The Call From Beyond by Clifford D. Simak
Frederick West flees Earth in a small ship, hiding from a government that has begun to suspect him of being a mutant. Circling Pluto's moon before pressing on to Pluto itself, he spots a strange pyramid of empty whisky bottles beside a space hut and lands to investigate. Inside he finds a filthy, half-mad, dying drunkard who introduces a repulsive pet creature named Annabelle and rambles about a "painting" on Pluto and a man named Louis. Before dying, the man gasps a warning: tell Louis that someday he'll "paint a wrong place." West discovers a watch identifying the dead man as Walter J. Darling, once a renowned biologist and member of a secret government commission sent to Pluto to develop hormones for controlled mutation of the human race — a mission that supposedly ended three years earlier in disaster, prompting Earth to ban the planet and post a space patrol around it. Realizing the disaster report was faked and men still live on Pluto, West sneaks past the patrol and lands at the commission's laboratory, taking Annabelle with him. He meets Burton Cartwright and Louis Nevin, the two survivors, along with physician James Belden. At dinner, West is horrified to meet "Rosie," a winged, moth-faced, telepathic creature who resembles the mysterious "White Singer" (called Stella) that Cartwright's group secretly sent to Earth, where she has become a wildly popular radio singer — secretly broadcasting alien thoughts to listeners who believe the ideas are their own. Nevin proudly shows West a painting of an idyllic landscape that seems eerily real, with fruit matching that on the dinner table. Alone later, Belden reveals to West that he suspects Darling secretly perfected a hormone formula far more valuable than Cartwright and Nevin's scheme, and that Nevin marooned Darling on the moon and sabotaged the escape ship to keep Belden from fleeing too. Before they can act, Rosie bursts in, having received Cartwright's telepathic command, and kills Belden. West shoots Rosie dead. Confronting Cartwright in the dark, West learns the truth: the painting is not art but a working device — a rupture in the fabric of the universe letting through creatures and knowledge from an alien "outside" world. Cartwright staged the original death broadcast to terrify Earth into banning Pluto, so the group could work in secrecy toward remaking human civilization through Stella's mind-broadcasts. Cartwright reveals Nevin gave a man named Langdon away as a "pet" to something monstrous from beyond. In a shootout West kills Cartwright, then sees Nevin himself trapped and screaming inside the painting's alien landscape; West destroys the device with his gun, sealing the rift. Alone in the wrecked laboratory with the dead and the alien vermin still lurking, West resolves to settle in as Pluto's sole occupant, protected by the very patrol blockade meant to keep others out. Remembering the group's joking "last man's club" bottle of whisky reserved for whoever survived alone, he drinks from it as a toast to the dead — only to discover it isn't whisky at all, but Darling's hidden hormone formula. He immediately feels his mind sharpen beyond human limits: perfect recall, expanded working memory, effortless understanding of any technical problem. He realizes Darling hid the formula in plain sight, in the one thing no one else would touch. With his enhanced mind, West instantly perceives the flaw that has kept the *Alpha Centauri*'s star drive from working. He raises the bottle in a final toast — "To the stars" — and drinks again.
By Clifford D. Simak · First published 1960 · Genre: Science Fiction, Fantasy, Adventure · 4 chapters · 13,880 words
First lines
_Alone, accursed, he set out on the long, dark voyage to the forbidden gateway to worlds beyond life itself -- restless forever with an ultimate knowledge, possessing which no man could die! _
The pyramid was built of bottles, hundreds of bottles that flashed and glinted as if with living fire, picking up and breaking up the misty light that filtered from the distant sun and still more distant stars.
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The Call From Beyond is listed on Textopian as a novel by Clifford D. Simak, dated 1960 CE.
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- Work type: Novel
- Author: Clifford D. Simak
- Date: 1960 CE
- Language: English
- Genres: Science Fiction, Fantasy, Adventure, Horror
- Length: 13,880 words
- Structure: 4 chapters, 454 paragraphs
- Reading fit: Easy (6th Grade)
Good citation fit
- Work identity for The Call From Beyond by Clifford D. Simak
- Canonical title URL and first readable passage URL
- Genre and topic classification from the Textopian catalog
- Readability and classroom-planning context
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Genres
- Science Fiction — The book features elements of advanced technology, alien creatures, and other planets - typical of the Science Fiction genre.
- Fantasy — The book includes elements of the magical and fantastical, i.e., the call from an unknown entity beyond the known world.
- Adventure — The plot presents a journey or quest that takes the characters to unfamiliar places, a common element in Adventure stories.
- Horror — The presence of supernatural forces and the creation of fear and suspense align it with the Horror genre.
Tags
science fiction · alien contact · telepathy · philosophy · humanity · cosmic exploration · time travel · parallel universes · mystery · adventure · technology · existentialism