Berserker - Berserker Base Part 8

"Not since your harpy reentered the atmosphere. At that time an object entered the atmosphere on a slow-descent path that terminated in-"

"What kind of object?"

"A ship somewhat like yours, although it converts to a ground vehicle. It has a ma.s.s of-"

"Where is it now?"

"I'll show you," the computer said, and flashed a local area diagram on its screen with a blip right in the center of the 'Cotabote's main smash field.

"What's it doing now?"

"There are no signs of activity from the ship, but I am picking up atmospheric pollution in the area, with a chemical content of..." It paused while it did a chemical reading. Pat didn't wait to hear it.

"Shut the door!" he shouted, grabbing up his energy rifle, and tore up out of the wormhole.

He could see the smoke from the smash field even before be got to the office clearing. You hope it's smoke, he thought, and not some kind of poison.

He tore up the steps and opened the door to the office to get a mine mask, A blast of smoke hit him full in the face. His first thought was that the office was on fire. His second was that it wasn't poison gas since he was still alive after a lungful, although if it got much thicker he wouldn't be able to breathe. He could hardly see.

He clamped his mine mask on and adjusted the eyeshields to screen out the smoke. The office wasn't on fire. The smoke was coming in the open window from the smash field. He could see the flames from here. The fire was moving in the direction of the Cotabote village. A straggling line of Cotabote were heading past the office carrying sacks over their shoulders.

He grabbed the mine mask and ran back down the steps and across to them. "Go to the wormhole by the river," he said. "I'll meet you there. Where's Gemma?"

They went past him as if he wasn't there, their shirttails pulled up over their noses. The last two in the group were Rutchirrah and Scamballah, with their three daughters clinging to them and bawling.

"Where's Gemma?" Pat said.

"I told you he wasn't down in the mines at all," Sc.u.mbag said triumphantly. "It was all a trick so he could set fire to our fields."

"We will file a protest!" Rutchirrah said.

Pat took hold of both his spongy arms and shook him. "You tell me where she is or I'll throttle you.

Where is Gemma?"

"Attempted murder!" Retch squawled. "Adamant will hear of this!"

Pat couldn't waste any more time on them. He ran off toward the village through periodic lines of Cotabote, all of them coughing and crying from an acrid smell like burning chicken feathers, but none of them willing to put down their sacks. There was no way he could get to the village itself. Its houses were completely on fire, their nematej-thatched roofs crackling and falling in on the clay huts. The coal fence around the village was burning, too, a red-hot line roiling with yellow smoke.

"Gemma!" he shouted, "Gemma!"

The huge smash field was burning, too, but without so much smoke, and he could see a squat black shape far out in the center of it, crouched there like a spider, with smaller shapes in front of it that he hoped to G.o.d weren't bodies. It was definitely a berserker lander. He hoped the shapes in front of it weren't berserker androids either. At least they weren't moving.

Just then he saw another shape moving toward the lander, over halfway to it, picking its way slowly through one of the fermentation ditches.

"Gemma!" Pat shouted. The figure turned and then started slowly forward again. He ran toward her, vaulting over the clumps of burning smash to get to the ditch she was in. There was still water in the bottom of the ditch, but it was hot even through his boots. He splashed up to where Gemma was standing, coughing, her wet shirttail up overset mouth.

"What in the h.e.l.l are you doing out here?" he said, pulling the shirt away and shoving the mask down over her face. "That's a berserker lander."

Gemma had been farther out than he thought. The lander wasn't more than fifty meters away. "Get down," he said, pulling her down beside him in the foul-smelling ditch.

"I know," she tried to say, still coughing. "The Cotabote..."

"Did they start this fire? Has the lander been firing lasers at them?"

"No," she said. She wasn't coughing, but her voice still sounded hoa.r.s.e, "The lander hasn't done anything. I started the fire."

"You? Why in the h.e.l.l did you do that? Did you think the lander would start coughing or what?"

"I did the only thing I could think to do. You weren't around to ask!" She stood up. "We've got to go out there and get..."

'There was a flash of red light and a cracking sound, and the shapes in front of the lander burst into flame.

"I thought you said it wasn't doing anything," Pat said. "That's a laser! I don't care what you wanted to go get. We're, going!" He grabbed her hand. Gemma didn't resist. They ran, crouching along the ditch to the end of the field, and went down behind the dike bordering it. The lander continued firing. Pat unslung his rifle and fired several more blasts that seemed to have no effect whatsoever. The lander didn't return his fire. Instead it made a grinding noise and began rolling toward them.

Pat glanced around. There weren't any Cotabote in sight, which was good. Gemma would probably have insisted on explaining things to them. The wind had veered and the fire was moving off to the other side of the village, which meant the office and the harpy would be safe provided the lander didn't blast them. "Let's go," Pat said, fired a couple more blasts, and ran, using the ridge for cover, along the village side of the ridge to a large nematej thicket that wasn't on fire yet.

"What are you doing?" Gemma said. "You're going the wrong way."

"We've got to lead it away from the harpy. We'll cut through the thicket and then back along the river to the wormhole. It's not coming very fast. We can outrun it."

The lander had gotten stuck in one of the ditches. Pat fired several more blasts to make sure it hadn't forgotten where they were and then crashed into the thicket. It was a stupid move. Gemma got hung up on an overhanging branch and Pat had to tear a long section of her blouse to get her loose. They both got thoroughly scratched in the process.

The river was not much better. Smoke from the fire had gathered along the riverbank so that even their eyeshields were ineffectual. And the lander was steadily gaining on them. It apparently had rolled right through the thicket. They splashed out of the river and into the wormhole clearing.

"Open the door," Pat shouted when they were still a hundred meters away. A dozen Cotabote were cl.u.s.tered around the door. When it clanged open, they backed away from it, dropping their sacksful of belongings.

"Get inside!" Pat yelled, and turned around. He went down on one knee to try to get one of the lander's treads as it came out of the woods.

Gemma was trying to herd the Cotabote through the door and down the dark wormtrail, but they insisted on taking their bundles, even though the lander was practically on top of them.

"Are they all in?" Pat shouted to Gemma. The lander rolled into the clearing, "Yes! No! Scamballah, get in here. Run, Pat!" she yelled. He leaped for the door, shouting, "Get down, Gemma!" and then, belatedly, "Shut the door!"

He flattened himself against the wall, dragging Gemma with him. The door clanged down, and he stood there, still holding Gemma against him, listening. He could hear faint pings, which meant the lander was still firing its laser. He pulled his mask off with his free hand. The Cotabote were watching him, looking belligerent.

"I think the door will hold," Pat said to Gemma, "but it can't hurt to put a few more fire doors between it and us. You can take your mask off now."

Gemma pulled her mask off over her head. In the dim light she looked frightened and a little shocky.

There were gray streaks of ash on her dark cheeks.

'"It's okay," he said, turning her to face him. "It's right where we want it. It didn't find the harpy, and it can't get through the door. Adamant's seen to that, And if you'll give me a few minutes I'll come up with a plan to blast it right off Botea."

She looked paler and even more frightened when he said that. The lander must have really spooked her.

He pulled her close and patted her clumsily on the back, "It's okay, sweetheart."

"I knew it," Sc.u.mbag said. "Viling her right in front of us. Which of us will be his next victim?"

Gemma backed out of Pat's arms. "Scamballah," she said, picking up the lantern and the smash sack full of self-contained, "Pat wants us to go deeper in the mine. You will do what he says or I will send you back outside." He had never seen a direct threat work on the Cotabote before, but this one did.

Sc.u.mbag shuffled back with the others and cleared a path for Pat.

Pat switched on the light of his mine mask and handed it to Gemma by the straps. "Let's go."

"I will file a protest about this," Scamballah said.

"You do that," Gemma said, and started down the worm-trail.

By the second fire door, Pat had decided he'd rather face the berserker than put up with the Cotabote any longer. Sc.u.mbag's youngest daughter had tripped over a loose piece of coal and set up a wail that echoed off the walls, and Retch and Sc.u.mbag had threatened him with at least thirteen protests.

He closed the door and said, "This is far enough. Give me some room so I can set up the computer." He set it up on a ventilator-ridge and asked for a map of their location. "There's a worm intersection a little farther on. Take the Cotabote down to it, Gemma, and then come back. I'm going to need you."

"All right," Gemma said, and herded them off down the pa.s.sageway. While she was gone he did a surface survey and then fed in all the independents. The lander was still parked right outside the mine, though it had stopped firing its laser. Pat hoped that didn't mean it was getting set to try something new.

The fire had burned itself out. The harpy was still in one piece and so was the office. So was the berserker, but it was on the other side of Botea for another three hours, and it hadn't sent anything else down.

"What can you tell me about the lander?" he asked the computer.

"It matches the description of a berserker lander on Polara," the computer said instantly. "Planet defenses destroyed three androids and did significant damage to the berserker, but no damage to the lander, which is made of a t.i.tanium alloy." The computer put up a tech-diagram of the lander. If was definitely the thing outside the door. "The lander doesn't have an electro-nuclear brain of its own like the androids. It gets its commands from the orbiting berserker.''

"The berserker probably holed up out there to make itself some new androids, and we caught it by surprise," Pat said.

"The Polara data shows the lander can be destroyed with a direct-overhead drop of a 2-T exploder on the mid-section shown." It flashed a blip in the middle of the diagram, right over the transmitter it probably got its instructions from.

"If they knew how to destroy it, why didn't they?" Pat said, and then wished he hadn't. He was afraid he knew the answer. All the settlement-colony's big ships up fighting the berserker while the people on the ground struggled to stop three androids, and the lander did what? A virus? A gas? "Switch us to internal oxygen," Pat said. "Ventilate from..." From where? The berserker was on the other side of the planet, but it could be starting its attack over there, on the nematej and wild smash. "Ventilate from Surface Contact Point Ten, but check to make sure the air's all right before you do it, and keep monitoring it.

Show me that diagram again."

"I pat the Cotabote in the intersection," Gemma said, hurrying back a bit breathlessly.

"Good," Pat said. "I found out why that lander's so slow-witted. It's just supposed to be transport for berserker androids, only there aren't any. it gets its orders from the berserker, and its orders were probably to come down and take a look around, maybe take a couple of natives back home to study. I don't think it was prepared to do battle."

"Then why did it start firing at us?"

"I don't know, Gemma, maybe it considered setting fire to it a hostile act. Maybe it took one look at the Cotabote and decided on its own to wipe them all out. Whichever it is, we're going back outside." He pointed to the screen. "We're going down past the intersection to this trail and then up to the surface this way. That'll bring us up a kilometer and a half from the harpy."

"Harpy?" Gemma said faintly.

"Yeah," he said. He unhooked the transmitter from the voice-terminal and put it in his pocket. "We're going to take the harpy up and blow that lander's brains out before it gets any more orders from upstairs."

"No, we're not," Gemma said, sounding angry.

Pat turned around. "I suppose you have a better idea."

"No," she said. She didn't look angry. She looked scared to death. "I don't have any ideas at all."

"Well, then, suppose we try mine. Or would you rather stay here and file protests for the Cotabote?"

"We can't go up in the harpy, Pat," she said. "The Cotabote took the command core. They gave it to the lander."

Pat stood up. "That's what you were trying to get back."

"Yes," she said, backing away from him a little as if she thought he was going to hit her. "I started the fire, but it didn't do any good. They took it out to the lander anyway."

"And the lander blew it up. Why didn't you tell me? Scratch that. You did the best you could. I should never have left the command core in the harpy. It's going to kill us. You know that, don't you?"

She had backed right into the wall of coal. "Yes, I know."

Pat hunched down in front of the computer and stared at it. "It... I don't know. Maybe if we go as deep as we can, close all the fire doors behind us, we can hold out till we get a message through to Candlestone."

She came away from the wall and looked at the terminal screen. "'What about the orbital atomic?"

"Are you kidding? It'd four times the firepower of the atomic to even make a dent in a berserker, even if we knew where to hit it."

"I meant the lander," she said. She leaned over his shoulder, looking at the diagram of the lander.

"An atomic would blow us up, too. If it could be fired at Botea. Which it can't, Gemma, there's nothing we can do without the harpy."

She was still looking at the screen, "What about the worms?" she said.

"The worms?"

"Yeah. This diagram shows a hit from above, but the transmission core goes all the way through the middle of the lander. Why couldn't it come from underneath? We could put a 2-T exploder on a worm and have it burrow up under the lander. Couldn't we?"

He stood up. "Where's the nearest worm?" he asked the computer.

The computer flashed a map of the mine with a double blip showing the nearest worm. It was in the trail beneath them, only a few hundred meters from the intersection. "Hold it there," Pat said. "Does it have exploders?"

"Yes," the computer said, "Nineteen of them."

"Nineteen," Pat said. "Gemma, you're terrific."

"I've a.s.similated the Polara data and the pictures of berserker damage, and I have a possible plan of attack," the computer said. "A ship with a directional blinder and c-plus cannon can get through the berserker's protective forcefield to the brain."

"Yeah, well, we don't have a blinder. Or a cannon. Thanks anyway," He handed Gemma the two mine masks and took down a hydrogen fusion lantern from the trail wall. "Come on, Gemma." She followed him, but over the transmitter she asked the computer to explain the entire plan step by step and then asked for it again.

The computer walked them through the rough wormtrails to the point where the worm was supposed to be. For a while it had looked like the Cotabote were coming with them, until Gemma said coldly, "Stay in the side tunnel or I will have Pat send the worm to eat you." They were so surprised they had not even threatened to file a protest. Instead, Retch had asked meekly if they could have the lantern. Gemma had given them one of the mine masks.

Pat hadn't been convinced they wouldn't change their minds and come after them to see that Gemma didn't get viled. He shut the two fire doors they pa.s.sed on the way.

"Are you sure we're in the right place?" he asked now. He couldn't see any sign of the intersecting wormtrail that was supposed to be here. "I don't see any trail," he said, and practically fell into it. It went straight down, a rough-hewn hole right in the middle of the trail. When he shone the lantern into it, he could see the bottom, but no worm.