83. Once on Aranea
An impostor tale, in more ways than one. It’s one of Lafferty’s more straightforward science fictional space exploration tales—which is to say, not straightforward in the least, but at least trying harder to uphold the premise than “Snuffles” or “Ride a Tin Can.”
This is particularly true of the earliest version of the story, written in October 1961 and revised shortly thereafter at the direction of his agent, A.L. Fierst, whose specialty (to the debatable extent that he had one) was stories that hewed very close to genre standards. Many of these early stories, in fact—and especially a lot of the unpublished ones—were written on assignment from Fierst’s correspondence-course fiction class, as exercises in writing to a particular genre and market. His views of science fiction, in particular, were stuck firmly in the Golden Age glory days; the fact that he even bothered to send notes on “Once on Aranea” rather than returning it outright would seem to indicate that Lafferty was closer to the norm here than usual—and perhaps that this story represents him consciously trying to write to the form, rather than satirizing or burlesquing it, or transforming it utterly.
Even so, he can’t help making it a tale of metamorphosis, and not just for main character Scarble. One by one the men of the unit are left to scope out an alien planet and its lifeforms all by themselves; one by one they come back having experienced some sort of shattering experience—if they come back at all. It’s a process that extends likewise to the reader: exposure to the stuff of science fiction is dangerous, and it provokes changes in those who experience it, often for the worse.
The first version of the story, the Fierst version, ends at the point where Scarble is undergoing his change; the action remains firmly “on Aranea” with further outcome uncertain; perhaps this inconclusiveness is why neither of his early champions, Fred Pohl or Doc Lowndes, bought it. There’s a few other differences; in particular, Lafferty tips the surprise a little early by noting of the two-legged adolescent spiders that, due to their birth cauls, “sometimes it looks as though they arrive with space helmets”—but then, subtlety was never the story’s strong point. But much of the remaining framework was already in place: in particular, the beginnings of the Habitable or Hundred Worlds setting that will reach its fullness in works like Annals of Klepsis and Sindbad: The 13th Voyage, as well as the rush of religious imagery accompanying Scarble’s messianic metamorphosis, including the spiders singing choruses both of Hallelujah and Resurrection—Anastasis, even, a loaded word even by Lafferty standards—as well as Scarble eating of “the putrified mass” of his dog: an ersatz Eucharist.
(One rather less churchy aspect did get cut substantially: Scarble’s improvised ballad about dating a twelve-legged spider. See more below.)
Lafferty wouldn’t return to the story until 1965, when he substantially revised it in the middle of a big spree of rewrites, aiming to get some of his early unsold stories out the door. By this point, he was well-established as a science fiction writer, part of Pohl’s Galaxy-If-Worlds of Tomorrow stable. But it was Lowndes who ultimately bought the story—or, at least, reserved it; Lowndes’ magazines always operated on shoestring budgets, one step ahead of the creditors. This time, the creditors caught up, and the story reverted to Lafferty, where it would remain until folded into Strange Doings as the collection’s one previously unpublished tale.
The lengthy coda that Lafferty added to this story raises the stakes considerably. Now all the foregoing is just prelude to Scarble’s return to earth, where he acts as host for a vast spidery invasion force. What once was a simple if religiously charged alien metamorphosis now becomes a grand imposture: most obviously in the form of Scarble himself, now no longer human but rather “Emperor of the Dodecapod Spiders of Aranea, Prefect Extraordinary to the Aranea Spiders of the Dispersal, [and] Proconsul to the Spiders of Earth,” but also in its approach to science fiction. Before, the reader fed on the putrescence of science fiction only on the far-off planets that were its stock in trade. Now, that same reader is liable to take the infestation back into everyday earthly life, and to infect other peoples, or genres, with millions or billions of little ideas.
But in yet another guise, “Once on Aranea” is Lafferty celebrating the dispersal of his own ideas. In this reading, Lafferty is himself the spiders, luring in science fiction (or at least its agents, in the form of editors) to view his handiwork, and gently but firmly inducing them to metamorphose, before using them to infect the rest of humanity by propagating his works through their platforms. Where once he struggled to attract their attention, now he has several of them eager to spread his submissions—and, by the time Strange Doings came out, he was one of the most in-demand authors in the entire field. Sadly, it wouldn’t last much past that. But while it did, it was well worth a Hallelujah chorus, spider-sung or not.
In the revised manuscript and the published version, only one verse of Scarble’s ballad is given, as below:
“The Spaceman frolicked with his girl
Though all his friends could not abide her.
She was a pippin and a pearl,
She was a comely twelve-legged spider.”
Since this clearly is his intent, it would be appropriately left out in any subsequently published version. However, in the earlier draft version, the ballad continues a bit longer, and it seems a shame not to at least note it in passing:
Scarble sang badly, but he sang loud. That’s the main thing.
“He sat upon her twelve-kneed lap
And wished that it was even wider.
Let all be silent who, mayhap,
Have never loved a living spider.”
The spiders gave him the background beat with their chirping. His audience loved him, and there were millions of them.
“He’d glad explore her every side,
He’d get upon her back and rider her.
Amazing notion to bestride
A real dodeca-gated spider.”
Say, that Scarble could sing when he let himself go! He was one singing man!
“Embracing her below, above,
It seemed that he was quite insider her.
None knows topography of love
Who never loved a twelve-armed spider.”
Then there were some rather vulgar verses treating the idea of the topography of love and the mechanics of the thing in these unusual circumstances; and it ended with a ringing—
“With paler loves be they content
Who never had the love of Spider.”
Completed October 1961. Rewritten in December 1961, January 1965, and February 1966. Published and collected in Strange Doings, New York: Scribner’s, 1972.
Next entry: Another of Lafferty’s idiosyncratic mysteries, “Seven Story Dream”