But Hansen’s story is more than just a clever synthesis of differing editorial ideas about good SF; it is also one of the earliest sympathetic treatments of the alien other. In an era when U.S. authors typically represented aliens as “quasi-humans … under threat from predatory monsters” or as “conquistadors” engaged in a Darwinian struggle for survival with all other species, Hansen’s alien adventurer is different (Killheffer and Stableford). While he is indeed a humanoid being with a tragic past, Hansen’s alien does not need to be rescued by humans; instead, he has set out on his current journey to save other races from suffering the same sad fate as his own. As such, he is a friendly teacher disseminating knowledge rather than an enemy warrior competing for scarce resources. This revised story of the encounter between the scientifically inclined, open-minded young human and the equally rational but tragically older and wiser alien would play itself out again in Hansen’s later SF science journalism, where contact between the young white scientist-adventurer and the older Indigenous shaman leads the former to reevaluate her assumptions about the latter—and, in turn, to generate new perspectives on the world as a whole.10

  “The Man from Space”

  Amazing Stories, February 1930

  “From the days of superstition, when the sudden appearance of a new star portended the birth of a great man or a terrible destruction by war and plague, up to the present time, when these phenomena are studied with telescope and spectroscope, the brilliant flashing bursts of novae continue to interest mankind.”

  Professor Kepling hesitated and glanced suspiciously over his class. It was a warm afternoon—languorously warm. I yawned and looked at my frat brother, Jim Turner. We had been to the same dance the night before and I was wondering if he would manage to fight off the tendency to go to sleep as well as I was doing so far. To my surprise Jim was leaning forward eagerly, drinking in every word. I remembered then that he was a sort of “bug” on astronomy, nursing a hopeless wish that he had been born a century or two later so that he might travel to other worlds. I shrugged my shoulders as the cultured voice of the gray-haired professor droned on.

  “History has recorded many instances of the appearance of novae, but the first one to be studied by a mind more scientifically than superstitiously inclined was observed by Tycho on the evening of November 11, 1572. It seems that in going toward his home on that night, the celebrated Danish astronomer saw people standing out in the streets, staring and pointing at the sky directly overhead, where he was astonished to see an unknown star of surpassing brilliance. The new star even outshone the planet Jupiter. In fact, there was not another star in the whole heavens that could be compared to it.

  “He had, of course, only imperfect instruments with which to study it, but with these he determined as best he could its exact location, and faithfully followed its subsequent changes. It kept on brightening until at last it even shone in the daytime. Finally, however, it began to fade, turning red as it did so. In March it disappeared from the interested astronomer’s searching sight and has never been seen since.”

  My eyelids were getting heavy. I jerked them open, determined to get the points of the lecture, for I knew by Jim’s fascinated stare that he would be “raring to go” for a good discussion as soon as the bell rang.

  “There have been others of less brilliance,” the well-modulated tones droned on, “but the next famous nova occurred on the evening of February 22, 1901. An amateur astronomer in Edinburgh was the first man to see the new star blazing in the constellation of Persei. He telegraphed the news over the world. Luckily, the heavens had been photographed on February 19th and the spot where the star now shone showed no trace in the photograph.

  “Within a few hours of its discovery, however, it was ablaze—outshining Capella and exceeding first magnitude. But like a terrible conflagration, it burned only a few days and then began to die away with a red glow, its light diminishing and then flaring up again spasmodically every few days, though none of these revivals equaled the splendor of the first outburst. Finally it died away to the ninth magnitude.

  “This time, however, there was a sequel to the story. Some six months later photographs showed that the star was now surrounded by a spiral nebula, which spread from it like an expanding wave. Four condensations seemed to gather in this fiery ring and revolve about its main nucleus of sun, but in time these condensations faded from sight and the nova became only a fairly nebulous star of less than ninth magnitude.”

  I caught myself nodding and straightened quickly. If only that man could speak more roughly, but the combination of late hours and a lulling voice was liable to get me yet …

  “The question naturally arises—how do these terrible conflagrations come about? In answer, several theories have been advanced. The first one proposed was that two suns traveling in opposite directions through the uncharted realms of space had collided. A direct head-on collision would of course be rather rare, though quite possible. But novae are not rare spectacles. Every year the telescope brings us the tale of more novae, even though most of them are at far too great a distance to be seen with the naked eye.

  “Let us suppose, however, that some of these suns, instead of actually colliding with each other, simply pass a little too close. Large bodies such as suns are extremely dangerous to each other. They have terrible tidal pulls. Suppose that each should come close enough for the tidal pull of the other to tear open its photospheric envelope. The result would be that the incandescent central masses would collide like two terrific clashing waves of fire.

  “A second theory, advanced by Seeliger of Munich, was that a collision between a blazing star or sun and a vast dark nebula or swarm of meteors—remnants of some destroyed system—would cause such a spectacle as a nova presents. This theory underwent modifications from others until it was finally proposed that a dark or burnt-out sun, plunging into a swarm of meteors, would have its dead surface heated to incandescence, and if the sun were of vast size, it would then appear as a new star.

  “A third theory supposed that a huge dark star had struck a sun surrounded by planets and that each successive rekindling of the blaze was the running down of a new unfortunate planet.

  “In a fourth theory, however, the French astronomer Janssen discards all collision theories and puts forward the idea of an explosion of the sun caused by chemical changes within the sun itself. If oxygen exists in the sun’s chromosphere, and we know that it does, then should the temperature tend to drop to a critical point, the combination of oxygen and hydrogen would cause a terrific explosion. We know that the temperature of our own sun keeps varying from day to day. It makes us shudder to think what would happen if our sun should be suddenly transformed into such a laboratory.”

  Jim was leaning forward with strained attention. I didn’t blame him. Those last words made me glance almost involuntarily at a shaft of sunlight, which was lazily streaming across the floor … The soft voice continued:

  “In any event we can imagine a terrific flash, blinding all human sight forever, and then within ten minutes a wave of all-enveloping flame …”

  I glanced back at the lazy yellow shaft of sunlight—but this time my eyelids drooped in spite of me as I heard the lulling voice droning on from a greater and greater distance. Finally I shook off the tendency to doze and opened my eyes. The first thing that they fell upon was the lazy shaft of sunlight. Somehow it looked different. I rubbed my eyes and stared again. There was certainly something queer about the color, but when I touched Jim’s sleeve, he only shook me off impatiently. I did not have long to puzzle over it, however, when the bell rang and Jim fairly leapt over the space between us, grabbing my arm and jerking me to my feet.

  “What a lecture! But what do you think caused the nebulous ring and the condensations?”

  “Don’t know,” I murmured as we pressed out past the other students into the hall. “But I do know that I was sleepy. I had to fairly fight myself, and that in spite of the interesting facts of the lecture.”

  “You would,” he laughed. “But what a sight that would be from a ringside seat.”

  “Might have an uncomfortable resemblance to those warm regions some of us are supposed to visit sometime without the wishing.”

  “But joking aside, Bob, that would put a sure and sudden end to our little planetary system, wouldn’t it?” he laughed.

  ‘‘By the way,” I remarked as casually as possible, “doesn’t the sun look a little peculiar?”

  Jim snorted.

  “So old Kepling has you worried?”

  “I mean it. I didn’t go to lab yesterday, so I’m asking you if there is some unusual atmospheric condition such as a big fire somewhere near that would cast an ash veil. It just looks—well—strange!”

  “Then the trouble is with your eyes. If you took a sip from Brown’s hip flask last night, I would advise you to lay off.”

  We walked the rest of the way toward the house in silence. I did not have a class for the rest of the day, but Jim, I remembered, had mentioned a quiz in calculus. Finally, on the porch, I touched his arm.

  “I suppose you will be studying instead of playing a set of tennis with me as usual?”

  “No, the quiz has been called off.”

  ‘‘Called off?”

  “Yep. Somebody stole the questions.”

  “Holy cats! Who’d be fool enough to do a thing like that? Somebody doesn’t care much about his diploma.”

  “Don’t know. Lots of things have been disappearing around the laboratories. Kenny says that it is a ghost.”

  “Well, he’s kind of nutty anyway. I suppose that he claims to have seen it?”

  “Yes, he did. He says that he came upon something silverish and shining the other day hanging over the botany microscopes, and that the thing, which he could see right through, just faded out when he came into the room.”

  “Well, whoever heard of a ghost taking up its residence in a scientific laboratory and stealing calculus questions? Evidently my eyes are not the only ones around this place that are in need of an examination!”

  It was well toward midnight that evening when I next saw Jim. Then he came bursting into my room with his eyes fairly popping out of his head.

  “You remember what I told you about the calculus questions?” he asked when he could get his breath.

  “Yeah,” I yawned.

  “Well, I can’t tell you about it, but you must come with me right away. Kepling’s in his office, waiting for you.”

  “Say, now listen. I don’t know anything about those questions. Besides that, I don’t take calculus.”

  “Oh dry up! No one is accusing you. Kepling isn’t a mathematician.”

  “All right,” I grinned with better humor, “I suppose it’s about the ghost then.”

  For all my teasing, however, the information that I could get out of Jim as to why Kepling had sent for me was extremely unsatisfactory. I simply had to smother my curiosity and follow my friend in silence as he made his way past the night watchman and through the darkened halls of the science building to where the lights shone through the transom of Kepling’s office.

  “Come in,” answered the cultured voice behind the door in response to Jim’s knock.

  “Did you see it again, Doc?” my friend’s voice inquired anxiously as he stepped through the doorway in front of me.

  The silver hair of Kepling’s head tossed in a negative answer as he turned around in the glow of the student lamp that streamed down upon him and motioned us to a seat.

  “Mr. Hunt,” looking from Jim’s anxious face to my puzzled one, “I asked Mr. Turner here to bring me his most trusted friend, but to give him no information as to why he had been summoned.”

  “He was mum all right,” I grunted, hardly realizing in that moment the great compliment that Jim had paid me.

  “He told me that he had already informed you about the strange presence which seems to have been hovering about this science building for some time.”

  I nodded silently.

  “He also told me that he had informed you about the main irregularities that have been discovered.”

  I nodded again, wondering what the man was driving at.

  “It was not until tonight that I saw the creature. In fact, we both saw it. Mr. Turner was discussing the subject of novae with me here at my desk—and in particular the most interesting Nova Persei. I had just been sketching the star with its nebula and the condensations, in illustrating what is to my belief a theory of planetary conception, when we were disturbed by the feeling that we were not alone. Glancing up, we were both somewhat startled to see a tall, shining, indescribable thing before us.

  “I put out my hand and touched it.

  “My fingers were resisted by a soft, damp, or clammy substance which moved away sharply under my hand as if that touch had hurt it, though the movement of my hand was exceedingly gentle.

  “It is my belief now that the creature would undoubtedly have tried to get into communication with us, if I had not taken the initiative. Instead, it faded from our astonished sight—leaving the room absolutely empty.”

  “But surely, sir, you do not believe …”

  “That it was a ghost? No. But I do believe that we are entertaining an extraterrestrial visitor.”

  “You mean,” I gasped, a thrill creeping coldly up my spine, “you mean a man from … space?”

  “Yes.”

  “But why?”

  “Because of the strange composition of the creature in the first place, its method of locomotion, and its ability to fade from sight. In the second place, I would say because of the interest which it takes in such things as microscopes, astronomy charts, calculus questions, and my poor drawings of Nova Persei.”

  I nodded slowly.

  “Cast here among the creatures of an unknown civilization, this being is just as cautious, as curious, and as half-frightened as we would be in similar circumstances.”

  “Did it look man-like?” I asked thoughtfully.

  “No. Not at all. But that does not mean that it lacks intelligence. Remember that we are entirely the product of our own planet, from our lung capacity to the pressure that we can bear upon our bodies. Then take note of all the types of life that this single Earth has evolved. We are forced to the conclusion that nature is very generous with her patterns. By the law of averages alone, we would probably search far among types of life on other planets for a pattern just like ours.”

  “Of course, I hadn’t thought of that.”

  “But let’s figure out a plan, Doc,” Jim’s voice put in impatiently.

  “Yes, what shall we do about it?” I asked. I was never very long on the arguments. That was Jim’s strong point. Mine was action. And here he was voicing my sentiments.

  “I have not outlined a very definite plan …” Kepling began.

  “Suppose Jim and I catch it!”

  The white hair tossed a quick negative.

  “Such a proceeding would not only destroy all the confidence which it has gained by watching us, but would be liable to be highly dangerous as well, because we do not know what weapons it might have.”

  I nodded regretfully. It was good advice, but I couldn’t help wishing that he hadn’t thought of that. “Besides,” he continued, “I have an odd feeling that this thing may know the secret of invisibility, thought-reading or possibly the fourth dimension. In fact, young gentlemen, when dealing with extraterrestrial intelligence we must expect to meet with something beyond or undiscovered by our present knowledge limit. For we are but the ignorant offspring of our own planet and once out of that pale we are adrift on an unknown sea.”

  “Then what shall we do?” I asked.

  “In view of the fact that this being was attracted by our little discussion of Nova Persei, I propose that we continue the talk and further it by more charts and drawings. Possibly this will bring him back.”

  “But after he gets here?’’ I persisted.

  “We will attempt to communicate with him.”

  I nodded slowly, noting that the doors were closed. Kepling had said something about the fourth dimension. I looked at Jim skeptically, but his eyes were on the old professor, and he seemed to have forgotten my presence utterly in that rapt mood, which I had seen come over him so often during an interesting lecture.

  “It won’t be hard for me to talk about Nova Persei, for that is one of my hobbies, just as novae are one of my special fields of research. Perhaps it will become more fixed in your mind if I point it out on our large chart, while the action of so doing may also serve the double purpose of attracting our strange visitor.”

  Adjusting his glasses, Kepling peered through some charts scattered over his desk and selected one of the largest, unrolling it slowly and running one thin, sensitive finger along the Milky Way.

  “Here it is in the constellation of Perseus,” he nodded, the finger stopping over a dot and then dropping back to another dot.

  “This is Argol. You remember my lecture on Argol, sometimes called the ‘Demon Sun’ because of the huge planet that eclipses its full light at regular intervals?”

  I nodded, recalling the interesting discussion that Jim had hurled at me right after that lecture.

  “The ancients thought, of course, that Argol winked—in fact …”