I focused on her face. She was gazing evenly back at me, her expression notgiving anything away.

But then, the fact that she didn't want her expression giving anything awayspoke volumes all by itself. "Why, you feeling squeamish?" I countered. "I'lldo whatever I have to. Leave it at that."

"Fine," she said, not taking offense. At least no visible offense. "I justwant to remind you that we can't afford for you to get into any trouble. If youdon't make it back, we don't lift."

"I'll make it back," I assured her, brushing past her and heading up towardthe wraparound. "Don't worry about me," I added over my shoulder. "You justconcentrate on getting those lights up and running."

The transition between the different gravity vectors of the sphere and thewraparound was as always a bit tricky to navigate, but I managed it withoutanyserious loss of balance or dignity. Nicabar had already opened the hatchwayand lowered the ladder the ten meters to the ground; checking to make sure myplasmic was riding loose in its holster, I stepped to the top of the ladderand looked down.

Nicabar had been right: It was indeed a zoo out there. The close packing ofthe parked ships was funneling the prospective merrymakers down the relativelynarrow lanes between them, lanes they were further having to share withfuelingtrucks, the occasional token customs vehicle, and about a million little two- man runaround cars that were obviously intended to alleviate the pedestriancongestion but were only succeeding in making it worse.

All of which boiled down to about as ideal a situation as I could have asked for. Even if the Patth and their lumpy Iykami allies were out there lookingfor us, the sheer volume of people they would have to sift through ought to make this as quick and clean as possible. Getting my bearings toward the nearestspurof the tram lines Nicabar had mentioned, I headed down the ladder and elbowed myway into the river of pedestrians.

My first thought had been to try to corral one of the cars for myself. Butthere weren't any unused ones in sight, so I set off on foot. Which was just aswell, I quickly realized, as I saw how easily the cars were getting snarled up inthe traffic flow. The tram spur wasn't that far away, and I could use theexercise.

And the time to do some hard thinking.

But not about how I was going to acquire Shawn's borandis. Despite my somewhatmelodramatic pronouncement to Tera about doing whatever I had to, that partwas actually going to be the least of my worries. With borandis a perfectly legalsubstance for at least a dozen of the species jostling against me, everypharmacy on the planet would have the stuff in stock, with few if anyquestionsasked. No, the immediate and burning question right now was the same one thathad been gnawing at me for quite a while: how to get the Icarus to Earth aheadof the Patth.

Along with the subsidiary question of whether that was even the smart thingfor me to do.

Because lurking in the back of my mind was my most recent conversation withIxil, and his half-joking question of whether I would be offering the Icarusto Brother John instead. Then, I'd assured him I had no intention of doing so; now, though, I wasn't nearly so sure it wasn't the best solution we had. It wouldkeep the stargate in human hands—bloody hands, certainly, but humannevertheless—as well as giving me the kind of career boost someone in myposition could usually only dream of. I might even get to meet the elusive Mr.

Antoniewicz, which would put me in exalted company indeed.

Cameron wouldn't be pleased by such a move, of course. Neither would Tera; andif Tera wasn't happy, Nicabar probably wouldn't be happy, either. The two ofthem seemed to have become quite chummy since that confrontation on the bridgeregarding my shadier business associations. Still, at this point, otherpeople'shappiness or lack thereof wasn't particularly high on my priority list. We'dcovered barely a fifth of the distance from Meima to Earth, and already we'dhad far too many close calls than I cared to think about. The others, believingthat the Icarus was a superfast alien stardrive, undoubtedly still had their hopespinned on using it to beat out the Patth net; Ixil and I, on the other hand, knew that hope was nonexistent.

On almost every level I could think of, the idea made sense. And Cameron andTera would surely get over their pique eventually. Still, I reluctantlyconcluded, I wasn't quite ready to make such a decision. Not yet. Maybe oncewe were off Palmary.

The tram line, for all its obviously quick assembly, was still morecomfortable and professional than transports I'd used on a lot of supposedly more advancedworlds. I arrived at the platform to find a pair of trams already waiting, oneeach heading in to the cities of Drobney and k'Barch. I picked the k'Barchone, reasoning that the place with a k'Tra name would probably have a more freneticcelebration level, and hence more cover for a man on the run.

Most of my fellow travelers had apparently come to a similar conclusion, thoughundoubtedly with different motivations. I let the traffic flow carry me inthrough the doors and to a standing point midway down one of the cars, jammedbetween a group of sweaty Narchners and a group of clean but equally aromaticSaffi.

We headed out. I had enough of a view out one of the side windows to see thatNicabar's assumption had been correct: Not only was there a good-sizedoutfitters' store at the junction of the two tram lines, but also a collectionof restaurants, tavernos, and gawk-shops. Even StarrComm had gotten into theact, setting up a prefab satellite station so that spacers who felt the needto get in touch with the outside universe wouldn't have to go to wherever theirmain building was in the twin-city area. Once again, I raised my estimate ofhow much money this Grand Feast must pour into the Palmary economy.

We rumbled our way to the end of the line, which from the look of things wasrelatively close to the middle of k'Barch and perilously near the epicenter ofthe upcoming celebrations. The earlier flow through the tram doors reverseditself, and a few chaotic minutes later I was maneuvering my way down asidewalk that was only marginally less crowded than the inside of the tram had been.

About a block ahead, I could see the rustling display flag of a pharmacy, andI concentrated on making my way toward it.

I had reached the shop and was working my way sideways through the crowdtoward the door, when something exploded against the back of my neck, plunging meinto darkness.

CHAPTER 19

I CAME TO slowly, drifting back toward consciousness in gradual and torturedstages. There was a vague sensation of discomfort, which first coalesced intoan overall chill and stiffness before zeroing in on a throbbing somewhere in theback of my head. There was something wrong with my arms, though I couldn'tfigure out exactly what. There was light somewhere, too, though as vague andundefined as the discomfort had originally been, and the distant thoughtoccurred to me that if I turned my head maybe I could figure out where it wascoming from. It took some time and effort to remember how that could be done, but finally I had it doped out. Feeling rather pleased with my accomplishment, I

turned my head a little to the side.

And instantly came fully awake as a flare of pain burned through the back ofmyskull. Someone, apparently, was doing his best to rip my head off my spinewith his bare hands. Clenching my teeth, I waited until the pain had mostlysubsided; then, keeping my head as motionless as possible, I eased open my eyes.

I was sitting in a plain wooden armchair, unpadded, my head lolled forwardwith my chin resting on my chest. What was wrong with my arms was quickly apparent: both wrists were handcuffed to the chair arms on which they were resting.