Dark Benediction

by Walter M. Miller

  "What's that playing now, Bill?"

  "Sibelius. Concerto for Something and Violin. I dunno."

  "Bill?"

  "Yeah."

  "Did I make you mad or something?"

  "No, but I don't think—" He turned to look at her and stopped talking. She was lying on her back with her hands behind her head and her legs cocked up, balancing her calf on her other knee and watching her foot wiggle. She was lithe and brown and . . . ripe.

  "Damn," he muttered.

  "Bill?"

  “Uh?”

  She wrinkled her nose at him and smiled. "Don't you even know what you wanted to come over here for?"

  Relke got up slowly and walked to the light switch. He snapped it.

  "Oh, dahling!" said a new voice in the darkness. "What if my husband comes home!"

  After Sibelius came the Spanish guitar. The African jazz was wasted.

  Relke sat erect with a start. Giselle still slept, but noises came from the other room. There were voices, and a door slammed closed. Shuffling footsteps, a muffled curse. "Who's there?" he yelled. "Joe?"

  The noises stopped, but he heard the hiss of someone whispering. He nudged the girl awake with one elbow. The record changer clicked, and the soft chant of an Agnus Dei came from the music system.

  "Oh, God! It's Monday!" Giselle muttered sleepily. "A dame," grunted a voice in the next room.

  "Who's there?" Relke called again.

  "We brought you some company." The voice sounded familiar. A light went on in the other room. "Set him down over here, Harv."

  Relke heard rattling sounds and a chair scraped back. They dumped something into the chair. Then the bulky silhouette of a man filled the doorway. "Who's in here, anyhow?" He switched on the lights. The man was Larkin. Giselle pulled a blanket around herself and blinked sleepily.

  "Is it Monday?" she asked.

  A slow grin spread across Larkin's face. "Hey Harv!" he called over his shoulder. "Look what we pulled out of the grab bag! Come look at lover boy. . . . Now, Harv—is that sweet? Is that romantic?"

  Kunz looked over Larkin's shoulder. "Yuh. Real homey, ain't it. Hiyah, Rat. Lookit that cheese he's got with him. Some cheese. Round like a provolone, huh? Hiyah, cheesecake, know you're in bed with a rat?"

  Giselle glanced questioningly at Relke. Relke was surveying the tactical situation. It looked unpromising. Larkin laughed.

  "Look at him, Harv—wondering where he left his shiv. What's the matter, Relke? We make you nervous?" He stepped inside, Kunz followed.

  Relke stood up in bed and backed against the wall. "Get out of the way," he grunted at Giselle.

  "Look at him!" Larkin gloated. "Getting ready to kick. You planning to kick somebody, sonny?"

  "Stay back!" he snapped. "Get out of here, Giselle!"

  "A l'abri? Oui—" She slid off the bed and darted for the door. Kunz grabbed .at her, but she slipped past. She stopped in the doorway and backed up a step. She stared into the next room. She put her hand to her mouth. "Oh! Oh!" she yelped. Larkin and Kunz glanced back at her. Rclko lunged off the bed. He smashed against Larkin, sent him sprawling into Kunz. He dodged Giselle and sprinted for the kitchen and the cutlery rack. He made it a few steps past the door before he saw what Giselle had seen. Something was sitting at the table, facing thedoor. Relke stopped in his tracks and began backing away. The something at the table was a blistered caricature of a man, an icy frost-figure in a deflated pressure suit. Its mouth was open, and the stomach had been forced up through . . . He closed his eyes. Relke had seen men blown out, but it hadn't gotten any pleasanter to look at since the last time.

  "Get him, Harv!"

  They pinned his arms from behind. "Heading for a butcher knife, Relke?" He heard a dull crack and felt his head explode. The room went pink and hazy.

  "That's for grabbing glass on us the other day, Sonny." "Don't mess him up too much, Lark. The dame's here." "I won't mess him up. I'll be real clean about it."

  The crack came again, and the pink haze quivered with black flashes.

  "That's for ratting on the Party, Relke."

  Dimly he heard Giselle screaming at them to stop it.

  "Take that little bitch in the other room and play house with her, Harv. I'll work on Sonny awhile, and then we'll trade .around. Don't wear her out."

  "Let go," she yelled. "Take your hands off—listen, I'll go in there with you if you'll quit beating him. Now stop—"

  Another crack. The pink haze flew apart, and blackness engulfed him. Time moved ahead in jerks for awhile. First he was sitting at the table across from the corpse. Larkin was there too, dealing himself a hand of solitaire. Loud popular music blared from the music system, but he could hear Kunz laughing in the next room. Once Giselle's voice cried out in protest. Relke moved and groaned. Larkin looked his way.

  "Hey, Harv—he's awake. It's your turn."

  "I'm busy," Kunz yelled.

  "Well, hurry up. Brodanovitch is beginning to thaw." Relke blinked at the dead man. "Who? Him? Brodan—" His lips were swollen, and it was painful to talk.

  "Yeah, that's Suds. Pretty, isn't he? You're going to look like that one of these days, kid."

  "You—killed—Suds?"

  Larkin threw back his head and laughed. "Hey, Harv, hear that? He thinks we killed Suds."

  "What happened to him, then?"

  Larkin shrugged. "He walked into an ,airlock with a bottle of champagne. The pressure went down quick, the booze blew up in his face, and there sits Suds. A victim of imprudence, like you. Sad looking schlemazel, isn't he?"

  "Wha'd you bring him here for?"

  "You know the rules, Sonny. A man gets blown out, they got to look him over inch by inch, make sure it wasn't murder."

  Giselle cried out again in protest. Relke started to his feet, staggering dizzily. Larkin grabbed him and pushed him down.

  "Hey, Harv! He's getting frisky. Come take over. The gang'll be rolling in pretty quick."

  Kunz came out of the bunkroom. Larkin sprinted for the door as Giselle tried to make a run for it. He caught her and dragged her back. He pushed her into the bunkroom, went in after her, and closed the door. Relke lunged at Kunz, but a judo cut knocked numbness into the side of his neck and sent him crashing against the wall.

  "Relke, get wise," Hary growled. "This'll happen every now and then if you don't join up."

  The lineman started to his feet. Kunz kicked him disinterestedly. Relke groaned and grabbed his side.

  "We got no hard feelings, Relke. . . ." He chopped his boot down against the back of Relke's neck. "You can join the Party any time."

  Time moved ahead in jerks again.

  Once he woke up. Brodanovitch was beginning to melt, and the smell of brandy filled the room. There were voices and chair scrapings and after a while somebody carried Brodanovitch out. Relke lay with his head against the wall and kept his eyes closed. He assumed that if the apartment contained a friend, he would not still be lying here on the floor; so he remained motionless and waited to gather strength.

  "So that's about the size of it," Larkin was telling someone. "Those dames are apt to be dynamite if they let them into Crater City. We've got enough steam whipped up to pull off the strike, but what if that canful of cat meat walks in on Copernicus about sundown? Who's going to have their mind on politics?"

  "Hell, Lark," grunted a strange voice. "Parkeson'll never let them get in town."

  "No? Don't be too damn sure. Parkeson's no idiot. He knows trouble's coming. Hell, he could invite them to Crater City, pretend he's innocent as a lamb, just didn't know what they are, but take credit for them being there."

  "Well, what can we do about it?"

  "Cripple that ship."

  "Wha-a-at?"

  "Cripple the ship. Look, there's nothing else we can do on our own. We've got no orders from the Party. Right before we break camp, at sundown, we cripple the ship. Something they can't fix without help from the base."

  "Leave them stuck out here?"


  "Only for a day or two. Till the Party takes over the base. Then we send a few wagons out here after dark and pick up the wenches. Who gets credit for dames showing up? The Party. Besides, it's the only thing we dare do without orders. We can't be sure what'd happen if Parkeson walked in with a bunch of Algerian whores about the time the show's supposed to start. And says, 'Here, boys, look what Daddy brought.' "

  "Parkeson hasn't got the guts."

  "The hell he hasn't. He'd say that out of one side of his mouth. Out of the other side, he'd be dictating a vigorous protest to the WP for allowing such things to get clearance for blasting off, making it sound like they're at fault. That's just a guess. We've got to keep those women out of Crater City until, we're sure, though. And there's only one way: cripple the ship."

  There were five or six voices in the discussion, and Relke recognized enough of them to understand dimly that a cell meeting was in progress. His mind refused to function clearly, and at times the voices seemed to be speaking in senseless jargon, although the words were plain enough. His head throbbed and he had bitten a piece out of the end of his tongue. He felt as if he were lying stretched out on a bed of jagged rocks, although there was only the smooth floor under his battered person.

  Giselle cried out from the next room and beat angrily on the door.

  Quite mindlessly, and as if his body were being directed by some whimsical puppet master, Relke's corpse suddenly clambered to its feet and addressed itself to the startled conspirators.

  "Goddam it, gentlemen, can't you let the lady out to use the trapper?"

  They hit him over the head with a jack handle.

  He woke up again. This time he was in the bunkroom. A faint choking sound made him look up. Giselle sat on the foot of the bed, legs tightly crossed, face screwed up. She was trying to cry.

  "Use an onion," he told her thickly, and sat up. "What's the matter?"

  "It's Monday now."

  "Where are they?"

  "They left. We're locked in."

  He fell back with a groan. A stitch in his side felt like a broken rib. He turned his face to the wall. "What's so great about Monday?" he muttered.

  "Today the others are taking their vows."

  When he woke up again, Novotny was watching him from the foot of the bed. The girl was gone. He sat up and fell back with a groan.

  "Fran," he said.

  "It wasn't Fran, it was a hustler," said Joe. "I had Beasley take her back. Who busted you?"

  "Larkin and Kunz."

  "It's a good thing."

  "What?"

  "They saved me the trouble. You ran off with the jeep."

  “Sorry.”

  "You don't have to be sorry. Just watch yourself, that's all."

  "I wanted to see what it was like, Joe."

  "What? Playing house with a wench?"

  He nodded.

  "What was it like?"

  "I don't know."

  "You woke up calling her Fran."

  "I did?"

  "Yah. Before you start feeling that way, you better ask Beasley what they did together on the rug while you were asleep, Romeo."

  "What?"

  "She really knows some tricks. Mme. d'Annecy really educates her girls. You been kissing and cooing with her, Relke?"

  "I'm sick, Joe. Don't."

  "By the way, you better not go back. The Madame's pretty sore at you."

  "Why?"

  "For keeping the wench gone so long. There was going to be a show. You know, a circus. Giselle was supposed to be in it. You might say she had the lead role."

  "Who?"

  "Giselle. Still feel like calling her Fran?—Hey! if you're going to vomit, get out of bed."

  Relke staggered into the latrine. He was gone a long time.

  "Better hurry up," Novotny called. "Our shift goes on in half an hour."

  "I can't go on, Joe."

  "The hell you can't. Unless you want to be sent up N.L.D. You know what they do to N.L.D. cases." "You wouldn't report me N.L.D."

  "The hell I wouldn't, but I don't have to."

  "What do you mean?"

  "Parkeson's coming, with a team of inspectors. They're probably already here, and plenty sore."

  "About the ship? The women?"

  "I don't know. If the Commission hear about those bats, there'll be hell to pay. But who'll pay it is something else."

  Relke buried his face in his hands and tried to think. "Joe, listen. I only half remember, but . . . there was a cell meeting here."

  "When?"

  "After Larkin and Kunz worked me over. Some guys came in, and ..."

  "Well?"

  "It's foggy. Something about Parkeson taking the women back to Crater City."

  "Hell, that's a screwy idea. Who thinks that?"

  Relke shook his head and tried to think. He came out of the latrine mopping his face on a towel. "I'm trying to remember."

  Joe got up. "All right. Better get your suit. Let's go pull cable."

  The lineman breathed deeply a few times and winced at the effect. He went to get his suit out of the hangar, started the routine safety check, and stopped halfway through. "Joe, my suit's been cut."

  Novotny came to look. He pinched the thick corded plastic until the incision opened like a mouth. "Knife," he grunted.

  "Those sons of—"

  "Yah." He fingered the cut. "They meant for you to find it, though. It's too conspicuous. It's a threat."

  "Well, I'm fed up with their threats. I'm going to—"

  "You're not going to do anything, Relke. I'm going to do it. Larkin and Kunz have messed around with my men one time too often."

  "What have you got in mind, Joe?"

  "Henderson and I will handle it. We'll go over and have a little conference with them, that's all."

  "Why Henderson? Look, Joe, if you're going to stomp them, it's my grudge, not Lije's."

  "That's just it. If I take you, it's a grudge. If Lije and I do it, it's just politics. I've told you guys before—leave the politics to me. Come on, we'll get you a suit from the emergency locker."

  They went out into the transformer vault. Two men wearing blue armbands were bending over Brodanovitch's corpse. One of them was fluently cursing unknown parties who had brought the body to a warm place and allowed it to thaw.

  "Investigating team," Novotny muttered. "Means Parkeson is already here." He hiked off toward the emergency lockers.

  "Hey, are you the guy that left this stiff near a stove?" one of the investigators called out to Relke.

  "No, but I'll be glad to rat on the guys that did, if it'll get them in trouble," the lineman told him.

  "Never mind. You can't hang them for being stupid." "What are you going to do with him?" Relke asked, nodding at the corpse.

  "Promote him to supervisory engineer and give him a raise."

  "Christ but they hire smart boys for the snooper team, don't they? What's your I.Q., friend? I bet they had to breed you to get smart."

  The checker grinned. "You looking for an argument, Slim?"

  Relke shook his head. "No, I just asked a question."

  "We're going to take him back to Copernicus and bury him, friend. It takes a lot of imagination to figure that out, doesn't it?"

  "If he was a class three laborer, you wouldn't take him back to Copernicus. You wouldn't even bury him. You'd just chuck him in a fissure and dynamite the lip."

  The man smiled. Patient cynicism was in his tone. "But he's not a class three laborer, Slim. He's Mister S.K. Brodanovitch. Does that make everything nice and clear?"

  "Sure. Is Parkeson around?"

  The checker glanced up and snickered. "You're a chum of his, I guess? Hear that, Clyde? We're talking to a wheel."

  Relke reddened. "Shove it, chum. I just wondered if he's here."

  "Sure, he's out here. He went over to see that flying bordello you guys have been hiding out here."

  "What's he going to do about it?"

  "Couldn't say, friend."r />
  Novotny came back with an extra suit.

  "Joe, I just remembered something."

  "Tell me about it on the way back."

  They suited up and went out to the runabout. Relke told what he could remember about the cell meeting.

  "It sounds crazy in a way," Novotny said thoughtfully. "Or maybe it doesn't. It could mess up the Party's strike plans if Parkeson brought those women back before sundown. The men want women back on the moon project. If they can get women bootlegged in, they won't be quite so ready to start a riot on the No Work Without a Wife theme."

  "But Parkeson'd get fired in a flash if—"

  "If Parliament got wind of it, sure. Unless he raised the squawk later himself. UCOJE doesn't mention prostitution. Parkeson could point out that some national codes on Earth tolerate it. Nations with delegates in the Parliament, and with work teams on the moon. Take the African team at Tycho. And the Japanese team. Parkeson himself is an Aussie. Whose law is he supposed to enforce?"

  "You mean maybe they can't keep ships like that from visiting us?"

  "Don't kid yourself. It won't last long. But maybe long enough. If it goes on long enough, and builds up, the general public will find out. You think that wouldn't cause some screaming back home?"

  "Yeah. That'll be the end."

  "I'm wondering. If there turns out to be a profit in it for whoever's backing d'Annecy, well—anything that brings a profit is pretty hard to put a stop to. There's only one sure way to stop it. Kill the demand."

  "For women? Are you crazy, Joe?"

  "They could bring in decent women. Women to marry. That'll stop it."

  "But the kids. They can't have kids."

  "Yeah, I know. That's the problem, and they've got to start solving it sometime. Hell, up to now, they haven't been trying to solve it. When the problem came up, and the kids were dying, everybody got hysterical and jerked the women back to Earth. That wasn't a solution, it was an evasion. The problem is growth-control—in low gravity. It ought to have a medical answer. If this d'Annecy dame gets a chance to keep peddling her wares under the counter, well—she'll force them to start looking for a solution."

  "I don't know, Joe. Everybody said homosexuality would force them to start looking for it—after Doc Reiber made his survey. The statistics looked pretty black, but they didn't do anything about it except send us a shipful of ministers. The fairies just tried to make the ministers."