Free The Prison in Antares by Mike Resnick Page A

asked.
    â€œNow we find a meeting place in space, well beyond this solar system, and I go back to the Antarean ship.”
    â€œCan you work the controls?”
    He merely stared at her.
    â€œAll right,” she said uncomfortably. “Sorry I asked.”
    â€œI’m going over there now,” he announced. “Once I’m at the controls I’ll establish radio contact with you, we’ll hit upon a meeting place, and we’ll get the hell off this dirtball.” He looked around the deck, then pointed to Irish. “You’ll come with me.”
    â€œRight now?” she asked.
    â€œRight now. We’ll transfer your gear when we transfer everything else.”
    Pretorius stood by the hatch, waited for her to climb down to the surface, then followed her.
    â€œI don’t know anything about flying a ship as big as our own, let alone one with alien controls,” said Irish as they walked to the Antarean ship.
    â€œI know.”
    â€œThen why—?”
    â€œYou don’t want to be there when they talk mutiny,” said Pretorius.
    Her eyes widened. “Mutiny?”
    â€œNothing will come of it,” he said. “Snake’s the loudest of them, but they probably all have to vent, and it’s better that they do it in private.”
    â€œI don’t understand,” she said.
    â€œMy reputation—I didn’t ask for it, and I never believed in it—is that I never lose anyone on one of these missions. It’s bullshit, of course. I’ve lost my share of subordinates. But they seem to have convinced themselves that if we could all live through the Michkag caper nothing could kill any of us, and now they’re coming face-to-face with the fact that we’re not immortal and we’re preparing to pull off a jailbreak in an alien military prison.”
    â€œI see,” she said softly.
    He sighed. “I know: You can’t have considered that you might die on this mission either. Well, if we’re smart enough and careful enough, you’ll live to tell about it.” Suddenly he smiled. “Except that it’ll almost certainly be classified, and they’ll lock you away for a long time if you do tell about it.”
    They arrived at the Antarean ship, boarded it, and Pretorius seated himself at the control panel.
    â€œI’ve seen worse,” he said, quickly figuring out how to power up the ship and open radio contact with Pandora.
    â€œEverything working?” she asked, her holograph appearing right in front of him.
    â€œNo problem,” he said. “Pick a spot, maybe two light-years out, and feed the coordinates to this ship. Then wait for me to take off—I assume the ship’s in working order and that I won’t have any trouble, but if I’m wrong I don’t want you millions of miles ahead of me—so once this vessel’s away, give us five minutes and then follow us.”
    â€œRight,” she said. “Give me just half a minute here.” She looked down at her computer, which was not part of the holo image. “Okay,” she said a few seconds later. “Your ship knows where it’s going now. Take off whenever you want.”
    â€œNow’s as good a time as any,” he replied. “Over and out.”
    He uttered some orders to the ship, cursed when he realized it didn’t respond to Terran, entered his destination on the alien control panel, and then felt the surge as the ship took off.
    â€œYou doing okay?” he asked Irish.
    â€œYes,” she said. “They wouldn’t really mutiny, would they?”
    â€œNo, of course not,” he said. “They just want to bitch and grieve, and since I’m the object of one and the cause of the other, it’s best to give them a little time to get it out of their systems. We’ve got to be a well-coordinated unit when we finally go into action.”
    She smiled ruefully. “It feels like