Collected Short Fiction

by C. M. Kornbluth

  Naked dictatorship and leader worship, oligarchy and dollar-worship; sometimes one was worse, sometimes the other. The forms didn’t matter; the facts did. Too many mouths, not enough topsoil. Middle classes with their relatively stable, relatively sane families were growing smaller and being ground out of existence as still more black dirt washed into the ocean and still more hungry mouths were born and prices went higher and higher—how long, in God’s name, could it go on? How long before it blew up, and not figuratively speaking either?

  The Panamerican World Federation, first with the most, refused to tolerate the production of mass-destruction weapons anywhere else in the world. Long calloused to foreign mutterings, the Western colossus would at irregular intervals fire off a guided missile on the advice of one of its swarm of intelligence agents. In Tartary or France or Zanzibar, then, an innocent-looking structure would go up in a smoke mushroom. But they never stopped trying, and some day Tartary or France or Zanzibar would launch a missile of its own and it would mean nothing less than the end of the world in fire and plague as the rocket trails laced continents together and the bombers rained botulisn, radiocobalt and flasks of tritium with bikinis in their cores.

  THE damned, poverty-ridden, swarming Earth! Short of food, short of soil, short of water, short of metals—short of everything except vicious, universal resentments and aggressions bred by the other shortages.

  That’s what they were running from, the new arrivals he was going to meet today. He hoped there wouldn’t be any more communicable disease carriers to quarantine at Marsport and fire back on the return trip without even a look around. There were supposed to be six medical examinations between the first application filed at the Sun Lake Society office in New York, and embarkation. But things must have got appreciably worse on Earth since—he started a little at the thought—“since his time.” It seemed that now anybody could be reached. They used to say everybody had his price. Maybe it was true. He’d never had a chance to turn down a really big bribe, so he couldn’t say. But if six boards of doctors could all be fixed, everybody’s price must have taken a drastic slump.

  Tad, sound asleep, rolled onto his stomach and humped up his behind, scene of the history-making operation, in a brief reversion to infancy.

  “How come the rocket’s getting in early?” Bea called back. “I didn’t even have time to ask Harve about it last night, with the Girl spread out all over the field.”

  “Something about the throat liner. They have a new remote control servicing apparatus on Earth,” Tony said. “Gets the liner out and cleaned and in faster. We save two weeks on each trip, and get an extra trip—what is it?—every two years?”

  “Year and a half,” Bea corrected. She was silent a moment, then snorted, “Rockets!”

  “At least,” Tony dead-panned, “rockets give you a smooth ride. Fat chance of getting any sleep in this pile . . .”

  “The Girl never gave you a rough trip in your life!” she interrupted angrily. She pulled on the stick and swung the Girl into a downwind.

  The doctor drowsily studied her, silhouetted against the stars through the windshield. She was attached to the old crate—ought to find herself a husband. It had looked like her and Flexner for a while, but then the chemist had paired off with Verna Blau. As the motor warmed up, Bea unzipped her parka and shrugged out of it. Definitely, Tony decided, the best shape in Sun Lake. Trim, fined-down, athletic, but no doubt at all, from this angle, that the figure was feminine—even under the bulky sweater she still wore.

  HE LAY back on his improvised couch and reflected on how pleasant it would be to stand behind her and run his hands down over her shoulders—infinitely pleasant just to stand behind her while she flew the ship. Pleasant but impractical. Play hell with her Estimated Time of Arrival at Marsport, for one thing, and, to take a longer view, he probably would end up by marrying her—her and Letzy Girl: the two went together.

  Tony stirred uncomfortably. While he was thinking idly goatish thoughts about Bea, Anna had turned up in his mind, with a halfsmile on her face. It was typical, he thought, puzzled; Anna never intruded until the moment you wanted her . . . if you wanted her, he added unhappily, giving the verb a new meaning. Anna’s smile was a tingling mystery; her dark eyes were wells of warmth in which a man could lose himself; but after all these months, he wasn’t sure, of their color. And even when she crept into his mind, it was only from the neck up that he visualized her.

  That wasn’t the way he saw Bea. Tony shook himself, stretched out and let his eyes linger on the girl in the pilot’s seat until he fell asleep.

  ii

  THE sun was up when Bea eased the Freighter in among more planes than they had ever seen before on Arrival Day. They recognized the elegant staff-carrier from Sun Lake’s neighbor, Pittco Three, but didn’t know the other twelve that were parked.

  “Swell ride, Bea,” said the doctor. “Now what is this dress parade all about . . .? Oh, sure. Douglas Graham is going to gunth Mars. These should be the bigshots from the commercial colonies.”

  “I hate these damned superficial gunthers,” Bea said fiercely. “Is he going to bother Sun Lake?”

  “Nick thinks he might zip through at the end of his tour, if he has time.” He hopped to the ground, Tad following with the boxed lab. “You’ve got the shopping list, Bea?” the doctor asked. “I have to go over to the Ad Building. Don’t think I’ll have time for anything else. Can you get all the stuff?”

  “Sure,” she said easily. “We’re not buying much this time.”

  Tony ignored the bitter significance of the remark. “We’ll see you later, then. I hope this red-carpet business for Graham doesn’t slow things up too much. I’d like to get back before lunch.”

  Tad was fidgeting next to him, waiting for a chance to break in.

  A year ago, the boy had spent two days in Marsport, when he arrived with his family and the other founding members of the Colony. Then he had nothing more than a pitying sneer for the village of 600 people; now it was a place of wonder.

  “Dr. Tony,” he asked eagerly, “can we go to the Arcade?”

  “We can go through it,” Tony decided.

  The Arcade was Aladdin’s cave to Tad. To the Planetary Affairs Commission, which rented out booth space in the ramshackle building, it was a source of revenue. To Tony it was the stronghold of the irrepressible small retailer, who found his way even to Mars with articles he could buy cheap and sell dear . . . a reminder of the extent to which Mars was already taking over the social and economic patterns of Earth.

  Booths at the Arcade did not display radiation counters, hand tools, welders, rope, radio, aluminum I-beams, airplane parts or halftracks. Those you bought at the P.A.C. Stores, which were reliable, conservative and dull.

  At the Arcade there was one booth which sold nothing but coffee in the cup: MARTIAN $2.00; EARTHSIDE $15.00 (WITH SUGAR $25.00). Tony knew the privateer who ran this concession might be ruined by another arrival aboard today’s racket, landing in paper-light clothes with his garment and personal luggage allowance taken up by bricks of Earthside coffee and sugar, burning to undercut the highwayman who had beaten him to the happy hunting grounds of Mars.

  At another booth the most beautiful collie, boxer and English shepherd pups were for sale at the astounding price of only twenty dollars each. The catch was that the proprietor of this booth was the only merchant on Mars with a stock of dog food.

  AT ANOTHER booth Tad’s jaw dropped with perplexity. ”Dr. Tony, what are those?” he asked. “Underwear, Tad. For women.”

  “But don’t they get cold in those things?”

  “Well, they would if they went out and worked like our women. But—well, for instance in Pittco, over the Rimrock Hills from us, there are some ladies who only work indoors, where it’s heated.”

  “All heated? Not just beam heat on the beds and things?”

  “I’m afraid I don’t really know. Say! Look at those boots there—aren’t they something?”

>   “Boy!” The boots were mirror-shiny zipper jobs. “What I wouldn’t give for a pair of those! Put ’em on when new kids come in, and then watch them try to walk around in Earth sandals, and get a load of that sand.”

  Here on Mars, the price put the boots infinitely far out of reach for a boy like Tad, even if Sun Lake’s policies did not prevent the purchase of such an item. Some supervisor in an industrial colony, Tony thought, would eventually acquire them as illusion of escape from the sands of Mars.

  And that reminded him. He turned to Tad.

  “By the way, what do you know about kids going barefoot around the colony? When did that start?”

  “Barefoot?” Tad looked outraged. “What do you think we are—dopes?”

  “I think,” Tony answered drily, “that anybody who’d go strolling around the Rimrock caves without boots on is about as much of a jackass as he can be.”

  “In the caves?” This time Tony thought he detected a note of more honest horror. All the kids went barefoot sometimes in the experimental fields; everybody knew about it and pretended not to. The kids were pretty careful about not stepping on marked planted rows, and the fields had been processed to remove native poison-salts from the soil.

  “Listen, Dr. Tony,” Tad said earnestly, “if any of the kids are doing that, I’ll put a stop to it I They ought to know better! You remember that time you had to fix my hand, before the—uh—other thing, when I just thought I’d pick up a piece of rock and it practically sliced my finger off! They shouldn’t be walking barefoot around there.”

  “I remember.” Tony smiled. “ ‘Sliced your finger off’ is a slight exaggeration, but I wouldn’t like to have to handle a mess of feet like that. If you know who’s doing it, you tell them I said to cut it out . . . or they may not be walking at all after a while.”

  “I’ll let them know.” Tad walked along silently, ignoring the bright displays as they passed, and Tony seized the chance to direct their footsteps out of the Arcade. “Dr. Tony,” the boy said finally, “you didn’t mean for me to tell you who it was in case I knew, did you?”

  “Lord, no!” The doctor had been hoping to find out. But he realized now what an error he’d almost made.

  A year ago, Tad had been as miserable a little snitch and talebearer as Earth could produce. “I just want it stopped, that’s all.”

  “Okay, then.” Tad’s face relaxed into a friendly grin. “It will be.”

  We’ve got to keep go tug, the doctor thought. For himself, for the other adults, it didn’t matter so much. But for the kids . . .

  iii

  TONY had absolutely no respect for Nowton, the P.A.C. medical officer, because Nowton was stupid. Fortunately Nowton was so stupid that he didn’t realize this and greeted the Sun Lake medic joyfully.

  “Hear you been up to tricks, boy! Why didn’t you come to me instead? I got ways to get marcaine!”

  “Glad to hear it, and I’ll bet you do. While we were stealing that marcaine, we also had a baby. Got a form?”

  “Corporal!” yelled Nowton. “Birth form!” A noncom produced the piece of official paper and Tony filled it in, checking weight and other data with notes in his pocket.

  “That hot pilot of yours still around?” asked Nowton.

  “Bea Juarez? Sure. Interested? Just tell her that her plane’s a disgusting old wreck and you’ll get her a new one. She always falls for that line.”

  “No kidding?”

  “Who’d kid you, Nowton? Say, is Ed Nealey anywhere?”

  “In the signal room. Where’s Juarez, did you say?”

  “I’ll see you, Nowton.” Tony hurried off.

  HE FOUND the lieutenant reading a medical journal which had passed through his own hands months earlier, on its way around the joint subscription club of which both men were members. The club made it possible for them, in common with twenty-odd fellow-members on Mars, to keep up with technical and scientific publications without paying ruinous amounts in interplanetary postage.

  “Hello, Ed.”

  Nealey put out his hand. “I didn’t know whether you’d still be talking to me, Tony.”

  “Hell, you don’t give the orders. You have to play it the way Bell calls it. Ed, off the record—you’re pretty sure it was one of our people?”

  “All I’m sure of, it wasn’t a phony. To qualify with the Bloodhound on Earth, we had to follow made trails—where they dragged bags of aniseed over the spoor. You can tell the difference. This one faded and wobbled like the real thing. And we lost it not more than a couple of miles out of your place, headed straight your way. Tony, have you searched?”

  “Some. We’re not done yet.” The doctor lowered his voice. “What’s the matter with Commissioner Bell, Ed? Does he have anything special against us?”

  The lieutenant jerked his chin a little at a Pfc sitting with earphones on his head, reading a comic book, and led the doctor into the corridor.

  “God, what a post!” he said. “Tony, all I know is that Bell’s a lost soul outside the Insurantist Party’s inner circle. He had fifteen years of being looked up to as the Grand Old Man of the Mexicali-forniarizonan Insurantists, and now he’s been booted to Mars. He’d do anything, I believe, to get back into the party. And don’t forget that Brenner’s been a heavy contributor to the Insurantist campaign funds during the last three elections. You know I’m professional military and I’m not supposed to and don’t want to have anything to do with politics—” Commissioner Bell came stumping down the corridor. “‘Lieutenant Nealey,” he interrupted.

  Nealey came to as casual an attitude of attention as his years of drilling would allow.

  “Surely you have better things to do with your time than palavering with persons suspected of harboring criminals.”

  “Dr. Hellman is my friend, sir!”

  “Very interesting. I suggest you go on about your duties and pick your friends more discriminatingly.”

  “Whatever you say, sir.” With slow deliberation, the lieutenant turned and shook Tony’s hand. “I’m on duty now,” he said tightly. “I’ll see you around. So long, kid.” He put his hand on Tad’s shoulder, wheeled about smartly, and turned back into the signal room.

  “Come on, Tad,” said the doctor. “We’re all done here. We might as well get out to the rocket field.”

  CHAPTER TEN

  THEY were approaching the rocket field and what was, for Mars, an Immense crowd—some five hundred people behind a broad white deadline marked on the tamped dirt of the field. It was an odd-looking crowd because it was not jammed into the smallest possible space, body to body, Earth-fashion. The people stood separately, like forest trees, with a good square meter around each of them. It was a Mars crowd, made up of people with lots of room. Tony stopped well away from the fringe of the group.

  “This looks like a good spot,” he, decided. “Put the box down there; we can start setting things up.”

  “Doctor Hellman—hello!” A tall man, fully dressed in Earthside business clothes, strolled over. Tony had seen him only once before, when he had appeared at the Lab with Bell to make his monstrous accusation of theft. But Hugo Brenner was not an easy man to forget.

  “Hello,” Tony said shortly, and turned back to his box.

  “Thought you might be here today.” Brenner ignored the doctor’s movement away from him, and went on smoothly. “I want to tell you how sorry I am about what happened. Frankly, if I’d known the trail would lead to your place, I might have thought twice before I called copper—but you understand, it’s not the first time. I’ve let it go before. This time they took so much I couldn’t very well overlook it.”

  “I understand perfectly,” Tony assured him. “We disapprove of theft at Sun Lake too.”

  “Well, I’m glad to hear you don’t take it personally, Doctor. As a matter of fact, I’m almost glad it happened. I’ve heard a lot about you and the kind of job you’ve been doing over there. I wish we could have met under more pleasant circum—”

  “
It’s very kind of you to say so,” Tony interrupted, deliberately misunderstanding. “I didn’t think a man in your position would be much impressed by what we’re doing at Sun Lake.”

  Brenner smiled. “I think Sun Lake is a very interesting experiment,” he said in a monotone that clearly expressed his lack of interest. “What I had in mind . . .”

  “Of course, Mr. Brenner.” Whatever the drug man had to say to him personally, the doctor did not wish to hear it. “We realize your only interest is in the recovery of your stolen goods. We’re doing our best to find the thief . . . if he really is a member of our Colony, that is.”

  “Please, Doctor, don’t put words in my mouth. Naturally I’m interested in recovering my goods, but I’m not worried about it. I’m quite sure your people will turn up the guilty party.” Again his voice carried a flat lack of conviction.

  “Commissioner Bell has seen to it that we turn up a. guilty party,” Tony retorted.

  “I think the Commissioner was unnecessarily harsh.” Hugo Brenner shrugged it off. “If it had been up to me . . . well, that’s Bell’s job; I suppose he has to handle it his own way. Let’s quit beating around the bush, Doctor. I came over here to offer you a job, not to talk . . .”

  “No.”

  “Suppose you listen to my offer first.”

  “No!”

  “All right, then. Name your own terms. I’ll meet your price: I need a doctor. A good one.”

  “I don’t want to work for you at any price.”

  Brenner’s mouth turned up at the corners. Obviously he enjoyed the game, and equally obviously he thought he was going to win.

  “LET me mention a figure.” He moved closer. “One million dollars a year.”

  Well, thought the doctor, now he had a clearer idea of what his own price was; now he knew it wasn’t a million dollars. Ten times what he made in a peak year on Earth. He looked full into Brenner’s smirking face, and knew something else: he hadn’t been so clear-through boiling mad in a long time; and he was fed up with diplomacy. Deliberately, he raised his voice: “Didn’t you hear me before, Brenner? Or didn’t you understand?”