His Share of Glory The Complete Short Science Fiction

by C. M. Kornbluth

  "But," Rosa painfully wrote, "Julio would want you to know he died not too unhappy, after a good though short life with much of satisfaction . .

  ."

  I think it will give him some more satisfaction, wherever he is, to know that his story at last is getting told.

  It started twenty-two years ago with a routine assignment on a crisp October morning. I had an appointment with Dr. Sugarman, the head of the physics department at the University. It was the umpth anniversary of something or other—first atomic pile, the test A-bomb, Nagasaki—I don't remember what, and the Sunday editor was putting together a page on it. My job was to interview the three or four University people who were Manhattan District grads.

  I found Sugarman in his office at the top of the modest physics building's square gothic tower, brooding through a pointed-arch window at the bright autumn sky. He was a tubby, jowly little fellow. I'd been seeing him around for a couple of years at testimonial banquets and press conferences, but I didn't expect him to remember me. He did, though, and even got the name right.

  "Mr. Vilchek?" he beamed. "From the Tribune?"

  "That's right, Dr. Sugarman. How are you?"

  "Fine; fine. Sit down, please. Well, what shall we talk about?"

  "Well, Dr. Sugarman, I'd like to have your ideas on the really fundamental issues of atomic energy, A-bomb control and so on. What in your opinion is the single most important factor in these problems?"

  His eyes twinkled; he was going to surprise me. "Education!" he said, and leaned back waiting for me to register shock.

  I registered. "That's certainly a different approach, doctor. How do you mean that, exactly?"

  He said impressively: "Education—technical education—is the key to the underlying issues of our time. I am deeply concerned over the unawareness of the general public to the meaning and accomplishments of science. People underrate me—underrate science, that is —because they do not understand science. Let me show you something." He rummaged for a moment through papers on his desk and handed me a sheet of lined tablet paper covered with chicken-track handwriting. "A letter I got," he said. I squinted at the penciled scrawl and read:

  October 12

  Esteemed Sir:

  Beg to introduce self to you the atomic Scientist as a youth 17 working with diligence to perfect self in Mathematical Physics. The knowledge of English is imperfect since am in New-York 1 year only from Puerto Rico and due to Father and Mother poverty must wash the dishes in the restaurant. So es teemed sir excuse imperfect English which will better.

  I hesitate intruding your valuable Scientist time but hope you sometime spare minutes for diligents such as I. My difficulty is with neutron cross-section absorptionof boron steel in Reactor which theory I am working out Breeder reactors demand

  for boron steel, compared with neutron cross-section absorption of for any Concrete with which I familiarize myself. Whence arises relationship

  indicating only a fourfold breeder gain. Intuitively I dissatisfy with this gain and beg to intrude your time to ask wherein I neglect. With the most sincere thanks.

  J. Gomez

  % Porto Bello Lunchroom

  124th St. & St. Nicholas Ave.

  New-York, New-York

  I laughed and told Dr. Sugarman appreciatively: "That's a good one. I wish our cranks kept in touch with us by mail, but they don't. In the newspaper business they come in-and demand to see the editor. Could I use it, by the way? The readers ought to get a boot out of it."

  He hesitated and said: "All right—if you don't use my name. Just say 'a prominent physicist.' I didn't think it was too funny myself though, but I see your point, of course. The boy may be feebleminded—and he probably is—but he believes, like too many people, that science is just a bag of tricks that any ordinary person can acquire—"

  And so on and so on.

  I went back to the office and wrote the interview in twenty minutes. It took me longer than that to talk the Sunday editor into running the Gomez letter in a box on the atom-anniversary page, but he finally saw it my way. I had to retype it. If I'd just sent the letter down to the composing room as was, we would have had a strike on our hands.

  On Sunday morning, at a quarter past six, I woke up to the tune of fists thundering on my hotel-room door. I found my slippers and bathrobe-and lurched Wearily across the room. They didn't wait for me to unlatch. The door opened. I saw one of the hotel clerks, the Sunday editor, a frosty-faced old man, and three hard-faced, hard-eyed young men. The hotel clerk mumbled and retreated and the others moved in.

  "Chief," I asked the Sunday editor hazily, "what's going—?"

  A hard-faced young man was standing with his back to the door; another was standing with his back to the window and the third was blocking the bathroom door. The icy old man interrupted me with a crisp authoritative question snapped at the editor. "You identify this man as Vilchek?"

  The editor nodded.

  "Search him," snapped the old man. The fellow standing guard at the window slipped up and frisked me for weapons while I sputtered incoherently and the Sunday editor avoided my eye.

  When the search was over the frosty-faced old boy said to me: "I am Rear Admiral MacDonald, Mr. Vilchek. I'm here in my capacity as deputy director of the Office of Security and Intelligence, U. S. Atomic Energy Commission. Did you write this?" He thrust a newspaper clipping at my face.

  I read, blearily:

  WHAT'S SO TOUGH ABOUT A-SCIENCE?

  TEENAGE POT-WASHER DOESN'T KNOW

  A letter received recently by a prominent local atomic scientist points up Dr. Sugarman's complaint (see adjoining column) that the public does not appreciate how hard a physicist works. The text, complete with "mathematics" follows:

  Esteemed Sir:

  Beg to introduce self to you the Atomic Scientist as youth 17 working—

  "Yes," I told the admiral. "I wrote it, except for the headline. What about it?"

  He snapped: "The letter is purportedly from a New York youth seeking information, yet there is no address for him given. Why is that?"

  I said patiently: "I left it off when I copied it for the composing room.

  That's Trib style on readers' letters. What is all this about?"

  He ignored the question and asked: "Where is the purported original of the letter?"

  I thought hard and told him: "I think I stuck it in my pants pocket. I'll get it—" I started for the chair with my suit draped over it.

  "Hold it, mister!" said the young man at the bathroom door. I held it and he proceeded to go through the pockets of the suit. He found the Gomez letter in the inside breast pocket of the coat and passed it to the admiral. The old man compared it, word for word, with the clipping and then put them both in his pocket.

  "I want to thank you for your cooperation," he said coldly to me and the Sunday editor. "I caution you not to discuss, and above all not to publish, any account of this incident. The national security is involved in the highest degree. Good day."

  He and his boys started for the door, and the Sunday editor came to life.

  "Admiral," he said, "this is going to be on the front page of tomorrow's Trib."

  The admiral went white. After a long pause he said: "You are aware that this country may be plunged, into global war at any moment. That American boys are dying every day in border skirmishes. Is it to protect civilians like you who won't obey a reasonable request affecting security?"

  The Sunday editor took a seat on the edge of my rumpled bed and lit a cigarette. "I know all that, admiral," he said. "I also know that this is a free country and how to keep it that way. Pitiless light on incidents like this of illegal search and seizure."

  The admiral said: "I personally assure you, on my honor as an officer, that you would be doing the country a grave disservice by publishing an account of this."

  The Sunday editor said mildly: "Your honor as an officer. You broke into this room without a search warrant. Don't you realize that's against the law?
And I saw your boy ready to shoot when Vilchek started for that chair." I began to sweat a little at that, but the admiral was sweating harder.

  With an effort he said: "I should apologize for the abruptness and discourtesy with which I've treated you. I do apologize. My only excuse is that, as I've said, this is a crash-priority matter. May I have your assurance that you gentlemen will keep silent?"

  "On one condition," said the Sunday editor. "I want the Trib to have an exclusive on the Gomez story. I want Mr. Vilchek to cover it, with your full cooperation. In return, we'll hold it for your release and submit it to your security censorship."

  "It's a deal," said the admiral, sourly. He seemed to realize suddenly that the Sunday editor had been figuring on such a deal all along.

  On the plane for New York, the admiral filled me in. He was precise and unhappy, determined to make the best of a bad job. "I was awakened at three this morning by a phone call from the chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission. He had been awakened by a call from Dr. Monroe of the Scientific Advisory Committee. Dr. Monroe had been up late working and sent out for the Sunday Tribune to read before going to sleep. He saw the Gomez letter and went off like a sixteen-inch rifle.

  The neutron cross-section absorption relationship expressed in it happens to be, Mr. Vilchek, his own work. It also happens to be one of the nation's most closely guarded—er—atomic secrets. Presumably this Gomez stumbled on it somehow, as a janitor or something of the sort, and is feeding his ego by pretending to be an atomic scientist."

  I scratched my unshaved jaw. "Admiral," I said, "you wouldn't kid me?

  How can three equations be a top atomic secret?"

  The admiral hesitated. "All I can tell you," he said slowly, "is that breeder reactors are involved."

  "But the letter said that. You mean this Gomez not only swiped the equations but knew what they were about?"

  The admiral said grimly: "Somebody has been incredibly lax. It would be worth many divisions to the Soviet for their man Kapitza to see those equations—and realize that they are valid."

  He left me to chew that one over for a while as the plane droned over New Jersey. Finally the pilot called back: "E.T.A. five minutes, sir. We have landing priority at Newark."

  "Good," said the admiral. "Signal for a civilian-type car to pick us up without loss of time."

  "Civilian," I said.

  "Of course civilian!" he snapped. "That's the hell of it. Above all we must not arouse suspicion that there is anything special or unusual about this Gomez or his letter. Copies of the Tribune are on their way to the Soviet now as a matter of routine—they take all American papers and magazines they can get. If we tried to stop shipment of Tribunes that would be an immediate giveaway that there was something of importance going on."

  We landed and the five of us got into a late-model car, neither drab nor flashy. One of the admiral's young men relieved the driver, a corporal with Signal Corps insignia. There wasn't much talk during the drive from Newark to Spanish Harlem, New York. Just once the admiral lit a cigarette, but he flicked it through the window after a couple of nervous puffs.

  The Porto Bello Lunchroom was a store-front restaurant in the middle of a shabby tenement block. Wide-eyed, graceful, skinny little kids stared as our car parked in front of it and then converged on us purposefully. "Watch your car, mister?" they begged. The admiral surprised them—and me—with a flood of Spanish that sent the little extortionists scattering back to their stickball game in the street and their potsy layouts chalked on the sidewalks.

  "Higgins," said the admiral, "see if there's a back exit." One of his boys got out and walked around the block under the dull, incurious eyes of black-shawled women sitting on their stoops. He was back hi five minutes, shaking his head.

  "Vilchek and I will go in," said the admiral. "Higgins, stand by the restaurant door and tackle anyone who comes flying out. Let's go, reporter. And remember that I do the talking."

  The noon-hour crowd at the Porto Bello's ten tables looked up at us when we came in. The admiral said to a woman at a primitive cashier's table: "Nueva York Board of Health, señora."

  "Ah!" she muttered angrily. "For favor, no aquí! In back, understand?

  Come." She beckoned a pretty waitress to take over at the cash drawer and led us into the steamy little kitchen. It was crowded with us, an old cook, and a young dishwasher. The admiral and the woman began a rapid exchange of Spanish. He played his part well. I myself couldn't keep my eyes off the kid dishwasher who somehow or other had got hold of one of America's top atomic secrets.

  Gomez was seventeen, but he looked fifteen. He was small-boned and lean, with skin the color of bright Virginia tobacco in an English cigarette. His hair was straight and glossy-black and a little long. Every so often he wiped his hands on his apron and brushed it back from his damp forehead. He was working like hell, dipping and swabbing and rinsing and drying like a machine, but he didn't look pushed or angry.

  He wore a half-smile that I later found out was his normal, relaxed expression and his eyes were far away from the kitchen of the Porto Bello Lunchroom. The elderly cook was making it clear by the exaggerated violence of his gesture and a savage frown that he resented these people invading his territory. I don't think Gomez even knew we were there. A sudden, crazy idea came into my head.

  The admiral had turned to him. "Como se llama, chico?"

  He started and put down the dish he was wiping. "Julio Gomez, señor.

  Porque, par favor? Que pasa?"

  He wasn't the least bit scared.

  "Nueva York Board of Health," said the admiral. "Con su permiso—" He took Gomez's hands in his and looked at them gravely, front and back, making tsk-tsk noises. Then, decisively: "Vamanos, Julio. Siento mucho.

  Usted esta muy enjermo." Everybody started talking at once, the woman doubtless objecting to the slur on her restaurant and the cook to losing his dishwasher and Gomez to losing time from the job.

  The admiral gave them broadside for broadside and outlasted them. In five minutes we were leading Gomez silently from the restaurant. "La lotería!" a woman customer said in a loud whisper. "O las mutas,"

  somebody said back. Arrested for policy or marihuana, they thought.

  The pretty waitress at the cashier's table looked stricken and said nervously: "Julio?" as we passed, but he didn't notice.

  Gomez sat in the car with the half-smile on his lips and his eyes a million miles away as we rolled downtown to Foley Square. The admiral didn't look as though he'd approve of any questions from me. We got out at the Federal Building and Gomez spoke at last. He said in surprise: "This, it is not the hospital!"

  Nobody answered. We marched him up the steps and surrounded him in the elevator. It would have made anybody nervous—it would, have made me nervous—to be herded like that; everybody's got something on his conscience. But the kid didn't even seem to notice. I decided that he must be a half-wit or—there came that crazy notion again.

  The glass door said "U. S. Atomic Energy Commission, Office of Security and Intelligence." The people behind it were flabbergasted when the admiral and party walked in. He turned the head man out of his office and sat at his desk, with Gomez getting the caller's chair. The rest of us stationed ourselves uncomfortably around the room.

  It started. The admiral produced the letter and asked in English: "Have you ever seen this before?" He made it clear from the way he held it that Gomez wasn't going to get his hands on it.

  "Si, seguro. I write it last week. This is funny business. I am not really sick like you say, no?" He seemed relieved.

  "No. Where did you get these equations?"

  Gomez said proudly: "I work them out."

  The admiral gave a disgusted little laugh. "Don't waste my time, boy.

  Where did you get these equations?"

  Gomez was beginning to get upset. "You got no right to call me liar," he said. "I not so smart as the big physicists, seguro, and maybe I make mistakes. Maybe I waste the profesór
Soo-har-man his time but he got no right to have me arrest. I tell him right in letter he don't have to answer if he don't want. I make no crime and you got no right!"

  The admiral looked bored. "Tell me how you worked the equations out,"

  he said.

  "Okay," said Gomez sulkily. "You know the random paths of neutron is expressed in matrix mechanics by profesór Oppenheim five years ago, all okay. I transform his equations from path-prediction domain to cross-section domain and integrate over absorption areas. This gives u series and v series. And from there, the u-v relationship is obvious, no?"

  The admiral, still bored, asked: "Got it?"

  I noticed that one of his young men had a shorthand pad out. He said:

  "Yes."

  The admiral picked up the phone and said: "This is MacDonald. Get me Dr. Mines out at Brookhaven right away." He told Gomez blandly: "Dr.

  Mines is the chief of the A.E.C. Theoretical Physics Division. I'm going to ask him what he thinks of the way you worked the equations out. He's going to tell me that you were just spouting a lot of gibberish. And then you're going to tell me where you really got them."

  Gomez looked mixed up and the admiral turned back to the phone. "Dr.

  Mines? This is Admiral MacDonald of Security. I want your opinion on the following." He snapped his fingers impatiently and the'stenographer passed him his pad. "Somebody has told me that he discovered a certain relationship by taking—" He read carefully, "—by taking the random paths of a neutron expressed in matrix mechanics by Oppenheim, transforming his equations from the path-prediction domain to the cross-section domain and integrating over the absorption areas."

  In the silence of the room I could hear the faint buzz of the voice on the other end. And a great red blush spread over the admiral's face from his brow to his neck. The faintly buzzing voice ceased and after a long pause the admiral said slowly and softly: "No, it wasn't Fermi or Szilard.

  I'm not at liberty to tell you who. Can you come right down to the Federal Building Security Office in New York? I-I need your help. Crash priority." He hung up the phone wearily and muttered to himself: