The Lost Artifact Read online

  Andros was leading the engineers in repairs. For all that, they were going slowly. The star drive worked. The neutron beam cannon would function if needed, but the disrupter cannon would not be functional until major repairs were effected.

  As he ingested further reports, Maddox began drumming his fingers on an armrest. How was Valerie doing with Galyan?

  The hatch opened and Lieutenant Noonan walked dispiritedly onto the bridge. He didn’t need to ask her how it had gone. Her posture said it all.

  The captain beckoned her near just the same. “Well?” he asked.

  Valerie gave a quiet report. “In my opinion, sir…” she finished.

  “I’d like to hear it,” he said.

  “We should go into the hangar bay with space marines. Galyan isn’t going to stop. I don’t want to kill Galyan, but if he uses the Builder seed, he won’t be Galyan anymore.”

  “I’m afraid you’re right,” Maddox said. “It will be a mercy killing.”

  Valerie paled and her lower lip trembled. “I take that back. We have to think of something else. You’re the miracle worker. Can’t you think of something?”

  Maddox inhaled deeply.

  “This is odd,” Andros said. The chief technician had slipped onto the bridge to check his station. Now, the Kai-Kaus elder tapped his panel and studied the results with greater intensity.

  “It’s started,” Maddox told Valerie. “We may already be too late.”

  “What…?” Andros said to himself, ignoring Valerie and the captain while tapping more forcefully.

  “Report, Chief Technician,” Maddox said.

  Andros startled slightly, coming back to his surroundings, and glanced up at him. “Sir, I don’t understand this. There’s a massive power surge through the interior computing systems.”

  “Please be more precise,” Maddox said.

  “The Adok AI System,” Valerie said.

  “Yes, that’s right,” Andros said. “The system is going crazy. I’m getting all kinds of strange readings. There are phase sweeps taking place, a rebooting of ancient programs—”

  “Where is the source point?” Maddox snapped.

  “Let me see,” Andros said, as he manipulated his console. He looked up suddenly, “It originates from the hangar bay.”

  “Galyan,” Valerie whispered. “Is he purging the old computers?”

  “I can’t tell,” Andros said. “It almost seems—”

  Just then, his main board seemed to go berserk, with beeps and lights and warning flashes. The main screen came back online, and several boards that hadn’t been functioning began to do so now.

  “This is massive,” Andros said. “Galyan, or the Builder cube, is working faster than I would have thought possible. There are a million computations a second taking place. This is extraordinary.”

  Maddox pressed his armrest console switch. “Attention, Space Marines. You will arm yourselves in full gear and meet me before the hangar bay.”

  “That will not be necessary,” a familiar voice said from beside his chair.

  Maddox looked up to see a little Adok holoimage with ropy holoimage arms and a seamed leathery face.

  “Galyan?” Maddox asked.

  “It is I,” the holoimage said.

  “Galyan!” Valerie shouted. She rushed forward and stumbled through the holoimage, striking and bouncing off the captain’s chair. She passed through Galyan again and thumped onto her butt on the floor. From there, Valerie looked up at the startled holoimage. She began to laugh, and clapped her hands several times.

  “What is the meaning of this display?” Galyan asked.

  “I’m happy to see you,” she said.

  “And I am happy to see you, Valerie,” Galyan said. “I want to thank you for what you said before. It made me think. What does it profit me to gain more power if I am no longer the person I was? Those were powerful words. True words and a great warning against overreaching for things that cost too much. Some prizes are not worth the price.”

  Galyan turned to Maddox. “Do you not think that is so, Captain?”

  “Of course,” Maddox said.

  Galyan shook his head. “You said that too glibly, sir. You are not thinking it through. However, I was able to run through millions of permutations. I reengaged with my lost emotions. Valerie knew, Captain. She knew I had lost myself in the android. I am saving the android for future emergencies. But I wish to remain the Galyan I have become with my good friends.”

  “I’m overjoyed to hear it,” Maddox said.

  Galyan studied the captain until he looked to Valerie. “I would help you up if I could.”

  “No problem,” she said, climbing to her feet.

  “I have learned a valuable lesson,” Galyan said. “I also know something concerning the greater scheme afoot.”

  “You’re referring to Strand?” Maddox asked.

  “I am, sir. I believe the Builder gave us a true warning. There will be more clones of Strand. How many more, I do not know. One of them will likely possess vile technology that could have grave ramifications for the Commonwealth.”

  “What is your suggestion?” Maddox asked. “Should we contact the Throne World?”

  “I doubt you would get far that way, sir,” Galyan said. “I do think I can deduce the locations of the other stasis holds. The Builder cube has much detailed data on the Strand clone and what the clone asked of the cube. Using that, I can possibly learn much more.”

  “I don’t want you linking with the cube,” Maddox said.

  The little holoimage looked at Valerie before facing the captain. “I will not link. I am going to attempt to pierce the Builder software from afar. I believe Andros and I could come up with a technique. There is one problem.”

  “Name it,” Maddox said.

  “The next clone may already be free and doing whatever it is that will call the Nameless Ones back here.”

  “How will the clone do this?”

  “The Builder was vague, sir. But it appears that the Nameless Ones sweep through the galaxies, exterminating all life but theirs. They are a xenophobic race, driven to acts of genocide by the Ska, who continuously motivate them.”

  Maddox rubbed his suddenly tight throat. He didn’t want anything to do with any Ska ever again. If this clone foolishly contacted the Nameless Ones to draw them here—

  “Why would the clone do that?” Maddox asked.

  “I do not know yet, sir,” Galyan said. “I only have surface thoughts from the Builder, gained as its virus and my personality program passed each other in the small floor-bot transmitter.

  “What?” Maddox asked.

  “I can explain later in a detailed report. For now, sir, I think we should concentrate on ship repairs so we are ready to act as soon as possible.”

  “Good thinking, Galyan. Oh, and one other thing.”

  The little holoimage waited.

  “Welcome back,” Maddox said. “It’s good to have you back with the crew.”

  “It is good to be back,” Galyan said. “And it is good that my friends missed me.”

  Maddox nodded, cleared his throat and said, “Yes. Now, let’s get to work.”

  -61-

  Two days later, Maddox was in a special chamber aboard Victory. He sat before a screen connected to a special Builder communication device. This was a unique comm, able to send messages across interstellar distances of several hundred light-years in range, but only to someone with a similar device on the other end.

  One such comm was in Geneva, Switzerland at Star Watch Headquarters.

  Maddox cleared his throat and activated the screen.

  The Iron Lady appeared. Some knew her as Mary O’Hara, the Brigadier of Star Watch Intelligence. She was matronly, with gray hair and a precise manner.

  Maddox looked upon her with fondness. She returned the look but with redoubled force, which made Maddox uncomfortable for some reason.

  “It’s good to see you, Captain,” O’Hara said.

&nbs
p; “Yes, Ma’am,” he said. “It’s good to see you, too.”

  “You look troubled. Is something wrong?”

  “Most assuredly.”

  “Tell me what happened.”

  Maddox gave her a rundown of the entire mission, leaving little out. He trusted O’Hara. He liked her. One could even say that…that…he was extraordinarily fond of her.

  “Oh, dear,” O’Hara said, once he’d finished. “This is worse than I’d feared. We have enough on our hands preparing for more Swarm Invasion Fleets. To have to worry about Destroyers sliding out of the darkness to annihilate humanity—Captain, you mustn’t let any of the Strand clones contact the Nameless Ones. It’s all we can do to hold the Commonwealth together as it is.”

  “Ma’am, should we contact the Emperor? He could interrogate Strand for us.”

  “I wonder…” O’Hara said. “According to you, Strand wants to splinter the Commonwealth so the New Men invade us again, conquering us this time. Maybe Strand will become persuasive and convince the Emperor to throw in with the Methuselah Man.”

  “The Emperor can’t want the Nameless Ones to show up,” Maddox said. “The New Men can’t face the Swarm any more than we can. I’d say that they’re even less prepared for such an event.”

  “I understand the argument,” O’Hara said. “I have a counter. I’ve spoken to the Lord High Admiral about it, and he concurs with me. The New Men are supremely arrogant. Nothing has changed there. If the Swarm invades in even greater strength a second time, and if the Nameless Ones should suddenly appear, maybe the Emperor would let the Commonwealth fight alone this time. He might hope to remain hidden, or he might take all the New Men and flee to parts unknown like the Spacers have done.”

  “There’s that possibility, of course,” Maddox said. “There’s also a possibility the Emperor will aid us as he did before.”

  “Yes. And if the Emperor learns about a frozen clone or two and hurries to the more dangerous stasis chambers, and there gathers the ultimate tech stored for the clone, gaining those devices for the New Men…”

  Maddox nodded slowly. He should have already seen that. They couldn’t allow the New Men to gain highly advanced tech that might give them a strategic advantage over Star Watch.

  “It would appear that we’re on our own with this one,” Maddox said.

  “Only if you think you can find these stasis chambers yourself,” O’Hara said. “Can you?”

  “Maybe…”

  “That isn’t reassuring,” she said.

  “We’re still…attempting to crack the Builder cube, Ma’am. It’s slow work. It is interesting that Yen Cho recovered from the heavy shots to his braincase. Galyan has informed me that Yen Cho’s cybertronic brain rebooted while his android interior systems repaired any damage. I have the android in confinement. It’s possible he could help us locate other clone bases.”

  “You must find the most dangerous of the clones, Captain. I order you to find the clone and stop him before he can contact the Nameless Ones. I realize that finding the proverbial needle in a haystack would be a thousand times easier than your new mission. You have all of Human Space and the frontier regions of the Beyond to search. Bend every effort to find and stop that clone. By all means, use Yen Cho if you can do so safely enough. You’re the only one that can do this. Star Watch is counting on you, Captain. Humanity could be hanging in the balance.”

  Maddox nodded. It was a heavy charge. He was going to be Hercules again, taking the world on his shoulders from Atlas, as in the Greek myth. Once—before he’d faced the Ska—the Brigadier’s charge would have delighted him. These days…he felt the burden more than ever.

  “Captain?” O’Hara asked, as she searched his face. “Is something wrong?”

  “No, Ma’am. Find the clone of Strand, the right clone, and stop him. I’m going to…” He cleared his throat. “The crew of Victory is going to do it, Ma’am. We’ve taken hard hits this voyage, but we will strain every fiber to stop the madman Strand. Maybe I should have killed him when I had the chance on Sind II.”

  “No,” O’Hara said, as she searched the captain’s face even more closely than before. She searched it as a mother might. “You did the right thing sending Strand to the New Men. They helped us against the Swarm Invasion Fleet, partly out of gratitude for what you did. We wouldn’t have beaten the Imperium attack without the New Men. Now, we have to finish with Strand, hopefully, forever.”

  Maddox set his jaw and his eyes gleamed. Strand. He was sick of the Methuselah Man. He was a worse pain in the arse than Professor Ludendorff. Now, there were more Strands running loose. Maybe when this was all over, and if they succeeded, it would be time to think about infiltrating the Throne World and assassinating the most troublesome Methuselah Man in the universe.

  “Good luck, Captain. I want you to know that I pray for you every day.”

  “Thank you, Ma’am. We’ll do our…” He smiled sourly, thinking about what he’d told Valerie before. “We’re going to find this clone and take care of the problem before it happens.”

  “I hope so.” O’Hara gave him a longing, motherly look. It seemed as if she was going to add something. She bit her lower lip in the end and cut the connection.

  Maddox sat staring at his hands. Finally, he shoved up to his feet. It was time to get started.

  PART II

  THE ARTIFACT

  -1-

  The Eden-like Throne World of the New Men had a special underground compound. It housed the planet’s greatest prisoner, Methuselah Man Strand.

  Strand had lived in captivity for far too long already. He hated it. He seethed inside, and every moment was filled with fear.

  He was a wizened old man, but possessed a fantastic vitality. Despite his old-man nature and the thinness of his seemingly frail limbs, he was uncommonly spry. He walked all the time in the garden area of his prison.

  Powerful sunlamps supplied the light. The Emperor of the New Men would not allow him to see real sunlight or even enjoy real clouds or a breeze. Instead, Strand was forced to walk on a synthetic, underground path among large ferns, roses and other greenhouse shrubs and flowers. The walking helped keep him spry and helped him to think.

  During these lonely months and years, Strand often wrote poetry, devised paper and pencil games and kept up other such activities to keep his mind sharp. He seldom saw his jailers. Mostly, he spoke to robots. On a few occasions, the Emperor came and they spoke.

  Today, Strand bustled along the garden path with the sunlamps beating down on him. He had his hands clasped behind his back and wore a gray tunic, trousers and sandals. Sweat slicked his armpits and his heart beat strongly due to his swift passage.

  He’d been walking for some time already. He hadn’t really been thinking about anything specific. Instead, he had been waiting. Walking like this put him into a semi-hypnotic state. There wasn’t anything weird or unique about that, as such a state often happened to people doing mind-numbing chores.

  Strand had learned throughout the centuries that he did his best thinking after prolonged walking, as he entered the deeper stage of the semi-hypnotic state.

  He understood that the New Men feared him. They had a right to fear. Once, Strand had ruled the colony with an iron fist. He never should have let go—

  Strand shook his head. He wasn’t going to go down that rabbit-trail today. He was going to think more deeply and strategically.

  Enough time had finally passed that the Emperor should have come to ask him several penetrating questions. Oh yes, Strand knew about the Swarm Invasion Fleet. United humanity had beaten back the first Swarm invasion. More such invasions would come. That was a certainty.

  Strand hadn’t decided yet if he wanted the Swarm Imperium to win or not. If he would always remain a prisoner, then, of course, he hoped the Swarm crushed humanity. But if he could regain his freedom and pursue his great objective, then no, he wanted the Swarm to lose. He knew how to seriously retard the Swarm Invasions, but no one had co
me to ask for his help yet. So, he must be the only one who saw the obvious move against the Imperium.

  But that wasn’t the point of his walk today. That the Emperor had not come to him at all—

  The third clone is dead, Strand told himself.

  He’d actually felt a premonition about that a while back. Certain studies showed that many mothers knew it in their heart when their children died. This could also happen to twins. What would cause such knowledge without any visible means of communication? Was this a spiritual or telepathic connection, then? Perhaps he shared a similar connection with the clones he had created.

  Whatever the case, he was certain the third clone had died. That did not necessarily mean the Builder robot or the Builder computer had perished with the clone.

  Strand sighed. It had been risky giving the third clone the robot and computer. It might have been wiser to keep those units in storage where he’d found them long ago.

  According to his premade plan, the robot and computer had activated when the clone’s stasis unit had first begun to thaw out the third replica of himself.

  “Now, the third one is gone,” Strand muttered.

  He knew the New Men monitored everything he said and did. He could feel them watching. The so-called Dominants feared him. The perfect specimens knew they had met their match in him.

  But that wasn’t the point of this walk or this deep musing. The third clone had failed in his task just like the first two. Soon, then, the fourth clone would wake up.

  Strand had long ago planned for the possibility of the third clone’s failure. He hadn’t foreseen his own failure—his capture—but he had calculated for the small possibility of such an event. Such an event would only be brought about by an extremely clever adversary. Who would have ever guessed that the miserable hybrid, Captain Maddox, would prove to be so resourceful? Yes, the hybrid had that damn ship of his and the crew that would do anything for him. If he could sever Maddox from his friends—

  Strand shrugged.

  He could not do anything about that at present. He was going to have to rely on his great planning. The fourth clone would use even more potentially dangerous equipment. Strand had set up that situation much differently, therefore, than the other three clones’ awakenings.