Berserker - Berserker's Planet Part 13

"That sounds insane." Then, fl.u.s.tered, Athena tried to modify the implied criticism. "I mean-"

"It does sound insane. But, as I understand it, predicting human behavior has never been the berserkers'

strong point. Maybe it thought Andreas had betrayed it after all."

The G.o.d Thorun incarnate, who had been Thomas the Grabber, strolled majestically into the courtyard at its other end, trailed by priests and a sculptor who was making sketches for a new spear-carrying statue.

Suomi rose slightly from his chair and made a little bow in Thorun's direction. Thorun answered with a smile and a courteous nod.

Carlos and Thomas understood each other surprisingly well. The people had to be rea.s.sured, society supported, through a time of crisis. Did Leros and the other devout leaders really believe that a G.o.d and a demiG.o.d now walked among them? Apparently they did, at least in one compartment of their minds, and at least as long as such belief suited their needs. And perhaps in one sense it was the truth that Karlsen still walked here.

Perhaps, also, the sandy-haired man now known as Giles the Chancellor, who was Thorun's constant companion and adviser, was to a great degree responsible for the relative smoothness with which the society of G.o.dsmountain had weathered the upheavals of the past few days. Alas for the Brotherhood.

Well, thought Suomi, likely a world with the Brotherhood victorious would have been no better than G.o.dsmountain's world was going to be without its secret demon.

There was Schoenberg now, walking near his wrecked s.h.i.+p. Barbara Hurtado was at his side listening to him as he pointed out features of the rubble-clearing system the slaves were following. It was a result of his expert a.n.a.lysis of the problem. He had been talking about it yesterday with Suomi. There, where Schoenberg was now pointing, was the place where the mathematically proven plan of greatest efficiency called for all the debris to be piled. Schoenberg had come near being killed as a collaborator by Leros and the winning faction, but intervention by the demiG.o.d Karlsen had saved his life and restored his freedom.

After what had happened to Celeste Servetus and Gus De La Torre-their mutilated bodies had been found atop a small mountain of human and animal bones in a secret charnel-pit far beneath the Temple-Suomi could not blame Schoenberg or anyone else for collaboration. Schoenberg had told him of the tale of ruthless Earthmen who were going to come looking to avenge him, a tale that, alas, had been nothing but pure bluff. Suomi, though, still had the feeling that Schoenberg was leaving something out, that more had pa.s.sed between him and Andreas than he was willing to recount.

Let it lie. The s.h.i.+p had been irreparably damaged, and the surviving members of the hunting expedition were going to have to coexist on this planet, in all likelihood, for an indeterminate number of standard years, until some other s.h.i.+p just happened by.

Athena took a sip of cool water from her fine goblet, and Suomi drank some more fermented milk from his. She had spent the period of crisis locked in her private room and unmolested-maybe she would have been the next day's sacrifice-until the s.h.i.+p crashed and the Temple was knocked down about her ears.

Even then she was only shaken up. She, the independent, self-sufficient woman, and by chance she had been forced to sit by pa.s.sively like some ancient heroine while men fought all around her.

"What are your plans, Carl?"

"I suspect the citizens here will sooner or later get tired of having the demiG.o.d Karlsen around, and I just hope it doesn't happen before a s.h.i.+p shows up. I think he'll maintain a low profile, as they say, until then."

"No, I mean Carl Suomi's plans."

"Well." Suddenly he wondered if any of the Hunterians, before the crisis, had heard her call him Carl, as she frequently did. He wondered if that might have contributed to his being so fortunately misidentified.

Never mind.

Well. Only a few days ago Carlos Suomi's plans for his future would definitely have included Athena.

But that was before he had seen her so avidly viewing men killing each other.

No. Sorry. Of course he himself had now killed more people than she had even seen die-yet in a real sense he was still a pacifist, more so than ever in fact, and she was not. That was how he saw the matter, anyway.

Barbara, now. She was still standing beside Schoenberg as he lectured her, but she looked over from time to time toward the place where Suomi sat. Suomi wanted nice things to happen to Barbara. Last night she had shared his bed. The two of them had laughed about their minor injuries, comparing bruises.

But... a playgirl. No. His life would go on just about the same if he never saw Barbara again.

What, then, were his plans, as Athena put it? Well, there were plenty of other fish splas.h.i.+ng in the seas of Earth, or even, if he could be allowed a mangled metaphor, living demure and veiled behind their white walls here on G.o.dsmountain. He still wanted a woman, and in more ways than one.

Schoenberg was now pointing up into the sky. Would his rubble pile grow that tall? Then Barbara leaped with excitement, and Suomi looked up and saw the s.h.i.+p.

Next thing they were all running, shouting, looking for the emergency radios that Schoenberg had insisted on getting from theOrion and keeping handy. Some trying-to-be-helpful Hunterian had misplaced the radios. Never mind. The s.h.i.+p lowered rapidly, drawn by the beacon-like appearance of the city atop the mountain, andOrion already sitting there. A silvery sphere, similar in every way to Schoenberg's craft.

With wild waves Earthmen and Hunterians beckoned it to land on a cleared spot amid the rubble.

Landing struts out and down, drive off, hatch open, landing ramp extruded. A tall man emerging, with the pallor of one probably raised under a dome on Venus, his long mustache waxed and shaped in the form the Earth-descended Venerians frequently affected. Rea.s.sured by numerous signs of friendly welcome, he strode halfway down the ramp, putting on sungla.s.ses against the Hunterian noon. "How do, folks, Steve Kemalchek, Venus. Say, what happened here, an earthquake?"

Thorun and the High Priest Leros were still deciding which of them should make the official welcoming speech. Suomi moved a little closer to the ramp and said informally: "Something like that. But things are under control now."

The man looked relieved on hearing the familiar accents of an Earthman's speech. "You're from Earth, right? That's your s.h.i.+p. Get any hunting in yet? I've just been up north, got a stack of trophy 'grams in there... show you later." He lowered his voice to a more confidential tone. "And, say, is that Tournament everything I've heard it is? Going on right now, ain't it? Isn't this the place?"

end.