"William Morrison & Frederik Pohl - Stepping Stone" - читать интересную книгу автора (Morrison William)

Frederik Pohl is one of the collaboration'est men even in this field in which multiple
authorship is so common. He is best known, of course, for his excellent novels (both science
fiction and "straight") with C. M. Kornbluth. He has worked with Jack Williamson on a likable
series of teen-age books; and he has further collaborated, in an all but impenetrable haze of
pseudonyms, with Isaac Asimov, Frederic Arnold Kummer, Jr., Robert W. Lowndes, Dirk Wylie ..
This story is, I believe, his first with F&SF's Broadway critic William Morrison. Fittingly it
deals with collaborationтАФif in quite a different sense: the sense which the word acquired, in
World War II, of helping the invader to maintain his control over one's own people. This control
is, fortunately for the world, not so simple a matter as a galactic Viceroy may think. There is,
Messrs. Morrison and Pohl shrewdly point out, a certain inevitable flaw in any collaborationist
structure.


Stepping Stone
by WILLIAM MORRISON and FREDERIK POHL
ARTHUR CHESLEY WAS A CHEMIST, but you mustn't think of him as a scientist. He was
nothing of the kind.
He didn't inquire into the secrets of natureтАФmaybe once he had, but then the foundation grants ran
out; and since his specialty couldn't be twisted to sound as though it had anything to do with either
nuclear energy or cancer cure it was a matter of get a job or starve. So he got a job. He spent eight
hours a night, six nights a week, watching a stainless steel kettle with his fingers crossed. "She's getting
hot, Mr. Chesley!" one of the lab assistants would yell, and he'd have to run over and tell them what to
do. "Pressure's up, Mr. Chesley!" another would cry, and he'd have to do something about thatтАФor
anyway, tell the assistants what to do, because the union rules were pretty strong about who did the
actual work. It was all a matter of polymerization, which is cooking little short molecules into big long
molecules, and what came out of it all was rubber, or maybe plastic wrappers, or the stuff that goes into
children's toys, depending on what was needed right thenтАФand also on whether or not the kettle
exploded. Well, it was an easy job, except when the pressure suddenly climbed. And it was night work,
so Chesley had his days free. He kind of liked it, partly because he got to boss the crew of assistants
around. And they didn't mind. They thought the whole thing was pretty funny, partly because they got
two-forty an hour against Chesley's dollar-seventy-five.
Chesley's wife didn't think that was funny at all. What she said was:
"Stepping stone! Arthur, you've been in a rut for seven years and I want to tell you that I'm getting
tired of stepping stones that don't step anywhere andтАФ Another thing, why can't you work days like
anybody else instead of sleeping all the time I'm trying to clean the house? Did you ever stop to think how
much trouble that makes for me? Can't you have any consideration for anybody else andтАФ And why
can't you make your own lunch to take to the plant? Other men make their own lunches. If you wouldn't
sit around the house watching television you'd have time to make your lunch, not to mention doing a few
other littleтАФ That reminds me, what's keeping you from putting up the screens? The house will be
crawling, and I mean crawling, with every bug in the Bronx if you don't get around to it. You hear me?
Or is that too menial a job for a real chemistтАФa real chemist that's got a job that's a stepping stone to a
fine career ofтАФ Arthur! Arthur, I'm talking to you! You come back here!"
But the job did leave his days free. Chesley escaped from the house and headed down toward the
corner bar, where the barkeep drew him a beer with a half-inch collar without waiting to be asked.
"You're early," said the bartender, handing Chesley his change. "I thought you'd be watching television."
"That's what I wanted," Chesley said bitterly. "I wanted to see that new program they're talking
about."
The barkeep said, "That Viceroy thing?"
"Yeah. The one they cancelled all the other shows for. Harry, what's the matter with you that you
don't have a TV like every other bar in the Bronx?"