The Castle in Cassiopeia Read online

  “Some night when you’re sleeping, I’ll just walk up and slit your throat,” she continued.

  Pretorius handed her his container. “You’d do it, too, wouldn’t you?”

  “You wouldn’t be the first,” replied Snake.

  “Then who’d bail you out of jail the next time?”

  “When General Cooper needs me bad enough, he’ll find someone,” she said with a confident smile.

  Apollo tossed her his container. “Remember this the next time you’ve got a spare.”

  “I hate to interrupt this love-and-beer feast,” announced Pandora, staring at the screen. “But I’ve got something interesting here.”

  “Oh?” said Pretorius.

  “Ship just approached one of the two planets that haven’t had anyone land on them since we’ve been watching.”

  “So that eliminates it?”

  “No, I don’t think so,” she said. “Take a look.” She tripled the size of the screen, and had it project the image in three dimensions.

  “There’s nothing there at all,” said Snake, staring at the planet.

  “But there was,” answered Pandora with a smile. “And three ships took off from the planet and escorted it away.” She maneuvered the controls. “See? There they are, basically herding the ship to”—she checked the identification at the bottom of the screen—“the Colteipa system.”

  “And the planet that didn’t want any visitors?” asked Pretorius.

  “I don’t know about ‘any’ visitors yet,” said Pandora, “but they sure as hell didn’t want this one.”

  “Okay,” continued Pretorius, “has it got a name?”

  She uttered a couple of words in code, and the machine answered: “Garsype III.”

  “That’s it,” said Pandora. “I’m sure that’s not what the natives call it, always assuming there are natives, and I can’t imagine Michkag hasn’t given it a Kabori name—”

  “Probably Michkag III,” interjected Snake.

  “It wouldn’t surprise me,” agreed Pandora. “But all we know right now is that it’s officially Garsype III and was named by whoever first mapped the Sagittarius region.”

  “Native population?” asked Pretorius.

  “Close to two billion during the last census, which was . . . let me see . . . seventeen years ago.”

  “All right,” said Pretorius. “Snake, you and Irish get out your computers and help her. I want to know if the damned world has produced an outstanding athlete, painter, sculptor, surgeon, anything that a reporter from beyond the sector might want to interview, which would clearly be to the credit and glory of Garsype III.”

  “You think it’ll work?” asked Snake dubiously.

  “Probably not,” admitted Pretorius. “It’s a first step, and it’s better than saying, ‘Hey, please tell us if you guys are hiding Michkag and his navy so we know whether to attack or not.’”

  “Yeah, well, there is that,” agreed Snake.

  “Got one!” said Irish.

  “Who is it, and what did he or she do?” asked Pretorius.

  “A female track star named Travii,” answered Irish. “Seems to have set sector records in sprint races at three different distances. She’d be about forty Standard years old now.”

  “Okay,” said Pretorius. “Five of us can’t hide the fact that we’re the race of Man, so I guess you’re elected, Proto.”

  “What do you want me to do?” he asked.

  “We know that if you’re projecting a false image, our cameras can’t capture it and pass it on, so just be your normal eighteen-inch-high self. We’ll go audio. And Pandora, run a close-up of the real him—the image we can actually capture and transmit—and fill the frame so that he looks bigger and no one can see any part of anyone else.”

  “Proto?” she said.

  Suddenly he became his true self for all to see.

  “Okay, got him,” she said. “Now what?”

  “Now you keep the camera on him. Proto, move your mouth as if you’re speaking. Apollo, you’ll do his talking for him. Pandora, the camera stays on Proto and no one else.”

  “I need a name,” said Proto.

  Pandora scanned her screen for a few seconds. “As far as I can tell, they’ve never had any business and meeting with Pysonobs. Let me find a name.” A brief pause. “Proto, you’re now Rekorpa.”

  “No first name?”

  “Not if you’re a Pysonob.”

  “I suppose we should all go to our cabins and watch on the intership screens,” said Irish.

  “No need to,” said Pretorius. “The camera’s on Proto and nowhere else.”

  “Okay,” said Pandora to Proto. “I’m contacting them now.” The bridge emptied out. “I just hope they can’t identify our ship as part of the Democracy.”

  “Not to worry,” said Pretorius. “It was built especially not to be identified by its structure or the elements used to construct it.”

  Pandora turned the camera onto Proto, and made it a close-up so almost none of the desk was visible. “Okay,” she whispered some ten seconds later. “You’re on.”

  “Greetings,” said Apollo, as Proto moved his lips.

  “Identify yourself,” said a voice, and Pretorius realized that either there was no camera at the other end, or that it was at least deactivated.

  “Certainly,” said Apollo. “I am Rekorpa. Perhaps somebody in Customs remembers me?”

  “Why would we?” asked the voice suspiciously.

  “I am a holo-journalist,” he said. “I interviewed the magnificent Travii some years ago, and told her that someday I would be back to do a follow-up feature for her admiring public.”

  “Go away.”

  “But—”

  “She is not available for interviews.”

  “At least tell me that she’s alive and in good health, so I can pass the word to my viewers.”

  “She is alive and in good health,” was the answer. “Now please leave the system or we will send ships to escort you out of it.”

  And with that, the line of communication was severed.

  “Well, that didn’t help much,” said Pandora.

  “It helped more than you think,” said Apollo with a huge grin.

  “Oh?” said Pretorius.

  Apollo nodded. “After you hit upon Travii as the excuse for Proto getting in touch with them, I did a little more research on her, just in case one of us had to feed some facts to him.”

  “And?”

  “She was murdered in what I think you’d call the winner’s circle of a track meet on Jankoza II ten years ago. It was actually the cause of a brief military action between Garsype and Jankoza.” He grinned again. “They must have been pointing a burner or a screecher at the head of the poor critter that told you she was alive and well. Given the circumstances of her death and its aftermath, I can’t believe there’s a single native of any planet in this system who doesn’t know that she’s dead and exactly how she died.”

  “It makes sense,” agreed Pretorius.

  “So we can assume Michkag is there?”

  “We could be wrong,” said Apollo, “but if I was a betting man, I’d give plenty of ten-to-one that we’re not.”

  “Well, if he’s there,” said Pandora, “we’ve still got a hell of a major problem. We’re in a ship that clearly wasn’t created in this system, or even this sector. If we try to land, they’ll open fire before we get within twenty miles of the ground. And if we go to the neighboring systems and swipe one of their ships, we’ll just be escorted away, gently (I hope) but firmly, as we can assume they do to other relatively local ships.”

  “I think better on a full stomach,” said Apollo.

  “Actually, so do I,” said Snake, joining him. “Of course, it takes a hell of a lot less to fill mine.”

  “You look troubled,” said Irish to Pretorius.

  “Do I?”

  She nodded her head. “Yes.”

  He sighed deeply. “That’s because I am.” />
  “You don’t know how we’re ever going to land on the planet, right?” she suggested.

  “Oh, I know exactly how,” he said. He flashed her a bittersweet smile. “That’s probably why I look troubled.”

  10

  “So what’s the plan?” asked Snake, when they had all finished eating and the entire crew was gathered on the bridge.

  “It probably starts on Colteipa II,” suggested Apollo.

  “That’s the next star system over, right?” said Snake.

  “Right,” said Pretorius. “Actually, it probably starts a few hundred miles above Colteipa II.”

  “Of course,” said Apollo. “I just assumed everyone would figure that much out.”

  “One of us has no idea what the hell you’re talking about,” said Snake.

  “Make that almost all of us,” added Irish.

  “We’re going to capture a Colteipa II ship,” said Pretorius.

  “And then what?” asked Pandora.

  “Then we’re going to approach Garsype until they send a couple of ships out to stop us.”

  “If you’re going to blow them out of the ether,” said Proto, “why not stay in this ship, which is probably far better armed?”

  “We’re not blowing anyone anywhere,” said Apollo with an amused smile. “Do you really want to take on three or four of their ships with a Colteipa II ship or this vessel?”

  “No, of course not,” said Proto. “But Nate just said we’re going to approach the planet until they try to stop us.”

  “Right,” said Apollo, still smiling. “And then what?”

  “If I knew, I wouldn’t be asking questions,” said Proto irritably.

  “Then we land on Colteipa III or IV, or one of II’s moons,” said Pretorius.

  “Then we’re farther away than we are now,” said Snake, frowning. “How does that help us?”

  “It’s such an unusual thing to do with a ship that is clearly not in any trouble, that’s operating smoothly, I think they’ll leave at least one ship in orbit to try to find out what the hell’s going on.”

  “Okay, they land,” said Snake. “Now what?”

  “Now we demand that they surrender their ship to us, of course,” said Apollo.

  “That’s the stupidest thing I’ve heard since we left headquarters,” said Snake. “Why the hell would they do that?”

  “To save Michkag, of course,” said Pretorius.

  “Michkag’s safely ensconced in his headquarters on Garsype,” said Pandora, frowning. “Surely they know that.”

  “After we fire a shot or two into their subspace sending mechanism, they’ll have to take it on faith,” said Apollo.

  “And they will,” said Pandora.

  “Until we transmit an image from our ship to theirs.”

  “And they’re gonna look at the six of us and immediately surrender?” said Snake contemptuously.

  “No, we’re only going to let them see two of us,” said Pretorius.

  Snake frowned. “Just two?”

  “Yes,” replied Pretorius. “You can be one of the two if you like.”

  “What the hell am I missing here?” said Snake.

  “The other one they’ll see isn’t here yet . . . exactly,” said Apollo.

  “I give up,” said Snake. “I still don’t know what you two are talking about.”

  “Proto,” said Pretorius. “You’ve seen Michkag when we kidnapped him back at Orion. You spent a couple of weeks in the ship with him. Let’s see you become him.”

  The change was instant. In less than a second it seemed that Michkag himself was standing menacingly on the bridge.

  “Very good,” said Pretorius.

  “I’ve never seen Michkag,” said Apollo. “Are there any scars, any birthmarks (always assuming they get born), anything at all different from what we’re looking at?”

  “I’ve never seen him either,” added Irish.

  “Yeah, he looks right,” said Snake, and Pandora nodded her agreement.

  “Snake, go into the galley and grab as big a knife as you can find there,” said Pretorius.

  She walked to the galley and was back a moment later.

  “Proto, just to be certain: despite what we see, you’re still eighteen or nineteen inches high, right?” said Pretorius.

  “That’s right.”

  “Okay, Snake. Cut his arm off.”

  She swung the knife like a sword, and the arm rolled down to the floor, always in touch with the rest of the illusion.

  “Not bad,” said Pretorius. “But next time remember to gush some blood out of the wound.”

  “Right,” said Proto.

  “There you have it,” said Pretorius. “We demand their ship and codes, or we kill Michkag, who was here on a secret mission.”

  “Too bad,” said Pandora.

  “What’s too bad?” asked Pretorius.

  “It’s a lovely ruse,” she said. “But it won’t work.”

  “Why don’t you think so?”

  “You seem to have forgotten: the sensors in the camera show the real Proto, not the image he’s producing.”

  Pretorius lowered his head in thought for a moment, then looked up. “It’ll still work,” he said. “It’ll just take a little more effort.”

  “How?” demanded Snake.

  “We simply find a way to make them enter our ship,” replied Pretorius. “We can’t fool their cameras—though we could if Apollo and Pandora had a fully equipped lab and maybe two Standard days to come up with a countermeasure—but we can still fool their eyeballs.”

  “So how do we make them come aboard?” asked Irish.

  Apollo chuckled.

  “You’ve figured it out,” stated Pretorius. “You tell them.”

  “The mind boggles with possibilities,” began Apollo. “Do any of them know of Nate and his accomplishments? Let them know he’s commanding this ship and they’ll want to present him to Michkag for the reward, if any, and the glory. Or if they don’t know who the hell he is, assume they’re as greedy as any other sentient species. So just tell them you don’t want any trouble, you didn’t know Garsype was off limits, you’re new to the area, you’re escaping from someone or something in the Democracy or the Coalition, there’s a price on your head, so as soon as you get the ship working again you’ll be on your way, and I guarantee they’ll figure they can capture you whenever they want and turn you in for the reward.”

  “You’re a devious son of a bitch, and I admire that in a teammate,” said Snake, “but if they buy that, they’ll never believe that Michkag’s on board.”

  “How long does it take for the four of us to disarm them while Snake and Proto are doing their little live-action pantomime? Five seconds? Ten? I guarantee it’ll freeze them for that long. Remember, they’ve never seen anyone who can do what Proto does.”

  “Do you really think it’ll work?” Pandora asked Pretorius.

  “I sure as hell hope so,” he responded. “Because if we don’t come up with a better idea by the time we’ve stolen a Colteipa ship, that’s what we’ll do.”

  And when they neared the outskirts of the Colteipa system, Pandora looked up from the control panel.

  “We’re in luck,” she announced.

  “Nearby ship?” asked Pretorius.

  “So to speak,” she said. “They seem to have created some small of colonies on the eighth and ninth planets. They’re all enclosed, of course; there’s nothing to breathe there if you don’t thrive on ammonia. But it means their ships are parked outside, which makes sense. You could poison the whole colony if you opened the doors wide enough and long enough to let one of the ships in or out.”

  “That makes getting a Colteipan ship the easiest part of this job,” said Snake.

  “Too bad we can’t capture a pilot as well,” said Irish.

  “It’d be nice,” agreed Pretorius. “But it’s not essential for this stage of the mission. Where we may need one is after we’ve taken over one of Michkag’s
ships and want to put it down on Garsype.” He exhaled deeply and shrugged. “We’ll worry about that when we come to it. Pandora, is there just one contained structure on each planet?”

  “There’s just one on Colteipa VIII,” she replied. “Colteipa IX has four, all little ones, that I spotted, and there may be some on the far side.”

  “Which of the little ones on Colteipa IX has the fewest ships?”

  She had the system create a holographic map above the controls. “This one,” she said. “Four ships left. One just took off.”

  “Numbers aren’t always indicative,” said Pretorius, “but unless something happens in the next few minutes to change our minds, we’ll land there, make sure we can handle one of the ships, and then disable all the rest, including the one we’re leaving behind.”

  It took them half an hour to reach and land on the planet, considerably less than a minute for both Pandora and Apollo to state that they knew the make of the ships if not the model and should have no trouble piloting one, and another minute to board it with sirens blaring and mildly humanoid bipeds racing out of the enclosed mini-city. Apollo got to the firing mechanism and quickly disabled all four ships that were on the ground—three from Colteipa and their own from the Coalition.

  “Get us to Garsype quick!” Pretorius told Pandora. “I don’t want to fight our way through any Colteipan ships from around the sector that are being notified that we’ve stolen this one.”

  “Same wormhole as before,” she replied. “We’ll enter it in just under an hour. Can’t get there any faster than that.”

  “Proto?” said Pretorius.

  “Yes?”

  “In case we do try to pull off this Michkag imitation, how long can you have a spill of blood stay on the floor?”

  “As long as it’s attached to the rest of the image,” answered Proto. “The only limit is how long I maintain the image.”

  “Okay,” said Pretorius. “If it takes more than a minute to disable them, we’re screwed anyway.”

  “I take it everyone here has seen and interacted with Michkag,” said Apollo. “What’s he like?”

  “I never saw him,” said Irish. “I’m the rookie on the team.”

  “Now I am,” said Apollo.

  She shook her head. “There’s nothing rookie about you. You’re more like some all-star we traded for.”