Berserker Kill

by Fred Saberhagen

  Meanwhile, in the hours and days immediately following the theft of the station, all of the various bases, populous cities, and settlements upon the habitable planets of the Imatran system were frantic with activity. Much of it utterly useless, all of it too late to save the station. Word of the berserker attack had of course been dispatched at light speed to the authorities who governed the system’s sunward worlds. The news had reached those planets within a few hours of the event. Hastily they had dispatched what little help they had readily available toward the ravaged planetoid.

  Following established military doctrine, a unified system command was at once set up, and under its aegis the big worlds coordinated their efforts as thoroughly as possible.

  There would be no more in-system fighting-if for no other reason than because the Imatrans had nothing else in space capable of challenging the victorious enemy. The captured station was being ruthlessly, inexorably, but carefully, gently, hauled away.

  Within a few hours after the beginning of the raid, all that remained in the Imatran system as evidence of the outrage was a modest number of dead and wounded, scattered marks of damage on the surface of the planetoid, some swiftly fading electromagnetic signals, including light waves…

  A small amount of debris drifting in space, wreckage from human ships and small berserkers, the result of the brief, fierce combat.

  And a number of recordings, affording reasonably complete documentation of the outrage.

  CHAPTER THREE

  In a dream that seemed to her both prolonged and recurring, the Lady Genevieve beheld the image of her rescuer continuing to drift before her eyes. The suited figure, faceless inside his protective space helmet, had the shape of a tall man, ruggedly strong, who held out his arms in an offer of succor from disaster, of salvation from-From everything, perhaps, except bad dreams.

  And her rescuer’s voice, issuing from his suit’s air speaker, had spoken his name to her again, just before…

  Yes, Nicholas Hawksmoor. That was his name.

  Lady Genevieve aboard the dying courier had been welcoming her rescuer. In pure joy of life triumphant she had spread out her arms to embrace the superbly capable, the blessed and glorious Nicholas Hawksmoor. For just a moment he had given her an impression of hesitation, of surprise. And then his armored arms had come round her gently, carefully, returning the hug.

  A moment later, pushing herself back to arm’s length from the tight embrace, Genevieve had demanded eagerly: “Can you get me out of here? I don’t have a suit, you see. It seems there are no suits aboard.”

  Again his voice-Nick’s voice, the voice she remembered from the holostage-issued from the suit’s air speaker. “That’s quite all right, my lady. I can get you out safely. Because-”

  And then-

  As she recalled the flow of events now (however much time had passed) from her present place of safety (wherever that might be), it seemed to the Lady Genevieve that the whole world had exploded at that point.

  She now even had her doubts that that last remembered explosion had been quite real. But very real and convincing was her present sense, her impression, that after that moment the course of her rescue had somehow gone terribly wrong.

  Only the fact that these memories of wreckage and explosions seemed remote kept her now from being still utterly terrified.

  The embrace, with her body clad only in the shreds of the white dress, pressed against the suit’s unfeeling armor. And with the courier’s smoky atmosphere steadily bleeding itself thin around them. Then the last explosion. Yes, very real, as convincing as any memory of her entire life.

  And following the last explosion, dreams. A whole world of peculiar dreams, dreams evolving into a strange mental clarity, true vision bringing with it terror. And now she was living that experience again-unfocused and unshielded terror, the helpless sense of onrushing death, the certainty of obliteration.

  But this time, for the Lady Genevieve, the period of clarity and terror was mercifully brief.

  Again unconsciousness claimed her for an indeterminate time.

  A blackness deeper than any normal sleep, like the complete cessation of existence.

  Then she was drifting, carrying up out of nothingness with her the single thought that the courier, really, had somehow been demolished, with her still aboard. An event of some importance, she supposed. But now it seemed remote from her.

  Then, finally, blessedly, real awareness of her real surroundings. Her present environment, gratefully, was one which proved by its mere existence that she had been rescued, brought to a place of safety. She occupied a bed, or rather a narrow berth, which seemed, from several background indications, to be aboard a ship. Close above her, passing only a few centimeters from her face, moved the thin, efficient, obviously inhuman, tremendously welcome metal arms of a medirobot, which must be in some way taking care of her.

  And there, only a little farther away, just beyond the clear sanitary shield guarding her berth, loomed the handsome face of the volunteer pilot-his was one name Jenny was never going to forget-Nicholas Hawksmoor. Hawksmoor was looking down at her anxiously.

  With considerable effort the Lady Genevieve, while remaining flat on her back, managed to produce a tiny voice. For whatever reason, she found it really difficult to speak, to put any volume of air behind the words.

  “Where am I?” she asked. The unexpected problem with her speech was almost frightening, but not really. Not now. Now that she was saved, all medical difficulties could be solved in time.

  Hawksmoor leaned closer, and replied at once, and reassuringly, “You’re safe, aboard my little ship. I call her the Wren. I got you out of that courier just in time.” He hesitated fractionally. “You remember being on the courier?”

  “I remember getting away from the research station on it. Of course, how could I not remember?”

  “And you remember me?”

  “Nicholas Hawksmoor, architect and pilot. Very good pilot, I must agree.” Still, every word she spoke required an unnatural effort. But she wanted to talk. She thought she wasn’t really tired.

  “That’s right.” He sounded relieved, and encouraging.

  “What do your friends call you? Nick?”

  “My friends?” For whatever reason, that question seemed to unsettle her rescuer momentarily. “Yes, yes, Nick will do nicely.

  What do your friends call you?”

  “Jenny.”

  “Yes, of course. Naturally they would. Jenny. Do you know, that name reminds me of something?”

  “Of what?”

  “A poem. A verse. Maybe I’ll sing it for you later.”

  She tried to turn her head and look about her. The white wall from which the arms of the medirobot protruded was part of a general constriction that kept her from moving very far in any direction. All the walls, white or glassy, of the couch, in which her body was sunken almost as in a bathtub, kept her from seeing very much.

  Struck by a sudden thought, the lady asked, “How are the other people?”

  “Those on the courier?” Nicholas sighed unhurriedly. “I couldn’t do anything for them, I’m afraid. Most of them were dead anyway, or nearly dead, before I got there. And besides, I had equipment enough to get only one person out.”

  Again, she drifted mentally for a little while. She hadn’t thought that everyone else was nearly dead. That wasn’t really how she remembered the situation. But…

  “I don’t hurt anywhere,” she murmured at last. Now, each time she spoke, obtaining air and forming it into words seemed a little easier than the time before. Now it was as if… something… were being progressively adjusted for her comfort. People said that shipboard medirobots were very good, though she had never had to prove it for herself before.

  Her companion was tenderly solicitous. “Well, I’m glad. You shouldn’t hurt. You absolutely shouldn’t after all that’s… after all that’s been done for you. You’re going to be all right.”

  And once again it seemed that
it was time to sleep.

  Back on the Imatran surface, all of the minor local authorities, the petty political and military leaders, had survived the attack in good shape. This happy circumstance was not the result of any special defense or precaution undertaken on their behalf as individuals, for no such favoritism had been shown. The truth was that nearly all the ordinary citizens and all of the numerous visitors currently on the planetoid had also come unharmed through the disaster.

  Not because of the effectiveness of the planetoid’s defenses, which had not actually been fully tested. Rather, the high rate of survival could be laid to the enemy’s tactics. It really appeared that this particular berserker had passed up the opportunity for mass slaughter, that its only goal had been to snatch away the biolab.

  An hour after the last shot had been fired, everyone on the planetoid was finally allowing themselves to think that the berserker was not coming back-at least not right away. The local authorities, now emerging stunned from their several shelters, had already received enough reports from the more distant regions of Imatra to confirm that the only real damage had been done, the only casualties sustained, in the immediate vicinity of the ground-based defenses, which had been thoroughly knocked out.

  In some of those areas the local devastation had been complete, though sharply limited in geographical extent.

  The local authorities on the planetoid, without waiting for their colleagues and superiors from the full-sized planets of the system, hurriedly convened on holostage. All present were naturally aghast at the disaster they had just survived, and at the same time relieved that somehow-miraculously, it seemed-the destruction and loss of life had not been worse.

  The planetoid Imatra had for years been home to a fair amount of scientific research. Also it was well known throughout nearby worlds and systems as a conference site, a meeting place with the pleasant ambiance of a formal garden, where administrators at several levels in Premier Dirac’s power structure-and others-often repaired to escape routine, to meet informally. A number of important people were usually to be found visiting here. So the local authorities’ relief that human casualties were light was even stronger than it might otherwise have been. But still…

  At this point an hour and a half had passed since the last weapon had been fired. The berserker and its helpless catch were still within easy telescopic range, but were receding with ever-increasing speed, accelerating back along what looked like the exact same course on which this enemy had made its approach. The foe was retreating toward the approximate middle of the Mavronari Nebula.

  By now, naturally, one of the swiftest couriers available had been dispatched to carry the unhappy news to Premier Dirac himself, who was days away in another system. The Premier’s schedule already called for him to arrive at Imatra within a standard month at most; the local authorities feared that on his arrival, whenever that might be, he was going to hold them personally responsible, not only for the loss of his bride and his inchoate child but also for the general disaster. They feared, at the least, being charged with gross incompetence.

  Of course, they all agreed, such charges would be utterly unjust. “How could we possibly have foreseen a berserker attack here in the Imatran system, of all places? There hasn’t been even a berserker sighting for…”

  No one could immediately say for just how many years.

  Certainly for a long, long time.

  Quickly the worried, frightened local leaders began to review the various recordings of the attack, some of which had been made from the Imatran surface, others from certain artificial satellites above the planetoid. Dirac and his personal staff would want to see those records, to study them intently. This local, first review was conducted with the idea of learning more about the particular berserker-and also in the hope of the authorities’

  finding something on which to base their own defense in the coming investigation.

  Among the events shown clearly in the recordings was the movement of one particular small craft, the ill-fated courier, which had indeed separated itself from the research station and fled for safety in the last few minutes before the berserker struck.

  There had even been a hasty radio message from the station confirming the departure.

  On hearing that message, at the time, people on the ground had felt their hopes soar (or so one of them now claimed), thinking that the Lady Genevieve might well have managed to get aboard that courier, and that she was going to be whisked away out of danger.

  But very soon after it had separated from the station, the little vessel had been destroyed; the first crippling blast had been followed within a few minutes by a second, even more violent explosion, as some component of the drive let go. In the interval between detonations Hawksmoor’s Wren had just managed to reach the vicinity.

  “What was the report from the Wren?” someone now inquired anxiously.

  “No survivors.” Someone else cleared his throat.

  A general sigh went round the holotable. The possibility of survivors had seemed remote, but naturally an intensive search, for the Lady Genevieve in particular, had been started as soon as possible. That search, by the Wren and several other ships now on the scene, still continued, though from the start there had been little hope of finding anyone alive.

  More ships were now arriving in the region where the courier had exploded, and many more were on their way, all wanting to help. But so far no survivors had been announced, and at this late hour there was no reason to think that any were going to turn up.

  Some member of the conference of local leaders grumbled that records showed that the demolished courier had been short of emergency space suits, and that such armored suits might have offered the passengers real hope of survival. The announcement was greeted with silence. Certainly before the attack no one would have expected such a craft, maneuvering in supposedly peaceful regions, to have carried enough suits for several dozen people.

  That there had been other real losses in space would obviously be impossible for the local authorities to deny. Not only the courier but several Solarian fighting ships, complete with crews, had been destroyed.

  At least, one participant in the conference noted with faint satisfaction, the enemy had not escaped entirely unscathed: several small spacegoing berserker machines, the equivalent of human scout ships, had been destroyed by ground batteries in the brief fight.

  Detracting from this modest achievement of the defense was the fact that the survivors on the planetoid and elsewhere in the system now had no armed ships left. The few such craft available had all been bravely hurled into the fight against the berserker, and in an engagement lasting only a few minutes the monster had efficiently destroyed them all, down to the last unit. The only encouraging aspect of this loss was that not even the Premier, when he arrived, would be able to blame the local authorities for not attempting a pursuit.

  One local authority, trying out on his colleagues a statement that he meant to issue later to the outraged public, declaimed:

  “Though our blood boils with fighting fever, with the determination to be avenged-words to that effect-there’s no way we could have given chase to the escaping enemy. No way, I think, that we might have done anything more than we did during the critical minutes of the catastrophe or in its aftermath.”

  His colleagues were silent, considering. At last one of them offered grimly: “At least our overall casualties were light.”

  Another stared at the last speaker. “Light? Have you forgotten that the Lady Genevieve is missing, not only missing but almost certainly dead? Do you realize that?”

  “I said overall. I meant light in total numbers.”

  “Hardly light, even in total numbers, if the protopeople are counted in.”

  “If what? If who?”

  “I mean the intended colonists.” The speaker looked around, getting in return as many blank stares as understanding nods.

  “Those on the biostation, who are, or were, the basic reason fo
r its existence. The human zygotes and a few fetuses. All of the living contributions, donations, gathered over a period of years, decades, from the families, the mothers, of a dozen-maybe more than a dozen-worlds.”

  “I say ‘living’ is debatable. But how many of these donations, as you call them, intended colonists, were aboard?”

  “I don’t have the exact number at hand. From what I’ve heard, somewhere near a billion.”

  “A what?”

  “Ten to the ninth.”

  The fact, the quantity, took a moment to penetrate. “Then let’s see to it that they’re not counted, or mentioned in any estimate of casualties.”

  “One of them is certainly going to be.”

  “What?”

  “Maybe you missed the publicity announcements made just before the tragedy. The Lady Genevieve wasn’t here on just a formal tour of inspection.” The speaker looked far to his right.

  “Well, Kensing? What do you say?”

  The conference table was, of course, not a single real solid table at all, but a construct of artificial reality put together on holostage by computers and communications systems for the convenience of the local authorities, who were thus enabled to remain comfortably at home or in their offices while sharing in the illusion of mutual confrontation in a single room. At one point along the rim of this composite board sat the youngest in attendance, a man named Sandro Kensing. Kensing had so far remained silent. For one thing, he was distracted by grief. For another, he was not a local authority at all, but only the nephew of one of last year’s councilmen-and the fiance of Dr. Anyuta Zador, who was now among the missing. But the real reason this young man had been invited to the council was the fact that for two years he had been a close personal friend of the only son of Premier Dirac, and had even been a guest in one of the Premier’s homes and aboard his yacht. Therefore, or so the local authorities thought, he might be expected to know something of that potentate’s psychology.