“Sleeping,” the medic told him, unable to keep from stealing a glance at Agnarsson. “But he’ll be all right. He just needs a little rest.”
Tarasco nodded. “I’m glad to hear it.”
“Me too,” said Coquillette. “I just hope he doesn’t sleep too long. I don’t think I could stand the suspense.”
For a moment, the captain didn’t know what she was talking about. After all, he had had plenty to think about in the last few minutes. Then he remembered. “That’s right . . . Gorvoy’s theory.”
“It was more than a theory,” the medic insisted. “He told me he had figured out why Agnarsson and the others were affected by the phenomenon . . . and also why Agnarsson was the only one who survived it.”
“Did he give you any details?”
She shook her head ruefully. “He couldn’t. Agnarsson overheard us at that point and interrupted.”
Tarasco sighed. “I’d love to know what Gorvoy came up with.”
“He might have made some notes,” Coquillette suggested.
“Or crunched some numbers,” the captain agreed. “Either way, there would be a record of it in the database.”
He tapped a bulkhead pad to activate the intercom. “Tarasco to Gardenhire,” he said into the grid below the pad.
“Gardenhire here. How’s everything going down there, sir?”
“Agnarsson’s under control,” the captain assured him. “I’ve got a job for you, Lieutenant. I’d like you to see if you can find a file the doctor was working on when he was attacked. It had something to do with the victims of the phenomenon.”
“Will do, sir,” came Gardenhire’s response. “I’ll let you know as soon as I find something.”
“Thanks,” said Tarasco. “Captain out.” He turned to Coquillette. “It shouldn’t be long before we know something.”
Coquillette glanced at Agnarsson again. The man hadn’t stirred yet from his drug-induced stupor.
“Great,” she said. “The sooner we know something about our friend there, the sooner we can help him.”
Tarasco wished he could be as optimistic as the medic was.
Jack Gorvoy had treated any number of crew members in his sickbay since the day the Valiant left Earth.
However, he himself hadn’t previously spent any time in one of his beds. And now that he had spent some time there, he didn’t like it—especially after he heard what Tarasco had to tell him.
“The file was lost?” the doctor echoed, his voice still a little weak.
“It looks that way,” said the captain. “And under the circumstances, I have to entertain the possibility that it wasn’t a mechanical failure.”
Gorvoy looked at him. “Agnarsson.”
“Why not? If he can take over the helm, it’s child’s play to wipe out a little computer data.”
“But why?” asked the medical officer. “He knew I’d be able to tell you about it as soon as I regained consciousness.”
Tarasco smiled a sickly smile. “Maybe he didn’t believe you were going to do that.”
It wasn’t a comforting thought. “Maybe,” said Gorvoy.
“Or maybe he was just acting out of anger,” the captain suggested, “throwing some kind of tantrum. Fortunately, it doesn’t matter one way or the other. You have regained consciousness.”
The doctor could still feel a dull ache where he had hit his head. “If you can call it that.”
“So what did you come up with?” the other man asked.
Gorvoy frowned. “Extrasensory perception.”
Tarasco looked at him. “That’s it?”
“That’s it. Mind you, not all of our seven casualties were tested for it, but three were—Agnarsson, Davidoff, and Kolodny. Davidoff and Kolodny scored pretty high . . . but Agnarsson? He was off the charts.”
The captain shook his head. “You know what? It makes sense.”
“That someone with a predisposition toward mental abilities would develop Agnarsson’s brand of powers? I’d have to agree,” said the doctor. “I just wish I had thought of the connection sooner.”
“What about the rest of the crew?” asked Tarasco. “Are we going to have any delayed cases?”
“I don’t think so,” Gorvoy told him. “Of the thirty-eight whose records show they were tested, none showed any particular talent for ESP.”
“Thank heavens for that, at least.”
“You can say that again,” said the medical officer. He searched the captain’s eyes. “So what happens now?”
“That depends,” Tarasco replied.
“On what?”
“Now that we know about Agnarsson’s ESP, is there a chance that we can use that knowledge to change him back?”
“Honestly?” said Gorvoy. “I don’t think so.”
“Then you don’t want to know what happens now.”
Gorvoy was a physician. He had taken an oath not to hurt anyone. And yet, he couldn’t argue with the captain’s position.
“Hollandsworth was wrong,” he found himself saying. “We weren’t just lashing out at Agnarsson. He really is a monster.”
Tarasco didn’t say anything in response. Obviously, he wasn’t especially comfortable with the task ahead of him. But who could be?
“Get some rest,” he told the doctor.
“I’ll try,” said Gorvoy. But with what he had to think about, he didn’t believe he would be very successful at it.
Security Chief Pelletier saw the engineer stir on the other side of the barrier. Glancing at his watch, he made note of the elapsed time.
An hour and eighteen minutes.
According to Rudolph, the drug he administered would have kept a normal man unconscious for seven or eight hours. Of course, Pelletier reflected bleakly, Agnarsson was anything but a normal man.
He glanced over his shoulder at Marciulonis. “Contact the captain,” he said. “Let him know that Agnarsson’s coming to.”
“Aye, sir,” Marciulonis replied, and tapped the bulkhead pad that activated the intercom system.
Pelletier turned back to the prisoner and saw that his eyes were open. What’s more, they were staring in the security chief’s direction.
“You’re a fool if you think you can hold me,” said Agnarsson.
“Then I’m a fool,” Pelletier answered. “But if you were in my place, you’d be doing the same thing.”
That made the engineer smile. “No,” he said, his voice echoing, “that’s not true at all. If I were in your place, I would have killed me some time ago . . . while I still had the chance.”
The security chief didn’t say that that was still the plan. He didn’t even dare to think it.
“You’re keeping something from me,” Agnarsson observed. “Something you don’t think I’ll like.”
There was no point in denying it—not when he was dealing with a telepath. So Pelletier remained silent.
“You can plot all you want,” said the man with the silver eyes. “It won’t do you any good. I’m getting stronger all the time.”
Suddenly, Agnarsson took a step forward, as if to attack the security chief. As Pelletier jumped backward, fumbling at his hip for his pistol, the engineer laughed.
“Soon I’ll be strong enough to grab you for real,” he said.
And as if to prove his point, he extended his hand into the vertical plane of the electromagnetic field.
Sparks sputtered around Agnarsson’s wrist, making him grimace with pain. But he didn’t pull his hand back right away. He left it there, enduring what no mere human could have endured.
Finally, the prisoner staggered backward and cradled his hand. He looked weakened by the experience, even a little humbled. But then, Pelletier told himself, Agnarsson had been weakened before, and he had come back stronger than ever.
The engineer tilted his head, considering the security chief as if he had never noticed him before. “You know,” he noted almost casually, “it’s only a matter of time.”
It was then that P
elletier noticed the patches of white at Agnarsson’s temples. The man’s appearance was changing again.
“I’ve notified the captain,” Marciulonis told his superior. “He says he’s almost finished.”
Pelletier didn’t take his eyes off the prisoner as he responded. He didn’t put his pistol away either.
“Tell Captain Tarasco to hurry,” said the security chief. “We may not have much more time.”
* * *
Captain’s log, supplemental. I’m sending out this message buoy despite my hope that we of the Valiant will still make it back to Earth. The buoy contains all our computer data from the past several days, which will explain how we wound up in these unfortunate straits . . . and why I’ve opted for such a drastic response to them.
Tarasco tapped a square, orange stud on his armrest, terminating his log entry. Then, glancing at Gardenhire, he nodded to show his ops officer that he had finished.
Gardenhire manipulated the controls on his panel. “Releasing the buoy,” he announced gravely.
Tarasco turned back to his bridge’s forward viewscreen. After a moment, he saw a small, gray object go spinning off into the void like a child’s top. It had a squat, graceless body, three sturdy legs and a domed crown, and it would transmit a signal in the direction of Earth for hundreds of years if nothing happened to it.
The message buoy would tell the Valiant’s story. It would speak of the magnetic storm that had hurled them through space. It would describe the phenomenon they encountered at the galaxy’s edge. And it would say how their first assistant engineer had mutated into a being capable of destroying the rest of the crew.
The buoy would also carry information about extrasensory perception, and how it related to Geirrod Agnarsson’s transformation. It would warn other captains who intended to penetrate the barrier about the horrific consequences they might face.
The kind of consequences Tarasco was facing now.
Suddenly, his intercom grid came alive. “Chief Pelletier to Captain Tarasco,” it sang.
“Tarasco here. What’s the situation?”
“Not good, sir,” said the security chief. “Agnarsson is having another go at the force field. He’s been in contact with it for nearly a minute and he doesn’t seem to have reached his limit yet.”
The captain could hear the urgency in Pelletier’s voice. No, he told himself, call it what it is. The fear.
For the last twenty minutes, while Tarasco was completing his preparation of the message buoy, Agnarsson had been trying to see how much punishment he could take. Each time he penetrated the barrier, it seemed, he was able to endure it a little longer than the previous time.
Eventually, he would be able to pass through it altogether. The captain didn’t doubt that for a minute. In time, he reflected, Agnarsson would be unstoppable.
Tarasco desperately didn’t want to destroy the engineer or anyone else. That was why he had taken so long to release the message buoy. It was why he was lingering here on the bridge, watching the buoy spin off into space for as long as possible.
But it was becoming increasingly obvious that he had to act. Agnarsson was a deadly threat to the life of every man and woman on the Valiant. The engineer had to be sacrificed, and soon . . . or the buoy would be all that was left of them.
And it wasn’t just the crew that was at risk. If Agnarsson took control of the ship, he might be able to repair its crippled propulsion system. Then he would have access to every planet in the galaxy, including the ones that boasted sentient populations.
Including, ultimately, Earth.
Tarasco patted the laser pistol on his hip. He couldn’t allow a monster to be unleashed on his homeworld. He had to put his dread aside and do something about it.
“I’m coming,” he told Pelletier. “Tarasco out.”
Slowly, feeling as if he were laden with weights, the captain turned to his helm officer. “Lieutenant Sommers,” he said, “you’ve got the bridge.”
The woman turned and looked at him, knowing full well what Pelletier’s summons had been about. “Aye, sir.”
Pushing himself up out of his center seat, the captain made his way to the lift at the rear of the bridge and tapped the touch-sensitive plate on the bulkhead. The doors slid aside for him and he entered the compartment, then punched in his destination.
It took slightly more than a minute for the lift to convey him to Deck Ten. The doors opened on arrival and he stepped out into the corridor.
The brig was just down the hall. Tarasco followed the bend of the passageway reluctantly. Along the way, it occurred to him that he would have to look Agnarsson in the eyes before he killed him.
It would hurt to do that, no question about it. But it wouldn’t stop him. No matter what, he would press the trigger.
Of course, he could have ordered one of his crewmen to destroy the prisoner for him. But Tarasco wasn’t the type to put that kind of burden on one of his people. If anyone was going to wake up screaming in the middle of the night, it was going to be him.
He was less than twenty meters from the brig when he realized that something was wrong. It was too quiet, the captain told himself. He couldn’t even hear the buzz of Agnarsson’s force field.
Drawing his laser pistol from its place in his belt, Tarasco held it before him and advanced more warily. After a few seconds, Pelletier’s muscular body came into view. The security chief was sprawled across the floor, his neck bent at an impossible angle, a trickle of dark blood running from the corner of his open mouth.
The captain swore under his breath.
His teeth grinding with grief and anger, he paused to kneel at Pelletier’s side and feel his neck for a pulse. There wasn’t any. And the man’s weapon was fully charged, meaning he hadn’t even gotten a chance to fire it before Agnarsson got to him.
Tarasco got up and went on, sweat streaming down both sides of his face, his heart banging against his ribs so hard he thought they would break. At any moment, he thought, Agnarsson might reach out with his mind and strangle him to death.
But it didn’t happen. The captain reached the brig unscathed.
It didn’t take an expert to see that its force field had been deactivated or disabled. The room itself was empty. And the two security officers who had been helping to guard Agnarsson were laid out on the deck, their necks broken as badly as Pelletier’s had been.
Tarasco cursed angrily under his breath and scanned the corridor in both directions. The monster was loose. He could be anywhere, preying on anyone at all. There was no time to waste.
Pressing the intercom pad next to the brig, the captain gained access to every member of his crew in every section of the ship. “Agnarsson has escaped the brig,” he said, doing his best to keep his panic in check. “He’s already killed three security officers. He is extremely dangerous and to be avoided at all costs. Repeat—”
You’re next, Tarasco. The words echoed ominously in his brain, obliterating the possibility of any other thought. Tarasco scanned the corridor in either direction, but there was no one there. After all, what do I need with a captain? Or a crew, for that matter?
Tarasco swallowed back his fear. Where are you? he asked the engineer in the confines of his mind.
Not so far away, came the coy, almost childlike answer. And getting closer all the time.
Chapter 5
At the sound of his adversary’s thought, the captain could feel a wetness between his shoulder blades. Following his instincts, he whirled—but the corridor was still empty behind him.
Then he spun the other way . . .
And there was Agnarsson, his eyes ablaze with silver light, a cruel smile on his otherwise expressionless face. He had always been a big man, but he seemed even bigger now, more imposing.
You can’t kill me, the engineer insisted, his voice expanding to fill the hallway. Much as you want to, you can’t. But I can kill you.
And he lifted his hand to carry out his threat.
However, Taras
co struck first. His pale blue laser beam slammed squarely into Agnarsson’s chest, forcing him back a couple of steps. The engineer’s smile became a grimace as he pitted his mysterious power against the laser’s electromagnetic fury.
At first, he merely stood his ground. Then little by little, with the beam’s brilliance spattering against him, he did even better than that. He began to make his way forward again.
You can’t stop me, Agnarsson told him, his voice echoing like thunder. Nothing can stop me. And he hurled a crackling bolt of livid pink energy at the captain.
Tarasco didn’t have time to duck the discharge or get out of the way. All he could do was try to go limp as the engineer’s power hammered him into the bulkhead behind him.
The next thing the captain knew, he was sitting with his back against the bulkhead, feeling as if he had broken every bone in his body. There was blood in his mouth and a wetness in the back of his head that could only have been more blood.
And it hurt like the devil to draw a breath. More than likely, he had cracked a couple of ribs.
Through tears of pain, he looked up at Agnarsson. The man was gazing at his victim triumphantly, in no apparent hurry to finish him off. Almost reluctantly, he lifted his hand.
But before he could accomplish anything with it, the corridor erupted with a blinding, blue light. It caught the engineer by surprise and sent him staggering into the bulkhead.
The captain squinted and was able to make out two high-intensity shafts. Lasers, he thought. On their highest settings. They seemed to be coming from the opposite end of the corridor.
Forcing his eyes to focus, Tarasco saw that two more of his security officers had arrived. Their laser barrage was pummeling Agnarsson without respite, forcing him to expend more and more of his newfound energy just to remain conscious.
The captain knew that this might be his last chance. Looking around for his laser pistol, he found it lying on the deck less than a meter away. Putting aside the pain that squeezed his midsection like a vise, he dragged himself over to the weapon and took hold of it.
When he looked up again, he saw Agnarsson fighting the security officers’ lasers to a draw. It was difficult to predict which would give out first—the engineer’s stamina or the pistols’ batteries.
THE VALIANT Page 4