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

by C. M. Kornbluth

  Were you a girl? “Oh, that dreamy man Mike! It just chills me when I think of him flying all the way to the Moon, but it’s kind of wonderful, too. Did you ever notice the way he’s got kind of a dimple but not quite on the left when he smiles?”

  Were you a man? “Amy’s got real looks and class. Brains, too, they tell me, and God knows, she’s got guts. The kind of girl you’d want to marry, if you know what I mean. He’s a lucky guy.”

  Were you old folks? “Such a lovely couple. I don’t know why more young people aren’t like that nowadays. You can see how much they’re in love, the way the look at each other. And the idea of them going to the Moon! I certainly never thought I’d see it in my time, though of course I knew that some day… Perhaps their rocket ship won’t work. No, that’s absurd. Of course it’ll work. They look so nice when they smile at each other!”

  Were you young folks? “I can’t get over it. Just a pair of ordinary Americans like you and me, a couple of good-looking kids that don’t give a damn and they’re going to shoot off to the Moon. I saw them in the parade and they aren’t any different from you and me. I can’t get over it.”

  Were you a newspaper publisher? “Baby, this is it! The perfect cure for that tired feeling in the circulation department. I want Star-Banner-Bugle-and-Times-News to get Mike-and-Amy conscious and stay that way. Pictures, pictures, pictures. Biographies, interviews with roommates, day-by-day coverage, our best woman for Amy and our best man for Mike. The hell with the cost; the country’s on a Mike-and-Amy binge. And why shouldn’t it be? A couple of nice young kids and they’re going to do the biggest thing since the discovery of fire. A landmark in the history of the human race! And confidentially, this is what a lot of the boys have been waiting for with Bennet. Naturally only a dirty Red rag would attack a fellow-publisher, but I don’t see any ethical duty to keep me from sawing off a limb Bennet crawled out on all by himself. He’s mouse-trapped. To keep his hard core of moron readership he’s got to keep pretending that Proto’s still a fake and Holland’s still a crook and only taper off slowly. I’m almost sorry for the dirty old man, but he made his bed.”

  Were you a congressman? “Hmmm. Very irregular. In a strict sense illegal. Congress holds the purse strings. Damn uppity agencies and commissions. Career men. Mike and Amy. Wonder if I could get photographed with them for my new campaign picture. Hmmm.”

  * * * *

  On the fourth day of the crazy week they were in Washington, in Holland’s office.

  “How’s it going?” he demanded.

  “I don’t know how MacArthur stood it at his age,” Amy muttered.

  There was a new edition to Holland’s collection of memorabilia on the wall behind his desk: a matted and framed front page from the New York Times.

  HOLLAND BREAKS SILENCE, CALLS ASFSF NO FRONT SAYS CLUB HAS MOON

  SHIP READY TO MAKE TRIP WILSON STUART DAUGHTER, ENGINEER TO PILOT

  The agitation of the Times was clearly betrayed in the awkwardly rhyming second line.

  “The Air Force gentlemen are here, Mr. Holland,” said the desk intercom.

  “Send them in, Charlie.”

  Three standard-brand Air Force colonels, one general and an off-brand captain walked in. The captain looked lost among his senior officers, six-footers all. He was a shrimp.

  “Ah, gentlemen. General McGovern, Colonels Ross, Goldthwaite, and Behring. And the man you’ve been waiting to meet, Captain Dilaccio. Gentlemen, you know Amy and Mike, of course. Please be seated.”

  They sat, and there was an ugly pause. The general exploded, almost with tears in his voice: “Mister Holland, for the last time. I will be perfectly frank with you. This is the damn’dest, most unreasonable thing I ever heard of. We have the pilots, we have the navigators, we have the experience, and we ought to have the moon ship!”

  Holland said gravely: “No, General. There’s no piloting involved. The landing operation simply consists of putting the throat-vane servo on automatic control of the plumb bobs and running in the moderator rods when you hit. The navigation is child’s play. True, the target is in motion, but it’s big and visible. And you have no experience in moon ships.”

  “Mister Holland—” said the general.

  Holland interrupted blandly. “And even if there were logic on your side, is the public deeply interested in logic? I think not. But the public is deeply interested in Amy and Mike. Why, if Amy and Mike were to complain that the Air Force had been less than fair with them—”

  His tone was bantering, but McGovern broke in, horrified: “No, no, no, no, Mr. Holland! They aren’t going to do anything like that, are they? Are you?”

  Holland answered for them. “Of course not, General. They have no reason to do anything like that—do they?”

  “Of course not,” the general said glumly. “Captain Dilaccio, good luck.” He and the colonels shook hands with the puny little captain and filed out.

  “Welcome to the space hounds,” Novak told Dilaccio, trying to be jovial.

  The captain said indistinctly: “Pleasure’m sure.”

  On the flight back to Barstow he didn’t say much else. They knew he had been chosen because he was (a) a guided-missile specialist, (b) single and with no close relations, (c) small and endowed with a singularly sluggish metabolism. He was slated for the grinding, heartbreaking, soul-chilling job of surviving in a one-man pressure dome until the next trip brought him company and equipment.

  * * * *

  On the seventh day of the crazy week, Daniel Holland heard somebody behind him say irritably: “Illegal? Illegal? No more illegal than Roosevelt taking funds and developing the atomic bomb. Should he have gone to Congress with a presidential message about it? It was the only way to do it, that’s all.”

  Holland smiled faintly. It had gone over. The old clichés in their mouths have been replaced by new clichés. The sun blazed into his eyes from the polished shell of the moon ship, but he didn’t turn or squint. He was at least a sub-hero today.

  He caught a glimpse of MacIlheny as the band struck up the sedate, eighteenth-century “President’s March.” MacIlheny was on the platform, as befitted the top man of the A.S.F.S.F., though rather far out on one of the wings. MacIlheny was crying helplessly. He had thought he might be the third man, but he was big-bodied and knew nothing about guided missiles. What good was an insurance man in the Moon?

  The President spoke for only five minutes, limiting himself to one humourous literary allusion. (“This purloined letter—stainless steel, thirty-six-feet, plainly visible for sixty miles.”) Well, he was safely assured of his place in history. No matter what miracles of statesmanship in war or peace he performed, as long as he was remembered he would be remembered as President during the first moon flight. The applause was polite for him, and then slowly swelled. Amy and Mike were walking arm in arm down a hollow column of M.P.s, Marines and A.F.P.s. Captain Dilaccio trailed a little behind them. The hollow column led from the shops to the gantry standing beside Proto.

  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?”

  “Y
es. 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 SYNDIC

  Originally published as a two-part serial in Science Fiction Adventures Magazine, December 1953 and March 1954.

  “It was not until February 14th that the Government declared a state of unlimited emergency. The precipitating incident was the aerial bombardment and destruction of B Company, 27th Armored Regiment, on Fort George Hill in New York City. Local Syndic leaders had occupied and fortified George Washington High School, with the enthusiastic co-operation of students, faculty and neighborhood. Chief among them was Thomas ‘Numbers’ Cleveland, displaying the same coolness and organizational genius which had brought him to pre-eminence in the metropolitan policy-wheel organization by his thirty-fifth year.

  “At 5:15 A.M. the first battalion of the 27th Armored took up positions in the area as follows: A Company at 190th Street and St. Nicholas Avenue, with the mission of preventing reinforcement of the school from the I.R.T. subway station there; Companies B, C, and D hill down from the school on the slope of Fort George Hill poised for an attack. At 5:25 the sixteen Patton tanks of B Company revved up and moved on the school, C and D Companies remaining in reserve. The plan was for the tanks of B Company to surround the school on three sides—the fourth is a precipice—and open fire if a telephone parley with Cleveland did not result in an unconditional surrender. There was no surrender and the tanks attacked.

  “Cleveland’s observation post was in the tower room of the school. Seeing the radio mast of the lead tank top the rise of the hill, he snapped out a telephone order to contact pilots waiting for the word at a Syndic field floating outside the seven mile limit. The pilots, trained to split-second precision in their years of public service, were airborn by 5:26, but this time their cargo was not liquor, cigarettes or luggage. In three minutes, they were whipping rocket bombs into the tanks of Company B; Cleveland’s runners charged the company command post; the trial by fire had begun.

  “Before it ended North America was to see deeds as gallant and strategy as inspired as any in the history of war: Cleveland’s historic announcement—‘It’s a great day for the race!’—his death at the head of his runners in a charge on the Fort Totten garrison, the firm hand of Amadeo Falcaro taking up the scattered reins of leadership, parley, peace, betrayal and execution of hostages, the Treaty of Las Vegas and a united Mob-Syndic front against Government, O’Toole’s betrayal of the Continental Press wire room and the bloody battle to recapture that crucial nerve center, the decisive march on Baltimore.…”

  B. Arrowsmith Hynde,

  The Syndic—a Short History.

  * * * *

  “No accurate history of the future has ever been written—a fact which I think disposes of history’s claim to rank as a science. Astronomers quail at the three-body problem and throw up their hands in surrender before the four-body problem. Any given moment in history is a problem of at least two billion bodies. Attempts at orderly abstraction of manipulable symbols from the realities of history seem to me doomed from the start. I can juggle mean rain-falls, car-loading curves, birth-rates and patent applications, but I cannot for the life of me fit the recurring facial carbuncles of Karl Marx into my manipulations—not even, though we know, well after the fact, that agonizing staphylococcus aureus infections behind that famous beard helped shape twentieth-century totalitarianism. In pathology alone the list could be prolonged indefinitely: Julius Caesar’s epilepsy, Napoleon’s gastritis, Wilson’s paralysis, Grant’s alcoholism, Wilhelm II’s withered arm, Catherine’s nymphomania, George III’s paresis, Edison’s deafness, Euler’s blindness, Burke’s stammer, and so on. Is there anybody silly enough to maintain that the world today would be what it is if Marx, Caesar, Napoleon, Wilson, Grant, Wilhelm, Catherine, George, Edison, Euler and Burke—to take only these eleven—were anything but what they were? Yet that is the assumption behind theories of history which exclude the carbuncles of Marx from their referents—that is to say, every theory of history with which I am familiar.…

  “Am I then saying that history, past and future, is unknowable; that we must blunder ahead in the dark without planning because no plan can possibly be accurate in prediction and useful in application? I am not. I am expressing my distaste for holders of ex
treme positions, for possessors of eternal truths, for keepers of the flame. Keepers of the flame have no trouble with the questions of ends and means which plague the rest of us. They are quite certain that their ends are good and that therefore choice of means is a trivial matter. The rest of us, far from certain that we have a general solution of the two-billion body problem that is history, are much more likely to ponder on our means.…”

  F. W. Taylor,

  Organization, Symbolism and Morale

  PART I

  CHAPTER I

  Charles Orsino was learning the business from the ground up—even though “up” would never be very high. He had in his veins only a drop or two of Falcaro blood: enough so that room had to be made for him; not enough for it to be a great dearth of room. Counting heavily on the good will of F. W. Taylor, who had taken a fancy to him when he lost his parents in the Brookhaven Reactor explosion of ’83, he might rise to a rather responsible position in Alky, Horsewire, Callgirl, recruitment and Retirement or whatever line he showed an aptitude for. But at 22 one spring day, he was merely serving a tour of duty as bagman attached to the 101st New York Police Precinct. A junior member of the Syndic customarily handled that job; you couldn’t trust the cops not to squeeze their customers and pocket the difference.

  He walked absently through the not-unpleasant routine of the shakedown. His mind was on his early-morning practice session of polo, in which he had almost disgraced himself.

  “Good afternoon, Mr. Orsino; a pleasure to see you again. Would you like a cold glass of beer while I get the loot?”

  “No, but thanks very much, Mr. Lefko—I’m in training, you know. Wish I could take you up on it. Seven phones, isn’t it, at ten dollars a phone?”