Disturbing Sun

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  DISTURBING SUN

  By PHILIP LATHAM

  Illustrated by Freas

  [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Astounding ScienceFiction May 1959. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence thatthe U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]

  _This, be it understood, is fiction--nothing but fiction--and not, under any circumstances, to be considered as having any truth whatever to it. It's obviously utterly impossible ... isn't it?_

  _An interview with Dr. I. M. Niemand, Director of the PsychophysicalInstitute of Solar and Terrestrial Relations, Camarillo, California._

  _In the closing days of December, 1957, at the meeting of the AmericanAssociation for the Advancement of Science in New York, Dr. Niemanddelivered a paper entitled simply, "On the Nature of the SolarS-Regions." Owing to its unassuming title the startling implicationscontained in the paper were completely overlooked by the press. Theseimplications are discussed here in an exclusive interview with Dr.Niemand by Philip Latham._

  LATHAM. Dr. Niemand, what would you say is your main job?

  NIEMAND. I suppose you might say my main job today is to find out all Ican between activity on the Sun and various forms of activity on theEarth.

  LATHAM. What do you mean by activity on the Sun?

  NIEMAND. Well, a sunspot is a form of solar activity.

  LATHAM. Just what is a sunspot?

  NIEMAND. I'm afraid I can't say just what a sunspot is. I can onlydescribe it. A sunspot is a region on the Sun that is cooler than itssurroundings. That's why it looks dark. It isn't so hot. Therefore notso bright.

  LATHAM. Isn't it true that the number of spots on the Sun rises andfalls in a cycle of eleven years?

  NIEMAND. The number of spots on the Sun rises and falls in a cycle of_about_ eleven years. That word _about_ makes quite a difference.

  LATHAM. In what way?

  NIEMAND. It means you can only approximately predict the future courseof sunspot activity. Sunspots are mighty treacherous things.

  LATHAM. Haven't there been a great many correlations announced betweensunspots and various effects on the Earth?

  NIEMAND. Scores of them.

  LATHAM. What is your opinion of these correlations?

  NIEMAND. Pure bosh in most cases.

  LATHAM. But some are valid?

  NIEMAND. A few. There is unquestionably a correlation betweensunspots and disturbances of the Earth's magnetic field ... radiofade-outs ... auroras ... things like that.

  LATHAM. Now, Dr. Niemand, I understand that you have been investigatingsolar and terrestrial relationships along rather unorthodox lines.

  NIEMAND. Yes, I suppose some people would say so.

  LATHAM. You have broken new ground?

  NIEMAND. That's true.

  LATHAM. In what way have your investigations differed from those ofothers?

  NIEMAND. I think our biggest advance was the discovery that sunspotsthemselves are not the direct cause of the disturbances we have beenstudying on the Earth. It's something like the eruptions in rubeola.Attention is concentrated on the bright red papules because they're sucha conspicuous symptom of the disease. Whereas the real cause is aninvisible filterable virus. In the solar case it turned out to be theseS-Regions.

  LATHAM. Why S-Regions?

  NIEMAND. We had to call them something. Named after the Sun, I suppose.

  LATHAM. You say an S-Region is invisible?

  NIEMAND. It is quite invisible to the eye but readily detected bysuitable instrumental methods. It is extremely doubtful, however, if theradiation we detect is the actual cause of the disturbing effectsobserved.

  LATHAM. Just what are these effects?

  NIEMAND. Well, they're common enough, goodness knows. As old as theworld, in fact. Yet strangely enough it's hard to describe them in exactterms.

  LATHAM. Can you give us a general idea?

  NIEMAND. I'll try. Let's see ... remember that speech from "JuliusCaesar" where Cassius is bewailing the evil times that beset ancientRome? I believe it went like this: "The fault, dear Brutus, is not inour stars but in ourselves that we are underlings."

  LATHAM. I'm afraid I don't see--

  NIEMAND. Well, Shakespeare would have been nearer the truth if he hadput it the other way around. "The fault, dear Brutus, is not inourselves but in our stars" or better "in the Sun."

  * * * * *

  LATHAM. In the Sun?

  NIEMAND. That's right, in the Sun. I suppose the oldest problem in theworld is the origin of human evil. Philosophers have wrestled with itever since the days of Job. And like Job they have usually given up indespair, convinced that the origin of evil is too deep for the humanmind to solve. Generally they have concluded that man is inherentlywicked and sinful and that is the end of it. Now for the first timescience has thrown new light on this subject.

  LATHAM. How is that?

  NIEMAND. Consider the record of history. There are occasional periodswhen conditions are fairly calm and peaceful. Art and industryflourished. Man at last seemed to be making progress toward some highergoal. Then suddenly--_for no detectable reason_--conditions arereversed. Wars rage. People go mad. The world is plunged into an orgy ofbloodshed and misery.

  LATHAM. But weren't there reasons?

  NIEMAND. What reasons?

  LATHAM. Well, disputes over boundaries ... economic rivalry ... borderincidents....

  NIEMAND. Nonsense. Men always make some flimsy excuse for going to war.The truth of the matter is that men go to war because they want to goto war. They can't help themselves. They are impelled by forces overwhich they have no control. By forces outside of themselves.

  LATHAM. Those are broad, sweeping statements. Can't you be morespecific?

  NIEMAND. Perhaps I'd better go back to the beginning. Let me see.... Itall started back in March, 1955, when I started getting patientssuffering from a complex of symptoms, such as profound mentaldepression, anxiety, insomnia, alternating with fits of violent rage andresentment against life and the world in general. These people weredeeply disturbed. No doubt about that. Yet they were not psychotic andhardly more than mildly neurotic. Now every doctor gets a good manypatients of this type. Such a syndrome is characteristic of menopausalwomen and some men during the climacteric, but these people failed tofit into this picture. They were married and single persons of bothsexes and of all ages. They came from all walks of life. The onset oftheir attack was invariably sudden and with scarcely any warning. Theywould be going about their work feeling perfectly all right. Then in aminute the whole world was like some scene from a nightmare. A week orten days later the attack would cease as mysteriously as it had come andthey would be their old self again.

  LATHAM. Aren't such attacks characteristic of the stress and strain ofmodern life?

  NIEMAND. I'm afraid that old stress-and-strain theory has been badlyoverworked. Been hearing about it ever since I was a pre-med student atUCLA. Even as a boy I can remember my grandfather deploring the stressand strain of modern life when he was a country doctor practicing inIndiana. In my opinion one of the most valuable contributionsanthropologists have made in recent years is the discovery thatprimitive man is afflicted with essentially the same neurotic conditionsas those of us who live a so-called civilized life. They have foundsavages displaying every symptom of a nervous breakdown among themountain tribes of the Elgonyi and the Aruntas of Australia. No, Mr.Latham, it's time the stress-and-strain theory was relegated to the junkpile along with demoniac possession and blood letting.

  LATHAM. You must
have done something for your patients--

  NIEMAND. A doctor must always do something for the patients who come tohis office seeking help. First I gave them a thorough physicalexamination. I turned up some minor ailments--a slight heart murmur or atrace of albumin in the urine--but nothing of any significance. On thewhole they were a remarkably healthy bunch of individuals, much more sothan an average sample of the population. Then I made a searchinginquiry into their personal life. Here again I drew a blank. They had noparticular financial worries. Their sex life was generally satisfactory.There was no history of mental illness in the family. In fact, the onlything that seemed to be the matter with them was that there were timeswhen they felt like hell.

  LATHAM. I suppose you tried tranquilizers?

  NIEMAND. Oh, yes. In a few cases in which I tried tranquilizing pills ofthe meprobamate type there was some slight improvement. I want toemphasize, however, that I do not believe in prescribing shotgunremedies for a patient. To my way of thinking it is a lazy slipshod wayof carrying on the practice of