One and Wonder
Authors: Evan Filipek
One and Wonder
Piers Anthony's Remembered Stories
Edited by Evan Filipek
Introduction by Piers Anthony
Illustrated by Jim Agpalza
CONTENTS
THE EQUALIZER by Jack Williamson
VENGEANCE FOR NIKOLAI by Walter M. Miller, Jr.
THE GIRL HAD GUTS by Theodore Sturgeon
THE LITTLE LOST ROBOT by Isaac Asimov
GROUND LEAVE INCIDENT by Rog Phillips
DREAMS ARE SACRED by Peter Phillips
Introduction
Piers Anthony
I picked up an old magazine when I was thirteen, and it changed my life. It ushered me into science fiction as a genre, a realm of marvelous imagination so much better than the uncomfortable reality I lived in. I think it helped save my sanity, for as a child I had assessed my situation rationally and concluded that if I could be given a choice, I would prefer never to have existed. I was not suicidal, just not satisfied with life as I knew it. Now I had a refuge to which I could retreat at any time. My later life changed that assessment, as I entered into a half-century plus marriage and became a successful writer of science fiction and fantasy. Later I was to meet some of the authors of the stories that fascinated me, and to receive myriad fan letters from those who loved my stories as I had loved the stories of others. The wheel of fortune seems to have made a full turn.
Now I am returning to give credit to the stories that transformed my imagination. Rereading them more than half a century later has been an emotional experience. Perhaps it should be no surprise that as a septuagenarian (in plain talk: I'm in my 70s) I am a far more critical reader than I was as a teen, and I find the stories generally somewhat different from my often vague memories. But they remain good ones, ones that helped shape my own formation as a writer, and I think contemporary readers should find them worthwhile. If some of their themes seem familiar—well, these were essentially the originals, from which later authors and movie makers evidently drew. So they are primitive in much the way the fabled cave man was primitive: he was nevertheless our ancestor, and worthy of respect for surviving and showing us the way.
When we got crowded by possessions, children, and a growing library of research books, I gave away my beloved magazine collection. Then when I wanted to collect my favorite stories, I no longer had them available. So the project languished, until Evan Filipek took on the brute-work of locating, obtaining, and copying the stories so that I could assemble the volume. Thus it came to be at last: One and Wonder, I being the One fascinated reader, the entire science fiction and fantasy genre being the Wonder of the discovery.
Each story is presented with a forward and an afterword by me, giving my impressions as I remember them from my first reading so long ago, and as I see them now, together with my interactions with some of their authors. For example, when I met James Gunn, the only author with two stories here, it turned out that his son was a fan of mine. I met Jack Williamson, author of the first science fiction story I read in that marvelous magazine, when he visited my house. What phenomenal joy!
Here are summaries of the stories to be included. Skip these if you prefer to be surprised by the stories themselves, as I give away their key features.
“The Equalizer” by Jack Williamson,
published in ASTOUNDING SCIENCE FICTION, March 1947. A military mission returns to Earth after twenty years at space, to find the moon base deserted, and indeed the cities deserted. What has happened? It turns out that there has been a breakthrough that enables anyone to obtain virtually unlimited power from a mere twisting of wires, and the industrial infrastructure is no longer needed and has faded away. A new, peaceful, better society has replaced the old coercive dictatorship. It is a dream of utopia.
“Breaking Point” by James Gunn,
published in SPACE SCIENCE FICTION, March 1953. A space ship lands on an Earthlike planet. Before the crew can go out to explore, a voice says “Men of Earth! Welcome to our planet.” They are locked in the ship as weird things happen, putting each of the five crew members to a psychological test to the breaking point. One man retreats to a chess game—and he is the one who survives, psychologically, because he has devised a way to adapt its rules to the alien game and defeat them. A psychological tour de force.
“Vengeance For Nikolai” by Walter M Miller,
published in VENTURE for March 1957. A savage tale of a young Russian woman who is specially treated and sent behind American lines to assassinate an American general whose genius threatens to wipe out the Russian forces. The general has one weakness: a breast fetish. The girl, having just lost her baby in a bombing, has very full breasts. The general dies of poisoned milk . . .
“The Girl Had Guts” by Theodore Sturgeon,
published in VENTURE, January 1957. A mission exploring an Earthlike world is beset by a horrendously ugly and smelly skinless creature that appears without warning and kills people. It turns out to be the result of a virus that changes peoples innards, enabling them when threatened to spew out their guts, literally, and those animated guts attack and smother the opponent. The girl in question also shows considerable fortitude, enabling the mission to return to Earth. A stunning idea story.
“Little Lost Robot” by Isaac Asimov,
published in ASTOUNDING SCIENCE FICTION March, 1947. This is one of a series of Asimov robot stories, the first I encountered, wherein a robot is told to get lost, and does so literally, hiding among other robots that look identical but are not not. This one has a modified directive that makes it potentially dangerous, but destroying all of them is too expensive. The question is how to find it, when it does not want to be found.
“Child's Play” by William Tenn,
published in ASTOUNDING SCIENCE FICTION, March 1947. A man receives a Build-A-Man kit from the future, evidently a mailing foulup, and it’s quite something. He decides to make a living twin of the woman he pines for, but first, as practice, he makes a twin of himself. Then a representative from the future comes to correct the mistake—and disassembles the wrong twin.
“Ground Leave Incident” by Rog Phillips,
published in VENTURE for May 1958. A married settler mining for gems on a colony planet has his home wired, to be sure his wife is safe. He sees a rogue spaceman invade the house and rape his wife. He can't get home in time to stop it, but does intercept the spaceman in a bar and stab him through the genital. Rather than delay the ship with a trial, the authorities pretend it was just a fight between crewmen. Thus a crime and retribution that only the settler understands. A savage yet logical story.
“Dreams Are Sacred” by Peter Phillips,
published in ASTOUNDING SCIENCE FICTION, September 1948. A man is sent to invade the lucid dream of a mad writer, to bring him out of his potentially fatal internal realm. Thus we get wild fantasy in a science fiction setting, living the dream. A precursor to a later popular movie theme.
“Wherever You May Be” by James Gunn,
published in GALAXY, May 1953. A scientist investigating the supernatural encounters a girl who has phenomenal psi powers, but only when she's unhappy. So he sets out to make her extremely unhappy, by playing up to her, getting her to fall in love with him, then pretending he has a fiancee elsewhere. It works, and her powers manifest. But among them is telepathy, and when she reads his mind and discovers his cynical plot, hell really breaks loose. She is a woman scorned. This is a fantastic romp.
“Myrrha” by Gary Jennings,
published in the MAGAZINE OF FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION, September 1962. Myrrha is a highborn Greek woman visiting the protagonist with her show horses. She is angered by a passing remark, and her vengeance, unwinding stage by stage, is devastating, concluding with the seeming seduction of the protagonist’s husband though Myrrha denies it, and then the mare births a centaur. A savage story of undeserved punishment, surely a horror classic.
THE EQUALIZER
Jack Williamson
March 1947
This was the story that launched me into the science fiction genre. I was thirteen, in eighth grade at a school I detested, and my life was at best indifferent. It was the Christmas season, and I was waiting at the office where my mother worked, so that we could go home. I had nothing to do. There was a magazine lying on the counter, ASTOUNDING SCIENCE FICTION, so I picked it up and started to read the first story. It interested me, but I had not finished it when it was time to go. That's all right, they said; I could keep the magazine, as it was just one someone had left. So I took it home, and not only finished the story, but read the whole magazine. That changed my life. The story, as I remembered it more than 60 years later, told of a space ship returning after years, or maybe time dilation had made years pass back on Earth, and things had changed. There was no activity around the home planet. They checked the moon station, and it was deserted. They landed on Earth and there seemed to be no civilization there. What had happened? Well, among other things, the equalizer had happened. This was a simply device or technique to draw power from the environment so that no one had to pay for it anymore, and there no longer needed to be any highly developed technology to provide it. There was no need for competition for resources, so there was no war. Earth had become a quiet paradise of simple plenty. And, in the course of a year or so, the captain of the spaceship adapted and learned to make a cuckoo clock with his hands. I loved that vision. Later in life, as I became established as a science fiction writer—this was before I connected with fantasy—I had the immense pleasure of a visit at my house by Jack Williamson himself. I showed him my collection of magazines, including the ones with his stories, including the serialized . . .
And Searching Mind,
later published as
The Humanoids.
Later still when I was guest of honor at the 1987 World Fantasy Convention I publicly complimented him on bringing me into the genre. I think it is fair to say that I would not be where I am today, had it not been for Jack Williamson and his fabulous and thoughtful fiction.
—Piers
I
Interstellar Task Force One was earthward bound, from twenty years at space. Operation Tyler was complete. We had circled Barstow’s Dark Star, nearly a light-year from the Sun. The six enormous cruisers were burdened, now, with a precious and deadly cargo—on the frigid planets of the Dark Star we had toiled eight years, mining raw uranium, building atomic plants, filling the cadmium safety-drums with terrible plutonium.
We had left earth in a blare of bands and party oratory. Heroes of the people, we were setting out to trade our youth for the scarce fuel-metals that were the life-blood of the Squaredeal Machine. We were decelerating toward the Dark Star when Jim Cameron happened upon the somehow uncensored fact that both uranium and thorium are actually fairly plentiful on the planets at home, and concluded that we are not expected to return.
Allowed to test the cadmium safety-drums that we had brought to contain our refined plutonium, he found that some of them were not safe. One in each hundred—plated to look exactly like the rest—was a useless alloy that absorbed no neutrons. Stacked together in our hold, those dummy drums would have made each loaded ship a director-sized atomic bomb, fused with an unshielded critical mass of plutonium.
If Jim had been a Squaredealer, he might have got a medal. As a civilian feather merchant, he was allowed to scrap the deadly drums. Under party supervision, he was permitted to serve as safety inspector until the last tested drum was loaded in our holds. He was even granted limited laboratory privileges, under Squaredeal surveillance, until we were nearly home.
But he and I, aboard the
Great Director,
spent the last months of our homeward flight in the ship’s prison. Held on charges never clearly stated, we somehow survived that efficient, antiseptic SBI equivalent of torture called “intensive interrogation.” Our release, like the arrest, was stunningly unexpected.
“Okay, you guys.” In the prison hospital, a bored guard shook us out of exhausted sleep. “Come alive, now. You're sprung. Get yourselves cleaned up—Hudd wants to see you.”
Returning our clean laboratory whites, he unlocked the shower room. The prison barber shaved us. We signed a receipt for our personal belongings and finally stumbled out of the sound-proof cell-block where I had expected to die. There were no explanations and no regrets—the Special Bureau of Investigation was not emotional.
An MP sergeant was waiting.
“Come along, you guys.” He pointed his stick at the officers’ elevator. “Mr. Hudd wants to see you.”
“Surprising,” murmured Cameron.
Mr. Julian Hudd was not an officer. He had no formal connection with either the SBI or the Atomic Service. He was merely a special secretary to the Squaredeal Machine. As such, however, he gave orders to the admiral-generals. Hudd, the rumors said, was the bastard son of Director Tyler, who had sent him out to the Dark Star because he was becoming too dangerous at home. The imitation safety-drums, the rumors added, had been intended to keep him from returning. But Hudd, enjoying himself in a secret harem installed on his private deck, the rumors went on, meant to be hard to kill.
Julian Hudd rose to receive us in the huge mahogany-and-gold office beyond. At fifty, he was still handsome; he still bore a shaggy, dark-haired magnificence. Yet the enormous animal vitality of his heavy frame was visibly ailing. He was paunchy; his blue cheeks sagged into jowls; dark pouches hung under his blood-shot eyes.
“Jim! And Chad!” We were not his friends—a Squaredealer had no friends; but he made a fetish of informality. He shook our hands, seated us, and offered the first cigars I had seen in many years. “How are you?” Cameron's lean face turned sardonic.
“We have no scars or mutilations, thank you.” Hudd nodded, beaming as genially as if he hadn't heard the sarcasm. Relaxed behind his opulent desk, he began tapping its sleek top with a paperweight, a small gold bust of Tyler.
“You two men are pariahs.” He kept his smile of bland good-nature, but his voice became taut, violent. “Civilian scientists! Your own mutinous indiscretions got you into the cells of the SBI. Except for this present emergency, I should gladly let you rot there. Now, however, I'm going to let you exonerate yourselves—if you can.”
The sagging, furrowed mask of his face gave me no hint about the nature or extent of this present emergency, and we had been incommunicado in the prison. By now, I thought, we must be near the earth. I recalled the booby drums. Perhaps, it occurred to me, he intended to take over the Directorate from Tyler or his heirs.
Hudd's gray, blood-shot eyes looked at me, disconcertingly.
“I know you, Chad Barstow.” His fixed smile had no meaning, and his loud voice was a slashing denunciation. “Perhaps your own record is clean enough, but you are damned by a traitors name.”
I wanted to protest that my father had been no traitor, but a patriot. For Dr. Dane Barstow had been Secretary of Atomics, in Tyler's first cabinet—when Tyler was only President of the United States. He had organized the Atomic Service, from the older armed services, to defend democracy.
When he learned Tyler’s dreams of conquest and autocratic power, he angrily resigned. That was the beginning of his treason.
In political disgrace, my father returned to pure science. He went out, with his bride, to found Letronne Observatory on the moon. Spending the war years there together, they discovered the Dark Star—my father first inferred the existence of some massive nonluminous body from minute perturbations of Pluto's orbit, and my mother aided him in the long task of determining its position and parallax with infrared photography.
Eagerly, Dane Barstow planned a voyage of his own to the Dark Star—he wanted, no doubt, to escape the oppressive intellectual atmosphere of the Directorate. He spent two years designing an improved ion-drive, and then tried to find aid to launch his expedition.
Tyler, meantime, had betrayed democracy and destroyed his rival dictators. From Americania, his splendid new capital, he domineered mankind. He was pouring billions into Fort America, on the moon, to secure his uneasy Directorate. He was not interested in the advancement of science.
Curtly, Tyler refused to finance or even to approve the Dark Star Expedition. He wanted the ion-drive, however, for the robot-guided atomic missiles of Fort America. My father quarreled with him, unwisely, and vanished into the labor camps of the SBI. My mother died in the care of a Square deal doctor.
Though I was only a little child, there are things I shall never forget. The sadness of my father's hollow-cheeked face. The intense, electric vitality of his eyes. The futile efforts of my mother to hide her fear and grief from me. The terror of the SBI, that haunted my sleep.
Five years old, I was taken into the Tyler Scouts.
Task Force One, which put to space three years later, was not the supreme scientific effort of my father's planning. The great expedition, as Jim Cameron once commented, was merely a moral equivalent of war.
“Dictators need an outside interest, to divert rebellion.” A tall man, brown and spare, Cameron had looked thoughtfully at me across his little induction furnace—we were working together then in his shipboard laboratory. “War’s the best thing—but Tyler had run out of enemies. That's why he had to conquer interstellar space.”
I looked uneasily about for possible eavesdroppers, for such talk was not healthy.
“I wonder how it worked.” Cameron gave me his likeable, quizzical grin. “Since we have failed to find any interstellar enemies, the essential factor was missing—there was no common danger, to make oppression seem the lesser evil. Perhaps it failed!”
Our arrest must have come from such reckless remarks as that. Cameron had always been unwisely free of speech, and it turned out that one
of our laboratory assistants had been a Squaredealer, reporting every unguarded word to the SBI.
Now, in that richly paneled office, Julian Hudd kept drumming nervously on his sleek mahogany desk. Through that bland and mask-like smile, he watched me with red, troubled eyes.
Hoarsely, I answered him.
“I know my father was a traitor, Mr. Hudd.” I had learned to utter those bitter words while I was still a child in the Tyler Scouts, for they had been the high price of survival. “But I've been loyal,” I protested. “The SBI have nothing on me.”
“You're lucky, Barstow.” His voice was flat and merciless. “One word of real evidence would have drummed you through the execution valve. Now, I'm giving you a chance to redeem your father's evil name.”
Then he turned upon Jim Cameron, accusingly. A sharp unease took hold of me, for Cameron had never been broken to mute obedience, as I had been. Now, emaciated and weary as he was from the prison, he still stood proud and straight. His fine blue eyes met Hudd's—sardonic, amused, and unafraid.
Jim Cameron had always been that way—meeting the iron might of regimented society with a cool, critical intelligence; yielding, sometimes, an ironic show of respect, but never surrendering his proud independence.
He had been my best friend since we came aboard the
Great Director
—two, among the thousands of Tyler Scouts who were sent to provide youthful replacements for the crews. He was fourteen then, the leader of our troop. He found me lying on my back, sick with acceleration-pressure, homesick, too, dazed and hopeless.
“Hello, Scout.” He put a friendly hand on my shoulder and gave me his wry, invincible grin. “Let's get our gear policed up for inspection.”
We arranged our equipment. He sent me for a brush to sweep under our bunks. I showed him the treasures in my pocket—three model-planet marbles, a broken gyroscope top, and a real oak-acorn—and even let him see the contraband snapshot of my parents. We went to chow together. We were friends.
Now, under the provocation of Hudd's shaggy-browed, glaring vehemence, I was afraid that Cameron's stubborn self-respect would once again get the better of his judgment.
“As for you, Jim—” Hudd's blue-jowled smile was wide, his voice harsh and violent—“your record is bad. You were broken from the Tyler Scouts, for insubordination. You were blackballed from the Machine, for doubtful loyalty. You were even rejected for the Atomic Service.”
“That's true, Mr. Hudd.” Cameron grinned, cool and aloof.
“Feather merchant!” Hudd's red eyes glared through his mechanical
smile. “The execution valve is waiting for you, Jim. Never forget that. I've saved your life a dozen times—just because you've been useful to me. Now I'm giving you a chance to earn one more reprieve. But the valve's still waiting, if you fail. Understand?”
“Perfectly.” Cameron grinned. “What's the job, this time?”
He must have been thinking of those dummy drums that he had found in time to save all our lives. Perhaps he was thinking of other services, too. On the cold worlds of the Dark Star, he had been a very useful man. He had invented sensitive new detectors to find the uranium hidden under glaciers of frozen air. He had solved a hundred deadly riddles for Hudd, before the last lethal cylinder of newly made plutonium was loaded safely aboard.