Berserker Blue Death

by Fred Saberhagen

  Probing at the object with a tight communications beam brought no response except a continuation of the distress signal, which was no doubt an automatic transmission.

  Looking over the lifeboat from a distance of only a few hundred meters, it was impossible to guess whether it had been adrift in space for a day or for several hundred years.

  “I say we wake the squarehead up”—this was Benkovic speaking—“and try to make sure he knows what he’s doing. This thing could be some kind of a berserker booby-trap.”

  The captain dismissed that suspicion immediately. “Way out here? They wouldn’t waste the effort. They’d go near a shipping lane somewhere to work that kind of a stunt. I want a couple of people to suit up and take a look at it.”

  “I guess you have a point there, Captain.” And Spence, as if to make amends for arguing, was the first to volunteer.

  Iskander for once did not volunteer; maybe, thought Simeon, the second-in-command disdained this job as too safe and easy.

  Simeon decided that he himself was ready to get into a suit again. And shortly he was out in space with Benkovic. The Milkpail again dominated the sky, but here the great bright splash of it was barred and patched with blackness, the erratic patterns of the Gravelpile’s intervening dark material. This really looked and felt like deep space, a hell of a long way from anywhere or anything, and if there was really a living pilot in the boat, she or he was going to have one miraculous rescue to tell the grandchildren about someday.

  The two men reached the drifting lifeboat speedily and without incident. The main hatch on the small vessel opened normally, on the first effort, but there was no cycling of the airlock. The cabin atmosphere in the boat either had been lost, or else deliberately evacuated.

  Benkovic went first in through the hatch, with Chakuchin hovering nearby outside. As with all lifeboats, there wasn’t a great deal of interior room. But a moment later Spence was reaching out a gauntleted hand to beckon, and calling him on radio. “Take a look at this, Sim.”

  Simeon went in, just as Benkovic got the interior lights turned on. The boat appeared to be a standard, fairly recent model. There were two berths, as might be expected, convertible to suspended-animation couches.

  And both of the SA beds were occupied. Simeon glanced in passing through the little window of the nearest. There was a dead man in it. One glance was enough; there would be no need to open this one to make sure.

  But Spence was grinning beside the second berth. Simeon looked in there and beheld the countenance of a reasonably attractive young woman, eyes closed, as if she were in peaceful sleep. Readouts on the berth confirmed the immediate instinctive impression that she was alive.

  Domingo’s voice was in their suit radios, asking questions. Simeon answered. “Looks like one survivor, Captain. If she’s still viable.”

  “Viable ain’t the word for it.” Benkovic was looking through the little window appreciatively.

  Domingo was asking: “Anything about the setup look suspicious? If not, we might as well grapple the boat and bring her right aboard.”

  Nothing looked suspicious as far as the two investigators could tell. A few minutes later the lifeboat, entry hatch still open, was inside the Pearl’s ventral bay, and atmosphere was filling boat and bay alike.

  Once atmosphere had been established, the men in the bay tried the standard revival cycle on the suspended-animation chamber. It worked. The watching men were soon rewarded with favorable readouts and signs of life. Their pilot-to-be—if indeed the young woman was going to fit that category— had undoubtedly started breathing. Iskander went to sickbay to get certain things ready in case they should be needed.

  Presently the SA chamber opened. The young woman, dressed in a standard ship’s coverall, immediately struggled to sit up in the Pearl’s artificial gravity. Spence and Simeon were at her side, offering physical support, and trying to be reassuring.

  In a few seconds, with help, the object of their attentions was on her feet. The young woman was tall, and more than moderately attractive now that her long, strong body was fully alive again.

  Presently Iskander and Spence were cycling with her into the ship proper. When they were through the lock, they walked her gently to sickbay between them.

  “What time is it?” That was the first question she asked, the first coherent words she uttered, on waking up more or less completely. By this time she was seated in the sickbay of the Pearl. and could see she had an interested audience around her. Her speech and accent seemed to follow one of the more commonly heard patterns; she would not have sounded out of place at all on Rohan, though there was a trace of some earlier influence, an origin somewhere else.

  Domingo, who had come along from his station to observe this phenomenon for himself, named the current standard year, and the month when the ship had left Rohan. Days and hours in deep space were always subject to correction for relativistic effects, despite the theoretical ability of c-plus travelers to avoid such effects entirely.

  When she heard the numbers the young woman slumped, as if with relief. “That’s good. It means I was only a few days in the boat. Don’t know why the idea of a long sleep bothers me a whole lot, but it does.

  Not that I would miss anyone who’s still alive in this century, particularly.” She drew a deep breath and tossed back her full, flowing hair and looked around her. “I’m Branwen Galway. What’s this? A trader?”

  “I’m Niles Domingo. This is my ship, the Sirian Pearl. and we’re hunting a berserker. What happened to you? Why were you in the boat? I don’t suppose it was Old Blue that put you away?”

  “It was a berserker—I didn’t ask it if it had a name. My ship was the Old Pueblo. out of New Trinidad… did you say you’re hunting a berserker? How big is your fleet? I’ve just been doing my damnedest to get away.”

  “No fleet. This one ship.” The captain tersely recited the Pearl’s tonnage and her armaments. “So your ship was destroyed? But you don’t know whether or not it was Leviathan that attacked you?”

  Fully awake and aware now, Branwen Galway was looking at the captain with some curiosity. “No, sir. As I say, I didn’t ask.” She paused, evidently struck suddenly by a different thought. “The other berth on the lifeboat—there was someone in it too, wasn’t there?”

  “A man,” said Simeon. “I’m afraid he’s dead.”

  “Ah. That’s no surprise.” Branwen looked around at her audience. “He didn’t mean that much to me, but I wondered… I’m sure there wasn’t enough left of our ship for you to find anything.”

  “You’re right about that.” Domingo was smiling faintly; maybe the woman he had just rescued would be a pilot, maybe not. But at least she certainly did not seem to be the type who was going to cause a lot of unnecessary trouble.

  Already she had abandoned the subject of her own past. “One ship, hey? Well, you’ve got guts. Why are you hunting a berserker?”

  Everyone looked at Domingo. He said: “I’ll tell you the story when you’ve had a chance to rest.”

  “That kind of a story, hey?”

  The rest of the crew were in the process of introducing themselves more or less formally to the new arrival when Simeon suddenly saw Branwen’s expression alter. She was looking past him at the doorway to the corridor outside sickbay, and Simeon knew before he turned what he was going to see.

  Fourth Adventurer had appeared there, standing in the corridor. The Carmpan announced that he was rested now and ready to resume his full duties. Then he introduced himself to the newest arrival.

  Branwen was suitably impressed at sight of the Carmpan, especially when she heard that his talents were responsible for her rescue; otherwise she could easily have drifted here for a million years.

  Fourth Adventurer in turn looked at her for some time, and appeared satisfied with what he saw.

  Domingo, indicating the woman, asked him: “Is this my pilot, Fourth Adventurer?”

  “She is a very capable pilot, Captain. You must
ask her whether she will be yours.” And the Carmpan turned and moved away, still looking tired, almost shuffling, despite what he had just said about being rested.

  Branwen was mildly bewildered. “What was that all about? I mean, I am a pilot, but how can he possibly judge how good?” Nobody tried to answer that.

  Simeon noticed that Benkovic was already looking at the newest recruit with what appeared to be something more than medical concern. It was Spence who first reached to help her when she stood up again. “Feel dizzy?”

  She pulled her arm away from his supporting hand, firmly but not making a big deal of it. “I’m coping, thanks. I notice I haven’t got a lot of baggage with me. I could use a private berth somewhere, and a change of clothes. And then some food.”

  Provided with crew clothing including coveralls, some miscellaneous supplies and food, her residence established in the berth that had been reserved for the sixth crew member, Galway soon announced her readiness to join in a berserker hunt, as long as it was being properly planned and led. She said she would soon be ready to demonstrate her competence.

  A little later, Simeon happened to encounter the Carmpan alone. Unable to keep from asking the question, Chakuchin demanded of Fourth Adventurer: “Why can’t you do this kind of thing all the time? Rescue work, I mean?”

  “There is a price that I and others must pay, whenever such help is given. You do not understand.”

  “No, I don’t.” Meeting those alien eyes, Simeon had the inescapable feeling that he was making a fool of himself. Lamely he added: “Anyway I’m glad you’re helping now.”

  The Carmpan looked at him, unreadably, and turned away.

  Fourth Adventurer resumed taking his regular turn on watch, but otherwise spent most of the next few days in his berth, more often than not out of touch with the rest of the crew.

  Domingo had already reestablished his course in the direction of the Milkpail. At this distance the great glowing nebula already dominated the instruments in flightspace, and it was a looming presence in normal space as well.

  Branwen Galway quickly made a complete recovery from her interval of suspended life.

  From time to time, when asked, she related a few more details of what had happened to her and her ship. But she appeared to have put those events behind her now, and to be reluctant to talk very much about them.

  She was a tall woman, and now moved lithely about the ship. With a woman aboard, the whole atmosphere on the Pearl had changed. One part of the change was of course that Domingo now considered his crew complete—as soon as Branwen felt up to it, he had formally offered her the second pilot’s job, on condition of course that she demonstrate her competence. She had a right to refuse the job, of course. But as a mere rescued survivor, she had no right to demand that the ship interrupt its own mission to take her where she might want to go. Domingo said he could probably drop her at some Milkpail world if she would prefer that to signing on.

  Iskander, probing, indulging his perpetual itch to investigate and instigate, did ask her where she would want to go if she had a choice. Branwen Galway responded with no more than a shrug.

  She was soon ready to demonstrate her competence to Domingo’s full satisfaction.

  “Sorry I didn’t bring any references with me, Captain. But I can give you a demonstration.” Branwen had already been looking over the various onboard systems, and felt confident of handling any of them. “What would you like to see?”

  Domingo wanted to see a lot, and his newest recruit obliged. He was well pleased with what he saw. There was no doubt that his potential new crew member was good, very good, at running any spacecraft system that could be operated from a headlink. Considering the circumstances of her rescue, her claim of combat experience was easy to accept. And when the Pearl got into deep nebula again, Galway established her ability to handle that. She gave the impression of being good at a lot of other things besides.

  Simeon thought that she was better looking than most of her sex, certainly more attractive than the ones he knew who had acquired hard-boiled reputations in space work. Not that Branwen appeared to care whether any of the men aboard thought she was good-looking or not. Simeon kept watching for Spence Benkovic to get his face slapped, but so far Spence, after that first gallant offer, was behaving in a very businesslike way. Playing hard to get, perhaps.

  The crew member who most interested Branwen Galway appeared to be the Carmpan. Of course that enigmatic presence would intrigue anyone. Still none of the ED humans on the crew, thought Simeon, really had the faintest idea why Fourth Adventurer had offered to sign on. As far as Simeon knew, Domingo had never asked.

  Next most interesting to the woman—perhaps first after the initial shock of the alien presence had somewhat worn off— was Domingo himself, who of all the ED men seemed to care the least about her sex.

  She spent a fair amount of time, more than was necessary certainly, talking with the captain.

  Domingo was soon ready to complete her formal signing on the crew. Iskander Baza seemed resigned to the fact, if not enthusiastic about it. Benkovic was as quietly pleased by this recruit as he had been quietly upset by the last one.

  A little shakedown cruise now, the captain announced, and the ship and crew would be ready to face Leviathan.

  CHAPTER 16

  Branwen Galway and the Fourth Adventurer had both demonstrated their competence, to say the least. They were also alike in admitting to a relative lack of experience at operating a ship within a sizable thick nebula.

  The captain was ready to agree that some nebular practice was in order for his two newest crew members before the time came for them to fight Leviathan. But he thought that difficulty would almost certainly take care of itself. Leviathan was unlikely to be waiting obligingly for the Pearl at the point where she reentered the Milkpail. The crew ought to have an adequate opportunity to gain experience within the

  nebula while they were trying to pick up the enemy’s trail. Domingo wanted every member of his crew to be as highly skilled as possible at every job, and with that goal in mind, he tried to rotate assignments frequently:

  Branwen had a question for the captain when their discussion came around again to the object of their mission: “‘Why do you so often say ‘he’ when you talk about this thing we’re chasing?”

  The two of them, both off watch, were alone in the common room at the moment. Domingo thought for a few seconds, running his fingers through his hair. Then he looked up at the tall young woman beside him. He asked her: “Do you believe in any gods?”

  Galway was standing, leaning on the console of the computer that was sometimes used to build ethereal models in this room—the captain had noticed that she often preferred to stand rather than sit.

  She said: “Can’t say that I do, Captain. Though there are times. Why?”

  “If you believed in a goddess or a god, which pronoun would you use?”

  She had to think that one over for a moment. “Are you telling me this damned machine you want to kill is your god?”

  “That may be as close as I can come to it. But I was asking what you would do.”

  Brawen considered him irreverently. “Well, at least you’re not calling a berserker ‘her.’ “

  Once Domingo had got his ship back inside the Milkpail, he elected to begin his hunt in a direction that made it logical to select the world of Yirrkala as one of the first stops. Yirrkala, he explained to his new crew members, was one of the best places in the nebula to pick up the latest information.

  As the Pearl approached Yirrkala, her crew observed that the populous planetoid was more heavily defended than ever, and it looked as if there were more settlers here than ever before. The mass flight from the Milkpail some people had predicted was evidently not materializing.

  After landing, Domingo’s first question to the local people, asked even before he got out of his ship, was of course for the latest news of Leviathan. The response was disappointing. Little news had developed i
n the days the Pearl had been gone from the nebula. No more attacks, only one more sighting, and that slightly doubtful. Neither particularly encouraging or discouraging, just another bit of information for the mosaic.

  When he had seen that item entered in his computer’s data banks, Domingo left the ship and walked down the familiar spaceport ramp. He went alone, saying only that there were a few more things he wanted to find out and that he would be back in an hour or two at most. His crew were meanwhile left with a few routine jobs and a little free time.

  The captain was somewhat surprised to discover his own intentions when he realized what he was going to do next. He wanted to speak to Polly—exactly what he meant to say to her he wasn’t sure, but the way they had parted just wasn’t right. But his efforts to locate Polly Suslova met with failure. The local office known as Central Communications—the chief settlement on Yirrkala was trying to grow into a real city—pronounced her unavailable and would not elaborate on that reply.

  A call to Irina and Casper earned the captain the information that Polly had left Yirrkala permanently. Her relatives told Domingo she had moved with her children to another world where she was now working at a new job.

  “Another world?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Which one?”

  There was a pause. “I’m not sure,” Irina said.

  Domingo was skeptical. But he didn’t press any harder for the information.

  Before the call was over, Polly’s relatives also managed to drop a hint that Polly was much happier now that she was seeing a new man.

  Walking rather slowly back toward his ship, Domingo found himself wondering if it were true. Suddenly a new thought struck him, and he began to wonder whether the new man could possibly be Gujar. Though why it should make any difference to him, even if it were so, was more than he could understand. Polly and Gujar were just people from his old crew, and naturally he wished both of them well.