The Early Asimov. Volume 2 Read online

  'How much longer, Henry?' Almost without volition, she found her head nestling wearily against his shoulder.

  'One more day, Irene. Tomorrow this time, we'll be back.' He looked wretched, 'You think we shouldn't have tried to do this ourselves, don't you?'

  'Well, it seemed a good idea at the time.'

  'Yes, I know,' said Henry. 'I've noticed that I get lots of ideas that seem good at the time, but sometimes they turn sour.' He shook his head philosophically, 'I don't know why, but that's the way it is.'

  'All I know,' said Irene, 'is that I don't care if I never move. another step in my life. I wouldn't get up now-'

  Her voice died away as her beautiful blue eyes stared off toward the right. One of the Centosaurs stumbled into the waters of a small tributary to the stream they were following. Wallowing in the water, his huge serpentine body mounted on the ten stocky pairs of legs, glistened horribly. His ugly head weaved towards the sky and his terrifying call pierced the air. A second joined him.

  Irene was on her feet. 'What are you waiting for, Henry. Let's go! Hurry!'

  Henry gripped his Tonite gun tightly and followed.

  Arthur Scanlon gulped savagely at his fifth cup of black coffee and, with an effort, brought the Audiomitter into optical focus. His eyes, he decided, were becoming entirely too balky. He rubbed them into red-rimmed irritation and cast a glance over his shoulder at the restlessly sleeping figure on the couch.

  He crept over to her and adjusted the coverlet.

  'Poor Mom,' he whispered, and bent to kiss the pale lips. He turned to the Audiomitter and clenched a fist at it, 'Wait till I get you, you crazy nut.'

  Madeline stirred, 'Is it dark yet?'

  'No,' lied Arthur with feeble cheerfulness. "He'll call before sundown, Mom. You just sleep and let me take care of things. Dad's upstairs working on that stat-field and he says he's making progress. In a few days everything will be all right.' He sat silently beside her and grasped her hand tightly. Her tired yes closed once more.

  The signal light blinked on and, with a last look at his mother, he stepped out into the corridor, 'Well!'

  The waiting Tweenie saluted smartly, 'John Barno wants to say that it looks as if we are in for a storm.' He handed over an official report.

  Arthur glanced at it peevishly, 'What of that? We've had plenty so far, haven't we? What do you expect of Venus?'

  'This will be a particularly bad one, from all indications. The barometer has fallen unprecedentedly. The ionic concentration of the upper atmosphere is at an unequalled maximum. The Beiilah River has overflowed its banks and is rising rapidly.'

  The other frowned. 'There's not an entrance to Venustown that isn't at least fifty yards above river level. As for rain - our drainage system is to be relied upon.' He grimaced suddenly, 'Go back and tell Barno that it can storm for my part - for forty days and forty nights if it wants to. Maybe it will drive the Earthmen away.'

  He turned away, but the Tweenie held his ground, 'Beg pardon sir, but that's not the worst. A scouting party today -'

  Arthur whirled. 'A scouting party? Who ordered one to be sent out?'

  'Your father, sir. They were to make contact with the Phibs, -I don't know why.'

  'Well, go on.'

  'Sir, the Phibs could not be located.'

  And now, for the first time, Arthur was startled out of his savage ill-hum or, 'They were gone?'

  The Tweenie nodded. 'It is thought that they have sought shelter from the coming storm. It is that which causes Barno to fear the worst.'

  'They say rats desert a sinking ship,' murmured Arthur. He buried his head in trembling hands. 'God! Everything at once! Everything at once!'

  The darkening twilight hid the pall of blackness that lowered over the mountains ahead and emphasized the darting flashes of lightning that flickered on and off continuously.

  Irene shivered, 'It's getting sort of windy and chilly, isn't it?'

  'The cold wind from the mountains. We're in for a storm, I guess,' Henry assented absently. 'I think the river is getting wider.'

  A short silence, and then, with suddenly vivacity,. 'But look, Irene, only a few more miles to the lake and then we're practically at the Earth village. It's almost over.'

  Irene nodded, 'I'm glad for all of us - and the Phibs, too.'

  She had reason for the last statement. The Phibs were swimming slowly now. An additional detachment had arrived the day before from upstream, but even with those reinforcements, progress had slowed to a walk. Unaccustomed cold was nipping the multi-legged reptiles and they yielded to superior mental force more and more reluctantly.

  The first drops fell just after they had passed the lake. Darkness had fallen, and in the blue glare of the lightning the trees about them were ghostly specters reaching swaying fingers toward the sky. A sudden flare in the distance marked the funeral pyre of a lightning-hit tree.

  Henry paled. 'Make for the clearing just ahead. At a time like this, trees are dangerous.'

  The clearing he spoke of composed the outskirts of the Earth village. The rough-hewn houses, crude and small against the fury of the elements, showed lights here and there that spoke of human occupancy. And as the first Centosaur stumbled out from between splintered trees, the storm suddenly burst in all its fury.

  The two Tweenies huddled close. 'It's up to the Phibs,' screamed Henry, dimly heard above the wind and rain. 'I hope they can do it.'

  The three monsters converged upon the houses ahead. They moved more rapidly as the Phibs called up every last line of mental power.

  Irene buried her wet head in Henry's equally wet shoulder, 'I can't look! Those houses will go like matchsticks. Oh, the poor people!'

  'No, Irene, no. They've stopped!'

  The Centosaurs pawed vicious gouges out of the ground beneath and their screams rang shrill and clear above the noise of the storm. Startled Earthmen rushed from their cabins.

  Caught unprepared - most having been roused from sleep -and faced with a Venusian storm and nightmarish Venusian monsters, there was no question of organized action. As they stood, carrying nothing but their clothes, they broke and ran.

  There was the utmost confusion. One or two, with dim attempts at presence of mind, took wild, ineffectual pot-shots at the mountains of flesh before them - and then ran.

  And when it seemed that all were gone, the giant reptiles surged forward once more and where once had been houses, there were left only mashed splinters.

  'They'll never come back, Irene, they'll never come back.' Henry was breathless at the success of his plan. 'We're heroes now, and -' His voice rose to a hoarse shriek, 'Irene, get back! Make for the trees!'

  The Centosaurian howls had taken on a deeper note. The nearest one reared onto his two hindmost pairs of legs and his great head, two hundred feet above ground, was silhouetted horribly against the lightning. With a rumbling thud, he came down on all feet again and made for the river - which under the lash of the storm was now a raging flood.

  The Phibs had lost control!

  Henry's Tonite gun flashed into quick action as he shoved Irene away. She, however, backed away slowly and brought her own gun into line.

  The ball of purple light that meant a hit blazed into being and the nearest Centosaur screamed in agony as its mighty tail threshed aside the surrounding trees. Blindly, the hole where once a leg had been gushing blood, it charged.

  A second glare of purple and it was down with an earth-shaking thud, its last shriek reaching a crescendo of shrill frightfulness.

  But the other two monsters were crashing toward them. They blundered blindly toward the source of the power that had held them captive almost a week; driving violently with all the force of their mindless hate to the river. And in the path of the Juggernauts were the two Tweenies.

  The boiling torrent was at their backs. The forest was a groaning wilderness of splintered trees and ear-splitting sound.

  Then, suddenly, the report of Tonite guns sounded from the distance. Purpl
e glares - a flurry of threshing - spasmodic shrieking - and then a silence in which even the wind, as if overawed by recent events, held its peace momentarily.

  Henry yelled his glee and performed an impromptu war-dance. 'They've come from Venustown, Irene,' he shouted. 'They've got the Centosaurs and everything's finished! We've saved the Tweenies!'

  It happened in a breath's time. Irene had dropped her gun and sobbed her relief. She was running to Henry and then she-tripped - and the river had her.

  'Henry!' The wind whipped the sound away.

  For one dreadful moment, Henry found himself incapable of motion. He could only stare stupidly, unbelievingly, at the spot where Irene had been, and then he was in the water. He plunged into the surrounding backness desperately.

  'Irene!' He caught his breath with difficulty. The current drove him on.

  'Irene!' No sound but the wind. His efforts at swimming were futile. He couldn't even break surface for more than a second at a time, his lungs were bursting.

  'Irene!' There was no answer. Nothing but rushing water and darkness.

  And then something touched him. He lashed out at it instinctively, but the grip tightened. He felt himself borne up into the air. His tortured lungs breathed in gasps. A grinning Phib face stared into his and after that there was nothing but confused impressions of cold, dark wetness.

  He became aware of his surroundings by stages. First, that he was sitting on a blanket under the trees, with other blankets wrapped tightly about him. Then, he felt the warm radiation of the heat-lamps upon him and the illumination of Atomo bulbs. People were crowding close and he noticed that it was no longer raining.

  He stared about him hazily and then, 'Irene!'

  She was beside him, as wrapped up as he, and smiling feebly, 'I'm all right, Henry. The Phibs dragged me back, too.'

  Madeline was bending over him and he swallowed the hot coffee placed to his lips. 'The Phibs have told us of what you two have helped them do. We're all proud of you, son - you and Irene.'

  Max's smile transfigured his face into the picture of paternal pride, 'The psychology you used was perfect. Venus is too vast and has too many friendly areas to expect Earthmen to return to places that have shown themselves to be infested with Cen-tosaurs - not for a good long while. And when they do come back, we shall have our stat-field.'

  Arthur Scanlon hurried up out of the gloom. He thwacked Henry on the shoulder and then wrong Irene's hand. 'Your guardian and I," he told her, 'are fixing up a celebration for day after tomorrow, so get good and rested. It's going to be the greatest thing you ever saw.'

  Henry spoke up, 'Celebration, huh? Well, I'll tell you what you can do. After it's over, you can announce an engagement.'

  'An engagement?' Madeline sat up and looked interested. 'What do you mean?'

  'An engagement - to be married,' came the impatient answer. 'I'm old enough, I suppose. Today proves it!'

  Irene's eyes bent in furious concentration upon the grass, 'With whom, Henry?'

  'Huh? With you, of course. Gosh, who else could it be?'

  'But you haven't asked me.' The words were uttered slowly and with great firmness.

  For a moment Henry flushed, and then his jaws grew grim, 'Well, I'm not going to. I'm telling you! And what are you going to do about it?'

  He leaned close to her and Max Scanlon chuckled and motioned the others away. On tip-toes, they left.

  A dim shape hobbled into view and the two Tweenies separated in confusion. They had forgotten the others.

  But it wasn't another Tweenie. 'Why - why, it's a Phib!' cried Irene.

  He limped his ungainly way across the wet grass, with the inexpert aid of his muscular arms. Approaching, he flopped wearily on his stomach and extended his forearms.

  His purpose was plain. Irene and Henry grasped a hand apiece. There was silence a moment or two and the Phib's great eyes glinted solemnly in the light of the Atomo lamps. Then there was a sudden squeal of embarrassment from Irene and a shy laugh from Henry. Contact was broken.

  'Did you get the same thing I did?' asked Henry.

  Irene was red, 'Yes, a long row of little baby Phibs, maybe fifteen -'

  'Or twenty,' said Henry.

  '- with long white hair!'

  ***

  The story, not surprisingly, reflects my personal situation at the time. I had gone to a boys' high school and to a boys' college. Now that I was in graduate school, however, the surroundings were, for the first time, coeducational.

  In the fall of 1939, I discovered that a beautiful blond girl had the desk next to mine in the laboratory of my course in synthetic organic chemistry. Naturally I was attracted.

  I persuaded her to go out with me on simple dates, the very first being on my twentieth birthday, when I took her to Radio City Music Hall. For five months, I mooned after her with feckless romanticism.

  At the end of the school year, though, she had earned her master of arts degree and, having decided not to go on for her doctorate, left school and took a job in Wilmington, Delaware, leaving me behind, woebegone and stricken.

  I got over it, of course, but while she was still at school I wrote 'Half-Breeds on Venus.' Of all the stories I had yet written, it was the most heavily boy-and-girl. The heroine's name was Irene, which was the name of my pretty blond lab neighbor.

  Merely having a few dates on the hand-holding level did not, however, perform the magic required to make me capable of handling passion in literature, and I continued to use girls sparingly in later stories - and a good thing, too, I think. •

  The success of 'Half-Breeds on Venus' made the notion of writing sequels generally seem a good idea. A sequel to a successful story must, after all, be a reasonably sure sale. So even while I was working on 'Half-Breeds on Venus,' I suggested to Campbell that I write a sequel to 'Homo Sol.'

  Campbell's enthusiasm was moderate, but he was willing to look at such a sequel if I were to write it. I did write it as soon as 'Half-Breeds on Venus' was done and called it 'The Imaginary.' Although it used one of the chief characters of 'Homo Sol,' the human-nonhuman confrontation was absent, which probably didn't help it as far as Campbell was concerned. I submitted it to him on June 11, and received it back - a rejection, sequel or no sequel - on June 19.

  Pohl rejected it, too. Tremaine read it with more sympathy and was thinking of taking it for Comet, I heard, but that magazine ceased publication and the story was back on the market. Actually, I retired it, but two years later I sold it to Pohl's magazine after all - but at a time when Pohl was no longer editor.

  But though I had my troubles and didn't click every time, or even right away, I did manage to make $272 during my first year as a graduate student, and that was an enormous help.

  The Imaginary [3]

  The telecaster flashed its fitful signal, while Tan Porus sat by complacently. His sharp, green eyes glittered their triumph, and his tiny body was vibrant with excitement. Nothing could have better indicated the greatness of the occasion than his extraordinary position - Tan Porus had his feet on the desk!

  The 'caster glowed into life and a broad Arcturian countenance frowned fretfully out at the Rigellian psychologist

  'Do you have to drag me here straight from bed, Porus? It's the middle of the night!'

  'It's broad daylight in this part of the world, Final. But I've got something to tell you that'll make you forget all about sleep.'

  Gar Final, editor of the J.G.P. - Journal of Galactic Psychology - allowed a look of alertness to cross his face. Whatever Tan Porus's faults - and Arcturus knew they were many -he had never issued a false alarm. If he said something great was in the air, it was not merely great - it was colossal!

  It was quite evident that Porus was enjoying himself. 'Final,' he said, 'the next article I send to your rag is going to be the greatest thing you've ever printed.'

  Final was impressed. 'Do you really mean what you say?' he asked idiotically.

  'What kind of a stupid question is that? Of cours
e I do. Listen -' There followed a dramatic silence, while the tenseness on Final's face reached painful proportions. Then came Porus's husky whisper - 'I've solved the problem of the squid!'

  Of course the reaction was exactly what Porus had expected. There was a blow-up at the other end, and for thirty interesting seconds the Rigellian was surprised to learn that the staid and respectable Final had a blistering vocabulary.

  Porus's squid was a by-word throughout the galaxy. For two years now, he had been fussing over an obscure Draconian animal that persisted in going to sleep when it wasn't supposed to. He had set up equations and torn them down with a regularity that had become a standing joke with every psychologist in the Federation - and none had explained the unusual reaction. Now Final had been dragged from bed to be told that the solution had been reached - and that was all.

  Final ripped out a concluding phrase that all but put the 'caster out of commission.

  Porus waited for the storm to pass and then said calmly, 'But do you know how I solved it?'

  The other's answer was an indistinct mumble.

  The Rigellian began speaking rapidly. All traces of amusement had left his face and, after a few sentences, all traces of anger left Final's.

  The Arcturian's expression became one of wide-eyed interest. 'No?' he gasped.

  'Yes!'

  When Porus had finished, Final raced madly to put in rush calls to the printers to delay publication of the coming issue of the J.G.P. for two weeks.

  Furo Santins, head of the math department of the University of Arcturus, gazed long and steadily at his Sirian colleague.

  'No, no, you're wrong! His equations were legitimate. I checked them rnyself.'

  'Mathematically, yes,' retorted the round-faced Sirian. 'But psychologically they had no meaning.'

  Santins slapped his high forehead. 'Meaning! Listen to the mathematician talk. Great space, man, what have mathematics to do with meaning? Mathematics is a tool and as long as it can be manipulated to give proper answers and to make correct predictions, actual meaning has no significance. I'll say this for Tan Porus - most psychologists don't know enough mathematics to handle a slide-rule efficiently, but he knows his stuff.'