Simak, Cliffard D - Galactic Chest - Notisblokk

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Simak, Cliffard D - Galactic Chest

Title : Galactic Chest

Author : Clifford D. Simak

Original copyright year: 1956

Genre : science fiction

Comments : to my knowledge, this is the only available e-text of this book

Source : scanned and OCR-read from a paperback edition with Xerox

TextBridge Pro 9.0, proofread in MS Word 2000.

Date of e-text : February 13, 2000

Prepared by : Anada Sucka

======================================================================

Galactic Chest

Clifford D. Simak

I had just finished writing the daily Community Chest story, and each day I

wrote that story I was sore about it; there were plenty of punks in the office

who could have ground out that kind of copy. Even the copy boys could have

written it and no one would have known the difference; no one ever read it -

except maybe some of the drive chairmen, and I'm not even sure about them

reading it.

I had protested to Barnacle Bill about my handling the Community Chest for

another year. I had protested loud. I had said: "Now, you know, Barnacle, I been

writing that thing for three or four years. I write it with my eyes shut. You

ought to get some new blood into it. Give one of the cubs a chance; they can

breathe some life into it. Me, I'm all written out on it."

But it didn't do a bit of good. The Barnacle had me down on the assignment

book for the Community Chest, and he never changed a thing once he put it in the

book.

I wish I knew the real reason for that name of his. I've heard a lot of

stories about how it was hung on him, but I don't think there's any truth in

them. I think he got it simply from the way he can hang on to a bar.

I had just finished writing the Community Chest story and was sitting there,

killing time and hating myself, when along came Jo Ann. Jo Ann was the sob

sister on the paper; she got some lousy yarns to write, and that's a somber fact

I guess it was because I am of a sympathetic nature, and took pity on her, and

let her cry upon my shoulder that we got to know each other so well. By now, of

course, we figure we're in love; off and on we talk about getting married, as

soon as I snag that foreign correspondent job I've been angling for.

"Hi, kid," I said.

And she says, "Do you know, Mark, what the Barnacle has me down for today?"

"He's finally ferreted out a one-armed paperhanger," I guessed, "and he

wants you to do a feature..."

"Its worse than that," she moans. "It's an old lady who is celebrating her

one hundredth birthday."

"Maybe," I said, "she will give you a piece of her birthday cake."

"I don't see how even you can joke about a thing like this," Jo Ann told me.

"It's positively ghastly."

Just then the Barnacle let out a bellow for me, so I picked up the Community

Chest story and went over to the city desk.

Side 1

Simak, Cliffard D - Galactic Chest

Barnacle Bill is up to his elbows in copy; the phone is ringing and he's

ignoring it, and for this early in the morning he has worked himself into more

than a customary lather. "You remember old Mrs. Clayborne?"

"Sure, she's dead. I wrote the obit on her ten days or so ago."

"Well, I want you to go over to the house and snoop around a bit."

"What for?" I asked. "She hasn't come back, has she?"

"No, but there's some funny business over there. I got a tip that someone

might have hurried her a little."

"This time," I told him, "you've outdone yourself. You've been watching too

many television thrillers."

"I got it on good authority," he said and turned back to his work.

So I went and got my hat and told myself it was no skin off my nose how I

spent the day; I'd get paid just the same!

But I was getting a little fed up with some of the wild-goose chases to

which the Barnacle was assigning not only me, but the rest of the staff as well.

Sometimes they paid off; usually, they didn't. And when they didn't, Barnacle

had the nasty habit of making it appear that the man he had sent out, not he

himself, had dreamed up the chase. His "good authority" probably was no more

than some casual chatter of someone next to him at the latest bar he'd honored

with his cash.

Old Mrs. Clayborne had been one of the last of the faded gentility which at

one time had graced Douglas Avenue. The family had petered out, and she was the

last of them; she had died in a big and lonely house with only a few servants,

and a nurse in attendance on her, and no kin close enough to wait out her final

hours in person.

It was unlikely, I told myself, that anyone could have profited by giving

her an overdose of drugs, or otherwise hurrying her death. And even if it was

true, there'd be little chance that it could be proved; and that was the kind of

story you didn't run unless you had it down in black and white.

I went to the house on Douglas Avenue. It was a quiet and lovely place,

standing in its fenced-in yard among the autumn-colored trees.

There was an old gardener raking leaves, and he didn't notice me when I went

up the walk. He was an old man, pottering away and more than likely mumbling to

himself, and I found out later that he was a little deaf.

I went up the steps, rang the bell and stood waiting, feeling cold at heart

and wondering what I'd say once I got inside. I couldn't say what I had in mind;

somehow or other I'd have to go about it by devious indirection.

A maid came to the door.

"Good morning, ma'am," I said, "I am from the _Tribune_. May I come in and

talk?"

She didn't even answer; she looked at me for a moment and then slammed the

door. I told myself I might have known that was the way it would be.

I turned around, went down the steps, and cut across the grounds to where

the gardener was working. He didn't notice me until I was almost upon him; when

he did see me, his face sort of lit up. He dropped the rake, and sat down on the

wheelbarrow. I suppose I was as good an excuse as any for him to take a

Side 2

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