 THE ADVENTURER by C. M. Kornbluth This story was first published in Space Science Fiction May 1953. And Folsom the 24th said petulantly to his secretary of the treasurer, Blow me to hell, Bannister, if I understand a single word of that. Why can't I buy the Nicolades collection, and don't start with a rediscount of the series W business again, just tell me why? The secretary of the treasurer he 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 Morf figure, really too big to finger, but I'm no culture snob, thank God, and fifteen early moriscans, 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 prose 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 treasurer 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 out a tale 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 seventy-eight percent of expenditures. The secretary of defense growled, now wait a minute, Felder, we were voted. The president interrupted raging weekly, 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. Anals 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 have carried him from the room. President Folsom the twenty-fourth leaned back, thrusting out his lower lip. He told the secretary of the treasury, get me the money for the Nicolades 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, lest 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 Willie. The professorially 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 the twenty-fifth would take office. No, we've got to keep plugging as before. Being 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 is a balance of power, my dear man. The I.O. Callisto question proved that the republic and the Soviet fell all over themselves trying to patch things up as soon as it seemed that would be real shooting. Folsom the twenty-fourth and his Excellency Premier Yersensky, no at least that much. The secretary of the treasury said, What do you 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 now. He hurled a medicine ball into the budgetary gut. Oh! Said the director. You bastard! Steiner would be perfect. He run standard 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 olio off! Steiner ambled over a squat man in his fifties and said, I don't mind if I do, where's Willie? 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 treasurer said, Deadpan, we want to propose you for defense. I'm happy in standards, Steiner said, safe or two. 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 of raw materials said briefly. Heads up! Steiner caught the ball and slugged it back at him. What good of brains, he asked quietly. Closed 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. Genomy 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 of 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 Nisny Magnitogorsky. Into a miner's home in New Pittsburgh one night an eight-year-old boy named Grayson staggered, bleeding from the head. His eyes were swollen, almost shut. His father lured 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. Say 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 stair. 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 hiccuped and said, Your brat, spill my bottle. Give me a dollar. In the same flat voice I have to buy food. I said give me 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 hand mark was still red on her face when he hulked out clutching the money-bag. Missers Grayson at last crouched in the corner with the eight-year-old boy. Little Tummy, she said softly, My little Tummy, 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 Krasinski. God damn him! The boy shrieked. They said his grandfather was named Krasinski, 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, Tummy. 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 the twenty-fourth 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, happily knotting 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 firstborn, who would shortly succeed to the highest office in the republic. A firebrand, they tell me, the AP man said unhappily. Firebrands, I don't mind, the UP man said. He can send out all the inflammatory notes he wants, just as long as he has a caffeine for exercise. I'm not as young as I once was. You boys wouldn't remember the old President Folsom the twenty-second. He used to do point-to-point hiking. He worshipped old FDR. The INS 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. OK, the AP man said, let's go boys, I'll send in the flash. UP, you go cover the College of Electors. INS, get on to the president-elect. TRIB, collect some interviews and background. The door opened abruptly. A colonel of infantry was standing there breathing hard with an automatic rifle at port. Is he dead? he asked. Yes, the AP man said, if you'll let me pass, nobody leaves the room. The colonel said grimly. I represent General Slocum, acting president of the Republic. The College of Electors is acting now to ratify. A burst of gunfire caught the colonel in the back. He spun and fell with a single-horse cry. More gunfire sounded through the White House. A secret serviceman ducked his head through the door. President's dead. You boys, stay put. We'll have this thing cleaned up in an hour. He vanished. The doctor sputtered his alarm and the newsman ignored him with professional poise. The AP man said, now who's Slocum? Defense command? INS said, I remember him, three stars. He headed up the tactical airborne force out in Kansas four or five years ago. I think he was retired since then. A phosphorus grenade crashed through the window and exploded with a globe of yellow flame the size of a basketball, dense clouds of phosphorus pentoxide gushed from it, and the sprinkler system switched on drenching the room. Come on, hacked the AP man, and they scrambled from the room and slammed the door. The doctor's coat was burning in two or three places and he was wretching feebly on the corridor floor. They tore his coat off and flung it back into the room. The UP man, swearing horribly, dug a sizzling bit of phosphorus from the back of his hand with a pin-knife and collapsed sweating when it was out. The INS man passed him a flask and he gurgled down half a pint of liquor. Who, flying that brick, he asked faintly. Nobody, the AP man said gloomily. That's the hell of it. None of this is happening. Just the way Taft the Pretender never happened in O3, just the way the Pentagon mutiny never happened in 67—68, the UP man said faintly. It didn't happen in 68, not 67. The AP man smashed a fist into the palm of his hand and swore. God damn, he said, some day I'd like to. He broke off and was bitterly silent. The UP man must have been a little dislocated with shock and quite drunk to talk the way he did. Me too, he said, like to tell the story. Maybe it was 67, not 68. I'm not sure now. Can't write it down so the details get lost and then after a while it didn't happen at all. Revolution would be a good deal. But it takes people to make revolution. People, with eyes and ears and memories, we make things not happen and we make people not see and not hear. He slumped back against the corridor wall, nursing his burned hand. The others were watching him very scared. Then the AP man caught sight of the Secretary of Defense striding down the corridor flanked by secret servicemen. Mr. Steiner, he called, what's the picture? Steiner stopped breathing heavily and said, Slocum's barricaded in the oval study. They don't want to smash in. He's about the only one left. There were only fifty or so, the acting presidents taking charge at the study. You want to come along? They did, and even hauled the UP man after them. The acting president, who would be President Folsom the 25th as soon as the Electoral College got around to it, had his father's face, the petulant lip, the soft jowl on a hard young body. He also had an auto-rifle ready to fire from the hip. Most of the cabinet was present. When the Secretary of Defense arrived, he turned on him. Steiner, he said nastily, can you explain why there should be a rebellion against the Republic in your department? Mr. President, Steiner said, Slocum was retired on my recommendation two years ago. It seemed to me that my responsibility ended there and security should have taken over. The President-Elec's finger left the trigger of the auto-rifle and his lip drew in a little. Quite so, he said curtly and turned to the door. Slocum, he shouted, come out of there. We can use gas if we want. The door opened unexpectedly, and a tired-looking man with three stars on each shoulder stood there, bare-handed. All right, he said drearily, I was full enough to think something could be done about the regime, but you fat-faced imbeciles are going to go on and on and on. The stutter of the auto-rifle cut him off. The President-Elec's knuckles were white as he clutched the pieces forearm and grip. The torrent of slugs continued to hack and plow the General's body until the magazine was empty. Burned that, he said curtly, turning his back on it. Dr. Barnes, come here. I want to know about my father's passing. The doctor, hoarse and red-eyed from the whiff of phosphorus smoke, spoke with him. The U.P. man had staggered drunkenly into a chair, but the other newsmen noted that Dr. Barnes glanced at them as he spoke in a confidential murmur. Thank you, doctor. The President-Elec said it last decisively. He gestured to a secret serviceman. Take those traitors away. They went numbly. The Secretary of State cleared his throat. Mr. President, he said, I take this opportunity to submit the resignations of my self and fellow cabinet members according to custom. That's all right, the President-Elec said. You may as well stay on. I intend to run things myself anyway. He hefted the auto-rifle. You, he said to the Secretary of Public Opinion, you have some work to do. Have the memory of my father's artistic preoccupations obliterated as soon as possible. I wish the Republic to assume a warlike posture. Yes, what is it? A trembling messenger said, Mr. President, I have the honor to inform you that the College of Electors has elected you, President of the Republic, unanimously. Cadet 4th Classman Thomas Grayson lay on his bunk and sobbed in an agony of loneliness. The letter from his mother was crumpled in his hand. Prouder than words can tell of your appointment to the Academy, darling. I hardly knew my grandfather, but I know that you will serve as brilliantly as he did to the eternal credit of the Republic. You must be brave and strong for my sake. He would have given everything he had or ever could hope to have to be back with her and away from the bullying, sneering fellow-cadets of the Corps. He kissed the letter and then hastily shoved it under his mattress as he heard footsteps. He popped to a brace, but it was only his roommate, Ferguson. Ferguson was from earth and rejoiced in the lighter lunar gravity which was punishment to Grayson's eye-o-bread muscles. Rest, Mr. Ferguson-Grendt, thought it was night inspection. Any minute now, they're down the hall. Let me tighten your bonk or you'll be in trouble. Tightening the bonk, he pulled out the letter and said calvishly. Ah-ha! Who is she? And opened it. When the cadet officers reached the room, they found Ferguson on the floor, being strangled black in the face by spidery little Grayson. It took all three of them to pull him off. Ferguson went to the infirmary and Grayson went to the commandant's office. The commandant blared at the cadet from under the most spectacular pair of eyebrows in the service. —Gadet Grayson? —he said. —Explain what occurred. —Sir, Cadet Ferguson began to read a letter from my mother without my permission. That is not accepted by the core as grounds for mayhem. Do you have anything further to say? —Sir, I lost my temper. All I thought of was that it was an act of disrespect to my mother, and somehow to the core in the Republic too, that Cadet Ferguson was dishonoring the core. —Bushwash, the commander thought, a snow-job and a crude one. He studied the youngster. He had never seen such a brace from an I.O. breadforth claspon. It must be torture to muscles not yet toughened up to even lunar gravity. Five minutes more in the boy would have to give way and serve him right for showing off. He studied Grayson's folder. It was too early to tell about academic work. But the forth claspon was a bear or a fool for extra duty. He had gone out for half a dozen teams and applied for membership in the exacting math club and writing club. The commandant clasped up. Grayson was still in his extreme brace. The commandant suddenly had the queer idea that Grayson could hold it until it killed him. —One hundred hours of pack-drill, he barked, to be completed before quarter-term. Cadet Grayson, if you succeed in walking off your tours, remember that there is a tradition of fellowship in the core which its members are expected to observe. —Dismissed. After Grayson's steel-sharp salute and exit, the commandant dug deeper into the folder. Apparently there was something wrong with the boy's left arm. But it had been passed by the examining team that visited I.O. most unusual, most irregular. But nothing could be done about it now. The president, softer now in body than on his election day and infinitely more cautious, snapped. It solved very well to create an incident. But where's the money to come from? Who wants the rest of I.O. anyway? And what will happen if there's war? Treasury said. The hoarders will supply the money, Mr. President, a system of percentage bounties for people who report currency hoarders, and then in forced purchase of a bond issue. Raw material said, We need that iron, Mr. President. We need it desperately. State said, All our evaluations indicate that the Soviet Premier would consider nothing less than armed invasion of his continental borders as an occasion for all out war. The Consumer Goods Party in the Soviet has gained immensely during the past five years, and of course, their armaments have suffered. Your shrewd directive to put the Republic in a war like posture has borne fruit, Mr. President. President Folsom, the 25th, studied them narrowly. To him the need for a border incident culminating in a forced purchase of Soviet I.O. did not seem as pressing as they thought, but they were, after all, specialist, and there was no conceivable way they could benefit from it personally. The only alternative was that they were offering their professional advice and that it would be best to heed it. Still, there was a vague nagging something. Nonsense. He decided the spy dossiers on his cabinet show nothing but the usual. One had been blackmailed by an actress after an affair and real rode her off the earth. Another had a habit of taking bribes to advance favorite sons in civil and military service and so on. The Republic could not suffer at their hands. The Republic and the dynasty were impregnable. You simply spied on everybody, including the spies, and ordered summary executions often enough to show that you meant it, and kept the public ignorant, deaf, dumb, blind, ignorant. The spy system was simplicity itself. You had only to let things get as tangled and confused as possible until nobody knew who was who. The executions were literally no problem, for guilt or innocence made no matter, and mind control when there were four newspapers, six magazines, and three radio and television stations was a job for a handful of clerks. No, the cabinet wasn't getting away with anything. The system was unbeatable. President Folsom the twenty-fifth said, very well, have it done. Mrs. Grayson, widow of New Pittsburgh, I.O., disappeared one night. It was in all the papers and on all the broadcasts. Some time later she was found dragging herself back across the line between Nisney Magneto-Gorsk and New Pittsburgh in sorry shape. She had a terrible tale to tell about what she has suffered at the hands and so forth of the Magneto-Gorsniks. A diplomatic note from the Republic to the Soviet was answered by another note, which was answered by the dispatch of the Republic's first fleet to I.O., which was answered by the dispatch of the Soviet's first and fifth fleets to I.O. The Republic's first fleet blew up the customary deserted target hulk, fulminated over a sneak sabotage attack and moved in its destroyers. Battle was joined. Ensign Thomas Grayson took over the command of his destroyer when its captain was killed on his bridge. An electrified crew saw the strange, brooding youngster perform progenies of skill and courage and responded to them. In one week of desultory action the battered destroyer had accounted for seven Soviet destroyers and a cruiser. As soon as this penetrated to the flagship, Grayson was decorated and given a flotilla. His weird magnetism extended to every officer and man aboard the sevencraft. They struck like phantoms, cutting out cruisers and battle-wagons and wild unorthodox actions that couldn't have succeeded but did every time. Grayson was badly wounded twice, but his driving nervous energy carried him through. He was decorated again and given the battle wagon of an alien force striper. Without orders he touched down on the Soviet side of I.O., led out a landing party of marines and blue jackets, cut through two regiments of Soviet infantry, and returned to his battle wagon with prisoners, the top civil and military administrators of Soviet I.O. They discussed him nervously aboard the flagship. He has a mystical quality admiral. His men would follow him into an atomic furnace, and I almost believed he could bring them through safely if he wanted to. The laugh was nervous. He doesn't look like much, but when he turns on the charm, watch out. He's a winner, and I wonder what I meant by that. I know what you mean. They turn up every so often. People who can't be stopped, people who have everything—Napoleons, Alexanders, Stalin's—up from nowhere. Suleiman, Hitler, Folsom the First, Genghis Khan—well, let's get it over with. They tug at their gold-braided jackets and sigil to the Honor Guard. Grayson was piped aboard, received another decoration and another speech. This time he made a speech in return. President Folsom the Twenty-Fifth, not knowing what else to do, had summoned his cabinet. Well, he rasped at the Secretary of Defense. Steiner said with a faint shrug, Mr. President, there is nothing to be done. He has the fleet. He has the broadcasting facilities. He has the people. People snarled at President. His finger jabbed at a button and the wall-panels snapped down to show the secret servicemen standing in their niches. The finger shot tremulously out at Steiner. Kill that traitor! He raved. The Chief of the Detail said uneasily, Mr. President, we were listening to Grayson before we came on duty. He said he's de facto President now. Kill him! Kill him! The Chief went on doggedly, and we liked what he had to say about the Republic, and he said citizens of the Republic shouldn't take artists from you, and he'd relieve you. The President fell back. Grayson walked in, wearing his plain incense uniform and smiling faintly. Admiral's and Four Striper's flanked him. The Chief of the Detail said, Mr. Grayson, are you taking over? The man in the incense uniform said gravely, Yes, and just call me Grayson, please. The titles come later. You can go now. The Chief gave a pleased grin and collected his detail. The rather slight, youngish man who had something wrong with one arm was in charge, complete charge. Grayson said, Mr. Folsom, you are relieved of the Presidency. Captain, take him out, and he finished with a whimsical shrug. A portly Four Striper took Folsom by one arm. Like a drugged man, de-deposed President, let himself be let out. Grayson looked around the table. Who are you, gentlemen? They felt his magnetism, like the hum when you pass a power station. Steiner was the spokesman. Grayson, he said soberly, We are Folsom's cabinet. However there is more that we have to tell you, alone, if you will allow it. Very well, gentlemen. Admiral's and Captain's backed out, looking concerned. Steiner said, Grayson, the story goes back many years. My predecessor, William Malvern, determined to overthrow the regime, holding that it was an affront to the human spirit. There have been many such attempts. All have broken up on the rocks of espionage, terrorism, and opinion control. The three weapons which the regime holds firmly in its hands. Malvern tried another approach than espionage versus espionage, terrorism versus terrorism, and opinion control versus opinion control. He determined to use the basic fact that certain men make history, but there are men born to be mole breakers. There are the Philips of Macedon, the Napoleons, Stalin's and Hitler's, the Suleyman's, the adventurers. Again and again they flashed across history, bringing down an ancient empire, turning ordinary soldiers of the line into unkillable demons of battle, uprooting cultures, breathing new life into moribund peoples. There are common denominators among all the adventurers, intelligence, of course. Other things are more mysterious, but are always present. They are foreigners. Napoleon the Corsican, Hitler the Austrian, Stalin the Georgian, Philip the Macedonian, always there is an Oedipus complex, always there is physical deficiency, Napoleon's stature, Stalin's withered arm, and yours, always there is a minority disability, real or fancied. This is a shock to you, Grayson, but you must face it. You were manufactured. Malvern packed the cabinet with the slyest double dealers he could find, and they went to work. Eighty-six infants were planted on the outposts of the Republic, in simulated family environments. Your mother was not your mother, but one of the most brilliant actresses ever to drop out of sight on earth. Your intelligence heredity was so good that we couldn't turn you down for lack of a physical deficiency. We withered your arm with gamma radiation. I hope you will forgive us. There was no other way. Of the eighty-six, you are the one that worked. Somehow the combination for you was minutely different from all the other combinations, genetically or environmentally, and it worked. That is all we were after. The mold has been broken. You now know what you are. Let come whatever chaos is to come. The dead hand of the past no longer lies on us. Grayson went to the door and beckoned. Two captains came in. Steiner broke off his speech as Grayson said to them, These men deny my godhood. Take them out and— He finished with a whimsical shrug. Yes, your divinity, said the captains, without a trace of humor in their voices. End of The Adventurer by C. M. Karnbluth The Altar at Midnight by C. M. Karnbluth This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Four stories by C. M. Karnbluth, Story Two, The Altar at Midnight. This story was first published in Galaxy Science Fiction November, 1952. He had quite a rumb blossom on him for a kid, I thought at first. But when he moved closer to the light by the cash register to ask the bartender for a match or something, I saw it wasn't that. Not just the nose, broken veins on his cheeks too, and the funny eyes. He must have seen me look because he slid back away from the light. The bartender shook my bottle of ale in front of me like a Swiss bell ringer, so it foamed inside the green glass. You ready for another, sir? He asked. I shook my head. Down the bar he tried it on the kid. He was drinking Scotchian water or something like that, and found out he could push him around. He sold him three Scotchian waters in ten minutes. When he tried for number four the kid had his courage up and said, I'll tell you when I'm ready for another, Jack. But there wasn't any trouble. It was almost nine and the place began to fill up. The manager, a real hood type, stationed himself by the door to screen out the high school kids and give the big hello to conventioners. The girls came hurrying in too with their little makeup cases and their fancy hair piled up and their frozen faces with the perfect mouths drawn on them. One of them stopped to say something to the manager, some excuse about something, and he said, That's all right. Get in a dressing room. A three-piece band behind the drapes at the back of the stage began to make warm-up noises, and there were two bartenders keeping busy. Mostly it was spear, a mid-week crowd. I finished my ale and had to wait a couple of minutes before I could get another bottle. The bar filled up from the end near the stage because all the customers wanted a good, close look at the strippers for their fifty cents bottles of beer. But I noticed that nobody sat down next to the kid, or if anybody did he didn't stay long. You go out for some fun and the bartender pushes you around and nobody wants to sit next to you. I picked up my bottle and glass and went down on the stool to his left. He turned to me right away and said, What kind of a place is this, anyway? The broken veins were all over his face, little ones, but so many so close that they made his face look something like marbled rubber. The funny look in his eyes was it. The trick-contact lenses. But I tried not to stare and not to look away. It's okay, I said. It's a good show if you don't mind a lot of noise from him. He stuck a cigarette into his mouth and poked the pack at me. I'm a spacer, he said, interrupting. I took one of his cigarettes and said, Oh, he snapped a lighter for the cigarette and said, Venus, I was noticing that his pack of cigarettes on the bar had some kind of a yellow sticker instead of the blue tax stamp. Ain't that a crock, he asked. You can't smoke and they give you lighters for a souvenir. But it's a good lighter. On Mars last week they gave us all some cheap pen and pencil sets. You get something every trip, huh? I took a good long drink of ale and he finished his scotch in water. Shoot, you call a trip a shoot. One of the girls was working her way down the bar. She was going to slide into the empty stool at his right and give him the business, but she looked at him first and decided not to. She curled around me and asked if I'd buy her a little old drink. I said no and she moved on to the next. I could kind of feel the young man quivering. When I looked at him he stood up. I followed him out of the dump. The manager grinned without thinking and said, Good night, boys, to us. The kid stopped in the street and said to me, You don't have to follow me around, Pappy. He sounded like one wrong word and I would get socked in the teeth. Take it easy. I know a place where they won't spit in your eye. He pulled himself together and made a joke of it. This I have to see, he said. Near here? A few blocks. We started walking. It was a nice night. I don't know this city at all, he said. I'm from Covington, Kentucky. You do your drinking at home there. We don't have places like this. He met the whole Skid Row area. It's not so bad, I said. I spend a lot of time here. Is that a fact? I mean, down home a man your age would likely have a wife and children. I do. The hell with them. He laughed like a real youngster and I figured he couldn't even be 25. He didn't have any trouble with the broken curb stones in spite of his scotch and waters. I asked him about it. Sense of balance, he said. You have to be tops for balance to be a spacer. You spend so much time outside in a suit. People don't know how much. Punctures, and you aren't worth a damn if you lose your point. What's that mean? Oh, well, it's hard to describe. When you're outside and you lose your point, it means you're all mixed up, and you don't know which way the can, that's the ship, which way the can is. It's having all that room around you, but if you have a good balance, you feel a little tugging to the ship, or maybe you just know which way the ship is without feeling it, then you have your point and you can get the work done. There must be a lot that's hard to describe. He thought that might be a crack and he clammed up on me. You call this Scanditown, I said after a while. It's where the stove-up old railroad men hang out. This is the place. It was the second week of the month before everybody's pinching check was all gone. Osweax was jumping. The grandsons of the pioneers were on the jute, singing the Man from Mars Yodel, and old Patty Shea was jiggling in the middle of the floor. He had a full saddle of beer in his right hand and his empty left sleeve was flapping. The kid balked at the screen door. Too damn bright, he said. I shrugged and went on in and he followed. We sat down at a table. At Osweax you can drink at the bar if you want to, but none of the regulars do. Patty jiggled over and said, Welcome home, doc. He's a Liverpool Irishman. They talk like Scots. Some say, but they sound almost like Brooklyn to me. Hello, Patty. I brought somebody uglier than you. Now, what do you say? Patty jiggled around the kid in a half-circle with his sleeve flapping and then flopped into a chair when the record stopped. He took a big drink from the saddle and said, Can he do this? Patty stretched his face into an awful grin that showed his teeth. He had three of them. The kid laughed and asked me, What the hell did you drag me into here for? Patty says he'll buy drinks for the house today anybody uglier than he is comes in. Osweax's wife waddled over for the order and the kid asked us what we have. I figured I could start drinking, so it was three double scotches. After the second round Patty started blowing about how they took his arm off without any anesthetics except the bottle of gin because the red ball freight he was tangled up in couldn't wait. That brought some of the other old gimps over to the table with their stories. Blackie Bauer had been sitting in a boxcar with his legs sticking through the door when the train started with a jerk. Wham! the door closed. Everybody laughed at Blackie for being that dumb in the first place and he got mad. Sam Fireman has palsy. This week he was claiming he used to be a watchmaker before he began to shake. The week before he said he was a brain surgeon. A woman I didn't know, a real old boxcar, Bertha, dragged herself over and began some kind of story about how her sister married a Greek, but she passed out before we found out what happened. Somebody wanted to know what was wrong with the kid's face. Bauer, I think it was after he came back to the table. Compression and decompression, the kid said. You're all the time climbing into your suit and out of your suit. Inboard air is thin to start with. You get a few red lines, that's those ruptured blood vessels. And you say to hell with the money. All you make is just one more trip. But, God, it's a lot of money for anybody my age. You keep saying that until you can't be anything but a spacer. The eyes are hard radiation scars. You like Dot all over? Ask Ozweak's wife politely. All over, ma'am, the kid told her in a miserable voice. But I'm going to quit before I get a bowman head. I don't care, said Maggie Rorty. I think he's cute. Compared with... Patty began, but I kicked him under the table. We sang for a while, and then we told gags and recited lemuricks for a while. And I noticed that the kid and Maggie had wandered into the back room, the one with the latch on the door. Ozweak's wife asked me, very puzzled, Doc, why they do that flying by planets? It's the damn government, Sam Farman said. Why not, I said. They got the bowman drive. Why the hell shouldn't they use it? Serves them right. I had a double scotch and added, 20 years of it and they found out a few things they didn't know. Red lines are only one of them. 20 years more and maybe they'll find out a few more things they didn't know. Maybe by the time there's a bathtub in every American home and an alcoholism clinic in every American town, they'll find out a whole lot of things they didn't know. And every American boy will be a pop-eyed, blood-rattle wreck, like our friend here, from riding the bowman drive. It's the damn government, Sam Farman repeated. And what the hell do you mean by that remark about alcoholism? Patty said real sore. Personally, I can take it or leave it alone. So we got to talking about that, and everybody there turned out to be people who could take it or leave it alone. It was maybe midnight when the kids showed at the table again, looking kind of dazed. I was drunker than I ought to be by midnight, so I said I was going for a walk. He tagged along and we wound up on a bench at screwball square. The soap-boxers were still going strong, like I said, it was a nice night. After a while a pot-bellied old auntie who didn't give a damn about the face sat down and tried to talk the kid into going to see some etchings. The kid didn't get it, and I led him over to hear the soap-boxers before there was trouble. One of the orators was a mush-mouthed evangelist. And oh my friends, he said, when I look through the porthole of the spaceship and beheld the wonder of the firmament, you're a stinking Yankee liar, the kid yelled at him. You say one damn more word about canned shooting and I'll ram your spaceship down your lying throat. Where's your red-line if you're such a hot spacer? The crowd didn't know what he was talking about, but where's your red-line sounded good to them, so they heckled mush-mouth off his box with it. I got the kid to a bench. The liquor was working in him all of a sudden. He simmered down after a while and asked, Doc, should I have given Ms. Rorty some money? I asked her afterward and she said she'd admired to have something to remember me by, so I gave her my lighter. She seemed to be real pleased with that. But I was wondering if maybe I embarrassed her by asking her right out. Like I told you, back in Covington, Kentucky, we don't have any places like that. Or maybe we did and I just didn't know about them. But what do you think I should have done about Ms. Rorty? Just what you did, I told him. If they want money, they asked for it first. Where are you staying? YMCA, he said, almost asleep. Back in Covington, Kentucky, I was a member of the Y and I kept up my membership. They have to let me in because I'm a member. Spaces have all kind of trouble, Doc. Woman trouble. Hotel trouble. Family trouble. Religious trouble. I was raised to Southern Baptist, but where's heaven anyway? I asked Dr. Chitwood last time home before the red lines got so thick. Doc, you aren't a minister of the gospel, are you? I hope I didn't say anything to offend you. No offense, son, I said. No offense. I walked him to the avenue and waited for a fleet cab. It was almost five minutes. The independents that rolled drunks dent the fenders of fleet cabs if they show up as skid row, and then the fleet drivers have to make reports of their own time to the company. It keeps them away. But I got one and dumped the kid in. The Y Hotel, I told the driver. Here's five. Help him in when you get there. When I walked through Screwball Square again, some college kids were yelling, Where's your red lines, that old Charlie, the last of the wobblies? Old Charlie kept roaring, The hell with your red lines! I'm talking about atomic bombs right up there! And he pointed at the moon. It was a nice night, but the liquor was dying in me. There was a joint around the corner, so I went in and had a drink to carry me to the club. I had a bottle there. I got into the first cab that came. Athletic club, I said. In a dog house, huh? The driver said, and he gave me a big personality smile. I didn't say anything, and he started the car. He was right, of course. I was in everybody's dog house. Someday I'd scare the hell out of time and lies by going home and showing them what their daddy looked like. Down at the institute? I was in the dog house. Oh, dear, everybody at the institute said to everybody, I'm sure I don't know what ails the man, a lovely wife and two lovely grown children, and she has to tell him either you go or I go, and drinking. And this is rather subtle, but it's a well-known fact that neurotics seek out low company to compensate for their guilt feelings, the places he frequents. Dr. Francis Bowman, the man who made spaceflight a reality, the man who put the bomb base on the moon, really, I'm sure I don't know what ails him. The hell with them all. End of The Alter at Midnight by C. M. Cornbluth With These Hands by C. M. Cornbluth This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. For Science Fiction Stories by C. M. Cornbluth Story No. 3 With These Hands The story was first published in Galaxy Science Fiction, December 1951. Halverson waited in the chancellery office while Monsignor Reedy disposed of three persons who had preceded him. He was a little dizzy with hunger and noticed only vaguely that the prelates secretary was beckoning to him. He started to his feet when the secretary pointedly opened the door to Monsignor Reedy's inner office and stood waiting beside it. The artist crossed the floor, forgetting that he had leaned his portfolio against his chair, remembered that the door and went back for it, flushing. The secretary looked patient. Thanks, Halverson murmured to him as the door closed. There was something wrong with the prelates manner. I've brought the designs for the station's pod right, he said, opening the portfolio on the desk. Bad news rolled, said the Monsignor. I know how you've been looking forward to the commission. Somebody else get it? asked the artist faintly, leaning against the desk. I thought his eminence definitely decided I had the— It's not that, said the Monsignor. But the sacred congregation of rites this week made a pronouncement on images of devotion. Serial pantograph is to be listed within a diocese at the discretion of the bishop, and his eminence— SPG, slimy imitations, protested Halverson. Real as a plastic eye. No texture, no guts, you know that, Padre, he said accusingly. I'm sorry, rolled, said the Monsignor. Your work is better than we'll get from a stereo pantograph, to my eyes at least. But there are other considerations. Money, spat the artist. Yes, money, the prelate admitted. His eminence wants to see the St. Xavier U. building program through before he dies. Is that a mortal sin? And there are our schools, our charities, our Venus mission. SPG will mean a considerable savings on procurement and maintenance of devotional images. Even if I could, I would not disagree with his eminence on adopting it as a matter of diocesan policy. The prelate sigh fell on the detailed drawings of the stations of the Cross and Lingard. Your St. Veronica, he said abstractedly. Very fine. It suggests one of Caravaggio's care-worn saints to me. I would have liked to see her in bronze. So would I, said Halverson hoarsely. Keep the drawings, Padre. He started for the door. But I can't. That's all right. The artist walked past the secretary and out of the chancery into Fifth Avenue, Spring-Sunlight. He hoped Monsignor Reedy was enjoying the drawings and was ashamed of himself and sorry for Halverson. And he was glad he didn't have to carry the heavy portfolio anymore. Everything seemed so heavy lately. Chisels, hammer, wooden pallet. Maybe the Padre would send him something and pretend it was for expenses or in advance, as he had in the past. Halverson's feet carried him up the avenue. No, there wouldn't be any advances any more. The last steady trickle of income had just been dried up. By an announcement in Observatore Romano, religious conservatism had carried the church as far as it would go in its ancient role of art patron. When all Europe was writing on the wonderful new vellum, the church stuck to good old papyrus. When all Europe was writing on the wonderful new paper, the church stuck to good old vellum. When all architects and municipal monument committees and portrayed bust clients were patronizing the stereo pantograph, the church stuck to good old expensive sculpture. But not any more. He was passing an SPG salon now where one of his Tuesday night pupils worked, one of the few men in the glasses. Mostly they consisted of lazy moody irritable girls. Halverson surprised at himself, entered the salon, walking between aesthetic semi-nude stereos executed in transparent plastic that made the skin of his neck and shoulders prickle with goose flesh. Slime! he thought. How can they? May I help? Oh, hello, Rold. What brings you here? He knew suddenly what had brought him there. Could you make a little advance on next month's tuition, Lewis? I'm strapped. He took a nervous look around the chamber of horrors, avoiding the man's condescending face. I guess so, Rold. Would ten dollars be any help? That'll carry us through the twenty-fifth, right? Fine, right, sure, he said, while he was being unwillingly towed around the place. I know you don't think much of SPG, but it's quiet now, so this is a good chance to see how we work. I don't say it's art with a capital A, but you've got to admit it's an art, something people like at a price they can afford to pay. Here's where we set them. Then you run out the feelers to reference points on the face. You know what they are? He heard himself say dryly, I know what they are. The Egyptian sculptures use them when they carve statues of the pharaohs. Yes, I never knew that. There's nothing new under the sun, is there? But this is the heart of the SPG. The youngster proudly swung open the door of an electric device in the wall of the portrait booth. Tubes winked sullenly at Halverson. The aestheticon, he asked indifferently. He did not feel indifferent, but it would be absurd to show anger, no matter how much he felt it, against a mindless aggregation of circuits that could calculate layouts, criticize incorrect pictures for a desired effect, and that had put the artist of design out of a job. Yes, the lenses take 16 profiles, you know, and we set the aestheticon for whatever we want, cute, rugged, sexy, spiritual, brainy, or a combination. It fares curves from profile to profile to give us just what we want, distorts the profiles themselves within limits if it has to, and there's your portrait stored in the memory tank waiting to be taped. You set your ratio for any enlargement or reduction you want and play it back. I wish we were reproducing today. It's fascinating to watch. You just pour in your coalset plastic, the nozzles ooze out a core and start crawling over to scan, a drop here, a worm there, and it begins to take shape. We mostly do portrait busts here, the Avenue Trade, but Wilgus the Foreman used to work in a monument shop in Brooklyn. He did that heroic-sized war memorial on the East River Drive, hired Garda Bouchette, the TV girl for the central figure, and what a figure! He told me he set the aestheticon plates for three-quarter sexy, one-quarter spiritual. Here's something interesting. Standing figurine of Oren Ryerson, the banker, he ordered twelve. Figurines are coming in. The girls like them because they can show their shapes. You'd be surprised at some of the poses they want to try. Somehow Halverson got out with the ten dollars, walked to Sixth Avenue, and sat down hard in a cheap restaurant. He had coffee and dozed a little, waking with a guilty start at a racket across the street. There was a building going up. For a while he watched the great machines, poor walls and floors, the workmen rolling here and there on their little chariots to weld on a wall-panel, stripe on an electric circuit of conductive ink, or spray plastic finish over the wired wall, all without leaving the saddles of their little mechanical chariots. Halverson felt more determined. He bought a paper from a vending machine by the restaurant door, drew another cup of coffee, and turned to the help-wanted ads. The tricky trade school ads urged him to learn construction work and make big money. Be a plumbing machine setup man. Be a house-wiring machine tender. Be a servo-truck driver. Be a lumber-stacker operator. Learn pouring machine maintenance. Make big money. A sort of panic overcame him. He ran to the phone booth and dialed a Pessiak number. He heard the ring, ring, ring, and strained to hear old Mr. Kreppel's stomping footsteps, roaming louder as he neared the phone. Even though he knew he would hear nothing until the receiver was picked up. Ring, ring, ring. Hello, grunted the old man's voice, and his face appeared on the little screen. Hello, Mr. Halverson. What can I do for you? Halverson was tongue-tied. He couldn't possibly say, I just wanted to see if you were still there. I was afraid you weren't there anymore. He choked and improvised. Hello, Mr. Kreppel. It's about the banister on the stairs in my place. I noticed it's pretty shaky. Could you come over some time and fix it for me? Kreppel appeared suspiciously out of the screen. I could do that, he said slowly. I don't have much work nowadays. But you can carpenter as good as me, Mr. Halverson. And frankly, your very slow pay, and I like cabinet work better. I'm not a young man, and climbing around on ladders takes it out of me. If you can't find anybody else, I'll take the work. But I got to have some of the money first, just for the materials. It isn't easy to get good wood any more. All right, said Halverson. Thanks, Mr. Kreppel. I'll call you if I can't get anybody else. He hung up and went back to his table and newspaper. His face was burning with anger at the old man's reluctance and his own foolish panic. Kreppel didn't realize they were both in the same leaky boat. Kreppel, who didn't get a job in a month, still thought with senile pride that he was a journeyman carpenter and cabinetmaker who could make his solid way anywhere with his toolbox and his skill, and that he could afford to look down on anything as disreputable as an artist, even an artist who could carpenter as well as he did himself. Lobb-Aware had made Harverson learn carpentry, and Lobb-Aware had been right. You built a scaffold so you could sculpt up high, not so it will collapse and you break a leg. You build your platform so they hold the rock steady, not so it wobbles and chatters at every blow of the chisel. You build your armatures so they hold the plasticine you slam into them. But the help-pointed adds wanted no builders of scaffolds, platforms, and armatures. The factories were calling for set-up men and maintenance men for the production and assembly machines. From Upstate, General Vegetables had sent a recruiting team for form help. Harvest, set-up, and maintenance men. A few openings for experienced operators of tank caulking machinery. Under office and personnel, the demand was heavy for computer men, for girls who could run the IBM letter writer, especially familiar sales and collections correspondence, for office machinery, maintenance, and repairmen. A job printing house wanted an estheticon operator for letterhead layouts and the like. AT&T wanted trainees to earn while learning telephone maintenance. A direct mail advertising outfit wanted an artist. No, they wanted a sales executive who could scroll picture ideas that would be subjected to the criticism and correction of the estheticon. Halverson leafed tiredly through the rest of the paper. He knew he wouldn't get a job, and if he did, he wouldn't hold it. He knew it was a terrible thing to admit to yourself that you might starve to death because you were bored by anything except art, but he admitted it. It had happened often enough in the past. Artist undergoing preposterous hardships, not as people thought because they were devoted to art, but because nothing else was interesting. If there were only some impressive, sonorous word that summed up the aching oppressive futility that overcame him when he tried to get out of art, only there wasn't. He thought he could tell which of the photos in the tabloid had been corrected by the estheticon. There was a shot of Jink Bitsy, who was to star in a remake of Peter Pan. Her ears had been made to look not pointed but pointy. Her upper lip had been lengthened a trifle, her nose had been pugged a little, and tilted quite a lot. Her freckles were cuter than cute, her brows were innocently arched, and her lower lip and eyes were nothing less than pornography. There was a shot, apparently uncorrected, of the last Venus ship coming in at LaGuardia, and the average-looking explorer's grinning. Caption. Austin Malone and crew smile relief on safe arrival. Malone says Venus colonies need men machines. Sea Story, page two. Petulently, Halverson threw the paper under the table and walked out. What had space travel to do with him? Vacations on the moon and expeditions to Venus and Mars were part of the deadly encroachment on his livelihood and no more. End of part one. Part two. He took the subway to Paseik and walked down a long still travel beltway to his studio, almost the only building alive in the slums near the rusting railroad freight yard. A sign that had once said, F. Le Boire sculptor, portraits of architectural commissions, now said, Rold Halverson, art class's reasonable fees. It was a grimy two-story frame building with a shop front in which were mounted some of his students charcoal figure studies and oil still lifes. He lived upstairs, taught downstairs front, and did his own work downstairs, back behind dirty ceiling high drapes. Going in, he noticed that he had forgotten to lock the door again. He slammed it bitterly. At the noise somebody called from behind the drapes. Who's that? Halverson. He yelled in a sudden fury. I live here. I own this place. Come out of there. What do you want? There was a fumbling at the drapes and a girl stepped between them, shrinking from their dirt. Your door was open, she said firmly, and it's a shop. I've been here a couple of minutes. I came to ask about classes, but I don't think I'm interested if you're this bad-tempered. A pupil. Pupils were never to be abused, especially not now. I'm terribly sorry, he said. I had a trying day in the city. Now turn it on. I wouldn't tell everybody a terrible secret like this, but I've lost a commission. You understand? I thought so. Anybody who traips out here to my dingy abode would be sympathica. Won't you sit down? No, not there. Humor an artist and sit over there. The warm background of that still life brings out your color. Quite good color. Have you ever been painted? You've a very interesting face, you know. Someday I'd like to—but you mentioned classes. We have figure classes, male and female models alternating on Tuesday nights. For that I have to be very stern and ask you to sign up for an entire course of twelve lessons at sixty dollars. It's the model's fees. They're exorbitant. Saturday afternoons we have still life classes for beginners in oils. That's only two dollars a class, but you might sign up for a series of six and pay ten dollars in advance, which saves you two whole dollars. I also give private instructions to a few talented amateurs. The price was open on that one, whatever the traffic would bear. It had been a year since he'd had a private pupil, and she'd taken only six lessons at five dollars an hour. The still life sounds interesting, said the girl, holding her head self-consciously the way they all did when he gave them the pattern. It was a good head, carried well up. The muscles clung close, not yet slackened into deotropic loops and lumps. The line of youth is heliotropic, he confusedly thought. I saw some interesting things back there. Was that your own work? She rose, obviously with the expectation of being taken into the studio. Her body was one of those long-lined, small-breasted, cultish jobs that the pre-graphiolites loved to draw. Well, said Halverson. A deliberate show of reluctance, then a bright smile of confidence. You'll understand, he said positively and drew aside the curtains. What a curious place! She wondered about inspecting the drums of plaster, clay, and plasticine, the rack of tools, the stands, the stones, the chisels, the forge, the kiln, the lumber, the glaze-bench. I like this, she said determinately, picking up a figure a half-meter tall. A Venus he had cast in bronze while studying under Labouere some years ago. How much is it? An honest answer would scare her off, and there was no chance in the world that she'd buy. I hardly ever put my things up for sale, he told her lightly. That was just a little study. I do work on commission only nowadays. Her eyes flicked about the dingy room, seeming to take in its scaling plaster and warp floor, and see through the wall to the abandoned slum in which it was set. There was amusement in her glance. I am not being honest, she thinks. She thinks that is funny. Very well, I will be honest. Six hundred dollars, he said flatly. The girl set the figurine on its stand, with a wrap and said, half angry and half amused. I don't understand it. That's more than a month's pay for me. I could get an SPG statuette just as pretty as this for ten dollars. Who do you artists think you are, anyway? Howerson debated with himself about what he could say in reply. An SPG operator spends a week learning his skill, and I spend a lifetime learning mine. An SPG operator makes a mechanical copy of a human form distorted by formula mechanically arrived at from psychotests of population samples. I take full responsibility for my work. It is mine, though I use what I see fit from Egypt, Greece, Rome, the Middle Ages, the Renaissance, the Augustine and Romantic and modern eras. An SPG operator works in soft homogenous plastic. I work in bronze that is more complicated than you dream, that has cast an acid dip today so it will slowly take on rich and subtle coloring many years from today. An SPG operator could not make an Arpheus fountain. He mumbled Arpheus and keeled over. Howerson awoke in his bed on the second floor of the building. His fingers and toes buzzed electrically and he felt very clear-headed. The girl and the man, unmistakably a doctor, were watching him. You don't seem to belong to any medical plans, Halverson. The doctor said irritably. There weren't any cards on you at all. No red, no blue, no green, no brown. I used to be on the green plan, but I'd let it lapse, the artist said defensively. And look what happened. Stop nagging him, the girl said. I'll pay you your fee. It's supposed to come through a plan, the doctor fretted. We won't tell anybody, the girl promised. Here's five dollars. Just stop nagging him. Malnutrition, said the doctor. Normally I'd send him to a hospital, but I don't see how I could manage it. He isn't on any plan at all. Look, I'll take the money and leave some vitamins. That's what he needs, vitamins, and food. I'll see that he eats, the girl said, and the doctor left. How long since you've had anything, she asked Halverson. I had some coffee today, he answered, thinking back. I've been working on detailed drawings for a commission, and it fell through. I told you that. It was a shock. I'm Lucretia Grumman, she said, and went out. He dozed until she came back with an arm full of groceries. It's hard to get around down here, she complained. It was Labouer's studio, he told her defiantly. He left it to me when he died. Things weren't so run down in his time. I studied under him. He was one of the last. He had a joke. They don't really want my stuff, but they're ashamed to let me starve. He warned me that they wouldn't be ashamed to let me starve, but I insisted and he took me in. Halverson drank some milk and ate some bread. He thought of the change from the $10 in his pocket and decided not to mention it. Then he remembered that the doctor had gone through his pockets. I can pay you for this, he said. It's very kind of you, but you mustn't think I'm penniless. I've just been too preoccupied to take care of myself. Sure, said the girl. But we can call this an advance. I work to sign up for some classes. Be happy to have you. Am I bothering you? asked the girl. You said something odd when you fainted. Orpheus. Did I say that? I must have been thinking of Milaz's Orpheus fountain in Copenhagen. I've seen photos, but I've never been there. Germany? But there's nothing left of Germany. Copenhagen's in Denmark. There's quite a lot of Denmark left. It was only on the fringes. Heavily radiated, but still there. I want to travel, too, she said. I work at LaGuardia and I've never been off except for an orbiting excursion. I want to go to the moon on my vacation. They give us a bonus in travel vouchers. It must be wonderful dancing under the low gravity. Spaceport? Off? Low gravity? Terms belonging to the detested electronic world of the stereopantograph, in which he had no place. Be very interesting, he said, closing his eyes to conceal disgust. I am bothering you. I'll go away now, but I'll be back Tuesday night for the class. What time do I come and what should I bring? Eight. It's charcoal. I sell you the sticks and paper. Just bring a smock. All right. And I want to take the oils class, too. And I want to bring some people I know to see your work. I'm sure they'll see something they like. Austin Malone's in from Venus. He's a special friend of mine. Lucretia, he said. Or do some people call you Lucy? Lucy. Will you take that little bronze you liked as a thank you? I can't do that. Please, I'd feel much better about this. I really mean it. She nodded abruptly, flushing, and almost ran from the room. Now, why did I do that? He asked himself. He hoped it was because he liked Lucy Grumman very much. He hoped it wasn't a cold-blooded investment of a piece of sculpture that would never be sold, anyway, just to make sure she'd be back with class fees and more groceries. End of Part II Part III She was back on Tuesday, a half hour early, and carrying a smock. He introduced her formally to the others as they arrived, a dozen or so bored young women, who, he suspected, talked a great deal about their art lessons outside, but in class used any excuse to stop sketching. He didn't dare show Lucy any particular consideration. There were fierce little miniature clicks in the class. Halverson knew they laughed at him and his line among themselves, and yet strangely were fiercely jealous of their seniority and right to individual attention. The lesson was an ordeal, as usual. The model, a muscle-bound young graduate of the Barbell gyms and figure photography studios, was stupid and argumentative about ten-minute poses. Two of the girls came near a hair-pulling brawl over the rights to a preferred sketching location. A third girl had discovered Picasso's Cubist period during the past week, during the past week, and proudly announced that she didn't feel perspective in art. But the two interminable hours finally ticked by. He nagged them into clearing up, not as bad as the Saturday with oils, and stood by the open door, otherwise they would have stayed all night cackling about absent students and snarling sulkily among themselves. His well-laid plans went sour, though. A large and flashy car drove up as the girls were leaving. That's Austin Malone, said Lucy. He came to pick me up and look at your work. That was all the wedge your fellow pupils needed. Austin Malone? Well! Lucy, darling, I'd love to meet a real spaceman. Roll, darling, would you mind very much if I stayed a moment? I'm certainly not going to miss this, and I don't care if you mind or not. Roll, darling. Malone was an impressive figure. Halverson thought. He looks as though he's been run through an estheticon set for brawny and determined. Lucy made a hash of the introductions, and the spaceman didn't rise to the conversational bait dangled enticingly by the girls. In a clear voice, he said to Halverson, I don't want to take up too much of your time. Lucy tells me you have some things for sale. Is there any place we can look at them where it's quiet? The students made sulky exits. Back here, said the artist. The girl in Malone followed him through the curtains. The spaceman made a slow circuit of the studio, seeming to repel questions. He sat down at last and said, I don't know what to think, Halverson. This place stuns me. Do you know you're in the Dark Ages? People who never have given a thought to charters and mo-se-mi-kel usually call it the Dark Ages, Halverson thought wily. He asked, technologically you mean? No, not at all. My plaster is better. My colors are better. My metal is better. Tool metal, not casting metal, that is. I mean hand work, said the spaceman, actually working by hand. The artist shrugged. There have been crazes for the technique of the boiler works in the machine shop, he admitted. Some interesting things were done, but they didn't stand up well. Is there anything here that takes your eye? I like those dolphins, said the spaceman, pointing to a perforated terracotta relief on the wall. They had been commissioned by an architect, then later refused for reasons of economy when the house had run way over estimate. They looked bully over the fireplace in my town apartment. Like them, Lucy? I think they're wonderful, said the girl. Rold saw the spaceman go rigid with the effort not to turn and stare at her. He loved her and he was jealous. Rold told the story of the dolphins and said, the price that the architect thought was too high was three hundred and sixty dollars. Malone grunted, doesn't seem unreasonable if you set a high store on inspiration. I don't know about inspiration, the artist said evenly, but I was awake for two days and two nights shoveling coal and adjusting drafts to fire that thing in my kiln. The spaceman looked contemptuous. I'll take it, he said. Be something to talk about during those awkward pauses. Tell me, Halverson, how's Lucy's work? Do you think she ought to stick with it? Austin objected the girl, don't be so blunt. How can he possibly know after one day? She can't draw yet, the artist said cautiously. It's all coordination, you know, thousands of hours of practice, training your eye and hand to work together until you can put a line on paper where you want it. Lucy, if you're really interested in it, you'll learn to draw well. I don't think any of the other students will. They're in it because of boredom or snobbery, and they'll stop before they have their eye-hand coordination. I am interested, she said firmly. Malone's determined restraint broke. Damn right you are! In— He recovered himself and demanded of Halverson. I understand your point about coordination, but thousands of hours when you can buy a camera? It's absurd. I was talking about drawing, not art, replied Halverson. Drawing is putting a line on paper where you want it, I said. He took a deep breath and hoped the great distinction wouldn't sound ludicrous and trivial. So let's say that art is knowing how to put the line in the right place. Be practical. There isn't any art, not any more. I get around quite a bit, and I never see anything but photos and SPGs. A few heirlooms, yes, but nobody's painting or carving anymore. There's some art, Malone. My students—a couple of them in this still-life class—are quite good. There are more across the country. Art for occupational therapy or a hobby or something to do with the hands. There's trade in their work. They sell them to each other. They give them to their friends. They hang them on their walls. There are even some sculptors like that. Sculpture is prescribed by doctors. The occupational therapists say it's even better than drawing and painting, so some of these people work in plasticine and soft stone, and some of them get to be good. Maybe so. I'm an engineer, Halverson. We glory in doing things the easy way. Doing things the easy way got me to Mars and Venus, and it's going to get me to get a mead. You're doing things the hard way, and your inefficiency has no place in this world. Look at you. You've lost a fingertip. Some accident, I suppose. I never noticed, said Lucy. Then let out a faint, oh. Halverson curled the middle finger of his left hand into the palm, where he usually carried it to hide the missing first adjoint. Yes, he said softly. An accident. Accidents are a sign of inadequate mastery of material and equipment, said Malone, sententiously. While you stick to your methods and I stick to mine, you can't compete with me. His tone made it clear that he was talking about more than engineering. Shall we go now, Lucy? Here's my card, Halverson. Send those dolphins along, and I'll mail you a check. End of Part Three Part Four The artist walked a half-dozen blocks to Mr. Crebel's place the next day. He found the old man in the basement shop of his fussy house, hunched over his bench with a powerful light overhead. He was trying to file a saw. Mr. Crebel, Halverson called over the shriek of metal. The carpenter turned around and peered with watery eyes. I can't see like I used to, he said, perilously. I go over the same teeth on this damn saw. I skip teeth. I can't see the light shine off it when I got one set. The glare. He banged down his three-cornered file petulantly. Well, what can I do for you? I need some crating stock. Anything. I'll trade you a couple of my maple four by fours. The old face became cunning. And will you set my saw? My saws, I mean? It's nothing to you and our work. You have the eyes. Halverson said bitterly. All right. The old man had to drive his bargain, even though he might never use his saws again. And then the artist promptly repented of his bitterness, offering up a quick prayer that his own failure to conform didn't make him as much of a nuisance to the world as Crebel was. The carpenter was pleased as they went through his small stock of wood and chose boards to create the dolphin relief. He was pleased enough to give Halverson coffee and cake before the artist buckled down to filing his saws. Over the kitchen table, Halverson tried to probe things pretty slow now. It would be hard to spoil Crebel's day now. People are always fools. They don't know good handwork. Someday, he said apocalyptically, I laugh on the other side of my face when their foolish machine buildings go falling down in a strong wind, all of them all over the country. Even my boy, I used to beat him good almost every day. He works a foolish concrete machine and his house should fall on his head like the rest. Halverson knew it was Crebel's son who supported him by mail and changed the subject. You get some cabinet work? Stupid women. What they call antiques, they don't know mison, they don't know beat-a-mire, they bring me trash to repair sometimes. I make them pay, I swindle them good. I wonder if things would be different if there were anything left over in Europe. People will still be fools, Mr. Halverson, said the carpenter positively. Didn't you say you were going to file those sauce today? So the artist spent two noisy hours filing before he carried his creating stock to the studio. Lucy was there. She had brought some things to eat. He dumped the lumber with a bang and demanded, Why aren't you at work? We get days off, she said vaguely. Austin thought he'd give me the cash for the terracotta and I could give it to you. She held out an envelope while he studied her silently. The force was beginning again, but this time he dreaded it. It would not be the first time that a lonesome, discontented girl chose to see him as a combination of romantic rebel and lost pup with the consequences you'd expect. He knew from books, experience and lob-a-wares conversation in the old days that there was nothing novel about the comedy, that there had even been artists, lots of them, who had counted on an endless repetition of it for their livelihood. The girl drops in with the groceries and the artist is pleasantly surprised. The girl admires this little thing or that after payday and buys it, and the artist is pleasantly surprised. The girl brings her friends to take lessons or makes little purchases, and the artist is pleasantly surprised. The girl may be seduced by the artist or vice versa, which shortens the comedy, or they get married, which lethens it somewhat. It had been three years since Halverson had last played out the force with a manic depressive divorcee from Elmara, three years during which he had crossed the midpoint between 30 and 40, three more years to get beaten down by being unwanted and working too much and eating too little. Also he knew he was in love with this girl. He took the envelope, counted $320 and crammed it into his pocket. That was your idea, he said. Thanks, now get out will you, I've got work to do. She stood there, shocked. I said, get out, I have work to do. Austin was right, she told him miserably, you don't care how people feel, you just want to get things out of them. She ran from the studio and Halverson fought with himself not to run after her. He walked slowly into his workshop and studied his array of tools, though he paid little attention to his finished pieces. It would be nice to spend about half of this money on open hearth-steel rod and bar stock to forge into chisels. He thought he knew where he could get some, but she would be back, or he would break and go to her and be forgiven and the comedy would be played out after all. He couldn't let that happen. End of Part 4 Part 5 Elisund, on the Atlantic side of the Darfield Mountains of Norway, was in the Lee of the Blasted Continent. One more archaeologist there made no difference, as long as he had the sense to recognize the propeller-like international signpost that said with their three blades, radiation, hazard, and knew what every schoolboy knew about protective clothing and reading a personal Geiger counter. The car Halverson rented was for a brief trip over the mountains to study contaminated Oslo. Well muffled, he could make it and back in a dozen hours and no harm done. But he took the car past Oslo, Winterberg, and Gothenburg along the Caragat coast to Helsingborg, and abandoned it there among the three bladed polygots signs crossing to Denmark. Danes were as unlike Prussians as they could be, but their unfortunate little peninsula was a sprout-off pressure which radio cobalt dust couldn't tell from the real thing. The three bladed signs were most specific. With a long way to walk among the rubble-littered highways, he stripped off the impregnated coveralls and boots. He had long since shed the noisy counter and the uncomfortable gloves and mask. The silence was eerie as he limped into Copenhagen at noon. He didn't know whether the radiation was getting to him or whether he was tired and hungry and no more. As though thinking of a stranger, he liked what he was doing. I'll be my own audience, he thought. God knows I'll learn there isn't any other, not any more. You have to know when to stop. Rodin, the dirty old wonderful old man, knew that. He taught us not to slick it and polish it and smooth it until it looked like a liquid instead of bronze and stone. Van Gogh was crazy as a loon, but he knew when to stop and varnish it. He didn't care if the paint looked like paint instead of looking like sunset clouds or moonbeams. Up in Hartford, brown and sharp, stop when they've got a turrent lathe. They don't put keriatids on it. I'll stop while my life is a life before it becomes a thing with distracting embellishments such as a wife who will come to despise me, a succession of gradually less worthwhile pieces that nobody will look at. Blame nobody, he told himself lightheartedly. And then it was in front of him, terminating a vist of weeds and bomb rubble, Miles's Arpheus Fountain. It took a man, he thought. Aestheticon circuits couldn't do it. There was a gross mixture of styles, a calculated flaw that the Aestheticon couldn't be set to make. Arpheus and the souls were classic, or later the three-headed dog was archaic. That was to tell you about the antiquity and invincibility of hell, and that Severus knows Arpheus will never go back into life with his bride. There was the heroic, tragic, central figure that looked mighty enough to battle with the gods. But battle wasn't any good against the grinning, knowing, hateful, three-headed dog it stood on. You don't battle the pavement when you walk, or the floor of the house you're in. You can't. So Arpheus, his face a mass of controlled and suffering fury, crashes a great cord from his lyre that moved trees and stones. Around him, the naked souls in hell start at the cord, each in his own way. The young lovers down in death, the mother down in death, the musician deaf and down in death, straining to hear. Calvresson walked uncertainly toward the fountain, felt something break inside him, and heaviness in his lungs. As he pitched forward among the weeds, he thought he heard the cord from the lyre, and didn't care that the three-headed dog was grinning its knowing, hateful grin down at him. End of Part 5 Part 6 When Calvresson awoke, he supposed he was in hell. There were the young lovers, arms about each other's waists, solemnly looking down at him, and the mother was placently smoothing his brow. He stirred and felt his left arm fall heavily. Ah! said the mother. You mustn't. He felt her pick up his limp arm and lay it across his chest. You're poor finger, she sighed. Can you talk? What happened to it? He could talk, weakly. Lobb where, and I? He said, we were moving a big block of marble with the crane. Somehow the finger got under it. I didn't notice until it was too late to shift my grip without the marble slipping and smashing on the floor. The boy said, in a solemn adolescent croak, You mean you saved the marble and lost your finger? Marble, he muttered. It's so hard to get. Lobb where was so old. The young lovers exchanged a glance, and he slept again. He was half awake when the musician seized first one of his hands and then the other, jabbing them with stubby fingers and bending his lion's head close to peer at the horny calluses left by Chisel and Mallet. Yah! Yah! the musician kept saying. Hell goes on forever. So for an eternity he jolted and jarred, and for an eternity he heard bickering voices. Why, he was so foolish then. A idiot he could be. Harsh, let him rest. The children told the story. There only one Lobb where was. Easy with the rubbing. Easy with the tubing. Let him rest. Daylight dazzled his eyes. Why were you so foolish? demanded a harsh voice. The sister says I can talk to you now, so that is what I first want to know. He looked at the face of not the musician that had been Delirium, but it was a tough old face. Yah! I am me looking that is settled. What did you think you were doing without overalls and way over your exposure time? I wanted to die, said Halverson. There were tubes sticking in his arms. The crag-faced old man let out a contemptuous bellow. Sister! he shouted, pull the plasma tubes out before more we waste. He says he wants to die. Harsh, said the nurse. She laid her hand on his brow again. Don't bother with him, sister. The old man jeered. He is a shrinking little flower, too delicate for the great rough world. He has done nothing. He can do nothing, so he decides to make himself a nuisance by dying. You lie, said Halverson. I worked. Good God, how I worked! Nobody wanted my work. They wanted me to wear in their buttonholes like a flower. They were getting to me. Another year and I wouldn't have been an artist any more. Yah! asked the old man. Tell me about it. Halverson told him, sometimes weeping with self-pity and weakness, sometimes cursing the old man for not letting him die, sometimes quietly describing this statuette or that portrait head, or raving wildly against the mad folly of the world. At last he told the old man about Lucy. You cannot have everything you know, said his listener. I can have her answer the artist harshly. You wouldn't let me die, so I won't die. I'll go back and I'll take her away from that fat head Malone that she ought to marry. I'll give her a couple of happy years working herself to skin and bones for me before she begins to hate it, before I begin to hate it. You can't go back, said the old man. I'm Severus. Do you understand that? The girl is nothing. The society you come from is nothing. We have a place here. Sister, can he sit up? The woman smiled and cranked his bed. Halverson saw through a picture window that he was in a mountain-rimmed valley that was very green and dotted with herds and unpainted houses. Such a place there had to be, said the old man. In the whole geography of Europe there had to be a soltau valley with winds and terrain just right to deflect the dust. Nobody knows, whispered the artist. We prefer it that way. It's impossible to get some things, but you would be surprised how little difference it makes to the young people. They are great travelers, the young people, and their sweaty coveralls with radiation meters. They think when they see the ruined cities that the people who lived in them must have been mad. It was a little travel-party like that which found you. The boy was impressed by something you said. I saw some interesting things in your hands. There isn't much rock around here. We have fine, deep topsoil. But the boys could get you stoned. There should be a statue of the mayor for one thing before I die, and from the Rothaus the wooden angels have mostly broken off. Soltau valley used to be proud of them. Could you make good copies? And, of course, cameras are useless, and the best drawings we can do look funny. Could you teach the youngsters at least to draw so faces look like faces and not behinds? And like you were saying about you and Labouer, maybe one younger there will be so crazy that he will want to learn it all. So Soltau will always have an artist and sculptor for the necessary work, and you will find a Lucy or somebody better. I think better. Hush, warn the nurse. You're exciting the patient. It's all right, said Halverson eagerly. Thanks, but it's really all right. End of With These Hands by C. M. Cornbluth