Collected Short Fiction

by C. M. Kornbluth

  “Fast, Kenneth,” said the king softly. “Pour it on. If we make it to those overhanging cliffs ahead they’ll never spot us.”

  The Earthman cursed the clumsy, cranky rocket-turbines, and tried to get them to turn over a few extra revolutions. He had only pessimistic thoughts of the future, but he kept his fears to himself. Whatever kind of spot they were in, he was inviolable as an extraplanetarian under Solar Law. Of course, if the soarer above dropped a bomb, it wouldn’t make any difference, but he got a sour kick out of knowing he was in the right, whatever might happen.

  Ahead loomed a sort of mountain range of ice—low, of course, due to Neptunian gravity and windstorms, but providently carved into fantastic shapes.

  “Fetzop!” Dodd sputtered suddenly. “What’s that?”

  The king looked, then turned and shook his head. “It can’t be,” he said flatly. “What would a cart be doing out here? And drawn by a glum, at that.”

  “Is that a gluna?” asked Dodd, who had heard the things mentioned but never seen one before. He couldn’t make out much detail but, in the light of the running lamps on the cart it drew, he saw a large, quadrupedal, shaggy beast.

  As the sled hissed across the ice toward the crags, the other vehicle disappeared. “Could it be signaling to the planes?” worried Dodd.

  “Certainly not,” said the kingly one. “It can’t see us—we’ve no lights. It must belong to some old crank. Nobody else would use a gluna for a draft animal. Though a lot of people keep them for pets in the cities.”

  There was a long silence. Dodd finally exploded.

  “How far away are those damned mountains?” Distance was deceptive on this planet, with its hundred-mile horizon.

  “Take it easy,” advised the Neptunian. “We’ll get there.”

  THEY WERE DRIVING along half asleep, when a resounding smash-up thoroughly awakened them in an instant.

  “We’ve been bombed,” yelled Dodd, drawing his guns.

  Fetzop, eyes closed, had been catapulted to the ground where he remained. He was audibly praying in Neptunian, his face even paler than usual.

  The Earthman looked up, then around. They were still a long way from the mountains, but there were no planes visible overhead.

  A grayness on the horizon showed him that dawn was coming.

  “What the—” he mumbled, scratching the helmet of his heat-suit. Then it occurred to him to look down at what he was sitting on.

  One glance had him springing to his feet and bounding away. He had been sitting on a gluna, a beast that seemed principally composed of fur.

  “Fetzop,” he called cautiously, keeping his eyes on the animal. He picked his way over the wreckage of their own sled, tapped the Neptunian on the shoulder. “Fetzop!”

  The King of Neptune quivered to his feet. Without opening his eyes he intoned bravely, “Greetings, my loyal subjects. I, your king, am ready. Shoot straight and spare not—”

  “Shut up,” said Dodd wearily. “There’s nobody here but us fugitives.”

  The king opened his eyes. “Then for Pete’s sake what happened? What did we run into?”

  Dodd shrugged. “We seem to have met up with that cart we saw a while ago. Our sled’s wrecked.” He kicked bitterly at the rocket-turbine, which sighed convulsively and slumped into a tangle of metal and plastic.

  “Where’s the man who was driving?” asked the inquisitive Fetzop.

  “How would I know? Scattered to the four winds, probably. Our prow must have hit him square, knocking out his animal and killing the driver.”

  A creaky old Neptunian voice gave him the lie simultaneously with a hand-gun’s discharge past his ear. Dodd dropped, drew, and fired in almost one smooth movement, cracking off a big chunk of boulder.

  “Ow!” wailed the Neptunian voice. Dodd and the king ran behind the boulder to find a whiskery old miner pinned beneath several hundred pounds of rock. Luckily for him the rigid construction of his heat-suit had saved him from being crushed like a bug. Dodd thoughtfully kicked the newcomer’s gun out of reach and pondered.

  “Very good,” he said slowly—and in Neptunian. “Very good indeed. You won’t mind if we borrow your cart, will you?”

  The miner raved elaborate curses at him and the king. Dodd laughed and rolled over a water flask and some tins of food to the old one’s side. “That,” he said, “should keep you going for a while. In about a day and a half Fetzop will be either dead or safe. If he’s dead, you’ll probably die too, because he won’t be in any position to help you and I won’t want to. If he lives, we’ll send out a rescue party. Fair enough?”

  They left the miner as his curses changed abruptly to fervent prayers for the safety and well-being of good King Fetzop.

  “I don’t know, Kenneth,” said the king dubiously as he inspected their prize. “This is not a very good gluna. I think it is dead, for one thing. And we’ll never make the mountains before daylight.”

  “Don’t let it upset you,” suggested Dodd, smiling. “It doesn’t matter one way or another. I have a plan.” The king listened as Dodd unfolded his brain-child; apathetically at first, then eagerly as hope began to appear on his ugly sharp face.

  DODD WAS MUSHING along the icy plains behind the gluna. Every now and then he paused to loosen the wheel that kept screwing rigidly onto the axle. To add to his distractions, he had to kick back into place the other wheel, which kept falling off. The animal drawing the car stopped patiently for these frequent interruptions, sometimes looking around with dumb misery in its fur-covered eyes. It had been very badly damaged in the crack-up of the cart and the power-sled.

  Above, planes thickened and dipped, as though they couldn’t believe what their telescopes showed them. One finally dropped low and came to a skidding halt on the ice.

  Dodd reined up the animal and squatted patiently on the cart. Three bloodthirsty city-dwellers marched from the plane, their guns cocked.

  Warily they approached the Earthman. “Where’s King Fetzop?” demanded one in the language of the planet.

  Dodd shrugged wearily. “No spik Neptunian,” he said—or its equivalent.

  Unfortunately, he spoke in English. “What did you say?” asked his interrogator.

  Dodd shrugged again and repeated his shibboleth.

  “Why don’t you answer?” asked the Neptunian. “Has the gluna got your tongue?” His companions grinned at that—sinisterly, Dodd thought. He decided it would be best, on the whole, to explain to them that he never, so long as he lived, would speak a word of their language again. The pitfalls were too great. He essayed a few simple signs.

  Commanding attention by clapping his hands, he first pointed to his lips and shook his head. Then, pointing to the Neptunians, he waggled his jaw to show that he meant their language. He shook his head again. Then he pointed to himself, waggled his jaw, and nodded brightly. At about that point, he himself became a little fuzzy as to what he meant. He stared around at the slack-jawed Neptunians and was unable to resist the temptation to thumb his nose and wiggle his ears at them.

  The Neptunians tore their eyes from him with effort and gaped at each other. “An aborigine,” one explained, “probably praying to his savage gods.”

  Another one doubted that. “No,” he declared. “Much more likely a form of spastic nerve disease.” Before the opposing factions could come to blows, the planes began landing by the score. Finally they rustled up one Neptunian who could speak and understand English—he thought.

  The expert, a teacher of languages, approached Dodd and said, bowing deeply, “Do does it how, kid?”

  “Very well, thank you,” answered the Earthman politely. There followed an urgent consultation between the linguist and the throng. Dodd tried to follow it but became suddenly conscious of overpowering weariness. He shifted to a more comfortable slouch on the gluna-cart and listened patiently as the linguist tried again:

  “The keeng, he ees where ees he, good man?”

  “That’s it in a nutshell,” agreed Dodd s
olemnly.

  “He says,” relayed the expert to the others, “that His Majesty is in a nutshell.” The man from the city didn’t believe him; they bunched angrily near the planes and went into a huddle.

  Dodd heard such snatches of entertaining conversation as: “If he has killed the king, he is guilty of murder, because he is not a Neptunian.”, “If he hid him we’ll fry his ears.”

  “It’s too bad these foreigners have to come and spoil things for us Neptunians.”

  He shuddered and ignored as much as he could. One thing he had noticed about Neptunians: They talked a lot, but did little.

  The linguist came back. “Ees king, in spot what, good man?” he essayed.

  Dodd laughed sharply. “You can do better than that,” he commented.

  The translator shrugged. “He is crazy,” he informed the others. Then, to Dodd again, “Come weeth hot speed, dear,” he ordered sternly, “We go to ceety.”

  Dodd nodded and unhitched the gluna, tying a rope around its shaggy neck by way of a leash. “Yoicks and away,” he remarked. “Please to remember the fifth of November. Let’s start cooking with gas, dear.” He scowled and rolled his eyes maniacally as he strode through the throng toward the planes, dragging the gluna behind him.

  THE THRONG AT THE coronation hall was brilliant. The entire nobility was present in full uniform. A prominent part of the entertainment, of course, were the huge fighting glunas, a charming relic of Neptune’s medieval culture. Dodd had to kick the fighters away more than once as they sniffed suspiciously at his own shaggy, utilitarian animal.

  They hadn’t murdered Dodd or even beaten him up, though it had looked like a close shave for a while. And now he was safer than ever, for the three days had nearly expired and his friend Fetzop was due to assume the throne.

  Dodd himself—he had discovered through assiduous eavesdropping—had been the subject of much unfavorable comment. It seemed that he was committing an average of three unforgiveable blunders a minute, and was being thoroughly shunned.

  Half a dozen uniformed heralds entered and sounded a fanfarade on a battery of violin-like instruments. About Dodd there arose an excited buzzing. This was the big moment. He glanced cautiously at his watch and frowned.

  A Neptunian who seemed to fill the function of a lord high chamberlain arose and declared dramatically, “Let His Majesty, King Fetzop of Neptune, step forth and receive his kingdom!” Everyone in the hall began peering behind draperies and into urns, anxious to be the first to render homage to the new monarch.

  “Let’s not take chances,” said Dodd aloud and in English. “My watch says this guy is three minutes ahead of time. It may be a trick.” A couple of members of the Koshcha nearby looked over to see to whom he was talking; no one was visible.

  The chamberlain spoke again, the strain of waiting telling on his face.

  “Let His Majesty appear!” he cried desperately.

  By now the throng was looking under the rugs and in the upholstery of the furniture, with one or two even tapping tentatively on the walls for hollow spots. Still no king. This was bad, very bad, both for morale and as a breach of tradition. The king was on the planet, had not been reported dead, yet had not showed up. The inference was that he didn’t believe the monarchy worth accepting, thus violating Codes One to One Million in the Neptunian rule-book.

  After an embarrassing ten minutes more of waiting, there came a report of street rioting outside. Several of the court ladies had swooned and been carried out feet first. The impromptu searching parties, now really desperate, were looking in their pockets and shoes for the fugitive royalty.

  Suddenly Dodd gave a start and chuckled shamefacedly. “My watch was stopped,” he announced. As the chamberlain was about to repeat his invocation, the Earthman led the shaggy, shambling brute of a gluna through the crowd and up the steps to the platform.

  “Neptunians!” he cried. “Meet your king!” He plunged a knife into the hide of the beast and ripped down the skin. A gauntleted hand appeared and widened the slit, and was followed by the owner of the hand—King Fetzop, still wearing his heat-suit.

  “I’m parboiled, Kenneth,” he groaned in English. “Help me out of this damned thing.” Free of the electric overalls, he stretched and bowed to the throng, which stared incredulously and then let out a mighty cheer.

  “We’ve done it,” whispered Fetzop to Dodd. “My people are good losers—it’s an old Neptunian custom.”

  AFTER THE FORMALITIES of investiture were concluded, the coronation was to end, as usual, with a banquet. And after the half-thousand guests had plowed through the rare dishes—including such exotics as Martian prickly-apples and Earthly herring—the banquet ended with after-dinner speeches.

  In the regular course of speakers Dodd fell asleep, for by Neptunian custom the least important spoke first and at greatest length. He awoke to find the king himself addressing the crowd.

  “—For not without the daring and brilliance of my friend from Earth, Kenneth Dodd, would I be here today. Friends, this Kenneth Dodd is no ordinary man. It was from his mind that there sprung the idea of wrapping me, your sovereign, in the hide of that lowly beast which lies here before me, and which I shall ever keep by my side as a reminder that only through genius can hardships be defeated.

  “I shall never forget the day on Earth when Kenneth Dodd saved my life at the extreme risk of his own, defending me against a drink-maddened woman whose fingers were already red with the blood of those she had clawed. I shall never forget the calm daring with which he struck her on the side of the head so that she was instantly rendered unconscious.

  “And once again Kenneth Dodd saved my life—from you, my loyal subjects. It was the swiftness of his mind, the nimbleness of his hand that preserved me so that I address you now.

  “What reward can I offer for the great services he has rendered me? How can I repay this man who is not as other men? There is one reward, one boon within my power to bestow which goes beyond the gift of money, even beyond the highest honors of the State which I might bestow upon him by patent of nobility. This fullest reward I am prepared to give. Kenneth Dodd of Earth, rise and come to me!”

  Dodd rose, wondering what might be coming.

  “Kenneth Dodd,” said the king, “you were my friend. You are my friend no more. Be now my son—legal, regal member of the Royal Family of Neptune!” He took Dodd by the left hand in a bone-crushing grip. The cheers of the crowd became hysterical.

  The Earthman blushed, deeply honored. “Why, thanks,” he said. “Thanks an awful lot, Your Majesty. I am more pleased than I can say. Why, just think, I may some day—awk!” He moaned in sheer horror as a thought suddenly struck him.

  “How do you feel, Fetzop?” he demanded worriedly, extending his arm to brace his parent. “All right?”

  “Thank you, Kenneth,” said the ruler in surprise. “I’m fine. A little tired but fine—son!” He beamed on Dodd, whose face became very worried indeed as new possibilities began to suggest themselves.

  DODD GREW TO BE quite a legend on the flight back to Earth. “There’s the man,” passengers would whisper to each other, “who turned down a royal life. He left Neptune after being adopted by the king himself. He must be crazy. Do you suppose he’ll go back after he’s had a chance to think it over?”

  Dodd sometimes overheard these remarks. When he did he smiled, because he knew he would never go back. There was a disadvantage to being a prince, he had found. If your father died, you were in grave danger of becoming king!

  The Extrapolated Dimwit

  The search for a screwball friend led Gaynor and Joscelyn to an utterly mad world of giants, whose director was a drooling idiot!

  CHAPTER I

  “I ALWAYS smoke Valerons,” declared Gaynor. “I have found that for the lift you need when you need it, they have no equal. Unreservedly I recommend them to all dimensional flyers and time travelers.” He gagged slightly and wiped his mouth. “Was that right?” he asked the ad man.

>   “Okay,” said Alec Andrews of Dignam and Bailey, promoters. He disconnected the recording apparatus. “Mr. Gaynor,” he declared fervently, “you will hear that every hour, on the hour, over the three major networks. And now . . . ah . . .” He took a checkbook from his pocket.

  “Fifteen gees,” said Gaynor happily, flipping a bit of paper between his fingers. “This, my pretty, will net you a fishskin evening gown.”

  “Yeah,” said Jocelyn. “If I can keep you from buying a few more tons of junk for your ruddy lab.”

  Gaynor looked uneasy. “Hola, Clair,” he greeted the wilted creature who entered, tripping over a wire.

  “Hola yourself,” muttered Clair disentangling. “I got it. All of it.”

  Jocelyn, tall, slim, cameolike and worried, asked him: “Measles?”

  “Nope. Differentiator Compass in six phases—just finished it. Creditors on my heels—needed two ounces of radium. Save me, Pavlik! Save your bosom friend!” He turned as a thundering noise indicated either his creditors or a volcano in eruption. “Here they are!” he groaned, diving under a table. Gaynor and his wife hastily arranged themselves before it as the door burst in.

  It was a running argument between a plump little brunette and a crowd of men with grim, purposeful faces. “Gentlemen,” she was saying with what dignity she could, “I’ve already told you that my husband has left suddenly for Canada to see his father. How can you ruthlessly desecrate this home with your yammerings for money—”

  “Look, lady,” said a hawk-eyed man. “We sold your husband that equipment in good faith. If he don’t propose to settle for it now, we’re just naturally going to slap a lawsuit on his hide.”