The Early Asimov Volume 3

Chapter Twelve

Strictly speaking, the money for the anthologization was paid to Street amp; Smith, but Street amp; 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.

I, as an unfit employee, was one of those declared non-essential.

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.

'Evidence' was the only story I wrote while in uniform.

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 /, 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 2, 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.

Which shows the alchemy of a long displacement along the time-axis.

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.

Besides, he knew everything in it - mostly bones and stones.

Junior said: 'What's that thing?'

'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. Primate 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.

He said: 'Well, what is it, Pa?'

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

'Why?' insisted the youngster.

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 -'

Junior scurried behind the figure and satisfied himself on that score.

'-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, younester?'

And then Junior, having thought and thought about it, came out with a disparaging: 'He looks just like a 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?'

'Imaginary! Say, Pa, don't you ever stop at the Recorder's?'

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 archaeological 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.

He asked Junior: 'Are there Eekahs here among the Groupings?'

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.'

'Junior!' said Raph severely.

'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 Gur-row 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."

'You remember those times?'

'Better than you do, I think. Think your son would like that?'

'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 -'

Raph waved that away.

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.'

'But the Eekahs - are they still at the East Harbor Groupings?'

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

Toliti... what?'

'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.'

'Well, then, what do they look like? Do you have pictures?'

'At the Library.'

'Did you read my "Principles of Archaeology?"'

'I looked through it.'

'Do you remember the drawings of Primate Primeval?'

Tm afraid not.'

'Then, look, let's go down to the Library, after all.'

'Well, sure.' The Recorder grunted as he rose.

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.

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