"d.a.m.n sure beat us to the punch." Harry"s fellow survivor had roused enough to murmur that, in a voice that seemed to drift along the edge of consciousness.
Harry grunted an agreement. He had to admire, with professional appreciation, the craftsmanship of the attack. Then he went dozing away again . . .
Only to be jarred awake. "How are you feeling, sir?" a new voice asked him softly.
FOURTEEN.
Recalled from interior drifting, Harry turned his head sharply to the right, as far as he could make it move. Then he needed half a minute to recognize Satranji"s proclaimed wife, the robot Dorijen, who was standing before him in the role of a poster child for the problem of collateral damage. There was no reason to think the berserkers had been trying to destroy her-they had no essential quarrel with robots-but everything about Dorry except her voice was altered drastically. The drab servant"s uniform had been almost entirely torn and seared away, and a lot of artificial skin and flesh and hair had gone the same route, bloodlessly revealing some fine interior examples of the art of the robotics engineer. Dorry"s left arm was entirely gone, and several chunks, including a couple of fingers, were missing from the right.
One breast had been violently amputated, the other crushed, and the once-lovely face was ruined. Only one eye still appeared to be functioning.
But none of this mayhem appeared to have discouraged Dorijen. "Can I be of any help to you, sir?" the robot asked Harry cheerfully.
Harry glanced toward his fellow survivor of a few minutes ago, who now appeared to be dead. "Sure.
Just get these clamps off my arms and legs."
The mangled right hand called attention to itself with a slight movement. "I regret, sir, that my capabilities in mechanical manipulation are much reduced."
"Yeah, yeah. All right. Never mind the clamps. What happened to you?"
"Mister Satranji had deposited me in a storeroom, sir, on the level below this one, and I was there, when the enemy detonated an explosive sterilization device nearby. It was not that they were trying to destroy me, but-"
"Yeah. Okay. They have now certified you as free of the Galactic disease called life. I will be awarded my certificate shortly. So how about telling me a funny story? I could use a laugh."
"I will endeavor to recall one, sir." There was a brief pause. "Many humans find the following anecdote amusing. It seems that three purveyors of amus.e.m.e.nt products entered a bar at the same time, and began to dispute as to which of them should be served before the others. The first one-"
"Never mind. Forget the story. Just shut up."
"Yes, sir."
"No, scratch that. If you really want to be helpful, you could get me a drink." With most of his helmet gone, his suit tank was no longer accessible.
"I a.s.sume, sir, that you mean water?"
"Do I look like I"m asking for a motherless champagne c.o.c.ktail?"
"No, sir." There followed a hesitation. Unusual for a robot, but Dorry was obviously not working at top form "Sir, there is another matter that I find I must-"
"Whatever it is can wait. First get me some water."
"Yes sir." After another brief hesitation, Dorijen turned and shuffled away, her battered legs working with some difficulty.
Harry"s pinioned arms and legs were starting to cramp. He was surrounded by death and ruin, and worst of all n.o.body was going to talk to him. He would probably never hear another human voice. There had been a lot of times in his life when he would have considered that a blessing.
Obviously the artificial gravity units under the deck were still working, and evidently the air loss from the punctured living s.p.a.ce had been stopped by some emergency sealing, because Harry at least was still breathing. But d.a.m.n, it was starting to get cold.
Harry wondered again, as if he were interested in some vague and abstract problem, what might have happened to Winston Cheng"s other ships. It seemed to Harry there was a reasonable chance that in addition to Gianopolous"s craft, at least one of the two armed yachts might have got away. Even if it was only running on autopilot with no one on board, an escaping vessel could carry to the s.p.a.ce Force, or to the nearest Templar base, an effective warning of disaster.
But there would be no warning carried anywhere, thought Harry, by the ship with Winston Cheng on board. Not if the old man had anything to say about it. Cheng wouldn"t be running off anywhere to cry for help. He still had a ship, or maybe even two or three, and he"d be making a kamikaze charge right into the Gravel Pit, going straight for the d.a.m.ned berserker"s heart, just as he"d intended all along. His almost nonexistent chances of success would be marginally improved while at least some of the enemy"s fighting machines were out here at 207GST, busy mopping up the results of their own attack.
There was still only the one sizable berserker machine to be seen through the cleared port, and it was still hovering about a hundred meters from the dock. That berserker had not gone chasing after any escaping ED ships-of course, for all he could tell, it might have sent a smart missile or two to do the job.
Harry"s mind, with nothing else to do, became focused on studying the winner of the just-concluded skirmish, the conqueror of WW 207GST. A few of the bad machine"s small army of auxiliaries kept coming and going from the dock. How many different models of berserker device were included in this attacking force? He certainly hadn"t caught a glimpse of any Type A, the kind that everyone agreed had done all the kidnapping. Nor had he seen anything like Type B, either. That was not surprising, the enemy had currently in use somewhere around a hundred different more-or-less standard styles of s.p.a.cegoing hardware. But Harry couldn"t quite fit the thing he was watching into any of those berserker categories.
Maybe the oxygen was a trifle low, because he still kept drifting out of consciousness and back again.
Yes, he had to give this particular enemy high marks for tactics. All in all, a cla.s.sic surprise attack, carried out with the meticulous attention to detail so beloved by the humans who wrote textbooks on how to fight a battle. But even so, in a larger sense, this was no surprise at all. It was simply that the inevitable end was coming a little earlier than expected.
Harry"s body was quite helpless, unable to put up any further resistance, but still some part of his mind refused to surrender. Instead, it went on casting about for some last effort, a try to trick the enemy or disable it, even though he knew that whatever he came up with must be hopeless.
Anyway, he wasn"t able to come up with anything. And now it was too late. Because here came another unit of the conqueror. This one was human-sized and nearly man-shaped, and it had locked its lenses on Harry, and was walking through wreckage toward him.
Harry understood that the dead or dying man in the berserker"s path meant nothing at all to the machine, except as one more random object on the deck. He realized full well that it was not out of cruelty that the berserker happened to step right on him. His face was just the logical place to plant the metal foot. A sheer coincidence, and nothing more, that a human nose was located there. Harry could plainly hear the faint crunch of cartilage and thin bone. The ugly machine came straight on without a pause, to stand, on its two almost-human legs, about two steps in front of Harry.
"You are Harry Silver," the berserker said to him in a surprisingly clear voice. This killing machine was equipped with an airspeaker, he realized, as if it had come prepared to communicate directly with human ears in breathable atmosphere.
That was unusual. Harry grunted, thinking how odd it was, the things that a man noticed at a time like this, in his last moments. The berserker"s voice was not the usual sc.r.a.ping, squeaking noise that its kind made when they bothered to communicate anything in words to mere life-units. Still, this sound would hardly have pa.s.sed as a normal human utterance-but there was something oddly familiar in its tones.
"Who wants to know?" he got out, in a hoa.r.s.e whisper. But of course, even as he asked the question, he thought he knew the answer. So far, Harry had been unconsciously a.s.suming the berserker that was about to kill him was the same mysterious kidnapper he and his teammates had been planning to attack.
The d.a.m.ned thing had somehow detected their presence, way out here on the approaches to the Gravel Pit, and had prudently decided to get in the first blow.
But of course, now that he came to think about it, there was no reason why the freshly triumphant conqueror of 207GST had to be the kidnapper. There was a discouragingly large number of berserkers scattered around the Galaxy, and among them was one other unit, a special one, that logically might have a unique likelihood of showing up at this particular wanderworld.
Harry"s immobilized hands were trembling, the suit"s overworked servos making its still powerful but useless arms shiver a little in sympathy. There didn"t seem to be anything Harry could do about the shaking. Well, he wasn"t going to let it worry him. Now was not the time for putting on a macho demonstration. Who would he be trying to impress?
No doubt his body was afraid, but his mind seemed to be running off in the other direction, away from fear. There was an odd thread of comfort to be found in the thought that very soon he would be, in some sense, reunited with Becky and their child.
Becky . . . down at the bottom of her heart, Harry knew, his wife had always been a Believer, despite the roughness of the life she"d sometimes led. In his imagination he could hear her praying for him now . .
The machine in front of him was talking to him again, in its naggingly, mystifyingly familiar voice. Its speech was calm, and, for a berserker, not that much different from human utterance.
It said: "Harry Silver, you may have already learned of my existence. I am the machine designed and built for the specific purpose of ending your life."
"Yeah, that possibility had dawned on me." His throat was really going dry. "I was kind of wondering why it took you so long to catch up with me." After a pause, Harry added: "So what"re you going to do, talk me to death?"
"No," said the berserker.
Among this unit"s other a.s.sets, which appeared to be very considerable, it had one hand, the right, crafted very closely to human shape. It crouched down and slid a little closer, moving unhurriedly. Then it reached for Harry"s helpless left hand. Carefully, using an expert touch, it detached the suit"s armored gauntlet, leaving it hanging by one connection at the wrist. Then it very carefully, as if it were reluctant to scratch his skin, stripped the weapon-ring from Harry"s little finger. He supposed it had somehow sensed the presence of the device, and recognized it as fighting hardware-not that the little ring would be able to make a dent in berserker armor. Maybe it was just interested by this engaging toy.
The confiscation of the ring was accomplished so easily that Harry"s finger was not scratched, bruised, or pinched. His private, personal a.s.sa.s.sination machine was treating him with a gentleness so p.r.o.nounced that there was something sickening and ominous about it.
If it was taking such care not even to break his skin, what was it saving him for?
Harry watched, uncomprehending, while the berserker slid the stolen ring onto the smallest, gently tapering finger of its own almost human right hand, using a modest application of force until it snugly fit. In some weird way the act suggested a wedding ceremony.
That thought gave way to another, as Harry suddenly realized why the a.s.sa.s.sin"s voice sounded so familiar. It very much resembled his own voice, as he had heard it in recordings-but not quite. Some amalgam of recordings, evidently. Still, it was more a mockery, a parody, than a serious convincing imitation, a.s.sorted syllables from different sources being strung together somewhat imperfectly. As if somehow the d.a.m.ned machines, for all their methodical determination and high intelligence, were still not able to do this comparatively simple business right. He supposed that some deep original flaw in the basic berserker programming-or some chance mutation-prevented them from doing an accurate imitation of anything that lived, despite the military advantage such an ability should confer.
Now the thing just sat there, looking at him. It had adopted, as if in mockery, a posture very like his own . . .But why in h.e.l.l wasn"t it getting on with its programmed job ?
Whatever the reason, his a.s.sa.s.sin was taking what was, for any optelectronic computer, an amazing length of time to come to a decision. The only reason for delay that Harry could imagine was that it was still uncertain of his ident.i.ty. Oh, soon enough it would kill him, just because he was alive, whether it was positive of his ident.i.ty or not. Killing was what berserkers did. But this one had been programmed in a special way, to accomplish a unique goal, and it would want to report to its monstrous and unliving masters that its very specialized hunt could be computed as a certain success. That the badlife unit designated Harry Silver could be deleted, mind and body, from the universe, his name neatly checked off from the list of individual targets.
Yeah. That all made sense. But seconds were still ticking by and here he was, still breathing the base"s rapidly chilling but still life-supporting air. Shouldn"t the d.a.m.ned thing, by now, have done all the pondering it had to do? What was lacking? When the berserker controllers sent it out, they must have provided it with images and descriptions of Harry Silver, means by which it would recognize its a.s.signed prey. Maybe berserker high command had somehow managed to provide his nemesis with his fingerprints or even the patterns of his genetic material. And how many people could there be who came close to matching . . . ?
From somewhere behind the berserker"s lifeless lenses, airspeakers worked again, projecting what sounded to Harry like fragments of his own voice, shattered into pieces and rea.s.sembled in a new form.
It said: "Harry Silver, I need your help."
FIFTEEN.
Harry stared at the berserker for the s.p.a.ce of several breaths. Then he said: "You mean you want some human to turn goodlife and play some dirty trick on other humans. And I just happen to be the only one around who can still move, so-"
"No. I do not mean that at all."
The man drew a couple of deeper breaths. "What, then?"
"The explanation will take a little time." The machine was implacably calm.
Stranger and stranger. "Well. If it"s really important, I guess I can hang around long enough to listen."
Harry shivered. Figuring he had nothing to lose, he added: "Then, right after you tell me what kind of help you need, I"ll tell you what you"re going to give me in return."
The berserker did not respond immediately. What reason did he have to think it would bother even to answer a smart-a.s.s demand from a helpless prisoner? Instead it sat down on the deck, cross-legged, as if it were mocking Harry"s enforced posture. The result was to give Harry an even better look at his dedicated enemy, now comfortably positioned just a few centimeters out of reach. He had the impression it had chosen a place near him, where what was left of the ceiling lighting still cast a good illumination, because it wanted to make sure that he could see it clearly.
Harry was close enough to the machine to see that its arms and torso bore dark stains, and it was easy to imagine they had come from a few splashes of fresh blood, acquired while it was casually finishing off some of Harry"s wounded teammates,en pa.s.sant . The blood reminded Harry irresistibly of the arena at the Templar base. And of other things. Over the years, too many years, he had seen a lot of blood in one place and another. He had seen too much.
The face, if you could call the front of this berserker"s head a face, was asymmetric, leaving Harry uncertain which of the little spots and lumps marking it might serve as eyes. Some of the other details of the s.e.xless metal body were very close to manlike, though in a good light no one with eyes would ever mistake it for a human. Most notable was its left hand, twice human size. Instead of being human in shape, it looked more like a hammer and tongs, designed for breaking-and-shredding operations, like maybe turning steel bars into sc.r.a.p.
Still, it bothered Harry-though he wasn"t sure just why it should-that, overall, except for the G.o.dawful face, his scheduled murderer looked more like a man than most berserkers did. h.e.l.l, he had seen people in heavy s.p.a.ce armor, some of them quite recently, who looked less human than this apparition.
It was somehow irritating that he should be spending the last minutes of his life asking silly questions.
What difference did it make, what his a.s.sa.s.sin looked like? And what had he expected it to look like, anyway? He supposed he had never formed any clear image in his imagination. Basically, of course, as was true of every berserker, the important part had to look like the compact computer that it was.
Beyond that there were no real limitations. The dedicated optelectronic brain could have a whole regiment of mechanical bodies at its disposal, of a.s.sorted shapes and sizes, ready to be put on and taken off, picked up and set down as the situation required.
"Ever do any kidnapping?" he asked it, on an impulse.
"That is a reference to the disappearance of your family."
"Yeah, it sure is."
"My last prelaunch briefing, from the ent.i.ty that you would call berserker high command, included data on the existence of two life-units closely related to you," the oddly familiar voice responded. "I am aware, through various communication intercepts, of their recent abduction. But that was not my doing, or that of berserker high command."
"Really."
"Really. I have never had contact with your related life-units, and I know nothing of their fate."
If Harry could have moved either of his arms, he would have done his best to punch the berserker in the face. "Why would I believe that?"
"I tell you the truth. You must choose what you will believe. What proof could I possibly offer that something has never happened?"
"All right." Harry tried to shrug. "Get on with your story, then, if that"s how you want to spend your time."
Despite his first emotional reaction, Harry found himself inclined to believe what the a.s.sa.s.sin had just told him. He doubted that any such machine, programmed to pursue one human to the exclusion of all other goals, would have any reason to burden itself with prisoners. The manlike thing sitting before Harry made a tentative little gesture with its left arm, as if practicing how to communicate-should a time ever come when it wanted to convey something to a human being besides paralyzing terror. Well, maybe that time was now. It aborted the first try, without achieving much, and tried again.
Raising the forefinger of its most nearly human hand, it made a motion incongruously reminding its prisoner of a professor he had once known. Then it said to Harry: "I will relate to you a chain of events. I a.s.sure you that what I tell you is no fiction, but a true story."
My designated killer has gone mad, Harry thought to himself. He had the feeling that whatever might pa.s.s for a mind inside the metal skull had to be wandering. Aloud he said: "All right, on with the show.
Maybe I can even manage to believe it."What now , he thought,berserker Just So Storiesand creation myths?
He added: "But if you expect me to pay close attention, I"ll need some help first. My left leg"s going numb, the way you"ve got it clamped down here."
Accommodatingly the thing leaned forward, in an efficient but awkward-looking move, and made several small adjustments to his metallic bonds. With a minor shock he realized that it had not only loosened them, it had actually set him free-big deal, hey? A renewed flow of blood came tingling in all of Harry"s limbs. He tried small motions, this way and that, straightening his legs, confirming the fact that he had been liberated. Wishing that Dorry would come back with some water, he sat back in a relaxed position, but postponed any effort toward getting up.
The story, as the distractingly familiar voice began to tell it for Harry"s benefit, had begun some indeterminate number of standard months ago, many light-years from the wanderworld 207GST.
"I will not give you exact Galactic coordinates," the berserker observed. "For the purpose of this story they are not important."
That made Harry recall the words of Abbot Darchan, telling him almost the same thing in reference to the methods used in capturing a machine. He said to the berserker: "That"s all right. Graciously I pardon the omission."
In turn, the berserker seemed to be graciously pardoning his badlife nonsense. The voice went on.
The chain of events that the a.s.sa.s.sin now started to relate had begun at what it said was one of the largest berserker bases in the Galaxy, a design and manufacturing center where new types of machines were regularly produced.