Such a chaotic mess as the Gravel Pit could not endure for long, on the astronomical time scale; calculations based on conservative assumptions predicted that in ten thousand standard years, or perhaps a hundred thousand at the most, the “gravel” would have ground and polished and shattered itself, through millions upon millions of collisions, into some reasonably well-behaved and predictable system. Probably the next long stable interval would see a system consisting mostly of Saturnian rings of dust and sandy grit; whether either humans or berserkers would still be around when that time came remained to be seen. It seemed very unlikely there would be both.
* * *
Lady Masaharu, in her capacity as coordinator of the expedition, had several times reminded the other members of the crew that they could not expect to achieve their goal by simply hurling two or three ships, however well one of them might be disguised, at a berserker base.
The rescue attempt had remained Cheng’s consuming obsession, by far the most important thing in his life. These last few days he had become, if anything, even more fanatical about it.
Winston Cheng’s tens of thousands of employees, men and women scattered across several sectors, formed a vast pool of talent, much of which was available for him to call on at any time. There were people available ready and willing to undertake any sort of job; among the thousands were a large number of people who were not likely to ask inconvenient questions of the boss.
The magnate might not even be aware of the fact that he was somehow profiting from those robotic sex machines, unless he took the trouble to investigate.
* * *
Damn the expense, and damn the dangers. The human recon specialists at the base, led by Harry and Satranji, had had a hundred robot scouts shipped to WW 207GST in a big freighter, and were sending them out prodigally. These machines took gruesome risks, jumping in and out of flightspace while deep in this strange system’s gravitational well.
A majority of those devices never came back from such missions, and it was presumed they were lost in collisions with dust or rocks or clouds of gas—at the speeds that the scouts were made to risk, in their human masters’ desperate quest for knowledge, collision with a swirl of thin gas could have the same practical effect as with a granite asteroid.
Of course some of the loyal robots might have been picked off by the entity they were trying to locate.
But not all of them were failures.
* * *
“This time we’ve got something.”
When at last one of the robotic scouts was proudly brought in to 207GST with an actual image of the enemy’s base, somewhat blurry but probably reasonably accurate, the visible structure appeared to be even smaller than anyone on the team had expected. Indeed, it seemed so very small that their crazy enterprise began to seem almost feasible.
The size and configuration were described, along with any visible evidence of activity. The structure, perhaps half a kilometer in length, appeared to consist of a series of interconnected domes, strung along the surface of a smooth rock roughly oval in shape, and not a whole lot larger than the structure it supported.
It seemed that this was the extent of the berserker presence in the Gravel Pit system; none of the other rocks nearby in stable orbits showed any sign of having been worked on.
There was little to be seen in the way of spacegoing machines—only a couple of small units—and nothing in the way of factories or shipyards. There was only a small dock. This was not a full-scale berserker base, with heavy industrial capacity, but a very specialized installation.
Harry had never heard of any other berserker base being quite this small. There was no sign that the berserker defenses had taken notice of the scout before it plunged back into the maelstrom with its precious sampling of information.
Hopes began to rise among the members of the assault team, and the support staff. There seemed to be a fighting chance that the berserker’s ground installation could be taken by surprise, and seized by a small attacking force—provided that Gianopolous’s trickery with the identification code worked anywhere nearly as well as he claimed it would.
CHAPTER TWELVE
The inventor had been rendered nervous by his talk with Cheng, and the effect was not entirely produced by the vast sum of money he had just been given, in the form of a guaranteed letter of credit, valid at practically any financial institution in the Galaxy. Nor was it entirely due to the impending destruction of his ship.
Remembering the inventor’s nervous reaction in the Trophy Room, Harry was curious to know if the man had ever actually faced a berserker.
Before the Lady Masaharu took Gianopolous with her aboard the Secret Weapon, he had been having a confrontation with a series of guards. He kept insisting: “I want to leave here. Now.”
The last of Cheng’s human employees to hear this complaint simply turned and walked away, leaving only a cheerful robot to deal with the inventor.
The robot said, brightly: “Yes sir. I understand that you wish to leave. But no ship at this station is currently boarding passengers or visitors.”
When Gianopolous persisted, Winston Cheng’s robot pointed out that contracts had been signed, the sale was finalized. “Sir, you are required to keep yourself immediately available as a consultant for a period of ten standard days. That is clearly specified in the fourth article. Were you to separate yourself from the other members of the support group, the whole contract could be considered void, and your advance refundable.”
“There was no such provision in the document as I read it!”
“Then, sir, I would suggest it is possible you did not read it thoroughly enough.”
A copy of the document was readily available. The robot, suddenly deforming itself until it lost what faint resemblance to a human body it had possessed, produced a printout from its belly.
Gianopolous threw the paper on the deck without looking at it, knowing well enough what it would say.
He stewed in silence for a few moments, then burst out: “I tell you I want passage on some other ship. It seems that you have couriers coming and going here almost continuously. This contract business can be settled later, in civil court.”
The agent dealing with him was imperturbably sympathetic. “I’m very sorry, sir. Passenger space is currently unavailable except on the evacuation courier. No other ships are scheduled to arrive.”
“That is a barefaced lie!”
“No sir. This base is being abandoned, and—”
“This amounts to kidnapping!”
“Not at all, sir. You are perfectly free. No one is trying to prevent your leaving.”
“Yes, I see. Quite so. What do you expect me to do, walk? Flap my arms and fly?”
“I regret, sir, that figures of speech as employed by humans are not always clear to me. Perhaps if you rephrased your argument.”
Of course there was no point in Gianopolous trying to send out a message appealing for help—the only means of transmitting it in any meaningful way would be to put it on the evacuation courier, and in the natural order of things, days must pass before it was delivered anywhere.
In Harry’s presence he grated: “There is not a single human being in the Galaxy who would inconvenience himself to save my life.”
Harry considered it. “I don’t suppose I would. But I’ve known people who make a habit of that kind of thing.”
A minute later, word came from the tycoon, still caught up in eleventh-hour preparations, that he wanted Gianopolous to arrange some means by which the small ship could carry more hardware and perhaps more people on its all-important mission.
It had to be able to carry, with a reasonable degree of security in transit, an attack squad of perhaps half a dozen breathing humans in armored combat suits, their weapons, and an approximately equal number of their toughest, quickest robots. Two medirobots had also been installed, in accordance with the idea that prisoners were going to be found, and might be in need of repairs when rescued.
Harry noted with a feeling of vague satisfaction that everyone had now adopted his name for the ship. Well, almost everyone—he had yet to hear it pass the lips of the inventor.
While the inventor loaded his faithful Perdix with tools and supplies, and led his robot off to help him make final changes aboard the Secret Weapon, Cheng and the Lady Masaharu, in consultation with their combat veterans, were making final decisions on the assault plan. The scheme emerging from this process called for the initial approach to the berserker base to be made only by Gianopolous’s ship. The Secret Weapon would not try to avoid detection, but approach openly in the character of a visiting berserker, relying on cleverly faked signals to prevent identification as an enemy.
The remainder of the attacking force consisted of Winston Cheng’s two armed yachts. The original plan had called for assembling a somewhat larger squadron, but it had been decided that to add a few more ships would unacceptably increase the chance of the force being detected as it approached the berserker base; and there was no possibility of being able to scrape together a task force on the Space Force level.
Cheng was already spending almost all his time aboard the Ship of Dreams, accompanied by Satranji, who occupied the pilot’s seat. Neither of the yachts were going to carry boarding machines or an attack squad of humans. The larger of the two, Ship of Dreams, the one Satranji would be driving, was in effect the flagship of Winston Cheng’s fleet.
The plan as it had been finalized called for both yachts to follow the Secret Weapon sunward. When the fake berserker reached a certain calculated distance from its target, perhaps a hundred kilometers, they would remain in reserve, trying their best to keep out of range of detection by the defensive system that the berserker base was sure to have. They would depend on a secret signal from the Secret Weapon to enable them to maintain the desired distance.
At the very moment when the assault ship landed on the berserker base, or more likely crash-landed, disgorging armored humans and fighting hardware, both yachts would dart into action, closing with the enemy at the best speed they could manage. Depending on the needs of the moment, they would either support the attack with the heaviest weapons they had, create a diversion if that seemed to be called for, or, in the most favorable scenario imaginable, stand by to lend cover and support in the Secret Weapon‘s fighting retreat with rescued prisoners aboard.
* * *
Professor Gianopolous reported back, saying he had done what little he could in the time available, and lacking certain specialized equipment of his own workshop, to increase his ship’s carrying capacity. He pointed out the difference, how he had created enough new space to allow for carrying all the desired machines plus a little extra ammo. Actually his inspired tinkering was quite impressive.
But the inventor was unhappy, despite the monumental letter of credit in his pocket. Reverting to pessimism, he complained to Harry that things were working out much as he, Gianopolous had suspected they would. Winston Cheng and his lieutenants were much more interested in his peculiar ship, ready-made as if for their purpose, than they were in his scientific achievements or his theories. In fact, now that they had his ship with all its systems working, the raiders, or most of them, had no use for his ideas or advice. On the other hand, they were, without admitting the fact, making it impossible for him to leave the base.
Harry, beginning to feel curiously detached, was willing to offer advice. “Cheng doesn’t want word of what he’s planning to get out. As soon as we’re launched on our mission you’ll be able to go wherever you like.”
He had touched on a sore point. “Go how? There won’t be any ships available.”
Harry blinked. “Of course there will. There’s a courier due in here at any moment now—they must have told you about it. The plan is to evacuate all support people, immediately after the final combat launch. You can certainly go with them. There’ll be no one left here, nothing but a couple of caretaker robots.”
“Of course they told me about that ship. But suppose I don’t want to be just part of the mob. And where will it take me?”
“I don’t know. Somewhere safe. You’ll have a fortune in your pocket, and the full possibilities of Galactic travel open to you. What’s there to be upset about?”
“That’s all very fine. But there’s got to be some way that I can leave now. On my own terms.”
“I don’t see why there’s got to be. It looks like there isn’t.”
Gianopolous wasn’t listening. “He can’t just keep me here. Are you getting out of here, Harry? Take me with you.”
“You’re forgetting why I’m here, pal. Losing your grip on reality. When Cheng heads sunward in his yacht, some of us are going with him, in your ship.”
* * *
Gianopolous firmly declined the opportunity—which Lady Laura offered knowing it would be refused—to play some active role in what he called a crazily suicidal raid. He declined to be aboard any of the ships taking part, and expressed a wish to leave the wanderworld for more peaceful regions, as soon as possible.
He did not look forward to the time when the actual raid began. As a nonparticipant he would find himself unwillingly stuck on 207GST, perhaps the only human amid a small horde of servitor machines. He would be waiting for the machines to receive some word of the outcome of the raid, and pass it on to him—most likely would be the ominous absence of any word, signifying total failure. However grim the message, the robots would announce it to him in the same unfailingly cheerful voices that they used for every utterance.
Gianopolous continued his complaints about not being allowed to leave the wanderworld. But Cheng didn’t want him running around loose just yet, not after the inventor had learned something of the details of the coming raid. There was still a risk that the Space Force would learn of the project and attempt to stop it.
* * *
Harry, on returning to his cabin, felt that Becky and Ethan were coming closer all the time. Drifting off for a last nap before the balloon went up, he thought that he could almost feel them near.
In his last dozing sleep before the scheduled attack, Harry had one more dream, a nightmare in which little Ethan kept calling to him, but still remained hidden, never letting himself be found …
He awoke from a dream in which Becky and Ethan both held up their hands to him, wrists tightly bound in plastic ligatures—
Harry was just getting out of bed, with a new look of mad hope in his eye, when the siren signaled an alert—
He had just time to get his armor on when the attack came bursting in—
* * *
The team was going through a rather intense last planning session, with all key members of the assault team gathered inside the common room of their base on 207GST.
Mister Winston Cheng was on hand, moving from one terse conference to another, and certainly would be in the control room of his yacht when the attack was launched.
The peculiar ship they had newly purchased from Gianopolous was at the dock right where Harry had parked it, its camouflage tarp being stowed away inside, along with new medirobots and a carefully chosen assortment of other gear.
Team members and technicians were coming and going from the Secret Weapon, getting things in shape, with less than an hour now to go before the scheduled launching of the attack.
Harry was conducting a last refresher course on the use and limitations of body armor in the wardroom, with Doc and other people in attendance, while the coordinator had gone aboard the inventor’s ship with the inventor, getting last-minute details straightened out.
Some kind of watch had been set, by Cheng’s own security people and machines, to keep the nervous Gianopolous from just getting back into his clever invention and driving it away—it was no longer his property. But in this case the Lady Masaharu had br
ought him aboard.
The flagship yacht, with Winston Cheng aboard and Satranji in the pilot’s seat, was hanging in nearby space, no more than a hundred meters from the dock, while the second yacht was keeping station about a kilometer away.
* * *
At last all the necessary components of the planned assault seemed to have come together, acceptably if not exactly smoothly. Now Harry could see little or no reason for any further delay in launching the attack. But it was not up to him to give the order to pull the trigger.
All the members of the actual assault team, as they gathered in the common room, were wearing their new suits of heavy combat armor. Even though all members of this crew were experienced in combat, some were used to different types of gear. Few or none were intimately familiar with the equipment provided by Winston Cheng, and most were having occasional difficulties dealing with the unfamiliar feel and mass.
Harry, in addition to his other tasks, had been given the job of calibrating the weapons that the human participants in the attack were going to carry—another step on the checklist. This process involved tuning up the coded signals that would be exchanged between suits and weapons, and were supposed to distinguish friend from foe, a procedure that assumed added importance if and when it came to firing them in alphatrigger mode. Similar guns were built into several of the berserker-killing machines.
Another item on the checklist was to make sure all weapons were fully charged.
* * *
Doc, the only medic accompanying the assault team, had finally been forced to proceed with a task he had been putting off, that of getting checked out on the armored suit he would be required to wear. Looking dubiously at the unpowered mass of inert metal, he asked Harry: “Can we depend on this when the fighting starts?”
Rogue Berserker Page 15
