Berserker Kill

by Fred Saberhagen

  The Solarian searchers were very few, and therefore even more tentative, more cautious than they might have been in greater numbers; the biostation was large and complex. To search every nook and cranny of the biostation for enemy machines, for booby traps and ambushes, would take a long time. Eventually, if things went well, Nick could be brought into action, and more ordinary robots used.

  But Dirac and those with him could not wait; their primary goal was to discover whether there were human survivors.

  Kensing was in midstep, tentatively advancing once again, when off to his right there burst a flash and crash of violence, an instant wave front of radiation and reflected heat dashing harmlessly against his armor. Before he could even turn his head in that direction, the skirmish was over, though in the following second of time another Solarian weapon or two-not Kensing’s-echoed the first shots, letting go at a target already smashed, compounding the damage to unprotected laboratory gear and walls. The small berserker machine that had come leaping out of ambush from behind benign equipment had been felled by the first blasting volley, its six legs sliced from under it, the nozzles of its own weapons shriveled, its torso broken open to spill a waste of bloodless components across the deck. Nothing more now than a broken machine, fire leaping out of its insides to be rapidly drenched and quenched by a healing rain from built-in fountains in the lab’s high overhead. The station’s voice, intent on following the regulations, was insisting that all personnel evacuate the immediate area.

  “There may be more-”

  But moments passed and apparently there were no more. It was as if this single device, effectively trapped by the unexpected Solarian incursion, had come bounding out in order to be shot down by the alphatrigger weapons of people standing in the doorway.

  Then one additional enemy machine was seen and shot at as it raced past in the corridor outside the lab, moving at the velocity of a speeding groundcar.

  The Solarian fire missed its target this time, only damaging the inner hull just beyond the corridor’s outer bulkhead.

  Seconds of quiet stretched into a minute, into two. The knife edge of excitement dulled. An ominous new stillness descended upon the station, and this stillness was prolonged.

  But peace was not completely quiet. Kensing, standing now near the middle of the big laboratory, made a soft little sound high in his throat. Annie, very much alive, looking rumpled but safe in a regular lab coat, had just come round a corner of machinery and was walking toward him.

  In another moment, Acting Supervisor Zador, looking pale but very much intact, was clinging to Kensing in a miraculous reunion.

  He had to resist an impulse to tear off his helmet and kiss her.

  All that kept him from doing so was the thought that in the next few minutes, before he could get her away and out of this damned place, she might yet need the most efficient protection he was able to provide.

  “It’s you, it’s you!” Annie kept crying. She babbled on, words to the effect that seeing any free Solarian figure had been wonder enough when the people trapped on the station had already given themselves up for dead. But seeing him…

  Kensing, in turn, demanded in a voice that barely functioned:

  “Did you think I wouldn’t be coming after you?”

  Other live Solarians were now appearing, as if by a miracle. A few paces behind Annie came a man she introduced as her colleague, Dan Hoveler. Then shortly a man she introduced as Scurlock, whose presence, unlike that of Hoveler, was totally unexpected by the rescuers. This development made Premier Dirac frown in concentration.

  The survivors reported that, strange as it seemed, they had been largely unmolested by the machines when the station was overrun. On being surprised by the sudden sound of fighting, they had been free to take cover as best they could.

  A minute later, Scurlock’s unexpected appearance was followed by that of a dazed-looking woman named Carol.

  There was no sign of Lady Genevieve. Dirac was already asking the survivors about her. “Have you seen my wife?”

  Annie, Dan Hoveler, and Scurlock all looked at each other, while Carol stared distractedly at nothing. Then the three mentally alert survivors sadly but confidently assured Dirac that his beloved Lady Genevieve was simply not here at all, alive or dead. No one had seen her since the last courier departed, only minutes before the berserkers arrived.

  Zador and Hoveler sadly reported that the Premier’s unlucky bride must have joined the other visitors and most of the biolab’s workers in boarding the ill-fated courier ship. That had been the last vessel to get away from the station before the berserker fell upon them.

  Dirac was shaking his head. “I don’t believe she did get on the courier. I believe that’s been ruled out.”

  Now it was time for the Premier’s colleagues to exchange glances with each other.

  It came as a tragic shock to Hoveler and Zador to learn that the courier carrying their co-workers had been blown up days earlier, with all aboard presumably killed. They asked how much damage the attack had done in the Imatran system, and were somewhat relieved to learn that at least the overall destruction had been surprisingly small.

  Sobering news had now somewhat muted their astonishment and delight that Dirac or anyone else had pursued and overtaken the berserker successfully.

  “You’ve killed the berserker, then.” It was Hoveler who was joyfully making this assumption. “But of course, you must have.

  You’re sure it’s dead?”

  The Premier tilted his head back to gaze up toward overhead, the direction of the enemy’s gigantic hull. “The big one? No, I’m afraid we can’t be entirely sure. Certainly it’s badly damaged. But it might have a trick or two to play yet.”

  The survivors, sobered, listened carefully, nodding. Now that this Galactic celebrity was here, Hoveler and Zador deferred to him, looked to him expectantly, joyfully for rescue, for leadership.

  The station’s brain, seemingly fully functional once more, blandly assured its questioners, when asked, that all of the berserker machines had now departed. At this point Dirac, leaving Kensing as an armed guard in the laboratory with Annie and the other survivors, took the rest of his people with him to pursue the search for Lady Genevieve on other decks.

  The station intercom was still fully functional, and the search party used it to communicate with the lab, employing a quickly improvised code. During the first stages of their effort they encountered no resistance, no further signs of any current berserker presence. And no sign of the woman they were seeking.

  Kensing, still thankfully marveling at his own miracle, looked back at Annie again. “So, the machines didn’t even hurt you.”

  “No,” she assured him, simply, solemnly. “They didn’t really hurt any of us. I have no explanation for this. Except perhaps they wanted to learn something from us, just from watching our behavior.”

  Hoveler was nodding his puzzled agreement. “That’s about the way it seemed to me.”

  Kensing said to Annie: “I won’t demand explanations for a miracle. But I want to get you back aboard the yacht.”

  “I still have a job to do here.” Her voice was intense.

  “Then let me at last get you into some armor. All of you.”

  “All right.”

  But spare suits of armor were not readily at hand. And Kensing had to admit that perhaps it didn’t matter after all. The discovery of living survivors and the absence of any further berserker activity were dulling the fine edge of alertness. It seemed to be true-whatever enemy devices had once occupied the station had now mysteriously withdrawn.

  Scurlock had little to say, and Carol, now sitting slumped in a corner, said practically nothing. They both seemed much more deeply in shock than Annie or Dan.

  After a few minutes had passed, Scurlock announced that he and Carol were withdrawing to their room, and added that she wasn’t feeling well.

  Looking after the beaten-looking couple as they left the lab with arms around each oth
er, Dan Hoveler muttered: “They told us they were goodlife; we came near having a real fight a couple of times.”

  Kensing scowled. He hadn’t expected to hear this. “Should we be-watching them?”

  Hoveler shrugged. “I don’t think they’re armed, anything like that. As for claiming to be goodlife, it’s probably just that the-pressure got to them.”

  “I can understand that.”

  Suddenly Annie was on the verge of tears. “I knew if we just held on…” And then she was weeping, with the intensity of relief.

  Dirac and his people were soon back in the lab, with no substantial discoveries to report. The survivors’ joy was further tempered when they understood how few their rescuers really were, and how seriously damaged was the ship in which they had arrived.

  Kensing was emphatic: “We’d better get out of here as quickly as we can.”

  Nick was on the radio now, reporting in from the yacht, and his news was simply, seriously chilling: since the latest berserker attack, the yacht’s drive was all but inoperative. Modest local maneuvers were still possible, but getting home on it was out of the question until-and unless-repairs could be effected. As soon as he could stand down from red alert, he’d get to work on the problem.

  Somewhat to Kensing’s surprise, Dirac delayed ordering a general evacuation to the yacht. Again and again the Premier demanded that the three coherent survivors tell him anything they could that might suggest the whereabouts of the Lady Genevieve.

  In fact Kensing and others got the impression that Dirac was really paying little attention to the bad news concerning the yacht’s drive. The prospect of being stranded here did not seem of much concern to him. He was still ferociously intent upon his search for his bride.

  Despite the eyewitness testimony that she was not here, his attitude did not seem to be grief so much as suspicion and anger.

  When someone boldly suggested that it was time to get back to the yacht, to repair its drive if nothing else, Dirac responded sharply that Nick and the maintenance robots could handle that as well as he could.

  Annie and Hoveler, with growing concern, reiterated that there was no reason to expect to find his lady here. No one aboard the station had seen her since that last courier departed.

  At last, hours after coming aboard the station, Premier Dirac, after trying to question the station’s own brain and obtaining nothing helpful in regard to Lady Genevieve, seemed satisfied that this was the case.

  But instead of giving way to grief or ordering a general retreat to the yacht, he seemed rather to withdraw mentally, hesitating as to what ought to be done next.

  Nick called once more from the yacht to inform his boss that despite his own best efforts the yacht’s drive still didn’t work.

  Dirac’s response was to send someone back to bring more arms and armor over to the station.

  After the messenger’s return, some of Dirac’s own crew began making pointed suggestions as to what ought to be done next.

  People were saying that it was time-past time-to get out of here, board the rescuers’ vessels and go back to the yacht. If the yacht still wasn’t functional, it was time to concentrate on making her so.

  And Dirac seemed to waver.

  At that point Annie, now dressed in armor, as were Hoveler and Scurlock, faced him. “There’s one problem with that plan,”

  she announced.

  “Yes, Dr. Zador?”

  “Can your yacht carry everybody?”

  The Premier’s heavy brows contracted. “I don’t understand.

  Assuming the drive can be repaired, there are only a handful of us here.”

  Anyuta Zador’s voice rose slightly. “There are a great many more Solarians here than you seem to realize. Have you room aboard for a billion statglass tiles?”

  For a long moment the Premier stared at her. Kensing, watching them, thought it was as if Annie had just offered the old man something he had been searching for. “You have a point there,” Dirac conceded willingly.

  People who had been suggesting a retreat now glared at Annie, but so far no one argued openly.

  Evidently mention of the tiles reminded the Premier of something else. When he questioned the bioworkers again, they confirmed that the Lady Genevieve had indeed made her donation before the berserker attacked the station.

  The Premier wanted to know: “Where is it now? The tile?”

  Memories were uncertain on that point. Hoveler and Zador were honestly not sure whether the lab’s robotic system had properly filed the First Protocolonist away or not. In any case the scrambling of the station’s electronic wits, which Hoveler acknowledged having done, would keep anyone from immediately laying hands on any particular specimen.

  Gathering his troops around him, Dirac issued a firm order to the effect that there would be no general evacuation of the station until the question of his protochild had been resolved.

  Neither of the surviving bioworkers, having endured so much and done what they had done, all to defend the protocolonists, was ready to abandon them now. And everyone else now aboard the station, with the possible exception of Kensing, was accustomed to taking orders from Dirac.

  Dirac, making sure that regular contact was maintained with Nick back on the Eidolon and having posted sentries at key locations on the station to watch for any berserker counterattack, took time out to watch a video showing his wife’s arrival at the station a few days ago. He saw for himself the publicity opportunity that had turned into a panic as soon as the alert was called.

  The color coding on the tile was barely discernible in some of the views. But with the retrieval system scrambled as it was, that was probably going to be of no help in finding it.

  Hawksmoor had rather quickly made the decision to sabotage the yacht’s drive and then to report it as malfunctioning, limited to low maneuvering power only. Of course he blamed the trouble on the recent enemy action. He’d done a thorough job of the disabling, but not so thorough that he would be unable to quickly put things back in their proper order if and when that became necessary-as he confidently expected that it would, sooner or later.

  But probably not for a long time, Nick computed. Not until after he had managed to provide the Lady Genevieve with the living flesh her happiness demanded. And even after he had somehow arranged matters so he could use all the facilities of the biostation without hindrance, that was probably going to take years.

  He didn’t really want to make all these other fleshly people suffer, to disrupt their lives and in effect hold them prisoner.

  Especially not here, where they were almost within the grasp of a monster berserker that was probably still half alive. But what choice did he have?

  Nick had to admit that the complexities of the whole situation were beginning to baffle him.

  No, it wasn’t fair, that the burden of others’ lives should thus be placed upon him. He was supposed to be a pilot and an architect, not a philosopher. Not a political or spiritual or military leader.

  Not… not a lover and seducer.

  He was able to cushion himself against this resentment and uncertainty only by telling himself that his fretting over these insoluble problems offered strong evidence that whatever means his programmers had used in his creation, they had made him truly human.

  CHAPTER NINE

  There was something about that last fragmentary message from Frank Marcus-chiefly the tone-which Nick found himself still pondering.

  When he brought the message to the attention of Dirac and the others, the Premier listened once to the recording and then basically dismissed it.

  “Humans often call upon God, some kind of god, in their last moments, Nick. Or so I’m told. Sad, tragic, like our other losses, but I wouldn’t make too much of it. That’s probably just the death Marcus would have chosen for himself. In fact, in a very real sense I’d say that he did choose it.”

  “Yes, sir.” But Hawksmoor was unable to dismiss the matter as easily as his organic master did.
>
  There were other pressing urgencies no one could dismiss.

  During the skirmish just past, the great berserker in crushing Frank’s scoutship had demonstrated that it still possessed formidable short-range weapons, including the force-field grapples that had evidently pulled Frank in to his doom. The remaining small craft and the yacht itself would have to be kept at a safe distance from the berserker; of course no one could say with any confidence just what distance that might be.

  Some of the debris from the space fight remained visible for almost an hour after the boarding, bits of junk metal and other substances swirling delicately in space, caught near the scene by some short-lived balance of incidental forces. But in an hour the last of this wreckage had gone, blown away in the vanishing faint wind

  of

  the

  ships’

  joint

  passage

  through

  never-quite-completely-empty space.

  Every day, every hour as the hurtling cluster of objects drew closer to the depths of the Mavronari, the space through which they traveled, still vacuum by the standards of planetary atmosphere, was a little less empty than before.

  Now space within several thousand kilometers in all directions indeed showed void of all small craft and machines, unpopulated by either friends or foes. Nicholas still stood guard faithfully, trying to decide whether he wanted the fleshly people to make themselves at home on the station or not, beginning to ponder what his own course of action was going to be in either case.

  He could keep his post alertly enough now with half an eye, and far less than half a mind. He was free to spend more than half his time with Jenny. Joyfully, as soon as he had the chance, he awakened her with news of victory.

  When Jenny came out of her bedroom again to talk to Nick, walking with him in the cool, dim vastness of the Abbey, she said: “So long as we remain nothing but clouds of light, hailstorms of electrons, all you and I can ever do is pretend to please each other, and pretend to be pleased. Maybe that would be enough for you. It could never be enough for me.”