The Early Asimov. Volume 1

by Isaac Asimov

  He reached for his pipe and filled it slowly, “The world owes a debt to one Tweenie which it can never repay-and I owe it to him as well. I’m going to do it. I’m going to create Tweenietown.”

  That night he did not go to sleep. The stars turned in their grand circles and paled at last. The grey of dawn came and grew, but still Scanlon sat unmoving-dreaming and planning.

  At eighty, age sat lightly upon Jefferson Scanlon’s head. The spring was gone from his step, the sturdy straightness from his shoulders, but his robust health had not failed him, and his mind, beneath the shock of hair, now as white as any Tweenie’s, still worked with undiminished vigor.

  A happy life is not an aging one, and for forty years now, Scanlon had watched Tweenietown grow, and in the watching, had found happiness.

  He could see it now stretched before him like a large, beautiful painting as he gazed out the window. A little gem of a town with a population of slightly more than a thousand, nestling amid three hundred square miles of fertile Ohio land.

  Neat and sturdy houses, wide, clean streets, parks, theatres, schools, stores-a model town, bespeaking decades of intelligent effort and co-operation.

  The door opened behind him and he recognized the soft step without needing to turn, “Is that you, Madeline?”

  “Yes, father,” for by no other title was he known to any inhabitant of Tweenietown. “Max is returning with Mr. Johanson.”

  “That’s good,” he gazed at Madeline tenderly. “We’ve seen Tweenietown grow since those days long ago, haven’t we?”

  Madeline nodded and sighed.

  “Don’t sigh, dear. It’s been well worth the years we’ve given to it. If only Beulah had lived to see it now.”

  He shook his head as he thought of the old housekeeper, dead now a quarter of a century.

  “Don’t think such sad thoughts,” admonished Madeline in her turn. “Here comes Mr. Johanson. Remember it’s the fortieth anniversary and a happy day; not a sad one.”

  Charles B. Johanson was what is known as a “shrewd” man. That is, he was an intelligent, far-seeing person, comparatively well-versed in the sciences, but one who was wont to put these good qualities into practice only in order to advance his own interest. Consequently, he went far in politics and was the first appointee to the newly created Cabinet post of Science and Technology.

  It was the first official act of his to visit the world’s greatest scientist and inventor, Jefferson Scanlon, who, in his old age, still had no peer in the number of useful inventions turned over to the government every year. Tweenietown was a considerable surprise to him. It was known rather vaguely in the outside world that the town existed, and it was considered a hobby of the old scientist-a harmless eccentricity. Johanson found it a well-worked-out project of sinister connotations.

  His attitude, however, when he entered Scanlon’s room in company with his erstwhile guide. Max, was one of frank geniality, concealing well certain thoughts that swept through his mind.

  “Ah, Johanson,” greeted Scanlon, “you’re back. What do you think of all this?” his arm made a wide sweep.

  “It is surprising-something marvelous to behold,” Johanson assured him.

  Scanlon chuckled, “Glad to hear it. We have a population of 1154 now and growing every day. You’ve seen what we’ve done already but it’s nothing to what we are going to do in the future-even after my death. However, there is something I wish to see done before I die and for that I’ll need your help.

  “And that is?” questioned the Secretary of Science and Technology guardedly.

  “Just this. That you sponsor measures giving these Tweenies, these so long despised half-breeds, full equality,-political,- legal,-economic,-social,-with Terrestrials and Martians.”

  Johanson hesitated, “It would be difficult. There is a certain amount of perhaps understandable prejudice against them, and until we can convince Earth that the Tweenies deserve equality-” he shook his head doubtfully.

  “Deserve equality!” exclaimed Scanlon, vehemently, “Why, they deserve more. I am moderate in my demands.” At these words. Max, sitting quietly in a corner, looked up and bit his lip, but said nothing as Scanlon continued, “You don’t know the true worth of these Tweenies. They combine the best of Earth and Mars. They possess the cold, analytical reasoning powers of the Martians together with the emotional drive and boundless energy of the Earthman. As far as intellect is concerned, they are your superior and mine, every one of them. I ask only equality.”

  The Secretary smiled soothingly, “Your zeal misleads you perhaps, my dear Scanlon.”

  “It does not. Why do you suppose I turn out so many successful gadgets-like this gravitational shield I created a few years back. Do you think I could have done it without my Tweenie assistants? It was Max here,” Max dropped his eyes before the sudden piercing gaze of the Cabinet member, “that put the final touch upon my discovery of atomic power itself.”

  Scanlon threw caution to the winds, as he grew excited, “Ask Professor Whitsun of Stanford and he’ll tell you. He’s a world authority on psychology and knows what he’s talking about. He studied the Tweenie and he’ll tell you that the Tweenie is the coming race of the Solar System, destined to take the supremacy away from us pure-bloods as inevitably as night follows day. Don’t you think they deserve equality in that case?”

  “Yes, I do think so,-definitely,” replied Johanson. There was a strange glitter in his eyes, and a crooked smile upon his Ups, “This is of extreme importance, Scanlon. I shall attend to it immediately. So immediately, in fact, that I believe I had better leave in half an hour, to catch the 2:10 strato-car.”

  Johanson had scarcely left, when Max approached Scanlon and blurted out with no preamble at all, “There is something I have to show you, father-something you have not known about before.”

  Scanlon stared his surprise, “What do you mean?”

  “Come with me, please, father. I shall explain.” His grave expression was almost frightening. Madeline joined the two at the door, and at a sign from Max, seemed to comprehend the situation. She said nothing but her eyes grew sad and the lines in her forehead seemed to deepen.

  In utter silence, the three entered the waiting Rocko-car and were sped across the town in the direction of the Hill o’ the Woods. High over Lake Clare they shot to come down once more in the wooded patch at the foot of the hill.

  A tall, burly Tweenie sprang to attention as the car landed, and started at the sight of Scanlon.

  “Good afternoon, father,” he whispered respectfully, and cast a questioning glance at Max as he did so.

  “Same to you, Emmanuel,” replied Scanlon absently. He suddenly became aware that before him was a cleverly-camouflaged opening that led into the very hill itself.

  Max beckoned him to follow and led the way into the opening which after a hundred feet opened into an enormous manmade cavern. Scanlon halted in utter amazement, for before him were three giant space-ships, gleaming silvery-white and equipped, as he could plainly see, with the latest atomic power.

  “I’m sorry, father,” said Max, “that all this was done without your knowledge. It is the only case of the sort in the history of Tweenietown.” Scanlon scarcely seemed to hear, standing as if in a daze, and Max continued, “The center one is the flagship-the Jefferson Scanlon . The one to the right is the Beulah Goodkin and the one to the left the Madeline .”

  Scanlon snapped out of his bemusement, “But what does this all mean and why the secrecy?”

  “These ships have been lying ready for five years now, fully fuelled and provisioned, ready for instant take-off. Tonight. we blast away the side of the hill and shoot for Venus -tonight. We have not told you till now, for we did not wish to disturb your peace of mind with a misfortune we knew long ago to be inevitable. We had thought that perhaps,” his voice sank lower, “its fulfillment might have been postponed until after you were no longer with us.”

  “Speak out,” cried Scanlon suddenly. “I want the f
ull details. Why do you leave just as I feel sure I can obtain full equality for you?”

  “Exactly,” answered Max, mournfully. “Your words to Johanson swung the scale. As long as Earthmen and Martians merely thought us different and inferior, they despised us and tolerated us. You have told Johanson we were superior and would ultimately supplant Mankind. They have no alternative now but to hate us. There shall be no further toleration; of that I can assure you. We leave before the storm breaks.”

  The old man’s eyes widened as the truth of the other’s statements became apparent to him, “I see. I must get in touch with Johanson. Perhaps, we can together correct that terrible mistake.” He clapped a hand to his forehead.

  “Oh, Max,” interposed Madeline, tearfully, “why don’t you come to the point? We want you to come with us, father. In Venus, which is so sparsely settled, we can find a spot where we can develop unharmed for an unlimited time. We can establish our nation, free and untrammeled, powerful in our own right, no longer dependent on-”

  Her voice died away and she gazed anxiously at Scanlon’s face, now grown drawn and haggard. “No,” he whispered, “no! My place is here with my own kind. Go, my children, and establish your nation. In the end, your descendants shall rule the System. But I-I shall stay here.”

  “Then I shall stay, too,” insisted Max. “You are old and someone must care for you. I owe you my life a dozen times over.”

  Scanlon shook his head firmly, “I shall need no one. Dayton is not far. I shall be well taken care of there or anywhere else I go. You, Max, are needed by your race. You are their leader. Go!”

  Scanlon wandered through the deserted streets of Tweenietown and tried to take a grip upon himself. It was hard. Yesterday, he had celebrated the fortieth anniversary of its founding-it had been at the peak of its prosperity. Today, it was a ghost town.

  Yet, oddly enough, there was a spirit of exultation about him. His dream had shattered-but only to give way to a brighter dream. He had nourished foundlings and brought up a race in its youth and for that he was someday to be recognized as the founder of the superrace .

  It was his creation that would someday rule the system. Atomic power-gravity nullifiers-all faded into insignificance. This was his real gift to the Universe.

  This, he decided, was how a God must feel.

  ***

  As in “The Weapon Too Dreadful to Use,” the story dealt with racial prejudice on an interplanetary scale. I kept coming back to this theme very frequently-something not surprising in a Jew growing up during the Hitler era.

  Once again my naivete shows, since I assume not only an intelligent race on Mars, where such a thing is most unlikely even by 1939 evidence, but assume the Martians to be sufficiently like Earthmen to make interbreeding possible. (I can only shake my head wearily. I knew better in 1939;

  I really did. I just accepted science fictional cliches, that’s all. Eventually, I stopped doing that.)

  My treatment of atomic power was also primitive in the extreme, and I knew better than that, too, even though at the time I wrote the story, uranium fission had not been discovered. The Tweenie’s mysterious reference to “a function of x2plus y2plus z2” merely means that I had taken analytic geometry at Columbia not long before and was flaunting my knowledge of the equation for the sphere.

  This was the first story in which I tried to introduce the romantic motif, however light. It had to be a failure. At the time of the writing of this story, I had still never had a date with a girl.

  And yet the greatest embarrassment in a story simply littered with embarrassments was the following line in the seventh paragraph: “… For it, he had become a middle-aged man at thirty-the first flush of youth long gone-”

  Well, I wrote it at nineteen. To me, the first flush of youth was long gone by the time one reached thirty. I know better now, of course, since more than thirty years later, I find that I am still in the first flush of youth.

  There was some reason for self-congratulation in connection with “Half-Breed,” however. My fourth published story, it was the longest to appear up to then. With a length of nine thousand words, it was listed on the table of contents as a “novelette,” my first published story in that class.

  My name also appeared on the cover of the magazine. It was the first time that had ever happened.

  Almost immediately after finishing “Half-Breed,” I began “The Secret Sense,” submitting it to John Campbell on June 21, 1939, and receiving it back on the twenty-eighth. Pohl could not place it either.

  Toward the end of 1940, however, a pair of sister magazines, Cosmic Stories and Stirring Science Stories , were being planned, with Don Wollheim, a fellow Futurian, selected as editor. The magazines were starting on a microbudget, however, and the only way they could come into being was to get stories for nothing-at least for the initial issues. For the purpose, Wollheim appealed to the Futurians and they came through. The first issues consisted entirely (I think) of stories by Futurians, under their own names or pseudonyms.

  I, too, was asked, and since by that time I was convinced I could sell “The Secret Sense” nowhere, I donated it to Wollheim, who promptly accepted it.

  That was that, except that, at the time, yet another magazine, Comet Stories , was coming into existence, under the editorship of F. Orlin Tremaine, who had been Campbell’s predecessor at Astounding .

  I went to see Tremaine several times, since I thought I might sell him a story or two. On the second visit, on December 5, 1940, Tremaine spoke with some heat concerning the forthcoming birth of Wollheim’s magazines. While he himself was paying top rates, he said, Wollheim was getting stories for nothing and with these could put out magazines that would siphon readership from those magazines that paid. Any author who donated stories to Wollheim, and thus contributed to the destruction of competing magazines who paid, should be blacklisted in the field.

  I listened with horror, knowing that I had donated a story for nothing. It was a story, to be sure, that I had felt to be worth nothing, but it had not occurred to me that I was undercutting other authors by setting up unfair competition.

  I did not quite have the nerve to tell Tremaine I was one of the guilty ones, but as soon as I got home I wrote to Wollheim asking him to accept one of two alternatives: either he could run the story under a pseudonym so that my guilt would be hidden, or if he insisted on using my name he could pay me five dollars so that if the question ever arose I could honestly deny having given him the story for nothing.

  Wollheim chose to use my name and sent me a check for five dollars, but did so with remarkably poor grace (and, to be sure, he was not, in those days, noted for any suavity of character). He accompanied the check with an angry letter that said, in part, that I was being paid an enormous word rate because it was only my name that had value and for that I was receiving $2.50 a word. Perhaps he was correct. If so, the word rate was indeed a record, one that I have not surpassed to this very day. On the other hand, the total payment also set a record. No other story I have written commanded so low a payment.

  Years later, the well-known science fiction historian Sam Moskowitz wrote a short biography of me, which appeared in the April 1962 Amazing . In the course of the biography, he describes a version of the above events and mistakenly states that it was John Campbell who was angry at the donation of stories without pay and that it was he who threatened me with blacklisting.

  Not so!

  Campbell had nothing to do with it, and, what’s more, would have been incapable of making threats. If he had known in advance that I intended to donate a story for nothing to a competing magazine, he would have pointed out my stupidity to me in a perfectly friendly way and would have let it go at that.

  As a matter of fact, while I tried to keep my guilt a secret from Tremaine, I had no intention of hiding it from Campbell. On my very next visit to him, on December 16, 1940, I confessed in full, and he shrugged it off.

  “Campbell, I imagine, was quite certain that no m
agazine that had to depend on free stories could last for long, since the only stories so available would have been rejected by everyone else. And he would be right. Cosmic Stories lasted only three issues, and Stirring Science Stories only four. “The Secret Sense” remained the only story of mine they published.

  As for Comet Stories , that lasted five issues, and though Tremaine hesitated over a couple of my stories, he never bought one.

  The Secret Sense

  The lilting strains of a Strauss waltz filled the room. The music waxed and waned beneath the sensitive fingers of Lincoln Fields, and through half-closed eyes he could almost see whirling figures pirouetting about the waxed floor of some luxurious salon.

  Music always affected him that way. It filled his mind with dreams of sheer beauty and transformed his room into a paradise of sound. His hands flickered over the piano in the last delicious combinations of tones and then slowed reluctantly to a halt.

  He sighed and for a moment remained absolutely silent as if trying to extract the last essence of beauty from the dying echoes. Then he turned and smiled faintly at the other occupant of the room.

  Garth Jan smiled in turn but said nothing. Garth had a great liking for Lincoln Fields, though little understanding. They were worlds apart-literally-for Garth hailed from the giant underground cities of Mars while Fields was the product of sprawling Terrestrial New York.

  “How was that. Garth, old fellow?” questioned Fields doubtfully.

  Garth shook his head. He spoke in his precise, painstaking manner, “I listened attentively and can truly say that it was not unpleasant. There is a certain rhythm, a cadence of sorts, which, indeed, is rather soothing. But beautiful? No!”

  There was pity in Fields’ eyes-pity almost painful in its intensity. The Martian met the gaze and understood all that it meant, yet there was no answering spark of envy. His bony giant figure remained doubled up in a chair that was too small for him and one thin leg swung leisurely back and forth.