The Cosmic Express

  Produced by Greg Weeks, Stephen Blundell and the OnlineDistributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net

  Transcriber's Note:

  This etext was produced from _Amazing Stories_ December 1961 and was first published in _Amazing Stories_ November 1930. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed. Minor spelling and typographical errors have been corrected without note.

  A Classic Reprint from AMAZING STORIES, November, 1930

  _Copyright 1931, by Experimenter Publications Inc._

  _The Cosmic Express_

  By JACK WILLIAMSON

  Introduction by Sam Moskowitz

  _The year 1928 was a great year of discovery for_ AMAZING STORIES. _Theywere uncovering new talent at such a great rate, (Harl Vincent, David H.Keller, E. E. Smith, Philip Francis Nowlan, Fletcher Pratt and Miles J.Breuer), that Jack Williamson barely managed to become one of adistinguished group of discoveries by stealing the cover of the Decemberissue for his first story_ The Metal Man.

  _A disciple of A. Merritt, he attempted to imitate in style, mood andsubject the magic of that late lamented master of fantasy. The imitationfound great favor from the readership and almost instantly JackWilliamson became an important name on the contents page of_ AMAZINGSTORIES. _He followed his initial success with two short novels_, TheGreen Girl _in_ AMAZING STORIES _and_ The Alien Intelligence _in_SCIENCE WONDER STORIES, _another Gernsback publication. Both of thesestories were close copies of A. Merritt, whose style and method JackWilliamson parlayed into popularity for eight years._

  _Yet the strange thing about it was that Jack Williamson was one of themost versatile science fiction authors ever to sit down at thetypewriter. When the vogue for science-fantasy altered to super science,he created the memorable super lock-picker Giles Habilula as the majorattraction in a rousing trio of space operas_, The Legion of Space, TheCometeers _and_ One Against the Legion. _When grim realism was the orderof the day, he produced_ Crucible of Power _and when they wantedextrapolated theory in present tense, he assumed the disguise of WillStewart and popularized the concept of contra terrene matter in sciencefiction with_ Seetee Ship _and_ Seetee Shock. _Finally, when onlypsychological studies of the future would do, he produced_ "With FoldedHands ..." "... And Searching Mind."

  The Cosmic Express _is of special interest because it was written duringWilliamson's A. Merritt "kick," when he was writing little else but, andit gave the earliest indication of a more general capability. Thelightness of the handling is especially modern, barely avoiding thefarcical by the validity of the notion that wireless transmission ofmatter is the next big transportation frontier to be conquered. It isespecially important because it stylistically forecast a later trend toaccept the background for granted, regardless of the quantity ofwonders, and proceed with the story. With only a few thousandscanning-disk television sets in existence at the time of the writing,the surmise that this media would be a natural for westerns wasparticularly astute._

  _Jack Williamson was born in 1908 in the Arizona territory when coveredwagons were the primary form of transportation and apaches still raidedthe settlers. His father was a cattle man, but for young Jack, the ranchwas anything but glamorous. "My days were filled," he remembers, "withmonotonous rounds of what seemed an endless, heart-breaking war withdrought and frost and dust-storms, poison-weeds and hail, for the sakeof survival on the_ Llano Estacado." _The discovery of_ AMAZING STORIES_was the escape he sought and his goal was to be a science fictionwriter. He labored to this end and the first he knew that a story of hishad been accepted was when he bought the December, 1929 issue of_AMAZING STORIES. _Since then, he has written millions of words ofscience fiction and has gone on record as follows: "I feel thatscience-fiction is the folklore of the new world of science, and theexpression of man's reaction to a technological environment. By which Imean that it is the most interesting and stimulating form of literaturetoday."_

  Mr. Eric Stokes-Harding tumbled out of the rumpled bed-clothing, astriking slender figure in purple-striped pajamas. He smiled fondlyacross to the other of the twin beds, where Nada, his pretty bride, layquiet beneath light silk covers. With a groan, he stood up and began aseries of fantastic bending exercises. But after a few half-heartedmovements, he gave it up, and walked through an open door into a smallbright room, its walls covered with bookcases and also with scientificappliances that would have been strange to the man of four or fivecenturies before, when the Age of Aviation was beginning.

  Yawning, Mr. Eric Stokes-Harding stood before the great open window,staring out. Below him was a wide, park-like space, green with emeraldlawns, and bright with flowering plants. Two hundred yards across itrose an immense pyramidal building--an artistic structure, gleaming withwhite marble and bright metal, striped with the verdure of terracedroof-gardens, its slender peak rising to help support the gray,steel-ribbed glass roof above. Beyond, the park stretched away inillimitable vistas, broken with the graceful columned buildings thatheld up the great glass roof.

  Suddenly there was a sharp tingling sensation where theytouched the polished surface.]

  Above the glass, over this New York of 2432 A. D., a freezing blizzardwas sweeping. But small concern was that to the lightly clad man at thewindow, who was inhaling deeply the fragrant air from the plantsbelow--air kept, winter and summer, exactly at 20 deg. C.

  With another yawn, Mr. Eric Stokes-Harding turned back to the room,which was bright with the rich golden light that poured in from thesuspended globes of the cold ato-light that illuminated the snow-coveredcity. With a distasteful grimace, he seated himself before a broad,paper-littered desk, sat a few minutes leaning back, with his handsclasped behind his head. At last he straightened reluctantly, slid asmall typewriter out of its drawer, and began pecking at it impatiently.

  For Mr. Eric Stokes-Harding was an author. There was a whole shelf ofhis books on the wall, in bright jackets, red and blue and green, thatbrought a thrill of pleasure to the young novelist's heart when helooked up from his clattering machine.

  He wrote "thrilling action romances," as his enthusiastic publishers andtelevision directors said, "of ages past, when men were men. Red-bloodedheroes responding vigorously to the stirring passions of primordiallife!"

  * * * * *

  He was impartial as to the source of his thrills--provided they weredistant enough from modern civilization. His hero was likely to be anape-man roaring through the jungle, with a bloody rock in one hand and abeautiful girl in the other. Or a cowboy, "hard-riding, hard-shooting,"the vanishing hero of the ancient ranches. Or a man marooned with alovely woman on a desert South Sea island. His heroes were invariablystrong, fearless, resourceful fellows, who could handle a club on equalterms with a cave-man, or call science to aid them in defending abeautiful mate from the terrors of a desolate wilderness.

  And a hundred million read Eric's novels, and watched the dramatizationof them on the television screens. They thrilled at the simple, romanticlives his heroes led, paid him handsome royalties, and subconsciouslyshared his opinion that civilization had taken all the best from thelife of man.

  Eric had settled down to the artistic satisfaction of describing thesensuous delight of his hero in the roasted marrow-bones of a deadmammoth, when the pretty woman in the other room stirred, and presentlycame tripping into the study, gay and vivacious, and--as her husband ofa few months most justly thought--altogether beautiful in a bright silkdressing gown.

  Recklessly, he slammed the machine back into its place, and resolved toforget that his next "red-blooded action thriller" was due in thepublisher's office at the end of the month. He sprang up to kiss hiswife, held her embraced for a long happy moment. And then t
hey went handin hand, to the side of the room and punched a series of buttons on apanel--a simple way of ordering breakfast sent up the automatic shaftfrom the kitchens below.

  Nada Stokes-Harding was also an author. She wrote poems--"back to naturestuff"--simple lyrics of the sea, of sunsets, of bird songs, of brightflowers and warm winds, of thrilling communion with Nature, and growingthings. Men read her poems and called her a genius. Even though thewhole world had grown up into a city, the birds were extinct, there wereno wild flowers, and no one had time to bother about sunsets.

  "Eric, darling," she said, "isn't it terrible to be cooped up here inthis little flat, away from the things we both love?"

  "Yes, dear. Civilization has ruined the world. If we could only havelived a thousand years ago, when life was simple and natural, when menhunted and killed their meat, instead of drinking synthetic stuff, whenmen still had