Tactical Error
"This Star Shall Be Free"
The ROCKETEER is going to focus on aliens for the next several weeks in honor of the Chehalis Flying Saucer Party—a local event celebrating everything UFO. (It’s like McMenamins UFO Festival only smaller.) I’ll be discussing pulp-era and slightly later stories with the themes of invasion, alien manipulation, control, and humanity fighting back in stories ranging from the absurd to the deadly. There were many pulp-era stories about aliens arriving on Earth. Too many to cover in a year’s worth of posts! I’ve picked out five stories published between 1940 and 1955 to share with you. The writers are all well-known, big names from the pulp-era. That said, I doubt you’ve heard of any of these stories, and that’s what makes this such fun!
The flying saucer craze of the late 1940’s and ‘50’s is an oft-seen trope in stories of that time. One of the stories I’ll be covering in a few weeks— “The Silly Season” by C. M. Kornbluth—makes a not-so-subtle reference to Kenneth Arnold’s famous 1947 UFO sighting near Mt. Rainer, WA. The term “Flying Saucer” actually derives from that sighting. Before then, glowing spheres were popular, as were ovoids. Earlier yet we see shapes like the gondola of a zeppelin without the gas-bag. The story we’ll be talking about today comes from the flying saucer era but features an ovoid-shaped craft. The story is— “This Star Shall be Free” by Murray Leinster—it was first published in Super Science Stories in the November 1949 issue.
Murray Leinster is the pen name of William Fitzgerald Jenkins, a pioneer in the field of science fiction. His first sci-fi story, “The Runaway Skyscraper” appeared in 1919, several years before the term “science fiction” was coined. His bibliography is long, beginning in 1916 and continuing until the late 1960’s. He was the first sci-fi author to write on parallel realities and artificial intelligence. TIME magazine called him the “dean of science fiction writers.”
“This Star Shall Be Free” is not one of his better-known stories but it was reprinted in several collections including, Invaders of Earth. I’m a fan of these lesser-known stories as they are often hidden gems. This is one such pearl.
A scout ship from Antares arrives on Earth far back in pre-history. The aliens have planned an experiment in artificial ecological imbalance, in other words they want to mess with the local hominids and see what happens. The primitive humans (referred to in the story as Cro-Magnon men) see the huge ovoid craft do a fly over but it doesn’t mean a lot to them. However, when it hovers directly over the head of one of the young men—Tork—this provokes numb terror.
Eventually, the craft moves off and disappears over a low rise of hills. The frightening event doesn’t leave too much of an impression on the tribe. However, Tork suddenly feels a compulsion to take a walk to the east. His idea is to find a bigger cave where he can set up housekeeping with the girl he likes. The farther he walks, the more Tork becomes possessed of a strange urge which takes him over and drives him forwards. He is terrified but can do nothing but plod on until he finds the silver ovoid ship. It now rests on the ground, standing on its rounded end. It’s huge—three hundred feet high! When he arrives within a certain radius from the ship the compulsion leaves him and he flees, until he gets out of the “dead zone” and then turns around and comes back. This happens ten times! In the end he stands his ground, although terrified. He sees the aliens a short time later. The ship opens up to reveal that it’s filled with sea water behind a force field. The aliens wear rubbery suits when they come out and, through the face plates, he can see that they’re filled with water. They speak with him telepathically and tell him that they have called him here to be kind to him. They explain that they are from a far away star mapping Earth’s oceans for future use. In the meantime, they don’t mind helping out a land species such as his. They know he’s intelligent and can use fire and want to try out an experiment in Ecology. Of course, most of this goes over his head. They ask him how he gets food. He thinks about the hunter-gatherer activities he knows and how hard it is to get enough to eat. The aliens tell him they have a way for him to always get food and they’ll show him better tools for defenses, too. They’re curious to see what comes of their meddling—will the primitives overpopulate? Overrun the land and destroy themselves?
The aliens go into their ship and Tork waits. Suddenly, animals start coming—all of them wearing the dull and glassy-eyed expressions of the hypnotized. As with him, when they get a certain distance from the ship they are released from the spell and try to flee. But they immediately turn around and are dragged back again,. Tork is eventually surrounded by animals, large and small. The aliens come out again, arguing about the value of the experiment. Tork hears but does not understand. The general gist of the argument is that some of the aliens feel that the savages will over-graze the animals and then die out as a race, along with the animals. But others disagree and want to see what happens.
The aliens place something like a box before Tork. It has the picture of a man on it. He’s never seen a picture before so he doesn’t realize it’s a picture of him. This is what compelled him to come to them. It’s a “projector” and they have limited it’s use since he is merely a man. They further explain that they will give him pictures of animals so they will come to him. They will also give him better weapons— flint knives, spears, and bows with arrows. They are dispassionate, perhaps amused by the idea. But Tork is learning. With the new tools he slaughters all of the captured animals and eats as much as he can. Then he thinks about his tribe near the projector. And after a while, his tribe arrives, also hypnotized. They go through the same panic that Tork experienced. But Tork guesses that food will dull their panic and it works, especially with the tribal leader One-Ear who is a natural glutton. Tork also shares his new tools with the tribe while the aliens observe from inside their ship. More humans come, from other tribes. The strangers are shown the new weapons and Tork demonstrates how to use them. Several days of feasting, reassuring the other new humans, and more feasting follows. By now Tork has taken charge of the Cro-Magnon groups. The Antareans had told Tork that their survey of the oceans would take 100 years and it is during the days of feasting that they leave for their survey.
The humans eventually separate into their component tribes with Tork’s own tribe going back to their usual home. He carries with him the “stone-that-calls-animals.” Tork becomes the leader of his tribe. The tribe gets larger as other humans come for the new weapons and stay. But Tork doesn’t know how to make them and has only the limited supply. Eventually, he runs out of stock and thieves begin to pilfer the existing weapons, including Tork’s own spear. Tork thinks about this problem deeply and concludes that the device that calls animals might call the Antareans also. But he has trouble holding their image in his head. His wife suggests that a picture might help to focus on, like the pictures of the animals. So he creates the first cave painting. After time and effort (and input from other members of the tribe) they have images which help them think about the aliens. The tribe gets together and thinks. And far away the aliens feel it. More tribesmen paint pictures of the aliens on the cave walls. More think near the alien projector device. The urge gets so strong that the Antareans are unable to resist its pull.
Their huge ovoid ship lands nearby. Tork is glad to see them and asks for more weapons. The annoyed aliens tell him that they can’t leave as long as the cave people are thinking about them. They also want to know where the cave people got pictures of them. Tork explains that they made them. The aliens decide to give them more weapons if the cave people will destroy all of their paintings. Tork agrees because he knows they can just draw more. The aliens watch Tork destroy the cave pictures, give him more weapons, then decide to leave the planet, ocean surveys incomplete.
The cave people prosper until the pictures of animals the Antareans gave them accidently burn up in a fire. This is a disaster until it occurs to them that they can draw pictures of the animals on cave walls. The tribe grows and eventually sends out colonies. Every colony carries with it three discrete results of the Antarean experiment. First—stone weapons which in time they learned to make themselves. Next—a belief that it’s a simple trick to call animals to be killed. (The original Antarean device is now out of power at the back of a cave buried under garbage.) Finally—the practice of cave painting, the art of which is still admired today.
Thirty thousand years after Tork, the Antareans prepare a colonizing fleet for Earth’s oceans. Although the original survey was never completed they know enough. More than two million Antareans swim in the vessels launched to occupy Earth. Purely by accident, a learned Antarean institute finds out about the original Earth experiment. They’re curious to know if anything came of it and send word with the fleet. The colonizers approach Earth and are surprised when a space craft hails them belligerently. The Antareans are bewildered to find an intelligent race on Earth, they didn’t expect that. They send out a paralyzing beam to hold the ship for examination. Unfortunately, the beam’s applied too abruptly and the Earth ship is destroyed.
The many-times removed great-great-great grandchildren of the original cave-folk blast the Antarean fleet to cinders. They later examine the wreckage and salvage an interstellar drive, compensating for the loss of their space ship. The learned Antarean society never gets their answers about the results of the Ecology experiment on Earth. Of course not, the results aren’t in yet!
Motto: Aliens should never write off humanity. It might surprise you!
This is the Rocketeer signing off for today.