Berserker Blue Death

by Fred Saberhagen

  “And, and, you know what his name is, Uncle Niles?” Child-eyes growing wide with excitement. With fear, was more like it.

  “I know. I know that, yes.”

  The answer didn’t have a chance, because again there was a timely distraction from a sibling. No one in this world or any other wanted to hear any of his newly discovered final answers.

  A little later, feeling sorry for his nurse and wanting to be reassuring, he said banally: “This is a nice world, Polly.”

  Impulsively though still quietly, she burst out: “Stay here. Stay with us.” Then she looked as if she were afraid her words might scare him off.

  All he could say was something noncommittal; then those words of his own sounded so bad he wished he could have them back, too. But they were gone.

  An hour or so later, having regained the ability to chat inconsequentially—the children practically enforced that—they came back to the house. Berserkers were for the moment as close to being forgotten as they could be.

  An unfamiliar groundcar was parked in front of the house, and a man was waiting in it. A bulky figure got out of the groundcar as Polly’s vehicle pulled up. Gujar Sidoruk had come to Yirrkala for a visit and was waiting to see them—to see Domingo in particular.

  At first Gujar didn’t seem changed at all. “You’re looking good, Niles. Real good.”

  “Considering.”

  “No, I mean it. Real good. Well, yeah, of course, considering everything.”

  Presently the two men were sitting in the house and talking; Polly’s children demanded her immediate attention.

  Gujar began telling the captain about the state of his, Gujar’s, feelings. He was still grieving for Maymyo and for everyone else the machines had slaughtered. He still wanted to cry whenever he thought of her, and there were times when he did cry; and up until now he hadn’t been able even to make an effort to resume some kind of normal life.

  The bulky man looked half collapsed as he tried to talk about it. “I still think of her all the time.”

  Domingo said: “I do, too.” He reflected that he himself didn’t look collapsed at all, though a couple of months ago he had been half dead. Anyway, he’d just been told that he looked good, and he believed it. He added: “Is that what you came to tell me?”

  Gujar said: “No. At first I didn’t want to go back to Shubra. Because it would remind me too much of—everything. But now I think I am going back. I’ve been visiting there again, and… I think she’d want me to. I figured you’d be going on with your hunting, but I wanted to tell you that I can’t.”

  “I was counting on your help, Gujar. The thing that killed her is still out there. Killing more.”

  Gujar got up from his chair and shuffled around, as if embarrassed. “The Space Force’ll do a better job of hunting it than I can. I don’t want to spend my life…”

  Polly had got caught up on her mothering for the time being. She had come back into the room, and was listening sympathetically to this line of argument, or complaint, or whatever it was. But so far she was not saying anything. She’d never tried to argue Domingo out of his purpose, or even insisted on a long discussion of the subject with him. For which he was grateful.

  Gujar went on: “There are plans for reconstruction on Shubra, Niles.”

  “I suppose there are.” That harsh voice of his was back at full strength now, sounding just as it had before he had been almost destroyed. Listening to it, Polly realized for the first time that these days Domingo sometimes sounded like a berserker himself. Not that she had ever heard one of them speak, but in stories when they spoke they usually sounded a lot like that.

  “Heavier ground defenses of course, to start with.” Gujar had overcome sorrow and was beginning to sound almost enthusiastic. “That goes without saying. I want to look over some of the new installations on this rock while I’m here.”

  Domingo didn’t say anything to that. He sat in the robotic wheelchair scowling, thinking with silent contempt of ground defenses and people who let such things occupy their minds.

  His visitor kept trying to make him enthusiastic, too. “There’s no shortage of people. I mean, new people ready to come in and settle…”

  “I saw some of them once, back at the base.”

  “Oh?”

  “In fact, I gave them a little speech.”

  “Oh?” Gujar didn’t understand at all. He wouldn’t have made an acceptable second-in-command… but he was going on talking anyway: “Sector says they have more than enough applicants. And Sector’s willing to capitalize a new colony again. They have a big stake out here in the Milkpail now.”

  Domingo didn’t doubt any of that. It was just that he could not help thinking of this young man before him as somehow being a traitor for feeling that it was already time to get back to normal. Maymyo was still dead, her killer gliding on its way through space just as before as if killing her had meant no more than wiping out another colony of nebular microlife.

  Gujar stayed a little longer, then took his leave, heading back to Shubra.

  “You don’t need a nurse anymore,” Polly said to Domingo that night, looking in on him before they retired in their separate rooms.

  “That’s true.”Nor do I need anyone else, either . But he didn’t want to announce that fact to her just yet.

  CHAPTER 12

  When the captain of the Sirian Pearl returned to the hospital at Base Four Twenty-five for his next checkup, the doctors there decided that the time was ripe for them to equip him with his new leg. The implanted graft could be permanently installed, berserker’s metal bonded to human flesh and bone through carefully chosen interface materials.

  Aboard ship heading for the base, Polly had thought privately about having another discussion with the doctors on the subject of Domingo’s psychological state. But it was difficult to know what she ought to say to them. On Yirrkala her patient had said or done nothing extraordinary enough to provide evidence to back up her fears; there was very little new that she could tell the doctors. Yet neither had anything happened to diminish her concern. Nothing had really changed. What bothered her so much in Domingo’s attitude and behavior, what made her still feel certain that some disaster was impending, would be very difficult to get across to anyone else.

  In a two-hour operation at the base hospital, the new leg was attached successfully, to the delight of the captain. It still bothered Polly more than ever that something about having the berserker leg satisfied Domingo so intensely.

  And Polly did speak once more to the psychiatrists, just before she and the captain were to leave the base again on their way to visit Shubra. She consulted them without telling him while he was somewhere else, busy trying out his new leg.

  The psychological experts had just finished seeing the captain and chatting with him. And they had a brighter view than Polly did of the patient’s progress.

  “He’s taking an interest in civic and business affairs on Shubra again, I understand, Ms. Suslova.”

  “He is? He hasn’t really talked to me about that.” That was about all she could say.

  He could fool them more easily, she thought to herself; and they were, at bottom, less concerned.

  Domingo still carried a cane, carved of Yirrkalan hothouse wood. But he was walking proudly, ably, almost naturally (the symbiosis would improve with time) on his new leg when he and Polly arrived on Shubra, where reconstruction was now under way in earnest. This wasn’t a vacation trip for either of them; Polly still had some unfinished business on Shubra related to her former job, and Domingo still had legal rights and obligations here, where he was still a substantial landowner as well as the elected mayor.

  The rehabilitation of his former homeworld was proceeding quite well so far without the mayor’s involvement, or even his awareness, and it got little of his attention now. Domingo was really interested only in things that would facilitate his pursuit of Old Blue, and Polly knew it. He never did tell her the truth in so many words, not even
when he left her to have business meetings, but he had really come back to Shubra only to sell off his property rights. With this in mind he postponed for a while his formal resignation of the mayor’s office; he thought that the hint of influence it gave him might be useful.

  The people who were resettling Shubra, the vast majority of them strangers to Domingo and Polly, had already erected a new assembly hall. It was a considerably bigger and better facility than the old gathering-dome had been, a solid-looking structure that conveyed an air of permanence, something to show off to potential colonists. On entering this hall for the first time, for the Festival of Dedication, Domingo was not reminded of the old dome at all. The whole shape and design were different, and there was less plant life in the new hall. And here, in this substantial new crystal palace, the alert lights were almost impossible to see. Until, the captain supposed, they were turned on; and no such demonstration was scheduled for today.

  Mounted on one wall inside the lobby, near one rounded, ovoid interior corner of the building, not hidden but not very conspicuous either, there was a metal plaque, a simple, tasteful monument to all the people who had died here on Shubra in the great disaster of a few standard months ago. The captain didn’t pause to read the listed names, but instead walked into the auditorium and took a seat for himself at one side near the rear. The place was starting to fill up, but there were few faces in the crowd that he could recognize, and fewer still showed any sign of recognizing him. There was Henric Poinsot, who nodded back.

  Music had already begun to play, but only irregularly and at low volume. Musicians were evidently tuning up their instruments and getting in some last-minute practice behind the high, impressive cloth curtains at the front of the auditorium. The Festival of Dedication, proclaimed with the intention of having it as a yearly local holiday from now on, was supposed to mark the end of the first phase of the rebuilding of the settlement.

  Mayor Domingo—today really the former mayor, because political reorganization was under way as well—waved and smiled at Polly when he saw her with the other performers, all of them wearing dancers’ costumes, heading backstage. She smiled and waved back. She had been enthusiastic, for some reason, about getting into this performance, and he had promised her that he would be here at the Festival’s opening to watch her dance.

  The big room was filling up rapidly. By the time the show started the situation would be standing room only, more people in this one auditorium now than had lived on the planetoid in the old days. Someone was doing a good job of selling potential colonists on the place. Maybe they were just selling themselves. There were always a lot of people who were not deterred by danger if they thought that by facing it they had a chance to get ahead, to make something of their lives. Domingo had once thought in those terms—getting somewhere, getting ahead, building things, achieving. Owning a large share of a whole world, albeit a small one. It was certainly possible to grow wealthy here…

  Domingo was attending this opening of the Festival partly because he had promised Polly that he would, and partly in hopes of running into people he wanted to meet, wealthy new property holders, who were otherwise difficult to see. He considered these people good prospects as purchasers of the final lots of his own remaining property. He could sell those off to someone else, but he wanted a good price. The next phase of his hunt, as he had planned it, was going to require a good deal of money. And there was no telling how long his hunt was going to last.

  The musicians behind the curtains fell silent, and then within moments began again, this time in an organized way. The expensive curtains, all of old-fashioned cloth, parted slowly to reveal the new stage, superbly designed and surprisingly deep and wide. And there was Polly, looking very beautiful in a scanty silver costume, dancing among others. Watching, Domingo realized for the first time how good-looking she was, well above the average.

  After he had been watching the show for a minute or two, the captain began to realize something else. Her eyes flicked in his direction, toward him and away again, whenever she happened to face him in the dance. Even in this crowded hall, Polly had taken the trouble to make sure she knew where he was sitting. He understood now that basically her dance was meant for him, as was almost everything she did these days, apart from her two children.

  Distraction in the form of a faint, familiar vibration in the atmosphere diverted Domingo’s attention from Polly and her show. Inside the auditorium, with music playing, the thrum was hard to hear, but Domingo’s ears managed somehow to pick it up. Turning to look out through one of the clear high walls, the captain could see that a small ship was landing at the new surface port not far away. As the craft came down, he swiveled in his seat, keeping an eye on the silvery arrival as long as possible. Maybe it brought news.

  The ship was down now, and silent. Meanwhile of course the show went on, the first dance over and a kind of comic tableau being enacted. Polly was in this, too. The captain, though still distracted by the thought of possible news, watched the performance. She was a very good dancer for an amateur; the whole show was a good one, with a couple of people up front who must be professionals taking the chief parts.

  Not many more minutes had passed when someone came up behind Domingo and tapped him on the shoulder. A man he knew slightly, from another colony, was crouching behind him and whispered a message when the captain turned his head: There were three people who had just arrived onworld and who wanted to talk to him at once. “They insist that it can’t wait. I don’t want to take you away from the show, captain, but…”

  The three, two women and a man Domingo had never seen before, were standing in the rear of the hall, and with a motion of his head Domingo beckoned them over. At the same time he got up from his seat and moved toward an alcove at the side of the crowded auditorium, meeting the three visitors halfway.

  They joined him in the alcove and promptly introduced themselves. All were high-powered experts, in technology or intelligence or both, from Sector Headquarters. To a person they were intensely interested in the samples and the information that the crew of the Sirian Pearl had brought back from that berserker biological factory, and in what that factory— they called it that—had been doing before it was destroyed. They wanted to know all the additional details about it that the captain could possibly tell them. The three stood there with Domingo in the alcove and kept him engaged in whispered conversation while the show went on. At first he put off answering their questions, wanting to hear from them first whatever news they could tell him of Old Blue.

  But the three let him know they didn’t consider that subject of much importance. They were good at brushing aside questions, too; as eager to get information from Domingo as he was to obtain news from them, and just as insistent on getting their answers first.

  The captain answered one question for them, to show good will. Then he waited to get a helpful answer in return.

  Not having the information he asked for right at hand, apparently, they gave him what they had. They said Sector was almost completely convinced that a new biological weapon to be used against humanity was in the works, but that the people at headquarters were having a hard time even narrowing down the possibilities of what it was going to be.

  All very interesting, but not what the captain really cared about. What else could they tell him?

  When the two women experts went aside together for a few moments to confer, probably on how much they were allowed to tell Domingo, the male expert allowed himself to be distracted from business.

  On the stage, to whirling music, the young women of the chorus line were now coming forward one at a

  time, to do individual turns, Polly’s turn was on right now.

  “Wow. Who’s she?”

  “She’s on my crew. Are you sure no more sightings have been recorded?”

  “Sightings?”

  “Of Leviathan.” Domingo was trying to keep the edge of his impatience from showing in his voice.

  “Leviathan. No. O
n your crew, hey?”

  The two women rejoined the men, willing now to explain things to Domingo in a little more detail. The three visitors had brought with them the results of the computer work done at Sector Headquarters on the data gathered from the ruined berserker by the Pearl’s crew. That information now appeared to be of considerable importance.

  “You said that before.”

  “The indications are that the berserker was probably working on cell development. Of certain types.”

  “I don’t quite follow—”

  “The development of large organisms, not microbes.”

  Domingo considered that, saw in it no direct relevance to his goal and filed it away. He continued to

  press the visitors for whatever information they might have on Leviathan, and at last extracted from them a promise to check with their ship’s computer, as soon as they got back to their ship, to see if it had anything along that line.

  By now the show, or the first phase of it anyway, was winding down. The curtains closed to enthusiastic applause. A soft spotlight picked out Domingo in his alcove, and he was called upon, as former mayor and war hero, to step forward and acknowledge a round of applause. The cheers were brief, and not overwhelming in their volume; war heroes were not that rare, and his performance, or nonperformance, as mayor lately had not won him any friends. Then the spotlight swung away; the newly chosen mayor was getting up to make a speech.

  That was the moment when Polly, flushed from dancing, came swiftly and gracefully down the aisle, straight to Domingo. “Did you like it?” she panted lightly. Her silvery costume was clinging to her body, and she was sweating.

  He stared at her, his mind still pondering the evolution of large life forms by the enemy. “What?” he asked, seeing her expectant look.

  The look changed to something else. She drew herself up straight, saying nothing. He turned with a new question for the intelligence experts. When he turned back again a moment later, Polly was gone.