Bergman inclined his head at the poster blox, at the signs, and asked, "Is he here?" Charlie Kickback's woman's face greyed-down and her lips thinned. She nodded, mumbled something, and led Bergman past the ticket window with its bulletproof gla.s.s and steel-suited ticket-taker. The woman snapped a finger at the taker, and a heavy plasteel door slid back for them. The moment it opened, tinny music, fraught with the b.u.mp and grrrrind of the burlesque since time immemorial, swept over them, and Bergman had to strain to hear Charlie Kickback's woman.

He tensed, and caught her voice. "This way...through the side door..."

They pa.s.sed the open back of the theater, and Bergman's eyes caught the idle twist of flesh, and the sensuous beat of naked feet on a stage. The sounds of warwhoop laughter and applause sifted up through the blaring music. They pa.s.sed through the side door.

The woman led him down a hall, and past several dim grey doors with peeling paint. She stopped before a door with a faded star on it, and said, "He-he's in h-here..." And she palmed the door open quietly.

She had not needed the silence.

Charlie Kickback would never writher at a sound again.

He was quite dead.

Twisted in on himself, wound up like some loathsome pretzel, he lay on the floor beneath the dirty sink, one leg twisted under himself so painfully, it had broken before death. He had strangled to death.

The old woman rushed to the body, and fell to her knees, burying her face in his clothing, crying, namelessly seeking after him. She cried solidly for a few minutes, while Bergman stood watching, his heart filled with pity and sorrow and unhappiness and frustration.

This never would have happened, if...

The woman looked up, and her face darkened. "You! You're the ones brought in them robots. We can't stay alive even no more, cause of them! It's you...and them..."

She burst into tears again, and fell back on the inert body of her lover. Her words fouled in her lips. But Bergman knew she was right. The Phymechs had killed this man as surely as if they had slashed his pulmonary artery.

He turned to leave, and then it was that the follower leaped on him.

It had followed him carefully through Slobtown, it had immobilized the ticket-taker in her suit, it had snaked a tentacle through the ticket window to keep open the door, and had tracked him with internal radex to this room.

Bergman stopped at the door, as the robocop rolled up, and its tentacles slammed out at him. "Help!" was the first thing he could yell; and as he did so, Kickback's woman lifted her streaked face from the dead man, saw the robot, and went berserk.

Her hand dipped to the hem of her skirt, and lifted, exposing leg, slip, and a thigh-holster.

An acidee came up in her fist, and as she pressed the stud, a thin unsplashing stream of vicious acid streaked over Bergman's head, and etched a line across the robocop's hood. Its faceted light-sensitives turned abruptly, fastened on the woman, and a stunner tentacle snaked out, beamed her in her tracks.

As Bergman watched, the robocop suddenly releasing him to concentrate on the woman, the acidee dropped from her hand, and she spun backward, fell in a heap next to her dead Charlie.

Everything totaled for Bergman. The Phymechs, the death of the thresher victim, the Oath, and the way he had almost shattered it tonight, the death of Charlie, and now this robocop that was the Mechanical G.o.d in its vilest form. It all summed up, and Bergman lunged around the robocop, trying to upset it.

It rocked back on its settlers, and tried to grab him. He avoided a tentacle, and streaked out into the hall. The punctuated, syncopated, stop-beat of the burley music welled over him, and he cast about in desperation. Leaning against one wall he saw a long, thick-handled metal bar with a screw-socket on its top, for removing the outdated light units from the high ceilings.

He grabbed it and turned on the robocop as it rolled slowly after him. His back to the wall, he held it first like a staff, then further down the handle, angling it. As the robocop approached, Bergman lunged, and brought fiercely his hatred to the surface. The club came down and smashed with a muted tw.a.n.ggg! across the robocop's hood. A tiny, tiny dent appeared in the metal, but it kept coming, steadily.

Bergman continued to smash at it.

His blows landed ineffectually, many of them missing entirely, but he struggled and smashed and smashed and smashed and his scream rose over the music, "Die, you b.a.s.t.a.r.d rotten chunk of tin, die, die, and let us alone so we can die in peace when we have to..."

Over and over, even after the robocop had taken the club from him, immobilized him, and slung him "fireman's-carry" over his tote-area.

All the way back from Slobtown to the jail, to stand trial for home pract.i.tioning, collusion, a.s.saulting a robocop, he screamed his hatred and defiance.

Even in his cell, all night long, in his mind, the screams continued. On into the morning, when he found out Calkins had had the robocop trailing him for a week. Suspecting him of just what had happened, long before it hadhappened. Hoping it would happen. Now it had happened, indeed.

And Stuart Bergman had come to the end of his career.

The end of his life.

He went on trial at 10:40 AM, with the option of human (fallible) jury, or robotic (infallible) jurymech.

Irrationally, he chose the human jury.

An idea, a hope, had flared in the darkness of this finality. If he was going down, Bergman was not going down a coward. He had run long enough. This was another chance.

He meant to make the most of it.

CHAPTER SEVEN.

The courtroom was silent. Totally and utterly silent, primarily because the observer's bubble was soundproofed, and each member of the jury sat in a hush-cubicle. The jurymen each wore a speak-tip in one ear, and a speaker let the audience know what was happening.

Halfway up the wall, beside the judge's desk, the accused's bubble clung to the wall like a teardrop. Stuart Bergman had sat there throughout the trial, listening to the testimony: the robocop, Calkins (on the affair at the hospital, the day Kohlbenschlagg had died; the affair of the lounge; the suspicion and eventual a.s.signing of a robocop to trail the doctor; Bergman's general att.i.tudes, his ability to have performed the crime of which he had been accused), the old woman, who was pentatholed before she would speak against Bergman, and even Murray Thomas, who reluctantly admitted that Bergman was quite capable of breaking the law in this case.

Thomas's face was strained and broken and he left the stand, staring up at Bergman with a mixture of remorse and pity burning there.

The time was drawing near, and Bergman could feel the tension in the room. This was the first such case of its kind...the first flagrant breaking of the new Hippocratic Laws, and the newsfax and news sheet men were here in hordes; a precedent was to be set...

The anti-mech leagues and the humanitarian organizations were here also. The case was a sensational one, mostly because it was the first of its kind, and would set the future pattern. Bergman knew he had to take good advantage of that.

And he also knew that advantage would have been lost, had he chosen a robot jurymech to try the case.

The nice things about humans tied in with their irrationality. They were human, they could see the human point of view. A robot would see the robotic point of view. Bergman desperately needed that human factor.

This had grown much larger than just his own problems of adaptation. the fate of the profession lay in his hands, and uncountable lives, lost through stupidity and blind dead faith in the all-powerful G.o.d of the Machine.

Deus ex machina, Bergman thought bitterly, I'm gonna give you a run for your rule today!

He waited silently, listening to the testimonies, and then, finally, his turn came to speak.

He told them a story, from the accused's bubble. Not one word of defense...he did not need that. But the story, and the real story. It was difficult to get it out without falling into bathos or melodrama. It was even harder to keep from lashing out insanely at the machines.

Once, a snicker started up from the audience, but the others scathed the laughter to silence with vicious stares. After that, they listened...

The years of study. The death of Kohlbenschlagg. The day of the Operation.

Calkins and his approach to medicine.

The fear of the people for the machines. Charlie Kickback's woman, and her terrors. When he finally came to the story of the thresher amputee, and the calm workings of the Phymech as his patient died, the eyes turned from Bergman.

They turned to the silent cubicle where the jurymech lay inactive in waiting for the next case where an accused would select robot over human.

Many began to wonder how smart it would be to select the robot. Many wondered how smart they had been to put their faith in machines. Bergman was playing them, he knew he was, and felt a slight qualm about it-but there was more involved here than merely saving his license. Life was at stake.

As he talked, calmly and softly, they watched him, and watched Calkins, and the jurymech.

And when he had finished, there was silence for a long, long time. Even after the jurybox had sunk into the floor, as deliberations were made, there was silence. People sat and thought, and even the newsfax men took their time about getting to the vidders, to pip in their stories.

When the jury box rose up out of the floor, they said they must have more deliberation.

Bergman was remanded to custody, placed in a cell to wait. Something was going to happen.

Murray Thomas was ushered into the cell, and he held Bergman's hand far longer than was necessary for mere greeting.

His face was solemn when he said, "You've won, Stu."

Bergman felt a great wave of relief and peace settle through him. He had suspected he would; the situation could be verified, and if they checked for what he had pointed out, not just blind faith in the machine, they would uncover the truth...it must have happened before, many times.

Thomas said, "The news sheets are full of it, Stu. Biggest thing since total automation. People are scared, Stu, but they're scared the right way. There aren't any big smash sessions, but people are considering their position andthe relation of the robot to them.

"There's a big movement afoot for a return to human domination. I-I hate to admit it, Stu...but I think you were right all along. I wanted to settle back too easily. It took guts, Stu. A lot of guts. I'm afraid I'd have sent that woman away, not gone to tend her man."

Bergman waved away his words. He sat staring at his hands, trying to find a place for himself in the sudden rationale that had swept over his world.

Thomas said, "They've got Calkins for investigation. Seems there was some sort of collusion between him and the manufacturer of the Phymechs. That was why they were put in so quickly, before they'd been fully tested. But they called in the man from the Zsebok Company, and he had to testify they couldn't build in a bedside manner...too nebulous a concept, or something.

"I've been restored to full status as a surgeon, Stu. They're looking around for a suitable reward for you."

Stuart Bergman was not listening. He was remembering a man twisted up in death-who need not have died-and a blue-eyed girl who had lived, and an amputee who had screamed his life away. He thought of it all, and of what had happened, and he knew deep within himself that it was going to be all right now. It wasn't just his victory...it was the victory of humanity. Man had stopped himself on the way to dependence and decadence, and had reversed a terrible trend.

The machines would not be put away entirely.

They would work along with people, and that was as it should have been, for the machines were tools, like any other tools. But human involvement was the key factor now, again.

Bergman settled back against the cell wall, and closed his eyes in the first real rest he had known for oh so long a time. He breathed deeply, and smiled to himself.

Reward?

He had his reward.Repet.i.tiously, the unifying theme to the stories in this collection is pain, human anguish. But there is a sub-text that informs the subject; it is this: we are all inescapably responsible, not only for our own actions, but for our lack of action, the morality and ethic of our silences and our avoidances, the shared guilt of hypocrisy, voyeurism, and cowardice; what might be called the "spectator-sport social conscience." Catherine Genovese, Martin Luther King, Viola Luizzo, Nathaniel West, Marilyn Monroe...how the h.e.l.l do we face them if there's something like a Hereafter?

And how do we make it day-to-day, what with mirrors everywhere we look, if there isn't a Hereafter? Perhaps it all comes down to the answer to the question any middle-aged German in, say, Munich, might ask today: "If I didn't do what they said, they'd kill me. I had to save my life, didn't I?" I'm sure when it comes right down to it, the most ignominious life is better than no life at all, but again and again I find the answer coming from somewhere too n.o.ble to be within myself: "What for?" Staying alive only has merit if one does it with dignity, with purpose, with responsibility to his fellow man. If these are absent, then living is a slug-like thing, more a matter of habit than worth. Without courage, the pain will destroy you. And, oh, yeah, about this story...the last section came first. It was a tone-poem written to a little folk song Tom Scott wrote, t.i.tled "38th Parallel," which Rusty Draper recorded vocally some years later as "Lonesome Song." If you can find a 45 rpm of it anywhere, and play it as you read the final sections, it will vastly enhance, audibly coloring an explanation of what mean when I talk about pain that is

Deeper Than the Darkness

A Folk Song of the Future

They came to Alf Gunnderson in the p.a.w.nee County jail.

He was sitting against the plasteel wall of the cell, hugging his bony knees. On the plasteel floor lay an ancient, three-string mandolin he had borrowed from the deputy and had been plunking with some talent off and on all that hot summer day. Under his thick b.u.t.tocks the empty trough of the mattressless bunk bowed beneath his weight.

He was an extremely tall man, even hunched up that way.

He was a gaunt, empty-looking man. His hair fell lanky and drab and gray-brown in disarray over a low forehead. His eyes seemed to be peas, withdrawn from their pods and placed in a starkly white face.

Their blankness only accented the total cipher he seemed. There was no inch of expression or recognition on his face or in the line of his body. He seemed to be a man who had given up the Search long ago.

He was more than tired-looking, more than weary. His was an internal weariness. His face did not change its hollow stare at the plasteel-barred door opposite, even as it swung back to admit the two nonent.i.ties.

The two men entered, their stride as alike as the un.o.btrusive gray mesh suits they wore, as alike as the faces that would fade from memory moments after they had exited. The turnkey-a grizzled country deputy with a minus 8 rating-stared after the men with open wonder on his bearded face.

One of the gray-suited men turned, pinning the wondering stare to the deputy's face. His voice was calm and unrippled. "Close the door and go back to your desk." The words were cold and paced. They brooked no opposition.

It was obvious: the men were Mindees.

The roar of a late afternoon invers.p.a.ce ship split the waiting moment, outside; then the turnkey slammed the door, palming its lokt.i.te. He walked back out of the cell block, hands deep in his coverall pockets. His head was lowered as though he was trying to solve a complex problem. It, too, was obvious: he was trying to block his thoughts off from those G.o.ddammed Mindees.

When he was gone, the telepaths circled Gunnderson slowly. Their faces altered, softly, subtly, and personality flowed in. They shot each other confused glances.

Him? the first man thought, nodding slightly at the still, knee-hugging prisoner.

That's what the report said, Ralph. The other man removed his forehead-concealing snap-brim and sat down on the edge of the bunk-trough. He touched Gunnderson's leg with tentative fingers. He's not thinking, for G.o.d's sake! the thought flashed. I can't get a thing.

Shock sparkled in the thought. He must be blocked off by trauma-barrier, came the reply from the telepath named Ralph.

"Is your name Alf Gunnderson?" the first Mindee inquired softly, a hand on Gunnderson's shoulder.

The expression never changed. The head swivelled slowly and the dead eyes came to bear on the dark-suited telepath. "I'm Gunnderson." His tones indicated no enthusiasm, no curiosity.

The first man looked up at his partner, doubt wrinkling his eyes, pursing his lips. He shrugged his shoulders, as if to say, Who knows?

He turned back to Gunnderson.

Immobile, as before. Hewn from rock, silent as the pit.

"What are you in here for, Gunnderson?" He spoke the halting speech of the telepath, as though he was unused to words.

The dead stare swung back to the plasteel bars. "I set the woods on fire," he said.

The Mindee's face darkened at the prisoner's words. That was what the report had said. The report that had come in from this remote corner of this remote country.

The American Union covered two continents with plasteel and printed circuits, relays and rapid movement, but there were areas of backwoods country that had never taken to civilizing. They still maintained roads and jails,fishing holes and forests. Out of one of these had come three reports, s.p.a.ced an hour apart, with startling ramifications-if true. They had been snapped through the primary message banks in Capital City in Buenos Aires, reeled through the computers, and handed to the Bureau for checking. While the invers.p.a.ce ships plied between worlds, while Earth fought its transgalactic wars, in a rural section of the American continents, a strange thing was happening.