Aldiss, Brian - Perilous Planets

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Brian W. Aldiss is Britain's leading science fiction writer. He has won many of the prizes

in the field, including the Hugo, the Nebula, and the BSFA Award. The Australians voted him

'World's Best Contemporary Writer of SF', and his novels and stories have been translated

into many languages. His science fiction novels include Non-Stop (1958), Hothouse (1962),

and recently more controversial novels such as The Dark Light Years (1964), Report on

Probability A (1967), and Barefoot in the Head (1969). He has also proved himself a master

of the short story, in such collections as The Moment of Eclipse (1970). His recently

published history of science fiction Billion Year Spree has been widely acknowledged as a

major contribution to the genre.

Also available in Orbit edited by Brian W. Aldiss:

SPACE ODYSSEYS

EVIL EARTHS

GALACTIC EMPIRES Vols. I and 2

Perilous Planets

An anthology of way-back-when futures

edited by

Brian W. Aldiss

Futura Publications Limited

An Orbit Book

First published in Great Britain by George Weidenfeld & Nicolson Ltd This

edition 1980

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 the subsequent purchaser

ISBN o 7088 80711

Reproduced, printed and bound in Great Britain by Hazell Watson & Viney Ltd

Aylesbury, Bucks

Futura Publications Limited no Warner Road Camberwell, London SE5

'HOW ARE THEY ALL ON DENEBIV ?' by C. C. Shackleton

MOUTH OF HELL by David I. Masson

THE CALTRAPS OF TIME by David I. Masson

BRIGHTSIDE CROSSING by Alan E. Nourse

permission of Brandt & Brandt

THE SACK by William Morrison

Conde Nast Publications Inc. First published in the September 1950 issue of Astounding

Science Fiction

THE MONSTER by A. E. van Vogt

Inc.). Reprinted by arrangement with Forrest J. Ackerman and the E. J. Carnell Literary

Agency. First published it} Astounding Science Fiction 1948

THE MONSTERS by Robert Sheckley

GRENVILLE'S PLANET by Michael Shaara

BEACHHEAD by Clifford Simak

Limited. First published in Fantastic Adventures July 1951

THE ARK OF JAMES CARLYLE by Cherry Wilder

agent, Virginia Kidd. Published in New Writings in SF 24 edited by Kenneth Bulmer. First

published by Sidgwick & Jackson in 1974. Corgi edition published in 1975

ON THE RIVER by Robert F. Young

GODDESS IN GRANITE by Robert F. Young

Published in THE WORLDS OF ROBERT F.

YOUNG (Gollancz Feb. 1974). Reprinted from The Magazine of Fantasy and Science

Fiction, September 1957

THE SEEKERS by E. C. Tubb

the author and the E. J. Carnell Literary Agency

WHEN THE PEOPLE FELL by Cordwainer Smith

Reprinted by permission of the author's estate and the Scott Meredith Literary Agency Inc.,

845 Third Avenue, New York, NY

SCHWARTZ BETWEEN THE GALAXIES by Robert Silverberg

agents, Scott Meredith Literary Agency Inc., 845 Third Avenue, New York, NY10022

THE TITAN by P. Schuyler Miller

sister and heir

FOUR IN ONE by Damon Knight

THE AGE OF INVENTION by Norman Spinrad

Science Fiction by permission of the author and his agent, Michael Bakewell & Associates

Ltd.THE SNOWMEN by Frederik Pohl

author and the E. J. Carnell Literary Agency

CONTENTS

Introduction

'How Are They All on Deneb IV ?' C. C. Shackleton

SECTION 1 UNINHABITED PLANETS. '. . . Because They're There'

Mouth of Hell David I. Masson

Brightside Crossing Alan E. Nourse

The Sack William Morrison

SECTION 2 INHABITED PLANETS. Whatever Answers the Door . . .

The Monster A. E. van Vogt

The Monsters Robert Sheckley

Grenville's Planet Michael Shaara

Beachhead Clifford D. Simak

SECTION 3 A DASH OF SYMBOLS. No Names to the Rivers

The Ark of James Carlyle Cherry Wilder

On the River Robert F. Young

Goddess in Granite Robert F. Young

The Seekers E. C. Tubb

SECTION 4 MARS AND VENUS. Love and War

When the People Fell Cordwainer Smith

The Titan P. Schuyler Miller

SECTION 5 BECOMING MORE ALIEN. A Universal Home Truth

Four in One Damon Knight

The Age of Invention Norman Spinrad

The Snowmen Frederik Pohl

Schwartz Between the Galaxies Robert Silverberg

Afterword

INTRODUCTION

Long before I began compiling this book, I could see what it had to contain. Its title and

its contents leaped at me while I was working on the first anthology in this series, Space

Opera*, three years ago.

For the majority of readers new to science fiction, a landing on another planet - a planet,

because unknown, even more perilous than Earth - must be their peak experience of the

genre. If they don't get the true sf charge out of touchdown on Procyon v, they will never get

any charge at all. The cutting edge of science fiction lies along the interface between the

known and the unknown.

So what I wanted for my anthology was that seminal story in which our brave astronauts,

or space-travellers as they used to be called, make the first-ever voyage through space, see the

stars like jewels flung into the sack of night, and touch down on a totally unknown planet.

There they jump out to test the atmosphere, find it even better than Earth's, and take a stroll

amid the glorious scenery. Whereupon something awful appears and - according to which

seminal story you read -attempts to eat them, warps their minds with obscene telepathic

messages, or captures them and takes them into subterranean tunnels.

It was a fantastic story, one you remember for the rest of your life. My trouble was, I had

forgotten which story it was. For months, I leafed my way through my library, looking for the

seminal story. I found plenty of stories like it, but never that actual story.

Eventually the truth dawned. That seminal story had no actual existence. It was a creation

of my memory, compounded from elements common to many similar first-landing stories. It

was, you might say, a folk memory of landing on a strange planet.

* Space Opera was followed by Space Odysseys, Evil Earths, and Galactic Empires (in

two volumes), all from the publishers of this companion volume.

Looking backwards into the mists of receding time, or the receding mists of time, I can

see how the legend has gradually become briefer and more sophisticated over the ages since I

first began reading, and the sayers of the saga themselves gradually less Neanderthal. Right

on the edge of the abyss where memory begins, I am able to recall myself lying in my cot,

dummy in mouth, reading an absolutely enchanting Great Progenitor of the story in Wonder

Stories.

This is how that Great Progenitor went.

Two professors with German names are arguing about the nature of life. One of them

believes that life would be possible even with a silicon-based metabolism, as opposed to the

carbon-based metabolism prevalent on Earth; the other does not so believe. Both put their

points of view. Sometimes they grow angry and strike their brows, or scribble equations on a

handy blackboard. Every few chapters, in comes the housekeeper and throws more coal on

the fire.

So heated grows the argument, that the two professors with German names decide to

settle the matter by travelling to Mars, which they suspect is a silicon world. Going out into

the backyard, they begin to assemble a rocketship, still occasionally striking their brows.

Some parts they get from the local hardware store, where the owner is amused by their

preposterous idea; he often looks over the garden fence to joke with them. But progress is

made, little by little, chapter by chapter.

The rocket is completed. The two professors with German names persuade their

housekeeper to come along with them as cook; she consents to come as long as she can bring

her dog, Fritz. They climb aboard, shovel in the coal, heat up the boiler, and the rocket goes

shooting up into space - to the considerable discomfiture of the hardware store owner.

Space is very interesting and is described in some detail. They can see all the planets in

the solar system, etc. They are aiming for Mars but Fritz knocks the compass over and they

land by accident on Jupiter instead. To their surprise, they find Jupiter is rather like Earth,

except cloudier. Also the trees are bigger.

The two professors with German names step outside and sniff the air. It is even better than

Earth's. They take a stroll.

Whereupon something appears. It is a crowd of Jovians and - bless my soul! - they prove

to have a silicon-based metabolism. So one of the professors wins his argument. They shake

hands and marry the housekeeper, whose carbon-based metabolism has always had a certain

appeal.

Doubtless some of my more cynical readers will find this story a little naive, comical

even. Let me assure you that my first impressions were entirely more favourable. At that

tender age, I had never heard anyone discussing such a fascinating subject as the nature of

life; if taxed I might have claimed offhand that life had no nature. Nor had the subject of a

silicon-based metabolism ever crossed my mind. I believe I am correct in saying that it was

this metaphysical aspect of science fiction which interested me as much as the actual

spaceflight and landing on Jupiter.

As the ages passed and I left nappies behind, I found that the story of that first landing

was developing. The earlier chapters became abridged, even perfunctory. The spaceships

were still built privately in back yards, but the details of manufacture, and the argument, were

curtailed. The landing, and what happened then, became the thing. After more ages the stories

simply skipped the prolegomena and opened with the ship blasting out of space and the

captain jumping out of his ship, sniffing the air and finding it even better than Earth's, and

claiming it in the name of - well, it used to be the British Empire, but that changed too.

Nowadays, the formula has tightened still further. Perhaps you will recall a recent story

which begins smartly, 'After landing on Regulus v, the men of the Yarmolinsky Expedition

made camp .. .' (I prefer not to give the name of the story; with any luck, you will find it in

the next anthology in this series.)

There was a time, during the sixties, when it looked as if the first-landing story was dead,

killed by its own cliches. At that period, Harry Harrison and I had started the first of our

many collaborations, a little magazine of sf criticism entitled SF Horizons. An Oxford friend

of ours, C. C. Shackleton, wrote some witty send-ups of various aspects of science fiction.

One subject he impaled was precisely this matter of first-landings; as one can infer from his

remarks he felt the subject had

suffered severely from over-use. I am happy to include his piece, 'How Are They All on

Deneb IV ?' as a kind of postscript to this Introduction, since it defines the area more wittily

than I could ever aspire to do.

So this anthology does not contain that first-landing story you remember. It was just a

folk-memory. All parts of the legend are, of course, embedded in H. G. Well's novel, The

First Men on the Moon. One never forgets the moment when Cavor and Beford see the sun

rise, watch the plants grow, and sniff the air, to find it even better than Earth's.

What this anthology does contain are stories which, while being excellent in their own

right, range along the whole spectrum of interest aroused by that feat which still remains

imaginary: standing upon another planet. (The Moon is a satellite, not a planet.) That

particular kind of thrill has been conjured in literature since time immemorial; during time

memorial, sf is the name of the literature that does it now.

Actual unrestricted travel in space, if it ever comes, may alter the nature of science

fiction, as reality wipes out folk memories. There must be other beings on other planets who

dream similar tales. I'm convinced - I know it is controversial to say this - that when we get to

Jupiter we shall find it inhabited by creatures with a silicon-based metabolism. For sure, their

writers will be writing science fiction, too. Who knows, maybe it's even better than Earth's ...

We have here seventeen stories from nine different magazines; their vintages cover a span

of three decades. Some are deservedly famous, some undeservedly neglected. As always, in

the hope of preserving a whiff of period flavour, I have left the original blurbs intact, or

forged them where the originals were not available. Can you tell the fakes ? Two hundred and

fifteen correct answers to the last anthology so far. An additional puzzle this time: which

piece is by me, operating under a pen name ?

Brian W. Aldiss Heath House Southmoor October 1976

'HOW ARE THEY ALL ON DENEB IV ?' by C. C. Shackleton

All right, I know, times are changing. It's the great theme of our age. Ever since evolution

and all that, the decades have gone hog wild for change; you'd think there was a law about it.

Maybe there is a law about it.

Don't think I'm complaining: I am. Since I was a kid, everything has changed, from the

taste of bread to the nature of Africa and China. But at least I thought sf would stay the same.

Instead, what has happened ? It's all different. They don't write like Heinlein any more -

even Heinlein doesn't. In the old days, you knew exactly where you stood in a story. Take the

aliens; back in the Golden Age, when the writers had a bit of a sense of wonder and there

were blondes on the covers, you knew the aliens would always be there, endlessly mown

down, endlessly picturesque, swarming over endless alien worlds. But nowadays - well, let's

take actual cases, he said, reaching eagerly for the May 1940 copy of Gruelling Science

Stories. The Luftwaffe was plastering London at the time, but thank heavens the American sf

writers hadn't got wind of that, and Zago Blinder was still turning out his customary peaceful

limpid prose. His May 1940 stint was entitled, with what I've always thought showed

considerable skill in alliteration, 'The Devils of Deneb iv'.

You know how this sort of thing goes right from the start. The pleasure lies in its

predictability. Scarcely has the whine (whisper, snarl, thunder) of the landing jets died than

the hatch opens and three Earthmen jump (crawl, climb, fall) out and stand looking round

Deneb iv. They find the air is breathable and quickly hoist the flag (Old Glory, U.N. banner,

Stars and Stripes).

Up to now, we readers have been carried along breathlessly (restlessly, hesitantly,

mindlessly) on the flood of the author's

prose, full of admiration for the way in which he has so economically created a situation

so distinct from our own humdrum world. More, the old-timers among us are full of gratitude

for his dropping the first three (four, six, twelve) chapters describing the construction of the

spaceship in someone's back yard and its long eventful journey to Deneb which were once

considered compulsory in this sort of exercise.

Now, however, comes an awkward pause. We have been brought painlessly through what

the textbooks call Building Up Atmosphere, Establishing Environment, Creating Character,

and so on. The idyllic mood must be shattered. It is time to Introduce the Action.

'Look!' gasps (coughs, barks, yells) the captain, pointing with trembling (rigid, scarred,

nicotine-stained) finger at the nearby hill (jungle, ocean, ruined temple). His crewmen follow

the line of his fingertip, and there approaching them they see an angry group (ugly bunch,

slavering horde, slobbering herd) of Denebians who are plainly out for blood as they gallop

(surge, slime, esp) towards the spaceship.

You must admit this is value for money, particularly if you only borrowed the magazine.

In no time, the three intrepid explorers are back in their ship and the vile Denebians are trying

to scratch their way in through the cargo hatch.

What more could you ask for? Personally, I asked for nothing more; I had had enough by

the time I came across this situation for the fiftieth time. It was not boredom so much as

bravery. The Denebians weren't what they used to be. However mindless and merciless they

got, I was no longer scared. I developed immunity. Yet, for all that, I liked things the way

they were. The more unsociably those aliens behaved, the more I realized how superior we

Earthmen were.

Then things became less straightforward. I was rifling through Microscopic Sex Wonder

during the boom year of 1951 when I realized that Deneb was no longer the same. They'd

dared to alter the plot!

This time, the aliens .didn't appear when the flag was hoisted. Everything was peaceful -

too peaceful. Our three chums wandered among beautiful trees, or they found charming

people like themselves but nicer, with sweet old mums sitting

knitting on the porch, and Pa sucking a corn cob and spittin' to avoid bunches of rosy-

cheeked kids, or else they found nothing there at all except the waving grass.

You remember what happened, don't you ? Those beautiful trees, that grand old granny,

those cheeky kids, that expanse of nothing, that sneaky grass, was really our old Denebians in

disguise. Yes, sir! Freud had hit sf by this date, and the old slobbering hordes were back in

full force only nastier, because they could thought-wrap themselves as grannies or grass and

get into the ship and cause chaos. That was a terrible era, and I don't know how I survived it.

Story after story, I had to face utter mind-wrenching terror.

I grew to love it.

Then they went and changed the plot again! I knew just how things were going and was

all set to relax when the editors or whoever it is that insists on these things - for sure it's not

the writers - altered the orthodoxy.

I can pinpoint the date exactly when I realized something had gone wrong. I had bought

the Jannish - sorry, the January issue of The Monthly of Whimsey and Wharnmo-Science,

1960, and was leafing through this story by Piledriver Jones entitled 'On Deneb Deep My

Pleasure Stalks'. Funny, I thought, the title doesn't sound right, they've started mucking

around with the titles now, is nothing sacred ? But since I wanted to find out if a pleasure

stalk was what I thought it was (it wasn't), I forced myself to read on.

You can't fail to recall the story, not only because it has since been anthologized fifty-two

times and won a Hank, but because it started a new trend. This is the one where they arrive

on Deneb iv all right, in this funny ship that rides solar winds, but some sort of bug gets them

and they all grow extra limbs; the captain alone grows twelve big toes, fourteen left arms, a

spare pair of buttocks, two girl's knees, and a horse's head. And then they sit around and talk

philosophy, not minding at all, until in the end it turns out that back on Earth things are even

worse because people are terribly short of horse's heads and buttocks and knee caps and

things.

Let's have no false modesty - I can adjust to anything. But it needs about twenty years to

adjust to that sort of plot. And

what happened? Already, already, they've altered the line again. That's what I mean

about change running hog wild.

Just this year the new orthodoxy has set in. Look at this month's crop of magazines - it's

not a very big crop these days, because people won't read unless they know what to expect -

look at Monolog, look at Off, look at Odious Fantasy and Lewd Worlds and Gallimaufry, and

what do you find ? Not a darned one of them has a story set on Deneb IV!

Not a darned one of them has a story set on any alien planet! They're all Earth stories,

everyone, though Monolog has this nine-part serial set in England at the time of the Norman

Conquest, with William the Conqueror finding cases of telepathy among the peasants.

Otherwise, nothing! Russians, psi powers, medicine, psychology, sociology, politics, traffic

problems, robots, nuclear wars, funny little tales about fellows meeting aliens and not

realizing it, oh yes, no shortage of all that sort of stuff, and, of course, plenty of drowned,

crystallized rainless, bug-ridden, childless, adultless, metal-less, doodless, witless worlds, all

of them Earth. But not a single story set on another planet.

I'd chuck in my hand. I would. I'd give up. I'd never bother to try and read another sf

story in another magazine in my life. There just happens to be one small thing that gives me

grounds for hope.

Lewd Worlds has a little cameo, not more than a thousand words long, about this chap

who seduces this girl and then creeps into his back yard and builds his own rocket ship. He

has this secret perverted desire to reach the stars, see ?

It's only a matter of sweating it out a few more years, boys. We'll get back to Deneb one

day. The times they are a-chang-, ing.

Section I

Uninhabited Planets

'.. . Because They're There"

mouth of hell David I. Masson brightside crossing Alan E, Nourse the sack William

Morrison

23 35

It's an adaptation of what Sir Edmund Hillary replied when asked why he wanted to climb

Everest. 'Because it's there,' he said. This remark has become part of the currency of con-

versation of our time. For the same reason, we want to visit other planets. Because they're

there. (The unspoken remainder of the sentence goes, and because we are human beings.)

That's straightforward enough. As to why we want to visit planets in fiction - that's less

simple. But there are valid reasons for our interest in unvisited or unvisitable planets; this

anthology sets out to explore some of them.

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BrianW.AldissisBritain'sleadingsciencefictionwriter.Hehaswonmanyoftheprizesinthefield,includingtheHugo,theNebula,andtheBSFAAward.TheAustraliansvotedhim'World'sBestContemporaryWriterofSF',andhisnovelsandstorieshavebeentranslatedintomanylanguages.HissciencefictionnovelsincludeNon-Stop(1958),Hothouse(1...

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