Clifford Simak - The Shipshape Miracle - And Other Stories

Gus chuckled thinly. “I bet he’s madder than hell by now,” he said.

Possibly impressed by Switzerland’s ability to remain neutral during World War II, Clifford Simak used Geneva as the world capitol in a number of his future-set stories—including some of the City stories; and although he never got over to Europe, he imagines Geneva, in this story, as a place of beauty … which makes it all the more striking that political corruption would be exposed in such a place. And who better than an old-fashioned newspaperman would recognize, and resent, that corruption?

Sent to John W. Campbell Jr., during the last few days of 1948, the story was accepted in less than two weeks, and was first published in the July 1949 issue of Astounding Science Fiction . Cliff got $200 for it, and it is an ugly story.

Mr. Reeves: The situation, as I see it, calls for well defined safeguards which would prevent continuation of life from falling under the patronage of political parties or other groups in power.

Chairman Leonard: You mean you are afraid it might become a political football?

Mr. Reeves: Not only that, sir, I am afraid that political parties might use it to continue beyond normal usefulness the lives of certain so-called elder statesmen who are needed by the party to maintain prestige and dignity in the public eye.

Senator Homer Leonard’s visitors had something on their minds. They fidgeted mentally as they sat in the senator’s office and drank the senator’s good whiskey. They talked, quite importantly, as was their wont, but they talked around the thing they had come to say. They circled it like a hound dog circling a coon, waiting for an opening, circling the subject to catch an opportunity that might make the message sound just a bit offhanded—as if they had just thought of it in passing and had not called purposely on the senator to say it.

It was queer, the senator told himself. For he had known these two for a good while now. And they had known him equally as long. There should be nothing they should hesitate to tell him. They had, in the past, been brutally frank about many things in his political career.

It might be, he thought, more bad news from North America, but he was as well acquainted with that bad news as they. After all, he told himself philosophically, a man cannot reasonably expect to stay in office forever. The voters, from sheer boredom if nothing else, would finally reach the day when they would vote against a man who had served them faithfully and well. And the senator was candid enough to admit, at least to himself, that there had been times when he had served the voters of North America neither faithfully nor well.

Even at that, he thought, he had not been beaten yet. It was still several months until election time and there was a trick or two that he had never tried, political dodges that even at this late date might save the senatorial hide. Given the proper time and the proper place and he would win out yet. Timing, he told himself—proper timing is the thing that counts.

He sat quietly in his chair, a great hulk of a man, and for a single instant he closed his eyes to shut out the room and the sunlight in the window. Timing, he thought. Yes, timing and a feeling for the public, a finger on the public pulse, the ability to know ahead of time what the voter eventually will come to think—those were the ingredients of good strategy. To know ahead of time, to be ahead in thinking, so that in a week or month or year, the voters would say to one another: “You know, Bill, old Senator Leonard had it right. Remember what he said last week—or month or year—over there in Geneva. Yes, sir, he laid it on the line. There ain’t much that gets past that old fox of a Leonard.”

He opened his eyes a slit, keeping them still half closed so his visitors might think he’d only had them half closed all the time. For it was impolite and a political mistake to close one’s eyes when one had visitors. They might get the idea one wasn’t interested. Or they might seize the opportunity to cut one’s throat.

It’s because I’m getting old again, the senator told himself. Getting old and drowsy. But just as smart as ever. Yes, sir, said the senator, talking to himself, just as smart and slippery as I ever was.

He saw by the tight expressions on the faces of the two that they finally were set to tell him the thing they had come to tell. All their circling and sniffing had been of no avail. Now they had to come out with it, on the line, cold turkey.

“There had been a certain matter,” said Alexander Gibbs, “which had been quite a problem for the party for a long time now. We had hoped that matters would so arrange themselves that we wouldn’t need to call it to your attention, senator. But the executive committee held a meeting in New York the other night and it seemed to be the consensus that we communicate it to you.”

It’s bad, thought the senator, even worse than I thought it might be—for Gibbs is talking in his best double-crossing manner.

The senator gave them no help. He sat quietly in his chair and held the whiskey glass in a steady hand and did not ask what it was all about, acting as if he didn’t really care.

Gibbs floundered slightly. “It’s a rather personal matter, senator,” he said.

“It’s this life continuation business,” blurted Andrew Scott.

They sat in shocked silence, all three of them, for Scott should not have said it that way. In politics, one is not blunt and forthright, but devious and slick.

“I see,” the senator said finally. “The party thinks the voters would like it better if I were a normal man who would die a normal death.”

Gibbs smoothed his face of shocked surprise.

“The common people resent men living beyond their normal time,” he said. “Especially—”

“Especially,” said the senator, “those who have done nothing to deserve it.”

“I wouldn’t put it exactly that way,” Gibbs protested.

“Perhaps not,” said the senator. “But no matter how you say it, that is what you mean.”

They sat uncomfortably in the office chairs, with the bright Geneva sunlight pouring through the windows.

“I presume,” said the senator, “that the party, having found I am no longer an outstanding asset, will not renew my application for life continuation. I suppose that is what you were sent to tell me.”

Might as well get it over with, he told himself grimly. Now that it’s out in the open, there’s no sense in beating around the bush.

“That’s just about it, senator,” said Scott.

“That’s exactly it,” said Gibbs.

The senator heaved his great body from the chair, picked up the whiskey bottle, filled their glasses and his own.

“You delivered the death sentence very deftly,” he told them. “It deserves a drink.”

He wondered what they had thought that he would do. Plead with them, perhaps. Or storm around the office. Or denounce the party.

Puppets, he thought. Errand boys. Poor, scared errand boys.

They drank, their eyes on him, and silent laughter shook inside him from knowing that the liquor tasted very bitter in their mouths.

Chairman Leonard: You are agreed then, Mr. Chapman, with the other witnesses, that no person should be allowed to seek continuation of life for himself, that it should be granted only upon application by someone else, that—

Mr. Chapman: It should be a gift of society to those persons who are in the unique position of being able to materially benefit the human race.