Hemphill put in: “They might be responsible for some of the spacecraft reported missing. They could have had live ED humans to interrogate, before now.”
“And then there’s the food. Could mere machines come up with stuff as bad as this?”
“Is there anyone who hasn’t tasted it yet?”
It turned out that everyone, except Du Prel, had at least tried a nibble.
“We’ve all eaten it, and we’re not poisoned. I can remember getting hit with worse in basic training.”
“We’re in here as helpless as motherless kittens.”
Yes, that expressed it pretty well. But for the time being, at least, whatever power was in charge wanted to keep them alive. “Weren’t you listening? It promised that sooner or later it was going to test us to destruction.”
Some indeterminable number of hours later, the talk resumed. And the question that seemed most urgent still had not been finally settled.
One prisoner to another: “Have you figured out the answer yet?”
“The answer to what?”
“The big question. The one that all the other answers are waiting on. That is, who’s in charge of this place? No one’s shown themselves to us yet.”
“Huveans…” But the word seemed to lack conviction.
“You still think that? Really?”
Again there were two guardian machines on duty. Kang Shin turned to one of them and recklessly yelled at it: “Hey! You work for Huvea?”
“I do not.” Three squeaking words came from the direction of the machine that had been questioned.
The instant answer surprised everyone. They held their breath and waited for more. But the machine had nothing more to say.
Tentatively the conversation started up again. “I don’t know. Well, no, I expect we can rule the Huveans out. Because they would show themselves. You think they wouldn’t gloat about having us in their power? Hostages! And they’d want to impress us with the super weapons they’d developed, how easily they were beating us.”
Other people were nodding. “That’s the way I see it. If Huvea had this kind of superior power, they’d want us to know about it. Whoever’s really got us isn’t just putting on an act to be mysterious. They really are.”
“Absolutely right. And what you said about Huveans goes for any other Earth-descended world. An argument can be made that there are a few others besides Huvea who might conceivably want to attack Twin Worlds. But none of them would have to study us like this.”
Feretti made a sweeping gesture, taking in the machines, the surreal cave of a room in which they were confined. “Then who?”
No one could answer that.
Someone else suddenly burst out with a near-hysterical giggle. “I still say that if you’re waiting to confront a live captor, you’ll have a long wait. Not a living face to be seen, except our own. At least I haven’t see any. Have you?”
“No. Not even a recording.”
The questioner pointed at another subject. “You?”
“No. And these machines make no pretense; I mean they’re not seriously trying to look like people. Even if the overall form matches ours, two arms, two legs, there could be other reasons for that.”
“Such as?”
“They’re boarding ships designed for use and occupation by us. Machines with approximately the same shape as human bodies would find it handier to operate the controls. They’d be a handy fit in chairs and corridors and airlocks.”
People tried to digest the idea.
“I think we need to accept the fact that we’re simply dealing with deranged, from our viewpoint, robots. An embodiment of the automated art of war.”
“But whose robots? Machines don’t construct themselves from scratch. Someone had to build them.”
Hemphill put in: “When I take a careful look at these robots, their bodies, their limbs, I think I can detect visible traces of wear, on what must be very hard material. Has anyone else noticed that?”
“I’ll take a careful look next chance I get. What are you suggesting?”
“Simply that these are old robots. Possibly very old. Even ancient.”
There was silence for a time while people thought that suggestion over. Then someone said: “But very advanced, in some ways.”
“Crude in finish and appearance, by our standards, yes. Certainly well ahead of us in the machinery of war, both offensive weapons, and defensive fields. Look at the pasting our fleet took. Besides that, everything about them, about this place is at least slightly different from anything that Earth-descended folk have ever built.”
“All right. Admitted. But old or new, advanced or clunky, I still say that sometime, somewhere, someone had to build them.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Radigast’s jaws were working steadily. Today’s chewing pod seemed to be one of those that induced the consumer to spit more often than swallow, and a little rat-like cleanup robot was dancing attendance on the admiral. Radigast seemed glad to see Gregor arriving on the bridge, and greeted him with: “I’m going to have to assume that the whole military chain of command has gone to hell, except for what’s left of my fleet. But what I have to know is, can Timber’s ground defense batteries be depended on at all?”
“You have no channels open to reach them?”
“A couple. Trouble is, I talk to assorted motherless people down there and get assorted motherless answers. No one is totally ready to let someone else be in command.”
“I wish that I could help, but…” Gregor was struggling internally with his own problems, particularly that of the president. What might have happened to Belgola, and what he might be doing, remained a mystery. After those last crazy communications, Gregor didn’t want to guess. But it was only too easy to feel sure of what fate had overtaken the vice president, Belgola’s designated successor. The same grim near-certainty held for almost every other individual in the upper echelons of Twin Worlds government. The utter ruin of Prairie was plain to see, and the total, horrible silence of that planet since the destroyer had finished its work seemed to leave no room for doubt.
There existed a constitutional procedure for removing a Twin Worlds president who had lost the ability to function, but in more than a standard century of stable government that procedure had never been used. It was slow and cumbersome, and therefore utterly useless in present circumstances, when few of the people who had to play a role in the procedure could be found.
The president was a large part of the government, but no more than a part. It seemed to Gregor vital to determine if anyone down there on Timber’s surface was still trying to keep some central authority alive.
Somewhat to Gregor’s surprise, the admiral had decided to tear himself away from the bridge, to see his civilian passengers off. Despite all that Gregor had seen and heard and felt so far, he had not realized the full extent of the battleship’s damage. But it was borne in on him as they began to make their way along a zigzag route through a kilometer or so of inner passages, walking corridors, negotiating companionways, making awkward detours. A much longer and more difficult hike than they had made when coming on board was required to get them back to the launching bay, where the small shuttle vessel waited. The admiral and his two civilian satellites climbed and swam their way through whole sections of the dreadnought’s interior where the artificial gravity had been knocked completely out, and traversed one compartment in which it was pulsating dangerously, Luon almost succumbed to spacesickness at one point.
It needed no experienced eye to see the warping of the ship’s structural members, and a couple of places where fresh conduits had been laid, carrying pipes or cables around places where lines of supply or communication had been ruptured.
Grim-faced, and for the most part silent, Radigast took in the evidence of destruction that was visible en route.
They were unable to ride any part of the way, because none of the ship’s internal transport tubes were working. When the three of them, tightly suited
and helmeted, at last entered the airless bay in which the small ship waited, Radigast paused. Then he said on wireless intercom: “Look, sir, you take care of yourself down there.” The admiral hesitated, chewed and almost spat inside his helmet, caught himself in time and swallowed instead. “Take care of the young lady, too. The more I think about it, the more I think I’d better provide you with an escort.”
Gregor shook his head. “We’re grateful for the thought, Admiral. But if I’m facing any major hostility on the ground, I doubt any escort you can send along will help. It might just draw more attention.”
Radigast thought it over. “All right. You may have a point.”
The operations officer on duty in the bay spoke up, on what seemed a sudden impulse. “Want to carry a sidearm, sir? Word is it’s getting kind of hairy on the surface.”
Gregor’s first instinct was to decline the offer. But then he thought again; the evidence of chaos on the planet was all too clear. “Have you got anything inconspicuous?”
The other nodded thoughtfully. “Give me a minute, sir, let me see what I can scrounge.” He disappeared into the half-ruined machinery, to return in less than a full minute, passing over a thin, flat, modest-looking weapon that Gregor accepted and slid into a coverall pocket.
“Are you going to stay on Timber, Gramp?” Luon asked, as the hatch of the small ship opened for them. It had seemed pointless to worry about whether she should come down with him or not. It would hardly be safe to remain aboard a heavily damaged warship that was committed to sooner or later resuming the fight against a superior enemy.
Gregor hesitated. “It depends. Probably, if that will help to keep a planetary government going.”
“Will that be possible?”
“I’ll certainly say it will, if anyone down there asks me. Between you and me, I just don’t know.”
The plenipotentiary and his granddaughter found themselves going down in the same small ship, crewed by the same people, that had carried them up from Timber to Radigast’s flagship, how long ago? It seemed like standard months, but on adding up the hours he realized it had been only a few days.
Luon, reenergized by the prospect of standing once more on the same world as Reggie, suddenly looked something like her true age again, was no longer the image of a haggard and tired woman of thirty. Early in her stay on the flagship she had changed her own coveralls and boots for government-issue garments of the same type. But she had changed back again, having washed out the original garments herself, when housekeeping machines on the Morholt were restricted to essential jobs.
Gregor himself was wearing a plain grayish coverall, under his newly issued spacesuit. He thought that should give him the best chance of inconspicuously blending in, on a planet where the accouterments of space travel were generally common enough.
The two-person crew of the small ship looked exhausted, and this time no one offered to give Luon a tour of anything. Gregor thought of trying to warn her that it might be impossible for her to find her lover once she was on the ground. For all he knew, Huang Gun might have decided that the time had come for executions.
The descent into planetary space, and then through atmosphere, took a couple of hours, most of that time occupied in avoiding the presence of small enemy machines in nearby space. Toward the end, the bulk of the blacked-out planet came swelling swiftly up from below, looking dark and unnatural and somehow greasy inside its fully activated (though badly punctured in places) forcefield defenses.
The IFF system was working almost steadily, identifying the little ship as a friendly visitor, saving it from swift destruction perhaps as often as several times a minute. It was reassuring to know that some parts of the system still functioned.
Gregor used the time of descent to snatch some emergency rations from a bin, and then to stretch out on a couch to sleep; he tried to see to it that the girl was doing the same.
She had pushed away a plastic ration carton. “I can’t eat, Gramp.”
He raised himself on one elbow. “You want to be strong when you meet him, don’t you? As strong and rested as you can be? He might need help.”
Luon pulled the food pack back into her lap, yanked the pull tab and started eating.
The small ship came down uneventfully on Timber’s night-side, ten kilometers or so from the capital city’s spaceport, now officially closed. The landing took place in a woodland less than two kilometers from the capital city’s outer edge, Gregor could still think of no better place than the Citadel to start looking for the government.
The rounded bottom of the ship settled slowly, crunching into small trees and brush that gave way quickly under its full weight, taking a few seconds to find a level of stability. Ground defense had of course been tracking them in, and whatever central government still existed ought to know they had arrived. But any news of the landing of a small, functional spaceship had been kept from the population in general.
The two passengers had already shed helmets and spacesuits.
When the outer hatch opened, Luon sprang out first, sliding down about a meter to stand between small bushes. Gregor followed, groping his way in nearly perfect darkness, losing his balance and such dignity as he still possessed, but suffering no harm. The ship closed its hatch again as soon as the two passengers had gone out through it and were standing on the ground, clutching their very modest baggage. Lift-off, silent and unspectacular, followed immediately. Millions of people on this world were desperate to get away, and someone might try to grab any vessel that they found within reach.
Gregor and Luon did not have long to wait for their summoned escort, standing uneasily in the darkness of a night unnaturally enhanced by the forcefields overhead, each wearing a small backpack. The automatic pistol the officer had given him lay flat and inconspicuous in one of the ample pockets of Gregor’s coverall.
The two people were surrounded by the night sounds of creatures appropriate to the place and season, as they waited to be met by some harried local official.
Presently the lights of an approaching groundcar appeared, the angular shape of a practical tactical vehicle crunching through some nearby underbrush.
Lights flashed, and a civilian official, sounding nervous but friendly, introduced himself as the local sheriff. He had come with an armed and uniformed escort of two men.
Gregor took note of their nervous attitudes, and made his voice as calm as possible. “Expecting trouble, officer?”
“It wouldn’t surprise me any, sir. There’s a lot of unrest, even besides the enemy landers.”
“How near are they?”
“The closest I’ve been told about are maybe twenty kilometers from the capital. When I saw ‘em they weren’t moving around very much. The army, or the part of it that I can contact, says our ground forces have this landing contained.” Pause. “But then, they’ve said a lot of things.”
“Still no human faces with them?”
“Sir?”
“Nothing to suggest our attackers are under human control, even indirectly? No hint of Huvean origin?”
The sheriff shook his head. “They’re fighting machines, and damned tough ones, is all I know. I’ve been over there and hit them with this” he patted the butt of a formidable looking sidearm” but I haven’t hurt ‘em. As for Huveans, the only humans I’ve had to shoot at are some of our own people. Sir, I want you to lie as low as possible while you’re down here. High government officials are not the most popular people among our citizens just now.”
The sheriff went on to explain that looting and random destruction had suddenly broken out tonight, only a few city blocks from the Citadel.
Luon didn’t want to waste time hearing about that. “Sir, are the hostages still there?”
The sheriff looked at her tiredly. “Far as I know, miss.”
She turned to her grandfather. “Are we going right to the Citadel, Gramp?”
Gregor nodded. “It’s still the best place I can think of to start my search.”
There was a persistent rumor, Gregor’s informant insisted there could be nothing to it, that President Belgola had departed the besieged world days ago, vanished into the nebulosities of interstellar space. But this officer was sure, almost sure, that he had crafted for himself a secret hideout somewhere beneath the Citadel.
Some people were still hopeful that he would emerge with a solution, would lead his people yet to victory.
So far, rumor was having comparatively little to say about the president’s computer-guru, Logos, aka the Oracle. A few people were ready to put some faith in it as a secret weapon.
“Of course there are a lot of other rumors too,” the sheriff concluded. “You can take your pick.”
A distant roar of noise testified to the presence of an angry mob in the streets of the capital. By chance, just as their groundcar stopped right outside one of the gates of the Citadel, Gregor got a good look at a woman who had just been arrested as a looter, for stealing an elaborate fashion wig from a deserted shop. Looking harried and disheveled, she was trying, with some skill, to argue her position.
Pointing at the item in question, she yelled: “I’ll tell you what good it does! I’ve always wanted to have one, that’s what! What good is it going to do one of your gunmen to shoot me if I try to take it?”
Gregor’s officer escort muttered: “Maybe it’s a hopeful sign, somebody thinks she’ll live long enough to enjoy it.”
Everything the visitor saw and heard tended to confirm an opinion he had formed before coming down, that morale among the second- and third-level leadership of the planet had effectively collapsed. The sheriff seemed a notable exception, but he had few people left to work with. He spoke bitterly of rumors that hundreds of responsible authorities had secretly fled the system in several private ships, and was hoping that Gregor could somehow prove them false.
Gregor said: “I’d love to. But I’m afraid I can’t really tell you anything about the state of the government, or what the president is doing. Possibly after I’ve seen him.”
Berserker Prime Page 15
