“That’s enough, Galyan,” the captain said, interrupting. “I don’t need Adok psychoanalysis.”

  “But, sir—” Galyan said.

  “No more,” Maddox said, cutting the holoimage off.

  A moment of silence lengthened until a few people began to shift uncomfortably.

  “Can Galyan’s suggestion do any real harm, sir?” Valerie finally asked. “He has proven uncannily accurate at times.”

  Maddox stared fixedly at the lieutenant until Meta took hold of his left arm, massaging it with her fingers. The captain glanced at his wife.

  Meta smiled at him.

  Maddox looked away and finally sighed. “Make your point, Galyan, but do it fast.”

  “Thank you, sir,” Galyan said. “I predict that you will not regret this.”

  “I’m already regretting it,” Maddox said.

  Galyan stopped and looked around. “Ah,” the holoimage said. “A joke. I am seventy-three percent certain that you just made a joke, sir. That would imply—”

  “Galyan,” Maddox said. “Get to it, eh?”

  “Yes, sir,” Galyan said. “During these last few days, I have been correlating several interesting factors. Until quite recently in galactic history, the Builders hampered the Swarm, although they did not altogether stop them by committing genocide. The Builder in the Dyson Sphere was different from his brethren in that he still attempted Builder functions when the race as a whole had retired into hiding. Another difference was his aid to the Imperium. Therefore, I think we can conclude that he does not nor did not conform to Builder norms.”

  “You’re being long-winded,” Maddox said.

  “An idiom meaning speaking for extended periods,” Galyan said. “I do not see how that can be the case, since I have hardly started to explain.”

  Maddox opened his mouth—Meta put a hand on one of his arms. The captain closed his mouth, nodding for Galyan to continue.

  “Builder norms would seem to indicate a marked preference for mechanical life—to use another idiom. In this instance, I mean sentient beings. I would classify myself in this group along with androids, synthetics, cybers such as the Soldiers and maybe even the Methuselah Men.”

  “I’m no cyber,” Ludendorff said hotly.

  “Not precisely,” Galyan said. “You have been Builder modified, however.”

  “I do not fit your category in the least,” Ludendorff said.

  “I am not altogether convinced of that,” Galyan said. “Once, I was strictly biological. Now, I am an amalgamation of computer and—”

  “No!” Ludendorff said. “I dispute your claim—”

  “Professor,” Maddox said sternly.

  Everyone stopped speaking.

  Maddox nodded. “Galyan, leave the professor and Methuselah Men out of this. Ludendorff is a separate category. But go ahead and make your greater point.”

  “Thank you, sir,” Galyan said. “Notice that Builders often mechanized themselves. Some of the Builders we’ve met were themselves androids. Consider the Builder cube that used bio-flesh and a deatomizer to reconstruct itself. Consider the Yen Cho android that aided the Builder cube. Why, Batrun—”

  Galyan quit speaking.

  “What’s wrong, Galyan?” Valerie asked.

  The holoimage had frozen, with only his eyelids flickering. Abruptly, Galyan turned to the captain.

  “Batrun, sir,” the holoimage said. “Batrun may be something other than what he claimed to be.”

  “Are you saying he’s a Builder?” Ludendorff scoffed.

  “By physiology alone,” Galyan said, “he is obviously not a Builder. Nor have I detected a Builder cube or Builder DNA samples in him.”

  “Fine, fine,” Ludendorff said. “What is Batrun then?”

  “He is not an android,” Galyan said, “not in the sense of the Rull or Yen Cho androids. By his own admission, he is something different. Notice, too, that the Rull androids we encountered had shed their pseudo-skin and clothes. They had done this even though a synthetic representative had been among them.”

  “So?” Maddox asked.

  “Maybe the Rull captain practiced deception on us,” Galyan said. “Maybe the synthetic was the very reason the Rull androids changed course. Why did Victory leap ten thousand light-years to arrive in the Sovereign Hierarchy of Leviathan? Was that a chance occurrence or was it premeditated?”

  “A wonderful question,” Ludendorff said sarcastically. “Now tell us, Galyan. How did Batrun cause the starship to make the ten-thousand light-year leap? He was unconscious at the time, remember?”

  Everyone at the conference table stared at Professor Ludendorff.

  “Wait, wait, wait,” the professor said. He glanced at everyone in turn. “Are you accusing me of doing this? While I am a brilliant scientist and the most advanced person here, I have my limitations. If I could cause a starship to leap ten thousand light-years, don’t you think I’d have done it before this?”

  “The coincidence that we simply appeared here is too improbable,” Galyan said. “By what I have witnessed and analyzed, I believe that warships of Leviathan were to use the hyper-spatial tube in two successive leaps to join the Juggernauts in their assault upon the Solar System.”

  “That’s not only a preposterous statement,” Ludendorff said. “It’s lunacy. What happened to your circuits, Galyan? And supposing I’m in league with androids and cybers, why didn’t I have Juggernauts make the ten thousand light-year journey with us so chrome-plated Rull androids could put the proposition to the cyber Soldiers themselves? Why have Victory do all this?”

  “Since you pose the question…” Galyan said. “I can only conclude that Victory is the only starship able to make such a leap. Since the Rull were not going to capture Victory—”

  At that point, Galyan cried out in dismay.

  Maddox jumped up.

  “Help me,” Galyan said. Even as the holoimage spoke, he began folding inward on himself. The holoimage crumbled up like tinfoil and then vanished in a flash of light.

  “What just happened?” Riker shouted, jumping up as he drew his stunner.

  The hatch opened and Batrun stepped within. Behind him were two thin and unnaturally tall cybers. All three of them held blasters, although Batrun also held a clicker in his other hand.

  “What a clever AI,” the synthetic said. He pointed the clicker at Ludendorff and pressed a button.

  The professor collapsed forward onto the conference table.

  “Ah, ah, ah,” Batrun said, pointing the blaster at Maddox. “Lift your weapon a centimeter higher, and you are a dead man, Captain. Then, I shall kill your wife, too.”

  Maddox let his blaster drop so it clunked on the floor. “This doesn’t make any sense,” he said.

  “Sit down and I shall explain,” Batrun said.

  Maddox sat.

  “Good,” the synthetic said. “I am relieving you of command, Captain, and taking it myself. You almost had me before. This time, I won’t make the same mistake.”

  -54-

  Galyan as a holoimage had vanished from the conference room. Yet Galyan as an artificial intelligence with the engrams of the last Adok Driving Force was still very much in operation.

  His essence was locked deep in the Adok-Builder-Human computer combination that made up his being. It surprised Galyan to find his consciousness deep inside the computer. He replayed the event that had caused—

  “Oh,” he said to himself. “Batrun is on. Batrun…”

  Galyan began an intense analysis of the situation. What could have happened to allow all this to occur?

  The obvious conclusion was the neural-shifter Ludendorff had extracted from the android. The android impersonating a Star Watch marine back in the Solar System. The professor had used the neural shifter to correct the altered mind patterns in Maddox’s brain. After that, they should have destroyed the neural-shifter.

  There was an eighty-two percent probability that Batrun had modified the professor with the neural-shifter. It was also likely that the synthetic had moved cautiously after that because he feared Driving Force Galyan.

  Yet, how could Batrun or the professor have modified the star-drive jump to perform how it had? That implied incredible technological knowledge that none of them possessed. What made sense then?

  Galyan ran through many analyses and simulations. Finally, he reached a conclusion. It startled him to such a degree that he recalibrated and ran through the analyses and simulations a second time.

  “This can’t be right,” Galyan said.

  Still, nothing else made sense. That he had knocked Batrun out the first time might have been something of a miracle. Could he achieve a second miracle?

  Galyan gave himself a nineteen percent probability of succeeding again using the same tactic. Nineteen percent was too low, however. How then could he save his friends from the synthetic’s treachery?

  He had to intervene now, or it would be too late. Batrun wasn’t going to give anyone a second chance, especially not with two cyber agents to help him.

  That meant he had to do something this instant.

  “What can I do?” Galyan asked himself.

  The AI knew he could not reform as a holoimage right away. His holoimage processors had burned out. How could Batrun have done that?

  “I am right about the synthetic,” Galyan said.

  Like the captain—maybe because of the captain—Galyan had been studying poker theory. He found it an interesting study. One tenet of poker strategy revolved about how an inferior player should proceed against a superior player.

  Clearly, over time, the superior player would take all the inferior player’s money. That meant the inferior player could not give the superior player that time.

  Poker was a game of variance. That variance could often be quite large in the short term. Thus, to win, the inferior player had to remain in the short term. Short term in poker meant luck. Skill in poker was a long-term strategy where the incrementally better odds of the better player would destroy the inferior player’s bankroll.

  The best strategy for an inferior player was to play ultra-aggressively against the superior player in the short term. In ‘No Limit’ poker, that meant going all-in almost all of the time.

  How could Galyan go all-in now against Batrun and the two cybers?

  A quick analysis of the situation told Galyan he could not go all-in. Instead, he would have to alter the situation and hope the captain and the others could derive a greater benefit from the change than the synthetic and cybers could.

  “I hope you win, sir,” Galyan said, “because here goes nothing…”

  -55-

  Sergeant Riker kept silently reproving himself for listening to the captain.

  Maddox had shouted at him to drop the stunner. He must have seen that Riker was a millisecond away from firing. Of course, he would not have attempted to use the stunner on Batrun. That would have been foolish. He would have used it on the cybers, hoping the flesh part of their being would have been susceptible to stunner shots.

  It was more than probable that the captain had been correct, and the stunner would have had no effect. But to simply go down without a whimper went against his grain. Did the captain know something that he didn’t?

  What a fine mess. Ludendorff had once again proven to be a foul traitor. The captain was in his seat, listening to the synthetic gloat about his superior capabilities. The two cybers watched impassively. Valerie fumed quietly. Meta sat utterly still. Andros stared at his hands, and he, Sergeant Riker of Star Watch Intelligence, sat with his shoulders slumped pretending dejection and bitter defeat.

  Riker hoped the captain had something up his sleeve. If more cybers boarded Victory, it would be all over for them. He still couldn’t believe that Batrun had fixed the game from the beginning. Why had it taken the synthetic so long to come out of hiding?

  Maybe the larger question was how had the deactivated synthetic come up for air? Ludendorff would be the obvious answer. If they hadn’t needed the old boy so often, they should have shot the Methuselah Man a long time ago.

  What about Galyan? That had been—

  Riker worked diligently to keep his expression neutral. That was the ace in the hole. Maddox must be expecting Galyan to do something. Yet, the holoimage had winked out. How had the synthetic done—

  Suddenly, gravity left Victory. That meant someone must have turned off the grav-plates. Not only that, but the starship must have begun violent maneuvering, because Batrun and the two cybers flew upward toward the ceiling.

  Everyone sitting at the table might have flown up with the three, but everyone else—well, not the professor, he was unconscious—grabbed the edge of the table. Meta also grabbed Ludendorff, possibly saving his life.

  The stunner and the captain’s blaster lifted off the deck plates. Maddox caught his weapon—Riker grabbed uselessly at his weapon as it flew past him.

  Batrun was shouting something. The cybers twisted as they tried to align their blasters.

  A harsh humming sound preceded Maddox’s first blaster shot.

  One cyber’s head blew apart.

  The second cyber fired his weapon, beaming the table, digging into it.

  Maddox twisted in his seat. The enemy beam flashed between his legs, then he re-targeted—and missed the second cyber.

  The cyber had leaped off the ceiling, heading down at Maddox.

  Riker released the table and shot upward at the cyber coming down. At the same time, Batrun’s blaster cut into his own cyber’s left calf, burning it. The cyber must have accidentally floated into Batrun’s line of fire.

  Riker collided against the cyber. With a snarl, the thin cyber twisted around as the two of them tumbled toward a bulkhead. The cyber’s hands grasped Riker’s hips and began to squeeze with mechanical strength.

  Riker howled with agony. Pushing through the pain, he used his bionic hand, latching onto the cyber’s throat. Riker twisted and tore out the main throat section so blood, bone, flesh and metal ripped lose.

  The cyber’s hands lost power.

  Riker clawed the creature’s face, tearing if off with awful brutality. The sergeant felt fierce elation at the damage. Screw these bastards.

  “Stop!” Batrun shouted.

  Maddox did not stop, but sailed up toward the synthetic. In a display of superb marksmanship, Batrun burned the captain’s blaster. Maddox shook off the melting weapon and snatched his hand away before the hot coolant burned off his flesh.

  “You still lose, Captain,” Batrun said, tracking the human sailing up to him. “I will crush your skull.”

  Maddox reached Batrun. The synthetic reached for his shoulder, no doubt to crush it. Maddox twisted away. Batrun sneered, likely thinking the captain was attempting to save his shoulder. No. The synthetic had guessed wrong. Maddox revealed his other hand, which held the monofilament blade, and shoved the blade into Batrun’s face. The knife slid in smoothly, ripping leftward, sheering off half of the synthetic’s humanlike features.

  And that finished the job. Maddox destroyed Batrun’s function by slicing the braincase in two and effectively killing the Builder-made machine then and there.

  Maddox made sure, though. As he wound his legs around Batrun’s torso, he hacked again and again, sheering thinner and thinner slices of the synthetic’s head. In almost seemed as if the captain might have gone berserk.

  “Maddox!” Meta shouted. “Maddox!”

  The captain looked at her with a ferocious expression.

  “You’ve won, darling,” Meta said. “The synthetic is dead.”

  Maddox blinked, blinked again, and some of the awful tension left his body.

  “Maddox?” Meta said.

  “I’m here,” he said, sounding winded.

  “Hadn’t we better figure out how the cybers got aboard the starship?”

  “Yes,” Maddox snapped. “We’d better.”

  -56-

  How had the cybers boarded the starship? How had Batrun and the cybers moved through the vessel without anyone seeing them?

  It wasn’t making sense.

  Maddox and the others were on the bridge as marines combed the corridors, engine rooms, hangar bays, cafeterias—every inch of the ship.

  On the main screen, the pyramidal nexus slowly tumbled in the debris cloud. The clouds were thicker with sand and grit on the outer part as if they were deliberate skins. Inside, it wasn’t quite so dense. Inside, however, no one could see the main star or starlight, making it dark within the debris cloud.

  “I’m not seeing anything unusual out there,” Valerie said from her station.

  “Me either,” Andros said as he tapped his science panel.

  Maddox sat in the command chair, pondering. Ludendorff was unconscious in Medical. Every effort to revive him had failed, although the professor was still breathing normally. His brain activity had almost completely ceased. Ludendorff certainly wasn’t dreaming in his present state.

  Batrun had destroyed the unit that had caused Ludendorff to fall unconscious and Galyan to disappear, so they couldn’t use the unit to revive Ludendorff.

  According to the latest report, Galyan’s holoimage processors had burned down into a slagheap. It would be wise to get that fixed or rebuilt as fast as possible.

  “Chief Technician,” Maddox said. “I want you to get your best tech team and rebuild the holoimage processors. I want Galyan up and running. We need him.”

  “Thank you, Captain,” Galyan said from a bridge loudspeaker. “I am still linked to the ship’s sensors and can report as needed.”

  It felt weird hearing Galyan but not seeing him. It made the AI feel like a ghost.

  “You haven’t spotted any stealth ships out there?” Maddox asked.

  “Negative, sir,” the disembodied Galyan replied.

  “How are we going to use the nexus with the professor unconscious?” Valerie asked.

  “Good question,” Maddox said. “First, I want to pinpoint the cybers.”