Killdozer! (52 page)

Magazine blurb: THIS ISN’T THE BEST OF ALL POSSIBLE WORLDS—BUT IT WAS NO HELP TO FIVE REASONABLY COMFORTABLE PEOPLE TO ENCOUNTER THE STRANGE EFFECTS OF THE ‘CORMIUM HEMLET.’

“Memorial”:
first published in
Astounding Science-Fiction
, April 1946. Written January ’46?

Sturgeon’s story introduction from
Without Sorcery
(1948):

On the Science Fiction Radio Show in 1983, Sturgeon made a comment on “Thunder and Roses” (written or finished 1947) that seems more applicable to “Memorial”:
It’s probably the first “atomic doom” story that was written after the bomb was dropped. It was written in late 1945 and was looked at with considerable passion. There wasn’t anybody in the world who understood what had happened, except the people in the science fiction fraternity and one or two rather forward-thinking scientists at Oak Ridge and in the state of Washington. The rest of the world thought it was just another big bang. In science fiction, John Campbell had been publishing atomic
power and atomic war stories for fifteen years before that. We all understood what had happened; every single person who had been writing or reading science fiction understood precisely what had happened and what it meant to the world. Now, of course, it is very much in the forefront. But we all saw it coming, a very bad and ugly situation
.

“Memorial” was translated into the proposed “world language” Esperanto by Forrest J. Ackerman, and published in
Heraldo de Esperanto
, a newspaper published in the Netherlands, May 25, 1946. Magazine blurb (from
Astounding
): HIS PLAN WAS TO CREATE A CRATER THAT WOULD WARN ALL MEN TO AVOID ATOMIC WAR FOR FIVE THOUSAND YEARS TO COME, A MEMORIAL THAT WOULD SPIT LAVA AND DEADLY RAYS FOR FIVE MILLENIA. PART OF HIS PLAN WAS FULFILLED—THE WRONG PART.

“Mewhu’s Jet”:
first published in
Astounding Science-Fiction
, November 1946 (cover story). Written early 1946.

Although I don’t know of Sturgeon ever commenting on the subject, it’s hard not to think that “Mewhu’s Jet” was a significant forerunner of and inspiration for Steven Spielberg’s 1982 film
E.T
.

TS to his mother, July 4, 1947:
Now, about kids in general. You, and quite a few other people, keep spotting my kids in my stories. Not so. I can’t explain it at all. One of the big reasons for kids appearing at all is that when a story dies in my arms, I can invariably inject a kid and make it go again. I not only don’t know why this is, I don’t know how I do it; for
never
in my life have I been associated with the seven-to-ten-year-old girl children who pop up in my copy. I have been told repeatedly that they are real in action and in dialogue, but so help me, I don’t know where they come from. I should mention one other phenomenon: when I use a kid in a story this way, for this reason, the little devil invariably takes the bit in her teeth and walks off with the plot, turning out to be the kind of character who would under no circumstances act the way I have laid the narrative course. So, after writing six or eight thousand words, which I’ll be damned if I’ll do again, I have to figure out some way to rationalize the plot
with the characterization. It comes to me eventually, and accounts for the readability of much of my stuff—the reader can’t possibly know how it’s going to turn out because the author didn’t …

Magazine blurb: MEWHU CAME FROM—SOMEWHERE. HE WRECKED HIS SPACESHIP ON LANDING, BUT THE ‘PARACHUTE’ HE HAD WAS SOMETHING DECIDEDLY SUPER—AN ATOMIC JET JOB! THE PROBLEM WAS TO GET INTO COMMUNICATION—THEY THOUGHT.

I found six pages stapled together among Sturgeon’s papers left in Woodstock, numbered 46 to 51 that give every appearance of being the last pages of a 51–page manuscript. It seems reasonable to assume that they are the original manuscript ending of “Mewhu’s Jet” that was cut by the author because he ran out of inspiration (the bottom two-thirds of the last page is blank, and does not say “end”), or by the editor to strengthen the story.

Text of the unpublished original ending of “Mewhu’s Jet”:

The following three weeks were the fullest, the most exciting, and the most infuriating of Jack Garry’s life. Jack was a family man, and in his own argumentative, bull-headed way he loved his wife. Mewhu’s arrival had completely turned over and shaken up his way of life—even his thinking. He had enough to do to adjust himself to this fantastic series of events, and to worry about Molly and her new strangeness, and to worry even more about Iris. Iris was outraged at the change in Molly, and at the same time was deeply troubled about Mewhu. Iris wanted, with everything in her vitriolic nature, to blame someone, but her native intelligence made it impossible for her to hang the culpability on anyone, except for brief periods
.

Yes indeed, it was enough to drive any man frantic; but Jack Garry was not permitted to stay home and let things there get him frantic. He was suddenly a public figure. “Do you realize,” strange voices would say to him over the telephone in his city apartment, “that Zincus’ No-Phlegm Trokeys are the only product which contains every palliative and preventive against the common cold?”

And Jack would roll his eyes up and say, “No, I hadn’t realized. So what?”

And the voice would say, “Since you have gone on the record as wanting to protect the Man from Mars in every possible way, you cannot afford to overlook this remarkable—”

And Jack would say, “Exactly what do you want?”

And the voice would say, “Would you consider five thousand dollars to sign a small testimonial?” and Jack would bang down the receiver; and the phone would ring again …

There were people outside. There were always people outside, hanging around in the lobby of the apartment house when they could get in, lounging outside. Autographs. Sometimes pickets carrying signs denouncing him for bringing new terror to the world. Once somebody shot at him. Most of the loungers just gawked
.

And the mail! Checks and dollar bills. Threats. Appeals for money, made apparently for no other reason than that Jack had had his name in the papers. “Dear Mr. Garry, at last I know that there is a man alive with enough foresight, enough breadth of vision, to understand me and my work, for only such a man would have been chosen to receive a distinguished visitor from another world. I have a theory for the development of a space-warp generator, and if you can get backing to the extent of fifty thousand dollars, we can collaborate on the beginnings of this amazing—” “Dear Sir you are a crimnell and a thief you shud of kild that monster insted of takin him into your midst. aint we got trubl enough.” “Dear Mr. Garry, Let us face it. Small considerations, magnified by the conventions, are not important to people like you and me. It is our duty to found a super-race together. My background of deep study into esoteric matters has convinced me that the only thing that can save the race is to people the world with the superior strain evident in both of us. I enclose a nude photograph of myself and will appreciate it if you will do likewise. I am thirty three years old and have kept myself sacrosanct awaiting this great moment.” “Dear sir: My most sincere congratulations to you and your co-workers on your execution of the most magnificent hoax since the Cardiff Giant. It is evident from the extent of the publicity you are receiving that you have the backing of the Jews and the international bankers. I hereby serve notice on you that you are being carefully watched by the Blood-Brotherhood
of the Sons of Caesar. You will not get away with it.”

And yet Jack Garry stayed by the telephone, leafed through all the mail, went out constantly to get any possible reports of Mewhu. For Mewhu was alive
.

It was incredible. A human being could not possibly have survived that crash. If Mewhu had not cut the ignition, he would not have lived either. The list of his injuries was frightening, and, due to his alien structure, it was impossible to determine their true extent. As for treatment, that had to be a guess-and-prayer operation. He lost a good deal of his purplish blood before they dared to give him a transfusion. Two Red Cross surgeons and an Army man had a violent altercation over the first-aid substitutions in plasma which they had concocted to approximate the first rough analysis of Mewhu’s blood. They chanced it, finally, because they had to. Jack Garry, in one of the few moments he had to reflect about anything, was amused by the attitude of the medical mind. Like Iris, when she had used her nurse’s training to set Mewhu’s broken arm while refusing to admit Mewhu’s existence, these doctors had done everything in their power to save Mewhu’s life without daring to cogitate on what he really was
.

But after he was whisked away to a Naval hospital, under careful guard, the controversies started. Mewhu was accused of being a Russian, a Japanese, a Turk, an Atlantean, and the Devil. He was credited with being
homo superior,
a secret weapon, and the Messiah. The one thing that infuriated Garry the most was that the newspapers called him “the Man from Mars,” the public insisted that he was from Mars, newspapers whose editorial policy included headlines in red published diagrams of the orbit of Mars and monosyllable rewrites of weighty words on the subject of Mars originally composed years ago by theoreticians specializing in Mars. The careful series of tests of Mewhu’s blood, bones, nerves and organs which was conducted for the purpose of saving his life, was violently attacked in the press by the anti-vivisection bloc, who took the position that the Man from Mars should be permitted to die in the established Martian fashion. Garry reached a point where he would have given anything in the world to feel free to run down the street shouting “He’s
not
from Mars!” But he had family considerations …

When they had first returned to the city, Iris had stood over Molly like a tigress, refusing to let the child be questioned by anyone, including Jack
.

“But honey,” he pleaded, “Molly may know things that can change the face of the Earth! She’s been subject to a degree of telepathy unheard of before. She’s had the chance to see, through Mewhu’s eyes, a totally new civilization, infinitely farther advanced than ours. She has the only key to it, and you won’t let us get to it.”

“As long as she cries when she’s questioned—no! Let Mewhu do his own press-agentry.”

“He can’t even talk yet—not even in his own language. You wouldn’t either, with a busted jaw. He might even die before we can get anything out of him.”

“Molly’s going to have trouble enough getting over this,” said Iris firmly. “Better drop the subject, Jack.”

Mild words, but the set of her red head and the tied-in look of her mouth told him that she was right—it would be better to drop it
.

When he could, he dropped in to see the child. She had a three-quarter size bed, and she looked very tiny in it. Iris would stand just inside the room, leaning easily against the door, her arms folded, deftly keeping the conversation where she thought it should be kept
.

“How do you feel, chicken?”

Her face was almost as white as the sheet, and her eyes were as dark as her hair against it. Her freckles were startling
.

“Okay, daddy.”

“What you been doing?”

“Helpin’ Mewhu get better.”

“Tell daddy about the book I got you today, Molly,” said Iris too quickly, too loud
.

And Molly would smile and say that the book was fine
.

The doctors couldn’t find anything wrong with her. She simply didn’t have all of her vitality. She didn’t lack a dangerous amount of it, and it didn’t vary. She didn’t move much when they first came back to the city; she didn’t try. She was apparently very contented. Only she seemed to know something. It was there in her face all the time, but particularly when she smiled
.

And as the weeks passed she got better—slowly, evenly, without relapses. It was not a cyclic thing at all. She ate well, and she slept well; and, devastatingly, she always did exactly as she was told
.

It was midwinter when Mewhu walked again. Jack had not been permitted to see him in all that time, not only because the silver man had been such a nine-days wonder that armed guards had had to surround the hospital, but because Congress had appointed a committee to study Mewhu—a committee which, by the way, included no psychologists, no physicians, no sociologists, anthropologists, physicists or astronomers. The Army and the Navy were represented, however. After a due period of polysyllabic ponderment, the committee tabled the matter until such time as the alien was in a position to speak for himself. He was to be taught the language if possible and otherwise kept incommunicado
.

(Excerpted from “Agape and Eros: The Art of Theodore Sturgeon,” first published as an introduction to Sturgeon’s last novel
, Godbody)

Again and again for half a century Theodore Sturgeon has given us one message—a message that was ancient before he was born but which he made his own, then spoke it and sang it and shouted it and sometimes scolded us with it:

“Love one another.”

Simple. Ancient. Difficult.

Seldom attained.

Early this century, before World War I, I was taught in Sunday school that Jesus loves us, you and me and everyone, saint and sinner alike. Then the Kaiser raped poor innocent Belgium, and never again did the world seem sweet and warm and safe. Today I cannot promise you that Jesus loves you, but I can assure you that Ted Sturgeon loves you … did love you and does today—“does,” present tense, because what I still hold of my childhood faith includes a conviction that Ted did not cease to be when his worn-out body stopped breathing. It may be that villains die utterly. But not saints.