The Secret Sharer by Robert Silverberg

First published in 1987; published in a limited edition by Subterranean Press on February 29, 2024

It’s been years since I read Joseph Conrad’s novella, The Secret Sharer. I recall it as the story of a stowaway who is discovered and concealed by the young ship’s captain. The captain feels an affinity with the hidden passenger. Robert Silverberg borrowed the broad outline of Conrad’s plot as well as the title for his 1987 novella. Subterranean Press is issuing the novella as a signed limited edition that might make a nice gift for Silverberg fans. Readers who don’t want to buy a limited edition can probably scour used book stores to pick up the novella in a collection of Silverberg’s best stories, but those readers will miss out on some cool illustrations.

The young captain in Silverberg’s story is named Adam. He is in charge of a starship. The ship is relatively frail, as Adam’s body will be after a long time away from planetary gravity. Neither the ship nor the captain can venture too near a planet.

The ship carries cargo and passengers to various destinations, where they are met by sturdier ships that ferry people and goods between the planet and the ship. Some passengers travel between stars in sleep chambers, while others leave their body behind and travel as a “matrix” that will be transferred to a new body.

Shortly after Adam’s first voyage begins, a matrix detaches from the grid that holds it. The matrix tries to enter a sleeping passenger but the passenger awakens and, in a panic, destroys the equipment that is keeping his body alive.

The matrix then makes contact with Adam. After telling him a sad story, she gains his permission to enter his body via a jack that allows the captain to plug into the ship. The matrix is the consciousness of a woman named Leeleaine, although she prefers the name Vox.

The other crew members are superstitious about the prospect of a loose matrix floating around the ship, particularly one who killed a passenger. They make efforts to capture it, placing Vox and the captain at risk. Can Vox return to the grid? Can she stay in Adam without being detected? Whether Vox will survive is the central question that gives the story its dramatic tension.

Silverberg has a long history of writing touching science fiction stories that are based on characterization rather than technology. Adam and Vox grow close to each other as they share a body. Both feel like outsiders who instantly understand each other. Both feel an intense loneliness when they are separated. That makes the novella something of a tragic love story. Silverberg creates sympathy for both characters and at least some measure of suspense before the story reaches a fitting resolution.

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The Emperor and the Maula by Robert Silverberg

Published by Subterranean on September 30, 2017

Robert Silverberg’s introduction to The Emperor and the Maula explains the book’s origin. It began as a 30,000-word unfinished third of a projected novel (a space opera starring Scheherazade) that would be joined by contributions of equal length from two other writers to be named later. The book was never finished, so Silverberg cut his contribution down to 15,000 words and sold it to an anthology as a stand-alone story. This version is the 30,000-word story with the shorter story’s ending engrafted.

Silverberg gave the Scheherazade role to Laylah Walis, who crosses from Territorial Space into Imperial Space, an offense punishable by death. Laylah, an Earthborn woman, is immediately detained when she disembarks from the passenger ship that carried her to Harrar, the seat of the Imperial Government and homeworld of the Ansaaran. The bureaucrats who detain her are surprised that an alien from a backward planet like Earth has learned to speak their language. As a maula (a barbarian, unclean and uncivilized, a member of an inferior race), Laylah has desecrated the sacred world of Harrar by setting foot on it.

The bureaucrats, true to their civilized nature, engage in jurisdictional squabbles that delay Laylah’s execution. While they debate who should kill her and how it should be done, the story of the maula makes its way to the Emperor. He is fascinated to hear that this seemingly intelligent creature has willingly traveled to her certain death. He wants to know why, so he delays the execution and orders that the maula be brought to him. And so Laylah explains herself, night after night, leaving the Emperor with a cliffhanger at daybreak.

In the grand tradition of science fiction, Laylah praises humans, albeit slyly, quoting poetry and telling tales of fellowship, so that the Emperor will come to understand that humans, while primitive, are worthy inhabitants of the empire he rules. But Laylah also praises aliens. I think Silverberg was making the point that diversity is enriching, whether that consists of interacting with diverse alien races or with diverse human races. It’s hard to argue with that.

Silverberg laced this short novel with noteworthy observations about Ansaaran behavior. For instance, Ansaaran aristocrats feel that they are above the rules that govern society (because rules are meant to regulate the masses), while the lower castes feel that social order will be destroyed if rules are not rigidly enforced, not realizing that inflexible law and order benefits the higher castes to the detriment of the lower castes. Sounds a lot like America, doesn’t it?

Those are the things that make The Emperor and the Maula worth reading. Pretty much anything by Silverberg is worth reading, but The Emperor and the Maula is engaging and clever and, if it isn’t as complex as the Tales of the Arabian Knights, it is a worthy tribute.

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Project Pendulum by Robert Silverberg

Published by Byron Preiss in 1987

Project Pendulum is one of the Millennium series of books published by Byron Preiss. Each book dealt with a different science fiction theme. The subject of Project Pendulum is time travel. The story (really more of a novella or long short story than a novel) is reprinted in Cronos along with two more of Silverberg's time travel stories.

Eric Gabrielson is sent 5 minutes into the past while his twin brother Sean simultaneously moves 5 minutes into the future. Then Eric moves 50 minutes into the future while Sean moves 50 minutes into the past. The next swing of the pendulum sends them each 500 minutes in opposite directions; the swing after that moves them 5000 minutes, and so on. If this first experiment in time travel is successful, the brothers will explore 95 million years in each direction. Silverberg explains the basis for this time displacement in language that sounds reasonable enough to those of us who don't know a singularity from a tachyon particle. Eric doesn't understand it either; he's a paleontologist who is more interested in the past than the mechanics of the journey. Sean, on the other hand, is a physicist.

Each time jump for each brother comprises a chapter. There isn't much of a plot; the book consists of snippets of the past and future. Silverberg's depictions of the unspoiled past are rich with detail. The future scenarios are vividly described and wildly imaginative, although they aren't always explained. This makes sense, since Eric and Sean don't hang around long enough to get explanations of what they see, but it's nonetheless a source of minor frustration. The more significant drawback to telling a story through vignettes is that Eric and Sean are observers more than actors. They don't spend enough time in any era to allow a story to develop beyond their ride on the pendulum: they see this, they see that, they plunge into a sticky situation but are rescued by the next swing of the pendulum. It's an interesting ride and while there's a certain sweetness to the ending, the story is far from absorbing.

Byron Preiss (1953-2005) was known for his efforts to marry the printed text with visual art. The Millennium series furthered that ambition by pairing stories with illustrations. The black and white drawings in Project Pendulum are by the artist Moebius. They didn't excite me but I'm no art critic; all I can say is that there aren't many of them. The hardcover is printed on bright white, heavy, probably acid-free paper, so if you can find a copy, it should last a long time.

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