The Lost Artifact Read online

  The thing had been powering up ever since. Now, with the open transmission between Chang and Maddox—

  Keith floated to another panel, his fingers blurring over a console. He ran a diagnostic—

  A red light blinked on his board.

  Keith gave it three seconds’ thought, pushed himself away and floated to a different board. He sat there, hesitating. Abruptly, he overrode the safety feature that was blocking the jump. It could kill them all. It could cause the jump mechanism to malfunction and throw them who knew where.

  “Them are the risks,” Keith muttered.

  He landed at his piloting seat, strapped in and began running through the fold sequence. The countdown began.

  “Right,” Keith said. “Now, you’re going to see.”

  Lieutenant Maker kicked in the thrusters. The ungainly-looking tin can began to move, picking up velocity as the thrusters roared hotter.

  The tin can aimed at the asteroid. Keith turned so he curved around the asteroid’s edge, building up speed and calculating his attack plan. This was going to be sweet. He hoped Maddox got out of his way, because if the captain didn’t…

  “Balls to the wall,” Keith said, activating the fold.

  For two seconds, nothing happened. Then the tin can disappeared as it folded through space, making a short hop in the proverbial blink of an eye.

  During that time, Finlay banked the coaster hard right and down. It zoomed out of the direct path of the three strikers.

  On the coaster’s screen, Chang shouted in outrage. “Don’t think that’s going to help you, Maddox. We’re—”

  Chang stopped talking because a spaceship literally appeared out of nowhere before the three strikers, barreling directly at the tri-formation.

  It was Keith’s fold-fighter.

  The lieutenant had passed out due to Jump Lag. He’d taken his drugs, of course. With a shudder of air, Keith lifted his head. He felt a little groggy, but his mind started functioning almost right away.

  The coaster was still pulling hard Gs. It was possible the pilot had blanked out with such a violent maneuver. If she had, maybe Maddox could reach over and bring them out of it.

  Keith cackled in a sleepy manner.

  The strikers headed straight at him. One slowed down, shedding its velocity. The other two took aim at him.

  A light blinked on Keith’s board. One of the strikers had radar lock-on. Its cannons fired 30-mm shells that headed straight at Keith’s vessel.

  The fold-fighter had heavier armor than the coaster. It could probably take a few of those shells.

  Keith’s cackle rose in pitch. He slapped a button. Anti-personnel guns tracked the approaching shells, beginning to chug solid shots. Ah-ha! An enemy shell exploded prematurely. So did another.

  By that time, the fold-fighter was almost upon the two nearest strikers. Keith had yet to target anything. His mind was sharp enough, so that wasn’t the problem.

  “Three…two…one…” he said. Keith slapped a switch.

  As the tin can accelerated, reaching the two nearest strikers, a new pulsar weapon radiated a pulse. The pulse traveled outward from the tin can like a rough-edged smoke-ring. The edge of the pulse struck the two strikers, and bulkheads crumpled.

  One of the strikers began to tumble end over end.

  Keith studied his screen. “It worked!” he whooped. “The son of a gun really worked.”

  The fold-fighter began to shiver.

  Rage entered Keith’s eyes. The last striker fired at his precious vessel. The Scotsman activated his cannons, targeted—and a laser sliced through the striker’s skin, reached a fuel pod—a fiery explosion told the end of the story.

  The fold-fighter absorbed various particles as it passed the former striker’s location.

  “Chalk up another victory to the ace,” Keith said.

  At that point, he began braking and turning. He had to make sure the other two strikers were out for good. Maybe one of them had a kamikaze switch and would try to take out Maddox with them.

  -15-

  Strand sat back in wonder as his ghost-ship continued to accelerate from Smade’s Asteroid. Maddox had evaded capture and destruction. A fold-fighter had literally appeared out of nowhere and saved the day for the captain.

  “You miscalculated,” Strand told the robot.

  “Maddox survived,” the large artillery-shell-shaped robot replied.

  “Yes, but not of his own doing.”

  “Is that positively reasoned?” the robot asked.

  Strand stared at the Builder construct. “Are you going to tell me that Maddox foresaw such events and planned in advance?”

  “I am not suggesting that.”

  “What then?”

  “Captain Maddox preplans, he acts promptly in emergencies—these factors are all weighted and applied to the greater calculation. In this instance, given all the possibilities and probabilities, Captain Maddox would survive. Thus the computer reasoned and thus occurred.”

  “In other words,” Strand said, “he got lucky.”

  “Luck is a fairy-tale concept for weak minds,” the robot said.

  Strand leaned forward in his chair as he studied a screen.

  Starship Victory had left its hidden location by the third moon. The huge warship accelerated for Smade’s Asteroid. Now, Star Watch would want to rip apart the entire asteroid in order to find evidence. Luckily, he had foreseen the move.

  The clone turned to the robot. “There is no such thing as luck?” he asked.

  “The computer does not factor for luck, which is not real. It factors evidence, giving everything a number.”

  “Random events—”

  “Are not luck,” the robot said, interrupting.

  “A random event can help or hurt an individual.”

  “That is not luck.”

  “Maybe your software is lacking in subtlety,” Strand said.

  “The computer’s software is the greatest in the galaxy.”

  “I retreat from your flawless logic,” Strand sarcastically told the robot.

  “The computer knew you would,” the robot said.

  Strand stiffened, although only for a moment. Was the Builder computer analyzing him? He did not like that, and he wondered if the robot had made a slip.

  There was a worse possibility. The robot had not slipped but had deliberately told him that in order to goad him toward some future action that the computer already desired.

  How could Strand ensure that he remained in control of the Builder robot and computer and not vice versa?

  While scratching his right cheek, Strand wondered if he should turn off the robot. He finally rejected the idea. He needed the robot for a little while longer. Until then, he would have to act cautiously around it.

  ***

  The robot had been watching Strand as the human contemplated possibilities. The robot was a master at body-language reading, at the science of kinesics. Satisfied with the human’s condition, it now turned around and floated through the hatch.

  Strand was acting within the normative parameters set by the computer. Thus, the robot did not yet have to eliminate the amazingly gifted human. The computer needed the fantastic human mind for a little while longer…

  -16-

  From the hard-banking coaster, Maddox witnessed the ace’s brilliance as Keith defeated the strikers. The captain knew the ace could do it.

  Finlay saw the victory, too. She straightened their small spacecraft so the excessive Gs from hard banking bled away.

  Maddox touched the back of his head, fiddling with the stitches. The good feeling from seeing Keith win faded some but did not altogether evaporate.

  Was Strand behind the implant operation? The Shanghai heavy, Jand, had said as much. Yet that should be impossible. Strand should be in captivity on the Throne World. There were three possibilities concerning that. One, Strand had escaped from the New Men. Well, the Methuselah Man could have struck a deal with them, but that seemed unlikely. T
wo, the Methuselah Man Jand had spoken about was a clone of the original. Strand had used clones of himself before. Thus, a clone Strand was well within the realm of the possible. The third possibility was that Jand had been incorrect about Strand being the Master.

  Maddox tended toward the second possibility. It made the most sense given Strand’s—and Ludendorff’s—past actions, and the New Men’s hatred toward Strand. The New Men were the least likely people to make a mistake regarding Strand.

  “Look!” Finlay shouted.

  Maddox looked up. She pointed at the screen. One of the drifting strikers exploded. Several seconds later, the last intact striker also detonated.

  Finlay turned to him in accusation. “Why did your man do that?”

  “Keith?” Maddox asked. “He didn’t.”

  “You saw those strikers.”

  “I did.”

  “They blew up!” Finlay shouted.

  “I’m right here,” Maddox said softly. “I can hear you just fine.”

  She glared at him.

  Maddox was perplexed. “I just said that I saw the strikers. Why would you assume that Lieutenant Maker fired at them while they were helpless?” Maddox finally recognized the cause of her bewilderment. “I see. It doesn’t occur to you that they might have self-detonated.”

  “That’s crazy,” Finlay said, sounding more agitated than ever. “Why would they do that?”

  “Yes. That’s an excellent question. One I don’t intend to leave unanswered.”

  Finlay stared at him until she noticed her sensor panel. She bent forward as her fingers tapped against the console. “Do you see that?” she asked.

  She obviously referred to Starship Victory, which accelerated from behind the third moon of the pink-colored gas giant.

  Finlay glanced at him with understanding. “Do you belong to them?”

  “No,” Maddox said. “They belong to me.”

  “What? You’re telling me that you’re the starship’s captain?”

  Maddox said nothing.

  “No. That’s not reasonable. Starship captains don’t go alone onto enemy asteroid bases, certainly not a pirate asteroid base.”

  “Privateer,” Maddox said.

  “Whatever. It’s the same difference.”

  “Wrong,” Maddox said. “From all indications, the Social Syndicate is behind the base. That’s quite a bit different from an independent actor. Of course, that might also be a front.” Maddox nodded to himself. “Yes, the Social Syndicate angle is most probably a front.”

  Once more, he touched the stitches at the back of his head.

  Finlay noticed. “You said Chang tagged you. Now, Chang is dead. What’s next on the agenda?”

  Maddox pointed out the small port window. “We’re going to board the fold-fighter. It will take us to Victory.”

  “And then?” she asked.

  “Then you get paid your bonus.”

  Finlay blinked several times until finally a smile broke out. “I like the sound of that,” she said.

  Maddox had thought she would.

  ***

  Keith contacted the coaster, instructing the merc pilot on docking procedures with the tin can.

  The self-destruction of the pulsar-wrecked strikers seemed odd. According to his sensors, nothing had been seriously out-of-whack with the strikers. They shouldn’t have blown up like that due to a malfunction. That left the grisly option of the pilots killing themselves.

  That didn’t make much sense for pirates or privateers. Keith shrugged. It wasn’t his problem. He was the gifted pilot doing what no one else could do in the pinch. That was why Star Watch paid him.

  He noticed that Finlay was okay at docking, but he had to compensate for her…twice.

  In a bit, a hatch slid up and Captain Maddox floated through.

  “Welcome aboard, sir,” Keith said. “What’s with the goofy hat?”

  Maddox gave him his trademark stare. Sometimes, the captain didn’t like people asking him questions.

  “They shaved him bald,” the merc said as she floated in after Maddox. “That’s what’s with the hat.”

  Keith couldn’t help it. He turned sharply to stare at Maddox. He was smart enough to keep any remarks to himself, though.

  “Get us home,” Maddox said, stiffly.

  “Aye, aye, sir.”

  “That was some terrific flying earlier,” Finlay told him.

  Keith grinned. “It was a piece of cake, but I’m glad you liked it. I could have taken out twenty of them with the new pulsar wave—”

  “Lieutenant,” Maddox said, interrupting.

  Keith looked at the captain expectantly. The captain said no more. Finally, Keith got it. The pulsar weapon-system was new, experimental. Finlay was a merc. A Star Watch lieutenant wasn’t supposed to give away fleet secrets to a mercenary.

  “You can sit there,” Keith told the merc. “And you’d better take an injection.”

  “What for?” Finlay asked.

  “We’re going to jump.”

  “In this thing?” she asked.

  Keith glanced at Maddox. The captain was studying something on a screen.

  “This is a fold-fighter,” the ace said.

  Finlay shook her head.

  “Take the injection,” Keith said. “You’ll find out soon enough, and be glad you took it.”

  “Yes, do hurry,” Maddox said. He shut off his screen. “I want to get onto Victory as soon as possible.”

  -17-

  The holoimage Galyan studied the asteroid base.

  He was an ancient AI program run from the engrams of the last Adok starship captain. This had been his command—his starship, once, over six thousand years ago against the Swarm. The insect-like creatures had annihilated his world, detonating it into many floating rock chunks. The Swarm had committed racial genocide against the Adoks. It had left Galyan with a bitter taste, so to speak, against anyone committing genocide against any other race.

  The Adok AI program had many Builder functions within it. Six thousand years ago, the Builders had intervened against the Swarm, although it hadn’t been enough to save Galyan’s race.

  Galyan loved the crew of Starship Victory. Captain Maddox and his wife Meta, Lieutenant Valerie Noonan, Lieutenant Keith Maker, Sergeant Treggason Riker and Doctor Dana Rich were all his best friends. Galyan did not quite feel that way about Professor Ludendorff.

  The Methuselah Man was gone, though, having taken his lover, Doctor Rich, with him.

  Galyan would have liked to know how Dana was doing. The holoimage was quite sure a peeved Ludendorff could take care of himself.

  Galyan stood at a bay window as he peered into space. He used the starship’s sensors to study the Tristano System.

  He had watched Keith perform another fold-fighter miracle. It was the ace’s characteristic move. The tin can was making another fold, bringing Captain Maddox and his mercenary pilot to the vessel.

  There was a lot of comm traffic at the asteroid base. A few ships accelerated away, the most notable being the two bigger spacecraft that had been parked outside.

  Galyan cocked his head. This was interesting. There was a new stream of data flowing from the base. It seemed that some of Chang’s people had just died en masse from exploding heads.

  Obviously, that meant brain implants, since they had all exploded at once…

  Galyan ran an analysis. Methuselah Man Strand had been notorious for using brain implants on his top people. Strand was presently in custody on the Throne World. But that didn’t mean agents in Strand’s former employ couldn’t have used his old methods.

  Galyan ran further computations. Strand had another noteworthy habit. He liked moving about in a cloaked vessel.

  The small holoimage nodded, recalibrating a few ship sensors. He began the time-intensive process of searching the system for cloaked vessels. There was a vast emptiness of space to check. He began the sensor sweep by concentrating on the asteroid base and working outward in a growing cir
cumference.

  ***

  Maddox’s wife Meta was a strong woman from a 2-G planet. But she was also shapely, blonde and a trained assassin. Like Galyan, she stood at a viewing port on Victory. She concentrated on the approaching fold-fighter. Her husband was coming home after a dangerous infiltration mission on Smade’s Asteroid. Meta had been against the mission from the beginning.

  “Why is the captain of a starship going undercover?” she’d asked Maddox a little over a week ago in their quarters aboard ship.

  “Because I’m the best Intelligence field agent here,” Maddox had told her.

  “That doesn’t matter. You’re too important to risk on something like this.”

  “No,” he’d said. “The situation is too critical to let anyone but our best Intelligence operative go undercover.”

  “I don’t like it.”

  Maddox had not said anything to that.

  They had had a furious bout of lovemaking afterward. She’d held him so tightly. He meant everything to her. He was a maddening husband, imperialistic, demanding, far too full of himself and brilliant and strong, with a hidden sensitivity that few ever saw. He loved her. Absolutely, unequivocally. That was the important thing. He would risk anything for her. But he would not let anything stand in the way of his duty. He had a…terrible need to win at whatever he did. He seemed to square off against the universe. His unique nature had marked him, often in an unkindly fashion.

  For one thing, Maddox wanted to kill his father for what the man had done to Maddox’s mother. That didn’t help the captain in the least.

  Meta smiled in relief as she saw the fold-fighter braking as it neared the main hangar bay entrance. Maddox had survived his undercover mission. She wondered what he’d discovered this time.

  She sighed. He’d almost died out there in space. He had—

  Galyan materialized before her. It made Meta jump back while her right hand snaked to the hidden gun on her person.

  “How many times have I told you not to do that?” she demanded.

  Galyan’s eyelids fluttered. “One hundred and thirty-two times in total,” the holoimage answered.