Short Fiction Complete

by Fred Saberhagen

  “I don’t know if there’ll be nineteen or not, for very long.” Ridolfi’s voice was hard as that of one just going into battle, not coming out of it, and his eyes were welded on the fat civilian.

  “Sir?” The Second didn’t get it at all, not yet.

  “I mean, Mister, that unless I get some questions answered by this man here, and answered damn fast, I’m going to convene a formal court and press charges against him of voluntarily aiding a berserker.”

  THERE WERE ONLY six people in the dayroom when the first informal inquiry began; the Commander didn’t want to prejudice possible jurors if the thing came to a formal trial, which he was empowered to give even civilians when in space and in the face of the enemy.

  As Novotny, by now somewhat recovered though still slow of movement and blinking a bit bewilderedly, was ushered in and shown to the seat across the table from him, the Commander was simultaneously handed a note from the other side. It informed him that the berserker had just been observed dropping out of normal space in the area of the battle. Instruments showed it departing the local area, having evidently completed such emergency repairs as it could manage on the spot. A reading on the subspace signals of its departure gave a vector for its probable destination that deepened the lines carved down through Ridolfi’s cheeks.

  A silence grew in the room, until Ridolfi spoke. “This is not yet a trial, Mr. Novotny. But I warn you that there may be one before we get back to a planet, if we ever do; or are picked up by another human ship, if we ever are. If there is a trial, you will be charged with voluntarily aiding a berserker, and conviction will carry an almost certain penalty of death.”

  Exhaustion and puzzlement seemed to be absorbed almost at once within the layers of fat as Novotny pulled himself together. “Ah. I stand ready, of course, Commander, to answer any questions on my behavior that you may have.”

  “That’s good. Frank answers will be required.” Ridolfi tried to keep his one hand from fidgeting before him on the table. “On board the cruiser, in a combat situation, you deliberately interfered with my attempt to destroy the databank containing your encyclopedia. Do you deny it?”

  Novotny was sitting very still, as if he feared that movement might land him in further trouble of some kind. He thought before answering, and his face maintained a frown. “No, I do not deny that, Commander.”

  The Commander paused, then put his arm out on the table, fingers opened, elbow straight, a dominating gesture. “You do not. Very well. My intention in destroying that data, sir, was to prevent its use as an astrogational aid by the berserker. If you wanted to save it, it was surely not for yourself. Did you expect that the berserker might accord you some favorable treatment if you . . .” Novotny was shaking his head. “I very seriously doubt that the data in the encyclopedia will do the enemy the least bit of good, in this case. Nor did I wish to help the enemy.”

  The Commander’s voice was relentlessly unchanged. “On the cruiser, you and I both saw the berserker going after the astrogational databank, which it evidently needed but didn’t get.

  “We also know the enemy is severely damaged, which means it will be looking for some comparatively near planet where it can commandeer machinery and materials to repair itself; in addition, of course, to wiping out as many unprotected human lives there as it can reach. Because we fought it to a standstill here in space doesn’t mean it won’t be able to poison an atmosphere and depopulate a planet, if it comes on one only lightly defended or takes one unaware. Is all this news to you?”

  “I think I understand all this, Commander.”

  “Let those who are here with us be witness that you do.” Ridolfi glanced briefly round at the faces of the others, all of them staring now at the accused. “Because so far you are answering yourself right into a trial, Mister Novotny. There are only two things, basically, that a berserker ever wants or needs; victims, and facilities for repair and refitting. And you’ve shown this one where to go for both of them.”

  Novotny slumped a little in his chair and closed his eyes. But when he opened them his voice was as steady as before. “Commander, if I am. indeed on trial for my life, or likely to be, then I would like to hear the charges and the evidence as fully as possible before I try to answer them. Go on.”

  “Very well.” Ridolfi nodded grimly. “You came on board the Dipavamsa with two copies of your new edition, one of which was subsequently and routinely stowed aboard this launch, along with some other baggage not immediately in use. That copy is still here and available, and since going off combat alert I’ve fed it into our computer and asked for a readout—as the berserker can readily do with the copy you gave it—of all inhabited planets within seven light-years of where our battle was fought. That’s about as far as that berserker is going to get without repairs; and extending the radius another light year or so brings no new planets in.”

  The Commander had a paper which he now consulted. “There are seven inhabited planets to be found, according to the Encyclopedia Galactica, within that radius. They are Angkor Apeiron, Comparettia, Epirus, Francavilla, Han Kao, Reissner, and Yang Ch’i. Exact coordinates, RGC, are given for each.” He put one piece of paper on the table and took another from a pocket of his shirt. “I have here part of a spare copy of the Military Information Sheet given us when we filed our flight plan before departing on this trip. Among other things, it lists the six inhabited planets in this same region that have notable ground defenses, or fleet units standing by, or both. As one more bit of evidence, Mr. Novotny, let me state now that you were also a witness with me that a copy of this list of the six defended planets was also seized by the berserker. Any denials yet?” Ridolfi’s fingers were shaking and he put the second paper down. “Not yet, Commander.”

  “Though whether you understood the full implications of that seizure at the time . . .”

  “I had . . . some idea, I suppose, of what the implications were. Proceed.”

  Ridolfi read: “The six defended planets on the military list for this region are: Comparettia, Epirus, Francavilla, Han Kao, Reissner, and Yang Ch’i. Notably missing from this military list is Angkor Apeiron.” The Commander pushed his second paper out on the table beside the first, where anyone who wished might look them over, and then produced a third.

  He went on: “According to the latest census figures, as given in this EG article, this world has about eleven million, six hundred thousand inhabitants. Its chief export industries are crystal growing and natural honey. The spaceport is small, but probably the berserker could plunder it for useful machines and materials after it has wiped out what appears to be an undefended populace.

  The Commander needed a moment before he could continue. “Angkor Apeiron was discovered by Chang Izanagi, of Hathor, in 7626 CE . . . first colonized only ten standard years later.” His voice was starting to shake a little like his hand. “I suppose your reference work is quite reliable in these particulars? I mean, about there being eleven million people there, especially?”

  Novotny paused for thought, began to speak, then stopped and shook his head and tried again. “The EG is the most reliable general reference work in human history, Your Honor—Commander—whatever I am to call you now—”

  “ ‘Commander’ will still do.”

  “—when it is used for the purposes for which it is intended. Which is to say that it was never meant to serve as a manual of do-it-yourself medicine, or law, or astrogation either. It is a means by which one can verify, or learn, a fact; check a date or name; obtain entree to almost any field of knowledge, and learn where to go for further . . .”

  “Yes. Spare us the sales talk, we’re not in the market for a set right now.” Nobody cracked a smile. “Now here in your reliable reference work, which you gave the enemy as a present, are the precise coordinates for the Apeiron system; Sector Omicron 111.254, Ring Eleven 87.58, Galactic Latitude 7.54 North. These figures are correct, are they not? Hasn’t the EG a competent editorial staff, with the technical and scienti
fic knowledge . . .”

  “The staff at the home office is more than competent, Commander. It is very good indeed. I speak from personal experience.”

  The Commander leaned forward. “Then what, Mr. Novotny, is going to save the inhabitants of Angkor Apeiron from the consequences of your action?”

  Novotny leaned back, somewhat haughtily, as if he had at last taken affront. “Only the fact, Commander, that the inhabitants of Angkor Apeiron do not exist.” There was a silence in the day-room, as if each person who looked at the speaker were waiting for his last words to somehow clear themselves out of the air, or for some great hand to reach in from outside the little ship and mend the broken spring of sanity.

  The Commander, his shakiness shocked away, was the first to reply: “You mean . . . you claim to have some knowledge . . . that the planet has already been evacuated, or wiped out?”

  “I mean, sir, that the star Apeiron has no planets. It has never had any. When the berserker arrives there it will find no victims and no material help; and if your estimate of its damaged condition is as accurate as I would like to believe, before it can go on to some other world it will have died, if that is the proper word, of the injuries your crew has so gallantly inflicted on it.”

  “But . . .” The Second Officer was starting a disbelieving protest.

  Novotny rounded on him sharply. “Why do you suppose the military authorities protected six settled planets in this region and ignored a seventh?”

  “Lack sufficient forces . . .”

  “Bah. Correct me if I am wrong, Commander, but would not the general or admiral in charge be more likely to spread his forces thinner, and not leave eleven million people totally undefended, since this sector has become a combat zone? Of course his forces are probably spread all too thin already, which is why I thought it good to direct our late antagonist to a desert system, rather than letting it go challenge some of them. ”

  Ridolfi had recovered, or almost. “Desert system? But this EG entry . . . you claim your encyclopedia is the most reliable . . .”

  Novotny was holding up a pudgy, magisterial hand, and his face had eased into something that approached a smile. “I will explain, as I have promised. But to do so I must briefly go far afield from berserkers and space warfare.”

  His accuser had not yet relaxed a bit. “Do so. Go as far as you like. But be sure that you come back.”

  Novotny took another moment to marshall his thoughts before he spoke. “Suppose . . . suppose that you, Commander, are a ruthlessly good businessman, back on Earth or one of the other crowded worlds. And you decide that there is money to be made in purveying information to the public, even as EG makes money. You decide that you will compile and sell a general reference work. Or perhaps one more specialized—on galactography, let us say, listing and describing all the inhabited and explored planets as well as other bodies in the Galaxy that are for some reason interesting.

  “You decide that you will put a great deal less work into your encyclopedia than we put into ours, and therefore be able to sell yours for a great deal less money, while including the same information we include. How? The most direct expedient is of course to copy all your articles verbatim from ours; but this the laws and courts, alas for your enterprise, are never going to allow. You are forced to the inconvenience of at least rewriting our material somewhat as you crib.

  “Given a little computer help, to rearrange the syntax and replace words with their synonyms, this will not be such an arduous task as might at first appear. Even our several billions of words might be rehashed and reprinted, in slightly different format, in a quite reasonable time. Behold! And Commander Ridolfi’s Encyclopedia of All Knowledge is available for the home data bank, at a much lower fee than ours . . . never mind that you will not provide your customers with the constant updating service that ours receive.

  “So! Even with much rewriting, your basic idea is still illegal, still infringes upon our copyrights, does it not? Well, now the answer is no longer quite so clear-cut. But believe me, our lawyers will try, have tried in similar cases, to sue you for a bundle, as soon as they find out what you have done.

  “Now you show up for trial, and are on the witness stand, though not with your life at stake of course . . . Commander Ridolfi, I the prosecuting attorney ask you: Is it true or not, that you have compiled your so-called reference work virtually entirely from EG? Now think carefully, for on your answer your whole defense will stand or fall.

  “Of course it is not true! you answer ringingly. You used the Merchant Astrogation banks, you used periodicals and the records from dusty archives, you looked in books, you queried eminent authorities in many fields, just as does the great EG itself.

  “Ohh? I ask, and now my voice is of the softest, and I cast an eye toward the jury. Then tell me, sir, which of these many indispensable sources did you use to cross-check your information on the planet Angkor Apeiron?”

  There was another silence in the dayroom, a different sort of silence this time, and death that had all along seemed close was suddenly light years off again, at one with the berserker’s wake that faded in subspace.

  Novotny felt the difference and began to sag. “Because you see, sir, we have made this entry up, population, industries, discovery date and all, as encyclopedists have made up entries for the same reason from very ancient times. We made it up to catch such plagiaristic fish as you, and put it as bait for you within the great EG, and nowhere else in the great universe of worlds or information storage does Angkor Apeiron exist . . . there are a number of other baits like this one, Commander, among our forty million entries. Quite a few, like this one, I had a hand in making up myself; but how many there are altogether I do not know; no one man or woman knows them all. The ordinary user is of course never going to hear of Angkor Apeiron anywhere and is therefore never going to look it up. If he comes upon it while browsing at his reading machine, he is only treated to a dull and minor fantasy that he will soon forget.”

  Novotney let himself sink back into a chair that no longer seemed to be a dock above the edge of death. Then he turned his head to a wallscreen showing space, and looked off into the nebular cloudbanks of the Deep. “I wonder if it can even wonder how it was tricked, or how it tricked itself . . . I know that it could never understand.”

  1976

  BENEATH THE HILLS OF AZLAROC

  His name was Francisco Sorokin, and he had walked on the surface of a neutron star. Or so he said, when he reappeared in the nameless city, the only place that could be called a city on the strange world of Azlaroc.

  “You expect anyone to believe that?” Miletus Millbrae scoffed; he recognized Sorokin, knew him slightly, felt contempt for him as a harmless braggart and a vagabond, a quack anchorite who spent about half his time in the remote mathematical deserts of the world and the other half in town convincing tourists that he was a mysterious and romantic figure. It was quite possibly true that he knew more about the deserts than did any other man.

  Sorokin gave a slight l-don’t-care-if-you-believe-me-or-not gesture, the equivalent of a shrug, and stood before a slab of polished wood imported at great cost, pondering the bartender’s recent automatic query as to what he would like to have. At the moment he and Milfbrae were the tavern’s only customers.

  The gesture of indifference had been not very convincing, Millbrae thought; he would have expected that a man like Sorokin could do better. Millbrae studied the other’s face, which he was able to do readily enough because they were near-contemporaries on Azlaroc, each of them having settled here about fifty years ago.

  “Brandy, Year ’475,” Millbrae ordered.

  The bartender was no machine, but a man who evidently liked the work, and like most human bartenders, a recent settler. As a comparative newcomer he could of course converse more readily with the tourists who made up a large part of his trade. This year’s tourists, whom Millbrae saw through about fifty veils, were blurred enough to him to make recognition of facia! feat
ures difficult. “Sorry, sir, we seem to be out. We’re getting a liquor shipment from Recycling in about eight hours, so if you’d care to try tonight or tomorrow . . . meanwhile I can offer ’476.”

  “Bah. I have no urge to swallow silk, just to be sociable. My bloodstream cries for booze.” Of course only one veil lay between ’475 and ’476, but to a stomach of the wrong yeargroup the stuff would be completely inert.

  “I’ll take a shot of that ’476. My very year.” Sorokin turned around, leaning with his elbows on the bar, looking somehow bigger and more formidable than before. “Do you don’t believe me. Well, I suppose I’ve cried wolf far too often.” A single point of light from the one veil that lay between them made a small sparkle at his elbow.

  “Wolf?”

  “An old story.” Sorokin looked off into space.

  This performance is getting better, Millbrae thought to himself. “What have you for ’475?” he asked the bartender.

  The man tapped a button for an inventory readout. “Whisky. Bhang. Schnapps. Rum . . .?”

  “Something with rum in it. Very cold.” Hoping for amusement, Millbrae looked back at Sorokin, and made his own expression one of interest with just the right amount of doubt. “So tell me about walking on the neutron star.”

  Sorokin smacked his lips over his brandy of ’476. “Still tastes good. I’ll tell you first a name, and then perhaps you’ll be willing to believe the rest.”

  An old settler passed, a man or woman from hundreds of years ago, so far warped by hundreds of veils from Sorokin’s and Millbrae’s shared reality that he—or she was little more than a drift of visible vibrations in the air, whose zone of passage included the comer of Millbrae’s modern table without in the least disturbing the simultaneous arrival of his rum drink. An old-settler bartender, or more probably a machine of that era, came in the form of a similar blur to take his order across the ancient, polished wood. No questions of communication with the three men already there; from their viewpoint, no one had really entered.