Collected Short Fiction

by C. M. Kornbluth

  “We were there at the end,” Anna reminded the young man. “She was—she was very happy. She wanted to be useful more than anything else in the world. You know that, don’t you? And in the end she was. She loved you very much, too. She didn’t want you to be unhappy.”

  “What did she say?” Hank wouldn’t tear his eyes from the bed. He stood and stared ceaselessly, as if another moment of looking would show him some fallacy, some error.

  “Did she really say that, about loving me?”

  “She said—” Anna hesitated, then went on firmly. “She said, ‘Tell Hank I want him to be happy all the time.’ I heard her,” she answered Tony’s look of surprise. It wasn’t much of a lie.

  “Thank you. I—” He sat on the bed beside his wife, his hand caressing the face stained with blood and dust.

  Tony turned and left the room. In the hospital, Graham was asleep or unconscious again. Tony went back to his own chair in the living room.

  There were so many hints, so many leads, so many parts of the picture. Somehow it all went together. He tried to concentrate, but his thoughts kept wandering, into the hospital where the writer lay beaten as Big Ginny had been beaten; into the bedroom, where Joan lay dead of—of Mars; where Anna was comforting the young man who would never realize, if he was lucky, that he had killed Joan himself as surely as if he had throttled her.

  The last thing she said before she died! Tony snorted. The last thing she said, with that glorious light in her eyes, and a grin of delight on her face was “Brownie!”

  And there it was!

  Within a few seconds’ time everything raced through h s mind, all the clues, the things that fitted together—-Big Ginny, and Graham’s story, Sunny and the mask and Joan’s dying words. Everything!

  He jumped up in furious excitement.

  No, not everything, he realized. Not the marcaine. That didn’t fit.

  He paced the length of the room, and turned to find Anna standing in the bedroom door.

  “Did you call?” she asked. “What happened?”

  He smiled. He went over and pushed the door closed behind her. “Ansie,” he said, “you just don’t know how lucky you are to have a big, strong, intelligent man like me. When are we going to get married?”

  She shook her head.

  “Not until you tell me what it’s all about.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  REFUSE ENTERTAIN REQUEST THIS DATE. POLICE POWERS THIS OFFICE EXTEND ONLY TO INTERCOLONY MATTERS. PAC DOES NOT REPEAT NOT AUTHORIZE USE OF POLICE EQUIPMENT FOR INTRACOLONY AFFAIRS.

  HAMILTON BELL

  PLANETARY AFFAIRS

  COMMISSIONER

  TONY read through the formal message sheet, then the note attached to it:

  “That’s the master’s voice up there. The PAC radio up in Marsport told me, on the side, that the old man doesn’t believe a word of you story. If the baby really is missing, he figures that Markie Mama did it in. Graham really fixed us. I hope you’re taking good care of him. If you get him back in shape, I won’t feel so bad about taking a crack at him myself. Harve.”

  The doctor smiled briefly, then asked Tad Campbell, who was waiting to take his answer back to the radio shack: “Did Mimi Jonathan see this?”

  “No. It just came in. Harve wants to know what answer to send.”

  CANTRELLA and Gracey were out with the search party too, Tony realized. That left the decision squarely up to him.

  He scribbled a note: “Harve, try this one on the commish. REQUEST USE PAC FACILITIES TO TRACK VICIOUS ATTACKER OF OUR GUEST, DOUGLAS GRAHAM. That ought to get us every tin soldier on the planet, and old man Bell himself heading the parade. Graham as victim gives him an out, too; he can call it intercolony. Get hot. We need that Bloodhound. Tony.”

  When the boy was gone, Tony paced nervously around the living room, started to heat water for “coffee,” and decided he didn’t want it.

  There was an almost empty bottle of liquor on the floor near the table—Graham’s. The doctor reached for it and drew back. It wasn’t the right time or the right bottle.

  He headed for the bedroom door, and remembered that Joan’s body was still occupying the bed. He peered into the hospital; Graham was still sleeping. Nothing to do but sit and wait, and think it out all over again. It checked every time—but it couldn’t be right.

  He hadn’t told Anna yet. When you came tight down to it, the whole thing was too far-fetched; he wouldn’t believe it himself, if somebody else had proposed it.

  But it checked all the way every time.

  He got up again and hunted through his meager stack of onionskin volumes and scientific journals. Nothing there, but Joe Gracey ought to know. When the search party came back . . .

  Maybe they’d find the baby and the kidnaper; maybe he never would tell—or have to tell—anybody his crackpot theory. He decided to make the “coffee” after all, and wished he hadn’t sent Anna and Hank back to stay with Polly, but Gladys had been frantic and frightened when she buzzed him. He couldn’t expect the child to handle a hysterical woman by herself.

  The doctor poured his “coffee” and drank it slowly, not letting himself go to the intercom. Polly and Hank could help each other now; it worked that way. And Anna was better for them than he would be himself. Somebody had to stay with Graham. He got up and paced restlessly into the hospital room again. The writer stirred and moaned as the door opened, but that was all.

  It was more than an hour since Tad had left. Why no reply from Harve?

  Tony went to the front door, opened it and peered up the street, out over the housetops to the landing field. Nothing in sight. He turned to go back in, and out of the corner of his eye saw them rounding the curve of the street.

  Gracey, Mimi, Juarez, and then Kandro, taking each step reluctantly, his heart back in the hills, while Nick Cantrella and Sam Flexner, one on each side, urged him forward. Tony’s heart sank; there was no mistaking defeat.

  ii

  “I’M sure,” Mimi said steadily, “we heard him cry. Just for a minute. Then it was as if someone had clapped a hand over his mouth. Tony, we can’t wait. We’ve got to get him out right away.”

  “What about the other caves?”

  “We tried them all around,” Gracey said. “Five or six on each side and a couple up above. But every one of those fissures narrows down inside the hill the same way. We couldn’t get through. I don’t see how the kidnapers did, either.”

  “How about the other side?” Tony asked. “Someone could go around with a half-track and take a look.”

  “We thought of it,” Mimi said sharply. “Nick got Pittco on the transceiver. Mister Hackenburg was so sorry. Mister Reynolds was away, and he didn’t have the authority himself to permit us to search on their ground. He was so sorry!”

  SHE stood up abruptly, and turned to the wall, not quite quickly enough. Tony saw her brush at her eyes before she turned back and said throatily: “Well, little men, what now? Where do we go from here?”

  “We wait,” Joe Gracey said helplessly. “We wait for Bell to answer us. We wait for Reynolds to get back. What else can we do?”

  “Nothing, I guess. We left half a dozen men out there,” Mimi told the doctor. “They’re watching, and they have the transceiver. I guess Joe’s right. We wait.”

  Silence, and Tony tried to find a way to say what he had to say. They couldn’t just wait, not while he knew something to try. The baby might be all right, but maybe they would get there just one minute too late.

  He turned to Gracey.

  “Joe, what do you know about lethal genes?”

  “Huh?” The agronomist looked up, dazed, shook his head, and repeated without surprise at the irrelevant question, “Lethal genes?” He stopped and considered, mentally tabulating his information. “Well, they’re recessives that—”

  “No, I know what they are,” Tony stopped him. “I thought I heard you say something about them the other day. Didn’t you say you thought you’d hit on some that w
ere visible on Mars?”

  Anna drifted in, with Hank at her heels, and they went straight through, into the room beyond where Joan still lay.

  “Oh, yes,” Gracey said. “Very interesting stuff. Come out to the Lab when you have the time, and I’ll show you. We—”

  Mimi jumped up. “What are you gabbling about?” she demanded. “This is an emergency! We have to find some way to rescue that baby!”

  “I’m sorry, Mimi.” Gracey was bewildered. “What’s wrong anyway? Tony asked a perfectly innocent question, and I answered him when we’d all agreed that we had nothing to do but sit around and wait. Why not use the time?”

  Abruptly, Tony made up his mind. It was up to him now. And to Anna. He got up and called her from the bedroom, led her outside, into the street in front of the house, where they were out of earshot of all the others.

  “Well?” She smiled up at him. “Will you stop feeling sorry for me and tell me what you’re sorry about?”

  “In a minute. Anna, last night when we took the mask off Sunny—when you fainted—how did it feel?”

  “I told you.”

  “Yes, you said it was very strong, stronger than you thought a baby could—feel. But was it just stronger or was there something different?”

  “That’s hard to say. I was—well, I was all worn out and upset.

  It might have been different, but I don’t know how. I’m not even sure it was.”

  She looked up at him sharply.

  “Why?”

  “It checks,” he said to himself. “Listen, Ansie, there’s a job to be done. A tough job. A job nobody can do but you. It may—hurt you. I don’t know. I don’t even know if it will work. It’s a crazy theory I’ve got, so crazy I don’t even want to explain it to you. But if I’m right, you’re the only person who can do it.” He stopped. “Anna, did you hear what Joan’s last word really was? She said, ‘Brownie.’ ” He looked down into frightened dark eyes.

  “Tony, there aren’t any Brownies, are there?”

  “You mean do I believe there are? No, I don’t. But I do think there’s something.”

  “You want me to go out there and listen?”

  “Yes. But that’s only part of it. I wouldn’t let you go alone; if you do go, I’ll be with you—if that helps any. But I want to go into the cave where they heard the baby and see what we can find.”

  “No!” The cry was torn from her. “I didn’t mean that,” she caught herself. “It’s just—oh, Tony, I’m afraid.”

  “We’ve got to find out. Ansie, we’ve got to find out.”

  “The Bloodhound?” she asked desperately. “Can’t you track them with the Bloodhound?”

  “Bell hasn’t answered us. How long can we wait?”

  She stood silent for a moment, then turned her face up to his, serenely quiet now and trusting.

  “All right,” she said at last. “All right, Tony, if you say it has to be done.”

  “I’ll be there with you,” he promised.

  iii

  MIMI and Joe didn’t understand, and Tony didn’t try to explain. He simply repeated that he had an “idea;” he wanted to go out, with Anna, to the cave where the baby’s cry had been heard.

  He left careful instructions about the care of Graham if he should awake, and about Hank, Polly, and Jim, all three of whom were too upset to be left to themselves.

  A ten minute ride on the halftrack and they were within the shadow of the Rimrocks. The drifting stench of Pittco’s refineries on the other side began to reach them; then the ground was too rocky to go on. Tony stopped the machine and they got out. Farther up the face of the nearest hill, they could make out the figures of the five who had remained on guard.

  One of them came running—Flexner, the chemist. “They said on the transceiver you were coming,” he told Anna and Tony. “What’s your idea? We’re going nuts sitting around waiting. Ted thought he heard Sunny cry again but nobody else did.”

  “I just wanted to see if I could turn up anything,” Tony told him “We’re going into the cave.”

  TOGETHER they walked out of the sunlight into the seven foot opening in the hard rock. One of the guards would have preceded them, but Anna firmly refused. A chalk mark along the wall, drawn by the others when they left the cave, was guide enough.

  They followed the white line in and down some fifty meters, then fifty more along a narrowing left-hand branch, and then a hundred meters, left again and narrowing, to another fork. Both the branches were too small for an adult to squeeze through. The chalk line pointed into the right-hand cranny.

  That was as far as they could go. They stood at the narrow opening, listening.

  There was nothing to hear, no sound at all in the rock-walled stillness except their own breathing and the tiny rustling of their hands along rough alien stone.

  They waited, Tony’s eyes fixed on-Anna’s face. He tried to silence his thoughts as he could his voice, but doubts tore at him. He turned, finally, to the one certainty he knew, and concentrated on Anna and her alone: on his love for her, her love for him.

  “I hear something,” she whispered at last. “Fear—mostly fear, but eagerness, too. They are not afraid of us. I think they like us. They’re afraid of—it’s not clear—of people?”

  She fell silent again, listening. “People.” She nodded her head emphatically. “They want to talk to us, Tony, but—I don’t know.” Her brow furrowed in concentration and she sat down suddenly on the hard rock floor, as though the physical exertion of standing were more than she could bear.

  “Tony, go and tell the guards to go away,” she said at last.

  “No,” he said firmly.

  “Go ahead. Please. Hurry. They are trying—” Abruptly’, she stopped concentrating on the distance. “You spoiled it,” she said bitterly. “You frightened them.”

  “How?”

  “You didn’t trust them. You thought they’d hurt me.”

  “Ansie, how can we trust them? How can I leave you here alone and send the guards away? Don’t you see I can’t take that risk?”

  “You made me come here,” she said tiredly. “You said I was the one who could do the job. I’m trying to do it. Please go now and tell the guards to leave. Tell them to get out of range—down at the bottom of the hill, maybe as far away as the half-track. Please, Tony, do as I say.”

  “All right.” But he was still hesitant. “Anna, who are they?”

  “I—” The bitterness left her face. “Brownies,” she said.

  “But that’s not—I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to feel angry and frustrated. What does the word mean?”

  “They’re different”

  “Like Sunny?”

  “Not exactly.” She made a small useless gesture with her hands. “More—distinct. No, maybe you’re right. I think they’re like him, only older.”

  “How many are there?”

  “Quite a few. Too many for me to count. One of them is doing all the—talking.”

  “Talking?” Yes, that was part of what had bothered him. “Ansie, how can you understand so clearly? You told me you can’t do that. You didn’t know what Graham was angry about. How do you know what they’re afraid of?”

  “Tony, I don’t know. I can understand, that’s all, and I’m sure it’s right, and I know they’re not tricking us. Now please, please go and tell the guards.”

  He went.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  “KEEP him away from me!” Graham screamed.

  Mimi raced through Tony’s living room into the hospital half of the hut.

  It was Hank, standing rigidly still, glaring at the writer. “You don’t understand about Mars,” Hank was saying in a hard monotone. “You never saw the Rimrocks when there was just enough light to tell them from the sky, or walked a hundred miles in the desert watching the colors change every minute.”

  “Mrs. Johnson, get him out of here. He’s crazy.”

  Mimi took Hank by the arm. “I’m not crazy,” he said. “Th
ose boomers at Pittco, this writer here, Bell and his soldiers, Brenner and his factory, they’re crazy. They’re trying to cheapen Mars.”

  Hysteria, thought Mimi. She’d coped with enough cases of it when she’d bossed girls at desks, as far as the eye could see, on the 76th floor of the American Insurance Groups Building.

  “Radcliff!” she said.

  There was a savage whip-crack in her voice.

  He turned to her, startled. “I wasn’t going to hurt him,” he said confusedly.

  Get him to cry. Break him. Until then, there’s no knowing what will happen. “Your poor wife’s lying in there,” she said with measured nastiness, “and you find time to brawl with a sick man.”

  “I didn’t mean anything like that,” he protested.

  Still unbroken. “Get into the bedroom,” she said. “Sit there. That’s the least you can do.”

  He walked heavily into the room where his wife’s body lay and she heard him drop into a plastic chair.

  “Thanks, Mrs. Johnson,” said Graham painfully. “He was spoiling for a fight.”

  “Mrs. Jonathan,” she corrected. “And I don’t want your thanks.”

  She turned and rattled through drawers of medications, hoping she’d find something she could give Hank. She didn’t know what to use or how much. She slapped the drawer shut and was angry with Tony and Anna for not being there when she needed them.

  She stalked into the bedroom and stared at Hank without showing any pity. He was looking dully at the wall, a spot over the bed on which Joan’s broken body lay. No shakes no tears, unbroken still. But she couldn’t bring herself to lash him further and precipitate the emotional crisis.

  She went back into Tony’s living room and threw herself into a chair. She’d hear if anything happened. Mrs. J., the terror of auditing, Old Eagle-eye, and a few less complimentary things when the girls were talking between the booths in one of the 76th-floor johns. Efficiency bonuses year after year, even bad years, and that meant you were an old witch. She must be out of practice, or getting soft, she decided harshly, if she couldn’t handle an absurdly simple little thing like this.