The Expert Dreamers (1962) Anthology
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The Expert Dreamers
SIXTEEN SCIENCE FICTION STORIES BY SCIENTISTS
EDITED BY FREDERIK POHL
Science fiction is not just “gadget” fiction, social commentary, or dramatized prediction of the future—it is all these things and more, for science fiction does not limit itself… any more than science itself does.
The science fiction writer, like the scientist, must have an objective and original viewpoint. They both have to reject “what everybody knows” and concentrate on the evidence secured by experiment and observation.
Twenty years from now scientists will be at work on the how of space travel, the why of the expanding universe, and the how of controlling the violent interactions of humanity with itself, all themes which are familiar to science fiction readers of today.
It is not strange, then, that scientists write science fiction. The stories in The Expert Dreamers are all written by men who work with science, in one discipline or another, in their daily lives —and all of the stories are science fiction of the highest quality.
THE EXPERT DREAMERS
OTHER BOOKS BY FREDERIK POHL
NOVELS:
Slave Ship Drunkard’s Walk The Space Merchant (with C. M. Kombluth) Gladiator-at-Law (with C. M. Kornbluth) Search the Sky (with C. M. Kornbluth) Wolfbane (with C. M. Kornbluth)
SHORT STORY COLLECTIONS:
Alternating Currents The Case Against Tomorrow Tomorrow Times Seven The Man Who Ate the World Turn Left at Thursday The Abominable Earthman
ANTHOLOGIES (as editor):
Star of Stars Beyond the End of Time Shadow of Tomorrow Assignment in Tomorrow The Star Science Fiction Series
THE EXPERT
DREAMERS
EDITED BY
FREDERIK POHL
AN AVON BOOK
All of the characters in this book are fictitious, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOG CARD NUMBER 62-11295
COPYRIGHT © 1962 BY FREDERIK POHL
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
ACKOWLEDGEMENTS
“At the End of the Orbit” by Arthur C. Clarke. Copyright, 1961, by Digest Productions Corporation. From If Science Fiction. Reprinted by permission of the author and the author’s agent, Scott Meredith Literary Agency, Inc.
“On the Feasibility of Coal-Driven Power Stations” by O. R. Frisch. Copyright, 1956, by Scientific American, Inc. From Scientific American. Reprinted by permission of Scientific American, Inc.
“A Feast of Demons” by William Morrison. Copyright, 1958, by Galaxy Publishing Corporation. From Galaxy Magazine. Reprinted by permission of the author.
“The Heart on the Other Side” by George Gamow. Reprinted by permission of the author.
“Lenny” by Isaac Asimov. Copyright, 1957, by Royal Publications, Inc. From Infinity Science Fiction. By permission of the author.
“The Singers” by W. Grey Walter. Reprinted from The Curve of the Snowflake, by W. Grey Walter, by permission of W. W. Norton, Inc. Copyright, 1956, by W. W. Norton & Company, Inc.
“The Invasion” by Robert Willey. Copyright, 1940, by Fictioneers, Inc. From Super Science Stories. Reprinted by permission of the author.
“To Explain Mrs. Thompson” by Philip Latham. Copyright, 1951, by Street & Smith Publications, Inc. From Astounding Science Fiction. Reprinted by permission of the author and the author’s agent, Scott Meredith Literary Agency, Inc.
“Adrift on the Policy Level” by Chandler Davis. Copyright, 1959, by Ballantine Books, Inc. From Star Science Fiction. Reprinted by permission of the author.
“The Black Cloud” by Fred Hoyle. From The Black Cloud by Fred Hoyle. Copyright © 1957 by Fred Hoyle. Reprinted by permission of Harper & Brothers.
“Chain Reaction” by Boyd Ellanby. Copyright, 1956, by Galaxy Publishing Corporation. From Galaxy Magazine. By permission of the authors.
“The Miracle of the Broom Closet” by W. Norbert. Copyright, 1952, by Tech Engineering News (MIT). Reprinted by permission of the author.
“Heavyplanet” by Lee Gregor. Copyright, 1958, by Street & Smith Publications, Inc. From Astounding Science Fiction. Reprinted by permission of the author.
“The Test Stand” by Lee Correy. Copyright, 1955, by Street & Smith Publications, Inc. From Astounding Science Fiction. Reprinted by permission of the author’s agent, Lurton Blassingame.
‘‘Amateur in Chancery” by George O. Smith. Copyright, 1961, by Galaxy Publishing Corporation. From Galaxy Magazine. Reprinted by permission of the author’s agent, Lurton Blassingame.
‘‘The Mark Gable Foundation” by Leo Szilard. From The Voice of the Dolphins, Five Stories of Political & Social Satire. Copyright © 1961 by Leo Szilard. Reprinted by permission of Simon and Schuster, Inc. Paperback edition available at $1.00.
Contents
ACKOWLEDGEMENTS
INTRODUCTION
AT THE END OF THE ORBIT - ARTHUR C. CLARKE
ON THE FEASIBILITY OF COAL-DRIVEN POWER STATIONS - O. R. FRISCH
A FEAST OF DEMONS - WILLIAM MORRISON
THE HEART ON THE OTHER SIDE - GEORGE GAMOW
LENNY - ISAAC ASIMOV
THE SINGERS - W. GREY WALTER
THE INVASION - ROBERT WILLEY
TO EXPLAIN MRS. THOMPSON - PHILIP LATHAM
ADRIFT ON THE POLICY LEVEL - CHANDLER DAVIS
THE BLACK CLOUD - FRED HOYLE
CHAIN REACTION - BOYD ELLANBY
THE MIRACLE OF THE BROOM CLOSET - W. NORBERT
HEAVYPLANET - LEE GREGOR
THE TEST STAND - LEE CORREY
AMATEUR IN CHANCERY - GEORGE O. SMITH
THE MARK GABLE FOUNDATION - LEO SZILARD
INTRODUCTION
By way of introducing the stories in this collection I would like to set down a personal note. The men (and woman) who wrote them are what are called “scientists.” I am not. Barring some chemistry which I have long forgotten and some glimmerings of mathematics and star-watching which I have pursued for entertainment, I am at the most a spectator of science. Unlike most of these contributors, I am not now nor ever will be one who unlocks a new domain of knowledge for the human race. My training is slight and my aptitudes minimal.
These are not the qualifications that make a great artist in the realm of science. But perhaps they will do for the paid guide who conducts the travelers through the chambers lined with works by the masters.
Science in this latter half of the twentieth century has grown large and bewildering. At its farthest reach it looks out on such wonderful and strange things that language no longer suffices to carry the burden of thought. A squiggle on a blackboard represents a question about the growth of suns; a cascade of pulses from the transistorized cells of a computer represents its answer.
We laymen not only do not have the words to express what the farthest investigators have found, we can hardly frame the questions to ask what they are doing. All the “common-sense” evidence of our eyes is a liar—the Earth is not flat, matter is not solid, space is curved, time is relative —and we are the prisoners of our sense and our habits, lacking the mathematical keys that will allow us to escape.
Most of us have learned to accept the reality of atomic energy—well, we’ve seen the thing work—the motion pictures of hydrogen-bomb tests showed something very big and very wonderful. Whether we understand what we are accepting is another question. It is more a condition of anesthesia than of comprehension. We don’t so much grasp the concepts involved as we encyst them.
Such other questions as the origin of the universe (did it begin in a single enormous explosion o
f a giant atom?— and if so where did the atom come from? does it go on renewing itself by constant growth as Hoyle’s steady-state theory suggests? or by contracting back to the atom and exploding again, as Opik imagines?); or Godel’s logical proof that some things are forever unprovable; or the cyberneticians’ remarkable machines that grow and reproduce themselves—these things we may not even encyst. We can hardly take them in in any form. We reject them as “not of practical concern” if we are lazy-minded (though no commodity is of more practical value than knowledge!); or we try to follow them … and lose ourselves in mathematics.
What most of us do not do, because we can’t, is to understand them and their implications.
But this is by no means the same thing as saying that these things have no implications. “Science” is a way of finding, storing and making available new knowledge. What these people are doing is learning. What they find will change our lives very drastically—may kill us tomorrow with nuclear fallout or blast, or may on the day after tomorrow give every man and woman of us perfect health and all but eternal life.
That is what we mean when we talk about “science.” Should we now consider what we mean by “science fiction”?
The definitions of science fiction will always be endless, since its practitioners and aficionados, a thorny breed, find no greater joy than to quarrel with authority and thus are most unlikely ever themselves to agree on an authoritative definition. It may be that this state is what defines science fiction. We can follow that thought in a moment; but let us first see what science fiction is not.
It is not, for example, “gadget” fiction. To those who think that “science” is automatic toasters and jet planes, be it known that science fiction is only cosmetically concerned with such trivia. The gadgets may dress up the story; but the story is more than the gadgets.
Neither is it social commentary—although books have been written to say that it is. Neither dramatized predictions of the future; neither bloody, fast-paced literature of escape. Oh, it may be any of these things. It may be all of them. But science fiction does not limit itself . . , any more than science does.
It has been said a thousand times that “science fiction” is a misnomer. I do not agree. The term is quite apt—accidentally, if you will, since it was the “gadget” view of science fiction that prevailed decades ago when the term was coined—but it is apt all the same. For what is science? It is a way of doing things. Its heart is the “scientific method”—accumulate facts, make deductions, frame an explanation, test the explanation by making predictions, test the predictions by experiment.
Come back to the thought we postponed a moment ago. What almost all science fiction writers have in common is a capacity for looking at things from outside. Call it objectivity. Call it extrapolation. It is a talent for looking at things through fresh eyes, and setting down the results in the form of an entertaining story.
This is in essence what a scientist must do, must reject “what everybody knows” and concentrate on the evidence secured by experiment and observation. If the evidence forces him to conclude that the Earth is indeed not the center of the universe—that disease is after all not caused by the natural decay of the human effluvium, but by bacteria—that time and space are relative quantities—whatever —then he must follow his conclusions to the end. So must a science fiction writer. He cannot assume that human nature does not change. He changes it for every story he writes. He can’t accept the bland view that life moves constantly onward and upward toward Utopia. If the evidence he is considering points the other way, his story cannot have a happy ending.
We are, after all, at a nexus point of some sort in the development of the human race. It is not merely a matter of H-bombs or population explosion which may annihilate us or starve us; whether or not we solve problems like these, we have many other problems in sight for which we have no solution at all. We can’t have a solution. We don’t yet know enough about the problems, since they are just beginning to appear. The questions that will be as real to our grandchildren as fallout shelters and technological unemployment are to us are the proper concerns of science fiction: the aliens we may some day meet in space; the effects on our lives of uncontrolled plenty. It is only a century since nearly all the world lived in a way almost indistinguishable from that of neolithic man—his hut was warmer and his crops better, but the nineteenth century peasant was tied to the soil unendingly, and when drought came he died. He had neither leisure nor medicine. Now we have given him some of both and will soon give him a great deal. What will he make of it? What will we make of him?
These are the questions—a very few of the questions—that science fiction is exploring, bit by bit.
It must be admitted that sometimes science fiction concerns itself with lesser questions. Sometimes it doesn’t appear to be concerning itself with anything at all—except maybe blood and thunder thrills, or cheap comedy. We have been talking as though all science fiction conforms to the standards of excellence of its best examples, and that is demonstrably false. Probably ninety per cent of all science fiction is trash, unwelcome as that admission is to many of us who admire it.
Probably so. But one of the best science fiction writers, Theodore Sturgeon, has included that observation in what has come to be called Sturgeon’s Ninety Per Cent Law: “90% of everything is trash.” This statement is so obvious that it hardly needs to be amplified. Are you fond of the dance? Then you have seen at least nine clumsy lines of chorus ponies for every admirable ballet troupe. Music? There are many more than nine Ozark doggerel chants for every Bach fugue—for that matter, nine rock-and-roll wails for every Stardust Politics? Painting? Name it; the 90% law applies.
So maybe there are in every ten science fiction stories one which is really good—and three which are horrible—but that one in ten is very precious to its admirers, and well worth the examination of even those who are not.
There is one other useful trait of science fiction. Look forward twenty years to see what it is.
What hope for a happy future our race has lies in the hands of those who will then probe out the answers to questions we are at the present time barely able to form. In twenty years there will be hundreds and thousands of skilled, brilliant minds at work in the world’s laboratories. It will be up to them to find out for us the How of space travel, the Why of the expanding universe, the How—in a different vein—of controlling the violent interactions of humanity with itself.
Who will these men and women be?
Why, it is a fair chance that more than one of them will be holding this book in his hands in 1962. For science fiction is among its other attributes a well known love of the science-minded teen-ager; and it is from that group that tomorrow’s scientists must come. It has been so in the past. There is, for example, a man in the laboratory of the National Bureau of Standards now who is there because when he was very young—in 1928—he read a science fiction story, The Skylark of Space, whose hero, Richard Seaton, had just that job in just that place. Turn back the clock and you will find others like him. Twenty years ago, a good many present-day scientists were young science fiction fans, showing no other visible trace of the technical skills they were yet to develop.
Several such, in fact, are represented in this book.
So it is not strange, after all, that scientists should write science fiction stories. Here is the evidence to prove it. The stories in this volume are by men who work with science, in one discipline or other, in their daily lives … men, some of them, who have themselves advanced to occupy some of the farthest outposts of our present scientific knowledge.
It must not be thought that every scientist who ever wrote a science fiction story is represented here. There isn’t that much room. The list may not be endless, but it is huge. Probably no other branch of writing—fiction, anyway—has as high a percentage of writers who are entitled to be called “doctor” in some discipline. But these are the ones whose stories have struck me as most interesting; a
nd I hope that this interest will be shared.
Frederik Pohl
Red Bank, 1962
AT THE END OF THE ORBIT
ARTHUR C. CLARKE
Hoyle, Frisch, Gamovs, and most of the others of the contributors to this volume are scientists first, who happen once in a while to feel the need to write a science fiction story. Arthur C. Clarke turns the equation around. He is a writer who finds himself, more or less as a hobby, from time to time a scientist. He took his degree—with First Class Honors—in physics and mathematics; but his accomplishments have been remote from those fields. His best-selling book on space medicine shows one facet of his career; his role as one of the early builders of the British Interplanetary Society shows another. A Fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society, his principal present investigations are—of course!—in the line of marine biology, skin-diving off the shores of Ceylon and along Australia’s Great Barrier Reef.
But more than anything else, Clarke is a science fiction writer. . . and one of the very best.
I
Tibor didn’t see the thing. He was asleep, and dreaming his inevitable painful dream.
Only Joey was awake on deck, in the cool stillness before dawn, when the meteor came flaming out of the sky above New Guinea. He watched it climb up the heavens until it passed directly overhead, routing the stars and throwing swift-moving shadows across the crowded deck. The harsh light outlined the bare rigging, the coiled ropes and air-hoses, the copper diving-helmets neatly snugged down for the night —even the low, pandanus-clad island half a mile away. As it passed into the southwest, out over the emptiness of the Pacific, it began to disintegrate.