The Icarus Hunt

Experimentally, I shifted my right foot a bit and found that they hadn'tbothered to lock my feet in place as they had my arms. In the background Icould hear the faint sounds of distant music; closer at hand, somewhere just infront of me, I could also hear the sounds of quiet alien conversation. Slowly, mindful of the trip-hammer waiting to resume work on the back of my skull, I carefullyraised my head to look.

And immediately wished I hadn't. I was in a medium-sized room, plain andlargelyunfurnished, with a single light in the ceiling and a single closed door maybefour meters directly ahead of me. Seated behind a low wooden table midwaybetween the door and me, my partially disassembled phone on the tabletop infront of them, were two more members of the lumpy Iykami Clan.

At the moment, though, they weren't paying any attention to the phone, nor toany of the rest of my pocket equipment that had been unceremoniously dumpedout onto the table. My efforts at stealthy wakefulness to the contrary, they werelooking straight at me.

And not, as near as I could tell from those alien faces, with particularlyfriendly expressions. They were more the sort of expressions worn by peoplewho have orders to keep a prisoner alive and mostly well, but who are at the sametime secretly longing for said prisoner to make trouble and thus provide themwith an excuse to beat the living daylights out of him.

Cooperative type that I was, it seemed a shame to disappoint them. I came upon my feet, hunched forward for balance as I gripped the arms to hold the chairmore or less in place against my back and rear. Their secret hopesnotwithstanding, a sudden and clearly suicidal attack on my part was probablythe last thing they were actually expecting; and the shock had just enoughtime to register on their faces as I took two quick steps forward and swung 180degrees around, taking care not to let my chair get hung up on the edge oftheir table. With all the strength I could muster, I heaved myself and the chair ashard as I could squarely on top of them.

They saw it coming, of course. But seated with their legs under the table, there wasn't a single thing they could do about it. We all went down together in aconfused and thunderous crash of splintering wood and alien curses. Stillhandcuffed to the chair, my movements were severely limited, but even so I wasin a far better fighting position than my opponents. Flailing back and forth, hammering them with the chair and keeping them pi

I didn't stay collapsed long, though. It had been a serious gamble on my part, taking them on just after waking up, but I hadn't had much choice in thematter.

Two-to-one odds were as good as I was likely to get; and if I'd waited forthem to call whoever was in charge with the news that the sacrificial Voodoo dollwas awake and ready to have pins stuck in him, I'd never have left the room alive.

An unhappy ending that could still very easily happen. The brief fight hadbeen anything but quiet, and the music I could hear in the distance meant thatthere was at least someone else in the immediate vicinity. My chair had sufferedsome damage in the fight, but enough of it had survived to keep me pinioned.

Rollingaround awkwardly, keeping an ear cocked for the inevitable reaction, I startedchecking my unconscious jailers for the keys to my handcuffs.

They were wearing the same sort of neo-Greek tunics as the two who'd jumped meon Xathru, and it didn't take long to find out that the limited pocket spacethat came with the outfits included no handcuff keys. One had a belt pouch, similarly bereft of keys. Neither was carrying a weapon.

But a couple of meters away on the floor where it had fallen at the table'scollapse was my phone.

My imprisoning chair had gotten itself caught in a slight hollow formed by thebodies of the two Iykams, but a little rocking broke me free. I rolled up ontomy knees, got to my feet, and picked my way through the debris to the phone.

At this range I could see the Iykams hadn't gotten any further in theirdisassemblyof the device than merely pulling the back off, though why they'd even donethat I didn't know. Perhaps they were hoping to tease a latent phone number or twoout of the memory that they could use.

If so, they were out of luck. That was the phone I'd taken from JamesFulbrighton Dorscind's World, and there were no incriminating numbers co

Still, I was glad they'd kept the phone around long enough to try, since ithad now put communication with the outside world in my hands. Easing onto my sideon the floor within reach of the phone, I rolled the device onto its back. I wasstill in big trouble, but a quick call to Ixil would at least alert the othersthat the Patth were here and on the hunt. With one final glance at the door, Ikeyed it on and reached an outstretched finger toward the keypad. And paused.

There was something too easy about this. Something far too easy. Where werethe alert reinforcements rushing in to save the day? Why were these two Iykamsfiddling with my phone instead of someone in a properly equipped workroom? Forthat matter, why only two guards in the first place?

I keyed off the phone and turned it over again, angling it so that I could geta really good look at the exposed circuitry. And this time, knowing what to lookfor, it wasn't hard to spot.

My clever little playmates had wired a repeater chip into the transmitterline, on the upstream side of the encryption sticker. I couldn't read the fine printon the chip, but it almost didn't matter. With the simpler Mark VI chip theywould be able to eavesdrop on any conversation I might have. With the more advanced Mark IX version and a properly equipped phone elsewhere in the citythey'd not only be able to listen in but could also triangulate through thelocal phone system to get the location of the other end of the conversation.

I'd been wrong about the Voodoo pins; they intended to get hold of the Icarus theeasy way.

I was willing to help out guards who wanted me to make trouble, but mycooperation with the enemy only went so far. Rolling back up to my knees, Ileft the phone where it was and headed toward where my plasmic lay next to my IDfolder.

I was just leaning down to pick it up when the door slammed open.

I dropped the rest of the way to the floor, my outstretched hand snatching upthe weapon as I hit the ground hard enough to reignite the blazing pain in myhead. Ignoring the red haze that had suddenly dropped in front of my eyes, Iswiveled both my body and the plasmic to face the door.

It was, I had to admit, an impressive sight. Four Iykams stood in a semicirclejust inside the doorway, each holding one of those nasty coronal-dischargeweapons, their alert motionlessness giving them the appearance of transplantedgargoyles. Behind them, I could see a couple more of the ugly beasts outsidethe door, undoubtedly waiting eagerly for their chance at me.

And standing right in the middle of the doorway between the two groups was agray-robed Patth.

"Don't bother with the weapon, Mr. McKell," he said. His voice was typicalPatth, managing to mix sincere, contemptuous, and smarmy into a sound that wasas distinctive in its own way as Chort's Craean whistling. "You don'tseriouslybelieve we would leave you a functional weapon, do you?"

"After that rather heavy-handed trick you tried with my phone, not really," Iagreed. It was hard to aim properly with my gun hand cuffed to a chair arm, but insofar as I was able I pointed the plasmic squarely at the center of historso.