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Not long after Frances Deegan married
fellow fan and sf author, LeRoy Yerxa, she began writing and selling science
fiction stories, mostly under her maiden name, and science articles under her
married name. Between 1944 and 1952 (when as a widow she married publisher
William Hamling and turned her attention to editorial work), she produced
twenty-one stories and thirty-five articles. Yet in the years since her death
Frances Deegan Yerxa Hamling has become the Forgotten Woman of the golden age
of pulp science fiction. You won't
find her listed in The Encyclopedia of
Science Fiction, A Reader's Guide to Science Fiction, Pamela Sergeant's Women of
Wonder, Roger C. Schlobin's
comprehensive listing of women science fiction authors, Urania's Daughters, Alexei
and Cory Panshin's
The World Beyond the Hill, or David Hartwell's Dark
Descent. In fact the only place you will find Frances Deegan's name is in table of contents listings for old
science fiction magazines. Yet, at a time when only a few women were writing,
or reading, science fiction, Frances Deegan was one of the field's most popular authors, if the letter columns of
the period are to be believed.
Few of those who knew her are still alive
today, and very little in the way of personal information can be found about
her. Earl Kemp, an editor who worked for William Hamling over many years, in a
fanzine memoir remembered Frances Deegan as a "beautiful … strong-willed"
woman. After marrying Hamling, she worked very closely with her new husband on
his fledgling magazine ventures. According to Kemp, the couple worked
"side-by-side at matching desks … there were manuscripts and books and
magazines by the piles." To help get their publishing company started, she
would even "work the night shift at [their office] and do not only
editorial, but janitorial duties as well … anything to stretch the budget a little
further." Pulp writer Stuart J. Byrne, who met Frances when he wrote for Hamling's lamented sf digest magazine of the early 1950s,
Imagination, recalled "a smiling face that produced endless cups of
coffee."
That's
not much biographical information. But then, if the proof of the pudding is in
the eating, perhaps it's just a well
that so little is known about Frances (Deegan) Yerxa Hamilton. It allows her stores
to speak for themselves. And, as this first-ever collection of her work shows,
what stories they are! Set against backgrounds that are often rustic ("The
Radiant Rock"), peopled with characters who are decidedly not urban
("The Wizard of Blue Gap"), frequently humorous, with comic touches
in even the most straightforward scientific puzzle story ("The Third Bolt"),
they blazed new trails for science fiction when first written, and still stand
out as vigorous, idiosyncratic work even today, a half century after they were
written.
It is hoped that this collection will
introduce the work of this Forgotten Woman to new generations and help, in some
measure, to rescue her name and reputation from obscurity.
Â
Jean Marie Stine
2005
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THE SEARCH for Crimp Haggerty had been
going on for two years, when Bob Wren brought Crimp's
daughter Lala back from Venus. The girl
was half Venusian, with long purple eyes, a tiny nose, yellow skin and flowing
black hair. She had all the tricks and
manners of the yellow Venusians, but there was earthly intelligence there too,
beneath her shallow prattle and playful habits. It was that intelligence which made her
difficult to handle; besides which, she had inherited her father's gift for plain and fancy lying.
Wren was convinced she was Haggerty's
daughter, and if anybody could identify the old reprobate, Lala was that person. He had a hunch he knew where to look next for
Haggerty. The Intelligence Department
had followed leads which took them far and wide throughout the Solar system,
and added nothing good to Haggerty's reputation. The one place they had not looked was right
under their noses in the settlements around Central Spaceport on Earth. If Haggerty had managed to slip through
quarantine with faked papers, he would not find it so easy to slip out again. Regulations had tightened considerably since
his fast known visit to Earth some ten years before.
Although Crimp Haggerty was featured
prominently on all "wanted" lists, the local police had never found
the slightest hint of his presence.
Wren took Lala with him when he went to
make his preliminary report, but the Chief was not amused. Lala ran to his desk, leaned far over and
spit at him.
"Liar!" she shrilled. "You are not my father."
Wren grabbed her and gave her a hard
spank. She backed away, rubbing the place and smiling venomously.
"This man is the Chief," Wren
said. "You have offended him, and
you have offended me. Nobody said he was
your father, Now, you will be punished hard."
"Liar," she said softly, and
licked her lips.
"You have spoiled her," the Chief
accused grimly.
"Not I. She was like that when I caught
her. She's Haggerty's daughter, and
she's going to help me find him."
"Where?"
"Right here, I hope. He left Venus three years ago, bound for Mars
on the Centillion, which was on the triplanet run at the time. I think he left the ship here when she was
laid up for repairs, instead of completing the round trip. I couldn't find any evidence of his return to
Venus."
"What does she say?" the Chief
snapped.
"She keeps changing her story. She has inherited her father's tendency to
prevaricate ... with frills."
Lala had begun to primp and preen without
benefit of a mirror, and the Chief looked at her without pleasure. Brand Hickey was a solid, chunky man with a
keen, hard mind. As Chief of the ID, he
was seldom surprised and rarely pleased; but he was respected, not only by his
own men, but by every other government department.
"Maybe she's not even his
daughter," he growled, and shot a suspicious glance at Wren.
"I checked that," Wren said
stiffly. "And I also found more samples of the X-metal in the hut where
she was living. The bulk of the stuff is
consigned to you and ought to be delivered shortly, but she's- Come here, Lala."
She came at once, light-footed in soft
leather mocassins, and leaned against him affectionately. He lifted a silky black cord of braided hair
over her head, and she wailed and tried to scratch him. He held her off with an experienced grip, and tossed the ornament to the desk. A polished green
metal object hung from the hairbraid necklace. It looked like an irregular lump
of melted metal, with a loop formed by chance on one end through which the cord
was strung.
The Chief picked it up and hitched his
chair closer to the desk, turning it in his blunt fingers. He nodded his head slowly. "That's the stuff, all right. She know anything about it?"
"Aye me! Aye me!" Lala began to
wail in a chant which grew louder and shriller with each repetition.
Wren shook his head and held out his
hand. The ornament was quickly tossed
back to him, and he slipped it over Lala's head as she tried to bite him, but
the piercing chant stopped abruptly. She
whirled suddenly toward the Chief and he threw up his arms defensively, but
Wren caught her and backed her away out of range.
"I don't
think she knows where it came from. To
her, it's just a good luck charm
which her father brought her.
Apparently, she's fond of
him, so I'm counting on a
spontaneous reunion if he's anywhere
around here."
"You'll have your bands full taking
her through the dives where he's likely to be hanging out. He knows he's wanted on smuggling charges,
quite aside from our interest in the X-metal, and he certainly won't be
alone. You may have trouble proving his
identity, since he and his daughter are both practiced liars."
"I know." Wren nodded
thoughtfully, and glanced at Lala who was once more absorbed in her endless
primping. "That's the one thing
that keeps bothering me, why the Department is willing to go to so much trouble
and expense to find the guy, when he's such a big liar that nothing he says can
be relied upon, even after we get him."
"There's no doubt but what he went to
Vulcan on the only known expedition to that planet twenty years ago. There were three ships, and he was captain of
one. The other two were never heard
from, but he turned up again on Venus. What's more, he carried a letter from Captain
Blaylock to his wife, written on Vulcan, and mentioning the fact that our
subject had quarreled with the man leading the expedition and was
returning."
"Of course, that's no proof that the
X-metal came from Vulcan."
"'No," the Chief admitted. "We have nothing but subject's word for
that. He donated a good-sized hunk of
the stuff to old Cap Mulligan's museum, and that's how it was tagged. When Mulligan died, the stuff was all turned
over to the government, and some bright boy got curious about the chunk of
Vulcan and started running tests on it.
You know the rest."
Wren nodded.. "So now they want to see more of the
mysterious X-metal, but they don't want to send an expedition to Vulcan without
further proof. By the time they get
through hunting our guy, they'll have spent enough to outfit an expedition in
the first place."
"Not quite," the Chief said
dryly. "The reason subject is so
valuable is because the situation is so unusual. The planet Vulcan was discovered nearly a
thousand years ago, way back in the Twentieth Century, but except for that one
known expedition, it has never been visited.
Observatory reports show it to be without life of any kind, smoldering
with interior heat, and lashed by violent storms. As far as we can find out, our subject is the
only man alive who has been there and back.
All the rest of the crew of his expedition ship have died or vanished in
the past twenty years. Also, the X-metal
is not to be found anywhere else in the solar system. It was only by chance that its potential
value was discovered."
Wren shook his head and grimaced in
disbelief. "The facts don't hang
together, Chief. According to the lab
reports, the stuff is not pure metal, but a mysterious alloy, which should
indicate that it was produced by some form of intelligent life. But according to observatory reports, life on
Vulcan is impossible."
"There may have been life at some time
in the remote past. Although," the
Chief admitted, "that also seems impossible. The core of the planet is still dangerously
hot; it must have been much hotter in the past.
However, our speculations don't
count, and won't get us
anywhere. All we have
to do is follow orders. In this
case, the order came from the top, so let's
not question it out, loud. IT get you a
special permit for her, but you'll
have to take full responsibility. If she
gets loose, or causes any trouble, it'll
be on your head. Meanwhile, you'd better put her in detention and file your formal
report. And don't
spare the details. The Department doesn't look too good on this job, so do what you can to
help me convince them how tough it's
been, and bow thorough we've
been."
"I'll make it good," Wren
grinned. "I had to fight her whole
tribe to get this baby away from them.
And those samples of metal ought to be a big help. That makes the trail look hot, whether it is
or not."
"If it is," the Chief murmured,
"if you turn him up here, there'll be a nice bonus for you, Bob. The Department has had too many men tied up
for too long on this thing. The old
scoundrel is more slippery than a needle in a haystack. And in our case, we don't know which haystack
he's riding in." He flipped a thumb at Lala. "You better put her back together before
you take her out of here."
"Lala! Put your dress on," Wren said
sharply. She had taken it off, and was
trying to drape it around her lithe midsection, humming contentedly over the
task.
Wren started toward her, and she tried to
put it on upside down, giggling delightedly.
He finally got it pulled down over her head, his face reddening with the
effort as the Chief looked on sardonically.
"It doesn't pay to spoil them,"
the Chief remarked dryly.
"I don't
want to antagonize her," Wren explained somewhat sheepishly. "She'd be no help to me at all if I abused her."
"Well, she's your problem. You brought her here on your own
initiative. Don't blame the Department
if she cuts your throat."
"I won't!"
Wren said shortly. "Leave it on!"
he admonished the wriggling Lala.
"We're going out."
Her slim, lithe body was suddenly still,
she drew herself up with dignity, and walked to the door with regal grace. Suddenly, she whirled and spat an ugly name
at the Chief, adding, "Liar!
Thief!"
Unmoved, the Chief flipped a palm outward
in the universal gesture of rejection that said plainer than words, "Take
her away."
Wren took her, and not without some
difficulty, left her in detention. Her
wailing chant followed him down the corridor from a private cell as he left.
