Dark Benediction

“The doll’d run through its lines like a zombie, that’s all,” Rick explained. “No zip. No interpretation. Flat, deadpan, like a robot.”

“They are robots.”

“Not exactly. Remote marionettes for the Maestro, but interpreted. We did a run-through on ‘Hamlet’ once, without any actor tapes. Everybody talked in flat monotones, no expressions. It was a scream.”

“Ha, ha,” Thornier said grimly.

Rick slipped another tape on the spindle, clicked a dial to a new setting, started the feed again. “This one’s Andreyev, Thornier-played by Peltier.” He cursed suddenly, stopped the feed, inspected the tape anxiously, flipped open the pickup mechanism, and inspected it with a magnifier.

“What’s wrong?” asked the janitor.

“Take-off’s about worn out. Hard to keep its spacing right. I’m nervous about it getting hung up and chewing up the tape.”

“No duplicate tapes?”

“Yeah. One set of extras. But the show opens tonight.” He cast another suspicious look at the pickup glideway, then closed it and switched the feed again. He was replacing the panel when the feed mechanism stalled. A ripping sound came from inside. He muttered fluent profanity, shut off the drive, jerked away the panel. He held up a shredded ribbon of tape for Thorny to see, then flung it angrily across the booth. “Get out of here! You’re a jinx!”

“Not till I finish mopping.”

“Thorny, get D’Uccia for me, will you? We’ll have to get a new pickup flown in from Smithfield before this afternoon. This is a helluva mess.”

“Why not hire a human stand-in?” he asked nastily, then added: “Forgive me. That would be a perversion of your art, wouldn’t it? Shall I get D’Uccia?”

Rick threw the Peltier spool at him. He ducked out with a chuckle and went to find the theater manager. Halfway down the iron stairs, he paused to look at the wide stage that spread away just beyond the folded curtains. The footlights were burning and the gray-green floor looked clean and shimmering, with its checkerboard pattern of imbedded copper strips. The strips were electrified during the performance, and they fed the mannequins’ energy- storage packs. The dolls had metallic disks in their soles, and rectifiers in their insteps. When batteries drained low, the Maestro moved the actor’s foot an inch or so to contact the floor electrodes for periodic recharging during the play, since a doll would grow wobbly and its voice indistinct after a dozen minutes on internal power alone.

Thorny stared at the broad expanse of stage where no humans walked on performance night. D’Uccia’s Siamese tomcat sat licking itself in the center of the stage. It glanced up at him haughtily, seemed to sniff, began licking itself again. He watched it for a moment, then called back upstairs to Rick.

“Energize the floor a minute, will you, Rick?”

“Huh? Why?”—a busy grunt.

“Want to check something.”

“O.K., but then fetch D’Uccia.”

He heard the technician snap a switch. The cat’s calm hauteur exploded. The cat screamed, scrambled, barrel-rolled, amid a faint sputter of sparks. The cat did an Immelmann turn over the footlights, landed in the pit with a clawing crash, then scampered up the aisle with fur erect toward its haven beneath Imperio’s desk.

“Whatthehell?” Rick growled, and thrust his head out of the booth.

“Shut it off now,” said the janitor. “D’Uccia’ll be here in a minute.”

“With fangs showing!”

Thornier went to finish his routine clean-up. Gloom had begun to gather about him. He was leaving—leaving even this last humble role in connection with the stage. A fleeting realization of his own impotence came to him. Helpless. Helpless enough to seek petty revenges like vandalizing D’Uccia’s window box and tormenting D’Uccia’s cat, because there was not any real enemy at which he could strike out.

He put the realization down firmly, and stamped on it. He was Ryan Thornier, and never helpless, unless he willed it so. I’ll make them know who I am just once he thought, before I go. I’ll make them remember, and they won’t ever forget.

But that line of thought about playing one last great role, one last masterful interpretation, he knew was no good. “Thorny, if you ever played a one-last-great,” Rick had said to him once, “there wouldn’t be a thing left to live for, would there?” Rick had said it cynically, but it was true anyhow. And the pleasant fantasy was somehow alarming as well as pleasant.

The chic little woman in the white-plumed hat was explaining things carefully—with round vowels and precise enunciation—to the Playwright of the Moment, up-and-coming, with awed worshipfulness in his gaze as he listened to the pert little producer. “Stark realism, you see, is the milieu of autodrama,” she said. “Always remember, Bernie, that consideration for the actors is a thing of the past. Study the drama of Rome—ancient Rome. If a play had a crucifixion scene, they got a slave for the part and crucified him. On stage, but really!”

The Playwright of the Moment laughed dutifully around his long cigarette holder. “So that’s where they got the line: ‘It’s superb, but it’s hell on the actors.’ I must re-write the murder scene in my ‘George’s Wake.’ Do it with a hatchet, this time.”

“Oh, now, Bernie! Mannequins don’t bleed.”

They both laughed heartily. “And they are expensive. Not hell on the actors, but hell on the budget.”

“The Romans probably had the same problem. I’ll bear it in mind.”

Thornier saw them—the producer and the Playwright of the Moment—standing there in the orchestra when he came from backstage and across toward the center aisle. They lounged on the arms of their seats, and a crowd of production personnel and technicians milled about them. The time for the first run-through was approaching.

The small woman waved demurely to Thorny when she saw him making his way slowly through the throng, then turned to the playwright again. “Bernie, be a lamb and get me a drink, will you? I’ve got a butterfly.”

“Surely. Hard, or soft?”

“Oh, hard. Scotch mist in a paper cup, please. There’s a bar next door.”

The playwright nodded a nod that was nearly a bow and shuffled away up the aisle. The woman caught at the janitor’s sleeve as he passed.

“Going to snub me, Thorny?”

“Oh, hello, Miss Ferne,” he said politely.

She leaned close and muttered: “Call me ‘Miss Ferne again and I’ll claw you.” The round vowels had vanished.

“O.K., Jade, but—” He glanced around nervously. Technicians milled about them. Ian Feria, the producer, watched them curiously from the wings.

“What’s been doing with you, Thorny? Why haven’t I seen you?” she complained.

He gestured with the broom handle, shrugged. Jade Ferne studied his face a moment and frowned. “Why the agonized look, Thorny? Mad at me?”

He shook his head. “This play, Jade—‘The Anarch,’ well—” He glanced miserably toward the stage.

Memory struck her suddenly. She breathed a compassionate ummm. “The attempted revival, ten years ago—you were to be Andreyev. Oh, Thorny, I’d forgotten.”

“It’s all right.” He wore a carefully tailored martyr’s smile.

She gave his arm a quick pat. “I’ll see you after the run-through, Thorny. We’ll have a drink and talk old times.”

He glanced around again and shook his head. “You’ve got new friends now, Jade. They wouldn’t like it.”

“The crew? Nonsense! They’re not snobs.”

“No, but they want your attention. Feria’s trying to catch your eye right now. No use making them sore.”

“All right, but after the run-through I’ll see you in the mannequin room. I’ll just slip away.”

“If you want to.”

“I do, Thorny. It’s been so long.”