His Share of Glory The Complete Short Science Fiction

by C. M. Kornbluth

  Otherwise they'd talk differently.

  "I'd better show you how to handle it. All you have to know about is this switchboard. The button here indicates radiation. The power will spread in all directions except in that of the operator and directly behind him. This other button is direction. That aims the influence of the machine in a fairly tight beam. Its action is invisible, but it's controlled by this pointer. And the results are soon apparent."

  "And what could be the meaning of these cryptic signs?" asked Hogan, indicating a long vertical list of symbols running parallel to the slot of an indicator needle.

  "They are the chemical names of the elements."

  "I seem to remember," remarked Hogan, knitting his brows.

  "Got everything straight? Radiant, director, pointer, and elements?"

  "Yes. We can go in my car, I suppose."

  They eased the ponderous machine safely down the flight of stairs, then into Hogan's car. Suddenly there boomed from Train's frequency inductor the voice of Hartly. "Train!" it said. "Listening," the scientist snapped back.

  "This is your last warning. I have a man across the street from you. He says that you've loaded Independent Fourteen into a car. You seem to think I intend to back down on my promise to release the fungus."

  "Not at all." replied Barney cheerfully, "not at all. On the contrary, I am convinced that you'll not hesitate to pour the stuff out of your window as soon as we come in sight. In fact, I'm counting on it, Hartly. Don't disappoint me, please."

  "Then remember, Train, nothing …nothing …can stop the fungus. As you say, one false move nearer my building, and I release the culture."

  "The false move is made, Hardy," said Train, with steel in his voice. "In case your man hasn't told you, the car has started. We are on our way."

  He snapped off the transmitter.

  "What was that all about?" asked Hogan, his eyes on the road.

  "Just Hartly. He thinks he has a final stymie to work on me. Plans to release a kind of mold that eats away all organic matter. Fire cannot destroy or injure it, nor can chemicals. Once he releases it, it'll spread through the world, attacking all live wood, grass, and animal life."

  "Yeah? What are you going to do about it?"

  "Can't you guess? Hartly still doesn't realize that any power of his is just a joke so long as Independent Fourteen is in my hands. Pull up!"

  The car skidded to a halt before the building that housed World Research. "Take it out tenderly, husband mine," said Ann. "It means a lot to me."

  There was a rattling from the pocket wherein Train had thrust his frequency inductor. He took it out, held it to his ear.

  Hartly's voice was dry by now. "The bluff's never been pushed this far by any man, Train. This is your last chance. I'm looking down at you, and I have the fungus in my hand. Train, I'm ready to drop this bottle."

  "Are you, now?" The scientist's voice bespoke amusement. "And what am I supposed to do about it?"

  "Abandon your machine and walk into the building. I'll see that you are taken care of rightly. You'll not regret it if you choose to compromise; you will if you do not."

  Train laughed. "For once, Hartly, I'm holding every ace in the deck.

  Drop your little toy and see how useless it is to you."

  There was a long, tense pause. Hogan and Ann watched, but could see nothing. Train swiftly manipulated the little instruments on the control board. There was a little tinkle in the street near them.

  "There, Barney, there!" Ann screamed, pointing a trembling finger at a scarcely visible splotch of green. Train swung the pointer of the machine on it even as it exploded upward into a bomb of poisonous vegetation that rustled foully as it spread serpentine arms outward and up.

  Train slammed down the button that flung the machine into action, swept the pointer right and left as the tubes sputtered angrily.

  "Glory!" muttered Hogan. The fungus had suddenly been arrested and now stood etched in silvery metal.

  "Free metallic magnesium," said Train. "It works on a large scale and with one hundred percent efficiency."

  "Elements transmuted at will," breathed Ann. "And nothing went wrong!"

  "And the machine will do—that—to anything?" demanded Hogan. "It has the Midas touch."

  "That it has," agreed the scientist, swinging the needle and shifting the slide. "And, unless I'm mistaken, those men mean us harm."

  He swung the pointer against a squad of uniformed militia that were running from the huge doors of the building. The button went down, and the police went transparent, then gaseous. They vanished in puffs of vapor that sought the nearest solid.

  "Fluorine," said Train quietly. "Those poor devils are just so much salt on the street and portico."

  "Let's go in," said Ann. They walked into the lobby, treading carefully around the white crusts on the pavement.

  "Easy, Hogan," warned Train as they pushed Independent Fourteen into an elevator under the eyes of the horrified attendant. "Take us to the Hartly floor," he snapped at the latter, "and no harm will come to you. Otherwise …" He drew a sinister finger across his throat.

  The doors of the elevator rolled open and they carefully pushed the machine before them. "Come out, Hartly," called Ann at the bronze doors to the inner office.

  "Come in and get me," sounded from the frequency inductor in her hand. Resolutely they swung open the doors and marched in. Hartly was alone behind the desk. Quietly he lifted his hands, displayed two heavy pistols.

  "I haven't been too busy managing my affairs to learn how to use these,"

  he remarked. "Stand away from that machine."

  Train tensed himself to leap, flinging Fourteen into operation, but Ann touched his arm and he relaxed, stepped aside with her and Hogan.

  Hartly strode over and glanced at the machine. He set the slide absently. "How does it work?" he asked.

  "Red end of the pointer directs the beam. Slide determines the element required. Button on the left starts the operation."

  "The red end?" asked Hartly smiling. "You would say that. I'll try the black end first." He aimed the black end at the little group of three, thus bringing the red end squarely on himself.

  "This button—" he began, pressing a thumb on it. But his words were cut short. A wild glare suffused his face as he brought up one of the pistols, but it fell from his hand, exploding as it hit the floor. He tried to speak, but a choking gasp was all his yellowing tongue could utter.

  "He didn't trust ye," said Hogan sadly. "He thought ye meant him evil when ye told him the simple truth about the machine's operation. And that's why Mr. Hartly is now a statue of the purest yellow gold. The beast must weigh a ton at least."

  "Hartly's never trusted anyone," said Train. "I knew that he'd never take my word, so took a chance for all of us. Now he makes a very interesting statue."

  "It's horrible," said Ann. "We'll have them take it away."

  "No," replied Train. "It must stay here. There's a new life beginning now—at last the youth will be free to work at what they want and the era of Syndicate regimentation is over.

  "Let that statue remain there—as a picture of the old order and as a warning to the new."

  The Core

  [Future - April 1942 as by S. D. Gottesman]

  1

  Vistas unthinkable—speed beyond all imagining—Sphere Nine followed its course. Unrelieved blackness alternated with dazzling star-clusters; from rim to rim of the universe stretched the thin line that marked the hero's way.

  Heroism died, they say, when the "superiors" opened up the last few stubborn cubic centimeters of brain cells; it died when the last of the

  "ordinaries" died with a curse on his lips. Well, so perhaps it was. But this is a story of the days when superiors were new and a little odd, when they were the exception to Homo sapiens.

  On Sphere Nine there were four superiors and a dozen ordinaries. Will Archer, executive officer, was a superior of the third generation, big-browed, golden-eyed. Mamie
Tung was an experiment, the psychologist, court of last appeal in all emotional disputes. From what records we have, it appears that Mamie Tung was of average height, slender to emaciation.

  Star Macduff, the calculating officer, had three strong superior strains and as many of ordinary. But it was necessary that he be of the complement, for there wasn't another man in the solar system who could touch him for math. Yancey Meats, white female superior, was the clericalist and tabulator, serving as many as needed her, at the same time doing her own work of photographing and mapping the unfamiliar stars.

  The ordinaries surrendered their names on entering Sphere Nine; they were known as Ratings One–Twelve.

  Very gravely Will Archer cocked his cap and leaned back. "Rating Seven, what have you to say for yourself?"

  The knotty-muscled man wrung his hands nervously, stammered something unintelligible.

  Archer blinked for Mamie Tung.

  The golden-skinned woman slipped through the pipe, sized up the situation in one practiced glance. "What's your number, handsome?"

  That was the way the psychologist worked; flattery, humor, and an easy job of fact-finding at first. And the man would gain confidence from the very sound of his number as she spoke it. You can't find anything out from a man paralyzed with terror.

  "Seven, madame."

  "Quite a builder, aren't you, Seven?"

  "I'm sorry, madame—I didn't mean to let them loose …"

  "How many are there?"

  "Ten. We used to watch them fight …"

  A little metallic streak scrambled across the floor. Will Archer, in less than a split second, had hurled a filing-case at it. It buzzed, sparked and was still.

  It was indeed a greatly-improved specimen of a tinc, the strange, actually living mechanisms which had been developed back on Earth for amusements. The Terrestrial tincs had something less than the intelligence of a dog, but could be trained for combat with fellow machines. Tinc-fights were all the rage.

  But what Rating Seven had done, Archer realized at once, had been to raise both the intelligence and the capacity of the tinc to a point where it could easily become a first-class menace. These mechanisms were independent, inventive, and capable of reproduction; all ten must be found and destroyed at once.

  Mamie Tung picked it up with a pair of insulated pliers. "Very good workmanship. Admirable. But now that they're scattered all over the ship what are you going to do about it?"

  Rating Seven cleared his throat noisily. "They only have two directives, madame. One's interspecific fighting and the other's avoiding cold. I was thinking that maybe I could make a kind of bigger one to hunt them down …"

  "No," said Will Archer conclusively. "You're pretty good, but I wouldn't trust you not to make something that chewed up relays or Bohlmann metal. You may go."

  Mamie Tung flopped on a couch. "Glory! The things we have to do!"

  "Don't get any qualms now. I'll make some kind of magnet that'll draw their visual elements. Then we can bat them to pieces. Blink Star, will you?"

  Mamie Tung extended a golden arm to signal the calculator in his quarters. She wrinkled her pugged nose curiously: "Just how good is that Rating Seven?"

  "Very good indeed," said Will Archer, turning the little machine over in his hands. "Fine workmanship. He knew when to stop, too. Could've stuck ears on it, given it lights—too bad."

  "Seven goes?"

  "I'll dispose of him in a few weeks. Make it look like an accident."

  The Calculator slid through the tube, made a mock salute. He was surprisingly young. "Welcome, Star. Give me all relevant math for this tinc."

  "Very neat …haven't seen one on the ship yet. They must be fast."

  Mamie Tung yawned a little. "Will's going to liquidate Rating Seven."

  "Is that so? Necessary, I suppose?"

  The psychologist smiled quietly and shrugged.

  "Aren't you going to give him any leeway, Archer?"

  "I'd rather not. It won't endanger the ship to lose him; keeping him on might. He's maladjusted—that's very plain. This business with the tincs—he's too bright. If you wish I'll hold a vote."

  The Calculator nodded. Mamie Tung blinked for Yancey Mears.

  "Report on Rating Seven, Mamie."

  Rolling back her eyes a little, the Psychologist announced in a monotone:

  "Physical condition, adequate. Emotional adjustment, seemingly imperfect. Submitted to glandular atonic treatment on the 23rd inst, submitted to repeated treatment on the 87th inst. Reading shows little difference in emotional level. Attitude: morose and incompatible.

  Occasionally aggressive. Alternate periods of subnormal servility and abnormal independence. Corresponds to a certain preliminary stage of a type of manic-depressive. Psychologist recommends liquidation, as treatment would substitute an equally dangerous attitude of frustrated egotism."

  "But can't you reason with him?" burst out Star Macduff.

  "Stick to your math," said Yancey Mears as she entered. "I greet you, vanguard of mankind. Kill the midwit, I say."

  "I agree with the Psychologist and the Clericalist," said Will Archer, clearing his throat. "Star?"

  "I don't know. Perhaps—Madame Tung, do you think it would help if I spoke to him?"

  "No, Star—I don't. The impact of your two personalities would be mutually exclusive. That's something you can understand, seeing as it's math."

  "I don't understand it yet, madame. Archer, does that man have to die?"

  Will Archer nodded to Yancey Mears.

  "Naturally, Star. We wouldn't argue with you if you told us that you'd reached a certain resultant. As for the emotional side—well, we allow for the fact that you're half human …" She stopped, her face red.

  "Bad slip, Yancey," volunteered Mamie Tung. "Maybe you'd better have an atonic. I can operate on a femina superior as easily as a Homo sap."

  Star Macduff had covered his face with both hands. He dropped them to stare desperately at the Clericalist, his eyes bewildered. Yancey Mears met his gaze levelly, said simply: "I'm sorry, Star."

  The Computator's shoulders quivered a little as he turned to the golden-skinned woman. "Madame Tung, maybe I'd better have an atonic. Perhaps if my glands weren't—acting up—I wouldn't forget every now and then that I'm one of the lower animals."

  "No," said the Psychologist. "You're too important. I have no data available; I don't know whether glandular activity correlates with math-mindedness."

  "Nevertheless," said Will Archer, "I order it."

  "Thank you, Archer," said Star Macduff. He stepped through the tube; the Psychologist followed him, a supple flash of golden skin.

  "That was kind of you, Will," said Yancey Mears. "Maybe it wasn't very bright." She leaned back and shut her eyes.

  "You're using unreal figures, Yancey. The bearing of all this is solely on whether we return to Earth or not. I, for one, don't much care whether we arrive personally or not—so long as the records of observations get into the proper hands. It's such a terribly ticklish thing to be doing …

  lapsing one moment and letting emotion override judgment may tip the balance against a satisfactory solution to our personal equation. The moment our path ceases to be part of a perfect circle we, to all real purposes, cease to exist."

  "Is it so very important—this being the ninth sphere they've sent out?"

  "It has legitimate bearing on improvement of the species. The cosmic rays, wherever they come from, upset our genetic plans; we can achieve success only in a certain small percentage of cases. We—you and I, personally—are examples of that small percentage. It is logic—common sense—what you will—to block off the cosmic rays before going any further in genetic work.

  "And, before we know what to do to block them we must find out what they are. And before that we must find out where they come from. That is what we, personally, are engaged in doing."

  "Sounds big."

  "Is big," said Will Archer somberly. "Why didn't you want that glan
dular atonic?"

  "Because I can control myself—I hope."

  "With respect to me?"

  "Yes. Now, don't go getting male. I'm going to wait till 1 see what happens to our Calculator first. If he quiets down sufficiently I'll notify you. However, I won't risk any emotional upset if he doesn't."

  "And of course," said Will Archer, tipping his cap over his eyes, "it might even be necessary to be unusually kind to him …"

  "How unusually do you mean?"

  Silence.

  "No, Will. After all, he has three h. s. strains!"

  "Not even if I order it?"

  Yancey Mears took hold of a wall loop and pulled herself to her feet. "I'll blink Mamie Tung tomorrow and tell her I'm ready for an atonic. That's what you want, isn't it?"

  "That," said Will Archer slowly, "is the very last thing I want."

  The Calculator slipped through the tube, checked neatly as he saw the two move slowly towards each other. Not by the blink of an eye did they betray that they were aware of his presence. Star Macduff did not move, stood flat-footed and mute, one hand reaching for something, he had forgotten what.

  For a long moment in that ship there was no time. The forward slice, where batteries and files of business machinery clucked quietly away, doing duty for any one who would feed them figures; the midships slice where living quarters and offices were for superiors and ratings; the aft slice, greater than both the others combined, where electronic tension was built on ponderous discharge points and went cracking out into space at the rate of one bolt in every five-thousandth of a second; even out beyond the ship, even to the end of the shimmering, evanescent trail of electrons that it left as a wake, there was no time while those three stood in Executive Officer Will Archer's office, two loving and one in hate unspeakable.

  Mamie Tung stepped through the tube, took Star Macduff up by the arm after sizing up the situation in one swift glance. "Did you ask Will to enter the time of the operation?"