Collected Short Fiction

by C. M. Kornbluth

  “How much energy?” asked Novak, guardedly.

  “Enough to flash the solvent water into hydrogen and oxygen by thermolysis,” Holland said. “You’ve seen the drawings for Prototype’s fuel tanks, as we called them . . .”

  Anheier came into the room and Novak barely noticed him. His engineer’s mind could see the blue print unrolled before him again. The upper tank containing the isotope-water solution . . . the lower tank containing a small heavy-water “fish-bowl” reactor for the neutron source . . . the dead-end control systems completed, installed, one metering the fuel solution past the neutron spray of the reactor, the other controlling flux level by damper rods run in and out on servomechanisms . . . the fuel solution droplets flashing into hell’s own flame and roaring from the throat with exhaust velocity unobtainable by merely chemical reaction . . .

  Holland was talking again, slowly. “It was just numbers on paper, among thousands of other numbers on paper. It lay for years in the files until one of the high-ranking A.E.C. technical people stumbled on it, understood its implications and came to me. His exact words were: ‘Holland, this is space-flight.’ ”

  “It is,” Novak breathed. His voice became hoarse. “And you sold it . . .”

  “I saved it. I saved it from the red-tape Empire builders, the obscurantists, the mystagogues, the spies. If I had set it up as an A.E.C. project, the following things would have happened. First, we would have lost security. Every nation in the world would shortly have known the space-flight problem had an answer, and then what the answer was. Second, we would have been beaten to the Moon by another nation. This is because our personnel policy forbids us to hire the best men we can find merely because they’re the best. Ability ranks very low in the category of criteria by which we judge A.E.C. personnel. They must be conservative. They must be politically apathetic. They must have no living close-relatives abroad. And so on. As bad as the personnel situation, interacting with and reinforcing it, is the fact of A.E.C.’s bigness and the fact of its public ownership. They mean accounting, chains of command, personnel-flow charts—the jungle in which third-raters flourish. Get in the A.E.C., build yourself a powerful clique and don’t worry about the work; you don’t really have to do any.”

  The words were fierce; his tone was dispassionate. Throughout his denunciation he wore the pure-research man’s face, lecturing coolly on phenomena which he had studied, isolated, linked, analyzed endlessly. If any emotion was betrayed it was, incongruously, the residual affection of a pure-research man for his subject. When the pathologist calls it a beautiful carcinoma he is being neither ironical nor callous.

  “As you know,” Holland lectured quietly, “the nation that gets to the Moon first has the Moon. The lawyers will be arguing about it for the next century, but the nation that plants the first moon base need not pay any attention to their arguments. I wanted that nation to be the United States, which I’ve served to the best of my ability for most of my life.

  “I became a conspirator.

  “I determined to have a moon ship built under non-Government auspices and, quite frankly, to rob the Government to pay for it. I have a long reputation as a dollar-honest, good-government man, which I counted on to help me get away with quite outrageous plundering of the Treasury.

  “A study convinced me that complete assembly of a moon ship by a large, responsible corporation could not be kept secret. I found the idea of isolated parts manufactured by small, scattered outfits and then a rush assembly was impractical. A moon ship is a precision instrument of huge size. One subassembly under par would wreck the project. I admit I was toying with the idea of setting up a movie company and building the moon ship as, ostensibly, a set for a science-fiction film, when the A.S.F.S.F. came to my attention.

  “Psychologically it seems to have been perfect. You deserve great credit, Dr. Novak, for stubbornly sticking to the evidence and logic that told you Prototype is a moon ship and not a dummy. You are the only one who has. Many people have seen the same things you did and refused to believe it because of the sheer implausibility of the situation.

  “Hoping that this would be the case, I contacted my old friend Wilson Stuart. He and his company have been the pipeline for millions of Government dollars poured into the A.S.F.S.F. I’ve callously diverted thousands of A.E.C. man-hours into solving A.S.F.S.F. problems. I had you transferred within the A.E.C. and had your personality card altered so that Hurlbut would goad you into resigning—since the moon ship needed a full-time man with your skills.”

  “You dared——” choked Novak, stung with rage.

  “I dared,” Holland said matter-of-factly. “This country has its faults, but of all the nations in the world I judge it as least disqualified to operate a moon base. It’s the power of life and death over every nation on the face of the earth, and some one nation has got to accept that power.”

  Suddenly his voice blazed with passion and the words came like a torrent. “What was I to do? Go ahead and do it the wrong way? Go to the commissioners, who’d go to the congressmen, who’d go to their good friends on the newspapers? Our secrecy would have been wiped out in twelve hours! Set up a Government project staffed with simon-pure but third-rate scientists? Watch the thing grow and grow until there were twenty desk men for every man who got his hands dirty on the real work—and all the desk men fighting like wild beasts for the glory of signing memos? Was I to spare your career and let those A-bomb racks on the Moon go by default to the Argentines or Chinese? Man, what do you think I am?”

  “A killer,” Novak said dully. “Your man Anheier murdered my friend Clifton.”

  Anheier’s voice was cold. “Executed,” he said. “You were there when I warned him, Novak. The penalty for espionage is death. I told him so and he smiled at me to tell me that I wouldn’t dare. I told him: ‘The penalty is death.’ And he went to his home and telephoned his contact, Mr. Boris Chodorov of Amtorg, that he’d have something for him in a day or two. God almighty, Novak be reasonable. Should I have written Clifton a letter? I told him: ‘Import-export used to be a favourite, but it was too obvious.’ So he smiled at me and went home to call his contact. He had something juicy, something out of the general run-of-the-mill industrial-preparedness information he collected for the Soviets.

  “He may have thought he was just augmenting his income, that it wasn’t really espionage, that the United States hasn’t got the guts to hit back anyway——” His voice trailed off. “I killed him,” he said.

  “Clifton a spy,” Novak said stupidly. He began to laugh. “And Lilly?”

  “Just a stupid woman,” Anheier said. “We monitored the Cliftons for a long time, and nothing ever emanated from her.”

  Novak couldn’t stop laughing. “You’re quite wrong,” he said. A hundred little things slipped suddenly into place. “There is no doubt in my mind that Lilly was the brains of the outfit. I can see now that Lilly was leading me by the nose for weeks, getting every scrap of information I possessed. And when she got just one chance she landed Friml and is now milking him.”

  Anheier had gone white. “How much does Friml know?” asked Holland.

  The Security man said: “Friml knows he’s employed by Wilson Stuart. And he can guess at a lot of the rest. The way there’s always enough material on hand when we order it from a jobber—even grey-market stuff like copper and steel. Our work. And he knows there are calls to and from Washington that have a connection. Between his brains and Mrs. Clifton’s, I think we’d better assume that secrecy is gone.” He looked and sounded sick.

  “Novak,” the general manager asked softly, “are you in this too?”

  Novak knew what he meant. “Yes,” he said. “It looks like the right side of the fence to me.”

  Holland said: “I’m glad . . . how close to finished is the moon ship?” He was the boss-man again.

  “Is the fuel solution ready and waiting?”

  “It is. Waiting for word from me. I’ve also oiled the ways for the diversion of a fish
-bowl reactor for your neutron source. It’s going to go astray on its way to Cal Tech from Los Alamos.”

  “EBIC’s got to work out my math and I’ve got to fabricate the liner and vane. At the same time, the ship could be stocked with water, food, and the pressure dome. At the same time the dead-end circuits can be completed. Do you have the food and water and airtanks and lockers?”

  “Yes. Give me a figure!” Holland snapped.

  Novak choked on it, terrifyingly aware that no man ever before had borne such tidings as he spoke in the bedroom of a rich man’s house in Beverly Hills. “It could take off in two weeks,” he said. Here we are at last, Novak thought. Time to close the old ledger on man. Add it up, credit and debit, and carry your balance forward to the first page of the next ledger . . .

  “And now,” said Holland grimly, “we ought to go and see some people. They’d both be at her house?”

  Novak knew what he meant, and nodded. “I suppose so. It’s Saturday.”

  He led the way to the garage. Amy Stuart’s little sports car was at home.

  “Mr. Holland,” Novak said, “there’s going to be a hell of a smash when this comes out, isn’t there?”

  “We hope not,” the general manager said shortly. “We have some plans of our own if they try to jail me for fraud and Anheier for murder and the rest of the crew for whatever they can think of.”

  “Why should Amy be mixed up in this?”

  “We need her,” Holland snapped. His manner ruled out further questions. They got into Anheier’s car and the Security man drove them to the house in Cahuenga Canyon.

  XV.

  Lilly met them at the door in a housecoat. “Hallo, Mike,” she said. “Who’re these people? Oh, you’ Anheier, ain’t you?”

  “My name is Daniel Holland, Mrs. Clifton,” the general manager said. She didn’t move a muscle. “Do you mind if I come in?”

  “I t’ink I do,” she said slowly. “Mike, what is all this?”

  Novak looked at Holland, who nodded. “Espionage,” he said. She laughed tremulously and told him: “You cra-a-azy!”

  “Lilly, you once asked me to find out who killed Cliff. I found out. It was Anheier. Cliff was a spy.”

  Her expression didn’t change as she said: “Cliff was a damned bad spy. Come on in. I got somet’ing to tell you too.”

  They filed into the living room. “Where’s Friml?” Novak asked. She jerked her thumb carelessly toward the bedroom door.

  “He’s a lot smarter than any of you t’ought,” she said, making a business out of lighting a cigarette. “He telled me what he saw and figgered out, and I did some figgering too. You’ a very smart man, Mr. Holland. But what I got to tell you is I got this stuff to a friend of mine already. If he don’t hear from me by a certain time, he sends it on to the newspapers. How you like that, killer?” She blew a plume of smoke at Anheier.

  The large, calm man said: “That means you’ve got it to your employers by now.”

  “Does it?” she asked, grinning. “It doesn’t matter. All I got to do is sic the papers on you, and you’ democra-a-atic country does the rest for us like always. I don’t know you’ rocket fuel yet. Prob’ly wouldn’t know what to do vit’ it if Friml brought me a bottleful; I don’t know science. But it don’t matter; I don’t worry. The papers and the Congress raise hell vit’ you and lead us right to the rocket fuel so our people that do know science can move in and figger it out.”

  Stirred by a sudden, inappropriate curiosity, Novak couldn’t help asking: “Are you a Communist? Your husband reported to an Amtorg man.”

  She was disgusted. “Communist, hell! I’m a European.”

  “I don’t see what that——”

  “Listen, Mike,” she said flatly. “Before you’ friends kill me or t’row me in yail or whatever they gonna do. You fat-belly people over here don’ begin to know how we t’ink you all a bunch of monkeys vit’ the atom bombs and movies and at’letes and radio comics and two-ton Sunday newspapers and fake schools where the kids don’ work. Well, what you guys going to do vit’ me? Shoot me? Prison? Drop an atom bomb? Solve everyt’ing? Go ahead. I been raped by Yerman soldiers and sedooced vit’ Hershey bars by American soldiers. I had the typhus and lost my hair. I walked seventy-five kilometers on a loaf of sawdust bread for a yob that wasn’t there after all. I speak t’ree languages and understand t’ree more a liddle and you people call me dumb because I got an accent. You people that don’ even know how to stand quiet in line for a bus or kinema and t’ink you can run the world. I been lied at and promised to by the stupid Americans. Vote for me and end you’ troubles. I been lied at and promised to by the crazy Russians. Nah, vote for me and end you’ troubles.

  “Sheissdrek. So I voted for me-myself and now go ahead and drop you’ damned atom bomb on the dumb squarehead. Solve everyt’ing, hey boys? Sheissdrek.”

  She sprawled in the chair, a tight grin on her face, and deliberately hoisted the skirt of her housecoat to her thighs. “Any of you guys got a Hershey bar?” she demanded sardonically, and batted her eyes at them. “The condemned European’s la-a-ast request is for a Hershey bar so she can die happy.”

  Friml was standing there with his thinnish hair tousled, glasses a little crooked on his face, wrapped in a maroon bathrobe. His skinny, hairy legs shook with a fine tremor.

  “Hallo, sugar,” she said to him with poisonous sweetness. “These yentleman and I was discussing life.” She turned to them and lectured elaborately: “You know what happen in Europe when out came you’ Kinsey report? This will kill you. All the dumb squareheads and the dumb dagoes and the dumb frogs and krauts said we knew it all the time. American men are half pa-a-ansy and the rest they learn out of a marriage book.” She looked at Friml and laughed.

  “P-p-pull your skirt down, Lilly,” Friml said in a weak, hoarse voice.

  “Go find yourself a nice girl, sugar,” she said carelessly. “May be you make her happy, because you sure as hell don——” Friml’s head bobbed as though he’d been slapped. Moving like an old man, not looking at anything, he went to the bathroom and then to the bedroom and closed the door.

  “Like the yoke!” giggled Lilly half-hysterically. “He’ll do it too; he’s a manly fiddle feller!”

  “I think——” said Novak starting to his feet. He went to the bed room door with hurried strides and knocked. “Friml! I want to—to talk to you for a minute!”

  The answer was a horrible, low, roaring noise.

  The door was locked; Novak lunged against it with his shoulder repeatedly, not feeling the pain and not loosening the door. Anheier pulled him back and yelled at him: “Cut that out! I’ll get the window from outside.” He rushed from the house, scooping up a fight, toy-like poker from the brass stand beside the fireplace.

  Holland said at his side: “Steady. We’ll be able to help him in a minute.” They heard smashing glass and Novak wanted to run out and look through the window. “Steady,” Holland said.

  Anheier opened the door. “Get milk from the kitchen,” he snapped at Novak. The engineer got a brief glimpse of dark red blood. He ran for the kitchen and brought a carton of milk.

  While Holland phoned for a doctor, Novak and Anheier tried to pour the milk into Friml. It wouldn’t go down. The thrashing thing on the floor, its bony frame and pallid skin pitifully exposed by the flapping, coarse robe, wasn’t vomiting. They would get a mouthful of milk into it, and then the milk would dribble out again as it choked and roared. Friml had drunk almost two ounces of tincture of iodine. The sickening, roaring noises had a certain regularity. Novak thought he was trying to say he hadn’t known it would hurt so much.

  By the time the doctor arrived, they realised that Lilly was gone.

  “God, Anheier,” Novak said white-faced. “She planned it. A diversion while she made her getaway. She pushed the buttons on him and—is it possible?”

  “Yes,” the Security man said without emotion. “I fell down badly all around on that one.”

  “Da
mn it, be human!” Novak yelled at him.

  “He’s human,” Holland said. “I’ve known him longer than you have, and I assure you he’s human. Don’t pester him; he feels very badly.”

  Novak subsided.

  An ambulance with police pulled up to the house as the doctor was pumping morphine into Friml’s arm. The frightful noises ebbed, and when Novak could look again Friml was spread laxly on the floor.

  “I don’t suppose——” Novak said, and trailed off.

  “Relation?” the doctor asked. He shook his head. “He’ll linger a few hours and then die. I can see you did everything you could, but there was nothing to be done. He seared his glottis almost shut.”

  “Joel Friml,” Novak told the sergeant, and spelled it. It was good to be doing something—anything. “He lives at the Y in downtown L.A. This place is the home of Mrs. August Clifton—widow. He was spending the night here. My friends and I came to visit. Mrs. Clifton seems to have run out in a fit of nerves.” He gave his name, and slowly recognition dawned on the sergeant’s face.

  “This is, uh, kind of funny,” the cop told him. “My brother-in-law’s in that rocket club so I happen to remember—it was her husband, wasn’t it? And wasn’t there an Anslinger——”

  “Anheier,” said the Security man. “I’m Anheier.”

  “Funnier and funnier,” said the sergeant. “Doc, could I see you for a——”