Some of the most pacifistic of them wanted to get back to their home worlds as quickly as possible, massive rearmament programs would have to be put into effect.
Homasubi made arrangements to receive the seriously wounded from the Twin Worlds fleet on board the dedicated hospital ship attached to his fleet. So far, the prewar computer simulations had proven fairly accurate, though space combat could kill any number of people, it did not, by its very nature, produce large numbers of wounded survivors.
Meanwhile, sporadic ground fighting continued, still concentrated heavily in the vicinity of the Citadel. The remaining enemy landing units had united into a force that so far resisted everything the populace could throw at it.
In space there was ongoing skirmishing in several places.
Now was a period of relative calm before a greater storm.
In the outer reaches of the system, where fighting among the frozen satellites flared up and died, only to flare up again, it appeared that humanity was actually going to have superior forces, thanks to the swarm of scouts flying boldly to their own destruction, and the unexpected appearance of the two rapidly repaired destroyers.
The surviving one of the berserker tankers had completed its loading operation, and was headed back to its enormous mother.
The blasted tanker in its death agony was still putting on a spectacular display.
Homasubi’s heavy ships were putting themselves directly in the berserker’s path as it began to move to the aid of its surviving tanker and its small escort.
“He’s going after it! He’s going to hit that slimy son of a worm with everything!” Radigast screamed it out, and punched a stanchion beside his couch.
“Yes,” said Gregor quietly. “I rather thought he would. He is a human being, after all.”
The admiral was determined to get his own forces back into the battle.
But Gregor found it painful to watch how slowly Radigast’s crippled flagship moved. Painful to see the similar difficulties of his other surviving ships.
“Incoming ship, sir.” The holostage showed the blip of a single vessel or object, in these first moments not yet identified, in the opposite direction from the sun, and in the opposite direction from the known enemy.
The color of the symbol wavered uncertainly, then settled into a friendly Huvean tint.
My government, thought Homasubi, is about to order me to explore the possibility of an alliance with the machine. Or perhaps I will even be commanded to join it in attacking the Twin Worlds.
The arriving ship brought not just orders, but a very high ranking Huvean statesperson. This lady came armed with the option of assuming command of the Huvean fleet.
But having seen something of the true situation, the newcomer declined to do that. She would say no more than: “At least there is no sense in which that option is entirely ruled out.”
The thinking (or at least the hoping) at the highest levels of Huvean authority (light-years away, getting worried in the security of their own shelters on their own home world) still seemed to be that this whole idea of a super-powerful, murderous machine would turn out to be, after all, some kind of insanely clever Twin Worlds trick. Reports of an alien machine destroying the whole Twin Worlds fleet, and sterilizing a planet, were simply wrong, or at least had to be much exaggerated.
Unfortunately the orders, when the first spacer had a chance to hear them and see them, did not include any clear-cut decision on what Homasubi should do with his fleet in regard to the mysterious stranger.
At least they were not commanding him to do something impossible, or utterly mad. Rather these orders seemed, as orders issued from a distance so often did, designed primarily to ensure that whatever might go wrong could not be blamed on the people who had stayed at home.
The newly arrived senior Huvean civilian official seemed determined not to let herself be upset by circumstances: “Would’ve been here sooner, First Spacer, but we ran into some damned bad weather.” She was speaking, of course, of flightspace weather between the stars, the flow of particles, fields, and space-time itself. “What’s going on? What word on the hostages?”
Homasubi, with the help of a couple of able officers, and his own nephew, as a qualified, firsthand witness, succinctly explained the situation, and the newcomer’s face slowly settled into an expression of ashen shock.
The real message she had brought from home, though she did not spell it out in so many words, was this: that the high Huvean government was still temporizing, delaying, trying to make up its mind.
The senior diplomat was not helped at all when she heard the theories Zarnesti had put forward, surely it had not been a Twin Worlds trick to sterilize one of their own home worlds, and said she needed time to study the situation further.
But in fact the decision had already been made, by the first spacer, when he had ordered his two destroyers to be reinforced.
The civilian expressed her reservations, for the record, but was obviously relieved. By mutual agreement, she retired to her assigned cabin. Her advice had been disregarded, and whatever happened now wasn’t going to be her fault.
With the glaring example of Prairie constantly before their eyes, and after an inspiring speech from their commander, the Huvean crews, of large ships and small alike, had every incentive to make this a serious fight.
Once the overwhelming fact of the death machine’s existence had sunk in on them, most of them had been expecting they would have to fight it.
Again Admiral Radigast pledged to pass on what knowledge of the enemy he had gained, at a terrible price, saying: “That bloody thing’s almost destroyed my fleet. Whatever I’ve got left is yours to make use of.”
Homasubi had been expecting this, was ready with a plan, and crisply informed his colleague where he would prefer to see the remnant of the Twin Worlds fleet deployed.
Radigast pondered whether to salute, decided against it, and merely nodded. “Yes sir. We’ll be a little slow, but we’ll give it the motherless best we’ve got.”
“I’m sure you will. We are moving in. All crews and ships prepare for battle.”
Having lost several billion lives, humanity was going to do its best to save several billion more.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
The berserker was gradually losing its ongoing struggle to block and tangle human communications across the surface of Timber and in nearby space. Humans and their computers were finding effective ways to counter its interference, and the machine’s resources were weakening. People on the planet’s surface were increasingly able to establish and maintain contact with their compatriots in space, and through Radigast’s ships with the Huvean fleet as well.
At this point in the battle, the great majority of Timber’s people still survived. Casualties were only in the thousands, a small percentage of the total population. And thousands of active fighters, armed with heavy weapons, had surrounded the remaining berserker landers and were slowly finishing them off.
Luon and her lover, and the other Huveans, having been safely evacuated to the Mukunda, continued to give eloquent testimony, including solid evidence that Douras, who was now fast becoming a Huvean martyr, had been cruelly slain by berserker hardware, not Twin Worlds people, and in fact had died trying to save a Twin Worlds boy who was being mangled by the real enemy.
On top of that, it was pretty plain that Twin Worlds no longer posed a threat to anyone.
Some of the people on Homasubi’s staff were beginning to suggest the possibility that the alien was bluffing when it did not back down before their entire fleet. (Also they, following the first spacer’s lead, were beginning to call it a berserker. There was no need to come up with a nice name for it, if it was not going to be an ally.)
When they raised their theory of the new enemy’s behavior with the first spacer, he stared at them coldly. “You will present the evidence.”
The theorists’ spokesman advanced timidly. “We mean, sir, that it really sustained serious damage
in its close attack on the planet Prairie, when it came up against heavy ground-based weapons. The enemy has demonstrated that it has, or had, marvelous defenses, but still the battle recordings do show it being hit repeatedly. They do show holes in its surface more than a kilometer in depth.”
“In a thickness of more than five kilometers. Not conclusive, in itself. But go on.”
“It’s our contention that some substantial damage must have resulted. Since that time it has, to some extent, been carrying out a bluff. Part of the reason for its aggressive actions is an attempt to conceal how badly it’s been hurt.”
The first spacer was silent for so long that some of those attending him began to shift their feet, and think of other things they ought to have been working on. But when he spoke, he sounded more intrigued than angry. “Why wouldn’t it just retreat?”
He got an eager answer. “Perhaps its superluminal drive has been disabled.” Crossing interstellar distances in normal space-time was possible in theory, but would amount to something like slow suicide, warping machines or humans centuries away from the time at which their journeys were begun.
When the suggestion was passed on to the Morholt, it was hard to find anyone among the Twin Worlds survivors who was ready to back this theory.
The berserker’s looming shortage of hydrogen fuel was real enough, but the need was not desperate, or even immediate.
But other problems were.
The huge power lamps that sustained its drive units, kept its various field generators going, and nourished its awesome weapons were being fed from its emergency reserves of fuel, and the central processor was quite ready and willing to use up those reserves entirely for the chance to sterilize another planet thick with badlife.
So far the new damage inflicted by the local badlife had only slightly diminished the killer’s fighting ability. The second fleet to challenge it within this system was being methodically demolished. This time the foe was perhaps a little stronger, the process going a little more slowly than it had with the first fleet, but the central processor calculated that a similar outcome was inevitable, provided the central processor itself was not destroyed by the badlife weapon now eating its way inexorably into the berserker’s unliving heart.
Radigast and his staff, deciding that absolute cooperation with First Spacer Homasubi was their only reasonable option, had warned the Huvean commanders that the defensive shields protecting the vessels of their fleet were not going to be strong enough.
“It is plain that yours were inadequate,” was the usual answer. “We think that ours are stronger.”
The first spacer had taken those warnings seriously, given the supporting evidence before his eyes. But his ships were going to have to enter combat with the weapons and defenses they had on board.
The Huvean captains had also been cautioned by their defeated colleagues that their offensive weapons would be largely ineffective. That suggestion had been less credible at first, but now it was terribly confirmed.
Despite the fact that First Spacer Homasubi had increased the power allotted to his defensive shields, his flagship was hit, and hit hard, more than once, in the first few minutes of full-scale fighting. He was forced to retreat, with his other battleships blowing up around him, even as Radigast had earlier been forced to withdraw, and then the Mukunda was actually hurled to a greater distance by the power of the berserker’s weapons.
Those on his staff who had suggested the enemy was crippled were in disgrace; some of them were dead, and perhaps did not mind.
Radigast was almost chuckling. “I told the son of a worm that’d happen. Now, what’s he going to do about it?”
Political Officer Zarnesti, along with the recently arrived civilian of higher rank, both shell-shocked by violence, came to Homasubi babbling that surely it must be time to ask the enemy for terms of peace.
Homasubi ignored these whining outbursts. When they persisted, the first spacer had the two protesters conveyed to sick bay. Perhaps, he suggested, they could do something useful there, in the way of tending the wounded. When they protested, he offered the brig as an alternative.
The higher-ranked civilian promised: “I’ll have your head for this when we get home!”
The first spacer bowed very slightly, knowing that on Huvea, that was no mere figure of speech. But he did not amend his orders.
The bridge of Homasubi’s flagship became less crowded with the withdrawal of the virtual presence of the neutral diplomats.
On advice of their senior member, the Lady Constance, they withdrew their ship to some greater distance from the fighting, too far for a regular dialogue by radio or optical beam to remain feasible.
Excepting only considerations of their own survival, they were most keenly interested in learning the result of the battle, and did not want to depart the system until they were assured of the outcome. That Twin Worlds had already been disastrously defeated was beyond dispute; it only remained to learn the full extent of the catastrophe, and to see if any people would remain alive.
It seemed to the first spacer that reports of damage suffered by the various elements of his fleet were coming in continuously. Worse, certain other of his vessels had abruptly ceased to report altogether.
In his exhaustion, he felt a sudden kinship, much deeper than before, with Admiral Radigast.
Quickly the picture became clear, and it was not a pretty one. People on other ships were able to report that the missing vessels had been utterly wiped out.
Word came from sick bay that the Political Officer, Zarnesti, between stints at reading poetry to the wounded, was virtually accusing him of treason. The first spacer had destroyed his fleet by hurling it into the conflict on the wrong side.
There were moments in which it seemed to Homasubi that he had nothing left with which to fight, and he had to struggle to keep blind panic from establishing a killing grip in his own mind. One firm aid was the thought that Radigast had somehow managed to survive a similar disaster. Very well then, if the Twin Worlder could do it, so would he.
“We were so utterly confident that our fleet was stronger than his had been. That the enemy must have been seriously weakened.”
“Message from Admiral Radigast, sir.”
“Then he is still alive? Good. Let me see. I hope that I can talk to him.”
In this last exchange, Radigast’s Morholt, capable of moving at no more than a cripple’s pace, had remained more distant from the enemy than the Huvean ships, and thus was spared the worst of the berserker’s fire.
Even so, the admiral had received a serious wound, for which the medics, human and mechanical, were treating him at his battle station.
People on the bridge of the Twin Worlds flagship were able to catch dim glimpses of the berserker, now bearing a couple of obvious new wounds near amidships on the huge hull, spouting nuclear flame and fumes. It seemed to be trying to reclaim the surviving elements of its foraging party.
There was the successfully returned tanker, nuzzling at the great beast’s side.
There were still a handful of Twin Worlds scoutships determinedly trying to interfere with the process, and the crews of those ships were paying for their boldness with their lives.
Humans watching grew furiously angry at this sign of what seemed their enemy’s contemptuous disregard for human power. The damned thing in its insolence evidently intended to go on refueling even while under attack by elements of two human fleets. Two badly crippled fleets, but even so, and the worst of it was that, so far, it was having some success.
The first massed Huvean attack on the gigantic enemy mothership had been repulsed, with considerable loss. The feeble efforts of Twin Worlds forces to be helpful seemed to make no effective difference.
The first spacer counted his losses, rallied his forces and reformed their formation, and tried again.
This time, he could see, there was no help to be expected from Radigast.
The admiral had called off the pointless scoutshi
p assaults for the time being, as their only result seemed to be a steady drain of losses.
Radigast ordered his squadrons to prepare for a mass scout ramming of the huge berserker, putting the small ships on automatic pilot to give their human crews a chance to save their lives.
People and computers engaged in the continual process of trying to assess the enemy’s damage were seeing hopeful indications: It seemed quite possible that some slow-acting weapons of Twin Worlds or Huvean contrivance, a combination of intelligent bomb and calculating atomic pile, had got on board the berserker, through one of the holes blasted by other missiles, old and new; now there were signs that one or more of these devices were slowly melting and radiating their way into the enemy’s vitals.
Huang Gun went meticulously through the checklist on his suit and helmet, in preparation for the extended trek into vacuum that his master had warned him was going to be required. Scarcely had he finished the checklist when an outbreak of strange noise filled him with alarm. The little mob of cadets, having equipped themselves with tools stolen from their fallen guard, were attacking the thin wall separating the executioner’s cell from theirs.
The master opened another, interior door for Huang Gun. “Come this way,” it ordered, speaking through his helmet radio.
Moving in obedience to the terse instructions given him from time to time, he groped his way through twisted, darkened corridors. The gravity held steady, and his gauge showed that there was still good air. But of course he kept his helmet on. Presently he found himself behind a new set of closed doors, in a middle-sized, barren room that he had never seen before.
The voice of the great machine told Huang Gun that the cause of Death now depended heavily on him.
“There are additional tasks that must be done, before you are granted the peace of your own death.”
The executioner drew a deep breath. How many more would he need to draw, before claiming his reward? “I am ready.”
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