C Kornbluth - His Share of Glory The Complete Short Science Fiction

Then there was a period of waiting for the first note that I'd swap you for a mad tarantula.

It came:

NOTE FRBBUO HOW WELL XPCT KP CLNT IF UN-ABL DROP COPY?

MCG MARSBUO.

I'd paved the way for that one by drinking myself into a hangover on home brew and lying in bed and groaning when I should have been delivering the printer copy to the Phoenix. I'd been insulting as possible to Weems to insure that he'd phone a squawk to McGillicuddy—I hoped. The tipoff was "hell." Profanity was never, ever used on our circuits—I hoped. "Hell" meant "Portwanger contacted me, I got the story, I am notifying United Planets Patrol in utmost secrecy." Two days later came:

NOTE FRBBUO BD CHMN WNTS KNO WOT KIND DAMN KNUCKLHED

FILING ONLY FOURFIVE ITMS DAILY FM XPNSVE ONEMAN BUO.

XPCT UP-STEP PRDCTN IMMY, RPT IMMY MCG MARSBUO.

"Damn" meant "Patrol contacted, preparing to raid Frostbite."

"Fourfive" meant "fourfive"—days from message.

The next note would have got ISN in trouble with the Interplanetary Communications Commission if it hadn't been in a good cause. I'm unable to quote it. But it came as I was in the bureau about to leave for the Honorable Homer With-erspoon's testimonial banquet. I locked the door, took off my parka and rolled up my sleeves. I was going to sweat for the next few hours.

When I heard the multiple roar of the Patrol ships on rockets I very calmly beat out fifteen bells and sent:

INTERSTELLAR FLASH

UNITED PLANETS PATROL DESCENDING ON FROSTBITE, KRUEGER

60-B'S ONLY PLANET, IN UNPRECEDENTED MASS RAID ON TIP OF

INTERSTELLAR NEWS SERVICE THAT WORLD IS SOLE SOURCE OF

DEADLY DRUG J-K-B.

INTERSTELLAR BULLETIN

THE MASSED PATROL OF THE UNITED PLANETS ORGANIZATION

DESCENDED ON THE ONLY PLANET OF KRUEGER 60-B, FROSTBITE, IN AN UNPRECEDENTED MASS RAID THIS EVENING. ON

INFORMATION FURNISHED BY INTERSTELLAR NEWS REPORTER JOE

SPENCER THE PATROL HOPES TO WIPE OUT THE SOURCE OF THE

DEADLY DRUG J-K-B, WHICH HAS PLAGUED THE GALAXY FOR 20

YEARS. THE CHEMICAL GENIUS SUSPECTED OF INVENTING AND

PRODUCING THE DRUG IS GEORGE PARSONS, RESPECTED

PUBLISHER OF FROSTBITE'S ONLY NEWSPAPER.

INTERSTELLAR FLASH

FIRST UNITED PLANETS PATROL SHIP LANDS IN

FROSTBITE CAPITAL CITY OF PLANET.

INTERSTELLAR FLASH

PATROL COMMANDER PHONES EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW TO

INTERSTELLAR NEWS SERVICE FROSTBITE BUREAU REPORTING

ROUND-UP OF PLANETARY GOVERNMENT LEADERS AT

TESTIMONIAL DINNER

(WITH FROSTBITE)

FROSTBITE—ISN—ONE INTERSTELLAR NEWS REPORTER HAS

ALREADY GIVEN HIS LIFE IN THE CAMPAIGN TO EXPOSE THE MAKER

OF J-K-B. ED KENNEDY, ISN BUREAU CHIEF, WAS ASSASSINATED BY

AGENTS OF DRUGMAKER GEORGE PARSONS THREE MONTHS AGO.

AGENTS OF PARSONS STRIPPED KENNEDY AND EXPOSED HIM

OVERSIGHT TO THE BITTER COLD OF THIS PLANET, CAUSING HIS

DEATH BY PNEUMONIA. A SECOND INTERSTELLAR NEWS SERVICE

REPORTER, JOE STCNCER, NARROWLY ESCAPED DEATH AT THE

HANDS OF A DRUG-RING MEMBER WHO SOUGHT TO PREVENT HIM

FROM SENDING NEWS OVER THE CIRCUITS OF THE INTERSTELLAR

NEWS SERVICE.

INTERSTELLAR FLASH PATROL SEIZES PARSONS

INTERSTELLAR BULLETIN

FROSTBITE— IN A TELEPHONE MESSAGE TO INTERSTELLAR NEWS

SERVICE A PATROL SPOKESMAN $AJD GEORGE PARSONS HAD BEEN

TAKEN INTO CtSTODY AND UNMISTAKABLY IDENTIFIED. PARSONS HAD BEEN LIVING A LIE ON FROSTBITE, USING THE NAME

CHENERY AND THE GUISE OF A COLUMNIST FOR PARSONS'

NEWSPAPER. SAID THE PATROL SPOKESMAN;—"IT IS A TYPICAL

MANEUVER. WE NEVER GOT SO FAR ALONG THE CHAIN OF J-K-B

PEDDLERS THAT WE NEVER FOUND ONE MORE. APPARENTLY THE

SOURCE OF THE DRUG HIMSELF THOUGHT HE COULD PUT HIMSELF

OUT OF THE REACH OF INTERPLANETARY JUSTICE BY ASSUMING A FICTITIOUS PERSONALITY. HOWEVER, WE HAVE ABSOLUTELY

IDENTIFIED HIM AND EXPECT A CONFESSION WITHIN THE HOUR.

PARSONS APPEARS TO BE A J-K-B ADDICT HIMSELF.

INTERSTELLAR FLASH PARSONS CONFESSES

(FIRST LEAD FROSTBITE)

FROSTBITE—ISN—THE UNITED PLANETS PATROL AND THE

INTERSTELLAR NEWS SERVICE JOINED HANDS TODAY IN TRIUMPH

AFTER WIPING OUT THE MOST VICIOUS NEST OF DRUGMAKERS IN

THE GALAXY. J-K-B, THE INFAMOUS NARCOTIC WHICH HAS

MENACED—

I ground out nearly thirty thousand words of copy that night Bleary-eyed at the end of the run, I could barely read a note that came across: NOTE FRBBUO: WELL DONE. RETURN MARS JMMY: SNDNG

REPLCEMNT. MARSBUO MCG.

The Patrol flagship took me back in a quick, smooth trip with lots of service and no yaks.

After a smooth landing I took an eastbound chair from the field and whistled as the floater lifted me to the ISN floor. The newsroom was quiet for a change and the boys and girls stood up for me.

McGillicuddy stepped out from the copy table slot to say: "Welcome back. Frankly, I didn't think you had it hi you, but you proved me wrong. You're a credit to the profession and the ISN." Portwanger was there, too. "A pragmatist, your McGillicuddy," he muttered. "But you did a good job."

I didn't pay very much attention; my eyes were roving over no man's land. Finally I asked McGillicuddy: "Where's Miss Masters? Day off?"

"How do you like that?" laughed McGillicuddy. "I forgot to tell you.

She's your replacement on Frostbite. Fired her off yesterday. I thought the woman's angle—where do you think you're going?"

"Honest Blogri's Olde Earthe Saloon," I told him with dignity. "If you want me, I'll be under the third table from the left as you come in. With sawdust in my hair."

Job had quite a day for himself Thursday, and as usual I had to tag along. If I had a right arm to give, I'd give it for a day off now and then.

Like on Thursday. On Thursday he really outdid himself.

He woke up in the hotel room and had a shower. He wasnt going to shave until I told him be looked like a bum. So he shaved and then he stood for a whole minute admiring his beauty in the mirror, forgetting whose idea it was in the first place.

So down to the coffee shop for breakfast A hard-working man needs a good breakfast So getting ready for a backbreak-ing day of copying references at the library, he had tomato juice, two fried eggs, three sausages, a sugared doughnut, and coffee—with cream and sugar.

He couldn't work that off his pot in a week of ditch-digging under a July sun, but a hard-working man needs a good breakfast. I was too disgusted to argue with him. He's hopeless when he smells that short-order smell of smoking grease, frying bacon and coffee.

He wanted to take a taxi to the library—eight blocks!

"Walk, you jerk!" I told him. He started to mumble about pulling down six hundred bucks for this week's work and then he must have thought I was going to mention the high-calory breakfast. To him that's hitting below the belt. He thinks he's an unfortunate man with an affliction—

about twenty pounds of it. He walked and arrived at the library glowing with virtue.

Making out his slip at the newspaper room he blandly put down next to firm—The Griffin Press, Inc.—when he knew as well as I did that he was a free lance and hadn't even got a definite assignment from Griffin.

There's a line on the slip where you put down reason for consulting files (please be specific). It's a shame to cramp Joe's style to just one line after you pitch him an essay-type question like that. He squeezed in, Preparation of article on year in biochemistry for Griffin Pr. Encyc. 1952

Yrbk., and handed it with a flourish to the librarian.

The librarian, a nice old man, was polite to him, which is usually a mistake with Joe. After he finished telling the librarian how his microfilm files ought to be organized and how they ought to switch from microfilm to microcard and how in spite of everything the New York Public Library wasn't such a bad place to research, he got down to work.