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

"Mac, does anybody there know exactly what the, I.S.U. initiation fee is?"

"I'll see, J. F."

A moment later he heard Angelo's voice. "It's kind of complicated, Mr.

Farwell—maybe to keep anybody from saying it's exactly this or exactly that. Here's the way it works: base fee, $1000, to be paid before they issue you a work card. What they call 'accrual fee' on top of that—$100

if you're twenty years old, $200 if you're twenty-two, $300 if you're twenty-four and so on up to 30, and after that you can't join. You can pay accrual fee out of your first voyage. From the accrual fee you can deduct $50 for each dependent. On top of that there's a 5 per cent assessment of your first-voyage pay only, earmarked for the I.S.U. Space Medicine Research Foundation at Johns Hopkins. And that's all."

Farwell had been jotting it down. "Thanks, Angelo," he said absently.

The Space Medicine Research thing was good, but he'd have to be careful that they weren't represented at the F.P.A.C.S.H.; you didn't want a direct union tie-in there. Now what could you do about the fee?

Get the union to dig up somebody who's paid only the $1000 base because of age and the right number of dependents. Forget the accrual and the assessment. How many people on a space ship—50, 60? Make it 60 to get a plausibly unround number. Sixty into 1000 is 16.67.

"Dear Editor: Is there anybody riding the spaceways who would not cheerfully pay $16.67 cents to insure that the crewmen who hold his life in their hands are thoroughly experienced veterans of interplanetary flight? Is there anybody so short-sighted that he would embark with a green crew to save $16.67? Of course not! And yet that is what certain short-sighted persons demand! Throwing up a smoke-screen of loose charges to divert the public from the paramount issue of SAFETY they accuse—"

That wasn't exactly it. He had made it look as though the passengers paid the I.S.U. initiation fee. Well, he'd struck a keynote; Copy could take it from there.

And then there ought to be a stunt—a good, big stunt with pix possibilities. Girls, or violence, or both. Maybe a model demonstrating an escape hatch or something at a trade show, something goes wrong, a heroic I.S.U. member in good standing who happens to be nearby dashes in—

He was feeling quite himself again.

The switchboard girl must have been listening in on the New York call.

As Farwell stepped from his office he felt electricity in the air; the word had been passed already. He studied the anteroom, trying to see it through Greenbough's eyes.

"Grace," he told the switchboard girl, "get your handbag off the PBX

and stick it in a drawer somewhere. Straighten that picture. And put on your bolero—you have nice shoulders and we all appreciate them, but the office is air-conditioned."

She tried to look surprised as he went on into Art.

Holoway didn't bother to pretend. "What time's he getting in?" he asked worriedly. "Can I get a shave?"

"They didn't tell me," said Farwell. "Your shave's all right. Get things picked up and get ties on the boys." The warning light was off; he looked into the darkroom. "A filthy mess!" he snapped. "How can you get any work done in a litter like that? Clean it up."

"Right away, J. F.," Holloway said, hurt.

Copy was in better shape; McGuffy had a taut hand.

"Greenbough's coming in today, I don't know what time. Your boys here look good." '

"I can housebreak anything, J. F. Even Angelo. He bought a new suit!"

Farwell allowed a slight puzzled look to cross his face. "Angelo? Oh, the Libonari boy. How's he doing?"

"No complaints. He'll never be an accounts man if I'm any judge, but I've been giving him letters to write the past couple weeks. I don't know how you spotted it, but he's got talent. I have to hand it to you for digging him up, J. F."

Farwell saw the boy now at the last desk on the windowless side of the room, writing earnestly in longhand. Two months on a fair-enough salary hadn't filled him out as much as Farwell expected, but he did have a new suit on his back.

"It was just a gamble," he told McGuffy and went back to his office.

He had pretended not to remember the kid. Actually he'd been in his thoughts off and on since he hired him. There had been no trouble with Angelo since his grim little interview with the boy. Farwell hoped, rather sentimentally, he knew, that the interview had launched him on a decent career, turned him aside from the rocky Bohemian road and its pitfalls. As he had been turned aside himself. The nonsensical "really creative synthesis of Pinero and Shaw" pattered through his head again and he winced, thoroughly sick of it. For the past week the thought of visiting a psychiatrist had pattered after Pinero and Shaw every time, each time to be dismissed as silly.

His phone buzzed and he mechanically said, "Jim Farwell."

"Farwell, why didn't you check with me?" rasped Greenbough's voice.

"I don't understand, Mr. Greenbough. Where are you calling from?"

"The Hotel Greybar down the street, of course! I've been sitting here for an hour waiting for your call."

"Mr. Greenbough, all they told me from New York was that you were coming to Chicago."

"Nonsense. I gave the instructions myself."

"I'm sorry about the mixup—I must have misunderstood. Are you going to have a look at the office?"

"No. Why should I do anything like that? I'll call you back." Greenbough hung up.

Farwell leaned back, cursing whoever in New York had crossed up the message. It had probably been done deliberately, he decided—Pete Messier, the New York office manager trying to make him look bad.

He tried to work on an account or two, but nervously put them aside to wait for Greenbough's call. At 5 he tried to reach Greenbough to tell him he was going home and give him his home number. Greenbough's room didn't answer the call or his next four, so he phoned a drugstore to send up a sandwich and coffee.

Before he could get started on the sandwich Greenbough phoned again to invite him to dinner at the Mars Room. He was jovial as could be:

"Get myself some of that famous Chicago hospitality, hey, Jim? You know I'm just a hick from Colorado, don't you?" He went on to give Farwell about ten minutes of chuckling reminiscence and then hung up without confirming the dinner date. It turned out that it didn't matter.

As Farwell was leaving the deserted office his phone buzzed again. It was Greenbough abruptly calling off the Mars Room. He told Farwell:

"I've got somebody important to talk to this evening."

The branch manager at last dared to pour himself a heavy drink and left.

His bedside phone shrilled at 3 in the morning. "Jim Farwell," he croaked into it while two clock dials with the hands making two luminous L's wavered in front of him. His drink at the office had been the first of a series.

"This is Greenbough, Farwell," snarled the voice of the senior partner.

"You get over here right away. Bring Clancy, whatever his name is—the lawyer." Click.

Where was "here"? Farwell phoned the Greybar. "Don't connect me with his room—I just want to know if he's in."

The floor clerk said he was and Farwell tried to phone the home of the Chicago branch's lawyer, but got no answer. Too much time lost. He soaked his head in cold water, threw his clothes on and drove hell-for-leather to the Greybar.

Greenbough was in one of the big two-bedroom suites on the sixteenth floor. A frozen-faced blond girl in an evening gown let Farwell in without a word. The senior partner was sprawled on the sofa in dress trousers and stiff shirt. He had a bruise under his left eye.

"I came as quickly as I could, Mr. Greenbough," said Farwell. "I couldn't get in touch with—"

The senior partner coughed thunderously, twitched his face at Farwell in a baffling manner, and then stalked into a bedroom. The blond girl's frozen mask suddenly split into a vindictive grin. "You're going to get it!" she jeered at Farwell. "I'm supposed to think his name's Wilkins.