The Human Zero and Other Science-Fiction Masterpieces

by Sam Moskowitz

  With a sudden motion, he unclasped the helmet and cast it off. He drew in long breaths of air, a bit musty, but unkilling.

  He had acidified the water of the tank, and destroyed the field at its source. Chalk up another victory for the pure mathematics of psychology!

  He stepped out of his osmium suit and stretched. The pressure on his chest reminded him of something. Withdrawing the booklet his wife had dropped, he said, "The talisman came through!" and smiled indulgently at his own whimsy.

  The smile froze as he saw for the first time the title upon the book.

  The title was Intermediate Course in Applied Psychology-Volume 5.

  It was as if something large and heavy had suddenly fallen onto Porus’s head and driven understanding into it Nina had been boning up on applied psych for two whole years.

  This was the missing factor. He could allow for it. He would have to use triple time integrals, but—

  He threw the communicator switch and waited for contact

  "Hello! This is Porus! Come on in, all of you! The death field is gone! I’ve beaten the squid." He broke contact and added triumphantly, "-and my wife!"

  Strangely enough-or, perhaps, not so strangely-it was the latter feat that pleased him more.

  The Cosmic Relic

  By Eric Frank Russell

  Introduction by Sam Moskowitz

  Any list of modern greats of science fiction would have to include that of Eric Frank Russell. Mr. Russell has come a long way since his adroit imitation of Stanley G. Weinbaum caught the public's fancy in The Saga of Pelican Westwhich appeared in astounding STORIES, Feb., 1937. Since then, such tales as Sinister Barrier, Symbiotica, Metamorphosite, Dear Devil, Mechanistria and Dreadful Sanctuary have influenced more writers than they have followed. Because writing science fiction is an occasional compulsion with Mr. Russell, his tales appear sporadically.

  Up until now, few people outside of Great Britain have had the opportunity to read one of his most effective novelets,The Cosmic Relic. This story appeared in a shortlived British fantasy magazine appropriately titled FANTASY. It was published as Relic in the April, 1947 issue of that publication (the second of only three numbers) and never reprinted. Hardly 100 copies of the magazine in which it appeared ever reached the United States. To all intent and purpose it is a newly published story. When published in the British magazine it was voted the most popular story in the issue in which it appeared by a healthy majority. The Cosmic Relic is no period piece It is a modem science fiction tale that can compete on its own with the current output and it deserves a wider audience.

  *

  The ship of space lay silent and enigmatic on top of Douglas Head. Its tail pointed outward to the Irish Sea, its nose inland to smooth hills golden with gorse and patched with heather.

  Except for the constant wails of inquisitive seabirds, the noises all about it were murmurs. There were the murmurs of the holidaymaking multitude on the promenade far below and a mile away. There were the murmuring, furtive undertones of the armed guard about the ship, uneasy in their speech, uneasily smoking frequent cigarettes, uneasy in their nightly dreams, and constantly apprehensive of what might suddenly burst forth from the belly of this strange invader and seize their very souls* Finally, there was the continual murmuring lap of the restless and everlasting sea.

  The local papers had gone to town over this. The incredible invader had landed at ten-thirty in the evening of Friday, just too late to catch the weekly editions. Extra-special issues were rushed out on Sunday. Reporters and photographers, sub-editors and printshop men, long bored with accounts of local weddings, town's meetings and wordy film reviews, chased around, worked overtime, and illogically consigned all Martians to perdition.

  According to the few eye-witnesses who chose to speak, the strange vessel had not made a spectacular performance of its arrival. There had been no flare of blazing gases trailing a fiery wake into the astounded heavens, no thunder of mighty rockets to shake the island from end to end. On the contrary, it had emerged from the night clouds and descended with surprising slowness in a long, gentle sweep which brought it quietly to rest within a hundred yards of the Douglas Head Hotel.

  The number of witnesses must have been considerable, but only those had come forward who had long ridded themselves of such superfluous luggage as inhibitions. The rest desired to be asked no questions that might call for carefully calculated lies. The Manx are notorious for their blatant disbelief in the attraction of manufacturing daisy-chains on Douglas Head under a full moon.

  So the few excited accounts vouched that the ship had come like a thief in the night, and the local papers whooped it up. London journals frantically rushed out plane-loads of reporters, special correspondents, rocket experts and other characters. Your Future contributed two astrologers. The Muscle Builder despatched a broken-down pugilist who could spell. The leader of the Blessed Ones of Judah announced the beginning of the Millennium and set out for the Isle of Man to welcome the new Messiah. The local agent for Magic Molar Polish hung around in the vain hope for somehow cozening a sworn affidavit that only Magic Molar Polish had been used on the cosmic voyage. And the reductio ad absurdum came when Miss Purity Weggle, spinster, fifty-five, cancelled her holiday, hurriedly packed her trunks, donned an extra pair of flannel bloomers and set sail for home before anything could emerge from the ship and take after her, hungry-eyed.

  From which it may be gathered that the arrival of the spacecraft was an event in the proper sense of the term. But there was nothing to suggest that anyone on board was remotely aware of the importance of the occasion. While turmoil spread around it, Weggle-like idiocies repeated themselves, and ripples of excitement passed to the far corners of the earth, the vessel lay there sealed and silent as if prepared to repose thus for a million years to come. In the first twenty-four hours, rubber-necking holidaymakers pushed and shoved around it. They tapped on its metal walls, knocked on its metal tail, shouted at it, argued about it, called it names, and departed when their tongues were dry and their stomachs empty.

  Judiciously, the Lieutenant-Governor intervened, placed an armed guard about the arrival and kept the crowd at a discreet distance. The guard didn’t especially care for the job by day, and they liked it a good deal less at night. Each nursed a private, unspoken theory concerning giant green spiders which were nocturnal and carnivorous. But nothing disturbed their anxious nights except their own random dreams, the ceaseless surge of the ocean, and the wails of nights flying seagulls crying like lost babies beyond the cliffs.

  One week after landing, the vessel was still reposing on the inland end of the furrow which it had scored upon plumping to earth It had been talked about, photographed from every conceivable angle, featured on the films, cursed by its guards lectured upon by two astronomers and one holder of the secret of the Great Pyramid, and finally tendered for by a prospective purchaser who wanted to exhibit it at an international fair. A certain Antonio Pietro Fizzo, having set up an ice-cream stall on the road to Douglas Head, did a roaring trade and petitioned the saints to insure that this sphinx-like thing remain there forever. Without any visible encouragement from higher planes the vessel appeared likely to satisfy Signor Fizzo’s heart's desire.

  A month rolled past. By this time the world’s leading crooner was gripping everyone with a topical and treacly dirge entitled My Martian Mammy. The I.O.M. Steam Packet Company was running special Mars trips from Liverpool, Heysham, Silloth and Belfast. Purple velvet spittoons and crimson pom-poms on their brims appeared in the crazier hat emporiums under the guise of Martian headgear. Photographs of Mars became popular postcards, and in the kids’ comics Buck Rogers and Superman promptly emigrated to the Red Planet. In London’s salubrious suburb of Hackney Wick, the twins of a Mr. and Mrs. Higginbottom boobed badly in picking this time for their arrival and got saddled with the names of Phobos and Deimos for their pains.

  The slumbering benches of Commons stirred uneasily when an annoyingly wakeful Independent d
rew the Prime Minister’s attention to what had happened in the Isle of Man. The benches were soothed by the lulling drone of an official reply to the effect that the Government was awaiting an official report on the matter, upon receipt of which the appropriate department would deal with it. No further statement could be made at present, but the honorable and gallant member could rest assured that everything that could be done would be done, and if the House so desired an official commission would be set up to investigate the matter.

  For some inexplicable reason, this parliamentary episode stuck out from the welter of ballyhoo and had repercussions. Depêché de Toulouse editorialized that the British roused from their hibernation. New York’s Daily News published a dark and sinister article depicting bureaucrats swapping memos marked 'For your attention” and “Referred to you,” and broadly hinted that these delaying tactics were part of a crafty scheme by which the British hoped to grab trans-spatial concessions and get a lien on the cosmos to the detriment of American free trade and enterprise.

  It was at this point that the Manx demonstrated the superior commonsense of small nations by taking matters into their own hands. After a brief discussion in the House of Keys they forwarded to the Chancellor of Liverpool University an invitation to send two experts competent to deal with the mystery ship. The experts were to work under the aegis of the Manx executive and all expenses would be paid. The Chancellor responded by sending Philip Bradley and Ronald Hume. Within fifty days of the spacecraft’s arrival, the dispatch of these two was the first move to disturb its cold serenity which seemed likely to remain forever.

  Philip Bradley got out of the car, walked around the back of the hotel and had his first look at the spaceship. It was impressive in a quiet, profound sort of way. The puzzle of its origin, coupled with its muteness, lent it a hallowed air.

  The thing was not as big as he’d imagined it to be; perhaps sixty feet long by twelve in diameter. Neither was it startling in design. It resembled nothing more than a monster shell with stubby fins extruding from its middle to its tail. The sheer simplicity of it was a strange feature for various reasons, over which Bradley pondered as he passed through the ring of guards and strolled around the vessel with Ronald Hume at his heels.

  To start with, the shell-like casing had no projections other than the fins. There was nothing which would suggest a control cabin. There were no ports along its sides, no observation port in its nose, no rocket-tubes sticking out from its rear. In this first cursory examination he could perceive not even the outline of an airlock by which the occupants could enter or exit.

  'This,” he commented, “is a tough one. Offhand I’d say it’s designed to fly blind, but that’s absurd.”

  “A real, genuine spaceship itself is absurd, according to this world’s notions,” Hume pointed out. “Such things have only existed so far in the imaginations of novelists and astronautics pioneers. And this one doesn’t resemble any of those I’ve ever seen described on paper.”

  “I guess not.” Bradley stared at the vessel doubtfully. “I’d presupposed rockets, but it doesn’t appear to have any.” He wandered along to the tail. “Unless all those holes are rocket-tubes.”

  Hume had a look. The tail-end, he saw, was a disc twelve feet in diameter perforated with numberless holes, neatly spaced in orderly array. Each hole was about an inch across, but no two were the same shape. Some were slightly distorted circles, some ovals, some narrower ellipses and some ragged enough to resemble stars.

  “Those orifices, I think,” said Bradley carefully, “expel something. Note their geometrical arrangement and compare it with their own gross distortions. I’d bet that originally they were perfectly circular but have become worn into odd shapes.”

  “Could be,” admitted Hume.

  “Another thing,” continued Bradley, moving back to the vessel’s side. “Take a look at the general roughness of the surface. See how heavily it is scored from nose to tail. There’s been some mighty long-term friction there! Maybe enough to have worn away an appreciable thickness of the shell.” He peered more closely at the dull, grey metal. “The scoring almost resembles a grain and some of the lines cut damn deep. What does that suggest to you.”

  “Soft metal.” Hume examined the scoring for himself. “But it’s a million to one that whoever knows enough to build and launch a spaceship also knows enough to produce material tougher than anything we've got.

  “Precisely! So the alternative is more likely. This heavy scoring is a sign of extreme wear which, in turn, is a sign of ripe old age." He rubbed his chin, frowned with his own thoughtfulness. “I've a queer feeling that this thing got lost on its journey from somewhere to somewhere else. That it has since wandered for many, many years, perhaps having dozens of narrow escapes from destruction. That its crew has long since dissolved to dust; and that eventually, by fortuitous circumstance, it drifted near enough for Earth's gravitation to pull it down."

  “Making a perfect landing," put in Hume, pointedly.

  “Yes; that’s just what bothers me. It should have come in with acceleration, landing like a meteor. By all the laws, it should now be a shapeless hunk of metal. But it isn't. Why."

  “Let's knock and ask whoever's inside."

  “Thousands have knocked, hammered, catcalled, and generally caused enough noise to rouse a hibernating bear. We'll have to find an entrance of some sort. Failing that, we'll have to make one. Come on, let's give the thing a proper examination."

  So saying, Bradley produced an ordinary stethoscope, hooked the instrument in his ears. “We'll plot the hollows. We’ll go along the sides and the top. You tap—I'll listen. We'll mark the areas of echo."

  Starting at the tail end, he applied the cup of his stethoscope to the vessel's curved side, listened while Hume tapped. He moved the cup a foot forward, and Hume tapped again. Then another foot forward.

  “Pretty solid," he grunted. One third of the way towards the nose he detected hollowness, chalkmarked the point and moved on. Finally he reached the nose, where he suddenly noticed more distorted holes. They were small ones, scarcely large enough to admit a pencil, and they ran in a quadruple ring around the shell at a short distance behind the nose.

  “Brakers and steerers," he observed.

  Giving the holes no more than perfunctory attention, he started to listen back towards the tail, this time applying his instrument along a line a couple of feet higher up the side. At his second test point he paused, listened intently.

  “That's queer!"

  “What is?" demanded Hume. “I heard a distinct click." He moved the cup around the potent spot. “Tap again, Ron."

  Obediently, Hume raised his hand in readiness to tap, but before he could do so Bradley ejaculated, “There!” He turned a puzzled face to Hume. “A definite metallic click, like the snap of a doorlock.”

  “Maybe they’re coming out,” Hume suggested. “Perhaps they're a form of life which regards five or six weeks as no more than one night’s sleep.” He pulled a face. “If they suddenly emerge, bellicose and eager for breakfast, I’ll race you from here to Paris.” “Put your hand up to the same level as before,” ordered Bradley, disregarding the facetious remarks. He listened intently through the stethoscope. “Now wave it to and fro in the direction of the ship’s longitudinal axis.” Hume waved as told, and Bradley said, “Yes, that’s it!” “That’s what?”

  “The click sounds whenever your hand passes over a certain spot. It’s a double click, like something snapping on and off.

  “O.K. I’ll mark the significant point.” Hume drew a chalkline round the area over which his hand had passed. As he did so, the sound came again to Bradley’s ears— click-click.

  Bradley moved on, selecting test points about a foot apart and as high up the curve of the vessel’s body as he could reach. At the fourth point he got another double click in response to the motions of Hume’s raised hand. Stopping, he considered the phenomenon. Concentration creased his forehead. Around him the guards lounged
boredly, and grasshoppers chirped in the hot turf. Surrounding normalcy made the ship more than ever an enigma.

  “Look, Ron,” he said, “I’ve a notion I’d like to check. Let’s go round to the other side.”

  Hume followed him round, ducking under the nose of the shell which jutted six feet above the grass. Here Bradley again applied his stethoscope. “All I want you to do, Ron, is walk slowly to the tail and back again. Don’t tap. Just stroll there and back.”

  Listening-in while Hume solemnly promenaded to the tail end, he began to count as the other turned about at the tail and walked back toward the nose. “Thirty-one, thirty-two,” he said as Hume reached his side. “H’m!’

  “Well?” Hume demanded.

  “The skin is dotted with reacting points placed at regular intervals,” said Bradley. “Perhaps some type of photosensitive cells. I could hear clicks all the way along as you obscured them in passing.” He looked towards the nose, estimated the distance Hume had traversed. “Roughly, there’s one every twenty inches.”

  “Which means that this gadget is still operational and liable to spring to life at any moment”

  “Not necessarily. It merely tells us that something still functions.” Stepping backward, he craned his neck and scanned the rounded top surface of the mystery ship. “Get a ladder and take a walk along the top. Well see whether these sensitive points are distributed all around the shell.”

  Borrowing a ladder from the adjacent hotel, Hume mounted it, walked carefully along the vessel's top. From his vantage point he looked down inquiringly.

  “Is it doing it?”

  “Yes—there's clicks all the way along.”

  Hume came down. “All right, Oracle, now why didn’t it click during our first run along the other side?”

  “I've been puzzling about that. Those sounds are exactly like the sharp clicks of relays snapping over, or of switches controlled by relays. Now, there are four basic types of relay: make-relays, break-relays, make-before-break, and change-over. When they operate they may close a circuit, open a circuit or switch circuits, according to their particular functions.”