The Best of C. M. Kornbluth
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160 pages
English

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Description

The Silly Season, The Marching Morons, and The Mindworn are just three of the acknowledged science fiction classics included in this masterful collection of nineteen tales all displaying the author's very best work!
A must-have for all lovers of excellent old-style sci-fi.

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Publié par
Date de parution 05 novembre 2021
Nombre de lectures 0
EAN13 9781774642849
Langue English

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0050€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

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The Best of C. M. Kornbluth
by C. M. Kornbluth

First published in 1941 - 1958
This edition published by Rare Treasures
Victoria, BC Canada with branch offices in the Czech Republic and Germany
Trava2909@gmail.com
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage or retrieval system, except in the case of excerpts by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review.
The Best of C. M. KORNBLUTH


by

C. M. Kornbluth

The Rocket of 1955
The scheme was all Fein’s, but the trimmings that made it morethan a pipe dream and its actual operation depended on me. Howlong the plan had been in incubation I do not know, but Fein, onespring day, broke it to me in crude form. I pointed out some errors,corrected and amplified on the thing in general, and told him that I’dhave no part of it—and changed my mind when he threatened to revealcertain indiscretions committed by me some years ago.
It was necessary that I spend some months in Europe, conductingresearch work incidental to the scheme. I returned with recordedstatements, old newspapers, and photostatic copies of certain documents.There was a brief, quiet interview with that old, bushy-hairedViennese worshipped incontinently by the mob; he was convinced bythe evidence I had compiled that it would be wise to assist us.
You all know what happened next—it was the professor’s historicradio broadcast. Fein had drafted the thing, I had rewritten it, andtold the astronomer to assume a German accent while reading. Someof the phrases were beautiful: “American dominion over the veryplanets! . . . veil at last ripped aside . . . man defies gravity . . .travel through limitless space . . . plant the red-white-and-bluebanner in the soil of Mars!”
The requested contributions poured in. Newspapers and magazinesostentatiously donated yard-long checks of a few thousand dollars;the government gave a welcome half-million; heavy sugar came fromthe “Rocket Contribution Week” held in the nation’s public schools;but independent contributions were the largest. We cleared seven milliondollars, and then started to build the spaceship.
The virginium that took up most of the money was tin plate; themonoatomic fluorine that gave us our terrific speed was hydrogen.The take-off was a party for the newsreels: the big, gleaming bulletextravagant with vanes and projections; speeches by the professor;Farley, who was to fly it to Mars, grinning into the cameras. Heclimbed an outside ladder to the nose of the thing, then dropped intothe steering compartment. I screwed down the sound-proof door,smiling as he hammered to be let out. To his surprise, there was noduplicate of the elaborate dummy controls he had been practicing onfor the past few weeks.
I cautioned the pressmen to stand back under the shelter, and gavethe professor the knife switch that would send the rocket on its way.He hesitated too long—Fein hissed into his ear: “Anna Pareloff ofCracow, Herr Professor . . .”
The triple blade clicked into the sockets. The vaned projectileroared a hundred yards into the air with a wobbling curve—then exploded.
A photographer, eager for an angle shot, was killed; so were somekids. The steel roof protected the rest of us. Fein and I shook hands,while the pressmen screamed into the telephones which we had provided.
But the professor got drunk, and, disgusted with the part he hadplayed in the affair, told all and poisoned himself. Fein and I left thecash behind and hopped a freight. We were picked off it by avigilance committee (headed by a man who had lost fifty cents inour rocket). Fein was too frightened to talk or write so they hangedhim first, and gave me a paper and pencil to tell the story as best Icould.
Here they come, with an insulting thick rope.
The Words of Guru
Yesterday, when I was going to meet Guru in the woods a manstopped me and said: “Child, what are you doing out at one in themorning? Does your mother know where you are? How old are you,walking around this late?”
I looked at him, and saw that he was white-haired, so I laughed.Old men never see; in fact men hardly see at all. Sometimes youngwomen see part, but men rarely ever see at all. “I’m twelve on mynext birthday,” I said. And then, because I would not let him live totell people, I said, “and I’m out this late to see Guru.”
“Guru?” he asked. “Who is Guru? Some foreigner, I suppose? Badbusiness mixing with foreigners, young fellow. Who is Guru?”
So I told him who Guru was, and just as he began talking aboutcheap magazines and fairy tales I said one of the words that Gurutaught me and he stopped talking. Because he was an old man andhis joints were stiff he didn’t crumple up but fell in one piece, hittinghis head on the stone. Then I went on.
Even though I’m going to be only twelve on my next birthday Iknow many things that old people don’t. And I remember things thatother boys can’t. I remember being born out of darkness, and Iremember the noises that people made about me. Then when I wastwo months old I began to understand that the noises meant thingslike the things that were going on inside my head. I found out that Icould make the noises too, and everybody was very much surprised.“Talking!” they said, again and again. “And so very young! Clara,what do you make of it?” Clara was my mother.
And Clara would say: “I’m sure I don’t know. There never wasany genius in my family, and I’m sure there was none in Joe’s.” Joewas my father.
Once Clara showed me a man I had never seen before, and toldme that he was a reporter—that he wrote things in newspapers. Thereporter tried to talk to me as if I were an ordinary baby; I didn’teven answer him, but just kept looking at him until his eyes fell andhe went away. Later Clara scolded me and read me a little piece inthe reporter’s newspaper that was supposed to be funny—about thereporter asking me very complicated questions and me answeringwith baby noises. It was not true, of course. I didn’t say a word to thereporter, and he didn’t ask me even one of the questions.
I heard her read the little piece, but while I listened I was watchingthe slug crawling on the wall. When Clara was finished I asked her:“What is that grey thing?”
She looked where I pointed, but couldn’t see it. “What grey thing,Peter?” she asked. I had her call me by my whole name, Peter, insteadof anything silly like Petey. “What grey thing?”
“It’s as big as your hand, Clara, but soft. I don’t think it has anybones at all. It’s crawling up, but I don’t see any face on the topwardsside. And there aren’t any legs.”
I think she was worried, but she tried to baby me by putting herhand on the wall and trying to find out where it was. I called outwhether she was right or left of the thing. Finally she put her handright through the slug. And then I realized that she really couldn’t seeit, and didn’t believe it was there. I stopped talking about it then andonly asked her a few days later: “Clara, what do you call a thingwhich one person can see and another person can’t?”
“An illusion, Peter,” she said. “If that’s what you mean.” I saidnothing, but let her put me to bed as usual, but when she turned outthe light and went away I waited a little while and then called outsoftly. “Illusion! Illusion!”
At once Guru came for the first time. He bowed, the way he alwayshas since, and said: “I have been waiting.”
“I didn’t know that was the way to call you,” I said.
“Whenever you want me I will be ready. I will teach you, Peter—ifyou want to learn. Do you know what I will teach you?”
“If you will teach me about the grey thing on the wall,” I said, “Iwill listen. And if you will teach me about real things and unrealthings I will listen.”
“These things,” he said thoughtfully, “very few wish to learn. Andthere are some things that nobody ever wished to learn. And thereare some things that I will not teach.”
Then I said: “The things nobody has ever wished to learn I willlearn. And I will even learn the things you do not wish to teach.”
He smiled mockingly. “A master has come,” he said, half-laughing.“A master of Guru.”
That was how I learned his name. And that night he taught me aword which would do little things, like spoiling food.
From that day to the time I saw him last night he has not changedat all, though now I am as tall as he is. His skin is still as dry andshiny as ever it was, and his face is still bony, crowned by a head ofvery coarse, black hair.
When I was ten years old I went to bed one night only long enoughto make Joe and Clara suppose I was fast asleep. I left in my placesomething which appears when you say one of the words of Guru andwent down the drainpipe outside my window. It always was easy toclimb down and up, ever since I was eight years old.
I met Guru in Inwood Hill Park. “You’re late,” he said.
“Not too late,” I answered. “I know it’s never too late for one ofthese things.”
“How do you know?” he asked sharply. “This is your first.”
“And maybe my last,” I replied. “I don’t like the idea of it. If Ihave nothing more to learn from my second than my first I shan’t goto another.”
“You don’t know,” he said. “You don’t know what it’s like—thevoices, and the bodies slick with unguent, leaping flames; mind-fillingritual! You can have no idea at all until you’ve taken part.”
“We’ll see,” I said. “Can we leave from here?”
“Yes,” he said. Then he taught me the word I would need toknow, and we both said it together.
The place we were in next was lit with red lights, and I think thatthe walls were of rock. Though of course there was no real seeingthere, and so the lights only seemed to be red, and it was not realrock.
As we were going to the fire one of them stopped us. “Who’s withyou?” she asked, calling Guru by another name. I did not know thathe was also the person bearing that name, for it was a very powerfulone.
He cast a hasty, sidewise g

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