Collected Short Fiction

by C. M. Kornbluth

  I didn’t learn any more about George after the meeting except that some people who liked me were glad I’d been favorably noticed and others were envious about the triumph of the Johnny-come-lately.

  I asked Chenery in the bar. He laughed at my ignorance and said, “George Parsons.”

  “Publisher of the Phoenix? I thought he was an absentee owner.”

  “He doesn’t spend a lot of time on Frostbite. At least I dont think he does. As a matter of fact, I don’t know a lot about his comings and goings. Maybe Weems does.”

  “He swings a lot of weight in the Organization.”

  Chenery looked puzzled. “I guess he does at that Every once in a while he does speak up and you generally do what he says. It’s the paper, I suppose. He could wreck any of the boys.” Chenery wasn’t being irregular: newsmen are always in a special position.

  I went back to the office and, late as it was, sent a note to the desk to get the one man subcommittee job cleaned up:

  ATTN MCGILLICUDDY RE CLIENT RELATIONS NEED SOONEST ILLUMINATED SCROLL PRESENT HOMER WITHERSPOON PRESIDENT FROSTBITE HONORING HIM 40 YEARS MEMBERSHIP FROSTBITE PLANETARY PARTY USUAL SENTIMENTS NOTE MUST BE TERRESTRIAL STYLE ART IF NOT ACTUAL WORK EARTHER ACCOUNT ANTIBEM PREJUDICE HERE FRBBUO END.

  That happened on one of those Sundays which, according to Kennedy’s sardonic sked, was to be devoted to writing and filing enterprisers.

  The scroll came through with a memo from McGillicuddy: “Fyi ckng w/ clnt etif this gag wll hv ur hide. Reminder guppy’s firstest job offheading orchidbitches one which bypassed u yesterweek. How? McG”

  There was a sadly sweet letter from Ellie aboard the same rust-bucket. She wanted me to come back to her, but not a broken man. She wanted me to do something really big on Frostbite to show what I had in me. She was sure that if I really looked there’d be something more to file than the copy I’d been sending in. Yeah.

  Well, the big news that week would be the arrival of a loaded immigrant ship from Thetis of Procyon, a planet whose ecology had been wrecked beyond repair in a few short generations by DDT, hydraulic mining, unrestricted logging, introduction of rabbits and house cats and the use of poison bait to kill varmints. In a few thousand years maybe the planet would have topsoil, cover crops, forests, and a balanced animal population again, but Thetis as of now was a ruin whose population was streaming away to whatever havens it could find.

  Frostbite had agreed to take 500 couples provided they were of terrestrial descent and could pass a means test—that is, provided they had money to be fleeced of. They were arriving on a bottom called Esmeralda. According to my year-old “LLOYDS’ SHIPPING INDEX”—“exclusive accurate and up-to-date, being the result of daily advices from every part of the galaxy”—Esmeralda was owned by the Frimstedt Atomic Astrogation Company, Gammadion, gross tonnage 830,000, net tonnage 800,000, class GX—“freighter/steerage passengers”—insurance rating: hull A, atomics A. The tonnage difference meant real room for only about 850. If she took the full 1,000 she’d be jammed. She was due to arrive at Frostbite in the very early morning. Normally I would have kept a deathwatch, but the AA rating lulled me and I went to the Hamilton House to sleep.

  At 4:30, the bedside phone chimed. “This Willie Egan,” a frightened voice said. “You remember—on the desk at the Phoenix.” Desk, hell—he was a 17-year-old copyboy I’d tipped to alert me on any hot breaks.

  “There’s some kind of trouble with the Esmeralda,” he said. That big immigrant ship. They had a welcoming committee out, but the ship’s overdue. I thought there might be a story in h. You got my home address? You better send the check there. Mr. Weems doesn’t like us to do string work. How much do I get?”

  “Depends,” I said, waking up abruptly. “Thanks, kid.” I was into my clothes and down the street in five minutes. It looked good; mighty good.

  The ship was overcrowded, the AA insurance rating I had was a year old—maybe it had gone to pot since then and we’d have a major disaster on our hands.

  I snapped on the newsroom lights and grabbed the desk phone, knocked down one toggle on the key box and demanded: “Space operator! Space operator!”

  “Yes, sir. Let me have your call, please?”

  “Gimme the bridge of the Esmeralda due to dock at the Frostbite spaceport today. While you’re setting up the call gimme interplanetary and break in when you get the Etmeralda.”

  “Yes, sir.” Click-click-click.

  “Interplanetary operator.”

  “Gimme Planet Gammadion. Person-to-person, to the public relations officer of the Frimstedt Atomic Astrogation Company. No, I don’t know his name. No, I don’t know the Gam-nadion routing. While you’re setting up the call gimme the local operator and break in when you get my party.”

  “Yes, sir.” Click-click-click.

  “Your call, please.”

  “Person-to-person, captain of the spaceport.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Click-click-click. “Here is Esmeralda, sir.”

  “Who’s calling?” yelled a voice. “This is the purser’s of-fce, who’s calling?”

  “Interstellar News, Frostbite Bureau. What’s up about the ihip being late?”

  “I can’t talk now! Oh, niy God! I can’t talk now! They’re going crazy in the steerage—” He hung up and I swore a little.

  “Space operator!” I yelled. “Get me Esmeralda again—if you can’t get the bridge get the radio shack, the captain’s cabin, anything in-board!”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Click-click-click. “Here is your party, sir.”

  “Captain of the port’s office,” said the phone.

  “This is Interstellar News. What’s up about Esmeralda? I just talked to the purser in space and there’s some trouble aboard.”

  “I don’t know anything more about it than you boys,” said the captain of the port. But his voice didn’t sound right.

  “How about those safety-standard stories?” I fired into the dark.

  “That’s a tomfool rumor!” he exploded. “Her atomics are perfectly safe!”

  “Still,” I told him, fishing, “it was an engineer’s report—”

  “Eh? What was? I don’t know what you’re talking about.” He realized he’d been had. “Other ships have been an hour late before and there are always rumors about shipping. That’s absolutely all I have to say—absolutely all!” He hung up.

  Click-click-click. “Interplanetary operator. I am trying to place your call, sir.” She must be too excited to plug in the right hole on her switchboard. A Frostbite Gammadion call probably cost more than her annual salary, and it was a gamble at that on the feeble and mysteriously erratic sub-radiation that carried voices across segments of the galaxy.

  But there came a faint harumph from the phone. “This is Captain Gulbransen. Who is calling, please?”

  I yelled into the phone respectfully: “Captain Gulbransen, this is Interstellar News Service on Frostbite.” I knew the way conservative shipping companies have of putting ancient, irritable astrogators into public-relations berths after they are ripe to retire from space. “I was wondering, sir,” I shouted, “if you’d care to comment on the fact that Esmeralda is overdue at Frostbite with 1,000 immigrants.”

  “Young man,” wheezed Gulbransen dimly, “it is clearly stated in our tariffs filed with the ICC that all times of arrival are to be read as plus or minus eight Terrestrial Hours, and that the company assumes no liability in such cases as—”

  “Excuse me, sir, but I’m aware that the eight-hour leeway is traditional. But isn’t it a fact that the average voyage hits, the E.T.A. plus or minus only fifteen minutes T.H.?”

  “That’s so, but—”

  “Please excuse me once more, sir—I’d like to ask just one more question. There is, of course, no reason for alarm in the lateness of Esmeralda, but wouldn’t you consider a ship as much as one hour overdue as possibly in danger? And wouldn’t the situation be rather alarming?”

  “Well, one f
ull hour, perhaps you would. Yes, I suppose so—but the eight-hour leeway, you understand—” I laid the phone down quietly on the desk and ripped through the Phoenix for yesterday. In the business section it said “Esmeralda due 0330.” And the big clock on the wall said 0458.

  I hung up the phone and sprinted for the ethertype, with the successive stories clear in my head, ready to be punched and fired off to Marsboo for relay on the galactic trunk. I would beat out IS clanging bells on the printer and follow them with

  INTERSTELLAR FLASH

  IMMIGRANT SHIP Esmeralda SCHEDULED TO LAND FROSTBITE WITH 1,000 FROM THETIS PRO-CYON ONE AND ONE HALF HOURS OVERDUE: OWNER ADMITS SITUATION “ALARMING” CRAFT “IN DANGER.”

  And immediately after that a five-bell bulletin:

  INTERSTELLAR BULLETIN

  FROSTBITE—THE IMMIGRANT SHIP Esmeralda, DUE TODAY AT FROSTBITE FROM THETIS PROCYON WITH 1,000 STEERAGE PASSENGERS ABOARD IS ONE AND ONE HALF HOURS OVERDUE. A SPOKESMAN FOR THE OWNERS, THE FRIMSTEDT ATOMIC AS-TROGATION COMPANY, SAID SUCH A SITUATION IS “ALARMING” AND THAT THE CRAFT MIGHT BE CONSIDERED “IN DANGER.” Esmeralda IS AN 830 THOUSAND-TON FREIGHTER-STEERAGE PASSENGER CARRIER.

  THE CAPTAIN OF THE PORT AT FROSTBITE ADMITTED THAT THERE HAVE BEEN RUMORS CIRCULATING ABOUT THE CONDITION OF THE CRAFTS ATOMICS THOUGH THESE WERE RATED “A” ONE YEAR AGO. THE PURSER OF THE SPACESHIP, CONTACTED IN SPACE, WAS AGITATED AND INCOHERENT WHEN QUESTIONED. HE SAID—

  “Get up, Spencer, get away from the machine.”

  It was Joe Downing, with a gun in his hand.

  “I’ve got a story to file,” I said blankly.

  “Some other time.” He stepped closer to the ethertype and let out a satisfied grunt when he saw the paper was clean. “Port captain called me,” he said. “Told me you were nosing around.”

  “Will you get out of here?” I asked, stupefied. “Man, Fve flash and bulletin matter to clear. Let me alone!”

  “I said to get away from that machine or I’ll cut ya down, boy.”

  “But why? Why?”

  “George don’t want any big stories out of Frostbite.”

  “You’re crazy. Mr. Parsons is a newsman himself. Put that damn-fool gun away and let me get this out!”

  I turned to the printer when a new voice said, “No! Don’t do it, Mr. Spencer. He is a Nietzschean. He’ll kill you, all right. He’ll kill you, all right.”

  It was Leon Portwanger, the furrier, my neighbor, the man who claimed he never knew Kennedy. His fat, sagging face, his drooping white mustache, his sad black eyes enormous behind the bull’s-eye spectacles were very matter-of-fact. He meant what he said. I got up and backed away from the ethertype.

  “I don’t understand it,” I told them.

  “You don’t have to understand it,” said the rat-faced collector of the port. “All you have to understand is that George don’t like it.” He fired one bullet through the printer and I let out a yelp. I’d felt that bullet going right through me.

  “Don’t,” the steady voice of the furrier cautioned. I hadn’t realized that I was walking toward Downing and that his gun was now on my middle. I stopped.

  “That’s better,” said Downing. He kicked the phone connection box off the baseboard, wires snapping and trailing. “Now go to the Hamilton House and stay there for a couple of days.”

  I couldn’t get it through my head. “But Esmeralda’s a cinch to blow up,” I told him. “It’ll be a major space disaster. Half of them are women! I’ve got to get it out!”

  “I’ll take him back to his hotel, Mr. Downing,” said Portwanger. He took my arm in his flabby old hand and led me out while that beautiful flash and bulletin and the first lead disaster and the new lead disaster went running through my head to a futile obbligato of: “They can’t do this to me!” But they did it.

  Somebody gave me a drink at the hotel and I got sick and a couple of bellboys helped me to bed. The next thing I knew I was feeling very clear-headed and wakeful and Chenery was hovering over.me looking worried.

  “You’ve been out cold for forty-eight hours,” he said. “You had a high fever, chills, the works. What happened to you and Downing?”

  “How’s Esmeralda?” I demanded.

  “Huh? Exploded about half a million miles off. The atomics went.”

  “Did anybody get it to ISN for me?”

  “Couldn’t. Interplanetary phones are out again. You seem to have got the last clear call through to Gammadion. And you put a bullet through your ethertype—”

  “/ did? Like hell—Downing did!”

  “Oh? Well, that makes better sense. The fact is, Downing’s dead. He went crazy with that gun of his and Chief Selig shot him. But old Portwanger said you broke the ethertype when you got the gun away from Downing for a minute—no, that doesn’t make sense. What’s the old guy up to?”

  “I don’t give a damn. You see my pants anywhere? I want to get that printer fixed.”

  He helped me dress. I was a little weak on my pins and he insisted on pouring expensive eggnog into me before he’d let me go to the bureau.

  Downing hadn’t done much of a job, or maybe you cant do much of a job on an ethertype without running it through an induction furnace. Everything comes apart, everything’s replaceable. With a lot of thumbing through the handbook I had all the busted bits and pieces out and new ones in. The adjustment was harder, needing two pairs of eyes. Chenery watched the meters while I turned the screws. In about four hours I was ready to call. I punched out:

  NOTE MARSBUO ISN. FRBBUO RESTORED TO SVC AFTR MECHNCL TRBL ETILLNESS.

  The machine spat back:

  NOTE FRBBUO. HW ELLNSS COINCDE WTH MJR DISSTR YR TRRTRY? FYI GAMMADION BUO ISN OUTRCHD FR Esmeralda AFTR YR INXPLCBL SLNCE ETWS BDLY BTN GAMMADION BUGS COM-PTSHN. MCG END.

  He didn’t want to hear any more about it. I could see him stalking away from the printer to the copydesk slot to chew his way viciously through wordage for the major splits. I wished I could see in my mind’s eye Ellie slipping over to the Krueger 60-B circuit sending printer and punching out a word or two of kindness—the machine stirred again. It said: “JOE JOE HOW COULD YOU? ELLIE”.

  Oh, God.

  “Leave me alone, will you?” I asked Chenery.

  “Sure—sure. Anything you say,” he humored me, and slipped out.

  I sat for a while at the desk, noticing mat the smashed phone connection had been installed again, that the place had been policed up.

  Leon Portwanger came waddling in with a bottle in his hand. “I have here some prune brandy,” he said.

  Things began to clear up. “You gave me that mickey,” I said slowly. “And you’ve been lying about me. You said I wrecked the ethertype.”

  “You are a determinist and I was trying to save your life,” he said, setting down two glasses and filling them. “Take your choice and I will have the other. No micfceys.” I picked one and gulped it down—nasty, too-sweet stuff that tasted like plum peelings. He sipped his and seemed to enjoy it.

  “I thought,” he said, “that you were in with their gang. What was I to think? They got rid of poor Kennedy. Pneumonia! You too would have pneumonia if they drenched you with water and put you on the roof in your underwear overnight. The bottles were planted here. He used to drink a little with me, he used to get drunk now and then—so did I—nothing bad.”

  “You thought I was in their gang,” I said. “What gang are you in?”

  “The Frostbite Interplanetary Party,” he said wryly. “I would smile with you if the joke were not on me. I know, I know—we are Outs who want to be Ins, we are neurotic youngsters, .we are led by stooges of the Planetary Party. So what should I do—start a one-man party alone on a mountain-top, so pure that I must blackball everybody except myself from membership? I am an incorrigible reformer and idealist whether I like it or not—and sometimes, I assure you, I don’t like it very well.

  “Kennedy was no reformer and idealist. He was a pragmatist, a good man who .wanted a good news story that would i
ncidentally blow the present administration up. He used me, I used him. He got his story and they killed him and burglarized the bureau to remove all traces of it. Or did they?”

  “I don’t know,” I muttered, “Why did you dope me? Did Downing really go crazy?”

  “I poisoned you a little because Downing did not go crazy. Downing was under orders to keep you from sending out that story. Probably after he had got you away from the ethertype he would have killed you if I had not poisoned you with some of my heart medicine. They realized while you were ill and feverish that it might as well be one as another. If they killed you, there would only be another newsman sent out to be inveigled into their gang. If they killed Downing, they could blame everything on him, you would never be able to have anything more than suspicions, and—there are a lot more Downings available, are there not?”

  My brain began to click. “So your mysterious ‘they’ didn’t want a top-drawer story to center around Frostbite. If it did, there’d be follow-ups, more reporters, ICC people investigating the explosion. Since the news break came from Gammadion, that’s where the reporters would head and that’s where the ICC investigation would be based. But what have they got to hide? The political setup here smells to high heaven, but it’s no worse than on fifty other planets. Graft, liquor, vice, drugs, gambling—”

  “No drugs,” said the furrier.

  “That’s silly,” I told him. “Of course they have drugs. With everything else, why not drugs?”

  He shrugged apologetically. “Excuse me,” he said. “I told you I was a reformer, and an idealist. I did not mention that I used to be an occasional user of narcotics. A little something to take the pressure off—those very small morphine sulphate tablets. You can imagine my horror when I emigrated to this planet twenty-eight years ago and found there were no drugs—literally. Believe me when I tell you that I—looked hard. Now, of course, I am grateful. But I had a few very difficult weeks.” He shuddered, finished his prune brandy and filled both our glasses again.