Ed Earl Repp (1901-1979) was a prolific Pulpster who wrote more Westerns than Science Fiction. (Some critics say it is hard to tell them apart.) He wrote some of his SF under the name Bradnor Buckner. He left the Pulps to write screenplays for Western movies.
But there was this one time, he wrote a Northern. “Under the North Pole” (Dynamic Science Stories, April-May 1939) is not your normal kind of tale of the man who has nothing, making it big in the Gold Rush or Labrador fisherman who wants vengeance for his murdered brother. Repp passes on those old chestnuts for another… the mad scientist!
The story begins with a Swedish fishing vessel at sea. The compass begins to act strangely. The needle doesn’t point north but south! The world is shocked by the event, hampering travel everywhere. After three hours the magnetic pole corrects itself. Only one man knows why. That is the tale we are about to read.
The main character of “Under the North Pole” is archaeologist and expedition leader, George Kane. George gets separated from his team, who were in the North to locate a lost tribe. The rumors proved false but Kane was disoriented during a snowstorm. Wandering by himself, he hasn’t long to live in the cold without heat or food.
That’s when George stumbles upon what looks like a well. It is actually an access tunnel with a long ladder. He descends the dark tunnel to find a fantastical laboratory under the ice. And who should be meet but the most beautiful girl he has ever seen! Because every mad scientist has a beautiful daughter.
Kane meets the four inhabitants of the icy cave: Sharon Cameron, trim and pretty; Henry Cameron, cruel with smoldering eyes of hate; tall, white-faced Villers; and stocky, bald and bearded Cahill, the professor’s assistants. Cameron draws a gun upon seeing George but never fires. After days of cold and starvation, Kane passes out.
The archaeologist awakens to find Sharon near by. She feeds him ham and eggs while the three men watch and question him. Professor Cameron explains that they are in the Arctic to extract oil. The gun was necessary because they have enemies. Kane knows the story of Henry Cameron, a scientist who invented a new way to refine steel. When his discoveries proved false, he had lost his fortune in reparations then disappeared.
George is given freedom to wander the main part of the cave but forbidden to enter a certain wing. He spends time getting to know Sharon and his new home. Sharon explains the cavern was cut by local Eskimos hired to do the job. Kane has his suspicions about the equipment he sees, suspecting the set up is not for refining oil.
Kane shaves and changes. Later he finds Sharon crying. She explains that she hates being up North with her father. She suspects she is only there to keep her quiet. She knows things and her father fears she will blab. The two decide they must leave and return to civilization. Sharon will prepare some food for their escape. George decides he must see the forbidden wing of the cave. He sneaks in and discovered a terrible secret: locked in the ice of the floor are a hundred dead men, the Eskimos who built the place, frozen in death.
Cameron finds Kane right away. Kane confronts him about the project. Cameron, like all villains, can’t help himself and brags about what he is doing. The entire project is designed to control the magnetic powers of the Earth, which Cameron will extort great wealth from the nations of the world if they want their compasses to work. Upon his death, he will destroy the magnetic pole forever, his revenge and legacy.
Kane is locked up in a small ice cell, awaiting his execution. When this time comes, he finds Sharon is also to be killed. (Nice dad!) But first Cameron will have them watch as he throws the switch that detonates the dynamite deep in the ground to affect the pole. Kane warns him not to but Cameron does it anyway.
The cavern begins to rumble, then crack. A gigantic fissure opens up between Kane and Sharon and the other three men. Cameron tries to jump it, almost makes it then falls to his death. Villiers and Cahill die under tons of falling ice. George and Sharon flee to the exit tunnel. They climb out into the Arctic air. There George finds the food that Sharon hid there for their escape. George explains that Cameron’s mistake was he had forgotten about the friction the explosion caused, making the ice melt and then collapse. The project is a failure. In three hours the pole will correct itself for good. (I guess Cameron was a crap scientist after all.) The couple have two days of travel to the nearest camp to get to know each other. Wedding bells are hinted at.
So ends the strange Northern of Ed Earl Repp. And the fact that I have never heard of this story isn’t particularly surprising. The plot was used by Edmond Hamilton (sans romance) about thirty times since 1926. The entire thing is predictable and tedious. Repp injects “Science stuff” in spots, worthy of a miniature Ray A. Palmer, making it only marginally Science Fiction. Even the Northern setting is coincidental rather than interesting. It could have been set in a mine in Colorado just as easily. The big pay off is the image M. Marchioni chose for the illustration, the hundred dead men in the ice.
