American Science Fiction Four Classic Novels 1953-56

by Gary K. Wolfe

  It went on like that endlessly. He would leap through the icy snow until he heard its wing-drumming approach. Then, falling to his knees, he would whirl and fling a cloud of snow into its eyes, blinding it, driving it off long enough to push on a few more inches.

  Until, finally, cold and dripping, he stood with his back to the cellar window, hurling snow at the bird in the desperate hope that it would give up and he wouldn’t have to jump into the imprisoning cellar.

  But the bird kept coming, diving at him, hovering before him, the sound of its wings like that of wet sheets flapping in a heavy wind. Suddenly the jabbing beak was hammering at his skull, slashing skin, knocking him back against the house. He stood there dazedly, waving his arms in panic at the bird’s attack. The yard swam before him, a billowing mist of white. He picked up snow and threw it, missing. The wings were still beating at his face; the beak gashed his flesh again.

  With a stricken cry, Scott whirled and leaped for the open square. He crawled across it dizzily. The leaping bird knocked him through.

  He fell, clawing, his screams ending with a breathless grunt as he crashed down on the sand beneath the cellar window. He tried to stand, but he had twisted his leg in falling and it refused now to bear his weight.

  Ten minutes later he heard running footsteps up above. The back door opened and slammed shut. And all the while he lay there in a snarl of limbs. Lou and Beth walked around the house and through the yard, trampling down the snow, calling his name over and over until darkness fell. And they didn’t stop even then.

  Chapter Sixteen

  In the distance he could hear the thumping of the water pump. They forgot to turn it off. The thought trickled like cold honey across the fissures of his brain. He stared with vacant eyes, his face a blank. The pump clicked off, and silence draped down across the cellar. They’re gone, he thought. The house is empty. I’m alone.

  His tongue stirred sluggishly. Alone. His lips moved. The word began and ended in his throat.

  He twisted slightly and felt a stirring of pain in the back of his skull. Alone. His right fist twitched and thumped once at the cement. Alone. After everything. After all his efforts, he was alone in the cellar.

  He pushed up finally, then sank down instantly as pain seemed to tear open the back of his head. Lying there, he reached up gingerly and touched a finger to the spot. He traced the edges of the brittle lacework of dried blood; his fingertip ascended and descended the parabola of the lump. He prodded it once. He groaned and dropped his arm. He lay there on his stomach, feeling the cold, rough cement against his forehead.

  Alone.

  Finally he rolled over and sat up. Pain rolled sluggishly around the inside of his head. It did not stop quickly. He had to press the palms of his hands against his temples to cushion its stabbing rebound. After a long while it stopped and dragged down at the base of his skull, spikes sunk in his flesh. He wondered if his skull were fractured, then decided that, if it were, he would be in no condition to wonder about it.

  He opened his eyes and looked around the cellar with painslitted eyes. Everything was still the same. His dismal gaze moved over the familiar landmarks. And I thought I was going to get out, he thought bitterly. He looked up over his shoulder with a wince. The door was closed again, of course. And locked too, probably. He was still trapped.

  His chest shuddered with a long exhalation. He licked his dry lips. And he was thirsty again too, and hungry. It was all senseless.

  Even the slight amount of tensing in his jaws sent pain gnawing through his head. He opened his mouth and sat limply until the aching had diminished.

  When he stood, it came back again. He pressed one palm against the face of the next step and leaned against it, the cellar wavering before him as though he saw it through a lens of water. It took a while for objects to appear clearly.

  He shifted on his feet and hissed, discovering that his knee was swollen again. He glanced down at its puffiness, remembering that it was the leg that had been injured in his original fall into the cellar. Odd that he’d never made the connection, but that was undoubtedly why that leg always weakened first.

  He remembered lying on the sand, the leg twisted under him, while outside Lou was calling him. It was night and the cellar had been dark and cold. Wind had blown snow confetti through the broken pane. It had drifted down across his face, feeling like the timid, withdrawing touches of ghostly children. And, though he answered her and answered her, she never heard him. Not even when she came down into the cellar and, unable to move, he had lain there, crying out her name.

  He walked slowly to the edge of the step and looked down the hundred-foot drop to the floor. A terrible distance. Should he labor down the mortar-crack chimney or—

  Abruptly, he jumped.

  He landed on his feet. His knee seemed to explode and a knife-edged club smashed across his brain as he fell forward to his hands. But that was all. Shaken, he sat on the floor, smiling grimly despite the pain. It was a good thing he’d discovered that he could fall so far without being hurt. If he hadn’t discovered it, he would have had to climb down the chimney and wasted time. The smile faded. He stared morosely at the floor. Time was no longer something to be wasted, because it was no longer something to be saved. It was no longer a commodity to be spent or hoarded. It had lost all value.

  He got up and started walking, feet padding softly over the cold cement. Should have got the sponge shoes, he thought. Then he shrugged carelessly. What did it matter, anyway?

  He got himself a drink from the hose, then returned to the sponge. He didn’t feel hungry, after all. He climbed to the top of the sponge and lay back with a thin sigh.

  He lay there inertly, staring up at the window over the fuel tank. There was no sunlight visible. It must be late afternoon. Soon darkness would fall. Soon the last night would begin.

  He looked at the twisted latticework of a spider web that blocked off one corner of the window. Many things hung from its adhesive weave—dust, bugs, bits of dead leaf, even a stubby pencil he had thrown up there once. In all his time in the cellar he’d never seen the spider that made that web. He didn’t see it now.

  Silence hung over the cellar. They must have turned off the oil heater before they left. There was that faint crackling, creaking sound of warping boards, but that couldn’t even scratch the surface of the silence. He could hear his own breath, uneven and slow.

  Through that window, he thought, I watched that girl. Catherine; was that her name? He couldn’t even recall what she’d looked like.

  He’d also tried to get up to that window after he’d fallen into the cellar. It had been the only one available. The window with the broken pane was too far above the sand, only a vertical wall beneath it. The window over the log pile was even less accessible. The only one that had presented the slightest possibility had been the one over the fuel tank.

  But, at seven inches, he hadn’t been able to climb the boxes and suitcases. And, by the time he’d found the means, he was too small. He’d gone up there once, but, without a stone, he’d been unable to break the pane and had had to go down again.

  He rolled over on his side and turned away from the window. It was unbearable to see sky and trees and know he’d never be out there again. He breathed heavily, staring at the cliff wall.

  And here I am, he thought, back to morbid introspection again; all action undone. This could have ended long ago. But he had had to fight it. Climb threads, kill spiders, look for food. He clamped his mouth shut and stared at the long net pole leaning against the cliff wall. His gaze moved along the pole leaning against the wall, the long pole leaning against the wall.

  He jerked up suddenly.

  With a breathless grunt, he scrambled to the edge of the sponge and jumped down, ignoring the pain in his knee and head. He started racing for the cliff wall, stopped. What about water and food? Never mind, he wouldn’t need it; it wasn’t going to take that long. He ran toward the pole again.

  Before he reached th
e net, he ran into the hose and got a drink. Then, running out again, he began to shinny up the metal rim of the net, past the body-thick cords. He climbed until he’d reached the pole, then pulled himself up onto its wide, curving surface.

  It was better than he’d imagined. The pole was so wide and it was leaning against the wall at such a low angle that he wouldn’t have to clamber up, hands down, for support. He could almost run erect up the long, gradual slope. With an excited cry he started up the road to the cliff.

  Was it possible, he wondered as he ran, that things had worked out in a definite manner? Was it possible that there was purpose to his survival? It was hard to believe, and yet, in a greater measure, hard to disbelieve. All the coincidences that had contributed to his survival seemed to go beyond the limits of probability.

  This, for instance; this pole thrown here in just this way by his own brother. Was that only chance? And the spider’s death yesterday providing the final key to his escape. Was that only chance? Most importantly, the two occurrences combining in just this way to make possible his escape. Could it be only coincidence?

  He could hardly believe it. Yet how could he doubt the process going on in his body, which told him clearly that he had today and nothing more? Unless the very precision with which he shrank indicated something. But indicated what— beyond hopelessness?

  Still he did not lose the shapeless feeling of excitement as he hurried up the broad pole. It was still rising when he passed the first lawn chair; rising when he passed the second; rising when he stopped and sat looking down at the vast gray plain of the floor; rising when, an hour later, he reached the top of the cliff and fell down, exhausted, on the sand. And it was still rising as he lay there, heart pounding, fingers clutching at the sand. Get up, he kept telling himself. Let’s go. It will be dark soon. Let’s get out before it’s dark.

  He got up and started running across the shadowy desert. After a while he passed the silent bulk of the spider. He didn’t stop to look at it; it was not important now. It was only a step already taken, which provided the ground for the next step. He stopped only once, to pull loose a chunk of bread and shove it under his coat of sponge. Then he ran on again.

  When he reached the spider’s web, he rested a while, then began to climb. The cable was sticky. He had to pull his hands and feet loose from it before he could climb up to the next one. The web trembled and swayed beneath his weight as he climbed past the dead beetle, not looking, breathing through his mouth.

  And still excitement rose. Suddenly everything seemed meaningful, as if things had to happen in just this way. He knew it might be the rationalizing of desire, but he couldn’t help thinking it anyway.

  He reached the top of the web and quickly climbed onto the wooden shelf that ran around the wall. He could run now, and he did, his feet pounding down with a strong rhythm. He ignored the throbbing of his knee; it didn’t matter.

  He ran as fast as he could. Three blocks this way along the shadow-dark path, around the corner at top speed, then a mile straight ahead. He skittered like a tiny bug along the beam, running until he could hardly breathe.

  He ran into blinding light.

  He stopped, chest lurching, hot breath spilling from his lips. He stood there, eyes closed, and felt the wind blowing across his face. He closed his eyes and sniffed at its sweet, clear coolness. Outside, he thought. The word ballooned in his brain until it crowded out everything else and was the only word left. Outside. Outside. Outside.

  Quietly then, slowly, with a dignity befitting the moment, he pulled himself up the few inches to the open square of window, clambered over the wooden rim, and jumped down. He stepped across the cement walk on trembling legs and stopped.

  He stood at the edge of the world, looking.

  He lay on a soft mattress of sere, crinkly leaves, other leaves pulled over him, the vast house behind him, blocking off the night wind. He was warm and fed. He’d found a dish of water underneath the porch, and had drunk from it. Now he lay there quietly on his back, looking at the stars.

  How beautiful they were; like blue-white diamonds cast across a sky of inky satin. No moonlight illuminated the sky. There was only total darkness, broken by the flaring pin points of the stars.

  And the nicest thing about them was that they were still the same. He saw them as any man saw them, and that brought a deep contentment to him. Small he might be, but the earth itself was small compared to this.

  Odd that after all the moments of abject terror he had suffered contemplating the end of his existence, this night—which was the very night it would end—he felt no terror at all. Hours away lay the end of his days. He knew, and still he was glad he was alive.

  That was the wonderful part of this moment. That was the thick blanket of contentment that warmed his toes. To know the end was close and not to mind. This, he knew, was courage, the truest, ultimate courage, because there was no one here to sympathize or praise him for it. What he felt was felt without the hope of commendation.

  Before, it had been different. He knew that now. Before he had kept on living because he kept on hoping. That was what kept most men living.

  But now, in the final hours, even hope had vanished. Yet he could smile. At a point without hope he had found contentment. He knew he had tried and there was nothing to be sorry for. And this was complete victory, because it was a victory over himself.

  “I’ve fought a good fight,” he said. It sounded funny to say it. He felt almost embarrassed. Then he shook away embarrassment. It was what was left to him. Why shouldn’t he proclaim the bittersweetness of his pride?

  He bellowed at the universe. “I’ve fought a good fight!” And under his breath he added, “God damn it to hell.”

  It made him laugh. His laughter was the faintest icy sprinkling of sound against the vast, dark earth.

  It felt good to laugh, and good to sleep, under the stars.

  Chapter Seventeen

  As on any other morning, his lids fell back, his eyes opened. For a moment he stared up blankly, his mind still thick with sleep. Then he remembered and his heart seemed to stop.

  With a startled grunt, he jolted up to a sitting position and looked around incredulously, his mind alive with one word:

  Where?

  He looked up at the sky, but there was no sky—only a ragged blueness, as if the sky had been torn and stretched and squeezed and poked full of giant holes, through which light speared.

  His wide, unblinking gaze moved slowly, wonderingly. He seemed to be in a vast, endless cavern. Not far over to his right the cavern ended and there was light. He stood up hastily and found himself naked. Where was the sponge?

  He looked up again at the jagged blue dome. It stretched away for hundreds of yards. It was the bit of sponge he’d worn.

  He sat down heavily, looking over himself. He was the same. He touched himself. Yes, the same. But how much had he shrunk during the night?

  He remembered lying on the bed of leaves the night before, and he glanced down. He was sitting on a vast plain of speckled brown and yellow. There were great paths angling out from a gigantic avenue. They went as far as he could see.

  He was sitting on the leaves.

  He shook his head in confusion.

  How could he be less than nothing?

  The idea came. Last night he’d looked up at the universe without. Then there must be a universe within, too. Maybe universes.

  He stood again. Why had he never thought of it; of the microscopic and the submicroscopic worlds? That they existed he had always known. Yet never had he made the obvious connection. He’d always thought in terms of man’s own world and man’s own limited dimensions. He had presumed upon nature. For the inch was man’s concept, not nature’s. To a man, zero inches means nothing. Zero meant nothing.

  But to nature there was no zero. Existence went on in endless cycles. It seemed so simple now. He would never disappear, because there was no point of non-existence in the universe.

  It fright
ened him at first. The idea of going on endlessly through one level of dimension after another was alien.

  Then he thought: If nature existed on endless levels, so also might intelligence.

  He might not have to be alone.

  Suddenly he began running toward the light.

  And, when he’d reached it, he stood in speechless awe looking at the new world with its vivid splashes of vegetation, its scintillant hills, its towering trees, its sky of shifting hues, as though the sunlight were being filtered through moving layers of pastel glass.

  It was a wonderland.

  There was much to be done and more to be thought about. His brain was teeming with questions and ideas and—yes— hope again. There was food to be found, water, clothing, shelter. And, most important, life. Who knew? It might be, it just might be there.

  Scott Carey ran into his new world, searching.

  Biographical Notes

  Frederik Pohl

  Born Frederik George Pohl Jr. in Brooklyn, New York, on November 26, 1919, the only child of Frederick George Pohl, a salesman, and Anna Jane Mason Pohl, a secretary. Attended Brooklyn Technical and Thomas Jefferson High Schools, dropping out at 17. In 1934, at 14, joined the Brooklyn chapter of the Science Fiction League, a fan group, editing and writing for club magazine The Brooklyn Reporter. Beginning in 1936 was active in the Young Communist League, co-organizing a Committee for the Political Advancement of Science Fiction, but grew disillusioned after the 1939 Hitler-Stalin Pact. In 1937, with John Michel, Donald Wollheim, and Robert Lowndes, cofounded the Futurians, another science fiction fan group whose members included Isaac Asimov and Cyril Kornbluth. Worked as a freelance literary agent, and in 1939 was hired as editor for pulp magazines Astonishing Stories and Super Science Stories. Also published short stories, often under pseudonyms and with various collaborators, including C. M. Kornbluth, Dirk Wylie, Harry Dockweiler, and Robert Lowndes. Married fellow Futurian Doris Baumgardt in 1940. Joined the Army in 1943, serving with the 12th Weather Squadron in Italy and editing the squadron newspaper. Divorced Baumgardt in 1944 and married Dorothy LesTina. After the war worked in New York as an advertising copywriter and book editor for Popular Science Publishing; began a literary agency. With Lester del Rey, founded the Hydra Club for science fiction writers. Divorced, and married writer Judith Merril in 1948; they had a daughter. With Cyril Kornbluth, wrote Gravy Planet (1952), published in book form as The Space Merchants (1953). Edited Star Science Fiction Stories anthologies for Ballantine Books (1953–59) and other anthologies. Married Carol Stanton in 1953; they had three children. Assisted Horace Gold in editing Galaxy magazine. Published novels Search the Sky (1954, with Kornbluth), Gladiator-At-Law (1955, with Kornbluth), Preferred Risk (1955, with del Rey), Slave Ship (1957), Wolfbane (1959, with Kornbluth), Drunkard’s Walk (1960), A Plague of Pythons (1965), and The Age of the Pussyfoot (1969), as well as stories, juvenile novels, and non–science fiction novels. In 1960, took over editorship of Galaxy and If, serving until 1969; began magazines Worlds of Tomorrow (1963–70), International Science Fiction (1967–68), and Worlds of Fantasy (1970), and travelled widely as a lecturer. Expanded audience with novels Man Plus (1976); the “Heechee” sequence (beginning with Gateway in 1977, winner of the Hugo and Nebula awards, and continuing through five more volumes); JEM: The Making of a Utopia (1979); and The Years of the City (1984). Married Elizabeth Anne Hull in 1984. Published non–science fiction novels, including Terror (1986) and Chernobyl (1987). Later science fiction included Black Star Rising (1985), The Coming of the Quantum Cats (1986), Narabedla Ltd. (1988), Homegoing (1989), The World at the End of Time (1990), and the “Eschaton” series: The Other End of Time (1996), The Siege of Eternity (1997), The Far Shore of Time (1999), and All the Lives He Led (2011). Completed Arthur C. Clarke’s unfinished novel The Last Theorem (2008). Served as president of the Science Fiction Writers of America (1974–76) and World SF (1980–82), and was inducted into the Science Fiction Hall of Fame in 1998. His autobiography The Way the Future Was (1978) was continued and expanded online beginning in 2009 in “The Way the Future Blogs.” Lives in Palatine, Illinois.