Berserker Kill

by Fred Saberhagen

  Theorists advocated prowling the Galaxy in search of such a world or worlds. When the goal was found, they would expunge it from all records so that the berserkers would never learn of its existence through captured material.

  Engadin explained that in the Sardou Foundation’s colonization plan, as finally negotiated among the heavily settled worlds within the Premier’s sphere of influence, complicated protocols had been worked out to decide everything. For example, chance selection would determine which protopeople should be first into the artificial wombs when the colonizing ship or ships had reached a suitable new planet or planets.

  Listening, Kensing wasn’t sure the scheme really did more than to provide the machine designers, the colony engineers, and the population planners with work and something to talk about. It offered Solarian society a kind of evidence that what they were doing had meaning, wasn’t just a way to delay indefinitely a decision on the question of what to do with all these life-suspended zygotes and fetuses.

  The promise of working out some such theoretical system of colonization-or even the methodical contemplation of its difficulties-had allowed people on a number of worlds to feel satisfied that the problem was not simply being shelved.

  How many artificial wombs were there going to be on one of the colonizing ships? That was still undecided. On the bioresearch station there were more than a hundred. Of course a properly designed facility of this type ought to be able to build at least a few more such devices when they were needed.

  And of course the research station, precursor of the actual colonizing ships, had been equipped with life-support facilities capable of supporting at least twenty or thirty active people-technicians, caretakers, researchers-over a long period of time. Food, water, and air were all to be recycled efficiently.

  Already several times that number of scientists and others had occasionally lived and worked aboard.

  Naturally there had been a concomitant attempt to enlist volunteer houseparents to accompany the multitude of zygotes.

  In fact Annie had once confessed to Kensing that she had thought about devoting her life to that task before she decided to get married and stay home instead.

  The frozen volunteer currently aboard the yacht was male, Kensing was informed by the local caretaker system when he reached the row of emergency medical units in the remote auxiliary corridor. Only one was occupied. Name, Fowler Aristov. Age at time of immersion in the long-term storage mode, twenty. A whole catalogue of other personal characteristics and history followed, to which Kensing paid little attention.

  Kensing was impressed, not altogether favorably, by such dedication to a cause. Fanaticism was almost certainly a better word, he thought. Of course subjectively, a long freeze would be practically indistinguishable from a short one. Volunteer for the cause, step into the SA unit, and go to sleep. Wake up again immediately-in subjective terms-take an hour or so to regain full physical and mental function, and get to work on your chosen job.

  In the end he made no recommendation against leaving the would-be colonist’s suspended animation chamber occupied.

  There were five other medirobot berths on board, and great numbers of wounded were not a common result of battles in space. Anyway, the volunteer had evidently been willing to write fate a blank check regarding his own future.

  What had been a tentative departure time for the avenging squadron was now finalized, set within the hour.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Jenny kiss’d me when we met,

  Jumping from the chair she sat in;

  Time, you thief, who love to get

  Sweets into your list, put that in:

  Say I’m weary, say I’m sad,

  Say that health and wealth have miss’d me, Say I’m growing old, but add…

  The song trailed off into silence. The performer’s long pale fingers rested motionless on the stringed instrument of unique design he held before him. His whole body, standing erect, was very still, and something in his expression suggested to his audience that he had been prevented from singing the next line by a surge of some intense emotion.

  That audience consisted of one person only, the Lady Genevieve.

  The young woman’s Indonesian features complemented her small and slender frame. All in all, she was a creature of impressive and delicate beauty. Her slight form, garbed in sparkling white, almost as for some old-time wedding ritual, was posed, half reclining, upon a gray stone bench apparently of considerable age, as were the surrounding cloister walls. Carvings in the bench, representing fantastic animals, had been softened by weather into obscurity, decorated with a little lichen. Before the lady came to occupy this seat, someone had thoughtfully provided it with a profusion of soft cushions, blue and red and yellow in shades that almost matched those of the nearby flowers.

  “You sing beautifully,” she encouraged her companion. Her voice was naturally small, but she was no longer aware of any difficulty in finding air to speak with.

  “Thank you, my lady.” The one who had assumed the role of minstrel relaxed a little in the golden sunshine and turned more fully toward his listener. He doffed his plumed hat with a sweeping gesture, flourished the headgear for an extra moment as if he did not quite know what to do with it next, then tossed it into oblivion behind a fragrant bed of dazzling flowers. Those flowers were remarkable, a knee-high embankment of vivid, almost blinding colors, running along one side of the broad grassy garth enclosed by the cloister’s square of ancient, pale gray stonework. What world might lie outside these elder walls was more than the lady could have said; but whatever it was, it seemed to her comfortably remote.

  A faint breeze stirred the lace on Lady Genevieve’s white dress. A hundred questions came thronging through her mind, and some of them were threatening indeed.

  The query she chose to begin with seemed trivial, but relatively safe: “Was that song your own creation?”

  Her minstrel nodded, then hesitated. “The music is my own, and I would like to claim the words as well. But I am compelled to acknowledge that a man named Leigh Hunt composed them.

  Many and many a hundred years ago he lived, and of course the lady he had in mind was another who shared your name. Perhaps you remember my once telling you that you reminded me of-”

  “Where are we now?” the young woman interrupted with unconscious rudeness. This was the first meaningful question she had asked of her companion. She was beginning her serious inquiries calmly enough, though the more she thought about her situation, the more totally inexplicable it seemed. The minstrel’s speaking voice was slightly hoarse and rather deeper than the tones in which he had been singing. “We are now in the city of London on old Earth, my lady Genevieve. Inside the precincts of a famous temple, or house of worship. The name of this temple is Westminster Abbey.”

  “Oh? But I have no memory of ever… arriving here.”

  “Natural enough under the circumstances. That’s nothing to worry about; I can explain all that in good time. You do remember me, though?” Anxiety was perceptible beneath the singer’s calm. Leaning his peculiar stringed instrument against the bench, he squatted almost kneeling before the lady and put his right hand out toward her. The movement was somewhat awkward, so that it almost fell upon her lap; but at the end of the gesture the long fingers had come down instead upon a cushion.

  He added: “Nicholas Hawksmoor, at your service.” Seen in this environment, Nick was a middle-sized fellow, of mature though far from elderly appearance. A little taller than the average, not as portly as he had looked when Genevieve first saw him on the holostage. His chestnut hair was lustrous and a little curly, though beginning to thin on top. He had a small pointed beard of the same hue and a matching mustache, the latter also a little thinner than a man might wish. But of course one of the things he most feared, really, was to be thought a mere dandy, or merely handsome, all image and no substance. To avoid that, Hawksmoor would and did go to great lengths. He had and would put up with worse things than thinnin
g hair.

  Beneath the thinning hair, his face was unremarkable, somehow not as handsome as the lady remembered it from their earlier encounters. His nose (appropriately for his name, the lady thought) was just a little hawkish, eyes a trifle watery and of an unimpressive color, somewhere between gray and brown. Today the self-described architect and pilot was garbed in vaguely medieval-looking clothing, his long legs encased in what were almost tights, his upper body in a short jacket. The fabrics appeared solid and substantial, no more dazzling than his eyes.

  The contrast with the lady’s bright white dress was notable.

  “I remember your name, of course,” Lady Genevieve responded. “And your face, too. Though you seem to look-a little different now. I think I have seen you only twice before, and neither of those meetings was really face-to-face. The first time I saw only your image upon a holostage. And the second time-then you were wearing a space suit and helmet, and I couldn’t really see your face at all. We were on a ship, and when I tried to look inside your helmet…”

  Nicholas did not actually see the lady’s face turn pale with the impact of a newly examined memory, but he had the feeling that it might have done so.

  Hastily he interrupted. “We were indeed on a ship. But now we are both here, my lady Genevieve. Here in this pleasant place. It is pleasant, is it not? And you are safe. As safe as I can make you. And I have-considerable capabilities.”

  Pallor receded. Lady Genevieve appeared to accept her companion’s assurance of safety at face value, but her need for answers was not so easily met. Giving a small shake of her head, as if to allay uncertainty, she raised one well-kept hand in a questioning gesture, pointing in the general direction of two great rectangular stone towers that loomed in the middle distance, above and beyond the cloister walls. These twin structures were scores of meters tall, their monumental forms gray-brown in hazy slanting sunlight. Each tower was crowned at its four upper corners by four small steeples; and the nearer tower loomed so large, perhaps only twoscore meters away, that it almost seemed to hang right over the cloistered garden. At the moment a sea gull, giving tiny cries, came gliding on rigid wings between that mass of masonry and the two people in the garth.

  Her companion followed her gesture with his eyes. “Those towers form the west front of the Abbey, Lady Genevieve, and the main entrance lies between them. I designed them, and supervised their construction… well, to be strictly truthful, and I want always to be strictly truthful with you, he who was my namesake did. He lived even before the man who wrote the words to the song. But I think I may say, honestly and objectively, I could have done as well or better, working with real stone and mortar. Do you remember my once telling you, I am an architect?”

  “Yes, I do. In fact I believe I can remember perfectly every word that you have ever said to me.” Rising gracefully to her feet, the lady drew in a full breath, lifting her small bosom. “But I have the feeling there is more, much more, that I ought to remember. About quite recent events, I mean. Events of great importance. And that if I made a real effort to think about what has been happening to me, the answers would all be there.

  But…”

  “But you hesitate to make that effort?”

  “Yes!” She paused, and added in a whisper: “Because I am afraid!”

  The man rose lithely from his awkward squatting pose so that he towered timidly above her. He said: “If you find these matters disturbing, there is no hurry. No need for you to concern yourself about them now. Please, allow me to do whatever worrying may be necessary, for the time being at least. I will consider it a privilege-how much of a privilege you cannot know-to be your protector. In all things.”

  “Then, Nicholas, I will be honored indeed to enjoy your protection. Thank you very much.” Genevieve extended one small, graceful hand, and stepping forward, the man reached to take it gratefully.

  And at the moment when their fingers touched, the lady knew no more.

  In their trio of spacecraft, the Eidolon was by a considerable margin the largest, the fastest, and the best armed. Orbiting low above the planetoid Imatra, Premier Dirac and his human entourage of space crew and advisers, bodyguards and other specialists, along with Sandy Kensing, were hastily completing their preparations for an early departure.

  One of Dirac’s ships, which had landed briefly on the Imatran surface for refitting, now hastily lifted off, to rendezvous with the Eidolon and the companion vessel which had remained in low orbit. Minutes later, without ceremony, the whole small but heavily armed squadron was easing away from the planetoid under smooth acceleration, heading outward from its sun in the direction of the center of the Mavronari, whose denser portions were light-years distant but whose outer fringes reached to within a few days’ travel from Imatra at subliminal speeds. At a steadily quickening pace, Dirac’s force moved antisunward, seeking the deepest emptiness obtainable in this region, some relatively smooth gravitational plain, ready to safely tolerate three ships’

  abrupt departure from normal space.

  That ideal was unattainable. Some risk of relatively dirty space would have to be accepted; the enemy had too great a start to be overtaken now by mere subliminal flight at the speeds here possible.

  Directly ahead of the small squadron, and still dimly perceptible to its telescopes by days-old light, the kidnapped bioresearch station receded steadily, at this distance making one compound image with the huge, enigmatic machine that had snatched it out of orbit.

  The Lady Genevieve found herself once more with her new companion, this time strolling with her hand upon his arm. How she had come to be in this condition she did not know, but here she was. They were walking in the same grassy garth where they had last met and he had played the minstrel. The hazy, golden sun did not appear to have moved very far since the time-a very recent time, she thought-when she had been sitting on the bench.

  But there had been an interval of-something? or perhaps nothing?-between then and now.

  Certainly the appearance of Nicholas Hawksmoor had altered in the interval. His clothing was now richer, no longer a minstrel’s garb, but still far removed from a pilot’s uniform. Looking up at him sideways, the lady wondered if his hair had grown thicker, too.

  Now she could touch his arm without bringing on an attack of oblivion. She was touching it, and nothing happened. But the feel of Hawksmoor’s sleeved forearm and of his sleeve beneath her fingertips had something odd about it. Strange too, when she thought about it, was the feeling of the grass beneath her white-slippered feet; strange the touch of clothing on her body, the air moving over her face…

  The tall man beside her coaxed invitingly: “What are you thinking about?”

  She almost whispered, “I am still wondering-about many things.

  I still have many questions I am afraid to ask.”

  He paused in his walking, the walk in which he had been leading her almost as in a dance, and she saw they had come to a stop before a doorway. It was a kind of gate leading into the gray dim cloister. He asked with muted eagerness: “Shall we go inside?

  I’d like to show you the whole church. It’s really beautiful.”

  “Very well.” And as they started through the doorway, she queried: “Did you or your namesake design this entire structure?”

  “No, my lady, oh, no! Most of the Abbey is centuries older than either of us who bear the Hawksmoor name. Though indeed I wish we, or one of us at least, could claim such credit.

  Fortunately I shall have the honor of showing it to you.”

  Genevieve murmured something polite, a response that had become almost an instinct with her now. Ever since her marriage, since she had become a celebrity. Since-Hawksmoor went wandering, escorting on his arm the lady he was treating with such tender attention that it seemed he wanted to make her his own. He led Lady Genevieve up and down through the rich gloom of the Abbey’s interior as, he explained, he himself had interpreted and copied it. Within the walls and under the gothic peak of roof was, al
together, more than a hectare of space. He could have told her the precise area, down to the last decimal of a square millimeter, but he did not.

  Together they walked the aisles of the great church for a considerable time, hands touching now without any seeming constraint, with less peculiarity of feeling-then out again into the cloister’s open air, where mild rain had come to replace sunlight while they were gone.

  The rain felt very strange upon the lady’s face, but she made no comment on the strangeness.

  Her escort, saying little, looked at her and guided her back inside. The couple walked, their footfalls echoing upon square paving stones, straight down the middle of the towering nave.

  “Gothic arches. I’ll explain the structural theory of them to you if you like. The tallest, here in the nave, are more than thirty meters high. A ten-story building, if it was narrow enough, could fit inside. The loftiest interior of any church in all old England.”

  “I see no other people here.”

  “Do you wish for other people? Wait, that may be a verger, walking down the other aisle-see? And is that a priest I see at the high altar?”

  Lady Genevieve stopped in her tracks. She knew these other people were some kind of sham. “What about my husband?”

  “He is not here. Though as far as I know the Premier Dirac is well.” Hawksmoor’s voice became querulous. “Do you miss your bridegroom?” Then, as if he were trying to restrain himself but could not: “Do you love him very much?”

  The lady shuddered. “I don’t know what I feel about him. I can’t say that I miss him; I can hardly remember what he is like.”

  “I’m sure your memory can call up anything you really want to know. Anything at all from your past.”

  “Yes, I suppose-if I was willing to make the effort.” She sighed, and seemed to try to pull herself together. “Dirac and I never quarreled seriously about anything. He was good to me, I suppose, in the few days we lived together. But the truth is, I was-I am-terribly afraid of him.” Once more she paused, looking at her taller companion’s face, his head outlined against bright stained glass. “Tell me, what has happened to my child?”