Piper, H Beam - Federation

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Federation by H. Beam

Piper

Preface: PIPER'S FOUNDATION

Jerry Pournelle

I have a unique privilege: I have the legal right, acknowledged by the copyright

owners, to do stories in H. Beam Piper's worlds.

This didn't come lightly. It was given to me by Beam Piper himself many years

ago, long before I had any suspicion that I might write science fiction. Beam

apparently knew my future better than I did.

It happens sometimes: an instant bond between two men on very short

acquaintance. It was that way with Beam. He was twice my age. I had admired

his writing. He had never heard of me, but was fascinated by my tales of the

space program. We met, I think, in Poul Anderson's room, and we began talking;

when we realized the time, it was dawn. The next night also ended at dawn; and

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for both of us the convention ended too quickly.

Afterwards we corresponded. I was then a graduate student in political science,

studying the history of government, the pain and hopes and dreams of political

philosophers and statesmen, the brutal realities of politicians…

Our letters read like treatises. Beam, though not formally educated, had read

more books than most professors; and he was a keen observer of human nature. I

for my part asked questions, or called attention to works he had not seen, adding

little to the vast tapestry of the future Beam had conceived; and he expressed his

thanks by offering me an equal right to the finished product. It was more than I

had coming, but Beam never believed in doing anything by halves.

Then my degree was finished at last, and with my wife and young son I moved

to California, where I was general editor of a top secret Air Force forecast of

missile technology; a job that required me to understand everything, from

warheads to guidance to rocket motor casings. I threw myself into the work.

Beam continued to write, and I replied with post cards, or not at all; and one day

I heard that he was dead by his own hand.

I didn't believe it. I called the police in Williamsport, convinced that he had been

murdered by someone clever; but no, the note was authentically Beam Piper.

There remain questions. His extensive notes have never been found; yet I know

that he kept a well-organized set of looseleaf notebooks, with entries color-

coded; a star map of Federation and Empire; a history of the Systems States

War; and other materials including some of my own letters which answered

historical questions he had posed. Somewhere out there is a gold mine.

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It isn't all lost. I have his letters; and some of his notes can be deduced from his

writing. Beam firmly believed that history repeated itself; or at least that one can

use real history to construct a future history. The casual reader will not easily

deduce the historical models Beam employed. He was familiar with forgotten

details: as an example, one of the battle scenes in Lord Kalvan is drawn directly

from the obscure Battle of Barnet in the Wars of the Roses. He knew the grand

sweep of history, but he also knew the small tales; the intrigues and petty

jealousies, heroism and cowardice, honor and betrayals.

This, I think, is why his stories have such a ring of truth. They seem real because

many were real. Such things as ix happen in Piper's statecraft have happened

time and again to real politicians.

And to real heroes and heroines: for all his knowledge, Beam was no dry

intellectual. He was a story teller; a man who could keep you up all night with

his books and tales. He had respect for the intellect and for intellectuals, but he

was never one of the breed.

He was a cavalier.

INTRODUCTION

John Carr

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Jerry Pournelle for allowing me to use some of his personal

reminiscences of H. Beam Piper and for allowing me to study the Piper notes

and letters in his possession. I would also like to thank Charlie Brown for

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allowing me the use of his letters, Fred Pohl for his reminiscences, and Piper

researchers William J. DenholmIII, Richard A. Moore, and Paul Dellinger, for

their encouragement and support.

SCENE: The Beckman Auditorium, Pasadena, California; the California

Institute of Technology—a cement circus tent the size of a zepplin hanger. In the

first two rows of the balcony; A. E. Van Vogt, Theodore Sturgeon, Jack

Williamson, Larry Niven, Greg Bear and Astrid Anderson, Dr. Donald

Kingsbury, Harlan Ellison, Gregory Benford, and others of the SF clan,

including your intrepid reporter. All guests of NASA and Jerry Pournelle, our

gracious host for the weekend. On stage: Ray Bradbury, sf poet laureate and

Martian Chronicalist; Carl Sagan, Mr. Cosmos: Walter Sullivan, Science Editor

of the New York Times since 1966; Dr. Philip Morrison, Institute Professor of

Physics at M.I.T.—first scientist to call upon the professional community to

begin a serious search for extraterrestial signals; and lastly, Dr. Bruce Murray,

Director of J. P. L. and creator of Purple Physics.

TOPIC: SATURN AND THE MIND OF MAN: Fourth in a series of

symposiums on man and the planets.

Dr. Murray, his short cropped silver hair gleaming in the spots, looking like a

California-tanned version of one of the original astronauts ten years later,

hunches forward: "Saturn, our first look at this most magnificent planet, and we

are there! This first glimpse at the terra incognita of Saturn will remain one of

the finer moments throughout the time of man."

Great stuff, but what does it have to do with Beam Piper?

He wasn't there; and he should have been.

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In my study of the life of H. Beam Piper, I ran head-on into a number of

perplexing questions: Why, despite numerous reprintings, have Piper's books

been ignored by academic critics and scholars? How is it that the man who

created one of science fictions most detailed future histories received the

following note in Peter Nicholls' The Science Fiction Encyclopedia: "Many of

his (Piper's) novels and stories… are set in a common future history, but are

insufficiently connected to be regarded as a coherent series."? (This last

comment is mere sloppy scholarship, as I shall show in the essay on the

Federation.) And why is Piper, who published most of his best fiction in

Astounding/Analog, seldom mentioned as one of the great Campbell writers

although he always places in the top ten in the readers polls?

The answers to these questions are bound within the Gordian knot of Piper's

character, the low stature of science fiction and sf writers in general during the

fifties and early sixties, Piper's premature death, and the subsequent

unavailability of most of his work.

Horace Beam Piper was born in 1904, the son of a Protestant minister. He had no

formal education and at age eighteen went to work as a laborer for the

Pennsylvania Railroad's Altoona yards. Throughout his life he was a reticent and

guarded man and as a result we know little about his early years. He was largely

self-educated; he obtained a deep knowledge of science and history: "without

subjecting myself to the ridiculous misery of four years in the uncomfortable

confines of a raccoon coat."

While still working for the Pennsy Railroad, he sold his first story to John W.

Campbell at Astounding Science Fiction. "Time and Time Again" appeared in

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