Pursuit

In Short

Lester Del Rey’s Pursuit is a fast-paced science fiction novella exploring the untamed reaches of the human mind. Columbia professor Wilbur Hawkes awakens with no memory of the past seven months, only to find himself hunted across New York City by mysterious pursuers armed with terrifying, reality-bending weapons. As Hawkes flees, he discovers that the force destroying everything around him is not an invading alien army, but his own unleashed subconscious powers. Written during science fiction's Golden Age, the story endures as a tight, high-concept chase thriller about identity, mental control, and latent human potential.

The Story

The narrative opens in terror as Wilbur Hawkes wakes up in his New York apartment from a nightmare of swimming through thick gelatin. He discovers a blank tape recorder, a mysterious lapse of seven months in his memory, and a sudden habit of smoking cigarettes—something he has never done before. Before he can process his amnesia, a thermite-like bomb incinerates his window frame, sending him fleeing into the streets.

He is immediately pursued by a mob led by a slim young man in gray tweeds driving an old-fashioned sedan. Hawkes scrambles through the city, broke and desperate, finding clues in his pockets—a notebook listing women's lipstick and a strange set of keys. He uses a key to enter a cheap, unfamiliar apartment on West End Avenue, finding it stocked with a mix of his belongings and female cosmetics. A copper-haired woman named Ellen Bennett (or Ibanez) arrives, claiming to know him from childhood. She drugs his coffee to force him to rest, leaving him deeply suspicious.

As Hawkes continues to run, the nightmare deepens. He witnesses a fat acquaintance, Professor Arthur Meinzer, suddenly disintegrate into a cloud of drifting smudged smoke after attempting to help him. Later, a telephone booth melts into a puddle of cold liquid in the middle of a call. Mysterious force fields and time distortions begin to ripple around Hawkes whenever he experiences intense fear or panic. He briefly jumps through time and space, witnessing double versions of himself and Ellen in the West End apartment.

When Ellen reveals she reported him to the FBI, Hawkes discovers he is the subject of a nationwide $100,000 reward. Soon after, he realizes the terrifying truth: there are no foreign spies or alien invaders hunting him. The pursuers—including the young man in gray, who turns out to be an FBI agent named Dan—are trying to protect the public from Hawkes himself.

Prior to his amnesia, Hawkes and Meinzer had successfully unlocked "psi factors"—godlike abilities to manipulate heat, radiation, space, and time. Attempting to suppress these wild talents, Hawkes had hypnotized and drugged himself to wipe his memory. However, the powers remained tied to his primitive subconscious mind (his id), reacting violently whenever he felt threatened. Trapped in a loop of self-fulfilling terror, his own defensive instincts were causing the catastrophes around him.

Cornered and unable even to commit suicide because his subconscious instantly heals his body, Hawkes faces the ultimate choice: master his mind or go insane. In a final burst of insight, he bridges the gap between his conscious intellect and his subconscious drives, bringing his immense psi powers under complete voluntary control. Ending the chase, he agrees to assist the government as a global resource, taking a ten-minute teleported honeymoon to Honolulu before stepping into his new role.

How It Unfolds

The voyage begins Wilbur Hawkes awakens in a dark room with a seven-month void in his memory and a tape recorder playing blank static. Seconds later, a searing thermal explosion destroys his apartment window, forcing him to flee into the New York night.

The shadow of pursuit Hunted by a slim young man in a gray sedan and an angry street mob, Hawkes navigates the city while completely destitute. He uses a key from his pocket to discover a hidden, run-down apartment where a woman named Ellen claims to be his childhood friend.

The vanishing men Hawkes seeks answers at the library and college, only to watch a contact, Professor Meinzer, disintegrate into dark smoke before his eyes. Shortly after, a payphone melts into a liquid puddle mid-conversation, proving that his pursuers possess incomprehensible technology.

The time loop closes Evading federal agents, Hawkes experiences bizarre space-time displacements that repeatedly drop him back into the West End apartment. He witnesses past and future iterations of himself, Ellen, and the FBI agents playing out the same confrontation in a temporal tangle.

The master of self Realizing that his own subconscious mind is generating the destructive psi phenomena, Hawkes faces his internal terror directly. He bridges his conscious mind with his id, instantly gaining total control over space and time.

The People

• Wilbur Hawkes: A former college professor who accidentally unlocks the latent "psi factor" in the human brain. Driven by a desperate need to survive, his initial cowardice and amnesia stem from his own attempts to suppress his terrifying power. By the end, he transforms from a panicked fugitive into a composed figure with total mastery over his conscious and subconscious self.
• Ellen Bennett (Ibanez): Hawkes' childhood friend and accomplice, who remains intensely loyal to him despite his erratic behavior and violent memory loss. She wants to keep Hawkes safe from government harm, standing by him through drugs, ropes, and temporal jumps, eventually becoming his wife.
• Dan: The slim young man in gray tweeds who relentlessly chases Hawkes across New York. Initially appearing as a sinister assassin, he is actually an FBI agent attempting to contain Hawkes' dangerous, uncontrolled powers without harming him.
• Professor Arthur Meinzer: A fellow researcher whose own unlocked subconscious drives result in a tragic, fatal loss of control, serving as a grim warning of what happens when latent mental powers overwhelm the psyche.

In Its Own Voice

"Fear cut through the unconscious mind of Wilbur Hawkes. With almost physical violence, it tightened his throat and knifed at his heart."

Hawkes wakes from a nightmare into an immediate reality of panic, setting the relentless pace of his flight through the city.

"The telephone melted slowly, dropping into a little cold puddle on the floor!"

During a desperate attempt to gather information, Hawkes experiences the terrifying, unpredictable manifestation of latent physical forces around him.

"It's the ultimate, absolute alien, all right--the back of a man's own mind. It's Freud's unconsciousness, or id."

Cornered by his pursuers, Hawkes finally grasps that the true threat is not an external enemy, but the raw, primitive drives of his own intellect.

What It's Really About

At its core, Pursuit explores the classic Freudian conflict between the civilized, rational mind and the primitive, unchecked impulses of the subconscious id. Lester Del Rey presents a narrative argument that human evolution is not merely a matter of unlocking greater intellectual power, but of achieving emotional maturity and self-integration. The central question asks what happens when human technology or mental evolution outpaces self-knowledge: without complete control over one's deepest fears and desires, immense power becomes inherently self-destructive.

Why Read It Today

Pursuit offers a lean, suspenseful reading experience that blends classic mid-century noir aesthetics with sci-fi paranoia. Fans of psychological thrillers, time-displacement plots, and Golden Age science fiction will appreciate Del Rey's punchy storytelling and clever twist on the "chase narrative."

The story moves at a breakneck speed, maintaining a claustrophobic sense of urgency throughout Hawkes' scramble across New York. Modern readers will easily recognize the tropes that influenced later sci-fi works regarding latent psychic powers and government cover-ups.

The narrative does reflect the conventions of its 1952 pulp origin. The prose relies on quick, dramatic beats, and the female lead's rapid shifts between being bound with cords and preparing breakfast reflect the period's standard melodrama. However, these elements do not diminish the novella's energetic narrative momentum. The core concept—that our worst enemy is the unexamined terror lurking within our own minds—remains as sharp and compelling today as it was when first published.