Read Online Not This August by C.M. Kornbluth - Free Book Online Page A

gathering darkness and then without a word fell onto the dusty canvas. He was asleep in seconds. Justin thought, went for a cotton blanket, and spread it over Gribble to keep the flies off his face and hands and went to the road for a final smoke before turning in. There was a sawed-off tree stump he usually sat on where you could watch the sunset.
    Rawson was waiting there. “Hi, Billy,” the legless man said easily.
    “Hello.” Justin had his pouch out. Grudgingly he held it to Rawson. “Smoke?”
    “Thanks.” Rawson whisked a single cigarette paper from his breast pocket, dipped thumb and finger in the pouch. In a twirl and a lick he had a cigarette made. A tramp , Justin thought. A drifting bum with all the skills of a drifting bum . How easily he takes it! What’s it to him that he’s a drifter under the Reds or the United States? A perennial outlaw—and God, how I envy his peace of mind ! Heavily he stuffed his pipe with dry tobacco. Rawson had lit his cigarette and politely passed him the burning match. He puffed the pipe alight. It tasted vile, but it was tobacco.
    Rawson was inhaling luxuriously. “Not bad,” he commented. “Your own stuff?”
    “About half. The rest is from Croley. There was a tax stamp on it, but I think it’s local stuff too. He probably refilled a pack with some junk he bought from a farmer.”
    “My, such goings on from the virtuous storekeeper. Well, I brought that package. A man’ll be by tonight or tomorrow.”
    “Well, let’s see it.”
    Rawson reached deep into the “boot” of his gocart, a space where his legs would have fitted if he’d had any. The package was small and dim in the fading light.
    The set of his muscles, the leverage of his arm should have warned Justin to brace himself when the package was handed over, but he was disarmed by the smallness of the thing. He took the package, found it amazingly heavy, fumbled it for a moment, and dropped it, almost on his toe. It sank an inch into the not particularly soft ground.
    “Oops!” Rawson said apologetically. “I should have warned you it was heavy.”
    “Yes,” Justin said. “And maybe you should have warned me it was an atomic bomb.”
    “Just part of one,” Rawson said.
    “You know Betsy Cardew?” Justin asked, looking at the package by his toe, wondering vaguely about radioactivity, wondering whether he ought to move his toe.
    “Of course. Mailwoman.”
    “Are you and she in this together?”
    “In what?” Rawson asked blandly.
    “We are not amused, Rawson. This thing—” He choked. “I got beautifully mad at her. I’m still sore. I think she’s a silly kid who had no right to get me involved. You—you know the score. So—why me, Rawson? Why me? ”
    The legless man said brutally: “If you think I’m going to flatter you, you’re going to be disappointed. It’s you, Justin, because we’re scraping the bottom of the barrel. Our best and bravest are in Siberian labor camps now, or mining uranium in the Antarctic. Why you , indeed! Have I got any business scooting around after dark with a suitcase bomb in my lap?”
    “But what’s it all for?” Justin almost begged. “What can we do? Suitcase bombs, yes, but then what?”
    “That,” Rawson said, “is none of your business, as a moment of thought will convince you. Will you handle the transfer or won’t you?”
    “I will,” Justin said bitterly. “Thanks for your confidence in me. I hope it’s well placed.”
    “So do I, Justin. So do I. Will you push me off?”
    He went creaking down the road.
    Justin relit his pipe and studied the dying sunset. Then he picked up the heavy little package, walked to the barn, and hid it behind a bale of hay. It was not very well hidden. He wanted to be able to get it fast and get it off his hands fast. Furthermore, he knew very well that no amount of energy spent in hiding unshielded uranium or plutonium would safeguard it against search with a scintillation counter.
    He stepped quietly