Collected Short Fiction

by C. M. Kornbluth

“Climbed one of the elevator shafts. The night watchman never saw me. How did you make it?”

  “I slugged the guard and used a service lift. Let’s go.”

  Battle applied a clamp to the doorknob and wrenched it out like a turnip from muddy ground. The door swung open as his two Colts leaped into his hands. The fat man at the ornate desk rose with a cry of alarm and began to pump blood as Battle drilled him between the eyes.

  “Okay. That’s enough,” said a voice. The lieutenant’s guns were snatched from his hands with a jerk that left them stinging, and he gaped in alarm as he saw, standing across the room, an exact duplicate of the bleeding corpse on the floor.

  “You Battle?” asked the duplicate, who was holding a big, elaborate sort of radio tube in his hand.

  “Yes,” said the lieutenant feebly. “My card—”

  “Never mind that. Who’s the dame?”

  “Miss McSweeney. And you, sir, are—?”

  “I’m Underbottam, Chief of Devil Take the Hindmost. You from Breen?”

  “I was engaged by the doctor for a brief period,” admitted Battle. “However, our services were terminated—”

  “Liar,” snapped Underbottam. “And if they weren’t, they will be in a minute or two. Lamp this!” He rattled the radio tube, and from its grid leaped a fiery radiance that impinged momentarily on the still-bleeding thing that Battle had shot down. The thing was consumed in one awful blast of heat. “End of a robot,” said Underbottam, shaking the tube again. The flame died down, and there was nothing left of the corpse but a little fused lump of metal.

  “Now, you going to work for me, Battle?”

  “Why not?” shrugged the lieutenant.

  “Okay. Your duties are as follows: Get Breen. I don’t care how you get him, but get him soon. He posed for twenty years as a scientist without ever being apprehended. Well, I’m going to do some apprehending that’ll make all previous apprehending look like no apprehension at all. You with me?”

  “Yes,” said Battle, very much confused. “What’s that thing you have?”

  “Piggy-back heat ray. You transpose the air in its path into an unstable isotope which tends to carry all energy as heat. Then you shoot your juice, light or whatever along the isotopic path and you burn whatever’s on the receiving end. You want a few?”

  “No,” said Battle. “I have my gats. What else have you got for offense and defense?”

  Underbottam opened a cabinet and proudly waved an arm. “Everything,” he said. “Disintegrators, heat rays, bombs of every type. And impenetrable shields of energy, massive and portable. What more do I need?”

  “Just as I thought,” mused the lieutenant. “You’ve solved half the problem. How about tactics? Who’s going to use your weapons?”

  “Nothing to that,” declaimed Underbottam airily. “I just announce that I have the perfect social system. My army will sweep all before it. Consider: Devil Take the Hindmost promises what every persons wants—pleasure, pure and simple. Or vicious and complex, if necessary. Pleasure will be compulsory; people will be so happy that they won’t have time to fight or oppress or any of the other things that make the present world a caricature of a madhouse.”

  “What about hangovers?” unexpectedly asked Spike McSweeney.

  Underbottam grunted. “My dear young lady,” he said. “If you had a hangover, would you want to do anything except die? It’s utterly automatic. Only puritans—damn them!—have time enough on their hands to make war. You see?”

  “It sounds reasonable,” confessed the girl.

  “Now, Battle,” said Underbottam. “What are your rates?”

  “Twen—” began the lieutenant automatically. Then, remembering the ease with which he had made his last twenty thousand, he paused. “Thir—” he began again. “Forty thousand,” he said firmly, holding out his hand.

  “Right,” said Underbottam, handing him two bills. Battle scanned them hastily and stowed them away. “Come on,” he said to Spike. “We have a job to do.”

  THE LIEUTENANT courteously showed Spike a chair. “Sit down,” he said firmly. “I’m going to unburden myself.” Agitatedly Battle paced his room. “I don’t know where in hell I’m at!” he yelled frantically. “All my life I’ve been a soldier. I know military science forward and backward, but I’m damned if I can make head or tail of this bloody mess. Two scientists, each at the other’s throat, me hired by both of them to knock off the other—and incidentally, where do you stand?” He glared at the girl.

  “Me?” she asked mildly. “I just got into this by accident. Breen manufactured me originally, but I got out of order and gave you that fantastic story about me being a steno at his office—I can hardly believe it was me!”

  “What do you mean, manufactured you?” demanded Battle.

  “I’m a robot, Lieutenant. Look.” Calmly she took off her left arm and put it on again.

  Battle collapsed into a chair. “Why didn’t you tell me?” he groaned.

  “You didn’t ask me,” she retorted with spirit. “And what’s wrong with robots? I’m a very superior model, by the way—the Seduction Special, designed for diplomats, army officers (that must be why I sought you out), and legislators. Part of Sweetness and Light. Breen put a lot of work into me himself. I’m only good for about three years, but Breen expects the world to be his by then.”

  Battle sprang from his chair. “Well, this pretty much decides me, Spike. I’m washed up. I’m through with Devil Take the Hindmost and Sweetness and Light both. I’m going back to Tannu-Tuva for the counterrevolution. Damn Breen, Underbottam and the rest of them!”

  “That isn’t right, Lieutenant,” said the robot thoughtfully. “Undeterred, one or the other of them is bound to succeed. And that won’t be nice for you. A world without war?”

  “Awk!” grunted Battle. “You’re right, Spike. Something has to be done. But not by me. That heat ray—ugh!” He shuddered.

  “Got any friends?” asked Spike.

  “Yes,” said Battle, looking at her hard. “How did you know?”

  “I just guessed—” began the robot artlessly.

  “Oh no you didn’t,” gritted the lieutenant. “I was just going to mention them. Can you read minds?”

  “Yes,” said the robot in a small voice. “I was built that way. Governor Burly—faugh! It was a mess.”

  “And—and you know all about me?” demanded Battle.

  “Yes,” she said. “I know you’re forty-seven and not thirty-two. I know that you were busted from the Marines. And I know that your real name is—”

  “That’s enough,” he said, white-faced.

  “But,” said the robot softly, “I love you anyway.”

  “What?” sputtered the lieutenant.

  “And I know that you love me, too, even if I am—what I am.”

  Battle stared at her neat little body and her sweet little face. “Can you be kissed?” he asked at length.

  “Of course, Lieutenant,” she said. Then, demurely, “I told you I was a very superior model.”

  TO EXPECT a full meeting of the Saber Club would be to expect too much. In the memory of the oldest living member, Major Breughel, who had been to the Netherlands Empire what Clive and Warren Hastings had been to the British, two thirds—nearly—had gathered from the far corners of the earth to observe the funeral services for a member who had been embroiled in a gang war and shot in the back. The then mayor of New York had been reelected for that reason.

  At the present meeting, called by First Class Member Battle, about a quarter of the membership appeared.

  There was Peasely, blooded in Tonkin, 1899. He had lost his left leg to the thigh with Kolchak in Siberia. Peasely was the bombardier of the Saber Club. With his curious half-lob he could place a Mills or potato masher or nitro bottle on a dime.

  Vaughn, he of the thick Yorkshire drawl, had the unique honor of hopping on an Axis submarine and cleaning it out with a Lewis gun from stem to stern, then, single-handed, piloting it to Liverpoo
l, torpedoing a German mine layer on the way.

  The little Espera had left a trail of bloody revolution through the whole of South America; he had a weakness for lost causes. It was worth his life to cross the Panama Canal; therefore he made it a point to do so punctually, once a year. He never had his bullets removed. By latest tally three of his ninety-seven pounds were lead.

  “When,” demanded Peasely fretfully, “is that lug going to show up? I had an appointment with a cabinetmaker for a new leg. Had to call it off for Battle’s summons. Bloody shame—he doesn’t give a hang for my anatomy.”

  “Ye’ll coom when ‘e wish, bate’s un,” drawled Vaughn unintelligibly. Peasely snarled at him.

  Espera sprang to his feet. “Miss Millicent,” he said effusively.

  “Don’t bother to rise, gentlemen,” announced the tall, crisp woman who had entered. “As if you would anyway. I just collected on that Fiorenza deal, Manuel,” she informed Espera. “Three gees. How do you like that?”

  “I could have done a cleaner job,” said Peasely snappishly. He had cast the only blackball when this first woman to enter the Saber Club had been voted a member. “What did you use?”

  “Lyddite,” she said, putting on a pale lipstick.

  “Thot’s pawky explaw-seeve,” commented Vaughn. “I’d moat risk such.”

  She was going to reply tartly when Battle strode in. They greeted him with a muffled chorus of sighs and curses.

  “Hi,” he said briefly. “I’d like your permission to introduce a person waiting outside. Rules do not apply in her case for—for certain reasons. May I?”

  There was a chorus of assent. He summoned Spike, who entered. “Now,” said Battle, “I’d like your help in a certain matter of great importance to us all.”

  “Yon’s t’ keenin’ tool,” said the Yorkshireman.

  “Okay, then. We have to storm and take a plant in New Jersey. This plant is stocked with new weapons—dangerous weapons—weapons that, worst of all, are intended to effect a world revolution which will bring an absolute and complete peace within a couple of years, thus depriving us of our occupations without compensation. Out of self-defense we must take this measure. Who is with me?”

  All hands shot up in approval. “Good. Further complications are as follows: This is only one world revolution; there’s another movement which is in rivalry to it, and which will surely dominate if the first does not. So we will have to split our forces—”

  “No you won’t,” said the voice of Underbottam.

  “Where are you?” asked Battle, looking around the room.

  “In my office, you traitor. I’m using a wire screen in your clubroom for a receiver and loudspeaker in a manner you couldn’t possibly understand.”

  “I don’t like that traitor talk,” said Battle evenly. “I mailed back your money—and Breen’s. Now what was that you said?”

  “We’ll be waiting for you together in Rockefeller Center. Breen and I have pooled our interests. After we’ve worked our revolution we’re going to flip a coin. That worm doesn’t approve of gambling, of course, but he’ll make this exception.”

  “And if I know you, Underbottam,” said Battle heavily, “it won’t be gambling. What time in Rockefeller Center?”

  “Four in the morning. Bring your friends—nothing like a showdown. By heaven, I’m going to save the world whether you like it or not!”

  The wire screen from which the voice had been coming suddenly fused in a flare of light and heat.

  Miss Millicent broke the silence. “Scientist!” she said in a voice heavy with scorn. Suddenly there was a gun in her palm. “If he’s human I can drill him,” she declared.

  “Yeah,” said Battle gloomily. “That was what I thought.”

  THE whole length of Sixth Avenue not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse, as the six crept through the early morning darkness under the colossal shadow of the RCA building. The vertical architecture of the Center was lost in the sky as they hugged the wall of the Music Hall.

  “When do you suppose they’ll finish it?” asked Peasely, jerking a thumb at the boarding over the Sixth Avenue subway under construction.[*]

  “What do you care?” grunted Battle. “We need a scout to take a look at the plaza. How about you, Manuel? You’re small and quick.”

  “Right,” grinned Espera. “I could use a little more weight.” He sped across the street on silent soles, no more than a shadow in the dark. But he had been spotted, for a pale beam of light hissed for a moment on the pavement beside him. He flattened and gestured.

  “Come on—he says,” muttered Miss Millicent. They shot across the street and flattened against the building. “Where are they, Manuel?” demanded Battle.

  “Right there in the Plaza beside the fountain. They have a mess of equipment. Tripods and things. A small generator.”

  “Shall I try a masher?” asked Peasely.

  “Do,” said Miss Millicent. “Nothing would be neater.”

  The man with the wooden leg unshipped a bomb from his belt and bit out the pin. He held it to his ear for just a moment to hear it sizzle. “I love the noise,” he explained apologetically to Spike. Then he flung it with a curious twist of his arm.

  Crash!

  Battle looked around the corner of the building. “They haven’t been touched. And that racket’s going to draw the authorities,” he said. “They have some kind of screen, I guess.”

  “Darling,” whispered Spike.

  “What it is?” asked Battle, sensing something in her tone.

  “Nothing,” she said, as women will.

  “Close in under heavy fire, maybe?” suggested the little Espera.

  “Yep,” snapped Battle. “Ooops! There goes a police whistle.”

  Pumping lead from both hips, the six of them advanced down the steps to the Plaza, where Breen and Underbottam were waiting behind a kind of shimmering illumination.

  The six ducked behind the waist-high stone wall of the Danish restaurant, one of the eateries which rimmed the Plaza. Hastily, as the others kept up their fire, Vaughn set up a machine gun.

  “Doon, a’ fu’ leef!” he ordered. They dropped behind the masking stone. “Cae oot, yon cawbies,” yelled Vaughn.

  His only answer was a sudden dropping of the green curtain and a thunderbolt or something like it that winged at him and went way over his head, smashing into the RCA building and shattering three stories.

  “Haw!” laughed Peasely. “They can’t aim! Watch this.” He bit another grenade and bowled it underhand against the curtain. The ground heaved and bucked as the crash of the bomb sounded. In rapid succession he rolled over enough to make the once-immaculate Plaza as broken a bit of terrain as was ever seen, bare pipes and wires exposed underneath. Underbottam’s face was distorted with rage.

  The curtain dropped abruptly and the two embattled scientists and would-be saviors of the world squirted wildly with everything they had—rays in every color of the spectrum, thunderbolts and lightning flashes, some uncomfortably near.

  The six couldn’t face up to it; what they saw nearly blinded them. They flattened themselves to the ground and prayed mutely in the electric clash and spatter of science unleashed.

  “Darling,” whispered Spike, her head close to Battle’s. “Yes?”

  “Have you got a match?” she asked tremulously. “No—don’t say a word.” She took the match pack and kissed him awkwardly and abruptly. “Stay under cover,” she said. “Don’t try to follow. When my fuel tank catches it’ll be pretty violent.”

  Suddenly she was out from behind the shelter and plastered against one of the tumbled rocks, to leeward of the worldsavers’ armory. A timid bullet or two was coming from the Danish restaurant.

  In one long, staggering run she made nearly seven yards, then dropped, winged by a heat ray that cauterized her arm. Cursing, Spike held the matches in her mouth and tried to strike one with her remaining hand. It lit, and she applied it to the match pack, dropping it to the ground. Remo
ving what remained of her right arm, she lit it at the flaring pack. It blazed like a torch; her cellulose skin was highly inflammable.

  She used the arm to ignite her body at strategic points and then, a blazing, vengeful figure of flame, hurled herself on the two scientists in the Plaza.

  From the restaurant Battle could see, through tear-wet eyes, the features of the fly-by-night worldsavers. Then Spike’s fuel tank exploded and everything blotted out in one vivid sheet of flame.

  “Come on! The cops!” hissed Miss Millicent. She dragged him, sobbing as he was, into the Independent subway station that let out into the Center. Aimlessly he let her lead him onto an express, the first of the morning.

  “Miss Millicent, I loved her,” he complained.

  “Why don’t you join the Foreign Legion to forget?” she suggested amiably.

  “What?” he said, making a wry face. “Again?”

  [*] When last I saw this area, 28 years almost to the day after publication of Cyril’s story, the boarding was there still—or again.—Ed.

  Callistan Tomb

  When tomorrow’s plagues come out of space, perhaps the mines on the distant worlds will offer antidotes. And the men who work those mines will be heroes in the eyes of the sick, but to each other, it will be just a tough, dangerous grind.

  RAWSON stirred his huge bulk and snapped on the audio set is at his elbow. “—bringing to you,” it said abruptly, “flashes from the news fronts of the solar system.

  “We have received from Earth a steady flow of bulletins on the plague. Our last report announces the death of Commissioner Wheelock, statesman and scholar of New Britain. The Commissioner, said the report, was eased of his pain by an injection of carbon monoxide in solution. His life had been surrendered by his attendant physicians a week ago when drawings were made for distribution of the radium ship’s cargo and his group’s number did not come up.

  “Flashed from Calcutta: Dr. Mohan Shar, member of the Eurasian Presidium, is under treatment made possible by the arrival of Thursday’s ore consignment from Callisto. Despite the advanced stage of the disease into which he had passed, it is confidently predicted that Dr. Shar will shortly reach complete recovery. That is all.”