"Nothing over and above what you planned to do to me anyway?" I suggested.

"Thanks, but I'll take my chances."

"Your chances don't exist, McKell," he said flatly. "And we don't want you, anyway. All we want is the Icarus. All of you are free to go." He cocked hishead to the side as he looked up at me, a gesture that somehow made him lookeven more like an accountant. "I'll do better, in fact. I can promise you thatif you'll turn the Icarus over to me, you'll profit quite handsomely on thedeal."

"Thanks, but this will do," I said, withdrawing a neat stack of hundredcommark bills from one of his inside pockets. "I know it's not nice to steal," Iadded, slipping the stack into my pocket, "but we're likely to have some unexpectedexpenses along the way. If you'll give me your name and address, I'll makesure you're properly reimbursed."

"Fifty thousand, McKell," he said, staring unblinkingly into my eyes. "Fiftythousand commarks to take me to the Icarus and walk away."

I gazed down at him, a hard lump forming in my throat. What in hell's namewere we carrying, anyway? "I appreciate the offer," I said, checking the otherinside pocket. This one yielded a phone and a slim documents folder. "But I'm alreadyunder contract."

"A hundred thousand," he said. "Five hundred thousand. Name your price."

I patted his shoulder and stood up. "You might be surprised sometime to findout what money can't buy," I said, tossing his phone onto the stack of palletswhere none of them could reach it and pocketing the documents folder. "See youaround."

"You're making a big mistake, McKell," he said. His voice was quiet, but itheld an absolute conviction that sent a chill up my back. "You have no idea whoyou're dealing with."

"Maybe this will tell me," I countered, tapping the pocket where I'd put hisfolder.

I passed around to the other side of the pallets, where Fulbright was stilllying trussed up glaring at me. "Sorry about this, James," I apologized. "I'llmake it up to you next time, all right?"

The look in his eyes made it abundantly clear what his plans were for the nexttime. But again, that was a future too distant to worry about right now.

I hopped on the southbound slideway and headed back toward the spaceportcenter, keeping an eye on the Lumpies and Thompson as long as they were in sight. Theminute they were lost to view I got off the slideway and headed east towardthe Icarus's landing cradle, walking quickly along until I reached a properlydirected slideway and getting on it.

And there, with finally a moment of breathing space, I opened Thompson'sfolder and started going through his papers. I was only halfway through when I putthem back into my pocket and pulled out Fulbright's phone.

"Yes?" Ixil's melodic voice answered.

"It's me," I said. "How's the fueling going?"

"Probably no more than a quarter finished," he said. "They only got herefifteen minutes ago."

"Tell them to quit and seal the ship back up," I told him. "And get the bridgeand drive preflights started. We're out of here as soon as I get back."

There was just the briefest pause. "What did Uncle Arthur say?"

"I never got to talk to Uncle Arthur," I told him. "And I'll explain as muchas I can when I get there. Just get us ready to fly, all right?"

"Got it," he said. "We'll be ready when you are."

The Icarus was buttoned down, with no fuelers in sight, by the time Iretracted the ramp and sealed the hatchway. Tera and Everett tried to collar me in thecorridor, demanding to know what the rush was; I ordered them back to theirstations in no uncertain terms and headed to the bridge.

Ixil was waiting for me there. "All set," he said, standing up and relinquishingthe control chair to me. "Nicabar is ready with the drive, the fuelers arepaidoff, and I've got lift permission from the tower."

"Good," I said, sliding into the chair and sounding the lift alert. "Let's getout of here."

We were off the ground, nearly out of Dorscind's World's atmosphere, anddrivingfor the blackness of space when he finally broke the silence. "Well?"

I leaned back in my seat. "Someone out there wants to get hold of the Icarus,"

I said. "They want it very badly."

He frowned. "Why?"

"I don't know why," I said, pulling Thompson's documents out of my pocket andhanding them over. "But I do know who."

He leafed through the papers, and stopped at the same place I had. Staring atthe plain ID card with its operative number and ornate governmental seal andnothing else, the ferrets on his shoulders twitching with his astonishment. "Idon't believe it," he said mechanically, looking up at me.

"I don't believe it either," I agreed grimly. "But it's true. We, my friend, are being chased by the Patth."

CHAPTER 7

"BUT IT DOESN'T make sense," Ixil protested.

"On the contrary, it makes perfect sense," I countered. "It has to. We justdon't know what that sense is yet, that's all."

Ixil muttered something in his own language, rubbing a fingertip along thecorner of my locker. We had retired to my cabin as the most private place onthe ship to talk after I'd gotten us into hyperspace and turned the bridge over toTera. Technically, it was Shawn's shift, with Chort on watch in the engineroom, but given the shape Shawn had been in when I left earlier I wouldn't havetrusted him to butter bread for me, let alone watch over a ship I was on.

And between then and now, I'd had time to do some serious thinking. "Look, it's very simple," I went on. "At least, the basics of it are. The archaeologicaldigon Meima found something big—that much is clear from the fact that Cameronhimself came out there to take a look. They brought in the Icarus—"

"Wait a minute," Ixil put in. "How did they bring it in without the PortAuthority having a record of it?"

"Probably in pieces," I said. "You've seen what this thing looks like—odds areCameron flew it in in sections, along with some of his tech people to put ittogether, and maybe with the archaeological team helping with some of thegruntwork. They probably built it underground, which would explain why none ofthe normal incoming traffic noticed it on the surface."

"Then that massive explosion Director Aymi-Mastr told you about was to blowthe roof off one of those underground caverns and let the ship out."

"Right," I nodded. "Along with conveniently scrambling the spaceport sensorsso that its departure wouldn't be noticed. I'd give a lot to know what they addedto the explosive or the dirt strata to pull that off—again, it was probablyCameron's techs who handled that one."

"So why didn't they just leave then?"

I shook my head. "I don't know. Either they didn't have a crew put togetheryet, or else they wanted an official spaceport stamp to add legitimacy to things."

"Or perhaps were planning to bring the entire archaeological group outtogether," Ixil suggested. "There's certainly plenty of extra carryingcapacityaboard."

"Good point," I agreed, glancing over at the three-bunk tier. "And theycouldn't all get on board and leave right then because they knew the authorities wouldcome to investigate the explosion. Finding the site deserted would raise redflags from here to Thursday, which was exactly what they didn't want.

"Anyway, so the Icarus lifted up under cover of the cloud, maybe circled theplanet once, and joined the line of incoming ships waiting clearance to land.

They put down, showed their forged Gamm Port Authority sealed-cargo license, and were in. The crew left the ship, planning to take off again in the morningwith the whole crowd aboard and a genuine lift document that would get them back toEarth with no raised eyebrows from anyone."

"Except that something went wrong," Ixil said heavily. "The question is, what?"