The Lost Colony (Lost Starship Series Book 4) (39 page)

“I’m on my way,” Maddox said. “Lieutenant!” he said.

Valerie whipped around, her eyes wide.

“You have the bridge,” Maddox said. “It’s time.”

“Good luck, sir,” she said.

“Tell me to win,” he said.

“Sir,” she said.

“Yes?”

“Beat the Builder and this Thrax Ti Ix bastard,” Valerie said.

Maddox nodded as he hurried for the exit. That’s exactly what he was going to try to do.

-48-

Maddox sat back in a chair as Lady Shana settled a silver band over his forehead.

“Are you ready, Captain?” Galyan asked from the open hatch.

“I am,” Maddox said. “Are you?”

“Let us begin the adventure,” the holoimage said.

Lady Shana went to a bank of controls. A Builder AI box glowed with various colors nearby. “You shouldn’t feel anything,” she said.

Maddox waited.

“Maybe you’ll feel a little something,” Ludendorff said, quietly. The professor tapped controls. Lady Shana typed upon hers.

Maddox grew sleepy. Then, it felt as if a river of fire burned on his skull. He arched back and tried to roar. Nothing came out of his mouth, though. The fire burned as if the metal would sink through his forehead. The agony grew.

Maddox lost the use of his vision then. The stench of the chamber disappeared. He no longer heard. The sense of touch departed.

“Hello, Captain.”

Maddox turned around, although he didn’t know where here was.

“Who’s there?” Maddox said, although he didn’t hear the words exactly.

“Wait a moment. There. You should be able to see now.”

Maddox did. It was a blue world of circuitry and glowing connections. Nearby was a shape of zeroes and ones.

“Is that you, Galyan?”

“Yes, Captain. You appear much different than before.”

“I’m in your world now.”

“No,” Galyan said. “You merely sense in my world. Are you ready?”

“Let’s do this,” Maddox said, wondering why he didn’t feel pain anymore. He was still in the chair with the band around his head. But his “senses” were now with the “self” or personality of the AI.

In a flash of computed time, the “self” of Galyan leapt across the stellar distance from
Victory
to the Dyson sphere.

Maddox was stunned as the images impinged upon his senses. They came so fast, from so many directions. It was disorienting.

“Do you know what to do?” Maddox asked.

“Oh, yes. I can link the countless systems. But even at computer speed, this is going to take time. Captain, the Builder is coming. I must—”

“You are an industrious mite,” the Builder said, softly. “Come, we will finish the interview.”

A new pain filled Maddox. Something remorseless ripped him from Galyan. The captain didn’t know it, but his body in the computer core chamber on
Victory
began to buck and thrash. His life-signs began to deteriorate immediately.

“You are dying, Captain,” the soft-voiced Builder said.

Maddox felt himself to be back in the stellar chamber. The darkness that was the Builder had become more pronounced while the stars were harder to see than last time.

“You have separated yourself from your body,” the Builder said. “You have done so mechanically. Yet, the results are the same as if you had achieved a psychic separation. Without the integration of the Adok computer, your body cannot sustain itself for long.”

“It is of small matter,” Maddox said.

“You wish to achieve nonbeing?”

“Not particularly.” Maddox said. “But I’m curious concerning the Creator. This will bring me the knowledge more quickly than otherwise.”

“Practicing self-death is wrong,” the Builder said.

“You’re doing it.”

“I have been shutting down sustaining systems. When they stop, my organic processes will be unable to sustain me. I will die of natural causes.”

“Yet, you’re willing yourself to die. You’re self-dying. That is wrong. Perhaps the Creator will punish you for it.”

“I hope not.”

“What is your verdict between Commander Thrax and me?” Maddox asked.

“Your side will lose the struggle soon after your body ceases to be. Commander Thrax Ti Ix is about to burst through the sphere. I will give Thrax a hyper-spatial tube to expedite the commander’s conquest of Human Space. Instead of working outward in, the commander will begin in the center at Earth and conquer his way outward. I am curious as to how the New Men will defend against the Swarm. Alas, but I will be gone by then.”

“Did you know I could not win?”

“I gave you less than a one percent chance.”

“Well, you gave me the chance. I appreciate that.”

“I find your gratefulness surprising. It is not like your former persona. Something is different. I perceive…”

Maddox tried to shield his thoughts, having no idea if the Builder could read them, since they would likely be thoughts in zeroes and ones right now.

“Captain Maddox,” the Builder said. “You have attempted a ploy against me. I cannot say I approve.”

“Isn’t the only verdict success or not?”

“Not altogether,” the Builder said. “I thought I made this clear.”

“You seem to have a bias toward the Swarm. Is it possible Commander Thrax has beguiled you in some fashion?”

“No,” the Builder said. “That is impossible.”

“Maybe if you study the last few years with him—”

“No!” the Builder said.

“Why wouldn’t you check?”

“I have just checked, you gnat. I cannot believe this. You are correct. The commander has corrupted me with a Swarm virus. This is inconceivable. How did it happen? Yes, it must have happened during my slumber. This is a disaster. I no longer know if this self-death is really my thought or something put there by the commander.”

“Let me fight Thrax my way,” Maddox said.

“No. It is too late.”

“Am I dead?” Maddox asked.

“No, you have seconds left.”

“Then send Galyan and me back,” Maddox said. “Allow me to destroy Commander Thrax. It is wrong that humanity should perish because of your error.”

“That is cruelly stated,” the Builder said.

“I have very little time left,” Maddox said. “Thus, I find it hard to act in a decorous manner.”

“Captain—ah, it doesn’t matter. Nothing matters.”

“If that’s true,” Maddox said, “send me back. Let me fight to the end.”

“Go,” the Builder said. “Your insistence has wearied me. It is time to end this farce. I have failed miserably. But I will make sure you can never interfere like this again.”

Maddox attempted to ask the Builder what it meant. At that moment, vertigo struck. Maddox felt his “self” sucked away from the Builder’s presence. In an instant, he rejoined Galyan.

“Captain, it is too soon,” Galyan said. “I wasn’t able to reach all the connections.”

Maddox couldn’t respond. His “self” flashed across the void of space and back into the computer core chamber aboard
Victory
.

Maddox roared with pain, opening his eyes but seeing nothing. His forehead burned with agony. His hands reached up and tore off the silver band.

Sight flooded back into his brain. He smelled burned circuits. Zapping noises assaulted his hearing. He tasted bile and sweat trickled down his back, which thrashed against the chair’s fabric.

“No!” Maddox shouted, lurching out of the chair. He stumbled, crashing against a wall and sprawling onto the floor. From there, he watched the Builder AI cube explode, sending electric bolts writhing through the air.

Ludendorff, Lady Shana and a scrambling Maddox barely made it out of the room in time. Then more blasts erupted from the chamber, and an explosion hurled the captain from his feet.

A body landed beside him, a black charred corpse with grinning teeth. Maddox fixated on that, wondering if Ludendorff or the Lady Shana was dead.

People burst into the room, shouting. Maddox felt hands grabbing him, dragging him across the floor. He realized one of the people was Meta.

Am I going to live? Is Galyan still functional?

Whooshing sounds filled his hearing until cold foam surrounded him. Someone lifted him—

Maddox groaned.

“He’s alive,” Riker shouted.

“What happened?” Meta asked. “Did it work?”

Maddox groaned again. He felt shell-shocked, uncoordinated.

“Take him to the infirmary.”

“No,” Riker said. “The captain would want us to defeat the Swarm. Give him a stimulant. We have to blow the sphere.”

“He’s right,” Meta said a moment later. “He’d want that.”

Why did the others talk about him in the past tense? What did he look like? Who had thudded down as a corpse a few seconds ago?

Maddox felt movement, a sting in his side and more movement. His thoughts began to jell. He opened his eyes. Meta and Riker carried him into a room, setting him in a chair.

Maddox tried to look at himself.

“Not yet, sir,” Riker said.

“Is something the matter, Sergeant?”

“A trifle, sir,” Riker said, trying to sound cheerful.

“Look up,” Meta said. “Take a look at the screen.”

Maddox focused on the screen. It showed a portion of the Dyson sphere. Saucer after saucer poured from various openings. They were like a mass of bees in flight.

A ping in his skull caused Maddox to shudder.

“He’s going into shock,” Riker said.

“No,” Maddox whispered. “Watch. It’s about to happen.”

“What is, sir?”

“The destruction of the Dyson sphere,” Maddox whispered, feeling desperately tired.

“He’s delirious,” someone said.

The destruction began on the sphere’s North Pole. A gigantic explosion blew metal off. The destruction grew, more explosions adding to the mayhem.

“I hope we’re leaving,” Maddox whispered.

“Keith is piloting
Victory
,” Meta said.

Maddox smiled, which hurt his face. What was wrong with him? He tried to examine his arms. Meta held his head, keeping him from doing that.

“Wow,” Riker said.

Maddox looked up at the screen again. More of the sphere began exploding. The sheer mass of the sphere was bewildering. Things could explode at the speed of light, and it would still take time for it to travel across the face of the gigantic sphere.

“What’s that?” Meta whispered.

Maddox noticed a weird alteration. It appeared as if a ghostly tube thrust out of the sphere. The tube was long, reaching…reaching…reaching farther than Maddox’s eyes could see. What did the ghostly tube signify?

At that point, the explosions on the Dyson sphere reached a critical mass. Debris in incalculable amounts blew outward. Clouds of debris reached the escaping saucers. The mass obliterated one saucer after another in an orgy of destruction.

It didn’t stop there, but continued to annihilate the ancient structure.

Maddox realized the ping of awareness must have been some last connection with the Builder. It had destroyed the ancient sphere, a work of wonder, a palace of technological prizes, a storehouse of knowledge such as no human must have ever had access to before.

“Galyan,” Maddox whispered. “I need to speak to Galyan.”

No one said a word.

It finally dawned on Maddox what had happened. The AI core chamber had exploded, electrocuting one of them, maybe badly burning him.

Victory
and some of Port Admiral Hayes’ flotilla had won free of the sphere and escaped Commander Thrax Ti Ix. But they may have lost the ancient AI and any means of reaching Human Space in the next several years, if ever.

-49-

Maddox woke up in the infirmary, his skin covered with a healing salve, while bandages covered the majority of his body. He itched horribly.

“Hello?” the captain said.

A man snorted and stood, appearing in the captain’s view. With his hand, the man brushed his hair before grinning in a lopsided manner.

“What has you so amused, Sergeant?” Maddox asked.

“You’re alive, sir, and doing well according to the medical machines. Ludendorff is worse off, but he’ll make it.”

“The Lady Shana?” Maddox asked.

Riker’s smile fell. “I’m afraid she wasn’t as lucky, sir. Meta says the lady took the brunt of the first discharge. It seems she did it for you, shielding you from the worst of it.”

“What?” Maddox said.

“The Kai-Kaus believe they’re indebted to you. One of the elders told Meta it was Lady Shana’s privilege to die so you could live.”

Maddox found that he couldn’t swallow. He turned away.

“It’s all right, sir,” Riker said, patting his arm.

Maddox stiffened in pain.

“Oh, sorry about that,” Riker said. “Your skin is still tender.”

“What’s the military situation? How long have I been under?”

“About ten hours,” Riker said. “We’re doing fine, heading toward a weird beacon.”

“Does anyone know what the beacon is?”

“I do,” Galyan said.

Maddox stared in silence at the dim holoimage. It didn’t have the same clarity as before, but the little Adok was there.

“You survived,” Maddox exclaimed.

“That seems obvious,” Galyan said. “I am here, thus, I am existent. How could it be otherwise?”

“Right,” Maddox said. “Why are you dimmer than before?”

“My backup system does not have the same connection with the extra computing chamber Dana discovered. It will take time to reconnect them.”

“You never told us about a backup system.”

“Correct,” Galyan said. “I did not even know I possessed one. I have been looking forward to your recovery, Captain. I have questions concerning the end on the sphere. An irresistible force yanked me from my task. Do you know what that was?”

“The Builder,” Maddox said.

“Did it destroy the Builder AI box on purpose do you think?”

Maddox thought back to the final conversation. “Yes, I believe so.”

“Interesting,” Galyan said. “There is so much I would have liked to catalog. I had begun the process on the sphere. Given time, I could have recorded the Builder’s knowledge.”

Maddox considered that, and he realized humanity had almost leaped…maybe millennia in technology all across the board. Maybe Galyan could have recorded further back than ancient human history. The AI might have recovered records of the timeless war against the Nameless Ones.

“In the final analysis I recorded nothing,” Galyan said. “The Builder caused me to lose everything. The loss is incalculable.”

“I’ve been wondering about something,” Riker said. “What was that ghostly tube we saw at the end? No one knows. Valerie tried analyzing it, but she couldn’t pick up any readings that made sense. Did you see it, Galyan?”

“Of course,” the AI said. “My analyzer gives it an eighty-six percent probability of being a hyper-spatial tube.”

“Eighty-six percent?” Maddox asked.

“Eighty-six point three two eight percent to be precise,” Galyan said.

“Yes, one must strive for precision,” Maddox said.

“Are you ribbing me, sir?”

“He is,” Riker said, “although the captain would never admit it.”

“If that was a hyper-spatial tube,” Maddox said, “would that imply Commander Thrax employed it?”

“I believe so,” Galyan said. “It was impossible to tell, but my sensors combined with logic imply the starting point was from inside the sphere. That means an unknown number of Swarm-run vessels escaped. Do you have any idea where the tube went?”

Fear boiled up in Maddox. “Thrax Ti Ix went to Earth.”

“The tube was pointed in the wrong direction to reach Earth,” Galyan said.

“What direction did it go?”

“Toward the center of the galaxy,” Galyan said.

“Ah,” the captain said. “Yes, the commander went one thousand light-years or more. The Builder told me earlier it was going to give Thrax passage back to the Swarm Empire.”

“That sounds ominous,” Galyan said.

“For the future, it does,” Maddox said. “We have no idea how far the Swarm Empire is from us at present.”

“My records indicate the Swarm never discovered wormholes. Will Commander Thrax bring them this technology?”

“I’d say that’s a near certainty,” Maddox said.

“This is grave news,” Galyan said. “My long vigil in my star system may have been in vain.”

“Hardly that, Galyan,” Maddox said. “Because of you we have advanced warning of a coming peril.”

“Thank you for your kind words, Captain.”

Several beeps sounded from a nearby board.

“Oh-oh,” Riker said. “That’s going to bring Meta. She’s going to give you another injection, sir. Your body is working overtime, building new skin tissue. You’re going back to sleep for a while.”

Maddox nodded. “You never did tell me. What are we traveling toward?”

“I did say,” Riker told him. “It’s a beacon, a large one shaped like a silver pyramid.”

“Where is it?”

“At the end of this star system,” Riker said. “It was cloaked before. Valerie found it soon after the Dyson sphere’s destruction. Galyan figures something on the sphere kept the cloak in place. Once the Builder died, the cloak stopped working on the pyramid.”

“A silver pyramid,” Maddox said. “Does that mean we might be able to find a hyper-spatial tube after all?”

“We’re all hoping, sir.”

The hatch slid open and Meta walked in. “Everyone out,” she said. “I have a patient that needs tending. The rest of you are just going to be in the way.”

Galyan disappeared, while Riker winked at the captain. Then, the sergeant sauntered out, whistling an old tune between his teeth.

***

Because of his increased metabolism, Maddox healed faster than the professor did. The captain was up in time for Lady Shana’s funeral. It was a moving affair, and it helped cement the Kai-Kaus to Maddox even more than before.

The next two days flashed by in hard work as the Kai-Kaus repaired the damage to
Victory
and tried to settle into a normal routine aboard the starship. The Adok vessel matched velocities with the port admiral’s slowest ship, which was slow indeed.

Maddox decided there was one positive to the destruction of Galyan’s AI core chamber. If Ludendorff had practiced any deviousness there, the annihilation of the core chamber had trumped it.

After a journey of many days across the system, the flotilla of Star Watch vessels began to brake.

Maddox was on the bridge in his chair. It was the first time since the core explosion that he could wear clothes without discomfort. Galyan had zoomed in on the silver pyramid, putting it onto the main screen at maximum magnification.

“Is there any noticeable difference to this Nexus compared to the one in the Xerxes System?” the captain asked.

“None that I have been able to decipher,” Galyan said.

Maddox tapped his chin before glancing at the others. “Any suggestions?” he asked.

“What’s the mechanism for turning on a hyper-spatial tube?” Valerie asked.

“Exactly,” Maddox said. “I have no idea.”

“We’re back to Meta’s memory of her time with Kane,” Valerie said. “They went inside the Xerxes Nexus, but they didn’t use a hyper-spatial tube. It could take a long time to figure this out.”

Maddox nodded.

“And the longer we take,” Valerie said, “the more damage the Builder’s android doubles could be doing back on Earth.”

“Yes,” Maddox said.

“What does the professor suggest we do?”

Maddox shook his head. He’d spoken a little to Ludendorff about hyper-spatial tubes. The professor had finally begun to recover from his injuries. Unfortunately, the Methuselah Man was still too tired to talk for long. Maddox wondered if the professor could be faking his tiredness. He didn’t like the possibility. After everything they had been through, he wanted to be able to trust the man. With an inward sigh, the captain realized he’d have to continue keeping an eye on Ludendorff.

“Until recently, the professor hasn’t known about the Dyson sphere or hyper-spatial tubes,” Maddox said. “He told me we’re back to being primates before a black monolith, baffled by technological mysteries beyond our understanding.”

“Sir?” Valerie asked.

“I didn’t understand the reference, either,” Maddox admitted. “We’re going to need the best Kai-Kaus minds, the professor’s insights—”

“Captain,” Galyan said. “I am detecting a silver whirlpool. It is similar to what we detected by the Xerxes System Nexus. Do you suppose the Builder programmed the pyramid to activate a hyper-spatial tube at our approach?”

“That strikes me as the most sensible explanation.”

The vast sense of relief at seeing the silver whirlpool surprised Maddox. The reality of being stranded one thousand light-years from the Xerxes System had tightened in him for so long that he had no longer been consciously aware of it. With its release—

Valerie laughed with glee.

Keith shouted, pumping a fist in the air.

“We’re going home,” Maddox declared.

“Yes, sir, mate, Captain, sir,” Keith said as he laughed.

“I have a question,” Galyan said.

“What?” Maddox said with a smile.

“How do we know that this hyper-spatial tube will actually take us to Earth?” the AI asked.

Maddox blinked at the holoimage as some of the good feeling evaporated. “Is it pointed in Earth’s direction?”

“Affirmative,” Galyan said.

Maddox nodded decisively. “Well. We’ll use the Laumer Drive and enter the tube, hoping for the best—unless you have a better idea.”

“I am sorry to say I do not.”

“Right,” Maddox said. “It’s time to tell the others and get ready for the voyage home.”