Fred Saberhagen - Berserker 01 - Berserker

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Fred Saberhagen - Berserker 1 Table of Contents INTRODUCTION WITHOUT A

THOUGHT GOODLIFE PATRON OF THE ARTS THE PEACEMAKER STONE PLACE WHAT T AND I

DID MR. JESTER MASQUE OF THE RED SHIFT SIGN OF THE WOLF IN THE TEMPLE OF

MARS THE FACE OF THE DEEP INTRODUCTION I, third historian of the carmpan

race, in gratitude to the Earth-descended race for their defense of my world,

set down here for them my fragmentary vision of their great war against our

common enemy. The vision has been formed piece by piece through my contacts

in past and present time with the minds of men and of machines. In these minds

alien to me I often perceive what I cannot understand, yet what I see is true.

And so I have truly set down the acts and words of Earth-descended men great

and small and ordinary, the words and even the secret thoughts of your heroes

and your traitors. Looking into the past I have seen how in the twentieth

century of your Christian calendar your forefathers on Earth first built radio

detectors capable of sounding the deeps of interstellar space. On the day when

whispers in our alien voices were first detected, straying in across the

enormous intervals, the universe of stars became real to all Earth's nations

and all her tribes. They became aware of the real world surrounding them-a

universe strange and immense beyond thought, possibly hostile, surrounding and

shrinking all Earthmen alike. Like island savages just become aware of the

great powers existing on and beyond their ocean, your nations began-sullenly,

mistrustfully, almost against their will-to put aside their quarrels with one

another. In the same century the men of old Earth took their first steps into

space. They studied our alien voices whenever they could hear us. And when the

men of old Earth began to travel faster than light, they followed our voices

to seek us out. Your race and mine studied each other with eager science and

with great caution and courtesy. We Carmpan and our older friends are more

passive than you. We live in different environments and think mainly in

different directions. We posed no threat to Earth. We saw to it that Earthmen

were not crowded by our presence; physically and mentally they had to stretch

to touch us. Ours, all the skills of keeping peace. Alas, for the day

unthinkable that was to come, the day when we wished ourselves warlike! You

of Earth found uninhabited planets, where you could thrive in the warmth of

suns much like your own. In large colonies and small you scattered yourselves

across one segment of one arm of our slow-turning galaxy. To your settlers and

frontiersmen the galaxy began to seem a friendly place, rich in worlds hanging

ripe for your peaceful occupation. The alien immensity surrounding you

appeared to be not hostile after all. Imagined threats had receded behind

horizons of silence and vastness. And so once more you allowed among

yourselves the luxury of dangerous conflict, carrying the threat of suicidal

violence. No enforceable law existed among the planets. On each of your

scattered colonies individual leaders maneuvered for personal power,

distracting their people with real or imagined dangers posed by other

Earth-descended men. All further exploration was delayed, in the very days

when the new and inexplicable radio voices were first heard drifting in from

beyond your frontiers, the strange soon-to-be-terrible voices that conversed

only in mathematics. Earth and Earth's colonies were divided each against all

by suspicion, and in mutual fear were rapidly training and arming for

war. And at this point the very readiness for violence that had sometimes so

nearly destroyed you, proved to be the means of life's survival. To us, the

Carmpan watchers, the withdrawn seers and touchers of minds, it appeared that

you had carried the crushing weight of war through all your history knowing

that it would at last be needed, that this hour would strike when nothing less

awful would serve. When the hour struck and our enemy came without warning,

you were ready with swarming battlefleets. You were dispersed and dug in on

scores of planets, and heavily armed. Because you were, some of you and some

of us are now alive. Not all our Carmpan psychology, our logic and vision and

subtlety, would have availed us anything. The skills of peace and tolerance

were useless, for our enemy was not alive. What is thought, that mechanism

seems to bring it forth? WITHOUT A THOUGHT The machine was a vast fortress,

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containing no life, set by its long-dead masters to destroy anything that

lived. It and many others like it were the inheritance of Earth from some war

fought between unknown interstellar empires, in some time that could hardly be

connected with any Earthly calendar. One such machine could hang over a

planet colonized by men and in two days pound the surface into a lifeless

cloud of dust and steam, a hundred miles deep. This particular machine had

already done just that. It used no predictable tactics in its dedicated,

unconscious war against life. The ancient, unknown gamesmen had built it as a

random factor, to be loosed in the enemy's territory to do what damage it

might. Men thought its plan of battle was chosen by the random disintegrations

of atoms in a block of some long-lived isotope buried deep inside it, and so

was not even in theory predictable by opposing brains, human or

electronic. Men called it a berserker. Del Murray, sometime computer

specialist, had called it other names than that; but right now he was too busy

to waste breath, as he moved in staggering lunges around the little cabin of

his one-man fighter, plugging in replacement units for equipment damaged by

the last near-miss of a berserker missile. An animal resembling a large dog

with an ape's forelegs moved around the cabin too, carrying in its nearly

human hands a supply of emergency sealing patches. The cabin air was full of

haze. Wherever movement of the haze showed a leak to an unpressurized part of

the hull, the dog-ape moved to apply a patch. "Hello, Foxglove!" the man

shouted, hoping that his radio was again in working order. "Hello, Murray,

this is Foxglove," said a sudden loud voice in the cabin. "How far did you

get?" Del was too weary to show much relief that his communications were open

again. "I'll let you know in a minute. At least it's stopped shooting at me

for a while. Move, Newton." The alien animal, pet and ally, called an aiyan,

moved away from the man's feet and kept singlemindedly looking for

leaks. After another minute's work Del could strap his body into the

deep-cushioned command chair again, with something like an operational panel

before him. That last near-miss had sprayed the whole cabin with fine

penetrating splinters. It was remarkable that man and aiyan had come through

unwounded. His radar working again, Del could say: "I'm about ninety miles

out from it, Foxglove. On the opposite side from you." His present position

was the one he had been trying to achieve since the battle had begun. The two

Earth ships and the berserker were half a light year from the nearest sun. The

berserker could not leap out of normal space, toward the defenseless colonies

of the planets of that sun, while the two ships stayed close to it. There were

only two men aboard Foxglove. They had more machinery working for them than

did Del, but both manned ships were mites compared to their opponent. Del's

radar showed him an ancient ruin of metal, not much smaller in cross section

than New Jersey. Men had blown holes in it the size of Manhattan Island, and

melted puddles of slag as big as lakes upon its surface. But the berserker's

power was still enormous. So far no man had fought it and survived. Now, it

could squash Del's little ship like a mosquito; it was wasting its

unpredictable subtlety on him. Yet there was a special taste of terror in the

very difference of it. Men could never frighten this enemy, as it frightened

them. Earthmen's tactics, worked out from bitter experience against other

berserkers, called for a simultaneous attack by three ships. Foxglove and

Murray made two. A third was supposedly on the way, but still about eight

hours distant, moving at C-plus velocity, outside of normal space. Until it

arrived, Foxglove and Murray must hold the berserker at bay, while it brooded

unguessable schemes. It might attack either ship at any moment, or it might

seek to disengage. It might wait hours for them to make the first move-though

it would certainly fight if the men attacked it. It had learned the language

of Earth's spacemen-it might try to talk with them. But always, ultimately, it

would seek to destroy them and every other living thing it met. That was the

basic command given it by the ancient warlords. A thousand years ago, it

would easily have swept ships of the type that now opposed it from its path,

whether they carried fusion missiles or not. Now, it was in some electrical

way conscious of its own weakening by accumulated damage. And perhaps in long

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centuries of fighting its way across the galaxy it had learned to be

wary. Now, quite suddenly, Del's detectors showed force fields forming in

behind his ship. Like the encircling arms of a huge bear they blocked his path

away from the enemy. He waited for some deadly blow, with his hand trembling

over the red button that would salvo his atomic missiles at the berserker-but

if he attacked alone, or even with Foxglove, the infernal machine would parry

their missiles, crush their ships, and go on to destroy another helpless

planet. Three ships were needed to attack. The red firing button was now only

a last desperate resort. Del was reporting the force fields to Foxglove when

he felt the first hint in his mind of another attack. "Newton!" he called

sharply, leaving the radio connection with Foxglove open. They would hear and

understand what was going to happen. The aiyan bounded instantly from its

combat couch to stand before Del as if hypnotized, all attention riveted on

the man. Del had sometimes bragged: "Show Newton a drawing of

different-colored lights, convince him it represents a particular control

panel, and he'll push buttons or whatever you tell him, until the real panel

matches the drawing." But no aiyan had the human ability to learn and to

create on an abstract level; which was why Del was now going to put Newton in

command of his ship. He switched off the ship's computers-they were going to

be as useless as his own brain under the attack he felt gathering-and said to

Newton: "Situation Zombie." The animal responded instantly as it had been

trained, seizing Del's hands with firm insistence and dragging them one at a

time down beside the command chair to where the fetters had been

installed. Hard experience had taught men something about the berserkers'

mind weapon, although its principles of operation were still unknown. It was

slow in its onslaught, and its effects could not be steadily maintained for

more than about two hours, after which a berserker was evidently forced to

turn it off for an equal time. But while in effect, it robbed any human or

electronic brain of the ability to plan or to predict-and left it unconscious

of its own incapacity. It seemed to Del that all this had happened before,

maybe more than once. Newton, that funny fellow, had gone too far with his

pranks; he had abandoned the little boxes of colored beads that were his

favorite toys, and was moving the controls around at the lighted panel.

Unwilling to share the fun with Del, he had tied the man to his chair somehow.

Such behavior was really intolerable, especially when there was supposed to be

a battle in progress. Del tried to pull his hands free, and called to

Newton. Newton whined earnestly, and stayed at the panel. "Newt, you dog,

come lemme loose. I know what I have to say: Four score and seven... hey,

Newt, where're your toys? Lemme see your pretty beads." There were hundreds of

tiny boxes of the varicolored beads, leftover trade goods that Newton loved to

sort out and handle. Del peered around the cabin, chuckling a little at his

own cleverness. He would get Newton distracted by the beads, and then... the

vague idea faded into other crackbrained grotesqueries. Newton whined now and

then but stayed at the panel moving controls in the long sequence he had been

taught, taking the ship through the feinting, evasive maneuvers that might

fool a berserker into thinking it was still competently manned. Newton never

put a hand near the big red button. Only if he felt deadly pain himself, or

found a dead man in Del's chair, would he reach for that. "Ah, roger,

Murray," said the radio from time to time, as if acknowledging a message.

Sometimes Foxglove added a few words or numbers that might have meant

something. Del wondered what the talking was about. At last he understood

that Foxglove was trying to help maintain the illusion that there was still a

competent brain in charge of Del's ship. The fear reaction came when he began

to realize that he had once again lived through the effect of the mind weapon.

The brooding berserker, half genius, half idiot, had forborne to press the

attack when success would have been certain-perhaps deceived, perhaps

following the strategy that avoided predictability at almost any

cost. "Newton." The animal turned, hearing a change in his voice. Now Del

could say the words that would tell Newton it was safe to set his master free,

a sequence too long for anyone under the mind weapon to recite. "-shall not

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perish from the earth," he finished. With a yelp of joy Newton pulled the

fetters from Del's hands. Del turned instantly to the radio. "Effect has

evidently been turned off, Foxglove," said Del's voice through the speaker in

the cabin of the larger ship. The Commander let out a sigh. "He's back in

control!" The Second Officer-there was no third-said: "That means we've got

some kind of fighting chance, for the next two hours. I say let's attack

now!" The Commander shook his head, slowly but without hesitation. "With two

ships, we don't have any real chance. Less than four hours until Gizmo gets

here. We have to stall until then, if we want to win." "It'll attack the next

time it gets Del's mind scrambled! I don't think we fooled it for a minute...

we're out of range of the mind beam here, but Del can't withdraw now. And we

can't expect that aiyan to fight his ship for him. We'll really have no

chance, with Del gone." The Commander's eyes moved ceaselessly over his

panel. "We'll wait. We can't be sure it'll attack the next time it puts the

beam on him... " The berserker spoke suddenly, its radioed voice plain in the

cabins of both ships: "I have a proposition for you, little ship." Its voice

had a cracking, adolescent quality, because it strung together words and

syllables recorded from the voices of human prisoners of both sexes and

different ages. Bits of human emotion, sorted and fixed like butterflies on

pins, thought the Commander. There was no reason to think it had kept the

prisoners alive after learning the language from them. "Well?" Del's voice

sounded tough and capable by comparison. "I have invented a game which we

will play," it said. "If you play well enough, I will not kill you right

away." "Now I've heard everything," murmured the Second Officer. After three

thoughtful seconds the Commander slammed a fist on the arm of his chair. "It

means to test his learning ability, to run a continuous check on his brain

while it turns up the power of the mind beam and tries different modulations.

If it can make sure the mind beam is working, it'll attack instantly. I'll bet

my life on it. That's the game it's playing this time." "I will think over

your proposition," said Del's voice coolly. The Commarder said: "It's in no

hurry to start. It won't be able to turn on the mind beam again for almost two

hours." "But we need another two hours beyond that." Del's voice said:

"Describe the game you want to play." "It is a simplified version of the

human game called checkers." The Commander and the Second looked at each

other, neither able to imagine Newton able to play checkers. Nor could they

doubt that Newton's failure would kill them within a few hours, and leave

another planet open to destruction. After a minute's silence, Del's voice

asked: "What'll we use for a board?" "We will radio our moves to one

another," said the berserker equably. It went on to describe a checkers-like

game, played on a smaller board with less than the normal number of pieces.

There was nothing very profound about it; but, of course, playing would seem

to require a functional brain, human or electronic, able to plan and to

predict. "If I agree to play," said Del slowly, "how'll we decide who gets to

move first?" "He's trying to stall," said the Commander, gnawing a thumbnail.

"We won't be able to offer any advice, with that thing listening. Oh, stay

sharp, Del boy!" "To simplify matters," said the berserker, "I will move

first in every game." Del could look forward to another hour free of the mind

weapon when he finished rigging the checkerboard. When the pegged pieces were

moved, appropriate signals would be radioed to the berserker; lighted squares

on the board would show him where its pieces were moved. If it spoke to him

while the mind weapon was on, Del's voice would answer from a tape, which he

had stocked with vaguely aggressive phrases, such as: "Get on with the game,"

or "Do you want to give up now?" He hadn't told the enemy how far along he

was with his preparations because he was still busy with something the enemy

must not know-the system that was going to enable Newton to play a game of

simplified checkers. Del gave a soundless little laugh as he worked, and

glanced over to where Newton was lounging on his couch, clutching toys in his

hands as if he drew some comfort from them. This scheme was going to push the

aiyan near the limit of his ability, but Del saw no reason why it should

fail. Del had completely analyzed the miniature checker game, and diagrammed

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every position that Newton could possibly face-playing only even-numbered

moves, thank the random berserker for that specification!-on small cards. Del

had discarded some lines of play that would arise from some poor early moves

by Newton, further simplifying his job. Now, on a card showing each possible

remaining position, Del indicated the best possible move with a drawn-in

arrow. Now he could quickly teach Newton to play the game by looking at the

appropriate card and making the move shown by the arrow- "Oh, oh," said Del,

as his hands stopped working and he stared into space. Newton whined at the

tone of his voice. Once Del had sat at one board in a simultaneous chess

exhibition, one of sixty players opposing the world champion, Blankenship. Del

had held his own into the middle game. Then, when the great man paused again

opposite his board, Del had shoved a pawn forward, thinking he had reached an

unassailable position and could begin a counterattack. Blankenship had moved a

rook to an innocent-looking square and strolled on to the next board-and then

Del had seen the checkmate coming at him, four moves away but one move too

late for him to do anything about it. The Commander suddenly said a foul

phrase in a loud distinct voice. Such conduct on his part was extremely rare,

and the Second Officer looked round in surprise. "What?" "I think we've had

it. "The Commander paused. "I hoped that Murray could set up some kind of a

system over there, so that Newton could play the game-or appear to be playing

it. But it won't work. Whatever system Newton plays by rote will always have

him making the same move in the same position. It may be a perfect system-but

a man doesn't play any game that way, damn it. He makes mistakes, he changes

strategy. Even in a game this simple there'll be room for that. Most of all, a

man learns a game as he plays it. He gets better as he goes along. That's

what'll give Newton away, and that's what our bandit wants. It's probably

heard about aiyans. Now as soon as it can be sure it's facing a dumb animal

over there, and not a man or computer... " After a little while the Second

Officer said: "I'm getting signals of their moves. They've begun play. Maybe

we should've rigged up a board so we could follow along with the game." "We

better just be ready to go at it when the time comes." The Commander looked

hopelessly at his salvo button, and then at the clock that showed two hours

must pass before Gizmo could reasonably be hoped for. Soon the Second Officer

said: "That seems to be the end of the first game; Del lost it, if I'm reading

their scoreboard signal right." He paused. "Sir, here's that signal we picked

up the last time it turned the mind beam on. Del must be starting to get it

again." There was nothing for the Commander to say. The two men waited

silently for the enemy's attack, hoping only that they could damage it in the

seconds before it would overwhelm them and kill them. "He's playing the

second game," said the Second Officer, puzzled. "And I just heard him say

`Let's get on with it.' " "His voice could be recorded. He must have made

some plan of play for Newton to follow; but it won't fool the berserker for

long. It can't." Time crept unmeasurably past them. The Second said: "He's

lost the first four games. But he's not making the same moves every time. I

wish we'd made a board... " "Shut up about the board! We'd be watching it

instead of the panel. Now stay alert, Mister." After what seemed a long time,

the Second said: "Well, I'll be!" "What?" "Our side got a draw in that

game." "Then the beam can't be on him. Are you sure... " "It is! Look, here,

the same indication we got last time. It's been on him the better part of an

hour now, and getting stronger." The Commander stared in disbelief; but he

knew and trusted his Second's ability. And the panel indications were

convincing. He said: "Then someone-or something-with no functioning mind is

learning how to play a game, over there. Ha, ha," he added, as if trying to

remember how to laugh. The berserker won another game. Another draw. Another

win for the enemy. Then three drawn games in a row. Once the Second Officer

heard Del's voice ask coolly: "Do you want to give up now?" On the next move

he lost another game. But the following game ended in another draw. Del was

plainly taking more time than his opponent to move, but not enough to make the

enemy impatient. "It's trying different modulations of the mind beam," said

the Second. "And it's got the power turned way up." "Yeah," said the

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Commander. Several times he had almost tried to radio Del, to say something

that might keep the man's spirits up-and also to relieve his own feverish

inactivity, and to try to find out what could possibly be going on. But he

could not take the chance. Any interference might upset the miracle. He could

not believe the inexplicable success could last, even when the checker match

turned gradually into an endless succession of drawn games between two perfect

players. Hours ago the Commander had said good-bye to life and hope, and he

still waited for the fatal moment. And he waited. "-not perish from the

earth!" said Del Murray, and Newton's eager hands flew to loose his right arm

from its shackle. A game, unfinished on the little board before him, had been

abandoned seconds earlier. The mind beam had been turned off at the same time,

when Gizmo had burst into normal space right in position and only five minutes

late; and the berserker had been forced to turn all its energies to meet the

immediate all-out attack of Gizmo and Foxglove. Del saw his computers,

recovering from the effect of the beam, lock his aiming screen onto the

berserker's scarred and bulging midsection, as he shot his right arm forward,

scattering pieces from the game board. "Checkmate!" he roared out hoarsely,

and brought his fist down on the big red button. "I'm glad it didn't want to

play chess," Del said later, talking to the Commander in Foxglove's cabin. "I

could never have rigged that up." The ports were cleared now, and the men

could look out at the cloud of expanding gas, still faintly luminous, that had

been a berserker; metal fire-purged of the legacy of ancient evil. But the

Commander was watching Del. "You got Newt to play by following diagrams, I see

that. But how could he learn the game?" Del grinned. "He couldn't, but his

toys could. Now wait before you slug me." He called the aiyan to him and took

a small box from the animal's hand. The box rattled faintly as he held it up.

On the cover was pasted a diagram of one possible position in the simplified

checker game, with a different-colored arrow indicating each possible move of

Del's pieces. "It took a couple of hundred of these boxes," said Del. "This

one was in the group that Newt examined for the fourth move. When he found a

box with a diagram matching the position on the board, he picked the box up,

pulled out one of these beads from inside, without looking-that was the

hardest part to teach him in a hurry, by the way," said Del, demonstrating.

"Ah, this one's blue. That means, make the move indicated on the cover by a

blue arrow. Now the orange arrow leads to a poor position, see?" Del shook all

the beads out of the box into his hand. "No orange beads left; there were six

of each color when we started. But every time Newton drew a bead, he had

orders to leave it out of the box until the game was over. Then, if the

scoreboard indicated a loss for our side, he went back and threw away all the

beads he had used. All the bad moves were gradually eliminated. In a few

hours, Newt and his boxes learned to play the game perfectly." "Well," said

the Commander. He thought for a moment, then reached down to scratch Newton

behind the ears. "I never would have come up with that idea." "I should have

thought of it sooner. The basic idea's a couple of centuries old. And

computers are supposed to be my business." "This could be a big thing," said

the Commander. "I mean your basic idea might be useful to any task force that

has to face a berserker's mind beam." "Yeah." Del grew reflective. "Also...

" "What?" "I was thinking of a guy I met once. Named Blankenship. I wonder

if I could rig something up... " Yes, I, third historian, have touched living

minds, Earth minds, so deadly cool that for a while they could see war as a

game. The first decades of the berserker war they were forced to see as a game

being lost for life. Nearly all the terrors of the slaughters in your past

were present in this vaster war, all magnified in time and space. It was even

less a game than any war has ever been. As the grim length of the berserker

war dragged on, even Earthmen discovered in it certain horrors that they had

never known before. Behold... GOODLIFE "It's only a machine, Hemphill,"

said the dying man in a small voice. Hemphill, drifting weightless in

near-darkness, heard him with only faint contempt and pity. Let the wretch go

out timidly, forgiving the universe everything, if he found the going-out

easier that way! Hemphill kept on staring out through the port, at the dark

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crenelated shape that blotted out so many of the stars. There was probably

just this one compartment of the passenger ship left livable, with three

people in it, and the air whining out in steady leaks that would soon exhaust

the emergency tanks. The ship was a wreck, torn and beaten, yet Hemphill's

view of the enemy was steady. It must be a force of the enemy's that kept the

wreck from spinning. Now the young woman, another passenger, came drifting

across the compartment to touch Hemphill on the arm. He thought her name was

Maria something. "Listen," she began. "Do you think we might-" In her voice

there was no despair, but the tone of planning; and so Hemphill had begun to

listen to her. But she was interrupted. The very walls of the cabin

reverberated, driven like speaker diaphragms through the power of the enemy

force field that still gripped the butchered hull. The quavering voice of the

berserker machine came in: "You who can still hear me, live on. I plan to

spare you. I am sending a boat to save you from death." Hemphill was sick

with frustrated rage. He had never heard a berserker's voice in reality

before, but still it was familiar as an old nightmare. He could feel the

woman's hand pull away from his arm, and then he saw that in his rage he had

raised both his hands to be claws, then fists that almost smashed themselves

against the port. The damned thing wanted to take him inside it! Of all people

in space it wanted to make him prisoner! A plan rose instantly in his mind

and flowed smoothly into action; he spun away from the port. There were

warheads, for small defensive missiles, here in this compartment. He

remembered seeing them. The other surviving man, a ship's officer, dying

slowly, bleeding through his uniform tatters, saw what Hemphill was doing in

the wreckage, and drifted in front of him interferingly. "You can't do

that... you'll only destroy the boat it sends... if it lets you do that

much... there may be other people... still alive here... " The man's face had

been upside-down before Hemphill as the two of them drifted. As their movement

let them see each other in normal position, the wounded man stopped talking,

gave up and rotated himself away, drifting inertly as if already

dead. Hemphill could not hope to manage a whole warhead, but he could extract

the chemical-explosive detonator, of a size to carry under one arm. All

passengers had put on emergency spacesuits when the unequal battle had begun;

now he found himself an extra air tank and some officer's laser pistol, which

he stuck in a loop of his suit's belt. The girl approached him again. He

watched her warily. "Do it," she said with quiet conviction, while the three

of them spun slowly in the near-darkness, and the air leaks whined." Do it,

The loss of a boat will weaken it, a little, for the next fight. And we here

have no chance anyway." "Yes." He nodded approvingly. This girl understood

what was important: to hurt a berserker, to smash, burn, destroy, to kill it

finally. Nothing else mattered very much. He pointed to the wounded mate, and

whispered: "Don't let him give me away." She nodded silently. It might hear

them talking. If it could speak through these walls, it might be

listening. "A boat's coming," said the wounded man, in a calm and distant

voice. "Goodlife!" called the machine-voice, cracking between syllables as

always. "Here!" He woke up with a start, and got quickly to his feet. He had

been dozing almost under the dripping end of a drinking-water

pipe. "Goodlife!" There were no speakers or scanners in this little

compartment; the call came from some distance away. "Here!" He ran toward the

call, his feet shuffling and thumping on metal. He had dozed off, being tired.

Even though the battle had been a little one, there had been extra tasks for

him, servicing and directing the commensal machines that roamed the endless

ducts and corridors repairing damage. It was small help he could give, he

knew. Now his head and neck bore sore spots from the helmet he had had to

wear; and his body was chafed in places from the unaccustomed covering he had

to put on it when a battle came. This time, happily, there had been no battle

damage at all. He came to the flat glass eye of a scanner, and shuffled to a

stop, waiting. "Goodlife, the perverted machine has been destroyed, and the

few badlives left are helpless." "Yes!" He jiggled his body up and down in

happiness. "I remind you, life is evil," said the voice of the

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machine. "Life is evil, I am Goodlife!" he said quickly, ceasing his

jiggling. He did not think punishment impended, but he wanted to be

sure. "Yes. Like your parents before you, you have been useful. Now I plan to

bring other humans inside myself, to study them closely. Your next use will be

with them, in my experiments. I remind you, they are badlife. We must be

careful." "Badlife." He knew they were creatures shaped like himself,

existing in the world beyond the machine. They caused the shudders and shocks

and damage that made up a battle. "Badlife-here." It was a chilling thought.

He raised his own hands and looked at them, then turned his attention up and

down the passage in which he stood, trying to visualize the badlife become

real before him. "Go now to the medical room," said the machine. "You must be

immunized against disease before you approach the badlife." Hemphill made his

way from one ruined compartment to another, until he found a gash in the outer

hull that was plugged nearly shut. While he wrenched at the obstructing

material he heard the clanging arrival of the berserker's boat, come for

prisoners. He pulled harder, the obstruction gave way, and he was blown out

into space. Around the wreck were hundreds of pieces of flotsam, held near by

tenuous magnetism or perhaps by the berserker's force fields. Hemphill found

that his suit worked well enough. With its tiny jet he moved around the

shattered hull of the passenger ship to where the berserker's boat had come to

rest. The dark blot of the berserker machine came into view against the

starfield of deep space, battlemented like a fortified city of old, and larger

than any such city had ever been. He could see that the berserker's boat had

somehow found the right compartment and clamped itself to the wrecked hull. It

would be gathering in Maria and the wounded man. Fingers on the plunger that

would set off his bomb, Hemphill drifted closer. On the brink of death, it

annoyed him that he would never know with certainty that the boat was

destroyed. And it was such a trifling blow to strike, such a small

revenge. Still drifting closer, holding the plunger ready, he saw the puff of

decompressed air moisture as the boat disconnected itself from the hull. The

invisible force fields of the berserker surged, tugging at the boat, at

Hemphill, at bits of wreckage within yards of the boat. He managed to clamp

himself to the boat before it was pulled away from him. He thought he had an

hour's air in his suit tank, more than he would need. As the berserker pulled

him toward itself, Hemphill's mind hung over the brink of death, Hemphill's

fingers gripped the plunger of his bomb. In his mind, his night-colored enemy

was death. The black, scarred surface of it hurtled closer in the unreal

starlight, becoming a planet toward which the boat fell. Hemphill still clung

to the boat when it was pulled into an opening that could have accommodated

many ships. The size and power of the berserker were all around him, enough to

overwhelm hate and courage alike. His little bomb was a pointless joke. When

the boat touched at a dark internal dock, Hemphill leaped away from it and

scrambled to find a hiding place. As he cowered on a shadowed ledge of metal,

his hand wanted to fire the bomb, simply to bring death and escape. He forced

his hand to be still. He forced himself to watch while the two human prisoners

were sucked from the boat through a pulsing transparent tube that passed out

of sight through a bulkhead. Not knowing what he meant to accomplish, he

pushed himself in the direction of the tube. He glided through the dark

enormous cavern almost weightlessly; the berserker's mass was enough to give

it a small natural gravity of its own. Within ten minutes he came upon an

unmistakable airlock. It seemed to have been cut with a surrounding section of

hull from some Earth warship and set into the bulkhead. Inside an airlock

would be as good a place for a bomb as he was likely to find. He got the outer

door open and went in, apparently without triggering any alarms. If he

destroyed himself here, he would deprive the berserker of-what? Why should it

need an airlock at all? Not for prisoners, thought Hemphill, if it sucks them

in through a tube. Hardly an entrance built for enemies. He tested the air in

the lock, and opened his helmet. For air-breathing friends, the size of men?

That was a contradiction. Everything that lived and breathed must be a

berserker's enemy, except the unknown beings who had built it. Or so man had

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thought, until now. The inner door of the lock opened at Hemphill's push, and

artificial gravity came on. He walked through into a narrow and badly lighted

passage, his fingers ready on the plunger of his bomb. "Go in, Goodlife,"

said the machine. "Look closely at each of them." Goodlife made an uncertain

sound in his throat, like a servomotor starting and stopping. He was gripped

by a feeling that resembled hunger or the fear of punishment-because he was

going to see life-forms directly now, not as old images on a stage. Knowing

the reason for the unpleasant feeling did not help. He stood hesitating

outside the door of the room where the badlife was being kept. He had put on

his suit again, as the machine had ordered. The suit would protect him if the

badlife tried to damage him. "Go in," the machine repeated. "Maybe I'd

better not," Goodlife said in misery, remembering to speak loudly and clearly.

Punishment was always less likely when he did. "Punish, punish," said the

voice of the machine. When it said the word twice, punishment was very near.

As if already feeling in his bones the wrenching pain-that-left-no-damage, he

opened the door quickly and stepped in. He lay on the floor, bloody and

damaged, in strange ragged suiting. And at the same time he was still in the

doorway. His own shape was on the floor, the same human form he knew, but now

seen entirely from outside. More than an image, far more, it was himself now

bilocated. There, here, himself, not-himself- Goodlife fell back against the

door. He raised his arm and tried to bite it, forgetting his suit. He pounded

his suited arms violently together, until there was bruised pain enough to

nail him to himself where he stood. Slowly, the terror subsided. Gradually

his intellect could explain it and master it. This is me, here, here in the

doorway. That, there, on the floor-that is another life. Another body,

corroded like me with vitality. Only far worse than I. That one on the floor

is badlife. Maria Juarez had prayed continuously for a long time, her eyes

closed. Cold impersonal grippers had moved her this way and that. Her weight

had come back, and there was air to breathe when her helmet and her suit had

been carefully removed. She opened her eyes and struggled when the grippers

began to remove her inner coverall; she saw that she was in a low-ceilinged

room, surrounded by man-sized machines of various shapes. When she struggled

they gave up undressing her, chained her to the wall by one ankle, and glided

away. The dying mate had been dropped at the other end of the room, as if not

worth the trouble of further handling. The man with the cold dead eyes,

Hemphill, had tried to make a bomb, and failed. Now there would probably be no

quick end to life- When she heard the door open she opened her eyes again, to

watch without comprehension, while the bearded young man in the ancient

spacesuit went through senseless contortions in the doorway, and finally came

forward to stand staring down at the dying man on the floor. The visitor's

fingers moved with speed and precision when he raised his hands to the

fasteners of his helmet; but the helmet's removal revealed ragged hair and

beard framing a slack idiot's face. He set the helmet down, then scratched

and rubbed his shaggy head, never taking his eyes from the man on the floor.

He had not yet looked once at Maria, and she could look nowhere but at him.

She had never seen a face so blank on a living person. This was what happened

to a berserker's prisoner! And yet-and yet. Maria had seen brainwashed men

before, ex-criminals on her own planet. She felt this man was something

more-or something less. The bearded man knelt beside the mate, with an air of

hesitation, and reached out to touch him. The dying man stirred feebly, and

looked up without comprehension. The floor under him was wet with blood. The

stranger took the mate's limp arm and bent it back and forth, as if interested

in the articulation of the human elbow. The mate groaned, and struggled

feebly. The stranger suddenly shot out his metal-gauntleted hands and seized

the dying man by the throat. Maria could not move, or turn her eyes away,

though the whole room seemed to spin slowly, then faster and faster, around

the focus of those armored hands. The bearded man released his grip and stood

erect, still watching the body at his feet. "Turned off," he said

distinctly. Perhaps she moved. For whatever reason, the bearded man raised

his sleepwalker's face to look at her. He did not meet her eyes, or avoid

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them. His eye movements were quick and alert, but the muscles of his face just

hung there under the skin. He came toward her. Why, he's young, she thought,

hardly more than a boy. She backed against the wall and waited, standing.

Women on her planet were not brought up to faint. Somehow, the closer he came,

the less she feared him. But if he had smiled once, she would have screamed,

on and on. He stood before her, and reached out one hand to touch her face,

her hair, her body. She stood still; she felt no lust in him, no meanness and

no kindness. It was as if he radiated an emptiness. "Not images," said the

young man as if to himself. Then another word, sounding like:

"Badlife." Almost Maria dared to speak to him. The strangled man lay on the

deck a few yards away. The young man turned and shuffled deliberately away

from her. She had never seen anyone who walked just like him. He picked up his

helmet and went out the door without looking back. A pipe streamed water into

one corner of her little space, where it gurgled away through a hole in the

floor. The gravity seemed to be set at about Earth level. Maria sat leaning

against the wall, praying and listening to her heart pound. It almost stopped

when the door opened again, very slightly at first, then enough for a large

cake of pink and green stuff that seemed to be food. The machine walked around

the dead man on its way out. She had eaten a little of the cake when the door

opened again, very slightly at first, then enough for a man to step quickly

in. It was Hemphill, the cold-eyed one from the ship, leaning a bit to one

side as if dragged down by the weight of the little bomb he carried under his

arm. After a quick look around he shut the door behind him and crossed the

room to her, hardly glancing down as he stepped over the body of the

mate. "How many of them are there?" Hemphill whispered, bending over her. She

had remained seated on the floor, too surprised to move or speak. "Who?" she

finally managed. He jerked his head toward the door impatiently. "Them. The

ones who live here inside it, and serve it. I saw one of them coming out of

this room, when I was out in the passage. It's fixed up a lot of living space

for them." "I've only seen one man." His eyes glinted at that. He showed

Maria how the bomb could be made to explode, and gave it to her to hold, while

he began to burn through her chain with his laser pistol. They exchanged

information on what had happened. She did not think she would ever be able to

set off the bomb and kill herself, but she did not tell that to

Hemphill. Just as they stepped out of the prison room, Hemphill had a bad

moment when three machines rolled toward them from around a corner. But the

things ignored the two frozen humans and rolled silently past them, going on

out of sight. He turned to Maria with an exultant whisper: "The damned thing

is three-quarters blind, here inside its own skin!" She only waited, watching

him with frightened eyes. With the beginning of hope, a vague plan was

forming in his mind. He led her along the passage, saying: "Now we'll see

about that man. Or men." Was it too good to be true, that there was only one

of them? The corridors were badly lit, and full of uneven jogs and steps.

Carelessly built concessions to life, he thought. He moved in the direction he

had seen the man take. After a few minutes of cautious advance, Hemphill

heard the shuffling footsteps of one person ahead, coming nearer. He handed

the bomb to Maria again, and pressed her behind him. They waited in a dark

niche. The footsteps approached with careless speed, a vague shadow bobbing

ahead of them. The shaggy head swung so abruptly into view that Hemphill's

metal-fisted swing was almost too late. The blow only grazed the back of the

skull; the man yelped and staggered off balance and fell down. He was wearing

an old-model spacesuit, with no helmet. Hemphill crouched over him, shoving

the laser pistol almost into his face. "Make a sound and I'll kill you. Where

are the others?" The face looking up at Hemphill was stunned-worse than

stunned. It seemed more dead than alive, though the eyes moved alertly enough

from Hemphill to Maria and back, disregarding the gun. "He's the same one,"

Maria whispered. "Where are your friends?" Hemphill demanded. The man felt

the back of his head, where he had been hit. "Damage," he said tonelessly, as

if to himself. Then he reached up for the pistol, so calmly and steadily that

he was nearly able to touch it. Hemphill jumped back a step, and barely kept

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FredSaberhagen-Berserker1TableofContentsINTRODUCTIONWITHOUTATHOUGHTGOODLIFEPATRONOFTHEARTSTHEPEACEMAKERSTONEPLACEWHATTANDIDIDMR.JESTERMASQUEOFTHEREDSHIFTSIGNOFTHEWOLFINTHETEMPLEOFMARSTHEFACEOFTHEDEEPINTRODUCTIONI,thirdhistorianofthecarmpanrace,ingratitudetotheEarth-descendedracefortheirdefenseofmywo...

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Fred Saberhagen - Berserker 01 - Berserker

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