Berserker - Rogue Berserker Part 11

"No. Out of the question. It would be utterly useless for my purposes."

Not only was Harry by nature disinclined to salesmanship, but he realized it would be difficult to do any recruiting without letting the subject know what kind of operation he would be consulting for. Harry decided that if a reasonable chance came up during the drive to 207GST, he would put in a good word for Cheng as an employer. If not, he would leave the salesmanship to those back on the base who were psychologically better equipped to handle that kind of thing.

Gianopolous was showing signs of optimism for a change. He seemed glad, perhaps even a touch eager, to give Harry a tour of his special ship. Emil Darchan was a skilled pilot in his own right. And Harry was interested in finding out why the abbot, after making a series of inspections and flight tests, all presumably aided by a crew of Templar experts, had decided not to grab the secret weapon for his own organization.

Maybe, Harry thought, despite Emil's protests of secrecy, he should have tried to pump his old friend for more information.

But at the moment he had to deal with the inventor. Harry never cared for trying to find things out by dropping subtle hints. "Why didn't the Templars want this ship?" he asked bluntly.

Professor Gianopolous was unperturbed. "Oh, I wouldn't say they didn't want it."

"Well, they didn't take it."

Gianopolous was silent.

Harry found it irritating to be ignored. "Did they ever make you an offer? Or maybe they thought you were asking too much?"

Now the inventor turned on him with a haughty look. "Harry, look-are you empowered by your employer to conclude a deal, including the financial terms?"

"No, not at all. I'm just a test pilot."

Gianopolous smiled his superior smile. "Then, with all due respect, I prefer to reserve my discussion of money matters until I can talk to the people who make decisions.

"As for the Templars, let's just say there were were certain difficulties, or the Templar bureaucrats believed there were. In the end, we could not agree on terms. Who can fathom the ways of a bureaucracy?"

Harry let it go at that. He was thankful that negotiation was not his job. The man seemed disinclined to talk about anything except how great his ship was, and how great he was to have invented it. How much of all the spouting had any relation to the truth would not be easy to determine.

Gianopolous was proud of his creation-as well he might be, Harry thought. "What you see is actually the easy part of the transformation-it's in the communication codes, the identification of friend or foe, where I have surpa.s.sed all previous human efforts."

Harry grunted. If someone could really fake a Type-B berserker as effectively as this-then he didn't see why it should be impossible for someone to imitate a Type A as well. Maybe, with a somewhat greater effort and investment, to convincingly fake an entire berserker attack.

"Anything wrong, Silver?"

"I'm not sure . . ." Then Harry asked suddenly: "This ship won't imitate a Type A, will it?"

Gianopolous drew himself up, as if Harry had asked whether all this n.o.ble hardware could make popcorn. The inventor sounded vaguely injured. "As a matter of fact it can-I was planning to demonstrate that later."

"Sorry if I forced your hand," Harry muttered, staring at the bulkhead in front of him.

"What is it, Silver?"

"Nothing. Never mind. Just let me think for a minute." Now looming foremost in his thoughts was a small pile of sc.r.a.p parts, fragments retrieved near the place where Becky and Ethan had been grabbed. Even if this ship could somehow have been fitted with real weapons, used to imitate a real berserker for the purpose of his family's kidnapping, whoever worked the scheme must also have been able, somehow, to commandeer a squad of genuine berserker boarding machines, or impeccable imitations, to do the actual kidnapping.

It was maddening. Here and there, now and then, a couple of pieces of the puzzle looked like they might fit together. But still none of it really made sense.

Harry swept his gaze around the modest interior s.p.a.ce of the control room. If a squad of such near-anthropomorphic killers had ever been aboard this vessel they were certainly gone now. Well, he was going to be conducting a thorough inspection of the ship, as a purchaser's test pilot had every right to do. He wasn't going to find a berserker, but there might be . . . something.

He had the sensation of edging close to some kind of revelation. It stirred unsettling hopes, even while the nature of what that epiphany might be remained obscure.

He pressed Gianopolous: "And this is your only model? I mean, you don't have another working prototype anywhere? Like a berserker boarding machine, for instance?"

The inventor seemed remotely hurt by the suggestion. "No, sir, I do not. If you had any conception of the amount of time, effort, and expense that have gone into the creation of this ship, you would not ask."

"And no one else is building anything like this-doing this kind of thing."

"That no one else is imitating berserkers successfully seems a safe bet, my friend. No one else in this sector of the Galaxy, certainly, or in either of those adjoining." Gianopolous paused. "Your patron will not be able to buy this more cheaply from anyone else. Indeed, I think he will not get even a poor imitation elsewhere at any price."

Harry grunted. Saving his patron money had been about the furthest idea from his thoughts.

Gianopolous seemed to enjoy the idea of getting acquainted with Harry, who in his own offbeat way was also something of a minor celebrity, and he seemed to want to adopt Harry as an ally. The inventor was also glad to have a more or less sympathetic ear into which he could pour his disappointment and outrage over the cool reception that all the major organizations had so far given him and his ideas. Harry had finally revealed the ident.i.ty of their sponsor, though not the specific nature of the planned project, and the revelation had boosted his pa.s.senger's self-esteem to a new level. A deal with Winston Cheng, when it could be publicly announced, would serve as powerful vindication for the scorned inventor.

"Hah. I have been a.s.sured so often that what I have already done is quite impossible, that anyone else would have been discouraged."

Everyone who knew Harry knew that he, too, tended to fit the model of the eccentric outsider. And such was his reputation.

Perhaps they had been traveling for an hour or so when Harry, nagged by a sense of duty unperformed, finally came out with his sales pitch-if his half-hearted effort could be called that. He had already revealed his sponsor's name-the coordinator had a.s.sumed he would have to do that, once matters had progressed this far.

"I can tell you this much. It's likely that Winston Cheng is going to try to talk you into taking a job with him. As some kind of a consultant."

"Ah." Though Gianopolous tried to conceal it, he gave the impression of being pleased at being invited to play in such a big league. Or maybe it was just the vision of vast amounts of money about to come his way. He asked: "You've heard this from the great man himself?"

"That's right. Matter of fact I've talked to him several times in the last few days." That certainly made an impression, though Gianopolous was struggling not to show it. Harry didn't bother to explain that talking to the great man was no marvelous sign of favor. Cheng might have some reputation as a recluse, but in this emergency he talked freely to everyone who might be of help. Nodding, he a.s.sured the professor: "Your name came up more than once."

The inventor announced, as if he were gracefully granting some concession, that he was glad to have Harry traveling with him aboard his ship, that he felt confident they could reach an agreement on the final details regarding sale of his ship, and that he might be willing to accept the rather mysterious job offer from Harry's employer.

Harry was a superb pilot, and perhaps even Gianopolous was content to have Harry drive his special ship rather than preferring to settle the pilot's helmet on his own head.

"You know, Silver, I think the maneuverability is actually improved with you at the controls."

Gianopolous sounded faintly surprised. But for someone in whose importance he was gradually beginning to believe, like Harry, he was willing to condescend to be gracious.

Harry made a sound indicating insincere surprise. "People tell me I sometimes have that effect. Well, it's not hard to drive. It's a good ship."

The inventor offered what he probably intended to be a winning smile, but his face wasn't quite designed for that. "The truth is, though I do well enough at the controls when I put my mind to it, I don't really enjoy the job. Often I prefer to just turn on the autopilot, tell my ship where I want to go, and sit back to take a nap or think about something else."

Harry mumbled something. He often preferred to use that method himself. It would almost always get you where you wanted to go, and usually without too much delay. But for the sake of speed and efficiency at all times, and to improve the chance of survival in a variety of unusual conditions, s.p.a.ce combat being the cla.s.sic example, it was better to have a skilled human brain in the control loop as well.

Gianopolous didn't want to let it drop. "The truth is, Silver, I'm subject at times to a touch of s.p.a.ce sickness. Especially when the ports are cleared in flights.p.a.ce-you won't mind if we keep them closed?"

Harry looked up. "There are one or two tests that will require a brief clearing. I'll let you know, and you can clear out of the control room."

"Thank you."

ELEVEN.

Still Harry had never heard the inventor refer to Cheng's prospective purchase by any name other than "my ship" or "my invention." Harry found this vaguely disturbing, and in his own mind had christened the vessel with his own private choice,Secret Weapon . Not imaginative, but practical. He had yet to try the name on anyone else.

Crew quarters on theWeapon were fairly small, even for a small ship, but still the cabin s.p.a.ce was more than adequate for two people. Any Templars or other visitors who might have been hinting that they could use a ride somewhere had been blandly ignored, and Harry was misleading about the direction he was going next.

Gianopolous expressed his relief that there were going to be no additional pa.s.sengers. He said he didn't want any more Templars poking their noses aboard, trying to copy this ship's secrets without paying for them.

"You think they want to do that?" Harry asked.

"A lot of people would." For a moment the inventor looked gloomy. "Too many people have seen it already."

Harry paused in his inspection of an empty locker. "I thought you said only a couple of Templars had been aboard-was there anybody else?"

"No-oh no. In my work I use robot a.s.sistants exclusively. The memories of all but Perdix were wiped clean afterward."

Harry glanced across the cabin at Perdix, who was waiting with a robot's usual perfect imperturbability, and had no comment.

Gianopolous was going on about the Templars and their inadequacies. At the Templar base only the abbot and two of his advisers, one technical and one financial, had ever come on board. And only Abbot Darchan himself, and one other Templar pilot, had been at the controls. "No one else has ever tested it."

It seemed a reluctant admission.

Harry tried to make his questions casual. "Were Darchan and his people a long time about their testing?

It seems to have taken them a while to make up their minds."

"They ran some tests in their proving ground, to begin with. Then Darchan actually did one solo flight of five days."

"That seems a long time."

"He had some kind of urgent meeting to attend, halfway across the sector-I got the impression he needed to report in person to the Superior General-and making the journey in my ship allowed him to accomplish two tasks at the same time."

"If he had the ship for as long as five days I a.s.sume that you went with him."

The inventor hesitated briefly. "Actually I didn't. He went alone."

"Oh?"

Gianopolous seemed vaguely embarra.s.sed. "He was rather eager about it, I thought. Seemed to welcome the chance to get off by himself for a while. And the truth is that I have a certain difficulty with some of the maneuvers involved in what they consider necessary testing."

"By difficulty you mean like the s.p.a.ce sickness you mentioned." Flights.p.a.ce could do things to susceptible people even with all the viewports turned opaque.

The other bristled slightly. "There can be more than simple nausea involved-as you know."

"Oh, I know."

Gianopolous was going on, as if he had suddenly thought of an explanation that sounded better than mere weakness on his part: "Also I'd been granted the freedom of the Templar library, their magnificent collections, and opportunities like that don't come along too often. So I preferred to make use of my time in a different way."

"I see. And could you pin that five-day period down exactly? I have a reason for asking."

Gianopolous could, and did. The continual sickness in the pit of Harry's stomach, that had been starting to go away, came back. Right in the middle of that short stretch of time was centered the terrible hour in which Harry's life had been destroyed. On that day theSecret Weapon , that could imitate a Type B well enough to fool an expert witness, had not after all been docked on a Templar base, where hundreds of people would have known if it had moved. Instead it had been off in deep s.p.a.ce somewhere, maybe as far as two days gone, the G.o.ds of s.p.a.ce knew exactly where, with Abbot Darchan the only human being on board.

Emil Darchan, sworn enemy of berserkers and their dedicated hunter. Harry's old friend, with no possible reason in the world to want to do him any harm.

And at the same time, Del Satranji had also been alone somewhere in s.p.a.ce. No telling, really, exactly where, but out of sight of everyone-and, according to the logs, alone in a very different ship.

"Anything wrong, Harry?"

"Only everything . . . no, there's nothing the matter with your ship here. It looks fine." He thumped his palm on a control console.

Coincidence again? Or something going on behind the scenes.

Again Harry thought, or tried to think. Then he shook his head. He asked: "You never even tried to sell your invention to the s.p.a.ce Force? They would seem to be your most likely customers."

"I did have some preliminary discussions with one of their generals." The inventor mentioned a woman's name that Harry vaguely recognized, without knowing anything particularly good or bad about her. "Or I should say I tried to. That was standard months ago, almost a year. The s.p.a.ce Force bureaucracy is beyond belief, far surpa.s.sing even the Templars'."

Looking back with the benefit of a fair amount of experience with both organizations, Harry was inclined to agree. Of course a lot depended on how and where and by whom the far-flung Force was approached; but he wasn't going to debate the point.

He had to ask once more: "But only the Templars have ever done any actual testing?"

"Yes, and on the dates that I've just told you." That answer was a trifle sharp.

With Harry nodding in acknowledgment, Gianopolous went on railing against the blindness and general fatuity of large organizations. He spoke with some pride of how he had built his vessel, remodeling a fairly standard hull and engines into the precise shape he wanted, with no human helpers on the scene at all. He had tried hard for secrecy, and Harry was thinking that perhaps he had succeeded all too well.

Once Harry had fitted on the pilot's helmet and began to get himself attuned to the subtle idiosyncrasies of its optelectronic circuits, and was thinking purely as a pilot, he soon revised upward his first estimate of the ship. He could sense the presence of extra capabilities, most of them probably having to do with refinements of disguise, but it was not time yet to begin to check out such peripherals. It was essential to make sure of all the basics first. The extras, including the maneuvers in flights.p.a.ce that Gianopolous was so anxious to avoid, could wait for a more formal test flight-if the upcoming confrontation with metallic death allowed time for such things.

Ordinarily Harry would have wanted any piece of hardware to undergo very thorough testing before he took it into combat-but this mission was indeed a special case. If this ship served well enough to get an a.s.sault force to the enemy base, then doubtless that was all they'd need from it.

Harry spent a lot of the trip back to 207GST in the pilot's chair, often sitting with his eyes closed, hands clasped, fingers interlaced, over his flat abdomen. There was nothing particularly exotic about the mechanics of flying this ship, or its internal communications between computer pilot and human brain.

Nothing to suggest the image of a killing machine. It was hard to remember that from the outside, the perception of human or robotic observers was very different.

. . . stretched out in one of the small crew cabins, he had a difficult dream of Becky, in which she was angrily trying to tell him something. But there was so much background noise, coming from some mysterious machine, that he could never manage to hear what she was saying . . .

Up and out of the pilot's combat couch again. Every compartment that Harry entered in Gianopolous's ship, he kept looking for some mark, some oddity, that could suggest, or lightly hinted, that this craft might somehow have been connected with one or both of the kidnappings. But the possibilities were slim, and soon exhausted.

There was a fair amount of vacant cargo s.p.a.ce-the waiting a.s.sault team would have good use for that.