Secret Unattainable by A. E. van Vogt

[ prose science fiction ]

Secret Unattainable by A. E. van Vogt (1942, 1952)
My rating: 3.8

van Vogt was one of the staple writers of the Golden Age of Science Fiction, in that period 1938 to the late 1950's when John Campbell, Jr was editor of Astounding Science Fiction (now Analog ; Campbell died in 1971, still editor of Analog). In today's era of mass market multi-media franchised science fiction (e.g., Star Trek), van Vogt is mostly unknown and long out of print. For a period of about 15 years van Vogt became dormant with his SF writing, coming back into the market about 1964 through the 1970's. van Vogt died in 2000.

I read this novella from the van Vogt anthology Away and Beyond (1952), an Avon paperback my father bought before I was born.

[July 21, 2009] Also in the 2003 NESFA Press van Vogt anthology, Transfinite.

Secret Unattainable is above average and survives the ravages of time, since it was published in 1942. I suspect van Vogt tweaked the dates in the story, for the anthology, since he correctly cites the end of the war in 1945 with the Russians occupying Berlin.

Secret Unattainable poses as a series of secret documents about the development of a Nazi super weapon in the years and months before Hitler decides to expand his conquest of Europe.

The SF device is nothing spectacular, basically being a portal through space-time that the Nazi's hope to use to harvest resources (oil, metal) for their conquest, and later to deliver their forces to points on the Earth.

A spectacular accident with the model machine reveal how it might become a weapon, as well as a doorway.

What raises the story above average is the paranoia that develops among the Gestapo and Himmler, since they suspect the machine's inventor may have a personal grudge against the Nazis who killed his brother in 1934 (was that Krystalnacht?), and might use the machine against the Fatherland. But he is the only person who understands the underlying science that makes the machine work, so the Gestapo has to use kid gloves while the machine is in development. The "documents" also suggest that Hitler decides to expand his occupation of Europe on the premature success of the test machine, in spite of the spectacular accident. The "documents" begin in 1937.

The final twist of the story is a very Campbell induced theme and speculation - that certain technologies may be dependent not only on the accurate science but the unique operator of that technology. The classic example of this is the weapon of the bow - in the hands of a skilled operator the bow performs differently than in the hands of a novice.

This story plays well with the paranoid concepts that there are post-war secret technologies now being suppressed by our (US) government.

It's fun and worth your read, if you can ever find it.

For useful author bibliographies look around Locus Mag Online.

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