Ixil explained. "One to eight months each."
"I wonder what he wants to be when he grows up," I murmured. Though to befair, it didn't sound a whole lot worse than my own employment resume. "All right, back to Shawn. Anything in there that might suggest he'd dabbled with anyother drugs besides borandis?"
"Nothing," Ixil said. "Though nothing that would preclude it, either.
Somethingelse for our wish list?"
"Right," I agreed, making yet another mental note. "Okay. That just leaves Tera."
"Tera," Ixil echoed, peering at the reader. "We start with a negative: Preliminary checks of appropriate religious-group listings fail to find anyoneby that name with the description you gave. After that..."
He paused, his face going suddenly rigid. "Jordan," he said, his voicestudiously conversational, "would you say that Uncle Arthur has a tendencytoward the dramatic?"
"Is moss slimy?" I countered, feeling the hairs tingling on the back of myneck as I swung my legs over the side of my cot and sat up. "How dramatic is hebeingthis time?"
Wordlessly, he handed me the reader. I took it, glanced at the indistinctphotothat might or might not have been our Tera, and with a feeling of nameless butimpending doom plowed my way into the final section of the Kalixiri text.
It was as if I'd been slapped across the face with a wet rag. I read it twice, sure I must have gotten it wrong. But I hadn't. "Where's Tera now?" I asked, looking up at Ixil.
"Probably in her cabin," he said. "She's off-duty, and she hasn't shown muchtendency to sit around the dayroom."
"Let's go find her," I said, making sure my plasmic was riding snugly in itsholster.
I got up and headed for the door. Ixil was faster, hopping up from his placeon the floor and blocking my way. "Are you sure this is a good idea?" he asked.
"Not really," I said. "But I want to find out for sure, and I want to find outnow. Confronting her straight-out seems to me the best way to do it."
"Yes, but she'll want to know how we found out," he warned. "That could beawkward."
"It won't," I said, shaking my head. "She already knows we run cargoes forAntoniewicz, and she knows he's got his slimy fingers into everything. We canlay this at his feet, no problem."
He still didn't look convinced, but he nevertheless stepped aside. I tappedthe release pad, confirmed there was no one loitering outside in the corridor, andheaded for the aft ladder. Ixil stayed behind long enough to collect hisferrets from the floor, then followed.
We reached the top deck without seeing anyone; clearly, the Icarus'santisocial atmosphere was still unsullied by anything resembling genuine camaraderie.
Tera's door was closed. Bracing myself, I tapped the release pad; and as thedoor slid open I dodged inside.
From my previous clandestine visit to Tera's room I knew she used the lower ofthe three bunks, and that supposed knowledge nearly got me killed. Even as Iaimed my charge toward the lower bunk, I belatedly saw in the light filteringin from the corridor that that particular bunk was in fact empty. My eyes trackedupward, caught sight of the body and sudden movement on the top bunk—clearly, she alternated bunks, probably for exactly this purpose.
I altered course in mid-charge, nearly wrenching my back in the process, reaching for her mouth to keep her from screaming. There was a faint glint ofsomething metallic in her hand, and I shifted the direction of my hands towardthe object as she tried to bring it around to bear on me. I won by a thin- sliced fraction of a second, and with a twist of my wrist wrenched it out of her hand.
With my other hand I reached again for her mouth; but even as I could see hertaking a deep breath Ixil's left hand closed almost delicately across it, hisright taking up a supporting position behind her head.
"It's all right, Tera," I assured her quickly. "We just want to talk."
She ignored me, grabbing Ixil's hand and trying to pry it away—consideringKalixiri musculature, a complete waste of effort. From the movements of herhead I guessed she was also trying to bite him, another waste of effort. Behind us, the door slid shut, plunging the silent struggle into darkness. "Really, that's all we want," I said, stepping across the darkened room and switching on thelight. "We thought it would be better if what we had to say was kept quietfrom the others for the moment."
Tera grunted something unintelligible but undoubtedly quite rude from behindIxil's hand, her eyes doing their best to skewer me. "Nice to see you'rearmed, too," I added, looking at the gun I'd taken from her. It was a short-barreledshotgun-style pepperbox pistol, capable of making a considerable mess of anassailant at the close range inherent in shipboard combat without the dangerof accidentally rupturing the hull in the process. My earlier search of her roomhadn't turned it up; clearly, she made a habit of carrying it around with her.
"Of course, this thing's loud enough to have brought the whole ship down onus.
Good thing you didn't get a chance to fire. If Ixil takes his hand away, willyou promise not to make a fuss until you hear what we have to say?"
Her eyes flicked to her gun in my hand. Reluctantly, I thought, she nodded.
"Good," I said, nodding to Ixil.
He pulled his hands away slowly, ready to put them back again if she renegedon her promise. "What do you want?" she said in a low voice. There was a fairdegree of tension in her face, I saw, but whatever panic there might have beenhad already disappeared.
"Like I said, to talk," I told her. "We want to find out what you know aboutthis ship, Tera." I lifted my eyebrows. "Or should I call you Elaina?"
The corner of her mouth twitched. Not much, but enough to show I'd hit thebull's-eye. Uncle Arthur had indeed come through. "Elaina?" she askedcautiously.
"Elaina," I said. "Elaina Tera Cameron. Daughter of Arno Cameron. The man whoput all of us aboard this ship."
CHAPTER 12
FOR THE SPACE of a dozen heartbeats I thought she was going to try to play outthe masquerade. She lay there on her bunk, propped up on one elbow, and staredat me, a dozen expressions flicking across her face. And then, the one hand Icould see tightened into a fist, and I knew she'd given up. "What gave meaway?" she asked calmly.
"It wasn't anything you said or did," I assured her. "Though now in retrospectI can see hints that you were more than you seemed. That nicely fortuitoustimingwhen you first came to the bridge, for instance, making sure that I didn'tjust pocket the money your father had left for us and stroll casually off the ship.
No, we simply picked up some additional information which included theinteresting note that Cameron's daughter hadn't been seen for a while. Ourinformant was kind enough to include a photo that was just barely adequate."
"I see," she said. "Where exactly did this information come from?"
"You know how we're connected," I said, my voice heavy with significance.
"Just leave it at that."
She seemed to measure me with her eyes. "All right," she said. "So. Now what?"
"Now what is that you tell us what the hell this is all about," I said.
"Starting with where your father is."
"He's back on Meima, of course," she said. "You ought to know—you took offwithout him."
I shook my head. "Sorry, but that won't wash. The whole planet was looking tohang a murder charge on him, and there aren't a hell of a lot of places therewhere a human could hide."
"Which means he was already aboard when you left," Ixil added. "I presume hewas the one Jordan chased briefly around the 'tweenhull area?"
Tera grimaced. So did I, feeling like a complete fool. All the way up from thelower deck knowing she was Cameron's daughter, and that part had never evenoccurred to me. "So he's the one who tapped into my intercom," I said. "Andwho tried to kill Ixil with the cutting torch."