“That’s not a proper thing for a wife to do, not with her husband present, and certainly even worse if he’s not.”

  “Fair enough,” Maddox said. “Hold my hand then while we walk past him.”

  In such a manner, Meta paraded before Ludendorff. Maddox looked back. Riker glanced up and looked away. The old goat Ludendorff watched Meta’s bottom far too long.

  “Enough of that,” Maddox said, finding he didn’t care for the scheme.

  Meta moved behind him, out of line of sight to the others.

  “Are you going to stare at my wife, old man?” Maddox said. “That means you’re going to have to fight me.”

  Ludendorff straightened and lowered his rake. “You did that on purpose, my boy. And another thing, why do you wear such inappropriate swim trunks in a place like this?”

  Throughout the exchange, Riker continued to rake rubies.

  “Because I broke the hypnotic spell,” Maddox said. “I’ve been to other places already. I’m undergoing tests, as Omegan is testing me to see if I’m a worthwhile candidate.”

  Ludendorff frowned. “You’re a candidate? Certainly, I too must be a candidate then.”

  “Yes,” Maddox said, “and you’re failing miserably because all you’re doing is raking up the damned rubies. You should have shaken off the mental stagnation and transported to a different realm by now.”

  “What could you possibly mean?” Ludendorff asked slowly.

  “I broke the hypnotic spell, and I took Meta with me. We climbed the scooper. What do you think gathers the rubies?”

  Ludendorff shook his head. “I have no idea. I have not thought that far ahead. I rake because I must rake. You must rake, too. Come, now, why are you not raking?”

  “Because I’m not an idiot,” Maddox said. “Because I’m a candidate, and you no longer are precisely because you can’t stop raking.”

  Ludendorff scowled and raised the rake point first at Maddox. “Have a care, sir, or I will ram the rake through your guts.”

  “Will you now?” Maddox replied. “I’d like to see you try.”

  Ludendorff glanced at Riker. Then, with a shout, as if he hoped to surprise Maddox, Ludendorff charged. He tried to thrust the end of the rake into Maddox’s gut, but Maddox caught the rake, stopping Ludendorff from pushing it any farther.

  “Let it go,” Maddox said.

  “The hell I’ll let it go!” Ludendorff shouted.

  Then the Methuselah Man did release the rake. He leapt upon Maddox, seeming to surprise the captain, knocking him off his feet. Maddox shouted with surprise.

  Only now did Riker look up, a wide grin on his face.

  Maddox and Ludendorff wrestled on the hard obsidian surface. Ludendorff shouted, sitting on Maddox’s stomach and swinging wildly. Was Maddox allowing Ludendorff these swings? The old man’s fists connected several times with Maddox’s side.

  “I’ll show you, you pup!” Ludendorff bellowed. “All this time you’ve thought you were better than me, but I am the Methuselah Man. I can do whatever you can do, and I can do it better!”

  Maddox grasped the wrists of the older man, bucking Ludendorff off, and stood quickly. “There, did that feel good?”

  Ludendorff blinked a couple of times and slowly climbed to his feet, looking around. “Where is this damned place?”

  “It’s called the Ruby Planet,” Maddox said. “It’s a test, and it seems you’re finally coming out of the mental fog, which means you’re passing the test.”

  “Yes, yes, no doubt that’s true. Of course, if you passed it, I will pass it, too.”

  “It isn’t only testing mental faculties,” Maddox said. “It also tests willpower and desire.”

  “My desires are furious, beyond what you can understand,” Ludendorff declared. “Riker, are you listening to this? Why are you grinning?”

  “I have to keep raking rubies,” Riker said, “but it has been enjoyable watching you two fight. I must say, Meta, I’ve never seen you quite like this.”

  Once more, Meta stepped behind Maddox.

  “Have a care, Sergeant,” Maddox warned.

  Riker touched the brim of his hat. “Sorry, sir. I meant no disrespect. Meta, excuse me. I should know better than to leer at you.”

  Riker turned back to his raking.

  “Throw your rake down, Sergeant,” Maddox said.

  “Eh?” asked Riker, looking up.

  “Throw the rake away. You heard me. That is an order, Sergeant.”

  “Now, who are you to order me about concerning these precious rubies?” Riker asked.

  “Let me ask you this, Sergeant. Do you want to spend the rest of your life raking rubies?”

  “If that is what I must do, that is what I must do,” Riker said.

  “Sergeant, we’re going to leave this place. I feel it in my gut, and I know it is true. I want you with me. But I will not fight you like I fought Ludendorff. Either you will come on your own free will, or, well, you can stay here for the rest of your life. And I imagine since you’re young and strong again, you will be here a long, long time.”

  “Raking rubies?” Riker asked.

  “And that will be all. You will never know fulfillment. You will never know the extent of your dreams. You will never know what your youth could have brought you if you would only bring yourself under proper self-control.”

  Riker looked up into the heavens. He seemed to be struggling within. Suddenly, he cried out, “O God, please help me resist whatever power is trying to corrupt me.”

  All of them looked at Riker, waiting expectantly.

  Abruptly, a change came over Riker’s face. He hurled the rake from him. Had God answered him in some supernatural manner? Riker strode to Maddox, saluting. “Reporting for duty, sir.”

  “Is that true?” Ludendorff asked. “After all this, I still feel an urge to rake.”

  “Look,” Meta said, pointing, “a portal is appearing. Husband, you were right. Did you feel that approaching?”

  “I must have,” Maddox said. “Omegan is calling. Will we all go? Or does anyone want to stay and rake rubies?”

  “I would like to see what my raking brings,” Ludendorff said. “But I will not be outdone by you, sir. I am leaving.” He headed for the portal.

  “This is my chance to be free of some of my afflictions,” Riker declared, and he too headed for the portal.

  “Dearest,” Maddox said, turning to Meta.

  “Let’s go hand in hand,” Meta said, holding out her hand.

  Maddox took his wife’s lovely hand, and together, they too headed for the portal.

  -39-

  Ludendorff, Riker and Meta lay upon couches in their vacc-suits. Each seemed to be asleep.

  Maddox, also in a vacc-suit, stood before the gigantic cube that pulsated with power. Outside the cavern was the parked Tarrypin.

  “You passed the test, candidate,” the blue cube pulsated into Maddox’s mind.

  “I don’t quite understand the reasons for the test or what even they represented about me.”

  “That does not matter,” Omegan said. “The fact of the matter is, I tested you, and of the things I wanted to see of you, you passed. The others, they did not pass, though, surprisingly, Meta came in second after you. But you may be correct. That could have been due to your proximity. Ludendorff is a man of rare intellect even for a Methuselah Man, but he lacks something essential. He has a piece missing.”

  “Do you mean Dr. Dana Rich, the love of his life?”

  “I cannot perceive as deeply as that. It is possible, but I think it is something more. I think it is something innate in him. Ludendorff cloaks it well, and he uses his lecherous ways in order to fulfill a need. Until that need is fulfilled by his own personality, he will always know defeat in the ways that he conceives of it.”

  “I’m sure he wouldn’t want to hear any of that, and you’re not recording it, are you?”

  “Only in your memories, Captain,” Omegan said, “only in your memories.”

  “What exactly are you? The Supreme Intelligence suggested there were Precursors in the Aquila Rift. Is that what you are?”

  “There were others before the Builders. There were others even before the Yon Soths and the crystals of Helion. We are remnants of a time before. I know of the Nameless Ones and their Destroyers. I am a machine from the time before. My masters built the Seekers and Prism Drive. The cybers of Leviathan want those. Those of Leviathan are a marriage of machine and bio-matter. They lack some of the spiritual sustenance you humans show, at least a few of you. You are a prime example of the usefulness of this spiritual force. It has allowed you to rise above what your physical limitations would have imprisoned you to.”

  “Balron must have sensed that in me,” Maddox said. “He was from another dimension.”

  “I know about the dimensions,” Omegan said. “I want no part in traveling them. I do not use any of that technology. Some of the technology I’ve used is Yon Soth in origin, as you have probably guessed.”

  Maddox dipped his head. He had suspected as much. This was a confirmation of it.

  “No, Captain, I am an ancient remnant. I am one of the last. I have seen much and I understand more. Those of Leviathan rightly fear United Humanity. They know you are powerful and dangerous: the combination of New Men, Spacers and the rest could achieve greatness beyond the Swarm Imperium and beyond the Sovereign Hierarchy of Leviathan. At this moment, the races of humanity are in competition against each other. You waste your energies battling each other. I don’t know if humanity has within it the ability to unite in greatness. I don’t know if that is needed to stave off Leviathan. The New Men and the Commonwealth have staved off, for the moment, the Swarm Imperium.

  “What the future holds for humanity, I don’t know,” Omegan continued, “and I don’t know how long I will hold my position as sentinel. I do not think it wise if you ever attempt to seek me again. There are energies at work, and the old ways and the old creatures, such as the Yon Soths, such as we who the Supreme Intelligence called Precursors, our ways are different and not natural in the same sense as you think.

  “I spoke briefly to Galyan,” Omegan said, “He is a unique computer entity with his deified engrams. I would have liked to have met the Driving Force Adok of flesh and blood.”

  “Yes,” Maddox said, “that would have been an honor.”

  “It has been an honor knowing you, Captain Maddox. I perceive what the visionaries of the Spacers meant when they called you the di-far. Now, however, it is time for you to go.”

  “Will the knowledge I gained on the sunken saucer ship be enough for me to find this Prism Drive?”

  “I cannot say. You have a lead in that. I am the guardian of the rogue planet—”

  “Guardian?” asked Maddox, interrupting. “Do you mean like the guardian—”

  “I know what you’re going to ask,” Omegan said, interrupting. “Far across the galaxy, behind a barrier, is one that calls itself a guardian. Do not seek to know too much, Captain. You have your missions. Be content with them. Be content with the wife of your youth.”

  “I’m very content with Meta. I love her dearly. Yet again, she has proven invaluable to me.”

  “Indeed, Captain. But for more reasons than you appreciate. Now is the time for you to stir the others, to enter the Tarrypin and leave the rogue planet. Do not return. Do not seek to know more. You have undergone the tests. You have learned enough. Remember, the Sovereign Hierarchy of Leviathan has cunning strategists. If they lack the spiritual essence you have shown, they have their powerful machine senses. They could well overcome you. It is a true contest of varying philosophies of life and existence. I bid thee well, Captain Maddox. May you go in the Creator’s name.”

  Maddox turned to the others, shaking each by the vacc-suited shoulder. They awoke enough that they rose like sleepwalkers and tramped from the cavern toward the Tarrypin.

  Ludendorff reached the steel ladder first and climbed it. He entered through the hatch. Maddox followed, and he closed the hatch after the others had entered.

  Ludendorff started up the darter’s engines as he sat in the pilot’s seat. Soon, the Tarrypin rose and headed up through the cold clouds of the rogue planet, heading for Victory in orbit.

  They had undergone severe tests, and they had learned of the ancient computer entity standing as sentinel down here.

  Maddox shook his head, hoping he had what they needed to stop the dreaded Seekers, which now he realized were real. The Sovereign Hierarchy of Leviathan was attempting to awaken ancient, replicating, doomsday machines. It struck Maddox as the wildest madness to attempt to use Seekers in a war. He understood the drive to excellence, the drive to win, but this…

  As hard as Leviathan was going to push, he was going to push back harder against them.

  The Tarrypin burst through the lowest cloud cover as the darkness of the Aquila Rift showed above. Maddox felt that they were actually going to leave the haunted planet and reach the starship.

  -40-

  Ludendorff was exhausted after returning to Victory. He shook some hands and slapped a few backs after others welcomed him aboard. He spoke with Galyan and got into a longer conversation with Andros.

  Ludendorff then begged off as he staggered to his science chamber and bedroom quarters there. He slumped into bed, fell sleep and soon dreamed.

  One of the dreams included the Ruby Planet. He remembered the time he spent raking. As he raked, his mind worked on the idea of teleportation and the needed mathematical formulas to make it workable. He correlated teleportation with folding, considering more mathematical equations and scientific ideas.

  He raked endlessly, twice seeing the great scooper glide by in the far distance. Something about the scooper triggered an ancient memory.

  The dream changed. Once more, he was a young candidate—there was that word again.

  In any case, in the new dream, he was a candidate to becoming a Methuselah Man. The Builders of yore had scooped him up from Earth and taken him to the Library Planet. There, he underwent deep training and, in the dream, he remembered some of his instructions and the things he’d heard.

  While he dreamed of this, Ludendorff stirred upon his bed in the starship. Troubling thoughts impinged upon his dreams that he could not articulate in his sleep.

  Abruptly, Ludendorff woke up grumpy and dispirited. His head ached. His body was sore and his mouth bone dry. He got up, staggered to a shelf and opened a bottled water, guzzling it.

  He was still thirsty afterward and extremely hungry. He left his quarters and hurried through corridors until he entered a ship cafeteria. There, he ate a sumptuous breakfast, drinking glass after glass of orange juice. That got him thinking as he examined himself. He looked gaunt and had a huge appetite.

  Ludendorff got up and went to a ship intercom. He spoke to Riker over it and discovered the sergeant had a similar situation.

  “Confound it, man,” Ludendorff said over the intercom. “Surely this has something to do with what we underwent on the Ruby Planet.

  “Maybe,” Riker said.

  “Maddox could know.”

  “The captain is busy,” Riker said.

  “Not too busy to see me,” Ludendorff said. He clicked off the intercom and went in search of the captain.

  Ludendorff found Maddox in the weight room doing bench presses. The lad was strong, especially for someone so lean. After Maddox racked his weights and indicated he was finished, Ludendorff came forward.

  “Sir, I would like to ask if you had an enormous appetite after coming back from the rogue planet.”

  “Why do you ask?” Maddox said.

  Ludendorff told Maddox about his breakfast and raised his shirt to show how gaunt he looked.

  “Oh, that’s easy to explain,” Maddox said. “You worked your butt off for days on the Ruby Planet, raking. You ate and drank nothing during that time, but subsisted on your fat and muscle reserves. Now, to replenish all that, you have a ravenous appetite and thirst.”

  “Yes, yes,” Ludendorff said. “That makes sense. Yet I’ve wondered about other things. If you have a moment, I would love for you to recount all you went through while I raked rubies.”

  “Really, Professor, I don’t want to rehash all that.”

  “Now, now, my boy, don’t get prickly.” Ludendorff smiled, perhaps once again using his new method with the captain. “This is critical and important. I’m on to an idea, but I must know more. I’ve had strange dreams of my youth on the Library Planet and other dreams about the Ruby Planet. These mean things but I cannot tell what. Perhaps if you tell me what happened to you, these dreams would make sense to me. I feel it is important.”

  Maddox shrugged and gave a shortened version of what had happened to him. Ludendorff asked questions, and soon discovered that Maddox had spoken to Omegan.

  “Could you explain about Omegan, including your discussion with it, in minute detail? I ask this because I’m certain now it is important.”

  Maddox eyed Ludendorff, finally nodding. “If you think it’s that important, I’ll give it my best shot.”

  Ludendorff listened closely. Toward the end, he stood, tapped his left foot on the deck, scratched his head and then toyed with the gold chain around his throat. “Yes, yes, this is all very odd. I must mull this over.”

  “Is there anything else?” Maddox asked, and he seemed a bit amused.

  “You said something about a candidate. Could you explain that?”

  Maddox explained further, all the while watching Ludendorff closely.

  Ludendorff wondered if the captain expected him to explode. He might have a few years ago. Today, he didn’t grant the captain the privilege. Instead, Ludendorff felt as if he was on track to something critical.

  “Thank you, sir. I appreciate this.”

  “Anytime, Professor.”

  Like an angry hound following the trail of a ferocious bear, Ludendorff stalked out of the room. He returned to his science chamber. There, he began to toy with certain implements and tech pieces.

  Ludendorff didn’t know it, but he entered a semi-hypnotic state. He worked feverishly for twenty-three hours without interruption.