Collected Short Fiction

by C. M. Kornbluth

  It was an elaborate joke, Cade decided—one in very bad taste.

  “All your wars are like that,” said the Power Master, grimly. “They are useful things to keep the Stars diverted and divided. That is the purpose of the Great Conspiracy as well. It requires immense funds to keep an underground organization going; the half-dozen or so Stars now supporting the Cairo Mystery conspiracy will soon be bled white and drop off while others take their place. My agents will keep anything serious from ever coming of the Cairo affair, of course.”

  This was no joke, Cade numbly realized. It was the end of his world. “What do the Stars behind the conspiracy want?” he asked, fighting for calm.

  “They want to kill me, of course, and go their own wild way. They want more, and more, and more Armsmen. They want to fight bigger and bigger wars, and destroy more and more villages. You’ve been taught that the Stars are loyal to the Realm, the way Commoners are loyal to the Stars. The truth is that the Stars are the worst enemy the Realm has. Without a Power Master to keep them out of harm they’d have the Realm a wreck in one man’s lifetime.

  “And your precious Gunner Supreme. Cade, I suppose you think he’s the first one like that in ten thousand years and will be the last one like that until the end of time?”

  “That was my hope,” Cade said’ almost wearily.

  “Disabuse yourself. Most of them have been like that; most of them will be. Arle is plotting, if you please, to supplant me, merging the two offices. It is only to be expected. A Gunner such as yourself may survive years of combat because he has brains.

  He becomes a Gunner Superior, in intimate contact with a Star. He figures in the Star’s plottings. The women of the Court, fascinated by the novelty of a man they can’t have, bend every effort to seducing him and usually succeed. His vows are broken, he misses the active life of battle, he intrigues for election to the office of the Supreme. By the time he wins it he is a very ordinary voluptuary with a taste for power, like our friend Arle.

  “But Cade, this is the key; don’t forget it: there must be a Gunner Supreme. As a fighting man you know that. Many a time the fact that the Supreme lived somewhere and embodied your notion of the Order has saved your life or saved the day for your command. The fact that the Supreme in the flesh is not what you think doesn’t matter at all.”

  Cade leaned forward. The abominable thing he was about to say was a ball in his throat, choking him so he had to get rid of it: “The Emperor?” he asked. “The Emperor? Why does he allow it? Why?”

  The Power Master said calmly: “The Emperor is another lie. The Emperor can’t stop it. He’s just a man—an ordinary one. If he attempted to make suggestions about my task of running the Realm, I would very properly ignore them. Cade, Emperors who have offered too many such suggestions in the past have died young. Their Power Masters killed them. It can happen again if an Emperor meddles.

  “And that’s as it should be. As you know, the line of the Power Master descends by adoption and the line of the Emperor by male primogeniture. The Power Master chooses a tried man. The Emperor gets what chance sends him. Of course the line of the Power Master is stronger, so of course it must rule.”

  His voice rose almost to a roar. “But there must be an Emperor. The Power Master is unloved; he sends people to death; he collects taxes; he sets speed limits. The Emperor does none of this; he simply exists and is loved because everybody is told to love him. People do it—again, the right thing for the wrong reason. If they didn’t love him, what would happen to the Realm? Think of such a thing as all the Commoners becoming criminals. What would we do when the Watch Houses were all filled? What would we do if they kept attacking the Watch Houses until all the gas-gun charges were used up? But they don’t all become criminals. They love the Emperor and don’t want to sadden him with unfit deeds.”

  The Power Master rose, holstering his gun, and began to pace the room restlessly. “I am asking you to think, Cade,” he said with blazing intensity. “I don’t want to throw away a fine tool like you. I am asking you to think. Things are not what they seem, not what you thought they were.

  “For many years you did your best work because you didn’t know the right reasons. Now it’s different. There are other jobs for you, and you won’t be able to do them if you’re blinded by the lies you used to believe. Remember always that the Realm as it is works. It’s been kept working for ten thousand years by things being as they are and not as they seem. It can be kept working to the end of time as long as there are resolute men to shove the structure back into balance when it shows signs of toppling.” Stopping for a moment at the feet of the slain Gunner Kendall, he said simply: “That was for the happiness of millions. They are happy, almost all of them. Gunners are contented, the Kiln Service is contented, the Courts are contented, the Commoners are contented. Let things change, let the structure crash and where would they be? Give each Commoner the power I hold and what would he make of it? Would he be contented or would he run amuck?

  “Cade, I don’t want to—lose you. Think straight. Is there anything really unfit about the work I do, the work I want you to do for me? You made a trade of killing because the trade was called the Order of Armsmen. My trade is conserving the stability and contentment of every subject of the Realm of Man.”

  The passionately sincere voice pounded on, battering at Cade’s will. The Power Master spoke of the vows Cade had taken, and he destroyed their logic completely. Cade had dedicated himself to the service of the Emperor—the powerless, ceremonial excuse for the Power Master. With ruthless obscenity of detail he told Cade what he had given up in life in exchange for a sterile athleticism.

  He spoke of food and drunkenness and drugs, dancing and music, the whole sensual world Cade had thought well lost. He wooed the Gunner with two intertwining siren songs—the fitness of his new service under the Power Master and the indulgence of himself that was possible in it.

  It would have been easy to tumble into the trap. Cade had been drained empty of the certainties of a lifetime. The Power Master said there was only one other set of certainties, and that if Cade would only let himself be filled with them there” would be the most wonderful consequences any powerful man of normal appetites would want.

  It was easy to listen, it would have been easy to accept, but—Cade knew there was more even than he had been told. There was one thing that did not fit in the new world, and it was the girl. The girl who had not wanted the Power Master killed, or the Gunner either. The girl who had warned Cade rightly that he would be going to his death if he tried to reaffiliate with the Order. There was no all-powerful, all-loving Emperor any more; there were no loyal Stars; there was only the Power Master—and the girl.

  So, thought Cade, treachery is the order of the day and has been for ten thousand years. He knew what answer he would give the Power Master, the answer he had to give to stay alive, but he was not ready to give it yet. A lifetime of training in strategy made him sharply aware that a quick surrender would be wrong.

  “I must have some time, sir,” he said painfully. “You realize that it’s new to me. My vows have been part of me for many years, and it’s less than a month since I . . . died . . . in battle. May I have leave to spend a day in meditation?”

  The Power Master’s lips quirked with inner amusement. “One day? You may have it, and welcome. And you may spend it in my own apartment. I have a room you should find comfortable.”

  XVI.

  The room was comfortable by any standards Cade had known; it was second in luxury only to the smothering softness of the Lady Moia’s apartment. Compared to Mistress Cannon’s mean quarters, or the sleeping lofts of a Chapter House, it offered every comfort a man could ask. And the room also made unmistakably clear what lay behind the Power Master’s speech. It was, almost openly, a prison.

  There were no bars to guard the windows and presumably the “shoot-on-sight” order had lost its force. Yet Cade was certain he could not leave the place alive without the express permis
sion of its master. If there had been any doubt about his answer tomorrow, the room would have resolved it.

  And it went deeper. If he’d had any tendency to give that answer in good faith, or any hesitation at the thought of falsely declaring his allegiance, the room dispelled it. Given freedom, he might have found it hard to return and commit himself to treachery and deceit with a lying promise to the Power Master. As a prisoner he owed no honesty to any one but himself. And perhaps to the girl—if he could find her.

  The Gunner slept well that night. After breakfast had been brought him his host appeared.

  Cade did not wait to be asked. Saluting, he said: “My decision is made; it was not a hard one. I am in your service. What is my first assignment?”

  The Power Master smiled. “One that has been waiting for you. The Realm is threatened—has been threatened increasingly—by the unbounded egotism and shortsightedness of one Star against whom I cannot operate in the usual way. Until now . . . until now I have been searching for a man who could do what was necessary. You are the man.”

  He paused, and the silence in the room was explosive.

  “You will go to Mars—” he said finally, “and arrange for the death of the Star of Mars. You will return alive. The details are your own concern. I can supply you with a flier and with money—whether to buy men or machines I do not care.”

  Cade’s mind accepted the job as a tactical problem, putting oft’ for the time being the vital decision as to whether the commission would be fulfilled. For now, it would be necessary to act as though it would be.

  “I will need an identity.”

  “Choose it. I said the details were your own concern. I can offer, merely as a suggestion, that you would do well to adopt the identity of a lapsed Armiger—you have known such cases—who took to the district. You might as well put the time you spent in that place to some use. And I can assure you that under such an identity you’ll find yourself welcome in the Court of Mars. Yes,” he said in answer to Cade’s look of shocked inquiry, “things are that bad. Did you suppose I’d send you to kill a Star for anything less serious? Now, when you’ve decided on your course of action and prepared a list of your needs, call me.” He indicated a red button on the wall communicator, “Either I or a trusted servant will be there.”

  As he pointed, the set chimed. The Power Master depressed the button.

  “Here.”

  “Message, sir. Shall I bring it?”

  “To the outer room.” And to Cade: “Call when you’re ready.”

  The Gunner lost no time. He was already listing the funds, transport and identification he would need when the door opened abruptly again. Again it was the Power Master.

  “You are going to have a visitor,” he said coldly. “I am very interested in knowing just how she discovered—”

  “She? Who?” Cade was on his feet, the list forgotten.

  “Whom do you suppose? How many Star-borne ladies do you know?”

  It was the Lady Moia, then. And the memory of her still hurt. It would take time to recover from the shocks of that night. “One, sir, as I told you,” he said formally. “And I would prefer not to see her if that is possible.”

  “It is not possible. She knows you are here and I have no grounds for refusing her admission without revealing your identity. How did she know you were here?” the vibrant voice demanded.

  “Sir, I don’t know. I haven’t seen her since the Building of Fives—”

  “The Building of Fives? You spoke only of the Lady Moia there.” He peered closely into Cade’s puzzled face and suddenly burst into a wide, wolfish grin. “You don’t know!” he exploded. “My virtuous Gunner, this is the girl for whom you waited two weeks at Cannon’s—I had a report from there last night, an hour after you went to sleep—a mysterious girl, a girl whom you had met just once.” He was dragging it out, enjoying himself hugely. “Oh, Cade, you were so upright yesterday; so true to your vows. How could you have . . . neglected . . . a little thing like telling your master about the girl?”

  Cade felt the blood rush to his face, but it was not the reflex of shame. It was she; she had found him after his futile, stupid hunt for her. And she was no Commoner or wearer of the garter but a Lady of the Court!

  “No,” laughed the Power Master. “I won’t spoil the joke. You’ll learn who she is shortly from her own . . . shall I say, delicate? . . . lips.” The facade of grimness relaxed; the Power Master sat comfortably on the couch, chuckling. “If it’s any satisfaction to you, Cade, I will admit that my respect for you, my hopes for you, have risen. I can use a man who knows when to keep his mouth shut. So she Saw Life after all?” His intonation was heavily satirical, amused. “Proof again that the simplest answer may sometimes be right. The whole Palace has been buzzing about it for three weeks, and I thought I knew better!” Cade tried to concentrate on what he was hearing and make sense of it. “The whole Palace?” he asked uncertainly. “You mean you knew about her? The whole Palace knew?”

  Then why, he wondered, all the secrecy now? Why was he a prisoner here? None of it fitted with the Power Master’s attitude of yesterday.

  “Yes, of course. But they all thought it was the daring impostor—Cade she met—and only I knew it was the real Gunner, chaste and pure—or so I thought. Now it seems I had the right information, but they have the right interpretation of it all. And to think of the horror on your face yesterday when I talked of these wicked matters! Cade, you impress me; you’ll be a good man to have in my service.” He broke out chuckling again. “What did she look like? She’s so . . . you know.”

  “So beautiful?” asked Cade.

  The Power Master stared at him wonderingly. “We’d better get you off to Mars,” he said. He unfolded a note and read it through. “She says she recognized you yesterday in Court but didn’t want to ‘betray you.’ Now that I’ve ‘captured’ you she wants to see you before you die.”

  Abruptly he ceased to be a man enjoying himself. “Cade,” he said grimly, “I can understand and excuse your lie by omission of yesterday if it was prompted by loyalty to your Lady. But if I find there’s anything more to it, your little friend’s visit will be, quite literally, the last you will enjoy before you die.”

  The door closed behind him and Cade sank into a chair, burying his face in his hands. Had he gone mad?

  Had everybody?

  “Traitor, face me! They said you lied and I did not believe them, but I know now. Look me in the eye if you dare!”

  Cade jumped up. He hadn’t heard the door open; the first thing to reach his ears was the unpleasant whine of her voice, contrasting ludicrously with the melodramatic words. He looked at her, heartsick as he realized the monstrous joke somebody was perpetrating. It was the Lady Jocelyn. He had noticed the resemblance yesterday but who knew about it except him?

  “Traitor,” she said, “look on my face and see how you erred when you thought to victimize a foolish and ignorant Commoner girl. Look on my face.”

  He looked, and something impossible was happening. The Lady Jocelyn’s squint-stooped head moved back to sit proudly on her slim throat. Her round-shouldered stance straightened for a moment and settled to a supple, erect figure. The nearsighted, peering eyes Hashed with humor and arrogance. She still wore an ill-fitting robe of lurid orange and her stringy hair still missed matching the color of her robe, but none of these things mattered: It was she.

  “Have you nothing to say for yourself in your shame?” she demanded, in a voice that was also a caricature.

  “A thousand pardons, Lady,” he said hoarsely, his heart thudding. “If I had known, if you had permitted some word of your rank to cross your lips I could not have lied to you.” If Fledwick could hear me now! The girl winked and nodded “go on.”

  “Surely your warm heart will understand and forgive when I say that only your beauty drove me to my crime.” The story seemed to be that the Lady Jocelyn, the Palace butt, had gone out on the town incognito and been arrested, to the hilarity o
f the Palace wits. She was pretending to assume that he was under death sentence for daring to insult her by taking her at her face value.

  “Forgive?” she declaimed. “Forgive? Justice will be done; there is nothing to forgive. A life for an insult to the blood imperial. I have come to console you, fellow. Bring a chair for me and seat yourself.”

  Cade did as he was told, by now far beyond any effort to take control of the situation. He knelt at her feet as she sat down and pulled a sheaf of manuscript from a sagging pocket in her voluminous robe.

  “I shall console you for an hour by reading from my works.” She launched into what he supposed was a poem:

  There is no whisper in the uttered

  Realm

  That goes unheard. By night, by day,

  no voice

  Is raised involuntarily or by choice

  Unheard by him who holds the Palace

  helm.”

  She cleared her throat and Cade nodded, jerking his head a little at the wall communicator. He understood.

  “The doors are many in the Realm

  of Man;

  This door unguarded, that door triply

  sealed;

  Each loyal subject wearing like a

  shield

  The key: to live as fitly as he can.”

  Her knee pressed sharply against Cade’s shoulder during the three words “this door unguarded.” He managed to concentrate on the message.

  “Star-borne or common, we must take

  and use

  The lives that we are handed for our

  lot.

  Great Klin can tell us what to do or