A. E. Van Vogt - Transfinite The Essential

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Transfinite The Essential

A.E. van Vogt

Fiction: Science Fiction

A compendium of classic science fiction stories from one of sf's true masters.

by A.E. van Vogt

Edited by Joe Rico and Rick Katze

The NESFA Press

Post Office Box 809

Framingham, MA 01701

2003

Dust jacket photo courtesy of Locus (March 2000)

IN ANY FORM OR BY ANY ELECTRONIC, MAGICAL OR

MECHANICAL MEANS INCLUDING INFORMATION STORAGE

AND RETRIEVAL WITHOUT PERMISSION IN WRITING FROM THE

PUBLISHER, EXCEPT BY A REVIEWER, WHO MAY QUOTE BRIEF

PASSAGES IN A REVIEW.

FIRST EDITION

April, 2003

International Standard Book Number:

1-886778-34-5

dedicated to Bruce Pelz,

friend

Acknowledgements

"The Man in the Labyrinth" by Joe Rico is original to this volume.

"Alfred E. van Vogt" by Hal Clement is original to this volume.

"Asylum" Astounding Science Fiction, May 1942.

"Black Destroyer" Astounding Science Fiction, July 1939.

"A Can of Paint" Astounding Science Fiction, September 1944.

"Dear Pen Pal" Arkham Sampler, 1949.

"Discord in Scarlet" Astounding Science Fiction, December 1939.

"Don't Hold Your Breath" Savings Worlds, 1973.

"Dormant" Startling Stories, November 1948.

"The Enchanted Village" Other Worlds, July 1950

"Far Centaurus" Astounding Science Fiction, November 1944.

"Film Library" Astounding Science Fiction, July 1946.

"Final Command" Astounding Science Fiction, November 1949.

"Future Perfect" Vertex, August 1973.

"The Ghost" Unknown Worlds, August 1942.

"The Great Engine" Astounding Science Fiction, July 1943.

"The Great Judge" Fantasy Book VI #3, 1948.

"The Harmonizer" Astounding Science Fiction, November 1944.

"The Monster" Astounding Science Fiction, August 1948.

"Recruiting Station" Astounding Science Fiction, March 1942.

"The Rulers" Astounding Science Fiction, January 1944.

"The Rull" Astounding Science Fiction, May 1948.

"The Starch" Astounding Science Fiction, January 1943.

"Secret Unattainable" Astounding Science Fiction, July 1942.

"The Sound" Astounding Science Fiction, February 1950.

"Vault of the Beast" Astounding Science Fiction, August 1940.

"War of Nerves" Other Worlds, May 1950.

"Afterword" by Rick Katze is original to this volume.

Contents

Introductions:

The Man in the Labyrinth (Joe Rico) 13

Alfred E. van Vogt (Hal Clement) 15

Black Destroyer 19

The Monster 47

Film Library 63

The Enchanted Village 81

Asylum 93

Vault of the Beast 135

The Ghost 155

The Rull 185

Recruiting Station 207

A Can of Paint 277

The Search 289

'Dear Pen Pal 315

The Harmonizer 321

The Great Judge 329

Far Centaurus 333

(Secret Unattainable 351

Future Perfect 389

The Great Engine 409

Dormant 437

The Sound 451

The Rulers 471

Final Command 487

War of Nerves 505

Don't Hold Your Breath 523

Discord in Scarlet 541

Afterword (Rick Katze) 573

Transfinite

the man in the labyrinth

As I was working on this volume, I wondered if there was any unifying

theme of the stories collected within it. Certainly they are all gems of

Science Fiction and testaments to the mastery of A.E. van Vogt. They

range from the super-science background of "Recruiting Station" and "The

Search" to the mundane setting of "The Ghost." They span eons of time

as in "The Harmonizer," or one evening as in "The Sound." But no matter

what the setting, every story is one of discovery of secrets--and the

most important secret for a van Vogt character to discover is that of self.

Powerful figures learn they are pawns, and pawns become major players.

Victims become heroes in a blink of an eye, and bring invincible

villains low. The world of every man is constantly recreated in a new

image with every turn in the labyrinth of life.

My own labyrinth of life changed as I attempted to produce this book.

My mundane workload increased to the point that I had no time to finish

it. Fortunately my friends took up the load. I like to thank them,

particularly

Rick Katze, Priscilla and Mark Olson, and Tony Lewis. The scanning

and OCR of "Black Destroyer" and "Discord in Scarlet" were done by Bill

Shawcross of Rotten Apple Press, from microfiche.

It is always better to find your way with the help of friends.

Joe Rico

alfred E. van vogt

A little over six decades ago, when I was a teenager between the freshman

and sophomore college years, "Black Destroyer" caught my eye on a

Harvard Square magazine stall. I did not at first realize that the author

had accomplished the feat of making the Astounding cover with his first

sale. It was the cover that caught my eye, but I would have bought the

magazine anyway. I had been introduced to Jules Verne, by my father

more than a decade earlier, had discovered the magazines only a few years

after that, and was by then an Astounding regular. Verne sold me on technology

based adventure story, and Neil R. Jones and his Professor Jameson

on weird-alien type space opera. The cover suggested the latter, so I was

tempted to cut my next couple of classes (no, I didn't yield; I had started

maturing by then).

I had also, by then, developed enough scientific education and critical

power to realize why at least some stories in those genres were improbable,

but I had already formed, perhaps unfortunately, the reflex-level

distaste which I still have for the word "impossible."

The Black Destroyer, Coeurl (I may be spelling this wrongly; the editor

should feel free to call attention to such slips, but please do, it with a

"sic"

or a footnote. Readers have a right to data on the reliability of my memory;

I have not reread any of the stories mentioned in this introduction at all

recently), was the last survivor of a basically immortal species which had

nevertheless never mastered interstellar travel.

The author justified this adequately. The sun had only one planet, the

planet had no satellites, and the nearest other star was nine hundred light

years away. All but the top rungs of the ladder to star flight were missing.

Even at that age, though, I was a little dubious about the ecology.

That word had not yet come into general public consciousness, but water

cycles and carbon cycles and nitrogen cycles were all familiar to elementary

science students. Coeurl's essential nutrient was phosphorus, which

is an element and should not have disappeared from a world's biological

cycle unless its nuclear structure was altered in the native's metabolism,

presumably to obtain energy. Even then a life form reversing the reaction

using stellar or some other energy source was conceivable. I couldn't help

wondering, just in passing, where the phosphorus had gone.

Embarrassingly, I was less critical of another point which remained in

my mind as background"knowledge" for something like sixty years. One

of the biologists in the exploring human-staffed spacecraft was startled to

find that Coeurl, dweller an a planet whose atmosphere was twenty eight

percent chlorine, was not bothered by the presence of oxygen or lack of

chlorine in the air of the visiting ship. This caused the biologist to make

the disastrous mistake of recommending that Coeurl be allowed aboard

for study . . .

Well, most dangerous adventures can be traced back to mistakes, can't

they? One of my biggest plotting problems is explaining why the character

could have been so silly, or at least so ignorant.

Nothing was said or implied about the planet's being waterless, and I

offer no excuse for failing to notice while reading "Black Destroyer" that

any world with a chlorine-rich atmosphere and liquid water is also going

to have a respectable amount of free oxygen. I had already taken high

school chemistry, after all.

I raise this and some later points not to belittle Mr. van Vogt's science,

which some people have done, but to remind readers that nothing used

as background or inspiration by any science fiction writer, including me,

should be taken as written on stone. A Hal Clement or an A. E. van Vogt

fundamentalist is as ridiculous as any other kind, be it Homeric, Biblical,

or Freudian. Read critically, always. Just be a little tolerant, please; the

errors (I prefer the word "inconsistencies" myself) which you spot may have

been essential to the plot, and it hurts to waste a promising story

idea. Also, it may turn out that the mistake is on you. I have at least two

stories to my (dis)credit in which Mercury has the same hemisphere always

facing the sun. This not an exclusive club.

In any case, "Black Destroyer" and, a couple of months later in the

same magazine, "Discord in Scarlet" made me a firm van Vogt fan. Slan, a full

length novel serialized there in the next year or so, helped.

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TransfiniteTheEssentialA.E.vanVogtFiction:ScienceFictionAcompendiumofclassicsciencefictionstoriesfromoneofsf'struemasters.byA.E.vanVogtEditedbyJoeRicoandRickKatzeTheNESFAPressPostOfficeBox809Framingham,MA017012003Copyright2002bytheEstateofA.E.vanVogtDustjacketillustrationcopyright2002byBobEggletonDu...

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