Dumb Waiter Read online

  ALL MECHANICAL TRAFFIC WILL BE CLEARED FROM THE STREETS IMMEDIATELY.

  YOU WILL DEFEND CENTRAL COORDINATORS AT ALL COSTS.

  THE HUMAN LISTED IN YOUR MEMORY UNITS UNDER THE NAME `WILLIE JESSER" WILL BE ALLOWED ACCESS TO CENTRAL DATA WITHOUT CHALLENGE.

  TO THE LIMIT OF YOUR ABILITY YOU WILL SET YOUR OWN TASKS IN PURSUANCE OF THE GOAL: TO KEEP THE CITY'S SERVICES INTACT AND IN GOOD REPAIR, READY FOR HUMAN USAGE.

  YOU WILL APPREHEND HUMANS ENGAGED IN ARSON, GRAND THEFT, OR PHYSICAL VIOLENCE AND EJECT THEM SUMMARILY FROM THE CITY.

  YOU WILL OFFER YOUR SERVICES TO PROTECT THE PERSON OF WILLIE JESSER.

  "They're here!" shouted the girl. "They're coming up the walk!"

  – AND WILL ASSIST HIM IN THE TASK OF RENOVATING THE CITY, TOGETHER WITH SUCH PERSONS AS ARE WILLING TO HELP REBUILD.

  The girl was shaking him. "They're here, I tell you!"

  Mitch punched a button labeled "commit to data," and the screen went blank. He leaned back and grinned at her. There was a sound of shouting in the street, and someone was beating at the door.

  Then the skaters came rolling in a tide of sound two blocks away. The shouting died, and there were several bursts of gunfire. But the skaters came on, and the shouting grew frantic.

  She muttered: "Now we're in for it."

  But Mitch just grinned at her and lit a cigarette. Fifty men couldn't stand for long against a couple of thousand subunits who now had no expenditure limit.

  He typed one last instruction into the unit. WHEN THE PLUNDERERS ARE TAKEN PRISONER, OFFER THEM THIS CHOICE: STAY AND HELP REBUILD, OR KEEP AWAY FROM THE CITY.

  From now on, there weren't going to be any nonparticipators.

  Mitch closed down the unit and went out to watch the waning fight.

  A bigger job was ahead.

  Walter Michael Miller

  Walter M. Miller Jr grew up in the American south. He enlisted in the Army Air Corps a month after Pearl Harbor and spent most of the war as a radio operator and gunner, participating in fifty five combat sorties over Italy and the Balkans, including the assault on Monte Cassino. After the war he studied engineering before turning to writing. A Canticle for Leibowitz won a Hugo, and his only other novel, Leibowitz and the Wild Horsewoman was published posthumously.

  ***

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