The Prison in Antares (15 page)

“Me,” said Snake with an evil smile.

“I have no time!” snapped Nmumba.

Suddenly he frowned, as if he couldn't comprehend something, and then he pitched forward on his face, to reveal Irish standing behind him with a burner in her hand.

“I . . . I've never fired one before,” she said weakly. “Not even on the practice range. It's just part of the gear you gave me.”

“You did fine,” said Pretorius, walking over and kneeling down next to Nmumba's body. “Yeah, he's dead. What the hell got into him?”

Nobody had an answer.

“You know,” said Pretorius, “maybe we spent too much time worrying about his head. Pandora, tell Felix how to manipulate him so you can scan his whole body.”

“Right,” said Ortega, walking over and waiting for Pandora's instructions.

And three minutes later they found it.

“Fascinating,” said Pandora. “A microscopic bomb, attached to his liver. Evidently he could set it off by some set of physical manipulations.”

“What kind?” asked Pretorius.

“I don't know. Could be anything from biting the inside of his lip to purposely stubbing a toe. The wiring is all biological, so there's no way to tell.” She paused. “I'll tell you something else, too. He's got no spleen and no pancreas . . . and I don't mean they were surgically removed.”

“So he
was
a ringer.”

She nodded. “And not even a human one.”

“What was his big hurry?” asked Snake. “He could blow himself up just as easy in a month or a year.”

Pandora shrugged. “It could be half a dozen reasons. Maybe the thing was operative only for another week or two. Maybe whatever triggered it was just natural enough that he wasn't likely to go a couple of months without doing it.” She paused. “Whatever it was, it clearly had a definite time frame and he was afraid of that.”

“He's not the only one,” said Pretorius. “Felix, jettison the body.”

As Ortega carted the body off, Snake turned to Pretorius. “So is our mission over?”

“That's what we've got to find out,” said Pretorius. “And where we're going, I don't think we're going to find anyone anxious to tell us.”

20

“You look worried,” noted Pandora as Pretorius stood beside her while she had the computer plot a course to the wormhole.

“I am,” he said, frowning. “I can't believe they don't have three or four ships posted at the other end of the wormhole, and our vessel doesn't have a single weapon, not even an old-fashioned pulse cannon.” He shook his head. “I'm willing to take risks, but this isn't a risk, it's suicide. Hold our position.”

She instantly instructed the ship to remain stationary.

“All right,” he said. “Let's find out exactly where the hell we are. And it wouldn't hurt to pinpoint a couple of habitable worlds in case we have to replenish our food supplies.”

“Habitable but uninhabited,” added Snake from a few feet away.

“If possible,” agreed Pretorius.

Pandora nodded and began manipulating her computer.

“You know,” said Ortega, “there's got to be more than one wormhole. Look how many we have in the Democracy.”

“True,” replied Pretorius. “But the trick isn't just finding them, it's knowing where they go. It's a big galaxy, Felix.”

“Got an oxygen world,” announced Pandora. “Ninety-four percent Standard gravity, air a little thin but breathable, and almost no neutrino activity, which implies that it's either uninhabited or at least an agricultural world.”

“How far away?” asked Pretorius.

“We can reach it in two days, three at the outside.”

“Let's go—and keep hunting for wormholes the whole time.”

“I'll hunt for them,” replied Pandora, “and I'll find them. But I don't know what good they'll do if they haven't been mapped.”

“We'll start traversing them,” answered Pretorius, “and sooner or later we'll come to a section that the ship knows, that's been mapped, and then we'll find a wormhole that'll put us near Antares, but
not
where they'll be waiting for us.”

“May I offer an observation?” said Irish.

“You're a member of the team,” said Pretorius. “Of course you may.”

“I think there's at least a possibility that they're
not
looking for us to return,” she said.

“Oh? Why?”

“Because there's a chance they think they've fooled us and that we're on our way, in however roundabout a fashion, to the Democracy.”

“Good point,” acknowledged Pretorius. “You could very well be right.” He sighed deeply. “But it's not worth risking the ship for. Let's at least try to find another approach to Antares before attempting it.”

It took three more hours, but finally Pandora announced that she had pinpointed their location.

“So where are we?” asked Pretorius.

“Believe it or not, we're smack-dab in the middle of the Bellini Cluster.”

He frowned. “The Bellini Cluster? That's got to be seventy thousand light-years from the Democracy, and almost as far from the Coalition.”

“Aren't wormholes wonderful?” said Snake dryly.

“Has any Man ever been out this way?” asked Pretorius. “Which is to say, has anyone charted it?”

“I'm still checking.”

“Well, one way or another, we'll get back to Antares,” said Pretorius. “If we want to.”

“If we
want
to?” repeated Ortega. “What are you talking about?”

“Use your brain, Felix,” said Pretorius. “What do we know about the dead man?”

“That he wasn't Nmumba.”

“Right. Now, what do we know about the real Nmumba?”

“That he's buried two miles deep in that prison,” said Ortega.

“And how do we know that?” asked Pretorius.

“Because Madam Methuselah—” Ortega frowned and fell silent.

“Right,” said Pretorius. “She's never misled me before, but if she was wrong about this guy, she could be wrong about the very existence of a two-mile-deep prison.” He paused. “I've been considering the possibility, and I think we've at least got to confirm it before we invade enemy territory again.”

“So do we go back to her?” asked Snake.

“We at least let her know that her informant was either wrong or lying to her, and then we play it by ear from there.” He paused. “They've got a pretty good description of this ship, so we're going to want a different one. Hopefully something with some armaments, just in case. After all, if we determine that Nmumba is there, they're not going to ignore a ship that approaches the sixth planet this time. They
wanted
us to steal the ringer and take him back with us, but they're not going to want us to get anywhere near the real McCoy. Which is another reason why I don't want to turn up in Coalition territory in this ship.”

“Okay,” admitted Snake. “It makes sense.”

“Got something!” announced Pandora.

“Oh?” said Pretorius. “What?”

She frowned. “I always thought it was a myth.”

“
What
was a myth?”

“Nothing,” she said, frowning. “It actually exists.”

“You want to start at the beginning?” said Pretorius.

“We're maybe ten hours from the Chryenski Wormhole,” replied Pandora. “Ever hear of it?”

“No.”

“I think I did,” said Irish. “A very long time ago, when I was a little girl. I think it was part of a nursery rhyme.”

“Okay, we're ten hours from the Chryenski Wormhole,” said Pretorius. “What makes it so special, or so mythical, or so whatever-it-is?”

“It'll take us to within three light-years of Sol,” said Pandora.

“
Earth's
Sol?”

“That's right.”

“Isn't there something already taking up that space?”

“Centaurus,” she answered. “But like everything else in the universe, it's rotating on course. The likelihood of a collision is maybe a billion-to-one against.”

“Seems reasonable,” Pretorius opined.

“It is.”

He stared at her. “That's not enough to make it a myth or a nursery rhyme. What else can you tell us about it?”

“The woman who mapped it more than a millennium ago, a Lieutenant Chryenski, is the only person who traversed it. Once she came out near Sol, she decided to go visit our birthplace, maybe see how some of the cities had evolved.”

“Makes sense,” said Pretorius.

Pandora smiled. “She thought so too.”

“Are you
ever
going to get to the point?” he asked irritably.

“She went to Earth,” answered Pandora. “But it was a dinosaur-infested Earth of ninety million years ago.”

“Are you saying this damned wormhole isn't just a hole in space but a hole in time as well?”

“Yes.”

“Shit!” he muttered. “We can't use it.”

“Yes, we can,” said Pandora.

He shook his head. “We'll go to Antares from Sol, and show up ninety million years before Nmumba was born.”

She smiled. “Chryenski did a little exploring and experimenting once she realized what had happened. If her written record is to be believed, it's an anomaly that only affects this wormhole and one other, one that leads from Sol to the Albion Cluster.”

“You mean every other wormhole kept her ninety million years in the past, but the one to the Albion Cluster put her back in the present?” asked Pretorius.

“Back in
her
present,” confirmed Pandora. “Remember, her voyage occurred a thousand years ago.”

“But we know our way around the Albion Cluster,” said Pretorius, trying to control his enthusiasm. “If we go to Sol and then to the Cluster and we're back in the current time, we know how to get to the Transkei Coalition from there. Hell, we can trade ships there, or purchase one. They'll honor Democracy currency, and I should be able to get Cooper to transfer the money. Then—”

He was still making plans as Pandora aimed the ship at the Chryenski Wormhole.

21

They emerged just beyond the Oort Cloud, much closer to Sol's system than they had anticipated, but nothing untoward happened as a result of it.

“Looks pretty much the same,” remarked Snake as Pandora threw an image of Earth and the Moon on a viewscreen.

“You've been there?” asked Irish.

“No,” said Snake, shaking her head. “Hell, I don't think I've ever met anyone who
has
been there. But I've seen enough drawings, photos, and holos of it.”

“It only has one moon,” noted Ortega.

“How the hell many did you expect?” asked Pretorius.

Ortega shrugged. “I dunno. It wouldn't be the first planet to lose a moon or two.”

“Continents look a little different,” said Snake. “I suppose that's proof that we're back where we figured to be.” She paused. “Damn, I'd love to stop by long enough to see a T. Rex.”

“That's for paleontologists,” said Pretorius. “Our job is freeing Nmumba.”

“Or terminating him,” added Snake.

He nodded his agreement. “Or terminating him.” He turned to Pandora. “Okay, find the hole we need and let's get to the Albion Cluster.”

“Right,” she said. “Good-bye, Mom.”

“Mom?”

“The mother of the human race,” said Pandora.

Within a few hours, ship's time, and ninety million years, give or take, real time, they had left Sol far behind and emerged in the Albion Cluster.

“What friendly planet are we closest to?” asked Pretorius.

“In miles or time?” asked Pandora.

“Time, of course.”

“I can get us to Tsung Lo IV in about five hours, using the Killebrew Wormhole.”

Pretorius nodded his approval. “Do it.” He turned to Ortega. “Felix, check out our supplies—
all
our supplies: weapons, food, medications, everything—and see what we need to pick up.” He paused. “Everything but fuel.”

“Pandora's going to check that?”

“She could if we needed to, but we don't. We're dumping this ship, remember?”

“Right,” said Ortega, who clearly didn't remember, but just as clearly didn't much care.

“I don't know anything about Tsung Lo IV,” said Irish. “What's it like?”

“Oxygen world, pretty much Standard gravity,” answered Pretorius. “Snows a lot.”

“Are we looking for another Tradertown?” she asked.

He shook his head. “Tsung Lo's a little more civilized than that. Got a population of maybe a couple of hundred million, mostly humanoid. Three or four major cities, none of them close to each other. Lot of gold, silver, and platinum beneath the surface. It began life as a mining world.”

“Began life?” she repeated. “What is it now?”

“Economic center, financial center, banking center, call it what you will. Not much activity that you can see, but in good years they all get rich.”

“A world like that should have whatever kind of ship we need,” said Irish.

“It will,” replied Pretorius. “They won't manufacture it, but they can usually supply anything you want to buy.” He frowned. “Hopefully within a day or two. They're still working on the real Nmumba. I don't care how strong he is, how well-conditioned our psych boys have got him, sooner or later everyone breaks. Or dies.”

“We might kill him ourselves,” interjected Snake.

“We might,” agreed Pretorius. “But if we do, we'll know whether or not he's told them what they need to know. If we find him dead, we won't know that until they start dropping Q bombs again.” He paused again. “And on that happy note, let's grab some breakfast, or whatever meal's coming next, before we hit the hole. I've eaten when traversing a long one, but I always feel a little, well, flimsy when I eat in a wormhole.”