Collected Short Fiction

by C. M. Kornbluth

  “What?”

  “I said you must have come in too drunk to set the alarm before you went to sleep. Get up. You’re an hour late for work now.”

  He leaped from bed. An hour late on this day, of all days!

  He found the hearing aid—on the floor in the entrance hall, where he couldn’t have left it, any more than he could have failed to set the alarm. But he didn’t have time to take up these minor points. He depilated in ten seconds, bathed in five, dressed in fifteen and shot out of the house.

  Fortunately Candella wasn’t in. Norvie sent Miss Dali to round up his staff and began the tooling-up job for the integrator keyboard, while the production men busied themselves with their circuits and their matrices, and the job began. This was the part of Norvie’s work that made him, he confessed secretly to himself, feel most like God. He fed the directions to Stimmens, Stimmens fumblingly set up the punch cards, the engineers translated the cards into phase fields and interferer circuits . . . and a World That Norvie Made appeared in miniature.

  He had once tried to explain his feelings to Arnie. Arnie had snarled something about the presumptuous conceit of a mere pushbutton. All he did, Arnie explained over many glasses of beer, Was to decide what forms and images he wanted to see; it was the Engineers who, in Their wisdom, transmuted empty imaginings into patterns of light and color that magically took the form and movement of tiny fighters and wrestlers and spear-carriers. The original thought, Arnie explained severely, was nothing; it was the tremendous technical skill that transformed the thought into visual reality that was important. And Norvell, perforce, humbly agreed.

  EVEN now, he was deferential to the production men, those geniuses so well versed in the arts of connecting Circuit A to Terminal IV, for they were Engineers. But his deference extended only to the technical crew. “Stimmens!” he barked. “Hurry it up! Mr. Candella will be here any moment!”

  “Yessir,” said Stimmens, hopelessly shuffling the stacks of notes from Norvell’s hands.

  Stimmens was coming along, Norvell thought. A touch of the whip was good for him.

  It took twenty minutes and a bit more, and then Norvell’s whole design for a Field Day was on punch cards. While Stimmens was correcting his last batch of cards, the production men began the run-through. The little punched cards went through the scanners; the packed circuits measured voltages and spat electrons; and in the miniature mockup of the Stadium, tiny figures of light appeared and moved and slew each other and left.

  They were Norvell’s own, featureless and bright, tiny and insubstantial. Where Norvell’s script called for the bodies of forty javelin-throwers in the flesh, the visualizing apparatus showed forty sprites of light jabbing at each other with lances of fire. No blood spilled; no bodies stained the floor of the Stadium; only the little bodiless fire-figures that disappeared like any other pattern of excited ions when the current went off.

  Somehow, Norvell thought of the Field Days themselves as taking place here. He had heard the cries of the injured and seen the drawn faces of the next of kin; but it was as mannikins that he thought of them, always.

  One of the production men said approvingly, “Looks like a good show, Mr. Bligh.”

  “Thanks,” said Norvell gratefully. It was always a good sign when the technical crew hung over the miniature stadium this way, watching the mockup figures go through their paces.

  Now the question was, what would Candella say?

  “BLIGH, the upcoming Field Day is important,” was what Candella said to Norvie. “At least, it seems to me that everything we do is important. Don’t you think so?”

  Norvell said, “Well, of course!”

  “Our work is important, Bligh. It is a great and functional art form. It provides healthful entertainment, satisfying the needs of every man for some form of artistic expression. It provides escape—escape for the hard-working bubble-house class, escape for the masses of Belly Rave. It siphons off their aggressions. Allotments and Field Days—our society is built on them! You might call our work the very foundation of society. Do you agree?”

  “Yes, sir,” Norvie almost whispered.

  Candella looked politely apologetic. “I beg your pardon?”

  “Yes, sir.” Norvell, too late, found he was almost bellowing.

  Candella looked pained. “You needn’t shout. There is nothing wrong with my hearing.” Norvell winced. “Foundation of our society, but also an art form. The cultured classes appreciate our efforts on the artistic plane. The rabble of Belly Rave—with all respects, my dear Bligh, to the origin of your charming wife—need it on the glandular level. Every show we can produce is important. But the Field Day—” His thick brows came down like the ragged anvils of thunderclouds. “The Field Day, you tin-eared fumbler, is the biggest day of the year! Not just because it draws the biggest audience—but because that’s the one I am judged by! The Board attends. The Mayor attends. The men from G-M-L attend. If they like it, good. If they don’t—that’s my neck on the line, Bligh!”

  Norvell opened his mouth. “Not a word! I want no excuses. Your notion of what constituted a Field Day was, of course, uninspired. But I thought that, with patching and improvising, we might get by. I no longer think so—not since examining the superb presentation that was handed me this morning—by a member of your own staff, Bligh! A brilliant boy whom you have evidently been holding down. Thank God he had the courage and sense to come to me with this masterpiece instead of permitting you to destroy it!” Norvell was able to croak, “Who?”

  “Stimmens.”

  Stimmens? Wet behind the ears, untried, simple research? Who didn’t even want to stay with the firm, who had the infernal gall to ask for a contract release? Stimmens?

  NORVELL’S hand stretched out for the punched cards and then he stopped.

  “Go ahead,” Candella said coldly.

  Bligh scanned them in astonishment. Why, he thought, this is impossible—and this bit here, we can’t—

  “Mind if I play these, Mr. Candella?” he asked and, getting an ironic nod, fed the punch cards into Candella’s machine. The circuits scanned the punches and built a scene of electronic slaughter for him. He watched the little fire-figures in growing apprehension.

  When he looked up, he said, so bemused that he hardly remembered to be fearful, “Why, it’s good!”

  “Of course it’s good!”

  “Really good, Mr. Candella.” He shook his head wonderingly. “Stimmens, eh? I never would have believed it. Of course, the emotional values need bringing out. The comedy stuff with the vitriol pistols ought to follow a tense thriller like Man Versus Scorpions, instead of another comedy number like the Octogenarians with Flame-throwers. But that’s easy enough to fix. Race against Manmade Lightning is out, too. Stimmens told me himself we couldn’t get the equipment from Schenectady. I suppose he forgot.”

  Candella was looking at him with an indescribable expression, but Norvell raced on. “Real originality, Mr. Candella. I—I must say I admire him. Piranhas in the aquatic meet—wonderful! And the octogenarians are a terrific switch. Number after number I’ve never heard of! I have to admit it, Mr. Candella, that boy has talent.”

  “What the hell are you babbling about?”

  “Why, the—the originality, Mr. Candella. The freshness.”

  “Originality! Bligh, do you think I’m crazy enough to run untried novelties in a show like this? Every one of these features has been a smash success somewhere in the country within the last ninety days.”

  “Oh, no! I’ve been getting all the reports and none of this stuff—Stimmens was doing the research himself. He ought to know!”

  CANDELLA exploded. “Look, you fool!” He tossed a sheaf of reports at Norvell.

  They were all there—names, dates, places. Norvell looked up in horror. “It’s a doublecross! He wants a Fifteen rating. Just yesterday, he tried to get me to recommend remission of his contract. I wouldn’t do it. This is his way of getting even.”

  “Bligh, that�
�s a serious charge!”

  “Oh, I’ll prove it, Mr. Candella. I’ve got the copies of his reports locked in my desk.” Candella stood up. “Show me,” he ordered.

  Ten minutes later, he was saying grimly, “Thought I wouldn’t call your bluff, eh?”

  Norvell stared unbelievingly at the reports, face white as a sheet. They had been in his desk, locked with his key. And they were not the reports he had seen. They sparkled with novelties—all the magnificent new concepts in Stimmens’ outline and more, much more.

  How? He couldn’t have left the desk unlocked. Nobody had a key but him and Miss Dali—and she had no reason to do such a thing. Had he gone mad? Was it some chemical prank, the reports he saw in disappearing ink, the substituted ones then coming to light? How?

  Over Norvell’s desk set, Candella was calling Stimmens in. The boy appeared, looking awed and deferential.

  Mr. Candella said briefly, “Congratulations, Stimmens. You’re the head of the department as of now. Move into your office whenever you like—this is your office. And throw this bum out.” To Norvell: “Your contract is canceled for cause. Don’t ever try to get a job in this line again; you’ll waste your time.” He left without another word.

  Stimmens said uneasily, “I didn’t have the heart to go through with it. I had to give you a chance—you turned it down.”

  Norvell just stared.

  Stimmens went on defensively, “It isn’t as if I just walked into it. Believe me, I earned this. What do I know about Field Days? Sweat, sweat, sweat—I haven’t had a moment’s peace.” Miss Dali walked in and kissed Stimmens, burbling, “Darling, I just heard! You wonderful Grade Fifteen, you!”

  “Oh,” said Norvell in a sick voice.

  They said more, but he didn’t hear. It was as if his hearing aid were turned off, though, in this instance, the switch was not in his pocket, but in his mind. He was out on the street before he realized what he was doing—and what had happened to the contract career of Norvell Bligh.

  NORVELL came up to the problem of Virginia in his thinking and, like a thousand times before, he backed away from it. He ordered another drink.

  No contract status meant no bubble house. It also meant Belly Rave. Norvell took a deep swallow. Still, what was so bad about Belly Rave? The allotments would take care of eating. His extra work—whatever it turned out to be—would give him a chance to save a little money, make a fresh start, maybe get back on contract and into a bubble house again. After all, he was a trained man—an Engineer, in a way.

  He wished once again that he knew a little more about Belly Rave. Funny, considering that Virginia had been born there. But she had never wanted to talk about it.

  And there he was, back on the subject of Virginia.

  How would she take it? He really couldn’t guess. She had been so resolutely silent on the subject of Belly Rave and all it concerned. Her childhood, her parents, even her husband—the power-cycle stunter whose crash in a long-ago Field Day had left young Norvell Bligh with a tearless widow to jolly out of filing a claim. He had married her instead and Candella had made an unforgivable joke. . . No, he hadn’t married her—she had married, not Norvell Bligh, but a contract job and a G-M-L house.

  He dialed another drink. Well, there was still Arnie. He wasn’t the kind of friend to look the other way when you were a little down on your luck—not even that, really, just temporarily the victim of a professional misunderstanding and a doublecross. Good old Arnie, Norvell thought sentimentally.

  He caught a glimpse of the time. Maybe he ought to have it out with Virginia, and then go over and spend some time with Arnie. The thought braced him.

  He swallowed his drink and slipped his wallet into the bar slot. Having it out with Virginia might not be so tough at that. The fact that she had been born in Belly Rave was an advantage, if he could only make her see it that way. She’d have friends there. She’d have some ideas about pleasant, useful work he could do to supplement the allotment until he got on his feet again—

  Something crushed his shoulder and spun him around. “Whaddya think you’re up to?” the policeman demanded. He shook the wallet under Norvell Bligh’s nose. “You know the penalty for passing a bum penalty card? You Belly Ravers are all alike—find a lapsed card and a front and try to get a free load. Come along. The Captain wants to talk to you.”

  BLIGH spent a long time trying to make them believe him down at the precinct, before he realized they did believe him—believed him and just didn’t care.

  It was close to dinner time and they put him in something they called “the Tank” until the desk sergeant got back from his meal. Norvell didn’t like the tank and he didn’t like the looks of the half-dozen other persons who occupied it with him.

  Still, it was only a question of his lapsed credit card—they could easily have added drunk and disorderly to the charge—or even no visible means of support, which meant getting a job instantly or being jugged for quite a while. And there was only one kind of job a man in police trouble could pick up a phone and get, every time. Usually you didn’t have to phone. The cops would drive you down to the Stadium’s service entrance themselves. Norvell knew the process, having seen enough “volunteers” delivered.

  “Hey, Bligh.”

  Norvell said, “Yes, sir?”

  The cop opened the door. “This way.” They came to a dingy room. There was an embarrassing process of holding your hands over your head while someone searched you. You couldn’t blame them, Norvell told himself; they must have had plenty of desperate criminals here. There was a curiously interesting process of inking the fingers and rolling them across a piece of paper. There was a mildly painful process of looking into what seemed to be a binocular microscope; a light flashed, and Norvell had a little trouble seeing.

  While Norvell was blinking at the halo in his field of vision, the cop said something. Norvell said, “What?”

  “I said do you want to call your lawyer?”

  Norvell shook his head automatically. Then he remembered—he had a lawyer. “Why, yes,” he said. He found Mundin’s phone number in the book with some difficulty. It was after hours, but he was lucky enough to get an answer—though Mundin himself wasn’t there and the person who answered seemed to be drunk or something. But Norvell left a message, and then there was nothing to do but wait.

  Curiously, the waiting was not unpleasant. Even the thought of what Virginia would say or do about this was not particularly terrifying. What worse could happen than had already?

  VII

  “THANK you very much, Mr. Mundin,” Norvell said. He looked back at the precinct house and shuddered.

  Mundin said, “Don’t thank me. I just put in a word with Del Dworcas and he put in a word with the precinct. Thank him.”

  Norvell brightened. “Oh, I intend to! I’ve wanted to meet Mr. Dworcas for a long time.

  His brother Arnie is a very close friend of mine.”

  Mundin shrugged. “Come on, then. I’m going to the Hall anyhow.”

  Mundin stalked sourly ahead of his client, his mind on G-M-L Homes. The hope kept hammering at his good sense—maybe he could pull it off. Maybe . . .

  Norvell followed contentedly enough through the rain. Everything was being ordered for him. He was out of a job, he had been in jail, he was hours and hours late for Virginia without a word of explanation—but none of it had been his own decision.

  Decisions would come later. That would be the hard part.

  Norvell stared around the Hall curiously. It wasn’t as impressive as one might expect—though maybe, he thought, you had to admire the Regular Republicans for their common touch. There was certainly nothing showy about the place.

  Norvell stopped, politely out of earshot, as Mundin spoke to a dark, sharp-featured man in shirt sleeves. Some kind of janitor, he guessed. He was astonished when Mundin called him over and introduced the man as Del Dworcas.

  Norvell said, “I’m really delighted to meet you, Mr. Dworcas. Your brother Arnie
is very proud of you. He and I are very good friends.”

  Dworcas asked irrelevantly, “Live around here?”

  “Oh, no. Quite some distance away, but—”

  Dworcas seemed to lose interest. “Glad to meet you. You want to see Arnie, he’s in Hussein’s, across the street. Now, Charles, what was it you wanted to see me about?”

  Norvell was left standing with his hand extended. He blinked a little, but—after all, he reminded himself, Mr. Dworcas was a busy man.

  On the way downstairs, he caught a glimpse of the time. It was after eleven!

  ARNIE was at a table by himself reading. He looked up as Norvell came close and hastily put the magazine away.

  Norvell smiled and slipped into a vacant seat. “Surprised to see me?”

  Arnie frowned. “What are you doing here?”

  Norvell lost his smile. “Can—can I have some coffee, Arnie? I came out without any money.” Arnie looked mildly outraged, but beckoned the grinning waiter.

  Then Norvell told him—about the jail, and Mundin, and Del Dworcas.

  “You’ve had a busy day,” Arnie said humorously. “I’m glad you met Del, though—he’s a prince. Incidentally, I’ve taken the liberty of asking a couple of associates to the Field Day. So when you get the tickets—”

  “Arnie—”

  “When you get the tickets, will you pick up three extras?”

  “Arnie, listen to me. I can’t get the tickets.”

  “You what?”

  “I got fired today. That’s why I didn’t have any money.”

  There was a pause. Dworcas began looking through his pockets for a cigarette. He found the pack and put it absently on the table in front of him without lighting one. He said nothing.

  Norvell said apologetically, “It wasn’t my fault, Arnie. This rat Stimmens—” He told what had happened at the office, concluding, “It’s going to be all right, Arnie. Don’t worry about me. It’s like you said—maybe I should have canceled long ago. I’ll make a fresh start in Belly Rave. Virginia can help me; she knows her way around there. We’ll find some place that isn’t too bad, you know, and get it fixed up. Some of those old houses are pretty interesting. And it’s only a question of time until—”