Berserker - Berserker Base Part 12

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

"Is she handy new?"

"No. She's inside the thing."

"Sounds as if you've got me outvoted already. Tell her to go ahead."

"Okay."

Maybe it was a good thing 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 was suddenly pulsed through its processing unit. Immediately, it began preparations to deviate from its coa.r.s.e 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 s.h.i.+p's computer. She had blocked every circuit leading from that peculiar brain to the rest of that 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 s.h.i.+p'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."

"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 b.o.o.by-trapped lifeboat aboard s.h.i.+p," she said. "Probably anyone would have done it. You thought you were saving lives."

"I didn't play it by the book-not for that sector," he said, "and it cost lives. I'd been warned, but I did it anyway. This reminds me too much-"

"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 badlv damaged, isn't it?" he said.

She nodded.

"I in 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, you know. 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, was looking down into her cup. He saw the movement first. "Juna! The screen!"

She turned spilling coffee in her lap.

"d.a.m.n!"

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

"What is it?" he asked.

"I don't know-yet," she said.

She leaned forward, forgetting him in an instant.

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 which she had not, with her attention riveted upon the symbols.

A small tell-tale 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 emerged from the speaker, talking in clicks and moans. The language was obviously exotic.

"G.o.d!" 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 s.h.i.+p's computer to teach the captive brain to communicate in an Earth-descended tongue. Then she fetched herself a fresh cup of coffee and drank it.

More of its alarm systems came on as it advanced. The giant killing machine activated jets to slow its course, for the first order to pa.s.s 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 an approach pattern its battle-logic bank indicated to be wary. It readied more weapons as it did so.

"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 s.h.i.+p'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 use?"

"Well, now I've given It the ability to talk to us. But it's not too successful at it."

"You instructed it in an Earth-descended language code?"

"Yes, but it just babbles. Sounds like Faulkner on a bad day." - She threw the voice switch.

"-Prothector vincit d.a.m.n 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 acknowledgment. It was Dorphy.

"Wade, we're picking up something odd coming this way," the man said. "I think you'd better have a look at it."

"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 legend to the lower right.

"Lots of ma.s.s there," he observed.

"What do you think it is?"

"You say it changed course a while back?"

"Yes."

"I don't like that."

"Too big to be any regular sort of 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."