Collected Short Fiction

by C. M. Kornbluth

  “If she were an eft,” mused the pixy, “I certainly would. But I’m beginning to doubt that she is. In fact, you’re probably all almost as human as I am. However—” He mistily surveyed her.

  “Girl,” he asked dreamily, “do you want to be a queen?”

  “Yes, sir,” said Annamarie, preventing a shudder. “Nothing would give me more pleasure.”

  “So be it,” said the ancient, with great decision. “So be it. The ceremony of coronation can wait till later, but you are now ex officio my consort.”

  “That is splendid,” cried Annamarie, “simply splendid.” She essayed a chuckle of pleasure, but which turned out to be a dismal choking sound. “You’ve—you’ve made me positively the happiest woman under Mars.”

  She walked stiffly over to the walking monument commemorating what had once been a man, and kissed him gingerly on the forehead. The pixy’s seamed face glowed for more reasons than the induced radioactivity as Stanton stared in horror.

  “The first lesson of a queen is obedience,” said the pixy fondly, “so please sit there and do not address a word to these unfortunate former friends of yours. They are about to die.”

  “Oh” pouted Annamarie. “You are cruel, Ellenbogan.”

  He turned anxiously, though keeping the hair-trigger weapon full on the two men. “What troubles you, sweet?” he demanded. “You have but to ask and it shall be granted. We are lenient to our consort.”

  The royal “we” already thought Stanton. He wondered if the ancient would be in the market for a coat of arms. Three years of freehand drawing in his high school in Cleveland had struck Stanton as a dead waste up till now; suddenly it seemed that it might save his life.

  “How,” Annamarie was complaining, “can I be a real queen without any subjects?”

  The pixy was immediately suspicious, but the girl looked at him so blandly that his ruffles settled down. He scratched his head with the hand that did not hold the blaster. “True,” he admitted. “I hadn’t thought of that. Very well, you may have a subject. One subject.”

  “I think two would be much nicer,”

  Annamarie said a bit worriedly, though she retained the smile.

  “One!”

  “Please—two?”

  “One! One is enough. Which of these two shall I kill?”

  Now was the time to start the sales-talk about the coat-of-arms, thought Stanton. But he was halted in mid-thought, the words unformed, by Annamarie’s astonishing actions. Puckering her brow so very daintily, she stepped over to the pixy and slipped an arm about his waist. “It’s hard to decide,” she remarked languidly, staring from one to the other, still with her arm about the pixy. “But I think—

  “Yes. I think—kill that one.” And she pointed at Stanton.

  STANTON didn’t stop to think about what a blaster could do to a promising career as artist by appointment to Mars’ only monarch. He jumped—lancing straight as a string in the weak Martian gravity, directly at the figure of the ancient. He struck and bowled him over. Josey, acting a second later, landed on top of him, the two piled onto the pixy’s slight figure. Annamarie, wearing a twisted smile, stepped aside and watched quite calmly.

  Oddly enough, the pixy had not fired the blaster.

  After a second, Stanton’s voice came smotheredly from the wriggling trio. He was addressing Josey. “Get up, you oaf,” he said. “I think the old guy is dead.” Josey clambered to his feet, then knelt again to examine Ellenbogan. “Heart-failure, I guess,” he said briefly. “He was pretty old.”

  Stanton was gently prodding a swelling eye. “Your fault, idiot,” he glared at Josey. “I doubt that one of your roundhouse swings touched Ellenbogan. And as for you, friend,” he sneered, turning to Annamarie, “you have my most heartfelt sympathies. Not for worlds would I have made you a widow so soon. I apologize,” and he bowed low, recovering himself with some difficulty.

  “Did it ever occur to you,” Annamarie said tautly—Stanton was astounded as he noticed she was trembling with a nervous reaction,—“did it ever occur to you that maybe you owe me something? Because if I hadn’t disconnected his blaster from the power-pack, you would be—”

  Stanton gaped as she turned aside to hide a flood of sudden tears, which prevented her from completing the sentence. He dropped to one knee and ungently turned over the old man’s body. Right enough—the lead between power-pack and gun was dangling loose, jerked from its socket. He rose again and, staring at her shaking figure, stepped unsteadily toward her.

  Josey, watching them with scientific impersonality, up-curled a lip in the beginnings of a sneer. Then suddenly the sneer died in birth, and was replaced by a broad smile. “I’ve seen it coming for some time,” more loudly than was necessary, “and I want to be the first to congratulate you. I hope you’ll be very happy,” he said. . . .

  A few hours later, they stared back at the heap of Earth under which was the body of the late Second Lieutenant Ellenbogan, U.S.N., and quietly made their way toward the walls of the cavern. Choosing a different tunnel-mouth for the attempt, they began the long trek to the surface. Though at first Stanton and Annamarie walked hand-in-hand, it was soon arm-in-arm, then with arms around each other’s waists, while Josey trailed sardonically behind.

  THE END

  Sir Mallory’s Magnitude

  There must never be another war—that was the purpose of the conference. The world was united at last to make an equitable peace through open covenants. But who, or what, was behind the mysterious disappearance of leading delegates—and what menace overhung the famous Sir Mallory Gaffney?

  CHAPTER I

  AFTER ARMAGEDDON

  THERE was a lusty scream from the visitors’ gallery. The lights of the hall flickered for a moment; guards drew and fired at shadows on the wall or at each other. Panic threatened; the restless roar of a great crowd rose to a jabbering sound like monkey-talk. In the great gallery and on the vast floor a few dimwits began to dash for exits.

  “Rot them,” growled Senator Beekman. He shoved the mike at Ballister. “Shut them up,” he snapped. “Use your precious psychology!”

  Young Ballister took the mike, snapped on the button, dialed for heaviest amplification. “Atten-shun!” he barked into it, with the genuine parade-ground note of command.

  The monkey-talk stopped for a priceless moment. Ballister jumped into it with both feet. Soothingly he said: “Now, folks, what’s your hurry? Stick around—these learned gentlemen put on a pretty good show for your benefit.”

  The learned gentlemen who were dashing for exits purpled; the visitors in the gallery laughed loud and long at the feeble little joke. They resumed their seats.

  “Take it, Senator,” snapped Ballister in an undertone. “I’ll scamper for a gander at the fuss up there.” He hopped nimbly from the platform into an elevator, which shot him up to the gallery. Displaying his Representative’s badge, he broke through the cordon of International Police that was zealously guarding an ordinary seat, like any other of the five thousand in sight.

  “What was it?” he demanded of a French provost. “Killing?”

  The provost shrugged. “We do not know vat, m’sieu. On-lee we know that in that seat sat M’sieu the mayor of Bruxelles.”

  “Hi,” snapped a crisp young voice at Ballister.

  He removed his horn-rims to regard the young lady disapprovingly. “Beat it, Kay,” he ordered. “This isn’t for the papers. Another unpleasant international incident. The Mayor of Brussels.”

  The young man looked down at the stage, very small and far away. From the speakers in the walls came the voice of Senator Beekman, hoarse and embarrassed:

  “Our agenda will be incomplete today, gentlemen and ladies. I have been advised of the—the non-attendance of Monsieur Durtal, Mayor of Brussels and major sponsor of the bill entitled: ‘An Act to Prevent Competitive Development of Instruments of Warfare.’ We will proceed to—”

  THE Anti-War Conference had been in full swing for two months. There
was nothing slow or inefficient about the great congress of all the nations; the tremendous task before them took time, lots of it. The Grand Agenda of the Conference covered a space of three years, and all busy ones.

  Banister knew something about the Second World War; he had spent a couple of years in command of an infantry company at the tail-end of the mighty conflict. Then, when it was settled, and the sick-and-tired Axis armies and peoples had revolted and overthrown their warlords, he had naturally gone to the Conference as an American delegate. Training as specialized as his—psychological jurisprudence—was in demand.

  He thought he had seen everything, world-weary at twenty-three, but the Conference offered a few new kicks. There was something ludicrous about a Japanese delegate trying to wangle a few more square miles of Korea for his nation. Ballister was usually the trouble-shooter who explained to the simple people how their demands would encroach on so-and-so’s rights, which would lead to such-and-such a consequence, which would be bad for the world in general for this-and-that reasons.

  It was a plan magnificent in scope. The vast Auditorium of Oslo was jammed with the delegates and specialists; the gallery was jammed day and night with visitors—anybody who wanted to see. There was to be no diplomacy under the table in the world the Conference was making! Twenty years of war had shown the fallacy of secret treaties; the delegates desperately hoped that their three years of cooperative common sense would blast the old diplomatic nonsense from the face of the Earth.

  Ballister had his troubles, not the least of these being Kay Marsh, of the New York Enquirer. Any other reporter he could handle; not Kay, for she had majored with him at Columbia in the same psych courses and knew him like a book. She knew then, in the gallery, that this wasn’t the time for comedy.

  “Did you know him?” she asked.

  “Met him twice,” said Ballister despondently, regarding the empty chair. “A real humanitarian, man of the people. Not one of these professionals. And he’s the third to go.”

  “Pelterie from Switzerland, Vanderhoek from South Africa, now Durtal of Belgium,” she listed somberly. “Who’s doing it?”

  “If I knew I’d tell you,” said Ballister. “Hell! Let us be gay! Have you got the handouts for the day’s work?”

  “I filed my copy already,” she said. “Macklin’s covering this business. He’s going to do a series of articles on it. You’re off?”

  “Through for the week. Let’s flit.”

  “Sounds like an insect,” she complained. “But if you wish.”

  THEY elbowed their way through the crowd, out of the Auditorium. Oslo was en flite, with its face washed and its hair brushed for the distinguished visitors. Its population had swelled by a half-million since it was chosen as the Conference site. Festively decked helicopters and ‘gyros dragged advertising signs through the sky in all languages. One battered little blimp towed the notice in French: “Attend the Produce Show! April 11!”

  Kay pointed at it with a smile. “Did I ever tell you I was a farmer’s daughter?” she remarked.

  Ballister recognized the lead. “All right,” he said. “I’ll take you. But I guarantee you’ll be bored silly; they probably won’t even speak the international language.”

  “Cows and hay don’t have to speak any language,” she sparkled happily. “I haven’t seen a decent steer since Nebraska.”

  They got wind of the Produce Show and followed the smell to a neat collection of tents, where Kay delightedly inspected timothy and cheeses and champion milkers for two hours while Ballister tried to hold his breath for that length of time.

  “Hold it,” he snapped as she was going into a gush at a draft-horse who stared sullenly at her hat. “Gent’s fainted.”

  They elbowed their way through the crowd, to find that the gentleman was nearly foaming at the mouth, twitching convulsively on the ground. The only serious attention being paid him was by a barker from a nearby tent, who loudly offered three to one that the gentleman would die in less than half an hour.

  “Throat constricted or something,” said Kay after a swift examination. “Looks like a super-violent allergy.”

  Ballister went through his pockets, found a box of amyl nitrite pearls. He broke one under the man’s nose, drawing it away as he came to.

  “You, there,” he snapped, waving up a couple of husky farmers. “Carry him away from this damned show of yours. There’s something in the air that nearly killed him.”

  The peasants, grinning happily, lugged the man to the nearest taxi stand. Ballister ordered the hackie to drive to the center of town, where monoxide would most likely replace the pollen or whatever it was that had strangled him.

  The man was unable to talk for a few miles, though he insisted, despite the soothing words of Miss Marsh, on pantomiming gratitude. He was a fine-looking gentleman, ruddy-faced, middle-aged or over, exquisitely dressed.

  Finally, with one tremendous cough, he cleared his throat. “Thanks awf’ly,” he exclaimed. “Those dim-head hunks would’ve let me perish on the spot!”

  “What got you going?” asked Ballister. “Pollen from the hay?”

  “Nothing so dashed ordin’ry. Would you believe it? It was mice that nearly did me in. They could get me in about sixty seconds.”

  “Why not?” replied Ballister. He thought to introduce himself, adding his official capacity at the Conference.

  “Splendid,” muttered the gentleman. “Psychological jurisprudence and all that, I mean! I’m Gaffney, by the way. Sir Mallory. Baronet.”

  Kay sat up like a shot; in the next two minutes she had asked him thirty questions and was primed for fifty more. Sir Mallory Gaffney was news—big news—hot news! He was said to be the man who had invented the springing system that made the revolutionary Enfield Armored Wagon a practical and terrible weapon. He was the man behind the gas-cooled tank motor. Likewise the synthesis of rubber from chalk and carbon dioxide, and any number of other departures. And he had never been interviewed before!

  Ballister pointedly interrupted the questioning with: “Didn’t know you were at the Conference, Sir Mallory. Any official capacity, or just visiting?”

  “Just ordered over, Mr. Ballister. They want my more-or-less expert testimony on this Durtal Bill.”

  “Durtal died or vanished without a trace this morning,” said Kay. “Have you done anything in the invisibility line, Sir Mallory?”

  The baronet laughed indulgently. “Hardly. You Americans had invisible battleships back in 1941, I hear. Learned the trick from some illusionist chap—Dunnings, or Kuss—one of them. But the mirrors lost their silvering in the sea-spray. That’s as far as military invisibility’s gone, I believe.”

  Ballister coughed warningly at the girl. “We’d better be getting back to the hotel,” he said in overloud tones. “Sir Mallory’s had a nasty shock.” He filled in the rest of the trip with diplomatic small talk, avoiding the controversial subjects dear to the reportorial heart of Kay.

  CHAPTER II

  CONSPIRACY

  AT THE Hotel de Universe et d’Oslo they were all in for a nasty shock. The manager dashed to them as they emerged from the cab, and collared Sir Mallory and Ballister.

  “Thank God for both of you!” he cried hysterically. “That this should happen chez moi—it is incroyable, the horrible truly that we face—I ruin and you despair!”

  “Yeah,” said Ballister skeptically. It was a little thick, believing that the hardheaded manager of a great international hotel could be shaken by anything that could happen in the way of bad luck. “Yeah. Explain yourself.”

  “The senator American—Beekman, he is vanished from his room.”

  A committee head hailed them from across the lobby and came over, looking grave. “He isn’t kidding, Ballister. Beekman’s flitted completely, like Durtal and the others. Right in the middle of a caucus on the Competition Act. Went out to—er, went out for a moment and never came back.”

  “My seempathie, monsignors,” said a burly, black-haire
d man. “I have heard of the so-gre-ait loss of thee Amairicain delegation.”

  “Thanks, Rasonho,” said the committee head abstractedly. “Maybe he’ll turn up.”

  “Lait us hope so. Thee passage of thee Competition Act means vair-ree much to my people.” As he walked off Ballister studied the man. There was something familiar about him, something damned strange to boot. He inquired of the committee man.

  “Rasonho? He’s from the Pyrenese Peoples’ Republic. Their only delegate. Good sort, but somewhat thick. He doesn’t understand the parliamentary method.”

  “And what may the Pyrenese Peoples’ Republic be?”

  “I did an article on them,” said Kay. “No wonder you missed them, because they popped up while you were at the front. They’re a sort of Basque federation—not more than ten thousand of them, I’m sure. Yet they held DeCuerva’s army when he was coming north through the Pyrenees to relieve Milhaud. By heaven, they held him for three months! It’s gone unsung for the most part, but I call it the most remarkable feat of the war.”

  “No doubt,” said Ballister abstractedly. “And then, after the Initial Treaty they organized under a simple native President, thinking they had won independence from France and Spain both?”

  “That’s right. The Conference recognizes them—even invited the delegate.”

  A bomb exploded in the lobby of the hotel; the high ceiling swayed right and left. Screams echoed through the great hall; emergency exits opened onto the street automatically.

  “This is intolerable!” fumed Sir Mallory when they had gained cover. “Someone—some party—is trying to destroy the Conference. They’re trying to kill every damned one of us—or have us disappear bit by bit!”

  “Sure,” said Ballister. He wound a handkerchief around his wrist; flying plaster had clipped a bit of his flesh away. “What do you suggest, sir?”

  “Armed guards, Mr. Ballister! We must fight this menace as it is trying to fight us! We must post men in every corridor—shoot suspicious persons on sight!”