Pebble in the Sky

by Isaac Asimov

  “Dr. Shekt is your father? . . . Please call me Bel. I’ll call you Pola.”

  “If you want me to, I’ll try. I suppose you were pretty angry with him.”

  “He wasn’t very polite.”

  “He couldn’t be. He’s being watched. In fact, he and I arranged in advance that he was to get rid of you and I was to see you here. This is our house, you know. . . . You see”—her voice dropped to a tight whisper—“Earth is going to revolt.”

  Arvardan couldn’t resist a moment of amusement.

  “No!” he said, opening his eyes wide. “All of it?”

  But Pola flared into instant fury. “Don’t laugh at me. You said you would listen and believe me. Earth is going to revolt, and it is serious, because Earth can destroy all the Empire.”

  “Earth can do that?” Arvardan struggled successfully against a burst of laughter. He said gently, “Pola, how well do you know your Galactography?”

  “As well as anybody, teacher, and what has that to do with it, anyway?”

  “It has this to do with it. The Galaxy has a volume of several million cubic light-years. It contains two hundred million inhabited planets and an approximate population of five hundred quadrillion people. Right?”

  “I suppose so, if you say so.”

  “It is, believe me. Now Earth is one planet, with a population of twenty millions, and no resources besides. In other words, there are twenty-five billion Galactic citizens for every single Earthman. Now what harm can Earth do against odds of twenty-five billion to one?”

  For a moment the girl seemed to sink into doubt, then she emerged. “Bel,” she said firmly, “I can’t answer that, but my father can. He has not told me the crucial details, because he claims that that would endanger my life. But he will now, if you come with me. He’s told me that Earth knows a way by which it can wipe out all life outside Earth, and he must be right. He’s always been right before.”

  Her cheeks were pink with earnestness, and Arvardan longed to touch them. (Had he ever before touched her and felt horrified at it? What was happening to him?)

  “Is it after ten?” asked Pola.

  “Yes,” he replied.

  “Then he should be upstairs now—if they haven’t caught him.” She looked about with an involuntary shudder. “We can get into the house directly from the garage now, and if you’ll come with me—”

  She had her hand on the knob that controlled the car door, when she froze. Her voice was a husky whisper: “There’s someone coming . . . Oh, quick—”

  The rest was smothered. It was anything but difficult for Arvardan to remember her original injunction. His arms swept about her with an easy motion, and, in an instant, she was warm and soft against him. Her lips trembled upon his and were limitless seas of sweetness . . .

  For about ten seconds he swiveled his eyes to their extremes in an effort to see that first crack of light or hear that first footstep, but then he was drowned and swept under by the excitement of it all. Blinded by stars, deafened by his own heartbeat.

  Her lips left his, but he sought them again, frankly, and found them. His arms tightened, and she melted within them until her own heartbeat was shaking him in time to his own.

  It was quite a while before they broke apart, and for a moment they rested, cheek against cheek.

  Arvardan had never been in love before, and this time he did not start at the word.

  What of it? Earthgirl or not, the Galaxy could not produce her equal.

  He said, with a dreamy pleasure, “It must have been only a traffic noise.”

  “It wasn’t,” she whispered. “I didn’t hear any noise.”

  He held her at arm’s distance, but her eyes did not falter. “You devil. Are you serious?”

  Her eyes sparkled. “I wanted you to kiss me. I’m not sorry.”

  “Do you think I am? Kiss me again, then, for no reason but that I want to this time.”

  Another long, long moment and she was suddenly away from him, arranging her hair and adjusting the collar of her dress with prim and precise gestures. “I think we had better go into the house now. Put out the car light. I’ve got a pencil flash.”

  He stepped out of the car after her, and in the new darkness she was the vaguest shadow in the little pockmark of light that came from her pencil flash.

  She said, “You’d better hold my hand. There’s a flight of stairs we must go up.”

  His voice was a whisper behind her. “I love you, Pola.” It came out so easily—and it sounded so right. He said it again. “I love you, Pola.”

  She said softly, “You hardly know me.”

  “No. All my life. I swear! All my life. Pola, for two months I’ve been thinking and dreaming of you. I swear it.”

  “I am an Earthgirl, sir.”

  “Then I will be an Earthman. Try me.”

  He stopped her and bent her hand up gently until the pocket flash rested upon her flushed, tear-marked face. “Why are you crying?”

  “Because when my father tells you what he knows, you’ll know that you cannot love an Earthgirl.”

  “Try me on that too.”

  15

  The Odds That Vanished

  Arvardan and Shekt met in a back room on the second story of the house, with the windows carefully polarized to complete opaqueness. Pola was downstairs, alert and sharp-eyed in the armchair from which she watched the dark and empty street.

  Shekt’s stooped figure wore somehow an air different from that which Arvardan had observed some ten hours previously. The physicist’s face was still haggard, and infinitely weary, but where previously it had seemed uncertain and timorous, it now bore an almost desperate defiance.

  “Dr. Arvardan,” he said, and his voice was firm, “I must apologize for my treatment of you in the morning. I had hoped you would understand—”

  “I must admit I didn’t, sir, but I believe I do now.”

  Shekt seated himself at the table and gestured toward the bottle of wine. Arvardan waved his hand in a deprecating motion. “If you don’t mind, I’ll have some of the fruit instead. . . . What is this? I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything like it.”

  “It’s a kind of orange,” said Shekt. “I don’t believe it grows outside Earth. The rind comes off easily.” He demonstrated, and Arvardan, after sniffing at it curiously, sank his teeth into the winy pulp. He came up with an exclamation.

  “Why, this is delightful, Dr. Shekt! Has Earth ever tried to export these objects?”

  “The Ancients,” said the biophysicist grimly, “are not fond of trading with the Outside. Nor are our neighbors in space fond of trading with us. It is but an aspect of our difficulties here.”

  Arvardan felt a sudden spasm of annoyance seize him. “That is the most stupid thing yet. I tell you that I could despair of human intelligence when I see what can exist in men’s minds.”

  Shekt shrugged with the tolerance of lifelong use. “It is part of the nearly insoluble problem of anti-Terrestrianism, I fear.”

  “But what makes it so nearly insoluble,” exclaimed the archaeologist, “is that no one seems to really want a solution! How many Earthmen respond to the situation by hating all Galactic citizens indiscriminately? It is an almost universal disease—hate for hate. Do your people really want equality, mutual tolerance? No! Most of them want only their own turn as top dog.”

  “Perhaps there is much in what you say,” said Shekt sadly. “I cannot deny it. But that is not the whole story. Give us but the chance, and a new generation of Earthmen would grow to maturity, lacking insularity and believing wholeheartedly in the oneness of Man. The Assimilationists, with their tolerance and belief in wholesome compromise, have more than once been a power on Earth. I am one. Or, at least, I was one once. But the Zealots rule all Earth now. They are the extreme nationalists, with their dreams of past rule and future rule. It is against them that the Empire must be protected.”

  Arvardan frowned. “You refer to the revolt Pola spoke of?”

&n
bsp; “Dr. Arvardan,” Shekt said grimly, “it’s not too easy a job to convince anyone of such an apparently ridiculous possibility as Earth conquering the Galaxy, but it’s true. I am not physically brave, and I am most anxious to live. You can imagine, then, the immense crisis that must now exist to force me to run the risk of committing treason with the eye of the local administration already upon me.”

  “Well,” said Arvardan, “if it is that serious, I had better tell you one thing immediately. I will help you all I can, but only in my own capacity as a Galactic citizen. I have no official standing here, nor have I any particular influence at the Court or even at the Procurator’s Palace. I am exactly what I seem to be—an archaeologist on a scientific expedition which involves only my own interests. Since you are prepared to risk treason, hadn’t you better see the Procurator about this? He could really do something.”

  “That is exactly what I cannot do, Dr. Arvardan. It is that very contingency against which the Ancients guard me. When you came to my house this morning I even thought you might be a go-between. I thought that Ennius suspected.”

  “He may suspect—I cannot answer for that. But I am not a go-between. I’m sorry. If you insist on making me your confidant, I can promise to see him for you.”

  “Thank you. It is all I ask. That—and to use your good offices to intercede for Earth against too strong a reprisal.”

  “Of course.” Arvardan was uneasy. At the moment he was convinced that he was dealing with an elderly and eccentric paranoiac, perhaps harmless, but thoroughly cracked. Yet he had no choice but to remain, to listen, and to try to smooth over the gentle insanity—for Pola’s sake.

  Shekt said, “Dr. Arvardan, you have heard of the Synapsifier? You said so this morning.”

  “Yes, I did. I read your original article in Physical Reviews. I discussed the instrument with the Procurator and with the High Minister.”

  “With the High Minister?”

  “Why, certainly. When I obtained the letter of introduction that you—uh—refused to see, I’m afraid.”

  “I’m sorry for that. But I wish you had not—What is the extent of your knowledge concerning the Synapsifier?”

  “That it is an interesting failure. It is designed to improve learning capacity. It has succeeded to some extent on rats, but has failed on human beings.”

  Shekt was chagrined. “Yes, you could think nothing else from that article. It was publicized as a failure, and the eminently successful results have been suppressed, deliberately.”

  “Hmp. A rather unusual display of scientific ethics, Dr. Shekt.”

  “I admit it. But I am fifty-six, sir, and if you know anything of the customs of Earth, you know that I haven’t long to live.”

  “The Sixty. Yes, I have heard of it—more than I would have liked, in fact.” And he thought wryly of that first trip on a Terrestrian stratoliner. “Exceptions are made for noted scientists, among others, I have heard.”

  “Certainly. But it is the High Minister and the Council of Ancients who decide on that, and there is no appeal from their decisions, even to the Emperor. I was told that the price of life was secrecy concerning the Synapsifier and hard work for its improvement.” The older man spread his hands helplessly. “Could I know then of the outcome, of the use to which the machine would be put?”

  “And the use?” Arvardan extracted a cigarette from his shirt-pocket case and offered one to the other, which was refused.

  “If you’ll wait a moment—One by one, after my experiments had reached the point where I felt the instrument might be safely applied to human beings, certain of Earth’s biologists were treated. In each case they were men I knew to be in sympathy with the Zealots—the extremists, that is. They all survived, though secondary effects made themselves shown after a time. One of them was brought back for treatment eventually. I could not save him. But, in his dying delirium, I found out.”

  It was close upon midnight. The day had been long and much had happened. But now something stirred within Arvardan. He said tightly, “I wish you’d get to the point.”

  Shekt said, “I beg your patience. I must explain thoroughly, if you’re to believe me. You, of course, know of Earth’s peculiar environment—its radioactivity—”

  “Yes, I have a fair knowledge of the matter.”

  “And of the effect of this radioactivity upon Earth and its economy?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then I won’t belabor the point. I need only say that the incidence of mutation on Earth is greater than in the rest of the Galaxy. The idea of our enemies that Earthmen are different thus has a certain basis of physical truth. To be sure, the mutations are minor, and most possess no survival value. If any permanent change has occurred in Earthmen, it is only in some aspects of their internal chemistry which enables them to display greater resistance to their own particular environment. Thus they show greater resistance to radiation effects, more rapid healing of burned tissues—”

  “Dr. Shekt, I am acquainted with all you say.”

  “Then has it ever occurred to you that these mutational processes occur in living species on Earth other than human?”

  There was a short silence, and then Arvardan said, “Why, no, it hasn’t, though, of course, it is quite inevitable, now that you mention it.”

  “That is so. It happens. Our domestic animals exist in greater variety than on any other inhabited world. The orange you ate is a mutated variety, which exists nowhere else. It is this, among other things, which makes the orange so unacceptable for export. Outsiders suspect it as they suspect us—and we ourselves guard it as a valuable property peculiar to ourselves. And of course what applies to animals and plants applies also to microscopic life.”

  And now, indeed, Arvardan felt the thin pang of fear enter.

  He said, “You mean—bacteria?”

  “I mean the whole domain of primitive life. Protozoa, bacteria, and the self-reproducing proteins that some people call viruses.”

  “And what are you getting at?”

  “I think you have a notion of that, Dr. Arvardan. You seem suddenly interested. You see, there is a belief among your people that Earthmen are bringers of death, that to associate with an Earthman is to die, that Earthmen are the bearers of misfortune, possess a sort of evil eye—”

  “I know all that. It is merely superstition.”

  “Not entirely. That is the dreadful part. Like all common beliefs, however superstitious, distorted, and perverted, it has a speck of truth at bottom. Sometimes, you see, an Earthman carries within his body some mutated form of microscopic parasite which is not quite like any known elsewhere, and to which, sometimes, Outsiders are not particularly resistant. What follows is simple biology, Dr. Arvardan.”

  Arvardan was silent.

  Shekt went on, “We are caught sometimes, too, of course. A new species of germ will make its way out of the radioactive mists and an epidemic will sweep the planet, but, by and large, Earthmen have kept pace. For each variety of germ and virus, we build our defense over the generations, and we survive. Outsiders don’t have the opportunity.”

  “Do you mean,” said Arvardan with a strangely faint sensation, “that contact with you now—” He pushed his chair back. He was thinking of the evening’s kisses.

  Shekt shook his head. “Of course not. We don’t create the disease; we merely carry it. And even such carriage occurs very rarely. If I lived on your world, I would no more carry the germ than you would; I have no special affinity for it. Even here it is only one out of every quadrillion germs, or one out of every quadrillion of quadrillions, that is dangerous. The chances of your infection right now are less than that of a meteorite penetrating the roof of this house and hitting you. Unless the germs in question are deliberately searched for, isolated, and concentrated.”

  Again a silence, longer this time. Arvardan said in a queer, strangled voice, “Have Earthmen been doing that?”

  He had stopped thinking in terms of paranoia. He was ready to b
elieve.

  “Yes. But for innocent reasons, at first. Our biologists are, of course, particularly interested in the peculiarities of Earth life, and, recently, isolated the virus of Common Fever.”

  “What is Common Fever?”

  “A mild endemic disease on Earth. That is, it is always with us. Most Earthmen have it in their childhood, and its symptoms are not very severe. A mild fever, a transitory rash, and inflammation of the joints and of the lips, combined with an annoying thirst. It runs its course in four to six days, and the subject is thereafter immune. I’ve had it. Pola has had it. Occasionally there is a more virulent form of this same disease—a slightly different strain of virus is concerned, presumably—and then it is called Radiation Fever.”

  “Radiation Fever. I’ve heard of it,” said Arvardan.

  “Oh, really? It is called Radiation Fever because of the mistaken notion that it is caught after exposure to radioactive areas. Actually, exposure to radioactive areas is often followed by Radiation Fever, because it is in those areas that the virus is most apt to mutate to dangerous forms. But it is the virus and not the radiation which does it. In the case of Radiation Fever, symptoms develop in a matter of two hours. The lips are so badly affected that the subject can scarcely talk, and he may be dead in a matter of days.

  “Now, Dr. Arvardan, this is the crucial point. The Earthman has adapted himself to Common Fever and the Outsider has not. Occasionally a member of the Imperial garrison is exposed to it, and, in that case, he reacts to it as an Earthman would to Radiation Fever. Usually he dies within twelve hours. He is then burned—by Earthmen—since any other soldier approaching also dies.

  “The virus, as I say, was isolated ten years ago. It is a nucleoprotein, as are most filtrable viruses, which, however, possesses the remarkable property of containing an unusually high concentration of radioactive carbon, sulphur, and phosphorus. When I say unusually high I mean that fifty per cent of its carbon, sulphur, and phosphorus is radioactive. It is supposed that the effects of the organism on its host is largely that of its radiations, rather than of its toxins. Naturally it would seem logical that Earthmen, who are adapted to gamma radiations, are only slightly affected. Original research in the virus centered at first about the method whereby it concentrated its radioactive isotopes. As you know, no chemical means can separate isotopes except through very long and tedious procedures. Nor is any organism other than this virus known which can do so. But then the direction of research changed.