The Lost Starship (40 page)

“Meta,” he whispered.

“Captain Maddox,” she said back.

He liked the sound of her voice. He liked the feel of her against him
even better.

After a time, he released her. She
also let go of him and swept her fingers through her hair.

He debated telling her
not to give up hope. An instinctive part of him realized she might believe he’d done all this just to keep her going. This wasn’t the moment to tell her to keep trying. Maybe this wasn’t a time for words. Sometimes, a person simply needed to be wanted, to belong to another.

“
In the end,” she told him, “we can’t win. You know that, right?”

Surprised at her words, h
e raised an eyebrow.

“That’s why I
let you do what you just did,” she said. “It’s only fair that I tell you, Captain. I took a vow long before this. My past won’t allow me the kind of emotional attachment you’re craving.”

“Me?” asked Maddox.

Meta nodded sadly. “I am what I am. That can’t ever change. I was an assassin, and I did whatever I had to in order to succeed for my world.”

“What does any of that have to do with this?”
he asked.

“I
n case you haven’t noticed, I’m not a nice person. I’m a killer with a pretty face. You’re…a unique man. I could learn to like you too much. That won’t do.”

He frowned at her.

“I don’t want to be hurt, you see. You’re the kind of man who unintentionally hurts women. I’ve had to armor myself for the things I’ve done. To let a man like you past the armor would destroy me. Of course, I’m already destroyed, but you don’t want to hear about that. None of this matters, though, because we’re doomed to die out here.”

Maddox scratched his cheek.
For a moment, he wondered if his difference from others meant he could never know love as regular people did. Meta was unusual, and she kept herself emotionally separate from others. Is that why she despaired now?

“You understand
what I’m saying, don’t you?” Meta asked.

Maddox
had an inkling of what she wanted to hear. So he shook his head.

“You’re lying,” Meta said softly. “You think you don’t have to pay the bitter price
of your power, your unusual abilities. In this, I see more clearly than you do.”

Maddox let himself go blank so nothing showed on his face. Meta wasn’t going to be easy, he could see. So be it. What was the right move now? Hmm…yes, he believed he knew.

The captain squared his shoulders. “Let me ask you a question.”

“Yes?”
she asked.

“If we’re doomed, as you say
, why not strive with every fiber in you to defeat the night? Why go quietly down to death? Let’s fight oblivion together. Let’s fight to live longer and do more than simply quit. If you admit defeat, the game is already up. If you strive, well, who knows, maybe we’ll produce another wonder.”

Meta turned away.

Maddox waited. He’d made his attempt for now. He had time, and he had a hunter’s patience. He wanted her, and he was going to get her.

“Yes,”
Meta said, looking up. “Let’s try. What do we have to lose?”

Won one and lost one, with the opportunity to continue the game.
That’s not bad for playing a hunch
.

Maddox
verbally agreed with Meta. Then they returned to the starship’s wardroom.

Two days later on the bridge, Lieutenant Noonan sat back in frustration. She had spent the last forty-eight hours trying to figure out how to use some of the instrument panels in order to scan the nearest star systems.

Captain Maddox used a thin metal rod to press tentacle-slot controls. He had become
more cautious since accidentally locking them in here and draining the atmosphere a day ago. At the last moment, he’d figured out how to reverse what he’d done.

“Sir,” Valerie said.

Maddox looked up. His features had become even gaunter than usual, with the beginning of circles around his eyes.

“We have to be realistic,” Valerie said. “I’m not going to figure out these instruments before our food runs out. Sure, we can keep going as we starve, but I don’t think we’ll use our wits very well
by that point.”

“Defeatism isn’t going to solve the problem,” he said in an irritated voice.

“I’m not admitting defeat,” Valerie told him. “I’m saying we’re going about this the wrong way.”

“I’d be delighted to hear your suggestion
for a more productive avenue.”

“You’re not going to like it,” she said.

“That doesn’t matter. If it works, at this point, that’s all that counts.”

“
I agree with you there,” Valerie said. “In my opinion, we have to reactivate the AI. It can communicate with you and it can make the ship do what it wants. Given our limited window of opportunity, I don’t see any other way than semi-reactivating the AI and using it like a rider uses the reins on a horse.”

Maddox frowned. “
You want to give control of the vessel back to the AI?” he asked.

“
First, we have to dumb it down,” Valerie said. “Or, we have to change its coding so it listens to our orders instead of thinking it can make the commands.”

Maddox snorted. “That w
ould be immeasurably more difficult than learning how to use the ship’s sensors ourselves.”

“
Maybe you’re right if you mean for someone like me,” Valerie said, “but not for Doctor Rich. She could figure out how to do what I’m suggesting”

“
That’s preposterous,” Maddox said.

“
I have to disagree with you, sir. There’s something uncanny about Dana. She has a sixth sense about these things. As you’ve said before, she’s a genius.”

Maddox flipped
his thin control rod into the air, catching it. “Do you trust her?” he asked suddenly.

“
Dana? Of course, I trust her. She doesn’t want to die any more than you do.”

“That’s not what I mean. Can we trust her
to stick with the team, with following my orders? What’s your gut feeling?”

“I don’t know,” Valerie admitted. “
That’s a good question. She has issues. That’s for sure.”

“Has she said anything to you about her past?” Maddox asked.

“No,” Valerie said. “If you want to know that you should ask Meta.”

“I think not,” Maddox said.

“Even if we can’t fully trust Dana, we should still try it my way,” Valerie said. “The present way…isn’t going to work for us.”

Maddox put his hands behind his back and began to pace. He was quiet for a time. Finally, he said,
“We have the starship. We just don’t know how to run it. Soon, we’re out of food. Even if we can jump, we’re going to need a margin for error, food to last for a time. Yes, you’re right, Lieutenant. We must shake the dice one more time. You must talk with Meta and sound her out about Dana. I’ll go see the doctor and find out what she thinks about reactivating the AI.”

***

Captain Maddox spoke with Doctor Rich. They wandered through the mammoth engine area. Fortunately, the star cruisers’ rays hadn’t touched the antimatter cylinders.

The broken combat robots and skeletal pincer-creatures no longer littered the
deck here. Keith and Riker had cleared them away a day ago.

Dana nodded as Maddox explained the situation to her. “I’ve come to a similar conclusion,” she said. “We have to open the stopper just enough to let the genie’s intellect come out but not its power.”

“Do you think it can be done?”

“Oh, certainly
it
can
,” Dana said. “That isn’t the question.”

“What is?”

“Whether or not
I
can do it,” she said. “Then, we must broach the heart of the matter of what’s really troubling you.”

“I didn’t know there was something else,” Maddox said.

Dana smiled. Her teeth seemed so much whiter than any of theirs because her skin was darker. “Now, you’re lying to me. It’s something I notice you do easily and do quite well, I might add.”

“
I wouldn’t call it lying, specifically,” he said.

“I realize
you wouldn’t,” Dana said. “You’re in Star Watch Intelligence. In the end, you’re a spymaster more than you’re a starship captain. Disinformation—lying—is your stock in trade.”

“Why the sudden flattery?” Maddox
asked, dryly.

Dana nodded. “I suppose it’s my turn to make a confession.
I understand you’d like to know whether I’m trustworthy or not for the long haul back home.”

Maddox wondered if Valerie had already talked to Meta about this, and if the Rouen Colony
miner had come to the doctor.

“How much
do you know about my past?” Dana asked.

“Could you be more specific?”

“You know I went on an expedition with Professor Ludendorff. What do you know about me after that?”

“Simply that you were a clone thief,” Maddox said.
He figured why let her know what he already knew from the Star Watch Intelligence files.

“Your vaunted Star Watch didn’t
give you any more specifics than that?” she asked.

Of course, t
hey had, but his instincts led him to hedge his bets. “Nothing more than that you once engaged in espionage against the Social Syndicate of the Rigel System. I also know you’re a computer expert.”

“Much more than
a mere
expert
,” Dana said. “I excel with any form of electrical system or device.”

“I’
ll willingly grant you that. According to your dossier, you were the heart of the attack against the ruling syndic. How and why you made these attacks—” Maddox shook his head. “You’re right. My brief concerning you was too light, with too many unanswered questions.”

“It’s
as I suspected.” Dana compressed her lips together before asking, “What do you know about the Rigel Social Syndicate?”

“Very little,” Maddox admitted. “
I know they’re part of the Commonwealth of Planets, if troublesome members.”

The Commonwealth was a loose
, large union of sovereign systems with the Star Watch as its protective and space-enforcement arm. A few of the systems, such as the Rigel Social Syndicate, only gave nominal allegiance.

“The Social Syndicate
controls several star systems,” Dana said. “Their navy keenly patrols its various tramlines. They also happen to quarrel incessantly with Brahma.”

Dana
studied her hands before looking up. “I was born in Bombay, India on Earth, but at an early age I emigrated to Brahma. As the name indicates, former inhabitants of India colonized the Brahma System. Our planetary religion is an accelerated form of Hinduism. That’s unimportant to my story, as I’m an agnostic.” The doctor shrugged. “I believe something made all this—the universe, I mean—but I have no idea who or what combination of super-powered beings did it.”

“Fair enough,” Maddox said.

“The social contract, as preached by the syndic and his cronies, has little appeal to those of Brahma,” Dana said. “Our planet engages in high tech production and sales. We’re a single star system with perhaps three hundred million inhabitants. The Social Syndicate dwarfs us in territory and population. In these sorts of things, it doesn’t pay to be weak or small.”

“No,” Maddox said.

“Still,” Dana said, “we had a solid navy and fought with zeal. From time to time, however, syndicate raiders slipped into our system, kidnapping men and women for various rich people’s sex objects. Sometimes there were acts of technological piracy as well. It grew worse several years ago, and our hegemon—the name of our ruler—decided it was time for more vigorous defensive action. The Star Watch had failed to act decisively enough, no doubt wishing to keep the peace with the syndic. Instead of embroiling our systems in war and possibly bringing a Star Watch blockage on us and killing trade, we decided the Social Syndicate needed a civil war to split it apart.”

“Ah,” Maddox said, intrigued.

“The situation was something you might have excelled at,” Dana said. “It was a spymaster’s affair. How much do you know about the Social Syndicate philosophy?”

“Almost nothing,” Maddox
admitted.

“The key
facet to understand for my story is that there are two major branches of thought. The first is known as the Maxim school of thought while the second is the Limited. I won’t go into the philosophical differences between them. To an outsider they might not seem important. To many Social Syndicates, they are critical. The Rigel rulers and military are Maxim in belief. That being said, not all the Syndicate’s subjects adhere to those doctrines.”

“And…” Maddox said.

Dana grinned. “You wish me to get to the point. Very well, my task was to infiltrate certain clone centers. I was part of the team that planned to break into the most heavily guarded sanctuary in the Oikumene: that is, the syndic’s personnel clone garden, where his clones and those of his immediate cronies lived. Our idea was simple and elegant.

“I cracked the security codes
, and we herded the poor clones into a waiting spaceship. With them, we fled to a secret center in the stars. The Brahman secret service wasn’t nice. They wanted to stop a war, after all. You can understand that, I’m sure.”

“Yes,” Maddox said.

“The clones underwent intensive retraining,” Dana said.

“Brainwashing, you mean,” Maddox said.

“I prefer my term. In any case, instead of the Maxim beliefs, the clones become Limited in outlook. After a certain length of time, the Brahman secret service released the first clones back onto Rigel.”

“I think I can guess the rest,” Maddox said. “The
clones gathered a following and started a political rebellion.”

“That’s right,” Dana said. “
It was the germ of a possible civil war. It didn’t get that far. But it gave the syndic’s people a headache they most certainly didn’t want.”

“So what happened
next?”

“The
hegemon sent representatives to the syndic and they signed a non-aggression treaty. The Rigel Navy would from now on help patrol the tramlines leading to our star system. That was the overt wording. The secret clause was very clear. The syndic would make certain that no more raiders kidnapped or pirated our people.”

“What about the
other clones you’d stolen and continued to
retrain
?”

“You have to ask
?” Dana said. “You’re in Intelligence. You should know what we did.”

“The Star Watch doesn’t play
quite so rough as those on Brahma,” Maddox said.

“
About that, I don’t believe you for a moment,” Dana said. “Anyway, the other clones continue to live in seclusion. That’s in case the syndic changes his mind about us. They’re the Sword of Damocles permanently hanging over his head.”

Maddox knew the ancient Greek legend
of Damocles. A man had complained to a king about how wonderful life was for the ruler because of the power he wielded. The king let his friend live like a monarch for a day. The only caveat was the man had a sword that dangled by a thread above his head. If the thread snapped…that would obviously end the good life. And that was the punch line of the tale, the Sword of Damocles. The king told the man he had power, but he always had to fear the assassin’s knife.

“
You tell an interesting story,” Maddox said. “I fail to see, though, what it has to do with our current situation.”

“
That’s because I’m not finished. Not so long ago, the Star Watch stopped a Brahman ship. The problem for me was despite the treaty between Brahma and Rigel, the syndic had declared me a criminal. And that’s how the Star Watch officers treated me. I happened to be on the vessel they stopped.”

“
Wait a minute,” Maddox said. “I don’t understand. Didn’t you belong to the Brahman secret service?”

Dana shook her head. “I’ve never been much of a joiner. I’d worked as an independent contractor.
The syndic’s people were ruthless. They saw the loophole and used it. The Brahman secret service had paid me well, but they didn’t use any back channels to help me with the Star Watch. So, I hate them as much as the Star Watch for what happened next.”