The Lost Patrol (8 page)

-13-

Maddox met Lord High Admiral Cook and Brigadier Mary O’Hara in Cook’s office in Geneva, Switzerland. The captain explained what had happened to him, including the Visionary’s statements, Shu 15’s apparent intuition, the strange tech inside her and the stealth-suited New Man he’d captured.

“Incredible,” O’Hara said. She was a gray-haired woman with matronly features, and happened to be the chief of Star Watch Intelligence. Many referred to her as the Iron Lady.

“You’ve been busy, Captain,” O’Hara said, “an android encounter, a Spacer meeting, and this New Man assassin. I forgive you for making me wait and drink too much coffee. This has become considerably more convoluted than I expected. I don’t know which I find more distressing: that some androids are still on the loose or that the New Men continue to send spies.”

“I’m not sure the latter is correct in the manner you’re suggesting,” Maddox said. “The assassin had brain implants. That would imply Strand’s people, which are distinct from the regular New Men.”

Admiral Cook folded his thick fingers together on his desk. He was a big old man with white hair, a white uniform and a craggy face.

“The captain is correct in making a distinction between groups of New Men,” Cook said. “Wouldn’t you agree, Brigadier?”

“I suppose…” O’Hara murmured.

“We know the New Men have divisions among themselves just as we have among ourselves,” Cook said. “It’s one of the essential ingredients of humanity that Strand apparently wasn’t able to breed out of his mutations. But let’s set aside that subject, shall we? We have more important topics to discuss.”

The Lord High Admiral regarded Maddox. “Before we delve into the reason for our meeting, I suspect you’d like to know the situation regarding the Spacers. We forced down the Visionary’s airship, and it is now under tight security. It was headed for space, if you can believe that. The Spacer ambassador has already protested vigorously. I told him the airship shot at a Star Watch jumpfighter, a serious offense. The ambassador brushed that aside, claiming the airship’s people thought the jumpfighter was part of the attack against you.”

Cook cleared his throat. “If this Shu 15 carries
Builder
tech inside her…the implications seem dire. For decades, we’ve thought of the Spacers as innocent if peculiar traders. No one quite seems to know how the Spacers came to be, either. They’ve always been few in number compared to the Commonwealth, although we’ve never known their exact population. They’ve been pacifistic for the most part, although everyone knows they’ll tenaciously defend their ships.

“The only time we see Spacers are during commercial transactions. Their ship societies are the most closed communities in Human Space. The Spacers could make extra credits carrying passengers from one star system to another. There is no known case of this happening.”

The older man fiddled with a stylus. “We’ve tried to learn more about them. To that end—before the invasion of the New Men, mind you—we attempted to penetrate their ship societies on several occasions.”

This was news to Maddox. His eyes shined with interest.

The admiral shook his head. “Most attempts failed outright. The few times Intelligence smuggled an operative onto a Spacer vessel, Intelligence found the officer several months later, marooned on a lonely asteroid base or a wild planetoid. The operative never had any recollections of what had happened, either.”

“This is interesting,” Maddox said, “especially the part about getting an operative aboard one of their ships. The Spacers have closed societies, as you’ve stated. A stranger of any kind would immediately stand out. How, then, did Intelligence get a man onto a—ah, I see. You must have used altered individuals,” he said to the brigadier. “That implies you kidnapped a Spacer and put an altered Intelligence operative in his place.”

O’Hara didn’t respond.

“You must have question the kidnapped Spacer as well,” Maddox said.

O’Hara still said nothing.

Her silent treatment daunted most people, but Maddox was unfazed by it.

“Did the Spacers die under our questioning?” Maddox asked.

There was a slight tightening to the brigadier’s facial skin, but nothing more.

“I see,” Maddox said.

“Don’t jump to unwarranted conclusions, Captain,” O’Hara said.

If Maddox heard her, it didn’t show. “What I find interesting is that our Intelligence operative impersonating as a Spacer wasn’t slain in turn. That would be the correct procedure. You kill one of ours, and we’ll kill one of yours. Instead, the Spacers simply wiped out the operative’s memories of his time with them and marooned him in a place he would eventually leave. That shows considerable restraint and lends credence to the belief they don’t like to kill.”

“This is all highly interesting to you two, I’m sure,” the Lord High Admiral said. “However, we have more important matters to discuss.” Cook paused before saying, “We decided to wait until you finished your Patrol Training, Captain. This time, we want you to have every advantage. This may be your most important mission yet.”

“What’s happened?” Maddox asked.

“It has taken us some time to come to the correct conclusion,” Cook said, “as the evidence was slim. Two months ago, in what appears as suicide, Simon Tarleton piloted his luxury yacht into Neptune’s upper atmosphere. That destroyed the vessel and everyone onboard. Unfortunately, one of those people was Chief Technician Lore Fallows, a Kai-Kaus.”

Maddox had rescued the ten thousand Kai-Kaus from a Builder Dyson sphere last year. The sphere had been in a star system over a thousand light years away. These Kai-Kaus had brought their advanced Adok technology with them, including superior shielding and disruptor cannons. Star Watch had been installing the additions onto their newest battleships, which had greatly increased Star Watch’s fleet power.

“There was one strange aspect to the suicide. Let me show you.” The Lord High Admiral picked up a clicker, pressing a button.

A holoimage of Neptune appeared above the desk. Cook clicked the device several more times until wavy patterns appeared against a small portion of Neptune.

“We believe this is evidence of Strand’s cloaked star cruiser,” Cook said. “That implies Strand had a hand in the yacht’s destruction. Remember, Strand is taking an obscene personal risk doing this. The only reasonable explanation was that Strand’s people kidnapped Lore Fallows and destroyed the yacht to cover their tracks. The reason Strand wants the chief technician also seems clear. The Methuselah Man hopes to force Lore Fallows to show him how to construct advanced Adok battle technology. In other words, this must be the first step toward the New Men rearming with better weapons so they can renew their war against us.”

Maddox stared at Cook, finally shaking his head. “There’s a fallacy in your line of reasoning, sir. Rearming with Adok disrupters and shields doesn’t necessarily indicate a desire to renew the war against us. The New Men could be rearming because they fear an attack by us or an attack by the Swarm against them.”

“Everything we know about the New Men shows that they’re predators,” Cook said. “They thrive on their feelings of superiority. It must have galled them to retreat from the Thebes System last year, to retreat from what they considered as inferior beings. I believe they thirst to renew the conflict with us. Once armed with these Adok weapons, they won’t hesitate to stab us in the back, stealing even more women. You do remember they got away with millions of kidnapped women, don’t you?”

Maddox’s mouth tightened briefly with resentment at that statement. It wasn’t something one could simply forget. However, he continued charging forward. “I see a problem with our attacking the New Men now. It does sound as if you’re planning to strike at the Throne World before the New Men can develop disrupter cannons. First, we would have to find the Throne World.” The captain’s eyebrows rose. “Is that my new assignment?”

The Lord High Admiral regarded the captain closely.

“What if as Star Watch attacks the New Men, the Swarm invades Human Space?” Maddox asked.

“Yes!” Cook said. “
That’s
the question haunting all of us. That’s what we must know.”

Cook glanced at O’Hara. “The Iron Lady suggests we might need the New Men as allies against the Swarm. I believe that is wrong. What humanity needs is unity. Without unity, humanity won’t be able to wield its combined strength. It’s better to be a little weaker but fully unified, than stronger and at odds with ourselves. Anything else at a time like this is madness.

“Thus,” Cook said, “We need to know the location of the Throne World. To that end, Admiral Fletcher with his new-and-improved battle fleet has already begun searching for it. Professor Ludendorff must know the location, but he won’t tell us. It appears the professor made a deal with the New Men last year so they would retreat from the Thebes System. His part of the bargain was to keep the Throne World’s coordinates to himself. If you can imagine this, the professor is calling himself a man of honor.”

“You’re in contact with the professor?” Maddox asked.

Cook nodded, took a deep breath and said, “You’ve produced miracles in the past, Captain. Even the Spacers appear to recognize this and now call you
di-far
. Maybe they’re right about that. In any case, we’ve given you a well-deserved rest and some needed retooling. You’re our best Intelligence officer, and now you have Patrol Training. You command the greatest Patrol vessel in Star Watch. You have a full crew, many of them Kai-Kaus. And you have an upgraded Adok AI, a Spacer it appears, and the professor will join you shortly.”

“I’m afraid I don’t trust the professor, sir,” Maddox said. “Ludendorff thinks about himself first—”

“Trust isn’t the issue,” Cook said, interrupting. “Knowledge is king.”

That sounded like something Ludendorff himself would say.

“In any case,” Cook said, “You and the professor must figure out how to use the Xerxes Nexus hyper-spatial tube. Once you do, we want you to find the Swarm Imperium. Even if that means going thousands of light-years away in a hyper-spatial tube, you must do it. After you find the Swarm, you must return and tell us where the Imperium lies.”

Maddox thought furiously. This was a daunting assignment. The Lord High Admiral talked about traveling a thousand light-years as if it was nothing. If anything went wrong,
Victory
would be stranded a long, long way from home.

“And?” Maddox found himself asking.

“There is no
and
,” Cook said. “That’s the miracle we’re asking for, the one Earth needs. We have to know the location of the Swarm Imperium and their intention toward us before we make our final move against the Throne World.”

“Admiral,” O’Hara said. “I think we should reconsider letting the Spacer onto
Victory
. The incident with the airship deeply troubles me. Shu 15’s present actions also do not square against her previous attempt to kill Captain Maddox in the Lin Ru Hotel a year ago. She seems like a different person now. Why is that? Have the Spacers modified her because of her previous contact with the captain? And why did she of all Spacers have this hunger to kill before?”

O’Hara leaned forward. “What is even more troubling is that the Spacers haven’t mentioned Shu in any of their communications with us. There’s a reason for that. In fact, it seems obvious that they want her to go with Maddox. I say we use this opening. Instead of letting her go, we whisk her away to a detention facility and begin probing her in earnest.”

“No!” Maddox said. “I can’t agree to that.”

“
You
can’t agree?” O’Hara said sharply, turning to the captain.

“Former Intelligence interrogations caused the death of formerly kidnapped Spacers,” Maddox said.

“That wasn’t due to our methods. The Spacer deaths were self-inflicted.”

“Nevertheless, they died during interrogation. Therefore, I cannot allow you to interrogate Shu 15 as she is under my personal protection.”

“What nonsense is this?” O’Hara said. “Your personal anything doesn’t take precedence over Star Watch Intelligence and the Commonwealth’s needs. The Spacers have made a mistake with Shu. We must exploit their mistake. The key is that Shu has come voluntarily. She may lack the same internal fail-safes the others possessed. That will allow us to question her longer.”

“You’re missing a critical point,” Maddox said. “For the first time in our history, this could be Spacer cooperation. We would be rash to squander that.”

“This isn’t cooperation. They’re using obvious Intelligence techniques to slip an operative aboard our most important vessel. There’s nothing cooperative about that.”

“The Spacers are ultra-secretive,” Maddox said. “Yet the Visionary has confided in me and given us one of her people. Shu might be the crack in the door we need toward greater cooperation with the Spacers.”

“That’s an interesting point,” Cook said.

“Even more important,” Maddox said, “Shu might be instrumental in helping me succeed. We’ll be heading into the Deep Beyond. A Spacer might prove invaluable out there, as they have greater knowledge of the Beyond than anyone else in Human Space.”

“That’s another excellent point,” Cook said.