Collected Short Fiction

by C. M. Kornbluth

  “Looks that way,” said Kandro, beaming.

  “Jim,” said the doctor, “somebody ought to stay up and keep an eye on Sunny tonight, but I’m beat. And Polly’s got to get some sleep. Will you do it?”

  “Sure, Doc,” said the father, not taking his happy eyes off the child.

  “He’ll probably need another feeding during the night. You know how to sterilize the bottle, and there’s enough formula made up.”

  “Sure,” said Jim. “You take care of Anna.”

  “I’ll do that.”

  “Oh, Tony, I’m all right, I told you that—”

  “You get your parka, Anna, and don’t argue with the doctor,” Tony told her. “I’m going to take you home and see if I can find out what made you pull that swoon. Come on . . . If you need me for anything, Jim, I’ll be at Anna’s or at home.”

  “I DO have a headache,” she admitted when they reached her house. “Probably all I need is a little sleep. I haven’t been living right.” She tried a smile, but it didn’t come off.

  “None of us have,” Tony reminded her. He studied her and decided against aspirin. He selected a strong sedative and shot it into her arm. Within a minute, she relaxed in a chair and exhaled long and gratefully. “Better,” she said. “Feel like talking?”

  “I—I think I ought to sleep.”

  “Then just give me the bare facts.” He ran his fingers over her head. “No blows. Was it a hangover?”

  “Yes,” she said defiantly.

  “Very depraved. From the one drink you had with us?”

  “From—from—Oh, hell!” That came from the heart, for Anna never swore.

  “I’ve had enough mysteries for one night, Anna. Talk.”

  “Maybe I ought to,” she said unwillingly. “Only a fool tells a lie to his doctor or the truth to his lawyer, and so on.” She hesitated. “I’ve got a trick mind. All those people who think they’re psychic—they are. I am, but more. It doesn’t matter, does it?”

  “Go on.”

  “I didn’t know about it myself for a long time. It’s not like mindreading; it’s not that clear. I was always—oh, sensitive, but I didn’t understand it at first, and then later on it seemed to get more and more pronounced. I—haven’t told anyone about it before. Not anyone at all.”

  She looked at him appealingly. Tony reassured her, “You know you can trust me.”

  “All right, I began to realize what it was when I was about twenty. That’s why I became, of all things, a glassblower. If you had to listen to the moods and emotions of people, you’d want a job far away from everything in a one man department, too. That’s why I came to Mars. It was too—too noisy on Earth.”

  “And that’s why you’re the best assistant I ever had, with or without an M.D. or R.N. on your name,” said the doctor softly.

  “You’re easy to work with.” She smiled. “Most of the time, it is. Sometimes, though, you get so Angry—”

  HE thought back, remembering the times she’d been there before he had called, or had left quickly when she was in the way, handed him what he needed before Tie actually thought about it.

  “Please don’t get upset about it, Tony. I’d hate to have to stop working with you now. I don’t know what you think, just what you—feel, I guess. There are a lot of people like that, really; you must have sensed i.t in me a long time back. It isn’t really so very strange,” she pleaded. “I’m just a little—-a little more that way; that’s all.”

  “I don’t see why I should get upset about it,” he tried to soothe her, and realized sickeningly that it was a useless effort. He literally could not conceal his feelings this time. He stopped trying. “You must realize how hard I try not to show I’m even angry. It is a little disconcerting to find out—I’ll get used to it. Just give me time.” He was thoughtful for a moment. “How does it work? Do you know?”

  “Not really. I ‘hear’ people’s feelings. And—people seem to be more aware of my moods than they are of other people’s. I—well, the way I first became aware of it was when somebody tried to—assault me, back on Earth, in Chicago. I was very young then, not quite twenty. It was one of those awful deserted streets, and he ran faster than I could and caught up with me. Something sort of turned on—I don’t know how to say it. I was sending instead of receiving, but sending my emotion—which, naturally, was a violent mixture of fear and disgust—each more strongly than—than people usually can. I’m afraid I’m not making myself dear.”

  “No wonder,” he said heavily. “The language isn’t built for experiences like that. Go on.”

  “He fell down, and flopped on the sidewalk like a fish, and I ran on and got to a busy street without looking back. I read the papers, but there wasn’t anything about it, so I suppose he was all right afterward.”

  SHE stopped talking and jumped up restlessly. For quite a while she stood staring out of her window, toward the dark reaches of Lacus Solis.

  Finally she said in a strained voice, “Please, Tony, it’s not really as bad as that sounded. I can’t send all the time; I can’t do, it mostly.” She turned back to face him, and added more naturally: “Usually, people aren’t as—open—as he was. And I guess I have to be pretty worked up, too. I tried to send tonight, and I couldn’t do it. I tried awfully hard. That’s why I had that headache.”

  “Tonight?”

  “I’ll tell you about that in a minute. Right now, I want—well, I told you I never told anyone about this before. It’s important to me, Tony, terribly important, to make you understand. You’re the first person I ever wanted to have understand it, and if you keep on being frightened or unhappy about it, I just don’t know—”

  She paused. “Let me tell you about it my way. I’ll try to ignore whatever you feel while I’m telling it, and maybe when I’m done it will all be all right.

  “When that happened in Chicago—what I told you about;—I had a job in an office. There was a girl I had to work with who didn’t like me. It was very unpleasant. Every day for a month I tried to turn that ‘send-receive’ switch and transmit a calm, happy feeling to her, but I never could make it work. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t get anything over to her. I knew what she felt, but her emotions were closed to mine. She didn’t want to feel anything from me, so she didn’t. Do you understand that? It’s important, because it’s true; you can protect yourself from that part of it. You believe me, don’t you, Tony?”

  He didn’t answer right away. He had to be absolutely certain in his own mind, because she would know.

  It would be far worse to tell her anything that wasn’t true than to say nothing.

  Finally he got up and walked over to her, but he didn’t dare speak.

  “Tony,” she said, “you’re—oh, please don’t be embarrassed and difficult about it, but you’re so ‘good.’ That’s what I meant, you’re easy to work with. Most people are petty and a lot of them are mean. The things they feel aren’t nice; they’re mostly bitchy. But you—even when you’re angry, it’s a big, honest kind of anger. You don’t want to hurt people, or get even, or take advantage of them. You’re honest, and generous, and good. And now I’ve said too much!”

  He shook his head. “No, you didn’t. It’s all right. It really is.”

  There were tears shining in her eyes. Standing over her, he reached mechanically for a tissue from his bag, tilted her head up, and wiped her eyes as if she were a child.

  “Now tell me more,” he said, “and don’t worry about how I feel. What happened tonight? Tell me about the headache. And the fainting—was that part of it too? Of course! What an idiot I am! The baby was choking and scared, and you screamed. You screamed and said to stop it.”

  “Did I? I wasn’t sure whether I thought it or said it. That was strange, the whole business. It was terrible, somebody who hurt awfully all over and couldn’t breathe, and was going to—to burst if he couldn’t, and that didn’t seem to make sense—and terribly hungry, and terribly frustrated, and—I didn’t know who
it was, because it was so strong. Babies don’t have such ‘loud’ feelings. I guess it was the reflex of fear of dying, except Sunny is very loud, anyhow. When he was being born—”

  SHE shuddered involuntarily. “I was awfully glad you didn’t think to ask me to stay in there with you. When you sent Jim out. I talked to him, and sort of—concentrated on ‘listening’ to him, and then, with the door closed, it was all right. Anyhow, you want to know about tonight. The baby topped it off. I don’t think that would have made me faint, by itself, but I was working in there, in the same room with Douglas Graham for an hour or more, and—”

  “Graham!” Tony broke in. “Do you mean to say he dared to—”

  “Why, Tony, I didn’t know you cared!”

  For the first time that evening, she laughed easily. Then, without giving him time to think about how his outburst had given him away, she added: “He didn’t do anything.

  It was—it was about what he was writing, I think. I know what he was feeling. He was angry and disgusted and tonieinptuous. He hurt inside himself, and he felt the way people do when they hurt somebody else. And it seemed to be all tied up with the story he was writing. It was a story about the Colony, Tony, arid I got worried and frightened. If only I could be sure. See, that’s the trouble. I didn’t know whether to tell somebody or not, and I tried and tried to ‘send’ to him, but he wasn’t open at all, and the only thing that happened was that I got that headache.”

  “Then when you came over to the Kandros’,” Tony finished for her, “and the baby had all that trouble, of course you couldn’t take it. Tell me more about Graham. I understand that you’re not sure, tell me what you think, and why.”

  “When Jim woke me up, we went back to your place, together, and Graham was working there,” she said. “He asked me what the excitement was all about and I told him. He listened, kept asking questions, got every little detail out of me, and all the time he was feeling that hurt and anger. Then I started to work and he began banging away on his typewriter. And those thoughts got stronger and stronger till they made me dizzy, and then I started trying to fight back, to send—and I couldn’t. That’s all there was to it.”

  “That’s all? You’re sure?”

  She nodded.

  “And you can’t be certain what it was that he was feeling that way about?”

  “How could I?”

  “Well, then,” he said, with a laugh of relief, “there’s nothing at all to worry about. You made a natural enough mistake. Those feelings of his weren’t directed against the Colony at all, Anna. Earlier tonight, after you left, Graham promised to help us. He was writing a story about the spot we’re in, that’s all, and I know that he felt all the things you’ve described, but not about us, about Bell.” He sat a moment longer. “I’m sure of it, Anna. That’s the only way it makes sense.”

  “It could be.” She seemed a little dazed. “It didn’t feel that way, but, of course, it could.” She sighed and leaned back in her chair. “Oh, Tony, I’m so glad I told you. I didn’t know what to do, and I was sure it was something vicious he was writing about the Colony.”

  “Well, you can relax now. Maybe I’ll let you go to bed.” He took her hands and pulled her to her feet. “We’ll work it out, even if I have to take a few new experiences in stride. Believe me, we’ll work it out.”

  She looked up at him, smiling gently. “I think so, too, Tony.”

  HE could have let her hands go, but he didn’t. Instead, he flushed as he realized that even now she was aware of all his feelings. There were tears shining in her eyes again, and this time he couldn’t reach for a tissue. He leaned down and kissed her damp eyelids; then he dropped one hand to brush away the moisture on her cheek.

  A thousand thoughts raced through his mind. Earth, and Bell, and the Colony, now or forever or never. That time in the plane, thinking of Bea. Anna—Anna always there at his side, helping, understanding.

  “Anna,” he said. He had never liked the name. “Ansie.” There had been a little girl, a very long time ago, when he was a child, and her name had been Ansie.

  He released her other hand and cupped her upturned face in both of his. His head bent to hers, slowly and tenderly. There was no fierceness here, only the hint of growing passion.

  When he lifted his lips from hers, he laughed and said quietly: “It saves words, doesn’t it?”

  “Yes.” Her voice was small and husky. “Yes, it does . . . dear.”

  If his mind was “open,” he might feel what she did. Cautiously and warily, he reached out to her, with his arms and with his mind. He needed no questions and no answers now.

  “Ansie!” he whispered again, and lifted her slender body.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  TAD’S left ear itched; he let it.

  “Operator on duty will not remove headphones under any circumstances until relieved—” There was a good hour before Gladys Porosky would show up to take over.

  “Mars Machine Tool to Sun Lake,” crackled the head-set suddenly. He glanced at the clock and tapped out the message time on the log sheet in the typewriter before him.

  “Sun Lake to Mars Machine Tool, I read you, G.A.,” he said importantly.

  “Mars Machine Tool to Sun Lake, message. Brenner Pharmaceutical to Marsport. Via Mars Machine Tool, Sun Lake, Pittco Three. Request reserve two cubic meters cushioned cargo space outgoing rocket Signed Brenner. Repeat, two cubic meters. Ack please, G.A.”

  Tad said: “Sun Lake, to Mars Machine Tool,” and read back painstakingly from the log: “Message. Brenner Pharmaceutical to Marsport. Via Mars Machine Tool. Sun Lake, Pittco Three. Signed Brenner. Repeat, two cubic meters. Received okay. T. Campbell, Operator, End.”

  TAD’S fingers were flying over the typewriter keyboard. Mimi and Nick would want to know how the rocket was filling up. The trick was to delay your estimated requirements to the last possible minute and then reserve a little more than you thought you’d need. Reserve too early and you might be stuck with space you couldn’t fill but had to pay for. Reserve toe late and there might be no room for your stuff until the next rocket.

  “Mars Machine Tool to Sun Lake, end,” said the head-set. Tad started to raise Pittco’s operator, the intermediate point between Sun Lake and Marsport, to boot the message on the last stage of its journey.

  “Sun Lake to Pittco Three,” he said into the mike. No answer. He went into “the buzz,” droning: “Pittco Three, Pittco Three, Pittco Three, Sun Lake—”

  “Pittco Three to Sun Lake, I read you,” came at last, mushily, through the earphones. Tad was full of twelve-year-old scorn. Half a minute to ack, and then probably with a mouthful of sandwich! “Sun Lake to Pittco Three,” he said. “Message. Brenner Pharmaceutical to Marsport via Mars Machine Tool, Sun Lake, Pittco Three. Request reserve two cubic meters cushioned cargo space outgoing rocket. Signed Brenner. Repeat, two cubic meters. Ack, please. G.A.”

  “Pittco to Sun Lake, message received. Charlie Dyer, Operator, out.”

  Tad fumed at the Pittco man’s sloppiness and make-it-up-as-you-go procedure. Be a fine thing if everybody did that—messages would be garbled, short stopped, rocketloading fouled up, people and cargoes miss their planes.

  He tapped out on the log sheet: “Pittco Operator C. Dyer failed to follow procedure, omitted confirming repeat. T. Campbell.” He omitted Dyer’s irksome use of “out” instead of “end” and the other irregularities, citing only the legally important error. That was just self-protection; if there were any errors in. the final message, the weak spot on the relay could be identified. But Tad was uncomfortably certain that Dyer, if the report ever got back to him, would consider him an interfering brat.

  He bet Mr. Graham’s last message had got respectful handling from Pittco, in spite of the pain-in-the-neck Phillips ‘Newscode it had been couched in. They all wanted Graham. Tad had received half a dozen messages for the writer extending the hospitality of this industrial colony or that. The man had good sense to stick with Sun Lake, t
he boy thought approvingly. There was this jam with the rocket and the commissioner, but the Sun Lakers were unquestionably the best bunch of people on Mars.

  “Pittco to Sun Lake,” said Dyer’s voice in the earphones.

  “Sun Lake to Pittco, I read you, G.A.,” snapped Tad.

  “Pittco Three to Pittco One, message. Via Sun Lake, Mars Machine Tool, Brenner Pharmaceutical, Distillery Mars, Rolling Mills. Your outgoing rocket cargo space requirements estimate needed here thirty-six hours. Reminder down-hold cushioned space requests minimum account new tariff schedule. Signed, Hackenburg for Reynolds. Repeat, thirty-six hours, ack please, G.A.”

  HUH! Dyer repeated numbers on his stuff, all right! Tad acked and booted the message on. The machine shop in the “canal” confluence would get it, then the drug factory in the highlands dotted with marcaine weed, then the distillery among its tended fields of wiregrass, then the open hearth furnaces and rolling mills in the red taconite range, and at last Pittco One, in the heart of the silver and copper country.

  He hoped he wouldn’t have to handle arty of Graham’s long code jobs. Orders were to cooperate fully with the writer, but even Harve Stillman, who’d taken Graham’s story on his rocket trip and Marsport, had run into trouble with it. Tad loafed through the material to the coded piece by Graham and shuddered.

  IT was okay, the. boy supposed, for on Earth, where you didn’t want somebody tapping a PTM transmission beam and getting your news story, but why did the guy have to show off on Mars where the only way out was by rocket and you couldn’t get scooped?

  “Marsport 18 to Pittco Three,” he Heard faintly in the earphones. Automatically he ran his finger down the posted list of planes. Marsport 18 was a four-engine freighter belonging to the Marsport Hauling Company.

  “Pittco Three to Marsport 18, I read you, G.A.”

  “Marsport 18 to Pittco, our estimated time of arrival is thirteen-fifty. Thirteen-fifty. We’re bringing in your mail. End.”