Collected Short Fiction

by C. M. Kornbluth

  “Make me some coffee,” he growled. “One minute by the clock.”

  HE stretched, rolled out, shucked his pajama tops and gave himself a sponge bath with a cup of water that would mean one less cup of coffee for him today. Some mornings he just couldn’t stand the feel or stink of methyl alcohol.

  Shivering, he gulped the coffee and pulled on pants, parka and sand boots. “Let’s see the stuff,” he said. “Did Benoway give you a letter or note for me?”

  “Oh, sure. I almost forgot.” Hank handed over an ampoule and an onionskin. The note from the Mars Machine Tool physician said:

  Dear Hellman:

  Here is the T7-43 Kelsey you requested by radio message. Re your note by messenger, sorry to tell you symptoms completely unfamiliar to me.

  Sounds like one of the cases any company doc would ship back to Earth as soon as possible. The T7-43 has worked wonders in heat burns here and have seen no side reactions. Please let me know how it comes out.

  In haste,

  A. Benoway, M. D.

  Tony grunted and beckoned Hank after him as he picked up his physician’s bag and went out into the bitter morning cold.

  “Did you say you walked from Pittco?” he asked Hank, suddenly waking up.

  “Sure,” said the youngster genially. “It’s good exercise. Look, Doc, I don’t want to get out of line, but I couldn’t help noticing that you’re building up kind of a bay window yourself. Now it’s my experience that those things are easier not to put on than to take off—”

  “Shh,” said Tony as they stopped at the Radcliff shack. They slipped in and Tony filled a needle with the new Kelsey drug. “Stay in the background until I get this over with and motion you in, Hank.”

  He awakened the girl.

  “Here’s the new stuff, Joan,” he said. “Ready?”

  She smiled weakly and nodded. He shot the stuff into her arm and said: “Here’s your reward for not yelling.” Hank duly stepped forward, switching on a light in her eyes that did Tony’s heart good.

  ii

  BREAKFAST was fried green Mars beans and “coffee”—bearable, perhaps, under ideal conditions, but completely inedible in the gloomy atmosphere around the big table this morning. Tony gulped down the hot liquid, and determinedly pushed away his beans, ignoring the pointed looks of more righteous colonists, who cleaned their plates stubbornly under any circumstances.

  The Lab radiation checked out okay; no trouble there at least this morning. After a meticulous cleanup, he visited Nick Cantrella in the hole-in-the-wall office at the back of the Lab.

  “How’s it look, now you’ve had a night’s sleep on it?” Nick demanded. “You still want to throw in the sponge? Or are you beginning to see that we can lick this damn planet if we only try?”

  “I can’t see it,” Tony admitted. Soberly he told the other man about his visit to the Tollers. “And look at Old Man Learoyd,” the doctor added. “He can’t be much past 60 and that’s stretching it. I know he came here when he was twenty-one; at least, that’s what he says—so how old can he be? But I gave, that man a physical checkup a few months back, and, Nick, he not only looks like an ill-preserved octogenarian, but if I didn’t know otherwise, I’d stake my medical reputation on his being close to ninety.”

  Nick whistled. “As bad as that?”

  “What do you expect? Chronic vitamin deficiencies, mineral deficiencies, not enough water, never-ending fatigue from never-ending work—you pay high for trying to live off the country. More than it’s worth.”

  Half to himself, Nick said: “Six months. We lose our commercial contacts, we pay forfeits that eat up our cash reserve—what if we just go to the buyers and tell them what happened?”

  Tony started to answer, but Nick answered himself: “It won’t work. They won’t dare place another order with us because they’d be afraid it’d just happen all over again. And we haven’t got the funds to sweat it out until they forget. Tony, we’re washed up!”

  “There’s still a search.”

  “Hell, you know none of our people took the stuff.”

  “Let’s have a council meeting. I want a search.”

  Nick, Tony, Gracey and Mimi Jonathan held one of their irregular conclaves in the doctor’s hut. Gracey was fiercely opposed to a shake-down check of the homes and belongings of the colonists, swearing that it was a frameup by Brenner and Bell. The other three outvoted him, loathing to invade the pitifully small area of privacy left to Sun Lake people, but not daring to leave a possibility uninvestigated.

  “I suppose,” grunted Gracey, “that when you find there isn’t any marcaine in our trunks, you’ll tear the Lab apart looking for it.”

  “If we have to, we may,” said Tony, poker-faced, but sickened at the memory of what isolation from the life-giving flow of materials from Earth had done to the Tollers. “I’ve had some nasty jobs before this.” He thought of how he had lanced the swollen ego of Mrs. Bayles, the neurotic, and how she must hate him for it—an ugly thought.

  By mid-morning, Mimi had the shakedown under way. Tony settled himself in the radio shack, firing message after message to Commission headquarters at Marsport, trying to get through to Lt. Nealey. The operator at Pittco who relayed from Marsport telefaxed the same reply to the first four messages:

  “UNAVAILABLE WILL RELAY MESSAGE END CORPORAL MORRISON COMMISSION MESSAGE CENTER.”

  On the fifth try, Nealey still had not been reached—but Bell had.

  This time the reply was: “LIEUTENANT NEALEY UNAVAILABLE MY ORDERS. UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES GROUND TRACING DEVICE M-27 LENT FOR PRIVATE USE. REMINDER LIMITED MARS MESSAGE FACILITIES TAXED YOUR FRIVOLOUS REQUESTS. REQUIRE CEASE IMMEDIATELY END HAMILTON BELL, COMMISSIONER P.A.C.”

  Gladys Porosky, the operator on duty, piped indignantly: “He can’t do that, can he, Doctor Tony? The relay league’s a private arrangement between the colonies, isn’t it?”

  Tony shrugged helplessly, knowing that Gladys was right and that Bell’s petulant arrogance was a long stretch of his administrative powers—but due process was far away on Earth, for those who had the time and taste for litigation and the cash reserves to stick it out.

  Gracey joined him in the hut long enough to say bitterly, “‘Come and see the loot we accumulated.”

  Tony went out to stare unhappily at the petty contraband turned up by the humiliating search: some comic books smuggled in from Marsport, heaven knew how, by a couple of the youngsters; some dirty pictures in the trunk of a young, unmarried chemist; an unauthorized .52 pistol in the mattress of a notably nervous woman colonist; a few bottles and boxes of patent medicine on which the doctor frowned; a minute quantity of real Earthside coffee kept to be brewed and drunk in selfish solitude.

  By mid-afternoon this much was certain—any marcaine hidden in the Colony was not in a private home.

  The Lab would have to be searched next.

  iii

  IT WAS like going into a new world, to escape from the doomed, determined optimism of the search squad and council members, back to the cheerful radiance that inhabited the hospital. Tony stood in the doorway, studying the family group across the room—father and mother thoroughly absorbed in each other and in the tiny occupant of. the white-painted wicker basket that served as hospital bassinet.

  It was still hard to believe the delivery had gone so well. Tony wondered again, as he had so often in the preceding months, what could possibly have gone wrong with all the previous attempts, before they came to Mars.

  There had been frequent conceptions: six known miscarriages, and an unknown number of first-month failures. A series of experts back on Earth had searched for the reason, and confessed failure. There was nothing wrong with Polly organically, and microscopic examinations failed to show any deficiency in her or in Jim. With that history, Tony had been prepared, right up to the last minute, for trouble that never materialized. It was still hard to believe that their success, his and Polly’s, could have been so easily achieved.

  “He’s
awake again!” Polly hadn’t quite made up her mind whether to be proud or worried. “He slept for a little while after you left,” she explained, “but then he started crying and woke himself up. You should have seen how mad he was—his face was so red!”

  “He’s quiet enough now.” Tony went over and stared down thoughtfully at the small circle of face, half-obscured by the oxygen mask. Certainly there was no sign of ill health. The baby was a glowing pink color, and his still-wrinkled limbs were flailing the air with astonishing energy. But a newborn baby should sleep; this one shouldn’t be awake so much.

  “It’s possible he’s hungry,” the doctor decided. “Hasn’t he cried at all since he woke up?”

  “Oh, a little, every now and then, but if you turn him over, he stops.” Tony went over and scrubbed his hands in the alcohol basin, then came back and surveyed the baby again. “I think we’ll try a feeding,” he decided. “I’ve been waiting for him to yell for it, but let’s see. Maybe that’s what he wants.”

  “But—” Jim flushed and stopped.

  HIS wife broke into delighted laughter. “He means my milk isn’t in yet,” Polly said to the doctor; and then to Jim, “Silly! He has to learn how to nurse first. He doesn’t need any food yet. And the other stuff is there—what do you call it?”

  “Colostrum,” Tony told her. He removed the baby from the crib, checked the mask to make sure it was firmly in place, then lowered the infant to his mother’s waiting arms.

  “Just be sure,” he warned her, “that the mask doesn’t slip off his nose. There’s enough area around his mouth exposed so he can feed and breathe at the same time.”

  THE baby nuzzled against her for a moment, then spluttered furiously, turned a rich crimson and spewed back a mouthful of thin fluid. Hastily Dr. Tony removed the infant, patted and held him until the choking fit stopped and restored him to his basket.

  Polly and Jim were both talking at once.

  “Hold on!” said the doctor. “It’s not the end of the world. Lots of babies don’t know how to feed properly at first. He’ll probably learn by the time your milk comes. Anyhow, he’ll learn when he needs it. Babies don’t stay hungry. It’s like the oxy mask—he breathes through his nose instead of his mouth because the air is better. We don’t have to cover up his mouth to make him do it. When he needs some food he’ll learn what his mouth is for—fast.”

  “But, Doc, are you sure there’s nothing wrong with him? Arc you sure?”

  “Jim, an my business, I’m never sure of anything,” Tony said mildly. “Only I’ve never yet seen a baby that didn’t find some way to eat when it wanted food. If your pride and joy won’t take the breast, we’ll get Anna to whip up some bottles for him. It’s as simple as that.”

  Or not so simple—

  George and Harriet Bergen’s eight-month-old Loretta, conceived on Earth but born at Sun Lake, was still feeding from the breast. Loretta would be weaned not to milk but to the standard Colony diet plus vitamin concentrates when the time came. It was what the older children ate; they had forgotten what milk tasted like.

  There were milch-goats, of course, and some day there would be milk for everybody in the Colony to drink. But to make that possible, it was necessary now to allocate all the milk produced by the herd to the nourishment of more goats, to build up the stock.

  It was hard enough to keep the herd growing even with best of care. Yaks, at first, had seemed like a better bet for acclimatization to the Martian atmosphere, but they were too big to ship full-grown, and so far no young animals had survived the trip. So the Colony had brought over three pairs of tough kids, and bred them as rapidly as possible. Half the newborn kids still died, but the surviving half needed every bit of milk there was. Still, if necessary, a kid would have to be sacrificed, and the milk diverted to the baby.

  Tony pulled himself out of the useless speculation with a start of dismay. There was no sense planning too far ahead now; Bell might solve this problem for them, too.

  “Anything else you want to know before you go home?” he asked. “Have any trouble with the mask?”

  “Anna checked us out on that,” Jim told him. “It seems to be simple enough.”

  “Where is she? In the living room?” Tony started toward the door.

  “She went home,” Polly put in. “She said she had a headache, and when Jim came in she showed us about the mask again, and then went . . .”

  “Hi, Tony. Can I see you a minute?” Marian Cantrella stuck her head through the outside door to the hospital. Tony turned and went out with her.

  “IS SHE ready to go?” Marian wanted to know.

  “Since this morning, really. But the damn search—how’s their place? Did anybody get it back in order?”

  “I just came from there,” Marian nodded. “We’ve got it all fixed up and the new room’s all done. The walls are still a little damp. Does that matter?”

  “It’ll dry overnight,” Tony reflected. “They can keep the baby in the room with them till then . . .”

  “Polly must be dying to get home,” Marian broke in.

  “I guess she is. Okay,” he decided, “but it’ll have to be right away. In another hour, it’ll be too cold for the baby to go out.”

  “Right.” She started away, and Tony was about to open the door when she turned back. “Oh, I almost forgot. Is it all right for Hank to take Joan out to watch? I was talking to her before, and she felt so left out of everything . . .”

  “I guess so.” He thought it over and added, “Only if she’s carried, though. Maybe Hank can fix up a tote truck from the Lab for her to ride on. I don’t want her to use up what strength she has.”

  “I’ll fix it,” Marian promised. “I think it would mean a lot to her.” Her golden curls shook brightly around her head as she ran off down the street.

  Tony went back into the hospital. “Guess it’s time to get you folks out of here,” he told the Kandros. “Place is too cluttered up. I might need this space for someone who’s sick.”

  Polly smiled up at him from the chair where she had been sitting for the last hour. “I don’t know what I can wear,” she worried happily. “The things I came in would fall right off me, and I can’t very well go out this way. Jim, you better . . .”

  “Jim,” Tony interrupted, “You better get some sense into that wife of yours. You’ll go just the way you are,” he told Polly, “and you’ll get right into bed when you get there, too. You’ve been up long enough for one day.”

  “Just the way I am?” Polly laughed, poking her bare toes out from under her bathrobe.

  WHILE Jim helped her with her sandboots and parka, Tony wrapped the baby for his first trip outdoors. They were ready quickly, but Marian had been even quicker. When they opened the front door, they were confronted by a crowd of familiar faces. It seemed as if all of Sun Lake City Colony’s eleven dozen residents had crowded into the street in front of the doctor’s house. They were determined, apparently, that whatever happened next week, the Kandros’ homecoming would not be spoiled today.

  “I suppose you all want to see the baby? All right,” Tony told them, “but remember, he’s still too young for much social life. I don’t want you to crowd around. If you’ll all spread out down the street from here to the Kandros’ place, everybody can get a look.”

  Together, Tony and Jim eased Polly into the rubber tired hand-truck that did double duty as a hospital stretcher. They placed the baby in her arms, and adjusted the small portable tank for the oxy mask at her feet. Then they started slowly down the long curved street, Stopping every few yards along the way for someone who wanted to shake Jim’s hand, pat Polly on the shoulder, and peer curiously at the few square inches of the baby’s face that were exposed to the weather.

  The doctor fretted at the continual delays; he didn’t want Polly or the baby to stay out too long. But after the first few times, he found he could speed things up by saying meaningfully, “Let’s let them get home now.” As the small party progressed down the street
, they collected a trailing crowd. Everyone was determined to be in on the big surprise.

  Polly and Jim didn’t let them down either. The moment of dazed surprise when they saw the still-wet walls of the new room jutting out from their house was all that could be asked. Equally satisfying were the expressions on their faces when they opened their door and looked in at the array of gifts.

  Some of the new plastic furniture was not in evidence—it was still curing in the electronic furnace. But the crib was finished, and it stood in the center of the room, its gleaming transparent sides proudly displaying the blankets and baby-clothes, diapers, sheets, and towels piled up inside. On the table, jars and dishes stood side by side with new plastic safety pins and an assortment—somewhat premature—of baby toys.

  Tony gave them time to take it all in, then insisted that the door be closed and Polly and the baby be allowed to settle down. While he was unwrapping the baby, he heard them in whispered consultation, and a moment later the door opened again. Jim left it very slightly ajar behind him as he stepped out, so they could hear what went on.

  “WAIT a minute, folks,” Tony heard him call. A slight hesitation, and then Jim’s voice again. “Polly and I—well, we want to thank you, and I don’t know just how to go about it. I can’t really say I’m surprised, because it’s exactly the kind of tiling a man might know you folks would do. Polly and I, when we came here—well, we’d never had much to do with politics or anything like that. We joined up because we wanted to get away, mostly.

  “We—I guess you all know how long we’ve been waiting for this kid. When he didn’t come, back there on Earth, we felt like we had no roots anywheres, and we just wanted to get away, that’s all. When we signed up we figured it sounded good. A bunch of people all out to help each other and work together, and the way the Statute says, extend the frontiers of man by mutual endeavor. It made us feel more like we belonged, more like a family, than just working for some Mars Company would have been.