The Callistan Menace

Infobox Short story
name = The Callistan Menace
title_orig =
translator =
author = Isaac Asimov
country = United States
language = English
series =
genre = Science fiction short story
publication_type = Periodical
published_in = "Astonishing Stories"
publisher = Popular Publications
media_type = Print (Magazine, Hardback & Paperback)
pub_date = April 1940
english_pub_date =
preceded_by =
followed_by = "The Callistan Menace" is a science fiction short story by Isaac Asimov. It first appeared in the April 1940 issue of "Astonishing Stories" and was reprinted in the 1972 collection "The Early Asimov". It was the second story written by Asimov, and the oldest story of his still in existence.

Writing and publication

Asimov came up with the idea for the story, which he called "Stowaway", after his first meeting with John W. Campbell on 21 June 1938. When his first story, "Cosmic Corkscrew," was rejected by Campbell on the 23rd, Asimov started writing "Stowaway". He finished the first draft on the 28th, and the final draft on 10 July. He submitted "Stowaway" to Campbell in person during another visit on the 18th. Suspecting that Campbell would reject it, Asimov spent the subway ride home coming up with the plot for a third story, "Marooned Off Vesta".

Campbell did indeed reject "Stowaway", based on the story's "general air of amateurishness, constraint, forcing". On 3 August Asimov submitted the story to "Thrilling Wonder Stories". When "Thrilling Wonder" rejected it, Asimov mailed the story to the offices of "Amazing Stories" in Chicago, from whence it was rejected as well. In the summer of 1939, following the sale of some later stories, Asimov revised "Stowaway", retitled it "Magnetic Death", and again submitted it to "Thrilling Wonder" and "Amazing", and again it was rejected. Later that year, Asimov's friend Frederik Pohl became editor of two new magazines, "Astonishing Stories" and "Super Science Stories". He accepted "Magnetic Death" on 16 November 1939, and it finally appeared in the April 1940 issue of "Astonishing" under the title "The Callistan Menace". (Asimov once described Pohl as "an inveterate title-changer".)

Plot summary

The scoutship "Ceres" is assigned to explore the Jovian moon Callisto, outermost of the four Galilean moons. Seven previous ships had landed there over a 25-year period, and never been heard from again. Two crewmen discover a stowaway in the supply room, a thirteen-year-old boy named Stanley Fields. The crew adopts the stowaway as a mascot, even fixing him up with an antiquated rubber space suit.

When the "Ceres" lands on Callisto, the crew find a previous scoutship, the "Phobos", still intact. An inspection of the "Phobos" reveals it to be covered with dried slime, and the bodies of its crew are discovered. Soon a horde of four-foot-long slugs emerges from a nearby lake and approaches the "Phobos". Two of the "Ceres" crewmen are overcome by a mysterious affliction, and a third barely makes it back to the ship. The captain of the "Ceres" realizes that the slugs are using magnetic fields to stun the crewmen, amplified by their steel space suits. Fields volunteers to retrieve the unconscious crewmen in his rubber space suit. He brings the first back, but while retrieving the second he falls victim to an air leak and barely makes it back to the ship. Fields and the unconscious crewmen all survive, and "Ceres" safely departs Callisto.

Trivia

*The character Stanley Fields was named after Asimov's younger brother, Stanley Asimov.
*"The Callistan Menace" is the first Asimov story to mention a drink called Martian Jabra Water.