The Icarus Hunt

But there was nothing either surrealistic or ridiculous about the heavymilitarycombat lasers in their hands, or in the steady professional grip with whichtheypointed them at Antoniewicz, Brother John, Everett, and the three techs.

"They're Royal Kalixiri commandos," I said into the stu

Tera was still staring up at them. "But—you said—where's my father?"

"He's safe," I told her. "The Icarus isn't a stardrive, you see. It's astargate, co

Your father accidentally triggered it and got bounced to the other end."

"The other end has Kalixiri in it?" Everett demanded, his voice distant andconfused.

"Hardly," I said. "Or rather, it didn't until a couple of hours ago. TheKalixiri were waiting here when we landed, hidden down in the trees—that's themain reason I insisted on parking the ship so close in under the branches.

Once it was dark, and once I'd chased Everett out and put on the hatchwayfloodlightsso that the glare would mask their movements, they used a collapsible ladderand the latch grooves on the starboard side to climb onto the engine section, goin through that dorsal hatch, and from there into the small sphere and down therabbit hole to where your father was waiting."

"So then... Pix?"

"Actually, I worked rather hard to maneuver Mr. Antoniewicz into insistingthat Pix go in instead of me," I said, looking at Antoniewicz. The dead look hadbeen replaced now by a clear and violent lust for death. My death. But then theKalixiri were landing on the deck around him, and the commandos and armor andheavy lasers were between him and the rest of us, and he'd lost his chanceforever. "When Pix went across, he took with him his visual memories of thenumber, weapon-status, and approximate placement of the men they'd have totake down. Popping in from nowhere, and in the last place anyone would expect anattack to come from, the whole thing was almost literally a duck shoot. Theonlyreal question was whether they'd get here before Antoniewicz decided I wasn'tuseful anymore and had me shot."

I looked at one of the commandos as he walked toward me, an empty spot on hisshoulder showing where Pix had been sitting. Pix himself, I noted, was alreadysettling onto Ixil's shoulder. "Speaking of being in time, Commander, what'sthe status of the lodge?"

"It has been taken," he said, his voice flavored with a thick regional accent.

"I have only now been so informed."

"What are you talking about?" Brother John demanded. "You said—"

"Well, they didn't all go down the rabbit hole," I explained apologetically.

"A

second group was hidden somewhere in or near the lodge to take care of anyoneyou'd left outside the ship. Once the commander learned from Pix's memoriesthat Nicabar and the others were being held hostage there, he knew to call in thedetails to the reserve troops as soon as they popped in here."

Tera looked at Brother John, then back to me. "But I thought you worked forthese people," she protested. "You said you owed them a half-millioncommarks."

"So I did," I acknowledged. "And so I do. But you see, I was working forsomeone else long before Brother Johnston Scotto Ryland came out of the woodwork and smilingly mortgaged my soul. For that matter, long before I even ran up thedebt that attracted him to me in the first place."

And then, finally, she got it. "You mean—?"

"Yes," I said, straightening up into an almost-forgotten military attention. Ihad my pride, too... and it had been a long time since I'd been able to saythis to anyone at all. "I'm Major Jordan McKell, EarthGuard Military Intelligence, detached on Special Covert Branch duty. May I also introduce my boss: ColonelIxil T'adee, Kalixiri Special Command for Drug Enforcement. Our job these pasttwelve years has been to work our way inside the Spiral's worst drug andgunru

I turned to Antoniewicz. "And as I said before, Mr. Antoniewicz," I addedquietly, "I'm very pleased to meet you. Badgemen all over the Spiral have beenwaiting a long time for you to come out of your hole so that you could finallybe arrested. I'm honored you chose to do it for me."

CHAPTER 25

IT WAS NOT exactly what you would call a cheerful group that was gatheredaround the table in the lodge dining room a little after dawn the next morning, butit beat to hell the atmosphere that had been there the last time around. Partlyit was the smaller and more intimate nature of the assemblage, with Shawn andChort off somewhere being debriefed, Ixil directing the group looking over theIcarus, and Antoniewicz and his assorted plug-uglies long gone under heavy Kalixiriguard. The fact that Cameron had had time for a shower probably helped a lot, too.

"I hope you know how close you came to getting your neck broken last time wewere in here," Nicabar commented, picking carefully at the Kalixiri militarydelicacies the occupation troops had whipped up. It was a far cry from Chort'sgourmet Craean stew, but the taste was adequate and it was certainly fillingenough. "When you turned that plasmic on me I figured all that talk aboutEverett was just you stalling while you waited for your pals to arrive."

"You'd never have made it even halfway to my neck," I told him. "Antoniewicz'sthugs would have cut you down in a heartbeat if you'd tried anything.

Includinggoing for your gun, incidentally, which is why I drew on you in the firstplace."

He snorted gently. "I thought I was being reasonably subtle about it."

"You were," I agreed. "But I haven't spent twelve years in Intelligence workwithout knowing what a surreptitious grab for a weapon looks like. Give mesome credit."

"Personally, I give you a great deal of credit," Cameron commented around amouthful of food. Alone of the four of us, he was already on his secondhelping.

"You had me fooled all the way down the line, from Meima to our little chat atthe other end of the star-bu

"Sorry about that," I apologized. "Though I did wonder after our talk at theedge of forever whether you'd finally figured me out."

"I knew you weren't as simple as you seemed," he said, shaking his head. "But beyond that I didn't have a clue."

"You might have told him," Tera said, a touch of reflexive accusation in hervoice. "He certainly wasn't going to tell anyone in there."

"But he would be coming out sometime," I reminded her. "And I didn't yet knowwhat the circumstances of that homecoming were going to be."

"And it's infinitely safer in this sort of game if no one has had even a peekat your cards," Cameron said, rising to my defense. "Sir Arthur explained all ofthat in his message."

"What message?" Tera asked.

"A note from my boss," I explained. "Retired—sort of—General Arthur SirGraym-Barker, former Intelligence Level Two Overseer and the Earthsidedirector of this quiet little combined-services unit Ixil and I have been involved withall these years. The commando team brought it through the stargate with themso that your father would know what was going on."

"Unlike the rest of us," Nicabar said pointedly. "So what was that fluff youspun to Tera about having been kicked out of EarthGuard?"

"Not a single bit of fluff to it," I assured him. "The court-martial wascompletely and totally official. It had to be—I was trying to worm my way intothe center of the Spiral's underworld, and everything in my record had tostand up to the kind of scrutiny we knew it would be getting someday. The time Ispentwith Customs and Rolvaag Brothers Shipping was more of the same windowdressing, with the added value of giving me practical training in the sorts of things asoon-to-be smuggler needs to know. When I was finally ready, they gave me theStormy Banks and instructions to pile up a mountain of debts and turned meloose."