Collected Short Fiction

by C. M. Kornbluth

  “Power on,” he said quietly.

  Gaynor threw the switch of the generator, and the power trickled through—perhaps forty thousand volts. There was a dull roaring through the apparatus as Clair swung in the prime switch and moved over the rheostat. Suddenly he was afraid—what if they had been wrong? What if they hadn’t moved, and were locked forever within a limitless prison of space? “Ten seconds,” he said licking his lips.

  Jocelyn opened the shutter with a gesture that had in it something of defiance. There, twinkling before them were a myriad points of light that cut into their souls like icy knives.

  Quietly she said, “Thence issuing, we again beheld the stars.”

  CHAPTER SIX

  Stars and Men

  THE universe they were in was an agreeably middle-aged one, with few giants and a majority of dwarf suns. They didn’t know whether it was theirs or one similar, and they didn’t much care. They knew that they had only to encounter a reasonably civilized race to provide them with equipment and perhaps some days that were not endless struggle to survive.

  What the three voyagers needed was rest. Their chronometer lopped the day into three arbitrary sections which saw always one asleep, one at the lookout plate and one handling the powerful driving engines. They roared along at a speed inconceivable, yet traveling two weeks before the nearest star became apparent as a disk.

  Jocelyn was at the port sighting the body with an instrument that would give them its approximate distance, size, and character. “About five hours away from a landing,” she announced. “Type, red giant.”

  “Five hours?” asked Gaynor.

  “Right. I can’t see planets yet, if there are any. I don’t know that they’re typical of giant stars.”

  “There may be some,” said Gaynor, his fingers feeling the pulse of fluid in a tube. “And they may be inhabited. And the people may be advanced enough to give us what we want. Then it’s home for us all—eh? Maybe you’ll get your articles printed after all.”

  Her haggard face curved into a smile. “And maybe you’ll see the look on Billikin’s face when you show him those formulae.”

  “Maybe. Somehow I don’t feel inclined to doubt it.”

  Their chronometer uttered a sharp warning peal, and Clair was awake at once. “To bed, woman,” he said. “The dominant male takes over.” She handed him the instrument and the slip of paper on which her calculations had been made, and with a feeble gesture of hope and cheer for both of them disappeared behind her curtain.

  “Extraordinary woman,” said Clair after a pause. “Yeah. I don’t see how she keeps going.”

  “I’m damned if I see how any of us keep going!” cried Clair with a sudden burst of temper.

  Gaynor looked at him sharply. “Hold on to yourself, Art,” he said. “As the lion said, it always gets darker before it gets lighter. How about that sun out there? Take an observation, will you?”

  Clair adjusted the minute lenses and mirrors of the device and read off the result from its calibrated scale. “About three hours at our present rate. But its gravity’ll take hold and speed us up most helpful. I think I see a planet.”

  “Look again—I think you’re mistaken.”

  “Right—I am. It’s a meteorite headed our way. Deflect to the left a few degrees if you want to stay healthy.”

  The ship veered sharply and a great, dark body passed them in silence.

  “Maybe we’d better dodge that sun entirely, Paul,” said Clair. “It might drag us in.”

  “I have my reasons for taking this course. Look at the fuel tank,” said Gaynor shortly.

  Clair bent over the panel of dials that was the heart of the ship. He read aloud from an indicator. “Twenty-three liters of driving juice left.” There was a long pause. “Pretty bad, isn’t it, Paul?”

  “Extremely so. When we get near enough that sun I’m going to play its gravity for all its worth. We have to get somewhere fast or we don’t get anywhere at . . .

  “BY THE way,” he added, “Jocelyn doesn’t know where we stand with the fuel. Suppose we don’t let her know until she has to. Right?”

  “Check,” said Clair. “Maybe she has a right to know, but personally I feel more comfortable in my superior misery.” He swallowed a food tablet. They were just starting on them—all the roughage diet had been consumed.

  They were nearing the huge red sun, now. “Steady on the course, if you’re going to take her through,” said Clair. “If not, deflect up about twenty degrees and level out on three degrees of elevation.”

  “I’m taking her through, all right,” said Gaynor grimly. “And us with her!” Reckless of the engines he clamped down an iron hand on the controls and the blunt little vessel shot forward, it speed redoubled.

  The glare from the nearby sun lit up the engine-room with a feverish glow; Clair by the port seemed to be watching an Earthly sunset, the gaunt lines of his face picked out sharply by the somber light. The light grew as they swung across the face of the star, and became intolerably bright. Clair abruptly slammed the shutter of the port. “We can’t risk blindness just here and now,” he said thinly.

  They felt the ship leap ahead under their feet; gravity was asserting itself once more as they came into the sway of the monster sun. The eyes of the two men were glued to the speed indicator. It mounted from its already incredible figure, then, as Gaynor abruptly cut off the flow of driving power, quivered down—halted—again began to mount. It rose and doubled, and the heat rose with it, beating through the thin metal walls of the vessel. Glaring streaks of light streamed through microscopic cracks in the metal shutter against the port. An indicator needle swung crazily on the instrument panel; the air and body of the ship was taking on a dangerously high potential of electricity.

  Clair opened the shutter and winced as the stream of radiation hit his face. “We’re past it,” he said. “How’s our speed?”

  Gaynor examined the panel. “Constant,” he said. “As soon as it lets down we can boost it with a bit of driving.” He examined the potential indicator. “Look at that, Art!” he exclaimed. “God help the first meteorite that tries to get near us!”

  Jocelyn appeared from behind her curtain. “Congratulations,” she said. “That was a neat piece of corner-cutting. Where do we go from here?”

  “I’m sure I don’t know,” said Gaynor wearily as the eight hour bell clanged. “Take over, Miss E. He walked to his bunk, already half asleep.

  The girl swallowed a few food tablets and took the controls. “Human interest,” she said.

  “Sure,” said Clair absently. “Great guy, Pavel.”

  “And what did I hear about the fuel?” she asked suddenly vicious.

  “Just that there isn’t enough of it,” said Clair innocently. “We were worried about you worrying about it.”

  “I see,” said the girl. “Big brother stuff. Don’t let that foolish woman know. She’d only make a fuss about it when there’s nothing we can do to help it. The female’s place is on the farm with the other domesticated stock, huh?” She stuck her chin out belligerently.

  “Excuse us.” said Clair. “We were misguided by each other. Now that you know, so what? That makes the three of us a happy little family in a happy little hearse squibbing ourselves God knows where until our fuel runs dry. Then we drift. And drift and drift and drift. So what? For a good night’s sleep without that goddamn bell I’d cut your throat, young lady, and throw you to the wolves.”

  She laughed happily. “Now that’s the kind of talk I like to hear.” she said. “Good, honest whimsy.” Then Clair laughed and started her laughing again. They were sobered somewhat by a great gout of light and a crackling roar that shook the ship from stem to stern.

  “What was that?” she asked. “Or is it another one of your secrets?”

  “I think we can let you in on it,” he said. “Just an inoffensive meteorite that came too near us and got blown to hell for its pains. We picked up a lot of excess juice around that red giant, and we
just got our chance to fire it off at something.”

  “Poor little meteorite!” she gurgled, and they were laughing again.

  TWO weeks later no laughter could be heard on the little vessel. Three haggard and gaunt human beings sprawled grotesquely on the floor. The taste of food had not been in their mouths for days, and for them there was no sleep. The stars that had been once a hope and a prayer to them glittered mockingly through their port, oblivious to so small a thing as human want.

  Gaynor stirred himself. “Art,” he said. “Yeah?”

  “I suppose you recall our little discussion on the ethics of cannibalism back there—Outside?”

  “I hope you’re not making a concrete proposal, chum. I’d hate to think so.”

  “No, Art. But you remember what our talk led to? Think hard, you fuzz-brained chimpanzee.”

  “Insults will get you nowhere at this point,” interrupted Jocelyn. “What are the male animals discussing?”

  “Ways and means,” said Gaynor. “I’ll put it this way. If you didn’t want to either eat your best friends or be eaten by them and you know that unless you ceased to exist shortly you would be compelled to eat them or be eaten by them—well, what would you do?”

  “I think I understand,” said Jocelyn slowly. “I’ve read about it time and again and shuddered at the thought—but now it’s different. I’d hate to eat you, little Pavlik, but if we don’t—do something—we’ll be thinking about it in silence and then comes the drawing of straws or the flip of a coin and one of us gets brained from behind.”

  “I’ll get the stuff,” said Clair wearily dragging himself to his feet. He was heard to smash bottles in the storeroom, then returned with the flask of whiskey and a little paper box.

  The others took cups and presented them; shakily he poured the liquor, slopping on the floor as much as went into the cups.

  “What does the trick?” asked Gaynor curiously.

  “Mercury compound,” he answered shortly, and tried to open the box. He spilled the tablets on the floor, and they bent agedly to pick theirs up.

  “Two apiece is enough,” said Clair thinly. They dropped the pellets into the liquid. Gaynor was delighted to see that it bubbled brightly. He inhaled the bouquet of the whiskey.

  “No doubt about it in the mind of any gentlemen worth the name,” he said. “House of MacTeague is far and away the best that money can buy.”

  “You’re right, Pavlik,” said Jocelyn. She rested her cup momentarily on the indicator panel. She felt as though the floor were swaying beneath her feet. “Is the ship moving?” she asked.

  “No,” said Gaynor. “At least, no acceleration.” Jocelyn proposed the toast: “To—us. The hunters and the hunted; the seekers and the sought; the quick and the dead. To us!”

  THE others didn’t repeat the toast. Something was wrong. Clair spun around, his face picked out in a green glow that had never been seen before. They dropped their cups and crowded at the port. The ship was surrounded by a bright green glow that leaked even through the pores of the ship’s metal hull. Gaynor turned to the speed indicator. “Look!” he cried hoarsely.

  The device had smashed itself attempting to record a fabulous figure.

  Back at the port they saw one star that grew.

  “We’re held and drawn by a beam of some sort,” excitedly Clair explained. “We’re headed for that sun!”

  As the disk of that star grew great in their heaven the ship slowed its mad flight. They could see a planetary system now. The beam had shot from one of those worlds.

  Swift as thought their vessel shot down on one of the worlds. The green beam was more intense now; they could see that it emanated from a great structure on the planet. There were lights—dams—cities—great scored lines in the surface of the world that might have been roads.

  The beam suddenly became a brake; they descended slowly and in state. A great concrete plain came in view—it was the roof of a building. There were first specks, then figures standing there. As the ship came to rest through the port they could see them as people—human beings—beautiful and stately.

  It wasn’t Earth, nor even much like it. But it was all that they wanted it to be—a point from which they might continue their wanderings, get rest and food, equipment and knowledge to set them on the right trail for home.

  THE END

  The Return of the Indefatigible Minimum

  (a 6-part serial—60 words—here)

  1.

  “But Mike”, she cried sharply, “I thought that the Minimum—”

  2.

  “Nonsense, young man”, the president snorted. “Do you think I—?”

  3.

  Men and women fled through the streets screaming in terror.

  4.

  “We haven’t a chance against this monster from Hell”, he sobbed weakly.

  5.

  “Mike, I have an idea.”

  “By God, honey, you’re right!”

  6.

  “My darling wife!” he breathed, folding her in his arms.

  finis

  Nova Midplane

  The heroes of “Before the Universe” return in an exciting tale of scientific adventure in another universe.

  CHAPTER ONE

  The Gaylens

  EXCEPT for Gaynor’s snores, and the rustle of Clair twitching around in the bed, the room was very quiet. It was warm, and dusky, and altogether a pleasant room to sleep in . . .

  Until, coming through the glass walls, light began streaming in, from a rapidly rising sun. Quickly the room got brighter and brighter: then, suddenly, there was a faint click from Gaynor’s bed, a buzz, and violently the bed turned over catapulting Gaynor to the floor, where he landed with an awakening yell and a thud. A second later, Clair’s bed ejected its occupant as well.

  Clair groaned and shoved himself to his feet. “I must be getting used to this, Paul,” he said. “It didn’t bother me much today.”

  “You may be getting used to it. There are some things that I’ll never get used to,” murmured Gaynor drowsily, holding his head in his arms. “The gas they use to put us to sleep every night, for instance. It makes me itch like the devil.”

  “Me too,” said Clair, busily inspecting his teeth in a mirror. “I must be allergic to the stuff to some extent. We’ll have to tell Gooper. Otherwise I might begin to break out with big rashes.”

  “And you wouldn’t like that to happen to your screen-idol pan, would you?” sneered Gaynor viciously.

  “Why not, bud?” snapped Clair, putting on a pair of socks weft of every color of the rainbow.

  “Jocelyn might not like it—that’s why not,” said his friend, peering at Clair’s socks, and then selecting a somewhat gaudier pair for himself.

  “And what if it isn’t Jocelyn?”

  With a start Gaynor straightened up and stared at his companion. “If it isn’t Jocelyn,” he said wonderingly, “who or what—is it?”

  “My business alone.”

  They weren’t about to slug each other as a casual observer might have supposed. Fighting wortds before breakfast were only one of the inexplicable habits that had kept these two together for most of their young lives.

  They made a strange pair—physicists both, and in perfect symbiosis. One was a practical engineer, fully qualified to toss around murderous voltages or pack them in little glass tubes of the other’s design and inspiration. Perhaps they were drawn together by a mutual love for practical jokes of the lowest sort—like rigging up chairs with high-voltage, low-wattage electrical contacts, or cooking up delicious formal dinners which crumbled into gray powder before the eyes of the horrified guest.

  Be that as it may—they were here. Where here was they did not know, nor could they have any way of knowing, so, as was their way, they made the best of whatever happened to them, though their present weird fix was probably the most unexpected incident in two unpredictable careers that moved as one.

  “ART,” said Gaynor warningly, “Jocelyn
wouldn’t like for us to be late.”

  “Good lord!” cried Clair resonantly. “Is she waiting for us?”

  “Sure she is. We were supposed to have breakfast with her. Don’t you remember?”

  “I thought this was screen-test day,” said Clair hopelessly. “These Gaylens have the most confused notion of the number of appointments a man can keep at one time.”

  “We have the screen-tests after breakfast,” said Gaynor. “Or that seemed to be the idea.” He draped an exceptionally fancy shawl about his shoulders.

  “Like it?” he said, capering before his friend.

  “All right for here,” said Clair grudgingly. “But don’t try to get away with that on Broadway. You’d be picked up in a second.”

  “This isn’t Broadway. Come on.”

  Arm in arm, they strolled down a short stretch of corridor and stepped onto an undulating platform. Gaynor kicked at a protruding stud at his feet, and the thing went into motion, carrying them to the very door of a vaulted concourse of glass. There they dismounted and looked around the immense place.

  A tall girl with the pale face of a perfect cameo, save that her eyes and the corners of her mouth were touched with something that the Italian carvers of the middle ages had never dreamed could be in the face of a woman—vivacity and wit—approached them.

  “Ah, friends,” she said bitterly.

  “Sorry we’re late,” said Gaynor with a soft, foolish look on his face.

  “Where do we eat, Jocelyn?” asked Clair practically.

  “Right over here,” she said as she piloted them to a long table with curiously slung hammocks for seats. “I’ve ordered.”

  “I don’t see how you pick these things up,” sighed Gaynor unhappily. “I’ve been trying to master their menus for weeks, and still every time I want food I get glue or a keg of nails.”

  “They must think you’re mechanically inclined. Here are the eats.” Jocelyn spoke as she saw a little disk set into the table begin slowly to revolve, a signal to take off elbows and hands under pain of being scalded. The top of the table neatly flipped over, and there before them was a breakfast according to the best Gaylen tradition.