The Lost Artifact

by Vaughn Heppner

  ***

  Lieutenant Maker found himself heading back in the tin can. That surprised him. Of course, he was the best. But he’d just come in from a mission. He’d folded. A person needed time to let his body adjust to all the skipping around through space.

  Star Watch had refined the drugs that let people fold and jump without the old Jump Lag. But still, extended folding in a short amount of time took its toll.

  Soon enough, Keith was in the tin can. They’d loaded up an antimatter missile this time.

  “Incoming message from the captain,” the flight officer said on the comm screen

  “Roger that,” Keith said.

  Maddox appeared on the screen. What the heck? The captain looked terrible. Maddox should let Valerie do this.

  Keith hadn’t yet learned that Valerie had been confined to quarters.

  “This is it, gentlemen,” Maddox whispered, addressing both fold-fighter pilots. “I have reason to believe that you’re going up against the clone of the Methuselah Man Strand,” the captain whispered. “He has a unique vessel, along with…Builder equipment.”

  Keith nodding with understanding, realizing now why they’d wanted him in on this one.

  “Your mission is critical,” Maddox said.

  Keith already knew that. Why was the captain stating the obvious?

  “No matter what happens,” Maddox whispered, “you must destroy his vessel.”

  Keith cocked his head. It seemed they ought to try to capture a ship with Builder equipment. But his wasn’t to reason why. His was to do or die, with the emphasis on do.

  Maddox continued the briefing. The captain looked as if he was going to pass out at any second.

  “Any questions?” Maddox finally asked.

  Keith licked his lips, almost asking why they weren’t going to capture the clone and his ship, but he decided the captain didn’t look healthy enough to answer.

  “Get him, gentlemen,” Maddox finished. “I’m counting on you.”

  “Aye-aye, sir,” Keith said. “Consider the clone as good as dead, sir. You can take that the bank.”

  -23-

  Strand’s clone slept in his quarters aboard his ghost-ship. He was catching a few winks before the Laumer-Point jump. An alarm rang. The clone opened his eyes, sat up, stretched—

  The hatch to his quarters slid up. The big artillery-shell-shaped Builder robot floated in. That worried the clone more than the red-alert klaxon. He’d given precise orders some time ago. The robot was not allowed to come in here.

  “You must hurry to the bridge,” the robot said.

  Strand’s hand slipped under his pillow. He gripped a powerful blaster hidden there. He didn’t know if the Builder robot had a good defense against the blaster or not. But he felt that he was about to find out.

  “Why are you in my quarters?” Strand demanded.

  “Because this is an emergency that overrides your former commands,” the robot said blandly.

  “I gave you unequivocal orders.”

  “If you do not reach the bridge soon, your probability of surviving the danger will dip below sixty percent.”

  “What are you talking about? What’s gone wrong?”

  “Victory has launched two fold-fighters. The craft have folded and are less than three hundred thousand kilometers from us.”

  “Are they headed for the Laumer Point?”

  “Their trajectory is toward us. Captain Maddox is likely aware of our ghost-ship.”

  “That’s impossible. Maddox is in no condition to know that. Besides, he has powerful post-hypnotic commands. He cannot lift a hand against me.”

  “You must reevaluate your belief, as two fold-fighters are racing toward us. Each of them carries an antimatter missile.”

  Strand’s mouth went dry.

  “If you do not reach the bridge soon…”

  Strand sensed a threat from the robot. His fingers tightened around the blaster. What if the robot had a force field that was proof against the blaster’s heavy beam? Surely, at that point, the robot would retaliate. Should he risk everything by destroying the robot? He would lose his link to the incredible Builder computer, then. Without the computer, how would he achieve his master goal?

  “Why are you hesitating?” the robot asked.

  “Don’t you know why?” Strand mocked.

  “In truth, yes,” the robot said. “You are deciding if you can destroy me with your hidden blaster. You cannot, but if you need to make the attempt…”

  Strand went cold inside. “And if I fail to destroy you?” he asked.

  “Then you will die.”

  The fear wriggled in Strand’s gut. He couldn’t believe this. Had the robot and the computer been using him all this time?

  He released the blaster and removed his hand from under the pillow. He couldn’t worry about the robot now. He would later, but not now.

  “Maddox knows we’re here?” Strand asked.

  “I give that a seventy-eight percent probability,” the robot said.

  “That means Maddox broke my hypnotic conditioning?”

  “Most likely true,” the robot said.

  “How did he do it?”

  “I do not know. It is an interesting mystery, one I intend to solve.”

  “Well, that’s something. You don’t know everything”

  “I never claimed I did.”

  Strand shook his head. The robot was giving him a migraine. He couldn’t believe this. Maddox was on to him. How had the blasted captain managed it this time?

  Strand stood up, leaving the blaster under the pillow, for now, at least.

  “Can we beat the missiles?” the clone asked.

  “If you act with haste,” the robot answered.

  That was all Strand needed to hear. He hurried to the hatch. How had Maddox broken the hypnotic conditioning? The hybrid had more tricks up his sleeve than seemed reasonable.

  “Not this time!” Strand shouted, and he began to run to the ghost-ship’s small bridge.

  -24

  Keith came out of the fold feeling groggy and disoriented. He threw up on the floor of the tin can.

  The tin can kept on its original flight pattern as programmed before the fold. That was away from what was supposed to be a new heading. His flight screen blinked on and off, trying to alert him. Finally, a klaxon began to blare for his attention.

  With a sleeve, Keith wiped the vomit from his lips. His head pounded. He knew he’d overdone it. He’d been right. He should have skipped this fold, this mission.

  “Get a grip, now,” he whispered.

  “Lieutenant Maker,” his comm squawked.

  Keith slapped a switch.

  Second Lieutenant Roderigo Hernandez stared at him from the screen. The man had a V-shaped buzz cut and the narrowest, most intense face among the strikefighter pilots aboard Victory. “What’s wrong with you?” Roderigo asked.

  “Not a damn thing,” Keith said.

  “Your voice sounds hoarse.”

  “What has your panties in a bunch?” Keith asked.

  The man’s intensity dialed up. “You’re off course. Victory has fed us new coordinates. The cloaked vessel has changed heading. It’s not heading for the Laumer Point anymore, but trying to slip away from us.”

  Keith scowled. Something seemed off about that. They had just made a fold. That meant they had crossed through or jumped from one part of space to another. Victory was three billion kilometers behind them…

  Light traveled 300,000 kilometers per second. That meant in ten seconds, light traveled three million kilometers. Ten ten-seconds was one hundred seconds or one minute and forty seconds. In that time, light traveled thirty million kilometers. Ten times that was 300 million kilometers. Ten times one minute and forty seconds was something over sixteen minutes. Ten times sixteen minutes—to reach three billion kilometers away—was something over two and half hours.

  All of that meant Victory could not have possibly sent them new data about the cloaked s
hip’s new heading. The math was all wrong for a signal to have reached them this soon.

  “Is something wrong, Lieutenant?” Roderigo asked.

  Keith wiped his eyes, blinked several times and studied Roderigo Hernandez. He tried to remember exactly what the man looked like. Right, Roderigo had a mole over his left eye. It was no longer there.

  “Damn it,” Keith hissed. He slapped another switch, activating a powerful comm pulse. It was meant to burn through enemy jamming.

  The image on his screen dissolved. A second later, Second Lieutenant Roderigo Hernandez stared at him. This one had a mole over his left eye.

  “Back already?” Roderigo asked.

  “What’s that mean?” Keith asked warily.

  “You just said—”

  “No! That wasn’t me,” Keith shouted. “You must have received false communications just like I did a second ago. Remain on the original target and launch your missile. Do it now, man.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  At that point, heavier enemy jamming blanketed the comm signal. Roderigo’s image became a blizzard of screen snow.

  “Strand is messing with us,” Keith said.

  He made a fast course correction. As he did, he primed the antimatter missile. He typed in commands. Once launched, the missile would shut down its comm link. It would only follow its prearranged flight path, nothing else. Strand would not be able to feed the missile or the warhead false data. Well, if this was really a Methuselah Man, he shouldn’t be able to mess with the missile. With these super-geniuses, one never knew.

  The tin can shuddered as Keith launched the missile. Then he began to bank hard, activating the gravity dampeners. He had to get out of here as fast as he could, but he dared not use the fold again. He was already messed up enough as it was.

  -25-

  Strand sat back, frustrated with the fold-fighter pilot, the one named Lieutenant Keith Maker. The ace had been with Maddox for a long time, the captain’s wiliness rubbing off on him in a bad way.

  “The second pilot is too wary for your tricks,” the robot said.

  Strand glanced back at the pesky construct.

  “You’re in this with me,” the clone said. “If I die, you die.”

  The robot did not reply to that.

  “So if you can’t come up with a plan, don’t mock the one who has one.”

  The robot still said nothing.

  With a soft grunt, Strand resumed scanning. The first pilot was on course with the new heading, going the wrong way. The pilot’s antimatter missile was still onboard the first fold-fighter. It was the second missile barreling on a beeline course for the ghost-ship that frightened the clone.

  “It has an antimatter warhead,” Strand said. “It doesn’t have to hit us, just get close when it ignites.”

  “I am familiar with the parameters of a Star Watch antimatter missile,” the robot said.

  “You’re a fussy little robot, aren’t you?”

  “Your mannerisms indicate that you are worried. Do you fear extinction?”

  “Yes!” Strand shouted. “You should fear it, too. Or are you too stupid to realize how precious your life is? This is the only one we get, you know.”

  “Do you truly believe this?” the robot asked. “Do you not believe in an afterlife for sentient beings such as yourself?”

  “No!” Strand shouted.

  “Your voice patterns are off. Why are you lying? Do you fear that your unbelief does not make it fact?”

  Strand turned fully around, giving the robot a scathing glance. Then he faced his board and pressed a switch. That activated an outer relay, which sent a powerful and precise pulse toward the two varying missiles—the one heading for the ghost-ship and the one going away with the duped fold-fighter pilot Roderigo Hernandez at its helm.

  ***

  Strand’s signal to the antimatter warheads had taken a long time for the Builder computer to create. That signal now sped at the speed of light to the warheads.

  The special signal momentarily showed the ghost-ship’s exact position to anyone with the proper sensors. Giving away their position was a risk, but it likely wouldn’t matter in the larger scheme of things. The coming antimatter blasts would act as two perfect jamming devices. The blasts would whiten the area, in sensor terms.

  The special signal reached the first fold-fighter and its antimatter missile in the launch tube. The signal activated the warhead’s firing sequence. Three seconds later, the antimatter warhead detonated. Antimatter mixed with matter, creating a vast explosion. The detonation annihilated the fold-fighter and Roderigo Hernandez, and everything else in the immediate vicinity.

  The antimatter blast billowed outward, sending heat, gamma, x-ray and other radiation.

  Keith saw the blast, cursed and initiated the fold-mechanism. He didn’t have to look at the numbers. In that split-second, he knew that Strand had screwed them, somehow fooling the warhead. He had no doubt that, despite his precautions, his warhead would detonate as well.

  The fold-fighter banked and turned, almost completing the maneuver so it would head back to the starship. That was three billion kilometers away, so it would take time to reach Victory.

  Keith knew he couldn’t outrace the antimatter detonation. He wasn’t far enough away from his missile yet. He tensed up as he readied to hit the fold switch.

  The warhead on the missile he’d launched ignited.

  Keith cursed once more, pressed the fold switch, and nothing happened.

  “No!” Keith shouted. “What’s Valerie going to do without me?”

  At that moment, the sluggish system activated. At the same moment, the first gamma and x-rays from the terrible antimatter blast reached his tin can.

  Destruction occurred while Keith’s fold-fighter began to fold, heading back in the blink of an eye toward the ancient Adok starship.

  -26-

  While Victory had searched for the clone of Strand and then sent out its fold-fighters, conditions inside Smade’s Asteroid had worsened with growing intensity. First, the heads of key Chang personnel had literally exploded, raining skull fragments and brain tissue everywhere, which included onto nearby confederates. That had created instant panic inside the large Chang facility. The panic had loosened authority until certain opportunists had begun to loot, favoring high-tech equipment and military grade weaponry, and stealing billions in credit transfers and valuable items such as platinum, gold, gems and various jewels. The panic and the sense of grab-what-you-can-while-you-can had jumped to the regular space pirates outside the Chang compound. Many of them had broken into the fabled stronghold. Gunfights between looters quickly turned savage, and many people were murdered.

  The chaos worsened as key asteroid life-support computer systems activated a strange protocol. The asteroid’s main stations cycled to hidden canisters of XT Chlorine, a highly toxic gas. The life-support systems began injecting the mutated chlorine into the main halls and corridors. Shortly thereafter, people had begun to drop like proverbial flies. Many vomited first. The survivors soon realized that the interior asteroid air had been poisoned.

  That intensified the gunfights as the survivors who’d managed to find gasmasks clawed and struggled for the few remaining spacecraft. Smade’s Asteroid was turning into a charnel house. The survivors wanted off as quickly as possible, and they were willing to murder anyone who got in their way.

  Deep inside Chang’s highest security area—with private cyclers pumping fresh air into the chambers—was a roomful of frightened scientists, medical techs and surgeons. They were primarily of Asian descent and predominantly men. Among them was the scientist with the bowl-cut copper-colored hair, Doctor Lee, who had ordered Jand to watch Maddox and had later chased the captain into the main bazaar.

  Only one humanoid in the large room did not tremble with fear. He was a dark-haired individual, slightly taller but much heavier than average. The greater weight did not come from his stature or from bulky muscles. He looked o
rdinary enough. He simply seemed slightly heavier than average. The greater weight and density was due to his construction. He was an android made to resemble a placid Asian man with unremarkable features. The placid features were a good touch, since the android did not emote feelings the same way flesh and blood humans did.

  He happened to be one of the oldest and possibly the oldest android who commonly resided in Human Space. His name was Yen Cho, and he’d been on Starship Victory several voyages ago when he had taken a “data gulp” for Maddox and the crew, and later bargained to give up the data for a head start against Star Watch Intelligence operatives.

  This Yen Cho android had his own agenda, which did not always coincide with the “Rull” of the Android Nation as discovered on Sind II by Professor Ludendorff.

  In any case, the most-premier Yen Cho-model android sat at a console. He wore camouflage military gear and seemed to be in his mid-thirties, in human terms. He studied the image on his screen, watching the approaching double-oval starship, Victory. His acuity sharpened as a badly damaged fold-fighter abruptly appeared in space near the starship.

  With swift taps, he adjusted the controls, zoomed in on the fighter and attempted to break into its communication. All he got was a standard mayday signal.

  Despite his obvious interest, Yen Cho’s black eyes seemed unusually deep and unusually calm. He was processing all the data he’d gathered so far together with the sight of the combat-damaged fold-fighter.

  It had been quite some time since Yen Cho had interacted with Captain Maddox and his people. He had learned several interesting pieces of data during Maddox’s internment on Smade’s Asteroid. For instance, cunning Professor Ludendorff and his lover Doctor Dana Rich were not aboard the starship. That was important.

  Indeed. As Yen Cho sat at the console, he nodded decisively.

  He had taken considerable risks by coming to Smade’s Asteroid. Officially, he was part of Chang’s carefully collected science team. The greatest risk had been discovery by the clone Strand. As far as Yen Cho had been able to discern, the dangerous clone hadn’t sniffed him out. There was no possibility that Chang would have. Now, the Shanghai heavy leader was dead.