Short Fiction Complete

by Fred Saberhagen

  Fred Saberhagen understands the humanoids, perhaps better than any sf writer besides Jack himself Since I read my first Berserker story nearly thirty years ago, I’ve hoped for a story like the one that follows. Perhaps it was inevitable that something like the following clash of titans would happen. Boy, are we lucky it happened here.

  Smoothly functioning machinery composed the bulk of the little courier ship, surrounding its cabin, cradling and defending the two human lives therein. Both crew members were at battle stations, their bodies clad in full space armor and secured in combat chairs. At the moment all the elaborate devices of guidance and propulsion performed their functions unobtrusively, and the cabin was very quiet. This was not the time for casual conversation, because the combat zone was only a few minutes ahead.

  The small portion of the Galaxy settled by Earth-descended humans lay almost entirely behind the courier, while only a few of the most recently established settlements lay in its path, as did much of the vaster Galactic realm still unexplored. Moving in c-space, the ship’s instruments at the moment were able to show only a faint indication of its destination: the hint of the presence of a gravitational radiant, still several light-hours away.

  Before Lieutenant Commander Timor and Ensign Strax had departed on this mission, the admiral in command of Sector Headquarters had summoned both to a secret briefing. Once the three officers were isolated in the briefing room, the CO had turned on a holostage display. The scene depicted was at once recognizable as the region of space surrounding the Selatrop Radiant.

  Crisply the admiral reminded the man and woman before him of the special physical qualities of negative gravitational radiants in general, and of this one in particular, which made these peculiar features in space-time strong points in the struggle to control the lanes of space.

  Three inhabited planets orbited suns within a few light-years of the Selatrop, and the lives of those populations hung in the balance. In the war of humanity against the Berserker machines, whichever side held the Selatrop Radiant would have a substantial advantage in the ongoing struggle to control this sector of space. If Berserkers should be able to capture and hold this fortress, then it would probably be necessary to try to evacuate those planets.

  Facing his two officers across the glowing tabletop display, the admiral had come quickly to the point: “I’m worried, spacers. Communication with Selatrop is still open, and the garrison commander reports that the defenses are holding. But . . . several of the messages received from there over the last standard month suggest that something is seriously wrong.”

  The admiral went on to give details. Most puzzling was a statement by the garrison commander, Colonel Craindre, that she flatly refused to accept any more human reinforcements. From now on, only routine replacement supplies, and a few additional items, factory machinery and materials, were to be sent. Some of these requisitions were hard to explain by the normal requirements of maintenance and replacement—and the sender of the message had offered no explanation.

  When the CO paused, seeming to invite comment, Timor said: “Admiral, that doesn’t sound like Colonel Craindre at all.”

  The older man nodded. “Semantic analysis strongly suggests that none of the members of the garrison wrote those words.”

  “But who else could have written them, sir?—unless some ship we don’t know about has arrived at the fortress.”

  “Who else, indeed? Your orders are to find out what’s happening, and report.”

  The message torpedoes from the Selatrop Fortress had borne additional puzzling content. At least one of the dispatches hinted at a great, joyous announcement soon to be proclaimed. Psychologists at Headquarters suspected that the sender might have been subjected to some kind of mind-altering drugs or surgery.

  The admiral also voiced his fear of a worst-case scenario: that the Berserkers had actually overrun the fortress, but were trying to keep the fact a secret.

  The briefing was soon concluded, and Lieutenant Commander Timor and Ensign Strax boarded the armed courier. Minutes later they were launched into space.

  The little courier was now about to reemerge into normal space after three days of c-plus travel.

  The onboard drive and astrogation systems, under the autopilot’s control, continued to function smoothly. No enemy presence had been detected in local c-space. The small ship popped back into normal space precisely on schedule, only a few thousand kilometers from its destination, well-positioned within the approach lanes to the Selatrop.

  Timor let out held breath in a kind of reverse gasp. At least normal space within point-blank weapons range was clear of the Berserker enemy. There would be no attack on the courier within the next few seconds. But on the holostage display before him there sprang into being scores of ominous dots, scattered in an irregular pattern, indicating real-space objects at only slightly greater distances. The Berserkers, space-going relics of an ancient interstellar war, programmed to destroy life wherever they encountered it, were intent on breaking into the defended space of the fortress, and slaughtering every living thing inside, down to the last microbe. Then, having seized control of this strategic strong point, they would use it to great advantage in their relentless crusade against all life.

  In appearance the Radiant resembled a miniature sun, a fiery point burning in vacuum, its inverse force pressing the newly arrived ship, and everything else, away from it. Like the handful of its mysterious fellows scattered about the Galaxy, it could be approached no closer than a couple of kilometers, by any ship or machine. Here at the Selatrop, the inner surface of the fortress was four kilometers from that enigmatic point.

  The fortress consisted of blocks and sections of solid matter, woven and held together with broad strands of sheer force, the whole forming a kind of spherical latticework some eight kilometers in diameter. Through the interstices the fitful spark of the radiant itself was intermittently visible.

  Timor and Strax sent a coded radio message ahead to the fortress, announcing their arrival, even as the autopilot eased the courier into its approach.

  The fortress holding the high ground of the Selatrop Radiant possessed some powerful fixed weapons of its own, but depended very heavily for its defense upon two squadrons of small fighting ships. The original strength of the garrison had been twenty human couples, the great majority of them highly trained pilots. With their auxiliary machines they made a formidable defensive team.

  In combat, as in many other situations of comparable complexity, better decisions tended to be made when a human brain participated in the parts of the process not requiring electronic speed. A meld of organic and artificial intelligence had proven to be superior in performance to either mode alone.

  The marvels of an organic brain, still imperfectly understood, provided the fighter pilot’s mind, both conscious and unconscious, with the little extra, the fine edge over pure machine control, that enabled the best pilots under proper conditions to seize a slight advantage over pure machine opponents.

  During the first few seconds after their ship’s reemergence into normal space, Timor and Strax were reassured to see on their displays that the defense was still being energetically carried out.

  Small space-going machines, beyond a doubt Berserkers engaged in an attack, could be seen on the displays. Even as Timor watched, one of the enemy symbols vanished in a small red puff, indicating the impact of a heavy weapon. Moments later, one of the defending fighters was evidently badly damaged, so much so that it turned its back on the enemy and began to limp toward the safety of the fortress.

  “At least our people are still hanging on,” the ensign commented.

  “So far.”

  The brief sequence of action Timor had so far been able to observe suggested a steady probing of the defenses rather than an all-out assault.

  A hulking shape easily recognizable as the Berserker mothership hovered in the background, at a range of a thousand kilometers or more, constrained by its own sheer bulk from forcing
an approach into the volume of space near the Radiant, where only small objects could force a passage.

  As the courier in the course of its final approach moved within a hundred kilometers of the fortress, a new skirmish flared in nearby space, punch and counterpunch of nuclear violence exchanged at the speeds of computers and electricity.

  As the courier drew nearer to the fortress, the skirmishing flared briefly into heavier action.

  The attack was conducted by space-going Berserkers in a variety of sizes and configurations. But the Radiant proved its worth as an advantage to the defense: the assaulting force was continually at a disadvantage, in effect having to fight its way uphill, their maneuvering slowed and weapons rendered less effective. At the moment their efforts were being beaten off with professional skill.

  And now the enemy showed full awareness of the presence of Timor’s ship. One Berserker was now accelerating sharply in the courier’s direction, trying to head it off.

  The human skill and intuition of Ensign Strax as pilot, melded with the autopilot’s speed and accuracy, secured the courier a slight edge in maneuvering, and ultimately a safe entry to the defended zone.

  With the Berserkers temporarily baffled, the nearest of the manned fighting ships engaged in the defense now turned aside and approached the courier. As the two officers on the courier began to ease themselves out of their armor, routine messages were exchanged.

  REQUEST PERMISSION TO COME ABOARD.

  Timor replied: PERMISSION GRANTED.

  Only mildly surprised—it seemed natural that people who had withstood a long siege would be eager to see a new and friendly human face—Timor and Strax made ready to welcome aboard the pilot from the fighting ship.

  When the two craft were docked together, and the connected airlocks stood open, Timor looked up, confidently expecting to see a human step from the airlock into the courier’s cabin . . . but instead he was petrified to behold a metal shape, roughly human in configuration, but obviously a robot—

  . . . somehow, a Berserker. And we are dead. . . .

  Too late to do anything about it now. . . .

  Ensign Strax let out a wordless cry of terror, and tried to draw a handgun. But she was instantly stunned by some paralyzing ray, so that the weapon clattered on the deck.

  A moment later, Timor broke free of the paralysis of shock. He grabbed for the controls before his combat chair, intending to wreck his ship, if he could, to keep it out of enemy hands.

  Human reflexes were far too slow. His wrists were gently seized, his intended motion blocked.

  A Berserker. From one fraction of a second to the next, he waited for his arms to be wrenched from their sockets, for his life to be efficiently crushed out.

  But nothing of the kind occurred.

  Opening his eyes, which had involuntarily clenched themselves shut, Timor beheld the lone intruder, its metal hand still holding him by one wrist. It was obviously a robot, but vastly different from any machine that he had ever seen before—Earth-descended people almost never built anthropomorphic robots—and also unlike any Berserker he had ever seen or heard described.

  Standing before him was a metal thing, nude and sexless, the size and shape of a small human adult. The immobile features of its face were molded in a form of subtle beauty.

  Timor’s handgun was smoothly taken away from him. Then he was released.

  His only thought at the moment was that this was some attempted Berserker ploy. The bad machines must want something from him, some information or act of treachery, before they killed him.

  But the very beauty of the robot, by Earth-descended human standards, argued strongly against its having a Berserker origin.

  “At your service, Lieutenant Commander Timor,” the shape before him crooned, speaking in Timor’s language, the same as that used by the Selatrop garrison. Its voice was startlingly lovely, nothing at all like the raucous squawking produced by Berserkers when they condescended, for their own deadly reasons, to imitate human speech.

  The machine looked extremely strong and well-designed, presenting a dark and seamless metallic surface to the world. It had stepped back a pace, but was still standing close enough that Timor might easily have read the fine script engraved on the metal plate set into its chest—had he understood the language. Seeing the direction of his gaze, the machine translated for him in its musical voice, pointing at each word in turn with a delicate-looking finger of steel:

  HUMANOID

  SERIAL NO. JW 39,864,715

  TO SERVE AND OBEY

  AND GUARD HUMANITY FROM HARM

  Just as the translation was completed, the figure of Ensign Strax in the other seat stirred slightly. Turning away from Timor, flowing across the little cabin with more than a human dancer’s grace, the intruder machine bent solicitously over Strax as if intent upon seeing to her welfare. Soft hues of bronze and blue shone across the robot’s sleek and sexless blackness. It was handsome, and monstrous in its independence. Gently, efficiently, it did something which must have partially counteracted the effects of the stunning ray. Then it adjusted the position of the ensign’s seat, as if concerned for her safety and comfort.

  Meanwhile, Timor was slowly recovering from shock, from the certainty of instant death. “At my service?” he croaked stupidly.

  The thing turned back toward him, its blind-seeming, steel-colored eyes fixed on his face. Its high clear voice was eerily sweet. “We humanoids are here, and always will be. We exist to serve humanity. Ask for what you need.”

  “ ‘We’ ?”

  “Locally, only eighteen other units, essentially identical to the one you see before you. Elsewhere, millions more.”

  “But what are you?”

  Patiently it pointed once more to its identification plate. “Humans elsewhere have called us humanoids.”

  Timor shook his head as if to clear it. It seemed that the question of the robot’s origin would have to be settled later. “What do you want?”

  “We follow our Prime Directive.” Tolerantly it repeated the words incised below its serial number: “ ‘To serve and obey and guard humanity from harm.’ ”

  “You’re telling me you have no intention of killing us.”

  “Far from it, Lieutenant Commander.” Metal somehow conveyed the impression of being softly shocked at the mere idea. “We cannot kill. Our intentions are quite the opposite.”

  Meanwhile the courier’s and the fighter’s respective autopilots had been easing the joined small ships along toward the fortress, steadily decelerating. The two separated only moments before being individually docked. Timor felt the usual shift in artificial gravity, from ship’s to station’s. Here the natural inverse gravity of the Radiant dominated.

  “Our immediate objective,” continued the humanoid, brightly and intensely, “is to save humanity from the critical danger posed by Berserkers.”

  “I know what Berserkers are, thank you. I have a fair amount of experience along that line What I haven’t quite grasped as yet is—you. Where did you come from?”

  The thing declined to answer directly. “We have long familiarity with the Earth-descended species of humanity. Your history displays patterns of evolving technology and increasingly violent aggression. Even absent any Berserker threat, your longterm survival would require our help.”

  “How do you come to speak our language?”

  Again the answer was oblique: “To achieve our goal it has been necessary to learn many languages.”

  The ship was now snugly docked, the open hatch leading directly into the Selatrop Fortress. From outside the ship came a hint of exotic odors. Beside him, the mysterious thing was insisting in a cooing voice that it and its fellows wanted only to benefit humanity.

  Ensign Strax was now awake and functioning once more, though obviously dazed. She seemed basically unharmed, able to stand and walk with only a little help.

  The two humans left the courier, the humanoid solicitously assisting the ensign. As they emerged
into dock and hangar space, they saw around them the great structural members of composite materials, making up the bulk of the fortress. In places the Radiant itself was visible, as a sunlike point always directly overhead, casting strong shadows.

  Two more humanoids, practically identical to the first, were on hand to offer a silent welcome. But not a human being was in sight.

  “Where’s the garrison?” Timor demanded sharply.

  One of the waiting units answered. “All humans aboard the fortress are now restricted to the region of greatest safety.”

  “Not at their battle stations? By whose decision?”

  “No human decisions can be allowed to interfere with our essential service.”

  At another dock nearby rested a small spacecraft, no bigger than Timor’s courier but of unique design. “Whose ship is that?” he demanded.

  It is ours.

  The humanoid spokesunit went on to inform him that reinforcements were expected soon, a second ship and perhaps a third, each carrying another score of units like itself.

  “Arrive from where?”

  As nearly as Timor could understand the answer, the reinforcements, like the first humanoid craft, would be coming from a direction, or perhaps a dimension in c-space, such that it would be virtually impossible for the besieging Berserker fleet to interfere with their arrival.

  Timor also observed that the newcomers had taken over several docks, part of the repair facility, to establish their own workshop. Imperturbably his new guide explained to him that the resources of the fortress, computers, materials, and machinery, were being pressed into the construction of more humanoids.

  The two humanoids that had been waiting now boarded the courier. Maybe, thought Timor, they were looking for the requested factory machines and materials. If so, they were doomed to disappointment.

  Their original guide escorted Timor and Strax deeper into the fortress, through multiple airlocks, past redundant defenses.