R. Horpritt. Chief,
AdServ, 15/978 G.E.
The letters that form a major part of this story (which contains one of my rare examples of extraterrestrial intelligences) are, you will be glad to know, based on the kind of material that routinely passed in and out of the N.A.E.S. (and, for all I know, still does). The turgid style is not my invention. I couldn't invent it if I tried.
When the story appeared, L. Sprague de Camp happily pointed out one flaw in the letter style: I had carelessly made someone in lower position, who was addressing someone in higher position, say, 'it is requested' instead of 'it is suggested.' The underling can humbly suggest, but only an overling can harshly request.
'Blind Alley' has one distinction I would like to mention.
After the war, there began that flood of science fiction anthologies that has been growing in width and depth ever since. Few, if any, science fiction writers have been anthologized as often as I have and the first one of my stories to be anthologized was not 'Nightfall' or a 'positronic robot' story or a 'Foundation' story. It was 'Blind Alley.'
In early 1946 Groff Conklin was putting out the first of his many science fiction anthologies - one called 'The Best of Science Fiction' - and there you will find 'Blind Alley.' That story, for which Campbell had paid $148.75 (He a word) then earned another $42.50 Qc a word). This meant that 'Blind Alley' had earned me 21/4c a word, which was a record high at the time.
Strictly speaking, the money for the anthologization was paid to Street amp; Smith, but Street amp; Smith had the enlightened habit of turning such money over to the author - voluntarily and without legal compulsion. And this was the first indication I ever received, by the way, that a story could earn more money than that which it earned at the time of its original sale.
On May 8, 1945, one week before 'The Mule' was completed, the war ended in Europe. Naturally, there was at once a move to demobilize as many of the men who had been fighting in Europe as possible, and to draft replacements from among those who had luxuriated at home.
All through the war, till then, I had been receiving regular draft deferments as a research chemist working in a position important to the war effort. Periodically, there were revisions of the draft rules, and it was a rare month in which it did not look at one time or another as though I might be drafted. (It kept me on my toes, I can tell you, but I did not feel particularly ill-used. My predominant feeling was that of a sneaking guilt at not being drafted and some shame that I was relieved at my deferment.)
During 1944, the uncertainty went so far that I was called in for a physical examination, and it at once turned out that my nearsightedness was so bad as to render me ineligible for the draft anyway.
After V-E Day, the navy yard was ordered to retain only some percentage of those of its deferred employees, allowing the remainder to be drafted. Presumably, the navy yard would select its most important employees to keep, but they knew a better trick, according to the tale we employees heard. They retained all draftable employees who met the physical requirements, and removed protection from those who did not meet them either because of age or physical defect. In this way, they hoped to keep them all - those who were fit, because they were declared necessary, and those who were overage or unfit, because they were overage or unfit.
I, as an unfit employee, was one of those declared non-essential.
And then (you guessed it) the Army lowered its physical requirements. The result was that those navy yard employees with bad eyes or other mild deficiencies were put in imminent peril of the draft, while others, who were in every way equivalent except that they were in good shape, were not. (You may well laugh.)
For four months after V-E Day, it was up and down with me and the draft and I never knew, on one day, whether I might not receive my induction notice on the next. While I waited, the atom bombs were dropping on Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the Japanese formally surrendered on September 2.
On September 7, 1945, I received my notice of induction. I didn't enjoy it, of course, but I tried to be philosophical. The war was over, and, whatever difficulties I might have during the two years I expected to be in, at least no one would be shooting at me. I entered the Army on November 1, 1945, as a buck private.
Naturally, during all the fuss over the draft, culminating in my induction, I did no writing. There was an eight-month hiatus, in fact, the longest in three years.
On January 7, 1946, however, while I was still working my way through basic training in Camp Lee, Virginia, I began another 'positronic robot' story, called 'Evidence.' I made use of a typewriter in one of the administrative buildings.
Naturally, it was slow work. I didn't finish first draft till February 17, and then everything came to a halt when, the very next day, I discovered that I would be among those sent out to the South Pacific to participate in 'Operation Crossroads.' This was the first postwar atom bomb test, on the island of Bikini (which later gave its name to a bathing suit so skimpy as to react on the male constitution - in theory - like an atom bomb). The fact that a week later I received my check for the anthologization of 'Blind Alley' did little to raise my spirits.
We left on March 2, 1946, traveling by train and ship, and arrived in Honolulu on March 15. There then began a long wait before we could go on to Bikini (the atom bomb test was postponed, of course). When time began to hang heavy enough, I returned to 'Evidence.' I persuaded a sympathetic librarian to lock me up in the building when it closed for lunch so that I had an hour each day absolutely alone at the typewriter. I finished the story on April 10, and mailed it off to Campbell the next day.
On April 29, I received word of its acceptance. By that time, the word rate had reached two cents.
I never did go to Bikini, by the way. Some administrative error back home ended the allotment being sent to my wife. I was sent back to the United States on May 28 to inquire into the matter; it was all straightened out by the time I was back at Camp Lee. As long as I was there, however, I applied for a 'research discharge' on the ground that I was going back to my Ph.D work. I was out of the Army, as a corporal, on July 26.
'Evidence' was the only story I wrote while in uniform.
As soon as I got out of the Army I made arrangements to return to Columbia, after an absence of a little over four years, and to resume my work toward my Ph.D. under Professor Dawson.
There was still no question in my mind that chemistry was my career, and my only career. In the four years of my marriage I had written nine science fiction stories and one fantasy and had sold them all - but all the sales had been to Campbell.
Since Unknown had died, I was terribly conscious that Astounding might die as well. If that happened, or if Campbell retired, I was not at all sure that I could continue selling.
The situation looked better postwar than prewar, to be sure. During the first four years of my marriage, I had earned $2667 as a writer, or an average of under $13 per week. This was about half again as well as I had been doing in my bachelor days, even though I was writing fewer stories.
The word rate had doubled, you see, and there was even the hope of subsidiary rights - extra money for already sold stories. 'Blind Alley' had already placed in an anthology, and on August 30, 1946, only a month after I got out of the Army, I discovered that I had made a second such sale. A new science fiction anthology, 'Adventures in Time and Space,' edited by Raymond J. Healey and J. Francis McComas, was to include 'Nightfall' and I was to receive $66.50 for that.
There was even more than anthologization sales. In that same month of August, the September 1946 issue of Astounding hit the stands with 'Evidence' (Had I but known when writing it that by the time it was published I would be safely out of the Army!) Almost at once I received a telegram asking for the movie rights. The gentleman interested turned out to be none other than Orson Welles. In great excitement, I sold him the radio, television and movie rights to the story on September 20, and waited to become famous. (I couldn't become wealthy, because the entire payment in full was only $250.)
Unfortunately, nothing happened. To this day, Mr. Welles has never used the story. But the check was certainly useful toward paying my tuition.