Astounding Science Fiction Stories: An Anthology of 350 Scifi Stories Volume 2 (Halcyon Classics)

by Various

  J.

  October 28, 1958

  Dr. R. Von Engen,

  Journal of the National Academy of Sciences,

  Washington, D. C.

  Dear Dr. Von Engen:

  I apologize for not answering your letter sooner. I assume you were pulling my leg when you suggested that I make a science-fiction story out of "the confused ideas of a beginning graduate student." You might give your idea of a "possible science-fiction story" to one of your acolytes that has some small experience in the field of writing—not science. I am afraid that your other suggestions are not germane to the problem of nucleic acid synthesis and metabolism, a problem that has been occupying all my time. In fact, I’ve been doing with three to four hours of sleep these days. With the kind of concentration that I can offer the problem, there is no question that the data are falling into line, and our research is going rather well. We will show, I hope, fairly conclusively that there is little or no interconversion between the two types of nucleic acid synthesis in the cell.

  Despite your ingenious mathematical approaches for stimulation criteria, in biological research—a very abstruse field—even your multiplex machines with elaborate means of intercommunication are not sophisticated enough—or ever will be—to cope with the complexities inherent in the numerous interacting biosyntheses on the subcellular ultratopographical level of protoplasm.

  Sincerely yours,

  Jonathan Wells

  November 8, 1958

  The Editor,

  Journal of the National Academy of Sciences,

  Washington, D. C.

  My dear Professor Von Engen:

  From the tenor of your last letter it is quite evident that there has been a radical change in your originally sound and inspired ideas, and which clearly indicates to me that a discussion and exchange of basic concept would be fruitless. I’m rather hurt that you question my integrity with the statement about the "slick, calculating, career-minded cult of Ph. Deism." Moreover, I would appreciate, if possible, the return of my previous correspondence.

  I don’t feel that I am totally inept, for I have been awarded a predoctoral fellowship that will support me during the remainder of graduate school. In addition, I am being seriously considered for a faculty position at an outstanding Eastern University upon completion of my thesis. Should you be interested, we now have an article in press on the Journal of Cellular Physiology entitled: "Nucleic acid synthesis in the frog liver cell: A definitive study." We have found substantial evidence which demonstrates that there is no interconversion of the two types of nucleic acid.

  I cannot help but comment about your recent paper in Scientia—I do not believe that it is at all possible to devise computers which can handle the species of data which we obtain. Your data being less complex, of course, may fit.

  Naturally, I have your confidence in the entire matter.

  Yours very truly,

  J. Wellington Wells

  * * *

  Contents

  THE HITCH HIKERS

  By Vernon L. McCain

  The Rell, a great and ancient Martian race, faced extinction when all moisture was swept from their planet. Then, one day, a lone visitor--a strange, two-legged creature composed mostly of water--landed on Mars...

  The dehydration of the planet had taken centuries in all. The Rell had still been a great race when the process started. Construction of the canals was a prodigious feat but not a truly remarkable one. But what use are even canals when there is nothing to fill them?

  What cosmic influences might have caused the disaster baffled even the group-mind of the Rell. Through the eons the atmosphere had drifted into space; and with it went the life-giving moisture. Originally a liquid paradise, the planet was now a dry, hostile husk.

  The large groups of Rell had been the first to suffer. But in time even the tiny villages containing mere quadrillions of the submicroscopic entities had found too little moisture left to satisfy their thirst and the journey ever southward toward the pole had commenced.

  The new life was bitter and difficult and as their resources were depleted so also did their numbers diminish.

  Huddled at their last retreat the Rell watched the ever smaller ice cap annually diminish and lived with the knowledge they faced extinction. A mere thousand years more would see even this trifling remainder gone.

  Oh, you might say there was hope ... of a sort. There might be Rell in the northern hemisphere. The canals girdled the globe and a similar ice cap could well exist at the opposite pole. Rell perhaps survived there also.

  But this was scant comfort. The fate of the Rell in the South was sealed. What hope of any brighter future for those in the North? And if they survived a few hundred thousand years longer ... or if they had perished a similar period earlier, what actual difference did it make?

  There was no one more aware of this gloomy future than Raeillo/ee13.

  In the old days a single unit of the group-mind of the Rell would have possessed but a single function and exercised this function perhaps a dozen times during his life. But due to the inexorable shrinkage only the most important problems now could command mind-action and each unit had been forced to forsake specialization for multi-purpose endeavors.

  Thus Raeillo/ee13 and his mate Raellu//2 were two of the five thousand units whose task was to multiply in any group-mind action involving mathematical prediction. Naturally Raeillo/ee13 and Raellu//2 did not waste their abilities in mundane problems not involving prediction. Nor did they divide, add, or subtract. That was assigned to other units just as several million of the upper groups had the task of sorting and interpreting their results. Raeillo/ee13 and Raellu//2 multiplied only. And it must be admitted they did it very well. It is a pity the Rell could not have multiplied physically as easily as Raeillo/ee13 and Raellu//2 multiplied mentally.

  With the exception of an occasional comet or meteor the Rell were seldom diverted by anything of a physical nature. The ice cap was their sole concern.

  But one afternoon a rare physical phenomenon was reported by a bank of observer Rell.

  "In the sky's northwest portion," an excited injunction came through. "Observe that patch of flaming red!"

  More observer Rell were quickly focused on the novel sight and further data was rapidly fed into the interpretive bank.

  The Rell were justifiably proud of their interpreters. With the race shrinkage it had proved impossible to properly train new interpreters. So, not without a great deal of sacrifice, the old interpreters, dating back to when the canals still flowed with water, had been kept alive.

  They were incredibly ancient but there was no doubt as to their ability. It was a truism among the Rell that the interpretive banks arrived at their conclusions faster than any other group and that these conclusions could be checked to hundreds of decimal places without finding inaccuracy.

  So it was no surprise to have the interpretive bank respond almost instantly, "It is quite odd but the flame appears to be of artificial origin."

  "Artificial!" came the rough and questing probe of the speculative bank. "But how could Rell possibly be out there?"

  "Who mentioned Rell?" was the interpretive bank's smug answer. They were not utterly averse to demonstrating their superior mental abilities on occasion.

  The speculative bank replied, "Artificial implies intelligence, and intelligence means Rell..."

  "Does it?" the interpretive bank interrupted. The speculative bank waited but the interpretive bank failed to enlarge on the provocative query.

  The Rell had found certain disadvantages accrued to abnormal prolongation of life and thus were not unused to the interpretive bank's occasional tendency to talk in riddles.

  "Perhaps not," the speculative bank replied after a quick check with the logical formulae held in reserve by the historical bank. "It is theoretically possible that Rell-like individuals might have developed elsewhere, and perhaps even have developed intelligence, although, according to the historical bank, su
ch an idea has never before been subjected to consideration. But what is the flame doing?" they continued, a trifle resentful at having been left to do work properly in the interpretive bank's province.

  The observation and interpretive banks once more came into play, studying the situation for several minutes. "The flame appears to be the exhaust of a fairly crude vessel," the interpretive bank finally reported, "propelled by ignition of some gaseous mixture."

  "Is it moving?"

  "Quite rapidly."

  "Where is it going?"

  This called into play the prophecy division of the mind and Raeillo/ee13 and Raellu//2, who had been merely interested onlookers before, hurriedly meshed themselves with the other forty nine hundred odd of their fellows. (It was impossible to say at any given time just how many there were in their computer section, as several births and deaths had occurred among the group since beginning the current observations. These would be suspended for the next several moments, however, as there was a strict prohibition against anyone being born, dying, or otherwise engaging in extraneous activity while their particular bank was either alerted or in action.)

  Raeillo/ee13 and Raellu//2 felt the group discipline take hold much more firmly than the free-and-easy mesh which each unit enjoyed with the complete group-mind during periods of leisure.

  With a speed that would have been dizzying and incomprehensible to any individual unit, the observing banks relayed huge masses of extraneous data to the interpretive bank. They strained out the salient facts and in turn passed these to the computing:prediction section. Here they were routed to the groups who would deal with them. Raeillo/ee13 and Raellu//2 found their own talents pressed into service a dozen or more times in the space of the minute and a half it took the computing:prediction and interpretive banks to arrive at the answer.

  "It's aimed here," the interpretive bank reported.

  "Here!" a jumble of incoherent and anarchistic thoughts resounded from many shocked and temporarily out-of-mesh units.

  "Order!" came a sharp command from the elite corp of three thousand disciplinary units.

  As stillness settled back over the group-mind the speculative bank once more came in. "By here ... do you mean right here?"

  "Approximately," replied the interpretive bank with what would have sounded suspiciously like a chuckle in a human reply. "According to calculations the craft should land within half a mile of our present location."

  "Let's go there then and wait for it!" That thought from the now seldom used reservation of impulse.

  The speculative bank murmured, "I wonder if there would be any danger. How hot is that exhaust?"

  Calculations were rapidly made and the answer arrived at. The Rell prudently decided to remain where they were for the present.

  * * * * *

  Captain Leonard Brown, USAF, hunched over the instruments in the cramped control cabin which, being the only available space in the ship, doubled as living quarters. A larger man would have found the arrangement impossible. Brown, being 5' 2" and weighing 105 pounds found it merely intolerable.

  At the moment he was temporarily able to forget his discomfort, however. The many tiny dials and indicators told a story all their own to Brown's trained vision.

  "Just another half hour," he whispered to himself. "Just thirty more minutes and I'll land. It may be just a dead planet but I'll still be the first."

  There really wasn't a great deal for Brown to do. The ship was self-guided. The Air Force had trusted robot mechanisms more than human reactions.

  Thus Brown's entire active contribution to the flight consisted in watching the dials (which recorded everything so even watching them was unnecessary) and in pressing the button which would cause the ship to start its return journey.

  Of course the scientists could have constructed another mechanism to press the button and made it a completely robot ship. But despite their frailties and imperfections, human beings have certain advantages. Humans can talk. Machines may see and detect far more than their human creators but all they can do is record. They can neither interpret nor satisfactorily describe.

  Brown was present not only to report a human's reactions to the first Mars flight; he was also along to see that which the machines might miss.

  "We've never satisfactorily defined life," one of his instructors had told Brown shortly after he started the three grueling years of training which had been necessary, "so we can't very well build a foolproof machine for detecting it. That's why we've left room for 105 pounds of dead weight."

  "Meaning me?"

  "Meaning you."

  "And I'm your foolproof machine for detecting life?"

  "Let's say you're the closest we can come to it at present. We're banking everything on this first trip. It'll be at least eighteen months later before we can get a second ship into space. So it's up to you to get everything you can ... some evidence of life, preferably animal, if possible. With public support it'll be a hell of a lot easier squeezing appropriations out of Congress for the next ship and to get public support we need the biggest possible play in the newspapers. If anything is newsworthy on Mars it should be evidence of life ... even plant life."

  So here he was, 105 pounds of concentrated knowledge and anticipation, itching with the desire for action and also from more basic causes having to do with two months confinement in a small space with a minimum of water.

  "Life is most probable at the poles," the instructor had said. "You won't be able to stay long so we'll try to set you down right at the South Pole. You won't have room to bring back specimens. So keep your eyes open and absorb everything you see. Don't forget anything. What you bring back in your mind weighs nothing."

  "It's just sitting there," the observing banks reported, "and the red flame has gone out."

  "Is it safe now?" enquired the speculative bank.

  "In what way?"

  "Is it safe to go near that thing?"

  "It's very huge," ventured the observing banks unasked. There was a stir of activity which encompassed practically all except the most simple units and which lasted for perhaps five minutes while the speculative bank's last question was processed.

  Finally the interpretive bank reluctantly admitted, "We can't arrive at a positive answer. Too many unknown elements are present. We don't know for sure what caused the flame, when it might start again, or what, if anything, is inside."

  "But you said it was a work of intelligence. Doesn't that mean Rell would be inside?"

  "Not necessarily. They could have constructed the thing to operate itself."

  It was just then that the observing banks reported, "It's opening."

  The speculative bank quickly responded, "This is an emergency. We must be able to observe from close up. We'll have to approach it."

  "The entire mind?" enquired the disciplinary corps.

  The speculative bank hesitated. "No, we'll need to split up. One-fifth of us will go, the rest remain here. It's a short distance and we'll still be able to continue in complete contact."

  Those who were to go were quickly sorted out and Raeillo/ee13 was quite thrilled to find he and Raellu//2 were included in the scouting party.

  The group set off briskly toward their objective but had moved hardly one hundred yards when a vertigo seemed to overtake them. Raeillo/ee13 found himself swimming helplessly in a vortex of darkness and isolation, blanked off from not only the group-mind and his bank but also from Raellu//2. Frantically he grasped for some sort of stasis, but dependence on the group-mind was too ingrained and he was unable to stir his long-dormant powers of sight and education.

  Then the isolation cleared to be replaced by a brief impression of chaos with perhaps a tinge of alienness. Another instant of vertigo followed and then everything was normal once more as the comfortable familiar mesh took hold.

  "What was that?" Even the speculative bank sounded frightened.

  "Sorry." The usually silent meshing bank sounded abashed. "We weren't prepared for that.
Some sort of thought wave is issuing from the opening and it disrupted the group mesh till we were able to take it into calculation and rebuild the mesh around it."

  "Thought wave? Then there are Rell in that thing."

  "Do not compute before the mesh is set," the interpretive bank cautioned. "The presence of Rell, while extremely probable, is not yet entirely certain."

  Without waiting for a suggestion from elsewhere the disciplinary group ordered the entire mind forward.

  Perhaps, in time of stress, dormant qualities tend to emerge, Raeillo/ee13 mused. Certainly everyone, himself included, appeared to be exercising speculative qualities. Not that specialization isn't a marvelous blessing, he hastily added, in case the disciplinary corps might be scanning his bank. But the disciplinary corps itself was as fascinated by the phenomenon ahead as Raeillo/ee13.

  Emerging from the infinitely huge upright thing was a mobile being, also infinitely huge. Not that they were the same size. The mobile one was small enough to fit easily through the opening in the lower portion of the larger. But beyond a certain point words lose meaning and infinitely huge was the closest measurement the tiny Rell could find for either the upright pointed thing or the knobby one which had emerged and was quickly identified as the source of the disrupting thought patterns.

  * * * * *

  Leonard Brown was enjoying himself thoroughly. The inside of a space suit can scarcely be termed comfortable but at least you can move around in it and Brown was making the most of this sensation after two months cramped in his tiny cell. He was, in fact, comporting himself much as a three-year-old might have done after a similar release.

  But before long he settled down to the serious business of observing and mentally recording everything in sight.

  There were none of the mysterious 'canals' in view, which was disappointing; one piece of glamour the publicity boys would necessarily forego until the next trip. The ice cap itself, if such it could be called, was almost equally disappointing. On Earth it would have been dismissed as a mere frost patch, if this section was typical. For a radius of many yards the ground was blasted bare by the action of the exhaust and nowhere in sight did there appear to be more than the flimsiest covering of white over the brown sandy soil.