The Starkahn of Rhada Read Online Free

controls are damaged. Transit systems and protonics are very similar to First Empire designs.” That gave me something to ponder. A starship of a billion metric tons (I could still scarcely credit that figure), a vessel that would tax the resources of a dozen star systems to construct--yet powered by engines of archaic design.
    “The control system’s main center is shielded. I can’t get a really accurate reading. But it is still functioning.”
    “Could that thing be a robot?” I asked.
    “It is likely. Not a true cyborg, in any case. No organic higher systems. But it has a brain, of sorts.”
    “Weapons?”
    “Unknown.”
    “Anything else stirring besides the protonics?”
    “Main engines are inert, but undamaged as far as I can tell.”
    “The center shut them down?”
    “It would seem so. Wherever this thing came from, it has definitely arrived in the selected place. The brain damage didn’t impair the arrival procedures.”
    I stirred uneasily in my pod. “Range now?”
    “One thousand kilometers coming up on my mark.” A pause. “Mark.”
    “Hold here.”
    Ariane matched speed and direction to the derelict instantly, inertia dissipated by molecular reversal. It was one of her best maneuvers, and we used it often.
    The stars blazed in glory through the transparent shielding of the pod. The sky of the galactic center was like a field of diamonds piled in profusion against the velvet night. I darkened the walls and increased the magnification of the Q-band holograph. At a thousand K it was still impossible to give meaningful scale to the thing in the lasered space. But it was obviously, overpoweringly immense. It blotted out the nebular glow in fully two-thirds of the display. The cold light of the Delphinus star shone on the black hull. I could see that the projections I had noted before girdled the entire vessel. I could not guess at the purpose of the protuberances, but some intuition of mine or Ariane’s told me they were part of the great ship’s weaponry. The black starcraft was hostile --the cyborg and I could both feel it.
    Yet the historian in me was stirring. What a find! Warlocks from all over the Empire would want to inspect and study it. The clergy would want a look at it, as well, for though the Order of Navigators was now in the twilight of its great power, it had been the priest-Navigators of the Order who had kept alive the art of starflight and much else during our civilization’s Dark Time.
    “How far to the next commo beacon?” I asked.
    “That is CB-20 in 61 Omicron Draco. Eighteen hours at four kilolights.” No starship yet built, not even the ADSPS cyborgs, carried hyperlight radio. The equipment was too bulky. The drones we were launching periodically would home on the nearest commo beacon and dock to transmit their messages--but there was no way we could call for a Fleet vessel directly.
    I drew a deep breath and said, “Close the range to five hundred K.”
    She could tell what was in my mind because we were interfaced. “This really calls for a full-scale expedition, Kier,” the cyborg said. “We should chart it and head for CB-20.”
    She was absolutely right, of course. She always was. But I was overcome by a huge reluctance to turn our find over to the Grand Fleet without closer inspection. It occurred to me that I was looking at what was probably the most important discovery made in space for the last millennium. I couldn’t just chart it and turn away. I am a Rhad, after all.
    “We will,” I said. “After I make a personal survey.”
    “It could be dangerous,” Ariane warned, sounding like Lady Nora again.
    “It’s a derelict. We have a search and rescue responsibility,” I said.
    “You know better than that, Starkahn.”
    “Go to five hundred kilometers,” I ordered.
    “Older acknowledged,” she said, sounding annoyed. “My objections are on the tapes and in the next drone.” As usual, she was getting in the last word.
     
     

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