Rogue Berserker

by Fred Saberhagen

  Harry was grimacing, shaking his head. “They can’t be aboard the Secret Weapon. That’s just not possible. Are you telling me he’s got Becky and Ethan somehow hidden on Cheng’s yacht? That’s not possible either.”

  The assassin said: “I know very little about the yacht. But the life-unit Satranji is in possession of another vessel, besides the Ship of Dreams.”

  “Another ship. Where? What are you talking about?”

  “I loaned him a small ship in the early stage of our collaboration, and it has been an essential tool.” The rogue went on to describe how, in the course of its relationship with Satranji, it had given him a small vessel called the Chewing Pod, that it had captured in an earlier raid. Since then Satranji had evidently succeeded in keeping it hidden from all his human associates.

  Harry listened, pondering, while the rogue explained. There was no reason why Satranji could not have another small ship under his control, running it on autopilot somewhere in relatively nearby space. He could have it following the Ship of Dreams. As pilot of the yacht, he would probably have been able to keep to himself the fact that it was being followed.

  Harry couldn’t remember the Chewing Pod‘s name being on the official roster of missing ships—but that was a long list, and it was a long time since he had looked at it.

  * * *

  There came a lull in the fighting, with the rogue refraining for the moment from counterattack, while it tried to achieve the arrangement of life-units it wanted. The assassin’s machines were maneuvering for position. The rogue reported that the berserker-bashers deployed from the Secret Weapon had proven inadequate for the job, and all or almost all of them were already reduced to junk. To anyone just arriving on the scene the battle might well seem to have concluded. The noise level had dropped to near silence.

  “What do you intend to do, Harry Silver, when you confront the life-unit Satranji?”

  “That can wait. Right now all I want to do is get around him, past him, and find my people, if they’re somehow stuck on one of these damned ships. I’ll demonstrate my intentions toward that rat-turd when the time comes. If it comes. Are you trying to keep the two of us apart?”

  The rogue had no immediate answer to that. All of Harry’s little band of refugees had got themselves into suits. All had their helmets on and sealed, but, fortunately or unfortunately, Harry’s was still the only radio that was functioning at all. As if he had given them orders, they were all following him in the direction of the docks, moving toward the damaged ships that offered the only possible means of escape.

  * * *

  Satranji was calling in to the rogue again, and this time it allowed Harry to listen in. It seemed that the goodlife man continually wanted to reassure himself that his giant partner was still functioning, and had at least a good chance of coming out on top in the current fight.

  Harry prompted: “Tell him you want some solid evidence that the two specimens connected to me are still alive and in good condition.”

  “He has already assured me that they are.”

  “Glad to hear it. But none of your units have actually seen them.”

  “That is correct.”

  “Again, ask him who was on the ship with him. The ship that brought him here.”

  Harry’s talk with the rogue was interrupted by another fierce outbreak of machine-on-machine violence, so for a few minutes at least the humans on board were relatively free to communicate with each other, and to some extent do what they would.

  Except that just standing upright was something of a problem.

  Satranji was back on radio, telling the rogue that the latest outbreak of fighting had forced him to retreat for a short distance and take shelter. But he was not going back to his ship, and would not bring his prisoners aboard the base, until he had satisfied himself as to just what was going on.

  Then he does have them. Or at least he’s still claiming to. Harry, listening in silence, kept reminding himself that nothing the man said could be taken at face value.

  He also kept wondering what had happened to Cheng and Masaharu.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  The spacesuits that Harry’s little mob of refugees had put on were not designed for combat, and would offer small protection against anything worse than a lack of atmosphere. But having covered their bodies, the former prisoners were beginning to feel protected and assertive, and some were agitating for a quick completion of their escape.

  Their suits’ airspeakers were working if their radios were not. “Let’s get going! Get us out of here!”

  It was as if nothing that Harry had told them so far had really registered, nor had the sight of their fellow ED specimens, hanging on the wall. To do them justice, none of them had been able to hear any of his ongoing dialogue with the rogue.

  “There’s a couple of things that have to be taken care of first,” he advised. Movement in the little knot of refugees was tending in the same direction that Harry was now moving, back toward the dock and the crashed ships.

  One demanded of Harry: “Where’s your ship?”

  “Tell you what, you just run ahead and pick whichever one you like. Try and find one where the people aren’t all dead. Then if you’re in such a motherless hurry, just go on without me.”

  That earned him a small respite. But before they had gone much farther, Claudia Cheng had moved up to Harry’s side. She tuned her suit’s airspeaker to a low volume as they walked, and began whispering to him of the fantastic rewards that would be his if he could get her and her offspring out of this alive.

  “I can’t move!” This interruption came from little Winnie, whose mother had had to stuff him into a suit that was marginally too big, and the boy had good reason to complain. The child-sized suit was designed to allow various adjustments to be made by some controlling authority outside, and Harry reached over to turn off the whiner’s airspeakers.

  “Sure you can,” he assured the suit’s inmate, who was actually still capable of walking, after a fashion. There was nothing to be done about the disparity in size.

  Claudia was still pleading: “… I can see that this isn’t going at all smoothly, and you might not be able to save everyone. But if you can get the two of us out—”

  Harry cut her off. “You’re high on the list of people to be saved, lady, because you’ve got junior here. But you’re still not right at the top.”

  She was watching Harry, trying to calculate, still not understanding. She was just not very good at listening. None of these people seemed to be.

  The escaped prisoners continued to follow Harry back toward the sounds of sporadic fighting.

  One of them pushed forward to demand of Harry: “Why are we going this way, toward the fighting?”

  Now that he was moving again, with a definite goal, he felt not quite so desperate. “Because there’s nowhere else to go. The only ships we know about are here. Probably they’re all wrecked, but at least one of them ought to have lifeboats that are still working. Maybe there’ll even be a launch.”

  They had gone only a little farther when Harry called a halt, in a space that he thought seemed as sheltered as anything they were likely to find. When his faithful following had shuffled into a kind of ring around him, he announced: “This is as far as I can guide you, people. I’m going ahead and scout.”

  Most of his entourage looked alarmed. One demanded: “What should we do?”

  “Damned if I know what to tell you, except that this way would seem to be the only way out. I shouldn’t have to remind you that whatever way you go, it’s going to be very chancy. Don’t know where a safe spot is, or what’s going to happen next.” When he started to move again, and everyone came right with him, Harry stopped to warn them: “Better not stay too close to me. There’s liable to be shooting, with me as a target, and your suits puncture pretty easily.”

  That got Harry enough space for the time being, and in another moment he had turned his back and was moving away. Taking a quick glance back
he could see that at least three or four of the people were still following, though now at a more respectful distance, staying thirty or forty paces back. Claudia Cheng continued to be a bit ahead of the others, still towing Winnie who hobbled with difficulty in his awkward suit. Harry felt sorry for the kid, who was going to need a guardian angel to get through this alive. Angel, hell, say a couple of archangels.

  He thought the young woman looked slightly puzzled behind her faceplate, probably because he still had given her no guarantee of special treatment.

  * * *

  Harry had traversed this section of the berserker base only once before, going in the opposite direction and under very different conditions. There was actually more light now, eerie pulsating glows of different colors, alternating with a flicker here and a flicker there, emanating from damaged forcefields, as well as various sites where metal and other materials had been heated to incandescence. Harry found it hard to be sure of distances and directions, but instinct suggested that he was getting close to the docks, and very close to where the ships were reported to have come crashing down, one after the other.

  He was also entering an area where combat had very recently taken place. The heavy structural members nearby were scorched and marked with spots and patches of still-glowing slag; and fragments of berserker fighting machines lay strewn about. It was impossible to tell if these bits of wreckage had once served the rogue or the assassin.

  Harry continued working his way back through the half-ruined fortress of research, until he found himself again walking in vacuum, traversing a region that was still being effectively walled off by microfields, restraining molecules of air while allowing larger objects to pass freely.

  Easing his way slowly forward, Harry peered over an obstacle to spot the upper portion of a human body that was sitting on the deck, facing toward him. A moment later he had recognized the Lady Laura by her distinctive suit of heavy combat armor. She was leaning back awkwardly against a wall, her carbine leaning beside her. A flickering of bluish light reflecting from the overhead created the momentary illusion that she was moving, but when Harry had taken another step he could see that her suit was badly smashed, crushed and punctured in a way that hurt to look at. Its occupant could not be anything but dead.

  Another armored figure was lying with its helmet in the lady’s lap. Around the fallen couple were strewn pieces of shattered metal, what appeared to be the remains of more than one berserker unit. As Harry crept still closer, Winston Cheng feebly raised his head to look at him. The weapon Cheng had dropped, a heavy handgun, lay a few centimeters from the metal gauntlet covering his outstretched hand. Most of the arm above the hand was gone, armored sleeve and all, and the suit had been seriously punctured in several other places. Harry swiftly abandoned any thoughts of trying to give medical assistance. Now Harry was close enough to see that inside the Lady Masaharu’s helmet a tiny telltale damage signal was flashing regularly. Nobody was going to answer the phone on that one.

  Cheng twitched again, and his airspeaker made a faint sound. “Harry …”

  Holding the carbine ready, Harry turned to brace his back against the wall, so nothing could come at him from behind. Then he let himself down, awkward in his heavy suit, to sit beside the tycoon and his dead lady.

  The old man’s eyes were open, and he began to speak, as if he and Harry were already in the middle of a conversation.

  “… and how could a man trust the damned thing to keep to any bargain that was arranged? Hey? Remember that, Silver.” Gasp. “Remember that …”

  “Yeah. I will. I’ll write that down, soon as I get a chance. It’s hard to find a partner you can trust.”

  Harry kept his airspeaker’s volume very low. “Listen to me, Cheng. Your Claudia and Winnie are still alive. They’re all right. They may be along here at any moment.”

  There was the sound of a long, indrawn breath. “Ah … Harry. We were right to come after them. Alive. Alive.” Behind the statglass helmet plate, Cheng’s face was totally transfigured, mouth open and eyes staring.

  Turning his head, Harry saw that the two people had come into sight. The boy looked grotesque in his oversized suit, but the childish face was clearly visible.

  The old man’s faint voice rasped: “Winnie and Claudia … Harry, I promised you … a great reward. I meant it. Half of everything I own is yours.”

  Harry was keeping his eyes raised, probing the background, watching and listening for the stalking approach of death. He said, absently: “That’s very generous.”

  “Everything …” The word came out in a fading whisper.

  Claudia had come very close. Now she crouched down, almost pouncing, almost sitting on Winnie to hold him in one place. For the first time Harry heard real fear in her voice. “Grandfather, you’re badly hurt, you don’t know what you’re saying.”

  Cheng’s eyes were half closed, and he seemed unconscious, drifting. Harry studied the woman beside him, considering. Then he offered: “I think you heard the same thing I did. Your dear grandfather says he owes me a new ship.”

  “A ship?” The heiress considered. Relief set in abruptly. “Yes, I believe that’s what he said. Certainly. A ship. One ship. Any kind of ship.”

  “That’s not what Grandpa said,” Winnie offered helpfully. He had discovered the way to turn his airspeakers back on.

  “Yeah it is.” Harry was dogmatic.

  “I want a new ship, too.”

  * * *

  After repeating his warning to Claudia, more sternly this time, that she and the kid had better not stay close to him, Harry moved on, toward the crashed and stranded ships.

  A glance back showed him that at least some of the other escapees were also following him, but at a slightly greater distance than before. The scene of carnage must have made a strong impression.

  Turning his back on the Cheng family, Harry had advanced only a few more meters when he ran into trouble.

  Fortunately his sensitive airmikes picked up the sound of the first assailant’s steady advance before the thing detected him, and he got off the first shot. The return blast, a riposte a fifth of a second too late and a touch off-target, only melted a hole halfway through Harry’s breastplate, and knocked him off his feet. Shakily he observed to himself that this was probably not precisely the kind of combat for which these berserker units had been designed.

  Regaining his feet, examining the freshest bits of wreckage in the immediate vicinity, he had no way to tell if it was one of the assassin’s units that he had just killed, or one of the rogue’s. Except that if the machine had been under the rogue’s control, it would have warned him … wouldn’t it?

  As soon as he dared take the time to look around again, he noted that Claudia, who had armed herself with Lady Laura’s fallen weapon, had still been keeping herself and Winnie within twenty-five or thirty meters of him, despite his warnings. Even as Harry watched, the woman turned aside, dragging her child with her, and crawled out of Harry’s line of vision. He had the impression that she had spotted some cubbyhole or spot that offered at least the illusion of safety, and was dragging Winnie into a place where they could hide until the fight had been decided. He had no idea whether it would turn out to be a lucky move or not.

  Moving on again, Harry observed that some components of the wreckage littering this area didn’t look like berserker material at all. The look of several of the fragments suggested they might have come from the assault machines hurled into combat by the Lady Laura, and spoken of contemptuously by the rogue. Harry remembered that all of those devices had been somewhat larger than human beings, even human beings in armored suits. But the size constraints imposed by the small ship meant that none of the mechanical warriors could be as large as an ordinary groundcar. In the planning stages, of course, no one had known just what sort of opposition they might face when they reached the small berserker base, except that it would be formidable. And so it had proved to be.

  * * *

  At last
Harry had regained territory that was at least half familiar. And now he was getting close enough to the crash scene to begin to have some hope of seeing what had happened.

  The heaviest part of the yacht’s thick armored hull, the prow, was actually embedded in the relatively thin wall of the rogue’s base. Studying the situation, Harry decided that it ought to be possible for suited people to climb from one place to the other—provided, of course, that there were no berserkers around to kill intruders on sight.

  He had to advance a little farther, and look out and up through a new gash in the overhead, before he could see what had happened to the Secret Weapon. It had also rammed the base, very close beside the yacht, but had not broken through. After squinting at it a while, Harry decided that its main airlock had been clamped on to the yacht’s airlock, in such a way that people ought to be able to go back and forth.

  Of course, the Lady Laura, arriving on the Weapon, would have wanted to get into the yacht at once, to be beside the man she had loved and served for so many years. This suggested that the Weapon could possibly still be spaceworthy—unless it had been shot up on its final approach. Harry wouldn’t be able to tell that until he could get inside.

  That left the Chewing Pod, assuming any such ship really existed, still unaccounted for. Harry got on radio. “Rogue? Answer me! Give me whatever you’ve been able to find out about my people. And where’s Satranji?”

  Waiting for an answer, Harry wondered where would Satranji, assuming he had not been warned by the rogue, expect him, Harry, to be at this moment? The goodlife rat-turd would seem to have no reason not to suppose Harry Silver dead with the rest of Cheng’s assault team, back at 207GST. It was going to be something of a jolt, to discover him armed and waiting.

  It almost seemed that the rogue had been reading Harry’s thoughts, for presently it was back in communication, telling him: “I have no further information on your people. The goodlife unit Satranji is alone, less than a hundred meters from you. No doubt you are now seeking to revenge yourself upon this enemy.”