Rogue Berserker

by Fred Saberhagen

  * * *

  While the brawl endured, it seemed, like most fights, to be taking place in some domain outside of time. But the decisive action could have been wound up in less than a minute, except that for some reason the enemy was holding back a bit.

  It flashed through Harry’s mind that everyone else on the wanderworld was dead, there might not be another human being alive, within light-years. But there were plenty of voices, and deadly purpose.

  He was disarmed, and a machine was holding him down, flat on the deck. But—

  What was that across the room? A heavy handgun lay there, almost within reach of some human’s lifeless hand.

  With another explosive effort, Harry’s muscles triggered his suit’s servos into exerting a greater surge of power than his latest captor had been expecting.

  Harry tore free yet again after being captured. He went rolling across the deck, grabbing up the handgun and then shooting from the hip. A reaching mechanical arm was blown loose at its shoulder.

  Two more of them were stalking Harry, no, three. They were still coming after him, but not to kill. By now Harry was certain that they wanted him alive.

  If he could somehow claw his way down to the magazine on the lower level of the base, where heavy ammo for ship’s ordnance had been stored, and some still was, he was going to take a bunch of damned machines with him, on one climactic ride into glorious nothingness—

  The stalking, the shooting and the killing, dragged on for several minutes in real time. As the process wore on, Harry had ample confirmation of the fact that, for whatever mysterious reason, the attacking enemy was being somewhat selective in the methodical way it went about killing off these upstart badlife.

  * * *

  After he was at last effectively pinned down, rigorously bound in place then left unattended, Harry was aware that the noise had effectively died down, and all the shooting ceased.

  Opening his eyes, he could see that the broken-in airlock door leading out to the dock had managed to reseal itself, providing an explanation for the fact that he was still able to breathe.

  It didn’t take Harry long at all to realize that some very effective manacles now bound his limbs—big, solid clamps, not little plastic strips. His hands, wrists crossed, were immovable in front of him, and his legs seemed to have been fastened to the deck.

  It seemed that, after all, he was not the only human within light-years who was still breathing. The additional survivor, having been somehow peeled out of his or her heavy armor, without being quite finished off, lay on the deck a couple of body lengths away from Harry. The human body was still moving feebly, like some half-smashed insect.

  The interior of the common room was no longer recognizable. The repeated gunfire in the confined space had wrought terrible damage, removing several interior bulkheads and wrecking all kinds of equipment. Life-support systems were struggling to maintain atmosphere inside of walls cratered and riddled with wild force-packets.

  One machine, while standing guard near the violated main entrance hatch, now resealed by some automatic repair system, also set to work like a busy housekeeper, using intense local bursts of ultraviolet light to sterilize the inside of all the rooms of microorganisms. Harry could detect the beam by the way some materials fluoresced under the ultraviolet.

  Looking out one of the cleared ports, he could see only one spacegoing berserker machine drifting around out there, presumably the same one that had disgorged the very efficient boarding party. To Harry, who thought he knew the usual types, this one did not appear to be a really sizable warcraft. Specialized in some way, yes, he felt quite sure of that. But specialized for what?

  A wave of faintness came over him, so he thought that maybe the air was going. Let it go …

  … but in a few moments he was starting to recover. Somebody, something, wanted him to go on breathing for a while. And he was doing that. Winston Cheng’s team had been decisively beaten, but not quite annihilated. Harry still breathed. The sound of his own breathing was about the only thing his battered ears still registered.

  And in fact, as he gradually realized, he wasn’t dying. Not yet. He was still essentially unhurt, though two-thirds of his helmet had been ripped or cut away, leaving his head exposed. The energetic and careful enemy had managed to bore several holes through laminated statglass a couple of centimeters thick, without destroying his face or even marking it. It was as if the machine had been determined to get a better look at Harry’s countenance, and it hadn’t trusted anything but direct contact to make sure.

  Very early in the fight, Harry’s battered brain seemed to recall, he had caught a glimpse of the world outside the station, the empty dock testifying that the Secret Weapon, the inventor’s pride and joy, might have got away. Total absence suggested not complete annihilation, but clean escape. All well and good, if true. The next question was, what had happened to the two motherless armed yachts that had supposedly been standing by?

  And, come to think of it, what about the courier that ought to have been here to carry away support personnel? As far as Harry could recall, it had been somewhat delayed, and he couldn’t remember that it had ever reached the base. So, it had very likely been blasted on its way in. A more hopeful possibility was that while still on its approach it had somehow detected serious trouble ahead, and successfully got away.

  It was quite possible that the attacking berserkers were still unaware of the existence of those ships, if the yachts had managed to pull out a couple of microseconds before the onrushing killers got the base clearly in their sights. But of course Harry couldn’t really be sure about the Secret Weapon. From the position in which he had finally been pinned down, he could no longer see anything that might be going on out on the docks.

  Starting to emerge again from the fog of battle, surrounded by ruin and wreckage, Harry was momentarily uncertain just where his captors had set him down. But the cleared ports provided easy orientation. For all the violent action he had been through, all the effort and gunplay, he seemed to have wound up still in the common room—or what was left of it—within a couple of strides of the spot where he had been standing when the fight started.

  Loud banging and scraping noises, along with sounds of rending metal, came drifting down the corridors from other portions of the habitable space, suggesting that the invaders were industriously searching every chamber and passageway. Where they encountered bars or locks they would be breaking in. What were they looking for? Primarily for life, of course. Just part of their usual routine; they would be probing fiercely for niches and crannies where anything from a human to a bacterium might be able to hide. As always, berserkers had their tools of destruction handy: flame-throwers, chemicals, projectors of ultraviolet or heavier radiation, to destroy anything that looked or smelled like life, to leave the chambers carved from the rock of the wanderworld sterile, and if possible uninhabitable.

  Slowly Harry’s attention was drawn back to his single fellow survivor, who was still lying on his/her back in a nearby tangle of wreckage. Well, of course it didn’t make sense to call either of them survivors. The methodical enemy would soon enough get around to finishing them both.

  Stretching his neck to peer over a jumble of fallen equipment, Harry could see just enough to tell that the other survivor was helmetless, like Harry himself. He couldn’t be sure if his fellow victim still breathed or not.

  Harry debated with himself as to whether he should try calling out, but decided against it. Rousing his companion to consciousness, if that proved possible, would not be doing him/her any favor. But presently there came evidence that life persisted; Harry could hear an occasional harsh breath through the ongoing din of cleansing and destruction.

  In the next moment, Harry thought his own time had come. One of the sterilizing teams suddenly appeared, a trio of inhuman shapes studded with flaring nozzles, and was approaching him. They picked up Harry together with his massive fetters, moved him slightly and carefully, just enough to get hi
m out of their way while they scorched the deck where he had been, then set him carefully down again. He wasn’t going to be killed just yet. Soon a machine would be coming around to ask him questions.

  From his new position he was able, by stretching his neck again, to look out through the port beside the battered main entrance, and see the entire dock. Now his earlier impression of emptiness was solidly confirmed. Not one of the berths was occupied. In the middle background, at an estimate maybe no more than a hundred meters distant from the dock, drifted the armed berserker transporter that had so decisively carried in the landing party.

  There was still no sign of the courier that had been due to arrive. And it was definite now, that the ship so finely crafted by the eccentric inventor had totally disappeared. Either the Secret Weapon had really got away, or it had been very swiftly captured and removed. Or else totally destroyed.

  It seemed likely to Harry that Winston Cheng, and whoever had happened to be with him aboard the Ship of Dreams—Satranji, almost certainly, likely the Lady Laura, maybe a few others—had managed to get away unscathed. But it was impossible to believe that Cheng would simply cut and run in search of safety. The old man had already been determined on a suicide mission in search of his beloved people, and berserkers had never yet frightened anyone away from suicide. Satranji was a different case, but he had shown himself to be a danger freak, always looking for some bigger risk to take. The idea of simply escaping would probably not appeal to him either.

  Harry couldn’t be sure of what had happened to the others, the support people and his colleagues, partners in the assault team that was now never going to assault anything. Some of them were lying dead in this very room, but others might not be. Dazedly he realized that one or more of the people he was unable to account for might, if they were properly suited, be taking cover in some remote, dark and airless corner of the extensive century-old excavations. After all the noise, they’d be huddling with eyes squinted shut and fingers in their ears. Well, good luck. If they refrained from trying to use their helmet radios, he supposed they might extend their lives by a few more minutes, or even hours.

  His own radio capabilities had been completely wiped out, along with three-quarters of his helmet, but outside of that all the suit’s systems seemed still to be functioning. Except for the ruined helmet, his new suit of heavy armor still retained all its essential parts. Only an hour ago this equipment had been new and solid—but no more. It was somewhat scratched and dented, a good match for the way his body felt inside.

  * * *

  There was another reference point, now that he thought to look for it. One of the advertising holoshows built into the wall, and normally suppressed during the present occupancy, had somehow been jarred into activity by all the violence. It was going through one of its routines with the usual computer-generated cheerfulness.

  The words appeared to come floating out into space, clinging near the wall in an illusion of three-dimensionality: Where do you plan to spend your next vacation? Isn’t it about time you gave thought to the idea of trying something different?

  As Harry watched, he wondered what guidelines Cheng’s systems used in targeting potential consumers. Somehow the limited optelectronic brain inside the ad had detected his breathing presence, and was trying to size him up as a prospective customer. He wondered vaguely what means Cheng’s inanimate sales force generally employed. They’ve got me wrong, he thought, my purchasing power has gone way down. Other offers flicked by, running the gamut from chewing pods to heavy industry. Cheng seemed to have a lot to advertise. There was an implication, though not a direct offer, that the companionship of sex robots would be available in certain of Cheng’s resorts. It seemed that the robotic sales force was shell-shocked.

  Meanwhile, the noises of the ongoing search had moved on, until he could barely hear them. In the new quiet, as it became possible to begin to think again, Harry took note of the fact that some of the holograms used in battle planning were still visible on a flickering stage. A demonstration of grand futility. Even as Harry watched, the image flared up one final time and then went out.

  * * *

  It was damned strange, but the one scene most demanding to be thought about at the moment was Harry’s memorable encounter, many days ago, with the paddy in the alley, way back on Cascadia. Part of his mind was busy making useless comparisons between that encounter and this current one.

  Paddy, way back in the dark alley all those long weeks ago, had been a stuffed nursery plaything compared to what faced him now. Paddy’s grippers were childish toys by contrast with the clamps of force and steel now binding Harry’s limbs, even servo-powered as they still were, into immobility.

  Looking around, he was able to recognize a few berserker parts, now only burned and twisted wreckage that mingled with the other debris of the battle. Harry felt a certain faint satisfaction from recognizing part of this as his own handiwork.

  Soon enough, one machine or another would be coming around to ask him questions. He would tell that machine as little as he could, though if it got really insistent he would probably wind up telling it everything. Sooner or later one of them would kill him. Harry almost felt impatient. At the moment there was not a single unit of the enemy directly in sight—a shifting of shadows in the uncertain light suggested movement somewhere down one of the side corridors, as if the enemy machines might be holding a conference there—but none of that mattered in the least. He wasn’t going anywhere.

  * * *

  Again Harry’s mind seemed to be drifting, awareness of his immediate surroundings fading out and coming back, which he supposed was not a bad thing for someone in his situation. It would not be at all surprising if the air was getting a little thin; with his helmet smashed, he no longer had a gauge to let him know.

  While he waited for Death, in the mechanized and efficient guise it had put on for him, to come and finish the day’s work it had so promisingly begun, Harry was shocked to hear a few words in a human voice.

  “Damn sure beat us to the punch.” Harry’s fellow survivor had roused enough to murmur that, in a voice that seemed to drift along the edge of consciousness.

  Harry grunted an agreement. He had to admire, with professional appreciation, the craftsmanship of the attack. Then he went dozing away again …

  Only to be jarred awake. “How are you feeling, sir?” a new voice asked him softly.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Recalled from interior drifting, Harry turned his head sharply to the right, as far as he could make it move. Then he needed half a minute to recognize Satranji’s proclaimed wife, the robot Dorijen, who was standing before him in the role of a poster child for the problem of collateral damage. There was no reason to think the berserkers had been trying to destroy her—they had no essential quarrel with robots—but everything about Dorry except her voice was altered drastically. The drab servant’s uniform had been almost entirely torn and seared away, and a lot of artificial skin and flesh and hair had gone the same route, bloodlessly revealing some fine interior examples of the art of the robotics engineer. Dorry’s left arm was entirely gone, and several chunks, including a couple of fingers, were missing from the right. One breast had been violently amputated, the other crushed, and the once-lovely face was ruined. Only one eye still appeared to be functioning.

  But none of this mayhem appeared to have discouraged Dorijen. “Can I be of any help to you, sir?” the robot asked Harry cheerfully.

  Harry glanced toward his fellow survivor of a few minutes ago, who now appeared to be dead. “Sure. Just get these clamps off my arms and legs.”

  The mangled right hand called attention to itself with a slight movement. “I regret, sir, that my capabilities in mechanical manipulation are much reduced.”

  “Yeah, yeah. All right. Never mind the clamps. What happened to you?”

  “Mister Satranji had deposited me in a storeroom, sir, on the level below this one, and I was there, when the enemy detonated an exp
losive sterilization device nearby. It was not that they were trying to destroy me, but—”

  “Yeah. Okay. They have now certified you as free of the Galactic disease called life. I will be awarded my certificate shortly. So how about telling me a funny story? I could use a laugh.”

  “I will endeavor to recall one, sir.” There was a brief pause. “Many humans find the following anecdote amusing. It seems that three purveyors of amusement products entered a bar at the same time, and began to dispute as to which of them should be served before the others. The first one—”

  “Never mind. Forget the story. Just shut up.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “No, scratch that. If you really want to be helpful, you could get me a drink.” With most of his helmet gone, his suit tank was no longer accessible.

  “I assume, sir, that you mean water?”

  “Do I look like I’m asking for a motherless champagne cocktail?”

  “No, sir.” There followed a hesitation. Unusual for a robot, but Dorry was obviously not working at top form “Sir, there is another matter that I find I must—”

  “Whatever it is can wait. First get me some water.”

  “Yes sir.” After another brief hesitation, Dorijen turned and shuffled away, her battered legs working with some difficulty.

  * * *

  Harry’s pinioned arms and legs were starting to cramp. He was surrounded by death and ruin, and worst of all nobody was going to talk to him. He would probably never hear another human voice. There had been a lot of times in his life when he would have considered that a blessing.

  Obviously the artificial gravity units under the deck were still working, and evidently the air loss from the punctured living space had been stopped by some emergency sealing, because Harry at least was still breathing. But damn, it was starting to get cold.