The Backward Look Read online

  The Backward Look

  Isaac Asimov

  Isaac Asimov

  The Backward Look

  "The Backward Look" was purchased by George Scithers, and appeared in the September 1979 issue of Asimov's, with an interior illustration by Jack Gaughan.

  A good case could be made for the proposition that the late Isaac Asimov was the most famous SF writer of the last half of the twentieth century. He was the author of almost five hundred books, including some of the best-known novels in the genre (I, Robot and the Foundation trilogy, for example); his last several novels kept him solidly on the nationwide bestseller lists throughout the 80s; he won two Nebulas and two Hugos, plus the prestigious Grandmaster Nebula; he wrote an enormous number of nonfiction books on a bewilderingly large range of topics, everything from the Bible to Shakespeare, and his many books on scientific matters made him perhaps the best-known scientific popularizer of our time; his nonfiction articles appeared everywhere from Omni to TV Guide; he was one of the most sought-after speakers in the country, and appeared on most of the late-night and afternoon talk shows of his day, and even did television commercials-and he was also the only SF writer famous enough to have had an SFmagazine named after him, Asimov's Science Fiction magazine. A mere sampling ofAsimov's other books, even restricting ourselves to science fiction alone, would include The Stars Like Dust, The Currents of Space, The Gods Themselves, Foundation's Edge, The Robots of Dawn, Robots and Empire, Foundation's Earth, and two expansions of famous Asimov short stories into novel form, The Ugly Little Boy and Nightfall, written in collaboration with Robert Silverberg. His most recent fiction titles include the novel Forward the Foundation, and the posthumous collections Gold and Fantasy.

  Asimov was almost as well-known in the mystery field as he was in SF, for novels such as Murder at the ABA as well as for the long-running series of stories about that club of suave amateur investigators, The Black Widowers. He was also one of the most successful practitioners of the art of blending SF and mystery, with his series of stories about SF armchair detective Wendell Urth, as well as what are perhaps still the two most successful hybrid SF/mys-tery novels ever written, The Caves of Steel and The Naked Sun, featuring the robot detective R. Daneel Olivaw.

  Here he shows us once again the truth of that old saying, Don't look back-you don't know what may be gaining on you…

  If Emmanuel Rubin knew how not to be didactic, he never exercised that knowledge.

  "When you write a short story," he said, "you had better know the ending first. The end of a story is only the end to a reader. To a writer, it's the beginning. If you don't know exactly where you're going every minute that you're writing, you'll never get there-or anywhere."

  Thomas Trumbull's young guest at this particular monthly banquet of the Black Widowers seemed all eyes as he watched Rubin's straggly gray beard quiver and his thick-lensed glasses glint; and all ears as he listened to Rubin's firm, de-cibelic voice.

  The guest himself was clearly in the early twenties, quite thin, with a somewhat bulging forehead and a rather diminutive chin. His clothing almost glistened in its freshness, as though he had broken out a brand-new costume for the great occasion. His name was Milton Peterborough.

  He said, a small quiver in his voice, "Does that mean you have to write an outline, Mr. Rubin?"

  "No," said Rubin, emphatically. "You can if you want to, but I never do. You don't have to know the exact road you're going to take. You have to know your destination, that's all. Once that's the case, any road will take you there. As you write you are continually looking backward from that known destination, and it's that backward look that guides you."

  Mario Gonzalo, who was quickly and carefully drawing a caricature of the guest, making his eyes incredibly large and filling them with a childlike innocence, said, "Come on, Manny, that sort of tight plotting might fit your cockamamie mysteries, but a real writer deals with character, doesn't he? He creates people; and they behave in accordance with their characters; and that guides the story, probably to the surprise of the author."

  Rubin turned slowly and said, "If you're talking about long, invertebrate novels, Mario-assuming you're talking about anything at all-it's possible for an experienced or gifted writer to meander along and produce something passable. But you can always tell the I-don't-know-where-I'm-going-but-I'm-going book. Even if you forgive it its amorphous character for the sake of its virtues, you have to forgive it, and that's a strain and a drawback. A tightly-plotted story with everything fitting together neatly is, on the other hand, the noblest work of literature. It may be bad, but it never need ask forgiveness. The backward look-"

  At the other end of the room, Geoffrey Avalon glanced with resignation at Rubin and said, "I think it was a mistake, Tom, to tell Manny at the start that the young man was an aspiring writer. It brings out the worst in him, or-at any rate-the longest winded." He stirred the ice in his drink with his forefinger and brought his dark eyebrows together forbiddingly.

  "Actually," said Thomas Trumbull, his lined face uncharacteristically placid, ' 'the kid wanted to meet Manny. He admired his stories, God knows why. Well, he's the son of a friend of mine and a nice youngster and I thought I'd expose him to the seamy side of life by bringing him here."

  Avalon said, "It won't hurt us to be exposed to youth now and then, either. But I hate being exposed to Rubin's theories of literature.-Henry."

  The quiet and smoothly efficient waiter, who served at all the Black Widowers' banquets, was at his side at once without seeming to have moved in order to have achieved that. ' 'Yes, sir?"

  "Henry," said Avalon, "what are these strange manifestations?' '

  Henry said, "Tonight we will have a buffet dinner. The chef has prepared a variety of Indian and Pakistani dishes."

  "With curry?"

  "Rather heavy on the curry, sir. It was Mr. Trumbull's special request."

  Trumbull flared under Avalon's accusing eye. "I wanted curry and I'm the host."

  "And Manny won't eat it and will be unbearable."

  Trumbull shrugged.

  Rubin was not entirely unbearable but he was loud, and only Roger Halsted seemed unaffected by the Rubinian tirade against all things Indian. He said, "A buffet is a good idea," patted his lips with his napkin and went back for a third help-ing of everything, with a beatific smile on his face.

  Trumbull said, "Roger, if you don't stop eating, we'll start the grilling session over your chewing."

  "Go ahead," said Halsted, cheerfully. "I don't mind."

  "You will later tonight," said Rubin, "when your stomach-wall burns through."

  Trumbull said, "And you're going to start the grilling."

  "If you don't mind my talking with my mouth full," said Halsted.

  "Get started, then."

  Halsted said thickly, "How do you justify your existence, Milton?"

  "I can't," said Peterborough, a little breathlessly. "Maybe after I get my degrees."

  "What's your school and major?"

  "Columbia and chemistry."

  "Chemistry?" said Halsted. "I would have thought it was English. Didn't I gather during the cocktail hour that you were an aspiring writer?"

  "Anyone is allowed to be an aspiring writer," said Peterborough.

  "Aspiring," said Rubin, darkly.

  "And what do you want to write?" said Halsted.

  Peterborough hesitated and said, with a trace of defensive-ness in his voice, "Well, I've always been a science fiction fan. Since I was nine, anyway."

  "Oh, God," muttered Rubin, his eyes rolling upward in mute appeal.

  Gonzalo said instantly, "Science fiction? That's what your friend Isaac Asimov writes, isn't it, Manny?"

  "He's not my friend," said Rubin. "He
clings to me out of helpless admiration."

  Trumbull raised his voice. "Will you two stop having a private conversation? Go on, Roger."

  "Have you written any science fiction?"

  "I've tried, but I haven't submitted anything. I'm going to, though. I have to."

  "Why do you have to?"

  "I made a bet."

  "What kind?"

  "Well," said Peterborough, helplessly. "It's rather complicated-and embarrassing."

  "We don't mind the complications," said Halsted, "and we'll try not to be embarrassed."

  "Well," said Peterborough, and there appeared on his face something that had not been seen at the Black Widowers banquets for years, a richly tinted blush, "there's this girl. I'm sort of era-I like her, but I don't think she likes me, but I like her anyway. The trouble is she goes for a basketball player; a real idiot-six foot five to his eyebrows and nothing above."

  Peterborough shook his head and continued, "I don't have much going for me. I can't impress her with chemistry; but she's an English Lit major, so I showed her some of my stories. She asked me if I had ever sold anything, and I said no. But then I said I intended to write something and sell it, and she laughed.

  "That bothered me, and I thought of something. It seems that Lester del Rey-''

  Rubin interposed. "Who?"

  "Lester del Rey. He's a science fiction writer."

  "Another one of those?" said Rubin. "Never heard of him."

  "Well, he's no Asimov," admitted Peterborough, "but he's all right. Anyway, the way he got started was once when he read a science fiction story and thought it was terrible. He said to his girl, 'Hell, I can write something better than that,' and she said, 'I dare you,' and he did and sold it.

  "So when this girl laughed, I said, 'I'll bet I write one and sell it,' and she said, 'I'll bet you don't,' and I said, 'I'll bet you a date against five dollars. If I sell the story, you go with me to a dinner and dance on a night of my choosing.' And she agreed.

  "So I've just got to write the story now, because she said she'd go out with me if I wrote the story and she liked it, even if it didn't sell-which may mean she likes me more than I think."

  James Drake, who had been listening thoughtfully, brushed his gray stub of a mustache with one finger and said, "Or that she's quite confident that you won't even write the story."

  "I will," said Peterborough.

  "Then go ahead," said Rubin.

  "There's a catch. I can write the story, I know. I've got some good stuff. I even know the ending so I can give it that backward look you mentioned, Mr. Rubin. What I don't have is a motive."

  "A motive?" said Rubin. "I thought you were writing a science fiction story."

  "Yes, Mr. Rubin, but it's a science fiction mystery, and I need a motive. I have the modus operandi of the killing, and the way of killing but I don't know the why of the killing. I thought, though, if I came here, I could discuss it with you."

  "You could what?" said Rubin, lifting his head.

  "Especially you, Mr. Rubin. I've read your mystery stories-I don't read science fiction exclusively-and I think they're great. You're always so good with motivation. I thought you could help me out."

  Rubin was breathing hard and gave every appearance of believing that that breath was flame. He had made his dinner very much out of rice and salad, plus, out of sheer famishing, two helpings of coupe aux marrons; and he was in no mood for even such sweet reason as he was, on occasion, observed to possess.

  He said, "Let me get it straight, Joe College. You've made a bet. You're going to get a chance at a girl, or such chance as you can make of it, by writing a story she likes and maybe selling it-and now you want to win the bet and cheat the girl by having me write the story for you. Is that the way it is?"

  "No, sir," said Peterborough, urgently, "that's not the way it is. I'll write it. I just want help with the motive."

  "And except for that, you'll write it," said Rubin. "How about having me dictate the story to you. You can still write it. You can copy it out in your own handwriting."

  "That's not the same at all."

  ' 'Yes, it is, young man; and you can stop right there. Either write the story yourself or tell the girl you can't."

  Milton Peterborough looked about helplessly.

  Trumbull said, ' 'Damn it, Manny, why so much on the high horse? I've heard you say a million times that ideas are a dime a dozen; that it's the writing that's hard. Give him an idea, then; he'll still have the hard part to do."

  "I won't," said Rubin, pushing himself away from the table and crossing his arms. "If the rest of you have an atrophied sense of ethics, go ahead and give him ideas-if you know how."

  Trumbull said, "All right, I can settle this by fiat since I'm the host, but I'll throw it open to a vote. How many favor helping the kid if we can?"

  He held up his hand, and so did Gonzalo and Drake.

  Avalon cleared his throat a little uncertainly. "I'm afraid I've got to side with Manny. It would be cheating the girl," he said.

  Halsted said, "As a teacher, I've got to disapprove of outside help on a test."

  "Tie vote," said Rubin. "What are you going to do, Tom?"

  Trumbull said, "We haven't all voted. Henry is a Black Widower and his vote will break the tie.-Henry?"

  Henry paused a brief moment. "My honorary position, sir, scarcely gives me the right to-"

  "You are not an honorary Black Widower, Henry. You are a Black Widower. Decide!"

  Rubin said, "Remember, Henry, you are the epitome of honest men. Where do you stand on cheating a girl?"

  "No electioneering," said Trumbull. "Go ahead, Henry."

  Henry's face wrinkled into a rare frown. "I have never laid claim to extraordinary honesty, but if I did, I might treat this as a special case. Juliet told Romeo, 'At lovers' perjuries/They say Jove laughs.' Might we stretch a point?"

  "I'm surprised, Henry," said Rubin.

  Henry said, ' 'I am perhaps swayed by the fact that I do not view this matter as lying between the young man and the young woman. Rather it lies between a bookish young man and an athlete. We are all bookish men; and, in our time, we may each have lost a young woman to an athlete. I am embarrassed to say that I have. Surely, then-"

  Rubin said, "Well, I haven't. I've never lost a girl to-" He paused a moment in sudden thought, then said in an altered tone, "Well, it's irrelevant. All right, if I'm outvoted, I'm outvoted.-So what's the story, Peterborough?"

  Peterborough's face was flushed and there was a trickle of perspiration at one temple. He said, "I won't tell you any of the story I've been planning except the barest essentials of the point I need help on. I don't want anything more than the minimum. I wouldn't want that, even, if this didn't mean- so much-" He ran down.

  Rubin said, with surprising quietness, "Go on. Don't worry about it. We understand."

  Peterborough said, "Thanks. I appreciate it. I've got two men, call them Murderer and Victim. I've worked out the way Murderer does it and how he gets caught and I won't say a word about that. Murderer and Victim are both eclipse buffs."

  Avalon interrupted. "Are you an eclipse buff, Mr. Peterborough?"

  "Yes, sir, I am. I have friends who go to every eclipse anywhere in the world even if it's only a five-percenter, but I can't afford that and don't have the time. I go to those I can reach. I've got a telescope and photographic equipment."

  Avalon said, "Good! It helps, when one is going to talk about eclipses, if one knows something about them. Trying to write on a subject concerning which one is ignorant is a sure prescription for failure."

  Gonzalo said, "Is the woman you're interested in an eclipse buff."

  "No," said Peterborough. "I wish she were."

  "You know," said Gonzalo, "if she doesn't share your interests, you might try finding someone who does."

  Peterborough shook his head. "I don't think it works that way, Mr. Gonzalo."

  "It sure doesn't," said Trumbull. "Shut up, Mario, and let him
talk."

  Peterborough said, "Murderer and Victim are both taking eclipse photographs; and, against all expectations, Victim, who is the underdog, the born loser, takes the better photograph; and Murderer, unable to endure this, decides to kill Victim. From there on, I have no trouble."

  Rubin said, "Then you have your motive. What's your problem?''

  "The trouble is-what kind of a better photograph? An eclipse photograph is an eclipse photograph. Some are better than others; but, assuming that both photographers are competent, not that much better. Not a murder's-worth better."

  Rubin shrugged. "You can build the story in such a way as to make even a small difference murder-worthy-but I admit that would take an experienced hand. Drop the eclipse. Try something else."

  "I can't. The whole business of the murder, the weapon and the detection depends on photography and eclipses. So it has to stay."

  Drake said softly, "What makes it a science fiction story, young man?"

  "I haven't explained that, have I?-I'm trying to tell as little as possible about the story. For what I'm doing, I need advanced computers and science fictional photographic gimmickry. One of the two characters-I'm not sure which- takes a photograph of the eclipse from a stratospheric jet."

  "In that case, why not go whole hog?" said Gonzalo. "If it's going to go science-fictional… Look, let me tell you how I see it. Murderer and Victim are eclipse buffs and Murderer is the better man-so make it Murderer who's on that plane, and taking the best eclipse photograph ever seen, using some new photographic gimmick he's invented. Then have Victim, against all expectation, beat him out. Victim goes to the Moon and takes the eclipse photograph there. Murderer is furious at being beaten, goes blind with rage and there you are."

  Rubin said energetically, "An eclipse photo on the Moon?"

  "Why not?" said Gonzalo, offended. "We can get to the Moon right now so we can certainly do it in a science fiction story. And there's a vacuum on the Moon, right? There's no air. You don't have to be a scientist to know that. And you get a better picture without air. You get a sharper picture. Isn't that right, Milton?"