Collected Short Fiction

by C. M. Kornbluth

  Gaynor swore under his breath as he stared with a pale face at the wormy mass before him.

  “Highly nutritious, I’m told,” commented Jocelyn, plunging into her dish of the same with a utensil that looked like the spawn of a gyroscope and one of the more elaborate surgical instruments.

  Gaynor dug in determinedly, thinking of bacon and eggs and toast and orange juice and strong coffee—in fact, of every delicious breakfast he had ever eaten on Earth before setting off on this screwiest of all journeys ever undertaken by man.

  He was staring at the empty plate with a sort of morbid fascination when a Gaylen came up to their table.

  “QUITE finished?” asked the Gaylen.

  “Quite,” said Gaynor and Clair simultaneously. “Oh, quite.”

  “Then we shall now go to the recording studio,” said the Gaylen. “Our duty to posterity must not be delayed.”

  “Okay, Gooper,” said Clair. “But who does the talking?”

  “All of you. Or whomever you want.”

  They mounted the moving ramp again, this time riding far into the recesses of the building before getting off into a glass-walled room obviously very thoroughly insulated against sound and vibration.

  “Address that wall,” said Gooper, pointing to a black, plastered partition. He was outside the glass.

  “When does it go on?” asked Jocelyn.

  “It went on the moment you entered,” said the Gaylen with a smile. “Now begin at the beginning.” Clair took a deep breath. Since neither of the others seemed anxious to speak, he began. “Well, my partners and I,” he said, “are from a planet known as Earth—the third major satellite of a yellow dwarf star which may or may not be in this present universe. We don’t know where it is—or where we are.”

  He stopped, waiting for one of the others to take up the tale.

  “Go ahead, Art,” said Gaynor. “You’re doing fine.”

  Reluctantly, Clair continued. “Uh—well, we freely acknowledge that we never expected to get here. In fact, we weren’t exactly sure that we’d ever get anywhere alive, since we were the first to experiment with a hitherto unknown—or unutilized, at least—force which we called protomagnetism.

  “This force, protomagnetism, had quite a resemblance to the common phenomenon of ferromagnetism. The big difference was that it didn’t act on the same substances, and that the force appeared to come from somewhere pretty strange. Where that somewhere was, we didn’t know—don’t know yet.

  “But we built a ship—we called it the Prototype—which had, as its motive power, a piece of the element most favored by protomagnetism. We figured that, soon as we let it, the proto would drag on the element and pull it, together with the attached ship, to whatever place in space it came from. We also have artificial gravity for directing the ship in normal space, and plenty of food and oxygen regenerators—everything we could think of.

  “That’s the way we’d planned it, and that’s the way it worked. I forgot to mention, though, that at the last moment we found we had to ship an extra passenger, a Miss Jocelyn Earle—the female among us—who was a newspaperwoman of sorts.

  “Well—we got to the source of proto and found ourselves in a universe of perfect balance—a one hundred percent equipoise of particles distributed evenly through infinite space, each acting equally on every other. But, naturally, we upset all that. Our ship coming into that closed system was plenty sufficient to joggle a few of the particles out of position. Those particles joggled more, and more, and then the whole thing seemed to blow up in our face.

  “Anyway, after a couple of false starts into some pretty weird planes and dimensions, we managed to get into this present space-time frame. This wasn’t too good either, because we couldn’t seem to find a planet by the hit-or-miss method. Planets were too scarce, especially the oxygen-bearing atmosphere-cum-oxidized-hydrogen hydrosphere type—unfortunately, the only type that could do us any good.

  “Well—we couldn’t find a planet—and we didn’t find a planet. This planet reached out and found us. The first thing we knew, there was a tractor beam of sorts on us and we were snatched down out of the sky onto your very lovely world. Then you Gaylens crept up on us and slapped mechanical educators on us and taught us your language at the cost of a couple of bad headaches.

  “It was a sort of a fantastic coincidence, we thought; until we found out that Gooper over there had been scanning the heavens for quite a while, looking for a new planet, or a wandering star, or anything that might be important enough to win him recognition. We would be ungrateful to say anything against our savior, but I admit we had some rather generally bitter reactions when we found that practically Gooper’s sole reason for dragging us down out of the sky—his sole reason for having been looking at the sky, that is—was the hope of earning himself a name. One of the principal things I would like to do here is to establish our terrestrial system of nomenclature. Your way of giving every babe a serial number for identification, and making each person earn a name by doing something or discovering something of importance to the world may be right enough on a merit basis, but it seems to lead to complications.

  “So Gooper—the one who found us—is now known as Gaynor-Clair. To avoid confusion he is known among us as Cooper.”

  CHAPTER TWO

  Jocelyn Plays with Fire

  “THANK you,” said Gooper. “It’s turned off now. You have made a valuable contribution to our knowledge, friends. But may I impose on your generosity with your time a little further?”

  “Might as well,” said Clair bitterly.

  “A committee of our scientists wish to examine your ship, the Prototype. Will you explain to them its various functions?”

  “Sure,” said Gaynor. “Let’s go.”

  They mounted the ramp and traveled a short distance.

  Waiting for them was a group of about eight of their hosts, and Cooper introduced them hastily. Practically all of them had names—an accurate index of the scientific prowess of the group. One, a short, sweet-faced female, had been honored with the name of Ionic Intersection for an outstanding discovery she had made in that field. As Cooper presented her to Clair they both smiled.

  “We’ve met already,” said Clair.

  “To put it mildly,” laughed the girl. The Earthman shot her a warning look and muttered a word which Gaynor couldn’t quite hear—though he tried. So Gaynor began the lecture by conducting his hosts through the ship.

  “It’s a bit crowded here,” he said, “but, after all, we hadn’t planned that it should be big enough to hold more than two. Most of these gadgets—air regenerators, lighting system, and so forth—are undoubtedly familiar enough to you. And Cooper has told me that you know all about artificial gravity—though I’m still waiting for an explanation of why you don’t apply it, to commercial uses or to space-travel. But over here—come back into this room, please—is something that I’m pretty sure you don’t know anything about.” He beamed at Clair—this was the crowning achievement of their joint career.

  “Right there. What we call the ‘protolens’. That’s the thing that focusses the force of proto-magnetism on the tiny filament of—of an artificial element, atomic number 99. This element, like all the heavier ones, is—is like—The word he had sought was ‘radioactive,’ but he fumbled in vain for the Gaylen equivalent. “Say, Art,” he said in English, “what’s Gaylen for radium?”

  Clair was also stymied. “I don’t know that I’ve ever heard it. Will you” (to the Gaylens) “supply us with your word meaning an element of such nature that its atoms break down, forming other elements of lesser atomic weight and giving off—giving off an emanation in the process?”

  His hosts only looked blank. Ionic Intersection said, “On our world we have nothing of that nature.”

  Gaynor turned back to Clair. “How’s that, Art? I thought radioactivity was an essential of every element.”

  “Well, in a way, yes,” said his partner thoughtfully. “But only detectably in the ver
y heavy ones. And—Art—now that you think of it, have you seen, or heard any of our pals mention any of the really heavy elements? I haven’t—they don’t even use mercury in their lab thermometers. Although it would be a lot more efficient and accurate than the thermocouples they do have.”

  “I see what you mean,” Gaynor said excitedly. “All their heavy metals, being heavy and therefore radioactive, have broken down to the lighter ones. Why, Art, we’re in an old universe!”

  “Probably. Maybe just an old sun, though—after all, the development of an entire universe probably wouldn’t be uniform . . . So anyway, that might explain a lot of things about these Gaylens—why, with all their knowledge of science, they die like flies to carcinoma and other cancers, for instance. Maybe we’ve got something we can give them for a present, as a sort of payment for their saving our lives.” He smiled amiably at Ionic Intersection as he spoke, and the girl, though not understanding a word of their jabber in a “foreign tongue,” smiled back.

  Gaynor scratched his head. To the Gaylens he said, “This is going to take time to explain. More time than I’d figured, because this is the key-point of the structure of the Prototype. Let’s step outside.”

  “I’ll stay here,” said Ionic Intersection. “Provided one of you will be so good as to show me the mechanical features of the ship. I’m not covering electronics any more—I decided to let someone else make a name for himself there.”

  “Very commendable,” said Gaynor busily. “Jocelyn, point things out to the lady and see that nothing happens.”

  He, Clair, and the others filed out of the ship, and he leaned against the main door, swinging it shut, to continue his lecture.

  “Unfortunately,” he said, “I cannot demonstrate with a chunk of—of one of the elements I mean since we forgot to bring any along. But perhaps you have observed the phenomenon occasioned by the passing of an electric current through such inert gaseous elements as neon, argon, nitrogen, and so forth?”

  “It is one of the most vexing riddles of our science,” said one Gaylen.

  “Well, that is a phenomenon closely allied with the force of which we spoke. The particles of the gases—” and he droned on, trying to explain the incomprehensible to the Gaylens. Gaynor could not stand still while speaking—a habit acquired in the lecture rooms of half-a-dozen universities, he had to walk back and forth. He did so now, but completed just one lap. For, as he, still talking, turned.

  He saw the Prototype quietly, and as if by magic, vanish!

  Somehow, surely inadvertently, possibly in trying to produce a sample of radioactive matter in the condensers, Jocelyn had allowed the ship to be dragged out of this good universe once more by the awful force of protomagnetism.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Nova!

  THE Gaylens looked about blankly. “What happened?” asked one of them dumbly.

  “She started the ship!” choked Gaynor. “She’s gone. God knows where or how!”

  “Surely she can be traced,” said Gooper sympathetically.

  “How? There’s no such thing as a tracer for the Prototype—it might be anywhere and anytime, in any dimension or frame of the cosmos.”

  Clair nodded numb affirmation.

  One of the Gaylens coughed. “Then this is probably the best time to tell you . . .” he paused.

  “Tell us what?” snapped Gaynor eagerly.

  “Well—that you would be just as well off, in a way, if you were with your companion.”

  “I don’t understand,” said Gaynor, losing attention once more to the question of the whereabouts of Jocelyn and the Prototype.

  “This planet will soon be unsuited to your temperament and physique,” explained the Gaylen carefully.

  “Stop beating around the bush,” interjected Clair fiercely. “What’s the secret?”

  Gooper took over. “What he means,” he said, “is that now we should tell you what we have successfully concealed from you for the duration of your stay—not wishing to inhibit your pleasure at again attaining security. In short . . . our sun is about to become a nova. Within a matter of days, as we calculate it, and this planet will be well within the orbit of the expanding photosphere.”

  GAYNOR actually reeled with the shocking impact that the words carried.

  “But you—” he said inarticulately. “What will happen to you?”

  Gooper smiled. “Our bodies will perish.”

  “But what will happen to your civilization? Why—” he was struck by a sudden thought—“why did you have us make a record for you—who is going to use it after the nova comes?”

  “We are not unprepared,” said Gooper. “Don’t ask questions for a few seconds—come downstairs with me.”

  En masse they descended, walking into a large, bare room. Gooper proudly indicated a sort of pen in the center.

  “Behold!”

  Gaynor looked over the little fence, and recoiled at the horrors within. “What are they?” he gasped. For he was looking at a dozen or more small things that were at once slimy and calcined—like lizards, save that lizards were at least symmetrical. That was little to say of any animal, but certainly no more could be said of lizards, and not even that of these creatures. Blankly, he wondered how they could have evolved to their present fantastic condition.

  One of the Gaylens pressed a floor-stud, and transparent shields slowly rose to curve about and cover the pen completely.

  “That area,” said Gooper, “is now a refractory furnace of the highest type, able to reproduce the conditions that will obtain on this planet when the nova occurs. Watch carefully.”

  Gaynor, in spite of himself, bent over the furnace as it slowly heated up. He shielded his eyes as electric currents went into play and made the floor within the pen white hot—and more. And still the lizard-like creatures crawled sluggishly around the sizzling floor, seemingly completely unaffected by the heat!

  Tongues of burning gas leaped out from the shield, and the air became a blazing inferno within the little confine of the pen. Obviously the shield was an insulator of the highest type, and yet it slowly reddened, and Gaynor backed cautiously away from it, still observing the creatures.

  “Watch!” cried Gooper tensely, pointing to one of the creatures. It, completely oblivious to the heat, was fumbling with a small pellet of something on the floor—possibly food, Gaynor thought as he tried to make out, through the glare and burning gases, just what Gooper wanted him to observe. Then Gaynor noticed, and thought he was going mad. The thing picked up the pellet—it was food, of a sort, apparently—and put it in its mouth. And the organs with which it picked the pellet up were hands—tiny, glassy-scaled, perfectly formed human hands.

  “Enough,” said Gooper. And slowly the gas flame died down and the floor cooled. They retreated into the next room, and Gaynor faced his hosts in baffled wonder.

  “Now will you tell me what was the purpose of that demonstration?” he demanded.

  “No doubt you wondered about the evolution of those creatures,” said a Gaylen obliquely. “It should soothe you to know that they’re not natural—what with surgical manipulation of the embryos and even the ova of a species of lizard, we produced them artificially. You noted two great features—complete resistance to heat, and a perfect pair of hands—more than perfect, in fact, because they have two thumbs apiece, which your hands and ours don’t.”

  “Yes,” said Clair, “I noticed them. And a nasty shock they gave me, too. What are they for?”

  “Well, you should have guessed—the nova is the reason. We’ve known it was coming for quite a while—more than a thousand years. And so long ago the cornerstone was laid for the edifice which you have just seen.”

  “If there is one thing more than another I hate about you Gaylens—outside of your habit of keeping facts like the approach of a nova from us—it’s your longwindedness,” said Clair angrily. “I want to know just what those hellish horned toads have to do with the nova.”

  The Gaylen coughed delicately.
“A third feature of the creatures which could not be displayed to you is that their brains—note that I say nothing about their minds—their brains are fully as large, proportionately, and as well-developed, as ours and yours.”

  “And,” Gooper interjected, “we have a gadget invented by my great grandfather, Parapsychic Transposition, which allows us to transfer mentalities between any two living things with brain-indices of higher rating than plus six . . . Do you begin to follow?”

  “I think so,” said Gaynor slowly. “But get on!”

  “So, when the nova bursts, we shall—all the Gaylens shall—each have his mind and memories and—I think your word for it is psyche—transferred into the body of one of those little animals. And—our civilization, though no longer human, perhaps, will go on.”

  Clair gasped. “What an idea!”

  “Our only chance of survival.”

  Clair collapsed onto a seat. “Ye gods!” he cried accusingly. “And you didn’t tell us before!”

  “We thought you could leave at any moment—and, if not, there are more of the lizard-hosts than are necessary.”

  Clair thought of the things he had seen in the pen, reviewing their better points, trying to shut out the memory of their utter, blasphemous hideousness. He looked at Gaynor, obviously thinking the same thoughts. The look was enough. “Speaking for my partner and myself,” he said to the Gaylens, “the answer is no. The flattest and most determined no you ever heard in your born days.”

  “Very well,” said Gooper quietly. “Whatever you wish. But—the nova will be on us in a week.”

  CHAPTER FOUR

  The Archetype

  “HOW’S chances, Pavel?” asked Clair grimly, looking about their borrowed lab.

  “Well, small. Small, if you’re referring to the chances of the late John L. Sullivan appearing before us in a cloud of glory. But if you mean of our finding Jocelyn, or Jocelyn finding us—the chances are real small.”