Berserker - Rogue Berserker Part 25

"Drop the carbine, Silver," interrupted a taut, familiar voice. "Don't even think of turning round."

Satranji had entered the dining salon at the tail end of the line, joining it so smoothly and quietly that he seemed quite naturally to belong to it. He had Harry-as well as Becky and Ethan, Claudia and Winnie-covered with his own carbine before Harry even knew that he was there.

Remembering in time that his weapon's magazine was exhausted, Harry let it fall.

Satranji told him: "Now you can turn. Time we got acquainted, Silver. We're going to be taking a long, long trip together. Some of these other good people too-likely my partner will want them all. Oh, by all means you must bring the family. My partner has some special ideas about them." Then his head turned, with a nervous jerk as a figure appeared beside him.

The crippled robot Dorry had taken her position there, and, when her former master stared without recognition at her half-disa.s.sembled face and body, she addressed him in her usual cheerful voice.

"No doubt, sir, you would have been surprised to see me, had you recognized me in the other corridor just now."

"G.o.ds of s.p.a.ce, it's Dorijen." And Satranji, helping himself to a second look, then a third, at last seemed satisfied that this had been his robot. "I did just walk past you out there, didn't I? I thought you were a pile of junk." His voice turned ugly. "Actually, that's what you are."

Releasing one hand from his weapon, he swung the arm of his servo-powered combat suit, dealing Dorry a casual blow on the side of the head that sent her sprawling. It was a smashing impact that might have knocked bricks out of a wall.

"How in all the h.e.l.ls did you get here?" Satranji grumbled. He spoke to the robot, without taking his eyes away from Harry for a moment. "But it doesn't matter. What a ruin. Not worth a s.h.i.t now. Turned into a piece of c.r.a.p like all the other b.i.t.c.hes."

This time Dorry needed longer to get up than she had the time when Harry knocked her down. But her voice still sounded cheerful. "That impact," she announced to the world, "seems to have clouded my optelectronic senses." Then she went down on her knees again, groping with her one crippled hand as if in search of something she had lost. "Sensory malfunction," she murmured softly.

Satranji still hadn't really taken his eyes off Harry. "Silver, it's time we had a little conversation, you and I.".

"Why not?" Harry tried to sound as cheerful as the robot.

"Meanwhile you should get yourself out of that heavy suit. You always said the d.a.m.ned things made you uncomfortable."

"Sure," said Harry.

"Then do it!"

While checking as best he could as to where his people were, Harry started to release his metal gauntlets from the inside. That would be a reasonable first step in taking off the suit; it wouldn't look suspicious. The part of his mind that kept on scheming, no matter what, informed him that now he was going to have to throw one of the metal gloves, while he still had servo power in his arms. Not only throw it. He would have to hit the carbine in Satranji's grip and spoil his aim, or else hit his faceplate hard enough to cloud his vision for an instant. In that instant Harry would have to rush him . . . it might be a hundred-to-one shot, and that was being charitable. But it was better than nothing at all.

Some of the ship's automatic systems, evidently sensing that a small crowd had gathered, were coming on in the salon, and music tinkled in the background, sounding like an ancient piano with keys of ivory and ebony.

Satranji was still being very watchful. He said: "Now we can have a little drink, and you can tell me about it. Hope you're not a sore loser, Silver. Someone told me that you like scotch."

Harry's first gauntlet fell to the deck. He was going to have to throw the second.

Becky, with Ethan suited and in tow, was edging, as if unconsciously, a little closer to her man. So were some of the other people, and Harry knew that in the next moment he was about to take his hopeless gamble, and Satranji's brain would pull the alphatrigger on the carbine, swift as thought, and many of the people in the room would die- A fusillade of shots erupted, coming not from Satranji's weapon, but from behind the goodlife man, near the main entrance to the room.

The ma.s.s of Satranji's bulky figure was knocked forward, soaring in a low, involuntary leap, hurled in a tottering spin right past Harry before Harry could attempt to dodge. The suited form stopped when it hit a wall, then collapsed in smoking ruin. The third hit on the moving target had torn its armored backpack open, and a secondary interior explosion jerked Satranji's suit's four limbs to full extension, and momentarily lighted his faceplate with a baleful inner glow. Within seconds, the air in the room began to fill with smoke, the stench of burning chemicals and flesh.

From a spot near the main entrance, the slender figure of Dorry the robot came limping slowly forward.

The heavy handgun that she had once given Perdix, who had not been able to draw it quite fast enough, was clamped solidly in the grip of her two remaining fingers and a thumb. Dorijen tilted her head as she drew near the fallen man, nearsightedly peering down at him with her one damaged eye.

Invisible environmental systems had already begun to work, patiently cleaning the large room's atmosphere, and faint tendrils of smoke were whisked away. There was near silence, broken only by some woman sobbing, and then the robot's usual cheery voice.

"It seems that I have killed a human being," Dorry announced brightly. "A clear case of sensory malfunction, as the result of trauma. Faulty perception a.s.sured me that I was firing at a berserker machine.

"The pistol is empty now, but still-" The weapon dropped from her crippled hand. In the quiet room, everyone heard clearly the soft thud of its landing. "Somehow I could not place Mister Satranji in the proper category. Perhaps in the circ.u.mstances you surviving humans will be safer if I no longer carry weapons." On her last cheerful word, Dorry suddenly sat down, as if her disorientation might be getting worse.

Harry choked out some response-later he could never remember just what he had said. He looked uncertainly about him, and blinked at the new weapon that had come into his own hands-by reflex he had already s.n.a.t.c.hed up Satranji's carbine.

But there was nothing left to shoot.

TWENTY-FIVE.

Harry at last had set his captured carbine down, laying the weapon close against the wall of the small control cabin in theChewing Pod 's functional launch, where either he or Becky could grab it up in a hurry if need be. At the moment his wife was occupying the pilot's seat, in the last stages of running a quick checklist that so far indicated there was nothing wrong with the small vessel in which all the surviving humans were about to make their getaway. Harry had been concentrating on looking out for trouble, but now it appeared he would be able to give up riding shotgun.

The launch provided a comfortably furnished pa.s.senger s.p.a.ce some fifteen meters long and four wide, which in happier times could have been quickly reconfigured to offer several distinctly different flavors of luxury. Now the only concern was that it afforded ample room, and speedy transportation.

Exchanging sc.r.a.ps of hasty conversation with his wife, while both were engaged in herding people into the launch, Harry had been reminded that she had seen genuine berserkers before. When the kidnappers came for her and Ethan, she had no doubt that she was seeing them again. "That was at first."

"At first?"

Becky went on: "You know, Harry? It was all so horrible . . . but there was a time when I began to suspect they weren't real berserkers."

"They were real enough. If they seemed a bit clumsy, that was probably just because they weren't used to trying to keep their victims alive."

"Ethan was screaming, just horribly, and then I was screaming too . . ."

"It's all right now, kid. That part's all over."

The robot Dorijen was still functioning, or at least capable of purposeful movement, having boarded the launch at the end of the line of surviving humans.

Ethan and Winnie, both children hampered in oversized s.p.a.cesuits, had started some kind of game, withdrawing from the terrors of the adult world to something that perhaps made more sense to them.

Harry also had a short interlude of conversation with Claudia Cheng. While thanking him politely for all his trouble, she managed indirectly to convey her determination to fight any great change in the old man's will-though she remained amenable to buying her savior a new ship.

Half a minute later it was Becky who, having already heard the story, remarked: "You could hire a lawyer, Harry. If there were any witnesses to what he said . . ."

Harry was shaking his head. "I've never had a lot of luck with witnesses. Or lawyers either."

Winnie had largely abandoned the game he had been playing, to eye the carbine that Harry had put down. Now he looked up to pester his mother for a gun of his own.

Harry had put his gauntlets on again, and had never taken his helmet off-it was going to stay on until he was sure they were safely away. Suddenly he started, abruptly distracted by the rogue's familiar radio voice.

"I am speaking to you, Harry Silver. Only to you. The life-units with you cannot hear me."

Harry was not at all surprised to hear the voice; the only surprise was that some perverse part of him seemed to be secretly pleased to have a.s.surance that the d.a.m.ned rogue wasn't completely dead.

Something kept Harry from blurting out a general announcement that at least one of the berserkers still survived. Well, that probably would not be news to anyone.

"Rest easy, Harry Silver," said the small voice in his helmet. "You and I have reached a de facto truce, and today is not our day for fighting one another."

Mentally Harry made the adjustments that would allow him to subvocalize speech to the rogue, while remaining silent as far as the human company around him were aware. He had the feeling that this conversation could possibly take a turn that he wouldn't want them to hear . . .

Not even Becky?

Yes, for the moment, not even Becky.

"What do you want?" he demanded tersely.

"Only to maintain contact with my favorite experimental subject. I must congratulate you on your survival. And on the demise of your goodlife rival."

The rogue a.s.sured Harry that it had no need of the launch that he and his fellow humans were about to use. It also announced that it had attained all of its essential components, and was about to depart the Gravel Pit in its previously prepared escape module.

Harry wanted to ask the rogue if it had retained a few life-units to take with it as well, restocking its new laboratory; but whatever answer it gave to that question could be a lie.

Instead he asked: "You mean you've wiped out all of the a.s.sa.s.sin's units?"

"It would be unwise, would it not, to make any such a.s.sertion dogmatically?"

Whatever units of the a.s.sa.s.sin still survived would have no means of getting themselves away from this rock. But the prospect of ending their existence in this particular time and place would mean nothing to those machines. All that mattered to them would be their a.s.signed missions, in order of priority.

When the voice of the rogue came back again, it was still mild, giving the impression of a lovely, balanced temperament, unshaken by anything that had ever happened, or ever would. "From now on, Harry Silver, you and I will remain closely a.s.sociated."

"Up yours. You b.l.o.o.d.y, twisted . . ." When he remembered the body parts of people, still-living organs mounted on a wall for study, thoughts failed him, as did his extensive knowledge of bad language. Why couldn't life's enemy stay simply and dependably nasty? Be content to simply kill and have done with it?

"Defiant insult is not an unexpected response. I will continue to monitor your career as closely as possible-at times I will be much closer to you than you realize."

Harry's capacity to be frightened seemed to have been burned away, along with some other mental baggage. "I expect there's a rather large berserker task force on its way here even as we speak, dispatched by your own high command. I'm told your creators have decided you're a great disappointment, that putting you together was a ghastly blunder. I've never met a high command that could admit to making great mistakes, but maybe yours can do it. As soon as they catch you, they're going to hammer you into little bits of junk and lose the pieces."

Some of the people near Harry, unaware of the conversation he was having, were looking at him oddly.

He smoothed out the expression on his face.

"Remember what I have told you, Harry Silver. Remember also that anger is irrational."

"I'm recording this, you obscenity. I'll spread the word about you to the Force, and to the Templars, and if you do somehow manage to get away from here I'll get all the help I need and we'll track you down."

Becky was through with the last details of the checklist, and the hatches closed. Without wasting any time on formalities, the lady was getting them free of the pileup of junked s.p.a.ceships, and the berserker base.

"Tracking me down will not be necessary. Are you trying to frighten me, Harry Silver? It is interesting that you seek to frighten a machine."

After that there was a silence, long enough so that Harry began to wonder if the rogue was gone. But suddenly it was back. "I see that you have launched, and I will shortly do the same. I compute that you do not in fact have any intention of recording this-but know that I am doing so. You will want to destroy any record of it-but, of course, the record that I am making will never come within your reach.

You will not want your Templars and your s.p.a.ce Force to see the evidence of our continuing close relationship."

Harry advised the rogue to perform an act of crude violence upon itself.

The other found that interesting too. "In your form of rhetoric, you attribute to me anatomical capabilities I do not possess. Goodbye for now, Harry Silver. I hope you are able to preserve your interesting life until we meet again. At some point in the future, I intend to carefully observe your death."

The signal had begun fading rapidly. The launch was picking up speed-and maybe the rogue was also, moving in some other direction.

Ethan was calling, looking for continued contact, rea.s.surance: "Daddy? Who're you talking to?"

Five seconds pa.s.sed before the question registered, and Harry could find an answer: "No one. No one at all."

AUTHOR'S NOTE.

For information about Fred Saberhagen and this series, see: http://www.berserker.com