A Large Anthology of Science Fiction

by Jerry

  (1) The Chingsi talk and laugh but after all they aren’t human. On an alien world a hundred light-years away, why shouldn’t alien talents develop? A talent that’s so uncertain and rudimentary here that most people don’t believe it, might be highly developed out there.

  (2) The Whale expedition did fine till it found Chang. Then it hit a seam of bad luck. Real stinking bad luck that went on and on till it looks fishy. We lost the ship, we lost the launch, all but one of us lost our lives. We couldn’t even win a game of ping-pong.

  “So what is luck, good or bad? Scientifically speaking, future chance events are by definition chance. They can turn out favorable or not. When a preponderance of chance events has occurred unfavorably, you’ve got bad luck. It’s a fancy name for a lot of chance results that didn’t go your way. But the gambler defines it differently. For him, luck refers to the future, and you’ve got bad luck when future chance events won’t go your way. Scientific investigations into this have been inconclusive, but everyone knows that some people are lucky and others aren’t. All we’ve got are hints and glimmers, the fumbling touch of a rudimentary talent. There’s the evil eye legend and the Jonah, bad luck bringers. Superstition? Maybe; but ask the insurance companies about accident prones. What’s in a name? Call a man unlucky and you’re superstitious. Call him accident prone and that’s sound business sense. I’ve said enough.

  “All the same, search the space-flight records, talk to the actuaries. When a ship is working perfectly and is operated by a hand-picked crew of highly trained men in perfect condition, how often is it wrecked by a series of silly errors happening one after another in defiance of probability?

  “I’ll sign off with two thoughts, one depressing and one cheering. A single Chingsi wrecked our ship and our launch. What could a whole planetful of them do?

  “On the other hand, a talent that manipulates chance events is bound to be chancy. No matter how highly developed it can’t be surefire. The proof is that I’ve survived to tell the tale.”

  At twenty below zero and fifty miles an hour the wind ravaged the mountain. Peering through his polarized vizor at the white waste and the snow-filled air howling over it, sliding and stumbling with every step on a slope that got gradually steeper and seemed to go on forever, Matt Hennessy began to inch his way up the north face of Mount Everest.

  THE END

  SPACE SECRET

  William Sambrot

  This is what an Air Force rocket might discover on the other side of the moon.

  I am sending this report by special courier. I am personally unable to deliver it because I wish to be on hand to forestall any possible repercussions which might yet arise from the charges made by Dr. John Lassiter, of the Rand Corporation. Lassiter insists that the original video tape taken by the successful American moon rocket yesterday was stolen during the night and a substitute put in its place.

  As you know, the successful moon shot was made with a rocket that carried an electronic camera, operating with photoelectric cells which transmitted pictures onto electronically sensitized tape. The rocket made the run to the moon and swung around, photographing the far side, which has never been seen from earth. Then continuing on around, executing a vast figure 8, the rocket shot back toward earth, circled it and finally made a successful reentry in the Pacific Ocean.

  Although it was anticipated that the far side of the moon was in no way different from the near side, the prestige of being the first to have taken pictures of it was enormous. And quite naturally the Air Force made every effort, once the nose cone was recovered, to keep the video tape secret. It was rushed by special jet to the Air Force’s Research and Development building in Santa Monica, known as Rand Corporation. There it was to be processed by Doctor Lassiter.

  After the tape was processed, apparently Lassiter had viewed it privately—a breach of security. What he saw caused him to send urgent summonses to all the top echelon of the Air Force and Rand Corporation. I was able, because of my position at Rand, to be among the four or five who were permitted to view the second showing.

  John Lassiter, Ph.D., a theoretical physicist, topflight mathematician and electronics expert, is in his early forties, tall, rather thin, with penetrating eyes. He is a stand-out, intellectually, in a building full of geniuses. Rand Corporation, in Santa Monica, consists of about eight hundred brilliant people: scientists, economists, mathematicians, physicists, cybernetics and electronics experts, and the like. Also, they have a list of another two hundred fifty consultants on the outside, on whom they draw from time to time for expert advice.

  For the record, the business of Rand Corporation is that of evaluating any given idea and projecting its inherent possibilities into the future. They have been correct on a great many occasions. For example, working from known data concerning the U.S.S.R.’s rocket potential, they accurately forecast the first Sputnik—an event of some importance, you will agree.

  We assembled in the viewing room in the Rand building, with Air Police outside the door and scattered throughout the entire building and grounds. Security was complete.

  Before he showed the tape, Lassiter made an impromptu speech which I consider well worth repeating:

  “Gentlemen,” he said quietly, “history has always interested me. Not the history of the textbooks, but the history of legends, of primitive peoples; the stories handed down through the millenniums. And among these, without fail, in any civilization, we come across a strangely similar belief—a legend of gods who descended from the sky to walk the earth like men.”

  He held up a hand, ticking off on his fingers as he talked. “On the American continent we have the Mayans, the Incas, with their beliefs that bearded white gods would once more come back—gods who taught them their science, their mathematics, how to smelt ore, cut rock; gods who came from the sky. And there are the Polynesians, surrounded by the vast Pacific, who worship the redheaded bearded white god, who landed on Easter Island—the Eye to Heaven, as they call it. Everywhere throughout the world primitive men lifted their eyes to the skies for salvation, longing for the return of those kindly brilliant far-travelers, whose science so far outstripped their own.”

  He paused. “The pattern continues down to our time. Only, now, it appears to be one of watching—and waiting. But I won’t bore you with flying saucers or Fortian proofs of visitors from other worlds. We have here”—he touched the kinescope—“our own proof. Proof that our planetary system teems with life, with science that is to our atomic piles what our atomic piles tire to bonfires. Proof that we are not alone, not lost in the immensity of the infinite universe. We are not alone—and here’s the proof, in color.”

  He switched on the kinescope. Instantly the screen came alive, showing the brilliant blue-black velvet of outer space, the stars, glowing in colors seen only outside the earth’s atmosphere—greens, yellows, fiery reds, icy blues, burning steadily, without a flicker. The men in the room gasped. The rocket was approaching the moon closer and closer, the chilling whites and dead blacks looming closer and clearer.

  “Now,” Lassiter whispered. “Now you’ll see. It’s going to the far side—the side never before seen by man.”

  The scene on the screen moved along. Formidable mountains—sheer, fantastic slender needle spires, defying even the faint gravity of the moon. Immense pits, filled with the rubble of ancient disasters. More pits, more mountains, slashing crazy patterns of eye-hurting light and utter black of shadow without depth—and slowly, slowly the moon moved under the rocket until, visible faintly, the swollen greenish-blue rim of earth appeared, off in space. The rocket began leaving the moon and approaching the earth again. The tape came to an end. The lights came up. We turned, as one, and looked at Lassiter.

  He was seated, motionless, eyes unblinking, only his large sensitive hands tightly clenched before him. He stared at the screen.

  “It’s beautiful,” I said, “but no more so than we’d expected. Other than the prestige of having been first—well, really, Lassit
er, the far side is no different from the side we’ve seen since the beginning of time.”

  “It’s not the same!” He stood up, and his voice was a terrible broken shout in the soundproofed room. “That’s not the tape I saw last night!”

  There was an immediate stir in the room, and some of the Air Force people looked alarmed.

  “Listen to me! Please!” He stood up, his face gray, his eyes stricken, like a man who has seen glory suddenly leave him forever. “Listen!”

  We quieted. Already I heard one of the Air Force officers muttering something about, “Crazy as a hoot owl.”

  “Last night”—Lassiter began, pointing to the screen—“last night, on that screen—” His voice trembled slightly, as though in despair at ever being able to convey what he’d seen. “How can I begin to explain what I saw?” he whispered. We sat tensely, watching, listening. “How can I tell of the buildings there? The colors, the smoothly flowing lines of architecture? Slim, airy, yet full of strength. Serene, mature. Yes, that it—mature. Water, trees, parks. And the spaceships—”

  He paused, and when he repeated it, it was more a groan than a phrase. “The spaceships. One of them was taking off. Rising straight up, gently, swiftly, like a huge iridescent bubble. Light, incomparably lovely.” His voice was suddenly subdued. “They have a source of power so far beyond us. So far beyond us—”

  An Air Force man came to his feet. “Are you telling us that someone has had access to this room during the night and switched tapes on us?”

  Lassiter turned and looked at him, his eyes peculiarly inward-looking. “Yes,” he said.

  “And the—the original tape showed a—a civilization on the other side of the moon?” There was frank disbelief in the officer’s voice.

  “A civilization compared to which we’re still savages, crouching over a fire in a cave,” he said.

  The room was a hubbub of noise. I stood up and shouted for silence. When I got it, I looked at Lassiter. “Isn’t the manufacture of that electronic tape a Rand Corporation top-secret process?”

  He nodded. His mind was obviously far away.

  “Who could possibly duplicate that process, then use the tape to take these obviously authentic shots of the moon approach—steal the original and substitute the duplicate—and all in one night?” I asked.

  There was a murmur in the room—subdued laughter even. Lassiter looked at me, and suddenly his eyes became keen, blazing with that truly great intelligence of his. “The same ones who are living on the other side of our moon.”

  There was a sudden silence in the room.

  His glance swept us. “They’re here—in this building. They switched the tapes. I repeat—the tape you saw just now is not the one I saw last night. And yet this substitute is authentic. It shows an actual moon-rocket approach.”

  “Whom do you suspect—Martians?” I said gently, giving the others in the room a significant look. They looked back, nodding slightly. One of the officers scribbled a hasty note and went to the door.

  “Call them Martians, if you wish,” Lassiter said softly. “Those ancient ones who visited here so many millenniums ago; who, out of pity or kindness—or maturity—taught the savages they found here the rudiments of civilization. Those far-travelers who still watch—and wait.”

  “You can’t be serious, Lassiter,” one of the Rand men said unhappily. “Even if there were such—such space people—why would they try to keep us in ignorance?”

  “Because we’re still savages!” he shouted. “Clever, murderous children, developing our brains, our skills, but never our emotions. How could they permit us to join them, the society of other worlds, until we achieve adulthood—genuine maturity? That’s why they switched these films—so we couldn’t really know.”

  He said more—much more. He pointed out the consistent pattern of failures that had harassed man’s burgeoning space hopes. Failures he now understood to be deliberate stumbling blocks placed in mankind’s path as it clawed—prematurely—for the stars. An altogether remarkable synthesis.

  After exhaustive chemical analysis of the tape, it was proved to be of the same composition as stock still on the lab’s shelves, which of a necessity, ruled out its being a substitute. After a few more reruns of the tape, the Air Force announced itself as well pleased with the brilliant success of the moon shot.

  Lassiter, it was decided, had suffered a mental collapse because of overwork and the disappointment at discovering that the other side of the moon was no different from the side the earth has always seen. He is, as of this writing, undergoing a series of psychiatric examinations which ought to disclose—but in all likelihood won’t—that he is more sane than most of mankind. He is a remarkable individual, and I suggest that he be placed on the list of those to be watched most closely in the future.

  Also, I recommend that steps be taken hereafter to intercept all camera-bearing rockets from earth while in flight, and prepared films or tapes substituted, thus avoiding another untoward incident, such as developed here.

  For the Archives: Enclosed herewith is the original video tape which the U.S. Moon Rocket took of our lunar base.

  Though I’ve made the journey from earth to moon and back innumerable times, I found Lassiter’s description of this tape strangely moving. Especially his remark concerning the rather good shot of my own ship rising from the moon as I left with the substitute tape last night. He is right—it does indeed resemble an iridescent bubble. END OF REPORT

  TEST ROCKET!

  Jack Douglas

  It’s amazing how much you can team about absolute strangers it you just stop to think about the kind of an animat they’ll put in a . . .

  CAPTAIN BAIRD stood at the window of the laboratory where the thousand parts of the strange rocket lay strewn in careful order. Small groups worked slowly over the dismantled parts. The captain wanted to ask but something stopped him. Behind him Doctor Johannsen sat at his desk, his gnarled old hand tight about a whiskey bottle, the bottle the doctor always had in his desk but never brought out except when he was alone, and waited for Captain Baird to ask his question. Captain Baird turned at last.

  “They are our markings?” Captain Baird asked. It was not the question. Captain Baird knew the markings of the Rocket Testing Station as well as the doctor did.

  “Yes,” the doctor said, “they are our markings. Identical. But not our paint.”

  Captain Baird turned back to the window. Six months ago it had happened. Ten minutes after launching, the giant test rocket had been only a speck on the observation screen. Captain Baird had turned away in disgust.

  “A mouse!” the captain had said, “unfortunate a mouse can’t observe, build, report. My men are getting restless, Johannsen.”

  “When we are ready, Captain,” the doctor had said.

  It was twelve hours before the urgent call from Central Control brought the captain running back to the laboratory. The doctor was there before him. Professor Schultz wasted no time, he pointed to the instrument panel. “A sudden shift, see for yourself. We’ll miss Mars by a million and a quarter at least.”

  Two hours later the shift in course of the test rocket was apparent to all of them and so was their disappointment.

  “According to the instruments the steering shifted a quarter of an inch. No reason shows up,” Professor Schultz said.

  “Flaw in the metal?” Doctor Johannsen said.

  “How far can it go?” Captain Baird asked.

  Professor Schultz shrugged. “Until the fuel runs out, which is probably as good as never, or until the landing mechanism is activated by a planet-sized body.”

  “Course? Did you plot it?” The doctor asked.

  “Of course I did,” Professor Schultz said, “as close as I can calculate it is headed for Alpha Centauri.”

  Captain Baird turned away. The doctor watched him.

  “Perhaps you will not be quite so hasty with your men’s lives in the future, Captain?” the doctor said.

  Profe
ssor Schultz was spinning dials. “No contact,” the professor said, “No contact at all.”

  That had been six months ago. Three more test rockets had been fired successfully before the urgent report came through from Alaskan Observation Post No. 4. A rocket was coming across the Pole.

  The strange rocket was tracked and escorted by atomic armed fighters all the way to the Rocket Testing Station where it cut its own motors and gently landed. In the center of a division of atomic-armed infantry the captain, the doctor, and everyone else, waited impatiently. There was an air of uneasiness.

  “You’re sure it’s not ours?” Captain Baird asked.

  The doctor laughed. “Identical, yes, but three times the size of ours.”

  “Perhaps one of the Asian ones?”

  “No, it’s our design, but too large, much too large.”

  Professor Schultz put their thoughts into words. “Looks like someone copied ours. Someone, somewhere. It’s hard to imagine, but true nevertheless.”

  They waited two weeks. Nothing happened. Then a radiation-shielded team went in to examine the rocket. Two more weeks and the strange rocket was dismantled and spread over the field of the testing station. The rocket was dismantled and the station had begun to talk to itself in whispers and look at the sky.

  Captain Baird stood now at the window and looked out at the dismantled rocket. He looked but his mind was not on the parts of the rocket he could see from the window.

  “The materials, they’re not ours?” the captain asked.

  “Unknown here,” the doctor said.

  The captain nodded. “Those were our instruments?”

  “Yes.” The doctor still held the whiskey bottle in a tight grip.

  “They sent them back,” the captain said.

  The doctor crashed the bottle hard against the desk top. “Ask it, Captain, for God’s sake!!”