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

by C. M. Kornbluth

  “Sorry they pulled rough stuff on you,” she said.

  “Rough?” he snorted. “That wasn’t rough. Rough is what’s coming up.” Between bites of sandwich he told her about the teletype chatter.

  “It’s starting,” she said.

  * * * *

  The next day the dam broke.

  Reporters were storming the gate by mid-morning. In due course a television relay truck arrived and from outside the fence peered at them with telephoto lenses.

  “Find out what it’s all about, Nearing,” Novak said, looking up from his pattern making.

  Nearing came back with a sheaf of papers. “They talked me into saying I’d bring you written questions.”

  “Throw ’em away. Fill me in in twenty seconds or less so I can get back to work.”

  “Well, Senator Hoyt’s going to make a speech in the Senate today and he’s wired advance copies all over hell. And it’s been distributed by the news agencies, of course. It’s like the rumour. He’s going to denounce Daniel Holland, the A.E.C. general manager. He says Holland is robbing the Treasury blind by payments to the A.S.F.S.F. and Western Air, and getting kickbacks. He says Holland’s incompetence has left the U.S. in the rear of the atomic weapons parade. Is my time up?”

  “Yes. Thanks. Try to get rid of them. If you can’t, just make sure none of them get in here.”

  * * * *

  There were days when he had to go into town. Sometimes people pointed him out. Sometimes people jostled him and he gave them a weary stare and they either laughed nervously or scowled at him, enemy of his country that he was. He was too tired to care deeply. He was working simultaneously on the math, the controls, installation of the tanks, and the setup for forming the liner and vane.

  One day he fainted while walking from the machine shop to the refractories lab. He came to in his cot and found Amy Stuart and her father’s Dr. Morris in attendance.

  “Where did you come from?” he asked dimly.

  Dr. Morris growled: “Never mind where I came from. You ought to be ashamed of yourself, Novak. Playing the fool at your age! I’m telling you here and now that you are going to stay in bed for forty-eight hours and you are not going to use the time to catch up on your paper work either. You are going to sleep, eat, read magazines—not including the Journal of Metallurgical Chemistry and things on that order—and nothing else.”

  “Make it twenty-four hours, will you?” said Novak.

  “All right,” Dr. Morris agreed promptly and Novak saw Amy Stuart grin.

  Novak went to sleep for twelve hours. He woke up at eleven p.m., and Amy Stuart brought him some soup.

  “Thanks,” he said. “I was thinking—would you get me just the top sheet from my desk? It won’t be work. Just a little calculation on heat of forming. Really, I’d find it relaxing.”

  “No,” she said.

  “All right,” he said testily. “Did the doctor say you had to keep a twenty-four hour guard on me?”

  “He did not,” she told him, offended. “Please excuse me. There are some magazines and newspapers on the table.” She swept out and he wanted to call after her, but…

  He got out of the cot and prowled nervously around the room. One of the papers on the table was the Los Angeles paper of the Bennet chain.

  HOYT DARES “ILL” HOLLAND TO SHOW M.D. PROOF!

  shrieked its banner headline. Novak swore a little and climbed back into the cot to read the paper.

  The front-page first-column story was all about Hoyt daring “ill” Holland to show M.D. proof. Phrases like “since Teapot Dome” and “under fire” were liberally used. Also on the front page a prominent officer of a veterans’ organisation was quoted as daring “ill” Holland to show M.D. proof. So were a strident and aging blonde movie actress, a raven-haired, marble-browed touring revivalist, and a lady Novak had never heard of who was identified as Washington’s number-one hostess. The rest of the front page was given over to stories from the wire services about children rescuing animals from peril and animals rescuing children from peril.

  Novak swore again, a little more strongly, and leafed through the paper. He encountered several pages of department store ads and finally the editorial page and feature page.

  The double-column, heavily-leaded editorial said that no reasonable person could any longer ignore the cold facts of the A.E.C.-Western Air-rocket-crackpot scandal. Beyond any doubt the People’s money and the People’s fissionable material—irreplaceable fissionable material—was being siphoned into a phony front for the greed of one man.

  For Bennet patrons who wanted just the gist of the news, or who didn’t read very well, there was the cartoon. It showed a bloated, menacing figure, labelled “Dan Holland,” grinning rapturously and ladling coins and bills from a shoe-box Treasury Building into his pockets. There was one ladle in each hand, one tagged “Western Aircraft” and the other “Rocket Crackpots.” A tiny, rancid, wormy, wrinkled old man was scooting in a wheel chair in circles about the fat boy’s ankles, picking up coins Holland carelessly let dribble from the overflowing ladles. That was Wilson Stuart, former test pilot, breaker of speed and altitude records, industrialist whose aircraft plants covered a major sector of America’s industrial defence line. Other little figures were whizzing in circles astride July-fourth rockets. They also were grabbing coins. Wild-eyed and shaggy under mortar-board hats, they were the rocket crackpots.

  On the opposite page there was something for everybody.

  For the women there was a column that wept hot tears because all America’s sons, without exception, were doomed to perish miserably on scorching desert sands, in the frozen hell of the Arctic, and in the steamy jungles of the Pacific, all because of Daniel Holland. “How long, O Lord, how long?” asked the lady who wrote the column.

  For the economist there was a trenchant column headed: “This Is Not Capitalism.” The business writer who conducted the column said it wasn’t capitalism for Western Air’s board of directors to shilly-shally and ask Wilson Stuart exactly where he stood vis-a-vis Daniel Holland and what had happened to certain million-dollar appropriations rammed through under the vague heading of “research.” Capitalism, said the business writer, would be for Western Air’s board to meet, consider the situation, fire Stuart, and maybe prosecute him. Said the business writer: “The day of the robber barons is past.”

  For the teen-ager there was a picture of a pretty girl, holding her nose at some wiggly lines emanating from a picture of the Capitol dome. Accompanying text:

  “Joy-poppers and main-liners all, really glom onto what Mamaloi’s dishing this 24. I don’t too often get on the sermon kick because young’s fun and you’re a long time putrid. But things are happening in the 48 that ain’t so great so listen, mate. You wolves know how to handle a geek who glooms a weenie-bake by yacking for a fat-and-40 blues when the devotees know it’s tango this year. Light and polite you tell the shite, and if he doesn’t dig you, then you settle it the good old American way: five-six of you jump him and send him on his meddy way with loose teeth for a soo-ven-war. That’s Democracy. Joy-poppers and main-liners, there are grownups like that. We love and respect Mom and Dad even if they are fuddy-duddy geeks; they can’t help it. But what’s the deal and hoddya feel about a grownup like Danny-O Holland? And Wheel-chair Wilson Stuart? And the crackpot cranks with leaky tanks that play with their rockets on dough from your pockets? Are they ripe for a swipe? Yeah-man, Elder. Are their teeth too tight? Ain’t that man right! Sound off in that yeah-man corner, brethren and cistern! You ain’t cackin’, McCracken! So let’s give a think to this stink for we, the youths of America today, are the adults of America tomorrow.”

  For those who vicariously live among the great there was the Washington column. “Local jewellers report a sharp, unseasonal drop in sales. Insiders attribute it to panic among the ranks of Dan (Heads-I-Win-Tails-You-Lose) Holland and his littl
e Dutch Boys over the fearless exposé of his machinations by crusading Senator (Fighting Bob) Hoyt. Similar reports in the trade from the West Coast, where Wilson (Wheel-Chair) Stuart and the oh-so-visionary-but-where’s-the-dough pseudo-scientists of the A.S.F.S.F. hang out. Meanwhile Danny Boy remains holed up in his swank ten-room penthouse apartment claiming illness. Building employees say however that not one of his many callers during the past week has carried the little black bag that is the mark of the doctor!… What man-about-Washington has bought an airline ticket and has his passport visaed to Paraguay, a country where officials are notorious for their lack of co-operation in extradition proceedings—if their palms are properly greased?”

  For lovers of verse there was a quatrain by one of the country’s best-loved kindly humourists. His whimsical lines ran:

  They say Dan Holland will nevermore

  Go anywhere near a hardware store.

  He’ll make a detour by train or boat

  Because he knows he should cut his throat.

  Novak smiled sourly at that one, and heard a great tooting of horns. It went on, and on, and on, and on. Incredulously he clocked it for three solid minutes and then couldn’t take any more. He pulled on his pants and strode from the prefab into a glare of headlights. There were jalopies, dozens of them, outside the fence, all mooing.

  Nearing ran to him. “You ought to be in bed, Dr. Novak!” he shouted. “That doctor told us not to let you—”

  “Never mind that! What the hell’s going on?” yelled Novak, towing Nearing to the gate. The two guards were there—husky kids, blinking in the headlights. They’d been having trouble filling the guard roster, Novak knew. Members were dropping away faster every day.

  “Kids from L.A.!” Nearing shouted in his ear. “Came to razz us!”

  A rhythmical chant of “O-pen up!” began to be heard from the cars over the horns.

  Novak bawled at them: “Beat it or we’ll fire on you!” He was sure some of them heard it, because they laughed. One improbably blonde boy in a jalopy took it personally and butted his car into the rocket field’s strong and expensive peripheral fence. It held under one car’s cautious assault, but began to give when another tanker joined the blonde.

  “All right, Eddie!” Novak shouted to the elder of the gate guards. “Take your shotgun and fire over their heads.” Eddie nodded dumbly and reached into the sentry box for his gun. He took it out in slow motion and then froze.

  Novak could understand, even if he couldn’t sympathize. The glaring headlights, the bellowing horns, the methodical butting of the two mastodans, the numbers of them, and their ferocity. “Here,” he said, “gimme the goddam thing.” He was too sore to be scared; he didn’t have time to fool around. The shotgun boomed twice and the youth of America shrieked and wheeled their cars around and fled.

  He handed back the shotgun and told Eddie: “Don’t be scared, son.” He went to the phone in the machine shop and found it was working tonight. People had been cutting the ground line lately.

  He got the Stuart home. “Grady? This is Dr. Novak. I want to talk to Mr. Stuart right away and please don’t tell me it’s late and he’s not a well man. I know all that. Do what you can for me, will you?”

  “I’ll try, Dr. Novak.”

  It was a long, long wait and then the old man’s querulous voice said: “God almighty, Novak. You gone crazy? What do you want at this time of night?”

  Novak told him what had happened. “If I’m any judge,” he said, “we’re going to be knee-deep in process servers, sheriff’s deputies, and God-knows-what-else by tomorrow morning because I fired over their heads. I want you to dig me up a real, high-class lawyer and fly him out here tonight.”

  After a moment the old man said: “You were quite right to call me. I’ll bully somebody into it. How’re you doing?”

  “I can’t kick. And thanks.” He hung up and stood irresolutely for a moment. The night was shot by now—he’d had a good, long rest anyway—

  He headed for the refractories lab and worked on the heat of composition. He cracked it at six a.m. and immediately started to compound the big batch of materials that would fuse into the actual throat-liner parts and steering vane. It was a grateful change of pace after working in grams to get going on big stuff. He had done it by ten-thirty and got some coffee.

  The lawyer had arrived: a hard-boiled, lantern-jawed San Francisco Italian named DiPietro. “Don’t worry,” he grimly told Novak. “If necessary, I’ll lure them on to the property and plug ’em with my own gun for trespassing. Leave it in my hands.”

  Novak did, and put in an eighteen-hour stretch on fabricating pieces of the throat liner. Sometime during the day Amy Stuart brought him some boxes and he mumbled politely and put them somewhere.

  With his joints cracking, he shambled across the field, not noticing that his first automatic gesture on stepping out of the shop into the floodlight area was to measure the Prototype with his eye in a kind of salute.

  “How’d it go?” he asked DiPietro.

  “One dozen assorted,” said the lawyer. “They didn’t know their law and even if they did I could have bluffed them. The prize was a little piece of jail-bait with her daddy and shyster. Your shotgun caused her to miscarry; they were willing to settle out of court for twenty thousand dollars. I told them our bookkeeper will send his bill for five hundred dollars’ worth of medical service as soon as he can get around to it.”

  “More tomorrow?”

  “I’ll stick around. The word’s spread by now, but there may be a couple of die-hards.”

  Novak said: “Use your judgment. Believe I can do some work on the servos before I hit the sack.”

  The lawyer looked at him speculatively, but didn’t say anything.

  XVII.

  A morning came that was like all the other mornings except that there was nothing left to do. Novak wandered disconsolately through the field, poking at this detail or that, and Amy came up to him.

  “Mike, can I talk to you?”

  “Sure,” he said, surprised. Was he the kind of guy people asked that kind of question?

  “How are the clothes?”

  “Clothes?”

  “Oh, you didn’t even look. Those boxes. I’ve been shopping for you. I could see you’d never have time for it yourself. You don’t mind?”

  There it was again. “Look,” he said, “have I been snapping people’s heads off?”

  “Yes,” she said in a small voice. “You didn’t know that, did you? Do you know you have a week-old beard on you?”

  He felt it in wonder.

  “I’ve never seen anything like it,” she said. “The things you’ve accomplished. Maybe nobody ever saw anything like it. It’s finished now, isn’t it?”

  “So it is,” he said. “I didn’t think—just installing the last liner segment and hooking on the vane. Mechanical oper—

  “God, we’ve done it!” He leaned against one of Proto’s delta fins, shaking uncontrollably.

  “Come on, Mike,” she said, taking his arm. She led him to his camp cot and he plunged into sleep.

  She was still there when he woke, and brought him coffee and toast. He luxuriated in the little service and then asked abashedly: “Was I pretty bad?”

  “You were obsessed. You were a little more than human for ten days.”

  “Holland!” he said suddenly, sitting full up. “Did anybody—”

  “I’ve notified him. Everything’s going according to plan. Except—you won’t be on the moon ship.”

  “What are you talking about, Amy?”

  She smiled brightly. “The counter-campaign. The battle for the public being waged by those cynical, manipulating, wonderful old bastards, Holland and my father. Didn’t you guess what my part in it was? I’m a pretty girl, Mike, and pretty girls can sell anything in America. I’m going to be the pilot�
�hah! pilot!—of the first moon ship. So gallant, so noble, and such a good figure. I’m going to smile nicely and male America will decide that as long as it can’t go to bed with me, the least it can do is cheer me on to the Moon.”

  She was crying. “And then I showed I was my father’s daughter. The cynical Miss Stuart said we have a fireworks display in the takeoff, we have conflict and heroism, we have glamour, what we need is some nice refined sex. Let’s get that dumb engineer Novak to come along. A loving young couple making the first trip to the Moon. Irresistible. Pretty girl, handsome man—you are handsome without that beard, Mike.” She was crying too hard to go on. He mechanically patted her shoulder.

  Her sobs abated. “Go on,” he said.

  “Nothing to go on about. I told ’em I wouldn’t let you go. I love you too much.”

  His arm tightened around her. “That’s all right,” he said. “I love you too much to let you go without me.”

  She turned her tear-stained face to him. “You’re not going to get noble with me—” she began. And then: “Ouch! Mike, the beard!”

  “I’ll shave,” he said, getting up and striding to the lab sink.

  “Don’t cut yourself, Mike,” she called after him. “But—please hurry!”

  * * * *

  There was one crazy, explosive week.

  There was something in it for everybody. It was a public relations man’s dream of heaven.

  Were you a businessman? “By God, you have to give the old boy credit! Slickest thing I ever heard of—right under the damn Reds’ noses, stuck right out there in the desert and they didn’t realise that a rocket ship was a rocket ship! And there’s a lot of sense in what Holland had to say about red tape. Makes you stop and wonder—the armed services fooling around for twenty years and not getting to first base, but here this private club smacks out a four-bagger first time at bat. Illegal? Illegal? Now mister, be sensible. Don’t get me wrong; I’m not any admirer of the late F.D.R., but he did get us the atom bomb even if he did practically hand it to the Reds right after. But my point is, F.D.R. didn’t go to Congress with a presidential message that we were going to try to make an atomic bomb. He just quietly diverted the money and made one. Some things you have to do by the book; others you just plain can’t. For my money, Dan Holland’s a statesman.”