Berserker Prime

by Fred Saberhagen

  The scout’s computer quickly translated the courier’s burden of coded information into smooth computer graphics, and a few terse words.

  The two other human members of the live flight crew made their comments in turn.

  Accompanying the message was a warning, in this case, totally unnecessary urging that its contents be passed up the chain of command as quickly as possible.

  “We’re going on full alert, Sue, Hannah. As of right now.”

  “It’s not even headed our way,” Sue observed.

  “Regardless. It’s required with a find like this.”

  “Yes ma’am.” The thing wasn’t coming toward the scout-ship, and at its distance posed no threat, but there was no use arguing with regulations.

  There was a sense in which it still seemed to all of them like some great, elaborate game. More maneuvers, of which they had all had almost more than they could stand in recent months. No crew member in this warship, no one aboard any of the others that might soon be attacking and defending, was a veteran of real war.

  Currently Ella Berlu’s scoutship was roaming near the center of its territory, an assigned portion of the outer reaches of the Twin Worlds system, its borders sharply defined by precise readings of the stellar background.

  Engineer Hannah also carried out the duties of weapons and communications officer and was also trained as a pilot, though she generally played that role only in emergencies.

  The three crew members, having had plenty of cross-training, frequently performed their duties interchangeably. Let one or two be killed or wounded, and two or one, aided by smart hardware, might somehow carry on, another advantage was that learning to do well at three or four jobs was less boring than total concentration on just one.

  “Two more days,” the engineer observed in a distant voice, which now reached her shipmates through the helmet intercom.

  “Two more days what?” Ella’s mind came back from roaming.

  “You know what, chief. Just two more standard days and we’d have been rotated home.”

  “I expect we may be heading sunward a little faster than that. But whether we’ll be going planetside…” Ella’s tone left no doubt of how remote that was beginning to look.

  The normal tour of duty in one of these outer-defenses scouts was something like a standard month, with a new ship and crew coming to take over on schedule. But possibly because of the high alert, all leaves were canceled, and the outer watch was scheduled to thicken with extra ships.

  If the Huvean fleet should suddenly appear, an event whose calculated probability had been rising ominously for the past standard month, the scout’s job would be to transmit sunward as early and thorough a warning as possible, and meanwhile to run like hell. The weaponry on board a standard scoutship, like Ella’s, was strictly limited enough, perhaps, to fight off an intruding Huvean of about the same size, if anything in an attacking force would be that small. But the communication gear on a Twin Worlds scout was large and capable.

  When she expanded the scale of view a bit, instruments showed Ella and her shipmates a momentary glimpse of the scoutship patrolling the next sector north, in the polar coordinate system based on the Twin Worlds’ sun.

  Hannah Rymer, though not disputing that all the information that came in had to be passed on, was doubtful of its accuracy. “That thing’s an artifact? More likely an artifact of some kind of error in one of our systems.”

  “We’ll see.”

  Sue put in: “Whatever it is, it’s still not coming our way, not toward our ship.”

  “No.” That thought, at least, brought a slight feeling of relief.

  “There it is. Looks awfully big and lumpy to be a system error.”

  “Definitely headed sunward,” the pilot added. “Maybe some interest in the inner planets. Well, yes, look at that.” The computer had just concluded that the intruder was already on a course that would bring it in about one standard day into a close orbit around the planet Prairie.

  The solar system formally called Twin Worlds contained two habitable planets, Prairie and Timber, very much like each other and closely resembling Earth. Timber and Prairie orbited their shared sun at very nearly the same distance, Timber having a slightly longer year (again, close to the standard length adopted from the planet Earth). And just slightly stronger gravity, not enough to make much difference to its people. When at their closest approach to each other, an event just a few standard months away, each of the Twins made an impressive gem in the other’s sky.

  For a good part of their respective years, which were Earth-like in seasons as well as length, the Twins were, as now, less than ten standard minutes apart by radio or optelectronic signal. They were never more than a few hours apart by fast traveling in normal space, their people politically united under one fundamentally democratic government.

  Several days earlier, an alerting message had gone the rounds of all scoutship commanders: Strange, faint radio signals, bearing no familiar characteristics by which they might be identified, had been picked up in space, by several other Twin Worlds units on distant duty. These signals had qualities about them that caused Defense Command to sharply focus its attention.

  Running down a checklist, Ella as the first human to analyze the discovery had quickly eliminated the usual suspects. Bit by bit, she lowered to near zero the chances that a private vessel had got somehow out of line. Nor was this stranger at all convincing as merely some component of the regular flow of commercial space travel.

  In ordinary times the volume of routine, regular travel showed up on the instruments of Early Warning as a steady, expectable and identifiable coming and going.

  But over the last few standard months, poisoned by the increasing likelihood of war, commerce had been greatly diminished both in the Twin Worlds’ system and in the Huveans’, which lay between four and five light-years away, only a couple of days by fast c-plus ship, riding the usual flight, space currents. Not only had the once brisk trade between the two systems fallen to practically nothing, but neutral vessels from other worlds were understandably hesitant to enter space in which the unknown horrors of war were considered likely to break out.

  The ultimate source of those earlier unidentified signals was somewhere well outside the system. No one had yet been able to pin it down with any accuracy.

  But within an hour of the first courier’s arrival on board, the robot analyst in the scoutship commanded by Ella Berlu announced with ninety-five percent certainty that the signals most recently picked up represented cross talk between two robotic probes that had entered the Twin Worlds’ system from different angles.

  Ella demanded of her engineering officer: “What else can you tell me about them?”

  Hannah looked at an instrument, confirming what she had seen before. “They differ technically in several ways from any known human transmissions.”

  One of the probes had entered the sector that Ella’s scout-ship was guarding. Exactly what the thing might have been trying to tell its robotic companion was a mystery.

  The engineer was frowning. “Coded, of course. Not only can’t I read it, but it doesn’t seem to be any code that we’ve ever run into before.”

  “Not Huvean, then.”

  “Can’t swear to that. All I can say for sure is that it’s nothing like anything the Huveans have used before. Maybe at headquarters they can sort it out.”

  There were no reports from other sectors of any similar intrusions. Whatever had just jarred the nerves of system defense, it did not seem to be the Huvean fleet, that would have made its entrance on a much grander scale.

  From the slow moving, fortress-like spacecraft, much larger than a scoutship, where a larger staff of humans, including Ella’s boss, lived and worked, another small robotic courier was launched. At this remote distance from the center of the local sun, effectively the bottom of the solar system’s gravitational well, the courier could flip its needle-trim shape easily into flight, space, speeding toward the dist
ant inner planets, in whose vicinity it would arrive in a matter of a very few minutes, with the message. Outpacing light by many possibly invaluable minutes.

  Ella relayed the recordings of the most recent signals to her commander, a human in charge of monitoring a dozen or more sectors like her own. The response from up the chain of command was gratifyingly fast.

  A code-breaking system of much more advanced capabilities than that possessed by any scoutship was working on the problem. The real name of that system was secret, even to most of the humans who used it. It was represented by an alternate title in yet another code.

  And word was being passed on sunward, sent ratcheting up the chain of command as quickly as possible, which meant, in gravitational terms, being sent downward toward the Twin Worlds’ distant sun and its nest of inner planets. The highest levels of system government, both on Timber and on Prairie, were to be informed in less than two hours of what looked like an unprecedented intrusion.

  Those whose business it was to pass on the news saw that it reached as quickly as possible the flagship of the Twin Worlds battle fleet, presently on station not far from those inner planets.

  An urgent summons roused Admiral Radigast, the fleet’s commander, from a deep sleep in his cabin on the Morholt. Opening one eye, he saw by an image of his clock, glowing in darkness, that it was the very early morning of his ship’s standard day. Absent the alarm, he might have enjoyed another hour and a half of slumber.

  Moving before he was fully awake, Radigast got his gnarled and hairy legs over the side of his bunk, noted routinely that the artificial gravity seemed quite steady, rubbed his eyes, muttered an obscenity (just in the nature of a tune-up for his powers of speech) and stoked his mouth with a pungently flavored chewing pod. Not his favorite breakfast, not by a long way, but it was what he had trained himself to do when the alarm woke him. There was no telling when he might be able to sit down to a real meal.

  For just a moment the admiral allowed himself to hope that this would not be one more practice alert thought up by some safely ground, bound planner down at headquarters. Today that would be on Prairie, where the Joint Chiefs were currently in meeting with most of the high civilian government of the Twin Worlds.

  A couple of seconds later Radigast was on his feet, headed out of his cabin and toward the bridge in his underwear, scratching his head with one hand, using the other to drag along a shipboard coverall. He could put it on when he got there, not wasting any time.

  The admiral’s destination was only a few strides away from where he slept. Moments after leaving his cabin, he was entering the cavernous yet crowded room. This space was built on a plan somewhat similar to the control room of a scoutship, but on a substantially larger scale; here there were eight acceleration couches, all but two currently occupied. The gravity was unidirectional.

  No one looked up from their consoles and instruments to take any particular notice of their commander’s state of undress; the whole control room crew were all more or less used to it at times when an unexpected alert was called.

  Radigast threw himself into his couch, the one nearest the big holostage at the center of things. Lying on his back, he began at once working his legs into the coverall. He noted methodically that, as usual, helmet and spacesuit were available, within reach, just in case.

  “What’ve we got, Charlie?”

  The Morholt’s captain, one couch to the right, was apologetic. “Sorry to wake you, Admiral, but”

  “Never mind the motherless apologies; I can always have you shot if you dragged me out of the motherless sack for nothing. What’ve we got?”

  Charlie showed him. Looking at the remarkable thing that came up on the big central stage, the admiral for a time forgot to chew, and even to use forbidden words.

  CHAPTER THREE

  The latest outburst of heavy weapons testing shuddered to its conclusion; the trickle of dust from overhead diminished and then stopped. It was again possible to be heard and understood in the room on the Citadel’s ground floor.

  Young Glycas, obviously determined to make a speech, finally got the chance to finish a short one.

  It expressed a heartfelt yearning for the supposed wisdom of old Earth, for the ancestral virtue and fortitude that had enabled those humans of hundreds of years ago to settle their differences, and expand the domain of ED humanity peacefully among the stars. The speaker’s fellow hostages listened without interruption.

  It was as if the major discoveries regarding space and time that had been made in that era had had a sobering effect, there came an epoch when humanity seemed not only physically but psychologically ready to leave the womb of a single planet, the nursery of one sheltered solar system, and step out into the great world.

  But today, less than three hundred standard years later, the situation had rapidly deteriorated. It was as if the sheer stretches of normal space-time, never mind that travel could be accomplished at high multiples of the speed of light had, had a poisonous effect. Earth-descended humanity once more fractured into a hundred factions, some of them months apart, even at the superluminal speeds attainable by modern ships and couriers.

  There had been for some time an actively organized peace movement in the Twin Worlds, with some kind of counterpart existing on Huvea. The leaders, Gregor had heard rumors that Glycas had been one of them, on both sides were accused by many of being enemy agents. Most observers of the political scene agreed that Huvea’s government was less democratic than that of the Twin Worlds, though both were far from being absolute dictatorships.

  The crisis now threatening to explode into war had begun with the almost simultaneous discovery, by crews from the two rival systems, of an uncolonized planetary system offering a wealth of unsettled territory and useful minerals. Initial disputes escalated to violence and injustice on both sides. Ancient misunderstandings, rooted in divergent religious theories, were resurrected, grievances were cherished.

  Glycas had finished speaking, and seemed to be waiting for Gregor to respond. Douras was glowering, really enjoying this, obviously ready to cross verbal swords with this archenemy of all things Huvean, who had condescended to come within thrusting range.

  Gregor began by reminding his audience that he had promised not to make a speech. But he had one question for them: how could the relationship between their government and his have deteriorated so swiftly, so badly, that they found themselves actually on the brink of war?

  But his hopes for a serious answer were disappointed. Instead, their own questions kept coming. Most concerned the war plans of either side, of which, as he protested, he knew nothing.

  Gregor was on the point of wishing long lives and good health to the executioner and those surrounding him, guards and potential victims alike, and taking his leave without further ceremony, when there came an interruption.

  One of the guards who had been on duty outside the building was escorting someone into the building, keeping a hand carefully on the arm of the young woman in a space traveler’s coverall.

  Turning an annoyed glance on this intruder, Gregor met the gaze of blue eyes in a young and pretty face, and was startled to recognize his youngest granddaughter.

  Meanwhile, the guard was addressing him uncertainly. “Sir? Excuse me, but this young woman showed up at the gate insisting that she’s your aide, and bears an important message.”

  “Luon.” Years of diplomatic practice helped Gregor to keep his jaw from falling open, his voice in a neutral tone. “What is this all about?”

  Approximately six standard months had passed since Gregor had seen the girl, and until this minute he had thought her, like the rest of his few close relatives, light-years away from the potential war zone.

  Luon was of average height and slight build. Fair, curly hair surrounded a face that fell well short of startling beauty, but it was appealing. Big-eyed, she was likely, Gregor knew, to impress people as younger than her real age, and somehow defenseless, not at all an accurate reading of her char
acter. At the moment she was wearing a small backpack.

  “Grandpa Gregor.” The girl’s voice was tiny, and probably could not have been heard on the far side of the room. On entering she had shot one quick nervous glance toward the hostages, but now she was focusing her attention entirely on her grandfather, and managing to look fearful, embarrassed, and determined all at the same time.

  Running his gaze over the slender figure, clad in coverall and lightweight boots as for a space journey, the old man felt a mixture of anger and relief, the latter because Luon seemed unharmed. But something had evidently gone wrong, or she would not be here.

  How had this come to pass? The girl ought to have realized that this was a woefully inappropriate time to bother him, judging from the look on her face, that had belatedly dawned on her. And, come to think of it, how had she even known that he was here?

  Now she seemed to be stuck, not knowing what to say. He prompted: “But I thought you were parsecs away from here. Did you come here alone?”

  “None of the family are with me, sir. It’s a long story, how I got here. Can I tell you later?”

  She looked so strained, and sounded so serious, that Gregor relented. To the soldier who had brought her in he said: “She is my relative. Let her remain here for the time being.” The sergeant, his grim mouth expressing silent disapproval of the things that rank could get away with, saluted briskly and retreated to the outside.

  “Grampa Gregor,” the girl said again, softly. “Thank you.” Only now did it strike the old man that she was about the same age as the hostages. Possibly Luon was just a year or two younger, but she could easily have fit into their group.

  The attention of everyone in the large room was focused on the two of them; plainly it would be no use trying to find privacy by whispering.