Berserker Wars (Omnibus) Page 20

  “I can provide several.” Eagerly Sabel once more swept his gaze along his row of indicators. His recording instruments were probing hungrily, gathering at an enormous rate the data needed for at least a partial understanding of the workings of his foe’s unliving brain. At a score of points their probes were fastened in its vitals.

  “Let me destroy one now,” its human-sounding voice requested.

  “Presently. I order you to answer one question for me first.”

  “I am not constrained to answer any of your questions. Let me destroy a life.”

  Sabel turned a narrow doorway for himself through his defensive fields, and walked through it into the next room. In a few seconds he was back. “Can you see what I am carrying?”

  “Then it is not a human life you offer me.”

  “That would be utterly impossible.”

  “Then it is utterly impossible for me to give you information.”

  Without haste he turned and went to put the animal back into the cage. He had expected there might well be arguments, bargaining. But this argument was only the first level of Sabel’s attack. His data-gathering instruments were what he really counted on. The enemy doubtless knew that it was being probed and analyzed. But there was evidently nothing it could do about it. As long as Sabel supplied it power, its brain must remain functional. And while it functioned, it must try to devise ways to kill.

  Back at his console, Sabel took more readings. DATA PROBABLY SUFFICIENT FOR ANALYSIS, his computer screen at last informed him. He let out breath with a sigh of satisfaction, and at once threw certain switches, letting power die. Later if necessary he could turn the damned thing on again and argue with it some more. Now his defensive fields vanished, leaving him free to walk between the workbenches, where he stretched his aching back and shoulders in silent exultation.

  Just as an additional precaution, he paused to disconnect a cable. The demonic enemy was only hardware now. Precisely arranged atoms, measured molecules, patterned larger bits of this and that. Where now was the berserker that humanity so justly feared? That had given the Templars their whole reason for existence? It no longer existed, except in potential. Take the hardware apart, on even the finest level, and you would not discover any of its memories. But, reconnect this and that, reapply power here and there, and back it would bloom into reality, as malignant and clever and full of information as before. A non-material artifact of matter. A pattern.

  No way existed, even in theory, to torture a machine into compliance, to extort information from it. Sabel’s own computers were using the Van Holt algorithms, the latest pertinent mathematical advance. Even so they could not entirely decode the concealing patterns, the trapdoor functions, by which the berserker’s memory was coded and concealed. The largest computer in the human universe would probably not have time for that before the universe itself came to an end. The unknown Builders had built well.

  But there were other ways besides pure mathematics with which to circumvent a cipher. Perhaps, he thought, he would have tried to find a way to offer it a life, had that been the only method he could think of.

  Certainly he was going to try another first. There had to be, he thought, some way of disabling the lethal purpose of a berserker while leaving its calculating abilities and memory intact. There would have been times when the living Builders wanted to approach their creations, at least in the lab, to test them and work on them. Not an easy or simple way, perhaps, but something. And that way Sabel now instructed his own computers to discover, using the mass of data just accumulated by measuring the berserker in operation.

  Having done that, Sabel stood back and surveyed his laboratory carefully. There was no reason to think that anyone else was going to enter it in the near future, but it would be stupid to take chances. To the Guardians, an experiment with viable berserker parts would stand as prima facieevidence of goodlife activity; and in the Templar code, as in many another systems of human law, any such willing service of the berserker cause was punishable by death.

  Only a few of the materials in sight might be incriminating in themselves. Coldly thoughtful, Sabel made more disconnections, and rearrangements. Some things he locked out of sight in cabinets, and from the cabinets he took out other things to be incorporated in a new disposition on the benches. Yes, this was certainly good enough. He suspected that most of the Guardians probably no longer knew what the insides of a real berserker looked like.

  Sabel made sure that the doors leading out of the lab, to the mall-level corridor, and to his adjoining living quarters, were both locked. Then, whistling faintly, he went up the old stone stair between the skylights, that brought him out upon the glassed-in roof.

  Here he stood bathed in the direct light of the Radiant itself. It was a brilliant point some four kilometers directly above his head—the pressure of the Radiant’s inverse gravity put it directly overhead for everyone in the englobing structure of the Fortress. It was a point brighter than a star but dimmer than a sun, not painful to look at. Around Sabel a small forest of sensors, connected to instruments in his laboratory below, raised panels and lenses in a blind communal stare, to that eternal noon. Among these he began to move about as habit led him, mechanically checking the sensors’ operation, though for once he was not really thinking about the Radiant at all. He thought of his success below. Then once more he raised his own two human eyes to look.

  It made its own sky, out of the space enclosed by the whitish inner surface of the Fortress’s bulk. Sabel could give from memory vastly detailed expositions of the spectrum of the Radiant’s light. But as to exactly what color it was, in terms of perception by the eye and brain—well, there were different judgments on that, and for his part he was still uncertain.

  Scattered out at intervals across the great curve of interior sky made by the Fortress’s whitish stonework, Sabel could see other glass portals like his own. Under some of them, other people would be looking up and out, perhaps at him. Across a blank space on the immense concavity, an echelon of maintenance machines were crawling, too far away for him to see what they were working at. And, relatively nearby, under the glass roof of a great ceremonial plaza, something definitely unusual was going on. A crowd of thousands of people, exceptional at any time in the Fortress with its relatively tiny population, were gathered in a circular mass, like live cells attracted to some gentle biological magnet at their formation’s center.

  Sabel had stared at this peculiarity for several seconds, and was reaching for a small telescope to probe it with, when he recalled that today was the Feast of Ex. Helen, which went a long way toward providing an explanation. He had in fact deliberately chosen this holiday for his crucial experiment, knowing that the Fortress’s main computer would today be freed of much routine business, its full power available for him to tap if necessary.

  And in the back of his mind he had realized also that he should probably put in an appearance at at least one of the day’s religious ceremonies. But this gathering in the plaza—he could not recall that any ceremony, in the years since he had come to the Fortress, had ever drawn a comparable crowd.

  Looking with his telescope up through his own glass roof and down through the circular one that sealed the plaza in from airless space, he saw that the crowd was centered on the bronze statue of Ex. Helen there. And on a man standing in a little cleared space before the statue, a man with arms raised as if to address the gathering. The angle was wrong for Sabel to get a good look at his face, but the blue and purple robes made the distant figure unmistakable. It was the Potentate, come at last to the Fortress in his seemingly endless tour of his many subject worlds.

  Sabel would not recall, even though he now made an effort to do so, that any such visitation had been impending—but then of late Sabel had been even more than usually isolated in his own work. The visit had practical implications for him, though, and he was going to have to find out more about it quickly. Because the agenda of any person of importance visiting the Fortress was v
ery likely to include at some point a full-dress inspection of Sabel’s own laboratory.

  He went out through the corridor leading from laboratory to pedestrian mall, locking up carefully behind him, and thinking to himself that there was no need to panic. The Guardians would surely call to notify him that a visit by the Potentate impended, long before it came. It was part of their job to see that such things went smoothly, as well as to protect the Potentate while he was here. Sabel would have some kind of official warning. But this was certainly an awkward time …

  Along the pedestrian mall that offered Sabel his most convenient route to the ceremonial plaza, some of the shops were closed—a greater number than usual for a holiday, he thought. Others appeared to be tended only by machines. In the green parkways that intersected the zig-zag mall at irregular intervals, there appeared to be fewer strollers than on an ordinary day. And the primary school operated by the Templars had evidently been closed; a minor explosion of youngsters in blue-striped coveralls darted across the mall from parkway to playground just ahead of Sabel, their yells making him wince.

  When you stood at one side of the great plaza and looked across, both the convexity of its glass roof and the corresponding concavity of the level-feeling floor beneath were quite apparent. Especially now that the crowd was gone again. By the time Sabel reached the center of the plaza, the last of the Potentate’s entourage were vanishing through exits on its far side.

  Sabel was standing uncertainly on the lowest marble step of Ex. Helen’s central shrine. Her statbronze statue dominated the plaza’s center. Helen the Exemplar, Helen of the Radiant, Helen Dardan. The statue was impressive, showing a woman of extreme beauty in a toga-like Dardanian garment, a diadem on her short curly hair. Of course long-term dwellers at the Fortress ignored it for the most part, because of its sheer familiarity. Right now, though, someone was stopping to look, gazing up at the figure with intent appreciation.

  Sabel’s attention, in turn, gradually became concentrated upon this viewer. She was a young, brown-haired girl of unusually good figure, and clad in a rather provocative civilian dress.

  And presently he found himself approaching her. “Young woman? If you would excuse my curiosity?”

  The girl turned to him. With a quick, cheerful curiosity of her own she took in his blue habit, his stature and his face. “No excuse is needed, sir.” Her voice was musical. “What question can I answer for you?”

  Sabel paused a moment in appreciation. Everything about this girl struck him as quietly delightful. Her manner held just a hint of timidity, compounded with a seeming eagerness to please.

  Then he gestured toward the far side of the plaza. “I see that our honored Potentate is here with us today. Do you by any chance know how long he plans to stay at the Fortress?”

  The girl replied: “I heard someone say, ten standard days. It was one of the women wearing purple-bordered cloaks—?” She shook brown ringlets, and frowned with pretty regret at her own ignorance.

  “Ah—one of the vestals. Perhaps you are a visitor here yourself?”

  “A newcomer, rather. Isn’t it always the way, sir, when you ask someone for local information? ‘I’m a newcomer here myself.’”

  Sabel chuckled. Forget the Potentate for now.“Well, I can hardly plead newcomer status. It must be something else that keeps me from knowing what goes on in my own city. Allow me to introduce myself: Georgicus Sabel, Doctor of Cosmography.”

  “Greta Thamar.” Her face was so pretty, soft, and young, a perfect match for her scantily costumed body. She continued to radiate an almost-timid eagerness. “Sir, Dr. Sabel, would you mind if I asked you a question about yourself?”

  “Ask anything.”

  “Your blue robe. That means you are one of the monks here?”

  “I belong to the Order of Ex. Helen. The word ‘monk’ is not quite accurate.”

  “And the Order of Ex. Helen is a branch of the Templars, isn’t it?”

  “Yes. Though our Order is devoted more to contemplation and study than to combat.”

  “And the Templars in turn are a branch of Christianity.”

  “Or they were.” Sabel favored the girl with an approving smile. “You are more knowledgeable than many newcomers. And, time was when many Templars really devoted themselves to fighting, as did their ancient namesakes.”

  The girl’s interest continued. By some kind of body-language agreement the two of them had turned around and were now strolling slowly back in the direction that Sabel had come from.

  Greta said: “I don’t know about that. The ancient ones, I mean. Though I tried to study up before I came here. Please, go on.”

  “Might I ask your occupation, Greta?”

  “I’m a dancer. Only on the popular entertainment level, I’m afraid. Over at the Contrat Rouge.But I … please, go on.”

  On the Templar-governed Fortress, popular entertainers were far down on the social scale. Seen talking to a dancer in the plaza… .but no, there was really nothing to be feared from that. A minimal loss of status, perhaps, but counterbalanced by an increase in his more liberal acquaintances’ perception of him as more fully human. All this slid more or less automatically through Sabel’s mind, while the attractive smile on his face did not, or so he trusted, vary in the slightest.

  Strolling on, he shrugged. “Perhaps there’s not a great deal more to say, about the Order. We study and teach. Oh, we still officially garrison this Fortress. Those of us who are Guardians maintain and man the weapons, and make berserkers their field of study, besides acting as the local police. The main defenses out on the outer surface of the Fortress are still operational, though a good many decades have passed since we had a genuine alarm. There are no longer many berserkers in this part of the Galaxy.” He smiled wryly. “And I am afraid there are no longer very many Templars, either, even in the parts of the Galaxy where things are not so peaceful.”

  They were still walking. Proceeding in the direction of Sabel’s laboratory and quarters.

  “Please, tell me more.” The girl continued to look at him steadily with attention. “Please, I am really very interested.”

  “Well. We of the Order of Ex. Helen no longer bind ourselves to poverty—or to permanent celibacy. We have come to honor Beauty on the same level as Virtue, considering them both to be aspects of the Right. Our great patroness of course stands as Exemplar of both qualities.”

  “Ex. Helen … and she finally founded the Order, hundreds of years ago? Or—”

  “Or, is she really only a legend, as some folk now consider her? No. I think that there is really substantial evidence of her historical reality. Though of course the purposes of the Order are still valid in either case.”

  “You must be very busy. I hope you will forgive my taking up your time like this.”

  “It is hard to imagine anyone easier to forgive. Now, would you by chance like to see something of my laboratory?”

  “Might I? Really?”

  “You have already seen the Radiant, of course. But to get a look at it through some of my instruments will give you a new perspective …”

  As Sabel had expected, Greta did not seem able to understand much of his laboratory’s contents. But she was nevertheless impressed. “And I see you have a private space flyer here. Do you use it to go out to the Radiant?”

  At that he really had to laugh. “I’m afraid I wouldn’t get there. Oh, within a kilometer of it, maybe, if I tried. The most powerful spacecraft built might be able to force its way to within half that distance. But to approach any closer than that—impossible. You see, the inner level of the Fortress, where we are now, was built at the four-kilometer distance from the Radiant because that is the distance at which the effective gravity is standard normal. As one tries to get closer, the gravitic resistance goes up exponentially. No, I use the flyer for field trips. To the outer reaches of the Fortress, places where no public transport is available.”

  “Is that a hobby of some kind?”

&nbs
p; “No, it’s really connected with my work. I search for old Dardanian records, trying to find their observations of the Radiant … and in here is where I live.”

  With eyes suddenly become competent, Greta surveyed the tidy smallness of his quarters. “Alone, I see.”

  “Most of the time … my work demands so much. Now, Greta, I have given you something of a private showing of my work. I would be very pleased indeed if you were willing to do the same for me.”

  “To dance?” Her manner altered, in a complex way. “I suppose there might be room enough in here for dancing … if there were some suitable music.”

  “Easily provided.” He found a control on the wall; and to his annoyance he noticed that his fingers were now quivering again.

  In light tones Greta said: “I have no special costume with me, sir, just these clothes I wear.”

  “They are delightful—but you have one other, surely.”

  “Sir?” And she, with quick intelligence in certain fields of thought, was trying to repress a smile.

  “Why, my dear, I mean the costume that nature gives to us all, before our clothes are made. Now, if it is really going to be up to me to choose …”

  Hours later when the girl was gone, he went back to work, this time wearing a more conventional laboratory coat. He punched in a command for his computer to display its results, and, holding his breath, looked at the screen.

  BASIC PROGRAMMING OF SUBJECT DEVICE MAY BE CIRCUMVENTED AS FOLLOWS: FABRICATE A DISABLING SLUG OF CESIUM TRIPHENYL METHYL, ISOTOPE 137 OF CESIUM, OF 99% PURITY, TO BE USED. SLUG TO BE CYLINDRICAL 2.346 CM DIAMETER, 5.844 CM LENGTH. COMPONENTS OF SUBJECT DEVICE NOW IN LABORATORY TO BE REASSEMBLED TO THOSE REMAINING IN FIELD, WITH SLUG CONNECTED ELECTRICALLY AND MECHANICALLY ACROSS PROBE POINTS OUR NUMBER 11 AND OUR NUMBER 12A IN ARMING MECHANISM OF DEVICE. PRIME PROGRAMMED COMMAND OF DEVICE WILL THEN BE DISABLED FOR TIME EQUAL TO ONE HALF-LIFE OF ISOTOPE Cs-137 …

  There were more details on how the “subject device” was to be disabled—he had forbidden his own computer to ever display or store in memory the word “berserker” in connection with any of his work. But Sabel did not read all the details at once. He was busy looking up the half-life of cesium-137. It turned out to be thirty years! Thirty standard years!