The Castle in Cassiopeia Read online

  “There was only one?” said Snake.

  “Oh, come on now, Snake,” said Pretorius. “You know there are a batch of them. We confronted a single warrior in one of the corridors.”

  “Get to the meat of it,” said Apollo with a grin.

  “The meat of it is that we’re trying to set up a meeting with their leader to see if they’d like to sell their services to the Democracy rather than the Coalition.”

  “Are there enough of them to make a difference?” asked Proto.

  “Everything depends on conditions,” answered Pretorius.

  Proto frowned. “Conditions?”

  “Stand right next to one and tell me you don’t understand what effect conditions can have,” said Pretorius with an amused smile.

  “Let’s go back to square one,” said Pandora. “They’re here to offer their services to Michkag. You want them to sell out to us. Michkag is protected by maybe a million warriors right here in the castle, a few million more on the planet, and more than ten billion in ships and on Coalition worlds. What can we possibly offer them that gets them to join four Men plus Proto to overthrow Michkag on his home territory?”

  “Five,” said Pretorius.

  “Okay, five if Irish is still alive,” said Pandora. “That doesn’t make much of a dent in the odds.”

  “We’ll explain that we’ve beaten these odds before, that this is our Michkag, and that this time we don’t even want to sneak him away safely, we want to kill him.”

  “Oh, they’re gonna love you for that, Nate,” said Snake. “We created this monster. Help us kill him when he’s offering you money to fight for him.”

  “I know I’m not really a member of the Dead Enders . . .” began Apollo.

  “The hell you’re not!” said Pretorius.

  “All right. I think we appeal to their self-interest,” said Apollo.

  “Their self-interest is staying alive,” said Snake.

  “It’s more than that,” replied Apollo. “There may be a couple of hundred of them, if that many, in the castle. If they join him, there’ll be certain worlds and certain enemies where their particular physical attributes will carry the day, but when all is said and done they’ll be something like 0.0001 of Michkag’s forces. That limits their pay, their freedom to choose their assignments, and just about everything else. If and when we meet with them, Nate can lay out a scenario where they operate pretty much on their own, where they can choose reasonable, beatable targets rather than something like five billion Kaboris, and whatever Michkag’s offering them. I assume we can double or triple it?”

  “If there are as few in this castle as we think, we can more than triple it,” answered Pretorius.

  “It’s really a matter of making a difference, and basing your income on that,” continued Apollo. “Here they’re just a few more foot soldiers to add to a billion or more—with the disadvantage that their greatest weapon—proximity—prevents them from interacting with the Kabori or rising in the ranks. Whereas if they’ll help us, it’ll be a billion versus a handful, and clearly killing Michkag will make an enormous difference. Once word gets out, they’ll have offers from every government, as well as every tin-pot dictator in the galaxy.”

  “And what if we meet with them and they decide they don’t like the odds, or they don’t think you can deliver on your offer?” asked Snake. “All they have to do is pull your mask off, or even just rip your shirt off, stay in the room with you for a few hours, and you’ll probably be dead. Then they show our bodies to Michkag—and this Michkag knows who we are except for Irish and Apollo—and he’ll heap riches on them, because of all the goddamned Kaboris on this planet, he is the one who knows for sure what we’re capable of.”

  “It’s a chance we’ll have to take,” said Apollo. He turned to Pretorius. “Unless the boss can think of something better.”

  “I’m working on it,” replied Pretorius. He tossed his t-pack to Pandora. “In the meantime, get this translated, just in case we have to use it.”

  “What is it?” she asked.

  “Directions to the leader of the Jebarnogusti.”

  She stared at it dubiously. “T-packs are pretty good, but if it’s never come into contact with one of them before . . .”

  “It worked when we spoke to him,” said Pretorius.

  “Not a problem,” added Apollo. “I’ve worked on some of the more esoteric ones. They not only examine words and sentence structures, but inflections, pauses, and if you’ve got that tiny spy-eye activated, even posture.”

  Pandora shrugged. “Here goes.”

  She began working the t-pack. Suddenly she stopped and grinned.

  “What is it?” asked Apollo.

  “You knew what you were talking about,” she said. “Our Jebarnogusti friend is giving directions based on how many paces to this turn or that fork . . . and it’s trying to determine the average length of his pace to that of a Man’s.”

  Apollo frowned and turned to Pretorius. “What would you say, Nate? About the same?”

  Pretorius shook his head. “They have longer legs and shorter torsos.” He lowered his head in thought for a moment, then turned to Pandora. “Take six inches off each Jebarnogusti stride and that should come awfully close to being right.”

  “Okay,” said Pandora. “Right and left are the same, I assume?”

  “Can’t imagine they wouldn’t be,” said Apollo.

  “Okay,” said Pandora. She looked up a moment later. “I’ve instructed the computer to print it out so there’ll be no misunderstanding. I’d say you should reach the room or suite in question if you’re not stopped.”

  “We’ll be stopped,” said Pretorius. “If they’re not that efficient, they’re not worth Michkag’s time or ours.”

  “So what’s our next step?” asked Snake.

  “I’ll need a few minutes to consider all the possibilities,” said Pretorius. “In the meantime, I imagine Irish must be feeling pretty sleepy and pretty deserted. Apollo, get back up to the sixth level and being her back.”

  “And her prisoner?”

  “If he seems reasonable, bring him along.”

  “And if not?”

  “Kill him,” said Pretorius.

  “You know,” said Apollo thoughtfully, “if I kill him where he is, someone has to notice right away, and it won’t be hard to put two and two together. But if I take him down to four and knock him out, proximity to all those Stinkers could put him out of his misery and our hair.”

  “Okay, makes sense,” said Pretorius, “And make an effort to call them Jebarnogusti, not Stinkers. They have t-packs too, you know.”

  “Got it,” said Apollo, walking to the door and exiting.

  “I haven’t thought of her since we left her behind,” said Pandora. “I hope she’s okay.”

  “She’s pretty capable,” said Pretorius. “I wouldn’t worry.”

  She smiled. “I thought it was your job to worry. So what are you worrying about?”

  “Same as since we got here,” replied Pretorius. “We’re planning on assassinating the most powerful tyrant in the known galaxy, while surrounded by a few million of his warriors, in a section of the galaxy where we probably don’t have a single friend or ally.”

  “I hadn’t thought of it in those terms,” admitted Pandora.

  “I envy you,” replied Pretorius with a bittersweet smile.

  23

  “I think Apollo or I will check that section of the corridor every hour or two,” said Pretorius. “Assuming Xhankor gets his leader’s permission for us to talk to him, he has no idea how to contact us—or we him.”

  “I can go too,” said Snake.

  Pretorius shook his head. “He hasn’t seen you. He’ll assume you’re with us, but until he knows it, he’ll never expose his team to possible discovery.”

  “What if you can’t find this Xhankor?” asked Proto.

  “We’ll keep looking.” Pretorius offered him a bemused smile. “If Michkag or we live
an extra day or two, it probably won’t have that much effect on the history of the galaxy.”

  “It could,” said Snake. “He’s killed some mighty important people. Who the hell knows who’s next on his list?”

  “Try not to be so cheerful,” said Pretorius, attaching his jury-rigged facemask and walking to the door. It sensed him and pulled away, allowing him to pass through into the corridor. “I’m off to hunt for Xhankor. I’ll be back within half an hour.”

  “I’ll come with you,” said Snake, donning a mask. “There’s nothing to do in this room, and you never know when you might need some help.”

  Pretorius stared at her for a moment, then nodded his head curtly. “Okay, let’s go.”

  She followed him out into the corridor. He turned right and began walking, and she fell into step beside him.

  “This is the direction you were going when you met the Stinker?”

  “Yes,” said Pretorius. “And if you can’t remember to call him Xhankor or the Jebarnogusti, call him the alien. He’ll have a t-pack, and I don’t want you insulting him before I’ve had a chance to talk to his leader.”

  “Okay,” she said, then lowered her voice to a stage whisper. “But they are stinkers.”

  Pretorius made no reply, and the two of them walked another hundred meters, stopping every few steps to listen for sounds behind the doors or above and below the corridor.

  “You sure you met him in this area?” said Snake. “It’s pretty dull and unmemorable.”

  “You’ve seen a lot of corridors that aren’t, have you?” he shot back.

  “This is a castle, not a ship,” she replied. “It ought to have paintings or engravings along the walls.”

  “It’s the size of a small city,” said Pretorius. “You ever see a city with paintings and sculptures on every wall or building?”

  “You’re being very unpleasant, you know that?” complained Snake.

  “I’m searching for someone who might be the key to our achieving our objective, and you’re bitching about the décor.”

  “Okay, okay,” she said. “I was just making conversation.”

  He froze and held his hand up to signal her to stop.

  “What is it?” she whispered, pulling out her burner.

  He pointed down the corridor, then noticed her burner. “Don’t shoot,” he whispered.

  “What if it’s a Kabori?”

  “Then we’ll have a prisoner we can question.”

  He crouched down, and Snake did the same, her entire body hidden behind his larger one.

  Suddenly he stood up and waved at a Jebarnogusti who had turned into the corridor some thirty meters ahead of them.

  “Xhankor?” said Pretorius.

  The Jebarnogusti pulled out its t-pack and spoke into it. The translation came out of Pretorius’s device. “No, but I am a member of Xhankor’s unit, and he and his leader have sent me here five times already, searching for you. You are Pretorius.”

  “Yes.”

  “And you,” he added, indicating Snake, “are Apollo.”

  “She is Snake, another member of my team,” answered Pretorius. “May I ask why you have been searching for me?”

  “Xhankor is under the impression that you wish to form an alliance with us,” said the Jebarnogusti. “Was he mistaken?”

  “No, he was not mistaken. May I ask your name?”

  “I am Czizmar.”

  He reached his hand straight forward, with six fingers pointing toward the ceiling. Pretorius assumed he was supposed to respond in kind, did so, and was immediately hugged by Czizmar’s free arm.

  “Graalzhan—my leader—is waiting,” said Czizmar. “Will you follow me, please?” He turned to Snake. “You too, of course.”

  He turned and headed back the way he had come, with Pretorius and Snake falling into step behind him. They came to two forks in the corridor, bore to the right both times, and finally came to a stop.

  Czizmar turned to them. “May I have your weapons?”

  “Hell, no!” responded Snake immediately.

  “I really cannot let you in unless you are disarmed.”

  Snake was about to make another retort, but Pretorius laid a hand on her shoulder and nodded his head. “It’s okay, Snake,” he said.

  “But they’re here to fight for the son of a bitch we want to kill!” she said.

  “That’s what we’re here to discuss,” said Pretorius. “Who they’re fighting for and who they’re fighting against.”

  He handed his burner and his screecher to Czizmar, and she reluctantly followed suit.

  “And the blade,” said Pretorius.

  She glared at him, but withdrew a wicked-looking knife from her boot and handed it to Czizmar.

  Czizmar uttered a command that sounded remarkably like a carnivore’s growl, and the door dilated to let them through.

  They found themselves not in a small, relatively featureless room like the one they had just left, but in a large suite, luxurious by the primitive standards of the castle, with at least two other rooms that Pretorius could see. A quintet of armed Jebarnogustis were posted about the room but made no threatening motions.

  “Follow me,” said Czizmar, leading them to the room on their left, and from there into a far larger room, this one with eight armed warriors and a tall, slender representative of the species sitting on a tall wooden chair.

  “Graalzhan, may I present the Man Pretorius that I told you about, accompanied by the Man Snake.”

  “Greetings,” said Graalzhan’s voice as it came through Pretorius’s t-pack. “Xhankor tells me that we may possibly have a goal in common.”

  “It is entirely possible,” affirmed Pretorius.

  “I understand you are here to kill Michkag.” There was a brief pause. “Let me assure you that anything you say here will remain here.”

  “All right,” said Pretorius. “Yes, we’re here to assassinate Michkag.”

  “It might be amusing,” said Graalzhan. “I wonder if he has ever even seen a Man before.”

  “He has,” Pretorius assured her.

  “Still, you might approach him by presenting yourself as an ambassador seeking to negotiate a treaty for certain worlds, now that he has moved from Orion to Cassiopeia.”

  Pretorius shook his head. “Won’t work.”

  “Oh?” said Graalzhan. “You think he is that perceptive?”

  “Perception’s got nothing to do with it,” answered Pretorius. “He knows all but two of my team’s members.”

  Graalzhan stared at him for a long moment, then spoke: “Now I am impressed.”

  “Then perhaps we can work together,” said Pretorius.

  “Anything is possible,” said Graalzhan. “Tell me of your previous encounter—or is it encounters—with him.”

  “Let me think for a minute,” said Pretorius.

  “Suddenly I sense more than a failed assassination attempt in which both sides survived,” said Graalzhan.

  “You’re very perceptive,” said Pretorius.

  There was another moment of silence.

  “Well?” she persisted.

  “All right,” said Pretorius. “What the hell. It can’t change anything, not at this late date.”

  “This becomes more and more intriguing,” remarked Graalzhan, leaning forward on her chair.

  “To begin with,” said Pretorius, “Michkag—the true original Michkag—sits in a prison deep in the Democracy.”

  Czizmar uttered an untranslatable shout. Graalzhan turned to him, held up a hand, and ordered him to keep silent and listen.

  “If you have Michkag in captivity,” said Graalzhan, “then who sits on this castle’s throne down on level two?”

  Pretorius smiled grimly. “Michkag.”

  “Hah!” cried Czizmar. “I knew it!”

  “There is a flaw here somewhere,” said Graalzhan. “I thought you said he was in jail within the Democracy.”

  “He is,” answered Pretorius. “I saw him not too l
ong ago.”

  “But now you say he is in command of the castle in Cassiopeia,” continued Graalzhan. “How can this be?”

  Pretorius sighed, and wished he had brought along a smokeless cigarette. “A few years ago a Kabori medic managed to get a skin scraping and a blood-soaked bandage from Michkag after a battle. He was sickened by the wars and the lack of freedom on so many Coalition planets, so he defected to the Democracy and brought the scraping and the bandage with him.” He paused. “Do you see where this is leading?”

  “You created a Michkag clone!” exclaimed Graalzhan excitedly.

  “Yes, and the defector schooled him in everything he would have to know to replace the original Michkag.”

  “And I assume he did?”

  Pretorius nodded. “Maybe a year and a half a ago.” He waited until the t-pack converted that into Jebarnogusti measurements.

  “And no one knew or suspected?”

  “No,” said Pretorius. “We assumed at first that it was because we had schooled him so well. He knew the original’s favorite foods, expressions, moods, females. He knew how the original would plot a campaign, how he would deploy his forces, everything he had to know to fool those closest to him. And then it happened.”

  “What happened?” asked Graalzhan, listening to the story with a single-minded intensity.

  Pretorius grimaced. “He decided that he liked being Michkag and running the Coalition and winning wars of conquest. And in truth he’s more effective than the original was because he’s had the advantage not only of being schooled down to the last detail in being Michkag, but also because his first few years of existence were as the property of the Democracy’s military, and he learned a lot of things that the original could never know.”

  “So you killed the original and replaced him with a clone!” said Graalzhan. “Truly remarkable!”

  “Not quite,” said Pretorius. “We—that is to say, my team—didn’t want to kill the original. If even a trace of his DNA were found, that could expose the whole ruse and cost the clone his life—back when we thought he was on our side.”

  “So you kidnapped the original and brought him home with you!” said Graalzhan. “That is the most remarkable achievement I have ever heard of!” She leaned forward. “I assume you plan to kill this one.”