Collected Short Fiction

by C. M. Kornbluth

  “But what good will that do?” interrupted Mrs. Clair.

  “Just this, Io: When Arthur and I were younger, and much foolisher, we were simultaneously addicted to hypnotism and practical joking. My idea of a practical joke at the time was to give Art some pretty silly orders and post-suggestions when he was under.

  “He, being fundamentally a bright sort of cuss, had himself immunized to that kind of thing by having a professional give him a very solid conditioning—to come out of any hypnotic states at the mention of—among other things—my name.”

  “So if he can only hear your name he’ll be all right?” asked Io excitedly.

  “Yup. And here I go. I see our partner has reverted to type.” Clair was licking porridge from the floor, where his bowl had broken.

  In one quick scampering run, Gaynor darted out from under the ledge and made it to the idiot’s head, with Io close behind him. He bawled out the words: “PAUL GAYNOR!”

  The idiot looked at him. “Why Pavlik,” it said with gentle concern. “How on Earth did you get here?”

  “Arthur!” sobbed Io running toward him. With a puzzled look on his face, Clair picked up his wife gently and brought her toward his face. Tenderly he caressed her hair with his fingertips. “What did you three do to yourselves?”

  “Look, dope!” yelled Gaynor. “What do you remember last?”

  “Oh, I remember everything. Including picking you up. And I have in my mind a complete record of the transactions of the War Council for the week I was used to replace their last idiot, who got a fuse blown somewhere. They had me under a limited kind of control—not really efficient. No oblivifaction coefficient at all. What do we do now?”

  “Suppose,” shrieked Jocelyn, coming out, “you get us to hell out of here. They won’t stop you, will they?”

  “Up to a certain point, no. They won’t harm me at any rate. I have religious connotations of some kind, I think.”

  “Arthur—Paul—wait!” said Io. “I have an idea. You and Jocelyn go back to our friends; Art and I will stay here. Paul, you don’t suppose these people have any screens against thought helmets, do you?”

  “They haven’t,” said Clair. “What’s on your mind, pet?”

  “This, They’ll be needing Arthur again soon when they start the offensive. And as far as they knew, he’ll be as he was before.

  “Only, I’ll be in Arthur’s pocket, relaying everything that comes into his mind to you bade in the citadel. While you relay to me the suggestions of their War Council, or whatever they have like it.

  “Do you get it, Paul? These birds will be getting orders from their idiot, only it will be our orders! That is—if you can make a screen, dearest.”

  Clair grinned. “I can.”

  “That’s all very nice,” protested Jocelyn, “but how do Paul and I get out of here?”

  “The idiot will get you over the wall—or under it—” said Clair. “Before you go, you can send a message to your friends to be waiting. I’ll rig up an apparatus so your thoughts won’t be interrupted by the wrong people—jeepers, the things I’ve learned here, Pavlik!” He picked up the two and put them in his pocket again. “Let’s go,” he said. “No one pays any attention to the idiot in his time off, and they’re too busy to notice what he’s doing anyway—unless he yells for help.”

  And again the three went on a bumpy sort of ride in the pitch blackness of Clair’s pocket.

  CHAPTER VII

  “IT DOESN’T take you birds any time at all to go to town on a new device once you have the idea,” marvelled Gaynor as he fiddled with the dials of the spy-screen several of Joe’s friends had constructed. The giants had a screen for their own use—the room wasn’t long enough for Gaynor to be able to see it all—and a small one had been made for the visitors.

  “But it wasn’t much of a problem,” came the thoughts of the giant Jocelyn had dubbed “Luke”; “as soon as you told us about it, it was quite simple. We had all the makings—only thing is, it never occurred to us—or to them, either, apparently.”

  “What’s the program?” asked Jocelyn. “At the moment, we’re getting the layout of their citadel, and the disposition of their forces. Luke and Oley here (Oley’s the blond, sweet) are very busily engaged in making a map of the works—giving all the data we need.”

  “Their layout seems to be that of a seven-pointed star,” mused Jocelyn. “No encircling rings of fortifications—just points.”

  “Probably all they need,” said Gaynor. “Don’t be too sure that there isn’t a solid ring of some kind around their citadel.

  Wouldn’t be at all surprised if those seven points weren’t the terminals for a virtually impenetrable vibrational barrier.”

  “But we had no trouble in getting through!”

  “Only because they see no point in keeping it up constantly. They probably have some sort of detectors. Don’t forget, Joe was discovered and disposed of in virtually no time at all after he got in.”

  Gaynor plugged in a connection. “Ah, here we are.” The screen lit up to show an office where several giants, apparently of high rank in the enemy’s forces, were also poring over war maps. As a light on the desk flared, they straightened up and took down what were obviously thought-helmets from a nearby rack.”

  “We do likewise,” said Gaynor suiting his words to action.

  “Then?”

  “Then the fun begins. It’ll work like this: I will be the mental sounding board for our side, little more than an extrapolated dimwit like my partner, Art Clair. As messages from their staff come to him, he shoots them over to me via Io and Luke and his friends pick them up. Luke and his friends decide whether the order will go through as it, or whether it’ll be changed, and if so, how. In the meantime, Art’s screening his mind against intrusion; soon’s our misdirection gets to Art, he relays it to whoever it’s supposed to go to.”

  “Sounds frightfully complicated,” mused Jocelyn. “And won’t those dopes get suspicious—won’t it take time?”

  Gaynor shook his head. “There’s nothing as fast as thought.” He made a final adjustment on the helmet. “If they’re noticing such things, they may be aware of a slight pause, but it’s doubtful that they’ll notice—particularly when the fun starts. Which will be soon, now.”

  “This is all very ducky, husband mine, but what am I supposed to be doing all the time? Am I an orphan?”

  “Suggest you watch the screens and keep in contact with our friends—never can tell when you might be able to make a bright suggestion. Matter of fact, you’ll have to keep contact if you want to know where to send the spy-beams in order to see what’s going on. Oh, it’ll be exciting enough for your bloodthirsty tastes, pet. Just think of poor me—I won’t know what’s happened until it’s all over.”

  “What! Won’t you be in on this?”

  “Yeah, with my mind a perfect blank.”

  “Huh,” she snorted, “that’ll be simple for you!”

  OUT OF the bad guys’ citadel came the air fleet, rank after rank of slender, black arrows, floating gracefully upward. In a few moments’ time, thought Jocelyn, they would be over and beyond the outlying star-points and into the noman’s land area. But at that precise instant, hell broke loose.

  The neat, orderly arrangement of the first rank was suddenly shattered as four shells exploded simultaneously in its midst. Jocelyn gasped, twirled the dials of the screen seeking the source of the deadly fire. In a moment she had found it; a battery in one of the outlying fortresses had turned its guns upon their own air forces.

  Misdirection with a vengeance, she thought. It worked beautifully when used upon such a setup as the enemy had. Their whole training was that of blind obedience to superiors—she guessed what the orders must have been: attack and destroy the air fleet which has become a traitor to the fatherland.

  The second wave had come up now, and, sizing up the situation (no doubt through the help of the idiot) quickly spread out, so as to offer the poorest possible targets an
d dove for their attackers. There were no flashes from the great guns—they operated on springs. But their fire was deadly none the less; for all the maneuvering of the slender ships, black arrow after black arrow burst into shattered fragments.

  By the time the third wave came up, the first two had been utterly disorganized, a few individual ships, diving toward the batteries and being blown out of the atmosphere. So far, not one hit by the fleet had been made, although several concerted dives had been attempted.

  The third wave, it seemed would not be taken off guard. But Jocelyn, looking on and trying to outguess the command, had forgotten the lovely possibilities of misdirection. The third wave did not attack the batteries at all; it hovered high above the citadel then dropped like hawks upon the ascending fourth wave of ships. As if, at a signal, all seven batteries directed their fire toward the citadel itself, raining devastating fire upon the vital sections.

  Jocelyn tuned in upon the thought-waves to hear a veritable fury of hysterical commands and countercommands vibrating back and forth. At a sudden hunch, she sought out the room where the central command hung out with the idiot. She was amazed to find a heavy cordon of guards around the room, constantly being reinforced. She looked into the room itself, and rocked with laughter at the sight of Clair, sitting on a stool, drooling, a blank look upon his face. There was a faint bulge in his vest pocket—that would be Ionic Intersection.

  The room was apparently soundproof to the nth degree. The central command sat around, a confident smirk upon their faces, watching maps, making marks upon them and nodding approvingly. Jocelyn took a closeup on the map and was amazed to discover that, according to it, the enemy air fleet was now approaching its objective, having smashed through the spheres of Luke’s people. For a moment she stared disbelieving, then laughed again as the answer came to her. Of course! These sublime dopes weren’t being let in on what was actually happening.

  She flashed back to the scene of battle. The entire armada of black ships was now engaged in terrific battle with itself. Each squadron, she observed, had its own particular symbol, which helped. Because each squadron was attacking any and every other squadron.

  Meanwhile, mechanized infantry was moving rapidly inward, upon itself. Paying little heed to the struggle in the sky, the infantry from the north side advanced upon, met, and locked in titanic combat with the infantry from the south. Land cruisers riddled each other with deadly fire while the soldiery on foot brought into play the “new weapon,” the corroding mist. From little containers they squirted it far ahead of them and waited for the “enemy” to come on. It was the southern infantry that waited; the northern soldiery came forward.

  Jocelyn stared for a moment in fascinated horror as the infantry moved into the terrain filled with the deadly corrosive mist, sat with her fists tightly clenched as the mist settled about them and slowly ate them away. There was no escape. The ghastly stuff was all-devouring. One drop upon any part of the clothing was sufficient, unless that bit could be taken off and flung away before it penetrated to the skin. She sat transfixed with the horror of it, then, suddenly, switched to another scene. There was death and destruction in the skies, too, but it was swift and comparatively clean and painless.

  The final scene came when the door of the central command’s office was rudely shot open, and a squad of soldiers came in. Before the amazed mucky-mucks could protest, they raised pistols and riddled them.

  “Stop it!” Jocelyn’s thoughts screamed out. “Their power’s broken; put an end to the battle!”

  “We’ve done just that,” came back Luke’s thoughts in answer. But Jocelyn didn’t hear him; for the first time since adolescence, she was out cold in a genuine faint.

  CHAPTER VIII

  “DO YOU people have any mass-decreasing stuff?” asked Gaynor, via telepathic helmet.

  “No,” sadly admitted Luke. “I fear you will have to go back to your universe as you are. Though I don’t see what’s wrong with Clair’s size. I think it’s a very distinguished size.”

  “Yeah,” said Jocelyn in disgust. “You would.”

  The war was definitely over. They’d just finished a conference with emissaries from the. former bad guys and a general session, whereby arrangements would be made to help the former enemy reconstruct in return for certain processes which could be put to peacetime use was in the offing. Clair and Ionic Intersection had made their exit after the revolution, signalized by the shooting of the central command.

  “But what,” demanded Io, “caused Arthur to bloat up to his terrific size? I don’t understand it.”

  “Perhaps,” mused Clair, “it was because I took a different route to this plane. It’s a marvel that the same thing didn’t happen to you.”

  “So help me, partner,” said Gaynor, “this is going to be awkward. Awkward as a bandersnatch—going around the good old USA with a colleague the size of a big house. I don’t know what to do about it. And how we can get you back into the Prototype is also beyond me.”

  “What happened to Proto Jr?” asked Jocelyn.

  “That went big, too. And unfortunately, I’m afraid it was blown up during the battle because it was right in the former bad guys’ city. The counter lost focus when it swelled up, I guess.

  “But this is what is known as a spot! Clair big and us normal—”

  “Hold on a minute,” interrupted Ionic Intersection. “Maybe that’s not just so.”

  “Meaning what?” asked her husband. “Meaning, my dearest, that maybe you’re normal and we’re small. Ever think of that?”

  “Ho-ly smokes!” gargled Gaynor. “You could be right at that.” He clipped on his helmet and concentrated heavily.

  “Yep,” he said at length, “you seem to be right. And what does that dope Oley say but that they have muss-increasing stuff. And why didn’t I ask him in the first place?”

  “When do we bloat, then?” asked Jocelyn.

  “Shortly. Oley says he’ll have to get a special power line for the machinery. He can assemble that out of some stuff he has—hold on—what’s—”

  He felt a weirdly powerful grinding in his every cell, fibre, tendon, thread, and atom. Gaynor was growing. So, he saw, were Io and Jocelyn. Finally he stretched. “There, that’s better. Much better. Lemme look at you, Jos—” His colossal mate smiled sweetly. “You giant,” she said amiably, “I hope Io didn’t guess wrong.”

  “Now,” said Gaynor, “all we have to do is give the treatment to the Prototype, then we can scoot.”

  “Oh, you want to go?”

  “Of course,” said Jocelyn, “you don’t think we want to stay here, do you?”

  Clair and Io exchanged glances. “Io and I are staying,” declared Clair, “but there’s nothing to keep you two from making it back. Io’s hasn’t had any real mental exercise between the time we got back to Earth last and when you three landed here. And I must confess that I want to learn a lot more about these people, too.

  “So, why not go back and leave us here—we’ll call it a honeymoon.”

  “Come, my pet,” said Gaynor gently, taking Jocelyn’s arm. “I think they mean they want to be alone.”

  “YOU’LL come back some day, Art?” asked Gaynor anxiously as the last batch of supplies were stowed away in the Prototype.

  Clair nodded. “Sure.” He took a familiar device out of his pocket. “Here’s a duplicate of the counter. I don’t want you and Jos stuck for my debts—you ought to be able to take care of them and yours, and have enough left over for the next few years’ ice cream cones on what you get from this. Here are the plans.” He tended Gaynor a small, thick envelope.

  “Your analyser,” he went on, “is set on me and mine on you. I’ve made a few improvements, on this pair. You can signal me with it, or vice versa. Nothing very complex, but enough so that I’ll know if you want to come after me and vice versa.

  “So remember, if you’re in a tight spot and need me, just send out an SOS on this. I’ll do the same if I need you. And if you’re ju
st coming my way, but there’s no emergency, just send out the word CLAIR in regular morse on the dingus. I’ll call GAYNOR in a similar situation for you.”

  “Good enough,” murmured his partner. “So it’s cheerio.”

  “Right. Bye, Paul.”

  Handshakes and osculations, then the door closed and the Prototype lifted up into the air.

  “With the charts that Luke gave them, they ought to manage,” mused Clair. “It’s too bad in a way—I rather liked Pavlik.”

  “So did I,” agreed Io. “Perhaps his wife will grow up some day. Then I’ll be glad to see Jocelyn again.”

  “OH—OH,” muttered Gaynor at the controls of the Prototype, “there’s something familiar about this section of space.”

  “Yer dern’ tootin’ they is!” snapped a familiar voice. “Jumpin’ Jehosophat, but caint an’ old man hav’ any peace a tall? Hey! What happened ter the pretty gal with the brown hair?”

  “She found her husband,” explained Gaynor. “Honest, Mr. Canter, we weren’t aiming to intrude. We’re on our way home.”

  “Weeel, reckon as haow yer might as well be sociable sence yer here. C’mon over ’n’ see the new city I built after ye left the last time.”

  Gaynor followed the hermit’s instructions and shot the Prototype in the directions stated. “Paul!” gasped Jocelyn suddenly, pointing a shaking finger, “Look!”

  “Ulp!”

  Before them stretched a city, but what a city! Huge buildings in the shapes of cones with needle-tips, balanced upon each other, cubes, hexagons, spheres, and every impossible and possible geometric shape. A riot of angles and slopes.

  “Take it away,” gasped Jocelyn weakly.

  “Up here,” came the hermit’s voice. “They looked to see Davy perched on a large sphere rolling along a zigzaggy road atop a tremendously high wall. Beside him sat the yellow-haired girl in the gingham dress they’d seen before.

  “Gawd,” muttered Gaynor, “I think I need some of that corn likker—without a hose.”