It must be an act, Ural decided. Does Strand think he can fool me with it?
Strand’s eyes seemed to glitter then, and the skin of his face tightened. He was the evil dwarf of legend, the one offering gifts that always cost too much. Strand was offering them greatness—no, no, that wasn’t exactly right. He was offering them independence from Earth and the Commonwealth. The Throne World New Men could go their own way once they could sire males and females in equal measure. What would that collectively cost them from Strand?
“Ah, Ural, Ural,” Strand said. “You’re the cleverest among the bunch, aren’t you?”
“I don’t believe that for a second.”
“A lie,” Strand purred.
Ural stood. The three protectors grew more alert, the tension in the cabin climbing. “Have a care, Methuselah Man. I do not lie. Nor do I care for the Throne World’s most notorious liar calling me one.”
Strand smiled, showing most of his teeth. Despite his years of imprisonment, the teeth were white indeed. “A backhanded compliment, eh? I accept it—the most notorious, you say, which meant the greatest. Yes. I’m still the greatest among us.”
Ural sat back down and swiveled to his piloting board. Was Strand gloating? Was Strand trying to goad him into doing something rash? Maybe it was both. He eyed the approaching derelict, which was now visible through the polarized window.
Ural slowed their velocity as he examined the wreck through his controls. Maybe for the first time this voyage he felt how far away from home they had come. This might be home ground for the Methuselah Man, but for the rest of them, it was the farthest any of them had come into the Great Beyond. A sense of awe grew—a beating in his chest. That was an alien vessel, a derelict shot up by someone or something. It was approximately seven hundred years old. What kind of ship would have thousands of separate pods? This was…a merchant vessel it would seem. Why would a merchant vessel need thousands of independent pods? What did Strand know that he wasn’t telling them?
This was a game, a hard, tight one. The Emperor had sent Strand…because he feared the Methuselah Man, maybe wishing that his cousin would eliminate the danger for him. Strand offered a grand prize, but with a terrible price that none of them yet knew.
This was act two at the Library Planet System. Something was going to happen here at the derelict—Ural was sure of it. Thus, it was time to excel, as his opponent was the most dangerous man of the Throne World.
-48-
Ural parked the shuttle beside the seven-hundred-year-old derelict. He and the NSS regulator donned spacesuits. Strand and his three gunmen donned theirs. The NSS enforcer and Franco would remain aboard the shuttle just in case.
The search team exited the shuttle airlock in two groups, Ural and his man first. Soon, Strand and his three joined them. Using thruster packs, they jetted the short distance to the derelict vessel. It loomed before them, a dark mass that soon extended in either direction. Ural glanced back, seeing how tiny the shuttle had become. Then he eyed the nearing black mass of ship. He could no longer see the metallic planet behind the vessel.
“Time to slow down,” Ural said over the comm.
Each man rotated and expelled thrust, slowing. They turned back, one at a time, gently landing through a large, blown-away hangar entrance.
Ural clicked a switch, magnetizing the soles of his boots, attaching to the metal deck. Like the others, he shrugged off the thruster pack, a smaller variety for short hops just like this.
“Do we leave a guard?” Strand asked over the helmet comm.
“There were no life or energy signs earlier,” Ural replied over his.
“That doesn’t answer the question.”
“What do you suggest?”
“You’re in charge of the expedition,” Strand said. “It’s your decision.”
Inside his helmet, Ural frowned. What did Strand know about the derelict he hadn’t told any of them? He shrugged. The only way to find out was to search the damn thing. Waiting here was just wasting time.
“No guard,” Ural said. “And we’re going to stick together.”
“We can search faster if we split up into teams,” Strand said.
Ural laughed.
A second later, so did Strand.
The Methuselah Man didn’t elaborate. He didn’t need to for Ural, and the laugh had been for him, hadn’t it?
They began the search, each of them decreasing the magnetic strength of his boots so they didn’t float weightlessly but didn’t have to tug mightily to free their feet. Helmet lamps washed and crisscrossed through the hangar bay. They showed stark nothingness in bulkheads and deck, smashed lights and no litter anywhere. What did that mean? The answer was easy enough. When the ancient attack occurred, the missiles, pellets, whatever, had breached the hull everywhere. That would have meant violent decompression as the air fled into the vacuum of space. The violent decompression would have blown the debris—everything, it seemed—out into space. There hadn’t been any litter around the derelict. The planet must have tugged it all down with its gravity. Why it hadn’t already tugged the derelict down as well was a mystery.
That is one of the things we need to solve, Ural realized.
They clanked soundlessly through the giant tubular section of the ship. It was the same no matter where they went. There were no papers, no relics, no bones, nothing that could have told them the story.
Time passed with the endless crisscrossing beams shining upon the bulkheads and deck plates. Ural pointed in a direction, and they finally demagnetized their boots and used seven-hundred-year-old handrails to propel themselves weightlessly through the vessel.
The large bridge showed similar destruction with smashed consoles and shredded seats. Strangely, Strand couldn’t find any computers.
“These are analog calculators,” the Methuselah Man said over the helmet comm. They were in a large room attached to the control chamber with smashed banks of machines around them. “There must have been over thirty mathematicians in here, calculating in lieu of computers.”
“That doesn’t seem possible,” Ural said.
“I’m right about this.”
“I don’t doubt you. It just seems odd that a Builder ship would lack computers.”
“This wasn’t a Builder ship,” Strand said.
“Oh. Who constructed it?”
“I don’t know.”
“Why do I feel as if you’re lying?” Ural asked.
“It has nothing to do with me,” Strand said. “It’s your suspicious hateful nature leaking out for all to see. You’re not as righteous, as good, as you like others to think of you.”
“Let’s check the engines,” Ural said, ignoring the insult.
“That’s on the other end of the ship,” Strand complained. “We should have kept our thruster packs on.”
“We’re fine. A little exercise is good for the heart.”
The team used the float-rails again. It was relatively easy work, just grab and pull. The real danger was in traveling too fast, as one always had to slow down and that could friction-burn a glove if one did it wrong.
None of them did it badly, however. They were all experts at this, including the ancient dwarf of a Methuselah Man. Ural admitted to himself the devil might even be better at it than any of them were. It was weird to realize that, as Strand had never struck him as athletic.
He’s been around a long, long time, Ural told himself. It’s wise to remember he’s learned to do many things.
They reached the engine section of the ship. An examination showed the vessel had used slow ion propulsion. That didn’t make sense, but it was definitely ion propulsion. The vessel had once possessed a Laumer Drive, or whatever the crew had named it seven hundred years ago.
“What now?” asked Strand over his helmet comm.
“Time to check the pods,” Ural said.
“All of them?” Strand complained.
“What do you suggest?”
Strand gave a low thr
oaty laugh.
“Right,” Ural said. “I’m in charge. It’s my decision. Thus, we’ll start with the nearest pod and see what we see.”
The first pod had an open hatch to the spoke or corridor that attached it to the main ship. There were two hull breaches in the spoke itself. The pod’s hatch was open, and the pod was the size of a stadium and as empty as could be. Ural counted five hull breaches in here. Four were the size of Samos’s fists. The fifth was much larger: four meters in diameter. The pod was so empty there was no telling its former use.
“I’ve seen enough,” Ural said. “Let’s check the next one.”
The process quickly became routine. After twenty pods, they floated in, glanced at the emptiness and pull-floated back out.
“We should split up,” Strand said. “This is utterly monotonous, and there are thousands of pods.”
Ural silently agreed it made logical sense…except that Strand was untrustworthy as he was the stellar trickster extraordinaire. “You’re bored already?”
“I already said as much,” Strand told him.
“Well…that’s too bad,” Ural said.
“Your tone…what are you implying?”
“That you’ve brought this on yourself by your former actions. No one trusts you, Strand. Thus, we have to stick together so I can keep my eye on you.”
“The Emperor trusts me. Are you saying he’s a fool to do so?”
“Not in the slightest,” Ural said.
“I think you are saying exactly that. I hope you others heard what he said. Ural called the Emperor a—”
“Strand,” Ural warned. “You’d better be very careful what you say. I’m recording all of this. Claiming I think a thing doesn’t make it so. You’re the one saying such things, and the Emperor will hear that very well.”
“If I die out here it’ll be because you’ve bored me to death,” Strand said. “If you want to waste all our time by sticking together, that’s your call, not mine.”
“I’ll say it again. We’re together because I don’t trust you out of my sight.”
“Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah,” Strand said. “Let’s go, or it will be tomorrow before we’re done.”
Ural considered that as they continued moving. Strand had made a production of the latest request. Did that mean the prize of the vessel was coming up and Strand wanted to grab it out of his sight? Ural became more alert, and eight pods later, they found something new.
-49-
They floated through an open hatch, fully expecting nothing. Ural glanced around the pod and was already turning his body when it hit him.
This one was different.
He had to yank himself back around, staring at the interior pod. Several of the others did likewise. Ural wished he’d been watching Strand to see if the Methuselah Man had to do the same thing.
Firstly, this pod lacked hull breaches. The hull was secure, intact. Secondly, there was a long skeleton on the deck, ancient strewn straw and—Ural picked up a hard-as-nails…pellet, he supposed.
“That’s food,” Strand said through his helmet comm.
Ural looked up.
“It’s a food concentrate,” Strand said.
Ural examined the pellet between his gloved thumb and index finger. What kind of alien ate pellets? He glanced at the straw on the deck. Who slept on straw? Ah. Animals did. “Does this pellet, this food concentrate, help you to determine the species?”
With the toe of a space-boot, Strand touched the long skeleton. It was ten meters and showed two appendages with leathery wings, possibly, and six more appendages with obvious claws, and it had a nasty narrow skull with an impressive array of fangs and a long obvious tail. The touched part of the skeleton vaporized, some of the particles scattering over the deck and the others lifting, floating in the vacuum as if they were on a moon.
“Species?” said Strand. “Is that what you asked?”
Inside his helmet, Ural frowned. He detected…humor in Strand’s voice, but didn’t understand why. The not understanding bothered him.
“This was an animal,” Strand said.
“I already know that.”
“Do you now? Do you know what kind of animal it was?”
“That’s why I’m asking you,” Ural said.
“There’s no need to be touchy about it. This was a volraptor, I should think.”
“Vol-raptor,” Ural repeated silently. It sounded like a predatory beast. “You’ve seen one of these before?”
“Long ago,” said Strand, “on a world three thousand light-years from here.”
“What?”
Strand coughed. “I don’t remember the distance exactly. I spoke out of turn. ‘Three thousand’ simply means forever. I should have said centuries ago.”
“Bull,” Ural said flatly. “I believe you when you say that you’ve been three thousand light-years from here. In what direction, though?”
“Don’t think to interrogate me, Golden Ural. I’m the Emperor’s advisor, not your lickspittle boy.”
Ural’s temper rose as he envisioned striding to the evil dwarf and puncturing the spacesuit, watching Strand suffocate to death.
Maybe the three suited gunmen realized this. As a group, they moved in front of Strand in relation to Ural. That caused the suited NSS regulator to drop a gloved hand onto a holstered blaster.
“Ah,” Strand said in a smooth voice. “This has developed into a situation. How interesting, eh, Ural?”
Something about the way Strand said that cooled Ural’s anger. He deliberately throttled it even further back. He didn’t understand what caused the Methuselah Man’s humor a second ago. He didn’t understand what the evil dwarf was attempting to bring to fruition here. Ural didn’t like what he didn’t understand and he certainly didn’t want to play Strand’s game.
“What’s a volraptor?” Ural asked, deciding to change the subject.
“That was,” Strand said, aiming the toe of a boot at the disrupted skeleton.
“Was it a predator?”
“What gave that away?” Strand asked in a superior tone. “The name, perhaps? The fangs? The claws?”
Once more, Ural throttled back his anger. Don’t fall into his trap. He smiled to himself. I won’t. “Why would a ship carry a predatory volraptor?”
“Yes, finally,” said Strand. “You arrive at the root of the evidence. This is a volraptor. We see one, well, one skeleton. I suspect the ship carried more in the pod, but we do not see more. Do you know why?”
Ural looked around. Then it hit him. “This one ate the others. It was the last survivor.”
“Ah…Ural…maybe you should be the Emperor. That’s the answer. This was the last one. I am now ready to pose a hypothesis about what occurred here. I mean to the ship as a whole.”
“I serve at the Emperor’s pleasure,” Ural said stiffly.
“What? Yes, of course, of course. We all know that.”
“He is the Methuselah Man,” Ural said to the three gunmen, as he pointed at Strand. “He spoke about me being Emperor, knowing you would report it, which you most certainly should. Strand is attempting to sow division between the Emperor and me. That is wrong of him.”
“Really, Ural,” Strand said, “you’re much too suspicious about the littlest things. The negative impulse sours you and turns you into a boorish companion. Take a compliment in stride, why don’t you? You’re quick-witted and clever. I applaud that, nothing more.”
Don’t try to match him at word play. He’s better at it. Ural cleared his throat, deciding to drop the topic and stick to the mission. “You spoke about a hypothesis.”
“You’re through being suspicious of me then, are you?”
“Was this a zoo ship?” Ural asked.
Strand stood frozen for just a moment. Then he clapped his gloved hands three times. “Bravo indeed, Ural. That is correct. This was a collection vessel or a zoo ship as you called it. It must have contained thousands of different animals. Why anyone would fire at such a
vessel is beyond me. Why it would come to the Library Planet System is also a mystery.”
“Maybe not a mystery seven hundred years ago,” Ural said. “Nevertheless…given that you’re right about the type of vessel, it doesn’t strike me as dangerous to our mission.”
“Not in the slightest,” Strand said.
Ural studied the undamaged pod, the volraptor skeleton and the other space-suited people in the chamber with him. “All right. We’ve discovered the nature of the vessel and we’re done in here. Let’s get back to the shuttle.”
“You first,” said Strand.
Inside the helmet, Ural squinted at the Methuselah Man. Then he silently berated himself. Maybe he was too suspicious of Strand. Sometimes a derelict vessel was just a derelict vessel. Still, why had Strand said it that way just now? Was it to screw with him, or for some nefarious reason? Ural dropped a gloved hand onto his holstered blaster and floated toward the exit.
Soon, with Ural leading, they exited the spoke and reentered the large tubular section of the ship. It was a long way to the hangar bay where they’d piled the thruster packs. Maybe that was why Ural increased speed, forcing the others to do likewise.
After a time, Ural wondered about that. Why was he traveling so fast? He glanced back at the others. They followed him in a strung-out line, with their helmet lamps washing over the deck and bulkheads. Of course, it was empty here like the rest of the derelict ship. Maybe whoever had shot up the zoo vessel had ransacked it later. They would have taken everything…but for the volraptors, it seemed.
Ural faced forward again, content to float for a while. He thought about the volraptor—his nape hairs stirred and gut tightened. Something hunted him. He could feel it. He searched ahead, tracking where his lamplight touched. The ill feeling grew, but he saw nothing to cause it. He turned his head as he said, “Does anyone else feel—?”
The Lost Secret Page 27