Collected Short Fiction

by C. M. Kornbluth

  Holland felt his old friend’s hand grip his wrist. “Getting soft, Wilson?” he muttered out of the corner of his mouth.

  The old man wouldn’t be kidded. “I didn’t know it would be like this,” he said hoarsely. Amy’s jacket was a bright red patch as the couple mounted the stand and shook hands with the President. Senile tears were running down Wilson Stuart’s face. Great day for weeping, Holland thought sullenly. All I did was hand the U.S. the Moon on a silver platter and everybody’s sobbing about it.

  The old man choked: “Crazy kid. Daniel, what if she doesn’t come back?”

  There was nothing to say about that. But——

  “She’s waving at you, Wilson!” Holland said sharply. “Wave back!” The old man’s hand fluttered feebly. Holland could see that Amy had already turned to speak to the President. God, he thought. They’re hard.

  “Did she see me, Dan?”

  “Yes. She threw you a big grin. She’s a wonderful kid, Wilson.” Glad I never had any. And sorry, too, of course. It isn’t that easy, ever, is it? Isn’t this show ever going to get on the road?

  The M.P.s, Marines, and A.F.P.s reformed their lines and began to press back the crowd. Jeeps roared into life and began to tow the big, wheeled reviewing stand slowly from the moon ship. With heartbreaking beauty of flowing line, Amy swung herself from the platform to the hoist of the gantry crane. Mike stepped lightly across the widening gap and Captain Dilaccio—Good God, had the President even spoken to him?—jumped solidly. Mike waved at the craneman and the hoist rose with its three passengers. It stopped twenty-five feet up, and there was clearly a bit of high-spirited pantomime, Alphonse-and-Gaston stuff, at the manhole. Amy crawled through first and then she was gone. Then Dilaccio and then Novak, and they all were gone. The manhole cover began to close, theatrically slow.

  “Why are we here?” Novak wondered dimly as the crescent of aperture became knifelike, razorlike, and then vanished. What road did I travel from Canarsie to here? Aloud he said: “Preflight check; positions, please.” He noted that his voice sounded apologetic. They hunkered down under the gothic dome in the sickly light of a six-watt bulb. Like cave people around a magic tree stump they squatted around the king-post top that grew from the metal floor.

  “Oxygen-CO2 cycle,” he said.

  That was Dilaccio’s. He opened the valve and said, “Check.”

  “Heater.” He turned it on himself and muttered, “Check.”

  Novak took a deep breath. “Well, next comes fuel metering and damper rods—oh, I forgot. Amy, is the vane servo locked vertical?”

  “Check,” she said.

  “Right. Now, the timers are set for thirty seconds, which is ample for us to get to the couches. But I’d feel easier if you two started now so there won’t be any possibility of a tangle.”

  Amy and Dilaccio stood, cramped under the steep-sloping roof. The captain swung into his couch. Amy touched Mike’s hand and climbed to hers. There was a flapping noise of web belting.

  “Check.”

  “All secure,” said Dilaccio.

  “Very good. One—and two.” The clicks and the creak of cordage as he swung into his couch seemed very loud.

  Time to think at last. Canarsie, Troy, Corning, Steubenville, Urbana, N.E.P.A., Chicago, Los Angeles, Barstow—and now the Moon. He was here because his parents had died, because he had inherited some skills and acquired others, because of the leggy tough sophomore from Troy Women’s Day, because Holland had dared, because he and Amy were in love, because a Hanford fission product had certain properties, because MacIlheny was MacIlheny——

  Acceleration struck noiselessly; they left their sound far behind.

  After a spell of pain there was a spell of discomfort. Light brighter than the six-watt bulb suddenly flooded the steeple-shaped room. The aerodynamic nose had popped off, unmasking their single port. You still couldn’t pick yourself up. It was like one of those drunks when you think you’re clearheaded and are surprised to find that you can’t move.

  She should have spent more time with her father, he thought. Maybe she was afraid it would worry him. Well, he was back there now with the rest of them. Lilly, paying somehow, somewhere, for what she had done. Holland paying somehow for what he had done. MacIlheny paying. Wilson Stuart paying.

  “Mike,” said Amy’s voice.

  “All right, Amy. You?”

  “I’m all right.”

  The captain said: “All right here.”

  A common shyness seemed to hold them all, as though each was afraid of opening the big new ledger with a false or trivial entry.

  THE END

  From: TAKEOFF

  Copyright 1952 by C.M. Kornbluth. Published by Doubleday & Co. Inc.

  Gladiator-At-Law

  PART 1 OF A 3-PART SERIAL

  The authors of Gravy Planet again tour the future—this time a world of bubble houses and Belly Raves!

  THE accused was a tallow-faced weasel with Constitutional Psychopathic Inferior stamped all over him. He wailed to Charles Mundin, Ll.B., “You got to get me off! I’ve been up twice and this time they’ll condition me!”

  Mundin studied his first client with distaste. “You won’t plead guilty?” he asked again, hopelessly. He had been appointed by the court and considered that the court had played him a low trick.

  His stubborn client’s pore patterns were all over Exhibit A, a tin cashbox fishhooked from a ticket window at Monmouth Stadium. Modus operandi coincided with his two previous convictions. An alleged accomplice, who had kept the ticket clerk busy for almost all of the necessary five minutes, was ready to take the witness stand—having made his deal with the prosecutor. And still the fool was refusing to cop a plea.

  Mundin tried again. “It won’t be so bad, you know. Just a couple of days in a hospital. It’s quite painless, and that’s not just talk. I’ve seen it with my own eyes. They took us around in Junior year—”

  “Counselor, you just don’t understand. If they condition me, my God, I’ll actually have to go to work!”

  Mundin shrugged. “I’ll do what I can for you.”

  BUT the trial was over in a matter of minutes. Mundin objected that the moral character of the witness made his testimony inadmissible in a conditionable offense. The prosecutor, a grandee from Harvard Law, haughtily smacked him down by pointing out that the essence of the conditionable offense lay in the motivation of the accused, not in the fact of commission which was all the accomplice had testified to. He then cited a series of precedents.

  The judge’s eyes went blank and distant. Those inside the rail could hear confirmation of the precedents droning faintly into his ears through the headphones under his elaborate wig. He nodded and said to Mundin, “Overruled. Get on with it.”

  Mundin didn’t even bother to take an exception.

  The prosecution rested and Mundin got up, his throat dry. “May it please the Court,” he said. His Honor looked as though nothing had pleased that court, ever. Mundin said to the jury box, “The defense, contending that no case has been made, will present no witnesses.” That, at any rate, would keep Harvard Law from letting the jury know of the two previous convictions. “The defense rests.”

  Harvard Law, smiling coldly, delivered a thirty-second summation which, in three razor-sharp syllogisms, demonstrated the fact that defendant was guilty as hell.

  The court clerk’s fingers clicked briskly on the tape-cutter, then poised expectantly as Mundin stood up.

  “May it please the Court,” said Mundin. That look again. “My client has not been a fortunate man. The product of a broken home and the gutters of Belly Rave, he deserves justice as does every citizen. But in his case, I am impelled to add that the ends of justice can be served only by an admixture of mercy.”

  Judge and prosecutor were smiling openly. The devil with dignity! Mundin craned his neck to read the crisp yellow tape that came clicking out of the clerk’s encoding machine. He could read jury box code, more or less, if it were simple enoug
h.

  The encoded transcript of his summation was simple enough. The tape read—

  o=o . . . o=o . . . o=o . . .

  “Defense rests,” he mumbled, ignoring a despairing croak from his client.

  THE judge said, “Mr. Clerk, present the case to the jury box.”

  The clerk briskly fed in the two tapes. The jury box hummed and twinkled. If you could only fix one of those things, Mundin thought savagely, staring at the big seal on it. Or if you could get one of those damned clerks to cut the tape—no, that was out, too. The clerks were voluntarily conditioned. Traded freedom for a sure living.

  The red window lit up. guilty AS CHARGED.

  “Work!” the thief bleated.

  The judge said, shifting his wig and showing a bit of earphone under it, “Mr. Bailiff, take charge of the prisoner. Sentencing tomorrow at eleven. Court’s adjourned.”

  The thief moaned, “I hate them damn machines. Couldn’t you have got me a human jury, maybe get an injunction?”

  Mundin said wearily, “A human jury would have crucified you. Why did you have to steal from the Stadium? Why not pick on something safe, like the Church, or the judge’s piggy bank?” He turned his back on the defendant and bumped into Harvard Law.

  “Nice try, young man,” the grandee smiled frostily. “Can’t win them all, can we?”

  Mundin replied rudely, “If you’re so smart, why aren’t you a corporation lawyer?” and stamped out of the courtroom.

  He was on the street before he regretted the crack. Harvard’s face had fallen satisfactorily, but the jibe was o=o if ever there was one. Why, indeed? For the same reason Mundin himself wasn’t, of course. He hadn’t inherited one of the great hereditary corporation law practices. Even grinding through Harvard Law School couldn’t get you conveniently reborn into the proper families. And Mundin hadn’t gone to Harvard. Not for Harvard—or for Charles Mundin—the great reorganizations, receiverships and debenture issues. Not for them the mergers and protective committees. For them—the mechanical jury box and the trivia of criminal law.

  A morose, fifteen-minute walk through Monmouth’s sweltering, rutted streets brought him to his office building. Some cluck from the sheriff’s office was going to pick him up at 1400 for the rally. Besides being a member of the Criminal Bar, Charles Mundin, Ll.B., was foredoomed candidate for the Monmouth City Council on the Regular Republican ticket in the 27th Aldermanic District.

  His wallet-nerve twinged at the thought, then twinged again as his eye fell on the quietly proud little plaque beside the door of the building. It announced that its rental agents were sorry, but could offer no vacancies. Mundin hoped rentals would stay that way, at least as far as his own office was concerned.

  HE GOT an elevator to himself.

  “Sixteen,” he told it. He was thinking of his first client. At least he would get a fee—you got one on conditionable cases. The crook was terrified that he’d find himself unable to steal. Maybe Counselor Mundin himself might soon be driven to dangling a hook and line over the wall of a ticket window at Monmouth Stadium.

  Or he might get really desperate and find himself one of the contestants in the Field Day inside.

  His mail hopper was empty, but his Sleepless Secretary—he was still paying for it—was blinking for his attention. The rental agents again? Lawbook salesman? Maybe even a client? “Go ahead,” he said.

  In its accurate voice, the machine reported, “Telephone call. 1205 hours. Mr. Mundin is out, madam. If you wish to leave a message, I will take it down.” Del Dworcas’ outraged baritone shouted, “Who the hell are you calling madam?”

  The secretary: “Gug-gug-gug—ow-wooh. Sir.”

  Dworcas: “What? Oh, one of those damn gadgets. Well, listen, Charlie, if you ever get this. I sent somebody over to see you. Named Bligh. Treat him right. And look me up at the rally. Something to talk about with you. And you better get that lousy machine fixed unless you want to lose some business.” The secretary, after a pause: “Is that the end of your message, madam?”

  Dworcas: “Yes! And stop calling me madam!”

  The secretary: “Gug-gug-gug—ow-wooh.” And click.

  Oh, fine, thought Mundin. Now Dworcas was sore at him, no doubt, and Dworcas was chairman of the Regular Republican County Committee. And the secretary’s confusion between the sexes and its banshee howl weren’t covered by the service contract.

  The mailtube popped while he was blaspheming the salesman who had flattered him into buying the secretary. He eagerly flushed the letter from its hopper, but when he caught sight of the return address, he dropped it unopened. It was from the Scholarship Realization Corporation. He knew he owed them the money and he knew, as a result of the law course they had paid for, that they couldn’t attach his hypothetical income.

  THERE was nothing to do until someone showed up—this Bligh or the man from the sheriff’s office. Trying hard to think of the priceless publicity and contacts he was getting from his flier in politics, he took his account book out and added it up. It made him wince. The price of the priceless publicity and contacts to date was $854.32.

  Of course, he reminded himself, the Party had laid out money, too. That TV time, for instance, when he was right there on the platform, must have cost a hunk of change. Of course, he hadn’t actually spoken.

  But his end included postage, stationery, truck rental, PA system rental, direct-mail fees, carfare, banquet tickets, fight tickets, Field Day tickets, fund-raising lottery tickets, charities, dues and entertainment. Then the rivers of beer, which he didn’t enjoy, drunk with people he didn’t like. And the bhang, which scared hell out of him, sipped with the teetotal Muslims of the 27th District. There was the way his doctor had tsk-tsked when he last stood in front of a fluoroscope with a barium meal coursing sluggishly through him.

  And, of course, the certainty that he would be crushed like a bug on election day. And that The Boys—Dworcas was only one of The Boys—had played him for a sucker.

  Sing “Hey” for the life of a lawyer, gabbling at machines that, he naggingly suspected, thought him not as bright as they were.

  The Sleepless Secretary said, “Sir or madam, as the case may be. Gug-gug-gug. Regret to advise.” Mundin kicked it savagely. It burped and said: “A gentleman is in the outer office, Mrs. Mundin.”

  “Come in!” Mundin yelled at the door.

  The man blinked at him and came in cautiously. He looked around and picked out a chair. He wore a hearing aid, Mundin noticed. Perhaps that was why he cocked his head a little.

  He said, “My name’s Norvell Bligh. I—uh—asked Mr. Dworcas if he could recommend a first-class attorney and he—uh—he suggested you.”

  Mundin asked aloofly, “What can I do for you?”

  BLIGH’S eyes roamed nervously around the room. “My wife—that is, I would like to get some information on adoption. I have a stepdaughter—my wife’s daughter by her first marriage, you see—and, well, my wife thinks we should arrange about adopting her.”

  Good old Del Dworcas, Mundin thought savagely. He knows I belong to the Criminal Bar, yet he goes right ahead . . . He said, “I’m sorry, Mr. Bligh. I can’t help you. You’ll have to find a civil attorney to handle that for you.”

  Bligh touched the control of his hearing aid.

  “Beg pardon?”

  “I—can’t—do—it!”

  “Oh, I know you can’t,” Bligh said. “Mr. Dworcas explained that. But he said that the civil attorneys would charge an awful lot, while you . . . That is, since you’re a friend of his and I’m a friend of his brother, it could be done on a friendly basis. All I need to know, really, is what to do. I don’t think I’d have to have a lawyer in court, do you?”

  Mundin pondered hopefully. “Maybe not.” It was questionable practice, no doubt of it, and small thanks to Dworcas for getting him into it. Still, if it was just a matter of advice and information—thank God, the corporation boys didn’t have that sewed up.

  He leaned back, covertly loo
king Bligh over. Tolerably well dressed, certainly not a deadbeat. He’d be some kind of contract worker, no doubt, getting his regular pay, living in a G-M-L house, suffering his wife’s obvious nagging.

  Mundin said, “Tell me the story. First of all, the court will want to be sure you can earn enough to support the child.”

  “Well, I’ve been supporting her for three years. Excuse me, Mr. Mundin, but can we keep this short? I’m on my lunch hour and Mr. Candella is very fussy about promptness.”

  “Certainly. Just give me the facts.”

  NORVELL BLIGH coughed self-consciously. “I’m an associate producer for General Recreations, in charge of Field Day procurement, mostly. My wife is named Virginia. She was married before I met her to a man named Tony Elliston. They didn’t get along too well—it was a pretty rough experience for her. They had one daughter, Alexandra. Virginia’s first husband died. I have the papers here. Alexandra is 14 now. Anything else?”

  Mundin scribbled rapidly—purely pretense, since the Sleepless Secretary was recording the whole thing automatically. On second thought, he told himself, maybe not pretense at that, considering the way it was acting. He put down his pencil.

  “That’s enough for the time being,” he said. “I’ll have to look up—have to discuss this matter with one of my colleagues. Come back Friday at this time.”

  As Bligh left, looking vaguely alarmed, the Sleepless Secretary said, “Pending the receipt. Ow-woooh. Mrs. Mundin is out of town.”

  Mundin turned it off.

  Two clients in one day, he thought wonderingly. Anything was possible. Perhaps he would even win the election. Perhaps he wouldn’t, after all, have to let the finance company reclaim the secretary and the Scholarship people garnishee his income and the landlord toss him out on the street.

  Perhaps.

  THE RENTED sound truck, with the man from the sheriff’s office driving, rolled slowly past glowering red brick fronts and stone stoops crowded with liquid-eyed women and their skinny, brownish kids. Mundin didn’t like this neighborhood. It was on the outskirts of the city, too close to Belly Rave for safety, too close to the factories and the yards for comfort. But he didn’t have to live here, even if the miracle should happen and he got elected.