He stopped himself and turned to Knafti. "Well, I see something. A man who would do a thing like that would be a fiend. I'd cut his heart out with my bare hands. But you aren't a man."
Grimly he let go of the kids and strode toward Knafti. "I can't forgive you. God help me, it isn't possible. But I can't blame you-exactly-any more than I can blame lightning for striking my house. I think I was wrong. Maybe I'm wrong now. But-I don't know what you people do-I'd like to shake your hand. Or whatever the hell it is you've got there. I've been thinking of you as a perverted murderer and a filthy animal, but I'll tell you right now, I'd rather work together with you-for your base, for peace, for whatever we can get together on-than with some human beings in this room!"
I didn't stay to watch the tender scene that followed.
I didn't have to, since the cameras and tape recorders that the studio people had activated for me behind every one-way mirror in the room would be watching for me. I could only hope they had not missed a single word or scream, because I didn't think I could do that scene over again.
I opened the door quietly and left. And as I was going, I caught the littlest Connick kid sneaking past me, headed for the 3-V set in the waiting room, and snaked out an arm to stop him. "Stinker!" he hissed. "Rat fink!"
"You may be right," I told him, "but go back and keep your father company. You're in on living history today."
"Nuts! I always watch Dr. Zhivago on Monday nights, and it's on in five minutes, and-"
"Not tonight it isn't, son. You can hold that against me, too. We preempted the time for a different show entirely."
I escorted him back into the room, closed the door, picked up my coat, and left.
Candace was waiting for me with the car. She was driving it herself.
"Will I make the nine-thirty flight?" I asked.
"Sure, Gunner." She steered onto the autotraffic lane, put the car on servo, and dialed the scatport, then sat back and lit a cigarette for each of us. I took one and looked morosely out the window.
Down below us, on the slow-traffic level, we were passing a torchlight parade, with floats and glee clubs and free beer at the major pedestrian intersections. I opened the glove compartment and took out field glasses, looked through them- "Oh, you don't have to check up, Gunner. I took care of it. They're all plugging the program."
"I see they are." Not only were the marchers carrying streamers that advertised our preempt show that was now already beginning to be on the air, but the floats carried projection screens and amplifiers. You couldn't look anywhere in the procession without seeing Knafti, huge and hideous in his gold carapace, clutching the children and protecting them against the attack of that monster from another planet, me. The studio people had done a splendid job of splicing in no time at all. The whole scene was there on camera, as real as I had just lived it.
"Want to listen?" Candace fished out and passed me a hyperboloid long-hearer, but I didn't need it. I remembered what the voices would be saying. There would be Connick denouncing me. Timmy Brown denouncing me. The kids denouncing me, all of them. Colonel Peyroles denouncing me, Commander Whitling denouncing me, even Knafti denouncing me. All that hate and only one target.
Me.
"Of course, Junior'll fire you. He'll have to, Gunner."
I said, "I need a vacation, anyway." It wouldn't matter. Sooner or later, when the pressure was off, Junior would find a way to hire me back. Once the lawsuits had been settled. Once the Armistice Commission could finish its work. Once I could be put on the payroll inconspicuously, at an inconspicuous job in an inconspicuous outpost of the firm. With an inconspicuous future.
We slid over the top of a spiraling ramp and down into the parking bays of the scatport. "So long, honey," I said, "and Merry Christmas to you both."
"Oh, Gunner! I wish-"
But I knew what she really wished, and I wouldn't let her finish. I said, "He's a nice fellow, Whitling. And you know? I'm not."
I didn't kiss her good-bye.
The scatjet was ready for boarding. I fed my ticket into the check-in slot, got the green light as the turnstile clicked open, entered the plane, and took a seat on the far side, by the window.
You can win any cause if you care to pay the price. All it takes is one human sacrifice.
By the time the scatjet began to roar, to quiver, and to turn on its axis away from the terminal, I had faced the fact that that price once and for all was paid. I saw Candace standing there on the roof of the loading dock, her skirts whipped by the back-blast. She didn't wave to me, but she didn't go away as long as I could see her standing on the platform.
Then, of course, she would go back to her job and ultimately on Christmas morning to that nice guy at the hospital. Haber would stay in charge of his no-longer-important branch office. Connick would win his campaign. Knafti would transact his incomprehensible business with Earth, and if any of them ever thought of me again, it would be with loathing, anger, and contempt. But that is the way to win an election. You have to pay the price. It was just the breaks of the game that the price of this one was me.
What the author has to say about all this
Afterword to THE BEST OF FREDERIK POHL
WHEN we first talked about a collection of the "best" of my stories I dove right into something close to catatonia. It isn't easy to pick out the best of your life's work. That is almost like asking me to pick which two of my four children were to appear in a "best of the family" household anthology. In fact, it is exactly like that because, although like most writers I try to maintain a pose of public professionalism, also like most writers I bleed and die with every story I write. The stories don't always turn out to be masterpieces. In fact, I have written stories that were awful. But in no case is that the story's fault. The fault is only mine; and I must admit that it gives me great pain to admit to anyone that a story-child of mine is in any way handicapped, however clearly I know it in my private mind. But, of course, saying which is "best" is only the other side of saying which is "worst."
So when Ballantine Books suggested that someone else make the selections for me, I was ecstatic with relief. And I could not have picked a better man than Lester del Rey, best of friends, most mortal of combatants, most trustworthy person I have ever known.
At my request, Lester limited his selection to stories published in the first half-century of my life. That's just smarts on my part. I am saving up for a second volume when I reach 100. (At the moment I have almost 46 years to go, and who knows what I'm going to write yet?) And at his request I am appending a few notes about some of the stories.
This is one of the few writers' vices I don't usually have. It seems to me that a story should say what it has to say internally. If something should be said about it that will affect its impact on a reader, then the only fair way for the author to behave would be to go around to every reader and tell him about it. As that isn't practical, or even desirable-how terrible it would be to listen to all those excuses and cries of pain!-I try as much as I can to make the stories speak for themselves.
But for some of these stories there are thanks I should give, or circumstances that I think are interesting enough to warrant departing from my rule. . . and so below are notes on some of the stories in this volume.