“That,” Sam retorted with a grin, “is mere propaganda. Your Olgarchic ancestors must have been singularly adept at that sort of thing. Something tells me they foisted that tale even on themselves, in order to keep their position intact. If ever Workers or Technicians or even mutant Olgarchs like yourself came in contact with other forms of civilization, with other methods, there might be comparisons not at all favorable to Hispan.”
Beltan’s tone was sharp, quick. “Have you any proof of that?”
“None whatever,” Sam admitted. “Call it intuition if you like, or merely the memory of somewhat similar propaganda methods in my own twentieth century.”
The flame that lifted in Beltan’s eyes died. “In any event,” he said dully, “there is no way of ever finding out. The neutron walls cannot be pierced.”
* * * *
Kleon had been singularly silent. His fair brow was furrowed; he seemed plunged in profound thought. Now he raised his head suddenly. “Is there,” he demanded, “a mountain, within the confines of Hispan where the Titans are wont to groan uneasily?”
Beltan stared. “I do not understand.”
“He means,” explained Sam, “a volcano.”
“No; there is not.”
“Then,” shouted Kleon, “by the one-eyed Cyclopes, there is a way of escape.”
“What the devil--” Sam cried.
“Listen to me,” the Greek said fiercely. “The pyramid Hotep built for me to sleep into this stupid future lay close to the flanks of such a volcano.”
“That’s true,” Sam averred. “I remember it. But what of it?”
“This! According to the formula of the gymnosophists I required the gases from the smoking mountain for my chambered sleep. I drew them in by cunning vents which pierced the central fires. These opened to the day at the top of the mountain. Stones, nicely pivoted, sealed the vents after the gases poured into the chamber. Only I know the secret of their presence, of the springs by which they may pivot once more. The pyramid is within the city; the burning mountain is without. We shall escape by means of those passages which lead far underground from one to the other.”
Sam pounded the Greek’s shoulder. “Kleon, you are a genius.” Then a thought struck him, clouded his joy. “Out of the frying pan into the fire.” He grimaced. “Your passages lead to the central fires, you say. That means to the inner crater. We’d suffocate or frizzle to death.”
“The mountain may have ceased its complaining long since,” Kleon answered calmly. “And brave men die but once.”
“Right!” Sam chuckled. “We start at once. We still have the gadgets that Tomson gave us. They’ll drop us down the shaft.” He stuck out his hand to Beltan. “Good-by,” he said. “Thanks! You were the one bright spot in Hispan.”
The Olgarch’s eyes were inscrutable. “Warnings of your descent down the conveyor tube will be signaled back to Gano from every level,” he said. “You’ll never reach your buried pyramid.”
“We’ll chance it,” Sam retorted.
“I won’t permit such chances.”
Sam looked at him incredulously. “You mean you’re backing down? I thought you were our friend.”
“I mean,” Beltan replied quietly, “I am going with you. The levels will respect my presence.”
“You’re a good egg,” Sam said with feeling. “But it’s no go. You’d only get into a mess of trouble when you come back.”
“I’m not coming back,” the Olgarch retorted patiently.
“Huh! What’s that?”
“I mean I’m going out into the strange new world with you.” He smiled quizzically. “Didn’t you say a little while before that we three, given the chance, could conquer the universe?”
“But—but--” Sam spluttered. “Why, damn it, you can’t do this. The chances of our getting through, or of survival even if we do, are a thousand to one. Why should you give up everything-”
“Because I am tired of this life; because in rawness and chaos I may find again that soul you spoke of; because—I am your friend.”
The three men, products of three different ages, stared at one another with level brows. Sam felt an unaccustomed lump in his throat, spoke gruffly. “Then we’d better get started—before Gano gets on our trail.”
* * * *
VIII.
It was easier than they had anticipated.
Under Beltan’s guidance they darted in his conveyor car for the tube, bailed into the great shaft with swiftness and dispatch. Down five thousand feet they catapulted, meeting Technicians and Workers on their way, getting humble salutes because of the Olgarchic presence, curious glances as they whirled ever downward.
Then the final excavation, the still-yawning chamber which the blasters had laid bare. Harri, back on the job, looked up in alarm at this unprecedented invasion of an Olgarch. But Beltan took the trouble to explain. The sleepers, he said, were going to disclose to him the method by which they had slept intact these many ages. In the meantime, it was unnecessary for Harri and his corps of Workers to remain. And they were, he added with authority, to hold their tongues.
In seconds the final level was clear.
“Now”—Sam grinned—”strut your stuff, O Kleon.” He had noted Beltan’s anxious glances at the visor screen implanted in the upper shaft.
It was an even more anxious moment before the Greek found what he was looking for. A tiny, almost imperceptible depression in the ancient wall. A simultaneous exhalation of withheld breath burst from three pair of lips as the section of the wall turned on itself, disclosed a dark hole within. Sam, remembering his former experience, would have held back to determine if hot, volcanic gases would belch forth. But the Olgarch had cried out sharply. “Quick, run! We’re discovered!”
They dived headlong into the baleful opening. Kleon flung around, thrust his shoulder against the massive stone. It swung smoothly and soundlessly back into position. They crouched, panting, in utter darkness.
Just in time, too! For at that moment there was a low, humming sound that rose swiftly to an unbearable scream. “Gano has turned on the blasters,” said Beltan with a groan. “They’ll shear through this thickness of rock in two or three seconds.”
But the scream of rushing power gave way to a mightier roar. There was a huge crash, a tumbling, grinding noise. The solid rock swayed crazily underfoot. Then there was silence.
“The pyramid has fallen,” Kleon told them shakenly. “There must be a hundred feet of earth and rock and stone behind. All return is blocked.”
“Then the answer is forward,” Sam responded with a cheerfulness he did not quite feel. If the volcano was still active, if, in the course of long centuries, the crater had become clogged with lava--
It was a long, steep, arduous climb in total darkness—silent, except for grunts and low curses as they bumped blindly into jagged edges. Up, always up, in fetid, clammy atmosphere-
Then the path widened suddenly and they were at the bottom of a huge bowl. Sam looked up fearfully, then let out a great shout that brought the echoes tumbling about them. “The stars! I see the stars!”
* * * *
High overhead, framed in limited blue, were tiny pin points of light, peering down incuriously upon them. There followed a mad scramble, a clawing and backward slithering in crumbling, weathered lava flows of an ancient epoch. The volcano was extinct. The air was foul but breathable.
Then they were out, staring with avid eyes upon the enveloping scene. It was night and the fresh breeze stirred their hair, ruffled their clothes. Three men, of different civilizations, clad in different habits, united only in a common bond of escape, emerged into an incredible world!
To one side, framed by the heights of the Sierra Madre, reared a vast, light-quenching surface. Five thousand feet it sprang, massive, somber, swinging over the plain to either side as far as the eye could reach. The neutron-walled city of Hispan!
To the other side, past the mountains, a great wilderness stretched interminably without
end, without beginning. There was no sign of life, of human habitation, of anything but tangled, savage-crowding trees. There wasn’t a light, an airplane, not even a boat on the tideless darkness of the ocean beyond. Even the stars were strange, the old configurations gone.
Sam shivered. It was cold, but it was not that which made his flesh crawl. Suppose the tale of Hispan had been true? Suppose there were no other cities, no other human beings in that shoreless jungle? Suppose--
He turned to the others, grinned. “At least one thing is certain,” he said lightly, “the air is good. If deadly gases once existed, they have long since been dissipated or made chemically harmless.” He raised his voice, “Forward, comrades, to whatever destiny awaits us!”
“Forward!” cried Kleon, the Greek.
“Forward!” spoke Beltan, the Olgarch.
The three men turned their faces resolutely toward the East, toward the home of the rising sun. Slowly, they descended the mountain.
* * * *
Of the two stories in the September 1937 Astounding Stories, the serial, Galactic Patrol, did not stand up. Years later, I got a copy of the hard-back version and sat down to relive past glories—but they weren’t there. I found the book unreadable.
Yet, when I just reread “Past, Present, and Future” in the process of organizing this anthology, I found it just as much fun now as it had been then.
Schachner was alive to the gathering dangers of the 1930s and the mounting threat of Nazi Germany. His stories were filled with social problems therefore, with himself always on the side of the democratic angels.
I absorbed it all and I am glad of it now as I look back on it. Had the John Clark type of story been the only kind that had impressed me, I would have been sharply limited. (It is perhaps not for nothing that Clark wrote only two stories.) As it was when I came to write The Foundation Trilogy, there were times when the voice of Schachner sounded in my ear.
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* * * *
Part Nine
1938
* * * *
FROM THE START, the year 1938 brought changes both for me and for the science fiction world. I had written another letter to Astounding Stories, and it was printed. (Thereafter, for about half a year, I wrote one every month and it was printed every month.)
A fellow alumnus of Boys High saw the letter, recognized my name, noticed my address, and wrote to me, inviting me to attend a meeting of the Queens Science Fiction League. (Or perhaps it was the Greater New York chapter.)
In any case, I actually got time off from the candy store (it was Sunday afternoon, when business was slow anyway) and attended. For the first time, I was associated with other science fiction readers. I met a number of young men who were to stay my friends for decades and who were to become notable in the science fiction world. As examples, there were Fred Pohl, Richard Wilson, Donald Wollheim, Sam Moskowitz, and Scott Meredith.
After nine years of isolation, I was never to be alone in science fiction again.
* * * *
A sadder note was struck by the fact that the Teck Amazing finally gave up. The April 1938 issue was the eighty-ninth under the editorship of T. O’Conor Sloane, and the last.
Amazing Stories itself did not die, or even skip an issue; at least, its name didn’t. It was bought by Ziff-Davis Publications, and the June 1938 issue came out in a new incarnation. The design of the name was changed, and the cover (horrors!) was a photograph rather than a painting.
The Ziff-Davis Amazing deliberately struck a lower level in writing and plotting, aiming for the younger reader. It proceeded to do well financially. With the October 1938 issue it went monthly, and there were to be periods when it had the highest monthly circulation ever achieved by a science fiction magazine.
Nevertheless, I considered it trash and disliked it intensely. It was the first science fiction magazine I did not read even when it was available. (It is rather embarrassing for me to have to admit, therefore, that my first two sales and my first two published appearances and my first two checks were to, in, and from the Ziff-Davis Amazing. I didn’t really feel that I had arrived till I appeared in the pages of Astounding, with my third published story.)
* * * *
But the overwhelming fact of 1938 was John W. Campbell, Jr. With the October 1937 issue, he had taken over the editorship of Astounding Stories. He remained, however, under the direction of Tremaine, who moved up to the post of Editorial Director. For seven issues, Campbell had to move slowly.
Nevertheless, he did manage to introduce changes. The March 1938 issue, for instance, was no longer Astounding Stories. It was Astounding Science Fiction, and the design of the name was changed to something altogether tasteful and attractive. I don’t ordinarily welcome change in anything I have grown accustomed to, but that one I greeted gladly.
With the April 1938 issue, Tremaine left Street & Smith, and the fifty-fifth issue of the Tremaine Astounding was the last. It had been great while it lasted, but something far greater still was at hand. The May 1938 issue was the first of the Campbell Astounding. With that issue, Campbell was in complete charge and was to remain absolute ruler of the magazine for thirty-three years, up to the very day of his death.
Almost as soon as Campbell took over, the whole magazine breathed a new life. Campbell was looking for new authors and for a new kind of science fiction.
My fate had come to meet me. The June 1938 issue changed date of publication and was late. In mortal fear that the magazine had died, I actually traveled to Street & Smith Publications, Inc., to investigate (see The Early Asimov). That trip, the stimulation of my contacts with other fans, the new excitement of the Campbell era in birth, drove me back to writing.
Late in May 1938, I dug out the nearly forgotten manuscript of “Cosmic Corkscrew” and got back to work again. Even as I finished it, the July 1938 issue of Astounding Science Fiction came out, and in it was “The Men and the Mirror,” by Ross Rocklynne. It was one of a series (and the best) that dealt with a detective who was pursuing a criminal only to find himself, and the criminal too, caught in a dilemma involving the laws of physics.
* * * *
THE MEN AND THE MIRROR
by Ross Rocklynne
The men were plunging down the gently curving surface of the mirror.
Above them were the stars of the universe, whose light was caught by the mirror, radiated and reradiated by its concave surface, and, unimpaired, was flung back into space as a conglomerate glow.
There were two of these men. One was Edward Deverel, a worldly wise, carefree giant of a man whose profession—up until the recent past—had been that of pirating canal boats on the planet Mars. The other, a hard, powerful man, was Lieutenant John Colbie, whose assignment it was to apprehend this corsair of the canals.
Theirs was a real predicament, for they were unable to produce, at present, any means of escape from the prison this smooth, shining, deep bowl of a mirror presented.
As to how it all came about—
* * * *
When Colbie, after his twelve-hour trek along the ammonia river which ran from the lake into which the Fountain poured its noxious ammonia liquids, finally reached Jupiter City, he was in a state of fatigue under which his muscles, every one of them, seemed to scream out a protest. He pressed the buzzer that let those within the air-lock understand that he was demanding admittance, and was decidedly relieved to see the huge valve swing open, throwing a glow of luminescence on the wildly swirling gases that raced across the surface of that mighty, poisonous planet Jupiter. Two men came forward. They covered him with hand weapons, and urged him inside the lock. The keeper of the lock desired to know Colbie’s business, and Colbie demanded that he be taken before the commander of the garrison—who was also mayor of the city—as things had, of necessity, to be run on a military basis.
Riding through the streets of the city, he was both thrilled and awed, after that tortuous ordeal in the wilds of Jupiter, by the consciousness of the great geni
us of the human race—that it was able, in the face of so many killing difficulties, to erect this domed city, so well equipped with the luxuries of Earthly life. For outside the city there was a pressure of fifteen thousand pounds to the square inch. There was a gravitation two and a half times that of Earth. There was not a breathable drop of oxygen in the atmosphere, and not a ray of light ever penetrated the vast cloud layer to the planet’s surface. But man had built the city, and it would remain forever, so solidly and efficiently was it constructed.
When Colbie came before the dome commander, that individual listened to his story, eyeing him keenly in the meanwhile.
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