Berserker Man

by Fred Saberhagen

  "And what about things outside the ship? Away from it?"

  There was a longer pause than any yet. Elly might have been working out a complex math problem in her mind.

  "Order," she answered at last. "And disorder, too. But maybe what looked like, felt like chaos was only order, arrangement, of a higher kind than I could understand."

  "Can't you tell me anything more concrete?"

  "I can. But I don't think it'll help you in grasping the total experience." She gave a sharp sigh, started again. "When you're dreaming, the concept or feeling comes into your mind first, and then the brain generates pictures as an appropriate accompaniment. This wasn't dreaming, definitely. But I think it worked in a similar way. First I was aware of order, and then I saw these great structural members surrounding our ship. Somehow I was able to appreciate, visualize, the distance scale. As if we were inside something like a geodesic dome, but bigger than a star. I've never had an experience like that before. I don't suppose I ever will again.

  "I was aware of disorder, or apparent disorder, things going on that made no sense at all to me. And with that I visualized a mist, more like a water-droplet fog than nebula, so thick that I could see it whipping past, right beside the ship. And there were sounds—I can't really recall them, let alone describe them. But they affected me in the same way. Order and disorder alternating. Music, but not like—and I had the feeling that if I could have stopped the ship, I could have joyfully spent my life in trying to unravel the mysteries in just one handful of that fog rushing past. . . ."

  Elly's hands were still now, but white-knuckled. Her face was almost serene, but Lombok to his astonishment thought he saw the beginnings of tears in those far-looking eyes.

  For some reason this depth of feeling in her made him a little nervous, a little embarrassed, almost a little angry. "At debriefing," he said, "you didn't report—an experience of that intensity."

  Her gaze came back to him. "I was numb," she said, relaxing a trifle. "My feelings . . . have been growing, developing, ever since it happened."

  Lombok was not satisfied. He said, "This thing, the Taj—it was only a couple of hours away, at sublight speeds, from at least one quite massive star. I mean the star emitting that plasma jet, in which you were trying to hide your ship."

  "Yes."

  "Well, doesn't that present a seeming inconsistency? Doesn't it suggest perhaps that this thing that made such an impression on you had no physical reality?" Lombok was not much impressed by mystical experiences; not when some people could attain them by inhaling the smoke of burning weeds.

  "Yes, it does," Elly answered calmly. "Or it would, rather, if I thought the Taj was just a physical construct of stellar size. Then tidal factors and other things would seem to make that kind of close proximity impossible. But I can only report things as they were."

  "Or as they seemed to you."

  "You yourself mentioned the two things we brought back. Proof of some kind of unusual encounter, certainly."

  "Certainly." He had some theories of his own about them, but now was not the time. He was letting himself be distracted from what he had come here for. "Sorry I interrupted; go on. You went into the Taj, and the berserker came in after you, presumably."

  "I saw it inside, following us, for a while. Wait. First, it—it said something, on voice radio, about how our new weapons weren't going to help us. Then we went in, and it came in, following us . . . and then . . . I don't know. It was destroyed, perhaps. Or it lost us. Or it just—gave up."

  "Gave up? How could a berserker—?"

  "I don't know. I . . . the funny thing is, once we were inside, I think I all but forgot about the berserker."

  "You were piloting the whole time you were inside?"

  "I took the controls, on manual, when Frank conked out. Then somewhere along the line we went on autopilot, because I do remember clearly, after we had emerged again, switching the autopilot off and taking back manual control."

  "You were back in normal space then?"

  "What passes for normal, in CORESEC. And Frank was coming round, and by then the Taj was out of sight. As soon as Frank started to get on top of the situation again, he made some little joke about how he'd rested. When I tried to tell him what had happened, he thought I was, or had been, delirious. Then we found the two artifacts, the astragalus in his cabin, the ring in mine. They were just sitting on our consoles, right out in the open. We picked them up—didn't know what to make of them. It wasn't until later, at CORESEC base, that their—properties—were discovered."

  "Yes." Lombok pondered for a while. "Did Frank ever know that you were pregnant?"

  Elly didn't spend much time thinking about it. "I really don't know, he never said anything. He's had other children here and there; now and then he'd mention the fact in passing, as you might mention having had your appendix out. Don't tell me he's expressing a personal interest now."

  "Not that I know of." Here came a few tourists, or prospective converts maybe, crossing the nave behind a gray-robed guide. The tourist man carried a rather weighty single-handled case which probably meant he was going to make some elaborate holographs.

  Elly was lighting herself another smoker. "Something's come up, though, hasn't it?" she insisted. "Having to do with the kid."

  Lombok appeared to take thought. "He'd be about ten now, wouldn't he? Are you developing a personal interest of your own?"

  "Eleven. You said 'he.' "

  "You didn't ask them about the sex at the adoption agency, when you—?"

  There was a step behind Lombok, and he turned to see one of the tourist women bending close. Why should she want to ask him a question, when she had a guide? But it wasn't a question anyway, because the woman had something in her hand, and there was a new coolness in Lombok's face and lungs.

  Stupid joke, he thought, and started to get up, and knew that he was falling down instead.

  SIX

  "Hey, Michel, that was one lovely counterpunch." In the low-ceilinged, hard-surfaced Moonbase corridor the voice issuing from Frank's speakers took on a small tail of ringing echo, and if Michel had been wearing Lancelot he might have found some amusement in trying to sort out the several sets of what he had learned were called harmonics. But he was in his loafing clothes today, shorts and loose shirt and sandals, taking a lone and moody stroll that had led him farther and farther from the busier regions of the base. He hadn't seen anyone at all for a couple of minutes before he came upon Frank's boxes standing motionless against a wall.

  But Michel was at once glad of the meeting. "Thanks," he said. "I didn't mean to knock you out."

  "I know. It's all right. No tests for you today?"

  Two standard days had gone by since their sparring match. "Not today. Tomorrow I think we start again."

  "You start again. They've informed me I won't have to wear the damned thing any more. What's up? You look a little worried."

  "Well." There were really two things, neither of which he had yet mentioned to anyone else, not even to his mother. "For one thing, they're changing the equipment. Trying to fit extra weapons onto it. But—" Michel, almost despairing of trying to make his feelings on the subject convincing to anyone else, shook his head.

  "You don't know if you can work the weapons properly."

  "That's not it! Probably I can. But—the thing is, Lancelot really doesn't need them."

  Frank moved a few centimeters from the wall, all segments rolling together. His voice sounded alarmed and hardly mechanical at all. "Hey, kid. Eventually, you know, whoever wears that thing is supposed to fight berserkers with it."

  "I know."

  "That was a good pillow-fight that you and I had, but as a test it was very preliminary. If that had been a berserker machine instead of me . . . nobody's going to punch one of those things out with his fist."

  "I know! I mean, I know what you mean, Frank. But—I think I could. With Lancelot. Once I really learn how Lancelot works."

  Michel could almos
t see Frank's head shaking inside its box. "Kid. Michel. Look. Maybe it is theoretically possible for Lancelot to draw that kind of power. But the enemy uses the same power sources we do, roughly speaking. And Lancelot right now doesn't have the hardware."

  "You mean metal."

  Frank had fallen silent. Michel, looking back over his shoulder in the direction he himself had come from, saw the dark-skinned woman from the scientific group, approaching at a graceful walk. Not in her spacesuit now of course, but wearing a dress whose draped skirt somehow, with her moving in it, suggested tall grass and elegantly drooping trees moved by a light wind.

  "Michel," said Frank's speakers in a tone that was subtly new, "this is Vera. Mrs. Tupelov."

  "Hello," said Michel, and, as Mother would have expected, made a polite greeting gesture.

  The woman's heavy lips were not pouty at all when she was smiling. "I know Michel, everyone does. Call me Vera, will you, honey?"

  Still, a certain strain was in the air. Some awkwardness having to do with the way adults conducted their social lives had just happened, or was happening right now. Into the silence Frank said, "Michel and I were just talking about Lancelot. The difficulties thereof."

  "Oh?" Vera looked properly concerned. "If it's not about the forcefield math, I'm afraid I can't help much."

  "More like piloting problems," Michel said unhappily.

  "Honey, if it's getting to you after all, you better tell the medics." Vera's concern grew more real. "Or tell my husband. Or I'll tell him for you."

  "Getting to me? Oh no. It's not that I get sick using Lancelot, or anything like that."

  Frank's middle box put out two metal stick-arms, let them swing rhythmically from their upper joints. It seemed to be a gesture miming patience, taking the place perhaps of slow thumb-twiddling.

  Vera saw this and shook her head. "Look, boys, I think I'll just leave you to your piloting discussion. Catch you later, both of you."

  "Caaatch yoouu." Frank's answer came in a voice for once tuned far outside the human vocal spectrum, deep as the cough of some giant predator.

  Vera giggled. With a wink in Michel's direction and a small wave for both of them she turned in her swinging skirt and strode back in the way that she had come, leaving Michel with a momentary vague curiosity as to why she had come this way at all.

  But he had more demanding things to think about. "Can I ask you something, Frank?"

  "Sure. If I can ask you something, too."

  "What?"

  "Promise you'll try to teach me how you do it. With Lancelot. When there's time."

  Michel paused. "I'll try."

  "You don't sound too hopeful. Anyway, what was your question?"

  Michel drew a deep breath, and with the sensation of stepping into a gulf of unknown depth he asked, "Do you ever have the feeling that you're becoming some kind of a machine?"

  "Is that all? Hell, no. Well of course in a sense this hardware that you see has become a part of me. But I'm not a part of anything except myself . . . oh, maybe you mean when piloting a ship? Yeah, then there's a sense, a very strong sense sometimes, in which the ship and pilot become a unit. But I had that feeling, pretty much the same, before I was all smashed up. It's a pilot's feeling of becoming more than he is otherwise."

  "Not of being swallowed up by anything, though."

  "Swallowed up? No." Frank paused, his liquid lenses sliding and rotating carefully. "That answer your question?"

  "I don't know. No it doesn't, really."

  "Ah. To me, Lancelot doesn't feel like a machine at all. If it was a machine, felt like a machine, then I could live with it. But to you it does, and the machine part is taking over the live part, is that it? The live part being you?"

  "Yes." It was a surprising relief to have said that much, at last, to someone.

  "This feeling ends, I trust, when you take the damned thing off."

  "Yeah. Only . . ."

  "Why don't you complain about it, as Vera suggested?"

  "Then they might not let me wear it." Confession, coming almost in a whisper. "I feel happier when I have it on. And then like there's less of me, or something, every time when they take me out of it again."

  "Hell." A heartily sympathetic though mechanized snort. "I'm happier when I'm in a ship."

  That wasn't it, though. Or was it? Michel didn't feel sure enough to argue. And certainly he felt better for confession. Even—or especially—to a set of boxes.

  Frank remained silent for more than five seconds, which was for him a long and thoughtful pause. "Let's take a walk," his speakers grunted then.

  Michel caught up with a skip to the swiftly moving train, and then walked quickly to hold his place beside it. He was led purposefully back into the regions where other people and other moving machines were common.

  A liquid lens on the head box was studying Michel. Frank asked, "I don't suppose they've shown you any of the pseudopersonalities."

  "The what? No."

  "I don't know why in hell he doesn't communicate with you. It would give you a better perspective on the whole operation."

  They passed signs warning about security zones. They passed one live guard, for whom Frank did not even slow.

  "Colonel Marcus? I should see the kid's clearance, if he's going—"

  "Stuff it. You should have a clearance, just to talk to him."

  That behind them, they kept walking and rolling on. Then Frank stopped abruptly, before a plain door with no handle. He put out one of his metal arms and with a touch on the door's featureless surface transmitted some kind of opening code. It opened to let them enter a small and heavily shielded storeroom.

  There were a couple of narrow aisles, between low racks. Each rack held hundreds of metal cases, each case being of a size for an adult to carry about one-handed, and fitted with an appropriate grip.

  Frank rolled between the racks, inspecting labels. "These are the little bastards we're supposed to replace in the Lancelot system. Or rather you, and other kids like you if they ever find any, are going to replace 'em. I can't hack it. I really can't."

  "I don't understand." The cases held complex components of some kind, meant to be plugged into something larger. Beyond that Michel could get no feeling for them.

  With a metal arm Frank drew a case down from a rack. Then he trundled down the aisle with it to the end of the room, where work space had been provided, and slid it expertly into a large console. He made adjustments on a viewer, and a moment later beckoned to Michel.

  Looking in, through what seemed to be some great power of optical magnification, Michel could see what at first glance appeared to be imitation snowflakes, cobbled together out of what might be plastic, in a complex and vast array.

  Frank's voice beside him said, "This one's the Red Baron. Quite a story connected with it. Some of the others here have seen use in combat too, incorporated into conventional fighting ships as well as earlier versions of Lancelot. In places where live human brains tend to fail under the strain. These stand the strain, but they can't really do the job. Not well enough."

  The name Red Baron meant nothing to Michel, who was discovering how to tune the viewer. His adjustments led him down through level after level of magnification. When light-quanta became too coarse to image the next level of detail properly, electrons were automatically substituted, and quarkbeams succeeded those grosser entities in turn. The crystalline complexity that had suggested snowflakes was still present, composed of what form of matter Michel could no longer guess, diminishing apparently without limit into finer and finer delicacies.

  "This looks like—like something natural. But it isn't."

  "Nope. People made it. Go on, tune it finer if you like."

  He did, until the device reached its ultimate limit. The interior of the pseudopersonality was like no other artifact that Michel had ever examined. The smaller the scale on which he looked at it, the finer and more perfect its structure appeared.

  "These are imitation persona
lities, kid, most of them modeled on historical individuals. Imitation minds, of a sort. They were invented to be used in historical simulations, and in desperation the powers who run things have tried to make 'em work in space combat. Instead of the subconscious minds of living brains. There are parts of our minds that live outside of time, you know."

  "I've heard that. I don't know if it's—"

  "It's true. It's what gives us the edge, sometimes, over the enemy. One of the things that does."

  Michel was not listening very carefully. He was awed by what he saw—not by the thing's capabilities so much as by its workmanship, which impressed him even more than Lancelot's. He murmured something.

  "They work in fractal dimensions when they make these, Michel. Know what that means?"

  Michel shrugged. He didn't expect to comprehend the specialized words that adult technologists used among themselves. "Something very small, I guess."

  "It's roughly like this: A line has one dimension, a point has none. Fractal involves something in between."

  Michel raised his eyes from the viewer, prodded the pseudopersonality's case with one finger where it partially projected from the console. "And this can replace a human operator in Lancelot?"

  "Not very well, as I say, or we wouldn't be here. Anyway, you better believe they wouldn't put this particular pseudo in."

  "Why not?"

  "It has to do with who the real Red Baron was. Someone they wouldn't want to trust with Lancelot. Like me." Frank's speakers emitted a series of rising squeals that Michel understood as sardonically formalized laughter. "But hell, even I can outdo these in Lancelot. Which is the point I wanted to make when I brought you here. You and I are alive, and this stuff is hardware. Some people around here who talk a lot of philosophical crap have trouble with that distinction." Contempt had grown in Frank's voice. "If these things, the finest machines we can make, could do my job better than I can, Tupelov wouldn't have dragged you all the way here from Alpine, and we wouldn't be taking you out to the proving grounds in a couple more days. We're human beings. We're the bosses when it comes to any partnership with machines. And also we're gonna win the war. If anyone should ask you."