The Iykams also always travel with them as guardians and protectors. Unlike thePatth, they are crude and not very polite."

"As well as sometimes violent," I added, nodding. At least the Lumpy Clan hada name now. Uncle Arthur would be pleased about that. "Still, just because theIykams are mad at me doesn't mean the Patth themselves are involved."

The feathers fluttered again, this time fluffing out from his body. "Do notlie to me, Captain," he said quietly. "The Iykams do not act without Patthpermission. They do not move through these areas of space without Patthpresenceand guidance."

"I'm not lying to you, Chort," I assured him quickly, a creepy feeling runningthrough me. If he was right, that meant the two Iykams I'd killed on Xathrumust have had a Patth overseer somewhere in the vicinity. A Patth who had justmissed capturing the Icarus right off the blocks.

And running the logic in reverse, it also implied that the three Patth Cameronand I had seen in that Meima taverno had probably had a couple of Iykamslurkingin the shadows somewhere. Something to remember if I ever spotted anotherPatth out in the open.

"Perhaps it was not a direct lie," Chort said. "But you are nonethelessattempting to distract me, to lure me away from the truth." He cocked his headagain. "What is the truth, Captain?"

"You're right, Chort," I said with a sigh, gazing hard at his face and wishinglike hell I knew how to decipher that alien expression. "The Patth do indeedwant this ship. They think something aboard could be a threat to the economicempire they've carved out over the past fifteen years."

"Is that true?"

I shook my head. "I don't know. It's possible."

For a long minute he sat rigidly, his head bowed toward the table, hisfingertips pressed tightly together. That one I knew: a Craean posture of deepthought. I stayed as motionless as he was, afraid that any movement on my partmight break the spell, letting the silence stretch out and wishing even harder could read Craean expressions. Nicabar had threatened to jump ship if helearned we were carrying contraband. Would Chort make the same threat—or worse, actually carry it out—now that he knew we were in serious danger of bringing Patthangerdown on the Crooea?

With a suddenness that startled me, Chort looked back up at me. "This threatto the Patth," he said. "Could it be of benefit to the Crooea?"

"If it actually is the threat the Patth think it is—and that's the part I'mnot sure of—then the answer is yes."

"Would it be of benefit to the Crooea?"

I hesitated. "I don't know," I had to admit. "If it were up to me, you wouldcertainly be one of those to benefit, given your help on this trip. But Ican't even begin to make a promise like that."

"Ship Master Borodin implied that would be the case," he reminded me. "Is henot trustworthy?"

"Oh, he's trustworthy enough," I assured him. "But we don't know where he isright now, and the decision may be taken out of his hands. Especially ifsomeone else gets hold of the Icarus before we can deliver it to Earth."

He seemed to consider that. "And if we are able to deliver it to Earth?"

"Again, I can't make any promises," I said, feeling sweat breaking out on myforehead. With the perceived future of his entire race hanging in the balance, Chort was clearly figuring the odds and weighing his options.

Unfortunately, there were only three options I could see for him to choosefrom: jump ship, help us fly the Icarus to Earth, or betray us to the Patth thefirst chance he got in the hopes of buying economic security for his people. Onlyshort-term security, of course—in the long run the Patth were no more gratefulthan any other species. But balanced against their demonstrated ability forlong-term animosity, even a short-term gain was probably the most logical wayto go. In Chort's place, it was probably the way I would take.

And if he did...

I was suddenly and uncomfortably aware of the weight of my plasmic against myrib cage. We couldn't afford to have Chort jump ship. Period. Whether heplannedto turn us in or simply hoped to vanish into the sunset before the Patth foundus, we couldn't have him running loose with what he knew about the Icarus andits crew. We would have to keep him aboard, locked up or tied up if necessary, until this macabre little hide-and-seek game was over.

Abruptly, Chort turned his head toward the back of the dayroom and the hullthat lay beyond it. "There is another hull ridge forming," he said. "You had beststop the ship."

I hadn't heard or felt anything, but I didn't doubt his judgment. I was on myfeet even before he finished talking, and was out the dayroom door and halfwayto the bridge before it even occurred to me that I hadn't doubted hisjudgment.

I was on the bridge and reaching for the red KILL button when thecharacteristic screech echoed in from the hull.

It was only much later, after the ridge had been repaired and we were on ourwayagain, that I realized he hadn't come back to finish our conversation.

Or, rather, we had finished the conversation, and I simply hadn't known it.

Just as I didn't know now which way he had decided to jump on the three choices setout in front of him.

For a while I thought about calling him on the intercom, or even confrontinghim about it in his cabin. But on further reflection I decided against doingeither.

I still couldn't offer him any of the assurances he obviously wanted, andwithout any such promise there was nothing more I could say to induce him tostick with the Icarus. Pressing him further would accomplish nothing except tomake both of us feel uncomfortable at the effort.

Anyway, we were less than three days out from Utheno. Sometime within thefirst hour after landfall, it would be easy enough to figure out which way he'djumped.

CHAPTER 14

I DIDN'T FIND out within the first hour after landfall on Utheno. I didn't find out for the simple reason that we never made landfall on Utheno. Though Ididn't know it then, it was going to be a long time before we made landfall anywhere.

My first hint of trouble should have been the cacophony of radio transmissionsthat lit up the official-frequencies section of my comm board as thehyperspacecutter array sliced the Icarus back into space-normal. I couldn't read any ofit through the encryption, of course, but the sheer volume of messages shouldhave told me something big was happening.

At the same time the comm board was lighting up with chatter, the visualdisplays were also listing out a horrendous tangle of ship traffic wrappedaround the planet in a hundred different holding orbits. A recorded message onthe main inbound-information channel apologized for the delay, cited a pair ofcollisions and a ground-station sensor failure as the cause of the backup, andpromised to speed things up as quickly as possible.

And in an uncharacteristic burst of credulity, I believed them. Given thatofficial confusion was made to order for us, I keyed in the orbit slot I wasgiven and headed in.

"Crowded," of course, was a relative term when applied to planetary holdingorbits. Our designated slot was a good fifty kilometers from anything else, with the only two ships at even that distance being a Najiki freighter fiftykilometers to port and a bulky Tleka cargo hauler the same distance tostarboard. More from habit than anything else, I keyed for mid-rangemagnification and had a good look at both ships. And it was as I was lookingat the Tleka cargo hauler that the warning bells belatedly started going off inthe back of my head.

I keyed the intercom for the engine room. "Revs, what's status on thestardrive?"

"Down and green," he said. "Why?"

"Get it up and green," I told him shortly. "Fast."

There was just the barest hesitation. "Startup procedure begun," he said.