The Artifact

by W. Michael Gear

  “Let’s see. Access Kralacheck’s quarters.”

  “The privacy code—”

  “Screw the privacy code! You know what Cap’s done with it so far. Now, there’s something fishy about Kralacheck. He knows too much about this damn ship! There’s something about the guy, like he’s holding himself in. And he’s not like any engineer I’ve ever known. Too refined.”

  “Given your obvious shortcomings in cerebral cortex—”

  “You going to access Kralacheck’s quarters? Or am I calling the Cap before I go search the place?”

  “Very well.” The monitor flickered to life. “I’ll use IR since I doubt you want the Second Engineer to know you’re getting a little goofy. Or do you want me to wake him up so you can prove beyond a doubt that you’re a lunatic?”

  “You rusty bucket of leaking rivets, let’s just see if he’s there!” He pointed at the monitor as the holo filled with an IR generated image of Second Engineer Kralacheck sound asleep in a crumpled knot of bedding.

  The holo flickered out. “Happy, Happy?”

  “Yeah,” Anderson grunted, uneasily dropping into his gravchair. “Must be the late hours. Must be.”

  “Ah, you frail organic hostages to fatigue and—”

  “Boat?”

  “Yes?”

  “Shut up and go suck hydrogen someplace.” Only he couldn’t put his finger on it. What was it about the Second Engineer? The guy just didn’t act like an engineer-too ... professional? Yeah, that was it. And what had he been doing sneaking around? He hadn’t wanted to be observed.

  Happy stared up at the monitor. And an IR image like that could be generated. But that meant . . . Impossible!

  CHAPTER XIX

  Bryana tensed nervously in her command chair. The main bridge monitor replayed the record of their disastrous combat with the bogeys. She shifted forward uncomfortably, acutely aware of the stark terror in her expression and the panic in Art’s face. Memory of her fear and disbelief stroked a chord deep within. Could those fumbling fingers really be hers? Shamefully, she winced as the record played out her fear-glazed paralysis as the bogeys closed.

  “Blaster fire!” Art screamed shrilly. “Why are they shooting? Why? I ...”

  The holo continued to run, piling mistake upon mistake. How had she fallen apart so? In the seat beside her, Art stared angrily at the screen, face pale. He hunched defensively, shame burning on his face.

  She froze the image and looked over at Art, guilt writ deep in her soul. Misery and outrage cast a curious gleam in his green eyes.

  “Well,” he growled. “How did he react in his first combat?”

  “Art, I don’t think that’s-”

  “Just tell me!” He stood, pacing irritably, smacking a fist into a hard palm.

  “Just as bad, I’d bet.” Bryana propped her chin, absorbed by her expression of panic so graphically displayed on the monitor.

  “Actually, Art,” Boat informed, “Solomon Carrasco performed flawlessly. I must, however, remind you he’d had superior training and experienced several mock combat situations like this one.”

  “What is he? A damned God?”

  Bryana brought her coffee cup to her lips, reliving those moments of horror, wondering if it would always be that way.

  “Well, for one, I’m getting damn tired of His Majesty, Solomon Carrasco. Everything that happens on this ship is out of control. I think—”

  “Boaz,” Bryana cut him off, “you didn’t manipulate the outcome, did you?”

  “Affirmative. I simulated a glitch in the fire control on the Captain’s orders. The purpose was—”

  “There, see!” Art fired.

  “—to simulate a combat situation in which a random malfunction occurs. I also exempted both the bridge and Engineering from hits determined by a combat factor-rated random number statistical function. From the number of probable hits, we would have exploded as much as one minute prior to your final destruction of the bogey.”

  Bryana closed her eyes for a second and nodded. Then she took a deep breath and walked over to put a hand on Art’s shoulder. “No matter what we want to think of Solomon Carrasco, old buddy, we’ve got some work to do.”

  “Yeah,” Art agreed, fingers tapping nervously on a console. “You know, I still don’t like the guy, but I can see where he’s coming from. But then, you know, he said anytime we wanted ...”

  “Wanted what?”

  “A red alert of our own.” Art grinned maliciously up at the monitor. “Boaz, this time, Carrasco’s command chair malfunctions. I want total loss of communications to the rest of the—”

  “No, Art.” Bryana shook her head, walking back to her command chair.

  “What do you mean? After what he did to—”

  “Damn it! We can’t turn this into a war between him and us. Understand? These things escalate. We’ll end up trying to cut each other’s throats instead of saving our skins. Is that what you want?”

  Art chewed at his mustache, eyes icy green. “Boaz, place a random glitch in the system. You choose.”

  “Affirmative.”

  “Red Alert!”

  This time, Bryana promised herself, we’ll just see how long it takes to refine fire control.

  Within a minute Sol burst through the hatchway, suited, and dropped into his command chair. Immediately Carrasco lost lateral thrusters, restricting the ship’s maneuverability.

  Nevertheless they tagged both bogeys with only fifty percent casualties.

  While Boaz read off the statistics, Bryana turned in her chair, head cocked. Carrasco sipped coffee, listening to the report, concentrating on the readouts. Art studiously ignored Carrasco’s presence.

  “Uh, Captain, I guess it makes a difference if you know it’s the real thing, doesn’t it? I mean, this time we knew it was a drill.”

  Sol studied her with intense brown eyes. “Yes, it does a little.” He leaned forward, gesturing with his coffee cup. “The important thing is to make your reactions automatic—conditioned response you don’t have to think about.”

  “So why surprise us like you did last time?” Art’s voice reeked objection.

  “So you could see exactly how you’d respond to a real situation—without paying the price. Art, I didn’t do it to embarrass you or show you up. Myself, I fell apart in my first actual combat—had to be relieved of command. I wouldn’t want anyone to face that humiliation.”

  Bryana frowned. But the ship said he’d performed flawlessly. Boaz wouldn ‘t lie. But Carrasco would.

  Carrasco continued, “You thought it was real. That was the important thing. I’ll be honest. I wanted to shock you, give you a taste of what we might be in for.” He tipped his cup and drank the last of his coffee before sticking the stained mug back in the dispenser. “I don’t know what all the ruckus is over this jump. People have been killed over this thing. Whatever the stakes are, they’re high enough that combat is becoming a probability.”

  Bryana’s stomach went sodden. She could sense Art shifting uneasily in his chair. Well, if we ‘re blown out of space, it won’t be the fault of fire control. I swear I won’t be responsible for the lives of all the ... A cold understanding worked through her. Numbly she realized everyone else on the ship assumed the same. So, that’s what it really means to command. A sobering weight settled on her shoulders.

  Dazed, Bryana whispered, “Captain, I’d like to interact with the rest of the ship. You know, establish that working familiarity with Fujiki’s people. If there are any kinks in the system we should find them now, work them out.”

  Carrasco’s neutral expression warmed. “Excellent idea, First Officer. We’ll go ahead on a limited basis-mock drills with weapons and damage control.”

  “Mock? Uh, sir, I meant to go the whole route. Firing weapons, vector changes, everything. Wring out the entire system.”

  Carrasco nodded. “Eventually we will. In the meantime”—he waved at the bogeys on screen—“do you want them watching and evaluating our c
ombat performance? Weapons potential? Noting maneuverability and acceleration?”

  Chastened, she shook her head. “No, sir.”

  “Well, don’t lose any sleep over it. We’ll have time to integrate people and systems when we come out on the other side of the jump.” Carrasco leaned on the knuckles of a propping fist. “No matter how good they are—or how closely they match—they can’t come out at the same place we do on the other side. In the event they get astronomically lucky, we’ll lose them there.”

  “And if we get hit before the jump?” Art inquired.

  “I’m not worried. Consider. We’ve been drilling at fifty percent capability and losing through tactical mistakes. Given a couple more simulations, and the ship operating near potential, we won’t fall to those two.” He gestured at the monitor. “Then again, the best combat is that which is avoided. Given our power to weight ratio, I think I can pull a couple of tricks to lose them. The ship also has an Ashlar-type camouflage capability. I’ve never employed that system, but it was successful in the Enesco affair.”

  Art rejoined woodenly, “I’m glad to hear the Captain’s confidence.”

  Carrasco studied him, expression hardening, before looking up at the screen where the two white dots hovered at the edges of their detection range. Formally, he replied, “Thank you, First Officer Arturian. No, whoever they are, I think they know it’d take a fleet to kill Boat. Food for thought, people?”

  Carrasco stood, nodded curtly, and left.

  Art tugged at his beard and sent an evil look after Carrasco.

  “Art, listen, we’ve been together a long time. I know you. Obstinate and determined. Only this time, I think you’re going to be wrong in the end.”

  He canted his head, gaze chilling her. “He rubs me the wrong way. Does this mean . . . Bryana? Are you turning against me?”

  She swallowed dryly, sighing as she studied the two ships on the monitor. “No, Art. Too much hydrogen’s been burned for that. But, well, we’re not insystem anymore.”

  Yet she couldn’t shake the memory of Carrasco’s smile of approval. Why had it become so important?

  * * *

  Sol started into the lounge, but caught sight of Elvina making a beeline for him. He ducked back into the corridor. He skipped a couple of steps to a security hatch and slipped past into a restricted portion of the ship.

  What was it about that woman? She insisted on pressing up against him. Not only that, she didn’t take no for an answer—and that crazy Joseph was blind to the whole thing!

  Sol dropped down to the gun deck, walking along the brightly-lit gallery. Along the hull the heavy blasters sat squat and deadly, gray casings gleaming. Heavy element rod feeds protruded from the backs of the weapons.

  An unlikely snarl of powerlead twisted up to one of the guns; the casing had been folded open to expose various bits of human anatomy poked out at angles like chicks from an eggshell.

  “Is that gun inoperative?” Sol recognized Cal Fujiki by the battered test scope clipped to the back of his wear-shiny belt.

  A hollow thunk sounded as Fujiki straightened— banged his head—and grunted. He backed out of the gun-mount slowly, rubbing his sagittal area and wincing. “Jeez, Cap. Ya gotta sneak up on a guy like that?”

  Sally O’Hara poked her head up, trying to smother a smile.

  “Who’s sneaking? I asked about the gun, Cal. Is it inoperable?”

  “Not yet.” Fujiki grinned wryly. “But it will be the moment we jump outside. I’ll have each of the guns down for about twenty minutes. Come on up and I’ll show you something.” Cal dived into the big battery again, butt wiggling back and forth like a target as he wormed into the battery’s guts.

  Sol scowled, grabbing a handhold and climbing up the side of the maintenance ladder. The rungs echoed hollowly under his feet. Sol stared over the heavy casing into a mass of coiled number twenty powerlead that seemed to be engulfing Sally like some monster constrictor. Cal’s busy fingers traced a yellow-red number ten powerlead up to the activator.

  “Okay, now what am I supposed to see?”

  Cal reached up to scratch the side of his neck, a frown on his placid face. “Well, those boys on Frontier aren’t as hot as they want you to think. Here, if I put a double lead—two twenties into the inducer—we get another twenty-five percent out of the field generator. That strips particles off the main heavy element core at a higher rate. By running another number thirty to the plasma bottle, we can contain the reaction and refine it to current specs.”

  “At the expense of how much power to the shields?” Sol rubbed the side of his nose, frowning.

  “If we’re running one hundred percent, I’d take another five out of the system. I talked it over with Happy and Kralachek. Given the performance parameters available, I doubt you’d ever notice the difference. We’ve already got more acceleration than the grav plates can handle, so that’s an easy steal. I’d say swiping that five percent of the total—that you can’t use anyway—makes a great payoff for twenty percent higher efficiency out of weapons.”

  Sol nodded. “But the gun still works?”

  Cal lifted his head, lips twisted sourly. “Cap, you know how I feel about inoperable anything—especially weapons. Of course it still works.”

  “Just so it doesn’t blow up when you fire it. I don’t want us to hit a bogey’s shielding and go up like a small sun from particle lash-back.”

  “Cap!” Cal cried. “Trust me! Would I blow us up?”

  “Huh! Let’s see if I remember? Was it you tinkering with the transduction off Ribald Station? How many of Moriah’s boards did you fry with that—”

  “Hey, Cap, that was a long time ago!”

  “Carry on, Cal.” Sol backed down the ladder, Cal’s chagrined expression assuring him that the job on the guns would be the best one possible.

  Sol stuck his head into the atmosphere plant to see Gus Jordache and Pietre Gornyenko glaring at each other as they slapped cards on the comm table in their perpetual poker game.

  “Who’s winning?” Sol asked as he ran a finger across the bottom of the intake.

  Pietre grinned as Sol inspected his fingertip, finding no smudge. “Gus, of course. So far, I owe him . . . uh,” he bent to study the ledger, “seventeen billion credits.”

  “Seventeen billion!”

  “Sure,” Gus added, stretching, frowning at his cards. “These things change. About this time a couple of years ago, I owed him somewhere around twenty billion. Play long enough and it turns around.”

  Sol chuckled, passed the hatch, and walked in on Misha Gaitano. To either side, neatly stowed crates lined the main hold.

  “No, you three-fingered dodo. I said I wanted exactly one hundred and eighty foot-pounds of torque on that bolt. If it won’t take the test, fine, scrap it and make a new one, hear?”

  Sol rounded a crate to find Gaitano bending over a flustered woman using an automatic torque wrench on a piece of partially disassembled equipment.

  Gaitano grinned and waved as he saw Sol. “It’s tough to break them in, Cap, but, lordy, they make better crew when the going gets tough.”

  “You’ll see,” the woman growled, checking the reading on her wrench. “I’ll end up bolting your butt to the deck one of these days, Gaitano. Then you can check the torque till hell won’t have it.”

  “You and whose army?”

  “My right army and my left, Gaitano.” She made a muscle—obscured by the coveralls—winked at Sol and scowled halfheartedly at Gaitano.

  Misha grinned. “Good job, kid. Now, replace that bearing race and torque the new cap down. I’ll teach you a right-hand thread from a left yet.”

  When Sol passed the reactor room hatch, he found Happy monitoring the big board, reactor stats at about fifty percent.

  Sol dropped into one of the control chairs and sighed.

  “You look beat, Cap. What’s up?”

  “How’s the monitor installation coming along?”

  “Mostly there. We
’ve got the diplomats covered except for their quarters. That takes time. Suspicious bunch of characters? Whew! Anyhow, we have to wait until they’re occupied elsewhere before we sneak in.” Happy swiveled in his chair. “Better you dealing with them than me. I’d be tempted to space the whole bunch.”

  Sol sighed and rubbed his eyes. “You’re not alone.”

  Happy squinted, a worried expression moderating the crags of his face. “You all right? You look, well, kind of gray around the gills.”

  “Just late hours. What’s your analysis of the ship before we make jump? Any problems I ought to know about?”

  Happy grinned from ear to ear, leaning forward to whisper, “She spaces like a precious jewel—only I don’t want her to hear that.” In a booming voice he followed up with, “Ah, she ain’t half bad for a leaky temperamental spacing hulk. So long as she don’t get hauled off as garbage by some persnickety spaceport master, we’ll be all right. Got that, you creaky pile of ticking, hissing junk?”

  “Acknowledged, you half-wit son of an Arcturian whore.”

  Sol had been in the middle of a swig of coffee. He choked, snorting the brew into his nose and hacking. Happy pounded him on the back, handing him a rag to wipe up.

  Almost casually, Boaz added, “Speaking of which, you sagging pile of bones, did you remember your treatment?”

  “My what?” Happy looked warily up at the speaker.

  Smugly Boaz replied, “See, Captain, memory’s the first casualty of senility.”

  “Did I . . .”Sol stopped to cough, “... just hear the ship curse?”

  “Yeah.” Happy beamed. “Makes her more lovable, don’t you think?”

  Sol blinked. “It’s a whole different personality to the one . . .”

  “Sol, there’s never been a ship like Boaz before. We’re dealing with—”

  “And don’t you ever forget it, you scurrilous bit of human flotsam!” Boaz finished.

  “Oh, go count your rivets—or I’ll sell you to the Arpeggians for scrap. Maybe they can make something useful out of you, like a trash compactor or something.”