Short Fiction Complete

by Fred Saberhagen

  And now the old woman, once more ignoring Tanya, was standing up from her tall chair, stepping to one side, and now she was slowly lowering her aged body to the deck. A chant was beginning to rise from half a dozen throats. And now the other people, those who had been playing the parts of Lady Blanqui’s crew and her beloved, were also making ritual obeisance, kneeling, bowing, prostrating themselves face down at the foot of me stage across which glided that darkly ominous shape, the image of their terrible god.

  She who had pretended to be a Mercantile princess rose to her knees and turned a transfigured countenance to Tanya. “You see my dear, you were very much mistaken. There are real goodlife aboard my ship!”

  “And soon,” said the youth who had played the role of Yero, kneeling beside her, speaking in a loud triumphant voice: “a real berserker!”

  V.

  Tanya could hear herself screaming as she recoiled in horror from that image—and from the triumphant nightmare figures around her, people who had suddenly revealed themselves as monsters.

  By now she could interpret the stage displays well enough to see how the onrushing image of armored death reached out with grappling forcefield weapons for the craft that had once pretended to be a berserker. That vessel was fighting back, splashing flares of energy across the berserker’s shields. At the moment both combatants seemed to be ignoring the yacht.

  And that was all Tanya allowed herself to see of events outside the hull. Momentarily ignored by the exultant goodlife around her, beneath their notice in this moment of their epiphany, she retreated quietly from the lounge and fled back down the short corridor to the door of Skorba’s cabin.

  The cabin door was closed but not locked. She wrenched it open to discover that he was no longer inside.

  In a moment she heard him calling to her. He was leaning out of another doorway, just down the corridor, beckoning urgently with an arm still clasped at the wrist by a disconnected metal cuff.

  Tanya hurried to the next cabin. Wirral and Hinna were both there, unshackled, both looking dazed. Wirral leaned against a bulkhead, while the woman stood close to Skorba, staring at him as if she didn’t know whether to attack him or beg for his help. Both of the pseudo-goodlife looked fearfully at Tanya as she came rushing up.

  Tanya grabbed Skorba by the sleeve, so that he had to juggle his media machine to his other hand to keep from dropping it. “Carl, Carl, they’re goodlife! The Lady and all her people. They’re out there now—”

  Skorba tore his arm out of her grip. “That’s what I was trying to tell you when you ran out. I’m trying to convince these clowns, and they still won’t believe me.”

  Tanya, on the edge of panic, hardly heard what he was saying, “—and there’s a real berserker coming. Not coming, it’s here now, attacking your ship. I saw it on the displays.”

  Skorba didn’t seem surprised at the news. “That means we don’t have much time.”

  Hinna, astonished by Tanya’s report, took her turn at grabbing Skorba by the arm. “If the people on this ship are goodlife,” she demanded, “why haven’t they killed us already?”

  “Probably because their master wants to talk to us before our bodies are purified.”

  Wirral, emerging from his daze, moved forward cursing. “You son of a bitch. How long have you known about them? I’ve known you for ten years, and you couldn’t tell me?”

  Suddenly enraged, Tanya lunged forward and shoved the bogus goodlife violently, sending him staggering back against the bulkhead again, shocking him into momentary silence.

  She drew a deep breath and turned back to Skorba. “All right, at last all three of us believe you. The Lady and her people are goodlife. What do we do?”

  “Are they all in the lounge?”

  “Every one.”

  Skorba gestured fiercely with his machine. “Then we stop wasting time and take control of the bridge while they’re giving us the chance. Explanation later, if there’s time.”

  In a moment the four of them were out of the cabin, moving down a curving corridor in the direction of the bridge.

  “Well, we saw the old bitch kill Pikuni with her handgun,” Wirral muttered under his breath. “I guess I can believe you.”

  “I say it served him right for waving a gun around,” Hinna murmured. “But if she’s not genuine goodlife, she’s sure as hell mean enough, she’ll do until the real thing comes along. Now we’ve got to fight her, but we have no weapons.”

  Everyone ignored that difficulty for the moment. At Skorba’s urgent gesture the other three stepped up their pace.

  Crossing an intersecting corridor, they could hear loud, exultant chanting coming from the direction of the lounge. Tanya was thinking that the two factions now about to contend for control of the yacht were approximately equal in numbers. But the goodlife had to be much better armed; all that the badlife had going for them was desperation and some advantage of surprise.

  By great good fortune the bridge was still deserted, its interior hatches standing open. Skorba and Wirral hurried in, Tanya and Hinna just behind them. They were able to seize control without opposition. Both hatches leading to the ship’s interior corridors were immediately dogged shut.

  Wirral immediately seated himself in one of the great padded command chairs, nominally the captain’s, beside the console where he had earlier made some disconnections, and got to work. In a matter of moments Hinna had located the bridge’s emergency tool kit and brought it to him.

  “Do you know what you’re doing?” Tanya demanded, as he dug rapidly into the circuitry with tools and fingers.

  “I was a flight engineer once,” Wirral answered abstractedly. “Turn up the light a little brighter.”

  She did as she was told.

  Meanwhile Skorba had seated himself in another of the three command chairs, and established contact with the ship’s electronic brain.

  “Master controls are almost always on the bridge,” he muttered to Tanya. “With a little luck we may be able to do this without her Ladyship even realizing for a while what’s happened.”

  As soon as Skorba had gained control over the ship’s electronic brain, he ordered it not to accept commands from anywhere in the ship except the bridge. Also to report to him any attempt from elsewhere to exert control. “Next,” he ordered it, “show me what kind of armament we’ve really got.”

  Hinna was incredulous. “You’re going to fire at the berserker?”

  “I’d love to, but I can’t fire at anything until Wirry gets our guns up and working.”

  “Not even then,” Wirral said firmly. “Drive gets connected first. Then we get the hell out of here.” He grunted and swore, dropping a small part to the deck. Hinna swooped to pick it up for him.

  Skorba swore back at him. “Get everything reconnected! And do the weapons and shields first!”

  Wirral shot his old comrade a dark glance, but chose not to waste time and energy in arguing. His hands worked on.

  “What’re they up to now in the lounge?” Tanya wanted to know.

  “They’re just watching the show, as far as I can tell from the displays. Not much else they can do, while the drive and weapons are still disabled.”

  Hinna, frowning, poked him in the shoulder, then pointed at a display stage. She said: “Skorb, it looks like the berserker’s determined to take over our old tub in one piece. Why in hell should it want to do that?”

  Skorba didn’t answer her question. He called everyone’s attention to another fact now visible when he adjusted the displays. “The berserker looks damaged. Maybe not enough to slow it down much, but it’s been through a fight.”

  Wirral spoke without looking up from his task. “Maybe it’s stopped trying to cloak itself. Considers its present opponents unworthy of such caution.”

  “It’s not having that easy a time of it,” Skorba commented. “You see, it doesn’t have guns or shields to match those on our old tub.”

  “What?” Tanya couldn’t believe that.

&nbs
p; “True, we outfitted specially for this con. What the berserker does have is a much better, in fact a superb, combat control system. Look at it maneuver, in and out. Our people, using our system, can’t get a good shot at it.”

  Tanya looked. She was reminded of an agile spider dancing, darting in and out, attacking some stronger but clumsier insect, slowly smothering and binding.

  “Once we start using either drive or weapons,” Tanya commented, “her Ladyship won’t be slow in reacting.”

  The reaction from the lounge came even more swiftly than she had predicted. Before either the yacht’s weapons or drive were operational again, the people there had somehow discovered that they were no longer in control.

  “Repeated commands are now being given to me in the lounge,” the ship’s pleasant voice reported on the bridge. “I am ignoring them, in accordance with your overriding orders.”

  “Continue to do so. Reply to no one in the lounge. And blank out all displays in the ship, everywhere but on the bridge.”

  Less than a minute passed before there came a heavy pounding on one of the hatches giving access to the bridge. Someone out there in the corridor was shouting. The four people who had bolted themselves in ignored the sounds, and they soon ceased.

  Very soon afterward the Lady’s face, transformed by rage and somehow almost youthful, appeared on all the intercom panels of the bridge. Her voice, cracking out of control for once, screamed at the people there: “You will unbolt the hatches immediately! Prolonged punishment will be administered if you refuse!”

  Skorba sighed, and shook his head. No one else on the bridge wanted to reply, or comment. In a moment Hinna had reached for a switch and cut off the image of the screaming woman.

  Now Skorba turned to confront the man in the next chair. “What’s taking so long getting things reconnected? It didn’t take you that long to pull ‘em apart.”

  “Of course it didn’t. It’s coming. Gimme a break, I haven’t been at it ten minutes yet. And as soon as I get the drive working, we’re getting out of here!”

  This time Skorba accepted the challenge. “There are three people, who we know pretty well, over there on our old ship. We’re not pulling out and leaving ‘em. So reconnect our weapons first.”

  “Are you crazy?” Wirral’s voice was threatening to crack. “They’re dead already. That thing’s a berserker, for God’s sake!”

  At that moment the pounding assault was resumed on one of the interior hatches. Tanya comforted herself by recalling the thick solidity of that locked slab of metal. The blows resounded more powerfully than before, but were still unavailing. The goodlife enemy were effectively shut out for the time being.

  “Think,” Hinna was exhorting her three companions, “we’ve got to think ahead. It doesn’t seem like they can break in the way they’re trying it now. What’re they going to try next?”

  “What would we do,” Tanya asked, “in their place . . . ?” In the next moment the answer hit her, and she screamed it out: “The lifeboats!”

  All three stared at her, momentarily petrified. “Where are they?” several voices cried out together.

  The boats were stowed, naturally enough, in the lifeboat bay—a compartment accessible from several places on the ship, including the lounge and—by means of a plainly marked hatch in the deck—the bridge.

  Hinna ran to this hatch and started to unbolt and open it. “WeVe got to get to the boats before they do!”

  “Wait,” Tanya called. “What are you—”

  But Hinna was already lifting the hatch. Even as she did, the beam of a small energy weapon, fired from below, glanced off the angled lower surface and splashed in silent, deadly brilliance across the bridge. The ray scorched pads and fabric, evoking glaring momentary highlights from glass and metal. Hinna howled and slammed the hatch down into place. In a moment Tanya, kneeling beside it, was sliding home the heavy bolts.

  Hinna’s right forearm, and a spot on her chin, where some reflected component of the beam had touched her, were blistering already. She sat on the deck making little moaning sounds, which quieted as Tanya brought the first aid kit, read directions and began to administer treatment.

  It was plain that the lifeboats—Skorba and Wirral were virtually certain there would be two on board—were already in the control of the enemy.

  That meant Lady Blanqui and her people were also in possession of the emergency radio equipment going with the boats—and once more able to communicate with the berserker.

  Tanya quickly suggested a countermove: the people on the bridge should pretend to be goodlife and radio to the master that they needed no help, though a couple of pesky badlife had got loose. But Skorba pointed out that the berserker would not recognize the people on the yacht’s bridge as known loyal life-units.

  There was no way for the people holding only the bridge to prevent a lifeboat launching.

  Skorba barked at the man beside him: “Which can you get hooked up faster? Weapons, drive, or shields?”

  “All right, weapons,” Wirral capitulated. “If those boats launch and then come back to ram us—”

  Watching on the display stages of me bridge as the swindlers’ ship continued to undergo a battering, and a gradual entanglement in the forcefields woven by the berserker, Tanya asked: “How long can they hold out over there?”

  The pudgy man in the captain’s chair shook his head. “They’d have been dead long ago, except the berserker happens to consider our powerful weapons and shields very valuable hardware, and is determined to capture them in one piece if at all possible.”

  “It looks that way, but how do you know?”

  “Look at the way it’s behaving. Trust me. As I think I told you once before, that hardware is what this whole game is all about.” He looked at his two old comrades. “You remember the way we acquired that stuff?”

  “Not likely to forget it.” Hinna shook her head. Wirral was silent, working desperately.

  “Tell me,” said Tanya.

  Skorba turned to her almost eagerly. “To run a con like this one, we couldn’t use just any ship. We really needed to look like a berserker, right? To intimidate people; the last thing we wanted was a real battle. So we needed a big weapon, to demonstrate how tough we were. Also we had to be able to latch onto a yacht like this one and drag it to a halt. That kind of tough military hardware’s not so easy to find. It meant bribing someone who had access to a military stockpile that was poorly guarded and poorly managed.” Skorba paused. “Finally we succeeded. And we were pleased, because most of the hardware we picked up was berserker works. Parts of a machine that someone had salvaged after it was destroyed in battle.”

  “I thought the Templars routinely took charge of that kind of material.”

  “They do whenever they can. But other military organizations don’t always cooperate with them. In this case someone was willing to sell the stuff, under the counter.”

  “Guns ready!” Wirral announced suddenly. His fingers clicked shut a small metal cover inside the console he was working on. “Fire at those lifeboats if they’re launched.”

  Skorba studied the display stage in front of his command chair. “What about shields?”

  “Not up yet—I’m working on ‘em.”

  The ship’s brain broke in to confirm, in its pleasant imperturbable voice, that the main battery was ready to use. “Weapons accumulators fully charged.”

  “Then we’re going to hit the berserker,” Skorba murmured. “Or its shields anyway. Try and buy a little time—ready—”

  Wirral’s angry argument was interrupted by sound indicating that both lifeboats had been launched from the yacht; a moment later the ship’s brain confirmed the fact.

  Tanya watched the nearest display stage as the two little images popped into view, then went pitching and rolling about uncertainly within a few hundred meters of the yacht. Obviously neither boat was under the control of an expert pilot.

  “So,” said Hinna, “the old bitch’s sent ou
t volunteers—”

  “Yes, but to do what?” Tanya asked.

  “One boat’s heading for the berserker—look—”

  “So it is, but why?”

  “Look out! The other one’s looping back—”

  Around Tanya a confused outcry was going up. “We’re near the center of the ship. It’s not going to reach us—”

  “It will if it comes right back in through the lifeboat bay!”

  The nearest of the darting little images on the stage flared brightly and disappeared. Skorba, controlling the yacht’s guns, had cooly blasted the kamikaze lifeboat into vapor before it could achieve its suicidal purpose.

  “The other one’s going to the berserker.”

  “Why?”

  “I can think of several reasons, none of them good.”

  Once more human conversation on the bridge was interrupted by the calm, urbane voice of the ship’s electronic brain, this time reporting that power to the yacht’s main weapons had just been cut off.

  Skorba sat stunned for a moment. Then he cursed and jiggled controls and indicators, all to no avail. “Have we at least got the shields up yet?”

  “Hell no!” Wirral shouted back. “We never will, if the power’s cut off to them too. The damned goodlife must have got into the engine room, reached the power lamps.”

  Emergency power supplies would continue to provide life support throughout the ship for some hours at least, and to keep the electronics going on the bridge. And the artificial gravity was still holding up, but for how long—

  On the stages the second lifeboat could be seen reaching the berserker, and disappearing against that terrible dark shape. Only a minute or two later the image of the small boat reappeared. The little craft had separated itself from the berserker and was heading back toward the yacht.

  Wirral paused wearily in his work. “What now? We’re dead. Whether it decides to ram us, or brings over a real boarding machine.”