C-Chute

by Isaac Asimov
first published in the pages of Galaxy Science Fiction, October 1951
novelette

In the midst of an interstellar war with an alien race, a merchant ship is boarded. It’s up to six civilian passengers to retake the vessel before it can be returned to the alien home world.

Unfortunately, personalities come into play and threaten to ruin what little hope they have left.

This is my second Asimov review, and also my first second review of any author. (My second review for this site was Asimov’s “ “Breeds There a Man…?” ”) I think it’s entirely fitting for one of the Big Three to claim this dubious honor.

Asimov didn’t write about aliens all that much. Humans? Of course. Robots? Plenty. But little green men weren’t really his thing. Well, this story has ’em, and while they’re green (to the point that one character calls them “damned green bastards” and “greenies”), I found the Kloros to be proof that ol’ Isaac could have written compelling, nuanced alien species if he had the inclination.

They are described both physiologically and, to a lesser extent, behaviorally. They breathe chlorine gas (poisonous to humans) and find O₂ extremely toxic. Their heads are empty sensory suites while their brains reside in their abdomens. As such, their necks are long and slender. This, combined with their triangular heads and a pair of hemispherical ocular orbs (I’m not quite willing to call them “eyeballs”), made me think of nothing else but the noble praying mantis.

Oh, and apologies to anyone who went total ick upon seeing the image I chose for this review. I do realize that some folks out there are bothered by the awesomer aspects of nature, and I feel sorry for them.

Seriously, check out those maxillae.

Anyway, despite being adequately realized and painstakingly described, humanity’s enemy the Kloros don’t really factor into the story in any essential way. A very similar story could have been told with space pirates or imperial troopers in place of aliens. Still, I enjoyed their inclusion.

The reason they weren’t essential to the story was that, primarily, this was a story about a group of prisoners coming to grips with what each of them was willing to lay down his life for. Yes, they were all men. No, there was no real reason for that to be the case other than “it was the fifties.”

The viewpoint character jumped around a few times but mostly stayed with John Stuart, the talker who had spent some time as a prisoner of the Kloros. The switches in viewpoint were easy to identify and well-used. In a story like this, where competing personalities are in the fore, being able to spend a little time inside different characters’ heads is an effective way to help the reader appreciate the brewing conflicts.

I don’t want to spend too many words on the plot, because this is one I’m not in the least hesitant about recommending. If you’d rather not read it, X Minus One did a fine job dramatizing it for radio back in ’56. (A warning: That last link will either open an autoplaying audio file or begin a download depending on your browser settings.) It’s a great way to spend about 29 minutes.

So that said, let’s move on to the tech talk. There was a fair bit in this story.

Force-fields (informally called screens) protect ships — even lightly-armed merchant vessels — from the generic “energy blasts” used in ship-to-ship combat.

A carbonizer is a weapon, possibly a sidearm, with the capability to reduce a human to a pair of charred ankles in a flash of light. It is implied that both races have these weapons.

A character has prosthetic hands made of a white substance called “artiplasm,” a type of latex. They don’t seem to have great grip strength, and they may be uncomfortable, but they seem to function well enough for most uses.

Space suits have magnetic boots that can hold them to the (apparently ferrous) hull, but floors within the ship are aluminum with cork carpeting. I found this to be an odd detail. I’d’ve been fine with something like “syntho-cork,” but I have to assume we’re talking about the real thing here. Cork is the bark of a tree. It’s crazy handy for all sorts of uses, but still. Spaceship. Blasters. Tree-bark accent rugs.

They really tie the hull together, man.

The titular C-chute is where the bodies go. It’s a specialized airlock (because regular ones aren’t sufficient?) for essentially burials at sea. Like at the end of Wrath of Khan.

Steam-tubes are used to download games to your PC exhaust ports for propulsive gas. Precious water is super-duper-heated to probably-plasma and vented at high speed in the opposite direction than you want to go. Then Newton happens. It’s how these ships make their fine maneuvers.

Coarse maneuvering is accomplished by more traditional thrusters. There is a preposterous mention of “the decelerative force,” which, if you do not immediately balk at that phrase, well. All I can tell you is Atomic Rockets is your friend.

Ships can Jump through use of “hyperatomics.” The power plant is an “atomic pile” (which we now call a nuclear reactor, but at the dawn of the nuclear age the term was literal).

The tech stuff is fun, but it’s never the star of this show. Asimov’s characters shine, even in the brief time he had to introduce them before rubbing them against each other until sparks flew. I’d say this story is definitely worth your time. Find a copy.

Or your headphones.