Collected Short Fiction

by C. M. Kornbluth

  “Hold it,” interjected Gaynor. “Io, what’s the damage?”

  The plump woman sighed. “Thirty-five thousand. I told him he didn’t need all that radium, Paul. What do we do now?” Martyr-like, Gaynor unfolded the adman’s check and endorsed it to cash. Jocelyn, beside him, took a deep breath and snarled wordlessly. “Here’s something on account,” he said, tendering it to the hawk-eyed creditor. “Come around for the rest in a week. Okay with you?”

  “Okay, mister,” said the hawk, handing over a receipt. “If your friend was more like you, us entrepeneurs’d have a lot easier time of it.” He bowed out with his allies. Io closed the door and locked it.

  “Now, Arthur,” she began dangerously, “come out with your hands up!” She stared coldly as her husband, the distrait Clair, emerged from under the table. “Dearest,” he began meekly.

  “DON’T you dearest me,” she spat.

  “If she weren’t in another dimension and turned into a little leather slug, I’d go home to mother. Now explain yourself!”

  “Ah—yes,” said Clair. “About that money. I’m sorry you had to turn over that check, Paul. But this thing I’ve finished—absolutely the biggest advance in space-flight and transplanar navigation since the proto. The perfect check and countercheck on position. It’s like the intention of the compass and sextant was to seamanship and earthly navigation.”

  “Well, what is it?” exploded Jocelyn.

  “The Six-Phase Differentiator Compass, Jos. You see it here.” He took from his breast pocket a little black thing like a camera or exposure meter. “Allow me to explain:

  “This dingus, if I may call it such, is a permanent focus upon whatever it is permanently focused on. It acts like a Geiger-Muller counter in that when you approach the thing it was focused on, it ticks or buzzes. And the nearer you get, the louder it buzzes—or ticks. That is the tracer unit. And the other half of the gadget, the really complicated half that took all that radium, is a sort of calculating device. Like a permanent statistical table, but with a difference.

  “Inside this case there is a condition of unique stress obtaining under terrific conditions of heat, radiation, bombardment, pressure, torsion, implosion, expansion, everything. And there is in there one little chunk of metal—a cc of lead it happens to be—that is taking all the punishment.

  “Geared on to this cc of lead are a number of fairly delicate meters and reaction fingers—one for each dimension in which we navigate, making seven in all. From these meters you get a co-ordinate reading which will establish your position anywhere in the universe and likewise, if you set the dials for desired co-ordinates, it works in reverse and you have the processive matricies required. How do you like that?”

  “Do you really want to know?” demanded Gaynor.

  Clair nodded eagerly.

  “I think it’s the craziest mess of balderdash that’s ever been dreamed up. I don’t see how it can work or why you’ve been wasting your time and my money on it. Straight?”

  Clair wilted. “Okay, Paul,” he said. “You’ll see.” He drifted from the room, moping.

  “Now where do you suppose he’s going?” asked his wife.

  “To get plastered, dear,” replied Jocelyn.

  “THIS,” said Gaynor, “is a helluva way to make a living.” He gestured with distaste at the stage waiting for him, and winced as the thunderous applause beat at his ears.

  “Bend over,” said Jocelyn.

  “What for?” he demanded, bending, then yelped as his wife gave him a hearty kick in the pants. “Now why—” he began injuredly—

  “Old stage tradition. Good luck. Now go out and give your little lecture. And make it good, because if you don’t, there won’t be any more little lectures and the creditors will descend on poor Ionic Intersection like a pack of wolves for what that louse of a husband she has owes them.”

  “I wish you wouldn’t talk that way about Clair,” complained Gaynor. “What if he has deserted the girl? Maybe she snores.” He strode out onto the platform briskly and held up his hands to quiet the applause. “Thank you,” he said into the mike. There was no amplification. He gestured wildly to the soundman who was offstage at his panels. “Hook me up, you nincompoop!”

  The last word bellowed out over the loudspeakers. Gaynor winced. “Excuse me, friends,” he said, “that was wholly unpremeditated. Anyway, you’re here to see the lantern-slides and hear my commentary. Well—let’s have Number One, Mr. Projectionist.”

  A lantern slide flashed onto the screen as the hall darkened. “There you see me and my partner, Art Clair, directly after we received the Nobel Prize. Suffice to say that it took us a week to learn that you can’t drink Akvavit, the national potion of Norway, like water, or even gasoline. The best way to handle the stuff is to place a bowl of it at a distance of fifteen feet and lie down in a padded room where you aren’t likely to hurt yourself when you advance into the spastic stage of an Akvavit jag. Note the bruises on Mr. Clair’s jaw. He thought he was saying ‘Thank you’ in Norwegian. He wasn’t. Next!

  “This fetching creature on the screen is Miss Jocelyn Earle, at the time of the picture, a reporter for the Helio. She was given the assignment, one sunshiny day, of investigating the work in progress of those two lovable madcaps, Gaynor and Clair. Fool that she was, she accepted it. She found that the work in progress consisted of a little thing known as the Prototype, whose modest aim was to transmit Art and me to the beginning of the universe. This it did, but with a difference. Joselyn came, too.

  “Now you see the Prototype, all forty feet of it. I won’t go into the details of construction and theory; suffice to say that it worked, and you see—get it up, Mr. Projectionist!—a porthole view of things as they were about eleven skillion years ago, before the planets, before the stars, before, even, the nebulae. By this time, Art and I were desperately in love with Miss Earle. Despite her obvious physical charms, we discovered on that journey that she was a woman of much brain-capacity, besides cooking up the best dish of beans that side of eternity. Next!

  “Observe the pixies. I don’t expect you to believe me, but after the Prototype got out into the primordial state before the nebulae, we were chased by, in rapid succession, flying dragons, pixies, and a planet with a mouth. Eggs for the Alimentary Asteroid, as it were.

  “Following this unhappy circumstance, we went through some very trying times. The ship drifted for weeks, nearly out of fuel, and almost wholly out of control. Things were in a very sad way until—next!—a greenish sort of glow filled the ship and we found ourselves on the planet of the Gaylens, not much the worse for wear.

  “These Gaylens were a charming but absent-minded people of a peculiarly lopsided kind of scientific development. They were just about precisely like us, human physically and very nearly so psychologically.

  “Comes nova. Mr. Projectionist, will you change that damn slide?” A view of a tropical island flashed onto the screen. “Cut out the horseplay!” Gaynor bawled. The tropical island vanished and a terrific view of a nova sun appeared. “That’s better, thanks.

  THESE Gaylens changed themselves JL into little leather slugs to live during the nova. This, Art, Jocelyn, and I couldn’t stand. So they kindly whipped up for us a spaceship—we couldn’t use the Protoype because Jocelyn and a Gaylen girl named Ionic Intersection—the Gaylens name themselves according to their work; this gal had developed something terrific in the way of Ionic Intersections and thus the odd-sounding name for her—had gone off with it by accident—and sent us off to another of their planets. Next!”

  A view of sunset over Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, appeared. Gaynor muttered a curse. “Bud, if you want me to climb your crow’s-nest and break your neck, I’ll do it. Let’s have that Protean before I hurt you!” The sunset yielded to an immense whaley creature glancing coyly out of the corner of its seven eyes. “Okay, Mr. Projectionist, I’ll see you later.

  “That big thing is a Protean, the highest form of life in that or any other universe, I suspe
ct. They live a completely mental existence, and their only wish is not to be bothered by outsiders. And as such we qualified, for theirs was the planet on which we landed. Anyway they did us a favor—or rather, this particular Protean did—by finding Jocelyn, Ionic Intersection, and the Prototype for us, dragging them back from some God-forsaken corner of creation. Then he sped us on our merry way with the blessings of his tribe on our heads and the heartfelt wish that we’d come back no more.

  “Once out in space and time in the Prototype we had yet to find our way home. And that, to make a long story short, Aas by intellectual means. By a kind of mental discipline we were able to preselect our landing place and time. Anyway, my friend Clair had somewhere forgotten that he was madly in love with Miss Earle and had gone overboard for Miss Intersection, a pretty brunette, it turns out. Next!

  “Here you see a wedding-group. Being captain of the ship, I was empowered to perform marriages, of course. So it was a double wedding. Miss Earle is now Mrs. Gaynor, and Miss Intersection is now Mrs. Clair, much to her regret. Next!

  “A scenic shot of our welcoming committee, including the mayor and other notables. Art is holding the key to the city. We tried to hock it, later. No go.”

  The screen went blank and the house lights on. “To complete the story,” said Gaynor gently, “I need only add that two weeks ago Art Clair vanished with the look of liquor in his eyes and has not been seen since. Thank you one and all.” He bowed himself from the stage to thunderous applause.

  “NICE work,” said Jocelyn. “A few more like that and maybe we’ll be able to pay off.” Ionic Intersection bustled up. “Jos,” she said worriedly, extending a note, “what does this say? I think it’s from Art. He’s been home then gone to the lab. He left the note home, but when I got to the lab he was gone. Everything was messed up.”

  Gaynor took the note. “Lemme see.” He whistled as he read. “Io, your husband’s done a very rash thing. Listen:

  “ ‘Dear kids: In spite of your unflattering opinions I still have reason to suspect that I know more than a little science in my field. In proof whereof I submit that you will find the Six-Phase Integrated Analyser—I like that better than Differential Compass—in my desk drawer. To make a long story short, I’ve hopped off in Proto, Jr., the little experimental one-man ship.

  “ ‘And I’m going to get myself thoroughly lost in time, space, and dimensions—as much so as is humanly possible. I don’t want to be able to get back of my own free will. This, chums, is so you will just have to find me—and to find me you’ll have to use the much-derided Analyser. Okay? Love, Art.’ ”

  Gaynor stared about him. “That dope,” he said to the world at large. “How do you like that?”

  Ionic Intersection was weeping softly. “What are we going to do?” she asked.

  “Just wait around, dear,” said Jocelyn. “He’ll probably come back with a wild tale or two. Right, Paul?”

  “Wrong,” said her husband incisively. “He meant what he said. We’d better outfit the Prototype for an extended journey. The Proto Jr. doesn’t hold enough air, water, and food for more than a few days. And I hope he won’t be late. This is what comes of forming an alliance with a ringtailed baboon.”

  “Don’t you say that about my husband!” objected Io. “He just wants to show that his tracer works.”

  “Yeah. And if it doesn’t, I’ll be minus a partner and you’ll be minus a husband. Come on; we’re off!”

  CHAPTER II

  THE Prototype loomed on the colossal floor of the lab like a big silver fish, slick with oil. Gaynor shuddered. “That baboon—” he muttered incontinently. “Okay, kids, we’re ready for the happy journey. Pile in.” He inspected the tracing compass and held it to his ear. “Just barely sounding,” he mused worriedly. “It’s below the estimated level of perception. I suspect that our mutual friend has kept his promise and is very lost indeed.”

  He climbed into the ship and sealed the rubber-lipped bulkhead. “Anteros, here we come,” he sighed, flinging down the lever of the protolens. There was a soft, slipping moment of transition that they could all recognize so well, and then through the port blinked countless stars in strange configurations. “Now,” said Gaynor, “where do you suppose we are?”

  “Looks normal,” said Jocelyn. “But the constellations are all out of whack, of course. What do we do now?”

  Her husband put the tracer to his ear. “The very faintest kind of buzzing. This isn’t the time, space, or plane of perception we want. But we’d better look around, anyway.” He shot the Prototype at a sun. “We’ll level out the curve of trajectory about a million miles from the troposphere,” he explained, twiddling with the controls, “and ride on energy. Like a switchback. Only—,” the twiddling had become desperate—“we don’t seem to be able to level out. In fact, we’re about to plunge into that sun!”

  “Awk!” gulped Jocelyn. “What’ll it be like?”

  “Instant annihilation after a brief moment of intense discomfort,” replied her husband, abandoning the controls and leaning back in the bucket seat. “Kiss me, sweet.” Jocelyn kissed him clingingly as they drove into the terrible, blazing surface of the sun. Then she looked at him coldly. “Well, when do we die?”

  He looked baffled. “A few seconds ago. A glance will show you that we are in the center of a very big star and are even now emerging without any damage to the ship or to us. I submit that the star is cold. And why that should be, I’m damned if I know.”

  “Yew brat!” snapped a sharp, bitter voice. “Will yew git ter tarnation gone out of my universe or dew I have ter kick ye out?”

  “Who’s that?” asked Jocelyn.

  “Davy Canter, thet’s who!” snapped back the irritable voice. “This is my universe and I ain’t hankerin’ after intruders. Ef’n yew-all want ter see me face ter face, I’m on the seventh planet of thet sun yew jest ran through. And ef’n yer cornin’, come and ef’n yer gittin’, git!”

  “Sounds like an invitation,” said Gaynor mildly. “Shall we call?” He selected the seventh planet and roared over its surface. The one huge continent that made it up was covered with ruins—and the most gosh-awful ruins that anyone had ever seen anywhere. Periods and styles of architecture were jumbled close together; a Norman tower mouldering chock-by-jowl with a dilapidated super-city of shining concrete and glass met their eyes. Fascinated, they stared, as much at the scene as at the figure of the black-bearded hill-billy, complete with shotgun, standing atop a tower.

  “Yew head north,” came the voice. “Jest land in a clear bit o’ land and I’ll be there.”

  “Okay,” said Gaynor helplessly. He landed the ship and opened the port. The wild-eyed backwoodsman confronted him, shotgun raised. “I’m Davy Canter,” said the woodsman through his disheveled whiskers. “An’ I dont see why folks cain’t leave folks alone when they wants ter be alone. Whut do ye want in my universe?”

  “Sorry, Mr. Canter,” said Gaynor diplomatically. “I’m Paul Gaynor.”

  The backwoodsman stared at him in glee and cackled cheerfully. “Yew must be the fella that Billikin was always a-cussin’ up n’ daown,” he said. “I’m right pleased ter meet up with yew.” He extended his hand and solemnly they shook. Gaynor introduced the ladies and invited Canter in for a smoke and chat.

  “Thank ye kindly,” said the backwoodsman, who seemed to be warming up to them. “I reckon y’re wondering how come I got myself a universe all my own, hey?”

  “Indeed we are,” said Jocelyn. “It looks like a good trick.”

  “I’LL BEGIN at the beginnin’,” said Canter comfortably. “I was known as the hermit of Razorback Crag back in West Virginia when this here Billikin, who said as haow he wuz a scientist feller, come to my place. He said he’d be gone in a little while ef’n I let him have the run o’ the cabin n’ creek, and fust of all, he works up a batch o’ corn likker thet gits me jest warm with admiration—so I let him stay. AH the time he was a-cussin Gaynor and Clair fer fakers and cheats, talki
n’ like a tetched man.

  “He sets him up a lot of machinery on top of the Crag with storage batteries and things and finally says to me: ’Davy’, he says, ‘I’m agoin’ to fix them two fakers, Gaynor n’ Clair. I’m agoin’ to build a universe all my own. An’ so help me ef’n they ever come traipsin’ into it, I’m jes’ nacherally agoin’ ter shoot them dead fer trespassin’.’ Then he pulls a switch an falls doawn daid. I guess it wuz heart failure or somethin’; he wuz as old as the hills. I looks him over a’ takes a little swig o’ thet corn—’n’ then I reckon as haow I must have fell agin’ another switch because I foun’ myself afloatin’ in space. So I sez to myself, I wish as haow I wuz on solid graound, and by ganny, I am! Then I sez to myself, I wish they wuz a sun up thar in the sky, and by ganny there is!

  “So I bin here two or three years, I reckon, and, fuddlin’ araound, buildin’ cities and reducin’ them agin, puttin’ stars in the sky an’ takin’ them out when I git tired o’ them. It’s a sort o’ lonely life, Mister Gaynor, an’ ladies, but I wuz a hermit before Billikin came an’ I guess he just sort of expanded my career, you might say.”

  “Extraordinary!” breathed Jocelyn.

  “Thank yew, ma’am,” said the hermit, staring at her with unconcealed curiosity. “An’ naow, seein’ ez haow I’ve told yew-all my story, mebbe yew can be atellin’ me yours?”

  “Nothing very much to it, Mr. Canter,” said Gaynor. “This other egg, Clair, that Billikin was cursing up and down along with me, got himself lost in a universe of his own, I suspect. Only where it is, we don’t know, and he hasn’t got air and water enough to last him more than a couple of days. And, unfortunately, his universe probably isn’t as convenient as yours, what with providing him with whatever he wishes for.”

  “Sho is a pity,” mused Davy, shaking his head wisely. “Mebbe yew’d better push off, seein’ as haow yer friend’s stuck. But befo yo-all git, ah’d mighty like fo’ yew ter sample maw corn. Would yew be interested? Ah bin wishin’ thet kind thet Billikin cooked up fer me fust of all—sho is fine likker, mister.”