The Early Asimov. Volume 1

by Isaac Asimov

  He fell into an annoyed fidget, while the Ossie jumped up and down a few times in a thoughtful sort of manner, evidently for the exercise of it. He continued the jumping, varying it with little hopping dance steps, till Pelham’s fists began making strangling gestures. Only an excited squawk from the hole in the wall dignified by the term “window” kept Pelham from committing Ossie-slaughter.

  Ossies swarmed about and the Earthmen fought for a view.

  Against Jupiter’s great yellowness was outlined a flying sleigh, complete with reindeers. It was only a tiny thing, but there was no doubt about it. Santa Claus was coming.

  There was only one thing wrong with the picture. The sleigh, “reindeer” and all, while plunging ahead at a terrific speed, was flying upside down.

  The Ossies dissolved into squawking cacophony. “Sannycaws! Sannycaws! Sannycaws!”

  They scrambled out the window like so many animated dust-mops gone mad. Pelham and his men used the low door.

  The sleigh was approaching, growing larger, lurching from side to side and vibrating like an off-center flywheel. Olaf Johnson was a tiny figure holding on desperately to the side of the sleigh with both hands.

  Pelham was shouting wildly, incoherently, choking on the thin atmosphere every time he forgot to breathe through his nose. Then he stopped and stared in horror. The sleigh, almost life-size now, was dipping down. If it had been an arrow shot by William Tell, it could not have aimed between Pelham’s eyes more accurately.

  “Everybody down!” he shrieked, and dropped.

  The wind of the sleigh’s passage whistled keenly and brushed his face. Olaf’s voice could be heard for an instant, high-pitched and indistinct. Compressed air spurted, leaving tracks of condensing water vapor.

  Pelham lay quivering, hugging Ganymede’s frozen crust. Then, knees shaking like a Hawaiian hula-girl, he rose slowly. The Ossies who had scattered before the plunging vehicle had assembled again. Off in the distance, the sleigh was veering back.

  Pelham watched as it swayed and hovered, still rotating. It lurched toward the dome, curved off to one side, turned back, and gathered speed.

  Inside that sleigh, Olaf worked like a demon. Straddling his legs wide, he shifted his weight desperately. Sweating and cursing, trying hard not to look “downward” at Jupiter, he urged the sleigh into wilder and wilder swings. It was wobbling through an angle of 180 degrees now, and Olaf felt his stomach raise strenuous objections.

  Holding his breath, he leaned hard with his right foot and felt the sleigh swing far over. At the extremity of that swing, he released the gravo-repulsor and, in Ganymede’s weak gravity, the sleigh jerked downward. Naturally, since the vehicle was bottom-heavy due to the metal gravo-repulsor beneath, it righted itself as it fell.

  But this was little comfort to Commander Pelham, who found himself once more in the direct path of the sleigh.

  “Down!” he yelled, and dropped again.

  The sleigh whi-i-ished overhead, came up against a huge boulder with a crack, bounced twenty-five feet into the air, came down with a rush and a bang, and Olaf fell over the railing and out.

  Santa Claus had arrived.

  With a deep, shuddering breath, Olaf swung his bag over his shoulders, adjusted his beard and patted one of the silently suffering spinies on the head. Death might be coming-in fact, Olaf could hardly wait-but he was going to die on his feet nobly, like a Johnson.

  Inside the shack, into which the Ossies had once more swarmed, a thump announced the arrival of Santa’s bag on the roof, and a second thud the arrival of Santa himself. A ghastly face appeared through the makeshift hole in the ceiling.

  “Merry Christmas!” it croaked, and tumbled through. Olaf landed on his oxygen cylinders, as usual, and got them in the usual place.

  The Ossies jumped up and down like rubber balls with the itch.

  Olaf limped heavily toward the first stocking and deposited the garishly colored sphere he withdrew from his bag, one of the many that had originally been intended as a Christmas tree ornament One by one he deposited the rest in every available stocking.

  Having completed his job, he dropped into an exhausted squat, from which position he watched subsequent proceedings with a glazed and fishy eye. The jolliness and belly-shaking good humor, traditionally characteristic of Santa Claus, were absent from this one with remarkable thoroughness.

  The Ossies made up for it by their wild ecstasy. Until Olaf had deposited the last globe, they had kept their silence and their seats. But when he had finished, the air heaved and writhed under the stresses of the discordant screeches that arose. In half a second the hand of each Ossie contained a globe.

  They chattered among themselves furiously, handling the globes carefully and hugging them close to their chests. Then they compared one with another) flocking about to gaze at particularly good ones.

  The frowziest Ossie approached Pelham and plucked at the commander’s sleeve. “Sannycaws good)” he cackled. “Look, he leave eggs I” He stared reverently at his sphere and said: “Pittier’n Ossie eggs. Must be Sannycaws eggs, huh?”

  His skinny finger punched Pelham in the stomach.

  “No!” yowled Pelham vehemently. “Hell, no!”

  But the Ossie wasn’t listening. He plunged the globe deep into the warmth of his feathers and said:

  “Pitty colors. How long take for little Sannycaws come out? And what little Sannycaws eat?” He looked up. “We take good care. We teach little Sannycaws) make him smart and full of brain like Ossie.”

  Pierce grabbed Commander Pelham’s arm.

  “Don’t argue with them)… he whispered frantically. “What do you care if they think those are Santa Claus eggs? Come on! If we work like maniacs) we can still make the quota. Lets get started.”

  “That’s right,” Pelham admitted. He turned to the Ossie. “Tell everyone to get going.” He spoke clearly and loudly. “Work now. Do you understand? Hurry) hurry) hurry! Come on!”

  He motioned with his arms. But the frowzy Ossie had come to a sudden halt. He said slowly:

  “We work, but Johnson say Kissmess come evvy year…

  “Isn’t one Christmas enough for you?” Pelham rasped.

  “No!” squawked the Ossie. “We want Sannycaws next year. Get more eggs. And next year more eggs. And next year. And next year) And next year. More eggs. More little Sannycaws eggs. If Sannycaws not come) we not work.”

  “That’s a long time off,… said Pelham. “We’ll talk about it then. By that time I’ll either have gone completely crazy) or you’ll have forgotten all about it…

  Pierce opened his mouth, closed it, opened his mouth, closed it, opened it, and finally managed to speak.

  “Commander, they want him to come every year…

  “I know. They won’t remember by next year, though…

  “But you don’t get it. A year to them is one Ganymedan revolution around Jupiter. In Earth time, that’s seven days and three hours. They want Santa Claus to come every week…

  “Every week!” Pelham gulped. “Johnson told them-”

  For a moment everything turned sparkling somersaults before his eyes. He choked, and automatically his eye sought Olaf.

  Olaf turned cold to the marrow of his bones and rose to his feet apprehensively, sidling toward the door. There he stopped as a sudden recollection of tradition hit him. Beard a-dangle, he croaked:

  “Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night!”

  He made for the sleigh as if all the imps of Hades were after him. The imps weren’t, but Commander Scott Pelham was.

  ***

  In January of 1941 (the month in which I attained my majority), I undertook something new-a collaboration.

  Fred Pohl, after all, was not merely an editor. He was also a budding writer. He has since come to be a giant in the field, but in those early days he was struggling along with only the sort of meager success I was having. Alone, and in collaboration with other Futurians, he turned out stories under a variety of pseudo
nyms. The one he used most frequently was “James MacCreigh.”

  As it happened, he had written, under that pseudonym, a small fantasy called “The Little Man on the Subway,” which he apparently had hopes for but couldn’t get right. He asked me if I would rewrite it, and the request flattered me. Besides, I was still trying to get into Unknown, and if I couldn’t do it on my own, maybe I could do it by way of a collaboration. I wasn’t proud-at least as far as fantasy was concerned.

  I took on the task and did it virtually at a sitting. Doing it easily didn’t help, however. I submitted it to Campbell for Unknown on January 27, 1941, and he rejected it. I had to hand it back to Pohl.

  Pohl, however, with the true agent’s soul, never gave up, and in 1950, long after I had utterly forgotten it, he managed to place it with a small magazine called Fantasy Book.

  The Little Man on the Subway

  (with James MacCreigh)

  Subway stations are places where people usually get out, so when no one left the first car at Atlantic Avenue station, Conductor Cullen of the I.R. T. began to get worried. In fact, no one had left the first car from the time the run to Flatbush had begun-though dozens were getting on all the time.

  Odd! Very odd! It was the kind of proposition that made well-bred conductors remove their caps and scratch their heads. Conductor Cullen did so. It didn’t help, but he repeated the process at Bergen Street, the next station, where again the first car lost not one of its population. And at Grand Army Plaza, he added to the head-scratching process a few rare old Gaelic words that had passed down from father to son for hundreds of years. They ionized the surrounding atmosphere, but otherwise did not affect the situation.

  At Eastern Parkway, Cullen tried an experiment. He carefully refrained from opening the first car’s doors at all. He leaned forward eagerly, twisted his head and watched-and was treated to nothing short of a miracle. The New York subway rider is neither shy, meek, nor modest, and doors that do not open immediately or sooner are helped on their way by sundry kicks. But this time there was not a kick, not a shriek, not even a modified yell. Cullen’s eyes popped.

  He was getting angry. At Franklin Avenue, where he again contacted the Express, he flung open the doors and swore at the crowd. Every door spouted commuters of both sexes and all ages, except that terrible first car. At those doors, three men and a very young girl got on, though Cullen could plainly see the slight bulging of the walls that the already super-crowded condition of the car had caused.

  For the rest of the trip to Flatbush Avenue, Cullen ignored the first car completely, concentrating on that last stop where everyone would have to get off. Everyone! President, Church, and Beverly Road were visited and passed, and Cullen found himself counting the stations to the Flatbush terminus.

  They seemed like such a nice bunch of passengers, too. They read their newspapers, stared into the whirling blackness out the window, or at the girl’s legs across the way, or at nothing at all, quite like ordinary people. Only, they didn’t want to get out. They didn’t even want to get into the next car, where empty seats filled the place. Imagine New Yorkers resisting the impulse to pass from one car to the other, and missing the chance to leave the doors open for the benefit of the draft.

  But it was Flatbush Avenue! Cullen rubbed his hands, slammed the doors open and yelled in his best unintelligible manner, “Lasstop!” He repeated it two or three times hoarsely and several in that damned first car looked up at him. There was reproach in their eyes. Have you never heard of the Mayor’s anti-noise campaign, they seemed to say.

  The last other passenger had come out of the train, and the scattered new ones were coming in. There were a few curious looks at the jammed car, but not too many. The New Yorker considers everything he cannot understand a publicity stunt.

  Cullen fell back on his Gaelic once more and dashed up the platform toward the motorman’s booth. He needed moral assistance. The motorman should have been out of his cab, preparing for his next trip, but he wasn’t. Cullen could see him through the glass of the door, leaning on the controls and staring vacantly at the bumper-stop ahead.

  “Gus!” cried Cullen. “Come out! There’s a hell of-”

  At that point, his tongue skidded to a halt, because it wasn’t Gus. It was a little old man, who smiled politely and twiddled his fingers in greeting.

  Patrick Cullen’s Irish soul rebelled. With a yelp, he grabbed the edge of the door and tried to shove it open. He should have known that wouldn’t work. So, taking a deep breath and commending said Irish soul to God, he made for the open door and ploughed into the mass of haunted humans in that first car. Momentum carried him six feet, and then there he stuck. Behind him, those he had knocked down picked themselves up from the laps of their fellow-travelers, apologized with true New York courtesy (consisting of a growl, a grunt, and a grimace) and returned to their papers.

  Then, caught helplessly, he heard the Dispatcher’s bell. It was time for his own train to be on its way. Duty called! With a superhuman effort, he inched towards the door, but it closed before he could get there, and the train commenced to move.

  It occurred to Cullen that he had missed a report for the first time, and he said, “Damn!” After the train had travelled some fifty feet, it came to him that they were going the wrong way, and this time he said nothing.

  After all, what was there to say-even in the purest of Gaelic.

  How could a train go the wrong way at Flatbush Ave. There were no further tracks. There was no further tunnel. There was a bumper-stop to prevent eccentric motormen from trying to bore one. It was absurd. Even the Big Deal couldn’t do it.

  But there they were!

  There were stations in this new tunnel, too,-cute little small ones just large enough for one car. But that was all right, because only one car was travelling. The rest had somehow become detached, presumably to make the routine trip to Bronx Park.

  There were maybe a dozen stations on the line-with curious names. Cullen noticed only a few, because he found it difficult to keep his eyes from going out of focus. One was Archangel Boulevard; another Seraph Road; still another Cherub Plaza.

  And then, the train slid into a monster station, that looked uncommonly like a cave, and stopped. It was huge, about three hundred feet deep, and almost spherical. The tracks ran to the exact center, without trusses, and the platform at its side likewise rested comfortably upon air.

  The conductor was the only person left in the car, the rest having mostly gotten off at Hosannah Square. He hung limply from the porcelain hand-grip, staring fixedly at a lip-stick advertisement. The door of the motonnan’s cabin opened and the little man came out. He glanced at Cullen, turned away, then whirled back.

  “Hey,” he said, “who are you?”

  Cullen rotated slowly, still clutching the hand-grip. “Only the conductor. Don’t mind me. I’m quitting anyway. I don’t like the work.”

  “Oh, dear, dear, this is unexpected.” The little man waggled his head and tch-tched. “I’m Mr. Crumley,” he explained. “I steal things. People mostly. Sometimes subway cars,-but they’re such big, clumsy things, don’t you think?”

  “Mister,” groaned Cullen. “I quit thinking two hours ago. It didn’t get me anywhere. Who are you, anyway?”

  “I told you-I’m Mr. Crumley. I’m practicing to be a god.”

  “A gob?” said Cullen. “You mean a sailor?”

  “Dear, no,” frowned Mr. Crumley. “I said, ‘god,’ as in Jehovah. Look!” He pointed out the window to the wall of the cave. Where his finger pointed, the rock billowed and rose. He moved his finger and there was a neat ridge of rock describing a reversed, lower case “h.”

  “That’s my symbol,” said Crumley modestly. “Mystic, isn’t it? But that’s nothing. Wait till I really get things organized. Dear, dear, will I give them miracles!”

  Cullen’s head swivelled between the raised-rock symbol and the simpering Mr. Crumley, until he began to get dizzy, and then he stopped.

  “
Listen,” he demanded hoarsely. “How did you get that car out of Flatbush Avenue? Where did that tunnel come from? Are some of them foreigners-”

  “Oh, my, no!” answered Mr. Crumley. “I made that myself and willed it so that no one would notice. It was quite difficult. It just wears the ectoplasm right out of me. Miracles with people mixed up in it are much harder than the other kind, because you have to fight their wills. Unless you have lots of Believers, you can’t do it. Now that I’ve got over a hundred thousand, I can do it, but there was a time,” he shook his head reminiscently, “when I couldn’t even have levitated a baby-or healed a leper. Oh, well, we’re wasting time. We ought to be at the nearest factory.”

  Cullen brightened. ‘Factory’ was more prosaic. “I once had a brother,” he said, “who worked in a sweater factory, but-”

  “Oh, goodness, Mr. Cullen. I’m referring to my Believers’ Factories. I have to educate people to believe in me, don’t I, and preaching is such slow work. I believe in mass production. Some day I intend to be called the Henry Ford of Utopia. Why, I’ve got twelve Factories in Brooklyn alone and when I manufacture enough Believers, I’ll just cover the world with them.”

  He sighed, “Gracious me, if I only had enough Believers. I’ve got to have a million before I can let things progress by themselves and until then I have to attend to every little detail myself. It is so boring! I even have to keep reminding my Believers who I am-even the Disciples. Incidentally, Cullen,-I read your mind, by the way, so that’s how I know your name-you want to be a Believer, of course.”

  “Well, now,” said Cullen nervously.

  “Oh, come now. Some gods would have been angry at your intrusion and done away with you,” he snapped his fingers, “like that. Not I, though, because I think killing people is messy and inconsiderate. Just the same, you’ll have to be a Believer.”

  Now Patrick Cullen was an intelligent Irishman. That is to say, he admitted the existence of banshees, leprechauns, and the Little Folk, and kept an open mind on poltergeists, werewolves, vampires and such-like foreign trash. At mere supernaturalities, he was too well educated to sneer. Still, Cullen did not intend to compromise his religion. His theology was weak, but for a mortal to claim godship smacked of heresy, not to say sacrilege and blasphemy, even to him.