Multiverse: Exploring the Worlds of Poul Anderson (37 page)
Read Multiverse: Exploring the Worlds of Poul Anderson Online
Authors: Greg Bear,Gardner Dozois
Tor tried to stay detached, but it was hard to do, while stepping past the little mummies, still clutching each other for comfort and support, at the end of their lives.
“It must have taken quite a while to delve into this asteroid, to carve the chambers, to refine raw materials, then build the machines that were needed in order to build more machines that eventually started making colonists, according to genetic codes the mother probe brought with her from some faraway star.
“Perhaps the mother probe was programmed to
modify
the original genetic code so colonists would better fit into whatever planet was available. That modification would take even more time to . . . ”
Tor stopped suddenly. “Oh my,” she sighed, staring.
“Oh my God.”
Where her headlamp illuminated a new corner of the chamber, two more mummies lay slumped before a sheer-faced wall. In their delicate, vacuum dried hands Tor saw dusty metal tools, the simplest known anywhere.
Hammers and chisels.
Tor blinked at what they had been creating—a prehistoric tale of battle and woe, enduring brutal assault by forces of relentless belligerence, incised deeply across a wide stretch of ancient asteroidal stone.
Meanwhile, Gavin explained:
“I had started out expecting the ancient colonists to be unsophisticated. After all, how could biological folk be fully capable if they were brewed in test tubes, decanted out of womb tanks, and raised by machines? Here they had been baked, modified, and prepared for their intended destiny on a planet’s surface. So long as they remained out here, in space, they depended on the mammoth starmother probe for everything. Might as well think of them as fetuses.
“Yet clearly, the creatures had been aware. They knew what was going on. And when the fatal failure of their mission loomed, they figured out a way to ensure that their story might someday be read, long after all magnetic, optical, and superconducting records decayed. The biologicals found their enduring medium.”
The creatures must have had a lot of time, while battles raged outside their deep catacombs, for the carvings were extensive, intricate, arrayed in neat rows and columns. Separated by narrow lines of peculiar chiseled text were depictions of suns, planets, and great machines.
And more machines. Above all, pictographs of mighty mechanisms covered the wall. In bewildering variety, some of them attacking ravenously, with cutting beams or missiles or tearing claws . . . and others just as clearly defending. And it dawned on Tor.
“This may be why the FACR ambushed us. To prevent us from seeing this Rosetta Stone—this explanation of what happened out here, long ago.
We had better take pictures and transmit them home, as quick as possible.”
“I’ve already summoned two drones to take care of that, Tor.”
“Good.”
Unspoken was the thing she needn’t say aloud.
We’ve only just begun probing the asteroid belt and our solar system, yet already we’ve stumbled onto mysterious, ancient mechanical monsters, who battled each other over this corner of the universe, ages ago . . . and some of whom are still lurking around.
Moreover, this combined in a chilling way with Tor’s own discovery, made just before Gavin summoned her down here. Simple geological dating experiments finally settled the question of when all this happened.
The mother probe, her replicas, and her colonist children, all died at almost the same moment—give or take a century—that Earth’s dinosaurs went extinct. Presumably victims of the same horrific war.
What happened? Did one robotic faction hurl a huge piece of rock at another, missing its target but striking the water planet, accidentally wreaking havoc on its biosphere? Or was the extinction event intentional? Tor imagined all those magnificent creatures, killed as innocent bystanders in a battle between great machines . . . an outcome that incidentally gave Earth’s mammals their big chance.
Irony, heaped atop ironies.
We’re like ants,
she thought,
building tiny castles under the skeletons of giants, robbing their graves. And hoping that skeletons will be all we find.
Tor stared at the story of a long, complex, and devastating war, carved into this ancient rock. The main part of the frieze depicted a bewildering variety of machines—interstellar probes dispatched by alien civilizations log ago—probes whose purposes weren’t easy to interpret. Perhaps professional decipherers—archaeologists and cryptologists—would do better. Somehow, Tor doubted it.
Our sun is younger than average,
she noted,
by at least a billion years. And so must be the Earth. So are we.
And catching up just became a whole lot more urgent.
Humanity had come late upon the scene. And a billion years was a long head start.
AFTERWORD:
I think of Poul Anderson
whenever it’s time to create a novella-length work that makes people think. I’ll explain why the novella length is special, in a bit. But first, the connection between Poul and “Latecomers.”
Many years ago, when I first started publishing science fiction tales, I proudly showed Poul my new story, “Lungfish,” that tried for the haunting, elegiacal tone and imagery he conveyed so well. Poul was kind enough to say that I succeeded in achieving all those fine things . . . “but come on David,” he added. “You can get all that across, while giving the reader some fun. Some action too.”
I learned an important lesson that day (one of many that Poul taught me). And it led—decades later—to the major re-write that you see before you, containing less than twenty percent of the original “Lungfish.” An idea brought to better maturity, still delivering vistas of space and time, while adding a little action and fun.
Why is this so important? So true to Poul Anderson?
Poul was the most natural storyteller I ever knew. Show him the first half of any tale and he could describe the arc of plot and character that was already implicit—the climax and conclusion that was blatantly the best—like a sculptor finding a living figure hidden in raw stone.
I sometimes imagined Poul in animal skins, spinning yarns during that long era when darkness loomed on every side and our only weapons to fight it back were courage and the high technology of flame.
And words.
The brave tales sung beside that neolithic fire had to last just long enough for men and women to nurse the day’s harsh wounds, digest their meager meal, and suckle babies before huddling through another long night, their hearts and dreams warmed by legends of heroes. That span—an hour or two—was just long enough for the bard to portray vibrant characters in poignant, powerful adventures.
Today we call stories of that length novelettes and novellas, and Poul was the master. Though he wrote brilliant, thoughtful novels, most of his awards were for dazzlingly efficient novellas that, uncluttered by extra baggage of a six-pound book, left you speechless for hours. Poul’s topics probed tomorrow with utter freshness, but he stirred hearts with rhythms drawn directly from brave campfires long ago.
Oh, the novels will endure, too.
Brain Wave
remains one of the best explorations of a bold idea ever written in the genre. Likewise the groundbreaking
Tau Zero
and the later, thoughtful
Genesis
, took readers to the edge of modern thinking about human and planetary destiny. Even lesser works, like
After Doomsday
, still make you choke up at exactly the right moment, reading them for the twentieth time. Even so, many of those novels were made up—in series—of strung-together novellas, each composed with the tight efficiency of a moon-shot.
Poul was kind to young peers. He and Karen read manuscripts sent by total strangers, replying with insightful, courteous suggestions. This, too, set an example for those of us who might easily get too caught up in ego to remember what counts, an obligation to pay forward.
He loved his country, but even more, Poul loved the kind of civilization of which America is merely an early example in a chain stretching far ahead of us—one that turns away from hierarchies of inherited privilege toward traits like skill, opportunity, tolerance, and hope. And relentless self-criticism! For he could also type a tragedy to tear your heart out.
Still, as with the best sages of SF, Poul wrote most passionately and intrepidly about
change
, pointing out so many ways that change might threaten us, or rescue us . . . or simply make us weird. (As a Californian, he didn’t find the latter prospect daunting at all.)
And talk about weird . . . I still can’t believe he’s not there, ready and willing to be called or emailed or asked a bit of advice . . . (though there’s still wonderful Karen . . . )
A few weeks before he passed away, Poul learned that an asteroid was named for him by the discoverer, Glo Helin, (who graciously rushed the bureaucratic process through in time). 11990 Poulanderson is about five miles across, in an orbit that can easily be perturbed to become an Earth-crosser, and then . . . Well, I’d rather have watched Poul spend a hundred years conspiring with clever collaborators to develop his real estate in High Orbit. What fun he’d have had!
Funny, I don’t feel too bad right now, just knowing that humanity is capable of bringing forth such men.
The stars burn bitterly clear . . .
—David Brin
AN APPRECIATION OF POUL ANDERSON
by Jerry Pournelle
In addition
to being an acclaimed science fiction author, Campbell Award-winner Jerry Pournelle holds degrees in engineering, psychology, and political science, and contributed for many years to the computer magazine
Byte.
He’s probably best-known in the field for his long series of collaborative novels with Larry Niven, the most famous of which is
The Mote in God’s Eye,
but which also includes
Inferno, Lucifer’s Hammer, The Gripping Hand, Footfall, Escape from Hell, The Burning City, Burning Tower,
and
Oath of Fealty;
he’s also written
Fallen Angels
with Niven and Michael Flynn, and the two-volume
Heorot
series with Niven and Steven Barnes. Pournelle is also author of the three-volume
CoDominium
series, which started with
A Spaceship for the King;
the four-volume
Falkenberg’s Legion
series, related to the
CoDominium
series, some written with S. M. Stirling; and the five-volume
War World series, also related to the
CoDominium
series, with John F. Carr; and of the four-volume
Janissaries
series, some written with Roland J. Green. Pournelle has also contributed to the
Planet of the Apes
and the
Man-Kzin War
series. He’s the author of solo novels
Birth of Fire, High Justice,
and
Exiles to Glory,
and two early novels written under the name Wade
Curtis. As an editor, Pournelle edited the long-running seven-volume
Far Frontiers
anthology series with Jim Baen; the nine-volume
There Will Be War
anthology series (some volumes with John F. Carr); and, also with John F. Carr, the four-volume
Endless Frontier
series, the three-volume
Imperial Stars
series, and
Nebula Award Stories 16.
He’s also
edited the anthologies
2020 Visions
and
Black Holes,
and produced a large number of non-fiction books about computer science.
I met Poul Anderson
at the 1961 World Science Fiction Convention in Seattle. I had been reading his stories since I first encountered him in
Astounding Science Fiction
in high school. I was still reading
Astounding
(it was
Analog
by then). I had never taken any interest in fandom, but I wanted to meet Poul Anderson. I had never been tempted to go to SF conventions—indeed my idea of a SF Worldcon was formed from reading about them in
Mad
magazine and other unsympathetic sources—and I neither knew or cared about SF fandom; but for some reason I thought Poul Anderson and I would hit it off. I was at that time a Boeing engineer involved in space system proposals, and I thought I might have some things I could tell Anderson if I could wangle a meeting. Mostly I had been greatly influenced by his stories, and I wanted to meet the author.
Meeting him was no problem at all. A friendlier author never lived. We met in the hotel lobby and in five minutes had planned an evening party that turned out to last all night, and by the next day we had formed a friendship that has never ended, not even when I was given the honor of being MC at Poul’s memorial in 2001. Over time we went to both amateur and professional conferences, collaborated with others in devising the Reagan Strategic Defense Initiative AKA Star Wars, bashed each other with wooden swords in Society of Creative Anachronism events, and got into an argument with Edward Teller at the Open Space and Peace conference at Stanford Hoover Institution. I forget what Poul and Teller disagreed on, but Poul more than held his own in the entirely civil discussion that followed.
I was on the Boeing team assigned to think about possible new projects and products—after all, Boeing designers had invented the Flying Fortress—and our first task was to try to understand what space warfare might be like. We arranged for Boeing to pay Poul for a paper on his conception of the future of space war. It turned out that our concept(s) of space war was (were) wrong in most details, but so were everyone else’s.
As to the argument with Teller at the Open Space and Peace Conference: In those days most space observations were recorded on film and the physical film capsule was de-orbited and the parachuting capsule was caught by an airplane. Poul thought that would change soon, and this would affect Teller’s scheme for Open Space. He was correct. The technology was already changing—but none of us (except possibly Teller) knew just how dramatically the technology of observation from space and returning that information to earth had advanced. It was an interesting conversation in the Hoover Library. Poul was always civil and polite, and he always at least held his own in that discussion as he did in every discussion I ever heard him in.
That’s hardly surprising. Poul Anderson was the very definition of the polymath. He read everything. If there was a subject he didn’t know about, I never found it. He was very deferential to authorities, but he often knew at least as much about how their subject connected to the universe as the expert did. Sometimes more.
He could also sail a boat, and when it came time for me to get
Ariadne
, my twenty-foot midget ocean racing sloop, from Seattle to Los Angeles, I enlisted Poul’s aid as crew. It says a great deal about his temperament that he didn’t throw me overboard when we were weatherbound in Neah Bay in a port that was then a Bureau of Indian Affairs Reservation where federal regulations prohibited the sale of alcohol—including beer. The result was an even firmer friendship, and a memorable folksong about the Straits of Juan de Fuca. Some of that trip made it into my second novel,
Red Dragon
, and here and there into a number of Poul’s stories.
A few years later, Poul was struck with some kind of writer’s block and asked if we could go sailing again. We sailed
Ariadne
out of Los Angeles harbor to the Santa Barbara Channel Islands, down to Catalina, and home again. It was a glorious trip. About the time we got back to Catalina Island we realized that we had an infinite amount of beer—that is, there was enough aboard that we couldn’t possibly drink it all (at least not and expect to get back to Los Angeles alive). We had learned that much from the previous trip.
While on Catalina we got our first look at what later became a phenomenon: lava lamps. When we got back on board for the night Poul was inspired to construct a song about the things we called “blob makers” because we didn’t know their common name. I wish I had written down the song that came out of that experience.
Many things drove Poul to poesy and song composition. Once, at a not-very-well-managed Westercon in San Diego, our “banquet” consisted of some unidentifiable meat and a small round object that proved to be a boiled potato. I lifted mine and dropped it to the plate. Twice. At which point Poul looked up and said, “I have written about these for years, but this is the first time I have actually heard a dull, sickening, thud.” Before the week was out Poul had written “Bouncing Potatoes,” which is a filk song classic. If you don’t know what filk songs are, Google will be glad to enlighten you. Poul wrote a lot of them. There was a period when hardly a month went by without a new one appearing in the mail.
By mail I mean mail. I don’t believe I ever got an email from Poul. Like me, he was a bit hard of hearing—one reason we got on well, I suspect, is that we both talked loud enough that each could easily hear and understand the other—and he didn’t like talking on the telephone. He wrote letters. I was an early convert to writing with computers, but my attempts to drag Poul into the computer age ran afoul of the fact that he was a good typist who saw no need for these new-fangled machines. After all, he turned out more and better work with his big standard typewriter than just about anyone could manage with a computer.
There was a time when Poul, Gordy Dickson, and I were a fixture at science fiction convention parties: we’d go off somewhere so as not to disturb the party, because while it was a matter of discussion as to whether Poul or I had the worse voice (Gordy actually sang well), I don’t think anyone who ever heard us doubted that between us we had the two worst voices in science fiction. One might wonder why anyone would listen to us, but in fact there’s no real doubt. It wasn’t the singing, it was the words. Poul composed hundreds of songs, all intriguing. Here’s one of them. It contains truth as well as humor. Much of Poul’s work does.
Black bodies give off radiation
And ought to continuously.
Black bodies give off radiation
But do it by Plank’s Theory.
Chorus:
Bring back, bring back,
Oh, bring back that old continuity!
Bring back, bring back,
Oh, bring back Clerk Maxwell to me.
Though now we have Schroedinger functions,
Dividing up h by 2 pi
That damn differential equation
Still has no solution for psi.
(Chorus)
Well, Heisenburg came to the rescue,
Intending to make all secure.
What is the result of his efforts?
We are absolutely unsure.
(Chorus)
Dirac spoke of energy levels,
Both minus and plus. Oh, how droll!
And now, just because of his teaching,
We don’t know our mass from a hole.
(Chorus)
This book is an appreciation of the man and his work.
And what work it was. He built characters. He turned simple ideas into stories. He constructed worlds in less time than it takes to spade up a garden. He built worlds and civilizations, often quite effortlessly, or at least it appeared that way. Sometime he had an idea for a story that needed a very weird world. He could dash that off, apparently effortlessly, done so well that it might later serve as the basis for new stories and novels.
He built characters, and he connected the future to the present. He understood the need for humanity to expand into the universe, and said so, in both fiction and non-fiction. He could see the consequences of not going to space, and told of the chilling consequences. He also told of the potential glory for conquering both the solar system and the galaxy. Bob Gleason, then editor in chief at
Tor
, worked at nominating Poul for a Nobel Prize in Literature. Bob understood that given the politics of the world this was highly unlikely, but that didn’t stop him. “Simple justice,” he once said. It would have been.