Rogue Berserker

by Fred Saberhagen

  It seemed to be waiting for Harry to say something.

  He asked it: “That is the story?”

  “Those are the essentials, up to now, of the chain of events that you must understand, if you are to furnish me the intelligent help that I require.”

  Harry nodded slowly. He studied the machine in front of him, certain that it was going to kill him just as soon as his name had worked its way back to the top of its list of priorities.

  In its half-familiar voice it prodded him: “Have you grasped the situation?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe I have. What difference does it make, since you’re about to kill me anyway?” Harry swung his arms. “I’m cold, do you suppose you could warm it up a bit in here?”

  “I can increase the air temperature by a few degrees, if that will help you to think more clearly. Pressure and oxygen content are already nominal for human requirements.”

  And, by all the gods, he thought he could start to feel the difference in the air almost at once. The battered base’s life support systems must be functioning, and the assassin, or one of the assassin’s subunits, must already have taken over their control.

  “All right. Thanks.” Harry drew a deep breath. “Let me remind you once more, you said a while back that you need my help. Tell me exactly what you want me to do—and then tell me just what good I’m going to get out of it.”

  “You will not be required to harm any living thing, if that is your concern.”

  “That’s one of ‘em.”

  “As I have explained, my only goal is to destroy the rogue machine. Since it is stronger than I am, by a majority of the most important measurements, trickery will be essential.”

  “In my experience it often helps.”

  “My plan requires your willing assistance. If you choose to help me, and survive the conflict, life and freedom will be yours. The odds of your survival are difficult to calculate, but I think they can be no worse than twenty-five percent. Is that what you wish to hear?”

  “Music to my ears.”

  The lenses on its awful head—little things he supposed were functioning as lenses—were looking at him blankly.

  Harry made a sound, half grunt, half sigh. “I’m saying that I approve. Even a one-out-of-four chance of survival would be great.” He drew a deep breath. “But there’s something I want even more than my own life and freedom. If you can give it to me—we have a deal.

  “If you can’t—well, from my point of view what’s about to happen will just be a fight between two damned berserkers. I’d love to be alive to watch it, but if I have to settle for being dead, that’s all right too. Frankly, I hope you kill each other off.”

  He paused there. The machine just sat where it was, cross-legged on the deck, as if confident that Harry would have still more to say. Its mismatched metal hands that could pull a man apart like paper were resting idle in its halfway human lap. Evidently it was in no tremendous hurry. Probably, Harry thought, it was being so patient because it had other preparations for its next attack going on in the background. Things that it knew were going to take a little time, since it was a bit shorthanded, and it wouldn’t or couldn’t move against the rogue until all of the things were ready.

  Harry took the plunge, and told it: “It comes back to the two life-units, my wife and son, that we talked about earlier. I would gain their survival and freedom, even before my own.”

  “I have told you that I do not know—”

  “Yeah, yeah. You have no clue to where my people are. But just in case they do show up. A few days ago I was perfectly sure that both of them were dead—-and very likely they are. But now I can see two other possibilities. One of them—it’s been with me all along, but I’ve been afraid to think about it—is that they still live, if you can call it that, as prisoners of this rogue machine.”

  The assassin had already covered that ground, at least to its own satisfaction. “And the second possibility?”

  “Like the Galactic coordinates you wouldn’t give me, it doesn’t really matter for the purposes of this discussion.”

  The berserker got smoothly to its feet, standing just a little taller than Harry, even with Harry’s feet in the suit’s thick-soled boots. It said: “I must be the judge of that.”

  Harry sighed. “All right. Why not?”

  He had a little more to say to the machine, while it stood listening.

  When he had finished, it said to him: “Harry Silver, we are agreed.”

  The voice of Dorijen interjected immediately: “May I speak now?”

  Harry turned and looked at the tame machine. “Go ahead,” he told it. The berserker made no objection.

  Dorijen’s voice was as cool and bright as ever. “I must begin by warning you, Mister Silver, that you have just committed a serious crime by volunteering to help a berserker. My programming compels me to arrest you on a charge of goodlife activity, and at the first opportunity report your action to the proper authorities.”

  “Yeah, I understand. You do that. Now that I’m under arrest, what was that other matter you were trying to tell me about?”

  Dorry’s voice became a monotone. “I am the bearer of a personal message, its content remaining unknown to me before it is delivered. It is addressed to Harry Silver from Del Satranji. My programming compels me to pass it on.”

  Suddenly Harry’s mouth was very dry. “Tell me.”

  “Message begins: ‘Hello you smart motherless bastard. I just wanted you to know, before you die, that I was the one who wrecked your life.’”

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  The soft and cheerful tones of the tame robot flowed on, rendering the words of the message all the more hideous:

  “I wanted to be sure you knew before you died, hotshot, Famous Harry, that I’m the one who kidnapped your wife and kid and turned them over to my partner. My partner wants to arrange a kind of family reunion for you, and I very much approve of that idea. Too bad if you’re going to die before arrangements are finalized. But I can’t have everything just the way I want it.

  “I’d say that my partner lives in the Gravel Pit, though really he doesn’t live at all, if you know what I mean. But being dead doesn’t prevent him from carrying out his business, and for some reason he finds that a congenial place to set up shop. He’ll be doing some interesting business with your family.”

  Harry was hardly breathing. He stared at Dorijen while the assassin listened and watched them both. Her one eye stared back at Harry, while her newly monotonous voice went on, playing the message: “Cheng’s two people are in there too, they got invited to the same party. I’m also the one who arranged that. That was harder, because I didn’t have a Secret Weapon to use that time. Had to let my partner do all the driving, on one of his own machines.

  “So you see Cheng was right to be suspicious of me, Famous Harry. He just wasn’t suspicious enough. And you were way too dumb to figure out what was happening. Even when I practically told you, about the slow acceleration. Yes, I drove the Secret Weapon before you did. Arranged to borrow it from my old friend the abbot for a couple days, in return for letting him go one-on-one with Dorry till I got back. They were shacked up in a little ship of mine that you don’t even know about. One of the many things you don’t know. The wife said she didn’t mind helping me out in my career, she’d even put up with a preacher for a day or two.

  “Not that Darchan ever suspected I was snatching people with the professor’s secret weapon. I let him think I was just up to a bit of industrial espionage. Of course he might have guessed that it was something more than that—”

  “One moment.” The assassin’s voice broke in, and Dorry’s stopped as if a switch had been thrown. The berserker went on: “How long have you, robot, known that this life-unit Satranji is an active goodlife?”

  Dorry swayed slightly on her feet, as if her balancing systems, as well as some of her other components, were having problems. “As I have already stated, the content of this message was unknow
n to me until I began to deliver it. Now I see that Mister Satranji is also subject to arrest and legal proceedings.”

  The assassin prodded: “Where is this goodlife master of yours now?”

  “I do not know.” Standing amid wreckage, Dorry was as calm and bland as a stone wall.

  “I think you probably do.”

  Dorijen was silent. Well, what was the berserker going to do, threaten her?

  “The rest of the message,” Harry prompted. “I want to hear it.”

  “I am no longer compelled to deliver it,” Dorry informed him briskly. “Having been confronted with strong evidence of Mister Satranji’s criminality, I find myself released from any need to obey his orders.”

  “I want to hear the message, though.” Harry took thought quickly. “Yeah, I know I’m a criminal too, you don’t have to obey me either. But possibly the message contains information that will help us save human lives.”

  Again the assassin spoke directly to the tame robot. “That can wait. This life-unit is in need of a replacement for his broken helmet. Provide one.”

  Dorry leaned a few centimeters closer to Harry, and then was quick to agree. “True. If my vision were not defective, I would have noted the fact sooner.”

  She straightened. “In these conditions, the lack of a helmet does seem the more urgent problem. Mister Silver, on my return I will convey to you the remainder of the message.” Dorry’s voice faded as the robot hobbled off on the new errand, moving like an old, old woman.

  * * *

  When Dorry was gone, the assassin said to Harry: “Now, if you are prepared to listen, I will tell you, in some detail, of my plan to destroy the rogue.”

  “Shoot.”

  First, the berserker explained, contact with the rogue would have to be reestablished, the assassin pretending it still did not know of the other’s renegade, outlaw status. Then the assassin would inform its intended victim that it had captured a male ED life-unit whose characteristics closely matched the description of the superbadlife Harry Silver. It would tell the rogue that the prisoner’s identity was still somewhat in doubt, and the assassin was carefully preserving this life-unit’s viability, pending further examination aimed at the resolution of those doubts.

  “In this matter I will ask the rogue’s assistance—a perfectly logical request, since I know it possesses extensive laboratory facilities. It will of course agree.

  “Once you go aboard its base, our enemy may need only a second or two to establish that you are indeed the life-unit known as Harry Silver.”

  The berserker paused, as if waiting for some comment. But Harry had none to give, and it went on.

  “At that point, the rogue will be determined to preserve you, as a very valuable experimental subject. You will be carried or guided deeper into its workspace.”

  “Which is not exactly,” Harry observed, “the happy outcome that we’re hoping to achieve. “

  “Not in itself, though of course your mere presence aboard the rogue will seriously distract it. But my plan requires that you do more. You will become increasingly the focus of our enemy’s attention, an effect you will intensify by engaging it in conversation. Unexpected conduct on your part should further augment the effect; I leave it to you to devise and display an interesting repertoire of badlife behavior. This should probably include intricate argument, either valid or fallacious, as well as unpredictable physical actions, and some bizarre emotional demonstration.”

  Harry was nodding. “Generating intricate argument might take some thought. The rest I’m primed to deliver at a moment’s notice. What next?”

  “One of my machines will escort you to the rogue, and accompany you there as long as that proves feasible. This escort will be carrying a shoulder weapon of the type you have already used against me, and at the proper moment it will put this weapon in your hands.

  “Fighting side by side with my machine, you will continue to create the greatest possible distraction. For maximum effect, you should act if possible in the area where the rogue conducts its research. If there are human prisoners that it is concerned to protect, most likely they will be there.

  “One standard second after the first act of violence, I will launch an all-out attack against the rogue, aimed at destroying its central processor.”

  Harry, for the moment caught up in the mere tactical problem, was shaking his head. “You don’t even know where its main brain is.”

  The assassin did not answer.

  Harry persisted. “Or maybe you can make a good guess. But wherever it is, it’ll have maximum protection.”

  “Of course it will. Once I am close enough to obtain a clear overview of the rogue’s current configuration, I shall be able to determine the location, with a high degree of probability.”

  There was a silent pause. Presently the assassin asked: “Comments?”

  “One or two.”

  “Well?”

  “You say this rogue is bigger, more powerful than you are. Also that it’s better armed. And smarter, which is going to make trickery quite difficult. You might tell me why you think we have a chance to win.”

  “Because we have the advantage of surprise, enhanced by the distraction you will create. I compute the chances of our success as close to even. In any case I am compelled to make the effort, and I compute that your help may well make the difference between success and failure.”

  “Yeah. All right.” Harry was slowly pacing now, still trying out his arms and legs. “If all goes well with your plan, you’ll smash this rogue device, and maybe berserker high command will pin a medal on you—yeah, I know they don’t do things like that, I’m speaking metaphorically.”

  “I understand.”

  He wondered if it did. “Meanwhile, if I’m very lucky indeed, I might be still alive when most of the shooting’s over … tell me what happens then.”

  The berserker kept turning its head, keeping an eye on this very dangerous badlife, unarmed and helmetless and wobbly as he was. Harry felt flattered.

  It asked him: “Have I not already told you that?”

  “Tell me again. I’d like to hear a more detailed version.”

  The answer came without hesitation. “In return for your active cooperation in destroying or disabling the rogue, I will honor my pledge and set you free.”

  “What about the other two people that I mentioned?”

  “Obviously I cannot foresee all possible contingencies. If I find those or any other life-units still viable, I will free them too. I cannot promise where you will be released, but it will be in some environment conducive to human survival.”

  “I’m mainly interested in the two that I described for you specifically.”

  “I remember.” The machine was patient. “If possible, their survival will have priority. Even over your own, since that is what you ask.”

  Harry was silent. After a brief pause, the assassin went on: “You may compute that when I speak of granting you and others life and freedom I tell you a large untruth, in an effort to gain your cooperation. If so, you are wrong. I promise truthfully—destruction of the rogue is of such high priority that my normal programming is set aside.”

  Harry mumbled something.

  The voice kept after him, still sounding almost like his own, like a bad echo, or a warped conscience. “But for the sake of argument suppose I lie. Even so, the situation of all life-units involved is improved by your assisting me. A quick death at my hands, inflicted in accordance with my original programming, would be less unpleasant than prolonged existence as the rogue’s experimental subjects. Is it not so?”

  Harry spent a little time in thought, his head bowed and staring at the deck. He could hear a hissing somewhere, sounding like an atmospheric leak. It was a distracting noise, and on second thought it was more like sand running through an hourglass.

  No matter how much he thought, there was only one answer he could give. “Yeah. I guess that’s true enough. Quick is way better than slow, whe
n it comes to dying.”

  “Then our agreement is concluded. At the proper time I will give you detailed instructions regarding your part in the plan.”

  As the berserker uttered those last words it turned around and stalked away. Again it stepped indifferently on Harry’s fallen comrade, the weight making the dead man’s armor creak. Then it had walked around a corner and passed out of sight.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  As far as Harry could tell, the damned machines had left him utterly alone. He did not believe for a moment that he was actually unobserved, but it wouldn’t have mattered if he was. The ruins of the common room around him seemed to offer nothing that he might use to better his position. The superbadlife was without resources.

  Trying to send out an alarm, any kind of appeal for help, was out of the question. There were no robot couriers remaining on the base, and the one that had been scheduled to carry away the support people must have been blasted, or had already escaped. Therefore there was no meaningful way to get a message out.

  Harry’s solitude did not endure for long. The assassin machine was calling in its various auxiliary units from the farther reaches of the wanderworld, the result being a sporadic parade of grotesque devices emerging from the various nooks and crannies in which they had been probing, sterilizing, or searching for God knew what. Any microorganisms that might have been overlooked in the extermination process would be able to survive a little longer.

  “Looks like you’re in full retreat,” Harry observed to the assassin, which had now reappeared. Something in the way the two-handed machine was standing, leaning slightly toward him, made him wonder if it had changed its mind and was going to obliterate him on the spot.

  But all it said was: “All my machinery will be needed in the assault on the rogue. I also require that you bring along the robot called Dorijen, if that is feasible. I foresee possible uses for it.”

  “Because of Dorijen’s connection with the goodlife.”