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

by C. M. Kornbluth

  The man’s face went dead calm and he pulled the knife and came in low, very fast. The knife was supposed to catch Charles in the middle. If Charles stepped inside it, the man would grab him in a bear hug and knife him in the back.

  There was only one answer.

  He caught the thick wrist from above with his left hand as the knife flashed toward his middle and shoved out. He felt the point catch and slice his cuff. The Guardsman tried a furious and ill-advised kick at his crotch; with his grip on the knife-hand, Charles toppled him into the filthy alley as he stood one-legged and off balance. He fell on his back, floundering, and for a black moment, Charles thought his weight was about to tear the wrist loose from his grip. The moment passed, and Charles put his right foot in the socket of the Guardsman’s elbow, reinforced his tiring left hand with his right and leaned, doubling the man’s forearm over the fulcrum of his boot. The man roared and dropped the knife. It had taken perhaps five seconds.

  Charles said, panting: “I don’t want to break your arm or kick your head in or anything like that. I just want you to go away and leave the woman alone.” He was conscious of her, vaguely hovering in the background. He thought angrily: She might at least get his knife.

  The Guardsman said thickly: “You give me the boot and I swear to God I’ll find you and cut you to ribbons if it takes me the rest of my life.”

  Good, Charles thought. Now he can tell himself he scared me. Good. He let go of the forearm, straightened and took his foot from the man’s elbow, stepping back. The Guardsman got up stiffly, flexing his arm, and stooped to pick up and sheath his knife without taking his eyes off Charles. Then he spat in the dust at Charles’ feet. “Yellow crud,” he said. “If the goddam crow was worth it, I’d cut your heart out.” He walked off down the alley and Charles followed him with his eyes until he turned the corner into the street.

  Then he turned, irritated that the woman had not spoken.

  She was Lee Falcaro.

  “Lee!” he said, thunderstruck. “What are you doing here?” It was the same face, feature for feature, and between her brows appeared the same double groove he had seen before. But she didn’t know him.

  “You know me?” she asked blankly. “Is that why you pulled that ape off me? I ought to thank you. But I can’t place you at all. I don’t know many people here. I’ve been ill, you know.”

  There was a difference apparent now. The voice was a little querulous. And Charles would have staked his life that never could Lee Falcaro have said in that slightly smug, slightly proprietary, slightly aren’t-I-interesting tone: “I’ve been ill, you know.”

  “But what are you doing here? Damn it, don’t you know me? I’m Charles Orsino!”

  He realized then that he had made a horrible mistake.

  “Orsino,” she said. And then she spat: “Orsino! Of the Syndic!” There was black hatred in her eyes.

  She turned and raced down the alley. He stood there stupidly, for almost a minute, and then ran after her, as far as the alley’s mouth. She was gone. You could run almost anywhere in New Portsmouth in almost a minute.

  A weedy little seaman wearing crossed quills on his cap was lounging against a building. He snickered at Charles. “Don’t chase that one, sailor,” he said. “She is the property of O.N.I.”

  “You know who she is?”

  The yeoman happily spilled his inside dope to the fleet gob: “Lee Bennet. Smuggled over here couple months ago by D.A.R. The hottest thing that ever hit Naval Intelligence. Very small potato in the Syndic—knows all the families, who does what, who’s a figurehead and who’s a worker. Terrific! Inside stuff! Hates the Syndic. A gang of big-timers did her dirt.”

  “Thanks,” Charles said, and wandered off down the street.

  It wasn’t surprising. He should have expected it.

  Noblesse oblige.

  Pride of the Falcaro line. She wouldn’t send anybody into deadly peril unless she were ready to go herself.

  Only somehow the trigger that would have snapped neurotic, synthetic Lee Bennet into Lee Falcaro hadn’t worked.

  He wandered on aimlessly, wondering whether it would be minutes or hours before he’d be picked up and executed as a spy.

  PART II

  CHAPTER X

  It took minutes only.

  He had headed back to the waterfront, afraid to run, with some vague notion of stealing a boat. Before he reached the row of saloons and joints, a smart-looking squad of eight tall men overtook him.

  “Hold it, mister,” a sergeant said. “Are you Orsino?”

  “No,” he said hopelessly. “That crazy woman began to yell at me that I was Orsino, but my name’s Wyman. What’s this about?”

  The other men fell in beside and behind him. “We’re stepping over to O.N.I.,” the sergeant said.

  “There’s the son of a bitch!” somebody bawled. Suddenly there were a dozen sweatered Guardsmen around them. Their leader was the thug Orsino had beaten in a fair fight. He said silkily to the sergeant: “We want that boy, leatherneck. Blow.”

  * * * *

  The sergeant went pale. “He’s wanted for questioning by the O.N.I.,” he said stolidly.

  “Get the marine three-striper!” the Guardsman chortled. He stuck his jaw into the sergeant’s face. “Tell your squad to blow. You marines ought to know by now that you don’t mess with the Guard.”

  A very junior officer appeared. “What’s going on here, you men?” he shrilled. “Atten-shun!” He was ignored as Guardsman and marines measured one another with their eyes. “I said attention! Dammit, sergeant, report!” There was no reaction. The officer yelled: “You men may think you can get away with this but by God, you’re wrong!” He strode away, his fists clenched and his face very red.

  Orsino saw him stride through a gate into a lot marked Bupers Motor Pool. And he felt a sudden wave of communal understanding that there were only seconds to go. The sergeant played for time: “I’ll be glad to surrender the prisoner,” he started, “if you have anything to show in the way of—”

  The Guardsman kicked for the pit of the sergeant’s stomach. He was a sucker Orsino thought abstractedly as he saw the sergeant catch his foot, dump him and pivot to block another Guardsman. Then he was fighting for his life himself, against three bellowing Guardsmen.

  A ripping, hammering noise filled the air suddenly. Like cold magic, it froze the milling mob where it stood. Fifty-caliber noise.

  The jaygee was back, this time in a jeep with a twin fifty. And he was glaring down its barrels into the crowd. People were beginning to stream from the saloons, joints and shipfitting shops.

  The jaygee cocked his cap rakishly over one eye. “Fall in!” he rasped, and a haunting air of familiarity came over Orsino.

  The waiting jeep, almost bucking in its eagerness to be let loose—Orsino on the ground, knees trembling with tension—a perfect change of mount scene in a polo match. He reacted automatically.

  There was a surrealist flash of the jaygee’s face before he clipped him into the back of the square little truck. There was another flash of spectators scrambling as he roared the jeep down the road.

  From then on it was just a question of hanging onto the wheel with one hand, trying to secure the free-traversing twin-fifty with the other, glancing back to see if the jaygee was still out, avoiding yapping dogs and pedestrians, staying on the rutted road, pushing all possible speed out of the jeep, noting landmarks, estimating the possibility of dangerous pursuit. For a two-goal polo player, a dull little practice session.

  The road, such as it was, wound five miles inland through scrubby woodland and terminated at a lumber camp where chained men in rags were dragging logs.

  Orsino back tracked a quarter-mile from the camp and jolted overland in a kidney-cracking hare and hounds course at fifty per.

  The jeep took it for an hour in the fading afternoon l
ight and then bucked to a halt. Orsino turned for an overdue check on the jaygee and found him conscious, but greenly clinging to the sides of the vehicle. But he saw Orsino staring and gamely struggled to his feet, standing in the truck bed. “You’re under arrest, sailor,” he said. “Striking an officer, abuse of government property, driving a government vehicle without a trip-ticket—” His legs betrayed him and he sat down, hard.

  Orsino thought very briefly of letting him have a burst from the twin-fifty, and abandoned the idea.

  He seemed to have bitched up everything so far, but he was still on a mission. He had a commissioned officer of the Government approximately in his power. He snapped: “Nonsense. You’re under arrest.”

  The jaygee seemed to be reviewing rapidly any transgressions he may have committed, and asked at last, cautiously: “By what authority?”

  “I represent the Syndic.”

  It was a block-buster. The jaygee stammered: “But you can’t—But there isn’t any way—But how—”

  “Never mind how.”

  “You’re crazy. You must be, or you wouldn’t stop here. I don’t believe you’re from the continent and I don’t believe the jeep’s broken down.” He was beginning to sound just a little hysterical. “It can’t break down here. We must be more than thirty miles inland.”

  “What’s special about thirty miles inland?”

  “The natives, you fool!”

  The natives again. “I’m not worried about natives. Not with a pair of fifties.”

  “You don’t understand,” the jaygee said, forcing calm into his voice. “This is The Outback. They’re in charge here. We can’t do a thing with them. They jump people in the dark and skewer them. Now fix this damn jeep and let’s get rolling!”

  “Into a firing squad? Don’t be silly, lieutenant. I presume you won’t slug me while I check the engine?”

  The jaygee was looking around him. “My God, no,” he said. “You may be a gangster, but—” He trailed off.

  Orsino stiffened. Gangster was semi-dirty talk. “Listen, pirate,” he said nastily, “I don’t believe—”

  “Pirate?” the jaygee roared indignantly, and then shut his mouth with a click, looking apprehensively about. The gesture wasn’t faked; it alarmed Orsino.

  “Tell me about your wildmen,” he said.

  “Go to hell,” the jaygee said sulkily.

  “Look, you called me a gangster first. What about these natives? You were trying to trick me, weren’t you?”

  “Kiss my royal North American eyeball, gangster.”

  “Don’t be childish,” Charles reproved him, feeling adult and superior. (The jaygee looked a couple of years younger than he.) He climbed out of his seat and lifted the hood. The damage was trivial; a shear pin in the transmission had given way. He reported mournfully: “Cracked block. The jeep’s through forever. You can get on your way, lieutenant. I won’t try to hold you.”

  The jaygee fumed: “You couldn’t hold me if you wanted to, gangster. If you think I’m going to try and hoof back to the base alone in the dark, you’re crazy. We’re sticking together. Two of us may be able to hold them off for the night. In the morning, we’ll see.”

  Well, maybe the officer did believe there were wildmen in the woods. That didn’t mean there were.

  The jaygee got out and looked under the hood uncertainly. It was obvious that in the first place he was no mechanic and in the second place he couldn’t conceive of anybody voluntarily risking the woods rather than the naval base. “Uh-huh,” he said. “Dismount that gun while I get a fire started.”

  “Yes, sir,” Charles said sardonically, saluting. The jaygee absently returned the salute and began to collect twigs.

  Orsino asked: “How do these aborigines of yours operate?”

  “Sneak up in the dark. They have spears and a few stolen guns. Usually they don’t have cartridges for them but you can’t count on that. But they have… witches.”

  Orsino snorted. He was getting very hungry indeed. “Do you know any of the local plants we might eat?”

  The jaygee said confidently: “I guess we can get by on roots until morning.”

  Orsino dubiously pulled up a shrub, dabbed clods off its root and tasted it. It tasted exactly like a root. He sighed and changed the subject. “What do we do with the fifties when I get them both off the mount?”

  “The jeep mount breaks down some damn way or other into two low-mount tripods. See if you can figure it out while I get the fire going.”

  The jaygee had a small, smoky fire barely going in twenty minutes. Orsino was still struggling with the jeep gun mount. It came apart, but it couldn’t go together again. The jaygee strolled over at last contemptuously to lend a hand. He couldn’t make it work either.

  Two lost tempers and four split fingernails later it developed the “elevating screw” really held the two front legs on and that you elevated by adjusting the rear tripod leg. “A hell of an officer you are,” Orsino sulked.

  It began to rain, putting the fire out with a hiss. They wound up prone under the jeep, not on speaking terms, each tending a gun, each presumably responsible for 180 degrees of perimeter.

  * * * *

  Charles was fairly dry, except for a trickle of icy water following a contour that meandered to his left knee. After an hour of eye-straining—nothing to be seen—and ear-straining—only the patter of rain—he heard a snore and kicked the jaygee.

  The jaygee cursed wearily and said: “I guess we’d better talk to keep awake.”

  “I’m not having any trouble, pirate.”

  “Oh, knock it off—where do you get that pirate bit, gangster?”

  “You’re outlaws, aren’t you?”

  “Like hell we are. You’re the outlaws. You rebelled against the lawfully constituted North American Government. Just because you won—for the time being—doesn’t mean you were right.”

  “The fact that we won does mean that we were right. The fact that your so-called Government lives by raiding and scavenging off us means you were wrong. God, the things I’ve seen since I joined up with you thugs!”

  “I’ll bet. Respect for the home, sanctity of marriage, sexual morality, law and order—you never saw anything like that back home, did you gangster?” He looked very smug.

  Orsino clenched his teeth. “Somebody’s been telling you a pack of lies,” he said. “There’s just as much home and family life and morality and order back in Syndic Territory as there is here. And probably a lot more.”

  “Bull. I’ve seen intelligence reports; I know how you people live. Are you telling me you don’t have sexual promiscuity? Polygamy? Polyandry? Open gambling? Uncontrolled liquor trade? Corruption and shakedowns?”

  Orsino squinted along the barrel of the gun into the rain. “Look,” he said, “take me as an average young man from Syndic Territory. I know maybe a hundred people. I know just three women and two men who are what you’d call promiscuous. I know one family with two wives and one husband. I don’t really know any people personally who go in for polyandry, but I’ve met three casually. And the rest are ordinary middle-aged couples.”

  “Ah-hah! Middle-aged! Do you mean to tell me you’re just leaving out anybody under middle age when you talk about morality?”

  “Naturally,” Charles said, baffled. “Wouldn’t you?”

  The only answer was a snort.

  “What are bupers?” Charles asked.

  “Bu-Pers,” the jaygee said distinctly. “Bureau of Personnel, North American Navy.”

  “What do you do there?”

  “What would a personnel bureau do?” the jaygee said patiently. “We recruit, classify, assign, promote and train personnel.”

  “Paperwork, huh? No wonder you don’t know how to shoot or drive.”

  “If I didn’t need you to cover my back, I’d shove this MG down you
r silly throat. For your information, gangster, all officers do a tour of duty on paperwork before they’re assigned to their permanent branch. I’m going into the pigboats.”

  “Why?”

  “Family. My father commands a sub. He’s Captain Van Dellen.”

  Oh, God. Van Dellen. The sub commander Grinnel—and he—had murdered. The kid hadn’t heard yet that his father had been “lost” in an emergency dive.

  * * * *

  The rain ceased to fall; the pattering drizzle gave way to irregular, splashing drops from leaves and branches.

  “Van Dellen,” Charles said. “There’s something you ought to know.”

  “It’ll keep,” the jaygee answered in a grim whisper. The bolt of his gun clicked. “I hear them out there.”

  CHAPTER XI

  She felt the power of the goddess working in her, but feebly. Dark… so dark…and so tired… how old was she? More than eight hundred moons had waxed and waned above her head since birth. And she had run at the head of her spearmen to the motor sounds. A motor meant the smithymen from the sea, and you killed smithymen when you could.

  She let out a short shrill chuckle in the dark. There was a rustling of branches. One of the spearmen had turned to stare at the sound. She knew his face was worried. “Tend to business, you fool!” she wheezed. “Or by Bridget—” His breath went in with a hiss and she chuckled again. You had to let them know who was the cook and who was the potatoes every now and then. Kill the fool? Not now; not when there were smithymen with guns waiting to be taken.

  The power of the goddess worked stronger in her withered breast as her rage grew at their impudence. Coming into her woods with their stinking metal!

  There were two of them. A grin slit her face. She had not taken two smithymen together for thirty moons. For all her wrinkles and creaks, what a fine vessel she was for the power, to be sure! Her worthless, slow-to-learn niece could run and jump and she had a certain air, but she’d never be such a vessel. Her sister—the crone spat—these were degenerate days. In the old days, the sister would have been spitted when she refused the ordeal in her youth. The little one now, whatever her name was, she would make a fine vessel for the power when she was gathered to the goddess. If her sister or her niece didn’t hold her head under water too long, or have a spear shoved too deep into her gut or hit her on the head with too heavy a rock.