The 34th Golden Age of Science Fiction: C.M. Kornbluth

by C. M. Kornbluth

  “Ask him in for cocktails—later,” came the voice more clearly. “We take care of our own, don’t we, darling?”

  Joan smiled impersonally at the rug man. “We’re crowded now with the porter,” she said. “But I’d love to have you in for a—a sundowner.” She turned again: “Is that what you called it, Mona?”

  “Only in the tropics, darling. My, what a draft!”

  “About six?” Joan smiled at Boyce, and closed the door. And her smile had had something crazy about it. From her eyes there seemed to scream a plea: Get me out of this! For God’s sake, get me out of here!

  Boyce stood in the corridor, bemused, as the porter bustled out, wearing a grin that clicked off as he closed the door. He looked at Boyce for a moment and hurried to his cubbyhole at the end of the car. His annuciator board must have dropped a number. A moment later he popped out again wearily, squared his shoulders, and trudged to another door and rapped politely.

  An old woman opened the door a grudging few inches and snarled: “You took long enough, I must say. It’s getting cold in here. You tell the conductor or the engineer or whoever is responsible that Mr. and Mrs. Brining insist on a reasonable temperature being maintained. Mr. Brining suffers from asthma and diabetes. Do you understand that? Asthma and diabetes. Be sure to tell him that.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” said the porter sympathetically. “I surely will, this minute. Is that all, ma’am?”

  “That’s all, boy.” The door slammed shut and the porter’s shoulders slumped as he trudged back to his cubbyhole.

  Weaving down the aisle came Foreman, his pockets bulging.

  “Hello, Boyce,” he said, and jerked his thumb at the closed compartment door. “They receiving?”

  “No,” Boyce grunted. “Cocktails at six.”

  “Booze. Fine. Come on-a my house, Boyce. Have a cocktail with me at eleven or whatever the hell time it is. We can listen to whatever crap they’re dishing out on the radio.”

  “You have a radio? I never thought of that. Maybe we can find out—”

  “The hell we can. I’ve covered hassles like this. All the radio will do is quote the railroad public relations men. All the public relations men will do is say everything’s going to be okay in a couple of hours.”

  The lights dimmed perceptibly as they marched down the corridor, and stayed dim.

  “What’s that?” Boyce demanded irritably.

  “This is a diesel-electric, friend. Diesels generate electricity and electricity makes the wheels go around, supplies heat and supplies light. I guess they’re skimping on the light to give us more heat longer.”

  They were passing through the fabric-covered tunnel-link between cars as he spoke, and the cold cut like a knife.

  They got where they were going, and Foreman collapsed morosely onto his berth and after a moment began to go through his pockets and methodically set train bottles of liquor on the shelf. “What’ll you have?” he demanded. “We seem to have acquired a mixed batch of bourbon, Scotch—white and black label—blended rye and for God’s sake a bottle of Cointreau.”

  “Where’d you get them?” asked Boyce, astonished.

  “There was a slight moral breakdown in the club car. I and about a dozen respectable businessmen ran amuck and pillaged the stocks. Rape and murder are still in the cards,” he said broodingly.

  “You’re pretty drunk.”

  “You’re pretty too, Boyce, but let’s not start that. There’s enough of it going on.”

  “For God’s sake, lay off me!”

  Foreman paused and seemed surprised. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I don’t know what the hell’s wrong with me. Nothing but fights, fights, fights since I got aboard—even with that jerk of a lieutenant. For no reason at all there I was practically begging him to take a swing at me.” He shook his head.

  “You’re drinking too much,” Boyce said doggedly. “You work in a higher-pressure line than I do, but business is business and I’ve got more experience than you. I’m older and I missed the war. Liquor isn’t going to do you a damn bit of good. I’ve seen them come and go for, God, it must be eighteen years now. They start like you and they wind up in the gutter unless they knock off the stuff. If you want to get anywhere, if you want to be respected, you’ve got to control it and not let it control you.”

  Foreman asked, with real interest: “You don’t believe any of that crap, do you?”

  Boyce said wearily, after a pause: “I guess not. Not today, anyway. I’ve believed it for eighteen years, though. And what did it get me?”

  Foreman laughed harshly. “Come, let us sit upon the ground together and tell sad stories of the death of salesmen. Do you know when I decided I was going to get the hell out of the news business? When I looked one day at my typewriter and saw that I was writing the obituary of a horse. Man O’ War, old Big Red, but still a horse. What kind of way is that to spend your life?”

  Boyce said: “So you quit the news business and lived happily ever after. Congratulations. I wish I had your nerve.”

  Foreman didn’t seem to have heard him. He was staring straight ahead and saying: “—and now I can’t get out. Not ever. They’ve got me for life.” There was panic in his eyes. Boyce had the sudden, startled feeling that below the drinking, the kidding and the cynicism, this panic was Foreman’s eternal bedrock.

  He cleared his throat. “You said you have a radio—”

  “Yeah. Sure. What the hell was I talking about?” He got the portable from his suitcase and opened and oriented it.

  Static sputtered and then there was music. Reception was poor, but it was unmistakably the Bing Crosby record of White Christmas. Foreman looked through the window and grinned humorlessly. “Liquor’s dying in me,” he said. “I think I’ll let it die.” He got out his overcoat, a bulky fleece-lined beaver-collared storm coat.

  “You’re really ready,” Boyce said, staring at it.

  “I guess every Chicago legman has one like this,” Foreman said comfortably. “You go out at three A.M. on a February morning to cover a fire or a collision on the Drive and if you haven’t got one you get one as soon as the shops open. Dentistry can wait, Household Finance Corp. can wait. You get a storm coat.”

  “It must be an exciting life,” Boyce said wistfully.

  “It stinks on dry ice,” Foreman said. “Here’s a ’cast.”

  The radio was saying blurrily something about giant snowplows and Air Force spotter planes and record-breaking drifts and record-breaking cattle losses and Federal disaster aid rushed through Congress and: “Here is a late bulletin. The Golden Gate Express, overdue Chicago-San Francisco streamliner, has been sighted by Air Force spotter planes from Chanute Air Force Base drifted in at Raton Pass. Nearest settlement is Rush City, some eight miles north of the stalled streamliner. Tricky mountain air currents made it impossible for the Air Force planes to land, but emergency rations were dropped. The crack streamliner is the target of giant railroad snowplows crawling through the record-breaking drifts on a mission of mercy. Phone and telegraph lines to Rush City are down, but—” the rest was static.

  Boyce looked wonderingly at Foreman. “What was that about emergency rations?”

  “Air Force P.R.O. stuff. Sure they dropped them. Did you notice he didn’t say where?” He slammed the lid of the radio shut furiously. “That butterball that was going to have the baby,” he said. “Maybe she can use this goddamn coat if the cold gets any worse.”

  “Why—that’s a very nice thought. And a very good idea.”

  “Okay, okay. Come on.”

  They went out into a steady flow of passengers heading for the diner, not running, but walking a good stiff heel-and-toe, casting sidelong glances, not letting themselves be passed. First luncheon call wouldn’t be for a half-hour yet, but half the train was congesting the corridor. The funny-looking little dining car attendant was exhorting
them: “Please, ladies and gentlemen, there will be enough for all! This it totally unnecessary! You’ll simply make yourselves uncomfortable by having to stand around—”

  They were paying him absolutely no attention. They wouldn’t, any of them, let him hold them up a single second because then they might number 167 in line instead of number 165. Plain on every face was fear that there would be exactly one serving of lunch too few.

  The lights were dimmer still as they drifted with the tide of passengers.

  “This is it,” Boyce said, and knocked.

  Dr. Groves opened the door. “Hello there,” he said cordially. And then his face fell as he got a blast of Foreman’s breath.

  “Don’t tell me off please, doctor,” the newsman said hastily, shrugging out of the stormcoat. “I was wondering if the little lady could use this.”

  “She certainly can,” the doctor-preacher said, beaming. “You’re the answer to a prayer, sir. All the spare blankets and a few that aren’t spares seem to have evaporated. I’m afraid some people are hoarding and the maids and porters must be in on it, too. They just look blank and say they don’t know anything about—”

  “She’ll die, won’t she?” Foreman interrupted.

  Dr. Groves said quietly: “I think so. In view of that, do you wish to withdraw the offer of your coat?”

  Foreman thought incredulously: He’s got me mixed up with some superstitious peasant he converted somewhere. He’s got me mixed up with a nice, sanitary white-collar professional young man who never saw a stiff that wasn’t laid out and painted for a funeral. He doesn’t know my arches were high and my eardrums unperforated and that therefore I made the long journey through ZI, through ComZ, to the line. That after one particular three-week spell in a defensive position I went way back, two whole miles, hundreds of yards behind the division artillery, with messages for Regiment and spent the night there at Regiment in sybaritic luxury. There was a chow line, hot food and non-instant coffee made with water that had really boiled. There was a stable, only partially demolished by shelling, to sleep in. There was a litter to sleep on! A springy canvas litter with legs! It smelled strongly for it was one of the litters used by the Graves Registration Section to collect bodies, but he hadn’t given it a moment’s thought. In the peace and quiet back there, way behind the artillery, he had even taken off his boots for the night…

  “That’s all right,” he said to the doctor. “It won’t bother me at all.”

  “Good,” said the doctor. And then, very reluctantly, he added: “Foreman?”

  “Yes?”

  “I don’t pretend to know the first thing about drunkenness. There are theories. Down at Texas State University they say it’s biochemical. Up at Yale they say it’s psychogenic. All I know is that the United States is having a rather severe epidemic of it right now. It’s been worse; in the 1840’s there was a strong possibility that drunkenness was going to cripple the country as a whole, but somehow it didn’t happen. The point is, Foreman, that I feel like making an educated guess about you. I think you’re the sort of fellow who’s a good candidate to make the triple play. Alcoholism to nephritis to apoplexy.”

  “With all respect, doctor, mind your own business, will you?”

  “Very well,” said the doctor, with neither insult nor disappointment showing on his face. He heard a groan from behind the compartment door and said: “Excuse me.” He took the coat, mysteriously held up two fingers in a V-for-victory sign, and popped back into the compartment. The door closed to the sound of another groan of immense visceral effort.

  “V for victory?” Foreman marveled.

  “Two fingers’ dilation of the cervix, sergeant,” a woman snapped. It was the lieutenant’s red-head.

  “Oh—hello,” Foreman said. “How did you know and what does it mean?”

  “Every woman knows about it. Doctors and nurses do that in the hospital to keep the mother-to-be guessing or something. Four fingers is it.”

  “You mean the baby’s on its way?”

  “That’s what I mean, sergeant. The cervix dilates to four centimeters and then second-stage labor begins and the baby gets born. Do you know the doctor? I’ve got to talk to him.” Hysteria edged her voice.

  Junkie stuff. She wouldn’t have started the trip without enough to carry her through, and a safety margin. She couldn’t possibly have used up all her fixes; they weren’t that much overdue. She was scared—just plain scared that she’d run short. She was going to con or coax the doctor out of whatever she could—

  “Did you know he’s a preacher?” Foreman asked carefully. “A medical missionary? And a shrewd, tough baby with an even shrewder, tougher wife who acts as his nurse?”

  “Oh, God,” she said, and looked sick. She wasn’t even dismayed that he had seen through her, or that Boyce was listening in bewilderment. She hurried down the corridor, distractedly.

  “Now what was that all about?” the rug man asked.

  “We were just kidding around,” Foreman said.

  “I’m not convinced.”

  “I can’t help that.”

  The luncheon chimes began to bong, plenty early.

  “I guess,” Foreman said groping wildly for a change of subject, “they figure on running that crowd through as fast as possible.”

  “I guess so. Think I’ll get in line. You coming along?”

  “I’ll find a sweater or two to put on. I’ll see you.”

  They parted, Boyce hurt at being shut out of some cryptic byplay and Foreman sorry that Boyce was hurt and glad he had an out.

  The red-head was reclining on his berth when he got back to the compartment.

  “I thought I left the door locked,” he said.

  “You did, sergeant. The porter had a key and I had a dollar. It was as simple as that. But you can lock the door now if you don’t feel safe.”

  “I feel a hell of a lot safer with it unlocked. What can I do for you?”

  She crossed her legs nicely and said: “Sergeant, don’t you read anything at all? The last three runaway best-sellers have been about N.C.O.s making love to officers’ wives.”

  He grinned humorlessly. “After the N.C.O.s steal a few jolts of M from the doctor’s little black bag for the officers’ wives?”

  She licked her lips, suddenly thin and pale, but smiled the standard low-lidded smile that passes for sexual invitation in the movies and elsewhere. “After or before, sergeant. Try me? I’m good …”

  Hot hunger overcame him for this calculating slut. Corruption knows corruption, he thought again. She’s all I rate; I’m poison now to a clean kid.

  “You’d better be,” he said half-sullenly, and locked the door.

  Chapter XXVI

  SNOW

  Mrs. Groves plowed through the crowd like a small tornado. “Where is he?” she demanded. “I’m the nurse.” She displayed her husband’s black doctor’s bag.

  They gave way, and she saw the boy, still bundled up, his face beet-red except for his nose, which was a dead, unhealthy white. She began to strip his outer clothes off and muttered: “God help him!” when she saw the right hand.

  “The people who brought him in,” she said, not looking up as she wound a dressing on the hand. “Are they all right?”

  The tall trainman said: “Yes, ma’am. We kept moving and we had more on than him—”

  “Good. Help me with his boots, will you?”

  The toes were in bad shape; double socks had helped.

  She straightened up. “Somebody should watch him. Bring him some food. And find me if there’s any change …”

  The boy stirred and groaned.

  Mrs. Groves thought: He’ll be screaming in a minute. Decisively she prepared a morphine sulphate hypo and shot it into his arm. She didn’t approve of indiscriminate drugging; it could lead to serious consequences for the patient. B
ut the nervous crowd was on the edge of panic. If she let the boy scream with pain and fear, there might be a stampede.

  She pulled her coat around her shoulders. Cold was beginning to leak into the train… the kind of cold that had seared the boy’s face and hand and feet like fire.

  And she trotted back down the car to return the doctor’s bag to her husband. The Mackenzie woman might be giving birth this very minute…

  Chapter XXVII

  OF COURSE THE FRENCH

  “They’re ringing first call for lunch,” Joan said doubtfully to Mona Greer. “Perhaps it wasn’t necessary …”

  “Luncheon is one thing, darling,” Mona said derisively. “Dinner’s another. Especially when supplies for it were to be loaded at Phoenix. Now help me pin this blanket over the window. It’s cooling off fast in here and that will help. And I think we’d better try some of la chauffage centrale francaise.”

  “French central heating?”

  “Cognac, little one. The French swig it day and night from September to March. God! Paris in November! It doesn’t fall below forty degrees, ever, but the damp in those pretty stone walls crawls into your marrow until you think nothing will ever get you warm again. In spite of their reputation for following the golden mean, the French are the drunkards of Europe. They don’t get the credit for it because they don’t get falling-down drunk like the English and the Germans; they get lit in the morning and nurse it along through the day until bedtime. It’s their filthy climate, of course.”

  The blanket was pinned up, and it did intercept the thin draft from the window, as well as much of the light. Mona poured cognac and they drank.

  “The French,” she went on, “are the only civilized nation who ever had an absinthe problem. A good deal of nonsense has been circulated about absinthe containing drugs that rot the brain, and so forth. That’s not true. Absinthe is simply commercially-pure alcohol, about 190 proof, doped up with anise and other flavors until it’s drinkable. The beastly Arabs and Moroccans drank it as you’d expect, and then the civilized world encountered it. Nobody took to the muck except… of course… the French. It had to be outlawed as a narcotic… stupefiant in French, which God knows it was. It was smuggled in anyway, of course.”