Berserker Prime Read online

  Huang Gun said: “Porphyry here can serve as an indication of what I mean, a guide to the path that we should choose. Though he is but a prologue, a suggestion, of the benevolent power our machines are ready and waiting to offer us. Let them take the weapons from our faltering hands. Let them serve as judges in our disputes, and let them write our treaties. Whatever rules of conduct they may devise for us, they will not demand the death of any hostages.”

  The old man kept his voice diplomatically neutral. “I have recently heard similar arguments from others.” Technically that was quite true, though there had been only a few others, and only one whose ideas had much weight. “It seems even our president is leaning somewhat in that direction. To the belief that we and the Huveans should trust our fate to the decision of the best computer program that can be made, and allow it to settle our disagreements for us.”

  Huang Gun nodded. “But in this you do not agree with the president, or with me.”

  Gregor said: “I must admit that I do not. I think the responsibility for the future of humanity lies with ourselves. Ultimately, no machine we build is likely to tell us anything but what we want to hear and until we truly want peace”

  He broke off, shifted his position. “But I fear that I have no time just now for serious discussion. If I might just see the hostages?”

  “Of course.”

  For several days, Gregor in the back of his mind had been toying with an odd idea, a secret hope, that if he should go in among these young people unprotected, they would take him hostage in turn. If he himself were one of them … but he was not.

  Putting himself among the hostages in some way would introduce a new factor into the equation and by doing so, perhaps pull several worlds back from the brink of disaster.

  But in his calmer moments he knew such ideas were irrational, that any dramatic gestures on his part would be foolishness. Bizarre behavior on the part of leaders would be more likely to trigger an explosion than prevent one.

  Gregor turned to dismiss his personal guard, who had been standing silently at parade rest a few paces behind him. “Please, wait for me outside the building.”

  The solemn officer, it was hard to tell from his face if he was old or young, was obedient as a robot, though he was certainly of flesh and blood. He snapped up his arm in a sharp salute and turned away, heading back toward the elevator.

  The plenipotentiary turned back to his colleague. “Then shall we go down?”

  “Of course.” The executioner seemed inclined to be helpful. “We can descend by the lift that brought you up but to use the stairs, here, will actually be quicker.”

  As he started down the stair, Gregor cast one last look back, through the interstices of carved stone, at the beautiful robot. Even as Gregor looked at the machine, it began to move, walking smoothly after its currently assigned master, Huang Gun.

  With the machine keeping deferentially a few paces behind them, its small feet treading the stairs with perfect balance, Huang Gun led Gregor downstairs two levels to the ground floor room where, he said, the hostages were waiting. It was necessary to pass through a doorway guarded by two armed soldiers, who saluted the executioner sharply, and at a word from him dialed the last force-field barrier open.

  They had entered a large, relatively dim room, furnished with several long tables, evidently a dining hall. The slightly littered condition of the table suggested that a meal had recently been concluded, and the maintenance machines had not yet tidied up. At one side, another stair, beside a glowing sign marked SHELTERS, went curving down. Gregor knew that more levels of this building existed below ground, some very far below. Deeper caverns had recently been dug out, finished and connected with all the systems of support, and equipped with facilities and supplies in anticipation of the day when an attack by humans from another world might drive the people of Timber to seek refuge.

  Huang Gun halted just inside the room. The ten young people, who had been confined in the Citadel for about a standard month, were distributed about the room, some standing, some sitting. Gregor half consciously counted them, making sure there were indeed ten.

  At the start of their confinement they had all been dressed alike, in uniforms that had been specially designed for the occasion, perhaps by one of the hostages themselves. Today most of the ten were wearing a motley mixture of the uniforms and random civilian clothes. The nature of their clothing while confined had been spelled out in the treaty, a fanatic haggling over details had marked the last stage of negotiation. But no one seemed to be trying to enforce those details.

  The young Huveans all looked to be of very nearly the same age, in the late teens, but beyond that no common denominator was visible. They were a mixture of sizes, shapes, and physical characteristics, in a way that was representative of the population of Huvea, and of a majority of the hundred colonies.

  On entering the room, the executioner immediately said to the waiting group, in their common language: “Don’t be alarmed, I have no information of vital importance.”

  Several hostages visibly relaxed; they were not going to be taken out and shot this minute.

  “But as you know, tomorrow, or even this afternoon, that can change, and I may have to kill you.

  “Nothing you and I can say to each other can alter these facts. Under the circumstances, can I say anything to you that is not insulting?”

  One youth, who had not relaxed, spoke up sharply. “You might try telling us that a ship is waiting to take us home.” Huvea and the Twin Worlds shared a common language; only a slight difference in accent was perceptible.

  “Would that I could.”

  The protester’s voice was just a little louder. “You enjoy listening to yourself talk, but we’re getting sick and tired of it.”

  Huang Gun showed no reaction. There was a faint murmur of protest from some of the speaker’s colleagues. Ignoring them, he turned to Gregor and said: “My name is Glycas, by the way. I take it you are some kind of important visitor.”

  The executioner calmly spelled out their visitor’s identity. The reaction among the young people suggested that more than half of them had already recognized the plenipotentiary, whose face and name were much in the news, and none of them were greatly impressed.

  Gregor for his part rarely forgot a face, and one among the ten, that of a handsome youth of middle size, was somehow familiar, yes, but from where? “But I believe that you and I have met before. your name is?”

  “Reggie Panchatantra, sir.” The youth spoke the common interplanetary language, in the accents of the Huvean upper class.

  “Of course, it comes back to me. We met only briefly, and almost a year ago I think”

  “That is perfectly correct, sir. It was at a certain diplomatic function” The young Huvean named the site, on a distant world that had come to be much used as a neutral meeting ground for face-to-face diplomacy.

  “Yes, of course.” It had been one of the semi-official kind of gatherings, where the families of society’s leaders were also present. Only two thirds of a standard year ago, the gathering clouds of war had not been nearly so ominous as they were now.

  With a minimum of internal prompting on Gregor’s part, many of the details of that encounter came back.

  Spreading his arms, he declaimed: “Oh, that our next meeting will be as peaceful and happy as that first one!”

  Little changed in the young faces turned toward the speaker. Only one of them was turned away, that of another young man, evidently one who would rather spend the next few minutes of his endangered lifetime looking at sky and tree branches, rather than the faces of elderly authorities who brought no hope. Instead of being able to look forward to another hundred standard years, as might well be the case in the course of nature, it could be another hundred minutes.

  Gregor couldn’t blame him. Here in the middle latitudes of Timber’s northern hemisphere, the next autumnal storm that came drifting in would be as likely to bring snow as rain. Perhaps similar sce
nes were common on the young man’s home planet of Huvea, less than half a dozen light-years away. What season of the year was it on Huvea now? Gregor had lost track; he could not remember.

  A silence fell. It was obvious that everyone was waiting for this important, unofficial and unexpected visitor to take the next step. He had not yet tried to explain to the hostages why he was here; and now he realized that his sudden appearance must have roused false hopes, in some of them at least.

  Gregor began with a routine question, asking the prisoners whether they had been well treated.

  A couple of them at least, Glycas and another, were ready to speak up boldly. “So far we have.” The speaker looked around at his colleagues, as if for confirmation. “As to the future, I think that only the last few minutes of my stay in this place is likely to give me any cause for concern.” That evoked in the speaker’s fellow hostages a feeble titter of laughter that quickly died away.

  Gregor moved a step forward. “I’ve made a large number of speeches in my time, to a great many different audiences. But I didn’t come here today to make one. Rather I want to hear what you have to tell me, words I can take with me to the peace conference.”

  The second objector, a lean, intense looking young man, snapped to his feet, as if his body were on a spring. Proudly he introduced himself as Douras. His voice was hoarse, and he was quivering, evidently with anger. “Have I missed something, sir? Or are you saying you have come here simply to ask us whether we prefer to be alive or dead?”

  “I have come to hear whatever it is you want to tell me.” Gregor remained outwardly calm, but he was beginning to wonder why this visit had seemed like such a great idea. Was he only making a fool of himself to no purpose?

  “You want some noble last words from us, is that it? So when the talks fail, you’ll have evidence to prove to everyone how concerned you are, how hard you tried?”

  The youth burst out with curses. “You sons of worms may kill us, you probably will, but we will be avenged!” The guards who had been standing quietly in the background, hardly more than part of the furniture, shifted their positions slightly.

  Huang Gun focused his cool, impassive gaze on Douras. But others in the protester’s group restrained the young man whose nerves had given way.

  Reggie was standing again, mildly rebuking his fellow hostages, reminding them that they had all volunteered for this distasteful duty.

  “None of us were captured, or kidnapped, or dragged to this place by force.

  “Yes, we volunteered.” The speaker looked around at his colleagues. “We are all of us, or almost all, children of the families who rule Huvea. Better that catastrophe should fall on our families than on those who had nothing to do with bringing it about.”

  “We were much younger then,” another replied grimly, “even though it was only a few standard months ago. Now, are you going to try to tell us that shooting us down in your courtyard here will serve some great cause? We don’t believe that anymore.” The speaker looked around, as if seeking support, and others in the small group nodded.

  Suddenly, quietly, one of the young women began to weep. Gregor wanted to go and comfort her, but he did not. He wanted even more to get away, and was sorry that he had yielded to the impulse to come here. His intrusion was only making the situation more difficult for everyone. Some of the guards were looking at him unhappily. What exactly was it he had expected to learn from these people that would help them, or him, or the cause of peace?

  Glycas was on his feet, and seemed about to try to make a speech, but before he could utter a word he was cut off. Again some kind of weapons testing, this outburst sounding even closer than before, produced a vibration that shook the building. Little showers of dirt and dust came trickling from the vaulted ceiling. Gregor looked up in alarm, until he realized that the hostages were paying the dust fall no attention. The noise was louder this time, and for a full minute it made conversation difficult.

  Evidently the technicians were not only testing the offensive weapons, but the planet’s forcefield shields as well. Activation of the shields worked a sudden alteration in the whole cheerful sky, a dimming of the intensity of sunlight reaching the planetary surface by about a third.

  Gregor noticed one of the soldiers, standing near the doorway, gazing up into the sky-gloom with evident satisfaction. It seemed quite possible to know the young man’s thoughts: Let the motherless Huveans with their damned murderous weapons try to get through that.

  CHAPTER TWO

  The robot courier came flickering out of flightspace, concluding a quick jaunt that had begun less than a minute earlier and almost a hundred million kilometers away. A few milliseconds after reentering normal space in a burst of tiny gravitational waves, it slammed into its automatic cradle on the scoutship, still moving fast enough and hard enough to rock the larger vessel slightly with the cushioned impact. Not a second to waste, that was the programming on which these couriers ran.

  Ella Berlu, scoutship commander, happened to be the human being on watch. She felt the jolt of impact and recognized it immediately for what it was, though only a barely perceptible twitch came through the steady artificial gravity to reach her in the pilot’s couch.

  One second later, the information the courier had brought was being displayed in three dimensions on Ella’s holostage, which held the place of honor in the center of the control cabin. The scoutship commander needed no more than five seconds to study the latest news before she was on the intercom, summoning her two live crew members to their battle stations. Neither engineer nor pilot would have far to go; the scout’s near-spherical hull was not much more than twenty meters in diameter.

  “This is not another damned drill, is it?” the first pilot grumbled, even as her dark head, not yet helmeted, appeared in one of the small cabin’s interior hatches. Sue Perkonis was black of skin and hair, husky in her build, and slightly older than her two shipmates.

  Ella was shaking her own curls, which were somewhat lighter. “No, it’s not. It looks like we’ve got a live one this time. Come on, let’s move, people.”

  Ten long seconds passed before the engineering officer, Hannah Rymer, tall and thin, with long blond hair made her appearance. “Huvean?” was the first word Hannah uttered. She asked the question before looking at any of the data.

  “Don’t know yet.” The commander’s hands adjusting the holostage presentation looked small and delicate on the controls. “I’d guess not; it’s like nothing of theirs I’ve ever seen. But it’s definitely an intruder, not just a rock. We picked up a faint re-entry wave.” Stray rocks came hurtling out of flight, space so rarely as to be unworthy of consideration.

  As usual when on duty, Ella was dressed in her shipboard coverall, a garment sheathing everything but hands and feet and head. In Ella’s case the small exposed areas of skin showing an even, toasty brown.

  The cabin was a spherical cave about four meters in diameter. Three acceleration couches, all of them now occupied, each couch furnished with its distinctive array of readouts and controls, filled most of the room’s volume and ringed the stage around.

  For greatest possible efficiency in use of the small space available, the artificial gravity in the control cabin was generally adjusted so “down” was different for each crew position, but all three saw the holostage directly in front of them. The effect could be disorienting, but scout crews got used to it early in their training.

  When things got dull, a game of catch with a small object could become very interesting.

  Today there need be no scrounging around for interesting things to do. “Can’t be Huvean,” Sue, the pilot, offered.

  And Hannah Rymer, engineer: “I’d say it can’t be a ship at all. Look at the size.”

  Perkonis turned her dark head. “Bet?”

  Sue snorted. “Every time I bet with you guys I lose. But I might be tempted if you give me odds.”

  While Ella’s two human shipmates digested the courier’s message and re
adied their equipment, she responded to the robotic observer by its number and letter designation, acknowledging the receipt of its information and asking for more. The message in hand assured her that a tightbeam radio confirmation was already on its way, a journey that would take several minutes longer than that already accomplished by the superluminal courier. Light needed something like an hour to crawl across this solar system’s full diameter, approximately a billion kilometers.

  The scoutship Ella commanded was charged with the oversight of very nearly a hundred such observer subunits. Usually all of these were visibly represented on the central stage, in the form of tiny bluish dots.

  Each of the hundred blue dots showed the computed probable location of a miniature spacecraft, perhaps half the scoutship’s size. The subunits were thoroughly robotic, with no space or facilities aboard for human crew. Each one in turn controlled and monitored about a hundred automated sentries, even smaller detector devices distributed more or less evenly throughout its vast domain.

  Ordinarily these sentries never showed up on the stage, whose scale would have to be drastically adjusted to bring them all in; but each of them in turn stood guard over a wedge-shaped volume comprising millions of cubic kilometers of interplanetary space. Every one of these sentries continually endeavored, with a robot’s mono-maniacal thoroughness, to probe every moving rock and ice ball that roamed into its assigned volume, every unusual variation in the ebb and flow of the tenuous interplanetary medium, fed by the solar wind.

  The sector was more than a million kilometers deep, and some of its depth lay within the orbit of the system’s outermost known planet, while more of it extended farther out.

  Summarized, the bundle of information just delivered to Ella by her hierarchy of robot watchdogs indicated that an object some fifty kilometers in length, yet identifiable as an artifact, had recently entered the system’s early warning zone, after dropping out of flight-space just outside. The intruder was therefore, in this time of high alert, highly suspect.