Unwise Child by Randall Garrett (world best books to read TXT) 📗

again, I think you’d better call a general meeting of officers—and get Miss Crannon and Fitzhugh out of bed and get them up here, too.”

“Why?” Black Bart asked flatly.

“Because Snookums has gone off his rocker. He’s attacked at least one human being that I know of and has ignored direct orders from a human being.”

“Who?” asked Black Bart.

“Me,” said Mike the Angel.

Mike told Captain Quill what had happened as they made their way back up to the bridge.

Ensign Vaneski, looking pale and worried, met them at the door. He snapped a salute. “I just reported to Commander Jeffers, sir. Something’s wrong with the low-power circuits.”

[149] “I had surmised as much,” said Black Bart caustically. “Anything new? What did you find out? What happened?”

“When the lights went out, I was having coffee by myself in the wardroom. I grabbed a torch and headed for Power Section as soon as I could. The low-power room was empty. There should have been a man on duty there, but there wasn’t. I didn’t want to go inside, since I’m not a power officer, so I came up here to report. I—”

At that moment the lights blazed on again. There was a faint hum that built up all over the ship as the air conditioning came on at the same time.

“All right, Mister Vaneski,” said Black Bart, “get below and take care of things. There’s a man hurt down there, so be ready to take him to sick bay when the Physician’s Mate gets there. We don’t have a medic in any condition to take care of people, so he’ll have to do. Hop it.”

As Vaneski left, Black Bart preceded Mike into the bridge. Pete Jeffers was on the intercom. As Mike and the captain came in, he was saying, “All right. I’ll notify the Officer of the Watch, and we’ll search the ship. He can’t hide very long.” Then, without waiting to say anything to Mike or Quill, he jabbed at another button. “Mister von Liegnitz! Jake!”

“Ja? Huh? What is it?” came a fuzzy voice from the speaker.

“You all right?”

“Me? Sure. I was asleep. Why?”

“Be on your toes, sleepyhead; just got word that Mellon has escaped from his stateroom. He may try to take another crack at you.”

“I’ll watch it,” said von Liegnitz, his voice crisp now.

“Okay.” Jeffers sighed and looked up. “As soon as the [150] power came on, the Physician’s Mate was on the intercom. Mellon isn’t in his stateroom.”

“Oh, wonderful!” growled Captain Quill. “We now have one insane robot and one insane human running loose on this ship. I’m glad we didn’t bring any gorillas with us.”

“Somehow I think I’d be safer with a gorilla,” said Mike the Angel.

“According to the Physician’s Mate, Mellon is worse than just nuts,” said Jeffers quietly. “He says he loaded Mellon full of dope to make him sleep and that the man’s got no right to be walkin’ around at all.”

“He must have gotten out while the doors were open,” said Captain Quill. He rubbed the palm of his hand over the shiny pinkness of his scalp. His dark, shaggy brows were down over his eyes, as though they had been weighted with lead.

“Mister Jeffers,” he said abruptly, “break out the stun guns. Issue one to each officer and one to each chief non-com. Until we get this straightened out, I’m declaring a state of emergency.”

[151]

16

Mike the Angel hefted the heavy stun gun in his right fist, feeling its weight without really noticing it. He knew damned good and well it wouldn’t be of any use against Snookums. If Mellon came at him, the supersonic beam from the gun would affect his nerves the same way an electric current would, and he’d collapse, unconscious but relatively unharmed. But Mike doubted seriously that it would have any effect at all on the metal body of the robot. It is as difficult to jolt the nerves of a robot as it is to blind an oyster.

Snookums did have sensory devices that enabled him to tell what was going on around him, but they were not nerves in the ordinary sense of the word, and a stun gun certainly wouldn’t have the same effect.

He wondered just what effect it would have—if any.

He was going down the main ladder—actually a long spiral stairway that led downward from the bridge. Behind him were Chief Multhaus, also armed with a stun gun, and four members of the power crew, each armed with a heavy spanner. Mike or the chief could take care of Mellon; it would be the crew’s job to take care of Snookums.

[152] “Smash his treads and his waldoes,” Mike had told them, “but only if he attacks. Before you try anything else, give him an order to halt. If he keeps on coming, start swinging.” And, to Chief Multhaus: “If Mellon jumps me, fire that stun gun only if he’s armed with a knife or a gun. But if you do have to fire at Mellon, don’t wait to get in a good shot; just go ahead and knock us both out. I’d rather be asleep than dead. Okay?”

Multhaus had agreed. “The same goes for me, Commander. And the rest of the boys.”

So down the ladder they went. Mike hoped there’d be no fighting at all. He had the feeling that everything was all wrong, somehow, and that any use of stun guns or spanners would just make everything worse.

His wasn’t the only group looking for Snookums and Mellon. Lieutenant Keku had another group, and Commander Jeffers had a third. Lieutenant Commander von Liegnitz was with Captain Quill on the bridge. Mellon had already attacked von Liegnitz once; the captain didn’t want them mixing it up again.

Captain Quill’s voice came suddenly from a speaker in the overhead. “Miss Crannon and Dr. Fitzhugh have just spoken to me,” he said in his brisk tenor. “Snookums is safe in his own room. I have outlined what has happened, and they’re trying to get information from Snookums now. Lieutenant Mellon is still missing.”

“One down,” said Chief Multhaus. There was relief in his voice.

“Let’s see if we can find the other one,” said Mike the Angel.

They went down perhaps three more steps, and the speakers came to life again. “Will the Chief Physician’s Mate [153] report to Commander Jeffers in the maintenance tool room? Lieutenant Keku, dismiss your men to quarters and report to the bridge. Commander Gabriel, dismiss your men to quarters and report to Commander Jeffers in maintenance. All chief non-coms report to the ordnance room to turn in your weapons. All enlisted men return to your posts or to quarters.”

Mike the Angel holstered his stun gun. “That’s two down,” he said to Chief Multhaus.

“Looks like we missed all the fun,” said Multhaus.

“Okay, men,” Mike said, “you got the word. Take those spanners back to the tool room in Power Section, and then get back to your quarters. Chief, you go with them and secure everything, then take that stun gun back to ordnance.”

“Yessir.”

Multhaus threw Mike a salute; Mike returned it and headed toward maintenance. He knew Multhaus and the others were curious, but he was just as curious himself. He had the advantage of being in a position to satisfy his curiosity.

The maintenance tool room was big and lined with tool lockers. One of them was open. Sprawled in front of it was Lieutenant Mellon. Over to one side was Commander Jeffers, standing next to a white-faced Ensign Vaneski. Nearby were a chief non-com and three enlisted men.

“Hullo, Mike,” Pete Jeffers said as Mike the Angel came in.

“What happened, Pete?” Mike asked.

Jeffers gestured at the sprawled figure on the floor. “We came in here to search. We found him. Mister Vaneski opened the locker, there, for a look-see, and Mellon jumped out at him. Vaneski fired his stun gun. Mellon collapsed to [154] the deck. He’s in bad shape; his pulse is so weak that it’s hard to find.”

Mike the Angel walked over and looked down at the fallen Medical Officer. His face was waxen, and he looked utterly small and harmless.

“What happened?” asked another voice from the door. It was Chief Physician’s Mate Pierre Pasteur. He was a smallish man, well rounded, pleasant-faced, and inordinately proud of his name. He couldn’t actually prove that he was really descended from the great Louis, but he didn’t allow people to think otherwise. Like most C. Phys. M.’s, he had a doctor of medicine degree but no internship in the Space Service. He was working toward his commission.

“We’ve got a patient for you,” said Jeffers. “Better look him over, Chief.”

Chief Pasteur walked over to where Mellon lay and took his stethoscope out of his little black bag. He listened to Mellon’s chest for a few seconds. Then he pried open an eyelid and looked closely at an eye. “What happened to him?” he asked, without looking up.

“Got hit with a beam from a stun gun,” said Jeffers.

“How did he fall? Did he hit his head?”

“I don’t know—maybe.” He looked at Ensign Vaneski. “Did he, Mister Vaneski? He was right on top of you; I was across the room.”

Vaneski swallowed. “I don’t know. He—he just sort of—well, he fell.”

“You didn’t catch him?” asked the chief. He was a physician on a case now and had no time for sirring his superiors.

“No. No. I jumped away from him.”

“Why? What’s the trouble?” Jeffers asked.

“He’s dead,” said the Chief Physician’s Mate.

[155]

17

Leda Crannon was standing outside the cubicle that had been built for Snookums. Her back and the palms of her hands were pressed against the door. Her head was bowed, and her red hair, shining like a hellish flame in the light of the glow panels, fell around her shoulders and cheeks, almost covering her face.

“Leda,” said Mike the Angel gently.

She looked up. There were tears in her blue eyes.

“Mike! Oh, Mike!” She ran toward him, put her arms around him, and tried to bury her face in Mike’s chest.

“What’s the matter, honey? What’s happened?” He was certain she couldn’t have heard about Mellon’s death yet. He held her in his arms, carefully, tenderly, not passionately.

“He’s crazy, Mike. He’s completely crazy.” Her voice had suddenly lost everything that gave it color. It was only dead and choked.

Mike the Angel knew it was an emotional reaction. As a psychologist, she would never have used the word “crazy.” But as a woman ... as a human being....

“Fitz is still in there talking to him, but he’s—he’s—” Her voice choked off again into sobs.

[156] Mike waited patiently, holding her, caressing her hair.

“Eight years,” she said after a minute or so. “Eight years I spent. And now he’s gone. He’s broken.”

“How do you know?” Mike asked.

She lifted her head and looked at him. “Mike—did he really hit you? Did he refuse to stop when you ordered him to? What really happened?”

Mike told her what had happened in the darkened companionway just outside his room.

When he finished, she began sobbing again. “He’s lying, Mike,” she said. “Lying!”

Mike nodded silently and slowly. Leda Crannon had spent all of her adult life tending the hurts and bruises and aches of Snookums the Child. She had educated him, cared for him, taken pleasure in his triumphs, worried about his health, and watched him grow mentally.

And now he was sick, broken, ruined. And, like all parents, she was asking herself: “What did I do wrong?”

Mike the Angel didn’t give her an answer to that unspoken question, but he knew what the answer was in so many cases:

The grieving parent has not necessarily done anything wrong. It may simply be that there was insufficient or poor-quality material to work with.

With a human child, it is even more humiliating for a parent to admit that he or she has contributed inferior genetic material to a child than it is to admit a failure in upbringing. Leda’s case was different.

Leda had lost her child, but Mike hesitated to point out that it wasn’t her fault in the first place because the material wasn’t up to the task she had given it, and in the second [157] place because she hadn’t really lost anything. She was still playing with dolls, not human beings.

“Hell!” said Mike under his breath, not realizing that he was practically whispering in her ear.

“Isn’t it?” she said. “Isn’t it Hell? I spent eight years trying to make that little mind of his tick properly. I wanted to know what was the right, proper, and logical way to bring up children. I had a theory, and I wanted to test it. And now I’ll never know.”

“What sort of theory?” Mike asked.

She sniffled, took a handkerchief from her pocket, and began wiping at her tears. Mike took the handkerchief away from her and did the wiping job himself. “What’s this theory?”