Berserker's Star Page 11

  Harry nodded in agreement. “It sure had a decisive effect.”

  “Let’s see that just once morehah! Beautiful!”

  Leaning forward in his chair and fixing Lily with a curious eye, Pike spoke in what he obviously hoped was an encouraging tone. He would be glad to hear any additional details she might be able to provide about the recent skirmish.

  She protested that she had been only a bystander, unable to interpret the little symbols on the holostage. “Until the red dot vanished, and I knew that we were going to make it. Thanks to Harry.” And she gave him a warm look.

  There was a little silence, which Harry broke by saying: “Well, folks, I’ve got to start trying to do something about my ship. Looks like my next step is to go out and find myself a good lawyer.”

  The Templar frowned and leaned back in his chair. “Might not be necessary, Silver. Let’s talk a little first. It could be that I have a better idea.”

  “If there are ideas to be offered, I’m listening.”

  “By thunder!” Pike leaned forward again, pounding a fist softly on the arm of his chair. “I want to do something for you, sir—and you, too, madam. Two brave people who have courageously faced and fought a berserker machine. Successfully!”

  “Sheer luck,” Harry murmured modestly.

  “Ah, but it’s results that count—and here you’ve shown me the recorded evidence. Now, as to your current problem. I could give you the names of one or two good lawyers, but perhaps I can do even better.” Pike fixed Harry with a frowning, scheming eye.

  “How’s that, general?”

  “I’m on good terms with the federation prosecutor here on Maracanda. Mind you, I promise nothing, but it might be possible to expedite the unsealing of your ship.”

  “Sounds good,” Harry admitted cautiously. “Maybe, some day, in return I could do some little thing for you.”

  “Oh, not for me, my lad. Whatever I might ask of you—and of you, young woman—will not be just for me. Say, rather, for all humankind.”

  The general paused, and went on. “You know as well as I do that there exists in the Galaxy a certain class of men and women—no, I shouldn’t dishonor the names of women and men by putting them in that category. Of creatures, say, so-called humans, who find their object of worship just where they should not—creatures you don’t like any better than I do.” Pike paused dramatically. “I’m speaking, of course, of goodlife.”

  Harry grunted. Lily looked thoughtful. Goodlife was the berserkers’ own name for humans who wanted to help them destroy humanity. Such renegades were rare but by no means nonexistent, and the general was right—Harry had known some of them to make a dark religion out of their alienation.

  Pike was going on. “It has come to my attention that in the eastern cities—Minersville, and the settlement usually called Tomb Town—goodlife activity is carried out almost openly. Speeches in the so-called sacred square, before the Portal. I’m damned short on people just now, and I appeal for help to those I know are not unwilling to take a shot at a berserker. Are you with me?”

  Lily was shaking her head doubtfully, but certainly had not turned down the general as yet.

  Harry said: “I’m out of practice as a secret agent. But if you just want people to keep their eyes and ears open—”

  “That’s it exactly!”

  Lily murmured something in agreement; and a moment later, Pike was offering to provide his agent, or agents, money for necessities.

  Harry didn’t want to be in the man’s debt any more than he could help. “I’ll bill you later, if I think I have it coming.”

  Lily cleared her throat. “I appreciate your gentlemanly attitude, General Pike. I’ll be pleased to discover goodlife for you if I can. But you must realize that my reason for coming to Maracanda is to find my husband. Everyone agrees that the east side is the place to look, and that will remain my priority.”

  “Yes, you’ve come a long way to locate him, haven’t you? A kind of devotion that is all too rare in our times, perhaps in any times… Well, I don’t doubt you’re right, madam. If he’s here as a Malakó enthusiast, he is undoubtedly over in Tomb Town, or somewhere near it. Gone for a look into God’s Eyeball, as some have been known to call that strange thing there.”

  Harry and Lily were ready to get up and go. But General Pike, having established contact with sympathetic listeners, wanted to talk some more on his own favorite subjects.

  “I tell you, Silver, Ms. Gunnlod, goodlife are only part of the problem. The worst part, but not the whole of it, by any means.”

  The Templar’s fundamental argument was that people, the various components of Earth-descended humanity, should not be feuding among themselves, but should unite in fighting the real enemy, berserkers—and his face grew red when he spoke of the fiendish, loathsome, demonic perverts who had sold their souls to become goodlife, in effect worshiping the essence of evil.

  Lily broke in, obviously hoping to extract some practical information. “Have you been to the east side, general?” Everyone knew that Templars tended to be religious.

  “Not for some time. Duties keep me busy over here. And begging your pardon, ma’am—not knowing exactly how deep your own commitment to the thing may be—but this Malakó business is not for me. The great Eyeball, or whatever… no. My own religion is very simple—I worship Life!”

  “And speaking of life—” He warned his new agents to watch out for their own.

  “How’re we supposed to report back to you?”

  “There’s only one quick way, unfortunately not the most convenient, or the most foolproof. I’ll show you. Step this way, if you will.”

  In a moment he had conducted his two visitors into a small adjoining room. There they found a crippled man in Templar uniform seated at a plain, small table. Thin cables emerged from holes in the table’s top, then connected to a small, odd instrument of brassy metal, mounted in its center. From time to time, something in the little machine would vibrate fiercely, while the man watched steadily. More elaborate equipment, connected to the brass, produced a kind of printout. The lines on the continuously emerging graph zigged and zagged in time with the chattering of the simple machine.

  “Our central telegraph terminal.” Pike’s voice held a note of pride. “Anything new, Kurchatov?”

  “No sir.” The scarred Templar looked up and smiled vaguely at his visitors, but in the next moment was concentrating again on the machinery.

  Pike was explaining. “Our sole means of communication with the other cities on this world. All that comes in, you see, are simple dots and dashes, through a fiberoptic line. It’s the only way we know of to get a message quickly through the breakdown zone.”

  Harry felt somewhere between dazed and lost. “This is the best anyone on Maracanda can do in the way of communication?”

  “Between here and the far east, Minersville and Tomb Town, I’m afraid it is. Radio’s been shown to be hopeless, away from the free zones. Biggest free zone is right here, of course, encompassing the spaceport and Port City.

  “People keep trying to find a better way, of course. We need more resources for research. But our Superior General probably sees no reason to have much of a Templar presence on Maracanda—except to keep the Space Force from having a monopoly. There’s nothing much here that needs to be defended against berserkers, and no berserkers to attack.”

  Lily asked about the fastest way to reach the vicinity of the Tomb.

  Pike told his visitors: “There’s basically only one mode of travel on this world. That’s overland, by caravan, or pedicar, or on foot, if it comes to that.”

  “Someone was trying to explain that to me, but—”

  Harry cut in: “Nothing goes back and forth by air, or spacecraft, between here and there, west and east? Nothing at all?”

  Pike was shaking his head. “There just isn’t any air transport on this world. Here, let me show you on the map.”

  The Templar’s map looked like a good copy, tho
ugh considerably smaller, of the big one on the ground floor of the administration center. Using a laser pointer, the general called their attention to the spot where, he said, Lily wanted to look for Alan.

  Harry commented that the map showed no other cities or towns anywhere.

  “That’s because virtually no others exist.”

  “Here is the famous Portal, also known as the Tomb of Timur, the human founder of the worship of Malakó. A great many people are not convinced that anyone is actually buried there.”

  A moment later, Pike had summoned up the caravan route, a long thin line springing into visibility, winding across the map from one edge to the other. He also pointed out the settlement of Minersville.

  “About half the population on the other side of Maracanda is centered in the vicinity of the Tomb—sometimes called the Portal, and sometimes, by the especially irreverent, the Eyeball, or Eyeball of God. The other half is centered in Minersville, just a few kilometers away, on the land office, which is very near the Tomb. Also the richest land, in terms of mineral wealth, is in the same vicinity. The only feasible way to reach any of these places is by going overland. In practice, for most folk, including you, that means joining a caravan.”

  General Pike was just beginning an explanation of something he called the caravans, which sounded to Harry like some truly demented system of ground transportation. Harry, still not getting it, cut in. “Any reason, legal or physical, why I couldn’t just take my ship over there and land it? Assuming, that is, that the Space Force doesn’t already have her sealed? And by the way, is there anything you can do about that?”

  “If the commandant said he’d seal your ship, it’s probably done by now. I said I’d try to be of some help there, and I will. But I may not be able to do much. In practice, the Space Force can seal a ship for thirty standard days, or until the owner goes to court and gets an injunction of relief.”

  The general sighed. “To return to your main point: there’s no legal prohibition against trying to land a spacecraft or aircraft on the other side of the continent. Almost everyone asks, and we might post a sign or two. But again there are the breakdown zones, you see, so in practice the thing’s impossible.”

  “I still don’t understand this business of breakdown zones.”

  “Join the club. I can tell you what everyone knows: They are regions, domains, on this world in which modern technology simply does not work—for reasons that are still being investigated. They are also something you must understand before you try to go anywhere or do anything on Maracanda. Across much of the surface, the ‘sky’ is simply too low, the breakdown zones too nearly continuous, to allow anything like practical air travel.”

  “All right, then I suppose the caravans are some kind of system of groundcars?”

  “More like overland trains, necessarily very low tech. You’ll see. They’re efficient, most of them reasonably comfortable, if your standards of comfort aren’t too high. I’ve made the trip. But your journey will take several days. There is simply no faster way.”

  As the couple walked out of the administration building, under the deceptive natural canopy, afflicted with a perpetual mild overcast, that served on Maracanda for a sky, Harry said: “I’m beginning to think you may have a tough time finding your man, kid. It looks like just getting near him will be a chore.”

  “It hasn’t been exactly easy up till now. Are you still coming with me, Harry?”

  “Said I would, didn’t I?”

  “Commandant Rovaki will be upset if you leave town.”

  “That’s another reason.”

  She shook her head. “Harry, it would seem that you’d be awfully easy to manipulate, once someone understood that you could be counted on to do the opposite of whatever you were told.”

  “Don’t count on it, lady.” But he had to smile.

  After a few more steps, Lily said: “Harry, you haven’t asked me what Rovaki questioned me about.”

  “That’s easy, he wanted to talk about me.” Harry looked around him. “Nobody’s come to arrest me, so I guess I’m not accused of any crimes.”

  “You’re right, of course. He asked if I’d observed any suspicious behavior on your part, and I told him that I hadn’t.” She smiled faintly. “He seemed to be leaving it up to me to define ‘suspicious behavior.’ I was the only passenger aboard your ship when it left Hong’s World, and I had no idea what cargo you might be carrying. When he asked why you stopped in the This-world system, I told him I had no idea about that either—all that technical stuff was just beyond me.”

  “And he believed you?”

  “As far as I could tell. And I kept pestering him for suggestions as to how I might locate Alan. A total waste of time, of course, except I think it kept him a little off balance.”

  Harry smiled. “So, now you’re ready to get down to serious business. Really start the search for Alan.”

  The two of them were walking toward what appeared to be the center of Port City, whose streets began right at the spaceport’s edge.

  They had just got in among the peculiar buildings, and Harry was offering to buy lunch—though the clocks he had seen since landing showed the local time as early morning. Before Lily could react to the suggestion, a loud voice close behind them bellowed a strange, wordless cry.

  In the next moment, a huge man in flamboyant civilian dress seemed to materialize out of nowhere to confront them. In a moment he had engulfed Harry in a boisterous greeting, pounding the smaller man on the back.

  Harry stumbled, staggered, used what means he could, short of actual violence, to fend off the assault. He was muttering dark words under his breath.

  The newcomer babbled, sounding breathless with delight. His clothes made the uniform of General Pike look drab by comparison. His voice went up and down the scale, as if he were trying to be all the characters in a play. “Dear Harry—what a delight to stumble across you here. Haven’t seen you since—when was it?”

  Harry couldn’t have named the date if he had tried, and he wasn’t going to try. He was willing to let their last meeting be forgotten. In fact, now that he thought about it, he had been making some effort to forget.

  The other persisted. “Come on, I’m going to buy you a drink—and your lovely companion, too, of course. Can’t you offer an introduction?”

  Lily stared up at a mountainous body and a round face, cheeks partly bearded, somewhat pomaded, glowing with what might have been good humor, on either side of a well-tended and ornate mustache. And a lecherous, leering welcome to Harry’s companion.

  “Ms. Lily Gunnlod, this is Kul Bulaboldo—unless, of course, you’re calling yourself by some other—”

  “Not a bit of it, old chap, not a bit! I live here proudly under me own name.”

  Lily was looking from one of them to the other. Somehow she did not seem totally surprised. “An old friend of yours, Mr. Silver?”

  “We’ve known each other a long time.” It was a reluctant admission.

  Bulaboldo’s excitement had simmered down to the point where he could be coherent. “What brings you to this fair world, Harry, me lad?”

  “It’s a long story.” Dryly, Harry asked: “I suppose you’re here on a religious pilgrimage?”

  “Oh, that’s exactly it, dear heart! Very perceptive of you! Worshiping money as I do, I come to Maracanda to build a shrine to my god—or should I say to dig one out? Have you not heard of the treasures in rare earths available across the desert?” Kul gestured extravagantly.

  “People keep talking about mining, prospecting, but—”

  Bulaboldo, as usual, was not listening. “If I speak with attention to strict verisimilitude, I must admit that I have come to Maracanda to try to make a killing in rare earths. I may come a little late to the game for real success, but one has to make the effort, what?”

  And with a nudge in the ribs: “What’s happened to that little lady… You know the one I mean?”

  “I might. Probably a lot of things
have happened to her. And still are.”

  Presently Lily excused herself to go in search of a ladies’ room. The Falstaffian one waited till she was out of sight and hearing before opening new subjects of conversation. Soon he was announcing, with a wink and a nudge, that he was more than a little interested in a story he had heard regarding a certain c-plus cannon.

  “You and every bloody crook in the Galaxy, it seems,” sighed Harry.

  “Indeed, dear lad. The story I have gathered, from an impeccable source, alleges that one Harry Silver had somehow recently got away from the Space Force base at Hyperborea with such a weapon. Needless to say, we—in general, the community of those who understand such things—are all filled with admiration for the man who could accomplish such a feat.”

  Harry grunted.

  “I suppose you’ve sold it already?” Bulaboldo suggested a couple of names as likely purchasers. Lily, returning, with mission accomplished, was close enough to overhear the names, but seemed to find them meaningless, to judge by her blank look. They were not meaningless to Harry, who recognized good examples of the dregs of Galactic society.

  “Oh, go ahead,” he assured Kul. “Discuss the subject. The lady knows.”

  “Ah, I see. Excellent. Get a good price?”

  The man seemed to be able to hear about some things before they had actually happened. Harry said only: “If I had, would I be likely to talk about it?”

  “Only to your best and oldest friend, dear lad.” Bulaboldo moved as if to throw an enormous arm round Harry’s shoulders, but caught himself in time to abort the gesture halfway through.

  “If I did talk about it, you wouldn’t like what you heard.”

  “My ears are calloused. Of course, I must assume that you have got rid of the thing somehow. It would be crazy to expect to go around peacefully trading, and submitting to Space Force seals and searches, with your ship’s bow afflicted with a thing like that, sticking out like a sore nose.” Bulaboldo mused, “Or something else… The protrusion must be how long?—several meters, anyway.”