The World Beyond the Hill: Science Fiction and the Quest for Transcendence (101 page)

It is also revealed to the reader that the second set of toys fell into the hands of a Nineteenth Century English girl named Alice. From them, she learned a queer little verse which she sang for her courtesy uncle Charles—whom we may take to be Charles Dodgson, the man behind the pseudonym Lewis Carroll.

We are told:

“The song meant a great deal. It was the way. Presently she would do what it said, and then . . .

“But she was already too old. She never found the way.”
⁸²⁴

As presented, this would seem to be more of an occasion for sadness than for relief at the narrow escape she has had.

With these two scenes, which the Paradine parents aren’t privy to, the reader is given a basis for an alternative, non-horrific interpretation of “Mimsy Were the Borogoves.” With our knowledge of Unthahorsten’s son Snowen and poor English Alice, we can’t help but have confidence in Scott Paradine, with his certainty that the true path of human maturation lies in travel to a greater realm of being which is imperceptible to ordinary contemporary adults, and in his little sister Emma, with her recognition that the first verse of “Jabberwocky” is the map they need in order to go there.

It was only natural for the readers of
Astounding
to take the story this way. They were predisposed to do so.

Ever since “Who Goes There?”, the modern science fiction to which they were committed had declared over and over again that the unknown, however horrifying it might appear, could be dealt with by human beings if only they kept their heads and put themselves in tune with the way the universe really works. And these SF readers had all encountered “Jabberwocky” as children and shared the tantalizing feeling that somehow it made sense of a sort they could almost but not quite grasp.

Most of all, however, if they were prepared to identify with Scott and Emma Paradine, it was because they perceived themselves as trapped in a mid Twentieth Century that was brutal, limited and unworthy when compared to the visions of wider and higher human possibility that they were finding in science fiction. Many would have liked nothing better than to chuck World War II America and travel with the children to “the big place,” wherever and whatever that might prove to be.

“Mimsy Were the Borogoves” would seem to mark some sort of transition in the perception of transcendent non-rational consciousness. As recently as the summer of 1942, in stories like van Vogt’s “Secret Unattainable” and Heinlein’s “Waldo,” the new transcendence had been seen as something that contemporary humans were not yet ready for, or as something to be constrained and circumscribed as completely as possible with bonds of rationality. Non-rational transcendence was dangerous and unpredictable. As Padgett had it, it might play pranks on you, stripping you of your pants or clutching your heartstrings and causing you to glow purple, like the robot-constructed machine in “Deadlock.” Or it could zap you into nothingness, like the false radio-phonograph in “The Twonky.”

Now, however, in early 1943, this was starting to change. To Padgett and van Vogt, it had begun to seem that the new irrational transcendence—even though it might appear strange and mysterious—did not necessarily have to be feared, evaded and struggled against.

Human beings might get along a lot better with the new transcendence if they would only learn non-logical modes of mentation more in tune with the actual nature of reality. Padgett’s drunken inventor, Galloway, in “Time Locker,” does very well with weirdness by being whacky himself. The Paradine children in “Mimsy Were the Borogoves” seem able to rise to a higher state of humanness through their special training in
x
thinking. And, with all his education in intuitive thought, the No-man, Edward Gonish, in van Vogt’s
The Weapon Makers,
has apparently learned how to take bizarre occurrences and random happenings and perceive them as aspects of meaningful higher patterns.

The one science-fictional character who would most effectively exemplify this revised attitude toward the irrational would be Padgett’s inventor, Galloway. Renamed Gallegher, and given ample room to be himself, he would be featured in three novelets published in
Astounding
during 1943—“The World Is Mine” in June, “The Proud Robot” in October, and “Gallegher Plus” in November.

Galloway had only been a comic sideshow in “Time Locker,” which was basically a horror story. But Gallegher would be the focal character in the three later novelets of 1943, all of which were out-and-out comedies.

Gallegher isn’t exactly a super-scientist in the old-fashioned Techno Age sense. He is no discoverer of new laws of science. He is more of a transcendent tinkerer, a casual genius who plays at science by ear and produces wonders through new arrangements of known things: “Sometimes he’d start with a twist of wire, a few batteries, and a button hook, and before he finished, he might contrive a new type of refrigeration unit.”
⁸²⁵

All of Gallegher’s marvels of invention are achieved through the processes of his subconscious mind: “It did the most extraordinary things. It worked on inflexible principles of logic, but that logic was completely alien to Gallegher’s conscious mind. The results, though, we’re often surprisingly good, and always surprising.”
⁸²⁶

On the level of conscious understanding, it would seem that Gallegher has had only a limited education. He may toss off literary and philosophical references, but he seems to have no formal grasp of science. At one point, for instance, a robot of his own invention—who is sometimes known as Joe and sometimes as Narcissus—says to him:

“A positron is—”

“Don’t tell me,” Gallegher pleaded. “I’ll only have semantic difficulties. I know what a positron is, all right, only I don’t identify it with that name. All I know is the intensional meaning. Which can’t be expressed in words, anyhow.”

“The extensional meaning can, though,” Narcissus pointed out.

“Not with me. As Humpty Dumpty said, the question is, which is to be master. And with me it’s the word. The damn things scare me. I simply don’t
get
their extensional meanings.”

“That’s silly,” said the robot. “Positron has a perfectly clear denotation.”

“To you. All it means to me is a gang of little boys with fishtails and green whiskers. That’s why I never can figure out what my subconscious has been up to.”
⁸²⁷

In the terms of a later era, it would appear that Gallegher is weak in the logical, rational faculties associated with the left hemisphere of the brain, and is much stronger in the non-verbal, non-linear processes attributed to the right hemisphere. We might view him as an artist whose materials are the objects and interactions usually assumed to be the exclusive property of rational scientific study.

Gallegher’s standard method of procedure is to give control over to his right brain by disrupting the 1-2-3-4 thinking of the left brain with copious amounts of alcohol. The trouble is that come the following morning, his conscious self isn’t likely to have much memory, knowledge or understanding of what his subconscious self has been doing.

In fact, the pattern in all three comic novelets is that Gallegher has taken on some problem while in a state of drunkenness and solved it before the story begins. The conscious, rational Gallegher is then challenged to remember just what that problem was and to recognize the solution in whatever bit of unlikeliness the other Gallegher has most recently constructed.

Two things are particularly worth noting about Gallegher and his operations. One is his lack of fear of the unknown. And the other is the multifaceted nature of the things he invents.

Gallegher isn’t afraid of his subconscious—though he does find it a bit awesome. Basically, he looks on it as his stronger, more knowledgeable, more able side. When the crunch is on, it is his subconscious that Gallegher relies upon to bring him through.

This is made clear in “The Proud Robot.” In this story, Gallegher is caught in the middle of an entertainment industry struggle. A beautiful blonde television star, also in the middle, asks Gallegher’s advice. If she knows what is good for her, which side of the fence should she contrive to land on? Should she stick with Brock, her employer, or should she go along with the apparent power of his thuggish competitors, who are stealing Brock’s pay TV programs and running them in illegal theaters?

“Truth will triumph,” Gallegher said piously. “It always does. However, I figure truth is a variable, so we’re right back where we started. All right, sweetheart. I’ll answer your question. Stay on my side if you want to be safe.”

“Which side are you on?”

“God knows,” Gallegher said. “Consciously, I’m on Brock’s side. But my subconscious may have different ideas. We’ll see.”
⁸²⁸

It would appear that Gallegher has made a leap of faith. His conscious mind may not always recognize truth, but he believes that his subconscious will. He trusts it more.

Which side is Gallegher on? He’s on the side of his subconscious. In a world of variable truth, his subconscious will know the right thing to do and bring him through safely.

The result of this trust of the unknown is that the universe is transformed. Through the offices of his subconscious, Gallegher is faced with what during the Techno Age would have been fearsome monsters. But in the altered atmosphere of his state of calm acceptance of whatever strangeness he encounters, these one-time bogies reveal themselves as comically humanlike in their foibles and limitations.

In “The World Is Mine,” the threat which is no longer a threat is invaders from outer space. Three of them arrive through a Gallegher-made time machine from Mars five hundred years in the future, asserting their intention to take over the world.

Except that these Lybllas, as they call themselves, look rather like white bunny rabbits with round ears and golden eyes and are about as dangerous. It turns out that they have been reading Techno Age scientifiction and taking it to heart. They want to destroy cities and hold pretty girls to ransom, and all the other fun stuff invading aliens get to do.

Gallegher deals with them by clumsily faking a news broadcast in which it is declared that a bloodless revolution has taken place all around the world:

“The Lybllas are unanimously acclaimed as our sole rulers—”

“Whee!”
cried a small voice.

“—and the new form of government is already being set up. There will be a different fiscal system, and coins bearing the heads of the Lybllas are being minted. It is expected that the three rulers will shortly return to Mars to explain the situation to their friends there.”
⁸²⁹

Gallegher then shakes their paws, gives them one more cookie apiece, and sends them back to future Mars to tell everyone about their adventures.

In “The Proud Robot”—the best-remembered of the Gallegher stories—the threat that isn’t a threat is the robot Joe. He is another of those robots in the same family as Jack Williamson’s Malgarth and Isaac Asimov’s QT-1 who have an exalted opinion of themselves, but think far less well of mere human beings.

Joe won’t do anything that he is told to do. He insults every person who crosses his path. Like the Glass Cat in L. Frank Baum’s Oz books, he admires his own inner workings and invites everybody else to as well. He wants nothing more than to spend long hours before the mirror watching the wheels within his transparent hull go around and around.

There can be no doubt that this robot does have highly unusual powers and abilities. Joe can watch Gallegher throwing an apple core on the floor and snicker to himself for ten minutes over the probability that Gallegher will slip on it when he goes for the mail—which indeed he does. Joe has X-ray vision. He can hypnotize people. And, at one point, when he wants to locate Gallegher, he does so by “vastening” him:

“What’s vastened?” Gallegher wanted to know.

“It’s a sense I’ve got. You’ve nothing remotely like it, so I can’t describe it to you. It’s rather like a combination of sagrazi and prescience.”

“Sagrazi?”

“Oh, you don’t have sagrazi, either, do you. Well, don’t waste my time. I want to go back to the mirror.”
⁸³⁰

Superior being though Joe may be in certain respects, however, he is never treated for a single moment as a danger to humanity. In large part, this is because Joe has no active purposes of his own beyond self-admiration. He’s just too comically vain to be a threat to anyone.

The worst that Joe does is to hypnotize some visitors he finds particularly irritating and wants to get rid of. He makes them think that it is Gallegher they are dealing with and forges Gallegher’s signature to a long-term contract at pitiful wages.

This is certainly trying from Gallegher’s point of view. All the more so since this is the act that places him in the middle of that ugly entertainment industry struggle. Even so, however, Gallegher doesn’t get more than exasperated with the robot, in much the same way that a parent might be put out with a child who has been acting irresponsibly.

Gallegher’s solution to the Joe problem is to get drunk—but not too drunk—and then talk Joe into hypnotizing himself, the better to appreciate his beauty from a new perspective. Then, when Joe is in the grip of his subconscious, Gallegher asks the robot why he created him, and the robot is forced to answer:

“ ‘You were drinking beer,’ Joe said faintly. ‘You had trouble with the can opener. You said you were going to build a bigger and better can opener. That’s me.’ ”
⁸³¹

Now that Gallagher knows what Joe is good for, he orders the robot to open a can of beer for him, and Joe does it deftly. My what a good can opener he is! And with his basic function established, it seems that henceforth the robot will be compelled to obey all of his maker’s commands.

But that isn’t all that Joe does. He also emits a subsonic noise which Brock is to broadcast underneath all his pay TV programs. When amplified within one of his competitor’s illegal theaters, this noise will be sufficient to put the audience into a panic and send it rushing out the door.