The Classic Sci-Fi Collection

by Ayn Rand

  “This ought to be up your alley, Mort,” he was saying to his companion. “Chemistry and physics department. Want to come along?”

  The lab man, Mort Tranter, was willing. Seeing the sights was what he’d come down from the ship for. She finished her coffee and cigarette, and they went out into the hall together, gathered equipment and rode the elevator to the fifth floor.

  The lecture hall door was the nearest; they attacked it first. With proper equipment and help, it was no problem and in ten minutes they had it open wide enough to squeeze through with the floodlights. The room inside was quite empty, and, like most of the rooms behind closed doors, comparatively free from dust. The students, it appeared, had sat with their backs to the door, facing a low platform, but their seats and the lecturer’s table and equipment had been removed. The two side walls bore inscriptions: on the right, a pattern of concentric circles which she recognized as a diagram of atomic structure, and on the left a complicated table of numbers and words, in two columns. Tranter was pointing at the diagram on the right.

  “They got as far as the Bohr atom, anyhow,” he said. “Well, not quite. They knew about electron shells, but they have the nucleus pictured as a solid mass. No indication of proton-and-neutron structure. I’ll bet, when you come to translate their scientific books, you’ll find that they taught that the atom was the ultimate and indivisible particle. That explains why you people never found any evidence that the Martians used nuclear energy.”

  “That’s a uranium atom,” Captain Miles mentioned.

  “It is?” Sid Chamberlain asked, excitedly. “Then they did know about atomic energy. Just because we haven’t found any pictures of A-bomb mushrooms doesn’t mean—”

  She turned to look at the other wall. Sid’s signal reactions were setting away from him again; uranium meant nuclear power to him, and the two words were interchangeable. As she studied the arrangement of the numbers and words, she could hear Tranter saying:

  “Nuts, Sid. We knew about uranium a long time before anybody found out what could be done with it. Uranium was discovered on Terra in 1789, by Klaproth.”

  There was something familiar about the table on the left wall. She tried to remember what she had been taught in school about physics, and what she had picked up by accident afterward. The second column was a continuation of the first: there were forty-six items in each, each item numbered consecutively—

  “Probably used uranium because it’s the largest of the natural atoms,” Penrose was saying. “The fact that there’s nothing beyond it there shows that they hadn’t created any of the transuranics. A student could go to that thing and point out the outer electron of any of the ninety-two elements.”

  * * *

  Ninety-two! That was it; there were ninety-two items in the table on the left wall! Hydrogen was Number One, she knew; One, Sarfaldsorn. Helium was Two; that was Tirfaldsorn. She couldn’t remember which element came next, but in Martian it wasSarfalddavas. Sorn must mean matter, or substance, then. And davas; she was trying to think of what it could be. She turned quickly to the others, catching hold of Hubert Penrose’s arm with one hand and waving her clipboard with the other.

  “Look at this thing, over here,” she was clamoring excitedly. “Tell me what you think it is. Could it be a table of the elements?”

  They all turned to look. Mort Tranter stared at it for a moment.

  “Could be. If I only knew what those squiggles meant—”

  That was right; he’d spent his time aboard the ship.

  “If you could read the numbers, would that help?” she asked, beginning to set down the Arabic digits and their Martian equivalents. “It’s decimal system, the same as we use.”

  “Sure. If that’s a table of elements, all I’d need would be the numbers. Thanks,” he added as she tore off the sheet and gave it to him.

  Penrose knew the numbers, and was ahead of him. “Ninety-two items, numbered consecutively. The first number would be the atomic number. Then a single word, the name of the element. Then the atomic weight—”

  She began reading off the names of the elements. “I know hydrogen and helium; what’s tirfalddavas, the third one?”[1]

  “Lithium,” Tranter said. “The atomic weights aren’t run out past the decimal point. Hydrogen’s one plus, if that double-hook dingus is a plus sign; Helium’s four-plus, that’s right. And lithium’s given as seven, that isn’t right. It’s six-point nine-four-oh. Or is that thing a Martian minus sign?”

  “Of course! Look! A plus sign is a hook, to hang things together; a minus sign is a knife, to cut something off from something—see, the little loop is the handle and the long pointed loop is the blade. Stylized, of course, but that’s what it is. And the fourth element, kiradavas; what’s that?”

  “Beryllium. Atomic weight given as nine-and-a-hook; actually it’s nine-point-oh-two.”

  Sid Chamberlain had been disgruntled because he couldn’t get a story about the Martians having developed atomic energy. It took him a few minutes to understand the newest development, but finally it dawned on him.

  “Hey! You’re reading that!” he cried. “You’re reading Martian!”

  “That’s right,” Penrose told him. “Just reading it right off. I don’t get the two items after the atomic weight, though. They look like months of the Martian calendar. What ought they to be, Mort?”

  * * *

  Tranter hesitated. “Well, the next information after the atomic weight ought to be the period and group numbers. But those are words.”

  “What would the numbers be for the first one, hydrogen?”

  “Period One, Group One. One electron shell, one electron in the outer shell,” Tranter told her. “Helium’s period one, too, but it has the outer—only—electron shell full, so it’s in the group of inert elements.”

  “Trav, Trav. Trav’s the first month of the year. And helium’s Trav, Yenth; Yenth is the eighth month.”

  “The inert elements could be called Group Eight, yes. And the third element, lithium, is Period Two, Group One. That check?”

  “It certainly does. Sanv, Trav; Sanv’s the second month. What’s the first element in Period Three?”

  “Sodium. Number Eleven.”

  That’s right; it’s Krav, Trav. Why, the names of the months are simply numbers, one to ten, spelled out.

  “Doma‘s the fifth month. That was your first Martian word, Martha,” Penrose told her. “The word for five. And if davas is the word for metal, and sornhulva is chemistry and / or physics, I’ll bet Tadavas Sornhulva is literally translated as: Of-Metal Matter-Knowledge. Metallurgy, in other words. I wonder what Mastharnorvod means.” It surprised her that, after so long and with so much happening in the meantime, he could remember that. “Something like ‘Journal,’ or ‘Review,’ or maybe ‘Quarterly.’”

  “We’ll work that out, too,” she said confidently. After this, nothing seemed impossible. “Maybe we can find—” Then she stopped short. “You said ‘Quarterly.’ I think it was ‘Monthly,’ instead. It was dated for a specific month, the fifth one. And if nor is ten, Mastharnorvod could be ‘Year-Tenth.’ And I’ll bet we’ll find that masthar is the word for year.” She looked at the table on the wall again. “Well, let’s get all these words down, with translations for as many as we can.”

  “Let’s take a break for a minute,” Penrose suggested, getting out his cigarettes. “And then, let’s do this in comfort. Jeff, suppose you and Sid go across the hall and see what you find in the other room in the way of a desk or something like that, and a few chairs. There’ll be a lot of work to do on this.”

  Sid Chamberlain had been squirming as though he were afflicted with ants, trying to contain himself. Now he let go with an excited jabber.

  “This is really it! The it, not just it-of-the-week, like finding the reservoirs or those statues or this building, or even the animals and the dead Martians! Wait till Selim and Tony see this! Wait till Tony sees it; I want to see his face! And when I get this
on telecast, all Terra’s going to go nuts about it!” He turned to Captain Miles. “Jeff, suppose you take a look at that other door, while I find somebody to send to tell Selim and Tony. And Gloria; wait till she sees this—”

  “Take it easy, Sid,” Martha cautioned. “You’d better let me have a look at your script, before you go too far overboard on the telecast. This is just a beginning; it’ll take years and years before we’re able to read any of those books downstairs.”

  “It’ll go faster than you think, Martha,” Hubert Penrose told her. “We’ll all work on it, and we’ll teleprint material to Terra, and people there will work on it. We’ll send them everything we can ... everything we work out, and copies of books, and copies of your word-lists—”

  And there would be other tables—astronomical tables, tables in physics and mechanics, for instance—in which words and numbers were equivalent. The library stacks, below, would be full of them. Transliterate them into Roman alphabet spellings and Arabic numerals, and somewhere, somebody would spot each numerical significance, as Hubert Penrose and Mort Tranter and she had done with the table of elements. And pick out all the chemistry textbooks in the Library; new words would take on meaning from contexts in which the names of elements appeared. She’d have to start studying chemistry and physics, herself—

  * * *

  Sachiko Koremitsu peeped in through the door, then stepped inside.

  “Is there anything I can do—?” she began. “What’s happened? Something important?”

  “Important?” Sid Chamberlain exploded. “Look at that, Sachi! We’re reading it! Martha’s found out how to read Martian!” He grabbed Captain Miles by the arm. “Come on, Jeff; let’s go. I want to call the others—” He was still babbling as he hurried from the room.

  Sachi looked at the inscription. “Is it true?” she asked, and then, before Martha could more than begin to explain, flung her arms around her. “Oh, it really is! You are reading it! I’m so happy!”

  She had to start explaining again when Selim von Ohlmhorst entered. This time, she was able to finish.

  “But, Martha, can you be really sure? You know, by now, that learning to read this language is as important to me as it is to you, but how can you be so sure that those words really mean things like hydrogen and helium and boron and oxygen? How do you know that their table of elements was anything like ours?”

  Tranter and Penrose and Sachiko all looked at him in amazement.

  “That isn’t just the Martian table of elements; that’s the table of elements. It’s the only one there is.” Mort Tranter almost exploded. “Look, hydrogen has one proton and one electron. If it had more of either, it wouldn’t be hydrogen, it’d be something else. And the same with all the rest of the elements. And hydrogen on Mars is the same as hydrogen on Terra, or on Alpha Centauri, or in the next galaxy—”

  “You just set up those numbers, in that order, and any first-year chemistry student could tell you what elements they represented.” Penrose said. “Could if he expected to make a passing grade, that is.”

  The old man shook his head slowly, smiling. “I’m afraid I wouldn’t make a passing grade. I didn’t know, or at least didn’t realize, that. One of the things I’m going to place an order for, to be brought on the Schiaparelli, will be a set of primers in chemistry and physics, of the sort intended for a bright child of ten or twelve. It seems that a Martiologist has to learn a lot of things the Hittites and the Assyrians never heard about.”

  Tony Lattimer, coming in, caught the last part of the explanation. He looked quickly at the walls and, having found out just what had happened, advanced and caught Martha by the hand.

  “You really did it, Martha! You found your bilingual! I never believed that it would be possible; let me congratulate you!”

  He probably expected that to erase all the jibes and sneers of the past. If he did, he could have it that way. His friendship would mean as little to her as his derision—except that his friends had to watch their backs and his knife. But he was going home on the Cyrano, to be a big shot. Or had this changed his mind for him again?

  “This is something we can show the world, to justify any expenditure of time and money on Martian archaeological work. When I get back to Terra, I’ll see that you’re given full credit for this achievement—”

  On Terra, her back and his knife would be out of her watchfulness.

  “We won’t need to wait that long,” Hubert Penrose told him dryly. “I’m sending off an official report, tomorrow; you can be sure Dr. Dane will be given full credit, not only for this but for her previous work, which made it possible to exploit this discovery.”

  “And you might add, work done in spite of the doubts and discouragements of her colleagues,” Selim von Ohlmhorst said. “To which I am ashamed to have to confess my own share.”

  “You said we had to find a bilingual,” she said. “You were right, too.”

  “This is better than a bilingual, Martha,” Hubert Penrose said. “Physical science expresses universal facts; necessarily it is a universal language. Heretofore archaeologists have dealt only with pre-scientific cultures.”

  THE END

  INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION

  ~

  by Poul Anderson

  Ever think how deadly a thing it is

  if a machine has amnesia—

  or how easily it can be arranged....

  “Well, yes,” Amspaugh admitted, “it was a unique war in many ways, including its origin. However, there are so many analogies to other colonial revolutions—” His words trailed off as usual.

  “I know. Earth’s mercantile policies and so forth,” said Lindgren. He fancies himself a student of interplanetary history. This has led to quite a few arguments since Amspaugh, who teaches in that field, joined the Club. Mostly they’re good. I went to the bar and got myself another drink, listening as the mine owner’s big voice went on:

  “But what began it? When did the asterites first start realizing they weren’t pseudopods of a dozen Terrestrial nations, but a single nation in their own right? There’s the root of the revolution. And it can be pinned down, too.”

  “‘Ware metaphor!” cried someone at my elbow. I turned and saw Missy Blades. She’d come quietly into the lounge and started mixing a gin and bitters.

  The view window framed her white head in Orion as she moved toward the little cluster of seated men. She took a fat cigar from her pocket, struck it on her shoe sole, and added her special contribution to the blue cloud in the room after she sat down.

  “Excuse me,” she said. “I couldn’t help that. Please go on.” Which I hope relieves you of any fear that she’s an Unforgettable Character. Oh, yes, she’s old as Satan now; her toil and guts and conniving make up half the biography of the Sword; she manned a gun turret at Ceres, and was mate of the Tyrfing on some of the earliest Saturn runs when men took their lives between their teeth because they needed both hands free; her sons and grandsons fill the Belt with their brawling ventures; she can drink any ordinary man to the deck; she’s one of the three women ever admitted to the Club. But she’s also one of the few genuine ladies I’ve known in my life.

  “Uh, well,” Lindgren grinned at her. “I was saying, Missy, the germ of the revolution was when the Stations armed themselves. You see, that meant more than police powers. It implied a degree of sovereignty. Over the years, the implication grew.”

  “Correct.” Orloff nodded his bald head. “I remember how the Governing Commission squalled when the Station managers first demanded the right. They foresaw trouble. But if the Stations belonging to one country put in space weapons, what else could the others do?”

  “They should have stuck together and all been firm about refusing to allow it,” Amspaugh said. “From the standpoint of their own best interests, I mean.”

  “They tried to,” Orloff replied. “I hate to think how many communications we sent home from our own office, and the others must have done the same. But Earth was a long way off
. The Station bosses were close. Inverse square law of political pressure.”

  “I grant you, arming each new little settlement proved important,” Amspaugh said. “But really, it expressed nothing more than the first inchoate stirrings of asteroid nationalism. And the origins of that are much more subtle and complex. For instance ... er....”

  “You’ve got to have a key event somewhere,” Lindgren insisted. “I say that this was it.”

  A silence fell, as will happen in conversation. I came back from the bar and settled myself beside Missy. She looked for a while into her drink, and then out to the stars. The slow spin of our rock had now brought the Dippers into view. Her faded eyes sought the Pole Star—but it’s Earth’s, not our own any more—and I wondered what memories they were sharing. She shook herself the least bit and said:

  “I don’t know about the sociological ins and outs. All I know is, a lot of things happened, and there wasn’t any pattern to them at the time. We just slogged through as best we were able, which wasn’t really very good. But I can identify one of those wriggling roots for you, Sigurd. I was there when the question of arming the Stations first came up. Or, rather, when the incident occurred that led directly to the question being raised.”

  Our whole attention went to her. She didn’t dwell on the past as often as we would have liked.

  A slow, private smile crossed her lips. She looked beyond us again. “As a matter of fact,” she murmured, “I got my husband out of it.” Then quickly, as if to keep from remembering too much:

  “Do you care to hear the story? It was when the Sword was just getting started. They’d established themselves on SSC 45—oh, never mind the catalogue number. Sword Enterprises, because Mike Blades’ name suggested it—what kind of name could you get out of Jimmy Chung, even if he was the senior partner? It’d sound too much like a collision with a meteorite—so naturally the asteroid also came to be called the Sword. They began on the borrowed shoestring that was usual in those days. Of course, in the Belt a shoestring has to be mighty long, and finances got stretched to the limit. The older men here will know how much had to be done by hand, in mortal danger, because machines were too expensive. But in spite of everything, they succeeded. The Station was functional and they were ready to start business when—”