The Lost Secret

by Vaughn Heppner

  “What does this quantum phase do?”

  “Aye,” Horx Lars said. “That’s the best question ye asked so far. My senior scientist says it means to open a portal or door to another space—Fourthspace, in this instance—and swallow us. Or, in another way, the quantum phase means to tear a hole from one plane of existence to another. Such a thing should not be possible, but the second planet appears to possess alien wizardry.”

  “Your vessel is stuck in place?”

  “How did ye know that?”

  “I’m beginning to think I came from your future, Pack Leader.”

  “The Hades you say? That be right impossible.”

  “I’m beginning to believe otherwise,” Maddox said. “Sir, could you tell me if you’ve seen a floating ball of light.”

  “You mean the dim system star?”

  “No, a ball-of-light alien, a creature,” Maddox said.

  Horx Lars stared at Maddox. The Pack Leader began to whine and shake his head. “Do ye be a warlock of legend? How did you know about him?”

  “I’ve met him,” Maddox said.

  Horx Lars raised his snout and howled.

  The guards along the wall rushed up, two of them grabbing Maddox by the shoulders, hauling him out of his chair.

  The captain didn’t like how the fur on Horx Lars stood up on end and how the pack leader’s eyes rolled around in their sockets. The Ardazirho howled once more and gnashed his fanged maw. Making a production of it, the creature worked up out of his seat and pointed an accusing and hairy digit at the captain.

  It felt as if the Ardazirho was going to pass a sentence of death on him. Thus, Maddox used a judo move, throwing one of the guards over his shoulder and twisting toward the other. The guard snarled, raising his lips and showing his fangs. Maddox punched him against the snout. The guard shrank back and whined with pain. Maddox grappled with the alien, tore the holster flap open and drew the creature’s pistol. At the same time, he kneed the guard in the groin. The guard whimpered, staggering back—Maddox shot him in the head. He whirled around and shot Horx Lars in the head. Crouching, hearing shots whiz past him, Maddox turned and fired until his alien revolver clicked empty.

  Speed and surprise—the Ardazirhos lay dead on the floor or twitched with their last gasps of life.

  Maddox was panting and his heart thudding. He hadn’t wanted to murder the lot of them. Them or me—he hadn’t needed his expanded sixth sense to realize that. So he’d done what he’d had to in order to survive.

  “Now what?” he muttered.

  He had his monofilament knife hidden in a boot. He’d put it there after Ludendorff had mentioned it after he’d destroyed Half-Life. The knife would not be enough, though. So he gathered pistols. They were all the same model, alien revolvers holding eight bullets each. He tucked two revolvers between his belt and pants and carried another two, one in each hand. He had to get out of here. But where should he go?

  He still breathed hard, realizing he needed a plan. To that end, he closed his eyes and bent his head, seeing if he could sense something, anything. His head jerked up. He had to get back to the spot where he’d dropped onto the C.I. Nubilus. He had to get there now.

  -63-

  Maddox sailed weightlessly through the C.I. Nubilus’s main tubular corridor. He no longer had four pistols, but two, having emptied the others, leaving several weightless Ardazirho corpses behind as evidence of a fight.

  If he was right about his theory—that he’d not only “fallen” millions of kilometers from his former location but into the past—these aliens were already long dead. Still, he felt guilty for killing them as he had.

  He needed to think, to process all this and figure out—what exactly? The alien vessel had something to do with Balron. What had the pack leader told him? C.I Nubilus was caught in a quantum phase, a portal or door to Fourthspace, which was a different plane of existence or dimension.

  The Erills in the City of Pyramids on the Planet of the Erills had migrated from a different plane of existence to this one. Ancient Ur-Builders had long-ago created a gateway to that plane. The Erills had possessed the unlucky Ur-Builders, devouring them. The regular Builders had quickly discovered this and quarantined that star system, making sure that no Erills roamed free in the galaxy, and that no new gateway appeared to let in more deadly aliens. Might Builders on the Library Planet have once created a similar portal or gate? Horx Lars had said something beamed from the second planet at the ship to create the quantum phase or portal.

  Was that one of the reasons why the Builders had disappeared? Had some or most migrated to this Fourthspace, this other plane of existence? What lived in Fourthspace? Was that the ancient name for the dimension of the Erills?

  Maddox scowled. Balron hadn’t seemed like an Erill, but according to Ludendorff, the Erill soul energy in him had likely acted as a beacon to Balron.

  A shot rang out, and a bullet zipped past Maddox. He twisted around to look back. Several Ardazirho guards flew weightlessly after him, one of them firing.

  Maddox snapped off a shot. One of the guards went limp as blood spurted. The Ardazirhos might have originated from wolves or some other lupine creatures. The monkey man was proving superior to them in marksmanship, however. Maddox deliberately fired again, and another Ardazirho cried out.

  The rest howled and bayed with bloodlust, drawing their weapons. A ragged volley rang out, then another.

  Maddox grunted and jerked, grazed in the back and left shoulder. Before they got off a third volley, Maddox twisted around so he lay back with his feet aimed at them. From the prone position, he snapped off one shot after another, killing all eight of them, but discharging his remaining cylinders.

  He tucked the empty revolvers under his belt, wishing he’d taken time to collect bullets. Maybe he could fake someone once with the guns. He grabbed the float-rail and started trucking faster. He was out of time—Maddox scowled. He hated puns or plays on words. How the guards had missed each time—he shook his head. That didn’t make sense. That wasn’t logical. Some other force was at work. Yes, the Ardazirhos had grazed his skin. Blood dripped from his left shoulder.

  “Balron,” he said. “How did you keep the bullets from killing me?”

  No one answered. He didn’t sense any listening intelligence, either.

  “One or two of them should have hit me. They were guards. It is beyond probability and reason to think they missed every freaking time.”

  Yes, a soundless voice said in his mind.

  Maddox shivered with dread. As the soundless voice spoke, a Builder symbol appeared in the captain’s consciousness. The symbol had only appeared to him in his thoughts when he’d faced Erills. That meant either Balron was some kind of Erill, or an Erill-type creature had just impersonated Balron.

  The sensation of an alien mind departed. Had it lost strength and thus could no longer keep the connection open, or had it fled to preserve its real identity?

  I must be a key, Maddox thought. Maybe I’m the Opener of the Way. Balron did what he did to me in order to change me so I could do a service for him. Yes. He’s already told me the service he desires. All along, he’s wanted me to go the wreck and find a doorway to a long corridor. At its end, I’ll meet an alien. The two of us will go to a special room and retrieve several items. Balron wants me to take the so-called missing pieces to Victory. Are the pieces needed to complete the quantum phase, the portal to another plane of existence?

  As Maddox sailed weightlessly through the seemingly endless corridor, he wondered if this had anything to do with his extended visit to the City of Pyramids. In some manner, the hungry Erills in the—Fourthspace, their plane of existence is called Fourthspace. It has to be.

  Yes. A feeling of rightness filled him: that he was making correct guesses. Can I leave the C.I. Nubilus of the past? What caused me to come here in the first place?

  He pondered that. Balron had come to Victory. No, Maddox didn’t know that for sure. A great brightness had appeared i
n the conference room. Balron had spoken through that brightness. He had told Maddox to go to the wreck of C.I. Nubilus. Maddox had rushed the brightness and fallen—

  There’s a link between Victory and C.I. Nubilus. That link had allowed Balron to…to do what? Balron had said he was using a great expenditure of energy or power.

  Maddox snapped his fingers. Where had Balron gained the power? Maddox didn’t think it had come from the Fourthspace, from the realm of the Erills. Horx Lars had said a beam or power from the second planet had captured the C.I. Nubilus in a quantum phase.

  “The second planet,” Maddox said, “the Library Planet.”

  Who was presently at the Library Planet? Well, in Maddox’s original present, the New Men were there. The New Men had also deployed an orbital insertion team. Could that team have had anything to do with stopping a grave alien—Erill—menace?

  I’m onto something, Maddox realized.

  A pang filled him, making him wince. As quickly as he could, he tried to slow down with the float-rail. That hurt the palms of his hands. He would friction burn them raw if he wasn’t careful. Maddox tore off his shirt, wrapping fabric around his hands. Then he slowed, slowed more and pulled back to the spot where he’d felt the—

  He winced once more. Here! Here was the spot. He looked around, seeing bulkheads, ceiling and deckplates. There was no opening, no brightness to guide him.

  Think, Maddox told himself.

  A howl in the distance caused him to look down the corridor. More Ardazirhos were on the way, flying weightlessly toward him. Shots rang out.

  Maddox flattened onto the deck. Bullets zipped over him. He wanted to howl and gnash his teeth just like the wolf-men. But that wouldn’t get him anywhere but dead. He had to think, to use his head—

  Concentrate. Concentrate—no, no, relax.

  Maddox snorted, but he attempted to relax and let himself feel with his sixth sense. More shots rang out. Bullets zinged overhead. It was a dreadful feeling.

  Suddenly, Maddox sensed an opening above him. He rolled onto his back, looking up at the ceiling. It looked ordinary enough. He stared at the ceiling and almost panicked.

  Instead, he inhaled deeply, closed his eyes and sensed the unnatural opening above him.

  Crouching—hearing gunshots and bloodthirsty Ardazirho howls—Maddox coiled himself and shot upward as hard as he could. He flew up, expecting to dash himself unconscious against the ceiling. That did not happen.

  Maddox swallowed and opened his eyes. He was in darkness, and he sensed that his upward motion was slowing. When it did, he would fall back down to the C.I. Nubilus. The Ardazirhos would kill him there.

  He reached out in the darkness and felt slickness. He tried to grab that, but his hands slipped away uselessly. He had no idea what kind of realm this was. Maybe it had more in common with dreams and nightmares. Thus, he willed himself to have spiked palms. He didn’t look at his hands in case that would ruin things. He dragged his palm against the slick surface and they slipped uselessly. He opened his eyes and used the light from the opening below to see that his hands were as ordinary as could be.

  This wasn’t a dream in that way.

  My knife!

  Maddox reached to his boot top and drew the monofilament blade. The point and edges were a chain of molecules thick. He jabbed the knife into the slickness and used the wall-lodged weapon to pull upward. He went a little faster as if he was still weightless, nor nearly so. Fortunately, he yanked the blade out of the slick wall as he sailed higher. He repeated the performance, keeping himself heading up. It was hard, sweaty work, but it was better than falling back onto the C.I. Nubilus.

  Soon, he saw an opening above. It was bright there, but the brightness was noticeably dimming. As it dimmed, the opening visibly began to shrink.

  Gritting his teeth, muttering a prayer, Maddox strove to increase his speed. He jabbed the monofilament blade into the slick wall, pulled up as if it were a mountain-climbing pin, drew out the knife, and it slipped from his sweaty grip. The knife tumbled away, heading down toward the distant opening at the bottom.

  Maddox swallowed and looked up as he moved in that direction with agonizing slowness. The higher opening shrank as he strained to reach it with his fingertips. He inched nearer, terrified he’d stop moving higher and then start to fall. His fingers reached the outer edge of the shrinking hole. He grasped the edge, and with a groan, he dragged himself out of the opening and onto the conference table aboard Victory.

  For a second, the others around the table were frozen. The hole shut, and there was a flash. All of them began to babble and shout at once, demanding to know why he was suddenly lying on the table instead of sitting at the head as he’d been just a second ago.

  -64-

  With a terrible feeling of unreality, Maddox slid off the table. “Quiet!” he shouted. “Shut up, everyone! Quiet!”

  The others fell silent as they stared at him.

  “Where’s your shirt?” Ludendorff asked.

  “Your shoulder’s bleeding,” Meta said.

  “You’re sweating, and your heart rate is far too high, sir,” Galyan said.

  “Enough,” Maddox panted. He was sweaty and winded, and the feeling of the surreal was beginning to confuse him. He used the table to stabilize as he negotiated his way to his seat. He collapsed onto his chair, staring at the others, wondering if this was the dream.

  “Sir,” Galyan said. “It appears as if several bullets have grazed your skin. How is that possible? One second, you were speaking to us. The next second, you were lying upon the table in your impossible state.”

  “Please,” Maddox said. “Give me a second.” He put his hands against the table edge and simply breathed. The wounds told him that he had actually undergone the ordeal. Yet, that should be impossible as Galyan had said.

  He looked up at them. “We’re dealing with ultra-powerful forces. Balron—I don’t know what he is. Professor, before I proceed, I need you to get the headbands and your scatter-light gun. I’m not sure if any of that will help, but we have to do whatever we can to guard ourselves.”

  “You’re acting paranoid,” Ludendorff said.

  “Meta,” Maddox said, ignoring the professor’s comment, “can you get me another shirt, some bandages and a couple of bottles of water? I’m terribly thirsty. Have Valerie help you.”

  His wife looked as if she wanted to ask a hundred questions. Instead, she nodded, rose and looked at Valerie. The two of them hurried from the room.

  “Professor, please. Go now and get those items.”

  “Very well,” Ludendorff said, rising and walking from the chamber.

  “Galyan, summon Riker. Tell him to come armed. I want his common sense to help us negotiate this madness.”

  “What happened to you, sir?”

  “Dammit, Galyan, get Riker. We’re running out of time, I think. We might already be too late.”

  “You do not really think that, sir,” Galyan said. “It is a deception on your part so I will stop asking questions.”

  Maddox leaned back against his chair and turned his head. Was he going mad? Could things like this really happen? What he’d just gone through seemed more like magic than science, or maybe this was super-science. He nodded to himself and turned to Galyan.

  The holoimage was gone.

  Maddox folded his arms on the table and laid his head on his arms, closing his eyes…

  Maddox snorted awake, realizing that Meta was shaking an arm. He sat up, let her clean and bandage his wounds, put on the fresh shirt and guzzled a bottle of water. By that time, the others and Riker were waiting and seated around the table.

  Haltingly at first, Maddox told them what had happened, beginning with the brightness and Balron speaking to him, declaring they were in a split-second of time. Maddox began to speak more smoothly as he told them about falling aboard the C.I. Nubilus, and later about the events on the Ardazirho vessel. When Maddox finished, he guzzled the second bottle of water.


  The others glanced at each other.

  “I bandaged graze wounds,” Meta said.

  “I recorded his accelerated heart and breathing rate,” Galyan said.

  “I saw him suddenly shirtless,” Ludendorff said.

  Riker frowned thoughtfully. “What do you think, sir? Did these things really happen to you or did you have a vision?”

  “How can I explain these physical realities?” Maddox asked. “I mean the wounds, being winded and finding myself shirtless and lying on the table? Something happened to me. Did I truly experience such ‘impossible’ events as I’ve described? I’m inclined to think I did.”

  “I’m not so inclined,” Ludendorff said. “And yet…the idea of Erills and another plane of existence—” The professor frowned. “Another plane could explain the beam of light. We recorded a flux at the wreck. Could that have been a portal opening to another plane, allowing anti-energy to flow from there? Perhaps that is what ‘made’ the anti-energy.” He shook his head. “There is something else. Suppose we do take your adventures as real, what does that tell us about Balron?”

  “That he has or has access to great power,” Maddox said.

  “Most certainly true,” Ludendorff said. “What else?’

  “What are you getting at?” Maddox asked.

  “Thinking, merely thinking aloud,” Ludendorff said as he stared at a point in the ceiling, possibly beginning to brood.

  “We have dealt with powerful creatures before,” Galyan said, “some able to cross vast distances, for instance. I refer to the Nameless Ones we once saw from a different galaxy. We have also seen the City of Pyramids and learned about the folly of the Ur-Builders. I do not know if Balron is an Erill, a creature of the Ur-Builders or the Builders themselves. It would seem he has a clear purpose in mind. We know because he altered the captain for some special reason. The problem is that we do not know if his purpose works against or for us. I am inclined to think against.”