The Lost Patrol (20 page)

-33-

Keith kept glancing over his shoulder at the intense Spacer. She sat on a bench, leaning against the bulkhead, with a vacc suit helmet in her arm.

Shu wore a vacc suit with various pieces of equipment hooked in place. She finally turned toward him, smiling faintly. It made her features radiantly sexy.

Keith grinned at her.

“Lieutenant,” Maddox said sharply, who sat beside him in front.

“No problem, mate,” Keith said, checking his board.

The pilot flew a shuttle from
Victory
. The mighty starship was behind them by several thousand kilometers. In the distance loomed several asteroids. Beyond them shined a bright silver object. It was still too far away to see the distinctive pyramidal shape.

Keith wondered about that. The Builders liked to use pyramids. Hadn’t Valerie said before that the ancient Egyptians had copied the alien visitors? That was crazy, really. It meant some of those wacky theories about space aliens in the distant past were true. Who would have thought it?

Keith studied the piloting board. The captain had told him to be on the lookout for surprises. Back on
Victory,
Galyan also scanned relentlessly.

The small shuttle chamber held him, the captain, Meta, the professor and beautiful Shu 15. The others planned to go inside the pyramid. Keith would stay out here in the shuttle, ready to race back to
Victory
.

Keith looked back at Shu. “I’m Lieutenant Keith Maker,” he said.

The little Spacer smiled at him.

“Nice,” he said.

Meta turned to stare at him.

Keith felt the Rouen Colony woman’s scrutiny. He shoved the feeling down as he told Shu, “I mean your smile is nice. It really lights up your face.”

“Thank you,” Shu said with warmth.

“I’m a straightforward bloke,” Keith said. “I say what I mean.”

“Yes, clearly,” Shu said.

“Lieutenant,” Maddox said.

“No problem, mate,” Keith said, turning forward again.

Maddox cleared his throat.

“Uh, sir,” Keith corrected himself.

Maddox nodded imperceptibly.

For a time, Keith concentrated on the journey. One tiny place in his mind kept thinking of things to say to Shu, though. And he kept wondering if she watched him. He’d heard her sexy voice. She seemed to have recognized his alpha nature. The comment about her nice smile had clearly pleased her. Women ate up remarks like that.

Finally, he couldn’t resist it any longer. He turned his head to find her smiling at him.

“Too bad we haven’t run into each other sooner,” he said.

“I agree,” Shu said. “You seem…”

He glanced back at her, turning further.

“Skilled,” she said, maybe with extra meaning in her voice.

“I am skilled, lass,” he said. “I’m—”

“Heading straight for that asteroid,” Maddox said.

Keith whipped forward, ready to make a quick correction. There was empty void before them. He realized the shuttle was right on course, and that Maddox had said what he did to hinder the conversation.

“No worries—sir,” Keith said.

He made a small correction, replaying their conversation in his head. Did she mean skilled in bed? He’d known a few girls, but he wasn’t a Romeo.

Keith turned back toward her. He needed to say something witty now.

“Captain Maddox,” Ludendorff said. “Why did you insist on bringing a sex-starved pilot with us?”

The words left Keith frozen, staring at Shu with his mouth hanging agape.

“You must be joking,” Shu said. “The pilot is hardly starved. He must be a tiger in bed.”

“Enough,” Maddox said.

Keith was grinning ear-to-ear as he faced forward. That PUA book really knew its subject matter. It had turned him into an alpha man, into a wolf-like lover women could no longer resist. He wasn’t sure what phrase had exactly done that. It must have been the comment on her smile and the way he boldly looked back at her despite the captain’s displeasure with it.

She can sense my dominance
, Keith thought. At the same moment, he realized what it was. He was the pilot running a shuttle. In this, he was the very best. No one could compete against him in this environment, not even the captain. That must have translated into how he held himself, how he spoke to her.

Keith squared his shoulders as a sense of power filled him. He was setting up, readying the woman for his swoop. She would no doubt melt when he pressed her against him later.

The idea turned into a fantasy, one he envisioned with greater intensity.

“Lieutenant Maker,” Maddox said.

Keith snapped out of his daydream. He noticed their velocity was too high. The silver object had grown considerably, to the point where he could see the various sides.

“You said fast, sir,” Keith said in a matter-of-fact voice.

“Adjust,” Maddox told him.

“Aye-aye, sir,” Keith said, manipulating the controls. He threw a quick glance over his shoulder, adding, “This could get bumpy for a second.”

Shu nodded knowingly, seeming to tell him in that nod that he would take perfect care of her.

Keith grinned wider still as the shuttle began to decelerate.

Soon, he forgot about the beauty behind him. Keith began to remember the importance of the mission as the vast silver pyramid grew in size. It was amazing, the thing slowly spinning in place. He’d seen it before, of course, but never this close while in a shuttle. Last voyage, a hyper-spatial tube had appeared beside the pyramid, sucking the starship into it, transporting them one-thousand light years.

The ancient Builders had erected these throughout the Orion Arm. Just how old was the pyramid anyway? Older than anything constructed on Earth, that was certain.

The monument’s age awed the lieutenant. It caused him to gape, but it didn’t shake his flying skills or cause him to forget the task at hand. The Spacer had that effect, but not an alien building.

Keith braked harder but more smoothly. “Where do you want me to park, sir?”

“Any suggestions?” Maddox asked the two passengers.

Ludendorff was busy studying the Nexus.

Shu had a far-off look to her features. “I’m…sensing over there, Captain,” she said, pointing out the window.

“Come here and show me,” Maddox said.

The Spacer unhooked her harness and walked to the piloting area. She put a seemingly careless hand on Keith’s shoulder.

The lieutenant was intensely aware of her hand. She touched him. He felt a sexual thrill begin in his groin and head to his stomach. This would be a delicious bedmate.

Keith glanced up at her.

She must have sensed his alpha stare. She spoke to the captain but found time to glance at him and smile sexily.

Keith had to swallow a laugh of amazement. This woman wanted him. She oozed sexual need. The PUA book almost felt like magic. He hadn’t expected it to work this marvelously.

“Do you see the area?” Maddox asked sharply.

“Sir?” Keith asked.

“Point it out again,” Maddox told the Spacer.

Shu leaned against Keith and she pointed down on his screen. “Can you bring us there?” she asked, turning her face so their lips were a mere few inches apart.

“I can indeed,” Keith said in a raspy reply. He smelled her breath, and felt that he was practically kissing her.

She pushed against his shoulder as she straightened, heading back for her bench.

Keith would have turned around to watch her walk back, but Maddox stared at him. The captain’s face was like ice.

“Uh, heading there, mate, um, captain sir.”

Maddox appeared to want to say something. Whatever it was, he seemed to think better of it and merely nodded.

Keith kept thinking of the Spacer’s touch and the taste of her breath. He wanted to strip her naked and—

His fingers roved over the piloting board as he made quick adjustments.

The shuttle slowed even more, drifting toward the area Shu had shown him. Soon, the shuttle was less than a kilometer from the Nexus. The silver pyramid dwarfed the craft. It would have dwarfed Starship
Victory
. The alien construct was vast.

Maddox rose, taking his helmet. “Remain alert,” he said.

“Aye-aye, sir,” Keith said. “Good luck, sir.”

Maddox nodded.

“Good luck, Shu,” he added.

She faced him, smiling, and said in an impossibly sexual way, “Thank you, Lieutenant. I know you mean it.”

“I do,” he said.

Ludendorff made a sound that Keith couldn’t recognize.

“I won’t forget,” she said.

“Good,” Keith said, boldly staring at her, letting her realize that he was willing to do anything with her.

She turned away as if embarrassed by his masculinity.

The others filed out. Maddox paused by the hatch, staring at him.

“Sir?” Keith asked.

Maddox shook his head before heading out as well, closing the hatch behind him.

Keith grinned, laughing to himself. This was better than he could have dreamed. He was close to having his wish, a wild romance with a stunning beauty. He could hardly wait for the next step in his hunt.

-34-

Maddox sat in a thruster cradle. The others were each in similar vehicles. He followed Ludendorff and Shu, the two of them several hundred meters from each other and him.

The approach to the pyramid reminded Maddox of the alien Destroyer. The vast silver wall did not have the same feeling of evil as the Destroyer had emitted. It did have a sense of grandeur, though, a feeling of incredible age.

Why didn’t planets give off the same feeling? What was it about a constructed thing that gave off such sensations? Was it all in his mind?

The captain didn’t believe that. Something of the essence of the maker oozed from the object. It must have something to do with the age of the thing and the power it held. The Destroyer had contained terrible power to annihilate. The pyramid also possessed incredible power.

Maddox had qualms about this. He didn’t know how to keep Ludendorff from murdering Shu or vice versa. He was counting on the grandeur of the event to forestall some of that. He also wondered if they didn’t both need each other in order to accomplish the task.

Yet, Shu’s Builder abilities might trump everything right now. He should have taken the time to figure out what Ludendorff’s cube did. What was the professor thinking? The Methuselah Man was undoubtedly scheming madly. Maybe the Spacer was doing likewise.

Was the professor right about the Spacers? Did they believe they were the chosen ones? He could well believe it. And yet, the New Men also thought that about themselves. Maybe that was a uniquely human trait. Maybe every human believed he was a chosen individual.

His headphones crackled. “Maddox,” he heard. That sounded like Meta.

He adjusted his cradle, turning it around. Meta sprayed hydrogen gas, increasing velocity to catch up with him. Soon, her cradle moved parallel with him. She waved. He waved back.

“I don’t like this,” she radioed, her words difficult to make out.

“Are you thinking about your time with Kane?” he asked.

“Yes. This brings back painful memories. This place terrifies me.” She paused before adding, “We don’t belong here.”

“Nonsense,” Maddox said. “It’s an ancient artifact, to be sure, but one we can use.”

“Should we use it, even if we can figure it out?” Meta asked.

“If we don’t, we’re just waiting for the Swarm to show up someday and kill us.”

“We didn’t discover the technology. We should use our Laumer Drives and—”

Maddox’s chuckle cut her off.

“Did I say something funny?” Meta demanded.

“We must always strive. Always yearn to understand new things. If we stop, the others will win.”

“What others?” Meta asked.

“Whichever race learns what we were afraid to attempt.”

“Maybe,” she said. “But the Nexus still frightens me. Sometimes, I think there are things out there we’re not ready to find. We’re still too much like children.”

Maddox considered her words as the pyramid grew to titanic size.

Was Meta right? The captain gazed at the gleaming metal. For once, he felt inferior. He’d never been this close to the Nexus before. It was strange. The Dyson sphere should have had this effect on him. It had been vastly larger than the pyramid. Yet the pyramid seemed to shrink his soul the closer he approached. It bewildered the intellect.

Maddox nodded. The pyramid was magical. The Dyson sphere had merely been mechanical.

The captain frowned. Why wouldn’t a Dyson sphere be magical? It had housed an incomparable number of beings. Could something else be at play here?

Shu
, Maddox thought,
maybe she’s projecting these feelings into us
.

The gamble Maddox took suddenly struck him. He worked with people who possessed hidden powers.
The New Men are secretive. The Spacers are secretive. Is that the connection between them?

A slow smile spread across his face. Strand, and to some degree Ludendorff, had created the New Men. The Methuselah Men were the product of a Builder’s modification. The Spacers seemed to have found a Builder—

Maddox made a fist and struck the armrest of his thruster cradle. No one had explained Spacer origins to him. He’d made guesses about their beginnings, nothing more. What seemed clear out here by the pyramid was the similarity of the Spacers’ secrecy to that of the New Men. That implied a Builder trait the aliens couldn’t help but pass on to their creations—secrecy. Were the Spacers an indirect Builder creation, molded by someone modified by a Builder?

How would that change what he already knew about the Spacers? Maybe it didn’t change anything, but it confirmed and clarified what he knew. Ludendorff and Shu could be likened to cousins, maybe distantly related cousins, but beings who thought in similar ways, with deep secrecy that always led them to try to be string-pullers behind the scenes.

As the cradles headed for a distinct area of the pyramid, a hardening resolve grew in the captain. He was a free man who demanded that he think for himself. He did not want anyone manipulating his thoughts, even if they thought they did it for his own good. Maddox resolved to fight for mankind’s freedom of action. The New Men weren’t going to rule them as superior humans. The Spacers weren’t going to nudge humanity onto this road or that one with their secret ploys. That meant humanity had to cut the Builder strings trying to pull them onto secret paths.

Maddox could almost
feel
the Builders out there, tugging on this thread or gently pulling on that one.

The captain eyed the professor’s cradle and then Shu’s. He couldn’t allow either of them to dominate the other. Yet they were about to enter a structure where he would be the child in terms of understanding.

He took a deep breath. He could not match these two in understanding. He was going to have to go primitive and trust his instincts, his feelings. Maddox did not like that. He preferred logic and reason. But when entering the realm of magic, gut feelings could prove to be the logical thing to do.

“Start decelerating,” Ludendorff radioed. “Shu has chosen the entrance. We’re about to enter the Nexus. It’s time we closed up and tethered our cradles.”

“Have you ever been inside before?” Meta radioed.

Ludendorff’s silence seemed ominous.

Maddox adjusted his thruster cradle. As the hydrogen spray slowed his velocity, he checked his hand-held beamer. If one of those two tried to double-cross the team, the captain was determined to kill him or her.