The Berserker Throne Read online

  Chen took a quick look back, then another. “Something’s following us—”

  The Lady Beatrix glanced back too. “That’s only our robotic ammo trailer.”

  “Ah.” It was maintaining a distance of about a half block behind.

  The lady raised her voice a little and called out. The striding figure in heavy armor stopped at once and turned, then gestured the robotic gun carriage to catch up. It accelerated, then stopped itself when it had nearly reached him.

  “Colonel Phocion,” said Lady Beatrix, “this is Chen Shizuoka, as we thought. As you can see, he’s awakened.”

  A flushed, almost chubby face and graying temples showed behind the colonel’s heavy faceplate. “I want to talk to you,” he told Chen grimly, his voice coming from a small speaker below the transparent plate. “But right now we have to keep moving.” He glanced back, into the curving grayness of the sky. There were a few more berserkers to be seen swarming there, well to the rear of the three traveling people. “Our firing brought them out,” the colonel added. “It’s a little easier to fight them out near the outer surface. They’re not there to interfere,” he added with a brief grin.

  With a stride forward, and a motion of his hand, the colonel set the gun carriage in motion again.

  “The outer surface?” Chen asked. He was feeling somewhat better already; not quite ready to jump down off the carriage and walk, but improving.

  “The colonel’s been out there almost since the attack started,” the Lady Beatrix explained. “I just joined him within the hour, when he came back into the interior.”

  “Sir, how do you fight them if they’re not there? I mean—”

  “Communications, young man,” the colonel said. “There’ll be a human fleet arriving here sooner or later. I’ve been knocking out communication channels. When the fleet comes, the berserkers won’t necessarily be able to tell that it’s arrived.”

  “I see, sir,” said Chen.

  “Do you? There’s something I’d like to see, something that’s made me very damned curious about you,” He stopped again, stopped his following machine, and demanded: “Why was that damned berserker robot running all over the City bellowing your name? Did the Prince truly send it after you? If so, why?”

  “I know he really sent it,” said the Lady Beatrix. “I’ve told you that. And also that he wouldn’t tell me anything.”

  “Yes, My Lady,” said Phocion, and almost bowed. Then he glared at Chen. “Well?”

  “I have no idea, sir. Ma’am. I’ve talked to the Prince but once, and that briefly. Very briefly. I think he believed me, that I had nothing to do with the Empress being killed.”

  Phocion glared at him some more, shook his head and muttered, and finally led on again. He turned off the street presently, and down a narrow alley through which the gun was barely able to pass. Then he stopped, kneeling beside a large but hardly conspicuous utility box. From somewhere Phocion’s armored hand had produced a key, which he now used on the box to open it.

  “Not supposed to still have this,” he muttered, regarding the key. “Legacy of my tour as CO here. Looks like it’s just as well I kept it.”

  From a tool box underneath the gun carriage, Phocion took out an optical device that he plugged into a communications nexus in the utility box. The small holostage on the device lit up, and a moment later Prince Harivarman’s head was imaged in it. The Prince’s face turned sharply toward them—apparently he was aware that at least a tenuous contact had been established. His image was streaked with noise. Its lips moved, but no sound was coming through.

  Phocion swore. “Can see just about everywhere, except where I really want to—the Prince, and the base—damned berserkers still have a pretty effective communication curtain up around those areas.”

  “If he wants to communicate with us, he can order it opened, can’t he?” The Lady Beatrix stared at her husband’s image, as if she could not imagine what to make of it.

  At last some words came through clearly. Harivarman, recognizing the colonel at least, shouted a question: “Do you plan to go on attacking the berserkers?”

  “Of course I do.”

  “At your own risk. I can’t give you immunity. I need the berserkers active to keep myself from being arrested. Do you mean to arrest me, Colonel, when you can?”

  Phocion shouted back. “I’ve got myself in trouble, General. But I draw the line at being goodlife. Or tolerating them.”

  The Prince was speaking again, words that were now half-obscured by noise. ” . . . real evidence, look in the outer regions. Around where I was working . . .” There was a little more; Chen thought he heard the word “surrender,” but he couldn’t tell the context now. Noise had increased.

  Presently there was nothing left on the screen but noise. Colonel Phocion turned it off. He looked at the others.

  “The outer regions,” said Lady Beatrix.

  Phocion turned to her. “What do you think of that? Now am I supposed to shoot him or try to help him?”

  “He’s still my husband, Colonel. If you’re going to try to shoot him, you’d better start now, with me.”

  “I don’t know if I am or not, blast-damn it all! Should I be out to get him? Is he out to get the rest of us? Has he told the berserkers not to shoot at me? Not so’s I’ve noticed it!”

  “Actually he might have, I suppose. They’ve not been pursuing us, though you did blast one of them.”

  Phocion sighed, a heavy sound on radio. “All right, the outer regions, then. At least there’ll be fewer berserkers out there, I expect. A better chance for us to be picked up alive, if and when a human fleet arrives. But I don’t know where he was working, and he expects us to find some kind of evidence there.”

  “I know that,” said Chen. “I’ve seen the place. I remember what the numbers were, the coordinates. They were on the screen in the staff car that we rode in.”

  “Then we go there,” said the lady. “I don’t know what kind of evidence we’ll find, but we can try.”

  “I’m afraid I do know,” said Phocion, in a low voice.

  The others looked at him. He amplified: “I’m afraid I let them in.”

  Phocion, having made that remark, was willing to explain it. Beatrix insisted that they keep moving, starting for their new goal at the outer surface, even as he spoke.

  They found a twisting service ramp that went that way, wide enough to accommodate the heavy gun. They tramped downward through dim light, the weapon and the ammo trailer following. The colonel said: “A few months ago I was in something of a bad way. Knew I was going to have to leave my command here, being eased out—there comes a time in a man’s career when he knows he has no more to look forward to. A point when he realizes that the rest is certain to be all downhill.

  “However, not by way of excuse: explanation. I’ve hesitated to tell, naturally, but I’ve got to tell someone. I might cash in at any minute here, and no one would ever know. . . . What it comes down to is that about three standard months ago I accepted a bribe. Yes, in my capacity as base commander. Of course the idea of berserkers never entered my mind then. Didn’t know who the people were, who talked to me. Never thought of goodlife. . . . This sector had been peaceful for so long—however, as I said, this is not meant as an excuse.

  “Smuggling was what I thought I was selling myself out for. Supplying certain civilian needs—I even had the bastards’ word for it that Templar people would not be involved at all . . . and I took their word . . . I don’t know who they were. Shows you how far down I was. I was going to set myself up for a pleasant retirement . . . well.

  “Point is, there was a time three months past when a landing—of anyone, or anything—could have taken place on the outer surface of the Fortress, and none of us in here any the wiser. For all I know now, it could have been berserkers.”

  “But if they arrived only a few months ago, that means—” The Lady Beatrix, Chen could see, was struggling agonizingly to think clearly. He could also see
what she must be thinking. If Colonel Phocion’s suspicions were correct, it meant that the Prince’s claim of having discovered ancient berserkers was almost certainly false.

  “I still believe him. I can’t help it,” the lady whispered finally.

  * * *

  At the lowest landing of the descending ramp that was still in atmosphere, the colonel brought them to a large locker containing spacesuits—it was, he told them, where he’d stashed his gear when he came in from his first raid on the outer part of the Fortress. Just beyond the airlock leading down, the vehicle that he had used then waited. Presently the three of them, the self-propelled gun and ammo cart following as before, were traversing airless passages on the way back to the outer surface.

  They were three quarters of the way there when Beatrix, driving, brought the flyer to a quick halt. She reported that she had sighted several mysterious figures in the distance. They had looked like a Templar or Templars, moving quickly.

  Chen at once thought of Olga. But assuming she had survived the shootout in the tavern, how could she be here, ahead of him, already?

  It seemed to Colonel Phocion, and he said so, that Commander Blenheim might have managed to get some people out of the base to carry out some unknown mission in these parts. “I expect she might have managed that. I could have, and she’s a smart gal.”

  They waited for a few minutes, the flyer’s lights out, in almost total darkness. There were no indications of Templars, berserkers, or any other entities being in the vicinity.

  Cautiously, they proceeded.

  * * *

  Lescar, in one room of the latest villa—this one large and gloomy—was listening in surreptitiously as Harivarman and Lergov began a strained conference. The Prince had given Lescar other orders, meant to keep him out of the way, but as the servant had observed to himself on certain occasions in the past, there were some times when looking out for his master’s welfare required him to do things even against his master’s will.

  Lergov was so far being allowed to sit at his ease. He began the conversation by informing the Prince rather stoically that he was worried about his fate.

  There was some Dardanian music playing, from some small part of the electronic equipment that was now strewn everywhere. Prince Harivarman liked to listen to it. He ignored Lergov’s worries about fate, and took a more positive approach: “What do you want, Lergov?”

  “What do I want, sir? I’ll settle for very little at the moment. To get out of this with a whole skin.”

  The Prince nodded slowly. “I happen to want something too, Captain. I wish to be Emperor.” (And Lescar, listening secretly, drew in his breath.) “And not only that, but to be Emperor with some security—something I fear would be hard to manage as long as Prime Minister Roquelaure is still a force to be reckoned with.”

  “All quite understandable, sir.”

  “I am glad you are easy to converse with, Lergov. And I am certain you have other talents. To arrange things as I want them, I could use the help of a dependable man like yourself.”

  There was a pause, in which Lergov swallowed. “What will Your Honor trust me to do?” he asked at last.

  “Tell me a few things, to begin with.”

  “What do you want to know, sir?”

  Here Lescar turned and looked around him, bothered by the feeling that perhaps someone else was also listening in. But there was only the house around him, as far as he could tell. And the scattered items of electronics. Of course, someone might be listening.

  Prince Harivarman was saying to the captain: “Tell me about the prime minister’s involvement in the Empress’s assassination. And what part you played. I know some of it already.”

  Lergov told a strange and revealing story. Of his adoption, on Salutai, of the identity of a liberal protestor named Segovia, and of his role as liaison with a woman named Hana Calderon, also in the employ of the secret police. She had played the role of chief provocateur, making sure there would be a demonstration before the Empress by a pro-Harivarman protest group, who could then be blamed for her assassination, as could the exile himself.

  Harivarman signaled to the controller, as always at his side. He gave some low-voiced orders. Lescar could not hear what they were, but he could see Captain Lergov turn pale.

  Harivarman asked his prisoner: “But it was Roquelaure who was really behind it all?”

  “Oh, absolutely, sir.”

  The Prince said, as another berserker entered, bearing tools: “You will not be harmed here. The machines are only going to see to it that you stay where I can find you later, while we are—busy.”

  Lergov said: “I appreciate your consideration, sir.” He sat still, quivering a little, as the machines began to weld together a steel cage surrounding him.

  “Think nothing of it,” said Prince Harivarman. Then he asked the captain: “Aren’t you afraid that I’ve been recording what you’ve told me?”

  The captain looked as if he didn’t know whether to take that seriously or not. “Perhaps you have been too long in exile, Prince. I have in the past concocted a good many recordings of my own. Some of them were even truthful—perhaps I should say genuine. Truthful is a word that . . . but the point is that no one fears supposed secret recordings anymore, or even pays them much attention. Faking them indetectably, creating false images and voices, has become too easy . . . sir, if you don’t mind my asking, when are you going to let me out?”

  “An important message for you, life-unit Harivarman.” It was of course the controller speaking.

  Harivarman stood up. “See that this little welding job is finished. I’ll hear the message elsewhere.”

  Chapter 19

  The procession was a small one, moving first under the grayish interior sky that held the Radiant, and then turning down into the airless regions, out of sight of any sky at all. It consisted of two human beings, both garbed in heavy combat armor, who rode together in a commandeered flyer, and two berserker machines that alternately paced or glided beside the humans in their vehicle.

  Lescar was occupying the right front seat of the flyer, riding beside the Prince who sat at the controls. For the first long minutes of the journey, neither man had anything to say.

  When Lescar spoke at last, his voice was weary. It sounded even in his own ears like the voice of someone ready to give up, as if his body and his mind were numb. He didn’t want to sound like that. It was a matter of pride, which sometimes seemed to be all he had left. “Where exactly are we going, Your Honor? Would it make any sense for us to be going now back to the place where you—performed your research?”

  Harivarman sounded tired too, drained of emotion. “All I’m doing right now is following the controller. It says it’ll take me directly to the people who have just landed. Sounds like more dragoons, from the description it gives of them.”

  It seemed odd to Lescar that his master would want to go directly to confront more dragoons, but the servant did not consider it his place to comment on anything so obvious. There were other points, though . . . “Your Honor? I dislike to bother you with questions.”

  “Go ahead.”

  “Our latest domicile. Even a bigger house than the last . . .”

  ” . . . even though there are now only two of us. Yes, what about it?”

  “Why, Your Honor, were there so many suits of heavy combat armor stored in a basement locker? There were few enough other furnishings of any kind, and the house had not been occupied recently.”

  His master, face obscured by moving shadows, gave him a quick look. “The place was some old Templar officers’ quarters, evidently, and lucky for us . . . what’s that trying to come on the screen?”

  The small communicator on the panel in front of them had lit up, and a moment later it presented the face of Commander Anne Blenheim. Somehow, for the moment, the channel was free of static.

  “Harivarman. There you are.” The commander paused for a moment, as if she were now uncertain what to say with the m
omentary chance to talk. “Have you any knowledge of what’s happened to the grand marshall—?”

  “Beraton is dead. Captain Lergov can be picked up when you get around to it.” The Prince tersely specified the location. “Send some people with tools. He’s welded into a sort of cage. I thought that would keep him out of trouble for a while.”

  Anne Blenheim was ready to say more, but the conversation was broken off, by blast after blast of recurrent noise.

  “Your Honor, I recognize this corridor. We do appear to be going to your research site.”

  “So we do.” And the Prince sounded uncharacteristically, fatalistically calm. They were already very close to the place, and the controller could hardly have brought them along this path by chance.

  “Your old field workshop, Your Honor . . .” Then Lescar stiffened. “There’s someone inside.” There were lights glowing within the plastic bubble, though it was not inflated and the walls sagged limply. Through them a lone figure could be seen moving about.

  “I think I can guess who it is.”

  The figure came now from inside the shelter to stand in its doorway, limned by the interior lights. It too was wearing combat armor. Lescar squinted, trying to recognize the make of armor, the small painted insignia, and the face inside the helmet. The armor was not Templar, of that much he could be certain.

  As Harivarman eased their vehicle to a stop at a distance of ten meters or so from the shelter, Lescar caught sight of the small one-seater combat ship parked, almost wedged in a corridor, at a little distance on the shelter’s other side. It was not a craft with interstellar capability, but it could fight powerfully at close range.

  “Who can it be, Your Honor?”

  “I expect it’s Prime Minister Roquelaure.”

  Lescar couldn’t tell if his master was serious or not.

  Without saying anything further, the Prince reached up and closed and sealed his helmet, which he had been wearing open. Lescar silently followed suit.