Golden Age of Science Fiction Vol X Read online

  Golden Age of Science Fiction Vol X

  Various

  Halcyon Press Ltd. (2010)

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  Product Description

  This Halcyon Classics ebook collection contains fifty science fiction short stories and novellas by more than forty different authors. Most of the stories in this collection were published during the heyday of popular science fiction magazines from the 1930s to the 1960s.

  Included within this work are stories by H. Beam Piper, Murray Leinster, Mack Reynolds, Randall Garrett, Robert Sheckley, Stanley Weinbaum, Alan Nourse, Phillip K. Dick, Frederik Pohl, Clifford D. Simak, Raymond Z. Gallun, Andre Norton, and many others.

  This collection is DRM free and includes an active table of contents for easy navigation.

  Contents:

  THE RECORD OF CURRUPIRA

  By Robert Abernathy

  THE DRAW

  By Jerome Bixby

  CONTROL GROUP

  By Roger Dee

  THE EEL

  By Miriam Allen DeFord

  BADGE OF INFAMY

  By Lester del Rey

  SECOND VARIETY

  By Philip K. Dick

  OUT OF THE EARTH

  By George Edrich

  THE VERY BLACK

  By Dean Evans

  THE WEDGE

  By H. B. Fyfe

  THE PLANET STRAPPERS

  By Raymond Z. Gallun

  HAIL TO THE CHIEF

  By Randall Garrett

  THIN EDGE

  By Randall Garrett

  SPACE PRISON

  By Tom Godwin

  THE TERRIBLE ANSWER

  By Arthur G. Hill

  THE WOMAN-STEALERS OF THRAYX

  By Fox B. Holden

  THE DAY OF THE DOG

  By Andersen Horne

  ADVANCED CHEMISTRY

  By Jack G. Huekels

  FIELD TRIP

  By Gene Hunter

  THE SHINING COW

  By Alex James

  ROUGH TRANSLATION

  By Jean M. Janis

  JOHN JONES'S DOLLAR

  By Harry Stephen Keeler

  SECURITY

  By Ernest M. Kenyon

  THE MAD PLANET

  by Murray Leinster

  THE THIEF OF TIME

  By S. P. Meek

  REEL LIFE FILMS

  By Sam Merwin

  SONG IN A MINOR KEY

  By C. L. Moore

  STAR HUNTER

  By Andre Norton

  CONTAMINATION CREW

  By Alan E. Nourse

  DERELICT

  By Alan E. Nourse

  ALL DAY WEDNESDAY

  By Richard Olin

  THE HAPPY MAN

  By Gerald W. Page

  OOMPHEL IN THE SKY

  By H. Beam Piper

  OPERATION R.S.V.P.

  By H. Beam Piper

  THE TUNNEL UNDER THE WORLD

  By Frederik Pohl

  SUMMIT

  By Mack Reynolds

  LION LOOSE

  By James H. Schmitz

  DIPLOMATIC IMMUNITY

  By Robert Sheckley

  THE WORLD THAT COULDN'T BE

  By Clifford D. Simak

  TELEMPATHY

  By Vance Simonds

  LOOT OF THE VOID

  By Edwin K. Sloat

  COLLECTOR'S ITEM

  By Evelyn E. Smith

  PERFECT CONTROL

  By Richard Stockham

  SOLAR STIFF

  By Chas. A. Stopher

  MAN MADE

  By Albert R. Teichner

  PLEASANT JOURNEY

  By Richard F. Thieme

  THERE WILL BE SCHOOL TOMORROW

  By V. E. Thiessen

  THE POINT OF VIEW

  By Stanley G. Weinbaum

  ROBOTS OF THE WORLD! ARISE!

  By Mari Wolf

  THE TERRIBLE TENTACLES OF L-472

  By Sewell Peaslee Wright

  MEMBERSHIP DRIVE

  By Murray F. Yaco

  Halcyon Classics Series

  THE GOLDEN AGE OF SCIENCE FICTION VOLUME X:

  AN ANTHOLOGY OF 50 SHORT STORIES

  Contents

  THE RECORD OF CURRUPIRA

  By Robert Abernathy

  THE DRAW

  By Jerome Bixby

  CONTROL GROUP

  By Roger Dee

  THE EEL

  By Miriam Allen DeFord

  BADGE OF INFAMY

  By Lester del Rey

  SECOND VARIETY

  By Philip K. Dick

  OUT OF THE EARTH

  By George Edrich

  THE VERY BLACK

  By Dean Evans

  THE WEDGE

  By H. B. Fyfe

  THE PLANET STRAPPERS

  By Raymond Z. Gallun

  HAIL TO THE CHIEF

  By Randall Garrett

  THIN EDGE

  By Randall Garrett

  SPACE PRISON

  By Tom Godwin

  THE TERRIBLE ANSWER

  By Arthur G. Hill

  THE WOMAN-STEALERS OF THRAYX

  By Fox B. Holden

  THE DAY OF THE DOG

  By Andersen Horne

  ADVANCED CHEMISTRY

  By Jack G. Huekels

  FIELD TRIP

  By Gene Hunter

  THE SHINING COW

  By Alex James

  ROUGH TRANSLATION

  By Jean M. Janis

  JOHN JONES'S DOLLAR

  By Harry Stephen Keeler

  SECURITY

  By Ernest M. Kenyon

  THE MAD PLANET

  by Murray Leinster

  THE THIEF OF TIME

  By S. P. Meek

  REEL LIFE FILMS

  By Sam Merwin

  SONG IN A MINOR KEY

  By C. L. Moore

  STAR HUNTER

  By Andre Norton

  CONTAMINATION CREW

  By Alan E. Nourse

  DERELICT

  By Alan E. Nourse

  ALL DAY WEDNESDAY

  By Richard Olin

  THE HAPPY MAN

  By Gerald W. Page

  OOMPHEL IN THE SKY

  By H. Beam Piper

  OPERATION R.S.V.P.

  By H. Beam Piper

  THE TUNNEL UNDER THE WORLD

  By Frederik Pohl

  SUMMIT

  By Mack Reynolds

  LION LOOSE

  By James H. Schmitz

  DIPLOMATIC IMMUNITY

  By Robert Sheckley

  THE WORLD THAT COULDN'T BE

  By Clifford D. Simak

  TELEMPATHY

  By Vance Simonds

  LOOT OF THE VOID

  By Edwin K. Sloat

  COLLECTOR'S ITEM

  By Evelyn E. Smith

  PERFECT CONTROL

  By Richard Stockham

  SOLAR STIFF

  By Chas. A. Stopher

  MAN MADE

  By Albert R. Teichner

  PLEASANT JOURNEY

  By Richard F. Thieme

  THERE WILL BE SCHOOL TOMORROW

  By V. E. Thiessen

  THE POINT OF VIEW

  By Stanley G. Weinbaum

  ROBOTS OF THE WORLD! ARISE!

  By Mari Wolf

  THE TERRIBLE TENTACLES OF L-472

  By Sewell Peaslee Wright

  MEMBERSHIP DRIVE

  By Murray F. Yaco

  * * *

  Contents

  THE RECORD OF CURRUPIRA

  By Robert Abernathy

  From ancient Martian records came the grim song of a creature whose very existence was long forgotten.

 
; James Dalton strode briskly through the main exhibit room of New York's Martian Museum, hardly glancing to right or left though many displays had been added since his last visit. The rockets were coming home regularly now and their most valuable cargoes--at least from a scientist's point of view--were the relics of an alien civilization brought to light by the archeologists excavating the great dead cities.

  One new exhibit did catch Dalton's eye. He paused to read the label with interest--

  MAN FROM MARS:

  The body here preserved was found December 12, 2001, by an exploring party from the spaceship NEVADA, in the Martian city which we designate E-3. It rested in a case much like this, in a building that had evidently been the municipal museum. Around it, in other cases likewise undisturbed since a period estimated at fifty thousand years ago, were a number of Earthly artifacts. These finds prove beyond doubt that a Martian scientific expedition visited Earth before the dawn of our history.

  On the label someone had painstakingly copied the Martian glyphs found on the mummy's original case. Dalton's eyes traced the looping ornamental script--he was one of the very few men who had put in the years of work necessary to read inscriptional Martian--and he smiled appreciation of a jest that had taken fifty thousand years to ripen--the writing said simply, Man From Earth.

  The mummy lying on a sculptured catafalque beyond the glass was amazingly well preserved--far more lifelike and immensely older than anything Egypt had yielded. Long-dead Martian embalmers had done a good job even on what to them was the corpse of an other-world monster.

  He had been a small wiry man. His skin was dark though its color might have been affected by mummification. His features suggested those of the Forest Indian. Beside him lay his flaked-stone ax, his bone-pointed spear and spear thrower, likewise preserved by a marvelous chemistry.

  Looking down at that ancient nameless ancestor, Dalton was moved to solemn thoughts. This creature had been first of all human-kind to make the tremendous crossing to Mars--had seen its lost race in living glory, had died there and became a museum exhibit for the multiple eyes of wise grey spiderish aliens.

  "Interested in Oswald, sir?"

  Dalton glanced up and saw an attendant. "I was just thinking--if he could only talk! He does have a name, then?"

  The guard grinned. "Well, we call him Oswald. Sort of inconvenient, not having a name. When I worked at the Metropolitan we used to call all the Pharaohs and Assyrian kings by their first names."

  Dalton mentally classified another example of the deep human need for verbal handles to lift unwieldy chunks of environment. The professional thought recalled him to business and he glanced at his watch.

  "I'm supposed to meet Dr. Oliver Thwaite here this morning. Has he come in yet?"

  "The archeologist? He's here early and late when he's on Earth. He'll be up in the cataloguing department now. Want me to show you--"

  "I know the way," said Dalton. "Thanks all the same." He left the elevator at the fourth floor and impatiently pushed open the main cataloguing room's glazed door.

  Inside cabinets and broad tables bore a wilderness of strange artifacts, many still crusted with red Martian sand. Alone in the room a trim-mustached man in a rough open-throated shirt looked up from an object he had been cleaning with a soft brush.

  "Dr. Thwaite? I'm Jim Dalton."

  "Glad to meet you, Professor." Thwaite carefully laid down his work, then rose to grip the visitor's hand. "You didn't lose any time."

  "After you called last night I managed to get a seat on the dawn-rocket out of Chicago. I hope I'm not interrupting?"

  "Not at all. I've got some assistants coming in around nine. I was just going over some stuff I don't like to trust to their thumb-fingered mercies."

  Dalton looked down at the thing the archeologist had been brushing. It was a reed syrinx, the Pan's pipes of antiquity. "That's not a very Martian-looking specimen," he commented.

  "The Martians, not having any lips, could hardly have had much use for it," said Thwaite. "This is of Earthly manufacture--one of the Martians' specimens from Earth, kept intact over all this time by a preservative I wish we knew how to make. It's a nice find, man's earliest known musical instrument--hardly as interesting as the record though."

  Dalton's eyes brightened. "Have you listened to the record yet?"

  "No. We got the machine working last night and ran off some of the Martian stuff. Clear as a bell. But I saved the main attraction for when you got here." Thwaite turned to a side door, fishing a key from his pocket. "The playback machine's in here."

  The apparatus, squatting on a sturdy table in the small room beyond, had the slightly haywire look of an experimental model. But it was little short of a miracle to those who knew how it had been built--on the basis of radioed descriptions of the ruined device the excavators had dug up on Mars.

  Even more intriguing, however, was the row of neatly labeled boxes on a shelf. There in cushioned nests reposed little cylinders of age-tarnished metal, on which a close observer could still trace the faint engraved lines and whorls of Martian script. These were the best-preserved specimens yet found of Martian record films.

  Sound and pictures were on them, impressed there by a triumphant science so long ago that the code of Hammurabi or the hieroglyphs of Khufu seemed by comparison like yesterday's newspaper. Men of Earth were ready now to evoke these ancient voices--but to reproduce the stereoscopic images was still beyond human technology.

  Dalton scrutinized one label intently. "Odd," he said. "I realize how much the Martian archives may have to offer us when we master their spoken language--but I still want most to hear this record, the one the Martians made right here on Earth."

  Thwaite nodded comprehendingly. "The human race is a good deal like an amnesia patient that wakes up at the age of forty and finds himself with a fairly prosperous business, a wife and children and a mortgage, but no recollection of his youth or infancy--and nobody around to tell him how he got where he is.

  "We invented writing so doggone late in the game. Now we get to Mars and find the people there knew us before we knew ourselves--but they died or maybe picked up and went, leaving just this behind." He used both hands to lift the precious gray cylinder from its box. "And of course you linguists in particular get a big charge out of this discovery."

  "If it's a record of human speech it'll be the oldest ever found. It may do for comparative-historical linguistics what the Rosetta Stone did for Egyptology." Dalton grinned boyishly. "Some of us even nurse the hope it may do something for our old headache--the problem of the origin of language. That was one of the most important, maybe the most important step in human progress--and we don't know how or when or why!"

  "I've heard of the bowwow theory and the dingdong theory," said Thwaite, his hands busy with the machine.

  "Pure speculations. The plain fact is we haven't even been able to make an informed guess because the evidence, the written records, only run back about six thousand years. That racial amnesia you spoke of.

  "Personally, I have a weakness for the magical theory--that man invented language in the search for magic formulae, words of power. Unlike the other theories, that one assumes as the motive force not merely passive imitativeness but an outgoing will.

  "Even the speechless subman must have observed that he could affect the behavior of animals of his own and other species by making appropriate noises--a mating call or a terrifying shout, for instance. Hence the perennial conviction you can get what you want if you just hold your mouth right, and you know the proper prayers or curses."

  "A logical conclusion from the animistic viewpoint," said Thwaite. He frowned over the delicate task of starting the film, inquired offhandedly, "You got the photostat of the label inscription? What did you make of it?"

  "Not much more than Henderson did on Mars. There's the date of the recording and the place--the longitude doesn't mean anything to us because we still don't know where the Martians fixed their zero meridian. But it was nea
r the equator and, the text indicates, in a tropical forest--probably in Africa or South America.

  "Then there's the sentence Henderson couldn't make out. It's obscure and rather badly defaced, but it's evidently a comment--unfavorable--on the subject-matter of the recording. In it appears twice a sort of interjection-adverb that in other contexts implies revulsion--something like ugh!"

  "Funny. Looks like the Martians saw something on Earth they didn't like. Too bad we can't reproduce the visual record yet."

  Dalton said soberly, "The Martian's vocabulary indicates that for all their physical difference from us they had emotions very much like human beings'. Whatever they saw must have been something we wouldn't have liked either."

  The reproducer hummed softly. Thwaite closed the motor switch and the ancient film slid smoothly from its casing. Out of the speaker burst a strange medley of whirrings, clicks, chirps, trills and modulated drones and buzzings--a sound like the voice of grasshoppers in a drought-stricken field of summer.

  Dalton listened raptly, as if by sheer concentration he might even now be able to guess at connections between the sounds of spoken Martian--heard now for the first time--and the written symbols that he had been working over for years. But he couldn't, of course--that would require a painstaking correlation analysis.

  "Evidently it's an introduction or commentary," said the archeologist. "Our photocell examination showed the wave-patterns of the initial and final portions of the film were typically Martian--but the middle part isn't. The middle part is whatever they recorded here on Earth."

  "If only that last part is a translation...." said Dalton hopefully. Then the alien susurration ceased coming from the reproducer and he closed his mouth abruptly and leaned forward.