The Early Asimov. Volume 1

by Isaac Asimov

  He was fumbling with the glass stopper, and-suddenly- laughing. He had felt exactly like this the one and only time he had ever been drunk.

  He shook the gathering cobwebs from his brain. “Only got a few minutes to do-to do what? I don’t know-something anyway. Dump this thing in. Dump it in. Dump! Dump! Dumpety-dump!” He was mumbling a silly popular song to himself as the acid gurgled its way into the open tank.

  Tan Porus felt pleased with himself and he laughed. He stirred the water with his mailed fist and laughed some more. He was still singing that song.

  And then he became aware of a subtle change in environment He fumbled for it and stopped singing. And then it hit him with the suddenness of a downpour of cold water. The glitter in the atmosphere had gone!

  With a sudden motion, he unclasped the helmet and cast it off. He drew in long breaths of air, a bit musty, but unkilling.

  He had acidified the water of the tank, and destroyed the field at its source. Chalk up another victory for the pure mathematics of psychology!

  He stepped out of his osmium suit and stretched. The pressure on his chest reminded him of something. Withdrawing the booklet his wife had dropped, he said, “The talisman came through!” and smiled indulgently at his own whimsy.

  The smile froze as he saw for the first time the title upon the book.

  The title was Intermediate Course in Applied Psychology- Volume 5 .

  It was as if something large and heavy had suddenly fallen onto Porus’s head and driven understanding into it Nina had been boning up on applied psych for two whole years .

  This was the missing factor. He could allow for it. He would have to use triple time integrals, but-

  He threw the communicator switch and waited for contact

  “Hello! This is Porus! Come on in, all of you! The death field is gone! I’ve beaten the squid.” He broke contact and added triumphantly, “-and my wife!”

  Strangely enough-or, perhaps, not so strangely-it was the latter feat that pleased him more.

  ***

  The chief interest to me in “The Imaginary” is that it foreshadows the “psychohistory” that was to play such a big role in the “Foundation” series. It was in this story and in its predecessor, “Homo Sol,” that for the first time I treated psychology as a mathematically refined science.

  It was about time that I made another stab at Unknown , and I did so with a story called “The Oak,” which, as I recall, was something about an oak tree that served as an oracle and delivered ambiguous statements. I submitted it to Campbell on July 16, 1940, and it was promptly rejected.

  One of the bad things about writing for Unknown was that the magazine was one of a kind. If Unknown rejected a story, there was no place else to submit it. It was possible to try Weird Tales , a magazine that was older than any science fiction magazine, but it dealt with old-fashioned, creaky horror tales and paid very little to boot. I wasn’t really interested in trying to get into it. (And besides, they rejected both “Life Before Birth” and “The Oak” when I submitted them.)

  Still, July 29, 1940, was a turning point in my career, although, of course, I had no way of telling it. I had up to that point written twenty-two stories in twenty-five months. Of these I had sold (or was to sell) thirteen, while nine never sold at all and no longer exist. The record wasn’t abysmal but neither was it great-let’s call it mediocre.

  However, as it happened, except for two short-short stories that were special cases, I never again wrote a science fiction story I could not sell. I had found the range.

  But not Campbell’s range particularly. In August I wrote “Heredity,” which I submitted to Campbell on August 15, and which he rejected two weeks later. Fortunately, Pohl snapped it up at once.

  Heredity

  Dr. Stefansson fondled the thick sheaf of typewritten papers that lay before him, “It’s all here, Harvey-twenty-five years of work.”

  Mild-mannered Professor Harvey puffed idly at his pipe, “Well, your part is over-and Markey’s, too, on Ganymede. It’s up to the twins, themselves, now.”

  A short ruminative silence, and then Dr. Stefansson stirred uneasily, “Are you going to break the news to Allen soon?”

  The other nodded quietly, “It will have to be done before we get to Mars, and the sooner the better.” He paused, then added in a tightened voice, “I wonder how it feels to find out after twenty-five years that one has a twin brother whom one has never seen. It must be a damned shock.”

  “How did George take it?”

  “Didn’t believe it at first, and I don’t blame him. Markey had to work like a horse to convince him it wasn’t a hoax. I suppose I’ll have as hard a job with Allen.” He knocked the dottle from his pipe and shook his head.

  “I have half a mind to go to Mars just to see those two get together,” remarked Dr. Stefansson wistfully. “You’ll do no such thing, Stef. This experiment’s taken too long and means too much to have you rum it by any such fool move.”

  “I know, I know! Heredity versus environment! Perhaps at last the definite answer.” He spoke half to himself, as if repeating an old, familiar formula, “Two identical twins, separated at birth; one brought up on old, civilized Earth, the other on pioneer Ganymede. Then, on their twenty-fifth birthday brought together for the first time on Mars-God! I wish Carter had lived to see the end of it They’re his children.”

  “Too bad!-But we’re alive, and the twins. To carry the experiment to its end will be our tribute to him.”

  There is no way of telling, at first seeing the Martian branch of Medicinal Products, Inc., that it is surrounded by anything but desert. You can’t see the vast underground caverns where the native fungi of Mars are artificially nurtured into huge blooming fields. The intricate transportation system that connects all parts of the square miles of fields to the central building is invisible. The irrigation system; the air-purifiers; the drainage pipes, are all hidden.

  And what one sees is the broad squat red-brick building and Martian desert, rusty and dry, all about

  That had been all George Carter had seen upon arriving via rocket-taxi, but him, at least, appearances had not deceived. It would have been strange had it done so, for his life on Ganymede had been oriented in its every phase towards eventual general managership of that very concern. He knew every square inch of the caverns below as well as if he had been born and raised in them himself.

  And now he sat in Professor Lemuel Harvey’s small office and allowed just the slightest trace of uneasiness to cross his impassive countenance. His ice-blue eyes sought those of Professor Harvey.

  “This-this twin brother o’ mine. He’ll be here soon?”

  Professor Harvey nodded, “He’s on his way over right now.”

  George Carter uncrossed his knees. His expression was almost wistful, “He looks a lot like me, d’ya rackon?”

  “Quite a lot. You’re identical twins, you know.”

  “Hmm! Rackon so! Wish I’d known him all the time-on Ganny!” He frowned. “He’s lived on Airth all’s life, huh?”

  An expression of interest crossed Professor Harvey’s face. He said briskly, “You dislike Earthmen?”

  “No, not exactly,” came the immediate answer. “It’s just the Airthmen are tanderfeet All of ‘m I know are.”

  Harvey stifled a grin, and conversation languished.

  The door-signal snapped Harvey out of his reverie and George Carter out of his chair at the same instant. The professor pressed the desk-button and the door opened.

  The figure on the threshold crossed into the room and then stopped. The twin brothers faced each other.

  It was a tense, breathless moment, and Professor Harvey sank into his soft chair, put his finger-tips together and watched keenly.

  The two stood stiffly erect, ten feet apart, neither making a move to lessen the distance. They made a curious contrast-a contrast all the more marked because of the vast similarity between the two.

  Eyes of frozen blue gazed deep into
eyes of frozen blue. Each saw a long, straight nose over full, red lips pressed firmly together. The high cheekbones were as prominent in one as in the other, the jutting, angular chin as square. There was even the same, odd half-cock of one eyebrow in twin expressions of absorbed, part-quizzical interest.

  But with the face, all resemblance ended. Allen Carter’s clothes bore the New York stamp on every square inch. From his loose blouse, past his dark purple knee breeches, salmon-colored cellulite stockings, down to the glistening sandals on his feet, he stood a living embodiment of latest Terrestrial fashion.

  For a fleeting moment, George Carter was conscious of a feeling of ungainliness as he stood there in his tight-sleeved, close-necked shirt of Ganymedan linen. His unbuttoned vest and his voluminous trousers with their ends tucked into high-laced, heavy-soled boots were clumsy and provincial. Even he felt it-for just a moment

  From his sleeve-pocket Allen removed a cigarette case-it was the first move either of the brothers had made-opened it, withdrew a slender cylinder of paper-covered tobacco that spontaneously glowed into life at the first puff.

  George hesitated a fraction of a second and his subsequent action was almost one of defiance. His hand plunged into his inner vest pocket and drew therefrom the green, shriveled form of a cigar made of Ganymedan greenleaf. A match flared into.flame upon his thumbnail and for a long moment, he matched, puff for puff, the cigarette of his brother.

  And then Allen laughed-a queer, high-pitched laugh, “Your eyes are a little closer together, I think.”

  “Rackon ‘tis, maybe. Y’r hair’s fixed sort o’ different.” There was faint disapproval in his voice. Allen’s hand went self-consciously to his long, light-brown hair, carefully curled at the ends, while his eyes flickered over the carelessly-bound queue into which the other’s equally long hair was drawn.

  “I suppose we’ll have to get used to each other. -I’m willing to try.” The Earth twin was advancing now, hand outstretched.

  George smiled, “Y’ bet. ‘At goes here, too.”

  The hands met and gripped.

  “Y’r name’s All’n, huh?” said George.

  “And yours is George, isn’t it?” answered Allen.

  And then for a long while they said nothing more. They just looked-and smiled as they strove to bridge the twenty-five year gap that separated them.

  George Carter’s impersonal gaze swept over the carpet of low-growing purple blooms that stretched in plot-path bordered squares into the misty distance of the caverns. The newspapers and feature writers might rhapsodize over the “Fungus Gold” of Mars-about the purified extracts, in yields of ounces to acres of blooms, that had become indispensable to the medical profession of the System. Opiates, purified vitamins, a new vegetable specific against pneumonia-the blooms were worth their weight in gold, almost.

  But they were merely blooms to George Carter-blooms to be forced to full growth, harvested, baled, and shipped to the Aresopolis labs hundreds of miles away.

  He cut his little ground car to half-speed and leant furiously out the window, “Hi y’ mudcat there. Y’ with the dairty face. Watch what y’r doing-keep the domned water in the channel.”

  He drew back and the ground car leapt ahead once more. The Ganymedan muttered viciously to himself, “These domned men about here are wairse than useless. So many machines t’ do their wairk for ‘m they give their brains a pairmenent vacation, I rackon.”

  The ground car came to a halt and he clambered out. Picking his way between the fungus plots, he approached the clustered group of men about the spider-armed machine in the plotway ahead.

  “Well, here I am. What is ‘t, All’n?”

  Allen’s head bobbed up from behind the other side of the machine. He waved at the men about him, “Stop it for a second!” and leaped toward his twin.

  “George, it works. It’s slow and clumsy, but it works. We can improve it now that we’ve got the fundamentals down. And in no time at all, we’ll be able to-”

  “Now wait a while, All’n. On Ganny, we go slow. Y’ live long, that way. What y’ got there?”

  Allen paused and swabbed at his forehead. His face shone with grease, sweat, and excitement. “I’ve been working on this thing ever since I finished college. It’s a modification of something we have on Earth-but it’s no end improved. It’s a mechanical bloom picker.”

  He had fished a much-folded square of heavy paper from his pocket and talked steadily as he spread it on the plotway before them, “Up to now, bloom-picking has been the bottleneck of production, to say nothing of the 15 to 20% loss due to picking under- and over-ripe blooms. After all, human eyes are only human eyes, and the blooms-Here, look!”

  The paper was spread flat and Allen squatted before it George leaned over his shoulder, with frowning watchfulness.

  “You see. It’s a combination of fluoroscope and photoelectric cell. The ripeness of the bloom can be told by the state of the spores within. This machine is adjusted so that the proper circuit is tripped upon the impingement of just that combination of light and dark formed by ripe spores within the bloom. On the other hand, this second circuit-but look, it’s easier to show you.”

  He was up again, brimming with enthusiasm. With a jump, he was in the low seat behind the picker and had pulled the lever.

  Ponderously, the picker turned towards the blooms and its “eye” travelled sideways six inches above the ground. As it passed each fungus bloom, a long spidery arm shot out, lopping it cleanly half an inch from the ground and depositing it neatly in the downward sloping slide beneath. A pile of blooms formed behind the machine.

  “We can hook on a binder, too, later on. Do you notice those blooms it doesn’t touch? Those are unripe. Just wait till it comes to an over-ripe one and see what it does.”

  He yelled in triumph a moment later when a bloom was torn out and dropped on the spot.

  He stopped the machine, “You see? In a month, perhaps, we can actually start putting it to work in the fields.”

  George Carter gazed sourly upon his twin, “Take more ‘n a month, I rackon. It’ll take foraver, more likely.”

  “What do you mean, forever. It just has to be sped up-”

  “I don’t care if ‘t just has t’ be painted pairple. ‘Tisn’t going t’ appear on my fields.”

  “ Your fields?”

  “Yup, mine,” was the cool response. “I’ve got veto pow’r here same as you have. Y’ can’t do anything ‘thout my say-so-and y’ won’t get it f’r this. In fact, I want y’ t’ clear that thing out o’ here, altogether. Got no use f’r ‘t.”

  Allen dismounted and faced his brother, “You agreed to let me have this plot to experiment on, veto-free, and I’m holding you to that agreement.”

  “All right, then. But keep y’r domned machine out o’ the rest o’ the fields.”

  The Earthman approached the other slowly. There was a dangerous look in his eyes. “Look, George, I don’t like your attitude-and I don’t like the way you’re using your veto power. I don’t know what you’re used to running on Ganymede, but you’re in the big time now, and there are a lot of provincial notions you’ll have to get out of your head.”

  “Not unless I want to. And if y’ want t’ have ‘t out with me, we’d better go t’ y’r office. Spatting before the men ‘d be bad for discipline.”

  The trip back to Central was made in ominous silence. George whistled softly to himself while Allen folded his arms and stared with ostentatious indifference at the narrow, twisting plotway ahead. The silence persisted as they entered the Earthman’s office. Allen gestured shortly towards a chair and the Ganymedan took it without a word. He brought out his ever-present green-leaf cigar and waited for the other to speak.

  Allen hunched forward upon the edge of his seat and leaned both elbows on his desk. He began with a rush.

  “There’s lots to this situation, George, that’s a mystery to me. I don’t know why they brought up you on Ganymede and me on Earth, and I don’t know
why they never let us know of each other, or made us co-managers now with veto-power over one another-but I do know that the situation is rapidly growing intolerable.

  “This corporation needs modernization, and you know that. Yet you’ve been wielding that veto-power over every trifling advance I’ve tried to initiate. I don’t know just what your viewpoint is, but I’ve a suspicion that you think you’re still living on Ganymede. If you’re still in the sticks,-I’m warning you-get out of them fast. I’m from Earth, and this corporation is going to be run with Earth efficiency and Earth organization. Do you understand?”

  George puffed odorous tobacco at the ceiling before answering, but when he did, his eyes came down sharply, and there was a cutting edge to his voice.

  “Airth, is it? Airth efficiency, no less? Well, All’n, I like ye. I can’t help it Y’r so much like me, that disliking y’ would be like disliking myself, I rackon. I hate t’ say this, but y’r upbringing’s all wrong.”

  His voice became sternly accusatory, “Y’r an Airthman. Well, look at y’. Airthman’s but half a man at best, and naturally y’ lean on machines. But d’ y’ suppose I want the corporation to be run by machines-just machines ? What’re the men t’ do?”

  “The men run the machines,” came the clipped, angry response.

  The Ganymedan rose, and a fist slammed down on the desk, “The machines run the men, and y” know it. Fairst, y’ use them; then y’ depend on them; and finally y’r slaves t’ them. Over on y’r pracious Airth, it was machines, machines, machines-and as a result, what are y’? I’ll tell y’. Half a man!”

  He drew himself up, “I still like y’. I like y’ weU enough f wish y”d lived on Gannie with me. By Jupe ‘n’ domn, ‘twould have made a man o’ y’.”

  “Finished?” said Allen.

  “Rackon so!”

  “Then I’ll tell you something. There’s nothing wrong with you that a life time on a decent planet wouldn’t have fixed. As it is, however, you belong on Ganymede. I’d advise you to go back there.”