The Stars, Like Dust

by Isaac Asimov

  Biron’s hand tightly enclosed Artemisia’s and she was smiling at him. They felt the queer inward twinge as the Remorseless made its single precalculated Jump.

  Biron said, “Before you start, sir, will you tell me something about the blueprint you mention, so that my curiosity will be satisfied and I can keep my mind on Arta?”

  Artemisia laughed and said, “You had better do it, Father. I couldn’t bear an abstracted groom.”

  Hinrik smiled. “I know the document by heart. Listen.”

  And with Rhodia’s sun bright on the visiplate, Hinrik began with those words that were older—far older—than any of the planets in the Galaxy save one:

  “‘We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect Union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquillity, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America …’”

  AFTERWORD

  The Stars, Like Dust was written and first published in 1950. At that time, we did not know as much about planetary atmospheres as we do now. In Chapter 17, I speak of a lifeless world as possessing nitrogen and oxygen, but no carbon dioxide. It seems now quite certain that a lifeless “E-type” world (a small and rocky one, like Earth, that is relatively close to its star) would, if it possessed an atmosphere, have one that was made up of nitrogen and carbon dioxide, but no oxygen.

  I can’t change Chapter 17 appropriately without having to rewrite a great deal of the book, so I will ask you to suspend your disbelief in this respect and enjoy the book (assuming you do) on its own terms.

  Isaac Asimov

  November, 1982

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Isaac Asimov was born in the Soviet Union to his great surprise. He moved quickly to correct the situation. When his parents emigrated to the United States, Isaac (three years old at the time) stowed away in their baggage. He has been an American citizen since the age of eight.

  Brought up in Brooklyn, and educated in its public schools, he eventually found his way to Columbia University and, over the protests of the school administration, managed to annex a series of degrees in chemistry, up to and including a Ph.D. He then infiltrated Boston University and climbed the academic ladder, ignoring all cries of outrage, until he found himself Professor of Biochemistry.

  Meanwhile, at the age of nine, he found the love of his life (in the inanimate sense) when he discovered his first science-fiction magazine. By the time he was eleven, he began to write stories, and at eighteen, he actually worked up the nerve to submit one. It was rejected. After four long months of tribulation and suffering, he sold his first story and, thereafter, he never looked back.

  In 1941, when he was twenty-one years old, he wrote the classic short story “Nightfall” and his future was assured. Shortly before that he had begun writing his robot stories, and shortly after that he had begun his Foundation series.

  What was left except quantity? At the present time, he has published over 260 books, distributed through every major division of the Dewey system of library classification, and shows no signs of slowing up. He remains as youthful, as lively, and as lovable as ever, and grows more handsome with each year. You can be sure that this is so since he has written this little essay himself and his devotion to absolute objectivity is notorious.

  He is married to Janet Jeppson, psychiatrist and writer, has two children by a previous marriage, and lives in New York City.

  Isaac Asimov

  November, 1982