Collected Short Fiction

by C. M. Kornbluth

  “That’s enough,” said the commissioner. “You can’t have it both ways. As long as Mr. Brenner’s willing, this is your notice; I’ll confirm it in writing. Under Title Fifteen of the Interplanetary Affairs Act, I advise the Sun Lake Colony that you have until the next Shipment Day to produce the marcaine thief and the stolen marcaine or evidence of its disposal. If you fail to do so, I will instruct the military to seal off Sun Lake Colony and a suitable surrounding area for a period of six months so that a thorough search can be conducted. Lieutenant, move your men out of here.”

  NEALEY snapped the halfplatoon to attention and marched them through the Lab door. The unmilitary figures of the commissioner and the tall, angular drug maker followed them.

  O’Donnell’s face was grim. “It was written in the old days of one ship a year and never revised,” he said. “ ‘Sealed off’ means just that—nothing and nobody in, nothing and nobody out.”

  “But we’re geared for four ships a year,” said Flexner complainingly. “Shipment Day’s only three weeks off. Rocket’s due in ten days, two days unloading, one week overhaul and off she goes. We’d miss the next two rockets!”

  ‘“We’d miss the next two rockets!” Tony repeated, dazed.

  “Half a year without shipments coming in, half a year without goods going out!”

  “He’s trying to strangle us.”

  “It can’t be legal,” objected Flexner.

  “It is. By the time it could be changed, the Colony’d be dead anyway.”

  “Even if we pulled through, we’d be poison to Earthside buyers—shipments arriving there half a year late.”

  “He’s trying to strangle us,” O’Donnell insisted doggedly.

  ”How many OxEn pills have we got?”

  “What’s Bell’s angle? What’s Brenner out for?”

  “Bell’s crooked. Everybody know’s that.”

  “That’s why they sent him to Mars.”

  “But what’s his angle?”

  Tony was still a doctor. To no one in particular he muttered, “I’ve got to check on the baby,” and started out again on the road from the Lab to the huts with the spring gone from his knees.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  THE living room was empty.

  Someone had tidied it, straightened the wall bunk where Jim had slept, and cleaned up the dirty dishes. Anna’s long work-counter was bare, all the tools and materials stored away now in cupboards underneath. That alone made the room look deserted.

  Tony wouldn’t talk to the women about the commissioner and his trap. He’d try not to think about it; he’d tell himself it would work out somehow in the three weeks of grace they had—

  The door to the hospital was open, but no sounds came from the other side. Polly was asleep then, and Anna had gone out.

  Tony drew a cup of water from the tap on the plastic keg, and set it to boil on the stove with a pinch of “coffee” makings—the ground, dried husks of a cactuslike plant that grew in some abundance on the desert. At its best the stuff had approximately the flavor of a five-day-old brew of Earth-import brick coffee, made double strength to start with and many times reheated. It did contain a substance resembling caffeine, but to Tony it often seemed the greatest single drawback to human life on Mars.

  Automatically he checked the time; the stuff was completely undrinkable if it brewed even a fraction of a minute too long. Before he put any food on to cook, he stepped into the hospital half of his hut for a look at Polly.

  “Well!”

  “Hello, Tony.” Anna barely looked up to acknowledge his presence. She had moved the baby’s basket next to Polly’s bed and was bending over, peering into it.

  “We were watching the baby,” she unnecessarily told him, and promptly returned to that fascinating occupation.

  “Just what is there to watch so hard?” the doctor demanded.

  “He’s . . .” Anna finally transferred her attention; she made a helpless little gesture and smiled with an irritating air of mystery. “He’s very interesting,” she said finally.

  “Women!” Tony exploded. “Sit for hours watching a baby sleep!”

  “But he’s not sleeping,” Anna protested.

  “He’s hardly slept all morning,” Polly added proudly. “I’ve never seen such a lively baby!”

  “And how would you know what he was doing all ‘morning’ ? When I left here you were asleep yourself, and Anna was all ready to go home and do likewise. Where’s Jim?”

  “He wanted to go to work,” Anna explained. “He was—embarrassed, I guess, about staying out. I told him I’d stay. I wasn’t really sleepy anyhow.”

  “YOU weren’t sleepy? After twenty-six hours awake?” He tried hard to be stern. “So you sent Jim off to work to give him a chance to brag about his baby. You weren’t sleepy, and neither was Polly, and strangely enough, neither was the newcomer here! Well, as of now, all three of you are just too sleepy to stay awake, you understand?”

  Purposefully, he moved the basket to the far side of the room. What they said was true, he noticed; young Kandro was wide awake and kicking, apparently perfectly content. Not even crying. Strange behavior for a newborn.

  “Come on, Anna, clear out.” He put the baby down, and turned to Polly. “I’ll give you ten minutes to get to sleep before I stuff some more sedative into you,” he informed her. “Didn’t anybody ever tell you you’re supposed to be tired now?”

  “All right.” Polly refused to be ruffled. “He’s an awfully nice baby, Tony.” She settled herself more comfortably under the thin cover, and was asleep almost before they left the room.

  “Now go on home,” Tony told Anna. “I’m going to make myself some breakfast. Wait a minute. Did you eat anything?”

  “I did, thanks.” Abruptly she turned toward him, and made a conscious effort at concentration. The abstracted look left her eyes and she was brisk and alert as usual. “What about Polly? Don’t you have to go out again? Somebody should be here.”

  “I’ll get hold of Gladys when I leave. Don’t worry about it.”

  “All right.” She smiled at his impatient tone. “You don’t have to push me. I’ll go.” She picked up the heavy parka she had worn on her way over there, in the early morning hours the day before. At the door, she turned back. “You’re still coming over for dinner tomorrow night?”

  “You couldn’t keep me away,” he assured her.

  She came back into the room, and took a ration slip from the drawer where Tony kept them. “You pay in advance, you see,” she added, smiling.

  “And well worth it.” Tony held the door for her, a habit he never quite lost even in the atmosphere of determined sexual equality that pervaded the Colony. Not until she was gone did he remember the coffee he’d started.

  It was ruined, of course, and now he’d have to do without it. Water was too scarce, still, to waste because of carelessness. But coffee or no, he was hungry. He found a dish of barley gruel, left over from a lunch he’d cooked for himself two days ago, heated it, and spooned it down hastily. Then, with a final check to make sure Polly was really asleep, he set out for the Poroskys’ house to find Gladys.

  At fourteen, Gladys was the oldest child in the Colony—none of the adult members were over thirty-five years—and her status was halfway between that of a full working member and the errand-girl position her younger sister occupied. She was old enough to assist almost anybody at anything, still too young to take full responsibility for a job. Now, Tony found, she was over at the Radcliff’s, sitting with Joan. It was his next stop anyhow.

  ii

  IF THEY did have to leave Mars, it would have at least one good effect: the life of Joan Radcliff would be saved. But, the doctor reflected, she’d die of a broken heart as surely as site was dying on Mars of . . . whatever it was. His star patient, the thin, intense girl lived only for the success of the colony on Mars. And life on Mars was killing her.

  When he knew what she had, maybe, Tony would know how to cure it. Meanwhile, all he c
ould do was make a faithful record of its symptoms and try out treatments till he found one that would work. Or until he was sure none of them worked.

  It was like an allergy and it was like heart disease and it was like fungus infection where you couldn’t put your finger on the parasite. The biochem boys back on Earth would lick it some day as they had licked dozens of others, but right now Tony didn’t even have a name to tag it by.

  Joan came down with it two days after she and her husband, Hank, arrived on the shuttle rocket. If the doctor didn’t find some relief for her soon, it looked as though she would have to go back on the next one.

  Tony bit hard on the stem of his empty pipe, slipped it into a pocket, and walked into the bedroom of the Radcliff house.

  “How’s it going?” He put his bag on the table and sat down on the edge of Joan’s bunk.

  “Not so good.” She had to work for a smile; a good colonist is always cheerful. “I just can’t seem to get settled. It’s as if the bed was full of stale cracker crumbs and broken shells . . .”

  She began to cough, short dry barks that rattled her thin body, feather-light on Mars, against the bed.

  Cracker crumbs and sea shells!

  Sometimes it seemed that the damned condition reached her mind too. It was hard to distinguish between the delirium of fever, the depression of fatigue and confinement, the distortions of mental disease.

  The spasm had passed. She battled the itch to cough again and counter-irritate her raw, constricted throat. Tony, watching, knew the guts it took. He had told her that a cough can be controlled, that she should control it because the spasms endangered her already overtaxed heart. But even before he warned her, she was fighting: a good colonist guarded her health; it was a colony asset.

  Everything for the Colony. And for Henry, her husband. Joan was one of those thin, intense young people who give their lunch money to Causes. It had taken a lot of skipped lunches to get her and Henry to Mars as shareholders, Tony realized. But she could never have been satisfied with less—the non-voting position of “drop-in,” for instance. She had to identify herself with a heroic unpopular abstraction, or life wasn’t worth living.

  Tony had more than a touch of it himself. All of them in the Colony did. But the doctor doubted that he had enough of it to fight against the brief, delusive relief of a coughing fit in order to get well imperceptibly sooner and go back to work for the Colony.

  If she got well.

  Tony opened his little black bag ritually, his mind flashing back to the intern days when he had perfected the gesture: the grave and kindly set of face, the brooding moment of introspection over the open mouth of the learned tool chest. Too bad; too bad you couldn’t cut whatever it was out of her suffering body and bury it; or bore a hole in her and let the poison run down a drain. There was no tool waiting for him in the open bag with which to stop the girl’s own chemistry from fighting against her flesh.

  JOAN whispered, “Got some magic in there for me?” A good colonist is always cheerful; the great days are ahead.

  “Middling magic, anyhow.” He put the thermometer in her dry mouth, and peeled back the blanket. There were new red bumps on her arms and legs; that was one phase of it he could treat. He smoothed on ointment, and changed the dressings on the old puffy sore spots.

  “That’s good,” she whispered gratefully as he took the thermometer from her mouth. “So cool!” Her temperature was up another two-tenths over yesterday’s 101.3 And the thermometer was not even moist.

  Another injection, then. He hated to use them, as long as he wasn’t sure of the nature of the disease, but one of his precious store of anti-histamines seemed to give a little relief. It was temporary, of course, and he ardently hoped it was doing no permanent damage . . . but it did shrink the inflamed watery bladder that her throat lining had become under the action of killer-enzymes. She would be able to breathe more easily flow, and to sleep. It might last as long as twenty-four hours.

  One more day, and by that time Hank would be back with a little of the latest Earth-developed hormone fraction.

  Tony had heard that Benoway, over at Mars Machine Tool, was using it with startlingly good results for serious burns and infections. It just might turn the trick; there was no way to know till they tried.

  Joan’s eyes closed and the doctor sat there staring at the parchment like lids, her chapped and wrinkled lips. Tony grimaced; she was obviously being a fool.

  He rose noiselessly and crossed the room to the water jug. When he came back he spoke her name softly: “Joan?”

  Her eyes opened and he held out the glass.

  “Here’s some water.”

  “Oh, thank you!” She sighed dreamily, reaching out—but she snatched her hand back. “No, I don’t need any.” She was wide awake now and she looked frightened. “I don’t really want it,” she pleaded, but her eyes never left the glass.

  “Take it, drink it and don’t be silly!” he snapped at her. Then, gently, he propped up her shoulders with his arm and held the glass to her lips. She sipped hesitantly at first, then drank with noisy gulps.

  “What are you trying to do to yourself? Didn’t I order extra water rations for you?”

  She nodded, shamefaced.

  “I’m going to have some words with Hank when he comes back, to make sure you drink enough.”

  “It’s not his fault,” she said quickly. “I didn’t tell him. Water’s so precious and the rest of you are working and I’m just lying here. I don’t deserve any extra water.”

  He handed her the glass, refilled, and propped her up again.

  “Shut up and drink this.”

  She did, with a combination of guilt and delight plain on her face.

  “That’s better. Hank ought to be back tomorrow with the medication from Mars Machine Tool. I’ll tell him about the water myself this time, and I don’t want any nonsense from you about not drinking it. You’re a lot more valuable to the Colony than a few quarts of water.”

  ALL right, Doctor.” Her voice was very small. “Do you really think he’ll be back tomorrow?”

  Tony shrugged with calculated indecision. Mars Machine Tool was almost a thousand miles away, and allowing time for food and rest, Radcliff should be back before midday tomorrow. But Joan’s question was so pathetically eager, he didn’t dare sound too sure. It was even harder when she opened her eyes again, while he was dosing his bag, to ask: “Doctor, will it do any good, do you think? You never told me the name of it.”

  “Oh,” he answered vaguely, “it’s just something new.” Just as he knew about Hank, he knew perfectly well the sixteen-syllable name of the hormone fraction. But he was afraid that Joan would know it, too, from sensational press stories, and that she would expect a miracle. The doctor was expecting only another disappointment, another possibility ruled out, another step toward the day when he’d have to break the girl’s heart by ordering her back to Barth.

  “I won’t be able to leave anyone with you for a while,” he told her as he left. “I need Gladys to stay with Polly Kandro. But remember, if you need anything, or want anything, use the intercom. Call somebody to do it for you. Your heart isn’t in any shape for exercise.”

  She nodded without lifting her head from the pillow, and smiled gratefully. Things would be better, Tony thought, when Hank was back.

  The sun was beating down more strongly when he stepped outside. It was past mid-morning already, and he had to get over to Nick Cantrella’s: give him official clearance on the burned arm, and talk to him about Bell’s threat. But there were other patients, and they needed treatment more urgently than Nick. Better to get through with them first. Then when he got to Cantrella, they’d be able to buckle down to the quarantine problem.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  A YOUNG, girl’s head was splitting with the agony of her infected supraorbital sinus, but she was no whiner and even managed a smile.

  “I’ve got a present for you, Dorothy,” he said. “It’s from a girl who was your
age a couple of centuries ago. Her name was Tracy. I don’t know whether it was her last or first name, but she gave it to this stuff.” He held up a hypo filled with golden fluid. “It’s called bacitracin. They found out that this Tracy’s body fought off some infections, so they discovered how it did the trick and wrapped it up in this stuff—a good, effective antibiotic.”

  She hardly noticed the needle. Misdirection is as useful to a doctor as it is to a stage magician, he thought wryly.

  A middle-aged man who should have known better was recovering nicely from his hernia operation.

  “I still say, Oscar, that you shouldn’t have let me fix it up. You would have been a medical marvel—The Man Who Got Ruptured on Mars. I could have had you stuffed, got you a grand glass case right next to the door at some medical museum on Earth. Maybe a neon sign! You got a nice repair job, though I say it myself, but you’re throwing away worldwide medical fame. The Man Who Tried to Lift a Lead Shipping Crate Bare-handed! I can see it now in all the textbooks. You sure you don’t want me to undo you again?”

  “All right, Doc,” grinned Oscar, red-faced. “You made your point. If I see anybody even looking as though he’s going to lift a gut-buster, I’ll throw him down and sit on him until the crane arrives. Satisfy you?”

  A not-quite-young woman suffered from headaches, lower back pains, sleeplessness and depression.

  Poker-faced, the doctor told her: “Mrs. Beyles, you’re the most difficult medical problem—a maladjusted person. I wouldn’t be that direct if we were on Earth, but this is Sun Lake. We can’t have you drinking our water and eating our food if you don’t pay for it in work. What you want, whether or not you admit it to yourself, is to get off Mars, and I’m going to oblige you. If you knew what Joan Radcliff is going through to stay—Never mind. No, I will not give you any sleeping pills. If you want to sleep, go out and work until you’re too tired to do anything else.”

  Was he right? he wondered. He knew the woman, would never believe him and would hate him forever, but it was another kind of surgery that had to be done—fortunately, not often. The woman would either change her attitude, thereby losing her ills and becoming the asset to the Colony that her strapping frame and muscles should make her, or out she would go. It was brutal, it was profit-and-loss, it was utterly necessary.