Berserker Fury

by Fred Saberhagen

  In the case of physical capture, there was never any way to be sure whether or not the enemy ever discovered that its message courier had been tampered with. Scanning the information content of a device without impeding its physical passage was a much more subtle and valuable achievement.

  One of the prime duties of human crew members who found themselves still alive in such a situation was to blow up their ship, if necessary along with themselves, thereby preventing the berserkers catching on to the fact that the vile badlife could now read many of their messages.

  Gift tried to think ahead. When he got to debriefing, which would certainly be very soon after he made port, he would tell them that the spacecraft commander, before he was killed, and after him Ensign Terrin, had been too busy fighting the enemy to say anything about blowing up the spy ship. And he, Gift, assumed that Terrin had set the destructor charges before the last human had bailed out.

  Another thing the debriefers would be likely to ask was if any of the crew, to Gift's knowledge, had used a termdream.

  Crew members on top-secret spy ships were generally sent out with their brains implanted with certain thought patterns, channels into which they were to turn their conscious thoughts in case of capture. Each was provided with a deathdream (the official name was termdream) scene to imagine in detail. A swiftly suicidal protection against interrogation. The death-dream was complex enough to minimize the danger of its being accidentally activated.

  Under certain kinds of stress, a glowing icon of any chosen shape or color—Gift had chosen a pink elephant—appeared in the subject's visual field, and from that point on the procedure was rather like firing a blink-triggered carbine or other weapon. One could set off his or her deathdream without being able to twitch a finger or turn one's head. The procedure was made just a little too complex to admit of its being accomplished accidentally.

  The standing orders were quite explicit. Once it was clear that capture of such a vessel by a berserker could no longer be avoided, the entire human crew had to blow up the ship—themselves with it if necessary. It was vital that the berserkers be left in possession of no more than a handful of wreckage. In that case it might be hoped that they would never realize that they had destroyed anything more than a disguised but basically ordinary scout ship.

  Only after he had been alone in space for a full day did Gift come to understand that to some people, depending on how the story was told, his getaway might well look heroic. It could very well look like an all-out effort to save the data—when in fact it had been anything but that.

  There was time and opportunity en route for the sole survivor to alter appearances just a little—Gift was not always fully aware that he was doing this—so that no one would ever, could ever, know that he had robbed two shipmates of their last chance for life, by concentrating on saving his own skin.

  The courier, its autopilot still functioning accurately despite its partial disassembly, had brought its lone passenger and its still-unevaluated cargo of fresh information to a point in space well within the patrolled planetary system surrounding the sun called Uhao. The system's sole habitable planet was the site of a huge Solarian military-naval base, set on an island and beside a city, Port Diamond.

  For four days inside the courier, traversing flightspace, confined in the oddly shaped, tomblike space that formed the only passenger accommodation, Gift's suited body had vibrated slowly—there was no room to drift—in what was effectively an absence of gravity.

  When Gift was instructing the autopilot, there were one or two destinations other than the Uhao system that the spacer might have chosen, either of which would have kept him confined in the cramped space for a slightly shorter time. Several times en route he had regretted his choice. The journey, with no chance of getting out of any part of his armor even for a minute, had been maddening, irritating in the extreme. Especially since there had turned out to be something wrong with the sanitary plumbing in his suit. He had lived through the last two days beset by muscle cramps, by a growing stench that the suit's life support seemed unable to combat, and by skin irritation on his lower body, besides the ominous numbness and paralysis in his left arm.

  No, he was absolutely sure that three people would never have survived the journey under these conditions. But Gift had picked Port Diamond without hesitation, at least partly because he knew, without consciously thinking about it, that he would be able to justify his choice if he were questioned.

  He was afflicted too by waves of nausea, and his wounded arm continued to hurt. A feeling of tightness and throbbing indicated swelling in the forearm, and the fingers on that hand had ominously quit working altogether.

  There were emergency food rations of a kind available inside Gift's suit, and with a little difficulty he could bring his right arm in from the suit's arm, and push a couple of fingers up into his helmet far enough to feed himself. At intervals he sucked recycled water through a tube.

  All in all, the days of his solo flight added up to a very unpleasant time. But every time he thought that, he reminded him-self that he was still alive, and his current problems receded into the proper perspective.

  When the vessel (one could hardly call it a ship) that was bearing him home developed in its small optelectronic brain any information it deemed worthy of communicating to its passenger, it employed a small, tinny interior voice. The voice was barely adequate, like everything else by which the courier interfaced with its rider. These messages came rarely into Gift's helmet, and he thought most of them irrelevant, the equivalent of routine weather reports regarding conditions in local flight-space.

  The first time during his ride that the courier really got Gift's attention was when the bored machine voice, in its unvarying tone, announced that he had arrived within the zone of his requested destination.

  He shook his head and at first could not believe what he had just been told. He asked that the message be repeated.

  On receiving confirmation that he was practically home free, Gift had the feeling that he was awakening from another bad dream, the worst and longest one that he had ever had.

  Gradually, Spacer Gift allowed himself to accept the news. He had arrived in the outer reaches of a friendly solar system, teeming with life. The courier, now only a few hundred thousand klicks from Port Diamond base, was still running smoothly on an autopilot whose outer housing the only passenger had half disassembled.

  Securely in the back of Gift's mind was the knowledge that now, after his poking and prodding at it, no way existed for anyone to tell whether there had really been anything wrong with the courier's astrogation system or not.

  And presently it was a scout ship coming out from Fifty Fifty, on routine patrol, that contacted him on radio. He could hear a live, organic, human voice, telling him to stand by to be picked up.

  THREE

  Some four standard days after Spacer Gift had first scraped compulsively at the freeze-dried blood newly hardened on his armor, and had punched in some simple commands on the control panel of the robot courier, commanding it to carry him away from danger, the machine delivered him right on target, only a few million klicks from the planet where he had told it he wanted to be. Couriers, at least the purely robotic kind, were very good at following orders.

  When his faithful rescuer had confirmed the arrival, Gift ordered it to shut down its drive, turn on a distress beacon to guide the folk who had already talked to him on radio, and stand by. No way was he going to try to steer this thing into a port, or even a close orbit.

  Feeling a desperate need to get out of the cramped space, he still hung back, nagged by the feeling that he had forgotten something of great importance, that he had brought it in here with him and was forgetfully leaving it behind. But there was nothing.

  Before he said goodbye to his prison cell he turned on his helmet light and looked once more at the half-disassembled autopilot. Its innards, mostly plain-looking, smooth-surfaced blocks of material marked with arcane engineers' symbols,
were still partially exposed for testing. He hadn't been able to figure out exactly what it was that had prematurely triggered the drive in a combat situation, whisking him away from his comrades before he could come to their aid. Very likely, he thought, enemy action had been responsible.

  And he noticed that his hand, his good hand, was shaking in its armored glove.

  The spacer wondered if a berserker mindbeam, switching or scrambling information inside his skull, might have been responsible for his early departure from the scene of combat. He couldn't quite convince himself of that. But once he was under way, of course, there had been no turning back.

  The luck that had favored Gift's survival over the last few days was with him still. The courier had been drifting in its new location for only a couple of hours when a patrol craft hailed it for the second time. The survivor answered at once, weakly but with great relief.

  The response came in a male Solarian voice, crackling in faintly from millions of kilometers out, with four or five seconds' distance delay. Quite naturally the speaker sounded astonished that a robot courier should be carrying a live passenger. Astonished, and ready to deal with berserker tricks.

  Under prodding by the wary voice, Gift recited his name, rank, and serial number, then tried to add some reassurance. Yes, he informed his questioner, he was still securely inside his armor. He'd be dead otherwise, for his present transportation wasn't pressurized. There would be no problem with opening the emergency hatch to get him out, without waiting until the courier was taken aboard some larger ship. In fact, even though he was wounded, and the integrity of his self-sealing armor had to be considered questionable, susceptible to springing a new hole if he moved about, he had every intention of getting himself out of the cramped place and waiting for his rescuers outdoors in space.

  Gift ignored their brisk advice to stay just where he was, inside the courier, until they reached him. Figuring he knew more about his own situation than they did, with a decisive gesture, he turned his radio off. Then he set about the task of getting himself out through the little hatch, a process that turned out to be much slower and more awkward than getting in had been. Once again, of course, he had only one arm to manage things, letting the hurt one just trail along. The plugged spot in the suit's left arm held, through all the bumping and increased movement. The painkillers in his armor saw to it that pain remained no more than a faint annoyance.

  Once free of the metal prison that had saved his life, Gift drew a deep breath and had a good look at the Port Diamond's sun, which was very Sol-like indeed.

  Outside the courier, keeping a grip on the edge of the hatch with his good hand while he waited for his pickup to arrive, Gift felt like a man emerging from his tomb. He experienced a fantastic sense of relief on being able to unlimber his cramped body from the inadequate space—how could anyone ever have imagined that three people would fit in there? No way.

  And a few minutes later, aboard the patrol craft, getting his body out of the space armor at last felt even better—when he dropped its last component thudding on the deck, his live audience wrinkling their noses at the sudden stench, he wanted to see it all gathered up by maintenance robots and dropped into the trash.

  Within a few hours of being taken on board the patrol craft, Gift found himself cleaned up and dressed in fresh clothes, riding a wheelchair across the surface of Port Diamond's world, for the short trip from shuttle to ambulance, under a blue sky streaked with the dun-brown of defensive forcefields, like something risen from the chimneys of some ancient industry. His left forearm, or whatever might be left of it, had been immediately swathed in a bulky, protective bandage by his rescuers—Gift hadn't watched. He didn't know, and didn't really want to think about, whether he still had a hand in there or not. Instead he concentrated on the fact that his feet were at least within reach of solid ground again. His mumbled prayers for survival had been answered—maybe just a coincidence. But he'd have to look into that business of praying, he really would.

  He'd do it someday soon, when he had time. As a down payment he now muttered a brief prayer of thanks to a vaguely imagined god of his childhood, adding a plea that he would never again have to leave this beautiful world—and looking around the spaceport.

  Fate, or Someone, was looking after him. Alive! Thank God, thank all the gods of space and planets, he was still alive!

  While the robot stretcher-medic bore him along on the short roll to the ambulance, he found himself frequently casting sudden glances back over his shoulder, and starting at unexpected noises.

  Standing in a small group of people at the edge of the landing ramp was a certain man, who when seen from the rear looked remarkably like the late Ram Das, astrogator on Gift's spy ship. But when the fellow turned around, he was much older than Ram Das, though there was still a slight resemblance. Gift let out an involuntary gasp of relief.

  Once down on the Uhaoan surface, with news of his survival and pending arrival spreading rapidly ahead of him, Gift was taken quickly to the base hospital, where he received immediate medical attention.

  The first human medic who looked at his arm, after he had reached the ambulance, called immediately ahead to the hospital. Gift was unable to hear either side of the conversation.

  Also waiting at the hospital for Gift's arrival, every bit as ready as the doctors and nurses, was a representative of Hypo, smiling, dapper in civilian clothes, and inconspicuous except for the specially coded communicator he carried in his hand. This fellow fell into step beside the stretcher as it rolled toward the entrance.

  "Anything you want to tell me right away?" the man demanded without preamble, maintaining a brisk pace.

  Gift rolled his head from side to side on the flat pillow.

  Seemingly casual questions followed. Gift really began to tell his story for the first time. Soon the smug-seeming, know-it-all debriefer from Hypo was irritating the returning hero by assuring him that long experience had demonstrated that in fact three normal-sized Solarian adults could fit in, though of course they would have to get rid of their space armor first. The long narrow chamber could be pressurized, after a fashion, with breathable air. Water, food, and plumbing would all be limited to what the suits could provide. But there seemed no proof that it would have been absolutely impossible for three people to come through such a three-day ride alive.

  Gift nodded soberly, in apparent full agreement. But privately he was telling himself: What the hell did any of these people know about riding a courier, these smug people who wrote the manuals? Had any of them ever actually tried it?

  The second, which was also the longest and most difficult, session of Spacer Gift's debriefing took place while he lay flat on his back with his left side numbed, while the surgeons (separated from the debriefing talk by a transparent statglass wall) were working on his left arm. Everyone involved was occupied in this way for almost an entire hour.

  He officially reported the complete destruction of the nameless (even numberless, as far as any of its crew had been aware) spy ship, assuring his listeners that it had been utterly blown to shreds before any berserker had been able to get its grippers on any of the ultrasecret material inside. This mollified the grim-looking debriefing officers somewhat. But they still had plenty of questions, some of which evidently couldn't wait, and were asked and answered, with a great deal of repetition, with the medics and Gift's left arm, the latter protruding through a kind of grommet, continued to be sealed off behind a panel of statglass.

  A couple of hours later the debriefers had gone, for the time being. The surgeon, looking in on his latest patient as Gift lay in a recovery room, was brisk, matter-of-fact. A gray and elderly man, who kept stroking his little mustache, as if he had to keep rediscovering its shape.

  "We had to take your arm, you realize," he remarked, matter-of-factly, after asking his patient how he felt. "Eight centimeters below the elbow."

  Nifty, still flat on his back, and still in the process of getting his mind free from the dru
gs used during the operation, puffed out his breath. He didn't look down at his left side, where whatever the medics had done lay hidden under a puffy blanket. He didn't want to do any investigating just yet. He didn't even feel like trying to move. All he said was: "I thought something like that was going on."

  It was easy to see that the surgeon, who now began a detailed explanation of the removal of the damaged limb and its replacement, was proud of the neat way these things were managed nowadays.

  The patient, sneaking a peek now, could see that his own left hand, so immobile and so numb it that might have belonged to someone else, at least appeared to be just where it ought to be, and still had fingers. He counted them. Four, and a thumb, sticking out from under the edge of a cool green sheet.

  The surgeon began filling in details. Immediately following the amputation, while Gift was still on the operating table, he had been fitted with an artificial left forearm and hand. That was why the operation had taken so long. There was startlingly little change in the appearance of his left hand, thought Gift, with the surgeon's encouragement pulling back the sheet and getting a better look at the new one now. If they hadn't told him, he would probably have accepted those fingers as his own. But at the moment the prosthesis was almost totally inert.

  The surgeon, and a couple of younger apprentices who came by later, were reassuring about the paralysis and numbness. "That'll change quickly. Of course you'll never feel pain in the replacement hand. The nerves will transmit a distinctive tingle to indicate damage."

  "That's good," the patient muttered. "I mean the part about no pain." So far he was aware only of a vague and intermittent discomfort, somewhere up around the elbow.

  Artificial bone, muscle, nerves, and blood vessels, along with skin, hair, and nails closely matched in appearance to his own, had been melded tightly with his organic parts. The artificial tissues would generally draw energy chemically from his blood. Gift was told that it usually took a day or so for the patient's nerves, growing under a heavy stimulus, to make the right connections; to complete the job would take a week or so, and he would have to baby the arm a little until then, as if it had simply been sprained.