by Isaac Asimov
“I see you understand me.” Nicholls nodded. “From now on in this state-and by virtue of the full-faith-and-credence clause of the Constitution, in every state of the country-a ghost has a legal right to haunt a house!”
“Good lord!” said Wilson. He began to laugh, not loud, but from the bottom of his chest.
Harley stared at Nicholls. “Once and for all,” he whispered, “tell me -what’s your angle on all this?”
Nicholls smiled again.
“Think about it a while,” he said lightly. “You’ll begin to understand.” He sniffed his wine once more, then sat the glass down gently
And vanished.
***
As I’ve mentioned before, I was never a reader of Weird Tales, and its type of fiction did not captivate me. In 1950, though, when “Legal Rites” finally appeared, Weird Tales was nearing the end of its thirty-year road and I’m rather glad I made its pages at least once before its end, even if only as half of a collaboration. It was the longest story in the issue and it received the cover.
“Legal Rites” and “The Little Man on the Subway” are the only pieces of fiction I ever wrote in collaboration, and I didn’t really enjoy the process. Later on in my career, I had occasion to collaborate on four or five non-fiction books and never really enjoyed that either, nor were any of the collaborations successful I’m essentially a loner and like to take full responsibility for what I write.
In the case of “Legal Rites” it seems to me that the beginning is mostly Pohl’s rewriting; the trial scene is mostly mine; the ending-I don’t remember.
Fantasy was not the only type of story I kept bullheadedly trying, over and over, without much success. Another type was the broadly farcical. I never sold either type to Campbell, but I at least sold the latter elsewhere.
Even while I was writing “Legal Rites,” I was working on another robot story, but a humorous one-or what I considered humor. I called it “Source of Power” and at least knew better than to waste time trying it on Campbell. I sent it directly to Thrilling Wonder, and when it was rejected there, I tried Amazing.
Amazingbought it on October 8, 1941-my first sale to that magazine since those exciting beginning days of the fall of 1938. When it appeared on the stands (two days after Pearl Harbor) in the February 1942. issue, I found that Amazing had retitled it “Robot AL-76 Goes Astray.”
Although “Robot AL-76 Goes Astray” was a “positronic robot” story, it didn’t really fit in with the other three I had thus far written. When I, Robot, my first collection of “positronic robot” stories, was put together, in 1950, I did not include “Robot AL-76 Goes Astray” in that volume. When, however, in 1964, The Rest of the Robots was put together, I felt honor-bound by the title, if nothing else, to include all the remaining robot stories published till then, and therefore “Robot AL-76 Goes Astray” was included.
August 1, 1941 (“Robot AL-76 Goes Astray” was then still working its slow way through the typewriter, because the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union distracted me) was another important day in my writing career. I went to see John Campbell that day and, not liking to come to him without an idea, I thought hard on the subway ride there.
The fate of “Pilgrimage” (soon to become “Black Friar of the Flame”) was still rankling, and I wanted to write another future-historical. I therefore suggested to him that I do a short story against the background of the slow fall of the Galactic Empire (something I intended to model quite frankly on the fall of the Roman Empire).
Campbell caught fire. We spent two hours together, and by the time it was over it was not going to be a short story at all, but an indefinitely long series of stories dealing with the fall of the First Galactic Empire and the rise of the Second.
I submitted the first story of the series, “Foundation,” to Campbell on September 8, 1941, and it was accepted on the fifteenth. It appeared in the May 1942 issue of Astounding.
Over the next eight years I was to write seven more stories of what came to be called the “Foundation” series, and these were finally collected into three volumes, Foundation, Foundation and Empire, and Second Foundation, which collectively were called The Foundation Trilogy.
Of all my science fiction, these books were most successful. First published in 1951, 1952, and 1953, respectively, they have been in print constantly as hard-covers ever since, despite the appearance of numerous soft-cover editions. And in 1966, at the 24th World Science Fiction Convention, in Cleveland, the “Foundation” series received a Hugo (science fiction’s equivalent of the Oscar) as the “Best All-Time Series.”
After “Foundation” I was ready to try a serious positronic robot story for the first time in half a year. This one, “Runaround, “ was submitted to Campbell on October 20, 1941, and he accepted it on the twenty-third. It appeared in the March 1942 issue of Astounding and was eventually included in I, Robot.
I then had to get to work at once on a sequel to “Foundation.” “Foundation” had been brought to an inconclusive ending on the assumption that a sequel would be forthcoming, and I had to come through. On November 17, the sequel, “Bridle and Saddle,” which was the second story of the “Foundation” series, was submitted to Campbell, and he accepted it the same day-a record in speed. What’s more, it was the longest story I had yet written-eighteen thousand words-and even though I received no bonus, the check, for $180, was the largest single check I had yet received. “Bridle and Saddle” was eventually included in Foundation.
Now, at last, I had a series of long stories going, together with my “positronic robot” series of short stories. I was feeling quite good.
On November 17, 1941, the day I submitted and sold “Bridle and Saddle,” Campbell told me his plan for starting a new department in Astounding, one to be called “Probability Zero.” This was to be a department of short-shorts, five hundred to one thousand words, which were to be in the nature of plausible and entertaining Munchausen-like lies. Campbell’s notion was that, aside from the entertainment value of these things, they would offer a place where beginners could penetrate the market without having to compete quite so hard with established writers. It would form a stairway to professional status.
This was a good idea in theory and even worked a little. Ray Bradbury, later to be one of the best-known and successful of all science fiction writers, broke into the field with a “Probability Zero” item in the July 1942 Astounding. Hal Clement and George 0. Smith also published in “Probability Zero” near the very start of their careers.
Unfortunately, it didn’t work enough. Campbell had to start the department going with professionals, hoping to let the amateurs carry on once they saw what it was Campbell wanted. There were, however, never enough amateurs who could meet Campbell’s standards even for short-shorts of an undemanding nature, and after twelve appearances of “Probability Zero” over a space of two and a half years, Campbell gave up.
On November 17, however, he was just beginning, and he wanted me to do a “Probability Zero” for him. I was delighted that he considered me to be at that stage of virtuosity where he could order me to do something for him according to measure. I promptly sat down and wrote a short-short called “Big Game.” On November 24, 1941, I showed it to Campbell. He glanced over it and, rather to my astonishment, handed it back. It wasn’t what he wanted.
I wish I could remember what “Big Game” was about, for I thought enough of it to try submitting it to Collier’s magazine (an over-awing slick) in 1944-and it was, of course, rejected. The title, however, recalls nothing to my mind, and the story now no longer exists.
I tried a second time and did a humorous little positronic robot story called “First Law.” I showed it to Campbell on December 1, and he didn’t like that, either. This time, though, I kept the story. Thank goodness, I had finally learned that stories must be carefully saved for eternity, however many times they are rejected, and however firmly you imagine they are retired. “Big Game” was the eleventh of my stories to disappear
, but it was also the last.
In the case of “First Law” there came a time when a magazine that did not exist in 1941 was to ask me for something. The magazine in question was Fantastic Universe, whose editor, Hans Stefan Santesson, asked me for a story at rates that would have been fine in 1941 but that by the mid-1950s I was reluctant to accept. I remembered “First Law,” however, and sent it in. Santesson took it and ran it in the October 1956 issue of Fantastic Universe, and, eventually, I included it in The Rest of the Robots.
But back to “Probability Zero”-
I tried a third time with a short-story called “Time Pussy,” which I wrote on the morning of Sunday, December 7, 1941, finishing it just before the radio went crazy with the news of Pearl Harbor. I brought it in to Campbell the next day (life goes on!), and this time he took it, but “not too enthusiastically,” according to my diary.
Time Pussy
This was told me long ago by old Mac, who lived in a shack just over the hill from my old house. He had been a mining prospector out in the Asteroids during the Rush of ‘37, and spent most of his time now in feeding his seven cats.
“What makes you like cats So much, Mr. Mac?” I asked him.
The old miner looked at me and scratched his chin. “Well,” he said, “they reminds me o’ my leetle pets on Pallas. They was something like cats-same kind of head, sort o’-and the cleverest leetle fellers y’ ever saw. All dead!”
I felt sorry and said so. Mac heaved a sigh. “Cleverest leetle fellers,” he repeated. “They was four-dimensional pussies.”
“Four-dimensional, Mr. Mac? But the fourth dimension is time.” I had learned that the year before, in the third grade.
“So you’ve had a leetle schooling, hey?” He took out his pipe and filled it slowly. “Sure, the fourth dimension is time. These pussies was about a foot long and six inches high and four inches wide and stretched somewheres into middle o’ next week. That’s four dimensions, ain’t it? Why, if you petted their heads, they wouldn’t wag their tails till next day, mebbe. Some 0 the big ones wouldn’t wag till day after. Fact!”
I looked dubious, but didn’t say anything.
Mac went on: “They was the best leetle watchdogs in all creation, too. They had to be. Why, if they spotted a burglar or any suspicious character, they’d shriek like a banshee. And when one saw a burglar today, he’d shriek yesterday, so we had twenty-four hours’ notice every time.”
My mouth opened. “Honest?”
“Cross my heart! Y’ want to know how we used to feed them? We’ d wait for them to go to sleep, see, and then we’d know they was busy digesting their meals. These leetle time pussies, they always digested their meals exactly three hours before they ate it, on account their stomachs stretched that far back in time. So when they went to sleep, we used to look at the time, get their dinner ready and feed it to them exactly three hours later.”
He had lit his pipe now and was puffing away. He shook his head sadly. “Once, though, I made a mistake. Poor leetle time pussy. His name was Joe, and he was just about my favorite, too. He went to sleep one morning at nine and somehow I got the idea it was eight. Naturally, I brought him his feed at eleven. I looked allover for him, but I couldn’t find him.”
“What had happened, Mr. Mac?”
“Well, no time pussy’s insides could be expected to handle his breakfast only two hours after digesting it. Its too much to expect. I found him finally under the tool kit in the outer shed. He had crawled there and died of indigestion an hour before. Poor leetle feller! After that, I always set an alarm, so I never made that mistake again.”
There was a short, mournful silence after that, and I resumed in a respectful whisper: “You said they all died, before. Were they all killed like that?”
Mac shook his head solemnly. “No! They used to catch colds from us fellers and just die anywhere from a week to ten days before they caught them. They wasn’t too many to start with, and a year after the miners hit Pallas they wasn’t but about ten left and them ten sort o’ weak and sickly. The trouble was, leetle feller, that when they died, they went all to pieces; just rotted away fast. Especially the little four-dimensional jigger they had in their brains which made them act the way they did. It cost us all millions o’ dollars.”
“How was that, Mr. Mac?”
“Y’ see, some scientists back on Earth got wind of our leetle time pussies, and they knew they’d all be dead before they could get out there next conjunction. So they offered us all a million dollars for each time pussy we preserved for them.”
“And did you?”
“Well, we tried, but they wouldn’t keep. After they died, they were just no good any more, and we had to bury them. We tried packing them in ice, but that only kept the outside all right. The inside was a nasty mess, and it was the inside the scientists wanted.
“Natur’lly, with each dead time pussy costing us a million dollars, we didn’t want that to happen. One of us figured out that if we put a time pussy into hot water when it was about to die, the water would soak all through it. Then, after it died, we could freeze the water so it would just be one solid chunk o’ ice, and then it would keep.”
My lower jaw was sagging. “Did it work?”
“We tried and we tried, son, but we just couldn’t freeze the water fast enough. By the time we had it all iced, the four-dimensional jigger in the time pussy’s brain had just corrupted away. We froze the water faster and faster but it was no go. Finally, we had only one time pussy left, and he was just fixing to die, too. We was desperate-and then one of the fellers thought o’ something. He figured out a complicated contraption that would freeze all the water just like that -in a split second.
“We picked up the last leetle feller and put him into the hot water and hooked on the machine. The leetle feller gave us a last look and made a funny leetle sound and died. We pressed the button and iced the whole thing into a solid block in about a quarter of a second.” Here Mac heaved a sigh that must have weighed a ton. “But it was no use. The time pussy spoiled inside 0’ fifteen minutes and we lost the last million dollars.”
I caught my breath. “But Mr. Mac, you just said you iced the time pussy in a quarter of a second. It didn’t have time to spoil.”
“That’s just it, leetle feller,” he said heavily. “We did it too doggoned fast. The time pussy didn’t keep because we froze that hot water so derned fast that the ice was still warm!”
***
The most unusual thing about this small item is that it was not published under my own name. Campbell wanted one item in that first “Probability Zero” to appear to be by a non-professional, just to encourage the newcomers he hoped would try to break in. He had three entries in that first department and the other two were by L. Sprague de Camp and Malcolm Jameson. Both were longer-established and (despite “Nightfall”) more renowned than I. As low man, it was up to me to use a pseudonym and pretend to be a newcomer.
I saw Campbell’s point and, just a little sullenly, agreed. I used the name George E. Dale. It is the only time I ever used a pseudonym in the magazines. In later years I used the pseudonym Paul French on a series of six teen-age science fiction novels for reasons that are another story altogether. That was a special case, and in 1971 and 1972 those six novels appeared as paperbacks under my own name. Now “Time Pussy” appears here under my own name, and the record is at last absolutely clean.
There followed a two-month period during which I wrote nothing.
The reasons were twofold. In the first place, Pearl Harbor put the United States in the war the day I wrote “Time Pussy,” and those first two months after the debacle were too disastrous and heartbreaking to allow much in the way of fiction composing.
If that in itself weren’t enough, the time had come to try, once again, the qualifying examinations that would, or would not, grant me permission to do research. I very much felt myself to be dangling over the abyss. A second failure to pass would probably mean an end for me at Columbia
. Consequently, during those hours when I wasn’t working in my father’s candy store or hanging over the radio, I had to be studying. There was time for nothing else at all.
Hedging my bets rather desperately, I registered for graduate work at New York University, just in case I did not pass once again. After I took my qualifying examinations, at the end of January 1942, I actually attended a few classes at N.Y.U. while waiting for the results to be announced. -but I won’t keep you in suspense. On Friday, the thirteenth of February, the results were announced. I had passed, this time.
During the interval between the taking of the qualifying examinations and the annunciation, I managed to do “Victory Unintentional.” This was a positronic robot story that was a sequel to “Not Final!” which had not been a positronic robot story. obviously I was trying to ride the series notion all I could, in the hope of surer sales.
I submitted it to Campbell on February 9, 1942, and if I thought Campbell would find himself unable to reject a series story, I was roundly disabused. Nor was he so impressed by “Nightfall” and by my “Foundation” series as to find himself incapable of making the rejection a severe one.
On February 13. the very day of my passing into the sacred list of those permitted to do research toward their Ph.D., my spirits were somewhat dashed when I received “Victory Unintentional?” back with a cryptic rejection, which consisted of the following, in toto, “CH3C2CH2CH2SH.” Campbell very well knew that this was the formula for “butyl mercaptan, “ which gives the skunk its smell, and I very well knew it, too, and Campbell very well knew I knew.
Oh, well! I managed to sell it anyway, to Super Science Stories under its post-Pohl editor, on March 16, 1942, and it appeared in the August 1942 issue of that magazine. Though I did not include it in I, Robot, I did include it, of necessity, in The Rest of the Robots.
After that, though, there came another dry period, the longest I was ever to experience. Once “Victory Unintentional” was finished, fourteen months (I) were to pass before I turned back to the typewriter. It was not the conventional “writer’s block,” of course, for that I have never experienced. Rather, it was the coming of a vast, triple change in my life.
