Before The Golden Age - A SF Anthology of the 1930s

by Edited By Isaac Asimov

  4:45: The acceleration was still on at six gravities, but neither of the men were interested in it. Their eyes were glued to the view plate, which bore on the impending collision. It was a matter of seconds. Already the Moon was breaking up, and most of the rocket tubes had gone out. Then—

  There was a blinding flash on the view plate, and it went black, burned out by the tremendous impact of the radiation. Mike cut the acceleration to zero, and fainted. But Jimmy didn’t know it. He was unconscious.

  * * * *

  About an hour later they came to—bruised, battered, and burned by the radiation which had filtered through the supposedly ray-proof walls of the ship. They switched on an acceleration of half a gravity, so that they could navigate comfortably in the rocket, and swung her ninety degrees around the gyros, so that they could see the remains of the intruder through the side ports. The view plates were useless. There was a small, incandescent planetoid falling toward the Sun. Mike turned a spectrometer on it, gazed a minute, and then grinned all over his blistered face. “It looks like we’ve done it! There isn’t a damned bit of minus matter left on the thing. It glows like a normal hot body—like a young Sun about the size of Ceres.”

  Jimmy tried to grin back, and couldn’t. His face hurt too much. “Right-oh! The Moon neutralized the last of it, with some left over. There’s nothing there now except neutrons and some white hot iron, silicon, and whatever else the Moon was made of. It’s terrifically heavy, and it’s hotter than the seven hinges of hell, but it’s nothing to fear. It will fall into the Sun in a month or so. But you look like the way I feel, and that’s like the latter end of a misspent life. You’d better strip. I’ll get the antiburn goo from the medicine chest, and we can butter ourselves up. Then, we can let the ship coast a while while we get some sleep. And finally, if there’s enough of her left to navigate, we can wend our way homeward. But sleep is what I want most right now--”

  Two weeks later, two tanned and filthy astrophysicists stepped out of the air lock of a burned and blistered rocket onto the tarmac of the space port at Washington, stopped short, and gazed with horror at the galaxy of gold braid and blazing stuffed shirts that approached them. They glanced from side to side with the expression of hunted animals, and then, with the mien of early Christian martyrs, stepped forward to undergo the horrors of an official reception by the combined governments of the solar system.

  * * * *

  By 1937, I had learned of anti-matter, and Clark’s story, which was the first ever to deal with it in science fiction, excited me tremendously. I felt he was talking my language as a burgeoning chemist and that other, more ordinary readers would not understand it as I did. (This was a good feeling.)

  John Clark was, of course, a professional chemist himself [He worked on rocket fuels during the war and recently wrote an excellent book on the subject, Ignition! to which I wrote the introduction. We met in 1942 and have been good friends ever since. He wrote only one other story, “Space Blister,” which appeared in the August 1937 issue. Despite my periodic urgings, he has written no more fiction.] and a Ph.D. was appended to his name under the story. (E. E. Smith was also a Ph.D.)

  Looking back on “Minus Planet” now, some thirty-six years after it was written, I find that it is a little dated. A proton is looked at in the story as a neutron plus a positron, but it’s actually more likely to be made up of mesons or quarks.

  It’s also interesting that the interloping body of anti-matter was discovered by optical telescope and that science fiction writers uniformly imagined an astronomical future in which telescopes would be just like the 100-incher of the 1930s, only larger. Nobody, including Clark in this story, foresaw the possibility of radio telescopes, though the basic discovery had been made in 1931.

  Stories such as “Minus Planet” were convincing demonstrations that it wasn’t enough for writers to make use of hoary catchwords like “radium” and “fourth dimension.” They had to keep abreast of the latest developments in science.

  And by 1937, I was beginning to realize that my knowledge of science was progressing to the point where I clearly knew more about it than most science fiction writers. That meant that my awe was vanishing and that, more and more, I became convinced that I knew enough to write science fiction.

  As I look back on it now, I think that my appreciation of “Minus Planet” and my eagerness to be another John Clark contributed strongly to my decision (at last!) to write a science fiction story not merely for my own amusement but for possible publication.

  My long-winded science fiction novel had suffocated to death some months before, and on May 29, 1937, about two months after I read “Minus Planet,” I began, for the first time, a science fiction short story. I called it “Cosmic Corkscrew,” and I worked at it, in fits and starts, for about a month.

  However, it was another false start. As soon as I began to imagine myself writing with the intent of publishing, I froze. I managed to get the story half finished, and then I put it away in a drawer and forgot about it for nearly a year.

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  * * * *

  My enjoyment of science fiction had risen steadily through the years, ever since I first began reading it, in 1929, and in 1937 it reached its peak. I remember exactly when that peak came.

  It came in the month of August 1937, when I was spending the summer waiting for my junior year at Columbia to begin. In that month, the September 1937 issue of Astounding Stories arrived, and I remember the precise feelings that swept over me as I sat in the living room of our apartment and read the first installment of Edward E. Smith’s new four-part serial, Galactic Patrol.

  Never, I think, did I enjoy any piece of writing more, any piece of any kind. Never did I savor every word so. Never did I feel so keen a sense of loss when I came to the end of the first installment and knew that I would have to wait a full month for the second.

  Never anything like it before. Never anything like it after.

  And in the September 1937 issue was another story, a novelette by Nat Schachner, “Past, Present, and Future,” and at the time I enjoyed it nearly as much as I did Galactic Patrol.

  Schachner was one of my favorite writers for the Tremaine Astounding. Among the stories I wish I could have included in this anthology (well, I couldn’t include them all—even after I had cut the number to the bone, the fine gentlemen at Doubleday turned pale at the length of the book) were “Ancestral Voices,” in the December 1933 issue (the first of the thought-variants, I think), “The Ultimate Metal,” in the February 1935 issue, and “The Isotope Men,” in the January 1936 issue.

  However, “Past, Present, and Future” was far and away my favorite among his stories.

  * * * *

  PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE

  by Nat Schachner

  Kleon stood on the edge of the jungle, stared out at the bright-blue bay. The great trireme, with its steeply pitched banks of oars, burned furiously. Fire and smoke crackled up to the tropic sun, licked like running tongues around the poop, swirled with final fury over the god Poseidon, whose wooden beard and pointing trident adorned the high-beaked prow.

  As the god tottered and fell, charred beyond recognition, into the briny waters, Kleon bowed his head, uttered the classic prayer of Homer. It was an omen, a sign to him that never again would he see his native vines and twisted olive trees, that never again would he discourse with the philosophers or hear the godlike Alexander shout the Macedonian charge against the Persian hosts.

  Slowly the embers died, slowly the sound of the crackling timbers ceased. Behind him, framed against a tangle of festooned trees and outlandish blooms, cowered his crew. They were not of his race; they were swart Egyptian sailors from Thebes, impressed by the mighty Alexander for his fleet against Arabia and the Indian potentates.

  They held their spears uneasily, bracing themselves against the terrible wrath of their young commander, knowing that they had been guilty of foulest treachery, yet not sorry withal for what they had done. Their
eyes feasted hungrily on the women by their sides—whom they had found inhabiting this incredible land where strange stars glowed overhead and the earth teemed with food and shelter and sustenance for the taking. These women were tall and light and straight, with copper-colored skins and laughing eyes that were a delight to sailors who had seen not even a mermaid for many moons.

  Why should they leave these newfound delights, this gentle race of friendly people who called themselves Mayas in their own liquid tongue, to embark once more on restless Oceanus and steer back toward the setting sun? That was tempting the gods too much. This time, they were sure, their bones would molder in the sunless caverns of the fathomless seas, or their ship sweep over the rim of the world into the maw of old Chaos.

  No, they had had enough of tempting the spirits of the waters. Only Isis and Osiris had saved them thus far, since the great wind had sprung up in the Indian Ocean and separated them from the fleet of Nearchus, admiral of Alexander, as it skirted the hostile coasts. They would stay here, with the people who thought them and their blond young commander, forsooth, gods from across the sea. Had they not kneeled and worshiped Kleon when the trireme had sailed into the fantastic bay? Had they not cried on him and called him by some outlandish name, as though he had been long expected? Quetzal—that was it.

  Yet Kleon, in his Greek obstinacy, had ordered them, after a month of soft surrender to the balmy airs, after replenishment of food and water casks, to the oars again, to brave once more the perils they had so miraculously escaped. His mouth had set in a grim, hard way to all their protestations.

  So they had burned the ship! It would be impossible for Kleon, for all his Greek learning, for all the magic arts he had learned among the wizards of the Persians, the Hindus, and the one-eyed Anthropophagi who lurked in caves on the Roof of the World, to force them to breast the waves again.

  Yet, because he was their commander and they were but Egyptian slaves, because he wore bright armor and knew how to wield with slashing strokes the Macedonian short sword at his side, they cowered and were uneasy—though they outnumbered him an even hundred to one.

  And still the Greek, terrible in his armor like the young sun god, made no move. The trireme was a dead-black hulk on the silent waters. The Mayas, black-haired, tall, stared at the stranger they had hailed as Quetzal, with fixed adoration. Even the raucous birds of many hues, who seemed to mock them from the trees with human cries, were still.

  * * * *

  Hotep, the steersman, approached him timidly. “You are not angry with us, noble Kleon,” he pleaded. “We have done only that which seemed best. Here, among these people, we are as gods. Why breast the floods to suffer hunger and thirst and hideous monsters, and perchance, the outraged edges of the world, to return once more to—slavery and back-bending toil and the hewing of fierce weapons?”

  Kleon turned slowly. “You have done best for yourselves, no doubt,” he said evenly. “You are slaves, Egyptians. You will mingle with these dwellers beyond the flood and find no demeanment in it. You will teach them what you know of the arts and be content. But I am a Greek and these are barbarians. I will not waste my life among such as these—and you. Life is a precious depository for the noumena, the metaphysical thought, or it is nothing. On the farther side of the world mighty Alexander marches to new triumphs, and the Grecian culture marches with him. Here is stagnation, minds that know not science or noble philosophy. What have I, a Greek, to do with these—or with you, for that matter, O Hotep?”

  The Egyptian bowed humbly. He was not offended. In the elder days his race had been mighty, but the world had gone topsy-turvy, and the old gods had yielded to new. That was why he and his comrades were content to remain in this new land the balance of their days.

  “What do you wish from us, great Kleon?” he asked.

  The Greek stared at him speculatively, turned his gaze from the ocean, from the charred husk of the trireme, slid past the trembling crew, past the copper-colored natives, flung inland over the impenetrable jungle to the blue rise of ground that marked the backbone of the interior. Smoke curled lazily from a cone-shaped top. His blue eyes glinted; a strange luster crept into their being. When he spoke he seemed to commune with himself rather than hold conversation with Hotep.

  “When Alexander left Persepolis and marched for dreadful months through strange Asian lands and stranger peoples to the Indus, we passed over the very top of the world. There we came upon a race of learned holy men, so old, so wasted with time’s attritions, that verily they seemed in sooth what they maintained—survivors from an elder day, when earth was clad in ice and Zeus himself had not been born.

  “I spent some time with them, O Hotep, and they opened their minds to me, a curious seeker after knowledge. They told me of the days before the ice came, when the world was young and the bleak hills were covered with strange verdure and mighty cities; they spoke with the air of participants in great civilizations long since buried. In full sooth their knowledge was beyond that of Aristotle himself. They averred that when the frozen waters pressed inexorably southward from the northern pole their civilization died, but such was the secret science of their priests that some few were able to immure themselves in caverns, there to repose for long centuries in immortal inanition, to awake at a predetermined time when their science taught them the ice would have ebbed back again to the frozen Boreal regions.

  “I was skeptical, as the Sophists had taught me to be, but they took me to sealed caverns, into which I was able to peer through a strange instrument that made transparent the solid rock, and behold, I saw some of their sleepers still. These, they averred, had set their awakening for a later era than the rest, desiring to taste the farther future. A thousand more years must elapse before these would stir and breathe again.”

  “It is incredible,” murmured Hotep politely.

  The face of Kleon was a contemplative mask. “They taught me the secret,” he mused. “The sight of yon mountain, where the Titans rumble underground and the Cyclopes forge their thunderbolts, reminded me of the tale.”

  He squared his shoulders suddenly. His voice lashed out as it was wont to do when he had led a phalanx into battle. “Hotep, slaves, listen to me!”

  They jumped at his clarion tones, forgetful that he was but one and they were an even hundred. “Yes, gracious lord,” they chorused.

  “You have done a foul deed. You are cattle, and this idle land and idler folk will satisfy your limited desires. But I am a Greek, and must blaze always with a bright, clean flame, or life is valueless. I do not intend to rust away my remaining days among barbarians. Therefore, if you seek my forgiveness, you must follow my will in the exactest degree.”

  Hotep moved stealthily back to the mass of his comrades, firmed his grip on his spear. Did the Greek, perchance, have some mad notion of building a new trireme from the heavy forest trees, and blunder toward the west? Rather would he-

  Kleon did not seem to see the hostile gestures of his men. “I too, shall brave the future,” he declared. “The present is an empty amphora for my spirit; I wish to fill myself with the bright wine of days that are yet unborn. I shall immure myself in a cavern, even as those priests who inhabited the Roof of the World, and do thus and so as they had taught me. I shall set a time for my awakening—let me see—yea, ten thousand years. Who knows what strange and marvelous visions will greet my eye in that tremendous span of years!”

  Spears dropped with dull thuds from nerveless fingers; black beards gaped in ludicrous astonishment, confused voices called on Horus and Ammon-Ra. The copper folk, all unwitting, knowing not the meaning of the god, Quetzal, nevertheless, prostrated themselves in fear before his flashing eye, the sound of his speech that surged like the many billowed sea.

  Hotep burst out in gasping words. “Lord, have you in sooth gone mad? These tales of magic have addled your brain! They but mocked you. It is impossible-”

  “It is enough,” Kleon broke in sharply, “that I command it.” He fingered his sword sig
nificantly.

  A wave of hasty assent rose like incense from the crew. Why should they not do the mad Greek’s bidding? Even so, would they be freed from ever-present dread of their treachery and meditated vengeance. They would live their lives among these gentle folk, take their women for wives, and loll in ease and security after much bufferings. Let the Greek be immured, if he wished, in the bowels of the earth, let him wait for that fantastic future he described.

  It took almost a year to perform the task. But Kleon drove his crew and these pliable folk, who called themselves Mayas, relentlessly. Now that the die was cast, now that he had pondered on it nights and days, he was eager for that future which the gymnosophists of the Roof of the World had promised him; indeed, he was very eager.

  He required a volcano; for the gases generated in the smithies of the Cyclopes were necessary for his entombment. He found the blue cone from which the smoke eternally wisped some fifty stadia inland. He caused its base to be cleared, and there the Egyptians built for him a small pyramid, patterned according to the one of Cheops, on which the copper-colored Mayas toiled willingly like submissive beasts of burden. Underneath the tapering stone they inclosed a chamber, rough-hewn, built against the millenniums, air-sealed against all outer contamination. From the chamber they led vents of stone to the bowels of the fire-breathing mountain, so that, by ingenious tappets, the swirling gases of brimstone and sulphurous pungency might be inducted in due proportions.