In the Beginning: Tales From the Pulp Era

  I had plenty of work to do this day.

  I knew it was a futile cause; Howard had as much chance of getting back to Earth as he did of riding a sled through a supernova and coming out uncooked. But I had promised him I’d see what I could do, and I was damned well going to try.

  First thing, I phoned the office of Transgalactic Spacelines, downtown in the plusher section of Salvor City. A Neopuritan gal appeared on the screen, her face painted chalk-white, her lips black, her eyes frowning in the zombie way considered so virtuous on Earth. She recognized me immediately, and I could almost hear the wheels in her brain grinding out the label: Sinful actor person.

  I said, “Good morning, sweetheart. Is Mr. Dudley in the office yet?”

  “Mr. Dudley is here,” she said in a voice as warm as stalactites and about as soft. “Do you have an appointment to talk to him?”

  “Do I need one?”

  “Mr. Dudley is very busy this morning.”

  “Look,” I said, “tell him Erik Smit wants to talk to him. That’s your job, and it’s sinful of you to try to act as a screen for him.” I saw the retort corning, and quickly added, “It’s also sinful to make nasty remarks to possible customers. Put Dudley on, will you?”

  Dudley was the manager of the local branch of the spaceline. I knew him well; he was a staunch Neopuritan with secret longings, and more than once he had crept into our theater in disguise to watch the show. I knew about it and kept quiet. I wondered what Miss Iceberg would say if she knew some of the things her boss had done—and some he would like to do, if he dared.

  The screen imploded swoopingly and Dudley appeared. He was a heavy-set man with pink ruddy cheeks; the Neopuritan pallor did not set well on him. “Good morning, Mr. Smit,” he said formally.

  “Morning, Walter. Can you give me some information?”

  “Maybe. What kind, Erik?”

  “Travel information. When’s the next scheduled Salvor-Earth voyage?”

  He frowned curiously. “The Oliver Cromwell’s booking in here on the First of Ninemonth—that’s next Twoday—and is pulling out on the Third. Why?”

  “Never mind that” I said. “Second-class fare to Earth is still five thousand credits, isn’t it?”

  “Yes, but—”

  “Do you have a vacancy on the Earthbound leg of the journey?”

  He said nothing for a moment: Then: “Yes, yes, we have some openings. But—this can’t be for you, Erik. You know the law. And—”

  “It isn’t for me,” I said. “It’s for Howard Brian. He wants to play Hamlet in New York.”

  A smile appeared on Dudley’s pudgy face. “He’s a little out of date for that, unless there’s been a revolution I haven’t heard about.”

  “He’s gone a little soft in the head. But he wants to die on Earth, and I’m going do my best to get him there. Five thousand credits, you say?” I paused. “Could I get him aboard that ship for seventy-five hundred?”

  Anger flickered momentarily in Dudley’s eyes as his Neopuritan streak came to life. Controlling himself, he said, “It’s pointless to offer bribes, Erik. I understand the problem, but there’s absolutely nothing you or I or anyone can do. Earth’s closed to anyone who signed the Amnesty of 2168.”

  “Eight thousand,” I said. “Eighty-five hundred.”

  “You don’t understand, Erik. Or you won’t understand. Look here: Howard would need an entrance visa to get onto Earth. No visa, no landing. You know that, I know that, he knows it. Sure, I could put him aboard that ship, if you could find a spaceport man who’d take a bribe—and I doubt that you could. But he’d never get off the ship at the other end.”

  “At least he’d be closer to Earth than he is now.”

  “It won’t work. You know what side I’m on personally, Erik. But it’s impossible to board a Transgalactic Line ship without proper papers, and Howard can’t ever get those papers. He can’t go back, Erik. Sorry.”

  I looked at the face framed in the screen and narrowly avoided bashing in the glass. It would only have netted me some bloody knuckles and a hundred credit repair bill, but I would have felt better about things. Instead I said, “You know, your own behavior hasn’t been strictly Neopuritan. I might write some notes—”

  It was a low blow, but he ducked. He looked sad as he said, “You couldn’t prove anything, Erik. And blackmail isn’t becoming on you.”

  He was right. “Okay, Walter. Hope I didn’t take up valuable time.”

  “Not at all. I only wish—”

  “I know. Drop around to the circus some time soon. Howard’s playing Lear. You’d better see it now, while you have the chance.”

  I blanked the screen.

  I sat on the edge of my hammock and cursed the fact that we’d all been born a century too late—or maybe too early. 21st Century Earth had been a glorious larking place, or so I had heard. Games and gaiety and champagne, no international tensions, no ulcers. But I had been born in the 22nd Century, when the boom came swinging back the other way. A reaction took place; people woke from a pleasant dream and turned real life into a straight-laced nightmare.

  Which was why we had chosen between going to prison, entering mundane professions, and accepting the new Neopuritan government’s free offer to take ourselves far from Earth and never come back. We’d been on Salvor thirty years now. The youngest of us was middle-aged. But makeup does wonders, and anyway the Salvori didn’t care if Romeo happened to be fifty-seven and slightly paunchy.

  I clenched my hands. I had been a wide-eyed kid when the Neopuritans lowered the boom, and I jumped at the chance to see the outworlds free. Now I was forty-nine, balding, a permanent exile. I vowed I was going to work like the deuce to help Howard Brian. It was a small rebellion, but a heartfelt one.

  I called my bank and had them flash my bankbook on the screen. It showed a balance of Cr. 13,586—not a devil of a lot for thirty years’ work. I scribbled a draft for six thousand in cash, dropped it in the similarizer plate, and waited. They verified, and moments later a nice wad of Interstellar Galactic Credits landed in the receiving slot.

  I got dressed in my Sevenday best, locked up the place, and caught a transport downtown to the spaceport terminal. As an Earthman, of course, I rode in the back of the transport, and stood.

  A coach was just leaving the terminal for the spaceport. By noon I found myself forty miles outside Salvor City, standing at the edge of the sprawling maze of buildings and landing-areas that is Salvor Spaceport. I hadn’t been out here since that day in 2168 when the liner John Calvin deposited me and eighty-seven other Terran actors, dancers, strippers, and miscellaneous deported sinners, and a bleak-faced official advised us to behave ourselves, for we were now subject to the laws of Salvor.

  I made my way through the confusing network of port buildings to the customs shed. My 6000-credit wad felt pleasantly thick in my pocket. Customs was crowded with aliens of various hues and shapes who were departing on a Mullinor-bound liner and who were getting a routine check-through. Since Mullinor is under Terran administration, not only were the Salvori officials running the check but a few black-uniformed employees of Transgalactic Spacelines were on hand as well. I picked out the least hostile-looking of those, and, palming a twenty-credit piece, sidled up to him.

  He was checking through the passports of the departing travelers. I tapped him on the shoulder and slipped the bright; round double stellar into his hand at the same time.

  “Pardon me, friend. Might I have a minute’s conversation with you in privacy?”

  He glanced at me with contempt in his Neopuritan eyes and handed me back the big coin. “I’ll be through with this job in fifteen minutes. Wait for me in Depot A, if there’s any information you want.”

  Now, it might have been that one of his superiors was watching, and that he didn’t want to be seen taking a gratuity in public. But I knew that was a mighty shaky theory for explaining his refusal. I didn’t have much hope, but I hied myself to Depot A and waited there for half an
hour.

  Finally he came along, walking briskly and whistling a hymn. He said, “Do you wish to see me?”

  “Yes.”

  I explained the whole thing: who I was and who Howard was, and why it was so important to let Howard get aboard the ship for Earth. I let him know that there would be two or three thousand credits in it for him if he arranged things so Howard Brian could board the Oliver Cromwell next Twoday. At least, I finished, he would die with Earth in sight, even though he might not be permitted to disembark.

  I stood there waiting hopefully for an answer and watched his already frosty gaze drop to about three degrees Kelvin. He said, “By the law, Mr. Smit, I should turn you in for attempting to bribe a customs official. But in your case justice should be tempered by mercy. I pity you. Please leave.”

  “Dammit, I’ll give you five thousand!”

  He smiled condescendingly. “Obviously you can’t see that my soul is not for sale—not for five thousand or five billion credits. The law prohibits allowing individuals without visas to board interstellar ships. I ask you to leave before I must report you.”

  I left. I saw I was making a head-first assault on a moral code which by its very nature was well-nigh impregnable, and all I was getting out of it was a headache.

  Bribery was no good. These people took a masochistic pride in their underpaid incorruptibility: I was forced back on my last resort.

  I went to see the Terran Consul. The legal above-board approach was my one slim hope.

  Archibald von Junzt McDermott was his name, and he was a tall and angular person clad entirely in black, with a bit of white lace at his throat. It was his duty to comfort, aid, and abet Terran citizens on Salvor. Of course, I was no longer a Terran citizen—that was part of the Amnesty too—but I was of Terran birth, at least.

  He wore the full Neopuritan makeup, bleached face, cropped hair, blackened lips; he hardly seemed like a comforting type to me. He sat stiffly erect behind his desk and let me squirm and fidget a while before he said, “You realize, of course, that such a request is impossible to grant. Utterly.”

  Quietly I said, “I’m asking for a relaxation of the rules on behalf of one very sick old man who will probably die of joy the moment Earth comes into sight, and who is guaranteed not to touch off a revolution, promote licentiousness, seduce maidens, or otherwise upset the aims and standards of Neopuritan Earth.”

  “There can be no relaxation of the rules,” Consul McDermott repeated stonily.

  “Can’t you look the other way once? Don’t you know what pity is, Consul?”

  “I know the meaning of the word well. I feel deep pity for you now, Mr. Smit. You have no spine. You are afraid to face the world as it is. You’re a weakling, Mr. Smit, and I offer you my pity.”

  “Damned decent of you,” I snorted. “You won’t grant Howard Brian a visa to Earth, then?”

  “Definitely not. We’re neither cruel nor vindictive, Mr. Smit. But the standards of society must be upheld. And I cannot find it within my heart to encourage immorality.”

  “Okay,” I said. I stood up and flashed a withering glare at him—a glare of pure hate that would have been a credit to the starchiest Neopuritan preacher in the universe.

  Then I turned and walked out.

  It was 1800 when I got back to my flat, and that left me an hour to relax before I had to get down to the theater to set things up for the 2030 performance. I got out of my stiff dress clothes and into my work outfit, and spent a little time on my forthcoming condensation of Medea while waiting for the hour to pass. I felt sour with defeat.

  The visiphone chime sounded. I activated the receiver and John Ludwig’s face appeared, half in makeup for his role of Gloucester.

  “What is it, Johnny?”

  “Erik, can you get right down to the theater? Howard’s had a sort of stroke. We’ll have to call off tonight’s performance.”

  “I’ll decide that,” I said. “I’ll be right down.”

  They had fixed up a rough sort of bed for him in the main dressing-room, and he was stretched out, looking pale and lean and lonely; gobbets of sweat stood out on his forehead. The whole company was standing around, plus a couple of tentacled Arcturan acrobats and the three Damooran hypnotists whose act follows our show each night.

  Ludwig said, “He got here early and started making up for Lear. Then he just seemed to cave in. He’s been asking for you, Erik.”

  I went over to him and took his cool wrist and said, “Howard? You hear me, Howard?”

  He didn’t open his eyes, but he said, “Well, how did it go? Did you book the trip for me?”

  I took a deep breath. I felt cold and miserable inside, and I glanced around at the tense ring of faces before I told the lie. “Yeah,” I said. “Sure, Howard. I fixed it all up. Leave it to old Erik. Everything’s fine.”

  A pathetic trusting childlike smile slowly blossomed on his face. I scowled and snapped to a couple of others, “Carry him into my office. Then get finished making up for tonight’s show.”

  Ludwig protested, “But Howard doesn’t have an understudy. How can we—”

  “Don’t worry,” I barked. “I’ll play Lear tonight, if Howard’s out.”

  I supervised as they carried Howard, bed and all, through the corridor into my office. Then, sweating nervously, I collared the three Damoorans and said, “Are you boys doing anything for the next half hour or so?”

  “We’re free,” they said in unison. They looked like a trio of tall, red, flashy animated corkscrews with bulbous eyes in their forehead. They weren’t pretty, but they were masters of their trade and fine showmen. They hung around Goznor’s Circus all the time, even when they weren’t on.

  I explained very carefully to them just what I wanted them to do. It was an idea I’d held in reserve, in case all else failed. They were dubious, but liberal application of platinum double stellar coins persuaded them to give in. They vanished into my office and shut the door behind them. While I was waiting, I found Howard’s makeup kit and started turning myself into King Lear.

  Perhaps fifteen minutes later the Damoorans filed out again, and nodded to me. “You had better go in there, now. He’s on Earth. It was a very good trip.”

  I tiptoed into the office. Howard lay sprawled on the bed, eyes screwed tight shut, mouth moving slowly. His skin was a frightening waxy white. I put an ear near his lips to hear what he was mumbling.

  “I cannot live to hear the news from England,

  But I do prophesy the election lights

  On Fortinbras; he has my dying voice:

  So tell him, with the occurents, more and less,

  Which have solicited—the rest is silence.”

  My mind filled in the stage direction: Dies. Act Five, Scene Two. Hamlet’s last speech.

  Bravo, I thought. I looked down at Howard Brian. His voice had ceased, and his throat was still. His part was played. Howard Brian had acted Hamlet at last, and it was his finest moment on Broadway.

  He was smiling even in death.

  The Damoorans had done their job well. For thirty years I had watched them perform, and I had faith in their illusion-creating ability. Howard had probably lived months in these last fifteen minutes. The long journey to Earth, the tickertape parade down Fifth Avenue, the thronged opening-night house, deafening applause. Certainly the Damoorans had manufactured good notices for him in the late editions.

  Anyway, it was over. Howard Brian had cheated them after all. He had returned to Earth for his swansong performance.

  I shook a little as I left the office and shut the door behind me. The on-stage bell sounded. I heard Kent and Gloucester begin their scene.

  I went out there as Lear and maybe I did a good job. The cast told me later that I did, and the Salvori loved it. It didn’t matter. Howard would have wanted the show to go on.

  But I couldn’t help thinking, during the solemn aftershow moments when they carried Howard out, that my turn was coming. You can’t go back to Earth; but somed
ay in the next twenty years I was going to want to go back with all my heart, as Howard had wanted. The thought worried me. I only hoped there’d be a few Damoorans around, when my time came.

  SECOND START

  (1959)

  Here’s a story written in July, 1958 and published in the February, 1959 issue of Super-Science Fiction that is the most interesting rediscovery I made while choosing material for this collection.

  As usual, W.W. Scott retitled it for publication—he called it “Re-Conditioned Human.” But when I leafed through the magazine, I needed to read only the first paragraph to realize what I had stumbled upon:

  “The name they gave me at the Rehabilitation Center was Paul Macy. It was as good as any other, I guess. The name I was born with was Nat Hamlin, but when you become a Rehab you have to give up your name.”

  Paul Macy, who was called Nat Hamlin before being sentenced to rehabilitation for his crimes, is the protagonist of a novel of mine called The Second Trip, which was first published in 1972. I wrote it in November, 1970, one of the strongest periods of my writing career. The Second Trip is one of my best books. (The novel just preceding it was the Nebula-winning A Time of Changes; the one just after it was The Book of Skulls.) I rarely re-read my own books, but I happened to read The Second Trip a few months ago, in connection with a new edition, for the first time in more than three decades. Coming to it after so many years, I had forgotten most of its details and I was able to read it almost as an outsider, caught up in the narrative as though encountering it for the first time. I have to tell you that I was quite impressed.

  Another thing that I had forgotten over the years, it seems, is that back there in 1970 I had based The Second Trip on an earlier story, already twelve years old, that I had written one busy morning for Super-Science Fiction. Not only had I forgotten that The Second Trip had grown out of the earlier story, I had entirely forgotten the whole existence of the earlier story itself, and great was my astonishment when I encountered Paul Macy/Nat Hamlin in that 1959 magazine.