The Early Pohl Read online

  A dead world, and cold, this satellite bleak,

  Whose craters and valleys are airless and dry;

  No flicker of motion from deep pit to peak;

  No living thing's ego to ask, "Why am I?"

  But once, ages past, this grim tomb in space

  Felt bustle of life on her surface now bare,

  Till Time in his flight, speeding apace,

  Swept life, motion, thought away—who can know where?

  I just now noticed for the first time that T. O'Conor Sloane changed the title on me. I had called it Elegy to a Dead Planet: Luna. But Luna isn't a planet, and so he changed Planet to Satellite, which, to be sure, is correct . . . but I'd rather have it my way, and so I have changed it back. A thing I would never have dared when he published it. Sloane was a magnificently white-bearded patriarch, looking a lot like Boris Artzybasheff's drawing of God in the guise of George Bernard Shaw. As far as I was concerned he was God. He could say "buy" or "bounce."

  When Elegy appeared, it was under the by-line of Elton Andrews. Who was Elton Andrews?

  My pseudonym, that's who. You have to remember that I started writing very young. I not only had not reached the age of mature wisdom* when I began, I was barely into puberty. I had a lot of romantic, immature ideas.

  One of these notions was that using a pen name was glamorous. Every one of the stories in this book appeared under some other name when first published. So did everything else I wrote for pay—with the single exception of a poem, where there was a change of editors and the new man didn't know about my quirks—until I was past thirty, by which time I had been writing professionally for nearly fifteen years. Fan mag stuff I signed my name to. Professional stories I did not.

  It isn't altogether a bad idea to publish one's early work under an assumed name. It takes some pressure off. If things go badly, you can always lie out of it. But that wasn't the reason I did it. What appealed to me was the romance of the thing. I remember the fantasy very clearly. I would be sitting at the soda fountain of some candy store with a newsstand. Next to me would be somebody—some pretty girl, if possible, although in those days there weren't many pretty girls who read science fiction. She would be thumbing through the latest Wonder Stones or Astounding. Her attention would be caught by a story and, fascinated, she would read it through, while the ice cream melted in her black and white soda and the bubbles went flat. Then she would look up, still entranced, coming back slowly to the real world.

  * Any day now, right? Please God?

  And I would call for the check, smiling, and say, "Liked it, did you? Yes. That's one of mine."

  There was another consideration affecting whose name was signed to a story, and that is that there was often some doubt about whose name belonged there.

  One thing we young fans did a lot was collaborate. Don't think badly of us. It was a long time ago, in a different world. We were crazy kids, with no real roots; if from time to time we wrote with somebody else, what was the harm? I'm not ashamed to say that I collaborated with at least a dozen other persons, both male and female. It didn't seem wrong. I didn't feel that I was being promiscuous. And certainly I didn't take part, or at least very rarely took part, in the Futurian Group Writing sessions, where as many as four, five, even six or seven people took turns in writing a single story. I'm not criticizing their lifestyle; what goes on between consenting adults is their own business. It is simply that that sort of thing never attracted me except, oh goodness, possibly two or three times, at the most.

  As a result of all this collaboration there exist a fair number of stories of which the authorship was in doubt, and may remain so to this day. There wasn't much to do but put pen names on them.

  After a lot of thought, I have decided against including any of those collaboration stories in this book, but there were a lot of them. I collaborated with Dirk Wylie; with Doc Lowndes; with Dirk and Doc; with Cyril Kornbluth; with Cyril and Dirk, and with Cyril and Doc; with Isaac Asimov; with Leslie Perri—I do not remember all the permutations; and there was at least an equal volume of material in which I did not happen to take part involving some or all of the others.

  The first actual stories I published were collaborations, with a young fan torn between music and physics as a career, named Milton A. Rothman. The stories appeared under the name of Lee Gregor. Milt did most of the writing. In fact, he wrote the whole story in first draft. Our arrangement was that he would write them, I would rewrite them and sell them and he would take the bulk of the money. We sold two stories that way, in 1938 and 1939, both to Astounding—and for nearly a quarter of a century, those were the only stories I had any part in writing that ever appeared in Astounding. I was not part of the Campbell revolution. I was in the opposing camp.

  In fact, John Campbell and I were competitors. By the fall of 1939, when I was nineteen years old, I had discovered how to be sure there was at least one science-fiction editor who would look with favor on my stories: I became one.

  The first story I bought from myself that was all my own was The Dweller in the Ice. I published it in Super Science Stories for January 1941, under the pseudonym of James MacCreigh.

  The Dweller in the Ice

  JAMES MacCREIGH

  "My dear woman, it's always snowing here. Well, maybe not really always, but it certainly seems that way. This weather may seem bad to you, but—well, I've been on this sort of work for thirty-five years, They didn't have any Salts to take the place of fur parkas and bonfires when I started. There were times then when a man who walked outside the ship's port, or who stepped out onto the ice for a second, could have got lost immediately, and frozen to death within the hour. And, even now . . . whup!"

  Captain Truxel broke off his flow of chatter voluntarily for almost the first time in four days, as he grabbed the helm of the speeding ship. With a quick flip he slammed the manual control over to starboard; the rudder motors whined angrily into action, twisting the ship's course to the right. For a second the vessel careened crazily to the left, until the tiny, odd-shaped screws of the vortex-keel also hit their speed and once more straightened the ship.

  "Iceberg," Truxel explained briefly as he returned the ship more leisurely to its course. "No danger, of course, but it could have caused a lot of annoyance if it had stripped the speed-sheathing from the hull—or if we had climbed right up onto it. I've heard of ships that. . . ."

  "I think we'd better get below," Kye Whalen interrupted impatiently. "We've got to pack up a lot of things before we land. Don't we, Beatta?"

  "I'm afraid so," his wife smiled, taking all the sting out of their departure for the Captain. "When will we land, please?"

  "Oh, about half an hour from now, I guess." The Captain didn't like to have listeners walk out on him, but long experience had got nun pretty well used to it. "And stay away from the heated sections while you're below. The Salts will burn you to a pair of frizzled cinders if you don't."

  That was an exaggeration. And yet it was dangerous to go anywhere where there was what might normally be called bearable warmth when one had the heat-producing Hormone Salts in the bloodstream. The germ-produced fevers were nothing compared to the inferno produced in the body of one who disobeyed that vital rule. Wonderfully valuable though the Salts were in such things as Antarctic exploration, their use was limited for that reason.

  Kye was moody as they descended. As soon as they gained their cabin, he slouched down on the side of the bed, not looking at her.

  With quick understanding, Beatta stepped to his side and threw an arm about his shoulder. "I know what the matter is, darling," she said. "You're still worrying about the transfer. Aren't you?"

  Kye stiffened. "Why shouldn't I be?"

  Beatta groaned mentally. They had been over this a hundred times. Kye was so maddeningly sensitive about his ability to provide for her. "Dear," she said. "After all, this isn't so bad. This wave of carelessness or whatever it is has to be stopped, if the drill-jewels are to come out of the ice. And they
send you down to make sure of it!"

  Kye glared at her. "Beatta, that's all very fine. But what gets me is, they don't need a mining engineer here at all; they need a psychiatrist. The machines are working fine, according to the reports. It's the people that are at fault. They've had fifty accidents here in one month! What can I do about that?"

  Out of her woman's wisdom, Beatta said, "You'll do something, Kye. You'll see, dear, you'll feel a lot better about it when we get to the mine." She stood up and essayed a smile, to which Kye responded, weakly. "Now let's get packed!"

  Beatta was wrong. Even when they had been at the mine site for a full week, and more, Kye's mood was still with him. The mere fact of his presence hadn't been enough to stop the wave of accidents.

  The "mine" wasn't anything at all like any ordinary mine. Kye's company—International Milling Machines, Inc.—manufactured all sorts of machine-tool equipment, needed semi-precious and precious stones for drill-points. Intermill, as the company was called, had sponsored for publicity an astronomical observatory near one of their plants in the Andes.

  The observatory had detected a brand-new comet, a wanderer, approaching the Solar System in an orbit almost at right angles to the plane of the ecliptic; had followed the comet's tortuous course, spectro-analyzed it, and seen an unusual display of meteorites strike the Earth's Southern Hemisphere at about the time the main body of the comet was heading sharply in for the sun—with which it collided.

  It took no great deductive ability to realize that the meteorites had been part of the comet's body, and to see further that they must contain a large amount of the carbon that the spectrograph had shown in the comet itself. So Intermill had sponsored an expedition, found some of the stones, and been delighted to find their utility as industrial gems. For the Earthdrawn meteorites were shot through with every manner of jewel!

  Kye's routine, at first, had been simple. A top-notch mining engineer, he had checked over all the equipment; visited the mine-shafts; slid himself on a cable down the slick and unutterably frigid tubes in the ice made by the heat-borers. Everything was in perfect order.

  He reported as much to Beatta.

  "Of course there's nothing wrong with the diggings," she said. "You knew that before you came here."

  "Well—yes, I knew it. In a way. But I have to make sure for myself. I'm going to tackle the generators next, and see if they're working all right. Five of the accidents were there, after all. Maybe. . . ."

  Beatta stamped her foot. "Maybe nothing!" she cried. "You know there's nothing wrong with any of the machines here. It's the people! Remember what you said on the ship, Kye?—that they didn't need an engineer here, but a psychiatrist? Kye, I think that you are the one who needs a psychiatrist now!"

  Kye stared at her woodenly. His lips shaped words, but were stopped before the words came out. He turned on his heel, walked out as though on stilts. "I'm going to look at the generator," floated back to Beatta as she gazed, startled, at his departing back.

  Beatta sat erect. "Kye! Kye! Come back!"

  But he was gone.

  Beatta sat on her hard chair for three hours and more, trying to think the thing out. What had happened to Kye? To every man she knew? A schoolboy could see that Kye was terribly wrong in looking for mechanical trouble to explain the slowing of production. No, it was a mood that had gripped the men at the camp.

  And—her brow unconsciously wrinkled in perplexity—why was she unaffected? Except for the contagion from Kye, her spirits were normally high. So, it seemed, were the spirits of the half-dozen other women at the mine site. . . .

  Suddenly the house-lights flickered and went out. The radio, which she had left playing away in another room, died also.

  A fuse burnt out?

  She whispered a mild oath, fumbled a flashlight out of a drawer, and sought the fuse-box. She put a new fuse in place and snapped down the contacts.

  But the lights did not spring up.

  Had something happened to the power-source?

  If the generator had temporarily gone out of order, a very possible thesis, the batteries should have cut in immediately.

  As if in answer to the unspoken thought, the lights came on again, noticeably dimmer than before. Beatta salvaged the fuse she had removed and thrown away, and went back into the bedroom.

  Kye was there, sitting on the bed, gazing at the wall.

  "What happened to the lights, dear?" asked Beatta.

  "One of the bearing-mounts had a flaw. It split, and the generator stopped. They'll fix it pretty soon."

  There was something odd—odder, even, than had become usual—about Kye's listless speech. "Did Preston call up to tell you about it?"

  "No," said Kye, stirring restlessly. "I saw that it would happen when I was there. The flaw had opened up to the surface, and it was only a matter of time until it was bound to split right off. I should have taken it down then, I guess, but . . . ." His voice trailed off and he shut his eyes, stretching back across the bed. "It would have been such a lot of trouble. It doesn't matter, really, dear. They'll have it all fixed, sooner or later."

  "Kye, I've got to talk to you. There's something—oh, I've said that a hundred times. But it's true. Kye, what makes you act like an irresponsible baby?"

  A hunted look crept into Kye's eyes. "I don't know, Beatta," he said slowly.

  "The way things are—it's just too much trouble to do anything. Oh, I knew what I should have done when I saw that flaw. Everyone there—Preston, and Argyle, and the rest—they all knew it was there too."

  "Well then! Why didn't you—"

  Kye raised a restraining hand. "I know. But. . . . Beatta, do you know how it feels to be utterly alone? Lost, away from every person you can talk to? Like Bale's 'Man Without a Country.' That's how I feel, Beatta; as though I were exiled and an outcast. As though I never would see my home again, or see you again, darling,—even when I'm right in the same room with you I feel that way. I can't explain it."

  Beatta sat down beside him, her hands clasped in her lap, not wanting to disturb him by touching him sympathetically. His utter dejection made him unapproachable. "Why don't we women feel it, Kye?"

  "I don't know." His eyes closed; he withdrew into himself.

  Beatta sat regarding him for a while. She tried to get him to speak, but he would not be cajoled.

  Then she got to her feet and walked out into the snow.

  Christine Arbrudsen was at home. Nominally the Recreations Director of the little mining colony, her job had no duties at all now—for none of the men had left any interest in recreation. Christine was a friendly girl, and Beatta had liked her from the start. In the week they had known each other they had become the best of friends. Beatta spoke directly:

  "Christine, you've got to help me. I'm going to try to find out something about this—this craziness that's got every man in the field. I think I know just about what to do and where to go; and I want you to come along. I may not be able to do everything alone."

  Christine nodded in quick understanding. "I know," she said. "You want to investigate that borer, don't you? The one that turned aside?"

  "How did you know?" gasped Beatta.

  "I observe things too," Christine smiled. "I tried to talk some of the men into looking into the matter, but you know how they are. I was going to make the trip tomorrow, alone. But you're right—it's better that two of us should go."

  Among the mishaps of the mine had been a minor one when a heat-borer had deflected itself from the normal, almost vertical course, melting through the ice on a long diagonal and coming perilously close to a "bubble"—a sort of inverted pit in the ice where submarine currents had hollowed out a cavern. Had it actually penetrated the bubble it would have been the last ever heard of that borer—but one of the men, making a routine checkup, had discovered the one that was out of its place, and stopped its power in time to rescue it.

  After Beatta had left him, Kye lay in a stupor for a while. Several hours passed; it grew "dark
" outside as the sodium lamps were extinguished and the pale violet, fluorescent night-time lamps took their place. Naturally, there was no such thing as night or day in the Antarctic, where six months passed between the rising of the sun and its setting. An arbitrary period of eighteen hours, based on the needs of the body for rest with the use of the Salts, had been chosen for the "day"; the life of the colony was regulated accordingly.

  Eventually Kye got up and prepared himself some food. Beatta was not home; without much interest he wondered what had become of her.

  Having eaten, he went back immediately to bed. . . .

  And when his phone buzzer sounded thrice, and the sodium lamps went on again to indicate morning, Beatta was not in the bed yet. She hadn't been home at all.

  He ate again, hurriedly and without enjoyment. His increasing anxiety was cracking away the armored shell of apathy. Unable to contain himself, he got up in the middle of the meal and phoned all the places she might possibly be. She wasn't at the Prestons', he was assured; no, they hadn't seen her at the Dispensary, but thought she might have stayed with Christine Arbrudsen, who had been asking for her the day before.

  There was no answer to Christine's phone, though.

  He made call after call, till he had almost exhausted the score or so of other phones on the line. But when he called the generator plant, the phone suddenly went dead in the middle of the conversation. Simultaneously, the sodium lights, which had been growing dimmer, went out completely. The entire camp became black as the night sky above.

  The fault in the generator hadn't been repaired, he realized, and the emergency batteries had been drained. The camp was powerless.

  Suddenly it came to Kye, where Beatta was. The borer! She had wanted him to look into it; he'd refused, so she'd done it herself.