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Authors: Mike Resnick

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BOOK: The Prison in Antares
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“No,” admitted Ortega. “No, I suppose not.”

“Hell, stealing a military ship is probably the easiest part of what lies ahead of us.”

He had no idea just how prophetic a statement that was.

28

It was seventeen hours later that Pandora, back at the controls, announced: “I've got one.”

“How big?” asked Pretorius, coming out of his cabin.

“Looks to hold maybe eight, possibly ten.”

“And it's definitely military?” he asked.

She nodded her head. “Definitely. It's set down on Tabor II. From what I can tell the crew are all oxygen breathers.”

“Can you determine what it set down for?”

She shook her head. “No. But I'm getting no life reading from the ship, which means they've all left it.”

“And it's functional?” persisted Pretorius. “They didn't crash?”

“All of its systems seem to be operative.”

“They haven't sent out an S.O.S. or answered one from the planet?”

“Not as far as I can tell,” she replied.

“And it's definitely military?”

“It's not a warship,” said Pandora, “but it's definitely a military ship.”

“Okay,” said Pretorius. “Let's get over there before they decide to leave.”

“I've already adjusted course,” she replied. “We should be there in about three hours.”

“One more question,” he said. “Is the planet populated?”

She frowned. “Yes, of course.”

“There's no ‘of course' about it,” he answered. “If there's a population, clearly the Antareans are interacting with them, and that makes our job that much harder.”

“I don't follow you,” said Pandora.

“If they just landed on, say, an empty chlorine world to effect repairs or pick up some rare element they want or need, we could simply land next to their ship, move our gear into it, destroy this ship, and take off. But since there are sentient beings there, maybe even chlorine breathers, we have to assume that they know and interact with the Antareans.” He paused. “And that means we have to kill the ship's crew. We can't leave them behind if they can report that we've stolen their ship.”

“We'd better hope they're not too scattered over the landscape,” said Snake.

“And that they don't have allies,” added Proto.

“We'll worry about each problem as we come to it,” said Pretorius. “The first order of business is to make sure your weapons are fully charged.” He turned back to Pandora. “And your job, along with getting us there, is to determine the conditions—gravity, atmosphere, temperature, whatever we need to know. And try to determine what the hell they're doing on that planet, and where they might be if they're still out of the ship when we arrive.”

“I'm working on it,” she assured him.

Three hours later she was still working on it as they entered the Tabor system.

“Okay,” said Pretorius as Tabor II came up on the viewscreen. “There's no sense setting the ship down until we know what's there and what kind of reception we might get. I think we'll take the sleds. Irish, you, Proto, and Ortega go on one, Snake and I will go on the other. Pandora, keep the ship in orbit, pinpoint any signals they try to send out, and keep in touch with me.”

“What's the gravity like?” asked Ortega.

“About ten percent heavier than Standard,” answered Pandora.

“And visibility?”

“Looks clear,” she said.

“Okay,” said Pretorius. “Let's get ready to go. Get into your protective suits, make sure your weapons are charged and that your oxygen tanks are full.”

“Oxygen tanks?” said Ortega, frowning. “I thought this was an oxygen world.”

“There are all kinds of oxygen worlds,” replied Pretorius. “Trust me, you wouldn't like one with ninety percent oxygen in the atmosphere, any more than you'd like one with five percent.”

A few minutes later they were riding their sleds down to the planet's surface, and a couple of minutes after that all five of the landing party were inside the Antarean ship.

“Well, that was easy enough,” remarked Snake, taking off her helmet and deeply inhaling the ship's air. “Can't say that I admire their color sense. The whole goddamned ship is gray.”

“There's always a possibility that they're color-blind,” suggested Proto.

“After eating what we've been eating for the past few days, I can't imagine their galley will produce anything we can't metabolize,” said Irish. “I look forward to tasting some of their foodstuffs.”

Ortega shook his head. “Take it from me, no matter how they try to dress it up and color it, alien food is alien food.” He made a face. “Gives you a new appreciation of the endless non-variety of soya products we have to eat on Democracy ships.”

“So how many Antareans
were
on this ship?” asked Snake.

“I'd guess eight or nine,” answered Irish. “Anything more and they'd be too cramped.”

“Shit!” exclaimed Pretorius, who was examining the ship's control console.

“What is it?” asked Irish.

“The bastards activated an alarm system that radios them when the ship's been boarded. I don't know where they are, but they know we're on the ship, and
that
means they're not coming back, not right away.”

“So what?” said Ortega. “We're in control of the ship. We'll just take off.”

“We can't,” said Pretorius. “Right now we could just be kids, curiosity-seekers, half a dozen other things . . . but the second we take off they'll know we've stolen their ship, and they'll alert the powers-that-be in the Coalition to keep an eye out for it and blow it out of the ether once they spot it.”

“So what do we do?” asked Ortega. “We can't leave, and we can't just sit here and wait for them to return because they're not coming back while we're on the ship.”

Pretorius sighed deeply. “We leave the ship and go out hunting for its crew.”

“And kill them,” said Snake.

Pretorius nodded his agreement. “And kill them.”

29

It was a bleak, sandy world, reasonably flat except for the occasional enormous dune. The heat wasn't oppressive, and the gravity was a little lighter than Standard. Pandora had said there was a freshwater ocean, but it wasn't within a thousand miles of where they touched down.

“So where do we start?” asked Ortega as they left the ship. “Take our sleds and look for them?”

“No,” answered Pretorius. “The sleds have no defense mechanisms.”

“Then what do we do?”

“We remember that this is a neutral world. Pandora will direct us to the nearest locals, and we'll play it by ear.”

“That could be miles.”

“It could be,” agreed Pretorius. “But I doubt it.”

“Why?” asked Ortega.

“Because they could have set their ship down anywhere, and they chose this spot. That makes me think that whatever they're looking for—locals, animals, minerals—is nearby.”

“And this sandy soil,” added Snake, indicating the ground, “makes it very easy to track them.”

“Perhaps we should spread out a bit,” suggested Irish, “since they know we're looking for them.”

“They do?” asked Ortega.

“Well, they know we're on the planet and have been in their ship,” she replied. “The fact that the ship is still here would seem to imply that we're looking for them.”

“And they shouldn't be too hard to find,” added Pretorius. “All they have to do is check with some local source to find out that we came in a Coalition ship, not a Democracy one. There's no reason for them to think we're an enemy military force.”

They walked for another fifteen minutes, and then Pandora got in touch with them.

“I think I know why they're here,” she announced, “and if so, then I know where you'll find them.”

“What have you got?” asked Pretorius.

“I've been doing a little research,” she began.

“On Antareans?”

“On Tabor II,” she replied.

“And?”

“You ever hear of
crattius
?”

“No,” said Pretorius. He looked at his team. “Anyone else?”

“I have,” answered Proto. “But I confess that I've never seen or experienced it.”


Experienced
it?” repeated Pretorius, frowning.

“I believe it's a stimulant for certain oxygen-breathing species,” said Proto.

“He's right,” said Pandora.

“They're here for drugs?” said Pretorius.

“With all due respect, there's nothing else on Tabor that's worth anything to anyone.”

Pretorius scanned the barren landscape. “It can't grow in the ground,” he said. “Nothing does, not around here—and if there's a garden spot anywhere on this planet they'd have set their ship down a lot closer to it.”

“It's like Mistalidorium—it gets
mined
,” answered Pandora. “Based on what I can glean from the computer, the stuff is mined solely at the polar areas.”

“That doesn't make any sense,” said Pretorius. “We can't be fifteen degrees north of the equator.”

“It gets mined at the poles,” said Pandora. “But it gets processed in the cities—villages really. And you've covered about half the distance from the ship to the nearest village.”

“So are they going to the village?” asked Snake. “I think it'd be more convenient to have a drop point.”

“No, it makes sense,” said Pretorius. “Having a drop point for off-worlders implies you hope they'll drop their money off at the point. Dealing with them face-to-face makes getting paid much more likely.”

“Then why not set the ship down right at the village?” persisted Snake.

Suddenly Pretorius smiled. “Pandora, you still there?”

“Where would I go?” she asked.

“Is
crattius
legal?”

“Let me check.” There was a brief pause. “It's legal on most worlds of the Coalition, but it's outlawed in the Antares system and about a dozen other worlds. And it's illegal to sell it to residents of those worlds.”

“Thanks,” said Pretorius. “That explains it.” He turned to face his crew. “That means they're probably at the village—or else they've done their business and are on their way back to the ship. It also means they'll almost certainly start shooting the second they see us.” He looked ahead across the bleak landscape. “And since we don't know when we're going to come upon them, I suggest that we spread out. No sense giving them one big target rather than five smaller ones.”

“I think I can help,” said Pandora's voice.

“Oh?”

“There's a gully off to your left. You're not that far from the village. If you can't see them yet, that's the most logical spot for them to be.”

“Thanks,” said Pretorius, heading toward the gully. “By now they have to know we've boarded their ship, but they probably don't know yet that we've come looking for them . . . so we have an element of surprise that should last about two seconds. Make your first shots count. I assume the locals don't want any trouble, especially since they don't know who we are or what legal authority we represent, but there's also the chance that they'll be so afraid of the consequences of being caught selling drugs that they'll join the fight on the Antareans' side.”

“This should be a piece of cake,” said Ortega. “We're out to kill, not capture, and we've got the element of surprise on our side.”

“Before you get too confident,” said Pretorius, “remember that whether they're buying drugs or not, they're trained military men.”

“Or military
things
,” added Snake.

“Whichever,” said Pretorius.

They reached the edge of the gully in another five minutes.

“I hope to hell Pandora was right,” said Ortega.

“We'll know soon enough,” said Pretorius, lowering himself to the ground and inching forward on his belly.

“Four of them,” whispered Irish. “And maybe six locals.”

“Okay, target the Antareans first, aim carefully, and fire on my signal,” said Pretorius.

Suddenly they heard a raucous buzzing sound.

“Goddammit!”
bellowed Ortega, blood spurting from his left arm.

“Fire!” yelled Pretorius, and as the others fired, Proto had his image stand up to draw the enemy fire, which didn't figure to touch him unless they aimed at the image's feet.

“Son of a bitch!”
growled Ortega as laser beams dug into the ground near them and explosive projectiles burst just over their heads. “That was my only whole limb!”

“Stop moving and maybe you won't bleed to death before we can get you back to the ship!” snapped Pretorius.

“Got two of 'em!” hollered Snake.

“And I got one!” added Irish.

“Where the hell is the lookout?” said Pretorius. “The one who shot Felix?”

“It came from that sand dune,” said Snake, pointing. “Now he's ducked behind it.”

“It won't save the bastard!” yelled Ortega. “I'll kill him myself!”

“Just hold still!” said Pretorius, ripping off part of Ortega's shirt and trying to use it as a tourniquet.

“Got the fourth one!” cried Snake triumphantly.

“What about the locals?” asked Pretorius.

“Running like hell in the other direction,” said Proto.

“Irish, get over here and go to work on his arm,” said Pretorius. “I don't think it hit an artery, but there's a lot of blood.”

Irish crawled over and took over trying to create the tourniquet.

“Snake, stay on guard in case some of the locals come back.”

“Where are you going?” asked Snake as Pretorius stood up.

BOOK: The Prison in Antares
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