Kensing regained consciousness slowly, with the feeling that the universe was roaring and collapsing around him, a titanic VR display being suddenly reprogrammed by some indifferent god.
He was lying on his back in an acceleration couch, and his immediate surroundings made it plain that he was now aboard some very small space vessel. In fact it had to be one of the little shuttles commonly used to travel from station to yacht and back again. From where Kensing was lying he couldn't really see out, but he could tell from subtle hints of sound that the small craft was in motion.
When he tried to move, he realized with a chill that his ankles were tied together, his wrists firmly bound behind him.
His last clear memory was of the fight in the yacht's ten-cube. But he could not recall just what had knocked him out. His body felt battered and bruised, but he seemed to have suffered no very serious injury, apart from having been stunned.
The shuttle seemed to be making one of its usual brief unhurried passages. Turning his head, Kensing could see that Scurlock, not wearing armor, was at the controls. No one else appeared to be on board.
Whoever had bound Kensing's arms and legs—probably Loki, he supposed—had done a well-nigh perfect job, doing no injury but leaving not the least room for trying to work free.
"We're going back to the station," he murmured aloud, with the fog of unconsciousness still not quite cleared from his mind.
Scurlock turned his head to give his passenger—his captive—a look that was hard to read. "Not exactly."
Kensing made an effort to consider that, but was forced to abandon it. "Where are the others?" he asked at last.
"The Premier is seeing to the cleanup. Brabant is dead, as I'm sure you must remember."
"Mike?"
"I don't know of anyone by that name. You also killed a volunteer mentor called Fowler Aristov."
Kensing took a few deep breaths. "Scurlock," he said. "You don't really believe that, do you? That that was his name, or that I killed him?"
Scurlock turned his gaze forward again. "The Premier and Loki have explained to me what happened on the yacht."
The shuttle suddenly dipped and sighed in flight, then grated on something hard. It didn't sound like any ordinary docking. Kensing was suddenly shocked into full consciousness.
"It doesn't matter what you think," said Scurlock, getting out of his own couch and coming to undo the fastenings on Kensing's. He sounded as if he were talking to himself.
"Wait a minute. What're you doing now? What's going on?"
Scurlock chose not to answer Kensing directly. "You're getting off here," he remarked.
Still it took Kensing another moment or two to realize that they must actually have docked with some other object than the station. The berserker? If so, then at some time during the last three centuries an actual airlock must have been put into its hull, matching the specifications of Solarian hardware.
The shuttle's little airlock was opening now, into a larger, alien chamber—and in that somewhat greater space stood a machine, a typical berserker boarding device, waiting for what was evidently a prearranged meeting of some kind.
Scurlock was strong; he lifted Kensing's helpless body from the couch quite easily against the shuttle's standard gravity.
Only now did Kensing understand how Dirac must be bargaining, arranging to stay on good terms with his unliving partner. Only now did he finally let out a yell. As Scurlock dragged him into the airlock, the berserker machine stepped forward and reached out, ready to take Kensing in its grippers and carry him down into the black lightless guts of the great metal killer.
An hour or so after that, Havot and his companion of the moment were jarred out of dozing sleep, rocked by some remote shock that set the whole massive station quivering around them.
"What was that?" the Lady Genevieve demanded in a hoarse whisper. Here in this remote cabin the two of them had felt quite safe from observation; Nick was still in the shop, so to speak, being reprogrammed, and Loki as a rule concerned himself only with people who approached Dirac.
Havot said what he thought the noise had been: the blast of the commodore's flagship finally exploding, the impact of wavefronts of radiation and fine material debris slamming, in indistinguishably rapid succession, against the station's protective outer hull.
"That must be it!" And Genevieve, relieved, sank back in bed beside him.
He hadn't needed a great deal of time, nor much exertion of his seductive powers, to maneuver himself into this position with the Lady Genevieve. He was soon going to try to get Varvara Engadin off in some remote stateroom or secluded leafy bower, and see what fun it was possible to have with her.
Havot's current companion, like so many women, found his handsome youth quite fascinating. He knew he could project an image of almost childish innocence. Somewhat irreverent, but basically a decent fellow—a dealer in educational materials.
He'd told the Lady Genevieve: "Your husband is a very fortunate man indeed—of course I'm sure he deserves his good fortune."
The lady didn't know quite how to take such a compliment. Probably, living with Dirac, she had not heard much flattery of any kind over the last century or two.
Now she snuggled up to him as if seeking protection, reassurance. Apropos of nothing, seemingly, she inquired: "Christopher? What is it that frightens you?"
"Not very many things, I suppose." He paused, thinking. "There was a time when berserkers really did."
"But they don't now?"
He lay with hands clasped behind his head, studying her. Then he responded to her last question with one of his own. "What really frightens you? The Premier?"
Jenny began now to tell Havot, in a rush, of her experiences with Nick, of the horrors of discarnate life as she remembered them. The body Havot was now gazing at, stroking, with such obvious appreciation, was actually the fourth she'd had since her return to flesh. Dirac was interested in keeping her freshly young, and also in the experiments themselves.
The truth was that Jenny, ever since Nick had plucked her from the courier's wreckage, whether in a body or not, had become obsessed with her own image. She felt compelled to refine her appearance to match some dazzling ideal of her own, but at the same time she wanted to remain unchanged, recognizable to anyone who had known her in her first incarnation.
Several times she had discussed with Havot her difficulties in finding the exactly perfect body. She craved reassurance from him regarding her appearance.
Havot was intrigued by the idea of people being able to replace their bodies practically at will. But it was not something he wanted to try personally. He felt well satisfied with the way he looked, the way his natural body functioned.
Havot was always interested in finding out what truly frightened people. Sometimes it was something really surprising. Now he probed at Genevieve, trying, gently at first, to discover the best way to provoke her. He said: "Sooner or later you won't be able to turn up such close genetic matches for your original appearance—even if you do have a billion samples to search through for a match."
"I'll worry about that when it happens. We won't come close to running out of close matches for a long time yet."
Immediately after breakfast, Prinsep had convened a planning session with Lieutenant Tongres and Ensign Dinant.
The commodore said: "The questions of overriding importance are, as I see them, first: Has this damned berserker really been finished off, or hasn't it? Second, if it's not really dead, can it be killed? And—this is a rather more breathtaking question, if possible—can its drive be taken over, in one way or another, to help a group of stranded Solarians get home?"
The more Prinsep looked at the situation, the more certain he became of one thing: for whatever reason, Premier Dirac had evidently placed himself squarely in the path of any such enterprise, as if determined to prevent it.
Over the next few hours, while Dirac's aides were still maintaining that the great man was resting and not to be disturbed, Prinsep found that the station's other long-term residents either would not or could not help him much. Carol uttered vaguely disturbing nonsense, when she said anything at all. Scurlock was openly antagonistic to the newcomers' intrusion, and neither the Lady Genevieve nor Varvara Engadin was inclined to be useful.
Compounding Prinsep's other worries, Superintendent Gazin was still missing, as were Sandy Kensing and the man called Brabant, the latter evidently Dirac's bodyguard.
Scurlock, who came to keep Prinsep company for a time, dropped a few hints that all three absent people might have fallen foul of the berserker in some way.
"Then it is still active? There might be berserker devices on the yacht?"
Scurlock replied mildly: "When you've had a chance to accustom yourselves to our situation—which has now become your situation as well—you'll understand that we are neither goodlife, nor exactly prisoners."
"Perhaps you will explain to us, then, just what our situation is?"
Scurlock looked up past Prinsep's shoulder, and his face changed with relief. "Here comes the Premier. He can explain these things better than I can."
Dirac, elegantly dressed and looking somber, was approaching from the direction of his private quarters. He appeared to be ready to carry on with the explanations. "Your people in the medirobots, Commodore, are healing peacefully, or at least resting undisturbed."
"Where's Sandy?" Annie Zador, just arriving on the scene, urgently wanted to know. She appeared to have been waiting for Dirac so as to question him.
The Premier turned his gloomy gaze upon her. "I don't know any good way to break the bad news to you, Dr. Zador."
Annie stared at him a moment, then brought both hands up to her cheeks and screamed.
Dirac, grim and unbending, went on: "There was a fight on the yacht. Your Superintendent Gazin"—he shot a glance at Prinsep—"evidently killed the unfortunate Fowler Aristov and then shot it out with Brabant and Kensing. All four men are dead. And the events left Nicholas Hawksmoor in a state of shock that necessitates his being reprogrammed." He looked back at Annie, his gaze at last softening into a kind of sympathy.
Meanwhile Tongres and Dinant had opened a conversation with Varvara Engadin and were hearing a larger version of the truth from her. Four years ago, rebellious Nick had done something that enraged Dirac tremendously. His offense had had something to do with the Lady Genevieve.
On that occasion, Nick had been caught by Loki and Dirac, overpowered and reprogrammed, forcibly regressed to his state before the berserker had attacked the station. Something vaguely similar seemed to have happened again.
An hour after Dirac's announcement of the deaths, Dr. Daniel Hoveler was awakened, partly at Prinsep's request and partly in response to the pleas of the violently grieving Annie.
Both Zador and Hoveler, when Prinsep talked to them alone, were inclined to doubt Dirac's version of the deaths of Kensing and the others.
Commodore Prinsep wanted to learn for himself what other resources and assets, concealed by Dirac or perhaps unknown to him, might be available. And he was concerned about the poisonous, mysterious mental atmosphere of the place as it had evolved under Dirac's dictatorship. Therefore he requested a general meeting of everyone on board the station and currently awake.
Dirac agreed, with seeming willingness.
When everyone had gathered, the commodore demanded: "What really keeps us from making a concerted effort to take over the berserker's drive and using it to get home?"
In response the Premier argued that between the forcefield obstacles, and other passive defenses the berserker was sure to have in place, reaching either its brain or its drive was quite impossible, and any effort along that line must be suicidal.
Another argument, this one put forward by Scurlock, was that the dead grip of the berserker's forcefields on the station was just too powerful to be overcome by the technology available to the station's inhabitants. It would be physically impossible for them to get to the berserker and to penetrate its hull, if they tried.
"How can you know until you do try?"
None of the long-termers had an answer satisfactory to Prinsep and his aggressive crew members.
Prinsep said: "Well, we've brought with us a few items, at least, in the way of technological reinforcement. And in the absence of any convincing arguments to the contrary, we intend to try them. If the yacht can't move, our only way out of this situation may be to board the berserker and turn it around—or at least turn it off!"
Prinsep turned back to Dirac. "In your opinion, Premier, is the berserker towing this vessel dead or not? Or how would you describe its condition?"
The other was, as usual, icily ready for a confrontation. "This berserker has been for some centuries basically inert."
"For some centuries, you say. Could you be a little more specific about the time?"
Dirac said: "It has been inert almost from the start."
"You're telling me that this berserker's condition, its behavior, hasn't changed substantially in three hundred years? And still you haven't been able to do anything against it?"
"It may be easy for you, Commodore, to accuse—"
"You haven't even tried?"
"I say, it may be easy, for one who has not shared our struggle for survival over the last three centuries, to criticize the path which we have followed. I'm sure that technically the berserker is not entirely defunct."
"Because its drive is active."
"Partly that, yes."
"And because some kind of astrogation system is evidently functional. An autopilot, enough instrumentation to keep the machine on a steady course. And the towing forcefields, obviously. Anything else?"
"Beyond that we enter the realm of speculation. We wouldn't want to trust a berserker, though, would we?"
"Let me put it this way. It long ago stopped trying to kill people, as far as you know?"
Dirac, a model of tolerant restraint, shook his head. "I fear it may be only—exercising a great deal of patience."
"I don't understand. What about the three men who seem to have perished on the yacht? Did they really all die simply as a result of a fight among themselves?"
"None of them were members of your crew. I don't consider that what they were doing is necessarily any of your business."
"Members of my crew are in medirobots aboard that vessel. And I—"
"Your crew members are as safe as any of the rest of us. Commodore, you are an impetuous man. We have reached a point where I think I had better state bluntly a fact I had planned to withhold until you had a better appreciation of our situation here. The fact is that we have been in communication with this berserker from time to time."
"Ah. What kind of communication?"
"It has been necessary for us to reach a truce with it. An accommodation." The Premier announced the fact calmly, with no hesitation or indication of guilt. Guilt and Dirac Sardou were strangers; they had never met.
"What sort of accommodation?"
"An implied one." The Premier gave the impression of being still very much in control. "You do not begin to understand our situation, sir."
Lieutenant Tongres burst out: "It is now our situation too!"
Dirac looked at her imperturbably. "Agreed. But you still do not seem to understand it."
The commodore raised a hand, putting a stop to the accusations, at least for the time being. He asked, reasonably: "I very much want to understand our situation, as you call it. In fact I'd damn well better know what's going on. We all had. I insist on knowing: Just what do you mean by having reached a truce?"
"It will take time for you to understand. Do not attempt to bully me, Commodore Prinsep. I am not subject to your authority on this vessel. Actually you are subject to mine." And Dirac turned his back, majestically, and walked away.
Scurlock intervened, almost apologetically, when some of Prinsep's people would have gone after the Premier: "All he's trying to say is that it comes down to this. We don't try to kill it; it doesn't try to kill us."
Commodore Prinsep, putting aside his dark suspicions concerning Dirac's sanity and intentions, also tried to avert or at least postpone a showdown. He feared an all-out fight among the humans now present on the station.
Still, the more Prinsep considered the situation, the worse it seemed. The appearance of the long-term survivors at their first meeting had been deceptive. Everyone on board when the people from the Symmetry arrived had appeared at least tolerably well fed and clothed. The station life-support systems were still functioning smoothly and unobtrusively, at least as well as those aboard the yacht; here too the hydrogen power lamps still put out power—as they could be expected to do for many generations. Maintenance machines still worked. Medirobots obviously had retained the ability to care effectively for even serious illnesses and injuries.
The fields created by the station's own artificial gravity system still held their proper configuration inside the hull. Recycling machines could be programmed to regularly produce new fabrics—if anyone cared—and were quite capable of coming up with new designs—if anyone was interested. Some machines aboard might have been originally installed for testing with a view to eventual use by future colonists.
Prinsep also continued to be concerned about his wounded, trying to keep an eye out for their welfare even after they were all safely lodged in medirobots. He saw to it that these units were inspected regularly by one of his own people, or by Dr. Zador.
Hoveler and Zador questioned Prinsep closely about what might have happened to the remainder of his fleet. The medical workers now longed for—even as others aboard feared—the arrival at any hour of more people, real victorious Solarian rescuers in a powerful ship. The Premier was at the same time wary of this happening. For Dirac saw his own new dreams of power endangered by the arrival of possible intruders. Centuries ago he had written off any real possibility of rescue. In his planning he had ceased to allow for any such turn of events.
Prinsep decided it would be wise to give the impression that he believed the arrival of a fresh ship was a real possibility, even though his belief was quite different. Simply considering the possibility would tend to undermine Dirac's control.
The latest version of Nicholas Hawksmoor, just restored to duty after his reprogramming, pondered the situation of great complexity in which he found himself.
Other people on board, the ones who had evidently known two earlier versions of himself, were now calling him Nick3. To Nick himself those earlier versions usually seemed utterly remote, even though he shared certain memories with them.
One of the few things he could be sure of, in this entrancing and perilous world he was now being allowed to reenter, was that the Lady Genevieve was very beautiful. Another thing, which Nick discovered almost immediately upon returning to his duties, was that this intriguing and appealing woman was now having an affair with Christopher Havot—whom Nick immediately began to hate.
One more discovery was that the Lady Genevieve was very wary around Nick, as if she were afraid of him. He had no idea why this should be so. He could not believe that any earlier version of himself could ever have caused her any harm.
Tentatively he approached her, establishing his presence on holostage, in her room, at a time when she was alone and he could feel reasonably certain they were not going to be interrupted.
He said: "Mistress, I think you know me."
She looked sharply at the unexpected intruder. "I know you are called Nick. Nicholas Hawksmoor. What do you want?"
"Only to reassure you. I have the impression that you fear me, and I don't know why. I want to promise you in the strongest terms that you have nothing to fear from me. Doing you any harm, even alarming you, would be the last thing in the world—"
"Thank you, Nick, thank you. Was there anything else? If not, please let me alone."
"Yes, my lady. But if you would answer one question for me first?"
"What is it?" Reluctantly.
"I do not sleep, as I suppose you know. Yet there have been times—I suppose it has something to do with being reprogrammed—times when it has seemed to me that I have dreamed. Dreamed that I was in a body, and you were in a body too, and with me. I don't know if you can tell me anything about these dreams of mine—if that is what they are—but I felt I had to say something to you about them."
The lady was staring at him in an entirely new way. "How very strange," she breathed.
"My lady?"
"No, Nick, we have never been in bodies together. You have never had a body at all."
"I know that."
"But you do appear in certain of my dreams. Just as you say I have appeared in yours. Gods of all space, how I wish I could be rid of them!"
Moments later, Hawksmoor withdrew, relieved that the lady did not seem to hate him, but otherwise no wiser than before.
He found the thought of being subject to endless cycles of reprogramming somehow depressing, though it did seem to confer a kind of immortality.
Nick, as far as he could remember, had never made a backup copy of himself, nor did he want to do so.
But he was afraid that Dirac might well have copies of him.
Havot told Prinsep and others the story of Nick1's rescue and recording of Dirac's bride, and her subsequent restoration to the flesh, as he, Havot, had heard it from the lady herself.
For Dirac, the confirmation of his bride's death, like any other obstacle he had ever encountered, had evidently been only a temporary setback. In fact it was not really Genevieve herself he needed—though he had chosen his bride from several candidates because of her valuable qualities—but rather the power, the alliance, she represented. He refused to allow himself to be deprived of those advantages.
Actually, before the Premier learned that a recording of the Lady Genevieve's personality existed, he had already begun to calculate how closely an organically grown approximation would have to resemble his original bride to be acceptable politically.
One thing was certain: by the time the battered flagship had arrived with its small band of refugee survivors, Dirac had been operating the artificial wombs intermittently for centuries. His first determined effort had been to duplicate his beloved—or to recover their child, as a first step in bringing back its mother. And fairly soon he had discovered that Nick1, with the help of Freya2, was conducting a very similar operation.
After the treachery of Nick1 had come to light, and that unfortunate version of Hawksmoor had been reprogrammed into Nick2, Dirac had continued his own experiments, but now with different aims in mind.
Zador and Hoveler agreed with Prinsep and his people in their doubts about Dirac's version of what had happened to Sandy Kensing and the other men who had disappeared on the yacht.
"Why such a delayed announcement of their deaths? Why the cleanup before anyone was notified?"
Dirac on being confronted with these questions responded that he was not required to account to anyone for his decisions. But he denied that there was any real mystery.
In general the Premier seemed rather surprisingly indifferent to reports of what had been happening back in civilization, even on the worlds he had once ruled. He seemed to choose to disbelieve whatever news he didn't like. When he talked at all about the people he had formerly governed, he spoke as one assuming those folk—or their descendants—would still be eager to have him back, if they were given the choice.
Dirac spoke calmly of how much he missed his homeworld and his people. But he did not seem to have any real wish to rejoin them.
Prinsep thought he was gradually coming to understand the situation. Ever since the station had been isolated, centuries ago, Dirac had become increasingly the prisoner of his own mania for power. The tricks with the artificial wombs were a significant part of the story, but no more than a part. He had also read the labels on thousands of tiles, hatching one zygote after another, in an effort to recover, reconstitute, his lost beloved. Putting himself away in a guarded vault for years, sometimes decades, between hatchings of his latest experiments, thus preserving his relative youth, and avoiding long subjective waits to see how the latest specimen had turned out.
Dirac would trust no human, and only one artifact, to stand guard over him while he slept his long sleeps.
Only Loki, the specialist.
And Prinsep felt sure there must be times when the Premier worried about Loki.