Table Of ContentI Am Crying All Inside
And Other Stories
The Complete Short Fiction of Clifford D. Simak,
Volume One
Contents
Clifford D. Simak: Grand Master Indeed!
Installment Plan
I Had No Head and My Eyes Were Floating Way Up in the Air
Small Deer
Ogre
Gleaners
Madness from Mars
Gunsmoke Interlude
I Am Crying All Inside
The Call from Beyond
All the Traps of Earth
About the Author
About the Editor
CLIFFORD D. SIMAK: GRAND MASTER
INDEED!
“Music that had the whisper of rockets and the quietness of the void and the
somber arches of eternal night.”
—Clifford D. Simak in “The Call from Beyond”
You are holding, either in your hands or in your circuits, the first volume of a
projected series of fourteen collections that will, in the end, encompass every
piece of professionally published short fiction known to the author’s estate to
have been written by one of the giants of science fiction, Clifford D. Simak. In
addition, you will find here a Simak story that has never before been published:
a piece of fiction, written for Harlan Ellison, that was intended for inclusion in
the third volume of Ellison’s three-part Dangerous Visions anthology, which
was to have been entitled The Last Dangerous Visions™. Alas, that third volume
has never been published. But the Simak Estate, and this editor personally, offer
thanks to Mr. Ellison for his generosity in releasing that story to allow for its
inclusion in this volume.
When the Science Fiction Writers of America, in 1977, named Clifford Donald
Simak the third person to receive its Grand Master award, he had been writing
science fiction for well over four decades—and while the award certainly
reflected the esteem in which the honoree was held by his fellow writers, it also
reflected their respect for, and appreciation of, the place his writings occupied in
the history and development of science fiction.
It’s not known exactly when Cliff Simak began writing science fiction. Born in
1904, he spent his youth in deeply rural southwestern Wisconsin, where he read
stories by such writers as Jules Verne, Edgar Rice Burroughs, and H. G. Wells—
but it was not until 1927 (just about the time he moved to Madison, Wisconsin,
in order to take some journalism courses) that he chanced upon a copy of
Amazing Stories. Perhaps it was simply that being in the city, rather than on
farms or in small towns, put him in a place where such magazines were available
to be discovered; but at any rate, he became a regular reader of science fiction
magazines, and soon thereafter he himself began writing—and in the end, the
period between his first and last fiction publications would span about fifty-five
years.
In 1929 Cliff, newly married, left college to take advantage of an opportunity
to work in journalism. With his new bride, Kay, he moved to Michigan to work
on the Iron River Reporter. He quickly moved up to having his own column,
(entitled “Driftwood”), and within a few years, he was the paper’s editor.
It’s hard to know just when Cliff started writing fiction. Although he kept a
series of journals in which he recorded some of his submissions and sales (and
occasionally other events, such as the purchase of a supply of firewood), he was
sporadic at best in his data entry, and it’s probable that some of those journals,
like some of his stories, did not survive a lifestyle that was, for a long period,
extraordinarily itinerant. A journal entry shows that he had already written and
submitted at least one story in 1930, and during the following year, he sold at
least six stories.
Most Simak fans have heard that Cliff’s first sale was a story called “The
Cubes of Ganymede,” which was apparently accepted by Amazing Stories and
held for several years before being returned with a note indicating that it no
longer met the magazine’s needs. Cliff, who by then had sold a number of other
stories, apparently did not attempt to resubmit “Cubes” anywhere else, and at
some unknown time thereafter it vanished from the author’s files. (Cliff would
later say that “Cubes” was “fairly bad.”)
But what most Simak fans do not realize is that he wrote an even earlier tale,
one that eventually did reach publication. Cliff’s journals show that he actually
wrote “Mutiny on Mercury” before writing either “The Cubes of Ganymede” or
“The World of the Red Sun.” “Mutiny” would be Cliff’s first known submission,
but because it was initially rejected and “Cubes” was held up, “Red Sun”
became his first fiction publication. (“Mutiny” would sell a short time later.)
Of particular interest is the fact that “Red Sun,” Cliff’s very first published
work of fiction, was listed on the cover of the issue of Wonder Stories in which
it appeared. And as with the other authors featured in the issue, there was a line
drawing of Simak, likely done by the legendary Frank R. Paul, as well as a brief
introduction to the young author, which may have been written by the
magazine’s editor in chief, the even more legendary Hugo Gernsback. One can
only speculate on how exciting this must have been for a beginning author.
Over the next two decades, Clifford D. Simak would continue writing science
fiction at short length but would also try his hand at other genres, including
weird fantasy, Westerns, war stories, mysteries—and there were a few stories
that we cannot now characterize, since they have vanished, leaving us with only
their names to go by. He wrote some nonfiction, too, including “outdoor” sorts
of stories such as “In the Wisconsin Bush”—but none of these, so far as we
know, were published, and none survive.
Although Cliff seems to have begun his fiction career in science fiction—no
surprise, considering his early interest in the field—he nonetheless had a
Western rejected in 1933. Westerns were popular in the early part of the
twentieth century, and it’s likely that Cliff, having grown up in a very rural area,
was exposed to them early and often. And so it was that while he continued to
write science fiction (including the beginning stories of the City cycle) before
and during World War II, he also began to sell Westerns and war stories. It is
worth noting that, true to his inclinations to avoid the cliché, none of Cliff’s
fourteen published Westerns were of the stereotypical cowboy-and-Indian sort.
But with the exception of one Western, likely written earlier, all of his fiction
published after 1949 would be in the science fiction and fantasy field.
Also in the fifties, Cliff began moving into the writing of novels (his only prior
novel, Cosmic Engineers, had been written specifically for magazine
serialization at the request of John W. Campbell Jr.), but he would always keep
his hand in the short-story field. And it was during this period that he began to
win awards for his fiction—awards that had not even existed in his first two
decades in writing.
In 1953 Cliff was awarded the International Fantasy Award for his book City,
which was not actually a novel but a compilation of a series of related stories,
with interstitial connecting materials. When the Hugo Award was created, he
began winning some of those (for “The Big Front Yard” in 1959, Way Station in
1964, and “The Grotto of the Dancing Deer” in 1981)—and when the Nebulas
were invented, he won one of those (for “Grotto” in 1981 again). His novel A
Heritage of Stars won the Jupiter Award for Best Novel in 1978; and just before
his death, he was one of the three inaugural winners of the Horror Writers’
Association’s Bram Stoker Award for Lifetime Achievement.
When Clifford D. Simak won that last Hugo and that Nebula (for “Grotto of
the Dancing Deer”), he had been writing fiction for more than fifty years.
One result of all this is that Clifford D. Simak became, and will likely remain,
the only person ever to have won a Hugo, a Nebula, and an International Fantasy
Award. Probably this is a somewhat unfair observation, since the International
Fantasy Award, based in England, lasted less than ten years before becoming
defunct, but in its day it developed an unmatched record of recognizing future
classic fiction in the fields of fantasy and science fiction: Stewart’s Earth
Abides, Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings, Sturgeon’s More Than Human, Collier’s
Fancies and Goodnights, and Pangborn’s A Mirror for Observers, for example.
But if a science fiction writer’s career is to be measured by his or her list of
awards, it should be kept in mind that Cliff Simak had been a published writer
for nearly two decades before any of those awards was created—and who is to
say how many Hugos or Nebulas he might have won if any of them had been in
existence when he was writing such stories as “Tools,” “Huddling Place,”
“Desertion,” or “Earth for Inspiration.”
David W. Wixon
INSTALLMENT PLAN
This story originally appeared in the February 1959 issue of Galaxy Magazine,
but it was an effort to get it there. A note in Cliff’s journal says that he “finished
work on ‘Installment Plan’ and [was] greatly dissatisfied”—but he sent it to the
magazine’s editor, Horace Gold, anyway. Gold sent it back for revisions, but he
also suggested that Cliff make a series of it and pledged himself to buy the
series. Cliff did revise the story, and then started plotting a second “robot team”
story—at which point Gold returned “Installment Plan” for more revisions,
which Cliff provided within a week. But Cliff’s notes give no hint that he ever
again thought of returning to the second tale.
I like this story quite a lot, and it puzzles me that Cliff apparently did not …
but then, he was not one to indulge in sequels.
—dww
I
The mishap came at dusk, as the last floater was settling down above the cargo
dump, the eight small motors flickering bluely in the twilight.
One instant it was floating level, a thousand feet above the ground, descending
gently, with its cargo stacked upon it and the riding robots perched atop the
cargo. The next instant it tilted as first one motor failed and then a second one.
The load of cargo spilled and the riding robots with it. The floater, unbalanced,
became a screaming wheel, spinning crazily, that whipped in a tightening, raging
spiral down upon the base.
Steve Sheridan tumbled from the pile of crates stacked outside his tent. A
hundred yards away, the cargo hit with a thundering crash that could be heard
and felt above the screaming of the floater. The crates and boxes came apart and
the crushed and twisted merchandise spread into a broken mound.
Sheridan dived for the open tent flaps and, as he did, the floater hit, slicing into
the radio shack, which had been set up less than an hour before. It tore a massive
hole into the ground, half burying itself, throwing up a barrage of sand and
gravel that bulleted across the area, drumming like a storm of sleet against the
tent.
A pebble grazed Sheridan’s forehead and he felt the blast of sand against his
cheek. Then he was inside the tent and scrambling for the transmog chest that
stood beside the desk.
“Hezekiah!” he bawled. “Hezekiah, where are you!”
He fumbled his ring of keys and found the right one and got it in the lock. He
twisted and the lid of the chest snapped open.
Outside, he could hear the pounding of running robot feet.
He thrust back the cover of the chest and began lifting out the compartments in
which the transmogs were racked.
“Hezekiah!” he shouted.
For Hezekiah was the one who knew where all the transmogs were; he could
lay his hands upon any one of them that might be needed without having to hunt
for it.
Behind Sheridan, the canvas rustled and Hezekiah came in with a rush. He
brushed Sheridan to one side.
“Here, let me, sir,” he said.
“We’ll need some roboticists,” said Sheridan. “Those boys must be smashed
up fairly bad.”
“Here they are. You better handle them, sir. You do it better than any one of
us.”
Sheridan took the three transmogs and dropped them in the pocket of his
jacket.
“I’m sorry there are no more, sir,” Hezekiah said. “That is all we have.”
“These will have to do,” said Sheridan. “How about the radio shack? Was
anyone in there?”
“I understand that it was quite empty. Silas had just stepped out of it. He was
very lucky, sir.”
“Yes, indeed,” agreed Sheridan.
He ducked out of the tent and ran toward the mound of broken crates and
boxes. Robots were swarming over it, digging frantically. As he ran, he saw
them stoop and lift free a mass of tangled metal. They hauled it from the pile and
carried it out and laid it on the ground and stood there looking at it.
Sheridan came up to the group that stood around the mass of metal.
“Abe,” he panted, “did you get out both of them?”
Abraham turned around. “Not yet, Steve. Max is still in there.”
Sheridan pushed his way through the crowd and dropped on his knees beside
the mangled robot. The midsection, he saw, was so deeply dented that the front
almost touched the back. The legs were limp and the arms were canted and
locked at a crazy angle. The head was twisted and the crystal eyes were vacant.
“Lem,” he whispered. “Lemuel, can you hear me?”
“No, he can’t,” said Abraham. “He’s really busted up.”
“I have roboticists in my pocket.” Sheridan got to his feet. “Three of them.
Who wants a go at it? It’ll have to be fast work.”
“Count me in,” Abraham said, “and Ebenezer there and …”
“Me, too,” volunteered Joshua.
“We’ll need tools,” said Abraham. “We can’t do a thing unless we have some
tools.”
“Here are the tools,” Hezekiah called out, coming on the trot. “I knew you
would need them.”
“And light,” said Joshua. “It’s getting pretty dark, and from the looks of it,
we’ll be tinkering with his brain.”
“We’ll have to get him up someplace,” declared Abraham, “so we can work on
him. We can’t with him lying on the ground.”
“You can use the conference table,” Sheridan suggested.
“Hey, some of you guys,” yelled Abraham, “get Lem over there on the
conference table.”
“We’re digging here for Max,” Gideon yelled back. “Do it yourself.”
“We can’t,” bawled Abraham. “Steve is fixing to get our transmogs changed
…”
“Sit down,” ordered Sheridan. “I can’t reach you standing up. And has
someone got a light?”
“I have one, sir,” said Hezekiah, at his elbow. He held out a flash.
“Turn it on those guys so I can get the transmogs in.”
Three robots came stamping over and picked up the damaged Lemuel. They
lugged him off toward the conference table.
In the light of the flash, Sheridan got out his keys, shuffled swiftly through
them and found the one he wanted.
“Hold that light steady. I can’t do this in the dark.”
“Once you did,” said Ebenezer. “Don’t you remember, Steve? Out on
Galanova. Except you couldn’t see the labels and you got a missionary one into
