Beachcomber in Space, Part 1

 

cover art by H.W. McCauley

Read/Watch 'em In Order #159

I had mentioned in the last "In Order" entry that there was one more Hok story to go, published after the author's death. But when I found a copy online, I saw that it was the story of how Hok met his wife. Unsold in Wellman's lifetime, he later incorporated the events of this story into the first published Hok tale.

So we are done with Hok. We therefore jump from the distant past to the far-flung future to hang out with Ebbtide Jones--a beachcomber who ends up working in space.

His first adventure appears in the November 1939 issue of Amazing Stories. "Whirlpool in Space," written by Miles Shelton, explains that Ebb never does anything other than sit on the beach and wait for wreckage to drift in. Salvaging such wreckage is how he eeks out a living.

But Ebb's friend Stan Kendrick is a scientist who has figured out that there is a sort-of gravity whirlpool out in space. Space wreckage would drift to this spot--tons of stuff just waiting to be salvaged. Stan's girl has taken a job as a flight attendant on a space ship, so Stan has nothing holding him on Earth. He and Ebb are soon zipping through space in a small ship. 

They find the whirlpool and are soon at work, collecting valuable salvage.

But trouble is afoot. A ship (with Stan's ex-gal aboard) is transporting an exiled king--and the king's priceless jewels--to Venus. The crew of that ship is not above acts of murder to get their hands on those jewels.

So murder, plots and counter-plots soon lead to the jewels "washing up" in the whirlpool, but the bad guys also showing up to get the loot themselves. Stan tries to do some swashbuckling to save the girl and stop the villains, but it's Ebbtide's quick thinking (and a salvaged Space Cannon) that saves the day.

The story is fun and Ebb, who stays at the salvage point at the story's conclusion, is an unusual hero. Uneducated and single-minded, he is able to carry this short, light-hearted tale along in an enjoyable manner.

By the way, the author has the characters lifting/moving large objects easily because of zero gravity. He was either deliberately cheating for the sake of the story or he didn't realize that "weight" and "mass" are different and moving big, heavy stuff isn't that easy in space. But what the hey--the story is fun enough to get away with a little physics silliness. And, as I said, it's possible the author did this deliberately just to keep the story fun.

You can read the story online HERE. 

There were four Epptide stories all-together, so we'll be visiting with him again soon.