Twice seven 1998 ssc, p.1
Twice Seven (1998) SSC, page 1
TWICE SEVEN
STORIES BY
BEN BOVA
Copyright notices for the stories in this collection appear on pages 289-290, which constitutes an extension of this copyright page.
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To Judine and Terry
INTRODUCTION: THE ART OF PLAIN SPEECH
It is the secret of the artist that he does his work so superlatively well that we all but forget to ask what his work was supposed to be, for sheer admiration of the way he did it.
--E. H. Gombrich THE STORY OF ART
I agree with that statement--up to a point. The esteemed Dr. Gombrich may be totally correct when speaking of painting or sculpture or even architecture, but when it comes to writing fiction. Sir Ernest and I part company. In fiction, I believe, the true art is to engage the reader so intimately in the story that we forget about the writer, for sheer involvement in the tale that the characters are weaving before our eyes. Maybe I feel that way because I started out in the newspaper game (it's never called a business by the workers in the field). Or maybe it's because I've spent most of my adult life working with scientists and engineers. Or maybe it's because I care about my readers too much. Whatever the reason, I have always felt that the writer should be virtually invisible in his or her fiction; the reader should be drawn into the story, rather than forced to admire the writer's brush strokes.
Only after the story is finished should the reader be able to sit up and think, "That was an enjoyable piece of writing." During the reading process, the reader should be so engrossed in the story that the writer's art (or craft) is barely noticed, if at all. I have never felt that writing should be a contest between author and the reader, a battleground filled with obscurity and arcana. I don't want my readers to struggle with my prose. I don't want to impress them with how smart I am. I want them to enjoy what I'm writing and maybe think a little about what I'm trying to say. Problem is, when you write clearly and simply, without stylistic frills or rococo embellishments, some people think that you are not a "deep" thinker or a "stylist."
Isaac Asimov ran into this predicament often. Critics could not fault Isaac on his knowledge or his success, or even his earnestness or political correctness, so they belittled his style, calling it "pedestrian" or "simplistic." Yet Isaac's style was the one thing that made him such a success, at least as far as his nonfiction work is concerned. Other specialists knew their subjects in more depth than Isaac did. Isaac had a tremendous breadth of knowledge, but in any particular field-be it cosmology or poetry, biblical scholarship or even biochemistry--here were specialists who knew a lot more of the details than he did. But it was Isaac's genius to be able to take any of those specialized fields and write about them so clearly, so naturalistically that just about anyone who is able to read could learn the fundamentals of Isaac's subject. That took style. And it was definitely not intuitive, the work of unreflective genius. Isaac thought about what he did, every step of the way. He deliberately developed a writing style that was so deceptively unpretentious and naturalistic that critics thought what he did was easy.
In fiction, the academic disdain for straightforward, honest prose has led critics to dismiss Hemingway and praise Faulkner, although today we are seeing that Hemingway's work is standing the test of time better than most of his contemporaries'. Maybe Hemingway was also influenced by his early days of news papering We know that he deliberately developed the lean, understated style that became his hallmark. He worked hard at it, every year of his writing life. Lord knows that no one has accused the science fiction field of overemphasis on style. If anything, the accusations have been just the opposite, that science-fiction writing is too pedestrian, too mundane. Yet the field has produced some marvelous stylists: Fritz Leiber, for example. Alfred Bester. Ray Bradbury. There is a good reason why most science-fiction is written in a plain, naturalistic, realistic style.
Out-of this-world settings and incredible feats may abound in science-fiction stories, yet the prose is usually unadorned and straightforward. Why? Because if you want to make the reader believe what you are saying, if you want the reader to accept those out-of this-world backgrounds and incredible deeds, it is easier if the prose you use is as simple and realistic as you can make it. In science there is a dictum: don't add an experiment to an experiment. Don't make things unnecessarily complicated. In writing fiction, the more fantastic the tale, the plainer the prose should be. Don't ask your readers to admire your words when you want them to believe your story. In my own work I have tried to keep the prose clean and clear, especially when I am writing about subjects as complex as space exploration, politics, and love. Those subjects are tricky enough without trying to write about them in convoluted sentences heavy with opaque metaphors and intricate similes.
Then, too, there is the difference between the optimists and the pessimists. Somehow, somewhere in the course of time, darkly pessimistic stories got to be considered more "literary" than brightly optimistic ones. I suspect this attitude began in academia, although it is really a rather juvenile perspective: teenagers frequently see the world they face as too big and complex, too awesome for them to fathom. Healthy adults saw off a chunk of that world for themselves and do their best to cultivate it. That is the message of Voltaire's Candide, after all. Even in the science-fiction field, pessimistic "downbeat" stories are often regarded as intrinsically more sophisticated than optimistic "upbeat" tales. I suspect this reveals a hidden yearning within the breasts of some science-fiction people to be Accepted by the academic literary establishment.
That's okay with me, but such yearnings should not cloud our perceptions. It may be de rigueur in academic circles to moan about the myth of Sisyphus and the pointless futility of human existence, but such an attitude is antithetical to the principles of science fiction, which are based on the fundamental principles of science: that the universe is understandable, and human reason can fathom the most intricate mysteries of existence, given time.
Science fiction is a fundamentally optimistic literature. We tend to see the human race not as failed angels but as evolving apes struggling toward god hood. Even in the darkest dystopian science-fiction stories, there is hope for the future. This is the literature that can take a situation such as the Sun blowing up, and ask, "Okay, what happens next?"* Does that make science-fiction silly? Or pedestrian? Or juvenile? Hell no! It's those academic thumb-suckers who are the juveniles. In science fiction we deal with the real world and try to examine honestly where in the universe we are and where we are capable of going. In good science fiction, that is. As Theodore Sturgeon pointed out ages ago, ninety-five percent of science fiction (and everything else) is crap. All that bears the title "science fiction" is not in Ted's top five percent. But at its best, science fiction is wonderful. And it tends to be optimistic. Because I try to write clearly and tend to believe that the human mind can solve the problems it faces, I fear that my work is often regarded as simplistic, or lacking style, or less "literary" than some others'. Such complaints are the price to be paid for writing plainly and basing fiction on the real world and actual human behavior. One of America's first literary giants, Nathaniel Hawthorne, responded to the accusation of writing without elegance:
I am glad you think my style plain. I never, in any one page or paragraph, aimed at making it anything else.... The greatest possible merit of style is, of course, to make the words absolutely disappear into the thought.
*If you don't believe me, read Larry Niven's "Inconstant Moon." Or my own “Test of Fire.”
So--here are fourteen stories that range from tragedy to buffoonery, fourteen tales from the future, the past, and even from the timelessness of eternity. One of them is an outright fantasy, co-authored with a friend and kindred soul. Another can be read as fantasy, although I don't see it as such. A few of them might make you chuckle; all of them should make you think. Each story is written as clearly as possible, with no unnecessary stylistic adornments. They may not be "Art," in Dr. Gombrich's sense, although I think they are enjoyable. But you'll be the judge of that.
Naples, Florida
Introduction to "Inspiration"
Where do story ideas come from? That question, in one form or another, is the one most frequently asked by young writers. Where do you get the ideas for your stories? Often, when it's ascience-fiction writer they're questioning, they ask, "Where do you get your crazy ideas?" The "official" answer among science-fiction professionals is, "Schenectady." With as straight a face as possible we reply that we subscribe to t he Crazy Idea Service of Schenectady, New York. Once a month they send us a crazy idea--in a plain brown envelope, of course. The truth is, ideas are everywhere. The air is filled with them. Pick up a newspaper, sit in a restaurant, visit a friend, and potential stories are unfolding before your eyes. In fact, getting story ideas is the easy part of writing fiction. As Thomas Mann put it, "The task of a writer consists in being able to make something out of an idea." I can't really tell you how I wrote the short story, "Inspiration." The creative process is so largely unconscious that it's impossible to describe the day-by-day, minute-to- minute choices and decisions that add up to a finished story. But I can tell you how "Inspiration" was, well, inspired. Many academic papers have been written about the influence of scientific research on science fiction, and vice versa. Whole books have been written about the interplay between science and science fiction. It struck me that it might be interesting to try a story that explores that theme. I did a bit of historical research. When H. G. Wells first published The Time Machine, Albert Einstein was sixteen. William Thomson, newly made Lord Kelvin, was the grand old man of physics, and a stern guardian of the orthodox Newtonian view of the universe. Wells' idea of considering time as a fourth dimension would have been anathema to Kelvin; but it would have lit up young Albert's imagination. Who knows? Perhaps Einstein was actually inspired by Wells.
At any rate, there was the kernel of a story. But how could I get Wells, Einstein, and Kelvin together? And why? To be an effective story, there must be a fuse burning somewhere that will cause an explosion unless the protagonist acts to prevent it. My protagonist turned out to be a time traveler, sent on a desperate mission to the year 1896, where he finds Wells, Einstein, and Kelvin and brings them together. And one other person, as well.
INSPIRATION
He was as close to despair as only a lad of seventeen can be. "But you heard what the professor said," he moaned. "It is all finished. There is nothing left to do." The lad spoke in German, of course. I had to translate it for Mr. Wells. Wells shook his head. "I fail to see why such splendid news should upset the boy so." I said to the youngster, "Our British friend says you should not lose hope. Perhaps the professor is mistaken."
"Mistaken? How could that be? He is a famous man! A nobleman! A baron!" I had to smile. The lad's stubborn disdain for authority figures would become world-famous one day. But it was not in evidence this summer afternoon in A.D. 1896.
We were sitting in a sidewalk cafe with a magnificent view of the Danube and the city of Linz. Delicious odors of cooking sausages and bakery pastries wafted from the kitchen inside. Despite the splendid warm sunshine, though, I felt chilled and weak, drained of what little strength I had remaining.
"Where is that blasted waitress?" Wells grumbled. "We've been here half an hour, at the least."
"Why not just lean back and enjoy the afternoon, sir?" I suggested tiredly. "This is the best view in all the area."
Herbert George Wells was not a patient man. He had just scored a minor success in Britain with his first novel and had decided to treat himself to a vacation in Austria. He came to that decision under my influence, of course, but he did not yet realize that. At age twenty-nine, he had a lean, hungry look to him that would mellow only gradually with the coming years of prestige and prosperity. Albert was round-faced and plumpish; still had his baby fat on him, although he had started a moustache as most teenaged boys did in those days. It was a thin, scraggly black wisp, nowhere near the full white brush it would become. If all went well with my mission. It had taken me an enormous amount of maneuvering to get Wells and this teenager to the same place at the same time. The effort had nearly exhausted all my energies. Young Albert had come to see Professor Thomson with his own eyes, of course.
Wells had been more difficult; he had wanted to see Salzburg, the birthplace of Mozart. I had taken him instead to Linz, with a thousand assurances that he would find the trip worthwhile. He complained endlessly about Linz, the city's lack of beauty, the sour smell of its narrow streets, the discomfort of our hotel, the dearth of restaurants where one could get decent food--by which he meant burnt mutton. Not even the city's justly famous Linzertorte pleased him. "Not as good as a decent trifle," he groused. "Not as good by half." I, of course, knew several versions of Linz that were even less pleasing, including one in which the city was nothing more than charred radioactive rubble and the Danube so contaminated that it glowed at night all the way down to the Black Sea. I shuddered at that vision and tried to concentrate on the task at hand. It had almost required physical force to get Wells to take a walk across the Danube on the ancient stone bridge and up the Postlingberg to this little sidewalk cafe. He had huffed with anger when we had started out from our hotel at the city's central square, then soon was puffing with exertion as we toiled up the steep hill. I was breathless from the climb also. In later years a tram would make the ascent, but on this particular afternoon we had been obliged to walk. He had been mildly surprised to see the teenager trudging up the precipitous street just a few steps ahead of us. Recognizing that unruly crop of dark hair from the audience at Thomson's lecture that morning. Wells had graciously invited Albert to join us for a drink. "We deserve a beer or two after this blasted climb," he said, eying me unhappily.
Panting from the climb, I translated to Albert, "Mr. Wells ...invites you ... to have a refreshment with us." The youngster was pitifully grateful, although he would order nothing stronger than tea. It was obvious that Thomson's lecture had shattered him badly. So now we sat on uncomfortable cast-iron chairs and waited--they for the drinks they had ordered, me for the inevitable. I let the warm sunshine soak into me and hoped it would rebuild at least some of my strength. The view was little short of breathtaking: the brooding castle across the river, the Danube itself streaming smoothly and actually blue as it glittered in the sunlight, the lakes beyond the city and the blue-white snow peaks of the Austrian Alps hovering in the distance like ghostly petals of some immense unworldly flower. But Wells complained, "That has to be the ugliest castle I have ever seen."
"What did the gentleman say?" Albert asked.
"He is stricken by the sight of the Emperor Fried rich's castle," I answered sweetly. "Ah. Yes, it has a certain grandeur to it, doesn't it?"
Wells had all the impatience of a frustrated journalist. "Where is that damnable waitress? Where is our beer?"
"I'll find the waitress," I said, rising uncertainly from my iron-hard chair. As his ostensible tourguide, I had to remain in character for a while longer, no matter how tired I felt. But then I saw what I had been waiting for.
"Look!" I pointed down the steep street. "Here comes the professor himself!" William Thomson, First Baron Kelvin of Largs, was striding up the pavement with much more bounce and energy than any of us had shown. He was seventy-one, his silver-gray hair thinner than his impressive gray beard, lean almost to the point of looking frail. Yet he climbed the ascent that had made my heart thunder in my ears as if he were strolling amiably across some campus quadrangle. Wells shot to his feet and leaned across the iron rail of the cafe. "Good afternoon. Your Lordship." For a moment I thought he was going to tug at his forelock. Kelvin squinted at him. "You were in my audience this morning, were you not?"
"Yes, m'lud. Permit me to introduce myself: I am H. G. Wells."
"Ah. You're a physicist?"
"A writer, sir."
"Journalist?"
"Formerly. Now I am a novelist."
"Really? How keen."
Young Albert and I had also risen to our feet. Wells introduced us properly and invited Kelvin to join us. "Although I must say," Wells murmured as Kelvin came 'round the railing and took the empty chair at our table, "that the service here leaves quite a bit to be desired."
