The Fortress in Orion (24 page)

“I can do that,” replied Djibmet after a few seconds' silence. “Then what? I assume you want me to find out where Michkag will be quartered?”

“Yes, but you're going to have to do it very indirectly. After all, you can't just ask for the room number of the most important leader of a totalitarian society.”

“So what do I do?” asked the Kabori.

“Cause a little problem for them,” said Pretorius. “Accidently lean against a pile of something—towels, sheets, water pitchers, whatever.

Then, while they're cleaning up—and they won't blame you for your clumsiness; they're robots, and their function is to clean up—find a place to hide the microcamera you're carrying. If you can aim it at a computer screen, so much the better.”

“And if I can't, or it's covered up by a pile of something, anything, then what purpose will this serve?”

“The sound will still be operative. An order concerning Michkag's room may be announced, or one robot may say something about it to another, or a Kabori officer may enter the place to request or demand something be taken to his room. Now, the robots will certainly know where his room is, but my guess is that the officer will state it anyway.”

“All right,” said Djibmet. “I will do my best.”

“Good,” said Pretorius. “And remember to salute every Kabori officer you see. Come back here when you're done.” He signaled Pandora to turn the sound off again.

“Well, we should know soon where we're making the switch,” said Ortega.

“We may even get down there unnoticed, though I have no idea how,” said Snake, “and actually make the switch. But how the hell will we get back out and off the planet?”

“I'm working on it,” said Pretorius.

“Oh, fuck your ‘I'm working on it' shit!” snapped Snake. “Have you any idea at all of how we even get back to this room with Michkag?”

“Oh, course I do,” said Pretorius. “And if you think about it, so do you.”

She frowned. “Can't you just out-and-out
say
it?” she demanded.

“There's a member of the team who hasn't pulled his weight yet, but that's going to change very soon now.”

Pretorius grinned and turned to look at the member he was referring to, and suddenly all eyes turned to the Michkag clone.

27

Djibmet made it back to the storage facility an hour later.

“All right,” announced Pretorius. “From this moment on, someone is going to monitor that transmission every second of every day until we find out where Michkag will be sleeping.”

“Have you figured out how we're going to get to wherever it is?” asked Circe.

“I'd tell you I was working on it, but it would just set Snake off on another screaming fit,” he replied with a smile.

Snake glared at him but said nothing.

“All right,” continued Circe. “Once you've got him and brought him up here—I assume you're bringing him back here—how do we make our escape?”

“That's a little easier,” answered Pretorius. “There'll be ships docking here at the southern tower once Michkag lands, because they'll be feeding four or five times as many mouths and supplying whatever else Michkag and his party needs. Our best information back on Deluros is that we can expect upwards of ten thousand military, mostly Kabori, to accompany him, and probably more. That's going to take a lot of daily supplies.”

“This isn't the only tower, you know,” she said.

“I know. But it's the one we're in, they're only using three for shipping, and we'll make sure a ship is docked here when we go into action. Pandora, how many ships are on their way in?”

“Give me a minute,” she replied, putting the question to the proper computer. “More than two hundred in the next four days.”

He shook his head. “I asked too general a question. How many supply ships?”

She checked again. “At least six, possibly as many as eight, during that same four-day span.”

He turned to Circe. “There you have it. Three towers, six ships. We'll get at least two, maybe three.”

“But they unloaded the one we came in on in just a few hours,” she noted.

He smiled. “But we weren't planning on hijacking it.”

“How do we plan to do it?” she persisted.

“As soon as we know which one or two will come to this tower, we'll have Pandora's computers dope out the best way to take one over. The only problem will be if it comes
before
Michkag arrives. We might get it to stay moored for eight or ten hours, but we'll never get away with keeping it in dock for, say, two days.”

“Then what do we do?”

“We find another one to steal.”

“Out there?” she said, waving a hand in the general direction of the city that surrounded the fortress.

He shook his head. “No, it won't be that easy. But once we make the switch, we can have
our
Michkag arrest us and order Djibmet to fly us to some location that Michkag won't share with his staff. He thinks there's a traitor among them, that we're working with him, and he's not about to let anyone know where he's stashing us until he can question us.”

“Why wouldn't he just stash us in a room here?” asked Ortega.

“Only one reason,” said Pretorius. “But a very telling one.”

“What is it?”

“Michkag has a reputation for killing people who question his orders,” answered Pretorius. “That goes for planetary populations all the way up to long-time trusted officers.”

“Someone will still follow us,” said Ortega.

“Probably,” agreed Pretorius. “But at least we'll be off the planet and out in space.”

“That's not much comfort if we're facing a dreadnought.”

“No, but it's minimally less uncomfortable if we're evading it rather than facing it.”

“I don't like it,” said Ortega.

“Welcome to the club,” said Pretorius.

“So do we just sit here until Michkag lands?” asked Circe. “No more sending anyone out in the corridors?”

“If you can think of anything we can learn that's worth the risk of sending them out, I'll send them,” answered Pretorius. “But until then, we've found out pretty much all there is to find out until we learn where Michkag's quarters are and exactly when he's due to land.”

“I can help you a bit on that,” said Pandora, staring at yet another of her computers. “They just issued a directive that they're not allowing any commercial traffic tomorrow afternoon, so my guess is that's when he's coming in.”

“But no one's said so officially?”

“No,” said Pandora. Suddenly she smiled. “Who can blame them? There's always a chance the Democracy will send in a highly skilled team to kill or kidnap him.”

“You never can tell,” replied Ortega.

“Strike ‘kill' from our lexicon until the switch is made,” said Pretorius seriously. “We kill him in front of anyone, and the whole purpose of this mission is destroyed.”

“So we've got until tomorrow afternoon,” said Ortega. “What do we do until then?”

“You might consider sleeping,” suggested Pretorius. “I want everyone alert and ready to put in maximum effort and some very long hours.”

“And eating,” added Snake. “You may not have a chance for another meal until we're in space.” She made a face. “Undoubtedly on a Kabori ship whose galley doesn't cater to Men's tastes.”

They spent the next few hours eating, loafing, and napping. Then one of the computers beeped, and a moment later Pandora called out: “Got it!”

“Where he's staying?” asked Pretorius, suddenly alert.

She nodded. “Fourth level, corridor Zab, rooms 42 and 43.”

“Check the floor plan,” said Pretorius. “Are they connecting rooms, totally separate, or what?”

“Give me a sec,” responded Pandora. “Connected by a standard doorway.”

“So he may have bodyguards in the other room,” said Pretorius.

“Or maybe a girlfriend,” suggested Snake.

“Or maybe he just likes a lot of room,” added Ortega.

“It shouldn't be that hard to figure out,” said Pretorius. “Pandora, how did you know what his room numbers were?”

“I intercepted a message to the robots.”

“Did it say to deliver the same stuff to both rooms?”

“Bedding to 43, foodstuffs to 42,” she answered.

“There you have it,” said Pretorius. “He's turned it into a suite. He'll lounge and maybe have visitors in Zab 42 and do his sleeping in Zab 43.”

“And maybe leave a bodyguard in 42,” added Circe.

“Anything's possible,” agreed Pretorius.

“You don't seem especially worried about it,” continued Circe. “It sounds damned dangerous.”

“It
is
damned dangerous,” agreed Pretorius. “But look at it this way. Two months ago we were on Deluros VIII, hatching an impossible plan to kidnap the most powerful general of the Coalition and put our Michkag in his place. Today we're actually inside his fortress, we know what room he'll be in, we're all still alive and unharmed, and we're maybe a day or two from making the switch. What odds would you have given on even getting this far?”

“It's right that an optimist should be in charge of an operation like this,” replied Circe with a smile. “But it's not a bad idea to have a pessimist pointing out potential pitfalls.”

“You start counting pitfalls on a mission like this one,” said Snake, “and you could run smack-dab into eternity.”

“Back to business,” said Pretorius. “Let's assume he adjusts to Petrus IV's hours, which is to say he's awake in the daylight and goes to sleep a few hours after dark. That means if he lands here in, say, midafternoon tomorrow, we probably don't approach him for perhaps ten to twelve Standard hours after that.”

“You keep making it sound easier than I think it's going to be,” said Circe. “Who says there has to be a bodyguard in Zab 42? What if there are half a dozen posted in the corridor outside the two doors?”

“We'll distract them, mislead them, or kill them,” answered Pretorius. “I know that's not a comforting answer, but I've been on half a dozen of these missions, and my only observation is that whatever you expect, you're likely to be surprised—usually unpleasantly. You just have to plan for every eventuality and take advantage of every opportunity, because the enemy—
any
enemy—isn't inclined to give you too many.”

“I don't mean to be argumentative,” said Circe. “But unlike you, I
haven't
been on half a dozen missions like this. In fact, I doubt that there have ever
been
half a dozen missions like this. I've been on one minor one, and even that was a lot more dangerous than any of us were led to expect.”

“No offense taken,” said Pretorius. “But if we based our entire plan on one presumed set of circumstances and found at the last minute they were different, we'd be in more trouble than if we go in with open minds, following a general scenario but prepared to improvise on a second's notice.”

“I apologize,” said Circe.

“Forget it.” Pretorius got to his feet. “Anyway, barring anything unforeseen, we can assume we'll be going after Michkag about a dozen hours after he arrives here—and that's always assuming there's a cargo ship docked here. Pandora, let me know if a troop carrier or a dreadnought docks at the military tower, but only if you can ascertain that there's no one left aboard except maybe some robots or androids that one of your computers can override.”

“Right,” she said, nodding her head.

“So we'll plan on late tomorrow night, always on the condition that we have at least one potential means of escape.” He turned to the clone. “This is what you were created for. I hope you're up to it.”

The clone offered him an arrogant glare. Then, after a moment, he spoke. “Was my response acceptable?”

Pretorius smiled. “I don't think you're going to have any trouble at all.”

“Good. I really have spent half of my waking hours since my birth studying my other self.”

“Just remember,” said Pretorius. “Once we're in the room, even before we subdue him,
you're
Michkag and
he's
the imposter. You can pass any DNA test or any other physical test there is. Just act like you know who you are and of course you're in total command, and you should be able to pull it off.” He turned to Ortega. “But if there are any other Kabori around, your first job is to knock their Michkag senseless. Ours can pass every physical test there is, but he can't tell them what he had for lunch or what joke he told at the dinner table a few hours earlier.”

Ortega nodded his head. “Got it.”

Pretorius turned to Circe. “We finally have need of your special talent,” he said. “If we're with him when our Michkag has to speak to any of his soldiers, you've got to let me know instantly if anyone has any doubts, not about his judgment but his identity. If we have to make up any lies . . .” He stopped, then started over. “We're Men. Of course they won't believe us. But if Djibmet has to lie about why we're here, or in his company, or why a clearly senseless Michkag is with us, you have to let me know who's buying it and, more important, who isn't.”

“Of course,” said Circe.

“You seem suddenly less nervous,” he remarked.

She smiled. “You're asking me to do what I'm good at,” she replied. “I'm not at all good with weapons and sneaking around.”

“You'd be surprised how many people of just about every race aren't good at that,” replied Pretorius.

It was four hours later, while Snake, Circe, and the two Kabori were sleeping, that Pandora walked silently over to Pretorius, who was lying on his back, hands folded behind his head, staring at the ceiling some thirty feet above him.