Pebble In The Sky te-1

by Isaac Asimov

  Schwartz asked, as calmly and casually as he could, "What year is this?" He castled.

  Grew paused. He might have been startled. "What is it you're harping on today? Don't you want to play? If it will make you happy, this is 827." He added sarcastically, "G.E." He stared frowningly at the board, then slammed his Queen's Knight to Queen 5, where it made its first assault.

  Schwartz dodged quickly, moving his own Queen 's Knight to Rook 4 in counterattack. The skirmish was on in earnest. Grew's Knight seized the Bishop, which leaped upward in a bath of red fire to be dropped with a sharp click into the box where it might lie, a buried warrior, until the next game. And then the conquering Knight fell instantly to Schwartz's Queen. In a moment of overcaution, Grew's attack faltered and he moved his remaining Knight back to the haven of King I, where it was relatively useless. Schwartz's Queen's Knight now repeated the first exchange, taking the Bishop and falling prey in its turn to the Rook's Pawn.

  Now another pause, and Schwartz asked mildly, "What's G.E.?"

  "What?" demanded Grew bad-humoredly. "Oh-you mean you're still wondering what year this is? Of all the fool-Well, I keep forgetting you just learned to talk a month or so ago. But you're intelligent. Don't you really know? Well, it's 827 of the Galactic Era. Galactic Era: G.E.-see? It's 827 years since the foundation of the Galactic Empire; 827 years since the coronation of Frankenn the First. Now, please, it's your move."

  But the Knight that Schwartz held was swallowed up in the grip of his hand for the moment. He was in a fury of frustration. He said, "Just one minute," and put the Knight down on Queen 2. "Do you recognize any of these names? America, Asia, the United States, Russia, Europe-" He groped for identification.

  In the darkness Grew's pipe was a sullen red glow and the dim shadow of him hunched over the shining chessboard as if it had the less life of the two. He might have shaken his head curtly, but Schwartz could not see that. He didn't have to. He sensed the other's negation as clearly as though a speech had been delivered.

  Schwartz tried again. "Do you know where I can get a map?"

  "No maps," growled Grew, "unless you want to risk your neck in Chica. I'm no geographer. I never heard of the names you mention, either. What are they? People?"

  Risk his neck? Why that? Schwartz felt the coldness gather. Had he committed a crime? Did Grew know about it?

  He asked doubtfully, "The sun has nine planets, hasn't it?"

  "Ten," was the uncompromising answer.

  Schwartz hesitated. Well, they might have discovered another that he hadn't heard about. But then why should Grew have heard about it? He counted on his fingers, and then, "How about the sixth planet? Has it got rings?"

  Grew was slowly moving the King's Bishop's Pawn forward two squares, and Schwartz instantly did the same.

  Grew said, "Saturn, you mean? Of course it has rings." He was calculating now. He had the choice of taking either the Bishop's Pawn or the King's Pawn, and the consequences of the choice were not too clear.

  "And is there an asteroid belt-little planets-between Mars and Jupiter? I mean between the fourth and fifth planets?"

  "Yes," mumbled Grew. He was relighting his pipe and thinking feverishy. Schwartz caught that agonized uncertainty and was annoyed at it. To him, now that he was sure of Earth's identity, the chess game was less than a trifle. Questions quivered along the inner surface of his skull, and one slipped out.

  "Your book films are real, then? There are other worlds? With people?"

  And now Grew looked up from the board, eyes probing uselessly in the darkness. "Are you serious?"

  "Are there?"

  "By the Galaxy! I believe you really don't know."

  Schwartz felt humiliated in his ignorance. "Please-"

  "Of course there are worlds. Millions of them! Every star you see has worlds, and most of those you don't see. It's all part of the Empire."

  Delicately, inside, Schwartz felt the faint echo of each of Grew's intense words as they sparked directly from mind to mind. Schwartz felt the mental contacts growing stronger with the days. Maybe, soon, he could hear those tiny words in his mind even when the person thinking them wasn't talking.

  And now, for the first time, he finally thought of an alternative to insanity. Had he passed through time, somehow? Slept through, perhaps?

  He said huskily, "How long since it's all happened, Grew? How long since the time when there was only one planet?"

  "What do you mean?" He was suddenly cautious. "Are you a member of the Ancients?"

  "Of the what? I'm not a member of anything, but wasn't Earth once the only planet?…Well, wasn't it?"

  "The Ancients say so," said Grew grimly, "but who knows? Who really knows? The worlds up there have been existing all history long as far as I know."

  "But how long is that?"

  "Thousands of years, I suppose. Fifty thousand, a hundred -I can't say."

  Thousands of years! Schwartz felt a gurgle in his throat and pressed it down in panic. All that between two steps? A breath, a moment, a flicker of time-and he had jumped thousands of years? He felt himself shrinking back to amnesia. His identification of the Solar System must have been the result of imperfect memories penetrating the mist.

  But now Grew was making his next move-he was taking the other's Bishop's Pawn, and it was almost mechanically that Schwartz noted mentally the fact that it was the wrong choice. Move fitted to move now with no conscious effort. His King's Rook swooped forward to take the foremost of the now-doubled White Pawns. White's Knight advanced again to Bishop 3. Schwartz's Bishop moved to Knight 2, freeing itself for action. Grew followed suit my moving his own Bishop to Queen 2.

  Schwartz paused before launching the final attack. He said, "Earth is boss, isn't it?"

  "Boss of what?"

  "Of the Emp-"

  But Grew looked up with a roar at which the chessmen quivered. "Listen, you, I'm tired of your questions. Are you a complete fool? Does Earth look as if it's boss of anything?" There was a smooth whir as Grew's wheel chair circled the table. Schwartz felt grasping fingers on his arm.

  "Look! Look there!" Grew's voice was a whispered rasp. "You see the horizon? You see it shine?"

  "Yes."

  "That is Earth-all Earth. Except here and there, where a few patches like this one exist."

  "I don't understand."

  "Earth 's crust is radioactive. The soil glows, always glowed, will glow forever. Nothing can grow. No one can live-You really didn't know that? Why do you suppose we have the Sixty?"

  The paralytic subsided. He circled his chair about the table again. "It's your move."

  The Sixty! Again a Mind Touch with an indefinable aura of menace. Schwartz's chess pieces played themselves, while he wondered about it with a tight-pressed heart. His King's Pawn took the opposing Bishop's Pawn. Grew moved his Knight to Queen 4 and Schwartz's Rook side-stepped the attack to Knight 4. Again Grew's Knight attacked, moving to Bishop 3, and Schwartz's Rook avoided the issue again to Knight 5. But now Grew's King's Rook's Pawn advanced one timorous square and Schwartz's Rook slashed forward. It took the Knight's Pawn, checking the enemy King. Grew's King promptly took the Rook, but Schwartz's Queen plugged the hole instantly, moving to Knight 4 and checking. Grew's King scurried to Rook 1, and Schwartz brought up his Knight, placing it on King 4. Grew moved his Queen to King 2 in a strong attempt to mobilize his defenses, and Schwartz countered by marching his Queen forward two squares to Knight 6, so that the fight was now in close quarters. Grew had no choice; he moved his Queen to Knight 2, and the two female majesties were now face to face. Schwartz's Knight pressed home, taking the opposing Knight on Bishop 6, and when the now-attacked White Bishop moved quickly to Bishop 3, the Knight followed to Queen 5. Grew hesitated for slow minutes, then advanced his outflanked Queen up the long diagonal to take Schwartz's Bishop.

  Then he paused and drew a relieved breath. His sly opponent had a Rook in danger with a check in the offing and his own Queen ready to wreak havoc. And he was
ahead a Rook to a Pawn.

  "Your move," he said with satisfaction.

  Schwartz said finally, "What-what is the Sixty?"

  There was a sharp unfriendliness to Grew's voice. "Why do you ask that? What are you after?"

  "Please," humbly. He had little spirit left in him. "I am a man with no harm in me. I don't know who I am or what happened to me. Maybe I'm an amnesia case."

  "Very likely," was the contemptuous reply. "Are you escaping from the Sixty? Answer truthfully."

  "But I tell you I don't know what the Sixty is!"

  It carried conviction. There was a long silence. To Schwartz, Grew's Mind Touch was ominous, but he could not, quite, make out words.

  Grew said slowly, "The Sixty is your sixtieth year. Earth supports twenty million people, no more. To live, you must produce. If you cannot produce, you cannot live. Past Sixty-you cannot produce."

  "And so…" Schwartz's mouth remained open.

  "You're put away. It doesn't hurt."

  "You're killed?"

  "It's not murder," stiffly. "It must be that way. Other worlds won't take us, and we must make room for the children some way. The older generation must make room for the younger."

  "Suppose you don't tell them you're sixty?"

  "Why shouldn't you? Life after sixty is no joke…And there's a Census every ten years to catch anyone who is foolish enough to try to live. Besides, they have your age on record."

  "Not mine." The words slipped out, Schwartz couldn't stop them. "Besides, I'm only fifty-next birthday."

  "It doesn't matter. They can check by your bone structure. Don't you know that? There's no way of masking it. They'll get me next time…Say, it's your move."

  Schwartz disregarded the urging. "You mean they'll-"

  "Sure, I'm only fifty-five, but look at my legs. I can't work, can I? There are three of us registered in our family, and our quota is adjusted on a basis of three workers. When I had the stroke I should have been reported, and then the quota would have been reduced. But I would have gotten a premature Sixty, and Arbin and Loa wouldn't do it. They're fools, because it has meant hard work for them-till you came along. And they'll get me next year, anyway… Your move."

  "Is next year the Census?"

  "That's right…Your move."

  "Wait!" urgently. "Is everyone put away after sixty? No exceptions at all?"

  "Not for you and me. The High Minister lives a full life, and members of the Society of Ancients; certain scientists or those performing some great service. Not many qualify. Maybe a dozen a year…It's your move!"

  "Who decides who qualifies?"

  "The High Minister, of course. Are you moving?"

  But Schwartz stood up. "Never mind. It's checkmate in five moves. My Queen is going to take your Pawn to check you; you've got to move to Knight 1; I bring up the Knight to check you at King 2; you must move to Bishop 2; my Queen checks you at King 6; you must move to Knight 2; my Queen goes to Knight 6, and when you're then forced to Rook 1, my Queen mates you at Rook 6.

  "Good game," he added automatically.

  Grew stared long at the board, then, with a cry, dashed it from the table. The gleaming pieces rolled dejectedly about on the lawn.

  "You and your damned distracting chatter," yelled Grew.

  But Schwartz was conscious of nothing. Nothing except the overwhelming necessity of escaping the Sixty. For though Browning said:

  Grow old along with me!

  The best is yet to be… that was in an Earth of teeming billions and of unlimited food. The best that was now to be was the Sixty-and death.

  Schwartz was sixty-two.

  Sixty-two…

  12. The Mind That Killed

  There was the-what was it, a hospital?-in Chica. They had taken care of him before. And why? Because he had been a medical "case." But wasn't he still a case? And he could talk now; he could give them the symptoms, which he couldn't before. He could even tell them about the Mind Touch.

  Or did everyone have the Mind Touch? Was there any way he could tell?…None of the others had it. Not Arbin or Loa or Grew. He knew that. They had no way of telling where he was unless they saw or heard him. Why, he couldn't beat Grew in chess if Grew could- Wait, now, chess was a popular game. And it couldn't be played if people had the Mind Touch. Not really.

  So that made him a peculiarity-a psychological specimen. It might not be a particularly gay life, being a specimen, but it would keep him alive,

  And suppose one considered the new possibility that had just arisen. Suppose he were not an amnesiac but a man who had stumbled through time. Why, then, in addition to the Mind Touch, he was a man from the past. He was a historical specimen, an archaeological specimen; they couldn't kill him.

  If they believed him.

  Hmm, if they believed him.

  That doctor would believe. He had needed a shave that morning Arbin took him to Chica. He remembered that very well. After that his hair never grew, so they must have done something to him. That meant that the doctor knew that he-he, Schwartz-had had hair on his face. Wouldn't that be significant? Grew and Arbin never shaved. Grew had once told him that only animals had hair on their face.

  So he had to get to the doctor.

  What was his name? Shekt?…Shekt, that was right.

  But he knew so little of this horrible world. To leave by night or cross-country would have entangled him in mysteries, would have plunged him into radioactive danger pockets of which he knew nothing. So, with the boldness of one with no choice, he struck out upon the highway in the early afternoon.

  They wouldn't be expecting him back before suppertime, and by that time he would be well away. They would have no Mind Touch to miss.

  For the first half hour he experienced a feeling of elation, the first such sensation he had had since all this had started. He was finally doing something; he was making an attempt to fight back at his environment. Something with a purpose, and not mere unreasoning flight as that time in Chica.

  Ah, for an old man he wasn't bad. He'd show them.

  And then he stopped-He stopped in the middle of the highway, because something obtruded itself upon his notice, something he had forgotten.

  There was the strange Mind Touch, the unknown Mind Touch; the one he had detected first when he had tried to reach the shining horizon and had been stopped by Arbin; the one that had been watching from the Ministerial Ground.

  It was with him now-behind him and watching.

  He listened closely-or, at least, he did that which was the equivalent of listening with regard to the Mind Touch. It came no closer, but it was fastened upon himself. It had within it watchfulness and enmity, but not desperation.

  Other things became clear. The follower must not lose sight of him, and the follower was armed.

  Cautiously, almost automatically, Schwartz turned, picking apart the horizon with eager eyes.

  And the Mind Touch changed instantly.

  It became doubtful and cautious, dubious as to its own safety, and the success of its own project, whatever that was. The fact of the follower's weapons became more prominent, as though he were speculating upon using it if trapped.

  Schwartz knew that he himself was unarmed and helpless. He knew that the follower would kill him rather than allow him to get out of sight; kill him at the first false move…And he saw no one.

  So Schwartz walked on, knowing that his follower remained close enough to kill him. His back was stiff in the anticipation of he knew not what. How does death feel?…How does death feel?…The thought jostled him in time to his steps, jounced in his mind, jiggled in his subconscious, until it went nearly past endurance.

  He held onto the follower's Mind Touch as the one salvation. He would detect that instant's increase in tension that would mean that a weapon was being leveled, a trigger being pulled, a contact being closed. At that instant he would drop, he would run

  But why? If it were the Sixty, why not kill him out of hand?

  The time-sli
p theory was fading out in his mind; amnesia again. He was a criminal, perhaps-a dangerous man, who must be watched. Maybe he had once been a high official, who could not be simply killed but must be tried. Perhaps his amnesia was the method used by his unconscious to escape the realization of some tremendous guilt.

  And so now he was walking down an empty highway toward a doubtful destination, with death walking at his back.

  It was growing dark, and the wind had a dying chill to it. As usual, it didn't seem right. Schwartz judged it to be December, and certainly sunset at four-thirty was right for it, but the wind's chill was not the iciness of a midwestern winter.

  Schwartz had long decided that the reason for the prevalent mildness was that the planet (Earth?) did not depend on the sun entirely for its heat. The radioactive soil itself gave off heat, small by the square foot but huge by the million square miles.

  And in the darkness the follower's Mind Touch grew nearer. Still attentive, and keyed up to a gamble. In the darkness, following was harder. He had followed him that first night-toward the shiningness. Was he afraid to take the risk again?

  "Hey! Hey, fella-"

  It was a nasal, high-pitched voice. Schwartz froze.

  Slowly, in one piece, he turned around. The small figure coming up to him waved its hand, but in the sunless time of day he could not make it out clearly. It approached, unhurrying. He waited.

  "Hey, there. Glad to see you. It ain't much fun beating it along the road without company. Mind if I go along with you?"

  "Hello," said Schwartz dully. It was the correct Mind Touch. It was the follower. And the face was familiar. It belonged to that hazy time, in Chica.

  And then the follower gave every sign of recognition. "Say, I know you. Sure!…Don't you remember me?"

  It was impossible for Schwartz to say whether under ordinary conditions, in another time, he might or might not have believed the other to be sincere. But now how could he avoid seeing that thin, ragged layer of synthetic recognition that overlay the deep currents of a Touch that told him-shouted at him-that the little man with the very sharp eyes had known him from the start? Knew him and had a death weapon ready for him, if necessary.