The Gods Themselves

by Isaac Asimov

Chapter 10

  And yet It did. Two weeks passed without another message and the strain grew worse.

  Bronowski showed it. The momentary lightness of heart had dissipated, and he entered Lamont's laboratory in glum silence.

  They stared at each other and finally Bronowski said, "It's all over the place that you've received your show-cause. "

  Lamont had clearly not shaved that morning. His laboratory had a forlorn look about it, a not-quite-definable, packing-up look. He shrugged. "So what? It doesn't bother me. What does bother me is that Physical Reviews rejected my paper. "

  "You said you were expecting that. "

  "Yes, but I thought they might give me reasons. They might point out what they thought were fallacies, errors, unwarranted assumptions. Something I could argue about. "

  "And they didn't?"

  "Not a word. Their referees did not consider the paper suitable for publication. Quote, unquote. They just won't touch it. . . . It's really disheartening, the universal stupidity. I think that I wouldn't grieve at mankind's suicide through sheer evilness of heart, or through mere recklessness. There's something so damned undignified at going to destruction through sheer thickheaded stupidity. What's the use of being men if that's how you have to die. "

  "Stupidity," muttered Bronowski.

  "What else do you call it? And they want me to show-cause why I ought not to be fired for the great crime of being right. "

  "Everyone seems to know that you consulted Chen. "

  "Yes!" Lamont put his fingers to the bridge of his nose and wearily rubbed his eyes. "I apparently got him annoyed enough to go to Hallam with tales, and now the accusation is that I have been trying to sabotage the Pump project by unwarranted and unsupported fright tactics in an unprofessional manner and that this makes me unsuitable for employment on the Station. "

  "They can prove that easily, Pete. "

  "I suppose they can. It doesn't matter. "

  "What are you going to do. "

  "Nothing," said Lamont indignantly. "Let them do their worst. I'll rely on red tape. Every step of this thing will take weeks, months, and meanwhile you keep working. We'll hear from the para-men yet. "

  Bronowski looked miserable. "Pete, suppose we don't. Maybe it's time you think about this again. "

  Lamont looked up sharply. "What are you talking about?"

  "Tell them you're wrong. Do penance. Beat your breast. Give up. "

  "Never! By God, Mike, we're playing a game in which the stakes are all the world and every living creature on it. "

  "Yes, but what's that to you? You're not married. You have no children. I know your father is dead. You never mention your mother or any siblings, I doubt if there is any human being on earth to whom you are emotionally attached as an individual. So go your way and the hell with it all. "

  "And you?"

  "Ill do the same. I'm divorced and I have no children. I have a young lady with whom I'm close and that relationship will continue while it can. Live! Enjoy!"

  "And tomorrow!"

  "Will take care of itself. Death when it comes will be quick. "

  "I can't live with that philosophy . . . Mike. Mike! What is all this? Are you trying to tell me that we're not going to get through? Are you giving up on the para-men?"

  Bronowski looked away. He said, "Pete, I did get an answer. Last night. I thought I'd wait for today and think about it, but why think? . . . Here it is. "

  Lamont's eyes were staring questions. He took the foil and looked at it. There was no punctuation:

  PUMP NOT STOP NOT STOP WE NOT STOP PUMP WE NOT HEAR DANGER NOT HEAR NOT HEAR YOU STOP PLEASE STOP YOU STOP SO WE STOP PLEASE YOU STOP DANGER DANGER DANGER STOP STOP YOU STOP PUMP

  "By God," muttered Bronowski, "they sound desperate. "

  Lamont was still staring. He said nothing.

  Bronowski said, "I gather that somewhere on the other side is someone like you - a para-Lamont. And he can't get his para-Hallams to stop, either. And while we're begging them to save us, he's begging us to save them. "

  Lamont said, "But if we show this - "

  "They'll say you're lying; that it's a hoax you've concocted to save your psychotically-conceived nightmare. "

  "They can say that of me, maybe; but they can't say it of you. You'll back me, Mike. You'll testify that you received this and how. "

  Bronowski reddened. "What good would that do? They'll say that somewhere in the para-Universe there is a nut like yourself and that two crackpots got together. They'll say that the message proves that the constituted authorities in the para-Universe are convinced there's no danger. "

  "Mike, fight this through with me. "

  "There's no use, Pete. You said yourself, stupidity! Those para-man may be more advanced than ourselves, even more intelligent, as you insist, but it's plain to see that they're just as stupid as we are and that ends it Schiller pointed that out and I believe him. "

  "Who?"

  "Schiller. A German dramatist of three centuries ago. In a play about Joan of Arc, he said, 'Against stupidity, the gods themselves contend in vain' I'm no god and I'll contend no longer. Let it go, Pete, and go your way. Maybe the world will last our time and, if not, there's nothing that can be done anyway. I'm sorry, Pete. You fought the good fight, but you lost, and I'm through. "

  He was gone and Lamont was alone. He sat in his chair, fingers aimlessly drumming, drumming. Somewhere in the Sun, protons were clinging together with just a trifling additional avidity and with each moment that avidity grew and at some moment the delicate balance would break down . . .

  "And no one on Earth will live to know I was right," cried out Lamont, and blinked and blinked to keep back the tears.

  2

  . . . the gods themselves . . .

  1a

  Dua did not have much trouble leaving the others. She always expected trouble, but somehow it never came. Never real trouble.

  But then why should it? Odeen objected in his lofty way. "Stay put," he would say. "You know you annoy Tritt. " He never spoke of his own annoyance; Rationals didn't grow annoyed over trifles. Still, he hovered over Tritt almost as persistently as Tritt hovered over the children.

  But then Odeen always let her have her way if she were persistent enough, and would even intercede with Tritt. Sometimes he even admitted he was proud of her ability, of her independence. . . . He wasn't a bad left-ling, she thought with absent-minded affection.

  Tritt was harder to handle and he had a sour way of looking at her when she was - well, when she was as she wished to be. But then right-lings were like that. He was a right-ling to her, but a Parental to the children and the latter took precedence always . . . Which was good because she could always count on one child or the other taking him away just as things grew uncomfortable.

  Still, Dua didn't mind Tritt very much. Except for melting, she tended to ignore him. Odeen was another thing. He had been exciting at first; just his presence had made her outlines shimmer and fade. And the fact that he was a Rational made him all the more exciting somehow. She didn't understand her reaction to that; it was part of her queerness. She had grown used to her queerness - almost.

  Dua sighed.

  When she was a child, when she still thought of herself as an individual, a single being, and not as part of a triad, she was much more aware of that queerness. She was much more made aware of it by the others. As little a thing as the surface at evening -

  She had loved the surface at evening. The other Emotionals had called it cold and gloomy and had quivered and coalesced when she described it for them. They were ready enough to emerge in the warmth of midday and stretch and feed, but that was exactly what made the midday dull. She didn't like to be around the twittering lot of them.

  She had to eat, of course, but she liked it much better in the evening when there was very little food, but everything was dim, deep red, and she was alone. Of course, she described it as col
der and more wistful than it was when she talked to the others in order to watch them grow hard-edged as they imagined the chill - or as hard-edged as young Emotionals could. After a while, they would whisper and laugh at her - and leave her alone.

  The small sun was at the horizon now, with the secret ruddiness that she alone was there to see. She spread herself out laterally and thickened dorso-ventrally, absorbing the traces of thin warmth. She munched at it idly, savoring the slightly sour, substanceless taste of the long wave lengths. (She had never met another Emotional who would admit to liking it. But she could never explain that she associated it with freedom; freedom from the others, when she could be alone. )

  Even now the loneliness, the chill, and the deep, deep red, brought back those old days before the triad; and even more, quite sharply, her own Parental, who would come lumbering after her, forever fearful that she would hurt herself.

  He had been carefully devoted to her, as Parentals always were; to their little-mids more than to the other two, as always. It had annoyed her and she would dream of the day when he would leave her. Parentals always did eventually; and how she had missed him, when one day, he finally did.

  He had come to tell her, just as carefully as he could, despite the difficulty Parentals had in putting their feelings into words. She had run from him that day; not in malice; not because she suspected what he had to tell her; but only out of joy. She had managed to find a special place at midday and had gorged herself in unexpected isolation and had been filled with a queer, itching sensation that demanded motion and activity. She had slithered over the rocks and had let her edges overlap theirs. It was something she knew to be a grossly improper action for anyone but a baby and yet it was something at once exciting and soothing.

  And her Parental caught her at last and had stood before her, silent for a long time, making his eyes small and dense as though to stop every bit of light reflected from her; to see as much as he could of her; and for as long as possible.

  At first, she just stared back with the confused thought that he had seen her rub through the rocks and was ashamed of her. But she caught no shame-aura and finally she said, very subdued, "What is it, Daddy?"

  "Why, Dua, it's the time. I've been expecting it. Surely you have. "

  "What time?" Now that it was here, Dua stubbornly would not let herself know. If she refused to know, there would be nothing to know. (She never quite got out of that habit. Odeen said all Emotionals were like that, in the lofty voice he used sometimes when he was particularly overcome with the importance of being a Rational. )

  Her Parental had said, "I must pass on. I will not be with you any more. " Then he just stood and looked at her, and she couldn't say anything.

  He said, "You will tell the others. "

  "Why?" Dua turned away rebelliously, her outlines vague and growing vaguer, trying to dissipate. She wanted to dissipate altogether and of course she couldn't. After a while, it hurt and cramped and she hardened again. Her Parental didn't even bother to scold her and tell her that it would be shameful if anyone saw her stretched out so.

  She said, "They won't care," and immediately felt sorrowful that her Parental would be hurt at that. He still called them "little-left" and "little-right," but little-left was all involved with his studies and little-right kept talking about forming a triad. Dua was the only one of the three who still felt - Well, she was the youngest. Emotionals always were and with them it was different.

  Her Parental only said, "You will tell them anyway. " And they stood looking at each other.

  She didn't want to tell them. They weren't close any more. It-had been different when they were all little. They could hardly tell themselves apart in those days; left-brother from right-brother from mid-sister. They were all wispy and would tangle with each other and roll through each other and hide in the walls.

  No one ever minded that when they were little; none of the grown-ups. But then the brothers grew thick and sober and drew away. And when she complained to her Parental, he would only say gently, "You are too old to thin, Dua. "

  She tried not to listen, but left-brother kept drawing away and would say, "Don't snuggle; I have no time for you. " And right-brother began to stay quite hard all the time and became glum and silent. She didn't understand it quite then and Daddy had not been able to make it clear. He would say every once in a while as though it were a lesson he had once learned - "Lefts are Rationals, Dua. Rights are Parentals. They grow up their own way. "

  She didn't like their way. They were no longer children and she still was, so she flocked with the other Emotionals. They all had the same complaints about their brothers. They all talked of coming triads. They all spread in the Sun and fed. They all grew more and more the same and every day the same things were said.

  And she grew to detest them and went off by herself whenever she could, so that they left and called her "Left-Em. " (It had been a long time now since she had heard that call, but she never thought of that phrase without remembering perfectly the thin ragged voices that kept it up after her with a kind of half-wit persistence because they knew it hurt. )

  But her Parental retained his interest in her even when it must have seemed to him that everyone else laughed at her. He tried, in his clumsy way, to shield her from the others. He followed her to the surface sometimes, even, though he hated it himself, in order to make sure she was safe.

  She came upon him once, talking to a Hard One. It was hard for a Parental to talk to a Hard One; even though she was quite young, she knew that much. Hard Ones talked only to Rationals.

  She was quite frightened and she wisped away but not before she had heard her Parental say, "I take good care of her, Hard-sir. "

  Could the Hard One have inquired about her? About her queerness, perhaps. But her Parental had not been apologetic. Even to the Hard One, he had spoken of his concern for her. Dua felt an obscure pride.

  But now he was leaving and suddenly all the independence that Dua had been looking forward to lost its fine shape and hardened into the pointed crag of loneliness. She said, "But why must you pass on?"

  "I must, little mid-dear. "

  He must. She knew that. Everyone, sooner or later, must. The day would come when she would have to sigh and say, "I must. "

  "But what makes you know when you have to pass one? If you can choose your time, why don't you choose a different time and stay longer?"

  He said, "Your left-father has decided. The triad must do as he says. "

  "Why must you do what he says?" She hardly ever saw her left-father or her mid-mother. They didn't count any more. Only her right-father, her Parental, her daddy, who stood there squat and flat-surfaced. He wasn't all smooth-curved like a Rational or shuddery uneven like an Emotional, and she could always tell what he was going to say. Almost always.

  She was sure he would say, "I can't explain to a little Emotional. "

  He said it.

  Dua said in a burst of woe, "I'll miss you. I know you think I pay you no attention, and that I don't like you for always telling me not to do things. But I would rather not like you for telling me not to do things, than not have you around to tell me not to do things. "

  And Daddy just stood there. There was no way he could handle an outburst like that except to come closer and pinch out a hand. It cost him a visible effort, but he held it out trembling and its outlines were ever so slightly soft.

  Dua said, "Oh, Daddy," and let her own hand flow about it so that his looked misty and shimmery through her substance; but she was careful not to touch it for that would have embarrassed him so.

  Then he withdrew it and left her hand enclosing nothing and he said, "Remember the Hard Ones, Dua. They will help you. I - I will go now. "

  He went and she never saw him again.

  Now she sat there, remembering in the sunset, and rebelliously aware that pretty soon Tritt would grow petulant over her absence and nag Odeen.

 
And then Odeen might lecture her on her duties.

  She didn't care.