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Harry's first impulse was to find a way to use his ship, to reach the cave
with the
Witch's
weapons, blasting everything inside it. But an impenetrable wall of breakdown
zone protected that target from the approach of ship-sized objects.
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Fred Saberhagen - Berserker's Star.html
If the
Witch was going to play any active role at all in coming events, it would have
to be out in space.
Getting her back through the labyrinth, up and out into free space near Port
City, must be his first priority. Once there, he could begin to do his best to
overtake the berserker vehicle, assuming it had already been launched but had
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Fred Saberhagen - Berserker's Star.html not yet dropped its cargo. If humanity
was lucky and the killer device had not been launched, Harry would try to pot
it as soon as it appeared. Whether his own ship would survive the
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comparatively nearby blast of several tons of antimatter, combining with an
equal mass of ordinary matter in the form of the berserker vehicle, was
something he would find
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Fred Saberhagen - Berserker's Star.html out when it happened.
Harry was thinking that it must have taken the enemy considerable time,
probably several years, to get a useful number of reliable goodlife in place
on this world where they were wanted. Many of the warped people who chose that
road were tried and found wanting, judged to be
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Fred Saberhagen - Berserker's Star.html disastrously undependable and kept on
the outer fringes of the group, knowing nothing of its serious projects and
inner secrets.
As Harry had more or less expected, he encountered two or three smugglers,
lightly armed but suitless, at the foot of his ship's landing ramp. Behind
them, the
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Fred Saberhagen - Berserker's Star.html pile of dark bags of grit had grown as
tall as a man. At least it was good that no one seemed to be trying to load.
This time Bulaboldo was not in sight. Harry vowed that if the fat one was
aboard his ship, he would not be there long.
Bulaboldo's people took one look at Harry as he approached and stepped back
slightly. They had nothing to say as he
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Fred Saberhagen - Berserker's Star.html carried the former captive up the ramp
and through a doorway that opened with perfect timing to receive him.
Lily raised her helmeted head and waved to him from the copilot's chair.
When she saw the condition of the woman in Harry's arms, she put the ship on
autopilot and jumped up to help.
Meanwhile, the
Witch
acknowledged her
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Fred Saberhagen - Berserker's Star.html master's homecoming with a repeated
verse, spoken as usual in tones of elegance:
When shall the stars be blown about the sky, Like the sparks blown out of a
smithy, and die ?
Surely thine hour has come, thy great wind blows, Far-off, most secret, and
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Fred Saberhagen - Berserker's Star.html inviolate Rose?
After a momentary pause, with a sound like modest throat clearing, came the
announcement of attribution: "William
Butler Yeats, 'The Secret
Rose.' "
"Can it," Harry commanded. "Not now."
Some day, if he lived long enough, he was going to have to find out what a
smithy was.
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Fred Saberhagen - Berserker's Star.html
"Order acknowledged."
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