The FBI's latest request for Jeff Boeing's presence came out of the blue. It wasn't the tech investigators this time, nor was it an assignment coordinator or a dispatcher. Instead, the address was a Federal building he'd never seen before, and they wanted him to meet Professor Rosenbaum . . . a regular University professor of cryptography.
The graying, bespectacled professor shook Jeff's light-curtain-covered hand like a man on a mission, and got right down to business. "That super-hero name you use in your news interviews — how did you decide on the name 'Tracer'?"
Jeff deactivated his energy field in the manner of a man kicking off his shoes and relaxing indoors. "It wasn't entirely my idea. Whenever I fly I leave behind a glowing contrail that looks like a streak or 'trace,' but the name 'Streaker' would've sounded like something it shouldn't. And then, when I was being interviewed after stopping the First Interstate Bank robbery, the reporter described the armor as a 'layer of glowing tracer patterns.' I liked that description, and since then I've been set."
"Hmmm! And here, I always thought it was because you look like a big yellow tracer bullet when you go flying by. . . . Uh, could you give me a quick run-down of all the abilities and advantages your alien 'armor' gives you?"
"Okay, not that I haven't done that before: some physical strength and agility, flying power, the ability to survive in space, and extremely good protection."
"Mmm hmm, you can survive in space, and you can fly. Can you also fly while you're in space?"
"Oh, of course!" Jeff replied. "I can twist and turn, accelerate, decelerate — do pretty much the same things I can do in the air."
A smirk flicked across the professor's mouth. "The engineering boys'll go ape when they hear that. They've been speculating that the Armor has some kind of 'reactionless drive'; that it produces thrust without burning any fuel or throwing out any mass. I heard one of 'em saying that if you can accelerate in space, it's pretty much a lock-down that you do have a reactionless drive on your hands."
"Hmm," Jeff digested this, "Hadn't thought of that angle."
Professor Rosenbaum put his hand to his chin and pondered for a brief moment. "Now, as to that list of powers you rattled off . . . I think something's missing. Are you sure you didn't skip anything?"
Jeff hesitated momentarily, not so much to recall his powers as because of the question. "I'd . . . I don't really want to talk about it."
"Is it related to the Hornbock incident?" the professor asked delicately.
A longer pause. Then, finally, Jeff winced, "Yes."
"Well," the professor tried to be as understanding as he could, "It's very important for all of us, yourself included, to know all of what you can and can't do in that Armor. If only to avoid having something like that happen aga—"
"It's a 'blast touch' power, all right? If I think about hitting something or someone extra hard, whatever part of my body I'm preparing to slam into the target will glow and hiss with extra energy, then release that energy on contact. You want more details, talk to the FBI's tech investigators. They analyzed it half to death."
"'Blast touch'," the cryptographer mused. "That's as good a name for it as any. We found reference to something that fits that description a couple of days ago."
Jeff blinked. "Found reference?"
The cryptographer nodded. "I have something to show you. Come over here."
He led the headlined super-hero across the room to a metal desk, on top of which lay three items. Jeff recognized two of the objects instantly.
"That's the stuff I picked up from the alien! Did . . . did you find out anything about the disk? That's hung in my mind more than the rod-and-rectangle for some reason."
"I'll get to the disk later. What I discovered first — with a lot of help from my colleagues in the Electronics division — was that the 'rod-and-rectangle' gizmo is both a communicator and a personal log."
"A log . . ." Jeff snapped his fingers. "So that's why I'm talking with a cryptographer right now!"
"I'm not only a cryptograther," the professor said, "I'm also a linguist. Not to brag, but I was one of the few people on Earth uniquely positioned to decipher a truly alien language. From what we can tell, they do use vocal sounds to communicate, but they're in extremely high-pitched short chirps or clicks. Their voices kind of remind me of the echo-location clicks used by bats. If we organize their phonemes according to pitch and click frequency, we get some regular patterns that seem to function like words. We've managed to get a handle on their basic grammar, and are pretty sure about a small part of their vocabulary, but it's slow going."
While the cryptographer spoke, Jeff inspected the comlog more closely. Then: "How does it work?"
"Push this little panel to transmit, and this one to receive. The signals are sent in the terahertz band. The equipment is sensitive enough to pick up signals from light-years away." The cryptographer's voice took on a more sullen tone. "It's dead now; it hasn't received a single transmission since we've started analyzing it."
"It's broken then," suggested Jeff, "Non-functional."
"Oh no, it works all right. Our equipment confirms it. There's just nothing — or should I say no one — out there transmitting anything that it could receive."
Jeff puzzled. "How's that?"
The aging cryptologist grinned, but at the same time let out an unhappy sigh. He retrieved the third object from the desk, a yellow sheet from a legal pad covered in poor handwriting. "This," he said emphatically, "Is the last message left on the log. It's the only entry we've been able to translate into English. That's because this final message was not in the alien's native language, but in a binary code made specifically easy to decipher. Here's what it says, word-for-word."
He cleared his throat for dramatic effect, and read: "'Here and now, I make my final entry into this log. If anyone should hear this message and can translate it into their language, then let it be known that I am the last of the Armored Warriors.'"
He stopped reading. "Now right here it gives a large number of ionizing-deionizing periods of a cesium crystal. They use this same scheme whenever they want to give a universal time constant. The number of vibrations it gives here is an even binary number, which works out to about five thousand years.
"'Five thousand years ago, long after the planets of our home star system were first colonized, we discovered how to build stargates. Any object that enters an active stargate, no matter how large, travels at the speed of light to another active stargate that it's tied to — even if the two stargates are in different star systems. With stargates, we could to move ourselves, and our space ships, between the stars at light speed. Using ships that could accelerate to great sub-light speeds, we fanned out into the neighboring star systems and built a stargate in each of them. Then we carried more stargates to their neighbors, then to their neighbors, then to theirs. Each new stargate meant a new colony to send, and soon, colonies existed in every system we had ever visited. Light speed travel still takes many years to get from one system to another, so each colony was left on its own. Each one grew and prospered in its own unique way, having little to no contact with its neighbors.
"'But three hundred years ago, one of these populated star systems — colony 27 — became conquerors. They invaded colony 32 three light-years away, brought them to heel, then banded together with their new conquest to take over colony 48 in the next system over. Within fifty years, they'd formed a vast dictatorship large enough to crush any non-military groups who didn't confide in them. The homeworld of our race, populated by about seven billion of us at the time, couldn't let such a terrible empire take over. But the 27 Empire was huge, and had ships in greater number than we could hope to manufacture. So, instead of mass-producing costly space warships, we equipped each of the billion of our own warriors with an armor box charged with energy that only living matter could use, along with one unusual weapon, and a communicator which also served as a log and an entry key into the various stargates connecting the explored star systems.
"'We left our homeworld then to defend ourselves and our way of life. At first, our attacks came unexpectedly, and several of the 27 Empire's ships were smashed. But because of the lack of sufficient stargates and our simple tactics, our surprises against them soon became few and far between.
"'They knew the location of every existing stargate, and all too often destroyed us just as we re-entered normal space. We fought bravely and our armor was nearly impenetrable; but with their great numbers our gigantic army was soon overwhelmed.
"'I have travelled through star systems that are at the outskirts of our charted boundaries. Sometimes I track the 27 Empire's ships, but usually they track me, and then I have to run away through a stargate to a system I know they aren't occupying. Each time, years pass. Each time, news broadcasts from the homeworld, and reports broadcast by my fellow Armored Warriors, update me on what's transpired during the years of my stargate travel. Each time, the news is more and more bleak.
"'Now, I'm among the inner planets of an unknown yellow star system, at the very edge of our stargate network. We never got around to colonizing this system; we only planted one stargate midway between the orbits of its two largest planets, and none of us ever came back here, until now. None of my comrades or our outposts are anywhere to be found. I've sent out messages in all directions to the other Armored Warriors, and monitored constantly for any messages from them; but none have been received. Considering the several light-centuries of broadcast range our communicators have, I am led to the inescapable conclusion that the rest of our army has been destroyed, and that I'm the last of the Armored Warriors.
"'Even as this message is being encoded, one of the 27 Empire's ships has emerged from this system's stargate and is closing in on me. If any of my equipment is recovered, and if by the slimmest chance the race that recovers it and translates this message doesn't have technology equal to ours yet, then use my items for the good of your race, and if necessary, for the destruction of the terrible empire that had once been part of our people. Farewell.'"
Jeff didn't speak; his expression displayed his every concern and astonishment.
"And that," the cryptographer finished, "Is the last chapter in the life story of our alien friend."
Slowly, Jeff began to speak. "Then . . . then . . . now, I'm the last of the Armored Warriors. I'm supposed to protect humanity from destruction, and take down an alien empire at the same time."
"You're not obliged to do anything. You found the alien completely by accident; you don't have to risk your life or crush any empires or save any worlds just because of that. You've done more than enough good already, fighting crime on your own and all; but if you think someone else should serve the greater good with that box of yours, you're free to hand it on."
Jeff pondered this. Giving it all up had crossed his mind once or twice before, and some far-off part of him seriously considered it now. He could just forget everything and go back to his old life, in relative leisure and safety, knowing that someone else was doing the dangerous work.
But . . . whom would he hand the torch to? The FBI had been hoping to get their hands on the armor-generator box again ever since he'd taken posession of it. They'd either redouble their efforts to reverse-engineer it and probably destroy it in the process, or give it to some ultra-patriot to use as a bludgeon for U.S. foreign policy. And he'd have to look on, remembering all the power he'd once had to do good, to help people instead of dominating them, seeing the tragic injustice of what his one-time gift had become and be utterly unable to do anything about it.
"Doc," he said, "I don't think I want to give any of this up. I'll keep the box and use it for what it was intended for."
The cryptographer smiled. "That's what I hoped you'd say."
"I was wondering," Jeff said matter-of-factly, "How'd you figure out the 'blast touch' power of the box without seeing it or studying it?"
"Well, I really didn't figure it out. You see, there were two parts to the log: the entry-and-update section, which contained the message I read you; and a rather extensive data table that probably gave the alien all he needed to know to start service as an armored warrior. Upon entry of a special command, the log plays how-to instructions for the box, followed by some vague rules of diplomacy and dozens of various combat tactics, including the use of some ranged weapon. In fact," he pointed to the disk, "This is supposed to be an energy gun."
"Supposed to be one?" Jeff was thoroughly confused.
"That's right. There's some mention of it in the main part of the log, but the instructional section doesn't even recognize its existence. What I gather is that it was invented and given to our alien friend after the war was underway, and the homeworlders had a rule about not telling anybody how it worked for fear that the 27 Empire might figure it out. I don't think he'll have to worry about that now."
Jeff nodded in agreement. "This 27 Empire won't even bother with him now that he's dead. They mortally wounded the guy when he was orbiting Earth, and the fall finished him off. And from what you tell me, it sounds like the empire is spread out over hundreds of star systems. If they're limited to traveling at the speed of light, it'd take 'em years just to get from one star system to another. I don't think the human race'll have any trouble from the empire for a good long time."
Jeff couldn't have been more wrong. . . .
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