Cloak of Aesir

Book 37: Gateway Essentials

by John W. Campbell

Genres: Science Fiction; Sci-fi Action & Adventure; Space Opera

Synopsis

This collection contains 7 astounding journeys into tomorrow by John W. Campbell including: Forgetfulness The Escape The Machine The Invaders Rebellion Out of Night Cloak of Aesir Seven fantastic tales from one of the most highly regarded authors in science fiction.

Release date: September 29, 2011

Publisher: Gateway

Print pages: 250

Sample

by Isaac Asimov

There were three John Campbells, one after the other, with virtually no overlap. I met him at very nearly the junction point of John II and John III.

John I was the writer of the superscience epic, the competitor of E. E. Smith. He was the epitome of science fiction of 1930 and there was none better at what he did. E. E. Smith might be his equal but certainly not clearly his better.

But John I tired of this and looked for a new world to conquer. He found one by bringing science fiction down to man. He began to write stories that sang the drama of the human being. To avoid confusing the reader who associated the byline “John W. Campbell, Jr.” with the superscience epic, he used a version of his then-wife’s maiden name and wrote as Don A. Stuart. Under that name he was John II, the epitome of science fiction of 1936. The stories in this book were written by John II.

And again there was none better at what he did. Several might be his equals but none were clearly his betters.

Then in 1938, having written for a decade and having won top honors in two fields under two names, he placed his typewriter to one side and became John III, the editor of Astounding. In fact, he became the editor. He utterly revolutionized science fiction and launched the Golden Age of the early 1940s. He was no longer a writer but through the men he discovered and developed he became dozens of writers.

As John III there was none better at what he did and here, at least, there was no dispute. He had no equal, no near-equal, no far-equal, no semi-equal. He stood alone.

But it did mean that there was no more fiction and what he had written in the 1930s was all that we would have. It wasn’t much; it certainly wasn’t enough; but it exists and it has a vigor that bespeaks the man.

John was a large man; large in body, in mind, and in spirit. He towered physically, but to know him and to listen to him was to be virtually overpowered by a more-than-physical towering. He was an endless man, never at a loss for ideas.

Certain key ideas were for him at the base of all else.

For instance, he believed firmly in the uses of adversity. If man had it too easy, he would degenerate. He needed to struggle if he was to get anywhere and even the worst disasters were valuable if they could only weed out the weak and give the strong the incentive to move upward again.

Over and over again, his stories preached the spectacle of man degenerating through prosperity, hardening again through disaster, and then successfully climbing out of the abyss and toward greater heights than before.

It was a glowing dream, an optimistic dream in some ways, and yet his vision did not match reality. He saw man as a stubborn, unending fighter who would die to the last individual rather than surrender. There are enough Thermopylaes and Stalingrads in man’s history to lend color to that idea; but it is by no means universal. Quick surrenders are far more the rule in man’s history than the exception.

Again, so exalted was his notion of the value of the male sex that in “Out of Night” he could have someone say “so many women would die defending their men that none would survive” even though history does not record one case that I can think of in which women rebelled massively to save their men from destruction.

John was an incorrigible romantic, you see. He did not see mankind the way it is, but the way it ought to be by his lights. He had a vision of mankind rising superior to all else in the Universe, defeating all other beings even when the odds were enormously against it. He saw mankind as towering superior, at last, even to the laws of the Universe.

But he saw mankind in his own special way. His vision of mankind was that of an ideal man, not an ideal woman. And this ideal man representing mankind was clearly in the mold of the ideal American; and the ideal white American of northwest European origin, too.

John’s heroes were large, blonde and blue-eyed—as, in fact, was John Campbell himself.

That is the secret I think to his world-view. John was not really anti-this or anti-that, he simply accepted it as a matter-of-fact truth that what was worthwhile in the world and in mankind was very much what he felt inside himself.

He was wrong, of course, for there is more to mankind and the Universe than can be contained even within the ample bosom of a John Campbell—but his misconception had its uses.

He took it for granted, you see, that those who wrote for him were necessarily like himself; that they were as endlessly energetic, capable and versatile as he himself was. By acting as though they were and expecting them to behave as if they were, he ended by forcing them to be more energetic, capable and versatile than they would have been had they been left to themselves. No man wrote for Campbell without writing over his own head by the time he became publishable. Sometimes Campbell’s writers learned how to write over their heads even when Campbell wasn’t there guiding them.

The stories included in this book can be read with pleasure for their own sake. But aside from that, if you’ve never met John Campbell and wish you had—here’s your chance—for John never hid behind his writing. He is present in every paragraph of what he wrote; in what his characters say, what they do, what they are.

But even so, those of us who really knew him, must sigh, for it is not enough. Take him for all in all, we in science fiction shall not look upon his like again.

Isaac Asimov

This second volume of “Don A. Stuart” stories contains several of my own personal favorites, and several first-rank “Yes? Well let’s see now….” yarns that I thoroughly enjoyed doing.

Under my own name, I had been writing a good bit of science-fiction for a number of years—following the traditions of the field—and simply expressing my own ideas of what would be fun, but still within the “classical” tradition of science-fiction. The straightforward science-fiction story of the time “proved” the wonderfulness of super-science, the super-machine, the straight-ahead progress of Man; and it assumed, as a matter of course, that thus, and only thus, would man progress.

Originally, the stories The Machine, The Invaders and Rebellion were written as a series, titled The Teachers. Part One was the Machine—which taught laziness. Now this was not entirely according to the rules of science-fiction; this was saying that too darned good a machine can be a menace, not a help. The second “Teacher” was the Invaders—which was also slightly askew on the then standard line of science-fiction. The Invaders aren’t supposed to be a desirable proposition at all; they’re the ones that everyone has to fight to the last man. Only, under the circumstances, the Invaders were the remaking of Man.

Rebellion, originally thought of as The Teachers, Part Three, The Rebels, returned to the fold, in essence. While the Invaders were teaching Man what he had forgotten, Man was busily teaching the Invaders precisely the same lesson the Machine had taught Man. But with slightly different consequences!

Again, The Escape is, quite forthrightly, in flat contradiction of science-fiction tradition, and also in flat contradiction of fiction tradition. I had an argument with a fellow author before that one was written, a man who did not write science-fiction at all. He wrote love stories. Now science-fiction, by tradition, doesn’t include much in the way of love-interest, or love stories, wherefore a story based on the love motif in science-fiction is not according to standard performance. But here we have a nice, “I Love You Truly” piece, about Young Love vs. Fate (in the persona of the Genetics Board) and the fun of considering whether the course of True Love ran smoothly or didn’t it, and if it didn’t does it matter? Not cricket, doncha know—but fun.

And Forgetfulness was another piece particularly calculated to be The Wrong Answer type of story for science-fictioneers. The theme of the mighty civilization grown decadent is not new in the field. The particular devices of proving that Rhth had developed a mighty civilization are, necessarily, conventional science-fiction. Interstellar travel; immense cities built of perdurable and beautiful materials; automatic machines that wait ten million years and still respond faithfully. These are symbols; these must be conventional because a symbol is without effect unless it is conventional. The science-fiction interest in these things is a real and genuine one; it’s based solidly in Man’s deep instinct to build, build wide and great and enduringly.

And Forgetfulness is quite an unfair story. Definitely the wrong answer. Children have such a time getting adults to be sensible.

As a matter of fact, in many of the Don A. Stuart stories, there is the element of a dirty, underhanded crack at the pretensions of science-fiction—dressed in the most accepted terms of science-fiction. For no literature is sound, no philosophy of action workable, if it doesn’t take a hard look at itself, and consider whether the Eternal Fitness of Things isn’t getting a little tight across the shoulders and whether the trouble is not that the athletic chest of yesteryear hasn’t slipped six inches down and become something different.

Science-fiction can be, and by rights should be, a thoroughly philosophical literature. While most people tend to think of it as being Jules Verne and H. G. Wells up-to-date, perhaps we might better remember that the tradition goes back earlier to Gulliver’s Travels and even to Aesop’s Fables. Aesop, of necessity, talked to his contemporaries in terms of Foxes and Lions and Donkeys; in our more enlightened age we call those same characters Robots and Martians or Sarn. But they’re still the same people: human beings in fancy dress, because the reader-listener can more easily, more psychologically-comfortably, witness the errors of the ways of those silly non-human entities. In this age, which has somewhat deified the machine, it’s much easier to accept the Machine that answers all prayers, and consider the consequences. But, after all, wouldn’t the same consequence stem from the existence of any all-answering Being? There’s nothing quite so stultifying as having someone around who has all the answers—and gives them to you.

And it’s always handy to set up someone like the Sarn Mother. Make her six thousand years old, emotionally remote from her own kind by time, intellectually akin to any intellect. Let her look at two conflicting cultures, and see each dispassionately for what it is.

“Don A. Stuart” was an uncomfortable sort of fellow for the dyed-in-the-wool, straight science-fictioneer. But the vistas that opened up when you started looking at the other side of the coin—considering whether an accepted tenet of The Eternal Fitness of Things really did fit—made for a lot more fun. And actually, science-fiction is the ideal medium for doing that sort of examining. It’s so much easier to recognize the foolishness of the fanatical fights of the Lilliputians over Big-Endianism and Little-Endianism than to consider some of our own political squabbles.

And science-fiction, by permitting the arbitrary establishment of a solution to today’s problems, can divert our thinking for a moment to larger issues beyond. Our present problems always seem so important today, and so simply solved when they’ve become yesterday’s problems. The problem of Napoleon and his Grand Army seems so picayune by comparison with the problem of Stalin’s multi-million man army equipped with tanks and atomic bombs. It’s so evident that that vast military power is the great problem we must solve today—

But is it? Isn’t it, rather, a quite different problem that, in 2151 A.D., will be foolishly obvious? For instance the real problem isn’t Stalin’s army, but Stalin’s….

But that’s another science-fiction story.

John W. Campbell, Jr.

Mountainside, N. J.

September, 1951

Ron Thule, the astronomer, stood in the lock gate and looked down across the sweep of gently rolling land. Slowly, he breathed in the strange, tangy odors of this planet. There was something of a vast triumph in his eyes, and something of sorrow. They had been here now scarcely five hours, and the sun was still low in the east, rising slowly. Out beyond, above the western horizon, a pale ghost of the strange twin world of this planet, less than a third of a million miles distant, seemed a faint, luminous cloud in the deep, serene blue of the sky.

It was triumph, for six long years of travel, at a speed close to that of light, lay behind them; three and a half light years distant was Pareeth, and the crowding people who had built and launched the mighty two-thousand-five-hundred foot interstellar cruiser that had brought this little band of one hundred. Launched in hope and striving, seeking a new sun with new planets, new worlds to colonize. More than that, even, for this new-found planet was a stepping-stone to other infinities beyond. Ten years of unbroken travel was the maximum any ship they could build would endure. They had found a planet; in fact, nine planets. Now, the range they might explore for new worlds was extended by four light years.

And there was sorrow there, too, for there was a race here now. Ron Thule turned his eyes toward the little clustering village nestled in the swale of the hills, a village of simple, rounded domes of some opalescent, glassy material. A score of them straggled irregularly among the mighty, deep-green trees that shaded them from the morning sun, twenty-foot domes of pearl and rose and blue. The deep green of the trees and the soft green of the mosslike grass that covered all the low, rounded hills made it very beautiful; the sparkling colors of the little gardens about the domes gave it further enchantment. It was a lovely spot, a spot where spacewearied, interstellar wanderers might rest in delight.

Such it was. There was a race on this planet the men of Pareeth had found after six long years of space, six years of purring, humming atomic engines and echoing gray, steel fabric that carried and protected them. Harsh utility of giant girders and rubbery flooring, the snoring drone of forty quadrillion horse power of atomic engines. It was replaced now by the soft coolness of the grassy land; the curving steel of the girders gave way to the brown of arching trees; the stern ceiling of steel plates gave way to the vast, blue arch of a planet’s atmosphere. Sounds died away in infinitudes where there was no steel to echo them back; the unending drone of the mighty engines had become breezes stirring, rustling leaves—an invitation to rest.

The race that lived here had long since found it such, it seemed. Ron Thule looked across the little village of domes to the largest of them, perhaps thirty feet across. Commander Shor Nun was there with his archaeologist and anthropologist, and half-a-score of the men of this planet. Rhth, they called it.

The conference was breaking up now. Shor Nun appeared, tall and powerful, his muscular figure in trim Interstellar Expedition uniform of utilitarian, silvery gray. Behind him came the other two in uniform—young, powerful men of Pareeth, selected for this expedition because of physical and mental perfection, as was every man of them.

Then came Seun, the man of Rhth. He was taller, slimmer, an almost willowy figure. His lean body was clothed in an elastic, close-fitting suit of golden stuff, while over his shoulders a glowing, magnificently shimmering cape of rich blue was thrown. Five more of these men came out, each in a golden suit, but the draped capes glowed in deep reds, and rich greens, blues and violets. They walked leisurely beside the men of Pareeth. An unconscious force made those trimly uniformed men walk in step between the great, arching trees.

They came near, and Shor Nun called out, “Is the expedition ready?”

From the forward lock, Toth Mour replied, “Aye, commander. Twenty-two men. What do these people say?”

Shor Nun shook his head slightly. “That we may look as we wish. The city is deserted. I cannot understand them. What arrangements have you made?”

“The men you mentioned are coming. Each head of department, save Ron Thule. There will be no work for the astronomer.”

“I will come, Shor Nun,” called out the astronomer, softly. “I can sketch; I would be interested.”

“Well enough, as you like. Toth Mour, call the men into formation; we will start at once. The day varies in length, but is some thirteen hours long at this season, I am told.”

Ron Thule leaped down to the soft turf and walked over toward the group. Seun looked at him slowly and smiled The man of Rhth looked taller from this distance, nearly six and a third feet in height His face was tanned to a golden color that came near to matching the gold of his clothing. His eyes were blue and very deep. They seemed uncertain—a little puzzled, curious about these men, curious about the vast, gray bulk that had settled like a grim shadow over the low hill. Half a mile in length, four hundred feet in diameter, it loomed nearly as large as the age-old, eroded hills it had berthed on. He ran a slim-fingered hand through the glinting golden hair that curled in unruly locks above a broad, smooth brow.

“There is something for an astronomer in all this world, I think.” He smiled at Ron Thule. “Are not climate and soils and atmospheres the province of astronomy, too?”

“The chemists know it better,” Ron Thule replied, and wondered slightly at his replying. He knew that the man of Rhth had not spoken, simply that the thought had come to be in his mind. “Each will have his special work, save for me. I will look at the city. They will look at the buildings and girders and the carvings or mechanisms, as is their choice. I will look at the city.”

Uneasily, he moved away from the group, started alone across the field. Uneasiness settled on him when he was near this Seun, this descendant of a race that had been great ten millions of years before his own first sprang from the swamps. Cheated heir to a glory five million years lost.

The low, green roll of the hill fell behind him as he climbed the grassy flank. Very slowly before his eyes, the city lifted into view. Where the swelling curve of the hill faded softly into the infinite blue of the sky, first one little point, then a score, then hundreds appeared, as he walked up the crest—the city.

Then he stood on the crest. The city towered before him, five miles away across the gently rolling green swale. Titan city of a Titan race! The towers glowed with a sun-fired opalescence in the golden light of the sun. How long, great gods of this strange world, how long had they stood thus? Three thousand feet they rose from the level of age-sifted soil at their bases, three thousand feet of mighty mass, stupendous buildings of the giants long dead.

The strange little man from a strange little world circling a dim, forgotten star looked up at them, and they did not know, or care. He walked toward them, watched them climb into the blue of the sky. He crossed the broad green of the land, and they grew in their uncaring majesty.

Sheer, colossal mass, immeasurable weights and loading they were—and they seemed to float there on the grace of a line and a curve, half in the deep blue of the sky, half touching the warm, bright green of the land. They floated still on the strength of a dream dreamed by a man dead these millions of years. A brain had dreamed in terms of lines and curves and sweeping planes, and the brain had built in terms of opal crystal and vast masses. The mortal mind was buried under unknown ages, but an immortal idea had swept life into the dead masses it molded—they lived and floated still on the memory of a mighty glory. The glory of the race—

The race that lived in twenty-foot, rounded domes.

The astronomer turned. Hidden now by the rise of the verdant land was one of the villages that race built today. Low, rounded things, built, perhaps, of this same, strange, gleaming crystal, a secret half-remembered from a day that must have been—

The city flamed before him. Across ten—or was it twenty—thousand millenniums, the thought of the builders reached to this man of another race. A builder who thought and dreamed of a mighty future, marching on, on forever in the aisles of time. He must have looked from some high, wind-swept balcony of the city to a star-sprinkled sky—and seen the argosies of space: mighty treasure ships that swept back to this remembered home, coming in from the legion worlds of space, from far stars and unknown, clustered suns; Titan ships, burdened with strange cargoes of unguessed things.

And the city peopled itself before him; the skies, stirred in a moment’s flash. It was the day of Rhth’s glory then! Mile-long ships hovered in the blue, settling slow, slow, home from worlds they’d circled. Familiar sights, familiar sounds, greeting their men again. Flashing darts of silver that twisted through mazes of the upper air, the soft, vast music of the mighty city. The builder lived, and looked out across his dream—

But perhaps, from his height in the looming towers he could see across the swelling ground to the low, rounded domes of his people, his far descendants seeking the friendly shelter of the shading trees—

Ron Thule stood among the buildings of the city. He trod a pavement of soft, green moss, and looked behind to the swell of the land. The wind had laid this pavement. The moving air was the only force that maintained the city’s walks. A thousand thousand years it has swept its gatherings across the plain, and deposited them as an offering at the base of these calm towers. The land had built up slowly, age on age, till it was five hundred feet higher than the land the builder had seen.

But his dream was too well built for time to melt away. Slowly time was burying it, even as long since, time had buried him. The towers took no notice. They dreamed up to the blue of the skies and waited. They were patient; they had waited now a million, or was it ten million years? Some day, some year, the builders must return, dropping in their remembered argosies from the far, dim reaches of space, as they had once these ages gone. The towers waited; they were faithful to their trust. They had their memories, memories of a mighty age, when giants walked and worlds beyond the stars paid tribute to the city. Their builders would come again. Till then, naught bothered them in their silence.

But where the soft rains of a hundred thousand generations had drained from them, their infinite endurance softened to its gentle touch. Etched channels and rounded gutters, the mighty carvings dimming, rounding, their powerful feature. . .