The Early Asimov. Volume 1

by Isaac Asimov

  “I am an archaeologist,” said Raph, stiffly. “These Eekahs are of interest to me biologically only. If the curvature of the thigh bone is known to me, I care little for the curvature of their cultural processes. If I can follow the shape of the skull, it is immaterial to me that the shape of their ethics is mysterious.”

  “You don’t think that their insanities may affect us here?”

  “We are six thousand miles apart, or more, along either ocean,” said Raph. ‘We have our world. They have theirs. There is no connection between us.”

  “No connection,” mused Lernin, “so others have said. No connection at all. Yet Eekahs have reached us, and others may follow. We are told that the other world is dominated by a few, who are in turn dominated by their queer need for security which they confuse with an Eekah word called ‘power,’ which, apparently, means the prevailing of one’s own will over the sum of the will of the community. What if this ‘power’ should extend to us?”

  Raph bent his mind to the task. The matter was utterly ridiculous. It seemed impossible to picture the strange concepts.

  Lernin said: “These Eekahs say that their world and ours in the long past were closer together. They say that there is a well-known scientific hypothesis in their world of a continental drift. That may interest you, since otherwise you might find it difficult to reconcile the existence of fossils of Primate Primeval closely related to living Eekahs six thousand miles away.”

  And the mists cleared from the archaeologist’s brain as he glanced up with a live interest untroubled by insanities: “ Ah, you should have said this sooner.”

  “I say it now as an example of what you may achieve for yourself by joining us and helping us. There is another thing. These Eekahs are physical scientists, like ourselves here in East Harbor, but with a difference dictated by their own cultural pattern. Since they live in hives, they think in hives, and their science is the result of an ant-society. Individually, they are slow and unimaginative; collectively, each supplies a crumb different from that supplied by his fellow-so that a vast structure is erected quickly. Here the individual is infinitely brighter, but he works alone. You, for instance, know nothing of chemistry, I imagine.”

  “A few of the fundamentals, but nothing else,” admitted Raph. “I leave that, naturally, to the chemist.”

  “Yes, naturally. But I am a chemist. Yet these Eekahs, though my mental inferiors, and no chemists in their own world, know more chemistry than I. For instance, did you know that there exist elements that spontaneously disintegrate?”

  “Impossible,” exploded Raph. “Elements are eternal, changeless-”

  Lernin laughed: “So you have been taught. So I have been taught. So I taught others. Yet the Eekahs are right, for in my laboratories I have checked them, and in every detail they are right. Uranium gives rise to a spontaneous radiation. You’ve heard of uranium, of course? And furthermore, I have detected radiations of energy beyond that produced by uranium which must be due to traces of elements unknown to us but described by the Eekahs. And these missing elements fit well into the so-called Periodic Tables some chemists have tried to foist upon the science. Though I do wrong to use the word ‘foist’ now.”

  “Well,” said Raph, “why do you tell me this? Does this, too, help me in my problem?”

  “Perhaps,” said Lernin, ironically, “you will yet find it a royal bribe. You see, the energy production of uranium is absolutely constant. No known outward change in environment can affect it-and as a result of the loss in energy, uranium slowly turns to lead at an absolutely constant rate. A group of our men is even now using this fact as a basis for a method of determining the age of the earth. You see, to determine the age of a stratum of rock in the earth, then, it is but necessary to discover a region in it containing a trace of uranium-a widely spread element-and to determine about it the quantity of lead-and I might here add that the lead produced from uranium differs from ordinary lead and can be easily characterized-and it is then simple to determine the length of time in which that stratum has been solid. And of course, if a fossil is found in that stratum, it is of the same age, am I not correct?”

  “Stars above,” and Raph rose to his feet in a tremble, “you do not deceive me? It is really possible to do this?”

  “It is possible. It is even easy. I tell you that our great defense, even at this late date, is co-operation in science. We are a group now of many, my friend, from many Groupings, and we want you among us. If you join us, it would be a simple matter to extend our earthage project to such regions as you may indicate-regions rich in fossils. What do you say?”

  “I will help you.”

  It is doubtful if the Gurrow Groupings had ever before seen a community venture of such breadth as now took place. East Harbor Grouping, as has been remarked, was a shipping center, and certainly a trans-Atlantic vessel was not beyond the capacity of a Grouping that traded along the full lengths of both coasts of the Americas. What was unusual was the vastness of the co-operation of Gurrows from many Groupings, Gurrows of many interests.

  Not that they were all happy.

  Raph, for instance, on the particular morning that now concerns us, six months from the date of his first arrival in East Harbor, was searching anxiously for Lernin.

  Lernin, for his part, was searching for nothing but greater speed.

  They met on the docks, where Lernin, biting the end off a cigar and leading the way to a region where smoking was permitted. said: “And you, my friend, seem concerned. Not. certainly, about the progress of our ocean liner?”

  “I am concerned,” said Raph, gravely, “about the reports I have received of the expedition testing the age of the rocks.”

  “Oh-And you are unhappy about it?”

  “Unhappy!” exploded Raph. “Have you seen them?”

  “I have received a copy. I have looked at it. I have even read parts of it. But I have had little time and most of it bounced off. Will you please enlighten me?”

  “Certainly. In the last several months, three of the regions I have indicated as being fossiliferous have been tested. The first region was in the area of East Harbor Grouping itself. Another was in the Pacific Bay Grouping, and a third in the Central Lakes Grouping. I purposely asked that those be done first because they are the richest areas and because they are widely separated. Do you know, for instance, what age they tell me the rocks upon which we stand are?”

  “Two billion years, I think, is the oldest figure I noticed.”

  “And that’s the figure for the oldest rocks-the basic igneous stratum of basalt. The upper strata, however-the recent sedimentary layers containing dozens of fossils of Primate Primeval-how old do you think these are supposed to be? Five-hundred-trillion-years! How is that? Do you understand?”

  “Trillion?” Lernin squinted upwards and shook his head. “That’s strange.”

  “I’ll add to it. The Pacific Coast Grouping is one hundred trillion years old-so I am told-and Central Lakes almost eighty trillion years old.”

  Lernin said: “And the other measurements? The ones that did not involve your strata?”

  “That is the most peculiar thing of all. Most of the chosen investigations were carried on in strata that were not particularly fossiliferous. They had their own criteria of choice based on geological reasoning-and they got consistent results-one million to two billion years depending upon the depth and geological history of the particular region tested. Only my areas give these strange and impossible vagaries.”

  And Lernin said, “But what do the geologists say about all this? Call there be some error?”

  “Undoubtedly. But they have fifty decent, reasonable measurements. For themselves, they have proved the method and are happy. There are three anomalies, to be sure, but they view them with equanimity as involving some unknown factors. I don’t see it that way. These three measurements mean everything.” Raph interrupted himself fiercely: “How sure are you that radioactivity is an absolute constant?”


  “Sure? Can one ever be sure? Nothing we know of so far affects it, and such is likewise the definite testimony of our Eekahs. Besides, my friend, if you are implying that radioactivity was more extensive in the past than in the present, why only in your fossil regions? Why not everywhere?”

  “Why, indeed? It’s another aspect of a problem which is growing more important daily. Consider. We have regions which show a past of abnormal radioactivity. We have regions which show abnormal fossil frequencies. Why should these regions coincide, Lernin?”

  “One obvious answer suggests itself, my friend. If your Primate Primeval existed at a time when certain regions were highly radioactive, certain individuals would wander into them and die. Radioactive radiation is deadly in excess, of course. Radioactivity and fossils, there you are…

  “Why not other creatures,” demanded Raph. “Only Primate Primeval occurs in excess, and he was intelligent. He would not be trapped by dangerous radiation.”

  “Perhaps he was not intelligent. That is, after all, only your theory and not a proven fact.”

  “Certainly, then, he was more intelligent than his small-brained contemporaries…

  “Perhaps not even that. You romanticize too much.”

  “Perhaps I do.” Raph spoke in half a whisper. “It seems to me that I can conjure up visions of a great civilization of a million years back-or more. A great power; a great intelligence-that has vanished completely, except for the tiny whispers of ossified bones which retain that huge cavity in which a brain once existed, and a bony five-fingered hand curving into slender signs of manipulative skill-with an opposing thumb. They must have been intelligent.”

  “Then, what killed them?” Lernin shrugged: “Several million species of living things have survived. “

  Raph looked up, half in anger: “I cannot accompany your group, Lernin, on a Voluntary basis. To go to the other world would be useful, yes, if I could engage in my own studies. For your purposes, it can be only a Community Job to me. I cannot give my heart to it.”

  But Lernin’s jaw was set: “That arrangement would not be fair. There are many of us, my friend, who are sacrificing our own interests. If we all placed them first and investigated the other world in terms of our own particular provincialisms only, our great purpose would be destroyed. My friend, there is not one of our men that we can spare. We must all work as if our lives depended on our instant solution of the Eekah problem, which, believe me, it does.”

  Raph’s jaws twisted in distaste. “On your side, you have a vague apprehension of these weak, stupid little creatures. On my side I have a definite problem of great intellectual attraction to myself. And between the two I can see no connection-no possible connection at all.”

  “Nor can I. But listen to me a moment. A small group of our most trusted men returned last week from a visit to the other world. It was not official, as ours will be. It made no contacts. It was a frank piece of espionage, which I am telling you about now. I ask your discretion on the matter.”

  “Naturally.”

  “Our men possessed themselves of Eekah event-sheets.”

  “Pardon me?”

  “It is a created name to describe the objects. Printed records are issued daily in the various centers of Eekah population of events and occurrences of the day, and what passes for literary efforts as well.”

  Raph was momentarily interested: “It strikes me as an excellent idea.”

  “Yes, in its essence. The Eekah notion of interesting events, however, appears to consist entirely of antisocial events. However, leave that be. My point is that the existence of the Americas is well-known there these days-and it is universally spoken of as a ‘new land of opportunity.’ The various divisions of Eekahs eye it with a universal desire. The Eekahs are many, they are crowded, their economy is irrational. They want new land, and that is what this is to them-new and empty land.”

  “Not empty,” pointed out Raph, mildly.

  “Empty to them,” insisted Lernin terribly. “That is the vast danger. Lands occupied by Gurrows are to them empty and they mean to take it, all the more so since they have often enough striven to take the lands of one another.”

  Raph shrugged: “Even so, they-”

  “Yes. They are weak and stupid. You said that, and so they are. But only singly. They will unite for a purpose. To be sure, they will fall apart when the purpose is done-but momentarily they will join and become strong, which we perhaps cannot do, witness yourself. And their weapons of war have been keened in the fire of conflict. Their flying machines, for instance, are superb war weapons.”

  “But we have duplicated it-”

  “In quantity? We have also duplicated their chemical explosives, but only in the laboratory, and their firing tubes and armored vehicles, but only in experimental plants. And yet there is more-something developed within the last five years, for our own Eekahs know nothing about it.”

  “And what is that?”

  “We don’t know. Their event-sheets speak of it-the names applied to it mean nothing to us-but the context implies the terror of it, even on the part of these kill-mad Eekahs. There seems no evidence that it has been used, or that all the Eekah groups have it-but it is used as a supreme threat. It will perhaps be clearer to you when all the evidence is presented once our voyage is under way.”

  “But what is it? You talk of it as if it were a bogey.”

  “Why, they talk of it as if it were a bogey. And what could be a bogey to an Eekah? That is the most frightening aspect of it. So far, we know only that it involves the bombardment of an element they call plutonium-of which we have never heard and of which our own Eekahs have never heard either-by objects called neutrons, which our Eekahs say are subatomic particles without charge, which seems to us completely ridiculous.”

  “And that is all?”

  “All. Will you suspend judgment till we show you the sheets?”

  Raph nodded reluctantly: “Very well.”

  Raph’s leaden thoughts revolved in their worn groove as he stood there alone.

  Eekahs and Primate Primeval. A living creature of erratic habits and a dead creature that must have aspired to heights. A sordid present of explosives and neutron bombardments and a glorious, mysterious past

  No connection! No connection!

  ***

  By June 1947 I had already been working on my Ph.D. research with near-total concentration (I was no longer working in the candy store; my younger brother, Stanley, had taken over) for nearly a year. I was in the homestretch and beginning to think forward to writing my Ph.D. dissertation. I rather dreaded that, since the obligatory style of dissertations is turgid in the extreme, and I had by now spent nine years trying to write well and was afraid I simply might not be able to write badly enough to qualify for my degree.

  The experiments I was doing at the time required me, periodically, to dissolve a compound called catechol in water. The catechol existed in fine, feathery, fluffy needles that dissolved very readily in water. In fact, when I sprinkled catechol into the beaker of water, the individual needles dissolved as soon as they snuck the water surface. Idly, it occurred to me that if the catechol were any more soluble than it was, it would dissolve before it snuck the water surface.

  Naturally, I thought at once that this notion might be the basis for an amusing story. It occurred to me, however, that instead of writing an actual story based on the idea, I might write up a fake research paper on the subject and get a little practice in turgid writing.

  I did the job on June 8, 1947, even giving it the kind of long-winded title that research papers so often have-”The Endochronic Properties of Resublimated Thiotimoline”-and added tables, graphs, and fake references to non-existent journals.

  I was not at all sure that “Thiotimoline” (no use trying to quote the entire name every time) was publishable. Astounding, however, ran serious articles on scientific subjects of particular interest to science fiction readers and I thought it just possible Campbell might be inte
rested in a gag article that would be on the borders of science fiction.

  I brought it in to him on the tenth, and he took it almost at once.

  The Endochronic Properties of Resublimated Thiotimoline

  The correlation of the structure of organic molecules with their various properties, physical and chemical, has in recent years afforded much insight into the mechanism of organic reactions, notably in the theories of resonance and mesomer-ism as developed in the last decade. The solubilities of organic compounds in various solvents has become of particular interest in this connection through the recent discovery of the endochronic nature of thiotimoline.

  It has been long known that the solubility of organic compounds in polar solvents such as water is enhanced by the presence upon the hydrocarbon nucleus of hydrophilic - i.e., water-loving - groups, such as the hydroxy (-OH), amino (-NH2), or sulfonic acid (SO3H) groups. Where the physical characteristics of two given compounds - particularly the degree of subdivision of the material - are equal, then the time of solution - expressed in seconds per gram of material per milli-liter of solvent - decreases with the number of hydrophilic groups present. Catechol, for instance, with two hydroxy groups on the benzene nucleus, dissolves considerably more quickly than does phenol, with only one hydroxy group on the nucleus. Feinschreiber and Hravlek in their studies on the problem have contended that with increasing hydrophilism, the time of solution approaches zero. That this analysis is not entirely correct was shown when it was discovered that the compound thiotimoline will dissolve in water - in the proportions of 1 gm./ml. - in minus 1.12 seconds. That is, it will dissolve before the water is added.

  Previous communications from these laboratories indicated thiotimoline to contain at least fourteen hydroxy groups, two amino groups and one sulfonic acid group. The presence of a nitro group (-NO2) in addition has not yet been confirmed, and no evidence as yet exists as to the nature of the hydrocarbon nucleus, though an at least partly aromatic structure seems certain of solution of thiotimoline quantitatively met with considerable difficulty because of the very negative nature of the value. The fact that the chemical dissolved prior to the addition of the water made the attempt natural to withdraw the water after solution and before addition. This, fortunately for the law of Conservation of Mass-Energy, never succeeded, since solution never took place unless the water was eventually added. The question is, of course, instantly raised as to how the thiotimoline can 'know' in advance whether the water will ultimately be added or not. Though this is not properly within our province as physical chemists, much recent material has been published within the last year upon the psychological and philosophical problems thereby posed.