The Man Who Evolved

Edmond Hamilton The Man Who Evolved

Introduction

I've always found it fascinating how many of the early pulp authors crossed genres during their careers. Not in terms of of writing individual stories that fall neatly into a certain genre, as that was simply a mattter of survival. After all, word rates were not that high and if one could write a horror story and a detective story, and sell both, it meant added income. No, the type of croos genre writing I find of interest is the type that occurs within the body of a single story or serial novel. For example, some of the Jules de Grandin stories of Seabury Quinn cross genres. Although de Grandin battles the occult and supernatural, he often must piece together a series of clues to find the solution to his problem; much like the classic detective story. Similarly, one has only to look at the output of Lovecraft or C.A. Smith to see that some of their works are not just horror stories, but also contain elements of fantasy and science fiction alongside the supernatural. And then, of course, there is the story presented here, 'The Man Who Evolved.'

By 1931, Edmond Hamilton had been a full-time writer for five years and had proven himself in both the fields of science fiction and horror (for a full biography of Hamilton, please see The Monster-God of Mamurth). It is fascinating, however, that upon reading a bibliography of Hamilton's writings, to discover that some of his horror stories appeared in what we would assume to be science fiction publications and that some of his early science fiction even made its way into Weird Tales. And, in amongst all these stories (there is speculation there may be over 100, some under different pseudonymns) are some that subtly combine both genres to create stories that are science fiction, but with undertones of horror.

'The Man Who Evolved.' orginally appeared in the April, 1931 issue of Wonder Stories, which was a Hugo Gernsback publication. My guess would be that Hamilton may have targeted the story for Gernsback, since it has the trappings that would appeal to Gernsback's concept of 'scientifiction.' The story is based around protoplasm and evolution: two concepts that Darwin and his contemporaries had supported in the 19th century and were fairly well accepted as scientific fact at the time the story was written. There is also the addition of pseudo-science, another Gernsback device, in that cosmic rays are the catalyst for the events of the story. It is the undercurrent of horror, however, which makes the story stand out from the usual Gernsback fare. From the opening paragraph to the final events of the tale and the afterword, it is obvious that this is a story that crosses the genres smoothly and effortlessly, proving again that Hamilton was an accomplished author, regardless of what he was writing.

Bob Gay

August, 2006

Introduction © 2006 by Bob Gay

Story

There were three of us in Pollard's house on that night that I try vainly to forget. Dr. John Pollard himself, Hugh Dutton and I, Arthur Wright — we were the three. Pollard met that night a fate whose horror none could dream; Dutton has since that night inhabited a state institution reserved for the insane, and I alone am left to tell what happened.

It was on Pollard's invitation that Dutton and I went up to his isolated cottage. We three had been friends and room-mates at the New York Technical University. Our friendship was perhaps a little unusual, for Pollard was a number of years older than Dutton and myself and was different in temperament, being rather quieter by nature. He had followed an intensive course of biological studies, too, instead of the ordinary engineering courses Dutton and I had taken.

As Dutton and I drove northward along the Hudson on that afternoon, we found ourselves reviewing what we knew of Pollard's career. We had known of his taking his master's and doctor's degrees, and had heard of his work under Braun, the Vienna biologist whose theories had stirred up such turmoil. We had heard casually, too, that afterwards he had come back to plunge himself in private research at the country-house beside the Hudson he had inherited. But since then we had had no word from him and had been somewhat surprised to receive his telegrams inviting us to spend the weekend with him.

It was drawing into early-summer twilight when Dutton and I reached a small riverside village and were directed to Pollard's place, a mile or so beyond. We found it easily enough, a splendid old pegged-frame house that for a hundred-odd years had squatted on a low hill above the river. Its outbuildings were clustered around the big house like the chicks about some protecting hen.

Pollard himself came out to greet us. 'Why, you boys have grown up!' was his first exclamation. 'Here I've remembered you as Hughie and Art, the campus trouble-raisers, and you look as though you belong to business clubs and talk everlastingly about sales-resistance!'

'That's the sobering effect of commercial life,' Dutton explained, grinning. 'It hasn't touched you, you old oyster — you look the same as you did five years ago.'

He did, too, his lanky figure and slow smile and curiously thoughtful eyes having changed not a jot. Yet Pollard's bearing seemed to show some rather more than usual excitement and I commented on it.

'If I seem a little excited it's because this is a great day for me,' he answered.

'Well, you are in luck to get two fine fellows like Dutton and me to trail up to this hermitage of yours,' I began, but he shook his head smilingly.

'I don't refer to that. Art, though I'm mighty glad you've come. As for my hermitage, as you call it, don't say a word against it. I've been able to do work here I could never have done amid the distractions of a city laboratory.'

His eyes were alight. 'If you two knew what — but there, you'll hear it soon enough. Let's get inside — I suppose you're hungry?'

'Hungry — not I,' I assured him. 'I might devour half a steer or some trifle like that, but I have really no appetite for anything else today.'

'Same here,' Dutton said. 'I just pick at my food lately. Give me a few dozen sandwiches and a bucket of coffee and I consider it a full meal.'

'Well, we'll see what we can do to tempt your delicate appetites,' said Pollard, as we went inside.

We found his big house comfortable enough, with long, low-ceilinged rooms and broad windows looking riverward. After putting our bags in a bedroom, and while his housekeeper and cook prepared dinner. Pollard escorted us on a tour of inspection of the place. We were most interested in his laboratory.

It was a small wing he had added to the house, of frame construction outside to harmonize with the rest of the building, but inside offering a gleaming vista of white-tiled walls and polished instruments. A big cube-like structure of transparent metal surmounted by a huge metal cylinder resembling a monster vacuum tube, took up the room's center, and he showed us in an adjoining stone-floored room the dynamos and motors of his private power-plant. Night had fallen by the time we finished dinner, the meal having been prolonged by our reminiscences. The housekeeper and cook had gone. Pollard explaining that the servants did not sleep in the place. We sat smoking for a while in his living-room, Dutton looking appreciatively around at our comfortable surroundings.

'Your hermitage doesn't seem half-bad. Pollard,' he commented. 'I wouldn't mind this easy life for a while myself.'

'Easy life?' repeated Pollard. 'That's all you know about it, Hugh. The fact is that I've never worked so hard in my life as I've done up here in the last two years.'

'What in the world have you been working at?' I asked. 'Something so unholy you've had to keep it hidden here?'

A mad scheme