The Early Asimov. Volume 1

by Isaac Asimov

  “This is amazing,” exclaimed Max Scanlon. “Why, they’re as friendly as children. I can’t understand it.”

  Arthur-shook his head, “Neither can I, Dad. In fifty years, no explorer has ever gotten a good look at one, and here they are-thick as flies.”

  Henry was throwing pebbles into the lake. “Watch this, all of you.”

  A pebble curved its way into the water, and as it splashed six green forms turned a back somersault and slid smoothly below the surface. With no time for a breath between, one was up again and the pebble arced back to fall at Henry’s feet.

  The amphibians were crowding closer in ever increasing numbers now, approaching the very edge of the lake, where they grasped at the coarse reeds on the bank and stared goggle-eyed at the Tweenies. Their muscular webbed, legs could be seen below the surface of the water, moving back and forth with lazy grace. Without cessation, the lipless mouths opened and closed in a queer, uneven rhythm.

  “I think they’re talking, Mr. Scanlon,” said Irene, suddenly.

  “It’s quite possible,” agreed the old Tweenie, thoughtfully. “Their brain-cases are fairly large, and they may possess considerable intelligence. If their voice boxes and ears are tuned to sound waves of higher or lower range than our own, we would be unable to hear them-and that might very well explain their soundlessness.”

  “They’re probably discussing us as busily as we are them,” said Arthur.

  “Yes, and wondering what sort of freaks we are,” added Irene.

  Henry said nothing. He was approaching the edge of the lake with cautious steps. The ground grew muddy beneath his feet, and the reeds thick. The group of amphibians nearest turned anxious eyes toward him, and one or two loosened their hold and slipped silently away.

  But the nearest held his ground. His wide mouth was clamped tight; his eyes were wary-but he did not move.

  Henry, paused, hesitated, and then held out his hand, “Hiya, Phib!”

  The “Phib” stared at the outstretched hand. Very cautiously, his own webbed forelimb stretched out and touched the Tweenie’s fingers. With a jerk, they were drawn back, and the Phib’s mouth worked in soundless excitement.

  “Be careful,” came Max’s voice from behind. “You’ll scare him that way. His skin is terribly sensitive and dry objects must irritate him. Dip your hand in the water.”

  Slowly, Henry obeyed. The Phib’s muscles tensed to escape at the slightest sudden motion, but none came. Again the Tweenie’s hand was held out, dripping wet this time.

  For a long minute, nothing happened, as the Phib seemed to debate within itself the future course of action. And then, after two false starts and hasty withdrawals, fingers touched again.

  “Ataphib,” said Henry, and clasped the green hand in his own.

  A single, startled jerk followed and then a lusty return of pressure to an extent that numbed the Tweenie’s fingers. Evidently encouraged by the first Phib’s example, his fellows were crowding close now, offering hosts of hands.

  The other three Tweenies slushed up through the mud now, and offered wetted hands in their turn.

  “That’s funny,” said Irene. “Everytime I shake hands I seem to keep thinking of hair.”

  Max turned to her, “Hair?”

  “Yes, ours. I get a picture of long, white hair, standing straight up and shining in the sun.” Her hand rose unconsciously to her own smooth tresses.

  “Say!” interrupted Henry suddenly, “I’ve been noticing that, too, now that you mention it. Only when I shake hands, though.”

  “How about you, Arthur?” asked Max.

  Arthur nodded once, his eyebrows climbing.

  Max smiled and pounded fist into palm. “Why, it’s a primitive sort of telepathy-too weak to work without physical contact and even then capable of delivering only a few simple ideas.”

  “But why hair, dad?” asked Arthur.

  “Maybe it’s our hair that attracted them in the first place. They’ve never seen anything like it and-and-well, who can explain their psychology?”

  He was down on his knees suddenly, splashing water over his high crest of hair. There was a frothing of water and a surging of green bodies as the Phibs pressed closer. One green paw passed gently through the stiff white crest, followed by excited, if noiseless, chattering. Struggling amongst themselves for favored vantage-points, they competed for the privilege of touching the hair until Max, for sheer weariness, was forced to rise again.

  “They’re probably our friends for life now,” he said. “A pretty queer set of animals.”

  It was Irene, then, who noticed the group of Phib? a hundred yards from shore. They paddled quietly, making no effort to approach closer, “Why don’t they come?” she asked.

  She turned to one of the foremost Phibs and pointed, making frantic gestures of dubious meaning. She received only solemn stares in return.

  “That’s not the way, Irene,” admonished Max, gently. He 229 held out his hand, grasped that of a willing Phib and stood motionless for a moment. When he loosed his grip, the Phib slid into the water and disappeared. In a moment, the laggard Phibs were approaching shore slowly.

  “How did you do it?” gasped Irene.

  “Telepathy! I held on tightly and pictured an isolated group of Phibs and a long hand stretching out over the water to shake theirs.” He smiled gently, “They are quite intelligent, or they would not have understood so readily.”

  “Why, they’re females,” cried Arthur, in sudden breathless astonishment “By all that’s holy,-they suckle their young!”

  The newcomers were slenderer and lighter in color than the others. They advanced shyly, urged on by the bolder males and held out timid hands in greeting.

  “Oh-h,” Irene cried in sudden delight. “Look at this!”

  She was down on her knees in the mud, arms outstretched to the nearest female. The other three watched in fascinated silence as the nervous she-Phib clasped its tiny armful closer to its breast.

  But Irene’s arms made little inviting gestures, “Please, please. It’s so cute. I won’t hurt him.”

  Whether the Phib mother understood is doubtful, but with a sudden motion, she held out a little green bundle of squirming life and deposited it in the waiting arms.

  Irene rose, squealing with delight. Little webbed feet kicked aimlessly and round frightened eyes stared at her. The other three crowded close and watched it curiously.

  “Its the dearest little thing, it is. Look at its funny little mouth. Do you want to hold it. Henry?”

  Henry jumped backwards as if stung, “Not on your life! I’d probably drop it.”

  “Do you get any thought images, Irene?’ asked Max, thoughtfully.

  Irene considered and frowned her concentration, “No-o. It’s too young, mayb-oh, yes! It’s-it’s-” She stopped, and tried to laugh. “It’s hungry! ”

  She returned the little baby Phib to its mother, whose muscular arms clasped the little mite close. The tiny Phib swiveled its little green head to bend one last goggling look at the creature that had held it for an instant.

  “Friendly creatures,” said Max, “and intelligent. They can keep their lakes and rivers. We’ll take the land and won’t interfere with them.”

  A lone Tweenie stood on Scanlon Ridge and his field-glass pointed at the Divide ten miles up the hills. For five minutes, the glass did not waver and the Tweenie stood like some watchful statue made of the same rock as formed the mountains all about.

  And then the field-glass lowered, and the Tweenie’s face was a pale thin-lipped picture of gloom. He hastened down the slope to the guarded, hidden entrance to Venustown.

  He shot past the guards without a word and descended into the lower levels where solid rock was still being puffed into nothingness and shaped at will by controlled blasts of super-energy.

  Arthur Scanlon looked up and with a sudden premonition of disaster, gestured the Disintegrators to a halt.

  “What’s wrong, Sorrell?”

  The
Tweenie leant over and whispered a single word into Arthur’s ear.

  “Where?” Arthur’s voice jerked out hoarsely.

  “On the other side of the ridge. They’re coming through the Divide now in our direction. I spotted the blaze of sun on metal and-” he held up his field-glass significantly.

  “Good Lord!” Arthur rubbed his forehead distractedly and then turned to the anxiously-watching Tweenie at the controls of the Disinto. “Continue as planned! No change!”

  He hurried up the levels to the entrance, and snapped out hurried orders, “Triple the guard immediately. No one but me or those with me, are to be permitted to leave. Send out men to round up any stragglers outside immediately and order them to keep within shelter and make no unnecessary sound.”

  Then, back again through the central avenue to his father’s quarters.

  Max Scanlon looked up from his calculations and his grave forehead smoothed out slowly.

  “Hello, son. Is anything wrong? Another resistant stratum?”

  “No, nothing like that.” Arthur closed the door carefully and lowered his voice. “Earthmen!”

  For a moment. Max made no movement. The expression on his face froze for an instant, and then, with a sudden exhalation, he slumped in his chair and the lines in his forehead deepened wearily.

  “Settlers?”

  “Looks so. Sorrell said women and children were among them. There were several hundred in all, equipped for a stay-and headed in this direction.”

  Max groaned, “Oh, the luck, the luck! All the vast empty spaces of Venus to choose and they come here. Come, let’s get a firsthand look at this.”

  They came through the Divide in a long, snaky line. Hard-bitten pioneers with their pinched work-worn women and their carefree, half-barbarous, wilderness-bred children. The low, broad “Venus Vans” joggled clumsily over the untrodden ways, loaded down with amorphous masses of household necessities.

  The leaders surveyed the prospect and one spoke in clipped, jerky syllables, “Almost through, Jem. We’re out among the foothills now.”

  And the other replied slowly, “And there’s good new growing-land ahead. We can stake out farms and settle down.” He sighed, “It’s been tough going this last month. I’m glad it’s over!”

  And from a ridge ahead-the last ridge before the valley-the Scanlons, father and son, unseen dots in the distance, watched the newcomers with heavy hearts.

  “The one thing we could not prepare for-and it’s happened.”

  Arthur spoke slowly and reluctantly, “They are few and unarmed. We can drive them out in an hour.” With sudden fierceness, “Venus is ours!”

  “Yes, we can drive them out in an hour-in ten minutes. But they would return, in thousands, and armed. We’re not ready to fight all Earth, Arthur.”

  The younger man bit his lip and words were muttered forth half in shame, “For the sake of the race. Father-we could kill them all.”

  “Never!” exclaimed Max, his old eyes flashing. “We will not be the first to strike. If we kill, we can expect no mercy from Earth; and we will deserve none,”

  “But, father, what else? We can expect no mercy from Earth as it is. If we’re spotted,-if they ever suspect our existence, our whole hegira becomes pointless and we lose out at the very beginning.”

  “I know. I know.”

  “We can’t change now,” continued Arthur, passionately. “We’ve spent months preparing Venustown. How could we start over?”

  “We can’t,” agreed Max, tonelessly. “To even attempt to move would mean sure discovery. We can only-”

  “Live like moles after all. Hunted fugitives! Frightened refugees! Is that it?”

  “Put it any way you like-but we must hide, Arthur, and bury ourselves.”

  “Until-?”

  “Until I-or we-perfect a curved two-dimensional statbeam. Surrounded by an impermeable defense, we can come out into the open. It may take years; it may take one week. I don’t know.”

  “And every day we run the risk of detection. Any day the swarms of purebloods can come down upon us and wipe us out. We’ve got to hang by a hair day after day, week after week, month after month-”

  “We’ve got to.” Max’s mouth was clamped shut, and his eyes were a frosty blue.

  Slowly, they went back to Venustown.

  Things were quiet in Venustown, and eyes were turned to the top-most level and the hidden exits. Out there was air and the sun and space-and Earthmen.

  They had settled several miles up the river-bed. Their rude houses were springing up. Surrounding land was being cleared. Farms were being staked out. Planting was taking place.

  And in the bowels of Venus, eleven hundred Tweenies shaped their home and waited for an old man to track down the elusive equations that would enable a stat-ray to spread in two dimensions and curve.

  Irene brooded somberly as she sat upon the rocky ledge and stared ahead to where the dim gray light indicated the existence of an exit to the open. Her shapely legs swung gently back and forth and Henry Scanlon, at her side, fought desperately to keep his gaze focussed harmlessly upon air.

  “You know what. Henry?”

  “What?”

  “I’ll bet the Phibs could help us.”

  “Help us do what, Irene?”

  “Help us get rid of the Earthmen.”

  Henry thought it over carefully, “What makes you think that?”

  “Well, they’re pretty clever-cleverer than we think. Their minds are altogether different, though, and maybe they could fix it. Besides-I’ve just got a feeling.” She withdrew her hand suddenly, “You don’t have to hold it. Henry.”

  Henry swallowed, “I-I thought you had a sort of unsteady seat there-might fall, you know.”

  “Oh!” Irene looked down the terrific three-foot drop. ‘There’s something in what you say. It does look pretty high here.”

  Henry decided he was in the presence of a hint, and acted accordingly. There was a moment’s silence while he seriously considered the possibility of her feeling a bit chilly-but before he had quite decided that she probably was, she spoke again,

  “What I was going to say, Henry, was this. Why don’t we go out and see the Phibs?”

  “Dad would take my head off if I tried anything like that.”

  “It would be a lot of fun.”

  “Sure, but it’s dangerous. We can’t risk anyone seeing us.”

  Irene shrugged resignedly, “Well, if you’re afraid, we’ll say no more about it.”

  Henry gasped and reddened. He was off the ledge in a bound, “Who’s afraid? When do you want to go?”

  “Right now, Henry. Right this very minute.” Her cheeks flushed with enthusiasm.

  “All right then. Come on.” He started off at a half-run, dragging her along.-And then a thought occurred to him and he stopped short.

  He turned to her fiercely, “ I’ll show you if I’m afraid.” His arms were suddenly about her and her little cry of surprise was muffled effectively.

  “Goodness,” said Irene, when in a position to speak once more. “How thoroughly brutal! ”

  “Certainly. I’m a very well-known brute,” gasped Henry, as he uncrossed his eyes and got rid of the swimming sensation in his head. “Now let’s get to those Phibs; and remind me, when I’m president, to put up a memorial to the fellow who invented kissing.”

  Up through the rock-lined corridor, past the backs of outward-gazing sentries, out through the carefully camouflaged opening, and they were upon the surface.

  The smudge of smoke on the southern horizon was grim evidence of the presence of man, and with that in mind, the two young Tweenies slithered through the underbrush into the forest and through the forest to the lake of the Phibs.

  Whether in some strange way of their own the Phibs sensed the presence of friends, the two could not tell, but they had scarcely reached the banks when approaching dull-green smudges beneath water told of the creatures’ coming.

  A wide, goggle-eyed head bro
ke the surface, and, in a second, bobbing frogheads dotted the lake.

  Henry wet his hand and seized the friendly forelimb outstretched to him.

  “Hi there, Phib.”

  The grinning mouth worked and made its soundless answer.

  “Ask him about the Earthmen, Henry,” urged Irene. Henry motioned impatiently.

  “Wait a while. It takes time. I’m doing the best I can.”

  For two slow minutes, the two, Tweenie and Phib, remained motionless and stared into each other’s eyes. And then the Phib broke away and, at some silent order, every lake-creature vanished, leaving the Tweenies alone.

  Irene stared for a moment, nonplussed, “What happened?”

  Henry shrugged, “I don’t know. I pictured the Earthmen and he seemed to know who I meant. Then I pictured Earthmen fighting us and killing us-and he pictured a lot of us and only a few of them and another fight in which we killed them. But then I pictured us killing them and then a lot more of them coming-hordes and hordes-and killing us and then-”

  But the girl was holding her hands to her tortured ears, “Oh, my goodness. No wonder the poor creature didn’t understand. I wonder he didn’t go crazy.”

  “Well, I did the best I could,” was the gloomy response. “This was all your nutty idea, anyway.”

  Irene got no further with her retort than the opening syllable, for in a moment the lake was crowded with Phibs once more. “They’ve come back,” she said instead.

  A Phib pushed forward and seized Henry’s hand while the others crowded around in great excitement. There were several moments of silence and Irene fidgeted.

  “Well?” she said.

  “Quiet, please. I don’t get it. Something about big animals, or monsters, or-” His voice trailed away, and the furrow between his eyes deepened into painful concentration.

  He nodded, first abstractedly, then vigorously.

  He broke away and seized Irene’s hands. “I’ve got it-and it’s the perfect solution. We can save Venustown all by ourselves, Irene, with the help of the Phibs-if you want to come to the Lowlands with me tomorrow. We can take along a pair of Tonite pistols and food supplies and if we follow the river, it oughtn’t to take us more than two or three days there and the same time back. What do you say, Irene?”