Fred Saberhagen Berserker 14 Berserker's Star

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of his mind was riffling thoughtware in a blur, much faster than a cardsharp's
fingers.
By all the tests of logic and technology, the cancerous little blur that
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Fred Saberhagen - Berserker's Star.html had just shown up on his stage could
hardly be anything but a berserker machine but at least, thank all the gods of
all the planets, there was only one of them.
"Can't we jump?" Lily was asking, her voice gone up in pitch. "Get out of
here?"
"If we tried to jump right here and now, we'd kill ourselves." By interstellar
standards
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Fred Saberhagen - Berserker's Star.html this region on the outskirts of a
system was a virtual dustbin, space choked with deadly dust and gas, maybe as
much as a hundred trillionth of the density of the air inside a spaceship's
cabin. A few more minutes, and he would have had the
Witch in cleaner emptiness, then quickly into the comparative security of
flightspace, where the likelihood of
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Fred Saberhagen - Berserker's Star.html any enemy locating them would be
enormously reduced. But there was no use crying or cursing about lost chances.
As matters stood, they were just on the point of getting clear of the
Thisworld system, and the berserker was no more than eighty thousand
kilometers away, so optelectronic pulses could leap from the
Witch's hull to the
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Fred Saberhagen - Berserker's Star.html enemy's, then bounce back again,
bringing information, in less than a second.
Harry already had his ship well into a routine of evasive action, while at the
same time working to increase their distance from the killer.
Lily needed less than a minute to recover from her shock sufficiently to
fasten herself into her chair, which, like Harry's,
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Fred Saberhagen - Berserker's Star.html had automatically changed its shape to
become a true acceleration couch. Its built-in pads and extra forcefields
might or might not be enough to do her some good if the ship's artificial
gravity should stutter during the stressful maneuvers that now seemed
inevitable.
As soon as Harry had a moment free of intense mental concentration, he
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Fred Saberhagen - Berserker's Star.html gave Lily what he hoped was a
reassuring grin and made his voice relaxed and careful.
"That object hanging just above your right ear is a gunner's helmet, and it's
connected to a couple of modest weapons we have that might be useful. But
don't put on the helmet unless you've had some training. If the answer's no,
for God's sake tell
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Fred Saberhagen - Berserker's Star.html me now. We're at a point where one
good lie on your part will probably kill us both."
"No gunnery training, no." The young woman put up rigid fingers and thrust the
helmet farther away. "I did go to pilots'
school for six weeks
and I was pretty good.
That was where I met
Alan. At one point we were both going to be professional spacers."
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Fred Saberhagen - Berserker's Star.html
"But you can't do gunnery."
"I can't. I'm sorry."
"Don't be sorry. It's all right, we'll manage."
Harry nodded, smiling.
"As long as I know."
Wishing he could feel as confident as he was trying to sound, Harry mentally
flipped the thoughtware switches that brought the
Witch's
nominal armament, such as it was, under the
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