Collected Short Fiction

by C. M. Kornbluth

  “That’s good,” said Barrister. “Tell him to give you something like rivet-inspector. We can operate as soon as the colony’s finished—that’s a couple of weeks—and we move out of the ship.”

  “Thanks, doc,” said the old man, shambling off. “If he lasts that long,” said Vera pointedly.

  “Doesn’t matter,” said Barrister briskly. He looked about at the score or so of metal shelters that were rising conically around a central tower a hundred feet high. “It’s the young ones that count now—like you and me.”

  Vera smiled and looked up. A shadow of alarm crossed her face. “What’s that?” she snapped. “Looks like a shooting star—but it’s the first time we’ve seen anything like it before.”

  Barrister squinted and followed her pointing finger with his gaze into the blackish sky, near to the sun. “Not white,” he said. “Sort of a purple. Rocket exhaust, I guess.”

  “Then they’ve come,” said the girl quietly. “Do you suppose they’re after us?”

  “Doubt it. They probably aren’t from Earth—Jupiter, maybe, or Mars. If we stay under cover long enough . . .”

  “They’re prospectors, aren’t they?” asked the girl.

  “Yes. They wouldn’t colonize this planet. It’s going to be a program of straight and intensive exploitation for as long as they hold out.”

  “But what’s to stop them from working their way over the planet until they find us and wipe us out?”

  Barrister smiled grimly. “I have my own ideas on the matter,” he said. “Celestial mechanics is on our side.”

  “Have you got a plan?”

  “I don’t need one. I figured on this when I decided that we were going to come out here or bust.”

  “We haven’t busted yet,” smiled Vera. “But what are you going to do about it?”

  “You go and tell the others over the P.A. just what’s happened,” said the doctor abstractedly, “and I’ll go out and get captured.”

  “Captured! You’re crazy!”

  She stared at him blankly, until he harshly snapped, “Get going.” Then she ran for the communications building.

  AHEAD of him Jaimie saw the vast bulk of a ship that had landed. Too, there were men in miniature pointing at him and shouting. They were wearing Martian colors, he noted coldly, and the insignia of some service branch which he did not recognize. Metallurgical, probably. Now silent, they surrounded him, half-drawing weapons from the broad belts at their waists.

  “Identify yourself, stranger,” was the command.

  “Doctor Jaimie Barrister,” he announced flatly. “I’m a fugitive.”

  “We heard about you, Doc,” said one. “Why did you come our way?”

  “You’ll find out,” he said. “Arrest me, please.”

  “You’re arrested already,” replied the man. “You’ll be taken before the Captain. He’s in the Voke, so you’d better watch your step.”

  “Yeah,” he responded, falling in step with them. “Power of life and death at all times and in all places. Does that extend to a newly discovered planet?”

  “ ‘The power of a member of the Vocation of Leadership shall be inhibited, infracted, or alleyed by no person loyal to the Commonweal of Planets,’ ” chanted one richly.

  “Hypnogogics again,” said Barrister good-humoredly. “It’s annoying. How are things back on Mars?”

  “Doing well enough,” said a lieutenant. “We had some trouble getting off the field—those Jhuduists.”

  “Jhuduists—don’t believe I’ve ever heard of them. Are they the usual type of screwball?”

  “No—something new. They predicted about five years back that, within twenty years a new planet, inhabited by angels, would come into the system, pick up all the orthodox Jhuduists, then go away again. When they heard of this planet, they decided that this must be the one. They stormed the ship—about two hundred strong—to be the first to see the angels.”

  “What did you do?” asked Barrister. They entered the ship and were swinging down a long metal corridor lined with ports.

  “We used the latest stuff—something like an activated luminol gas. It destroys the nerves and brain—rots them away like powder.”

  Jaimie shuddered. “I wonder where these sects come from,” he mused. “It’s my opinion that they’re composed mostly of ordinary people who failed to make the Voke. All their elaborate rituals are just in imitation of the Leaders. What do you think?”

  “You’re crazy!” The speaker then went into the conventional routine that had been dinned in his ears throughout his infancy and childhood until it. was as important a facet of his personality as his thyroid gland. “The vocation of Leadership has been infallibly trained—”

  This is where I came in, thought Jaimie. Then, aloud: “All right; we just heard that.” They had paused before an insulated door, at the end of the corridor, bearing in gold the double-axe insignia of the Voke. Through the door a voice spoke, and an expression of almost holy awe came over the faces of the doctor’s escourt.

  “Send the prisoner in alone,” said the voice. “I am prepared.”

  JAIMIE opened the door—he had heard an automatic lock click open—and entered. Behind a heavy slab of superglass that completely separated him from the other side of the room, he saw the captain. A small, pudgy man, beset with a fierce scowl. He wore the Voke uniform.

  Jaimie smiled. “Hi, Cap!” he said slowly. “How did you get into the Voke—pull, eh?”

  The little man looked appalled. “Imbecile!” he finally gasped. “Don’t you know that I can shoot you down where you stand without any questions being asked?”

  Jaimie’s smile become indulgent. “So you can,” he replied easily.

  “You must be mad!” exploded the Leader, his eyes bulging. Jaimie noticed that his hands trembled dangerously near an ominous button, smiled more insultingly. The little man jerked his hands back. “You will be hailed up before a Council of the Vocation so that the example we make of you will serve as a warning to the entire system. What have you to say?”

  “Nuts!” he replied jovially, looking about the room.

  “Take him away!” gasped the Leader into the mike.

  Guards appeared and took his arms, hustled him out of the office.

  “Tell me,” said Jaimie curiously: “is he always like that?”

  One of the men smiled proudly. “I do not wonder,” he stated, that you are astonished by the ability of our captain.” The man smiled happily, then started off on, “For the Leaders of the Commonwealth of Planets—” Jaimie groaned inwardly.

  “Perhaps,” he broke in as soon as the ritual speech was out “you can tell me what is planned to be done to this latest addition to the Commonweal of Planets.”

  “It isn’t worth settling,” spoke up one guard.

  “No? My party thought it was.”

  “We do not. The plan is to strip it of as much mineral stuff as we can, then to abandon it. It has already been calculated that, once the stripping is done, its weight will have been altered sufficiently to force it into a new orbit. It will fly out, something like a comet, circling the sun once in about five hundred years.”

  They were leading Jaimie through the engine room of the ship, past a power control board. He stopped a moment as if in thought; his guards stared suspiciously.

  “I wonder if those calculations are quite accurate,” he began, backing up a little. “If, for example, it did not quite clear the drag—”

  “What?” began a guard—then, like an uncoiling spring, Jaimie leaped for the board, gripped his fingers around a red-hilted switch. They looked at that switch, at the triumphantly grinning man, then one uncertainly drew a gun from his belt. “Cut that out, doc,” he said.

  “Drop that gun or this switch goes down,” said Barrister grimly. “You can’t kill me quick enough, you know. The generator’s charged to more than capacity; you’re at rest. If this goes down now, the fuel tanks go up!” Mutely, the guard let the gun fall to the floor. “T
urn your backs,” he commanded. Quickly he reached down, scooped up the fallen weapon.

  For a little moment he stared at their broad backs. Then he thought of the frightened and hopeful people at the shelter. And the hopeful, harmless Jhuduists. Silently he squeezed the trigger; the guards fell, one by one. Then, alone, he catapulted into action, rifling drawers for charts and diagrams. Finally he swung back a panel to see, engraved on metal, a complete diagram of the ship. With a long forefinger he traced connections to a tiny dot on the plans, cast a hasty look about the room. Picking up a pair of clippers he advanced on a small, hideously complicated piece of mechanism bolted to the floor. He cut the power leads and unfastened the thing, then, lugging it under his arm, he swung open a tiny port and wormed through. Before him, as he thought, was his sled, lying on an endless plain of ice.

  “MARS ships bound outwards,” he explained to the group of colonists as he busily set up the leads to the solid little device, “usually carry meteor shields, since they’re forced to go through the zone. If we set up this piece of junk here in the central tower, we should be fairly safe from anything solid they throw at us. As long as our power-unit works, nothing can get at us. And that will be practically forever.”

  He waved an arm to someone outside. A man waved back, then, for a moment, the group felt a little shudder of activity go through their bodies, as though they had experienced a slight electrical shock.

  The doctor looked through the window again and pointed simply. “There,” he said. “The green wall.”

  Silently they stared at the shimmering globe which surrounded them, frail as a bubble seemingly. “And here come the Martians.”

  Little streaks of light stood out against the black sky. Small battle-cruisers. “Hold your ears,” he warned.

  As the streaks of light swooped above and out of sight there was a dim concussion and a flare of light across the face of the green bubble, then another, and another following in rapid succession. “Bombs,” stated Barrister. “But they can’t get through their own shield.”

  For twenty minutes the bombing went on, quite without effect, save to give headaches to some of the colonists. Then the streaks of light vanished, heading toward the sun.

  “They won’t come back,” Barrister announced to the others. “They have a schedule of mining to adhere to; that’s more important to them than we are.”

  “But,” protested the others, “what when all the metal is gone? How can we build our civilization here without it?”

  “They won’t take it all,” he began, “because that would take too much intensive mining—which would require much more time and apparatus than they care to give to it.”

  There was silence for a moment. “What about Earth?” some one asked.

  “Our first job is to build for ourselves and our children; the salvation of Terra will have to come later. After all, we saved ourselves; they will have to learn to do the same.”

  A roar of applause signified the agreement of those within the room. But Barrister did not hear. He was looking at a greenish planet in the black sky above them, wishing to himself that some swift, heroic way were possible.

  THE END

  A Prince of Pluto

  The daft little man’s gratitude knew no bounds. He would get Vernon Etsel that Job—even if it landed them both in jail for life!

  “BUT Mister Etsel,” gasped the mussed-up young man, “I haven’t tasted food in a week!”

  “Your own fault,” replied Vernon Etsel coolly. “Why don’t you apply for the dole?”

  The young man squared his shoulders. “That,” he said, “is a thing no gentleman would do.”

  Etsel glanced at the application blank on the desk, then skimmed it back across the polished mahogany surface into the young man’s fingers. “I shall be pleased to offer you a word of advice, Andreson,” he stated in measured tones.

  “And that is?”

  “First, I assure you that you are either a fool or—no, I can’t think of any alternative: you are a fool. What you have to learn is that you must fit yourself to our requirements; Intercontinental Rocketransit Corporation does not desire to fit itself to yours. I am but a salaried minion—officially Second Assistant Manager—and yet I speak for the corporation when I assure you that we are not impressed by a studiously haggard expression, belladonna or something equally silly in the eyes, cheeks wan with a week’s conscientious fasting—and all the rest of your elaborate outfit. We will not be blackmailed—morally, of course—into accepting an inferior employee.”

  The young man folded the application card between twitching fingers. Etsel looked at the next card and said, without raising his eyes, “Leave through the blue door, please.”

  When he had heard the door close, and saw the tiny flasher on his desk indicate that the young man was on his way out of the building, he spoke into a little mike. “Send in the next man—” looking at the card—“a Mr. Van Buren.”

  He rattled his fingernails against the wood of the desk, and finally Mr. Van Buren entered—a pale, shrunken young man, wearing contact lenses so heavy that his eyes bulged as if with a record case of exophthalmia. He had a brief case under his arm and glanced at Etsel’s name-plate. “Good morning, Mr. Etsel,” he said agreeably, with a touch of self-confidence.

  Etsel waved him to a chair. “How’s your finger dexterity, Mr. Van Buren?” he asked.

  “Very high indeed,” said the young man proudly. “I practiced for a week before I took your test.”

  “Indeed?” Etsel raised his eyebrows. “Do you think that was strictly ethical?”

  “Why not? Some of the others were sure to have done it,” replied the aged youth with a touch of surprise.

  “So you think two wrongs make a right?”

  “That is current opinion. And besides I want the job for personal reasons.”

  Etsel was shocked at the thought of this creature having a private life. Momentarily he pictured a Mrs. Van Buren, goggle-eyed as the candidate, and thousands of children, all bulging-browed and scrawny, crawling up and down the walls of a flat like roaches. He rubbed his eyes and stared fiercely at the five-thousand-year calendar on his desk. “All this was unnecessary, you know,” he said absently. “We decided long ago that you were to get the job.” He studied the young man, looking for signs of elation; there were none, except for a shifting in the chair and a prissy smile of righteousness. Etsel went on: “You’ve won this job over about two hundred other applicants, not because of finger dexterity, but because our psychologists have decided that you represent the type—the ideal type—of minor employee. It is their determination to replace all other minor employees with men and women of your type as fast as they can be found—or bred. I thought you might be interested in knowing. Go out the pink door, please.”

  When the light flashed, he turned to his mike. “Anne,” he said to his secretary, “how many more are there?”

  “Thirty-seven,” came her voice back over the wire.

  “Will you please dismiss them for me? I feel sick.”

  “About that last one?” Her voice, he noticed, was several points off the liquid tones she usually struck. “He made my stomach turn, too.”

  She switched out. He rose. Now, by the Sacred Supercharger, he was going to march right smack in to Mr. Badabar Baily’s office and ask for that promotion. He’d been doing dirty work like this around this dump, euphemistically known as Central Offices, for six years; it was time he moved up. Yes, by the Deluvial Dipper, he would! Straightening his tie and radiating magnetism, he walked through the purple door where waited Mr. Badabar Baily.

  ABOUT three hours later he walked out again, with the smile on his face turning into a sour leer the moment he was through the door. Mr. Baily had been kind; Mr. Baily had been polite, but Mr. Baily had been negative as well—as thoroughly negative as any human being could be. It seemed that Etsel didn’t have the contacts necessary for the post of First Assistant Manager. You needed friends and influence to throw tra
de the way of Intercontinental Rocketransit or you stayed Second Assistant to the end of your days.

  “And, furthermore,” Mr. Baily had said, in a kindly voice, “you are not a gentleman. And that, sir, must conclude our discussion.”

  Etsel was boiling. He should have told Mr. Badabar Baily off and made it stick—told him that he knew the business backward and with a feather in its cap, and that he didn’t want a diplomatic post but a job as an efficient manager for a big concern. Well—the flasher flashed. It was three o’clock already—the end of the working day for the office staff. Glumly Etsel closed the glass top of his desk, stepped into a private elevator. Once out in the open garage he took his private rocket as high as it would go—and that was plenty high.

  Staring down through the glass floor-plate he studied the crawling specks that were trucks and cars on the main highways. Vernon Etsel took a flask from a private compartment, and drank long and deep. He shuddered and spat out crumbs of tongue and lips—Venerian hoopoe juice did that to a man.

  With a new determination in his eyes he swung the rocket’s nose south—to Coney Island, the nearest recreation center.

  In practically the twinkling of an eye he was over the Island Landing Station and easing his craft down on the super-pneumatic table which protruded from the maze of ships and cars. He accepted a check from an attendant and walked away from the rocket—then hastily dove back into its recesses and retrieved the flask. He was going to make a night of it.

  Strolling glumly down Surf Avenue, he ignored the barkers whooping out over mikes and PA systems the virtues of their wares—consisting of strange and wonderful games of chance with enormous prizes, “Life Shows” hinting delicately of strangely constructed but delectable extraterrestrials to be found inside, and fourth-dimensional rides that would twist you out of the continuum and back in three seconds flat—all risk assumed by the patron.

  Etsel ignored them all, breezing past the most lurid and tempting signflashes. Ahead he saw a delectable sort of creature strolling arm-in-arm with a short, pudgy male. Licking his lips, quickening his pace, he drew even with them. The girl was a perfect blonde—the kind he fell for with practically no effort—and her escort—if it came to a scrap, he could knock the guy galley-west seven different ways. The fat little man was wearing some kind of naval uniform; Etsel wondered what navy would accept anyone in as rotten condition as this person obviously was. A clerk of some kind, he thought, who would melt away as soon as Etsel made his wishes known.