His Share of Glory The Complete Short Science Fiction

"And the machine will do—that—to anything?" demanded Hogan. "It has the Midas touch."

"That it has," agreed the scientist, swinging the needle and shifting the slide. "And, unless I'm mistaken, those men mean us harm."

He swung the pointer against a squad of uniformed militia that were running from the huge doors of the building. The button went down, and the police went transparent, then gaseous. They vanished in puffs of vapor that sought the nearest solid.

"Fluorine," said Train quietly. "Those poor devils are just so much salt on the street and portico."

"Let's go in," said Ann. They walked into the lobby, treading carefully around the white crusts on the pavement.

"Easy, Hogan," warned Train as they pushed Independent Fourteen into an elevator under the eyes of the horrified attendant. "Take us to the Hartly floor," he snapped at the latter, "and no harm will come to you. Otherwise …" He drew a sinister finger across his throat.

The doors of the elevator rolled open and they carefully pushed the machine before them. "Come out, Hartly," called Ann at the bronze doors to the inner office.

"Come in and get me," sounded from the frequency inductor in her hand. Resolutely they swung open the doors and marched in. Hartly was alone behind the desk. Quietly he lifted his hands, displayed two heavy pistols.

"I haven't been too busy managing my affairs to learn how to use these,"

he remarked. "Stand away from that machine."

Train tensed himself to leap, flinging Fourteen into operation, but Ann touched his arm and he relaxed, stepped aside with her and Hogan.

Hartly strode over and glanced at the machine. He set the slide absently. "How does it work?" he asked.

"Red end of the pointer directs the beam. Slide determines the element required. Button on the left starts the operation."

"The red end?" asked Hartly smiling. "You would say that. I'll try the black end first." He aimed the black end at the little group of three, thus bringing the red end squarely on himself.

"This button—" he began, pressing a thumb on it. But his words were cut short. A wild glare suffused his face as he brought up one of the pistols, but it fell from his hand, exploding as it hit the floor. He tried to speak, but a choking gasp was all his yellowing tongue could utter.

"He didn't trust ye," said Hogan sadly. "He thought ye meant him evil when ye told him the simple truth about the machine's operation. And that's why Mr. Hartly is now a statue of the purest yellow gold. The beast must weigh a ton at least."

"Hartly's never trusted anyone," said Train. "I knew that he'd never take my word, so took a chance for all of us. Now he makes a very interesting statue."

"It's horrible," said Ann. "We'll have them take it away."

"No," replied Train. "It must stay here. There's a new life beginning now—at last the youth will be free to work at what they want and the era of Syndicate regimentation is over.

"Let that statue remain there—as a picture of the old order and as a warning to the new."

The Core

[Future - April 1942 as by S. D. Gottesman]

1

Vistas unthinkable—speed beyond all imagining—Sphere Nine followed its course. Unrelieved blackness alternated with dazzling star-clusters; from rim to rim of the universe stretched the thin line that marked the hero's way.

Heroism died, they say, when the "superiors" opened up the last few stubborn cubic centimeters of brain cells; it died when the last of the

"ordinaries" died with a curse on his lips. Well, so perhaps it was. But this is a story of the days when superiors were new and a little odd, when they were the exception to Homo sapiens.

On Sphere Nine there were four superiors and a dozen ordinaries. Will Archer, executive officer, was a superior of the third generation, big-browed, golden-eyed. Mamie Tung was an experiment, the psychologist, court of last appeal in all emotional disputes. From what records we have, it appears that Mamie Tung was of average height, slender to emaciation.

Star Macduff, the calculating officer, had three strong superior strains and as many of ordinary. But it was necessary that he be of the complement, for there wasn't another man in the solar system who could touch him for math. Yancey Meats, white female superior, was the clericalist and tabulator, serving as many as needed her, at the same time doing her own work of photographing and mapping the unfamiliar stars.

The ordinaries surrendered their names on entering Sphere Nine; they were known as Ratings One–Twelve.

Very gravely Will Archer cocked his cap and leaned back. "Rating Seven, what have you to say for yourself?"

The knotty-muscled man wrung his hands nervously, stammered something unintelligible.

Archer blinked for Mamie Tung.

The golden-skinned woman slipped through the pipe, sized up the situation in one practiced glance. "What's your number, handsome?"