After hurling his forearm, the sergeant had used his left hand to draw a knife, a short one. As he did, Riker looked up. Oran Rva swung the forearm like a sap, hitting the sergeant’s stomach.
Maddox heard the oomph. Riker doubled over the forearm. In his other hand, Oran Rva raised his blade.
“Here, Dominant!” Kane roared.
The Rouen Colony man sprinted around another spire. The blocky man now wore regular clothes and an emergency rebreather and goggles. Where was Kane’s armored vacc-suit? The man’s hands and feet were stark red.
It took Maddox a moment to comprehend what he saw. Had Kane wriggled out of his vacc-suit? Yes. That had to be it. How else had the man escaped the restraints, which had been over the suit? It would appear Kane had used an emergency rebreather, letting his skin resist the alien atmosphere inside the ship.
In those brief seconds of thought, several things occurred at once. Oran Rva pivoted and lowered himself into a knife-fighting stance. That allowed Riker to roll out of the way. Then, Kane was airborne, with his fingers hooked like claws.
Oran Rva stabbed upward, the knife sinking into Kane’s chest. Instead of roaring with pain, Kane crashed against the New Man, his weight bearing the golden-skinned man onto the deck.
“Strike, Maddox, while I hold him,” Kane roared.
Incredibly, Kane clutched onto Oran Rva’s knife-arm, keeping the blade buried in his body. The New Man struggled to withdraw the blade. He was doing so centimeter by centimeter.
The New Man let go of the knife-handle, beginning to turn on the floor.
Maddox laid a palm on Oran Rva’s helmet. Then, the captain stabbed the slarn knife into the New Man’s throat. The blade sank, with the tip pushing into the spongy deck. Maddox twisted the knife. Their eyes met then. Oran Rva’s became wide and staring, shocked with agony.
“I killed you,” Kane rumbled. “I killed you because you hurt the one I loved. No one hurts me because I am ice.”
Maddox removed the blade, staring at the bright blood along the length.
Oran Rva began to thrash, gurgling in the captain’s headphones.
“Kane,” Maddox said. “You can let go. I’ll look at your wound.”
The big man moved his head, staring up at Maddox through the goggles as he kept hold of Oran Rva’s knife-hand. “I’m dead, Earthman. Save Meta. She’s why I did this. Save her, Captain. Tell her…”
Maddox stared at the big man. What was Kane trying to say?
The Rouen Colony man’s skin paled. His reddened eyes became haunted and frightened. “Tell her I loved her. You’ll do that…won’t you?”
Shock numbed the captain’s lips. What was this? Kane loved Meta. Anger boiled in Maddox’s heart. Yet, the big man had just acted heroically, saving their lives with his selflessness. It had come from love.
Kane kept staring at him, waiting.
The words seemed to force themselves out of Maddox’s mouth. “I’ll tell her,” he said.
Relief flooded over Kane. Then a sad smile spread across his features. “That was the secret to breaking the conditioning. I did it because of love. I loved her, but I learned that too late. Don’t…don’t be the same kind of fool, Maddox.”
The captain opened his mouth to speak. He wasn’t sure what he would have said. He didn’t have the chance to tell Kane anything more. The enemy agent of the New Men closed his eyes for the last time.
At that point, the hyper-focus left Maddox. The world seemed to expand. The room was shaking, with riotous colors swirling along the sides of the center cube. One of the machine cables—the thing on top of the cube—whipped out and began to thrash. Blue smoke began to trickle from the main housing of the octagonal-shaped Builder device.
-46-
With his fists clenched, Maddox knelt over Meta. A resilient, plastic-type substance had already auto-sealed the cut in her vacc-suit. He wished the same had happened for the wound in her stomach.
Through her visor, Meta’s eyelids fluttered.
She’s still alive. “Can you hear me?” Maddox asked.
Her features were drawn and much too white. Lines pulled at her mouth. “Maddox,” she whispered.
“Oran Rva is dead. So is Kane. This place—”
Meta feebly raised an arm and latched onto a vacc-suit sleeve. Weakly, she pressed her fingers against the armored fabric.
“Are you trying to tell me something?” Maddox asked.
“Yes,” she whispered. “Listen.”
“We don’t have much time.” Not that Maddox had any idea what he should do next.
“Bring me…the translator,” Meta whispered.
Maddox looked around. Yes. They must have had a device to speak with the Builder thing controlling the planet-killer. Getting up, Maddox retrieved a box. It was near the center cube. Oran Rva might have set it there.
“That’s it,” Meta whispered. In a few words, she told Maddox what the New Man had done with the box, the translator.
Noticing the looping cord, Maddox slung it over his neck. Another cord dangled from the box that would fit in a comm-slot on his helmet. Maddox plugged it in.
He heard the translator’s words: “I am losing coherence. The virus—”
“Hello,” Maddox said, looking up at the silvery, octopus-shaped machine on the cube.
“You must listen to reason,” the octopus thing told him.
“I will,” Maddox said.
“You will?” it asked.
“Yes.”
“Then why did you insert the Swarm virus into me?”
“That doesn’t matter now,” Maddox said. “Tell me the problem.”
“I will be succinct. I am losing control of the machine. The old intellect is taking over. It has lain dormant longer than I can understand. Soon—”
“Never mind about that,” Maddox said. “How do we stop the doomsday machine?”
“Reference your meaning of doomsday machine.”
“This machine, this ship,” Maddox said.
“I perceive your meaning. There is no solution. No warships in this sector of the galaxy can harm the machine.”
“Do you sense the warships outside?” Maddox asked.
“Yes. They are engaging in a futile attack run. The machine will soon destroy the bulk of them and render the rest harmless.”
“Transfer somewhere else then,” Maddox said.
“How does that change the final outcome of the situation? The scourge will have awakened. It will return here. Then—”
“I have the answer,” Maddox said, seeing it in a flash. “But it will mean sacrificing your life.”
“I am not wedded to existence like a biological life form. I exist to serve my programming. If I cannot control the machine, I must render it harmless. But I have less than three tarns to achieve anything. Then, my control will forever disappear, and it will be in control.”
“How long does it take you to transfer?”
“Two tarns,” it said.
“Do you see the local star nearby?” Maddox asked.
“Of course,” it said.
“You must transfer the machine into the center of the star.”
It took three long seconds. Then the thing said, “That is a brilliant solution. Do you wish to eject before I begin?”
“Can we?” Maddox asked. He hadn’t expected to survive this.
“If you can reach an exit in a tarn’s time,” the thing said.
“Are there any escape pods?” Maddox asked.
“The concept is alien to the machine, as it never envisioned defeat or destruction. Go—”
“Give me the nearest exist.”
“I will not, as that will be too far. I can give you the location of a hull breach. The local life forms of this star broke through with an antimatter device. If you can reach there in time—”