Tag: 1966

The Assassination of John Fitzgerald Kennedy Considered as a Downhill Motor Race by J. G. Ballard

Posted on by Paul Fraser

The Assassination of John Fitzgerald Kennedy Considered as a Downhill Motor Race by J. G. Ballard (Ambit #29, 1966)1 does what the title promises:

Oswald was the starter.
From his window above the track he opened the race by firing the starting gun. It is believed that the first shot was not properly heard by all the drivers. In the following confusion Oswald fired the gun two more times, but the race was already under way.
Kennedy got off to a bad start.

The rest of this short piece provides a number of oblique observations about this historical event:

[It] has been suggested that the hostile local crowd, eager to see a win by the home driver Johnson, deliberately set out to stop [Kennedy] completing the race. Another theory maintains that the police guarding the track were in collusion with the starter, Oswald.

The final observation, “Who loaded the starting gun?”, is an effective finish.
I thought this was a striking piece when I first read it many years ago, but it is one that is bound to have less of an effect the second time around.
*** (Good). 700 words. Story link.

1. This piece (which was inspired by Alfred Jarry’s The Crucifixion Considered as an Uphill Bicycle Race) was reprinted in New Worlds #171, March 1967.

The Keys to December by Roger Zelazny

Posted on by Paul Fraser

The Keys to December by Roger Zelazny (New Worlds #165, August 1966)1 begins with the birth of Jarry Dark, a modified human who needs a specialised environment (in his case, a temperature of -50°C and gravity of 3.2 gees). When the planet for which he has been designed is destroyed by a supernova, his sponsoring company, General Mining, provide hermetically sealed environments for him and all the other genemods like him.
The rest of the first few pages sees Jarry and the other 28,000 of his kind form the December Club: they pool their money, Jarry makes even more for them on the markets, and they finally buy their own world and start terraforming it.
The next part of the story sees the 28,000 arrive on the planet and enter cold sleep, although small groups are rostered to stay awake for short periods to supervise the twenty World Change machines and their three thousand year task.
During Jarry and his wife Sanza’s first shift, they see the effect the changes are having on the planet’s wildlife:

One morning, as they watched, they saw one of the biped creatures of the iodine forests moving across the land. It fell several times, picked itself up, continued, fell once more, lay still.
“What is it doing this far from its home?” asked Sanza.
“Dying,” said Jarry. “Let’s go outside.”
They crossed a catwalk, descended to the first floor, donned their protective suits and departed the installation.
The creature had risen to its feet and was staggering once again. It was covered with a reddish down, had dark eyes and a long, wide nose, lacked a true forehead. It had four brief digits, clawed, upon each hand and foot.
When it saw them emerge from the Worldchange unit, it stopped and stared at them. Then it fell.
They moved to its side and studied it where it lay.
It continued to stare at them, its dark eyes wide, as it lay there shivering.
“It will die if we leave it here,” said Sanza.
“. . . And it will die if we take it inside,” said Jarry.
It raised a forelimb toward them, let it fall again. Its eyes narrowed, then closed.
Jarry reached out and touched it with the toe of his boot. There was no response.
“It’s dead,” he said.

Later, Sanza expresses doubts about what they are doing to the planet:

“It’s funny,” she said, “but the thought just occurred to me that we’re doing here what was done to us. They made us for Alyonal, and a nova took it away. These creatures came to life in this place, and we’re taking it away. We’re turning all of life on this planet into what we were on our former worlds—misfits.”
“The difference, however, is that we are taking our time,” said Jarry, “and giving them a chance to get used to the new conditions.”
“Still, I feel that all that—outside there”—she gestured toward the window—“is what this world is becoming: one big Deadland.”
“Deadland was here before we came. We haven’t created any new deserts.”
“All the animals are moving south. The trees are dying. When they get as far south as they can go and still the temperature drops and the air continues to burn in their lungs—then it will be all over for them.”
“By then they might have adapted. The trees are spreading, are developing thicker barks. Life will make it.”
“I wonder. . . .”

This conflict limns the rest of the story. After they do a solo shift each, they spend the next one together, and see that the planet’s life has started to adapt. They find strange signs outside their stations. Also, around the same time, one of the other watchers develops an alcohol equivalent which they use to celebrate the millennium.
On later shifts the atmosphere has changed enough for the pair to spend short periods outside, and they see further markings outside the stations, and dead animals that appear to have been left as offerings. This latter, which occurs around twelve hundred years in, leads Jarry and Sanza to suspect that the animals they know as Redforms are becoming intelligent.
When they subsequently visit the tribe of the creatures to investigate they see several of the creatures being attacked by a large bear-like creature. Jarry kills it with a laser, and then dismounts the sled to examine the Redforms, only to be attacked by a second bear he hasn’t noticed. After he recovers from the bear’s initial blow he stabs it in the throat with a knife. At the same time Sanza drives the sled into it and kills herself in the crash. As Jarry starts walking back to the station with her body one of the Redforms retrieves his knife from the body of the bear.
On his return he wakens the executive, and asks him what he should do with Sanza’s body, as none of them have yet died on this world. They suggest burial or cremation and, when Jarry chooses the latter, they let him borrow the large aircar: he takes her to a mountain top, gets airborne again, and uses the laser to level it—the “first pyre this world has seen.” Jarry then goes back into cold-sleep.
The next time Jarry wakes (spoiler) he reads a report stating that the Redforms will die out at the current rate of terraforming. Then, when he goes to visit the Redforms, he sees they now have fire and spears, and opposable digits on their hands (the rate of evolution is the story’s one weak point). After Jarry subsequently manages to learn how to speak to the Redforms, he wakens the executive committee once more, and asks for the project to be slowed down to give them a chance. When he fails to convince them, Jarry proposes waking the membership for a vote, but no-one seconds him. Later though, after he destroys two stations, they agree. To make sure he isn’t double crossed, Jarry tells them that he has trained the Redforms to use laser projectors to destroy the remaining stations if he does not visit by dawn. One of the committee members, after realising they are beaten, asks him a question:

“Why did you do it, Jarry?” he asked. “What are they to you that you would make your own people suffer for them?”
“Since you do not feel as I feel,” said Jarry, “my reasons would mean nothing to you. After all, they are only based upon my feelings, which are different than your own—for mine are based upon sorrow and loneliness. Try this one, though: I am their god. My form is to be found in their every camp. I am the Slayer of Bears from the Desert of the Dead. They have told my story for two and a half centuries, and I have been changed by it. I am powerful and wise and good, so far as they are concerned. In this capacity, I owe them some consideration. If I do not give them their lives, who will there be to honor me in snow and chant my story around the fires and cut for me the best portions of the woolly caterpillar? None, Turl. And these things are all that my life is worth now. Awaken the others. You have no choice.”
“Very well,” said Turl. “And if their decision should go against you?”
“Then I’ll retire, and you can be god,” said Jarry.

Jarry does not go back into cold sleep afterwards, and spends his remaining time with the tribe. The story is not explicit about whether or not he gets his way, although my suspicion is that he does.
This is a very good and emotionally affecting story, and it is probably one of favourite Zelazny pieces. I’d also note that it is a work that combines his stylistic prowess with a heavyweight theme—I often find his stories are often heavy on style and poetry and larger than life characters, but are sometimes light on content. In this case, I suspect the terraforming/extinction theme was influenced by the ecology movements of the time.
**** (Very Good). 8,900 words. Story link.

1. Because this was published in a British magazine it did not appear on that year’s Hugo or Nebula ballot, but did appear on the latter when it was subsequently reprinted in the Wolheim/Carr Best of the Year. The story should probably have one or the other awards, although Harlan Ellison’s Pretty Maggie Moneyeyes would have been strong competition.

The Sword Against the Stars by A. F. Hall

Posted on by Paul Fraser

The Sword Against the Stars by A. F. Hall1 (New Worlds #159, February 1966) begins pretty much as it goes on:

Dated the 42nd year of our exile
The earth this year is death and stinking rubble, a pall of broken glass and rusted, empty cans. The earth this year is a thousand blasted cities, bleak and broken skylines, skeletons of buildings connected with crazy paving. There are some parts of our city which still burn with sporadic fires; a water main bursts and somewhere a stray dog howls. The earth this year is scarred and seared to wasteland, a planetary ghetto where all that’s left is dying, crawling to its slow, inevitable ending. The earth this year is sick of a million plagues, gaunt famines and a mad child’s crying.  p. 101

This initially appears to be a post-nuclear holocaust tale but we later discover that the devastation is the result of an alien invasion. The rest of the story is mostly description, and there is very little incident: a “dust priest” turns up at the narrator’s settlement; the group go scavenging in a city; the narrator finds a sword (which prompts much speculation about why there are red jewels in the handle):

The seven rubies must represent the stars—but why are the stars red? The sun is made of gold and the moon is silver but the stars glow with an angry light. When I was very young I used to think that the stars were white diamonds scattered on black velvet, I would have made the stars out of diamonds if the sword had been mine. It was only the forger of the sword who knew better, he must have known that the stars were hostile and he set seven red stones in his sword, red for the colour of war. He chose red stones so that those who came after him should remember when they saw his warning—but we who came after, we forgot. How did he know?  p. 109

Although the description is well enough done, there is far too much of it: this makes for a dull piece.
* (Mediocre). 4,200 words.

1. This is Hall’s only SF story, according to ISFDB.

Temporary Resident by Philip E. High

Posted on by Paul Fraser

Temporary Resident by Philip E. High (New Worlds #159, February 1966) opens with a Terran representative called Savaran almost rammed by another car on a planet called Spheriol. Savaran continues his journey but, further down the road, he sees his own car being towed—it appears to have side impact damage. Matters become even odder when he arrives at his Embassy to find it staffed by people he doesn’t know. The next morning he wakes up to see a doctor standing by his bedside who explains that he is in “transition”, and is on another “plane of existence”.
Later he meets people from his life who he thought were long dead, and discusses Terran defence plans with one of them. At this point (spoiler) the story cuts to a Spheriol minister talking to a man called Detrick, who is explaining that Savaran’s experience is all a ruse (he is at a false location which is staffed with actors) set up to let them defeat the anti-interrogation brain psychographing he has undergone.
The final twist, which has Savaran turning up at the building where the Minister and Detrick are holding their meeting, sees Savarand fade out of existence after he arrives there. The Minister then reveals to Detrick that he is the one experiencing a plane of existence shift, but a real one, and not a pretence like Savaran. Or something like that—it’s one of those stories whose endings can lose you.
This doesn’t convince, and it’s essentially the same old Terran spy nonsense that had been appearing in the magazines for decades already. And a Phil Dick-ian twist at the end doesn’t improve it much.
* (Mediocre). 5,250 words.

Hi, Sancho! by Paul Jents

Posted on by Paul Fraser

Hi, Sancho! by Paul Jents (New Worlds #159, February 1966) starts with a fugitive in the future making a perilous crossing of one road (with high-speed traffic) to get to another, northbound, one that will take him to the city. After he manages to hitch a lift he ends up at an old flame’s house and, after a night with her, later ends up with a black man who wants to stage a bombing. Worried about the loss of innocent life, the fugitive hides the explosives and calls security.
The story then cuts to the fugitive’s interrogation, which involves a data dump about camps in Africa and a forced eugenics program. He escapes again, and takes the explosive back to the institution where he was being imprisoned. In the closing passage there is some reference to Don Quixote that I didn’t get (and the character thus named refers to the fugitive as Sancho).
This is fast-paced, readable stuff, but it seems little more than a series of random episodes linked together.
* (Mediocre). 4,650 words.

Entry from Earth by Daphne Castell

Posted on by Paul Fraser

Entry from Earth by Daphne Castell (New Worlds #159, February 1966) gets off to a colourful start at a music festival on the alien planet of Pigauron. After this setup, the story cuts to Lord D’aon Auwinawo, a visiting cultural minister from Tren who is bored with the event and returns to his tents, only to be unexpectedly visited by Mirilith tak, an Assistant Secretary for the Festival, and Slok, a bulldog-like alien. The latter is the “Personal Complainant” to another of the attendees, and is there with a grievance about the noise D’aon’s slaves are making by singing during the night.
D’aon stays awake that evening to listen to them, and then orders them entered into the festival where they are received politely. After their performance, D’aon talks to one the slaves about their history, and this reveals a pattern of enslavement. The story (spoiler) subsequently ends with them singing “The Rivers of Babylon” revealing them to be Jewish slaves captured from Earth.
This has a colourful start, and an okay idea, but you can see the end coming from a mile off, even without the foreshadowing.
** (Average). 3,050

A Two-Timer by David I. Masson

Posted on by Paul Fraser

A Two-Timer by David I. Masson (New Worlds #159, February 1966) is the second of five stories that he would produce for the magazine this year, and it begins with a man in 1637 noticing an unusual occurrence:

. . . I was standing, as it chanc’d, within the shade of a low Arch-way, where I could not easily be seen by any who shou’d pass that way, when I saw as it were a kind of Dazzle betwixt my Eyes and a Barn that stood across the Street. Anon this Appearance seem’d as ’twere to Thicken, and there stood a little space before the Barn a kind of a clos’d Chair, but without Poles, and of a Whiteish Colouring, and One that sate within it, peering out upon the World as if he fear’d for his life. Presently this Fellow turns to some thing before him in the Chair and moves his Hands about, then peeps he forth again as tho’ he fear’d a Plot was afoot to committ Murther upon his Person, and anon steps gingerly out of one Side, and creeps away down the Alley, looking much to right and to left. He had on him the most Outlandish Cloathes that ever I saw. Thinks I, ’tis maybe he, that filch’d my Goods last Night, when I had an ill Dream.  p. 6-7

The rest of the story continues in the same style (you soon get used to it) and sees the man watching take the machine and end up in 1966. Much of the first quarter of the story is taken up by his learning how to further operate the machine.
He soon finds that he has arrived in the ground floor flat of a modern building and, after one or two unproductive encounters with the neighbours (he can’t understand them), he tries to get out of the front door to investigate the outside world, but fails. He then learns that the machine can be made to move in space as well as time, and moves in stages to the middle of a road in nearby suburb. There he strikes up a conversation of sorts with a man washing his car, moves the machine to his driveway, and eventually accepts an invitation to stay with the man and his wife.
The next part of the story sees the traveller settle in with the couple, who later suggest that he go back in time to recover some of his possessions so he can sell them to fund his stay in the present. When he travels back to his own house he comes upon himself sleeping in bed—there is a strange shimmering motion over his face, and a strange attraction drawing him towards himself. He flees back to the present.
At this point in the story (about halfway) the traveller goes into town with his host to sell his belongings, and what was an interesting and novel time-travel piece becomes a more satirical and observational affair with a near-continual description of, and commentary on, what he sees and experiences. Some of this is tartly observed, and some of it is particularly affecting; I could quote pages of it:

You will wonder especially, what sort of People they were indeed, that I was fallen among; and tho’ it took many Weeks in the Learning, yet I shall make bold to take only as many Minutes, in the Telling it. They spoke much then, of the Insolence of Youth, which they thought new, but it seem’d to me, that there was nothing new but Wealth and Idleness, that feed this Insolence.  p. 28

But the Spring of this, is in the Wives, for these own no Man’s Controul, not even in Law, but manage all things equally with ’em, and take all manner of Work, as bold as Men (for they are as well school’d), and High and Low dress them selves in Finery, and leave their Children to bring them selves up (so that many run wild), and are fix’d upon Folly and Mancatching, as I saw from a Journal, made in Colours (and more like a great Quarto, then a Journal) that is printed for Women alone. They go bare-legg’d or with Legs cover’d in bright Stockings but marvellous fine, and closefitting ; and their Legs shewing immodestly above the Knee. In this Journal I saw all manner of sawcy Pictures.  p. 28

They have great Safety, in the Streets and in the Fields, so that Thefts and Violence to the meanest Person are the cause of News in the Courants; but they slaughter one another with their Cars for that they rowl by so fast, and altho’ they are safe from Invasion, by their Neighbour Nations in Europe, yet they are ever under the Sword of Damocles from a Destruction, out of the other End of the Earth, by these same Air-Craft, or from a kind of Artillery, that can shoot many Thousands of Leagues, and lay wast half a Countrey, where it’s Shot comes to ground, or so they wou’d have me believe.  p. 29

In their Punishments they have no Burnings, no Quarterings, no Whippings, Pilloryings, or Brandings, and they put up no Heads of Ill-doers. Their Hangings are but few, and are perform’d in secret; and there are those in the Government that wou’d bring in a Bill, to put a stop even to that, so that the worst Felon, shou’d escape with nothing worse, then a long Imprisonment.  p. 30

Yet do they have a sweeter and a quieter Living, than any we see. I saw few Persons diseas’d or distemper’d, or even crippled. The King’s Evil, Agues, Plagues and Small Pox, are all but gone. Not one of a Man’s Children die before they come of age, if you can believe me; and yet his House is never crowded, for they have found means, that their Women shall not Conceive, but when they will. This seem’d to me an Atheistical Invention, and one like to Ruin the People; yet they regard it as nothing, save only the Papists and a few others.  p. 29

Yet in truth they are a Staid, and Phlegmatick Folk, that will not easily laugh, or weep, or fly in a passion, and whether it be from their being so press’d together, or from the Sooty-ness of the Air, or from their great Hurrying to and from work, their Faces shew much Uncontent and Sowerness, and they regard little their Neighbours. All their Love, is reserv’d to those at Home, or their Mercy, to those far off; they receive many Pleas, for Money and Goods, that they may send, for ailing Persons, that they never knew, and for Creatures in Africa and the Indies, whom they never will see. Every Saturday little Children stand in the Streets, to give little Flags an Inch across, made of Paper, in return for Coyns, for such a Charity. As for their Hatred, ’tis altogether disarm’d, for none may carry a Sword, or Knife, a Pistol, or a Musquet, under Penalty, tho’ indeed there be Ruffians here and there, that do so in secret, but only that they may committ a Robbery impunedly upon a Bank, or a great Store of Goods, and so gain thousands of Pounds in a moment.  p. 31

In truth, this goes on for a little too long but, as I was reading it, it struck me as an excellent effort at reproducing the thoughts our ancestors might have about the current time. Normally in time travel stories we see people from our time go to the past or future and comment upon what they see, or we have people from the future come to our time—I can’t think of many time travel stories with this perspective shown in this one, and certainly not done as well.
The story ends (spoiler) with the narrator and the wife becoming close as they use the time machine together on short trips (initially to check the weekend weather). Later they are found on the bed kissing by the husband, and the narrator hastily departs for his own time. He arrives shortly after he left, and goes back to his house to stock up on things to sell in the future, but by the time he returns to the machine it is gone. This may be seen by some as a fairly perfunctory ending, but at the very least it provides the witty title.
A very good story, and one I’d have in my ‘Best Of’ for 1966 (probably along with last issue’s The Mouth of Hell).
**** (Very good). 15,700 words.

The Orbs by John Watney

Posted on by Paul Fraser

The Orbs by John Watney1 (New Worlds SF #159, February 1966) begins with the female narrator, Julia, telling of the appearance of huge floating “orbs,” (think of a much larger, longitudinal version of the spaceships in the movie Arrival) that appeared decades previously over certain parts of the Earth. After an initial period, where they provided better weather as well as a sense of general well-being for the humans below, they descended and sucked up all the people and other loose debris underneath them. This was repeated at intervals thereafter.
Julia’s tells of her grandfather’s memories of this day, and how one woman fell back down onto a tree, living long enough to describe what had happened to her:

“She screamed. ‘There’s no-one there,’ she said, ‘just cold invisible hands, taking your clothes off, hanging you upside down, and the water swishing at you from all sides. I slipped off the hook. I don’t know how. I lay in a sort of gutter. The water was swishing over me all the time. I could hardly breathe.
I was being pushed along by the water. The bodies were above. They were being split open like fish by invisible knives. Everything was falling down on top of me. The bodies swung away on the line. I fell down a chute’.”
The woman died. But there have always been a few survivors, and their accounts, incoherent though they have been, have always been much the same: the invisible hands and knives, the continuous water, the bodies swinging emptily away into the interior of the Orb. Of course, the accounts come only from the early days when the victims were not anaesthetised, when indeed no-one knew the rhythm of the Orbs and were not able to calculate in advance the exact moment they would descend in search of their prey.  p. 51

The final part of the story (spoiler) reveals that Julia has been selected as part of the next sacrificial group, and we learn of the system that developed after Earth’s initial failed resistance. The story closes with Julia’s calm participation in a sacrifice ceremony.
The weakest part of this is the alien abattoir part in the middle of the story, a silly idea that should probably have been left in the 1930’s pulp magazines. But the beginning of this is okay, as is the ending which describes human society’s adaptation (beauty contests are one of the ways the best are selected for the orbs). Julia’s dutiful acceptance of her fate is a particularly interesting (and novel) aspect of the story.
** (Average). 5,050 words.

1. This was John Watney’s only story, although it looks from his ISFDB page that he wrote a biography or book about Mervyn Peake (who may possibly have been his connection to Michael Moorcock, the editor of New Worlds).

The Deeps by Keith Roberts

Posted on by Paul Fraser

The Deeps by Keith Roberts (Orbit #1, 1966) begins with a short data dump that describes an over-populated future Earth where the cities have spread towards the coasts and moved under the seas.1 The rest of the story concerns two undersea residents, Mary Franklin and her daughter Jennifer,2 and begins with the teenager going to a party (“And for land’s sake child, put something on . . .”)
There is really not much plot after this (spoiler): we follow Jennifer to the party and get some description of the undersea colony before the narrative cuts back to her mother, who later becomes increasingly concerned when Jennifer doesn’t return on time, eventually going out to search for her. The story ends with both mother and daughter floating underwater above a deep, dark void, and her daughter telling her to listen to the sounds of the Deeps. Mary does so, and almost becomes hypnotised to the point she runs out of oxygen:

She could hear Jen calling but the voice was unimportant, remote. It was only when the girl swam to her, grabbed her shoulders and pointed at the gauges between her breasts that she withdrew from the half-trance. The thing below still called and thudded; Mary firmed reluctantly, found Jen’s hand in her own. She let herself float, Jen kicking slowly and laughing again delightedly, chuckling into her earphones. Their hair, swirling, touched and mingled; Mary looked back and down and knew suddenly her inner battle was over.
The sound, the thing she had heard or felt, there was no fear in it. Just a promise, weird and huge. The Sea People would go on now, pushing their domes lower and lower into night, fighting pressure and cold until all the seas of all the world were truly full; and the future, whatever it might be, would care for itself. Maybe one day the technicians would make a miracle and then they would flood the domes and the sea would be theirs to breathe. She tried to imagine Jen with the bright feathers of gills floating from her neck. She tightened her grip on her daughter’s hand and allowed herself to be towed, softly, through the darkness.  p. 191-192

Although there is not much in the way of a story here, the description of the settlement is pretty good, probably Arthur C. Clarke level stuff, and Roberts skilfully generates enough atmosphere and mood to make up for the not entirely convincing idea of sounds luring people to the Deeps (scattered through the text there are rumours about the phenomenon, and recalled conversations with Mary’s husband about how there may be a racial memory drawing humanity down there).
It’s an effectively  hypnotic story.
*** (Good). 7,000 words.

1. In his early period Roberts worked through a number of conventional SF themes before doing his own thing: alien invasion in his first novel, The Furies; psi powers in his third, The Inner Wheel, and in some short stories, Manipulation, The Worlds That Were; time travel in Escapism; androids in Synth; and post-nuclear holocausts in many others.

2. Roberts used the name Jennifer in another undersea story called The Jennifer, (Science Fantasy #70, March 1965) although that one is about Anita, a teenage witch, being taken by a mermaid to see a gigantic sea serpent. Still, it’s worth a look, if you can cope with Granny Thomson’s Northamptonshire accent (it gives them the vapours on one review site). His cover painting for that story appeared on another issue.

Kangaroo Court is by Virginia Kidd

Posted on by Paul Fraser

Kangaroo Court by Virginia Kidd1 (Orbit #1, 1966) starts off as a satire about bureaucracy with Tulliver Harms, the First Exec of the Middle Seaboard Armies, sidelining other branches of government so he can deal militarily with an alien landing on Earth. Then Wystan Godwin, the story’s main character, arrives after six months in a Tibetan lamasery oblivious to all of this. Most of the rest of the first part of the story concerns Godwin’s readjustment to society (he buys some depilatory cream to make his hairstyle conform with the times, etc.), and his gradual awareness that he is being kept in the dark:

Still serenely certain that somehow, somewhere, the traditional Liaison packet was on its traditional way to him, Wystan Godwin—lacking even the one or two bits of information that might have triggered an assessment of the true situation—sat and waited for a sheaf of papers to bring him up to date. As Harms had foreseen, he never even thought of demeaning his position by actively seeking data from anyone in the complex. The only man of status equal to his, Harms himself, never spoke directly to him. Their sole contact was via dispute protocol, a procedure as ritualized as the mating dance of the bower bird. Harms’ dictum of later swallowed up fourteen days.  p. 101

This wordy and slightly affected semi-satire swallows up about a third of the story, until the point where Godwin (after a peculiar dispute between Harms and a draughtsman) eventually gets his hands on the briefing documents concerning the aliens. Then the story switches to become a first contact piece, beginning with a data dump of several pages from the liaison packet.
These papers reveal that the aliens are called the Leloc, and they are intelligent marsupial creatures virtually identical to the kangaroos on Earth (we later find that the latter are a devolved colony of Leloc left behind millions of years ago). We also learn about Leloc technology in general, and their Hilbert space drive in particular, which apparently causes temporal distortions (initially, if I recall correctly, the Leloc think they have been away from Earth for six months, not millions of years).
The final part of the story sees Godwin meet the Leloc in their spaceship, where he has to quickly learn their strange movement and number customs (there is a lot of standing up and sitting down, and people and Leloc coming and going with chairs). When the Leloc later learn that Harms is threatening to attack the ship they refuse to go to Australia to meet their descendants, and say they’ll stand their ground. Matters eventually proceed (spoiler) to an ending where Harms is kidnapped by the Leloc, and the latter’s leader is deposed and left behind.
This very much feels like the work of an amateur or neo writer: apart from the fact that it seems to be two stories fused into one, and has a huge data dump in the middle, it is buried under far too many words. And, to be honest, a lot of the incident in the story is of little interest.
It’s not dreadful, but it’s far from being any good; why Knight thought it would be a good idea, after eight months of reading submissions, to devote almost a third of the anthology to this is a mystery.
* (Mediocre). 18,200 words.

1. Kidd was previously married to James Blish, and was better known and an agent and editor than a writer. Her ISFDB page is here, and her Wikipedia page here.