Dark Benediction

“He called me tonight. He was loaded. Just a senseless babble, but I knew something was wrong. So I went over to the shop.” Mulreany stopped to light a cigaret and frown at the floor. He looked up suddenly. “You see him today?”

Norris could think of no reason not to admit it. He nodded irritably.

Mulreany leaned forward curiously. “Was he sober?”

“Yeah.”

“Sane?”

“How should I know?”

“Did he impress you as the sort of man who would suddenly decide to take a joint of pipe and a meat cleaver and mass-slaughter about sixty helpless animals?”

Norris felt slightly dazed. He sank back, shaking his head and blinking. There was a long silence. Mulreany was watching him carefully.

“I can’t help you,” Norris muttered. “I’ve got nothing to say.”

“Look, Inspector, forget this, will you?” He touched his collar. Norris shook his head, managed a sour smile. “I can’t help you.”

“All right,” Mulreany sighed, starting to his feet. “I’m just trying to find out if what he says…”

“Men talking about Dadda?” came a piping voice from the kitchen.

Mulreany shot a quick glance toward it. “… is true,” he finished softly.

There was a sudden hush. He could hear Anne whispering in the kitchen, saw her steal a glance through the door. “So it is true,” Mulreany murmured.

Face frozen, Norris came to his feet. “Anne,” he called in a bitter voice. “Bouncey’s off.”

She came in carrying Peony and looking murderous. “Why did you ask him in?” she demanded in a hiss.

Mulreany stared at the small creature. Anne stared at the priest.

“It’s poison to you, isn’t it!” she snapped, then held Peony up toward him. “Here! Look at your enemy. Offends your humanocentrism, doesn’t she?”

“Not at all,” he said rather wistfully.

“You condemn them.”

He shook his head. “Not them. Only what they’re used for by society.” He looked at Norris, a bit puzzled. “I’d better leave.”

“Maybe not. Better spill it. What do you want?”

“I told you. O’Reilley went berserk, made a butcher shop out of his place. When I got there, he was babbling about a talking neutroid—‘his baby’—said you took it to the pound to destroy it. Threatened to kill you. I got a friend to stay with him, came over to see if I could find out what it’s all about.”

“The newt’s a deviant. You’ve heard of the Delmont case?”

“Rumors.”

“She’s it.”

“I see.” Mulreany looked glum, grim, gloomy. “Nothing more I need to know I guess. Well—”

Norris grabbed his arm as he turned. “Sit a spell,” he grunted ominously.

The priest looked puzzled, let himself be guided back to the chair. Norris stood looking down at him.

“What’s the matter with Dadda?” Peony chirped. “I wanna go see Dadda.”

“Well?” Norris growled. “What about her?”

“I don’t understand.”

“You people are down on Anthropos, aren’t you?”

Mulreany kept patience with an effort. “To make nitroglycerin for curing heart trouble is good, to make it for blowing open safes is bad. The stuff itself is morally neutral. The same goes for mutant animals. As pets, okay; as replacements for humans, no.”

“Yeah, but you’d just as soon see them dead, eh?”

Mulreany hesitated. “I admit a personal dislike for them.”

“This one?”

“What about her?”

“Better dead, eh?”

“You couldn’t admit she might be human?”

“Don’t know her that well. Human? How do you mean—biologically? Obviously not. Theologically? Why should you care?”

“I’m interested in your particular attitude, buster.”

Mulreany gazed at him, gathering a glower. “I’m a little doubtful about my status here,” he growled. “I came for information; the roles got switched somewhere. Okay, Norris, but I’m sick of neo-pagan innocents like you. Now sit down, or show me the door.”

Norris sat down slowly.

The priest watched the small neutroid for a moment before speaking. “She’s alive, performs the function of living, is evidently aware. Life—a kind of functioning. A specific life—an in-variant kind of functioning—with sameness-of-self about it. Invariance of functioning—a principle. Self, soul, call it what you like. Whatever’s alive has it.” He paused to watch Norris doubtfully.

Norris nodded curtly. “Go on.”

“Doesn’t have to be anything immortal about it. Not unless she were known to be human. Or intelligent.”

“You heard her,” Anne snapped.

“I’ve heard metal boxes speak with great wisdom,” Mulreany said sourly. “And if I were a Hottentot, a vocalizing computer would…”

“Skip the analogies. Go on.”

“What’s intelligence? A function of Man, immortal. What’s Man? An intelligent immortal creature, capable of choice.”

“Quit talking in circles.”

“That’s the point. I can’t—not where Peony’s concerned. What do you want to know? If I think she’s equal to Man? Give me all the intelligence test results, and all the data you can get—I still couldn’t decide.”

“Whattaya need? Mystic writings in the sky?”

“Precisely.”

“I feel a bush being beat about,” Anne said suddenly. “Is this guy going to make things tough, or isn’t he?”

Mulreany looked puzzled again.

“To the point, then,” Norris said. “Would you applaud if she gets the gasser?”

“Hardly.”

“If you had it to decide for yourself—”

“What? Whether to destroy her or not?” Mulreany snorted irritably. “Not if there was the least doubt in my mind about her. She’s a shadow in the brush. Maybe it’s ten to one that the shadow’s a bear and not a man—but on the one chance, don’t shoot, son, don’t shoot.”

“You think the authorities have a right to kill her, maybe?” Anne asked.

“Who, him?” Mulreany jerked his head toward Norris.

“Well, say him.”

“I’d have to think about it. But I don’t think so.”

“Why? The government made her. Why can’t it un-make her?”

“Made her? Did it now?”

“Delmont did,” Norris corrected.

“Did he now?” said Mulreany.

“Why not?” Anne snorted.

“I, the State, am Big Fertility,” Norris said sourly; then baiting

Mulreany: “Thou shalt accept no phallus but the evolvotron.” Mulreany reddened, slapped his knee, and chortled. The Norrises exchanged puzzled glances.

“I feel an affinity,” Anne murmured suspiciously.