Collected Short Fiction

by C. M. Kornbluth

  He tossed down his glass.

  “Damn it all!” he exploded. “Must I rub your nose in it? Are you going to figure it out for yourself? And are you going to get killed like my poor friend, Kennedy? Look here! And here!” He lurched to his feet and yanked down “WHO’S WHO IN THE GALAXY” and the United Planets Drug Committee Report.

  His pudgy finger pointed to:

  “PARSONS, George Warmerdam, organic chemist, news-ppr pubr, b. Gammadion 172, s. Henry and Dolores (Warmerdam) P., studied Gammadion Chem. Inst. B.Ch 191, M.Ch 193, D.Ch 194; empl. dir research Hawley Mfg Co. (Gammadion) 194-198; founded Parsons Chem Mfg Labs (Gammadion) 198, headed same 198-203; removed Frostbite 203; founded newspaper Frostbite Phoenix 203. Author, tech papers organ chem 193-196. Mem Univ Organ Chem Soc. Address c/o Frostbite Phoenix, Frostbite.”

  And in the other book:

  “—particular difficulty encountered with the stupefiant known as ‘J-K-B.’ It was first reported on Gammadion in the year 197, when a few isolated cases presented themselves for medical treatment. The problem rapidly worsened through the year 203, by which time the drug was in widespread illicit interplanetary commerce. The years 203-204 saw a cutting-ofl of the supply of J-K-B for reasons unknown. Prices soared to fantastic levels, unnumbered robberies and murders were committed by addicts to obtain possession of the minute quantities remaining on the market, and other addicts, by the hundreds of thousands presented themselves to the authorities hoping more or less in vain for a ‘cure.’ J-K-B appeared again in the year 205, not confined to any segment of the inhabited galaxy. Supplies have since remained at a constant level—enough to brutalize, torment, and shorten the lives of the several score million terrestrial and extra-terrestrial beings who have come into its grip. Interrogation of peddlers intercepted with J-K-B has so far only led back through a seemingly endless chain of middlemen. The nature of the drug is such that it cannot be analyzed and synthesized—”

  My head spun over the damning parallel trails. Where Parsons tried his wings in chemistry, J-K-B appeared. When he went on his own, the quantity increased. When he moved to another planet, the supply was cut off. When he was established, the supply grew to a constant level and stayed there.

  And what could be sweeter than a thoroughly corrupt planet to take over with his money and his newspaper? Dominate a machine and the members’ “regularity” will lead them to kill for you—or to kill killers if need be. Encourage planetary ignorance and isolationism; keep the planet unattractive and depressed by letting your free-booters run wild—that’ll discourage intelligent immigration. Let token parties in, fleece them fast and close, let them spread the word that Frostbite’s no place for anybody with brains.

  “A reformer and idealist I am,” said Portwanger calmly. “Not a man of action. What should be done next?”

  I thought it over and told him; “If it kills me, and it might, I am going to send a rash of flashes and bulletins from this Godforsaken planet. My love life depends on it Leon, do you know anybody on Mars?”

  “A Sirian fellow named Wenjtkpli—a philosophical anarchist. An unreal position to take. This is the world we are to, there are certain social leverages to apply. Who is he to say—?”

  I held up my hand. “I know him too.” I could taste that eleventh stinger again; by comparison the prune brandy was mellow. I took a gulp. “Do you think you could go to Mars without getting bumped off?”

  “A man could try.”

  The next two weeks were agonizing. Those Assyrian commissars or Russian belshazzars or whatever they were who walked down prison corridors waiting to be shot in the back of the head never went through what I did. I walked down the corridor for fourteen days.

  First Leon got off all right on a bucket of bolts. I had no guarantee that he wouldn’t be plugged by a crew member who was in on the party. Then there was a period of waiting for the first note that I’d swap you for a mad tarantula.

  It came:

  NOTE FRBBUO HOW WELL XPCT KP CLNT IF UN-ABL DROP COPY? MCG MARSBUO.

  I’d paved the way for that one by drinking myself into a hangover on home brew and lying in bed and groaning when I should have been delivering the printer copy to the Phoenix. I’d been insulting as possible to Weems to insure that he’d phone a squawk to McGillicuddy—I hoped. The tipoff was “hell.” Profanity was never, ever used on our circuits—I hoped. “Hell” meant “Portwanger contacted me, I got the story, I am notifying United Planets Patrol in utmost secrecy.” Two days later came:

  NOTE FRBBUO BD CHMN WNTS KNO WOT KIND DAMN KNUCKLHED FILING ONLY FOURFIVE ITMS DAILY FM XPNSVE ONEMAN BUO. XPCT UP-STEP PRDCTN IMMY, RPT IMMY MCG MARSBUO.

  “Damn” meant “Patrol contacted, preparing to raid Frostbite.” “Fourfive” meant “fourfive”—days from message.

  The next note would have got ISN in trouble with the Interplanetary Communications Commission if it hadn’t been in a good cause. I’m unable to quote it. But it came as I was in the bureau about to leave for the Honorable Homer With-erspoon’s testimonial banquet. I locked the door, took off my parka and rolled up my sleeves. I was going to sweat for the next few hours.

  When I heard the multiple roar of the Patrol ships on rockets I very calmly beat out fifteen bells and sent:

  INTERSTELLAR FLASH

  UNITED PLANETS PATROL DESCENDING ON FROSTBITE, KRUEGER 60-B’S ONLY PLANET, IN UNPRECEDENTED MASS RAID ON TIP OF INTERSTELLAR NEWS SERVICE THAT WORLD IS SOLE SOURCE OF DEADLY DRUG J-K-B.

  INTERSTELLAR BULLETIN

  THE MASSED PATROL OF THE UNITED PLANETS ORGANIZATION DESCENDED ON THE ONLY PLANET OF KRUEGER 60-B, FROSTBITE, IN AN UNPRECEDENTED MASS RAID THIS EVENING. ON INFORMATION FURNISHED BY INTERSTELLAR NEWS REPORTER JOE SPENCER THE PATROL HOPES TO WIPE OUT THE SOURCE OF THE DEADLY DRUG J-K-B, WHICH HAS PLAGUED THE GALAXY FOR 20 YEARS. THE CHEMICAL GENIUS SUSPECTED OF INVENTING AND PRODUCING THE DRUG IS GEORGE PARSONS, RESPECTED PUBLISHER OF FROSTBITE’S ONLY NEWSPAPER.

  INTERSTELLAR FLASH

  FIRST UNITED PLANETS PATROL SHIP LANDS IN

  FROSTBITE CAPITAL CITY OF PLANET.

  INTERSTELLAR FLASH

  PATROL COMMANDER PHONES EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW TO INTERSTELLAR NEWS SERVICE FROSTBITE BUREAU REPORTING ROUND-UP OF PLANETARY GOVERNMENT LEADERS AT TESTIMONIAL DINNER

  (WITH FROSTBITE)

  FROSTBITE—ISN—ONE INTERSTELLAR NEWS REPORTER HAS ALREADY GIVEN HIS LIFE IN THE CAMPAIGN TO EXPOSE THE MAKER OF J-K-B. ED KENNEDY, ISN BUREAU CHIEF, WAS ASSASSINATED BY AGENTS OF DRUGMAKER GEORGE PARSONS THREE MONTHS AGO. AGENTS OF PARSONS STRIPPED KENNEDY AND EXPOSED HIM OVERSIGHT TO THE BITTER COLD OF THIS PLANET, CAUSING HIS DEATH BY PNEUMONIA. A SECOND INTERSTELLAR NEWS SERVICE REPORTER, JOE STCNCER, NARROWLY ESCAPED DEATH AT THE HANDS OF A DRUG-RING MEMBER WHO SOUGHT TO PREVENT HIM FROM SENDING NEWS OVER THE CIRCUITS OF THE INTERSTELLAR NEWS SERVICE.

  INTERSTELLAR FLASH

  PATROL SEIZES PARSONS

  INTERSTELLAR BULLETIN

  FROSTBITE—IN A TELEPHONE MESSAGE TO INTERSTELLAR NEWS SERVICE A PATROL SPOKESMAN $AJD GEORGE PARSONS HAD BEEN TAKEN INTO CtSTODY AND UNMISTAKABLY IDENTIFIED. PARSONS HAD BEEN LIVING A LIE ON FROSTBITE, USING THE NAME CHENERY AND THE GUISE OF A COLUMNIST FOR PARSONS’ NEWSPAPER. SAID THE PATROL SPOKESMAN;—“IT IS A TYPICAL MANEUVER. WE NEVER GOT SO FAR ALONG THE CHAIN OF J-K-B PEDDLERS THAT WE NEVER FOUND ONE MORE. APPARENTLY THE SOURCE OF THE DRUG HIMSELF THOUGHT HE COULD PUT HIMSELF OUT OF THE REACH OF INTERPLANETARY JUSTICE BY ASSUMING A FICTITIOUS PERSONALITY. HOWEVER, WE HAVE ABSOLUTELY IDENTIFIED HIM AND EXPECT A CONFESSION WITHIN THE HOUR. PARSONS APPEARS TO BE A J-K-B ADDICT HIMSELF.

  INTERSTELLAR FLASH

  PARSONS CONFESSES

  (FIRST LEAD FROSTBITE)

  FROSTBITE—ISN—THE UNITED PLANETS PATROL AND THE INTERSTELLAR NEWS SERVICE JOINED HANDS TODAY IN TRIUMPH AFTER WIPING OUT THE MOST VICIOUS NEST OF DRUGMAKERS IN THE GALAXY. J-K-B, THE INFAMOUS NARCOTIC WHICH HAS MENACED—

  I ground out nearly thirty thousand words of copy that night Bleary-eyed at the end of the run, I coul
d barely read a note that came across:

  NOTE FRBBUO: WELL DONE. RETURN MARS JMMY: SNDNG REPLCEMNT. MARSBUO MCG.

  The Patrol flagship took me back in a quick, smooth trip with lots of service and no yaks.

  After a smooth landing I took an eastbound chair from the field and whistled as the floater lifted me to the ISN floor. The newsroom was quiet for a change and the boys and girls stood up for me.

  McGillicuddy stepped out from the copy table slot to say: “Welcome back. Frankly, I didn’t think you had it hi you, but you proved me wrong. You’re a credit to the profession and the ISN.” Portwanger was there, too. “A pragmatist, your McGillicuddy,” he muttered. “But you did a good job.”

  I didn’t pay very much attention; my eyes were roving over no man’s land. Finally I asked McGillicuddy: “Where’s Miss Masters? Day off?”

  “How do you like that?” laughed McGillicuddy. “I forgot to tell you. She’s your replacement on Frostbite. Fired her off yesterday. I thought the woman’s angle—where do you think you’re going?”

  “Honest Blogri’s Olde Earthe Saloon,” I told him with dignity. “If you want me, I’ll be under the third table from the left as you come in. With sawdust in my hair.”

  The Altar at Midnight

  Doing something for humanity may be fine—for humanity—but rough on the individual!

  HE had quite a rum-blossom on him for a kid, I thought at first. But when he moved closer to the light by the cash register to ask the bartender for a match or something, I saw it wasn’t that. Not just the nose. Broken veins on his cheeks, too, and the funny eyes. He must have seen me look, because he slid back away from the light.

  The bartender shook my bottle of ale in front of me like a Swiss bell-ringer so it foamed inside the green glass.

  “You ready for another, sir?” he asked.

  I shook my head. Down the bar, he tried it on the kid—he was drinking Scotch and water or something like that—and found out he could push him around. He sold him three Scotch and waters in ten minutes.

  When he tried for number four, the kid had his courage up and said, “I’ll tell you when I’m ready for another, Jack.” But there wasn’t any trouble.

  It was almost nine and the place began to fill up. The manager, a real hood type, stationed himself by the door to screen out the high-school kids and give the big hello to conventioneers. The girls came hurrying in too, with their little makeup cases and their fancy hair piled up and their frozen faces with the perfect mouths drawn on them. One of them stopped to say something to the manager, some excuse about something, and he said: “That’s aw ri’; getcha assina dressing room.”

  A three-piece band behind the drapes at the back of the stage began to make warmup noises and there were two bartenders keeping busy. Mostly it was beer—a midweek crowd. I finished my ale and had to wait a couple of minutes before I could get another bottle. The bar filled up from the end near the stage because all the customers wanted a good, close look at the strippers for their fifty-cent bottles of beer. But I noticed that nobody sat down next to the kid, or, if anybody did, he didn’t stay long—you go out for some fun and the bartender pushes you around and nobody wants to sit next to you. I picked up my bottle and glass and went down on the stool to his left.

  He turned to me right away and said: “What kind of a place is this, anyway?” The broken veins were all over his face, little ones, but so many, so close, that they made his face look something like marbled rubber. The funny look in his eyes was it—the trick contact lenses. But I tried not to stare and not to look away.

  “It’s okay,” I said. “It’s a good show if you don’t mind a lot of noise from—”

  He stuck a cigarette into his mouth and poked the pack at me. “I’m a spacer,” he said, interrupting.

  I took one of his cigarettes and said: “Oh.”

  He snapped a lighter for the cigarettes and said: “Venus.”

  I WAS noticing that his pack of cigarettes on the bar had some kind of yellow sticker instead of the blue tax stamp.

  “Ain’t that a crock?” he asked. “You can’t smoke and they give you lighters for a souvenir. But it’s a good lighter. On Mars last week, they gave us all some cheap pen-and-pencil sets.”

  “You get something every trip, hah?” I took a good, long drink of ale and he finished his Scotch and water.

  “Shoot. You call a trip a ‘shoot.’ ”

  One of the girls was working her way down the bar. She was going to slide onto the empty stool at his right and give him the business, but she looked at him first and decided not to. She curled around me and asked if I’d buy her a li’l ole drink. I said no and she moved on to the next. I could kind of feel the young fellow quivering. When I looked at him, he stood up. I followed him out of the dump. The manager grinned without thinking and said, “G’night, boys,” to us.

  The kid stopped in the street and said to me: “You don’t have to follow me around, Pappy.” He sounded like one wrong word and I would get socked in the teeth.

  “Take it easy. I know a place where they won’t spit in your eye.”

  He pulled himself together and made a joke of it. “This I have to see,” he said. “Near here?”

  “A few blocks.”

  We started walking. It was a nice night.

  “I don’t know this city at all,” he said. “I’m from Covington, Kentucky. You do your drinking at home there. We don’t have places like this.” He meant the whole Skid Row area.

  “It’s not so bad,” I said. “I spend a lot of time here.”

  “Is that a fact? I mean, down home a man your age would likely have a wife and children.”

  “I do. The hell with them.”

  He laughed like a real youngster and I figured he couldn’t even be twenty-five. He didn’t have any trouble with the broken curbstones in spite of his Scotch and waters. I asked him about it.

  “Sense of balance,” he said. “You have to be tops for balance to be a spacer—you spend so much time outside in a suit. People don’t know how much. Punctures. And you aren’t worth a damn if you lose your point.”

  “What’s that mean?”

  “Oh. Well, it’s hard to describe. When you’re outside and you lose your point, it means you’re all mixed up, you don’t know which way the can—that’s the ship—which way the can is. It’s having all that room around you. But if you have a good balance, you feel a little tugging to the ship, or maybe you just know which way the ship is without feeling it. Then you have your point and you can get the work done.”

  “There must be a lot that’s hard to describe.”

  He thought that might be a crack and he dammed up on me.

  “You call this Gandytown,” I said after a while. “It’s where the stove-up old railroad men hang out. This is the place.”

  IT was the second week of the month, before everybody’s pension check was all gone. Oswiak’s was jumping. The Grandsons of the Pioneers were on the juke singing the Man from Mars Yodel and old Paddy Shea was jigging in the middle of the floor. He had a full seidel of beer in his right hand and his empty left sleeve was flapping.

  The kid balked at the screen door. “Too damn bright,” he said.

  I shrugged and went on in and he followed. We sat down at a table. At Oswiak’s you can drink at the bar if you want to, but none of the regulars do.

  Paddy jigged over and said: “Welcome home, Doc.” He’s a Liverpool Irishman; they talk like Scots, some say, but they sound like Brooklyn to me.

  “Hello, Paddy. I brought somebody uglier than you. Now what do you say?”

  Paddy jigged around the kid in a half-circle with his sleeve flapping and then flopped into a chair when the record stopped. He took a big drink from the seidel and said: “Can he do this?” Paddy stretched his face into an awful grin that showed his teeth. He has three of them. The kid laughed and asked me: “What the hell did you drag me into here for?”

  “Paddy says he’ll buy drinks for the house th
e day anybody uglier than he is comes in.”

  Oswiak’s wife waddled over for the order and the kid asked us what we’d have. I figured I could start drinking, so it was three double Scotches.

  After the second round, Paddy started blowing about how they took his arm off without any anesthetics except a bottle of gin because the red-ball freight he was tangled up in couldn’t wait.

  That brought some of the other old gimps over to the table with their stories.

  Blackie Bauer had been sitting in a boxcar with his legs sticking through the door when the train started with a jerk. Wham, the door closed. Everybody laughed at Blackie for being that dumb in the first place, and he got mad.

  Sam Fireman has palsy. This week he was claiming he used to be a watchmaker before he began to shake. The week before, he’d said he was a brain surgeon. A woman I didn’t know, a real old Boxcar Bertha, dragged herself over and began some kind of story about how her sister married a Greek, but she passed out before we found out what happened.

  Somebody wanted to know what was wrong with the kid’s face—Bauer, I think it was, after he came back to the table.

  “Compression and decompression,” the kid said. “You’re all the time climbing into your suit and out of your suit. Inboard air’s thin to start with. You get a few redlines—that’s these ruptured blood vessels—and you say the hell with the money; all you’ll make is just one more trip. But, God, it’s a lot of money for anybody my age! You keep saying that until you can’t be anything but a spacer. The eyes are hard-radiation scars.”

  “You like dot all ofer?” asked Oswiak’s wife politely.

  “All over, ma’am,” the kid told her in a miserable voice. “But I’m going to quit before I get a Bowman Head.”

  I took a savage gulp at the raw Scotch.

  “I don’t care,” said Maggie Rorty. “I think he’s cute.”

  “Compared with—” Paddy began, but I kicked him under the table.