The Lost Secret

by Vaughn Heppner

  “Yes,” Maddox said.

  “I am curious if Balron’s latest activities have drained him of power? Is this a moment for us to strike against him, and how do we achieve that? Are the New Men dealing with another part of this at the second planet?”

  “I don’t know about any of that,” Riker said. “My recommendation is to hit the focal point of the menace, the wreck. In other words, annihilate it while we can.”

  “I like that,” Maddox said, knowing he’d summoned Riker for a reason.

  Ludendorff blinked several times and tore his gaze from the point on the ceiling to regard the others. “Why would Balron want to let Erills into our plane of existence? What does he get out of it?”

  Maddox shook his head.

  “Now that we’ve established that we’re dealing with alien super-science,” Ludendorff said, “I’m beginning to become suspicious of the Yon Soth in the last star system. The so-called moronic Yon Soth might have something to do with all this. Yes… Maybe the great and ancient powers in this part of the Orion Arm have decided we humans are too strong for them. They’ve banded together to use old Builder folly and technology to wipe us out.”

  “What happens to the Ancient Ones after we’re gone?” Maddox asked.

  “I imagine you’re referring to billions of Erills roaming free, as they would have slain us,” Ludendorff said. “The others are ancient and powerful entities. Thus, I’m sure they would think of something.”

  “I’d call that a stretch,” Riker said.

  Ludendorff turned to the sergeant and laughed mockingly. “I know the captain thinks you’re filled with horse sense. I just think you’re a simpleton way above your pay grade. The warped-space bubbles before show us we’re dealing with high-powered oddities. The Yon Soth wasn’t an innocent or even idiotic bystander we had to pass. He’s part of the puzzle working against the continued existence of humanity in all its varied forms.”

  “If that’s true,” Riker said, “these creatures wishing to unleash the Erills upon humanity, it sounds more and more like a Lisa Meyers plot. She wants us extinct. Would she have gone to the Yon Soth or Balron and made a deal?”

  No one answered that.

  “Clearly, we’re in over our heads,” Maddox said. “This is super-science at its worst. I’m beginning to wonder if the Builders, while they ruled, protected this part of the Orion Arm against such entities and finally succumbed against a combination of Yon Soths and others like Balron.”

  “Let’s not get carried away,” Ludendorff said. “Balron has gone to great lengths to alter you and cause us to use the space-warped bubble system. That means he has limitations. Otherwise, why did he seek our aide and go to such lengths to get it? We’re clearly at the heart of the matter, the Library Planet system. The wreck of C.I. Nubilus is in the core of this. Maybe the sergeant has a point there. We should destroy the ancient wreck.”

  “And likewise destroy whatever machine can open a portal between the planes of existence,” Maddox said.

  “You think this machine is inside the Library Planet?” Ludendorff asked.

  “Without a doubt,” Maddox said.

  Ludendorff nodded thoughtfully. “We stopped short of dealing with the Erills at the City of Pyramids not so long ago, of terminating the problem, I mean. It looks like we’re in it here. Either Balron is helping the Erills or desperately trying to stop them.”

  “Why wouldn’t Balron come out and say so in that case?” Riker asked.

  “I don’t have the answer to that,” Ludendorff said. He frowned and turned to Maddox. “Maybe we should coordinate with the New Men.”

  “That’s the problem,” Maddox said. “Do we have an advantage staying hidden from the New Men—are they trying to use the dimensional portal machine? Or is it imperative that we work together on this, combining forces against dreadful aliens?”

  “If we could restore the Tarrypin, Valerie could try to sniff out the answer,” Ludendorff said.

  Maddox chewed that over. Intelligence, knowledge—it often came down to that. If he could hedge his bet just a little with detailed information about what was going on at the Library Planet… “Let’s see what everyone working overtime can do with the Tarrypin. Before I make our next move, I need to know more. And maybe we should transfer to the other side of the third planet, keeping out of sight of the wreck and the star cruisers at the second planet.”

  “Do you mean maybe or are we going to do it or not?” Ludendorff asked.

  Maddox realized he was appearing indecisive. Was that an offshoot of possessing an active sixth sense? Or was he mentally beat after what he’d just been though?

  “I’ll tell you in several hours,” Maddox said. First, he needed a break, a siesta in order to regroup.

  -65-

  Maddox slept longer than he intended, waking up five hours after he’d slumped into bed. He woke up to see Meta sitting in a chair, a blaster in hand as she watched him.

  “Going to kill my nightmares?” he joked.

  “Any bright lights or glimmering balls,” she said seriously.

  Maddox slid out of bed, pulling on some shorts. He straightened and looked over. “Is that Ludendorff’s scatter-light gun?”

  “Yes,” Meta said. “He told me to give it to you once you woke up. Here’s a headband, too,” she said, picking it up off the floor.

  Maddox put on his shirt, pants and boots, combed his hair and put on the headband next, switching it on. Lastly, he examined the scatter-light gun. It looked ordinary enough, with a tiny bulb at the end instead of an open orifice.

  “It has a charge for ninety seconds of continuous shining,” Meta said. “Hold it more than ten seconds on a regular person, and they’ll have a second degree burn at that spot.”

  “It’s regular light?”

  “Oh no,” Meta said. She smiled when he raised an eyebrow. “I asked the professor the same thing. He gave me a similar answer.”

  “Meaning?” Maddox asked.

  “He told me I’m not scientifically educated enough to understand the real answer, and he doesn’t feel like dumbing it down for me either.”

  “Fine,” Maddox said. “As long as it works. I’m surprised he gave it up.”

  “He has a newer, better one,” Meta said. “He told me to tell you that he’s working on light grenades now, for tougher balls of light than Balron.”

  “This will hurt Balron?”

  “It hurt the ball-of-light creature the Yon Soth set at us,” Meta said.

  Maddox nodded. He was feeling more like himself after the five-hour deep sleep. The time in dreamland, or in the past, had drained him more than he’d realized. It had sapped his morale, too. He was determined to move Victory behind the third planet. They’d spent enough time sulking around out here in the Kuiper Belt. First, he wanted to inspect the Tarrypin.

  “Need something to eat?” Meta asked.

  Maddox stomach growled, which told him all he needed to know. “Let’s go to the cafeteria. I can talk to Galyan along the way.”

  ***

  The hangar bay with the parked Tarrypin looked like the proverbial kicked over ant colony. The place swarmed with techs and IT people, with both Andros and Ludendorff helping with the most difficult tasks. Power cables snaked everywhere. Machines whirred or whined, and drills made a constant racket. Half of the Tarrypin lay scattered over the hangar-bay deck.

  Maddox soon cornered Andros. “Well? What’s the prognosis?”

  “Another three days and the darter should be up and running,” the rotund Chief Technician said.

  Maddox pondered that. Three days was too long. “You can’t get it done any faster?”

  “Three days at the earliest, sir,” Andros said.

  Maddox eyed the frantic activity around them. Should he keep all these people here? No, not all of them.

  Maddox sought out the professor, pulling him aside. “The repair is taking too long.”

  Ludendorff nodded. “Three days and the system might
be swarming with Erills.”

  “We don’t know that for sure,” Maddox said, “as we haven’t seen any Erills and haven’t communicated with any.”

  “You told us you’d seen the Builder symbol in your mind. The correct assumption—”

  “You know what they say about assuming,” Maddox said, interrupting.

  “I don’t care,” Ludendorff said. “I believe we’re dealing with invading Erills or something equally deadly. I know you think likewise. Thus, three days is too long. A day and a half might get the Tarrypin running well enough to poke around the second planet and its moons. Of course, the stealth equipment is probably the trickiest and most prone to breakdown, and its breakdown would negate the reason for using the specialty craft.”

  Maddox came to a decision. “Come with me, Professor. I want you on the bridge.”

  “We’re going to jump to the third planet?”

  “Yes.”

  Ludendorff studied the floor at his feet before looking up and nodding. “Are you going to destroy the wreck?”

  “I’m going to jump to the third planet before I make the next decision. Valerie!” Maddox shouted.

  The lieutenant commander hurried to him.

  “I’d like you on the bridge,” Maddox said, “as I’d like your input about what you saw earlier at the wreck.”

  “Yes, sir,” she said.

  Maddox looked around and decided he’d leave Andros down here for now. “Okay. Let’s go.”

  ***

  Victory came out of the star-drive jump three million kilometers from the third planet. It had been a precision jump, with the nickel-iron world used as a screen against the second planet, and with the old wreck across the planetary horizon from them.

  Soon enough, the bridge crew ran through routine scanning. There was nothing out there watching them that anyone could tell.

  Maddox sat in his captain’s chair. He could feel the responsibility weighing on him. They were fifteen hundred light-years from Human Space. There was no one they could turn to for help if the New Men proved hostile. Six star cruisers orbited the second planet. He had his one ship over here. Last mission, he’d worked with his uncle, Golden Ural, on Tortuga and later had asked for help via the Long-Range Builder Communicator. Star Watch had gotten critical information from Methuselah Man Strand, and Ural had been instrumental in that. The information had gone a long way to breaking into the mobile null region. Still, Maddox hadn’t forgotten how Strand had left out key data, the most critical being the existence of the Hormagaunt in the null region. Could he count on the New Men here being helpful or would they be hostile? Clearly, the six star cruisers meant Strand had told them about the Library Planet.

  The weight of responsibility grew heavier. It would be three days until the Tarrypin was operating at full capacity again. Maybe he should sneak to the second planet in a tin can. Keith was the best pilot there was. Of course, star cruisers had far better sensors than a tin can. Star cruisers couldn’t land on a planet, though. The tin can could. Should he have Keith make a spectacular fold, essentially landing on the surface ice of the second planet? That would take great precision. But if anyone could do it, Keith was the man.

  Maddox nodded to himself. Okay, suppose he could get to the surface ice. What then? He still needed to reach the Builder tunnels under the ice. And suppose he reached the subterranean tunnels. What did he think he could do against teams of New Men, the best of them, too, the Emperor’s personal representatives?

  Maddox swallowed in a dry throat. They didn’t have three days. Half-Life had brought them here at this time because things were about to happen, because Balron had wanted them brought here at this key moment.

  Ludendorff and Valerie walked onto the bridge, interrupting the captain’s thoughts.

  “Professor,” Maddox said, “why don’t you use Andros’s science station?”

  Ludendorff went there, sitting.

  Maddox noticed Valerie looking around wistfully. The lieutenant commander seemed homesick. Meta wasn’t here yet.

  “Would you like to run your old station?” Maddox asked.

  Valerie cocked her head and smiled. “I would be delighted, sir.” The lieutenant commander went to her former station, touching the controls as if they were old friends.

  “Should we launch a probe around the planet?” Ludendorff asked.

  “That would be too easily seen by whatever is using the wreck,” Maddox said. “Galyan, go to the planetary horizon and look at the wreck. Can you patch through what you see onto the main screen?”

  “With ease, sir,” Galyan said.

  “Go,” Maddox said.

  Galyan disappeared.

  Moments later, the images on the main screen switched. Maddox and others saw the five-kilometer vessel with its thousands of pods. It was the same old wreck. It drifted, doing nothing in particular. There were no spikes of radiation, no beams of light coming from it.

  Valerie had swiveled around to stare at the main screen.

  Maddox happened to notice. “Is something wrong?” he asked.

  “I’m not sure…” Valerie said. “The wreck seems different from what I saw on the darter’s teleoptics. Not greatly different, but a subtle thing—it seems…the wreck is in better repair than before. Yes…yes, I’m sure of it now.”

  Maddox glanced at Ludendorff.

  The professor manipulated his board. “I’m receiving these images through Galyan—”

  At that point, a beam of light speared from the wreck. The beam seemed to stab straight at the main screen.

  “Galyan, come back!” Maddox shouted.

  Galyan appeared on the bridge, and the holoimage staggered. None of them had ever seen that happen before. “Sir,” Galyan said. “Help me.” Then, the holoimage vanished.

  -66-

  Maddox, Ludendorff and Andros Crank moved into the highest security area of the starship—the ancient AI core. Both Ludendorff and Andros lugged a bag of specialty tools.

  The inner sanctum had great banks of computer equipment and a large holo-imaging machine in the center of the chamber.

  “Do you smell that?” Maddox asked.

  “Of course,” Ludendorff said. “It’s coming from there.” The professor pointed at the large holo-imager.

  Andros nodded as he walked around the towering cylindrical machine. He held a hand-scanner and tapped controls. “Here,” he said, moving the device closer to the machine. “I’m detecting shortages.”

  Ludendorff and Andros went to work, removing plates and then reaching in and extracting burned-out crystals. They replaced some wires and inserted new crystals. When the imager failed to restart, Ludendorff pulled out a comm unit and attempted to link with the main AI computers.

  “Is someone out there?” a disembodied voice asked.

  “Galyan!” Maddox cried.

  “It is good to hear your voice, sir. I can hardly fathom this. Where are you?”

  “At your AI core,” Maddox said.

  “This is marvelous, sir. After all this time—I had given up hope. Is that really you, sir?”

  “It is,” Maddox said. “Professor Ludendorff and Andros are with me. They’re attempting to fix the damage.”

  “Oh,” Galyan said. “That is good news indeed, sir.”

  “I’m surprised you haven’t already analyzed the damage,” Ludendorff said, as he worked from his knees, with his arms inside an access port as he replaced a part in the giant holo-imager.

  “What have you found?” Galyan asked over the comm.

  “Much of your imaging equipment is burned out,” Ludendorff said. “The Hyperion Crystals took the worst of it, I’m afraid.”

  “Oh,” Galyan said. “That is not so bad then. We have replacement crystals. I was afraid there was damage to the main core.”

  “We haven’t looked there yet,” Ludendorff said.

  “That is not very reassuring,” Galyan said.

  “One thing at a time,” Maddox said. “Do you know wha
t happened out there?”

  “Could you be more specific, sir?” asked Galyan.

  “At the wreck,” Maddox said.

  “Oh, the wreck at the third planet,” Galyan said. “Yes. I scanned and found a power flux. Then, I discovered an anomaly a microsecond before the beam or ray of light emanated from the wreck. At that point, I reappeared on the bridge and then lost projection power.”

  “Energy flux, an anomaly,” Maddox said. “Can you put that into perspective for me?”

  “The anomaly was a portal,” Galyan said. “Where the portal went or connected, I do not know. I do believe the power flux poured through the portal. What I mean is that the ray of light did not originate from the wreck itself, but from elsewhere.”

  “From the past?” asked Maddox.

  “I doubt that,” Galyan said. “Sir, I have wondered about something else. It has been ages since I spoke to intelligent life. How much time has passed since the ray of light attack against me?”

  “Uh…” Maddox looked at Ludendorff.

  “It’s been eighteen minutes since you vanished from the bridge,” Ludendorff said.

  “Eighteen minutes…?” asked Galyan. “Are you sure?”

  “Oh, I see,” Ludendorff said. “Don’t you remember the last time you were disconnected from us? How a short time for us seemed like ages for you struck in the AI core?”

  “Yes. I do now. I computed time at computer speeds. It has not been eons then since I last saw you. That is a great relief. I thought everyone I knew in Star Watch was long dead.”

  “None of that, Galyan,” Maddox said. “We’re in the middle of an emergency. This is time for action, not remorse.”

  “You are correct, sir. Let me pull up an ancient—a file. The ray of light did not strike me immediately. What I mean is, I scanned for a time before it struck. It did not strike the darter immediately either when it began to scan. I wonder if Valerie remembers the length of time from first scanning the wreck to when the ray of light attack began against her.”