Raymond Z. Gallun: "Space Flotsam," "The World Wrecker," and "Derelict"

There was a period when the raison d'etre of this blog was to read story after story after story from 1930s magazines like Weird Tales and Astounding, and we could see a reversion to that mania at any time.  In our last episode we read three Ray Bradbury stories printed in Weird Tales during the early-Forties editorship of Dorothy Stevens McIlwraith, which I guess is mania-adjacent, and today we fully take the plunge, mining three issues of Astounding published during the mid-Thirties editorship of F. Orlin Tremaine for tales penned by Raymond Z. Gallun!

"Space Flotsam" (1934)

(I just recently listened to the second Peter Gabriel album for the first time in years--wow, so good.)   

I am a sucker for stories in which guys climb into space suits and enter the vacuum of outer space.  I guess this is a reflection of my own psychological problems; I fear the world and other people and so the idea of putting a thin barrier between myself and an implacably menacing universe resonates with me.  (I am also fascinated on a gut level by the idea of crusaders piling on layer after layer of armor--gambeson after habergeon after aketon, arming cap then coif then helmet--insulating themselves from the shafts, blades and bludgeons of the alien world into which they have thrust themselves.)

"Space Flotsam" is just such a story.  Teenager Hal Trilbey is put in a space suit and thrown out of the Venusian space battleship Torool by ambitious radical leader Corad of Mekalla--Trilbey has only ten hours of oxygen in which to live!  

In flashbacks we learn how Trilbey was always a rebellious and adventurous troublemaker who would stow aboard merchant ships so he could see the cities of Mars, the mines of the Moon, the seas of Ganymede.  He joined the space navy of the united planets of Earth, Venus and Mars, but, chafing at authority, he deserted to the revolutionary army of would-be System dictator Corad whose scientists were developing germ warfare agents in the swamps of Venus!  But as a member of the crew of Corad's flagship, Torool, he pissed off Corad and got himself thrown out of the airlock; Corad afforded him enough oxygen so he could live in terror for ten hours.

Trilbey figures out how to get back to the battleship and sabotage it, saving the Solar System by blowing up the vessel and all its inhabitants, including himself.  One of Gallun's purposes in the story seems to be to teach you about zero gee, but on a more literary and philosophical level we see his ambiguous depiction of rebellion against authority ("Resentment toward authority, which is and must be one of the pivots of civilization, had been their undoing") and of relations between different civilizational or racial groups--on the one hand we have Terrans, "wizened" Martians and "goblin-faced" Venusians living and working together, but on the other hand it is hinted that Corad's rebellion is a response to Terran high-handedness.

I like it, but "Space Flotsam" has never been reprinted.       

"The World Wrecker" (1934)

Here's another science- and mass death-heavy story that has never been reprinted.

"The World Wrecker" tells the story of genius scientist Fred Anderson.  Anderson has figured out how to turn matter into energy waves, and back again--he can thus transmit items from one place to another at the speed of light.  By chance, with this device, he makes contact with the people living on a little planet beyond the orbit of Pluto and becomes friendly with them.  The temperature on this little planet, which Anderson calls "Cerberus," is so low that its inhabitants' circulatory systems aren't based on pumping water, but liquid hydrogen, while their exoskeletons are ice; ice has never melted on Cerberus, and fire is a phenomenon totally unknown.  Anderson and his counterparts on Cerberus transmit to each other artifact and notes, and the Cerberans even send to Anderson a plant, which he keeps alive in a powerful refrigerator.

"The World Wrecker" lives up to its name when Anderson figures his alien buddies are probably curious about fire and he sends then a lighted candle.  Oops--the atmosphere of Cerberus is hydrogen, and most of its earth is frozen oxygen, and Anderson's candle causes the whole planet to explode, killing everybody on it.  Anderson has wiped out a civilization as culturally and technologically sophisticated as our own!

This is a competent filler piece, not bad, but no big deal; it lacks the interesting philosophical and human character elements of "Space Flotsam," though I guess Gallun is sort of suggesting that scientists are risk takers who put society in danger in their reckless pursuit of knowledge.

"Derelict" (1935)

This one has been reprinted a few times, including in Sam Moskowitz's The Coming of the Robots and The Best of Raymond Z. Gallun.

Jan Van Tyren is one of those hardy souls who is doing the hard work of colonizing the Solar System.  In fact, until a few days ago he was master of an outpost on Ganymede.  Why did he leave such a position of responsibility?  Because the bat-like native Ganymedeans murdered his wife and baby!  (Everywhere you go--Transylvania, Hubei Province, Ganymede--those damn bats are stirring up trouble!)  Today Jan is flying in a one-man ship back home to Earth--a 60-day trip--to retire, to focus on his painting.  Unexpectedly, he has spotted a spherical space ship, perhaps of alien origin, drifting, apparently lifeless, not far from his course.  He investigates.

The serpentine aliens who crewed this ship thousands, maybe millions, of years ago are long dead, just ashes, a hole in the ship suggesting they lost a battle.  But Jan by chance activates a sort of caretaker robot which gets the ship's life support systems going again and who begins caring for Jan, using a ray to heal his tragedy-shaken psyche and serving him food and so forth. 

The sphere is a more advanced vessel than any human ship, and the robot patches it up so it can carry Jan across the universe, to other galaxies, far from the painful scenes of his life here in our solar system.  But at the last minute the robot shows him surveillance video from Ganymede--the rebel bat-people are threatening to destroy the colony!  Now that the ray has gotten Jan over the worst of his grief, he knows his duty is to help the human colonists and the Terran-friendly bat-people (your college professor would call them collaborators), so he abandons his selfish scheme of leaving the solar system and takes up his responsibility to society and hurries back to Ganymede to lead the defense and the rebuilding of the colony.

This is a good story; Gallun handles the technology elements and the emotional stuff well, painting visual and emotional landscapes with economy.  Thumbs up for "Derelict!"

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I like these traditional SF stories about scientists and spacemen dealing with robot and aliens, and found this a quite entertaining trip back to the Thirties.  Bravo to Gallun and to Tremaine.  Gallun in these three stories, I think, strikes a good balance between optimism about man's ability to overcome problems and conquer the universe, and a tragic acceptance that such conquests can come at a terrible price.  

It's back to the Fifties in our next episode; see you then!