Table of Contents
SPACE, SPACE, SPACE INTRODUCTION
NO MOON FOR ME
TRIP ONE
TOOLS OF THE TRADE
HIDE AND SEEK
MASTER RACE
DEAR DEVIL
COURTESY
NIGHTMARE BROTHER
SECOND CHANCE
LIKE GODS THEY CAME
SPACE, SPACE, SPACE
Stories about the Time when Men will be Adventuring to the Stars
Selected, Introduction and Commentaries by William Sloane
Grosset & Dunlap Publishers New York
Copyright 1953 by William Sloane. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review to be printed in a magazine or newspaper.
By arrangement with Franklin Watts, Inc.
Manufactured in the United States of America
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 53-9924
* * *
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
For permission to reprint copyrighted material the following acknowledgments are gratefully made:
To Harry Altshuler for Nightmare Brother, by Alan Nourse (Astounding Science-Fiction Magazine, February, 1953), copyright 1953 by Street & Smith Publications, Inc.
To Otis Kline Associates, Inc. for Dear Devil, by Eric Frank Russell (Other Worlds Science Stories, May, 1950), copyright 1950 by the Clark Publishing Company.
To Lawrence Le Shan for permission to reprint Trip One, by Edward Grendon (Astounding Science-Fiction Magazine, July, 1949), copyright 1949 by Street & Smith Publications, Inc.
To Scott Meredith for Hide and Seek, by Arthur C. Clarke (Astounding Science-Fiction Magazine, September, 1949), copyright 1949 by Street & Smith Publications, Inc., and for Like Gods They Came, by Irving Cox, Jr. (Avon Science-Fiction and Fantasy Reader, January, 1953), copyright 1953 by Avon Periodicals, Inc.; and for Master Race, by Richard Ashby (Imagination, September, 1951), copyright 1951 by the Greenleaf Publishing Company; and for Tools of the Trade, by Raymond F. Jones (Astounding Science-Fiction Magazine, November, 1950), copyright 1950 by Street & Smith Publications, Inc.
To Fletcher Pratt for Second Chance, by Walter Kubilius and Fletcher Pratt (Fantastic Story Magazine, September, 1952), copyright 1952 by Best Books, Inc.
To Florence Starin for No Moon For Me, by Walter M. Miller, Jr. (Astounding Science-Fiction Magazine, September, 1952), copyright 1952 by Street & Smith Publications, Inc.
To Street & Smith Publications, Inc. for Courtesy, by Clifford D. Simak (Astounding Science-Fiction Magazine, August, 1951), copyright 1951 by Street & Smith Publications, Inc.
For JESSIE and BILL
who have helped me find and choose the stories in this book
INTRODUCTION
Of course none of the stories in this book is true today. No living human being has ever been beyond the Earth, nor even as far as halfway up through the ocean of air to its surface in outer space. So far as we know for certain, the Earth has never yet been visited by any kind of intelligent life with a home on another planet, near or far. These things are still to happen; and so the stories in this book are all about what may take place sometime in the future.
There is something else about the stories you are going to read: They are all guesswork. Nobody really knows what will happen when the first spaceship leaves Earth and reaches even the closest of the heavenly bodies, which is our own Moon. No one knows for sure that there are other worlds on which life exists, or how that life would appear to us if we encountered it. The possibilities are too vast for ordinary understanding. Our sun is only one star in a galaxy which contains hundreds of millions of stars, and yet the number of stars in our galaxy is small compared with the total number of galaxies in the universe. If Man is ever able to travel across the enormous gulfs between the stars of his own galaxy, or through the even huger gulfs between galaxies, he can only guess what he will find.
One thing is sure: The guesses are closer to the truth today than they could ever have been before, although astronomers have been studying the universe for thousands of years. At first they had to make their observations with the naked eye and with the help of the mathematics of their times. Then, only about 350 years ago, Galileo invented the telescope, and the mind of Man, if not his body, began to plunge deeper and deeper into space, until now it is possible that the end of all the galaxies has been found. The mystery of what lies beyond them is unanswerable today. It is even a question whether there is a “beyond” as we ordinarily mean the word. But in the past hundred years some of the secrets of the universe have been revealed. A thousand different instruments have been probing far into space. Science is able to interpret much of the information that is brought back; we know how hot the stars are, how far away, and that they are made of the same stuff as Earth and Earth’s sun.
The conquest of space has begun. Not long ago an admiral in the United States Navy offered to put a rocket on the Moon if the money to build it were appropriated. Everybody knows that specially constructed senders and receivers have beamed radar impulses to the Moon and caught the electronic echo back on Earth again. So, if Man has not yet landed matter on the Moon, he has sent energy there and got some of it back.
Science is continually adding to our total store of knowledge about the universe. The writers who speculate about space travel in the future have a great reservoir of facts to draw upon before they plot their stories. Indeed, they have so much technical information available that they must be at least amateur scientists in a dozen fields to avoid writing foolishly. Science fiction is a difficult and specialized kind of writing, and it is remarkable that so many authors today are able to do so well with it.
Wherever Man finally goes in space, he will find one thing that is always the same—himself. What is called “human nature” will not change very much, even in a colony of human beings on a planet of Procyon I. There will still be hope and fear, love and hate, courage and cowardice, the job well done or done badly. Just as they do on Earth, human beings will always interpret experience even in the farthest reaches of space in terms of themselves. That is why the stories in this book are all about human beings. Although some of the characters in them are beings from other worlds, if you look at them closely enough they will prove to be alive only insofar as they are derived from what the author has learned about himself and the rest of us. People are people, and all we know is in some way or other a reflection of ourselves, even when that reflection appears as remote as a radar impulse from the Moon or as abstract and grand as a scientific equation like Einstein’s famous E = MC2. This is a part of his fate from which Man cannot escape even in the fastest rocket ship.
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WILLIAM SLOANE
Rockland County April, 1953
NO MOON FOR ME
WALTER M. MILLER, JR.
★ ★
The first voyage, of course, will have to be to the Moon. That is only logical, because the Moon is the closest celestial object and has a comparatively small gravity, so that it is a natural stepping stone to the planets and the stars beyond them. Then, too, the Moon is a safe destination; we know that it is uninhabited by any potentially hostile form of life—that is, as much as we can know anything like that ahead of time. The Moon will provide the men of Terra with a magnificent astronomical observatory and base of operations which cannot be equaled on Earth.
To a lot of peo
ple, these advantages will not seem worth the enormous cost of the first landing on Luna. Columbus pleaded for years to secure enough money to float the expedition which found a whole new hemisphere and changed the entire course of human history. He studied the maps of his day and of the ancients, but he had to resort to a good deal of double talk to get people to listen to him. The Colonel Denin of this story is the same kind of man Columbus was—willing to risk his whole future on a single voyage into the unknown to prove to everybody that no obstacle is too great to halt the onward sweep of the human adventure. Such men have always had to battle and plan for the things in which they believe.
But Mr. Miller has written a story with an unexpected and not altogether comforting ending. There is such a thing as being accidentally more right than you expect. Not all the surprises the travelers of space encounter will be pleasant ones. And not all the people who think they know just what to look for will have their guesses confirmed!
★ ★
Some people will do anything to achieve what they want — even go so far as to accidentally reveal the truth they don’t know!
The rocket waited on the ramp at midnight. Floodlights bathed the area in glaring brilliance, while around the outer circle of barbed wire entanglements, guards stood watching the night. A staff car crept through the gate, then purred toward a low tar-papered building where several other vehicles sat idle in the parking area. When the staff car stopped, and a middle-aged colonel climbed out, a loudspeaker croaked from the gable of the building:
“One hour before Zero. Dr. Gedrin, Colonel Denin, and Major Long, please report to Briefing.
One hour before Zero.”
The colonel paused a moment beside his car and nodded to the WAC chauffeur. “Take the heap back, sergeant. I won’t need it again—not for a long time at least. And—take care of yourself.”
She glanced at the building shadow of the rocket and made a wry mouth, shaking her head doubtfully.
“Sergeant!”
“Sorry, sir! I was just thinking —” She saw his frown and decided to keep her thoughts to herself.
“Well good luck, sir.” She tossed him a last salute and backed away.
The colonel, a gangling man with a bony face and an unmilitary stoop, turned to glance at the cars parked before the Briefing building. There was the general’s, and the long black limousine used by the Secretary of Defense. They were men who were going back to their beds this night. He eyed the rocket briefly, then strode toward the door of the Briefing building. A young major with command pilot’s wings was lounging in the entrance.
“Hi, Dennie,” he drawled with twisted grin. “Said your prayers?”
Colonel Denin punched his shoulder lightly in awkward greeting. “Yeah. I have got it figured out.
We’re just leaving it up to you.” His voice was a melancholy baritone, edged as always with a slight sourness.
The major shifted restlessly, and his grin was nervous. “Now I know how Wright Brothers felt.
Dennie, I’m jumpy.”
“Why?”
He nodded toward the slender black shaft whose nose aimed skyward. “Me flying that thing is like a Ubangi jumping in a Cadillac and staking off through New York traffic.”
“Somebody’s got to do everything for a first time.”
The major studied Denin’s dark, Lincolnesque face for a moment. “Aren’t you worried?”
“Moderately. But not about your ability to fly it. The controls have been analogized to those of atmospheric rockets. And we’ve gotten pilotless rockets to the Moon before. You’re just replacing some of the automatics, Jim.”
Jim Long thoughtfully lit a cigarette and blew smoke toward the sky. “One thing bothers me.”
“What?”
“You.”
A faint smile of amusement twitched about the colonel’s thin mouth, and his dark, deepset eyes gathered wrinkles about their corners. “You think I can’t navigate?”
Long snorted. “Don’t play games. You know that’s not what I mean.”
“What, then?”
Long stared at him challengingly. “I think you’re up to something, Dennie. I don’t know what it is, but I can watch you and see it. The whole world’s got its fingers crossed about tonight, and about the Voice.
But you’re cool as ice. Cocksure. Why?”
Denin shrugged slowly. The faint smile lingered. “Maybe I’m jumpy inside,” he offered. “Maybe it just doesn’t show.”
Long fell silent, eying him clinically. Here was the impassioned man who had spent his life in working against bitter opposition for the launching of the first Lunar rocket. He had been a general during the last war, had helped build and launch the first pilotless rockets which had cleared Earth’s gravity and helped end the conflict by the mere threat of transatmospheric attack. But then when the war was over, Congress had displayed no inclination to finance a piloted ship., The investment promised no returns.
Denin had taken to the stump-circuit, speaking directly to the nation, and bitterly condemning the politicians who were consigning Man permanently to Earth for financial reasons. He had been broken in rank and suspended from the service. Now he was back, and he had won, but only because of the
“Voice,” blaring out of space unexpectedly, speaking a language to which there was no key.
“Maybe I’m wrong,” Long grunted. “Maybe you’re just tickled because you’ve won — if you call it winning.”
Denin’s smile faded. “Uh-uh, Jim,” he said sadly. “Man’s won. Not me. Space opens tonight.”
“You’ve helped a little,” the major grunted dryly. Then he paused, mouth open, thinking. “What you just said: ‘Man’s won.’ That’s what I mean — by cocksure. A lot of people think we’re going to lose — going out to meet the Voice. A lot of people don’t even think of it as opening space.’ They think of us as a delegation, waving a white flag to a possible enemy. What makes you so sure of yourself?”
The loudspeaker blurted again, cutting into their conversation. ” Fifty minutes before Zero. Denin and Long, report to Briefing. Guards are requested to clear red area of all maintenance personnel. All noncoded personnel are requested to leave immediately. Red area now under secrecy quarantine. Fifty minutes before Zero.”
“Guess Gedrin’s already inside,” the colonel grunted. “Let’s go.”
They flashed their credentials to the inside guard and strode down the corridor toward the lighted Briefing room. The pilot wore a puzzled frown.
“Dennie,” he said suddenly, “do you know what’s secret aboard the ship?”
The colonel hesitated, then nodded affirmatively. “Yeah, I know.”
“That why you’re cocksure?”
“Maybe. If I am. Maybe not. You’ll find out, Jim.”
The others were waiting when they entered: Secretary Eserly, thin, graying, and impeccably tailored; General Werli, Commander of the Air Force; and Dr. Gedrin, linguist for the expedition. Eserly came forward to shake hands with the newcomers, then sat at the end of a long table and extracted several papers from his briefcase. He spoke quietly, informally.
“I have here your signed pledges, gentlemen. Would any of you like a rereading of them?” His blue-gray eyes flitted around the table, lingering on Denin, Gedrin, and Long; each in turn murmured negatively.
“Very well, but let me remind you again of what you have signed. You have stated that you have no philosophic or religious objections to deliberate self-destruction if it will secure a world goal. I can tell you now, this may become necessary. Do any of you wish to modify your pledge in any way?”
Only Gedrin, a chubby, scholarly little man in his fifties murmured surprise. Long glanced sharply at Denin, whose face remained masklike, unconcerned.
“This has been put off until the last minute,” Eserly went on, “for obvious security reasons. If the beings behind ‘the Voice’ became aware that we might be launching a kamikaze attack … well … it’s hard to say what they might do. B
ut even though it is the last minute, I’m prepared to release you from your pledges if you so desire.”
Eserly stopped to look around again. Denin was watching the linguist like a hawk. Gedrin moistened his lips, glanced at the others, and said, “I … thought it was a formality.”
“You wish to be released?” Eserly’s voice was cold, but not contemptuous.
Colonel Denin drummed his fingers lightly on the table. It was the only sound in the room. Gedrin looked at the fingers, then met the colonel’s eyes for a brief instant. A shudder seemed to pass through him. “No,” he said, “no—I’ll go along.”
Major Long cleared his throat and met the same eyes almost angrily before he spoke to the secretary.
“I want to draw a line, Mr. Secretary.”
Eserly shook his head. “We want no conditional acceptances—”
“I want to know what it’s all about.”
“You know all of it, Long. Except about the nuclear explosives in the nose of the ship. You’ve been briefed about finding the invader and trying to parley with him. You’ve been told the government’s policy—an unconditional ‘get off our moon.’ What you haven’t been told: if the answer’s no, you’re to consummate your pledge.” Long looked angry. “I see. We’re to home in on the ‘Voice,’ land in the same crater, if they let us; and Gedrin tries to talk to them. If they’re not cooperative, we blow up the whole kaboodle, including ourselves. Is that it?”
“Not quite, except as a last resort. You’ll use your own judgment. If it’s possible to leave the crater, and bomb them from above, you’ll do that. But we have to make peaceful overtures. They might leave freely. If they don’t, well—” He shook his head. “I want a confirmation of your pledge, Long.”
“For a world goal that’s worth while—yes!” he snapped.
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