The Ordeal of Professor Klein

The Ordeal of Professor Klein

L. Sprague de Camp

Much of the earliest science fiction was satirical and meant to point a moral about current conditions, such as "Gulliver's Travels." Another form was the story dealing with science, but based upon some kind of horror, such as "Frankenstein." Today, these stories are rather rare, and a combination of the two is almost unheard of. Frankly, we're somewhat puzzled as to the reason, since L. Sprague de Camp proves that it can be done. We particularly want to know how the readers feel about this story, and whether they'd like to see more.

The grim and horrible fate that betook Professor Klein in the Eldritch vaults of Kterem astounded the world. It shouldn't have been too surprising, though. It is already threatening most of us—even today!

There has been much loose talk about Dr. Alphonse Klein's mental illness and its connection with our expedition last year to the city of Gdoz on the planet 61 Cygni A VI, or Kterem to use a native name. Irresponsible journalists and rumor-mongers have spoken and written rashly of hereditary taints and instabilities, of horrors in this lost city too frightful for mere human beings to contemplate, and of the subtle effect of the poisons with which the amiable natives anoint their arrows.

There have been speculations to the effect that Dr. Klein read a mouldering inscription at Gdoz whose dreadful prophecies unseated his reason. The surmises have even hinted darkly that Dr. Klein's nervous breakdown was somehow brought on by his assistant; that, for instance, this assistant stole, for his own felonious purposes, a priceless manuscript to the search for which Dr. Klein had devoted a lifetime of work...

As that assistant, it is therefore incumbent upon me to set the record straight. First be it understood that this is no sensational horror-story but a sober record of the Klein-O'Gorman expedition. And while our experience was certainly trying and disconcerting enough, and contributed without doubt to Dr. Klein's unfortunate indisposition, the use of such highly colored terms as "horrible" and "ghastly" betoken a hopelessly unscientific approach to the question and will therefore be most rigorously eschewed.

The reason that I have not made these events public before this is that I was forbidden to do so by my contractual relationship with Dr. Klein.

Some years ago Dr. Alphonse François Klein retired from academic work as a professor of paleography at the University of London to devote his entire time to exploration and paleographic research. Though by frugal living and shrewd investment policies he had amassed a modest competence in addition to his pension, he nevertheless found it necessary to defray the cost of his expeditions by such means as are open to professional explorers: the publication of books and articles and the delivery of lectures.

As is customary in such cases, he required any assistants who accompanied him to agree as a condition of their employment that they would not, for a specified period after their return to Terra, deliver lectures or sell books or articles about the subject expedition without his express permission. This precaution was necessary to prevent unscrupulous or over-enthusiastic assistants from competing directly with the Doctor and thereby depriving him of the means for continuing his exploratory career. Inasmuch as the stipend which he paid his assistants came from the money that he earned in this manner, the restriction cannot be considered unfair, especially as Dr. Klein has always been most generous in his interpretation of this clause in his contracts.

Upon returning to Terra and proceeding as I had planned to take my Doctorate of Philosophy, I should in the normal course of events have observed the restrictions of the contract without cavail. However, as a result of the aforementioned speculations and rumors, I found myself handicapped in the employment of my talents. I therefore visited Dr. Klein in the sanitarium where he resides to ask for a waiver of the no-publicity clause so that I could explain the true cause of our misfortune.

When I was shown into his room he seemed quite lucid. He rose and greeted me warmly: a tall man of middle age, with a stooped posture, a shuffling walk, and a deeply-lined face beneath receding gray hair worn rather long. Though his manner is superficially vague he misses little. He has one slight but disconcerting peculiarity: being an Alsatian by birth, he speaks English sometimes with a French and sometimes with a German accent, depending upon which language he happens to be thinking in.

"How are you, Barney my boy?" he exclaimed heartily, and then told the male nurse: "You may go, Withers. I have matters to discuss with my colleague Mr. —it is Doctor now, is it not? —Dr. O'Gorman."

The male nurse rose, but scarcely had he left the room when an alarming change took place in Dr. Klein's manner. He leaped to the wash-stand, snatched up the bar of soap lying thereon, and rushed towards me brandishing this object and screaming, "Soap! Soap! Soap!"

Inferring from my unfortunate colleague's gestures that his intent was to force the bar down my throat, I grasped his wrists and restrained him until professional help arrived. I could do this because, though half a head shorter than Dr. Klein, I am heavier than he, not to mention considerably younger. When the attendants had subdued the distraught paleographer I withdrew to consider my situation.

This seemed discouraging indeed until I learned that a guardian had been appointed for Dr. Klein pending the completion of his cure. I accordingly visited this guardian, an old friend of

Dr. Klein named Professor Le Sage, and made arrangements with him for the publication of this article with the understanding that the proceeds of its sale should be paid to him in trust for Dr. Klein. I am reliably informed that Dr. Klein's cure, though reasonably certain, is likely to take at least another nine months to a year, and I cannot afford to wait that long before setting the true facts of the case before the public and more especially before my professional colleagues.

When we first planned this project, Dr. Klein explained the purpose of the expedition: "Barney," he said, "this will the biggest thing in my line in years be! This Kamzhik, whom I met in Sveho, has been to Gdoz, through the country of the Znaci and back again with a whole skin. And there, in the ruins of the royal library of the Hrata Empire, he swears he saw a manuscript written in both the Skhoji script and the Hrata Pictographic."

"Yes?" I said, for being a biologist I am a bit hazy on the finer distinctions of paleography. Klein explained:

"No authentic history has survived from the Hrata Empire; nothing, that is, but a scattering of legends comparable to our own Charlemagne and Trojan cycles and probably about as historical. Many ruins of the Hrata Age bear inscriptions in what is taken to be a pictographic signary, but nobody can read it. There are also a few inscriptions and manuscripts from the end of the Hrata period, before the barbarians like the Znaci overthrew them, in the phonetic Skhoji writing. We can read this all right, but we have yet to find a bilingual inscription comparable to the Rosetta Stone or the Behistun Inscription to serve as a key."

I asked: "But the Hrata language survives, doesn't it? So why can't we be matching the known words of it with the pictures until we find a meaningful combination?"

"Because it would forever take, the number of possible combinations being astronomical, and when you got your meaningful combination you would have no means of checking it. It is believed that the signary is partly ideographic and partly syllabic, but even that is not certain. There have been a few surmises as to the meaning of some of the pictographs. This one, for instance." He opened a monograph on the subject and pointed to something that looked like a pregnant lizard."This is thought by Le Sage to mean the syllable shi, but I think it more likely that it stands for the syllable psa and also the word psaloan, 'maybe'."

"Don't the other Kteremian languages offer you any clues to all this?"

"Not a bit. Znaci and its related dialects are as different from the Hrata group as Japanese, let us say, is from the English and the other Teutonic tongues."

"Then how about this thing in Gdoz?" I inquired.

"As I say, this Kamzhik asserts that he found a sheet of zahalov-parchment inscribed on one side with the Skhoji writing and having a lot of pictures on the other. He did not bring it with him, not realizing its value, nor did he look at it very intently since the Znaci were hunting him. Although the Kteremians are all strictly bark-eaters, the Znaci have the disagreeable habit of cutting visitors up and performing magical rituals with the parts to make their food-trees grow, and it was to this infamous use that they wished to put Kamzhik. But if that sheet is still there—and the stuff is practically indestructible—it may give us the key to all those inscriptions in the Hrata Pictographic."

We landed, as everyone does, at the spaceport city of Sveho on Kterem, where we saw at first-hand the effects of a large Terran colony upon the Kteremians. Though interesting to a student of cultural interpenetration, these effects were depressing to one who would regard Kteremian culture as an integral object of aesthetic contemplation. Even I found it difficult to retain an attitude of purely scientific detachment.

For it was obvious that the influence of the Terrans upon the Kteremians is much greater than the influence in the reverse direction, as is to be expected in view of the technical superiority of Terran culture. Also, of course, the culture-traits most readily transmitted are those which a subjective point of view would term the vices of earthly culture.

We saw Kteremians wearing jackets and trousers in imitation of Terrans. These garments are cut to fit their entirely inhuman forms but serve no useful purpose, since the Kteremians' feathery pelts provide them with adequate protection against variations in temperature. We saw them frequenting places of amusement patterned after those of Terra, gambling, becoming intoxicated, making grotesque attempts to imitate Earthly dances, and so on.

Dr. Klein did not pretend to view this evidence of the breakdown of the native culture with unemotional objectivity. Somewhat of a Rousseauan romantic primitivist, he remarked one day: "Once we get out of this stinking city, my dear Barney, things will be better. Finding old inscriptions is only half the reason I go on these expeditions. The other half is the joy of getting away from human so-called civilization and back to Mother Nature. Look at that! A magazine stand, with comic-books, even!" He pointed to a large slick-paper American magazine, reprinted locally from microfilm brought from Terra, whose policies he particularly deplored."Sentimental slush! And look at that garish advertising sign! If I dared I would chop it up and burn it myself, that one!"

At this point Dr. Klein launched into his usual tirade against advertisers, calling them professional liars and so forth. The sign in question adjured all who read it in several languages, both Terran and Kteremian, to be sure to smoke the Russian government's Astrakhan brand of cigarettes. I could see Klein's point of view, even while I privately deplored it as unscientific.

At length, after filling out the usual dekaliter of forms in octuplicate, we were allowed to fly to the outpost of Severak where we met Klein's Kteremian acquaintance Kamzhik and the helpers whom he had rounded up for us. Kamzhik was small for a Kteremian, hardly taller than Klein, and a garrulous fellow who talked continuously in a strong accent. Of the helpers, Slunko, Nyeya, and Tshaf, none spoke any Terran language, wherefore I had to communicate with them through Kamzhik. Klein spoke their dialect fairly well, though lacking their great incisor chisel-teeth he could only roughly imitate the whistling sounds that comprise an element of their phonology.

In Severak, Dr. Klein made arrangements to rent a small aircraft to fly to the neighborhood of Gdoz. It is a misapprehension to consider Gdoz a "lost" city. It has long been known from aerial observation, but had never, except for an abortive treasure-hunting party, been visited by Terrans because of the difficulties of reaching it on the ground. Its situation makes the alighting of aircraft in its immediate neighborhood hazardous or impossible. Gdoz stands in a narrow valley, the Valley of Plashce, amidst steeply irregular mountains, and the strong prevailing winds make the air so turbulent in the neighborhood of these jagged peaks that a landing there would be merely an unnecessarily costly form of suicide.

Dr. Klein, however, took Kamzhik and Tshaf and me in the aircraft to the vicinity of Gdoz. We could plainly see the city lying in its narrow valley, and after hours of hovering and circling we found a small plateau where the wind was steady enough to permit a landing, where the ground was bare enough to obviate the danger of the nyikh-vine's swarming over the machine in our absence and clogging the tubes and jamming the controls, and where the situation was high enough to prevent the wild Znaci from seeing us and smashing up our machine by way of paying their respects.

Dr. Klein then returned to Severak and ferried the remaining helpers and supplies in two more trips. From this plateau to Gdoz was a good three days' hike, for though the distance was less than twenty-five kilometers in a straight line, the extreme ruggedness of the terrain necessitated a circuitous approach. This distance, however, was short enough so that the Kteremians could carry all our food for the round trip, and therefore it was not necessary to resort to the more complicated measures with which expeditions meet logistical difficulties: the staging of supplies, the peeling off of fractions of the party who have been carrying food for the rest, and the planting of caches for the return trip. Food for the Kteremians presented no problem, as they could always live on the bark of the ambient trees. They have however acquired such a taste for Earthly coffee that no explorer can induce them to accompany him unless he will share his supply of this beverage with them.

I will not detail our experiences on this three-day scramble, for though interesting to one with a taste for narratives of outdoor adventure they have little bearing on the final outcome of our journey.

I shall merely mention that we were nearly drowned in a bottomless swamp, and were chased by an uyedna, twice the size of a Terran elephant. We heard the war-drums of the Znaci and were stalked by them, receiving a shower of poisoned cross-bolts without ever seeing the arbalestiers. One missile struck Tshaf, who died in great pain from the poison.

We fired a few shots at random into the bush and pressed on to more open country at the outlet of the Valley of Plashce. The drums died out behind us. We could not be sure whether the Znaci gave up the pursuit because the thinning of the vegetation would have made it necessary for them to expose themselves to our fire to get within crossbow-range, or whether, as Kamzhik averred "Znaci no go near Gdoz; afraid of evil spirit of Hrata king."

Despite his years, Dr. Klein proved himself a woodsman of uncommon resource, adroitness, and endurance. At the end of a long day, when I was reeling with fatigue, he would be slouching along without visible sign of abatement of his powers.

Towards the end of the third day we reached the ruin. I must testify that for somber magnificence it puts such Terran cognates as Ankgor Wat and Petra and Copán to shame. Moreover I became aware of a growing feeling of uneasiness within me, as if Kamzhik's primitive gossip about the evil ghost of King Zahal the Fiendish were to be taken seriously. Of course I immediately dismissed all such unscientific feelings as mere subjective illusions begotten by fatigue and childhood complexes. With an effort I managed to retain my unemotional objectivity.

The city of Gdoz has of course suffered greatly with time and delapidation, especially from the sack of the city by the Kalcimvi army 846 Kteremian years ago, when the Hrata dynasty was extinguished, and again from the depredations of that band of Terran treasure-hunters forty-odd years ago. We learned from Kamzhik that these adventurers found no treasure and were captured by the Znaci, who employed them in their immemorial magical rituals. My colleague was heard to mutter: "Serves those scélérats right!"

Now Dr. Klein became greatly excited over the hundreds of inscriptions on the still-standing walls of Gdoz. These appeared to be all in the Hrata Pictographic writing. Dr. Klein dashed from one to another, exclaiming over them and bemoaning the fact that the day was too far gone to start photographing them.

"If we can only find a bilingual inscription," he cried, "we shall rank with Champollion and Rawlinson! Where is this library, Kamzhik?"

The Kteremian led us down one overgrown street after another, scrambling over or skirting around the great blocks of stone that had fallen into the street from the buildings flanking it. At length he halted before a big building half of which still stood, though its stones were fire-blackened. Then he led us inside. We trod softly as if the vibration of our footsteps might bring down the teetery remains of the structure upon our heads.

Here and there we saw a few charred and crumbling remains of the wooden stacks projecting up out of the thick dust, from which the books had long since vanished. We understood that those that had not been destroyed at the time of the sack were all taken away as loot, then or later. A few of these still exist, either the originals or copies, but all are written in the Skhoji script which had then replaced the much more difficult pictographic signary, and none sheds any very clear light upon the history of the Hrata Empire.

"Well?" said Klein, dancing in his eagerness.

"Is over this way," said Kamzhik, and led us to where a pile of rubble in one corner had been pulled apart to expose a genuine Hrata book.

As you probably know, Kteremian books take the form of a codex with all sheets bound together, as with all Terran books of the present day, but the binding is across the top instead of at the side. Therefore one reads such a book by flipping the pages upwards as if it were a stenographic pad.

The present book was large but thin, with covers of thin ftse-bark about 25 by 35 centimeters. Across the front of the cover were written a number of characters in the Skhopi script. Klein explained:

"A periodical. That word in the large characters in qazhov, 'existence', and the legend below it is a date in the old Hrata sacred calendar. This is evidently a copy of a magazine; the Hrata had them, you know."

With trembling hands Klein raised the cover. Inside there was only one sheet of zahalov-parchment, all the others having been torn out at some remote time. Over Klein's shoulder I could see that this sheet was covered on its upper side with Skhoji writing. Klein raised the page to look at the back.

The back bore, as Kamzhik had promised, pictures—but not, obviously, characters in the Hrata Pictographic script. I do not believe that Kamzhik deliberately misled us in this matter; he simply did not know the difference. Instead there was a cluster of illustrations in the center of the page, and a border of Skhoji characters around it. Klein stared, turned the book this way and that, and then went back to the first side of that one page. His hands trembled violently and he spoke in a strangled voice:

"My Barney, shall I read it to you, this one? It is part of a story, and the text on this page begins as follows: "Rákaslun tsese háda lig doznyi khyesil nyey shí... He clasped her to his feathery bosom with his brawny arms and affectionately nibbled her ear with his great pink incisors. She trembled with ecstasy. But then a frown clouded her broad clear forehead and she drew back modestly. 'But Vzdal, dear, ' she breathed, 'what about your other wife? ' It goes on and on like that! Herrgott!"

I asked: "What about the back?"

"Do you want to know what the back is?" shouted Klein, the veins standing out on his forehead."The text around the margin reads: 'Use Prvnyi's excellent soap! Cleans cleaner! Cleans whiter! No more back-breaking toil for Mother! Buy from Prvnyi! ' And these woodcuts in the middle show a female Kteremian employing the soap to cleanse her offspring, house, and other properties! Soap! Soap! Soap!"

Dr. Klein's voice rose to a scream as he flung the remains of the book from him. Knowing his reverence for relics of antiquity I was astounded, and then alarmed as he burst into a fit of maniacal laughter, rolling about in the deep dust of the floor.

"Help me tie him up!" I cried to Kamzhik."It's a madman he is!"

But the native refused to take any part in securing my unfortunate colleague. After all he had only my word that I was the sane one of the pair, and he saw no reason for getting involved in a dispute between other worldlings. I therefore was compelled to complete this distasteful task myself. I received a black eye in the process, for Dr. Klein proved deceptively strong and agile in close combat.

After a nightmarish return journey, during which I came perilously near to losing my scientific objectivity altogether, J delivered my colleague to competent medical care, under which he is now well on the road to recovery. The Hratan magazine is in the British Museum awaiting Dr. Klein's eventual attention, though it seems improbable that the study of its one remaining sheet will shed much significant light upon the multifarious problems of Hratan history. Certainly it offers no hope of ever serving as a means of translating the mystery of the Hrata Pictographic writing.

This is the story of the Klein-O'Gorman expedition. It is, as you see, a quite unspectacular one, although unworthy of the lurid surmises and rumors that the unprincipled gossip-mongers have circulated in recent months. I trust, therefore, that this clarification will terminate the proliferation of these scurrilous and vicious canards once and for all.