A. E. Van Vogt - More Than Superhuman

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Table of Contents
More Than Superhuman
Humans, Go Home!
IIIIIIIVVVIVIIVIII
The Reflected Men
IIIIIIIVVVIVIIVIIIIXXXIXIIXIIIXIV
All The Loving Androids
Laugh, Clone, Laugh
Research Alpha
IIIIIIIVVVIVIIIIXXXIXIIXIIIXIVXV
Him
(E-book Version 1.0 — first release. Scanned, Spellchecked & Checked against D.T. July 2003)
(The HTML Version of this e-book is best used as source for a e-book reader convert such as MobiBook or
ReaderWorks)
(Back Blurb)
A lone scientist working against time to speed evolution so that man will have one desperate chance
against the conquerors from space.
A man and woman attempting to retain their humanity in a world where the war between the sexes has
become a struggle to the death.
A future civilisation that commands its citizens to be happy or be destroyed.
A desperate plan of rebellion against the all-powerful dictatorship that has taken over Earth.
This book provides yet further evidence of the original ideas and delightful stories to come from A. E.
van Vogt, already established as a master of the science fiction genre.
MORE THAN SUPERHUMAN
Also by A. E. van Vogt and available from New English Library:
QUEST FOR THE FUTURE
THE SILKIE
THE WEAPON SHOPS OF ISHER
THE WEAPON MAKERS
CHILDREN OF TOMORROW
BATTLE OF FOREVER
THE FAR-OUT WORLDS OF A. E. VAN VOGT
EMPIRE OF THE ATOM
THE WIZARD OF LINN
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More Than Superhuman
A. E. VAN VOGT
NEW ENGLISH LIBRARY
TIMES MIRROR
First published in the United States of America by Dell Publishing Co. Inc. 1971© 1971 by A. E. van
Vogt
*
FIRST NEL PAPERBACK EDITION SEPTEMBER 1975
*
Condition of sale: This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or
otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher's prior Consent in any
form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including
this condition being imposed on me subsequent purchaser.
NHL Books are published by
New English Library from Barnard's Inn, Holborn, London E.C.1.
Made and printed in Great Britain by Hunt Barnard Printing Ltd., Aylesbury, Bucks.
45002571 3
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
'Humans Go Home!' by A. E. van Vogt. Published inGalaxy Science Fiction. Copyright © 1969 by
Universal Publishing and Distributing Corporation.
'Reflected Men' by A. E. van Vogt. Published inGalaxy Science Fiction. Copyright ©1971 by Universal
Publishing and Distributing Corporation.
'Laugh, Clone, Laugh' by A. E. van Vogt and Forrest J. Ackerman. Copyright © 1969 by Forrest J.
Ackerman.
'Research Alpha' by A. E. van Vogt and James H. Schmitz. Published inWorlds of IF Science Fiction.
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Copyright © 1965 by Galaxy Publishing Corporation
'Him' by A. E. van Vogt. Copyright © 1968 by Fantasy Publishing Co., Inc.; by arrangement with Wm.
L. Crawford and permission of the author and his agent, Forrest J Ackerman.
Contents
Humans, Go Home!by A. E. VAN VOGT
The Reflected Menby A. E. VAN VOGT
All The Loving Androidsby A. E. VAN VOGT
Laugh, Clone, Laughby A. E. VAN VOGT and FORREST J. ACKERMAN
Research Alphaby A. E. VAN VOGT and JAMES H. SCHMITZ
Himby A. E. VAN VOGT
Humans, Go Home!
A. E. VAN VOGT
I
'Each morning,' Miliss said, 'is the dawn of nothing.'
So she was leaving.
'No children, no future,' the woman continued. 'Every day like every other, going nowhere. The sun
shines, but I'm in darkness —'
It was, Dav realized, the beginning of the death talk. He tensed his perfect muscles. His blue eyes —
they could observe with a deep understanding on many levels — misted with sudden anxiety. But his lips
and his infinitely adaptable tongue — which in its time, and that time was long indeed, had spoken a
hundred languages said no word.
He watched her, made no move to help her and no effort to stop her as she piled her clothes onto a
powered dolly, to be wheeled into the east wing of the house. Her clothes, her jewels from a score of
planets; her special pillows and other bedroom articles; the specific furniture — each piece a jewel in
itself — in which she stored her possessions; her keys — plain and electronic, pushbutton-control types
for energy relays and tiny combination systems for entry into the great Reservoir of the Symbols — all
now were made ready to be transported with a visibly growing impatience.
Finally she snapped, 'Where is your courtesy? Where is your manliness — letting a woman do all this
work?'
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Dav said evenly, 'It would be foolish of me to help you leave me.'
'So all those years of politeness — I merely bought them with unalienated behavior. You have no natural
respect for a woman — or for me.'
She yelled accusations at him. Dav felt a tremor stir inside him, not from her words but from the meaning
of the anger that accompanied them, the unthinking automatic quality of that anger.
He said flatly, 'I am not going to help you leave me.'
It was the kind of answer one made to a stereotype. His hope had to be that these preliminaries of the
death compulsion could be headed off.
His words, however, were far from effective. Her blond cheeks gradually turned to a darker color as the
day — unlike other days, which were often so slow as forever — devoured itself, digesting hours in great
gulps. And still her possessions, more numerous evidently than she had realized, were not shifted from the
west to the east wing of the long, big house.
Late in the afternoon Dav pointed out that her act of withdrawal was a well-known phenomenon of
internal female chemistry. He merely wanted from her the analytical consciousness of this fact — and her
permission to give her the drugs that would rectify the condition.
She rejected the argument. From her lips poured a stream of angry rationalizations.
'The woman is always to blame. The fault is in her, not in the man. The things that I have had to put up
with — they don't count —'
Long ago, when she was still in her natural state, before the administration of the first immortality
injections, there might have been genuine cause for accusations which attacked male subjectiveness. But
that was back in a distant time. After the body had been given chemical aids, all things were balanced by
a diet of understanding drugs.
* *
Dav located the relevant book in the library and abandoned his initial attempts to keep from her the
seriousness of her condition. He walked beside her and read paragraphs detailing the emotional affliction
that had led to the virtual destruction of the human race. The dark thoughts she had expressed — and
was now acting on — were described so exactly that abruptly, as he walked beside her, he bent in her
direction and held the book up to her face. His finger pointed out the significant sentences.
Miliss stopped. Her eyes, a deceptive gray-green, narrowed. Her lips tightly compressed, unmistakably
resisting what he was doing. Yet she spoke in a mild tone(
'Let me see that.'
She reached for the book.
Dav surrendered it reluctantly. The sly purpose he detected in her seemed even more automatic than the
earlier anger. In those few hours she appeared to have become a simpler, more primitive person.
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So he was not surprised when she raised the book above her head and, with a wordless vocalization,
flung it to the floor behind him.
They had come to within a few yards of a door which led to her part of the house. Dave resignedly
stooped to pick up the hook, aware of her walking rapidly to that door. It opened and slammed shut
behind her.
After silence descended, after the coming of the brilliant, purple Jana twilight, when the sun finally sank
out of sight behind the slickrock mountains to the west and the sweet, soft darkness of the shining, starlit
night of Jana settled, Dav tested the connecting doors between the two wings. All four resisted his pull
with the rigidity of unbreakable locks.
* *
The following morning.
The sound of a buzzer precipitated Dav into the new day. For a meager moment the hope stirred in him
that Miliss was calling. But, he rejected that possibility even as he formed the image in his mind that
triggered the nearest thought amplifier. His dismissal of the idea turned out to be correct. The buzzing
ceased. A picture formed on the ceiling screen. It showed a Jana tradesboy with groceries standing at the
outer door.
Dav spoke to the boy in the Jana tongue and glided out of bed. Presently he was accepting the bag from
the long-nosed youth, who said, 'There was a message to bring this to another part of the house. But I
didn't understand clearly — '
Dav hesitated with the fleeting realization that the ever-present Jana spy system was probably behind
those words. And that if he explained, the information would be instantly relayed to the authorities. Not
that he could ever tell these beings the truth. Their time for immortality was not yet.
Nor was it their time to learn the numerous details of the final disaster — when, in a period of a few
months, virtually the entire human population of the galaxy rejected life, refused the prolongation drugs.
People by the billion hid themselves and died unattended and uncaring.
A few, of course, were captured by appalled survivors and had treatment forced on them. A wrong
solution, it developed.
For the people who sympathized and helped, by those very desperate feelings, in some manner attuned
themselves into the same deadly psychic state as the naturally doomed.
In the end it was established that the only real survivors were individuals who felt a scathing contempt for
people who could not be persuaded to accept help. Such a disdainful survivor could sarcastically argue
with someone — yes, for a while. But force him, no.
Dav stood at the door of the great house in which he and Miliss had lived these several hundred years.
And he realized that this was the moment.
To save himself, he had to remember that what Miliss was doing deserved his total disgust.
He shrugged and said, 'My wife has left me. She is living alone on the other side of the house. So deliver
these to the door at the far east side.'
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He thrust the bag of groceries back into the hands of the Jana and motioned him away.
The boy took the big sack and backed off with visible reluctance.
'Your wife has left you?' he echoed finally.
Dav nodded. In spite of himself he felt vaguely regretful at the revelation. To these Jana males, pursuit of
females began early and continued into late life, terminating approximately at the moment of death. Until
now the human woman had been a forbidden and unapproachable female. But no question — there had
always been a perverted Jana male interest in Miliss.
With an abrupt dismissal Dav suppressed such thoughts. What they represented was unimportant It did
not matter.
* *
Later that day he saw her in her part of the garden, lissome, still beautiful, showing no signs of immediate
deterioration. Apparently — even on this second day — she was still an immortal blond woman. Seeing
her, Dav shrugged and turned away, his lip curling, and in his mind the thought that she was not really
human.
She could not reason.
Still later, darkness had fallen when, after testing with the various keys the Blaze Points of the Great
Reservoir of the Symbols, he came to the summit of the hill from which he could see her long, white
house.
Its night lights showed the garden and the glint of the river on the far side. But around it nothing moved.
Silent stood the old house, familiar, a centuries-old landmark.
Something about the stillness below disturbed him. He had a sudden feeling that no one was there. The
house itself was dark — both wings.
Puzzled but not alarmed — because he was safe and Miliss did not count, for she was doomed anyway
— Dav hurried down. He tried first a door to her wing. It was unlocked.
An amplified thought hit him. Miliss speaking mentally.
Dav, I have been arrested by Jaer Dorrish and am being taken to a military prison. I have the
impression that this is a Dorrish clan takeover scheme and that it is connected with the fact that
Rocquel has now been gone for a year. That's all...
The account was succinct, as impersonal as his own receipt of it. She had left him a communication of
facts. In her message was no appeal, no request for help.
Dav stood silent. He was evoking a mental picture of the sardonic Jaer Dorrish and, more vaguely, the
image of Rocquel, the hereditary leader of the Janae, who had disappeared slightly more than one Jana
year ago. A year on Jana was three hundred ninety-two and a fraction days long.
He felt opposed to Jaer, of course — in a way wished the steely-minded Rocquel were back.
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Usurpations usually meant trouble and unrest. But if it had to be, it had to. The Janae constituted a
problem for him as Guardian of the Symbols. But individuals among them were not, in one sense,
important. Though he had liked Rocquel, and still liked Rocquel's — widow?
Nerda.
In the morning, I'll look into this...
II
Rocquel's senses blurred in arriving. He lay down for a few seconds on the shadowy grass. It was
already day — fairly early morning; he noticed when he climbed to his feet. He could see the palace,
visible among the trees of the vast garden which surrounded the building.
Rocquel stood for a moment, head thrown back, breathing deeply of the air of his native planet. A year
had seemed a long absence. So much had happened. Yet the sky of Jana and these hills that he had
known in his lost youth so intimately seemed unchanged. Here, during all those tremendous days of his
absence, time had sculptured with a slow and exacting chisel. A gentle wind blew in Rocquel's face as he
started slowly toward the road beyond the near trees, the winding road that would take him to the
palace.
Incredibly, he made it to within a hundred yards of the sprawl of building before a Jana male came
suddenly from around some trees, saw him, and stopped. Rocquel recognized the other at once: Jaer
Dorrish. Jaer was a big fellow, bigger than Rocquel, good-looking in a swarthy way. His eyes narrowed.
He seemed to brace himself.
He said arrogantly in the tone of one addressing an intruder, 'What are you doing here — stranger?'
Rocquel walked forward at a deliberate pace. He had been cautioned to take up his old position before
he revealed the new facets of his personality. He didn't need the warning — it was implicit in the sly act
of a person who knew him, pretending not to.
The problem of what one of the Dorrish men was doing in the Rocquel grounds so early in the morning
— or ever — he would come to later. Right now the denial of his identity was surpassingly significant.
Rocquel said, 'Jaer, consider — do you want me for an enemy?'
This time Jaer Dorrish showed his understanding of the situation.
'By Dilit,' he said exultantly, 'I've caught you unarmed.'
He drew his sword in a single, continuous movement and began to circle Rocquel, apparently not quite
believing that he need merely rush in and slash. His eyes speculatively sized up Rocquel's condition.
* *
Rocquel backed and simultaneously turned. He paused where Jaer had been standing. It took him
moments to locate consciously the symbol made by the invisible Tizane energy, which he had directed to
the spot the instant he saw Jaer. He kicked it cautiously, leaning backward so that his body would not be
attracted by the symbol. His foot tingled unpleasantly — it was a feeling of something grabbing at him,
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something very powerful that did not quite reach him but only clawed the outer threads of his clothing,
failing to get a good hold. Twice he pulled clear of it. Presently he was able to step over the broken
ground without experiencing a reaction.
He was already out of danger when Jaer laughed and replaced his sword.
The big male said arrogantly, 'If one does not threaten, one cannot show mercy. You see, Rocquel, I
expected that you would return today. I have had observers watching the grounds all night so that I could
have this confrontation with you.' He grimaced triumphantly. 'I analyze that you owe your return to me.
Because yesterday I arrested the human woman, Miliss, and here you are this morning, exactly as I
anticipated. It was a sudden intuition of mind. You have a lot of explaining to do — sir.'
Jaer was visibly jubilant. He waved at somebody behind Rocquel. Rocquel was wary of the gesture. In
his careful defensive maneuvering he had gotten his back to the buildings. Finally he glanced carefully
around and saw that Nerda was walking toward them.
As she came near, she said, 'You were not really in danger, were you? It showed in your manner.'
Rocquel said, 'Not from one person.'
He walked to her, and she did not resist his kiss. She might as well have. His lips were cool and
unresponsive. Her passive body did not welcome his embrace.
Rocquel drew back, scowling. An old anger against this defiant young female rose to gall him.
'Damn you,' he said. 'Aren't you glad to see me?'
Nerda merely gazed at him coolly.
'I forgot,' said Rocquel, stung. 'It was a welcome period of rest for you. It's difficult for a male to
remember that Jana females do not have feelings.'
His wife shrugged.
Rocquel stared at her, curious now rather than hostile. Like all Jana females, she was icily aloof. He had
married her in the usual fashion by having her father bring her to his house. She had subsequently borne
him a son and a daughter, but in the Jana female tradition she continued to treat him like an intruder in her
life — whom she must tolerate but did not particularly care to have around.
Rocquel scowled jealously.
'What about Jaer?'
That brought a reply.
'I think he has already explained his presence. Rather than have any further words from him, I would
prefer to hear your explanation of your absence.'
Rocquel rejected explanations. 'Come along,' he said gruffly 'let us go inside.'
* *
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There were things to do. The news of his return would spread rapidly. The men in control of the council
must not be allowed too much time to decide what to do about him. There would be regents, generals,
and their aides — who would he unhappy at the return of the hereditary ruler of the army. Before this
night he must again be recognized as entitled by law and right to wield the scepter of his sphere.
He took Nerda's arm gently. The move was calculated. He wanted to enter the palace beside her, his
identity given validity by her presence. A year was a long time on Jana. Jana males particularly had short
memories. He could not have planned his arrival better if he had personally made all the arrangements in
advance.
Rocquel had the tocsin sounded as soon as he reached the main guard station. Shortly the palace guard
and the servants were drawn up in five lines of a hundred each. He addressed them in his deepest
baritone, recalling himself to the older men, inviting the younger men to remember his face and body
structure. He wanted them to he able to identify him under all circumstances.
He felt a little better when that job was done and the people had been dismissed to return to their duties.
But not much better. The servants and guards could be talked to like a schoolroom full of children. But
not the officers. Not the nobility.
He had a new, superior — yet not at all condescending — attitude toward these people. They were
simple souls. He now understood how rapidly Dav and Miliss were rushing Janae into civilization by a
trial-and-error system that attempted to take each man for what he was.
The lower classes were given easy tests. Those who showed even a modicum of mechanical ability were
soon placed on assembly lines, where they performed one action, then two, then several — but never
many. For decades now some pretty sharp mechanics had been coming up the line, and from their ranks
arose a new class — engineers.
The officers and nobility were a different breed. Quick to take insult, they were truly impervious to all
but the barest elements of education. They had been persuaded that being able to read and write was a
mark of distinction, but they were never entirely convinced. Why, they wanted to know grimly, were the
lower classes also being taught reading and writing? The resultant, infinitely stubborn attitude had made it
necessary to have a different written language for the people — one the upper classes didn't respect —
before the nobles sullenly allowed their children to go to special, separate schools.
Telling the nobility of his return, it seemed to Rocquel, would have to be done at an all-male dinner in the
vast dining hall adjoining the even vaster jousting room.
* *
About midmorning Dav at last felt free to put through a call to Nerda. There was a long delay. Finally an
aide came to the phone.
He said in a formal tone, 'The queen wishes me to inform you that her lord, Rocquel, has returned, and
since he will in future represent the power of the armed forces, her talking to you might be misconstrued
at this stage. That is all, sir.'
Dav hung up, startled. The great Rocquel was home. Where had he been?
The hereditary general had always been a male first, his every movement and the tenor of his being
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expressing the quiescent violence of his powerful, supermasculine breed. It seemed an unfortunate
coincidence for Miliss that the deadly, narrowed-eyed Jana ruler had returned. Dav divined that, if a
struggle for power took place, Miliss might be its first victim.
After some thought, Dav phoned the palace a second time and asked for Rocquel.
Once more he endured delay.
At last another aide said, 'His Excellency, the lord-general Rocquel wishes me to inform you that a new
law will be promulgated tomorrow to the council. He invites you to attend the council meeting which will
be held at the slickrock rendezvous.'
The dinner that night shocked Rocquel. He had forgotten the extreme coarseness of his peers — at least
it had become vague in his mind. An uproar of yelling and jesting began as the first males arrived. More
arrivals simply added to the pandemonium. Things quieted down only to a degree when the meal was
finally served. Plates clanked. Forks and knives clattered. Males yelled a peculiar type of acceptable
insult at acquaintances farther along a table — insults having to do with the jester's belief that the other
lacked sexual prowess. Such remarks always brought bellows of laughter, while onlookers insultingly
urged the object of the attack to prove his capabilities.
Yet since humor always probed the abyss of a male's sensitivity to criticism, suddenly a word would be
unacceptable. In a flash the aggrieved male was on his feet, ragefully demanding satisfaction. Moments
later the two nobles, yelling furiously at each other, would stamp out to the jousting room and add the
clash of their steel to the sound of the dozens that were already there.
Shortly a scream of outrage announced the first blood had been drawn. In the presence of Rocquel the
custom was that the male initially blooded in any way was expected to acknowledge defeat. Such
acknowledgment meant that the insult was nullified. But the loser who felt himself still aggrieved could
demand a later reckoning away from the palace grounds.
It was of this assembled group of mad creatures that Rocquel demanded silence when the eating was
completed. Getting it, he gave the explanation for his absence that had been suggested to him — a
religious withdrawal, a year of wandering among the people as a mendicant, a time of self searching and
thorough selflessness, of deliberate, temporary abdication of power.
He concluded his fabricated account.
'I saw our people in their daily actions. I lived among them, survived on their generosity, and can report
that the Jana world is indeed a worthy one.'
He received a prolonged ovation. But a bad moment came when he presently went into the jousting
room, where the guests had drifted after his talk.
A voice grated beside his ear, 'Your sword, sire.'
Rocquel experienced a blank instant as he realized he was being challenged.
He swung around as of old in a swift, automatic defense action. His blade came out, weaving, before he
saw that his challenger was Jaer Dorrish.
Rocquel poised, sword ready. He gazed questioningly into the dark, cynical eyes of his enemy.
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摘要：

TableofContentsMoreThanSuperhumanHumans,GoHome!IIIIIIIVVVIVIIVIIITheReflectedMenIIIIIIIVVVIVIIVIIIIXXXIXIIXIIIXIVAllTheLovingAndroidsLaugh,Clone,LaughResearchAlphaIIIIIIIVVVIVIIIIXXXIXIIXIIIXIVXVHim(E-bookVersion1.0—firstrelease.Scanned,Spellchecked&CheckedagainstD.T.July2003)(TheHTMLVersionofthise-...

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