Anthology of Speculative Fiction, Volume One

by Short Story Anthology

  And I glance at the screen. The kiddies have apparently said they wanna look at some real cannibals. So the screen is presenting a anthropological expedition scientific record film of the fertility dance of the Huba-Jouba tribe of West Africa. It is supposed to be restricted to anthropological professors an' post-graduate medical students. But there ain't any censor blocks workin' any more and it's on. The kids are much interested. Me, bein' a old married man, I blush.

  I disconnect Joe. Careful. I turn to the other logic and punch keys for Maintenance. I do not get a services flash. I get Maintenance. I feel very good. I report that I am goin' home because I fell down a flight of steps an' hurt my leg. I add, inspired:

  "An' say, I was carryin' the logic I replaced an' it's all busted. I left it for the dustman to pick up."

  "If you don't turn 'em in," says Stock, "you gotta pay for 'em."

  "Cheap at the price," I say.

  I go home. Laurine ain't called. I put Joe down in the cellar, careful. If I turned him in, he'd be inspected an' his parts salvaged even if I busted somethin' on him. Whatever part was off-normal might be used again and everything start all over. I can't risk it. I pay for him and leave him be.

  That's what happened. You might say I saved civilization an' not be far wrong. I know I ain't goin' to take a chance on havin' Joe in action again. Not while Laurine is livin'. An' there are other reasons. With all the nuts who wanna change the world to their own line o' thinkin', an' the ones that wanna bump people off, an' generally solve their problems—Yeah! Problems are bad, but I figure I better let sleepin' problems lie.

  But on the other hand, if Joe could be tamed, somehow, and got to work just reasonable—He could make me a coupla million dollars, easy. But even if I got sense enough not to get rich, an' if I get retired and just loaf around fishin' an' lyin' to other old duffers about what a great guy I used to be—Maybe I'll like it, but maybe I won't. And after all, if I get fed up with bein' old and confined strictly to thinking—why I could hook Joe in long enough to ask: "How can a old guy not stay old?" Joe'll be able to find out. An' he'll tell me.

  That couldn't be allowed out general, of course. You gotta make room for kids to grow up. But it's a pretty good world, now Joe's turned off. Maybe I'll turn him on long enough to learn how to stay in it. But on the other hand, maybe—

  L. TAYLOR HANSEN

  L. (Lucile) Taylor Hansen (November 30, 1897 – May 1976) was a writer of science fiction popular science articles and books who used a male writing persona for the early part of her career. She is the author of eight short stories, nearly sixty nonfiction articles popularizing anthropology and geology, and three nonfiction books.

  An autobiographical sketch by Hansen begins with her memory of staying with her parents in an abandoned fort after the "Indian Wars." In 1919, she writes, she was initiated into an Ojibwe tribe after she suggested to the tribe that they not kill the agency doctor but instead protest his appointment to Washington administrators. She then enters into a lifelong project to study of native American legends.

  Ms. Hansen has posed some mysteries for researchers. The identity of her father is uncertain, and while several sources say she did not complete her degree, Hansen reports that she attended the University of California, Los Angeles as an undergraduate.

  Starting with the September 1941 issue of Amazing, Hansen wrote "Scientific Mysteries," a regular column of non-fiction articles that continued until 1948. Combined with her other non-fiction articles, she wrote nearly sixty articles during this period, appearing from five to twelve times per year. Her first article picks up on the work of her father regarding the continental drift. She reviews criticisms of the theory and presents evidence that supports it, such as geologic continuities and homologous species that appear on different continents. She presents a field of researchers working together so that "the veils of mystery are being pushed back from the library which is the past." Hansen credits this series of articles as being the start of her investigation of how the different stories of the Americas might have some common origins.

  Hansen did not shy away from the controversial issues surrounding anthropology as the last vestiges of scientific racism fell away in the years before World War II. A July 1942 article, for instance, asserts that contemporary "standards of color are far too superficial." She points out that the skull shape of the Mayans, which would have supported the craniometric proposition that races differ culturally because of their distinctive skull geometries, does not "affect their intelligence." While she reports on findings that are now not credible – such as the idea that the population of Africa is a recently evolved type – she is remarkable for suggesting that Africans are not primitive but more evolved than other human types.

  Later, Hansen begins experimenting with pseudonyms. The article "America's Mysterious Race of Indian Giants" appeared in the December 1946 issue of Amazing, and while the writing style was "recognizable as that of columnist L. Taylor Hansen," is was credited to "Chief Sequoyah." A second story by Chief Sequoyah, "Spirit of the Serpent God," appeared in the June 1948 issue of Amazing. The story "The Fire-Trail," credited to a Navaho Oge-Make, appeared in the January 1948 issue of Amazing. She also credited a second story to Oge-Make, "Tribal Memories of the Flying Saucers," that appeared in another magazine Palmer edited, Fate, in the September 1949 issue.

  As she completed her survey of Native American legends, Hansen published three nonfiction books. The first, Some Considerations of and Additions to the Taylor-Wegener Hypothesis of Continental Displacement (1946), details the elaboration of the continental drift theory proposed by her father and others. Her second book, He Walked the Americas (1963), is a frequently cited taxonomy of Native American legends that report of a light-skinned prophet. Her last book, The Ancient Atlantic (1969), surveys the culture and geography of the Atlantic Ocean and touches on the legend of Atlantis.

  Hansen wrote the book He Walked the Americas in 1963. In the book drawing from Native American legends, folklore and mythology discussed that a "White Prophet" had visited many different parts of America. Mormons believe that the "White Prophet" was Jesus Christ.

  Hansen's science fiction career was brief, but she is notable for being an early woman in the genre who concealed her sex. Her first story, "What the Sodium Lines Revealed," appeared in Hugo Gernsback's Amazing Stories Quarterly in the Winter 1929 issue. This story, while a Gernsback-era adventure, hinges upon scientific ideas in that a message is detected in a spectrograph by an amateur astronomer. That same year, her second story "The Undersea Tube," details an underground civilization that is uncovered while developing a pneumatic commuter train between New York and Liverpool.

  As asserted by Eric Leif Davin, of the women in the early science fiction magazines, only L. Taylor Hansen seems to have concealed her sex. The subterfuge was extensive. An illustration of a young man, purportedly Hansen, appeared with Hansen's fifth story, "The City on the Cloud." Hansen continued the subterfuge by asserting on the telephone to fan Forrest J. Ackerman that she was not the author of her stories but only handled them for her brother. Jane Donawerth suggests that Hansen's creation of a world-traveled, male brother was a "probably social crisis" in that she did not want to violate the convention of a male narrator in science fiction and so her persona allows her to "protect herself from social disapproval."

  However, as reported by Davin, the facts of the encounter between Ackerman and Hansen are somewhat contradictory. A letter from Hansen was titled "L. Taylor Hansen Defends Himself" in the July 1943 issue of Amazing Stories, but Davin asserts this is because she was a private person and not because she was trying to maintain credibility. The editor, Raymond A. Palmer, had "little trouble working with women" as evinced by the many women who were published in Amazing during the 1940s.

  The Undersea Tube, by L. Taylor Hansen

  If my friend the engineer had not told me the Tube was dangerous, I would not have bought a ticket on that fatal night, and the world would never have lea
rned the story of the Golden Cavern and the City of the Dead. Having therefore, according to universal custom, first made my report as the sole survivor of the much-discussed Undersea Tube disaster to the International Committee for the Investigation of Disasters, I am now ready to outline that story for the world. Naturally I am aware of the many wild tales and rumors that have been circulated ever since the accident, but I must ask my readers to bear with me while I attempt to briefly sketch, not only the tremendous difficulties to be overcome by the engineers, but also the wind-propulsion theory which was made use of in this undertaking; because it is only by understanding something of these two phases of the Tube's engineering problems that one can understand the accident and its subsequent revelations.

  It will be recalled by those who have not allowed their view of modern history to become too hazy, that the close of the twentieth century saw a dream of the engineering world at last realized--the completion of the long-heralded undersea railroad. It will also be recalled that the engineers in charge of this stupendous undertaking were greatly encouraged by the signal success of the first tube under the English Channel, joining England and France by rail. However, it was from the second tube across the Channel and the tube connecting Montreal to New York, as well as the one connecting New York and Chicago, that they obtained some of their then radical ideas concerning the use of wind power for propulsion. Therefore, before the Undersea Tube had been completed, the engineers in charge had decided to make use of the new method in the world's longest tunnel, and upon that decision work was immediately commenced upon the blue-prints for the great air pumps that were to rise at the two ends--Liverpool and New York. However, I will touch upon the theory of wind-propulsion later and after the manner in which it was explained to me.

  It will be recalled that after great ceremonies, the Tube was begun simultaneously at the two terminating cities and proceeded through solid rock--low enough below the ocean floor to overcome the terrible pressure of the body of water over it, and yet close enough to the sea to overcome the intensity of subterranean heat. Needless to say, it was an extremely hazardous undertaking, despite the very careful surveys that had been made, for the little parties of workmen could never tell when they would strike a crack or an unexpected crevice that would let down upon them with a terrible rush, the waters of the Atlantic. But hazard is adventure, and as the two little groups of laborers dug toward each other, the eyes of the press followed them with more persistent interest than it has ever followed the daily toil of any man or group of men, either before or since.

  * * * * *

  Once the world was startled by the "extree-ee--" announcing that the English group had broken into an extinct volcano, whose upper end had apparently been sealed ages before, for it contained not water but air--curiously close and choking perhaps, but at least it was not the watery deluge of death. And then came the great discovery. No one who lived through that time will forget the thrill that quickened the pulse of mankind when the American group digging through a seam of old lava under what scientists call the "ancient ridge," broke into a sealed cavern which gleamed in the probing flashlights of the workers like the scintillating points of a thousand diamonds. But when they found the jeweled casket, through whose glass top they peered curiously down upon the white body of a beautiful woman, partly draped in the ripples of her heavy, red hair, the world gasped and wondered. As every school child knows, the casket was opened by curious scientists, who flocked into the tube from the length of the world, but at the first exposure to the air, the strange liquid that had protected the body vanished, leaving in the casket not the white figure, but only a crumbling mass of grey dust. But the questions that the finding of the cave had raised remained unanswered.

  Who was this woman? How did she get into the sealed cavern? If she had been the court favorite of that mythical kingdom, now sunk beneath the waves, and had been disposed of in court intrigue, why would her murderers have buried her in such a casket? How had she been killed? An unknown poison? Perhaps she had been a favorite slave of the monarch. This view gained many converts among the archaeologists who argued that from all the evidence we have available, the race carrying the Iberian or Proto-Egyptian culture, long thought to have been the true refugees from sinking Atlantis, were a slight dark-haired race. Therefore this woman must have been a captive. Geologists, analyzing the lava, announced that it had hardened in air and not in water, while anthropologists classed the skull of the woman as essentially more modern than either the Neanderthal or Cro-Magnon types. But the engineers, secretly fuming at the delay, finally managed to fill up the cave and press on with their drills.

  Then following the arguments that still flourished in the press, came a tiny little news article and the first message to carry concern to the hearts of the engineers. The sea had begun to trickle in through one slight crack. Perhaps it was only because the crevice was located on the English side of the now famous "ancient ridge" that the article brought forth any notice at all. But for the engineers it meant the first warning of possibly ultimate disaster. They could not seal the crack, and pumps were brought into play. However, as a month wore on, the crack did not appear to widen to any material extent and the danger cry of a few pessimists was forgotten.

  Finally, it will be remembered, that sounders listening in the rocks heard the drillers of the other party, and then with wild enthusiasm the work was pushed on to completion. The long Tube had been dug. Now it only remained for the sides at the junction to be enlarged and encased with cast iron, while the work of setting up the great machines designed to drive the pellet trains through, was also pushed on to its ultimate end. Man had essayed the greatest feat of engineering ever undertaken in the history of the planet, and had won. A period of wild celebration greeted the first human beings to cross each direction below the sea.

  Did the volume of water increase that was carried daily out of the Tube and dumped from the two stations? If it did, the incident was ignored by the press. Instead, the fact that some "cranks" persisted in calling man's latest toy unsafe, only attracted more travel. The Undersea Tube functioned on regular schedule for three years, became the usual method of ocean transit.

  * * * * *

  This was the state of matters, when on the fourth of March last, our textile company ordered me to France to straighten out some orders with the France house, the situation being such that they preferred to send a man. Why they did not use radio-vision I do not care to state, as this is my company's business.

  Therefore, upon entering my apartment, I was in the midst of packing when the television phone called me. The jovial features of "Dutch" Higgins, my one-time college room-mate and now one of the much-maligned engineers of the Undersea Tube, smiled back at me from the disk.

  "Where are you? I thought we had a sort of dinner engagement at my apartment, Bob."

  "By gollies I forgot, Dutch. I'll be right over--before it gets cold."

  Then immediately I turned the knob to the Municipal Aerial-car yards, and ordered my motor, as I grabbed my hat and hurried to the roof. In due time, of course, I sprang the big surprise of the evening, adding:

  "And, of course, I'm going by the Tube, I feel sort of a half-partnership in it because you were one of the designers."

  A curious half-pained look crossed his face. We had finished our meal, and were smoking with pushed-back chairs. He finished filling his pipe, and scowled.

  "Well? Why don't you say something? Thought you'd be--well, sort of pleased."

  He struck his automatic lighter and drew in a long puff of smoke before answering.

  "Wish you'd take another route, Bob."

  "Take another route?"

  "Yes. If you want it straight, the Tube is not safe."

  "You are joking."

  But as I looked into his cold, thoughtful blue eyes, I knew he had never been more serious.

  "I wish that you would go by the Trans-Atlantic Air Liners. They are just as fast."

  "But you used to
be so enthusiastic about the Tube, Dutch! Why I remember when it was being drilled that you would call me up at all kinds of wild hours to tell me the latest bits of news."

  He nodded slowly.

  "Yes, that was in the days before the crack."

  "Yet you expected to take care of possible leaks, you know," I countered.

  "But this crack opened after the tunnel had been dug past it, and lately it has opened more."

  "Are the other engineers alarmed?"

  "No. We are easily taking care of the extra water and again the opening seems to remain at a stationary width as it has for the past three years. But we cannot caulk it."

  "Are you going to publish these views?"

  "No. I made out a minority report. I can do no more."

  "Dutch, you are becoming over-cautious. First sign of old age."

  "Perhaps," with the old smile.

  "But after all it is now more than three years since we have had a talk on the Tube. After it began to function as well as the Air-Express you sort of lost interest in it."

  "And the world did too."

  "Certainly--but the public ever was a fickle mistress. Who said that before me?"

  He laughed and blew out a long puff of smoke.

  "Everyone, Bob."

  "But as to the Tube, if I cross under the sea, I would want to be as well informed on the road as I was three years ago. Now in the meantime, you have dropped interest in the long tunnel while I have become more interested in textiles--with the result that I have forgotten all I ever did know--which compared to your grasp of the details, was little enough."

  * * * * *

  But his face showed none of the old-time animation on the subject. What a different man, I mused to myself, from that enthusiastic engineering student that I used to come upon dreaming over his blue-prints. He was considered "half-cracked" in those days when he would enthuse over his undersea railroad, but his animated face was lit with inspiration. Now the light was gone.