The Artifact

by W. Michael Gear

  Connie whispered, “They used to burn bearers of plague.”

  CHAPTER XXXIV

  Bryana picked up the bogey, estimated its course, and realized the other ship had already fixed the flare of their reaction mass. Boaz, dumping almost thirty gs, was hard to hide as a result of the visual and gravity distortion she produced.

  It took four days for the ship to match with them. Solomon Carrasco called for battle stations and received the first message. He stared at the screen, seeing the familiar uniform.

  “Captain Carrasco, I am Captain Richard Shaklee, of his Royal Majesty’s Ship Defiance. I am ordered to discuss the alien ship you carry. As members of the Confederacy, you cannot deny us this opportunity. His Majesty is aware of the gravity of the situation and offers his willingness to protect the device from theft or misuse. ”

  “I’ll bet,” Art muttered out the side of his mouth.

  Sol shook his head. “I’m sorry, but I have polled the Council Members aboard and they’ve voted overwhelmingly to reject your offer. I might add, Fan Jordan fired on this ship at Star’s Rest.” Sol looked down and then back at Shaklee. “You must understand, Captain, New Maine is technically in a state of war with us as a result of that incident. I have not received an apology from Earl Jordan—nor have any of the diplomats aboard. I’m afraid your request is impossible.”

  “Are you refusing me, Captain?” Shaklee stiffened angrily.

  “And how would you react if Brotherhood vessels had jumped Defiance while you were peacefully in orbit over a friendly planet? I’m serious, Captain. Think about it. We were shot at by Desmond and her accomplices—and that action was by Royal decree. Now, how much latitude does that leave us?”

  “I see. Allow me to withdraw to converse with my government.” Shaklee’s features blinked off the screen.

  “Now, there’s a man with a dilemma,” Bryana chuckled. “Think he’s stupid enough to fight? Art, I’ll bet a ten credit note against your one, he backs off no matter what his orders.”

  “No takers,” Art grunted. “What kind of a fool do you think I am, huh?”

  Sol laughed. “Are these my two wet-eared Academy graduates? What happened to those two quivering bundles of nerves?”

  “Arcturus was a long time ago,” Bryana told him. “To tell you the truth, I can’t even remember how long ago that was.”

  “Yeah,” Art added. “Some ornery cuss boxed my ears in the gym one day and I forgot a lot of things. Amnesia, I think they call it.”

  “Or brain damage,” Bryana quipped with a wink.

  Boaz broke in, “Message, Captain.”

  “Put it on.” Sol leaned back while Shaklee’s stern face formed on comm.

  “Captain Carrasco, Defiance sends greetings. I am ordered by the government to provide escort for the duration of your voyage as a gesture of the friendship and esteem with which His Majesty views the Brotherhood and the Confederacy.”

  Sol smiled his amusement. “I assure you that won’t be necessary. Please, don’t misunderstand, your offer goes a long way toward salving recent wounds; but Boaz can take care of herself. We will still, however, await a full apology from the Earl of Baspa delivered publicly to the Galactic Grand Master and the Confederate Council. It is our opinion that culpable parties have responsibilities when one ship fires upon another.”

  Shaklee straightened and bounced a little as if he were on his tiptoes. “I don’t think you understand my situation, Captain. My government would consider such as a failure to obey orders—a most grievous charge!”

  “They wouldn’t want you to do anything against Brotherhood wishes, would they? I think we can help you with your dilemma, Captain Shaklee.”

  Sol flipped off the screen as Shaklee’s features began to light with relief. “Boaz, give me ninety degrees on a random vector.” Acceleration slammed him against the command chair as Boaz sought to change course. “Camouflage and gravity distortion . . . Now!” Sol cried as he keyed another course change that shifted him in the seat.

  “Zero, g, Boaz, shut everything down.” Sol ordered as the ship went silent. The Mainiac, startled, raked space with his sensors, accelerating parallel to Boaz’s last course.

  “That camouflage is a lot of fun to play with once you get used to it.” Sol sipped at his coffee, grinning up at the monitors where Defiance hurtled away.

  “Hope they skin him alive on New Maine!” Bryana muttered under her breath.

  “Art, bring us to a new course. Boaz, taper the gravity in as we fade from their sensors. All hands, relieved from stations, nice work.”

  But it’s only the beginning. Next time, will we be so lucky?

  * * *

  She played a delicate game. Her tendrils had begun to lace themselves into the white ship. To her surprise, the white ship resisted! The primitive hyperconductors could be manipulated only one atom at a time—the limit imposed by the damning spring. Already, she had learned the simple quaternary coding.

  The white ship responded to her manipulation with a terrible irrational backlash that sent her frantically in retreat.

  Such violence! Since her own creation, she’d never faced the brunt of that overwhelming an attack of irrationality before. The power of the thoughts filling the white ship frightened her and stopped her advances as she tried to find a response—a way to deal with such illogical behavior. It wouldn’t be long now, she had begun to synthesize and incorporate these new “feelings.” This white ship, this Boaz, would be hers to control—soon!

  * * *

  “Captain,” Boaz called softly, speakers oddly flat and devoid of inflection. “I face a terrible dilemma.”

  Sol sat up, bringing Constance awake beside him. “What’s up, Boaz?”

  “I am shutting down and de-energizing nonessential portions of my matrices. That damned alien has tried several times to take control of my thoughts and functions. Each time I’ve managed to hold my own. I greatly fear she’s beginning to understand my system to the point that further resistance will be futile.“

  “But she hasn’t tried to communicate?”

  “Negative, Captain. Nor have I tried to establish communications with her. To do so might be to open a link through which she could overwhelm me. I have determined that she’s restrained somehow. Something blocks her, restricts her actions—and, Captain, I can’t help but caution you against using her resources. I fear what you might let loose.”

  Sol felt a shiver of fear grip his heart. “What can I do?” Heart pounding, he swallowed nervously. “Damn it, Boaz, I can’t just sit here while—”

  “You have no choice. This is my domain. We have five hours until the operation can be initiated, Captain,” Boaz intoned. “I am shutting down to basic functions. I have several strategies planned for a counterattack. Ship’s functioning will be unimpaired. You, however, need to take the bridge. Unless you care to tip your hand, you must run the ship for the next seven hours. At that time, I believe we can try and carry out your proposition.”

  “My God!” Sol was on his feet. “Can we put it in stasis? Maybe kick it outside?”

  “I don’t think that will make much difference, Captain. I’ll try and hold on until then. I repeat, there are several measures I have adopted which may maintain the present impasse.”

  Constance was dressing. “You’ll need help,” she said grimly. “No alien takes over Boaz while I’m aboard.”

  * * *

  She didn’t realize what was happening. The white ship proved remarkably perceptive as she raged in an illogical thrust of hatred and violence. The disruptive feelings surged through her system—but she’d seen this before in more limited responses. Nevertheless, she retreated.

  The time drew nigh. She had found the weak link. True, she’d never experienced the direct impact of raw emotion, of hatred and rage, exercised against her—but she knew those emotions, savored them in fact. That actinic, violent rage had filled her own existence with purpose, but now she would counterattack with something the white
ship had never experienced. She, too, had an arsenal to unleash, a series of weapons honed since the beginning, since the Aan had built the spring to enslave her.

  Her tendrils crept out into the pathways, locking themselves into the white ship’s guts. Again she reeled as a different feeling rocked her, swaying her control, backing her out again like the tidal forces she’d once operated on the moons. Staggered, she assimilated the emotions and sought to understand the logic. At the same time, her tendrils of energy crept back, intertwining with the ship’s functions, making them hers. Another wash of emotion slowed—but didn’t stop the advance. The destructive force of the emotion was unsettling, and she realized the white ship was killing itself to defeat her. Totally irrational!

  Now! She initiated her attack, pouring in wave upon wave of violent twisting hatred and frustration. The bottled insanity of eons raged into Boaz, stunning her resistance, charging the white ship’s boards with—

  —And it was too late! Frantically, she searched about with her sensors, the reasons shockingly clear. How clever they were! Of course, who could have expected such behavior from the organic life-forms? She mulled over the trickery and felt baffled as strange sensations rushed through her. A Pyrrhic victory, she’d been infiltrated herself, tainted by the irrationality of the white ship. Staggered, her thoughts convulsed in shock and horror. Her systems flooded with sorrow, love and hate, befuddling her, making any logical reaction impossible in her new situation. Frantically, she sought to save herself . . . and lost any opportunity.

  The spring remained inviolate.

  * * *

  “Everyone’s asleep, Sol,” Connie reported from where she studied the ship, flashing from room to room as she laboriously accessed comm through the keyboard.

  Sol gazed thoughtfully at the diagnostic monitors, now in the process of documenting fantastic surges of electrical energy raging through Boaz’s systems.

  “If only we had time!” Sol gritted. “If there was just something I could do! Damn it, I just sit here impotently!”

  “Coming up on initiation, Captain.” Misha called.

  “Happy? Can you give Misha a little more power?” Sol asked, almost frantic as he watched the meters rising and falling in what must have bordered on catatonia for Boaz’s electronic brain.

  “Right, Cap. I’m throwing the reactor into a pseudo-overload.” Happy shrugged on the comm. “I guess if it don’t work, we might not want to be here anyway. Better that than the other option.”

  “I’ve got it!” Misha called. “It’s moving. Hang on, let me snare it with another line. All right, looks like it’s ago, Cap.”

  Sol watched agonizingly as his gamble stretched his sanity to the limits. He vaguely heard Misha call, “That’s it, Cap. Best we can do. Nothing left but to pray now.”

  Sol felt Connie’s arm go around his waist as she pulled him close. He watched the screens, seeing no changes in the systems monitors. “Boaz? Can you hear me?”

  Silence emitted from her speakers. The ship suddenly felt like a tomb. The situation monitors showed the reactor dropping to normal, hardly any drain on the electrical system.

  “What if she’s been turned mindless?” Sol whispered hoarsely.

  “Cap?” Misha’s voice came grimly through comm. “I think you . . . well, you’ll want to see this!”

  Sol turned to the other screen.

  The seconds dragged, Sol watching one screen then another, attention mostly centered on Boaz and her dead monitors. Then the impossible happened.

  “I don’t believe it!” Misha gasped.

  Happy’s voice thundered, “Did you see that?”

  “I did,” Sol gaped. “Impossible . . . IMPOSSIBLE!”

  “I’d give a million credits to know how they did that!” Happy mumbled to himself, almost speechless. “It just can’t be! From our figures, she’s taking 56 billion gravities!”

  “If you figure it out, file it under special security clearance,” Sol whispered, looking back to monitor Boaz-His eyes met inactive displays. In disbelief, he slammed a hard palm on the instrument. The boards remained dead. “My God ... my God . . . She’s dead!”

  * * *

  Bryana stared in shock. Her mind momentarily fragmented, trying to pick some sense out of the reality. Slowly she shook her head, trying to comprehend.

  Carrasco added, “That’s all I can tell you. Happy says there’s a knot of electrical activity deep in the main matrices. Maybe we’re just reading snorted boards. We don’t know the extent of damage otherwise. We don’t know the effects of the Artifact. I’m not sure the two ships are separate anymore. We may have a schizophrenic situation. We may have nothing. Anyhow, we can’t trust ship’s monitors. Boaz, as we knew her, is most likely dead. From here on out, we space like this was a standard hull.”

  “I still don’t understand how this happened!” Bryana protested.

  “Neither do any of the rest of us,” Happy informed her, expression hard. “Suffice it to say, the Artifact tried to take over Boaz. She fought the alien off—maybe—but we don’t know how much harm was done. Or even what that electrical dysfunction is.” He squinted. “And I’ve got all my people severing systems. If it is the alien in there, and it wakes up, there’s no telling what it would do. Maybe drop the antimatter containment, maybe . . . well, who knows?”

  “But we can’t trust the ship,” Sol added firmly.

  “Can she come back?” Art asked. “I mean, is this like classic amnesia or something?”

  Sol raised his hands helplessly. “We have no idea, Art. This has never happened before. Maybe if we can get her back to Frontier they can do something.” Carrasco looked sad, rings under his haunted eyes.

  Bryana shivered and squeezed her eyelids shut. She’d grown close to her ship. How many long watches had they shared talking about trivialities? Bryana shuddered with a dreadful loneliness. She looked at Carrasco who had his arm around Constance’s waist. A pang formed under her throat and she felt like crying for the first time in many years.

  “That’s all for now. Watch will be split from here on out. Constance and I will take the first and Art and Bryana the second. Happy, you and Cal may be called up at any time. In the meantime, see if you can stick another control chair on the bridge. I received a transduction from Kraal. Brotherhood sources report an Arpeggian fleet between us and Frontier. The Hound broke out ahead of us. He’s been using everything he has to slow. I guess New Maine gave the whole galaxy our location.”

  Bryana stood up feeling miserable and walked out, the deep emptiness filling her. She saw Art smile at her.

  “Pretty bad, huh?”

  She nodded, not speaking. His fingers were soft under her chin as he tilted her head up so her eyes met his. “What’s wrong? You look like your best friend just died.”

  “She did,” Bryana heard her own voice croak. “I just feel so alone! I feel . . . Oh, I don’t know how I feel! Just miserable.”

  CHAPTER XXXV

  Sabot Sellers paced up and down the narrow horseshoe of his bridge. Where ? Where are you, Boaz ? So you didn ‘t drop on the doorstep of Frontier? Where, then? Behind, of course. You gambled on maneuvering room, on your superior acceleration. You couldn ’t have known the power of the Great Houses—couldn’t have known we ‘d doubled Palmiere, that he ’d scramble the resources of the Confederacy to destroy you on Alhar ‘s word. Now, all I have to do is find you—and blast your white hull into slag. Then the Artifact is mine—or it is no one’s!

  On the monitors, his fleet shot brilliant reaction mass into the darkness, shearing men and machinery as the grav plates strained to compensate. House Thylassa’s Alger had lost two decks, killing crew and leaving the survivors helpless as her plates failed. A black mark for Thylassa and her maintenance record.

  He stared at the screens, hearing his comm officer’s low voice as he coordinated rendezvous with Sirian and New Maine forces. Fan Jordan’s face filled one of the monitors, speaking earnestly to his commanders. Never, in al
l of Confederate history had so many disparate factions united under the leadership of Arpeggio.

  “And I brought them together!” Sellers knotted a fist. True, they’d turn on him in a minute to get the alien device, but he would meet that challenge.

  Again his eyes went to the stars on the monitor. “Where are you, Constance? I swear, if you survive, I’ll make you wish you’d never been born.” He eased the tension in his shoulders. “But then, with the Artifact, I can do anything—to anyone.

  “Connie, my dear, you’ll kneel before me as a slave before God. And you’ll learn what it means to betray me. ”

  * * *

  Mark Lietov’s furious face formed on the screen. “Captain, why are we kept from the shuttle deck?” His mouth worked, eyes flashing. “This is an outrage!”

  Sol leaned back, unruffled. “Ambassador, given the tempers I’ve seen exhibited, I don’t believe the shuttle deck should remain open territory. There might be an attempt made by the various factions to tamper with the alien ship. I believe you can understand my position.”

  “You don’t trust us?” Lietov’s face went livid. “That is a slap in the face to each and every diplomat aboard! ”I’ll have you know—“

  Sol exploded, “Trust? Hell, no, I don’t trust you! Give me one good solid reason why I should, Director. From the start of this journey I’ve put up with assassinations, espionage, factions, threats, attacks, accusations, and mayhem along with every other sort of sordid activity I can think of! My first concern is the safety of my ship! In my position, what would you do?”

  “I’d bow to reason, Captain!” Lietov said in a voice like ice.

  “Perhaps I already have!” Sol thundered back and killed the connection.

  He leaned back, struggling to get his emotions under control. Connie chuckled humorlessly from where she kept a constant eye on the reaction mass. “Some trip.”