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

by C. M. Kornbluth

  The leader of the Brownells, a male, said with satisfaction: “Just when we needed—new blood.” Salter understood that he was not speaking in genetic terms.

  The females, more verbal types, said critically: “Evil-doers, obviously. Displaying their limbs without shame, brazenly flaunting the rotted pillars of the temple of lust. Come from the accursed sea itself, abode of infamy, to seduce us from our decent and regular lives.”

  “We know what to do with the women,” said the male leader. The rest took up the antiphon.

  “We’ll knock them down.”

  “And roll them on their backs.”

  “And pull one arm out and tie it fast.”

  “And pull the other arm out and tie it fast.”

  “And pull one limb out and tie it fast.”

  “And pull the other limb out and tie it fast.”

  “And then—”

  “We’ll beat them to death and Merdeka will smile.”

  Chaplain Pemberton stared incredulously. “You must look into your hearts,” he told them in a reasonable voice. “You must look deeper than you have, and you will find that you have been deluded. This is not the way for human beings to act. Somebody has misled you dreadfully. Let me explain—”

  “Blasphemy,” the leader of the females said, and put her spear expertly into the chaplain’s intestines. The shock of the broad, cold blade pulsed through him and felled him. Jewel Flyte knelt beside him instantly, checking heart beat and breathing. He was alive.

  “Get up,” the male leader said. “Displaying and offering yourself to such as we is useless. We are pure in heart.”

  A male child ran to the door. “Wagners!” he screamed. “Twenty Wagners coming up the stairs!”

  His father roared at him: “Stand straight and don’t mumble!” and slashed out with the butt of his spear, catching him hard in the ribs. The child grinned, but only after the pure-hearted eighteen had run to the stairs.

  Then he blasted a whistle down the corridor while the sea-people stared with what attention they could divert from the bleeding chaplain. Six doors popped open at the whistle and men and women emerged from them to launch spears into the backs of the Brownells clustered to defend the stairs. “Thanks, pop!” the boy kept screaming while the pure-hearted Wagners swarmed over the remnants of the pure-hearted Brownells; at last his screaming bothered one of the Wagners and the boy was himself speared.

  Jewel Flyte said: “I’ve had enough of this. Captain, please pick the chaplain up and come along.”

  “They’ll kill us.”

  “You’ll have the chaplain,” said Mrs. Graves. “One moment.” She darted into a bedroom and came back hefting the spiked knobkerry.

  “Well, perhaps,” the girl said. She began undoing the long row of buttons down the front of her coveralls and shrugged out of the garment, then unfastened and stepped out of her underwear. With the clothes over her arm she walked into the corridor and to the stairs, the stupefied captain and inspector following.

  To the pure-hearted Merdekans she was not Phryne winning her case; she was Evil incarnate. They screamed, broke and ran wildly, dropping their weapons. That a human being could do such a thing was beyond their comprehension; Merdeka alone knew what kind of monster this was that drew them strangely and horribly, in violation of all sanity. They ran as she had hoped they would; the other side of the coin was spearing even more swift and thorough than would have been accorded to her fully clothed. But they ran, gibbering with fright and covering their eyes, into apartments and corners of the corridor, their backs turned on the awful thing.

  The sea-people picked their way over the shambles at the stairway and went unopposed down the stairs and to the dock. It was a troublesome piece of work for Salter to pass the chaplain down to Mrs. Graves in the boat, but in ten minutes they had cast off, rowed out a little and set sail to catch the land breeze generated by the differential twilight cooling of water and brick. After playing her part in stepping the mast, Jewel Flyte dressed.

  “It won’t always be that easy,” she said when the last button was fastened. Mrs. Graves had been thinking the same thing, but had not said it to avoid the appearance of envying that superb young body.

  Salter was checking the chaplain as well as he knew how. “I think he’ll be all right,” he said. “Surgical repair and a long rest. He hasn’t lost much blood. This is a strange story we’ll have to tell the Ship’s Council.”

  Mrs. Graves said: “They’ve no choice. We’ve lost our net and the land is there waiting for us. A few maniacs oppose us—what of it?”

  Again a huge fish lazily surfaced; Salter regarded it thoughtfully. He said: “They’ll propose scavenging bronze ashore and fashioning another net and going on just as if nothing had happened. And really, we could do that, you know.”

  Jewel Flyte said: “No. Not forever. This time it was the net, at the end of harvest. What if it were three masts in midwinter, in mid-Atlantic?”

  “Or,” said the captain, “the rudder—any time. Anywhere. But can you imagine telling the Council they’ve got to walk off the ship onto land, take up quarters in those brick cabins, change everything? And fight maniacs, and learn to farm?”

  “There must be a way,” said Jewel Flyte. “Just as Merdeka, whatever it was, was a way. There were too many people, and Merdeka was the answer to too many people. There’s always an answer. Man is a land mammal in spite of brief excursions at sea. We were seed stock put aside, waiting for the land to be cleared so we could return. Just as these offshore fish are waiting very patiently for us to stop harvesting twice a year so they can return to deep water and multiply. What’s the way, captain?”

  He thought hard. “We could,” he said slowly, “begin by simply sailing in close and fishing the offshore waters for big stuff. Then tie up and build a sort of bridge from the ship to the shore. We’d continue to live aboard the ship but we’d go out during daylight to try farming.”

  “It sounds right.”

  “And keep improving the bridge, making it more and more solid, until before they notice it it’s really a solid part of the ship and a solid part of the shore. It might take… mmm… ten years?”

  “Time enough for the old shellbacks to make up their minds,” Mrs. Graves unexpectedly snorted.

  “And we’d relax the one-to-one reproduction rule, and some young adults will simply be crowded over the bridge to live on the land—” His face suddenly fell. “And then the whole damned farce starts all over again, I suppose. I pointed out that it takes thirty-two generations bearing one child apiece to run a population of two billion into zero. Well, I should have mentioned that it takes thirty-two generations bearing four children apiece to run a population of two into two billion. Oh, what’s the use, Jewel?”

  She chuckled. “There was an answer last time,” she said. “There will be an answer the next time.”

  “It won’t be the same answer as Merdeka,” he vowed. “We grew up a little at sea. This time we can do it with brains and not with nightmares and superstition.”

  “I don’t know,” she said. “Our ship will be the first, and then the other ships will have their accidents one by one and come and tie up and build their bridges hating every minute of it for the first two generations and then not hating it, just living it…and who will be the greatest man who ever lived?”

  The captain looked horrified.

  “Yes, you! Salter, the Builder of the Bridge; Tommy, do you know an old word for ‘bridge-builder’? Pontifex.”

  “Oh, my God!” Tommy Salter said in despair.

  A flicker of consciousness was passing through the wounded chaplain; he heard the words and was pleased that somebody aboard was praying.

  THE ADVENTURER

  Originally published in Space Science Fiction, May 1953.

  President Folsom XXIV said petulantly to his Secretary of the Treasu
ry: “Blow me to hell, Bannister, if I understood a single word of that. Why can’t I buy the Nicolaides Collection? And don’t start with the rediscount and the Series W business again. Just tell me why.”

  The Secretary of the Treasury said with an air of apprehension and a thread-like feeling across his throat: “It boils down to—no money, Mr. President.”

  The President was too engrossed in thoughts of the marvelous collection to fly into a rage. “It’s such a bargain,” he said mournfully. “An archaic Henry Moore figure—really too big to finger, but I’m no culture-snob, thank God—and fifteen early Morrisons and I can’t begin to tell you what else.” He looked hopefully at the Secretary of Public Opinion: “Mightn’t I seize it for the public good or something?”

  The Secretary of Public Opinion shook his head. His pose was gruffly professional. “Not a chance, Mr. President. We’d never get away with it. The art-lovers would scream to high Heaven.”

  “I suppose so.… Why isn’t there any money?” He had swiveled dangerously on the Secretary of the Treasury again.

  “Sir, purchases of the new Series W bond issue have lagged badly because potential buyers have been attracted to—”

  “Stop it, stop it, stop it! You know I can’t make head or tail of that stuff. Where’s the money going?”

  The Director of the Budget said cautiously: “Mr. President, during the biennium just ending, the Department of Defense accounted for 78 percent of expenditures—”

  The Secretary of Defense growled: “Now wait a minute, Felder! We were voted—”

  The President interrupted, raging weakly: “Oh, you rascals! My father would have known what to do with you! But don’t think I can’t handle it. Don’t think you can hoodwink me.” He punched a button ferociously; his silly face was contorted with rage and there was a certain tension on all the faces around the Cabinet table.

  Panels slid down abruptly in the walls, revealing grim-faced Secret Servicemen. Each Cabinet officer was covered by at least two automatic rifles.

  “Take that—that traitor away!” the President yelled. His finger pointed at the Secretary of Defense, who slumped over the table, sobbing. Two Secret Servicemen half-carried him from the room.

  President Folsom XXIV leaned back, thrusting out his lower lip. He told the Secretary of the Treasury: “Get me the money for the Nicolaides Collection. Do you understand? I don’t care how you do it. Get it.” He glared at the Secretary of Public Opinion. “Have you any comments?”

  “No, Mr. President.”

  “All right, then.” The President unbent and said plaintively: “I don’t see why you can’t all be more reasonable. I’m a very reasonable man. I don’t see why I can’t have a few pleasures along with my responsibilities. Really I don’t. And I’m sensitive. I don’t like these scenes. Very well. That’s all. The Cabinet meeting is adjourned.”

  They rose and left silently in the order of their seniority. The President noticed that the panels were still down and pushed the button that raised them again and hid the granite-faced Secret Servicemen. He took out of his pocket a late Morrison fingering-piece and turned it over in his hand, a smile of relaxation and bliss spreading over his face. Such amusing textural contrast! Such unexpected variations on the classic sequences!

  * * * *

  The Cabinet, less the Secretary of Defense, was holding a rump meeting in an untapped corner of the White House gymnasium.

  “God,” the Secretary of State said, white-faced. “Poor old Willy!”

  The professionally gruff Secretary of Public Opinion said: “We should murder the bastard. I don’t care what happens—”

  The Director of the Budget said dryly: “We all know what would happen. President Folsom XXV would take office. No; we’ve got to keep plugging as before. Nothing short of the invincible can topple the Republic.…”

  “What about a war?” the Secretary of Commerce demanded fiercely. “We’ve no proof that our program will work. What about a war?”

  State said wearily: “Not while there’s a balance of power, my dear man. The Io-Callisto Question proved that. The Republic and the Soviet fell all over themselves trying to patch things up as soon as it seemed that there would be real shooting. Folsom XXIV and his excellency Premier Yersinsky know at least that much.”

  The Secretary of the Treasury said: “What would you all think of Steiner for Defense?”

  The Director of the Budget was astonished. “Would he take it?”

  Treasury cleared his throat. “As a matter of fact, I’ve asked him to stop by right about now.” He hurled a medicine ball into the budgetary gut.

  “Oof!” said the Director. “You bastard. Steiner would be perfect. He runs Standards like a watch.” He treacherously fired the medicine ball at the Secretary of Raw Materials, who blandly caught it and slammed it back.

  “Here he comes,” said the Secretary of Raw Materials. “Steiner! Come and sweat some oleo off!”

  Steiner ambled over, a squat man in his fifties, and said: “I don’t mind if I do. Where’s Willy?”

  State said: “The President unmasked him as a traitor. He’s probably been executed by now.”

  Steiner looked grim, and grimmer yet when the Secretary of the Treasury said, dead-pan: “We want to propose you for Defense.”

  “I’m happy in Standards,” Steiner said. “Safer, too. The Man’s father took an interest in science, but The Man never comes around. Things are very quiet. Why don’t you invite Winch, from the National Art Commission? It wouldn’t be much of a change for the worse for him.”

  “No brains,” the Secretary for Raw Materials said briefly. “Heads up!”

  Steiner caught the ball and slugged it back at him. “What good are brains?” he asked quietly.

  “Close the ranks, gentlemen,” State said. “These long shots are too hard on my arms.”

  The ranks closed and the Cabinet told Steiner what good were brains. He ended by accepting.

  * * * *

  The Moon is all Republic. Mars is all Soviet. Titan is all Republic. Ganymede is all Soviet. But Io and Callisto, by the Treaty of Greenwich, are half-and-half Republic and Soviet.

  Down the main street of the principal settlement on Io runs an invisible line. On one side of the line, the principal settlement is known as New Pittsburgh. On the other side it is known as Nizhni-Magnitogorsk.

  Into a miner’s home in New Pittsburgh one day an eight-year-old boy named Grayson staggered, bleeding from the head. His eyes were swollen almost shut.

  His father lurched to his feet, knocking over a bottle. He looked stupidly at the bottle, set it upright too late to save much of the alcohol, and then stared fixedly at the boy. “See what you made me do, you little bastard?” he growled, and fetched the boy a clout on his bleeding head that sent him spinning against the wall of the hut. The boy got up slowly and silently—there seemed to be something wrong with his left arm—and glowered at his father.

  He said nothing.

  “Fighting again,” the father said, in a would-be fierce voice. His eyes fell under the peculiar fire in the boy’s stare. “Damn fool—”

  A woman came in from the kitchen. She was tall and thin. In a flat voice she said to the man: “Get out of here.” The man hiccupped and said: “Your brat spilled my bottle. Gimme a dollar.”

  In the same flat voice: “I have to buy food.”

  “I said gimme a dollar!” The man slapped her face—it did not change—and wrenched a small purse from the string that suspended it around her neck. The boy suddenly was a demon, flying at his father with fists and teeth. It lasted only a second or two. The father kicked him into a corner where he lay, still glaring, wordless and dry-eyed. The mother had not moved; her husband’s handmark was still red on her face when he hulked out, clutching the money bag.

  Mrs. Grayson at last crouched in the corner with the eight-yea
r-old boy. “Little Tommy,” she said softly. “My little Tommy! Did you cross the line again?”

  He was blubbering in her arms, hysterically, as she caressed him. At last he was able to say: “I didn’t cross the line, Mom. Not this time. It was in school. They said our name was really Krasinsky. God-damn him!” the boy shrieked. “They said his grandfather was named Krasinsky and he moved over the line and changed his name to Grayson! God-damn him! Doing that to us!”

  “Now, darling,” his mother said, caressing him. “Now, darling.” His trembling began to ebb. She said: “Let’s get out the spools, Tommy. You mustn’t fall behind in school. You owe that to me, don’t you, darling?”

  “Yes, Mom,” he said. He threw his spindly arms around her and kissed her. “Get out the spools. We’ll show him. I mean them.”

  * * * *

  President Folsom XXIV lay on his death-bed, feeling no pain, mostly because his personal physician had pumped him full of morphine. Dr. Barnes sat by the bed holding the presidential wrist and waiting, occasionally nodding off and recovering with a belligerent stare around the room. The four wire-service men didn’t care whether he fell asleep or not; they were worriedly discussing the nature and habits of the President’s first-born, who would shortly succeed to the highest office in the Republic.

  “A firebrand, they tell me,” the A.P. man said unhappily.

  “Firebrands I don’t mind,” the U.P. man said. “He can send out all the inflammatory notes he wants just as long as he isn’t a fiend for exercise. I’m not as young as I once was. You boys wouldn’t remember the old President, Folsom XXII. He used to do point-to-point hiking. He worshipped old F.D.R.”

  The I.N.S. man said, lowering his voice: “Then he was worshipping the wrong Roosevelt. Teddy was the athlete.”

  Dr. Barnes started, dropped the presidential wrist and held a mirror to the mouth for a moment. “Gentlemen,” he said, “the President is dead.”

  “O.K.,” the A.P. man said. “Let’s go, boys. I’ll send in the flash. U.P., you go cover the College of Electors. I.N.S., get onto the President Elect. Trib, collect some interviews and background—”