Dark Benediction

Mitch described it wearily. He began to understand Ferris’s desire to retire Central permanently and forcibly. At the moment he longed to convert several subcomputers to scrap metal.

“Then,” said the speaker, “if vehicle is yours, you may have it by applying for a new license and paying the required fee.”

“Refer that to Central Data,” Mitch groaned.

The booking computer paused to confer with the Coordinator. “Decision stands, sir.”

“But there aren’t any new licenses!” he growled. “A while ago Central said— Oh, never mind!”

“That decision applied to identification, sir. This applies to licensing of vehicles. Insufficient data have been gathered to permit generalization.”

“Sure, sure. All right, what do I do to get the girl out of jail?”

There was another conference with the Coordinator, then: “She is being held for investigation. She may not be released for seventy-two hours.”

Mitch dropped the toolbox that he had been carrying since morning. With a savage curse he rammed the crowbar through a vent in the device’s front panel and slashed it about in the opening. There was a crash of shattering glass and a shower of sparks. Mitch yelped at the electric jolt and lurched away. Steel fingers clutched his wrists.

Five minutes later he was being led through the gate to the cellblocks, charged with maliciously destroying city property; and he cursed himself for a hot-tempered fool. They would hold him until a grand jury convened, which would probably be never.

The girl’s sobbing grew louder as he was led along the iron corridors toward a cell. He passed three cells and glanced inside. The cells were occupied by dead men’s bones. Why? The rear wall was badly cracked, and bits of loose masonry were scattered on the floor. Had they died of concussion during an attack? Or been gassed to death?

They led him to the fifth cell and unlocked the door. Mitch stared inside and grinned. The rear wall had been partially wrecked by a bomb blast, and there was room to crawl through the opening to the street. The partition that separated the adjoining cell was also damaged, and he caught a glimpse of a white, frightened face peering through the hole. Marta.

He glanced at his captors. They were pushing him gently through the door. Evidently Central’s talents did not extend to bricklaying, and she could not judge that the cell was less than escape proof.

The door clanged shut behind him.

“Marta,” he called.

Her face_: had disappeared from the opening. There was no answer.

“Marta.”

“Let me alone,” grumbled a muffled voice.

“I’m not angry about the bicycle.”

He walked to the hole and peered through the partition into the next cell. She crouched in a corner, peering at him with frightened, tear-reddened eyes. He glanced at the opening in the rear wall.

“Why haven’t you gone outside?” he asked.

She giggled hysterically. “Why don’t you go look down?” He stepped to the opening and glanced twenty feet down to a concrete sidewalk. He went back to stare at the girl. “Where’s your baby?”

“They took him away,” she whimpered.

Mitch frowned and thought about it for a moment. “To the city nursery, probably—while you’re in jail.”

“They won’t take care of him! They’ll let him die!”

“Don’t scream like that. He’ll be all right.”

“Robots don’t give milk!”

“No, but there are such things as bottles, you know,” he chuckled.

“Are there?” Her eyes were wide with horror. “And what will they put in the bottles?”

“Why—” He paused. Central certainly wasn’t running any dairy farms.

“Wait’ll they bring you a meal,” she said. “You’ll see.”

“Meal?”

“Empty tray,” she hissed. “Empty tray, empty paper cup, paper fork, clean paper napkin. No food.”

Mitch swallowed hard. Central’s logic was sometimes hard to see. The servo-attendants probably went through the motions of ladling stew from an empty pot and drawing coffee from an empty urn. Of course, there weren’t any truck farmers to keep the city supplied with produce.

“So that’s why… the bones…in the other cells,” he muttered.

“They’ll starve us to death!”

“Don’t scream so. We’ll get out. All we need is something to climb down on.”

“There isn’t any bedding.”

“There’s our clothing. We can plait a rope. And if necessary we can risk a jump.”

She shook her head dully and stared at her hands. “It’s no use. They’d catch us again.”

Mitch sat down to think. There was bound to be a police arsenal somewhere in the building, probably in the basement. The robot cops were always unarmed. But of course there had been a human organization for investigation purposes and to assume command in the event of violence. When one of the traffic units faced a threat, it could do nothing but try to handcuff the offender and call for human help. There were arms in the building somewhere, and a well-placed rifle shot could penetrate the thin sheet-steel bodies.