Call me Joe

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"Call me Joe" (1957) is a science fiction story by Poul Anderson. It is concerned with an attempt to explore the surface of the planet Jupiter using remotely controlled artificial life-forms.

At the time the story was written, conditions on Jupiter was not well known, although measurements of the planet's mass had revealed that it must consist largely of gases. Call me Joe posits a surface at very low temperatures, so that ice is a hard solid and methane a liquid, where both native and human-created life can survive. However, based on observations from space probes it is believed (as of 2005) that the solid core of the planet is surrounded by regions of high pressure and temperature that would make life impossible on any terms.

The Science Fiction Writers of America selected "Call me Joe" for The Science Fiction Hall of Fame, Volume Two.

[edit] Plot summary

Joe is awakened in his den, where a pack of some kind of predator is attacking him. Using his great strength, and weapons made from sculpted ice, he kills the animals and, exultant, bays at the moon above him. A vital component shorts out, and Joe reverts to being a human, Ed Anglesey, wearing a special headset on a space station orbiting Jupiter. Anglesey furiously repairs the equipment to restore the connection.

It transpires that such equipment failures are happening more and more often. All technical attempts at repair have failed, and instead a psychologist, Cornelius, is brought to the station to determine if Anglesey himself is the problem.

Anglesey is confined to a wheelchair and bad-tempered. He dislikes all his colleagues and is disliked in return. He is allowed to stay on the station only because of the mental talents with which he uses the partly telepathic equipment that controls Joe. Cornelius conjectures that something in Anglesey's mind rejects or fears Jupiter, and the resulting feedback keeps destroying the delicate equipment.

Eventually Cornelius is allowed to share a session with Anglesey during an important part of the mission. A set of autonomous female Jovians, created to live on the surface, but with their own minds, is scheduled to land. Joe is to be the leader, and father, of a new race that will live on the planet. During this Cornelius becomes aware of a third mind – that of Joe himself. Anglesey's mind has been steadily transforming itself into Joe and shrinking in the process. Cornelius was looking at the problem from the wrong end – it was Joe's fear of leaving Jupiter that was causing the blowouts. Anglesey's existence is poor and constricted compared to Joe's, and the environment has shaped a personality that no longer wants to be human.

Seeing himself from Cornelius's perspective, Joe becomes fully self-aware. He ejects Cornelius from the loop and shuts down what is left of Anglesey.

Cornelius revives on the station next to the hollow shell of Anglesey's body. Far from being dismayed, Cornelius realizes that this is the way of the future. From now on people with diseased bodies and even the aged can be recruited for the Jovian program if they have the necessary talents. Eventually they will leave their bodies behind and become Jovians in the flesh, functioning as the priesthood of the new race.

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