The 34th Golden Age of Science Fiction: C.M. Kornbluth

by C. M. Kornbluth

  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 you’self 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 liddle feller!”

  “I think—” said Novak starting to his feet. He went to the bedroom 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 light, 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.”

  “Damn 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—”

  The doctor had been listening, and cut him off. “Not necessary,” he said. “This is suicide. The man drank it like a shot of whisky—threw it right straight down.”—(“Was he a drinker, by the way?” “Yes.” “Thought so.”) “There aren’t any smears on the lips or face and only a slight burning in the mouth, which means he didn’t try to retain it. He drank it himself, in a synchronized toss and gulp.”

  The sergeant looked disappointed, but brightened up to ask: “And who’s this gentleman?”

  Holland took out a green card from his wallet and showed it to the sergeant. Novak craned a little and saw that it was a sealed, low-number White House pass. “Uh,” said the sergeant, coming to something like attention, “I can’t see your name, sir. Your finger—”

  “My finger stays where it is, sergeant,” said Holland. “Unless, of course, you insist—?” He was all boss.

  “No, no, no, not at all, sir. That’s quite all right. Thank you.” The sergeant almost backed away as from royalty and began to snarl at his detail of two patrolmen for not having the meat loaded yet.

  They rushed into action and the sergeant said to nobody in particular and very casually: “Think I’d better phone this in to headquarters.” Novak wasn’t surprised when he heard the sergeant say into the phone, louder than he had intended: “Gimme the city desk, please.” Novak moved away. The thing had to come
out sooner or later, and the tipster-cop was earning a little side money honestly.

  After completing his call, the sergeant came up beaming. “That wraps it up except for Mrs. Clifton,” he said. “She took her car? What kind?”

  “Big maroon Rolls Royce,” Novak said. “I’m not sure of the year—maybe early thirties.”

  “Well, that don’t matter. A Rolls is a Rolls; we’ll be seeing her very soon, I think.”

  Novak didn’t say what he thought about that. He didn’t think any of them would be seeing Lilly again. He thought she would vanish back into the underworld from which she had appeared as a momentary, frightening reminder that much of the world is not rich, self-satisfied, supremely fortunate America.

  * * * *

  In Anheier’s car on the road back to the Wilson Stuart place, the Security man asked tentatively: “What do you think, chief?”

  “I think she’s going to release everything she’s got to the newspapers. First, as she said, it means we’ll lose secrecy. Second, it would be the most effective form of sabotage she could practice on our efforts. The Bennet papers have been digging into my dirty work of the past year for circulation-building and for Hoyt, whom they hope to put in the presidency. The campaign should open in a couple of days, when they get Lilly’s stuff as the final link.

  “I’ve got to get to Washington and contract a diplomatic illness for the first time in my life. Something that’ll keep me bedridden but able to run things through my deputy by phone. Something that’ll win a little sympathy and make a few people say hold your horses until he’s able to answer the charges. I can stall that way for a couple of weeks—no more. Then we’ve got to present Mr. and Mrs. America with a fait accompli. Novak!”

  “Yessir!” snapped Novak, surprising himself greatly.

  “Set up a real guard system at the moon ship. If you need any action out of Mr. MacIlheny, contact Mr. Stuart, who will give him your orders. MacIlheny—up to now—doesn’t know anything about the setup beyond Stuart. Your directive is: build us that moon ship. Fast.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “And another thing. You’re going to be busy, but I have some chores for you nevertheless. Your haircut is all wrong. Go to a really good barber who does theatrical people. Go to your dentist and have your teeth cleaned. Have yourself a couple of good suits made, and good shoes and good shirts. Put yourself in the hands of a first-rate tailor. It’s on the expense account and I’m quite serious about it. I only wish there were time for …”

  “How’s that, sir?” Novak couldn’t believe he had heard it right.

  “Dancing lessons,” snapped Holland. “You move across a room with all the grace of a steam thresher moving across a Montana wheatfield. And Novak.”

  “Yes?” said the engineer stiffly.

  “It’s going to be rough for a while and they may drag us down yet. Me in jail, you in jail, Anheier in the gas chamber, Stuart fired by his board—if I know the old boy he wouldn’t last a month if they took Western away from him. You’re going to be working for your own neck—and a lot of other necks. So work like hell. Hoyt and Bennet play for keeps. This is a bus stop? Let Novak out, Anheier. You go on downtown and let’s see production.”

  Novak stood on the corner, lonely, unhappy, and shaken, and waited for his downtown bus.

  His appetite, numbed by last night’s sedative, came on with a rush during the ride. After getting off, he briskly headed for a business-district cafeteria, and by reflex picked up a newspaper. He didn’t go into the cafeteria. He stood in the street, reading.

  DEATH STRIKES AT 2nd ROCKET-CLUB CHIEF:

  POISONED ON VISIT TO 1st VICTIM’S WIDOW

  Post Special Correspondent

  Violent death struck late today at a leader of the American Society for Space Flight, nationwide rocket club, for the second time in less than a month. The first victim was club engineer August Clifton, who committed suicide by shooting in a room next door to a meeting of the club going full blast. Today club secretary-treasurer Joel Friml, 26, was found writhing in pain on the floor of a Cahuenga Canyon bungalow owned by Clifton’s attractive blonde widow Lilly, 35. Both bodies were discovered by club engineer Michael Novak. A further bizarre note lies in the fact that on both occasions A.E.C. Security agent J. W. Anheier was on the scene within seconds of the discovery.

  Police Sergeant Herman Alper said Novak and Anheier paid a morning visit to Mrs. Clifton’s home and chatted with her and Friml, who had arrived earlier. Friml disappeared into the bedroom, alarming the other guests. They broke into the bedroom by smashing a window and found Friml in convulsions, clutching a two-ounce bottle of a medicine meant for external use. They called a doctor and tried to give milk as an antidote, but according to the physician the victim’s throat had been so damaged that it was a hopeless try.

  Friml was taken by ambulance under sedation to Our Lady of Sonora hospital, where no hope was given for his recovery. In the confusion Mrs. Clifton fled the house, apparently in a state of shock, and had not returned by the time the ambulance left.

  Friends could hazard no guess as to the reason for the tragedy. Friml himself, ironically, had just completed auditing the rocket club’s books in a vain search for discrepancies that might have explained the Clifton suicide.

  It was bad. Worse was coming.

  XVI.

  Novak moved out to the field, bag and baggage, that night and worked himself into a pleasant state of exhaustion. He woke on his camp cot at nine to the put-put of an arriving jalopy. It was a kid named Nearing. He made a beeline for Novak, washing up in a lab sink.

  “Hi, Dr. Novak.” He was uncomfortable.

  “Morning. Ready for business?”

  “I guess so. There’s something I wanted to ask you about. It’s a lot of nonsense, of course. My brother’s in the C.B.S. newsroom in L.A., and he was kidding me this morning. He just got in from the night shift and he said there was a rumour about Proto. It came in on some warm-up chatter on their teletype.”

  Already? “What did he have to say?”

  “Well, the A.S.F.S.F. was—‘linked’ is the word, I guess—with some big-time Washington scandal that’s going to break. Here.” He poked a wad of paper at Novak. “I thought he was making it up. He doesn’t believe in space flight and he’s a real joker, but he showed me this. He tore it off their teletype.”

  Novak unfolded the wad into a long sheet of cheap paper, torn off at the top and bottom.

  BLUE NOSE AND A PURPLE GOATEE.

  HA HA THATS A GOOD ONE. U KNOW ABT BISHOP OF BIRMINGHAM???

  SURE WHO DONT. OGOD THREE AM AND THREE HOURS TO GO.

  LOOK WHOS BITCHING. HERE ITS SIX AM AND SIX HOURS TO GO. WISH ID LEARNED A TRADE OR STAYED IN THE NAVY.

  WHAT U DO IN NAVY???

  TELETYPE OPR. CANT GET AWAY FROM DAM PTRS SEEMS AS IF.

  MIN FONE

  WHO WAS IT???

  ELEANOR ROOSEVELT ASKING FOR A DATE U NOSY BASTRD

  HA HA OGOD WOTTA SLO NITE. ANY NUZ UR SIDE???

  NOT YET. FIRST CAST HALF HOUR. NUZMAN CAME IN WITH RUMOR ABT SOME UR LOCAL SCREWBALLS TO WIT LOS ANGELES SPACE FLITE CLUB.

  HEY HEY. NUZRITER HERE GOT KID BROTHER IN CLUB. WOT HE SAY???

  SAID STRICTLY PHONY OUTFIT WITH WA TIEUP TOP ADMININXXX

  ADMINISTRATION GOT IT FINALLY FIGURES.

  GOVT MONEY GOES TO CLUB AND CLUB KIX BACK TO GOVT OFFICIALS. SWEET RACKET HUH.

  MORE???

  NO MORE. MIN I ASK. SAYS GOT IT FM BENNET NUZ SVC MAN.

  NO MORE.

  TNX. COFFE NOW.

  WELCM. DONT SPILL IT.

  HA HA U R A WIT OR MAYBE I AM ONLY HALF RITE.

  Nearing said as Novak looked up from the paper: “Of course Charlie may have punched it out himself on a dead printer just to worry me.” He laughed uncomfortably. “Oh, hell. It’s just a rumour
about a rumour. But I don’t like them tossing Proto’s name around. She’s a good girl.” His eye sought the moon ship, gleaming in the morning sun.

  “Yes,” Novak said. “Look, Nearing. I’m tightening up the guard schedule and I’m going to be very busy. I’d like to turn the job of handling the guard detail over to you. I’ll put you on salary, say fifty a week, if you’ll do it.”

  “Fifty? Why sure, Dr. Novak. That’s about what I’m getting at the shoe store, but the hell with it. When do I start and what do I do?”

  “Start now. I want two guards on duty at all times. Not under twenty-one, either. At night I want one guard at the gate and one patrolling the fence. I want strict identification of all strangers at the gate. I want newspapermen kept out. I want you to find out what kind of no-trespassing signs we’re legally required to post and how many—and then post twice as many. I want you to get the huskiest youngsters you can for guards and give them night sticks.” He hesitated. “And buy us two shotguns and some shells.”

  The boy looked at Novak and then at the Prototype and then at Novak again. “If you think it’s necessary,” he said quietly. “What kind of shells—bird shot?”

  “Buckshot, Nearing. They’re after her.”

  “Buckshot it is, Dr. Novak,” the shoe clerk said grimly.

  He worked all morning in the machine shop, turning wooden core patterns for the throat liner on the big lathe. Laminated together and rasped smooth, they would be the first step in the actual fabrication of the throat liner. Half a dozen youngsters showed up, and he put them to work routing out the jacket patterns. Some of the engineer-members showed up around noon on their Sunday visits and tried to shop-talk with him. He wouldn’t shop-talk.

  At three in the afternoon Amy Stuart was saying to him firmly: “Turn that machine off and have something to eat. Nearing told me you didn’t even have breakfast. I’ve got coffee, bologna on white, cheese on rye—”

  “Why thanks,” he said, surprised. He turned off the power and began to eat at a work-bench.