Dumb Martian

by John Wyndham

  DUMB MARTIAN

  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 ironically t
ime – 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

  DUMB MARTIAN (1952)

  when Duncan Weaver bought Lellie for — no, there could be trouble putting it that way — when Duncan Weaver paid Lellie's parents one thousand pounds in com­pen­sation for the loss of her services, he had a figure of six, or, if abso­lutely neces­sary, seven hundred in mind.

  Everybody in Port Clarke that he had asked about it assured him that that would be a fair price. But when he got up country it hadn't turned out quite as simple as the Port Clarkers seemed to think. The first three Martian families he had tackled hadn't shown any dispo­sition to sell their daughters at all; the next wanted £1,500, and wouldn't budge; Lellie's parents had started at £1,500, too, but they came down to £1,000 when he'd made it plain that he wasn't going to stand for extor­tion. And when, on the way back to Port Clarke with her, he came to work it out, he found himself not so badly pleased with the deal after all. Over the five-year term of his appoint­ment it could only cost him £200 a year at the worst — that is to say if he were not able to sell her for £400, maybe £500 when he got back. Looked at that way, it wasn't really at all un­reason­able.

  In town once more, he went to explain the situ­ation and get things all set with the Company's Agent.

  “Look,” he said, “you know the way I'm fixed with this five-year contract as Way-load Station Super­inten­dent on Jupiter IV/II? Well, the ship that takes me there will be travel­ling light to pick up cargo. So how about a second passage on her?” He had already taken the pre­cau­tion­ary step of finding out that the Com­pany was accus­tomed to grant an extra passage in such cir­cum­stances, though not of right.

  The Company's Agent was not sur­prised. After con­sul­ting some lists, he said that he saw no objec­tion to an extra passenger. He explained that the Com­pany was also prepared in such cases to supply the extra ration of food for one person at the nominal charge of £200 per annum, pay­able by deduc­tion from salary.

  “What! A thousand pounds!” Duncan exclaimed.

  “Well worth it,” said the Agent. “It is nominal for the rations, because it's worth the Com­pany's while to lay out the rest for some­thing that helps to keep an employee from going nuts. That's pretty easy to do when you're fixed alone on a way-load station, they tell me — and I believe them. A thousand's not high if it helps you to avoid a crack-up.”

  Duncan argued it a bit, on principle, but the Agent had the thing cut and dried. It meant that Lellie's price went up to £2,000 — £400 a year. Still, with his own salary at £5,000 a year, tax free, unspendable during his term on Jupiter IV/II, and piling up nicely, it wouldn't come to such a big slice. So he agreed.

  “Fine,” said the Agent. “I'll fix it, then. All you'll need is an embar­kation permit for her, and they'll grant that auto­matic­ally on produc­tion of your marriage certi­ficate.”

  Duncan stared.

  “Marriage certificate! What, me! Me marry a Mart!”

  The Agent shook his head reprovingly.

  “No embarkation permit with­out it. Anti-slavery regu­lation. They'd likely think you meant to sell her — might even think you'd bought her.”

  “What, me!” Duncan said again, indignantly.

  “Even you,” said the Agent. “A marriage licence will only cost you another ten pounds — unless you've got a wife back home, in which case it'll likely cost you a bit more later on.”

  Duncan shook his head.

  “I've no wife,” he assured him.

  “Uh-huh,” said the Agent, neither believing, nor dis­believ­ing. “Then what's the dif­fer­ence?”

  Duncan came back a couple of days later, with the certi­fi­cate and the permit. The Agent looked them over.

  “That's okay,” he agreed. “I'll con­firm the book­ing. My fee will be one hundred pounds.”

  “Your fee! What the—?”

  “Call it safe­guard­ing your invest­ment,” said the Agent.

  The man who had issued the embark­ation permit had required one hundred pounds, too. Duncan did not men­tion that now, but he said, with bitter­ness:

  “One dumb Mart's costing me plenty.”

  “Dumb?” said the Agent, looking at him.

  “Speechless plus. These hick Marts don't know they're born.”

  “H'm,” said the Agent. “Never lived here, have you?”

  “No,” Duncan admitted. “But I've laid-over here a few times.”

  The Agent nodded.

  “They act dumb, and the way their faces are makes them look dumb,” he said, “but they were a mighty clever people, once.”

  “Once, could be a long time ago.”

  “Long before we got here they'd given up bother­ing to think a lot. Their planet was dying, and they were kind of content to die with it.”

  “Well, I call that dumb. Aren't all planets dying, any­way?”

  “Ever seen an old man just sitting in the sun, taking it easy? It doesn't have to mean he's senile. It may do, but very likely he can snap out of it and put his mind to work again if it gets really neces­sary. But mostly he finds it not worth the bother. Less trouble just to let things happen.”

  “Well, this one's only about twenty — say ten and a half of your Martian years — and she certainly lets 'em happen. And I'd say it's a kind of acid test for dumb­ness when a girl doesn't know what goes on at her own wed­ding cere­mony.”

  And then, on top of that, it turned out to be neces­sary to lay out yet another hundred pounds on clothing and other things for her, bring­ing the whole invest­ment up to £2,310. It was a sum which might possibly have been justi­fied on a really smart girl, but Lellie ... But there it was. Once you made the first pay­ment, you either lost on it, or were stuck for the rest. And, anyway, on a lonely way-load station even she would be com­pany — of a sort...

  The First Officer called Duncan into the navi­ga­ting room to take a look at his future home.

  “There it is,” he said, waving his hand at a watch-screen.

  Duncan looked at the jagged-surfaced cres­cent. There was no scale to it: it could have been the size of Luna, or of a basket-ball. Either size, it was still just a lump of rock, turning slowly over.

  “How big?” he asked.

  “Around forty miles mean dia­meter.”

  “What'd that be in gravity?”

  “Haven't worked it out. Call it slight, and reckon there isn't any, and you'll be near enough.”

  “Uh-huh,” said Duncan.

  On the way back to the mess-room he paused to put his head into the cabin. Lellie was lying on her bunk, with the spring-cover fastened over her to give some illusion of weight. At the sight of him she raised herself on one elbow.

  She was small — not much over five feet. Her face and hands were deli­cate; they had a fragi­lity which was not simply a matter of poor bone-structure. To an Earth­man her eyes looked un­natu­rally round, seem­ing to give her perm­anently an ex­pres­sion of inno­cence sur­prised. The lobes of her ears hung un­usu­ally low out of a mass of brown hair that glinted with red among its waves. The pale­ness of her skin was empha­sized by the colour on her cheeks and the vivid red on her lips.

  “Hey,” said Duncan. “You can start to get busy packing up the stuff now.”

  “Packing up?” she repeated d
oubt­fully, in a curiously reso­nant voice.

  “Sure. Pack.” Duncan told her. He demon­strated by opening a box, cramming some clothes into it, and waving a hand to include the rest. Her expres­sion did not change, but the idea got across.

  “We are come?” she asked.

  “We are nearly come. So get busy on this lot,” he informed her.

  “Yith — okay,” she said, and began to unhook the cover.

  Duncan shut the door, and gave a shove which sent him float­ing down the passage leading to the general mess and living-room.

  Inside the cabin, Lellie pushed away the cover. She reached down cautiously for a pair of metallic soles, and attached them to her slippers by their clips. Still cautiously holding on to the bunk, she swung her feet over the side and lowered them until the magnetic soles clicked into con­tact with the floor. She stood up, more confi­dently. The brown overall suit she wore revealed pro­por­tions that might be admired among Martians, but by Earth standards they were not classic — it is said to be the con­se­quence of the thinner air of Mars that has in the course of time produced a greater lung capacity, with con­sequent modi­fi­ca­tion. Still ill at ease with her condi­tion of weight­less­ness, she slid her feet to keep contact as she crossed the room For some moments she paused in front of a wall mirror, con­tem­plat­ing her reflec­tion. Then she turned away and set about the packing.

  “—one hell of a place to take a woman to,” Wishart, the ship's cook, was saying as Duncan came in.

  Duncan did not care a lot for Wishart — chiefly on account of the fact that when it had occurred to him that it was highly desirable for Lellie to have some lessons in weight­less cooking, Wishart had refused to give the tuition for less than £50, and thus increased the investment cost to £2,360. Never­the­less, it was not his way to pretend to have mis­heard.

  “One hell of a place to be given a job,” he said, grimly.

  No one replied to that. They knew how men came to be offered way-load jobs.