9 Tales of Space and Time

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  9 Tales of

  Space and Time

  Edited By Raymond J. Healy

  9 Tales of Space and Time is that rare bird, an editors’ anthology. Over half of its contributors are themselves science-fiction editors. Here is the line-up:

  “The Idealists,”

  by John W. Campbell, Jr.

  Editor, Astounding Science Fiction

  “Shock Treatment,”

  by J. Francis McComas

  Co-editor, The Magazine of Fantasy

  and Science Fiction

  “Man of Parts,”

  by H.L. Gold

  Editor, Galaxy magazine

  “The Great Devon Mystery,”

  by Raymond J. Healy

  Editor, New Tales of Space

  and Time

  “Balaam,”

  by Anthony Boucher

  Co-editor, The Magazine of Fantasy

  and Science Fiction

  And 9 Tales of Space and Time contains new stories by science-fiction editors’ favorite writers, including:

  “Genius of the Species,”

  by R. Bretnor

  An outstanding writer of humorous

  science fiction

  “Compound B,”

  by David Harold Fink, M.D.

  Known, among other things, for his

  best-seller Release from

  Nervous Tension

  “The Chicken or the Egghead,”

  by Frank Fenton

  One of Hollywood’s top

  screen writers

  “Overture,” by Kris Neville

  A top-drawer science-fiction talent,

  author of “Bettyann”

  9 Tales of Space and Time contains material making its first appearance anywhere. Edited by Raymond J. Healy, who was co-editor of one of the first science-fiction anthologies, Adventures in Time and Space, it takes a firm step forward in the direction of mature writing in the field. In many ways, this book is a departure from the ordinary. Readers will find it a blueprint for a bright new school of science-fiction writing.

  9 TALES OF SPACE AND TIME

  Copyright, 1954, by Henry Holt and Company, Inc.

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce

  this book or portions thereof in any form.

  In Canada, George J. McLeod, Ltd.

  First Edition

  Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 54-7026

  Printed in the United States of America

  This book is for Midge and David,

  sixteen other Healys,

  and Marion Stokes

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  The editor owes a deep debt of gratitude to the unselfish Mr. Willis Kingsley Wing for his much-needed help in arranging contract forms for this book. Thanks are also due Anthony Boucher and J. Francis McComas for valuable editorial advice; and we wish to thank Mike and Gertrude Brennan and David and Fritzi Huntington also for offering good critical opinions. And we appreciate the help and patience of our sponsors, Miss Betty Jane Martin, Stewart Richardson, and William E. Buckley.

  Raymond J. Healy

  INTRODUCTION

  Modern science fiction was “discovered” by the general reader shortly after the close of World War II with the publication of Grof Conklin’s The Best of Science Fiction and Adventures in Time and Space, edited by this writer and J. Francis McComas. These two collections represented the cream of the stories which had been appearing in the science-fiction magazines until that time and, fortunately or not, unloosed the floodgates for the veritable deluge of such collections which soon followed.

  Much has been written about science fiction since that time. It has been discovered by the critics of general literature also . . . even some of the more effete ones, who dashed into print with a variety of opinions about the metier. Most of these fellows tried to give the impression, condescendingly enough, that they were solely responsible for bringing a new, if immature, art form to the public view.

  Actually, science fiction “found” itself. The long and rather tiresome period of “gadget” stories came to a natural end, and the imaginative writers and editors in the field sought new horizons. The laboratories of physics and allied sciences were deserted for more inviting levels of speculation, wherein such subjects as theology, parapsychology, politics, and such, seemingly taboo until now, were extrapolated. And these new departures contributed greatly to the broadening of both reader and writer interest.

  The science-fiction magazine field, once dominated by John W. Campbell, Jr.’s Astounding Science Fiction, now boasts at least a half-dozen major competitors, each striving to outdo the other in the publication of better stories by competent and frequently talented writers in this rapidly developing literary form. Countless inferior publications still clutter the stands, it is true, but these come and go as the leveling process continues, and eventually, we hope, many will fall forever by the wayside.

  But where once the sensitive fan used to strip the covers of his monthly mag . . . or conceal them in brown paper, he now need feel no sense of shame. For one thing, his cohorts are now almost legion. And, for another, science-fiction art work is consistently improving.

  The success of Adventures in Time and Space encouraged us to do some further experimenting in science-fiction editing and publishing. What would happen, we wondered, if a group of outstanding writers were invited to contribute original stories to a collection in which each was given a specific theme? The result was our second collection, New Tales of Space and Time, the success of which, we are proud to say, seems to have contributed a new and progressive idea to science-fiction publishing. Similar volumes are following this pattern successfully. When a reader purchases such a volume, he can feel certain he won’t come across a story . . . even a good one . . . that he has read in a magazine just six months before. Also, by their very nature, such collections assure one of the very tops in talent.

  In this third and admittedly speculative venture, we have asked a number of leading science-fiction editors to contribute original stories for us. In addition, we invited several of the contributors to New Tales of Space and Time whose stories had caused wide and favorable comment to write new stories for us. A renowned psychiatrist and your editor complete the list.

  We have even gambled on the frequent bugaboo for editors, a sequel. So many readers of Kris Neville’s “Bettyann” fell in love with his charming little alien girl that we persuaded him to tell more about her. He has done this beautifully, we think, in another haunting and superbly written story which should enhance his rapidly growing reputation. It should interest fans and editors to know that Neville considers this tale his farewell to the short-story form. In developing such character treatments as “Bettyann” and “Overture,” its sequel, he realized the limitations of the short-story form and has accepted the challenge of the novel.

  The magazine editors who appear here are all giants in the field. John W. Campbell, Jr., of Astounding, delighted us by giving us his first new fiction to be published in some fourteen years. It will prove, we feel sure, that the youthful “Mr. Pro” of science fiction has lost none of his wonderful skill as a fiction writer. He presents us with a mature and challenging new concept in the nature of his writing and in the development of his theme.

  Horace Gold of Galaxy took time out from his demanding editorial duties to create a wry and memorable tale of a man in perhaps the most perplexing situation ever conceived for a science-fiction hero. Here too, the skillful hand of an o
ld master is apparent.

  Anthony Boucher, erudite critic, writer, and editor (with J. Francis McComas) of The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, has contributed a theological problem story which should be as widely discussed as his classic, “The Quest for Saint Aquin,” which appeared in our previous volume. His distinguished coeditor, J. Francis McComas, was as generously cooperative as John W. Campbell, Jr., writing his own first fiction piece in more than a decade, specifically for this volume. In his story he offers a fresh theme for future science-fiction extrapolation . . . scientific penology.

  Another novel experiment we have tried in this collection is the handling of similar themes by two of the contributors. David Harold Fink, M.D., the celebrated psychiatrist, author of the perennially best-selling Release from Nervous Tension, has used his enormous knowledge of human nature to show what happens to a stupid man who, through the use of a secret wonder drug, becomes brilliant. Frank Fenton, screen writer and novelist, reverses the theme in a mordantly humorous story called “The Chicken or the Egghead,” and shows us the problems of an intellectual who, through the use of another secret drug, becomes an average man. We believe both themes to be unique in science fiction, or very nearly so.

  Reginald Bretnor, the humorist-creator of Papa Schimmelhom and “Little Anton,” has contributed a charming political fantasy which rivals the appeal of his bravura pieces because of its subtle charm and delightful surprise ending.

  Our own contribution falls also (we hope) in the humor category. Our theme is lifted directly, and with due acknowledgment, from the works of Charles Fort. We attempt, with tongue firmly in cheek, to explain the never-solved mystery of the strange tracks in the snow in Devon, England, in the middle of the last century. Forgive us our trespasses!

  Raymond J. Healy

  CONTENTS

  Introduction •

  1 John W. Campbell, Jr. • The Idealists

  2 J. Francis McComas • Shock Treatment

  3 R. Bretnor • Genius of the Species

  4 Kris Neville • Overture

  5 David Harold Fink, M.D. • Compound B

  6 Frank Fenton • The Chicken or the Egghead

  7 Raymond J. Healy • The Great Devon Mystery

  8 Anthony Boucher • Balaam

  9 H.L. Gold • Man of Parts

  JOHN W. CAMPBELL, JR.

  1

  THE IDEALISTS

  John W. Campbell, Jr., long-time editor of Astounding Science Fiction magazine, needs little introduction to most science-fiction fans, either as editor or writer. Many of his fiction pieces have become classics in the field. As an editor he has been one of the major forces in the growth and maturation of a new literary genre.

  Campbell introduced L. Ron Hubbard’s Dianetics to the world a few years back, and reverberations of its impact can still be heard in the hills. Generally, however, his editorial strokes cause less conflict of opinion. For example, John refused to quit publishing atom-bomb stories during World War II despite pressure from government agents. He wisely pointed out to them that, if he did quit, it would be an obvious tip-off to enemy Intelligence that our huge secret project might be just what it actually turned out to be. This slant had apparently not occurred to our own Intelligence, but they were quick to concur, once the point was made.

  Campbell hasn’t written any fiction for fifteen years, so we were more than proud when he agreed to contribute to this volume. In “The Idealists” he presents a new kind of science fiction “gimmick” story.

  Also, and perhaps of more interest to the inquiring type of mind, Campbell offers a very subtle and reasonable exposition of the idea that pain and punishment are very necessary elements in the successful development of social as well as personal character. By extension, he also intimates that an acceptable godhood very definitely limits godlike action and function.

  It is our hope that this brilliant story, Campbell’s first fiction to be published in far too long, will prove to be but the first of a long new series from his talented pen.

  1

  THE IDEALISTS

  “HAL . . . GAY! THE DUKE KILLED ISHTOCK!” CARL SEAMAN pounded into the companion-way the instant the inner lock door opened. “The Duke and half a dozen of his men hauled him out of his shop, talked to him for about five minutes, tied him up, and the Duke cut off his head with that two-handed scimitar he carries around.” Carl’s dark, thin face was taut with anger; the skin around his lips and nostrils was white and trembling slightly.

  “One,” said “Bull” Bowman. He shrugged slightly. “What did the Duke accuse him of?”

  “That damned, self-centered, egotistical, hidebound bastitch!” Blackie Turner pounded his left fist into his right hand and stared out the bubble dome toward the town and castle prostrate across the bald, rocky hill. “The ruddy-minded old feudal baron! Now what’ll we do?”

  Captain Hal Wainwright heaved himself up from the computer keyboard. His intense, dark eyes were nearly shut. “What was the charge, Carl?”

  “Oh, magic, of course! Unorthodoxy! Hoosenany flapdoodle! What the hell difference does it make? The real charge was that Ishtock had a new idea, and the damned Duke isn’t going to allow anybody to have any ideas that don’t support his iron-handed authority. God, I hate people who can’t stand a new idea!” He turned savagely toward Bowman, his eyes hurt and angry. “And that sometimes includes you, Bull. So somebody did get hurt; so you did say the Duke would kill Ishtock. Dammit, then, what the hell can we do to break the hard-crusted, rockbound, dough-headed feudalism they’ve got here? Wait for it to die of old age? God Almighty! It’s been going on here for at least twenty-five hundred of our years already! What do you want? It’s a damned sight easier to stand back and say, ‘Well, it won’t work’, than to get up and say what will! What will work, then? Leaving them to stew in their own blood and juice and squalor for another twenty-five hundred years—or another twenty-five thousand?”

  Gay Firestone rose rigidly out of the bucket seat. “Carl, had Ishtock had a chance to teach any of the others?”

  Carl shook himself rather than his head. “I don’t know; I was going to see him. I was too far away to do anything; by the time I got there it was too late to do anything. The Paradans just melted away from around me, as usual. I started running as soon as I heard the shot—Ishtock used the gun once, anyway—but the whole thing was over before I got close enough to be able to use the neurodamper. Ishtock was lying there in that filthy sewer they call a street, with the local equivalent of flies at him already.

  “There wasn’t one single thing I could do but turn around and come back here. I couldn’t even bury the poor guy. The one guy in that stinking town who showed some signs of trying to learn something new. What’ll we do?”

  Gay Firestone’s face retained the professionally trained calm of the psychophysician, but her eyes were deeply angry. “No problem is without a solution; we just haven’t found it yet. We’ll train someone else. Someone the Duke can’t or won’t kill until he’s trained someone else. If we can’t work with honest men of this culture, we’ll see if we can find some bandits or the like; they will at least know how to protect themselves against the Duke while they get started.

  “The important thing is to introduce into this rotten feudalism some force that will make the society respect the individual—whether they like him or not. When a society is itself insane, then those rated criminal or insane within it must include some who are truly sane, like Ishtock. In a society so given to murder and ‘off with his head’, a bandit is better adjusted to the realities than a scholar like Ishtock.”

  “They’re at least rebelling against the stasis of the place,” Carl agreed. “But I don’t know of any bandits—except the neighboring Duke and his henchmen. And they’re just as thickheaded as this Duke Stonehill here!”

  He looked out at the town again. From the bubble dome of the control cabin of the little interstellar exploration ship, the view was excellent. Parado’s sun was an enormously int
ense blue-white giant and very remote—but the light it cast here had the brilliant, pinpoint harshness that brought out in pitiless detail the squalor of the town. The local vegetation ran to yellows and oranges, rather than to greens and reds; around the bald, rocky hill on which the castle squatted, the fields sloped away in gentle swales.

  The castle had been built, originally, of fitted basaltic rock, a dense, black stone. But that had been nearly two thousand years ago—nearly five of this planet’s long years. Since then repairs had been made, and the castle walls were a crazy mixture of granites, different-hued basalts, flints, and assorted field-stones. Lichens, mosses, and algaelike things that grew in the slops casually dumped down its walls had stained them purple and orange and streaky rust and a virulent green. The place looked diseased—and probably was.

  The town itself was equally uncared for; it slumped on the hill, rather than lying on it. Its crazy streets wandered around houses and buildings without plan. There were mud-and-thatch huts, and wooden buildings, and a few stone quasi-mansions. Some were almost new, with startling chalk-white patches of new lumber mixed with the salvaged bones of predecessors that had collapsed.

  The whole five-man crew of the Seeker could smell the stench of the place in memory. The alien biochemistry of the Paradan humanoids made some difference—but rotting garbage and sewage are a stench in any race’s terms.

  “We can not lift them out of that rut by main strength or patience; we can’t stay here that long,” Wainwright said angrily. “They’ve got to learn themselves!”

  “And at this stage of development,” Gay replied, “the whole direction of their culture is toward suppression of any new learning—and the inviolable maintenance of everything that’s old. Including things like today’s murder and the idea that the serf or commoner is somewhat less valuable to the noble than is a domesticated animal.”