Collected Short Fiction

by C. M. Kornbluth

  If, a thought came to him, if the Sun was re-created.

  HE turned away from the cold outside and looked at his wife. “Good morning, darling.” She was contrite.

  He demanded jarringly: “Is it?” Deliberately he stretched, deliberately he yawned, deliberately he scratched his chest. Every movement was ugly. Gala Tropile quivered, but said nothing.

  Tropile flung himself on the better of the two chairs, one hairy leg protruding from under the wrapped blankets. His wife was on her best behavior—in his unique terms; she didn’t avert her eyes.

  “What’ve you got there?” he asked. “Coffee?”

  “Yes, dear. I thought—”

  “Where’d you get it?”

  The haunted eyes looked away. Still better, thought Glenn Tropile, more satisfied even than usual; she’s been ransacking an old warehouse again. It was a trick he had taught her, and like all of the illicit tricks she had learned from him, a handy weapon when he chose to use it.

  It was not prescribed that a Citizen should rummage through Old Places. A Citizen did his work, whatever that work might be—banker, baker or furniture repairman. He received what rewards were his due for the work he did. A Citizen never took anything that was not his due—not even if it lay abandoned and rotting.

  It was one of the differences between Glenn Tropile and the people he moved among.

  I’ve got it made, he exulted; it was what I needed to clinch my victory over her.

  He spoke: “I need you more than I need coffee, Gala.”

  She looked up, troubled.

  “What would I do,” he demanded, “if a beam fell on you one day while you were scrambling through the fancy groceries? How can you take such chances? Don’t you know what you mean to me?”

  She sniffed a couple of times. She said brokenly: “Darling, about last night—I’m sorry—” and miserably held out the cup. He took it and set it down. He took her hand, looked up at her, and kissed it lingeringly. He felt her tremble. Then she gave him a wild, adoring look and flung herself into his arms.

  A new dominance cycle was begun at the moment he returned her frantic kisses.

  Glenn knew, and Gala knew, that he had over her an edge, an advantage—the weather gauge, initiative of fire, percentage, the can’t-lose lack of tension. Call it anything, but it was life itself to such as Glenn Tropile. He knew, and she knew, that having the advantage he would press it and she would yield—on and on, in a rising spiral.

  He did it because it was his life, the attaining of an advantage over anyone he might encounter; because he was (unwelcomely but justly) called a Son of the Wolf.

  A WORLD away, a Pyramid squatted sullenly on the planed-off top of the highest peak of the Himalayas.

  It had not been built there. It had not been carried there by Man or Man’s machines. It had—come, in its own time; for its own reasons.

  Did it wake on that day, the thing atop Mount Everest, or did it ever sleep? Nobody knew. It stood, or sat, there, approximately a tetrahedron. Its appearance was known: constructed on a base line of some thirty-five yards, slaggy, midnight-blue in color. Almost nothing else about it was known—at least, to mankind.

  It was the only one of its kind on Earth, though men thought (without much sure knowledge) that there were more, perhaps many thousands more, like it on the unfamiliar planet that was Earth’s binary, swinging around the miniature Sun that hung at their common center of gravity like an unbalanced dumbbell. But men knew very little about that planet itself, only that it had come out of space and was now there.

  Time was when men had tried to label that binary, more than two centuries before, when it had first appeared. “Runaway Planet.” “The Invader.” “Rejoice in Messias, the Day Is at Hand.” The labels were sense-free; they were Xs in an equation, signifying only that there was something there which was unknown.

  “The Runaway Planet” stopped running when it closed on Earth.

  “The Invader” didn’t invade; it merely sent down one slaggy, midnight-blue tetrahedron to Everest.

  And “Rejoice in Messias” stole Earth from its sun—with Earth’s old moon, which it converted into a miniature sun of its own.

  That was the time when men were plentiful and strong—or thought they were—with many huge cities and countless powerful machines. It didn’t matter. The new binary planet showed no interest in the cities or the machines.

  There was a plague of things like Eyes—dust-devils without dust, motionless air that suddenly tensed and quivered into lenticular shapes. They came with the planet and the Pyramid, so that there probably was some connection. But there was nothing to do about the Eyes. Striking at them was like striking at air—was the same thing, in fact.

  While the men and machines tried uselessly to do something about it, the new binary system—the stranger planet and Earth—began to move, accelerating very slowly.

  But accelerating.

  In a week, astronomers knew something was happening. In a month, the Moon sprang into flame and became a new sun—beginning to be needed, for already the parent Sol was visibly more distant, and in a few years it was only one other star among many.

  WHEN the little sun was burned to a clinker, they—whoever “they” were, for men saw only the one Pyramid—would hang a new one in the sky. It happened every five clock-years, more or less. It was the same old moon-turned-sun, but it burned out, and the fires needed to be rekindled.

  The first of these suns had looked down on an Earthly population of ten billion. As the sequence of suns waxed and waned, there were changes, climatic fluctuation, all but immeasurable differences in the quantity and kind of radiation from the new source.

  The changes were such that the forty-fifth such sun looked down on a shrinking human race that could not muster up a hundred million.

  A frustrated man drives inward; it is the same with a race. The hundred million that clung to existence were not the same as the bold, vital ten billion.

  The thing on Everest had, in its time, received many labels, too: The Devil, The Friend, The Beast, A Pseudo-living Entity of Quite Unknown Electrochemical Properties.

  All these labels were also Xs.

  If it did wake that morning, it did not open its eyes, for it had no eyes—apart from the quivers of air that might or might not belong to it. Eyes might have been gouged; therefore it had none. So an illogical person might have argued—and yet it was tempting to apply the “purpose, not function” fallacy to it. Limbs could be crushed; it had no limbs. Ears could be deafened; it had none. Through a mouth, it might be poisoned; it had no mouth. Intentions and actions could be frustrated; apparently it had neither.

  It was there. That was all.

  It and others like it had stolen the Earth and the Earth did not know why. It was there. And the one thing on Earth you could not do was hurt it, influence it, or coerce it in any way whatever.

  It was there—and it, or the masters it represented, owned the Earth by right of theft. Utterly. Beyond human hope of challenge or redress.

  II

  CITIZEN and Citizeness Roget Germyn walked down Pine Street in the chill and dusk of—one hoped—a Sun Re-creation Morning.

  It was the convention to pretend that this was a morning like any other morning. It was not proper either to cast frequent hopeful glances at the sky, nor yet to seem disturbed or afraid because this was, after all, the forty-first such morning since those whose specialty was Sky Viewing had come to believe the Re-creation of the Sun was near.

  The Citizen and his Citizeness exchanged the assurance-of-identity sign with a few old friends and stopped to converse. This also was a convention of skill divorced from purpose. The conversation was without relevance to anything that any one of the participants might know, or think, or wish to ask.

  Germyn said for his friends a twenty-word poem he had made in honor of the occasion and heard their responses. They did line-capping for a while—until somebody indicated unhappiness and a wish to change by frowning t
he Two Grooves between his brows. The game was deftly ended with an improvised rhymed exchange.

  Casually, Citizen Germyn glanced aloft. The sky-change had not begun yet; the dying old Sun hung just over the horizon, east and south, much more south than east. It was an ugly thought, but suppose, thought Germyn, just suppose that the Sun were not re-created today? Or tomorrow. Or—Or ever.

  The Citizen got a grip on himself and told his wife: “We shall dine at the oatmeal stall.”

  The Citizeness did not immediately reply. When Germyn glanced at her with well-masked surprise, he found her almost staring down the dim street at a Citizen who moved almost in a stride, almost swinging his arms. Scarcely graceful.

  “That might be more Wolf than man,” she said doubtfully.

  Germyn knew the fellow. Tropile was his name. One of those curious few who made their homes outside of Wheeling, though they were not farmers. Germyn had had banking dealings with him—or would have had, if it had been up to Tropile.

  “That is a careless man,” he decided, “and an ill-bred one.” They moved toward the oatmeal stall with the gait of Citizens, arms limp, feet scarcely lifted, slumped forward a little. It was the ancient gait of fifteen hundred calories per day, not one of which could be squandered.

  THERE was a need for more calories. So many for walking, so many for gathering food. So many for the economical pleasures of the Citizens, so many more—oh, many more, these days!—to keep out the cold. Yet there were no more calories; the diet the whole world lived on was a bare subsistence diet.

  It was impossible to farm well when half the world’s land was part of the time drowned in the rising sea, part of the time smothered in falling snow.

  Citizens knew this and, knowing, did not struggle—it was ungraceful to struggle, particularly when one could not win. Only—well, Wolves struggled, wasting calories, lacking grace.

  Citizen Germyn turned his mind to more pleasant things.

  He allowed himself his First Foretaste of the oatmeal. It would be warm in the bowl, hot in the throat, a comfort in the belly. There was a great deal of pleasure there, in weather like this, when the cold plucked through the loosened seams and the wind came up the sides of the hills. Not that there wasn’t pleasure in the cold itself, for that matter. It was proper that one should be cold now, just before the re-creation of the Sun, when the old Sun was smoky-red and the new one not yet kindled.

  “—still looks like Wolf to me,” his wife was muttering.

  “Cadence,” Germyn reproved his Citizeness, but took the sting out of it with a Quirked Smile.

  The man with the ugly manners was standing at the very bar of the oatmeal stall where they were heading. In the gloom of mid-morning, he was all angles and strained lines. His head was turned awkwardly on his shoulder, peering toward the back of the stall where the vendor was rhythmically measuring grain into a pot. His hands were resting helter-skelter on the counter, not hanging by his sides.

  Citizen Germyn felt a faint shudder from his wife. But he did not reprove her again, for who could blame her? The exhibition was revolting.

  She said faintly: “Citizen, might we dine on bread this morning?”

  He hesitated and glanced again at the ugly man. He said indulgently, knowing that he was indulgent: “On Sun Re-creation Morning, the Citizeness may dine on bread.” Bearing in mind the occasion, it was only a small favor and therefore a very proper one.

  The bread was good, very good. They shared out the halfkilo between them and ate it in silence, as it deserved. Germyn finished his first portion and, in the prescribed pause before beginning his second, elected to refresh his eyes upward.

  He nodded to his wife and stepped outside.

  OVERHEARD, the Old Sun parceled out its last barrel-scrapings of heat. It was larger than the stars around it, but many of them were nearly as bright.

  A high-pitched male voice said: “Citizen Germyn, good morning.”

  Germyn was caught off balance. He took his eyes off the sky, half turned, glanced at the face of the person who had spoken to him, raised his hand in the assurance-of-identity sign. It was all very quick and fluid—almost too quick, for he had had his fingers bent nearly into the sign for female friends and this was a man. Citizen Boyne. Germyn knew him well; they had shared the Ice Viewing at Niagara a year before.

  Germyn recovered quickly enough, but it had been disconcerting.

  He improvised swiftly: “There are stars, but are stars still there if there is no Sun?” It was a hurried effort, he grieved, but no doubt Boyne would pick it up and carry it along. Boyne had always been very good, very graceful.

  Boyne did no such thing. “Good morning,” he said again, faintly. He glanced at the stars overhead, as though trying to unravel what Germyn was talking about. He said accusingly, his voice cracking sharply: “There isn’t any Sun, Germyn. What do you think of that?”

  Germyn swallowed. “Citizen, perhaps you—”

  “No Sun, you hear me!” the man sobbed. “It’s cold, Germyn. The Pyramids aren’t going to give us another Sun, do you know that? They’re going to starve us, freeze us; they’re through with us. We’re done, all of us!” He was nearly screaming.

  All up and down Pine Street, people were trying not to look at him and some of them were failing.

  Boyne clutched at Germyn helplessly. Revolted, Germyn drew back—bodily contact!

  It seemed to bring the man to his senses. Reason returned to his eyes. He said: “I—” He stopped, stared about him. “I think I’ll have bread for breakfast,” he said foolishly, and plunged into the stall.

  Boyne left behind him a shaken Citizen, caught halfway into the wrist-flip of parting, staring after him with jaw slack and eyes wide, as though Germyn had no manners, either.

  All this on Sun Re-creation Day!

  What could it mean? Germyn wondered fretfully, worriedly.

  Was Boyne on the point of—

  Could Boyne be about to—

  Germyn drew back from the thought. There was one thing that might explain Boyne’s behavior. But it was not a proper speculation for one Citizen to make about another.

  All the same—Germyn dared the thought—all the same, it did seem almost as though Citizen Boyne were on the point of—well, running amok.

  AT the oatmeal stall, Glenn Tropile thumped on the counter. The laggard oatmeal vendor finally brought the ritual bowl of salt and the pitcher of thin milk. Tropile took his paper twist of salt from the top of the neatly arranged pile in the bowl. He glanced at the vendor. His fingers hesitated. Then, quickly, he ripped the twist of paper into his oatmeal and covered it to the permitted level with the milk.

  He ate quickly and efficiently, watching the street outside.

  They were wandering and mooning about, as always—maybe today more than most days, since they hoped it would be the day the Sun blossomed flame once more.

  Tropile always thought of the wandering, mooning Citizens as they. There was a we somewhere for Tropile, no doubt, but Tropile had not as yet located it, not even in the bonds of the marriage contract.

  He was in no hurry. At the age of fourteen, Glenn Tropile had reluctantly come to realize certain things about himself—that he disliked being bested, that he had to have a certain advantage in all his dealings, or an intolerable itch of the mind drove him to discomfort. The things added up to a terrifying fear, gradually becoming knowledge, that the only we that could properly include him was one that it was not very wise to join.

  He had realized, in fact, that he was a Wolf.

  For some years, Tropile had struggled against it, for Wolf was an obscene word; the children he played with were punished severely for saying it, and for almost nothing else.

  It was not proper for one Citizen to advantage himself at the expense of another; Wolves did that.

  It was proper for a Citizen to accept what he had, not to strive for more, to find beauty in small things, to accommodate himself, with the minimum of strain and awkwardness, to whatev
er his life happened to be.

  Wolves were not like that Wolves never meditated, Wolves never Appreciated, Wolves never were Translated—that supreme fulfillment, granted only to those who succeeded in a perfect meditation, that surrender of the world and the flesh by taking leave of both, which could never be achieved by a Wolf.

  Accordingly, Glenn Tropile had tried very hard to do all the things that Wolves could not do.

  He had nearly succeeded. His specialty, Water Watching, had been most rewarding. He had achieved many partly successful meditations on Connectivity.

  And yet he was still a Wolf, for he still felt that burning, itching urge to triumph and to hold an advantage. For that reason, it was almost impossible for him to make friends among the Citizens; and gradually he had almost stopped trying.

  Tropile had arrived in Wheeling nearly a year before, making him one of the early settlers in point of time. And yet there was not a Citizen in the street who was prepared to exchange recognition gestures with him.

  He knew them, nearly every one. He knew their names and their wives’ names. He knew what northern states they had moved down from with the spreading of the ice, as the sun grew dim. He knew very nearly to the quarter of a gram what stores of sugar and salt and coffee each one of them had put away—for their guests, of course, not for themselves; the well-bred Citizen hoarded only for the entertainment of others.

  Tropile knew these things because there was an advantage in knowing them. But there was no advantage in having anyone know him.

  A few did—that banker, Germyn; Tropile had approached him only a few months before about a prospective loan. But it had been a chancy, nervous encounter. The idea was so luminously simple to Tropile—organize an expedition to the coal mines that once had flourished nearby, find the coal, bring it to Wheeling, heat the houses. And yet it had seemed blasphemous to Germyn. Tropile had counted himself lucky merely to have been refused the loan, instead of being cried out upon as Wolf.