Part 16 (1/2)

Berserker high command, using the latest techniques of fully automated engineering, had invented another special unit of a different type. This one was not dedicated to a.s.sa.s.sination, or to combat of any kind, though like every other product of berserker industry it was well equipped for such work. Instead, it had been created to carry out another round of the berserkers' endlessly ongoing experiments with life.

Harry, listening, found himself nodding inside the jagged remnants of his helmet. Maybe no other human being had ever listened to another storyteller as strange as this one, but so far the story itself was not incredible. It did not even seem particularly unlikely. Through various hints, interceptions, and discoveries, over a long period of time, Harry and other serious students of the enemy had concluded that berserker high command seemed to believe in the existence of some magic key in the laws of nature, some secret that, once found and properly put to use, would make all life in the Galaxy shrivel up and go away. The whole skein of Galactic life could be unraveled.

To discover this key, this philosopher's stone of death, it was necessary to pry out, through intensive research, the innermost secrets of intelligent life.

The robotic voice droned on, a soulless imitation of Harry's own. He felt reasonably confident that he was following the narrative so far, but he was feeling lightheaded. His head and body were rapidly getting cold-his decapitated suit was not going to keep him properly warm. What he found difficult to believe was his own situation, stranger than the story he was trying to listen to. Could it really be true that he was sitting here in the wreckage of a conquered outpost, too beaten and exhausted to get to his feet, surrounded by human corpses, bodies living and dead alike chilling down toward the freezing point, while he listened to a deranged berserker that insisted on telling him a story?

Harry was getting a strong impression that the newly created berserker in the story had been given a hard time by the very machines responsible for its creation. For some reason they were unhappy, suspicious of their offspring, coming around to the view that major reprogramming would be necessary.

Wipe the hardware clear of dangerous nonsense, and start over.

Breaking into the plodding narrative, Harry said: ”Don't tell me that machine turned out to be you.”

”I will not tell you that. It is not true.” The a.s.sa.s.sin's voice was solemn. It seemed to reprove him for his flippant interruption.

”Sorry. Go on.”

There had been laboratory accidents before, incidents scattered through the vast domain of time and s.p.a.ce in which berserkers did research upon their enemies, trying to discover the cause of the fanatical resistance put up by Earth-descended organisms; there was no known way of preventing such mishaps entirely when dealing with badlife humans and machines of comparable complexity. But this time the error had been very subtle, and things had got seriously out of hand before the problem was recognized.

”I have not yet been informed of exactly what went wrong,” Harry's designated killer noted calmly.

”Almost certainly the computers of high command will eventually find the correct explanation. But we know it is an inescapable attribute of systems of great complexity that things are likely to go wrong.”

”So, now I get the philosophy lecture?”

”Harry Silver, are you mentally capable of absorbing important information? Does your brain still function, or is this effort on my part a waste of time?”

”Sorry. Really sorry. Go on. I'm listening.”

The computer dedicated to research on life, its own fundamental programming for some reason rapidly evolving down a deviant pathway, had requisitioned from its supply services several large power lamps and a supply of hydrogen fuel. Also a s.p.a.cegoing hull and a powerful s.p.a.ce drive, including all the equipment required for traveling faster than light. It had also equipped itself as best as it was able, on short notice, with arms and armor for both offensive and defensive fighting.

Having finished construction, it had loaded itself aboard the vehicle with as much essential hardware as possible. It had launched itself into s.p.a.ce with a hastily a.s.sembled crew of auxiliary machines, as well as the few specimens of life provided by its creators-this stock had possibly included a few ED humans.

The last bit of information was delivered with no special emphasis, but it seemed to be echoing in Harry's head: ” . . .life-units of your own type .”

Ever since the deadly news about Ethan and Becky had reached him, way back on that other planet, he had been lifeless inside-or had thought of himself as dead. But now it turned out that life still burned, somewhere down deep. The universe had not yet quite finished him off.

His next question burst out before he could consider whether it was wise to ask it: ”Do you have any description of those-those life-units?” But even as Harry spoke, he knew from what the berserker had already told him that the timing would be all wrong. The dates and times that the machine was giving him did not match with the moment when Becky and Ethan had been captured.

”No. But it seems impossible, chronologically, that they could be the units engaging your concern.”

There was a pause. This time Harry was the one to break it. ”That was what I thought. All right. Go on.”

The renegade, the rogue berserker, had good reason for fleeing the base where it had been created. It had computed quite accurately that in pursuit of its programmed goals it was consistently demonstrating far more independence than berserker sector command would tolerate. So much more that, if the rogue remained on site, its research project, all-important on its own scale of values, would soon be postponed or canceled, and its own brain reprogrammed or destroyed.

By its own deviant standards, any other outcome would be preferable to that.

The rogue's sudden defection had taken berserker command completely by surprise.

Sector command had immediately ordered an all-out attempt to overtake and stop the rogue, commanding all its other machines to destroy that one on sight. But pursuit was too late in getting started, and the faint trail left in flights.p.a.ce had already faded.

Urgent messages were dispatched by courier to all loyal task forces and individual machines operating in the sector, among them the a.s.sa.s.sin dedicated to hunting Harry Silver. A new top priority was set for all units: berserker command now a.s.signed its highest possible value to shutting down the rogue. The existence of such deviant devices posed a fundamental threat to the coherence of the whole berserker organization, and to the ultimate success of their campaign to destroy life. It was a greater danger than the existence of any individual human could possibly pose.

”Since receiving those revised orders,” the a.s.sa.s.sin machine was telling Harry, ”I have spent all my time, concentrated all my efforts, in an attempt to locate the secret base that logic insists the rogue must have established for itself somewhere.”

There was a pause, in which some kind of human response seemed to be required. ”All right,” Harry finally got out.

”You, and these other badlife who are now dead, have been hunting the same enemy. I have scanned the contents of your computers here, and I find confirmation of the existence of the base, and also its location.”

”Then it's too bad you've killed us all. We might have been able to help you out.”

There followed another silence. Harry was trying to digest a whole new set of facts, though he still couldn't see how they were going to do him any good. ”Just for the sake of argument, how could you be sure this renegade you're hunting has established a base at all? Maybe it doesn't need a base. Do you have one?”

”My original designation as hunter, Harry Silver, requires me to have the capability to function independently of any base, for many standard years. But the rogue's programmed purpose is very different. It will have no choice but to try to carry on with its elaborate experiments. It will need room in which to store and use the requisite materials, and time and protected s.p.a.ce in which to work. It will be forced to construct new auxiliary machines, to help it gather more materials.”

”By materials you mean more life-units.”

”Yes, of course.”

”There's umpteen billion badlife humans in the Galaxy. You think it was just an accident that it picked the two who make a difference in my life?” After a pause he added, softly: ”If it did grab them.” Here he was, starting to hope again. Why not, when the counsels of despair seemed to make no sense either?

The a.s.sa.s.sin said: ”To fathom the limitations of the laws of chance is beyond the scope of my intelligence. The infection of life is widespread in the Galaxy. My own search for the rogue, the deviant machine, has culminated here, on the threshold of the system you call Gravel Pit. It is purely a matter of chance that, in the course of this search, I have found you, my original a.s.signed target.”

”One more b.l.o.o.d.y coincidence,” Harry murmured. ”Or is it, really?”

”I do not understand.”

”Never mind. A phatic utterance. Get on with your motherless story.”

The a.s.sa.s.sin went on to explain that before learning of the rogue's strange origin, or receiving the order for its destruction-and before the rogue had established itself in its current location-it, the a.s.sa.s.sin, had actually made accidental contact with the renegade machine. There had been a random meeting in a node of flights.p.a.ce.

”That encounter also happened by sheer chance.”

The machine paused, as if expecting to be challenged on that point. But Harry only nodded. That was the kind of coincidence he could swallow; in the nodes of flights.p.a.ce, accidental meetings were not as astronomically unlikely as common sense and intuition might suggest-a fact which made those nodes a favorite berserker hunting ground.

The talkative a.s.sa.s.sin essayed another gesture with its almost graceful, strong right arm. Again the move seemed not quite appropriate, like that of some bad human actor in a drama. If it was trying to do a serious imitation of a human, Harry thought, it had a good ways to go.

It said to him: ”Let us return to the fact that, as the evidence in and around this modified outpost strongly suggests, you and these other badlife have been planning an attack on the very device that I am seeking to destroy. I find this information of great interest.”

”How could we carry out an attack,” said Harry carefully, ”without at least one s.h.i.+p?”