The Lost Artifact

by Vaughn Heppner

  Maddox and the rest of the bridge crew now watched the stunning destruction as it continued below on the dwarf planet. The earthquakes had gotten stronger over the last hour. Magnification of the surface showed constant shaking and crumbling mountains. Now, lava began to erupt. It flowed thickly, as cracks appeared everywhere.

  “The cracks in the mantle will expand,” Galyan said. “I have detected even greater movement coming up to the surface.”

  “Take us out of orbit,” Maddox told Keith.

  “Aye, aye, sir,” the ace said.

  Victory began to pull away from the dwarf planet. As it did, flux gravitational forces surging up from the planet began shaking the starship.

  “Hurry if you please, Mr. Maker,” Maddox said.

  During the next thirty seconds, the gravitational shaking intensified. As the ancient Adok vessel pulled away, though, they moved out of range and the shaking gradually lessened until it stopped altogether.

  “Look,” Valerie said.

  Everyone was already looking. Gigantic lava-spewing cracks zigzagged across the planetary surface. As seen from space, Kelle was visibly shaking.

  At that point, mayday calls began coming in from the gunboats circling the planet.

  “What do we do about them?” Valerie asked.

  Maddox shook his head.

  “The surging gravitational forces are pulling the gunboats down,” Valerie said. “They lack the engine power to escape. We can’t just leave them.”

  “On the contrary,” Maddox said. “They had their chance to surrender. I will not now jeopardize my ship and crew to save enemy combatants who waited too long to ask for help.”

  “That’s…that’s heartless,” Valerie said.

  “I believe you mean to say practical. It would endanger our mission by risking the ship near wildly surging gravity waves. The gunboats had their chance, Lieutenant. They squandered the opportunity until it was too late.”

  The captain got to his feet.

  “I am curious,” Galyan said in what seemed like a strained voice. “Back in the cavern…how did you know what was going to happen to the planet?”

  Meta looked up sharply. She seemed astonished. “That’s right. How did you know?”

  Maddox grew cold to his core as he heard the question. He sat on the edge of the command chair, rubbing his left cheek. How had he known?

  “There it goes,” Valerie whispered.

  Maddox looked up as Kelle splintered into planetary sections. It was an awful sight. Entire colossal chunks split from one another and spun away as the dwarf planet lent the pieces its orbital momentum. Kelle no longer existed. Pieces of it mingled with pieces of the gunboats.

  Galyan turned away from the sight.

  Valerie noticed. “Oh, Galyan,” she said in a gentle voice. “I’m sorry. This must remind you of your homeworld’s destruction.”

  The Adok holoimage seemed incredibly sad. He nodded, perhaps unable to speak.

  “Galyan,” Maddox said, crisply. “Check on the engines. Make it a thorough study. I’m afraid these gravitational forces may have secretly ruptured something that will show itself later in battle.”

  “Yes, sir,” Galyan said in a dispirited voice, disappearing from view.

  Everyone resumed watching the planet’s destruction. Clearly, this wasn’t a natural event, but no one had figured out what the Nameless Ones tech had done to perform such an awful feat.

  How did I know Kelle would splinter like this? Maddox wondered. The question was beginning to bother him.

  -26-

  The answer bothered Maddox even more than the question had. He sat up in bed as Meta lay snug and sleeping under the covers. They had been asleep for several hours already. It had been a harrowing day. Even so, with the question bouncing around in his skull, Maddox had found it difficult to fall asleep.

  He might have dreamed during the little sleep he’d finally gotten. If he had, though, he didn’t remember any of it. He was damp with perspiration and knew he had been tossing.

  As quietly as possible, Maddox slipped out from under the covers and padded to the restroom. He closed the door softly and looked at his face in the mirror.

  He had lean features like a New Man, but he lacked their golden skin-color. His eyes were bloodshot. They were almost never bloodshot.

  Maddox turned on the tap and splashed water on his face.

  In the tunnel, he had known about the planetary destruction because of his fight against the Ska a year ago. Something had changed in him. Either that or some new sense had sharpened. He didn’t know what to call the sense, but the heated object the marine had found had given him a certainty of planetary destruction.

  Could that heated object have been alive in some manner?

  Maddox shook his head. He didn’t think so. But maybe whatever the object had radiated could only be sensed by a living being. He didn’t even know that was true. The point was that his newly sharpened sense—

  It might not be a sense, Maddox told himself.

  Maybe the Ska had wounded him on a deep, spiritual level. That spiritual wound was still raw. The sensation the hot object had radiated had made his raw inner hurt ache in a way that told him vast destruction was going to take place.

  He nodded. It was the best answer he could give. He was one of the walking wounded but in a way that no one could see.

  He turned his back to the mirror and bent his head, pressing his fists against his forehead. The tech of the Nameless Ones had destroyed Kelle as easily as a man swatted a fly. Victory’s sensors hadn’t picked anything up that could have caused the destruction. Such a thing shouldn’t be possible.

  Think, he told himself. That the sensors didn’t pick anything up is a clue. Are you too dull to see the clue?

  Maddox straightened as a mocking grin twisted his lips. The original Strand had set all this in motion. The Methuselah Man had planned for the day someone killed or captured him. Thus, in a way, he—Maddox—had started this when he captured Strand on Sind II. By handing Strand over to the New Men, Maddox had ensured Kelle’s destruction and that Strand clones would buzz around Human Space committing mayhem and possibly bringing the Nameless Ones back.

  The grin turned even more mocking as a fierce light shined in the captain’s eyes. Methuselah Man Strand!

  Maddox shook his head.

  That little bastard wasn’t going to beat him. Maybe Strand had Builder-enhanced, gifted genius. Maybe the trickster Methuselah Man had guile honed from thousands of years of experience. Maybe Strand knew every trick there was to know—he still wasn’t going to lose to Strand.

  “I accept no excuses,” Maddox whispered.

  He knew that bold words and decisive thoughts did not win the day. Only one thing could defeat Strand; victorious action. He had to do the impossible. He had to find a clone that had left no clues. Yet, that wasn’t true. There were clues. They were staring him in the face. He was just too dull to see them for what they were.

  “Okay,” Maddox said. If he couldn’t see the clues, who could?

  “Of course,” Maddox said, nodding to himself. It was time to take a risk. He needed the infernal Builder cube. He was going to have to feed it data until it gagged. But there was one critical difference to this.

  The clone Strand wasn’t going to do this terrible thing. The previous clone-Strand had released a Builder ghost-ship and cube and gotten himself killed. Another clone had released whatever had lain in the vault of Kelle. Maddox needed to feed the Builder cube data about the Nameless Ones. In some manner, whatever the clone had freed from Kelle would overpower him, just as the guardian robot had overpowered the other clone on the Builder ghost-ship.

  Strand and his clones weren’t the real enemy anymore. The Nameless Ones’ tech was the threat. Maddox had known that for some time. He had simply not taken it to its logical conclusion.

  Maddox turned off the bathroom lights and opened the door. There was no need to wake Meta, and there was no need to go back to
sleep. He would have enough time to sleep later.

  Now, it was time to begin feeding the cube the needed data.

  -27-

  Two days later, Victory was still near the remains of Kelle. Andros, Galyan and the engineers had been recalibrating the ship’s sensors. Some of the suggested refinements had come from Yen Cho, some from the Builder cube. Maddox had demanded extra caution in testing each difference. He suspected the cube of double-dealing, as that was what he would have done in the cube’s place.

  Finally, after every precaution, Valerie and Galyan began using the modified sensors to study the dwarf planet’s remains.

  “This is interesting,” Valerie said seventeen minutes later.

  Maddox walked to her station and looked over her shoulder. “What do they mean?” he asked.

  Valerie looked up at him. “You don’t know?”

  Maddox said nothing.

  The lieutenant shrugged. “To tell you the truth, sir, I don’t exactly know either. This,” she pointed at a sensor reading, “is the gravitational fluctuation. This is an interphase reading. Galyan explained it once, but I’m still not sure what it means.”

  The holoimage floated near. “You called me, Valerie?”

  “This interphase reading,” she said, “what is that again?”

  “After studying the captain’s recording of the tunnel and…the planet’s destruction, the Builder cube suggested the possibility of phase mechanics.”

  “I remember all that,” Valerie said. “What is the interphase part?”

  “It is a quantum level variation—”

  “Galyan,” Maddox said. “Give me the basic theory.”

  “It is not a theory, sir,” Galyan said. “Phase mechanics is rather elegant. The planetary matter in question resonates at a different frequency from the normal quantum universe. That explains why our sensors did not pick up the phase pulses earlier.”

  “Galyan,” Maddox warned.

  The holoimage appeared perplexed. “Sir, are you suggesting a simpleton’s explanation?”

  Maddox did not reply.

  “Is that a yes or no, sir?” Galyan asked.

  Valerie glanced at Maddox before telling the holoimage, “Just the basics, Galyan,”

  “Is that how you interpret the captain’s silence, Valerie?”

  “I’m just saying,” she said.

  “Phase mechanics in layman’s terms…” Galyan said slowly, “is being in the same objective universe but not in resonance with it. Perhaps an example is in order. An out of phase object would be invisible to those in quantum resonance with their surroundings. The out of phase object would have no taste, no smell, no weight—for all practical purposes it would not be there. But it would still be in the same space-time continuum. Once the harmonics changed, the object could phase into our quantum resonance universe. It would now have weight, smell, visibility, all elements that other matter possesses.”

  “So, an out of phase object would be like a ghost,” Maddox said.

  Galyan cocked his head. “That is a spurious example, as ghosts are mythical.”

  “But if ghosts were real,” Maddox said, “it would exhibit these out of phase mechanics?”

  “Not altogether,” Galyan said. “A mythical ghost would be visible, albeit insubstantial.”

  “Just like you,” Maddox said.

  “That is an apt analogy,” Galyan said. “In actuality, an out of phase object would not be visible. It would be undetectable to any but our altered sensors.”

  “Could the clone Strand have found a Nameless Ones…ship that could travel out of phase?” Maddox asked.

  “That would appear to be the direction of our research,” Galyan said. “That would explain how a space vessel was inside the dwarf planet. That also explains how Kelle was destroyed. The Nameless Ones left powerful phase annihilators—for want of a better term—inside the dwarf planet. The Builder cube has suggested that these phase annihilators spent the majority of their existence out of phase in relation to Kelle and us. Only at the end did they become…real, or phase into our quantum resonance, and use phase pulses to destroy…the planet.”

  “So we may well be hunting for an alien phase-ship,” Maddox said. “We may have passed it as we entered this star system.”

  “Yes,” Galyan said.

  “I have a question,” Valerie said. “Is the phase-ship headed for an out-of-phase destination or a regular place?”

  Maddox turned abruptly to stare at the lieutenant.

  “What did I say?” Valerie asked.

  “Lieutenant Noonan,” Maddox said, “you have just earned your pay for the entire mission. Galyan, come with me.”

  -28-

  Maddox and Galyan stood in the science chamber before the giant globe holding the Builder cube in its center. Not much had changed since the last time the captain had been here. One difference was a newly installed link. It allowed the cube to view the data from the starship’s sensors.

  “My analysis proved correct,” the cube said. “The Nameless Ones installed phase annihilators in the core of the dwarf planet. The aliens surely did that many cycles ago, leaving the mechanisms out-of-sync with the planet. It has led me to wonder how many other planets are rigged with such devices. Even with the right sensors, it would take decades to find out, maybe a century or more.”

  “They’re true technowizards,” Maddox said dryly.

  “That is an interesting term,” the cube said. “I would not call them that, however.”

  “Captain Maddox was being sarcastic,” Galyan said.

  “A moment,” the cube said. “Yes, you are correct. I had not bothered to detect the fluctuations of the captain’s tone. I am absorbed with studying the new sensor readings.”

  “We need to find a phase-ship,” Maddox said.

  “Interesting,” the cube said. “Who among you concluded that the Nameless Ones had used a phase-ship?”

  “Why does that matter?” Maddox asked.

  “Was it you, Captain?” the cube asked.

  “You mean you don’t know?” Maddox countered.

  “A moment while I analyze the possibilities. Ah, yes, it was you. I congratulate you on your higher-order reasoning. I suppose you have already determined that the phase-ship is headed to an out of phase location.”

  “Builder,” Maddox said, gravely. “You speak as if you had already determined these things.”

  “You are correct.”

  “I find that troubling,” Maddox said. “You needlessly withheld these stunning conclusions from us.”

  “Why would that be troubling?” the cube asked. “Clearly, we each have our own agendas. I am following mine as you follow yours. I do not chide you for withholding information from me.”

  “If the Nameless Ones return—”

  “Please, Captain,” the cube said, interrupting. “I do not need you to repeat your hypotheses. We all lose if the Destroyers slide into Human Space. To answer your question regarding my withholding of certain conclusions, I have found it better if lower-order creatures come to certain conclusions by themselves first. It makes them more reasonable as to the needed actions later.”

  Maddox glanced at Galyan.

  “I deem it would be wiser for all of us to get to the heart of the matter,” Galyan said.

  “Your use of human colloquialisms is sound,” the cube told Galyan.

  “It shows heightened awareness on your part to have noticed,” Galyan said.

  “Are you attempting to slight me?” the cube asked. “Do you believe the humans will think higher of you, then? They are too dull to have noticed the intricacies of our conversation—”

  “Builder,” Maddox said, interrupting. “We have no more time for fun and games. We must find the phase-ship and stop it from communicating with its masters.”

  The cube was silent a moment. “You are correct, Captain. It is time to strain. The goal seems to be in sight. What is your suggestion?”

  “First, I have a quest
ion,” Maddox said. “How would a phase-ship signal the Nameless Ones?”

  “That is the primary question,” the cube said. “I have pondered if for thirty-six and a half hours, as you deem the sequencing of time. It is a thorny problem that does not have an immediate solution. Clearly, the phase-ship could send an ordinary message, one traveling at the speed of light. That seems unlikely for a number of reasons. Firstly—”

  “I’m not interested in the reasons,” Maddox said. “I want to know how to stop the most likely possibility.”

  “I should think that would be a beacon,” the cube said, “a special beacon that might work along the lines of a long-distance Builder communication device.”

  “I am familiar with those,” Maddox said.

  “Good,” the cube said, “as that will save explanation time. It would seem to me, however, that a beacon of the Nameless Ones would have several unique problems. One, it would have to remain hidden in plain sight. Two, it would have to boost range to galactic levels. And three, it would require a potent power source to send such a signal.”

  “That’s assuming the Nameless Ones are far away from Human Space,” Maddox said.

  “Perhaps they are as far away as in a different galaxy altogether,” the cube said.

  Maddox shook his head. “Intergalactic travel seems impossible.”

  “That is a ridiculous statement,” the cube said, “as it is obviously possible. It would simply take a long time. One would suspect that the Nameless Ones possess a movement system that would considerably speed such a journey.”

  “Let me be plain,” Maddox said. “Where could such a beacon be? Give me some targets so we can check them out.”

  “I doubt we have such a luxury,” the cube said. “The phase-ship is free and its host planet has been destroyed. It would seem that the phase-ship will soon reach the beacon and send the signal, if that is the main purpose. We could be wrong about that.”

  “In our time units, how soon is soon?” Maddox asked.

  “Possibly a week,” the cube said. “I would imagine no more than a month from this instant.”