Collected Short Fiction

by C. M. Kornbluth

  “You’ll sleep,” the doctor said. “I can give you a shot.”

  “No.” Graham was determined. “If you can’t get the dictatyper out here now, how about some pencil and paper? I think I still know how to use them.”

  “I’ll see what we can do. Anna, will you come with me?”

  TONY led her, not to the living room where the others were waiting, but into the bedroom. “How about it?” he asked in a whisper. “How’s he feeling?”

  “It’s a funny mixture, Tony,” she said, “but I think it’s all right. He’s not nearly as excited as he was before. He’s eager, but calm and—well, it’s hard to express, but honest, too.”

  “Right.” He tightened his hand swiftly on her shoulder, and smiled down at her small earnest face. “A man could get too used to this,” he said. “How do you suppose I got along before he knew about you?”

  He strode into the living room and consulted briefly with Nick, after which two of the men from the biochem section tramped out to the Lab, and brought back the machine for Graham to use.

  Through the living room door, Tony heard the writer’s voice droning on, dictating, and the soft tapping of the machine. But what was going on in the hospital didn’t seem important.

  THE thing that mattered was the tiny pinch of pink powder Nick and Joe had been waiting to show him.

  “Tony,” said Nick, exultantly, “look at this stuff! It’s damn near oral-administration OxEn. Took it through twelve stages of concentration and we’ll take it through exactly three more to completion when Anna blows some hyvac cells for us. I tried and all I got was blistered fingers.”

  “It works?” asked Tony.

  “It’s beautiful,” said Gracey. “The Kelsey people must have fifty contaminants they don’t even suspect are there. Now I want to know where that sample tissue came from and where you’re going to get more. And what did you mean about Brownies?”

  “Didn’t Nick tell you?” Tony looked from the puzzled face to the startled one, and chortled appreciatively. “You mean you’ve been working together on this thing all evening and you never . . .?”

  “He didn’t ask,” Cantrella said defensively. “Anyhow, we weren’t working together. We weren’t even in the same Lab.”

  “Okay,” Tony grinned, “here goes again. You gave me the idea originally, Joe. As much as any one person or thing did. You were talking the other day about lethal genes. Remember, I tried to ask you about it this afternoon?”

  “When Mimi blew up? Sure.”

  “That’s when it hit me. I got that lung tissue from Sunny Kandro, Joe. After we brought him home. He’s a Brownie . . . the result of a Mars-viable gene that’s lethal on Earth.”

  “And there are more of them?” Gracey leaned forward excitedly. “Are they cooperative? Will they answer questions? And submit to examination? When can I see one?”

  “They’re cooperative,” Anna said, smiling. “The reason you haven’t seen one yet is that they can’t stand humans—too uncooperative to suit them. Examinations? I don’t see why not, if your intentions are honorable. They’re telepaths, so they’d know you didn’t mean to harm them.”

  “Telepaths!” Gracey breathed the word as Nick exclaimed it. “What other changes,” the agronomist started to ask, then said instead: “No sense you telling me. I will see one? Soon?”

  ANNA nodded. “Why not?

  They were willing to talk to him.” She motioned to the closed hospital door.

  “How about new tissue then?” Joe asked her. “Can we get it when we need it? You know how this stuff works? The old culture keeps mutating, and you have to start all over again. We can’t keep taking slices out of Sunny all the time.”

  “I don’t know,” she had to admit. “I don’t know if they could understand what you want it for, or why you’re doing it.”

  “I don’t think we’ll have any trouble,” Tony put in. “Nick, our Lab is equipped to turn out marcaine, isn’t it?”

  “Well, hell—yes, of course, but what for?”

  “Marcaine and OxEn both? Do we have the facilities for it?”

  “Sure. Processing the OxEn won’t take up much.”

  “Then I’m sure we can get our lung-scrapings,” the doctor said. “What do you say, Ansae?” The name slipped out, and he never even noticed the sudden startled exchange of looks between the other men. He did notice the woman’s slight hesitation and half-hidden smile. “Will they do it? After all, you’re the expert on Brownies.”

  “They like us,” she said thoughtfully. “They trust us, too. They need marcaine. Yes, I think they’d do it.”

  “Doc!” It was Graham, calling from inside. Tony opened the door. “There anything left in that bottle of mine?”

  “Hasn’t been touched.”

  “Pour me a shot, will you? A good, long one. I’m not in such hot shape. And pass the bottle around.”

  Tony filled a glass generously. “Take it and go to sleep,” he ordered. “You’re going to feel worse tomorrow.”

  “Thanks. That’s what I call a bedside manner.”

  Graham grinned and tossed off the drink with a happy shudder. “I’ve got some copy here,” he said. “Can Stillman get it out tonight?”

  TONY took the typed paper from the dictating machine and paused a moment, irresolutely.

  Graham laughed sleepily. “It’s in the clear,” he said. “No code. And you can read it if you like. Two messages and Take One of the biggest running story of the century.”

  “Thanks,” said Tony. “Good night.” He closed the door firmly behind him.

  “Story from Graham,” he said to the group. He buzzed Harve.

  “Read it!” said Nick. “And if that lying fat pulls another—” Tony gathered courage at last to run his eyes over the copy, and gasped with relief.

  “ ‘Message to Marsport communications,’ ” he read. “ ‘Kill all copy previously sent for upcoming substitutes. Douglas Graham.’ And ‘Message to Commissioner Hamilton Bell, Marsport, Administration. As interested lay observer strongly urge you withdraw intended application of Title Fifteen search cordon to Sun Lake Colony. Personal investigation convinces me theft allegations unfounded, Title Fifteen application grave injustice which my duty expose fullest before public and official circles on return Earth. Appreciate you message me acknowledgment. Douglas Graham.’ ”

  NICK’S yell of triumph hit the roof. “What are we waiting for?” he demanded. “Where’s Mimi? We have packing to do!”

  “What’s the matter with him?” asked Harve Stillman, coming in.

  Tony was reading the last of the messages to himself.

  Anna told him: “You like that one best of all. What’s in it?” He looked up with a grin across his face. “I’m sorry,” he said. “This is how it starts: ‘Marsport communications, sub following for previous copy, which kill. By Douglas Graham. With Brownies, lead to come.’ Harve, what does that mean?”

  The ex-wire-serviceman snapped: “It’s additional copy on a story about Brownies—the first part isn’t ready to go yet. What’s he say, Tony?”

  The doctor read happily: “ ‘The administrative problems raised by this staggering discovery are not great. It is fortunate that Dr. Hellman and Miss Willendorf, co-discoverers of the Martians, are persons of unquestioned integrity, profoundly interested in protecting the new race from exploitation. I intend to urge the appointment of one of them as special Commissioner for the P.A.C. to take charge of Brownie welfare and safety. There must be no repetition of the tragedies that marked Earthly colonial expansion when greedy and shortsighted—’ ”

  “Damn, that’s great,” muttered the radio man. “Let me file it.”

  The doctor, with the grin still on his face, handed over the copy and Harve raced out.

  “I told you,” said Anna.

  Joe Gracey said: “Well, I certainly hope whichever one of you turns out to be Commissioner is going to give us Lab men a decent chance at research on the Brownies. I was thinking—I could p
robably work out a test for the lethal gene, or Brownie gene, better call it. Spermatozoa for a male, a polar body or an ovum from a female and we’d be able to tell—”

  “No!” said Anna hysterically. “No, no!”

  The others were shocked into silence.

  “I’ll take you home, Ansie,” said Tony.

  He took her arm and they walked out into the icy night down the Colony street.

  “Ansie, I’ve been sort of taking things for granted. I should ask you once, for the record.” He stopped walking and faced her. “Will you marry me?”

  “Oh, Tony!” The name exploded from her in fear and desire both. “Tony, how can we? I thought—for just a little while after I told you about me, I thought perhaps we could, that life could be the way it is for other people. But now this. How can we?”

  “What are you afraid of?”

  “Afraid? I’m afraid of our children, afraid of this planet! I was never afraid before, I was hurt and bewildered when I knew too much about people, but—Tony, don’t you see? To have a baby like Polly’s, to have it grow up a stranger, an alien creature, to have it leave me and go to its—its own people . . .”

  HE TOOK her hand and began walking again, searching for the words he needed.

  “Ansie,” he began, “I think we will be married. If you want it as much as I do, we surely will be. And we’ll have children. And more than that, the hope of all the race will lie in our children, Anna. Ours and the children of the other people here. And the children of the Brownies. Don’t forget that.

  “They look different. They even think differently, and nobody knows more about that than you. But they’re as human as we are. Maybe more so.

  “We’ve made a beginning here at Sun Lake tonight. We’ve cut the big knot, the knot that kept us tied to Earth. Brownies helped us do that; and maybe they can help us lick this planet in all the ways that still remain. Maybe they can help us cure the next Joan Radcliff. Maybe they can keep us from going blind when the protective shots from Earth stop coming through.

  “But maybe they can’t.”

  “Ansie, if our children should be Brownies, we’d not only have to face it, accept it without fear—we’d have to be glad. Brownies are the children of Mars, natural human children of Mars. We don’t know yet whether we can live here; but we know they can.

  “They’re gentle. They’re honest and decent and rational. They trust each other, not because of blind loves and precedents, as we do, but because they know each other as Earth humans never can. If blind hates and precedents end life on Earth, Ansie, we can go on at Sun Lake. And we can go on that much better for knowing that even our failure, if we fail, won’t be the end.”

  He stopped at her door and looked down at her, searching for the understanding that had to be there. If Anna failed, what other woman would comprehend?

  “I’ll ask you this time,” she said soberly. “Tony, will you marry me?”

  With These Hands

  No self-respecting artist can object to suffering for his art . . . but not in a society where art is outdated by technology!

  I

  HALVORSEN waited in the Chancery office while Monsignor Reedy disposed of three persons who had preceded him. He was a little dizzy with hunger and noticed only vaguely that the prelate’s secretary was beckoning to him. He started to his feet when the secretary pointedly opened the door to Monsignor Reedy’s inner office and stood waiting beside it.

  The artist crossed the floor, forgetting that he had leaned his portfolio against his chair, remembered at the door and went back for it, flushing. The secretary looked patient.

  “Thanks,” Halvorsen murmured to him as the door closed.

  There was something wrong with the prelate’s manner.

  “I’ve brought the designs for the Stations, Padre,” he said, opening the portfolio on the desk.

  “Bad news, Roald,” said the monsignor. “I know how you’ve been looking forward to the commission—”

  “Somebody else get it?” asked the artist faintly, leaning against the desk. “I thought his eminence definitely decided I had the—”

  “It’s not that,” said the monsignor. “But the Sacred Congregation of Rites this week made a pronouncement on images of devotion. Stereopantograph is to be licit within a diocese at the discretion of the bishop. And his eminence—”

  “S.P.G.—slimy imitations,” protested Halvorsen. “Real as a plastic eye. No texture. No guts. You know that, Padre!” he said accusingly.

  “I’m sorry, Roald,” said the monsignor. “Your work is better than we’ll get from a stereopantograph—to my eyes, at least. But there are other considerations.”

  “Money!” spat the artist. “Yes, money,” the prelate admitted. “His eminence wants to see the St. Xavier U. building program through before he dies. Is that a mortal sin? And there are our schools, our charities, our Venus mission. S.P.G. will mean a considerable saving on procurement and maintenance of devotional images. Even if I could, I would not disagree with his eminence on adopting it as a matter of diocesan policy.”

  The prelate’s eyes fell on the detailed drawings of the Stations of the Cross and lingered.

  “Your St. Veronica,” he said abstractedly. “Very fine. It suggests one of Caravaggio’s careworn saints to me. I would have liked to see her in the bronze.”

  “So would I,” said Halvorsen hoarsely. “Keep the drawings, Padre.” He started for the door. “But I can’t—”

  “That’s all right.”

  The artist walked past the secretary blindly and out of the Chancery into Fifth Avenue’s spring sunlight. He hoped Monsignor Reedy was enjoying the drawings and was ashamed of himself and sorry for Halvorsen. And he was glad he didn’t have to carry the heavy portfolio any more. Everything seemed so heavy lately—chisels, hammer, wooden palette. Maybe the padre would send him something and pretend it was for expenses or an advance, as he had in the past.

  Halvorsen’s feet carried him up the Avenue. No, there wouldn’t be any advances any more. The last steady trickle of income had just been dried up, by an announcement in Osservatore Romano. Religious conservatism had carried the church as far as it would go in its ancient role of art patron.

  When all Europe was writing on the wonderful new vellum, the church stuck to good old papyrus. When all Europe was writing on the wonderful new paper, the church stuck to good old vellum. When all architects and municipal monument committees and portrait bust clients were patronizing the stereopantograph, the church stuck to good old expensive sculpture. But not any more.

  He was passing an S.P.G. salon now, where one of his Tuesday night pupils worked: one of the few men in the classes. Mostly they consisted of lazy, moody, irritable girls. Halvorsen, surprised at himself, entered the salon, walking between asthenic seminude stereos executed in transparent plastic that made the skin of his neck and shoulders prickle with gooseflesh.

  Slime! he thought. How can they—

  “May I help—oh, hello, Roald. What brings you here?”

  He knew suddenly what had brought him there. “Could you make a little advance on next month’s tuition, Lewis? I’m strapped.” He took a nervous look around the chamber of horrors, avoiding the man’s condescending face.

  “I guess so, Roald. Would ten dollars be any help? That’ll carry us through to the 25th, right?”

  “Fine, right, sure,” he said, while he was being unwillingly towed around the place.

  “I know you don’t think much of S.P.G., but it’s quiet now, so this is a good chance to see how we work. I don’t say it’s Art with a capital A, but you’ve got to admit it’s an art, something people like at a price they can afford to pay. Here’s where we sit them. Then you run out the feelers to the reference points on the face. You know what they are?”

  He heard himself say dryly: “I know what they are. The Egyptian sculptors used them when they carved statues of the pharaohs.”

  “Yes? I never knew that. There’s nothing new under the
Sun, is there? But this is the heart of the S.P.G.” The youngster proudly swung open the door of an electronic device in the wall of the portrait booth. Tubes winked sullenly at Halvorsen.

  “The esthetikon?” he asked indifferently. He did not feel indifferent, but it would be absurd to show anger, no matter how much he felt it, against a mindless aggregation of circuits that could calculate layouts, criticize and correct pictures for a desired effect—and that had put the artist of design out of a job.

  “Yes. The lenses take sixteen profiles, you know, and we set the esthetikon for whatever we want—cute, rugged, sexy, spiritual, brainy, or a combination. It fairs curves from profile to profile to give us just what we want, distorts the profiles themselves within limits if it has to, and there’s your portrait stored in the memory tank waiting to be taped. You set your ratio for any enlargement or reduction you want and play it back. I wish we were reproducing today; it’s fascinating to watch. You just pour in your cold-set plastic, the nozzles ooze out a core and start crawling over to scan—a drop here, a worm there, and it begins to take shape.

  “We mostly do portrait busts here, the Avenue trade, but Wilgus, the foreman, used to work in a monument shop in Brooklyn. He did that heroic-size war memorial on the East River Drive-hired Garda Bouchette, the TV girl, for the central figure. And what a figure! He told me he set the esthetikon plates for three-quarter sexy, one-quarter spiritual. Here’s something interesting—standing figurine of Orin Ryerson, the banker. He ordered twelve. Figurines are coming in. The girls like them because they can show their shapes. You’d be surprised at some of the poses they want to try—”

  SOMEHOW, Halvorsen got out with the ten dollars, walked to Sixth Avenue and sat down hard in a cheap restaurant. He had coffee and dozed a little, waking with a guilty start at a racket across the street. There was a building going up. For a while he watched the great machines pour walls and floors, the workmen rolling here and there on their little chariots to weld on a wall panel, stripe on an electric circuit of conductive ink, or spray plastic finish over the “wired” wall, all without leaving the saddles of their little mechanical chariots.