The Lost Secret

by Vaughn Heppner

  “Darling… What’s the last thing you remember?”

  Maddox looked into his wife’s eyes. The Supreme Intelligence was doing an excellent job of recreating her. This was a trick, right? He couldn’t really be back aboard Victory.

  “What’s the last thing you remember?” Meta pleaded.

  Maddox shrugged inwardly, saying, “I fainted, probably from a loss of blood and the shock of losing my hand.” His throat caught on “losing.” He felt sick all over again. This was too much. He was a cripple—

  “Captain Maddox,” Meta said sharply.

  He regarded her, pulled out of his depression by her voice.

  “Look at this.” Meta yanked the covers, exposing his right side.

  Maddox almost refused to look. He peered down at his arm…and saw his right hand lying on the sheet just as plain as you please. It appeared to be attached to his forearm like normal. He scowled, lifting his arm, examining his hand, moving the fingers. They moved wonderfully and naturally.

  He looked at Meta. “A prosthetic?”

  “What? No! It’s your hand, the one you were born with. The Supreme Intelligence used Builder medical arts. He reattached it. Look. Your forearm is fully restored, as good as new.”

  Maddox looked at the hand again. He moved the fingers and rotated the wrist, trying to detect something off. He peered at the forearm where the Emperor’s saber had sliced. He brought the forearm closer, trying to find even a hairline scar. There was nothing like that, however. His forearm was reattached, and everything appeared to be in excellent working order.

  “Why have I been sleeping so deeply?” he asked suspiciously.

  “Luckily for us, the Supreme Intelligence suggested that might happen. He told you in advance, remember?”

  Maddox shook his head.

  “It’s the aftershock of crossing planes of existence.”

  “You spoke to the Supreme Intelligence?”

  “No, silly, you talked to him. You told me, us, about it and so did Riker and Ludendorff. I still can’t believe what you achieved. It’s…fantastic.”

  “What is?” Maddox asked with a scowl. “What are you talking about? None of this makes sense.”

  Meta stared into his eyes, searching. “Do you feel like walking?”

  He was exhausted, but he said, “Sure.”

  “Then come with me. Seeing is believing. And you have to see this to believe it. Besides, maybe it will help restore your memories.”

  Curious finally, wondering what had happened that he’d forgotten—and wondering if the Supreme Intelligence was better at creating illusions than anyone else he’d met, Maddox sat up and swung his feet off the bed. With Meta’s help, he stood and began shuffling for the exit.

  -91-

  Maddox was exhausted, finding himself unable to walk for long, but Meta insisted on him seeing this. Despite his dislike of it, the captain rode in a wheelchair as Meta pushed him down the ship corridors.

  Meta chatted happily as Maddox acknowledged various salutes from passing personnel. He was beginning to think this was for real. Meta spoke about things the Supreme Intelligence shouldn’t know—unless his subconscious was supplying the information. Maddox pinched his arm. That hurt. His refined sixth sense told him this was reality.

  If that was the case—he tried to remember what he’d forgotten. No. His brain wasn’t cooperating. There was a block or memory hole. “Meta, what else did Ludendorff say?”

  “Excuse me?” Meta asked.

  “The Supreme Intelligence said I might feel aftershocks.”

  “Oh. Yes. You told me that, though, not Ludendorff.”

  “When did I tell you?”

  “When you returned from the Library Planet,” Meta said. “The Supreme Intelligence examined you after the operation. He said you were under great stress and duress, cumulative effects from Balron’s moving you in a microsecond of time and your time in the…what did you call it again?”

  Maddox twisted back to look at her. “Do you think you can trick my memory into cooperating?”

  “It was a worth a try.”

  Maddox faced forward again. That was something his wife would do. Could this be reality?

  “Moving in the harder matter universe or the ultimate plane of existence greatly stressed your body,” Meta said. “Apparently, it took time to take effect. At least, that’s what the professor thinks. You appeared unaffected on the Library Planet and once back aboard the ship, but after the jump—”

  “What a minute,” Maddox said. This was too much. “You mean my fold back onto Victory brought about this condition?”

  “I certainly do not mean that. After the star-cruiser flotilla left, Valerie captained Victory to the Library Planet. Keith brought you upstairs in the tin can, doing it normally, especially after the Supreme Intelligence’s warning. He said we should wait a few weeks or maybe a month before we attempted the jump, giving your body time to recover from the stress of crossing planes of existence. But, you insisted we get home as fast as possible.”

  “How far are we from the Library Planet?”

  Meta said nothing.

  Once again, Maddox twisted around in the wheelchair to look at her. She was absorbed with pushing him. “What aren’t you telling me?”

  Meta glanced down at him, finally appearing worried. “You have to remember something about what happened.”

  “Meta…” he said.

  She licked her lips, halted and stared down at him. “We didn’t just jump. We used a hyper-spatial tube.”

  “What?” Maddox asked. “Tell me it isn’t so. I don’t remember a Builder nexus being near the Library Planet.”

  Meta just looked at him.

  Maddox groaned as he sat forward, pain beginning in his brain. He…he remembered that he’d wanted to speak with the Supreme Intelligence about what Balron had told him. There was a great prize on the Library Planet, one Maddox had yearned to acquire. Now—

  “Where are we?” he asked, panting. “Where did we take the hyper-spatial tube to?”

  “Huh?” Meta asked.

  “Where are we?” Maddox shouted.

  “Home.”

  He turned to her. “Home? You mean Earth?”

  “Yes.”

  “We’re orbiting Earth?” he asked in disbelief.

  “That’s right.”

  Maddox exhaled, blinking, feeling defeated all over again. What was wrong with him?

  “It was the shock of the hyper-spatial jump that put you in critical condition,” Meta said. “It was touch and go for a while. We should have waited for the crossing of planes of existence duress in you to settle.”

  “I almost died?” Maddox asked, his disbelief growing.

  “Yes.”

  Maddox shook his head. “I don’t understand. I—I’m home?”

  “You’re home.” Meta began pushing the wheelchair again.

  Maddox slouched in the wheelchair, feeling sick. He needed to return to the Library Planet. He had to speak to the Supreme Intelligence about what Balron had said. “What happened to my uncle?”

  “Ural stayed with the Supreme Intelligence. You said they have some sort of secret project going on.”

  “Back on the planet…who was with me when I spoke to the Supreme Intelligence?”

  “Riker and Ludendorff,” Meta said. “Don’t you remember anything?”

  “They came with me to the planet. Yes. I remember that. I remember everything until a few minutes after the duel.”

  “Honey, after the operation where the Supreme Intelligence restored your forearm, you bargained with him. You told all of us about it once you returned to Victory.”

  Maddox shook his head, feeling desperate again. He looked back. “Tell me what happened down there…after the operation.”

  “Well, let’s see. Ludendorff asked for medical data to help the Iron Lady. The Supreme Intelligence gladly gave it. He said he wanted Star Watch strong and vigorous. Having her better should help us. The Supreme Int
elligence said the Library Planet would be off-limits for a time, fifty or sixty years. He was working on a project, mainly to get ready for Balron’s return. Ludendorff asked him about the Throne World, and the Supreme Intelligence said he wanted them strong and prosperous as well. We were Builder projects, and thus he was glad to aid each of us, especially as the Spacers appeared to be moving again.”

  “The Iron Lady’s mental health was our great prize?” Maddox asked.

  “Of course not,” Meta said. “It was Ludendorff’s prize. He wanted to restore what he’d taken from her years ago. You asked for something, too. The Supreme Intelligence almost didn’t grant it. He said it was reaching too far. Then you told him that the Builders were responsible for the destruction of the Xerxes System nexus, as Strand had been the culprit and he was a Builder Methuselah Man. We deserved a new nexus. Look how the New Men had one in reach of the Throne World. Star Watch and the Commonwealth should have the easy access to one as well.”

  “A nexus. I asked for a nexus?”

  “The Supreme Intelligence guessed that Balron had told you about it. He said that meant he shouldn’t give it to you. You argued otherwise, saying Star Watch needed one near Earth. In the end, you proved most persuasive.”

  At that point, Meta halted the wheelchair.

  Maddox faced forward, finding they’d stopped at an observation lounge. Outside the window was Earth, the Artic in full view.

  “Meta,” he whispered.

  “Do you remember now?”

  “No. But look at that.” The view amazed him. Luna was in the distance, and a Builder pyramid, a nexus, hung between the moon and the Earth.

  After a moment, Meta said, “The nexus was parked on the Library Planet. It was under tons of ice. The Supreme Intelligence gave it to you, saying it wasn’t as upgraded as most, but it could form a hyper-spatial tube just fine up to two thousand light-years distant.”

  Maddox laughed with sudden delight.

  “Both Victory and the nexus used the special hyper-spatial tube it created,” Meta said. “The Supreme Intelligence beamed us the data to do that, doing so in code so we couldn’t use it again like that, moving the nexus, I mean. The nexus is a permanent fixture here. The Lord High Admiral is waiting to talk to you about it.”

  Maddox laughed again, nodding. The Emperor had gotten a great boon from the Supreme Intelligence. Now it appeared, Star Watch had received something equally huge. For starters, Star Watch could keep the Grand Fleet at Earth, and if an emergency threatened somewhere, the entire fleet could appear there, at least within two thousand light-years. It would take time for the fleet to travel back to Earth via normal jumps, but still—

  Maddox laughed once again. Seeing this made him feel better, better enough that he pushed out of the stupid wheelchair.

  “Do you remember now?” Meta asked.

  Maddox turned to her. He didn’t, but he didn’t mind as much.

  Maybe Meta sensed that. “Your grandmother would like a word with you—when you feel up to it.”

  “Now’s a good time,” Maddox said. “Is she still in the same wardroom are before?”

  “No. She’s in Geneva, Switzerland Sector.”

  Maddox frowned. “I don’t understand.”

  “Mary O’Hara has a job again in Star Watch Headquarters. She’s not head of Intelligence again yet, but for now supervises a subdivision dealing with special alien entities.”

  “Brigadier Stokes still runs Intelligence?”

  “That’s right,” Meta said. “Yet Mary doesn’t work for Stokes, but for the Lord High Admiral. When you’re ready, your grandmother would like a word with you concerning her first project.”

  Maddox turned to the viewing port, deciding he would see her right away.

  -92-

  Keith used a shuttle to ferry Maddox from Victory down to the Geneva Spaceport. It was like old times except that no one attempted to ambush them on the way down.

  At the spaceport, Maddox exited the shuttle and entered a waiting air-car. It took him directly to headquarters, the car landing on a roof pad. Soon, Maddox strode the familiar corridors, taking a detour, however, and entering a different office.

  A female cadet was scribbling on a slate. She was young, painfully so, but had a bright smile as she sat up and then jumped up.

  “Just a minute, Captain,” the cadet said, as she moved to knock on an office door with the sign: BRIGADIER O’HARA.

  Maddox was far from one hundred percent, using a cane—of all things—to lean on because he became fatigued much too easily from simple walking.

  “Brigadier O’Hara will see you now,” the cadet told him.

  Maddox hobbled to the cadet, gathered his strength and picked up the cane, nodding to her as she pushed open the door and moved aside. He strode through as the door closed behind him.

  “Captain,” Mary O’Hara said, standing from her location behind the desk, beaming with obvious delight and pride.

  Maddox stumbled, reached for a chair and grabbed the back, steadying himself.

  “You aren’t well at all,” Mary said. “You should have recuperated longer. I shouldn’t have asked for you so soon.”

  Maddox forced a smile. This was ridiculous. He was far too weak, but he was damned if he was going to give in to weakness now, even as he swayed.

  “Sit, sit,” Mary said, as she hurried around the desk, grabbing one of his elbows and helping him into the chair.

  His grandmother was fit and tanned, having used sunlamps while on Victory. There were lines in her face, and there was the faintest resemblance to him, mainly around the eyes and cheeks. Otherwise, she projected a matronly image with her dyed brown hair. She must have lost weight by exercising constantly while aboard Victory. Mary was well over one hundred years old, but exuded the verve of someone in her fit fifties.

  “I would have stayed with you in medical,” Mary said. “But with the nexus here and the report about events at Omicron Nine—the Lord High Admiral insisted I begin the planning stage immediately. Just so you know, Cook accepted my full bill of mental health, and he’s given me top priority on the project. I think he wants to keep it hush-hush from the general run of Star Watch, though, which is why it’s in my hands.”

  Maddox frowned up at her.

  Mary hovered over him, her right hand lingering on a shoulder. She touched his chin, nodded and returned to the chair behind the desk. She sat and folded her hands on the desktop, leaning toward him.

  “You have no idea what I’m talking about, do you?”

  “Not in the slightest,” Maddox said, as he set the cane over his knees.

  “Galyan visited me constantly during our journey,” Mary said. “You were very busy, I know.”

  “I was distracted by events. I should have visited you more—”

  “I’m not blaming you,” Mary said, interrupting. “Galyan never sleeps. He had the time, opportunity and faith in you to solve my most pressing problem. Thus, he told me everything so I’d be ready to go. Maybe he shouldn’t have done that, but in this case, I’ll overlook the security breach.”

  “Why don’t you start explaining this project from the beginning?”

  Mary leaned back in her chair and looked about the room. She blushed, and she smiled at him. “Thank you for what you did at the Library Planet. You have no idea how much working at what I do best means to me.”

  “I think I have an idea,” Maddox said with a grin.

  “I’m back. I’m really back. I so love having a task, a mission. Stokes has my old post.” Mary grinned at him. “Mike Stokes had better watch himself or I’ll—no, I don’t want to let ambition color my view of things. I have a job, one I love. That’s enough for me.”

  “Meta said something about it, a subdivision in Intelligence.”

  Mary cleared her throat. “I’ll have to redecorate the office. This one is too plain.” She shook her head. “It feels wonderful having my full faculties back, knowing that my thoughts are my own and no one els
e’s. And that no one can eavesdrop on my thinking. It’s been so long.”

  “Too long,” Maddox said, waiting patiently.

  “I’m rambling. That stops now.” Mary put both hands flat on the desk. “I’m a brigadier directly under the Lord High Admiral. I’m a special mission operative-in-chief. I don’t have to report to Stokes, which is good.” Mary breathed deeply.

  Maddox waited, finally beginning to feel better because he was sitting.

  “This is about the Yon Soth,” Mary said. “We’re calling the star system where it lives Omicron Nine.”

  “The system with all the warped-space bubbles?” Maddox asked.

  “That’s the one. Galyan told me how Balron aided the Yon Soth, and through an accident lost much of its ancient intelligence.”

  “That was what Balron told me, at least,” Maddox said. “Who knows if it’s really true.”

  “Well, the Lord High Admiral and I agree that Yon Soths or Old Ones have proven aggressively hostile to Star Watch in particular. It’s also possible that Venna learned about the Omicron Nine Yon Soth. Who knows what she picked up while on the Library Planet? The Spacers allied with an Old One before on the Forbidden Planet, and Venna would tell them about this one if she learned about it.”

  “I remember the last one,” Maddox said. “Batrun the android told us how that one beamed rays at others so they would harm Star Watch.”

  Mary nodded. “I’ve read the reports on that, of course, learning everything Star Watch knows about Old Ones. We are thus proceeding on the assumption that this Yon Soth is hostile to Star Watch and will become more so if we give it the opportunity.”

  “Meaning…?”

  “Let me ask you this,” Mary said. “Do you let a black widow spider spin webs where children play?”

  “I don’t let black-widow spiders live anywhere near humans. They’re deadly poisonous.”

  “Exactly,” Mary said. “That’s how we’re viewing the Yon Soth in the Omicron Nine System.”

  “And your job is to squish it?”