The Early Asimov. Volume 1

by Isaac Asimov

  Half-Breed

  Jefferson Scanlon wiped a perspiring brow and took a deep breath. With trembling finger, he reached for the switch-and changed his mind. His latest model, representing over three months of solid work, was very nearly his last hope. A good part of the fifteen thousand dollars he had been able to borrow was in it. And now the closing of a switch would show whether he won or lost

  Scanlon cursed himself for a coward and grasped the switch firmly. He snapped it down and flicked it open again with one swift movement. And nothing happened-his eyes, strain though they might, caught no flash of surging power. The pit of his stomach froze, and he closed the switch again, savagely, and left it closed. Nothing happened: the machine, again, was a failure.

  He buried his aching head in his hands, and groaned. “Oh, God! It should work-it should. My math is right and I’ve produced the fields I want. By every law of science, those fields should crack the atom.” He arose, opening the useless switch, and paced the floor in deep thought.

  His theory was right. His equipment was cut neatly to the pattern of his equations. If the theory was right, the equipment must be wrong. But the equipment was right, so the theory must… “I’m getting out of here before I go crazy,” he said to the four walls.

  He snatched his hat and coat from the peg behind the door and was out of the house in a whirlwind of motion, slamming the door behind him in a gust of fury. ‘

  Atomic power. Atomic power! Atomic power!

  The two words repeated themselves over and over again, singing a monotonous, maddening song in his brain. A siren song! It was luring him to destruction; for this dream he had given up a safe and comfortable professorship at M.I.T. For it, he had become a middle-aged man at thirty-the first flush of youth long gone,-an apparent failure.

  And now his money was vanishing rapidly. If the love of money is the root of all evil, the need of money is most certainly the root of all despair. Scanlon smiled a little at the thought-rather neat.

  Of course, there were the beautiful prospects in store if he could ever bridge the gap he had found between theory and practice. The whole world would be his-Mars too, and even the unvisited planets. All his. All he had to do was to find out what was wrong with his mathematics-no, he’d checked that, it was in the equipment. Although- He groaned aloud once more.

  The gloomy train of his thoughts was broken as he suddenly became aware of a tumult of boyish shouts not far off. Scanlon frowned. He hated noise especially when he was in the dumps.

  The shouts became louder and dissolved into scraps of words, “Get him, Johnny!” “Whee-look at him run!”

  A dozen boys careened out from behind a large frame building, not two hundred yards away, and ran pell-mell in Scanlon’s general direction.

  In spite of himself, Scanlon regarded the yelling group curiously. They were chasing something or other, with the heartless glee of children. In the dimness he couldn’t make out just what it was. He screened his eyes and squinted. A sudden motion and a lone figure disengaged itself from the crowd and ran frantically.

  Scanlon almost dropped his solacing pipe in astonishment, for the fugitive was a Tweenie-an Earth-Mars half-breed. There was no mistaking that brush of wiry, dead-white hair that rose stiffly in all directions like porcupine-quills. Scanlon marvelled-what was one of those things doing outside an asylum?

  The boys had caught up with the Tweenie again, and the fugitive was lost to sight. The yells increased in volume, Scanlon, shocked, saw a heavy board rise and fall with a thud. A profound sense of the enormity of his own actions in standing idly by while a helpless creature was being hounded by a crew of gamins came to him, and before he quite realized it he was charging down upon them, fists waving threateningly in the air.

  “Seat, you heathens! Get out of here before I-” the point of his foot came into violent contact with the seat of the nearest hoodlum, and his arms sent two more tumbling.

  The entrance of the new force changed the situation considerably. Boys, whatever their superiority in numbers, have an instinctive fear of adults,-especially such a shouting, ferocious adult as Scanlon appeared to be. In less time than it took Scanlon to realize it they were gone, and he was left alone with the Tweenie, who lay half-prone, and who between panting sobs cast fearful and uncertain glances at his deliverer.

  “Are you hurt?” asked Scanlon gruffly.

  “No, sir.” The Tweenie rose unsteadily, his high silver crest of hair swaying incongruously. “I twisted my ankle a bit, but I can walk. I’ll go now. Thank you very much for helping me.”

  “Hold on! Wait!” Scanlon’s voice was much softer, for it dawned on him that the Tweenie, though almost full-grown, was incredibly gaunt; that his clothes were a mere mass of dirty rags; and that there was a heart-rending look of utter weariness on his thin face.

  “Here,” he said, as the Tweenie turned towards him again, “‘Are you hungry?”

  The Tweenie’s face twisted as though he were fighting a battle within himself. When he spoke it was in a low, embarrassed voice. “Yes-I am, a little.”

  “You look it. Come with me to my house,” he jerked a thumb over his shoulder. “You ought to eat Looks like you can do with a wash and a change of clothes, too.” He turned and led the way.

  He didn’t speak again until he had opened his front door and entered the hall. “I think you’d better take a bath first, boy. There’s the bathroom. Hurry into it and lock the door before Beulah sees you.”

  His admonition came too late. A sudden, startled gasp caused Scanlon to whirl about, the picture of guilt, and the Tweenie to shrink backwards into the shadow of a hat-rack.

  Beulah, Seanlon’s housekeeper, scurried towards them, her mild face aflame with indignation and her short, plump body exuding exasperation at every pore.

  “Jefferson Scanlon! Jefferson!” She glared at the Tweenie with shocked disgust. “How can you bring such a thing into this house! Have you lost your sense of morals?”

  The poor Tweenie was washed away with the flow of her anger, but Scanlon, after his first momentary panic, collected himself. “Come come, Beulah. This isn’t like you. Here’s a poor fellow-creature, starved, tired, beaten by a crowd of boys, and you have no pity for him. I’m really disappointed in you, Beulah.”

  “Disappointed!” sniffed the housekeeper, though touched. “Because of that disgraceful thing. He should be in an institution where they keep such monsters!”

  “All right, we’ll talk about it later. Go ahead, boy, take your bath. And, Beulah, see if you can’t rustle up some old clothes of mine.”

  With a last look of disapproval, Beulah flounced out of the room.

  “Don’t mind her, boy,” Scanlon said when she left “She was my nurse once and she still has a sort of proprietary interest in me. She won’t harm you. Go take your bath.”

  The Tweenie was a different person altogether when he finally seated himself at the dining-room table. Now that the layer of grime was removed, there was something quite handsome about his thin face, and his high, clear forehead gave him a markedly intellectual look. His hair still stood erect, a foot tall, in spite of the moistening it had received. In the light its brilliant whiteness took an imposing dignity, and to Scanlon it seemed to lose all ugliness.

  “Do you like cold chicken?” asked Scanlon.

  “Oh, yes! ” enthusiastically.

  “Then pitch in. And when you finish that, you can have more. Take anything on the table.”

  The Tweenie’s eyes glistened as he set his jaws to work; and, between the two of them, the table was bare in a few minutes.

  “Well, now,” exclaimed Scanlon when the repast had reached its end, “I think you might answer some questions now. What’s your name?”

  “They called me Max.”

  “Ah! And your last name?”

  The Tweenie shrugged his shoulders. “They never called me anything but Max-when they spoke to me at all. I don’t suppose a half-breed needs a name.” There was no mistaking
the bitterness in his voice.

  “But what were you doing running wild through the country? Why aren’t you where you live?”

  “I was in a home. Anything is better than being in a home-even the world outside, which I had never seen. Especially after Tom died.”

  “Who was Tom, Max?” Scanlon spoke softly.

  “He was the only other one like me. He was younger- fifteen-but he died.” He looked up from the table, fury in his eyes. “They killed him, Mr. Scanlon. He was such a young fellow, and so friendly. He couldn’t stand being alone the way I could. He needed friends and fun, and-all he had was me. No one else would speak to him, because he was a half-breed. And when he died I couldn’t stand it anymore either. I left”

  “They meant to be kind. Max. You shouldn’t have done that You’re not like other people; they don’t understand you. And they must have done something for you. You talk as though you’ve had some education.”

  “I could attend classes, all right,” he assented gloomily. “But I had to sit in a corner away from all the others. They let me read all I wanted, though, and I’m thankful for that.”

  “Well, there you are. Max. You weren’t so badly off, were you?”

  Max lifted his head and stared at the other suspiciously. “You’re not going to send me back, are you?” He half rose, as though ready for instant flight.

  Scanlon coughed uneasily. “Of course, if you don’t want to go back I won’t make you. But it would be the best thing for you.”

  “It wouldn’t!” Max cried vehemently.

  “Well, have it your own way. Anyway, I think you’d better go to sleep now. You need it. We’ll talk in the morning.”

  He led the still suspicious Tweenie up to the second floor, and pointed out a small bedroom. “That’s yours for the night I’ll be in the next room later on, and if you need anything just shout.” He turned to leave, then thought of something. “But remember, you mustn’t try to run away during the night”

  “Word of honor. I won’t”

  Scanlon retired thoughtfully to the room he called his study. He lit a dim lamp and seated himself in a worn armchair. For ten minutes he sat without moving, and for the first time in six years thought about something besides his dream of atomic power.

  A quiet knock sounded, and at his grunted acknowledgment Beulah entered. She was frowning, her lips pursed. She planted herself firmly before him.

  “Oh, Jefferson! To think that you should do this! If your dear mother knew…”

  “Sit down, Beulah,” Scanlon waved at another chair, “and don’t worry about my mother. She wouldn’t have minded.”

  “No. Your father was a good-hearted simpleton, too. You’re just like him, Jefferson. First you spend all your money on silly machines that might blow the house up any day-and now you pick up that awful creature from the streets… Tell me, Jefferson,” there was a solemn and fearful pause, “are you thinking of keeping it?”

  Scanlon smiled moodily. “I think I am, Beulah. I can’t very well do anything else.”

  A week later Scanlon was in his workshop. During the night before, his brain, rested by the change in the monotony brought about by the presence of Max, had thought of a possible solution to the puzzle of why his machine wouldn’t work. Perhaps some of the parts were defective, he thought. Even a very slight flaw in some of the parts could render the machine inoperative.

  He plunged into work ardently. At the end of half an hour the machine lay scattered on his workbench, and Scanlon was sitting on a high stool, eying it disconsolately.

  He scarcely heard the door softly open and close. It wasn’t until the intruder had coughed twice that the absorbed inventor realized another was present.

  “Oh-it’s Max.” His abstracted gaze gave way to recognition. “Did you want to see me?”

  “If you’re busy I can wait, Mr. Scanlon.” The week had not removed his shyness. “But there were a lot of books in my room…”

  “Books? Oh, I’ll have them cleaned out, if you don’t want them. I don’t suppose you do,-they’re mostly textbooks, as I remember. A bit too advanced for you just now.”

  “Oh, it’s not too difficult,” Max assured him. He pointed to a book he was carrying. “I just wanted you to explain a bit here in Quantum Mechanics. There’s some math with Integral Calculus that I don’t quite understand. It bothers me. Here- wait till I find it.”

  He ruffled the pages, but stopped suddenly as he became aware of his surroundings. “Oh say-are you breaking up your model?”

  The question brought the hard facts back to Scanlon at a bound. He smiled bitterly. “No, not yet. I just thought there might be something wrong with the insulation or the connections that kept it from functioning. There isn’t-I’ve made a mistake somewhere.”

  “That’s too bad, Mr. Scanlon.” The Tweenie’s smooth brow wrinkled mournfully.

  “The worst of it is that I can’t imagine what’s wrong. I’m positive the theory’s perfect-I’ve checked every way I can. I’ve gone over the mathematics time and time again, and each time it says the same thing. Space-distortion fields of such and such an intensity will smash the atom to smithereens. Only they don’t.”

  “May I see the equations?”

  Scanlon gazed at his ward quizzically, but could see nothing in his face other than the most serious interest He shrugged his shoulders. “There they are-under that ream of yellow paper on the desk. I don’t know if you can read them, though. I’ve been too lazy to type them out, and my handwriting is pretty bad.”

  Max scrutinized them carefully and flipped the sheets one by one. “It’s a bit over my head, I guess.”

  The inventor smiled a little. “I rather thought they would be. Max.”

  He looked around the littered room, and a sudden sense of anger came over him. Why wouldn’t the thing work? Abruptly he got up and snatched his coat “I’m going out of here. Max,” he said. “Tell Beulah not to make me anything hot for lunch. It would be cold before I got back.”

  It was afternoon when he opened the front door, and hunger was sharp enough to prevent him from realizing with a puzzled start that someone was at work in his laboratory. There came to his ears a sharp buzzing sound followed by a momentary silence and then again the buzz which this time merged into a sharp crackling that lasted an instant and was gone.

  He bounded down the hall and threw open the laboratory door. The sight that met his eyes froze him into an attitude of sheer astonishment-stunned incomprehension.

  Slowly, he understood the message of his senses. His precious atomic motor had been put together again, but this time in a manner so strange as to be senseless, for even his trained eye could see no reasonable relationship among the various parts.

  He wondered stupidly if it were a nightmare or a practical joke, and then everything became clear to him at one bound, for there at the other end of the room was the unmistakable sight of a brush of silver hair protruding from above a bench, swaying gently from side to side as the hidden owner of the brush moved.

  “Max!” shouted the distraught inventor, in tones of fury. Evidently the foolish boy had allowed his interest to inveigle him into idle and dangerous experiments.

  At the sound, Max lifted a pale face which upon the sight of his guardian turned a dull red. He approached Scanlon with reluctant steps.

  “What have you done?” cried Scanlon, staring about him angrily. “Do you know what you’ve been playing with? There’s enough juice running through this thing to electrocute you twice over.”

  “I’m sorry, Mr. Scanlon. I had a rather silly idea about all this when I looked over the equations, but I was afraid to say anything because you know so much more than I do. After you went away, I couldn’t resist the temptation to try it out, though I didn’t intend to go this far. I thought I’d have it apart again before you came back.”

  There was a silence that lasted a long time. When Scanlon spoke again, his voice was curiously mild, “Well, what have you done?”

&nbs
p; “You won’t be angry?”

  “It’s a little too late for that. You couldn’t have made it much worse, anyway.”

  “Well, I noticed here in your equations,” he extracted one sheet and then another and pointed, “that whenever the expression representing the space-distortion fields occurs, it is always referred to as a function of x* plus y’ plus z”. Since the fields, as far as I could see, were always referred to as constants, that would give you the equation of a sphere.”

  Scanlon nodded, “I noticed that, but it has nothing to do with the problem.”

  “Well, I thought it might indicate the necessary arrangement of the individual fields, so I disconnected the distorters and hooked them up again in a sphere.”

  The inventor’s mouth fell open. The mysterious rearrangement of his device seemed clear now-and what was more, eminently sensible.

  “Does it work?” he asked.

  “I’m not quite sure. The parts haven’t been made to fit this arrangement so that it’s only a rough set-up at best. Then there’s the constant error-”

  “But does it work ? Close the switch, damn it!” Scanlon was all fire and impatience once more.

  “All right, stand back. I cut the power to one-tenth normal so we won’t get more output than we can handle.”

  He closed the switch slowly, and at the moment of contact, a glowing ball of blue-white flame leaped into being from the recesses of the central quartz chamber. Scanlon screened his eyes automatically, and sought the output gauge. The needle was climbing steadily and did not stop until it was pressing the upper limit. The flame burned continuously, releasing no heat seemingly, though beside its light, more intensely brilliant than a magnesium flare, the electric lights faded into dingy yellowness.

  Max opened the switch once more and the ball-of flame reddened and died, leaving the room comparatively dark and red. The output gauge sank to zero once more and Scanlon felt his knees give beneath him as he sprawled onto a chair.