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The Best from Fantasy and Science Fiction Sixth Series
The Best from Fantasy and Science Fiction Sixth Series Read online
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The Best From
Fantasy and Science Fiction
Sixth Series
Ed by Anthony Boucher
No copyright 2012 by MadMaxAU eBooks
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CONTENTS
Introduction
C. M. KORNBLUTH The Cosmic Expense Account
MILDRED CLINGERMAN Mr. Sakrison’s Halt
JAY WILLIAMS The Asa Rule
AVRAM DAVIDSON King’s Evil
FREDERIK POHL The Census Takers
POUL ANDERSON The Man Who Came Early
RACHEL MADDUX Final Clearance
CHARLES L. FONTENAY The Silk and the Song
C. S. LEWIS The Shoddy Lands
WILL STANTON The Last Present
WARD MOORE No Man Pursueth
RON SMITH I Don’t Mind
POUL ANDERSON The Barbarian
THEODORE STURGEON And Now the News…
RAY BRADBURY Icarus Montgolfier Wright
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INTRODUCTION
John W. Campbell, Jr., editor of Astounding Science Fiction since 1937, has probably done more toward the development of modem science fiction than any other single individual; but last year, in a rash gesture, he took the risk of completely alienating the average intelligent reader who has not yet discovered the delights of this form of imaginative literature.
Mr. Campbell wrote, in The Saturday Review (May 12):
“Science fiction is written by technically-minded people, about technically-minded people, for the satisfaction of technically-minded people. And these are different human people . . .”
Regular readers of s.f. will merely smile; but I hasten to reassure any newcorners that science fiction in general, and particularly as exemplified in this collection, is written simply by people, about people, and (one hopes) for the satisfaction of people.
The Campbell definition is true, to some extent, of a small but interesting genre-within-the-genre, which bears somewhat the same relation to s.f. as a whole that the locked-room puzzle does to the general field of the suspense novel—a limited but often brilliantly rewarding treat for specialist-connoisseurs.
In this and other overstatements (e.g., that science fiction is primarily concerned with accurate prophecy, and that any valid characterization of a scientist must, to “the standard literary critic,” appear “rigid, cold-blooded, emotionless, and authoritarian-dogmatic”), Campbell was attempting to refute a series of assaults upon science fiction in the SR, whose editors aver that “the common charges” against s.f. are that it “is smug, dogmatic, cartoonish, and aberrant in various intellectual and psychological ways.”
The rebuttal is, of course, simple: These charges are “common” only in the rarefied air breathed by SH editors, and even there are levelled principally by critics who feel competent to analyze an entire field of literature on the basis of a weekend’s random reading.
S.f. can hold up its head even among the mandarins when it commands the support of such arbiters as Clifton Fadiman, Gilbert Highet, Jean Cocteau, and Martha Foley (who has included stories from F&SF in the two most recent volumes of her annual Best American Short Stories).
But most modem science fiction is not aimed primarily at the intellectual, any more than it is addressed strictly to the “technically-minded.” The stories here collected are intended simply for the reader who wants entertainment . . . and finds entertainment rather more enlivening with a little imaginative stimulus thrown in, and even a touch of provocative thinking about Man and his problems, present and to come.
You’ll find deliberately cartoonish moments here, and I hope they amuse you. You’ll certainly find much that is intellectually aberrant; there is, thank God, nothing that the science fiction writer (and reader) more detests than stiff intellectual conformity.
But in the wide range here presented, from short-short stories to novelets, from parody to tragedy, from quiet fantasy to lively interstellar adventure, from the distant past to the even more remote future, from young novice to established major writer, I hope you’ll not find a word that seems smug or dogmatic, or a thought intelligible only to the “technically-minded.”
These fifteen stories, are by and for people, and above all about people. Enjoy them.
ANTHONY BOUCHER
Berkeley, California
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C. M. KORNBLUTH
Other publications in the science fiction field have introduced you to dianetics, deros, and denizens of antigravitic saucers; pleased and proud at last to present a comparable discovery: Functional Epistemology. In this characteristic blend of sharp satire and fast action, Cyril Kornbluth offers the ultimate in how-to publications of faintly occult selfhelp; but be sure to finish the story before deciding whether it would be advisable for You, Too (Send No Cash!), to Learn How to Live on
THE COSMIC EXPENSE ACCOUNT
The Lackawanna was still running one cautious morning train a day into Scranton, though the city was said to be emptying fast Professor Leuten and I had a coach to ourselves, except for a scared, jittery trainman who hung around and talked at us.
“The name’s Pech,” he said. “And let me tell you, the Peches have been around for a mighty long time in these parts. There’s a town twenty-three miles north of Scranton named Pechville. Full of my cousins and aunts and uncles, and I used to visit there and we used to send picture post cards and get them, too. But my God, mister, what’s happened to them?”
His question was rhetorical. He didn’t realize that Professor Leuten and I happened to be the only two people outside the miscalled Plague Area who could probably answer it.
“Mr. Pech,” I said, “if you don’t mind -- we’d like to talk some business.”
“Sorry,” he said miserably, and went on to the next car.
When we were alone Professor Leuten remarked: “An interesting reaction.” He was very smooth about it. Without the slightest warning he whipped a huge, writhing, hairy spider from his pocket and thrust it at my face.
I was fast on the draw too. In one violent fling I was standing on my left foot in the aisle, thumbing my nose, my tongue stuck out. Goose flesh rippled down my neck and shoulders.
“Very good,” he said, and put the spider away. It was damnably realistic. Even knowing that it was a gadget of twisted springs and plush, I cringed at the thought of its nestling in his pocket. With me it was spiders. With the professor it was rats and asphyxiation. Toward the end of our mutual training program it took only one part per million of sulfur dioxide gas in his vicinity to send him whirling into the posture of defense, cranelike on one leg, tongue out and thumb to nose, the sweat of terror on his brow.
“I have something to tell you, Professor,” I said.
“So?” he asked tolerantly. And that did it. The tolerance. I had been prepared to make my point with a dignified recital and apology, but there were two ways to tell the story and I suddenly chose the second.
“You’re a phony,” I said with satisfaction.
“What?” he gasped.
“A phony. A fake. A hoaxer. A self-deluding crackpot. Your Functional Epistemology is a farce. Let’s not go into this thing kidding ourselves.”
His accent thickened a little. “Let me remind you, Mr. Norris, that you are addressing a doctor of philosophy of the University of Gottingen and a member of the faculty of the University of Basle.”
“You mean a Privatdozent who teaches freshman logic. And I seem to remember that Gottingen revoked your degree.”
He said slowly: “I have known all along tha
t you were a fool, Mr. Norris. Not until now did I realize that you are also an anti-Semite. It was the Nazis who went through an illegal ceremony of revocation.”
“So that makes me an anti-Semite. From a teacher of logic that’s very funny.”
“You are correct,” he said after a long pause. “I withdraw my remark. Now, would you be good enough to amplify yours?”
“Gladly, Professor. In the first place--”
I had been winding up the rubber rat in my pocket. I yanked it out and tossed it into his lap where it scrabbled and clawed. He yelled with terror, but the yell didn’t cost him a split second. Almost before it started from his throat he was standing one-legged, thumb to nose, tongue stuck out.
He thanked me coldly, I congratulated him coldly, I pocketed the rat while he shuddered and we went on with the conversation.
I told him how, eighteen months ago, Mr. Hopedale called me into his office. Nice office, oak panels, signed pictures of Hopedale Press writers from our glorious past: Kipling, Barrie, Theodore Roosevelt and the rest of the backlog boys.
What about Eino Elekinen, Mr. Hopedale wanted to know. Eino was one of our novelists. His first, Vinland the Good, had been a critical success and a popular flop; Cubs of the Viking Breed, the sequel, made us all a little money. He was now a month past delivery date on the final volume of the trilogy and the end was not in sight.
“I think he’s pulling a sit-down strike, Mr. Hopedale. He’s way overdrawn now and I had to refuse him a thousand-dollar advance. He wanted to send his wife to the Virgin Islands for a divorce.”
“Give him the money,” Mr. Hopedale said impatiently. “How can you expect the man to write when he’s beset by personal difficulties?”
“Mr. Hopedale,” I said politely, “she could divorce him right in New York State. He’s given her grounds in all five boroughs and the western townships of Long Island. But that’s not the point. He can’t write. And even if he could, the last thing American literature needs right now is another trilogy about a Scandinavian immigrant family.”
“I know,” he said. “I know. He’s not very good yet But I think he’s going to be, and do you want him to starve while he’s getting the juvenilia out of his system?” His next remark had nothing to do with Elekinen. He looked at the signed photo of T. R. “To a bully publisher” and said: “Norris, we’re broke.”
I said: “Ah?”
“We owe everybody. Printer, paper mill, warehouse. Everybody. It’s the end of Hopedale Press. Unless -- I don’t want you to think people have been reporting on you, Morris, but I understand you came up with an interesting idea at lunch yesterday. Some Swiss professor.”
I had to think hard. “You must mean Leuten, Mr. Hopedale. No, there’s nothing in it for us, sir. I was joking. My brother-he teaches philosophy at Columbia-- mentioned him to me. Leuten’s a crackpot. Every year or two Weintraub Verlag in Basle brings out another volume of his watchamacallit and they sell about a thousand. Functional Epistemology --my brother says it’s all nonsense, the kind of stuff vanity presses put out. It was just a gag about us turning him into a Schweitzer or a Toynbee and bringing out a one-volume condensation. People just buy his books, I suppose, because they got started and feel ashamed to stop.”
Mr. Hopedale said: “Do it, Norris. Do it. We can scrape together enough cash for one big promotion and then the end. I’m going to see Brewster of Commercial Factors in the morning. I believe he will advance us sixty-five per cent on our accounts receivable.” He tried on a cynical smile. It didn’t become him. “Norris, you are what is technically called a Publisher’s Bright Young Man. We can get seven-fifty for a scholarly book. With luck and promotion we can sell in the hundred thousands. Get on it.” I nodded, feeling sick, and started out. Mr. Hopedale said in a tired voice: “And it might actually be work of some inspirational value.”
Professor Leuten sat and listened, red-faced, breathing hard.
“You betrayer,” he said at last. “You with the smiling face that came to Basle, that talked of lectures in America, that told me to sign your damnable contract. My face on the cover of the Time magazine that looks like a monkey, the idiotic interviews, the press releasements in my name that I never saw. America, I thought, and held my tongue. But from the beginning it was a lie!” He buried his face in his hands and muttered: “Ach! You stink!”
That reminded me. I took a small stench-bomb from my pocket and crushed it.
He leaped up, balanced on one leg and thumbed his nose. His tongue was out four inches and he was panting with the terror of asphyxiation.
“Very good,” I said.
“Thank you. I suchest we move to the other end of the car.”
We and our luggage were settled before he began to breathe normally. I judged that the panic and most of his anger had passed. “Professor,” I said cautiously, “I’ve been thinking of what we do when and if we find Miss Phoebe.”
“We shall complete her re-education,” he said. “We shall point out that her unleashed powers have been dysfunctionally applied--”
“I can think of something better to do than completing her reeducation. It’s why I spoke a little harshly. Presumably Miss Phoebe considers you the greatest man in the world.”
He smiled reminiscently and I knew what he was thinking.
La Plume, Pa.
Wednesday
4A.M. (!)
Professor Konrad Leuten
c/o The Hopedale Press
New York City, New York
My Dear Professor,
Though you are a famous and busy man I do hope you will take time to read a few words of grateful tribute from an old lady (eighty-four). I have just finished your magnificent and inspirational book How to Live on the Cosmic Expense Account: an Introduction to Functional Epistemology.
Professor, I believe. I know every splendid word in your book is true. If there is one chapter finer than the others it is No. 9, “How to be in Utter Harmony with Your Environment.” The Twelve Rules in that chapter shall from this minute be my guiding light, and I shall practice them faithfully forever.
Your grateful friend,
(Miss) Phoebe Bancroft
That flattering letter reached us on Friday, one day after the papers reported with amusement or dismay the “blackout” of La Plume, Pennsylvania. The term “Plague Area” came later.
“I suppose she might,” said the professor.
“Well, think about it.”
The train slowed for a turn. I noticed that the track was lined with men and women. And some of them, by God, were leaping for the moving train! Brakes went on with a squeal and jolt; my nose bashed against the seat in front of us.
“Aggression,” the professor said, astonished. “But that is not in the pattern!”
We saw the trainman in the vestibule opening the door to yell at the trackside people. He was trampled as they swarmed aboard, filling, jamming the car in a twinkling.
“Got to Scranton,” we heard them saying. “Zombies “
“I get it,” I shouted at the professor over their hubbub, “These are refugees from Scranton. They must have blocked the track. Right now they’re probably bullying the engineer into backing up all the way to Wilkes-Barre. We’ve got to get off!” he said. We were in an end seat. By elbowing, crowding, and a little slugging we got to the vestibule and dropped to the tracks. The professor lost all his luggage in the brief, fierce struggle. I saved only my briefcase. The powers of Hell itself were not going to separate me from that briefcase.
Hundreds of yelling, milling people were trying to climb aboard. Some made it to the roofs of the cars after it was physically impossible for one more body to be fitted inside. The locomotive uttered a despairing toot and the train began to back up.
“Well,” I said, “we head north.”
We found U.S. 6 after a short overland hike and trudged along the concrete. There was no traffic. Everybody with a car had left Scranton days ago, and nobody was going into Scranton. Except us.
“Dreadful chemical fertilizers?” I asked.
The professor said: “I believe that is a contribution by the Duchess of Carbondale to Miss Phoebe’s reign. Several interviews mention it.” We walked on. I could read his mind like a book. He hasn’t even read the interviews. He is a foolish, an impossible young man. And yet he is here, he has undergone a rigorous course of training, he is after all risking a sort of death. Why? I let him go on wondering. The answer was in my briefcase.