March 2023 – Literary Art and Illustration

Clans of the Alphane Moon, by Philip K. Dick – 1964 [Edward I. Valigursky]

“Like most Terran males your sense of self-respect is bound up
in your wage-earning capabilities,
an area in which you have grave doubts as well as extreme guilts.”

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“A knock sounded on the door of the conapt.
It could not be the Ganymedean returning because a slime mold did not – could not – knock.
Rising, Chuck went to the door and opened it.

A Terran girl stood there.”

In a ‘pape one week old he found a more or less complete article;
he lit a cigarette and read carefully.

Psychologists were needed,
it was anticipated by the US Interplan Health & Welfare Service,
because the moon had originally been a hospital area,
a psychiatric care-center for Terran immigrants to the Alphane system
who had cracked under the abnormal,
excessive pressures of inter-system colonization.
The Alphanes had left it alone, except for their traders

What was known of the moon’s current status came from these Alphane traders.
According to them a civilization of sorts had arisen
during the decades in which the hospital had been severed from Terra’s authority.
However, they could not evaluate it
because their knowledge of Terran mores was inadequate.
In any case local commodities were produced,
traded; domestic industry existed, too,
and he wondered why the Terran government felt the necessity of meddling.
He could imagine Mary there so well;
she was precisely the sort which TERPLAN, the international agency, would select-
People of Mary’s type would always succeed.

Going to the ancient picture window he stood for a time once more, gazing down.
And then, stealthily, he felt rise up within him the familiar urge.
The sense that it was pointless to go on;
suicide, whatever the law and the church said,
was for him the only real answer at this instant

He found a smaller side window that opened;
raising it, he listened to the buzz of a jet-hopper
as it landed on a rooftop on the far side of the street.
Its sound died.
He waited, and then he climbed part way over the edge of the window,
dangling above the traffic which moved below ….

From inside him a voice, but not his own, said.

“Please tell me your name.
Regardless of whether you intend or do not intend to jump.”

Turning, Chuck saw a yellow Ganymedean slime mold
that had silently flowed tinder the door of the conapt
and was gathering itself into the heap of small globes which comprised its physical being.

“I rent the conapt across the halt,” the slime mold declared.

Chuck said, “Among Terrans it’s customary to knock.”

“I possess nothing to knock with.
In any case I wished to enter before you – departed.”

“It’s my personal business whether I jump or not.”

“’No Terran is an island,’” the slime mold more or less quoted.
“Welcome to the building which we who rent apts here have humorously dubbed
‘Discarded Arms Conapts.’ There are others here whom you should meet.
Several Terrans – like yourself – plus a number of non-Ts of assorted physiognomy,
some which will repel you, some which no doubt will attract.
I had planned to borrow a cup of yogurt culture from you,
but in view of your preoccupation it seems an Insulting request”

“I haven’t moved in anything. As yet.”
He swung his leg back over the sill,
stepped back into the room, away from the window.
He was not surprised to see the Ganymedean slime mold;
a ghetto situation existed with non-Ts:
no matter how influential and highly-placed in their own societies
on Terra they were forced to inhabit substandard housing such as this.

“Could I carry a business card,” the slime mold said, “I would now present it to you.
I am an importer of uncut gems, a dealer in secondhand gold,
and, under the right circumstances, a fanatic buyer of philatelic collections.
As a matter of fact I have in my apt at the moment a choice collection of early US,
with special emphasis on mint Marks of four of the Columbus set;
would you -” It broke off.
“I see you would not.
In any case the desire to destroy yourself has at least temporarily abated from your mind.
That is good.
In addition to my announced commercial – “

“Aren’t you required by law to curb your telepathic ability while on Terra?” Chuck said.

“Yes, but your situation seemed to be exceptional.
Mr. Rittersdorf, I cannot personally employ you,
since I require no propagandistic services.
But I have a number of contacts among the nine moons; given time – “

“No thanks,” Chuck said roughly “I just want to be left alone.”
He had already endured enough assistance in job acquisition to last him a lifetime.

“But, on my part, quite unlike your wife, I have no ulterior motive.”
The slime mold ebbed closer.
“Like most Terran males your sense of self-respect is bound up in your wage-earning capabilities,
an area in which you have grave doubts as well as extreme guilts.
I can do something for you … but it will take time.
Presently I leave Terra and start back to my own moon.
Suppose I pay you five hundred skins – US, of course – to come with me.
Consider it a loan, if you want.”

“What would I do on Ganymede?”
Irritably, Chuck said, “Don’t you believe me either?
I have a job; one I consider adequate – I don’t want to leave it.”

“Subconsciously – “

“Don’t read my subconscious back to me.
And get out of here and leave me alone.”
He turned his back on the slime mold.

“I am afraid your suicidal drive will return – perhaps even before tonight”

“Let it.”

The slime mold said, “There is only one thing that can help you,
and my miserable job-offer is not it.”

“What is it then?”

“A woman to replace your wife.”

“Now you’re acting as a – “

“Not at all.
This is neither physically base nor ethereal, it is simply practical.
You must find a woman who can accept you, love you, as you are;
otherwise you’ll perish.
Let me ponder this.
And in the meantime, control yourself.
Give me five hours. And remain here.”
The slime mold flowed slowly under the door,
through the crack and outside into the hall.
Its thoughts dimmed.
“As an importer, buyer and dealer I have many contacts with Terrans of all walks of life …”
Then it was gone.

Shakily, Chuck lit a cigarette.
And walked away – a long distance away – from the window,
to seat himself on the ancient Danish-style sofa. And wait.

It was hard to know how to react to the slime mold’s charitable offer;
he was both angered and touched – and, in addition, puzzled.
Could the slime mold actually help him? It seemed impossible.

He waited one hour.

A knock sounded on the door of the conapt.
It could not be the Ganymedean returning because a slime mold did not – could not – knock.
Rising, Chuck went to the door and opened it.

A Terran girl stood there.

______________________________

You Have Read?

Dick, Philip K., Clans of the Alphane Moon, Ace Books, Inc., New York, N.Y., 1964.

Sutin, Lawrence, Divine Invasions – A Life of Philip K. Dick, Harmony Books, New York, N.Y., 1989

Postcard – Year 1983: New York (Balcony), by Laura Roos

“New York” (Balcony) – 1983

Overlooking midwinter Manhattan, gazing across space to buildings beyond:

Complexity in simplicity.

A series of verticals: from the lines of residential and office buildings, to the foreground pillar, to the struts supporting the railing.

A set of horizontals: a flat-topped skyline, resting below a cloudless horizon.

An array of diagonals: shadowed gaps between the planks of the floor, the double railing sweeping behind the pillar from side to side.

Contrast, concentrated: Light, and dark, and light and dark again, alternating across the image … the brightness of pillar, balcony, and sky, and the darkness of the city below.

Everything is in balance.

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“New York”, by Laura Roos, 1983.

(This image was scanned from a postcard (B 742) published by Art Unlimited, Amsterdam.)

Postcard – Year 1915: View from the Window, by Alfred Stieglitz

“From the Window of 291, 1915”

The mystery of evening.
The ambiguity of urbanity.
Illumination within darkness.

Alfred Stieglitz’s “From the Back Window” is as much – is more – question, than photo.

Light glows, solid, through a solitary window, only yards away.
Light falls, muted, upon a balcony, nearby.
(And all else is still?)

Nearby buildings, interlock, overlap, intermingle; only visible ambiently, as angles, edges, and corners.

Even blacker than the empty sky: Walls, invisible.

Light emerges, from the windows in the far background. (Why? What’s happening within?)

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Evidently Stieglitz availed himself of this vantage point at least twice, as evidenced in the image below, which – though also taken at night – is oriented from a different angle and therefore captures another field of view. The obvious differences are the clothesline, and, the windows in the foreground apartments and the three high-rises in the distance. The photograph is titled “From the Back Window — “291” (1)”, and it’s from the online exhibition “ALFRED STIEGLITZ AND MODERN AMERICA – at MFA Boston”, of September 12, 2017, via What Will You Remember.

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The upper image was scanned from a postcard (ISBN 01-07477-2) printed by MOMA (the Museum of Modern Art) in 1992. Descriptive information on the card states: “Platinum print, 9 7/8″ x 7 15/16”, from “Alfred Stieglitz Collection, 1949, 49-55-35”.

The lower image is described in the Boston MFA’s caption similarly and simply, as a “platinum print, [with] artist-applied coating”.

Travel In Time, Travel Through Time: “Bring the Jubilee”, by Ward Moore – The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction – November, 1952 [Edmund A. Emshwiller] / Ballantine Books – 1953 [Richard M. Powers]

A central theme of science-fiction and fantasy has long been time travel, which – if a story of that genre is fully developed – can entail an exploration of the nature and implications of parallel universes, in terms both literary and historical. Among the myriad of such stories, one of the best by far (well, the best I’ve ever read) is Ward Moore’s Bring the Jubilee, which takes a very novel approach (pardon the pun!) to the concepts of time travel and alternate history.

The novel is very well described at Wikipedia and elsewhere, so I won’t rehash it in detail here. Suffice to say that in terms of plot – taking for granted the reality of time travel, of course! – the most original aspect of Moore’s story is that the world we “know” from 1863 onwards – and thus the very world are living in, here, now, today in 2023 and thus into our future, exists because of the irrevocable alteration of a pre-existing and now-extinguished timeline in which the Confederacy achieved victory over the Union. This change – the novel’s Jonbar hinge – commences in that timeline’s year of 1952, when protagonist Hodgins “Hodge” McCormick Backmaker travels back to July 2, 1863 with the intention of observing the Battle of Gettysburg in general, and the fight for Little Round Top, in particular. Fully interacting with the world of the past – his past – not a passive observer, his presence changes the Confederate Victory of his timeline to the Union victory of ours, eventuating in a course of events – both domestic and international; for good, ill, and yet unknown – that we know today. And with this, Backmaker is forever trapped in our world, the involuntary, tragic, and solitary exile from a timeline and universe that no longer exists, and which from our perspective never existed to begin with: Even if a time machine were to be invented in our world, there is nothing for him to return to.

All Backmaker knew is gone; all those he has known only exist in memory: His memory.

One could write far more about this exceptional work. Suffice to say that in terms of plot, world-building, historical insight (welll… at least insight into the history of our world!), character development, philosophical depth, and straightforward literary quality, Bring the Jubilee is more than excellent. Unlike the sense of humorous novelty inherent to some time-travel and alternate universe stories, Moore’s book is serious, philosophical, and ends on a note of true and deep pathos. (Which shouldn’t dissuade you from reading it – it’s that good!)

To the best of my knowledge it has never been adapted for film or video, but it would be more than worthy of such treatment.

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Edmund Emshwiller’s cover art for the November, 1952 issue of The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction – Ward’s novel encompassing pages 24 through 112, and thus most of this issue’s content – is somewhat different in style from other examples of his paintings, where human facial expressions and technology are presented in great detail. Here, protagonist Hodgins Backmaker’s face is hidden from us. We see him backlit from behind as as he enters the time machine, illuminated by a glowing ring of light suspended in the device’s center. This shadowed anonymity lends the scene an aura of adventure, power, and above, connotes the awareness of an impending step into the unknown. And, around the door to the time machine? Symbols of the Civil War and Confederacy: foggy silhouettes of soldiers; cavalry; artillery pieces; a steam-powered minibile.

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Here are the covers of Moore’s story in novel form, issued by Ballantine Books one year later. You can immediately tell that it’s by Richard Powers, while his signature is at the bottom left corner of the rear cover). Neither an anthology nor a work of science-fiction based on themes like space exploration or extraterrestrials, Powers created a image comprised of symbols and themes directly drawn from the Civil War era: Soldiers in battle, bursting artillery shells, and a map the divided North America in Backmaker’s timeline of 1951. Given that most of the story transpires in the imagined Confederacy of the 1950s – the world descended from the Union defeat at Gettysburg – the advancing soldiers shown on the cover are all Southerners, with the Confederate flag flying above. Another touch:

This is one of the very few covers in which Powers includes a recognizable person – Backmaker himself (I suppose…!) at lower right, looking on, looking back, from the future. Whose future? His, or, ours?

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Here’s the full cover, composited via Photoshop… (My own copy.)

The Appeal of Alternate History
Gavriel Rosenfeld

The Forward
April 20, 2007

Few subgenres of literature have been subjected to such longstanding critical scorn as alternate history. Despite the occasional publication of such masterpieces as Philip K. Dick’s 1962 novel, “The Man in the High Castle,” the more frequent appearance of duds like Newt Gingrich and William Forstchen’s much-maligned 1995 novel, “1945,” has reinforced alternate history’s reputation as the domain of armchair historians and literary hacks.

Of late, however, alternate history’s appeal has begun to grow. Historian Niall Ferguson’s 1997 edited volume of counterfactual essays, “Virtual History,” lent the genre new credibility within the field of history, while Philip Roth’s best-selling 2004 novel, “The Plot Against America,” greatly enhanced its reputation within the American literary establishment. Now, Michael Chabon’s provocative new novel, “The Yiddish Policemen’s Union” (HarperCollins), promises to help the genre of alternate history take yet another important step toward mainstream legitimacy. But while Chabon’s novel is an intricately plotted, wonderfully imaginative and ultimately successful work of literature, it is a weaker exercise in counterfactual speculation. Indeed, the novel resembles a “lite” version of alternate history that may leave connoisseurs of the real thing less than satisfied.

The best literary examples of alternate history — like Ward Moore’s 1953 novel, “Bring the Jubilee” (where the South wins the Civil War), or Robert Harris’s 1992 best-seller, “Fatherland” (where the Nazis win World War II) — combine a variety of elements: a clear point of divergence from the established historical record; clever and well-paced exposition of the reasons for history’s altered course; a convincing degree of plausibility, and a discernible stance on the question of whether the altered past is better or worse than the course of real history.

But whereas the most convincing works of alternate history tend to concentrate on a single point of divergence (the South wins the Civil War; JFK survives his assassination attempt), “The Yiddish Policemen’s Union” features several: The United States decides in 1940 to establish a territorial home for European Jewish refugees in Alaska; the Russians are defeated by the Nazis in World War II (though the Nazis ultimately lose to the Americans anyway); the Cold War never ensues, and the state of Israel is never created, as the Jews lose the 1948 War of Independence and are “driven into the sea.” Aficionados of alternate history will probably carp at the implausibility of the United States staying in the war for very long against a victorious Nazi Germany without the Soviet Union doing most of the heavy lifting on the eastern front. Others will view with skepticism the ideologically fanatical Nazis permitting millions of Jews to leave Europe, unmolested, for their Alaskan refuge.

But perhaps the most telling weakness about “The Yiddish Policemen’s Union” as a work of alternate history is the fact that arguably, its basic plot could have unfolded in nearly the same way as a conventional work of historical fiction. While Chabon’s basic allohistorical premise certainly lends the novel its distinctive mood, it is inessential to its basic plot — a noirish, detective-drama-cum-political-thriller whose fundamental contours (as most readers will deduce) have been inspired by today’s real historical headlines.

Few of these criticisms will bother Chabon’s many devoted fans (I remain an enthusiastic one). Most will be absorbed by the book’s engrossing narrative and won’t be bothered much by its diluted allohistorical dimensions. But devotees of alternate history will probably dissent. However much they may welcome the fact that some of America’s most celebrated writers are beginning to appreciate alternate history’s allure, they will likely insist that the genre still awaits its contemporary masterpiece.

Gavriel Rosenfeld is an associate professor of history at Fairfield University and is the author of “The World Hitler Never Made: Alternate History and the Memory of Nazism” (Cambridge University Press, 2005).

Other Stuff to Delight, Distract, and Divert You…

Ward Moore (Joseph Ward Moore)…

… at Wikipedia

… at Internet Speculative Fiction Database

…at FindAGrave

Edmund A. Emshwiller…

… at Wikipedia

… at Internet Speculative Fiction Database

“Bring the Jubilee”…

…at Wikipedia

… at GoodReads

…at The Alternate Historian (“Bring the Jubilee: A Misunderstood Alternate History Masterpiece”)

If the Confederacy had Won the Civil War…

…at History Answers (“American Civil War | How The South Could Have Won”)

…at AlternateHistoryHub (“What if the South Won the American Civil War?”)

Crossroads in Time, edited by Groff Conklin – November, 1953 [Richard M. Powers]

Richard Powers science fiction oeuvre commenced in 1950 with a cover illustration for Doubleday’s publication of Isaac Asimov’s Pebble in The Sky. By the end of 1953, he’d completed cover illustrations for nearly forty books and magazines. Among these paintings was the cover of Groff Conklin’s eleventh anthology, the 1953 Crossroads in Time.

Powers’ cover for this collection was comprised of four science-fictionty elements that would appear in different combinations, colors, shapes, and sizes in his other works: A spinning yellow sun, a spaceship, a weirdly asymmetric trapeze-like elevated city (so very unlike the Jetson family’s residence at the Skypad Apartments of Orbit City!), upon a star and planet-filled indigo-to-black star-filled background, all broken up by lanes of red. And, a robot. (Playing hide-and-seek from the upper right corner.)

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Here’s a closer view of “the robot”. Is it my imagination, or is there a familial resemblance to Frank The Robot, who appeared on the cover of the October, 1953 issue of Astounding Science Fiction, and moonlights as the opening act for Queen + Adam Lambert?

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Contents

Introduction (Crossroads in Time), by Groff Conklin

“Assumption Unjustified” (Astounding Science Fiction, October, 1946), by Hal Clement

“The Eagles Gather” (Astounding Science Fiction, April, 1942), by Joseph E. Kelleam

“The Queen’s Astrologer” (Thrilling Wonder Stories, October, 1949), by Murray Leinster

““Derm Fool”“ (Unknown Fantasy Fiction, March, 1940), by Theodore Sturgeon (variant of “Derm Fool”)

“Courtesy” (Astounding Science Fiction, August, 1951), by Clifford D. Simak (Broadcast on NBC’s X Minus One on August 18, 1955)

“Secret” (Astounding Science Fiction, January, 1953), by Lee Cahn

“Thirsty God” (The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, March, 1953), by Margaret St. Clair

“The Mutant’s Brother” (Astounding Science Fiction, August, 1943), by Fritz Leiber

“Student Body” (Galaxy Science Fiction, March, 1953), by F.L. Wallace (Floyd Lee Wallace)

“Made in U.S.A.” (Galaxy Science Fiction, April, 1953), by J.T. McIntosh (James Murdoch MacGregor)

“Technical Advisor” (The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, February, 1953), by Chad Oliver

“Feedback” (Astounding Science Fiction, July, 1951), by Katherine MacLean

“The Cave” (Astounding Science Fiction, January, 1943), by P. Schuyler Miller

“Vocation” (Astounding Science Fiction, April, 1945) by George O. Smith

“The Time Decelerator” (Astounding Stories, July, 1936), by A. Macfadyen, Jr.

“Zen” (Galaxy Science Fiction, October, 1952), by Jerome Bixby

“Let There Be Light” (if, November, 1952), by H.B. Fyfe (as by Horace B. Fyfe)

“The Brain” (Crossroads in Time), by Norbert Wiener (as by W. Norbert)

References and What-Not

Crossroads in Time, at Internet Speculative Fiction Database

Groff Conklin, at Wikipedia

Groff Conklin, at at Internet Speculative Fiction Database

Shield, by Poul Anderson – April, 1963 and July, 1970 [Richard M. Powers]

Among the most well-known plot devices of science fiction is the concept of an impenetrable, non-material barrier that can be used for defense or protection, or, as a tool to enhance the effectiveness of offensive weapons. Or to put it quite simply, a “shield”.

Shields first made their appearance in E.E. Smith’s “Spacehounds of I.P.C.”, which was serialized in the July, August (great cover art by Leo Morey!), and September 1931 issues of Amazing Stories, and has been published in book form since 1947. However, the technology is perhaps best known in popular culture from Star Trek, and, Frank Herbert’s Dune, the latter of which reveals serious and impressive thought about the impact and eventual pervasiveness of personal shield technology on warfare and social mores. In both cases, while shields – per se – aren’t entirely central to a story’s theme, they are critical to its plot, specifically in terms of the arc of a character’s experiences, actions, and (one hopes!) survival.

Another appearance of shields – or, should I more correctly say “a” shield? – occurred with the 1962 publication of Poul Anderson’s two-part serial by that name in the June and July issues of Fantastic Stories, the latter of which I purchased some decades ago (seriously – it’s been that long) from a used bookstore near Easton College. Not among Anderson’s strongest or most powerful works, Shield – while an entertaining diversion – is a straightforward tale of physicist Peter Koskinen’s escape, pursuit, adventure, and survival in the face of daunting odds, in which the full implications of shield technology aren’t developed nearly as deeply or strongly as they otherwise might be. Perhaps this arises from the novel’s plot, because the shield unit in Koskinen’s possession – developed by Martians – is the only such device in existence. And so, in the world created by Anderson, shields haven’t yet wrought technological and social change upon civilization that they have in Dune.

However, what Anderson’s story lacks – in either magazine or book form – it makes up for in art. While neither issue of Fantastic bears cover art inspired by the story, Dan Adkins’ leading, interior, and rear cover illustrations for the June issue (see below…) – especially page 60, in all its imagined technical complexity – directly and clearly represent the elements of the tale. The leading illustration from pages 48 and 49 of the June Fantastic was created by downloading the magazine in CBR (Comic Book Reader) format via the Pulp Magazine Archive, splicing the images on those pages, and then editing them as one picture. I’ve included a brief video showing this process step by step, the theme music – pretty recognizable, ain’t it, doc?! – being from Raymond Scott’s Powerhouse.

But wait, there’s more…!

Go to the bottom of this post: You’ll see two of the three covers of Berkley Medallion’s paperback editions of Shield, all of which were created by Richard Powers…

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TARGET: INVULNERABILITY

Koskinen had returned to earth with a strange new “Shield” – a device which enclosed the wearer in a force screen which absorbed all energies below a certain level. Light could come through the Shield, but no weapon known man could penetrate it…

Koskinen had developed the Shield in collaboration with the Martians. From the moment of his return to earth he was in deadly danger. His own country sent men to kill him to prevent the Shield from falling into Chinese hands…

Soon the whole civilized world was searching for this one man – a man armed with the greatest potential military weapon mankind had ever seen… The only question was which power would possess the Shield as its very own?

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Fantastic Stories of Imagination – June, 1962 (George E. Barr)

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Pages 48-49

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Page 60

“His left hand batted out, knocked the gun aside.
It went off with a hiss, startlingly loud beside Koskinen’s ear.”

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Rear cover

“SUDDENLY he realized what he’d not stopped to think before —
he was over a densely populated area.
At his speed he was a bomb.

God, he cried wildly, or Existence, or whatever you are, don’t let me kill anyone!”

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The car jerked.
A square of deeper blackness opened in the hull above – no, there were lights –
“They’re taking us aboard!” Sawyer gasped.

His companion sat rigid, hardly seeming alive except for the blood that trickled from his nose.
“Yeah,” he said. “I was afraid of that.”

His gun swung about.
Koskinen looked down the muzzle.
“I’m sorry, kid,” the agent murmured.

“What do you mean?” a stranger cried through Koskinen’s head.

“We can’t let them have you.
Not if you’re as important as I gather you are.”

“No!”

“Goodbye, kid.”

IT was not Koskinen’s will which responded.
That would have been too slow.
But he had practiced judo on Mars for fun and exercise.
The animal of him took over the learned reflexes.

He had twisted around in the seat to face the agent.
His left hand batted out, knocked the gun aside.
It went off with a hiss, startlingly loud beside Koskinen’s ear.
His right fist was already rocketing upward.
It struck beneath the nose.
The agent’s face seemed to disintegrate.

Koskinen snapped his skull backward.
It banged against Sawyer’s chin.
The man barked.
Koskinen reached over his shoulder, got Sawyer by the neck,
and hauled the agent’s larynx across his collarbone.
He bore down, brutally.
Already oxygen starved, Sawyer made a choking noise and went limp.

Koskinen sagged.
Blackness whirled and buzzed around him.
A quiver through the car stabbed awareness back into his brain.
The hatch was just above the canopy now, like an open mouth.
He glimpsed a man on the edge of it, thermsuited, airhelmeted, and armed with a rifle.
The car would be in the ship’s hold in one more minute.
Then, unencumbered, the ship would have a chance of escaping to wherever it had come from.

Sawyer and the other agent stirred.
For a fractional second, Koskinen thought:

My God, what am I doing? I attacked two MS men …
I’m leaving them here to be captured —

But they meant to kill me. And I haven’t time to help them.

He had already, somehow, unbuckled his safety belt.
He scrambled over the seatback.
The parcel lay on the rear seat.
He snatched it.
His free hand fumbled with the door catch.
The sound of air, whistling from the interior toward stratospheric thinness, filled his universe.

The car bumped over the hatch frame.
Koskinen got the door unlocked.
Swords rammed through his eardrums as he encountered the full pressure differential.
The thermsuited man aimed the rifle at him.

He jumped from the open door, out through the hatch, and started falling.

FIRST you protect your eyeballs. They can freeze.

Koskinen buried his face in the crook of his left arm.
Darkness enclosed him, weightlessness, and savage cold.
His head whirled with pain and roarings.
The last lean breath he had drawn in the car was still in his lungs,
but clamoring to get out.
If he gave way to that pressure, reflex would make him breathe in again.
And there wasn’t much air at this height,
but there was enough that its chill would sear his pulmonary system.

Blind, awkward with a hand and a half available to him,
aided only by a little space experience with free fall —
very little, since the Franz Boas made the crossing at one-fourth gee
of nuclear-powered acceleration —
he tore the paper off his shield unit.
He and it would have different terminal velocities,
but as yet there was so tenuous an atmosphere that everything fell at the same rate.
He fumbled the thing to him.
Now … where was the damn right shoulder strap?

… the unit was adjusted for one-man wear,
and he couldn’t make readjustments while tumbling through heaven —
Panic snatched at him.
He fought it down with a remnant of consciousness and went on groping.

There!

He slipped his arm through,
put his head over against that biceps,
and got his left arm into the opposite loop.
The control panel flopped naturally across his chest.
He felt about with fingers gone insensible until he found the master switch, and threw it.
In one great gasp he breathed out and opened his eyes.

Cold smote like a knife.

He would have screamed,
but his lungs were empty and he had just enough sense left not to try filling them.

Too high yet, too high, he thought in his own disintegration.
Got to get further down.
How long? Square root of twice the distance divided by gee —
Gee, Elkor, I miss you, Sharer-of-Hopes,
when you sink your personality into the stars these nights do you include the blue star Earth?
No, it’s winter now in your hemisphere,
you’re adream, hibernation, hiber, hyper, hyperspace,
is the shield really a section of space folded through four extra dimensions, dimens, dim, dimmer,
OUT!

At the last moment of consciousness, he turned off the unit.

He was too numb to feel if there was any warmth around him.
But there must be, for he could breathe again.
Luckily his attitude wasn’t prone,
or the airstream pounding into his open mouth could have done real damage.
He sucked greedily, several breaths, before he remembered to turn the field back on.

Then he had a short interval in which to fall.
He saw the night sky above him,
not the loneliness and wintry stars of the stratosphere,
which reminded him so much of Mars,
but Earth’s wan sparks crisscrossed by aircar lights.
The sky of the eastern American megapolis, at least; they lay below him still,
though he had no idea what archaic city boundaries he had crossed.
He didn’t see the stratoship.
Well, naturally.
He’d taken the crew by surprise when he jumped,
and by the time they reacted he was already too far down for them to dare give chase.

SUDDENLY he realized what he’d not stopped to think before —
he was over a densely populated area.
At his speed he was a bomb.

God, he cried wildly, or Existence, or whatever you are, don’t let me kill anyone!

The city rushed at him. It swallowed his view field. He struck.

To him it was like diving into thick tar.
The potential barrier made a hollow shell around his body,
and impact flung him forward with normal,
shattering acceleration until he encountered that shell.
Momentum carried him a fractional inch into it.
Then his kinetic energy had been absorbed,
taken up by the field itself and shunted to the power pack.
As for the noise, none could penetrate the shield.
He rebounded very gently, rose to his feet, shaky-kneed,
stared into a cloud of dust and heard his own harsh breath and heartbeat.

The dust settled.
He sobbed with relief.
He’d hit a street — hadn’t even clipped a building.
There were no red human fragments around,
only a crater in the pavement from which cracks radiated to the sidewalks.
Fluoro lamps, set far apart, cast a dull glow on brick walls and unlighted windows.
A neon sign above a black, shut doorway spelled uncle’s pawn shop.

“I got away,” Koskinen said aloud, hardly daring to believe.
His voice wobbled.
“I’m free. I’m alive.”

Two men came running around a corner.
They were thin and shabbily dressed.
Ground-level tenements were inhabited only by the poorest.
They halted and gaped at the human figure and the ruined pavement.
A bar of purulent light fell across one man’s face.
He began jabbering and gesturing, unheard by Koskinen.

I must have made one bong of a racket when I hit. Now what do I do?

Get out of here. Till I’ve had a chance to think!

He switched off the field.
His first sensation was warmth.
The air he had been breathing was what he had trapped at something like 20,000 feet.
This was thick and dirty.
A sinus pain jabbed through his head; he swallowed hard to equalize pressures.
Sound engulfed him — machines pounding somewhere,
a throb underfoot, the enormous rumble as a train went by not far away,
the two men’s shout, “Hey, what the hell, who the hell’re you – ?”

A woman’s voice joined theirs.
Koskinen spun and saw more slum dwellers pouring from alleys and doorways.
A dozen, two dozen, excited, noisy, gleeful at any excitement in their gray lives.
And he must be something to see, Koskinen realized.
Not only because he’d come down hard enough to smash concrete.
But he was in good, new, upper-level clothes.
On his back he carried a lumpy metal cylinder;
the harness included a plastic panel across his chest, with switches, knobs, and three meters.
Like some science fiction hero on the 3D.
For a second he wondered if he could get away with telling them a film was being shot, special effects and —
No.
He began to run.

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Fantastic Stories of Imagination – July, 1962 (“EMSH” – Edmund A. Emshwiller)

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From April of 1963, here’s the first edition of Shield. Since the basis of this painting is a single story; a novel, rather than a collection of tales, Powers’ composition isn’t a melange of spacey, science-fictiony, ambiguous elements as in many of his other works. Rather, the image is directly inspired by Anderson’s story: Sharply outlined shapes (or, is it just one shape, vibrating back and forth? – can’t tell!) in the vague form of human bodies, in red, blue, and, green, are enclosed within a bubble. Surrounding this on all sides are jagged, irregular rods in gray and black. They touch the bubble; the rest against it; they cling to its sides. But, nothing gets through.

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A closer view…

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When Berkley republished Shield seven years later, the artist was the same but his art very different; completely different; utterly different: The shield took on a new shape and appeared in a new setting. Instead of a simple barrier to the outside world, there’s a dark quadrilateral with angular shapes – in purple, red, green, and brown – inside, all cross-crossed by delicate groups of almost spider-web-like lines, almost mathematically placed. The shape floats in a red and yellow sky, above a crowd of people depicted as streamlined, metallic, shining, anthropomorphic shapes in dark gray and greenish black.

And, one shape (if you look closely!) stands out from the rest: The tallest figure – in the middle of the group – more crisply defined than all the others, finished in gold and silver, with a distinct face. Is this the hero of the novel, Peter Koskinen?

No way to tell.

So, here’s the book’s full cover:

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Here’s a cropped view of Powers art:

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Going one step beyond… (Heh heh, double entendre!) The true complexity of this painting is only revealed by tweaking contrast and brightness of the original scan. Otherwise, the cover painting simply looks like a bunch of shiny marbles below a red sky, with a dark brown misshapen kite floating above.

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