Poul Anderson Isaac Asimov Alfred Bester Avram
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novel POUL ANDERSON ISAAC ASIMOV ALFRED BESTER AVRAM DAVIDSON HASSOLDT DAVIS CHARLES G. FINNEY ~-...--'--·-~ ZENNA HENDERSON DAMON KNIGHT THEODORE STURGEON lncludin• Venture Science Fiction lOth Atmiversa1·y AU Star Issue The Man Who Lost the Sea THEODORE STURGEON ; Scietlce: The Height of Up ISAAC ASIMOV 16 Ferdinand Feghoot: XIX GRENDEL BRIARTON 27 And a Little Child ZENNA HENDERSON 28 To Be Continued DAMON KNIGHT 44 The Gilashrikes CHARLES G. FINNEY 54 Guided Tour (t'el·se) GORDON R. DICKSON 59 Operation Incubus POUL ANDERSON 60 The Pleasant Woman, Eve HASSOLDT DAVIS 76 The Pi Man ALFRED BESTER 80 In 2063 She Ceased To Be (verse) J• J• COUPLING 94 Dagon AVRAM DAVIDSON 95 Starship Soldier (first of 2 parts) ROBERT A. HEINLEIN 103 In this isme • • • Coming next month 4 Authors of last month's "Qztitltet'' 15 Cover by Emsh Joseph W. Ferman, PUBLISHER Rf1bert P. Mills, I!DIT01 The Magat:ine of Fanf<ls:t and Scicnct1 Ficlio11, Volume 17, No. 4, Whole No. 101. OCT. 19511. PublisMd monthly l1:y llf{f'C1!ry Press, Inc., at 4fJ¢ a copy. Annual sulucription1 $4.50 in U. S. and Possessions, tUSd Canada. $5.00 in the Pan-American Union· $5.50 in all other CQ!IHtries. Publication office, Concord, N. H. Editorial and general oi/ices, 527 Madison Ar~enue, New York ZZ, N. Y. ScctJnd t:laS6 pomge paUl at C011t:ord, N. H. PriKted in U. S. A. @ 11159 by Mercury Press, Inc. All rights, including translation into other langKages, reserwd. SMbmissions must ~ accom[>ankd by stam('cd, self-addressed CII'VC· lopes; the Publisl1er assumes no respoxsibilit:y for return of tmsoliciled manuscripts. Damon Knight, BOOit EDITOR. Isaac Asimot•, CONTIUBUTING SCIENCE EDITOJ f.Fr,mds AfcCf1m.ts, ADVISORY EDITOR Rut/; Fcrm.m, ClllCl'LATION DIRECTOI! In this issue ... • . Ferdinand Feghoot makes his 19th appearance, and his fan mail increases with each one. Many readers, in fact, have sent in their own Feghoot adventures, and Mr. Briarton professes to have been much pleased with a few of them-with the result that we have instituted something new: Any Feghoot idea which pleases Mr. Briarton will be written up by him and published here, with proper credit and a year's subscription to F&SF given to the per son who first submits the idea. One condition-all such Feghoot submissions must be accompanied by a note to the effect that the above terms are acceptable. Damon Knight's book column is again missing, this time for reasons of space only. It will appear next month, and in all likeli hood more regularly thereafter. Many readers have expressed a desire to see Mr. Knight cover more books, even if that means de voting less space to each, and Mr. Knight-a most agreeable and pleasant chap when not scourging a novel that does not strike his fancy-plans to do so. Coming next month ... Announced for this issue but not appearing here are Robert Nathan and Howard Fast-much to our regret. The difficulty was that in order to rublish Robert A. Heinlein's novel in two install ments instead o three, we were forced to leave out other long pieces, and the pieces by Mr. Nathan and Mr. Fast are both novelet size. The situation will not be greatly eased next month, since the concluding installment of "Starship Soldier" will occupy a fair number of pages-however, Mr. Fast's "The Martian Shop" will definitely be included, and Mr. Nathan will be along in the De cember issue. Also planned for the November issue is "After the Ball," by John Collier-tt deli~htful fantasy somewhat in the vein of last August's popular "Pact,' by Winston P. Sanders. And early next year, in cidentally, we will bring you another Collier tale of quite a dif ferent sort-an original novelet concerning the adventures of a man who devotes his fortune and all his energies to cruising the oceans of the world in search of a sea serpent. \Ve won't attempt to tell you more about it, beyond saying that it possesses all of Mr. Collier's special brand of deft persuasiveness .•.• The following is t1w first in a series promised us by the bearded one with the bright blue eyes. As is often true of Mr. Sturgeons stories, it is nearly impossible to describe simply; we tL'ill say only tTtis: good as the first reading may be, a second reading is almost mandatory. THE MAN WHO LOST THE SEA by Theodore Sturgeon SAY -rou'.nE A KID, &'\D mm DAnK by anybody. Not now. l'\ow, he night you're running along the wants to think about the sea. So cold sand with this helicopter in you go away. your hand, saying very fast witchy- TI1e sick man is buried in the u,'itchy-witchy. You pass the sick cold sand with only his head and man and he wants you to shove his left arm showing. He is dressed off with that thing. Maybe he in a pressure suit and looks like a thinks you're too old to play with man from Mars. Built into his left toys. So you squat ne]..'t to him in sleeve is a combination time-piece the sand and tell him it im't a toy, and pressure gauge, the gauge it's a model. You tell him look here, with a luminous blue indicator here's something most people which makes no sense, the clock don't know about helicopters. You hands luminous red. He can hear take a blade of the rotor in your the pounding of surf and the soft fingers and show him how it can swift pulse of his pumps. One time move in the hub, up and down a long ago when he was swimming little, back and forth a little, and he went too deep and stayed twist a little, to change pitch. You down too long and came up too start to tell him how this flexibility fast, and when he came to it was docs away with the g)TOscopic ef- like this: they said, "Don't move, feet, but he won't listen. He docs- boy. You've got tlw bends. Don't n't want to tl1ink about flying, even try to move." He had tried about helicopters, or about you, anyway. It hurt. So now, this time, and he most especially does not he lies in the sand without mov want c:-.-planations about anything ing, without trying. 5 6 FANT.\SY AXD SCIENCE FICTio::o; His head isn•t working right. there's one place especially not to But he knows clearly that it isn't be seasick in, and that's locked up working right, which is a strange in a pressure suit. Now! thing that happens to people in So he busies himself as best he shock sometimes. Say you were can, '"ith the seascape, landscape, that kid, you could say how it was, sky. He lies on high ground, his because once you woke up lying in head propped on a vertical wall the gym office in high school and of black rock. There is another asked what had happened. They such outcrop before him, whip explained how you tried some topped with white sand and with thing on the parallel bars and fell smooth flat sand. Beyond and on your head. You understood ex down is valley, salt-flat, estuary; actly, though you couldn't remem he cannot yet be sure. He is sure ber falling. Then a minute later of the line of footprints, which be you asked again what had hap gin behind him, pass to his left, pened and they told you. You un disappear in the outcrop shadows, derstood it. And a minute later and reappear beyond to vanish at • • • forty-one times they told you, last into the ihadows of the valley. and you understood It was just Stretched across the sky is old that no matter how many times mourning-cloth, with starlight they pushed it into your head, it burning holes in it, and between wouldn't stick there; but all the tl10 holes the black is absolute whUe you knew that your head \\intertime, mountaintop sky would start working again in time. black. And in time it did. • . Of course, (Far off on the horizon within if you were that kid, always ex himself, he sees tho swell and plaining things to people and to crest of approaching nausea; he yourself, you wouldn't want to counters \\ith an undertow of bother the sick man with it now. weakness, which meets and Look what you've done aJready, rounds and settles the wave before making him send you away with it can break. Get busier. Now.) that angry shrug of the mind Burst in on him, then, with the (which, with the eyes, are the on X-15 model. That'll get him. Hey, ly things which will move just how about this for a gimmick? Get now). The motionless effort costs too high for the thin air to give him a wave of nausea. He has felt yoa any control, you have these seasick before but he has never little jets in the wingtips, see? and 1Jecn seasick, and the formula for on the sides of the empennage: that is to keep your eyes on the bank, roll, yaw, whatever, with horizon and stay busy. Now! Then squirts of compressed air. he'd better get busy-now; for But the sick man curls his sick 'HIE ;\1.\l'; WHO LOST THE SE.\ 7 lip: oh, git, kid, git, will you? match-covers, stmnps) and he that has nothing to do with the sea.