Dark Benediction

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.