The Lost Star Gate (Lost Starship Series Book 9) Page 28

  “No,” Maddox told Valerie. “You will not hail the life-pod. We’re leaving it.”

  “Someone’s in there,” the lieutenant said. “Look. We’ve killed a lot of people today—”

  Maddox cleared his throat, interrupting her, and he gave Valerie a significant glance. In the past, he would have told her to obey orders, not to question him. Today, he gave her an opportunity to reach the conclusion…maybe not quietly but without another rebuke.

  “Yes, sir,” Valerie said. She looked troubled, but she said no more.

  Was he making the right decision? Maddox wasn’t sure. But one thing he did know. It was time to reach the first Swarm nexus. The question was…how were they going to go about doing that?

  -52-

  “Trust me, my boy,” the professor said. “This is the only way to ensure her full revival in an acceptable amount of time.”

  Ludendorff stood with Maddox in a medical chamber, with Brigadier O’Hara lying on a med-cot. She was still under sedation, as per the captain’s orders, with monitors constantly assessing her condition.

  The professor noted the way Maddox looked at the old lady. It was interesting. Maddox almost seemed like a son worried about his mother. What was the real connection between these two?

  Ludendorff shrugged inwardly. It hardly mattered to him one way or another. It was time to fix the old woman and get on with it. He was eager to attempt this, wondering if he could achieve a miracle cure.

  “It seems foolish to use the stone again,” Maddox said.

  “Nonsense,” the professor said. “I won’t be using it as I did before. This will be a controlled situation, as you’ll be here, watching me.”

  “I can’t watch your mind,” Maddox said.

  “A tree is known by its fruit, isn’t that so?”

  Maddox eyed him before replying, “It’s been said.”

  “Come now, I know you read the Good Book. Thus, I know you’re familiar with the concept.”

  “Fine,” Maddox said, “a fruit and a tree and all that.”

  Ludendorff raised an eyebrow. “You’ve been under tremendous strain lately. Is it finally getting to you?”

  Maddox turned a cool eye upon him, saying nothing.

  Once more, Ludendorff shrugged inwardly. The truth was that he felt wonderful. Using the stone the first time had changed so much for him. His mind felt invigorated. He almost felt young again, as if he could dare any challenge. The universe hadn’t seen him like this for centuries.

  The professor rubbed his newly healed hands. The quick healing had come about through an advanced procedure. Ah. This would be the challenge of a lifetime. He wasn’t thinking about the brigadier as the great challenge, but halting the expected Swarm expansion into Human Space. Still, he needed to concentrate on the brigadier right now. First things first.

  “You’re sure this won’t harm her?” Maddox asked.

  “I’m not a god that I can predict the future. Certainly, it might harm her, but I doubt it will.”

  “Can you do it quickly?” Maddox said. “I want to be away—”

  “My boy, unless I do it quickly, the process will kill me.”

  “And the brigadier?”

  “Dead as well, I’m afraid.”

  Maddox studied him.

  “But if we delay and the—”

  “Right,” Maddox said, interrupting. “Do it.”

  “It will take time to set up—”

  “I said, do it. Let’s get this done and be on our way.”

  ***

  Ninety minutes passed before the professor was ready. He stood beside the groggy, supine brigadier, with the Builder polygonal stone on a stand beside him. Maddox stood in the background with several extinguishers lined up at his feet. Galyan stood beside the captain, ready to record the ordeal.

  “Do you realize what we’re attempting to do?” Ludendorff asked the half-revived O’Hara.”

  “It sounds like black magic to me,” she complained. “But I’m sick of being under sedation because I’m untrustworthy. I want myself back. I want what the Draegar or possibly you stole from me at the Tau Ceti station.”

  “I did nothing untoward to you,” Ludendorff said. “Believe me when I say that this is the handiwork of the Draegar, all of him, 1, 2 and 3.”

  “I don’t understand their unity, their three-in-one personality,” O’Hara said.

  “It is strange,” Ludendorff agreed. “But it produced fantastic results. It’s no wonder Strand continued the experiment.”

  The grogginess departed O’Hara’s face as she perked up. “What does that mean, Professor?”

  “Nothing right now,” he assured her. “It’s time to begin.” He glanced back at Maddox. “I believe the captain is itching to leave the Usan System. He wants this over and done with before we go.”

  O’Hara also looked at Maddox. The captain shuffled his feet as if feeling guilty. Oh, yes, Ludendorff realized. The captain must feel bad for keeping her under sedation all this time.

  The professor cleared his throat.

  O’Hara jerked her head back around, staring at him as fear billowed into her eyes.

  “Relax, my dear,” the professor said. “This should take but a moment.”

  In truth, he didn’t know that. This was a test, a risk, a possibility. He wanted to practice on the brigadier so he would know what he was doing later on his darling Dana. His love was back, and she was in terrible condition. He desperately wanted to cure her of the obvious tampering the Bosks had done to her. He also needed to erase some evil memories from her mind. He wished Captain Nard were still alive so he could torture the dreadful ruffian.

  Ludendorff inhaled through his nostrils, raised his hands, and with a sudden lunge, clamped them onto the white Builder stone.

  He was ready for the process this time. He knew what to expect. Even more importantly, he was one hundred percent in charge of his mind now, with its improved qualities.

  Actually, he was surprised the captain was allowing this. Repeated use of the stone should enlarge his intellect more each time. If he had one fear of doing this, it was that he would become so smart that he would no longer have anything in common with regular humans. He might literally turn into a super-genius thousands of years in evolutionary advance of modern man.

  Would being the hyper-advanced super-genius be an even lonelier existence than previously? Should he allow himself such mastery of mind? What would happen to him?

  Ludendorff grunted as the stone activated, beginning to heat up against his hands.

  This time, the linkage between the stone and his brain’s neurons happened faster and more smoothly. It was possible the stone was becoming used to him. That was both interesting and…hmmm…ominous?

  He might want to practice a bit of caution today. This could all too easily be like the Sorcerer’s Apprentice where he opened doors too wide to control. Yes. He would be cautious. Therefore, he began to block certain linkages.

  It was like letting a small stream of raw energy into his mind instead of the raging torrent that was possible.

  “Now,” he whispered.

  Maddox had moved forward. With shaking hands, the captain grabbed one of the brigadier’s hands and set it against the Builder stone.

  O’Hara screamed in a high, thin voice. It was a pitiful sound.

  The stone reached out, using Wi-Fi-like connectives, linking her brain to it.

  Ludendorff used that, mentally routing through the stone to join the brigadier.

  “How is this possible?” the brigadier asked through direct mind transference. Her brain literally spoke through electronic synapses to the professor’s brain.

  “Listen closely, Brigadier,” Ludendorff said, using the same procedure. “We have mere seconds to do this.”

  “Seconds?” O’Hara mentally asked.

  “It won’t seem that way, but it’s really only a few seconds of time.”

  In those seconds, Ludendorff guided her thoughts. He did it g
ently. Together, they roved through her memories, finding the times the Draegar had mind-manipulated her and the times she went under the hypnotizer.

  “I didn’t realize,” she mentally said.

  “I know,” the professor said directly into her mind. “Let’s undo the damage, shall we?”

  “Can we?”

  “You can’t,” he said. “But I can if you’ll let me. Will you let me?”

  O’Hara hesitated.

  “I can leave the mind manipulations in place, if you like,” he told her.

  “What will happen to me then?”

  “I must report to the captain truthfully. You will have to resign your post, as you will be mentally compromised.”

  “Yes,” O’Hara said. “I can see the logic of that. Yes!” she said, with determination. “Let’s wipe my mind clean of their tampering.”

  Ludendorff struck instantly. He did not do anything nefarious to her mind. He simply rerouted the patterns overlaid upon her brain. He hated mental control upon himself. The brigadier was a friend. He thus hated the idea that Strand—through his tools—would control the brigadier of Star Watch Intelligence.

  O’Hara moaned.

  Ludendorff worked fast because he could. She followed in her mind, watching him, although she could not have watched everything.

  Then, it was done. He’d cured her. But now, his mind was falling deeper into the Builder stone.

  “Now,” Ludendorff managed to croak.

  It seemed to take forever, but Captain Maddox pressed a trigger and foam poured over the stone, cooling it and breaking certain mental linkages.

  It was hard, but Ludendorff yanked the brigadier’s mind free of the Wi-Fi-like connection even as he did the same for himself. He tore his hands from the hot stone, felt the foam cascading over him, and collapsed onto the deck, unconscious and exhausted from the ordeal.

  -53-

  The Spacer once known as Mako 21 waited in the life-pod drifting in the darkness of the Usan System.

  She’d performed her duties to the letter, leading her command to slaughter. It hadn’t particularly bothered her, as she had purpose for existing. She had been shown what awaited her, and it was glorious beyond reckoning.

  Mako 21—called Surveyor Mako by other Spacers, all of them ignorant of her true calling—cautiously manipulated the control panel of her tiny capsule. According to the readings, the two Star Watch vessels were already accelerating toward two different points in the star system.

  Seventeen lonely hours had passed since the end of the murderous space battle against Star Watch.

  “No,” Mako whispered to herself, as she realized with finality that the captain would not pick her up as he was supposed to have done. His failure to act within the accepted future was unexplainable and incalculable.

  She’d sacrificed her ships, knowing that she would survive in the life-pod. Some of the saucer-shaped ships had also escaped, as foreseen. That had all been part of a process that would help bring the great Spacer dream to fruition. A curious Captain Maddox was to have rescued her, and she would have become a prisoner aboard Victory, traveling with them into the Deep Beyond…and the glory that awaited her there.

  Yet, inconceivably, the two Star Watch vessels were going their separate ways and doing so without her. The battleship headed for a Laumer Point that would take it to Earth if it kept journeying in the same direction. The ancient Adok starship headed for a completely different Laumer Point that would take it into the Beyond. Clearly, Victory would travel to the nexus that the New Men had used these past few years, as the Xerxes System nexus no longer existed.

  “Come back,” Mako said pitifully. “You’re supposed to do your part, Captain. You have…you have betrayed…”

  Mako closed her eyes and pressed her forehead against the small control panel. She knew what must have happened to destroy fate. It was obvious, now that she thought about it. Captain Maddox was di-far. That meant he could lift destiny from the rails and set it on a new track.

  Oh, this was awful.

  By not picking her up, Maddox might have just destroyed everything she’d worked all her life to achieve. The leap into the dark, the joining with the multi-mind, the transformation into the “egg” she had become… Maddox had stolen all that from her by not picking her up. He’d foiled the great Spacer plan. He had—

  No. Wait. That wasn’t the only way.

  Mako scrunched her petite brow. There was a secondary path. She’d never studied it in depth because… She remembered why now. It was a torturous path and fraught with peril for her, for Maddox and…and… Mako’s brow scrunched even more as she remembered the few glimpses of the torturous alternate-future path she’d seen during her astral travel, within the union and the multi-mind entity.

  Oh, this was going to get complicated. If she followed the secondary route…yes, she would still use Maddox, but he could possibly prove to be as slippery then as he had been today.

  Mako was curious. What process had Maddox the di-far used that had allowed him to foil the more certain fate? Maybe figuring out how the di-far had been able to derail her optimal destiny this time would be as important as her transformation into…into—

  Mako groaned as she raised her forehead from the panel. Even though there was the possible secondary path, she felt adrift. Seventeen hours ago, everything had been set. She’d known how events would proceed. But the Visionary and the multi-mind entity had forgotten what it meant that Captain Maddox was di-far. The Visionary had foreseen Maddox’s power to perform his necessary deed. She had not been able to see that this very strength gave him the possibility of changing the Spacer future.

  Yet, if events weren’t foreordained as Mako had believed them to be…

  “I must strive to achieve the great goal knowing that there is a possibility of losing,” Mako whispered.

  That was a daunting thought. She needed to gather strength.

  Mako pushed off and floated across the tiny life-pod, coming to rest on the sole seat, reclining the back until it, and she, lay flat. She laid her hands across her diaphragm and practiced deep breathing as she composed herself. She thought about options. She—

  Behind her goggles, Mako’s blind eyes flew open. She sat up, pushed off and floated to the control panel. With practiced ease, her slender fingers roved over the controls, manipulating switches.

  She cataloged Victory. She studied and stored information—Mako laughed once. It came out as more of a shriek, which was odd. The shrieking laugh wasn’t caused by worry. Instead, as she studied the secondary way, she saw a path, a new method that could intercept the old pattern so events brought her to the same glorious future as previously envisioned. If she could make that happen, she too would have become di-far. She had choices, and her choices might yet lift fate off the rails and set it back onto the true path. That true path would be the great beginning of the Spacer Nation. It would bring about a glorious outpouring of—

  Mako’s head jerked back as a chronometer caught her attention.

  Much more time had passed than she’d realized. The Moltke had vanished as it entered the Laumer Point near the Usan Star. Was Brigadier O’Hara on the Bismarck-class battleship? Earlier, when the two great vessels had been near each other, a shuttle had left Victory, gone to the Moltke and remained there.

  In the life-pod, Mako shrugged. It didn’t really matter where O’Hara was. A curiosity, nothing more, she mused dismissively.

  That wisp of curiosity vanished as Mako scanned a tiny screen in her panel. A huge Nerva hauler was headed toward her. With a shock, she realized it was the Sulla 7. But…but the New Men had pirated the hauler from her. Why then would the Sulla 7 come back to the Usan System, and how had it been able to do so without her seeing it come through a Laumer Point?

  She must have been asleep when it had come through a jump gate. Yet, the New Men should have sent the hauler to the Bosk homeworld. Instead, it was here and heading toward her.

  Mako scratched her hea
d.

  What will guided the ship toward her? What new player had entered the mix to change the equation even more? According to the Visionary, antimatter radiation had altered the Usan crystals and the varth elixir in the Sulla 7’s cargo holds. That meant the crystals and elixir could no longer prove useful, didn’t it?

  The hours passed as Mako waited until the Sulla 7 began to decelerate. Finally, the mighty vessel moved through the recent battle debris near her life-pod.

  Starship Victory was no longer in the Usan System. Captain Maddox had left, heading toward his strange destiny. If a few events had changed, certainly the broad outline had not. Of course, it depended on what the Sulla 7 might do now to destroy her future. If she could twist the hauler into her plans, Maddox would not like the fate awaiting him.

  As Mako watched, an armored shuttle left one of the Sulla’s hangar bays. What would this hidden one want from her? How could he or she know that Mako was so critically important as to send a mighty hauler to pick her up?

  Mako nodded to herself as she realized this amazing truth. In this part of the Orion Arm, she had become the most important being in existence.

  A new thought process began as the time passed. Captain Maddox would never have been able to trick Don Del Franco if fate hadn’t already blinded the New Man. Del Franco hadn’t understood that he’d faced more than Maddox, but also the undercurrents of the Spacer Nation as it sought the great prize. This was so because the new Visionary and multi-mind entity with their extraordinary power had been seeding possibilities and probabilities everywhere.

  Mako checked again. The armored shuttle, more than one and a half times the size of a Star Watch shuttle, gently braked. Soon, it parked beside the life-pod, dwarfing it.

  An underbelly port opened and a mechanical arm unfolded. Hook-like grippers clutched the life-pod, slowly drawing it to the armored shuttle. As that happened, the shuttle rotated. Finally, the arm drew the life-pod and Mako into the shuttle bay and the port closed. Exhaust fumes billowed as the vessel headed back toward the Sulla 7, picking up speed as it did so.

  Shortly, the shuttle braked again and entered the hauler via the same hangar bay it had left. A massive bay door slid closed, sealing the shuttle inside. The hauler’s mighty engines engaged and, majestically, the Sulla 7 headed in the same direction that Victory had taken.