“But these are two species,” said Captain Garm, peering closely at the creatures that had been brought up from the planet below. His optic organs adjusted focus to maximum sharpness, bulging outwards as they did so. The color patch above them gleamed in quick flashes.
Botax felt warmly comfortable to be following color-changes once again, after months in a spy cell on the planet, trying to make sense out of the modulated sound waves emitted by the natives. Communication by flash was almost like being home in the far-off Perseus arm of the Galaxy. “Not two species,” he said, “but two forms of one species.”
“Nonsense, they look quite different. Vaguely Perse-like, thank the Entity, and not as disgusting in appearance as so many out-forms are. Reasonable shape, recognizable limbs. But no color-patch. Can they speak?”
“Yes, Captain Garm,” Botax indulged in a discreetly disapproving prismatic interlude. “The details are in my report. These creatures form sound waves by way of throat and mouth, something like complicated coughing. I have learned to do it myself.” He was quietly proud. “It is very difficult.”
“It must be stomach-turning. Well, that accounts for their flat, unextensible eyes. Not to speak by color makes eyes largely useless. Meanwhile, how can you insist these are a single species? The one on the left is smaller and has longer tendrils, or whatever it is, and seems differently proportioned. It bulges where this other does not. Are they alive?”
“Alive but not at the moment conscious, Captain. They have been psycho-treated to repress fright in order that they might be studied easily.”
“But are they worth study? We are behind our schedule and have at least five worlds of greater moment than this one to check and explore. Maintaining a Time-stasis unit is expensive and I would like to return them and go on--”
But Botax’s moist spindly body was fairly vibrating with anxiety. His tubular tongue flicked out and curved up and over his flat nose, while his eyes sucked inward. His splayed three-fingered hand made a gesture of negation as his speech went almost entirely into the deep red.
“Entity save us, Captain, for no world is of greater moment to us than this one. We may be facing a supreme crisis. These creatures could be the most dangerous life-forms in the Galaxy, Captain, just because there are two forms.”
“I don’t follow you.”
“Captain, it has been my job to study this planet, and it has been most difficult, for it is unique. It is so unique that I can scarcely comprehend its facets. For instance, almost all life on the planet consists of species in two forms. There are no words to describe it, no concepts even. I can only speak of them as first form and second form. If I may use their sounds, the little one is called ‘female,’ and the big one, here, ‘male,’ so the creatures themselves are aware of the difference.”
Garm winced, “What a disgusting means of communication.”
“And, Captain, in order to bring forth young, the two forms must cooperate.”
The Captain, who had bent forward to examine the specimens closely with an expression compounded of interest and revulsion, straightened at once. “Cooperate? What nonsense is this? There is no more fundamental attribute of life than that each living creature bring forth its young in innermost communication with itself. What else makes life worth living?”
“The one form does bring forth life but the other form must cooperate.”
“How?”
“That has been difficult to determine. It is something very private and in my search through the available forms of literature I could find no exact and explicit description. But I have been able to make reasonable deductions.”
Garm shook his head. “Ridiculous. Budding is the holiest, most private function in the world. On tens of thousands of worlds it is the same. As the great photo-bard, Levuline, said, ‘In budding-time, in budding time, in sweet, delightful budding time; when--’ “
“Captain, you don’t understand. This cooperation between forms brings about somehow (and I am not certain exactly how) a mixture and recombination of genes. It is a device by which in every generation, new combinations of characteristics are brought into existence. Variations are multiplied; mutated genes hastened into expression almost at once where under the usual budding system, millennia might pass first.”
“Are you trying to tell me that the genes from one individual can be combined with those of another? Do you know how completely ridiculous that is in the light of all the principles of cellular physiology?”
“It must be so,” said Botax nervously under the other’s pop-eyed glare. “Evolution is hastened. This planet is a riot of species. There are supposed to be a million and a quarter different species of creatures.”
“A dozen and a quarter more likely. Don’t accept too completely what you read in the native literature.”
“I’ve seen dozens of radically different species myself in just a small area. I tell you, Captain, give these creatures a short space of time and they will mutate into intellects powerful enough to overtake us and rule the Galaxy.”
“Prove that this cooperation you speak of exists, Investigator, and I shall consider your contentions. If you cannot, I shall dismiss all your fancies as ridiculous and we will move on.”
“I can prove it.” Botax’s color-flashes turned intensely yellow-green. “The creatures of this world are unique in another way. They foresee advances they have not yet made, probably as a consequence of their belief in rapid change which, after all, they constantly witness. They therefore indulge in a type of literature involving the space-travel they have never developed. I have translated their term for the literature as ‘science-fiction.’ Now I have dealt in my readings almost exclusively with science-fiction, for there I thought, in their dreams and fancies, they would expose themselves and their danger to us. And it was from that science-fiction that I deduced the method of their inter-form cooperation.”
“How did you do that?”
“There is a periodical on this world which sometimes publishes science-fiction which is, however, devoted almost entirely to the various aspects of the cooperation. It does not speak entirely freely, which is annoying, but persists in merely hinting. Its name as nearly as I can put it into flashes is ‘Recreationlad.’ The creature in charge, I deduce, is interested in nothing but inter-form cooperation and searches for it everywhere with a systematic and scientific intensity that has roused my awe. He has found instances of cooperation described in science-fiction and I let material in his periodical guide me. From the stories he instanced I have learned how to bring it about.
“And Captain, I beg of you, when the cooperation is accomplished and the young are brought forth before your eyes, give orders not to leave an atom of this world in existence.”
“Well,” said Captain Garm, wearily, “bring them into full consciousness and do what you must do quickly.”
Marge Skidmore was suddenly completely aware of her surroundings. She remembered very clearly the elevated station at the beginning of twilight. It had been almost empty, one man standing near her, another at the other end of the platform. The approaching train had just made itself known as a faint rumble in the distance.
There had then come the flash, a sense of turning inside out, the half-seen vision of a spindly creature, dripping mucus, a rushing upward, and now--
“Oh, God,” she said, shuddering. “It’s still here. And there’s another one, too.”
She felt a sick revulsion, but no fear. She was almost proud of herself for feeling no fear. The man next to her, standing quietly as she herself was, but still wearing a battered fedora, was the one that had been near her on the platform.
“They got you, too?” she asked. “Who else?”
Charlie Grimwold, feeling flabby and paunchy, tried to lift his hand to remove his hat and smooth the thin hair that broke up but did not entirely cover the skin of his scalp and found that it moved only with difficulty against a rubbery but hardening resistance. He let his hand drop and looked morosely at the thin-faced woman facing him. She was in her middle thirties, he decided, and her hair was nice and her dress fit well, but at the moment, he just wanted to be somewhere else and it did him no good at all that he had company, even female company.
He said, “I don’t know, lady. I was just standing on the station platform.”
“Me, too.”
“And then I see a flash. Didn’t hear nothing. Now here I am. Must be little men from Mars or Venus or one of them places.”
Marge nodded vigorously, “That’s what I figure. A flying saucer? You scared?”
“No. That’s funny, you know. I think maybe I’m going nuts or I would be scared.”
“Funny thing. I ain’t scared, either. Oh, God, here comes one of them now. If he touches me, I’m going to scream. Look at those wiggly hands. And that wrinkled skin, all slimy; makes me nauseous.”
Botax approached gingerly and said, in a voice at once rasping and screechy, this being the closest he could come to imitating the native timbre, “Creatures! We will not hurt you. But we must ask you if you would do us the favor of cooperating.”
“Hey, it talks!” said Charlie. “What do you mean, cooperate.”
“Both of you. With each other,” said Botax.
“Oh?” He looked at Marge. “You know what he means, lady?”
“Ain’t got no idea whatsoever,” she answered loftily.
Botax said, “What I mean--” and he used the short term he had once heard employed as a synonym for the process.
Marge turned red and said, “What!” in the loudest scream she could manage. Both Botax and Captain Garm put their hands over their mid-regions to cover the auditory patches that trembled painfully with the decibels.
Marge went on rapidly, and nearly incoherently. “Of all things. I’m a married woman, you. If my Ed was here, you’d hear from him. And you, wise guy,” she twisted toward Charlie against rubbery resistance, “whoever you are, if you think--”
“Lady, lady,” said Charlie in uncomfortable desperation. “It ain’t my idea. I mean, far be it from me, you know, to turn down some lady, you know; but me, I’m married, too. I got three kids. Listen--”
Captain Garm said, “What’s happening, Investigator Botax? These cacophonous sounds are awful.”
“Well,” Botax flashed a short purple patch of embarrassment. “This forms a complicated ritual. They are supposed to be reluctant at first. It f heightens the subsequent result. After that initial stage, the skins must be removed.”
“They have to be skinned?”
“Not really skinned. Those are artificial skins that can be removed painlessly, and must be. Particularly in the smaller form.”
“All right, then. Tell it to remove the skins. Really, Botax, I don’t find this pleasant.”
“I don’t think I had better tell the smaller form to remove the skins. I think we had better follow the ritual closely. I have here sections of those space-travel tales which the man from the ‘Recreationlad’ periodical spoke highly of. In those tales the skins are removed forcibly. Here is a description of an accident, for instance ‘which played havoc with the girl’s dress, ripping it nearly off her slim body. For a second, he felt the warm firmness of her half-bared bosom against his cheek--’ It goes on that way. You see, the ripping, the forcible removal, acts as a stimulus.”
“Bosom?” said the Captain. “I don’t recognize the flash.”
“I invented that to cover the meaning. It refers to the bulges on the upper dorsal region of the smaller form.”
“I see. Well, tell the larger one to rip the skins off the smaller one. What a dismal thing this is.”
Botax turned to Charlie. “Sir,” he said, “rip the girl’s dress nearly off her slim body, will you? I will release you for the purpose.”
Marge’s eyes widened and she twisted toward Charlie in instant outrage. “Don’t you dare do that, you. Don’t you dast touch me, you sex maniac.”
“Me?” said Charlie plaintively. “It ain’t my idea. You think I go around ripping dresses? Listen,” he turned to Botax, “I got a wife and three kids. She finds out I go around ripping dresses, I get clobbered. You know what my wife does when I just look at some dame? Listen--”
“Is he still reluctant?” said the Captain, impatiently.
“Apparently,” said Botax. “The strange surroundings, you know, may be extending that stage of the cooperation. Since I know this is unpleasant for you, I will perform this stage of the ritual myself. It is frequently written in the space-travel tales that an outer-world species performs the task. For instance, here,” and he riffled through his notes finding the one he wanted, “they describe a very awful such species. The creatures on the planet have foolish notions, you understand. It never occurs to them to imagine handsome individuals such as ourselves, with a fine mucous cover.”
“Go on! Go on! Don’t take all day,” said the Captain.
“Yes, Captain. It says here that the extraterrestrial ‘came forward to where the girl stood. Shrieking hysterically, she was cradled in the monster’s embrace. Talons ripped blindly at her body, tearing the kirtle away in rags.’ You see, the native creature is shrieking with stimulation as her skins are removed.”
“Then go ahead, Botax, remove it. But please, allow no shrieking. I’m trembling all over with the sound waves.”
Botax said politely to Marge, “If you don’t mind--”
One spatulate finger made as though to hook on to the neck of the dress.
Marge wiggled desperately. “Don’t touch. Don’t touch! You’ll get slime on it. Listen, this dress cost $24.95 at Ohrbach’s. Stay away, you monster. Look at those eyes on him.” She was panting in her desperate efforts to dodge the groping, extraterrestrial hand. “A slimy, bug-eyed monster, that’s what he is. Listen, I’ll take it off myself. Just don’t touch it with slime, for God’s sake.”
She fumbled at the zipper, and said in a hot aside to Charlie, “Don’t you dast look.”
Charlie closed his eyes and shrugged in resignation.
She stepped out of the dress. “All right? You satisfied?”
Captain Garm’s fingers twitched with unhappiness. “Is that the bosom? Why does the other creature keep its head turned away?”
“Reluctance. Reluctance,” said Botax. “Besides, the bosom is still covered. Other skins must be removed. When bared, the bosom is a very strong stimulus. It is constantly described as ivory globes, or white spheres, or otherwise after that fashion. I have here drawings, visual picturizations, that come from the outer covers of the space-travel magazines. If you will inspect them, you will see that upon every one of them, a creature is present with a bosom more or less exposed.”
The Captain looked thoughtfully from the illustrations to Marge and back. “What is ivory?”
“That is another made-up flash of my own. It represents the tusky material of one of the large sub-intelligent creatures on the planet.”
“Ah,” and Captain Garm went into a pastel green of satisfaction. “That explains it. This small creature is one of a warrior sect and those are tusks with which to smash the enemy.”
“No, no. They are quite soft, I understand.” Botax’s small brown hand flicked outward in the general direction of the objects under discussion and Marge screamed and shrank away.
“Then what other purpose do they have?”
“I think,” said Botax with considerable hesitation, “that they are used to feed the young.”
“The young eat them?” asked the Captain with every evidence of deep distress.
“Not exactly. The objects produce a fluid which the young consume.”
“Consume a fluid from a living body? Yech-h-h.” The Captain covered his head with all three of his arms, calling the central supernumerary into use for the purpose, slipping it out of its sheath so rapidly as almost to knock Botax over.
“A three-armed, slimy, bug-eyed monster,” said Marge.
“Yeah,” said Charlie.
“All right you, just watch those eyes. Keep them to yourself.”
“Listen, lady. I’m trying not to look.”
Botax approached again. “Madam, would you remove the rest?”
Marge drew herself up as well as she could against the pinioning field. “Never!”
“I’ll remove it, if you wish.”
“Don’t touch! For God’s sake, don’t touch. Look at the slime on him, will you? All right, I’ll take it off.” She was muttering under her breath and looking hotly in Charlie’s direction as she did so.
“Nothing is happening,” said the Captain, in deep dissatisfaction, “and this seems an imperfect specimen.”
Botax felt the slur on his own efficiency. “I brought you two perfect specimens. What’s wrong with the creature?”
“The bosom does not consist of globes or spheres. I know what globes or spheres are and in these pictures you have shown me, they are so depicted. Those are large globes. On this creature, though, what we have are nothing but small flaps of dry tissue. And they’re discolored, too, partly.”
“Nonsense,” said Botax. “You must allow room for natural variation. I will put it to the creature herself.”
He turned to Marge, “Madam, is your bosom imperfect?”
Marge’s eyes opened wide and she struggled vainly for moments without doing anything more than gasp loudly. “Really!” she finally managed. “Maybe I’m no Gina Lollobrigida or Anita Ekberg, but I’m perfectly all right, thank you. Oh boy, if my Ed were only here.” She turned to Charlie. “Listen, you, you tell this bug-eyed slimy thing here, there ain’t nothing wrong with my development.”
“Lady,” said Charlie, softly. “I ain’t looking, remember?”
“Oh, sure, you ain’t looking. You been peeking enough, so you might as well just open your crummy eyes and stick up for a lady, if you’re the least bit of a gentleman, which you probably ain’t.”
“Well,” said Charlie, looking sideways at Marge, who seized the opportunity to inhale and throw her shoulders back, “I don’t like to get mixed up in a kind of delicate matter like this, but you’re all right--I guess.”
“You guess? You Hind or something? I was once runner-up for Miss Brooklyn, in case you don’t happen to know, and where I missed out was on waist-line, not on--”
Charlie said, “All right, all right. They’re fine. Honest.” He nodded vigorously in Botax’s direction. “They’re okay. I ain’t that much of an expert, you understand, but they’re okay by me.”
Marge relaxed.
Botax felt relieved. He turned to Garm. “The bigger form expresses interest, Captain. The stimulus is working. Now for the final step.”
“And what is that?”
“There is no flash for it, Captain. Essentially, it consists of placing the speaking-and-eating apparatus of one against the equivalent apparatus of the other. I have made up a flash for the process, thus: kiss.”
“Will nausea never cease?” groaned the Captain.
“It is the climax. In all the tales, after the skins are removed by force, they clasp each other with limbs and indulge madly in burning kisses, to translate as nearly as possible the phrase most frequently used. Here is one example, just one, taken at random: ‘He held the girl, his mouth avid on her lips.’“
“Maybe one creature was devouring the other,” said the Captain.
“Not at all,” said Botax impatiently. “Those were burning kisses.”
“How do you mean, burning? Combustion takes place?”
“I don’t think literally so. I imagine it is a way of expressing the fact that the temperature goes up. The higher the temperature, I suppose, the more successful the production of young. Now that the big form is properly stimulated, he need only place his mouth against hers to produce young. The young will not be produced without that step. It is the cooperation I have been speaking of.”
“That’s all? Just this--” The Captain’s hands made motions of coming together, but he could not bear to put the thought into flash form.
“That’s all,” said Botax. “In none of the tales; not even in ‘Recreationlad,’ have I found a description of any further physical activity in connection with young-bearing. Sometimes after the kissing, they write a line of symbols like little stars, but I suppose that merely means more kissing; one kiss for each star, when they wish to produce a multitude of young.”
“Just one, please, right now.”
“Certainly, Captain.”
Botax said with grave distinctness, “Sir, would you kiss the lady?”
Charlie said, “Listen, I can’t move.”
“I will free you, of course.”
“The lady might not like it.”
Marge glowered. “You bet your damn boots, I won’t like it. You just stay away.”
“I would like to, lady, but what do they do if I don’t? Look, I don’t want to get them mad. We can just--you know--make like a little peck.”
She hesitated, seeing the justice of the caution. “All right. No funny stuff, though. I ain’t in the habit of standing around like this in front of every Tom, Dick and Harry, you know.”
“I know that, lady. It was none of my doing. You got to admit that.”
Marge muttered angrily, “Regular slimy monsters. Must think they’re some kind of gods or something, the way they order people around. Slime gods is what they are!”
Charlie approached her. “If it’s okay now, lady.” He made a vague motion as though to tip his hat. Then he put his hands awkwardly on her bare shoulders and leaned over in a gingerly pucker.
Marge’s head stiffened so that lines appeared in her neck. Their lips met.
Captain Garm flashed fretfully. “I sense no rise in temperature.” His heat-detecting tendril had risen to full extension at the top of his head and remained quivering there.
“I don’t either,” said Botax, rather at a loss, “but we’re doing it just as the space travel stories tell us to. I think his limbs should be more extended-- Ah, like that. See, it’s working.”
Almost absently, Charlie’s arm had slid around Marge’s soft, nude torso. For a moment, Marge seemed to yield against him and then she suddenly writhed hard against the pinioning field that still held her with fair firmness.
“Let go.” The words were muffled against the pressure of Charlie’s lips. She bit suddenly, and Charlie leaped away with a wild cry, holding his lower lip, then looking at his fingers for blood.
“What’s the idea, lady?” he demanded plaintively.
She said, “We agreed just a peck, is all. What were you starting there? You some kind of playboy or something? What am I surrounded with here? Playboy and the slime gods?”
Captain Garm flashed rapid alternations of blue and yellow. “Is it done? How long do we wait now?”
“It seems to me it must happen at once. Throughout all the universe, when you have to bud, you bud, you know. There’s no waiting.”
“Yes? After thinking of the foul habits you have been describing, I don’t think I’ll ever bud again. Please get this over with.”
“Just a moment, Captain.”
But the moments passed and the Captain’s flashes turned slowly to a brooding orange, while Botax’s nearly dimmed out altogether.
Botax finally asked hesitantly, “Pardon me, madam, but when will you bud?”
“When will I what?”
“Bear young?”
“I’ve got a kid.”
“I mean bear young now.”
“I should say not. I ain’t ready for another kid yet.”
“What? What?” demanded the Captain. “What’s she saying?”
“It seems,” said Botax, “she does not intend to have young at the moment.”
The Captain’s color patch blazed brightly. “Do you know what I think, Investigator? I think you have a sick, perverted mind. Nothing’s happening to these creatures. There is no cooperation between them, and no young to be borne. I think they’re two different species and that you’re playing some kind of foolish game with me.”
“But, Captain--” said Botax.
“Don’t but Captain me,” said Garm. “I’ve had enough. You’ve upset me, turned my stomach, nauseated me, disgusted me with the whole notion of budding and wasted my time. You’re just looking for headlines and personal glory and I’ll see to it that you don’t get them. Get rid of these creatures now. Give that one its skins back and put them back where you found them. I ought to take the expense of maintaining Time-stasis all this time out of your salary.”
“But, Captain--”
“Back, I say. Put them back in the same place and at the same instant of time. I want this planet untouched, and I’ll see to it that it stays untouched.” He cast one more furious glance at Botax. “One species, two forms, bosoms, kisses, cooperation, BAH-- You are a fool, Investigator, a dolt as well and, most of all, a sick, sick, sick creature.”
There was no arguing. Botax, limbs trembling, set about returning the creatures.
They stood there at the elevated station, looking around wildly. It was twilight over them, and the approaching train was just making itself known as a faint rumble in the distance.
Marge said, hesitantly, “Mister, did it really happen?”
Charlie nodded. “I remember it.”
Marge said, “We can’t tell anybody.”
“Sure not. They’d say we was nuts. Know what I mean?”
“Uh-huh. Well,” she edged away.
Charlie said, “Listen. I’m sorry you was embarrassed. It was none of my doing.”
“That’s all right. I know.” Marge’s eyes considered the wooden platform at her feet. The sound of the train was louder.
“I mean, you know, lady, you wasn’t really bad. In fact, you looked good, but I was kind of embarrassed to say that.”
Suddenly, she smiled. “It’s all right.”
“You want maybe to have a cup of coffee with me just to relax you? My wife, she’s not really expecting me for a while.”
“Oh? Well, Ed’s out of town for the weekend so I got only an empty apartment to go home to. My little boy is visiting at my mother’s.” She explained.
“Come on, then. We been kind of introduced.”
“I’ll say.” She laughed.
The train pulled in, but they turned away, walking down the narrow stairway to the street.
They had a couple of cocktails actually, and then Charlie couldn’t let her go home in the dark alone, so he saw her to her door. Marge was bound to invite him in for a few moments, naturally.
Meanwhile, back in the spaceship, the crushed Botax was making a final effort to prove his case. While Garm prepared the ship for departure Botax hastily set up the tight-beam visiscreen for a last look at his specimens. He focused in on Charlie and Marge in her apartment. His tendril stiffened and he began flashing in a coruscating rainbow of colors. “Captain Garm! Captain! Look what they’re doing now!” But at that very instant the ship winked out of Time-stasis.
---
Toward the end of the 1950s some rather unexpected changes took place in my life. My writing career had been constantly expanding. I had been driven on by my own compulsion and by editorial cooperation to undertake more and more tasks in greater and greater variety and by 1958 I found that I could no longer do the writing I wanted to do and maintain a full academic schedule.
The Medical School and I came to an amicable understanding, therefore. I kept my title (Associate Professor of Biochemistry, if you’re curious) and continued to do odd jobs, like giving several lectures a year, sitting on committees, and so on. In the main, however, I became a full-time writer and relieved them of the trouble of paying me a salary.
For a while, it seemed to me that with virtually no academic duties and an infinite amount of time each and every day, I could finally do all the writing I had to do with plenty of time left over for fun and games.
It didn’t work out. One of Parkinson’s laws is: “Work expands to fill the time available.” It did in my case. In no time at all, I found I was typing as assiduously full-time as I had previously been typing half-time and I quickly discovered the Asimov corollary to Parkinson’s law: “In ten hours a day you have time to fall twice as far behind your commitments as in five hours a day.”
The worst of it was that just about the time I was arranging to make myself a full-time writer, the Soviet Union sent up Sputnik I and the United States went into a kind of tizzy, and so did I.
I was overcome by the ardent desire to write popular science for an America that might be in great danger through its neglect of science, and a number of publishers got an equally ardent desire to publish popular science for the same reason. As a result of combining the two ardencies I found myself plunging into a shoreless sea in which I am still immersed.
The trouble is--it’s all non-fiction. In the last ten years, I’ve done a couple of novels, some collections, a dozen or so stories, but that’s nothing.
From the aggrieved letters I get, one would think I was doing this on purpose. I’m not. I try desperately not to lose touch with science fiction altogether. It’s my life in a way that nothing else can quite be. There’s my monthly article in F & SF, of course, but that’s not quite the same thing.
And so it happens that each short individual piece of fiction I manage to get the typewriter to put out for me is dearer to me in the nowadays of my dimness, than in the old times when I did two dozen or more long ones a year.
“The Machine That Won the War” is one of those that serves as my periodic proof to the world of fandom that I am, too, alive.
First appearance--The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, October 1961. @, 1961, by Mercury Press, Inc.
The celebration had a long way to go and even in the silent depths of Multivac’s underground chambers, it hung in the air.
If nothing else, there was the mere fact of isolation and silence. For the first time in a decade, technicians were not scurrying about the vitals of the giant computer, the soft lights did not wink out their erratic patterns, the flow of information in and out had halted.
It would not be halted long, of course, for the needs of peace would be pressing. Yet now, for a day, perhaps for a week, even Multivac might celebrate the great time, and rest.
Lamar Swift took off the military cap he was wearing and looked down the long and empty main corridor of the enormous computer. He sat down rather wearily in one of the technician’s swing-stools, and his uniform, in which he had never been comfortable, took on a heavy and wrinkled appearance.
He said, “I’ll miss it all after a grisly fashion. It’s hard to remember when we weren’t at war with Deneb, and it seems against nature now to be at peace and to look at the stars without anxiety.”
The two men with the Executive Director of the Solar Federation were both younger than Swift. Neither was as gray. Neither looked quite as tired.
John Henderson, thin-lipped and finding it hard to control the relief he felt in the midst of triumph, said, “They’re destroyed! They’re destroyed! It’s what I keep saying to myself over and over and I still can’t believe it. We all talked so much, over so many years, about the menace hanging over Earth and all its worlds, over every human being, and all the time it was true, every word of it. And now we’re alive and it’s the Denebians who are shattered and destroyed. They’ll be no menace now, ever again.”
“Thanks to Multivac,” said Swift, with a quiet glance at the imperturbable Jablonsky, who through all the war had been Chief Interpreter of science’s oracle. “Right, Max?”
Jablonsky shrugged. Automatically, he reached for a cigarette and decided against it. He alone, of all the thousands who had lived in the tunnels within Multivac, had been allowed to smoke, but toward the end he had made definite efforts to avoid making use of the privilege.
He said, “Well, that’s what they say.” His broad thumb moved in the direction of his right shoulder, aiming upward.
“Jealous, Max?”
“Because they’re shouting for Multivac? Because Multivac is the big hero of mankind in this war?” Jablonsky’s craggy face took on an air of suitable contempt. “What’s that to me? Let Multivac be the machine that won the war, if it pleases them.”
Henderson looked at the other two out of the corners of his eyes. In this short interlude that the three had instinctively sought out in the one peaceful corner of a metropolis gone mad; in this entr’acte between the dangers of war and the difficulties of peace; when, for one moment, they might all find surcease; he was conscious only of his weight of guilt.
Suddenly, it was as though that weight were too great to be borne longer. It had to be thrown off, along with the war; now!
Henderson said, “Multivac had nothing to do with victory. It’s just a machine.”
“A big one,” said Swift.
“Then just a big machine. No better than the data fed it.” For a moment, he stopped, suddenly unnerved at what he was saying.
Jablonsky looked at him, his thick fingers once again fumbling for a cigarette and once again drawing back. “You should know. You supplied the data. Or is it just that you’re taking the credit?”
“No,” said Henderson, angrily. “There is no credit. What do you know of the data Multivac had to use; predigested from a hundred subsidiary computers here on Earth, on the Moon, on Mars, even on Titan. With Titan always delayed and always that feeling that its figures would introduce an unexpected bias.”
“It would drive anyone mad,” said Swift, with gentle sympathy.
Henderson shook his head. “It wasn’t just that. I admit that eight years ago when I replaced Lepont as Chief Programmer, I was nervous. But there was an exhilaration about things in those days. The war was still long-range; an adventure without real danger. We hadn’t reached the point where manned vessels had had to take over and where interstellar warps could swallow up a planet clean, if aimed correctly. But then, when the real difficulties began--”
Angrily--he could finally permit anger--he said, “You know nothing about it.”
“Well,” said Swift. “Tell us. The war is over. We’ve won.”
“Yes.” Henderson nodded his head. He had to remember that. Earth had won so all had been for the best. “Well, the data became meaningless.”
“Meaningless? You mean that literally?” said Jablonsky.
“Literally. What would you expect? The trouble with you two was that you weren’t out in the thick of it. You never left Multivac, Max, and you, Mr. Director, never left the Mansion except on state visits where you saw exactly what they wanted you to see.”
“I was not as unaware of that,” said Swift, “as you may have thought.”
“Do you know,” said Henderson, “to what extent data concerning our production capacity, our resource potential, our trained manpower--everything of importance to the war effort, in fact--had become unreliable and untrustworthy during the last half of the war? Group leaders, both civilian and military, were intent on projecting their own improved image, so to speak, so they obscured the bad and magnified the good. Whatever the machines might do, the men who programmed them and interpreted the results had their own skins to think of and competitors to stab. There was no way of stopping that. I tried, and failed.”
“Of course,” said Swift, in quiet consolation. “I can see that you would.”
This time Jablonsky decided to light his cigarette. “Yet I presume you provided Multivac with data in your programming. You said nothing to us about unreliability.”
“How could I tell you? And if I did, how could you afford to believe me?” demanded Henderson, savagely. “Our entire war effort was geared to Multivac. It was the one great weapon on our side, for the Denebians had nothing like it. What else kept up morale in the face of doom but the assurance that Multivac would always predict and circumvent any Denebian move, and would always direct and prevent the circumvention of our moves? Great Space, after our Spy-warp was blasted out of hyperspace we lacked any reliable Denebian data to feed Multivac and we didn’t dare make that public.”
“True enough,” said Swift.
“Well, then,” said Henderson, “if I told you the data was unreliable, what could you have done but replace me and refuse to believe me? I couldn’t allow that.”
“What did you do?” said Jablonsky.
“Since the war is won, I’d tell you what I did. I corrected the data.”
“How?” asked Swift.
“Intuition, I presume. I juggled them till they looked right. At first, I hardly dared, I changed a bit here and there to correct what were obvious impossibilities. When the sky didn’t collapse about us, I got braver. Toward the end, I scarcely cared. I just wrote out the necessary data as it was needed. I even had the Multivac Annex prepare data for me according to a private programming pattern I had devised for the purpose.”
“Random figures?” said Jablonsky.
“Not at all. I introduced a number of necessary biases.”
Jablonsky smiled, quite unexpectedly, his dark eyes sparkling behind the crinkling of the lower lids. “Three times a report was brought me about unauthorized uses of the Annex, and I let it go each time. If it had mattered, I would have followed it up and spotted you, John, and found out what you were doing. But, of course, nothing about Multivac mattered in those days, so you got away with it.”
“What do you mean, nothing mattered?” asked Henderson, suspiciously.
“Nothing did. I suppose if I had told you this at the time, it would have spared you your agony, but then if you had told me what you were doing, it would have spared me mine. What made you think Multivac was in working order, whatever the data you supplied it?”
“Not in working order?” said Swift.
“Not really. Not reliably. After all, where were my technicians in the last years of the war? I’ll tell you, they were feeding computers on a thousand different space devices. They were gone! I had to make do with kids I couldn’t trust and veterans who were out-of-date. Besides, do you think I could trust the solid-state components coming out of Cryogenics in the last years? Cryogenics wasn’t any better placed as far as personnel was concerned than I was. To me, it didn’t matter whether the data being supplied Multivac were reliable or not. The results weren’t reliable. That much I knew.”
“What did you do?” asked Henderson.
“I did what you did, John. I introduced the bugger factor. I adjusted matters in accordance with intuition--and that’s how the machine won the war.”
Swift leaned back in the chair and stretched his legs out before him. “Such revelations. It turns out then that the material handed me to guide me in my decision-making capacity was a man-made interpretation of man-made data. Isn’t that right?”
“It looks so,” said Jablonsky.
“Then I perceive I was correct in not placing too much reliance upon it,” said Swift.
“You didn’t?” Jablonsky, despite what he had just said, managed to look professionally insulted.
“I’m afraid I didn’t. Multivac might seem to say, Strike here, not there; do this, not that; wait, don’t act. But I could never be certain that what Multivac seemed to say, it really did say; or what it really said, it really meant. I could never be certain.”
“But the final report was always plain enough, sir,” said Jablonsky.
“To those who did not have to make the decision, perhaps. Not to me. The horror of the responsibility of such decisions was unbearable and not even Multivac was sufficient to remove the weight. But the point is I was justified in doubting and there is tremendous relief in that.”
Caught up in the conspiracy of mutual confession, Jablonsky put titles aside, “What was it you did then, Lamar? After all, you did make decisions. How?”
“Well, it’s time to be getting back perhaps but--I’ll tell you first. Why not? I did make use of a computer, Max, but an older one than Multivac, much older.”
He groped in his own pocket for cigarettes, and brought out a package along with a scattering of small change; old-fashioned coins dating to the first years before the metal shortage had brought into being a credit system tied to a computer-complex.
Swift smiled rather sheepishly. “I still need these to make money seem substantial to me. An old man finds it hard to abandon the habits of youth.” He put a cigarette between his lips and dropped the coins one by one back into his pocket.
He held the last coin between his fingers, staring absently at it. “Multivac is not the first computer, friends, nor the best-known, nor the one that can most efficiently lift the load of decision from the shoulders of the executive. A machine did win the war, John; at least a very simple computing device did; one that I used every time I had a particularly hard decision to make.”
With a faint smile of reminiscence, he flipped the coin he held. It glinted in the air as it spun and came down in Swift’s outstretched palm. His hand closed over it and brought it down on the back of his left hand. His right hand remained in place, hiding the coin.
“Heads or tails, gentlemen?” said Swift.
---
One of the side effects of the growing respectability of science fiction was that it began to appear in markets where, a few short years earlier, the Sanitation Department would have been called in to remove any such manuscripts that had inadvertently found their way into the editorial office.
I’ll never forget the shock that rumbled through the entire world of science fiction fandom when, after World War II, our own Robert A. Heinlein broke the “slicks” barrier by having an undiluted science fiction story of his published in The Saturday Evening Post.
Nowadays, it is routine to find science fiction writers and their science fiction in such wide-circulation markets as Playboy. Indeed, the competition of the mass markets is such that the small specialty science fiction magazines find it hard to hold on to the more experienced writers and they do not benefit, as they ought, from the field’s new-won respectability. It is unjust!
But the strangest market for science fiction, in my opinion, was the advertising columns of that excellent (and, for me, indispensable) periodical, Scientific American. It seems that a company called Hoffman Electronics Corporation got the idea of running a series of advertisements that would include a two-page (minus one column) illustrated science fiction story--real science fiction stories by the acknowledged masters. The final column would then be used to promote their product in a dignified manner. There was no direct tie-in between story and advertising and the writer was to have carte blanche, except that it would be nice to have the story involve communications in one form or another (since communications technology was what Hoffman was selling) .
The challenge was interesting and artistic integrity was preserved, so when I was asked to do a story for the program, I accepted and wrote “My Son, the Physicist.” As you see, it deals with communications but is in no way a “commercial” for such things. Hoffman accepted the story without changing a word or a comma and it ran not only in the ad columns of Scientific American but in Fortune as well.
It was an experience, you may be sure, because it is not likely that my by-line would ever have appeared in either magazine otherwise. Not under a piece of science fiction, anyway.
I am a little uneasy, though, as to how well the idea worked out. There were only six such advertisements altogether, as far as I know, and then they stopped. Well, maybe they just had difficulty getting appropriate stories. I don’t know.
First appearance--Scientific American, February 1962. @, 1962, Hoffman Electronics Corporation.
Her hair was light apple-green in color, very subdued, very old-fashioned. You could see she had a delicate hand with the dye, the way they did thirty years ago, before the streaks and stipples came into fashion.
She had a sweet smile on her face, too, and a calm look that made something serene out of elderliness.
And, by comparison, it made something shrieking out of the confusion that enfolded her in the huge government building.
A girl passed her at a half-run, stopped and turned toward her with a blank stare of astonishment. “How did you get in?”
The woman smiled. “I’m looking for my son, the physicist.”
“Your son, the--”
“He’s a communications engineer, really. Senior Physicist Gerard Cremona.”
“Dr. Cremona. Well, he’s-- Where’s your pass?”
“Here it is. I’m his mother.”
“Well, Mrs. Cremona, I don’t know. I’ve got to-- His office is down there. You just ask someone.” She passed on, running.
Mrs. Cremona shook her head slowly. Something had happened, she supposed. She hoped Gerard was all right.
She heard voices much farther down the corridor and smiled happily. She could tell Gerard’s.
She walked into the room and said, “Hello, Gerard.”
Gerard was a big man, with a lot of hair still and the gray just beginning to show because he didn’t use dye. He said he was too busy. She was very proud of him and the way he looked.
Right now, he was talking volubly to a man in army uniform. She couldn’t tell the rank, but she knew Gerard could handle him.
Gerard looked up and said, “What do you-- Mother! What are you doing here?”
“I was coming to visit you today.”
“Is today Thursday? Oh Lord, I forgot. Sit down, Mother, I can’t talk now. Any seat. Any seat. Look, General.”
General Reiner looked over his shoulder and one hand slapped against the other in the region of the small of his back. “Your mother?”
“Yes.”
“Should she be here?”
“Right now, no, but I’ll vouch for her. She can’t even read a thermometer so nothing of this will mean anything to her. Now look, General. They’re on Pluto. You see? They are. The radio signals can’t be of natural origin so they must originate from human beings, from our men. You’ll have to accept that. Of all the expeditions we’ve sent out beyond the planetoid belt, one turns out to have made it. And they’ve reached Pluto.”
“Yes, I understand what you’re saying, but isn’t it impossible just the same? The men who are on Pluto now were launched four years ago with equipment that could not have kept them alive more than a year. That is my understanding. They were aimed at Ganymede and seem to have gone eight times the proper distance.”
“Exactly. And we’ve got to know how and why. They may--just--have-- had--help.”
“What kind? How?”
Cremona clenched his jaws for a moment as though praying inwardly. “General,” he said, “I’m putting myself out on a limb but it is just barely possible non-humans are involved. Extra-terrestrials. We’ve got to find out. We don’t know how long contact can be maintained.”
“You mean” (the General’s grave face twitched into an almost-smile) “they may have escaped from custody and they may be recaptured again at any time.”
“Maybe. Maybe. The whole future of the human race may depend on our knowing exactly what we’re up against. Knowing it now.”
“All right. What is it you want?”
“We’re going to need Army’s Multivac computer at once. Rip out every problem it’s working on and start programming our general semantic problem. Every communications engineer you have must be pulled off anything he’s on and placed into coordination with our own.”
“But why? I fail to see the connection.”
A gentle voice interrupted. “General, would you like a piece of fruit? I brought some oranges.”
Cremona said, “Mother! Please! Later! General, the point is a simple one. At the present moment Pluto is just under four billion miles away. It takes six hours for radio waves, traveling at the speed of light, to reach from here to there. If we say something, we must wait twelve hours for an answer. If they say something and we miss it and say ‘what’ and they repeat--bang, goes a day.”
“There’s no way to speed it up?” said the General.
“Of course not. It’s the fundamental law of communications. No information can be transmitted at more than the speed of light. It will take months to carry on the same conversation with Pluto that would take hours between the two of us right now.”
“Yes, I see that. And you really think extra-terrestrials are involved?”
“I do. To be honest, not everyone here agrees with me. Still, we’re straining every nerve, every fiber, to devise some method of concentrating communication. We must get in as many bits per second as possible and pray we get what we need before we lose contact. And there’s where I need Multivac and your men. There must be some communications strategy we can use that will reduce the number of signals we need send out. Even an increase of ten percent in efficiency can mean perhaps a week of time saved.”
The gentle voice interrupted again. “Good grief, Gerard, are you trying to get some talking done?”
“Mother! Please!”
“But you’re going about it the wrong way. Really.”
“Mother.” There was a hysterical edge to Cremona’s voice.
“Well, all right, but if you’re going to say something and then wait twelve hours for an answer, you’re silly. You shouldn’t.”
The General snorted. “Dr. Cremona, shall we consult--”
“Just one moment, General,” said Cremona. “What are you getting at, Mother?”
“While you’re waiting for an answer,” said Mrs. Cremona, earnestly, “just keep on transmitting and tell them to do the same. You talk all the time and they talk all the time. You have someone listening all the time and they do, too. If either one of you says anything that needs an answer, you can slip one in at your end, but chances are, you’ll get all you need without asking.”
Both men stared at her.
Cremona whispered, “Of course. Continuous conversation. Just twelve hours out of phase, that’s all. God, we’ve got to get going.”
He strode out of the room, virtually dragging the General with him, then strode back in.
“Mother,” he said, “if you’ll excuse me, this will take a few hours, I think. I’ll send in some girls to talk to you. Or take a nap, if you’d rather.”
“I’ll be all right, Gerard,” said Mrs. Cremona.
“Only, how did you think of this, Mother? What made you suggest this?”
“But, Gerard, all women know it. Any two women--on the video-phone, or on the stratowire, or just face to face--know that the whole secret to spreading the news is, no matter what, to Just Keep Talking.”
Cremona tried to smile. Then, his lower lip trembling, he turned and left.
Mrs. Cremona looked fondly after him. Such a fine man, her son, the physicist. Big as he was and important as he was, he still knew that a boy should always listen to his mother.
---
I have a role which I state loudly on every possible occasion. The role is, that I never write anything unless I am asked to do so. That sounds awfully haughty and austere, but it’s a fake. As a matter of fact, I take it for granted that the various science fiction magazines and certain of my book publishers have standing requests for material, so I write for them freely. It’s just the scattering of others that have to ask.
In 1964, I was finally asked by Playboy to write a story for them. They sent me a dim photograph of a clay head, without ears, and with the other features labeled in block letters, and asked me to write a story based on that photo. Two other writers were also asked to write a story based on that same photo and all three stories were to be published together.
It was an interesting challenge and I was tempted. I wrote “Eyes Do More Than See,”
In case I have given the impression in the previous introductions in this volume that my writing career has been one long succession of triumphs ever since “Nightfall”; that with me, to write is to sell; that I wouldn’t recognize a rejection slip if some fellow writer showed me one--rest easy, it is not so.
“Eyes Do More Than See” was rejected with muscular vigor. The manuscript came flying through my window all the way from Chicago, bounced off the wall and lay there quivering. (At least that’s how it seemed.) The other two stories were accepted by Playboy, and a third story, by someone hastily called in to backstop me, was also accepted.
Fortunately, I am a professional of enviable imperturbability and these things do not bother me. I doubt whether anyone could have guessed that I was disturbed except for the short screaming fit of rage I indulged myself with.
I checked with Playboy and made sure the story was mine to do with as I please, despite the fact it was based on their photo. It was!
My next step was to send the story to F & SF, explaining to them (as is my wont in such cases) that it was a reject and giving them the exact circumstances. They took it, anyway.
Fortunately, F & SF works reasonably quickly and Playboy works abominably slowly. Consequently “Eyes Do More Than See” appeared in F & SF a year and a half before the story-triad appeared in Playboy. I spent an appreciable length of time hoping Playboy would get indignant letters complaining that the situations in the triad had been stolen from an Asimov story. I was even tempted to write such a letter myself under a false name (but I didn’t).
I contented myself, instead, with the thought that by the time Playboy had published its triad, my little story had not only been published elsewhere but had been reprinted twice and was slated to appear in still a third anthology. (And this collection represents a fourth, and how do you like that, Mr. Hefner?)
First appearance--The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, April 1965. @, 1965, by Mercury Press, Inc.
After hundreds of billions of years, he suddenly thought of himself as Ames. Not the wavelength combination which, through all the universe was now the equivalent of Ames--but the sound itself. A faint memory came back of the sound waves he no longer heard and no longer could hear.
The new project was sharpening his memory for so many more of the old, old, eons-old things. He flattened the energy vortex that made up the total of his individuality and its lines of force stretched beyond the stars.
Brock’s answering signal came.
Surely, Ames thought, he could tell Brock. Surely he could tell somebody.
Brock’s shifting energy pattern communed, “Aren’t you coming, Ames?”
“Of course.”
“Will you take part in the contest?”
“Yes!” Ames’s lines of force pulsed erratically. “Most certainly. I have thought of a whole new art-form. Something really unusual.”
“What a waste of effort! How can you think a new variation can be thought of after two hundred billion years. There can be nothing new.”
For a moment Brock shifted out of phase and out of communion, so that Ames had to hurry to adjust his lines of force. He caught the drift of other-thoughts as he did so, the view of the powdered galaxies against the velvet of nothingness, and the lines of force pulsing in endless multitudes of energy-life, lying between the galaxies.
Ames said, “Please absorb my thoughts, Brock. Don’t close out. I’ve thought of manipulating Matter. Imagine! A symphony of Matter. Why bother with Energy. Of course, there’s nothing new in Energy; how can there be? Doesn’t that show we must deal with Matter?”
“Matter!”
Ames interpreted Brock’s energy-vibrations as those of disgust.
He said, “Why not? We were once Matter ourselves back--back--Oh, a trillion years ago anyway! Why not build up objects in a Matter medium, or abstract forms or--listen, Brock--why not build up an imitation of ourselves in Matter, ourselves as we used to be?”
Brock said, “I don’t remember how that was. No one does.”
“I do,” said Ames with energy, “I’ve been thinking of nothing else and I am beginning to remember. Brock, let me show you. Tell me if I’m right. Tell me.”
“No. This is silly. It’s--repulsive.”
“Let me try, Brock. We’ve been friends; we’ve pulsed energy together from the beginning--from the moment we became what we are. Brock, please!”
“Then, quickly.”
Ames had not felt such a tremor along his own lines of force in--well, in how long? If he tried it now for Brock and it worked, he could dare manipulate Matter before the assembled Energy-beings who had so drearily waited over the eons for something new. The Matter was thin out there between the galaxies, but Ames gathered it, scraping it together over the cubic light-years, choosing the atoms, achieving a clayey consistency and forcing matter into an ovoid form that spread out below.
“Don’t you remember, Brock?” he asked softly. “Wasn’t it something like this?”
Brock’s vortex trembled in phase. “Don’t make me remember. I don’t remember.”
“That was the head. They called it the head. I remember it so clearly, I want to say it. I mean with sound.” He waited, then said, “Look, do you remember that?”
On the upper front of the ovoid appeared HEAD.
“What is that?” asked Brock.
“That’s the word for head. The symbols that meant the word in sound. Tell me you remember, Brock!”
“There was something,” said Brock hesitantly, “something in the middle.” A vertical bulge formed.
Ames said, “Yes! Nose, that’s it!” And NOSE appeared upon it. “And those are eyes on either side,” LEFT EYE--RIGHT EYE.
Ames regarded what he had formed, his lines of force pulsing slowly. Was he sure he liked this?
“Mouth,” he said, in small quiverings, “and chin and Adam’s apple, and the collarbones. How the words come back to me.” They appeared on the form.
Brock said, “I haven’t thought of them for hundreds of billions of years. Why have you reminded me? Why?”
Ames was momentarily lost in his thoughts, “Something else. Organs to hear with; something for the sound waves. Ears! Where do they go? I don’t remember where to put them!”
Brock cried out, “Leave it alone! Ears and all else! Don’t remember!”
Ames said, uncertainly, “What is wrong with remembering?”
“Because the outside wasn’t rough and cold like that but smooth and warm. Because the eyes were tender and alive and the lips of the mouth trembled and were soft on mine.” Brock’s lines of force beat and wavered, beat and wavered.
Ames said, “I’m sorry! I’m sorry!”
“You’re reminding me that once I was a woman and knew love; that eyes do more than see and I have none to do it for me.”
With violence, she added matter to the rough-hewn head and said, “Then let them do it” and turned and fled.
And Ames saw and remembered, too, that once he had been a man. The force of his vortex split the head in two and he fled back across the galaxies on the energy-track of Brock--back to the endless doom of life.
And the eyes of the shattered head of Matter still glistened with the moisture that Brock had placed there to represent tears. The head of Matter did that which the energy-beings could do no longer and it wept for all humanity, and for the fragile beauty of the bodies they had once given up, a trillion years ago.
---
In the spring of 1967, I received an interesting request. It seems there is a periodical called Abbot tempo, supported by Abbott Laboratories, a respected pharmaceutical firm. It is a slick-paper, impressively designed job, with excellent articles on various medical and near-medical subjects. It is printed in the Netherlands and is distributed free of charge to physicians in Great Britain and on the Continent. It is not distributed in the United States.
The editor of Abbottempo wrote to ask me to write a 2000-word science fiction story on a subject of medical interest that physicians would find at once interesting, amusing, and thought-provoking.
I was just as swamped with work at that moment as I am at all other moments, so I sighed and put a piece of letter paper in the typewriter, intending to write out a polite refusal.
Unfortunately, or fortunately, it takes time to pick up letter paper and a yellow second sheet, put a piece of carbon paper between, and roll the sandwich into the typewriter. It takes additional time to center the paper properly, type the date, address, and salutation.
What with all that time, I happened to think up a story I couldn’t resist, so when I actually got past the “Dear Sir,” I found myself typing a polite acceptance.
I wrote “Segregationist” in April 1967, on a theme that was completely and entirely science-fictional. It appeared in December 1967, just in time to be slightly behind the headlines in some respects.
The nicest result of the publication of the story, by the way, was that Abbottempo published it in each of their eight editions. They sent me a boxed collection of the set in 1) English, 2) French, 3) Spanish, 4) German, 5) Italian, 6) Japanese, 7) Greek, and 8) Turkish. I had never before had anything I had written translated into either Greek or Turkish, and the set remains one of the more interesting oddities of my personal library of Asimoviana.
First appearance--Abbottempo, Book 4, 1967. Copyright, 1968, by Isaac Asimov.
The surgeon looked up without expression. “Is he ready?”
“Ready is a relative term,” said the med-eng. “We’re ready. He’s restless.”
“They always are. . . . Well, it’s a serious operation.”
“Serious or not, he should be thankful. He’s been chosen for it over an enormous number of possibles and frankly, I don’t think . . .”
“Don’t say it,” said the surgeon. “The decision is not ours to make.”
“We accept it. But do we have to agree?”
“Yes,” said the surgeon, crisply. “We agree. Completely and wholeheartedly. The operation is entirely too intricate to approach with mental reservations. This man has proven his worth in a number of ways and his profile is suitable for the Board of Mortality.”
“All right,” said the med-eng, unmollified.
The surgeon said, “I’ll see him right in here, I think. It is small enough and personal enough to be comforting.”
“It won’t help. He’s nervous, and he’s made up his mind.”
“Has he indeed?”
“Yes. He wants metal; they always do.”
The surgeon’s face did not change expression. He stared at his hands. “Sometimes one can talk them out of it.”
“Why bother?” said the med-eng, indifferently. “If he wants metal, let it be metal.”
“You don’t care?”
“Why should I?” The med-eng said it almost brutally. “Either way it’s a medical engineering problem and I’m a medical engineer. Either way, I can handle it. Why should I go beyond that?”
The surgeon said stolidly, “To me, it is a matter of the fitness of things.”
“Fitness! You can’t use that as an argument. What does the patient care about the fitness of things?”
“I care.”
“You care in a minority. The trend is against you. You have no chance.”
“I have to try.” The surgeon waved the med-eng into silence with a quick wave of his hand--no impatience to it, merely quickness. He had already informed the nurse and he had already been signaled concerning her approach. He pressed a small button and the double-door pulled swiftly apart. The patient moved inward in his motorchair, the nurse stepping briskly along beside him.
“You may go, nurse,” said the surgeon, “but wait outside. I will be calling you.” He nodded to the med-eng, who left with the nurse, and the door closed behind them.
The man in the chair looked over his shoulder and watched them go. His neck was scrawny and there were fine wrinkles about his eyes. He was freshly shaven and the fingers of his hands, as they gripped the arms of the chair tightly, showed manicured nails. He was a high-priority patient and he was being taken care of. ... But there was a look of settled peevishness on his face.
He said, “Will we be starting today?”
The surgeon nodded. “This afternoon, Senator.”
“I understand it will take weeks.”
“Not for the operation itself, Senator. But there are a number of subsidiary points to be taken care of. There are some circulatory renovations that must be carried through, and hormonal adjustments. These are tricky things.”
“Are they dangerous?” Then, as though feeling the need for establishing a friendly relationship, but patently against his will, he added, “. . . doctor?”
The surgeon paid no attention to the nuances of expression. He said, flatly, “Everything is dangerous. We take our time in order that it be less dangerous. It is the time required, the skill of many individuals united, the equipment, that makes such operations available to so few...”
“I know that,” said the patient, restlessly. “I refuse to feel guilty about that. Or are you implying improper pressure?”
“Not at all, Senator. The decisions of the Board have never been questioned. I mention the difficulty and intricacy of the operation merely to explain my desire to have it conducted in the best fashion possible.”
“Well, do so, then. That is my desire, also.”
“Then I must ask you to make a decision. It is possible to supply you with either of two types of cyber-hearts, metal or . . .”
“Plastic!” said the patient, irritably. “Isn’t that the alternative you were going to offer, doctor? Cheap plastic. I don’t want that. I’ve made my choice. I want the metal.”
“But . . .”
“See here. I’ve been told the choice rests with me. Isn’t that so?”
The surgeon nodded. “Where two alternate procedures are of equal value from a medical standpoint, the choice rests with the patient. In actual practice, the choice rests with the patient even when the alternate procedures are not of equal value, as in this case.”
The patient’s eyes narrowed. “Are you trying to tell me the plastic heart is superior?”
“It depends on the patient. In my opinion, in your individual case, it is. And we prefer not to use the term, plastic. It is a fibrous cyber-heart.”
“It’s plastic as far as I am concerned.”
“Senator,” said the surgeon, infinitely patient, “the material is not plastic in the ordinary sense of the word. It is a polymeric material true, but one that is far more complex than ordinary plastic. It is a complex protein-like fibre designed to imitate, as closely as possible, the natural structure of the human heart you now have within your chest.”
“Exactly, and the human heart I now have within my chest is worn out although I am not yet sixty years old. I don’t want another one like it, thank you. I want something better.”
“We all want something better for you, Senator. The fibrous cyber-heart will be better. It has a potential life of centuries. It is absolutely non-allergenic ...”
“Isn’t that so for the metallic heart, too?”
“Yes, it is,” said the surgeon. “The metallic cyber is of titanium alloy that . . .”
“And it doesn’t wear out? And it is stronger than plastic? Or fibre or whatever you want to call it?”
“The metal is physically stronger, yes, but mechanical strength is not a point at issue. Its mechanical strength does you no particular good since the heart is well protected. Anything capable of reaching the heart will kill you for other reasons even if the heart stands up under manhandling.”
The patient shrugged. “If I ever break a rib, I’ll have that replaced by titanium, also. Replacing bones is easy. Anyone can have that done anytime. I’ll be as metallic as I want to be, doctor.”
“That is your right, if you so choose. However, it is only fair to tell you that although no metallic cyber-heart has ever broken down mechanically, a number have broken down electronically.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means that every cyber-heart contains a pacemaker as part of its structure. In the case of the metallic variety, this is an electronic device that keeps the cyber in rhythm. It means an entire battery of miniaturized equipment must be included to alter the heart’s rhythm to suit an individual’s emotional and physical state. Occasionally something goes wrong there and people have died before that wrong could be corrected.”
“I never heard of such a thing.”
“I assure you it happens.”
“Are you telling me it happens often?”
“Not at all. It happens very rarely.”
“Well, then, I’ll take my chance. What about the plastic heart? Doesn’t that contain a pacemaker?”
“Of course it does, Senator. But the chemical structure of a fibrous cyber-heart is quite close to that of human tissue. It can respond to the ionic and hormonal controls of the body itself. The total complex that need be inserted is far simpler than in the case of the metal cyber.”
“But doesn’t the plastic heart ever pop out of hormonal control?”
“None has ever yet done so.”
“Because you haven’t been working with them long enough. Isn’t that so?”
The surgeon hesitated. “It is true that the fibrous cybers have not been used nearly as long as the metallic.”
“There you are. What is it anyway, doctor? Are you afraid I’m making myself into a robot . . . into a Metallo, as they call them since citizenship went through?”
“There is nothing wrong with a Metallo as a Metallo. As you say, they are citizens. But you’re not a Metallo. You’re a human being. Why not stay a human being?”
“Because I want the best and that’s a metallic heart. You see to that.”
The surgeon nodded. “Very well. You will be asked to sign the necessary permissions and you will then be fitted with a metal heart.”
“And you’ll be the surgeon in charge? They tell me you’re the best.”
“I will do what I can to make the changeover an easy one.”
The door opened and the chair moved the patient out to the waiting nurse.
The med-eng came in, looking over his shoulder at the receding patient until the doors had closed again.
He turned to the surgeon. “Well, I can’t tell what happened just by looking at you. What was his decision?”
The surgeon bent over his desk, punching out the final items for his records. “What you predicted. He insists on the metallic cyber-heart.”
“After all, they are better.”
“Not significantly. They’ve been around longer; no more than that. It’s this mania that’s been plaguing humanity ever since Metallos have become citizens. Men have this odd desire to make Metallos out of themselves. They yearn for the physical strength and endurance one associates with them.”
“It isn’t one-sided, doc. You don’t work with Metallos but I do; so I know. The last two who came in for repairs have asked for fibrous elements.”
“Did they get them?”
“In one case, it was just a matter of supplying tendons; it didn’t make much difference there, metal or fibre. The other wanted a blood system or its equivalent. I told him I couldn’t; not without a complete rebuilding of the structure of his body in fibrous material. ... I suppose it will come to that some day. Metallos that aren’t really Metallos at all, but a kind of flesh and blood.”
“You don’t mind that thought?”
“Why not? And metallized human beings, too. We have two varieties of intelligence on Earth now and why bother with two. Let them approach each other and eventually we won’t be able to tell the difference. Why should we want to? We’d have the best of both worlds; the advantages of man combined with those of robot.”
“You’d get a hybrid,” said the surgeon, with something that approached fierceness. “You’d get something that is not both, but neither. Isn’t it logical to suppose an individual would be too proud of his structure and identity to want to dilute it with something alien? Would he want mongrelization?”
“That’s segregationist talk.”
“Then let it be that.” The surgeon said with calm emphasis, “I believe in being what one is. I wouldn’t change a bit of my own structure for any reason. If some of it absolutely required replacement, I would have that replacement as close to the original in nature as could possibly be managed. I am myself; well pleased to be myself; and would not be anything else.”
He had finished now and had to prepare for the operation. He placed his strong hands into the heating oven and let them reach the dull red-hot glow that would sterilize them completely. For all his impassioned words, his voice had never risen, and on his burnished metal face there was (as always) no sign of expression.