Way down on the list of possibilities was trying to force someone, at gunpoint, to pilot an escape ship for him. Havot had left behind his shoulder weapon in his panicked flight, but had been able to pick up a replacement dropped by some fallen spacer.
Being reluctant to use threats or force meant he'd have to find another man, or woman, who also had a good reason for wanting to get away. But Havot wasn't too worried. He thought that could be practically anyone, when a berserker attack was on.
TWENTY-ONE
When Harry and Becky met again, they rushed into each other's arms.
The emergency at the hospital having been dealt with, they had a chance to talk, and Becky told him what little she could about the thoughtware on the Witch.
A little later, as soon as he was free to think about extraneous matters, Harry gave Becky his box of contraband. "See what you can do with this, will you? Repack it in some other container."
"I can do that-is Enomoto coming looking for it again?"
"Not for a while. He's going to be in the hospital for a couple of days at least, and Normandy's going to charge him with spying, soon as she has time." Harry paused. "He's a piece of scum, but he's not the really scary one. Is he?"
"You mean the one who shot me."
"Tell me about him."
"There's not much I can tell. Everything seemed ready for liftoff, all systems go, and we-Honan-Fu was the man with me-we were just waiting another minute, hoping you'd show up. The airlock was unlocked. And then he came in."
"Havot."
Becky nodded.
"Sure it was him? Could you recognize his armor?"
"He was just wearing standard stuff. The only thing I could really recognize was his face. He has this little smile that seems to say, 'Look how cute I am.'" Becky shuddered. "I know it was him, Harry. But if they put me on the witness stand, a good lawyer could make it sound real doubtful."
"Yeah, tell me about lawyers. Where is Mr. Havot now-or is it Lieutenant Havot?"
Becky frowned. "No idea. And he's only a spacer third, isn't he?"
"Thought he might have got a battlefield promotion."
When Harry asked around some more, it appeared that several hours ago, Spacer Havot had been seen on the base, armed, apparently unhurt, and ready and eager for combat. He'd been ordered to occupy a certain advanced observation post, and after sounding the alarm, to do his best to defend it if the enemy appeared. Mostly it meant sitting motionless in one of the machines that was supposed to be used in the assault on Summerland.
"Exactly what do you want him for, Silver? Shall we try to call him?"
"No. It can wait."
Harry supposed that by now there was an excellent chance that Havot was dead. It was a good bet that many of those on the "missing" list were no longer breathing.
"Well, we can hope," he said, to no one in particular.
By now, the enemy attack had been drastically slowed down, though not stopped. Here and there, the enemy, as always, moved and killed as opportunity arose. The possibility of a crushing defeat still existed for each side. Each had been much weakened.
The commander had rescinded her earlier orders to Harry. Rather than get the grounded Witch up into space, she wanted to keep it on the ground for now, encircled and defended by most of her remaining forces. If Shiva had survived and wanted to get offworld, it would have to fight its way somehow through them. Even if Shiva had not escaped the blast, the captured Solarian secrets might very well have been passed on to some anonymous berserker second-in-command.
To the small group of aides that served as her council of war, she said: "We've got to understand that in some very basic ways, Shiva is, was, has to be, like every other berserker. For one thing, it places no intrinsic importance upon its own survival. To our enemy, no object in the universe, itself included, has any value except as it may contribute to the success of the grand plan, the destruction of all life.
"If berserkers were at all susceptible to mental, emotional shock-and we know they're not-the news that the badlife meant to ambush their most successful field commander, and knew just how to go about it, would have hit them a nasty blow indeed.
"I can picture in my mind-or at least I think I can-how they must have chewed that one over among themselves, in some kind of exchange of information in their strategic council: 'The badlife might have deduced the existence of Shiva from our suddenly increased rate of victory in battle. But how could they have known-our interrogation of prisoners shows they did know-at what point in time and space Shiva could be found?'
"And the berserkers not only knew there was going to be an attack directly against Shiva, an assassination attempt if you want to call it that, but they knew the badlife base from which it was going to be launched. So they supposed that a quick strike at Hyperborea might well succeed in gathering that important information.
"But it looks like Shiva decided to take that decision on itself. It simply didn't have enough time available to discuss it with the berserker high command-wherever that may be currently located.
"And what Shiva decided was to strike quickly at this base. Not only strike to destroy, but to invade the place in force. It knew that the knowledge it had to have was here, and it could still calculate that we were unaware that it had found out. Audacity had won for it before, time and again. And it very nearly won this time. But it hasn't won, and now we may have the damned thing trapped."
Not everyone was sure it hadn't.
Meanwhile, intermittent gunfire, crashes of destruction, testified that several remaining berserkers, presumably not possessing any stolen secrets, and likely out of communication with their leadership who did, were not devoting their considerable computing power to the problems of escaping. They, the berserker infantry, liked it right here on Hyperborea, as they would have liked it anyplace where there were life-forms to be discovered and killed.
Havot, sitting in his assigned observation post, had taken several shots at distant flashes of movement that he thought were probably small berserker units. On the strength of this activity, he was ready to claim a couple of probable kills, and he was finding the game of berserker-fighting every bit as enjoyable as he remembered it. This was fun! For long moments, he could even begin to lose himself in the game.
But for moments only. No game could long divert him from his real and terribly urgent need to get out of here, away from the people who were soon going to want to pop him back into a cell. When he figured enough time had passed, he moved out of his post and spent about an hour just hiding out in a piece of wreckage, waiting until the fun was over. Of course, if the machines won, there'd be a little more fun yet, for the last human who was left alive. But then they would be quick and efficient in what they did. He had no military secrets.
The clear thought came: Maybe they'll kill me soon, one side or the other will. Then he wouldn't have to worry anymore about trying to escape.
Havot thought he might have something in common now with whatever berserker stragglers might still survive. He and they both wanted a good ship and a clean getaway.
Listening in on his suit radio, though careful to maintain radio silence himself, he was somewhat put out when he heard that Karl Enomoto was now wounded, confined to the base hospital, and would soon be charged with spying for Kermandie. If Havot could have guessed that Enomoto was a spy, he'd have tried somehow to work out a deal.
Not that he would have had any intention of going to Kermandie. He'd heard too much about that world-they'd have no reason to treat him well once they had everything they wanted from him.
He could imagine how the game might have gone with Enomoto. Likely, the agent would have had a plan for disposing of him once they were aboard some ship and on their way. Well, that would have been all right. With the ship cruising steadily on reliable autopilot, Havot would have been quite ready for such games. He could play them better than anyone he'd ever met.
But now Enomoto was gone, and the berserkers-even if he'
d been willing to risk, and able to make, a bargain with one of them-would probably be all gone, too. It seemed that the only available ship was the one belonging to Harry Silver.
Havot knew that as soon as everyone felt about ninety percent safe and secure, reasonably sure that all the berserkers had been disposed of, the next thing that would occur to them was that Havot, the dreadful murderer, ought to be locked up again.
Well, if worse came to worst, he'd have to come up with some scenario to explain what he'd been doing during the battle, and he wasn't going to admit that he'd been anywhere near Harry's ship, let alone trying to drive it. Because he knew that there were two dead humans in there. There were of course dead humans scattered all over Hyperborea now, and everyone knew the berserkers were to blame. But still…
He heard first, and then saw, a suited human approaching. So, it looked like the people were winning, as he'd thought. When the man got a little closer, Havot saw that it was Harry Silver.
Surveying the field and what he could see of the underground hangar space, Havot observed that the most notable feature of both was a profound lack of available ships. Well, the only thing to do was wait and see. He didn't think his chances were too bad, and if he couldn't get off on the Witch, something else would turn up.
The truth was, he was glad that the berserkers were here. Their presence actually made him feel good. He was no damned goodlife, but the fact was that berserkers were lucky for him-always had been. Once, several years ago, they'd inadvertently got him out of what should have been foolproof life imprisonment. And now again today. Maybe the third time would be the charm. Somewhere, somehow, a berserker was going to get him out of trouble yet again.
Harry Silver, cautiously leading a small squad on a search-and-destroy mission, said quietly on his suit radio: "You people wait here. Stay alert, just in case something's been following us. I'll take a look in there."
A procedure had quickly been worked out by the people with the most combat experience. Machines, tame robots, Sniffer's cousins, rather simpleminded for the most part, did the preliminary searching of the station. Then people. Then the machines again, this time going over everything in excruciating detail.
Now Harry, advancing with extreme care, and for the moment alone, took note of the fact that the lounge and the adjacent areas were relatively undamaged. Part of the high, arched ceiling had fallen in, creating random rubble on the floor, but enough of the gadgets and programs were still working to maintain something of an atmosphere-though it wasn't quite the one the designers had intended. When Silver stepped warily over the threshold, the housekeeping systems, all thoroughly deranged, took no notice. But they were already doing their best to reestablish a bright and cheerful environment. Something in the background was making an occasional little hissing, steaming noise. A mottled sort of light-it might almost have been real sunlight-came down, penetrating a network of branches. The brook, idiotically cheerful, went babbling along over its natural and artificial rocks.
Some member of the human scouting party Harry had left outside the lounge called in after him: "Silver? You all right?"
"Yeah, yeah. Just taking my time."
Now and then, once or twice a minute, the artificial gravity in the social room became confused about exactly how it was supposed to perform and underwent great, slow pulsation, briefly turning the brook into slow amoeba-like bulbs of water that went drifting through the air. Each time, the glitch lasted for only a second, and then-splash!-gravity was suddenly back to normal. Weight came back, the floor pushed up again on the soles of Harry's boots, and on the legs of all the furniture that was still standing. Most of the floor was wet, most of the water draining back into the little winding channel.
Harry, eyeing the devastation around him, thought it amazing that any of the systems were still working at all.
As he took his second step inside the room, one of the bland-mannered pyramidal waiters came rolling forward, bumping over a new unevenness in the floor. But the machine, unable to recognize any figure in space armor as a potential customer, offered Silver no greeting. Advancing a couple of steps farther into the big room, he could see that the fighting had already passed through here at least once. The waiter's inanimate colleague, lying partially behind the bar, had been shot into ruins, possibly by sheer accident or else mistaken for an enemy by one side or the other. Bottles and mirrors and glassware lay about everywhere in shiny, rounded, safe-edged splinters. Liquid from smashed bottles puddled on the floor, little streams of diverse colors trickling toward the brook, then rising up in small colored blobs when the gravity stuttered again. When that happened, the waiter steadied itself by grabbing at a corner of the bar.
Cautiously, his carbine ready, still set on alphatrigger, Harry continued moving forward, looking around. At last he'd had a look at the whole room, and it was a place that made him uneasy, what with the virtual decor still functioning, trying to make battle damage look like pleasant woodland.
There was only one other casualty in the lounge. It wasn't human either, though its shape more closely approximated that ideal than did the waiter's.
A roughly man-shaped berserker boarding machine, one leg blown clear away and its torso riddled by fierce gunfire, had come into view lying behind some bioengineered ferns. Evidently it hadn't fired at Harry because all it could do now was to lie there, like a failed dam athwart the brook, partially blocking the current. The water hissed whenever a ripple carried it deep inside the ruined metal torso, and when that happened, holes in the fallen body jetted a little steam, like living breath on a cold day.
A moment later, Silver saw with a faint prickling of his scalp that one steel arm of the thing still moved-the machine wasn't totally out of action yet, though too badly blasted to drag itself within reach of another human being, or even to get at any of the robots that served humanity. Impotently unable even to blow itself up, the berserker lay there with the water gurgling musically around and through it.
Still, the death machine was keeping busy, using its one functional limb as best it could, methodically crushing all the plants that grew within reach of its steel fingers. Harry realized for the first time that the stream contained small fish-exotic, multicolored products of some bioengineering lab; the berserker was just squeezing one into paste.
From somewhere overhead, a virtual songbird twittered now and then. No doubt saying, Cheer up, things could be worse. Each time the gravity stuttered, the body of the moribund berserker lifted from the deck as if making an effort to get up. Each time, it fell back a moment later with a crashing, splashing thud. It wasn't only the arm, Harry observed now, that was still alive. On the right side of the thing's head, one lens the size of a fingernail was swiveling in its little turret, watching, alert for anything that might help it to get on with its job.
Eventually, the lens found Harry and stayed turned toward him, even when he moved again. Meanwhile, the good arm suddenly ceased its patient, industrious murdering of leaves and fish. Probably the berserker's optelectronic brain was still clicking away, at least enough of it to calculate that the intruding badlife might not have spotted its activity. It had to be hoping that he might step close enough for it to grab an ankle.
Harry drew a bead on the functional metal arm, then let his weapon rest. He didn't want to make any big noise in here until he'd looked around a little in the next room-and maybe the Trophy Room experts could extract some useful information from this unit.
Now suddenly, from outside, Harry's mates were calling to him urgently, but very quietly, on suit radio. Their whole party was being summoned to help surround a fully functional berserker someone had run into in a distant quarter of the base. The thing on the floor in the lounge didn't appear to be any immediate danger to anyone. Assuming a human victory, the mop-up squad could get it later. Harry went out of the lounge, retreating through the door by which he'd entered, and went loping down the corridor after his mates.
"He should get a medal," Harry Silver s
aid.
Someone else, who didn't know what had happened to Becky, looked at him, struck by something in his tone.
"I'll give him his due, all right," Harry muttered, not loud enough for anyone else to hear.
By the time the battle had passed its climactic stage, the humans' defensive perimeter had been steadily constricted, forced in by the untiring pressure of the enemy. Now the situation display on Commander Normandy's big holostage, down in the middle of the battered computer room, showed that the battle-worn human survivors, their numbers reduced to about half the original strength of the garrison, were still defending only about half a dozen rooms, including the hospital, the big central computer chamber at their center.
At the high-water mark of the berserker attack, some of their boarding machines had overrun the commander's office, where before their arrival, all of the functional controls and information sources had gone totally dead-Sadie had seen to that. They had fought their way not only into the computer room, but through the hospital and social room, disposing of all the life that they encountered-whenever that life, aided by its loyal slave machines, did not first dispose of them. Wherever the invaders found that a corridor had been effectively blocked, they burned or blasted their way through doors and walls. In every quarter, almost at every step, they met exceptional resistance. The base had been constructed to serve as a fortress, in addition to its other functions.
At almost every stage of the berserker advance, the machines sustained heavy casualties. Nevertheless, Shiva, exerting thorough, effortless control, calculating its losses as carefully as possible, had at first refrained from using extreme violence against the base. The objective, a goal worth many risks and heavy losses, was the capture intact of at least one of the big cryptanalysis computers, and/or one of that machine's human operators alive.
Shiva in Steel Page 27