The Prison in Antares (18 page)

“Good afternoon,” he said. “My t-pack is unfamiliar with your language, and I am sure yours does not speak Terran, but we are both on Moltoi so surely this language will work.”

The alien fiddled with his t-pack, made a gesture of incomprehension, and summoned another member of his crew. Pretorius offered the same message, and this alien nodded, adjusted his t-pack, and replied.

“Please excuse my friend,” he said through the mechanism. “This is his first trip off-planet.” A pause. “Off our home planet,” he qualified.

“I was just admiring your ship,” said Pretorius.

“It functions very well for our particular duties,” replied the alien.

“Will you be here—I mean, on Moltoi—long?”

“We should finish our work by sunrise tomorrow, and then we'll return home and await our next assignment,” said the alien. “I will miss Moltoi. The people are very friendly, and the restaurants and bars go out of their way to accommodate travelers from other worlds.”

“If you are leaving tomorrow, I have a proposition for you,” said Pretorius.

“More work?” suggested the alien. “You will have to confer with our employer. But even if you reach an accommodation, it will be performed by a different crew. We have been working for eighty-two—no, make that eighty-three—days on this planet, and we need some time to rest.”

“Actually, I have work crews of my own,” said Pretorius. “What I would like to do is purchase your ship and all of its equipment.”

The alien stared at him as if unable to comprehend what he had heard, and made no reply. Finally he responded. “You wish to take work away from us.”

“Absolutely not.”

“It is not a new ship,” said the alien. “Why would you want it, and if you do not plan to take work away, why do you need all of our equipment?”

“I have mining rights on two uninhabited worlds,” answered Pretorius. “I need a ship that can get my crew there, and I need instruments for them to use once they arrive. I am willing to sign a pledge that I will not seek work on any world where you do business.”

“That does not seem unreasonable,” replied the alien.

“To whom would I make an offer?” continued Pretorius. “Of course, the offer will include passage to your home world for you and your crew.”

There was no reaction.

“And for five days for your entire crew on any world you wish to visit on your way home,” added Pretorius.

The alien's eyes widened. “Come back in . . .” He uttered a figure that translated as forty minutes.

“We'll be inside the oxygen Customs building,” replied Pretorius.

He and Irish made their way to the building, sat down, and tried to guess how much the aliens would ask for their craft. The alien was back in fifteen minutes with a price.

“I will have to consult with my employer,” said Pretorius. “I assume your employer will accept the local currency.”

“Yes.”

“Then give us a few minutes. We'll meet you back at your ship.”

“I shall be awaiting you,” said the alien, walking off.

“Okay,” said Pretorius, “let's go find a private room.”

“What for?” asked Irish.

“You know that we can triple his price if we have to, and I know it, but why should
he
know it. Let him think it's a hard negotiation and maybe he won't jack up the price at the last second because we gave in too easily.”

“I saw a room off to the left,” said Irish, getting up and leading him to it.

“I wish they served coffee or some other mildly human drink here,” he remarked as he followed her.

“They've probably got a couple that won't kill you,” she said. “But I suppose that's not the same thing.”

“Not quite,” he replied with a wry smile. “Check your timepiece, and we'll leave in about ten minutes. Well, check that.
I'll
leave.”

“Why am I staying behind?” she asked.

“To call me back when I've made it halfway to the exit,” answered Pretorius. “They've got a member of their race watching us from over there by that Perigoni ship. Let 'em think I'm not a free agent, that if they start adding a few credits here and there to the price you'll call me back and they might blow a beautiful deal. They don't get any part of the purchase price for the ship, but—” he paused and grinned “—they want that five-day all-expense-paid vacation.”

“Okay,” she said, returning his smile. “I'm taking mental notes. I'm learning.”

They waited ten minutes, then Pretorius left the room and began walking toward the exit, only to have Irish call him back with a stern expression on her face.

“I'll bet they're thinking it's falling apart, and wondering what they can do to put it back together again,” said Irish.

“The only thing they can do is grab it and run,” he answered. “Let's give them five more minutes to consider it, and then go make our offer.”

And ten minutes later Pretorius took possession of a ship, and twenty thousand light-years away Wilber Cooper authorized what he felt was an outrageous payment for an alien ship possessed of no armaments.

25

Their first port of call, of course, was McPherson's World. Given where they began, they traveled a strange and circular route, but Pandora got them there in the most efficient way possible.

“Felix,” ordered Pretorius as they touched down, “you're on guard duty until we get back.”

“How can I guard you if I'm here and you're at Madam Methuselah's?” demanded Ortega.

“Not
me
,” answered Pretorius. “Guard the ship.”

“Nobody on this world has ever even seen this ship,” said Ortega. “Who am I protecting it against?”

“Anyone who wants it, or wants to rob it. Don't forget how we've occasionally acquired a ship when we've needed one.”

“Am I accompanying you like last time?” asked Proto.

“No need to,” said Pretorius, shaking his head. “You already know what an Antarean uniform looks like.”

“I assume I'm staying here too?” asked Irish.

He stared at her for a long minute. “You come along.”

She shrugged. “Not that I wouldn't love to visit the most famous whorehouse in the Neutral Zone again,” she said sardonically, “but may I ask
why
I'm coming?”

“I wish to hell Circe was here,” said Pretorius. “But she's not.”

“I don't follow you.”

“I need to know if Madam Methuselah just had a lousy informant, or if she sold us out. Circe could have told me by the time I'd asked three questions.” He frowned. “But Circe's dead. You're the closest thing we have to her.”

She shook her head. “Circe was intuitive. I'm a scientist. I'd need to devise tests and measure reactions. It could take days, which I gather we don't have.”

“I know, probably nothing'll come of it. But come along anyway. Just let me know if you spot anything unusual, anything out of the ordinary.”

“In a whorehouse that's home to twenty races?” laughed Snake. “Perish the thought.”

Irish shrugged. “I obey orders. You're in charge, so of course I'll come. But I doubt that it'll do any good.”

“Truth to tell, I doubt it too,” Pretorius admitted. “But Felix and the others can protect the ship—and if they can't, then I very much doubt that your presence would make a difference.”

They exited the ship and walked the relatively short distance to the center of town, and to Madam Methuselah's. It was early afternoon, and the place was a little less crowded than the last time.

“May I help you?” asked a green-skinned golden-eyed Denebian hostess. “And your companion?”

“Tell the Madam that Pretorius is here.”

“Is there any message?” asked the Denebian.

“Just tell her,” said Pretorius.

The Denebian left without another word, and Pretorius turned to Irish. “If she's with someone else, we could have a short wait.”

“She still . . . ah . . . ?” began Irish.

He shook his head. “Not that she isn't pretty enough, but I guess it palls after eight or nine centuries. Anyway, everyone else here is in the pleasure business. She's in the information business.”

“Is she really that old?” asked Irish dubiously.

“See that painting?” Pretorius asked, indicating a portrait of Madam Methuselah in a feathered gown that hung over the center of the bar.

“Yes.”

“Good likeness, isn't it?”

She frowned, wondering what the catch was. “Yes, it is.”

“It was painted by Benoit Mancuso,” said Pretorius. He smiled. “He died more than five hundred years ago.”

She sighed deeply. “I never looked that good on the best day I ever had.”

“Do you wish you had?”

She shrugged. “I never really thought about it.”

“Then don't think about it now,” he said. “You're attractive enough, but the service is paying you for what's between your ears.”

A trio of Torquals, each of them ten feet tall and heavily muscled, entered, paused to stare at the two humans, then walked over to a section of the bar that had been raised for their race.

A robot approached Pretorius and Irish. “She will see you now,” it said, turning and leading them to Madam Methuselah's office.

“Ah, Nathan!” she said as they entered and the door snapped shut behind them. “Back already? I assume your mission went well.”

“Yes and no,” said Pretorius.

Madam Methuselah frowned. “Explain, please.”

“We got the man that your operative identified as Edgar Nmumba.” He watched her face for a reaction. “He was a ringer.”

“Truly?”

“Truly,” said Irish.

She walked over to her desk, stared at her computer for a moment, uttered a command in a language neither of her visitors had ever heard before, then looked up at them.

“He made a mistake,” she said. “He will never make another. I am so sorry, Nathan! Of course you owe me nothing, and in fact I am deeply in your debt. That was the first misinformation—let me be blunt: the first
lie—
I have ever received from my operative in Antares.”

“Have you any other operatives in that system?” asked Pretorius. “Because we still need Nmumba.”

“I will get the information you need, and there will be no obligation on your part—no payment, no favor, nothing. Though,” she added, “I would of course appreciate your discretion concerning this little glitch.”

He nodded. “How soon can you let me know for sure where they're keeping him?”

“Within a few hours,” she said. “And everything in this building is at your disposal—both of you—until I have what you need.”

“If you've still got a restaurant toward the back, we'll take you up on that,” said Pretorius. “Now, how sure are you that you can trust whoever you're going to get our information from?”

“Once Nmumba's location has been pinpointed, I think there's no chance of an error.”

“You thought that last time,” said Pretorius.

Madam Methuselah visibly winced. “I know. But conditions are different this time. I've had reports of your progress. You stole the false Nmumba and escaped with him. No one has reported that you have discovered the deception, that you have rid yourself of him, indeed that you are anywhere except on your way to Deluros VIII.” She paused. “That means they have no further need of deception. They assume the first one worked, and since they are at war only with the Democracy and the Democracy has made its move, there is no sense creating a second ringer. Whatever my operative reports, I will stake my life on it.”

Pretorius resisted the urge to reply “Yes, you will,” and walked to the door, which irised when it sensed his presence. He motioned Irish to join him, then turned to Madam Methuselah. “Let us know as soon as you find out. We've already lost a few days.”

“I know, and I apologize,” she said.

Then they were in the corridor leading back to the main section of the building.

“Toward the left, as I recall,” said Pretorius, taking Irish by the arm and walking to the restaurant.

Another Denebian girl showed them to a table, uttered a command, and holographs of menus appeared above the table, with mouth-watering representations of each item.

“Damn!” said Irish. “I don't recognize three-quarters of the dishes, but the ones I do know belong in a five-star restaurant.”

“They don't stint here,” said Pretorius.

They took a few minutes to order, and then he lowered his voice so only she could hear it.

“Well?”

“I think you can trust her. After all, she gains nothing by lying. Once is a blunder. Twice, on the other hand, invites retaliation.”

“I've been relying on her for, hell, it must be twenty years now, and this is the first problem,” he said. “And when you think of it, the poor bastard who gave her the information had good information. We didn't know our Nmumba was a phony until we were out of the system, and Lord knows we didn't just walk in, grab him, and walk out.” He shrugged. “Well, what the hell—you work in this business, you accept that there are consequences for being wrong.”

Their meal arrived, and they were about halfway through it when a Denebian girl—it could have been the same one; Pretorius couldn't tell them apart—approached the table.

“Madam Methuselah is ready for you,” she announced.

Pretorius was on his feet immediately. “You want to finish?” he asked Irish.

“No, I'll come along.”

“You sure?” he said. “We've decided she's going to be telling the truth, and even if she isn't we're going to have to believe her until we prove otherwise.”

“I'm through, really,” she said, forcing an insincere smile.

“Okay,” said Pretorius. He turned to the Denebian girl. “We know the way.”