Collected Short Fiction

by C. M. Kornbluth

  The drab-clad Commoners fell silent and sat themselves on a front bench as other Commoners in colored clothes began to straggle in and sit. There were about fifty of them. One of the front-benchers rose and, standing in front of the little stage, did something that Cade recognized; he made the same detestable sign with which the old poisoner had mocked him. Watching carefully, the Gunner saw that it was an X overlaid with a P. The right hand touched the left shoulder, right hipbone, right shoulder, left hipbone, and then traced a line up from the navel to end in a curlicue over the face. It was manifestly a mockery of the Gunner’s ten-thousand-year-old ritual when donning his gun. Cade coldly thought: They’ll pay for that.

  All the seated Commoners repeated the sign, and the standing man began to speak, in a resonant, well-trained voice: “The first of the first of the good Cairo.” He began making intricate signs involving much arm-waving. It went on for minutes, and Cade quickly lost interest, though the seated Commoners were, as far as he could make out, following raptly. At last the Commoner said: “That is how you shall be known—the first of the first.”

  Idiotically, twenty Commoners from the back benches got up and filed out. Cade was astonished to see that some of them were silently weeping.

  The speaker said when they had left: “The first of the first of the good Cairo in the second degree,” and the lights went out, except for a blue spot on the platform. The speaker, standing a little to one side, went through the same signs as before, but much more slowly. The signs were coordinated with a playlet enacted on the stage by the other drab-clad Commoners. It started with the speaker spreading his palms on his chest and an “actor” standing along in the center of the platform. Both speaker and actor then made a sweeping gesture with the right hand waist-high and palm down, and a second actor crawled onto the platform . . . and so on until the first actor, who had never moved, laid his hand successively on the heads of six persons, two of them women, who seemed pleased by the gesture.

  About midway through the rigamarole Cade suddenly realized where he was and what it was all about. He was in a Place of Mystery! He, a Gunner, knew little about the Mystery Cults. There were, he recalled, four or five of them, all making ridiculous pretensions to antiquity. Above all, they were ridiculous when you thought of them: Commoners’ institutions where fools paid to learn the “esoteric meaning” of gibberish phrases, mystic gestures and symbolic dramas. Presumably a few foxy souls had made a good thing of it. They were always raiding each other for converts, and often with success. Frequenters of Mysteries were failures, stupid even for Commoners, simply unable to grasp the propositions of the Klin Philosophy.

  There were—let’s see—the Muzzled Mystery, which had something to do with a crescent and kicking every dog you saw; the Joosh Mystery which had invented a whole language—Hibber? Jibber?—and stuck pins in a statue named Stalin with a cowlick and a small mustache; the Scientific Mystery which despised science and sometimes made a little trouble at the opening of new hospitals. He couldn’t place anything called the Cairo Mystery.

  But it was frightening. The weak-minded adherents of the Mysteries could swallow anything if they could swallow the Mysteries themselves—even a plot against the Realm of Man.

  The lights were on again and the ridiculous proceedings outside apparently were drawing to a close when two more Commoners entered—one of them the man in gray, “Cousin.”

  “Cousin” murmured something to the drab-clad speaker—Cade could guess what. He burst from the booth towards the door at a dead run.

  “Stop him!”

  “Sacrilege!”

  “A spy!”

  “Get him! Get him!”

  But, of course, they didn’t. They just milled and babbled while Cade plowed through them, made the door—and found it locked.

  “Cousin,” announced loudly as Cade turned his back to the wall, “Seize him, beloved. It is a Joosh spy trying to steal our most secret rituals.”

  “He’s lying,” yelled Cade. “I am Gunner Cade of the Order of Armsmen. My Star is the Star of France Commoners, I command you to open the door and make way for me.”

  “A ridiculous pose, spy,” said Cousin smoothly. “If you are a Gunner, where is your gun? If you are of the Star of France, what are you doing here in Baltimore?”

  The Commoners were impressed. Cade was confused. In Baltimore?

  “Bear him down, my beloved!” shouted Cousin. “Bear down the Joosh spy and bring him to me!”

  The Commoners muttered and surged and Cade was buried beneath their numbers. He saw the keen face of “Cousin” close to him, felt the stab of a needle in his arm. For the first time, he wondered how long he had been drugged. Baltimore! Of course, the mysteries were world-wide. He could as easily have been in Zanzibar by now, or his native Denver, instead of France, as he had assumed.

  There was no doubt about it; the Mysteries would have to be suppressed. Up to now they had been tolerated, for every Mystery solemnly claimed it was merely a minor auxiliary of the Klin Philosophy and that all adherents were primarily followers of Klin. Nobody had ever been fooled—until now.

  “He’ll be all right now,” said Cousin. “Two of you pick him up and carry him. He won’t struggle any more.”

  Gunners march where the Emperor wills; that is their glory. Cade struck out violently with arms and legs at once, as the Commoners attempted to lift him from the floor. Nothing happened—nothing, except that they lifted him easily and carried him out of the big room. Vanity is a peril. An emotion flooded Cade, an unfamiliar feeling that identified itself with nothing since earliest childhood. He was frog-marched down the corridor, ignominiously helpless in the hands of two Commoners, and understood that what he felt was shame.

  They carried him into the featureless room again, and strapped him to the bed on which he had awakened—how long?—before. He heard Cousin say: “Thank you my beloved, in the name of the good Cairo,” and the door closed.

  Rage drove out shame and vanity both as a woman’s voice said clearly: “You bloody fool!”

  “He is, my dear,” said “Cousin” unctuously, “but quite clever enough for us. Or he will be shortly, when he understands how to use the limited intelligence his Order has left him.” Gleeful satisfaction trickled through the man’s voice. “He is quite clever enough—he knows how to kill. And he is strong—strong enough to kill. Let me see the bruise he gave you—”

  “Take your hands off me, Cousin. I’m all right. Where will you start him from?”

  “He can come to in any park; it doesn’t matter.”

  “If he fell off a bench he might be arrested. Some place with a table for him to lean-on—?”

  “You’re right. We could dump him at Mistress Cannon’s! How’s that? A chaste Gunner at Mistress Cannon’s!”

  The girl’s laughter was silvery. “I must go now,” she said.

  “Very well. Thank you, my beloved, in the name of the good Cairo.” The door closed.

  Cade felt his shoulders being adjusted on the table where he lay. He looked at gray nothingness. There was a click and he was looking at a black spot.

  Cousin’s voice said: “You notice that this room has little to distract the attention. It has no proper corners, no angles, nothing in the range of your sight for your eye to wander to. Either you look at that black dot or you close your eyes. It doesn’t matter which to me. As you look at the black dot you will notice after a while that it seems to swing toward you and away from you, toward you and away from you. This is no mechanical trickery; it is simply your eye-muscles at work making the dot seem to swing toward you and away, first toward you and then away. You may close your eyes, but you will find it difficult to visualize anything but the dot swinging toward you and away, first toward you and then away. You can see nothing but the dot swinging toward you and away—”

  It was true; it was true. Whether Cade’s eyes were open or closed, the black dot swung and melted at the edges, and seemed to grow and swallow the grayness and then me
lt again. He tried to cling to what was fitting—like this the Order wraps the Realm and shields it—but the diabolical hypnotist seemed to be reading his thoughts.

  “Why fight me, Master Cade? You have no boots. You have no hose. You have no shirt. You have no cloak. You have no gun—only the dot swinging toward you and away. Why fight me? Why fight the dot swinging toward you and away? Why fight me? I’m your friend. I’ll tell you what I’ll do. You have no boots. You have no hose. You have no cloak. You have no gun. Why fight your friend? You only have the dot swinging toward you and away. Why fight me? I’ll tell you what to do. Watch the dot swinging towards you and away—”

  He had no boots. He had no hose. He had no cloak. He had no gun. Why fight his friend? That girl, that evil girl had brought him to this. He hated her for making him a Gunner—but he was not a Gunner, he had no gun, he had nothing, he had nothing.

  “You don’t know. You don’t know. You don’t know. You don’t know. You don’t know. You don’t know. You don’t know. You don’t know.”

  The self-awareness of Cade was no longer a burning fire that filled him from his scalp to his toes. It was fading at his extremities, the lights going out in his toes and fingers and skin, retreating, retreating.

  “You will go to the palace and kill the Power Master with your hands. You will go to the palace and kill the Power Master with your hands.”

  He would go—his self-awareness, a dim light in his mind watched it happen and cried out too feebly. He would go to the palace and kill the Power Master with his hands. Who was he? He didn’t know. He would go to the palace and kill the Power Master with his hands. Why would he? He didn’t know. He would go to the palace and kill the Power Master with his hands. He didn’t know. The spark of ego left to him watched it happen and was powerless to prevent it.

  V.

  Blackness and a bumping—rest and a sensation of acceleration—a passage of time and the emergence of sounds—a motor, and wind noise, and voices. Laughter.

  “Will he make it, do you think?”

  “Who knows?”

  “He’s a Gunner. They can break your back in a second.”

  “I don’t believe that stuff.”

  “Well, look at him! Muscles like iron.”

  “They pick ’em that way.”

  “Naw, it’s the training they get. A Gunner can do it if anybody can.”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Well, if he doesn’t, the next one will. Or the next. Now we know we can do it. We’ll take as many as we need.”

  “It’s risky. It’s too dangerous.”

  “Not the way we did it. The old lady came along with him.”

  A jolt.

  “You’ve got to walk him to Cannon’s.”

  “Two blocks! And he must weigh—”

  “I know, but you’ve got to. I’m in my grays. What would a Klin Service Officer be doing in Cannon’s?”

  “But . . . oh, all right. I wonder if he’ll make it?”

  Lurching progress down a dark street, kept from falling by a panting, cursing blur. A dim place with clinking noises and bright-colored blurs moving in it.

  “E-e-easy, boy. Steady there—here’s a nice corner table. You like this one? All righty, into the chair. Fold, curse you. Fold,” A dull blow in the stomach. “Tha-a-at’s better. Two whiskies, dear.”

  “What’s the matter witcha friend?”

  “A little drunkie. I’m gonna leave him here after I have my shot. He always straightens up after a little nap.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Yeah. I don’t wanta see any change out of this, dear.

  “Thass different.”

  “Back so quick, dear?”

  “Here’s ya whisky.”

  “Righto. Mud in your eye and dribbling down your left cheek, dear. You hear me, fella? I’m going bye-bye now. I’ll see you on the front page. Haw! I’ll see you on the front page!” The talking blur went away and another, brighter-colored one came.

  “Buy me a drink? You’re pretty stiff, ain’t you? Mind if I have yours? You look like you got enough. I’m Arlene. I’m from the South. You like girls from the South? What’s the matter with you, anyway? If you’re asleep, why don’t you close your eyes, big fella? Is this some kind of funny, funny joke? Oh, fall down dead. Comic!”

  Another bright-colored blur: “Hello; you want company? I noticed you chased away Arlene and for that I don’t blame you. All she knows is ‘buy-me-a-drink; ’ I ain’t like that. I like a nice, quiet talk myself once in a while. What do you do for fun, big fella—follow the horses? Play cards? Follow the wars? I’m a fighting fan myself. I go for Zanzibar. That Gunner Golos—man! This year already he’s got seventeen raids and nine kills. That’s what you call a Gunner. Hey, big fella, wanna buy me a drink while we talk? Hey, what’s the matter with you anyway? Oh, heck. Out with his eyes open.”

  The blur went away. Vitality began to steal through sodden limbs, and urgent clarity flashed through the mind. Go to the Palace and kill the Power Master. The hands on the table stirred faintly and the mind inside whirred into motion, tabulating knowledge with easy familiarity. You killed people with your hands by smashing them on the side of the neck with the side of the hand below the little finger—sudden but not positive. If you had time to work for thirty seconds, without interruption, you took them by the throat and smashed the tracheal cartilage with your thumbs.

  Go to the Palace and kill the Power Master with your hands. One hand crawled around the emptied whisky glass and crushed it to fragments and powder. If you come up from behind, you can break a back by locking one foot around the instep, putting your knee in the right place, and falling forward as you grasp the shoulders.

  A gaudily-dressed girl stood across the table. “I’m going to buy you a little drink, big fella. I won’t take no for an answer. I got it right here.”

  His throat made a noise which was not yet speech, and his hands lifted off the table as she stood beside him with a small bottle. His arms would not lift more than an inch from the table. The drink in his mouth burned like fire.

  “Listen to me, Cade,” said the girl into his ear. “No scenes. No noise. No trouble. As you come to just sit still and listen to me.”

  Like waking up. Automatically the morning thought began to go through his mind. It is fitting that the Emperor rules. It is fitting that the Power Master—

  “The Power Master!” he said hoarsely.

  “It’s all right,” said the girl. “I gave you an antidote. You’re not going to—do anything you don’t want to.” Cade tried to stand, but couldn’t. “You’ll be all right in a minute or two,” she said.

  He saw her more clearly now. She was heavily made up, and the thick waves of her hair reflected the bright purple of her gossamer-sheer pajamas. That didn’t make sense. Only the star-borne wore sheer; Commoners’ clothes were of heavy stuffs. But only Commoner females wore pajamas; star-borne ladies dressed in gowns and robes. He shook his head trying to clear it and tore his eyes from the perfection of her body, clearly visible through the bizarre clothing.

  The gesture did not escape her; she flushed a little. “That’s part of the cover-story,” she said. “I’m not.”

  Cade didn’t try to understand what she was talking about. Her face was incredibly beautiful. “You’re the same one,” he said. “The Commoner from that place.”

  “Lower your voice,” she said coolly. “This time, listen to me.”

  “You were with me then before,” he accused her. His speech was almost clear and he could move his arms.

  “Don’t you understand?” she snapped. “If you’d swallowed that capsule I gave you, you’d never have gone under. But you had to bash me unconscious, break out and try to make it on your own.”

  She was right about that. He hadn’t succeeded in getting out of the place.

  “All right,” she went on, when he didn’t reply. “Maybe you’re going to be reasonable after all. You’re feeling better, aren’t you? The—com
pulsion is gone? Try to remember that I came after you to give you the release drug.”

  Cade found he could move his legs. “Thank you for your assistance,” he said stiffly. “I’m all right now. I have to get to . . . to the nearest Chapter House, I suppose, and make my report. I—” It went against all training and was perhaps even disobedient, but she had helped him. “I will neglect to include your description in my report.”

  “Still spouting high-and-mighty,” she said wearily. “Cade, you still don’t understand it all. There are things you don’t know. You can’t—”

  “Give me any further information you may have,” he interrupted. “After that may it please the Ruler we two shall never meet again.”

  The words surprised him, even as he spoke them. Why should he be willing to protect this—creature—from her just punishment? Very well, she had helped him; that was only her duty as a common citizen of the Realm. He was a sworn Armsman. There was no reason to sit here listening to her insolence; the City Watch would deal with her.

  “Cade—” She was giggling. That was intolerable. “Cade, have you ever had a drink before?”

  “A drink? Certainly I have quenched my thirst many times.” She was unfitting, upsetting, and insolent as well.

  “No, I mean a drink—a strong alcoholic beverage.”

  “It is forbidden—” He stopped, appalled. Forbidden! Love of woman makes men love their rulers less.

  “See here, Commoner!” he began in a rage.

  “Oh, Cade, now you’ve done it. We’ve got to get out of here.” Her voice changed to a nasal wheedle; “Let’s get out of this place, honey, and come on home with me. I’ll show you a real good time—”

  She was cut off by the arrival of a massive woman. “I’m Mistress Cannon,” said the newcomer. “What’re you doing here, girlie? You ain’t one of mine.”

  “We was just leaving, honest—wasn’t we, big fella?”

  “I was,” said Cade; he swayed as he rose to his feet. The girl followed, sticking close to him.