by Eric Flint
The World Turned Upside Down
Edited by
David Drake
Eric Flint
Jim Baen
This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental.
Copyright © 2004 by David Drake, Eric Flint & Jim Baen
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form.
A Baen Books Original
Baen Publishing Enterprises
P.O. Box 1403
Riverdale, NY 10471
www.baen.com
ISBN: 0-7434-9874-7
Cover art by Thomas Kidd
First printing, January 2005
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
The world turned upside down / edited by David Drake, Eric Flint, and Jim Baen.
p. cm.
ISBN 0-7434-9874-7
1. Science fiction, American. 2. Science fiction, English. I. Drake, David.
II. Flint, Eric. III. Baen, Jim.
PS648.S3W647 2005
813'.0876208--dc22
2004021812
Distributed by Simon & Schuster
1230 Avenue of the Americas
New York, NY 10020
Production by Windhaven Press, Auburn, NH
Printed in the United States of America
BAEN BOOKS by DAVID DRAKE & ERIC FLINT
The Tyrant
The Belisarius Series
An Oblique Approach
In the Heart of Darkness
Destiny's Shield
Fortune's Stroke
The Tide of Victory
For a complete list of Baen Books
by these authors, please go to
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Copyright information for The World Turned Upside Down
Stories are listed in order of -publication date:
C.L. Moore, "Shambleau" was first published in Weird Tales in November, 1933. Reprinted by permission of Don Congdon Associates. Copyright © 1933 by Popular Fiction Company, renewed 1961 by C.L. Moore.
John W. Campbell, Jr. (writing as Don A. Stuart), "Who Goes There?" was first published in Astounding Science Fiction in August, 1938.
A.E. Van Vogt, "Black Destroyer" was first published in Astounding Science Fiction in July, 1939.
Lee Gregor, "Heavy Planet" was first published in Astounding Science Fiction in August, 1939.
P. Schuyler Miller, "Spawn" was first published in Weird Tales in August, 1939.
Ross Rocklynne, "Quietus" was first published in Astounding Science Fiction in September, 1940.
Chester S. Geier, "Environment" was first published in Astounding Science Fiction in May, 1944.
Arthur C. Clarke, "Rescue Party" was first published in Astounding Science Fiction in May, 1946. Reprinted by permission of the author and the author's agents, Scovil Chichak Galen Literary Agency, Inc.
Theodore Sturgeon, "Thunder and Roses" was first published in Astounding Science Fiction in November, 1947.
C.M. Kornbluth, "The Only Thing We Learn" was first published in Startling Stories in July, 1949. Copyright © 1949 by C.M. Kornbluth. Reprinted by permission of Curtis Brown, Ltd.
Wyman Guin (writing as Norman Menasco), "Trigger Tide" was first published in Astounding Science Fiction in October, 1950.
Jack Vance, "Liane the Wayfarer" first appeared as part of Jack Vance, The Dying Earth, published by Hillman in 1950.
Fritz Leiber, "A Pail of Air" was first published in Galaxy in December, 1951.
Michael Shaara, "All the Way Back" was first published in Astounding Science Fiction in July, 1952.
Poul Anderson, "Turning Point" was first published in If in May, 1953.
Robert Ernest Gilbert, "Thy Rocks and Rills" was first published in If in September, 1953.
Tom Godwin, "The Cold Equations" was first published in Astounding Science Fiction in August, 1954.
Fredric Brown, "Answer" first appeared in Fredric Brown's anthology Angels and Spaceships, published by E.P. Dutton in 1954.
Robert Sheckley, "Hunting Problem" was first published in Galaxy in September, 1955.
L. Sprague de Camp, "A Gun For Dinosaur" was first published in Galaxy in March, 1956.
Isaac Asimov, "The Last Question," copyright © 1956 by Columbia Publications Inc., from Isaac Asimov: The Complete Stories of Vol I by Isaac Asimov. Used by permission of Doubleday, a division of Random House, Inc.
H. Beam Piper, "Omnilingual" was first published in Astounding Science Fiction in February, 1957.
Robert A. Heinlein, "The Menace From Earth" was first published in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction in August, 1957.
Gordon R. Dickson, "St. Dragon and the George" was first published in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction in September, 1957.
Christopher Anvil, "The Gentle Earth" was first published in Astounding Science Fiction in November, 1957.
Murray Leinster, "The Aliens" was first published in Astounding Science Fiction in August, 1959.
Rick Raphael, "Code Three" was first published in Analog in February, 1963.
James H. Schmitz, "Goblin Night" was first published in Analog in April, 1965.
Keith Laumer, "The Last Command" was first published in Analog in January, 1967.
Preface
This anthology started in the course of a conversation I had with Jim Baen regarding possible future prospects for reissuing old science fiction authors. In the course of advancing this or that idea, Jim interrupted me and said what he'd like to see immediately would be for Dave Drake and myself to select those stories which had the most impact on us as teenagers and got us interested in science fiction in the first place. "Call it The World Turned Upside Down," he said.
I liked the idea, and so did Dave when Jim and I raised it with him. The one change Dave proposed, however, was that Jim serve as one of the editors of the volume, not simply as the publisher. That seemed eminently rational, given that by then Jim had already advanced half a dozen stories he wanted included in it because of the effect they'd had on him as a teenager.
So. This does not purport to be an anthology that contains "the best stories of science fiction"—although all of us think this volume contains a superb collection of stories. But that was not the fundamental criterion by which we made our selection. The stories were selected because of the impact they had on us several decades ago, as we were growing up in the '50s and '60s.
Some authors are missing, unfortunately. In some cases—Andre Norton being the major example, here—because the stories the author wrote which had such an effect on us were novels, and there just wasn't room in such an anthology for novel-length works. In other cases, because we were unable to obtain the rights for the stories we wanted from the agencies representing some of the estates.
We got most of what we wanted, though. And . . . here it is.
The World Turned Upside Down.
—Eric Flint
March 2004
Rescue Party
by Arthur C. Clarke
Preface by Eric Flint
I'm certain this wasn't the first science fiction story I ever read, because I still remember those vividly. Three novels, all read when I was twelve years old and living in the small town of Shaver Lake (pop. 500) in the Sierra Nevada mountains in California: Robert Heinlein's Citizen of the Galaxy, Tom Godwin's The Survivors and Andre Norton's Star Rangers.
I must have started reading Arthur C. Clarke soon thereafter, though. The two stories that introduced me to him—as I remember, anyway—were this one and "Jupiter V," and those two stories fixed Clarke permanentl
y as one of the central triad in my own personal pantheon of SF's great writers. (The other two being Robert Heinlein and Andre Norton.)
We chose this one, rather than "Jupiter V," at my request. I wanted this one because, of all the stories ever written in science fiction, this is the one which first demonstrated to me that science fiction could be inspirational as well as fascinating. So I thought at the age of twelve or possibly thirteen. More than four decades have now gone by, and I haven't changed my mind at all.
Who was to blame? For three days Alveron's thoughts had come back to that question, and still he had found no answer. A creature of a less civilized or a less sensitive race would never have let it torture his mind, and would have satisfied himself with the assurance that no one could be responsible for the working of fate. But Alveron and his kind had been lords of the Universe since the dawn of history, since that far distant age when the Time Barrier had been folded round the cosmos by the unknown powers that lay beyond the Beginning. To them had been given all knowledge—and with infinite knowledge went infinite responsibility. If there were mistakes and errors in the administration of the galaxy, the fault lay on the heads of Alveron and his people. And this was no mere mistake: it was one of the greatest tragedies in history.
The crew still knew nothing. Even Rugon, his closest friend and the ship's deputy captain, had been told only part of the truth. But now the doomed worlds lay less than a billion miles ahead. In a few hours, they would be landing on the third planet.
Once again Alveron read the message from Base; then, with a flick of a tentacle that no human eye could have followed, he pressed the "General Attention" button. Throughout the mile-long cylinder that was the Galactic Survey Ship S9000, creatures of many races laid down their work to listen to the words of their captain.
"I know you have all been wondering," began Alveron, "why we were ordered to abandon our survey and to proceed at such an acceleration to this region of space. Some of you may realize what this acceleration means. Our ship is on its last voyage: the generators have already been running for sixty hours at Ultimate Overload. We will be very lucky if we return to Base under our own power.
"We are approaching a sun which is about to become a Nova. Detonation will occur in seven hours, with an uncertainty of one hour, leaving us a maximum of only four hours for exploration. There are ten planets in the system about to be destroyed—and there is a civilization on the third. That fact was discovered only a few days ago. It is our tragic mission to contact that doomed race and if possible to save some of its members. I know that there is little we can do in so short a time with this single ship. No other machine can possibly reach the system before detonation occurs."
There was a long pause during which there could have been no sound or movement in the whole of the mighty ship as it sped silently toward the worlds ahead. Alveron knew what his companions were thinking and he tried to answer their unspoken question.
"You will wonder how such a disaster, the greatest of which we have any record, has been allowed to occur. On one point I can reassure you. The fault does not lie with the Survey.
"As you know, with our present fleet of under twelve thousand ships, it is possible to re-examine each of the eight thousand million solar systems in the Galaxy at intervals of about a million years. Most worlds change very little in so short a time as that.
"Less than four hundred thousand years ago, the survey ship S5060 examined the planets of the system we are approaching. It found intelligence on none of them, though the third planet was teeming with animal life and two other worlds had once been inhabited. The usual report was submitted and the system is due for its next examination in six hundred thousand years.
"It now appears that in the incredibly short period since the last survey, intelligent life has appeared in the system. The first intimation of this occurred when unknown radio signals were detected on the planet Kulath in the system X29.35, Y34.76, Z27.93. Bearings were taken on them; they were coming from the system ahead.
"Kulath is two hundred light-years from here, so those radio waves had been on their way for two centuries. Thus for at least that period of time a civilization has existed on one of these worlds—a civilization that can generate electromagnetic waves and all that that implies.
"An immediate telescopic examination of the system was made and it was then found that the sun was in the unstable pre-nova stage. Detonation might occur at any moment, and indeed might have done so while the light waves were on their way to Kulath.
"There was a slight delay while the supervelocity scanners on Kulath II were focused on to the system. They showed that the explosion had not yet occurred but was only a few hours away. If Kulath had been a fraction of a light-year further from this sun, we should never have known of its civilization until it had ceased to exist.
"The Administrator of Kulath contacted the Sector Base immediately, and I was ordered to proceed to the system at once. Our object is to save what members we can of the doomed race, if indeed there are any left. But we have assumed that a civilization possessing radio could have protected itself against any rise of temperature that may have already occurred.
"This ship and the two tenders will each explore a section of the planet. Commander Torkalee will take Number One, Commander Orostron Number Two. They will have just under four hours in which to explore this world. At the end of that time, they must be back in the ship. It will be leaving then, with or without them. I will give the two commanders detailed instructions in the control room immediately.
"That is all. We enter atmosphere in two hours."
* * *
On the world once known as Earth the fires were dying out: there was nothing left to burn. The great forests that had swept across the planet like a tidal wave with the passing of the cities were now no more than glowing charcoal and the smoke of their funeral pyres still stained the sky. But the last hours were still to come, for the surface rocks had not yet begun to flow. The continents were dimly visible through the haze, but their outlines meant nothing to the watchers in the approaching ship. The charts they possessed were out of date by a dozen Ice Ages and more deluges than one.
The S9000 had driven past Jupiter and seen at once that no life could exist in those half-gaseous oceans of compressed hydrocarbons, now erupting furiously under the sun's abnormal heat. Mars and the outer planets they had missed, and Alveron realized that the worlds nearer the sun than Earth would be already melting. It was more than likely, he thought sadly, that the tragedy of this unknown race was already finished. Deep in his heart, he thought it might be better so. The ship could only have carried a few hundred survivors, and the problem of selection had been haunting his mind.
Rugon, Chief of Communications and Deputy Captain, came into the control room. For the last hour he had been striving to detect radiation from Earth, but in vain.
"We're too late," he announced gloomily. "I've monitored the whole spectrum and the ether's dead except for our own stations and some two-hundred-year-old programs from Kulath. Nothing in this system is radiating any more."
He moved toward the giant vision screen with a graceful flowing motion that no mere biped could ever hope to imitate. Alveron said nothing; he had been expecting this news.
One entire wall of the control room was taken up by the screen, a great black rectangle that gave an impression of almost infinite depth. Three of Rugon's slender control tentacles, useless for heavy work but incredibly swift at all manipulation, flickered over the selector dials and the screen lit up with a thousand points of light. The star field flowed swiftly past as Rugon adjusted the controls, bringing the projector to bear upon the sun itself.
No man of Earth would have recognized the monstrous shape that filled the screen. The sun's light was white no longer: great violet-blue clouds covered half its surface and from them long streamers of flame were erupting into space. At one point an enormous prominence had reared itself out of the photosphere, far out even into the flick
ering veils of the corona. It was as though a tree of fire had taken root in the surface of the sun—a tree that stood half a million miles high and whose branches were rivers of flame sweeping through space at hundreds of miles a second.
"I suppose," said Rugon presently, "that you are quite satisfied about the astronomers' calculations. After all—"
"Oh, we're perfectly safe," said Alveron confidently. "I've spoken to Kulath Observatory and they have been making some additional checks through our own instruments. That uncertainty of an hour includes a private safety margin which they won't tell me in case I feel tempted to stay any longer."
He glanced at the instrument board.
"The pilot should have brought us to the atmosphere now. Switch the screen back to the planet, please. Ah, there they go!"
There was a sudden tremor underfoot and a raucous clanging of alarms, instantly stilled. Across the vision screen two slim projectiles dived toward the looming mass of Earth. For a few miles they traveled together, then they separated, one vanishing abruptly as it entered the shadow of the planet.
Slowly the huge mother ship, with its thousand times greater mass, descended after them into the raging storms that already were tearing down the deserted cities of Man.
* * *
It was night in the hemisphere over which Orostron drove his tiny command. Like Torkalee, his mission was to photograph and record, and to report progress to the mother ship. The little scout had no room for specimens or passengers. If contact was made with the inhabitants of this world, the S9000 would come at once. There would be no time for parleying. If there was any trouble the rescue would be by force and the explanations could come later.
The ruined land beneath was bathed with an eerie, flickering light, for a great auroral display was raging over half the world. But the image on the vision screen was independent of external light, and it showed clearly a waste of barren rock that seemed never to have known any form of life. Presumably this desert land must come to an end somewhere. Orostron increased his speed to the highest value he dared risk in so dense an atmosphere.