Berserker Prime Page 4

  In a normal voice he said: “Luon, this is not the time or place to bring up personal problems. What is this important business? First of all, how did you know that I was here?”

  Her reply was even softer than before, as if to indicate that she would keep this private if she could.

  “Sorry, Grampsir. When I checked your name on the newsline locator it said you were in the Citadel. But your official schedule didn’t list any such stop, so I figured maybe your being here was unofficial. Then I thought maybe that meant you could spare a moment for…” Luon was stuck again.

  The newsline locator? But all right; he supposed some senior family member must have given her the code that would let her track him down by name.

  “For your important business,” he encouraged. “And what is that?”

  “Nothing!” She gave her fair curls a violent shake. “I mean, nothing official. I just felt that I was kind of stranded here on Timber. And I needed to tell the guards something, so they’d let me in.”

  The girl was obviously in anguish, and Gregor’s irritation partially melted in a small surge of sympathy. Of course, with the threat of war hanging over the world, she was afraid, so was almost everyone, and naturally she saw her grandfather as a powerful figure, a reliable source of help. He could only wish that it were so.

  Again he saw his grandchild cast a glance toward the silent, watching hostages, then quickly tear her eyes away from them. When Luon spoke again she sounded repentant. “I wanted to be sure of seeing you.” Still her voice remained tiny, pitiful.

  “Yes. Of course I am glad to see you, Luon. Or I would be, under any ordinary … never mind.” He sighed. “Now that you are here, just attend in silence for a few moments.”

  Turning back to the waiting group, he told them: “I must apologize for the interruption.”

  The lean and intense Douras, still on his feet though the others were now all sitting, spoke up again. He was smiling, holding the back of a chair as if it were a lectern, and his voice was quietly savage.

  “Honored sir.” He subtly made the words a mockery. “I would like to express a hope which I am sure we all share, that the young woman will be able to get to a place of safety before the Huvean fleet arrives in these skies, and begins to punish your government of war criminals, in space and on the ground.

  “With that in mind, I suggest that perhaps your innocent granddaughter had better remain here with us, in this building. I’m sure that by now our people know just where we are being held.”

  Gregor wasn’t sure of that at all, but offered no comment. Luon, looking frightened, stared back at the aggressive one, but could find no words to answer him.

  Reggie Panchatantra was on his feet again, trying to be conciliatory. “I’m sure we all agree that the plenipotentiary’s granddaughter deserves a place of safety. but I expect he knows where that is better than we do. As for the rest of us, well, our object in coming here was not to seek safety. We all volunteered for the role of hostages, when this farce began. I suppose I thought I was just demonstrating the good faith of Huvea. Whether any of us would volunteer today is quite another question.”

  Some of Reggie’s colleagues responded with a polite murmur, while others gave him stony glares. Gregor’s grandchild suddenly turned, subdued and somewhat uneasy in the potential victims’ presence. She seemed to be uncomfortable looking at them, but too fascinated to look away, as if they were already dead. Gregor thought suddenly: If the provisional treaty had also required Twin Worlds to give hostages, his granddaughter might well have been one of them, like them, she would be idealistic enough to volunteer. But that, thank all the gods of space, was not the way the contorted agreement had been worked out.

  The robot, Porphyry, had meanwhile been standing in the background, part of the furniture, awaiting further orders from the executioner. Something about the machine now caught the eye of Douras, who suddenly called out to it.

  “You, there, robot. Pay attention this way.”

  Porphyry raised calm, glassy eyes. All humans were to be treated with the same bland courtesy. “Yes sir?”

  “I would like to know, if you understand just what the verb ‘to execute’ entails.”

  “Yes sir, I know the several meanings.”

  “Then you know the meaning of your master’s title. Explain it to us, if you will.”

  “If required by the treaty, he will oversee”

  “Plain simple language, please. Do you know any blunt, ordinary words?”

  “Yes sir. I did not mean to speak in euphemisms. My current master will be required to kill you, if the law tells him to do so.”

  “What method will he use?”

  Huang Gun took a step forward, silencing the robot with a brief gesture. “Several are still under consideration. My guiding principle is that which is most efficient is also most humane. One leading candidate is a form of electrocution. Another is intense neutron flux. Be assured that the business will be accomplished as quickly and painlessly as I can arrange.” Once more he shot a quick glance at his robot, as if, Gregor thought, something about the machine had pleased him.

  Luon cried out, impulsively: “Barbaric!” Then she shrank back.

  No one paid her much attention. The executioner raised one eyebrow, which seemed to have been subtly shaped by some robot barber’s skill. Gregor was suddenly reminded of certain embalmers’ work that he had seen.

  Huang Gun was going on. “I am not responsible for the political arrangement which has placed them in this danger. And if they lose their lives at my hands, I shall be only an instrument of the law. A power far greater than I will have made the final decision.”

  Gregor was puzzled for a moment. “You mean the treaty will require it.”

  “Yes, of course.”

  And somehow Gregor found himself beginning to make the speech that he had promised not to make.

  “I think that no one alive today on either of our worlds, probably no Earth-descended human anywhere in the Galaxy, has any conception of what a real war would mean. There is no doubt that some of our ancestors, when they set out from Earth, hundreds of years ago, could recall what real wars were like.”

  He paused, gave a twisted smile. “It seems I am making a speech after all. Well, it won’t be wasted, because I intend to see to it that you do not die. Not today, not tomorrow, not for many years.

  “As for the conflict: it was never supposed to be like this again, but here it is … here we are, in the middle of it.”

  He paused; the guard at the door was coming in again, this time closely followed by a pair of military officers of middle rank. These people had obviously come in search of Gregor, because they relaxed visibly as soon as they spotted him. Whatever their mission, it lacked the air of absolute urgency that would have caused him to break off his speech.

  The officers were listening, an attitude of tolerant respect. When all the fine talk is over, their manner seemed to say, we will step in with a dose of reality.

  Gregor went on. “Then we were not in continuous confrontation, frozen by suspicion. No. Instead, we were standing together, practically all of us still on one small world, looking outward. Like children, though we did not think of ourselves as such, a little fearful about what new dangers we might encounter when we left the nursery.

  “A few of us even imagined a Galaxy alive with terrible monsters, predatory beings bred in the depths of humankind’s ancient tears, and what did we actually find? The Carmpan, peace and tranquility personified. In their language, the only word for ‘weapon’ means something like a fly swatter.

  “One or two other intelligent races, all equally peaceful, and about equally talkative. No danger to us. Not enemies, or rivals. So distant psychologically … I don’t know if we should even call them friends. ‘Well-wishers’ is about as close as we can accurately come.

  “There’s evidence that the Carmpan had imagined, even predicted, terrible predators also. And what actually came along to meet them? We
did, who hardly fit that category.

  “Of course we’ve still explored only a small portion of our Milky Way. It didn’t take long to discover that the currents running in flight, space between the stars can sometimes be treacherous. The new ocean is deeper than the old, deeper and wider by a billion times and more, and making our way across it can be even trickier….

  “But if the rest of the Milky Way, all those hundreds of billions of stars, is like the part we’ve sampled, we are absolutely the only creatures in it who can be described as at all warlike. We Earth-born humans have carried the burden of war all through our history. Once we were able to set it down, relieve ourselves of it. But the relief lasted only a little longer than a century. Now the temptation is upon us to grab the old burden up again, and”

  Gregor was interrupted again, by another test of the defenses. Noise and vibration drove all of them into their own thoughts. Some seemed to be searching each other’s faces for clues as to what it all might mean. Luon took a step or two toward the hostages, then changed course and came to stand closer to Gregor’s side.

  “By the time the voyagers from Earth had established colonies in a hundred different star systems, the situation had changed, and it soon turned out that we were split into a hundred different nations once again. The safeguards of our common origins, trade, swift communication, all proved less than adequate. Each group, each world, began to be suspicious of others.

  “Now it seems that all are looking for reasons to be jealous, to blame the people in the next system for our difficulties. It’s easy to make a logical argument that we can no longer have any good reason to fight each other, but down through human history, it’s always been easy to do that. Now suspicion feeds on suspicion, tear on fear, and today a majority of the hundred worlds have their programs of rearmament in progress, dreaming up new weapons and new defenses. Many have rearmed, including us. Look at the array of weapons we now possess, can you conceive what a ten megaton explosion would do to a human city?”

  “We are well defended by our shields, sir, the shields that we are testing now.”

  “Have we also tested weapons to overwhelm the Huvean shields?”

  No one wanted to answer that.

  “Do you suppose that they have not done the same?”

  Reggie cleared his throat and said: “What I suppose is, that your ten or twenty megaton bomb would do to a city just about the same thing that an intense neutron flux would do to a human brain. There’s a rumor going around that that’s the method they intend to use on us.”

  All the hostages, except one, gazing out the window, were looking at Gregor now, as if they still could hope he might tell them something that would help.

  Huang Gun had an observation: “Some of the ancients had a name for this kind of thing: ‘mutual assured destruction.’ Humanity managed to escape that burden for a time, but now we find it on our backs again…. It seems to be the way we’re made.”

  One of the forcefield doors leading to the outside had opened, and here came yet one more intrusion. This was a human courier, carrying a new message to the officers who had arrived only a couple of minutes ago. In a moment one of them stepped forward, and handed it to Gregor.

  “Message from the Early Warning Zone of System Defense, sir.”

  Gregor thought: This is it, their ultimatum. Return the hostages unharmed, or we attack. “Something relayed from Huvea?”

  “No sir, this is directly from System Defense. Do you wish to receive the communication in privacy?”

  Gregor quickly took thought. “No, let these young people hear it too. I expect it is of great importance to them. I suppose it means the Huveans have launched an attack?”

  “Sir, meanings are not my department, but I’ve seen no evidence to link this thing to Huvea. When were you last briefed on the situation?”

  “Just this morning. Four or five hours ago.”

  “Then you will definitely want to see this.”

  Huang Gun the hostage keeper wanted to see and hear it also. All of them listened intently to the report of a strange intruder in the outer system.

  As Gregor started to turn away, Huang Gun touched him on the arm and said: “I find the suggestion of some Huvean secret weapon certainly ominous, don’t you agree, Plenipotentiary?”

  “Certainly.”

  “Remember what I have told you. Those who could save us are already here among us.”

  Gregor was puzzled. “You mean?”

  The executioner was looking at the robot, almost as if he expected the machine to be able to contribute something useful to this conversation.

  The robot simply looked back, imperturbable, as if it was only waiting to receive orders. Or, perhaps, to be asked a question.

  Gregor said a hasty goodbye to the hostages and their keepers. Reginald Panchatantra seemed to want to tell him something, but at the last minute only nodded.

  To the officer who had brought him the latest report, Gregor said intensely: “I have to find out all I can about this strange intrusion. The conference can wait. Get me out there, as fast as you can.”

  A small hand laid itself gently on his arm. “Where do you want me to go, Gramp? What shall I do?”

  He had almost forgotten about the girl. What to do with her was certainly a question. Gregor thought the mysterious trespasser would almost certainly turn out to be some kind of Huvean trick or weapon, and it was tempting to declare that war had already begun. Even before the intruder’s arrival, all transport within the Twin Worlds system was already badly disrupted. Those not canceled were overbooked, with impossible waiting lists. Given this latest alarm, civilian traffic would soon grind to a complete halt, with both incoming and outgoing flights suspended. There was no chance of Luon being able to get on any commercial ship just now. Private spacecraft were very rare, and he suspected all capable of leaving the system had long since fled.

  The only remaining possibility was the military, and she would have no chance there either, unless the old man managed to pull strings. Gregor wasn’t sure how far he could go along that road, or how far he ought to go, but he would give it a try. Already the girl had made it clear that she had no home to go to on this planet.

  The only place he could exert his influence would seem to be with the high military brass, out in deep interplanetary space.

  Gregor sighed, and beckoned to his granddaughter. “Come along.” There seemed to be no better alternative.

  On her way out, following on the old man’s heels, Luon turned and sent one last glance in the direction of the prisoners. If her gaze lingered on one face, and met a silent response there, neither her distracted grandfather nor the executioner were aware of the fact.

  When the door of the military staff car slammed shut, closing them into its rear compartment, Gregor turned at once to his young relative.

  “Did you come here to the capital by tube? What are things like in the other cities?” He could see for himself what things were like near the center of Timber’s capital.

  “Most of the people seem to have gone indoors,” Luon told him, after a pause. “Everywhere I’ve been, it’s pretty much like here. The ones you do see all look anxious. I went past the spaceport at” she named another city “and there were practically no ships on the ground. Crowds of people there, all trying to get off world somehow, but civilian traffic seems to be completely shut down.”

  Following a sudden impulse, he asked the girl what she had thought about the hostages.

  She took what seemed a surprisingly long time, just to decide on a comment. “They are all volunteers.”

  “Yes, they really are. One of them was just talking about that.”

  “But do they realize how close they are to being killed? With the negotiations failing?” The strain in her voice was worse than what he had heard from most of the hostages themselves.

  “If they didn’t before, they may be beginning to realize it, though young people in general tend to consider themselves immorta
l. They follow the news stories, and can see the situation as well as you and I do.”

  By now it had been possible for System Defense to get a somewhat better look at the intruder. An object described as a giant ship, a vessel of unprecedented size, was reported as having emerged from flightspace there in the same sector.

  It had chosen to emerge at a comparatively remote location, before penetrating as deeply into the system, into the gravitational field of the central sun, as was practical in flightspace. The object had immediately set a course in normal space toward the inner planets, and was calculated to arrive in the near vicinity of Prairie within a couple of hours. This meant it was moving at a high fraction of the velocity of light, an impressive speed, considering how comparatively dense the interplanetary medium became in the inner system, fed by a constant outpouring of particles in the solar wind.

  The military gave Gregor their assessment: For all that anyone in the Twin Worlds system could tell, observing the phenomenon from various vantage points scattered around the system, and from observatories in close orbit around the planets themselves, the stranger’s intent might well be hostile. So far it had declined to answer any queries or challenges.

  Gregor felt it his duty to discover all he could about the nature of the giant and mysterious intruder. Certainly he could not depart the system for the peace conference until he was sure whether it had come from Huvea or not.

  The military analysts stubbornly refused to be pinned down. “There is no evidence that this intruder has any connection with Huvea, but on the other hand, I see no proof of any kind that it could not.”

  “Well, it came from somewhere, that is certain. Before I leave for the conference, I must know. This has a vital bearing on the question of war or peace.”

  “Yes sir, of course. But I can’t promise you when we’ll be able to determine its origin.”

  “That is not obvious?”

  “No sir, the admiral seems to think that it is not.”

  There was nothing for it but to wait. “You will do your best to keep me informed of the latest developments.”