The Early Asimov. Volume 1

by Isaac Asimov

  He tried to lie still-and think.

  The keazel squirmed, and from its lips, clamped shut by Earth muscles, issued a tremulous whine. Allen’s hand grew slick with perspiration and he could feel the beast’s muzzle turn a bit within his palm. He clamped harder, panic-stricken. Physically, the keazel was no match for an Earthman, even a tired, frightened, gravity-unaccustomed Earthman-but one bite, anywhere, was all that was needed.

  The keazel jerked suddenly; its back humped and its legs threshed. Allen held on with both hands and could not let go. He had neither gun nor knife. There was no rock on the level desert sands to crack its skull against. The sand-truck had long since disappeared into the Martian night, and he was alone-alone with a keazel .

  In desperation, he twisted. The keazel’s head bent. He could hear its breath whistling forth harshly-and again there was that low whine.

  Allen writhed above it and clamped knees down upon its cold, scaly abdomen. He twisted the head, further and further. The keazel fought desperately, but Allen’s Earthly biceps maintained their hold. He could almost sense the beast’s agony in the last stages, when he called up all his strength,-something snapped.

  And the beast lay still.

  He rose to his feet, half-sobbing. The Martian night wind knifed into him and the perspiration froze on his body. He was alone in the desert.

  Reaction set in. There was an intense buzzing in his ears. He found it difficult to stand. The wind was biting-but somehow he didn’t feel it any more.

  The buzzing in his ears resolved itself into a voice-a voice calling weirdly through the Martian wind.

  “All’n, where are y’? Domn y’, y’ tanderfoot, where are y’? All’n! A ll’n!”

  New life swept into the Earthman. He tossed the keazel’s carcass onto his shoulders and staggered on towards the voice.

  “Here I am, G-Gannie. Right here.”

  He stumbled blindly into his brother’s arms.

  George began harshly, “Y’ blasted Airthman, can’t y’ even keep y’r footing on a sandtruck moving at ten miles per? Y’ might’ve-”

  His voice died away in a semi-gurgle.

  Allen said tiredly, “There was a keazel on the roof. He knocked me off. Here, put it somewhere. There’s a hundred dollar bonus for every keazel skin brought in to Aresopolis.”

  He had no clear recollection of anything for the next half hour. When things straightened out, he was in the truck again with the taste of warm coffee in his mouth. The engine was rumbling once more and the pleasant warmth of the heaters surrounded him.

  George sat next to him silently, eyes fixed on the desert ahead. But once in a while, he cleared his throat and shot a lightning glance at his brother. There was a queer look in his eyes.

  Allen said, “Listen, I’ve got to keep awake,-and you look half dead yourself-so how about teaching me that ‘Gannie quaver’ of yours. That’s bound to wake the dead.”

  The Ganymedan stared even harder and then said gruffly, “Sure, watch m’ Adam’s apple while I do ‘t again.”

  The sun was half-way to zenith when they reached the canal.

  An hour before dawn there had come the crackling sound of hoarfrost beneath the heavy wheels and that signified the end of the desert area and the approach of the canal oasis. With the rising of the sun, the crackling disappeared and the softening mud underneath slowed the sand-adapted truck. The pathetic clumps of gray-green scrub that dotted the flat landscape were the first variant to eternal red sand since the two had started on their journey.

  And then Allen had leaned forward and grasped his brother by the arm, “Look, there’s the canal itself right ahead.”

  The “canal”-a small tributary of the mighty Jefferson Canal-contained a mere trickle of water at this season of the year. A dirty winding line of dampness, it was, and little more. Surrounding it on both sides were the boggy areas of black mud that were to fill up into a rushing ice-cold current an Earth-year hence.

  The sand-truck nosed gingerly down the gentle slope, weaving a tortuous path among the sparsely-strewn boulders brought down by the spring’s torrents and left there as the sinking waters receded.

  It slopped through the mud and splashed clumsily through the puddles. It jounced noisily over rocks, muddied itself past the hubs as it made its way through the murky mid-stream channel and then settled itself for the upward pull out.

  And then, with a suddenness that tossed the two drivers out of their seats, it side-slipped, made one futile effort to proceed onwards, and thereafter refused to budge.

  The brothers scrambled out and surveyed the situation. George swore lustily, voice more thickly accented than ever.

  “B’ Jupe ‘n’ domn, we’re in a pickled situation f’r fair. Tis wallowing in the mud there like a blasted pig.”

  Allen shoved his hair back wearily, “Well, don’t stand there looking at it. We’re still a hundred miles or better from Aresopolis. We’ve got to get it out of there.”

  “Sure, but how?” His imprecations dropped to sibilant breathings as he reached into the truck for the coil of rope in the back. He looked at it doubtfully.

  “Y’ get in here, All’n, and when I pull, press down with y’r foot on that pedal.”

  He was tying the rope to the front axle even as he spoke. He played it out behind him as he slogged out through ankle-deep mud, and stretched it taut.

  “All right, now, give! ” he yelled. His face turned purple with effort as his back muscles ridged. Allen, within the car, pressed the indicated pedal to the floor, heard a loud roar from the engine and a spinning whir from the back wheels. The truck heaved once, and then sank back.

  “‘Tis no use,” George called. “I can’t get a footing. If the ground were dry, I c’d do it.”

  “If the ground were dry, we wouldn’t be stuck,” retorted Allen. “Here, give me that rope.’

  “D’ y’ think y’ can do it, if I can’t?” came the enraged cry, but the other had already left the car.

  Allen had spied the large, deep-bedded boulder from the truck, and it was with relief that he found it to be within reaching distance of the rope. He pulled it taut and tossed its free end about the boulder. Knotting it clumsily, he pulled, and it held.

  His brother leaned out of the car window, as he made his way, back, with one lumped Ganymedan fist agitating the air.

  “Hi, y’ nitwit. What’re y’ doing? D’ y’ expect that overgrown rock t’ pull us out?”

  “Shut up,” yelled back Allen, “and feed her the gas when I pull.”

  He paused midway between boulder and truck and seized the rope.

  “ Give! ” he shouted in his turn, and with a sudden jerk pulled the rope towards him with both hands.

  The truck moved; its wheels caught hold. For a moment it hesitated with the engine blasting ahead full speed, and George’s hands trembling upon the wheel. And then it went over. And almost simultaneously, the boulder at the other end of the taut rope lifted out of the mud with a liquid smacking sound and went over on its side.

  Allen slipped the noose off it and ran for the truck.

  “Keep her going,” he shouted, and hopped onto the running board, rope trailing.

  “How did y’ do that?” asked George, eyes round with awe.

  “I haven’t got the energy to explain it now. When we get to Aresopolis and after we’ve had a good sleep, I’ll draw the triangle of forces for you, and show you what happened. No muscles were involved. Don’t look at me as if I were Hercules.”

  George withdrew his gaze with an effort, “Triangle o’ forces, is it? I never heard o’ it, but if that’s what it c’n do, education’s a great thing.”

  “Comet-gas! Is any coffee left?” He stared at the last thermos-bottle, shook it near his ear dolefully, and said, “Oh, well, let’s practice the quaver. It’s almost as good and I’ve practically got it perfected.”

  He yawned prodigiously, “Will we make it by nightfall?”

  “Maybe!”

  T
he canal was behind them now.

  The reddening sun was lowering itself slowly behind the Southern Range. The Southern Range is one of the two “mountain chains” left on Mars. It is a region of hills; ancient, time-worn, eroded hills behind which lies Aresopolis.

  It possesses the only scenery worth mentioning on all Mars and also the golden attribute of being able, through the updrafts along its sides, to suck an occasional ram out of the desiccated Martian atmosphere.

  Ordinarily, perhaps, a pair from Earth and Ganymede might have idled through this picturesque area, but this was definitely not the case with the Carter twins.

  Eyes, puffed for lack of sleep, glistened once more at the sight of hills on the horizons. Bodies, almost broken for sheer weariness, tensed once more when they rose against the sky.

  And the truck leaped ahead,-for just behind the hills lay Aresopolis. The road they travelled was no longer a rule-edge straight one, guided by the compass, over table-top-flat land. It followed narrow, twisting trails over rocky ground.

  They had reached Twin Peaks, then, when there was a sudden sputter from the motor, a few halting coughs and then silence.

  Allen sat up and there was weariness and utter disgust in his voice, “What’s wrong with this everlastingly-to-be-damned machine now?”

  His brother shrugged, “Nothing that I haven’t been expecting for the last hour. We’re out o’ gas. Doesn’t matter at all. We’re at Twin Peaks-only ten miles fr’m the city. We c’n get there in an hour, and then they c’n send men out here for the blooms.”

  “Ten miles in an hour!” protested Allen. “You’re crazy.” His face suddenly twisted at an agonizing thought, “My God! We can’t do it under three hours and it’s almost night. No one can last that long in a Martian night. George, we’re-”

  George was pulling him out of the car by main force, “By Jupe ‘n’ domn, All’n, don’t let the tenderfoot show through now. We c’n do it in an hour, I tell y’. Didn’t y’ ever try running under sub-normal gravity? It’s like flying. Look at me.”

  He was off, skimming the ground closely, and proceeding in ground-covering leaps that shrank him to a speck up the mountain side in a moment.

  He waved, and his voice came thinly, “Come on!”

  Allen started,-and sprawled at the third wide stride, arms nailing and legs straddled wide. The Ganymedan’s laughter drifted down in heartless gusts.

  Allen rose angrily and dusted himself. At an ordinary walk, he made his way upwards.

  “Don’t get sore, All’n,” said George. “It’s just a knack, and I’ve had practice on Gannie. Just pretend y’r running along a feather bed. Run rhythmically-a sort o’ very slow rhythm- and run close t’ the ground; don’t leap high. Like this. Watch me!”

  The Earthman tried it, eyes on his brother. His first few uncertain strides became surer and longer. His legs stretched and his arms swung as he matched his brother, step for step.

  George shouted encouragement and speeded his pace, “Keep lower t’ the ground, All’n. Don’t leap ‘fore y’r toes hit the ground.”

  Allen’s eyes shone and, for the moment, weariness was forgotten, “This is great; It is like flying-or like springs on your shoes.”

  “Y’ ought t’ have lived on Gannie with me. We’ve got special fields f’r subgravity races. An expairt racer c’n do forty miles an hour at times-and I c’n do thirty-five myself. -0’ course, the gravity there’s a bit lower than here on Mars.”

  Long hair streamed backwards in the wind and skin reddened at the bitter-cold air that blew past. The ruddy patches of sunlight travelled higher and higher up the slopes, lingered briefly upon the very summits and went out altogether. The short Martian twilight started upon its rapidly darkening career. The Evening Star-Earth-was already glimmering brightly, its attendant moon somewhat closer than the night previous.

  The passing minutes went unheeded by Allen. He was too absorbed by the wonderful new sensation of sub-gravity running, to do anything more than follow his brother. Even the increasing chilliness scarcely registered upon his consciousness.

  It was George, then, upon whose countenance a tiny, puckered uneasiness grew into a vast, panicky frown.

  “Hi, All’n, hold up!” he called. Leaning backward, he brought himself to a short, hopping halt full of grace and ease. Allen tried to do likewise, broke his rhythm, and went forward upon his face. He rose with loud reproaches.

  The Ganymedan turned a deaf ear to them. His gaze was sombre in the dusk, “D’ y’ know where we are, All’n?”

  Allen felt a cold constriction about his windpipe as he stared about him quickly. Things looked different in semidarkness, but they looked more different than they ought. It was impossible for things to be so different.

  “We should’ve sighted Old Baldy by now, shouldn’t we have?” he quavered.

  “We sh’d’ve sighted him long ago,” came the hard answer. “‘Tis that domned quake. Landslides must’ve changed the trails. The peaks themselves must’ve been screwed up-” His voice was thin-edged, “Allen, ‘tisn’t any use making believe. We’re dead lost.”

  For a moment, they stood silently-uncertainly. The sky was purple and the hills retreated into the night. Allen licked bluechilled Ups with a dry tongue.

  “We can’t be but a few miles away. We’re bound to stumble on the city if we look.”

  “Consider the situation, Airthman,” came. the savage, shouted answer, “ ‘Tis night, Martian night. The temperature’s down past zero and plummeting every minute. We haven’t any time t’ look;-we’ve got t’ go straight there. If we’re not there in half an hour, we’re not going t’ get there at all.”

  Allen knew that well, and mention of the cold increased his consciousness of it. He spoke through chattering teeth as he drew his heavy, fur-lined coat closer about him.

  “We might build a fire!” The suggestion was a half-hearted one, muttered indistinctly, and fallen upon immediately by the other.

  “With what?” George was beside himself with sheer disappointment and frustration. “We’ve pulled through this far, and now we’ll prob’ly freeze t’ death within a mile o’ the city. C’mon keep running. It’s a hundred-t’-one chance.”

  But Allen pulled him back. There was a feverish glint in the Earthman’s eye, “Bonfires!” he said irrelevantly. “It’s a possibility. Want to take a chance that might do the trick?”

  “Nothin else t’ do,” growled the other. “But hurry. Every minute I-”

  “Then run with the wind-and keep going.”

  “Why?”

  “Never mind why. Do what I say-run with the wind!”

  There was no false optimism in Allen as he bounded through the dark, stumbling over loose stones, sliding down declivities,-always with the wind at his back. George ran at his side, a vague, formless blotch in the night.

  The cold was growing more bitter, but it was not quite as bitter as the freezing pang of apprehension gnawing at the Earthman’s vitals.

  Death is unpleasant!

  And then they topped the rise, and from George’s throat came a loud “B’ Jupe ‘n’ domn!” of triumph.

  The ground before them, as far as the eye could see, was dotted by bonfires. Shattered Aresopolis lay ahead, its homeless inhabitants making the night bearable by the simple agency of burning wood.

  And on the hilly slopes, two weary figures slapped each other on the backs, laughed wildly, and pressed half-frozen, stubbly cheeks together for sheer, unadulterated joy.

  They were there at last!

  The Aresopolis lab, on the very outskirts of the city, was one of the few structures still standing. Within, by makeshift light, haggard chemists were distilling the last drops of extract. Without, the city’s police-force remnants were clearing desperate way for the precious flasks and vials as they were distributed to the various emergency medical centers set up in various regions of the bonfire-pocked ruins that were once the Martian metropolis.

  Old Hal Vincent supervised the
process and his faded eyes ever and again peered anxiously into the hills beyond, watching hopefully but doubtfully for the promised cargo of blooms.

  And then two figures reeled out of the darkness and collapsed to halt before him.

  Chill anxiety clamped down upon him, “The blooms! Where are they? Have you got them?”

  “At Twin Peaks,” gasped Allen. “A ton of them and better in a sand-truck. Send for them.”

  A group of police ground-cars set off before he had finished, and Vincent exclaimed bewilderedly, “A sand-truck? Why didn’t you send it in a ship? What’s wrong with you out there, anyway? Earthquake-”

  He received no direct answer. George had stumbled towards the nearest bonfire with a beatific expression on his worn face.

  “Ahhh, ‘tis warm!” Slowly, he folded and dropped, asleep before he hit the ground.

  Allen coughed gaspingly, “Huh! The Gannie tenderfoot! Couldn’t-ulp-take it!”

  And the ground came up and hit him in the face.

  Allen woke with the evening sun in his eyes and the odor of frying bacon in his nostrils. George shoved the frying pan towards him and said between gigantic, wolfing mouthfuls, “Help yourself.”

  He pointed to the empty sand-truck outside the labs, “They got the stuff all right.”

  Allen fell to, quietly. George wiped his lips with the back of his hand and said, “Say, All’n, how ‘d y’ find the city? I’ve been sitting here trying t’ figure it all out”

  “It was the bonfires,” came the muffled answer. “It was the only way they could get heat, and fires over square miles of land create a whole section of heated air, which rises, causing the cold surrounding air of the hills to sweep in.” He suited his words with appropriate gestures. “The wind in the hills was heading for the city to replace warm air and we followed the wind. -Sort of a natural compass, pointing to where we wanted to go.”

  George was silent, kicking with embarrassed vigor at the ashes of the bonfire of the night before.