Space Monkey to the Rescue!

S.O.S. From Three Worlds

by Murray Leinster 
p. 1966 

In much the same way that I sit down with a bowl of homemade popcorn and a friend and watch cheesy disaster movies on SyFy, I anticipate reading old, pulpy science fiction novels from the fifties and sixties. I know they’re going to be corny and melodramatic and, at best, wildly inaccurate, given the limited expanse of knowledge available to writers at the time, but I also enjoy them for these same reasons. Often times, it can be exciting to see what the top minds of the decade were imagining the future to be like. And of course, the cheese factor is also pretty appealing.

It’s the latter that primarily attracted me to Murray Leinster’s S.O.S. From Three Worlds, which I had assumed was a single short novel, but turned out to be a collection of three short stories connected by the same core duo: Calhoun, the human ‘super medic’ from the intergalactic (but evidently short-staffed) Med Service, and his tormal companion, a little monkey-like alien named Murgatroyd—who pilot the Esclipus Twenty, a Med-Ship that tours the galaxy taking distress calls. Despite the fact that only one of the three emergencies Calhoun attends to in this book was an official call (the other two the Esclipus happens upon accidentally), the Med Service seems to be in dire need of employees. And who can blame them? Even paramedics in reality work in pairs and Calhoun’s expected to traverse the galaxy even in emergencies where no one wants his help. I thought that’s what the monkey was for, but then it turns out the tormals are only there because they famously don’t get sick, and are often used to create vaccines for illnesses. In fact, Murgatroyd isn’t even anthropomorphic, as I’d assumed, and can only communicate through a series of multi-toned ‘Chee-chee’s, like an intergalactic Pikachu. At first I thought maybe the monkey was talking in his own language and Calhoun was interpreting for the reader’s sake, but as the story wore on, it became evident that Murgatroyd’s understanding of human interaction was very much affected by whether or not they gave him snacks and coffee, and that he did not, in fact, understand a word they were saying. Knowing that Murgatroyd can understand only body language—and even then in a limited capacity—does not stop Calhoun from conversing with him as if her were an equal conversational contributor, or from interpreting various ‘chee’s as if they were complex analyses, without a hint of irony. For example:

“Chee,” [Murgatroyd] said shrilly.

“To be sure,” agreed Calhoun distastefully. “That is a very sage observation, Murgatroyd. Though I deplore the situation that calls for it. Someone’s bilged on us.”

Murgatroyd liked to think that he was carrying on a conversation. He said zestfully, “Chee-chee! Chee-chee-chee!”

“No doubt,” conceded Calhoun. “But this is a mess! Hop down and let me try to get out of it.”

I kept wondering at what point the book was going to acknowledge that Calhoun’s isolation from society had caused him to personify his animal companion to the point where he essentially began talking to himself... but it never did. In fact, in one of Calhoun and Murgatroyd’s missions, they encounter a planet with three segregated cities that are afraid to interact with one another for fear of contracting some long-ago sickness. Calhoun concludes that their fear is psychological and labels it “Crusoe condition”, brought on by long bouts of isolation and some primitive living situations... The irony is totally lost on him.

I really wish Leinster would have considered this psychological twist, but it would seem that is not the way of these stories. All three follow a pattern: the Esclipus Twenty happens upon a large disaster, Calhoun and Murgatroyd are the only ones who can help, there’s a complication, Calhoun thinks a lot and is kind of cocky in his diagnoses, and subsequently single-handedly solves massive problems of whole planets that no one else could figure out. It strains the bounds of believability, to have such an allegedly under-appreciated hero swoop in with a miracle revelation that any basic medical professional should be able to figure out, but the seventies always were kind of indulgent and exaggerated. I think the appeal in this story lies more in the fact that paramedics were uncommon, and kind of a novel idea back then, much less so today now that they are standard.

Since Leinster isn’t in the medical field himself, none of the emergencies are particularly complex, and since Calhoun is apparently a genius who is always right when everyone else doubts, there are no moral ambiguities for the reader to wade through either. I had [wrongly] assumed that the three emergencies would crop up at the same time, resulting in some tough calls for Calhoun based on immediacy and urgency, but since they were separate stories, that didn’t happen either. The result is that S.O.S. from Three Worlds is largely dull fiction, with very little real conflict or characterization. Calhoun is a dud, Murgatroyd is a chirping tool and the whole story is far more boring than “a man and a monkey-alien zoom around the galaxy solving medical crises!” should conceivably be. For shame! And I had such high hopes...