Dark Benediction

by Walter M. Miller

  Having assured himself that the monster was still asleep, he crouched to peer at the next tiles. He stared for a long time, but found no similar markings. Were the dots coincidence?

  He reached out with the pike, then drew it back. He was too close to the Sleeper to risk a mistake. He stood up and looked around carefully, noting each detail of the room—and of the floor in particular. He counted the rows and columns of tiles—twenty-four each way.

  Twenty-four—and there were twenty-four numbers in the series that was somehow connected with safe passage through the room. He frowned and muttered through the series to himself 0,1,2,3,3,3,2,2,1 . .

  The first four numbers—0,1,2,3. And the tiles—the first with no dots, the second with one, the third with two, the fourth with three. But the four tiles were not in a straight line, and there were no marked ones beyond the fourth. He backed out of the room and studied them from the end of the corridor again.

  Mara had come dizzily awake and was calling for him weakly. He replied reassuringly and turned to his task again. "First tile, then diagonally left, then straight, then diagonally right—"

  0,1,2,3,3.

  A hunch came. He advanced as far as the second tile, then reached as far ahead as he could and touched the square diagonally right from the fourth one. Big Joe remained motionless but began to speak. His scalp bristled at the growling voice.

  "If the intruder makes an error, Big Joe will kill."

  Standing tense, ready to leap back to the corridor, he touched the square again. The motionless behemoth repeated the grim warning.

  Asir tried to reach the square diagonally right from the fifth, but could not without stepping up to the third. Taking a deep breath, he stepped up and extended the pike cautiously, keeping his eyes on Big Joe. The pike rapped the floor.

  "If the intruder makes an error, Big Joe will kill." But the huge figure remained in his place.

  Starting from the first square, the path went left, straight, right, right, right. And after zero, the numbers went 1, 2, 3, 3, 3. Apparently he had found the key. One meant a square to the southeast; two meant south; and three southwest. Shivering, he moved up to the fifth square upon which the monster growled his first warning. He looked back at the door, then at Big Joe. The taloned hands could grab him before he could dive back into the corridor.

  He hesitated. He could either turn back now, or gamble his life on the accuracy of the tentative belief. The girl was calling to him again.

  "Come to the end of the corridor!" he replied.

  She came hurriedly, to his surprise.

  "No!" he bellowed. "Stay back of the entrance! Not on the tile! No!"

  Slowly she withdrew the foot that hung poised over a trigger-tile.

  "You can't come in unless you know how," he gasped. She blinked at him and glanced nervously back over her shoulder. "But I hear them. They're coming down the stairs."

  Asir cursed softly. Now he had to go ahead.

  "Wait just a minute," he said. "Then I'll show you how to come through."

  He advanced to the last tile that he had tested and stopped. The next two numbers were two—for straight ahead. And they would take him within easy reach of the long taloned arms of the murderous sentinel. He glanced around in fright at the crushed bones scattered across the floor. Some were human. Others were animal-sacrifices tossed in by the priests.

  He had tested only one two—back near the door. If he made a mistake, he would never escape; no need bothering with the pike.

  He stepped to the next tile and closed his eyes.

  "If the intruder makes an error, Big Joe will kill."

  He opened his eyes again and heaved a breath of relief.

  "Asir! They're getting closer! I can hear them!"

  He listened for a moment. A faint murmur of angry voices in the distance. "All right," he said calmly. "Step only on the tiles I tell you. See the gray one at the left of the door?"

  She pointed. "This one?"

  "Yes, step on it."

  The girl moved up and stared fearfully at the monstrous sentinel. He guided her up toward him. "Diagonally left —one ahead—diagonally right. Now don't be frightened when he speaks—"

  The girl came on until she stood one square behind him. Her quick frightened breathing blended with the growing sounds of shouting from the stairway. He glanced up at Big Joe, noticing for the first time that the steel jaws were stained with a red-brown crust. He shuddered.

  The grim chess-game continued a cautious step at a time, with the girl following one square behind him. What if she fainted again? And fell across a triggered tile? They passed within a foot of Big Joe's arm.

  Looking up, he saw the monster's eyes move—following them, scrutinizing them as they passed. He froze. "We want no plunder," he said to the machine. The gaze was steady and unwinking.

  "The air is leaking away from the world."

  The monster remained silent.

  "Hurry!" whimpered the girl. Their pursuers were gaining rapidly and they had crossed only half the distance to the opposing doorway. Progress was slower now, for Asir needed occasionally to repeat through the whole series of numbers, looking back to count squares and make certain that the next step was not a fatal one.

  "They won't dare to come in after us," he said hopefully.

  "And if they do?"

  "If the intruder makes an error, Big Joe will kill," announced the machine as Asir took another step.

  "Eight squares to go!" he muttered, and stopped to count again.

  "Asir! They're in the corridor!"

  Hearing the tumble of voices, he looked back to see blue-robed men spilling out of the stairway and milling down the corridor toward the room. But halfway down the hall, the priests paused—seeing the unbelievable: two intruders walking safely past their devil-god. They growled excitedly among themselves. Asir took another step. Again the machine voiced the monotonous warning.

  "If the intruder makes an error ..."

  Hearing their deity speak, the priests of Big Joe babbled wildly and withdrew a little. But one, more impulsive than the rest, began shrieking.

  "Kill the intruders! Cut them down with your spears!"

  Asir glanced back to see two of them racing toward the room, lances cocked for the throw. If a spear struck a triger-tile--

  "Stop!" he bellowed, facing around.

  The two priests paused. Wondering if it would result in his sudden death, he rested a hand lightly against the huge steel arm of the robot, then leaned against it. The huge eyes were staring down at him, but Big Joe did not move.

  The spearmen stood frozen, gaping at the thief's familiarity with the horrendous hulk. Then, slowly they backed away.

  Continuing his bluff, he looked up at Big Joe and spoke in a loud voice. "If they throw their spears or try to enter, kill them."

  He turned his back on the throng in the hall and continued the cautious advance. Five to go, four, three, two—

  He paused to stare into the room beyond. Gleaming machinery—all silent—and great panels, covered with a multitude of white circles and dials. His heart sank. If here lay the magic that controlled the Blaze of the Great Wind, he could never hope to rekindle it.

  He stepped through the doorway, and the girl followed. Immediately the robot spoke like low thunder.

  "The identity of the two technologists is recognized. Hereafter they may pass with impunity. Big Joe is charged to ask the following: why do the technologists come, when it is not yet time?"

  Staring back, Asir saw that the robot's head had turned so that he was looking directly back at the thief and the girl. Asir also saw that someone had approached the door again. Not priests, but townspeople.

  He stared, recognizing the Chief Commoner, and the girl's father Welkir, three other Senior Kinsmen, and—Slubil, the executioner who had nailed him to the post.

  "Father! Stay back."

  Welkir remained silentt, glaring at them. He turned and whispered to the Chief Commoner. The Chief Commoner
whispered to Slubil. The executioner nodded grimly and took a short-axe from his belt thong. He stepped through the entrance, his left foot striking the zero-tile. He peered at Big Joe and saw that the monster remained motionless. He grinned at the ones behind him, then snarled in Asir's direction.

  "Your sentence has been changed, thief."

  "Don't try to cross, Slubil!" Asir barked.

  Slubil spat, brandished the axe, and stalked forward. Big Joe came up like a resurrection of fury, and his elbow was explosive in the vaults. Slubil froze, then stupidly drew back his axe.

  Asir gasped as the talons closed. He turned away quickly. Slubil's scream was cut off abruptly by a ripping sound, then a series of dull cracks and snaps. The girl shrieked and closed her eyes. There were two distinct thuds as Big Joe tossed Slubil aside.

  The priests and the townspeople—all except Welkirhad fled from the corridor and up the stairway. Welkir was on his knees, his hands covering his face.

  "Mara!" he moaned. "My daughter."

  "Go back, Father," she called.

  Dazed, the old man picked himself up weakly and staggered down the corridor toward the stairway. When he passed the place of the first warning voice, the robot moved again—arose slowly and turned toward Asir and Mara who backed quickly away, deeper into the room of strange machines. Big Joe came lumbering slowly after them.

  Asir looked around for a place to flee, but the monster stopped in the doorway. He spoke again, a mechanical drone like memorized ritual.

  Big Joe is charged with announcing his function for the intelligence of the technologists. His primary function is to prevent the entrance of possibly destructive organisms into the vaults containing the control equipment for the fusion reaction which must periodically renew atmospheric oxygen. His secondary function is to direct the technologists to records containing such information as they may need. His tertiary function is to carry out simple directions given by the technologists if such directions are possible to his limited design.

  Asir stared at the lumbering creature and realized for the first time that it was not alive, but only a machine built by the ancients to perform specific tasks. Despite the fresh redness about his hands and jaws, Big Joe was no more guilty of Slubil's death than a grinding mill would be if the squat sadist had climbed into it while the Mars oxen were yoked to the crushing roller.

  Perhaps the ancients had been unnecessarily brutal in building such a guard—but at least they had built him to look like a destroyer, and to give ample warning to the intruder. Glancing around at the machinery, he vaguely understood the reason for Big Joe. Such metals as these would mean riches for swordmakers and smiths and plunderers of all kinds.

  Asir straightened his shoulders and addressed the machine.

  "Teach us how to kindle the Blaze of the Great Wind."

  "Teaching is not within the designed functions of Big Joe. I am charged to say: the renewal reaction should not be begun before the Marsyear 6,000, as the builders reckoned time."

  Asir frowned. The years were not longer numbered, but only named in honor of the Chief Commoners who ruled the villages. "How long until the year 6,000?" he asked.

  Big Joe clucked like an adding machine. "Twelve Marsyears, technologist."

  Asir stared at the complicated machinery. Could they learn to operate it in twelve years? It seemed impossible.

  "How can we begin to learn?" be asked the robot.

  "This is an instruction room, where you may examine records. The control mechanisms are installed in the deepest vault."

  Asir frowned and walked to the far end of the hail where another door opened into—another anteroom with another Big Joe! As he approached the second robot spoke:

  "If the intruder has not acquired the proper knowledge, Big Oswald will kill."

  Thunderstruck, he leaped back from the entrance and swayed heavily against an instrument panel. The panel lit up and a polite recorded voice began reading something about "President Snell's role in the Eighth World War." He lurched away from the panel and stumbled back toward Mara who sat glumly on the foundation slap of a weighty machine.

  "What are you laughing about?" she muttered.

  "We're still in the first grade!" he groaned, envisioning a sequence of rooms. "We'll have to learn the magic of the ancients before we pass to the next."

  "The ancients weren't so great," she grumbled. "Look at the mural on the wall."

  Asir looked, and saw only a strange design of circles about a bright splash of yellow that might have been the sun. "What about it?" he asked.

  "My father taught me about the planets," she said. "That is supposed to be the way they go around the sun." "What's wrong with it?"

  "One planet too many," she said. "Everyone knows that there is only an asteroid belt between Mars and Venus. The picture shows a planet there."

  Asir shrugged indifferently, being interested only in the machinery. "Can't you allow them one small mistake?"

  "I suppose." She paused, gazing miserably in the direction in which her father had gone. "What do we do now?"

  Asir considered it for a long time. Then he spoke to Big Joe. "You will come with us to the village."

  The machine was silent for a moment, then: "There is an apparent contradiction between primary and tertiary functions. Request priority decision by technologist."

  Asir failed to understand. He repeated his request. The robot turned slowly and stepped through the doorway. He waited.

  Asir grinned. "Let's go back up," he said to the girl.

  She arose eagerly. They crossed the anteroom to the corridor and began the long climb toward the surface, with Big Joe lumbering along behind.

  "What about your banishment, Asir?" she asked gravely.

  "Wait and see." He envisioned the pandemonium that would reign when girl, man, and robot marched through the village to the council house, and he chuckled. "I think that I shall be the next Chief Commoner," he said. "And my councilmen will all be thieves."

  "Thieves!" she gasped. "Why?"

  "Thieves who are not afraid to steal the knowledge of the gods—and become technologists, to kindle the Blaze of the Winds."

  "What is a 'technologist', Asir?" she asked worshipfully.

  Asir glowered at himself for blundering with words he did not understand, but could not admit ignorance to Mara who clung tightly to his arm. "I think," he said, "that a technologist is a thief who tells the gods what to do."

  "Kiss me, Technologist," she told him in a small voice. Big Joe clanked to a stop to wait for them to move on. He waited a long time.

  The Big Hunger

  I AM BLIND, yet I know the road to the stars. Space is my harp, and I touch it lightly with fingers of steel. Space sings. Its music quivers in the flux patterns, comes creeping along the twitch of a positron stream, comes to whisper in glass ears. I hear. Alec! Though I am without eyes, I see the stars tangled in their field-webs, tangled into One. I am the spider who runs over the web. I am the spider who spins, spinning a space where no stars are.

  And I am Harpist to a pale, proud Master.

  He builds me, and feeds me the fuel I eat, and leads nee riding through the space I make, to the glare of another sun. And when he is done with me, I lie rusting in the rain. My metal rots with ages, and the sea comes washing over land to take me while I sleep. The Master forgets. The Master chips flint from a stone, leaving a stone-ax. He busies himself with drums and bloody altars; he dances with a writhing snake in his mouth, conjuring the rain.

  Then—after a long time—he remembers. He builds an-other of me, and 1 am the same, for like the Soul of him who builds me, my principle lies beyond particular flesh. When my principle is clothed in steel, we go wandering again. I the minstrel, with Man the king.

  Hear the song of his hunger, the song of his endless thirst.

  There was a man named Abe Jolie, and he leaned against me idly with one hand in the gloom while he spoke quietly and laughed with a female of his species.

  "
It's finished, Junebug. We got it made," he said.

  And the girl looked her green eyes over me while the crickets sang beyond the wall, and while the shuttling of their feet echoed faintly in the great hangar.

  "Finished," she murmured. "It's your success, Abe." "Mine, and a lot of others. And the government's money."

  She toyed with the lapel of his coveralls, grinned, and said, "Let's steal it and run away."

  "Ssshh!" He looked around nervously, but there were no guards in sight. "They can shoot you for less than that,' he warned. "The S.P. doesn't have a sense of humor."

  "Abe—"

  "What?"

  "Kiss me."

  He kissed her.

  "When is that going to be illegal, too?" she whispered. He looked at her grimly, and she answered her own question.

  "As soon as the eugenics laws are passed, Abe. Abe Jolie, who built the spacedrive, a genetic undesirable." "Don't!"

  They stood there breathing quietly, and there was hate in their throats.

  "Well?"

  He looked around again, and whispered, "Meet me here at eleven o'clock, Junebug."

  They parted to the sound of casual footsteps.

  At eleven o'clock, a lion roared in the hangar. At eleven o'clock a steel juggernaut tore through the hangar wall and paused on a concrete ramp while bullets ricocheted off the hull. Then the first star-chariot burnt a verticle column of flame in the night. Thunder walked upward on fiery stilts, while men shouted angrily. When we were alone in the airless, star-stung, sun-torn blackness, I stroked the web of space, and listened to the muted notes. When the tune is memorized, I speak. I contradict. I refute the universe. We lived in a spaceless space beyond stars.

  The man and the woman had gone. But the plan remained on Earth. My principle lingered on the drawing boards, and in the dreams of men—men who said they were sick of wars and politics and the braying of collectivist jackasses. Others were sick of petty peace and cheapness and Independence Day speeches and incorporated jackasses who blubbered disgustingly about various freedoms.