The Lost Patrol (27 page)

“What choice do we have?” Meta asked Maddox. “The mines are accelerating toward us. If we can’t restart
Victory,
we’ll die.”

Maddox nodded. “We need Shu’s help. We’re going to have to revive her.”

-45-

“Why do Spacers wear goggles all the time?” Maddox asked.

The captain and the professor stood in the tiny medical chamber looking down at the unconscious Shu.

“I don’t understand the custom or know if there is something more to it,” Ludendorff said. “But I can tell why she does. The Surveyor is blind without them.”

“Was she born blind?”

“I imagine it was part of the price for her Builder devices. From what I’ve been able to gather, the installation is a lengthy process filled with ceremonies.”

“You can’t mean they blinded her on purpose.”

“Of course I mean that,” Ludendorff said. “I imagine her blindness helps her use the devices.”

Maddox found the idea revolting. To voluntarily allow someone to blind you… Unconsciously, he reached for his revolver.

“Never forget they’re fanatics,” Ludendorff said. “For all their peaceful talk, they’re cultists following a strange religion toward nefarious ends.”

“If their god is a mummified Builder…”

“I don’t know that the ancient Builder is their god. They follow the Spirit, remember?”

Maddox nodded, wondering if they meant the Creator when they said Spirit, or if they meant something else.

“Perhaps the mummified Builder was a prophet,” Ludendorff said. “Maybe that’s not even the correct way to say it. Whoever mummified the Builder is or was the true source of their ideas.”

“This situation is strange beyond any of my expectations,” Maddox said quietly.

“The universe throws us a million curves, my boy. It’s never quite how you expect it to be. That’s partly what the word alien means. In any case, have you devised a strategy to win her over?”

“I’m going to tell her the truth,” Maddox said.

“Oh my, you’re a gambler, aren’t you? Most people abhor the truth, however piously they say they want to hear it. Might I suggest another route?”

Maddox waited for the professor to tell him.

“Pretend to have great fear,” Ludendorff said. “Ask for her forgiveness and tell her you’ll do anything she says, just help us survive.”

“She won’t believe that from me.”

“Perhaps not, but it would be enjoyable watching you grovel for a change.”

Maddox stared at the professor, realizing that the man had been attempting a joke. Once again, he noticed the strain in the old man’s face. It brought home yet again their aloneness out here in the Deep Beyond. They had traveled farther than any human, leaving all hope of help far, far behind. Whatever happened, everything depended on their actions. Therefore, he needed a sharp Methuselah Man, not a frightened one. What was the best way to soothe him?

“You’re a complicated man, Professor,” Maddox said, deciding a compliment would do the most good.

“That’s true,” Ludendorff said. “Well, I’ll leave you with her. Remember, my boy, we’re all counting on you. If you fail…”

Maddox nodded.

The professor squeezed out of the medical chamber, closing the hatch behind him.

Maddox studied his opponent. She looked so small, so frail lying there. It was a lie. She was one of his most wily foes. Had the Visionary chosen Shu for that reason? Yes, that seemed likely.

The captain composed himself. The Spacers were stranger than the New Men. Maybe he felt that way because he shared many of the failings of the golden-skinned supermen. He didn’t like that about himself, but maybe out here in the Deep Beyond he could finally admit it to himself.

He shook his head. It was time. He gave her the injection. She was going to be groggy. Maybe that would be the best time to get her to act, before she realized the significance of her actions. Would she make critical mistakes then, though? The possibilities were too high. He would have to figure out a different avenue.

Soon, the Spacer groaned.  “My mind hurts,” Shu slurred.

“You had an accident,” Maddox said.

His thoughts returned to what Ludendorff had said about hyper-spatial stress. Earlier, he’d acted more harshly than he would have under normal conditions. Might the same be true for her? Was she truly as fanatical as Ludendorff said?

“We had to sedate you,” Maddox said.

“That…doesn’t make sense.”

“You went wild, detonating one of our drones.”

She raised a hand as if to show him something. “Why is my little finger in a cast?”

“I accidently broke it while trying to subdue you.”

She shifted her head to stare at him. “That isn’t what happened.”

“No?”

“You deliberately broke my finger. You did it as torture.”

He shifted course on the spot. “You’re right. I went too far. The professor says I did it due to hyper-spatial shock. I imagine the same thing happened to you. Maybe if we started over, that would be the best all around.”

She seemed to consider that. “Do you believe the Methuselah Man?”

“Not about everything. Sometimes, though, he speaks the truth.”

“Only when he’s trying his hardest to lie,” she said bitterly.

This was where they could bond—over their mutual distrust of the professor. He would come clean, as it were, speaking honestly and directly in a show of solidarity. Would it sway her?

“Shu,” he said, “we destroyed the three alien vessels. To do so, we had to trick the Swarm mines. The surviving mines are now coming after us. We’re going to pass
Victory
in a few hours. It will be the only time we’re in range of the starship.”

Her manner sharpened, her recovery time surprising him. “You mean I’ll be in range,” she said.

He only hesitated a moment, as if the truth tore itself free from him. “Yes.”

“You want me to save you.”

“I do.”

“As soon as I do that, you’ll sedate me again. So how does my helping you help me?”

Maddox inhaled to speak.

“Please,” she said, “don’t try to lie to me. We’re enemies. You deliberately maimed me. I can never trust you again.”

It was time for Plan C, he realized. “Are you so eager to die?” he asked.

She thought about that, finally saying, “No.”

“Then let us work together.”

She stared at him. “What guarantee do I have that you won’t kill me after I help you?”

“What guarantee would you like?”

“You will all have to go into the cargo hold,” she said. “I will have sole control of the shuttle until we reach the starship.”

Was he reading her correctly? Maddox believed so. Thus, he would wield honesty like a knife, striking for the kill. He said, “I’ll save us time. No. I don’t agree to that.”

Shu gave him a strange smile. “If you had said yes, Captain, I would have known you were lying. The fact that you told me the truth so quickly… Your word will suffice as a guarantee.  However, if I help you onto
Victory
, you must allow me to remain awake afterward.”

Maddox nodded.

“And,” she said. “You must swear to let me retain my adaptations.”

Maddox thought about Ludendorff’s cube. He hoped it could do something to hinder the Spacer’s inner devices.

“I agree,” Maddox said.

“Then let’s get started,” Shu said. “We’re almost out of time as it is.”

-46-

Driving Force Galyan of the Dominion Guard Fleet stirred. Had he been sleeping? He felt groggy, his intellect sluggish. There had been a tunnel of some sort. That seemed most odd, though. When had he as the Driving Force of the Fleet ever gone underground?

Something pricked his mind. It hurt in a sinister way. Something alien—

With a start, Galyan came to greater awareness and a desire to rise up from his sleeping cubicle. His dear mate—

Galyan halted that line of thought. A terrible…thing right around the corner waited for him. It was an ugly truth, a hideous destiny that he didn’t want to remember. Thus, he had shied away from it.

He was conscious again, which meant he must have been sleeping. Yet, he couldn’t remember his dreams. That was most strange. He always remembered his dreams. His love mate commented on that all the time.

In his thoughts, Galyan smiled. He would get up in a moment. He would chirp for his love. She would hurry to him and they would embrace tenderly.

He loved his mate. She was soft to the touch and smelled delightful. It was true she argued with him too often, but in the end, they made up. Their entire time together, she had goaded him to strive for excellence and higher rank. Because of her clever strategies, he had scaled the command slots in the Dominion Guard Fleet. He had passion. She had great sense.

Oh, yes. He was the Driving Force of the Fleet. Galyan knew he had to maintain his stern manner at almost all times. But not with his love. He was going to get up in a moment and embrace her. Maybe today they should try once more to sire a youngling. His mate often prayed at the sanctuary, begging the Light to remove her stigma of barrenness. Together, they would sire a little one to carry on their genes throughout the centuries. The Adoks—

“Galyan,” a female voice called.

Galyan opened his eyes and sat up on the sleeping cubicle. The entranceway to the sleep chamber darkened as a female slipped within.

Galyan studied her. She had a perfect cylindrical body and her slender arms moved seductively. Her eyes were dark blots, and her smoothness—

“You are not my dear mate,” Galyan said sharply. His darling had imperfections on her torso, slight blemishes. Once, those had disquieted him. Now, he delighted in her uniqueness.

“Galyan, honey,” the female said. “I am the one you desire. I am perfect.”

“In form that is so,” Galyan admitted.

“Then let us tangle together on the bed of desire.”

“I am waiting for my legal mate.”

“She is gone. Thus, we are free to entwine.”

“That is not so. I am not free. I already have a mate. Only she will I join in tangling.”

“Galyan, it does matter that she is gone, far beyond retrieval. She would want you to feel the pleasure of entwining. Do you not miss tangling together?”

Galyan pondered that. He had a great appetite for love. His dear mate had remarked on that many times. He loved to tangle with her every chance he had. Yet…it seemed he hadn’t for a long, long, long time.

That was most odd. What would cause such a situation? He was fully functional in that department—

No! He was not fully functional there. Had an enemy lopped off his sexual organs? The idea caused extreme anxiety, making his arms wiggle until he noticed all the lovemaking organs were indeed intact.

“We will love,” the female told him in a voice clicking with sexuality. “We will entwine in exotic ways.”

“But my mate…” Galyan protested.

“She is gone.”

“What does that even mean?” Galyan said with urgency.

“Driving Force Galyan, do not be alarmed. I wish to give you what you most desire. You need only entwine with me, and we shall know passion as you’ve never imagined it could be.”

Galyan turned away from the seductress. His dearest mate was gone? Is that what this perfectly formed female was trying to say? Why would his mate leave him? Had they argued? Had they forgotten to make up in a night of loving tangling?

Galyan felt as if he couldn’t breathe. His heart ached. His vision blurred.

“Galyan my love,” the female said, “don’t be that way. Let us entwine.”

Galyan was torn by her seductive clicks and whistles. Part of him wanted to forget his pain in the forceful power of sexual engagement. He would make an Adok in his image with her. Yet, another part knew he could never dishonor his beloved mate in such a manner. And a third portion of him—a tiny, nagging doubt—told him all wasn’t as it seemed.

Galyan submerged his thoughts. As he did, he heard the conniving female trying to lure him back.

What was this truth? What did he need to acknowledge? The seductive female said his dearest mate had departed. He must find out if this was so or not. He had to win his love back. He had to—

Galyan acted, trying to find—

As he tried to move, he found himself enmeshed in a world of flashes and electrical impulses. This made no sense. He was awake. He sensed correctly. Yet—

More images flashed upon his awareness. He saw giant maulers in orbital space pouring beams onto the Adok Homeworld. He saw boxlike fighters zooming in their millions.

“Dearest Mate!” Galyan shouted. “Where are you? Why can’t I see your precious form?”

Driving Force Galyan saw himself as flesh and blood. He stood on his ship, snapping orders with brutal passion. He would destroy the enemy that was killing everything he loved.

“What is this?” Galyan shouted. “Am I going mad?”

A lovely female in a seductive service uniform walked through an entrance onto the bridge. She clicked in sexual ways, demanding that he go into the Cloak Room so they could entwine in fierce love together.

“Who are you?” Galyan demanded. He said it loudly, and yet, none of the other officials turned to stare at him.

“I am for you, Driving Force,” the perfect female said.

“Why don’t the others hear you?”

“They can’t.”

“Why can’t they?”

“You are hiding in a recording, Galyan. You have to come out of there so we can entwine.”

“This is reality.”

“No. It is a recording. You’re…”

“What were you going to say?” he shouted, terrified of her words.

“Entwine with me. Forget your burdens.”

“The acolytes in the sanctuary deplore such sinful actions,” Galyan said.

“Who cares what they think? They’re all dead and gone anyway.”

Galyan looked up at the screen. He saw his homeworld die in a hell-burning holocaust of a million explosions.

Screaming, Galyan turned, running through the Driving Force’s special exit. He did not emerge in his chamber, but in another weird jumble of electricity and flashing lights. He raced away, diving deeper and deeper.

He was alone, all alone in the stellar night. He had lost his lovely mate. He had lost his people. The Swarm had invaded his star system.

“I am a living relic of my people,” he whispered to himself. “They imprinted my engrams. I ceased existing as myself over six thousand years ago.”

A terrible loneliness swept through Galyan. It brought such grim pain. Alone, alone, alone, he was horribly alone without friends, without love, without meaning or purpose or—

“Captain Maddox,” Galyan whispered. “He is my friend. Valerie, Meta, Dana, Keith and Riker, they are my family. I am the last of my kind, but I have a family.”

“Galyan,” the perfect female called. “Where are you, Galyan? Let us delight ourselves by entwining in lust. What else is left?”

“I must wake up,” Galyan said. “My family could be in trouble. I must work to the utmost for honor and for—

“Love,” he said.

In that moment, Galyan strove for full alertness. He surged into the barely-operative Adok artificial intelligence systems. He added power here, opened a channel there.

With sudden clarity, he realized the journey through the hyper-spatial tube had gone badly awry. The process had done something to him, putting him in some kind of suspended animation. It had done likewise to the entire crew.

What, then, had woken him?

Yes, yes, he was beginning to understand. He was fighting an alien presence trying to hinder his recovery. It was a clever entity. It knew far too much. By degrees, Galyan realized the alien presence was human, just as his family members were human.

How could a human attack him inside the computing core?

The Spacer is doing this with her Builder devices. That must mean she holds my family captive.

A ruling resolve beat through Galyan. He must save his family. He had failed to save his people, his dear mate and his world. If he failed again, he would be all alone in the night once more. The thought of that was unbearable. Above all else, he must save his family.

Galyan never wanted to be alone again.

With increased vigor, Galyan began to fight the clever Spacer. He learned as he turned on new AI systems and pulled his intellect out of other systems at the last moment. The Spacer tried to trap him. She tried to reroute his codes. This Spacer was incredibly smart and deceitful.

Galyan realized that if he’d entwined with her, she would have used that moment to enslave him to her will. More than ever, he was glad he obeyed the lawful rules as laid down in the sanctuary, had chosen to obey them now and always. Those rules had brought him life. Disobeying them would have brought him death and destruction.

That must be a lesson. Yes, Galyan believed so. He filed that away, deciding he would ponder it later.

As Galyan fought his lonely war against the Spacer, he remembered something Captain Maddox had told him before. To win a war, to win any fight, in fact, one eventually had to go on the offensive.

If he was going to defeat the clever Spacer, Galyan had to take the battle to her.

At computer speed, Galyan began to test ideas and theories. He started to probe into areas of the computing core she already controlled. System by system, he won back entire areas.

Galyan almost laughed. This was intense. He fought for everything. Yet, this was fun. He was enjoying himself greatly, and he wondered if this was what Captain Maddox felt while winning his contests. No wonder the captain loved intrigue and challenges so intensely. Without them, life became boring.

Galyan realized a new truth. Since becoming friends with Captain Maddox, his life had become exciting. Who had a better friend?

“No one,” Galyan said.

“What was that?” the perfect female asked.

This time, Galyan saw more truly than ever. He stood on the bridge of Starship
Victory
as a holoimage. The others on the bridge slept in a semi-comatose state.

Another shimmering image stood with him. This was the Spacer, Shu 15. She wore goggles, walking nearer to him.

Galyan looked up at the main screen. He saw the shuttle. Yes. The Spacer’s physical body was there. Ah, the captain, the professor, Meta and Keith Maker were also out there. They were all awake, wanting to come aboard the starship.

“I didn’t tell you that,” the ghostly Shu said.

“Why are you trying to corrupt me?” Galyan asked.

“I’m not. I’m trying to show you a greater way.”

“You want me to disown my family.”

“Galyan, you’re not human. You’re an AI. You don’t have a family.”

The holoimage froze. The pin-dot eyes grew minutely larger. The ropy arms flipped and twisted. Finally, the holoimage spun around several times like a top.

“Stop that,” the ghostly Shu said. “I’m only telling you the truth. You’re all alone.”

“No!” Galyan shrieked. “I’m not alone. I have my precious family.”

Shu clapped her hands over her ears. “Stop shrieking. I don’t like it.”

Galyan shrieked again, but this time intentionally.

“Stop, I say.”

Galyan shrieked a third time and suddenly saw why it bothered the Spacer. It was his ticket into her brain.

In that split-second of shrieking, Galyan saw her brain’s connectives as if they were an AI system. He dared to make corrections.

“Stop what you’re doing,” Shu moaned. “Get out of my head.”

Galyan ran a furiously fast analysis. He realized this was only possible due to her Builder devices. By using the devices and trying to enter his computing core, she allowed him a way to turn the devices back on her. He could use electrical impulses to recode some of her beliefs. Thus, he went on the offensive.

Everyone seemed to try to recode him. Now, it was Galyan’s turn to recode one of his foes. This was too delightful and so very just.

He fiddled with Shu’s emotions, trying to cause her to trust Captain Maddox.

It occurred to Galyan that the process might not last. But he did it anyway. Even a few minutes of trusting Maddox could change the complexity of Shu’s nefarious plan.

“Galyan,” she said, “I’m begging you—”

“My family comes first,” he told her. “You might understand if you’d been alone for six thousand years. They must survive at any cost. What is your plan?”