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 jurybox 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 and the 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.

Deeper than the Darkness

THEY CAME TOALFGUNNDERSONin the Pawnee County jail.

He was sitting, hugging his boney knees, against the plasteel wall of the cell. On the plasteel floor lay an ancient, three-string mandolin he had borrowed from the deputy, he had been plunking with some talent all that hot, summer day. Under his thin buttocks the empty trough of his mattressless bunk curved beneath his weight. He was an extremely tall man, even hunched up that way.

He was more than tired-looking, more than weary. His was an inside weariness … he was a gaunt, empty-looking man. His hair fell lanky and drab and gray-brown in shocks over a low forehead. His eyes seemed to be peas, withdrawn from their pods and placed in a starkly white face. It was difficult to tell whether he could see from them.

Their blankness only accented the total cipher he seemed. There was no inch of expression or recognition on his face, in the line of his body.

More, he was a thin man. He seemed to be a man who had given up the Search long ago. His face did not change its hollow stare at the plasteel-barred door opposite, even as it swung back to admit the two nonentities.

The two men entered, their stride as alike as the unobtrusive grey mesh suits they wore; as alike as the faces that would fade from memory moments after they had turned. The turnkey — a grizzled country deputy with a minus 8 rating — stared after the men with open wonder on his bearded face.