“I doubt that’s the case,” Maddox said. “I mean there being more Builder drones nearby.”
The professor sat down at communications and sensors. He set his helmet on a panel and activated the shuttle’s passive sensing systems.
As the shuttle eased outside of Victory, Maddox glanced at the massive starship. He didn’t like leaving the safety of the Adok vessel in the strange Builder asteroid field. But it was better that he risk his person than Star Watch’s most important vessel.
Ludendorff tore his gaze from the sensor board, giving Maddox a quizzical study.
“Is something wrong?” the captain asked.
“Your certainty regarding the lack of more Builder drones,” the professor said. “I would like to know what prompts such an opinion.”
“You do.”
Ludendorff shook his head. “I don’t believe I’ve said anything else on the topic but for my warning.”
“Not verbally, no,” Maddox said, as he pressed a control on the piloting board. The engine purred and thrust propelled the shuttle faster. Maddox watched his panel, adjusting for an asteroid dead ahead. There were hundreds of thousands of space rocks out here.
“Well?” the professor asked.
Maddox glanced at Meta before regarding the professor. “It’s a simple deduction. You wouldn’t risk yourself on a shuttle if you believed more Builder drones waited to pounce on us. Rather, you would have sent us ahead as a decoy, while staying on Victory.”
“Do you truly have that low of an opinion of me?”
“One doesn’t get to be as old as you without practicing devious caution at every turn,” Maddox said.
“What do you call my participation in the Battle of the Tannish System?” the professor asked.
“An anomaly,” Maddox said, “for which I’m grateful, don’t doubt that for a moment.”
Ludendorff showed his teeth in a wolfish grin. “I like you, Captain. It’s too bad you’re a falling star. Your kind blazes hot for a time, making a spectacle. Everyone ‘oohs’ and ‘ahs’ at you, and then you wink out, having burned to a cinder in your brief flight through life.”
“I have news for you, Professor. No one makes it out of this life alive.”
“Is that any reason to hasten the process?”
“I suppose not,” Maddox said.
“Then I congratulate you,” Ludendorff said.
“For what?”
“For making my point. But just to be clear, I don’t know whether more Builder drones are prowling these parts. I’m taking a risk for the good of humanity. We must stop the planet-killer. That is paramount.”
“You may not be certain concerning the drones,” Maddox said, “but I’m betting the odds of more of them appearing suddenly have lowered since we saw the one, haven’t they?”
“According to my calculations, that’s true. But I have old data.”
“How old?” Maddox asked.
“The better term might be to say I have antique data. The New Men know more about the Nexus than I do.”
Meta’s board made a warning sound. The two men fell silent, glancing at her.
“Sorry,” she said. “I just triggered the auto-sequencing.”
“You found something?” Ludendorff asked, his voice worried.
“No, no,” Meta said. “The pod locked onto an asteroid. It’s nothing.”
“It locked on because of a high metal concentration?” the professor asked.
Meta checked her panel, nodding after a moment.
“We must investigate this,” Ludendorff said, his voice tinged with excitement.
“Care to tell us why?” Maddox asked.
“I doubt the weapons pod would react to a high concentration of ore in an asteroid,” the professor said. “Therefore, the concentration implies a device or ship on the asteroid, which in turn has a high probability of being a Builder artifact.”
“And that’s important?”
The professor studied his sensor board. “I’ve located the asteroid. It’s ten thousand kilometers away. Veer for it, would you, Captain?”
“Isn’t the Nexus paramount?” Maddox asked.
“We should examine this first,” the professor said.
Maddox nodded slowly. He didn’t like this turn of events. If this was a life-or-death quest for human survival, why did it feel as if the professor thought it was a treasure hunt?
Maddox adjusted the flight path. He kept Victory in visual range, training a teleoptic device on the starship. Valerie and he had agreed beforehand to keep communications between them at a minimum. It was possible that Builder drones could home in on a comm-signal.
The shuttle passed a smaller asteroid, this one ten kilometers in diameter. The object lacked any craters or other space impact marks. That was odd.
“Does that asteroid have any dust?” Maddox asked.
“Eh?” Ludendorff asked. “What’s that?”
“The asteroid outside, the one we’re passing, does it have any surface dust?”
The professor shrugged.
Meta used the warfare pod’s targeting device to scan the asteroid. “No dust, Captain,” she said.
Given the professor’s reaction concerning the metal on an asteroid, Maddox had a hunch. “What’s the asteroid’s composition?”
“Don’t use any active sensors,” Ludendorff warned.
“So what’s the asteroid made of?” Maddox asked the professor. “What do your passive sensors say?”
Ludendorff hesitated before saying, “The asteroid is composed of granite and basalt rock.”
“There are no metals on or in the asteroid?”
The professor sighed. “No, Captain. That’s how I knew the metal Meta detected a few minutes was something other than asteroidal ore. None of these rocks has any metallic ores or minerals.”
“Why didn’t you simply tell us from the beginning? Why try to hide everything?”
“Habit, I suppose,” Ludendorff said.
Maddox thought about that as he piloted the shuttle to the asteroid with metal. Earlier, Dana had admitted Ludendorff was a Methuselah Man. The common attribute each of the Methuselah People possessed was a calcification of character. Ludendorff was highly secretive. Maybe the professor could no longer help himself in that regard.
For a time, no one spoke. The stars blazed in the background as the shuttle passed various meteors and boulders. Behind them, the starship continued to dwindle in size. Maddox wondered on the extent of the asteroid belt. How much energy had the Builders expended to construct such a field. Why had they gone to such lengths to do it? Who were the Builders? Did the New Men really use Builder technology? If so, did the tech trump everything else?
Maddox was inclined to believe otherwise. In the Battle of the Tannish System, Adok technology had defeated Builder tech, given the New Men used it.
“Look,” Meta said, pointing out the window. “There it is.”
Maddox stared where she pointed. The targeted asteroid was much larger than the others were. “Do we have any specs on it?” he asked.
“Diameter, fifty kilometers,” the professor said.
“Do you see the metal yet?”
“Negative,” Ludendorff said.
“No,” Meta added, as she studied her weapons pod scanner.
“Ah, this is interesting,” the professor said, watching his board. “The asteroid is spinning on its axis.”
Maddox’s hackles rose. “Meta, have you seen any other spinning asteroids?”
“I have not,” she said.
“What are you implying?” the professor asked.
“That’s not half as important as what you’re not telling us,” Maddox said. “Why is the asteroid spinning, and why aren’t any of the others doing that?”
“I have no idea,” Ludendorff said.
“Professor, please, you must have some idea.”
“Well…maybe a small thought,” Ludendorff admitted.
Maddox waited to hear it.
Ludendorff appeared as if he wanted to stall. Finally, he grunted softly, saying, “I think the asteroid was the launch point for the drone we destroyed.”