Judith Merril - The Year's Greatest Science Fiction & Fantasy 6

Science, they keep telling us. Is “catching up” with science fiction. This is happily (at long last) true—precisely as it must be true that on any new frontier (space, surface, political, or academic) surveyors will replace the early scouts, and settlers may tread heavily on the surveyors’ heels.

This succession is, indeed, the only sure way to determine the validity of the new frontier. And the more swift and certain the waves of succession, the better it speaks for the work of the scouts—and for the alertness and adventurous spirit of man’s society. The rhythm of progress has a fixed pattern, but its tempo is variable in the extreme. Not all frontiers are still new when they are explored.

It was almost 2,000 years from the speculations of Aristarchus of Santos to the mathematically verifiable hypotheses of Johannes Kepler; three hundred more before Goddard and Tsiolkovsky (half the world round from each other) began to apply the principles of physical reaction (first observed in China in Aristarchus’s time, and mathematically formulated by Newton in the century after Kepler) to that men could and would, a scant half century later, build vessels to carry them into space to test, with physical exploration, the “proven” theories of Kepler.

In any field of new knowledge, on all frontiers, concrete or physical, the fools must first rush out to see what the accepted angels of the day do not credit even enough to fear. The quixotic ass may be a “Somnium” or a glider at Kitty Hawk, a “Rights of Man,” a burning bush, a dream of passage to India, a Unified Field of Theory, or a story of space. Whatever its form, it must take shape first in the imagination of some, somehow, less fettered mind, and pass, through the speculations of philosophers, onto the lathe of logic; if it turns true (however slowly or swiftly), it has become Accepted Theory.

With Theory, the cycle begins anew: someone must “dream up” (literally, just about) a completely new way to lest a new theory. Belter disciplined, less dreaming, men must refine the techniques; mathematical symbols must be found to describe in precise language the verified experiment. And—

With a new technique In hand, a new idea in the mind’s storehouse, some new dreamer will first imagine the next step, and (barring final warfare) so on, and on, and—

J. M.

Milford, March, 1961

Between the purely imaginative and the solidly speculative, as between speculation and science, the boundaries can never be entirely resolved. Just now—when yesterday’s impossibles are so often today’s probables and tomorrow’s certainlys—the once sharp dividing line between “scientific” and “supernatural” (or “reason” and “mysticism” or “science-fiction” and “fantasy”) is especially hazy.

Hypnosis, for instance, is such a respectable adjunct of medicine today that it is difficult to recall how recently the words’ mesmerist and charlatan were almost synonymous. “Faith healing,” of course, is still medically suspect—but “psychosomatic” is a vital part of every GP’s new vocabulary. And while ultra-scientific pharamaceutical laboratories are rediscovering, renaming (and peddling) the curative agents in long-discredited witch-doctor drugs, a startling number of solid conservative public utilities are making use of “water witching” techniques for everyday chores.

It does seem about time to reopen the question (imaginative or speculative) of magic in general...

The essential nature of my mind is more than ordinarily rational and scientific, but there has always been a wild strain in it—magic fascinated me from early childhood. I couldn’t entirely bring myself to believe in it, but there were times when I could suspend my disbelief until I could almost feel the thrill of upsetting the laws of nature, and had there been a reputable sorcerer available during such moments, I might very well have asked to be taken on as an apprentice. For the most part, however, I laughed at such fancies, and applied myself earnestly to the study of science.

I never did get properly launched on a scientific career, but this had nothing to do with my curious penchant for witchcraft. During my student days, I became so deeply involved in radical activity that I presently abandoned all thought of seeking a berth in a university or research foundation—either of which would necessarily be subsidized and therefore, to my mind, controlled, by a status quo I had come to despise. Without waiting to graduate, I plunged myself completely into that complex world of intrigue and sectarian strife that passed for revolutionary politics in New York during the thirties and forties.

For some years, I lived for the cause, working sporadically at poorly paid, part-time jobs to keep myself in food and a cheap furnished room, so I could spend most of my time at the exciting game of plotting and counter-plotting, drawing up manifestoes, polemics and learned Marxist dissertations, and holding endless discussions with my comrades. It all seemed terribly important and significant. We believed that the Revolution was imminent, and that our miniscule, ill-trained and badly informed groups—or one of them, at any rate—would shortly be wielding power over vast masses of people. It wasn’t a bad life, in many ways—it was certainly stimulating, and enormously gratifying to the ego, as long as one could continue to believe that we were the true elect—but there came a time when it began to pall on me.

To be perfectly honest, I suppose what woke me up was the arrival of a small legacy—not really very much money, but more than I had ever possessed at one time before. I knew that if I remained in the movement, it would soon be dissipated on printer’s bills and rent for meeting halls, and I would be back where I was before it came. I was selfish enough to resent this, and for the first time began to take serious stock of myself.

The group to which I then belonged—it was called the Ultra-Revolutionary Left Socialist Workers’ council, or something equally grandiose and pretentious—had been reduced by internal dissension to about 14 members, and there were rumors of an impending faction fight which might well split it still further. My comrades were all either narrow fanatics or callow youths, and their intemperance and wordiness increasingly had been getting on my nerves. Furthermore, the status quo seemed as solidly entrenched as ever. All in all, it seemed like an excellent time to pull out, and retire to the country to think things through. I knew I could never achieve any sort of mental balance as long as I remained in the hectic, frenetic atmosphere of the movement. At least, these were my rationalizations—I guess I’m still enough of a Marxist to believe that the money was the real reason for my defection.

I bought a few acres of unimproved land on the side of a mountain, a hundred miles from the city, and at least two from the nearest neighbor; a second-hand jeep, which was the only kind of car that could negotiate the rough wagon trail that led to my property, and enough building material and equipment for a small cabin. The cabin was pretty crude—I hadn’t much skill at that sort of work, but I learned a lot as I went along, and it kept out the weather, after a fashion.

By the time I had the cabin ready to live in, my money was all gone, but I was able to pick up enough odd jobs in the neighborhood to satisfy my simple needs, and still have plenty of free time. I found that by leaving the city, I had shed the radical movement like a bad dream. While I still believed vaguely in the desirability of socialism, once I had the chance to achieve some perspective, it became perfectly obvious that the wrangling little sects that had consumed so large a part of my life would never amount to anything and I was well quit of them.