The Murray Leinster Megapack Read online

  COPYRIGHT INFO

  The Murray Leinster Megapack is copyright © 2012 by Wildside Press LLC. Cover art copyright © 2012 by Ancello / Fotolia.

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  “The Runaway Skyscraper” originally appeared in The Argosy, February 22, 1919.

  “A Thousand Degrees Below Zero” originally appeare d in The Thrill Book, July 15, 1919

  “The Mad Planet” originally appeared in Argosy, June 12, 1920.

  “The Gallery Gods” originally appeared in Argosy All-Story Weekly, August 21, 1921.

  “The Red Dust” originally appeared in Argosy All-Story Weekly, April 2, 1921.

  “Nerve” originally appeared in Argosy All-Story Weekly, June 4, 1921.

  “Morale: A Story of the War of 1941-43” originally appeared in Astounding Stories, December 1931.

  “The Fifth-Dimension Tube” originally appeared in Astounding Stories, January 1933.

  “Invasion” originally appeared in Astounding Stories March 1933.

  “Space Platform” originally appeared in 1953 from Shasta Publishers.

  “Space Tug” originally appeared in 1953 from Shasta Publishers.

  “The Invaders” originally appeared in Amazing Stories April-May 1953.

  Operation: Outer Space originally appeared in 1954 from Fantasy Press.

  “Second Landing” originally appeared in Thrilling Wonder, Winter 1954.

  “Sam, This is You” originally appeared in Galaxy Science Fiction, May 1955.

  “White Spot” originally appeared in Startling Stories, Summer 1955.

  “Scrimshaw” originally appeared in Astounding Science Fiction, September 1955.

  “Sand Doom” originally appeared in Astounding Science Fiction, December 1955.

  “The Machine That Saved The World” originally appeared in Amazing Stories, December 1957.

  “The Monster from Earth’s End” originally appeared in 1959 from Fawcett Publications.

  “The Pirates of Ersatz” originally appeared in Astounding Science Fiction, February, March and April 1959.

  “The Aliens” originally appeared in Astounding Science Fiction, August 1959.

  “A Matter of Importance” originally appeared in Astounding Science Fiction, September 1959.

  “Long Ago, Far Away” originally appeared in Amazing Science Fiction Stories, September 1959.

  “The Leader” originally appeared in Astounding Science Fiction, February 1960.

  “The Ambulance Made Two Trips” originally appeared in Astounding Science Fiction, April 1960.

  “Pariah Planet” originally appeared in Amazing Science Fiction Stories, July 1961.

  Operation Terror originally appeared in 1962 from Berkley Books.

  Talents, Incorporated originally appeared in 1962 from Avon Books.

  “The Hate Disease” originally appeared in Analog Science Fact & Fiction, August 1963.

  INTRODUCTION

  “Murray Leinster” was one of several pseudonyms used by William Fitzgerald Jenkins (1896-1975), an award-winning American writer of science fiction and alternate history. He published more than 1,500 short stories and articles, 14 movie scripts, and hundreds of radio scripts and television plays.

  Jenkins began his litrary career as a freelance writer before World War I; he was two months short of his 20th birthday when his first story, “The Foreigner”, appeared in the May 1916 issue of H. L. Mencken’s literary magazine The Smart Set. Over the next three years, Leinster published ten more stories in the magazine. During and after World War I, he began appearing in pulp magazines like Argosy, Snappy Stories, and Breezy Stories. He continued to appear regularly in Argosy into the 1950s. When the pulp magazines began to diversify into particular genres in the 1920s, Leinster followed suit, selling jungle stories to Danger Trails, westerns to West and Cowboy Stories, detective stories to Black Mask and Mystery Stories, horror stories to Weird Tales, and even romance stories to Love Story Magazine (under the pen name “Louisa Carter Lee”.)

  Science fiction was a lifelong interest of Jenkins. His first sf story, “The Runaway Skyscraper”, appeared in the February 22, 1919 issue of Argosy—long before the term “science fiction” was coined—and was reprinted in the June 1926 issue of the first science fiction magazine, Amazing Stories. In the 1930s, he published several science fiction stories and serials in Amazing and Astounding Stories (the first issue of Astounding included his story “Tanks”). He continued to appear frequently in other genre pulps such as Detective Fiction Weekly and Smashing Western, as well as Collier’s Weekly beginning in 1936 and Esquire starting in 1939.

  Jenkins is credited with the invention of the “parallel universe” story. Four years before Jack Williamson’s The Legion of Time came out, Leinster published his “Sidewise in Time” (Astounding, June 1934). This was probably the first time that the concept of alternate worlds appeared in modern science fiction. His vision of extraordinary oscillations in time (“sidewise in time”) had a long-term impact on other authors, including Isaac Asimov (see Asimov’s “Living Space,” “The Red Queen’s Race,” and The End of Eternity). Jenkins’ 1945 novella “First Contact” is also credited as one of the first (if not the first) instances of a universal translator in science fiction.

  Jenkins was one of the few science fiction writers from the 1930s to survive in the John W. Campbell era of higher writing standards. He published over three dozen stories in Astounding (later renamed Analog) under Campbell’s editorship. His last story in Analog was “Quarantine World” in the November 1966 issue, thirty-six years after his appearance in the premier January 1930 issue.

  Jenkins’ 1946 short story “A Logic Named Joe” contains one of the first descriptions of a computer (called a “logic”) in fiction. In the story, Leinster was decades ahead of his time in imagining the Internet. He envisioned logics in every home, linked through a distributed system of servers (called “tanks”), to provide communications, entertainment, data access, and commerce. One character went so far as to say that “logics are civilization.”

  After World War II, when both his name and the pulps had achieved a wider acceptance, he would use either “William Fitzgerald”, “Fitzgerald Jenkins” or “Will F. Jenkins” as names on stories when “Leinster” had already sold a piece to a particular issue.

  He continued publishing in the 1950s and 1960s, appearing in Galaxy Magazine and The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, as well as The Saturday Evening Post. He won a Hugo Award for his 1956 story “Exploration Team.”

  Jenkins finished his writing career by writing novelizations of episodes of the science fiction television series Men Into Space, The Time Tunnel, and Land of the Giants.

  THE RUNAWAY SKYSCRAPER (1919)

  I.

  The whole thing started when the clock on the Metropolitan Tower began to run backward. It was not a graceful proceeding. The hands had been moving onward in their customary deliberate fashion, slowly and thoughtfully, but suddenly the people in the offices near the clock’s face heard an ominous creaking and groaning. There was a slight, hardly discernible shiver through the tower, and then something gave with a crash. The big hands on the clock began to move backward.

  Immediately after the crash all the creaking and groaning ceased, and instead, the usual quiet again hung over everything. One or two of the occupants of the upper offices put their heads out into the halls, but the elevators were running as usual, the lights were burning, and all seemed calm and peaceful. The clerks and stenographers went back to their ledgers and typewriters, the business callers returned to the discussion of their errands, and the ordinary course of business was resumed.

  Arthur Chamberlain was dictating a letter to Estelle Woodwa
rd, his sole stenographer. When the crash came he paused, listened, and then resumed his task.

  It was not a difficult one. Talking to Estelle Woodward was at no time an onerous duty, but it must be admitted that Arthur Chamberlain found it difficult to keep his conversation strictly upon his business.

  He was at this time engaged in dictating a letter to his principal creditors, the Gary & Milton Company, explaining that their demand for the immediate payment of the installment then due upon his office furniture was untimely and unjust. A young and budding engineer in New York never has too much money, and when he is young as Arthur Chamberlain was, and as fond of pleasant company, and not too fond of economizing, he is liable to find all demands for payment untimely and he usually considers them unjust as well. Arthur finished dictating the letter and sighed.

  “Miss Woodward,” he said regretfully, “I am afraid I shall never make a successful man.”

  Miss Woodward shook her head vaguely. She did not seem to take his remark very seriously, but then, she had learned never to take any of his remarks seriously. She had been puzzled at first by his manner of treating everything with a half-joking pessimism, but now ignored it.

  She was interested in her own problems. She had suddenly decided that she was going to be an old maid, and it bothered her. She had discovered that she did not like any one well enough to marry, and she was in her twenty-second year.

  She was not a native of New York, and the few young men she had met there she did not care for. She had regretfully decided she was too finicky, too fastidious, but could not seem to help herself. She could not understand their absorption in boxing and baseball and she did not like the way they danced.

  She had considered the matter and decided that she would have to reconsider her former opinion of women who did not marry. Heretofore she had thought there must be something the matter with them. Now she believed that she would come to their own estate, and probably for the same reason. She could not fall in love and she wanted to.

  She read all the popular novels and thrilled at the love-scenes contained in them, but when any of the young men she knew became in the slightest degree sentimental she found herself bored, and disgusted with herself for being bored. Still, she could not help it, and was struggling to reconcile herself to a life without romance.

  She was far too pretty for that, of course, and Arthur Chamberlain often longed to tell her how pretty she really was, but her abstracted air held him at arms’ length.

  He lay back at ease in his swivel-chair and considered, looking at her with unfeigned pleasure. She did not notice it, for she was so much absorbed in her own thoughts that she rarely noticed anything he said or did when they were not in the line of her duties.

  “Miss Woodward,” he repeated, “I said I think I’ll never make a successful man. Do you know what that means?”

  She looked at him mutely, polite inquiry in her eyes.

  “It means,” he said gravely, “that I’m going broke. Unless something turns up in the next three weeks, or a month at the latest, I’ll have to get a job.”

  “And that means—” she asked.

  “All this will go to pot,” he explained with a sweeping gesture. “I thought I’d better tell you as much in advance as I could.”

  “You mean you’re going to give up your office—and me?” she asked, a little alarmed.

  “Giving up you will be the harder of the two,” he said with a smile, “but that’s what it means. You’ll have no difficulty finding a new place, with three weeks in which to look for one, but I’m sorry.”

  “I’m sorry, too, Mr. Chamberlain,” she said, her brow puckered.

  She was not really frightened, because she knew she could get another position, but she became aware of rather more regret than she had expected.

  There was silence for a moment.

  “Jove!” said Arthur, suddenly. “It’s getting dark, isn’t it?”

  It was. It was growing dark with unusual rapidity. Arthur went to his window, and looked out.

  “Funny,” he remarked in a moment or two. “Things don’t look just right, down there, somehow. There are very few people about.”

  He watched in growing amazement. Lights came on in the streets below, but none of the buildings lighted up. It grew darker and darker.

  “It shouldn’t be dark at this hour!” Arthur exclaimed.

  Estelle went to the window by his side.

  “It looks awfully queer,” she agreed. “It must be an eclipse or something.”

  They heard doors open in the hall outside, and Arthur ran out. The halls were beginning to fill with excited people.

  “What on earth’s the matter?” asked a worried stenographer.

  “Probably an eclipse,” replied Arthur. “Only it’s odd we didn’t read about it in the papers.”

  He glanced along the corridor. No one else seemed better informed than he, and he went back into his office.

  Estelle turned from the window as he appeared.

  “The streets are deserted,” she said in a puzzled tone. “What’s the matter? Did you hear?”

  Arthur shook his head and reached for the telephone.

  “I’ll call up and find out,” he said confidently. He held the receiver to his ear. “What the—” he exclaimed. “Listen to this!”

  A small-sized roar was coming from the receiver. Arthur hung up and turned a blank face upon Estelle.

  “Look!” she said suddenly, and pointed out of the window.

  All the city was now lighted up, and such of the signs as they could see were brilliantly illumined. They watched in silence. The streets once more seemed filled with vehicles. They darted along, their headlamps lighting up the roadway brilliantly. There was, however, something strange even about their motion. Arthur and Estelle watched in growing amazement and perplexity.

  “Are—are you seeing what I am seeing?” asked Estelle breathlessly. “I see them going backward!”

  Arthur watched, and collapsed into a chair.

  “For the love of Mike!” he exclaimed softly.

  II.

  He was roused by another exclamation from Estelle.

  “It’s getting light again,” she said.

  Arthur rose and went eagerly to the window. The darkness was becoming less intense, but in a way Arthur could hardly credit.

  Far to the west, over beyond the Jersey hills—easily visible from the height at which Arthur’s office was located—a faint light appeared in the sky, grew stronger and then took on a reddish tint. That, in turn, grew deeper, and at last the sun appeared, rising unconcernedly in the west.

  Arthur gasped. The streets below continued to be thronged with people and motor-cars. The sun was traveling with extraordinary rapidity. It rose overhead, and as if by magic the streets were thronged with people. Every one seemed to be running at top-speed. The few teams they saw moved at a breakneck pace—backward! In spite of the suddenly topsyturvy state of affairs there seemed to be no accidents.

  Arthur put his hands to his head.

  “Miss Woodward,” he said pathetically, “I’m afraid I’ve gone crazy. Do you see the same things I do?”

  Estelle nodded. Her eyes wide open.

  “What is the matter?” she asked helplessly.

  She turned again to the window. The square was almost empty once more. The motor-cars still traveling about the streets were going so swiftly they were hardly visible. Their speed seemed to increase steadily. Soon it was almost impossible to distinguish them, and only a grayish blur marked their paths along Fifth Avenue and Twenty-Third Street.

  It grew dusk, and then rapidly dark. As their office was on the western side of the building they could not see that the sun had sunk in the east, but subconsciously they realized that this must be the case.

  In silence they watched the panorama grow black except for the street-lamps, remain thus for a time, and then suddenly spring into brilliantly illuminated activity.

  Again this lasted for a
little while, and the west once more began to glow. The sun rose somewhat more hastily from the Jersey hills and began to soar overhead, but very soon darkness fell again. With hardly an interval the city became illuminated, and then the west grew red once more.

  “Apparently,” said Arthur, steadying his voice with a conscious effort, “there’s been a cataclysm somewhere, the direction of the earth’s rotation has been reversed, and its speed immensely increased. It seems to take only about five minutes for a rotation now.”

  As he spoke darkness fell for the third time. Estelle turned from the window with a white face.

  “What’s going to happen?” she cried.

  “I don’t know,” answered Arthur. “The scientist fellows tell us if the earth were to spin fast enough the centrifugal force would throw us all off into space. Perhaps that’s what’s going to happen.”

  Estelle sank into a chair and stared at him, appalled. There was a sudden explosion behind them. With a start, Estelle jumped to her feet and turned. A little gilt clock over her typewriter-desk lay in fragments. Arthur hastily glanced at his own watch.

  “Great bombs and little cannon-balls!” he shouted. “Look at this!”

  His watch trembled and quivered in his hand. The hands were going around so swiftly it was impossible to watch the minute-hand, and the hour-hand traveled like the wind.

  While they looked, it made two complete revolutions. In one of them the glory of daylight had waxed, waned, and vanished. In the other, darkness reigned except for the glow from the electric light overhead.

  There was a sudden tension and catch in the watch. Arthur dropped it instantly. It flew to pieces before it reached the floor.

  “If you’ve got a watch,” Arthur ordered swiftly, “stop it this instant!”

  Estelle fumbled at her wrist. Arthur tore the watch from her hand and threw open the case. The machinery inside was going so swiftly it was hardly visible; Relentlessly, Arthur jabbed a penholder in the works. There was a sharp click, and the watch was still.

  Arthur ran to the window. As he reached it the sun rushed up, day lasted a moment, there was darkness, and then the sun appeared again.