Rogue Berserker Read online

  Harry and the lady were both nodding. The race of Carmpan, a non-ED branch of Galactic humanity, did have certain proven psychic powers. But they used them only rarely to help the race of Earth-descended humans, and never on demand.

  The old man’s gaze had taken on a burning intensity. “I must not forget to mention the promises I will receive of miraculous intervention by one divine power or another—if only I say the appropriate prayer, and/or make the proper contribution. Nor will I even be spared insane accusations. I, or some of my other relatives, will actually be charged with engineering the abduction of Winnie and Claudia.”

  The tycoon and his lady were both looking at Harry now, and he needed to come up with something to say. “Then you do have other relatives,” he offered.

  “A few.” Winston Cheng was staring absently into the distance. The fire had gone out of his eyes and voice. “Claudia’s husband, Winnie’s father, is dead. But I care nothing for any of them who are still alive, nor they for me. You may take my word for it, Harry, they do not enter into this.”

  “If you say so.” The holostage had sunk back into the floor, and the blithely frolicking images of woman and boy were back. Harry was ignoring them, giving the old man his whole attention. He cleared his throat. “The way you phrased it was, your two people are ‘missing,’ and ‘kidnapped.’ So you don’t believe that this berserker has killed them?”

  “You saw the recording, Harry. Killing them on the spot would have been simple and easy. It wanted prisoners.”

  “Yeah. But— “

  “You are about to repeat what all those who know the facts of the abduction have already told me—that Claudia and Winnie are certainly dead by now.” The old man’s stare challenged Harry to agree with that statement. Harry was silent. For the enemy of all life to choose taking prisoners over simple killing was rare indeed. But he could testify that it was not absolutely unheard of.

  “Those who compose that chorus are not trying to wound me, but the reverse. They seek to soften the harsh reality,” the measured voice went on. “What they really mean is that my granddaughter and her child may or may not be dead, but if not dead, they are currently being used as experimental subjects in some robotic berserker laboratory, in ways that do not bear thinking about. But refusing to think about the situation does not change it. You must understand from the beginning, Harry, that I cannot let matters rest in this state.”

  For a moment or two the old man seemed on the very edge of breaking down. “Bear with me, please. Those two young people are truly all I have left. The only things in this damned, literally godforsaken world that I can begin to care about.”

  “I see,” said Harry.

  When he had recovered himself somewhat, Cheng went on.

  “Let me be thorough, take things in their proper order. There is a little more evidence that you should see.”

  Ten minutes later, Harry had to agree that if the witnesses and recordings were to be believed, any kind of superpaddy operation could be ruled out. Unless the show he had just seen was a total fake, there could be little doubt that a genuine, indisputable Type-A berserker vehicle had grappled with one of Winston Cheng’s armed yachts, on the fringe of a certain solar system, had boarded it with man-sized fighting machines, and killed or removed every human being who had been aboard.

  Winston Cheng at last concluded his presentation, and leaned back, awaiting Harry’s response.

  Stretching forward from his chair, which was still behaving itself, Harry helped himself to a chewing pod from a beautiful display dish on a table crafted from some kind of exotic matter. He expected something of superior quality and got it, a marvelous flavor, not quite like anything he had ever tasted before. After savoring it for a moment—and still wishing he had a drink of scotch instead—he asked: “What else have you been able to find out?”

  Winston Cheng began going into technical details, of which he seemed to have an enormous number at his mental fingertips. The fact that the berserker had carried away his people instead of killing them on the spot, as it had killed several of the crew members, gave him reason to believe (or so he had convinced himself) that Claudia and Winnie were still alive. He spoke as if on the assumption that granddaughter and great-grandson must be prisoners in some berserker establishment.

  Finally Harry ventured to break in. “Look, Mister Cheng. Given the situation you describe, the chance that your people are still alive seems to me …” He made a gesture of futility.

  “Small,” the old man prompted drily.

  “Yes. Actually, calling it ‘small’ is something of an understatement.”

  “I understand. But you concede it is possible that they are still alive. Even possible that they have not suffered irreversible physical harm.”

  Harry let out a slow puff of breath. He had shifted position and was resting his folded arms on the back of a second chair, and his chin on his folded arms. “I’m disinclined to say that anything’s impossible where berserkers are involved. But—”

  “Mister Silver—Harry—my advisers agree there are few citizens of the Galaxy, living or dead, who have seen as many of the bad machines as you have. That is one of the reasons why you are here today.”

  “I figured that.” Mentally reviewing the evidence he had just seen and heard, he could spot nothing to suggest that the attackers had been anything but real berserkers. Nothing, that is, but the starkly puzzling fact that in the recording they had not killed everyone in sight.

  Testimony of witnesses offered what Cheng chose to regard as good reason to hope, reporting that his relatives had been handled with great care by the bad machines. For some reason the enemy had clearly taken a special interest in them.

  Winston Cheng paused, evidently expecting Harry to come up with some further response. After all, he had invested a lot of money and time in bringing Harry here.

  Harry had helped himself to a couple of additional chewing pods, and put the first one of them in his pocket for later. Between chomps on the second one, he said carefully: “Offhand I can think of three or four possible explanations for the odd situation you’ve described. I warn you, so far I haven’t had any ideas that could be called comforting.”

  “Sir, if you are to provide me with any comfort, I think it will not be by means of soothing words. Go ahead.”

  “All right. First, leaving aside for the moment the question of whether these attackers were real berserkers or not—looking at the recording here, I see no reason to doubt that—do you think they recognized Claudia and Winnie as members of your family?”

  “It would seem almost inevitable that the yacht should be recognized as mine. Beyond that, I have no means of judging. It was no secret that Claudia and Winnie were likely to be aboard the vessel at that time. Through the years there has been a fair amount of publicity about my family, though I don’t encourage it.”

  Harry was anything but a gossip-hound, but without even trying he could recall a fair amount of that publicity. The extended family of Winston Cheng had long been noted for other things besides its wealth: exotic sexual behavior, tempestuous marriages, assorted scandals, divorces, more marriages and more scandals, as well as heroic feats of spending, losing, borrowing, swindling, sometimes giving away, gaining and investing money and other forms of material wealth. If the old man was ready to disinherit almost the entire clan, it would hardly be surprising. Harry could remember no crimes of violence directly associated with them, but then he hadn’t been trying to keep track.

  “All right.” He squinted and thoughtfully pulled at an earlobe. “It appears that the kidnappers, whatever or whoever they were, didn’t try to actually hijack the yacht? Make off with it?”

  “Correct, although some have suggested that might have been their original intention. The vessel was more seriously damaged in the boarding process than is plain from the recording, and they might have assumed it no longer spaceworthy. It’s gone into the dock for repairs.”

  Harry pondered again. �
��Did they take any things, besides the people?”

  “I don’t believe so. Why?”

  Harry shook his head. “Well, if they did it would be an oddity. Real berserkers don’t loot. But to me the really big oddity in what you’re telling me is that you haven’t mentioned receiving any ransom demands.”

  “I haven’t mentioned it because there have been none. Nothing along that line at all.”

  “All right. Of course money in itself means no more to a berserker than it does to a stove or a duplicating machine. But over the years the bad machines have learned a lot about human society and how it works. They’re well aware that having wealth means having power, influence in the human world.”

  “I understand that.” The old man was being patient.

  “Yeah.” Harry shook his head. “Well, I guess it doesn’t make any sense for Harry Silver to be lecturing Winston Cheng about money. My point is, berserkers and their goodlife friends have been known to practice blackmail, in an effort to gain the only kind of coin they do have any interest in—more lives to terminate. Especially human lives.”

  CHAPTER THREE

  Winston Cheng, big hands casually out of sight in the side pockets of his jacket, was watching him stoically. Harry went on: “It looks like the bad machines have got your people, and it would be foolish to assume they don’t know who they’ve got. If your Winnie and Claudia have been kept alive, it’s for a reason. You’d know better than I do what kind of help you’re in a position to give berserkers.”

  Before Harry had finished, Cheng was shaking his head slightly, expressing disagreement. “Once the fact of the kidnapping becomes generally known, as it must sooner or later, every ED human in the Galaxy will be watching me to see what happens. If berserkers tried to blackmail me into playing goodlife tricks, they would soon discover that my possibilities of action were severely limited.” Goodlife was the universal term, coined by the berserkers themselves, applied to people who, for whatever reason, cooperated with them.

  Harry was thinking steadily. “We should discuss the alternative.”

  “Which one?”

  “You mentioned it earlier, but we haven’t really talked about it. I mean the possibility that, despite the good witnesses and the fortuitous recording, some kind of trickery has been worked on you.”

  “Yes?”

  “Maybe, despite what the recording shows, it wasn’t really a berserker that snatched your people. Instead, human kidnappers used a disguised ship, devised some kind of superpaddys, and for all I know bribed witnesses—”

  Cheng’s head-shaking had become emphatic. “You’ve just seen some pretty good visual evidence to the contrary. But of course the possibility of trickery has been in my mind from the start. The trouble is, that hypothesis simply won’t fly.”

  “Why not?”

  “I’ve already indicated that. Human kidnappers would have the strongest reasons to present their demands, whatever they might be, as soon as possible. To keep me from immediately calling in the Templars or the Force. If they hope to collect ransom, they must first tell me what it is to be. Also they must give me some hope of getting my people back alive.”

  Harry was thinking that if the kidnapper was truly a berserker trying to extort some favor, Winston Cheng might not be out of the woods yet. There could have been unforeseen delays in the process of formulating demands and making them. The tycoon could soon be getting a delayed message, passed along some circuitous route through several intermediaries, living or unliving, telling him what sort of favor the bad machines required of him to keep his loved ones from being sent back to him one little piece at a time.

  Centuries of berserker war had provided ample proof that the enemy was not intrinsically sadistic. The killer machines cared nothing one way or the other about the suffering of any kind of life, any more than they cared for wealth. The berserkers’ objective was universal death, not pain. But they had taught themselves to be virtuoso torturers when such behavior seemed likely to advance their cause.

  After studying his host for a while, Harry said: “I think it’s possible, Mister Cheng, that you’ve got that message already.”

  “No. I haven’t.” Winston Cheng leaned forward. “Look, Silver, we must understand each other. It would be absolutely crazy for me to make the effort I’m making to obtain your help, and the help of others in this horrible situation—while all the time I was secretly negotiating a deal with the enemy.

  “Would I give in to blackmail, extortion, by either humans or machines, if I eventually received the message you describe? Yes I would, like a shot—if I could somehow be convinced that the enemy would keep their part of the bargain, and I would get my people back unharmed.

  “No. The only reason you’re here is that there’s been no ransom demand. No attempt at a deal, no bargain. Nothing, not even gloating, which would surely happen if this were from a purely human motive, like revenge. When I say I have received no communication of any kind from any kidnappers, animate or inanimate, I am telling you the simple truth.”

  There was silence for a while. Harry began to wish that the woman in the background would say something, but that didn’t happen. A kidnapping for ransom would at least have offered some kind of hope, but apparently that hadn’t happened either. The obvious alternative was the bad one: berserkers had some kind of experiment going for which they needed living subjects.

  Harry didn’t see any way to avoid discussing it. “It’s probably the last thing you want to hear, but you mentioned it yourself earlier. And it is well established that they do that kind of thing. Sorry, but you asked, and I think it’s a real possibility.”

  “I did indeed ask, and I want you to tell me what you really think. Go on.”

  Harry couldn’t find much more to say. From the corner of his vision he could see that the Lady Masaharu had moved forward a couple of steps, as if she could lend support to the man she worked for.

  When she finally spoke her voice had become sharp and direct. “Have you no further comments, Mister Silver?”

  He got slowly to his feet. “I don’t suppose I saw anything in the recording that you people missed, not if you’ve watched it fifty times. The berserkers look perfectly genuine.” Still, he had to admit to himself that the situation had its oddities. “You said there was some attempt at pursuit.”

  “Yes. Quite unsuccessful. But it did succeed in establishing that Mister Cheng’s people were not carried off in the direction of any known or suspected berserker base.”

  “Oh? Where, then?”

  “There were convincing indications that the strange abductor had set its course for a certain peculiar solar system, part of this extended stellar neighborhood. That system is informally called the Gravel Pit, not previously known to be a haunt of berserkers.”

  A sheaf of technical data appeared, and Harry studied what it told him about the Gravel Pit—it appeared to be one of the vast number of solar systems that were absolutely devoid of life. If life had ever established a foothold there, it had doubtless been obliterated early on.

  “It is, as you can see, somewhat overpopulated with planets and planetoids.”

  That was an understatement; the system looked like a shooting gallery of flying rocks, a great spinning centrifuge of innumerable collisions. There the kidnapper seemed to have deliberately lost itself and its haul of freshly acquired prisoners in the system’s bizarre mechanics of swarming multiple planets and planetoids.

  * * *

  So far Cheng hadn’t specified exactly what he wanted Harry to do, but it wasn’t hard to see where this presentation must be headed. Mentally, Harry was already shaking his head: No. No sir, no thanks, too bad you brought me all this way for nothing. No new ship for Harry Silver. The results of this hour of uncomfortable talk would be strictly limited: for the visitor a small handful of superb chewing pods—and for the grieving old man only a flat turndown.

  The great man’s voice had settled into a monotone. It sounded more implacable t
han grieving. “Harry, you must know what I’m about to ask of you. But let me state it plainly. Whatever the nature of the power that took my granddaughter and her son, I’m going after it—or them. I would do it if the villains were humans, and I’m going to do it if they’re machines. If rescuing Winnie and Claudia alive proves to be impossible, I will do the next thing that needs to be done, and make their killers pay. I’m putting a maximum effort into this.”

  With a firm gesture, signaling the concealed projector, Winston Cheng swept away the ghosts of his two missing people, still cheerfully playing.

  Again the silent woman had moved a little closer. The Lady Laura was standing with arms gracefully folded and chin raised, regarding Harry as if he were a doubtful real estate investment she had committed herself to make.

  Meanwhile Cheng was doing something that brought the big holostage up out of the floor again. In a moment he began to show clear detailed images of two armed yachts that he told Harry would soon be available for the punitive expedition.

  “Two yachts.” Harry said distantly. He had sat down again, and now leaned back, rocking slightly in his chair. “Both of them really tough, I suppose. Even tougher than the one that already got grabbed and turned inside out?”

  “Yes, actually. Both of them are bigger and faster vessels than the one that was so inexcusably taken by surprise in that attack. Yes, and these are tougher too. Harry, trust me, what I can show you at this moment is only the beginning. More force is on the way. And there’s something else. I am neither deluded nor bluffing when I speak of a secret weapon.”

  “Secret weapon.”

  “Yes. But I can’t go into any details on that subject until you’re definitely signed on.”

  Harry had no comment. He waited, in silent patience. He thought he owed this man the courtesy of hearing him out, getting the full presentation.

  Winston Cheng drew a deep breath. He paced the room. He went on: “I assure you, the expedition I intend to send into the Gravel Pit will have a much better chance of success than would seem likely on first consideration. I’m putting together a fine team of people—the Lady Masaharu is the chief coordinator”—Harry glanced in her direction, and she lowered her eyelids briefly in acknowledgment—“who are, as you can imagine, all very capable, dedicated, and experienced.