Short Fiction Complete

by Fred Saberhagen

  Mitch glanced around at the hold, swarming with his men busily opening crates of equipment. He had decided to let things run themselves as much as possible.

  “Insignia? Why, I don’t think so. Unless you have some idea for a company insignia. That might be a good thing to have.”

  There seemed no need for any distinguishing mark on his armored suit. It was of Martian make, distinctive in style, old but with the latest improvements built in—probably no man wore better. The barrel chest already bore one design—a large black spot shattered by jagged red—showing that Mitch had been in at the ‘death’ of one berserker. Mitch’s uncle had worn the same armor; the men of Mars had always gone in great numbers out to space.

  “Sergeant McKendrick,” Mitch asked, “what do you think about having a company insignia?”

  The newly appointed sergeant, an intelligent-looking young man, paused in walking past, and looked from Mitch to Fishman as if trying to decide who stood where on insignia before committing himself. Then he looked between them, his expression hardening.

  A thin-faced Venerian, evidently an officer, had entered the hold with a squad of six men behind him, armbanded and sidearmed. Ship’s Police.

  The officer took a few steps and then stood motionless, looking at the paintstick in Fishman’s hand. When everyone in the hold was silently watching him, he asked quietly:

  “Why have you stolen from ship’s stores?”

  “Stolen—this!” The young Esteller held up the paintstick, half smiling, as if ready to share a joke.

  They didn’t come joking with & Police squad, or, if they did, it was not the kind of joke a Martian appreciated. Mitch still knelt beside his crated armor. There was an unloaded carbine inside the suit’s torso and he put his hand on it.

  “We are at war, and we are in space,” the thin-faced officer went on, still speaking mildly, standing relaxed, looking round at the openmouthed Esteeler company. “Everyone aboard a Venerian ship is subject to law. For stealing from ship’s stores, while we face the enemy, the penalty is death. Take him away.” He made an economical gesture to his squad.

  The paintstick clattered loudly on A the deck. Fishman looked as if he might be going to topple over, half the smile still on his face.

  Mitch stood up, the carbine in the crook of his arm. It was a stubby weapon with heavy double barrels, really a miniature recoilless cannon, to be used in free fall to destroy armored machinery. “Just a minute,” Mitch said.

  A couple of the police squad had begun to move uncertainly toward Fishman; they stopped in their tracks, as if glad of the chance.

  The officer looked at Mitch, and raised one cool eyebrow. “Do you know what the penalty is, for threatening me?”

  “Can’t be any worse than the penalty for blowing your ugly head off. I’m Captain Mitchell Spain, marine company commander on this ship, and nobody just comes in here and drags my men away and hangs them. Who are you?”

  “I am Mr. Salvador,” said the Venerian. His eyes appraised Mitch, no doubt establishing that he was Martian. Wheels were turning in Mr. Salvador’s calm brain, and plans were changing. He said: “Had I known that a man commanded this—group—I would not have thought an object lesson necessary. Come.” This last word was addressed to his squad and accompanied by another simple elegant gesture. The six almost rushed to precede him to the exit. Salvador’s eyes motioned Mitch to follow him toward the door. There he turned, still unruffled.

  “Your men will follow you eagerly now, Captain Spain,” he said in a voice too low for anyone else to hear. “And the time will come when you will willingly follow me.” With a faint smile, as if of appreciation, he was gone.

  There was a moment of silence Mitch stared at the closed door, wondering. Then a roar of jubilation burst out and his back was being pounded.

  “Captain—what’d he mean, catting himself mister?”

  “It’s some kind of political rank the Venerians have. You guys look here! I may need some honest witnesses.” Mitch held up the carbine for all to see, and broke open the chambers and clips, showing it to be unloaded. There was renewed excitement, more howls and jokes at the expense of the retreated Venerians.

  But Salvador had not thought himself defeated.

  “McKendrick, call the bridge. Tell the ship’s captain I want to set him. Let’s get on with this unpacking.”

  Young Fishman, paintstick in hand again, stood staring vacantly down as if contemplating a design for the deck. It was beginning to soak in, how close a thing it had been.

  But could the death-threat have been really serious?

  The ship’s captain was coldly noncommittal, but he indicated there were no present plans for hanging any Estellers on the Solar Spot. During the next sleep period Mitch kept armed sentries posted in the marines’ quarters.

  The next day he was summoned to the flagship. From the launch he had a view of a dance of bright dots, glinting in the light of distant Sol. Part of the fleet was already at ramming practice.

  Behind the High Commander’s desk sat neither a poetry critic nor a musing bridegroom, but the ruler of a planet.

  “Captain Spain—sit down.”

  To be given a chair seemed a good sign. Waiting for Karlsen to finish some paperwork, Mitch’s thoughts wandered, recalling customs he had read about, ceremonies of saluting and posturing men had used in the past when huge permanent organizations had been formed for the sole purpose of killing other men and destroying their property. Certainly men were still as greedy as ever; and now the great conflict with the unliving was forcing them to organize again for mass destruction. Could those old days, when life fought all-out war against life, ever come again?

  With a sigh, Karlsen pushed aside his papers. “What happened yesterday, between you and Mr. Salvador?”

  “He said he meant to hang one of my men.” Mitch gave the story, as simply as he could. He omitted only Salvador’s parting words, without fully reasoning out why he did. “When I’m made responsible for men,” he finished, “nobody just walks in and hangs them. Though Pm not fully convinced they would have gone that far, I meant to be as serious about it as they were.”

  The High Commander picked out a paper from his desk litter. “Two Esteeler marines have been hanged already. For fighting.”

  “Damned arrogant Venerians I’d say.”

  “I want none of that, Captain?”

  “Yes sir. But I’m telling you we came mighty close to a shooting war, yesterday on the Solar Spot “

  “I realize that.” Karlsen made a gesture expressive of futility. “Spain, is it impossible for the people of this fleet to cooperate, even when the survival—what is it?”

  The Earthman, Hemphill, had entered the cabin without ceremony. His thin lips were pressed tighter than ever. “A courier has just arrived with news. Atsog is attacked.”

  Karlsen’s strong hand crumpled papers with an involuntary twitch. “Any details?”

  “The courier captain says he thinks the whole berserker fleet was there. The ground defenses were still resisting strongly when he pulled out. He just got his ship away in time.”

  Atsog; a planet closer to Sol than the enemy had been thought to be. It was Sol they were coming for, all right. They must know it was the human center.

  More people were at the cabin door. Hemphill stepped aside for the Venerian, Admiral Kemal. Mr. Salvador, hardly glancing at Mitch followed the admiral in.

  “You have heard the news, High Commander?” Salvador began. Kemal, just ready to speak himself, gave his political officer an annoyed glance, but said nothing.

  “That Atsog is attacked, yes,” said Karlsen.

  “My ships can be ready to move few two hours,” said Kemal.

  Karlsen sighed, and shook his head. “I watched today’s maneuvers. The fleet can hardly be ready in two weeks.”

  Kemal’s shock and rage seemed genuine. “You’d do that? You’d let a Venerian planet die just because we haven’t knuckled under to your brother? Becau
se we discipline his damned Esteeler—”

  “Admiral Kemal, you will control yourself! You, and everyone else, are subject to discipline, while I command!”

  Kemal got himself in hand, apparently with great effort.

  Karlsen’s voice was not very loud, but the cabin seemed to resonate with it.

  “You call hangings part of your discipline. I swear by the name of God that I will use even hanging, if I must, to enforce some kind of unity in this fleet. Understand, this fleet is the only military power that can oppose the massed berserkers. Trained, and unified, we can destroy them.”

  No listener could doubt it for the moment.

  “But whether Atsog falls, or Venus, or Esteel, I will not risk this fleet until I judge it ready.”

  Into the silence, Salvador said, with an air of respect: “High Commander, the courier reported one thing more. That the Lady Christina de Dulcin was visiting on Atsog when the attack began—and that she must be there still.”

  Karlsen closed his eyes for two seconds. Then he looked round at all of them. “If you have no further military business, gentlemen, get out.” His voice was still steady.

  Walking beside Mitch down the flagship corridor, Hemphill broke a silence to say thoughtfully: “Karlsen is the man the cause needs, now. Some Venerians have approached me, tentatively, about joining a plot—I refused. We must make sure that Karlsen remains in command.”

  “A plot?”

  Hemphill did not elaborate.

  Mitch said: “What they did just now was pretty low—letting him make that speech about going slow, no matter what—and then breaking the news to him about his lady being on Atsog.”

  Hemphill said: “He knew already she was there. That news arrived on yesterday’s courier.”

  IV

  There was a dark nebula made up of clustered billions of rocks and older than the sun, named the Stone Place by men. Those who gathered there now were not men and they gave nothing a name; they hoped nothing, feared nothing, wondered at nothing. They had no pride and no regret, but they had plans—a billion subtleties, carved from electrical pressure and flow—and their built-in purpose, toward which their planning circuits moved. As if by instinct the berserker machines had formed themselves into a fleet when the time was ripe, when the eternal enemy, Life, had begun to mass its strength.

  The planet named Atsog in the life-language had yielded a number of still functioning life-units from its deepest shelters, though millions had been destroyed while their stubborn defenses were beaten down. Functional life-units were sources of valuable information—long ago the berserkers had learned human languages, and something of human psychology. There were stimuli, even the threat of which usually brought at least limited cooperation from any life-unit.

  The life-unit (designating itself General Bradin) which had controlled the defense of Atsog, was among those captured, almost undamaged. Its dissection was begun within perception of the other captured life-units. The thin outer covering tissue was delicately removed, and placed upon a suitable form, to preserve it for further study. The life-units which controlled others were examined carefully, whenever possible.

  After this stimulus, it was no longer possible to communicate intelligibly with General Bradin; in a matter of hours it ceased to function at all.

  In itself a trifling victory, this small unit of watery matter was freed of the aberration called Life. But the flow of information now increased from the nearby units which had perceived the process.

  It was soon confirmed that the Life-units were assembling a fleet. More detailed information was sought. One important lane of questioning concerned the life-link which would control this fleet. Gradually, from interrogations and the reading of captured records, a picture emerged.

  A name: Johann Karlsen. A biography. Contradictory things were said about him, but the facts showed he had risen rapidly to a position of control over millions of life-units.

  Throughout the long war, the berserker computers had gathered and collated all available data on the men who became leaders of Life. Now against this data they matched, point for point, every detail that could be learned about Johann Karlsen.

  The behavior of these leading units often resisted analysis, as if some quality of the life-disease in them was forever beyond the reach of machines. These individuals used logic, but sometimes it seemed they were not bound by logic. The most dangerous life-units of all sometimes acted in ways that seemed to contradict the known supremacy of the laws of physics and of chance, as if they could be minds possessed of true free will, instead of its illusion.

  And Karlsen was one of these, supremely one of these. His fitting of the dangerous pattern became plainer with every new comparison.

  In the past, such life-units had been troublesome local problems. For one of them to command the whole life-fleet with a decisive battle approaching, was extremely dangerous to the cause of Death.

  The outcome of the approaching battle seemed almost certain to be favorable, since there were probably only two hundred ships in the lifefleet. But die brooding berserkers could not be certain enough of anything, white a unit like Johann Karlsen led the living. And if the battle was long postponed the enemy Life could become stronger. There were hints that inventive Life was developing new weapons, newer and more powerful ships.

  The wordless conference reached a decision. There were berserker reserves, which had waited for millennia along the galactic rim, dead and uncaring in their hiding places among dust clouds and heavy nebulae, and on dark stars. For this climactic battle they must be summoned, the power of Life to resist must be broken now.

  From the berserker fleet at the Stone Place, between Atsog’s Sun and Sol, courier machines sped out toward the galactic rim.

  It would take some time for all the reserves to gather. Meanwhile, the interrogations went on.

  “Listen, I’ve decided I can help you, see. About this guy Karlsen, I know you want to find out about him. Only I got a delicate brain. If anything hurts me my brain don’t work at all, so no rough stuff on me, understand? I’ll be no good to you ever if you use rough stuff on me.”

  This prisoner was unusual. The interrogating computer borrowed new circuits for itself, chose symbols and hurled them back at the life-unit.

  “What can you tell me about Karlsen?”

  “Listen, you’re gonna treat me right, aren’t you?”

  “Useful information will be rewarded. Untruth will bring you unpleasant stimuli.”

  “I’ll tell you this now—the woman Karlsen was going to marry is here, you caught her alive in the same shelter Bradin was in.”

  “Now if you sort of give me control over all these other prisoners, make things nice for me, why I bet I can think up the best way for you to use her. If you just tell him you’ve got her, why he might not believe you, see?”

  Out on the galactic rim, the signals of the heralds called out the hidden reserves of the unliving. Subtle detectors heard the signals, and triggered the great engines into cold flame. The forcefield brain in each strategic housing awoke to livelier death. Each reserve machine acknowledged the call and began to move with metallic leisure, shaking loose its cubic miles of weight and power, freeing itself from dust, or ice, or age-old mud, or solid rock—then rising and turning, orienting itself in space. All converging, they drove faster than light toward the Stone Place, where the destroyers of Atsog awaited their reinforcement.

  With the arrival of each reserve machine, the linked berserker computers saw victory more probable. But still the quality of one life-unit made all computations uncertain.

  V

  Felipe Nogara raised a strong and hairy hand, and wiped it gently across one glowing segment of the panel before his chair. The center of his private study was filled by an enormous display sphere, which now showed a representation of the explored part of the galaxy. At Nogara’s gesture, the sphere dimmed and began to relight itself in a slow intricate sequence.

  A wave of his han
d had just theoretically eliminated the berserker fleet as a factor in the power game. To leave it in, he told himself, diffused the probabilities too widely. It was really the competing power of Ventis—and that of two or three other prosperous, aggressive planets—which occupied his mind.

  Well insulated in this private room from the hum of Esteel City and from the routine press of business, Nogara watched his computers’ new prediction take shape, showing the political power structure as it might exist one year from now, two yean, five. As he had expected, this sequence showed Esteel expanding in influence. It was even possible that he could become ruler of the human galaxy.

  Nogara wondered at his own calm in the face of such an idea. Twelve or fifteen years ago he had driven with all his power of intellect and will to advance himself. Gradually, the moves in the game had, come to seem automatic. Today, there was a chance that almost every thinking being known to exist would come to acknowledge him as ruler—and it meant less to him than the first local election he had ever won.

  Diminishing returns, of course. The more gained, the greater gain needed to produce an equal pleasure. At least when he was alone. If his aides were watching this prediction now it would certainly excite them, and he would catch their excitement.

  But, being alone, he sighed. The berserker fleet would not vanish at the wave of a hand. Today, what was probably the final plea for more help had arrived from Earth. The trouble was that granting Sol more help would take ships and men and money from Nogara’s expansion projects. Wherever he did that now he stood to lose out, eventually, to other men. Old Sol would have to survive the coming attack with no more help from Esteel.

  Nogara realized, wondering dully at himself, that he would as soon see even Esteel destroyed as see control slip from his hands. Now why? He could not say he loved his planet or people, but be bad been, by and large, a good ruler, not a tyrant. Good government was, after all, good politics.