“I wouldn’t be at all surprised, sir, if the berserkers we got away from do show up. If we did in fact leave any of them still functional.” Ensign Dinant, a combat veteran when this voyage began, paused. “God, Commodore, but that was a fight.”
“Yes, young man, indeed it was. But as we all know, those of our opponents who survived were not in the least discouraged by it. They will be doing their best to grope and crawl their way in our direction. So we must continue to bear in readiness whatever loaded arms we have.”
“Sir?” This was Tongres. “Our ships aren’t the only ones missing. We can’t forget that there was another component to their force too. I don’t think they used their full strength to ambush us.”
“No, I don’t suppose they did. Given the fanaticism of their pursuit of these three objects, some of them must have stayed with that. But that component of their force must somehow have overshot, or else have been thrown off the trail. Because they’re not here now, which is one small piece of luck for us.”
It was Superintendent Gazin who amended: “At least they’re not here yet.” He had not spoken for a long time, and everyone turned to look at him.
Havot had a contribution too. “We keep coming back to the same question. We can’t avoid it. If only we knew what the big damned attraction is out this way, the berserkers’ object in starting this whole rat race …”
The commodore shook his head. “We can only guess at that. But the immediate goal of ourberserkers seems pretty well confirmed now. I think they must have been simply trying to catch up with this parade, the antique component of this rat race, as you put it.” He nodded in the direction of the three enigmatic spacecraft so neatly miniaturized upon the one holostage now functioning, their short file graded in size from front to rear.
“And when they do catch up?”
“Then possibly, if we are still on the scene, we will learn something. Perhaps at least the mystery of their behavior will be solved.”
Returning to the familiar argument served at least to give the surviving Solarians something to talk about, a minimal relief from contemplating their own desperate situation.
Ensign Dinant argued, “I still say that whatever the goal of the berserkers we’ve been chasing, it couldn’t have been simply to catch up with the Premier and his yacht. Berserkers absolutely would not have abandoned a successful attack, in a heavily populated system, just to come to grips with this man who for three hundred years has been effectively if not actually dead—a man who no longer has any fleets, no power of any kind.”
Tongres was ready to debate. “All right. Then tell me what they are hunting, if not Dirac and his yacht?”
“I admit that the alternatives seem little if any more reasonable. Possibility Two seems to be that our modern berserkers are trying to overtake a bioresearch station full of prenatal specimens of Solarian humanity—specimens which have been effectively frozen as long as or longer than Dirac’s been gone.
“And Possibility Three—ah, that’s the real winner. It says that a whole berserker fleet is fanatically chasing one of their own machines—don’t ask me why. And there you have all the apparent choices. I don’t like any of them. But, damn it, there just isn’t anything else out here.”
Anxiously the small group of human survivors, aided by such of their faithful slave-machines as were still in operation, scanned observable space in every direction, at every moment fearing and expecting to discover fresh berserker hosts. But no enemy materialized.
The sensors and the analyzing systems on the warship were, like everything else, degraded by battle damage; but there definitely was fresh hot debris in nearby space in clouds already very thin and still rapidly dispersing, indications of recent fighting. And some of the damage on the huge berserker, whose details became plainer the longer they were studied, could now be confirmed as intriguingly recent, inflicted perhaps within the past few hours: still flaring, still glowing, traces of the great machine’s inner chemistry still outgassing.
Commodore Prinsep, his face a study in despair, nevertheless continued to be relentlessly decisive in his low-key way. “We’re going to check out the yacht first. I intend to lead a live boarding party over there. If we survive that excursion, but fail to obtain the help we need, we’ll try pulling up right behind the bioresearch station and checking it out.”
“Boarding!”
“Yes, Lieutenant, boarding. Do you have a better suggestion?”
There was none.
With a gesture Prinsep indicated displays showing the most recent damage control reports. “I’m afraid we really have no choice, given the condition of our drive and our life support. If we can find functioning medirobots on either the yacht or the station, and put them to work, our wounded may have some chance. Not to mention the fact that if the yacht’s drive is still working—and for all we know that’s possible—it might be capable of taking us all home.”
Those words brought a general murmur of enthusiasm.
The commodore went on: “If we can’t obtain help from one of these vessels, none of us are going to keep on breathing very much longer.”
Prinsep had no indecision as to who should go with him to the yacht—he wanted Havot at his side. Havot nodded agreeably at the prospect.
Prinsep added: “Our task may be easier in one respect. I think we must assume that the biostation is, or has been at some time, occupied by berserkers. I do not believe the same assumption need necessarily be made about the yacht.”
There followed a technical discussion, which Havot did not really understand and largely ignored, of the nature of the forcefield connections obviously binding all three of the antique objects together—how strong those fields might be at various locations, and whether they represented any danger to small craft or suited humans entering them.
The consensus of opinion now was that the yacht had probably been accidentally enmeshed; it appeared to be much more weakly connected than the other two bodies.
The commodore calmly began such simple personal preparations as were necessary to go aboard the yacht. Havot watched him for a moment and then began to get ready too.
They were to attempt the boarding in one of the small and unarmed lifeboats.
Two possible sources of hope, faint but real, lay before them. The yacht and the biolab. Two out of the three antique objects. As for the third …
Commodore Prinsep thought to himself that no one was going to board a berserker willingly, not even a berserker as dead-looking as this one. Not while there was any other way to go.
Then he thought of an exception. Maybe Havot would.
TWENTY-TWO
Havot was on a high, far removed from any care about what might be going to happen two hours from now, or three.
It was going to be damned interesting to see what happened next. On top of everything else, it gave him a kick to realize that by shooting down two berserkers he had now achieved heroic status in the eyes of his shipmates. Even Superintendent Gazin seemed to be impressed. Doubtless there were any number of planets where he’d be nominated for great honors—provided all the identities he’d had before that of Christopher Havot could be wiped away, and provided he and any of his shipmates did manage to survive.
At least any charge of goodlife activity would now look utterly ridiculous. And as for Havot’s inner demons—whatever mesmerized pledge he might once have been coerced into making to the bad machines, he didn’t belong in that category now.
The commodore, though, was not entirely taken in. Havot thought he could tell by the way the man sometimes looked at him.
To hell with it. He, Havot, was not going to hurt Commodore Prinsep; being around him was too much fun.
And Havot understood, too, whenever he stopped to really think about it, that if he should survive and return to what people called civilization, someone might propose him for a medal, but they’d bring it to him in a cell. He could not actually expect any kind of pardon. No human society tolerated the
kind of things he’d done. But what the hell. He hadn’t lost anything by getting free back at the spaceport, and at the moment he was content to ride the wave, to see what the universe put up to amuse him in the next hour or so.
Meanwhile, Christopher Havot was enjoying the way his shipmates looked at him. Sheer survival had now become the sole concern of all the flagship’s remaining survivors, and under these conditions he was a good man to have around.
For the time being, at least. He understood quite well how swiftly attitudes could change.
* * *
After a short pause for rest and reorganization, he followed Prinsep to the flight deck—which was badly shot up, like every other part of the flagship—and into one of the two still-functional lifeboats.
The two men in the lifeboat, and the people they’d left on the flagship, all kept casting nervous looks in the direction of the huge berserker—or the seeming hulk that had once been a berserker. That mountainous, half-mangled mass of metal still gave no sign of life. If it was tracking the little lifeboat now beginning to move toward the yacht, they could not tell.
The name of the vessel they were approaching, Eidolon,was clearly visible as Prinsep and Havot in their tiny craft drew near. Dirac’s antique yacht was not all that much smaller than the battered flagship, but both were dwarfed by the berserker.
In the middle of their passage in the lifeboat there came a strange silent moment in which the two men exchanged glances in a way that seemed to indicate some mutual understanding. Havot could see fear in Prinsep’s eyes, but since the battle had begun he himself had experienced no fear at all. It was usually this way for Havot when he got into something genuinely exciting. He was eager to do this thing for its own sake, to go forward, to go and see whatever there was to see aboard the seemingly lifeless yacht. Active danger lured him on, as always. And there was also the reluctance to die passively. If there was any way out of this situation, it would be found only by going forward.
On impulse he said: “I’m glad you picked me to come along, Commodore.”
Prinsep nodded slowly. “I rather thought you might enjoy it. And you’re good with weapons. Better than any of the rest of us.”
Havot tried to look modest.
“Sorry about Becky. I know the two of you were close.”
Havot felt uncomfortable.
The commodore checked to make sure that for the moment they were securely alone, maintaining radio silence with regard to the outside world. Then he added quietly: “No, I’m not worried that you’re going to murder me, Havot.”
“What?”
“Not yet, at least. First, I can see you’ve decided to sign on with me, as it were, and second, the chances are that both of us are soon going to be dead anyway. But right now we make a great team, you and I. And I don’t care what you did before you got on my ship, and I don’t want to know.”
“Murder, Commodore?” But even as he said the words, he knew they sounded false; he wasn’t capable just now of uttering them with the proper shocked surprise. He supposed his heart just wasn’t in the effort of trying to fool Commodore Prinsep, who kept looking at him steadily.
Getting the little lifeboat next to the yacht and selecting one of the yacht’s airlocks presented no particular problem. The yacht routinely accepted docking.
Moments later, Havot and Prinsep, both with weapons ready, were standing inside the yacht’s airlock, and its outer door had closed behind them, shutting them in, and now the inner door was opening. Here ought to be the trap, or the first trap. When the door opens, a berserker will be crouched there, ready to kill—
But the inner door slid out of their way routinely, very quietly, and there was nothing. Only the prosaic corridor extending to right and left, adequately lighted, properly atmosphered according to the visitors’ suit gauges, oriented by normal shipboard gravity.
A few minutes later, having made a good start on exploring the yacht, Prinsep and Havot had found nothing to indicate that it was not really deserted, peacefully abandoned, as forsaken as might be expected in the case of a ship last heard from three hundred years ago.
At least the vessel on first inspection gave evidence of having been completely lifeless for a long time, though the Eidolon‘s life-support systems were still functional.
That was puzzling, in a way, as Prinsep murmured to his companion. The yacht’s own brain might have been expected to shut down life support when it became apparent after some substantial length of time that nobody was using it. But that evidently hadn’t happened. Which suggested that someone—or something—might have told the yacht’s brain not to do that.
Ship’s Systems responded promptly to routine checkout commands when Prinsep tried them. It told the newcomers: “Drive inoperable,” but could give no explanation.
Prinsep sighed.
The ship responded promptly to his next questions, about the location and availability of medirobots, showing how to reach them from the explorers’ present location.
As they moved about the yacht, both Havot and Prinsep noticed certain old signs of combat damage.
The hangar deck was as deserted as the rest of the ship, empty of all small vessels.
Soon the two explorers found their way to the yacht’s control room, without provoking any berserker counterattack, or, indeed, discovering any signs of berserkers’ presence. At this point Prinsep, risking the division of his modest search party, dispatched Havot to seek out the medirobots, to confirm by direct inspection that such units were available on board.
Meanwhile the commodore himself stayed in the control room, and started checking out its systems. He totally ignored the possibility of booby traps—things were too desperate to worry about that—and concentrated on trying to start up the drive and weapons systems.
Havot gave brief consideration to the idea of quietly disobeying the commodore’s order, lurking around the control room instead, protecting Prinsep, waiting to see if a berserker indeed appeared as soon as the two of them had separated. It would be fun to ambush another of the deadly machines. But just waiting for a berserker seemed too passive a course. Still, he took his time about making his way through the large, unfamiliar vessel. He moved alertly but not hesitantly, feeling intensely alive. He would play this game at his own pace, in his own way.
As if his indifference were paying off, the directions given by the ship’s brain proved correct. Be ready for tricks and you didn’t get them. Havot easily found his way to a narrow corridor housing the medirobot berths. There were five of the devices, like fancy coffins, each clearly marked with the Galactic emergency symbols.
Havot observed with mild surprise that one medirobot was currently occupied. Stepping close, he saw that it was doing duty as an SA device. He gazed briefly at the indistinct image of a frozen face, Solarian and male, directly visible behind statglass. Then he called up and read the legend, a plethora of detail regarding one Fowler Aristov, a youthful man who three hundred years ago had evidently volunteered to spend his life nurturing innocent young colonists as part of some grandiose pioneering scheme hatched by the Sardou Foundation. Whatever that had been.
“Knock, knock, Fowler Aristov. Time to get up. You haven’t paid your rent,” said Havot, taking care not to transmit his words anywhere. Even as he spoke, his gauntleted fingers were locating, arming, and activating the EMERGENCY REVIVAL control. Muted lights within and around the occupied coffin immediately indicated that things were happening. Time for Fowler Aristov to rise and shine; the commodore wanted to put someone else in this nice comfortable bed; and Havot, for the time being at least, was backing the commodore all the way.
It occurred to him to wonder whether after three hundred years these medirobots were still fully functional. He’d warm them up, get them ready for the commodore’s people. Hitching his weapon into a different—but still handy—position, Havot went down the row, calling upon each unit for a checkout. Indicators showed that the special berths were all in good shape, the currentl
y vacant ones ready to receive patients. Presumably the one currently occupied would be available in a matter of minutes. It was common practice to make such units interchangeably useable for suspended animation—in therapeutic use, hopeless cases were generally shunted by the robot into the SA mode, pending the availability of superior medical help or at least an organic decision maker.
Warily trying out the yacht’s intercom, Havot communicated with Prinsep in the control room. The commodore sounded faintly surprised to hear from him—and very tired. He wasn’t having any luck in getting the yacht’s drive up and running.
Havot soon made his way uneventfully back to the control room, where the commodore, a study in exhaustion slumped in a command chair, looked up at him.
“Damn. Whatever’s wrong with this drive, it’s going to take some work, if there’s any chance at all to get it going—but you say at least the medirobots are operational?”
“Yes.”
“How many of them?”
“Five.”
“Too bad there’s not eight. But at least we can get our five worst cases into care as quickly as possible. Let’s call up Tongres and Dinant, and get them started ferrying people over here.”
Sandy Kensing was slowly coming up out of deep SA sleep. It was different from the arousal from ordinary sleep, vaguely like recovering from a long illness—only faster—and vaguely like being drugged. Over the last four or five subjective years of Kensing’s life the sensation had come to be familiar to him, and he recognized it at once.
The gossamer threads of some glorious dream had just begun to weave themselves together, as part of the sensation of being drugged, when they were brutally torn apart. The dream had had to do with Annie and him. In it they were, for once, both out of the deep freeze at the same time, and Dirac was going to let them go, somehow send them home …
Berserker Wars (Omnibus) Page 90
