The Artifact

by W. Michael Gear

  Constance came from the rear of the house, face grim, eyes hard behind the grime and dirt. “They got him. His body isn’t among the dead.”

  “That means the Hound has him. There’s one left out there. I can’t get to him from here with a blaster.” Sol slammed a fist into the wall.

  She handed him a round metal ball. “Sonic grenade. I’ll cover you from here.”

  He nodded, ran out the door, and heaved it into the depression as violet bolts crackled in the atmosphere around his head. He hit the ground and waited. The earth rose under him, smacking him as he bounced against the groundroll.

  “Got him!” Connie called. “From IR there are only a couple of wounded.” She walked out purposely, approaching the pile of corpses in a crouch, blaster ready.

  Sol trotted for the shuttle while Connie’s blaster lanced light into an occasional body. His teeth ground as he looked at the blackened, twisted remains in the bridge.

  “Ground car’s all that’s left,” she called up.

  “And we can’t get off this planet without being blown out of the air by Sellers,” Sol growled. Then he shrugged and went aft. He recognized the anti-detection device. From the tool kit, he pulled a cutting laser and began slicing the system out of the small reactor.

  Half an hour later, the charge in the cutting tool gone, Connie helped him muscle the unit into the ground car. She drove, thin-lipped, face lined with anger and worry.

  “They’ll try and make him talk.” Sol said. “It all depends on whether they took him up to the ship.”

  “He’ll kill himself. He’ll wait until he can do the most damage though. He wants to pay them back.”

  “Maybe we can get to him in time.” Sol tried to sound confident.

  “Maybe.”

  “Boaz, what’s the situation?” Sol called into the comm.

  “Jumpy as a cat in free-fall!” Art’s voce returned. “Those two bogeys that chased us here are coming in, one from each direction. Sellers has his ships spread out around the planet. Jordan’s back. We can detect messages being sent back and forth between him and Hunter. More bogeys are showing up on the peripheries of the system and Sellers has been in contact with them.”

  Sol nodded. “It’s worse than I thought. Listen, get that ship out of there. There’s a camouflage system built into Boaz. Happy should be able to cook up a diversion for you. You might send a message sunward. Tell Captain Mason that Sellers kidnapped the Speaker. Now listen, there’s a hole in the near moon. I’ll try and meet you there. Carrasco out.”

  He looked at Constance, then back out over the broad plain. The shuttle they’d shot up the night before had plowed a furrow in the rich dirt of Star’s Rest before it came to rest, broken and mangled.

  They pulled up in the dense vegetation behind the spaceport. Sol threw the heavy distortion equipment over his shoulder and struggled along behind Constance. He almost killed himself when he stepped on a squealing snakelike creature. Appalled, he caught himself and watched Constance pick the hideous thing up and pet it. It purred!

  “Harmless, actually. You scared it, Sol.”

  “Yeah,” he panted. “Poor thing!”

  “Only Arpeggian shuttles out there,” Connie informed him after she pulled ahead to scout.

  “Let’s take the closest one.” Sol grunted, feeling the sweat rolling down his face and back. “I don’t want to carry this any farther than I have to.”

  “How do you want to do it?”

  “The easy way—but wait until I’m through.” He staggered out into the open, struggling under the weight of the distortion device. “Hey!” he called out. “Send an antigrav down!”

  “What’s that?” A voice called from above.

  “Booty, laddie!” Sol filled his voice with cheer. “Give me a hand ... or lose your cut!”

  An antigrav settled and Sol dropped the heavy equipment on it. To one side, he attached a small gas grenade from his space pouch—a Brotherhood gizmo based on the powerful megapharma hallucinogen. “Take her up!” Sol called, knowing his uniform looked a lot like the Arpeggian dress.

  He heard the pop as they pulled the device inside. Sol smiled to himself. He leaned against a landing strut as if he owned it and crossed his arms. Glancing at the time, he whistled and nodded as Connie stepped out, hair wrapped around her chin. From a distance, it would look like a beard. Maybe, if they were lucky.

  With Connie on his heels, he went up the ladder. Two men sprawled on the floor, eyes rolled back in their heads, saliva drooling from their mouths. A quick inspection showed the bridge to be empty. “Cover the door. If this is standard, they’ll have a patrol roaming around to keep an eye on things.” He ran for the reactor, muscling the heavy distorter along.

  He ripped off the inspection panel and looked. Fifteen minutes to put the gadget in. Would he have time? It had to be tied into the gravity plates to distort the field around the shuttle, otherwise Sellers’ sensors would pick them up like an Arcturian whore at a Mormon dance. Sweating again, Sol found the tool kit and began ripping up the deck plating. First, the sensitive part. If the pickups were inserted too deeply into the reactor, the system would short and they’d go up like a fireball.

  He wiped his face with a dirt encrusted hand and bent his back to lever the distorter into place, fusing the metal with the vibrawelder. He panted in the hot moist air. Moving quickly, he ran the leads along the floor, untidy perhaps, but time-saving. Next he seared holes through the bulkheads to the grav plates and began attaching the leads.

  “Someone’s coming!” Connie whispered.

  “One?”

  “Yes.”

  “Let him aboard.” Sol ducked back, picking up a crescent wrench, a basic tool which had survived the centuries—and God knew how many light-years. Steps rang out on the ladder.

  “Who the hell are you?” The big man asked, turning to confront Connie. He was reaching for his blaster as Sol banged the wrench on his head.

  The Arpeggian didn’t fall. He wobbled, shook his head, and Sol banged him again. He crumpled in a heap.

  Sol inspected the thick end of the wrench and shook his own head skeptically. “Always thought those guys were thick-skulled.”

  “Back to work—I’ll handle him.” Connie motioned toward the rear, then started to bind the groaning man with point five powerlead.

  “Yes, ma’am,” Sol smiled and attacked another bulkhead, realizing the alien technology of walk-through walls had some advantages.

  The Arpeggian groaned and Connie replied with, “One move, mister, and I blow your head off. Where’s Speaker Archon being held?”

  “I don’t know. Why don’t you—”

  “Where would he likely be held?”

  The Arpeggian glared back. Connie pulled a small knife from her pocket. “Want to try again while I see how much anatomy I can remember?” She slit his uniform open and pressed the little blade against his belly. He shuddered as she said, “Seems to me, you can make a small incision here under the navel. Doesn’t have to be long—only ten centimeters or so and you can start pulling intestine out a bit at a time. Feels real funny in the gut cavity while it’s happening. Ever seen your intestines before?” She drew the knife along his skin, blood welling behind the sting of the blade.

  “They got a whole bunch of people in the Port Authority office,” he exploded. “Damn it, woman, stop it! That’s all I know.” Sweat began to trickle down his cheeks.

  “Could be,” Sol admitted as he attached the final lead and straightened. Turning, he picked up the wrench and carefully backhanded the Arpeggian again.

  “What did you do that for?” Connie asked, looking up in irritation.

  “Need his uniform,” Sol said, yanking at the fabric. Sol wasn’t as big as their captive, but over his own clothing, it would fit pretty well. He frowned, reaching into his space pouch for a tube of adhesive to mend the slit.

  “What about me? You’re dressed, but I need something. I’ll go check the guys up—”

&
nbsp; “You’re not going, Connie.”

  “He’s my father!” she flared. “The hell I’m not!”

  “And if I get killed, Sellers has both of the people who can lead him to the Artifact.” He shook his head, staring into her cobalt-blue eyes, a wrenching inside. “Duty, Connie. Responsibility. No one else knows where to find that thing. Give me twenty minutes. If I’m not back, get to Boaz ... get the Artifact . . . and run for Frontier. Kraal will know what to do with it.”

  “But, Sol!”

  He kissed her. “You and I both know there’s no choice, Connie. Last night on the Artifact, you’d have shot me if I’d failed the test. Think Sellers would pass? You were . . . Well, he says betrothed.“

  “That despicable scum shedding—”

  He smiled, kissed her again and dropped out the hatch.

  “Take care,” she called down. “Damn it! I love you.”

  “Twenty minutes!” He spun on his heel, walking briskly toward the offices. The Port Authority dome hadn’t been there long, imported from the Confederacy and mostly prefabbed. The doorway—like that of an igloo—stuck out where two guards, blasters drawn, waited in the increasing heat of Star’s rays. One stepped out to bar his progress.

  “IVe got new information for them in there.” Sol filled his voice with command.

  “How’s that, Johnson?” The man asked, reading his name tag. “You’re an engineer. What are you doing carrying orders?”

  “Look!” Sol threatened. “If you don’t let me in there with what we got on Carrasco and Archon’s daughter, you deal with the Admiral, huh?”

  “Let him go,” the second added.

  As Sol stepped past, he felt the blaster jam into his back. “Nice try, friend! But I used to bunk with Engineer Johnson. You ain ‘t him!”

  CHAPTER XXX

  A sodden weight settled in Sol’s gut.

  The lounge area thronged with the entire diplomatic corps Boat had carried to Star’s Rest. Archon appeared groggy, his face purpled with bruises, arms and legs bound by EM restraints. Uniformed men stood around the walls, blasters easy at hand.

  “Captain Carrasco! How delightful!” He turned to see Elvina walking toward him, a saucy smile on her lips, a new expression of keen intelligence on her pretty face. She wore the formfitting black uniform of Arpeggio. The skintight lines of the uniform mocked the ironic lie of her discarded Mormon dress, molding to the panther lines of her superb body. Gone was the fumbling housewife’s walk—replaced by a liquid grace. She paced, deadly, balanced, a commanding figure, her light blonde hair in sharp contrast with the black of her collar.

  “Bind him!” she snapped. “He’s slippery.”

  The next shock came when the guard bent down to tie him: Second Engineer Kralacheck! He worked EM restraints over Sol’s wrists and threw him roughly onto a bench. Reaching down to check his work, he whispered a word in Sol’s ear—a Brotherhood word; it meant patience and perseverance.

  Trust him? Or was this simply another security breach. If Kralacheck had burrowed his way into the Craft as a mole, what could a code word mean? Hell, Sellers and the Great Houses could have compromised the entire Craft for all he knew.

  “How’s Connie?” Archon asked.

  “She’s . . . dead, Speaker,” Sol said in what he hoped was a voice loud enough to carry to Elvina. At the same time, he winked at Archon.

  The Speaker stiffened—caught the hidden message— and lengthened his face as a father would upon hearing of the death of his last child.

  “Let’s get on with this!” Elvina scowled. “Where’s the alien ship?” she demanded of Archon. “I won’t ask you politely. Where?” Her face pinched in anger, eyes burning. The flush of excitement added a glow to her features, the rapturous look of youth and health increased her beauty.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Archon muttered.

  “Oh, come, Archon. I got it all out of the ugly little messenger Palmiere sent to the Sirians. I psyched his twisted little mind and milked him dry before I cut him apart and fed half truths to the Sirians. Did you know he was standing behind the draperies the whole time you were there? No? Well, let me refresh your memory of what you told Palmiere.

  “An alien spacecraft capable of moving stars, of spying on the whole of the Confederacy. Impregnable, you told him. A craft which would allow its possessor to control the galaxy, possibly even the universe. You told him it could be the greatest blessing humanity had ever discovered—better than cold fusion in the twenty-first century! That with it, no one could escape your observation. By working what you called ‘the spring’ entire fleets could be whisked into oblivion. That it could even see inside an atom—or exterminate mice on your ship. That with it, a single man could become a—”

  “You’re a raving lunatic.”

  “Indeed? Then what’s all this?” she asked, waving an arm at the fear-filled faces surrounding them.

  Archon looked up defiantly. “If you were as good a spy as you think you are, you’d know they are here to rewrite the Articles of Confederation!”

  She nodded, smiling sweetly. “Of course. Very well, Archon, you force my hand.” She drew a laser from her belt before walking over and grabbing Joseph Young by the arm and pitching him into the middle of the floor. Her pistol centered on his chest. “Where, Archon?”

  The Speaker looked sad and shook his head as Young shrieked, “El-Elvina? What . . . what are you going to do?” His lips worked soundlessly as he stared into the nozzle of her pistol.

  Elvina smiled, eyes lighting with pleasure as her face flushed. “Archon will tell me where to find the alien ship. Oh, Joseph, this is sweet. All those nights you bored me to death with your religious drivel will be paid back here. Worst of all were your slobbering caresses and your impotent passion in bed. Now, for the first time, Joseph, the pleasure is mine!” Calmly, she lowered the pistol and cut off a foot, the beam cauterizing the stump neatly as Young screamed.

  “No!” Nikita Malakova roared. “It is vile! It is inhuman!”

  Elvina straightened. “And you, dear Nikita, have just chosen yourself to be next—assuming, of course, that Archon doesn’t talk.” She looked around. “Or Texahi?”

  Medea’s husband cringed.

  “So you lived. I couldn’t have your suspicions voiced to your wife.” Elvina cocked her head as she studied Medea. “Had you lived, you really should have rid yourself of him. He blabbers everything in the throes of passion.” Elvina turned on her heel. “Same with you, Mikhi. Did you truly think your talk of Reinland’s manufacturing boring? Thank you for the information on Patrol schedules.”

  “You bitch,” Lietov growled.

  She laughed. “Indeed, Mark. Oh, how I loved your sweaty body on mine. And yes, your confessions of insider politics were fascinating. You say you’ve even managed to put an agent in House Van Gelder? Bless you, weVe sought to compromise Freena for years. Having located your agent, he’ll now work for us. Safer that way. But I lose my purpose. Archon, where is the alien device?”

  “There’s no ship.” Archon’s voice carried the weight of eternity. His eyes saddened, filled with remorse.

  The laser flicked again and Young screamed. Sol watched with detached horror. Young writhed and wailed, praying piteously to his God, sweat beading on his brow. He lost control of his bladder and his eyes almost popped with disbelief and pain, as Elvina castrated him with a quick twist of the searing light. A gurgling noise escaped his lips as he grabbed his crotch.

  A guard burst through the door shouting, “Miss Sellers! A shuttle just took off from the port. They don’t answer signals—and worse, they disappeared from our monitors!” He stopped, staring at the sobbing, whimpering mess on the floor.

  She turned and glared. “Don’t just stand there gawking, idiot! Inform my father at once, do you hear?”

  He nodded, stumbled, and left at a run.

  Archon looked sadly at Sol. “Did you and Constance have time for what you needed to do last night?”
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br />   Sol hesitated and felt himself color. He nodded slightly, a nervous smile trying to twist his lips.

  “Good, Sol.” Archon nodded, smiling. “I shall remember the two of you ... in love ... in the eye of the moon!” And, with those words, Archon, Speaker of Star’s Rest, died.

  “There goes a true hero.” Sol turned to see Amahara’s eyes on him.

  “Perhaps it is a time for heroes.” He smiled wistfully, feeling the pain grow to a dull ache in his chest. His jaws tightened with hurt and anger.

  “Come, Archon,” Elvina said, turning back. “Where is the ship?” She pointed the pistol at what was left of Joseph Young.

  “No good, Elvina,” Sol said, voice choked. “You destroyed your last link.”

  She walked over and lifted Archon’s limp head and slapped it time and again with the heavy pistol until the blood ceased to drip from the torn flesh. Only then did she accept the fact. Eyes pits of rage, she turned on Solomon Carrasco.

  “And you, Captain? You were Archon’s confidant and Constance’s lover. Perhaps you know?” She glared at him, a curious light in her eyes.

  Sol shook his head and answered honestly. “I will not see these people tortured, Elvina. Hook me up to your machines. Kill whoever you want—but it won’t help. They didn’t tell me because it was their belief that any man could be broken. They died with the secret. When you killed Archon, you killed the source for all of us.”

  “And his daughter? Is she really dead?” Elvina stepped closer, staring into his eyes. In his mind, Sol conjured images of Tygee, of hulls decompressing, and the wailing of Peg Andaki for her husband. He could feel the tear tracing the corner of his eye.

  “Blaster bolts are inanimate, Elvina. They go where they’re pointed. You can’t give them orders. Man? Woman? What does a blaster care about its target? When you hit Archon’s this morning, you were indiscriminate, don’t you think?”

  “And the shuttle that lifted?” she asked.

  A line filled his head from one of the tapes Boat had run on Jordan. “You don’t think a Captain flies his own shuttle, do you? We have crew for that. In this case, my weapons officer. That was Cal Fujiki. I ordered him to give me twenty minutes and space Boat, get her out of harm’s way, and head for—”