The Big Book of Science Fiction

by The Big Book of Science Fiction (retail) (epub)

  —

  “They’ve opened a branch office in New York,” I said carefully into the phone, a few weeks later.

  With my pencil, very carefully, I extended the membership curve from where it was then.

  After the next doubling, the curve went almost straight up and off the page.

  Allowing for a lag of contagion from one nation to another, depending on how much their citizens intermingled I’d give the rest of the world about twelve years.

  There was a long silence while Caswell probably drew the same graph in his own mind. Then he laughed weakly. “Well, you asked me for a demonstration.”

  That was as good an answer as any. We got together and had lunch in a bar, if you can call it lunch. The movement we started will expand by hook or by crook, by seduction or by bribery or by propaganda or by conquest, but it will expand. And maybe a total world government will be a fine thing—until it hits the end of its rope in twelve years or so.

  What happens then, I don’t know.

  But I don’t want anyone to pin that on me. From now on, if anyone asks me, I’ve never heard of Watashaw.

  Prott

  MARGARET ST. CLAIR

  Margaret St. Clair (1911–1995) was a highly idiosyncratic and original US writer of science fiction and fantasy. Her career began with “Rocket to Limbo” for Fantastic Adventures in November 1946, and by 1950 she had published about thirty stories, most of them vigorous planetary adventures and planetary romances. St. Clair also published a series of highly regarded stories (including “Prott”) under the pen name “Idris Seabright,” almost exclusively in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction. The Seabright name for whatever reason became attached to stories that were more seamless and fantastical, and St. Clair became better known for them than work published under her own name.

  Her early work could feel conventional at times but had already begun to push back against one central impulse of pulp science fiction: the need to reassure through effective problem-solving and showing humankind as in control of the universe. She also always had a dark, healthy sense of the absurd, on full display in stories like “Hathor’s Pets” (1950) and the Lord Dunsany–inspired “The Man Who Sold Rope to the Gnoles” (1951), which mixed horror and humor.

  In her classic work, St. Clair demands rereading in much the same way as Vladimir Nabokov and James Tiptree Jr.: the stories contain traps and mazes and hidden doors. St. Clair sometimes expressed a disappointment with the self-importance of the science fiction field as she knew it (“Is it a sacred cause?”). In part, St. Clair thought the field didn’t always understand or reward sophisticated humor, too invested in a headlong rush toward the earnest. But St. Clair would likely have remained “elusive,” as critic John Clute puts it, no matter what the scene. St. Clair was definitely not a joiner or likely to be comfortable in any club.

  St. Clair and her husband became Wiccans in the 1950s, and she chiefly identifies in her introduction to The Best of Margaret St. Clair as a “long-time civil libertarian,” her political sympathies with “the democratic left.” But some additional clues to the dual delicacy and bloody-mindedness of her fiction find expression in another part of her introduction: “Most of the sense impressions of my childhood were pleasant…I remember the taste of Mallard ducks—too pretty to kill, with their lovely plumage, but luscious eating—domestic chicken and wild squirrel…Things had more flavor then.”

  In “Prott” (1953), a scientist-observer becomes more and more obsessed with the titular aliens once he starts observing them, with implications both funny and disturbing. “Prott” is classic St. Clair: darkly absurd, at times horrific, and engaged in playing out the implications of its own twisted logic no matter where it leads. The story is one of the most original collected in this anthology.

  PROTT

  Margaret St. Clair

  “Read it,” said the spaceman. “You’ll find it interesting—under the circumstances. It’s not long. One of the salvage crews found it tied to a signal rocket just outside the asteroid belt. It’d been there quite a while.

  “I thought of taking it to somebody at the university, a historian or somebody, but I don’t suppose they’d be interested. They don’t have any more free time than anybody else.”

  He handed a metal cylinder to Fox, across the table, and ordered drinks for them both. Fox sipped from his glass before he opened the tube.

  “Sure you want me to read it now?” he asked. “Not much of a way to spend our free time.”

  “Sure, go ahead and read it. What difference does it make?”

  So Fox spread out the emtex sheets. He began to read.

  —

  Dating a diary in deep space offers special problems. Philosophical problems, I mean—that immense “When is now?” which, vexatious enough within a solar system or even on the surface of a planet, becomes quite insoluble in deep space except empirically or by predicating a sort of super-time, an enormous Present Moment which would extend over everything. And yet a diary entry must be dated, if only for convenience. So I will call today Tuesday and take the date of April 21 from the gauges.

  Tuesday it is.

  On this Tuesday, then, I am quite well and cheerful, snug and comfortable in the Ellis. The Ellis is a model of comfort and convenience; a man who couldn’t be comfortable in it couldn’t be comfortable anywhere. As to where I am, I could get the precise data from the calculators, but I think, for the casual purposes of this record, it’s enough to say that I am almost at the edges of the area where the prott are said to abound. And my speed is almost exactly that at which they are supposed to appear.

  I said I was well and cheerful. I am. But just under my euphoria, just at the edge of consciousness, I am aware of an intense loneliness. It’s a normal response to the deep-space situation, I think. And I am upborne by the feeling that I stand on the threshold of unique scientific discoveries.

  —

  Thursday the twenty-sixth (my days are more than twenty-four hours long). Today my loneliness is definitely conscious. I am troubled, too, by the fear that perhaps the prott won’t—aren’t going to—put in an appearance. After all, their existence is none too well confirmed. And then what becomes of all my plans, of my smug confidence of a niche for myself in the hall of fame of good investigators?

  It seemed like a brilliant idea when I was on Earth. I know the bursar thought so, too, when I asked for funds for the project. To investigate the life habits of a non-protoplasmic form of life, with special emphasis on its reproduction—excellent! But now?

  —

  Saturday, April 30. Still no prott. But I am feeling better. I went over my files on them and again it seems to me that there is only one conclusion possible:

  They exist.

  Over an enormous sector in the depth of space, during many years, they have been sighted. For my own comfort, let’s list the known facts about prott.

  First, they are a non-protoplasmic form of life. (How could they be otherwise, in this lightless, heatless gulf?) Second, their bodily organization is probably electrical. Simmons, who was electrical engineer on the Thor, found that his batteries showed discharges when prott were around. Third, they appear only to ships which are in motion between certain rates of speed. (Whether motion at certain speeds attracts them, or whether it is only at certain frequencies that they are visible, we don’t know.) Fourth, whether or not they are intelligent, they are to some extent telepathic, according to the reports. This fact, of course, is my hope of communicating with them at all. And fifth, prott have been evocatively if unscientifically described as looking like big poached eggs.

  On the basis of these facts, I’ve aspired to be the Columbus—or, more accurately, the Dr. Kinsey—of the prott. Well, it’s good to know that, lonely and rather worried as I am, I can still laugh at my own jokes.

  —

  May third. I saw my first prott. More later. It’s enough for now: I saw my first prott.

  —

  May fourth. T
he Ellis has all-angle viewing plates, through 360 degrees. I had set up an automatic signal, and yesterday it rang. My heart thumping with an almost painful excitement, I ran to the battery of plates.

  There it was, seemingly some five yards long, a cloudy, whitish thing. There was a hint of a large yellow nucleus. Damned if the thing didn’t look like a big poached egg!

  I saw at once why everyone has assumed that prott are life-forms and not, for example, minute spaceships, robots, or machines of some sort. The thing had the irregular, illogical symmetry of life.

  I stood goggling at it. It wasn’t alarming, even in its enormous context. After a moment, it seemed to flirt away from the ship with the watery ease of a fish.

  I waited hopefully, but it didn’t come back.

  —

  May 4. No prott. Question: since there is so little light in deep space how was I able to see it? It wasn’t luminous.

  I wish I had had more training in electronics and allied subjects. But the bursar thought it more important to send out a man trained in survey techniques.

  —

  May 5. No prott.

  —

  May 6. No prott. But I have been having very odd thoughts.

  —

  May eighth. As I half-implied in my last entry, the ideas I have been having (such odd ideas—they made me feel, mentally, as if some supporting membrane of my personality were being overstrained) were an indication of the proximity of prott.

  I had just finished eating lunch today when the automatic signal rang. I hurried to the viewers. There, perfectly clear against their jet-black background, were three prott. Two were almost identical; one was slightly smaller in size. I had retraced over and over in my mind the glimpse of the one prott I had had before, but now that three of them were actually present in the viewers, I could only stare at them. They’re not alarming, but they do have an odd effect upon the mind.

  After several tense seconds, I recovered my wits. I pressed a button to set the automatic photographic records going. I’d put in plates to cover the whole spectrum of radiant energy, and it will be interesting when I go to develop my pictures to see what frequencies catch the prott best. I also—this was more difficult—began to send out the basic “Who? Who? Who?” in which all telepathic communicators are trained.

  I have become reasonably good at telepathy through practice, but I have no natural talent for it. I remember McIlwrath telling me jokingly, just before I left New York, that I’d never have trouble with one of the pitfalls of natural telepaths—transmitting a desired answer into the mind of a subject by telepathy. I suppose any deficiency has some advantageous side.

  I began to send out my basic “Who?” It may have been only a coincidence, but as soon as the fourth or fifth impulse had left my mind, all three prott slid out of the viewing plates. They didn’t come back. It would seem that my attempts at communication alarmed them. I hope not, though.

  —

  When I was convinced that they would not return for a while, I began to develop my plates. Those in the range of visible light show the prott very much as they appear to the eye. The infrared plates show nothing at all. But the ultraviolet-sensitive ones are really interesting.

  Two of the prott appear as a network of luminous lines intricately knotted and braided. For some reason, I was reminded of the “elfish light” of Coleridge’s water snakes, which “moved in tracks of shining white.” The third prott, which I assume to have been the smaller one, gave an opaque, flattened-ovoid image, definitely smaller than that of its companions, with a round dark shadow in the centre. This shadow would appear to be the large yellow nucleus.

  Question: do these photographic differences correspond to organizational differences? Probably, though it might be a matter of phase.

  Further question: if the difference is in fact organizational, do we have here an instance of that specialization which, among protoplasmic creatures, would correspond to sex? It is possible. But such theorizing is bound to be plain guesswork.

  —

  May ninth (I see I gave up dating by days some while ago). No prott. I think it would be of some interest if, at this point, I were to try to put down my impression of those “odd thoughts” which I believe the prott inspired in me.

  In the first place, there is a reluctance. I didn’t want to think what I was thinking. This is not because the ideas were in themselves repellent or disgusting, but because they were uncongenial to my mind. I don’t mean uncongenial to my personality or my idiosyncrasies, to the sum of differences that make up “me,” but uncongenial to the whole biological orientation of my thinking. The differences between protoplasmic and non-protoplasmic life must be enormous.

  In the second place, there is a frustration. I said, “I didn’t want to think what I was thinking,” but it would be equally true to say that I couldn’t think it. Hence, I suppose, that sensation of ineffectuality.

  And in the third place, there is a great boredom. Frustration often does make one feel bored, I suppose. I couldn’t apprehend my own thoughts. But whenever I finally did, I found them boring. They were so remote, so incomprehensible, that they were uninteresting.

  But the thoughts themselves? What were they? I can’t say.

  How confused all this is! Well, nothing is more tiresome than to describe the indescribable.

  Perhaps it is true that the only creature that could understand the thoughts of a prott would be another prott.

  —

  May tenth. Were the “odd thoughts” the results of attempts on the prott’s part to communicate with me? I don’t think so. I believe they were near the ship, but out of “view-shot,” so to speak, and I picked up some of their interpersonal communications accidentally.

  I have been devoting a good deal of thought to the problem of communicating with them. It is too bad that there is no way of projecting a visual image of myself onto the exterior of the ship. I have Matheson’s signalling devices, and next time—if there is a next—I shall certainly try them. I have little confidence in devices, however. I feel intuitively that it is going to have to be telepathy or nothing. But if they respond to the basic “Who?” with flight…well, I must think of something else.

  Suppose I were to begin the attempt at contact with a “split question.” “Splits” are hard for any telepath, almost impossible for me. But in just that difficulty, my hope of success might lie. After all, I suppose the prott flirted away from the ship at my “Who?” because mental contact with me was painful to them.

  —

  Later. Four of them are here now. I tried to split and they went away, but came back. I am going to try something else.

  —

  May eleventh. It worked. My “three-way split”—something I had only read about in journals, but that I would never have believed myself capable of—was astoundingly effective.

  Not at first, though. At my first attempt, the prott darted right out of the viewers. I had a moment of despair. Then, with an almost human effect of hesitation, reluctance, and inclination, they came back. They clustered around the viewer. Once more I sent out my impulse; sweat was running down my back with the effort. And they stayed.

  I don’t know what I should have done if they hadn’t. A split is exhausting because, in addition to the three normal axes of the mind, it involves a fourth one, at right angles to all the others. A telepath would know what I mean. But a three-way split is, in the old-fashioned phrase, “lifting yourself up by your bootstraps.” Some experts say it’s impossible. I still have trouble believing I brought it off.

  I did, however. There was a sudden rush, a gush, of communication. I’d like to try to get it down now, while it’s still fresh in my mind. But I’m too tired. Even the effort of using the playback is almost beyond me. I’ve got to rest.

  —

  Later. I’ve been asleep for four hours. I don’t think I ever slept so soundly. Now I’m almost myself again, except that my hands shake.

  I said I wanted to get
the communication with the prott down while it was still fresh. Already it has begun to seem a little remote, I suppose because the subject matter was inherently alien. But the primary impression I retain of it is the gush, the suddenness. It was like pulling the cork out of a bottle of warm champagne which has been thoroughly shaken up.

  In the middle, I had to try to maintain my mental balance in the flood. It was difficult; no wonder the effort left me so tired. But I did learn basic things.

  One: identity. The prott are individuals, and though their designations for themselves escape me, they have individual consciousness. This is not a small matter. Some protoplasmic life-forms have only group consciousness. Each of the four prott in my viewer was thoroughly aware of itself as distinct from the others.

  Two: difference. The prott were not only aware of identity, they were aware of differences of class between themselves. And I am of the opinion that these differences correspond to those shown on my photographic plates.

  Three: place. The prott are quite clearly conscious that they are here and not somewhere else. This may seem either trivial or so basic as not to be worth bothering with. But there are whole groups of protoplasmic life-forms on Venus whose only cognizance of place is a distinction between “me” and “not-me.”

  Four: time. For the prott, time is as it is for us, an irreversible flowing in one direction only. I caught in their thinking a hint of a discrimination between biological (for such a life-form? That is what it seemed) time and something else, I am not sure what.

  Beyond these four basic things, I am unsure. I do feel, though it is perhaps over-optimistic of me, that further communication, communication of great interest, is possible. I feel that I may be able to discover what their optimum life conditions and habitat are. I do not despair of discovering how they reproduce themselves.

  I have the feeling that there is something they want very much to tell me.

  —

  May thirteenth. Six prott today. According to my photographic record, only one of them was of the opaque solid-nucleus kind. The others all showed the luminous light-tracked mesh.