Today’s post is brought to you by Ships of Steel, a collection of Space Opera novellas in the Swords of Fire format. Each story features an illustration by M. D. Jackson, the cover artist. Among the tales is “Gideon’s Burden” by T. Neil Thomas. The author offers a fascinating look at JoJo Station, a vast metal environment beside Jupiter. He shows you the rich and the poor and the Gideons, soldier priests who try to help the less fortunate. Sound heavy, like Jupiter’s gravity? Not at all, because this is also a Noir detective tale about saving a missing child.
I have a love/hate relationship with John W. Campbell’s Astounding Science-Fiction. I can acknowledge that he worked to make SF a more serious genre, something for intelligent adults. But he also sucked much of the fun out of it, too. Stylistically, I find much of what he published uninspiring. Many of his best writers, like Poul Anderson and Gordon R. Dickson, are difficult for me, not because of the Math or Science of it, but because there is no literary sparkle. Like I said: love/hate.
I don’t have that problem with Murray Leinster though. Every bit an Astounding Golden Ager, Will F. Jenks (this real name) was a writer even before John Campbell had sold his first story. Murray’s first SF (not his first story) was “Atmosphere” (The Argosy, January 26, 1918). He wrote love stories, Westerns, Northerns, jungle tales as well as worked as an inventor. He wrote many classics including “The Mad Planet”, “Sidewise in Time”, a suspense classic “Side Bet” and the first story about home computers and the Internet in 1946, “A Logic Named Joe”. Murray Leinster earned the title “The Dean of Science Fiction”.
And today’s tale is solid proof of that. It’s called “Exploration Team” (Astounding Science Fiction, March 1956) in the magazine version but “Combat Team” when it was collected in Colonial Survey (1957) By either name, it won the 1956 Hugo for Best Novella. It is the third of four tales about the Colonial Survey service.
I
The main character of the tale, you decide if he is a hero as we go, is Huyghens, a man who is surveying for an illegal colony on Loren Two. To help him survive the very dangerous local fauna, he has four genetically altered Kodiak bears: Sitka Pete, Sourdough Charley, Faro Nell and the baby, Nugget. He also has a tamed eagle named Semper. These animals serve him as eyes and ears as well as claws and jaws. The Colonial Survey has deemed the planet too dangerous for human colonization. This makes Huyghens a criminal though his behavior is nothing but intelligent and compassionate.
This is tested when an unidentified ship shows up. Huyghens is prepared to destroy all his documents and go to prison. The ship drops one man, Roane, a Survey agent. The two men square off and discuss the situation. It is only logical for Huyghens to sic the bears on the man and hide his body. But Huyghens isn’t a logical creature. He invites Roane inside his camp and promises not to kill him. This will be one of the big questions this tale asks: is logical always best?
Roane, now comfortable, tells Huyghens why he has come. He thought the beacon was for his official colony on the planet, one that was comprised of robots only. The main danger to humans are creatures called Sphexes, large dragon-like things that a bear can kill but a robot… Huyghens explains to Roane what probably happened. If you kill a sphex, every other one that smells the blood will come to avenge that death. The robot colonists, the humans setting up the colony (later to leave) build a high wall around their camp. The sphexes would be intrigued, and being good climbers, would have found a way in. The colonists probably killed one of the beasts, soon finding themselves surrounded by dozens.
II
Roane figures the humans are all dead. Huyghens, being a mechanically savvy guy, builds a super-simple radar detector and picks up a signal from the camp. He agrees to go with Roane to the camp and save anyone who still alive. He also explains how much he doesn’t like robots. Huyghens feels that humans who rely on robots give up more than they get in the arrangement. (Jack Williamson’s “With Folded Hands” was six years earlier in Astounding.) He also explains that the relationship between himself and the bears is not master and slave. They are all equals. The bears were not altered physically, only psychologically to like and trust humans.
III
The two humans, four bears and the eagle head out for the other camp. That night Roane gets his first look at a Sphex. It attacks but the bears make quick work of it. Huyghens wipes their paws and cleans up any blood after disposing of the body. This usually keeps the revengers away.
The next day, they encounter their first pack of sphexes, eight of them. Huyghens sees them long before the get to them because Semper is equipped with cameras. The bird has been trained to follow commands, like circle or to fly ahead. Unlike the bears, the bird is not intelligent enough to be an equal partner, but is still very useful.
Leinster describes the sphexes they encounter: “Eight blue-and-tan fiends came racing out of the underbrush. They had spiny fringes, and horns, and glaring eyes, and they looked as if they had come straight out of hell.” When they meet the pack, Huyghens and Roane open with rifles that use explosive bullets. They have to stop when the bears get too close. After all are killed, Huyghens has to doctor wounds and deodorize the bears.
All the time the party travels, Roane beats himself up over liking this man and his team. He is an officer of the Colonial Survey. He should arrest the criminal and have the animals destroyed. This would be suicide. And he’d never save anyone at the robot colony. Less stressful for him is Nugget, the baby of the troop. He and Roane become fast friends. Faro Nell, who keeps a sharp eye on her cub, allows this relationship.
The adventurers come to a tall hill that leads to a vast plain that sits between both colonies. They will have to navigate the hill and then the dusty wastes if they are to save their fellow humans. The problem is that hundreds and hundreds of the sphexes have come to the flats. Huyghens realizes there is no way they are going to go up the hill without getting killed. Four bears can not protect anyone from hundreds of the blue-and-tan devils. Instead, they climb up at another spot, dotted with boulders. Food for the bears is becoming a problem. The next day they find all the sphexes have left the Sere Plateau.
IV
They camp in the open knowing that another dangerous creature, the night-flyers, will show up. Flashing his light, Huyghens lights up a flock of vampire-like monsters that the bears smash and eat. The flyers can approach soundlessly and drain a victim without detection. The light disorients them and the bears feast, no longer worried about food. Huyghens points out to Roane that robots could not deter threats like that.
V
The next day, the party wanders over the sand. They find a lone sphex, which Huyghens shoots. He wants the body for some reason. Roane is left with Nugget on a hillock to watch. A second sphex appears and attacks him. The bears save the man when he can’t shoot fast enough. Roane feels bad about one of the bears getting injured for his own incompetence. Huyghens inspects the bodies and determines they are a mated couple. The first sphex was female and filled with eggs. The men have learned something very important: where the sphexes lay their nest of eggs. It will be fairly easy to reduce their numbers by destroying these hidden nests.
The team makes it to the robot colony and save three humans surrounded by sphexes. The engineers had to hide in a mine until rescue came. The rescue complete, there is only the question of what Roane will do now? He should logically arrest Huyghens. They discuss the value of “logic”. Huyghens sees the value at times, but prefers for humans to live as humans, which means sometimes behaving illogically. This is Leinster’s final chance to espouse his philosophy: robots are okay up to a point, like sulfurous planets or inside volcanoes, but they do not belong in the lives of men and women. Humans become slaves to robot efficiency and logic, and lose their humanity.
Roane solves his dilemma with some good old fashion “human” maneuvering. On colony planets, Survey members may call upon passing ships for aid. He will write in his report that Huyghens and the bears offered to assist as they were passing. As friends of the Colonial Survey, their information and efforts can become part of the “official” colonization effort. Huyghens chides him for giving up a life of “duty and logic” for them. Roane is too much of a friend to Nugget to ever want to harm him.
I need to mention Isaac Asimov here, briefly. After reading much of his earlier stuff, I came to the conclusion that Ike doesn’t tell stories, he write arguments. Take “Nightfall” for instance. People argue for and against the entire population of a planet going insane. The only real plot is the terrible conjunction happening and one side winning that argument as they are driven nuts. Most of his short stories work along similar lines.
Murray Leinster does something similar here, too. The constant argument between Huyghens and Roane, that begins as the agent lands and doesn’t finish until the last page, is there. But Murray gives us a nice dollop of sugar to go with the medicine. There is an intriguing planet, monsters, action and travel. He could have bored us by having two executives argue in an office (Ike style, sometimes) but that wouldn’t illustrate the point. Leinster wants to show us the proof, to live it first. His years writing other kinds of stories certainly didn’t hurt in the penning of this tale. His philosophy is even a little surprising from a man who invented some valuable mechanical patents. Will F. Jenkins is a humanist as well as a scientist.
Conclusion
Murray Leinster’s tale is worthy of a Hugo. It has all the right elements: ideas but action and planetary adventure. It also has the wonderful artwork of Ed Emshwiller or “Emsh” too. Ed brings all the characters, including the bears, to stark reality in his artwork. I have always loved the black & white contrast he uses in his monster pieces. (For some Silverbergian Emsh, go here.) He is also a master at the long skinny illo which many SF digests used after the Pulps. No surprise, Ed won five Hugos during his career. His addition to “Exploration Team” is a joy for readers of Astounding, making the trip that much more fun.
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