The World Turned Upside Down

by Eric Flint

  This . . . for a man who held the title "the dean of science fiction" before Robert Heinlein inherited it. (And it wasn't bestowed on him by an obscure fan club, either—Leinster was given the sobriquet by Time magazine.) When I first started reading science fiction in the early '60s, Leinster seemed well-nigh ubiquitous to me. I couldn't have imagined back then that the day would come when he had completely vanished from the shelves.

  What happened? Leinster was no minor writer like several in this anthology, after all: Rick Raphael, Robert Ernest Gilbert, Wyman Guin, some others. All of them wrote well, to be sure—but Leinster published more novels than they did short stories. He might have published more novels than all of their short stories put together. And his total output, even leaving aside the many westerns and mystery stories he wrote under his real name of Will Jenkins, would have buried them. Would have buried most authors, in fact, major or minor.

  Part of it, I think, was that the loose human conglomeration you might call "the science fiction community" was always fairly lukewarm about him. His career in science fiction spanned half a century, in the course of which he was published by many book publishers and appeared in almost all the principal magazines. Yet, during his lifetime, he only won a major science fiction award once—the Hugo award for best novelette in 1956, for "Exploration Team." In fact, he only received one other nomination for the Hugo: his novel The Pirates of Zan made the final list in 1960 (losing, not surprisingly, to Heinlein's Starship Troopers). He was never nominated once for the Nebula award.

  To be sure, the major SF awards like all such awards are notoriously subject to the popularity of the recipient with the relatively small numbers of people who cast the votes. And since Leinster paid no attention to them—he rarely if ever attended a science fiction convention, and had very little contact with other science fiction writers—it's not surprising that they tended to ignore him in return.

  But there's more to it, I think, than just personal distance. The key is that famous old saw: "Familiarity breeds contempt." Leinster was there at the creation of science fiction—and he created much of it himself. Name any of the now-recognized subgenres or themes of science fiction and trace them back in time . . . and, as often as not, you will discover that Murray Leinster laid the foundations.

  First contact? The name itself comes from a Murray Leinster story.

  Alternate history? He published the time-travel story "The Runaway Skyscraper" in Argosy magazine in the year 1919—a year before my father was born. Ironically enough, for a man who was almost never recognized by the awards, the Sidewise Award which is today given out at the annual Hugo ceremony for the best alternate histories of the year . . . was named after Leinster's story "Sidewise in Time," first published seventy years ago.

  I could go and on, but I won't bother. Granted, Leinster was never a dazzling writer. His prose is journeyman at best, he was repetitive in his longer works, he recycled plots shamelessly—no fewer than six of his novels are essentially Die Hard in Space with the serial numbers filed off—and he wrote a lot of stuff that can only be described as dreck. I know. I've read almost everything he wrote. I edited a reissue of the complete works of James H. Schmitz and never had to hold my nose once. I wouldn't even think of doing the same with Leinster. Still, I could fill twice as many volumes with good Leinster than I could with Schmitz, simply because he wrote so much more.

  And that's what Leinster was, in the end. An indefatigable storyteller, often a superb one, and the writer who, more than anyone, created science fiction as a viable and separate genre in the first place. So have some respect. If we still worshipped our ancestors and kept their shrunken heads over the hearth, Murray Leinster's would be the one in the center.

  All the Way Back

  by Michael Shaara

  Preface by David Drake

  Before writing The Killer Angels, his Pulitzer Prize-winning novel of the Battle of Gettysburg, Michael Shaara practiced his skill by writing SF. Those of you who've read "Soldier Boy," "Death of a Hunter" (my particular favorite), and this story will agree that he didn't need much practice.

  Great were the Antha, so reads the One Book of history, greater perhaps than any of the Galactic Peoples, and they were brilliant and fair, and their reign was long, and in all things they were great and proud, even in the manner of their dying—

  Preface to Loab: History of The Master Race

  The huge red ball of a sun hung glowing upon the screen.

  Jansen adjusted the traversing knob, his face tensed and weary. The sun swung off the screen to the right, was replaced by the live black of space and the million speckled lights of the farther stars. A moment later the sun glided silently back across the screen and went off at the left. Again there was nothing but space and the stars.

  "Try it again?" Cohn asked.

  Jansen mumbled: "No. No use," and he swore heavily. "Nothing. Always nothing. Never a blessed thing."

  Cohn repressed a sigh, began to adjust the controls.

  In both of their minds was the single, bitter thought that there would be only one more time, and then they would go home. And it was a long way to come to go home with nothing.

  When the controls were set there was nothing left to do. The two men walked slowly aft to the freeze room. Climbing up painfully on to the flat steel of the beds, they lay back and waited for the mechanism to function, for the freeze to begin.

  Turned in her course, the spaceship bore off into the open emptiness. Her ports were thrown open, she was gathering speed as she moved away from the huge red star.

  * * *

  The object was sighted upon the last leg of the patrol, as the huge ship of the Galactic Scouts came across the edge of the Great Desert of the Rim, swinging wide in a long slow curve. It was there on the massometer as a faint blip, and, of course, the word went directly to Roymer.

  "Report," he said briefly, and Lieutenant Goladan—a young and somewhat pompous Higiandrian—gave the Higiandrian equivalent of a cough and then reported.

  "Observe," said Lieutenant Goladan, "that it is not a meteor, for the speed of it is much too great."

  Roymer nodded patiently.

  "And again, the speed is decreasing"—Goladan consulted his figures—"at a rate of twenty-four dines per segment. Since the orbit appears to bear directly upon the star Mina, and the decrease in speed is of a certain arbitrary origin, we must conclude that the object is a spaceship."

  Roymer smiled.

  "Very good, lieutenant." Like a tiny nova, Goladan began to glow and expand.

  A good man, thought Roymer tolerantly, his is a race of good men. They have been two million years in achieving space flight; a certain adolescence is to be expected.

  "Would you call Mind-Search, please?" Roymer asked.

  Goladan sped away, to return almost immediately with the heavy-headed non-human Trian, chief of the Mind-Search Section.

  Trian cocked an eyelike thing at Roymer, with grave inquiry.

  "Yes, commander?"

  The abrupt change in course was noticeable only on the viewplate, as the stars slid silently by. The patrol vessel veered off, swinging around and into the desert, settled into a parallel course with the strange new craft, keeping a discreet distance of—approximately—a light-year.

  The scanners brought the object into immediate focus, and Goladan grinned with pleasure. A spaceship, yes, Alien, too. Undoubtedly a primitive race. He voiced these thoughts to Roymer.

  "Yes," the commander said, staring at the strange, small, projectilelike craft. "Primitive type. It is to be wondered what they are doing in the desert."

  Goladan assumed an expression of intense curiosity.

  "Trian," said Roymer pleasantly, "would you contact?"

  The huge head bobbed up and down once and then stared into the screen. There was a moment of profound silence. Then Trian turned back to stare at Roymer, and there was a distinctly human expression of surprise in his eyelike things.

  "Nothing," came th
e thought. "I can detect no presence at all."

  Roymer raised an eyebrow.

  "Is there a barrier?"

  "No"—Trian had turned to gaze back into the screen—"a barrier I could detect. But there is nothing at all. There is no sentient activity on board that vessel."

  Trian's word had to be taken, of course, and Roymer was disappointed. A spaceship empty of life—Roymer shrugged. A derelict, then. But why the decreasing speed? Pre-set controls would account for that, of course, but why? Certainly, if one abandoned a ship, one would not arrange for it to—

  He was interrupted by Trian's thought:

  "Excuse me, but there is nothing. May I return to my quarters?"

  Roymer nodded and thanked him, and Trian went ponderously away. Goladan said:

  "Shall we prepare to board it, sir?"

  "Yes."

  And then Goladan was gone to give his proud orders.

  Roymer continued to stare at the primitive vessel which hung on the plate. Curious. It was very interesting, always, to come upon derelict ships. The stories that were old, the silent tombs that had been drifting perhaps, for millions of years in the deep sea of space. In the beginning Roymer had hoped that the ship would be manned, and alien, but—nowadays, contact with an isolated race was rare, extremely rare. It was not to be hoped for, and he would be content with this, this undoubtedly empty, ancient ship.

  And then, to Roymer's complete surprise, the ship at which he was staring shifted abruptly, turned on its axis, and flashed off like a live thing upon a new course.

  * * *

  When the defrosters activated and woke him up, Jansen lay for a while upon the steel table, blinking. As always with the freeze, it was difficult to tell at first whether anything had actually happened. It was like a quick blink and no more, and then you were lying, feeling exactly the same, thinking the same thoughts even, and if there was anything at all different it was maybe that you were a little numb. And yet in the blink time took a great leap, and the months went by like—Jansen smiled—fenceposts.

  He raised a languid eye to the red bulb in the ceiling. Out. He sighed. The freeze had come and gone. He felt vaguely cheated, reflected that this time, before the freeze, he would take a little nap.

  He climbed down from the table, noted that Cohn had already gone to the control room. He adjusted himself to the thought that they were approaching a new sun, and it came back to him suddenly that this would be the last one, now they would go home.

  Well then, let this one have planets. To have come all this way, to have been gone from home eleven years, and yet to find nothing—

  He was jerked out of the old feeling of despair by a lurch of the ship. That would be Cohn taking her off the auto. And now, he thought, we will go in and run out the telescope and have a look, and there won't be a thing.

  Wearily, he clumped off over the iron deck, going up to the control room. He had no hope left now, and he had been so hopeful at the beginning. As they are all hopeful, he thought, as they have been hoping now for three hundred years. And they will go on hoping, for a little while, and then men will become hard to get, even with the freeze, and then the starships won't go out any more. And Man will be doomed to the System for the rest of his days.

  Therefore, he asked humbly, silently, let this one have planets.

  Up in the dome of the control cabin, Cohn was bent over the panel, pouring power into the board. He looked up, nodded briefly as Jansen came in. It seemed to both of them that they had been apart for five minutes.

  "Are they all hot yet?" asked Jansen.

  "No, not yet."

  The ship had been in deep space with her ports thrown open. Absolute cold had come in and gone to the core of her, and it was always a while before the ship was reclaimed and her instruments warmed. Even now there was a sharp chill in the air of the cabin.

  Jansen sat down idly, rubbing his arms.

  "Last time around, I guess."

  "Yes," said Cohn, and added laconically, "I wish Weizsäcker was here."

  Jansen grinned. Weizsäcker, poor old Weizsäcker. He was long dead and it was a good thing, for he was the most maligned human being in the System.

  For a hundred years his theory on the birth of planets, that every sun necessarily gave birth to a satellite family, had been an accepted part of the knowledge of Man. And then, of course, there had come space flight.

  Jansen chuckled wryly. Lucky man, Weizsäcker. Now, two hundred years and a thousand stars later, there had been discovered just four planets. Alpha Centauri had one: a barren, ice-crusted mote no larger than the Moon; and Pollux had three, all dead lumps of cold rock and iron. None of the other stars had any at all. Yes, it would have been a great blow to Weizsäcker.

  A hum of current broke into Jansen's thought as the telescope was run out. There was a sudden beginning of light upon the screen.

  In spite of himself and the wry, hopeless feeling that had been in him, Jansen arose quickly, with a thin trickle of nervousness in his arms. There is always a chance, he thought, after all, there is always a chance. We have only been to a thousand suns, and in the Galaxy a thousand suns are not anything at all. So there is always a chance.

  Cohn, calm and methodical, was manning the radar.

  Gradually, condensing upon the center of the screen, the image of the star took shape. It hung at last, huge and yellow and flaming with an awful brilliance, and the prominences of the rim made the vast circle uneven. Because the ship was close and the filter was in, the stars of the background were invisible, and there was nothing but the one great sun.

  Jansen began to adjust for observation.

  The observation was brief.

  They paused for a moment before beginning the tests, gazing upon the face of the alien sun. The first of their race to be here and to see, they were caught up for a time in the ancient, deep thrill of space and the unknown Universe.

  They watched, and into the field of their vision, breaking in slowly upon the glaring edge of the sun's disk, there came a small black ball. It moved steadily away from the edge, in toward the center of the sun. It was unquestionably a planet in transit.

  * * *

  When the alien ship moved, Roymer was considerably rattled.

  One does not question Mind-Search, he knew, and so there could not be any living thing aboard that ship. Therefore, the ship's movement could be regarded only as a peculiar aberration in the still-functioning drive. Certainly, he thought, and peace returned to his mind.

  But it did pose an uncomfortable problem. Boarding that ship would be no easy matter, not if the thing was inclined to go hopping away like that, with no warning. There were two hundred years of conditioning in Roymer, it would be impossible for him to put either his ship or his crew into an unnecessarily dangerous position. And wavery, erratic spaceships could undoubtedly be classified as dangerous.

  Therefore, the ship would have to be disabled.

  Regretfully, he connected with Fire control, put the operation into the hands of the Firecon officer, and settled back to observe the results of the actions against the strange craft.

  And the alien moved again.

  Not suddenly, as before, but deliberately now, the thing turned once more from its course, and its speed decreased even more rapidly. It was still moving in upon Mina, but now its orbit was tangential and no longer direct. As Roymer watched the ship come about, he turned up the magnification for a larger view, checked the automatic readings on the board below the screen. And his eyes were suddenly directed to a small, conical projection which had begun to rise up out of the ship, which rose for a short distance and stopped, pointed in on the orbit towards Mina at the center.

  Roymer was bewildered, but he acted immediately. Firecon was halted, all protective screens were re-established, and the patrol ship back-tracked quickly into the protection of deep space.

  There was no question in Roymer's mind that the movements of the alien had been directed by a living intelligence, and not
by any mechanical means. There was also no doubt in Roymer's mind that there was no living being on board that ship. The problem was acute.

  Roymer felt the scalp of his hairless head beginning to crawl. In the history of the galaxy, there had been discovered but five nonhuman races, yet never a race which did not betray its existence by the telepathic nature of its thinking. Roymer could not conceive of a people so alien that even the fundamental structure of their thought process was entirely different from the Galactics.

  Extra-Galactics? He observed the ship closely and shook his head. No. Not an extra-Galactic ship certainly, much too primitive a type.

  Extraspatial? His scalp crawled again.

  Completely at a loss as to what to do, Roymer again contacted Mind-Search and requested that Trian be sent to him immediately.

  Trian was preceded by a puzzled Goladan. The orders to alien contact, then to Firecon, and finally for a quick retreat, had affected the lieutenant deeply. He was a man accustomed to a strictly logical and somewhat ponderous course of events. He waited expectantly for some explanation to come from his usually serene commander.

  Roymer, however, was busily occupied in tracking the alien's new course. An orbit about Mina, Roymer observed, with that conical projection laid on the star; a device of war; or some measuring instrument?

  The stolid Trian appeared—walking would not quite describe how—and was requested to make another attempt at contact with the alien. He replied with his usual eerie silence and in a moment, when he turned back to Roymer, there was surprise in the transmitted thought.

  "I cannot understand. There is life there now."

  Roymer was relieved, but Goladan was blinking.

  Trian went on, turning again to gaze at the screen.

  "It is very remarkable. There are two life-beings. Human-type race. Their presence is very clear, they are"—he paused briefly—"explorers, it appears. But they were not there before. It is extremely unnerving."