Collected Short Fiction

by C. M. Kornbluth

  “That was kind of you, Will,” said Yancey Mears. “Maybe it wasn’t very bright.” She leaned back and shut her eyes.

  “You’re using unreal figures, Yancey. The bearing of all this is solely on whether we return to Earth or not. I, for one, don’t much care whether we arrive personally or not. As long as the records of observations get into the proper hands. It’s such a terribly ticklish thing to be doing. . . .lapsing one moment and letting emotion override judgment may tip the balance against a satisfactory solution to our personal equation. The moment our path ceases to be part of a perfect circle we, to all real purposes, cease to exist.”

  “Is it so very important—this being the ninth sphere they’ve sent out?”

  “It has legitimate bearing on improvement of the species. The cosmic rays, wherever they come from, upset our genetic plans; we can achieve success only in a certain small percentage of cases. We—you and I, personally—are examples of that small percentage. It is logic—common sense—what you will—to block off the cosmic rays before going any further in genetic work.

  “And, before we know what to do to block them we must find out what they are. And before that we must find out where they come from. That is what we, personally, are engaged in doing.”

  “Sounds big.”

  “Is big,” said Will Archer somberly. “Why didn’t you want that glandular atonic?”

  “Because I can control myself—I hope.”

  “With respect to me?”

  “Yes. Now, don’t go getting male. I’m going to wait till I see what happens to our Calculator first. If he quiets down sufficiently I’ll notify you. However, I won’t risk any emotional upset if he doesn’t.”

  “And of course,” said Will Archer, tipping his cap over his eyes, “it might even be necessary to be unusually kind to him. . . .”

  “How unusually do you mean?”

  Silence.

  “No, Will. After all, he has three his strains!”

  “Not even if I order it?”

  Yancey Mears took hold of a wall loop and pulled herself to her feet. “I’ll blink Mamie Tung tomorrow and tell her I’m ready for an atonic. That’s what you want, isn’t it?”

  “That,” said Will Archer slowly, “is the very last thing I want.”

  THE Calculator slipped through the tube, checked neatly as he saw the two move slowly towards each other. Not by the blink of an eye did they betray that they were aware of his presence. Star Macduff did not move, stood flat-footed and mute, one hand teaching for something, he had forgotten what.

  For a long moment in that ship there was no time. The forward slice, where batteries and files of business machinery clucked quietly away, doing duty for anyone who would feed them figures; the midships slice where living quarters and offices were for superiors and ratings; the aft slice, greater than both the others combined, where electronic tension was built on ponderous discharge points and went cracking out into space at the rate of one bolt in every five-thousandth of a second; even out beyond the ship, even to the end of the shimmering, evanescent trail of electrons that it left as a wake, there was no time while those three stood in Executive Officer Will Archer’s office, two loving and one in hate unspeakable.

  Mamie Tung stepped through the tube, took Star Macduff by the arm after sizing up the situation in one swift glance. “Did you ask Will to enter the time of the operation?” she said.

  Will Archer and Yancey Mears snapped back to reality in a split-second. “Speak up, Mamie,” he said. “Yancey and I are going to enter permanent union.”

  “I advise against it,” said the goldenskinned woman. “It will complicate our living arrangements.” She rolled back her eyes, breathing, deeply, made as though to speak, but said nothing more.

  “Congratulations,” said Star Macduff. “I’ll plot a joint life probability line for you two.”

  “You needn’t bother.”

  “It will be a pleasure, Archer.” The Computator left them standing silently, a little embarrassed.

  “Again I advise against it, Will and Yancey. What reasons have you for permanent union at this time?”

  The Clericalist smiled a little bitterly.

  “The same reason you have against it, madame—love.”

  “No!” The golden-skinned woman recoiled. “I haven’t done that—my judgment is still sound!”

  “Prove that by leaving us alone, madame.”

  The Psychologist clutched at the rim of the tube as though she were fighting a gravity that tried to drag her through. Intensely, pleadingly, she said; “That’s not true. You know nothing of such things—you haven’t specialized. I have nothing against permanent union, but on the ship it would be suicidal—time lost and relationships unbearably complicated—think again before you do this!”

  “You were asked to leave for personal reasons,” stated Will Archer. “You have seen that two mature minds are in agreement on this matter. Yet you did not obey this request, nor did you respect our decision. Your behavior is irrational and antisocial. Mamie, I never thought that you were our weakest link.”

  There was fear in his eyes as she silently departed, looking somehow crushed and shrunken.

  “I was afraid of this,” he said. “The most delicately balanced organism is neither flesh, fish, fowl nor good red machinery. It’s the social organism, whether the world of man or our little blob of metal, out here in the middle of a vacuum. Will you take a reading of the counters, please?”

  YANCEY MEARS extruded the sensitive plates from the hull and checked off the slowly revolving dials as they responded to the cosmic rays impinging on the plates.

  “Intensity’s about twenty times the last reading.”

  “We’re there.”

  “What?” she asked incredulously. “We’re there. At least, there’s only a significant distance separating the ship and the source of cosmic rays. Bring in some of the photo-plates.”

  The Clericalist operated the fishing-rod arrangement that reached the cameras with which the hull was studded. For not since the voyage’s beginning had any of them seen outside the ship.

  The Executive slipped the transparencies against a lighted screen. “Shows nothing,” he said.

  “What did you expect to find?”

  “I didn’t expect anything in particular. But I believed I was correct in anticipating a visible object. It seems I was not. We’ll change course as soon as we’ve disposed of the other two superiors.”

  “What plans have you made?”

  “All plans up to the point of segregation. It was plain that a situation like this—one or more members of the complement losing their grasp on our social fabric—might occur. Sphere Nine is designed to accommodate them.”

  Quietly he flicked a pair of inconspicuous studs under his work table.

  “Madame Tung and Mr. Macduff, please report to the Executive Officer in room C7.” He broke the connection.

  “Where’s that?”

  “Off the port side of the midship slice.

  As soon as both are in it seals itself. Now perhaps we can get to work

  CHAPTER II

  STAR MACDUFF and Madame Mamie Tung were sealed in on schedule.

  The Calculator, eyes glittering, drew a rod with a pistol grip.

  “Where’d that tome from, Star?”

  “Made it myself. In my spare time.”

  “You never had any spare time. Time spent on work not requisite to the sphere’s needs is wasted time. I think you’ve made a fool of yourself. When Will comes I hope you remember your manners.”

  “Will isn’t going to come, madame. We’ve been locked in here. I don’t know whether he intends to starve us to death or whether the room will be flooded with gas. . . .”

  “Nonsense.”

  There was a creaking, scraping noise; the walls of the room seemed to twist on their weldings.

  “What was that?”

  “I wouldn’t know, madame. You forget that I’m half human. It was, no doubt,
the brainwave of a homo superior.”

  “Ai—Ai—Ai-i-i—”

  The two human beings whirled back to back, wild-eyed. In a tense whisper, her gaze not lowering from the walls, the woman asked: “What was it, Star?”

  The hysteria was gone from Star Macduff’s face; in a cold, determined fury of concentration he wrinkled his brow, running down possibilities—considering the chances of colliding with a star or planet, the chances of a fault in the ship’s structure, sabotage by one of the ratings, sudden lunacy of the E.O., the chance that he himself was mad and undergoing hallucinatory experience—with all the power of his brain.

  His was a brain of no mean power, you will recall. In lightning order he assembled probabilities, some two hundred of them, ran through them each in a second’s time, dismissing them one after another as they were contradicted by facts in his possession. It could not be a planet that they were near, for the instruments showed no planes within light-years. The instruments could not be faulty, for he had checked them personally yesterday.

  His clear, white light of concentration viewed each possibility in turn, and each was dismissed.

  “Madame,” he said softly, “I know of no explanation for what has happened.”

  “Ai-i-i-i-i-i—”

  The grotesque creaking sounded again. Star Macduff, feeling curiously weak, fell to the floor.

  “Easy, Star! What’s the matter with you?”

  “Feel like jelly. . . .shouldn’t—perfect health

  The woman took the chance to relieve him of the weapon he had made. “What does it do?” she asked.

  “Metal-fatigue . . . crystallizes cross-fiber ’stead of lengthwise.”

  “Ai-i-i—”

  Madame Tung felt herself sinking, raised the gun and fired at the lock. The door smoothly swung open into the communication tube that ran the length of the ship.

  “Come!” she lugged Star Macduff with her, pushing him ahead through the tube, to the Executive’s Office.

  “Sorry to interrupt. This must blow your plans up into the air, I know. But this man’s sick and I don’t feel—very—well. . . .”

  Her iron will gave way and she collapsed at the feet of the Executive and Yancey Mears.

  “WHATEVER it is, it hasn’t hit us yet. Check with the ratings, Yancey.”

  “E.O.’s office—count off, somebody, and report.”

  “All present and in good order, Officer. What’s that noise we heard?”

  “Experiments. Cut!”

  “Cut, Officer.”

  “They heard it too, Will. What is it?”

  “Star—couldn’t explain mathematically. . . .doubt if you can.”

  “Thanks, Mamie.”

  “Ai-i—lul-lul-lul-lull—”

  The Computator and the Psychologist rose, looking startled.

  “How do you feel?”

  “All right. It passed like a shadow. Now let’s get down to work. What’s the noise? is the problem immediately.”

  “Mamie said you couldn’t crack it. If you can’t by using logic I doubt that anybody can. How about opening the direct window?”

  “Use all precautions and checks if you do. I say yes.”

  “You women?”

  They nodded silently; Will Archer set into operation the motors that would unlock a segment of the hull and peel it aside like an orange.

  Noiselessly the bolts slipped; into the brilliantly lighted office there seemed to steal the gloom of blackest space as a section of the wall apparently slid aside and opened into the vacuum. There was the merest hint of reflection from the synthetic transparent which masked them from space and that was due to the lightly tinted shields in operation.

  “Look at this index jump,” said Mamie Tung, pointing at an instrument board with a sharp finger. “It’s sky-high when you take the hull off. Metal’s stopping the cosmic rays.”

  “It shouldn’t,” observed the Executive Officer.

  “Let the logician in,” said Star Macduff studying the dial. “If we’re near the source of the rays, it well might. Metal has failed in the past to stop diffused cosmic rays, the things that reach Earth after plowing through trillions of cubic miles of dust, free electrons, air and what have you. If we’re encountering them direct from the source, unaltered by reflection, diffraction or diffusion, their properties may be entirely altered.”

  “Very good, Star. The question is still unanswered as to what the cosmic rays are. We have not yet seen the source of which we’re speaking. Madame, ask the ratings to revolve the ship about its axis. We need a clean sweep of the heavens. Keep them on the wire.”

  “Ai lull-lull—luh—”

  “E.O.’s office. Rating Five, revolve the Sphere on its axis at low speed.”

  “All right, Officer.”

  Will Archer reclined in an angled seat commanding the direct window; he extinguished the lights of the office with a flick. “Commence the rotation.”

  “Commence, Rating Five.”

  “Yes, Officer.”

  The starless heaven wheeled and spun above him as the E.O. stared through the invisible synthetic.

  “Stop!”

  “Yes, Officer!”

  “Back three degrees.”

  “Back three degrees, Officer.”

  The sphere wheeled slowly, cautiously.

  “See it?” demanded Will Archer.

  The others stared into the blackness.

  “I believe I do,” finally said Yancey Mears. “A sort of luminescence?”

  “That’s right. Like stars beginning to come out as a fog lifts. Anybody else see it?”

  “I. It’s changing shape—see the upper left there?”

  “Portside of the universe, beyond any Earthly telescope. They could just barely see us from Andromeda with a thousand-incher. I’d say we’re about on the edge of the cosmos. I’d give you the figures, only they wouldn’t mean anything to you.”

  “Ai—luh—”

  “Now explain that one, Star.”

  “THE appearances are: we are approaching a body which is like no known star, nebula, planet, dust-tract or gas-cloud. It seems, furthermore, to be the source of cosmic rays. As our nearness to this body became significant, stresses have been appearing in the ship which make very alarming noises. Two of the complement passed out temporarily for no known reason and with no after-effects yet noticeable.”

  “Fine. Take the specific gravity of that thing now.”

  Star Macduff stared curiously, shrugged, and ran the observations off. Silently he handed over the tape.

  “Protoplasm,” said the executive officer.

  “It could be. Then the cosmic rays are—”

  “Mitogenic.”

  The ship trembled again; the Psychologist stared in horror at Will Archer. “What’s happening to us?” she cried.

  “I don’t know. We’re working out the problem assigned, however. I assume that you and Star succumbed to the mitogenic rays temporarily, the way yeast-buds die under a concentrated stare from a human being. Since you’re both tougher than yeast-buds you recovered. I don’t know what kept Yancey and me from going under.”

  “Consider, Will,” said Star Macduff agitatedly. “Think of what you’re doing. This ship’s going right into the eye of a monster piece of protoplasm that’s nearly knocked off two of the complement without even trying.”

  “If anybody has an alternative to suggest—?”

  They were silent.

  “Thanks for the endorsement. I wouldn’t be driving us to death if there were any other course. It’s not yet certain that we’re going to die; it’s not yet certain that this stuff is alive. But if it is, we’re going to find out why and how. What’s the size of it, Star?”

  “I don’t know—maybe in the decillion order.”

  Again sounded the grating noise that shivered from every part of the ship. In words.

  “I—live.”

  Instantly the telephone jangled; the Clericalist snapped:

  ”E
.O.’s office. What is it?”

  “Commons room, Officer. Is everything all right? We heard—”

  “We’ll call you when we need you, rating. Cut!”

  “Cut, Officer.”

  “Too bad we haven’t got a psychic along,” said Yancey Mears. “One of those’d be able to tell us what we’re up against.”

  THE watch from Will Archer’s pocket zipped through the fabric and clanged against a bulkhead, clinging. Rapidly there followed pencils, instruments and the pistol-weapon. They made a compact, quivering bunch on the metal wall.

  “Magnetized,” mused Star Macduff. “Now what did it?”

  “I think,” said Yancey Mears, “that at this point we’d better scrap logic.”

  “What do you propose to substitute for it?”

  “Nothing. I propose that we take things as they come. Mamie, would you be so good as to run an association series on me?”

  “Certainly. You two men keep your ears open; when something strikes you, speak up.”

  Yancey Mears seated herself comfortably, not far from the heap of portables on the wall, closed her eyes, blanked her mind to go by pure intuition.

  The golden-skinned little woman scribbled hastily in a note-book, then began to read off the words clearly, Yancey Mears responding like an automaton.

  “White.”—“Road.”

  “Sing.”—“High.”

  “Race.”—“Win.”

  “Phone.”—“Damned.”

  Further down the list they went, the Psychologist droning out the words in measured tones, the subject replying like a machine. In about five minutes the reaction time had reached its lowest and was nearly exactly equal in each case; the subject was drawing on her unconscious knowledge and those short-cuts that go by the name of ‘intuition’.

  Mamie Tung droned: “Life.”

  “Boat.”

  “Round.”

  “Lives—” The woman opened her eyes and stood up. “That brought it out into the open. The whole ship’s alive. Mitogenic rays, cosmic rays, whatever you want to call them now, they’ve done something to this awesome work of metal. I imagine impulses go by wire when there are wires, or by traveling fields. Like that magnetized plate there—”

  “Where’s its brain?” snapped Archer.