Frontiersman, April 2025

feel secure within our boundaries. The consequences will be exactly as the Berserkers intended. In about 700 years, unless other factors intrude, our ability to defend our volume of space will be seriously impaired. This will result from many things. Local conflicts will preempt the forces that would otherwise face the Berserkers. Human planets drained or defeated in local wars will be easy prey to Berserkers. Those planets won’t get much sympathy or help from their nearby human enemies. Such enemies might consider that the Berserkers are simply doing their ‘dirty work’ for them. There will even be temporary alliances between local human groupings and Berserkers. Our volume of space, which is already shrinking, will begin to shrink more quickly. Simultaneously, it will be fragmented into smaller political units as each remaining human faction blames the others for the worsening state of things. The final result? Less than a thousand years from now, there will be no more men.”

The audience was mesmerized. All note-taking had stopped and every eye was upon the Speaker. Then the silence began slowly to weaken. Bit by bit, it fracture into little isolated panicky discussions. The Speaker again used those magic words.

“The Directorate of Old Earth,” he said again, reestablishing silence, but of a different kind, “has commissioned this First Conference on the State of Man. It isn’t their only move against the Berserkers. Perhaps it isn’t even their most important move against the Berserkers. But it is a counterattack in a very new kind of war that, paradoxically, has been going on for quite a long time now, a cold war against cold death. You’ve all been chosen very carefully, each of you for some very specific reason. We’ve provided conference rooms, food, computers, data, all that is necessary. The Directorate wants you to discuss whatever you think is relevant. Take however long you want. We need the product of your ingenuity. Upon the outcome of your discussions might depend the future of all life in this galaxy.”

Abruptly, the Speaker turned and walked rapidly from the podium. He was halfway across the stage before the Grand Recessional began. As those traditional and refined strains faded, a rumble of conversation began in the auditorium. Ushers in Imperial Red appeared. They didn’t make any particular effort to move anyone out of the auditorium but, as groups coalesced and people asked for facilities, equipment, or data, the ushers were there. The audience gradually dispersed.

On Old Earth, the successful beginning of the Conference was briefly noticed before other matters demanded attention. On a lump of rock, a cold fragment of stone far, far away, another kind of attention was focused more intently upon the conference.

— Not the End —

The complete story and my correspondence with Fred Saberhagen are available at this address.
http://sam-aurelius-milam-iii.org.uk/Stories/Stories.html#Cold_War

Some Other Berserker Stories, by Fred Saberhagen
There might be others of which I’m unaware.
1.

1967
BERSERKER, Fred Saberhagen, BALLANTINE BOOKS, NEW YORK, Copyright © 1967 Fred Saberhagen
2.

1969
BROTHER ASSASSIN, Fred Saberhagen, BALLANTINE BOOKS, NEW YORK, Copyright © 1969 by Fred Saberhagen
3.

1975
THE BOOK OF SABERHAGEN, Fred Saberhagen, DAW BOOKS, INC. DONALD A. WOLLHEIM, PUBLISHER, 1301 Avenue of the Americas, New York, N.Y. 10019, COPYRIGHT © 1975, BY FRED SABERHAGEN
4.

1979
BERSERKER MAN, FRED SABERHAGEN, SF ace books, A Division of Charter Communications Inc., A GROSSET & DUNLAP COMPANY, 360 Park Avenue South, New York, New York, 10010, Text copyright © 1979 by Fred Saberhagen, Afterword copyright © 1979 by Sandra Miesel
5.

1979
THE ULTIMATE ENEMY, FRED SABERHAGEN, SF ace books, A Division of Charter Communications Inc., A GROSSET & DUNLAP COMPANY, 360 Park Avenue South, New York, New York, 10010, Copyright © 1979 by Fred Saberhagen
6.