Berserker - Berserker's Planet Part 5

"Col Renba-Farley of Eikosk."

The man who started forward at the name of Col Renba was big, brown, and s.h.a.ggy. He stood near the center of the arena whirling a mace, a spike-studded ball on the end of a short chain, and waited for Farley to come after him.

Oscar was saying something to her, but there was no time to listen or think, no time for anything but watching. No time for Oscar, even.

Farley of Eikosk, fair and freckled, tall and well made if not exactly handsome, came treading catlike in fine leather boots. His other garments were simple, but of rich st.u.r.dy cloth. He squinted in the sun that shone on the fine polished steel of his sword and knife. Holding a weapon in either hand, he feinted an advance to within striking range of the mace, and nodded as if with satisfaction when he saw how rapidly the spiked weight on its taut chain arched out at him and back again.

Now Farley began to circle, moving around Col Renba first one way and then the other. The mace came out after him, faster than before, faster than had seemed possible to Athena, and she cried out, unaware that she did so. Again she cried out, in relief this time, when she saw that the spikes had missed Farley's fine, fair skin.

Momentarily both men were still, and then again there came a rapid pa.s.sage of arms, too fast for Athena to judge. She thought the flurry was over, when suddenly the tip of one of the mace's spikes touched Farley on the hand, and his dagger flew lightly but awkwardly away. In almost the same moment Farley's long sword bit back, and now Col Renba backed away, keeping the mace twirling with his right hand, his left arm curled up as if trying to protect itself from further damage while its sleeve rapidly drenched red.

Each man's left arm was bleeding now, and Farley's at least appeared no longer usable. Along the back of his hand there showed the white of splintered bone. The bright blade of his long dagger lay buried in the dust.

When the mace-spinner saw the extent of the damage he had inflicted, and found that his own left arm could at least be held up out of the way, he stopped backing off and began to advance once again. He kept the ugly weight of death moving around him in a smooth ellipse. As Col stepped closer, Farley began to retreat, but only began. As the mace sighed past him his long speed-thrust to the throat caught Col stepping in. Col Renba died, the mace flying wide from his hand in a great arc, spinning over the shouting, dodging ring of watchers.

A long moment after the other watchers' outcries had died away, Athena was still shouting. She realized this and shut up and let go of Schoenberg, whose arm and shoulder had somehow come into her spasmodic two-handed grip. Oscar was looking at her strangely, and so was De La Torre, who stood with his arm around a bored-looking Celeste a little distance off.

But Athena forgot about them. Already men were getting ready to fight again.

"Giles the Treacherous-Hal Coppersmith." Coppersmith was the leaner of this pair, and much the taller.

He was content to begin on the defensive, holding his long sword like the sensing organ of some giant insect. Giles the Treacherous had sandy hair, an air of earnest perseverance, and (like the most successful traitors, thought Athena) an open trustworthiness in his face. He was not big, and did not appear to be exceptionally strong, but still maneuvered his own long blade with an a.s.sured economy of effort. Now it was high, now low, without Athena being aware that it had started to move. Hal Coppersmith had similar difficulties, it seemed. His elbow was gashed, and then his knee, and then the great muscle in his tattooed upper arm was cut nearly through. Then nothing remained but butchery. Giles stepped back with an expression of distaste. A slave limped forward to swing a maul and end Hal's silent, thras.h.i.+ng agony.

"Jud Isaksson-LeNos of the Highlands." LeNos sprang to the attack almost before the signal had been given, his fierce scarred face thrust forward like a s.h.i.+eld. In either hand he held a wide blade, moving and flas.h.i.+ng like the hub-knives on a chariot. And little Isaksson, whooping as if he were overjoyed to meet a fighter so aggressive, shot forward fast enough to clash with LeNos almost in the middle of the trodden circle. The round metal s.h.i.+eld on Jud's left arm rang like some maddened blacksmith's anvil under the barrage of his enemy's blows. LeNos seemed incapable of imagining a defensive move, let alone performing one. He only pushed his own two-handed attack so maniacally that it seemed impossible for his opponent to find a sliver of time and s.p.a.ce in which to counterattack.

At such a pace the fight could not and did not last long. LeNos's driving sword arm was suddenly stilled, pinned in mid-air on the long, thick needle of Isaksson's sword. The highlander's dagger kept flas.h.i.+ng on, but still Jud's bright-scarred s.h.i.+eld took the blows. Then Jud yanked his sword free, of the ruined arm as he did, and brought it back, hacking, faster and faster, with a violence wilder if anything than his opponent's had been. LeNos was in several pieces before he died.

"What's the matter?" An insistent voice had repeated the question to her several times, Athena realized.

Schoenberg was gripping her firmly by both arms, and giving her a slight shaking. He was looking closely into her face. When her eyes focused on his, the expression in his changed from concern to an odd mixture of amus.e.m.e.nt and contempt.

"Nothing's the matter. What do you mean? I'm all right." She kept looking for the next fight to start, and then realized that the priest in charge, Leros or whatever his name was, must have just ordered a recess.

Slowly she realized that she had come near losing herself in the excitement of the fighting, temporarily losing control of her own behavior as if with drugs or s.e.x. But no, it was all right. A near thing, but she still controlled herself.

Schoenberg, still looking at her with some concern, said now: "We had better give Carlos and Barbara a chance to see a thing or two."

"Him?" she laughed abruptly, contemptuously. "This isn't for him. Thank you for bringing me, Oscar."

"Nevertheless I think you've had enough."

De La Torre peered around Oscar at her. "I have, too, for the time being. Shall we walk back to the s.h.i.+p, Athena?"

"I'm staying."

Her tone was such that neither of the men made any further argument. Celeste meanwhile had moved next to Schoenberg; she was watching him more than what was going on in the ring. "I'm going, then,"

said De La Torre, and he was off.

Suomi,.having handed over his sentry's rifle to De La Torre, slid and clambered down the steep slope from the mesa's top, holding on to the retractable rope that they had secured at the top to make the climb less dangerous. On this one face of the mesa the slope for the most part was not quite precipitous; there were some patches of gravelly soil and a bush or two. Already a visible path was being worn.

When he reached the level of the forest Suomi set off immediately in the direction of the tournament.

Athena was there, not just for a quick look, but remaining there by choice to see it all. A purely scientific interest? Anthropology? She had never been enthusiastic on that subject before today, not around Suomi anyway. Maybe the tournament wasn't, after all, as murderous a business as he had been led to believe.

Neither Suomi nor Barbara had watched. De La Torre, coming back, had said nothing about it and Suomi had not asked him. But maybe it was just as b.l.o.o.d.y as the guide had warned them, and she was still there taking it in. If she was like that, he had better know about it.

Nothing horrible was going on in the ring as he emerged from the forest and drew near. People were simply standing about, waiting, while a white-robed man went through some kind of ceremony before a simple altar. As Suomi came up Schoenberg nodded a greeting to him. Athena gave Suomi a preoccupied look. She was upset about something, he thought, but she gave no indication of wanting to be elsewhere. His attention was soon pulled away from her.

"Omir Kelsumba-Mesthles of the Windy Vale."

On springy legs ma.s.sive as tree trunks Kelsumba moved forward, black skin gleaming, axe cradled almost like an infant in his awesome arms. Mesthles, spare and graying, thoughtful-looking, somewhat battered by time like the ancient scythe with which he meant to fight, kept at a respectful distance from Kelsumba for a little while, retreating with economical movements, studying the movements of his foe.

Now the axe came after him, startling Suomi with its speed, and with such power and weight behind it that it seemed nothing human should be able to turn the blow aside. Mesthles made no mistakes, had his scythe-blade in the right place to turn the axe, but the jarring impact when the blades met came near to knocking Mesthles down. Another axe-blow fell on the scythe, and then another. Mesthles could not get into position to strike back. After the fourth or fifth parry, the scythe-blade broke. A groaning murmur, like the foretaste of blood, came up from the ring of watchers, and Suomi heard part of it coming from Athena. He saw the moist-lipped rapture on her face as she watched the fight, oblivious to him and all else.

Broken weapon still tightly in his grip, its jagged blade still dangerous, Mesthles maintained his calm, and showed more agility than his appearance suggested. For some time he avoided being pinned against the side of the fighting ring. Neither he nor any of the other fighters ever seemed to consider stepping across that simple line and outside the ring, any more than they would consider jumping through a wall.

The axe now came after Mesthles in what looked like a continuous blur, seeming to pull its giant owner after it. It struck Mesthles at last, full in the back, as he twisted his body in trying to dodge it yet again.

His fallen body continued jerking, twitching, moving. A slave limped forward with a maul and dealt the finis.h.i.+ng blow.

Suomi's gut worked suddenly, labored wretchedly, rejected in a spasm what remained of the little he had taken for his breakfast. I should have tranquilized myself, he thought. It was too late now. He faced away from the ring but could do nothing more before the vomit came. If he was desecrating holy ground, well, they would have to kill him for it. But when he straightened up it seemed that no one was paying him any attention at all. Whether it was delicacy or lack of interest he could not tell.

"Polydorus the Foul-Rahim Sosias."

Suomi found that he could watch. Polydorus, looking no more foul than his compet.i.tors, brandished a battered sword with obvious strength and energy. Sosias was paunchy and short, yet he somehow managed to draw first blood with his scimitar, making an ugly slice among Polydorus's left shoulder.

Polydorus was galvanized rather than weakened by the injury, and pressed an attack so hard that for a few moments it seemed he might prevail. But then he aimed a long thrust poorly, and stood looking down at his own right hand and forearm where he had just stepped on it. He grimaced and spat toward Sosias before the scimitar came back to take his life.

The white-clad priest was in the ring again, and it appeared there was going to be another recess. Not that it mattered to Suomi. He turned away, deliberately this time. He had found out that he could watch whatever further maiming might occur; but still he much preferred not to watch.

He stepped closer to Schoenberg and Athena, managed to catch the eye of the former but not the latter, and said: "I'm going back to the s.h.i.+p." He glanced at Celeste, but she only gave him a bored look and moved a little closer to Schoenberg.

Suomi turned away from them all and trudged back among the trees. It was good to be briefly alone again, but here in this alien forest was no place to stop and think.

When he got back to the foot of the mesa, he found that the climbing rope had been pulled up. Not in the mood to try the ascent without it, Suomi called out. A few seconds later De La Torre's head and bare shoulders appeared at the top of the slope. "What's up?" he called down.

"I've seen enough. Throw down the rope."

"All right." In a moment the rope came snaking down.

When Suomi got to the top he saw that Barbara lay naked on a foam mattress so close to the climbing path that De La Torre could sit on the mattress beside her and do acceptable sentry duty. Suomi noticed also that a pair of binoculars had been set up on a tripod beside the mattress in such a way that a man lying there, perhaps with a woman beneath him, could observe uninterruptedly what was going on in the fighting ring.

De La Torre apparently was finished for the time being with binoculars, mattress, and girl; he had pulled on a pair of shorts already and was continuing to dress. His voice was mild and lazy. "I'll turn the rifle back to you, then, Carlos, and go down again myself."

Before Suomi had gotten the rifle's still-unfamiliar strap adjusted to fit his shoulder, De La Torre was gone again. Suomi watched him out of sight, then said to Barbara, who still lay curled up tiredly on her mattress: "And how are things with you?"

She moved a little, and said in a small voice: "Life appears possible." Never had he seen Barbara so obviously depressed before. He had lain with her a couple of times on the long trip out, and with Celeste a couple of times. Not with Athena, though, on the trip out he could no longer be casual with her. Now perhaps he could.

Barbara was the only one of them who had refused to watch the tournament at all. So of course the s.a.d.i.s.t De La Torre had had to pick her for his object, his receptacle... Suomi wanted to say something good to her but could think of nothing. Tomorrow her nakedness might arouse his own l.u.s.t again but right now it only made her seem defenseless and pitiable, lying there face down. So, she had wanted to come along on a luxurious s.p.a.ce voyage with a billionaire, and her wish had been granted. She was earning her pa.s.sage.

No need to walk a sentry's route around the s.h.i.+p; there was only the one route by which one could ascend. Standing at the head of the path, looking out over the treetops without binoculars, Suomi could see De La Torre arriving at the side of the fighting ring. The next duel had still not gotten underway, evidently; there were still four men waiting to fight, if Suomi was reading the arrangement of the distant figures correctly. The binoculars were handy but he did not care enough to pick them up. Perhaps he did not want to acknowledge their present positioning by moving them.

It promised to be a long few days ahead, until the Tournament slaughtered itself into extinction, and then a very long trip home. But there were compensations. It had been made clear that whatever had seemed to be growing between him and Athena had no real existence. It was not over-it had never been.

Barbara was sitting up and doing things with her fingers to her hair, not yet in a mood to talk. Suomi, turning to look to the north from this high place, saw or thought he saw the mountainous glaciers of hunting country looming just over the horizon there, like unsupported clouds.

What was that sound, just now? The path was clear. Some small animal or flying creature, then. Never mind.

Well, things were no doubt going to be socially uncomfortable on the trip home, but it was well worth it to have settled the thing between them that might otherwise have dragged on much longer. You had to consider this a favorable conclusion. If they had...

Did they have woodp.e.c.k.e.rs here? He couldn't see the bird anywhere but still the sound came almost continuously. Must be down under the treetops somewhere. There was also a faint polyphonic roar from the direction of the Tournament, what must have been a loud yell to be audible this far away, but he did not try to see what had happened there.

Barbara was standing up, her clothes in hand. "I'm going in for a shower, Carlos."

"All right." He watched her walk away. Women. Magnificent, but who could understand them?

And then, while on the subject of magnificence, there had been the animal, the glacier-beast, whose power and beauty had frozen Suomi in awe and terror as it charged down upon him. He now felt, surprisingly, some small regret that he had not killed it. Better, of course, if it had been allowed to live...

yet, what was it Th.o.r.eau had written? There is a time in the lives of nations, as of individuals, when the best hunters are the best men. Something like that. The nation of interstellar man had presumably long since pa.s.sed that stage, of course. And so had Carlos Suomi in his individual life. Or he should have.

Schoenberg, on the other hand, though something more than a mere s.a.d.i.s.t- In his mind the perception of the nagging tapping sound clicked suddenly into place with a remembered visual image, that of stone being worked by hard metal, more precisely that of steps being cut in the side of the mesa by Schoenberg, hanging on the rope with mountaineers' implements in hand. Suomi had not made the connection before because the sounds he was now hearing were too rapid. No one could wield a hammer at such a speed. And at the same time they sounded too irregular to be made by an automatic tool.

The climbable face of rock was still unoccupied. Suomi had started around the s.h.i.+p to check the other sides of the mesa when he beheld in front of him someone, something, climbing carefully up over the rim and into sight. A huge head of wild, coa.r.s.e, dark hair, bound by a silver band. Beneath the head a ma.s.sive wrestler's body coming up over the edge of the cliff, clothed in rough furs under a swirling dark cloak. On second look the figure was so huge the mind wanted to refuse belief.

The climber rolled the great length of his frame out onto the horizontal surface of the mesa and raised his gigantic head to look straight at Suomi. The impa.s.sive face, its lower half masked by wild dark beard and mustache, was of the right size to fit the head, and yet it was subtly wrong. Not that it was scarred, or intrinsically deformed. Though it was no mask in the ordinary sense, it was yet artificial. Too skillfully artificial, like the work of some mad artist, convinced he could fool people into thinking that this robot, this dummy, was a man.

The figure rose gracefully to its feet and Suomi saw something that its body had obscured. At the very edge of the cliff a climber's piton had been hammered into the rock. The end of a line was knotted to an eye in the piton and the line went tautly back out of sight over the cliff. Now the face of a second climber, this one of normal stature, indubitably human, rose into view.

Meanwhile the trailblazing giant had risen to his full height. He was taller than anyone Suomi had ever seen. As he stood up he thrust a mountaineer's hammer into a pouch at his waist and with the same motion of his arm unsheathed an enormous sword.

Suomi had come to a dead stop, not paralyzed with fear as he had been by the glacier-beast, but simply unable to form any satisfactory explanation for what his senses were recording.

The first answer to cross his mind was that this was all some ugly and elaborate practical joke arranged by Schoenberg or De La Torre but he realized even before the idea was fully formed that they would hardly think it necessary to go to so much trouble to scare him. And Schoenberg, at least, would have too much sense to yell boo at a nervous man with a loaded weapon.

The second explanation to pop into Suomi's head was that there must be hooligans on Hunters' planet the same as everywhere else, and some of these had come to see what they might steal from the outworlders' s.h.i.+p.

But the marauders' giant leader was not covered by either of these hypotheses. The mind stopped and boggled at the sight, then tried to go around it and proceed.

With some vague idea of scaring off bandits, Suomi began to unsling the rifle from his back. As he did so the incredible giant took two steps toward him with its sword upraised, then halted as if satisfied with its position.

By this time the second climber, a Hunterian warrior, young and tough-looking, was completely up on the cliff-top and proceeding with drawn sword toward the open hatchway of the s.h.i.+p. The third, also of normal size, was right behind him.

"Halt," said Suomi, conscious even as he spoke of the uncertainty in his own voice. He felt foolish when no one halted even though the rifle was now in his hands.

Now there were two human invaders on top of the mesa besides the man-shaped giant, and another armed man was climbing into sight. The s.h.i.+p's hatch stood open and-except for Suomi-unprotected. And Barbara was in there.

He had not leveled the rifle at them yet, but now he did, and shouted "Halt! ", this time with conviction.

Instantly the huge figure lunged toward him, faster than any human could conceivably move. The man-slicing sword was held high, ready to strike. Suomi squeezed the trigger, realized when it failed to move that he had failed to release the safety. Instinctively he stepped back from the onrus.h.i.+ng sword and felt his foot move into empty air. His left hand, grabbing wildly for support, caught hold of the climbing rope and saved him from a killing fall. The misstep dropped him only a short distance down from the edge of the mesa, but still his heel came down on rock with an impact that jarred his leg and spine. His arm twisted with the fall and the rope slipped from his grip. He lost all footing, tumbled and rolled on gravel, and stopped when he came up with a breathtaking slam against an outcropping of rock. Still he was only about halfway down the path, the steepest part of which was just below him.

With his back against the rock that had stopped him, he half sat, half lay there, facing up the hill. Dazedly he realized that he was not seriously injured, and that his right hand still held the rifle. Now his finger found the small safety lever beside the breech and turned it back. Somehow he even remembered to set it for full automatic fire.

The giant man-thing with its sword upraised reared into view above. When it saw Suomi it dropped itself onto the steep slope with the grace of a dancer. With sword leveled at him now it descended upon him, moving under perfect control, one long bounding stride, two...

The rifle stuttered in Suomi's hands. The sword-brandis.h.i.+ng golem's left arm erupted in a spray of dry-looking particles and smoke as the man-thing spun in an incredible pirouette, more graceful by far than any wounded animal. Knocked off balance and deflected from its courseby the shock of the rifle's force-packets, the towering shape slid past Suomi and on down the slope.

But it did not fall. In another moment, near the bottom, it had regained full control and stopped its slide.

Then it turned and was calmly climbing, like a mountain goat, at a fast run. The sword, whirling and gleaming, came toward him once again, the face below it a mask of insane serenity.

Suomi uttered a sobbing noise, a compound of terror and frustration. In his hands the rifle leaped and kicked, firing continuously while he struggled to keep it aimed. The fur-clad monster, face still without expression beneath the silver headband, was stopped in its tracks. Puffs of fur flew from it under the barrage, and splinters and streaks of unidentifiable debris. Then it was hurled back down the hill, still staggering to keep its feet, black cloak alternately furling and flying. Far at the bottom Suomi's continuing mad fusillade pinned it like an insect, leaping and convulsing wildly, against an immovable tree trunk.

A force-packet dissolved the silver headband and half the monster's face in a gray bloodless smear. The sword flew from its hand. With a final, awkward, uphill lunge, the figure fell. It rolled over on the ground and lay inert. At last Suomi released the trigger.

Suddenly all was quiet. The sky, the mesa, seemed to be whirling around Suomi's head. He realized that he was sprawled precariously on the steep slope, his head considerably lower than his feet. One false move and he would go plunging down. He was breathing in little sobbing gasps. Moving very carefully, still clutching the precious rifle, he got his feet more or less beneath him. Now he could feel a dozen cuts and bruises from the fall.

He should get back up and defend the s.h.i.+p. But the slope just above him was impossible. How had he survived the tumble down? He must be tougher than he had realized. His rolling descent had taken him away from the regular climbing path. Couldn't get back to it here by going sideways. He would have to go all the way down and start up again on the proper route.

To get down he had to resling the rifle and use both hands to grip the rock. In his present state he took without thinking about them slides and drops that would certainly have broken his ankles if he had essayed them calmly.

At the bottom he kept his eyes on the figure of his fallen enemy. He unslung the rifle once again, but it was not needed. His rifle fire had beaten the facing surface of the great tree trunk into splinters, which had showered down with leaves and twigs to make a patchy carpet on the ground. On top of this carpet a giant doll lay huddled where his violence had flung it.

Suomi, the killer, still unable to understand, now unable to take his eyes away, came closer. This time, too, as with the glacier-beast, there was scattered fur, though this fur was a long-dead dull brown instead of gallant orange.

He prodded with the rifle's muzzle, put out a hand, moved the tattered cloak. What was left of the thing's face was turned away. Beneath the torn fur garments the bulky torso itself was torn and shattered, pilling madness into the light of day. No blood and bones this time, but wads of stuff that might have filled a doll.

Amid this stuffing were disjointed metal rods and cams and wheels, here and there a gleaming box or tube, and running through all were complex networks of metal cables and insulated wires with an irregular, handmade look about them. And this, some power source. A hydrogen lamp? No, a nuclear fuel cell, not made to energize a robot, but doubtless serving well enough.

He had killed, yet he had not. This corpse had never lived, that much was certain. Now he could look more coolly. He touched the side of the cheek above the beard, and it felt like smooth leather. The fur clothing over the torso had never covered skin, only a carapace of hand-worked metal armor. In its slight irregularities of shape and thickness the armor reminded Suomi of a warrior's s.h.i.+eld he had just seen at the Tournament below. At close range the energy rifle had opened this crude armor like an egg. Inside were the structural parts, cables and rods and such, also handworked, and mysteriously jumbled with these were a few sealed boxes, smooth and perfect in shape and finish, obviously of quite different origin than the rest...

He grasped at his belt. The communicator was gone, and he realized with dismay that it must have been knocked or sc.r.a.ped from its holder at some point during his fall.

"Carlos!" It was Barbara's voice, shrill with panic, coming from somewhere out of sight above him.