"I'm with Johnny," he said.
"If Johnny is so damned good at looking into the souls of men," sneered HMK, "why didn't he see that Asdoel Zo was lying to us all along, since that's what he's claiming?"
"All I got from Zo when I checked him out was a deep sense of pain and loss," said Johnny. "Just like you'd find in a man who really had lost his wife and kids. The emotion was so intense that it blotted everything else out."
"Highly convenient. So what are you suggesting? That Mr Zo had these emotions hypnotically implanted specifically to baffle your ability to read people?"
"I'm not suggesting anything," said Johnny harshly. "For all we know, Asdoel Zo may have nothing to do with any conspiracy against us."
"But you heard what this Tarkettle said! He didn't harm a hair on the head of any member of Zo's family. And you believe him."
"He also said he'd never met the man," said Johnny. "And I believed him when he said that, too."
Granny Haxer moved around the room, offering cups of steaming coffee. She held one out to HMK, who shook her head impatiently and turned away, to look at Johnny. "So what are you saying? That there are two Asdoel Zos? The real one and an impostor?"
"Maybe," said Johnny, accepting a cup of coffee. "Thanks, Granny."
"Mind, it's hot. And those tin cups do radiate the heat. Don't scald yourself, son. Should I pour one for our prisoner here?"
"You'd better untie him first," said Johnny. He looked at Ray and Bel. "Keep your guns on him, just in case. If he looks like he's going to throw that coffee at someone instead of drinking it, drill him without hesitation."
"I don't mind if I don't have any coffee," said Tarkettle. "Just please don't drill me."
Middenface drew the large, glinting bowie knife from the sheath in his belt and walked over towards Tarkettle. The little man gave a squeak of pure terror. "Oh, for heaven's sake man, isn't it obvious I'm going to cut your bonds with this thing? Really." Middenface muttered in disgust as he sliced the ropes that held the man's hands and feet fastened to the chair. "Anyway, it's your own bloody knife. From your own bloody collection." The ropes dropped away from Tarkettle and Middenface stepped back, half expecting him to spring into action in a desperate attempt to slay his captors.
But the little man just sat there, trembling and looking more like a rodent than ever. Granny Haxer handed him a cup of coffee. "Here, this will put lead in your pencil," she said. Tarkettle accepted the cup with shaking hands. He sipped at it gratefully, but the tremor in his hands was so bad that he spilled as much as he drank.
"And when he's finished that, let him change his pants," said Middenface. "The poor bugger's as wet as a baby."
Johnny shrugged. "All right. So long as the twins follow him everywhere he goes. And if he picks up a gun instead of some clean trousers..."
"We know," said Ray.
"Drill him," said Bel.
"Please don't drill me," said Tarkettle. "I don't mind staying in wet pants."
"Well I mind," said Middenface. "Just the thought of it is making me uncomfortable."
Suddenly there was the sound of footsteps on the staircase leading down into the kitchen, heavy, frantic, lumbering footsteps. Slim Drago burst into the room, his face pale. "Johnny," he gasped. "There's a big spaceship. And it's landing outside."
CHAPTER ELEVEN
MOONLIGHT MEETING
Morning sunlight fell on the desert. Charlie Yuletide was standing in the foothills of a majestic mountain range with a huge waterfall tumbling into a curtain of gleaming mist in the background. Charlie's hand was still bandaged, but now the horse was back with him, tied to a scrubby tree nearby. Charlie was also holding his banjo, but he wasn't playing the instrument and his face had a set, stubborn expression on it.
"I'm not doing it," he said. "I'm not working with that horse again. The damned thing bit me. The next time it might take my whole, damned hand off."
He appeared to be talking to himself. Suddenly there was a shimmer in the air and holograms of two teenage girls appeared - a pair of sun-tanned, lithe redheads.
"Daddy says you have to," said the older girl.
Charlie Yuletide shook his head. "I refuse."
"Daddy says you have to appear with the horse or you won't get paid."
"This is outrageous," said Charlie Yuletide.
"The horse is a deal breaker," said the older girl. The hologram flickered and she disappeared. The younger girl remained for a moment longer.
"The horse won't bite you again," she said. "So long as you don't do anything stupid, like sticking your hand in his mouth."
"Stupid?" Charlie Yuletide's voice went up an octave. "Horses love to lick the salt off your wrist. It was a genuine piece of authentic western lore!"
"Just don't stick your hand in his mouth any more and you'll be fine," said the girl. "I have to go now. Daddy wants to take us to visit some stupid fort."
Then she, too, disappeared, and Charlie Yuletide was left alone with the horse.
Slim Drago was right. There was a spaceship, it was big, and it was landing outside the fort. The Strontium Dogs gathered on the battlements of the fort, interspersed between the cannons, watching the craft descend. Preacher Tarkettle, wearing a fresh pair of trousers and a rope around his wrists stood with them. Granny Haxer held a gun at his back. A powerful hot wind blew in their faces, blasting from the underside of the ship onto the rocky desert slope below the fort. It carried a smell of hot metal and ozone with it. The ship was a pale blue vessel consisting of a heart-shaped central section, with sweeping twin fins at the rear.
"It looks kind of familiar," said Slim Drago, who seemed to be taking a proprietary pride in the space ship, having been the first to spot it.
"That's because it's the shuttle from the Charles Neider, you great oaf," said HMK.
The ship settled over the dry river basin a few hundred metres down the hill from the fort. The basin provided a patch of level ground just large enough for the shuttle to use as a landing site. As soon as the ship had eased to the ground, its pointed nose split open and a small hover platform came shooting out, heading straight for the fort at high speed. The Strontium Dogs jerked their guns hastily up and took aim - except for HMK and Johnny.
"Don't waste your ammunition," said Johnny. "The dome over that platform is bullet-proof." Standing under the transparent dome on the hover platform were three people: Asdoel Zo and his two gold-skinned, copper-haired daughters.
"They're not dead, then," said Middenface. "I wonder where his wife is?"
The platform flickered swiftly over the steep broken ground at a height of about twenty metres, banked swiftly and rose up to hover on the same level as the battlements, just on the far side of the wall. Middenface reflected that Asdoel Zo was close enough to hit with a rock if he wanted to throw one at the billionaire. Not that there was much point in trying that. As Johnny had noted, a shatterproof dome enclosed the man and his daughters.
"Good morning," called Asdoel Zo affably, his voice amplified by a speaker on the platform. "How are you all enjoying the desert air?"
"There's a burro down there in the courtyard," replied Granny Haxer. "Why don't you go and have sex with it?"
Asdoel Zo chuckled. "Now really, Granny, is that any way to talk to a man in front of his children?"
"I said 'have sex' didn't I?" said Granny. "I coulda been a lot blunter in my vocabulary."
Asdoel Zo smiled and shrugged. "In any case, I take it from your suggestion, and from the fact that you've got our friend Tarkettle with you, that you've worked out the true nature of my little game."
"I wouldn't say that," said Johnny, his voice dangerously calm. "We know that you lied to us and that you brought us here under false pretences. We also know that you blew our drop ship out of the sky and left us to die in the desert."
"Come now, Johnny. You're being far too melodramatic. I didn't blow you out of the sky personally. I sent down a specialist crew of technicians from the Charles Neider to do
that. I flew them back up afterwards and, incidentally, gave them a slap-up dinner in return for a job well done. As for leaving you to die in the desert, I knew that you'd survive the crash. Those drop ships are sturdy and well built."
"That's good to know," said Johnny.
"And who do you think sent those horses for you?"
"We worked that out. We just haven't worked out why."
Asdoel Zo leaned forward on the rail of the hover platform. He looked tanned and relaxed, like a man on a pleasure cruise. "Tell you what, Johnny, why don't you and I have a little chat in private? I'll take this platform down into the courtyard." Without waiting for a reply, he adjusted some controls and sent the platform sailing up over the battlements, dropping steeply to descend into the courtyard of the fort.
Johnny turned to the others. "You aren't going to negotiate with that bastard are you, Johnny?" said Middenface.
"That's one of the things I'm going to do," said Johnny. "But there's something else I want to do, too." And he issued a terse series of instructions to the other Strontium Dogs before he turned and strode down the stairs to the courtyard.
Asdoel Zo looked up as Johnny approached. He remained standing on the platform, which was now sitting in the middle of the stone courtyard between the two troughs. The two teenage girls beside him looked bored, but Zo seemed to be having the time of his life. "I expect you want me to tell you what this is all about?" he said.
"I don't care what it's all about," said Johnny. "I already know enough to know that I don't want any part of it."
"Johnny, how can you say that?"
"We've been playing your game since the day you hired us, but that's all over now."
"Listen, friend. I'm paying your fee and you'll do as you're told."
"I'm not your friend," said Johnny in a dangerous voice. "And I dropped off your payroll as soon as I learned that you'd been lying to us. And so did every other Dog in the posse."
"You really think you speak for all of your colleagues, Johnny?"
"I know that I do. You're not pulling our strings any more."
Asdoel Zo smiled. "Are you sure about that? You do realise that the weapons system on my shuttle is targeted on this fort right now?"
"I'm not that easily intimidated, Mr Zo," said Johnny.
"I should hope not, considering the money I've been paying you."
Johnny's eyes flashed and a note of impatience entered his voice. "I suggest you go back on that shuttle right now and take your daughters with you, before things get nasty."
"Very well. We wouldn't want things to get nasty. Hold on Lorna, hold on Jodi." Asdoel Zo pressed some buttons and the platform shot straight up vertically then streaked away over the battlements, back towards the shuttle. Johnny turned and ran back towards the steps. Just as he reached them, Granny Haxer, Preacher Tarkettle, Stella Dysh and the twins came hurrying down.
"It's all set," said Granny Haxer. "Just like you said, Johnny."
"Good. You'd better take cover in one of the underground rooms. I'd advise the kitchen. You want to be as far from the powder magazine as possible. Just in case things go bad."
Granny nodded and led the others away, while Johnny set off up the stairs at a run. When he reached the battlements he found Middenface, Slim Drago and Hari Mata Karma waiting for him. "Are you ready?" he asked.
"We only managed to get four cannons loaded," said HMK. "Then we saw that platform flying back and we knew we'd run out of time."
"Four should be enough," said Johnny. "Are you sure you aimed them properly?"
"HMK was in charge," said Middenface. "She seemed to know what she was doing."
"Let's find out." Johnny took out a pack of matches and handed them around to the others. "Right. Let's give our former employer something to think about. We'll blast the engines off that vessel, so it won't be going anywhere without some major repairs."
He stepped up to the front wall of the battlements. Four of the seven cannons had been loaded with powder and shot, and trained on the shuttle sitting on the slope below. Johnny struck his match on the rough iron of the gun and watched it flare into flame. Standing beside him, Slim, HMK and Middenface did the same. Johnny put the burning match to the fuse that jutted from the rear of the cannon. The other three followed suit. Four short fuses began to fizzle.
Johnny just had time to say "Cover your ears," and to notice a flicker of movement at the edge of his vision before the fuses sizzled down into the cannons and hit the charges inside. Then there was a split second pause, followed by an explosion that tore the world apart.
Johnny emerged from a red-hot haze. He blinked his eyes, trying to see. There was something all over his face, a thick, sticky liquid. He tried to reach his hands up and feel what it was, but his hands wouldn't move. Instead he licked his lips, and tasted the salty flavour of his own blood.
"The cannons blew up," said a voice to his left. It was a familiar voice, but for a moment Johnny's dazed mind failed to identify it. He looked over and saw that it was Middenface. Middenface was kneeling on the flagstones of the courtyard, with his arms behind him. He looked in a bad way. There was a gash in his misshapen skull and he had blood all over his face. Johnny imagined that he looked much the same himself. More worrying was the fact that Middenface had chains on his arms and legs. As Johnny tried to move again he discovered that there was a set of chains on him, too.
"I hope HMK is all right," said a voice to his left. Johnny glanced over in that direction and saw that Slim Drago was kneeling there, also in chains. "I can't see her anywhere."
"The reason that you can't see her is that she wasn't blown up and taken prisoner," said Middenface in a sour voice. "She scarpered just before the cannons exploded in our faces." His words brought a fragment of memory back to Johnny. A glimpse of HMK running from the battlements just as the fuses burned down to the critical point...
"You mean she managed to escape?" said Slim happily. "That's good."
"No, it's not good, you great lummox," snapped Middenface. "The reason she managed to escape is because she knew the cannons were going to blow up in our faces. And the reason she knew that was because she sabotaged them. She did it right in front of me. I was a damned fool." Middenface looked over at Johnny. "She said she was adding an extra charge to the cannons and because she seemed to know about the things, I believed her. What a damned fool. What she was really doing was sabotaging them, so they'd blow up on us."
"I don't understand," said Slim.
"There was a traitor among us," said Johnny. "And HMK was the traitor."
"That's such a nasty word," said a woman's voice. The three men twisted around to see Hari Mata Karma approaching from the steps that led up into the fort. She had changed her clothes, bathed and looked fresh, well groomed and elegant. There was something else about her that had changed, but Johnny couldn't immediately identify what it was. "Hello boys," she said.
"You wee bitch," snarled Middenface.
"Now, that's not nice, is it?"
"Do you like it better than traitor?" said Johnny.
"Don't try and be witty, Johnny Alpha. That's my job."
"No, your job is sticking a knife in the back of your fellow Strontium Dogs."
HMK sighed. She strolled up behind Johnny and patted him lightly on the head. It was only the gentlest of touches, but it caused a gruesome surge of agony in his wounds. Johnny winced. HMK took her hand away and walked a little further down the courtyard before turning and looking at the kneeling, chained trio of men. "That's not strictly true," she said. "Because I was never a Strontium Dog myself."
Johnny suddenly realised what was different about the woman. Instead of having one brown eye and one blue eye, they were both a cool amused blue.
"You're not a mutant," he said.
"No. All that was just a story we cooked up to get you to accept me."
"Who are you, then?" said Johnny.
"Oh, I'm Hari Mata Karma all right. But that's my maiden name. My full name
now is Hari Mata Karma Zo."
"Zo?" whispered Middenface incredulously.
"Just call me HMKZ."
"You're his wife?" said Johnny.
"But that can't be," murmured Middenface. "The woman I saw in the jewellery shop..."
"And the hologram in Asdoel Zo's study..." said Johnny.
"That zebra-striped harlot was an associate of my husband's. A rather too close associate, and I'm going to have words with him about that. She was what you might call my stand-in, for the deeply emotional hologram we showed you of the dead family. She was supposed to be me. After all, I couldn't appear as myself, because I was also going to be a member of our posse."
"But what was she doing in the jewellers?" said Johnny.
"Good question. She wasn't supposed to be there. She wasn't even supposed to be in that solar system. But as I said, she had formed a rather disgustingly close association with my husband. He kept her around instead of just paying her off and sending her on her way. And the empty-headed little slut let you spot her." She smiled at Middenface. "So unfortunately you had to be clubbed with a psych truncheon to stop you putting two and two together."
Middenface shook his bloody head wearily. "So all along, when you were pretending to be such great pals with us, you were planning this."
"No, not exactly this. We were improvising to a large extent. Making it up as we went along. We didn't know exactly what was going to happen. We just knew it was going to be fun."
"Fun," said Middenface, disgustedly.
"And I wasn't pretending to be pals with you. I really was your pal."
"Sure you were," said Middenface.
"What was the point of it all?" said Johnny. "What did you want from us?"
"Something that money couldn't buy," said Asdoel Zo. The three chained men glanced back to see Zo approaching them from the same direction his wife had come from. He was dressed in khaki shorts, sandals and a dark blue, short-sleeved shirt, puffing contentedly on a cigar. "An experience like no other."
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