The Yllian Way • by Keith Laumer iction JIM HARMON E. E. SMITH and E. EVERETT EVANS-- - VONNEGUT, JR. JAMES H. SCHMITZ YOURS I THE NEXT 16 BIG ISSUES OF I F FOR ONLY $3.95-SAVING YOU $1.65- !F YOU ACCEPT THIS SPECIAL OFFER If you wonder what happened to the "wonder" in your science·fiction stories - it's in IF! Every issue packed with new, fast tales of tomorrow and space! THE KIND OF SCIENCE FICTION THAT YOU'VE MISSE!::> FOR YEA RS IF brings you new stories by old masters, plus the best of today's new writers- chafle·.g:ng ideas combined with skillful writing and all the adventure and thrills of interstellar space itself! ·' The greatest names in scie·nce fiction WRITE FOR IF Del Rey, Clarke , Harmon, Schmitz, Pohl , Davidson, Simak, Bloch, Keyes, Sturgeon, Galouye, Sharkey, Mcintosh, Fyfe; Dickson - they're all in IF! CLIP COUPON AND MAIL TODAY------- - -----------··· if 421 Hudson St ., New York 14, N. Y. Yes! Send me the next 16 big issues of IF! I enclose $3.95. (Outside of N. and s. America add $1.35 postage.) Name .. Address ... City .... .. ...... .. .. .... Zone ....... State . ·--------Use coupon or order by letter if you wish········· Secrets entrusted to a few THERE are some things that cannot organization) an age-old brotherhood be generally told -things you ought to of learning, have preserved this secret know. Great truths are dang erous to wisdom in their archives for centu­ some-but factors for pe rs on r~ l power ries. They now itzvite you to share the and accomplishment in the hands of practical helpfulness of their teachings. those who understand them. Behind Write today for a free copr of the the tales of the miracles and mysteries book, "The Mastery of Life.' Within of the. ancients, lie centuries of their its pages may lie a new life of oppor­ secret probing into nature's laws­ tunity for you. Address: Scribe L.N.R. their ama-zing discoveries of the hid­ fkn processes of man's mind, and the ----- SEND THIS COUPON------ mastery of ltfe's problems. Once shroud­ Scribe L.N .R. : The ROSICRUCIANS (AMORC) : ed in mystery to avoid their destruc­ Sao Jose, California • tion by mass fear and ignorance, these Please send me the free book, The Mastery ' facts remain a useful heritage for the of life, which explains how I may learn to : thousands of men and women who pri­ use my faculties and powers of mind. vately use them in their homes today. Name _________________________ THIS FREE BOOK Address _______________________ The Rosicrucians (not a religious -~~~~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~- ~~-~-- fJiie Rosicrucians <AMoRe> SAN JOSE, CALIFORNIA, U.S.A. JANUARY 1962 worlds All Stories New and Complete of sctence• Vol. 11, Nuniber 6 fiction Robert M. Guinn, Publisher Sam Ruvidich, Art Director Frederik Pohl, Managing Editor Theodore Sturgeon, Feature Editor NOVELETTES The Yillian Way by Keith Laumer 8 The Last Place on Earth by Jim Harmon 30 SHORT STORIES An Incident on Route Twelve by James H. Schmitz 23 The Talkative Tree by H. B. Fyfe 48 2 B R 0 2 B by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. 59 SERIAL - Conclusion Masters of Space by Edward E. Smith & E. E. Evans 66 SPECIAl. FEATURES A Hole at the Bottom of the Sea 6 Science Briefs 28 Fcom Plynck to Planck by Theodore Sturgeon 56 Hue and Cry 126 COVER by Francis from ,.The Yillian Way'' Next issue (March) on sale January 10th IF published bi-monthly by Dl~e&t Productions Corporation, Vol. 11, Jl!o. I 3talll Office: 4.21 Hudson Street, New Yorl< 14, New York 35c. p.::r <·opy. l:iubscriptions 12 issues $3.00 In the United States, Canada1 Mex1co, South and Central .America and U. S. possessions, elsewhere $4.u0. Second-class postage paid at New York, New York, and at additional mailin.p; offices. Copyright by Digest Productions Corporation, 1961. All rights including translations reserved. All material submitted must be accompanied by self-addressed stamped envelopes. The publisher assumes no responsibility for unsolicited material. All stories printed in this magazine are fic­ tion, and any similarity bP.tween characters and actual persons is coinciden­ tal. Printed In the U. S. A. by the Guinn Company, !nc., New York U, N. Y, . Just peel off protective bac-king. Sticks to any smooth surface. ,, \ .l:o. ·,, ,: '· ''· i;i,{;~·'i :::, i>''~ ··. ) .. .,. :: ,,, .·. '. ,. ',:. .:·:: ·:.:' ·.,, ''· .... ,,. ,,, .' . ·.. ,,,,, :,,, } "' ,s:,~KBiii/Jfiiihiif An assortment of humorous Bumper Signs created to put fun back into driving. FITS ALL CARS Big, bright Day-Gio letters for long. range visibility. 25c EACH or SIX FOR $1.00 MAIL CHECK. CASH OR MONEY ORDER TO BOX 188 • HARTSDALE, NEW YORK ...a ..."' -< ..."'m A HOLE IN. THE BOTIOM OF THE SEA HAT look~ very like a sweatily looked at each other, T Fred Pohl story title, and at that moment the or­ doesn't it? It happens not to ganization got its name : the be, however, but instead the American Miscellaneous Soci­ name of an extra-ordinary ety. book by Willard Bascom, To this day the now re­ published by Doubleday at spectable deep-drilling pro­ $4.95. ject has the cable address Bascom is the head of the AMSOC, Washington, D.C., Mohole Project, which in­ and its letterhead bears the tends to drill a hole right figure of a geophysicist ram­ through the earth's crust into pa: .. ~ on his fields of action­ the mantle to see if they can't earth, air, fire and water. bring up a core. They'll drill Right at the start the organ­ where the crust is thinnest, ization (which has no mem­ and that happens to be under bership rolls, dues, officers, some miles of sea-water. You bylaws or meetings) was effi­ have to be crazy in some very cently organized into five di­ special way even to tbink of visions : Etceterology, Phe­ such a thing, and that's Bas­ nomenology, Calamitology, com. G:mera!ogy and Triviology. The book includes an ac­ T h e s e men got together at count of the orP,"anization brainstorming sessions which from which this h'.:;ady idea would take the breath away sprang: AMSOC. AMSOC from E. E. Smith. Once, iust had its beginnings somewhere for kicks, they conceived a in the inner circle of the Of­ plan to bring water to Cali­ fice of Naval Research, which fornia by hauling, with tug­ guides the Navy's basic re­ boats, an Antarctic iceberg search program and keeps up (the Arctic ones are salty) contacts with universities and 600 feet thick and 10 miles private laboratories. One hot long from Little America and summer day in '52, two of (bccat!se of prevailing cur­ these broad-spectru'n geniuses rents) around Hawaii so that tried to organize a huge pile it could be moore d in the of incoming proposals and Channel Islands near Los suggestions for research, by Angeles. They worked the putting them in a few neat project out in such detail that piles. When they were fin­ it looked not only feasible but ished, desks, tables, chairs and perhaps too e f f i c i e n t: it floor were covered with neat might well change the climate piles-each one paper deep. too much. They then gathered them to­ Yet project Mohole is now a gether into one pile and serious, practical endeavor, 6 for all its wild letterhead; and ing a monster five-pronged in telling about it, Bascom Soviet m a n t 1 e-drilling pro­ briefs you in everything con­ ject: one in the Caspian, four nected with it-the creation on land : In Karelia, the Ural of the earth, the origins of Mountains, the Caucasus and life, the structure of stars, the the Kuriles. natural history of the ocean Bascom goes on to say that and the land and the atmos­ though scientists all over wel­ phere. There's drilling, as it come t•he competition-it is, and as it's going to have to makes more work get done­ be before they're through; the fact remains that this "sci­ ships, navigation, explosives, entific Olympics," as he calls buoys and anchors-why, the it, isn't altogether just a jolly man's a whole corps of speci­ game. Bascom, who certainly alists all by himself. should know, says we have the initial advantage. On land we T HERE'S one sharp and have drilled to 25,000 feet, the time I y point connected Soviets about 17,000. Project with this whole astonishing M o h o 1 e ' s test drilling in effort. Last September a let­ water, totaling 11,700 feet, is ter appeared in a New York nearly 100 times their rec­ paper, pouncing on an article ord. "Nevertheless," Bascom a few days before headed SO­ writes, "I am concerned that VIET CONSIDERS FIVE another hare and tortoise race EARTH PROBES. The let­ will develop .. Although they te~ was written by this same have a long way to go, they Bascom, and, even admitting have accepted the conditions that it's his own pony he's of the race. We must ... be riding, I think you'll agree he wary that even in areas where has something to say. they are not superior, propa­ On August 24, he reports, ganda may make them seem he was invited to show pic­ so. We must run, and win, and tures and to lecture on Pro­ tell the world we have won." ject Mohole before the scien­ This department cou1dn't tists of the Soviet research agree more; and it seems time ship Vityaz.