Collected Short Fiction

by C. M. Kornbluth

“That’s good,” Rawson tried to say, but he had a little picture brought to mind of the crazed Pyle tinkering at his murderous device far down below in the dark. And the picture included also a boy who looked like his brother, except for the blotched red swellings of the Sickness, and a tiny, furious star that shot swiftly around a calcined and blackened planet.

  And then he was out of the tube and in the light of the distant sun.

  “CUT IT out!” snapped Foley at the men swarming around with inane congratulations. “There’s a maniac loose down there. He’s trying to open his lamp and excite the radium in the mine. He’ll blow up the planet! Have you got anything to stop him?”

  Camp Supervisor Teck stiffened. “Finney,” he ordered, “Run for the Chief Engineer. Tell him to rig a blanket wave between frequencies three and three point two.” He turned again to Foley. “If he doesn’t get it open in the next two minutes we’re safe. And if he does . . . we’ll never know it. How was it going through the tube?”

  “No trouble, except a couple of tight bands. Are you going to send a rescue crew down that way?”

  “I think we’d better. If they don’t get the blanket wave set up in a hurry we’ll have to.” Swiftly he detailed a group of eight to the tube. With a great metallic groan the mechanism was reversed, and the men were swallowed down into the crust of the moon.

  Teck touched a stethoscope to the struts of the device. “No trouble yet,” he announced to the circle of men. “They’re telling each other dirty stories.” There was a crackle of laughter from the group.

  “Now they’re coming out at the bottom. Wait—yes, their exciter lamps have gone out.” He looked up smiling. “That means the blanket wave is working.” Again Teck applied the stethoscope. “I can’t hear them now. They had electrics, so I suppose they’ve gone to look for Pyle.” He reversed the tube again, to its normal upward flow, and sat down to wait. A few minutes passed, then—

  The tube coughed suddenly. “Something coming up,” said Teck. He speeded up the systole and diastole; it seemed as though the mechanism would tear itself apart with the violence of its drive. Chunks of rock dribbled over the lip of the tube, and then the limp figure of a man was disgorged. “Is this Pyle?” asked the supervisor.

  Rawson scanned the lax figures. “Yes. Did they kill him?”

  “Just a needle of paralyte, I think. It’ll wear off in a moment,” Swiftly Teck strapped down the arms and legs of the unconscious man. The eyes opened, and in them was the stare of madness.

  “Pretty hopeless,” said the supervisor, turning away.

  “Oh, well . . . One man crazy, and seventeen dead. No wonder they cancelled my insurance,” said Rawson.

  “What about it?” Foley asked. “They didn’t mean much. Their work did; it meant the chance of living to millions of people.”

  “Sure. I know it; I work here, don’t I? And I’m not quitting . . . But—But let’s get to sleep, I mean. We need it.” They trudged away; were halted in their tracks by a yell from the men around the peristaltic tube. They spun around.

  Rocks were pouring from the mouth of the tube. The supervisor picked one up, held it to the distant sun and scanned it. “Ore!” he cried, his words carrying to Rawson and Foley. “And the highest grade stuff I’ve seen in a long time!”

  Rawson looked at Foley and smiled; received Foley’s smile in exchange. Then they started off once more for their bunks. It had been a hard shift.

  Exiles from New Planet

  Into the Earth-dominated Solar System of the Thirtieth Century came a wandering planet—which brought a new hope to Earth’s oppressed citizens.

  EARTH, in the Thirtieth Century A.D., is the leader of all the worlds of the Solar System. You, as a citizen of that planet and period, know that, and take it for granted. The soft fish-people of Venus, you know, were the first to succumb to the Terrestrial rapacity; soon after them, the lichen-intelligences of the moon, and all of the other life-forms. Now you can buy gloves of warranted Venerian ichthyoid leather, or sleep on a pillow—if you can afford it as a luxury item—whose stuffing once composed an intelligence in some ways greater than your own.

  Being a citizen of the World, you don’t trouble to think of these things. You have your own life to lead. You can sit in your office and inspect the cargoes as they come in and are unloaded from the huge interplanetary liners, without thinking of the worlds from which they come. You watch a television screen from your deep chair of transparent sponge-stuff, and keep a sharper eye out for detail. For all you know the merchant is running off a prepared scene indicating higher quality merchandise than is actually being unloaded. As people were wont to say back in the misty dawn of age of commerce—1940 or so—, things will get worse before they get better.

  And once a year, more or less, you vote. It’s a point in question whether you know whom you’re voting for, or what the disputed office is, but not many people care. Some even stab at the keys of their voting-machines—in their own homes, of course—with their eyes closed. Just for the gag. Then, having discharged your civic duty you turn to your friends—voting parties are fashionable just now—and say, “What was that guy’s name anyway?” Then you all have a good laugh and get drunk on synthetic ethyl alcohol cunningly flavored to resemble tutti-frutti ice cream.

  All this within limits, of course. There are drawbacks and disadvantages. Only last year, for example, you had to pay a heavy assessment on your salary for construction of the new Philadelphia Psycho-Philosophic Institute. That’s the current word for concentration camp, only nobody admits it in polite society.

  But all society isn’t polite. Why, only yesterday you picked up a throwaway leaflet in the street which read: “Don’t Be Deceived—Geraghty is no friend of the Populace. Exercise your rights—refuse to vote for the dummy candidate of the Control; unite to present your own candidates for Planet Security and Peace.”

  Almost frightened you crumpled the thing up and put it in your pocket. Then, thinking it over, you tossed it into a refuse-basket. Obviously this was addressed to the Greymen, the workers. And you were no Greyman. Greymen are dirty—you are clean. Who was Geraghty anyway? Oh yes—he was the President of Planetary Division 1—the United States of America. You keep forgetting somehow; it didn’t seem to matter. You paid your dues to the Vocation; you paid your dues to the District Association; you paid your dues to the Mercantile Commission; you paid your dues to the Landing Port Foundation; you paid your dues to the Political Institute of Popular Defense, and what was left over was yours—free and clear. No taxes.

  You decided, later, not to tell anyone about the leaflet. More—you hoped no one saw you pick it up. People really don’t know how accidents like that happen; they might be misunderstood. That would mean a little trip to the Psych—the office in midtown Manhattan where they went through your mind with a fine-tooth comb; if they found anything that might be called seditious—too bad.

  So for a few days you’ll be worrying a little in the back of your mind, and maybe screaming in your sleep a little as you hear the ghost of an official call—yours is WR904fm—over your new television set, but no one saw you, after all, and you’ll soon forget the leaflet . . .

  “GOOD MORNING, MR. DANE,” smiled the receptionist.

  “Morning,” replied Dane, small, worried, and gray-haired. “I’m expecting Dr. Jaimie Barrister soon. Send him right in, please.”

  “Certainly,” she said. “Did you hear about the new planet, Mr. Dane?”

  “No. I haven’t heard the newscast for a week—been very busy. What about a new planet?”

  She produced a sheet of paper torn from a ’caster, and Dane had a small heart-attack. It was nearly the same size as the throw-away he had picked up yesterday, and for a horrified moment he thought that his faithful Miss Prawn was an office spy. Then the mists cleared from before his eyes and he saw that it was only a newssheet. He snatched it from her almost angrily, and scanned the headlines.

  “Frozen planet attracted by the sun,” he re
ad rapidly. “Believed to possess great mineral resources and perhaps . . . Thank you, Miss Prawn,” he said, handing it back to her. “I’ll look at it later, perhaps.” He vanished into his office, mopping his brow as he flung himself into a chair.

  His office door opened and Barrister, tall, dark, lean and cold-eyed, entered. Dane looked up with a start. “Hello, Jaimie,” he said weakly.

  “You should have sent for me long ago, Dane,” said Barrister. “You look sick. Take off your shirt.”

  Mutely Dane bared his chest and leaned back as the doctor tapped his ribs tentatively. “That hurt?” asked Barrister. “Yes,” said Dane. “I hurt all over.”

  “Drink this,” ordered the doctor, producing as if by magic a little bottle of vivid blue dye. Dane swallowed convulsively, and looked at his hands curiously as the veins started forth in bright azure. “What’s that mean?” he asked pointedly.

  Barrister was comparing the clue of the veins against a little card of various pure plastic colors. Looking up he studied his patient coldly for a moment. “It means,” he snapped, “that you haven’t taken my orders. I gave you a diet to adhere to and told you how long you should sleep. I warned you that you weren’t to work more than four hours a day, three days a week. You’re wealthy enough to obey those orders; you could let work slide and take whatever losses you had to for the sake of your health. Why did you fail me?”

  Dane looked at him numbly. “You don’t know how it is, Jaimie,” he said. “I try to follow orders—cut down on work, and then I get a visit from the Voke. Production Commission. Why am I falling down, they want to know. Doctor’s orders, I say. Doctor be damned, they tell me. And then I get a long talk about loyalty to business—and you know what happens if I turn them out of my house.”

  “Yes,” said Barrister grimly. “I could have told you that. How about the diet?”

  “I get invited to district dinners. Once or twice I declined. But they warned me, Jaimie—they warned me that—”

  “Don’t tell me,” said the doctor. “I should have known that too.”

  “But what shall I do?”

  “Just what I told you to—my prescription stands. And if you find it impossible to apply it to yourself, that’s not my fault. Maybe not even yours. I have to go now.”

  The doctor helped Dane, near collapse, with his shirt and tie. “You heard about the new planet, Jaimie?” asked Dane vaguely.

  Barrister looked at him oddly. “Yes,” he said. “Good morning.” And he walked from the office.

  THAT night Dr. Jaimie Barrister, having completed his scheduled calls, did not go home. With his medical kit in his hand he wandered for a long time about the darkening city of Philadelphia, coming to a halt before the gleaming new Psycho-Philosophical institute which, he understood, was already filled.

  With a sudden and decisive gesture he entered an apartment dwelling across the street. “Hi, Fred,” he casually greeted the elevator attendant.

  “ ‘Devening, Doc,” said the uniformed man. “Shall I take you down?” Barrister nodded and entered the elevator. It dropped to the basement. “Come in as soon as you get off,” he said, getting out of the car. “There’s some important stuff to talk over.”

  “Sure,” said the attendant. Barrister walked through the deserted basement of gleaming tiles, down one corridor, and then calmly swung aside what appeared to be a section of an oil-main. He stepped through the door revealed, and played for a moment with the combination dial lock revealed on a heavy steel plate. The plate yielded and swung aside before his fingers, and opened into a tunnel of absolute darkness. He coughed sharply as he inhaled the dank air of the deserted subway, and walked along, cautiously feeling his way. He turned a corner and pushed through a double curtain of heavy plastic fibre into a large station, well lighted.

  It was crowded with people, and Barrister stared sharply at their faces. “Put out those cigarets,” he snapped. Several who had been smoking ground out the little tubes and muttered apologies. “We haven’t got too much air,” said Barrister in explanation. “Certainly not enough to waste.”

  He assumed a commanding position on a sort of podium which had been erected for his use. “Most of those whom I called are here,” he began nervously. “Others are coming. However I shall begin at once to explain the purpose of this meeting.”

  He unfolded on the lectern before him some ’caster tearings and spoke again.

  “Most of you have heard the news,” he began. “I refer to the reports of the planet which has entered the solar system. This occurance has crystallized a decision which has been forming in my mind for some time.

  “We are revolutionaries.” There was a little murmur of protest from the assembled throng; Barrister smiled grimly. “The admission doesn’t go down easily, yet that is what our aims and activities amount to. The reasons for our concealment are so obvious I need not go into them; obviously to present order will defend itself to the last ditch.

  “If we continue on our present line of action—prognosis is negative. We shall be wiped out in a few years. But the seeds we have sown shall not be lost and go barren. After our passing for a time there will be silence and then unrest as people begin to remember. There will be all the more reason for this since, by my formula, a new cycle of depressions and wars is about to begin. After a long, long time will come the explosion, and we shall see established again a democracy, world and system-wide.”

  “How long does this take, Doc?” asked a woman.

  Barrister pressed his lips tight together. “Centuries at least,” he said.

  There was a babbling chorus of alarm and surprise from the crowded station. Barrister raised his hand.

  “There is one way out,” he snapped. “We who have laid the foundations of the new world that is to come shall turn for our lives to a new world indeed!” He waved the ’caster tearings at them, the headlines gleaming in red. “We shall seize for ourselves a space-ship and make our way to the new planet, there to build homes and lives! Who is with me?”

  As one man they roared, “Aye!”

  BARRISTER was leaning tensely on the guide-bar of the ship; he uttered a startled exclamation as he felt a tap on his shoulder. “You dope, Doc,” said a woman’s voice.

  “Hi, Vera,” he said absently, taking the three tablets she handed him and gulping them all down at once. “That should keep me going for a few hours.”

  The girl peered through the port down to the icy surface of the planet. “How long before—?” she asked, gesturing at the new world.

  “Only a few minutes, maybe,” he said. “I’m feeling out the gravitation now. The magnetic field’s normal, I see.”

  “Is that good?”

  “Sort of. Now—will you leave me in peace so I can get the ship down? It’s not going to be easy; I don’t know too much about this.”

  “Okay, Doc,” she smiled, closing the door behind her.

  Barrister sighed and hastily read the meters banked before him. Muttering what might be a prayer he sat up combinations on the simple firing board. “Buckle yourselves in, please,” he announced sententiously over the P.A, system. “We’re about to land.”

  The controls were pre-set for accuracy. No human muscles—even when hyped up on the stuff he had taken—could act and react fast enough to obey the brain’s orders in the series of crises that landing a space-ship always was. So the ship, as soon as he pulled the prime switch, would fall abruptly till sensitive detectors stated that they were precisely two miles and a half above surface, whereupon relays would switch on belly-rockets that would balance them as gracefully as a toe-dancer on skittish jets of flame for the second switch to be thrown. And that would work them down, even slower, to surface or near it.

  Barrister tightened his stomach muscles and flung the bar of gleaming metal. He felt the ship vibrate terribly as they dropped, and a moment later sensed the little shock as they struck the atmosphere of the planet. This was only one of the factors of the set-up; as soon as electrochemical
cells determined—in about one millionth of a second—that they were in air the ship slowed to just below the melting-point of lead. Barrister wiped the sweat from his temples, his muscles knotting under the strain of descent. And then the ship came to a jolting halt high in air. Without even looking down he flung the second switch. Slower now they descended, and he closed his eyes wearily when he felt a little thud on the belly of the ship. There were clicks from the relay-board, and all jets went off.

  “We’re down,” he said into the P.A. “Please assemble in the lock, dressed warmly. We shall go out at once.” He spun the control that would open the ponderous hull-port of the ship and donned a fur-lined overall garment.

  Thoughtfully he shepherded his flock of eighty from the ship, and smiled as he saw them draw their clothes tighter about their necks and button wrists and ankles. “It isn’t pleasant just now,” he called to them, “but we’ll make it work!” There were some doubtful but encouraged smiles in answer, and then they all silently stared at the frosty hills far in the distance.

  “We’ll live in the ship,” Barrister said softly to himself, “and get to work on a settlement. We have the machines and the man power; we have synthetic foods and the stuff to manufacture more out of anything at all. It will be a small world, this new land of ours, but a happy one . . .”

  “HEY, Jaimie!” yelled Vera. The lean medico came running.

  “What’s up?” he asked.

  The girl pointed to an elderly man who was sitting on a heavy casting, head in hands.

  “Mohler’s sick,” he said. “Think’s he ruptured himself lifting a case.”

  Barrister whipped out a short stethoscope, touching it to the man’s belly. “Cough,” he said. Weakly the old man complied. Barrister thought a moment. “Get a temporary truss at the dispensory,” he said. “Then see Pierce—tell him to assign you to light work. How’s your finger-dexterity?”

  “Low,” said Mohler. “But I have a high tool-dexterity by the last measurement.”