The Fortress in Orion

by Mike Resnick

  “Could he have put it back in Michkag’s backpack?”

  Michkag quickly inspected it. “No,” he said.

  “I am so humiliated!” said Djibmet.

  “No sense worrying about it now. We have work to do. Snake?”

  “Yeah?” she replied.

  “You can hide in more uncomfortable places than anyone I’ve ever met. Go out the door, find out how we get down to the main body of the fortress, and note any possible places we can hide for more than a few minutes once we’re down there, or as we’re getting down there.”

  “We can do better than that,” said Pandora. She took a tiny machine off her belt and attached it to the front of Snake’s belt.

  “What is this?” asked Snake.

  “Our eyes,” said Pandora. “It’ll see what you see—or it will if you remember to turn or pivot so it’s facing whatever you’re looking at—and it’ll send a tri-d video back to us.”

  “Sounds good,” said Snake, heading for the door.

  “Just a second,” said Pretorius.

  “What else?” demanded Snake irritably.

  “Pandora, show her where the on-off switch is.”

  Pandora did so, and Snake frowned. “Do you want me to transmit images or not?”

  “Of course I do,” said Pretorius. “But if you wind up hiding in the equivalent of a file drawer for five or six hours, I want you to remember to turn the damned thing off or it’ll be useless to us once you’re on the move again.”

  Snake walked to the door, which slid open the instant it sensed her presence.

  A moment later the image that was being sent by Snake’s computer materialized near them, and they all watched intently as the small woman made her way to an airlift, stepped onto it, and began descending.

  “I hope she’s bright enough not to ride it all the way down,” said Pretorius. Even as the words left his mouth Snake uttered an order to the airlift.

  And nothing happened.

  “Can I speak to her quickly?” asked Djibmet.

  Pandora made a quick adjustment to her computer. “Go ahead.”

  “Kydosh!” he said, and the airlift came to a stop, suspending Snake in midair.

  “That was the word in my language for ‘stop,’” said Djibmet.

  “Can you pronounce it?”

  Snake did so, and Djibmet turned to his companions. “All of you.”

  They all repeated the word a few times.

  “Good,” said the Kabori. “The word for ‘start’ is ‘Lobeesh.’” As the word left his mouth, the airlift began transporting her down again.

  “Good words to know,” said Pretorius. “Especially on this world. If there are any others you think we need to know, teach them to us before we leave here.”

  “I cannot know what situations we’ll find ourselves in,” replied Djibmet, “but I will supply you with a dozen words that one or more of you will probably have to use sooner or later.”

  “Good,” said Pretorius. “Start with her,” he added, indicating Pandora. “She can capture your voice and pronunciation on one of her computers and play it back when we need it.”

  He made the Kabori equivalent of a nod of his head, then walked over and began speaking into one of Pandora’s machines, uttering first the Terran word or term and then the Kabori equivalent.

  Pretorius sat down with his back propped against a gleaming metal crate and watched the video transmission.

  “Where is she now?” asked Proto.

  “Looks like a far end of a corridor,” answered Pretorius. “On the seventh level, I hope.”

  “Why is that preferable?”

  “If she has to run, she’s already on the top level. All she has to do is make it to the airlift and up to our level of the tower.”

  “By the way,” said Circe, “what is our level?”

  “I saw some symbols when the door was open,” said Pretorius.

  “I’ll copy them into Pandora’s computer when she’s done.”

  “There’s no need to,” said Michkag. “I of course read my own language. We are on the sixty-third floor or level, but I do not know if the numbering started at ground level or just above the seventh and last level of the main fortress.”

  “Makes no difference,” said Pretorius.

  “Oh?”

  He smiled. “I just want to make sure we all know how to get back here. Once they see the symbols and can interpret them, that problem’s solved.”

  “We got one that isn’t solved,” said Ortega suddenly, staring at the transmission.

  Snake was coming up to a cross corridor, and she—and they—could hear footsteps of what seemed like a party of from four to six Kabori walking down the corridor. She looked in each direction, saw a small container in the corridor, something that had clearly been left out for a service robot to transport or dispose of.

  “Oh, come on!” muttered Pretorius. “You couldn’t fit in that thing if it was totally empty! Turn and run back to the airlift!”

  She raced to the container, which was no more than two feet high and perhaps that wide, turned it upside down so that its minimal, neatly wrapped contents fell out, pushed them a few doors away with her foot, and began climbing into it.

  Suddenly the picture went black. Not vanished, but black, since that was all the computer could see. They could hear the Kabori walking by; one of them said something, another replied, they uttered the semi-roar that passed for Kabori laughter, and their footsteps grew fainter.

  “What did they say?” asked Pretorius.

  “It was a joke about sending the service robot back to training school,” replied Djibmet.

  “And that’s funny?” asked Ortega.

  “Robots don’t go to school,” explained Djibmet.

  Suddenly the video feed showed the corridor again rather shakily at first as Snake climbed out of the tiny container.

  “You should have run to the airlift,” said Pretorius. “You were lucky this time, Snake.”

  “Lucky, hell!” she grated. “I was good.”

  “That too,” agreed Pretorius.

  “I don’t know what you’re paying me, Nathan,” she said, “but if I have to climb into anything like that again on short notice, I want a raise.”

  Pretorius smiled. “That’s my Snake.”

  “Well?” she demanded as she began walking down the corridor again.

  “If you survive, you’ve got it.”

  24

  Snake spent another ten minutes exploring.

  “Nothing’s going on this level,” she said at last. “I think most of the action’s going to be on levels three and four.”

  “Why those?” asked Pretorius.

  “No sense putting it on six. This floor is pretty solid, but it can be breached. And you’d never put your most valuable asset on the ground floor, or even the second level. So it figures to be three, four, or five. And five is the least likely, simply because it’s the most bother to reach.”

  “Makes sense,” agreed Pretorius.

  “Why not five?” asked Ortega. “He’ll be one level safer there.”

  “This isn’t enemy territory, Felix,” said Pretorius. “Once he makes whatever deal he’s making, he’ll probably want to make a speech from a balcony or the equivalent, and why make him even harder to see? He’ll probably have a couple of hundred spotters and snipers positioned around the area.”

  “We got in,” said Ortega stubbornly.

  “We got in because he’s still a few days away,” replied Pretorius. “Even up in the towers you can figure security will triple by the time he arrives.”

  “So do you want me to go down to one of the more likely levels?” asked Snake.

  “I think it’s too dangerous,” said Pretorius. “Come on back.”

  “Sooner or later we have to learn what the layout is on the operative levels,” she said.

  “If I have to send you back again, I will,” said Pretorius. “But we’ve got a few days, which gives Pando
ra time to try to tie in to their computers and get the layout.”

  “Okay,” replied Snake. “And for what it’s worth, I’ve found two empty offices where we can hide if we have to.”

  “No cameras or security devices?” asked Pretorius.

  Snake smiled. “Cameras, yes. Sensors, no.”

  “Then they’ll see us walk in,” said Ortega.

  Snake grinned. “There’s one of us they won’t see, and he can disable the cameras.”

  “Sonofabitch!” said Ortega. “I never thought of that!”

  Pretorius turned to Proto. “Can you do it? The real you isn’t a hell of a lot taller than that box Snake hid in.”

  “I can do it,” Proto assured him. “My body absorbs my limbs when I am not using them. I can reach to a height of five feet.”

  Pretorius shook his head. “That’s not enough. The ceilings in that corridor look to be ten feet high.”

  “Then fashion me a tool I can use.”

  “Yeah, I suppose we can do that,” said Pretorius. “Tell Felix what you need, show him how you’ll handle and manipulate it, and let’s see what he can come up with.”

  “So you really don’t want me to go any farther?” asked Snake.

  “Not unless I’m your beneficiary in your will,” said Pretorius. “Come on back.”

  “Okay, coming back,” she said.

  “I confess that I feel useless,” remarked Djibmet.

  “In a few hours you’ll wish you were feeling useless again,” said Pretorius. Djibmet looked at him questioningly. “We have five Men who can’t be seen, Proto’s not going to fool any sensors, and the one member of the party who absolutely cannot be seen is Michkag. That leaves you.”

  “Leaves me for what?” asked Djibmet, looking confused.

  “Once Pandora gets us a better picture of the lower levels, you’re the only one of us who can go down there without being shot or arrested on sight. We need to know, or at least have an idea, where they’re going to be keeping their Michkag: where he eats, where he sleeps, where he conducts private business. There’s no way we can make the exchange in front of an audience, in a huge meeting room or a balcony or anything like that. Remember: this is a covert operation.”

  “I see,” said Djibmet.

  “All right,” said Pretorius. “Circe, Michkag, start going through some of these boxes and see if there’s anything useful—weapons, food, anything. Snake’ll help you when she gets back.”

  They began checking the containers while Ortega worked on a device that Proto could manipulate that would gently kill the power to a certain camera or sensor, rather than blow it away in a manner that would bring an instant response from the security forces.

  Snake returned in another ten minutes, gave her video equipment back to Pandora, and promptly began helping them search through all the stored boxes and containers.

  “Any progress?” asked Pretorius, walking over to where Pandora was working with her computers.

  “I just need the right code,” she answered.

  “How long is that likely to take?”

  She sighed. “If the machine, fast as it is, has to go through a near-infinite progression of symbols and numbers, it could take days, or more likely weeks or months.”

  “Which we haven’t got.”

  “Which we haven’t got,” she agreed. “So what I’m doing is trying to focus on breaking into one of their less-sophisticated machines. Like most militaries, including ours, once they have something that works, they tend not to upgrade it until they need it to do more things. Some of the more sophisticated machines could take days, weeks, or even months for me to access all their security codes and systems, but there are a few that I should be able break into in less than a day.”

  “Well, get some food and some sleep. I need you to be sharp once you can access them.”

  “I’m not going to be sitting here all day and night, Nate,” she said with a smile. “What I’m doing now is ordering my machines to break through their defenses and take one or more of them over. I’ll be done in another ten minutes, fifteen at the outside, and then they’ll alert me when they’ve accomplished their task.”

  “Serves me right for not being a computer scientist,” he said with a smile.

  “From what I hear,” replied Pandora, “if you had been one, you’d still have your original spleen, liver, pancreas, left foot, and what else?”

  “Nothing important.”

  She nodded. “Right. You can always grow another brain.”

  He wandered over to where they were inspecting all the crates and containers.

  “Nothing yet,” announced Circe. “Not even any weapons.”

  “But there are enough foodstuffs to make you think they’re feeding a division or two,” added Snake.

  “Anything we can metabolize?” asked Pretorius.

  “Most of it is processed, and we can’t tell what the hell is in it until Djibmet or Michkag reads the label,” said Snake, “but there’s enough fruit and veggies to keep us going. Nothing we’ll like, but it doesn’t look like it’ll kill us.”

  “Good,” said Pretorius. “The alternative was to chop you up into steaks.”

  “There’s not enough of me,” replied Snake. “You chop anyone up, it should be Felix.”

  “There’s not enough of the original Felix left to supply even one meal,” said Pretorius with a smile. “Anyway, hand me a fruit and let’s see what the hell it tastes like.”

  She walked to an open box, pulled out something mildly round and mildly purple, and tossed it to him.

  He took a bite and made a face. “Kind of bitter,” he said.

  “But edible?”

  He nodded his head. “But edible.”

  “Good,” she said. “Because once we pull this swap off, they’re probably going to be so hot on our tail that we won’t have time to stop off and get anything more palatable to eat at least until we hit No Man’s Land and probably not until we reach the Democracy.”

  Pretorius ate the rest of the fruit and tried not to think of how it tasted. He looked around, and saw Ortega with Proto, in his true form, working on some gadget off in a corner.

  “How’s it coming, Felix?” he called out.

  “Getting there,” came the answer.

  “You need any tools?”

  Ortega laughed and held up his left arm. Instruments instantly extended from it and then began rapidly spinning. “I am a goddamned tool kit!” he laughed.

  Within another hour Proto had his tool, a plastic extender—it was difficult to think of it as an arm—with a laser, a pincer, and two or three other functions, and Ortega joined in the search through the boxes.

  “So who goes out next?” asked Circe.

  Pretorius considered her question for a moment. “If we want to check out a more populated level, it makes sense to send Djibmet,” he answered. “He’s a Kabori—but we still have to pass him off as a grunt, and that’s going to take a little work.” Suddenly he smiled. “Or maybe not.”

  They all stared at him. “What did you have in mind?” asked Snake at last.

  “Right now,” said Pretorius, staring at Djibmet, “you’re an officer. Not a very high-ranking one, but an officer, and that should be enough.”

  “Enough for what?” asked the Kabori nervously.

  “Enough to commandeer the first grunt you see,” replied Pretorius. “Go down to the sixth or seventh level, walk along the corridors as if you had a purpose, and when you finally see an enlisted soldier, tell him you have a job for him up in the south tower.”

  “What if he tells me he’s already working?” asked Djibmet.

  “Pull rank on him. You’re an officer, he’s not. He helps you right this minute, or he goes on report. This is a military fortress. Believe me, he’ll come.”

  “So I just go down to the sixth or seventh level, stop the first enlisted soldier I find, and order him to come up to the tower with me?”

  “That’s right,” said P
retorius.

  “And then what?”

  “Then stand clear.”

  Djibmet uttered a little sigh, approached the door, waited for it to slide open, and walked to the airlift.

  “Can we track him?” asked Pretorius.

  “Take a look,” said Pandora, as she uttered a brief command and had various security cameras cast his image between them.

  Djibmet walked down a corridor without seeing anyone, then stood still as an enlisted Kabori, carrying something over one shoulder, began approaching him.

  “You there!” said Djibmet.

  The soldier stopped and stared at him.

  “Yes, you!” continued Djibmet. “I have need of you.”

  “But . . .”

  “Do you intend to disobey me?”

  “No,” said the soldier promptly.

  “Good. I have a job in the south tower. It won’t take long, but it’s essential that it be done before Michkag arrives.”

  The soldier snapped to attention at the sound of Michkag’s name. “I am yours to command,” he said.

  “Good,” said Djibmet. “Follow me.”

  He led the soldier to the airlift, and they ascended to the tower, got off, and approached the door.

  The soldier turned to Djibmet with a puzzled frown. “In here?”

  Djibmet nodded. “I’ll be right behind you.”

  The soldier entered, Ortega pulled him all the way in, and Pretorius hit him with a burst of solid sound at point-blank range. The soldier staggered and collapsed.

  “Check him and make sure he’s dead,” said Pretorius.

  Snake knelt down next to him. “No breath, no heartbeat,” she announced after a moment.

  “Good. A burner would have been even surer, but I didn’t want to get any blood on the uniform. Okay, Snake, strip it off him. Give her a hand, Felix. And Djibmet, as soon as they’re done, put it on. You look pretty much the same size, but if it sags or is too tight, we may have to alter it.”

  It was indeed too loose, and Circe volunteered to spend the next few minutes adjusting it.

  “I want you to learn your way around the place,” said Pretorius as Circe was working on the uniform. “You’re going to have to get a good look—a good close look—at Michkag when he arrives.”