The Castle in Cassiopeia Read online

  And with that, he stepped out into the corridor.

  27

  “This way,” said Pandora, pointing to her left as they came to a fork in the corridor. “Then—”

  “Stop!” whispered Pretorius.

  She turned to him with a questioning expression.

  “We’re prisoners,” he continued. “We don’t know one corridor from another. Proto is the Kabori. Assume he’s told us or is telling us where to go. Just proceed as if you’re under his orders to go exactly where you plan to go.”

  She nodded her head, then continued walking.

  They continued for another hundred meters, and then she took a sharp left turn, walked down past three normal doors to an extra-large one, and stopped. It sensed their presence and dilated, revealing an airlift that ran from the top level to below the ground. When they were all inside it, she ordered it to stop at the second level.

  When it stopped, Pandora ordered the door to remain shut.

  “What’s the problem?” asked Pretorius.

  “I need to be able to speak,” she said.

  “Go ahead, and make it fast in case someone’s waiting to use the airlift.”

  “All right,” she said. “This is as close as we can get to Michkag’s quarters without having to walk through public areas that are probably loaded with his guards. Even from this remote spot, and using what seems to be the least-populated approach, we’re still going to be seen. And there are a lot of twists and turns along the way.”

  “Your point?” asked Pretorius.

  “There’s no way we’re not going to be seen by at least some of his officers. And if we’re seen, and we’re not marching in a straight line for the duration of that sighting, I can’t give directions. Proto will look to be in charge, but he can’t speak Kabori.”

  “Not a problem,” said Pretorius. “Proto, you’ve been wounded. Half your lower jaw has been shattered. You’re bandaged there.”

  Proto instantly created the illusions of bandages covering his mouth and jaw.

  “Looks legit,” said Apollo approvingly.

  “Yeah, but it won’t sound legit,” said Snake. “He doesn’t speak Kabori.”

  “He’s got the t-pack Pandora gave him,” said Pretorius.

  “We still have a problem,” said Pandora.

  “Oh?” said Pretorius.

  “It’s our t-pack. They’ll recognize it.”

  “I doubt it,” answered Pretorius. “This is the home guard, charged with protecting Michkag and the castle. They’ll have no reason to have handled or examined alien t-packs.” He paused for a moment, considering their situation. “Okay, from this point on, Snake and Apollo can take turns leading. Then Irish and me. Then Pandora directly ahead of Proto, so you can whisper orders. Irish and I will pass them up to Apollo and Snake, and Proto will utter them into the t-pack, which will translate them into Kabori for the benefit of anyone who happens to overhear him. And if his sentence structure is a bit awkward, no one will figure out that there’s a t-pack involved; they’ll write it off to a busted jaw and words he can’t pronounce with it.”

  “Why don’t I just keep the t-pack and give the directions myself?” asked Pandora. “It’ll still come out in Kabori.”

  Pretorius shook his head. “At some point we may come across some enthusiastic guards who want to examine the five Men for hidden weapons before we can confront Michkag. The odds are that they won’t feel compelled to examine a fellow Kabori, especially one who just got busted up capturing us. Okay, let’s get moving before some guard notices that we’re a stationary blip on his spy screen.”

  They began marching again, Twice they skirted large areas filled with Kabori troops, but no one stopped them.

  So far, so good, thought Pretorius, as they headed into another winding corridor. We can’t stay this lucky all the way to Michkag’s quarters.

  They began marching without further incident for another two hundred meters, then came to an empty room with its door open. A Kabori soldier was standing in front of a mirror, adjusting his uniform.

  Apollo turned to Pretorius, a questioning look on his face. Pretorius ran his hand across his throat in a slicing motion. Apollo nodded, entered the room silently, reached the soldier in two steps, and dropped him with a sledge-like blow to the head. He then knelt down, pulled a knife, and was about to slit the unconscious Kabori’s throat.

  “No!” hissed Pretorius in a whisper.

  The rest of the team entered the room, and Pandora ordered the door to shut behind them.

  “I thought you wanted him dead,” said Apollo, still kneeling next to the Kabori.

  “I thought better of it,” said Pretorius. “They find him like this, it could be a stroke, a heart attack, any number of things. They find him with his throat slit, and they know they’ve got enemies prowling around Michkag’s level of the castle.”

  Apollo shrugged. “Makes sense.” He found a couple of pieces of cloth nearby, stuffed them into the soldier’s mouth, and clasped his hand over his nose. The soldier began jerking spasmodically for perhaps thirty seconds, then lay still. Apollo removed the cloths and dumped them in a trash atomizer. “That buys us all the time you want,” he announced, “and stops him waking up at an awkward time.”

  “Okay,” said Pretorius, turning to Pandora. “How close are we getting, and where are the bulk of his troops stationed? The ones on this level of the castle, I mean.”

  “The guards are all the hell over,” answered Pandora. “There are three main halls, or arenas, that look like they could each accommodate thirty thousand Kabori, maybe even a bit more. We’ll be near one of them as we approach Michkag’s quarters, but we won’t actually enter it or walk through it.”

  “So how far are we from Michkag?” persisted Pretorius.

  Pandora shrugged. “Maybe a hundred and fifty meters on a straight line.”

  “Is there a straight line approach to him?”

  “Not unless you want to introduce yourself to a few thousand Kabori,” she said. “There’s a somewhat sweeping semicircle that’ll get us damned close. From the map, it looks like we could just walk in, but of course we can’t.”

  “If we follow that route,” continued Pretorius, “how close can we get before you figure we’re an open target?”

  “I haven’t seen the disposition of their troops,” answered Pandora, “but I’d guess about sixty meters.”

  “Could be worse,” said Pretorius.

  “You’re kidding!” said Snake.

  “Am I smiling?” replied Pretorius.

  “We’re going to run a gauntlet of hundreds, maybe thousands, of armed Kabori for more than fifty meters?” demanded Snake.

  “No, of course not,” said Pretorius. Suddenly he smiled. “We’re going to walk it.”

  “What?”

  “Calmly, coolly, with our hands up,” he replied. “As Proto’s prisoners.”

  “That might work back where we climbed out of the airlift, but not as we get close to Michkag,” said Snake.

  “I’m open to suggestions,” said Pretorius. “You got a better one?”

  Snake muttered an obscenity.

  “Anyone else have an alternative?” he continued.

  Nobody spoke.

  “Then before anyone comes looking for our dead friend here,” said Pretorius, gesturing toward the Kabori corpse, “let’s study the map so we don’t need instructions to get the last fifty or sixty meters, and then it’s about time to do what we came here to do.”

  28

  They walked single file, with Proto appearing as the Kabori guard and holding a wicked-looking-but-nonexistent burner at the ready.

  “I can’t believe it!” whispered Pretorius. “Why the hell isn’t someone guarding the place?”

  Pandora stood before the door, which sensed her presence and dilated. All six of them walked through it and found themselves not in a room or suite of rooms but a huge circular area, perhaps fifty meters in circumference, filled with artwo
rk, alien flowers, strange-looking furniture that would fit neither Man nor Kabori, and other trophies of conquest.

  “Okay,” said Pretorius softly. “Which way now?”

  Pandora shrugged helplessly. “I don’t know. This doesn’t agree with the map.”

  “Figures,” said Apollo. “The castle is probably a couple of thousand years old. Michkag’s only been here a little more than a year. Any changes he’s made wouldn’t show up on ninety-nine percent of the maps in existence.”

  “Well, we can’t just stand around waiting for him to come or go from wherever he does come and go,” said Pretorius. “Let’s find something a little less out in the open while we dope out our next step.”

  He went to the first door he came to, and it slid back to reveal a storage room about one-tenth filled with food, some frozen, some refrigerated, some stored dry in small bins. “Clearly it’s not enough to feed half his men a single meal, so it must be just his favorites, which leads us to two conclusions.”

  “It does?” asked Snake.

  He nodded. “First, he doesn’t eat with his men, and second, someone will be by before too long to put together his next meal.”

  “We can’t all of us hide in here when his cook comes by,” said Snake. “You want some of us to hunt up another room?”

  Pretorius shook his head. “No. We’re safe here. Who the hell knows how safe any other room is. And before too long someone’s going to come by to pick up the makings for Michkag’s next meal. When that happens, we’ve got some questions to ask him.”

  “Fine,” said Snake. Then: “How often do the Kaboris eat?”

  “Beats the hell out of me,” answered Pretorius. He smiled. “Have you got something better to do than wait for him to get hungry?”

  Snake glared at him and sat down, her back propped up against some boxes.

  “I should have brought a deck of cards with me,” said Apollo.

  “You’re in the service now,” said Pretorius. “You can’t afford to bet on cards anymore.”

  Apollo chuckled. “Well, I was never much good at it anyway. It’s really strange. I can solve the most complicated differential equations in my head, but I absolutely cannot draw to an inside straight.”

  “Sure you can,” said Irish. “You just can’t draw the card you need.”

  “I stand corrected,” said Apollo.

  “I wonder if this stuff tastes any better than the stuff in our field kits?” mused Snake.

  “You can try it if you want,” said Pretorius. “But our job is eliminating Michkag. We won’t wait for you or come back for you if you get sick from experimenting with alien food.”

  She made a face. “I love you too.”

  “Of course you do,” said Pandora with a smile. “He’s the guy who keeps bailing you out of jail.”

  They all chuckled, and then Apollo, who was standing by the door, waved them to silence.

  “What is it?” whispered Pretorius.

  “Someone’s coming this way.”

  “Can you tell how many?”

  Apollo shook his head. “No. He or they will be entering or passing by in maybe ten seconds. Be ready.”

  Six seconds passed, then seven, then eight. The steps didn’t slow down, so Pandora had the door iris. Apollo reached out and grabbed a Kabori by his uniform and literally threw him into the room as Pandora ordered the door to snap shut.

  Apollo reached down and removed the stunned guard’s burner, gesturing him to remain sprawled out on the floor.

  “Pandora, get that t-pack working,” said Pretorius.

  “It is.”

  “Okay, now translate anything I say and any reply he makes.”

  “Ready,” she confirmed.

  “Stay on the floor,” said Pretorius. “If you get up, or even try to get to your feet, we will kill you. Do you understand?”

  The Kabori nodded his head.

  “Let me hear you say it,” said Pretorius. “I may not understand your head movements.”

  “I understand,” said the Kabori.

  “We have business with Michkag. I know he’s on this level, and not far from here. How do we get to his quarters?”

  “You are in his quarters,” was the reply.

  “I mean his private quarters. It is essential that we speak to him.”

  “You wish to do more than speak to him, or you would have come through normal channels.”

  “Nevertheless, you are going to tell us what we want to know.”

  “You can kill me if you want, but I will not betray my leader.”

  “Don’t you mean your general or your commander?” asked Pretorius.

  “Semantics,” spat the Kabori. “I will not betray him.”

  “Sure you will,” said Apollo, kneeling down next to him.

  The Kabori uttered something unintelligible and spat at Apollo.

  Apollo grabbed the Kabori’s nearer hand and broke each finger, which created a number of snapping noises. The Kabori howled in pain.

  “You’re still not interested in talking?” he asked.

  “No.”

  Apollo grabbed the Kabori’s other hand and repeated the procedure.

  “All we want to know is how to reach him.”

  The Kabori finished screaming and cursed again.

  “I’m sure a doctor will be able to fix your fingers if we let you live,” said Apollo to the Kabori, as he pulled a knife out of his pocket. “But I’ll be damned if I know where he’s going to find another eye of the same shape, size, and color.”

  He leaned forward, holding the eye open with one hand as he brought the knife down to it with the other.

  “All right!” cried the Kabori. “I will tell you what you want to know.”

  “Good,” said Apollo. “And should it turn out to be a lie, I’ll be back for both of your eyes.”

  The Kabori uttered some very simple directions. Apollo looked over to Pandora, who checked her t-pack and nodded that it had been translated and captured.

  Apollo pulled something like a billy club out of yet another pocket and cracked it against the Kabori’s head, instantly knocking him out.

  “Would you really have cut his eye out?” asked Irish.

  Apollo shrugged. “Beats me. So far the threat as always been enough, at least against races that are visually oriented. I’d probably have to threaten to cut off a nose if I was presented with the alien equivalent of a bloodhound.”

  Pretorius turned to Pandora. “Well?”

  “We should make it in two minutes at the outside.” She cast her map on a wall. “This door here seems to be the main entrance, This little one over here, I don’t know. Maid’s area, maybe. But this one,” she added, pointing to it, “leads right into the kitchen.”

  “That’s the one we’ll use,” said Pretorius. “No one’s come by for food, so there doesn’t figure to be anyone cooking right now. And I guarantee someone as powerful and self-centered as Michkag doesn’t do his own cooking. Also, if he’s got bodyguards in there with him, they’re much more likely to be in the main entry room than anywhere else, and if someone’s always on duty, some noncombatant who could nevertheless warn him of our presence, it’s more likely to be in the maid’s area or whatever the hell else it is than in the kitchen.”

  “So what now?” asked Apollo.

  Pretorius walked to the door. “Now we take care of business and go home.”

  29

  They ordered the door to open, walked through it, and found themselves in a large reception room, with about half a dozen doors leading off it.

  “Stop right there!” said a harsh voice, and they turned to see a heavy-set Kabori officer staring at them. He pulled his weapon and began approaching.

  “Go away!” said Proto, mouthing the words into his t-pack. “Can’t you see they’re my captives?”

  The officer did a double-take. “I . . . I didn’t see you, sir,” he stammered.

  “Well, you see me now! Go away!”

  �
�Yes, sir! I’m sorry, sir!” Then, “Are you all right, sir?”

  “Of course I’m all right.”

  “You sound . . . different,” said the officer.

  “I said to go away!” growled Proto. “I’m still waiting, or do you intend to disobey my order?”

  “No, sir,” said the Kabori, saluting and walking out through the nearest door.

  “Proto, you’d better stay out in this area,” said Pretorius. “They won’t obey anyone else.”

  “Should we three split up?” asked Apollo, indicating himself, Snake, and Pretorius.

  “Will you know Michkag if you see him?” asked Pretorius.

  “They all look pretty much alike to me,” answered Apollo, “but I assume he’ll have the most hardware on his uniform—medals, weapons, everything.”

  Pretorius frowned. “Okay, but never be more than a room or two away from me, just in case you run into the second- or third-best decorated warrior in this castle.” He turned to Snake. “If you find him first, take no chances.”

  “Don’t you have any questions to ask him?” she said.

  “Not over your dead body. If you can find him and get the drop on him, fine, march him out here. If not, kill him where he stands.”

  “You’re the boss,” she said with a shrug.

  Pretorius smiled. “It took you seven missions to admit it.”

  “Shall we start?” asked Apollo.

  “Yes, with a caveat,” said Pretorius. “There’s got to be more than six or seven rooms here, given the size of the one we’re in. Don’t get more than two rooms from where you can retreat or call for help. And if you see something that just seems to cry out that it’s Michkag’s room and he’s not in it, contact us if you can, and get the hell back here if you can’t.”

  “Right,” said Apollo. “I’ll start at the left.”

  “I’ll take the center,” said Snake. “That’s where I’d stay if I was the boss.”

  “The commander,” said Pretorius.

  “Same thing,” she said, and headed off toward the central door.

  Pretorius watched them until they’d passed through the doorways, and then headed off to his right. The door sensed his presence and irised, and a moment later he found himself in a wide corridor with doors on each side of it, set at twelve-meter intervals. The first five were open, displaying empty rooms—not dormitories but rooms with tables, rooms with computers, and one room was a small armory, holding perhaps fifty weapons.