The Mammoth Book of SF Wars (20 page)

“But we’re not
at
war,” said Herb Neiheisel, leader of the Battling Ohioans, soon after I located his base camp near the lakefront town of Sandusky.

“You’re kidding me,” I said to Neiheisel. “You and Ontario exchange heavy artillery fire almost every day. Civilians in both countries – women and children – are killed by direct strikes, as well as by enemy raids, on a weekly basis. It’s illegal for Canadians to travel to the US, and vice versa. It’s illegal for an American to marry a Canadian, and vice versa. American forces are occupying Saskatchewan—”

“They are?” said Neiheisel in surprise.

“—and Canadians have occupied Washington, Oregon and California. So tell me—” I spread my hands as I asked “—in what way are you
not
at war?”

“We
won
the war,” Neiheisel said smugly. “Those goddamn Canadians just don’t accept it yet.”

After three years in this place, I should have known better than to ask a logical question.

“OK, fine, you won the war,” I said, “but since the Canadians don’t accept that yet, and your life would be easier if they
would
acc—”

“I ain’t interested in no
Canadian
making my life no easier.”

Trying to untangle the double negatives, I said, “But what about your children?”

“They fight Canadians with pride, just like their daddy.”

Neiheisel looked about thirty-five, surely not old enough to have kids of military age. “How old are they?”

“My son is twelve and carries light ammunition to combat units under fire. My daughter’ll be fifteen in October. She can already take apart and reassemble an AK-47 in the dark.”

“But don’t you want them to be able to finish school?” I said, searching for an argument that might open this man’s mind to the possibility of a ceasefire. “Go to college? Get married and have kids of their own?”

“I want them to
kill Canadians
!”

Since this was the most important combat leader in northwestern Ohio, I tried once more. If there was any possible way Neiheisel might consider peace, I had to find that crack in his stony exterior.

So I said, “Are you sure you’re taking the best position?”

“Of course I am!”

“Because I’ve talked with ‘General’ Joe Johnson of the Columbus Defense Forces, and he—”

“You’ve talked with the General?” Neiheisel’s eyes brightened. “Now
there’s
a patriot! A great leader! A true soldier of the people!”

In fact, Johnson was an opportunistic thug who used a totally fictitious military title and had probably killed his first wife. But he was the single most powerful man in Ohio. Even the governor – no,
especially
the corrupt, spineless governor – took orders from Joe Johnson, the so-called general of Ohio.

“Yes, I’ve been in talks with him,” I told Neiheisel. “And General Joe favours peace.”

Neiheisel’s eyes bulged. “
What?
”

“General Joe says twenty-one years of war are enough; it’s time to end the fighting, start rebuilding the country, and raise American children in peace and prosperity.”

Neiheisel frowned thoughtfully. “General Joe said that?”

“Yes,” I lied. “The general favours peace talks.”

In fact, General Joe had threatened to cut out my tongue just for suggesting a ceasefire. But maybe I could go back to Columbus and work on him some more after I gathered support elsewhere for the idea. And, as per my training and my instructions, I would do whatever it took to
get
that support, if it was at all possible.

I suddenly heard the high-pitched whine of a missile approaching its target, and I was on the ground with my arms covering my head even before Neiheisel shouted, “Incoming!”

The missile exploded about two hundred yards from us.

As I got up and started brushing myself off, I said to Neiheisel, “General Joe knows that ongoing hostilities could jeopardize peace talks. The president needs a ceasefire. This can only work if Ohio will cooperate.”

I heard another whining missile coming towards us. But Neiheisel, also rising from the ground, shook his head. “No, that one won’t make it this far.” He listened a moment longer, then nodded as the noise disappeared. “Went down in the lake.”

“So what do you think?” I prodded. “Will the Battling Ohioans cooperate in a ceasefire?”

“What I think is, those two missiles are the start of a full-scale barrage, and you’d better get the hell out of here if you don’t want to violate your status as a peacekeeper and help us kill some Canadians today.”

“But—”

“I have to think about it, and today’s not a good day for thinking,” Neiheisel said, as another missile flew overhead, confirming that this was indeed the start of a battle. “Where can I get a message to you?”

“The Israeli–Palestinian peacekeeper base at Columbus.”

“Expect to hear from me soon,” Neiheisel said.

Well, he wasn’t kidding. Two days after I slipped out of Neiheisel’s embattled base camp and returned to Columbus to report my findings to date, I got his message. He sent me General Joe’s severed head in a box. The enclosed note said, “Death to all traitors.”

This goddamn continent.

I decided I’d had enough of this insane war. The next morning, I applied for a transfer.

After taking a mental-health leave back in Gaza, I’ll be headed for the peacekeeping mission in Lichtenstein. Maybe I can do some good there. At any rate, after three years in North America, I’m just sure I can’t do any good in
this
crazy hellhole.

THE PEACEMAKER

Fred Saberhagen

What if intelligences mightier than ourselves are on the lookout for organic life in our galaxy, just as we ourselves are, but to exterminate it wherever found …?

Fred Saberhagen first forged this influential theme in the 1960s, and his interstellar killing machines make him, as it were, Mr Berserker, although he also wrote much varied and energetic fiction ranging from sword and sorcery and riffs upon Dracula to time-travel to extraordinary solo SF novels such as
The Veils of Azlaroc.
Besides, he was an editor of the
Encyclopedia Britannica
and wrote the original entry there on science fiction.

C
ARR SWALLOWED A
pain pill and tried to find a less uncomfortable position in the combat chair. He keyed his radio transmitter, and spoke:

“I come in peace. I have no weapons. I come to talk to you.”

He waited. The cabin of his little one-man ship was silent. His radar screen showed the berserker machine still many light-seconds ahead of him. There was no reaction from it, but he knew that it had heard him.

Behind Carr was the Sol-type star he called sun, and his home planet, colonized from Earth a century before. It was a lonely settlement, out near the rim of the galaxy; until now, the berserker war had been no more than a remote horror in news stories. The colony’s only real fighting ship had recently gone to join Karlsen’s fleet in the defence of Earth, when the berserkers were said to be massing there. But now the enemy was here. The people of Carr’s planet were readying two more warships as fast as they could – they were a small colony, and not wealthy in resources. Even if the two ships could be made ready in time, they would hardly be a match for a berserker.

When Carr had taken his plan to the leaders of his planet, they had thought him mad. Go out and talk to it of peace and love?
Argue
with it? There might be some hope of converting the most depraved human to the cause of goodness and mercy, but what appeal cold alter the built-in purpose of a machine?

“Why not talk to it of peace?” Carr had demanded. “Have you a better plan? I’m willing to go. I’ve nothing to lose.”

They had looked at him, across the gulf that separates healthy planners from those who know they are dying. They knew his scheme would not work, but they could think of nothing that would. It would be at least ten days until the warships were ready. The little one-man ship was expendable, being unarmed. Armed, it would be no more than a provocation to a berserker. In the end, they let Carr take it, hoping there was a chance his arguments might delay the inevitable attack.

When Carr came within a million miles of the berserker, it stopped its own unhurried motion and seemed to wait for him, hanging in space in the orbital track of an airless planetoid, at a point from which the planetoid was still several days away.

“I am unarmed,” he radioed again. “I come to talk with you, not to damage you. If those who built you were here, I would try to talk to them of peace and love. Do you understand?” He was serious about talking love to the unknown builders; things like hatred and vengeance were not worth Carr’s time now.

Suddenly it answered him: “Little ship, maintain your present speed and course towards me. Be ready to stop when ordered.”

“I … I will.” He had thought himself ready to face it, but he stuttered and shook at the mere sound of its voice. Now the weapons which could sterilize a planet would be trained on him alone. And there was worse than destruction to be feared, if one tenth of the stories about berserkers’ prisoners were true. Carr did not let himself think about that.

When he was within ten thousand miles it ordered: “Stop. Wait where you are, relative to me.”

Carr obeyed instantly. Soon he saw that it had launched towards him something about the size of his own ship – a little moving dot on his video screen, coming out of the vast fortress-shape that floated against the stars.

Even at this range he could see how scarred and battered that fortress was. He had heard that all of these ancient machines were damaged, from their long senseless campaign across the galaxy; but surely such apparent ruin as this must be exceptional.

The berserker’s launch slowed and drew up beside his ship. Soon there came a clanging at the airlock.

“Open!” demanded the radio voice. “I must search you.”

“Then will you listen to me?”

“Then I will listen.”

He opened the lock, and stood aside for the half-dozen machines that entered. They looked not unlike robot valets and workers to Carr, except these were limping and worn, like their great master. Here and there a new part gleamed, but the machines’ movements were often unsteady as they searched Carr, searched his cabin, probed everywhere on the little ship. When the search was completed one of the boarding machines had to be half-carried out by its fellows.

Another one of the machines, a thing with arms and hands like a man’s, stayed behind. As soon as the airlock had closed behind the others, it settle itself in the combat chair and began to drive the ship towards the berserker.

“Wait!” Carr heard himself protesting. “I didn’t mean I was surrendering!” The ridiculous words hung in the air, seeming to deserve no reply. Sudden panic made Carr move without thinking; he stepped forward and grabbed at the mechanical pilot, trying to pull it from the chair. It put one metal hand against his chest and shoved him across the cabin, so that he staggered and fell in the artificial gravity, thumping his head painfully against a bulkhead.

“In a matter of minutes we will talk about love and peace,” said the radio.

* * *

Looking out through a port as his ship neared the immense berserker, Carr saw the scars of battle become plainer and plainer, even to his untaught eye. There were holes in the berserker’s hull, there were square miles of bendings and swellings, and pits where the metal had once flowed molten. Rubbing his bumped head, Carr felt a faint thrill of pride. We’ve done that to it, he thought, we soft little living things. The martial feeling annoyed him in a way. He had always been something of a pacifist.

After some delay, a hatch opened in the berserker’s side, and the ship followed the berserker’s launch into darkness.

Now there was nothing to be seen through the port. Soon there came a gentle bump, as of docking. The mechanical pilot shut off the drive, and turned towards Carr and started to rise from its chair.

Something in it failed. Instead of rising smoothly, the pilot reared up, flailed for a moment with arms that sought a grip or balance, and then fell heavily to the deck. For half a minute it moved one arm, and made a grinding noise. Then it was still.

In the half-minute of silence which followed, Carr realized that he was again master of his cabin; chance had given him that. If there was only something he could do—

“Leave your ship,” said the berserker’s calm voice. “There is an air-filled tube fitted to your airlock. It will lead you to a place where we can talk of peace and love.”

Carr’s eyes had focused on the engine switch, and then had looked beyond that, to the C-plus activator. In such proximity as this to a mass the size of the surrounding berserker, the C-plus effect was not a drive but a weapon – one of tremendous potential power.

Carr did not – or thought he did not – any longer fear sudden death. But now he found that with all his heart and soul he feared what might be prepared for him outside his airlock. All the horror stories came back. The thought of going out through that airlock now was unendurable. It was less terrifying for him to step carefully around the fallen pilot, to reach the controls and turn the engine back on.

“I can talk to you from here,” he said, his voice quavering in spite of an effort to keep it steady.

After about ten seconds, the berserker said: “Your C-plus drive has safety devices. You will not be able to kamikaze me.”

“You may be right,” said Carr after a moment’s thought. “But if a safety device does function, it might hurl my ship away from your centre of mass, right through your hull. And your hull is in bad shape now; you don’t want any more damage.”

“You would die.”

“I’ll have to die sometime. But I didn’t come out here to die, or to fight, but to talk to you, to try to reach some agreement.”