Synthetic Men Read online

  The Synthetic Men :

  Science Fiction from the Pulp Era,

  by Ed Earl Repp

  Tom's eBooks June 2021 (c, ebook) - 103,900 words

  Introduction, Tom Dean, (in) *

  PS's Feature Flash, (about the author) Planet Stories Fall 1940

  The Synthetic Men, (nv) Wonder Stories Dec. 1930 - 10678

  Song of Death, (ss) Amazing Stories November 1938 - 5799

  Martian Terror, (nv) Planet Stories Spring 1940 - 9983

  courtesy of Project Gutenberg

  Norris Tapley’s Sixth Sense, (ss/nv) Fantastic Adventures April 1940 - 7261

  Worlds at War, (nv) Fantastic Adventures May 1940 - 9662

  The World in the Atom, (nv) Fantastic Adventures June 1940 - 8908

  Buccaneer of the Star Seas, (nv) Planet Stories Fall 1940 - 10770

  courtesy of Project Gutenberg

  The Invisible World, (nv) Amazing Stories October 1940 - 10291

  The Day Time Stopped Moving, (ss) Amazing Stories Oct. 1940 {as by "Bradner Buckner"} - 5714

  courtesy of Project Gutenberg

  When Time Rolled Back, (ss) Comet May 1941 - 6622

  courtesy of Project Gutenberg

  Armageddon, 1948, (nv) Amazing Stories November 1941 - 12099

  Spawn of Jupiter, (nv) Amazing Stories March 1944 - 11599

  courtesy of Jerry's eBooks

  Obituary and Autobiographical Sketch, (ar) Starship Summer 1979

  Other Genre Books by Ed Earl Repp, (list)

  Introduction

  So here is (another) collection that we've put together from (yet another) author of science fiction who had precious few of them published in his own lifetime, Ed Earl Repp. As with many other authors, he came to our attention via Project Gutenberg: four stories and counting, although it seems clear that much of his other fiction probably falls in the Public Domain, as well. Perusal of his entry at the "FictionMags" bibliography shows an incredible output, particularly in the Western and Mystery/Suspense genres.

  Okay, now back to work on the next collection....

  Tom Dean

  June 2021

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  PS's Feature Flash

  FLASHING you the highlights on the men you’ve met in the preceding pages—those cosmic-minded writers and illustrators who help to nourish Planet Stories.

  IF it hadn’t been for the long-lamented crash of ’29, Ed Earl Repp, author of "Buccaneer of the Star Seas,” would very probably be unknown to these pages. Concerning the forces that pushed him into the writing game, Mr. Repp says:

  “The crash of ’29 changed the course of many lives into divers channels. When it happened, I was conducting a successful advertising and publicity business in Los Angeles, and almost overnight my accounts froze solid. Having a litereary background, and ability of sorts, I looked about for a new field for developing it.

  “Always more or less scientific mentally, although never having read a science-fiction magazine up to that time, I espied a fascinating cover one day, bought the book and read it. The contents intrigued me and were mighty good. The idea came to me that if other writers could profit by producing that kind of copy, so could I.

  “And so I salvaged a typewriter from my defunct agency, went to work and turned out the two part serial “The Radium Pool” which Hugo Gernsback, often referred to as the father of science-fiction, thought was good enough to justify purchase and an order for twenty-four stories a year from me for his brand-new WONDER STORIES and AIR WONDER STORIES.

  “So whatever the crash did for other people, it started me on a new and I hope permanent writing career. I’ve written fourteen books published here and abroad, and have written originals and screen plays for eighteen motion pictures for Warner Bros., Columbia, Universal and Republic. When I started writing I thought 1,000 words a day was a nice day’s work. But now my regular schedule calls for 3,000 words daily. That's a million a year of nearly all types of pulp fiction, western, fantasy, adventure, love, published under various by-lines. I’m 39, like to hunt and fish and have a swell time generally following a hobby of archaeology and paleontology.”

  **************************

  The Synthetic Men,

  by Ed Earl Repp

  Wonder Stories Dec. 1930

  Novelette - 10678 words

  THERE is no greater secret that our scientists would like to learn than how life was formed. In that secret may well lie the clue to the entire nature of the universe. We can guess that at some remote age, something happened to a bit of lifeless material—thru some strange circumstances that we have never seen duplicated—that gave this material life. That something happened millions of years ago and the thing it gave life to became no more than a one-celled animal. We are its descendants, with our millions of cells, in specialized groups, complicated beyond belief.

  What if a scientist by trial error, and experiment after experiment, should finally hit upon the secret and be able to make life synthetically—would it be a blessing or a curse? Mr. Repp has his own answer to this question in the present story of thrills and chills.

  For Generations They Labored to Create Man in His Image — But the Revolt Came!

  CHAPTER I

  GHOSTLY and weird was the laboratory in which Dr. Pontius labored from early morning until late at night on the delicate subject of life and all its intriguing mysteries. It would have been an excellent place for an exponent of black art or sorcery, and at this time the shadows of night had stolen into the room making it even more spectral. But the blackness was somewhat relieved by a single, frosted electric lamp that cast a pale, phosphorescent glow over a paper-littered desk in a dismal corner.

  Hanging along the wall on the right was a row of four human skeletons, complete and erect. On a massive shelf over these stood rows of colored bottles, each bearing a label identifying its contents. The shelf ran the entire distance around the room except where a lone door created a four-foot gap. Directly opposite the grisly human relics, and flanking Pontius' desk, rested two monster test-tubes of thick glass, large enough to accommodate the body of a full-sized man.

  Due to the murky gloom of the place, it would have been hard to determine, at a first glance, just what the tubes contained, because they were half-hidden in the enveloping shadows. But a close observer would have been appalled to behold that each tube contained the nude body of a man, seemingly at rest, in the thick-jelly-like fluid that the tube contained. And if one had turned on one of the green-looking globes that hung suspended above each tube he would have been amazed to see the man's body become transparent, so transparent and seemingly delicate that the internal organs could be seen functioning with the steady precision of a watch!

  Through the arteries of the bodies he would see coursing a peculiar pea-green fluid, that seemed to glow like liquid emeralds. In one body it flowed in a steady stream, but in the other it was sluggish and thick, gushing through the veins in quick, spasmodic jerks with each throb of a green heart that was located far up on the right side.

  It was easy to see that this latter creature was on the verge of death. But the first, his rather cruel, sharp features appearing peaceful and calm, seemed as normal as a man asleep on his feet. Both bodies erect, supported by the heavy fluid, faced the laboratory in a way that Dr. Pontius could glance at either of them from his desk.

  He was the son of the famous Edward Pontius, who in 1934 had startled the world with his discovery of the Q-Ray that he said was the wavelength of energy fundamental to the continuance of life. He had been besieged by the press, the government, and scientific societies to divulge his secret more fully, to tell from where this ray emanated and how it was produced. It was known that he had made some astounding experiments of the ef
fect of Q-Rays on animals.

  But Pontius refused to release his secret saying, "It is not ready for the world." And when he had passed on, his mantle was naturally worn by his son and scientific heir, the present Clifford Pontius.

  Close associates knew that young Clifford had been trained from earliest youth on the mysterious experiments of his father; and when old Edward had died, Clifford, then twenty-six, had hidden himself from the world to "carry on", as he called it. Now Clifford, at the age of seventy, was about to reap the fruits of sixty-five years of unremitting labor between father and son.

  A LITTLE less crusty than his father, he believed that the time had now come for the world, which had meanwhile forgotten him, to learn the result of his discoveries. As he now sat at his desk, wearily slumped in his chair from an all-night siege at his complete report, he awaited the arrival of a reporter whom his old friend Amesbury, editor of the Globe, was sending for the story. Pontius had chosen the Globe as his medium for the release of the secret to the world, because he knew he could trust the way Amesbury would handle it. There would be no sensationalism—just a simple recounting of the fact that with the fact that with the continual experimenting of sixty-five years, he had been able to produce two mature, living, thinking, synthetic men!

  Pontius looked up from his desk quickly at the sound of a muffled bell. He pressed a button on his desk, and a picture flashed on a little screen in front of him—showing a young man on the doorstep, hat in hand. "Who is it?" asked Pontius into a little tube near his face.

  The young man looked around startled. "Why—why, I'm Douglass of the Globe, wherever you are," he answered.

  Pontius pressed another button that controlled an automatic electric lock on the outer door and waited. Presently, he heard scraping feet in the hall outside the laboratory and went to the door.

  "Come right in, Douglass," he invited, peering through thick, octagon-shaped glasses at the rather tall but effeminate-looking young man who stood in the hall-way. "I have been waiting for you."

  "Thanks, Dr. Pontius," the reporter responded cheerily as he entered. "I'd have been on time but a traffic jam delayed me."

  Dr. Pontius grunted and slid into his swivel chair at the desk. Douglass sat down near him and glanced around the room. He was lean with dreamy eyes, but despite his effeminate appearance he seemed well able to take care of himself. Yet at the sight of the grinning skeletons and the synthetic men he gave a perceptible start. The scientist eyed him with a contemplating glance.

  "Don't like them, do you, young man?" he asked seriously.

  Douglass shuddered. "I always feel strange in the presence of human skeletons, Dr. Pontius; and these things", he added pointing to one of the creatures.

  "Quite natural," said the scientist. "Every living thing has some horror for skeletons of its kind. Even a dog will avoid its dead. But you don't feel that way about my children," he smiled nodding toward the figures in the test tubes.

  "They don't appear to annoy or bother you," the reporter commented. "Where did you get them—the skeletons?"

  Dr. Pontius settled back in his chair and filled his pipe with the same deliberate coolness that he performed the other act.

  "The first one is all that remains of 'Killer' Garth who was executed at Sing Sing five months ago," Pontius remarked casually.

  Douglass's eyes flashed and he squirmed uneasily in his chair as he regarded the designated skeleton. Pontius continued: "Number two was an unidentified laborer who was drowned six months ago at Camden, New Jersey. Note the curvature of the vertebrae at the neck—"

  "No thanks, Dr. Pontius," said Douglass, turning his head. "I've had enough. But why all the skeletons?"

  Pontius realized that Douglass was purposely avoiding the subject of the meeting—his two synthetic men. He snapped a tiny lighter into flame and ignited his pipe, contemplated the reporter silently for a moment and then blew out a cloud of smoke. With a nod he drew the young man's attention to the test tubes.

  "I am using them to obtain in the surrounding jelly a substance which I need for the making of my synthetic man." There, he had shot his bolt. He regarded Douglass' awe-struck face as he continued. "In other words, the skeletons will dissolve into my fluid until they are all gone. The fluid will be enriched by a substance necessary to the production of life."

  Douglass almost jumped out of his chair when he comprehended what the two test tubes in the shadow contained. He stared at them for fully five minutes before it dawned upon him that the contents were really living men. His handsome face went strangely pale and took on a ghostly appearance under the glow of the feeble lamp that scarcely touched the gloom enshrouding the tubes. So this was the mysterious story Amesbury had sent him for!

  But could it be true? He felt a shiver steal up his spine as he contemplated the grotesque creatures and turned quickly to see the scientist studying him intently.

  "I DON'T envy your job," Douglass said in a half whisper. "But do you mean that you can make new men; living, thinking men out of that green jelly and bones?"

  "Partly, yes," replied Pontius, sucking at his pipe. "The creation of life is no longer a mystery, at least to me, but the solution lies deeper than dead men's bones."

  "Of course," commented Douglass with a strange sense of reality. "Still, I think, if I were you, I would be afraid of the wrath of the Super Intelligence that created all life at the beginning. Synthetic creation of human life by man, it seems to me, is a violation of all the laws of God."

  Dr. Pontius shrugged. "The Super Intelligence is the mind, young man," he said bluntly. "All life originally evolved through the crystallization of a colloid. The idea that one creator made all things is a primitive superstition. At least that is my opinion and it is founded on two generations of research and experimentation in the realms of material physiology, by my father and myself."

  "You are an atheist, then?" Douglass inquired, amazed.

  Dr. Pontius' pipe had gone out. He scrutinized his guest with an amused look as he applied the lighter again.

  "I'm afraid my views on religion would be uninteresting to you, Douglass," he said simply. "It is a delicate subject to discuss and not injure the feelings of another; so let us get down to the business of your visit."

  Douglass' face brightened. He had discovered himself forming unkindly opinions of this old scientist for his seemingly dogmatic views. The idea that the Creator had made all things had been drilled into Douglass from childhood by devout parents and he resented anything to the contrary—despite his broad-mindedness. He was glad to change the subject, for he had no stomach for an argument with the scientist and, above all, he wanted the story.

  The reporter nodded. "Then you can proceed, Dr. Pontius," he said, taking a sheaf of folded foolscap from his inner pocket in preparation to take notes. "You need not deviate from scientific parlance. I am well schooled in science and will understand your terms quite amply. Biology has always fascinated me. I am glad of this opportunity to hear an expert discuss it."

  "That's fine," applauded Dr. Pontius with a mischievous grin. "I want you to get it right. Don't hesitate to interrupt if I get too deep for you."

  CHAPTER II

  The Story of Pontius

  FOR two solid hours the scientist's voice droned out in the dismal room. It seemed smothered and stifled by the closeness of the place. The reporter's pencil literally flew over his papers. Dr. Pontius talked steadily, touching many details of his discoveries. But he talked about it abstractly. He did not seem eager to have the world know that he, of all men, had been the first to solve the mysteries of life.

  If Douglass had thought himself well-schooled in science, he soon discovered that he was pitifully ignorant. Many times was he forced to interrupt the scientist for a simpler explanation of a detail. Dr. Pontius rallied to his aid on each occasion. Again and again he gestured toward the test tubes. Each time the reporter experienced chilling sensations running up and down his spinal column.

  The story that
Pontius told was, in effect, the history of two generations of unremitting devotion to an idea. Two men, father and son, following each other in the silence of this laboratory, watching over bits of microscopic material, that were finally to become men. Not perfect men. Pontius emphasized this fact to Douglass. And to illustrate it, he took the fascinated reporter in front of one of the bodies and switching on the globe suspended above, illuminated the internal structure of the creature. He showed Douglass that instead of having blood coursing through his veins, the creature had a green fluid that Pontius called, Xyone. And further, as a memento that the hand of the potter might occasionally shake, he showed that the synthetic man's heart was on the right side instead of the left. There were other differences, too, that set the synthetic man apart from our own flesh and blood, but these differences only served to Douglass to heighten the reality of this amazing creation. Leaving the creature who, seemed to be asleep in his enveloping green fluid, the two men returned to their seats and Pontius went on with his story.

  The original discovery that the elder Pontius had made was the creating of a single-celled organism from agar, a derivative of sea weed, that had been treated at various temperatures and in various solutions. It was all part of a preconceived idea of Edward Pontius that under the proper conditions animal life could be produced from plants. That was where the Q-Ray came in.

  Edward Pontius had experimented with the effect of cosmic rays on animal life, and found that they were fatal in large doses. So were the much longer radium rays and the still longer X- and ultra-violet rays. But each of these in proper doses was beneficial to life. Here indeed was the beginning of a puzzle that the giant mind of the elder Pontius could unravel. Might not one of these short wavelength radiations be the one that coming from outer space had caused plant life to change miraculously into animal protoplasm.