Worst Contact Read online

  Table of Contents

  FROM FIRST TO WORST

  PUPPET SHOW

  CONTACT!

  THE FLAT-EYED MONSTER

  THE POWER

  EARLY MODEL

  HER SISTER’S KEEPER

  PLAYTHING

  RANDOM SAMPLE

  NO LOVE IN ALL OF DWINGELOO

  FIRST CONTACT, SORT OF

  FORTITUDE

  THEY’RE MADE OUT OF MEAT

  ALIEN STONES

  PICTURES DON’T LIE

  BACKWARDNESS

  DODGER FAN

  NO SHOULDER TO CRY ON

  HORNETS’ NEST

  PROTECTED SPECIES

  THE CAGE

  SHADOW WORLD

  When the first contact between humans and aliens from another planet happens, will they say, “Take me to your leader,” or is “Surrender, puny primitive bipeds” more likely? Or maybe, “Hello there, I’m selling the latest edition of the Galactic Encyclopedia, and no planet should be without a set,” might be the first words from the alien visitor.

  Ever since H.G. Wells wrote The War of the Worlds, science fiction writers have speculated on what the first contact might be like. From attacking invaders to wise and benevolent visitors who are ready to solve all our problems for us, from horror stories to hilarious satire, with all the stops in between, including plenty of tales in which the aliens are the ones who wish they’d stayed at home and never come across Earth and its inhabitants.

  With stories by such science fiction masters as Poul Anderson, David Drake, William Tenn, Sarah A. Hoyt, Tony Daniel, and more, this is a collection filled with chills, thrills, and laughter, all reporting on what happens when First Contact turns into Worst Contact.

  BAEN BOOKS EDITED

  BY HANK DAVIS

  The Human Edge by Gordon R. Dickson

  We the Underpeople by Cordwainer Smith

  When the People Fell by Cordwainer Smith

  The Technic Civilization Saga

  The Van Rijn Method by Poul Anderson

  David Falkayn: Star Trader by Poul Anderson

  Rise of the Terran Empire by Poul Anderson

  Young Flandry by Poul Anderson

  Captain Flandry: Defender of the Terran Empire by Poul Anderson

  Sir Dominic Flandry: The Last Knight of Terra by Poul Anderson

  Flandry’s Legacy by Poul Anderson

  The Best of the Bolos: Their Finest Hour by Keith Laumer

  A Cosmic Christmas

  A Cosmic Christmas 2 You

  In Space No One Can Hear You Scream

  The Baen Big Book of Monsters

  As Time Goes By

  Future Wars . . . and Other Punchlines

  Worst Contact

  Things from Outer Space (forthcoming)

  If This Goes Wrong . . . (forthcoming)

  WORST CONTACT

  This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental.

  A Baen Book

  Baen Publishing Enterprises

  P.O. Box 1403

  Riverdale, NY 10471

  ISBN 13: 978-1-4767-8098-6

  Cover art by Stephen Hickman

  First Baen printing, January 2016

  Distributed by Simon & Schuster

  1230 Avenue of the Americas

  New York, NY 10020

  Printed in the United States of America

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  Copyrights of Stories

  “From First to Worst” by Hank Davis © 2016 by Hank Davis. Published by permission of the author.

  “Puppet Show” by Fredric Brown originally appeared in Playboy, November 1962. © 1962 by HMH Publishing Company. Reprinted by permission of Barry Malzberg for the author’s estate.

  “Contact!” by David Drake originally appeared in Analog, October 1974. © 1974 by Condé Nast Publications, Inc. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  “The Flat-Eyed Monster,” copyright © 1955, 1983 by William Tenn; first appeared in Galaxy; reprinted by permission of the author’s estate and the estate’s agents, the Virginia Kidd Agency, Inc.

  “The Power,” copyright © 1945, 1973 by the Heirs of the Literary Estate of Will F. Jenkins; first appeared in Astounding; reprinted by permission of the author’s estate and the estate’s agents, the Virginia Kidd Agency, Inc.

  “Early Model” by Robert Sheckley originally appeared in Galaxy, August 1956. © 1956 by Galaxy Publishing Corporation. Reprinted by permission of the Donald Maass Literary Agency for the author’s estate.

  “Her Sister’s Keeper” by Sarah A. Hoyt appears here for the first time. © 2016 by Sarah A. Hoyt. Published by permission of the author.

  “Plaything” by Larry Niven originally appeared in If: Worlds of Science Fiction, July 1974. © 1974 by UPD Publishing Corporation. Reprinted by permission of Spectrum Literary Agency.

  “Random Sample” by Charles C. Munoz, writing as T. P. Caravan, originally appeared in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, April 1953. © 1953 by Fantasy House, Inc. All attempts to locate the holder of rights to this story have been unsuccessful. If a holder will get in touch with Baen Books, payment will be made.

  “No Love in All of Dwingeloo” by Tony Daniel, originally appeared in Asimov’s Science Fiction, November 1995 © 1995 by Dell Magazines. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  “First Contact, Sort of” by Karen Haber and Carol Carr, originally appeared in The Ultimate Alien, October 1995. © 1995 Byron Preiss Visual Publications. Reprinted by permission of the authors.

  “Fortitude” by David Brin originally appeared in Science Fiction Age, January 1996. © 1996 by Sovereign Media Co. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  “They’re Made Out of Meat” by Terry Bisson originally appeared in Omni, April 1991, © 1991 by Omni Publications International, Ltd. Reprinted by permission of Trident Media Group, LLC.

  “Alien Stones,” copyright © 1972, 2000 by Gene Wolfe; first appeared in Orbit 11; reprinted by permission of the author and the author’s agents, the Virginia Kidd Agency, Inc.

  “Pictures Don’t Lie,” copyright © 1951, 1979 by Katherine MacLean; first appeared in Galaxy;

  reprinted by permission of the author and the author’s agents, the Virginia Kidd Agency, Inc.

  “Backwardness” by Poul Anderson originally appeared in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, March 1958. © 1958 by Mercury Press, Inc. Reprinted by permission of the Lotts Agency for the Tregonier Trust.

  “Dodger Fan” by Will Stanton originally appeared in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, June 1957. © Fantasy House, Inc. Reprinted by permission of Linda Stanton French for the author’s estate.

  “No Shoulder to Cry On” by Hank Davis originally appeared in Analog, June 1968. © 1968 by Condé Nast Publications, Inc. Revised version © 2016 by Hank Davis. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  “Hornets’ Nest” by Lloyd Biggle, Jr. originally appeared in If: Worlds of Science Fiction, September 1959. © 1959 Digest Productions Incorporated. Reprinted by permission of Owlswick Literary Agency for the author’s estate.

  “Protected Species” by H. B. Fyfe originally appeared in Astounding Science-Fiction, March 1951. © 1951 by Street and Smith Publications.. All attempts to locate the holder of rights to this story have been unsuccessful. If a holder will get in touch with Baen Books, payment will be made.

  “The Cage” by A. Bertram Chandler originally appeared in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, June 1957. © Fantasy House, Inc. Reprinted by permission of Jabberwocky Literary Agency for the author’s estate.

  “Shadow World” by Clifford D. Simak originally appeared in Galaxy September, 1957. ©
1957 by Galaxy Publishing Corporation. Reprinted by permission of David Wixon for the author’s estate.

  DEDICATION

  This one’s for my nieces,

  Sarah Davis and Jenny Snapp,

  with whom I should make contact

  more often.

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  My thanks to all the contributors (and raise a glass to absent friends), and to those who helped with advice, permissions, contact information, and other kindnesses, including Lara Allen, Katie Shea Boutillier, Hannah Fergesen, Linda Stanton French, Vaughne Hansen, Barry Malzberg, Cameron McClure, Lisa Rodgers, Darrell Schweitzer, John Silbersack, Bud Webster, David Wixon, and Eleanor Wood and probably other kindly carbon-based life forms which my decrepit memory has unforgivably overlooked.

  FROM FIRST

  TO WORST

  Introduction by Hank Davis

  “First Contact” is, of course, the title of a story that Murray Leinster (the pseudonym of William Fitzgerald Jenkins) published in the May 1945 issue of the field’s flagship magazine, Astounding Science-Fiction. The editor, John W. Campbell, obviously thought highly of the tale, and made it the cover story, with a painting of the two starships from different planets hovering next to each other in interstellar space. (The cover painting was by William Timmins, a now largely forgotten illustrator.)

  I don’t know if that was the first time the phrase “first contact” was used in science fiction (first first contact?), but ever since Leinster’s classic story, the phrase is often used when humans and extraterrestrials meet for the first time. There were first contact stories prior to Leinster’s, such as Stanley G. Weinbaum’s celebrated “A Martian Odyssey” and Raymond Z. Gallun’s “Old Faithful” (both in 1934, the latter in Astounding), but Leinster took a fresh look at the situation. Two starships, one from Earth, the other from parts unknown, encounter each other in the depths of interstellar space—and what do they do next? Neither one can leave, because the other might follow the departing starship back home, discover the location of its home planet, and bring back an attacking fleet. It seems that the only possible out, at least for the human’s ship, is to destroy all onboard information that might betray the location of Earth, then either attack the other, or just blow up their own ship and keep the location of the home world secret.

  However, neither of those events happen. Leinster gives an ingenious solution to the dilemma which I’m not going to give away here. The result was an instant classic, one of the most repeatedly anthologized stories in SF—editor Ben Bova reprinted it in two different anthologies, for example. When the Science Fiction Writers of America took a poll of their members in the late 1960s to determine the best short stories published prior to the 1964 advent of SFWA’s Nebula Award, “First Contact” tied with Theodore Sturgeon’s “Microcosmic God” for the number four spot, and was included in volume I of The Science Fiction Hall of Fame. Later, after Retro-Hugo Awards were inaugurated, it won a Retro-Hugo in 1996. It has been translated into many other languages, it was adapted for radio on both Dimension X and X Minus 1, and has had the dubious honor of having its famous last line “borrowed” for a comic book story I read in the late 1950s. Star Trek: The Next Generation, and a later Star Trek movie, both used “First Contact” as a title. (Leinster’s estate sued over the movie’s title, but lost.) The story is a milestone in science fiction.

  There was even a Cold War aspect. In 1958, Russian paleontologist Ivan Yefremov wrote a story whose title, rendered into English, is “The Heart of the Serpent,” in which, once again, two ships, one from (of course) a Communist Earth, encounter each other—but there is no possible danger, since for a race to be advanced enough to travel between stars, its society must have inevitably been on The Right Side of History, hence Communist, and therefore peaceful. (Sarcasm? Who, me?) The characters mention Leinster’s story, and describe its author as obviously having the evil “heart of a serpent.”

  When the Russians attack something for impure ideology, it must be famous. (No word, AFAIK, on what the ChiComs thought of it.) But “First Contact” is not in this book. That’s because that first contact went well for both parties. Suppose it hadn’t?

  Murray Leinster was a generally optimistic writer, but not unrealistically so. He wrote other stories of first contact, and in some of them, the ending was far from cheerful. One of them, “The Power,” is included in this book, along with a number of other writers’ stories of worst contacts. Sometimes, the humans get the short end of the stick, and sometimes it’s the ETs. The results may be tragic or humorous, or a mix. But at least one of the sides involved would greatly prefer that their meeting had never taken place.

  There were first contact stories before SF magazines even existed, of course. The label fits both H. G. Wells’ The War of the Worlds and The First Men in the Moon, plus his short story, “The Crystal Egg.” If contact with humans in a parallel universe counts, his Men Like Gods also qualifies. Except for “The Crystal Egg,” none of those human/alien encounters went well—to put it mildly, in The War of the Worlds—and the eponymous “egg” is a sort of two-way interplanetary TV camera/viewer (a Mars-Earth reality show?), which limits how badly things can go. Some writer on Wikipedia considers The Time Machine to be a first contact story. I don’t agree, but if making contact with one’s distant descendants counts, then Wells’ The Croquet Player, going in the other direction, should be added to the list. And maybe his novel Star-Begotten, as well.

  Nor was Wells the first. In 1752 Voltaire wrote “Micromegas,” telling of the visit to Earth of two gigantic aliens, one, from Saturn, who stands 6,000 feet tall and is dwarfed by his companion from a planet circling the star Sirius, who is 20 times as tall. Voltaire’s intent is satirical and to make humans appear ridiculous, so it’s an early worst contact.

  There has been no shortage of first contact stories since Leinster’s classic, either, and plenty of those turn out badly for one or both parties. I might have included Damon Knight’s classic short story, “To Serve Man” (whose punchline will not be revealed here) if it hadn’t already been so frequently reprinted, and even adapted into an episode of the original Twilight Zone. But readers definitely should go look it up. Novels, too, such as Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle’s novels The Mote in God’s Eye (written, according to Niven, to be “the epitome of first contact novels”) and Footfall. And movies, such as The Thing from Another World, and Independence Day, to name two examples four decades apart. And while this book has (modest cough) a generous selection of very good stories, there were a lot of other good ones I could have used. I regret not being able to include A. E. van Vogt’s “The Monster” (also known as “Resurrection”), and would have liked to include a Gordon R. Dickson story, except that I already included my favorites in The Human Edge, still available as a Baen e-book. I particularly recommend “On Messenger Mountain” in that collection. Add that to the Knight and van Vogt titles previously cited.

  Of course some think any race that doesn’t blow itself up and manages to reach the stars will necessarily be peaceful. Carl Sagan argued thus. That’s hardly the only major disagreement I have with the late Dr. Sagan, but for a quick thought experiment, imagine that the Nazis developed the A-bomb first, took over the world, then built starships. Peaceful?

  Speaking of Carl Sagan, I was surprised to see that a Canadian blogger reviewed my (yikes!) 48-year-old story, included in these pages, and thought I was reacting to Sagan’s argument. At the time I wrote the story (summer of 1967), I was aware there was a book, Intelligent Life in the Universe, a collaboration between two scientists, a Russian and an American (I. S. Shklovskii and Carl Sagan), which everyone in SF and their cats were raving about, but Sagan’s name hadn’t stuck in my mind (though, oddly, the Russian’s had), and the price of the book put it out of my reach, so Sagan was an unknown to me, along with any of his notions about ETs. The only Sagan I was aware of was named Françoise. In reality, I was thinking of a remark Robert A. Heinlein had made along the lines
of “suppose the aliens land and they aren’t peaceful and benevolent,” and considering doing a switch on the peaceful alien visitors scenario, but more subtly than the old alien invaders shtick. John W. Campbell’s alleged insistence for Earthling superiority over aliens, also mentioned by the blogger, may have helped sell the story, but that wasn’t on my mind at all. For one thing, I was skeptical about the reality of that insistence, being aware of several stories in Astounding/Analog which were counter-examples (though later, I learned that one of those stories, Heinlein’s “Goldfish Bowl,” might not be a good counter-example after all).

  Sagan thought visitors from space would be peaceful, but a considerably higher-ranking scientist, Stephen Hawking, thinks that contact with aliens would be disastrous for Earth. Of course, in the absence of any actual contact with aliens, it’s all guesswork. In the meantime, a number of possibilities are entertainingly explored in the following pages. Some of the stories involve Martians, though ETs from inside our Solar System in general, or the Red Planet in particular, are now known to be very unlikely, alas. (We didn’t get the Solar System we deserved—whom do I complain to?) My own story was written as a near future tale, and the publisher and I have done some tweaking to keep it still in the future, but my nostalgia for Wells, Burroughs, Brackett, Bradbury and others would be reason enough to leave the Martians alone in those stories by others. Save the Endangered Martians!