The Early Asimov. Volume 1

by Isaac Asimov

  Filip Sanat forgot the delicious thrill that had seized him. at the moment when his sandals first came into contact with the firm green sod of Earth, when he caught his first glimpse of a Lhasinuic official.

  They seemed actually human-or humanoid, at least.

  At first glance, the predominantly Manlike characteristics drowned out all else. The body plan differed in no essential from Man’s. The four-limbed, bipedal body; the middling-well proportioned arms and legs; the well-defined neck, were all astonishingly in evidence. It was only after a few minutes that the smaller details marking the difference between the two races were noticed at all.

  Chief of these were the scales covering the bead and a thick line down the backbone, halfway to the hips. The face itself, with its flat, broad, thinly-scaled nose and lidless eyes was rather repulsive, but in no way bestial. Their clothes were few and simple, and their speech quite pleasant to the ear. And, what was most important, there was no masking the intelligence that showed forth in their dark, luminous eyes.

  Porin noted Sanat’s surprise at this first glimpse of the Vegan reptiles with every sign of satisfaction.

  “You see,” he remarked, “their appearance is not at all monstrous. Why should hate exist between Human and Lhasinu, then?”

  Sanat didn’t answer. Of course, his old friend was right. The word “Lhasinu” had so long been coupled with the words “alien” and “monster” in his mind, that against all knowledge and reason, he had subconsciously expected to see some weird life-form.

  Yet, overlying the foolish feeling this realization induced was the same haunting hate that clung closely to him, growing to fury as they passed inspection by an over-bearing English-speaking Lhasinu.

  The next morning, the two left for New York, the largest city of the planet In the historic lore of the unbelievably ancient metropolis, Sanat forgot for a day the troubles of the Galaxy outside. It was a great moment for him when he finally stood before a towering structure and said to himself, “ This is the Memorial.”

  The Memorial was Earth’s greatest monument, dedicated to the birthplace of the Human race, and this was Wednesday, the day of the week when two men “guarded the Flame.” Two men, alone in the Memorial, watched over the flickering yellow fire that symbolized Human courage arid Human initiative-and Porin had already arranged that the choice should fall that day upon himself and Sanat, as being two newly-arrived Loarists.

  And so, in the fading twilight, the two sat alone in the spacious Flame Room of the Memorial. In the murky semidarkness, lit only by the fitful glare of a dancing yellow flame, a quiet peace descended upon them.

  There was something about the brooding aura of the place that wiped all mental disturbance clean away. There was something about the wavering shadows as they weaved through the pillars of the long colonnade on either side, that cast a hypnotic spell.

  Gradually, he fell into a half doze, and out of sleepy eyes regarded the Flame intently, until it became a living being of light weaving a dim, silent figure beside him.

  But tiny sounds are sufficient to disturb a reverie, especially when contrasted with a hitherto deep silence. Sanat stiffened suddenly, and grasped Porin’s elbow in a fierce grip.

  “Listen,” he hissed the warning quietly.

  Porin started violently out of a peaceful day-dream, regarded his young companion with uneasy intentness, then, without a word, trumpeted one ear. The silence was thicker than ever-also a tangible cloak. Then the faintest possible scraping of feet upon marble, far off. A low whisper, down at the limits of audibility, and then silence again.

  “What is it?” he asked bewilderedly of Sanat, who had already risen to his feet.

  “Lhasinu!” ground out Sanat, face a mask of hate-filled indignation.

  “Impossible!” Porin strove to keep his voice coldly steady, but it trembled in spite of itself. “It would be an unheard-of event. We are just imagining things, now. Our nerves are rubbed raw by this silence, that is all. Perhaps it is some official of the Memorial.”

  “After sunset, on Wednesday?” came Sanat’s strident voice. “That is as illegal as the entrance of Lhasinuic lizards, and far more unlikely. It is my duty as a Guardian of the Flame to investigate this.”

  He made as if to walk toward the shadowed door, and Porin caught his wrist fearfully, “Don’t Filip. Let us forget this until sunrise. One can never tell what will happen. What can you do, even supposing that Lhasinu have entered the Memorial? If you-”

  But Sanat was no longer listening. Roughly, he shook off the other’s desperate grasp, “Stay here! The Flame must be guarded. I shall be back soon.”

  He was already half way across the wide, marble-floored hall. Cautiously, he approached the glass-paned door to the dark, twisting staircase that circled its way upwards through the twilit gloom into the desert recesses of the tower.

  Slipping off his sandals, he crept up the stairs, casting one last look back toward the softly luminous Flame, and toward the nervous, frightened figure standing beside it.

  The two Lhasinu stared about them in the pearly light of the Atomo lamp.

  “Dreary old place,” said Threg Ban Sola. His wrist camera clicked three times. “Take down a few of those books on the walls. They’ll serve as additional proof.”

  “Do you think we ought to,” asked Cor Wen Hasta. “These Human apes may miss them.”

  “Let them!” came the cool response. “What can they do? Here, sit down!” He flicked a hasty glance upon his chronometer. “We’ll get fifty credits for every minute we stay, so we might as well pile up enough to last us for a while.”

  “Pirat For is a fool. What made him think we wouldn’t take the bet?” ‘

  “I think,” said Ban Sola, “he’s heard about the soldier torn to pieces last year for looting a European museum. The Humans didn’t like it, though Loarism is filthy rich, Vega knows. The Humans were disciplined, of course, but the soldier was dead. Anyway, what Pirat For doesn’t know is that the Memorial is deserted Wednesdays. This is going to cost him money.”

  “Fifty credits a minute. And it’s been seven minutes now.”

  “Three hundred and fifty credits. Sit down. We’ll play a game of cards and watch our money mount.”

  Threg Ban Sola drew forth a worn pack of cards from his pouch which, though they were typically and essentially Lhasinuic, bore unmistakable traces of their Human derivation.

  “Put the Atomo-light on the table and I’ll sit between it and the window,” he continued peremptorily, shuffling the cards as he spoke. “Hah! I’ll warrant no Lhasinu ever gamed in such an atmosphere. Why, it will triple the zest of the play.”

  Cor Wen Hasta seated himself, and then rose again, “Did you hear anything?” He stared into the shadows beyond the half-open door.

  “No,” Ban Sola frowned and continued shuffling. “You’re not getting nervous, are you?”

  “Of course not. Still, if they were to catch us here in this blasted tower, it might not be pleasant.”

  “Not a chance. The shadows are making you jumpy.” He dealt the hands.

  “Do you know,” said Wen Hasta, studying his cards carefully, “it wouldn’t be so nice if the Viceroy were to get wind of this, either. I imagine he wouldn’t deal lightly with offenders of the Loarists, as a matter of policy. Back on Sirius, where I served before I was shifted, the scum-”

  “Scum, all right,” grunted Ban Sola. “They breed like flies and fight each other like mad bulls. Look at the creatures!” He turned his cards downward and grew argumentative. “I mean, look at them scientifically and impartially. What are they? Only mammals! Mammals that can think, in a way; but mammals just the same. That’s all.”

  “I know. Did you ever visit one of the Human worlds?”

  Ban Sola smiled, “I may, pretty soon.”

  “Furlough?” Wen Hasta registered polite astonishment.

  “Furlough, my scales. With my ship! And with guns shooting!”

  “What do you mean?” There
was a sudden glint in Wen Hasta’s eyes.

  Ban Sola’s grin grew mysterious. “This isn’t supposed to be known, even among us officers, but you know how things leak out.”

  Wen Hasta nodded, “I know.” Both had lowered their voices instinctively.

  “Well. The Second Drive will be on, now, any time.”

  “No!”

  “Fact! And we’re starting right here. By Vega, the Viceregal Palace is buzzing with nothing else. Some of the officers have even started a lottery on the exact date of the first move. I’ve got a hundred credits at twenty to one myself. But then, I drew only to the nearest week. You can get a hundred and fifty to one, if you’re nervy enough to pick a particular day.”

  “But why here on this Galaxy-forsaken planet?”

  “Strategy on the part of the Home Office.” Ban Sola leaned forward. “The position we’re in now has us facing a numerically superior enemy hopelessly divided amongst itself. If we can keep them so, we can take them over one by one. The Human Worlds would just naturally rather cut their own throats than co-operate with each other.”

  Wen Hasta grinned agreement, “That’s typical mammalian behavior for you. Evolution must have laughed when she gave a brain to an ape.”

  “But Earth has particular significance. It’s the center of Loarism, because the Humans originated here. It corresponds to our own Vegan system.”

  “Do you mean that? But you couldn’t! This little two-by-four flyspeck?”

  “That’s what they say. I wasn’t here at the time, so I wouldn’t know. But anyway, if we can destroy Earth, we can destroy Loarism, which is centered here. It was Loarism, the historians say, that united the Worlds against us at the end of the First Drive. No Loarism; the last fear of enemy unification is gone; and victory is easy.”

  “Damned clever! How are we going to go about it?”

  “Well, the word is that they’re going to pack up every last Human on Earth and scatter them through the subject worlds. Then we can remove everything else on Earth that smells of the Mammals and make it an entirely Lhasinuic world.”

  “But when?”

  “We don’t know; hence the lottery. But no one has placed his bet at a period more than two years in the future.”

  “Hurrah for Vega! I’ll give you two to one I riddle a Human cruiser before you do, when the time comes.”

  “Done,” cried Ban Sola. “I’ll put up fifty credits.”

  They rose to touch fists in token and Wen Hasta grinned at his chronometer, “Another minute and we’ll have an even thousand credits coming to us. Poor Pirat For. He’ll groan. Let’s go now; more would be extortionate.”

  There was low laughter as the two Lhasinu left, long cloaks swishing softly behind them. They did not notice the slightly darker shadow hugging the wall at the head of the stairs, though they almost brushed it as they passed. Nor did they sense the burning eyes focused upon them as they descended noiselessly.

  Loara Broos Porin jerked to his feet with a sob of relief as he saw the figure of Filip Sanat stumble across the hall toward him. He ran to him eagerly, grasping both hands tightly.

  “What kept you, Filip? You don’t know what wild thoughts have passed through my head this past hour. If you had been gone another five minutes, I would have gone mad for sheer suspense and uncertainty. But what’s wrong?”

  It took several moments for Loara Broos’ wild relief to subside sufficiently to note the other’s trembling hands, his disheveled hair, his feverishly-glinting eyes; but when it did, all his fears returned.

  He watched Sanat in dismay, scarcely daring to press his question for fear of the answer. But Sanat needed no urging. In short, jerky sentences he related the conversation he had overheard and his last words trailed into a despairing silence.

  Loara Broos’ pallor was almost frightening, and twice he tried to talk with no success other than a few hoarse gasps. Then, finally, “But it is the death of Loarism! What is to be done?”

  Filip Sanat laughed, as men laugh when they are at last convinced that nothing remains to laugh at. “What can be done? Can we inform the Central Council? You know only too well how helpless they are. The various Human governments? You can imagine how effective those divided fools would be.”

  “But it can’t be true! It simply can’t be!”

  Sanat remained silent for seconds, and then his face twisted agonizedly and in a voice thick with passion, he shouted, “I won’t have it. Do you hear? It shan’t be! I’ll stop it!”

  It was easy to see that he had lost control of himself; that wild emotion was driving him. Porin, large drops of perspiration on his brow, grasped him about the waist, “Sit down, Filip, sit down! Are you going crazy?”

  “No!” With a sudden push, he sent Porin stumbling backwards into a sitting position, while the Flame wavered and flickered madly in the rush of air, “I’m going sane. The time for idealism and compromise and subservience is gone! The time for force has come! We will fight and, by Space, we will win!”

  He was leaving the room at a dead run.

  Porin limped after, “Filip! Filip!” He stopped at the doorway in frightened despair. He could go no further. Though the Heavens fell, someone must guard the Flame.

  But-but what was Filip Sanat going to do? And through Porin’s tortured mind flickered visions of a certain night, five hundred years before, when a careless word, a blow, a shot, had lit a fire over Earth that was finally drowned in Human blood.

  Loara Paul Kane was alone that night. The inner office was empty; the dim, blue light upon the severely simple desk the only illumination in the room. His thin face was bathed in the ghastly light, and his chin buried musingly between his hands.

  And then there was a crashing interruption as the door was flung open and a disheveled Russell Tymball knocked off the restraining hands of half a dozen men and catapulted in. Kane whirled in dismay at the intrusion and one hand flew up to his throat as his eyes widened in apprehension. His face was one startled question.

  Tymball waved his arm in a quieting gesture. “It’s all right. Just let me catch my breath.” He wheezed a bit and seated himself gently before continuing, “Your catalyst has turned up, Loara Paul-and guess where. Here on Earth! Here in New York! Not half a mile from where we’re sitting now!”

  Loara Paul Kane eyed Tymball narrowly, “Are you mad?”

  “Not so you can notice it. I’ll tell you about it, if you don’t mind turning on a light or.two. You look like a ghost in the blue.” The room whitened under the glare of Atomos, and Tymball continued, “Femi and I were returning from the meeting. We were passing the Memorial when it happened, and you can thank Fate for the lucky coincidence that led us to the right spot at the right moment.

  “As we passed, a figure shot out the side entrance, jumped on the marble steps in front, and shouted, ‘Men of Earth!’ Everyone turned to look-you know how filled Memorial Sector is at eleven-and inside of two seconds, he had a crowd.”

  “Who was the speaker, and what was he doing inside the Memorial? This is Wednesday night, you know.”

  “Why,” Tymball paused to consider, “now that you mention it, he must have been one of the two Guardians. He was a Loarist-you couldn’t mistake the tunic. He wasn’t Terrestrial, either!”

  “Did he wear the yellow orb?”

  “No.”

  “Then I know who he was. He’s Porin’s young friend. Go ahead.”

  “There he stood!” Tymball was warming to his task. “He was some twenty feet above street level. You have no idea what an impressive figure he made with the glare of the Luxites lighting his face. He was handsome, but not in an athletic, brawny way. He was the ascetic type, if you know what I mean. Pale, thin face, burning eyes, long, brown hair.

  “And when he spoke! It’s no use describing it; in order to appreciate it really, you would have to hear him. He began telling the crowd of the Lhasinuic designs; shouting what I had been whispering. Evidently, he had gotten them from a good source, for he went in
to details-and how he put them! He made them sound real and frightening. He frightened me with them; had me standing there scared blue at what he was saying; and as for the crowd, after the second sentence, they were hypnotized. Every one of them had had ‘Lhasinuic Menace’ drilled into them over and over again, but this was the first time they listened-actually listened .

  “Then he began damning the Lhasinu. He rang the changes on their bestiality, their perfidy, their criminality-only he had a vocabulary that raked them into the lowest mud of a Venusian ocean. And every time he let loose with an epithet, the crowd stood upon its hind legs and let out a roar. It began to sound like a catechism. ‘Shall we allow this to go on?’ cried he. ‘Never!’ yelled the crowd. ‘Must we yield?’ ‘Never!’ ‘Shall we resist?’ ‘To the end!’ ‘Down with the Lhasinu!’ he shouted. Kill them!’ they howled.

  “I howled as loud as any of them-forgot myself entirely.

  “I don’t know how long it lasted before Lhasinuic guards began closing in. The crowd turned on them, with the Loarist urging them on. Did you ever hear a mob yell for blood? No? It’s the most awful sound you can imagine. The guards thought so, too, for one look at what was before them made them turn and run for their lives, in spite of the fact that they were armed. The mob had grown into a matter of thousands and thousands by then.

  “But in two minutes, the alarm siren sounded-for the first time in a hundred years. I came to my senses at last and made for the Loarist, who had not stopped his tirade a moment It was plain that we couldn’t let him fall into the hands of the Lhasinu.

  “The rest is pretty much of a mixup. Squadrons of motorized police were charging down on us, but somehow, Ferni and I managed between the two of us to grab the Loarist, slip out, and bring him here. I have him in the outer room, gagged and tied, to keep him quiet.”

  During all the last half of the narrative, Kane had paced the floor nervously, pausing every once in a while in deep consideration. Little flecks of blood appeared on his lower lip.

  “You don’t think,” he asked, “that the riot will get out of hand? A premature explosion-”