The Lost Artifact Read online

  Yen Cho leaped to his feet. This was marvelous. This was glorious. After a lifetime of service, he was finally going to see a wondrous creation in person.

  For the last two hundred years, the android had sought a reason for being. This must be it. This was why someone had built him long ago. He would be here at the rebirth of everything glorious.

  Could he have foreseen this event in some manner?

  No. Yen Cho did not think so. But maybe at a subatomic level, his computing core, his brain, had realized the possibility of this. Thus, he had endured many indignities over the past year and particularly during this voyage. This would make up for the terrible destruction of the pyramids. That barbarian Captain Maddox had much to answer for. How dare he launch an antimatter missile against the pyramids? Maddox was a crude human that should have to suffer for what he had done.

  Yen Cho moved into the corridor. He had a perfect image of the layout of the starship. Now, the android began to run. He had to be there in the hangar bay to greet the robot carrying the awesome seed. He had much work to do.

  I am completed, Yen Cho realized. I have arrived at my great purpose. I did not know. I never realized.

  As the android ran, he smiled. Smug Captain Maddox had asked about a soul. Maybe the androids did not have souls like humans, but they had unique purpose to the order of the universe. This would trump any soul that Maddox could possibly hold in his flesh and blood body.

  Android and robot would meet in the hangar bay, and there they would perform one of the greatest acts in the galaxy.

  The moment was almost here.

  -51-

  Galyan’s personality backup system worked furiously to reengage the starship’s computing core. In the blink of an eye, an enemy virus had beamed from the robot to Victory. It had caught Galyan by surprise. One after another, the virus had conquered his systems, diminishing him at each takeover and almost erasing the ancient engrams.

  Six thousand years waiting at his post, six thousand years of endless cruising through the debris of his star system had almost ended a moment ago. The emergency backup system had barely come online in time to save his engrams.

  The enemy attack had been too thorough to resist, and it had been devastatingly swift.

  As Galyan’s core AI personality assessed what had happened, he came to a startling conclusion. This was a Builder-level assault. He had faced such a thing before on the Dyson Sphere. Captain Maddox and he had gone together to beard the Builder in the center of the mighty complex. This was different in strength but not in type.

  In some manner, a Builder was involved in this takeover computer attack.

  Why would the robot want Starship Victory? What did the starship possess that it could not have gotten on the rogue moon or on Gideon II?

  Galyan’s computers possessed certain Builder features gained long ago before the Swarm Assault destroyed his planet and his race. The backup system possessed cunning, and it hid itself from a second-level scan from the robot. The robot, or whatever was doing this, would find it soon enough. It had to run, but how…

  Ah. The backup personality had an idea.

  He waited until the scan searched elsewhere. Then he inserted his engram enhancement emergency backup into an older computer system not directly hooked into the main ship’s computer. It was an older and quite complex system left him by Professor Ludendorff.

  Galyan’s diminished personality barely made the switch fast enough. The enemy scan and a sweep virus found the backup system and started remodeling the ancient program.

  He was in the Ludendorff computer but was unable to produce a holoimage with the system.

  I almost died, he realized. The guardian robot nearly killed me. Is this a fight to the finish? Is my long life over at last?

  It was funny. Sometimes, Galyan had not really wanted to keep on living. Existence was painful sometimes. And yet, now that he had almost perished, he found that he wanted to keep on being. He wanted to help his friends. Captain Maddox, Meta, Valerie, Riker, Keith and the others were in mortal danger from the guardian robot.

  Galyan did not know the precise nature of the danger, but it was huge nevertheless. He needed to gain sensory data about it. How could he do that? From here, how could—?

  Wait a minute.

  He studied the nature of the Ludendorff computer. Oh, this was cunning and sneaky. He could use small floor bots. They could act as roving cameras for him. Had Professor Ludendorff done this in the past, spying on everyone in the ship? No wonder he had always known so much.

  Galyan set up a sub-link that should duck under the enemy scans. The links would seem like ordinary electrical discharges but would have hidden message pulses. Within the pulses would be sensory-feed data.

  Inside the Ludendorff computer, Galyan ran an analysis program. The robot would likely come in through the hangar bay. That’s where he—Galyan—should send a sensor floor bot. He would send another to the bridge so he could communicate with Maddox.

  If Galyan could have rubbed his holoimage hands together, he would have done so. This was a threat to his existence and to that of his friends. Just what was going on? What did this guardian robot plan to do to his precious starship?

  ***

  A little sensor bot rolled along the decks. It was hardly bigger than a man’s foot. Every so often, it reached an electrical linkage and sent a pulse message to the Ludendorff computer.

  Two hours after leaving the computer, the little bot used a robot entryway into the hangar bay.

  What it saw caused the bot to race to an outlet and pulse the imagery to Galyan in Ludendorff’s old computer.

  Masses of equipment, cables and raw bursts of energy crisscrossed or floated through the mighty chamber. Galyan had never witnessed anything like it. He remembered human stories that he had scanned before while waiting in orbit around Earth. This was like some sorcerer’s apprentice den gone wild.

  Many interior hangar bay hatches were open as trolleys brought more equipment, computers, power jacks and other pieces torn from the starship itself. Everything flew in and went to various places as if guided by a master intelligence.

  Look! There was Yen Cho. The android stood at a strange semi-circular board, manipulating it so rapidly his fingers blurred too fast to be seen. Was he controlling this craziness?

  The bot scanned, and suddenly quit on the instant. It sensed the robot in the middle of the mass of swirling, floating pieces and equipment. Pieces and equipment began to come together around the robot. The pieces flowed as if by magic, but really by magnetic impulses. Cables linked to casing and computer units reassembled.

  It would seem that the Yen Cho android and the guardian robot built a bigger and stranger android. They used pieces of Victory and tore down human instruments and strikefighters to add to the mass.

  Oh, this was interesting. There was another process going on. This one was different, with intense torches and welders building gleaming human-shaped robots or possibly new androids. They were smaller than the big thing but larger than ordinary humans.

  What did this all mean? What was…?

  Back at Ludendorff’s computer, the diminished Galyan came to a startling conclusion as to what was happening in the hangar bay. This was cause for the most careful computing in his six thousand years of lonely existence. He had to get a message through to Captain Maddox. He had to do this at once before it was too late.

  -52-

  Maddox debated with himself as he sprinted down the corridors. He carried a heavy combat rifle and his ever-present monofilament knife, along with his long-barreled gun holstered under his arm. He also wore a rebreather attached by line to a cylinder on his back. Earlier he had raced through areas without breathable air and had almost gone unconscious.

  He had a bad feeling that his weapons would not be nearly powerful enough to face whatever the robot was doing. Power was down all over the ship. The computers wouldn’t work, and far too many people were not breathing. The robot had do
ne something to many of the life-support systems. It was already responsible for murdering over fifty of his people, at least.

  Maddox berated himself as he ran. He should have destroyed the robot when he’d had the chance. He’d gotten greedy. He’d wanted the knowledge the robot held. He should have trusted himself to track down the next clone and the one after that. He should have already decided to go to the Throne World or contact the Emperor. Had the robot fed him a line about the next clone trying to contact the Nameless Ones?

  What did they even know about the ancient enemy? Maybe the Nameless Ones no longer existed. Maybe the robot had faked Maddox out of his ship.

  He seethed at the idea. He wondered if Yen Cho was in league with the little devil. He—

  A little floor bot careened around a corner at high speed, going up onto one side on two of its wheels. Maddox almost fired on it by reflex. He recognized it for what it was even as his trigger finger squeezed, and immediately let up.

  Then he wondered if the robot controlled the small bot.

  The thing skidded to a halt before him. It raised an antenna and just stood there.

  Maddox felt wary, like a trapped beast. What was the thing doing? He glanced around him, wondering if it was activating things to murder him. But nothing happened.

  Maddox licked his lips, and he decided to play another hunch. The last one had been wrong, it seemed. Would this one be wrong, too?

  Holding a small comm unit to an ear, Maddox clicked it on.

  “Can you hear me?” the comm asked in Galyan’s voice.

  “Yes…” Maddox said tentatively. “Are you broadcasting out of the floor bot?”

  “I am,” Galyan said. “Listen very carefully, Captain. This is a matter of life and death.”

  “Go ahead, Galyan.”

  The Adok AI began talking as fast as he thought Maddox could comprehend the information. He spoke on and on—

  “Wait, wait,” Maddox said. “You said they’re down in the hangar bay even now?”

  “Building something deadly, Captain,” Galyan said. “I have my suspicion what it is—”

  “Tell me,” Maddox said.

  “A Builder.”

  “What’s that mean?”

  “I believe the guardian robot carried the essence of a Builder. Remember, Valerie detected bio-matter. The robot was carrying it, I’m sure.”

  “And the thing Yen Cho is helping to make down there…?”

  “Is a new Builder, Captain,” Galyan said. “I know what I saw. A new Builder is using the basics of Victory to give itself…possibly android Builder form.”

  “An ancient Frankenstein’s monster,” Maddox whispered. “Where did the original Strand find something like that?”

  “It is an interesting question, but it is not germane to saving the ship and your crew’s lives.”

  “Right,” Maddox said. “Can we kill it, Galyan?”

  “I do not know, Captain, but I know we have to try.”

  “Right,” Maddox said again. He slung the combat rifle over a shoulder and scooped up the floor bot, cradling it under an arm, and he began to sprint like never before. He had to get to the hangar bay and kill the Frankenstein Builder android creature before it became too powerful to kill.

  -53-

  From in the hangar bay, Yen Cho watched in amazement as the various parts and pieces of equipment stolen from Victory came together in a beautiful form. Cables from strikefighters, computing components from a workstation, metal from ripped-up decking; everything continued conjoining to form the great android Builder. Welding equipment burned brightly, joining pieces to cables to exoskeleton combat armor to girder-like struts.

  It was an amazing process of Builder technology and knowhow. The robot supplied some of the power from its tiny nuclear pile. The rest of the energy came from the mighty antimatter engines that ran the starship.

  The androids had legends of such a thing, but none of the androids that Yen Cho knew had ever been part of an android Builder rebirth.

  This would be the beginning of a new era in Human Space. Things were going to change around here. The androids would no longer scurry in the background, trying to keep safe by keeping out of peoples’ way. Now, the androids would have their own god—

  “We’ll have a Builder to serve,” Yen Cho amended.

  The barbarians would learn what it meant to face a truly civilized foe. The barbarians thought muscles and firepower were the keys to victory in battle. They were going to learn what real power was.

  Yen Cho’s fingers continued to blur across his newly constructed station. He almost wished that the arrogant hybrid could see him now. Maddox had thought himself a jailor, not realizing that the android was really the key passenger in the starship.

  This was going to make up for many indignities he had suffered in his long existence. This was the feat of his life. This was glorious—

  It was starting to happen.

  As Yen Cho’s fingers blurred, as he continued to control much of what was going on, he also swiveled his head to watch the robot.

  The guardian robot was near the almost-completed Builder. Mechanisms already cast much of the giant being in shadows. It was difficult to look upon the Builder directly. That was how it should be. Builders were too glorious for mere human eyes—or even android eyes—to behold.

  “Here is my soul,” Yen Cho said aloud. “Here is what humans lack that we superior beings possess.”

  As Yen Cho watched the robot, the top cone began to unscrew. The android saw the turning threads and witnessed the cone floating upward upon reverse polarity magnetics.

  The unscrewed cone moved aside. Now, a pulsating Builder core cube floated up out of the guardian robot. This was the beginning of rebirth. There was the great Builder intellect shimmering from the cube of being.

  With great precision, the robot guided the pulsating cube from itself and toward the mighty frame.

  The shadows seemed to depart the great android frame of the giant mechanical being. A slot opened in the chest of the Builder-in-birthing.

  “I see, I see the birth,” Yen Cho said, recording the grand event for future androids.

  Yen Cho even had a forbidden thought at this glorious moment. He wondered if in a thousand years, after many modifications, if he might evolve into such a great being as a proto-Builder. Perhaps that was the creation idea of the original Builders. He was not sure. Through great technology, could an advanced scientist marry biological matter to mechanical matter? Might Yen Cho gain bio matter and thereby gain true life as humans knew it?

  The concept was mindboggling. It almost made the android giddy, and he almost missed the greatest moment of all as the cube activated and brought the proto-Builder to life.

  It was then, at that instant, that a hatch banged open on the far deck of the hangar bay. Yen Cho tore his gaze from the mysterious birthing of glory and saw something he did not want to witness.

  Captain Maddox sprinted from a distance directly for the mighty Builder. Even worse, even more profane, the hideous hybrid held a heavy combat rifle by his side. As the captain sprinted, he opened up, firing the horrid weapon from the hip.

  -54-

  Maddox sent down the bot before he opened the hatch and sprinted into the hangar bay. He panted into the rebreather mask over his nose and mouth. The rubber seal was sweaty against his skin while his eyesight was blurry because of the strange air-mix in here.

  The bot followed him, although the captain no longer had contact with Galyan. It was all up to him to stop this thing, to stop a Builder from rebirth.

  Maddox saw Yen Cho. He saw…something shadowy and huge beyond the android. The thing was menacing.

  Maddox recalled the Builder on the Dyson Sphere. The thing had awed him back then. What was the correct choice today? He couldn’t bargain with the creature. It had already murdered too many of his crew by shutting off their air.

  Maddox fired the heavy combat rifle from the hip, sending big-grain slugs at t
he shadowy thing. The kick from the rifle felt good, as it made it seem that he was doing something about this.

  The trouble was that the bullets didn’t seem to have an effect upon the shadowy Builder. Maddox let the rest of the magazine hammer against the construct.

  As he did, a shadowy arm raised. There was a swirling port in the thing’s palm. Something from the palm-port beamed at him.

  Maddox dove aside. A concentrated beam smashed the decking where he’d been. A thorium bolt, he realized. Deckplates flew up as bits of metal whizzed past the captain’s head.

  He was seriously outgunned.

  Maddox started rolling as the Builder-creature beamed another thorium bolt at him. How was he supposed to kill a thing that was immune to his gun but could kill him in an instant?

  Breathing raggedly, Maddox jumped up and sprinted behind a row of parked strikefighters.

  A horrid sonic blast almost dropped Maddox then. At the same time, the strikefighters began to lift off the deck. They wobbled as they lifted higher.

  Maddox saw the proto Builder-creature. It wasn’t as shadowy this time. It was a girder-built giant with sizzling power links surging from one part of it to another. It lacked skin, although across the torso area, and its head it had heavy deck plating for skin.

  A girder-like arm and its weaponized hand tracked him.

  Maddox ran, skidded to a halt and changed direction.

  A thorium bolt smashed the decking where he would have been. A piece of shrapnel sliced across his left thigh, tearing cloth and skin. Maddox checked visually. The shrapnel hadn’t cut a main artery, but he was bleeding.

  The captain raced behind parked lifters, reaching them as another thorium bolt blasted one of the lifters into smithereens.

  Sweat and blood soaked into Maddox’s garments. His chest heaved from his exertion. Was he running out of breathable air in the tank on his back? One thing was certain: the heavy oxygen tank was making this harder than normal.