Collected Short Fiction

by C. M. Kornbluth

  “Was there a brawl?” asked the doctor.

  “Nobody told me—they yanked me out of B plant. They found Big Ginny over by the hills. She was all messed up—you know what I mean, Doc. They thought she was raped. Rape Big Ginny, for God’s sake! It ain’t reasonable!”

  “They moved her?”

  “They took her back to Rose’s. I tell them and tell them to leave ’em lay, just get ’em warm, give plasma, and wait for a doctor. It don’t do any good. First thing they think of whenever anybody gets smashed up is he don’t look-neat enough, so they yank him around to lie nice and straight and they yank him up so they can get a pillow under his head and then they haul him like a sack of meal to a bed. I hope to hell I never have a cave-in here with these dummies. Back in Jo’burg it happened to me. A timber fell and broke my leg nice and clean. By the time all my friends were through taking care of me and getting me comfortable, it was a compound complicated fracture with bone splinters from my ankles on up.”

  The jeep stopped in front of a large house, solidly constructed of the expensive native glass brick. Unlike most of the jerry-built shacks that housed the temporary workers in the camp, it was one of the few buildings put up by the Company itself, and few expenses had been spared.

  The door opened hesitantly, and a girl peered out, then opened it all the way. “Hello, Hack. Is this the doctor?”

  She was dressed in neither the standard tunic of most Marswomen nor the gaudy clothes of her sisterhood on Earth; instead she wore tailored house-pajamas of Earthside synvelvet. She might have been any business woman or middle-class housewife answering her door back on Earth.

  “Hello, Mary.” Hackenberg turned to Tony. “Doc Hellman, this is Mary Simms. She’s in charge when Rose is out. Mary, this is Douglas Graham, the famous gunther.” He stressed the last word only slightly. “You’ve heard of him?”

  “Oh, yes.” She was distantly polite. “How do you do, Doctor? Won’t you come in?”

  “I’ll have to take off now.” Hackenberg shook Graham’s hand vigorously. “Glad to have met you. I’ll pick you up later, Doc.” He waved and headed back for the jeep. Tony and Graham followed Mary Simms indoors and pulled off their parkas.

  THE whole house was heated, the doctor noticed.

  The girl led them through a large and rather formal parlor and into a smaller sitting room. She crossed the small room, and opened a door on the far side.

  “In here, Doctor!” she said. Tony stepped into the small bedroom, and heard Graham right behind him.

  “How about me?” demanded the. writer.

  The girl’s voice was icy. “Professional courtesy, I suppose; we are in the same business, aren’t we? By all means, come in.”

  The doctor turned his smile in the other direction. A huge blonde lay on the bed between fresh sheets. She was in coma, or . . .

  “Out!” Tony said firmly, and closed the door on both of them.

  He lifted the sheet and swore under his breath. Big Ginny had been washed and dressed in a rosebud-trimmed pink niron nightgown. Few people with internal injuries could survive such first-aid. He opened his bag and began the examination.

  He stepped into the parlor. Mary rose from her chair to question him, but Tony forestalled her. “She’s dead.” He added in a puzzled voice, “Her chest was beaten in. Who found her?”

  “Two of the men. Shall I get them?”

  “Please. And—was there anything they found nearby?”

  “Yes. I’ll bring it.” The girl went out.

  “How about the rape?” Graham asked.

  “She wasn’t,” Tony said.

  He dropped into a chair and tried to think it out. The woman had been pregnant, and there were signs of a fresh try-at abortion—the “rape.” Was the father known? Had they tried to abort it? Had there been a scene and a fatal beating out there by the hills? How did you know who was the father of a child conceived in a place like this? And who else would have any reason for the violence?

  Mary Simms came in and said, “I passed the word for the men.” She moved coolly so that her body was between Graham and the doctor, and handed over something wrapped in a handkerchief. “They found this.”

  “Did you know she was six months pregnant?”

  “Big Ginny?” she asked, amazed.

  “Why not?”

  “Why, I’ve seen her medical card, and she’s been here two years. She was married a couple of times on Earth—” The girl was flustered.

  “Well?”

  “Well, it surprised me, that’s all.”

  He went into the small bedroom and unwrapped the object she had given him. It was a stained scrap of stout copper wire, about twenty-five centimeters long. That confirmed his diagnosis: attempted self-abortion, clumsy and dangerous because of the woman’s bulk and probably ha2y knowledge of anatomy. But the innumerable blows on her chest and back didn’t make sense . . .

  BACK in the parlor, two men in miners’ leathers were waiting. The writer was questioning them idly about living conditions in the camp.

  “I’m Dr. Hellman from Sun Lake,” Tony said. “I want to ask you about finding Big Ginny.”

  “Hell, Doc,” said one of the miners, “we just walked over that way and there she was. I said to Sam, ‘It’s Big Ginny! jeez!’ and he said, ‘Some cheapskate musta hit her on the head,’ and we tried to bring her around, but she wouldn’t come to, so we made her comfortable and we went and told Mary and then we went back on shift.”

  “That’s all there is to it,” said the other miner. “But it wasn’t one of our boys. You ask me, it was one of those Communist crackpots from over your place, all the time reading—it drives you nuts, did you know that? How is the old bag, Doc? Is she yelling for her money?”

  “She’s dead,” the doctor said shortly. “Thanks for the information.”

  “You ask me,” the miner repeated stoutly, “it’s one of those Communists did it.”

  “Can you beat that?” the other one said softly. “What kind of guy would kill a dame like that?” They went out soberly.

  “Those guys were a little too innocent,” said Graham suddenly. “Didn’t you think so?”

  “I know what that’s about,” said Mary Simms. “They didn’t mention why they happened to be out strolling on the desert. They’re gow-heads. They were picking up some marcaine. They have a deal worked out with one of the people from Brenner’s Hop Heaven. He steals the stuff from Brenner and leaves it under a rock for Sam and Oscar. They leave money.”

  “I knew something was sour about them,” said Graham broodingly. “What do we do now, Tony?”

  “I’m going to write a note to Dr. O’Reilly and see if I can get Hackenberg to drive us into Sun Lake.” He sat down and took out his notebook and pen, found a. blank page, and carefully recorded what he had seen, without adding any of his conclusions.

  He signed his name, folded and handed the sheet to Mary Simms. “When you give the doctor this,” he said, “please tell him I was sorry I couldn’t stay to see him. We’re having big times over at our place.

  Tea new colonists.” He smiled. “Nine immigrants and a new baby.”

  “Boy or girl?” she asked, with sudden interest. “How is it—all right? Was it hard?”

  “A boy. Condition fair. Normal delivery.”

  “That’s nice,” she said, with a musing smile. Then she was all business again. “Thank you for coming, Doctor. I can make some coffee for you while you’re waiting for Mr. Hackenberg. We have real coffee, you know.”

  “I didn’t know,” he told her. “I’ll take two cups.”

  iii

  DR. TONY filled Hackenberg in on the jeep ride to Sun Lake. The mine boss profanely said nothing like that had ever happened before and he’d get the nogood swamper that did it and swing him from the gantry if he had to beat up every leatherhead in camp. He told some grisly stories about how he had administered rough justice to native coal miners in Johannesburg.

  “ ’Course,” he admi
tted, “you can’t do that to Panamericans.”

  It’s a good thing, thought Dr. Tony, that there wasn’t any Martian animal life. An intelligent race capable of being sweated would really have got the works from Hackenberg, who could justify abominable cruelty to his brothers on the grounds that they’d been born in a different hemisphere of his own planet. God only knew what he would think justified by an extra eye or a set of tentacles.

  Hackenberg took the wide swing through the gap in the hills and highballed the dozen miles to Sun Lake City. He came to a cowboy stop in front of the Lab and declined their hospitality.

  “I have to get back before the big shots,” he said. “Thanks, Doc. I’ll see you around.”

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  THE big main hall of the Lab was jammed with people, standing in earnest groups, strolling around, all talking at once. As the door slammed behind the doctor and the writer, the hubbub quieted, and seventy-odd pairs of eyes turned on the newcomers.

  “Quite a delegation,” Graham commented. “For me?”

  “I don’t know,” Tony confessed. He searched the room, and saw Harve Stillman break away from a small group and head their way.

  “Hi, Tony, did you bring a friend?”

  He turned to find Mimi Jonathan at his elbow.

  “Oh, Mimi, this is Douglas Graham. Did Bea tell you he was coming? Graham, Mimi Jonathan. Mr—Mrs. Jonathan is the Lab Administrator, in charge of making the wheels go round. And this is Harve Stillman. Harve used to be . . .”

  “. . . a newspaperman himself,” Graham finished.

  “Nope,” Harve grinned. “A radioteletype repairman with the I.P.”

  “What a switch!” Graham smiled back and shook the other man’s hand.

  Tony turned from them to ask Mimi urgently: “How’s it going? Did you finish up with the Lab search yet?”

  “Afraid so. It’s the same as the huts. Nothing turned up,” she said harshly. “We’ll have to check the shipping crates.”

  “Lord!” breathed Tony.

  “Maybe it won’t be so bad,” Stillman ventured. “I’ve just given this crowd a briefing on handling hot stuff. Mimi seems to think we can clear it up in a day or two if we all pitch in.”

  “Provided,” Mimi added, “we all work just a little harder than possible. I’m sorry you had to come to us at such a busy time, Mr. Graham. I hope you won’t mind if we don’t fuss over you too much. You’re welcome to wander around and ask all the questions you want. Everyone will be glad to help you.”

  “It will be a welcome change,” he assured her.

  TONY waited very impatiently through a few more minutes of polite talk. As soon as Harve engaged the writer’s attention again, the doctor turned back to Mimi. “What’s the plan?” he asked.

  “Five crews to get out about a kilometer into the desert, a halfkilometer apart. Everybody else brings them crates one at a time, they open and search, repack before the next one comes in. No contamination from crates standing open. Through all this you and Harve run back and forth checking the handling crews and the tote crews to see that they don’t get danger doses and remove and treat them if they do. We figure four days to finish the job.”

  “Harve, do you think you’re good enough to monitor the unpacking sites?” Tony asked. “Contamination from the native radioactives would be as bad as getting our own radiophosphorus into our radiomethyline blue.”

  “I didn’t want to go out and try it on my own. Do you think I can swing it?”

  “Sure. Go pick us five of the coolest spots on Mars.”

  The technician headed for the racked counters.

  “Doc, can you let me in on that cryptic business?” demanded Graham.

  “In a minute,” said Tony, his eyes wandering over the crowd. “Excuse me.” He had spotted Anna and was starting her way when she turned, saw him and approached.

  “We tried another feeding with the Kandro baby,” she began without a preamble, “but he didn’t take to it—choked it up again like yesterday.”

  Tony took out his pipe and bit abstractedly on the scarred stem. “No difference? No change at all?”

  “Not that I could see. Tony, what’s wrong with that baby?”

  The doctor shook his head unhappily. “I don’t know,” he admitted.

  There was something damnably wrong with the Kandro baby, something he couldn’t quite figure. There was a clue somewhere in the vividly remembered picture of the gasping, red-faced infant, choking and spluttering on a mouthful of milk. Should he have tried water instead of normal feeding to get those scrambled reflexes into order?

  “Doc—” said Graham.

  “I’ll be with you in a minute.”

  Anna went on serenely: “No trouble with Joan. I gave her her regular shot and changed the bandages when Tad told me you’d be late. She seemed fairly comfortable.”

  “Good. Miscellaneous complaints?”

  “Kroll in engineering had a headache. And there’s Mrs. Beyles. Her husband came and asked if there was anything I could do—they had a quarrel and he thought she went into a fit. It was a temper tantrum; I know you said not to give her anything, but John was so upset I gave her sedation to quiet her.” She turned to Graham. “Sorry to have to drag out our hospital horrors. I’m sure you understand.”

  “Oh,” said Tony, “I’m sorry. Douglas Graham, Anna Willendorf. Excuse me a minute, will you?” Mimi was tapping her foot, waiting for an opening. He told her: “I better get the afternoon safety done right now, and I’m damned if I’m going to do it with the whole Colony lurching around the Lab. Get ’em out of here so I can go to work, will you? Graham. I can answer questions while I go through the Lab looking for over-level radiation. If you want to come along, you’re welcome.”

  He led the writer out of the office into the dressing room, as Mimi began to break up the knots of non-Lab personnel who had shown up to thrash out the search plan and learn their own parts in it.

  ii

  TONY helped Graham into the suit of protective armor. He didn’t usually bother with it himself on the afternoon inspection, when other people were all over the Lab, unprotected. In the morning it was different; the elaborate precautions of the outer-door locker were necessary when a hot spot had, possibly, had time to chain overnight. But while work was actually going on, nothing very hot could develop without being noticed. The late check was primarily for the purpose of insuring the absence of the hot spots that could develop overnight.

  The doctor started his meandering course through the Lab, with Graham in tow.

  “I’m making the second of our twice-a-day safety checks for excess radioactivity. It happens that we’ve got to unpack all our material scheduled for export, examine it and repack it in a hurry if we want to get it aboard the outgoing rocket in time to get credit to pay our bills.”

  “Just routine, I suppose?” asked Graham blandly.

  “I think you gathered that it certainly isn’t. The fact is, your friend, Commissioner Bell, has accused us of harboring a thief and his loot—a hundred kilos of marcaine. We’ve searched everybody and everything so far except the export crates; now we’ve got to search them.”

  “Why not tell the old windbag to go blow?”

  “If we don’t turn up the marcaine, he can seal us up for six months to conduct an inch-by-inch search.”

  “What’s so dreadful about that?” Graham asked.

  “We’re geared to two ships in six months now instead of one ship a year. If we missed two shipments, both incoming and outgoing, we’d be ruined.”

  GRAHAM grunted thoughtfully, and Tony waited—and waited—the grunt was all. He’d been half-hoping the writer would volunteer to help—perhaps by picking up his anti-Bell crusade or by promising to see his powerful friends, or by exposing the sorry mess to the public. But Graham, apparently forgetting the Bell business entirely, pitched the doctor a ferocious series of questions that threatened to stretch out the inspection endlessly:

  “What’s in th
is box? Why isn’t this conveyor shielded? Where’s the stock room? What do you do here? Is it technical or trade school stuff? Where did this soil come from? What did you pay for it? Tile on this floor, concrete on that—why? Who’s in charge here? How many hours does he work? That many? Why? How many hours does he work?”

  As Tony paraded solemnly back and forth with the counter, checking off items on his report, he pressed a little on the writer.

  “This crate here,” he said, “is a typical sale. Radiophosphorus for cancer research. It goes to the Leukemia Foundation in San Francisco. It’s a traceless pure—better than nine-nines. We’re in business because we can supply that kind of thing. On Earth they’d have to first make the traceless pure phosphorus and then expose it to a reactor or a particle accelerator, and the extra step there usually means it gets contaminated and has to be refined again. Here we just produce phosphorus by the standard methods and it is radioactive because the whole planet’s got it. Not enough to present a health problem any more than cosmic rays on Earth do, but damned convenient for Sun Lake.”

  “Some crate,” commented the writer.

  “Lead, air gaps, built-in counter with a loud alarm. It’s the law. Normally, we have five per cent of our manpower working in the shipping department. Now we have to unpack and recrate all this stuff in less than four days.”

  “You people should have a lobby,” suggested Graham. “If something like that was handicapping Pittco, they’d get rid of it quick. Are we just about through?”

  “Just about,” said Tony flatly. So much for that, he thought; at least he’d given the writer an eyeful of the safety precautions they observed, and made him sweat a little under the heavy suit at the same time.

  In the cleanup room they stripped and showered, with Graham chortling suddenly: “O’Mally was a prophet! My first city editor—he said when I got rich I’d install hot and cold running Scotch in my bathroom!”

  “Sorry we only have cold, and don’t drink this stuff unless you want to go blind. It’s methyl.”