As he lay on the floor, Maddox folded his hands on top of his chest. He had to needle the hidden operative who had these Spacer-like modifications. He was sure that was what was happening. It had that feel, and he was going to trust his intuition.
“How far of a stretch is it to learn to manipulate an android’s electronic brain, to manipulate a human brain? Whoever you are, you’ve been putting ideas and thoughts into my head. I suppose that wouldn’t exactly be transduction but hyper-induction, imposing your will over mine. Yes. That’s what you’ve been attempting with your particular technological modification. You should know, however, that I am already beginning to know what is my thought and what is your thought.”
Maddox waited, but nothing happened. How could he needle the operator even more? Ah. He began by forcing a chuckle.
“I find that interesting. You’re silent now. Or are you attempting a deeper level of hyper-induction within my frontal lobe?”
Maddox paused. Why would Spacers bother with Usan III? It came to him.
“This is about the crystalline mines, isn’t it? I’m guessing the peculiar crystals can help power the Spacer-like modifications. Occam’s razor would suggest that you are a Spacer agent. Star Watch hasn’t seen hide nor hair of you Spacers since the Ska caused Alpha Centauri A to radically expand. The last I heard, the Spacers had left Human Space to start over in the Beyond. Is this, then, a retrograde movement on your part? Did some of you slip back into Human Space because your crystalline supply has run low?”
Again, there was nothing in his mind to indicate that this was doing anything.
Maddox wondered if the mind-altering agent was lying low, hoping he would tire of this line of inquiry. Instead of the unanswered words causing Maddox to doubt, he became even keener to think this through.
He would proceed as if he faced a Spacer agent. That could easily be the wrong conjecture, but he would see where the line of thinking led him.
Androids and Spacers hated each other—a well-known fact. Thus, Tubb would have seen Spacers as a grave danger to both android and human. The Spacers had good reason to hate him, Captain Maddox. Not so long ago, he had slain the Visionary’s son as she had attempted to trap Starship Victory. He had succeeded in the null region where the Visionary had spectacularly failed against the Ska. With the dreadful expansion of the star Alpha Centauri A, the Visionary and her group of Spacers had died in an alien-run Destroyer. It was also true that Spacers hated Methuselah Men even more than they hated androids. That might explain what had happened to the Strand clone. If Maddox were right about this new modification ability—hyper-induction—the Spacer agent might have detected the clone with his newfound power.
The more Maddox considered the angles, the more certain he was that he faced a Spacer agent like Shu 15. That did not bode well for him, Meta or Riker. If the Spacers hated anyone more than anyone else, he would be that person.
“I suppose you realize that Starship Victory is going to tear this planet apart to find you,” Maddox said.
The captain wasn’t sure, but he felt, or thought he did, a momentary sensation of fear.
Maddox reconsidered the idea. Hyper-induction wasn’t telepathy as such. The agent attempted to alter his thinking through electromagnetic or neural pulses.
If the unknown agent were this good at hyper-induction against him, would the agent be able to use transduction against the Adok AI Galyan?
The momentary fear he’d felt must have been a trick. If that was true, he had to keep Starship Victory away from here. He needed to escape and warn—
Maddox began to laugh in order to cover his thoughts.
“That was your thought,” he said a little later, wiping a tear of laughter from his eye. “You’re good. I’ll grant you that. But I doubt you can take on—”
Without warning, the heavy hatch began sliding open.
Maddox sat up, surprised. As the stone hatch continued to scrape open, he climbed to his feet. Finally, the hatch stood ajar, with a space marine in exoskeleton-powered armor standing beside it.
The other person, the one standing beside the space marine, interested Maddox even more. She was a small Spacer in a tight blue uniform. The top of her head wouldn’t reach his shoulder if she stood beside him. She wore dark-colored goggles over her eyes, and long dark hair framed her elfin features.
She resembled Shu 15 in that she appeared to be of Southeast Asian heritage. She had narrower features than Shu had possessed. This woman was prettier in the face but with a more slender form. She was too boyish in shape for Maddox to appreciate sexually. Perhaps that was partly a property of her tight uniform. Maybe she looked more womanly in the flesh.
In her right hand, the Spacer held a projac, a small stubby weapon.
“You’re a Provost Marshal,” Maddox said. “I recognize your insignia. But that’s what Shu did, pretending to be provost marshal. Are you really a First Class Surveyor?”
The woman seemed startled by the guess.
Shu 15 had once told Maddox that she had been a special agent, a cross between a Patrol officer and a Star Watch Intelligence operative. It would make sense if this woman were a similar sort of agent. If the Spacers had departed Human Space, coming back here would be a Patrol-like mission for whoever did it.
“You are di-far,” the Spacer said in a lilting voice. She also said it as if that explained Maddox’s guess about her. “You will come with me, di-far. Know, though, that if you attempt to subdue me, I will kill you without hesitation. You are a known enemy of ours, a man who has committed terrible deeds against the Spacer Nation. Do you understand the narrow thread by which you live?”
Maddox nodded, although he said, “Your projac ejects slivers. Given the design, the spring-driven slivers are normally hardened knockout drugs. Will you drug me to death or will you inject me with killing poison?”
“This,” the woman said, twisting the projac, “will not do the killing.” She holstered the weapon in a small pouch at her belt.
“Will you kill me with your hands?” Maddox asked.
“With my mind,” she said.
“You can do that?” Maddox asked, impressed in spite of himself.
“Not as you think,” the woman said. “Observe.”
The armored marine stepped forward, and the visor slid down with a whirr, revealing an empty helmet—no one stood in the suit.
“The suit is remote-controlled?” asked Maddox.
The woman tapped the side of her head. “I control it through transduction. One thought, and it will aim its guns at you and shred your body to bloody ribbons.”
Maddox nodded again. He understood.
“Now come,” the woman said. “It is time that you learned your part in the coming struggle.”
-11-
Maddox settled comfortably in a chair at a small table. On the table were piled various delicacies and drinks. He rubbed his hands together, picked up a waiting fork and knife and made to dig into a dish…and paused.
The woman and her combat suit had taken him down several drilled rock corridors, finally entering this medium-sized chamber. It had the table and food, some ship-like chairs to the sides and several screens on the rock walls, along with several air-vents higher up near the ceiling.
The woman had sat in one of the chairs along the side. The marine combat suit stood at the entrance, blocking the closed hatch.
“What is wrong?” the woman asked.
“Can’t you sense it?” Maddox replied.
“I am no longer allowed to probe your mind.”
That was interesting—given that she was telling the truth. “Why not?” asked Maddox.
“I am not allowed to tell you.”
“Oh. Who gave the order?”
“I am not allowed to tell you.”
“Ah,” Maddox said. Once more, he raised the fork and knife, and then slowly lowered the cutlery onto the table, releasing them.
“What is wrong?” she asked.
“I have
a suspicious nature.” Maddox indicated the food and drink. “As you stated earlier, the Spacers have no love for me. Possibly, you blame me for the Visionary’s death. Maybe you blame me for the loss of Spacer vessels. Given those things, I wonder why you should offer me food and drink. One reason might be because you’ve laced the items with mind-altering drugs.”
“If true, would that matter?”
Maddox nodded.
“Why would we bother giving you drugged food, as we could have just as easily used the marine suits and injected you with drugs? We need not even have done that. We might have laced your air with drugs.”
Maddox didn’t answer, although he could have pointed out that some drugs weren’t as effective if the imbiber knew about them beforehand. Clearly, some drugs would not inject well through the air supply.
Abruptly, Maddox used his right forearm and swept the dishes and drinks from the table so they crashed and spilled onto the floor.
The woman jumped up, clearly startled.
That satisfied Maddox on several levels. The most important was that it proved that she no longer probed his thoughts, as she had said. He frowned a second later. Might she be an excellent actress? If so, she might have just faked being startled in order to lull him.
“That is only a temporary solution for you,” she said, while resuming her seat. “In time, you will grow hungry, too hungry to resist our food.”
“You’re wrong,” Maddox said. “I am well capable of starving myself to death.”
She cocked her head. “That is poorly reasoned. We can subdue you and inject drugs into you, if that is our wish.”
Maddox said nothing.
“You are thirsty and hungry. I know you are. You should eat.”
Maddox still did not reply.
“You need nourishment.”
“Take me outside to a casino,” Maddox said. “I’ll eat there.”
“I cannot do that.”
“Then tell me what you want from me.”
“You must eat first.”
Maddox crossed his arms and sat back in his chair.
“You are stubborn, di-far.”
Maddox’s nostrils widened. That was the second time she’d called him that. The Visionary of the Spacers had once named him as a di-far. The Visionary had called herself one, too, a greater di-far than he was. According to Spacer lore, a di-far was a living node in human history, a person through whom events from one path of destiny could change tracks and lead to a different destiny. According to the Visionary, he’d helped to save the human race. Later, the Visionary had turned against him until she’d died at the end of the Swarm invasion—if she’d ever really been his friend in the first place.
Spacers did not control territory like other political groupings. They were nomadic, living in their spaceships, traveling from place to place. Ludendorff had called them mystics, cultists and fanatics. The Methuselah Man despised them. The Spacers claimed to have originated from a Builder. Builders had created the Methuselah Men and the androids. None of the Builder-generated peoples liked each other much.
Maddox wondered what that indicated. He wasn’t ready to hazard a guess about it just yet.
“This is silly,” the Spacer said. “We have plans for you, Captain. For your sake, it’s better if you cooperate with us.”
“Maybe,” Maddox said. “What’s your name?”
“If I tell you, will you eat?”
He eyed the food as if he was hungry. He was to an extent, but he could control his appetite for a time. He wanted her to think that he was on the brink of eating.
“Maybe,” he said, wishing he could force his stomach to growl on command.
“I am called Lulu 19,” she said.
“Nineteen…” Maddox said. “Does that make you higher or lower ranked than Shu 15?”
“We know that Shu 15 is dead, slain on Earth.”
“You are well briefed, I see.”
Lulu dipped her head, accepting the compliment. “As to your question, I am higher ranked, as nineteen is higher than fifteen.”
“You’re higher by four degrees then?” Maddox asked.
“That is correct.”
“Are the higher degrees more difficult to earn as the numbers increase?”
“Considerably more difficult,” Lulu said.
“How high do the ranks go?”
“That is quite enough of that. Besides, I am not allowed to tell you such a thing.”
“Do you have a list of things you cannot tell me?”
“Captain, please, this is becoming ridiculous. I am an agent much as you are in Star Watch Intelligence. I have answered your questions. Now, you must replenish your strength through nourishment. It is time for us to advance to the next level, and the process will considerably strain you. I do not wish for you to faint halfway through.”
Maddox gave her a frank scrutiny as a man looking at a beautiful woman. “Why not take off your goggles so I can see your eyes. I assume they’re pretty eyes.”
Her head jerked back. “No!” she said. “I could never do such a thing.”
“Why?”
“I will not say,” she told him, sounding offended.
“It isn’t that you cannot say,” Maddox said, grinning wolfishly, seductively, “but that you will not.”
She remained silent.
“Are you the highest ranked Spacer on the planet?” he asked.
She had been looking away, but now regarded him. “I am not.”
“The second highest, perhaps?”
“Why does any of that matter?”
“I’m curious, and I’m the di-far. It is my nature to inquire.”
“You are mocking me, Captain. If you continue to mock, pain will be your reward.”
Maddox glanced at the spilled drinks and food on the floor.
“Should I summon more nourishment?” Lulu asked.
“That will not be necessary,” Maddox said in a subdued voice as he studied the spilled food and drink more carefully. He rose slowly, moved to the sprawled dishes, knelt and began to right the plates, putting the food back on them.
“Leave that,” Lulu said. “It is tainted food. I will have more brought here.”
As if he had become contrite for his previous actions, Maddox continued to put the food back on the plates.
Lulu shifted on her chair—
And Maddox struck. He’d been waiting for something. He had knelt in order to be a fraction closer to the First Class Surveyor. The Spacers were clearly his enemies as they had attempted to thwart Star Watch from gaining the needed tools to face the Swarm invasion. He could only assume the Spacers were still working against Star Watch. They had messed with his mind. He assumed Lulu meant to turn him into a Spacer asset against Star Watch. He would never allow that, and this seemed like his best opportunity to strike.
The Spacer screamed as Maddox lunged at her. He moved fast, faster than any ordinary man could have, although not as fast as a prime New Man could have done it. Maddox reached the small Surveyor, grabbed one of her wrists and yanked her off the chair, slamming her against his chest. He wrapped his other arm around her.
By this time, the combat suit had moved, raising an arm as a gun port along the sleeve activated.
Maddox backed up against the far wall, using Lulu as a shield against the space marine weapon.
“If the suit fires, you die,” Maddox hissed into an ear. “Do you want to die?”
Lulu struggled in his arms. It was a pitiful attempt, as her strength was nothing compared to his steely muscles. A twelve-year-old boy would have had better luck. Spacers were not known for their size or strength.
“I’ll crush you if you continue to resist,” Maddox said into an ear.
He’d seen her hand slide to her left thigh. He suspected she had a concealed pin or other secreted weapon there, one tipped with a deadly poison. She could easily pull it out and stab it against him as she struggled. He had been wondering if she possessed such a secret
weapon, and now he knew. It was time. Thus, he hardened himself in order to take the necessary action.
He squeezed her tightly in a threatening manner. Lulu ceased moving as she panted from exertion.
The woman was warm in his arms. His original assessment about her garment’s restrictive quality seemed correct. According to his sensory input, she had larger breasts than appearances warranted.
“Put me down,” she said.
He noted that her left hand was near the hidden seal on her thigh. It was time to act, but he found himself hesitating, and thus, he started speaking.
“I have no incentive to do so,” Maddox said. “I’m a captive. You’re trying to drug me to make me more compliant. That is the last thing I intend. In fact, I would rather die than become someone’s puppet. I suspect you wish me to ingest the drugs so you can complete whatever mind manipulation you started.”
“You are wrong. Now, let me go.”
“Until it is proven otherwise, I will believe that you’re lying to me.”
“Captain Maddox, I could make your head explode with pain if I so desired. I need merely think it for it to happen. I might even cause an aneurism to kill you.”
“While I can snap your neck and kill you just as fast.”
“If you kill me, you will die in this cell from starvation.”
“Incorrect,” Maddox said. “I will open the suit and use it, rescuing my friends and destroying the Spacer operation on Usan III.”
“No,” Lulu whispered. “It is too late for that. If you had snapped my neck immediately, that might have worked. Now, I have alerted the others. They are coming. If they see you holding me like this, they will kill you. It is unalterable ship custom.”
“You’re lying.”
“A Spacer never lies about something as profound as ship custom.”
Maddox heard the truth in her words. By grabbing her like this, had he already gone too far? It might well be so.
The Lost Star Gate (Lost Starship Series Book 9) Page 6