Dark Benediction

He nodded slowly and looked around at the frozen dolls. He had to forget the machinery. He had to lose himself in it and live it, even if it meant being a replacement link in the mechanism. It disturbed him somehow, even though he was accustomed to subordinating himself to the total gestalt of the scene as in other days. For no apparent reason, he found himself listening for laughter from the production people, but none came.

“All right,” Feria called. “Bring ‘em alive again.”

He went on with it, but the uneasy feeling nagged at him. There was self-mockery in it, and the expectation of ridicule from those who watched. He could not understand why, and yet—

There was an ancient movie—one of the classics—in which a man named Chaplin had been strapped into a seat on a production line where he performed a perfectly mechanical task in a perfectly mechanical fashion, a task that could obviously have been done by a few cams and a linkage or two, and it was one of the funniest comedies of all times—yet tragic. A task that made him a part in an over-all machine.

He sweated through the second and third acts in a state of compromise with himself-overplaying it for purposes of self-preparation, yet trying to convince Feria and Jade that he could handle it and handle it well. Overacting was necessary in spots, as a learning technique. Deliberately ham up the rehearsal to impress lines on memory, then underplay it for the real performance—it was an old trick of troupers who had to do a new show each night and had only a few hours in which to rehearse and learn lines. But would they know why he was doing it?

When it was finished, there was no time for another run-through, and scarcely time for a nap and a bite to eat before dressing for the show.

“It was terrible, Jade,” he groaned. “I muffed it. I know I did.”

“Nonsense. You’ll be in tune tonight, Thorny. I knew what you were doing, and I can see past it.”

“Thanks. I’ll try to pull in.”

“About the final scene, the shooting—”

He shot her a wary glance. “What about it?”

“The gun’ll be loaded tonight, blanks, of course. And this time you’ll have to fall.”

“So?”

“So be careful where you fall. Don’t go down on the copper bus-lugs. A hundred and twenty volts mightn’t kill you, but we don’t want a dying Andreyev bouncing up and spitting blue sparks. The stagehands’ll chalk out a safe section for you. And one other thing—”

“Yes?”

“Marka fires from close range. Don’t get burned.”

“I’ll watch it.”

She started away, then paused to frown back at him steadily for several seconds. “Thorny, I’ve got a queer feeling about you. I can’t place it exactly.”

He stared at her evenly, waiting.

“Thorny, are you going to wreck the show?”

His face showed nothing, but something twisted inside him. She looked beseeching, trusting, but worried. She was counting on him, placing faith in him—

“Why should I botch up the performance, Jade? Why should I do a thing like that?”

“I’m asking you.”

“O.K. I promise you—you’ll get the best Andreyev I can give you.”

She nodded slowly. “I believe you. I didn’t doubt that, exactly.”

“Then what worries you?”

“I don’t know. I know how you feel about autodrama. I just got a shuddery feeling that you had something up your sleeve. That’s all. I’m sorry. I know you’ve got too much integrity to wreck your own performance, but—” She stopped and shook her head, her dark eyes searching him. She was still worried.

“Oh, all right. I was going to stop the show in the third act. I was going to show them my appendectomy scar, do a couple of card tricks, and announce that I was on strike. I was going to walk out.” He clucked his tongue at her, looked hurt.

She flushed slightly, and laughed. “Oh, I know you wouldn’t pull anything shabby. Not that you wouldn’t do anything you could to take a swat at autodrama generally, but… there’s nothing you could do tonight that would accomplish anything. Except sending the customers home mad. That doesn’t fit you, and I’m sorry I thought of it.”

“Thanks. Stop worrying. If you lose dough, it won’t be my fault.”

“I believe you; but—”

“But what?”

She leaned close to him. “But you look too triumphant, that’s what!” she hissed, then patted his cheek.

“Well, it’s my last role. I—”

But she had already started away, leaving him with his sandwich and a chance for a nap.

Sleep would not come. He lay fingering the .32 caliber cartridges in his pocket and thinking about the impact of his final exit upon the conscience of the theater. The thoughts were pleasant.

It struck him suddenly as he lay drowsing that they would call it suicide. How silly. Think of the jolting effect, the dramatic punch, the audience reaction. Mannequins don’t bleed. And later, the headlines: Robot Player Kills Old Trouper, Victim of Mechanized Stage, Still, they’d call it suicide. How silly.

But maybe that’s what the paranoid on the twentieth-story window ledge thought about, too—the audience reaction. Wasn’t every self-inflicted wound really aimed at the conscience of the world?

It worried him some, but—