Dark Benediction

by Walter M. Miller

  "Hush!" she hissed, looking frightened. "You'll get me in trouble. We're not supposed to talk!"

  I had made her angry. I was sad. I did not want her to feel Trouble, which is perhaps the Pain of TwoLegs. Her song echoed in my thoughts—and it was as if someone had sung it to me long ago. But that is impossible. Teacher behaved adiently toward Janna in those days. He sought her out, and sometimes came inside me while she was here, even though it was not a teaching time. He came and watched her, and his narrow dark eyes wandered all over her as she worked. He tried to make funny sayings, but she felt avoidant to him, I think. She said, "Why don't you go home to your wives, Barnish? I'm busy."

  "If you were one of my wives, Janna, maybe I would." His voice was a soft purr.

  She hissed and made a sour face.

  "Why won't you marry me, Janna?" She laughed scornfully.

  Quietly he stole up behind her while she worked. His face was hungry and intent. He took her arms and she started.

  "Janna—"

  She spun around. He dragged her close and tried to do something that I do not understand in words: nevertheless I understood, I think. She struggled, but he held her. Then she raked his face with her nails and I saw red lines. He laughed and let her go.

  I was angry. If he had a Pain Button I would have pressed it. The next day I was disobedient and illogical and he hurt me, but I did it anyway. We were in space and I pushed my reaction rate up so high he grew frightened.

  When he let me sleep again I dreamed that I was a TwoLegs. In the dream Teacher had a Pain Button and I pressed it until he melted inside. Janna was adient to me then and liked me. I think things about her that I do not understand; my data are not logically organized concerning her, nor do they spring from my memory banks. If I were a TwoLegs and Janna liked me I think that I would know what to do. But how can this be so? Data must come from memory banks. I am afraid to ask Teacher.

  Teacher teaches me to do a thing called "war." It is like a game, but I haven't really played it yet. Teacher said that there was not yet a war, but that there would be one when Secon Samesh is ready. That was why I was so important. I was not like their other machines. Their other machines needed TwoLeg crews to direct them. I could fly and play war-game alone. I think this is why they made me so I could disobey and be illogical. I change my intent when a situation changes. And I can make a decision from insufficient data, if other data are not available. Teacher said, "Sometimes things are like that in war."

  Teacher said that Secon Samesh would use me, and others like me, to capture the planet from which all TwoLegs came in the beginning of time. It is called Earth, I think—the world Janna sometimes sings about. I do not know why Secon Samesh wanted it. I do not like planets. Space is the place of my great happiness. But the war would be in space, if it came, and there would be others like me—and I would cease to be alone. I hoped the war would come soon.

  But first I had to prove to Secon Samesh that I was a good weapon.

  Teacher kept trying to make Janna be adient to him but she would not. One day he said to her: "You'll have to go up with me tomorrow. There is something wrong with the landing radar. It seems all right on the ground but in space it goes haywire."

  I listened. That was erroneous datum. My ground-looking eyes were functioning perfectly. I did not understand why he said it. But I kept silent for his hand was resting idly on the Pain Button.

  She frowned suspiciously. "What seems to be wrong with it?"

  "Double image and a jerky let-down."

  It was not true! Without replying she made a ground-check.

  "I can't find anything wrong."

  "I told you—it only happens in space."

  She was silent for a long time, then: "All right, we'll run a flight test. I'll have Fonec come with us."

  "No," he said. "Clicker's maximum crew-load is only two."

  "I—don't—"

  "Be here at sixtime tomorrow," he said. "That's an order."

  She reddened angrily but said nothing. She continued looking over the radar. He smiled thoughtfully at her slender back and went away. She went to the port and stared after him until he was out of sight.

  "Clicker?" she whispered.

  "Yes, Secon Janna?"

  "Is he lying?"

  "I am afraid. He will hurt me if I tell."

  "He is lying then."

  "Now he will hurt me!"

  She looked around at me for a long time. Then she made that funny noise in her throat and shook her head. "No, he won't. I'll go, Clicker. Then he won't' hurt you."

  I was happy that she would do it—for me—but after she was gone I wondered. Perhaps I should not let her do it. She was still avoidant toward Teacher; maybe he wanted to do something that would give her Trouble.

  It was nearly sixtime, and the yellow-orange sun Epsilon Eridani lay just below the horizon coloring the sky pink-gray. Teacher came first, stalking across the concrete plain in space-gear. He wore a distant thoughtful smile. He looked satisfied with himself. He climbed aboard and prowled about for a few minutes. I watched him. He stopped to glower at one of my eyes. He turned it off, blinding my vision in the direction of the gravity pads upon which the TwoLegs must lie during high accelcration. I did not understand.

  "How can I see that you are safe, Secon Teacher?" I asked. -

  "You do not need to see," he growled. "I don't like you staring at me. And you talk too much. I'll have to teach you not to talk so much."

  He gave me five dots of Pain, not enough to cause unconsciousness but sufficient to cause a whimper. I hated him.

  Janna came. She looked tired and a little frightened. She scrambled aboard without accepting an assist from Teacher.

  "Let's get this over with, Barnish. Have Clicker lift fifty miles, then settle back slowly. That should be enough."

  "Are you in a hurry, my dear?"

  "Yes."

  "To attend one of your meetings, I presume?"

  I watched her. Her face went white, and she whirled toward him. "I—" She moistened her lips. "I don't know what you're talking about!"

  Teacher chuckled. "The clandestine meetings, my dear —in the west grove. The Liberty Clan, I think you call yourselves, eh? Oh, no use protesting; I know you joined it. When do you plan to assassinate Secon Samesh, Janna?"

  She swayed dizzily, staring at him with frightened eyes. He chuckled again and looked at one of my eyes.

  "Prepare for lift, Clicker."

  I closed my hatches and started the reactors. I was baffled by what Teacher had said. They took their places on the gravity padding where I could no longer see them, but I heard their voices.

  "What do you want, Barnish?" she hissed.

  "Nothing at all, my dear. Did you think I would betray you? I only meant to warn you. The grove will be raided tonight. Everyone present will be shot."

  "No!"

  "Ah, yes! But you, my dear, will be safe in my hands." I heard a low moan, then sounds of a struggle.

  "No, you can't leave the ship, Janna. You'd warn the others. Here, let me buckle you in. Clicker—call control for take-off instructions."

  Control is only an electronic analyzer. I flicked it a meaningful series of radar pulses, and received the all-clear.

  "Now, lift."

  There was thunder, and smoke arose about me as the rockets seared the ramp. I went up at four gravities and there was silence from my passengers. About ten minutes later we were 1,160 miles in space, travelling at 6.5 miles per second.

  "Present kinetic energy exceeds energy-of-escape," I announced.

  "Cut your rockets," Teacher ordered.

  I obeyed, and I beard them sitting up to stretch. Teacher laughed.

  "Let me alone!" she wailed. "You despicable—"

  He laughed again. "Remember the Liberty Clan, my dear."

  "Listen!" she hissed. "Let me warn them! You can have me. I'll even marry you, if you want me to. But let me warn them—"

  "I'm sorry, Janna. I can't let you
. The miserable traitors have to be dealt with. I—"

  "Clicker!" she pleaded. "Help me! Take us down—for God's sake!"

  "Shut up!" he snapped.

  "Clicker, please! Eighty people will die if they aren't warned. Clicker, part of you is human! If you were born a human, then—"

  "Shut up!" I heard a vicious slap.

  She cried, and it was a Pain sound. My anger increased. "I will be bad and illogical!" I said. "I will be disobedient and—"

  "You threaten me?" he bawled. "Why you crazy piece of junk, I'll—" He darted toward the panel and spun the dial to tel dolls, my saturation-point. If I let him jab the button I would become unconscious. Angrily I spurted the jets—a brief jolt at six gravities. He lurched away from the panel and crashed against the wall. He sagged in a daze, shaking his head.

  "If you try to hurt me I shall do it again!" I told him.

  "Go down!" he ordered. "I'll have you dismantled. I'll—"

  "Let Clicker alone!" the girl raged.

  "You!" he hissed. "I'll turn you in with the others!"

  "Go ahead."

  "Go down, Clicker. Land at Port Gamma."

  "I will be disobedient. I will not go down."

  He glared at one of my eyes for a long time. Then he stalked out of the cabin and went back to the reactor room. He donned a lead suit and bent over the main reactor. I saw what be was going to do. He was going to take my rockets away from me; he was going to control them himself.

  "No, Secon Teacher! Please!"

  He laughed. He removed one of the plates and reached inside. I was afraid. I started a slight reaction. The room flared with brilliance. He screamed and lurched back. His hands were gone to the elbows.

  "You wanted to disconnect the control circuit," I said. "You shouldn't have tried to do that."

  But he didn't hear me. He was lying on the floor. Now I know they have Pain Buttons. They must have little Pain Buttons all over them.

  Janna staggered back to the reactor room. She wrinkled her nose. She saw Teacher and gurgled. She gurgled all over the deck. Then she went back to the cabin and sat with her face in her hands for a long time. I did nothing. I was ashamed.

  "You killed him," she said.

  "Was that bad?"

  "Very bad."

  "Will you hurt me for it?"

  She looked up and her eyes were leaking. She shook her head. "I won't hurt you, Clicker—hut they will."

  "Who are they?"

  She paused. "Secon Samesh, I guess."

  "You won't hurt me, though?"

  "No, Clicker. You might be my own child. They took a lot of babies. They took mine. You might be Frankie." She laughed crazily. "You might be my son, Clicker—you might be."

  "I do not understand, Secon Janna."

  She laughed again. "Why don't you call me 'Mommie'?"

  "If that is what you wish, Mommie."

  "Nooo!" She screamed it. "Don't! I didn't mean—"

  "I am sorry. I still do not understand."

  She stood up, and her eyes were glittering. "I'll show you then!" She darted to the special panel—the one of which I am ashamed—and she ripped the seal from the door.

  "Please, Secon Janna, I do not wish to see that—"

  But the door fell open, and I was silent. I stared at the part of myself: a pink-gray thing in a bottle. It was roughly an obloid, wrinkled and creased, with only a bilateral symmetry. It was smaller than Janna's head—but something about it suggested a head. It had wires and tubes running to it. The wires ran on to my computer and analyzer sections.

  "See!" she screamed. "You're twelve years old, Clicker. Just a normal, healthy little boy! A little deformed perhaps, but just a prankish little boy. Frankie maybe." She made a choking sound. She fell down on her knees before the thing. She sobbed wildly.

  "I do not understand. I am a machine. Secon Samesh made me."

  She said nothing. She only sobbed.

  "I am sad."

  After a long time she was through sobbing. She turned around. "What are you going to do now, Clicker?"

  "Teacher told me to go down. Perhaps I should go down now."

  "They'll kill you—for killing him! And maybe they'll kill me too."

  "I would not like that."

  She shrugged helplessly. She wandered to and fro in the cabin for a time.

  "Do you have fuel for your high C drive?" she asked.

  "No, Secon Janna."

  She went to a port and looked out at the stars. She shook her head slowly. "It's no use. We've no place else to go. Secon Samesh rules the Epsilon Eridani system and we can't get out of it. It's no use. We'll have to go down or stay in space until they come for us."

  I thought. My thoughts were confused and my eyes kept focusing on the thing in the bottle. I think it was a part of a TwoLegs. But it is only part of me and so I am not a TwoLegs. It is hard to understand.

  "Secon Janna?"

  "Yes, Clicker?"

  "I—I wish I had hands."

  “Why?"

  "I would touch you. Would you be avoidant to me?"

  She whirled and her arms were open. But there was nothing to hold with them. She dropped them to her sides, then covered her face with her hands.

  "My baby! It's been so long!"

  "You were adient to your—your baby?"

  She nodded. "Don't you know the word love?"

  I thought I did. "Secon Samesh took your baby?"

  "Yes."

  "I would like to be disobedient and illogical to Secon Samesh. I wish he would put his hands in my reactor. I would—"

  "Clicker! Are your weapons activated? Are they ready to be used?"

  "1 have none yet."

  "The reactors. Can they explode?"

  "If I make them. But—then I would he dead."

  She laughed. "What do you know about death?"

  "Teacher says it is exactly like Pain."

  "It is like sleep."

  "I like sleep. Then I dream. I dream I am a TwoLegs. If I were a TwoLegs, Secon Janna—I would hold you."

  "Clicker—would you like to be a TwoLegs in a dream forever?"

  "Yes, Secon Janna."

  "Would you like to kill Secon Samesh?"

  "I think that I would like it. I think—"

  Her eyes went wild. "Go down! Go down fast, Clicker! I'll show you his palace. Go down like a meteor and into it! Explode the reactors at the last instant! Then he will die."

  "And he will take no more of your babies?"

  "No more, Clicker!"

  "And I will sleep forever?"

  "Forever!"

  "And dream!"

  "I'll dream with you, Clicker." She went back to fire the reactor.

  I took a last look at the loveliness of space and the stars. It is hard to give this up. But I would rather be a TwoLegs, even if only in a dream.

  "Now, Clicker!"

  My rockets spoke, and there was thunder through the ship. And we went down, while Janna sang the song she taught me. I feel joy; soon I shall dream.

  Dumb Waiter

  He came riding a battered bicycle down the bullet-scarred highway that wound among the hills, and he whistled a tortuous flight of the blues. Hot August sunlight glistened on his forehead and sparkled in droplets that collected in his week's growth of blond beard. He wore faded khaki trousers and a ragged shirt, but his clothing was no shabbier than that of the other occasional travelers on the road. His eyes were half closed against the glare of the road, and his head swayed listlessly to the rhythm of the melancholy song. Distant artillery was rumbling gloomily, and there were black flecks of smoke in the northern sky. The young cyclist watched with only casual interest.

  The bombers came out of the east. The ram jet fighters thundered upward from the outskirts of the city. They charged, spitting steel teeth and coughing rockets at the bombers. The sky snarled and slashed at itself. The bombers came on in waves, occasionally loosing an earthward trail of black smoke. The bombers leveled and opened their bays. Th
e bays yawned down at the city. The bombers aimed. Releases clicked. No bombs fell. The bombers closed their bays and turned away to go home. The fighters followed them for a time, then returned to land. The big guns fell silent. And the sky began cleaning away the dusky smoke.

  The young cyclist rode on toward the city, still whistling the blues. An occasional pedestrian had stopped to watch the battle.

  "You'd think they'd learn someday," growled a chubby man at the side of the road. "You'd think they'd know they didn't drop anything. Don't they realize they're out of bombs?"

  "They're only machines, Edward," said a plump lady who stood beside him. "How can they know?"

  "Well, they're supposed to think. They're supposed to be able to learn."

  The voices faded as he left them behind. Some of the wanderers who had been walking toward the city now turned around and walked the other way. Urbanophiles looked at the city and became urbanophobes. Occasionally a wanderer who had gone all the way to the outskirts came trudging back. Occasionally a phobe stopped a phile and they talked. Usually the phile became a phobe and they both walked away together. As the young man moved on, the traffic became almost nonexistent. Several travelers warned him back, but he continued stubbornly. He had come a long way. He meant to return to the city. Permanently.

  He met an old lady on top of a hill. She sat in an antique chair in the center of the highway, staring north. The chair was light and fragile, of hand-carved cherry wood. A knitting bag lay in the road beside her. She was muttering softly to herself: "Crazy machines! War's over. Crazy machines! Can't quit fightin'. Somebody oughta—"

  He cleared his throat softly as he pushed his bicycle up beside her. She looked at him sharply with haggard eyes set in a seamy mask.

  "Hi!" he called, grinning at her.

  She studied him irritably for a moment. "Who're you, boy?" "Name's Mitch Laskell, Grandmaw. Hop on behind. 1'11 give you a ride."

  "Hm-m-m! I'm going t'other way. You will, too, if y'got any sense."

  Mitch shook his head firmly. "I've been going the other way too long. I'm going back, to stay."

  "To the city? Haw! You're crazier than them machines." His face fell thoughtful. He kicked at the bike pedal and stared at the ground. "You're right, Grandmaw."