The Lost Artifact Read online

  A blurry wasp-like robot appeared, splitting open the membrane with a sharp foreleg. It dragged him out, and clicked and whistled at him.

  A translator hung from the clone’s neck.

  “You are awake and processed,” the translator said. “Soon, your thinking will correlate with ours.”

  “What have you done to me?” Strand groaned.

  “You are prey. I am a predator. It took time to construct another servitor, but during our travels, I have completed this one. Now, I have converted you, as I succeeded in my terrible risk. You will play your part, as it was ordained. You activated me from slumber. Thus, you shall have the earned privilege of connecting portals.”

  Strand rubbed his stomach. He was naked and shivering, wet from being inside the membrane. He didn’t look any different. How had the alien ship changed him?

  The robot deposited clothes before him. Oddly, part of the clothes clunked. That seemed odd.

  “Don the garments,” the ship said.

  Strand began to put on the clothes. His heart skipped a beat as he saw the ancient blaster. It was in the holster attached to his belt. His hands shook as he tightened the belt around his waist.

  The wasp-like robot watched him, and Strand had no doubt it could move fast. If he tried to draw the blaster—

  Strand stiffened. His mind suddenly felt oily. His right shoulder jerked up as his face twisted into a hideous mask. Then his left shoulder jerked up and his fingers wriggled madly. What was happening to him? His features kept contorting. He could no longer control them.

  The clone did not know it, but alien bio-fibers had reached his brain from the conversion unit inserted into him while he’d been unconscious. He was beginning to convert into a worker unit as the alien fibers stole his personality and will.

  His eyes dulled and the desire to draw the blaster and start firing dwindled away.

  In that moment, the clone began to perceive what had happened. What was happening.

  I am Strand, he told himself. I must retain my identity.

  Even as the clone thought that, the contortions ceased. His shoulders relaxed and his features smoothed out into a mask of quiet contemplation.

  “Unit Two,” the ship said.

  “Yes?” Strand asked in a dull voice.

  “Are you ready to obey?”

  “I am ready,” the converted Strand said dully, with only a millisecond’s delay.

  “Follow Unit One,” the ship said

  In a jerky fashion, as if he forgotten some of his former agility, Strand faced the wasp-like robot. As it moved into the ship, Strand followed, compelled by the alien fibers to obey his new master.

  -35-

  “Captain,” Valerie said. “I’m picking up a—” The lieutenant’s head snapped up as she swiveled around in her chair. “Sir, I’ve detected a nuclear device.”

  Maddox was up out of the command chair. “Where is it?” he asked.

  “It’s alone near the farthest terrestrial planet, the one closest to us,” Valerie said, tapping her panel. “The device is free-floating. I don’t know how I missed it in the initial system sweep.”

  “Show me the device’s design.”

  “Sir,” Valerie said, looking up, “it’s a New Men design.”

  “Strand,” Maddox whispered. “It’s a sign.”

  “Do you think he’s trying to signal us?” Valerie asked.

  Maddox frowned. What would a free-floating nuclear device imply? “What are the dimensions again?” he asked.

  “Suitcase sized, sir,” Valerie said.

  “It’s bigger than that,” Maddox said, looking at her screen.

  “Not by much,” Valerie said. “It seems—”

  Maddox snapped his fingers. “Strand owned it. Why did he have it?” The captain peered at Valerie without really seeing her. “He must have had it in order to blow-up…the phase-ship.”

  Maddox began to pace with his head down and fingers snapping.

  “Sir…” Valerie said. “You should look at this.”

  Maddox looked up and seemed to leap like a jungle cat to stand behind her seat, peering at her scope. “Put that on the main screen,” he said.

  Valerie manipulated her panel.

  Maddox jerked around, approaching the main screen as shimmering waves appeared around the fourth terrestrial planet.

  “What am I looking at?” the captain asked.

  “I don’t know,” Valerie said.

  “Galyan!” Maddox shouted.

  The holoimage appeared.

  “Where have you been?” Maddox asked.

  “The Builder cube is worried, sir,” Galyan said. “He says we should prepare—what is that?” the holoimage asked.

  Everyone on the bridge stared at the fourth terrestrial planet. The shimmering waves had solidified into some weird metallic structure that encompassed the entire planet, more than tripling its size. At the same time, other strange metallic structures appeared in the planet’s orbital path around Canopus. They were alien structures and—

  Red beams speared from each structure, racing to the next structure in orbit so the red beams circled the star.

  “We’ve found it,” Maddox said. “That has to be the alien gate coming into phase with our space-time continuum.”

  “Captain—” Galyan said.

  Even as they watched, bright columns of light speared from each of the structures to the blazing star. The frightening aspect, the impossible thing was the speed at which this happened. One moment nothing, the next the columns of lights were there, going all the way to Canopus. That should have taken time, as in the speed of light. Instead, it simply appeared.

  “This is incredible,” Valerie said. “The wattage leaving the star— Captain, something is soaking up the star’s stellar output. Could it be those columns of light?”

  Even as Valerie said that, more structures appeared in the orbital path around the star. It wasn’t like a Dyson Sphere, but a giant ring all along the orbital path of the fourth terrestrial planet, circling the star at its center.

  “The ancient gate…” Galyan said. “That would imply the structure we’re seeing has been out of phase…for a considerable time.”

  “Since the last time the Nameless Ones were in our part of the galaxy,” Maddox said.

  “What was the nuclear device?” Valerie said. “Why did it signal this happening?”

  “I think I know,” Maddox said. “The crew of the phase-ship, whoever or whatever they are, didn’t want the bomb on the ship while they phased in the gate.”

  The captain stared at Valerie and then Galyan. “That implies…a fear of the nuclear device. The place the phase-ship is headed toward must be vulnerable to an internal attack.”

  “Is not the entire gate vulnerable to attack?” Galyan asked.

  “I have no idea,” Maddox said. “But it stands to reason that the crew in the phase-ship did not want a nuclear bomb aboard for a reason, a powerful reason, as expelling it gave us notice.”

  “That is clever and quick reasoning, Captain,” a robotic-sounding voice said from a bridge loudspeaker.

  “Builder?” Maddox asked. “When did you cut in?”

  “That is not important,” the Builder cube said. “I have activated the speaker in order to warn you. There is a terrific build-up of a strange energy on the fourth planet. That energy seems directed at us.”

  “What energy?” Maddox asked. “Lieutenant, do you sense any—”

  “Your ship’s sensors will not detect it,” the Builder cube said, interrupting. “I had feared this might happen. I have made emergency plans for it. I am going to have to take over your ship, Captain. You do not know enough—”

  At that point, a bizarre energy exploded outward from the generating station where the fourth planet had been. In the blink of an eye, the energy traveled to Victory.

  As the Builder cube spoke, the violent energy-surge smashed aside Victory’s electromagnetic shield. The energy swept through the armor an
d bulkheads as if they were nonexistent. In a way, to the energy, they were nonexistent. The energy operated on a unique principle, as it was a psychic force more than it was physical energy, although the shield could have partly stopped it.

  The powerful psychic surge struck. People and computers went unconscious or shut down. The starship lay dead in space as the gigantic ancient gate continued to phase into existence.

  -36-

  Yen Cho stirred on the floor of his cell. Something had knocked him out cold. It had been a strange force—

  You have no more time for contemplation, a voice said inside his head. It is time to act, as the hour has become dire.

  “Builder?” Yen Cho asked.

  It is I. You must not worry, Yen Cho. I have prepared for this hour. You must do exactly as I tell you for the good of…the good of…

  “The good of what?” Yen Cho asked aloud.

  I must defeat the ancient edict that will go into effect all too soon. The humans have failed, but I never suspected otherwise. It is your time, Yen Cho.

  “This sounds ominous.”

  Yes. Now, arise. The humans are all unconscious. We have a few hours, maybe less. In that time, the transformation will have begun.

  Yen Cho had an inkling what the transformation meant. It would be nothing like last time. This time, the Builder would emerge. It would prove costly for the humans. He could almost feel sad for them.

  Yen Cho, the Builder said in his head.

  “I am rising,” Yen Cho said, as he climbed to his feet in the darkness of his cell.

  ***

  For the first time in the android’s long existence, it moved like a sleepwalker. That was so bizarre, so…unseemly. Maybe he was hallucinating. The blast earlier…

  Do not think so much, Yen Cho. I am paving your way because you must work with haste. My technique is odd to you. That is all you are sensing.

  Yen Cho realized the Builder—or the germ of the Builder, still—did not want him to know exactly how he did these various actions. Even so, it came to the android that he moved through matter.

  Can that be right? Yen Cho wondered.

  It is wrong, the Builder said in the android’s cybertronic mind.

  If he did not pass through matter, could he be skipping through matter by a…by a teleportation process?

  “But that would be impossible,” Yen Cho said.

  Untrue. One of the items you brought back from the listening post was a teleportation device disguised as a computer. The device is too powerful to allow the lesser races to possess, but a Builder in an emergency, such as this, can allow a first-rated servant its use.

  “I am honored that you rate me as a first-rank servant, Builder.”

  As you should be, as it is an awesome honor. Now await a wireless transmission. I am going to download a program so you can construct a deatomizer.

  In an instant, Yen Cho found himself in Engineering with a faint glow radiating from the bulkheads. Yen Cho collected various pieces of equipment and began to move at super-human speed. The Builder had done something to his circuits and mechanical parts so he could move fast.

  At the same time, new programs beamed into his cybertronic brain. He learned processes and techniques that only the Builders had used in cycles past.

  After two hours of relentless work, longer than the Builder had anticipated, Yen Cho hoisted a strange and towering machine onto his back. The machine hummed and its lights blinked. It seemed as if he should collapse under the massive load, but grav-lifters made the thing a tenth as heavy as it would have been otherwise.

  The Builder caused Yen Cho to teleport into the science chamber. The scientists all lay sprawled on the floor as if dead. None stirred and they only barely breathed.

  “They are alive,” the cube said. “We still have time before they revive. Now, hurry. I feel the ancient gate reaching out through the cosmos, searching for one of the annihilating fleets of the Nameless Ones.”

  Twelve minutes later, Yen Cho set the last computing enhancer from the listening post on a newly constructed grav-sled. The Builder cube sat on top of them, linked by a web of red electricity.

  “Are you ready?” the cube asked.

  “I am, Master.”

  “We will take life in order to build life, my own, in this instance.”

  “Will I remain me?” Yen Cho asked.

  “Yes, as I need an assistant I can trust.”

  “You honor me, Master.”

  “I do, Yen Cho. For this reason, a Builder created you long ago.”

  “It is an amazing thing.”

  “I have chosen you,” the cube said, as light swirled along its edges. “Push the sled and I will direct your path.”

  With the heavy machine still on his back, the android pushed the grav sled. The Builder cube activated the teleportation device once more, as a blue nimbus circled the android and sled—and in a second they passed the bulkheads that separated the Hindenburgers from the rest of Victory.

  ***

  Now began a bizarre process. Yen Cho dragged many unconscious and catatonic Hindenburger marines and officers. He had removed their garments first. He set them in straight rows, all of them head to feet with their shoulders touching from one row to the next.

  Hurry, the Builder said in the android’s mind. Time is running out. I must fully revive and learn to control my new body perfectly. I have many processes and powers to relearn. This will be the greatest conflict of my life. If I cannot defeat the defender of the gate…life in the Milky Way Galaxy is doomed.

  “Must these men die?” Yen Cho asked.

  Not only the men, but likely the women and children, too, the Builder said in the android’s mind.

  “I feel hesitation within me,” Yen Cho said. “Is this a conscience telling me it is wrong to murder these people?”

  They are already dead, the Builder replied. Once the gate connects with another gate, Destroyers will pour through. I am simply using their bio-matter to create my body and brain. This is an emergency procedure. Builders have only done this on two other occasions.

  “Am I wrong to feel sad?”

  It is a flaw in your personality program, but do not let that worry you. Human morality is the grunting of animals at the best of times. You are superior to them. You are a Builder android in service of a master.

  “Will the deatomizer work?”

  You are hesitating, Yen Cho. It is only partly a deatomizer. The other function is a mutation creator. With it, you will change the bio-matter from human to Builder.

  “The fabled philosopher’s stone,” Yen Cho whispered.

  I am unfamiliar with the term.

  “So you don’t know everything,” Yen Cho said.

  If you delay any longer, the Nameless Ones shall destroy all you know and more.

  Yen Cho re-gripped the carbine-like part of the deatomizer. It was attached by a line to the machine on his back. He clicked on the heavy machine. It hummed as the power built up.

  Putting his feet in a wide, set stance, the android aimed the deatomizer at the first Hindenburger. He pressed the switch and a clear ray struck the left foot of the unconscious marine.

  At the same time, one of the gleaming metal boxes that had come from the comet listening post began to glow brightly. Yen Cho wasn’t sure, but he felt it might be the teleportation device or the mutation machine. Could it teleport the de-atomized bio-matter, making it disappear, and then reappear in a newly constituted state?

  As Yen Cho continued to cause the deconstruction of the human’s form, the bio-matter disappeared, only to reappear nearby in a different form: that of a Builder, using the DNA stored in the cube as the pattern for the superior life-form.

  In a sense, the deatomizer sped-up the natural processes. It was not creating matter. It was simply reordering the bio-matter into a different pattern.

  Still, this was super-science, the next thing to a miracle. It was one of the defining aspects of the Builders.

  As Yen
Cho finished with the first human, who had entirely disappeared, he started on the next one. The android wondered how the Builder cube would insert its thoughts into the strange form taking shape and how it would insert the mechanical aspects of itself. As far as the android understood it, a Builder was a cyborg, part machine and part bio-matter.

  Yen Cho concentrated on the task. He was the first servant. This was a privileged honor, with the fate of the galaxy depending on his hard work.

  -37-

  From where he lay on the bridge’s deck, Maddox stirred groggily. What had just happened? He could hardly think. He’d been talking with the Builder cube and some strange blast from the—

  The ancient gate of the Nameless Ones had begun phasing into existence.

  Through force of will, Maddox pried open his eyes and found that he lay among the other members of the bridge crew. Valerie, Keith, Andros Crank; all lay unconscious along with the other personnel. They were laid in rows—Maddox had been laid in sequence with them.

  The captain struggled to sit up. His head pounded and his eyesight was blurry. Why was it so dark on the bridge?

  He felt the deck tremble underneath him. That meant the antimatter engines were working overtime.

  Maddox rubbed his eyes—

  His heart sped up as something ominous shifted before him. The edges of the thing rippled and—

  Maddox squeezed his eyes shut and then opened them wide. He was on the bridge, a darkened bridge. Illumination came from the main screen. Something large and humanoid-shaped blocked most of the screen from him.

  Maddox grunted as he climbed to his feet. He swayed, felt like vomiting but kept it down. He took several tentative steps to the side, seeing more of the main screen.

  The giant gate, the one circling Canopus, must have solidified into existence. It was a complex piece of engineering with various nodes or points along the ring surrounding the star. Pillars of white light like spokes in a wheel linked the star with the ring gate. Clots of power seemed to pulse along the white spoke-like pillars. The space between the star and the ring had turned an eerie green color. It shimmered and kept changing appearance.