Fred Saberhagen Berserker Throne

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his further orders. But at the moment he could think of no more to give it. When he drove on
again, it maintained its position near his flyer, pacing swiftly on its six giant legs, still
apparently untroubled by the severed cables and other loose ends that trailed from his dissection
of its belly.
When the Prince arrived at his exile's house he found two dead Templars lying outside his door.
He could see that one of the Templars had drawn a pistol, and he could see how the weapon had been
crushed, along with the hand that held it, and for a moment Harivarman thought that he could feel
his heart stop, wondering what he was going to find inside. Bea was in there, or he had done his
best to arrange it so. Then he saw that one of the fallen figures outside the door was still
alive, and he stopped, feeling the impulse to try to help the wounded young woman. He could do
nothing at the moment. Maybe there would be help for her inside.
He gave the front door his voice and his handprint to identify, and it opened for him immediately.
Inside, Lescar, of course unarmed, came running in ecstasy to see his master still alive. But the
servant was also in an agony of terror. He blurted out the story of how the house had already been
visited by berserkers, but somehow, inexplicably, the machines had left without killing them all.
Beatrix was there too, and to Harivarman's vast relief she was unhurt. At first she was simply
overjoyed to see him. But it took Bea only a moment, even less time than Lescar needed, to realize
that something had changed in the Prince's situation, something besides the mere fact of the
attack.
Harivarman shunted aside the first tentative questions of her terrible suspicion. He demanded:
"Where's Gabrielle?"
Beatrix only fell silent, staring at him. Lescar said: "Miss Gabrielle did not answer my call,
Your Honor, or return it."
The Prince was silent for a moment. "All right. Can't be helped. Give me a hand with this girl out
here." Then he and Lescar carried the wounded Templar into the house and put her on a bed, and
Lescar summoned the household first aid robot. The machine immediately began calling the base
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hospital, which did not respond. It kept trying.
Beatrix was still staring, silently, at her husband.
Harivarman looked around for the controller, but could not see it anywhere. It could have entered
the house, he thought, and be in the next room now. All the doorways were probably too small for
it, but small doorways had not troubled it before.
Beatrix demanded of him tensely: "What are you looking for?"
"Never mind."
Now there were sudden sounds outside the house, a woman's voice screaming, and pounding.
Harivarman dashed to open the front door that he had closed and locked again when they brought in
the girl. Gabrielle, her appearance transformed by terror and some slight physical damage, fell
into his arms.
Gabrielle reported, as soon as she could speak coherently, that she had tried to reach the Templar
base quarters as soon as she realized that an attack had started. But there was fighting,
destruction and smoke all around that area, and she had been forced to run away from it. She had
been able to think of no other place to turn for protection except to Harivarman.
She looked back over her shoulder and began to scream again. The Prince raised his eyes and saw
that the controller had arrived.
Harivarman took a step toward it. "Come no closer," he called out. "None of these people with me
now are offering resistance."
"Order acknowledged."
Bea and Lescar were both staring at him now, in a way that he had never seen either of them look
at anyone or anything before. Obviously they were each realizing in their respective ways some
portion of the truth. Gabrielle's face as yet showed nothing but animal relief, as the berserker
obediently stopped its approach.
He was not going to take the time to try explaining or justifying himself now. Instead he issued
orders. With Lescar's and Bea's help the Prince got Gabrielle and the still-breathing Templar
guard into his flyer. Taking the driver's seat himself, on manual control, he set off at once for
Sabel's old laboratory. Some of the machines should be there already, in accordance with
Harivarman's earlier orders, setting up a command post for him.
The three women were in the back seat, Bea working efficiently at being a nurse. To Lescar,
sitting beside him, the Prince explained en route why he was moving out of the house so quickly.
Besides avoiding the presumed electronic bugging there, the transfer should make it harder for the
Templars or dragoons to zero in on him with any missiles or other deadly tricks.
Lescar agreed mechanically, as if he might not really know or care what he was agreeing to.
Meanwhile he stared out his window at the controller that paced beside the flyer, keeping up with
it. Only now, Harivarman thought, was the little man really beginning to understand just what his
master had done. Explanations were in order, of course, but they would have to wait.
When Harivarman eased the vehicle to a stop near Sabel's old lab, a berserker unit was already on
guard outside. And the controller, stopping beside the car, reported that in accordance with the
Prince's orders the place had already been given a security check.
The controller stayed right behind him as he went inside; here the doorway happened to be large
enough. Bea came after it, giving it a wide berth but looking as if she might already have
accepted its presence.
She spoke for almost the first time since he had rejoined her. "I want to send that vehicle to the
base hospital, with that girl in it. She might live then. Will it be shot down if I do?"
The Prince opened his mouth, closed it, then looked at the controller. "See that it's not," he
ordered.
"Order acknowledged."
"That takes care of half the problem. Program the pilot not to fly, Bea. Maybe it can drive into
the base on the ground without the Templars shooting it up& are you going with it?"
Beatrix moistened her lips. "I'm staying with you," she said.
Harivarman turned a little shakily to look at Lescar-but of course, in Lescar's case there was no
need to ask.
He turned to the controller, and demanded from it a report concerning the machine that was sent to
extricate Chen Shizuoka from his house arrest. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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