The Lost Patrol by Vaughn Heppner Read Free Book Online Page A

to that. And yet…her actions seemed feigned. Could she have staged the fall, would she have dared? He decided to see what she might be willing to tell him in this disoriented state.
    “Do Spacers really loathe androids?” Maddox asked.
    Shu shuddered. “I thought everyone knew that.”
    “Hmmm… Do you have any idea who fired the rocket?”
    “Whoever used the androids,” she said.
    “What is the Spacer speculation about the androids?”
    “The Builders made them. So it’s likely someone familiar with Builder technology.”
    “Such as Spacers?” he asked.
    “What?” she said. “Oh, no.”
    “The nature of your airship causes me to suspect the Spacers stumbled onto Builder technology sometime in the past.”
    Shu’s brow wrinkled. “Did the Visionary name you?”
    “Are you referring to the di-far ?”
    “You are named,” she said breathlessly. “No wonder you caught me in the air. And your insights, the Spirit gives them to you.” She smiled. “I am wrapped within a blessing. This is marvelous and terrifying.”
    Maddox looked away. This was becoming embarrassing. It was one thing for a woman to fall in love with him for rescuing her from certain death. But to be the object of religious fervor…it unsettled him. Still, a good Intelligence operative should use any opening to learn more.
    “Where did the Spacers find their Builder technology?” Maddox asked.
    Shu shook her head.
    Maddox took her gesture to mean that she didn’t know, not that she wouldn’t tell him. “What is the official reason for the Spacers remaining so remote from the rest of humanity?”
    “The Visionary named you,” Shu said to herself. “I had wondered about you, but to know you’re di-far …” She shook her head in amazement.
    Maddox shifted uncomfortably, forcing another question. “Why do Spacers hate androids so intently?”
    Shu looked up at him. “They are an abomination, an imitation of life that is nonlife. Surely, you can see that. They mock the Spirit.”
    “And robots?”
    “We only loathe robots made in human likeness. A factory robot that is part of an assembly line is acceptable.”
    “So this…loathing is religious in nature?”
    “Of course,” she said.
    “Do the Spacers know the coordinates to the New Men’s Throne World?”
    “No.”
    “Do you know the extent of the Swarm Imperium?”
    Shu laughed softly. “We don’t even know where they are, let alone the extent of such an imperium.”
    “Have the Spacers searched for either?”
    “Oh, yes,” Shu said.
    “And none of you thought to tell the rest of us about that?”
    “You must understand. We had hoped to find the location of the Throne World before the New Men revealed themselves to humanity. Concerning the Swarm, we knew as much as you did.”
    “That they control ten percent of the Milky Way Galaxy?”
    “Not what you learned from the Builder,” she said. “We knew the Swarm used to exist, but until lately, we didn’t know they still existed.”
    “How do you know about the Builder and what I learned from him?”
    “We have a Visionary, Captain. There is little that remains hidden from us over time.”
    Maddox wondered if Shu really believed that. Maybe the Visionary was part of a religious order that had an excellent intelligence division. He didn’t believe “the Spirit” communicated with the old woman. Yet, it could be useful for the lower-ranked members of a society to believe that. It would help to keep them in line.
    “What do you know about Strand or Professor Ludendorff?” Maddox asked.
    “Spacers know the names, of course. They are both hideous agents of evil. Both have attempted to corrupt humanity many times. Both consort with androids, and both are excessively irreligious.”
    “Do you suspect that either Strand or Ludendorff is in collusion with the remaining androids?”
    “That seems obvious,” Shu said. “Strand and Ludendorff are creatures of the Builders just like the androids.”
    Shu