The Paradox Men Read online

  Books by Charles L. Harness

  Flight Into Yesterday (1973)

  (Revised as The Paradox Men, 1984)

  The Rose (1966)

  The Ring of Ritornel (1968)

  Wolfhead (1978)

  The Catalyst (1980)

  Firebird (1981)

  The Venetian Court (1982)

  Classics of Modern Science Fiction

  THE PARADOX MEN

  CHARLES L. HARNESS

  Volume 7

  Introduction by George Zebrowski

  Foreword by Isaac Asimov

  Afterword by Brian Aldiss

  Series Editor: George Zebrowski

  Crown Publishers, Inc.

  New York

  “The Flight into Tomorrow” copyright © 1979 by Brian W. Aldiss. Reprinted from This World and Nearer Ones, Weidenfeld & Nicholson, London, 1979, by permission of the author and his agent.

  The Paradox Men was originally published in a shorter magazine version in Startling Stories, May 1949, under the title Flight into Yesterday, copyright 1949 by Better Publications, Inc.

  Copyright © 1984, 1981, 1953 by Charles L. Harness.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. Published by Crown Publishers, Inc., One Park Avenue, New York, New York 10016, and simultaneously in Canada by General Publishing Company Limited, by arrangement with the author and his agent, Scott Meredith Literary Agency, Inc., 845 Third Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10022.

  Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data

  Harness, Charles L.

  The paradox men.

  (Classics of modern science fiction; v. 7)

  I. Title. II. Series.

  PS3558.A62476P3 1984 813´.54 84-5913

  ISBN 0-517-55433-X

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  First Edition

  Contents

  Foreword by Isaac Asimov

  Introduction by George Zebrowski

  Prologue

  1. Noose for a Psychologist

  2. The Lady and the Tarsier

  3. The Mind

  4. The Raid

  5. The Projection

  6. Imperial Refuge

  7. The Wolf Pack

  8. Discovery through Torment

  9. Wild Talent

  10. The Questioning

  11. Return of Keiris

  12. Search for Identity

  13. Visitor from the Stars

  14. Escape from the Moon

  15. Hotspot Madness

  16. The Eskimo and the Sunmen

  17. Reunion Near Sol

  18. Duel Ended

  19. Death Impending

  20. Armageddon

  21. The Eternal Cycle

  22. Toynbee Twenty-two

  Afterword by Brian W. Aldiss

  Author’s Note

  Retrieving the Lost

  by Isaac Asimov

  THE HISTORY OF contemporary science fiction begins with the spring of 1926, when the first magazine ever to be devoted entirely to science fiction made its appearance. For a quarter-century thereafter science fiction continued to appear in magazines—and only in magazines.

  They were wonderful days for those of us who lived through them, but there was a flaw. Magazines are, by their very nature, ephemeral. They are on the newsstands a month or two and are gone. A very few readers may save their issues, but they are fragile and do not stand much handling.

  Beginning in 1950, science fiction in book form began to make its appearance, and some of the books retrieved the magazine short stories and serials in the form of collections, anthologies and novels. As time went on, however, it became clear that the vast majority of science-fiction books were in paperback form, and these, too, were ephemeral. Their stay on the newsstands is not entirely calendar-bound, and they can withstand a bit more handling than periodicals can—but paperbacks tend to be, like magazines, throwaway items.

  That leaves the hardback book, which finds its way into public libraries as well as private homes, and which is durable. Even there, we have deficiencies. The relatively few science-fiction books that appear in hardback usually appear in small printings and few, if any, reprintings. Out-of-print is the usual fate, and often a not very long delayed one, at that.

  Some science-fiction books have endured, remaining available in hardcover form for years, even decades, and appearing in repeated paperback reincarnations. We all know which these are because, by enduring, they have come to be read by millions, including you and me.

  It is, of course, easy to argue that the test of time and popularity has succeeded in separating the gold from the dross, and that we have with us all the science-fiction books that have deserved to endure.

  That, however, is too easy a dismissal. It is an interesting and convenient theory, but the world of human affairs is far too complex to fit into theories, especially convenient ones. It sometimes takes time to recognize quality, and the time required is sometimes longer than the visible existence of a particular book. That the quality of a book is not recognizable at once need not be a sign of deficiency, but rather a sign of subtlety. It is not being particularly paradoxical to point out that a book may be, in some cases, too good to be immediately popular. And then, thanks to the mechanics of literary ephemerality, realization of the fact may come too late.

  Or must it?

  Suppose there are dedicated and thoughtful writers and scholars like George Zebrowski and Martin H. Greenberg, who have been reading science fiction intensively, and with educated taste, for decades. And suppose there is a publisher such as Crown Publishers, Inc., which is interested in providing a second chance for quality science fiction which was undervalued the first time round.

  In that case we end up with Crown’s Classics of Modern Science Fiction in which the lost is retrieved, the unjustly forgotten is remembered, and the undervalued is resurrected. And you are holding a sample in your hand.

  Naturally, the revival of these classics will benefit the publisher, the editors, and the writers, but that is almost by the way. The real beneficiaries will be the readers, among whom the older are likely to taste again delicacies they had all but forgotten, while the younger will encounter delights of whose existence they were unaware.

  Read—

  And enjoy.

  Introduction

  by George Zebrowski

  READER, YOU HOLD in your hands one of the most unusual science-fiction novels ever published. A shorter magazine version appeared in the May 1949 Startling Stories under the title Flight Into Yesterday. A badly edited, poorly proofread and printed hardcover was published in 1953 under the same title, with the text somewhat expanded. An Ace Double Novel (D-118) paperback was released in 1955 as The Paradox Men. And then the novel went out of print in the United States.

  There was a renewed interest in Harness’s work during the 1960s, begun by editor Michael Moorcock in the pages of New Worlds. Faber published a new edition of The Paradox Men in 1964, with a glowing introduction by Brian Aldiss. A British book club edition appeared in 1966, and a paperback in 1967. In 1976 Brian Aldiss and Harry Harrison reintroduced the novel to British readers in their limited edition SF Masters Series, published by New English Library. But there was no new American edition.

  Harness’s most famous work, The Rose (written during the first five years of a career that began with “Time Trap” in the August 1948 issue of Astounding Science Fiction) had failed to find an American publisher. The novel appeared finally in the British magazine Authentic Science Fiction for March 1953. With the renewed interest in Harn
ess’s work, a British paperback was published in 1966, was followed by a Sidgwick & Jackson hardcover in 1968, and finally an American paperback came out from Berkley (X1648) in 1969. The British Panther paperback of 1969 was reprinted in 1970 and 1981. According to the author, none of these editions is the complete book, which he cut for its magazine appearance.

  But there was still no new American edition of The Paradox Men, even though Brian Aldiss had intrigued younger readers by reprinting a chapter from the novel in his wonderful retrospective anthology Space Opera (Doubleday, 1974). Critics, editors, and reviewers had, from time to time, whet readers’ appetites by mentioning this legendary book. In his note to the reprint of Harness’s first story, “Time Trap,” in Alpha One (the first volume of a distinguished retrospective anthology series begun by Ballantine in 1970), editor Robert Silverberg called The Paradox Men “a dizzyingly intricate novel, which repays close study by anyone wishing to master the craft of plotting.” William D. Vernon, writing as recently as 1981 in The Science Fiction Collector, laments that “this is a novel not to be missed, if the reader can locate a copy.” In the same issue of this publication Vernon presents an illustrated and annotated bibliography of Harness’s short stories, novelettes, novellas, and novels, clearly demonstrating the author’s substantial contribution to science fiction; but still no publisher took the cue to do a new edition of The Paradox Men.

  Harness’s original title for this novel was Toynbee Twenty-two, which refers to the famous British historian’s numbering of civilizations that have come and gone. T-21 is the number of the civilization in the story, which is trying to avoid decline. Certain Toynbeean philosophers and other individuals of Harness’s world hope that space travel (by means of a faster-than-light Starship, the T-22) will serve as a bridge to a new culture. Interestingly, our own world also harbors the hope that the opening of space will liberate human hearts and minds, as we move beyond a planet of limited economic horizons into an open universe.

  Flight Into Yesterday, the magazine and hardcover title of this novel, was chosen by Sam Merwin, then editor of Startling Stories. The Paradox Men was the title Donald A. Wollheim gave to the Ace paperback. It is perhaps the most intriguing of the novel’s three titles and describes accurately the ambiguous predicament of the novel’s main characters. It is for this last reason, and to avoid confusing readers and bibliographers, that we have chosen the title given to the novel’s largest previous edition. Also, the author has given the novel a careful line by line editing, correcting dropped punctuation, typos, wrong words, and taking the opportunity to expand overly compressed scenes, as well as tightening the reader’s understanding of important details and improving the general movement of the story. It is my view that the purely mechanical defects of previous editions made the novel needlessly harder to read. In other words, this new edition of The Paradox Men has been given the normal book editing that was uncommon in the science-fiction field back in the forties and fifties. This edition, with some three thousand five-hundred words of added and revised material, is therefore the first definitive version of a genuine science-fiction classic, and replaces all previous editions.

  The response of reviewers and critics in the year following the book’s publication was mixed. Groff Conklin, writing in Galaxy’s January 1954 issue, seemed baffled by the novel—but he found it “pretty astonishing, if only because of the cauldronful of ideas and fantasies that are mixed up in it.” P. Schuyler Miller, in the April 1954 Astounding Science Fiction, found the novel to be an “action entertainment” of some interest, but he failed to convey anything of the book’s compulsive, dreamlike power. Anthony Boucher, writing in the September 1953 issue of The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction described the story as a “fine swashbuckling adventure of space-and-time travel, the palace politics of tyranny, and the identity-problems of an amnesiac superman…” and compared it to A. E. Van Vogt’s well-known “Weapons Shop” novels; but in the end Boucher found Harness’s story too intricate, its science confusing and perhaps mistaken. Only Damon Knight seemed to have noticed that this novel “represents the brilliant peak of Charles L. Harness’s published work.” He described the novel as being “symmetrically arranged, the loose ends tucked in, and every last outrageous twist of the plot fully justified both in science and in logic.” (The review is reprinted in Knight’s collected essays on science fiction, In Search of Wonder, 2nd edition, Chicago, 1967). “You can trust Harness,” Knight continues, “to wind up this whole ultracomplicated structure, somehow, symmetrically and without fakery. Finally, when it’s all done, the story means something. Harness’s theme is the triumph of spirit over flesh… This is the rock under all Harness’s hypnotic cat’s-cradle of invention—faith in the spirit, the denial of pain, the affirmation of eternal life.”

  Alar the Thief is pushed (by a hidden player) through a series of escalating experiences which develop his hidden nature and move him toward death and transfiguration—all in the cause of raising humankind out of its cul-de-sac of cyclic history. Harness’s concern is with the unsatisfactory state of human nature, and many of his protagonists seek to transcend this fallen state. It is this theme that gives his stories their mythic overtones, while the scientific and technological ideas create a poetry of glittering plausibility. The casual reader will find a striking action story, but the lucky rereader will find epic poetry, an ecstasy of ideas, and a critical view of his own humanity.

  Building on the pioneering, dreamlike scenarios of A. E. Van Vogt, Harness produced a more coherent and yet still emotionally satisfying version of the master’s wheels-within-wheels story. The Paradox Men is comparable to Alfred Bester’s The Demolished Man (1953) and The Stars My Destination (1957) in its sweep and color, especially in the ethereal beauty of its closing pages. The Stars My Destination came later, however, and there even seems to be a bit of Harness in Kurt Vonnegut’s The Sirens of Titan (1959), both of which are counted as among the finest modern science-fiction novels. Alar the Thief is kindred to Winston Niles Rumfoord; both characters are scattered across time, and both are trying to deal with a recalcitrant human nature, though Alar seems more ethical than the nihilistic Rumfoord. Aldiss, in his introduction to the first British hardcover, observes that “for all its slam-bang action, The Paradox Men holds a particular enchantment. I have likened it to novels I admire, The Stars My Destination (Tiger! Tiger! in Britain) and The Sirens of Titan; but they lack the tenderness for humanity that gives the present book its freshness and its last scenes their conviction. Unlike most of the science fiction being written in England, America, and Russia, the values here are not purely materialist.” To this I can only add that no science-fictional hero ever reformed human history as thoroughly and as movingly as Alar the Thief; he steals the way to human progress. You’ll have to read the novel to see what that means, but I promise you it will be worth the trip.

  Classics of Modern Science Fiction

  THE

  PARADOX MEN

  Volume 7

  Prologue

  HE HAD NOT the faintest idea who he was.

  And he didn’t know why he was treading the cold black water so desperately.

  He didn’t know either why a great battered shining thing was sliding into the moonlit waves a dozen yards in front of him.

  A vision of vast distances traversed at unimaginable velocities flicked across his numbed understanding but was instantly gone again.

  His head ached horribly and he had no memory of anything.

  Suddenly a blinding shaft of light swept the waters ahead of him and came to rest on the broken flank of the rapidly sinking wreckage. Along the top of the broken hull he thought he could see a tiny, great-eyed animal whose fur was plastered to its shivering sides.

  Almost immediately a sleek, brass-trimmed boat whirled to a halt beside the fast-disappearing hulk, and he knew, without knowing why he knew, that he must not linger. Making sure that the thing he clasped in his left hand was safe, he turned toward the distant riv
er shore lights and began a slow, silent breast stroke…

  1

  Noose for a Psychologist

  MASKED EYES PEERED through the semi-darkness of the room.

  Beyond the metal door ahead lay the jewels of the House of Shey—a scintillating pile that would buy the freedom of four hundred men. A misstep at this point would bring hell down about him. Yet, in the great city outside, dawn was breaking and he must act quickly. He must tiptoe to the door, hold the tiny voice-box to the center of the great bronze rosette, pillage a fortune and vanish.

  The slender black-clad figure leaned against the gold-and-platinum-tapestried wall and listened intently, first to the tempo of his strange heart, and then to the world about him.

  From across the room, some six meters away, rose and fell the faint, complacent snoring of Count Shey, sometime Imperial Psychologist, but famed more for his wealth and dilettantism. His ample stomach was doubtless finishing off pheasant and 2127 burgundy.

  Below his mask, Alar’s lip curled humorlessly.

  Through the doorway behind him he detected the rattle of a card deck and muffled voices—a roomful of Shey’s personal guards. Not broken-spirited slave servants, but hardbitten overpaid soldiers of fortune with lightning rapiers. His hand tightened subconsciously on the hilt of his own saber and his breathing came faster. Even a trained Thief such as he was no match for six of the guards that Shey’s fortune could afford. Alar had been living on borrowed time for several years and he was glad this assignment was dry-blade.

  He glided with catlike silence to the bronze door, drawing the little cube from his waist-pouch as he did so. With sensitive fingers he found the center of the rosette with its concealed voice-lock. Pressing the cube to the cold metallic cluster, he heard a faint click, then the shrill recorded words, almost inaudible, of Shey, stolen from him, one by one, day by day, over the past weeks.