A Century of Science Fiction

by Damon Knight

  At last, after a silent, deadly, exhausting struggle, I got my assailant under by a series of incredible efforts of strength. Once pinned, with my knee on what I made out to be its chest, I knew that I was victor. I rested for a moment to breathe. I heard the creature beneath me panting in the darkness, and felt the violent throbbing of a heart. It was apparently as exhausted as I was; that was one comfort. At this moment I remembered that I usually placed under my pillow, before going to bed, a large yellow silk pocket-handkerchief. I felt for it instantly; it was there. In a few seconds more I had, after a fashion, pinioned the creature’s arms.

  I now felt tolerably secure. There was nothing more to be done but to turn on the gas, and, having first seen what my midnight assailant was like, arouse the household. I will confess to being actuated by a certain pride in not giving the alarm before; I wished to make the capture alone and unaided.

  Never losing my hold for an instant, I slipped from the bed to the floor, dragging my captive with me. I had but a few steps to make to reach the gas-burner; these I made with the greatest caution, holding the creature in a grip like a vise. At last I got within arm’s length of the tiny speck of blue light which told me where the gas-burner lay. Quick as lightning I released my grasp with one hand and let on the full flood of light. Then I turned to look at my captive.

  I cannot even attempt to give any definition of my sensations the instant after I turned on the gas. I suppose I must have shrieked with terror, for in less than a minute afterward my room was crowded with the inmates of the house. I shudder now as I think of that awful moment. 1 saw nothing! Yes; I had one arm firmly clasped round a breathing, panting, corporeal shape, my other hand gripped with all its strength a throat as warm, and apparently fleshy, as my own; and yet, with this living substance in my grasp, with its body pressed against my own, and all in the bright glare of a large jet of gas, I absolutely beheld nothing! Not even an outline, a vapor!

  I do not, even at this hour, realize the situation in which I found myself. Imagination in vain tries to compass the awful paradox.

  It breathed. I felt its warm breath upon my cheek. It struggled fiercely. It had hands. They clutched me. Its skin was smooth, like my own. There it lay, pressed close up against me, solid as stone—and yet utterly invisible!

  I wonder that I did not faint or go mad on the instant Some wonderful instinct must have sustained me; for, absolutely, in place of loosening my hold on the terrible Enigma, I seemed to gain an additional strength in my moment of horror, and tightened my grasp with such wonderful force that I felt the creature shivering with agony.

  Just then Hammond entered the room at the head of the household. As soon as he beheld my face—which, I suppose, must have been an awful sight to look at—he hastened forward, crying, “Great heaven, Harry! what has happened?” “Hammond! Hammond!” I cried. “Come here. O, this is awful! I have been attacked in bed by something or other, which I have hold of; but I can’t see it—I can’t see it!” Hammond, doubtless struck by the unfeigned horror expressed in my countenance, made one or two steps forward with an anxious yet puzzled expression. A very audible titter burst from the remainder of my visitors. This suppressed laughter made me furious. To laugh at a human being in my position! It was the worst species of cruelty. Now I can understand why the appearance of a man struggling violently, as it would seem, with an airy nothing, and calling for assistance against a vision, should have appeared ludicrous. Then, so great was my rage against the mocking crowd that had I the power I would have stricken them dead where they stood.

  “Hammond! Hammond!” I cried again, despairingly, “for God’s sake come to me. I can hold the—the Thing but a short while longer. It is overpowering me. Help me! Help me!”

  “Harry,” whispered Hammond, approaching me, “You have been smoking too much opium.”

  “I swear to you, Hammond, that this is no vision,” I answered, in the same low tone. “Don’t you see how it shakes my whole frame with its struggles? If you don’t believe me, convince yourself. Feel it—touch it.”

  Hammond advanced and laid his hand in the spot I indicated. A wild cry of horror burst from him. He had felt it!

  In a moment he had discovered somewhere in my room a long piece of cord, and was the next instant winding it and knotting it about the body of the unseen being that I clasped in my arms.

  “Harry,” he said, in a hoarse, agitated voice, for, though he preserved his presence of mind, he was deeply moved, “Harry, it’s all safe now. You may let go, old fellow, if you’re tired. The Thing can’t move.”

  I was utterly exhausted, and I gladly loosed my hold. Hammond stood holding the ends of the cord that bound the Invisible, twisted round his hand, while before him, selfsupporting as it were, he beheld a rope laced and interlaced, and stretching tightly around a vacant space. I never saw a man look so thoroughly stricken with awe. Nevertheless his face expressed all the courage and determination which I knew him to possess. His lips, although white, were set firmly, and one could perceive at a glance that, although stricken with fear, he was not daunted.

  The confusion that ensued among the guests of the house who were witnesses of this extraordinary scene between Hammond and myself, who beheld the pantomime of binding this struggling Something, who beheld me almost sinking from physical exhaustion when my task of jailer was over— the confusion and terror that took possession of the bystanders, when they saw all this, was beyond description. The weaker ones fled from the apartment. The few who remained clustered near the door and could not be induced to approach Hammond and his Charge. Still incredulity broke out through their terror. They had not the courage to satisfy themselves, and yet they doubted. It was in vain that I begged of some of the men to come near and convince themselves by touch of the existence in that room of a living being which was invisible. They were incredulous, but did not dare to undeceive themselves. How could a solid, living, breathing body be invisible, they asked. My reply was this. I gave a sign to Hammond, and both of us, conquering our fearful repugnance to touch the invisible creature, lifted it from the ground, manacled as it was, and took it to my bed. Its weight was about that of a boy of fourteen.

  “Now, my friends,” I said, as Hammond and myself held the creature suspended over the bed, “I can give you selfevident proof that here is a solid, ponderable body, which, nevertheless you cannot see. Be good enough to watch the surface of the bed attentively.”

  I was astonished at my own courage in treating this strange event so calmly; but I had recovered from my first terror, and felt a sort of scientific pride in the affair, which dominated every other feeling.

  The eyes of the by-standers were immediately fixed on my bed. At a given signal Hammond and I let the creature fall. There was the dull sound of a heavy body alighting on a soft mass. The timbers of the bed creaked. A deep impression marked itself distinctly on the pillow, and on the bed itself. The crowd who witnessed this gave a low cry, and rushed from the room. Hammond and I were left alone with our Mystery.

  We remained silent for some time, listening to the low, irregular breathing of the creature on the bed, and watching the rustle of the bed-clothes as it impotently struggled to free itself from confinement. Then Hammond spoke.

  “Harry, this is awful.”

  “Ay, awful.”

  “But not unaccountable.”

  “Not unaccountable! What do you mean? Such a thing has never occurred since the birth of the world. I know not what to think, Hammond. God grant that I am not mad, and that this is not an insane fantasy!”

  “Let us reason a little, Harry. Here is a solid body which we touch, but which we cannot see. The fact is so unusual that it strikes us with terror. Is there no parallel, though, for such a phenomenon? Take a piece of pure glass. It is tangible and transparent. 'A certain chemical coarseness is all that prevents its being so entirely transparent as to be totally invisible. It is not theoretically impossible, mind you, to make a glass which shall not reflect a single ray of
light—a glass so pure and homogeneous in its atoms that the rays from the sun will pass through it as they do through the air, refracted but not reflected. We do not see the air, and yet we feel it.”

  “That’s all very well, Hammond, but these are inanimate substances. Glass does not breathe, air does not breathe. This thing has a heart that palpitates, a will that moves it, lungs that play, and inspire and respire.”

  “You forget the phenomena of which we have so often heard of late,” answered the doctor, gravely. “At the meetings called ‘spirit circles,’ invisible hands have been thrust into the hands of those persons round the table—warm, fleshy hands that seemed to pulsate with mortal life.”

  “What? Do you think, then, that this thing is—”

  “I don’t know what it is,” was the solemn reply; “but, please the gods, I will, with your assistance, thoroughly investigate it.”

  We watched together, smoking many pipes, all night long, by the bedside of the unearthly being that tossed and panted until it was apparently wearied out. Then we learned by the low, regular breathing that it slept.

  The next morning the house was all astir. The boarders congregated on the landing outside my room, and Hammond and myself were lions. We had to answer a thousand questions as to the state of our extraordinary prisoner, for as yet not one person in the house except ourselves could be induced to set foot in the apartment.

  The creature was awake. This was evidenced by the convulsive manner in which the bed-clothes were moved in its efforts to escape. There was something truly terrible in beholding, as it were, those second-hand indications of the terrible writhings and agonized struggles for liberty which themselves were invisible.

  Hammond and myself had racked our brains during the long night to discover some means by which we might realize the shape and general appearence of the Enigma. As well as we could make out by passing our hands over the creature’s form, its outlines and lineaments were human. There was a mouth; a round, smooth head without hair; a nose, which, however, was little elevated above the cheeks; and its hands and feet felt like those of a boy. At first we thought of placing the being on a smooth surface and tracing its outline with chalk, as shoemakers trace the outline of the foot. This plan was given up as being of no value. Such an outline would give not the slightest idea of its conformation.

  A happy thought struck me. We could take a cast of it in plaster of Paris. This would give us the solid figure, and satisfy all our wishes. But how to do it? The movements of the creature would disturb the setting of the plastic covering, and distort the mould. Another thought. Why not give it chloroform? It had respiratory organs—that was evident by its breathing. Once reduced to a state of insensibility, we could do with it what we would. Dr. X—was sent for; and after the worthy physician had recovered from the first shock of amazement, he proceeded to administer the chloroform. In three minutes afterward we were enabled to remove the fetters from the creature’s body, and a modeller was busily engaged in covering the invisible form with the moist clay. In five minutes more we had a mould, and before evening a rough facsimile of the Mystery. It was shaped like a man—distorted, uncouth, and horrible, but still a man. It was small, not over four feet and some inches in height, and its limbs revealed a muscular development that was unparalleled. Its face surpassed in hideousness anything I had ever seen. Gustave Dore, or Callot, or Tony Johannot, never conceived anything so horrible. There is a face in one of the latter’s illustrations to Un Voyage où il vous plaira which somewhat approaches the countenance of this creature, but does not equal it. It was the physiognomy of what I should fancy a ghoul might be. It looked as if it was capable of feeding on human flesh.

  Having satisfied our curiosity, and bound every one in the house to secrecy, it became a question what was to be done with our Enigma? It was impossible that we should keep such a horror in our house; it was equally impossible that such an awful being should be let loose upon the world. I confess that I would have gladly voted for the creature’s destruction. But who would shoulder the responsibility? Who would undertake the execution of this horrible semblance of a human being? Day after day this question was deliberated gravely. The boarders all left the house. Mrs. Moffat was in despair, and threatened Hammond and myself with all sorts of legal penalties if we did not remove the Horror. Our answer was, “We will go if you like, but we decline taking this creature with us. Remove it yourself if you please. It appeared in your house. On you the responsibility rests.” To this there was, of course, no answer. Mrs. Moffat could not obtain for love or money a person who would even approach the Mystery.

  The most singular part of the affair was that we were entirely ignorant of what the creature habitually fed on. Everything in the way of nutriment that we could think of was placed before it, but was never touched. It was awful to stand by, day after day, and see the clothes toss, and hear the hard breathing, and know that it was starving.

  Ten, twelve days, a fortnight passed, and it still lived. The pulsations of the heart, however, were daily growing fainter, and had now nearly ceased. It was evident that the creature was dying for want of sustenance. While this terrible life-struggle was going on, I felt miserable. I could not sleep. Horrible as the creature was, it was pitiful to think of the pangs it was suffering.

  At last it died. Hammond and I found it cold and stiff one morning in the bed. The heart had ceased to beat, the lungs to inspire. We hastened to bury it in the garden. It was a strange funeral, the dropping of that viewless corpse into the damp hole. The cast of its form I gave to Dr. X—, who keeps it in his museum in Tenth Street.

  As I am on the eve of a long journey from which I may not return, I have drawn up this narrative of an event the most singular that has ever come to my knowledge.

  Unnoticed by most American s.f. writers and publishers, a science fiction renaissance has been going on in France since 1953, the year in which Maurice Renault founded the magazine Fiction.

  Fiction calls itself the French edition of The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, and translations of stories from that magazine account for something over half its contents. But under the patient encouragement of Renault and his editor, Alain Dorémieux, an almost miraculous growth of native talent has taken place in the last ten years. Fiction today regularly publishes the work of a dozen or more capable young French writers, of whom six or seven are as good as the best American and British s.f. writers.

  Here is one example from Fiction, May 1960—a story of invading aliens written by a young Parisian journalist and film critic. The theme is a familiar one, but Claude Veillot has given it a new resonance of horror: “Today, the reality is this vile sound, this quiet and continuous grating noise whose significance I now know.”

  THE FIRST DAYS OF MAY

  BY CLAUDE VEILLOT

  TRANSLATED BY DAMON KNIGHT

  It’s the noise that has drawn me toward the slit between the closed shutters. A furtive noise of crumbling, of crushed mica, of walnut shells being slowly cracked. For two days, not a sound has risen from that street which I can see with my eyes closed: the grocery across the way, with its windows broken by looters, its bags of dried beans spilled out as far as the gutter; the apartment house on the corner, half fallen down—its facade tumbled into the street, exposing the crosssections of apartments, furniture hanging out mockingly over emptiness; abandoned cars, some parked along the side of the street, others left where they stopped, blocking the way, tires flat; and then those incongruous remnants strewn across the flagstones and asphalt—handbags, bundles of laundry, a baby carriage, broken bottles, scraps of newspaper, a roll of blankets, a few mismated shoes, a sewing machine.

  Four days ago—only four days—that street was full of people. You couldn’t know then that the bed in the third-floor apartment of the building opposite was covered with pink cretonne, because the facade was still in place. Customers went into the grocery. “And what will it be today, madam?” A baby was drooling in the carriage, the sewing ma
chine was purring behind an unbroken window, cars were running in the streets where no ragpickers’ clutter was strewn.

  Only four days, and already you have the feeling that all that never existed. Wasn’t it all a dream? Did I really, one day, a long time ago, walk in the sun with my fellows? Come home to a woman I loved in the evening? Listen to records? Complain about the high cost of living? Read books? Make love?

  Today, the reality is this vile sound, this quiet and continuous grating noise whose significance I now know. There are two of them, coupling right under my shutters, near an automobile with its windows broken, and that horrible crunching means simply that the female is in the act of devouring the male.

  They have been compared to praying mantises too often. In fact, when it’s a question of that praying mantis that has such an effect on us, standing upright on a twig, with its globular eyes and its armored claws, we always have the recourse of crushing it with a blow, at the cost of fighting back a spasm of nausea. But when the mantis is as big as a kangaroo . . .