Olaf Stapledon - Collected Stories

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Title: Collected Stories

Author: Olaf Stapledon

* A Project Gutenberg of Australia eBook *

eBook No.: 0601341h.html

Edition: 1

Language: English

Character set encoding: HTML--Latin-1(ISO-8859-1)--8 bit

Date first posted: June 2006

Date most recently updated: June 2006

This eBook was produced by: Richard Scott

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Collected Stories

Olaf Stapledon

CONTENTS:

A MODERN MAGICIAN

EAST IS WEST

ARMS OUT OF HAND (1946)

A WORLD OF SOUND (1936)

THE SEED AND THE FLOWER (1916)

THE ROAD TO THE AIDE POST (1916)

A MODERN MAGICIAN

THEY CONFRONTED EACH OTHER ACROSS A TEA TABLE in a cottage garden. Helen was

leaning back coldly studying Jim's face. It was an oddly childish, almost foetal face, with its big brow,

snub nose, and pouting lips. Childish, yes; but in the round dark eyes there was a gleam of madness. She

had to admit that she was in a way drawn to this odd young man partly perhaps by his very childishness

and his awkward innocent attempts at lovemaking; but partly by that sinister gleam.

Jim was leaning forward, talking hard. He had been talking for a long time, but she was no longer

listening. She was deciding that though she was drawn to him she also disliked him. Why had she come

out with him again? He was weedy and self-centered. Yet she had come.

Something he was saying recaptured her attention. He seemed to be annoyed that she had not been

listening. He was all worked up about something. She heard him say, "I know you despise me, but you're

making a big mistake. I tell you I have powers. I didn't intend to let you into my secret, yet; but, damn it,

I will. I'm finding out a lot about the power of mind over matter. I can control matter at a distance, just by

willing it. I'm going to be a sort of modern magician. I've even killed things by just willing it."

Helen, who was a medical student, prided herself on her shrewd materialism. She laughed

contemptuously.

His face flushed with anger, and he said, "Oh very well! I'll have to show you."

On a bush a robin was singing. The young man's gaze left the girl's face and settled intently on the robin.

"Watch that bird," he said. His voice was almost a whisper. Presently the bird stopped singing, and after

looking miserable for a while, with its head hunched into its body, it dropped from the tree without

opening its wings. It lay on the grass with its legs in the air, dead.

Jim let out a constricted squawk of triumph, staring at his victim. Then he turned his eyes on Helen.

Mopping his pasty face with his handkerchief, he said, "That was a good turn. I've never tried it on a bird

before, only on flies and beetles and a frog."

The girl stared at him silently, anxious not to seem startled. He set about telling her his secret. She was

not bored any more.

He told her that a couple of years earlier he had begun to be interested in "all this paranormal stuff." He

had been to séances and read about psychical research. He wouldn't have bothered if he hadn't

suspected he had strange powers himself. He was never really interested in spooks and thought

transference and so on. What fascinated him was the possibility that a mind might be able to affect matter

directly. "Psychokinesis," they called this power; and they knew very little about it. But he didn't care a

damn about the theoretical puzzles. All he wanted was power. He told Helen about the queer

experiments that had been done in America with dice. You threw the dice time after time, and you willed

them to settle with the two sixes uppermost. Generally they didn't; but when you had done a great many

experiments you totted up the results and found that there had been more sixes than should have turned

up by sheer chance. It certainly looked as though the mind really had some slight influence. This opened

up terrific possibilities.

He began to do little experiments on his own, guided by the findings of the researchers, but also by some

of his own ideas. The power was fantastically slight, so you had to test it out in situations where the tiniest

influence would have detectable results, just tipping the scales.

He didn't have much success with the dice, because (as he explained) he never knew precisely what he

had to do. The dice tumbled out too quickly for him. And so he only had the slight effect that the

Americans had reported. So he had to think up new tricks that would give him a better opening. He had

had a scientific training, so he decided to try to influence chemical reactions and simple physical

processes. He did many experiments and learned a lot. He prevented a spot of water from rusting a

knife. He stopped a crystal of salt from dissolving in water. He formed a minute crystal of ice in a drop of

water and finally froze the whole drop by simply "willing away" all the heat, in fact by stopping all the

molecular movement.

He told Helen of his first success at killing, a literally microscopic success. He brewed some very

stagnant water and put a drop on a slide. Then through the microscope he watched the swarm of

microorganisms milling about. Mostly they were like stumpy sausages, swimming with wavy tails. They

were of many sizes. He thought of them as elephants, cows, sheep, rabbits. His idea was that he might be

able to stop the chemical action in one of these little creatures and so kill it. He had read up a lot about

their inner workings, and he knew what key process he could best tackle. Well, the damned things kept

shifting about so fast he couldn't concentrate on anyone of them for long enough. He kept losing his victim

in the crowd. However, at last one of the "rabbits" swam into a less populous part of the slide, and he

fixed his attention on it long enough to do the trick. He willed the crucial chemical process to stop, and it

did stop. The creature stopped moving and stayed still indefinitely. It was almost certainly dead. His

success, he said, made him "feel like God."

Later he learned to kill flies and beetles by freezing their brains. Then he tried a frog, but had no success.

He didn't know enough physiology to find a minute key process to check. However, he read up a lot of

stuff, and at last he succeeded. He simply stopped the nerve current in certain fibres in the spinal cord

that controlled the heartbeat. It was this method also that he had used on the robin.

"That's just the beginning," he said. "Soon I shall have the world at my feet. And if you join up with me, it

will be at your feet too."

Throughout this monologue the girl had listened intently, tom between revulsion and fascination. There

was a kind of bad smell about it all, but one couldn't afford to be too squeamish in these days. Besides,

there was probably nothing in morality, anyhow. All the same, Jim was playing with fire. Strange, though,

how he seemed to have grown up while he was talking. Somehow he didn't look gawky and babyish

anymore. His excitement, and her knowledge that his power was real, had made him look thrillingly

sinister. But she decided to be cautious and aloof.

When at last Jim was silent, she staged a concealed yawn and said, "You're clever, aren't you! That was

a good trick you did, though a horrid one. If you go much further, you'll end on the gallows."

He snorted and said, "It's not like you to be a coward."

The taunt stung her. Indignantly she answered, "Don't be ridiculous! Why should I join with you, as you

call it, merely because you can kill a bird by some low trick or other?"

In Jim's life there had been certain events which he had not mentioned. They seemed to him irrelevant to

the matter in hand, but they were not really so at all. He had always been a weakling. His father, a

professional footballer, despised him and blamed the frail mother. The couple had lived a cat-and-dog life

almost since their honeymoon. At school Jim had been thoroughly bullied; and in consequence he had

conceived a deep hatred of the strong and at the same time an obsessive yearning to be strong himself.

He was a bright lad and had secured a scholarship at a provincial university. As an undergraduate, he

kept to himself, worked hard for a scientific degree, and aimed at a career of research in atomic physics.

Already his dominant passion was physical power, so he chose its most spectacular field. But somehow

his plans went awry. In spite of his reasonably good academic qualifications, he found himself stuck in a

low-grade job in an industrial lab, a job which he had taken on as a stopgap till he could capture a post in

one of the great institutions devoted to atomic physics. In this backwater, his naturally sour disposition

became embittered. He felt he was not getting a fair chance. Inferior men were outstripping him. Fate

was against him. In fact he developed something like a persecution mania. But the truth was that he was a

bad cooperator. He never developed the team spirit which is so necessary in the immensely complex

work of fundamental physical research. Also, he had no genuine interest in physical theory and was

impatient of the necessity of advanced theoretical study. What he wanted was power, power for himself

as an individual. He recognized that modern research was a cooperative affair and that in it, though one

might gain dazzling prestige, one would not gain any physical power as an individual. Psychokinesis, on

the other hand, might perhaps give him his heart's desire. His interest rapidly shifted to the more

promising field. Henceforth his work in the lab was a mere means of earning a livelihood.

After the conversation in the cottage garden he concentrated more eagerly than ever on his venture. He

must gain even more spectacular powers to impress Helen. He had decided that for him, at any rate, the

promising line was to develop his skill at interfering with small physical and chemical processes, in lifeless

and in living things. He learned how to prevent a struck match from lighting. He tried to bypass the whole

of atomic research by applying his power of psychokinesis to the release of energy pent up in the atom.

But in this exciting venture he had no success at all, perhaps because in spite of his training, he had not

sufficient theoretical knowledge of physics, nor access to the right kind of apparatus for setting up the

experiment. On the biological side he succeeded in killing a small dog by the same process as he had

applied to the robin. He was confident that with practice he would soon be able to kill a man.

He had one alarming experience. He decided to try to stop the sparking of his motorcycle engine. He

started up the bike on its stand and set about "willing" the spark to fail. He concentrated his attention on

the points of the sparking plug and the leaping spark and "willed" the space between the points to

become impenetrable, an insulator. This experiment, of course, involved a far greater interference with

physical processes than freezing a nerve fibre or even preventing a match from lighting. Sweat poured

from him as he struggled with his task. At last the engine began to misfire. But something queer happened

to himself. He had a moment of horrible vertigo and nausea and then he lost consciousness. When he

recovered, the engine was once more running normally.

This mishap was a challenge. He had never been seriously interested in the mere theoretical side of his

experiments for its own sake, but now he had perforce; to ask himself what exactly was happening when

by an "act of will" he interfered with a physical process. The obvious explanation was that in some way

the physical energy that should have crossed the gap between the points had been directed into his own

body; in fact that he had suffered the electric shock that he would have had if he had touched the points.

It may be doubted whether the true explanation was as simple as this, for his symptoms were not those of

electric shock. It might be nearer the truth to say that the inhibition of so much physical energy caused

some sort of profound psychical disturbance in him; or else, to put the matter very crudely, that the

physical energy was in some way converted into psychical energy in him. This theory is borne out by the

fact that, when he recovered consciousness, he was in a state of great excitement and mental vigour, as

though he had taken some stimulating drug.

Whatever the truth of the matter, he adopted the simpler theory and set about sidetracking the intruding

energy so as to protect himself. After much anxious experimentation, he found that he could do so by

concentrating his attention both on the sparking plug and on some other living organism, which then "drew

off the electricity" and suffered accordingly. A sparrow sufficed. It died of the shock, while he himself

remained conscious long enough to stop the engine. On another occasion he used his neighbour's dog as

a "lightning conductor." The animal collapsed, but soon recovered consciousness and careened about the

garden barking hilariously.

His next experiment was more exciting, and much, much more reprehensible. He went into the country

and took up a position on a knoll, whence he could see a fairly long stretch of road. Presently a car came

into sight. He concentrated his attention on the sparking plugs and "willed" the electrical energy to escape

into the driver. The car slowed down, vacillated between the two sides of the road, and came to a

standstill across the fairway. He could see the driver slumped over the steering wheel. There was no one

else in the car. Greatly excited, Jim waited to see what would happen. Presently another car came in the

opposite direction, hooted violently, and drew up with screeching brakes. The driver emerged, went to

the derelict car, opened a door, and was confronted by the unconscious occupant. While the horrified

newcomer was wondering what to do, the other recovered consciousness. There was an anxious

conversation, and finally both cars went their separate ways.

Jim now felt ready to impress his girlfriend. Since the killing of the robin, they had occasionally met, and

in his awkward and adolescent way he had tried to make love to her. She had always discouraged him;

but she was obviously more interested in him since the robin incident. Though she sometimes affected to

despise him, he felt that she was secretly drawn to him.

But one day he had an unpleasant surprise. He had boarded a bus to take him home from his work. He

climbed the stairs and settled into a seat. Suddenly he noticed Helen sitting a few seats ahead with a

curly-headed young man in a sportscoat. The couple were deep in conversation with their heads bent

together. The girl's hair brushed his cheek. Presently she laughed, with a ring of happiness such as he had

never before heard from her. She turned her face toward her companion. It was aglow with vitality and

love. Or so it seemed to the jealous lover three seats behind.

Irrational fury swept over him. He was so ignorant of the ways of girls, and so indignant that "his girl" (for

so he regarded her) should take notice of another man, that jealousy wholly possessed him, to the

exclusion of all other considerations. He could think of nothing but destroying his rival. His gaze seized

upon the nape of the hated neck before him. He passionately conjured up images of the hidden vertebrae

and the enclosed bundle of nerve fibres. The nerve current must cease; must, must cease. Presently the

curly head sank on Helen's shoulder, and then the whole body fell forward.

The murderer hurriedly rose from his seat and turned his back on the incipient commotion. He left the

bus, as though ignorant of the disaster.

Continuing his journey on foot, he was still so excited that he had no thought but exultation over his

triumph. But gradually his frenzy subsided, and he faced the fact that he was a murderer. Urgently he

reminded himself that after all there was no point in feeling guilty, since morality was a mere superstition.

But alas, he did feel guilty, horribly guilty; the more so since he had no fear of being caught.

As the days passed, Jim alternated between what he regarded as "irrational" guilt and intoxicating

triumph. The world was indeed at his feet. But he must play his cards carefully. Unfortunately his guilt

gave him no peace. He could not sleep properly; and when he did sleep, he had terrifying dreams. By

day his experiments were hampered by the fantasy that he had sold his soul to the devil. This notion

infuriated him with its very silliness. Yet he could not rid himself of it. He began drinking rather heavily.

But he soon found that alcohol reduced his psychokinetic power, so he firmly broke himself of the habit.

Another possible form of relief from his obsessive guilt was sex. But somehow he could not bring himself

to face Helen. He was irrationally afraid of her. Yet she must be quite ignorant that he had killed her

lover.

At last he met her accidentally in the street. There was no possibility of avoiding her. She was rather wan,

he thought, but she smiled at him and actually suggested a talk over a cup of coffee. He was tom between

fear and desire, but presently they were seated in a cafe. After some trivial remarks, she said.

"Please comfort me! I have had a terrible shock quite recently. I was on the top of a bus with my brother

who has been in Africa for three years. While we were talking, he collapsed and died almost instantly. He

seemed perfectly fit. They say it was some new virus in the spinal cord." She noticed that Jim's face had

turned deadly pale. "What's the matter?" she cried. "Are you going to die on me too?"

He pulled himself together and assured her that sheer sympathy for her had made him feel faint. He loved

her so much. How could he help being upset by her misfortune? To his relief Helen was completely taken

in by this explanation. She gave him, for the first time, the glowing smile he had formerly seen her turn

upon her brother.

Encouraged, he pressed home his advantage. He said, he did so want to comfort her. They must meet

again soon. And if she was at all interested in his experiments, he would show her something really

exciting some time. They arranged a trip in the country the following Sunday. He privately decided to

repeat for her benefit his trick with a passing car.

Sunday was a bright summer day. Sitting together in an empty railway carriage, they talked a good deal

about her brother. He was rather bored, but he expressed ardent sympathy. She said she never imagined

he had such a warm heart. He took her arm. Their faces drew close together, and they looked into each

other's eyes. She felt an overwhelming tenderness for this strange, rather grotesque though boyish face,

wherein, she told herself, the innocence of childhood was blended with an adult consciousness of power.

She felt the underlying grimness, and she welcomed it. Jim, for his part, was realizing that she was very

desirable. The warm glow of health had returned to her face. (Or was it a glow of love?) The full, sweet

lips, the kindly, observant grey eyes, filled him not only with physical desire but a swooning gentleness

that was new to him. The recollection of his guilt and present deception tormented him. An expression of

misery came over his face. He let go her arm and bowed forward with his head in his hands. Perplexed

and compassionate, she put an arm round his shoulders, and kissed his hair. Suddenly he burst into tears

and buried his head on her breast. She hugged him and crooned over him as though he were her child.

She begged him to tell her what was the matter, but he could only blubber, "Oh, I'm horrible! I'm not

good enough for you."

Later in the day, however, he had quite recovered his spirits, and they walked arm in arm through the

woods. He told her of his recent successes, culminating with the car incident. She was impressed and

amused, but also morally shocked by the irresponsibility of risking a fatal accident merely to test his

powers. At the same time she was obviously fascinated by the fanaticism that drove him to such lengths.

He was flattered by her interest, and intoxicated by her tenderness and her physical proximity. For they

were now resting on the little knoll where he in tended to do his trick with the car, and he was lying with

his head in her lap, gazing up at her face, where all the love that his life had missed seemed to be

gathered. He realized that he was playing the part of an infant rather than a lover. But she seemed to need

him to do so, and he was happy in his role. But soon sexual desire began to reassert itself and with it

masculine self-respect. He conceived an uncontrollable lust to demonstrate his godlike nature by some

formidable display of his powers. He became the primitive savage who must kill an enemy in the

presence of the beloved.

Looking up through Helen's fluttering hair, he saw a small object moving. For a moment he took it for a

gnat, then realized that it was a distant airplane approaching.

"Watch that plane," he said; and she was startled by the abruptness of his voice. She looked up, and

down again at him. His face was contorted with effort. His eyes glared, his nostrils dilated. She had an

impulse to fling him from her, so brutal he looked. But fascination triumphed. "Keep your eyes on the

plane," he commanded. She looked up, then down, then up again. She knew she ought to break the

devilish spell. (There was something called morality, but a delusion, probably.) Fascination had

triumphed.

Presently the advancing plane's four engines hesitated, and ceased one by one to fire. The plane glided

for a while, but soon gave evidence of being out of control. It vacillated, staggered, and then was in a

nose dive, spiralling. Helen screamed, but did nothing. The plane disappeared behind a distant wood.

After a few seconds there Was a muffled crash, and smoke began to rise from behind the wood, a

leaning black plume.

Jim raised himself from Helen's lap, and turning, pressed her backward to the ground. "That's how I love

you," he whispered fiercely. Then he furiously kissed her lips, her neck.

She made a violent effort to pull herself together and resist the impulse of self-abandonment to this

lunatic. She struggled to free herself from his grip; and presently the two stood facing each other, panting.

"You're mad," she cried. "Think what you have done! You have killed people just to show how clever

you are. And then you make love to me." She covered her face with her hands and sobbed.

He was still in a state of crazy exaltation, and he laughed. Then he taunted her. "Call yourself a realist!

You're squeamish. Well, now you know what I am really like; and what I can do. And see! You're mine.

I can kill you at any moment, wherever you are. I shall do whatever I like with you. And if you try to stop

me, you'll go the way of the robin and--the man on the bus." Her hands dropped from her tear-stained

face. She stared at him in mingled horror--and tenderness. She said quietly, "You're quite mad, you poor

boy. And you seemed so gentle. Oh, my dear, what can I do about you?"

There was a long silence. Then suddenly Jim collapsed on the ground, blubbering like a child. She stood

over him in perplexity.

While she was wondering what to do, and blaming herself for not breaking the spell before it was too

late, he was in an agony of self-loathing. Then he started to use his technique upon himself, so that no

more harm should be done. It was more difficult than he expected; for as soon as he began to lose

consciousness he also lost his grip on the operation. But he made a desperate effort of will. When Helen,

noticing his stillness, knelt down by him, he was dead.

EAST IS WEST

I LEFT MY LODGINGS IN WEST KIRBY IN THE MIDDLE OF the morning and walked along the

Estuary shore, I arriving at my favourite bathing place when the tide was only a few yards from the foot

of the clay cliffs. The sand, as usual on a fine Sunday, was crowded with parties, bathing and

sun-bathing. I undressed and Swam out till the coast was but a strip between sea and sky. At my farthest

point I floated for a long while, the sun pouring through my closed eyelids. I began to feel giddy and

slightly sick, so I hurried back to land.

During the rather lengthy swim I was surprised to see that the shore and the cliff-top, which I thought had

been crowded, were in fact deserted. The one heap of clothes which I could detect, and which I

therefore took to be my own, perplexed me by its colour. I was still more perplexed when I walked out

of the water to it and found that apparently someone had removed my own flannels and had substituted a

queer fancy dress of "Chinesy," pyjama-like trousers and jacket, both made of richly ornamented blue

brocade. Even the towel was decorated with a Chinese or Japanese pattern; but in one comer it was

marked with my own name. After a vain search for my proper clothes, I dried myself, and began

experimenting with the fancy dress, shivering, and cursing the practical joker.

A bright silver coin, about the size of a florin, fell out of one of the pockets. Picking it up, I was surprised

by its odd look. Closer inspection surprised me still more, for it bore on one side a grim but not

unhandsome female profile, surrounded by the legend, "Godiva Dei Gra. Brit. et Gall. Reg." On the

obverse was a seemingly archaic version of the royal arms, which included the French lilies but omitted

the Irish harp. Round the edge I read "One Florin 1934." There were also some Japanese characters,

which, to my amazement, I read. They signified, "Kingdom of Britain. Two Shillings." Other coins in the

pockets proved to be of the same fantastic type. There was also a letter, in its torn envelope, inscribed in

Japanese characters. I recognized the name at once as the Japanese transcription of my own. The

address was that of a well-known shipping firm in Liverpool. Well-known? Collecting my wits, I realized

that, familiar as it seemed, I really knew nothing about it.

By this time I was thoroughly alarmed about the state of my mind. How came it that I could read

Japanese? Whence these clothes? What had become of the holiday crowd?

Since the letter was addressed to me, I read it. The writer accepted an invitation to visit me for a few

days with his wife. After referring to various shipping matters, which came to me with a distressing blend

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