The Star Page 13

  ‘He had scarcely finished speaking when there was an urgent retort from another watcher.

  ‘“Look, Skipper—thirty degrees to starboard! What’s that?”

  ‘Commander Dawson swung around and whipped up his glasses. He saw, just visible above the water, a small oval object spinning rapidly on its axis.

  ‘“Uh-huh,” he said, “I’m afraid we’ve got company. That’s a radar scanner—there’s another sub here.” Then he brightened considerably. “Maybe we can keep out of this after all,” he remarked to his second-in-command. “We’ll watch to see that they start rescue operations, then sneak away.

  ‘“We may have to submerge and abandon Freda. Remember they’ll have spotted us by now on their radar. Better slacken speed and behave more like a real iceberg.”

  ‘Dawson nodded and gave the order. This was getting complicated, and anything might happen in the next few minutes. The other sub would have observed the Marlin merely as a blip on its radar screen, but as soon as it upped periscope its commander would start investigating. Then the fat would be in the fire…

  ‘Dawson analysed the tactical situation. The best move, he decided, was to employ his unusual camouflage to the full. He gave the order to swing the Marlin around so that her stern pointed towards the still submerged stranger. When the other sub surfaced, her commander would be most surprised to see an iceberg, but Dawson hoped he would be too busy with rescue operations to bother about Freda.

  ‘He pointed his glasses towards the crashed plane—and then had his second shock. It was a very peculiar type of aircraft indeed—and there was something wrong—

  ‘“Of course!” said Dawson to his Number One. “We should have thought of this—that thing isn’t an airplane at all. It’s a missile from the range over at Cocoa—look, you can see the flotation bags. They must have inflated on impact, and the sub was waiting out here to take it back.”

  ‘He’d remembered that there was a big missile launching range over on the east coast of Florida, at a place with the unlikely name of Cocoa on the still more improbable Banana River. Well, at least there was nobody in danger, and if the Marlin sat tight there was a sporting chance that they’d be none the worse for this diversion.

  ‘Their engines were just turning over, so that they had enough control to keep hiding behind their camouflage. Freda was quite large enough to conceal their conning tower, and from a distance, even in better light than this, the Marlin would be totally invisible. There was one horrid possibility, though. The other sub might start shelling them on general principles, as a menace to navigation. No: it would just report them by radio to the Coast Guard, which would be a nuisance but would not interfere with their plans.

  ‘“Here she comes!” said Number One. “What class is she?”

  ‘They both stared through their glasses as the submarine, water pouring from its sides, emerged from the faintly phosphorescent ocean. The moon had now almost set, and it was difficult to make out any details. The radar scanner, Dawson was glad to see, had stopped its rotation and was pointing at the crashed missile. There was something odd about the design of that conning tower, though…

  ‘Then Dawson swallowed hard, lifted the mike to his mouth, and whispered to his crew in the bowels of the Marlin! “Does anyone down there speak Russian…?”

  ‘There was a long silence, but presently the engineer officer climbed up into the conning tower.

  ‘“I know a bit, Skipper,” he said. “My grandparents came from the Ukraine. What’s the trouble?”

  ‘“Take a look at this,” said Dawson grimly. “There’s an interesting piece of poaching going on here. I think we ought to stop it…”’

  Harry Purvis has a most annoying habit of breaking off just when a story reaches its climax, and ordering another beer—or, more usually, getting someone else to buy him one. I’ve watched him do this so often that now I can tell just when the climax is coming by the level in his glass. We had to wait, with what patience we could, while he refuelled.

  ‘When you think about it,’ he said thoughtfully, ‘it was jolly hard luck on the commander of that Russian submarine. I imagine they shot him when he got back to Vladivostok, or wherever he came from. For what court of inquiry would have believed his story? If he was fool enough to tell the truth, he’d have said, “We were just off the Florida coast when an iceberg shouted at us in Russian, ‘Excuse me—I think that’s our property!’” Since there would be a couple of MVD men aboard the ship, the poor guy would have had to make up some kind of story, but whatever he said wouldn’t be very convincing…

  ‘As Dawson had calculated, the Russian sub simply ran for it as soon as it knew it had been spotted. And remembering that he was an officer in the Reserve, and that his duty to his country was more important than his contractual obligations to any single state, the Commander of the Marlin really had no choice in his subsequent actions. He picked up the missile, defrosted Freda, and set course for Cocoa—first sending a radio message that caused a great flurry in the Navy Department and started destroyers racing out into the Atlantic. Perhaps Inquisitive Ivan never got back to Vladivostok after all…

  ‘The subsequent explanations were a little embarrassing, but I gather that the rescued missile was so important that no one asked too many questions about the Marlin’s private war. The attack on Miami Beach had to be called off, however, at least until the next season. It’s satisfactory to relate that even the sponsors of the project, though they had sunk a lot of money into it, weren’t too disappointed. They each have a certificate signed by the Chief of Naval Operations, thanking them for valuable but unspecified services to their country. These cause such envy and mystification to all their Los Angeles friends that they wouldn’t part with them for anything…

  ‘Yet I don’t want you to think that nothing more will ever come of the whole project; you ought to know American publicity men better than that. Freda may be in suspended animation, but one day she’ll be revived. All the plans are ready, down to such little details as the accidental presence of a Hollywood film unit on Miami Beach when Freda comes sailing in from the Atlantic.

  ‘So this is one of those stories I can’t round off to a nice, neat ending. The preliminary skirmishes have taken place, but the main engagement is still to come. And this is the thing I often wonder about—what will Florida do to the Californians when it discovers what’s going on? Any suggestions, anybody?’

  Sleeping Beauty

  First published in Infinity Science Fiction, April 1957

  Collected in Tales from the White Hart

  It was one of those halfhearted discussions that is liable to get going in the ‘White Hart’ when no one can think of anything better to argue about. We were trying to recall the most extraordinary names we’d ever encountered, and I had just contributed ‘Obediah Polkinghorn’ when—inevitably—Harry Purvis got into the act.

  ‘It’s easy enough to dig up odd names,’ he said, reprimanding us for our levity, ‘but have you ever stopped to consider a much more fundamental point—the effects of those names on their owners? Sometimes, you know, such a thing can warp a man’s entire life. That is what happened to young Sigmund Snoring.’

  ‘Oh, no!’ groaned Charles Willis, one of Harry’s most implacable critics. ‘I don’t believe it!’

  ‘Do you imagine,’ said Harry indignantly, ‘that I’d invent a name like that? As a matter of fact, Sigmund’s family name was something Jewish from Central Europe: it began with SCH and went on for quite a while in that vein. “Snoring” was just an anglicised précis of it. However, all this is by the way: I wish people wouldn’t make me waste time on such details.’

  Charlie, who is the most promising author I know (he has been promising for more than twenty-five years) started to make vaguely protesting noises, but someone public spiritedly diverted him with a glass of beer.

  ‘Sigmund,’ continued Harry, ‘bore his burden bravely enough until he reached manhood. There is little doubt, however, that
his name preyed upon his mind, and finally produced what you might call a psychosomatic result. If Sigmund had been born of any other parents, I am sure that he would not have become a stertorous and incessant snorer in fact as well as—almost—in name.

  ‘Well, there are worse tragedies in life. Sigmund’s family had a fair amount of money, and a soundproofed bedroom protected the remainder of the household from sleepless nights. As is usually the case, Sigmund was quite unaware of his own nocturnal symphonies, and could never really understand what all the fuss was about.

  ‘It was not until he got married that he was compelled to take his affliction—if you can call it that, for it only inflicted itself on other people—as seriously as it deserved. There is nothing unusual in a young bride returning from her honeymoon in a somewhat distracted condition, but poor Rachel Snoring had been through a uniquely shattering experience. She was red-eyed with lack of sleep, and any attempt to get sympathy from her friends only made them dissolve into peals of laughter. So it was not surprising that she gave Sigmund an ultimatum; unless he did something about his snoring, the marriage was off.

  ‘Now this was a very serious matter for both Sigmund and his family. They were fairly well-to-do, but by no means rich—unlike Granduncle Reuben, who had died last year leaving a rather complicated will. He had taken quite a fancy to Sigmund, and had left a considerable sum of money in trust for him, which he would receive when he was thirty. Unfortunately, Granduncle Reuben was very old-fashioned and straitlaced, and did not altogether trust the modern generation. One of the conditions of the bequest was that Sigmund should not be divorced or separated before the designated date. If he was, the money would go to found an orphanage in Tel Aviv.

  ‘It was a difficult situation, and there is no way of guessing how it would have resolved itself had not someone suggested that Sigmund ought to go and see Uncle Hymie. Sigmund was not at all keen on this, but desperate predicaments demanded desperate remedies; so he went.

  ‘Uncle Hymie, I should explain, was a very distinguished professor of physiology, and a Fellow of the Royal Society with a whole string of papers to his credit. He was also, at the moment, somewhat short of money, owing to a quarrel with the trustees of his college, and had been compelled to stop work on some of his pet research projects. To add to his annoyance, the Physics Department had just been given half a million pounds for a new synchrotron, so he was in no pleasant mood when his unhappy nephew called upon him.

  ‘Trying to ignore the all-pervading smell of disinfectant and livestock, Sigmund followed the lab steward along rows of incomprehensible equipment, and past cages of mice and guinea pigs, frequently averting his eyes from the revolting coloured diagrams which occupied so much wall space. He found his uncle sitting at a bench, drinking tea from a beaker and absentmindedly nibbling sandwiches.

  ‘“Help yourself,” he said ungraciously. “Roast hamster—delicious. One of the litter we used for some cancer tests. What’s the trouble?”

  ‘Pleading lack of appetite, Sigmund told his distinguished uncle his tale of woe. The professor listened without much sympathy.

  ‘“Don’t know what you got married for,” he said at last. “Complete waste of time.” Uncle Hymie was known to possess strong views on this subject, having had five children but no wives. “Still, we might be able to do something. How much money have you got?”

  ‘“Why?” asked Sigmund, somewhat taken aback. The professor waved his arms around the lab.

  ‘“Costs a lot to run all this,” he said.

  ‘“But I thought the university—”

  ‘“Oh yes—but any special work will have to be under the counter, as it were. I can’t use college funds for it.”

  ‘“Well, how much will you need to get started?”

  ‘Uncle Hymie mentioned a sum which was rather smaller than Sigmund had feared, but his satisfaction did not last for long. The scientist, it soon transpired, was fully acquainted with Granduncle Reuben’s will; Sigmund would have to draw up a contract promising him a share of the loot when, in five years’ time, the money became his. The present payment was merely an advance.

  ‘“Even so, I don’t promise anything, but I’ll see what can be done,” said Uncle Hymie, examining the cheque carefully. “Come and see me in a month.”

  ‘That was all that Sigmund could get out of him, for the professor was then distracted by a highly decorative research student in a sweater which appeared to have been sprayed on her. They started discussing the domestic affairs of the lab’s rats in such terms that Sigmund, who was easily embarrassed, had to beat a hasty retreat.

  ‘Now, I don’t really think that Uncle Hymie would have taken Sigmund’s money unless he was fairly sure he could deliver the goods. He must, therefore, have been quite near the completion of his work when the university had slashed his funds; certainly he could never have produced, in a mere four weeks, whatever complex mixture of chemicals it was that he injected into his hopeful nephew’s arm a month after receiving the cash. The experiment was carried out at the professor’s own home, late one evening; Sigmund was not too surprised to find the lady research student in attendance.

  ‘“What will this stuff do?” he asked.

  ‘“It will stop you snoring—I hope,” answered Uncle Hymie. “Now, here’s a nice comfortable seat, and a pile of magazines to read. Irma and I will take turns keeping an eye on you in case there are any side reactions.”

  ‘“Side reactions?” said Sigmund anxiously, rubbing his arm.

  ‘“Don’t worry—just take it easy. In a couple of hours we’ll know if it works.”

  ‘So Sigmund waited for sleep to come, while the two scientists fussed about him (not to mention around each other) taking readings of blood pressure, pulse, temperature and generally making Sigmund feel like a chronic invalid. When midnight arrived, he was not at all sleepy, but the professor and his assistant were almost dead on their feet. Sigmund realised that they had been working long hours on his behalf, and felt a gratitude which was quite touching during the short period while it lasted.

  ‘Midnight came and passed. Irma folded up and the professor laid her, none too gently, on the couch. “You’re quite sure you don’t feel tired yet?” he yawned at Sigmund.

  ‘“Not a bit. It’s very odd; I’m usually fast asleep by this time.”

  ‘“You feel perfectly all right?”

  ‘“Never felt better.”

  ‘There was another vast yawn from the professor. He muttered something like, “Should have taken some of it myself,” then subsided into an armchair.

  ‘“Give us a shout,” he said sleepily, “if you feel anything unusual. No point in us staying up any longer.” A moment later Sigmund, still somewhat mystified, was the only conscious person in the room.

  ‘He read a dozen copies of Punch stamped “Not to Be Removed from the Common Room” until it was 2 a.m. He polished off all the Saturday Evening Posts by 4. A small bundle of New Yorkers kept him busy until 5, when he had a stroke of luck. An exclusive diet of caviar soon grows monotonous, and Sigmund was delighted to discover a limp and much-thumbed volume entitled The Blonde Was Willing. This engaged his full attention until dawn, when Uncle Hymie gave a convulsive start, shot out of his chair, woke Irma with a well-directed slap, and then turned his full attention towards Sigmund.

  ‘“Well, my boy,” he said, with a hearty cheerfulness that at once alerted Sigmund’s suspicions. “I’ve done what you wanted. You passed the night without snoring, didn’t you?”

  ‘Sigmund put down the Willing Blonde, who was now in a situation where her co-operation or lack of it would make no difference at all.

  ‘“I didn’t snore,” he admitted. “But I didn’t sleep either.”

  ‘“You still feel perfectly wide awake?”

  ‘“Yes—I don’t understand it at all.”

  ‘Uncle Hymie and Irma exchanged triumphant glances. “You’ve made history, Sigmund,” said the professor. ‘You’re the first man to be a
ble to do without sleep.” And so the news was broken to the astonished and not yet indignant guinea pig.

  ‘I know,’ continued Harry Purvis, not altogether accurately, ‘that many of you would like the scientific details of Uncle Hymie’s discovery. But I don’t know them, and if I did they would be too technical to give here. I’ll merely point out, since I see some expressions which a less trusting man might describe as sceptical, that there is nothing really startling about such a development. Sleep, after all, is a highly variable factor. Look at Edison, who managed on two or three hours a day right up to the end of his life. It’s true that men can’t go without sleep indefinitely—but some animals can, so it clearly isn’t a fundamental part of metabolism.’

  ‘What animals can go without sleep?’ asked somebody, not so much in disbelief as out of pure curiosity.

  ‘Well—er—of course!—the fish that live out in deep water beyond the continental shelf. If they ever fall asleep, they’d be snapped up by other fish, or they’d lose their trim and sink to the bottom. So they’ve got to keep awake all of their lives.’

  (I am still, by the way, trying to find if this statement of Harry’s is true. I’ve never caught him out yet on a scientific fact, though once or twice I’ve had to give him the benefit of the doubt. But back to Uncle Hymie.)

  ‘It took some time,’ continued Harry, ‘for Sigmund to realise what an astonishing thing had been done to him. And enthusiastic commentary from his uncle, enlarging upon all the glorious possibilities that had been opened up for him now that he had been freed from the tyranny of sleep, made it difficult to concentrate on the problem. But presently he was able to raise the question that had been worrying him. “How long will this last?” he enquired.

  ‘The professor and Irma looked at each other. Then Uncle Hymie coughed a little nervously and replied: “We’re not quite sure yet. That’s one thing we’ve got to find out. It’s perfectly possible that the effect will be permanent.”