Berserker Man

by Fred Saberhagen

  Should she call back to the command bunker now, from her car, and remind Nurnberg or one of the others about the people at the firing range . . . but no, the enemy would most likely intercept the message. No, the people at the firing range would have to cope as best they could.

  Harivarman's voice, so suddenly and unmistakable that it made her jump, came clearly over her car's speakers. "Turn left at the next corner, Commander."

  She acknowledged the instruction with what she thought was admirable calm, and then presently realized that she was headed in the general direction of Sabel's old laboratory.

  "Stop the car where you are," the general's voice ordered presently.

  She obeyed. The street here looked familiar. Was this the very route that they had taken on that first outing with Harivarman?

  "Get out," said the speaker in front of her. "Walk down the alley to your right, please."

  Commander Blenheim got out, expecting to feel a weakness in her knees. She was not disappointed. She started walking in the indicated direction. Around the first corner, a berserker was waiting for her. It was a tall thing, standing motionless, rather like a metallic scorpion balancing on its hind legs.

  Her stomach clenching suddenly, she slowed her steps. She could no longer make herself walk forward. Then she saw and recognized Lescar, the general's driver, who was beckoning to her. The little servant was standing within a few meters of the machine, but not looking at it, as if he were able to pretend it was not there.

  Lescar's manner was apologetic, but determined. "This way, please, madam. The Prince is waiting."

  The general, Anne Blenheim thought, with what she acknowledged as lunatic determination. But she did not utter her correction aloud. Instead she followed him down a deserted street and into the laboratory, by a different doorway than the one she had used before. The tall berserker escort came with them, following her silently.

  In a room inside the small lab complex Lescar came to a halt, indicating the door that she should enter. Inside the door, she found herself looking at the Prince, who was seated behind a built-in table, alone except for two more machines that flanked him, like huge and metallic bodyguards, on either side.

  She said: "It's really true, then. But I can't believe it. Not of you. I really can't believe it." Her voice was only a whisper, and it seemed to come from her almost involuntarily. "How could you . . . ?"

  He flared back at her bitterly: "All right, I'm goodlife, then! What good did it ever do me not to be goodlife? The everlasting gratitude of humanity for my victories over the berserkers? Of course. We've seen how long that lasted. These machines are now tools in my hands, no more, like any other tools. A saw to cut my prison bars. If Templar guards stand in my way, I can't help that. They're wrong to be there." He paused. "I see you came unarmed. Good. You brought the document?"

  "They're wrong? Harivarman, how could you?"

  "How could I discover evil out in the dark corridors, evil that the Templars managed to miss for two hundred years? Why, I suppose I have a unique affinity for evil."

  "Then you are really in control of them. However it happened. You really are."

  "I am indeed. But don't be a fool and think me goodlife. Do you suppose I serve and worship these?" And he swung out an arm and rapped his knuckles contemptuously against the carapace of one of the towering things beside him, the one on his right with cables hanging from its opened belly. He said to it: "Send this other unit out. Surely you can deploy it to better purpose somewhere else. Make sure the Templars prepare no tricks while I'm distracted here in conference."

  In a moment, moving silently in obedience to some silent order, the other unit left the room.

  Anne Blenheim had to do something to keep from screaming. She approached the table and threw the parchment document down on it. "You wanted to see this. What else do you want?"

  "Right to the point, as usual." Harivarman took up the Council's order, glanced at it for a moment, and tossed it aside. "All right, I'm sure that right to the point is best. I now have information indicating that a ship, a message courier, was standing by in an outer dock when the attack hit. I want that ship, for myself and whoever wants to join me."

  "Every ship in dock has been destroyed, the message courier included." She wished herself a more practiced liar. The courier was already gone, taking news of the attack to the Eight Worlds. A fleet would be here in a matter of a few days at most. If only it were possible to somehow stall, to maintain until then whatever mad precarious balance was holding the berserkers back from slaughter.

  He studied her. "Or, one way or another, it's gone."

  She nodded. "And I have a better plan to suggest to you."

  "Aha? And it is?"

  "Surrender."

  That got a quietly scornful reception. "If I were the type to surrender I needn't have gone to all this trouble. I have no taste for allowing myself to be quietly murdered. No thank you."

  Somewhat to her own surprise and anger, she found that she was still really halfway concerned for this man's welfare. "I'm curious. Where would you go, if you did get away? Where could you go?"

  "There are places."

  "As goodlife you won't be allowed to exist in any decent human society. Not even in most of the societies that most of us would call indecent. Only the other goodlife and the berserkers themselves will have you."

  Sounds as of fighting flared up somewhere outside. Perhaps, thought Anne Blenheim, they were from as far away as the Templar compound.

  Harivarman turned almost casually to the monster remaining beside him, a six-legged giant that looked as if it had been badly damaged itself, with cables and lasered-off loose ends hanging from a cavity in its belly. With this thing he almost calmly exchanged some words. In a voice that to Anne Blenheim had the nightmare flavor of old training tapes, the killer machine assured him that the situation outside was still essentially calm.

  It struck the commander that the man sounded not at all servile, as she had heard that goodlife always were before their hideous gods and masters. He sounded like a man giving orders to a robot—except that Earth-descended humans, with the frightening example of the berserkers always before them, had never dared to build robots as independently powerful as these.

  He turned back to her. "Well?"

  "I can't believe it," she murmured again, as if to herself.

  "Oh? Just what is it that you can't believe, exactly? That I want to go on living, and not as a perpetual prisoner? Probably with my behavior so modified that I spend a great deal of my time smiling?"

  "Things like that aren't done any—"

  "Don't tell me that. I've seen some of the people that Lergov's worked on. I've talked to some of those who could still talk. You couldn't believe that I would take steps to protect myself? That's not what the individual is supposed to do, is it? You might recall that I tried appealing to law and justice—yes, and to mercy, too. I tried with my best eloquence, at our last meeting. As usual in the real world, eloquence and a just cause were not enough."

  "Where is your just cause now?" she asked him.

  "Where you put it. But it's still surviving. It will survive."

  "I see . . . and what are you going to demand of me now? A ship is impossible, even if I were willing to give you one. As you can see for yourself, after what your allies have done, there are no ships."

  "All right. Forget for the moment what I demand. First I'd like someone to understand what's really at issue here. Do you realize what I've discovered?" He raised one hand, holding what appeared to be a small electronic device. "The controlling code of the berserkers. Even if the code I have here only works for some of them, it also tells us the type of code that's likely to control the others. There's at least a chance now that we, that all humanity, can be freed of the damned machines at last."

  The berserker he had spoken to, evidently one of their controller units, emotionless and uncaring as they always were, looked over his shoulder. And undoubtedly it listen
ed to his words.

  "The controlling code . . ."

  "Would you like to sit down? Sit on the edge of my table here, we'll be informal. I'm afraid your Guardians unfurnished this room some time ago, and we have a certain shortage of chairs."

  "The controlling code," Anne Blenheim repeated, in a whisper. No Templar officer would need more than a moment to grasp the implications of that. "If you really have . . ."

  "Aha. I have, I really have. And that puts a slightly different face on the whole matter, hey?"

  "Yes." She said the word reluctantly, but she had to say it. "If you're telling me the truth. What greater advantage than that could anyone have over an enemy?"

  "Indeed, yes," said Harivarman. "Now . . ."

  His words drifted to a halt. Commander Blenheim, looking closely, saw that something had just happened to General Harivarman. He still sat in the same position as before. His expression had altered—not by much. But now he was staring at the control device in his hand, as if something about that small object had suddenly struck him, something he himself had been unaware of until this moment.

  The commander stared at him, waiting. Some new madness . . . ?

  At last the general looked up at her. It was a strange, unreadable glance, and perhaps it was mad indeed. But his voice, as before, still sounded quite sane and calm. He asked her: "What did you just say, exactly?"

  "I said, what greater advantage . . ."

  "Yes. Of course you did." Waving her to silence with an imperious gesture, he stood up from the desk. "Now, as to my demands . . ." But, having said that much, the general once more fell silent, regarding her with the same odd look.

  Anne Blenheim drew a deep breath. All she could think at the moment was that maybe this man had truly gone insane at last; at least this conversation seemed to be tending toward madness. She would take it over, then, if she could, and try to dominate.

  She began: "If you can truly control the berserkers completely, as you say . . ."

  Again it seemed to take the general a great effort to bring his attention back from the small device in his hand, to what his visitor was saying. "Yes?"

  "Then order them to stop their attack."

  This time the pause was shorter. He was coming back from whatever borderland he had been roaming for the past few moments. "Stop their attack? I have already done so. They are no longer attacking. They are maintaining their controlling positions."

  "Render them totally inert, then, if you can do it. Do that now, and in turn I'll see what I can do for you."

  He had by now regained something of his original bitter manner. "I suppose I should really have expected nothing better. You're not going to give me your solemn promise that I won't be prosecuted?"

  "Would you believe me if I did? I'm no politician, no courtier, no . . ."

  "What you're trying to say is that you're no experienced liar."

  "Harry." The name came out suddenly, as if she really hadn't meant to say it. "That's what your friends call you, isn't it?" That wasn't leading anywhere, and she tried again. "Sorry, that was inadvertent. General, I will tell you only the truth, since I am not an accomplished liar, and I will make only promises that I intend to keep."

  There was a long silent pause between them. Then Harivarman said: "Unfortunately, none of the promises you have made so far are of the least use to me. Even though I do believe you mean them. So . . . as soon as I let your Templars up off the floor, you're going to arrest me. If you can keep Lergov or Beraton from shooting me down on sight."

  "You are going to have to let us up off the floor, as you put it, sooner or later, aren't you?" She drew a breath. "Either that or you'll have to slaughter us all."

  He looked at his control device again. "We'll see. I think I'll not necessarily have to follow either course of action."

  "What else?"

  He considered carefully before he answered. "Sooner or later another ship is going to dock here. It probably won't be very many days until one comes along."

  "Ah."

  For a moment the idea of attacking him physically passed through the commander's mind. She was better than most women at hand-to-hand combat, better by far than most men, looking at her, would expect her to be. Still it was far from certain, very far, that she would succeed if she tried attacking this man now. And if the berserker that was still with them did not squash her when she tried, and she did succeed, and the control device came into her hands, what exactly would she do with it? She had no idea whether the controller would then obey her automatically or not. What controls on the device to press? How might her actions upset the delicate forces that at the moment were holding the enemy back from wholesale slaughter?

  Rejecting that plan, at least for the moment, the commander said: "There's a point you might want to consider. Goodlife activity makes you subject to a Templar trial, right here and now. The people who have come from Salutai to arrest you would not have jurisdiction. They could not murder you as you fear."

  "And what outcome could I expect from the Templar trial?"

  She was silent.

  "On the other hand, what if I were found innocent? Why, then, I suppose I'd be free. No longer under Templar jurisdiction. Therefore quite free to be arrested by Lergov and carted off to Salutai, as soon as a functioning ship became available. Not that I'd ever reach that world alive—but we've been through that, haven't we? My being murdered would not affect your legal position in the least. An acceptable outcome to you, as no one could accuse you of breaking regulations. No, I intend to have the next available ship for myself."

  "All right, forget that suggestion. It wasn't well thought out." She hesitated, then took a plunge. "But I don't think your plan is well considered either."

  "What do you mean?"

  "Suppose I were to agree to it." The commander had to force herself to speak those words. "Suppose you did obtain a ship somehow, captured the next one to try to dock, and you got away. How would we be any better off here? We'd still be facing an overwhelming force of berserkers."

  "But no, not at all. I would leave them on a timer, as it were. They would deny you access to the docks for a time, simply to prevent any quick repairs of the remaining ships, and use of them for hot pursuit of me, assuming such were possible. After the set time had elapsed, they would disable themselves or allow themselves to be disabled. A treasury of knowledge, such as the Templars have always sought. And you would have obtained it for them. I'm making you an offer that no real goodlife would make, and you know it."

  "But at what price?" Commander Blenheim whispered. "At what price? You've helped them to kill human beings here, people under my command, Templars. No one but a goodlife would have—"

  There was another outburst of noise, of fighting, somewhere outside the echoing empty room in which they were talking. Again the general turned to the controller at his side. "What was that?"

  "As before," the machine-voice answered him. "It was necessary to take action against a local instance of aggression by the badlife."

  "Are you sure? Your communications must be imperfect too."

  "The probability is more than eighty percent."

  "Not good enough, for me." Harivarman waved a hand at the berserker. "Go out and see for yourself, about that fighting. Report back to me directly."

  "It is not necessary—"

  The general thumbed something on his control device. "This is an order. Go out and see to the matter yourself."

  There was no more hesitation. The machine moved away, pacing with silent elegance, despite its damaged appearance.

  Now the two humans were alone. Now, thought Commander Blenheim, I could risk everything, attack him with my bare hands. . . .

  Across the table from her, Harivarman, looking almost absentminded, was again picking up the Council's order for his arrest. "There are some changes I would like to see made in this," he announced, surprising her when she thought that she was beyond surprise. "Before I'd even want to start negotiating with
the Council." And, looking at her meaningfully, he pulled a writing tool out of his pocket.

  * * *

  It was half an hour later when the base commander left the man who had once been her prisoner. Her head was whirling as she departed, with relief at her own survival thus far, and with fear. And with a new and twisted hope.

  Chapter 15

  The berserker machine that had called to Chen Shizuoka in Prince Harivarman's voice was now calling to him again, as it advanced along an otherwise deserted street that led obliquely toward the plaza where Chen and Olga were trying to hide:

  "Chen Shizuoka. Come with this machine to safety. Chen Shizuoka, this is Prince Harivarman. Come—" And even as the Prince's voice boomed forth from the berserker, it kept walking closer to where Chen and Olga were holding their breath, afraid to move.

  Chen was peering out at the approaching monster through small chinks in a decorative screen of masonry. The tall screen separated the small plaza where he was standing from the nearby street down which the murderous thing was walking toward him on its three legs. His carbine, probably useless against this foe, was in his hands, the muzzle pointing up into the air. He was afraid to move a muscle, even the minimal movement necessary to aim the weapon, because aiming it would probably be a waste of time anyway.

  His eyes moved again to his companion. Olga Khazar, standing pressed against the screen beside him, appeared to be on the verge of fainting, leaning on the screen, her hand that held the pistol pale-knuckled with the tightness of her grip.

  The machine coming toward them down the otherwise deserted street was less than fifty meters distant now. It stopped briefly after every one or two of its triangular steps, turning its head from side to side at every pause, as if to sweep the area with its multitude of senses. The thing was almost twice as tall as a man, and pot-bellied as if its central torso might contain some kind of a cargo compartment. Now and then it raised its head even higher on an elongating metal neck, peering over stalled, abandoned vehicles and into upper-story windows.