The Greatest Sci-Fi Books - Cyril M. Kornbluth Edition. Cyril M. Kornbluth

Last year I left Western and went to work for the A.S.F.S.F.

      "My ideas about the A.S.F.S.F.'s backing and what they're up to are the same as Novak's. I been around the Society longer, so I can say more definitely than him that there is not one sign of any business or industry having any stake in what's going on out at the field. That's all."

      "Thanks, Mr. Clifton. They'll be typed in a moment." The stenographer left. "I understand there's one prominent industrialist who shows some interest in the Society? Mr. Stuart?" There was a ponderously roguish note in Anheier's voice.

      "Ya crazy, Anheier," Clifton said disgustedly. "He's just looking after his daughter. You think we're nuts? You should hear Iron Jaw take off on us?"

      "I know," smiled Anheier hastily. "I was only joking."

      "What about MacIlheny?" asked Novak. "Have you investigated him?"

      Anheier leafed through the A.S.F.S.F. file. "Thoroughly," he said. "Mr. MacIlheny is a typical spy——"

      "What?"

      "——I mean to say, he's the kind of fellow who's in a good position to spy, but he isn't and doesn't. He has no foreign contacts and none of the known foreign agents in this country have gone anywhere near him——"

      "What ya talking?" demanded Clifton. "You mean there's spies running around and you don't pick them up?"

      "I said foreign agents—news-service men, exchange students, businessmen, duly registered propaganda people, diplomatic and consular personnel—there's no end to them. They don't break any laws, but they recruit people who do. God knows how they recruit them. Every American knows that since the Rosenberg cases the penalty for espionage by a citizen is, in effect, death. That's the way the country wanted it, and that's the way it is."

      "Why do you say MacIlheny's typical?" asked Novak. He had a half-formed hope that this human iceberg might give them some practical words on technique, even if he refused to get excited about their news.

      "Mata Hari's out," said Anheier comfortably. "You've seen spies in the papers, Dr. Novak." To be sure, he had—ordinary faces, bewildered, ashamed, cowering from the flash bulbs. "I came up via the accountancy route myself so I didn't see a great deal of the espionage side," Anheier confessed a bit wistfully. "But I can tell you that your modern spy in America is a part-timer earning a legitimate living at some legitimate line. Import-export used to be a favourite, but it was too obvious."

      "Hell, I should think so," grinned Clifton.

      Anheier went on: "Now they recruit whatever they can, and get technical people whenever possible. This is because your typical state secret nowadays is not a map or code or military agreement but an industrial process.

      "The Manhatten District under General Groves and the British wartime atomic establishment were veritable sieves. The Russians learned free of charge that calutron separation of U-235 from U-238 was impractical and had to be abandoned. They learned, apparently, that gaseous diffusion is the way to get the fissionable isotope. They learned that implosion with shaped charges is a practical way to assemble a critical mass of fissionable material. They were saved millions of dead-ended man-hours by this information.

      "Security's taken a nice little upswing since then, but we still have secrets and there are still spies, even though the penalty is death. Some do it for money, some are fanatics—some, I suppose, just don't realize the seriousness of it. Here are your depositions, gentlemen."

      They read them and signed them.

      Anheier shook their hands and said: "I want to thank you both for doing your patriotic duty as you saw it. I assure you that your information will be carefully studied and appropriate action will be taken. If you learn of anything else affecting national security in the atomic area in your opinion, I hope you won't hesitate to let us know about it." Clearly it was a speech he had made hundreds of times—or thousands. The brush-off.

      "Mr. Anheier," Novak said, "what if we take this to the F.B.I.? They might regard it more seriously than you seem to."

      The big, calm man put his palms out protestingly. "Please, Dr. Novak," he said. "I assure you that your information will be thoroughly processed. As to the F.B.I., you're perfectly free to go to them if you wish, but it would be wasted motion. Cases in the atomic area that come to the F.B.I. are automatically bucked to us—a basic policy decision, and a wise one in my opinion. Technical factors and classified information are so often involved——"

      In the street Novak said disgustedly: "He didn't ask us any questions. He didn't ask us whether we were going to quit or not."

      "Well—are we?"

      "I guess I am—I don't know, Cliff. Maybe I'm wrong about the whole business. Maybe I'm as crazy as Anheier thinks I am."

      "Let's go to my place," Clifton said. "We oughtta go to the A.S.F.S.F. membership meeting tonight after we eat."

      "Cripes, I'm supposed to make a speech!"

      "Just tell 'em hello."

      They got into Clifton's car, the long, tall, 1930 Rolls with the lovingly maintained power plant, and roared through Los Angeles. Clifton drove like a maniac, glaring down from his height on underslung late models below and passing them with muttered fusillades of curses. "Me, I like a car with character," he growled, barreling the Rolls around a '56 Buick.

      His home was in a pretty, wooded canyon dotted with houses. Gravel flew as he spun into the driveway.

      "Come and meet Lilly," he said.

      Outside, the Clifton house was an ordinary five-room bungalow. Inside it was the dope-dream of a hobbyist run amuck. Like geologic strata, tools and supplies overlaid the furniture. Novak recognized plasticene, clay, glazes, modeling tools and hooks, easels, sketch boxes, cameras, projectors, enlargers, gold-leaf burnishers, leather tools, jeweller's tools and the gear of carpenters, machinists, plumbers, electricians and radio hams. Lilly was placidly reading an astrology magazine in the middle of the debris. She was about thirty-five: a plump, grey-eyed blonde in halter and shorts. The sight of her seemed to pick Clifton up like a shot of brandy.

      "Mama!" he yelled, kissing her loudly. "I'm sick of you. I brought you this here young man to run away with. Kindly leave without making no unnecessary disturbance. His name is Mike."

      "Hallo," she said calmly. "Don't pay him no attention; he alvays yokes. Excuse how I talk; I am a Danish. How many letters you got in your full complete name?"

      "Uh—twelve."

      "Good," she dimpled. "I am twelve also. We will be friends, it means."

      "I'm very glad," Novak said faintly.

      "Mike, you've been factored?"

      "I don't think I understand——"

      "It's biomat'ematics. You know? You go to a biomat'ematicist and he finds the mat'ematical for-moola of you subconscious and he factors out the traumas. It's va-a-ary simple." Her face fell a little. "Only I got a Danish-speaking subconscious of course, so vit' me it goes a liddle slow. Funny"—she shook her head—"same t'ing happened to me years ago vit' di'netics. Cliff, you gonna give Mike a drink or is he like the other young feller you had here last month? Feller that broke the big mirror and you nineteen-inch cat'ode-ray tube and my Svedish pitcher——"

      "How the hell was I supposed to know?" he roared. In an aside: "That was Friml, Mike. He got pretty bad."

      "Friml?" asked Novak incredulously. "The ice-water kid?"

      "He should go to a biomat'ematicist," sighed Lilly. "If ever a boy needed factoring, it's him. Make me only a liddle one please; I don't eat yet today."

      She had a little Martini and Clifton and Novak had big ones.

      "We all go to the meeting tonight I guess? First I want biftek aux pommes de terre someplace."

      "What the hell, Mama!" Clifton objected. "This time yesterday you was a vegetarian for life."

      "I