The Lost Star Gate (Lost Starship Series Book 9) Read online

  The professor cleared his throat. “It’s time to leave the sled, my dear. We’re going to jump and float over there.” He pointed at a spot near the apex.

  “Float?” Meta asked. “What do you mean float? We have thruster packs. We can glide there under controlled flight.”

  “No packs,” Ludendorff said. “We’ll jump the remaining distance.”

  “That’s insane, Professor, and there’s no reason for it.”

  “You can stay here if you like. But if you’re coming, you’ll have to jump. We cannot use thruster packs this close to the nexus.”

  Meta was silent a moment. “Okay,” she finally said. “You have convinced me that you’re planning something. What is it this time? You’d better tell me before you get hurt, Professor. Oh,” she said in a deeper voice. “You did cause the jamming, didn’t you?”

  “Nonsense, dear girl,” he said. “You’ve let your husband’s prejudices seep into you. It isn’t pretty.”

  Meta brought up the beamer, likely to poke him in the side with it as she’d done earlier.

  Ludendorff had been waiting for that and clicked a hidden device.

  The hand holding the beamer jerked down hard against the seat.

  “What’s happening?” Meta said, her voice rising. “I’m magnetized to the sled. So is the gun.”

  Ludendorff was unaffected by the procedure and climbed up on his seat. He judged the distance and leaped from the sled, sailing through space toward the nexus. As he did, the jack connecting him to Meta snapped so the line dangled behind him. He didn’t bother watching Meta. She would free herself soon enough. Of that, he had no doubt. Thus, he needed to use this margin to get inside and lock her out.

  You’re a clever old boy, Ludendorff told himself.

  Then he had no more time to gloat, as the nexus loomed before him. He took out a device, aimed it at a precise spot and manipulated the device, waiting.

  Nothing happened.

  Wait. What was this? A beam of light flashed past him and—

  Ludendorff turned wildly, looking back at the space-sled.

  Meta had already freed herself. She aimed the beamer a second time. She must have given him a warning shot. That was her mistake.

  Ludendorff pressed an exotic shield-generator button just in time. Her beam struck his personal force field, which reached a little beyond his suit. He lacked a pendant, as Maddox had stolen his only one. This was a temporary shield. It needed to hold just long enough, though.

  Her beam kept on target. That was remarkable aiming for the girl. His shield turned red, then brown and went to black. She was going to achieve a burn through too soon.

  A beep alerted him.

  Ludendorff faced forward toward the nexus again, barely doing so in time. A tiny area of the pyramid had dilated open as if it was a miniature mouth. The process must have been delayed. He would have seen it if he’d kept looking at the apex instead of at Meta with her gun.

  He had leaped correctly, though, a fine feat for an older fellow like him.

  Once more, Meta’s beam struck his force field, and the field collapsed. The beam now struck his suit. At that point, he sailed through the opening, and it closed behind him. The beam did not follow him through, blocked by the closed entrance.

  He was in total darkness, sailing inside the control area of the nexus. For a moment, giddy laughter bubbled from his throat. He’d done it. He was actually inside. Now—as he clicked on a helmet lamp—he had to see if he still knew what to do in here.

  ***

  Meta cursed furiously as she holstered the beamer. She’d almost cut down the traitor before he’d escaped into the apex. He’d had some kind of force field, but she’d achieved a burn through. Unfortunately, she’d done so several seconds too late.

  The good news was that she was no longer magnetized to the sled.

  Scooting forward, Meta studied the controls. In less than thirty seconds, she’d figured it out. Slowly, she eased the sled toward the nexus where Ludendorff had gone inside.

  She had to figure out how to do the same thing. The professor could do anything in there.

  What if I can’t get inside?

  Within ten minutes, she reached the spot where Ludendorff had entered. She could see where the thing had dilated open. Yet, nothing she had been able to think of had gotten it to open for her.

  The jamming was still in place. She hadn’t been able to tell Keith or the captain anything.

  At fourteen minutes and thirty-two seconds, Meta came to her decision. She had to return to the shuttle and race back to Victory. She had to let Maddox know what had happened.

  Then… She didn’t know about then. She just knew that now she had to warn the others about the professor’s black-hearted betrayal.

  -65-

  Ludendorff sailed through the dark corridors with just his helmet lamp providing a stark beam of light. Primordial hieroglyphs lined the walls together with eons-old Builder controls. Some needed special kinds of light to activate. Others were sound-controlled. The professor thus shut off the lamp at times and made sure to glide soundlessly through other corridors.

  It was one of the reasons he hadn’t brought a thruster pack. Its hissing would have triggered too many controls that would do who knew what.

  After a time, he dropped through what some might have called a hole in the ceiling. He floated “downward” into a vast area. His helmet-lamp beam washed in all directions without striking a wall or bulkhead. A terrible sense of loneliness curdled his stomach. He was like a gnat having dropped through a cavern hole falling toward a subterranean lake deep under the world.

  Then, he was moving through a…substance, not just air. The substance was less dense than water but more than mere nothing. It provided enough friction that his momentum slowed until at last he floated in the stuff in the middle of the vast cavern.

  The professor shut off the helmet-lamp, making it pitch black. He took several deep breaths while contemplating his next move. There was a feeling of ritual to this. And the sense that he was already connected to the Builder stone became overpowering.

  That troubled him…until he recalled that he was Professor Ludendorff, the most cunning human in existence. Would that be enough to outthink or outmaneuver the ancient Builder artifact? He believed so.

  In the darkness, he shrugged off and opened his pack as he floated in the strange substance. He suspected that there were many unseen marvels around him. As he touched the stone with his gloves, awareness of the marvels increased. The awareness induced fear to such a degree that his hands began to shake.

  “Come now,” Ludendorff whispered to himself. “That’s no way to challenge the gods.”

  Despite his trembling hands, Ludendorff grinned tightly within the helmet as he pulled the stone from the pack, holding it aloft like an Earth wizard from prehistoric times.

  The white polygonal Builder stone shone eerily. It allowed him to see his spacesuit’s gauntlets and the crinkly silver arms. More than that, the eerie shine caused the substance around him to glow with a phosphorescent color that dwindled the farther it was from the stone.

  What caused the stone to shine as a thing alive—no, to come on, to turn on like that? It was a machine, nothing more.

  He pulled one gloved hand away and then the other, leaving the stone to float weightlessly. With one hand, he reached to the edge of the glove on the other, and halted abruptly.

  The professor groaned in dismay. He’d just about removed a glove so he could touch the stone with his skin. But he couldn’t remove the gloves or he would suffocate as all his air hissed from his breached spacesuit.

  There was no breathable atmosphere in here. He’d come on a fool’s errand. How was he supposed to activate the stone to give him the heightened intelligence to use the ancient Builder controls if he couldn’t touch it?

  The longer Ludendorff pondered the problem, the more he wondered how he’d made such an elementary error.

  Did the error indica
te that the stone already had a hidden influence on his mind? He would never have forgotten such a thing on his own. He was Ludendorff, not a forgetful old—

  A jolt in his mind made him wince. He could feel the alien-ness of something slithering through his thoughts connecting with his neurons. That wasn’t anything like the Builder stone in the past.

  The polygonal stone no longer just shone eerily, the light pulsed brighter and weaker in beats like a heart.

  Was the connection solely with the Builder stone or did it now link him to something much more bizarre? As he wondered, the professor waited for an entity to contact him mind-to-mind.

  That did not happen. Instead, as he waited, he realized his brainpower had expanded exponentially. He knew—

  In a flash, he understood what had been happening. This was the great Linkage Chamber. The substance around him had helped a Builder connect to the brain enhancer—the polygonal stone—without having to touch it or insert it into his Builder body.

  Did that mean the stone had been connected to his brain all this time? Or did it mean the stone had put a post-hypnotic command into him? The idea of that was enraging. He’d used the stone to rid himself of un-professor tinkering in his mind. To now discover—

  Wait, wait, this was more interesting than impotent anger.

  Ludendorff realized that he controlled the stone. With it, he was able to tap into the greater nexus controls. His brain and the enhancer linked to such a degree that many pseudo-memories flooded into his consciousness.

  This wasn’t alien control of his mind, but his subconscious having learned certain processes and guiding him to do the right thing.

  Ludendorff wanted to laugh with delight and relief. Instead, he moaned. The moan escaped him because the expanded power of his mind had engaged the part of the nexus he had come to use.

  He’d turned on eons-old computers and engines. They had cycled with growing power until they’d engaged the systems he’d wanted to use, and that hurt his mind.

  This was the reason he’d brought the stone with him. It had not been to double-cross the captain and crew. Ludendorff was one of them. But he knew they still didn’t really trust him. How could he blame them? He’d practiced deceit throughout the ages, and certainly while with them during many of the voyages.

  Without the stone providing the needed knowledge, the professor had known he could not use the nexus in the manner it could perform. That might have been a subconscious understanding, as he’d learned this in hidden ways.

  Now, though, Ludendorff engaged the nexus so it reached out with an incredible power, linking with other nearby nexuses—well, near in galactic terms.

  The process was mindboggling. Without the brain enhancer, none of this would be possible.

  Ludendorff didn’t know it, but his heart rate had dramatically increased and he breathed rapidly as if having sprinted for miles. Sweat poured from his body, draining the water in his cells. The suit’s air-conditioner was already purring with power, seeking to cool his heated skin.

  The polygonal brain enhancer caused the professor’s mind to operate at such high levels that it was over-taxing his body. He was an old man, a Methuselah Man. If he kept this up for long, his ancient heart might give out.

  Unaware of the personal danger, Ludendorff reached out with his enhanced mind, learning more and more so he could see what had happened here two weeks ago.

  -66-

  Among their many predilections, the Builders liked to record events. Ludendorff had tripped this function of the nexus.

  With unusual clarity of mind, the professor “saw” Strand and several New Men roam inside the nexus, as had occurred two weeks ago. They had not come to this particular location in the pyramid, but to other areas. Ludendorff might have laughed at Strand’s stringing together various aspects of the ancient machine. Strand worked so backwardly and in such a convoluted manner when compared to how he should have done it if he’d understood the nexus.

  That was the Builder part of Ludendorff’s mind “talking.” The human half recognized the Methuselah Man’s amazing brilliance to cobble together such a plan. It frankly stunned the professor that Strand knew so much without a brain enhancer.

  Could he have so profoundly underestimated Strand’s brilliance? How had the Methuselah Man come to learn these concepts?

  Ludendorff did not sigh. His heart raced far too fast for that. He was not aware that he was close to hyperventilating. A heart attack certainly seemed a likely event in his near future.

  Another part of Ludendorff realized he probably did not have much time. He should get on with this instead of absorbing each detail. The over-arching scheme was the priority, not the minutia.

  Eleven star cruisers had waited outside the local nexus. Strand had created a hyper-spatial tube. The fantastic FTL object grew into existence, linking the local nexus system to the Deneb System 2,634 light-years away.

  The eleven star cruisers entered the swirling hyper-spatial tube and vanished as they sped to the Deneb System.

  In the flash of an instant, the eleven star cruisers appeared 2,634 light-years away. Strand’s hyper-spatial tube faded away soon thereafter, stranding the eleven New Men crews at a Swarm-territory nexus.

  Fortunately, that nexus had recorded some of the events that had occurred over there and let the local nexus here know. Oh, this was intensely interesting.

  Deneb was the brightest star in the constellation of Cygnus, the swan. It was a blue-white supergiant belonging in the Orion Spiral Arm. Deneb was also in the fringe area of the Swarm Imperium, the closest Swarm nexus to Human Space.

  The supergiant star’s luminosity was 200,000 times that of the Sun, and it had a diameter 200 times Earth’s star, meaning that if Deneb traded places with the Sun it would reach out to Earth’s orbit.

  Deneb was nineteen solar masses and had a surface temperature of 8,500 Kelvin. That being the case, the Deneb nexus was much farther away from the star than this nexus. The nexus there was farther than Pluto’s farthest distance from the Sun.

  The eleven star cruisers appeared twenty million kilometers from the Deneb nexus, making Strand’s aim better than perfect, particularly given the distance of the shot.

  What was this? Several hundred Swarm science vessels were farther out from the Deneb nexus than the star-cruiser flotilla.

  As the recording continued to play, Ludendorff scanned a “memory” of a weeklong running battle that ended in the complete annihilation of the bug science ships, but cost six of the eleven star cruisers, leaving five to complete the daring mission.

  New Men had entered the Deneb nexus, as Strand had taught them well. The supermen also learned how to activate the nexus so they could study other nearby Swarm nexuses.

  After drawing lots, the New Men created another hyper-spatial tube. This one reached 2,300 light-years to a nexus in the Sagittarius Spiral Arm.

  Four of the five star cruisers entered the tube, vanishing to the new nexus.

  The remaining star cruiser approached the Deneb nexus. New Men placed many antimatter warheads in the ancient structure. They used other explosives, too. Finally, the commander detonated the many warheads and destroyed the great and primeval structure that had lasted for so many millennia.

  That meant the last star cruiser was stranded almost three thousand light-years from home. Instead of despairing, the lone ship had started in the direction of the Throne World. Likely, the ship would never survive long enough to reach home, but they were going to damn well try.

  The four other star cruisers reached the next nexus. Ludendorff knew, because this nexus and that one had linked message centers through Ultrix Pulses and Ultrix Receivers. That was an ancient failsafe feature embedded in the nexuses, triggered when aboriginals from one region used a hyper-spatial tube to travel to a nexus far beyond their home territory.

  Ludendorff frowned as he tried to absorb all this data. There were some conflicting messages here.

  He realized why. That nexu
s no longer existed. It would seem the four star cruisers had succeeded there as well and at one other nexus, but Ludendorff did not believe that any of those star cruisers had reached yet a fourth nexus, as he did not sense any Ultrix recording of further hyper-spatial tubes.

  It had been a fine and daring plan. The New Men had expended eleven badly needed star cruisers for an amazing mission. They had destroyed three primary Swarm-territory nexuses, and had—

  At that point, the professor ran a self-diagnostic of himself by wrenching his awareness from the brain enhancer and thus from the Builder machines, and he felt the sweat soaking his clothes, his madly beating heart and that he felt faint and sick.

  In a flash, Ludendorff realized the problem, and he weighed his options at lightning speed.

  “Data dump,” the professor whispered.

  He swallowed hard, readying himself. Then, he howled in agony as the Builder machine, aided by the polygonal brain enhancer shoved memories into his mind faster than he could comprehend.

  “More,” he whispered.

  At that point, Ludendorff went rigid as memories flooded him. His body rebelled as his eyes watered and he grunted, farted, vomited—it was a sickening process.

  The event lasted mere seconds, but it was inconceivably intense. Then, the professor unfolded and he vomited violently within his suit. A mini-vacuum engaged, scooping up the foulness lest he choke on it.

  I’m killing myself. I have to stop the process.

  Ludendorff struggled to make the brain enhancer understand. The thing refused to sever the connection, however. In the past, the professor had Maddox with the foam. Here—

  I UNDERSTAND.

  That was a clear, alien thought in his mind. Ludendorff knew the words hadn’t originated in his brain. Did that mean on some fundamental level that the mind enhancer was more than a machine?