Berserker Prime Page 5

  “Of course, sir.”

  Besides the vessel waiting to carry him to the peace conference, and a couple of other ships hastily loading foreign visitors and diplomats, Timber’s main spaceport had looked eerily deserted. Only a skeleton military presence was still there, while whole squadrons and battle fleets of warships were on alert in space, keeping their exact deployment secret. Gregor knew that the Twin Worlds fleet was still in its home system, and he presumed the Huvean fleet would be doing the same thing, unless it was already on its way here, to attack.

  Here, the war fever was at its height. But other systems had caught it too, though less acutely so. Warships of a new generation (the last of the old had been retired, unused, standard decades ago) were now under construction in almost every place where Earth-descended humans had established colonies.

  But Gregor had to know. If the peace conference was already stillborn, if the war had started, then he wanted to stay here in his home system and fight for his own people. He would die with them if that was to be their fate.

  He was already late for the conference, but there would be no point in showing up at any conference if war had already begun. He would order the captain of his transport ship to take him first to the defense nerve center, a hundred million kilometers farther from the sun, where the couriers coming in from the outer sphere of scoutships brought their latest messages. That was the fastest way for him to learn the latest news.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  On a clear day like today, the Citadel’s forcefield gates were visible as crisply outlined panels of gray fog. The military groundcar, presenting the proper code, slid easily through the nearest fog-panel and went cruising out into an eerily empty street. Gregor and his grandchild were swiftly conveyed through a domain of architectural diversity, set off and emphasized by park-like stretches of grass, dotted with clumps of trees and shrubbery under the afternoon sun. Much of the foliage was turning autumnal colors. The park, like the surrounding streets, was abnormally unpopulated. Gregor was relieved. He would not have been surprised to see angry mobs of demonstrators, either pro- or anti-war, or both. The scarcity of traffic promised the advantage of a quick drive to the spaceport. Still it would be long enough to allow the private conversation Gregor considered necessary.

  One of the first buildings to slide past, on the right side of the broad avenue, was the imposing presidential office, its high windows betraying nothing of what might be going on inside. Whether the president was occupying it at the moment was more than Gregor, his high rank notwithstanding, had been able to find out.

  President Belgola, like his immediate predecessor, had another office, practically a duplicate of this one, on the planet Prairie. This chief executive spent time in each, and during the past year had added a third office, in the form of a space going facility on which he frequently shuttled between the two worlds, or cruised the system in an independent orbit.

  In the course of these days-long, unhurried journeys Belgola was known to hold long consultations with his technical adviser, an advanced computer system he had named Logos, after the primordial spirit of reason. Gregor had never seen Logos, but the device was said to be small enough to be easily transportable, and was informally known, among the irreverent, as the Oracle.

  One of the most recently defeated presidential candidates (who had a deserved reputation as a reasonable woman) had said: “This famous, or infamous, Oracle is nothing but an optelectronic version of his human supporters, politically programmed to tell him what he wants to hear. He’s convinced himself that it brings him access to some kind of superhuman, not to say supernatural, wisdom.”

  “So you might say that he’s busy talking to himself,” a journalist had prompted.

  “Some of the more irreverent have already put it that way, yes.” And Gregor remembered seeing a political cartoon.

  Now, with this newest report of a strange intrusion in the outer reaches of the Twin Worlds solar system, the president’s policy of restraint, keeping the entire fleet at home and deployed for defense, seemed entirely justified. For the moment his political stock was riding high; his opponents in the legislature were reduced to a few mutterings of disagreement.

  The old man and the girl spent a short time trading news of other family members. As soon as such routine matters had been got out of the way, Luon burst out with the subject that was really on her mind.

  “Gramp, can’t you do anything about this hostage business? Keep them from being killed?”

  Gregor was sitting back with folded arms. “You saw, my girl, you heard. Probably it was foolish of me; but I went in there with the vague idea that I might accomplish something along that line, as you observed, I had no success.”

  Before he had finished speaking, the girl was bouncing in her seat, turning halfway around. “Hostages! By all the great gods, the Huvean government must be totally crazy, otherwise they never could have agreed to anything so stupid!”

  Gregor gave his young relative a faint smile, of sympathy, not amusement. “Welcome to the adult world, my dear. But you’re right, I suppose this giving of hostages is unique in the annals of modern diplomacy.”

  “Annals of motherless modern lunacy!” Luon waved her tender fists, looking ready to hit someone.

  He wasn’t going to argue that point, or reprimand his granddaughter for her language. In a patient voice he offered such explanation as was possible, tracing the way in which the complicated treaty had been negotiated, beginning with the fact that ten people from the Twin Worlds had lost their lives in a disaster on the disputed planet. Whether that catastrophe had been sheer natural accident, or could be traced to some malignant Huvean, was one of the points still bitterly disputed.

  Luon did her grandfather the honor of listening to his explanation. He couldn’t tell whether she had heard it all before or not, but obviously it had little effect on her opinions.

  “All right, Gramp, I still say their government is crazy to give us hostages. But ours is crazy too.” At that point she stopped suddenly, listening to herself. “Not you, of course!”

  “A lot of people would certainly include me.” Gregor patted her hand. “There are times when I’m inclined to agree with them.”

  Luon bounced again. “But you’re not really in charge. What about our so-called president! You talk to him sometimes, don’t you? What do you think?”

  Gregor was shaking his head slowly. “I would like very much to talk to Mr. Belgola right now.” Suddenly he saw no point in attempting any longer to keep his difficulties secret. “Believe it or not, I’ve been trying for several days to reach him. It’s proven impossible for me to get through.”

  “Gramp, really?” Luon’s big eyes went wide. “I’d have thought you had some kind of a direct line.”

  “I thought so too. Officially I do.” That line of communication still existed, in theory and in hardware, but only once in the better part of a standard week had he got as far as a human voice on the other end of it, and the human voice was not the president’s, and had not been helpful. At other times the plenipotentiary had been blocked by one level or another of the robots.

  Now Gregor added, talking mostly to himself: “Maybe I should have asked to speak to Logos.”

  Maybe he would try that next time. Unflappable, inflexible robotic voices, as unfailingly courteous as they were firm. It was unsettling not to be sure of being able to contact the man in an emergency. Still, Gregor had no immediate need to know exactly where the president was, and in fact the plenipotentiary did not very much care. He had little confidence in Belgola’s abilities, and for that reason was all the more determined to be loyal to the government and people in time of crisis.

  At the time when Gregor had last had contact with him, as the strains of crisis multiplied around him, President Belgola of the Twin Worlds, recently armed with extraordinary powers by an angry parliament, had been on the verge of ordering a pre-emptive strike against the home system of the antagonistic Huveans. But so
far Belgola had held back.

  Luon listened silently as Gregor discussed the matter of communication failures, managing to drain some of his frustrations while not really. or so he thought, revealing anything that the girl and the public should not know.

  Luon was bright enough to be troubled by what she had just heard: “The last news bulletin I caught, Grampsir, they were saying the president was at an undisclosed location. But of course you must know that, don’t you?”

  Gregor grunted. “Possibly I’ve already said more than I should on the subject.” He didn’t really believe that, though. If the president was no longer available to his closest human advisers, the public deserved to be let in on the fact.

  Or was it only he, Gregor, who was being cut out of the loop? He made a mental note that as soon as he had the chance, he would try to reach the vice president, now attending a large gathering of officials on Prairie.

  Gregor sighed, people tended to be sharply divided on the subject of Belgola, who had come to office with something of a reputation for radicalism. Most people thought, certainly hoped, he had put his wilder ideas behind him on at last achieving his long sought goal of becoming president.

  Trying to hold a reasonable conversation during the last half minute of the ride was hopeless, as the weapons testing interrupted again, driving its noise and vibration even into the sealed and cushioned staff car. Waved by human guards through gates at the spaceport’s entrance, the staff car headed directly out to a spot near the middle of the extensive landing field, which like the streets of the central city was for once weirdly devoid of traffic. Their driver was heading for a small ship parked near the middle, in virtual isolation.

  The ship, metallic and nearly spherical, had an entrance hatch open and ramp extended. A darkly handsome young man in a scoutship commander’s uniform was waiting beside it when Gregor climbed out of the car. “How many in your party, sir? We can accommodate some staff, if you like.”

  Gregor shook his head “I have no staff with me at the moment.”

  “Yes sir.” The officer turned his head to shoot a questioning look at Luon, who was also disembarking from the car. “I thought…”

  “The young woman is a member of my family. Her presence here is accidental and perhaps unfortunate. But I must see that she’s taken care of. I see no alternative to having her come with me on the ship.”

  “As you say, sir. Will there be any baggage?”

  “It seems we are both traveling light today.” Gregor’s, to the best of his own belief, had been loaded aboard another ship, and was already on its way out of the solar system, the idea being that he would catch up with it at the conference light-years away.

  He had just begun to move toward the small ship’s extended entrance ramp, when another staff car came gliding smoothly up. An officer of higher rank than any Gregor had encountered yet today, his shoulder bearing the single star of a basic general, appeared relieved to see that he had caught up with the plenipotentiary.

  A small courier’s pouch was strapped to the general’s wrist. “Glad I caught you, sir. I bring a personal message for you, from Admiral Radigast.”

  Gregor accepted the palm-sized container. He was unable to imagine what the contents of this latest message might be, but for the moment he refrained from opening it. “I wonder how the admiral knew that I was here.”

  “I believe he has several of us chasing you, sir. In different directions.”

  When Gregor began to open the container, it spoke in a small, clear voice, requesting him to put his fingertips on certain marks, and look closely at two spots on the outer surface, so it could check his retinal patterns. Once his identity had been verified, the pack opened easily.

  Inside there was nothing elaborate to be seen, in the way of images. There was only a simple text.

  SIR, I RESPECTFULLY REQUEST THAT BEFORE DEPARTING THE TWIN WORLDS SYSTEM, YOU WILL KINDLY VISIT ME ON MY FLAGSHIP, FOR A FACE-TO-FACE DISCUSSION OF MATTERS OF THE HIGHEST IMPORTANCE.

  RADIGAST, COMMANDING

  The general seemed nervous. “I take it, sir, you do intend to honor the admiral’s request?”

  “Yes. Oh yes.” For a moment Gregor wondered if he would even be allowed to leave the system, if he did not. But the peace conference was looking less and less relevant anyway.

  According to the general who had brought Gregor the latest message, this new, exotic presence on the outer fringes of the home system was taken by many as an all but certain indication that a Huvean attack on Twin Worlds was imminent. It obviously wasn’t an ordinary warship, and it certainly was not a fleet. Some kind of a trick.

  Over the past several standard years, a number of military analysts from neutral powers, theirs was a rapidly growing profession, as many other worlds had also taken to rearmament, had reached a general consensus that Huvea and the Twin Worlds were very evenly matched in their preparedness for war.

  Basic fleet strength, the numbers and sizes which seemed impossible for either power to keep secret, was supposedly balanced at eight dreadnoughts each, as soon as one power began to build a new one, the other followed, with appropriately larger numbers of cruisers, destroyers, scoutships, and a variety of auxiliary vessels.

  Fleet strength was, naturally enough, one of the things that the new treaty was supposed to stabilize.

  There might be a greater imbalance in terms of ground troops and weapons, there was certainly wide disagreement among modern strategists on how great a role these would play in any interstellar conflict, and which side had the advantage.

  Of the three planets, Huvea, and the Twin Worlds, most likely to be actively engaged in any conflict, and thus directly attacked, Timber was generally thought to have the best mobile ground defenses.

  However much Gregor concentrated on the looming conflict, in his mind the whole business kept tending to take on an air of unreality. He supposed it must be so for everyone, in light of the fact that no human being currently alive had ever actually seen a war, let alone taken part in one. Theories on the conduct of space warfare abounded, unconstrained by the fact that no Earth-descended human in the Galaxy today, no individual on any planet, had any really relevant experience.

  In the privacy of his thought, Gregor added a codicil to that: all living, breathing, humans might be neophytes in war, but there was another class of strategists who could claim veteran status. He had heard that the chief of cryptanalysis (a robot so secret that its code name had its own code name) still contained certain modules that had been in place during one of the last wars ever fought by Earth-descended humans.

  Gregor could very clearly remember the last lecture on the subject that he had heard. “That of course was a very small war, by the standards of modern theorists.”

  “How do you know?”

  “We know because Earth is still there, in its natural orbit, and still quite habitable.”

  Walking up the entrance ramp into the scoutship, Gregor looked over his shoulder, making sure that his grandchild was still with him. Luon was only three or four steps behind, and had evidently been taken in charge by some junior officer. There should be no lack of young men volunteering to keep the attractive young lady company. But the girl had other things on her mind than flirting. From the expression on her face, she was only being polite in listening to him.

  Boarding the scout, Gregor felt somewhat relieved to be surrounded again by the world of military people and procedures. Whatever their other faults, they at least tended to be decisive. And there was another clear advantage to dealing with the military, you always knew where to find them.

  Aboard the courier, the plenipotentiary received, from the officer who had brought the latest message, a briefing on the most recent developments: For the past day or two, the central government of the Twin Worlds had been sending out almost a steady stream of crewless robotic probes, dispatching them to a specific region in the distant reaches of their solar system.

  Out there, under supervision of several s
coutship crews, instruments aboard the probes were steadily gathering information. In an effort to escape detection, or possible countermeasures by the object they had come to investigate, they remained at distances of a light minute or more from it. At short, random intervals, a trio of the devices currently on watch would break off their harvesting routines and turn toward home, speeding along diverging pathways, carrying with them whatever new data they had managed to pick up to their mother ship, whence it would be speeded back to Prairie and Timber, and to the command satellites circling both home worlds. Meanwhile, three replacements had arrived near the object, and were taking up comparable though not identical positions, so there would be no break in the continuity of coverage. The system used was risky, redundant, and expensive, but seemed to work beautifully. Three identical probes all attempted a c-plus jump at very nearly the same time, headed for the same destination, but programmed to follow different courses. Usually no more than two of the three survived the perilous jump, but at least one almost always did, by this means the information reached its destination as much as an hour ahead of any radio or optical signal.

  Gregor and Luon were seated with their escort in the scout-ship’s spartan and constricted wardroom, cruising in the merciful grip of artificial gravity, bodies untouched by brutal acceleration.

  The diplomat was asking: “Why are you giving me this briefing, general? It would seem that in the normal course of my duties, I would have no need to know.”

  “I’m acting on special orders from Admiral Radigast, sir. How this knowledge may affect your own duties, your own plans, I have no idea.”

  The pilot’s voice presently came over intercom, informing the two civilian passengers that the admiral’s flagship was close ahead. Their small craft was approaching the Twin Worlds battle fleet, which had been deployed in a defensive formation relatively close to the two populated planets.

  The wardroom’s small holostage was occupied at the moment by the head and shoulders of a newsman, broadcasting from the steadily receding planet Timber. The man was droning on about things that made no sense at all to Gregor. Some kind of popular entertainment, he assumed. Then suddenly the three-dimensional image vanished, to be replaced by the head and shoulders of a very different man.