Submicroscopic

interior art for "Proof" by Paul Orban

 Ten years ago I came close to reading a science fiction novel by Hal Clement, but it was only recently that I finally read Needle. This is "hard" Sci Fi and the story begins with two alien spaceships crash-landing on Earth. The image shown to the right is from 7 years before the 1949 publication of Needle; this is an illustration from "Proof", a story by Clement that I discussed in my previous blog post. Both Needle and "Proof" are about strange alien life-forms that were imagined by Clement.

Not an Alien Invasion. I love science fiction stories about alien visitors who arrive on Earth and do something more interesting than run around like a crazed Dalek shouting "Exterminate!"

splash-down; interior art for
Needle by Paul Orban

Oops. I read the original version of Needle as published in the May and June 1949 issues of Astounding. Clement got off to a rather shaky start by depicting two super-technologically advanced space-faring aliens both being clumsy enough to crash on Earth and destroy their spacecraft. However, these aliens are shape-shifters, so I suppose forces powerful enough to damage your standard Acme X72 interstellar spaceship might only give these aliens a mild case of whiplash. Clement's 1942 story "Proof" featured aliens from inside the Sun who built their spaceships out of super-strong neutronium, but neutronium did not find its way into Needle.

cover by Paul Orban

Submicroscopic. What is special and memorable about the alien creatures in Clement's story Needle? The aliens in Needle only weigh a few pounds each and are small enough to fit completely inside a human. All of Part 1 concerns "Hunter", the alien that arrives on Earth and takes up residence inside the body of Robert, who is 15 years old. "Hunter" was hot on the trail of a criminal when their two spaceships both crash-landed on Earth. The story is called "Needle" because "Hunter" has no idea where the criminal is; he could now be living inside any large haystack animal.

Fictional Cell Biology. Although "Hunter" is small compared to a human, "he" has thousands of times more cells than are found in a human body. Each of the alien's cells is very small. Since this is 1949, we don't hear about molecules like DNA. 😒

interior alien art for Needle

What dominates the beginning of Needle is the fact that these aliens are shape-shifters. "Hunter" can magically form "his" cells into new assemblages that take on any needed form. Clement never describes how this is possible.

Junior detective Robert. "Hunter" quickly learns English and is soon communicating with Robert. "Hunter" can briefly inactivate cells in Robert's retina, creating dark zones in the shapes of letters (see the image shown to the left). "Hunter" can hear spoken words and when needed can construct its own eyes, but while inside Robert, "Hunter" makes use of sensory signals from Robert's retina. Soon enough, Robert knows the mission that "Hunter" is on and starts helping in the hunt for the alien criminal.

T4 virus -assembly of proteins

Viruslike Cells. At the start of part 2, readers learn that Robert's family lives on a "power island" where assorted carbon compounds are fed to bacteria that then produce "useful hydrocarbons". What other futuristic science was included in Needle? Clement advanced the theory that a virus is a large protein molecule and maybe you could make a complex organism by combining large numbers of viruses instead of large numbers of cells. When Needle was published, there was already evidence that DNA was a genetic molecule and some bacterial viruses were known to contain both protein and DNA. I like Clement's idea of imagining a fundamental building block of life that is smaller than an Earthly eukaryotic cell. However, the largest viruses are similar in size to the smallest cells, so the whole alien-with-virus-like-cells idea crumbled in Clement's hands. Now it is well-known that viruses need to use a host cell in order to replicate the viral nucleic acid, but Clement was not concerned with such details of virology in 1949.

in the Asimov Reality

 Why Should We Care? At the end of this blog post are some quotes from folks who reviewed Needle back in 1950, but one of the most detailed reviews of Needle is from 2020 by Mark R. Kelly. Kelly asked, "Why should we care?" and he seemed bothered by the fact that it does not really seem to matter if "Hunter" ever finds and punishes the alien fugitive that he is chasing. I think Kelly missed the whole point of Needle and he should read about MacGuffins.

Hard science fiction is a literature of ideas and a central idea of Needle is the issue of what I've called Hunter's ability to magically morph into new shapes or quickly grow a new organ like an eye upon demand. I'll admit, most readers don't care about the mechanism of Hunter's morphing; shape-shifters have long been featured in many fantasy stories where readers are expected to just accept the magic of morphing. However, as a hard science fiction story teller, Clement did not want magic in his story and he obviously gave a lot of thought to explaining the weird biology of his alien shape-shifters. 

from "Tachyon Rag" by Tim Sullivan

 Nanotechnology. In 1949, Clement was struggling to come to grips with the nano-scale components of living organisms. He seemingly had the concept of self-assembling proteins and so he ran with the idea of his aliens being composed of submicroscopic virus-like components that could magically assemble into any needed form. Sadly, Clement could not run very far with this glimmer of an idea. Later, in the 1977 issue of Unearth where Clement's story "Proof" was reprinted, Tim Sullivan "explained" his shape-shifting aliens with the concept of "cellular elasticity" (see the text excerpt, above, right), also known as "handwavium".

Figure 1. image source

During embryonic development, cells can transition from being part of a well-formed epithelial layer into migratory mesenchymal cells which upon reaching a particular destination can form a new tissue or organ. Tentacle-like axons can also grow through the tissues of a body to distant locations, but these kinds of cellular movement processes take a long time.  Clement's imagined morphing aliens could very rapidly reshape big collections of cells in their bodies. 

Odo

This kind of rapid body shape change might be possible with some sort of super high-speed molecular motors, perhaps similar to what are used to move pigment granules around in chromatophores (see Figure 1, above).

40 Years of Morphing Magic. We should never count on Hollywood to reveal any interesting fictional science. In the 1990s, Star Trek deployed the morphing Changelings who used magical "morphogenic enzymes" (another form of handwavium) to quickly change shape.

In the case of the fictional science in Needle, the major problem that I have trouble wrapping my mind around is the idea of quick conscious re-programming of cell behavior by a shape-shifter. Sadly, Clement tells readers very little about the nervous system of his aliens (see Figure 2, below).

Figure 2. alien communication

Speaking of viruses, "Hunter" admits that it is theoretically possible for a virus to harm "his" health. However, "Hunter" is depicted as a chemistry wizard who can almost instantly defeat adversaries such as the cells in Robert's immune system, so don't worry that "Hunter" will be driven out of Robert's body like a rejected tissue transplant.  

SPOILERS. Needle was crafted as a detective story, so if you want to read it without knowing the "thrilling conclusion" then stop reading here. 

In Part 2 of Needle, readers learn that back on their home planet (Allane), the "criminal" being tracked by "Hunter" previously killed several host organisms "for purely selfish reasons". 

in the Ekcolir Reality

 The Game is Afoot! Then, just when it seems like the "Hunter" is going to be forced to carry-out a laborious search through the bodies of every human on Earth (the titular "needle in a haystack"), the great detective "Hunter" deduces that it is none other than Robert's father who is now acting as host to the alien criminal. 

Keep your enemies close and your friends on Allane. Having located his crafty adversary, the "Hunter" extracts himself from Robert's body and pays a visit to dad's bedroom. Since this is 1949 and Clement was writing for kids, "Hunter" patiently waits outside mom & dad's room for a long time, until dad is finally asleep. "Hunter" quietly slips a probe tendril into dad and makes physical contact with some of the criminal's cells. This tentacular physical contact instantly allows the two aliens to have a conversation in which it is revealed that the "Hunter" is the "friend of Jenver" and the criminal is the "friend of Trang the Mathematician". Got that? There will be a test later. 😜

toasted alien

 Elementary, My Dear Friend of Trang. It was possible to determine that the criminal was inside dad because -WARNING, Major Spoiler- he had begun acting similar to Robert: unconcerned with activities that caused personal injury. The aliens reflexively repair small wounds in their hosts and the hosts start to feel invincible and display increasingly reckless behavior. 

Allane. Readers learn that the criminal nearly killed poor Trang during "experiments in personal control". The detective "Hunter" chastises the criminal for being foolish enough to try to escape: "You were foolish to flee Allane." After the detective "Hunter" is done bragging about about his own cleverness in finding the criminal, he slinks away, having to admit that he has no good way of extracting the criminal from the body of dear old dad.

Robert prepares to be punished

Robert tricks his father into thinking he is trapped in a burning building. Then when the flames threaten the criminal, it crawls out of dad's body. Robert then dumps oil on the alien and burns it up. 🔥

Casual Child Abuse. You might imagine that this is the time for Robert to reveal the existence of the aliens to everyone on Earth, but NO. The "Hunter" will secretly remain inside Robert. All ends well, Robert is cool with housing an alien inside his body, but Robert has one request: he wants the alien's help in protecting his tender skin from the whipping he will receive from dear old dad for his having started the fire.

cover art by Clyde Caldwell

 Bottom line. Can I recommend Needle for reading by science fiction fans in 2022? I feel obligated to issue one warning and mention one regret.

Warning. Needle was intentionally written for young readers by a school teacher. I always want to congratulate any writer who takes on the task of creating stories that will attract and please young readers. However, anyone over the age of 12 is probably going to feel a bit cramped by the constraints that Clement put on his own writing when he crafted Needle.

Regret. I believe that the science fiction genre needs a systematic way to preserve and update old stories. I'd hesitate to hand a copy of Needle to my own child because what Clement wrote about viruses back in the 1940s would only confuse a young person who is worried about Covid-19. Someone should publish a new edition of Needle with an introduction written by a cell biologist or possibly a microbiologist.

the view from 1950

Mystery. I absolutely adore the Sci Fi idea of submicroscopic probes, devices and endosymbionts hidden inside unsuspecting people, so I'm a complete sucker for a story like Needle. I'm also intrigued by how writers like Asimov and Clement sometimes intentionally mixed together elements of the detective/mystery story genre in a science fiction setting.

 Other views. Fred Pohl reviewed Needle in the May 1950 issue of Super Science Stories along with Isaac Asimov's Pebble in the Sky. Pohl labeled Needle as "... a first-rate detective story and fine fantasy reading". Pohl added, it "will keep you guessing all the way through, and won't let you down at the end."

A review in the July 1950 issue of Startling Stories had this to say about Needle: "the story becomes almost pure mystery and suspense, winding up in about as taut a few fatal minutes as any more orthodox story of crime, pursuit and punishment".

In the Ekcolir Reality. Original art
by Kelly Freas and Chesley Bonestell

In the November 1950 issue of Astounding, L. Sprague de Camp called Needle, "a good sound entertaining yarn".

In the August 1967 issue of Analog, P. Schuyler Miller described Needle as Clement's most popular novel. I wonder if that was based on actual book sales.

I like to imagine how science fiction stories could have turned out differently in alternate Realities like the Ekcolir Reality. I always suspect that there must be an interesting reason for the delay when a sequel comes after a long delay. Clement did not get around to publishing a sequel to Needle until 1978. After reading this commentary, I lost my interest in reading "Through the Eye of a Needle". If anyone knows what finally motivated Clement to write the sequel story, please let me know.

Part 3

 Related Reading: The comments on Needle, above, are part of a series of blog posts. Part 1 of this series: Clement's story "Proof".                 See Also: The Brains of Earth and award winning fantasy aliens

Next: Part 3 of this series, Needle in a haystack context

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