Cloud Walker, All Fools' Day, Far Sunset Read online

  SF GATEWAY OMNIBUS

  Edmund Cooper

  THE CLOUD WALKER

  ALL FOOLS’ DAY

  A FAR SUNSET

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  CONTENTS

  Title Page

  Gateway Introduction

  Contents

  Introduction from The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction

  The Cloud Walker

  Part One

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Part Two

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Postscriptum

  All Fools’ Day

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Thirteen

  Fourteen

  Fifteen

  Sixteen

  Seventeen

  Eighteen

  Nineteen

  Twenty

  Twenty-One

  Twenty-Two

  Twenty-Three

  Twenty-Four

  Twenty-Five

  Twenty-Six

  Twenty-Seven

  Twenty-Eight

  Twenty-Nine

  Thirty

  Epilogue

  A Far Sunset

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Thirteen

  Fourteen

  Fifteen

  Sixteen

  Seventeen

  Eighteen

  Nineteen

  Twenty

  Twenty-One

  Twenty-Two

  Twenty-Three

  Twenty-Four

  Twenty-Five

  Twenty-Six

  Twenty-Seven

  Twenty-Eight

  Twenty-Nine

  Thirty

  Thirty-One

  Thirty-Two

  Thirty-Three

  Thirty-Four

  Thirty-Five

  Thirty-Six

  Thirty-Seven

  Thirty-Eight

  Thirty-Nine

  Forty

  Epilogue

  Website

  Also by Edmund Cooper

  About the Author

  Copyright

  The Cloud Walker

  The Civilizations of the First and Second Man have been destroyed by the products of their own technology. Now the world is emerging from a new dark age into the dawn of a second Middle Ages. Britain is dominated by a Luddite Church and by the doctrine that all machines are evil. Into this strange world comes Kieron, an artist’s apprentice who is inflamed by a forbidden dream – to construct a flying machine which will enable man to soar through the air like a bird.

  All Fools’ Day

  Summer 1971. A marvellous spell of weather, idyllic in its warmth. But new sun-spots had appeared; and with their appearance came a significant increase in the suicide rate. The wonderful summer continued for a decade: simultaneously Radiant Suicide reached endemic proportions, the only people to escape its effects being the supposed transnormals, the obsessionals, the eccentrics and the psychopaths. These were to be the only remnants of the ancient ‘homo sapiens’ …

  A Far Sunset

  The year is AD 2032 The Gloria Mundi, a starship built and manned by the new United States of Europe, touches down on the planet, Alatair Five. Disaster strikes, leaving only one apparent survivor – an Englishman named Paul Marlow, whose adventures in the lair of the strange primeval race known as the Bayani leads him firstly to their God, the omnipotent and omniscient Oruri, and eventually to an unlimited power that is so great it must include an in-built death sentence …

  INTRODUCTION

  from The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction

  Edmund Cooper (1926–1982) was a UK editor and author who served in the British Merchant Navy 1944–1945. His literary career began soon after; he edited Review Fifty (three issues, Winter 1950–Spring 1951), contributing poems, fiction and nonfiction to that journal, and began to publish stories of genre interest with ‘The Unicorn’ for Everybody’s in 1951. He produced a considerable amount of short fiction in the 1950s, much of it assembled (with considerable overlap) in his first three collections: Tomorrow’s Gift (1958), Voices in the Dark (1960) and Tomorrow Came (1963). Most of his short work came early, perhaps his best known story being ‘Invisible Boy’ (23 June 1956 Saturday Evening Post), which was the basis of the film The Invisible Boy (1957). For longer works, Cooper’s early pseudonyms included George Kinley, under which name he published his first sf novel, Ferry Rocket (1954), which speculated about Space Flight in near space; Martin Lester, the name he used for The Black Phoenix (1954), in which a Nazi cabal attempts to destabilize the Western world; and Broderick Quain. For the later Expendables sf adventure series, beginning with The Deathworms of Kratos (1975), he wrote as Richard Avery – the protagonist of an earlier novel under his own name, Transit (1964). From 1967 unti
l his death, he was an influential reviewer of sf for The Sunday Times in London.

  It was as a novelist, however, that Cooper was most highly regarded. Though it was for his earlier novels that he was most appreciated, the quality of his work held up until Prisoner of Fire (1974); his last novel, Merry Christmas, Ms Minerva! (1978), a Near Future tale set in a Britain dominated by trade unions, seemed less generous than his earlier speculations about the condition of the land. His first novels were clearly conceived within sf frames, but from the very first tended to focus in Satirical terms on the Near Future. His first novel under his own name, Deadly Image (1958; published as The Uncertain Midnight in the UK), vividly describes a post-holocaust world in which Androids are gradually threatening to supplant humankind; Cooper’s vision of humanity, here and elsewhere, is acid-edged, as is his abiding sense (typical of the satirical mind) that we are all too capable of creating monsters in the name of Utopia; its bleak depiction of this android-threatened world hints at an underlying lack of trust in progress, a distrust of the new technophilic post-War milieu that – though increasingly acceptable for later readers – helps explain his lack of a wide and faithful readership. Several years later, in The Overman Culture (1971), he reversed field, with the androids seen as morally exemplary. Other tales with a refreshing sharp bite include All Fools’ Day (1966) (see below), The Last Continent (1969), The Tenth Planet (1973) and The Cloud Walker (1973) (see below). These works incorporate, more or less fully, a basic premise that the planet has been rendered to a greater or lesser degree uninhabitable; a condition for which we must almost certainly take the blame.

  Several of his better novels are set off-Earth, and tend to be more sanguine. Seed of Light (1959) is a relatively weak Generation-Starship tale in which a small group manages to escape from a devastated Earth. Stronger examples include Transit (1964) and Sea-Horse in the Sky (1969), in both of which Aliens conduct experiments on humans sequestered on strange planets. The best of these books is almost certainly A Far Sunset (1967) (see below).

  There can be no real doubt that Cooper’s later work struggles against a sense that the world was not improving, and that the inmates were running the asylum. This sense, that somehow we did not prosper from the experience of World War Two, is not surprising in an author who came to manhood in England of the late 1940s, and whose constant return to the theme of nuclear war amplifies the anxieties of his generation. Though some critics, who accused him of being anti-Feminist, may have taken his satirical thrusts too literally, it remains the case that his statement about women in a man’s world – ‘Let them compete against men, they’ll see that they can’t make it’ – was perhaps injudicious in lacking a level playing field to test the hypothesis. A persistent edginess about women in power becomes explicit in Five to Twelve (1968) and Who Needs Men? (1972); but it would not be wise to suggest that this edginess did not also apply to men: there are no well-run worlds in Cooper’s universe. In his last successful novel, Prisoners of Fire (1974), a group of people endowed with Psi Powers focus their energies on the assassination of the British political elite; who seem to deserve this comeuppance. Cooper died with his reputation at an unfairly low ebb; he was a competent and prolific author who amply rewards his readers, and deserves to gain more.

  The three novels here selected argue strongly for Cooper’s rejuvenation as a significant voice in British sf, as one of the relatively small cadre of authors who bore World War Two, and its aftermath, in their bones. The Cloud Walker may be his most successful work, and was so received on publication. Two nuclear Holocausts have transformed England into a medievalized Ruined Earth, but the Luddite response of a new church – Cooper was consistently acidulous about organized Religion – is stupefyingly oppressive, and the young protagonist properly wins the day with an Invention which he uses to defend his village from assailants. This invention allows him to fly. The march of history resumes; progress is possible. In All Fools’ Day, Homo sapiens is murderously unbalanced by a change in solar radiation; the Near Future setting is rendered in vividly grim terms, and conveys as clearly as anything he wrote the characteristic Cooperian sense that given a chance we will fail in our duty to ourselves, our homes, our country, our world. The third novel here presented, A Far Sunset (1967), represents a welcome escape from the planet where we have behaved so badly. The protagonist has been stranded on a strange though seemingly Earthlike planet, where he is captured by Aliens, who demonstrate to him the narrowness of his human obsession with the benefits of Technology. These three novels are lessons in human nature. They are sharp-tongued, but winnowed with wit, and a love of story-telling. They are discoveries we should make.

  For a more detailed version of the above, see Edmund Cooper’s author entry in The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction: http://sf-encyclopedia.com/entry/cooper_edmund

  Some terms above are capitalised when they would not normally be so rendered; this indicates that the terms represent discrete entries in The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction.

  THE CLOUD WALKER

  From 1811 to 1812 the Luddites destroyed stocking frames, steam power looms, and shearing machines throughout Nottinghamshire, Derbyshire, Leicestershire and Yorkshire, and their rioting broke out again in 1816. They derived their name from Ned Ludd, an idiot boy of Leicestershire, who, it is said, unable to catch someone who had been tormenting him, destroyed some stocking frames in a fit of temper (1779).

  Everyman’s Encyclopaedia

  (1958 edition)

  PART ONE

  Earthbound

  1

  When Kieron was eight years old he was encouraged to spend much time in the company of his affianced bride, Petrina. Later, at the end of the age of innocence, they would not be permitted to be alone together until Kieron had attained his majority, had been released from his apprenticeship, and was thus able to fulfil his contractual obligations.

  Kieron was apprenticed to Hobart, the painter. Already, the boy was allowed to clean brushes and to help with the stretching of canvas and the grinding of pigment. When he was ten years old he would go to live with Hobart so that he could attend upon his master at all times. Kieron looked forward to this time and also dreaded it. He was anxious to discover the mysteries of painting, the laws of perspective, the laws of harmony and the laws of proper representation; but he did not really want to be a painter. He wanted to fly. He wanted to fly through the air like a bird. And that was heresy.

  He was old enough to understand about heresy, young enough not to be terrified by it. The dominie who taught him and the neddy who took care of his spiritual discipline had spent much time expounding the diabolical nature of unlawful machines. They had succeeded not in instilling Kieron with a proper dread of machines but only with a secret fascination. Even at the age of five, Kieron knew that some day he would have to construct an unlawful machine in order to fly like a bird.

  Petrina was nice – for a girl. She was the daughter of Sholto, the smith. Because Kieron was affianced to Petrina, he was allowed to watch Sholto at the forge. It was a great privilege. Some day, Kieron realised, he, too, would have to be able to work metal. He would have to be able to work metal to make the necessary parts for a flying machine. He asked many questions of Sholto. The smith, a huge, gentle man who took great pleasure in his work, saw no harm in talking to a small boy – especially one who was contracted to his daughter – and did not regard it as a breach of the oath of secrecy imposed by the Guild of Smiths. Soon Kieron had picked up a little of the lore of the tempering of steel, the fastening of plates by rivets, the shaping of helms, clasps, pikes, ploughshares.

  ‘Boy,’ Sholto would say good-naturedly, ‘you are nought but a loon, an idler. Your thoughts should be of draughting and colouring, not of beating metals to your will. Go now and think on how to hold a charred twig steady to your design, or Master Hobart will make your arse somewhat tender.’

  Kieron was discreet. He knew when the smith joked or was earnest; and he knew also that it was wise not to me
ntion his growing knowledge of the working of metals to anyone, and particularly his father.

  The days of childhood are both long and short. Kieron would rise with his family at first light and, like them, carry out mechanically the routine tasks that were necessary before the real work of the day could begin. He would collect shavings and waste wood from his father’s workshop for the fire, while his mother drew water from the well and set the porridge to boil, and while his father went out to seek game or to fell a tree to be stored against its seasoning. When the sun was its own width above the eastern rim of the world, the family would come together for breakfast. Porridge always, bread always, fat always, bacon sometimes, eggs sometimes – depending upon the state of the hens, the state of the pigs, the state of trade.

  After breakfast, Kieron, along with a score of other children in the hill reaches of the seigneurie, would go to the dominie’s house for an hour of instruction. After that, each boy would go to the house of his master, to serve at his apprenticeship until noon.

  Kieron was luckier than most boys. Hobart was prosperous, having found much favour in the eyes of Fitzalan, Lord of the Seigneurie of Arundel. Hobart was strong on portraiture, and Fitzalan of Arundel was a vain man with a vain wife and three vain daughters. He still hoped for a son; but the daughters alone were more than enough to keep Hobart tolerably employed.

  Hobart could afford to indulge Kieron, could afford to let the boy experiment with charcoal sticks and precious paper. Hobart had never married. Prosperous now, white-haired and lonely, he saw Kieron as the son he would have wished to beget had there been time. So the boy was indulged much and scolded little. Hobart discerned that he had a talent for line, but not as yet a great sense of colour. Well, perhaps it would come. Perhaps it would come. Hobart liked to think that his pictures and those of Kieron’s would eventually hang side by side in the great hall of the castle, collecting the dust and the dignity of centuries …

  The days of childhood are both long and short. In the afternoons, when Kieron had discharged his duties to Master Hobart, his time was his own. Such freedom was a luxury. It would end when he reached the age of ten and became a full apprentice. And after that, he realised, the freedom to do as he pleased would be gone from his life for ever. Unless he could change the destiny that had been chosen for him. He was young enough to believe that this was possible, old enough to realise that he would have to challenge established – almost sacred – traditions.