The Castle in Cassiopeia Read online

  “And I’m Apollo. Barkeep!” he yelled. “Bring my friend a wormsblood!”

  “A wormsblood?” repeated Pretorius, frowning. “What the hell is that?”

  “Mostly it’s wet,” said Apollo with a smile.

  “What the hell,” said Pretorius with a shrug, taking the glass that the mildly reptilian bartender brought over. “Might as well give it a try.”

  “Well?” said Apollo, studying him as he took a swallow and made a face.

  “Well, I’m not going to have to see a medic anytime soon,” said Pretorius. “This’ll kill any germs I’ve picked up along the way—even the ones that are beneficial to me.”

  Apollo laughed and slapped Pretorius on the back. “We’re going to be great friends, Nate!”

  “That’s a comfort,” replied Pretorius. “I’d hate to have three hundred pounds of bearded muscle decide to be my enemy.”

  Apollo picked up his glass and headed off toward a table in the far corner of the bar. “Come on, Nate. No reason why anyone else should be privy to whatever the hell it is we’re talking about.”

  “Sounds good to me,” said Pretorius, following Apollo and sitting down opposite him.

  Apollo signaled to the bartender, who promptly brought a bottle to the table and left it there.

  “Same stuff?” asked Pretorius.

  “Nah,” said Apollo. “But don’t spill it.”

  Pretorius looked at him questioningly.

  “It eats away at my beard,” explained Apollo. “Who the hell knows what it’ll do to a naked chin?”

  “Too bad we can’t draft your stomach,” said Pretorius. “If the stuff you pour into it in this tavern doesn’t kill you, nothing can.”

  Apollo laughed again. “So do you want to tell me why you’re here, other than to let me buy you booze?”

  “Madam Methuselah thinks very highly of you,” said Pretorius. “I’m sorry, but I know absolutely nothing about you.”

  Apollo smiled. “Nobody does—and especially not the authorities. That’s why she thinks so highly of me.” He learned forward. “So what’s the problem?”

  “You ever deal with Michkag?”

  “The head honcho of the Coalition, right?” said Apollo.

  Pretorius nodded.

  “Yeah, I graced one of his prison cells for a week or two,” continued Apollo.

  “Ever meet him personally?”

  “I sure as hell hope not,” said Apollo. “I hate to think I missed the opportunity to break that bastard in half.”

  “Maybe you’ll have that opportunity yet,” said Pretorius, carefully sipping his drink.

  “Oh?” said Apollo. “Suddenly this is getting very interesting.”

  “Before I go into any details, I need two things.”

  “And what are they?”

  “First, a private room where no one can hear what I’m about to tell you.”

  “No one can hear you now,” said Apollo.

  “This joint is all windows,” said Pretorius. “Someone with the right equipment could read my lips from across the street.”

  “No problem,” replied Apollo. “I’ve got a room at the boarding house about fifty meters to the east of here.” He stood up, and dropped a bill on the table. “Thank goodness they honor the Democracy credit at this joint. Let’s go.”

  They walked out the door, turned east, and walked in silence until they reached the boarding house. Apollo entered first, waved to the desk clerk, who was the same race as the bartender, then led Pretorius to a room at the back. He opened the door, revealing four windowless walls, a bed, two chairs, and not much else, not even a sink. Pretorius sat down, and then Apollo closed the door and sat down opposite him.

  “Okay, here’s your private room,” said Apollo. “Now what’s the second thing you need?”

  Pretorius stared at him for a long moment. “The truth,” he said at last.

  “What particular truth did you have in mind?” asked Apollo, seemingly amused.

  “You’re more than just a big strong guy who likes to drink,” said Pretorius. “Madam Methuselah could have directed me to a robot or an android that could outfight you and wouldn’t rack up a bar tab.”

  Apollo stared back at him for an equally long moment, and then smiled. “Damn!” he said. “You’re good! Nineteen out of twenty people buy my act without a single question.”

  “I’m flattered,” said Pretorius dryly. “So what else can you do beside whip twice your weight in alien monsters?”

  “I’ve got a doctorate in alien physiology, another one in alien languages, I’m a licensed surgeon, and I hold five patents for different hand weapons and one for medication on low-gravity worlds.” Apollo smiled. “Other than that, I just eat and drink a lot, and beat the shit out of people and aliens who annoy me.”

  “I’m impressed,” said Pretorius.

  “You damned well ought to be,” said Apollo with a laugh.

  “You’ve got excellent protective coloration.”

  “My fists and my weapons are all I need ninety-eight percent of the time.”

  “How the hell old are you?” asked Pretorius. “You look in your early thirties.”

  “I keep fit,” answered Apollo, “but the truth of it is that I’m fifty-four years old.” Suddenly he grinned. “But a young fifty-four.”

  “You’re not going to stay fit if you keep drinking that shit we had in the bar.”

  “I wholeheartedly agree with you,” said Apollo. He reached beneath his shirt, made a quick adjustment, and brought out a small transparent plastic pouch. “My drinks,” he explained.

  “Well, I’ll be damned!” exclaimed Pretorius.

  “But I’m almost as friendly as I pretended to be.”

  “I’m glad you’re on our side!”

  “But am I?” said Apollo. “I still don’t know what the job is, or what it pays.”

  “It’s Michkag,” answered Pretorius. “In a way.”

  Apollo frowned. “In what way?”

  “This gets a little complicated,” said Pretorius. “Seven or eight years ago Michkag tripped and skinned his elbow—and he bled.”

  Apollo sat perfect still for a moment. Suddenly a huge smile spread across his face. “Sonuvabitch!” he exclaimed. “Someone cloned the bastard!”

  Pretorius nodded. “A countryman of his managed to get hold of a skin scraping. He deserted the Coalition and came to the Democracy with it.”

  “And that was his price for safe passage, of course?”

  “Right. We cloned Michkag, and Djibmet—the countryman—spent the next few years educating the clone, teaching him to love our side and be willing to betray the Coalition.”

  “So when you killed the real Michkag you had to do it secretly so you could replace him with the clone,” said Apollo.

  “Not quite.”

  Apollo stared at him for a moment, then grinned again. “You kidnapped the original!”

  “Yes. And the clone, who’d spent his whole brief life learning to talk and act and react like Michkag, was put in his place.”

  “Fascinating,” said Apollo enthusiastically. “And now I know what your problem is and why you’ve sought me out.”

  “Do you?”

  “Of course. The new Michkag likes being Michkag, and if he was raised by your military, he probably knows a hell of a lot more about how to fight us than the original ever did.”

  “That’s it in a nutshell,” said Pretorius.

  “The original won’t help?”

  “Would you?” asked Pretorius.

  Apollo shook his head. “You got to him once. If he helps kill or capture the clone, you’ll essentially have gotten to him twice.”

  “That’s the situation. The original’s back in the most secure jail in the Democracy. My team’s mission is to eliminate the clone.”

  “Yeah, I can see there’d be no point in capturing him,” said Apollo. “His unique knowledge of the Coalition probably covers less than two years, and since he k
nows that he can be kidnapped (since the original was), then probably half his defenses are to prevent kidnapping rather than assassination.”

  “You’re quick on the uptake when you stop pretending to be a big burly bear,” said Pretorius.

  “Hell, I am a big burly bear,” replied Apollo with a laugh. “I just happen to be a bright one.”

  “So . . . are you with us?”

  “How much does the job pay?”

  “Plenty.”

  “How many zeroes go after the plenty?”

  “Do you know Wilbur Cooper?”

  “The general?” said Apollo. “Yeah, I met him once, when we captured Tsandori IV.”

  “Good. You can argue price with him.”

  “That won’t do,” replied Apollo. “You’re in charge of this mission. You name the price, and I say yes or no. Simple as that.”

  “Tell you what,” said Pretorius. “You name the price, and I’ll say yes or no.”

  Apollo looked around the room, saw a book sitting on the bed-table, walked over, picked it up, opened it, pulled a pen out of his pocket, and jotted a number down on the endpaper, then handed it to Pretorius.

  Pretorius stared at it for a moment, then closed the book and handed it back to Apollo.

  “Welcome to the team,” he said.

  6

  Pretorius and his new team member took some ancient public transportation to the Marumbu spaceport, where they boarded the ship and he introduced Apollo to the rest of the crew.

  “Nice to meet you all,” he said. “And with no insult intended, I can see where you’d need a big, burly weightlifter like me.”

  “We had one,” said Snake. “Felix Ortega. Ever hear of him?”

  “Can’t say that I have,” replied Apollo.

  “Neither will anyone else,” she said. “He got killed on our last mission.”

  “Careless?”

  Snake shook her head and grinned. “Biggest target.”

  Apollo threw back his head and laughed. “By God, I’m glad Merilee recommended me! I’m going to enjoy working with your ladies, Nate!”

  “Just remember that when the shooting starts and we all hide behind you,” said Snake.

  “So,” said Pandora, “now that we’re all brothers and sisters, where do we find Michkag?”

  “The clone?” asked Apollo.

  “We all know where the original is,” replied Pandora. “Let’s assume from this point on that any time any of us mentions Michkag we’re talking about the clone unless we say otherwise.”

  “Fair enough,” said Apollo. He rubbed his chin for a moment. “Well, he’s sure as hell not in the Coalition.”

  “Why not?” asked Irish.

  “He knows he’s got to be number one on the Democracy’s hit list,” answered Apollo. “If he’s not surrounded by his army, then he’s not in the Coalition.”

  “Maybe he’s in hiding?” suggested Irish.

  “For a few months, when he’s got a few billion soldiers doing nothing besides guarding him and carrying out his orders?” Apollo shot back.

  “If they’re all out on missions, what’s the difference where he hides?” persisted Irish. “Why stay in the one place when he knows we’re looking for him?”

  “Are they all out on missions?” asked Apollo. “According to my sources, they haven’t attacked anything in a few months.”

  “Our sources agree with that,” put in Pretorius.

  “I don’t have many facts at my fingertips . . . yet,” continued Apollo, “but I think he’s more likely to be making alliances to help him against the Democracy than to be conquering minor kingdoms or empires. I mean, hell, he’s already ruling the second-biggest conglomeration in the galaxy, the Coalition and the Democracy have been fighting to a standstill since long before he came on the scene, so if you’re a power-hungry bloodthirsty bastard like Michkag who’s tired of fighting to a draw, what’s your next step?”

  Pandora nodded her agreement. “You form alliances to help you.”

  “And you make sure they know that there’s a very painful and expensive penalty if they refuse.”

  “But eventually he’s going to go back to Orion,” said Snake.

  “Why?” asked Apollo.

  Snake frowned in confusion. “It’s his home.”

  Apollo shook his head. “Michkag was born on Sylvatti V. That’s four hundred light years away from the Orion Cluster. The Coalition’s been around for three centuries. They know the chain of command. They’ve recruited just about as many troops as they can feed and supply. It functions smoothly, despite the fact that your team managed to kidnap the real Michkag. And since it functions pretty much the way it should, why shouldn’t he set up shop somewhere else for the next ten or twenty or fifty years until it’s a mirror image of the Coalition?”

  “He’ll be an old man—well, an old alien—by then,” said Irish.

  Apollo smiled. “Tell her, Nate.”

  Pretorius looked puzzled. “Tell her what?”

  Apollo sighed deeply. “I agreed to my salary too soon.” He turned to Irish. “A Kabori’s life expectancy is about three hundred Standard years. According to the best estimates I’ve encountered, Michkag—the real Michkag—is forty-one years old. We have to assume the clone’s physiology is the same, even if he himself is just six or seven.”

  Snake frowned. “How do you know all this?”

  “Seriously?” asked Apollo.

  “Of course seriously.”

  “I’m brilliant,” said Apollo.

  “And modest,” said Irish with a smile.

  “Absolutely,” said Apollo, returning her smile. “Almost beyond calculation.”

  “By the way,” said Snake, “have you got a last name?”

  “Dozens of ’em,” answered Apollo. “Which one do you want?”

  Snake smiled. “The one with the biggest reward attached to it, of course.”

  “Pretorius,” said Apollo.

  “If you’re all through playing games,” said Pretorius, “let’s get some dinner in the galley, get a good night’s sleep, and spend tomorrow figuring out where to start looking for Michkag.”

  “Well, of course, if you want to eat and sleep first, fine,” said Apollo. “I’m just the new kid on the block.”

  “You think you know where he is right now?” said Pretorius.

  “No,” admitted Apollo, “but since I’m already on the payroll, I thought I might as well get started. But there is absolutely no way I can locate the best-hidden being in the galaxy before dinner.”

  “Somehow I find that comforting,” said Pandora.

  “I probably won’t know before tomorrow morning,” continued Apollo. Then he shrugged his massive shoulders. “Unless I get lucky.”

  Pretorius stared at him. If you can actually deliver, I’m glad you’re on our side, he thought. In fact, you’re making me wonder if Michkag really is the most dangerous thing in the galaxy.

  7

  By the time Pretorius awoke and emerged from his compartment, which he simply was unable to think of as a cabin despite the fact that that was what it was labeled, Apollo was already working at the computer while Pandora watched him and the machine with a proprietary interest. Snake and Irish sat at a table in the galley, eating what passed for their breakfast, while Proto, in his true shape, surrounded and covered a bowl containing whatever it was he had told the galley prepare for him.

  “Making any progress?” asked Pretorius.

  “Some,” answered Apollo.

  “How long before you know what section of the galaxy he’s in, or likely to be?”

  “I knew that an hour ago,” replied Apollo. “I’m trying to pinpoint him now.”

  “You did?” said Pretorius, surprised. “An hour ago?”

  “Yeah.”

  Pretorius turned to Pandora. “Is what he’s doing making sense to you?”

  “That’s a meaningless question, Nate,” she replied.

  “Meaningless?” he said, frow
ning.

  “He’s feeding in data and asking for data in codes that are meaningless to me,” said Pandora. “If I asked you to compute a baseball player’s batting average, you could do it. But if I asked a Bellarban to do it on the same machine with the same figures, and he didn’t know what a hit was or an out, or that walks don’t compute, could he do it? Apollo seems to have spent most of his adult life beyond the Democracy, and he certainly seems to have a profound knowledge of unsavory characters and events. I know my computer inside out, so if I had his knowledge I’m sure I could come up with an answer as quickly as he will.”

  “Seems a shame,” said Pretorius. “All that strength and all that brainpower in one person.”

  “Oh, I have my weaknesses,” said Apollo.

  “Yeah?” said Pretorius. “What are they?”

  “If I told you, then they’d be our weaknesses,” was the reply.

  “Go back to work,” said Pretorius, heading off to the galley for a cup of black coffee.

  “Watch your step!” snapped Proto, scurrying out of the way.

  “Sorry,” said Pretorius. “It’s early in the day.”

  “It’s noon, ship’s time,” said Snake.

  “Okay, it’s early in my day.”

  “I have a question,” said Irish.

  “Shoot,” said Pretorius, taking a sip of his coffee and seating himself on an empty chair.

  “This is only my second mission with the Dead Enders,” she said, “and I freely admit my inexperience in these things . . . but we’re a crew of six, and he’s probably surrounded by a billion or more armed, highly trained men.”

  “Kaboris,” Snake corrected her.

  “Whatever,” said Irish. “My question is: once we know where he is, what next? I mean, whether you want to kill him or kidnap him, those are tremendously high odds against us.”

  “Snake’s worth any two of them,” replied Pretorius with a smile. “When she’s sober, anyway.”

  Snake made a face at him, but Irish simply looked worried. “I’m being serious, sir. I know last time all we had to do was break Nmumba out of a prison cell. That was hard enough, and it was basically an unpopulated prison planet. But now you’re talking about killing or kidnapping what is probably the best-guarded being in the galaxy, and he won’t be on some little backwater prison planet.”