Dark Benediction

by Walter Michael Miller

  Mitch controlled himself slowly. “Look—you check. I’ll wait.”

  The computer paused. “A bicycle with that license number has been impounded. Can you produce proof of ownership?”

  “On a bicycle? I knew the number. Isn’t that enough?”

  “Describe it, please?”

  Mitch described it wearily. He began to understand Ferris’s desire to retire Central permanently and forcibly. At the moment he longed to convert several subcomputers to scrap metal.

  “Then,” said the speaker, “if vehicle is yours, you may have it by applying for a new license and paying the required fee.”

  “Refer that to Central Data,” Mitch groaned.

  The booking computer paused to confer with the Coordinator. “Decision stands, sir.”

  “But there aren’t any new licenses!” he growled. “A while ago Central said— Oh, never mind!”

  “That decision applied to identification, sir. This applies to licensing of vehicles. Insufficient data have been gathered to permit generalization.”

  “Sure, sure. All right, what do I do to get the girl out of jail?”

  There was another conference with the Coordinator, then: “She is being held for investigation. She may not be released for seventy-two hours.”

  Mitch dropped the toolbox that he had been carrying since morning. With a savage curse he rammed the crowbar through a vent in the device’s front panel and slashed it about in the opening. There was a crash of shattering glass and a shower of sparks. Mitch yelped at the electric jolt and lurched away. Steel fingers clutched his wrists.

  Five minutes later he was being led through the gate to the cellblocks, charged with maliciously destroying city property; and he cursed himself for a hot-tempered fool. They would hold him until a grand jury convened, which would probably be never.

  The girl’s sobbing grew louder as he was led along the iron corridors toward a cell. He passed three cells and glanced inside. The cells were occupied by dead men’s bones. Why? The rear wall was badly cracked, and bits of loose masonry were scattered on the floor. Had they died of concussion during an attack? Or been gassed to death?

  They led him to the fifth cell and unlocked the door. Mitch stared inside and grinned. The rear wall had been partially wrecked by a bomb blast, and there was room to crawl through the opening to the street. The partition that separated the adjoining cell was also damaged, and he caught a glimpse of a white, frightened face peering through the hole. Marta.

  He glanced at his captors. They were pushing him gently through the door. Evidently Central’s talents did not extend to bricklaying, and she could not judge that the cell was less than escape proof.

  The door clanged shut behind him.

  “Marta,” he called.

  Her face had disappeared from the opening. There was no answer.

  “Marta.”

  “Let me alone,” grumbled a muffled voice.

  “I’m not angry about the bicycle.”

  He walked to the hole and peered through the partition into the next cell. She crouched in a corner, peering at him with frightened, tear-reddened eyes. He glanced at the opening in the rear wall.

  “Why haven’t you gone outside?” he asked.

  She giggled hysterically. “Why don’t you go look down?” He stepped to the opening and glanced twenty feet down to a concrete sidewalk. He went back to stare at the girl. “Where’s your baby?”

  “They took him away,” she whimpered.

  Mitch frowned and thought about it for a moment. “To the city nursery, probably—while you’re in jail.”

  “They won’t take care of him! They’ll let him die!”

  “Don’t scream like that. He’ll be all right.”

  “Robots don’t give milk!”

  “No, but there are such things as bottles, you know,” he chuckled.

  “Are there?” Her eyes were wide with horror. “And what will they put in the bottles?”

  “Why—” He paused. Central certainly wasn’t running any dairy farms.

  “Wait’ll they bring you a meal,” she said. “You’ll see.”

  “Meal?”

  “Empty tray,” she hissed. “Empty tray, empty paper cup, paper fork, clean paper napkin. No food.”

  Mitch swallowed hard. Central’s logic was sometimes hard to see. The servo-attendants probably went through the motions of ladling stew from an empty pot and drawing coffee from an empty urn. Of course, there weren’t any truck farmers to keep the city supplied with produce.

  “So that’s why… the bones… in the other cells,” he muttered.

  “They’ll starve us to death!”

  “Don’t scream so. We’ll get out. All we need is something to climb down on.”

  “There isn’t any bedding.”

  “There’s our clothing. We can plait a rope. And if necessary we can risk a jump.”

  She shook her head dully and stared at her hands. “It’s no use. They’d catch us again.”

  Mitch sat down to think. There was bound to be a police arsenal somewhere in the building, probably in the basement. The robot cops were always unarmed. But of course there had been a human organization for investigation purposes and to assume command in the event of violence. When one of the traffic units faced a threat, it could do nothing but try to handcuff the offender and call for human help. There were arms in the building somewhere, and a well-placed rifle shot could penetrate the thin sheet-steel bodies.

  He deplored the thought of destroying any of the city’s service machinery, but if it became necessary to wreck a few subunits, it would have to be done. He must somehow get access to the vaults where the central data tanks and the coordinators were located—get to them before Ferris’s gang came to wreck them completely, so that they might be free to pick the city clean.

  An hour later he heard the cellblock gate groan open, and he arose quickly. Interrogation, he thought. They were coming to question him about the plot to wreck Central. He paused to make a hasty decision, then scrambled for the narrow opening and clambered through it into the adjoining cell while the skater came rolling down the corridor.

  The girl’s eyes widened. “Wh-what are you—”

  “Shhh!” he hissed. “This might work.”

  The skater halted before his cell while he crouched against the wall beyond the opening.

  “Willie Jesser, please,” the robot croaked.

  There was silence. He heard the door swing open. The robot rolled around inside his cell for a few seconds, repeating his name and brushing rubble aside to make way. If only he failed to look through the opening!

  Suddenly a siren growled and the robot went tearing down the corridor again. Mitch stole a quick glance. The robot had left the door ajar. He dragged the girl to her feet and snapped, “Let’s go.”

  They squeezed through the hole and raced out into the corridor. The cellblock gate was closed. The girl moaned weakly. There was no place to hide.

  The door bolts were operated from remote boxes placed in the corridor so as to be beyond the reach of the inmates. Mitch dragged the girl quickly toward another cell, opened the control panel, and threw the bolt. He closed the panel, leaving the bolt open. They slipped quickly inside the new cell, and he pulled the door quietly closed. The girl made a choking sound as she stumbled over the remains of a former inmate.

  “Lie down in the corner,” he hissed, “and keep still. They’re coming back in force.”

  “What if they notice the bolt is open?”

  “Then we’re sunk. But they’ll be busy down at our end of the hall. Now shut up.”

  They rolled under the steel cot and lay scarcely breathing. The robot was returning with others. The faint twitter of computer code echoed through the cellblocks. Then the skaters rushed past and screeched to a stop before the escapee’s cell. He heard them enter. He crawled to the door for a look, then pushed it open and stole outside.

  He beckoned the girl to his side and whispered briefly.
Then they darted down the corridor on tiptoe toward the investigators. They turned as he raced into view. He seized the bars and jerked the door shut. The bolt snapped in place as Marta tugged at the remote.

  Three metal bodies crashed simultaneously against the door and rebounded. One of them spun around three times before recovering.

  “Release the lock, please.”

  Mitch grinned through the bars. “Why don’t you try the hole in the wall?”

  The robot who had spun crazily away from the door now turned. He went charging across the cell floor at full acceleration—and sailed out wildly into space.

  An ear-splitting crash came from the street. Shattered metal skidded across pavement. A siren wailed and brakes shrieked. The others went to look—and began twittering.

  Then they turned. “You will surrender, please. We have summoned armed guards to seize you if you resist.” Mitch laughed and tugged at the whimpering girl.

  “Wh-where—?”

  “To the gate. Come on.”

  They raced swiftly along the corridor. And the gate was opening to admit the “armed guards.” But of course no human bluecoats charged through. The girl muttered in frightened bewilderment, and he explained on the run.

  “Enforced habit pattern. Central has to do it, even when no guards are available.”

  Two repair units were at work on the damaged booking computer as the escapees raced past. The repair units paused, twittered a notation to Central, then continued with their work.

  Minutes later they found the arsenal, and the mechanical attendant had set out a pair of .45’s for the “armed guards.” Mitch caught up one of them and fired at the attendant’s sheet-metal belly. The robot careened crazily against the wall, emitted a shower of blue sparks, and stood humming while the metal around the hole grew cherry red. There was a dull cough. The machine smoked and fell silent.

  Mitch vaulted across the counter and caught a pair of submachine guns from the rack. But the girl backed away, shaking her head.

  “I couldn’t even use your shotgun,” she panted.

  He shrugged and laid it aside. “Carry as much ammunition as you can, then,” he barked.

  Alarm bells were clanging continuously as they raced out of the arsenal, and a loudspeaker was thundering a request for all human personnel to be alert and assist in their capture. Marta was staggering against him as they burst out of the building into the street. He pushed her back against the wall and fired a burst at two skaters who raced toward them down the sidewalk. One crashed into a fireplug; the other went over the curb and fell in the street.

  “To the parking lot!” he called over his shoulder.

  But the girl had slumped in a heap on the sidewalk. He grumbled a curse and hurried to her side. She was semiconscious, but her face was white and drawn. She shivered uncontrollably.

  “What’s wrong?” he snapped.

  There was no answer. Fright had dazed her. Her lips moved, seemed to frame a soundless word: “George.”

  Muttering angrily, Mitch stuffed a fifty-round drum of ammunition in his belt, took another between his teeth, and lifted the girl over one shoulder. He turned in time to fire a one-handed burst at another skater. The burst went wide. But the skater stopped. Then the skater ran away.

  He gasped and stared after it. The blare of the loudspeaker was furnishing the answer.

  “All human personnel. Central patrol service has reached the limit of permissible subunit expenditure. Responsibility for capture no longer applies without further orders to expend subunits. Please instruct. Commissioner of Police, please instruct. Waiting. Waiting.”

  Mitch grinned. Carrying the girl, he stumbled toward a car on the parking lot. He dumped her in the back seat and started in behind her, but a loudspeaker in the front protested.

  “Unauthorized personnel. This is Mayor Sarquist’s car. Unauthorized personnel. Please use an extra.”

  Mitch looked around. There were no extras on the lot. And if there had been one, it would refuse to carry him unless he could identify himself as authorized to use it.

  Mayor Sarquist’s car began twittering a radio protest to Central. Mitch climbed inside and wrenched loose the cable that fed the antenna. The loudspeaker began barking complaints about sabotage. Mitch found a toolbox under the back seat and removed several of the pilot-computer’s panels. He tugged a wire loose, and the speaker ceased complaining. He ripped at another, and a bank of tubes went dead.

  He drove away, using a set of dial controls for steering. The girl in the back seat began to recover her wits. She sat up and stared out the window at the thin traffic. The sun was sinking and the great city was immersing itself in gloom.

  “You’re worthless!” he growled at Marta. “The world takes a poke at you, and you jump into your mental coffin and nail the lid shut. How do you expect to take care of your baby?”

  She continued to stare gloomily out the window. She said nothing. The car screeched around a corner, narrowly missing a mechanical cop. The cop skated after them for three blocks, siren wailing; then it abandoned the chase.

  “You’re one of the machine age’s spoiled children,” he fumed. “Technologists gave you everything you could possibly want. Push a button, and you get it. Instead of taking part in the machine age, you let it wait on you. You spoiled yourself. When the machine age cracks up, you crack up, too. Because you never made yourself its master; you just let yourself be mechanically pampered.”

  She seemed not to hear him. He swung around another corner and pulled to the curb. They were in front of a three-story brick building set in the center of a green-lawned block and surrounded by a high iron fence. The girl stared at it for a moment and raised her chin slowly from her fist.

  “The city orphanage!” she cried suddenly and bounded outside. She raced across the sidewalk and beat at the iron gate with her fists.

  Mitch climbed out calmly and opened it for her. She darted up toward the porch, but a servo-attendant came rolling out to intercept her. Its handcuff hand was open to grasp her wrist.

  “Drop low!” he bellowed at her.

  She crouched on the walkway, then rolled quickly aside on the lawn. A burst of machine-gun fire brightened the twilight. The robot spun crazily and stopped, hissing and sputtering. Wrecking a robot could be dangerous. If a bullet struck the tiny nuclear reactor just right, there would be an explosion.

  They skirted wide around it and hurried into the building. Somewhere upstairs a baby was crying. A servo-nurse sat behind a desk in the hall, and she greeted them as if they were guests.

  “Good evening, sir and madam. You wish to see one of the children?”

  Marta started toward the stairs, but Mitch seized her arm. “No! Let me go up. It won’t be pretty.”

  But she tore herself free with a snarl and bounded up the steps toward the cry of her child. Mitch shrugged to himself and waited. The robot nurse protested the illegal entry but did nothing about it.

  “Nooo—!”

  A horrified shriek from the girl! He glanced up the staircase, knowing what was wrong but unable to help her. A moment later he heard her vomiting. He waited.

  A few minutes later she came staggering down the stairway, sobbing and clutching her baby tightly against her. She stared at Mitch with tear-drenched eyes, gave him a wild shake of her head, and babbled hysterically.

  “Those cribs! They’re full of little bones. Little bones—all over the floor. Little bones—”

  “Shut up!” he snapped. “Be thankful yours is all right. Now let’s get out of here.”

  After disposing of another robotic interferer they reached the car, and Mitch drove rapidly toward the outskirts. The girl’s sobbing ceased, and she purred a little unsung lullaby to her child, cuddling it as if it had just returned from the dead. Remorse picked dully at Mitch’s heart, for having growled at her. Motherwise, she was still a good animal, despite her lack of success in adjusting to the reality of a ruptured world.

  “Marta—?”
r />   “What?”

  “You’re not fit to take care of yourself.”

  He said it gently. She only stared at him as he piloted the car. “You ought to find a big husky gal who wants a baby, and let her take care of it for you.”

  “No.”

  “It’s just a suggestion. None of my business. You want your baby to live, don’t you?”

  “George promised he’d take care of us. George always took care of us.”

  “George killed himself.”

  She uttered a little whimper. “Why did he do it? Why? I went to look for food. I came back, and there he was. Why, why?”

  “Possibly because he was just like you. What did he do—before the war?”

  “Interior decorator. He was good, a real artist.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Why do you say it that way? He was.”

  “Was he qualified to live in a mechanical culture?”

  “I don’t know what you mean.”

  “I mean—could he control his slice of mechanical civilization, or did it control him?”

  “I don’t see—”

  “Was he a button-pusher and a switch-puller? Or did he care what made the buttons and switches work? Men misuse their tools because they don’t understand the principles of the tools. A man who doesn’t know how a watch works might try to fix it with a hammer. If the watch is communal property, he’s got no right to fool with it. A nontechnologist has no right to take part in a technological civilization. He’s a bull in a china shop. That’s what happened to our era. Politicians were given powerful tools. They failed to understand the tools. They wrecked our culture with them.”

  “You’d have a scientist in the White House?”

  “If all men were given a broad technical education, there could be nothing else there, could there?”

  “Technocracy—”

  “No. Simply a matter of education.”

  “People aren’t smart enough.”

  “You mean they don’t care enough. Any man above the level of a dullard has enough sense to grasp the principles of physics and basic engineering and mechanics. They just aren’t motivated to grasp them. The brain is a tool, not a garbage can for oddments of information! Your baby there—he should learn the principles of logic and semantics before he’s ten. He should be taught how to use the tool, the brain. We’ve just begun to learn how to think. If the common man were trained in scientific reasoning methods, we’d solve our problems in a hurry.”