Berserker - Berserker Base Part 15

Wade Kelman received the berserker's call at the end of the hour and talked it into another hour's grace.

The killing machine was much more belligerent this time.

Dorphy radioed the berserker after he heard the latest transmission and offered to make a deal. The berserker accepted immediately.

The berserker retracted all but the four original gun mounts facing the s.h.i.+p, it did not wish to back down even to this extent, but Dorphy's call had given it an appropriate-seeming reason. Actually, it could not dismiss the possibility that showing the additional weapons might have been responsible for the increased electrical activity it now detected. The directive still cautioned wariness and was now indicating non-provocation as well.

Who hath drawn the circuit for the lion?

"Qwibbian," said the artifact.

Juna sat, pale, before the console. The past hour had added years to her face. There was fresh grime on her coveralls. When Wade entered he halted and stared.

"What's wrong?" he said. "You look-"

"It's okay."

"No, it isn't ! know you're sick. We're going to have to-"

"It's really okay," she said. "It's pa.s.sing, Let it be. I'll be all right."

He nodded and advanced again, displaying a small recorder in his left hand.

"I've got it," he said then. "Listen to this."

He turned on the recorder. A series of clicks and moans emerged, it ran for about a quarter-minute and stopped.

"Play it again, Wade," she said, and she smiled weakly as she threw the voice mode switch...

He complied.

"Translate," she said when it was over.

"Take the-untranslatable-to the-untranslatable-and transform it upward," came the voice of the artifact through the speaker.

"Thanks," she said, and, "You were right, Wade."

"You know where I found it?" he asked.

"On the Carmpan tapes."

"Yes, but it's not Builder talk."

"I know that."

"And you also know what it is?"

She nodded.

"It is the language spoken by the Builders enemies-the Red Race-against whom the berserkers were unleashed. There is a little segment showing the round red people shouting a slogan or a prayer or something-maybe it's even a Builder propaganda tape. It came from that, didn't it?"

"Yes. How did you know?"

She patted the console.

"Qwib-qwib here is getting back on his mental feet. He's even helping now. He's very good at self-repair, now that the process has been initiated. We've been talking for a while and I'm beginning to understand." She coughed, a deep, racking spasm that brought tears to her eyes. "Would you get me a gla.s.s of water?"

"Sure."

He crossed the cabin and fetched it.

"We have made an enormously important find," she said as she sipped it. "It was good that the others kept you from cutting it loose."

MacFarland and Dorphy entered the cabin. MacFarland held Wade's pistol and pointed it at him.

"Cut it loose," he said.

"No," Wade answered.

"Then Dorphy's going to do it while I keep you covered. Suit up, Dorphy, and get a torch."

"You don't know what you're doing," Wade said. "Juna was just telling me that-"

MacFarland fired. The projectile ricocheted about the cabin, finally dropping to the floor in the far corner.

"Mac, you're crazy!" Wade said. "You could just as easily hit yourself if you do that again."

"Don't move! Okay. That was stupid, but now I know better. The next one goes into your shoulder or your leg. I mean it. You understand?"

"Yes, d.a.m.n it! But we can't just cut that thing loose now. It's almost repaired, and we know where it's from. Juna -"

"I don't care about any of that Two-thirds of it belong to Dorphy and me, and we're jettisoning our share right now. If your third goes along, that's tough. The berserker a.s.sures us that's all it wants. It'll let us go then. I believe it."

"Look, Mac. Anything a berserker wants that badly is something we shouldn't give it. I think I can talk it into giving us even more time."

MacFarland shook his head.

Dorphy finished suiting up and took a cutting torch from a rack. As he headed for the open lock, Juna said, "Wait. If you cycle the lock you'll cut the cable. It'll sever the connection to Qwib-qwib's brain."

"I'm sorry, doctor," MacFarland said. "But we're in a hurry."

From the console then came the words: "Our a.s.sociation is about to be terminated?"'

"I'm afraid so," she answered "I am sorry that I could not finish."

"Do not. The process continues. I have a.s.similated the program and now use it myself. A most useful process."

Dorphy entered the lock.

"I have one question, Juna, before goodbye," it said.

"Yes? What is it?" she asked.

The lock began cycling closed and Dorphy was already raising the torch to burn through the welds.

"My vocabulary is still incomplete. What does 'qwibbian' mean in your language?"

The cycling lock struck the cable and severed it as she spoke, so she did not know whether it heard her say the word "berserker."

Wade and MacFarland both turned suddenly.

"What did you say?" Wade asked.

She repeated it.

"You're not making sense," he said. "First you said that it wasn't. Now-"

"Do you want to talk about words or machines?" she asked.

"Go ahead. You talk. I'll listen."

She sighed and took another drink of water.

"I got the story from Qwib-qwib in pieces," she began. "I had to fill in some gaps with conjectures, but they seemed to follow. Ages ago, the Builders apparently fought a war with the Red Race, who proved tougher than they thought. So they hit them with their ultimate weapon-the self-replicating killing machines we call berserkers."

"That seems the standard story," Wade said.

"The Red Race went under," she continued. "They were totally destroyed-but only after a terrific struggle. In the final days of the war they tried all sorts of things, but by then it was a case of too little too late. They were overwhelmed. They actually even tried something I had always wondered about-something no Earth-descended world would now dare to attempt, with ail the restrictions on research along those lines, with all the paranoia..."

She paused for another sip, "They built their owe berserkers," she went on Chen, "but not like the originals. They developed a killing machine which would only attack berserkers-an anti-berserker berserker-for the defense of their home planet. But there were too few. They put them all on the line, around their world, and apparently they did a creditable job-they had something involving short jumps into and out of other s.p.a.ces going for them-but they were vastly outnumbered in that last great ma.s.s attack. Ultimately, all of them fell."

The s.h.i.+p gave a shudder. They turned toward the lock.

"He's cut if loose, whatever it was," MacFarland stated. "It shouldn't shake the whole s.h.i.+p that way,"

Wade said.

"It would if it accelerated away the instant it was freed," said Juna.

"But how could it, with all of its control circuits sealed?" Wade asked.

She glanced at the smears on her coveralls.

"I reestablished its circuits when I learned the truth," she told him. "I don't know what percentage of its old efficiency it possesses, but I am certain that it is about to attack the berserker."

The lock cycled open and Dorphy emerged, unfastening his suit as it cycled closed behind him.

'''We've got to get the h.e.l.l out of here!" MacFarland cried. "This area is about to become a war zone!"

"You care to do the piloting?" Wade asked him.

"Of course not."

"Then give me my gun and get out of my way."

He accepted the weapon and headed for the bridge.

For so long as the screens permitted resolution they watched-the ponderous movements of the giant berserker, the flashes of its energy blasts, the dartings and sudden disappearances and reappearances of its tiny attacker. Later, some time after the images were lost, a fireball sprang into being against the starry black.

"He got it! Qwib-qwib got it!" Dorphy cried.

"And it probably got him, too," MacFarland remarked. "What do you think, Wade?"

"I think," Wade replied, "that I will not have anything to do with either of you ever again."

He rose and left to go and sit with Juna. He took along his recorder and some music.

She turned from watching the view on her own screen and smiled weakly as he seated himself beside her bed.

"I'm going to take care of you," he told her, "until you don't need me."

"That would be nice," she said.

Tracking. Tracking. They were coming. Five of them. The big one must have sent for them. Jump behind them and take out the two rear ones before the others realize what is happening. Another jump, hit the port flank and jump again. They've never seen these tactics. Dodge. Fire. Jump. Jump again. Fire. The last one is spinning like a top, trying to antic.i.p.ate. Hit it. Charge right in. There.

The last qwibbian-qwibbian-kel in the universe departed the battle scene, seeking the raw materials for some fresh repair work. Then, of course, it would need still more, for the replications.

Who hath drawn the circuits for the lion?

THE GREAT SECRET.