I did the last three meters to the access hole in a low crouch, listening ashard as I could with the noise of my heart thudding in my ears. I could hearfaint ferret snufflings now from inside; more to the immediate point, I couldalso hear the subtle sounds of something else moving around in there with him.
And if I didn't dare open fire indiscriminately, there was no guarantee thatwhatever was in there would have any such qualms itself. Dropping flat on thedeck, I inched my way the last half meter and cautiously looked in.
At first glance the interior of the small sphere seemed to be nothing at alllike the setup I'd seen back on the Icarus. A second, closer look showed thatat least most of the apparent difference was due to the fact that all the coupleof meters' worth of loose wiring I'd waded through in the Icarus's sphere washere neatly packed against the inner surface, held in place by a tighter version ofthe netting I'd had to maneuver through there. The same type of displays werescattered around various spots on the netting, their multicolored lightsproviding the glow I'd seen out in the larger sphere. Theblack-and-silver-striped arm I'd played alien water slide with was also there, stretching its slightly angled way from the mesh to the center.
In some ways having all the wiring squeezed together this way made it lookeven more tangled than it had when it was spread out over a larger volume. Itcertainly made the whole spectacle more colorful, which was probably why ittook me another couple of seconds before I noticed the movement a little way to myright. It was Pax, all right, looking hale and hearty and perfectly at home as he strolled across the netting toward me, sniffing curiously at everything in sight.
"Hello, McKell," a voice called out, the unexpectedness of it making me jump.
"You certainly took your time getting here."
I looked in the direction of the voice. A quarter of the way around the sphere, almost hidden in the glare from one of the sets of displays, a figure was sitting on the netting. Gazing up at one of the other displays, he was scribbling madly on a notepad balanced across his knee.
It was Arno Cameron.
CHAPTER 17
IT WAS A situation that called for a brilliant comment, a witty rejoinder, or complete silence. Not feeling either brilliant or witty at the moment, I kept my mouth shut, put away my plasmic, and concentrated instead on negotiating what I
suspected would be a fairly tricky transition between the two spheres.
It turned out not to be nearly as difficult as I'd expected. This small sphere, unlike the one I'd had to burrow my way through on the Icarus, had its gravitational field pointed toward the surface rather than the center, so that aside from a little disorientation as I crawled around the edge of the access hole there was really nothing to it.
Between the maneuvering itself and a short face-licking attack from a Kalixiri ferret clearly relieved to see someone familiar, I managed to buy myself nearly a minute of recovery time before I had to try speaking. "So," I said, getting carefully to my feet on the netting and looking across at Cameron. The word was supposed to sound casual and debonair, as if I did this sort of thing all the time. Instead, it came out like the croak of a teenager facing down the parents of his very first date. So much for the efficacy of all that stalling.
But Cameron merely smiled as he turned off his notepad and laid it on the netting beside him. "I screamed and cried for half an hour after I got here," he said. "If that helps your dignity any."
"Thanks, but my dignity is expendable," I told him. This time the words came out much better. "Right now I'm more concerned with life, liberty, and the pursuit of greedy Patth and their vindictive buddies."
I glanced around. "And frankly, anything that scares Arno Cameron that much is something I really hesitate to tangle with."
"Don't worry, it's not as bad as I first thought." His eyebrows lifted slightly.
"So you know who I am. What else do you know?"
I shrugged. "I know our alleged computer specialist Tera is your daughter Elaina Tera Cameron," I said. "Is it safe to walk on this stuff?"
"Perfectly safe," he assured me. "I'd avoid stepping on the displays, but everything else is as solid as the commark."
"The wires won't break or come loose?" I asked, dubiously eyeing the multicolored tangle beneath my feet.
"I've had a lot of time to examine them," he said. "Trust me, they're every bit as solid as the ones on the Icarus."
"Ah," I said, taking a cautious step toward him. "So in other words, all thatexaggerated care I took getting through the Icarus sphere was a waste ofeffort?"
"If you want to look at it that way," he said with a shrug. "Personally, I'venever found any effort to be completely wasted."
"Sure," I said noncommittally. The cables and conduits made little squooshingsounds as I walked over them, but aside from that it all felt firm enough.
Still, there was no point in taking chances, and I kept it slow and careful.
The gravity, I estimated, was about the same .85 gee as we had in the Icarus'slargesphere.
"So Elaina told you who she was," he commented as I picked my way toward him.
"I'm a little surprised by that. I was very clear she was to keep her identitysecret."
"It was a bit more complicated than that," I said, passing over the details.
"Just to save time, I also know how you smuggled the Icarus onto Meima, bothin its original disassembled form and then the orbital loop you did to bring itout of hiding and over to the spaceport. I know the Patth are becoming veryinsistent about getting their little paws on it."
I looked around the sphere. "And I used to know why they wanted it.
Apparently, I was wrong."
Cameron exhaled noisily. "As were we all, my boy. Tell me, do you have anyidea where we are right now?"
"Inside another of your alien artifacts, obviously," I said. "Which means thatinstead of a simple little stardrive, what your people dug up was actually theHoly Grail of the Einstein-Bashermain Unified Field Theory."
"An interesting but succinct way of putting it," Cameron said. "Yes, we are infact sitting inside the physical proof that all those exotic wormhole andteleportation theories are more than just mathematical constructs. There'sgoingto be a considerable amount of both gloating and backpedaling in the halls ofacademia when word of this gets out."
"Assuming word of it ever does get out," I said darkly. I had reached him now, and gave him a quick and hopefully unobtrusive once-over as I sat downgingerlyon the mass of wiring in front of him. His face was drawn and pale, his cheeksand chin peppered with an impressive collection of beard stubble. He hadn'tyetstood up; I wondered if he was perhaps too weak to do so. "If the Patth werewilling to bribe, suborn, and kill for a stardrive that might or might notcompete with theirs, imagine what they would do to get hold of a real workingstargate."
"The Patth or anyone else, for that matter," he said with a grimace. "Whichmakes it all the more urgent that we get the Icarus to Earth before anyoneelse does find out what it is."
I cleared my throat. "Yes, well, I can immediately see a problem or two withthat. Do you happen to have any idea how far we are from the Icarus?"
"All I know is that it's a considerable distance," he said, gesturing towardthe large sphere. "There are a handful of small viewports out in the receiver chamber—they're unobtrusive, but I found the controls to open them. I've spenta good part of the past two days searching for a constellation—anyconstellation—that I can recognize. There's not a single one I can find, noteven in distorted form."
"And I can assume you're not just talking Earth constellations?" I asked, justfor the record.