By the time “Who Goes There?” appeared, in the August 1938 Astounding, Campbell no longer had Orlin Tremaine looking over his shoulder. Tremaine was not comfortable in his new managerial post and Street & Smith was not comfortable with him, and by May, 1938, he was gone, ostensibly by resignation but actually having been dismissed by Street & Smith’s new president, “with the result,” Campbell told Swisher, “that I am now all of Astounding. There isn’t any more. No assistant, no readers, no nobody.” With Tremaine out of the picture Campbell had put the magazine through an extensive makeover, going about it in the dynamic manner that would mark his entire long editorial career.
One of the first things Campbell did was to change the magazine’s name from Astounding Stories to Astounding Science Fiction with the March 1938 issue. He loathed that gaudy adjective “astounding,” but could not then get rid of it; this was the best he could do in 1938. (He finally dumped it in 1960 in favor of Analog Science Fiction, the name it still bears.) The cover format underwent a redesign, and a splendid new cover artist, Hubert Rogers, arrived and created, month after month, visions of the shining future that were in line with Campbell’s own. Campbell had inherited a considerable backlog of stories from Tremaine, which was not a serious problem, since Tremaine had been an excellent editor. But Campbell, a younger man firmly grounded in the twentieth-century, wanted the magazine’s fiction to take a fresher approach, and a change in tone became apparent within a few months. Some of the stories he bought were by long-time Tremaine contributors like Jack Williamson, Nat Schachner, and Raymond Z. Gallun, but, month by month, new names appeared on the contents page—L. Sprague de Camp, Lester del Rey, Theodore Sturgeon, Robert A. Heinlein, Isaac Asimov, A.E. van Vogt, and many others, who under Campbell’s editorial guidance would transform the way science fiction was written forever. It was a radical and memorable metamorphosis, and knowledgeable readers today still look back on the era of Astounding Science Fiction of Campbell’s early years as a golden age.
Of all the Golden Age classics, Campbell’s own “Who Goes There?” has long held a key position, and those of us who have revered that story since our first acquaintance with it owe Alec Nevala-Lee deep gratitude for his excavation of the earlier version of that masterpiece. Not only is Frozen Hell of major interest by the way it shows a great s-f writer gaining total mastery of his craft and the nascent great editor that was the John W. Campbell of 1937 demonstrating why the magazine he would shortly be editing defined the modern era of science fiction, but the original version itself, for all its flaws, is exciting in its own right, providing character development and background detail that Campbell, for the sake of telling a swifter story, eliminated from his final draft. It is, of itself, a treasure. We are lucky to have it.
FROZEN HELL, by John W. Campbell, Jr.
CHAPTER ONE
McReady stuck his head barely above the surface, and looked off toward the north. The sun was a dulled wheel of light barely hanging on the horizon of an ice-bound plateau. The wind that had started with a mad slide down the foothills of the South Polar Plateau 800 miles to the south, and strengthened in its sweep across the glacier-locked continent, had lost nothing of its edge. Thirty miles of wind from the southeast, honed by 75 degrees of frost.
It carried a few sharp-edged, fine grains of ice, mementoes of their digging three days before. It wasn’t drift. The high, bald plateau had been scoured free of drift-snow ages ago; the unending winds had swept a huge patch 10 miles in diameter as bald as a buzzard’s throat.
McReady grinned behind his face-muffling scarf and adjusted his goggles. The physicists could be relied on to pick a place like this to roost. A quarter mile away, the orange paint of the tractor and the lesser blot of its trailing sledge loomed out of a dusk which represented two o’clock on a spring afternoon—October, in fact. October 2, 1939.
Barclay was running toward him, downwind like a man going down hill, his ice crampons sending up showers of ice chips that swirled away in front of him in the wind. Suddenly his feet went out from under him, and the wind tossed him along for ten yards before he caught himself and he climbed to his feet again. The padding of his coat and many layers of thermal clothing protected him from serious injury.
When Barclay reached the Secondary Magnetic Station, the wind shied a larger chip of ice against his goggles. It might have blinded him without their protection. McReady stepped back, giving him room. Barclay cursed, ducked through the flapping canvas door, and climbed backwards down the small ladder into the Station’s antechamber.
“Christ, Mac,” he said, voice dulled by layers of wool, “do you like this weather so much you’ve got to stand out in it?”
McReady smiled slowly. The sky was cloudless; only the drumming organ music of the wind and the wash like the slipstream of a transport plane suggested a storm.
“This place fascinates me. As a meteorologist, I’m always interested in storms. Anywhere else I’ve ever been, I’d call this a storm, but it’s been blowing steadily for four consecutive days, ever since we came here. The barometer hit 23 inches on the way down. I wonder…what would a real storm be out here?”
Barclay inched his head up above the level of the blue ice, into which they had cut the Secondary Magnetic Station. His goggles flashed twin reflections of the white of the sun
“If there were water,” Barclay mused, “it would be hell and high water. Dutton at Big Magnet reported fine, clear skies, wind SW 5. Bah! This is the world’s worst spot for a camp. I’ve some notes for them from Big Magnet that may keep them underground for a while.”
McReady reached up and tied shut the outer canvas door-flap. Then they went through the next door—a wood one—into the Station proper.
The roof of tent canvas laid across chicken wire and slats, weighted down by chunks of ice cut out in the making, rested across bolted uprights. Fiberboard panels made up the side walls. A copper stove, in the center of the room, succeeded in bringing the upper layer of air to about 80 degrees, but the wooden floor had a tracery of ice crystals scattered over it. Wind growled threats down the stove pipe.
Norris and Vane sat on the edge of Norris’s bunk, working over a sheaf of data sheets. Above the table, they were clad in long-sleeved grey woolen underwear and shoulder-length hair. They had on light khaki trousers, and the clothing increased in thickness as it approached the floor, ending in knee-length wool socks, and heavy, fur-lined boots. Perishable stores were kept frozen on the floor, while dry cells, beer, and food stock took to the temperate climate half way up. The tropics near the 7-foot ceiling were reserved for drying socks, two suits of underwear, and Vane’s bunk.
The galley was tossed into the stock-box at present, its space preempted by the magnetic instruments Norris and Vane were working over. McReady’s meteorological instruments, being of a more rugged type, were fastened to the wall. McReady crossed to check the recording anemometer card. It showed an almost straight line across the dial—30 to 35 miles of wind during every hour of the last 20. The thermometer showed greater activity, climbing to a height of -40°.
“Get through with the schedule?” Vane looked up toward Barclay.
“The batteries thawed out enough, but they won’t stand many more shots. I’ll have to use the dynamo next time, and you’ll have to shut down shop, I’m afraid, Vane.” Barclay nodded toward the magnetic instruments. “Dutton said my stuff was just coming in, and his voice was weak in the receiver. Here are the data. I’ll try to turn it into English letters, if you can’t read it, but it’s damned hard to write on that rig.”
“I know.” Vane nodded. “Did it work, though?”
“Well—in a way. I didn’t get frost-nipped much, and I didn’t get burned much, but trying to use a primus stove for a writing table isn’t quite the best way to do things.” Barclay shrugged. “Commander Garry wanted to know if you’d gotten any answers yet, and I replied none that I knew of. Right?”
“Not altogether.” Norris poked a stubby finger at a large
scale sketch-map of the area, which included their Secondary Magnetic Station as well as the main Antarctic base camp at the South Magnetic Pole, 78 miles away. He had drawn a small X near the Station. “The data we got from Big Magnet combined with what we got here during the last 24 hours make the magnetite-mountain idea impossible. It seems to be a meteor or something of the sort. Apparently a very considerable mass of extremely dense material, far too small and concentrated to be an iron-oxide mountain.”
“A meteorite?” McReady looked doubtfully at the spot marked on the map. “About a half mile away, eh? But would a meteorite affect your instruments at Big Magnet?”
Norris nodded. “Big Magnet is directly over the South Magnetic Pole of the Earth, therefore the compass needle should point directly downward. There is no horizontal component—that is, a horizontal compass needle would say that any direction is north, turning freely about a vertical axis. To a compass, the Magnetic South Pole is what the true south pole 1,200 miles away is to the geographer; any direction is due north. There is no horizontal pull, the shortest way north is straight down.
“But we found, with our sensitive instruments, that there was a horizontal component, indicating a sort of secondary south magnetic pole, a very weak one, in this direction. It’s only detectable where there is no horizontal interference from the Earth’s magnetic pole.” His finger jabbed at the X again. “And that meteorite, whatever it’s made of, is terrifically magnetic.”
McReady whistled softly. “You think you’ve got it located? Going to try to find it?”
Vane looked up at him with a smile. “If you found the nesting place of the great-grandfather of all storms—would you go after it?”
McReady laughed. “Thanks, boys, but I think you’ve already found that great-granddaddy of all storms for me. The barometer’s falling, and this place has a 30-mile wind as a normal condition. Commander Garry will have to send one of the planes back up country that way to see if there isn’t a funneling mountain chain sending us these breezes.” He glanced at the map. “Do you think you can find that meteorite?”
“Certainly,” Vane said. “If it is only a half mile away, then it can’t be very deep under the surface. We might even be able to reach it physically. I’m just damn fool enough to hope, and I’m going to set out tomorrow with ice axes and shovels.”
“Ye Gods,” Barclay groaned, “more digging? I thought I hated snow shovels, but since I’ve played with these non-magnetic darlings of yours in this blasted ice, my star detestation has become the ice axe.”
Barclay glanced toward the tool chest. The lid was up two inches or so, and the ends of three pointed ice axes showed, looking like teeth in a grinning mouth.
“You can always hope that it’s buried good and deep so we can’t possibly dig it out,” pointed out Norris. “And those beryllium-bronze tools aren’t so bad—the stuff will cut steel.”
“All right maybe for ice axes and butcher knives,” Barclay admitted, “but every blasted wrench and cold chisel we’ve got is made out of it. It hasn’t got the grip that case-hardened steel has. The Stillson wrenches aren’t worth a damn on a hardened steel tractor shaft. What I object to is making me use bronze-age tools on a machine-age tractor. Since the magnetic mass of the tractors make it impossible for you to work near them anyway, you might have let me have steel tools there.”
“Avoid duplication,” said Vane, spreading his hands sorrowfully. “Axiom number One of South Polar research. We had to use carbon dioxide in the Geiger counters for cosmic ray work because the argon bottle leaked and we didn’t have a duplicate. If you really want to lug an extra 150 pounds of steel tools around, that’s your privilege, I suppose. Speaking of duplication and digging—how many thermite bombs have we got left?”
“Three,” said Barclay. “I fell over all three trying to get at the radio set in the tractor. Three 25-pounders.”
“Well, if McReady’s storm holds off, we’re going hunting tomorrow. I think Norris better ride the sledge with the instruments, while we man-haul him. Sad experience convinces me you can’t watch a dip needle and your feet at the same time. This ice-dome may be bald, but it presents some nice cracks to fall into.”
McReady sighed and sat down on the edge of his bunk. “It’s my turn to cook this evening, I believe. If you birds will move that junk, I’ll set up the primus stove and we’ll see what the larder offers. I think I’m going to crack a few eggs. Everybody willing?”
“What, no pemmican? No rancid seal-blubber? We couldn’t stand for that omission.” Vane sprang to remove the magnetic apparatus. “By the way, Mac, do you suppose that they still have eggs, up there in the north, that lie down flat when you open ’em? Eggs that lie down together like the lion and the lamb, with both yolk and white flat?
“If you don’t like eggs that have been frozen, you don’t have to eat ’em. You can have that seal-blubber. And if you don’t like that, remember that the seal didn’t ask to be eaten. I just thought it might be a good idea to stoke up for work tomorrow. Either we dig for your blasted meteorite, or we have to lace down the roof against the wind. We’ll have a little variety tonight, and then tomorrow breakfast can be something different. How about cocoa and oatmeal?”
“Let’s see, didn’t we have that yesterday? It was oatmeal and cocoa this morning, but wasn’t it cocoa and oatmeal yesterday?”
“No, it was oatmeal and cocoa.” McReady assured him. “I fixed it. Barclay, will you start heaving the kitchen over here. Primus stove first—let’s go.”
Barclay started in at the top of the chest, and worked down rapidly. First the stove. Then the food crate.
* * * *
McReady was first up next morning, and his was the joy of starting the copper stove to dispel the frost of the night. The Garry Expedition had tried, with fair success, a new system in Antarctic exploration. Since they were basing at the South Magnetic Pole, Big Magnet base had been, perforce, 350 miles from the nearest point accessible to ships. The entire mass of expedition equipment had been freighted in by the five planes. Even one of the six tractors had been flown in. But the impossibility of freighting 500 tons of fuel so far inland had forced Commander Garry to try to live off the country in this respect; Antarctica was known to have coal reserves greater than those of any equal area on Earth, excepting only the United States. The expedition’s tractors and electric power plant were steam driven, the heating and cooking stoves coal-fired.
The fuel found 20 miles from Big Magnet in the Magnet Range had, however, been a low-grade, high-ash bituminous coal. McReady’s task of starting the little stove was, in consequence, no easy one. Belches of smoke served effectively to force the others from their bunks into the chill temperature of the Secondary Magnetic Station.
“The temperature outside,” reported McReady carefully placing another lump of coal, “has fallen to -58°. The storm has arrived, the abnormal condition of the local weather. I might have known what it would be.”
“I don’t hear anything,” Barclay said.
“It’s a dead calm. Bar, my friend, I fear we dig today, unless the meteorite is happily placed very deep. Let us pray.”
“Damn. A dead calm. Oh, well, the temperature may go down, but that’s more comfortable than wind. Is it still dropping?”
“On its way down. It’ll be -65° by the time we get started.” McReady assured him. “Will you get some ice for the melter?”
* * * *
Two hours later, the thermometer verified McReady’s prediction. From horizon to horizon, the blue ice of the bald plateau stretched out under winking stars, the calmest and clearest air they had seen since reaching this wind-swept dome. The northern horizon was barely washed with rose and crimson and green, the southern horizon black mystery sweeping off to the pole. The auroral lights wavered in shimmering curtains about them, intensified slightly off to the northeast, in the direction of Big Magnet base and the magnetic pole. The brightest stars had dancing crystalline duplicates in the sparkling ice underfo
ot. Off to the west, the ice contracting under the cold gave a ripping crack, and a succession of spreading, lesser reports as the strain was eased.
“Be hell if one of those relief cracks strikes through the camp,” muttered Barclay. “We’ve weakened the ice cutting into it here, so it might.”
“The seismic sounding showed the ice right here to be 1,200 feet deep,” Vane pointed out. “A 7-foot hole is just a little chip. By the way, the ice movement is toward the northwest, here, and we’re bound in that direction. There is probably a drowned mountain or hill backing the ice up this way; we may hit it.”
“Got everything?” McReady asked.
“Um. Let me get settled, and thank God that your storm was a flat calm.” Vane alone of the party had worn heavy furs. The others would be sweating in stout khaki trousers, woolen shirts, and mackinaws under wind-proof clothes. Vane, riding the man-hauled sledge would have the least pleasant task, that of sitting still and observing the magnetic instruments.
“I said an unusual condition would arrive,” McReady defended himself, “and it did. This is the first calm we’ve seen since we got here. I admit I gave the wrong interpretation, but there must be wind storms here at times. One might even say that this is a storm—a 35-mile-per-hour wind in the opposite direction.”
The men set off. The ice crampons chipped into the ice under their heels and made going not too difficult, but the age-scoured ice, gouged by the sand-like grains of ice borne on howling, unceasing winds, remained a rough and uncertain surface. The man on the sledge had to brace himself continuously at unexpected angles. Two deep crevasses, unbridged in this drift-free territory, forced them to detour for nearly a mile before returning to the course indicated by the dip needle and the spaced inductor-readings Vane made.
Frozen Hell Page 3