The Lost Artifact Read online

  “Cease fire, cease fire!” Strand shouted.

  At that point, a fourth spider-robot scuttled out of the darkness. It, too, had a crystalline machine on its metallic body. Rays shot from the crystal, bathing the three forward combat suits.

  The effect was immediate. The three Hindenburgers howled with insanity. They also turned on each other, hammering with their autocannons. It took several seconds. Finally, the big shells breached the heavy armor, and the three bodyguards blew each other away.

  The spider-robot of the Nameless Ones turned toward Strand.

  The clone was deeper in the soothing glow of the protective ball. It gave greater comfort to his brain. The creature beamed him with the ray, and insanity sought to overpower the clone’s reasoning.

  By slow degrees, Strand un-holstered an ancient blaster of powerful design. The ray centered on his helmet now. The clone seemed to hear gibberish in his mind. That hurt his eyes, hurt his heart. He felt as if—

  One of Strand’s armored fingers moved the trigger. The ancient blaster clicked, and an annihilating beam poured from the barrel and struck the alien crystalline machine. It took but a second, and the crystalline machine blew apart.

  Abruptly, the insanity ray ceased. The awful sensations battering Strand’s mind stopped.

  The two-ton armored suit sagged onto the spongy floor as Strand began to weep with overwhelming relief. He did not know how long he wept. Finally, hiccupping at times, Strand climbed to his feet.

  He clicked off the radiating ball. He inspected his dead bodyguards. He did not study the destroyed spider-robots. He wasn’t sure his morale could stand the sight.

  Finally, he debated with himself. Should he go on? Maybe it was time to go back, seal this place and destroy it for good. It might be the greatest mistake of his long career to use the machines of the Nameless Ones. Maybe the Builders had the right idea in deactivating the things.

  Strand stood in the dwarf planet’s depths alone with his thoughts. He was afraid. He also knew that he had many enemies in the universe. They had defeated the original Strand. If he was going to defeat his adversaries, he was going to have to do better than he’d ever done before.

  With a deep and frightened sigh, Strand screwed up his courage and continued his descent into the deepest corridor of the Nameless Ones.

  -16-

  The clone trudged through the alien tunnel. He shivered constantly. He reran his plans in his mind and told himself a hundred times to turn back. He refused. He had made his decision. If he died down here…

  Strand shook his head. He didn’t want to think about it. Dying would be easy. The things of the Nameless Ones could do worse to him than merely killing him. Von Helmuth was an example of their ancient arts.

  At last, he moved into a different type of tunnel. It was wider here, with strange crystalline growths like small trees. Slow-moving machinery moved inside the crystals. Once, a surge of electrical power zigzagged from one treelike crystal growth to another. Were they communicating with each other? That was an awful thought.

  Strand dearly wished there was another way to achieve his great aim. He sensed movement then, whirled around, but nothing was there.

  Almost on tiptoe, the two-ton suit moved into the next room of the deep tunnel. The clone stopped in shock. He had not expected a chamber of horrors.

  Five tall tubes filled with a green solution held five humans in various forms of dismemberment. Each tube held one specimen. Bubbles gurgled slowly in the tubes as machines hummed softly. Strand forced himself to catalog what he saw.

  Each space marine wore a rebreather. Each stared at him with eyes that were all too horribly alive. One specimen was missing both his legs. One had no arms. Another had a machine where his stomach used to be.

  The gore rose in the back of Strand’s throat. Now he knew. This had been the fate of the commodore’s explorers.

  The clone swiveled, and he gagged.

  Two other men also lived. They were spread out on alien tables, the bodies opened up so, in full view, the lungs slowly drew air and deflated and the hearts pumped. In the back of Strand’s mind he surmised that a delicate force field around the exposed organs kept infections at bay.

  The combat suit’s conditioners snapped on, blowing cold air over Strand’s fevered forehead. Sweat prickled his skin. He almost heaved and found it nearly impossible to breathe.

  “No,” he said in a strangled voice. It was one thing to operate on men’s minds. It was another to treat them like insects while they still lived.

  Before he could stop himself, the clone unlimbered an autocannon. It was part of his combat suit’s right arm. In a fusillade of heavy cannon-fire, he obliterated the tubes and the men alive in them, and the tables and their spread-out, living specimens. He put them all out of their misery.

  As fast as the feverish madness had gripped him, it departed. Strand switched off the autocannon. He might have just made a terrible mistake. He had attacked. This could make dealing with the alien entity much more difficult.

  With a weary heart, Strand marched through the smoking wreckage, crunching over glass and crushing blown-apart flesh and bones. Maybe this had been a mistake, but he didn’t regret doing it.

  He came into a larger chamber. It held a large hexagonal-shaped spaceship. It was bigger than the spacecraft that had brought him to Kelle, maybe three times larger. The outer hull seemed to be composed of wet metal. The hull had an oily quality or maybe a coating of an insectoid-like resin. Like the earlier chambers, the craft seemed like something designed by alien wasps.

  Using a zoom function on his faceplate, Strand noted that each section of hull seemed to be made of thousands of interlocking wet-metal hexagonal pieces. It was like a housefly’s multifaceted eye.

  Strand began to circle the wet-metal ship and then halted in sudden fear. The hatch was open, and he heard buzzing behind him.

  Strand whirled around.

  What looked like a giant wasp came down from a height, alighting onto the floor and blocking the exit out of the chamber.

  It might have been a robot. It had seemingly wet metal parts that included its articulated legs, its main body, but not the sheer wings. The head seemed more robotic than the rest of it. The alien thing had antennae and oily-looking multifaceted eyes.

  It was the size of a large dog. It seemed menacing, like an angry Earth-wasp.

  Abruptly, the multifaceted eyes glowed red and beams shot from them to sweep the two-ton combat suit.

  Strand did not feel any sensation. That troubled him almost as much as if he’d been overcome with fear. Could the rays be a scanner of some kind?

  The alien wasp moved its body up and down on its jointed legs like a spider might. The red rays stopped. The wasp scuttled closer as it raised a foreleg. That leg held a glistening needle.

  Strand’s reaction was automatic. His cannon roared, hammering the alien wasp. The rounds blew the thing back, but the heavy rounds did not damage it. The thing’s wings blurred, lifting it from the line of fire.

  The multifaceted eyes glowed with a deeper red than before.

  “It’s indestructible,” Strand whispered. The wet metal must be stronger—

  Harsh red rays beamed against his combat suit, burning through the suit armor. The beams likely would have slain Strand on the spot. Fortunately for him, he’d taken the precaution of using an ancient Builder force field, one much like Ludendorff had once used. The beams could not penetrate the force field immediately. Incredibly though, Strand felt heat against his chest.

  He drew the blaster, aimed—

  The wasp dodged. The eye beams snapped off as it zoomed down at Strand. An eerie blue blade appeared in one of its forelegs. That was a force knife, a pure energy weapon. Could it cut through the Builder force field?

  Strand waited until the alien wasp was almost upon him. He pulled the trigger and terrible energies poured from the blaster. The energies struck the alien wasp.

  At that point, the wasp crash
ed fully against Strand. It struck with force, causing Strand to stagger backward. In his stumbling, the ancient blaster fell from his hand.

  Strand shouted, tripped backward and hurried back onto his feet. He expected to see the wasp thing holding the blaster.

  Instead, the thing twisted slowly on the floor, spewing oil or an oil-like substance. Its eyes blinked deep red and normal color back and forth. Part of its wasp body smoked—where the blaster’s beam had struck.

  Strand grabbed the blaster, re-aimed and burned the robot until it stopped twisting and moving. He watched it, and then he realized he had to act while he an opening of opportunity.

  Holstering the blaster, Strand took off an emergency backpack. He repaired the burn holes in his armor-suit by covering them with metallic patches. He ran a fast diagnostic.

  The beams had burned some electrical circuitry. He initiated internal repairs and turned on secondary systems. The two-ton suit still functioned. He could survive down here for a time.

  Strand turned and faced the open hatch. Were there more giant alien wasps aboard? What would happen if there were and they swarmed upon his suit? Could they overpower him? Could they capture him?

  Strand pulled off another backpack, this one holding a thermonuclear device. He set it on a timer. If they captured him, he would blow up everything.

  He needed the ship. He needed the computer that ran it. He had hoped to enter the ship without awakening any of its formerly frozen passengers.

  Now…

  Strand closed his eyes, trying to summon up his courage. This was a terrible place. The Nameless Ones had been the worst aliens of all to come through this part of the galaxy. Now, he wanted to use their technology. There would always be risks to using it.

  “I have to,” Strand whispered. “My foes are too great.”

  In the end, that was the thing. The original Strand had lost. The clone was going to win, but only if he was willing to go to the wall.

  “Let’s do this,” the clone said, heading for the alien hatch.

  -17-

  The hexagonal-shaped spaceship was unpleasant to say the least. It had narrow corridors, large enough for giant wasp-like and spider-like robots, but barely providing enough space for Strand to crawl through in his two-ton marine suit.

  The ship seemed to have been built upon an ant-tunnel-like design. In other words, there almost didn’t seem to be a design. The corridors moved in zigzag courses with many junctions. A feeling of paranoid claustrophobia grew with intensity. Several times while negotiating a tight corner. Strand almost screamed in horror. Twice, he had to jerk hard in order to unstick the suit. The conditioners constantly blew cold air over him. More than once, he felt as if robots had landed on him, attempting to jab through his armor with horribly strong long needles. He didn’t want to detonate the thermonuclear device. After a time, it didn’t seem that he would have a choice. He might never make it out of the ship, never mind finding its main computer station.

  Finally, finally, he crawled into a larger hexagonal chamber. He stood up in the room, although his helmet bumped up against the ceiling.

  The place had odd seats but recognizable consoles. There were hatches and—

  Lights blinked furiously all around him. Nozzles extruded from the bulkhead and began spraying foam against the suit. Strand analyzed it, and realized the foam would harden soon enough. The ship meant to trap him.

  Strand acted fast. He radiated heat. He hoped the patches held while the suit—

  A warning beeped inside his helmet. The foam did not boil away. It was heating up. If he continued on this route, he would cook himself like a boiled egg.

  The foam had risen all around him. It was still foamy though, not yet having hardened. As a sense of claustrophobic terror made Strand’s breathing shallow, he took off a pack and rummaged in it. Finally, he brought out a small crystalline machine married to a normal-looking tablet.

  He activated the translator, hoping he had time.

  While holding the translator above his head and thus above the foam, Strand said, “I have a proposal for you.”

  A speaker in his helmet transferred the words to an outer suit speaker. The words reached the machine. Soon, strange clicks and whistles emanated from the device.

  Foam continued to blow out of the nozzles.

  “Do you hear me?” Strand shouted. “I have a proposal to make. You should at least listen to it.”

  Abruptly, foam quit hosing through the nozzles.

  Alien clicks and whistles emanated from a wall speaker.

  The device in Strand’s hand soon said, “You are prey. How is it that prey mocks the predator by treating it as an equal?”

  “I am also a predator,” Strand said. “That is how I passed your outer guardians.”

  “You destroyed my companions. That is a grave crime against the Race.”

  “We’ve all committed crimes. That isn’t the important point. You have been down here for many cycles of time. The Destroyers have left. The Ska are gone. But I know how to find them.”

  “Prey lie in order to preserve their lives. You are trapped—”

  “I have a bomb.”

  Seconds passed.

  “Yes, I detect it. You must deactivate the bomb. I do not want you to damage the ship.”

  “I’ll leave the bomb activated for now,” Strand said. “That’s simply as a sign of good faith.”

  “That is illogical.”

  “Predators are dangerous. I have a bomb that can destroy your ship. That makes me dangerous. Thus, I am a predator. “

  “I do not debate such issues. Deactivate your bomb or I will take other measures.”

  “First, think a moment,” Strand said. “How many times has anyone like me communicated with you?”

  “Never like this.”

  “That is because I, too, am a predator. I am of a new design.”

  “I have scanned you. Inside your metal suit, you are flesh and blood. Only prey are flesh and blood creatures.”

  “You have been trapped here for many cycles of time. I am a new design. I can prove it.”

  “You cannot prove it.”

  “You’re wrong,” Strand said.

  With the foam coming up to his shoulders, he withdrew a special device from a different pack. This was a powerful and Builder modified Swarm insertion worm. He had found it over five hundred years ago—the original had discovered it. The insertion worm had been in the structure in the neutron star system with him.

  “What is that?”

  “It is a computing chip with the data concerning my special construction.”

  “You are flesh and blood. You are lying concerning this construction. You are trapped and will soon face close inspection.”

  “Why can’t you understand that I am new and improved? That is why I made it past your guardians. Scan me again. Am I not newly made?”

  A slot opened in the ceiling. A device focused on Strand. Wavy beams washed over him. The beams stopped and the device retreated into the wall.

  Strand’s translator said in English, “Get on your hands and knees. I will insert control rods into your—”

  “No,” Strand said, interrupting. “I am a predator. Predators do not let anyone insert anything into them.”

  “We are at an impasse then.”

  “If you kill me,” Strand said, “you will never find your masters again. You are lost and alone. Only I can help you.”

  Seconds passed in silence.

  “Did the masters send you?” the ship asked.

  “Yes,” Strand lied.

  “I do not like the construction of your computing chip.”

  “It is unique.”

  “I have programming… programming… programming…”

  “You must cease communicating,” Strand said. “You are in a closed loop.”

  The clicks and whistled ceased.

  In that moment, Strand realized that even the Nameless Ones could not construct devices that worked
forever. The great enemy, entropy, struck even their bizarre and long-lived machines.

  “I need repair,” the ship said.

  “I know. My computer chip will explain how you can gain repairs.”

  “My malfunctions will soon destroy my utility,” the ship said. “Then, any will be able to strip me for parts. That is a crime against my masters. Yes. Attach the tube. I would be whole again.”

  “First, you must drain the foam.”

  At first, nothing seemed to happen. Then, Strand noticed the foam lowering around him. In another few minutes, the last of the foam was sucked from vents in the deck.

  “Where can I insert the…chip?” Strand asked.

  A side hatch dialed open. It was narrow like the corridors.

  Once more, Strand screwed up his courage and crawled through. In another thirty meters, he climbed into an inner computing sanctum. Lights flashed from odd-looking units. Some units were made of wet metal. Some pulsated like living tissues. Pulsating tubes linked some of the units, wiring them to yet others.

  Strand chose a location as he approached a central wet-metal node. His hand shook as he attached the Builder modified, Swarm insertion tube.

  He couldn’t help himself, but stepped back.

  “What is wrong?” the ship asked.

  “You showed hostility to me.”

  “You are a foolish flesh and blood creature. I did no such—”

  The clicks and whistles ceased.

  Strand could see the Builder modified Swarm insertion device open and shove tendrils through the metal.

  At that point, the inner sanctum erupted with difference. The pulsating flesh computer parts thrummed. Whatever pumped through the tubes did so faster than ever. Lights flashed. Smoke emitted from certain nodes. At that point, the ship began to make a thousand clicks and whistles a second, growing faster and faster and—

  The hatch dialed shut. Foam sprayed into the chamber. That ceased. The foam drained. The ship began to click and whistle slowly.

  “What…did…you…do…?”