THEEARLYASIMOV

“No, no, no!” The little man’s albino-pink eyes snapped. “Dorlis was great when no human had ever entered the Vegan System. It was the capital of a Galactic Confederation greater than ours.”

“Well, then, let’s say that it was an ancient capital. I’ll admit that and leave the rest to an archaeologist.”

“Archaeologists are no use. What I’ve discovered needs a specialist in its own field. And you’re on the Board.”

Brand Gorla looked doubtful. He remembered Theor Realo in senior year-a little white misfit of a human who skulked somewhere in the background of his reminiscences. It had been a long time ago, but the albino had been queer. That was easy to remember. And he was still queer.

Theor watched intently, “I want you to place certain facts before the Board. Will you promise that?”

Brand hedged, “Even if I help you along, Theor, I’ll have to remind you that I’m junior member of the Psychological Board. I haven’t much influence.”

“You must do your best. The facts will speak for themselves.” The albino’s hands were trembling.

“Go ahead.” Brand resigned himself. The man was an old school fellow. You couldn’t be too arbitrary about things.

Brand Gorla leaned back and relaxed. The light of Arcturus shone through the ceiling-high windows, diffused and mellowed by the polarizing glass. Even this diluted version of sunlight was too much for the pink eyes of the other, and he shaded his eyes as he spoke.

“I’ve lived on Dorlis twenty-five years, Brand,” he said, “I’ve poked into places no one today knew existed, and I’ve found things. Dorlis was the scientific and cultural capital of a civilization greater than ours. Yes it was, and particularly in psychology.”

“Things in the past always seem greater.” Brand condescended a smile. “There is a theorem to that effect which you’ll find in any elementary text. Freshmen invariably call it the “COD Theorem.” Stands for ‘Good-Old-Days,’ you know. But go on.”

Theor frowned at the digression. He hid the beginning of a sneer, “You can always dismiss an uncomfortable fact by pinning a dowdy label to it. But tell me this. What do you know of Psychological Engineering?”

Brand shrugged, “No such thing. Anyway, not in the strict mathematical sense. All propaganda and advertising is a crude form of hit-and-miss Psych Engineering-and pretty effective sometimes. Maybe that’s what you mean.”

“Not at all. I mean actual experimentation, with masses of people, under controlled conditions, and over a period of years.”

“Such things have been discussed. It’s not feasible in practice. Our social structure couldn’t stand much of it, and we don’t know enough to set up effective controls.”

Theor suppressed excitement, “But the ancients did know enough. And they did set up controls.”

Brand considered phlegmatically, “Startling and interesting, but how do you know?”

“Because I found the documents relating to it.” He paused breathlessly. “An entire planet, Brand. A complete world picked to suit, peopled with beings under strict control from every angle. Studied, and charted, and experimented upon. Don’t you get the picture?”

Brand noted none of the usual stigmata of mental uncontrol. A closer investigation, perhaps

He said evenly, “You must have been misled. It’s thoroughly impossible. You can’t control humans like that. Too many variables.”

“They were robots, positronic robots. A whole world of them, Brand, with nothing to do but live and react and be observed by a set of psychologists that were Teal psychologists.”

“I have proof-because that robot world still exists. The First Confederation went to pieces, but that robot world kept on going. It still exists.”

Theor Realo stood up. “Because I’ve been there these last twenty-five years!”

The Board Master threw his formal red-edged gown aside and reached into a pocket for a long, gnarled and decidedly unofficial cigar.

“Exactly,” said Brand, “and I can’t spring it on the Board just like that. They wouldn’t listen. I’ve got to get this across to you first, and then, if you can put your authority behind it-”

Brand sighed, “ A crank, I’ll admit that. He was in my class at Arcturus u. and a crack-pot albino even then. Maladjusted as the devil, hipped on ancient history, and just the kind that gets an idea and goes through with it by plain. dumb plugging. He’s poked about in Dorlis for twenty-five years, he says. He’s got the complete records of practically an entire civilization.”

The Board Master puffed furiously. “Yeah, I know. In the telestat serials, the brilliant amateur always uncovers the great things. The free lance. The lone wolf. Nuts! Have you consulted the Department of Archaeology?”

“Certainly. And the result was interesting. No one bothers with Dorlis. This isn’t just ancient history, you see. It’s a matter of fifteen thousand years. It’s practically myth. Reputable archaeologists don’t waste too much time with it. It’s just the thing a book-struck layman with a single-track mind would uncover. After this, of course, if the business turns out right, Dorlis will become an archaeologist’s paradise.”

The Board Master screwed his homely face into an appalling grimace. “It’s very unflattering to the ego. If there’s any truth in all this, the so-called First Confederation must have had a grasp of psychology so far past ours, as to make us out to be blithering imbeciles. Too, they’d have to build positronic robots that would be about seventy-five orders of magnitude above anything we’ve even blueprinted. Galaxy! Think of the mathematics involved.”

“Look, sir, I’ve consulted just about everybody. I wouldn’t bring this thing to you if I weren’t certain that I had every angle checked. I went to Blak just about the first thing, and he’s consultant mathematician to United Robots. He says there’s no limit to these things. Given the time, the money, and the advance in psychology-get that-robots like that could be built right now.”

“He has. I’ve got them here. He’s got documents-and there’s no denying their antiquity. I’ve had that checked every way from Sunday. I can’t read them, of course. I don’t know if anyone can, except Theor Realo.”

“Yes, in a way. But he doesn’t claim to be able to decipher more than portions. He says it is related to ancient Centaurian, and I’ve put linguists to work on it. It can be cracked and if his translation isn’t accurate, we’ll know about it.”

Brand Gorla brought out the plastic-mounted documents. The Board Master tossed them aside and reached for the translation. Smoke billowed as he read.

“Theor claims that there are some hundred to two hundred tons of blueprints altogether, on the brain plan of the positronic robots alone. They’re still there in the original vault. But that’s the least of it. He’s been on the robot world itself. He’s got photocasts, teletype recordings, all sorts of details. They’re not integrated, and obviously the work of a layman who knows next to nothing about psychology. Even so, he’s managed to get enough data to prove pretty conclusively that the world he was on wasn’t...uh...natural.”

“All of it. Most of it’s on microfilm, but I’ve brought the projector. Here are your eyepieces.”

An hour later, the Board Master said, “I’ll call a Board Meeting tomorrow and push this through.”

“When,” said the Board Master dryly, “and if we can get an appropriation out of the University for such an affair. Leave this material with me for the while, please. I want to study it a little more.”

Theoretically, the Governmental Department of Science and Technology exercises administrative control over all scientific investigation. Actually, however, the pure research groups of the large universities are thoroughly autonomous bodies, and, as a general rule, the Government does not care to dispute that. But a general rule is not necessarily a universal rule.

And so, although the Board Master scowled and fumed and swore, there was no way of refusing Wynne Murry an interview. To give Murry his complete title, he was under secretary in charge of psychology, psychopathy and mental technology. And he was a pretty fair psychologist in his own right.

Secretary Murry ignored the glare cheerfully. He rubbed his long chin against the grain and said, “It amounts to a case of insufficient information. Shall we put it that way?”

The Board Master said frigidly, “I don’t see what information you want. The government’s say in university appropriations is purely advisory, and in this case, I might say, the advice is unwelcome.”

Murry shrugged, “I have no quarrel with the appropriation. But you’re not going to leave the planet without government permit. That’s where the insufficient information comes in.”

“But things have leaked out. All this is childish and rather unnecessary secrecy.

The old psychologist flushed. “Secrecy! If you don’t know the academic way of life, I can’t help you. Investigations, especially those of major importance, aren’t, and can’t be, made public, until definite progress has been made. When we get back, we’ll send you copies of whatever papers we publish.”

Murry shook his head, “Uh-uh. Not enough. You’re going to Dorlis, aren’t you?”

“Because it’s big, or the Board Master wouldn’t go himself. What’s this about an older civilization and a world of robots?”

“Ah,” Murry unfolded his legs and stood up, “now you’re asking the questions. It’s no use, now. I know that the universities aren’t keen on government supervision; and I know that I can expect no willing help from any academic source. But, by Arcturus, I’m going to get help this time, and I don’t care how you fight it. Your expedition is going nowhere, unless I go with you-representing the government. “

Dorlis, as a world, is not impressive. It’s importance to Galactic economy is nil, its position far off the great trade routes, its natives backward and unenlightened, its history obscure. And yet somewhere in the heaps of rubble that clutter an ancient world, there is obscure evidence of an influx of flame and destruction that destroyed the Dorlis of an earlier day-the greater capital of a greater Federation.

And somewhere in that rubble, men of a newer world poked and probed and tried to understand.

The Board Master shook his head and then pushed back his grizzling hair. He hadn’t shaved in a week.

“The trouble is,” he said, “that we have no point of reference. The language can be broken, I suppose, but nothing can be done with the notation.”

“Stabs in the dark! Guessing games based on the translations of your albino friend. I won’t base any hopes on that.”

Brand said, “Nuts! You spent two years on the Nimian Anomaly, and so far only two months on this, which happens to be a hundred thousand times the job. It’s something else that’s getting you.” He smiled grimly. “It doesn’t take a psychologist to see that the government man is in your hair.”

The Board Master bit the end off a cigar and spat it four feet. He said slowly, “There are three things about the mule-headed idiot that make me sore. First, I don’t like government interference. Second, I don’t like a stranger sniffing about when we’re on top of the biggest thing in the history of psychology. Third, what in the Galaxy does he want? What is he after?”

“You would,” said the Board Master violently. “You would! You think the government’s entrance into this affair need only be ignored. I suppose you know that this Murry calls himself a psychologist?”

“And I suppose you know he’s been displaying a devouring interest in all that we’ve veen doing.”

“Oh! And you know further-” His voice dropped with startling suddenness. “All right, Murry’s at the door. Take it easy.”

“Well, sir,” said Murry bluffly, “do you know I’ve been on my feet for forty-eight hours? You’ve got something here. Something big.”

The secretary shrugged amiably. “One has a certain natural skepticism. What are your future plans?”

“Why do you ask?” The Board Master grunted his words as if they were being squeezed out singly.

The secretary smiled. “No, no. You take precedence. How long do you intend staying here?”

The secretary looked at his nails. “I take it you know the location of this robot world.”

“Naturally. Theor Realo was there. His information up to now has proven very accurate.”

“Look,” said the Board Master with restrained impatience, “you’re not here by our invitation, and we’re not asking you to dictate our course of actions, but just to show you that I’m not looking for a fight, I’ll give you a little metaphorical treatment of our case. Suppose we were presented with a huge and complicated machine, composed of principles and materials of which we knew next to nothing. It is so vast we can’t even make out the relationship of the parts, let alone the purpose of the whole. Now, would you advise me to begin attacking the delicate mysterious moving parts of the machine with a detonating ray before I know what it’s all about?”

“I see your point, of course, but you’re becoming a mystic. The metaphor is farfetched.”

“Not at all. These positronic robots were constructed along lines we know nothing of as yet and were intended to follow lines with which we are entirely unacquainted. About the only thing we know is that the robots were put aside in complete isolation, to work out their destiny by themselves. To ruin that isolation would be to ruin the experiment. If we go there in a body, introducing new, unforeseen factors, inducing unintended reactions, everything is ruined. The littlest disturbance-”

The Board Master lost his temper suddenly. “Don’t you suppose I know that? Do you suppose it would ever have happened if that cursed albino hadn’t been an ignorant fanatic without any knowledge of psychology at all? Galaxy knows what the idiot has done in the way of damage.”

There was a silence. The secretary clicked his teeth with a thoughtful fingernail. “I don’t know....I don’t know. But I’ve got to find out. And I can’t wait years.”

He left, and the Board Master turned seethingly to Brand, “ And how are we going to stop him from going to the robot world if he wants to?”

“I don’t see how he can go if we don’t let him. He doesn’t head the expedition.”

“Oh, doesn’t he? That’s what I was about to tell you just before he came in. Ten ships of the fleet have landed on Dorlis since we arrived.”

“Mind if I drop in?” said Wynne Murry, pleasantly, and Theor Realo looked up in sudden anxiety from the papers that lay in hopeless disarray on the desk before him.

“Come in. I’ll clear off a seat for you.” The albino hustled the mess off one of the two chairs in a state of twittering nerves.

Murry sat down and swung one long leg over the other. “Are you assigned a job here, too?” He nodded at the desk.

Theor shook his head and smiled feebly. Almost automatically, he brushed the papers together in a heap and turned them face down.

In the months since he had returned to Dorlis with a hundred psychologists of various degrees of renown, he had felt himself pushed farther and farther from the center of things. There was room for him no longer. Except to answer questions on the actual state of things upon the robot world, which he alone had visited, he played no part And even there he detected, or seemed to detect, anger that he should have gone, and not a competent scientist

The secretary repeated, “I say it’s surprising you’re not put to work, then. You made the original discovery, didn’t you?”

“Yes,” the albino brightened. “But it went out of my hands. It got beyond me.”

Murry grimaced. “What really gets them, I guess, is that you’ve got a lot of first-hand dope that they didn’t Don’t let their fancy titles fool you into thinking you’re a nobody. A layman with common sense is better than a blind specialist You and I-I’m a layman, too, you know-have to stand up for our rights. Here, have a cigarette.”

“I don’t sm-I’ll take one, thank you.” The albino felt himself warming to the long-bodied man opposite. He turned the papers face upward again, and lit up, bravely but uncertainly.

“I suppose so. That’s all they ever ask me about But hadn’t you better ask them? They’ve probably got it all worked out now.” He blew the smoke as far from himself as possible.

Murry said, “Frankly, they haven’t even begun, and I want the information without benefit of confusing psychological translation. First of all, what kind of people-or things-are these robots? You haven’t a photocast of one of them, have you?”

“Well, no. I didn’t like to take ‘casts of them. But they’re not things. They’re people!”

“Yes-mostly. Outside, anyway. I brought some microscopic studies of the cellular structure that I got hold of. The Board Master has them. They’re different inside, you know, greatly simplified. But you’d never know that. They’re interesting-and nice.”

“Oh, no. It’s a very primitive planet. And...and,” he was interrupted by a spasm of coughing and crushed the cigarette to death as unobtrusively as possible. “They’ve got a protoplasmic base, you know. I don’t think they have the slightest idea they’re robots.”

“I don’t know. I never got a chance to see. And everything was so different. I guess it would take an expert to understand.”

Theor Realo was brought up sharply. “I don’t know. They were just likable. We got along. They didn’t bother me so. It’s nothing I can put my finger on. Maybe it’s because I have it so hard getting along back home, and they weren’t as difficult as real people.”

“N-no. Can’t say so. They never quite accepted me. I was a stranger, didn’t know their language at first-all that. But”-he looked up with sudden brightness-”I understood them better. I could tell what they were thinking better. I-But I don’t know why.”

“Hm-m-m. Well-another cigarette? No? I’ve got to be walloping the pillow now. It’s getting late. How about a twosome at golf tomorrow? I’ve worked up a little course. It’ll do. Come on out. The exercise will put hair on your chest.”

He mumbled one sentence to himself: “It looks like a death sentence”-and whistled thoughtfully as he passed along to his own quarters.

He repeated the phrase to himself when he faced the Board Master the next day, with the sash of office about his waist. He did not sit down.

“Again!” assented the secretary. “But real business this time. I may have to take over direction of your expedition.”

“I have my authority.” Wynne Murry presented the metalloid cylinder that snapped open at a flick of the thumb. “I have full powers and full discretion as to their use. It is signed, as you will observe, by the chairman of the Congress of the Federation.”

“So-But why?” The Board Master, by an effort, breathed normally. “Short of arbitrary tyranny, is there a reason?”

“A very good one, sir. All along, we have viewed this expedition from different angles. The Department of Science and Technology views the robot world not from the point of view of a scientific curiosity, but from the standpoint of its interference with the peace of the Federation. I don’t think you’ve ever stopped to consider the danger inherent in this robot world.”

“From the very nature of the experiment,” shouted the Board Master angrily. “The original planners wanted as nearly a completely closed system as possible. Here they are, just as far off the trade routes as possible, in a thinly populated region of space. The whole idea was to have the robots develop free of interference.”

Murry smiled. “I disagree with you there. Look, the whole trouble with you is that you’re a theoretical man. You look at things the way they ought to be and I, a practical man, look at things as they are. No experiment can be set up and allowed to run indefinitely under its own power. It is taken for granted that somewhere there is at least an observer who watches and modifies as circumstances warrant.”

“Well, the observers in this experiment, the original psychologists of Dorlis, passed away with the First Confederation, and for fifteen thousand years the experiment has proceeded by itself. Little errors have added up and become big ones and introduced alien factors which induced still other errors. It’s a geometric progression. And there’s been no one to halt it.”

“Maybe. But you’re interested only in the robot world, and I’ve got to think of the entire Federation.”

“And just what possible danger call the robot world be to the Federation? I don’t know what in Arcturus you’re driving at, man.”

Murry sighed. “I’ll be simple, but don’t blame me if I sound melodramatic. The Federation hasn’t had any internal warfare for centuries. What will happen if we come into contact with these robots?”

“What science call they have? They’re not metal-electricity supermen. They’re weak protoplasmic creatures, a poor imitation of actual humanity, built around a positronic brain adjusted to a set of simplified human psychological laws. If the word ‘robot’ is scaring you-”

“No, it isn’t, but I’ve talked to Theor Realo. He’s the only one who’s seen them, you know.”

The Board Master cursed silently and fluently. It came of letting a weak-minded freak of a layman get underfoot where he could babble and do harm.

He said, “We’ve got Realo’s full story, and we’ve evaluated it fully and capably. I assure you, no harm exists in them. The experiment is so thoroughly academic, I wouldn’t spend two days on it if it weren’t for the broad scope of the thing. From what we see, the whole idea was to build up a positronic brain containing modifications of one or two of the fundamental axioms. We haven’t worked out the details, but they must be minor, as it was the first experiment of this nature ever tried, and even the great mythical psychologists of that day had to progress stepwise. Those robots, I tell you, are neither supermen nor beasts. I assure you-as a psychologist.”

“Sorry! I’m a psychologist, too. A little more rule-of-thumb, I’m afraid. That’s all. But even little modifications! Take the general spirit of combativeness. That isn’t the scientific term, but I’ve no patience for that. You know what I mean. We humans used to be combative. But it’s being bred out of us. A stable political and economic system doesn’t encourage the waste energy of combat. It’s not a survival factor. But suppose the robots are combative. Suppose as the result of a wrong turn during the millennia they’ve been unwatched, they’ve become far more combative than ever their first makers intended. They’d be uncomfortable things to be with.”

“And suppose all the stars in the Galaxy became novae at the same time. Let’s really start worrying.”

“And there’s another point.” Murry ignored the other’s heavy sarcasm. “Theor Realo liked those robots. He liked robots better than he likes real people. He felt that he fitted there, and we all know he’s been a bad misfit in his own world.”

“You don’t see it?” Wynne Murry lifted his eyebrows. “Theor Realo likes those robots because he is like them, obviously. I’ll guarantee right now that a complete psychic analysis of Theor Realo will show a modification of several fundamental axioms, and the same ones as in the robots.

“And,” the secretary drove on without a pause, “Theor Realo worked for a quarter of a century to prove a point, when all science would have laughed him to death if they had known about it. There’s fanaticism there; good, honest, inhuman perseverance. Those robots are probably like that!”

“You’re advancing no logic. You’re arguing like a maniac, like a moon-struck idiot.”

“I don’t need strict mathematical proof. Reasonable doubt is sufficient. I’ve got to protect the Federation. Look, it is reasonable, you know. The psychologists of Dorlis weren’t as super as all that. They had to advance stepwise, as you yourself pointed out. Their humanoids-let’s not call them robots-were only imitations of human beings and they couldn’t be good ones. Humans possess certain very, very complicated reaction systems-things like social consciousness, and a tendency toward the establishment of ethical systems; and more ordinary things like chivalry, generosity, fair play and so on, that simply can’t possibly be duplicated. I don’t think those humanoids can have them. But they must have perseverance, which practically implies stubbornness and combativeness, if my notion on Theor Realo holds good. Well, if their science is anywhere at all, then I don’t want to have them running loose in the Galaxy, if our numbers are a thousand or million times theirs. And I don’t intend to permit them to do so!”

“As yet undecided. But I think I am going to organize a small-scale landing on the planet.”

“Now, wait.” The old psychologist was up and around the desk. He seized the secretary’s elbow. “Are you quite certain you know what you’re doing? The potentialities in this massive experiment are beyond any possible precalculation by you or me. You can’t know what you’re destroying.”

“I know. Do you think I enjoy what I’m doing? This isn’t a hero’s job. I’m enough of a psychologist to want to know what’s going on, but I’ve been sent here to protect the Federation, and to the best of my ability I intend doing it-and a dirty job it is. But I can’t help.

“You can’t have thought it out. What can you know of the insight it will give us into the basic ideas of psychology? This will amount to a fusion of two Galactic systems, that will send us to heights that will make up in knowledge and power a million times the amount of harm the robots could ever do, if they were metal-electricity supermen.”

The secretary shrugged. “Now you’re the one that is playing with faint possibilities.”

“Listen, I’ll make a deal. Blockade them. Isolate them with your ships. Mount guards. But don’t touch them. Give us more time. Give us a chance. You must!”

“I’ve thought of that. But I would have to get Congress to agree to that. It would be expensive, you know.”

The Board Master flung himself into his chair in wild impatience. “What kind of expense are you talking about? Do you realize the nature of the repayment if we succeed?”

Murry considered; then, with a half smile, “What if they develop interstellar travel?”

Brand Gorla’s face was carefully emotionless as he watched the Board Master’s stooped back. The cheerful pep talks to the available members of the expedition lacked meat, and he listened to them impatiently.

The Board Master’s shoulders twitched and he didn’t turn. “I’ve sent for Theor Realo. That little fool left for the Eastern Continent last week~

The older man blazed at the interruption. “How can I understand anything that freak does! Don’t you see that Murry’s right? He’s a psychic abnormality. We had no business leaving him unwatched. If I had ever thought of looking at him twice, I wouldn’t have. He’s coming back now, though, and he’s going to stay back.” His voice fell to a mumble. “Should have been back two hours ago.”

“Well-Do you think Congress will stand for an indefinite patrol off the robot world? It runs into money, and average Galactic citizens aren’t going to see it as worth the taxes. The psychological equations degenerate into the axioms of common sense. In fact, I don’t see why Murry agreed to consult Congress.”

“Don’t your The Board Master finally faced his junior. “Well, the fool considers himself a psychologist, Galaxy help us, and that’s his weak point. He flatters himself that he doesn’t want to destroy the robot world in his heart, but that it’s the good of the Federation that requires it. And he’ll jump at any reasonable compromise. Congress won’t agree to it indefinitely, you don’t have to point that out to me.” He was talking quietly, patiently. “But I will ask for ten years, two years, six months-as much as I can get. I’ll get something. In that time, we’ll learn new facts about the world. Somehow we’ll strengthen our case and renew the agreement when it expires. We’ll save the project yet.”

There was a short silence and the Board Master added slowly and bitterly, “And that’s where Theor Realo plays a vital part:’

Brand Gorla watched silently, and waited. The Board Master said, “On that one point, Murry saw what we didn’t. Realo is a psychological cripple, and is our real clue to the whole affair. If we study him, we’ll have a rough picture of what the robot is like, distorted of course, since his environment has been a hostile, unfriendly one. But we can make allowance for that, estimate his nature in a-Ahh, I’m tired of the whole subject “

The signal box flashed, and the Board Master sighed. “Well, he’s here. All right, Gorla, sit down, you make me nervous. Let’s take a look at him.”

Theor Realo came through the door like a comet and brought himself to a panting halt in the middle of the floor. He looked from one to the other with weak, peering eyes.

“All what?” said the Board Master coldly. “Sit down. I want to ask you some questions.”

Realo sat His eyes were brimming. “They’re going to destroy the robot world.”

“But you said they could if the robots discovered interstellar travel. You said so. You fool. Don’t you see-” He was choking.

The albino gritted his teeth and forced the words out. “But they’ll have interstellar travel before long.”

“Well...well, what do you think?” Realo sprang upward with all the fury of desperation. “Did you think I landed in a desert or in the middle of an ocean and explored a world all by myself? Do you think life is a storybook? I was captured as soon as I landed and taken to a big city. At least, I think it was a big city. It was different from our kind. It had-But I won’t tell you.”

“Never mind the city,” shrieked the Board Master. “You were captured. Go ahead.”

“They studied me. They studied my machine. And then, one night, I left, to tell the Federation. They didn’t know I left. They didn’t want me to leave.” His voice broke. “ And I would have stayed as soon as not, but the Federation had to know.”

“How could I? I’m no mechanic. I don’t know the theory or construction. But I showed them how to work the controls and let them look at the motors. That’s all.”

Brand Gorla said, to himself mostly, “Then they’ll never get it. That isn’t enough.”

The albino’s voice raised itself in sudden shrieking triumph. “Oh, yes, they will. I know them. They’re machines, you know. They’ll work on that problem. And they’ll work. And they’ll work. And they’ll never quit. And they’ll get it. They got enough out of me. I’ll bet they got enough.”

The Board Master looked long, and turned away-wearily. “Why didn’t you tell us?”

“Because you took my world away from me. I discovered it-by myself-all by myself. And after I had done all the real work, and invited you in, you threw me out. All you had for me was complaints that I had landed on the world and might have ruined everything by interference. Why should I tell you? Find out for yourselves if you’re so wise, that you could afford to kick me around.”

The Board Master thought bitterly, “Misfit! Inferiority complex! Persecution mania! Nice! It all fits in, now that we’ve bothered to take our eyes off the horizon and see what was under our nose. And now it’s all ruined.”

The Board Master answered, “Really all over. The original experiment, as such, is over. The distortions created by Realo’s visit will easily be large enough to make the plans we are studying here a dead language. And besides-Murry is right. If they have interstellar travel, they’re dangerous.”

Realo was shouting, “But you’re not going to destroy them. You can’t destroy them. They haven’t hurt anyone.”

There was no answer, and he raved on, “I’m going back. I’ll warn them. They’ll be prepared. I’ll warn them.”

He was backing toward the door, his thin, white hair bristling, his red-rimmed eyes bulging.

Theor Realo smashed toward the robot world at an acceleration that was half choking him.

Somewhere ahead was the dustspeck of an isolated world with artificial imitations of humanity struggling along in an experiment that had died. Struggling blindly toward a new goal of interstellar travel that was to be their death sentence.

He was heading toward that world, toward the same city in which he had been “studied” the first time. He remembered it well. Its name was the first words of their language he had learned.

On July 26, 1943, which was a Monday, I had one of the rare days off I could take during wartime. (It was, after all, my first wedding anniversary.) I was in New York that day, and I visited Campbell just as in the good old days. I discussed with him another story in the “Foundation” series, as well as another in the “positronic robot” series. From then on, I always saw Campbell on the rare days when I was in New York on a weekday, and of course we corresponded regularly.

I was definitely back at writing. Output was low, but during the remaining war years I wrote two positronic robot stories, “Catch That Rabbit” and “Paradoxical Escape,” which appeared in the February 1944 and August 1945 issues of Astounding, respectively. Both were eventually included in I, Robot. (The latter story appears in I, Robot under the title of “Escape.” The word “Paradoxical” had been added by Campbell in one of his few title changes, and I didn’t like it.)

I also wrote no less than four stories of the “Foundation” series during those same years. These were “The Big and the Little,” “The Wedge,” “Dead Hand,” and “The Mule.” All appeared in Astounding, of course, the first three in the August 1944, October 1944, and April 1945 issues, respectively.

“The Mule” set several records for me. It was the longest story I had ever written up to that time-fifty thousand words long. Yet even so, and despite the fact that I had to work on it in small scraps of time left over from job and marriage, I managed to complete it in three and a half months. It was submitted on May 21, 1945, and was accepted on the twenty-ninth. (Indeed, throughout the war I never got a single rejection, or even a delayed acceptance. Nor did I submit to anyone but Campbell.)

What’s more, at the beginning of 1944 Campbell raised his basic rate to one and a half cents a word and some months later to a cent and three quarters. For “The Mule” I received a check at the higher rate, for $875. It was by far the largest check I ever received for a single story. By the end of the war, in fact, I was making half as much money writing in my spare time as I was making at my N.A.E.S. job, even though I had been promoted and was receiving sixty dollars a week by the end of the war.

Then, too, “The Mule” was the first story I ever had published as a serial. It appeared in two parts in the November and December 1945 issues of Astounding.

Of the wartime “Foundation” stories, “The Big and the Little” and “The Wedge” are included in Foundation, while “Dead Hand” and “The Mule,” together, make up all of Foundation and Empire.

During the two years between mid-1943 and mid-1945, I wrote only one story that was neither one of the “Foundation” series nor one of the “Positronic robot” series, and that one was inspired directly by the N.A.E.S. This story was “Blind Alley,” which was written during September and early October of 1944. It was submitted to Campbell on October 10, and accepted on the twentieth.

Blind Alley

Only once in Galactic History was an intelligent race of non-Humans discovered-

(a) Act of Council 2.515, of the year 971 of the Galactic Empire, entitled, “ Appointment of Officials of the Administrative Service, Methods for, Revision of.”

1. By authorization of reference (a), you are hereby appointed to the subject position. The authority of said position as Civilian Supervisor of Cepheus 18 will extend over non-Human subjects of the Emperor living upon the planet under the terms of autonomy set forth in reference (b).

2. The duties of the subject position shall comprise the general supervision of all non-Human internal affairs, co-ordination of authorized government investigating and reporting committees, and the preparation of semiannual reports on all phases of non-Human affairs.

Loodun Antyok had listened carefully, and now he shook his round head mildly, “Friend, I’d like to help you, but you’ve grabbed the wrong dog by the ears. You’d better take this up with the Bureau.”

Tomor Zammo flung himself back into his chair, rubbed his beak of a nose fiercely, thought better of whatever he was going to say, and answered quietly, “Logical, but not practical. I can’t make a trip to Trantor now. You’re the Bureau’s representative on Cepheus 18. Are you entirely helpless?”

“Well, even as Civilian Supervisor, I’ve got to work within the limits of Bureau policy.”

“Good,” Zammo cried, “then, tell me what Bureau policy is. I head a scientific investigating committee, under direct Imperial authorization with, supposedly, the widest powers; yet at every angle in the road I am pulled up short by the civilian authorities with only the parrot shriek of ‘Bureau policy’ to justify themselves. What is Bureau policy? I haven’t received a decent definition yet.”

Antyok’s gaze was level and unruffled. He said, “As I see it-and this is not official, so you can’t hold me to it-Bureau policy consists in treating the non-Humans as decently as possible.”

“Ssh! No use raising your voice. As a matter of fact, His Imperial Majesty is a humanitarian and a disciple of the philosophy of Aurelion. I can tell you quietly that it is pretty well-known that it is the Emperor himself who first suggested that this world be established. You can bet that Bureau policy will stick pretty close to Imperial notions. And you can bet that I can’t paddle my way against that sort of current.”

“Well, m’boy,” the physiologist’s fleshy eyelids quivered, “if you take that sort of attitude, you’re going to lose your job. No, I won’t have you kicked out. That’s not what I mean at all. Your job will just fade out from under you, because nothing is going to be accomplished here!”

“Really? Why?” Antyok was short, pink, and pudgy, and his plump-cheeked face usually found it difficult to put on display any expression other than one of bland and cheerful politeness-but it looked grave now.

“You haven’t been here long. I have.” Zammo scowled. “Mind if I smoke?” The cigar in his hand was gnarled and strong and was puffed to life carelessly.

He continued roughly, “There’s no place here for humanitarianism, administrator. You’re treating non-Humans as if they were Humans, and it won’t work. In fact, I don’t like the word ‘non-Human.’ They’re animals.”

“Well, intelligent animals, then. I presume the two terms are not mutually exclusive. Alien intelligences mingling in the same space won’t work, anyway.”

“Galaxy, no!” He gestured with his cigar. “I propose we look upon them as objects for study, and only that. We could learn a good deal from these animals if we were allowed to. Knowledge, I might point out, that would be used for the immediate benefit of the human race. There’s humanity for you. There’s the good of the masses, if its this spineless cult of Aurelion that interests you.”

“Yes,” Antyok admitted. “I have leafed through most of the reports on the non-Humans published in the last ten years. I expect to go through more.”

“Hmp. Well-then, all I need say is that their chemical therapy is extremely thorough. For instance, I have witnessed personally the healing of a broken bone-what passes for a broken bone with them, I mean-by the use of a pill. The bone was whole in fifteen minutes. Naturally, none of their drugs are any earthly use on Humans. Most would kill quickly. But if we found out how they worked on the non-Humans-on the animals-”

“Oh, you do. Come, that’s gratifying. A second point is that these animals communicate in an unknown manner.”

The scientist’s mouth twisted, as he ground out, “Telepathy! Telepathy! Telepathy! Might as well say by witch brew. Nobody knows anything about telepathy except its name. What is the mechanism of telepathy? What is the physiology and the physics of it? I would like to find out, but I can’t. Bureau policy, if I listen to you, forbids.”

Antyok’s little mouth pursed itself. “But-Pardon me, doctor, but I don’t follow you. How are you prevented? Surely the Civil Administration has made no attempt to hamper scientific investigation of these non-Humans. I cannot speak for my predecessor entirely, of course, but I myself-”

“No direct interference has occurred. I don’t speak of that. But by the Galaxy, administrator, we’re hampered by the spirit of the entire set-up. You’re making us deal with humans. You allow them their own leader and internal autonomy. You pamper them and give them what Aurelion’s philosophy would call ‘rights: I can’t deal with their leader.”

“Because he refuses to allow me a free hand. He refuses to allow experiments on any subject without the subject’s own consent. The two or three volunteers we get are not too bright. It’s an impossible arrangement.”

Zammo continued, “In addition, it is obviously impossible to learn anything of value concerning the brains, physiology, and chemistry of these animals without dissection, dietary experiments, and drugs. You know, administrator, scientific investigation is a hard game. Humanity hasn’t much place in it. “

Loodun Antyok tapped his chin with a doubtful finger, “Must it be quite so hard? These are harmless creatures, these non-Humans. Surely, dissection-Perhaps, if you were to approach them a bit differently-I have the idea that you antagonize them. Your attitude might be somewhat overbearing.”

“Overbearing! I am not one of these whining social psychologists who are all the fad these days. I don’t believe you can solve a problem that requires dissection by approaching it with what is called the ‘correct personal attitude’ in the cant of the times.”

“I’m sorry you think so. Sociopsychological training is required of all administrators above the grade of A-4.”

Zammo withdrew his cud of a cigar from his mouth and replaced it after a suitably contemptuous interval, “Then you’d better use a bit of your technique on the Bureau. You know, I do have friends at the Imperial court.”

“Well, now, I can’t take the matter up with them, not baldly. Basic policy does not fall within my cognizance, and such things can only be initiated by the Bureau. But, you know, we might try an indirect approach on this.” He smiled faintly, “Strategy.”

Antyok pointed a sudden finger, while his other hand fell lightly on the rows of gray-bound reports upon the floor just next his chair, “Now, look, I’ve gone through most of these. They’re dull, but contain some facts. For instance, when was the last non-Human infant born on Cepheus 18?

Zammo spent little time in consideration. “Don’t know. Don’t care either.”

“But the Bureau would. There’s never been a non-Human infant born on Cepheus 18-not in the two years the world has been established. Do you know the reason?”

The physiologist shrugged, “Too many possible factors. It would take study.”

“Write another. Stress the unsolved problems. Tell them you must change your methods. Harp on the birth-rate problem. The Bureau doesn’t dare ignore that. If the non-Humans die out, someone will have to answer to the Emperor. You see-”

“I’ve been working for the Bureau for twenty-seven years. I know its ways.”

“I’ll think about it.” Zammo rose and stalked out of the office. The door slammed behind him.

It was later that Zammo said to a co-worker, “He’s a bureaucrat, in the first place. He won’t abandon the orthodoxies of paper work and he won’t risk sticking his neck out. He’ll accomplish little by himself, yet maybe more than a little if we work through him. “

Subject: Outer Province Project 2563, Part II-Scientific Investigations of non-Humans of Cepheus 18, Co-ordination of,

1. SciGroup 10, Physical & Biochemical Division, Report, entitled, “Physiologic Characteristics of non-Humans of Cepheus 18, Part XI,” dated 172/977 G.E.

1. Enclosure 1, included herewith, is forwarded for the information of the BuOuProv. It is to be noted that Section XII, paragraphs 1-16 of Encl. 1, concern possible changes in present BuOuProv policy with regard to non-Humans with a view to facilitating physical and chemical investigations at present proceeding under authorization of reference (a)

2. It is brought to the attention of the BuOuProv that reference (b) has already discussed possible changes in investigating methods and that it remains the opinion of AdHQ-Ceph18 that such changes are as yet premature. It is nevertheless suggested that the question of non-Human birth rate be made the subject of a BuOuProv project assigned to AdHQ-Ceph18 in view of the importance attached by SciGroup 10 to the problem, as evidenced in Section V of Enclosure 1.

Subject: Outer Province Project 2563-Scientific Investigations of non-Humans of Cepheus 18, Co-ordination of,

1. In response to the suggestion contained in paragraph 2 of reference (a), it is considered that the question of the non-Human birth rate does not fall within the cognizance of AdHQ-Ceph18. In view of the fact that SciGroup 10 has reported said sterility to be probably due to a chemical deficiency in the food supply, all investigations in the field are relegated to SciGroup 10 as the proper authority.

2. Investigating procedures by the various SciGroups shall continue according to current directives on the subject. No changes in policy are envisaged.

There was a loose-jointed gauntness about the news reporter which made him appear somberly tall. He was Gustiv Bannerd, with whose reputation was combined ability-two things which do not invariably go together despite the maxims of elementary morality.

Loodum Antyok took his measure doubtfully and said, “There’s no use denying that you’re right. But the SciGroup report was confidential. I don’t understand how-”

Antyok was obviously baffled, and his pink face furrowed slightly, “Then I’ll just have to plug the leak here. I can’t pass your story. All references to SciGroup complaints have to come out. You see that, don’t your

“No.” Bannerd was calm enough. “It’s important; and I have my rights under the Imperial directive. I think the Empire should know what’s going on...

“But it isn’t going on,” said Antyok, despairingly. “Your claims are all wrong. The Bureau isn’t going to change its policy. I showed you the letters...

“You think you can stand up against Zammo when he puts the pressure on?” the newsman asked derisively.

“If!” stated Bannerd flatly. Then, in a sudden fervor, “Antyok, the Empire has something great here; something greater by a good deal than the government apparently realizes. They’re destroying it. They’re treating these creatures like animals.”

“Don’t talk about Cepheus 18. It’s a zoo. It’s a high-class zoo, with your petrified scientists teasing those poor creatures with their sticks poking through the bars. You throw them chunks of meat, but you cage them up. I know! I’ve been writing about them for two years now. I’ve almost been living with them.“

“Zammo says,” insisted Antyok with worried firmness, “that we treat them too like humans as it is.”

The newsman’s straight, long cheeks were rigid, “Zammo is rather animallike in his own right. He is a science-worshiper. We can do with less of them. Have you read Aurelion’s worksr The last was suddenly posed.

“The Emperor tends towards us. That is good-better than the hounding of the last reign.”

“These aliens have much to teach us. You understand? It is nothing that Zammo and his SciGroup can use; no chemistry, no telepathy. It’s a way of life; a way of thinking. The aliens have no crime, no misfits. What effort is being made to study their philosophy? Or to set them up as a problem in social engineering?”

Antyok grew thoughtful, and his plump face smoothed out, “It is an interesting consideration. It would be a matter for psychologists-”

“No good. Most of them are quacks. Psychologists point out problems, but their solutions are fallacious. We need men of Aurelion. Men of The Philosophy-”

“But look here, we can’t turn Cepheus 18 into...into a metaphysical study.”

“Forget your puny test-tube peerings. Allow the aliens to set up a society free of Humans. Give them an untrammeled independence and allow an intermingling of philosophies-”

The administrator said slowly, “Well, I can’t prevent you from trying to start:’ He grew confidential, his mild eyes thoughtful, “You’ll ruin your own game, though, if you publish SciGroup 10’s report and denounce it on humanitarian grounds. The Scientists are powerful.”

“Yes, but there’s an easy way. You needn’t rave. Simply point out that the SciGroup is not solving its problems. Do so unemotionally and let the readers think out your point of view for themselves. Take the birth-rate problem, for instance. There’s something for you. In a generation, the non-Humans might die out, for all science can do. Point out that a more philosophical approach is required. Or pick some other obvious point. Use your judgment, eh?”

Antyok smiled ingratiatingly as he arose, “But, for the Galaxy’s sake, don’t stir up a bad smell:’

It was later that Bannerd wrote in a capsule message to a friend, “He is not clever, by any means. He is confused and has no guiding-line through life. Certainly utterly incompetent in his job. But he’s a cutter and a trimmer, compromises his way around difficulties, and will yield concessions rather than risk a hard stand. He may prove valuable in that. Yours in Aurelion.”

1. The sterility of non-Humans on Cepheus 18, reported to the BuOuProv in reference (a), has become the subject of news reports to the galactic press. The news reports in question are submitted herewith for the information of the BuOuProv as Enclosures 1 and 2. Although said reports are based on material considered confidential and closed to the public, the news reporter in question maintained his rights to free expression under the terms of reference (b).

2. In view of the unavoidable publicity and misunderstanding on the part of the general public now inevitable, it is requested that the BuOuProv direct future policy on the problem of non-Human sterility.

1. It is proposed to investigate the causes and the means of precluding the unfavorable birth-rate phenomena mentioned in references (a) and (b).A project is therefore set up, entitled, “Birth rate of non-Humans on Cepheus 18, Investigation of” to which, in view of the crucial importance of the subject, a priority of AA is given.

2. The number assigned to the subject project is 2910, and all expenses incidental to it shall be assigned to Appropriation number 18/78.

If Tomor Zammo’s ill-humor lessened within the grounds of SciGroup 10 Experimental Station, his friendliness had not thereby increased. Antyok found himself standing alone at the viewing window into the main field laboratory.

The main field laboratory was a broad court set at the environmental conditions of Cepheus 18 itself for the discomfort of the experimenters and the convenience of the experimentees. Through the burning sand, and the dry, oxygen-rich air, there sparkled the hard brilliance of hot, white sunlight. And under the blaze, the brick-red non-Humans, wrinkled of skin and wiry of build, huddled in their squatting positions of ease, by ones and twos.

Zammo emerged from the laboratory. He paused to drink water thirstily. He looked up, moisture gleaming on his upper lip, “Like to step in there?”

Antyok shook his head definitely, “No, thank you. What’s the temperature right now?”

“A hundred twenty, if there were shade. And they complain of the cold. It’s drinking time now. Want to watch them drink?”

A spray of water shot upward from the fountain in the center of the court, and the little alien figures swayed to their feet and hopped eagerly forward in a queer, springy half-run. They milled about the water, jostling one another. The centers of their faces were suddenly disfigured by the projection of a long and flexible fleshy tube, which thrust forward into the spray and was withdrawn dripping.

It continued for long minutes. The bodies swelled and the wrinkles disappeared. They retreated slowly, backing away, with the drinking tube flicking in and out, before receding finally into a pink, wrinkled mass above a wide, lipless mouth. They went to sleep in groups in the shaded angles, plump and sated.

“As often as they want. They can go a week if they have to. We water them every day. They store it under their skin. They eat in the evenings. Vegetarians, you know.”

Antyok smiled chubbily, “It’s nice to get a bit of firsthand information occasionally. Can’t read reports all the time.”

“Yes?”-noncommittally. Then, “What’s new? What about the lacy-pants boys on Trantor?”

Antyok shrugged dubiously, “You can’t get the Bureau to commit itself, unfortunately. With the Emperor sympathetic to the Aurelionists, humanitarianism is the order of the day. You know that.”

There was a pause in which the administrator chewed his lip uncertainly. “But there’s this birth-rate problem now. It’s finally been assigned to AdHQ, you know-and double A priority, too.”

Antyok said, “You may not realize it, but that project will now take precedence over all other work proceeding on Cepheus 18. It’s important.”

He turned back to the viewing window and said thoughtfully with a bald lack of preamble. “Do you think those creatures might be unhappy?”

“Well, then,” Antyok corrected hastily, “maladjusted. You understand? It’s difficult to adjust an environment to a race we know so little of.”

“Reports!”-infinite contempt. “I’ve seen it. This may look like desert out there to you, but it’s a watery paradise to those devils. They have all the food and water they can get. They have a world to themselves with vegetation and natural water flow, instead of a lump of silica and granite where fungi were force-grown in caves and water had to be steamed out of gypsum rock. In ten years, they would have been dead to the last beast, and we saved them. Unhappy? Ga-a-ah, if they are, they haven’t the decency of most animals.”

“It’s something that might help you. Why not study the creatures in a more integrated fashion? Let them use their initiative. After all, they did have a highly-developed science. Your reports speak of it continually. Give them problems to solve.”

“Oh...oh,” Antyok waved his hands helplessly. “Whatever you think might help most. For instance, spaceships. Get them into the control room and study their reactions.”

“Because the reaction of their minds to tools and controls adjusted to the human temperament can teach you a lot. In addition, it will make a more effective bribe, it seems to me, than anything you’ve yet tried. You’ll get more volunteers if they think they’ll be doing something interesting.”

“That’s your psychology coming out. Hm-m-m. Sounds better than it probably is. I’ll sleep on it. And where would I get permission, in any case, to let them handle spaceships? I’ve none at my disposal, and it would take a good deal longer than it was worth to follow down the line of red tape to get one assigned to us.”

Antyok pondered, and his forehead creased lightly, “It doesn’t have to be spaceships. But even so-lf you would write up another report and make the suggestion yourself-strongly, you understand-I might figure out some way of tying it up with my birth-rate project. A double-a priority can get practically anything, you know, without questions.”

Zammo’s interest lacked a bit even of mildness, “Well, maybe. Meanwhile, I’ve some basal metabolism tests in progress, and it’s getting late. I’ll think about it. It’s got its points.”

Subject: Outer Province Project 2910, Part I-Birth rate of non-Humans on Cepheus 18, Investigation of,

1. SciGroup 10, Physical & Biochemical Division report, Part XV, dated 220/977 G.E.

2. Special attention is directed to Section V, Paragraph 3 of Enclosure I in which it is requested that a spaceship be assigned SciGroup 10 for use in expediting investigations authorized by the BuOuProv. It is considered by AdHQ-Ceph18 that such investigations may be of material use in aiding work now in progress on the subject project, authorized by reference (a).It is suggested, in view of the high priority placed by the BuOuProv upon the subject project, that immediate consideration be given the SciGroup’s request.

Subject: Outer Province Project 2910-Birth rate of non-Humans on Cepheus 18, Investigation of.

1. Training Ship AN-R-2055 is being placed at the disposal of AdHQ-Ceph18 for use in investigation of non-Humans on Cepheus 18 with respect to the subject project and other authorized OuProv projects, as requested in Enclosure 1 to reference (a).

2. It is urgently requested that work on the subject project be expedited by all available means.

The little, bricky creature must have been more uncomfortable than his bearing would admit to. He was carefully wrapped in a temperature already adjusted to the point where his human companions steamed in their open shirts.

His speech was high-pitched and careful, “I find it damp, but not unbearably so at this low temperature.”

Antyok smiled, “It was nice of you to come. I had planned to visit you, but a trial run in your atmosphere out there-” The smile had become rueful.

“It doesn’t matter. You other worldlings have done more for us than ever we were able to do for ourselves. It is an obligation that is but imperfectly returned by the endurance on my part of a trilling discomfort.” His speech seemed always indirect, as if he approached his thoughts sidelong, or as if it were against all etiquette to be blunt.

Gustiv Bannerd, seated in an angle of the room, with one long leg crossing the other, scrawled nimbly and said, “you don’t mind if I record all this?”

The Cepheid non-Human glanced briefly at the journalist, “I have no objection.”

Antyok’s apologetics persisted, “This is not a purely social affair, sir. I would not have forced discomfort on you for that. There are important questions to be considered, and you are the leader of your people.”

The Cepheid nodded, “I am satisfied your purposes are kindly. Please proceed.”

The administrator almost wriggled in his difficulty in putting thoughts into words. “It is a subject,” he said, “of delicacy, and one I would never bring up if it weren’t for the overwhelming importance of the...uh...question. I am only the spokesman of my government-”

“Well, yes, they are kindly. For that reason, they are disturbed over the fact that your people no longer breed.”

Antyok paused, and waited with worry for a reaction that did not come. The Cepheid’s face was motionless except for the soft, trembling motion of the wrinkled area that was his deflated drinking tube.

Antyok continued, “It is a question we have hesitated to bring up because of its extremely personal angles. Noninterference is my government’s prime aim, and we have done our best to investigate the problem quietly and without disturbing your people. But, frankly, we-“

“Yes. Or at least, we have not discovered a concrete failure to reproduce the exact environment of your original world; with, of course, the necessary modification to make it more livable. Naturally, it is thought there is some chemical shortcoming. And so I ask your voluntary help in the matter. Your people are advanced in the study of your own biochemistry. If you do not choose, or would rather not-”

“No, no, I can help:’ The Cepheid seemed cheerful about it. The smooth Hat planes of his loose-skinned, hairless skull wrinkled in an alien response to an uncertain emotion. “It is not a matter that any of us would have thought would have disturbed you other-worldlings. That it does is but another indication of your well-meaning Kindness. This world we find congenial, a paradise in comparison to our old. It lacks in nothing. Conditions such as now prevail belong in our legends of the Golden Age.”

“But there is a something; a something you may not understand. We cannot expect different intelligences to think alike.”

“I shall try to understand.” The Cepheid’s voice had grown soft, its liquid undertones more pronounced, “We were dying on our native world; but we were fighting. Our science, developed through a history older than yours, was losing; but it had not yet lost. Perhaps it was because our science was fundamentally biological, rather than physical as yours is. Your people discovered new forms of energy and reached the stars. Our people discovered new truths of psychology and psychiatry and built up a working society free of disease and crime.

“There is no need to question which of the two angles of approach was the more laudable, but there is no uncertainty as to which proved more successful in the end. In our dying world, without the means of life or sources of power, our biological science could but make the dying easier

“And yet we fought. For centuries past, we had been groping toward the elements of atomic power, and slowly the spark of hope had glimmered that we might break through the two-dimensional limits of our planetary surface and reach the stars. There were no other planets in our system to serve as stepping stones. Nothing but some twenty light-years to the nearest star, without the knowledge of the possibility of the existence of other planetary systems, but rather of the contrary.

“But there is something in all life that insists on striving; even on useless striving. There were only five thousand of us left in the last days. Only five thousand. And our first ship was ready. It was experimental. It would probably have been a failure. But already we had all the principles of propulsion and navigation correctly worked out.,.

There was a long pause, and the Cepheid’s small black eyes seemed glazed in retrospect.

“And then you came,” the Cepheid agreed simply. “It changed everything. Energy was ours for the asking. A new world, congenial and, indeed, ideal, was ours even without asking. If our problems of society had long been solved by ourselves, our more difficult problems of environment were suddenly solved for us, no less completely.”

“Well-it was somehow not well. For centuries, our ancestors had fought towards the stars, and now the stars suddenly proved to be the property of others. We had fought for life, and it had become a present handed to us by others. There is no longer any reason to fight. There is no longer anything to attain. All the universe is the property of your race.”

And now the Cepheid’s eyes were sharply fixed on the other’s countenance, “You mean well, but I doubt that you understand. We have nowhere to go, save this gift of a world. We are in a blind alley. The function of life is striving, and that is taken from us. Life can no longer interest us. We have no offspring-voluntarily. It is our way of removing ourselves from your way.”

Absent-mindedly, Antyok had removed the Fluoro-globe from the window seat, and spun it on its base. Its gaudy surface reflected light as it spun, and its three-foot-high bulk floated with incongruous grace and lightness in the air.

“We might escape still,” whispered the Cepheid, “but where in the Galaxy is there place for us? It is all yours.”

“Yes, there is no place for you nearer than the Magellanic Clouds if you wished independence. The Magellanic Clouds-”

“It is something past complete explanations. Your mind is different. We could not reconcile ourselves. I believe, administrator, that you have thought of all this before. The concept of the blind alley we find ourselves trapped in is not new to you.”

Antyok looked up, startled, and one hand steadied the fluoro-globe, “Can you read my mind?”

“Yes-but can you read my mind? The minds of humans in general, I mean. It is an interesting point. The scientists say you cannot, but sometimes I wonder if it is that you simply will not. Could you answer that? I am detaining you, unduly, perhaps.”

“No...no-” But the little Cepheid drew his enveloping robe closer, and buried his face in the electrically-heated pad at the collar for a moment. “You other-worldlings speak of reading minds. It is not so at all, but it is assuredly hopeless to explain.”

Antyok mumbled the old proverb, “One cannot explain sight to a man blind from birth.”

“Yes, just so. This sense which you call ‘mind reading,, quite erroneously, cannot be applied to us. It is not that we cannot receive the proper sensations, it is that your people do not transmit them, and we have no way of explaining to you how to go about it.”

“There are times, of course, of great concentration or emotional tension on the part of an other-worldling when some of us who are more expert in this sense; more sharp-eyed, so to speak; detect vaguely something. It is uncertain; yet I myself have at times wondered-”

Carefully, Antyok began spinning the Fluoro-globe once more. His pink face was set in thought, and his eyes were fixed upon the Cepheid. Gustiv Bannerd stretched his fingers and reread his notes, his lips moving silently.

The fluoro-globe spun, and slowly the Cepheid seemed to grow tense as well, as his eyes shifted to the colorful sheen of the globe’s fragile surface.

Antyok started, and his face smoothed into an almost chuckling placidity, “This? A Galactic fad of three years ago; which means that it is a hopelessly old-fashioned relic this year. It is a useless device but it looks pretty. Bannerd, could you adjust the windows to non-transmission?”

There was the soft click of a contact, and the windows became curved regions of darkness, while in the center of the room, the fluoro-globe was suddenly the focus of a rosy effulgence that seemed to leap outward in streamers. Antyok, a scarlet figure in a scarlet room, placed it upon the table and spun it with a hand that dripped red. As it spun, the colors changed with a slowly increasing rapidity, blended and fell apart into more extreme contrasts.

Antyok was speaking in an eerie atmosphere of molten, shifting rainbow, “The surface is of a material that exhibits variable fluorescence. It is almost weightless, extremely fragile, but gyroscopically balanced so that it rarely falls, with ordinary care. It is rather pretty, don’t you think?”

Bannerd restored the light at a gesture, and the colors faded. The Cepheid said, “That is something my people would enjoy.” He stared at the globe with fascination.

And now Antyok rose. “You had better go. If you stay longer, the atmosphere may have bad effects. I thank you humbly for your kindness.”

Antyok said, “Most of your people, by the way, have accepted our offers to them to study the make-up of our modem spaceships. You understand, I suppose, that the purpose was to study the reactions of your people to our technology. I trust that conforms with your sense of propriety.”

“You need not apologize. I, myself, have now the makings of a human pilot. It was most interesting. It recalls our own efforts-and reminds us of how nearly on the right track we were.”

“Well,” he said to Bannerd, a little sharply. “You remember our agreement, I hope. This interview can’t be published.”

Antyok was at his seat, and his fingers fumbled with the small metal figurine upon his desk, “What do you think of all this, Bannerd?”

“I am sorry for them. I think I understand how they feel. We must educate them out of it. The Philosophy can do it.”

“Oh, no. Out of the question. We have too much to learn from them. This feeling of theirs is only a passing stage. They’ll think differently, especially when we allow them the completest independence.”

“Maybe. What do you think of the fluoro-globes, Bannerd? He liked them. It might be a gesture of the right sort to order several thousand of them. The Galaxy knows, they’re a drug on the market right now, and cheap enough.”

The newsman’s eyes narrowed, “But it might be just the thing. They need new interests.”

“Yes? Well, we could do something. I could include your transcript of the interview as part of a report and just emphasize the matter of the globes a bit. After all, you’re a member of The philosophy and might have influence with important people, whose word with the Bureau might carry much more weight than mine. You understand-?”

Subject: OuProv Project 2910, Part II; Birth rate of non-Humans on Cepheus 18, Investigation of.

1. Transcript of conversation between L. Antyok of AdHQ-Ceph18, and Ni-San, High Judge of the non-Humans on Cepheus 18.

2. The investigation of the subject project undertaken in response to the authorization of reference (a) is being pursued along the new lines indicated in Enclosure 1. The BuOuProv is assured that every means will be used to combat the harmful psychological attitude at present prevalent among the non-Humans.

3. It is to be noted that the High Judge of the non-Humans on Cepheus 18 expressed interest in fluoro-globes. A preliminary investigation into this fact of non-Human psychology has been initiated.

Subject: OuProv Project 2910; Birth rate of non-Humans on Cepheus 18, Investigation of.

1. With reference to Enclosure I of reference (a), five thousand fluoro-globes have been allocated for shipment to Cepheus 18, by the Department of Trade.

2. It is instructed that AdHQ-Ceph18 make use of all methods of appeasing non-Humans’ dissatisfaction, consistent with the The necessities of obedience to Imperial proclamations.

The dinner was over, the wine had been brought in, and the cigars were out. The groups of talkers had formed, and the captain of the merchant fleet was the center of the largest. His brilliant white uniform quite outsparkled his listeners.

He was almost complacent in his speech: “The trip was nothing. I’ve had more than three hundred ships under me before this. Still, I’ve never had a cargo quite like this. What do you want with five thousand fluoro-globes on this desert, by the Galaxy!”

Loodun Antyok laughed gently. He shrugged, “For the non-Humans. It wasn’t a difficult cargo, I hope.”

“No, not difficult. But bulky. They’re fragile, and I couldn’t carry more than twenty to a ship, with all the government regulations concerning packing and precautions against breakage. But it’s the government’s money, I suppose.”

Zammo smiled grimly. “Is this your first experience with government methods, captain?”

“Galaxy, no,” exploded the spaceman. “I try to avoid it, of course, but you can’t help getting entangled on occasion. And it’s an abhorrent thing when you are, and that’s the truth. The red tape! The paper work! It’s enough to stunt your growth and curdle your circulation. It’s a tumor, a cancerous growth on the Galaxy. I’d wipe out the whole mess.”

“Yes? Well, now, as one of these bureaucrats,” and he smiled amiably at the word, “suppose you explain your side of the situation, administrator.”

“Well, now,” Antyok seemed confused, “government is a serious and complicated business. We’ve got thousands of planets to worry about in this Empire of ours and billions of people. It’s almost past human ability to supervise the business of governing without the tightest sort of organization. I think there are something like four hundred million men today in the Imperial Administrative Service alone, and in order to co-ordinate their efforts and to pool their knowledge, you must have what you call red tape and paper work. Every bit of it, senseless though it may seem, annoying though it may be, has its uses. Every piece of paper is a thread binding the labors of four hundred million humans. Abolish the Administrative Service and you abolish the Empire; and with it, interstellar peace, order, and civilization.”

“No. I mean it.” Antyok was earnestly breathless. “The rules and system of the Administrative set-up must be sufficiently all-embracing and rigid so that in case of incompetent officials, and sometimes one is appointed-you may laugh, but there are incompetent scientists, and newsmen, and captains, too-in case of incompetent officials, I say, little harm will be done. For, at the worst, the system can move by itself.“

“Yes,” grunted the captain, sourly, “and if a capable administrator should be appointed? He is then caught by the same rigid web and is forced into mediocrity.”

“Not at all, “ replied Antyok, warmly. “ A capable man can work within the limits of the rules and accomplish what he wishes.”

“Well...well-” Antyok was suddenly ill at ease. “One method is to get yourself an A-priority project, or double-A, if possible.”

The captain leaned his head back for laughter, but never quite made it, for the door was flung open and frightened men were pouring in. The shouts made no sense at first. Then:

It was two hours later that the four were together again, alone in Antyok’s office now.

Antyik said coldly, “They’ve made no mistakes. There’s not a ship left behind, not even your training ship, Zammo. And there isn’t a government ship available in this entire half of the Sector. By the time we organize a pursuit they’ll be out of the Galaxy and halfway to the Magellanic Clouds. Captain, it was your responsibility to maintain an adequate guard.”

The captain cried, “It was our first day out of space. Who could have known-”

Zammo interrupted fiercely, “Wait a while, captain. I’m beginning to understand. Antyok, “ his voice was hard, “you engineered this.”

“You told us this evening that a clever administrator got an A-priority project assigned to accomplish what he wished. You got such a project in order to help the non-Humans escape.”

“I did? I beg your pardon, but how could that be? It was you yourself in one of your reports that brought up the problem of the failing birth rate. It was Bannerd, here, whose sensational articles frightened the Bureau into making a double A-priority project out of it. I had nothing to do with it.”

“And for that matter,” roared Bannerd, suddenly, “you suggested that I mention the birth rate in my articles.”

The three ringed him now and hemmed him in. Antyok leaned back in his chair and said easily, “I don’t know what you mean by suggestions. If you are accusing me, please stick to evidence-legal evidence. The laws of the Empire go by written, filmed, or transcribed material, or by witnessed statements. All my letters as administrator are on me here, at the Bureau, and at other places. I never asked for an A-priority project. The Bureau assigned it to me, and Zammo and Bannerd are responsible for that. In print, at any rate.”

Zammo’s voice was an almost inarticulate growl, “You hoodwinked me into teaching the creatures how to handle a spaceship.”

“It was your suggestion. I have your report proposing they be studied in their reaction to human tools on file. So has the Bureau. The evidence-the legal evidence, is plain. I had nothing to do with it.”

The captain howled suddenly, “You had my ships brought here purposely. Five thousand globes! You knew it would require hundreds of craft. “

“I never asked for globes,” said Antyok, coldly. “That was the Bureau’s idea, although I think Bannerd’s friends of The Philosophy helped that along.”

Bannerd fairly choked. He spat out, “You were asking that Cepheid leader if he could read minds. You were telling him to express interest in the globes.”

“Come, now. You prepared the transcript of the conversation yourself, and that, too, is on file. You can’t prove it.” He stood up, “You’ll have to excuse me. I must prepare a report for the Bureau.”

At the door, Antyok turned. “In a way, the problem of the non-Humans is solved, even if only to their own satisfaction. They’ll breed now, and have a world they’ve earned themselves. It’s what they wanted.

“Another thing. Don’t accuse me of silly things. I’ve been in the Service for twenty-seven years, and I assure you that my paper work is proof enough that I have been thoroughly correct in everything I have done. And captain, I’ll be glad to continue our discussion of earlier this evening at your convenience and explain how a capable administrator can work through red tape and still get what he wants.”

It was remarkable that such a round. smooth baby-face could wear a smile quite so sardonic.

(a) you are hereby absolved of all responsibility for the flight of non-Humans on Cepheus 18. It is requested that you hold yourself in readiness for your next appointment.

The letters that form a major part of this story (which contains one of my rare examples of extraterrestrial intelligences) are, you will be glad to know, based on the kind of material that routinely passed in and out of the N.A.E.S. (and, for all I know, still does).The turgid style is not my invention. I couldn’t invent it if I tried.

When the story appeared, L. Sprague de Camp happily pointed out one Haw in the letter style: I had carelessly made someone in lower position, who was addressing someone in higher position, say, “it is requested” instead of “it is suggested.” The underling can humbly suggest, but only an overling can harshly request.

After the war, there began that Hood of science fiction anthologies that has been growing in width and depth ever since. Few, if any, science fiction writers have been anthologized as often as I have and the first one of my stories to be anthologized was not “Nightfall” or a “positronic robot” story or a “Foundation” story. It was “Blind Alley.”

In early 1946 Groff Conklin was putting out the first of his many science fiction anthologies-one called “The Best of Science Fiction”-and there you will find “Blind Alley.” That story, for which Campbell had paid $148.75 (1 ¾ ¢ a word) then earned another $42.50 (½¢ a word). This meant that “Blind Alley” had earned me 2 ¼¢ a word, which was a record high at the time.

Strictly speaking, the money for the anthologization was paid to Street & Smith, but Street & Smith had the enlightened habit of turning such money over to the author-voluntarily and without legal compulsion. And this was the first indication I ever received, by the way, that a story could earn more money than that which it earned at the time of its original sale.

On May 8, 1945, one week before “The Mule” was completed, the war ended in Europe. Naturally, there was at once a move to demobilize as many of the men who had been fighting in Europe as possible, and to draft replacements from among those who had luxuriated at home.

All through the war, till then, I had been receiving regular draft deferments as a research chemist working in a position important to the war effort. Periodically, there were revisions of the draft rules, and it was a rare month in which it did not look at one time or another as though I might be drafted. (It kept me on my toes, I can tell you, but I did not feel particularly ill-used. My predominant feeling was that of a sneaking guilt at not being drafted and some shame that I was relieved at my deferment.)

During 1944, the uncertainty went so far that I was called in for a physical examination, and it at once turned out that my nearsightedness was so bad as to render me ineligible for the draft anyway.

After V-E Day, the navy yard was ordered to retain only some percentage of those of its deferred employees, allowing the remainder to be drafted. Presumably, the navy yard would select its most important employees to keep, but they knew a better trick, according to the tale we employees heard. They retained all draftable employees who met the physical requirements, and removed protection from those who did not meet them either because of age or physical defect. In this way, they hoped to keep them all-those who were fit, because they were declared necessary, and those who were overage or unfit, because they were overage or unfit.

And then (you guessed it) the Army lowered its physical requirements. The result was that those navy yard employees with bad eyes or other mild deficiencies were put in imminent peril of the draft, while others, who were in every way equivalent except that they were in good shape, were not. (You may well laugh.)

For four months after V-E Day, it was up and down with me and the draft and I never knew, on one day, whether I might not receive my induction notice on the next. While I waited, the atom bombs were dropping on Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the Japanese formally surrendered on September 2.

On September 7, 1945, I received my notice of induction. I didn’t enjoy it, of course, but I tried to be philosophical. The war was over, and, whatever difficulties I might have during the two years I expected to be in, at least no one would be shooting at me. I entered the Army on November 1, 1945, as a buck private.

Naturally, during all the fuss over the draft, culminating in my induction, I did no writing. There was an eight-month hiatus, in fact, the longest in three years.

On January 7, 1946, however, while I was still working my way through basic training in Camp Lee, Virginia, I began another “positronic robot” story, called “Evidence.” I made use of a typewriter in one of the administrative buildings.

Naturally, it was slow work. I didn’t finish first draft till February 17, and then everything came to a halt when, the very next day, I discovered that I would be among those sent out to the South Pacific to participate in “Operation Crossroads.” This was the first postwar atom bomb test, on the island of Bikini (which later gave its name to a bathing suit so skimpy as to react on the male constitution-in theory-like an atom bomb).The fact that a week later I received my check for the anthologization of “Blind Alley” did little to raise my spirits.

We left on March 2, 1946, traveling by train and ship, and arrived in Honolulu on March 15. There then began a long wait before we could go on to Bikini (the atom bomb test was postponed, of course).When time began to hang heavy enough, I returned to “Evidence.” I persuaded a sympathetic librarian to lock me up in the building when it closed for lunch so that I had an hour each day absolutely alone at the typewriter. I finished the story on April 10, and mailed it off to Campbell the next day.

On April 29, I received word of its acceptance. By that time, the word rate had reached two cents.

I never did go to Bikini, by the way. Some administrative error back home ended the allotment being sent to my wife. I was sent back to the United States on May 28 to inquire into the matter; it was all straightened out by the time I was back at Camp Lee. As long as I was there, however, I applied for a “research discharge” on the ground that I was going back to my Ph.D. work. I was out of the Army, as a corporal, on July 26.

As Soon as I got out of the Army I made arrangements to return to Columbia, after an absence of a little over four years, and to resume my work toward my Ph.D. under Professor Dawson.

There was still no question in my mind that chemistry was my career, and my only career. In the four years of my marriage I had written nine science fiction stories and one fantasy and had sold them all-but all the sales had been to Campbell.

Since Unknown had died, I was terribly conscious that Astounding might die as well. If that happened, or if Campbell retired, I was not at all sure that I could continue selling.

The situation looked better postwar than prewar, to be sure. During the first four years of my marriage, I had earned $2667 as a writer, or an average of under $13 per week. This was about half again as well as I had been doing in my bachelor days, even though I was writing fewer stories.

The word rate had doubled, you see, and there was even the hope of subsidiary rights-extra money for already sold stories. “Blind Alley” had already placed in an anthology, and on August 30, 1946, only a month after I got out of the Army, I discovered that I had made a second such sale. A new science fiction anthology, “Adventures in Time and Space,” edited by Raymond J. Healey and J. Francis McComas, was to include “Nightfall” and I was to receive $66.50 for that.

There was even more than anthologization sales. In that same month of August, the September 1946 issue of Astounding hit the stands with “Evidence” (Had I but known when writing it that by the time it was published I would be safely out of the Army!) Almost at once I received a telegram asking for the movie rights. The gentleman interested turned out to be none other than Orson Welles. In great excitement, I sold him the radio, television, and movie rights to the Story on September 20, and waited to become famous. (I couldn’t become wealthy, because the entire payment in full was only $250.)

Unfortunately, nothing happened. To this day, Mr. Welles has never used the story. But the check was certainly useful toward paying my tuition.

Despite everything, though, it still seemed quite out of the question that I could ever possibly depend on writing for a year-in, year-out living, especially now that I was married and hoped, eventually, to have children.

So back to school it was, with a small savings account to serve as a cushion, with some veterans’ benefits supplied by the government, and, of course, with the hope that I would make a little extra cash writing.

In September I wrote still another “positronic robot” story, “Little Lost Robot,” racing to complete it before the fall semester started and I grew immersed in my work. Campbell took it promptly and it appeared in the March 1947 issue of Astounding. Eventually, it and “Evidence” were included in I, Robot.

Once the semester started, it became difficult to find time to write. Toward the end of 1946, I managed to begin another “Foundation” story, “Now You See It-.” I finished it on February ~ 1947, and submitted it to Campbell on the fourth. By that time I was rather sick of the “Foundation’ series and I tried to write “Now You See It-” in such a way as to make it the last of the series.

Campbell would have none of that. I had to revise the ending to permit a sequel, and on the fourteenth he took it. It appeared in the January 1948 Astounding and eventually made up the first third of my book Second Foundation.

In May 1947 I wrote a story that, for the first time in over two years, was neither a “Foundation” story nor a “positronic robot” story. It was “No Connection.” I submitted it to Campbell on May 26, and it was accepted on the thirty-first.

No Connection

Raph was a typical American of his times. Remarkably ugly, too, by American standards of our times. The bony structure of his jaws was tremendous and the musculature suited it. His nose was arched and wide and his black eyes were small and forced wide apart by the span of said nose. His neck was thick, his body broad, his fingers spatulate, with strongly curved nails.

If he had stood erect, on thick legs with large, well-padded feet, he would have topped two and a half yards. Standing or sitting, his mass neared a quarter of a ton.

Yet his forehead rose in an unrestricted arc and his cranial capacity did not stint. His enormous hand dealt delicately with a pen, and his mind droned comfortably on as he bent over his desk.

In fact, his wife and most of his fellow-Americans found him a fine-looking fellow.

Raph, Junior, was a smaller edition of our typical American. He was adolescent and had not yet lost the hairy covering of childhood. It spread in a dark, close-curled mat across his chest and back, but it was already thinning and perhaps within the year he would first don the adult shirt that would cover the proudly-naked skin of manhood.

But, meanwhile, he sat in breeches alone, and scratched idly at a favorite spot just above the diaphragm. He felt curious and just a little bored. It wasn’t bad to come with his father to the museum when people were there. Today was a Closed-Day, however, and the empty corridors rang lonesomely when he walked along them.

“What thing?” Raph lifted his head and looked over his shoulder. Then he looked pleased. “Oh, that’s something quite new. That’s a reconstruction of Primate Primeval. It was sent to me from the North River Grouping. Isn’t it a nice job, though?” And he returned to his work, in the grip of a momentary twinge of pleasure. Private Primeval wasn’t to go on exhibition for a week at least-not until he prepared an honorable place for it with suitable surroundings, but, for the moment, it was in his office and his own private darling.

Raph looked at the “nice job” with quite other emotions, however. What he saw was a spindly figure of contemptuous size, with thin legs and arms, hair-covered and owning an ugly, small-featured face with large, protruding eyes.

Raph stirred impatiently: “It’s a creature that lived many millions of years ago, we think. That’s the way we think it looks.”

Raph gave up. Apparently, he would have to root out the subject and do away with it.

“Well, for one thing we can tell about the muscles from the shape of the bones, and the positions where the tendons would fit and where some of the nerves would go. From the teeth we can tell the type of digestive system the animal would have, and from the foot-bones, what type of posture it would have. For the rest, we go by the principle of Analogy, that is, by the outside appearance of creatures that exist today that have the same kind of skeleton. For instance, that’s why he’s covered with red hair. Most of the Primates today-they’re little insignificant creatures, practically extinct-are red-haired, have bare callosities on the rump-”

“-have long, fleshy probosces, and short, shriveled ears. Their diets are unspecialized, hence the rather all-purpose teeth, and they are nocturnal, hence the large eyes. It’s all simple, really. Now, does that dispose of you, youngster?”

And then Junior, having thought and thought about it, came out with a disparaging: “He looks just like an Eekah to me, though. Just like an ugly, old Eekah.”

Raph stared at him. Apparently he had missed a point: “An Eekah?” he said, “What’s an Eekah? Is that an imaginary creature you’ve been reading about?”

This was an embarrassing question to answer, for “Pa” never did, or at least, never since his maturity. As a child, the Recorder, as custodian of the world’s spoken, written, and recorded fiction, had, of course, had an unfailing fascination. But he had grown up-

He said, tolerantly: “Are there new stories about Eekahs? I remember none when I was young.”

“You don’t get it, Pa.” One would almost suppose that the young Raph was on the very verge of an exasperation he was too cautious to express. He explained in wounded fashion: “The Eekahs are real things. They come from the Other World. Haven’t you heard about that? We’ve been hearing about it in school, even, and in the Group Magazine. They stand upside down in their country, only they don’t know it, and they look just like Ol’ Primeval there.”

Raph collected his astonished wits. He felt the incongruity of cross-examining his half-grown child for archeological data and he hesitated a moment. After all, he had heard some things. There had been word of vast continents existing on the other hemisphere of Earth. It seemed to him that there were reports of life on them. It was all hazy-perhaps it wasn’t always wise to stick so closely to the field of one’s own interest.

Junior nodded rapidly: “The Recorder says they can think as good as us. They got machines that go through the air. That’s how they got here.”

“I ain’t lying,” Junior cried with aggrieved virtue. “You ask the Recorder and see what he says.”

Raph slowly gathered his papers together. It was Closed-Day, but he could find the Recorder at his home, no doubt.

The Recorder was an elderly member of the Red River Gurrow Grouping and few alive could remember a time when he was not. He had succeeded to the post by general consent and filled it well, for he was Recorder for the same reason that Raph was curator of the museum. He liked to be, he wanted to be, and he could conceive no other life.

The social pattern of the Gurrow Grouping is difficult to grasp unless born into it, but there was a looseness about it that almost made the word “pattern” incongruous. The individual Gurrow took whatever job he felt an aptitude for, and such work as was left over and needed to be done was done either in common, or consecutively by each according to an order determined by lot. Put so, it sounds too simple to work, but actually the traditions that had gathered with the five thousand years since the first Voluntary Grouping of Gurrahs was supposed to have been established, made the system complicated, flexible-and workable.

The Recorder was, as Raph had anticipated, at his home, and there was the embarrassment of renewing an old and unjustly neglected acquaintanceship. He had made use of the Recorder’s reference library, of course, but always indirectly-yet he had once been a child, an intimate learner at the feet of accumulated wisdom, and he had let the intimacy lapse.

The room he now entered was more or less choked with recordings and, to a lesser degree, with printed material. The Recorder interspersed greetings with apologies.

“Shipments have come from some of the other Groupings,” he said. “It needs time for cataloguing, you know, and I can’t seem to find the time I used to.” He lit a pipe and puffed strongly. “Seems to me I’ll have to find a full-time assistant. What about your son, Raph? He clusters about here the way you did twenty years ago.”

“Suppose you talk to him. He might like to. I can’t honestly say he’s fascinated by archaeology.” Raph picked up a recording at random and looked at the identification tag: “Um-m-m-from the Joquin Valley Grouping. That’s a long way from here.”

“A long way... The Recorder nodded. “I have sent them some of ours, of course. The works of our own Grouping are highly regarded throughout the continent,” he said, with proprietary pride. “In fact”-he pointed the stem of his pipe at the other-”your own treatise on extinct primates has been distributed everywhere. I’ve sent out two thousand copies and there are still requests. That’s pretty good-for archaeology.”

“Well, archaeology is why I am here-that and what my son says you’ve been telling him... Raph had a little trouble starting: “It seems you have spoken of creatures called Eekahs from the Antipodes, and I would like to have such information as you have on them.”

The Recorder looked thoughtful: “Well, I could tell you what I know offhand, or we could go to the Library and look up the references.”

“Don’t bother opening the Library for me. It’s a Closed-Day. Just give me some notion of things and I’ll search the references later.”

The Recorder bit at his pipe, shoved his chair back against the wall and de-focused his eyes thoughtfully. “Well,” he said, “I suppose it starts with the discovery of the continents on the other side. That was five years ago. You know about that, perhaps?”

“Only the fact of it. I know the continents exist, as everyone does now. I remember once speculating on what a shining new field it would be for archaeological research, but that is all.”

“Ah, then there is much else to tell you of. The new continents were never discovered by us directly, you know. It was five years ago that a group of non-Gurrow creatures arrived at the East Harbor Grouping in a machine that flew-by definite scientific principles, we found out later, based essentially on the buoyancy of air. They spoke a language, were obviously intelligent, and called themselves Eekahs. The Gurrows, of the East Harbor Grouping, learned their language-a simple one though full of unpronounceable sounds-and I have a grammar of it, if you’re interested-”

The Recorder continued: “The Gurrows of the Grouping, with the aid of those of the Iron Mountain Grouping-which specialize in steel works, you know-built duplicates of the flying machine. A flight was made across the ocean, and I should say there are several dozens of volumes on all that-volumes on the flying machine, on a new science called aerodynamics, new geographies, even a new system of philosophy based on the plurality of intelligences. All produced at the East Harbor and Iron Mountain Groupings. Remarkable work for only five years, and all are available here:’

“Um-m-m. I’m pretty certain they are. They refused to return to their own continents. They call themselves ‘political refugees.’ “

“It’s their own language,” said the Recorder, “and it’s the only translation available.”

“Well, why political refugees? Why not geological refugees, or oompah refugees. I should think a translation ought to make sense.”

The Recorder shrugged: “I refer you to the books. They’re not criminals, they claim. I know only what I tell you.”

The Administrator of the Red River Gurrow Grouping held a position in no way different in essentials from that of the Museum Curator, the Recorder or any other voluntary job holder. To expect a difference is to assume a society in which executive ability is rare.

Actually, all jobs in a Gurrow Grouping-where a “job” is defined as regular work, the fruits of which adhere to others in addition to the worker himself-are divided into two classes: one, Voluntary Jobs, and the other, Involuntary or Community Jobs. All of the first classification are equal. If a Gurrow enjoys the digging of useful ditches, his bent is to be respected and his job to be honored. If no one enjoys such burrowing and yet it is found necessary for comfort, it becomes a Community Job, done by lot or rotation according to convenience-annoying but unavoidable.

And so it was that the Administrator lived in a house no more ample and luxurious than others, sat at the head of no tables, had no particular title other than the name of his job, and was neither envied, hated, nor adored.

He liked to arrange Inter-Group trade, to supervise the common finances of the Group, and to judge the infrequent disagreements that arose. Of course, he received no additional food or energy privileges for doing what he liked.

It was not, therefore, to obtain permission, but to place his accounts in decent order, that Raph stopped in to see the Administrator. The Closed-Day had not yet ended. The Administrator sat peacefully in his after-dinner armchair, with an after-dinner cigar in his mouth, and an after-dinner book in his hand. Although there was something rather timeless about six children and a wife, even they had an after-dinner air about them.

Raph received a multiple greeting upon entering, and raised two hands to his ears, for if the various Administratelets (Only applicable title. Author.) had a job, it was noisemaking. Certainly, it was what they liked to do, and certainly others reaped most of the fruits therefrom, for their own eardrums were apparently impervious.

“I intend leaving the Grouping for a time, Lahr,” he said. “My job necessitates it.”

The Administrator nodded and blew out a thoughtful puff of smoke: “Unfortunately, East Harbor has a surplus in their favor registered in our books-I can verify that, if you wish-but the Common Units of Exchange on hand will take care of transportation and necessary expenses.”

“Well, that’s fine. But tell me, what is my status on the Community Job Roster?”

“Um-m-m-I’ll have to get the rolls. You’ll excuse me a moment.” He trundled away, heaving his great weight across the room and out into the hallway. Raph paused to poke at the youngest of the children who rolled up to him, growling in mock ferocity with gleaming teeth-a black little bundle of thick fur, with the long, childish snout that had not yet broadened away from the shape of the animal ancestry of half a million years earlier.

The Administrator returned with a heavy ledger and large spectacles. He opened the ledger meticulously, riffled the pages to the proper place and then drew a careful finger down the columns.

He said: “There’s only the question of the water supply, Raph. You’re due on the Maintenance gang for this next week. There’s nothing else due for at least two months.”

“I’ll be back before then. Is there any chance of someone subbing for me on the Water Maintenance?”

“Um-m-m-I’ll get someone. I can always send my oldest. He’s getting to job age and he might as well taste everything. He may like working on the dam.”

The Administrator smiled gently: “Don’t plan on that, Raph. If he can figure out a way of making sleeping useful to all of us, he’ll certainly take it up as a job. And why are you going to East Harbor Grouping, by the way, if it’s something you care to talk about?”

“You’ll laugh, perhaps, but I have just found out that there exist such things as Eekahs.”

“Eekahs? Yes, I know.” The Administrator pointed a finger. “creatures from across the seal Right?”

“Right! But that’s not all. I’ve come from the Library. I’ve seen trimensional reproductions, Lahr, and they’re Primate Primeval, or almost. They’re primates, anyway, intelligent primates. They’ve got small eyes, Hat noses, and completely different jawbones-but they’re at least second cousins. I’ve got to see them, Lahr.”

The Administrator shrugged. He felt no interest in the matter himself. “Why? I ask out of ignorance, Raph. Does it matter, your seeing them?”

“Matter?” Raph was obviously appalled at the question. “Don’t you know what’s been going on these last years? Have you read my archaeology book?”

“No,” said the Administrator, definitely, “I wouldn’t read it to save myself a turn at Garbage Disposal.”

Raph said: “Which probably proves you more suited to Garbage Disposal than archaeology. But never mind. I’ve been fighting single-handed for nearly ten years in favor of my theory that Primate Primeval was an intelligent creature with a developed civilization. I have nothing on my side so far but logical necessity, which is the last thing most archaeologists will accept. They want something solid. They want the remains of a Grouping, or artifacts, structures, books-get it. All I can give them is a skeleton with a huge brain-pan. Stars above, Lahr, what do they expect to survive in ten million years? Metal dies. Paper dies. Film dies.

“Only stone lasts, Lahr. And bone that’s turned to stone. I’ve got that. A skull with room for a brain. And stone, too, old sharpened knives. Ground flints.”

“Those are called eoliths, dawn stones. They won’t accept them. They call them natural products, fortuitously shaped by erosion into the shapes they have, the idiots.”

Then he grinned with a scientific ferocity: “But if the Eekahs are intelligent primates, I’ve practically proven my case.”

Raph had traveled before, but never eastward, and the decline of agriculture on the road impressed him. In early history, the Gurrow Groupings had been entirely unspecialized. Each had been self-sufficient, and trade was a gesture of friendliness rather than a matter of necessity.

And so it was still in most Groupings. His own Grouping, the Red River, was perhaps typical. Some five hundred miles inland, set in lush farm land, agriculture remained centric. The river yielded some fish and there was a well-developed dairy industry. In fact, it was food exports that provided cause for the healthy state of the store of Common Units.

As they traveled eastward, however, the Groupings through which they passed paid less and less mind to the shallowing soil and more and more to the smoking factory structures.

In the East Harbor Grouping, Raph found a trading center which depended for its prosperity primarily upon ships. It was a more populous Grouping than the average, more densely packed, with houses, on occasion, within a hundred yards of each other.

Raph felt an uncomfortable prickling at the thought of living in such close quarters. The docks were even worse, with Gurrows engaged at the huge Community Jobs of loading and unloading.

The Administrator of this East Harbor Grouping was a young man, new at his job, overwhelmed with the joy of his work, and beside himself with the pleasure of welcoming a distinguished stranger.

Raph sat through an excellent meal, and was treated to a long discourse as to the exact derivation of each dish. To his provincial ears, beef from the Prairie Grouping, potatoes from the Northeast Woods Grouping, coffee from the Isthmus Grouping, wine from the Pacific Grouping, and fruit from the Central Lakes Grouping were something strange and wonderful.

Over the cigars-South Island Grouping-he brought up the subject of the Eekahs. The East Harbor Administrator grew solemn and a little uneasy.

“The man you want to see is Lernin. He’ll be glad to help you all he can. You say you know something of these Eekahs?”

“I say I would like to know something. They resemble an extinct species of animal I am familiar with.”

“Perhaps you can tell me some of the details of their arrival, Administrator,” suggested Raph, politely.

“I was not Administrator at the time, friend, so that I lack firsthand information, but the records are plain. This group of Eekahs that arrived in their flying-machine...you’ve heard about these aeronautical devices?”

“Yes. Queer, isn’t it? They admitted that they had been condemned-this was after long and skillful questioning, once we had learned their language-but denied that they were evildoers. Apparently, they had disagreed with their Administrator on principles of policy.”

Raph nodded his head knowingly: “ Ah, and refused to abide by the common decision. Is that it?”

“More confusing than that. They insist there was no common decision. They claim that the Administrator decided on policy of his own accord.”

“Apparently those who believe he should are considered criminals -as these were.”

There was a frank pause of disbelief. Then Raph said: “Does that sound reasonable to you?”

“No, I merely relay to you their words. Of course, the Eekah language is quite a barrier. Some of the sounds can’t be pronounced: words have different meanings according to position in the sentence and according to tiny differences in inflection. And it happens often that Eekah words even when best translated are a complete puzzle.”

“They must have been surprised to find Gurrows here,” suggested Raph, “if they are members of a different genus.”

“Surprised!” The Administrator’s voice sank: “I’ll say they were surprised. Now, this information has not been generally published for obvious reasons, so I hope you remember that it’s confidential. These Eekahs killed five Gurrows before they could be disarmed. They had an instrument that expelled metal pellets at high speed by means of a controlled explosive chemical reaction. We have duplicated it since. Naturally, under the circumstances, we are not branding them criminals, for it is reasonable to assume that they did not realize we were intelligent beings. Apparently,” and the Administrator smiled ruefully, “we resemble certain animals in their world. Or so they say.”

But Raph was galvanized into a sudden enthusiasm: “Stars above! They said that, did they? Did they go into details? What kind of animals?”

The Administrator was taken back: “Well, I don’t know. They give names in their language. What meaning has that? They called us giant ‘bears.’ “

“Bears. I haven’t the slightest idea what they are, except presumably that they look like us. I know of no such in America.”

“Bears. Bears.” Raph stumbled over the word. “That’s interesting. It’s more than interesting. It’s stupendous. Do you know, Administrator, that there is a great dispute among us as to the ancestry of Gurrows? Living animals related to Gurrow sapiens would be of immense importance.” Raph rubbed his huge hands with pleasure.

The Administrator was pleased at the sensation he had caused. He said: “And a puzzling thing in addition is that they call themselves by two names.”

“Yes. No one knows the distinction yet, no matter how much the Eekahs explain it to us, except that one is a more general name, and one a more specific. The basis of the difference escapes us.”

“That is the specific one. The general one is”-the Administrator stumbled slowly over the harsh syllables-”Chim-pan-zee. There, that’s it. There are a group called Eekahs and there are other groups with other names. But they are all called Chim...what I said before.”

The Administrator sought through his mind for other juicy items of miscellany with which he was acquainted, but Raph interrupted him.

Lernin was a slight individual. It is doubtful if he weighed more than two hundred and fifty. There was also an imperfection in his walk, a slight lameness. But neither of these facts made much of an impression on Raph once the conversation had begun, for Lernin was a thinker who could impose his vigor upon others.

It was Raph whose eagerness dominated the first half of the conversation, and Lernin’s comments were as luminous and as brief as lightning flashes. And then, there was a sudden whirl of the center of gravity, and Lernin took over.

“You will excuse me, learned friend,” Lernin said with a characteristic stiffness that he could make so amiable, “if I find your problem unimportant. No, no”-he lifted a long-fingered hand-”not, in the uncomplicated talk of the times, merely unimportant to myself because my interest lies elsewhere, but unimportant to the Grouping of all the Groupings-to every single Gurrow from end to end of the world.”

The concept was staggering. For a moment, Raph was offended; offended deep in his sense of individuality. It showed in his face.

Lernin added quickly: “It may sound impolite, crude, uncivilized. But I must explain. I must explain because you are primarily a social scientist and will understand-perhaps better than we ourselves.”

“My life-interest,” said Raph angrily, “is important to myself. I cannot assume those of others in preference.”

“What I talk about should be the life-interest of all-if only because it may be the means of saving the lives of all of us.”

Raph was beginning to suspect all sorts of things from a queer form of joking to the unbalance of mind that sometimes came with age. Yet Lernin was not old.

Lernin said, with an impressive fervor: “The Eekahs of the other world are a danger to us, for they are not friendly to us.”

“No one other than myself, my friend, has lived more closely with these Eekahs who have arrived here, and I find them people with minds of emotional content strange to us. I have collected queer facts which we find difficult to interpret, but which point, at any rate, in disquieting directions.

“I’ll list a few: Eekahs in organized groups kill one another periodically for obscure reasons. Eekahs find it impossible to live in manner other than those of ants-that is, in huge conglomerate societies-yet find it impossible to allow for the presence of one another. Or, to use the terminology of the social scientists, they are gregarious without being social, just as we Gurrows are social without being gregarious. They have elaborate codes of behavior, which, we are told, are taught to the young, but which are disobeyed in universal practice, for reasons obscure to us. Et cetera. Et cetera. Et cetera.”

“I am an archaeologist,” said Raph, stiffly. “These Eekahs are of interest to me biologically only. If the curvature of the thigh bone is known to me, I care little for the curvature of their cultural processes. If I can follow the shape of the skull, it is immaterial to me that the shape of their ethics is mysterious.”

“We are six thousand miles apart, or more, along either ocean,” said Raph. ‘We have our world. They have theirs. There is no connection between us.”

“No connection,” mused Lernin, “so others have said. No connection at all. Yet Eekahs have reached us, and others may follow. We are told that the other world is dominated by a few, who are in turn dominated by their queer need for security which they confuse with an Eekah word called ‘power,’ which, apparently, means the prevailing of one’s own will over the sum of the will of the community. What if this ‘power’ should extend to us?”

Raph bent his mind to the task. The matter was utterly ridiculous. It seemed impossible to picture the strange concepts.

Lernin said: “These Eekahs say that their world and ours in the long past were closer together. They say that there is a well-known scientific hypothesis in their world of a continental drift. That may interest you, since otherwise you might find it difficult to reconcile the existence of fossils of Primate Primeval closely related to living Eekahs six thousand miles away.”

And the mists cleared from the archaeologist’s brain as he glanced up with a live interest untroubled by insanities: “ Ah, you should have said this sooner.”

“I say it now as an example of what you may achieve for yourself by joining us and helping us. There is another thing. These Eekahs are physical scientists, like ourselves here in East Harbor, but with a difference dictated by their own cultural pattern. Since they live in hives, they think in hives, and their science is the result of an ant-society. Individually, they are slow and unimaginative; collectively, each supplies a crumb different from that supplied by his fellow-so that a vast structure is erected quickly. Here the individual is infinitely brighter, but he works alone. You, for instance, know nothing of chemistry, I imagine.”

“A few of the fundamentals, but nothing else,” admitted Raph. “I leave that, naturally, to the chemist.”

“Yes, naturally. But I am a chemist. Yet these Eekahs, though my mental inferiors, and no chemists in their own world, know more chemistry than I. For instance, did you know that there exist elements that spontaneously disintegrate?”

Lernin laughed: “So you have been taught. So I have been taught. So I taught others. Yet the Eekahs are right, for in my laboratories I have checked them, and in every detail they are right. Uranium gives rise to a spontaneous radiation. You’ve heard of uranium, of course? And furthermore, I have detected radiations of energy beyond that produced by uranium which must be due to traces of elements unknown to us but described by the Eekahs. And these missing elements fit well into the so-called Periodic Tables some chemists have tried to foist upon the science. Though I do wrong to use the word ‘foist’ now.”

“Well,” said Raph, “why do you tell me this? Does this, too, help me in my problem?”

“Perhaps,” said Lernin, ironically, “you will yet find it a royal bribe. You see, the energy production of uranium is absolutely constant. No known outward change in environment can affect it-and as a result of the loss in energy, uranium slowly turns to lead at an absolutely constant rate. A group of our men is even now using this fact as a basis for a method of determining the age of the earth. You see, to determine the age of a stratum of rock in the earth, then, it is but necessary to discover a region in it containing a trace of uranium-a widely spread element-and to determine about it the quantity of lead-and I might here add that the lead produced from uranium differs from ordinary lead and can be easily characterized-and it is then simple to determine the length of time in which that stratum has been solid. And of course, if a fossil is found in that stratum, it is of the same age, am I not correct?”

“Stars above,” and Raph rose to his feet in a tremble, “you do not deceive me? It is really possible to do this?”

“It is possible. It is even easy. I tell you that our great defense, even at this late date, is co-operation in science. We are a group now of many, my friend, from many Groupings, and we want you among us. If you join us, it would be a simple matter to extend our earthage project to such regions as you may indicate-regions rich in fossils. What do you say?”

It is doubtful if the Gurrow Groupings had ever before seen a community venture of such breadth as now took place. East Harbor Grouping, as has been remarked, was a shipping center, and certainly a trans-Atlantic vessel was not beyond the capacity of a Grouping that traded along the full lengths of both coasts of the Americas. What was unusual was the vastness of the co-operation of Gurrows from many Groupings, Gurrows of many interests.

Raph, for instance, on the particular morning that now concerns us, six months from the date of his first arrival in East Harbor, was searching anxiously for Lernin.

They met on the docks, where Lernin, biting the end off a cigar and leading the way to a region where smoking was permitted. said: “And you, my friend, seem concerned. Not. certainly, about the progress of our ocean liner?”

“I am concerned,” said Raph, gravely, “about the reports I have received of the expedition testing the age of the rocks.”

“I have received a copy. I have looked at it. I have even read parts of it. But I have had little time and most of it bounced off. Will you please enlighten me?”

“Certainly. In the last several months, three of the regions I have indicated as being fossiliferous have been tested. The first region was in the area of East Harbor Grouping itself. Another was in the Pacific Bay Grouping, and a third in the Central Lakes Grouping. I purposely asked that those be done first because they are the richest areas and because they are widely separated. Do you know, for instance, what age they tell me the rocks upon which we stand are?”

“And that’s the figure for the oldest rocks-the basic igneous stratum of basalt. The upper strata, however-the recent sedimentary layers containing dozens of fossils of Primate Primeval-how old do you think these are supposed to be? Five-hundred-trillion-years! How is that? Do you understand?”

“Trillion?” Lernin squinted upwards and shook his head. “That’s strange.”

“I’ll add to it. The Pacific Coast Grouping is one hundred trillion years old-so I am told-and Central Lakes almost eighty trillion years old.”

Lernin said: “And the other measurements? The ones that did not involve your strata?”

“That is the most peculiar thing of all. Most of the chosen investigations were carried on in strata that were not particularly fossiliferous. They had their own criteria of choice based on geological reasoning-and they got consistent results-one million to two billion years depending upon the depth and geological history of the particular region tested. Only my areas give these strange and impossible vagaries.”

And Lernin said, “But what do the geologists say about all this? Call there be some error?”

“Undoubtedly. But they have fifty decent, reasonable measurements. For themselves, they have proved the method and are happy. There are three anomalies, to be sure, but they view them with equanimity as involving some unknown factors. I don’t see it that way. These three measurements mean everything.” Raph interrupted himself fiercely: “How sure are you that radioactivity is an absolute constant?”

“Sure? Can one ever be sure? Nothing we know of so far affects it, and such is likewise the definite testimony of our Eekahs. Besides, my friend, if you are implying that radioactivity was more extensive in the past than in the present, why only in your fossil regions? Why not everywhere?”

“Why, indeed? It’s another aspect of a problem which is growing more important daily. Consider. We have regions which show a past of abnormal radioactivity. We have regions which show abnormal fossil frequencies. Why should these regions coincide, Lernin?”

“One obvious answer suggests itself, my friend. If your Primate Primeval existed at a time when certain regions were highly radioactive, certain individuals would wander into them and die. Radioactive radiation is deadly in excess, of course. Radioactivity and fossils, there you are...

“Why not other creatures,” demanded Raph. “Only Primate Primeval occurs in excess, and he was intelligent. He would not be trapped by dangerous radiation.”

“Perhaps he was not intelligent. That is, after all, only your theory and not a proven fact.”

“Certainly, then, he was more intelligent than his small-brained contemporaries...

“Perhaps I do.” Raph spoke in half a whisper. “It seems to me that I can conjure up visions of a great civilization of a million years back-or more. A great power; a great intelligence-that has vanished completely, except for the tiny whispers of ossified bones which retain that huge cavity in which a brain once existed, and a bony five-fingered hand curving into slender signs of manipulative skill-with an opposing thumb. They must have been intelligent.”

“Then, what killed them?” Lernin shrugged: “Several million species of living things have survived. “

Raph looked up, half in anger: “I cannot accompany your group, Lernin, on a Voluntary basis. To go to the other world would be useful, yes, if I could engage in my own studies. For your purposes, it can be only a Community Job to me. I cannot give my heart to it.”

But Lernin’s jaw was set: “That arrangement would not be fair. There are many of us, my friend, who are sacrificing our own interests. If we all placed them first and investigated the other world in terms of our own particular provincialisms only, our great purpose would be destroyed. My friend, there is not one of our men that we can spare. We must all work as if our lives depended on our instant solution of the Eekah problem, which, believe me, it does.”

Raph’s jaws twisted in distaste. “On your side, you have a vague apprehension of these weak, stupid little creatures. On my side I have a definite problem of great intellectual attraction to myself. And between the two I can see no connection-no possible connection at all.”

“Nor can I. But listen to me a moment. A small group of our most trusted men returned last week from a visit to the other world. It was not official, as ours will be. It made no contacts. It was a frank piece of espionage, which I am telling you about now. I ask your discretion on the matter.”

“It is a created name to describe the objects. Printed records are issued daily in the various centers of Eekah population of events and occurrences of the day, and what passes for literary efforts as well.”

“Yes, in its essence. The Eekah notion of interesting events, however, appears to consist entirely of antisocial events. However, leave that be. My point is that the existence of the Americas is well-known there these days-and it is universally spoken of as a ‘new land of opportunity.’ The various divisions of Eekahs eye it with a universal desire. The Eekahs are many, they are crowded, their economy is irrational. They want new land, and that is what this is to them-new and empty land.”

“Empty to them,” insisted Lernin terribly. “That is the vast danger. Lands occupied by Gurrows are to them empty and they mean to take it, all the more so since they have often enough striven to take the lands of one another.”

“Yes. They are weak and stupid. You said that, and so they are. But only singly. They will unite for a purpose. To be sure, they will fall apart when the purpose is done-but momentarily they will join and become strong, which we perhaps cannot do, witness yourself. And their weapons of war have been keened in the fire of conflict. Their flying machines, for instance, are superb war weapons.”

“In quantity? We have also duplicated their chemical explosives, but only in the laboratory, and their firing tubes and armored vehicles, but only in experimental plants. And yet there is more-something developed within the last five years, for our own Eekahs know nothing about it.”

“We don’t know. Their event-sheets speak of it-the names applied to it mean nothing to us-but the context implies the terror of it, even on the part of these kill-mad Eekahs. There seems no evidence that it has been used, or that all the Eekah groups have it-but it is used as a supreme threat. It will perhaps be clearer to you when all the evidence is presented once our voyage is under way.”

“Why, they talk of it as if it were a bogey. And what could be a bogey to an Eekah? That is the most frightening aspect of it. So far, we know only that it involves the bombardment of an element they call plutonium-of which we have never heard and of which our own Eekahs have never heard either-by objects called neutrons, which our Eekahs say are subatomic particles without charge, which seems to us completely ridiculous.”

Eekahs and Primate Primeval. A living creature of erratic habits and a dead creature that must have aspired to heights. A sordid present of explosives and neutron bombardments and a glorious, mysterious past

By June 1947 I had already been working on my Ph.D. research with near-total concentration (I was no longer working in the candy store; my younger brother, Stanley, had taken over) for nearly a year. I was in the homestretch and beginning to think forward to writing my Ph.D. dissertation. I rather dreaded that, since the obligatory style of dissertations is turgid in the extreme, and I had by now spent nine years trying to write well and was afraid I simply might not be able to write badly enough to qualify for my degree.

The experiments I was doing at the time required me, periodically, to dissolve a compound called catechol in water. The catechol existed in fine, feathery, fluffy needles that dissolved very readily in water. In fact, when I sprinkled catechol into the beaker of water, the individual needles dissolved as soon as they snuck the water surface. Idly, it occurred to me that if the catechol were any more soluble than it was, it would dissolve before it snuck the water surface.

Naturally, I thought at once that this notion might be the basis for an amusing story. It occurred to me, however, that instead of writing an actual story based on the idea, I might write up a fake research paper on the subject and get a little practice in turgid writing.

I did the job on June 8, 1947, even giving it the kind of long-winded title that research papers so often have-”The Endochronic Properties of Resublimated Thiotimoline”-and added tables, graphs, and fake references to non-existent journals.

I was not at all sure that “Thiotimoline” (no use trying to quote the entire name every time) was publishable. Astounding, however, ran serious articles on scientific subjects of particular interest to science fiction readers and I thought it just possible Campbell might be interested in a gag article that would be on the borders of science fiction.

The Endochronic Properties of Resublimated Thiotimoline

The correlation of the structure of organic molecules with their various properties, physical and chemical, has in recent years afforded much insight into the mechanism of organic reactions, notably in the theories of resonance and mesomerism as developed in the last decade. The solubilities of organic compounds in various solvents has become of particular interest in this connection through the recent discovery of the endochronic nature of thiotimoline.

It has been long known that the solubility of organic compounds in polar solvents such as water is enhanced by the presence upon the hydrocarbon nucleus of hydrophilic-i.e., water-loving-groups, such as the hydroxy (-OH), amino (-NH₂), or sulfonic acid (SO₃H) groups. Where the physical characteristics of two given compounds-particularly the degree of subdivision of the material-are equal, then the time of solution-expressed in seconds per gram of material per milliliter of solvent-decreases with the number of hydrophilic groups present. Catechol, for instance, with two hydroxy groups on the benzene nucleus, dissolves considerably more quickly than does phenol, with only one hydroxy group on the nucleus. Feinschreiber and Hravlek in their studies on the problem have contended that with increasing hydrophilism, the time of solution approaches zero. That this analysis is not entirely correct was shown when it was discovered that the compound thiotimoline will dissolve in water-in the proportions of 1 gm./ml.-in minus 1.12 seconds. That is, it will dissolve before the water is added.

Previous communications from these laboratories indicated thiotimoline to contain at least fourteen hydroxy groups, two amino groups and one sulfonic acid group. The presence of a nitro group (-NO²) in addition has not yet been confirmed, and no evidence as yet exists as to the nature of the hydrocarbon nucleus, though an at least partly aromatic structure seems certain.

The Endochronometer-First attempts to measure the time of solution of thiotimoline quantitatively met with considerable difficulty because of the very negative nature of the value. The fact that the chemical dissolved prior to the addition of the water made the attempt natural to withdraw the water after solution and before addition. This, fortunately for the law of Conservation of Mass-Energy, never succeeded, since solution never took place unless the water was eventually added. The question is, of course, instantly raised as to how the thiotimoline can “know” in advance whether the water will ultimately be added or not. Though this is not properly within our province as physical chemists, much recent material has been published within the last year upon the psychological and philosophical problems thereby posed.

Nevertheless, the chemical difficulties involved rest in the fact that the time of solution varies enormously with the exact mental state of the experimenter. A period of even slight hesitation in adding the water reduces the negative time of solution, not infrequently wiping it out below the limits of detection. To avoid this, a mechanical device has been constructed, the essential design of which has already been reported in a previous communication.⁶ This device, termed the endochronometer, consists of a cell 2 cubic centimeters in size into which a desired weight of thiotimoline is placed, making certain that a small hollow extension at the bottom of the solution cell-1 millimeter in internal diameter-is filled. To the cell is attached an automatic pressure micro-pipette containing a specific volume of the solvent concerned. Five seconds after the circuit is closed, this solvent is automatically delivered into the cell containing the thiotimoline. During the time of action, a ray of light is focused upon the small cell-extension described above, and at the instant of solution, the transmission of this light will no longer be impeded by the presence of solid thiotimoline. Both the instant of solution-at which time the transmission of light is recorded by a photoelectric device-and the instant of solvent addition can be determined with an accuracy of better than 0.01 %.If the first value is subtracted from the second, the time of solution (T) can be determined.

The entire process is conducted in a thermostat maintained at 25.000 C.-to an accuracy of 0.010 C.

Thiotimoline Purity-The extreme sensitivity of this method highlights the deviations resulting from trifling impurities present in thiotimoline. (Since no method of laboratory synthesis of the substance has been devised, it may be practically obtained only through tedious isolation from its natural source, the bark of the shrub Rosacea Karl.Ybader1.s’i8 rufo.) Great efforts were therefore made to purify the material through repeated recrystallizations from conductivity watertwice re-distilled in an all-tin apparatus-and through final sublimations. A comparison of the solution times (T) at various stages of the purification proCess is Shown in Table I.

It is obvious from Table I that for truly quantitative significance, thiotimoline purified as described must be used. After the second resublimation, for instance, the error involved in an even dozen determinations is less than 0.7%, with the extreme values being-1.119 seconds and -1.126 seconds.

Purification Stage : Average “T” (12 observations) : “T” extremes : % error

In all experiments described subsequently in this study, thiotimoline so purified has been used.

Time of Solution and Volume of Solvent-As would seem reasonable, experiments have shown that increasing the volume of solvent enables the thiotimoline to dissolve more quickly-i.e., with an increasingly negative time of solution. From Figure 1, however, we can see that this increase in endochronic properties levels off rapidly after a volume of solvent of approximately 1.25 ml. This interesting plateau effect has appeared with varying volume of solvent for ail varieties of solvents used in these laboratories, just as in all cases the time of solution approaches zero with decreasing volume of solvent.

Time of Solution and Concentration of a Given Ion-In Figure 2, the results are given of the effect of the time of solution (T) of varying the volume of solvent, where the solvent consists of varying concentrations of sodium chloride solution. It can be seen that, although in each case the volume at which this plateau is reached differs markedly with the concentration, the heights of the plateau are constant (i.e.-l.13). The volume at which it is reached, hereinafter termed the Plateau Volume (PV), decreases with decreasing

concentration of sodium chloride, approaching the PV for water as the NaCl concentration approaches zero. It is, therefore, obvious that a sodium chloride solution of unknown concentration can be quite accurately characterized by the determination of its PV, where other salts are absent.

This usefulness of PV extends to other ions as well. Figure 3 gives the endochronic curves for 0.001 molar solutions of sodium chloride, sodium bromide, and potassium chloride. Here, the PV in each case is equal within the limits of experimental error-since the concentrations in each case are equal-but the Plateau Heights (PH) are different.

A tentative conclusion that might be reached from this experimental data is that the PH is characteristic of the nature of the ions present in solution, whereas the PV is characteristic of the concentration of these ions. Table II gives the values of Plateau Height and Plateau Volume for a wide variety of salts in equal concentrations, when present alone.

The most interesting variation to be noted in Table II is that of the PV with the valence type of the salt present. In the case of salts containing pairs of singly-charged ions-i.e., sodium chloride, potassium chloride, and sodium bromide-the PV is constant for all. This holds also for those salts containing one singly charged ion and one doubly charged ion-i.e. sodium sulphate, calcium chloride, and magnesium chloride-where the PV, though equal among the three, varies markedly from those of the first set. The PV is, therefore, apparently a function of the ionic strength of the solution.

This effect also exists in connection with the Plateau Height, though less regularly. In the case of singly charged ions, such as in the first three salts listed in Table 11, the PH is fairly close to that of water itself. It falls considerably where doubly charged ions, such as sulphate or calcium, are present. And when the triply charged phosphate ion or ferric ion is present, the value sinks to merely a quarter of its value in water.

Solvent (Salt solutions in .001 M concentration) : Plateau Height (PH) seconds : Plateau Volume (PV) milliliters

Time of Solution and Mixtures of Ions-Experiments currently in progress in these laboratories are concerned with the extremely important question of the variation of these endochronic properties of thiotimoline in the presence of mixtures of ions. The state of our data at present does not warrant very general conclusions, but even our preliminary work gives hope of the further development of the endochronic methods of analysis. Thus, in Figure 4, we have the endochronic curve where a mixture of 0.0001M Sodium Chloride and 0.001M Ferric Chloride solutions is the solvent. Here, two sharp changes in slope can be seen: the first at a solution time of -0.29, and the second at-1.13. these being the PH’s characteristic of Ferric Chloride and Sodium Chloride respectively-see Table II. The PH for a given salt would thus appear not to be affected by the presence of other salts.

This is definitely not the case, however, for the PV, and it is to a quantitative elucidation of the variation of PV with impurities in the solvent that our major efforts are now directed.

Summary-Investigations of the endochronic qualities of thiotimoline have shown that:

a-Careful purification of the material is necessary for obtaining quantitative results..

b-Increasing the volume of solvent results in increasing the negative time of solution to a constant value known as the Plateau Height (PH), at a volume of solvent known as the Plateau Volume (PV).

c-the value of the PH is characteristic of the nature of the ions present in the solvent, varying with the ionic strength of the solution and not varying with the addition of other ions.

d-The value of the PV is characteristic of the concentration of the ions present in the solvent, being constant for different ions in solution of equal ionic strength, but varying markedly with the admixtures of second varieties of ions.

As a result of all this, it is suggested that endochronic methods offer a means of rapid-2 minutes or less-and accurate-within 0.1 % at least-analysis of inorganic, water-soluble materials.

P. Krum and L. Eshkin. Journal of Chemical Solubilities, 27, 109-114 (1944).”Concerning the Anomalous Solubility of Thiotimoline.”

E. I. Feinshreiber and Y. Hravlek. Journal of Chemical Solubilities, 22 57-68 (1939), “Solubility Speeds and Hydrophilic Groupings.”

P. Krum, I. Eshkin, and 0. Nile. Annals of Synthetic Chemistry, 115. 1122-1145: 1208-1215 (1945), “Structure of Thiotimoline, Parts I & II.”

G. H. Freudler, Journal of Psychochemistry, 2, 476-488 (1945), “Initiative and Determination: Are They Influenced by Diet?-As tested by Thiotimoline solubility Experiments.”

E. Harley-Short, Philosophical Proceedings & Reviews, 15, 125-197 (1946). “Determinism and Free-Will. The Application of Thiotimoline Solubility to Marxian Dialectic.”

P. Krum, “Journal of Chemical Solubilities, 29, 818-819 (1946), “A Device for the Quantitative Measurement of Thiotimoline Solubility Speed.”

A. Roundin, B. Lev, and Y. I. Prutt, Proceedings of the Society of Plant Chemistry, 80, 11-18 (1930), “Natural Products isolated from shrubs of the genus Rosacea.”

Tiotimolin kak Ispitatel Marksciiskoy dilektiki B. Kreschiatika, Journal Naouki i Sovetskoy Ticorii Vol. 11, No.3.

Philossophia Neopredelennosti i Tiotimolin, Molvinski Pogost i z. Brikalo. Mir i Kultura Vol. 2, No.31.

When Campbell took the piece, I made one cautious stipulation. I knew it would appear in the spring and I knew that in the spring I would come up for my “oral examinations”-the last hurdle on the path to my Ph.D. I didn’t want any austere member of the examining board to decide I was making fun of chemical research and to be sufficiently offended to vote against me on the grounds that I wasn’t temperamentally suited to the high honor of the doctorate. -So I asked Campbell to run it under a pseudonym.

When the magazine with the article finally reached the newsstands, in mid-February 1948, I was appalled to discover that Campbell had utterly forgotten the matter of the pseudonym. The article appeared under my own name and I was scheduled to have my orals within three months. My nervousness was increased when, almost at once, copies of the magazine began circulating in the chemistry department.

On May 20, 1948, I had my orals. The examining board had seen the article. After I had been on the grill for an hour and twenty minutes, the last question (asked by Professor Ralph S. Halford) was, “Mr. Asimov, tell us something about the thermodynamic properties of the compound thiotimoline.”

I broke into hysterical laughter out of sheer relief, for it struck me instantly that they wouldn’t play good-natured jokes with me (Professor Halford sounded jovial and everyone else was smiling) if they were going to Hunk me. I was led out, still laughing, and after a twenty-minute wait, the examiners emerged, shook my hand, and said, “Congratulations, Dr. Asimov.”

My fellow students insisted on forcing five Manhattans down my throat that afternoon and, since I am a teetotaler under normal conditions and have no tolerance for alcohol, I was royally drunk at once. It took them three hours to sober me up.

As it turned out, Campbell’s non-use of a pseudonym (and I bet he did it deliberately, because he was smarter than I was) was a lucky break indeed. Not only did the examining board not take it amiss, but the article became, in a minor way, famous, and I with it.

Although “Thiotimoline” appeared in Astounding, as did all my stories of the time, it received circulation far outside the ordinary science fiction world. It passed from chemist to chemist, by way of the magazine itself, or by reprints in small trade journals, or by copies pirated and mimeographed, even by word of mouth. People who had never heard of me at all as a science fiction writer, heard of thiotimoline. It was the very first time my fame transcended the field.

What’s more, although “Thiotimoline” was essentially a work of fantasy, the form was that of non-fiction. Viewed from that standpoint, “Thiotimoline” was the first piece of non-fiction I had ever published professionally-the harbinger of a vast amount to come.

But what amused me most was that a surprising number of readers actually took the article seriously. I was told that in the weeks after its appearance the librarians at the New York Public Library were driven out of their minds by hordes of eager youngsters who demanded to see copies of the fake journals I had used as pseudo references.

Over a period of five years I had sold fourteen stories, every one of them to Campbell. This didn’t mean that he was the only editor in the field, at all. Almost all the magazines that had been published before the war still existed (although only Astounding was really doing well) and would have welcomed submissions from me. Had Campbell rejected any of the stories I had submitted to him, I would certainly have tried one of those other magazines.-but he didn’t, so I didn’t.

The magazine Startling Stories, in which I had published “Christmas on Ganymede” five and a half years before, published a forty thousand-word “short novel” in each issue. It wasn’t easy to get a publishable story of that length every month though, especially since Startling’s rate was only half that of Astounding.

Sometimes it was necessary, therefore, for the editor of the magazine, who at that time was Sam Merwin, Jr., to canvass those authors known to be capable of turning out such a story. About the time I was doing “Thiotimoline,” Merwin approached me with a suggestion that I write a lead short novel.

Startling, he explained, had always published stories with the accent on adventure, but, in imitation of Astounding’s success, he had persuaded the publisher to try the experiment of publishing stories with a heavier accent on science. Would I consider, then, doing a lead for Startling?

I was terribly flattered. Also, as I said earlier, I was nervous about having become a one-editor author and would have welcomed a chance to prove to myself that I could write beyond Campbell’s protective shadow. I agreed, therefore, and a good part of the summer of 1947 (when I wasn’t engaged in preparing my experimental data for the upcoming Ph.D. dissertation) was spent in preparing a story I called “Grow Old with Me.” [This was inspired by Robert Browning’s poem Rabbi Ben Ezra and was a misquotation-which shows you the level of my culture. The first line of the poem is “Grow old along with me.” ]

By August 3 I had completed first draft. On August 26, I had the first part of it in final copy and submitted that to Merwin. He approved. On September 23 the entire story was submitted and I had no doubt, whatever, of its acceptance. On October 15, 1947, however, Merwin told me that, alas, Startling had decided not to go for heavy science, after all, but for adventure, and that “Grow Old with Me” would have to be completely rewritten with no guarantee of acceptance after that.

I suppose it is an indication of how things had advanced when I tell you it was the first time that I did not accept a request for revision philosophically. Quite otherwise! It had been five years and more since even Campbell had rejected one of my stories; how, then, dare a comparative nonentity like Merwin do so? Particularly since he had approached me for the story?

I made no effort to hide my annoyance. In fact, I seized the manuscript and stalked out of the office, and in an obvious rage. [Years afterward, as a result of the subsequent history of that story, Merwin took to apologizing for that rejection every time he met me-but he didn’t have to, and I kept telling him so. He was editor, and he was completely within his rights to reject the story, and I was being pettily temperamental to be angry about it. I have made every effort, since, to avoid evident anger at any rejection, however unjustified it might seem at the time, and I think I have succeeded.] I submitted the story to Campbell, giving him a full account of events. -I have always made it a practice to tell any editor to whom I submit a story of any rejection it has previously received. There is no necessity to do this; it is not, as far as I know, an ethical requirement for a writer. I just do it, and it has not, again as far as I know, ever cost me an acceptance.

As it happened, Campbell rejected the story, but not, I’m sure, because it had been somewhere else first. He told me enough things wrong with the story to make me feel that perhaps Merwin had not been so arbitrary in rejecting it. I thrust the story in the drawer in disgust and thought no more about it for nearly two years.

The rejection came at a bad time. More and more, I was wrapped up in trying to complete my research, in writing my dissertation, and, most of all, in anxiously looking for a job. There wasn’t much time to write, and the rejection had sufficiently disheartened and humiliated me so that I withdrew from writing for nearly a year. This was the third long withdrawal of my writing career, and, to this date, the last.

I did not find a job; my expected Ph.D. degree was no passport to affluence, after all. That was humiliating, too.

I accepted an offer from Professor Robert C. Elderfield to do a year’s postdoctoral research for him for $4,500, working on anti-malarial drugs. I accepted, though not with great enthusiasm, and started work for him on June 2, 1948, the day after I had officially gained my Ph.D.-At least it would give me another year to find a job.

By the next month, I had settled down sufficiently to consider writing a science fiction story, “The Red Queen’s Race.” On July 12 it was finished and I submitted it to Campbell. It was accepted on the sixteenth and once again I was back in business.

Death Sentence

Blind Alley

No Connection

The Endochronic Properties of Resublimated Thiotimoline