Berserker Throne by Fred Saberhagen Read Free Book Online Page B

distance in the future. Impossible to try to predict what lay beyond. It was worse than uncertain; it was opaque.
    This time his laboratory computer made no fuss about accepting the video records. It began to process them at once.
    At his private information station Sabel called for a printout of any official news announcements made by the Guardians or the city fathers during the time he had been gone. He learned that the entertainer Greta Thamar had been released under the guardianship of her court-appointed lawyer, after memory extraction. She was now in satisfactory condition in the civilian wing of the hospital.
    There was nothing else in the news about goodlife, or berserkers. And there had been no black-robed Guardians at Sabel's door when he came in.
    DATING ANOMALY PRESENT was on the screen of Sabel's laboratory computer the next time he looked at it.
    "Give details," he commanded.
    RECORD GIVEN AS EPOCH 451st CENTURY IDENTIFIES WITH SPECTRUM OF RADIANT EPOCH 456th CENTURY, YEAR 23, DAY 152.
    "Let me see."
    It was, as some part of Sabel's mind already seemed to know, the segment that showed Helen on the inner surface of the Fortress, raising her arms ecstatically as in some strange rite. Or dance.
    The singularity in his future was hurtling toward him quickly now. "You say—you say that the spectrum in this record is identical with the one we recorded—what did you say? How long ago?"
     
    38 DAYS 11 HOURS, APPROXIMATELY 44 MINUTES.
     
    As soon as he had the destructive materials he needed loaded aboard the flyer, he headed at top speed back to base camp. He did not wait to obtain a spare spacesuit.
    Inside the tent, things were disarranged, as if Helen perhaps had been searching restlessly for something. Under the loose coverall her breast rose and fell rapidly, as if she had recently been working hard, or were in the grip of some intense emotion.
    She held out her arms to him, and put on a glittering smile.
    Sabel stopped just inside the airlock. He pulled his helmet off and faced her grimly. "Who are you?" he demanded.
    She winced, and tilted her head, but would not speak. She still held out her arms, and the glassy smile was still in place.
    " Who are you, I said? That hologram was made just thirty-eight days ago."
    Helen's face altered. The practiced expression was still fixed on it, but now a different light played on her features. The light came from outside the shelter, and it was moving toward them.
    There were four people out there, some with hand weapons leveled in Sabel's direction. Through the plastic he could not tell at once if their suited figures were those of men or women. Two of them immediately came in through the airlock, while the other two remained outside, looking at the cargo Sabel had brought out on the flyer.
    "God damn, it took you long enough." Helen's lovely lips had formed some words at last.
    The man who entered first, gun drawn, ignored Sabel for the moment and inspected her with a sour grin. "I see you came through five days in the cooler in good shape."
    "Easier than one day here with him—God damn." Helen's smile at Sabel had turned into an equally practiced snarl.
    The second man to enter the shelter stopped just inside the airlock. He stood there with a hand on the gun holstered at his belt, watching Sabel alertly.
    The first man now confidently holstered his weapon too, and concentrated his attention on Sabel. He was tall and bitter-faced, but he was no policeman. "I'm going to want to take a look inside your lab, and maybe get some things out. So hand over the key, or tell me the combination."
    Sabel moistened his lips. "Who are you?" The words were not frightened, they were imperious with rage. " And who is this woman here? "
    "I advise you to control yourself. She's been entertaining you, keeping you out of our way while we got a little surprise ready for the city. We each of us serve the Master in our own way . . . even you have already served. You provided the Master