Then and Now : A Collection of SF

by Raymond Z. Gallun

  Then and Now: Another

  Collection of Science Fiction,

  by Raymond Z. Gallun

  Tom's eBooks June 2021 (c, ebook) - 105,200 words

  Introduction, Tom Dean, (in) *

  The Lunar Chrysalis, (nv) Amazing Sep. 1931 - 14334

  Waves of Compulsion, (nv) Wonder Stories March 1932 - 15929

  Derelict, (ss) Astounding Oct. 1935 - 5303

  Nova Solis, (ss) Astounding Dec. 1935 {as by "E. V. Raymond"} - 5078

  The Scarab, (ss) Astounding Aug. 1936 - 3790

  A Menace in Miniature, (ss) Astounding Oct. 1937 - 6761

  Magician of Dream Valley, (ss) Astounding Oct. 1938 - 5692

  The Shadow of the Veil, (ss) Astounding Feb. 1939 - 4300

  Guardian Angel, (ss) Super Science Stories May 1940 – 5651

  The First Long Journey [*Demigods], (ss) Thrilling Wonder Stories April 1951 - 5117

  The Restless Tide [*Demigods], (ss) Marvel Science Fiction Nov. 1951 - 6437

  Double Identity, (nv) Dynamic Science Fiction June 1953 - 14984

  Then and Now [*Demigods], (nv) Analog Dec. 1977 - 11799

  Bibliography of Gallun collections

  Contents:-

  Introduction

  The Lunar Chrysalis,

  Waves of Compulsion,

  Derelict,

  Nova Solis,

  The Scarab,

  A Menace in Miniature,

  Magician of Dream Valley,

  The Shadow of the Veil,

  Guardian Angel,

  The Restless Tide,

  Double Identity,

  Then and Now,

  Introduction

  Here is our fourth collection of short science fiction from neglected Golden Age author, Raymond Z. Gallun. These collections are meant to stand apart from the two collections from Renaissance eBooks, The Old Faithful Saga, and A First Glimpse and Other Science Fiction Classics; see the bibliography at the end of this book.

  We are toying with the idea of doing one more from Gallun, featuring his first novel, Passport to Jupiter. We'll have to see.

  Back to work....

  Tom Dean

  June 2021

  P.S.: There is a problem with the magazine version of the story "Double Identity," a problem that was not corrected in any of the story's reprints. We did not discover it until well into the job of scanning, etc., so we're just going to "let it stand." The problem text is highlighted in yellow, and an explanatory note gives additional clarification.

  The Lunar Chrysalis,

  by Raymond Z. Gallun

  Amazing, Sep. 1931

  Novelette - 14334 words

  THE last few years seem to have brought us some unaccountable seasonal changes. What if the changes should become more marked, and very much more serious, even to the point of injuring us? What would humanity do then? Such a calamity is, of course, not likely to happen for many thousands of years, but it is an interesting subject for speculation. One very marvelous solution—providing the method can be discovered, or invented—is offered by Mr. Gallun in this excellently written story of scientific interest.

  IT would be difficult for anyone to review the history of the tremendous events of the past fifty years without being impressed by the triviality of the causes which govern not merely the history of the earth but that of the universe. If a little device enclosed in a box occupying not more than a cubic foot of space had not failed to operate, it is probable that human beings would never have evolved upon this planet. Certainly they would never have become the dominant form of life here. If it had not been for the innocent meddlesomeness of a certain individual, the wonderful transformations which have taken place in our civilization and knowledge would almost certainly have been long delayed.

  The story of the Lunar Chrysalis has been told many times. But some of my experiences, which I am recounting now, are new to the world. On the evening of August 29th, 1951, I was aboard the first and last great lunar rocket, Black Meteor, which was rising rapidly above an Arizona desert, headed for the moon. My only companion was Professor George Paxton, noted astronomer and inventor, who, during my four years at college, had become a very dear friend of mine. Though he was past sixty and had spent most of his life studying things far above the comprehension of the average person, his youthful enthusiasm and energy made him no mean companion for me, who was then a lad of twenty-two.

  The journey to the earth’s satellite was a complete success. Except when we were accelerating or decelerating, we traveled with a fair degree of comfort. However, the heat from the rocket motors and the constant vibration, together with the smell of ozone, were not particularly pleasant.

  So accurately had our craft been aimed, that during most of the trip we scarcely needed to touch the controls at all.

  The majority of my time was spent examining the cryptic, buzzing machinery of the strange vehicle in which I rode, and enjoying with Professor Paxton the wonders of space—the brilliant stars and the great black cavities of emptiness between them, the huge, blinding sun with its flaming corona, the shrinking earth, and finally, the mysterious moon, which hour by hour grew larger. Seen from our native planet, that moon was a beautiful, romantic sight, but when viewed at closer range its rough and jagged details stood out, and gave it a weird and terrifying aspect, which sent little shivers up and down my back. Yet it was a pleasant terror. I never regretted my decision to be one of the first men to visit Luna.

  We headed straight for the crater Tycho, for here Professor Paxton believed that there were the remains of an ancient Lunar civilization.

  The last few hours of our flight were indeed an exciting time. Both of us were in the control room which was located amidships. Television panels all about the walls gave us views of surrounding space in all directions. Anxiously we were watching one big panel. In it was pictured the glowing globe of the moon, which grew ever larger and larger. The rocket motors had been stopped for many hours, but still, urged on by the gravitational force of Luna, we were hurtling along at a constantly increasing speed.

  Professor Paxton was glancing nervously from speed indicator to gravity detector, and from gravity detector to chronometer. Presently he turned a series of six big wheels one after another. Then he shifted a little, silvery lever from a vertical to a horizontal position. I felt the whole craft suddenly rotate in an alarming fashion, but it was all over in an instant. The flat base of the rocket was now toward the moon instead of its pointed nose. It was time to apply the brakes, and the twelve stern rocket nozzles were ready to perform this duty.

  Professor Paxton shifted another lever—this time an immense black one. A thunderous roaring, accompanied by a tooth-cracking vibration, set in; then an awful feeling of weight came to us. The jets of vapor ejected toward the moon were checking our fall.

  For an hour our discomfort continued, during which time we could do nothing but lie on the soft swinging couches hanging along opposite walls of the narrow compartment. Even breathing was painful. The sternward view-panel showed the moon creeping gradually upward to meet us.

  The uncomfortable feeling of heaviness caused by the rapid deceleration gradually decreased and then disappeared altogether. We were hanging motionless ten miles above the satellite, supported there by darting jets of flame coming from the rocket motors. Whirling gyroscopes were keeping the Black Meteor balanced in a vertical position.

  The view-panel told us that directly below us was Tycho. It was dawn on that part of the lunar surface, and in consequence the sun was close to the horizon. Tycho’s encircling ring of mountains cast an ebony shadow across its floor and made it look like a great lake of ink, or like some tremendous maw opened to swa
llow us.

  My companion turned down the rocket motors a little, and we began to sink. Down, down we went. Now we were on the level with the mountain peaks, now we were in their shadow. Presently we landed with a slight jar on the surface of the moon!

  Professor Paxton busied himself with the controls for a few seconds, and the roar of the rockets fell silent. The screeching hum of the gyroscopes died out a moment later.

  Hurriedly we climbed into our space armor. The heavy door, which resembled the breech of a big cannon, was opened, a ladder of steel cordage was let down and the professor, carrying the American flag, descended. I followed him closely.

  Reverently we took possession of the moon in the name of our Mother Country and we planted the flag in the gray sand. Not until then did we begin to take stock of our surroundings. We were quite close to the western mountains; the sun was shining on them. They loomed upward, vast and majestic, as though they were meant to be the pillars of the sky. The rock from which they were formed was of varied, though somewhat subdued shades. Pale, ashy-gray predominated. Here and there were patches which, under the strong glare of the sun, were so nearly white that they looked like snow. There were a few scattered areas of black and dark red. The mountains were seamed with deep ridges in which shadows still lingered. Above the great range was the sky—dead black, except where the dazzling stars shone. I do not think that there was anything about the moon more terrifying and more conducive to utter loneliness than that horrible dead firmament. It was a fitting background for the complete desolation of the lunar landscape.

  HIGH above our heads was a gray-green crescent shining calmly among the stars. The sight of it, during the journey, had frequently made me feel, that after all, my adventure was only a dream or an hallucination. Now I wondered again how I could be way out here on this world of emptiness looking up at the warm, friendly earth that was my home. I could see the eastern edge of North America, partially mist-veiled. It seemed too utterly fantastic to be true!

  The sunlight reflected from the mountains lit up the floor of the crater dimly. Except for a few ridges and irregularities, it was very level. At the foot of the enclosing rampart many boulders were strewn. All about the ground was covered with what appeared to be very fine, gray sand. Far to the east we could see Tycho’s farther wall, diminished in size, but perfectly clear-cut. The base of that wall was in deep shadow. At our backs, rearing up like a squat, thick tower, was the Black Meteor.

  “So this is Luna,” I said. “Rather impressive at close range, but so far she hasn’t shown us any real surprises. We knew all about this before we came.”

  Professor Paxton scooped up a little handful of sand. “Don’t be in such a hurry to be disappointed, son,” he said. “I’ll wager that there is something in this little bit of soil that will interest you immensely. Let’s look.”

  We examined the sand together. My companion let most of the loose dust slip through the fingers of his space gloves. The little remaining dust had a few small, frost-like crystals mixed with it.

  “Congealed carbon dioxide,” said the professor. “As was predicted, the moon now has a very rare atmosphere made up largely of that gas. It gets pretty cold here at night—probably not so far above absolute zero. In consequence, some of the atmosphere freezes and forms a sort of hoar frost, which melts again when the sun shines.”

  “Very interesting,” I said, “but you told me all that when you lectured at the University of Wisconsin. Come on, you were talking about something really interesting.” As a matter of fact I was bluffing my Nil admirari attitude. As though anybody twenty-two years old and in perfect health could spend his first five minutes in Tycho and not be fascinated by everything he saw!

  “All right, Jerry my boy,” said the professor. “Here is the first mild surprise.” He shook the remainder of the dust from his hand and then held out a little triangular piece of transparent substance. It was flat on both sides and looked exactly like a bit of broken window pane.

  I stared at the thing for a second. “Well, I’ll be hanged,” I exploded. “You’re not by any chance trying to prove that this desolate old wreck of a world was once inhabited, are you?”

  Paxton shook his head gravely. “No, facts are what we are after—just facts. Remember, we’re scientists.”

  I had knelt down in the sand and was scratching around with all the diligence of an industrious squirrel. After a few moments I unearthed another much larger piece of glass. I held it out to Paxton. “Here is another item for your bag of facts, professor,” I said. “Better pack it carefully away with moth balls or salt it down or something.”

  “None of your sass, stripling,” replied my companion good-naturedly. He was on his knees beside me now. Presently he let loose with a wild war whoop and leaped to his feet with such suddenness that he went fully three yards into the air. You know, of course, that the lunar force of gravity is only one-sixth that of the earth. When he was back on solid ground, he cried, “Look at this, Jerry, and then try to deny that the moon was once the abode of life!”

  The thing he was holding toward me was a small piece of what looked like very old wood. I took it from him and scrutinized it carefully for a moment. It was cylindrical, and had a pithy central core with a hard shell around it. From its mid-portion a sort of twisted tendril branched out. I realized immediately that the thing might have been buried there in the sand for many ages, for on the waterless, airless moon, decay is necessarily a very slow process.

  “Seems to be the goods, professor,” I said.

  The latter was now all excited activity. He was pointing to a long shallow ditch which ran a perfectly straight course toward the center of the crater’s floor and disappeared from view in the deep shadows. Its nearest point was about twenty yards from us. “There is other evidence in favor of my theory—an irrigation trench, certainly.”

  We went over to the thing and found out that it was artificially constructed. It was uniformly about ten feet across, and we could see that its bottom was made of a black stone-like substance which showed no indication of any crevices where it may have been jointed together.

  We saw several long thin rods of this same black material stuck vertically in the ground. Some of them were as much as ten feet high, and had little round discs at their tops. Others were bent over and warped or broken. Paxton noticed that some of these rods were fixed so as to form the corners of squares—evidently there was some system to their arrangement. Then he began to scoop in the sand with a tiny trench spade, which was a part of the equipment we carried. I assisted him. We freed a couple of square yards of ground of the dust that had covered it. That fine powder was fairly loaded with fragments of glass and pieces of the black rods together with stalks of an ancient vegetation.

  “What do you make of it all, prof?” I asked.

  “Quite clear, I think, son,” he replied. “When this world was getting old, and its air and water were almost gone, the clever Lunarians conceived the idea of making a big hot-bed or greenhouse out of this crater floor. They set these black posts all over and put a roof of quartz glass on top of them. The roof was probably airtight, and prevented the evaporation of the precious water into space. Then, too, it imprisoned atmosphere enough to make possible the growing of plants. It also protected them from cold during the long nights.”

  “Good reasoning, prof, but where did these hypothetical Lunarians of yours live?” I asked.

  “Well, I’m not absolutely sure, but I think that they lived deep underground. As the air and water slowly disappeared, and the climate became rigorous, the intelligent inhabitants would naturally retire to the protection of buried caverns. The entrance to these caverns should be somewhere in the neighborhood. We will certainly find it eventually.”

  We spent the next few hours wandering about the western portion of the crater’s floor. We went up along the foot of the mountain range and out toward the center of the great bowl-like depression. Everywhere was the wreckage of the lunar irrigation sy
stem. Slowly the sun crept higher and began to light up the ground all about us.

  After a time we made our way back to the Black Meteor. Paxton prepared an excellent meal of ham and eggs, which we both enjoyed immensely.

  Then I climbed the long spiral stairway to the pinnacle of the rocket a hundred and fifty feet above the ground. Here was a small chamber roofed with a dome made of a tough, unbreakable, and perfectly transparent substance, which had been specially prepared for the purpose. In the center of the room was a telescope. I took my place at the eyepiece, and began to scrutinize carefully Tycho’s walled plain which spread far to the east. Slowly I drew the objective lens along the crater’s northern wall. Sand, rocks, and boulders in the far distance became like things in the immediate foreground. Everything was as clear as crystal, for there was no fog or haze to obstruct my view.

  Presently something odd caught my eye. It was a big, black kopje or little hill of very peculiar form, which lay some little distance out in the valley. The sun was already shining on it, and I could see that it was highly polished, judging from the highlights that flashed from it. It was roughly square, and on each of its four sides, or rather on each of the three that I could see, was carved the head of some dreadful lunar monster. The mouths of the heads were widely distended. The queer block of black stone was crowned by a thin needle-like spire that rose all of two hundred feet above the rest of the structure.

  I searched Tycho’s floor with the telescope, rather hurriedly I admit, for the next five minutes or so; but I saw nothing more that was of interest. I came back to the rock of the Four Faces, and then called Professor Paxton, who was down below, packing away the specimens and relics he had collected.

  When he had stared into the eyepiece for thirty seconds, he was all aflutter. “Gosh, Jerry, this is something! Get into your space armor and then let’s pick up some supplies and be on our way quick!”