"... meet your fate with the dignity becoming a scientist."

cover art by Hubert Rogers

Read/Watch 'em in Order #109

Between 1940 and 1950, A.E. Van Vogt published six stories in Astounding Science Fiction featuring a scientist named Jamieson who is involved in a war against an alien race called the Rull. Mankind has spread out across the galaxy and even visits other galaxies, contacting and befriending many intelligent races. But the Rull don't make very pleasant friends.

They are man-sized centipede creatures that can't or simply refuse to communicate with any other intelligent species and--in fact--make constant war in their efforts to wipe out any species that is indeed intelligent.

The stories were eventually collected and linked together into a 1959 fix-up novel titled The War Against the Rull. I'll be reviewing each story as it first appeared in Astounding, but we'll look at them in the order they are placed in that book (which is different from the original publication order). The novel adds two short chapters of extra material to link the tales together more coherently, but I don't believe the stories themselves were re-written at all from their original pulp appearance. Please note that I'm not 100% sure of that. (EDIT: In fact, when I got around to reading the second story, I discovered I was wrong about how much re-writing was done.)

Anyway, Professor Jamieson's first appearance chronologically is from "Co-operate.. or else" (Astounding, April 1942), an intense adventure tale that throws Jamieson into trouble starting with very first sentence.

The professor was aboard a spaceship transporting a large, six-legged animal called an ezwal back to Earth. But as the story begins, Jamieson is floating down to the surface of a jungle-thick Death World, hanging from an anti-gravity raft and with the ezwal sitting on top of that raft.

art by Charles Schneeman

We soon find out that the ezwal is intelligent and communicates telepathically. They are a species that has pretty much rejected mechanics and manufacturing--they are essentially the neo-Luddites of the galaxy. But they have been happy in their low-tech lives until humans showed up and spoiled things.

Because didn't realize ezwal were intelligent and have killed and even occasionally eaten them. So the ezwal want humans off their home world and this particular ezwal wants to make sure Jamieson doesn't let anyone know that the ezwals are smart. They know that they can't stand up against a concerted human effort to destroy them and being thought of as mere animals is their best defense until they are ready to launch a counter strike. That counter strike involves cutting a deal with the Rull.

So the ezwal has killed everyone aboard the spaceship except Jamieson, who tried and didn't quite succeed in getting away from the large beast.

art by Charles Schneeman

But Jamieson knows something the ezwal doesn't. The planet they are both about to be stranded on truly is  a death world, thick with a variety of large, hungry animals and a species of intelligent and carnivirous plants. To survive, the human and the ezwal have to work together. On another level, Jamieson has to convince the ezwal that an alliance with the Rull won't work. The Rull would simply kill and eat all the ezwals. It's what they do.

art by Charles Schneeman

Van Vogt describes the action vividly and generates a strong sense of danger. He also creates a pretty awesome alien species in the ezwal and the dialogue between it and Jamieson is a highlight of the story. The ezwal might look like an elephant-sized killing machine, but it is very erudite. Here's an example:

"Man and his thoughts constitute a disease. As proof, during the past few minutes, you have been offering specious arguments, apparently unbiased, actually designed to lead once more to an appeal for my assistance, an intolerable form of dishonesty."

Jamieson and the ezwal debate the issue of co-operation, eventually realize they must co-operate, begin to fight their way through the jungle, and then find their situation takes a turn for the worse when the Rull show up looking for them.

"Co-operate... or else" is a great start to the Rull story, generating conflict on several levels and eventually resolving those conflicts satisfactorily.

You download this issue of Astounding HERE. Remember its the April 1942 issue.