suppose," Everett conceded, heaving himself out of the chair. I steppedforward out of his way as he moved to the doorway. "Do call me if you changeyour mind and want to at least catch a catnap."
"I will," I promised.
He left the bridge, turning right at the ladder and plodding his way up to thetop deck. I waited until his feet were out of sight, gave him another tencount, then closed the bridge door behind me and stepped over to the nav table.
Given the set of parameters I was stuck with on this, I wasn't expecting thetask ahead to be an easy one. I needed a world that was large enough anddecadent enough to have an illicit drug-distribution network in place, withthe kind of laissez-faire attitude toward paperwork that would let us slip inunder our false ID, and yet wasn't a haven for the kind of career criminals whowould be sporting crisp new hundred-commark bills and keeping their eyes peeled foranyone resembling my Mercantile Authority file photo. And it had to besomewhere within, say, nine hours of our present position.
It took only five minutes to conclude that there was exactly one place on the charts that even came close to fitting my requirements: the Najiki colonyworld of Potosi, currently seven hours distant. It had the kind of cosmopolitanpopulace that promised that vices of all sorts would be in evidence, and itwas run by beings with such keen eyesight—and such a stratosphericself-confidence—that they seldom used scanners to check ships' papers.
There was, in fact, just one small factor that kept Potosi from beingabsolutelyideal. It was also a major hub for the Patth shipping industry.
I stared at the listing for a while, perhaps hoping that in my tiredness I wasimagining things and that if I looked long enough it would go away. But nosuch luck. Certain parts of Potosi, including the sky above it, were going to becrawling with Patth, and that was just the way it was.
But there was nothing for it. Not unless we wanted to sit around and watchShawn die.
It was a matter of two minutes to cancel the Mintarius course and recalculate a
vector to take us to Potosi instead. Listening carefully, I was just able tohear the subtle shift in thrust tone from the drive as we swung over thetwenty-three degrees necessary to make the course change.
And I'm convinced that it was precisely because I was listening so carefullythat even through two closed doors I heard the muted pop and the equally faintand choked-off scream.
I was in the corridor half a second later, heading for the mechanics-room doorfive meters away. I crossed the distance in two seconds more, hearing a softbut ominous hissing sound that grew steadily louder as I neared it. I slapped thepad, and the door slid open.
And with a roar like a rabid dragon a wall of flame blew out of the doorwaytoward me.
An instant later I was rolling to my feet from three meters farther down thecorridor with no clear memory of how I'd gotten there. I spun back to the opendoorway, the terrifying image of Ixil trapped in the midst of that infernoparalyzing my entire thought process. I clawed my way back to the doorway, thesmell of burning acetylene filling my nose and mouth, a small and stillfunctional part of my mind noting with some confusion that there was now notrace of the wall of flame that had sent me diving instinctively away. Ireached the doorway, bracing myself for the worst, and looked inside.
It was bad enough, but not nearly as bad as I'd feared. Off to the left, thetwin tanks of the Icarus's oxyacetylene cutting torch were sitting uprightbeside the main workbench, the pressure of the compressed gases sending theirconnected hoses writhing together along the deck like a pair of dementedSiamese-twin snakes. From the open ends of the coupled hoses was spewing anawesome spray of yellow flame. Even as I took it all in I was forced to onceagain duck back as the skittering hoses swung past the doorway and sentanother burst my direction—clearly, that was what I'd mistaken earlier for anall-encompassing wall of flame. The blast swept past and I looked back inside.
And it was only then, in the back of the room beyond the flopping hoses, that spotted Ixil.
He was lying against the line of equipment-storage lockers that made up theback wall, his torso half-propped up against the lockers, his eyes closed. Therewas no sign of Pix and Pax; odds were they were cowering in a nook or cornersomewhere. If they were even alive, Ixil's right pant leg was smoldering abovehis low boot, but otherwise the fire didn't seem to have marked him.
But that bit of grace wasn't going to last much longer. Even just since I'dstarted watching I could see that the hoses' gyrations were swinging widerwith each oscillation, and within a minute or less they would be twisting around tothe point where the fire stream would be washing directly over my unconsciouspartner.
"God and hellfire," a voice breathed in my ear.
I twisted my head around to find Nicabar standing just behind me, staringwide-eyed into the room. "I heard the commotion and smelled the fire," hesaid.
"Where's the damn suppression system?"
"There isn't one," I bit out, jabbing my finger toward the bridge door.
"There's an extinguisher just inside the bridge to the left."
He was off before I'd even finished the sentence. I turned back to the mechanics room, dodging back just in time as the semirandom fire spray once again didits best to take my eyebrows off. There was another extinguisher, I knew, justinside the door to my right; the question was whether I could slip into theroom and get to it without incinerating myself.
Unfortunately, at that point came an even bigger question: What could I dowith the thing if and when I got to it? Shipboard fire extinguishers used a two- prongapproach, the foam smothering the air away from the flames whilesimultaneouslypulling out as much of the heat as possible. But that acetylene fire had a lotof heat built up already, possibly more than a small extinguisher canistercould handle; and given that the blaze had its own built-in oxygen supply, thequestion of smothering was even more problematic.
There was a breath of sudden movement beside me. "Got it," Nicabar said, holdingthe half-meter-long orange canister ready in the doorway. "Straight in?"
"Straight in," I told him. He squeezed the handle, and a stream of yellowishfluid sprayed toward the writhing hoses, its loud hissing joining the crackleof the flames. Joining, but not eliminating. For a few seconds the blaze falteredas the droplets sucked heat away from it, but then seemed to gather itsstrengthagain in defiance. The hoses twisted around in their unpredictable way, sendingthe tip skittering off the edge of Nicabar's spray, and with analmost-triumphant roar the fire blazed fully back to life.