Edmond Hamilton - Devolution.pdf - Edmond Hamilton - margozap

EDMOND HAMILTON

Devolution

Edmond Hamilton was one of the most prolific and popular authors of science fiction before the Golden Age. His first

professionally published story appeared in 1926 in Weird Tales, and it was in this magazine that he first made his reputation,

writing a low-tech hybrid of science fiction and fantasy dubbed the "weird scientific" tale. Hamilton's stories are fast-oaced and

action-packed, cast with heroic scientists and space explorers and featuring men-aces of such colossal proportions-evolution

gone awry, interstellar invasion, planets on collision courses-that fans nicknamed him "World Wrecker Hamilton." Some of

Hamilton's best work from these years was collected in 1936 in The Horror on the Asteroid, one of the earliest appearances of pulp

science fiction in book form. Standout works from this period include The Time Raiders, a time-travel tale about a crack army of top

soldiers assembled from different eras to fight a threat to civilization, and the stories of the Interstellar Patrol, collected as Crashing

Suns and Outside the Universe, about a pangalactic space brigade that protects galactic civilization from nonstop challenges to its

existence. Hamilton's renown as a writer of thrilling space opera earned him the slot to write most of the lead novels for the

science fiction hero pulp Captain Future, under his own name and the pseudonym Brett Sterling, and his affiliation with this

magazine eventually earned him work writing for the Superman comics. He also wrote detective fiction and occasionally, under

the pseudonym Hugh Davidson, tales of straight horror, some of which have been collected in The Vampire Master. Hamilton was

one of the few early writers to adapt to the changing demands of science fiction in the years after World War II. His novels The

Haunted Stars, A Yank at Valhalla, The Star Kings, and City at the World's End are notable for their fully drawn characterizations and

focus on human moods and motives. Some of his best short fiction from this time appears in What's It Like Out There? His Starwolf

novels, Weapon from Beyond, The Closed World, and World of the Starwolves, are ranked as some of the best space operas of the

postwar years.

Ross had ordinarily the most even of tempers, but four days of canoe travel in the wilds of North

Quebec had begun to rasp it. On this, their fourth stop on the bank of the river to camp for the night, he

lost control and for a few moments stood and spoke to his two companions in blistering terms.

His black eyes snapped and his darkly unshaven handsome young face worked as he spoke. The two

biologists listened to him without reply at first. Gray's blond young countenance was indignant but

Woodin, the older biologist, just listened im-passively with his gray eyes level on Ross's angry face.

When Ross stopped for breath, Woodin's calm voice struck in. "Are you fin-ished?"

Ross gulped as though about to resume his tirade, then abruptly got hold of himself. "Yes, I'm

finished," he said sullenly.

"Then listen to me," said Woodin, like a middle-aged father admonishing a sulky child.

"You're working yourself up for nothing. Neither Gray nor I have made one complaint yet. Neither of

us has once said that we disbelieve what you told us."

"You haven't said you disbelieve, no!" Ross exclaimed with anger suddenly re-flaring. "But don't you

suppose I can tell what you're thinking?

"You think I told you a fairy story about the things I saw from my plane, don't you? You think I

dragged you two up here on the wildest wild-goose chase, to look for incredible creatures that could

never have existed. You believe that, don't you?"

"Oh, damn these mosquitoes!" said Gray, slapping viciously at his neck and star-ing with unfriendly

eyes at the aviator.

Woodin took command. "We'll go over this after we've made camp. Jim, get out the dufflebags. Ross,

will you rustle firewood?"

They both glared at him and at each other, but grudgingly they obeyed. The tension eased for the

time.

By the time darkness fell on the little riverside clearing, the canoe was drawn up on the bank, their

trim little balloon-silk tent had been erected, and a fire crackled in front of it. Gray fed the fire with fat

knots of pine while Woodin cooked over it coffee, hot cakes, and the inevitable bacon.

The firelight wavered feebly up toward the tall trunks of giant hemlocks that walled the little

clearing on three sides. It lit up their three khaki-clad, stained figures and the irregular white block of the

tent. It gleamed out there on the riffles of the McNorton, chuckling softly as it flowed on toward the Little

Whale.

They ate silently, and as wordlessly cleaned the pans with bunches of grass. Woodin got his pipe

going, the other two lit crumpled cigarettes, and then they sprawled for a time by the fire, listening to the

chuckling, whispering river-sounds, the sighing sough of the higher hemlock branches, the lonesome

cheeping of insects.

Woodin finally knocked his pipe out on his boot-heel and sat up.

"All right," he said, "now we'll settle this argument we were having."

Ross looked a little shamefaced. "I guess I got too hot about it," he said subduedly. Then added, "But

all the same, you fellows do more than half disbelieve me."

Woodin shook his head calmly. "No, we don't, Ross. When you told us that you'd seen creatures

unlike anything ever heard of while flying over this wilderness, Gray and I both believed you.

"If we hadn't, do you think two busy biologists would have dropped their work to come up here

with you into these unending woods and look for the things you saw?"

"I know, I know," said the aviator unsatisfiedly. "You think I saw something queer and you're taking

a chance that it will be worth the trouble of coming up here after.

"But you don't believe what I've told you about the look of the things. You think that sounds too

queer to be true, don't you?"

For the first time Woodin hesitated in answering. "After all, Ross," he said in-directly, "one's eyes can

play tricks when you're only glimpsing things for a moment from a plane a mile up."

"Glimpsing them?" echoed Ross. "I tell you, man, I saw them as clearly as I see you. A mile up, yes,

but I had my big binoculars with me and was using them when I saw them.

"It was near here, too, just east of the fork of the McNorton and the Little Whale. I was streaking south

in a hurry for I'd been three weeks up at that government mapping survey on Hudson's Bay. I wanted to

place myself by the river fork, so I brought my plane down a little and used my binoculars."Then, down

there in a clearing by the river, I saw something glisten and saw- the things. I tell you, they were

incredible, but just the same I saw them clear! I forgot all about the river fork in the moment or two I

stared down at them.

"They were big, glistening things like heaps of shining jelly, so translucent that I could see the

ground through them. There were at least a dozen of them and when I saw them they were gliding across

that little clearing, a floating, flowing movement.

"Then they disappeared under the trees. If there'd been a clearing big enough to land in within a

hundred miles, I'd have landed and looked for them, but there wasn't and I had to go on. But I wanted

like the devil to find out what they were, and when I took the story to you two, you agreed to come up

here by canoe to search for them. But I don't think now you've ever fully believed me."

Woodin looked thoughtfully into the fire. "I think you saw something queer, all right, some queer

form of life. That's why I was willing to come up on this search.

"But things such as you describe, jelly-like, translucent, gliding over the ground like that-there's been

nothing like that since the first protoplasmic creatures, the beginning of life on earth, glided over our

young world ages ago."

"If there were such things then, why couldn't they have left descendants like them?" Ross argued.

Woodin shook his head. "Because they all vanished ages ago, changed into dif-ferent and higher

forms of life, starting the great upward climb of life that has reached its height in man.

"Those long-dead, single-celled protoplasmic creatures were the start, the crude, humble beginnings

of our life. They passed away and their descendants were unlike them. We men are their descendants."

Ross looked at him, frowning. "But where did they come from in the first place, those first living

things?"

Again Woodin shook his head. "That is one thing we biologists do not know and can hardly

speculate upon, the origin of those first protoplasmic forms of life.

"It's been suggested that they rose spontaneously from the chemicals of earth, yet this is disproved

by the fact that no such things rise spontaneously now from inert matter. Their origin is still a complete

mystery. But, however they came into existence on earth, they were the first of life, our distant ancestors."

Woodin's eyes were dreaming, the other two forgotten, as he stared into the fire, seeing visions.

"What a glorious saga it is, that wonderful climb up from crude protoplasm creatures to a man! A

marvelous series of changes that has brought us from that first low form to our present splendor.

"And it might not have occurred on any other world but earth! For science is now almost sure that the

cause of evolutionary mutations is the radiations of the radioactive deposits inside the earth, acting upon

the genes of all living matter."

He caught a glimpse of Ross's uncomprehending face, and despite his raptness smiled a little.

"I can see that means nothing to you. I'll try to explain. The germ-cell of every living thing on earth

contains in it a certain number of small, rod-like things which are called chromosomes. These

chromosomes are made up of strings of tiny particles which we call genes. And each of these genes has a

potent and different controlling effect upon the development of the creature that grows from that

germ-cell.

"Some of these genes control the creature's color, some control his size, some the shape of his limbs,

and so on. Every characteristic of the creature that grows from that germ-cell will be greatly different from

the fellow-creatures of its species. He will be, in fact, of an entirely new species. That is the way in which

new species come into existence on earth, the method of evolutionary change.

"Biologists have known this for some time and they have been searching for the cause of these

sudden great changes, these mutations, as they are called. They have tried to find out what it is that

affects the genes so radically. They have found exper-imentally that X-rays and chemical rays of various

kinds, when turned upon the genes of a germ-cell, will change them greatly. And the creature

that grows from that germ-cell will thus be a greatly changed creature, a mutant.

"Because of this, many biologists now believe that the radiation from the radi-oactive

deposits inside earth, acting upon all the genes of every living thing on earth, is what causes

the constant change of species, the procession of mutations, that has brought life up the

evolutionary road to its present height.

"That is why I say that on any other world but earth, evolutionary progress might never

have happened. For it may be that no other world has similar radioactive deposits within it

to cause by gene-effect the mutations. On any other world, the first protoplasmic things that

began life might have remained forever the same, down through endless generations.

"How thankful we ought to be that it was not so on earth! That mutation after mutation

has followed, life ever changing and progressing into new and higher species, until the first

crude protoplasm things have advanced through countless changing forms into the supreme

achievement of man!"

Woodin's enthusiasm had carried him away as he talked, but now he stopped, laughing

a little as he relit his pipe.

"Sorry that I lectured you like a college freshman, Ross. But that's my chief subject of

thought, my idee fixe, that wonderful upward climb of life through the ages."

Ross was staring thoughtfully into the fire. "It does seem wonderful the way you tell it.

One species changing into another, going higher all the time-"

Gray stood up by the fire and stretched. "Well, you two can wonder over it, but this

crass materialist is going to emulate his remote invertebrate ancestors and return to a

prostrate position. In other words, I'm going to bed."

He looked at Ross, a doubtful grin on his young blond face, and said, "No hard feelings

now, feller?"

"Forget it." The aviator grinned back. "The paddling was hard today and you fellows did

look mighty skeptical. But you'll see! Tomorrow we'll be at the fork of the Little Whale and

then I'll bet we won't scout an hour before we run across those jelly-creatures."

"I hope so," said Woodin yawningly. "Then we'll see just how good your eyesight is from

a mile up, and whether you've yanked two respectable scientists up here for nothing."

Later as he lay in his blankets in the little tent, listening to Gray and Ross snore and

looking sleepily out at the glowing fire embers, Woodin wondered again about that. What

had Ross actually seen in that fleeting glimpse from his speeding plane? Something queer,

Woodin was sure of that, so sure that he'd come on this hard trip to find it. But what

exactly?

Not protoplasmic things such as he described. That couldn't be, of course. Or could it? If things like

that had existed once, why couldn't they-couldn't they-?

Woodin didn't know he'd been sleeping until he was awakened by Gray's cry. It wasn't a nice cry, it

was the hoarse yell of someone suddenly assaulted by bone-freezing terror.

He opened his eyes at that cry to see the Incredible looming against the stars in the open door of the

tent. A dark, amorphous mass humped there in the open-ing, glistening all over in the starlight, and

gliding into the tent. Behind it were oth-ers like it.

Things happened very quickly then. They seemed to Woodin to happen not consecutively but in a

succession of swift, clicking scenes like the successive pictures of a motion picture film.

Gray's pistol roared red flame at the first viscous monster entering the tent, and the momentary flash

showed the looming, glistening bulk of the thing, and Gray's panic-frozen face, and Ross clawing in his

blankets for his pistol.

Then that scene was over and instantly there was another one, Gray and Ross both stiffening

suddenly as though petrified, both falling heavily over. Woodin knew they were both dead now, but

didn't know how he knew it The glistening monsters were coming on into the tent.

He ripped up the wall of the tent and plunged out into the cold starlight of the clearing. He ran three

steps, he didn't know in what direction, and then he stopped. He didn't know why he stopped dead, but

he did.

He stood there, his brain desperately urging his limbs to fly, but his limbs would not obey. He

couldn't even turn, could not move a muscle of his body. He stood, his face toward the starlit gleam of

the river, stricken by a strange and utter paralysis.

Woodin heard rustling, gliding movements in the tent behind him. Now from behind, there came into

the line of his vision several of the glistening things. They were gathering around him, a dozen of them it

seemed, and he now could see them quite clearly.

They weren't nightmares, no. They were real as real, poised here around him, humped, amorphous

masses of viscous, translucent jelly. Each was about four feet tall and three in diameter, though their

shapes kept constantly changing slightly, making dimensions hard to guess.

At the center of each translucent mass was a dark, disk-like blob or nucleus. There was nothing else

to the creatures, no limbs or sense-organs. He saw that they could protrude pseudopods, though, for two,

who held the bodies of Gray and Ross in such tentacles, were now bringing them out and laying them

down beside Woodin.

Woodin, still quite unable to move a muscle, could see the frozen, twisted faces of the two men,

and could see the pistols still gripped in their dead hands. And then as he looked on Ross's

face he remembered.

The things the aviator had seen from his plane, the jelly-creatures the three had come

north to search for, they were the monsters around him! But how had they killed Ross and

Gray, how were they holding him petrified like this, who were they?

"We will permit you to move, but you must not try to escape."

Woodin's dazed brain numbed further with wonder. Who had said those words to him?

He had heard nothing, yet he had thought he heard.

"We will let you move but you must not attempt to escape or harm us."

He did hear those words in his mind, even though his ears heard no sound. And now his

brain heard more.

"We are speaking to you by transference of thought impulses. Have you sufficient

mentality to understand us?"

Minds? Minds in these things? Woodin was shaken by the thought as he stared at the

glistening monsters.

His thought apparently had reached them. "Of course we have minds," came the thought

answer into his brain. "We are going to let you move now, but do not try to flee."

"I-I won't try," Woodin told himself mentally.

At once the paralysis that held him abruptly lifted. He stood there in the circle of the

glistening monsters, his hands and body trembling violently.

There were ten of them, he saw now. Ten monstrous, humped masses of shining,

translucent jelly, gathered around him like cowled and faceless genii come from some haunt

of the unknown. One stood closer to him than the others, apparently spokes-man and leader.

Woodin looked slowly around their circle, then down at his two dead compan-ions. In

the midst of the unfamiliar terrors that froze his soul, he felt a sudden aching pity as he

looked down at them.

Came another strong thought into Woodin's mind from the creature closest him. "We did

not wish to kill them, we came here simply to capture and communicate with the three of

you.

"But when we sensed that they were trying to kill us, we slew quickly. You, who did not

try to kill us but fled, we harmed not."

"What-what do you want with us, with me?" Woodin asked. He whispered it through dry

lips, as well as thinking it.

There was no mental answer this time. The things stood unmoving, a silent ring of

brooding, unearthly figures. Woodin felt his mind snapping under the strain of silence and

he asked the question again, screamed it.

This time the mental answer came. "I did not answer, because I was probing your

mentality to ascertain whether you are of sufficient intelligence to comprehend our ideas.

"While your mind seems of an exceptionally low order, it seems possible that it can appreciate

enough of what we wish to convey to understand us.

"Before beginning, however, I warn you again that it is quite impossible for you to escape or to harm

any of us and that attempts to do so will result disastrously for you. It is apparent you know nothing of

mental energy, so I will inform you that your two fellow-creatures were killed by the sheer power of our

wills, and that your muscles were held unresponsive to your brain's commands by the same power. By

our mental energy we could completely annihilate your body, if we chose."

There was a pause, and in that little space of silence, Woodin's dazed brain clutched desperately for

sanity, for steadiness.

Then came again that mental voice that seemed so like a real voice speaking in his brain.

"We are children of a galaxy whose name, as nearly as it can be approximated in your tongue, is

Arctar. The galaxy of Arctar lies so many million light-years from this galaxy that it is far around the

curve of the sphere of the three-dimensional cosmos.

Edmond Hamilton - Devolution.pdf

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