The Fortress in Orion (14 page)

“Something went wrong,” said Pandora. “That was the distress signal.”

“Anything else?” asked Pretorius. “Do we know what happened, or how many people we'll be facing?”

She shook her head.

“Okay,” he said, strapping on his weaponry, “Felix, Snake, you're coming with me.”

“What about me?” demanded Pandora.

“And me?” added Circe.

“You have skills that are vital to this mission,” he answered. “But they don't lie in this area. If we're not back, or at least in contact, in half an hour, take off. I'll leave it to you to decide whether to abort the mission and get back to the Democracy, or to try to put our Michkag in place without Djibmet to guide and help him.” He turned to Snake and Ortega. “Let's go!”

15

“You see anything out of the ordinary?” asked Ortega as they walked the half mile to the trading post.

“No,” answered Pretorius.

“No ships have landed,” noted Snake.

“You're the smallest of us,” said Pretorius to her. “When we get close, circle around the building and see if there are any land vehicles.

“Land vehicles?” repeated Ortega.

“Yeah. If they're here for the whole hunting season, whenever and however long it is, they may keep their ship parked on their concession—or they may keep it hidden because they don't have a concession. For all we know, it's one hunter, he's armed, and he's got a grudge against the Kabori.”

Snake shot out ahead of them at a slow trot and circled the building, then rejoined them when they were still eighty yards away.

“Nothing,” she said. “Looks like some kind of super-hardened wood, and there are no windows anywhere on the building.”

“Shit!” said Pretorius. “That means they've got to have some system to let them know when traders or buyers are approaching.” He paused. “I should have brought Pandora after all. She might have been able to spot and negate the system.”

“It's not that far,” said Ortega. “We can go back and get her.”

“I don't know how imminent the threat to Djibmet and Proto is.” He stared at the building. “My first thought is that we can break into the building blind. Either a burner or a pulse gun should be able to get rid of the door almost instantly. My second is that even if she negates the system, that's exactly what we'll be doing anyway.” He was silent for another moment. “Let's go. Snake, where's the door?”

“Around to the right,” she answered “We're on the side of the building.”

“It's tall enough to have a second floor. Any windows up there?”

“Not that I could see.”

“Any handholds?”

She stared at him curiously. “You want me to climb the thing?”

“Can you?”

“Yes.”

“Then yeah, I want you to. No sense all three of us walking in together, in case someone's got a weapon trained on the door. There's got to be a window, a vent,
something
up there.” He gave her a reassuring smile. “You're the Snake. You can fit through anything. Start the instant we open the door. Their attention should be totally on us.”

She nodded. “Right.”

“And if we're in trouble, you know what to do.”

He began walking forward again. As he and Ortega rounded the building and headed for the entrance, Snake went off into the darkness and was almost instantly out of sight.

“Shoot first?” asked Ortega.

“Secure Djibmet and Proto first, unless someone's shooting at you,” answered Pretorius.

They walked up to the front door.

“Knock or enter?” asked Ortega.

Instead of answering, Pretorius grabbed the handle and pushed the door open—and found himself facing six armed aliens—short, golden, burly; armed with lasers, sonic weapons, and short-barreled rifles of a type Pretorius had never seen before. Djibmet and Proto were sitting on chairs that were too large for them, and a huge Torqual, clearly the proprietor, lay dead on the floor. The walls were covered with holos of hunters standing next to their newly slain trophies.

“Men!” exclaimed one of the aliens in Kabori. “There must be a reward for them.”

“Don't worry about rewards,” said another. “Just kill them.”

“You kill us,” said Pretorius in heavily accented Kabori, “and you'll never find the pelts we've brought to sell.”

“How many?” asked the closest alien.

“That's none of your business,” said Pretorius. “Unless you'd like to
do
some business. How many pelts will it cost to buy our lives?”

“All of them.”

Pretorius smiled. “What if I told you we had only two?”

“Then I would say it's not worth the trouble and kill you right now.”

“We have more than two.”

“Of course you do,” answered the closest alien. “Nobody comes away from the hunt with just two pelts. There are too many of these creatures. If they don't kill you, then you kill them—
lots
of them.”

Pretorius nodded. “We killed lots of them.” He indicated Djibmet and Proto. “Who are your friends?”

“Hostages or corpses, depending on our needs” was the answer.

“Don't kill 'em yet,” said Pretorius.

“What are they to you?”

“Nothing,” he replied. “I never saw them before. But you're going to need help carrying all the pelts from our ship.”

“They stay here.”

“Fine,” said Pretorius. “We'll get 'em ourselves.” He turned toward the door. “Come on, Felix.”

“
Stop!
” commanded the alien.

“What's the problem?”

“If the two of you walk out that door, you'll never come back. How stupid do we look?”

“Fine. Get 'em yourselves,” said Pretorius with a smile.

“What's so funny?”

“The ship's locked. It won't open until it reads either my DNA or my partner's here.”

“He's mostly prosthetic,” noted another alien. “Has he still
got
any DNA?”

“If he didn't, he'd be dead,” said Pretorius.

“He soon will be anyway. What are two Men doing here?”

“I don't suppose you'd believe that we got lost?”

“Lie again and I'll kill you right now.”

“All right,” replied Pretorius. “We're smugglers.”

“Just the two of you?” demanded an alien.

“Those are our partners,” said Pretorius, indicating Djibmet and Proto.

There was a brief pause.

“Well,” said one of the aliens, looking at his companions, “that explains why they're in Coalition territory.”

“All right,” said the alien that seemed to be the leader. “We're in the same business. It's just your misfortune that we got here first.” He gestured to three of his associates. “You will accompany one of them to their ship and bring back the pelts.”

“You don't think they're going to let us live, do you?” said Djibmet.

“We have to hope they'll honor their word,” answered Pretorius. “If we don't agree to turn over the pelts, they'll kill us right now. If we do, there's a chance that they'll keep their end of the bargain.”

“But . . .” began Djibmet.

You must know I'm lying
, thought Pretorius, staring intently at him.
Just shut up and let us get on with this. Get him mad and he'll shoot you right now. He doesn't need you for the pelts
.

Somehow Djibmet understood his glare and fell silent.

“Okay, Felix,” said Pretorius as three aliens walked to the door. “You know what to do.”

Ortega nodded and walked out into the night with them, shutting the door behind him.

“You know,” said Pretorius to the remaining three, “as long as we're in the same business, maybe we should join forces.”

“I think not,” said the leader. “Once we appropriate your goods, and my associates will go through your ship and appropriate everything of value, not just the pelts, you have nothing to offer.”

“You're making a mistake,” said Pretorius. “We could be very helpful to you.”

“You're already being helpful. We'll not only appropriate your goods, but there's a standing reward for Men, so we'll claim two bounties as well. Now, since I'm going to know the answer in a few minutes anyway, how many pelts do you have?”

“None,” said Pretorius, the hint of a smile playing across his face.

“Then I will kill you now,” said the alien, aiming his weapon between Pretorius's eyes.

“I don't think so,” said Pretorius—and as the words left his mouth there was a faint humming, and the alien, a puzzled expression on his face, pitched forward onto the floor, as Snake, who had appeared behind them, turned her burner on a second one. As the third turned to face her, Pretorius drew his screecher and knocked him flying against a wall with a barrage of solid sound.

Snake walked over and turned her burner on the third alien, putting a very neat hole in its forehead.

“I think he was already dead,” said Proto, getting to his feet.

“It's the dead ones who get up and kill you,” she replied.

“What kept you?” asked Pretorius.

“No windows. I had to slide in through a vent on the roof.” She paused. “Will Felix need any help?”

Pretorius shook his head. “He hasn't got the quickest brain around, but from the neck down—maybe even the eyes down—he's all but invulnerable, and he's got more weaponry built into that body than you or I can carry between us.” He paused thoughtfully. “Still, it never hurts to play it safe.” He walked over to the nearest dead alien, grabbed it by its feet, and pulled it behind a counter. “Proto, impersonate him, just in case the wrong guys walk through the door.” Proto immediately appeared as the alien. “And if Felix walks in, change into something else before he has a chance to shoot you.”

Ortega was back in less than three minutes, and Proto changed his image back to the middle-aged man they were all used to before Ortega could fire his weapon. Pretorius gave an all-clear signal to Pandora, and she, Circe, and Michkag joined them a few minutes later.

“The Torqual had about a hundred pelts on hand,” announced Pretorius after they'd performed a thorough search of the place. “If we can figure out how to find the black market in this sector, we can raise enough money to see us through any eventuality. Now, one of them mentioned that there's a bounty on Men, so we're going to have to be as circumspect as Michkag here about showing ourselves. Pandora, Proto's never going to learn Kabori fast enough to pass for one of them, so find out what race he
can
impersonate so we can unload the pelts.”

“Right,” she replied.

“Felix, dig a hole and dump all seven corpses into it.”

“Seven?” said Ortega, frowning.

“The Torqual, too.”

“Right.” He smiled. “Never thought I'd wind up as a gravedigger.”

“What
did
you think you'd be?” asked Circe seriously. “When you were just starting out, I mean.”

He shrugged. “I come from a military family. It never occurred to me to be anything else.” He frowned. “I lost my right arm on my second tour, an eye and a leg on my third. My other arm on one of Nathan's secret operations. Then one day I looked at myself in a mirror, didn't see much of a man left, and when my tour was up I decided not to re-enlist. I didn't know what else to do—my skills are mostly illegal in civilian life—so I joined a carnival. Didn't like it much, which is why Nathan didn't have much trouble talking me into coming along.”

“I
never
wanted to be in the military,” said Pandora.

“Oh?” said Circe. “What did you want to be?”

Pandora smiled sadly. “Beautiful. But by the time I got to my teens I knew that was a forlorn wish, so I concentrated on a career instead of on men. Turns out I was good with computers.”

“An understatement,” said Pretorius.

“And as I got better, I found that my very special computer skills were only of use to the military and the criminal element. So I joined the military. They not only paid and housed me, but they paid for my continuing education.” Suddenly she smiled. “Of course, no one told me that I was going to wind up storming Michkag's fortress in Orion.”

“Would you have joined if you'd known?” asked Ortega curiously.

“Yes, I'd have joined,” replied Pandora. “I've got a unique skill. I might as well put it to use.” She turned to Circe. “How about you? From what little I know—and I haven't used my machines to peek—you were very successful out in the business world. And you are stunningly beautiful. So what made you walk away from it all to wind up smuggling exotic animals' pelts and watching a mostly prosthetic man drag corpses out to bury on a nondescript little world in the Coalition?”

Circe chuckled. “If you'd put it in those terms, I might never have left.” Suddenly the smile vanished. “I thank you for your kind remarks, but if I am beautiful, it is—as so many men have mentioned when they thought they were flattering me—an otherworldly beauty. My family underwent some mutations on the world they colonized a millennium ago, and while one of them is my appearance, the other is my ability as an empath. It's not quite the virtue you think, always knowing who is lying to you and why. But it's my ability, and I've used it to get ahead in the business world. The problem is that I felt so
useless
there. Who cares if this applicant for an executive position is lying or not? So when Nathan offered me the chance to come along, I jumped at it. Now I can finally do something that makes a difference. It's as simple as that.”

“There's nothing simple about making a difference,” said Pretorius. “And before this is over, every one of you will have a few chances to do so.” He jerked a thumb at Snake, who sat by herself in a corner, her back propped up against a wall. “Even her,” he added.