by John Wyndham
THE RED STUFF
from THE BEST OF JOHN WYNDHAM
John Wyndham
SPHERE BOOKS
Published 1973
ISBN 0 7221 9369 6
Copyright© The Executors of the Estate of the late John Wyndham 1973
INTRODUCTION
AT a very tender age my latent passion for all forms of fantasy stories, having been sparked by the Brothers Grimm and the more unusual offerings in the children's comics and later the boy's adventure papers, was encouraged in the early 1930s by the occasional exciting find on the shelves of the public library with Burroughs and Thorne Smith varying the staple diet of Wells and Verne.
But the decisive factor in establishing that exhilarating ‘sense of wonder’ in my youthful imagination was the discovery about that time of back numbers of American science fiction magazines to be bought quite cheaply in stores like Woolworths. The happy chain of economic circumstances by which American newstand returns, sometimes sadly with the magic cover removed or mutilated, ballasted cargo ships returning to English ports and the colonies, must have been the mainspring of many an enthusiastic hobby devoted to reading, discussing, perhaps collecting and even writing, science fiction – or ‘scientifiction’ as Hugo Gernsback coined the tag in his early Amazing Stories magazine.
Gernsback was a great believer in reader participation; in 1936 I became a teenage member of the Science Fiction League sponsored by his Wonder Stories. Earlier he had run a competition in its forerunner Air Wonder Stories to find a suitable banner slogan, offering the prize of ‘One Hundred Dollars in Gold’ with true yankee braggadacio. Discovering the result some years later in, I think, the September 1930 issue of Wonder Stories seized upon from the bargain-bin of a chain store, was akin to finding a message in a bottle cast adrift by some distant Robinson Crusoe, and I well remember the surge of jingoistic pride (an educational trait well-nurtured in pre-war Britain) in noting that the winner was an Englishman, John Beynon Harris.
I had not the slightest anticipation then that I would later meet, and acknowledge as a good friend and mentor, this contest winner who, as John Wyndham, was to become one of the greatest English story-tellers in the idiom. The fact that he never actually got paid in gold was a disappointment, he once told me, that must have accounted for the element of philosophical dubiety in some of his work. Certainly his winning slogan ‘Future Flying Fiction’, although too late to save the magazine from foundering on the rock of economic depression (it had already been amalgamated with its stablemate Science Wonder Stories to become just plain, if that is the right word, Wonder Stories), presaged the firm stamp of credibility combined with imaginative flair that characterized JBH's writings.
John Wyndham Parkes Lucas Beynon Harris (the abundance of forenames conveniently supplied his various aliases) emerged in the 1950s as an important contemporary influence on speculative fiction, particularly in the exploration of the theme of realistic global catastrophe, with books such as The Day of the Triffids and The Kraken Wakes, and enjoyed a popularity, which continued after his sad death in 1969, comparable to that of his illustrious predecessor as master of the scientific romance, H. G. Wells.
However, he was to serve his writing apprenticeship in those same pulp magazines of the thirties, competing successfully with their native American contributors, and it is the purpose of this present collection to highlight the chronological development of his short stories from those early beginnings to the later urbane and polished style of John Wyndham.
‘The Lost Machine’ was his second published story, appearing in Amazing Stories, and was possibly the prototype of the sentient robot later developed by such writers as Isaac Asimov. He used a variety of plots during this early American period particularly favouring time travel, and the best of these was undoubtedly ‘The Man From Beyond’ in which the poignancy of a man's realization, caged in a zoo on Venus, that far from being abandoned by his fellow-explorers, he is the victim of a far stranger fate, is remarkably outlined for its time. Some themes had dealt with war, such as ‘The Trojan Beam’, and he had strong views to express on its futility. Soon his own induction into the Army in 1940 produced a period of creative inactivity corresponding to World War II. He had, however, previously established himself in England as a prominent science fiction writer with serials in major periodicals, subsequently reprinted in hard covers, and he even had a detective novel published. He had been well represented too – ‘Perfect Creature’ is an amusing example – in the various magazines stemming from fan activity, despite the vicissitudes of their pre- and immediate post-war publishing insecurity.
But after the war and into the fifties the level of science fiction writing in general had increased considerably, and John rose to the challenge by selling successfully to the American market again. In England his polished style proved popular and a predilection for the paradoxes of time travel as a source of private amusement was perfectly exemplified in ‘Pawley's Peepholes’, in which the gawping tourists from the future are routed by vulgar tactics. This story was later successfully adapted for radio and broadcast by the B.B.C.
About this time his first post-war novel burst upon an unsuspecting world, and by utilizing a couple of unoriginal ideas with his Gernsback-trained attention to logically based explanatory detail and realistic background, together with his now strongly developed narrative style, ‘The Day of the Triffids’ became one of the classics of modern speculative fiction, surviving even a mediocre movie treatment. It was the forerunner of a series of equally impressive and enjoyable novels including ‘The Chrysalids’ and ‘The Midwich Cuckoos’ which was successfully filmed as ‘Village of the Damned’. (A sequel ‘Children of the Damned’ was markedly inferior, and John was careful to disclaim any responsibility for the writing.)
I was soon to begin an enjoyable association with John Wyndham that had its origins in the early days of the New Worlds magazine-publishing venture, and was later to result in much kindly and essential assistance enabling me to become a specialist dealer in the genre. This was at the Fantasy Book Centre in Bloomsbury, an area of suitably associated literary activities where John lived for many years, and which provided many pleasurable meetings at a renowned local coffee establishment, Cawardine's, where we were often joined by such personalities as John Carnell, John Christopher and Arthur C. Clarke.
In between the novels two collections of his now widely published short stories were issued as ‘The Seeds of Time’ and ‘Consider Her Ways’; others are reprinted here for the first time. He was never too grand to refuse material for our own New Worlds and in 1958 wrote a series of four novelettes about the Troon family's contribution to space exploration – a kind of Forsyte saga of the solar system later collected under the title ‘The Outward Urge’. His fictitious collaborator ‘Lucas Parkes’ was a subtle ploy in the book version to explain Wyndham's apparent deviation into solid science-based fiction. The last story in this collection ‘The Emptiness of Space’ was written as a kind of postscript to that series, especially for the 100th anniversary issue of New Worlds.
John Wyndham's last novel was Chocky, published in 1968. It was an expansion of a short story following a theme similar to The Chrysalids and The Midwich Cuckoos. It was a theme peculiarly appropriate for him in his advancing maturity. When, with characteristic reticence and modesty, he announced to a few of his friends that he was marrying his beloved Grace and moving to the countryside, we all felt that this was a well-deserved retirement for them both.
But ironica
lly time – always a fascinating subject for speculation by him – was running out for this typical English gentleman. Amiable, erudite, astringently humorous on occasion, he was, in the same way that the gentle Boris Karloff portrayed his film monsters, able to depict the nightmares of humanity with frightening realism, made the more deadly by his masterly precision of detail. To his great gift for story-telling he brought a lively intellect and a fertile imagination.
I am glad to be numbered among the many, many thousands of his readers whose ‘sense of wonder’ has been satisfactorily indulged by a writer whose gift to posterity is the compulsive readability of his stories of which this present volume is an essential part.
— LESLIE FLOOD
THE RED STUFF (1951)
(Note: The Government is of the opinion that in the present critical situation the widest possible publicity should be given to the facts of the case and the events which gave rise to it. It is, therefore, with official approval and encouragement that the proprietors of WALTERS SPACE-NEWS here reprint in pamphlet form the account first published in both the printed and broadcast versions of the issue of that journal dated Friday, 20th July 2051)
Here is an official Government emergency warning:
“From now until further notice Clarke Lunar Station will be closed to traffic. No vessel of any kind at present on the Station may put to space, nor will any local craft be permitted to take off from there. All vessels now in space, whether earthward or outward bound, scheduled to call at Clarke must make immediate arrangements to divert to Whitley. Outward bound craft will ground at the normal Whitley Lunar Station base; earthward bound vessels will be directed to the emergency field and must ground there. Any vessel ignoring this instruction will be refused grounding and be dealt with severely. It is emphasized that any vessel grounding at or near Clarke for any reason whatsoever will be refused permission to leave. This warning is effective immediately.”
It is likely that only a few of the millions who heard that announcement, or the versions of it in other languages, broadcast on the evening of Monday last, 16th July, took any great notice of it, in spite of its seriousness of tone. After all, though we call this the Space age, only a fractional percentage of us have ever been or ever will be in space.
Readers of this journal cannot fail to have been troubled, more likely alarmed, by the order, but they think of space in a specialized way as something directly affecting their calling or livelihood.
But to the average man, what is the Moon? It is an airless, cheerless cinder, the scene of some mining, useful as a testing ground for space conditions, but chiefly notable as a way-station apparently designed by providence for the convenience of space-voyaging humanity. He knows that it is important, but he does not know how important, nor why.
He knows, perhaps, that the Clarke Lunar Station was first opened over fifty years ago, and that it was so named in honour of the octogenarian Doctor of Physics who did so much to further space-travel, but he does not realize what, in terms of mathematics, of power and pay-load, the existence of such a Station and fuelling base means. Nor that its absence would entail suspension of space-travel almost entirely for a very long time, until we could completely organize our methods — if we could.
Luckily we are not altogether denied use of the Moon by the closing of Clarke; we can still operate through the Whitley Station — at present. But if that cannot be maintained in use, the question of continued space-travel ships of the present types becomes grave to the point of hopelessness.
To our regular readers parts of the account which follows will not be new, but it has seemed to the editors desirable that at this critical juncture all the information available should be collated and presented to the public in the form of a narrative giving as honest a picture as possible of the present situation, and its potentialities.
CHAPTER I
At 20.58 G.M.T. on the 6th January 2051 the radio-operator of the Madge G. reported to the Captain that he had picked up a message globe and asked for further instructions.
The Madge G. after a cautious route well out of the elliptic to hurdle the asteroid belt had corrected course and was now in fall towards her destination, Callisto, Moon IV, of Jupiter. Her Captain, John G. Troyte, was not pleased by his operator's report. The passage of the asteroids is always a strain for a conscientious man; even at wide berth there is still the chance of lonely outflyers from the main swarm which will go through a ship as if she were a paper hoop. There is not a lot to be done about it: should the outflyer be anything above the size of a football, it is just too bad; if it is smaller, prompt action can save the ship, providing no vital part is hit. Alertness sustained for the long period is extremely tiring and Captain Troyte felt that he had earned a period of repose and relaxation during the fall towards Callisto.
What was more, he was pretty certain it would not turn out to be a message-globe after all. He had had such a report half a dozen times in the course of his career, and it had always turned out to be untrue. In the whole of his time in space he could only recall five being picked up at all. They were a good idea, only they didn't come off: they'd have been all right if there hadn't been quite so much space for them to get lost in, but, practice being so different from theory, it was little wonder that the clause for their compulsory carriage had been struck out of the shipping regulations. They stood, in his opinion, as little chance of being picked up as a two-ounce bottle in mid-Atlantic, probably less. He went along to the radio-cabin himself. The operator was humming in rhythmic harmony with the High-Shakers broadcast from Tedwich, Mars, when he entered.
“Turn off that blamed racket,” said Captain Troyte shortly. “Now what's all this about a globe?”
The operator clicked out the High-Shakers, and touched a switch to bring in the pre-set receiver. He listened a moment and then handed over the head-phones. The Captain held one to his ear, and waited: after a few seconds came an unmistakable da da, da da di. He looked at his watch, timing it. Exactly ten seconds later it came again —da da, da da di. He waited until it had repeated once more.
“Good heavens, I really believe it is,” he said.
“Can't be anything else, sir,” said the operator, smugly.
“Got a line on it?”
The operator had. He gave the angles. The Captain considered. The globe was ahead. By rough clock-face placing, at four o'clock 30 degrees oblique on the last reading, and widening. There was no likelihood of colliding with it.
“Is it coming towards us, or are we chasing it?” he demanded.
“Can't say, sir. At a guess I should say we're more or less chasing it. It's signal strength had improved, but only slowly.”
“H'm,” said the Captain thoughtfully. “We'll have to get it in. Keep an ear on it. Don't do anything until you're sure the signal strength is past maximum, there'd be a nasty mess if we were to hit it head on. When it's begun to fade get the activator going, and we'll fish it in. But for God's sake do it gently, we don't want the thing hurtling at us like a cannon ball. Better let me know once you've got it started.”
The Captain returned to his own cabin more interested than he admitted. The message-globe was an ingenious contrivance which had looked like being more useful than it had proved. The problem had been to provide a ship with some means of communicating its trouble in case of radio failure or wreck. In theory it was to be discharged in the direction of the nearest spaceline where its signal could scarcely fail to be picked up; in actual use very few had been picked up and it had progressively less chance of being found as the area of space operation increased. The general opinion which had led to its omission from the statutory list of equipment was that the majority of the globes sent off continued to tick out their signals undetected until their power gave out whereupon they floated about in space as additional
hazards. There was a feeling that the hazards of space were quite numerous enough without them.
The radio operator hung his phones on a hook where he could hear the intermittent signal from the globe conveniently, pondered whether he should try to listen to the High-Shakers at the same time, decided against it, and hunted for the sealed box in which the activator had lain ever since the Madge G. was launched. After study of the instructions which he had not seen since the day when he'd mugged them up for his final examination, he got it set up. Then there was nothing to do but wait.
Two and a half hours later the meter showed the signal strength of the globe to be falling off slightly. He lit a cigarette, took another look at the operating instructions and grunted. Then he pressed a key on the activator, and waited.
Nearly a thousand miles away in space the 2½-foot-diameter steel globe revolved slowly as it drifted in a leisurely way upon the orbit into which it had fallen. To all appearance it was as inert as any other fragment of flotsam in the void. Then gradually, almost imperceptibly at first, its revolution began to slow. In a few minutes it was revolving clumsily like a ball with its weight out of true. Another five minutes and it failed to complete a revolution, it paused as though just short of top dead centre, swung back, oscillated gently awhile and then came to rest.
Back on the Madge G., the radio operator called up the navigator who did some quick figuring. Out in space the globe swung a little in response to the calculations. The radio operator pressed another key. An observer, had there been one close to the globe, would have seen little jets of flame spurt from that side of it distant from the Madge G. as the relays went in. Simultaneously he would have watched it break from its orbit and scud away on a course calculated to intersect with that of the ship far out of sight.
The radio operator informed the Captain that the globe was on its way. The Captain joined him, and together they bent over the signal-meter.