Short Fiction Complete

by Fred Saberhagen

  Carl and Tanya found themselves, more or less by default, keeping each other company. “Do they sleep together, do you suppose?” Tanya speculated to her fellow passenger, referring to their hostess and her evidently beloved young male companion.

  Skorba appeared to give the question serious thought. No doubt anything he could work out about the Lady’s psychology might be of some advantage to him when he talked business with her.

  “I rather doubt it,” he said at last. “Though I’m not sure why I say that.”

  “I agree.” Tanya nodded slowly. “There’s some very powerful bond between them. But what it is. . . .”

  No hint yet of when she’d be able to get down to interviewing Lady Blanqui.

  Like most people, Tanya found travel in subspace boring. She had taken only four interstellar journeys before this one, but within two standard hours she was already bored. Most of the time there was no way of looking out, in any meaningful sense, from a starship in full flight; and in me intervals when looking out was possible, most observers, Tanya among them, found the sensation quite unpleasant. She agreed with the usual comparison, of gazing through an infinite wall of distorting lenses, toward a few distant and uncertain sources of dazzling light.

  No effort had been made to adjust ship’s time for the new passengers. The clock aboard appeared to be running several hours later than that of the Malawi spaceport town, and so, from the newcomers’ viewpoint, dinner was delayed.

  When the meal was served at last, by capable machines—and the female servant, who proved surprisingly inept—it was something of a disappointment. Routine machine cooking, adequate to sustain life, even enjoyable if you were hungry, but certainly not memorable. Well, thought Tanya, they ought to have been warned by their hostess’s lean frame and ascetic manner. Miserliness had not been mentioned in the data banks as one of the Lady’s notable attributes, but Tanya supposed that if you were rich and powerful enough the data banks tended to be kind.

  The two invited guests dined with Lady Blanqui at the central table in the lounge. Everyone else aboard, including Yero, appeared to be dining elsewhere. And if the Lady’s wish, as she had expressed it, was really to talk more with people, she gave little sign of being ready to start now.

  Both Skorba and Serafeddin, somewhat deterred by the forbidding presence of their hostess, hesitated to bring up the subjects that had brought them aboard. Conversation tended to drag a little.

  What talk there was began to turn philosophical.

  And then it was broken off, abruptly wiped out by the almost-deafening shriek of the ship’s alarms.

  II.

  There was no need for the occupants of the lounge to engage in a physical scramble to discover what had set off the alarms. Without prompting, the ship’s own electronic brain quickly altered the lighting in the lounge, and simultaneously illuminated screens and display stages that showed the situation outside the hull.

  These viewing devices presented schematic views of surrounding subspace, from which an eye skilled in such interpretations could extract much information. The inexperienced Tanya could make little sense of the displays at first, and turned to Skorba, whose intent expression indicated that he was having more success.

  “What’s happening?”

  “We’re about to pop out into normal space, for one thing. I don’t know why—we can’t be anywhere near Damaturu yet. Could be we’re being urged along.”

  “Urged along? By what? By who?”

  Carl didn’t answer. In a few moments he added: “There’s some kind of a—system—near where we’re going to come out. Not a real sun, though. Much smaller. An infra-red source that looks like a marginal brown dwarf. Dead rocks revolving around a bigger rock.”

  Lady Blanqui had manually turned off the alarms, then for the next minute remained silent while staring at the displays. Then she began a crisp, terse dialogue with her ship. Tanya could not understand much of what was said on either side, but the jargon the Lady used indicated that she was no novice in technical matters.

  Shortly after the alarms fell silent, the official captain of the Golden Hind came bursting, scrambling into the lounge, noticeably late in reacting to the signal. He had obviously just pulled on his formal tunic and was still trying to fasten the collar as he appeared. “My Lady, my Lady, there is an attacker—”

  “Be quiet. I can see things for myself.”

  Tanya’s gaze flew back to the nearest display. The symbol in the center, if the thing was going to make any sense at all, had to stand for the yacht. Now, amid the steady flow of other indications, another image of somewhat greater size was struggling to establish itself solidly, holding a steady position relative to the yacht.

  “Whatever it is, it looks too big for us to deal with,” Skorba was muttering softly. Glancing toward her companion, Tanya noted that he was now clinging with both hands to the nearest leg of the bolted-down table. As if, she realized, he was preparing himself against a possible slight disturbance in the artificial gravity. Slight, because anything more than slight, at space velocities, would slosh fragile human bodies like soup around the interior of the room.

  So far the gravity was just fine, holding standard normal, the lounge as quiet and steady as a room built on Malawi bedrock. But Tanya carefully took a double grip on the tableleg nearest her—just in case. Glancing at their hostess, she observed that Lady Blanqui disdained such precautions.

  Turning back to Carl Skorba, Tanya asked him some questions about the displays. With a few quick explanations from her fellow passenger, she began to find the presentations easy enough to interpret, at least in their essentials. A single unidentified craft, somewhat larger than the yacht, had sprung out seemingly from nowhere as if in deliberate ambush. Such tactics were feasible in certain realms of subspace; one such was this part of the Tallart Nebula, where practical routes of travel were much constricted by dark matter and gravitational fields.

  The unknown craft had closed in on the Golden Hind and grappled her with forcefield weapons. The yacht, as its electronic brain was even now reporting to its owner, had already tried to pull free, but had failed against superior force. Now the unidentified attacker was slowly but steadily forcing the yacht to a standstill relative to the nearest local system. In this case that meant the imminent emergence of both vessels into normal space.

  The nominal captain of the Golden Hind, having made his report—and having been put in his place by his Lady’s contemptuous response—stepped back from the table and remained standing at attention, his face inscrutable. Within a few moments of his arrival in the lounge, the rest of the human crew and servants came straggling in one at a time. Only Yero was still absent. Like their mistress, the staff seemed to be bearing the shock of sudden and mysterious danger with relative calm and considerable fortitude. Perhaps they were trained to take the cue for all their responses from her. The robotic steward continued to fuss about the table, getting ready to offer everyone refreshments, until the Lady ordered it back to its place against the tapestried bulkhead.

  Tanya turned back to Carl Skorba. “Pirates?” she asked hopefully.

  She knew perfectly well that human piracy had never been really widespread in the Tallart Cluster. And for centuries now it had been on the wane. But surely there was a chance, there must be, that the attackers were only human pirates—perhaps amenable to bargaining, to reason, to letting people go in exchange for ransom—

  “I doubt it,” Skorba responded tersely. And her heart sank.

  The only likely alternative to human pirates was something that no one would want to consider. Not until there was no other choice.

  Tanya, like everyone else on Malawi during the past year, had heard rumors about berserker sightings in the Tallart. Surely the Lady and her people must have heard them also? If so, she had to admire their fortitude.

  Looking up, she saw that Yero had at last come into the lounge. Now everyone aboard was gathered here. Moving slowly and with dignity, the dark
and savage-looking young man approached his mistress until he was standing close beside her chair. There he remained, silent as before, resting one hand on the chair’s high back, and gazing around fiercely at the other people present.

  For once the Lady hardly seemed aware of her dear one’s presence. Her attention remained riveted on the displays, and now and then she exchanged a few words of technical jargon directly with the electronic intelligence of her ship. Have we no weapons? Tanya wondered suddenly. Is there nothing at all for us to do?

  The near-silence in the lounge held for what seemed to her an endless time. And then it was broken by a loud voice. Tanya had never heard such a voice before, except from an entertainment stage, or in one of the few authentic recordings. Not many humans had heard the real thing and survived to describe the experience. This voice, now, spoke from the attacking craft in the traditional tones of a berserker’s squeaking, disjointed utterance, coming clearly through the speakers in the lounge. Stories said that the berserkers made voices for themselves by splicing together syllables from the recorded speech of long-dead human prisoners.

  “Badlife, any further attempt at escape or resistance will be punished. Resistance is futile. Prompt surrender will be rewarded. I repeat, badlife attitudes and behavior will be punished.”

  The sound of that utterance struck Tanya like a blow. It is to be death, then. My death. Not someday, when I am old and perhaps will be ready. But extinction here and now, in the days of my youth.

  “No such good luck as pirates,” someone whispered. She needed a moment to realize that the whisperer was herself.

  In the age-long war of Earth-descended humanity against berserkers mere had been hardly any bargaining. No treaties made, or even attempted, with such an enemy, an unliving enemy programmed inexorably to achieve death, death for all life wherever and whenever encountered. No mercy on either side, and no exchange of prisoners. The first berserkers had been designed by living beings as an ultimate weapon, meant to win a savage interstellar war. They were machines, self-replicating, self-repairing, launched upon their course of slaughter by a shadowy and almost unknown race, ages before anyone on Earth had built or even imagined starships.

  In her despair Tanya turned her head, seeking hope. Beside her, Skorba had his eyes closed; his face was calm, his hands still gripped the table. Across the table, Lady Blanqui seemed as firmly in control of herself as ever. She has little to lose, Tanya thought, knowing a flash of vicious envy. Her life must be nearly at an end in any case.

  Another figure stirred. “My Lady. Should we—?”

  Lady Blanqui cut off her captain’s tentative question with a contemptuous motion of her hand.

  The display screens and stages changed dramatically, and all at once. Now both spacecraft, still bound together by the attackers’ forcefields, were emerging into normal space at what must be an admissible local velocity.

  That terrible voice came once more, resonating in the ears and in the souls of me people in die lounge. “Resistance will not bring quick death. Thoughtful cooperation is the only hope of that.”

  “Ship,” said me Lady in a clear, steady voice. “I wish to speak directly to our attacker. Surely you can establish some kind of two-way communications link?”

  There was a click from the speakers, a burst of noise, and then the voice of the yacht’s own electronic control system. “The link is established, Lady.”

  Lady Blanqui wasted no time. “Who are you?” she demanded in an imperious croak. “And what do you want?”

  The berserker voice croaked back: “Badlife, no subterfuge will succeed. You know what I am. My power is overwhelming. Much greater than that of your small ship.”

  And before the Lady could respond to that, the enemy craft had demonstrated a powerful weapon, to good effect.

  The display screens and stages flared with a brief violence of light. A few seconds later, one of the smaller and nearer rocks making up the dead system nearby had disappeared in an explosion. And even with such a drain of power, the grip of the forcefields had not slackened.

  “Penalties will be imposed, upon each of you individually, if resistance is prolonged further.”

  “Cut our drive,” Lady Blanqui commanded her ship immediately. “Cease all efforts to escape.” Then she gave voice to a great sigh.

  Moments later, it was obvious even to Tanya, watching the displays, that the ship’s speed relative to the nearby rocks was slowing. Now in a state of abject surrender, the yacht was soon brought very nearly to a complete stop relative to the local system. Skorba in a low voice noted that the nearest sizable member of that system, big as a minor planet, was only a few hundred thousand kilometers away.

  Once again the squeaky voice issued orders. “Stand by to receive a boarding party. Resistance will result in prolonged punishment.”

  “It never gets tired of saying that,” Carl Skorba muttered, “does it?” He looked at Tanya with an expression of rueful sympathy, and suddenly reached out for her hand.

  Tanya took his hand, gratefully, stung even in her despair by the idea that everyone aboard was braver than herself.

  “There will be no resistance to the boarding party,” commanded the Lady, raising her head and voice sharply, glaring at them all. “I will speak, as best I can, for all of us.”

  None of her shipmates raised any argument.

  Tanya recalled her own earlier, admittedly inexpert, impression that the weaponry, offensive and defensive, aboard the yacht seemed rather light and indeed inadequate for a craft that presumably had planned to cruise through some risky places. Well, it was too late now to worry about that.

  Resistance, however hopeless and indeed suicidal, might be the standard reaction of choice against berserkers. But as far as Tanya could tell, there was at this point literally no chance to do anything in the way of fighting for survival.

  “Haven’t we any weapons?” she burst out defiantly, while they waited.

  Skorba was soothing. “Not much along that line, I think. Anyway, whatever the ship does carry probably couldn’t be brought to bear at this point.”

  Invisible forces maintained their grip upon the yacht, inexorably binding her in the same position relative to her captor.

  Yero continued to stand close to Lady Blanqui at this critical time. Still they hardly touched each other.

  When Tanya pulled her hand away from Skorba’s, he at last let go of the table completely. He folded his arms and sat back in his chair, watching the Lady and wearing an expression of grim resignation.

  The displays in the lounge now showed what looked like a small launch detaching itself from the enemy, and quickly approaching the Golden Hind. Only seconds elapsed before the sounds of docking came carrying ominously through me hull.

  “Aren’t you going to at least lock the door on them? Do we all just sit here, like—like—”

  Tanya’s outburst was ignored. As if hypnotized, everyone remained in place and watched a hatch, outlined by a pattern in the carpeted deck, swing up and open.

  She held her breath.

  The object that appeared first in the opening resembled a grotesquely enlarged human head, or a space helmet, but in fact it was part of a machine. As this machine climbed into full view the watchers could see that it was roughly manlike in its shape, and only slightly larger than an average human adult; its fellow, which followed close behind it, was only slightly smaller.

  Both devices, as they took up standing positions one on either side of the open hatch, looked very formidable. Their bodies were thickly studded with what might have been ray-projectors or missile-throwers of one kind or another. Their formidable, claw-like grippers were empty, but looked capable of effortlessly rending mere human flesh into bloody rags. There were other peculiar features about the devices, features whose purpose Tanya could not readily identify, and that appeared all the more ominous to her for that.

  The machines had hardly taken up their stations when they were followed into view by a couple o
f very scruffy, wretched-looking humans. So these are goodlife, thought Tanya, gazing at the worn-looking man and woman, both of indeterminate age. Goodlife was a term coined long ago by the berserkers themselves, and applied to deserters from the human side. People who became worshippers of death, servants of death, and so were tolerated for a time by the machines of death. Such people were useful to the machines for study and experiment, valuable as spies and secret agents, helpful in learning the mysterious ways of this so-stubborn variety of active protoplasm that called itself Earth-descended humanity.

  “This everyone?” asked the goodlife man. He was unarmed, clad in a worn and unwashed coverall, and boots with broken fastenings. His voice was sharp though not loud, and he indicated the people in the lounge with a jerky gesture of one hand.

  The Lady, who was somehow still managing to retain her regal calm, looked around her unhurriedly. Tanya could feel her own courage buoyed by this example.

  The woman in the tall chair said: “Every living person on this ship, both crew and passengers, is now assembled here. I am the Lady Blanqui.”

  “Is that so. Who’re you?” The male intruder was squinting now at Skorba. Skorba introduced himself, giving name and occupation—“financial adviser”—in a flat voice. Then it was Tanya’s turn, and she did the same.

  Then it was Yero’s turn. Lady Blanqui spoke for him. “He is dumb. But don’t worry, he understands. And he will do what I tell him.”

  “He’d better. And you’d better tell him the right thing.”

  Yero uttered a whispery growl at the invaders. Though the youth’s body hardly moved, he gave the impression that he might have hurled himself violently at them were it not for the Lady’s gently restraining hand that touched and held his hand. It was almost as if she were holding back a savage dog.