The Lost Secret

by Vaughn Heppner

  “Is he in your care?” asked Ural.

  Javed stared before he shook his head, the crazy smile draining away. “The Emperor left the shuttle. He went outside with Shane and Tarl.”

  “And who else?”

  “If you launch the missile strike,” Javed said. “Shane and Tarl will kill the Emperor.”

  “You’re wrong,” Ural said. “The Emperor is already dead. I saw his corpse in his bedchamber.”

  “No. That was a droid double.”

  Despite his growing impatience, Ural raised an eyebrow.

  “Just a moment,” Javed said, as he leaned forward and tapped a panel. “Ah. Venna would like a word with you. Are you ready to receive?”

  Ural closed his eyes, fearing this moment. Venna was Lisa Meyers’ spy.

  “Are you ready?” Javed asked again.

  “Just a moment,” Strand said. “Golden Ural, if I could make a suggestion?”

  Ural nodded.

  “Add a Class Three-A filter to the communications,” Strand whispered.

  Ural pointed at the comm officer. “Did you hear that?”

  “No, sir,” the comm officer said.

  “Tell him,” Ural said.

  Strand went to the comm station, telling the officer what he’d told Ural.

  “Done,” the officer said shortly.

  On the main screen, Javed’s image and the shuttle background changed, becoming darker.

  “I’m ready,” Ural told Javed. “Patch her through.”

  Javed grinned nastily as he pressed a switch and looked up. His image wavered.

  In its place, Venna appeared. She wore a heavy spacesuit minus the helmet. A tight cap hid her glorious hair. On the front of the cap at her forehead a familiar ruby glittered. It glittered more as Venna stared at Ural.

  “Are you ready for this?” Venna asked in a sensual purr.

  Ural glanced at the Methuselah Man, who had returned to stand by the captain’s chair.

  “It’s a trademark Spacer ruby,” Strand whispered as he leaned near. “Lisa Meyers loves using them. It has a hypnotic effect, more powerful on some than others.”

  “Is that the Methuselah Man talking to you?” Venna asked.

  “Never mind about him,” Ural said. “What have you done to the Emperor?”

  “Ah, Strand told you to use a filter. I should have realized. Well, it was worth another try.” Venna inhaled, as she seemed to switch mental gears. “Since you ask about the Emperor, you must already know that I’ve taken him with me. If you strike the shuttle, if you send any shuttles down after us, the Emperor dies.”

  “How did you convince Shane and Tarl to aid you in such treachery?” Ural asked.

  Venna laughed in a sultry manner. “If I would have had the chance alone with you, it would be you helping me, Ural darling. Don’t you want to lay with me? Don’t you want to entwine in love?”

  “Don’t stare at the ruby or her eyes for too long,” Strand warned. “Even with the filter, they’ll have an effect.”

  Ural nodded, avoiding doing so. The trouble was that he still longed to stare into Venna’s eyes. She was right. He kept thinking about how she’d looked that day on the corridor floor, her wonderful charms in full view for him to see. If he could get her alone—

  “Ow!” Ural cried, rubbing his shoulder, turning and seeing Strand put away a slender device. “What did you do to me?”

  “Shocked you,” Strand said. “I told you not to stare, and the filter is helping, but she clearly attached her hooks into you before this.”

  It was on Ural’s lips to say that he didn’t know what Strand was talking about, but he was beginning to understand all too well.

  “Where are you?” he asked Venna.

  “We’re in the tunnels, darling. I’ve used a relay back to the shuttle. It’s dark down here and quite cold. If I leave the Emperor in his present state, he’ll freeze to death in minutes.”

  “Let me talk to him,” Ural said.

  Venna laughed, it was such a beautiful sound, and her teeth were so white and tantalizing.

  “She’s using sex as a weapon,” Strand warned. “That is what lets me know Venna is a Lisa Meyers agent.”

  “How did you arrive on the Throne World?” Ural asked Venna.

  “Oh, darling…” Venna said. “It’s a secret. But if you truly want to know, come down alone and we’ll rut like dogs until you force me to tell you.”

  Ural turned away. She’s a spy. She’s an enemy. She has her hooks in you. You are Golden Ural. No one can control you, not even the luscious sexpot on the screen.

  Steeling himself, he regarded her, saying, “You’ll never leave the Library Planet alive.”

  “Of course I will, darling. It won’t be on your star cruiser, but I will leave.”

  “Lisa Meyers is coming here?”

  Venna laughed, with a gleam in her luscious eyes.

  “How do you plan on returning the Emperor to us?” Ural asked.

  “Once I’m gone, you can come and get him.”

  “What happens to Javed Kir?”

  “What do you care?” Venna frowned. “But you do care. I wonder why. Tell me why, Ural darling.”

  “Because—” Ural cried out again, rubbing his shoulder once more. “Quit doing that,” he told Strand.

  “Once you start obeying her orders, it gets easier and easier until you’re her slave,” Strand said.

  Ural looked up at the main screen at a listening Venna. “Is she really a Lisa Meyers agent?” he asked.

  “I’m not sure,” Strand said. “Either that or a Spacer agent.”

  Ural watched Venna’s reaction. She didn’t have one. “What if I don’t care that you slay the Emperor? What if I want to stop you more than anything else?”

  “Darling, I know you better than that. Remember, I’ve searched your secret heart’s desire. I’ve done the same to others. It’s why Shane, Tarl and Javed Kir joined me.”

  “You’re having a group orgy?” Ural asked in a hoarse voice.

  Venna laughed. “Poor Ural, you just told the others what you really want, and that’s me. Shane and Javed Kir don’t want me most of all, although Tarl is quite hungry. Does that make you jealous, darling?”

  Ural swallowed uneasily. It did, but he didn’t want to admit it, at least not openly.

  “She’s a witch,” the Elder-Advisor said.

  “No,” Strand said. “She’s clever, and she has the use of some highly refined tools. Whoever trained her did an excellent job of it.”

  “But,” Ural said. “The Emperor has been using her all this time.”

  “You mean he’s been screwing me,” Venna said. “That’s all you think about, isn’t it, Ural? Screwing me to your heart’s content. How you long for that.”

  Ural tore his gaze from her.

  “Poor Ural,” she said. “But the truth is that the Emperor hasn’t been using me. I’ve been using him. Haven’t you noticed a change in him this past year? Hasn’t he frolicked naked many times?”

  “What does that have to do with you?” Ural asked.

  Venna laughed with delight. “Because he did it for my amusement. Don’t you see, darling, he’s my toy, my plaything.”

  “I don’t believe you.”

  “It doesn’t matter. Oh, look, the lights are coming on.” Behind her, a lit tunnel appeared. She smiled at Ural. “I’m here at last, my destination. If you’re good, I’ll return your Emperor to you. If not, he dies and I still get what I want. Pity, though, as you won’t get what you want, Ural darling. You’ll pine away for me…oh, until you die. Dream about me, darling, because you’ll never have me any other way.”

  Ural stood, and he pointed at her—

  Her image vanished from the main screen.

  Ural turned to the comm officer.

  “She cut the connection,” the officer said.

  Ural sat down slowly. Then he swiveled toward Strand and then Elder-Advisor. “It’s time the three of us talked.” He point
ed to the ready room. “Follow me please, gentlemen.”

  -56-

  Ural sat behind the Emperor’s desk in Star Cruiser Shapur’s ready room. On the bulkheads were portraits of ancient warriors in various states of armor. There was Sargon of Akkad, Pharaoh Thutmose III, Cyrus the Great, Alexander the Great, Ci’in Shih Huang, Hannibal Barca riding a war-elephant, Julius Caesar, Attila the Hun and Flavius Aetius the Last Roman.

  Strand stood before the bust of a gladiator while the Elder-Advisor sat before the desk.

  “Let’s get to it,” Ural said. “We have no idea who might show up to help her or what the spy might uncover down there. First, Strand. How long have you known about Venna?”

  “The question implies I have known she was a spy for some time,” Strand said.

  “That’s right.”

  “No. I surmised it was her when I saw the droid body less than an hour ago.”

  “You must have recognized the ruby as a tech-tool earlier than that,” Ural said.

  “True,” Strand said. “I thought the Emperor was trying to lure you into a trap. You passed each time. I thought it indicated you had great mental reserves. Watching your pathetic performance just now has changed my opinion.”

  “I wonder if you’ve been aiding her,” Ural said.

  Strand laughed.

  “I’m inclined to believe the same thing,” the Elder-Advisor said.

  “You would,” Strand told the advisor. “But out of jealously for my exalted station. The Emperor trusts me more than he does you.”

  “While the latter is true,” the Elder-Advisor said, “it is now clear the Emperor has been under the spy’s influence, at least to a degree. I suspect it was in the spy’s interest that you become exalted. The Emperor might change his mind about you once released and given the facts.”

  “Before we go there,” Ural said. “I want to know how Venna gained admittance onto the Throne World. She’s been a harem girl for years; at least, such is my understanding.”

  “Bah,” Strand said. “The real Venna probably was—has been a harem girl for years. That woman you saw on the main screen is not the same Venna, though.”

  “Meaning what?” asked Ural.

  “That the spy, agent, whatever you want to call her, slew the real Venna and took her place,” Strand said.

  “How?”

  Strand shrugged. “It’s a good question. Through use of a stealth ship would be my guess. How she got down to the Throne World I mean. She must have had help infiltrating the Emperor’s harem, and she must have had help molding her features to impersonate the original Venna.”

  “Is all that possible?” Ural asked the Elder-Advisor.

  “Is all what possible?” the Elder-Advisor asked.

  “Dropping from a stealth ship onto the Throne World?” asked Ural.

  “You would know that better than I,” the Elder-Advisor replied.

  Ural scowled at the large desk. In his mind, he replayed some of the events of the last hour. He scowled harder and finally eyed Strand. “Is she a Lisa Meyers agent or a Spacer spy?”

  “In truth…” Strand shrugged. “I don’t know for certain.”

  “You seemed certain when you told the captains she was a Lisa Meyers agent. What changed your mind?”

  Strand snorted. “Nothing changed my mind. Certainty—or having the appearance thereof—is a prime ingredient when trying to sway a group. Or is that news to you?”

  Ural stared up at the ceiling.

  “How Venna the spy reached the Throne World and the Emperor’s harem isn’t as important as deciding what to do now,” Strand said. “We don’t need a dreamer, Ural, but a man of action to lead us.”

  Ural regarded the two. They were each considered sage. How far could he trust Strand the schemer, the Loki of a Methuselah Man? Strand had been a prisoner of years not so long ago. Now, Strand was sitting in the highest council of the flotilla before the ancient Library Planet. What prize did Venna desire? What was the spy after?

  “You’re right,” Ural told Strand. “Action today is critical, but it’s just as critical we perform the correct action. What does Lisa Meyers want from the Builder planet?”

  Strand sighed. “Ural—Golden Ural—we don’t know if Venna is a Meyers or a Spacer agent. I think those are the two most likely options. Clearly, there is something down there the spy wants. I suggest she knows exactly what she’s after, and that puts her ahead of us.”

  “We need the ancient genetic information,” Ural said.

  “Yes, yes, of course we do,” Strand said. “You’re saying we know what we’re after. Unfortunately, I’m not sure where on the planet to find it, but that wasn’t my point. Don’t think of Venna as the harem girl with extra powers. She’s brilliant to have pulled off what she has. I could almost admire her gall and timing. It’s exquisite. Perhaps we should expect her to be a Spacer adept with extra abilities due to Builder implants inside her. Or perhaps she’s a Spacer adept mercenary that Meyers hired.”

  “Enough!” Ural said. “We must act. I want to save the Emperor, but even more, I don’t want our enemies stealing a march on us. We must send teams down.”

  “Sadly, I agree,” Strand said.

  “Why would you be sad?” the Elder-Advisor asked Strand.

  “The Emperor conditionally released me from prison,” Strand said. “I owe him, and I like to pay my debts. Isn’t there some way we can do this without giving them a pretext to murder him?”

  Ural leaned back in his chair. This was a tactical problem, and he excelled at those. The landed shuttle was on the ice and would have limited sensors. He snapped his fingers. He had an idea, but it would depend on what type of fighters the Emperor kept in the Shapur’s hangar bay. It was time to find out. Then it was time to make a plan and execute it. Venna—the spy—had gotten the jump on them. Now, she was going to have to contend with the greatest soldiers in the Orion Spiral Arm.

  -57-

  As Ural, Strand and the Elder-Advisor made their plan, Starship Victory entered a hyper-spatial tube.

  The ancient Adok vessel left the star system with the outcast and moronic Yon Soth hidden under the worn-down nubs of pyramids, and it left the fifteen-diameter automated ship firing a heavy beam across 150,000,000 kilometers, a warship likely belonging to the Sovereign Hierarchy of Leviathan. Victory left the system with the holed Builder nexus with its incredible dampener field and shot across hundreds of light-years in seconds while in the tube.

  By the normal laws of physics, the journey should have been impossible. But the Builders had discovered a secret, using it to create a great network of nexuses that had allowed them to crisscross vast distances in a fraction of the time regular travel would have taken. Perhaps as marvelous, the hyper-spatial tube bypassed the laws of the speed-of-light that would have meant hundreds and even thousands of years would pass due to time dilation.

  Victory raced through the tube, spit out in a stellar place—

  As had happened on many previous occasions, Captain Maddox was the first to stir as he recovered from hyper-spatial-tube lag. He blinked several times and swallowed what might have become a groan. It took him seconds to realize that he… he…

  I’m on the bridge. He was sitting up and now sagged back in relief. He was on the bridge and…

  “Galyan? Can you hear me?”

  The Adok holoimage did not answer and did not appear.

  Maddox shoved up from the chair and staggered to Andros. The captain panted from the exertion, and his head began to throb.

  Right, right, we escaped the laser beam.

  Others began to stir on the bridge. Meta had a bloody nose. Andros’s ears ached. Keith tested his left hand, stretching the fingers and then moving the forearm as he touched his elbow.

  “Captain,” Galyan said.

  Maddox turned around.

  “We have arrived,” a fuzzy-looking Galyan said.

  “Do you know where?” asked Maddox.

  “No. Should I ask
the professor—?”

  “Never mind about him,” Maddox said, interrupting. “Get a fix on some stars you recognize. Triangulate and determine how far we are from Earth and in what galactic region. Then, using the last star system as your guide—”

  “I have your answer,” Galyan said.

  “Your eyelids didn’t flutter,” Maddox said.

  “It wasn’t a difficult computation, sir. Would you like to know where we are?”

  Maddox stared at Galyan.

  “We are one thousand, eight hundred, seventy-six light-years from the last star system, and in the general direction of the main Builder Dominion,” Galyan said.

  “We’re in the Library Planet system?”

  “The professor did not give me the specifics regarding the system, but I am viewing a winter world in the inner system. The star is a red dwarf—”

  “Galyan!”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Get the professor. I want him up here. Tell him to hurry.”

  Before Galyan disappeared, a small blue metal object the size of a hardball beeped, beeped again, and floated up off the floor until it was hovering near the ceiling.

  “Half-Life,” Maddox said. “Galyan, stay a moment.” The captain walked to his seat, picking up the fallen blaster there. The weapon was still at its highest setting.

  Half-Life beeped for a last time and then projected a ray, which produced a holoimage head of a wolfish Ardazirho alien. The alien looked around and then said, “Grok.”

  “What’s that mean?” asked Maddox.

  The holoimage head opened its fanged maw and series of beeps and whistles sounded. Finally, it spoke. “Hello, Captain. We survived the hyper-spatial-tube voyage.”

  “Are you okay?” asked Maddox.

  “I have just experienced hyper-spatial-tube lag. It is my first time. While I understand the concept, it is different to experience it. Is it always this bad?”

  “No. You get used to it.”

  “I am relieved to hear that,” Half-Life said.

  “Why?” asked Maddox. “Do you expect to travel through more hyper-spatial tubes?”