“I have no idea,” Maddox said. “Am I under suspicion again?”
“Yes!” Cook said.
“I see,” Maddox said.
“No you don’t,” the Lord High Admiral said. “This thing just recited the code words to initiate the Armageddon Protocol. Whoever built Ludendorff knows how to gain total control of Star Watch.”
“Interesting,” O’Hara said.
“No,” Cook said. “It’s frightening, nightmarish. Whom can we trust? No one. That means we’re finished. Without trust, we can’t operate as a military force. Of course, I doubt you, Captain. You’ve been traveling with this thing—”
“Ludendorff took control of my starship,” Maddox said, sharply. “I…” The captain glanced at the dead construct on the floor.
“Go on,” O’Hara said.
“Ludendorff had control of Victory,” Maddox said, quietly. “He had full control of the starship until he left for the Builder base in the Xerxes System. We retrieved him from the wreckage of the asteroid base. He had been neatly wrapped and was unconscious.”
“What is your point?” O’Hara asked.
“I don’t have a point, yet.”
“Don’t try that on me, Captain. What are you suggesting?”
“Before I attempt to answer,” Maddox said. “What does Star Watch know about Ludendorff? I mean, what was in his file?”
“He was old,” O’Hara said.
“Do you have a number?”
“Octavian Nerva is often proclaimed as the oldest living Methuselah Man,” O’Hara said. “Our records indicate he isn’t. Until a few moments ago, the title belonged to Professor Ludendorff.”
That didn’t surprise Maddox. “How old was the professor supposed to be?”
“I can’t answer that with any precision,” O’Hara said. “We don’t have any record of his birth. Now, we know why. He wasn’t ever born, he was made.”
“Do you have any number at all?”
“We don’t,” Cook said. “But we do have records that go back four hundred years. In them appears a man—what looked like a man—that matches what we know about Ludendorff.”
“You’re saying Ludendorff was four hundred years old?” Maddox asked.
“I’m saying there were people in history, in the shadows, that match Ludendorff,” Cook said. “We can find obvious references to him that go back four hundred years. After that—” the Lord High Admiral shrugged.
“What’s your point?” O’Hara asked Maddox.
“I still don’t have one,” the captain said. “I merely find it odd that Ludendorff had control of Victory before he left for the Builder base.”
“And, you obviously have an ‘and’ to your thought,” O’Hara said.
“What happened inside the asteroid base?” Maddox asked.
“I’m not following you,” O’Hara said. “At great risk to himself, the professor collected this egg, which is supposed to save Earth against the doomsday machine.”
“Surely, Star Watch has tried to capture Ludendorff before this,” Maddox said.
“We have,” Cook said. “There are some strange stories that go with several of those incidents. But until now, we’ve never gotten hold of him.”
“Let’s get back to your point,” O’Hara told the captain. “Is the Builder asteroid base important?”
Maddox drummed his fingers on the table. What happened inside the asteroid base? Why did Strand and Ludendorff program people?” Maddox squinted suspiciously.
“You just thought of something,” O’Hara said.
“Yes,” Maddox said. “I’m recalling Wolf Prime when I was down in the Swarm dig. Kane grabbed Professor Ludendorff, shoving him into a shuttle and fleeing to the New Men.”
“Wait, what?” Cook asked.
Maddox told them how Ludendorff had used his friend Lank Meyers as a decoy professor, the one Kane had grabbed before fleeing.
“What are you suggesting?” O’Hara asked.
Drumming his fingers on the table, Maddox stared at the android professor. “Not a suggestion but a point,” he said. “Ludendorff was a master of deception.”
“I see where you’re going with this,” O’Hara said. “You’re suggesting Ludendorff might have made a switch in the Builder base.”
“It’s a theory, nothing more.”
“You think there is a real Ludendorff,” O’Hara said.
“I find it difficult to believe that Doctor Dana Rich fell hopelessly in love with an android,” Maddox said.
“Your theory strikes me as too complicated,” O’Hara said.
“Which makes me more suspicious than ever,” Maddox said. “The professor loved complicated. He positively thrived on it.”
“Why send an android of himself to Earth?” Cook asked.
“Because our planet is doomed and Ludendorff—the oldest Methuselah Man on record—practiced caution,” Maddox said.
“I don’t accept that,” O’Hara said. “Besides, it still wouldn’t explain the technology that produced something like that.” She pointed at the carcass or wreckage lying on the floor.
“We have to interrogate the gunman,” Maddox said. “We must find out who sent him. That might help us understand what we’re dealing with.”
Cook and O’Hara exchanged glances. The admiral nodded minutely.
“That is excellent advice, Captain,” O’Hara said. “I think it’s time we see to that.”
-32-
“Commander,” Kane said. “It looks as if they’re getting ready to try again.”
Oran Rva sat in front of a primary console in the most ultra-secret hideaway Strand owned. The console had electronic links to backdoors everywhere, even into the heart of Star Watch’s main computers. The dominant adjusted controls, concentrating on his latest operation.
Kane watched an underground scope. The Rouen Colony man wore a silver suit like a New Man. He looked incongruous in it, as he was much blockier than one of the dominants. Kane wore a blaster at his side, with a silver ball in a special holster dangling from his belt.
He glanced back at Strand.
The sick old human sat in a chair, with his legs and wrists secured. A cap sat on the head, with leads attached to the wrinkled facial skin. The Methuselah Man trembled from time to time. He had been through a painful ordeal these past days, in time answering all of Oran Rva’s questions.
The three of them waited in an underground chamber far beneath Nerva Tower. Several shafts led to the room. On Kane’s scope, three railway cars eased on magnetic tracks toward them. Soon, the cars would reach other wrecked vehicles blocking the tunnel, with corpses festering inside the twisted metal.
Kane had witnessed Oran Rva’s work. The commander awed him. With Strand’s incredible knowledge, Oran Rva had spread chaos throughout Earth and even to Pluto Command. The process was consuming every embedded espionage agent, however. The dominants would have to start from scratch in rebuilding a new secret service once this mission was over.
“Kane,” the old man whispered.
The Rouen Colony man looked up at the prisoner.
Strand glanced sidelong at Oran Rva, who continued to hunch over the primary console. Afterward, the Methuselah Man concentrated on Kane.
“This is a mistake,” Strand whispered. “My assets will win through to me in the end. I have too many schemes within schemes for the commander to survive them all.”
It galled Kane that the other thought of him as weak-willed. Strand couldn’t offer him anything real. No one could beat Oran Rva. Ignoring the old man, Kane pressed his face against the pads of the scope.
He saw that the three-car train slowed in the tunnel. The conductor must see the wreckage ahead. Soon, the railway cars came to a halt, sinking down onto the magnetic rails. Hatches opened. Power-armored troopers jumped down.