He Who Shrank: A Collection of Short Fiction

by Henry Hasse

  He Who Shrank:

  A Collection of Short Fiction,

  by Henry Hasse

  Tom's eBooks May 2021 (c, ebook) - 118,300 words

  Introduction, Tom Dean, (in) *

  The End of Tyme [*Tyme] (with A. Fedor), (ss) Wonder Stories Nov. 1933 - 3393

  He Who Shrank, (na) Amazing Aug. 1936 - 24529

  A Miracle in Time, (nv) Astonishing Stories June 1940 - 9935

  The Missing Day, (nv) Super Science Stories May 1942 - 9865

  Passage to Planet X [*Six Worlds], (nv) Planet Stories Winter 1945 - 12405

  Dread-Flame of M’Tonak [*Six Worlds], (na) Planet Stories Fall 1946 - 21147

  Final Glory, (ss) Planet Stories Spring 1947 - 2008

  Eternal Zemmd Must Die! [*Six Worlds], (na) Planet Stories Spring 1949 - 18091

  Survival, (ss) Other Worlds Science Stories March 1950 - 6164

  Don't Come to Mars! (with Emil Petaja, uncredited) [*Six Worlds], (ss) Fantastic Adventures April 1950 - 4546

  Ultimate Life (with Albert de Pina), (ss) Science-Fiction Plus Aug. 1953 - 6316

  Bonus Poem:

  Lost Soul, (poem) Futuria Fantasia Fall 1939

  Bonus Article/Response:

  Aw G'wan! (ar) Futuria Fantastia Winter 1940

  Table of Contents

  He Who Shrank:

  A Collection of Short Fiction,

  by Henry Hasse

  Introduction

  The End of Tyme,

  He Who Shrank,

  A Miracle in Time,

  Final Glory,

  Eternal Zemmd Must Die!

  Survival,

  Don't Come to Mars!

  Ultimate Life,

  Lost Soul,

  Aw G'wan!

  Introduction

  This newest collection assembled by Me (and My Shadow!) is by another underappreciated author of the '40s and '50s, Henry Hasse. It contains his most anthologized work, the inspired novella "He Who Shrank." I shall never forget encountering it in Isaac Asimov's monumental reprint anthology, Before the Golden Age. An argument could be made that this is one of the most important science fiction anthologies ever put together.

  This collection is meant to complement the recent compilation of Hasse's stories from Project Gutenberg, The 51st Golden Age of SF Megapack: Henry Hasse, from Wildside Press (2020).

  We've included a bonus poem and article, simply because they were also available at Project Gutenberg.

  Tom Dean

  tdeanatoz@yahoo.com

  May 2021

  ************************

  The End of Tyme,

  by Henry Hasse & A. Fedor

  Wonder Stories, Nov. 1933

  Short Story - 3393 words

  This short humorous satire on time-travel should be most welcome to our readers. For years, our “Readers’ Corner” has been filled with opinions and theories pro and con relative to the possibilities of time-traveling. Even those most opposed to this type of story, should thoroughly enjoy this amusing tale.

  But please don’t take our authors’ theme too seriously—especially their opinion of editors in general. Perhaps we would act the same as the editor in this story, if we were faced with a similar situation. Who knows?

  Editor-In-Chief B. Lue Pencill was about to engage in a task—strange as it may seem—which Fate now and then casts inadvertently into the path of every editor; he was going to peruse a manuscript. In view of which fact he would undoubtedly demand an increase of salary.

  Seated “editorially”—that is, his feet perched at an angle on his desk, which position scientists assert is conducive to better thinking—he prepared to enjoy the manuscript; which, of course, had practically been accepted already, the author being a very popular one with Future Fiction readers, and something of a scientist besides.

  But these readers had recently arisen and demanded something new in the way of plots; and above all, they made plain, they wanted them plausible. So B. Lue Pencill, with unusual fervor, had gone so far as to exert himself in the writing of several appropriate editorials, and also letters to the more consistent contributors, in which he particularly stressed the need of more plausibility in their stories.

  So it was with such thoughts that Pencill turned to the first page. “The End of Time by Hamil Edmondton,” he read aloud, as was his habit when alone. With but a casual interest he began the story; but as the clock ticked and he read on, this interest became considerably more than a casual one, and soon he was reading carefully, keenly, and with much enjoyment. On and on he read, and inexorable Fate slowly marshalled her forces in favor of the heroes cast into time, and Pencill became aware that soon the story must end. End it did, in a very logical and pleasing way, and Pencill reluctantly and somewhat reverently placed the manuscript on his desk.

  “That,” he stated aloud, “is what I call a story!” There being no one there to dispute him, he waxed eloquent.

  “Marvelous!” he clapped a fist into his open hand. “Super-marvelous! An entirely coherent, sound, sensible story! Yes, sensible, and a perfectly plausible idea told in a most plausible and entertaining manner. A gem! None of your half-baked, slip-shod, scientifically screwy work some of these pin-headed pen-pushers send in. This guy Edmondton’s a genius. If the others could do half as well, Future Fiction would not only be on its feet again, but would acquire wings as well. I’ll write a special editorial for this story; I’ll send out circulars to all the readers, heralding its coming; why, I’ll even—”

  He stopped suddenly, peered over the rims of his spectacles toward the door, and gulped for air, reassurance, and the return of his wits.

  There was a stranger in the room.

  Pencill swore something under his breath. What was the matter with that stenographer, allowing his private sanctum to be disturbed when he had expressly demanded solitude? Yet he could remember no opening nor closing of the door. But of course, he had been so deeply engrossed in that story. Ah, well; he must take things as they came.

  Then Pencill took a longer look at his unannounced visitor, and came to his feet in astonishment.

  The man was tall; athletically built, with dark and foreign features, but not unhandsome. He was clad from the waist down in a garment apparently of leather, close-fitting, revealing powerful limbs, and fastened securely about the ankles; the shoes, or rather sandals, of the same light material. About his neck and shoulders, a sort of cape-coat of a different material, black, fastened at the throat but open the rest of the way, revealing a bare torso, powerful and bronzed as though with constant exposure to the sun. Black hair, thick and ruffled covered his head. A wide-meshed belt of some dull grayish metal, widening at the front into an absurdly flat box curved to fit the contour of the body.

  All this Pencill took in in a flash; then his astonishment gave way to alarm, for the stranger’s hands were hovering about the contrivance at his waist, fingers fidgeting nervously, as if expecting Pencill to show some hostility or anger.

  But Pencill did neither. He sank down limply into his chair again, partly because his legs had suddenly become weak like wet macaroni, and partly because he saw that the stranger was even more scared, if that could be possible, than he was.

  Then the editor’s reasoning power came back, and he began to generalize: a drunk, a crocfrier, a walking advertisement, or someone paying off one of these crazy election bets.

  The stranger had apparently come to the conclusion that Pencill was harmless enough, for he approached the desk without hesitation, though his manner was still one of bewilderment.

  “Oh,” he said, in a curious high voice entirely out of keeping with his splendid b
ody—”Where am I?” He said this so drolly, at the same time making such a face, that Pencill felt like laughing aloud, which he did. The fellow’s evident perplexity increased.

  “All right,” said the editor amiably, in high good humor after having read such an excellent story, “I’ll bite. Come on, let’s have it. What’s the gag?”

  “I do not believe I quite understand your meaning.” The stranger’s words came rapidly, with a curious clip, and no noticeable inflection of the voice. “Where am I?” he asked again.

  Pencill decided to play it out to the finish, whatever the game was.

  “In my office,” he replied affably.

  “Office—office—. I believe that I am slightly bewildered. What I should have asked is, what year is this? Surely nineteen hundred thirty-two, or some date in that particular era?”

  “Amnesia,” thought the editor, but it sounded unreasonable. Then a sudden suspicion dawned. Was this some gag to crash his mag with a story? He became abruptly serious.

  “Will you kindly state your business here and then scr—go?”

  But the stranger was now bordering on panic. “Will you please tell me the date?” he asked tremulously.

  Pencill looked at him queerly for a moment, then reached out and patted him gently on the hand. “Here, now, sit down, and I’ll explain everything,” he said just as gently. A very serious suspicion had arisen suddenly in his mind—a suspicion that left his forehead damp and cold. Pie had heard that it was best to humor them—

  “Yes,” he began very softly, “this is May, 1932, and this is the office of Future Fiction, third floor, room 19, and we’re having quite hot weather, don’t you think? Have a stick of gum?”

  A change came suddenly over the other. He seemed interested, even excited. His fists clenched and his eyes were wide.

  “Future Fiction—it seems that—do you mean that your magazine”—here Pencill grew two inches in stature—“contains that type of story in which events, persons, instruments, and science, of some future time are conjectured upon?”

  “Most certainly,” Pencill assured him much pleased. “I am B. Lue Pencill, Editor-in-Chief of Future Fiction, and we print only the greatest of fiction by the best of authors.” So dexterously had Pencill made many of his readers actually believe this last statement, that he almost believed it himself. “But you seem greatly interested,” he went on, watching closely his queer visitor, who might be dangerous. “I take it that you read the magazine yourself?” He might have wondered if that fact is what made his visitor that way.

  The stranger seemed not to hear the editor’s question. “How wonderful!” he exclaimed fervently. “How really wonderful! By what great Fates are our destinies guided! How fortunate I have been! I did not expect any such luck as this. Mr. Pencill. My name is Tyme. To come to the point, Mr. Pencill, I have just come from the year 2232.”

  Mr. Pencill didn’t bat an eyelash. He was beyond all incredulity.

  “Tell me, Mr. Pencill, you have no doubt read stories dealing with the possibilities of time-travelling?”

  “Yes, in fact I’ve just—”

  “Fine! Then you surely will not doubt me when I say that I am from another time-world. You surely will not doubt me when I say that a few short moments ago, and yet three hundred years hence, I was, and have yet to be, a citizen of the twenty-third century, of the year 2232. You will not doubt me when I say that I have done the long thought impossible, have surmounted the impassable obstacles, have succeeded in projecting myself three hundred years through time!”

  Pencill’s head was spinning like a top. “Oh, no,” he whispered, “certainly not.”

  “I have come back to this floundering age to make certain helpful changes, which in turn will have an effect on us in 2232. And through you, they will believe. Yes, Mr. Pencill, you shall be the first to marvel at the changes that are to come! You shall be the first to hear my story! You shall be first to recognize the great deed I have done! You shall be first to share in the glory of my triumph!”

  “Yes,” whispered Mr. Pencill.

  “Oh, but the Fates are with me, Mr. Pencill. I have had the most astounding good fortune to materialize within your presence. My one great fear was that I would not be believed—but now I feel safe. It causes me great wonder to think that out of all the great citizenry of New York. I emerged into the presence of the one who will credit my story most. It’s positively amazing, and if I were superstitious I should say weird!”

  “Yes indeed,” the editor agreed soothingly. “Allow me to shake your hand.” He wished he dared to yell for help, but there was only the stenographer in the next room. If he could only manage to ‘phone for aid, without this lunatic suspecting. But he dared not risk arousing his suspicions. He could only listen, humor the fellow, and keep his mind alert for a favorable opportunity. But above all, keep him humored!

  “And now,” the editor said, “I wish you’d go right ahead, in your own way, and explain things—your plans.”

  Tyme did—and how!

  He started with a description of his own century. He told of how interplanetary communication had come first, then interplanetary travel, through the efforts of a group of scientists on Venus.

  Of the heated controversies, in issue at the time he had left, over the possibilities of a ninth dimension.

  Of Earth travel by means of shafts through the Earth instead of around and over the surface.

  Of how he, in spite of his youthful healthy appearance, would never see fifty again—due, not so much to the strides medical science had taken, as to common-sense living.

  Of how he had labored for thirty years on the possibilities of time-travel.

  Of how, while he was working on the problem, there had come a tremendous achievement—transportation by means of disintegration of the component atoms which were radioed to the desired destination. This great accomplishment, he had felt, would be the means of finally solving his own problem of time-travel. If the component atoms could be sent through space and reassembled, why not through time? The basis of this idea, he said, was that the individual atom itself is in an entirely different time scheme. The tiny atom whirled through its own space an infinite number of times per second, while our solar system, for instance, requires years or centuries for the same relative purpose. Relativity. So, he said, he had worked harder than ever to find something to affect the time scheme of these individual atoms—to such an extent that when they were reassembled, it would be in a different time scheme not of the individual atom, but of the whole material object. He had succeeded by tireless experimentation with an already known element even beyond uranium in the atomic scale.

  “But even after I succeeded, there were difficulties. Great arguments arose as to whether the past could be changed to benefit the future. A compromise was reached, and I volunteered to go back three hundred years to make certain definite changes about the year 1932. I wish to do away with certain harmful causes, and thus at the same time, the effects. So,” Tyme concluded, “here I am. I shall make a few drastic changes in politics and science, before I return to my own age.”

  “Yes, yes, but tell me—now that you are here, what do you intend to do first?”

  “That is a hard problem, the first one which we will have to solve.”

  “Splendid, splendid!” the editor went on enthusiastically. “And having decided what we’ll do first, there arises another problem—how?”

  But Tyme was not disconcerted. “That,” he replied, “is the second problem. But we shall have time for that later. There is something you said a short while ago, I believe, which I was going to answer at length. A trivial matter, but one that may be of interest to you. You asked me, I believe, if I were interested in your type of fiction. Yes. In 2232 I have read a good many of your magazines—I think they were yours; ragged and yellow with age, but remarkably preserved for that length of time. Found them in an out-of-the-way place, discarded and forgotten. Your magazine, you m
ay be interested to know, ceased publication in 1941.”

  “You don’t say! I’m certainly sorry to hear that. Well, it’s good to know that I have nine more years ahead of me, anyway.”

  “After a hard day in the laboratory,” Tyme went on, “I would read some of those old books. I was always very amused by them. The style was so quaint, the ideas so absurd. Only a few of them ever materialized.”

  “Why, I have one here,” Pencill reached for the manuscript on his desk, “that I thought was very good. I’d like to have you read some parts of it, and see how prophetic the author was. It may interest you. That is, if you care to.”

  Tyme held up a hand. “No, no, I’m afraid not,” he demurred. “I presume that it will be published?”

  “Why, yes; it certainly shall.”

  “Then I may have read it already, in one of those old yellowed magazines. Most of those I read were very humorous, though some were dry and boresome,” he told the editor frankly. “As an example of the latter, I recently dug one of them out, and read a story by one Hamil Edmonton, I believe it was. ‘The End of Time’ was its name, I remember. It was a terrible piece of drivel, full of scientific fallacies that should be apparent even in this age. There was no basic plot and it was entirely pointless in its purpose.”

  Pencill became red in the face, then indignant, at this criticism of the excellent story he had just accepted.

  But Tyme changed the subject abruptly. “Don’t you think you’d better let the public know that I’m here, and for what purpose? Isn’t there some way—”

  “Easy!” The editor saw a chance and jumped at it. “The newspapers, of course. I’ll call up a few now, and have them send some reporters immediately.”

  He reached for the ’phone; then:

  “I keep forgetting that this ’phone is out of order. You wait here, and I’ll use the one in the next room.”