The two followed Galyan through the hatch into the science chamber. The metallic Builder egg lay on a table, surrounded by dark clamps. A device above it aimed a pointed apparatus at the egg. The Adok robot waited motionlessly in a corner.
“This is inside the egg, waiting,” Galyan said.
A new holoimage appeared before them. It showed a tightly curled creature with shiny metal parts, an insect’s carapace and hundreds of tiny legs like a centipede.
“What is that?” Maddox asked with disgust.
“I believe it is a computer virus installer,” Galyan said.
“Is that a Swarm creature?” Dana asked.
“Yes and no,” Galyan told her.
“What kind of answer is that?”
“A precise one,” Galyan said. “Yes, in its original form, I believe the creature belonged to the Swarm. No, in this modified form, it is no longer wholly a Swarm creature, but partly a Builder construct.”
“It’s a Swarm cyborg?” Maddox asked in disbelief.
“That is closer to the truth,” Galyan admitted. “But it is no longer a Swarm creature at all, in my opinion. It is a Builder construct, using the Swarm animal as the base form. The cybernetic additions are pure Builder. That would imply this is a Builder virus attacker.”
Maddox stared at the shiny egg. His thoughts were in turmoil. “First,” the captain said. “Is the creature—whatever it is—alive?”
“I have not detected any blood flow,” Galyan said. “But I have detected energy storage.”
“Batteries?” asked Maddox.
“An apt enough term,” Galyan said.
“If the energy flowed,” Dana asked, “would the biological matter perform as needed?”
“That is unknown,” Galyan said.
“What do you suspect?” the doctor asked.
“Given that the professor brought it with him at great expense to himself,” Galyan said, “I am inclined to believe the bio-parts will function as needed.”
“What is its function?” Maddox asked.
“That should be obvious,” Galyan said. “It is a mobile virus attacker. The function is to arrive at an enemy computer system, attach itself to it and insert the virus.”
“An ancient virus?” Maddox asked.
“Not necessarily,” Galyan said. “The construct in the egg is less than five hundred years old in human time units.”
Maddox frowned severely. Had the Builders been alive five hundred years ago?
“You must be thinking the same thing I am,” Dana told the captain. “The professor must have planned to bring the egg onto the doomsday machine.”
“To give the ancient planet-killer a computer virus,” Maddox said softly.
“I am in agreement with your assessment,” Galyan said.
“This is astonishing,” Dana said. “A living Swarm organism combined with Builder cybernetics. Who were the Builders? Did they help the Swarm?”
“By no means,” Galyan said. “Everything I remember points to Builder aid against the Swarm in the Adok Star System.”
“Why did the Builders die out?” Dana asked. “Do you know?”
“Is that a reasonable question?” Galyan asked. “Their space pyramid yet exists. Their drones exist. Could it be that the Builders also still exist?”
“How did the professor know about the egg?” Maddox asked. “How did he know the egg would be in the Builder base? Ludendorff claimed to have never been in the Xerxes System before. I bet that was another of his many lies.”
“We must wake him up,” Dana said imploringly. “We must discover the truth.”
Maddox laughed dryly. “I have the opposite feeling. More than ever, we have to keep him under. Star Watch Command has to make the decisions regarding the man, not us.”
“Star Watch Command may not have time for those decisions,” Dana said. “What if the doomsday machine beats us to Earth? We have to be ready to attack it the moment we arrive in the Solar System.”
Maddox pondered the idea. There could be some validity to the doctor’s idea. “Galyan,” Maddox said. “Do you have any memories of a doomsday machine?”
“Negative,” the AI said.
“Is there anything more you can tell us about the Builders?” Maddox asked.
“I would like to,” Galyan said. “But I have told you the extent of my beliefs concerning them.”
Maddox nodded. “What we need is the professor’s long-distance communicator. I’d like to warn Earth with it.”
“Wake him up and ask for it,” Dana suggested.
Maddox refused to relent, so they continued to travel with haste.
-28-
A little over seventy-three light-years away in the Karachi System—a signatory to the Commonwealth Treaty—Commander Kris Guderian studied Osprey’s sensors from her spot on the bridge.
She might not have noticed a strange phenomenon but for two factors. One, as a Patrol officer, she was trained to note anomalies no matter how minute. The present incongruity was tiny. But Kris was wound tight, had been ever since witnessing the destruction of Al Salam in the New Arabia System. That was the second reason. The death of the Wahhabi Caliphate Home Fleet had shaken her to the core.
Kris fiddled with the sensor controls, scanning the Karachi System, observing everything she could. She had written detailed reports about her journey, working particularly hard on the conclusions, as that’s what most of the higher commanders read.
Too much of Kris’s mind wrestled with a discovery she’d found during the frigate’s breakneck race to Earth. Many Star Watch officers didn’t believe her report about the doomsday machine. Oh, they filed it in the proper locations, but their mannerisms told Kris all she needed to know. The officers thought she’d been out in the Beyond too long. She kept telling herself it didn’t bother her, which was a lie. Yes, the truth was going to come out soon enough about the doomsday machine as it destroyed Commonwealth planets. But how could any responsible officer shrug about something like that? To that end, Kris pushed Osprey as hard as the frigate could go. She needed to get back to High Command on Earth to warn them. Star Watch had to come up with a solution against the planet-killer, and that could take time.
How do you defeat a neutroium-hulled monster? Kris had been thinking about it day and night. It was driving her batty. Lieutenant Artemis was sick of discussing the subject with her. The rest of the crew had turned fatalistic and dispirited. Her people repeatedly watched the video of the planetary destruction of Al Salam.
Osprey presently dashed for the system’s third and loneliest Laumer-Point. Kris had refueled once already during the trip. The frigate decelerated and accelerated at combat levels. The constantly heavy Gs and jumps had worn down everyone. There had been more arguments lately. One fight had been so bitter that four crewmembers had come to blows. That almost never happened aboard a Patrol vessel, certainly not on the Osprey.
At the moment, the main sensor scanned Karachi 7. It was a gas giant, a monster three times Jupiter’s mass. A burst of hard radiation spewed like a geyser up from the planet at uneven intervals. Kris witnessed a big gusher that reached farther into space than normal.
To the commander’s amazement, some of the radiation hit blockage. Kris found that odd. Her sensors indicated that nothing was there to block radiation. She ran through a computer analysis. The blockage actually formed a distinct shape.
The commander tapped her board, trying to get a sense of the shape. The hard radiation showed…a cloaked vessel, the radiation outlined a hidden spaceship.
Kris rechecked the sensors. While she did, the blockage abruptly stopped as the geyser of planetary radiation weakened and then quit.
Working with feverish haste, Kris tried an infrared scan, but couldn’t spot a thing. The cloaking was good. If that really was a hidden spaceship I saw…