It was as if I'd grabbed hold of a live hundred-volt wire. Suddenly my wholebody was tingling, the hairs on my neck and arms standing straight up, myclenched teeth trying to vibrate against each other. And on top of all of itwas the chagrin that after all of my exaggerated caution and borderline paranoia, I'd finally hit a live wire. What made it even worse was that I'd even hit itentirely on purpose.

And yet, at the same time, the small part of my mind that hadn't gone intoinstant panic mode was noticing that if this was an electric shock it was likenone I'd ever experienced before. There was no pain, for one thing, and noneof the subtle promises of future pain, either. In addition, the tingling wasrunning uniformly through my entire body, not simply along my arms and chestas a normal current ought to flow. There was a distant sound like the awfulrippingthunder crack from a too-close lightning strike, and everything went black.

It didn't stay black long. Almost before the darkness had a chance toregister, the lights came back on again. Not the harsh, sharp-edged beam of myflashlight, but a softer, much more muted glow. For a second I wondered if I had blackedout, but both the darkness and the light had come without any of the normalcues and sensations of a loss and regaining of consciousness.

It was at about that point in my slow-motion cogitation that I suddenlynoticed the striped arm with the booby-trapped end was gone. So was the tangle ofwiringand geometric monitor shapes I'd been facing across the small sphere.

So, for that matter, was the small sphere.

Belatedly, I focused my eyes straight ahead of me on the now familiar curvinggray hull. So I had blacked out in there, at least long enough for the jolt tokick me out here to the center of the Icarus's big resonance sphere. I wincedas I thought of all the stuff I must have torn through on my way out—I wasprobablylucky I hadn't been electrocuted for real.

Though if I'd wrecked enough of the alien electronics to render the stardriveinoperable I would probably soon wish I had been crisped. Twisting around inthe catlike, half-swimming movements of standard zero-gee maneuvering technique, Iworked myself around toward the access hole, wondering why Tera wasn'tscreamingher head off at me.

The reason was very simple. Tera wasn't there.

Neither was the tool kit I'd left beside the opening. Neither was the ship'scomputer that had been more or less permanently mounted there. Neither, forthat matter, were the stacks of meter-square panels, the piles of mechanicalequipment, or the consolidated bits of personal effects.

I was in the large sphere, all right. Problem was, I wasn't in the Icarus.

A familiar sense of falling permeated my confusion: The sphere's gravitationalfield had taken hold and was pulling me gently down toward the inner surface.

Too slowly, or so it seemed, considering the .85-gee pull we had on theIcarus.

I had just about decided that this sphere's field was set lower when I gotwithin a meter of the surface and the field abruptly increased dramatically. Ibarely got my knees prepared for the impact before I was down, hitting themetal with a dull thud. Clearly, the gravitational field was a lot more radiallyvariable than I'd realized, though how they were managing that trick Icouldn't even begin to guess.

And then, as the echo of my landing faded away, I heard another sound. Faint, distant, but extremely familiar. A sort of thoughtful squeak, coming from thedirection of the access hole leading into the smaller sphere.

It sounded like Pax.

I had my plasmic in my hand before I'd taken two steps toward the smallsphere.

Pure reflex on my part, of course—Lord knew I had no idea what I was going todo with it. I certainly couldn't shoot or even threaten to shoot whoever orwhatever I found in there. Not if I ever wanted to find out what the hell was going on here.

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."