Berserker Throne (20 page)

At the last moment, Lescar, aghast, actually got out of the flyer too and followed him; whatever else might happen, he was unable to allow his Prince to face a berserker alone.

As the two of them drifted in their sealed suits along the airless corridor, the radio whisper of his servant's minimally powered voice came to Harivarman: "But why must you talk to it again, Your Honor? We have the drive extracted, we don't need the rest. For a chance to escape, of course it's worth the risk of continuing our work on the drive. But the other thing . . . why take the chance? What do we gain? At best we'll just get ourselves arrested. Sooner or later it'll be found out, what we're doing."

"Lescar, I spoke a moment ago of creating a delay, to give us time to modify our ship . . . I think I now see a possible way to manage that."

Lescar was stubbornly silent.

His master continued inflexibly along the corridor, with the other following, until they were just outside the deadly room. There Harivarman halted. "If I can control it, talk to it—"

"No sir! No!"

"—that should solve our control problems for the escape. And perhaps for other things as well . . . now I want you to go back to the flyer. I think I can manage this particular job better and more safely alone."

Lescar sighed. He was obviously far from convinced. But he had long ago made his decision as to whom to devote his life. He went as ordered.

Then the Prince alone went once more into the room where the berserker waited, to see what he might be able to learn from his new metal slave.

As before, the thing did not appear to have moved so much as a centimeter while he was gone. It was still against the wall where its last aborted action against Lescar had left it, clinging to the stone with its six long insect-legs outspread, each leg as long as a man's body.

But now the lenses on the thing's head turned, smoothly, to focus on Harivarman as he entered. That was all, but it was enough to bring a weakness to his knees.

Once more making sure that he was using the proper radio frequency, and at a minimum of power, the Prince demanded of it: "Are there any other machines—allied with you—still functional on the Fortress? You understand what I mean by the Fortress?"

The tinny, squeaky, disjointed whisper came back into his helmet: "I understand. The answer to your question is affirmative."

Harivarman paused. He had not really expected that. He had thought he was only eliminating a remote possibility. But now . . .

"How many such machines exist? Where are they?"

"Forty-seven such machines exist. All of them are gathered in a single chamber, approximately two hundred and fifty meters from this one."

"
Forty-seven.
" He couldn't help whispering it aloud. Could berserkers lie? Of course they could. But presumably not while under the constraints of the controlling code.

Harivarman had to clear his throat again before he asked another question. "How do you know that they are there?"

"They were and still are under my command."

"But they are not—active." Otherwise, surely, they would have come out killing, a hundred years ago or more.

"No more than I have been active, or am now. They were all in a slave mode when I was damaged, and have been inert, as I have, ever since. They depend on me for activation."

Presently, moving as the machine instructed him, while it in obedience to his orders remained behind, Harivarman went out into the corridor again. On the regular communication channel he exchanged a few words with Lescar, reassuring his servant and reiterating his orders that Lescar wait for him in the flyer. Then the Prince went on, as the machine's radio whisper directed him. He traversed another nearby corridor, one that as far as he knew had also been unexplored for centuries. From this passage he broke his way into another room whose doors had been sealed by binding time. This chamber was even larger than the one where he had left the berserker controller, and even closer to the cratered outer surface of the Fortress.

This was certainly a room full of machinery. The Prince moved quickly and boldly to make a closer examination of the contents. Considering the risks he was already facing, it seemed a waste of time to try to take precautions now.

Here was evidence that the thing in the other room had told him the truth. Here were a whole fighting company of its inanimate brothers, slaved to it in sleep. Death machines were crammed in here cheek by jowl until they reminded the Prince of so many terrified human infantry, stupefied with the strain of waiting for the order to go on an assault. There were a variety of types: Here were awkward, inhuman-looking androids. And here were a few transporters, some of them strongly resembling the flyers that humans used to move about the Fortress. Others looked like little more than quasi-intelligent missiles. Here was a nuclear pile on caterpillar treads, ready to roll itself wherever it was told, then melt itself down on command; the Prince had encountered the type before. Other types of berserkers, even more rare, including some that Harivarman could not at once identify, filled out the roster.

It was a whole assault force, the equivalent perhaps in fighting power of a small human army, waiting to be awakened by the orders of some evil robotic general. The Prince counted twoscore of the sinister metal shapes before he stopped. Then he made himself go on.

He counted forty-seven in all, just as the controlling berserker had told him there would be. All of them were as inert, faintly filmed with dust, as the first had been when he had discovered it.

There was at least one important difference—as far as Harivarman could see, none of these machines were damaged in the least. They must have made their landing on the Radiant Fortress at the time of the great battles, and then have been gathered here in this room as a ready reserve. And then—or else humanity might not have won those battles—they had been immobilized by the fortuitous damage to their controller in the other chamber.

So they should be, they must be, as it had said, still under its control. It had never been able to unleash them because of its paralysis. And it could not do so now, because the Prince had ordered it to hurt no one.

Harivarman had seen the death machines at close range a few times before, in several shapes and sizes. But never before had he seen them in such perfectly preserved variety. Perhaps no human being until now had ever seen the like, and lived. A vast treasure trove of knowledge of the enemy waited for human researchers here.

That treasure would be used, eventually. He would see to it that it was used, and properly. He certainly would.

But first . . .

The Prince closed the doors on the assault force.

He made his way back to the flyer, hardly conscious of what he was doing.

Heading back to the City in the flyer with silent Lescar, the Prince laughed suddenly, and quoted something:

"I can call spirits from the vasty deep . . .

"Why, so can I, or so can any man . . . but will they come when you do call for them?"

"Should I have understood that, Your Honor?"

"Don't wish so, Lescar. Don't wish so."

Young Chen was still riding with Commander Blenheim in the back seat of her staff car when it rolled to a stop at dockside. She had come directly from her chat with General Harivarman to witness the arrival of the latest unexpected ship from Salutai. This was the third such arrival in two days, and she was thinking to herself that it might have been years since this port had seen such a burst of unplanned activity.

Had she wanted to, she might have tuned in one of the car's remote viewers while being chauffeured to the docks, and got a look at the stranger while it was coming down the entrance channel, or even caught a glimpse of it telescopically imaged as it approached in space. But the commander's thoughts were still concentrated on Harivarman, and she waited for her first look at the arriving ship until it appeared directly before her eyes.

As soon as the hull of the vessel, approximately spherical and a hundred meters in diameter, rose into view through the forcegate she recognized it as an advanced type of battlecraft, bearing the insignia of the planetary defense forces of Salutai. As such, it would be under the direct command of that world's controversial prime minister, Roquelaure. Commander Blenheim for the most part studiously avoided taking an interest in politics, at least outside that which went on within the Templar organization itself. But Harivarman had once or twice mentioned the prime minister to her as one of his bitterest enemies.

The commander in passing remembered hearing someone say that Prime Minister Roquelaure, one of the Imperial officials who had been closest to the Empress, was now also one of the most likely candidates to replace her. And Roquelaure would almost certainly represent Salutai when the Council of Eight met, as they must meet in the near future, to decide who would now occupy the Imperial Throne.

She got her driver's attention, tapping on the staff car's window. "Sergeant, I'm getting out here. Call for an escort, and see to it that Recruit Shizuoka is taken back to his quarters and confined as before." The young man sitting in the rear with her looked at her silently, hopelessly. The commander said nothing to him; there did not appear to be anything to say.

Now Anne Blenheim got out of her car, for a better look at the warship. The insignia on the hull, a mythical beast rampant with upraised claws, gave the whole ship an arrogant look, she thought. The ship now emerged completely from the gate, and at that point ceased its rising. Most of the top half of the hull was now in view, the bottom half cradled invisibly in more fields and in massive pads that had come into position smoothly as the traveler cut power on its engines. Now moving passively, under harbor power and control, the great hull was being eased slowly sideways through the broad channel that would guide it into dock. The commander's educated eye took the opportunity to study the warship's armament; the variations in hull shape that defined a battlecraft were unmistakable to the experienced eye. The exterior weapon projections were under hatches now, but there was no doubt that they were there.

As soon as the docking was completed, the visitor's main personnel hatch opened, and some military people in sharply designed uniforms began trotting out of it onto the dock. They continued to come out, pair after pair of them like mirror images, until the watching commander could count sixteen sharp military uniforms in all, in two rows leading from the hatch. They were actually bearing arms, the commander noticed with surprise and disapproval, as they took up their positions for what was evidently to be some kind of a guard-of-honor show.

The deployment of these troops had the incidental effect of providing a pretty effective occupation and coverage of dockside space, as if they were on the lookout for snipers, or ready to repel a boarding rush. Whether intentionally or not, these armed people—dragoons, she thought Roquelaure called the little army she had heard he was so proud of—were confronting the two or three Templar guards, who were always posted in positions overlooking the docks on what really amounted to no more than ceremonial duty. The dragoons stared up at their outnumbered cousins-in-arms belligerently, while the young Templars goggled back in sheer surprise, for which their commander could hardly blame them. The invaders'—well, that was the impression that they gave—uniforms looked sharper than the Templars', too.

Motioning her driver to follow with the car, the commander had begun walking briskly toward the visitor's main hatch even before it opened, and by now she had come down a flight of stairs and was on the same level as that hatch, ready to greet or confront whoever had sent out all these guards as they emerged.

And now in the ship's open hatchway appeared the man who had to be the object of this belligerent-looking guard of honor. Commander Anne recognized him as soon as he appeared, though she had never seen him before in person, and had certainly not been expecting to see him now; almost anyone in the Eight Worlds would know that gaunt, aging face on sight, trademarked as it was with long, curled mustaches. It belonged to Grand Marshall Beraton, a Niteroi native and a legendary hero to all the Eight Worlds. His career in anti-berserker warfare went back long before General Harivarman's in that ancient and apparently endless field of endeavor. The grand marshall, Anne Blenheim thought to herself, must now be at least a couple of hundred years old, and if anyone had recently asked her about him she would have said that he must have retired long ago. In passing, she wondered suddenly if the grand marshall might have been on the Fortress during or before the last berserker attack against it, and whether he might therefore be able to advise her on some points of historical restoration.

The grand marshall stalked out of his ship and stood looking rather fiercely about him, ignoring the two ranks of his guards. Then his stern expression altered as his gaze lighted on Commander Blenheim's approaching figure. It was a subtle change, in keeping with his dignity. So was his bearing as he advanced toward her now on his long legs. Of course her uniform and her insignia made her quickly recognizable by rank and status if not by her personal identity.

Coming in that ceremonial pace to meet her, the impressive old man halted four paces away, and granted Anne Blenheim the salute that was her due here as commanding officer; elsewhere, of course, his own rank would be far greater.

She returned his salute sharply.

"Press coverage?" Those were the grand marshall's first words of greeting. At least that was how Anne Blenheim understood them. They had been delivered in an aristocratic accent with which she was not overly familiar, and the question was asked in a low, almost conspiratorial tone, as the grand marshall looked alertly to right and left.

"I beg your pardon, Grand Marshall?"

Beraton's great age was even more obvious at this close range, but by all appearances age was still treating him very kindly. Bending near, smiling faintly as he towered over Anne Blenheim's own modest height, he said, this time not quite so softly: "Thought there might be press on hand. Not sure that it's a good idea at this stage. Just as well there's not." She got the impression that the grand marshall was enjoying himself, that he would have enjoyed some press on hand even more. The old man's expression was just suitably tinged with sadness, in keeping with the gravity of what she supposed must be his mission.