Frost and Fire Read online

  There was a black market, of course. Machines more complicated than those allowed by law were needed by businesses, some individuals, and even the government itself. People like himself and his partners regularly brought in such machines and components. Officials usually looked the other way. He’d seen this same schizophrenia in a number of places.

  He sipped his coffee.

  And Juna Bayel… knowledge-systems specialists of her caliber were generally non grata there, too. She might have gone in as a tourist, but then she would have been subjected to scrutiny, making it more difficult to teach the classes she had been hired to set up.

  He sighed. He was used to governmental double-thinking. He had been in the service. In fact … no. Not worth thinking about all that again. Things had actually been looking up lately. A few more runs like this one and he could make the final payments on his divorce settlement and go into legitimate shipping, get respectable, perhaps even prosper—

  The intercom buzzed. “Yes?”

  “Dr. Bayel wants permission to do some tests on that brain in the derelict,” MacFarland said. “She wants to run some leads and hook it up to the ship’s computer. What do you think?”

  “Sounds dangerous.” Wade replied. “Suppose she activates it? Berserkers aren’t very nice, in case you’ve never—”

  “She says she can isolate the brain from the weapons systems,” MacFarland replied. “Besides, she says she doesn’t think it’s a berserker.”

  “Why not?”

  “First, it doesn’t conform to any berserker design configurations in our computer’s records—”

  “Hell! That doesn’t prove anything. You know they can customize themselves for different jobs.”

  “Second, she’s been on teams that examined wrecked berserkers. She says that this brain is different.”

  “Well, it’s her line of work, and I’m sure she’s damned curious, but I don’t know. What do you think?”

  “We know she’s good. That’s why they want her on Corlano. Dorphy still thinks that thing could be valuable, and we’ve got salvage rights. It might be worthwhile to let her dig a little. I’m sure she knows what she’s doing.”

  “Is she handy now?”

  “No. She’s inside the thing.”

  “Sounds as if you’ve got me outvoted already. Tell her to go ahead.”

  “Okay.”

  Maybe it was good that he’d resigned his commission, he mused. Decisions were always a problem. Dvorak’s dance filled his head, and he pushed everything else away while he finished his coffee.

  A long-dormant, deep-buried system was activated within the giant berserker’s brain. A flood of data suddenly pulsed through its processing unit. It began preparations to deviate from its course toward Corlano. This was not a fall from virtue but rather a response to a higher purpose.

  Who laid the measure of the prey?

  With sensitive equipment, Juna tested the compatibilities. She played with transformers and converters to adjust the power levels and cycling, to permit the hookup with the ship’s computer. She had blocked every circuit leading from that peculiar brain to the rest of the strange vessel—except for the one leading to its failed power source. The brain’s power unit was an extremely simple affair, seemingly designed to function on any radioactive material placed within its small chamber. This chamber contained only heavy, inert elements now. She emptied it and cleaned it, then refilled it from the ship’s own stores. She had expected an argument from Wade on this point, but he had only shrugged.

  “Just get it over with,” he said, “so we can ditch it.”

  4 We won’t be ditching it,” she said. “It’s unique.”

  “We’ll see.”

  “You’re really afraid of it?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’ve rendered it harmless.”

  “I don’t trust alien artifacts!” he snapped.

  She brushed back her frosty hair.

  “Look, I heard how you lost your commission—taking a berserker-booby-trapped lifeboat aboard ship,” she said. “Probably anyone would have done it. You thought you were saving lives.”

  “I didn’t play it by the book,” he said, “and it cost lives. I’d been warned, but I did it anyway. This reminds me—”

  “This is not a combat zone,” she interrupted, “and that thing cannot hurt us.”

  “So get on with it!”

  She closed a circuit and seated herself before a console.

  “This will probably take quite a while,” she stated.

  “Want some coffee?”

  “That would be nice.”

  The cup went cold, and he brought her another. She ran query after query, probing in a great variety of ways. There was no response. Finally she sighed, leaned back, and raised the cup.

  “It’s badly damaged, isn’t it?” he said.

  She nodded.

  “I’m afraid so, but I was hoping that I could still get something out of it—some clue, any clue.”

  She sipped the coffee.

  “Clue?” he said. “To what?”

  “What it is and where it came from. The thing’s incredibly old. Any information at all that might have been preserved would be an archaeological treasure.”

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “I wish you had found something.”

  She had swiveled her chair and was looking down into her cup. He saw the movement first.

  “Juna! The screen!”

  She turned spilling coffee in her lap.

  “Damn!”

  Row after row of incomprehensible symbols were flowing onto the screen.

  “What is it?” he asked.

  “I don’t know,” she said.

  She leaned forward, forgetting him.

  He must have stood there, his back against the bulkhead, watching, for over an hour, fascinated by the configurations upon the screen, by the movements of her long-fingered hands working unsuccessful combinations upon the keyboard. Then he noticed something that she had not, with her attention riveted upon the symbols.

  A small, telltale light was burning at the left of the console. He had no idea how long it had been lit.

  He moved forward. It was the voice-mode indicator.

  The thing was trying to communicate at more than one level.

  “Let’s try this,” he said.

  He reached forward and threw the switch beneath the light.

  “What—?”

  A genderless voice, talking in clicks and moans, emerged from the speaker. The language was obviously exotic.

  “God!” he said. “It is!”

  “What is it?” She turned to stare at him. “You understand that language?”

  He shook his head.

  “I don’t understand it, but I think that I recognize it.”

  “What is it?” she repeated.

  “I have to be sure. I’m going to need another console to check this out,” he said. “I’m going next door. I’ll be back as soon as I have something.”

  “Well, what do you think it is?”

  “I think we are violating a tougher law than the smuggling statutes.”

  “What?”

  “Possession of, and experimentation with, a berserker brain.”

  “You’re wrong,” she said.

  “We’ll see.”

  She watched him depart. She chewed a thumbnail, a thing she had not done in years. If he were right, it would have to be shut down, sealed off, and turned over to military authorities. On the other hand, she did not believe that he was right.

  She reached forward and silenced the distracting voice. She had to hurry now, to try something different, to press for a breakthrough before he returned. He seemed too sure of himself. She felt that he might return with something persuasive, even if it were not correct.

  So she instructed the ship’s computer to teach the captive brain to communicate in a Solarian tongue. Then she fetched herself a fresh cup of coffee and drank it.

  More of its ala
rm systems came on as it advanced. The giant killing machine activated jets to slow its course. The first order to pass through its processor, once the tentative identification had been made, was, Advance warily.

  It maintained the fix on the distant vessel and its smaller companion, but it executed the approach pattern its battle-logic bank indicated. It readied more weapons.

  “All right,” Wade said later, entering and taking a seat. “I was wrong. It wasn’t what I thought.”

  “Would you at least tell me what you’d suspected?” Juna asked.

  He nodded. “I’m no great linguist,” he began, “but I love music. I have a very good memory for sounds of all sorts. I carry symphonies around in my head. I even play several instruments, though it’s been a while. But memory played a trick on me this time. I would have sworn that those sounds were similar to ones I’d heard on those copies of the Carmpan recordings—the fragmentary records we got from them concerning the Builders, the nasty race that made the berserkers. There are copies in the ship’s library, and I just listened to some again. It’d been years. But I was wrong. They sound different. I’m sure it’s not Builder-talk.”

  “It was my understanding that the berserkers never had the Builders’ language code, anyhow,” she said.

  “I didn’t know that. But for some reason, I was sure I’d heard something like it on those tapes. Funny … I wonder what language it does talk?”

  “Well, now I’ve given it the ability to talk to us. But it’s not too successful at it.”

  “You instructed it in a Solarian language code?” he asked.

  “Yes, but it just babbles. Sounds like Faulkner on a bad day.”

  She threw the voice switch.

  “… Prothector vincit damn the torpedoes and flaring suns like eyes three starboard two at zenith—”

  She turned it off.

  “Does it do that in response to queries, too?” he asked.

  “Yes. Still, I’ve got some ideas—”

  The intercom buzzed. He rose and thumbed an acknowledgement. It was Dorphy. “Wade, we’re picking up something odd coming this way,” the man said. “I think you’d better have a look.”

  “Right.” he answered. “I’m on my way. Excuse me, Juna.”

  She did not reply. She was studying new combinations on the screen.

  “Moving to intersect our course. Coming fast,” Dorphy said.

  Wade studied the screen, punched up data, which appeared as a legend to the lower right.

  “Lots of mass there,” he observed.

  “What do you think it is?”

  “You say it changed course?”

  “Yes.”

  “I don’t like that.”

  “Too big to be any regular vessel.”

  “Yes,” Wade observed. “All of this talk about berserkers might have made me jumpy, but—”

  “Yeah. That’s what I was thinking, too.”

  “Looks big enough to grill a continent.”

  “Or fry a whole planet. I’ve heard of them in that league.”

  “But Dorphy, if that’s what it is, it just doesn’t make any sense. Something like that, on its way to do a job like that—I can’t see it taking time out to chase after us. Must be something else.”

  “What?”

  “Don’t know.”

  Dorphy turned away from the screen and licked his lips, frown lines appearing between his brows.

  “I think it is one,” he said. “If it is, what should we do?”

  Wade laughed briefly, harshly.

  “Nothing,” he said then. “There is absolutely nothing we could do against a thing like that. We can’t outrun it, and we can’t outgun it. We’re dead if that’s what it really is and we’re what it wants. If that’s the case, though, I hope it tells us why it’s taking the trouble, before it destroys us.”

  “There’s nothing at all that I should do?”

  “You can send a message to Corlano. If it gets through, they’ll at least have a chance to put whatever they’ve got on the line. This close to their system it can’t have any other destination. If you’ve got religion, now might be a good time to go into it a little more deeply.”

  “You defeatist son of a bitch! There must be something else!”

  “If you think of it, let me know. I’ll be up talking to Juna. In the meantime, get that message sent.”

  The berserker fired its maneuvering jets again. How close was too close when you were being wary? It continued to adjust its course. This had to be done just right. New directions kept running through its processor the nearer it got to its goal. It had never encountered a situation such as this before. But then this was an ancient program that had never before been activated. Ordered to train its weapons on the target but forbidden to fire them … all because of a little electrical activity.

  “… Probably come for its little buddy,” Wade finished.

  “Berserkers don’t have buddies,” Juna replied.

  “I know. I’m just being cynical. You find anything new?”

  “I’ve been trying various scans to determine the extent of the damage. I believe that something like nearly half of its memory has been destroyed.”

  “Then you’ll never get much out of it.”

  “Maybe. Maybe not,” she said, and she sniffed once.

  Wade turned toward her and saw that her eyes were moist.

  “Juna—”

  “I’m sorry, damn it. It’s not like me. But to be so close to something like this—and then be blasted by an idiot killing machine right before you find some answers. It just isn’t fair. You got a tissue?”

  “Yeah. Just a sec.”

  The intercom buzzed as he was fumbling with a wall dispenser.

  “Patching in transmission,” Dorphy stated.

  There was a pause, and then an unfamiliar voice said, “Hello. You are the captain of this vessel?”

  “Yes, I am,” Wade replied. “And you are a berserker?”

  “You may call me that.”

  “What do you want?”

  “What are you doing?”

  “I am conducting a shipping run to Corlano. What do you want?”

  “I observe that you are conveying an unusual piece of equipment. What is it?”

  “An air-conditioning unit.”

  “Do not lie to me, captain. What is your name?”

  “Wade Kelman.”

  “Do not lie to me, Captain Wade Kelman. The unit you bear in tandem is not a processor of atmospheric gases. How did you acquire it?”

  “Bought it at a flea market,” Wade stated.

  “You are lying again, Captain Kelman.”

  “Yes, I am. Why not? If you are going to kill us, why should I give you the benefit of a straight answer to anything?”

  “I have said nothing about killing you.”

  “But that is the only thing you are noted for. Why else would you have come by?”

  Wade was surprised at his responses. In any imagined conversation with death, he had never seen himself as being so reckless. It’s all in not having anything more to lose, he decided.

  “I detect that the unit is in operation,” the berserker stated.

  “So it is.”

  “And what function does the unit perform for you?”

  “It performs a variety of functions we find useful,” he stated.

  “I want you to abandon that piece of equipment,” the berserker said.

  “Why should I?” he asked.

  “I require it.”

  “I take it that this is a threat?”

  “Take it as you would.”

  “I am not going to abandon it. I repeat, why should I?”

  “You are placing yourself in a dangerous situation.”

  “I did not create this situation.”

  “In a way you did. But I can understand your fear. It is not without justification.”

  “If you were simply going to attack us and take it from us, you would already have done so
, wouldn’t you?”

  “That is correct. I carry only very heavy armaments for the work in which I am engaged. If I were to turn them upon you, you would be reduced to dust. This of course includes the piece of equipment I require.”

  “All the more reason for us to hang onto it, as I see it.”

  “This is logical, but you possess an incomplete pattern of facts.”

  “What am I missing?”

  “I have already sent a message requesting the dispatch of smaller units capable of dealing with you.”

  “Then why are you even bothering to tell us all this?”

  “I tell you this because it will take them some time to reach this place and I would rather be on my way to complete my mission than wait here for them.”

  “Thank you. But we would rather die later than die now. We’ll wait.”

  “You do not understand. I am offering you a chance to live.”

  “What do you propose?”

  “I want you to abandon that piece of equipment now. You may then depart.”

  “And you will just let us go, unmolested?”

  “I have the option of categorizing you as goodlife, if you will serve me. Abandon the unit and you will be serving me. I will categorize you as goodlife. I will then let you go, unmolested.”

  “We have no way of knowing whether you will keep that promise.”

  “That is true. But the alternative is certain death, and if you will but consider my size and the obvious nature of my mission, you will realize that your few lives are insignificant beside it.”

  “You’ve made your point. But I cannot give you an instant answer. We must consider your proposal at some length.”

  “Understandable. I will talk to you again in an hour.”

  The transmission ended. Wade realized he was shaking. He sought a chair and collapsed into it. Juna was staring at him.

  “Know any good voodoo curses?”

  She shook her head and smiled fleetingly at him.

  “You handled that very well.”

  “No. It was like following a script. There was nothing else to do. There still isn’t.”

  “At least you got us some time. I wonder why it wants the thing so badly?” Her eyes narrowed then. Her mouth tightened. “Can you get me the scan on that berserker?” she asked suddenly.

  “Sure.”

  He rose and crossed to the console.