Berserker Omnibus - Berserker Man Part 3

"Good."

Let The People build their fire, then, and let the berserker be drawn by it. It would find the band as well protected as they would ever be.

From a pouch of some kind of tough skin, one of the old women produced a bundle of bark, which she unwrapped to reveal a smoldering center. With incantations and a judicious use of wood chips, she soon had the watchfire blazing. Its upper tongues reached high and bright against the fast-dimming sky.

The band filed into the cave, the slave-unit last to enter, right after Matt. Just inside the L-bend of the entrance, Derron sat his proxy, leaning against the wall, and relaxed his arms with a great sigh. He was ready for a rest. In spite of the servo a.s.sists, he had had a lot of exercise.

He had no sooner relaxed a notch than the night outside erupted without warning into battle. There was the crackle and slam of laser flame, the clang and squeal and crunch of armored bodies meeting. The people in the cave jumped as one person to their feet.

In the flickering reflections of laser light, Derron could see Matt with his bow ready, facing the entrance, while the other adults looked for rocks to throw. In the rear of the cave the boy Dart had scrambled up to a perch from which he could look out of the high small window. The laser light was bright on his awed face.

And then the lights went out. The flashing and crashing outside ended as abruptly as it had begun.

Silence and darkness stretched on in a deathlike numbness.

"Operations? Operations? What's going on outside? What happened?"

"Oh, my G.o.d, Odegard!" The voice was too shaken for him to identify. "Scratch two slave-units.

Odegard, that-that d.a.m.ned thing's reflexes are just too good-"

The watchfire came exploding suddenly into the cave, transformed by the kick of a steel-clawed foot into a hail of sparks and brands that bounced back from the curving wall of stone just opposite the narrow entrance and became a thousand scattered dying eyes on the cave floor. The berserker would be trying to flush its game, to see if there was a second exit through which the humans could try to run. It must know that the crippled slave-unit was inside the cave, but by now the berserker's cold computer-brain must have learned contempt for all that the android slaves of Time Operations could do against it. For, once it was satisfied that there was no way for its prey to escape, it tried to walk right in.

There came a heavy grating sound; the cave mouth had proved just a bit too narrow for the machine to enter.

"Odegard, we've got a dozen arrows ready to drop to your unit now. Shaped charges in the points, set to fire on contact."

"Arrows?I said grenades! I told you we've got only one bow here, and there's no room for-" In midsentence Derron realized that the high little window in the rear of the cave might make an excellent archery port. "Send us arrows, then. Send something, quick!"

"We're dropping the arrows now. Odegard, we have a relief operator standing by in another master-unit, so we can switch if you need relief."

"Never mind that. I'm used to working this broken-backed thing by now, and he isn't."

The berserker was raising a h.e.l.lish racket, sc.r.a.ping and hammering at the stubborn bulge of rock that was keeping it from its prey. When a signal in his helmet told Derron that the arrows had arrived, he lost no time in using the slave's hands to open the door in its metal bosom. With a bank of awed faces turned to watch in the gloom, the slave-unit reached into its own metal heart to pull out a dozen shafts, which it then held out to Matt.

From the manner of their appearance it was plain they were no ordinary arrows, and in the present situation there could be no doubt what their purpose must be. Matt delayed only a moment, holding the weapons with reverence, to make a sort of bow to the slave; and then he dashed to the rear of the cave and scrambled up to the window.

That window hole would have provided him with a fine safe spot to shoot from, had the enemy possessed no projective weapons. But since the enemy was laser-armed, it would be the slave-unit's job to draw fire on itself and keep the berserker as busy as possible.

Hoping devoutly that Matt was an excellent shot, Derron inched his crippled metal body up to the very corner of the L-bend. He could feel the berserker's blows jarring through the rock he leaned against; he thought that if he reached around the corner he could touch it. Derron waited, looking back into the cave; and when he saw Matt nock the first magic arrow to his bow, he went out around the corner with as quick a movement as he could manage on his hands.

And he nearly fell on his face, for the berserker was out of reach, having just backed away to take a fresh run at the cave entrance. This maneuver made it quicker with its laser than Derron was with his. The slave's armor glowed, but still held, while Derron scrambled forward, firing back. If the berserker saw Matt in his window it ignored him, thinking arrows meant nothing.

The first one struck the monster on the shoulder of one foreleg, the wooden shaft spinning viciously away while the head vanished in a momentary little fireball. The explosion left a fist-sized hole.

The machine lurched off balance even as its laser flicked toward Matt, and the beam did no more than set fire to the bush atop the little cliff. Derron was still scrambling toward the berserker as best he could, holding his own laser on it like a spotlight, gouging the beam into the shoulder wound. Matt popped up bravely and shot his second arrow as accurately as the first, hitting the berserker square in the side, so the punch of the shaped charge staggered it on its three legs. And then its laser was gone, for Derron had lurched close enough to swing a heavy metal fist and close up the projector-eye for good.

With that, the wrestling match was on again. For a moment Derron thought that this time he had a chance, for the strength of the slave's two arms more than equaled that of the berserker's one usable foreleg. But the enemy's reflexes were still better than human. In a matter of seconds Derron was once more barely hanging on, while the world spun around him. And then again he was thrown.

He grabbed at the legs that trampled him, trying to hang on somehow, to immobilize the berserker as a target. A stamping blow smashed his own laser. What was delaying the arrows?

The berserker was still too big, too strong, too quick, for the crippled slave to handle. Derron clung to one leg, but the other two functional limbs kept on stomping like pile drivers, tearing with their steel claws. There went one of the slave's useless feet, ripped clean off. The metal man was going to be pulled to pieces.Where were the arrows?

And then the arrows came. Derron had one glimpse of a hurtling human body above him as Matt leaped directly into the fight, brandishing a cl.u.s.ter in each hand. Yelling, seeming to fly like some storm G.o.d of legend, he stabbed his bolts against the enemy's back.

Only a hint of lightning showed outside the berserker's body. The thunder was all deep inside, an explosion that made both machines bounce. And, with that, the fight was over.

Derron dragged the wrecked and overheated slave-unit shuddering out from under the ma.s.s of glowing, twisting, spitting metal that had been the enemy. Then, exhausted, he rested the slave on its elbows. In the wavering glow of the gutted berserker machine, he saw Dart come running from the cave. Tears streaked the boy's face; in his hand was Matt's bow, the broken string dangling. And after Dart the rest of The People came running from the cave to gather around something that lay motionless on the ground.

Derron made the slave sit up. Matt lay dead where the enemy's last convulsion had thrown him. His belly was torn open, his hands charred, his face smashed out of shape-then the eyes opened in that ruined face. Matt's chest heaved for a shaky breath, and he shuddered and went on breathing.

The women wailed, and some of the men began a kind of slow song. Everyone made way as Derron crawled his battered proxy to Matt's side and lifted him as gently as he could. Matt was too far gone to wince at a few more minor burns from the touch of the slave's hot metal.

"Good work, Odegard." Colonel Borss's voice had regained strength. "Good work, you've wrapped the operation up. We'll drop you a medikit to use on that fellow; his lifeline could be important."

"He's in too bad shape for that, sir. You'll have to lift him with me."

"Would like to help, of course, but I'm afraid that's not in the regulations. . . ." The colonel's voice faded in hesitation.

"His lifeline is breaking here, Colonel, no matter what we do. He won it for us, and now his guts are hanging out."

"Um. All right, all right. Stand by while we readjust for his ma.s.s."

The People were standing in an awed ring around the slave-unit and its dying burden. The scene would probably be a.s.similated into one of the historical myths, thought Derron. Perhaps the story of the dying hero and the stone-man would be found some day among the earliest writings of Sirgol. Myths were tough bottles; they could hold many kinds of wine.

Up at the mouth of the cave the oldest woman was having trouble with her tinder as she tried to get the watchfire started again. A young girl who was helping grew impatient, and she grabbed up a dried branch and ran down to the glowing sh.e.l.l of the berserker. From that heat she kindled her brand; waving the flame to keep it bright, she moved back up the hill in a kind of dance.

And then Derron was sitting in a fading circle of light on the dark floor of Operations Stage Three. Two men were running toward him with a stretcher. He opened his metal arms to let the medics take Matt and then turned his head inside his helmet and found the master power switch with his teeth.

He let the end-of-mission checklist go hang. In a matter of seconds he had extricated himself from the master-unit and was pushing his way past the first people coming toward him with congratulations. In his sweated leotard he hurried downstairs from the catwalk and made his way through the throng of technicians, operators, medics, and miscellaneous celebrants who were already crowding the floor of the stage. He reached Matt just as the medics were raising the stretcher that held him. Wet cloths had been draped over the wounded man's protruding intestines, and an intravenous had already been started.

Matt's eyes were open, though of course they were stupid with shock. To Matt, Derron could be no more than another strange being among many; but Derron was one who walked beside him in human contact, gripping his forearm above his burned hand, until consciousness faded away.

As the stretcher moved toward the hospital, something like a procession gathered behind it. As if a public announcement had been broadcast ahead, the word was spreading that for the first time a man had been brought up from the deep past. When they brought Matt into the emergency room it was only natural that Lisa, like everyone else in the hospital who had the chance, should come hurrying to see him.

"He's lost," she murmured, looking down at the swollen face, the eyelids now and then flickering open.

"Oh, so lost and alone. I know the feeling." She turned anxiously to a doctor. "He'll live now, won't he?

He's going to be all right?"

The doctor smiled faintly. "If they're breathing when we get 'em this far, we usually save 'em."

Trustingly Lisa sighed in immediate deep relief. Her concern for the stranger was natural and kind.

"h.e.l.lo, Derron." She smiled at him briefly, before going to hover over the stretcher as closely as she could. Her voice and manner had been absent, as if she hardly noticed him at all.

PART TWO.

His arms upraised, his gray beard and black robes whipping in the wind, Nomis stood tall on a tabletop of black rock twenty feet square, a good hundred feet above the smashing surf. White seabirds coasted downwind toward him then wheeled away with sharp little cries, like those of tiny souls in pain. Around his perch on three sides there towered other splintered crags and fingers of this coastline of black basaltic rock, while before him spread the immense vibration of the sea.

Feet braced apart, he stood centered in an intricate chalk diagram drawn on the flat rock. Around him he had spread the paraphernalia of his craft-things dead and dried, things old and carven, things that men of common thought would have deemed better destroyed and forgotten. In his thin, penetrating voice, Nomis was singing into the wind: Gather, storm clouds, day and night Lightning chew and water drawn!

Waves come swallowing, green and bright, Chew and swallow and gulp it down- The craft in which my foe abides, The long-ship that my enemy rides!

There was much more to the song, and it was repeated many times. Nomis's thin arms quivered, tired from holding over his head the splinters of wrecked ships, while the birds cried at him and the wind blew his thin gray beard up into his eyes.

Today he was weary, unable to escape the feeling that his day's labor was in vain. Today he had been granted none of the tokens of success that all too rarely came to him-heated symbol-dreams in sleep or, when he was awake, dark momentary trances shot through with strange visions, startling stretchings of the mind.

Not often in his career had Nomis been convinced of his own power to call down evil on his enemies'

heads. Success for him in this work was a far more uncertain thing than he let others believe. Not that he doubted for a moment that the basic powers of the world were accessible through magic; it was only that success in this line seemed to call not only for great skill but for something like great good luck as well.

Twice before in his life Nomis had tried to raise a storm. Only once had he been successful, and the persistent suspicion remained that on that occasion the storm might have come anyway. At the height of the gale there had persisted a shade of doubt, a feeling that the ordering of such forces was beyond his powers or those of any man.

Now, doubtful as he was of present success, he persisted in the effort that had kept him almost sleepless on this secret rock for the past three days. Such was the fear and hatred he felt for the man he knew must now be crossing the sea toward him, coming with a new G.o.d and new advisers to a.s.sume the rule of this country called Queensland.

Nomis's grim eyes, turned far out to sea, marked there the pa.s.sage of a squall line, mockingly small and thin. Of the ship-killing tempest he worked to raise there was no sign at all.

The cliffs of Queensland were still a day's rowing out of sight, dead ahead. In the same direction, but closer, some mildly bad weather was brewing. Harl frowned across the sea's gray face at the line of squalls, while his hands rested with idle sureness on the long-ship's steering oar.

The thirty rowers, freemen and warriors all, could see the bad weather, simply by turning their heads, as easily as Harl could. And they were all experienced enough to reach the same conclusion: that, by slowing down the stroke slightly, they would probably miss the squalls' path and so make themselves a bit more comfortable. So now, by unspoken agreement, they were all easing up a trifle on the oars.

From ahead a cool light breeze sprang up, fluttering the pennons on the sailless masts and rippling the fringe of awning on the tent of royal purple that stood amidships.

Inside that tent, alone for the moment with his thoughts, was the young man that Harl called king and lord. Harl's frown faded as it crossed his mind that young Ay had probably withdrawn into the tent to make some plans for the fighting that was sure to come. The border tribes, who cared nothing for the mild new G.o.d or the failing old empire, were certain to make some test of the will and courage of Queensland's new ruler-not that there were grounds for doubting the firmness of either.

Harl smiled at his next thought, that his young lord in the tent might not be planning war at all, but a campaign to make sure of the Princess Alix. It was her hand in marriage that was to bring Ay his kingdom and his army. All princesses were described as beautiful, but rumor said that this one also had spirit. Now, if she was like some of the high-born girls that Harl had met, her conquest might be as difficult as that of a barbarian chieftain-and, of course, even more to a st.u.r.dy warrior's taste!

Harl's expression, which had become about as jovial as his facial scars would allow, faded once more to glumness. It had occurred to him that his king might have gone into the tent to practice reading. Ay had long been an admirer of books and had actually brought two of them with him on this voyage. Or it might be that he was praying to his gentle new slave-G.o.d, for, young and healthy though he was, Ay now and then took the business of worship seriously.

Even while half his mind busied itself with these reflections, Harl remained alert as always. Now a faint puzzling splashing in the sea nearby caused him to turn his head to the port side-and in a moment all the thoughts in his head were frozen, together with his warrior's blood.

Rearing right beside the ship, its bulk lifting to obscure the horizon and the distant afternoon clouds, came a head out of nightmare, a dragon face from some evil legend. The dully gleaming neck that bore the head was of such size that a man might just be able to encircle it with both arms. Sea demons alone might know what the body in the water below was like! The eyes were clouded suns the size of silver platters, while the scales of head and neck were gray and heavy like thick wet iron. The mouth was a coffin, lid opened just a crack, all fenced inside with daggers.

Long as a cable, the thick neck came reeling inboard, scales rasping wood from the gunwale. The men's first cries were sounds such as warriors should not make, but in the next instant they were all grabbing bravely enough for their weapons. Big Torla, strongest of the crew, for once was also quickest, bracing a leg on his rower's bench and hacking with his sword at that tremendous swaying neck.

The blows clanged uselessly on dully gleaming scales; the dragon might not even have been aware of them. Its head swayed to a stop facing the doorway of the purple tent; from the slit of its terrible mouth there shrieked a challenge whose like Harl had not heard in a lifetime of war.

What with all the clamor of voices and blows, Ay had needed no such summons to make ready. Before the dragon-bellow had ceased, the tent flaps were ripped open from inside and the young king stepped forth armed with shield and helm, sword ready in his hand.

Harl felt a tremendous pride to see that the young man did not flinch a hand's breadth from the sight that met him. And, with the pride, Harl's own right arm came back to life, drawing from his belt his short-handled, iron-bladed ax, and gripping it for a throw.

The ax clanged harmlessly off the clouded silver of one eye, perhaps not even felt by the beast. The dragon's enormous head, coffin-mouth suddenly gaping wide, lunged forward for the king.

Ay met it bravely. But the full thrust of his long sword, aimed straight into the darkness of the throat, counted for no more than a jab from a woman's pin. The doorlike jaw slammed shut, crushing Ay instantly. For a moment, as the monstrous head swept away on its long neck, there was seen the horrible display of broken limbs dangling outside the teeth. And then, with one more faint splash beside the ship, the evil miracle was gone. The sunlit sea rolled on unchanged, its secrets all below.

Through the remaining hours of daylight, there was scarcely a word spoken aboard the long-ship. She prowled in watery circles, on and on, never moving far from the unmarked spot where her lord had been taken. She prowled in full battle-readiness, but there was not a thing for her to fight. The edge of the squall line came; the men took mechanical measures to meet it. And the squall departed again, without the men ever having been really aware of its pa.s.sage.

By the end of the day, the sea was calm again. Squinting into the setting sun, Harl rasped out a one-word order: "Rest."

Long ago he had retrieved his blunted ax and replaced it in his belt. Now the evidence to be seen on deck was only this: a few bits of wood, rasped from a raw scar on the gunwale by scales hard as metal.

A few small spots of blood. And Ay's winged helmet, fallen from his head.

Derron Odegard, recently decorated and promoted three grades to major, was sitting in as a junior aide on an emergency staff meeting called by the new Time Operations commander. At the moment, Derron was listening with both professional and friendly interest as his old cla.s.smate, Chan Amling, now a major in Historical Research, delivered an information briefing.

" . . . As we all know by now, the berserkers have chosen to focus this latest attack upon one individual.

Their target, King Ay of Queensland, is naturally a man whose removal from history would have disastrous consequences for us."

Amling, quick-witted and fluent, smiled benignly over the heads of his audience. "Until quite recently most historians even doubted this man's reality. But since we have begun some direct observation of the past, his historicity and importance have both been fully confirmed."

Amling turned to an electric map, which he attacked with a teacher's gestures. "We see here the middle stages in the shrinkage and disorganization of the great Continental Empire, leading to its ultimate collapse. Now note Queensland here. It's very largely due to King Ay's activity and influence that Queensland can remain in such a comparatively stable state, preserving a segment of the Empire culture for our planet's later civilizations to base themselves on."

The new Time Operations commander-his predecessor was now reported to be on a scouting expedition to the moon, or at least to Sirgol's surface, with Colonel Borss and others-raised a hand, student-like. "Major, I admit I'm not too clear on this. Ay was a bit of a barbarian himself, wasn't he?"

"Well, he certainly began as such, sir. But-oversimplifying somewhat-we can say that, when he found himself with a land of his own to defend, he settled down and defended it very well. Gave up his sea-roving ways. He had been one of the raiders and barbarians long enough to know all the tricks of that game. And he played it so well from the other side of the board that they usually preferred to attack someone else."

No one else had a question for Amling at the moment and he sat down. The next officer to appear at the head of the table was a major of Probability a.n.a.lysis, whose manner was no more rea.s.suring than his information.

"Gentlemen," he began in a nervous voice. "We don't know how Ay was killed, but we do know where." The major displayed a videotape made from a sentry screen. "His lifeline is newly brokenhere, on his first voyage to Queensland. As you can see, all the other lifelines aboard ship remain unbroken.

Probably the enemy expects historical damage to be intensified if Ay's own crew are thought to have done away with him. It seems to us in Probability that such an expectation is all too likely to be correct."

Amling looked as if he wanted to break in and argue; or, more likely, to make a wager on the subject.

They had put Amling in the wrong section, Derron thought. Probability would have been the one for him.

The Probability major had paused for a sip of water. "Frankly, the situation looks extremely grave. In nineteen or twenty days' present-time, the historical shock wave of Ay's a.s.sa.s.sination should reach us.

That's all the time we have. I'm told that the chances of our finding the enemy keyhole within nineteen days are not good."

The man's edgy gloom was contagious, and the faces around the table were tightening in spite of themselves. Only the new Time Ops commander managed to remain relatively relaxed. "I'm afraid you're right about the difficulty in finding this keyhole, Major. Of course, every effort is being made in that direction. Trouble is, the enemy's getting smart about hiding his tracks. This time he attacked with only one machine instead of six, which makes our job difficult to start with. And, immediately after doing its job of a.s.sa.s.sination, that one machine seems to have gone into hiding. It hasn't left Ay's time, it'll still be on the scene to mess up whatever we do to set things right, but meanwhile it's being careful not to cause any changes that we might use to track it." Time Ops leaned forward, becoming less relaxed. "Now, who's got some ideas regarding countermeasures?"

The first suggestions involved trying to build probability in Ay's later lifeline, so that he would somehow have survived the a.s.sa.s.sination after all. This idea soon started an argument on a highly technical level. In this the scientific people present naturally dominated, but they were far from agreeing among themselves on what could and should be done. When they began to exchange personal viewpoints along with formulae, Time Ops called quickly for half an hour's recess.

Finding that much time unexpectedly on his hands, Derron stepped out and called the nurses' quarters at the nearby hospital complex. Lisa was living there now, while she started to train for some kind of nursing job. He was pleased to be able to reach her and to hear that she too had some time to spare. Within a few minutes they were walking together, in the park where they had met for the first time.