The Castle in Cassiopeia Read online

  “And he’s got the map right here in this room?” asked Pretorius.

  Apollo shook his head. “He doesn’t have a map . . . yet. But any computer in the castle can produce one.”

  “I hope to hell he doesn’t think we’re going to send him out of this room all alone to get one made,” said Pretorius.

  Apollo and the Kabori exchanged words very quickly.

  “Okay,” said Apollo, looking up. “He knows that won’t work. He’s willing to tell us where there are three or four nearby rooms with computers. He can’t guarantee any of them will be empty at any given moment. It’ll be our job to gain entrance, give the computer its orders in Kabori—which I can do, of course, and probably so can Pandora—and then get the printout.”

  “Will anyone but you and Pandora be able to read it?” asked Pretorius.

  “Not a problem,” answered Apollo. “Once it’s done, I can translate it into Terran.”

  “Tell him he’s got a deal,” said Pretorius.

  Apollo spoke briefly to the Kabori, the Kabori answered, and then he got to his feet.

  “His name’s Suttorz, by the way,” said Apollo.

  “Might as well start now,” said Pretorius. “No telling how crowded the corridor will get once the party breaks up.”

  “My thought exactly,” said Apollo. He opened the door and prodded Suttorz with his burner. “Let’s get this show on the road.”

  18

  Suttorz led the group down the corridor, then stopped at the third door on the right.

  “Okay,” said Pretorius. “How do you open it without breaking it down and making a racket?”

  Suttorz traced a five-pointed star on it at eye level, and the door slid back noiselessly. He stepped inside the room, pointed to a desk with a computer sitting atop it, then stood aside as Apollo and Pretorius walked passed him.

  “Is it working?” asked Snake.

  “It’s working,” said Apollo.

  “Okay,” said Pretorius. “Tell him he kept his end of the bargain, and we’ll keep ours. No harm will come to him, but he’s got to go back to his room and stay there until we say otherwise.”

  Apollo looked dubious. “What do you think will keep him there once we’ve gone off to find Michkag?”

  Pretorius turned to Irish. “You go with him and keep your burner trained on him until we get back. If he tries to leave the room, kill him.”

  “In cold blood?” she asked, frowning.

  “I have no idea what temperature his blood is,” said Pretorius. “Just do it.”

  “I’ve never killed anyone like that,” said Irish.

  “There’s an alternative, of course,” said Pretorius.

  “Oh?”

  Pretorius nodded. “He kills you.”

  She nodded her head. “Yes, sir.”

  “Apollo, sit down and see about finding the map,” ordered Pretorius.

  Apollo sat at the desk and began issuing orders to the computer.

  “What the hell are you saying?” asked Snake, frowning.

  Apollo smiled. “It’s easier to talk code to it than punch in all the correct keywords. Pandora, is it making sense to you?”

  “Pretty much,” she replied. “I don’t understand a couple of the words, but I’d have no trouble if I was sitting there and using the symbols.”

  He spoke to the machine for another thirty seconds, and then a six-level holographic map appeared in the middle of the floor. He uttered one more command, and a room on the sixth floor began flashing.

  “That’s us?” asked Snake.

  “Right.”

  “Where’s Michkag?” she asked.

  Apollo shrugged. “Who the hell knows?” He uttered a few more commands, and a room near the center of the second level turned a brilliant red. “That’s where he sleeps, at least in theory. But we don’t know for a fact that he’s in the castle or even on the planet—and if he’s in the castle, there’s half a dozen places he could be eating, and who the hell knows if he’s taken a fancy to one of his female warriors and is camped out in her quarters?”

  “So much for maps,” said Snake.

  “It’s a starting point,” replied Apollo.

  “Okay,” said Pretorius, “how do we get down to the second level, preferably without being seen?”

  “There’s a major airlift here,” said Apollo, uttering a command. An empty shaft started blinking on and off in yellow.

  “No good,” said Pretorius. “It’s right in the middle of the castle, and it’s five times the size of the smaller airlift over there against the north wall. Too damned public.” He paused, staring at the map. “In fact, airlifts in general are too public. They’re silent, which is good, but they don’t have doors, so anyone can see you as you ascend or descend past their level. What we could use is an out-of-the-way staircase.”

  “I’ll look, but don’t get your hopes up,” said Apollo. “Stairways never caught on once we left Sol’s system. Too many faster and easier ways to go up and down.” He manipulated the map for another few minutes, then looked up. “Nothing inside but airlifts.”

  “What about outside?” asked Proto.

  Apollo grimaced. “There are a couple of ramps that circle the building top to bottom, with an entrance every five hundred meters or so.”

  “Then why make a face?” asked Snake.

  “Because they’ve got about ten thousand armed guards surrounding the building,” said Pretorius. “You can see some of them when you look out of any window in the place. I assume they’re mostly for show—I mean, hell, who besides us is crazy enough to go after Michkag in his home quarters?—but that doesn’t mean their weapons aren’t all loaded and primed.”

  “Don’t they have anything like, I don’t know, a laundry chute?” asked Pandora.

  “I can’t find any,” answered Apollo.

  “Don’t forget,” added Pretorius, “this place wasn’t built for humans. For all we know, the guys who built it before the Kaboris took over were all naked. We’ve seen enough shaggy races that were sentient but didn’t need clothes for protection against the elements.”

  “So how do we get down?” asked Pandora.

  “I guess we do it the hard way,” said Pretorius. He turned to Proto. “You’re a Kabori.”

  Proto instantly appeared as one.

  “You’ve got a burner in each hand.”

  “Wouldn’t one be more what I’d likely hold on you?” asked Proto.

  “If you know who and how they salute, fine,” answered Pretorius. “Otherwise, this gives you an excuse for not saluting.”

  “Okay, we’re his prisoners,” said Snake. “Then what?”

  “Then he takes us down to the third level.”

  “The third, not the second?”

  “He’s not going to march us right by Michkag’s quarters without passing, I don’t know, maybe a couple of hundred guards,” explained Pretorius. “Someone’s bound to talk to him, question him, slap him on the back, do something that will give him and us away. We know where Michkag’s rooms are, so maybe we can blast into them faster and easier than walk past his bodyguards into them.”

  “Okay, makes sense,” said Apollo.

  “And it gives our map-readers a little more time.”

  “I thought we found what you wanted,” said Pandora.

  “You found part of it—Michkag’s quarters,” said Pretorius. “Now I want you to find something else. See if they’ve got a prison wing in this damned building.”

  “Why didn’t you ask when I was on the computer a minute ago?” asked Apollo.

  “I wanted to make sure no one would come looking for us,” answered Pretorius. “They might not have pinpointed this room, but they’d have the whole place on alert if they thought anything was wrong.”

  “Okay,” said Apollo, activating the computer. He uttered a number of Kabori commands, then watched the screen. “Levels three through six are all okay,” he said. “No way they’d put a prison on the same level as M
ichkag’s quarters, or on the ground level either.”

  “So that’s it?” asked Proto.

  “Not quite,” said Pretorius. “See if there’s a basement.”

  Apollo gave two more orders, then looked up and smiled. “Bingo!” he said.

  “Dumb word,” said Snake.

  “They tell me it used to be some kind of game,” said Apollo.

  “For five-year-olds, probably,” she said contemptuously.

  “Fine. Let me amend that: Success!” Apollo stared at her. “Any better?”

  “How big is the jail?” asked Pretorius.

  Apollo voiced a few more sharp commands. “Maybe forty cells. I have a feeling each cell holds more than one prisoner, but I can’t certify it here.”

  “You mean each cell can hold more, or each cell does hold more?”

  Apollo shrugged. “You guess is as good as mine.”

  “Why are we so interested in prison cells?” asked Proto.

  “If we need some allies, that’s the likeliest place to find ’em,” answered Pretorius. He turned to Apollo. “Okay, turn the damned machine off.”

  Apollo deactivated the computer and go to his feet. “Third level?” he asked.

  “Right,” said Pretorius. “Get us to the nearest airlift.”

  Apollo frowned. “Uh . . . I have a suggestion.”

  “Yes?”

  “I know we’ve made some progress, but we’re still closer to the outer wall than the center. It won’t make much difference up at this level, as long as we avoid that party up ahead, but that’s a long way to walk—all of it out in the open—on the third level, which figures to be a lot more populated.”

  “And your suggestion?”

  “Let’s go down to the basement and lead the jailbreak. We can go after Michkag in the confusion.”

  Pretorius shook his head. “First thing that’ll happen is they’ll triple the guard around Michkag. And if we’re not all dead in ten minutes, they’ll fly him off the planet and not return until they know we’re all dead.”

  Apollo grimaced. “Okay then, let’s start walking.”

  “Stop,” said Pretorius. The others turned to him questioningly. “Apollo’s idea is good in principle, just not in particulars. We’ll go to the fourth level, make our way closer until we’re above Michkag’s quarters, and examine our options once we get there.”

  “The fourth, not the third?” asked Pandora.

  “Right,” answered Pretorius. “Who the hell knows what they may have treated the ceiling with—anything from alarms to explosives that only fire up, not down.” He turned to Proto. “You’re still a Kabori, and we’re still your prisoners.”

  “Right,” said Proto.

  “Okay,” said Pretorius to the others. “Hide your weapons, and follow Apollo.”

  “Why him?” asked Snake.

  “If you know where the airlifts are, we’ll follow you instead,” said Pretorius.

  Snake looked embarrassed. “Just asking.”

  “All right,” said Pretorius. “Let’s go.”

  Apollo stepped out into the corridor, followed by the others, with Proto and his image bringing up the rear.

  “Coming to a branch,” said Apollo. “Bear right.”

  “That takes us nearer the outside wall and away from the center,” noted Pandora, who had read at least some of the map.

  “It also avoids that celebration that’s not yet winding down,” said Apollo.

  “Oh, right,” she replied.

  They walked for another hundred meters, then came to a pair of side-by-side airlifts. Apollo entered the nearer one and immediately began ascending.

  “Shit!” he muttered as he vanished from sight.

  His companions held still, and a moment later he appeared in the adjoining shaft and stepped out onto the floor.

  “Only one goes up, only one goes down,” he explained. “I never saw that before.”

  “Okay,” said Pretorius, “everyone into the farther one. Proto, go third, right after Snake. It wouldn’t look right for you to let her and Apollo too far ahead of you.”

  “Right, Nate,” said Proto.

  They entered the airlift at began descending one at a time, gathering again on the fourth level. Apollo was leading them down the corridor again when a voice rang out: “Halt!”

  They stopped, and two armed Kabori approached them from around a turn in the corridor.

  “You are under arrest!” said one, and Apollo translated.

  Shit! thought Pretorius. The logical thing is for Proto to say he’s already arrested us, but he can’t speak the language.

  “Tell them we’re emissaries from the Democracy, here to make peace,” said Pretorius.

  “Looking like this?” said Apollo.

  “I’m just buying time, not trying to sign a pan-galactic treaty,” said Pretorius.

  Apollo shrugged, turned back to the Kaboris, and translated the message. One of them threw back his head and laughed. The other walked over and glared at Pretorius, his face maybe six inches away.

  The laugher said something, and Apollo translated again. “He says you’re a coward and a liar.”

  Pretorius answered, “Tell him at least I’m not an ugly coward and liar.”

  “You sure?” asked Apollo.

  “You heard me. Translate it.”

  Apollo spoke, and an instant later the Kabori knocked Pretorius to the ground with a roundhouse left.

  Pretorius rolled over against Snake’s leg, then knelt unsteadily.

  “Bend over and give me a hand up,” he said in pain-filled tones. Snake bent down to help him, and he whispered, “And grab your burner while you’re at it.”

  He reached into his boot with the hand that his body shielded from the Kabori’s vision. He and Snake both stood up, firing as they did so, and the result was two dead Kaboris about three seconds later.

  “Okay,” said Pretorius, “we can’t leave them here. Snake, burn ’em each again to cauterize the wounds and make sure they don’t bleed. Apollo, choose a door, open it, and let’s pull ’em out of the corridor where people will trip over them. Pandora, get your weapon out in case someone’s in the room he chooses.”

  Apollo traced the star they had seen on the sixth-level door, and it worked on this one as well. There was a Kabori asleep on what passed for a bed, and Pandora killed him before he even woke up. Then Apollo and Pretorius dragged the two corpses into the room, walked out into the corridor, and Pandora ordered the door to close behind them.

  “Open it again,” ordered Pretorius.

  She did so, with a questioning look.

  “No reason making it too easy to find the bodies,” he explained. He stood in the doorway, faced the metal latch that would catch and lock the door, aimed his burner at it, and kept his finger on the trigger for eight, ten, and finally twelve seconds.

  “Okay,” he said when he was done. “Close it.”

  Apollo ordered the door to close. “What was that all about?” he asked.

  “I melted the metal in the lock,” explained Pretorius. “When it hardens around the metal in the door, you won’t be able to get into this room without breaking the door down, and they might not do that for another day or two. Why make it too easy for our enemies?”

  “A telling point,” said Apollo with a grim chuckle.

  “Okay, Boss,” said Snake, “we’ve killed three bad guys, Irish is keeping another one safe on the sixth level, we’re probably not even halfway to Michkag yet, always assuming he’s even here in the castle, and you got to figure we’ve done the easy part so far. So what’s next?”

  “I’m working on it,” replied Pretorius.

  19

  “Let’s begin by getting to the same spot as Michkag’s room two levels down,” said Pretorius after a moment’s thought.

  “Okay,” said Apollo, heading off. “Then what?”

  “Let’s see what it looks like before we plan too far ahead.”

  They walked down the c
orridor, weapons hidden, while Proto followed them with his nonexistent weapon in his nonexistent hand.

  “They can’t just be endless rooms,” complained Snake. “After all, this is a castle, goddamnit!”

  “You want huge rooms that serve other functions, go down to the first or second levels,” answered Apollo. “I don’t know who built this castle originally, but whoever it was had a ton of money, which means he had a ton of enemies, which means he had or hired a ton of soldiers and bodyguards, and unless he wanted them punching a timeclock and going home each night he had to provide living space for them.” He turned to Snake and smiled. “We’re in it.”

  “Then where are they all?” she demanded.

  “We just killed three of them,” said Apollo. “Wasn’t that enough for you?”

  “You know what I mean,” said Snake irritably. “If the castle is home to half a million warriors, where they hell are they?”

  “Probably half are on duty, thirty percent are sleeping, and twenty percent are in lower-level function rooms or getting some fresh air away from the castle,” said Pretorius. “Now stop complaining and—”

  Suddenly he stopped, and within a couple of seconds the others had followed suit.

  “What is it?” asked Pandora.

  Pretorius looked up at the ceiling. “Correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t that a vent over here, just next to the top of the wall?”

  “Looks like one,” said Apollo. “Why?”

  “Let me show you one of the reasons I put up with all of Snake’s bullshit,” said Pretorius. He turned to her. “Snake?”

  He cupped his hands at knee level, she placed a foot in them, and he boosted her until she could reach the grate that covered the vent.

  “Need any tools?” he asked.

  “No, it’ll come off with a good yank,” she said, and indeed it came away in her hands a few seconds later.

  “Okay,” said Pretorius, boosting her higher. “You should be able to see through the vents. Keep in touch with your communicator, remember to whisper in case sound travels and gets amplified in that vent, and see what’s up ahead.”

  “You got it,” said Snake, as she pulled herself the rest of the way into the vent. “And any time it branches off, I’ll follow the branch to the right. It’s got to beat looking into three hundred bedrooms in a row.”