The Early Asimov. Volume 1

by Isaac Asimov

  The door opened, and his friend, Eblo Ranin, entered, brushed off a corner of the desk and sat down.

  “Haridin, I’ve got an idea.” His voice was uncommonly like a guilty whisper.

  Haridin gazed at him suspiciously.

  “Like the time,” he said, “you set up the booby trap for old man Obel?”

  Ranin shuddered. He had spent two days hiding in the ventilator shaft after that brilliant piece of work. “No, this is legitimate. Listen, Porus left you in charge of the squid, didn’t he?”

  “Oh, I see what you’re getting at. It’s no go. I can feed the squid, but that’s all. If I as much as clapped my hands at it to induce a color-change tropism, the boss would throw a fit.”

  “To space with him! He’s parsecs away, anyway.” Ranin drew forth a two-month old copy of the J.G.P. and folded the cover back. “Have you been following Livell’s experiments at Procyon U.? You know-magnetic fields applied with and without ultra-violet radiation.”

  “Out of my field,” grunted Haridin. “I’ve beard of it, but that’s all. What about it?”

  “Well, it’s a type E reaction which gives, believe it or not, a strong Fimbal Effect in practically every case, especially in the higher invertebrates.”

  “Hmm!”

  “Now, if we could try it on this squid, we could-”

  “No, no, no, no!” Haridin shook his head violently. “Porus would break me. Great stars and little meteors, how he would break me!”

  “Listen, you nut-Porus can’t tell you what to do with the squid. It’s Frian Obel that has final say. He’s head of the Psychological Board, not Porus. All you have to do is to apply for his permission and you’ll get it. Just between us, since that Homo Sol affair last year, he can’t stand the sight of Porus anyway.”

  Haridin weakened. “You ask him.”

  Ranin coughed. “No. On the whole, perhaps I’d better not. He’s sort of got a suspicion that I set that booby trap, and I’d rather keep out of his way.”

  “Hmm. Well-all right!”

  Lor Haridin looked as if he had not slept well for a week -which shows that sometimes appearances are not deceiving. Eblo Ranin regarded him with patient kindliness and sighed.

  “Look! Will you please sit down? Santin said he would have the final results in today, didn’t he?”

  “I know, I know, but it’s humiliating. I spent seven years on higher math. And now I make a stupid mistake and can’t even find it!”

  “Maybe it’s not there to find.”

  “Don’t be silly. The answer is just impossible. It must be impossible. It must be.” His high forehead creased. “Oh, I don’t know what to think.”

  He continued his concentrated attempt to wear out the nap of the rug beneath and mused bitterly. Suddenly he sat down.

  “It’s those time integrals. You can’t work with them, I tell you. You look ‘em up in a table, taking half an hour to find the proper entry, and they give you seventeen possible answers. You have to pick the one that makes sense, and- Arcturus help me!-either they all do, or none do! Run up against eight of them, as we do in this problem, and we’ve got enough permutations to last us the rest of our life. Wrong answer! It’s a wonder I lived through it at all.”

  The look he gave the fat volume of Helo’s Tables of Time Integrals did not sear the binding, to Ranin’s great surprise.

  The signal light flashed, and Haridin leaped to the door.

  He snatched the package from the messenger’s hand and ripped open the wrappings frantically.

  He turned to the last page and stared at Santin’s final note:

  Your calculations are correct. Congratulations- and won’t this knock Porus’s head right off his shoulders! Better get in touch with him at once.

  Ranin read it over the other’s shoulder, and for one long minute the two gazed at each other.

  “I was right,” whispered Haridin, eyes bulging. “We’ve found something in which the imaginary doesn’t square out. We’ve got a predicted reaction which includes an imaginary quantity!”

  The other swallowed and brushed aside his stupefaction with an effort. “How do you interpret it?”

  “Great space! How in the galaxy should I know? We’ve got to get Porus, that’s all.”

  Ranin snapped his fingers and grabbed the other by the shoulders. “Oh, no, we won’t. This is our big chance. If we can carry this through, we’re made for life.” He shuttered in his excitement. “Arcturus! Any psychologist would sell his life twice over to have our opportunity right now.”

  The Draconian squid crawled placidly about, unawed by the huge solenoid that surrounded its tank. The mass of tangled wires, the current leads, the mercury-vapor lamp up above meant nothing to it. It nibbled contentedly at the fronds of the sea fern about it, and was at peace with the world.

  Not so the two young psychologists. Eblo Ranin scurried through the complicated set-up in a last-minute effort at checking everything. Lor Haridin helped him in intervals between nail-biting.

  “Everything’s set,” said Ranin, and swabbed wearily at his damp brow. “Let her shoot!”

  The mercury-vapor lamp went on and Haridin pulled the window curtains together. In the cold red-less light, two green-tinted faces watched the squid closely. It stirred restlessly, its warm pink changing to a dull black in the mercury light

  “Turn on the juice,” said Haridin hoarsely.

  There was a soft click, and that was all.

  “No reaction?” questioned Ranin, half to himself. And then: he held his breath as the other bent closer.

  “Something’s happening to the squid. It seems to glow a bit -or is it my eyes?”

  The glow became perceptible and then seemed to detach itself from the body of the animal and take on a spherical shape of itself. Long minutes passed.

  “It’s emitting some sort of radiation, field, force-whatever you want to call it-and there seems to be expansion with time.”

  There was no answer, and none was expected. Again they waited and watched.

  And then Ranin emitted a muffled cry and grasped Haridin’s elbow tightly. “Crackling comets, what’s it doing?”

  The globular glowing sphere of whatever it was had thrust out a pseudopod. A gleaming little projection touched the swaying branch of the sea-fern, and where it touched the leaves turned brown and withered!

  “Shut off the current!”

  The current clicked off; the mercury-vapor lamp went out; the shades were parted and the two stared at each other nervously.

  “What was it?”

  Haridin shook his head. “I don’t know. It was something definitely insane. I never saw anything like it”

  “You never saw an imaginary in a reaction equation before, either, did you? As a matter of fact, I don’t think that expanding field was any known form of energy at-”

  His breath came out in one long whistling exhalation and he retreated slowly from the tank containing the squid. The mollusc was motionless, but around it half the fern. in the tank hung sere and withered.

  Haridin gasped. He pulled the shades and in the gloom, the globe of glowing haze bulked through half the tank. Little curving tentacles of light reached toward the remaining fem and one pulsing thread extended through the glass and was creeping along the table.

  That fright in Ranin’s voice rendered it a cracked, scarcely-understood sound.

  “It’s a lag reaction. Didn’t you test it by Wilbon’s Theorem?”

  “How could I?” The other’s heart pumped madly and his dry lips fought to form words. “Wilbon’s Theorem didn’t make sense with an imaginary in the equation. I let it go.”

  Ranin sped into action with feverish energy. He left the room and was back in a moment with a tiny, squealing, squirrel-like animal from his own lab. He dropped it in the path of the thread of light stealing along the table, and held it there with a yard rule.

  The glowing thread wavered, seemed to sense the presence of life in some horribly blind way, and lunged to
wards it The little rodent squealed once, a high-pitched shriek of infinite torture, and went limp. In two seconds it was a shriveled, shrunken travesty of its former self.

  Ranin swore and dropped the rule with a sudden yell, for the thread, of light-a bit brighter, a bit thicker-began creeping up the wood toward him.

  “Here,” said Haridin, “let’s end this!” He yanked a drawer open and withdrew the chromium-plated Tonite gun within. Its sharp thin beam of purple light lunged forward towards the squid and exploded in blazing, soundless fury against the edge of the sphere of force. The psychologist shot again and again, and then compressed the trigger to form one continuous purple stream of destruction that ceased only when power failed.

  And the glowing sphere remained unharmed. It engulfed the entire tank. The ferns were brown masses of death.

  “Get the Board,” yelled Ranin. “It’s beyond us entirely!”

  There was no confusion-humanoids in the mass are simply not subject to panic, if you don’t count the half-genius, half-humanoid inhabitants of the planets of Sol-and the evacuation of the University grounds was carried out smoothly.

  “One fool,” said old Mir Deana, ace physicist of Arcturus U., “can ask more questions than a thousand wise men can answer.” He fingered his scraggly beard and his button nose sniffed loudly in disdain.

  “What do you mean by that?” questioned Frian Obel sharply. His green Vegan skin darkened angrily.

  “Just that, by analogy, one cosmic fool of a psychologist can make a bigger mess than a thousand physicists can clear up.”

  Obel drew in his breath dangerously. He had his own opinion of Haridin and Ranin, but no lame-brain physicist could-

  The plump figure of Qual Wynn, university president, came charging down upon them. He was out of breath and spoke between puffs.

  “I’ve gotten in touch with the Galactic Congress and they’re arranging for evacuation of all Eron, if necessary.” His voice became pleading. “Isn’t there anything that can be done?’’

  Mir Deana sighed, “Nothing-yet! All we know is this: the squid is emitting some sort of pseudo-living radiatory field which is not electromagnetic in character. Its advance cannot be stopped by anything we have yet tried, material or vacuum. None of our weapons affect it, for within the field the ordinary attributes of space-time apparently don’t hold.”

  The president shook a worried head. “Bad, bad! You’ve sent for Porus, though?” He sounded as though we were clutching at a last straw.

  “Yes,” scowled Frian Obel. “He’s the only one that really knows that squid. If he can’t help us, no one can.” He stared off toward the gleaming white of the university buildings, where the grass over half the campus was brown stubble and the trees blasted ruins.

  “Do you think,” said the president, turning to Deana once more, “that the field can span interplanetary space?”

  “Sizzling novae, I don’t know what to think!” Deana exploded, and he turned pettishly away.

  There was a thick silence of utter gloom.

  Tan Porus was sunk in deep apathy. He was unaware of the brilliant coruscations of color overhead. He didn’t hear a sound of the melodious tones that filled the auditorium.

  He knew only one thing-that he had been talked into attending a concert. Concerts above all were anathema to him, and in twenty years of married life he had steered clear of them with a skill and ease that only the greatest psychologist of them all could have shown. And now-

  He was startled out of his stupor by the sudden discordant sounds that arose from the rear.

  There was a rush of ushers to the exit where the disturbance originated, a waving of protesting uniformed arms and then a strident voice: “I am here on urgent business direct from the Galactic Congress on Eron, Arcturus. Is Tan Porus in the audience?”

  Tan Porus was out of his seat with a bound. Any excuse to leave the auditorium was nothing short of heaven-sent.

  He ripped open the communication handed him by the messenger and devoured its contents. At the second sentence, his elation left him. When he was finished, he raised a face in which only his darting green eyes seemed alive.

  “How soon can we leave?”

  “The ship is waiting now.”

  “Come, then.”

  He took one step forward and stopped. There was a hand on his elbow.

  “Where are you going?” asked Nina Porus. There was hidden steel in her voice.

  Tan Porus felt stifled for a moment. He foresaw what would happen. “Darling, I must go to Eron immediately. The fate of a world, of the whole galaxy perhaps, is at stake. You don’t know how important it is. I tell you-”

  “All right, go! And I’ll go with you.”

  The psychologist bowed his head.

  “Yes, dear!” he said. He sighed.

  The psychological board hemmed and hawed as one man and then stared dubiously at the large-scale graph before them.

  “Frankly, gentlemen,” said Tan Porus, “I don’t feel too certain about it myself, but-well, you’ve all seen my results, and checked them too. And it is the only stimulus that will yield a canceling reaction.”

  Frian Obel fingered his chin nervously. “Yes, the mathematics is clear. Increase in hydrogen-ion activity past pH3 would set up a Demane’s Integral and that- But listen, Porus, we’re not dealing with space-time. The math might not hold -perhaps nothing will hold.”

  “It’s our only chance. If we were dealing with normal space-time, we could just dump in enough acid to kill the blasted squid or fry it with a Tonite. As it is, we have no choice but to take our chances with-”

  Loud voices interrupted him. “Let me through, I say! I don’t care if there are ten conferences going on!”

  The door swung open and Qual Wynn’s portly figure made its entrance. He spied Porus and bore down upon him. “Porus, I tell you I’m going crazy. Parliament is holding me, as university president, responsible for all this, and now Deana says that-” He sputtered into silence and Mir Deana, standing composedly behind him, took up the tale.

  “The field now covers better than one thousand square miles and its rate of increase is growing steadily. There seems to do no doubt now that it can span interplanetary space if it wishes to do so-interstellar as well, if given the time.”

  “You hear that? You hear that?” Wynn was fairly dancing in his anxiety. “Can’t you do something? The galaxy is doomed, I tell you, doomed!”

  “Oh, keep your tunic on,” groaned Porus, “and let us handle this.” He turned to Deana. “Didn’t your physicist stooges conduct some clumsy investigations as to the speed of penetration of the field through various substances?”

  Deana nodded stiffly.

  “Penetration varies, in general, inversely with density. Osmium, iridium and platinum are the best. Lead and gold are fair.”

  “Good! That checks! What I’ll need then is an osmium-plated suit with a lead-glass helmet. And make both plating and helmet good and thick.”

  Qual Wynn stared horrified. “Osmium plating! Osmium! By the great nebula, think of the expense.”

  “I’m thinking,” said Porus frostily…

  “But they’ll charge it to the university; they’ll-” He recovered with difficulty as the somber stares of the assembled psychologists fastened themselves upon him. “When do you need it?” he muttered weakly.

  “You’re really going, yourself?”

  “Why not?” asked Porus, clambering out of the suit.

  Mir Deana said, “The lead-glass headpiece will hold off the field not longer than an hour and you’ll probably be getting partial penetration in much shorter time. I don’t know if you can do it.”

  “ I’ll worry about that.” He paused, and then continued uncertainly. “I’ll be ready in a few minutes. I’d like to speak to my wife first-alone.”

  The interview was a short one. It was one of the very few occasions that Tan Porus forgot that he was a psychologist, and spoke as his heart moved him, without stopping to consider t
he natural reaction of the one spoken to.

  One thing he did know-by instinct rather than thought- and that was that his wife would not break down or go sentimental on him; and there he was right. It was only in the last few seconds that her eyes fell and her voice quavered. She tugged a handkerchief from her wide sleeve and hurried from the room.

  The psychologist stared after her and then stooped to pick up the thin book that had fallen as she had removed the handkerchief. Without looking at it, he placed it in the inner pocket of his tunic.

  He smiled crookedly. “A talisman!” he said.

  Tan Porus’s gleaming one-man cruiser whistled into the “death field.” The clammy sensation of desolation impressed itself upon him at once.

  He shrugged. “Imagination! Mustn’t get nervy now.”

  There was the vaguest glitter-a sparkle that was felt rather than seen-in the air about him. And then it invaded the ship itself, and, looking up, the Rigellian saw the five Eronian ricebirds he had brought with him lying dead on the floor of their cage, huddled masses of bedraggled feathers.

  “The ‘death field’ is in,” he whispered. It had penetrated the steel hull of the cruiser.

  The cruiser bumped to a rather unskillful landing on the broad university athletic field, and Tan Porus, an incongruous figure in the bulky osmium suit, stepped out. He surveyed his depressing surroundings. From the brown stubble underfoot to the glimmering haze that hid the normal blue of the sky, all seemed-dead.

  He entered Psychology Hall.

  His lab was dark; the shades were still drawn. He parted them and studied the squid’s tank. The water replenisher was still working, for the tank was full. However, that was the only normal thing about it. Only a few dark-brown, ragged strands of rot were left of what had once been sea-fern. The squid itself lay inertly upon the floor of the tank.

  Tan Porus sighed. He felt tired and numbed. His mind was hazy and unclear. For long minutes he stared about him unseeingly.

  Then, with an effort, he raised the bottle he held and glanced at the label-12 molar hydrochloric acid.

  He mumbled vaguely to himself. “Two hundred cc. Just dump the whole thing in. That’ll force the pH down-if only hydrogen ion activity means something here.”