by Isaac Asimov
Beenay had gone over his figures until he was sick of reworking them. The result was always the same.
But what was he supposed to believe?
His numbers, or Athor’s towering master scheme?
His piddling notions of astronomy, or the great Athor’s profound insight into the fundamental structure of the universe?
He imagined himself standing right on top of the dome of the Observatory, calling out, “Listen to me, everybody! Athor’s theory is wrong! I’ve got the figures right here that disprove it!” Which would bring forth such gales of laughter that he’d be blown clear across the continent. Who was he to set himself up against the titanic Athor? Who could possibly believe that a callow assistant professor had toppled the Law of Universal Gravitation?
And yet—and yet—
His eyes raced over the printout sheets that Yimot and Faro had prepared. The calculations on the first two pages were unfamiliar to him; he had set up the data for the two students in such a way that the underlying relationships from which the numbers were derived were not at all obvious, and evidently they had approached the problem in a way that any astronomer trying to compute a planetary orbit would regard as quite unorthodox. Which was exactly what Beenay had wanted. The orthodox ways had led him only into catastrophic conclusions; but he had too much information at his own disposal to be able to work in any other mode but the orthodox ones. Faro and Yimot hadn’t been hampered in that fashion.
But as he followed along their line of reasoning, Beenay began to notice a discomforting convergence of the numbers. By the third page they had locked in with his own calculations, which he knew by heart by this time.
And from there on, everything followed in an orderly way, step by step by step, to the same dismaying, shattering, inconceivable, totally unacceptable culminating result.
Beenay looked up at the two students, aghast.
“There’s no possibility, is there, that you’ve slipped up somewhere? This string of integrations here, for example—they look pretty tricky—”
“Sir!” Yimot cried, sounding shocked to the core. His face was bright red and his arms waved about as if moving of their own accord.
Faro said, more placidly, “I’m afraid they’re correct, sir. They tally frontwards and backwards.”
“Yes. I imagine they do,” said Beenay dully. He struggled to conceal his anguish. But his hands were shaking so badly that the printout sheets began to flutter in his grasp. He started to put them down on the table before him, but his wrist jerked uncontrollably in a very Yimot-like gesture and sent them scattering all over the floor.
Faro knelt to pick them up. He gave Beenay a troubled look.
“Sir, if we’ve upset you in any way—”
“No. No, not at all. I didn’t sleep well today, that’s the problem. But this is fine work, unquestionably very fine. I’m proud of you. To take a problem like this, one which has utterly no real-world resonance at all, which in fact is in total contradiction of real-world scientific truth, and to follow so methodically to the conclusion required by the data while succeeding in ignoring the fact that the initial premise is absurd—why, it’s a splendid job, an admirable demonstration of your powers of logic, a first-rate thought-experiment—”
He saw them exchange quick glances. He wondered if he was fooling them even slightly.
“And now,” he went on, “if you’ll excuse me, fellows—I have another conference—”
Rolling the damning papers into a tight cylinder, Beenay shoved them under his arm and rushed past them, out the door, down the hall, practically running, heading for the safety and privacy of his own tiny office.
My God, he thought. My God, my God, my God, what have I done? And what will I do now?
He buried his head in his hands and waited for the throbbing to stop. But it didn’t seem to be planning to stop. After a moment he sat up and jabbed his finger against the communicator button on his desk.
“Get me the Saro City Chronicle,” he told the machine. “Theremon 762.”
From the communicator came a long, maddening burst of cracklings and hissings. Then, suddenly, Theremon’s deep voice:
“Features desk, Theremon 762.”
“Beenay.”
“What’s that? I can’t hear what you’re saying!”
Beenay realized that he hadn’t managed to get out anything more than a croak. “It’s Beenay, I said! I—I want to change our appointment time.”
“To change it? Look, fellow, I understand how you feel about mornings, because so do I. But I’ve absolutely got to talk to you no later than noon tomorrow or I’ll have no story here. I’ll make it up to you any way I can, but—”
“You don’t understand. I want to see you sooner, not later, Theremon.”
“What?”
“This evening. Let’s say half past nine. Or ten, if you can’t make it.”
“I thought you had photographs to take at the Observatory.”
“The deuce with the photos, man. I need to see you.”
“Need to? Beenay, what’s happened? Is it something with Raissta?”
“It has nothing to do with Raissta in the slightest. Half past nine? At the Six Suns?”
“Six Suns, half past nine, yes,” Theremon said. “It’s a date.”
Beenay broke the contact and sat for a long moment staring at the rolled paper cylinder before him, somberly shaking his head. He felt fractionally calmer now, but only fractionally. Confiding in Theremon would make it easier to bear the burden of all this. He trusted Theremon completely. Newsmen were generally not noted for their trustworthiness, Beenay knew, but Theremon was a friend first, a journalist after that. He had never betrayed Beenay’s confidence, not once.
Even so, Beenay didn’t have any idea of his next move. Maybe Theremon would be able to come up with something. Maybe.
He left the Observatory by the back stairs, sneaking out by the fire escape like a thief. He didn’t dare risk the possibility of running into Athor by going out the main way. It was appalling to him to consider the possibility of seeing Athor now, having to confront him face to face, man to man.
He found the motor scooter ride home a terrifying one. At every moment he was afraid that the laws of gravity would cease to hold true, that he would go soaring off into the heavens. But at last Beenay reached the little apartment that he shared with Raissta 717.
She gasped when she saw him.
“Beenay! You’re white as a—”
“Ghost, yes.” He reached for her and pulled her close against him. “Hold me,” he said. “Hold me.”
“What is it? What happened?”
“I’ll tell you later,” he said. “Just hold me.”
[8]
Theremon was at the Six Suns Club a little after nine. It was probably a good idea to get a head start on Beenay, a quick drink or two first, just to lubricate his brain a little. The astronomer had sounded awful—as though he was keeping hysteria at bay only by some tremendous effort. Theremon couldn’t imagine what terrible thing could have happened to him, there in the seclusion and stillness of the Observatory, to make such a wreck out of him in so short a time. But plainly Beenay was in big trouble, and plainly he was going to need the highest-quality help Theremon could provide.
“Let me have a Tano Special,” Theremon told the waiter. “No, wait—make it a double. A Tano Sitha, okay?”
“Double white light,” the waiter said. “Coming up.”
The evening was mild. Theremon, who was well known here and received special treatment, had been given his regular warm-weather table on the terrace overlooking the city. The lights of downtown sparkled gaily. Onos had set an hour or two ago, and only Trey and Patru were in the sky, burning brightly in the east, casting harsh twin shadows as they made their descent toward morning.
Looking at them, Theremon wondered which suns would be in the sky tomorrow. It was different all the time, a brilliant ever changing display. Onos, certainly—you could always be
sure of seeing Onos at least part of the time every day of the year, even he knew that—and then what? Dovim, Tano, and Sitha, to make it a four-sun day? He wasn’t sure. Maybe it was supposed to be just Tano and Sitha, with Onos visible only for a few hours at midday. That would be gloomy. But then, after a second sip, he reminded himself that this wasn’t the season for short Onos-rises. So it would be a three-sun day, most likely, unless it was going to be just Onos and Dovim tomorrow.
It was so hard to keep it all straight—
Well, he could ask to see an almanac, if he really cared. But he didn’t. Some people always seemed to know what tomorrow’s suns would be like—Beenay was one, naturally—but Theremon took a more happy-go-lucky approach to it all. So long as some sun was going to be up there the next day, Theremon didn’t especially care which one it was. And there always was one—two or three, actually, or sometimes four. You could count on that. Even five, once in a while.
His drink arrived. He took a deep gulp and exhaled in pleasure. What a delightful thing a Tano Special was! The good strong white rum of the Velkareen Islands, mixed with a shot of the even stronger product, clear and tangy, that they distilled on the coast of Bagilar, and just a dab of sgarrino juice to take the edge off—ah, magnificent! Theremon wasn’t a particularly heavy drinker, certainly not the way newspapermen were legendarily supposed to be, but he counted it a shabby day when he couldn’t find time for one or two Tano Specials in those quiet dusky hours after Onos had set.
“You look like you’re enjoying that, Theremon,” a familiar voice said behind him.
“Beenay! You’re early!”
“Ten minutes. What are you drinking?”
“The usual. A Tano Special.”
“Good. I think I’ll have one too.”
“You?” Theremon stared at his friend. Fruit juice was about Beenay’s speed, so far as he knew. He couldn’t recall ever having seen the astronomer drink anything stronger.
But Beenay looked strange this evening—haggard, weary, worn. His eyes had an almost feverish glow to them.
“Waiter!” Theremon called.
It was alarming to see Beenay gulp his drink. He gasped after the first slug, as though the impact was a lot greater than he’d been expecting, but then he went back to it quickly for a second deep pull, and a third.
“Easy,” Theremon urged. “Your head’ll be swimming in five minutes.”
“It’s swimming already.”
“You had a drink before you came here?”
“No, not a drink,” Beenay said. “A shock. An upset.” He put his drink down and peered balefully at the city lights. After a moment he picked it up again, almost absent-mindedly, and drained what was left. —“I shouldn’t have another one so soon, should I, Theremon?”
“I doubt it very much.” Theremon reached out and let his hand rest lightly on the astronomer’s wrist. “What’s going on, fellow? Tell me about it.”
“It’s—hard to explain.”
“Come on. I’ve been around the track a little, you know. You and Raissta—”
“No! I told you before, this has nothing to do with her. Nothing.”
“All right. I believe you.”
Beenay said, “Maybe I should have that second drink.”
“In a little while. Come on, Beenay. What is it?”
Beenay sighed. “You know what the Theory of Universal Gravitation is, don’t you, Theremon?”
“Of course I do. I mean, I couldn’t tell you what it means, exactly—there are only twelve people on Kalgash who truly understand it, isn’t that so?—but I can certainly tell you what it is—more or less.”
“So you believe that garbage too,” Beenay said, with a harsh laugh. “About the Theory of Gravitation being so complicated that only twelve people can understand its math.”
“That’s what I’ve always heard.”
“What you’ve always heard is ignorant folk wisdom,” said Beenay. “I could give you all the essential math in a sentence, and you’d probably understand what I was saying, too.”
“You could? I would?”
“No question of it. Look, Theremon: the Law of Universal Gravitation—the Theory of Universal Gravitation, I mean—states that there exists a cohesive force among all bodies of the universe, such that the amount of this force between any two given bodies is proportional to the product of their masses divided by the square of the distance between them. It’s that simple.”
“That’s all there is to it?”
“That’s enough! It took four hundred years to develop it.”
“Why that long? It seems simple enough, the way you put it.”
“Because great laws aren’t divined by flashes of inspiration, no matter what you newspaper people like to believe. It usually takes the combined work of a worldful of scientists over a period of centuries. Ever since Genovi 41 discovered that Kalgash rotates around Onos, rather than vice versa—and that was about four centuries ago—astronomers have been working on the problem of why all six of the suns appear and disappear in the sky as they do. The complex motions of the six were recorded and analyzed and unwoven. Theory after theory was advanced and checked and counterchecked and modified and abandoned and revived and converted to something else. It was a deuce of a job.”
Theremon nodded thoughtfully and finished off his drink. He signaled the waiter for two more. Beenay seemed calm enough so long as he was talking about science, he thought.
“It was some thirty years ago,” the astronomer continued, “that Athor 77 put the touch of perfection on the whole thing by demonstrating that the Theory of Universal Gravitation accounts exactly for the orbital motions of the six suns. It was an amazing achievement. It was one of the greatest feats of sheer logic anyone has ever accomplished.”
“I know how you revere that man,” Theremon said. “But what does all this have to do with—”
“I’m getting to the point.” Beenay rose and walked to the edge of the terrace, carrying his second drink with him. He stood there in silence for a time, looking out at distant Trey and Patru. It seemed to Theremon that Beenay was growing agitated again. But the newspaperman said nothing. After a time Beenay took a long gulp of his drink. Standing with his back still turned, he said finally, “The problem is this. A few months ago I began working on a recalculation of the motions of Kalgash around Onos, using the big new university computer. I provided the computer with the last six weeks’ actual observations of Kalgash’s orbit and told it to predict the orbital movements for the rest of the year. I didn’t expect any surprises. Mainly I just wanted an excuse to fool around with the computer, I guess. Naturally, I used the gravitational laws in setting up my calculations.” He swung around suddenly. His face had a bleak, haunted look. “Theremon, it didn’t come out right.”
“I don’t understand.”
“The orbit the computer produced didn’t match up with the hypothetical orbit I was expecting to get. I don’t mean that I was simply working on the basis of a pure Kalgash-Onos system, you realize. I took into account all perturbations that the other suns would cause. And what I got—what the computer was claiming to be the true orbit of Kalgash—was something very different from the orbit that is indicated by Athor’s Theory of Gravitation.”
“But you said you used Athor’s gravitational laws in setting things up,” said Theremon, puzzled.
“I did.”
“Then how—” Suddenly Theremon’s eyes brightened. “Good lord, man! What a story! Are you telling me that the brand-new supercomputer at Saro University, installed at a cost of I don’t want to think how many millions of credits, is inaccurate? That there’s been a gigantic scandalous waste of the taxpayers’ money? That—”
“There’s nothing wrong with the computer, Theremon. Believe me.”
“Can you be sure of that?”
“Positive.”
“Then—what—”
“I might have given the computer erroneous figures, maybe. It’s a terrific computer
, but it can’t get the right answer from the wrong data.”
“So that’s why you’re so upset, Beenay! Listen, man, it’s only human to make an error once in a while. You mustn’t be so harsh on yourself. You—”
“I needed to be completely certain that I had fed the right numbers into the computer, first of all, and also that I had given it the right theoretical postulates to use in processing those numbers,” said Beenay, clutching his glass so tightly that his hand shook. The glass was empty now, Theremon noticed. “As you say, it’s only human to make an error once in a while. So I called in a couple of hotshot young graduate students and let them work on the problem. They had their results for me today. That was the meeting I had that was so important, when I said I couldn’t see you. Theremon, they confirmed my findings. They got the same deviation in the orbit that I did.”
“But if the computer was right, then—then—” Theremon shook his head. “Then what? The Theory of Universal Gravitation is wrong? Is that what you’re saying?”
“Yes.”
The word appeared to have come from Beenay at a terrible price. He seemed stunned, dazed, devastated.
Theremon studied him. No doubt this was confusing for Beenay, and probably very embarrassing. But the journalist still couldn’t understand why the impact of all this on him was so powerful.
Then abruptly he understood everything.
“It’s Athor! You’re afraid of hurting Athor, aren’t you?”
“That’s it exactly,” said Beenay, giving Theremon a look of almost pathetic gratitude for having seen the true situation. He threw himself down in his chair, shoulders hunched, head lowered. In a muffled voice he said, “It would kill the old man to know that someone’s poked a hole in his wonderful theory. That I, of all people, had poked a hole in it. He’s been like a second father to me, Theremon. Everything I’ve accomplished in the past ten years has been done under his guidance, with his encouragement, with—with, well, his love, in a manner of speaking. And now I repay it like this. I wouldn’t just be destroying his life’s work—I’d be stabbing him, Theremon, him.”
