Collected Short Fiction

by C. M. Kornbluth

  “Dear—” she said to me as I stood there paralyzed.

  He went on: “Michael and I dropped in because we both admire your husband’s work; we were surprised and distressed to find his conversation so . . . disconnected. My dear, as you must know I have some experience through my pastorate with psychotherapy. Have you ever—forgive my bluntness—had doubts about his sanity?”

  “Dear, what’s the matter?” she asked me anxiously. I just stood there, staring. God knows what they injected me with, but its effect was to cloud my mind, render all activity impossible, send my thoughts spinning after their tails. I was insane. [This incident, seemingly the least plausible part of Corwin’s story, actually stands up better than most of the narrative to one familiar with recent advances in biochemistry. Corwin could have been injected with lysergic acid, or with protein extracts from the blood of psychotics. It is a matter of cold laboratory fact such injections produce temporary psychosis in the patient. Indeed, it is on such experimental psychoses that the new tranquillizer drugs are developed and tested. C.M.K.]

  To herself she said aloud, dully: “Well, it’s finally come. Christmas when I burned the turkey and he wouldn’t speak to me for a week. The way he drummed his fingers when I talked. All his little crackpot ways—how he has to stay at the Waldorf but I have to cut his hair and save a dollar. I hoped it was just the rotten weather and cabin fever. I hoped when spring came—” She began to sob. The plump man comforted her like a father. I just stood there staring and waiting. And eventually Mickey glided up in the dark and gave her a needleful too and

  [Here occurs an aggravating and important hiatus. One can only guess that Corwin and his wife were loaded into the car, driven somewhere, separated, and separately, under false names, committed to different mental institutions.I have recently learned to my dismay that there are states which require only the barest sort of licensing to operate such institutions. One State Inspector of Hospitals even wrote to me in these words: “. . . no doubt there are some places in our State which are not even licenced, but we have never made any effort to close them and I cannot recall any statute making such operation illegal. We are not a wealthy state like you up North and some care for these unfortunates is better than none, is our viewpoint here . . .” C.M.K.]

  three months. Their injections last a week. There’s always somebody to give me another. You know what mental hospital attendants are like: an easy bribe. But they’d be better advised to bribe a higher type, like a male nurse, because my attendant with the special needle for me is off on a drunk. My insanity wore off this morning and I’ve been writing in my room ever since. A quick trip up and down the corridor collected the cigarette papers and a tiny ball point pen from some breakfast-food premium gadget. I think my best bet is to slip these papers out in the batch of Chinese fortune cookies they’re doing in the bakery. Occupational therapy, this is called. My own o.t. is shoveling coal when I’m under the needle. Well, enough of this. I shall write down The Answer, slip down to the bakery, deal out the cigarette papers into the waiting rounds of cookie dough, crimp them over and return to my room. Doubtless my attendant will be back by then and I’ll get another shot from him. I shall not struggle; I can only wait. THE ANSWER: HUMAN BEINGS RAISED TO SPEAK AN INDO-EUROPEAN LANGUAGE SUCH AS ENGLISH HAVE THE FOLLOWING IN

  [That is the end of the last of the Corwin Papers I have been able to locate. It should be superfluous to urge all readers to examine carefully any fortune cookie slips they may encounter. The next one you break open may contain what my poor friend believed, or believes, to be a great message to mankind. He may be right. His tale is a wild one but it is consistent. And it embodies the only reasonable explanation I have ever seen for the presence of certain books on the best-seller list. C.M.K.]

  The Slave

  To become a man again, he had to be two men, fighting an enemy who had conquered billions!

  CHAPTER I

  THE DRUNKEN BUM known as Chuck wandered through the revelry of the New Year’s Eve crowd. Times Square was jammed with people; midnight and a whole new millennium were approaching. Horns tooted, impromptu snake-dances formed and dissolved, bottles were happily passed from hand to hand; it was minutes to A.D. 2,000. One of those bottles passed to Chuck and passed no further. He scowled at a merrymaker who reached for it after he took his swig, and jammed it into a pocket. He had what he came for; he began to fight his way out of the crowd, westward to the jungle of Riveredge.

  The crowd thinned out at Ninth Avenue, and by Tenth Avenue he was almost alone, lurching through the tangle of transport machinery that fed Manhattan its daily billion tons of food, freight, clothes, toys. Floodlights glared day and night over Riveredge, but there was darkness there too, in patches under a 96-inch oil main or in the angle between a warehouse wall and its inbound roofed freightway. From these patches men looked out at him with sudden suspicion and then dull lack of care. One or two called at him aimlessly, guessing that he had a bottle on him. Once a woman yelled her hoarse invitation at him from the darkness, but he stumbled on. Ten to one the invitation was to a lead pipe behind the ear.

  Now and then, losing his bearings, he stopped and turned his head peeringly before stumbling on. He never got lost in Riveredge, which was more than most transport engineers, guided by blueprints, could say. T.G. was that way.

  He crashed at last into his own shared patch of darkness: the hollow on one side of a titanic I-beam. It supported a freightway over which the heaviest castings and forgings for the city rumbled night and day. A jagged sheet of corrugated metal leaned against the hollow, enclosing it as if by accident.

  “Hello, Chuck,” T.G. croaked at him from the darkness as he slid under the jagged sheet and collapsed on a pallet of nylon rags.

  “Yeh,” he grunted.

  “Happy New Year,” T.G. said. “I heard it over here. It was louder than the freightway. You scored.”

  “Good guess,” Chuck said skeptically, and passed him the bottle. There was a long gurgle in the dark. T.G. said at last: “Good stuff.” The gurgle again. Chuck reached for the bottle and took a long drink. It was good stuff. Old Huntsman. He used to drink it with—

  T.G. said suddenly, pretending innocent curiosity: “Jocko who?”

  Chuck lurched to his feet and yelled: “God damn you, I told you not to do that! If you want any more of my liquor keep the hell out of my head—and I still think you’re a phony!”

  T.G. was abject. “Don’t take it that way, Chuck,” he whined. “I get a belt of good stuff in me and I want to give the talent a little workout, that’s all. You know I would not do anything bad to you.”

  “You’d better not. . . . Here’s the bottle.”

  It passed back and forth. T.G. said at last: “You’ve got it too.”

  “You’re crazy.”

  I would be if it wasn’t for liquor . . . but you’ve got it too.

  “Oh, shut up and drink.” Innocently: “I didn’t say anything, Chuck.”

  Chuck glared in the darkness. It was true; he hadn’t. His imagination was hounding him. His imagination or something else he didn’t want to think about.

  The sheet of corrugated metal was suddenly wrenched aside and blue-white light stabbed into their eyes. Chuck and the old man cowered instinctively back into the hollow of the I-beam, peering into the light and seeing nothing but dazzle.

  “God, look at them!” a voice jeered from the other side of the light. “Like turning over a wet rock.”

  “What the hell’s going on?” Chuck asked hoarsely. “Since when did you clowns begin to pull vags?”

  T.G. said: “They aren’t the clowns, Chuck. They want you—I can’t see why.”

  The voice said: “Yeah? And just who are you, grampa?” T.G. stood up straight, his eyes watering in the glare. “The Great Hazleton,” he said, with some of the old ring in his voice. “At your service. Don’t tell me who you are, sir. The Great Hazleton knows. I see a man of authority, a man who works in a large white building—”r />
  “Knock it off, T.G.,” Chuck said.

  “You’re Charles Barker,” the voice said. “Come along quietly.”

  Chuck took a long pull at the bottle and passed it to T.G. “Take it easy,” he said. “I’ll be back sometime.”

  “No,” T.G. quavered. “I see danger. I see terrible danger.”

  The man behind the dazzling light took his arm and yanked him out of the shelter of the I-beam.

  “Cut out the mauling,” Chuck said flatly.

  “Shut up, Barker,” the man said with disgust. “You have no beefs coming.”

  So he knew where the man had come from and could guess where the man was taking him.

  AT 1:58 A.M. of the third millennium Chuck was slouching in a waiting room on the 89th floor of the New Federal Building. The man who had pulled him out of Riveredge was sitting there too, silent and aloof.

  Chuck had been there before. He cringed at the thought. He had been there before, and not to sit and wait. Special Agent Barker of Federal Security and Intelligence had been ushered right in, with the sweetest smile a receptionist could give him. . . .

  A door opened and a spare, well-remembered figure stood there. “Come in, Barker,” the Chief said.

  He stood up and went in, his eyes on the gray carpeting. The office hadn’t changed in three years; neither had the Chief. But now Chuck waited until he was asked before sitting down.

  “We had some trouble finding you,” the Chief said absently. “Not much, but some. First we ran some ads addressed to you in the open Service code. Don’t you read the papers any more?”

  “No,” Chuck said.

  “You look pretty well shot. Do you think you can still work?”

  The ex-agent looked at him piteously.

  “Answer me.”

  “Don’t play with me,” Chuck said, his eyes on the carpet. “You never reinstate.”

  “Barker,” the Chief said, “I happen to have an especially filthy assignment to deal out. In my time, I’ve sent men into an alley at midnight after a mad-dog killer with a full clip. This one is so much worse and the chances of getting a sliver of useable information in return for an agent’s life are so slim that I couldn’t bring myself to ask for volunteers from the roster. Do you think you can still work?”

  “Why me?” the ex-agent demanded sullenly.

  “That’s a good question. There are others. I thought of you because of the defense you put up at your departmental trial. Officially, you turned and ran, leaving Jocko McAllester to be cut down by the gun-runners. Your story was that somehow you knew it was an ambush and when that dawned on you, you ran to cover the flank. The board didn’t buy it and neither do I—not all the way. You let a hunch override standard doctrine and you were wrong and it looked like cowardice under fire. We can’t have that; you had to go. But you’ve had other hunches that worked out better. The Bruni case. Locating the photostats we needed for the Wayne County civil rights indictment. Digging up that louse Sherrard’s wife in Birmingham. Unless it’s been a string of lucky flukes you have a certain talent I need right now. If you have that talent, you may come out alive. And cleared.”

  Barker leaned forward and said savagely: “That’s good enough for me. Fill me in.”

  CHAPTER II

  THE WOMAN was tall, quietly dressed and a young forty-odd. Her eyes were serene and guileless as she said: “You must be curious as to how I know about your case. It’s quite simple—and unethical. We have a tipster in the clinic you visited. May I sit down?”

  Dr. Oliver started and waved her to the dun-colored chair. A reaction was setting in. It was a racket—a coldblooded racket preying on weak-minded victims silly with terror. “What’s your proposition?” he asked, impatient to get it over with. “How much do I pay?”

  “Nothing,” the woman said calmly. “We usually pay poorer patients a little something to make up for the time they lose from work, but I presume you have a nest-egg. All this will cost you is a pledge of secrecy—and a little time.”

  “Very well,” said Oliver stiffly. He had been hooked often enough by salesmen on no-money-down, free-trial-for-thirty-days, demonstration-for-consumer-reaction-only deals. He was on his guard.

  “I find it’s best to begin at the beginning,” the woman said. “I’m an investment counselor. For the past five years I’ve also been a field representative for something called the Moorhead Foundation. The Moorhead Foundation was organized in 1915 by Oscar Moorhead, the patent-medicine millionaire. He died very deeply embittered by the attacks of the muck-rakers; they called him a baby-poisoner and a number of other things. He always claimed that his preparations did just as much good as a visit to an average doctor of the period. Considering the state of medical education and licensing, maybe he was right.

  “His will provided for a secret search for the cure of cancer. He must have got a lot of consolation daydreaming about it. One day the Foundation would announce to a startled world that it had cracked the problem and that old Oscar Moorhead was a servant of humanity and not a baby-poisoner after all.

  “Maybe secrecy is good for research. I’m told that we know a number of things about neoplasms that the pathologists haven’t hit on yet, including how to cure most types by radiation. My job, besides clipping coupons and reinvesting funds for the Foundation, is to find and send on certain specified types of cancer patients. The latest is what they call a Rotino 707-G. You. The technical people will cure you without surgery in return for a buttoned lip and the chance to study you for about a week. Is it a deal?”

  Hope and anguish struggled in Dr. Oliver. Could anybody invent such a story? Was he saved from the horror of the knife?

  “Of course,” he said, his guts contracting, “I’ll be expected to pay a share of the expenses, won’t I? In common fairness?”

  The woman smiled. “You think it’s a racket, don’t you? Well, it isn’t. You don’t pay a cent. Come with your pockets empty and leave your check book at home if you like. The Foundation gives you free room and board. I personally don’t know the ins and outs of the Foundation, but I have professional standing of my own and I assure you I’m not acting as a transmission belt to a criminal gang. I’ve seen the patients, Dr. Oliver. I send them on sick and I see them a week or so later well. It’s like a miracle.”

  Dr. Oliver went distractedly to his telephone stand, picked up the red book and leafed through it.

  “Roosevelt 4-19803,” the woman said with amusement in her voice.

  Doggedly he continued to turn the “W” pages. He found her. “Mgrt WINSTON invstmnt cnslr RO4-19803.” He punched the number.

  “Winston investments,” came the answer.

  “Is Miss Winston there?” he asked.

  “No, sir. She should be back by three if you wish to call again. May I take a message?”

  “No message. But—would you describe Miss Winston for me?”

  The voice giggled. “Why not? She’s about five-eight, weighs about 135, brown hair and eyes and when last seen was wearing a tailored navy culotte suit with white cuffs and collar. What’re you up to, mister?”

  “Not a thing,” he said. “Thanks.” He hung up.

  “Look,” the woman said. She was emptying her wallet. “Membership card in the Investment Counselors’ Guild. U.M.T. honorable discharge, even if it is a reduced photostat. City license to do business. Airline credit card. Residential rental permit. Business rental permit. City motor vehicle parking permit. Blood-donor card.”

  He turned them over in his hands. The plastic-laminated things were unanswerable, and he gave himself up to relief and exultation. “I’m in, Miss Winston,” he said fervently. “You should have seen the fellow they showed me after an operation like mine.”

  He shuddered as he remembered Jimmy and his “splendid adjustment.”

  “I don’t have to,” the woman said, putting her wallet away. “I saw my mother die. From one of the types of cancer they haven’t licked yet. I get the usual commission on funds I handl
e for them, but I have a little personal interest in promoting the research end. . . .”

  “Oh. I see.”

  Suddenly she was brisk. “Now, Dr. Oliver, you’ve got to write whatever letters are necessary to explain that you’re taking a little unplanned trip to think things out, or whatever you care to say. And pack enough things for a week. You can be on the jet in an hour if you’re a quick packer and a quick letter-writer.”

  “Jet to where?” he asked, without thinking.

  She smiled and shook her head.

  Dr. Oliver shrugged and went to his typewriter. This was one gift horse he would not look in the mouth. Not after Jimmy.

  Two hours later the fat sophomore Gillespie arrived full of lies and explanations with his overdue theme on the Elizabethan dramatists, which was full of borrowings and evasions. On Dr. Oliver’s door was pinned a small note in the doctor’s handwriting: Dr. Oliver will be away for several days for reasons of health.

  Gillespie scratched his head and shrugged. It was all right with him; Dr. Oliver was practically impossible to get along with, in spite of his vague reputation for brilliance. A schizoid, his girl called him. She majored in Psych.

  CHAPTER III

  THE MOORHEAD FOUNDATION proved to be in Mexico, in a remote valley of the state of Sonora. A jetliner took Dr. Oliver and Miss Winston most of the way very fast. Buses and finally an obsolete gasoline-powered truck driven by a Mexican took them the rest of the way very slowly. The buildings were a remodeled rancheria enclosed by a low, thick adobe wall.

  Dr. Oliver, at the door of his comfortable bedroom, said: “Look, will I be treated immediately?” He seemed to have been asking that question for two days, but never to have got a plain yes or no answer.