The Prison in Antares (26 page)

“What is it?” asked Pretorius.

“Six or seven of the things are approaching this spot,” she said, holding up her computer. “Probably they smell the blood where Felix beheaded it.”

“Okay, let's go,” agreed Pretorius. “Felix, bring up the rear. No sense letting them rip one of us up before you can kill them.”

They began walking silently through the tunnel again, and came to a stop when they were within a dozen feet of a lighted chamber.

Pretorius sniffed the air, and made a face. “It's a kitchen, all right,” he whispered. “Nmumba couldn't live on a diet of this shit. I assume it's for the guards, or for some nonhuman prisoners. Let's hope it's the latter.”

“Why?” whispered Irish.

“Because after we kill everyone in there, we don't want the guards to come around asking why their meal is late.” He turned to Pandora. “How many life-forms?”

“Two in the chamber, one just beyond it.”

“Damn!” muttered Pretorius. “Let's wait and see if he comes back into the kitchen. If one of these two screams and he runs for help, we're in big trouble.”

They held perfectly still for almost three minutes.

“I've got a feeling the rats are getting anxious,” whispered Snake.

“Don't worry,” answered Pretorius. “If they'd ever gotten away with killing anyone this close to the chamber, they'd have been all over us already.”

Another minute passed, and then Pandora put her computer back on her belt.

“He's here!” she whispered.

“All right,” said Pretorius. “Can you scramble any security they have here? We only need a minute, two at the outside.”

“I don't know,” answered Pandora. “If it's the same system as out at the transport, I can probably mess it up for ten minutes.”

“Let's hope it's the same,” he said, “because there's no turning back.” He faced his team. “No survivors—and just as important, no noise.”

He turned and raced into the chamber, screecher in hand.

37

There were two Antareans wearing food-stained clothes, and another one in uniform. Pretorius shot the uniformed one before he could react. One of the two cooks hurled a cutting instrument at Ortega, but he blocked it with his artificial arm as Snake killed the cook with a laser blast.

The other cook raced for a door, and Irish trained her screecher on the back of his head and fired. He collapsed without a sound.

Pretorius placed his finger to his lips, gestured for Snake to make sure all three Antareans were dead, and then opened the door that the cook had been running toward. He stuck his head out, then signaled the others to follow him.

They came to a fork in the tunnel and paused, wondering which way to go. Then Irish gestured for their attention and pointed to a tiny bit of food on the floor of the left-hand tunnel, food that had obviously spilled off a cart or a tray. Pretorius nodded his agreement and headed down the tunnel in question.

The lighting was dim but visible, and they proceeded for another eighty feet to a closed door. Pretorius looked questioningly at Snake, who approached the door as he stepped aside.

She bent over and studied the lock and the handle for a long moment, then stood up.

It's not locked
,
she mouthed the words.

Pretorius frowned and considered his options. He didn't want to go through the doorway with weapons firing, not until he knew what they might be firing
at.
He and Pandora had picked up a few words of Antarean, but their voices didn't have the right tonal quality, and he was certain they couldn't answer any questions that might be asked through the door.

“Snake,” whispered Pretorius, “I don't see any hinges. Does it open away from us?”

She shrugged. “It could open away, or iris, or just vanish.”

“Felix, pound on it. Bust it down if you can.”

Ortega stepped forward, pounded the door with his fists—one real, one metal—and then hurled himself against the door, which opened instantly. Pretorius saw two armed and uniformed Antareans racing toward him, and spotted enough holos of prisoners on the left-hand wall to determine that this was an observation station for the prison guards.

All five of the team took aim at the two guards, killing them on the spot.

“Pandora!” said Pretorius. “You're the computer wizard. See if you can make heads or tails of their machines. We especially need to know how to find Nmumba's and Proto's cells, and how to see if any of the guards are converging on this room.”

“I'll do what I can,” she said, walking over to a pair of computers that faced the wall. “My experience aboard one of their ships should help.”

“Felix,” continued Pretorius, “find someplace to hide the bodies. Irish, give him a hand.”

“If they know we're here, they're going to know we've killed the guards,” said Irish.

“True,” admitted Pretorius. “But if Pandora can hide our presence from any prying spyware, the last thing we want is for someone to trip over a pair of bodies on the floor.”

Ortega and Irish dragged the bodies to a closet, opened it up, didn't see anything worth appropriating, and stuffed them into it.

“How's it coming?” Pretorius asked Pandora.

“I've found a row of cells,” she answered. “But I don't know yet where it is, or if it's the only one.”

“Are they occupied?”

“I'm working on it,” she replied. “This is a little more complicated than the software that ran the ship.” Then, a few seconds later, she added: “No bars. Three walls and a force field.”

“Can you kill the force field from here?”

“Almost certainly,” said Pandora. “I just have to find the right command.”

“We can't wait too much longer,” said Pretorius. “We've killed five Antareans. Surely one of them must have had to report to his superiors by now.”

“Wait!” she exclaimed. “I'm getting something!”

All eyes turned to her as she rapidly fed commands into the machine.

“Got him!” she said triumphantly.

“You're sure it's Nmumba?” said Pretorius.

“There are only seventeen prisoners in the whole jail, Nate!” she exclaimed. “Nine Denebians, three Kaboris, two Torquals, one Antarean, and a Man! It's got to be him!”

“That's sixteen.”

“The other has to be Proto,” she said. “Even the scanner can't identify his race.”

“How do we get there?”

“Proto's still emitting signals,” she replied. “We'll home in on them with
this.
” She indicated a mini-computer on her belt.

“And can you kill the power to the force fields?”

“One thing at a time,” replied Pandora. “Please don't speak to me. I'm speaking code to the computer, and every time I answer you in Terran of course it doesn't understand me and I have to start over.”

“Sorry,” said Pretorius. He walked across the room, folded his arms, and waited.

“What the hell are Kaboris doing here?” asked Snake. “They're part of the Coalition too.”

“Beats me,” said Pretorius. “You can ask them when we get to the cell block.”

“Maybe I will,” she replied.

He stared at her for a long moment, and then smiled.

“Oh, shit!” said Snake. “I know that expression—and every time I see it, it means there's going to be more trouble for me.”

“We're two miles deep in an enemy stronghold, and our ship is fifty miles away,” said Ortega. “Just how much more trouble can you be in?”

“All right!” said Pandora. “I know how to kill the force field!”

“Okay,” said Pretorius. “Just point the way.”

She shook her head. “I'm coming with you.”

He frowned. “We need you right here at the computer.”

“If Proto's signal is accurate, and there's no reason to believe it isn't, there are three coded doors between here and the cell block,” she said. “By the time I show you how to manipulate the codes on one of these—” she held up one of her tiny computers “—we could be there and on our way back.”

“Can you kill the force field with that?” said Pretorius.

“Absolutely,” she answered. “I've tied it in to their big one.”

“All right,” he said. “Let's go. Lead the way.”

“Follow me,” she said, walking to what seemed a solid section of wall at the back of the room. She uttered a low command and a broad section of it slid back to reveal yet another dimly lit tunnel.

“Quickly!” Pretorius said to the others. “Who the hell knows how long the wall stays open?”

The tunnel went straight ahead for perhaps fifty feet, and then they came to a door. Pandora uttered the proper code, the door irised, they stepped through, came to a second door in just a few yards, and repeated the procedure.

Pandora stopped after they went another hundred feet and came to a third door.

“Okay,” she said. “The cell block is just beyond this door. And if I'm interpreting the computer correctly, we can kill the force field for all the cells at once, or just for individual cells of our choosing.”

“Open it,” said Pretorius.

She uttered a final command, the door spread apart to let them through, and they found themselves in the cell block. There were twenty-four cells, twelve on each side of the tunnel, each equipped with a chair and a bed or their equivalent, none of them occupied by more than a single prisoner, seven of them totally empty.

The second the prisoners saw them, all except Nmumba and Proto rose as one, approached the force field, and began asking questions in their native languages. When they received no response they began yelling and screaming.

Pretorius stopped in front of the one cell that held a Man. He was the spitting image of the false Nmumba they had stolen days ago, and Pretorius gestured for Pandora to kill the force field at the front of the cell.

“He's going to be weak as hell,” said Irish. “Snake, give me a hand with him.”

They walked into the cell, helped Nmumba get shakily to his feet, and supported him as he went out into the aisle between the two sets of cells.

The screaming on the part of the other prisoners had reached a crescendo, and Pretorius stepped a few feet away from his team, faced one set of cells, and raised his voice.

“Does anyone here speak Terran?” he asked.

“I speak the languages of
all
the prisoners,” replied the Antarean.

“Ask them if they'd like us to kill the force fields on
all
the cells.”

The Antarean relayed the question, and while Pretorius couldn't understand the words, the response was wildly enthusiastic.

“Tell them that in exchange for that, they do not touch any Man who is with me. That's my offer.”

The Antarean put the proposition to them, was almost overwhelmed by the enthusiastic response, and relayed it to Pretorius.

“Okay, Pandora, kill the fields.”

“You're sure?” she said. “I have a hard time considering this group as men—well,
beings—
of honor.”

“They're beings of vengeance,” replied Pretorius, “and they've got nothing against us.”

She shrugged. “You're the boss.”

And an instant later fourteen prisoners were racing down the tunnel, lusting for blood and freedom. Only Proto, once again appearing as a middle-aged man, and the Antarean remained where they were.

Pretorius stared at the Antarean. “You didn't go with them,” he noted.

“You helped me,” he replied. “I have an obligation to help you.”

“The others didn't feel that way.”

“They are ungrateful scum,” said the Antarean contemptuously.

“Have you a name?”

“Kramin,” replied the Antarean.

“And you feel obliged to help us?” said Pretorius dubiously.

“I wanted no part of this war. I was a professor of alien languages when they conscripted me. I was given no choice.”

“What's a professor doing in a jail cell?” asked Pandora.

“You've heard of the Battle of Sikandor IV?”

“I think everyone has,” replied Pretorius. “You were there?”

“I was there. In the midst of the worst firefight, our commanding officer started to flee, taking with him all our medical supplies—so I killed him.” He gestured to his cell. “This is my reward.”

“I can hardly blame you for killing officers,” said Snake.

“I have befriended Edgar, whose treatment was more severe than any of the others,” said Kramin. “He is my only living friend.”

“And you're willing to help him?” asked Pretorius.

“That is why I did not run away with the other prisoners.”

“Kramin,” said Pretorius, “I think you just made six new friends.”

38

“First things first,” continued Pretorius. “Can Nmumba walk on his own power, or does Felix have to carry him?”

“I can walk,” said Nmumba. “I can't vouch for my stamina, and I certainly can't run, but I can walk.”

Pretorius turned to Proto. “How about you?”

“I'll be all right,” answered Proto. “When it became obvious I didn't speak their language they stopped beating me and threw me in a cell. I assume they were trying to find someone who spoke my race's native tongue.” He paused. “I never spoke a word of Terran to them,” he added proudly.

“You're sure you're okay?” persisted Pretorius. “We may need you to get out of here.”

“I'm sure.”

Pretorius turned to Kramin. “I don't imagine you know your way around this place?”

“Not well,” admitted the Antarean. “They've taken me to two different interrogation rooms, but that's all I've seen.” He paused briefly. “Well, except where they docked the ship that brought me here.”

“And where was that?”