The Winds of Change and Other Stories

by Isaac Asimov

  He took it upon himself to visit the Prime vats themselves, where the delectably bland fungi grew out of malodorous wastes and multiplied themselves at extraordinary speed, under carefully idealized conditions, into three dozen basic strains, each with its varieties.

  (The Master Gustator, tasting unflavoured Prime itself -the fungal unalterate, as the saying went - could be relied on to pin its source down to the section and corridor. Grand-Elder Tomasz had more than once stated, publicly, that he could tell the very vat itself and, at times, the portion of the vat, though no one had ever quite put him to the full test.) Chawker Minor did not pretend to the expertise of Tomasz, but he lipped and tongued and smacked and nipped till he had decided on the exact strain and variety he wanted, the one which would best blend with the ingredients he was mixing in his mind. A good Gustator, said Grand-Elder Tomasz, could combine ingredients mentally and taste the mixture in pure imagination. With Tomasz, it might, for all one knew, be merely a statement, but Chawker Minor took it seriously and was sure he could doit.

  He had rented out space in the kitchens (another expense for poor Elder, although Chawker Minor was making do with less than Major had demanded).

  Chawker Minor did not repine at having less, for, since he was eschewing computers, he didn't require much. Mincers, mixers, heaters, strainers and the rest of the cookery tools took up little room. And at least he had an excellent hood for the masking and removal of all odours. (Everyone knew the horror tales of the Gustators who had been given away by a single sniff of odour and then found that some creative mixture was in the common domain before they could bring it before the board. To steal someone else's product might not be, as Lady would say, in good taste, but it was done and there was no legal recourse.) The signal light flashed, in a code sufficiently well-known. It was Elder Chawker. Chawker Minor felt the thrill of guilt he had felt as a child when he had pilfered dabs of Prime reserved for guests.

  'One moment, Elder-mine,' he sang out, and, in a flurry of activity, set the hood on high, closed the partition, swept his ingredients off the tabletop and into the bins, then stepped out and closed the door quickly behind him.

  'I'm sorry, Elder-mine,' he said, with an attempt at lightness, 'but Gustatorship is paramount.'

  'I understand,' said Elder, stiffly, though his nostrils had flared momentarily as though he would have been glad to catch that fugitive whiff, 'but you've scarcely been at home lately, scarcely more so than when you were at your space-folly, and I must come here to speak to you.'

  'No problem, Elder, we'll go to the lounge.'

  The lounge was not far away and, fortunately, it was empty. Elder's sharp glances this way and that made the emptiness seem fortunate for him and Chawker Minor sighed inaudibly. He would be lectured, he knew.

  Elder said, at last, 'Minor, you are my son, and I will do my duty towards you. My duty does not consist, however, of no more than paying your expenses and seeing to it that you have a fair start in life. There is also the matter of reproval in good time. Who wishes fair Prime must not stint on foul waste, as the saying goes.'

  Chawker's eyes dropped. He, along with his brother, had been among the thirty who had now qualified for the final Awarding to be held just a week in the future, and, unofficial rumour had it, Chawker Minor had done so with a somewhat higher score than Chawker Major had.

  'Elder,' said Chawker Minor, 'would you ask me to do less than my best, for my brother's sake?'

  Elder Chawker's eyes blinked in a moment of puzzlement and Chawker Minor clamped his mouth shut. He had clearly jumped in the wrong direction.

  Elder said, 'I do not ask you to do less than your best, but rather more than you are doing. Bethink you of the shaming you have inflicted on us in your little onset with Stens Major last week.'

  Chawker Minor had, for a moment, difficulty remembering what this could apply to. He had done nothing with Stens Major at all - a silly young woman with whom he was perfectly content to confine himself to mere talk, and not very much of that.

  'Stens Major? Shaming? How?'

  'Do not say you do not remember what you said to her. Stens Major repeated it to her elder and lady, good friends of our family, and it is now common talk in the Section. What possessed you, Minor, to assault the traditions of Gammer?'

  'I did not do such a thing. She asked me about my Grand Tour and I told her no more than I have told three hundred others.'

  'Didn't you tell her that women should be allowed to go on the Grand Tour?'

  'Oh.'

  'Yes. Oh.'

  'But, Elder, what I said was that if she would take the Grand Tour herself there would be no need to ask questions, and when she pretended to be shocked at such a suggestion, I told her that, in my opinion, the more Gammerpeople saw of the Other Worlds, the better it would be for all of us. We are too closed a society in my opinion, and Elder, I am not the first to say so.'

  'Yes, I have heard of radicals who have said so, but not in our Section and certainly not in our family. We have endured longer than the Other Worlds; we have a stabler and fitter society; we do not have their problems. Is there crime among us? Is there corruption among us?'

  'But, Elder, it is at the price of immobility and living death. We're all so tied in, so enclosed.'

  'What can they teach us, these Other Worlds? Were you not yourself glad to come back to the enclosed and comfortable Sections of Gammer with their corridors lit in the golden light of our own energy?'

  'Yes - but, you know, I'm spoiled, too. There are many things on the Outer Worlds that I would have very much liked to have made myself accustomed to.'

  'And just exactly what, Minor-madman-mine?'

  Chawker Minor bit back the words. After a pause, he said, 'Why simply make assertions? When I can prove that this particular Other World way or that is superior to Gammerfashion, I will produce the proof. 'I'll l then, what is the use of just talking?'

  'You have already been talking idly without end, Minor, and it has done you so little good, that we can call what it has done you harm outright. - Minor, if you have any respect left for me after your Grand Tour, which Lady-yours wheedled out of me against my will, Gammer knows, or if you have any regard for the fact that I still deny you nothing that my credit can obtain for you, you will keep your mouth shut, henceforward. Think not that I will halt at sending you away if you shame us. You may then continue on your Grand Tour for as long as the Orbit lasts - and be no son of mine thereafter.'

  Chawker Minor said in a low voice, 'As you say, Elder. From this moment on, unless I have evidence, I will say nothing.'

  'Since you will never have evidence,' said Elder, grimly, 'I will be satisfied if you keep your word.'

  7

  The annual Finals was the greatest holiday occasion, the greatest social event, the greatest excitement of any sort in the course of the year. Each one of thirty dishes of elegantly flavoured Prime had been prepared. Each one of the thirty judges would taste each dish at intervals long enough to restore the tongue. It would take all day.

  In all honesty, Gammerpeople had to admit that the nearly hundred winners who had taken their prize and acclaim in Gammer history had not all turned out dishes that had entered the Great Menu as classics. Some were forgotten and some were now considered ordinary. On the other hand, at least two of Gammer's all-time favourites, combinations that had been best-sellers in restaurants and homes for two decades, had been also-rans in the years in which they had entered the contest. Black Velvet, whose odd combination of chocolate-warm and cherry blossom had made it the standard sweet, did not even make it to the Finals.

  Chawker Minor had no doubt of the outcome. He was so confident that he found himself in continual danger of being bored. He kept watching the faces of the individual judges as every once in a while one of them would scoop up a trifle from one of the dishes and place it on his tongue. There was a careful blankness to the expression, a heavy-liddedness to the eye. No true judge could possibly allow a look of surprise or a s
igh of satisfaction to escape him -certainly not a quiver of disdain. They merely recorded their ratings on the little computer cards they carried.

  Chawker Minor wondered if they could possibly restrain their satisfaction when they tasted his. In the last week, his mixture had grown perfect, had reached a pinnacle of taste-glory that could not be improved on, could not--

  'Counting your winnings?' said Chawker Major in his ear.

  Chawker Minor started, and turned quickly. Chawker Major was dressed entirely in platon and gleamed beautifully.

  Chawker Minor said, 'Come, Major-mine, I wish you the best. I really do. I want you to place as high as possible.'

  'Second place if you win. Right?'

  'Would you refuse second place if I win?'

  'You can't win. I've checked somewhat. I know your strain of Prime; I know your ingredients--'

  'Have you spent any time on your own work, all this time you've been playing detective?'

  'Don't worry about me. It didn't take long to learn that there is no way you can combine your ingredients into anything of value.'

  'You checked that with the computer, I suppose?'

  'I did.'

  'Then how did I get into the Finals, I wonder? Perhaps you don't know all there is to know about my ingredients. Look, Major, the number of effective combinations of even a few ingredients is astronomical if we consider the various possible proportions and the possible treatments before and after mixing, and the order of mixing and the--'

  'I don't need your lecture, Minor.'

  'Then you know that no computer in existence has been programmed into the complexity of a clever tongue. Listen, you can add some ingredients in amounts so small as to be undetectable even by tongue and yet add a cast of flavour that represents a marked change.'

  They teach you that in the Other Worlds, youngling?'

  'I learned that for myself.' And Chawker Minor walked away before he could be goaded into talking too much.

  8

  There was no question that Grand-Elder Tomasz this year, as in a large number of previous years, held the Judging Committee in the hollow of his tongue, as the saying went.

  He looked up and down the long table at which all the judges had now taken their seat in order of precedence, with Tomasz himself right in the middle. The computer had been fed; it had produced the result. There was complete silence in the room where the contestants, their friends and their families sat, waiting for glory and, failing that, for at least the consolation of being able to taste all the contesting samples.

  The rest of Gammer, possibly without exception, watched by holo-video. There would, after all, be additional batches made up for a week of feasting and the general opinion did not always match that of the judges either, though that did not affect the prize-winning.

  Tomasz said, 'I do not recall an Awarding in which there was so little doubt as to the computer decision, or such general agreement.'

  There was a nodding of heads, and smiles and looks of satisfaction.

  Chawker Minor thought: They look sincere; not as if they're just going along with the Grand-Elder, so it must be mine.

  Tomasz said, 'It has been my privilege this year to taste a dish more subtle, more tempting, more ambrosial than anything I have ever, in all my time and experience, tasted. It is the best. I cannot imagine it being bettered.'

  He held up the Computo-cards, 'The win is unanimous and the computer was needed only for the determination of the order of the runners-up. The winner is--' just that pause for effect and then, to the utter surprise of everyone but the winner '--Chawker Minor, for his dish entitled Mountain-Cap. - Young man.'

  Chawker Minor advanced for the ribbon, the plaque, the credits, the handshakes, the recording, the beaming, and the other contestants received their numbers in the list. Chawker Major was in fifth place.

  Grand-Elder Tomasz sought out Chawker Minor after a while and tucked the young man's arm into his elbow.

  'Well, Chawker Minor, it is a wonderful day for you and for all of us. I did not exaggerate. Your dish was the best I've ever tongued. - And yet you leave me curious and wondering. I identified all the ingredients, but there was no way in which their combination could produce what was produced. Would you be willing to impart your secret to me? I would not blame you if you refused, but in the case of an accomplishment so towering by one so young, to--'

  'I don't mind telling you, Grand-Elder. I intended to tell everybody. I told my Elder that I would say nothing till I had proof. You supplied that proof!'

  'What?' said Tomasz, blankly. 'What proof?'

  'The idea for the dish occurred to me, actually, on the Other World Kapper, which is why I called it Mountain-Cap in tribute. I used ordinary ingredients, Grand-Elder, carefully blended, all but one. I suppose you detected the Garden-Tang?'

  'Yes, I did, but there was a slight modification there, I think, that I did not follow. How did the Other World you speak of affect matters?'

  'Because it was not Garden-Tang, Grand-Elder, not the chemical. I used a complicated mixture for the Garden-Tang, a mixture of whose nature I cannot be entirely certain.'

  Tomasz frowned portentously. 'You mean, then, you cannot reproduce this dish?'

  'I can reproduce it; be certain of that, Grand-Elder. The ingredient to which I refer is garlic.'

  Tomasz said impatiently, 'That is only the vulgar term for Mountain-Tang.'

  'Not Mountain-Tang. That is a known chemical mixture. I am speaking of the bulb of the plant.'

  Grand-Elder Tomasz's eyes opened wide and so did his mouth.

  Chawker Minor continued enthusiastically, 'No mixture can duplicate the complexity of a growing product, Grand-Elder, and on Kapper they have grown a particularly delicate variety which they use in their Prime. They use it incorrectly, without any appreciation of its potentiality. I saw at once that a true Gammerperson could do infinitely better, so I brought back with me a number of the bulbs and used them to good advantage. You said it was the best dish of Prime you had ever rolled tongue over and if there is any better evidence than that for the value of opening our society, then--'

  But he dwindled to a stop at last, and stared at Tomasz with surprise and alarm. Tomasz was backing away rapidly. He said, in a gargling voice, 'A growth - from the dirt - I've eaten--'

  The Grand-Elder had often boasted that such was the steadiness of his stomach that he had never vomited, not even in infancy. And certainly no one had ever vomited in the great Hall of Judgement. The Grand-Elder now set a precedent in both respects.

  10

  Chawker Minor had not recovered. He would never recover. If it were exile that Elder Chawker had pronounced, so be it. He would never return.

  Elder had not come to see him off. Neither had Major, of course. It didn't matter; Chawker Minor swore inwardly that he would make out, somehow, without their help, if it meant serving on Kapper as a cook.

  Lady was there, however, the only one in all the field to see him off; the only one to dare accept the nonperson he had become. She shivered and looked mournful and Chawker Minor was filled with the desperate desire to justify himself.

  'Lady-mine,' he said, in a fury of self-pity, 'it's unfair. It was the best dish ever made on Gammer. The Grand-Elder said so himself. The best. If it had grated bulb in it, that didn't mean the dish was bad; it meant the bulb was good. Don't you see it? - Look, I must board the ship. Tell me you see it. Don't you understand it means we must become an open society, learn from others as well as teach others, or we'll wither?'

  The platform was about to take him up to the ship's entrance. She was watching him sadly, as though she knew she would never see him again.

  He began the final rise, leaned over the rail. 'What did I do wrong, Lady-mine?'

  And she said in a low, distraught voice, 'Can't you see, Minor-mine, that what you did was not in--'

  The clang of the ship's port opening drowned her last two words, and Chawker Minor moved in and put the sight of Gammer behind
him forever.

  Introduction to HOW IT HAPPENED

  Not everything I do works out. I had it in my head, in June 1978, to write a mock history of the world in a series of funny scenes, largely because I had thought up what seemed to me to be a funny scene to begin with. Unfortunately, the funny scene I had thought up for the beginning was the only funny scene I could evolve. So I gave up the project. I called the beginning of the book-that-didn't-pan-out 'How It Happened', offered it to George Scithers and it appeared in the Spring 1979 Asfam.

  9

  How It Happened

  My brother began to dictate in his best oratorical style, the one which has the tribes hanging on his words.

  'In the beginning,' he said, 'exactly fifteen point two billion years ago, there was a big bang and the Universe--'

  But I had stopped writing. 'Fifteen billion years ago?' I said incredulously.

  'Absolutely,' he said. 'I'm inspired.'

  'I don't question your inspiration,' I said. (I had better not. He's three years younger than I am, but I don't try questioning his inspiration. Neither does anyone else or there's hell to pay.) 'But are you going to tell the story of the Creation over a period of fifteen billion years?'

  'I have to,' said my brother. 'That's how long it took. I have it all in here,' he tapped his forehead, 'and it's on the very highest authority.'

  By now I had put down my stylus. 'Do you know the price of papyrus?' I said.

  'What?' (He may be inspired but I frequently noticed that the inspiration didn't include such sordid matters as the price of papyrus.) I said, 'Suppose you describe one million years of events to each roll of papyrus. That means you'll have to fill fifteen thousand rolls. You'll have to talk long enough to fill them and you know that you begin to stammer after a while. I'll have to write enough to fill them and my fingers will fall off. And even if we can afford all that papyrus and you have the voice and I have the strength, who's going to copy it? We've got to have a guarantee of a hundred copies before we can publish and without that where will we get royalties from?'