Berserker Prime

by Fred Saberhagen

  A ragged cheer was going up, from scattered human voices. When Porphyry regained his feet, Luon saw that her savior robot’s back was scorched, and the few remaining shreds of Porphyry’s servant clothes were smoking. Calm as ever, the robot extended an arm to help its client, Luon, stand. Cheerfully it questioned her to make sure she was unhurt.

  Already more of the local heavy machinery had come in sight. Clear windows in most of the units showed empty cabs, working in robotic mode.

  Here came a heavy hauler, carrying a full tank of something, road-building muck, it looked like, thick weighty mud that would harden into stone in a few minutes. Now the sludge was being poured over the enemy wreckage in the pit. People had learned to take no chances with this foe.

  The nearby cheers had trailed off into silence. Luon belatedly realized that one of the Huveans, under stress, shocked by the death of Douros, had just blurted out something in a strong Huvean accent.

  People were pointing. Faces were suddenly grim again. Pictures of the former hostages had been in all the media, before the war began, and now one of them had been recognized.

  In moments, some people had forgotten the enemy, and were trying to capture them, or lynch them.

  A loud man’s voice proclaimed: “I heard that thing was marked, as plain as day, with a Huvean insignia!”

  A new voice broke in, carrying authority. “Move back, folks. Shove back! Special Forces here. We’ve got things under control.”

  There were a dozen of them or more, capable-looking men and women in rough civilian clothes. Now they were in the process of bringing out their special hats and armbands, and putting them on. Besides their weapons, they came armed with signed IDs from President Gregor himself, which they showed to everyone in sight. Their leader announced they were placing all the escaped hostages under arrest, and were taking them to an undisclosed location for questioning.

  “This young lady too. She’s a collaborator.” The man who made that announcement looked very much like a young officer who had once given the girl a guided tour of a huge warship. He must have known Luon by sight, for he was standing right beside her, nodding. Was that a wink, or was his eye just twitching?

  Luon caught a glimpse of the colonel of logistics standing in the background, looking horrified at Luon’s supposed fate. But Colonel Eurydice made no attempt to interfere.

  Neither did Porphyry. He followed Luon unobtrusively, the scorched and battered image of the perfect servant.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  Luon and Reggie, along with the other rescued hostages, had been carried safely, on a Twin Worlds scoutship, up to a joyous welcome on the Huvean flagship. On their arrival, they told stories of the terrific fighting on the surface of Timber. A small detail had been left behind in Capital City to see what could be done about recovering Douras’s body.

  When the young survivors came filing out of the scout into the Mukunda’s landing bay, the political officer was there to greet them.

  Zarnesti, introducing himself with a flourish, was ready to welcome Luon as a defector to the Huvean side, and to promise the young Huveans they would have revenge against the evil Twins who had tormented them in captivity, and after their escape had hounded them as fugitives.

  But the former hostages were only interested in fighting back against the things that had killed their comrade.

  Allowing for the strain they had been under, the political officer did not press the point. Giving them a moment to reflect, he said: “You are to be honored, my young friends. The first spacer himself is here to welcome you aboard.”

  There was a preliminary stirring at a doorway, where officers came and went. Then an important presence entered the landing bay.

  Luon faced the door, and bowed her head, in imitation of the group surrounding her. She had had enough experience of human power at high levels to recognize its presence when it approached.

  Reggie, who was holding her hand, bowed too, but only momentarily. Then he raised his gaze to meet that of the imposing man before him. To the first spacer, Reggie said: “Sir, this fleet has got to fight for humans and not against them. It would be a great mistake to attack the Twins.” He paused to swallow, then added: “Please, Uncle Horn.”

  There followed a long moment of silence. Some people, including the political officer, were too stunned to find anything to do or say, while others were too embarrassed.

  The first spacer demonstrated superb self control. In a quiet and formal voice, he apologized to the others present for the behavior of his nephew, who had injected a personal relationship into matters of high public policy.

  Reggie’s head was bowed again. He said: “I am sorry if I have offended, Uncle. But…”

  “You have been under great strain. Your apology is accepted. Let the offense not happen again.”

  Luon squeezed her lover’s hand in sympathy. She knew what it was like to have a close personal relationship with a very high government official. That was something she and Reggie had in common, one factor that had brought them together in the first place.

  Some of the indrawn cloud of Radigast’s scoutships were busy disputing with the enemy vessels engaged in refueling or repair. But the admiral was holding a greater number in reserve, to be thrown into action somehow, he wasn’t yet sure just how, when the decisive moment came.

  Presently Admiral Radigast departed the Mukunda for his own ship, in the background, Zarnesti the political officer shaking his head slightly and looking grim, seeing a dangerous enemy get away, and Homasubi reconvened the ongoing council of his own select advisers.

  Once the first spacer had them in place, he asked them for recommendation; their opinions seemed sharply divided, but in fact they were reluctant to put forward any suggestions at all. He had to remind them sharply that whatever they might suggest, the ultimate responsibility for the actions of the fleet would be his, the first spacer’s, alone.

  The political officer was upset following his virtual meeting with Gregor.

  He was also nervously, suspiciously, eagerly demanding to know what had happened in the meeting between Homasubi and his Twin Worlds counterpart. “I see you have allowed Radigast his personal freedom. What of the surrender?”

  “I made no claim upon his freedom. What would be the point? We discussed a few technical matters only.”

  “First Spacer, I respectfully insist upon discussing the matter of surrender. Surely you presented our government’s demand?”

  The first spacer appeared to be making an effort to recall the precise details of his just-concluded talk. “I made no demands. I did receive some personal assurances from the admiral.”

  “But no document? You have obtained no document?” The PO was almost jumping up and down. Of course the meeting would have been routinely recorded, but recordings were almost as easily altered as human memories, and people tended to produce different versions of the same event.

  “Alas, I am not skilled in the language of diplomacy, the nuances of negotiation. I would not trust myself to conduct such delicate discussions.”

  “Delicate discussions?” The PO tugged at his hair, which seemed quite firmly rooted. “What need is there for delicacy at this stage? They have nothing left to fight us with!”

  “Then they have nothing left to surrender. I am but a simple military man, and do not understand these great affairs of state. No doubt you were successful in obtaining the desired document from the Twin Worlds’ acting president?”

  The PO shook his head and frowned, which, Homasubi had come to understand, was his way of trying to look wise. “If he who claims to be acting president is in fact a head of state, then in discussion with him we are in the domain of treaties, of formal law….” Zarnesti let it trail away, his frown deepening. He had in fact pressed Gregor for a surrender document, but Gregor, while not seeming to refuse, had insisted that the Twin Worlds parliament had to approve anything in the nature of a treaty, which a surrender certainly would be.

  Most of
what the first spacer’s people were telling him was cautious and politically correct. But at least one of his advisers said bluntly: “The best way to defend our own home is to do the necessary fighting in some system light-years away.”

  Only one adviser out of the group was firmly in favor of helping the Twin Worlds people in any way, or even coming to a positive agreement with them. “I know, we have been conditioned for several years to think of these people as the enemy. But now it is hard to see how they will be able to do us the least harm.”

  One problem was that, in the months since the treaty was signed, a new and more aggressive regime had taken over in Huvea. The temper of the people there was no longer in the least conciliatory.

  The new government had repudiated the whole idea of giving hostages, and some of its members were thinking of demanding them from Twin Worlds instead.

  The berserker had given the Huvean civilian a pledge to restore the hostages to Homasubi’s flagship, if any of its machines could find them on the surface of Timber. And it promised to search diligently. But there was no sign that it had conducted any such search, or deviated at all from its usual routine of killing.

  Homasubi had secretly confided this to Radigast, and Radigast to Gregor.

  Gregor’s comment was: “It tries to play the games of diplomacy and intrigue, it understands the usefulness of a direct and simple lie, but so far, it does not play with any subtlety.”

  Meanwhile the civilian visitors from neutral worlds, the delegates from the peace conference, visiting aboard Homasubi’s flagship either virtually or in the flesh, were increasingly coming round to the position that the Huvean first spacer should rid the Galaxy of this murderous machine.

  More than one of them angrily warned him that his name, and that of his system/nation, would go down in Galactic infamy if he did not. In their view, Twin Worlds did not pose any particular threat, certainly not now, with its fleet destroyed, but this powerful attacker did.

  The respected Lady Constance, long known as an opponent of rearmament in general, preached: “For once in human history, a hard military blow will not cost human lives, but save them.”

  These people were more diplomatic than the first spacer’s own diplomat. Still, Homasubi did not take kindly to foreigners telling him what to do.

  Gregor was inclined to stick with Admiral Radigast, on his battered flagship, where together they formed a coherent remnant of Twin Worlds government.

  Now the acting president observed that while the peace delegation of neutrals was urging the Huveans to throw their weight into this war, on the side of humanity, the warrior Homasubi, the human who carried all the power of more than lightnings at his fingertips, was hanging back.

  Ninety-first Diplomat, being detained on this side of death by the stubborn efforts of an ED medirobot, called all the other leaders to attend her in person. To those who managed to attend, she delivered a few last, enigmatic words.

  Exhausted from the strain of delivering a prophecy, giving way under the psychic impact of the great loss of life already inflicted in this system, she had not precisely refused medical care, but seemed indifferent as to whether it was given her or not.

  As she was dying, Ninety-first Diplomat was able to establish some kind of mental contact-at-a-distance with human prisoners aboard the berserker. But these contacts brought little in the way of reassuring news, except to establish the fact that some of the berserker’s prisoners in space still breathed.

  “Foreseeing its own destruction, it has decided to kill them, rather than save them for study. But most of the Earth-descended have somehow escaped from its control.”

  She said that after death she wanted her body to be sent into the sun of her home world.

  And still the Carmpan, having once spoken forcefully, remained withdrawn into silence and immobility, her nearly cylindrical body shrunken to half its normal adult size, and twisted up into a fetal-looking ball. None of the human medical officers in attendance were expert on Carmpan physiology, but they agreed that the outlook was not good.

  The medirobot eventually gave up on trying to help her. She had somehow managed to disable several of its functions. But it still reported that she was not entirely dead.

  The first spacer had been muddling through, trying to put off political matters he could not avoid, while waiting for the anticipated instructions from his home world. For several hours he had been expecting a reply to his urgent questions, but no answer had yet arrived.

  It was common enough for messages sent by courier between the stars to be delayed, for any of several routine reasons, chronic problems in transportation having nothing to do with war. But in the present situation there were more ominous possibilities as well.

  Privately, he had always dreaded the thought of being forced to make decisions of great import that were not properly his to make. Now he was coming gradually to the full realization, with a mixture of inward terror and relief, that he had already done exactly that.

  Gratefully he had seized upon the idea of sending ships to keep an eye on the berserker’s refueling operation; surely no higher authority in his own government, whatever might happen later, could fault him for doing that. Clearly it was his duty as a field commander to observe, to reconnoiter, even though sending the ships might provoke this destructive monster into some aggressive move against them. And when any units of his own fleet came under attack from any power whatsoever, it would certainly be his duty to go to their assistance with all the force under his command.

  He had been compelled to make some critical decisions that could not be delayed. How many wars in the past, he wondered, had begun in such accidental fashion?

  Now that the fighting had begun, it seemed that the most effective tactic available might be to exert what power he could where the enemy was vulnerable, and keep the berserker tankers from getting back to their mother ship.

  The situation was complicated by the fact that the berserker mothership was moving toward the tanker, which had had some difficulty in an exchange of missiles with a Huvean destroyer.

  The first spacer inwardly relaxed, fighting had begun, cobwebs were swept away, and his duty could be seen as clear as it could be.

  Meanwhile, Radigast’s own refueling and repair operation was making some progress. The two ships had entered the distant docks and, making the best use of efficient machinery, had already been repaired. What was the best use to make of them?

  They could reinforce his other light forces in the outer system, and hope to surprise the berserker elements there.

  The admiral had already decided that he would order the whole remnant of his fleet, whose most effective component was the hundreds of scouts still gathering into a loose cloud, into an all-out attack, of course coordinating with the Huveans, if possible.

  But events, as usual, were taking something of an unexpected course. Radigast was teetering on the brink of giving that order, sending his agglomeration of wrecks and scoutships not against the berserker itself, but to the aid of the Huvean destroyers, who seemed in need of any support that they could get.

  The admiral was running low on robot couriers, as he was on all other resources, except scoutships. Any couriers that reached the flagship with messages from elsewhere, from his own distant scouts or from civilians, were being hastily refitted and refueled, readied to carry messages out again.

  Several dozen had already been dispatched, in redundant numbers, to other solar systems, carrying renewed appeals for help, signed by the acting president.

  Whatever terrible events might take place today or tomorrow in the light of the Twin Worlds’ sun, ED humanity on its scattered worlds had been thoroughly warned against the monstrous new peril that it faced. Several scoutships had also been pressed into service in the same task, though they were not as fast as the couriers.

  Within days, the entire Galactic community of Earth-descended humans would know exactly what was happening in the Twin Worlds system. Unhappily, there was
no reason to expect immediate help, no way any of them, except Huvea, could possibly provide it.

  The heavy ships of both fleets were moving into position, their respective commanders having reached a general agreement on how they were to be deployed.

  Radigast was talking to his commander in chief. “Sir, I want to send you back to the Huvean flagship. Homasubi assures me you’ll be quite welcome aboard. Sorry to keep you bouncing around, a president without a government, but…”

  Gregor had not expected this. “What is the purpose, Admiral?”

  “Mister President, both our fleets are going to get pounded, but today that Huvean hull is in a lot better shape to take a beating than this one is. And I would like for the Twin Worlds to have some motherless government left when this is over. If you and I are not on the same ship, the odds will be a little better that one of us at least will survive.”

  Gregor hastily took thought. “As for myself, I think my duty requires me to remain on board.”

  “As for me, Mister President, as admiral of this motherless fleet my duty requires me to get all the bloody unnecessary civilians out of the way, along with the seriously wounded.”

  All of the members of the Galactic Council peace delegation still remained physically in their own small ship. But their holostage presence on the first spacer’s bridge continued, whenever Homasubi was ready to allow it.

  He had decided that he ought to allow it, as his fleet seemed to be entering this battle as the champions of all humanity. The first spacer thought it would be a good idea if he could claim the people of as many worlds as possible as his virtual companions as he went into battle, as far as the communication beams could stand the strains of distance and combat.

  But for safety’s sake the ship of neutral diplomats was going to withdraw to a greater distance, which would take them out of convenient conference range.