“What do you mean, clone?” Strand asked.
“Do you truly think you are the great Strand?” Oran Rva sneered. “Do you think he would allow himself to be on Earth with the coming of the doomsday machine?”
“I am Strand.”
“You are a pale replica of the real thing,” Oran Rva said. “I know, for I have trained under Strand. He thought to use me to supplant the Great One on the throne. The real Strand finds it bitter indeed to have lost the role of chief puppeteer. The real Strand taught me more than was wise on his part. Because of that knowledge, I am here to win the greatest prize imaginable.”
“You have no means to defeat the driver of the doomsday machine,” Strand said.
“Clone, do not attempt to understand what is beyond your pay grade.”
“I am Strand, me.”
“You have served your usefulness, clone. Now—”
“Wait,” Strand said. “There are things I can show you. In my office—”
Oran Rva pulled the trigger. The blaster fired, and Strand, or the clone of Strand, fell down dead.
Kane watched with icy detachment. Whatever the dead thing was, it had stolen his blaster from him.
“I have failed,” Kane said.
“I knew you would,” Oran Rva told him. “However, I still have need of your abilities. I am the supreme soldier. You are much better than the sub-men, and we still have much to do before the doomsday machine arrives.”
“We’re going to stop it, Commander?”
“No. It will destroy the Earth. That is the plan, and it is a wise one. The Great One has decreed the origin point’s destruction.”
“Then…?”
“I have a plan within a plan,” Oran Rva said. “I have discovered that I am the best-suited to rule. For others to understand my greatness as I do, I must have the greatest ship in the universe.”
“The component to the sonic cannon is the critical element?” Kane asked.
“The second-to-last critical element,” the commander said. “I need one more item. Gaining it will be our most dangerous task. You must concentrate, Kane, as I will accept no more buffoonery on your part.”
“Yes, Commander,” Kane said.
“First, though, we shall leave a little something for Star Watch Intelligence. I believe my latest gift to them will motivate the brigadier’s people to furious action against us. That is how I wish it be.”
Oran Rva sat down at the console, tapping the screen, implementing the next step in his master plan.
-33-
Dana stared at a small comm-screen on the desk in her quarters. Maddox spoke to her on it, explaining how guards had shot and slain Ludendorff, and that he had been an android.
“Say that again,” Dana whispered.
Maddox seemed to choose his words with care. He went through the situation a second time. He spoke about metal bones, circuits—a cybernetic organism like the Builders were supposed to be. That’s what Ludendorff was, had been, according to the captain.
Dizziness threatened Dana. She had to clutch the edge of her desk in order to steady herself. She found herself trembling.
“Ludendorff is dead?” she whispered.
“Is that even the right way to say it?” Maddox asked. “He was a machine.”
“No. I cannot accept that.”
The captain tilted his head. “Do you want to see footage of the cybernetic—?”
“That isn’t what I’m saying.” Dana spoke slowly but deliberately, interrupting the awful words. Her grip on the edge of the desk tightened until her fingers began to ache. Her breathing accelerated until she was almost hyperventilating. Fortunately, she understood what was happening and carefully brought her breathing under control.
Dana found the captain staring at her. How long had she been silent?
“You should talk to Meta,” Maddox said.
“I will talk to no one. I do not need too. The professor was a living person, not some freakish android, some machine, as you put it.”
“This must be difficult for you, Doctor. It’s why I called right away. I wanted you to hear it from me before you picked it up somewhere else.”
“Listen to me, Captain. I did not leave Brahma Tech, did not leave my home and planet to wander the stars for years with some mechanical man. Ludendorff was fully human in every conceivable way. I can assure you of that.”
“I believe you, Doctor, which poses an interesting question. Could Ludendorff have made a switch?”
“What do you mean?”
“It’s simple, really. We have an android down here, a dead one, if that’s the correct way to say it. If Ludendorff was—is human. Then, somewhere along the line the professor made a switch. The most likely location was the Builder base in the Xerxes System.”
Dana hardly heard the man’s words. Finally, though, they penetrated her thinking. “What? The asteroid base, a switch? Yes. That’s possible, I suppose.” Her eyes widened. “Not only possible. It is the only conclusion.”
“Who was he really?” Maddox asked.
Dana’s head swayed. “You’re asking that as if I should know. I don’t know.”
“But you just said—”
“Captain, if you will excuse me, I must, I must…” Tears welled in Dana’s eyes. She angrily wiped them away.
“I’m sorry,” Maddox said. “I can’t understand how this happened. Ludendorff—”
“Yes, thank you,” Dana said, interrupting him again. “Thank you for telling me, and thank you for your concern.”
Maddox studied her once more, finally saying, “I wish you would talk to Meta.”
“I don’t see how that will help. I must go. I must think this through.”
A concerned look swept over the captain. Dana found she hated that. How could Ludendorff be a mechanical man? The way they had intertwined with each other during their lovemaking years ago…the passion… No machine had done those things to her. That was impossible.
Dana turned off the comm-screen. Let the captain continue his espionage games down on Earth. She had to…
Dana rose, wandering aimlessly in her quarters. Finally, she threw herself onto the bed. Tears welled until they wet her cheeks. How could the professor have done this to her? Had he really not been human?
Angrily, she got up and ran into the corridor. She banged against a bulkhead and wept quietly. The tears kept coming. Finally, she wiped them away with her sleeve. If Ludendorff had switched places with a machine in the Builder base…
Was the man that clever? Yes. Ludendorff was old with knowledge. How much knowledge, though? What had the professor learned concerning the Builders? It would seem much more than he had ever told anyone. Just how old of a Methuselah Man was he? He had secrets and—
Dana’s features hardened with resolve as a possibility dawned on her. Soon, a fierce recklessness came over her. With purpose she strode down the corridor, heading for the professor’s quarters.
Ludendorff had his secrets and his games, did he? Well, she wasn’t going to let him get away with them anymore. She knew him better than anyone did, certainly better than anyone else on the crew. He’d let slip too much during their time together. Who did Ludendorff ultimately serve? She simply couldn’t accept that the thing down there in Geneva had been the real professor. He loved trickery and used guile the ways other breathed.
That wasn’t the point now. She wasn’t going to stand for any more of his tricks. She would use her intellect and figure out a thing or two, and she would do it this very moment.
Dana entered his quarters. She searched until she pulled out a chain with a small metal ball on the end. Sitting down, Dana examined it in minute detail. This thing had generated a small force field around his person.
I’m going to figure out how this works. I’m going to pierce his greatest tech. Maybe it’s booby trapped to kill whoever tampers with it. Well, you know what, I don’t care anymore.