Sills’ face lengthened. “I wish I’d never seen the damned stuff! It’s brought nothing but trouble.” His tortured spirit gave way and he sobbed loudly.
Taylor patted him on the back mournfully. “It’s not as bad as all that, of course. The discovery will make you famous and you’ll be able to demand your own price, working at any industrial lab in the country. Then, too, you’re a cinch to win the Nobel Prize.”
“That’s right,” Sills smiled again, “and I may find a way to counteract the odor, too. I hope so.”
“I hope so, too,” said Taylor feelingly. “Let’s go back. I think they’ve managed to remove the spoon by now.”
It should be quite obvious to anyone reading “The Magnificent Possession” that I was majoring in chemistry in college at the time. As supposed humor, it is much more embarrassing on rereading than “Ring Around the Sun” is. Imagine having a Congressman named “Hornswoggle” and having gangsters speak in a ridiculous, misspelled version of Brooklyn slang.
“The Magnificent Possession” was the only one of the first nine stories I wrote that Campbell never saw, and I’m glad of that.
In early December I wrote a story I called “Ad Astra,” and on December 21, 1938 (my father’s forty-second birthday, though I don’t recall thinking of it as an omen one way or the other), I went in to submit it to Campbell. It was my seventh visit to his office, for I had not yet missed a month, and it was the ninth story I submitted to him.
“Ad Astra” is the first story I wrote for which I remember, even after all this time, the exact circumstances of the initiating inspiration. That fall, I applied for and received a National Youth Administration (NYA) job designed to help me through college. I received fifteen dollars a month, if memory serves me, in return for a few hours of typing. The typing I did was for a sociologist who was writing a book on the subject of social resistance to technological innovation. This included everything from the resistance of the early Mesopotamian priesthood to the dissemination of the knowledge of reading and writing among the general population, down to objections to the airplane by those who said heavier-than-air flight was impossible.
Naturally it occurred to me that a story might be written in which social resistance to space flight might play a small part. It was because of that that I used “Ad Astra” as the title. This was from the Latin proverb “Per aspera ad astra” (“Through difficulties to the stars”).
For the first time, Campbell did more than simply send a rejection. On December 29, I received a letter from him asking me to come in for a conference to discuss the story in detail.
On January 5, 1939, I went to see Campbell for the eighth time-and for the first time at his specific request. It turned out that what he liked in the story was the social resistance to space flight-the space flight itself was, of course, run of the mill.
Rather daunted, for I had never before had to revise a story to meet editorial specification, I went to work. I brought in the revised story on January 24, and on January 31 I discovered the system used by Campbell in accepting stories. Though his rejections were usually accompanied by long and useful letters, his acceptances consisted of a check only, without a single accompanying word. It was his feeling that the check was eloquent enough. In this case it was for sixty-nine dollars, since the story was 6,900 words long and Campbell paid one cent a word in those days.
It was my first sale to Campbell, after seven months of trying and after eight consecutive rejections. The story appeared half a year later, and I then found that Campbell had changed the title (on the whole justifiably, I think) to “Trends.”
Trends
John Harman was sitting at his desk, brooding, when I entered the office that day. It had become a common sight, by then, to see him staring out at the Hudson, head in hand, a scowl contorting his face-all too common. It seemed unfair for the little bantam to be eating his heart out like that day after day, when by rights he should have been receiving the praise and adulation of the world.
I flopped down into a chair. “Did you see the editorial in today’s Clarion , boss?”
He turned weary, bloodshot eyes to me. “No, I haven’t. What do they say? Are they calling the vengeance of God down upon me again?” His voice dripped with bitter sarcasm.
“They’re going a little farther now, boss,” I answered. “Listen to this:
“‘Tomorrow is the day of John Harman’s attempt at profaning the heavens. Tomorrow, in defiance of world opinion and world conscience, this man will defy God.
“’It is not given to man to go wheresoever ambition and desire lead him. There are things forever denied him, and aspiring to the stars is one of these. Like Eve, John Harman wishes to eat of the forbidden fruit, and like Eve he will suffer due punishment therefor.
“‘But it is not enough, this mere talk. If we allow him thus to brook the vengeance of God, the trespass is mankind’s and not Harman’s alone. In allowing him to carry out his evil designs, we make ourselves accessory to the crime, and Divine vengeance will fall on all alike.
“‘It is, therefore, essential that immediate steps be taken to prevent Harman from taking off in his so-called rocketship tomorrow. The government in refusing to take such steps may force violent action. If it will make no move to confiscate the rocketship, or to imprison Harman, our enraged citizenry may have to take matters into their own hands-’“
Harman sprang from his seat in a rage and, snatching the paper from my hands, threw it into the corner furiously. “It’s an open call to a lynching,” he raved. “Look at this!”
He cast five or six envelopes in my direction. One glance sufficed to tell what they were.
“More death threats?” I ‘asked.
“Yes, exactly that. I’ve had to arrange for another increase in the police patrol outside the building and for motorcycle police escort when I cross the river to the testing ground tomorrow.”
He marched up and down the room with agitated stride. “I don’t know what to do, Clifford. I’ve worked on the Prometheus almost ten years. I’ve slaved, spent a fortune of money, given up all that makes life worth while-and for what? So that a bunch of fool revivalists can whip up public sentiment against me until my very life isn’t safe.”
“You’re in advance of the times, boss,” I shrugged my shoulders in a resigned gesture which made him whirl upon me in a fury.
“What do you mean ‘in advance of the times’? This is 1973. The world has been ready for space travel for half a century now. Fifty years ago, people were talking, dreaming of the day when man could free himself of Earth and plumb the depths of space. For fifty years, science has inched toward, this goal, and now… now I finally have it, and behold! you say the world is not ready for me.”
“The ‘20s and ‘30s were years of anarchy, decadence, and misrule, if you remember your history,” I reminded him gently. “You cannot accept them as criteria.”
“I know, I know. You’re going to tell me of the First War of 1914, and the Second of 1940. It’s an old story to me; my father fought in the Second and my grandfather in the First. Nevertheless, those were the days when science flourished. Men were not afraid then; somehow they dreamed and dared. There was no such thing as conservatism when it came to matters mechanical and scientific. No theory was too radical to advance, no discovery too revolutionary to publish. Today, dry rot has seized the world when a great vision, such as space travel, is hailed as ‘defiance of God.’ “
His head sank slowly down, and he turned away to hide his trembling lips and the tears in his eyes. Then he suddenly straightened again, eyes blazing: “But I’ll show them. I’m going through with it, in spite of Hell, Heaven and Earth. I’ve put too much into it to quit now.”
“Take it easy, boss,” I advised. “This isn’t going to do you any good tomorrow, when you get into that ship. Your chances of coming out alive aren’t too good now, so what will they be if you start out worn to pieces with excitement and worry?”
“You’re right. Let’s not think of it any more. Where’s Shelton?”
“Over at the Institute arranging for the special photographic plates to be sent us.”
“He’s been gone a long time, hasn’t he?”
“Not especially; but listen, boss, there’s something wrong with him. I don’t like him.”
“Poppycock! He’s been with me two years, and I have no complaints.”
“All right.” I spread my hands in resignation. “If you won’t listen to me, you won’t. Just the same I caught him reading one of those infernal pamphlets Otis Eldredge puts out. You know the kind: ‘Beware, O mankind, for judgment draws near. Punishment for your sins is at hand. Repent and be saved.’ And all the rest of the time-honoured junk.”
Harman snorted in disgust. “Cheap tub-thumping revivalist! I suppose the world will never outgrow his type-not while sufficient morons exist. Still you can’t condemn Shelton just because he reads it. I’ve read them myself on occasion.”
“He says he picked it up on the sidewalk and read it in ‘idle curiosity,’ but I’m pretty sure that I saw him take it out of his wallet. Besides, he goes to church every Sunday.”