The Lost Patrol

by Vaughn Heppner

  “Nonsense,” Maddox said. “It’s an ancient artifact, to be sure, but one we can use.”

  “Should we use it, even if we can figure it out?” Meta asked.

  “If we don’t, we’re just waiting for the Swarm to show up someday and kill us.”

  “We didn’t discover the technology. We should use our Laumer Drives and—”

  Maddox’s chuckle cut her off.

  “Did I say something funny?” Meta demanded.

  “We must always strive. Always yearn to understand new things. If we stop, the others will win.”

  “What others?” Meta asked.

  “Whichever race learns what we were afraid to attempt.”

  “Maybe,” she said. “But the Nexus still frightens me. Sometimes, I think there are things out there we’re not ready to find. We’re still too much like children.”

  Maddox considered her words as the pyramid grew to titanic size.

  Was Meta right? The captain gazed at the gleaming metal. For once, he felt inferior. He’d never been this close to the Nexus before. It was strange. The Dyson sphere should have had this effect on him. It had been vastly larger than the pyramid. Yet the pyramid seemed to shrink his soul the closer he approached. It bewildered the intellect.

  Maddox nodded. The pyramid was magical. The Dyson sphere had merely been mechanical.

  The captain frowned. Why wouldn’t a Dyson sphere be magical? It had housed an incomparable number of beings. Could something else be at play here?

  Shu, Maddox thought, maybe she’s projecting these feelings into us.

  The gamble Maddox took suddenly struck him. He worked with people who possessed hidden powers. The New Men are secretive. The Spacers are secretive. Is that the connection between them?

  A slow smile spread across his face. Strand, and to some degree Ludendorff, had created the New Men. The Methuselah Men were the product of a Builder’s modification. The Spacers seemed to have found a Builder—

  Maddox made a fist and struck the armrest of his thruster cradle. No one had explained Spacer origins to him. He’d made guesses about their beginnings, nothing more. What seemed clear out here by the pyramid was the similarity of the Spacers’ secrecy to that of the New Men. That implied a Builder trait the aliens couldn’t help but pass on to their creations—secrecy. Were the Spacers an indirect Builder creation, molded by someone modified by a Builder?

  How would that change what he already knew about the Spacers? Maybe it didn’t change anything, but it confirmed and clarified what he knew. Ludendorff and Shu could be likened to cousins, maybe distantly related cousins, but beings who thought in similar ways, with deep secrecy that always led them to try to be string-pullers behind the scenes.

  As the cradles headed for a distinct area of the pyramid, a hardening resolve grew in the captain. He was a free man who demanded that he think for himself. He did not want anyone manipulating his thoughts, even if they thought they did it for his own good. Maddox resolved to fight for mankind’s freedom of action. The New Men weren’t going to rule them as superior humans. The Spacers weren’t going to nudge humanity onto this road or that one with their secret ploys. That meant humanity had to cut the Builder strings trying to pull them onto secret paths.

  Maddox could almost feel the Builders out there, tugging on this thread or gently pulling on that one.

  The captain eyed the professor’s cradle and then Shu’s. He couldn’t allow either of them to dominate the other. Yet they were about to enter a structure where he would be the child in terms of understanding.

  He took a deep breath. He could not match these two in understanding. He was going to have to go primitive and trust his instincts, his feelings. Maddox did not like that. He preferred logic and reason. But when entering the realm of magic, gut feelings could prove to be the logical thing to do.

  “Start decelerating,” Ludendorff radioed. “Shu has chosen the entrance. We’re about to enter the Nexus. It’s time we closed up and tethered our cradles.”

  “Have you ever been inside before?” Meta radioed.

  Ludendorff’s silence seemed ominous.

  Maddox adjusted his thruster cradle. As the hydrogen spray slowed his velocity, he checked his hand-held beamer. If one of those two tried to double-cross the team, the captain was determined to kill him or her.

  -35-

  Maddox sucked in his breath.

  Leaving her cradle, the tiny Spacer floated before a panel and tapped in an access code. A small opening appeared, relative to the pyramid. They would have been able to drive the shuttle through that. With a push, Shu returned to her cradle, strapping in. Leading the way, her thruster cradle gently drifted through the opening. The others followed close behind.

  Maddox craned his head, peering everywhere. The inside of the Nexus was bewildering and awe-inspiring. Giant girders held the pyramid together while fantastic balls of light glowed eerily from a thousand places. There were silver platforms, lines of energy crisscrossing from one locale to another, and vast empty spaces.

  Maddox’s visor recorded everything. He hoped the others remembered to do the same.

  This was a wonderland of technological marvel. It was intensely bright, too. The captain’s visor had darkened as much as it could, and still he had to squint.

  Tether lines hooked the cradles, a tiny train of fleas moving through an ancient powerhouse. After a time—it was hard to tell how much had passed—Shu redirected her path. She moved toward a larger platform with the others following. No one spoke to each other because the comms didn’t work in here. They would wait to talk by hooking phone-lines from suit to suit.

  Maddox found himself staring too often with his mind blanking out. Shaking his head, he berated himself. He had to keep his wits about him. His team, his ship, his nation were counting on him.

  Closing his eyes, Maddox forced himself to go back over the plan, fighting the urge to stare in continuous wonder. Finally, though, he cracked an eyelid, and his mouth sagged open at the sight. This was beautiful.

  A last stubborn particle of will caused Maddox to snap his eyes shut once again.

  He realized that this must be a mind trap put in place long ago by the Builders.

  A hard knot of stubbornness welled up from the captain’s core. It sneered at the beauty. It fought against the ancient superior intellects. I am Captain Maddox, and I refuse to fall in line like a fool.

  The captain found himself panting. Once again, he cracked an eyelid open. This time, though, he did not stare in wonder. He concentrated on the thruster cradle ahead of him. It was Ludendorff’s cradle. Meta brought up the rear.

  The cradle ahead of him bumped down onto a giant platform.

  Maddox went to work, adjusting his cradle as he readied himself to land. Before he finished the sequence, he turned his thruster machine enough so he could glance back. Meta came on too fast. Maybe she’d succumbed to the wondrousness of the interior and could no longer control herself.

  The captain reacted. He detached his tether from Ludendorff’s cradle and applied thrust as he turned completely. Rising and braking quickly, he engaged the magnetic clamps. With a bump and an intense vibration, he linked their two thruster crafts. Maddox waved, but Meta remained inert on her chair.

  It was more difficult now, and he had to crane to the side to see where he was going. The captain turned the two vehicles as he maneuvered toward the landing. The platform seemed to rush up too fast. He bumped against it, engaging the magnetic anchor clamps. The stop was sudden and hard, throwing him against the cradle’s straps.

  He sat there to regain his composure. What are Shu and Ludendorff doing? Forcing himself to move, Maddox unbuckled, climbing out of the thruster. At the last moment, he remembered to engage his magnetic boots.

  With jerky steps, he clomped to Meta. He wanted to make sure she was okay before he headed after the others.

  She just sat there. Finding the phone-line, he hooked their suits together.

  “Meta?”
he said.

  There was no reply.

  Worried, Maddox tapped her outer screen. Her vital signs were good. She was breathing according to this. She just wasn’t moving or talking.

  The others—what are they doing?

  Maddox withdrew the phone-line jack. He found that he gripped the beamer in his gun hand. He didn’t bother holstering it. Instead, he turned, seeing the professor and the Spacer slowly walking to what looked like a giant screen.

  With a sense of lateness, Maddox began heading for them. Would the beamer even work in here?

  Maddox took one deliberate step at a time. Each forward motion caused the magnet to pull his foot down the last few centimeters, giving his walk a lurching quality.

  Ludendorff and Shu stood before a titanic screen. The two stood motionlessly for a time. Finally, Ludendorff turned to Shu and plugged a phone-line into her suit.

  Maddox would have liked to know what they said. He should have rigged a recording unit to each suit. Before he reached them, Shu stepped up to a giant board. She began to move levers and change the settings of various switches.

  What did that do? How did she know the right sequence? Was she reading wavelengths or Builder radiation? It didn’t seem like a simple process, one easily taught to others. Would Star Watch vessels always need a Methuselah Man or a Spacer Surveyor in order to use a Nexus’ hyper-spatial tube?

  Finally, Maddox reached them. He felt like an apish hominid staring up at an angelic object brought down from Heaven. Massed stars appeared on the titanic screen. Green lines connected many of the stars. There were also intensely bright points of light. Were those Nexuses?

  I should be recording this.

  Even as he thought that, the screen went blank. Shu moved away from the huge control panel. She returned to Ludendorff, relinking the phone-line between them.

  The professor turned around and jerked back as if surprised to find the captain behind him. Ludendorff pulled the phone-line from Shu’s vacc suit. The professor linked it to Maddox’s suit.

  “Captain,” the professor said in a hoarse voice.

  Maddox tried to reply but found that his lips had frozen in place.

  “I’m amazed you could walk here,” Ludendorff said, speaking roughly, as if it took great effort of will. “Shu…has completed the task. At least, she claims she has. I’m afraid we have to trust her. Are you ready to leave?”

  “Map,” Maddox said, forcing the word out of his mouth.

  “What’s that, my boy?”

  “Nexus map,” Maddox said.

  “We no longer have time for that,” the professor said. “We have to get back to Victory before the hyper-spatial tube appears.”

  “But…map.”

  “I know you want a map. I want a map. This place…it’s worse than I expected.”

  “What?”

  “We’ll talk later,” Ludendorff said, panting.

  “No. I want…map.”

  “Yes, yes, we all want a map. Not this time, though. The Spacer…she’s a clever minx. Who knew it would be like this? Maybe Meta did, but only in her subconscious. Next time, I’ll know. Go, Captain. The clock is ticking. Shu will leave without us, I’m sure.”

  Maddox shuffled around. Shu had reached her cradle and was strapping in. She’d been walking while they’d talked. The Spacer began initiating her cradle’s thrusters.

  “How did she move so fast?” Ludendorff said. “We took a longer time talking than I realized. She’s leaving us.”

  It was true. Shu’s cradle lifted off the platform. Her tether line didn’t lift, though. She’d unhooked herself from the other thrusters.

  “This is a double-cross,” Ludendorff said. “Captain, you shouldn’t have taken my cube. I’m defenseless, my boy. The grand adventure is over for us.”

  Maddox only half listened. He found himself kneeling, aiming his beamer. He pulled the trigger. A gout of pure energy flowed from the beamer. It wasn’t supposed to work like that. It was supposed to send a thin line of energy. Instead, it went in a visible globule of power. The glob struck Shu’s thruster nozzle, blasting it and sending the Spacer’s cradle tumbling end over end away from them.

  “Ha-ha, perfect shot, my boy,” Ludendorff told him.

  Maddox examined the beamer. It glowed red-hot. Without thinking, he hurled it from him. It drifted away, becoming hotter, hotter—the beamer exploded in a glorious golden color.

  “Why did you bring a grenade?” Ludendorff asked. “Oh well, it doesn’t matter. At least you fixed that minx. It’s too bad that means we’re stuck inside the Nexus.”

  Maddox straightened, peering at the professor. Finally, he realized the wonder of this place had done something to Ludendorff. Apparently, the Methuselah Man wasn’t immune to the Builder traps, either.

  “Go,” Maddox said.

  “No. It’s too late, my boy, far too late. Victory will have to use the tube without us. Ah, well, maybe that’s just as—”

  Maddox cut the professor’s flow of words by yanking the old man, forcing him to come with him. They weren’t doomed until they were dead.

  “Move,” the captain said.

  “Why bother, my boy? It’s over.”

  “Strand.”

  “An old scoundrel, to be sure, but why bring him into it?”

  “He survived this place?”

  The professor’s mirrored visor turned toward Maddox.

  “Yes, yes, that old scoundrel did survive, and he trained some of his spies and golden boys to do likewise. I should be able to overcome—”

  Maddox kept pulling the professor even as he kept his eye on Shu’s tumbling and dwindling cradle. She might have sealed the way out. He couldn’t remember. They needed her if they were going to escape this place.

  “I will survive,” the professor declared. “First, I need to lie down in order to conjugate a perfect plan. And yet…isn’t the perfect the enemy of the good?”

  Maddox yanked the old babbler with him. This was a surprise. Why had Ludendorff succumbed and Strand survived this place? It was another mystery.

  Finally, Maddox shoved Ludendorff into his cradle, attaching the straps. The Methuselah Man was singing a drunken-seeming ditty. Maddox had to yank out the phone-line to leave Ludendorff there.

  First checking the tether-lines between thrusters, Maddox hurried into his cradle. He’d switched the tethers so he was in the lead. With careful concentration, he released the anchor clamp and pressed the trigger throttle. The cradle hissed hydrogen spray, lifting off the giant platform. A tug told him he yanked Meta after him. A second, harder tug told him the professor hadn’t switched off his magnetic anchor.

  Maddox waited as he applied more thrust. He no longer had a phone-link with Ludendorff. If the professor—

  Maddox’s cradle shot away, pulling the other two with him. Ludendorff still retained enough wit to have de-anchored himself.

  Now began a race. Maddox chased Shu’s tumbling cradle, which brushed a girder, changing her heading. The craft had dwindled considerably. Worse, it tumbled toward a pulsating light. What would happen if she plowed into the light?

  Maddox clenched his teeth together. He wished Keith were here instead of him. The lieutenant would add a few summersaults, making everything look easy. It wasn’t easy, however, not with all these girders everywhere.

  Maddox stared fixedly with his lips pulled back in a rictus of determination. Weird ideas thrummed in his mind. His heart hammered. But he forced himself to focus with relentless fury.

  By degrees, he gained on Shu. Strange colors glowed in this part of the pyramid. Maddox knew time worked against them. Ludendorff had said as much, and something in the captain’s gut agreed. It became like a fiery itch that transferred into his mind.

  “No,” he said. “First things first, I need Shu.”

  The itch grew worse.

  Maddox shook his head and checked his meter. He’d gained velocity, and was quickly overtaking the Spacer. She sat like a statue in her cradle
. Perhaps the process had finally overcome her.

  Taking a deep breath, Maddox realized he did not have time to brake and do this right. He was going to have to try to magnetize her cradle to his.

  Maddox laughed. This was crazy. He might as well enjoy the process. If he failed, he died.

  “No. I will succeed. I am Captain Maddox. I am di-far.”

  There was no sport to the event. It was a struggle of life and death, tooth and claw, the law of the jungle. The greatness of the beast didn’t matter as much as his fierce resolve.

  The other cradle loomed larger now.

  “One, two, three,” Maddox said. “One, two, three, thrust!” he shouted.

  His cradle slammed against Shu’s craft. He clicked the magnetic switch, but not fast enough. The crash banged her cradle away from him.

  Now, the captain snarled with rage. He kept the magnetic clamp on this time. He hadn’t needed to time that part of it. He increased velocity, racing after her, pulling the others along.

  By slow degrees, he reached closer, closer—he braked at the last minute. The two cradles touched, and Shu’s craft sealed with his.

  “Yes!” Maddox shouted, the sound reverberating in his helmet. He began to turn the cradle train, trying to spy the place they had entered while weaving past the huge girders.

  Over there! He didn’t see the spot exactly, but his subconscious must have. He couldn’t have said what told him that was the right area, but he applied maximum thrust for it.

  After what seemed like an eternity, he saw space and stars. Shu hadn’t closed the opening. Might it be on a timer?

  That was possible.

  Maddox sat like a statue, only his throttle fingers moving. He had a terrible feeling that the way would close soon. Now, it was a race to see if he was right or wrong.

  -36-

  Lieutenant Noonan was worried and feeling inadequate. She sat in the captain’s chair, realizing this is what she’d wanted for some time and yet now that she was here…

  This almost reminded her of the first Star Watch fight against the New Men, the time Admiral von Gunther had led a battle group into a massacre. Three star cruisers had annihilated everything except her vessel. She’d made a snap decision, eventually hiding behind an asteroid in a lifeboat in a different star system…