Isaac Asimov - The Early Asimov Volume 3

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Isaac Asimov

The Early Asimov

or, Eleven Years of Trying Volume 3

Granada Publishing Limited Published in 1974 by Panther Books Ltd Frogmore, St Albans, Herts AL2 2NF Reprinted 1975

The Early Asimov first published in Great Britain

(in one volume) by Victor Gollancz Ltd 1973

Made and printed in Great Britain by

Richard Clay (The Chaucer Press) Ltd

Bungay, Suffolk

Set in Linotype Times

This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the publisher's

prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the

subsequent purchaser.

This book is published at a net price and is supplied subject to the Publisher's Association Standard Conditions of Sale registered under the Restrictive Trade

Practices Act, 1956.

To the memory of

John Wood Campbell, Jr. (1910-1971) for reasons that this book will make amply obvious

CONTENTS

Introduction

Author! Author!

Death Sentence

Blind Alley

No Connection

The Endochronic Properties of

Resublimated Thiotimoline

The Red Queen's Race

Mother Earth

Introduction

After 'Time Pussy'* there followed a two-month period during which I wrote nothing.

The reasons were twofold. In the first place, Pearl Harbor put the United States in the war the day I wrote Time Pussy,' and those first two months after the

debacle were too dis-astrous and heartbreaking to allow much in the way of fiction composing.

If that in itself weren't enough, the time had come to try, once again, the qualifying examinations that would, or would not, grant me permission to do research. I

very much felt my-self to be dangling over the abyss. A second failure to pass would probably mean an end for me at Columbia. Conse-quently, during those

hours when I wasn't working in my father's candy store or hanging over the radio, I had to be studying. There was time for nothing else at all.

Hedging my bets rather desperately, I registered for graduate work at New York University, just in case I did not pass once again. After I took my qualifying

examinations, at the end of January 1942, I actually attended a few classes at N.Y.U. while waiting for the results to be announced. - But I won't keep you in

suspense. On Friday, the thirteenth of February, the results were announced. I had passed, this time.

During the interval between the taking of the qualifying ex-aminations and the annunciation, I managed to do 'Victory Unintentional.' This was a positronic robot

story that was a sequel to 'Not Final!' which had not been a positronic robot story. Obviously I was trying to ride the series notion all I could, in the hope of surer

sales.

I submitted it to Campbell on February 9, 1942, and if I thought Campbell would find himself unable to reject a series story, I was roundly disabused. Nor was he

so impressed by 'Nightfall' and by my 'Foundation' series as to find himself incapable of making the rejection a severe one.

On February 13, the very day of my passing into the sacred list of those permitted to do research toward their Ph.D., my spirits were somewhat dashed when I

received 'Victory Unin-tentional' back with a cryptic rejection, which consisted of the following, in toto, 'CHSC2CH2CH2SH.' Campbell very well knew that this was

the formula for 'butyl' mercaptan,' which gives the skunk its smell, and I very well knew it, too, and Campbell very well knew I knew.

Oh, well! I managed to sell it anyway, to Super Science Stories under its post-Pohl editor, on March 16, 1942, and it appeared in the August 1942 issue of that

magazine. Though I did not include it in I, Robot, I did include it, of necessity, in The Rest of the Robots.

After that, though, there came another dry period, the longest I was ever to experience. Once 'Victory Unintentional' was finished, fourteen months (!) were to

pass before I turned back to the typewriter. It was not the conventional 'writer's block,' of course, for that I have never experienced. Rather, it was the coming of a

vast, triple change in my life.

The first change was the fact that I was now beginning chemical research in earnest under Professor Charles R. Daw-son. Research is a full-time job and I still

had to work it around, somehow, my duties in my father's candy store, .so there was bound to be very little time for writing.

Then, as though that weren't enough, a second change took place simultaneously —

In January 1942 I joined an organization called 'The Brook-lyn Writers' Club,' which had sent me a postcard of invitation. I took the invitation to be a recognition

of my status as a 'writer' and I couldn't possibly have refused.

The first meeting I attended was on January 19, 1942. It turned out to be rather pleasant. I welcomed the chance to get my mind off the qualifying examinations

and the war disasters (though I remember spending part of that first meeting dis-cussing the possibility that New York might be bombed).

Most of the members of the club were no further advanced in the profession than I was; nor were any of them, aside from myself, science fiction writers. The

chief activity consisted of reading from our own manuscripts so that criticism from the others might be invited. Since it was quickly discovered that I read 'with

expression,' I became chief reader, a role I enjoyed. (It was to be eight years yet before I discovered that I had a natural flair for the lecture platform.)

On February 9, 1942, the third meeting I attended, there was present a young man, Joseph Goldberger, whom I had not met

before. He was a couple of years older than I was. I did most of the reading that day and Goldberger was sufficiently im-pressed to suggest, after the meeting had

adjourned, that the two of us, with our girls, go out on a double date and get to know each other. Embarrassed, I had to explain that I had no girl. With an

expansive gesture, he said he would get one for me.

And so he did. On February 14, 1942, (Valentine's Day and the day after I had passed my qualifying examinations) I met him at the Astor Hotel at 8.30 p.m. With

him was his girl-friend, and with her was her girl-friend, Gertrude Blugerman, who was going to be my blind date. -I fell in love, and when I wasn't thinking of

research I was thinking of her.

But there was also a third change, in a way the most dras-tic—

With war, the job situation suddenly changed: technically trained men of all sorts were in demand.

Robert Heinlein, for instance, was an engineer who had been trained at Annapolis. His health had retired him from active service in the Navy and had kept him

retired, but his Anna-polis connections made it possible for him to work as a civilian engineer at the Naval Air Experimental Station of the U.S. Navy Yard in

Philadelphia. He cast about for other qualified people he might persuade to join him there, particularly among his fellow science fiction writers.

He got L. Sprague de Camp to come to the N.A.E.S., and on March 30, 1942, I received a letter from the navy yard asking if I would consider joining them.

I am rather single-minded and, having labored toward my Ph.D. for a year and a half, I would not ordinarily have con-sidered letting go for anything short of a

major force. - But the major force was there. I was in love and I wanted to get married even more than I wanted my degree. It occurred to me that I could suspend

work toward my Ph.D. with the full approval of the school, thanks to the war emergency, and that I could also get full permission to resume after the war. And by

taking a job and postponing - merely postponing - my re-search, I could get married.

I went down to Philadelphia for an interview on April 10 and apparently met their requirements. I took the iob, and on May 14, having left my father's candy store

at last and (at least as a worker) forever, I moved to Philadelphia. Fortunately, Philadelphia was only an hour and a half from New York by train (in those days, I

couldn't drive a car and, even if I could, I wouldn't have been able to get the gasoline because of rationing). I was therefore back in New York every week-end.

By the twenty-fourth of the month I had persuaded Ger-trude to agree to marry me, and on July 26 we were married.

During those months it did not bother me that I was doing no writing. I had too much to think of - first the war, then research, then the job, then the marriage.

Besides, in the years up to early 1942, I never thought of my writing as anything but a way to help out with my college tuition. It was fun; it was exciting; and

such success as I man-aged to achieve was deeply satisfying - but it had been done to serve a purpose and that purpose had been served. I had no notion that

writing could be my career; that it could ever pos-sibly be my career.

My career was to be chemistry. All the time I was writing and selling stories, I was also slaving away at Columbia. Once I earned my Ph.D., I intended to make my

living by doing chemical research for some large industry at some munificent salary such as a hundred dollars a week. (As the son of a candy-store keeper, brought

up in the depression, I suffered dizzy spells if I tried to think of more than a hundred dollars a week, so I confined my ambitions to that.)

My Philadelphia job, to be sure, paid me only fifty dollars a week at the beginning, but a young couple could live on that, those days, with taxes very small, with

an apartment costing $42.50 a month and dinner for two at a restaurant coming to two dollars (including tip).

It wasn't the height of my dreams, but it was only a tempor-ary war job, after all. Once the war was over, I would go back to my research and get my Ph.D. and a

better job. Meanwhile, even a salary of $2,600 a year seemed to make it unnecessary for me to write. By my marriage day, I had written forty-two stories, of which

twenty-eight had been sold (and three more were yet to sell). My total bachelor earnings over a space of four years had been $1,788.50 for those twenty-eight

stories. This amounted to an average earning of just under $8.60 per week or $64 per story.

I never dreamed at that time that I could ever do much better. I had no intention of ever writing anything but science fiction or fantasy for the pulp

magazines, which paid one cent a word at most - a cent and a quarter with bonus.

To make even the feeble fifty dollars a week that my job paid me would make it necessary for me to write and sell some forty stories a year, and, at that time, that

didn't seem con-ceivable to me.

It had been all right to labor at the typewriter to pay my way through school, when I had no other source of income, but for what purpose ought I to be writing

now? And with a six-day, fifty-four hour week, and the excitement of a new marriage, who had time?

The very existence of science fiction seemed to fade. I had left my magazine collection in New York; I no longer saw Campbell regularly, or Pohl, or any of my

science fiction cronies. I scarcely even read the current magazines as they came out.

I might have let science fiction die altogether, and my writ-ing career with it, except that there were little reminders from the outside world, and little itchings

inside me that meant (though-I didn't know it at the time) that writing was a great deal more to me than just a handy device to make a little spare cash.

I had hardly begun to work at the N.A.E.S., for instance, when the June 1942 issue of Astounding came out with my story 'Bridle and Saddle.' And it made the

cover.

It was quite beyond my power to resist the temptation to take a copy to work and show it around. I couldn't help but feel the status I gained as a 'writer.' Later

that summer and fall, three other stories were published: 'Victory Uninten-tional' and 'The Imaginary' in the post-Pohl Super Science Stories and 'The Hazing' in

Thrilling Wonder Stories. Each kept the science fiction world alive for me.

And although my New York coterie of science fiction edi-tors, writers and readers were gone, I was left not entirely bereft.

Working with me at the N.A.E.S. were Robert Heinlein and L. Sprague de Camp, and I kept up a close social relationship with both. To be sure, each had quit

writing for the duration but they were far more successful writers than I was and I hero-worshipped them. In addition, John D. Clark, who was an ardent science

fiction fan and who had written and published a couple of stories in 1937, was living in Philadelphia at the time and we frequently saw one another. All three kept

the science fiction atmosphere about me.

It was on January 5, 1943, though, that the real trigger came. On that day I received a letter from Fred Pohl to the effect that he was planning to rewrite 'Legal

Rites' and was going to try to sell it again. That was exciting. He wasn't to succeed in selling the story for six more years, but of course I had no way of telling that.

To me it seemed that another sale was in the offing and that I was an as-yet-active writer.

Besides, 'Legal Rites' was a fantasy and I had never yet satisfied that long-standing desire to write and sell a fantasy to Unknown. Five times I had tried, and five

times I had failed.

On January 13, quite suddenly, a week after the letter had come and fourteen months after my last-written story, the urge overwhelmed me. I sat down to write a

fantasy called 'Author! Author!'

Quickly I found there was something lacking. It was the first time I had ever tried to write something for Campbell without conferences with him. I missed the

inspiration that invariably came through talks with him; I missed his encouragement. In fact, I wasn't sure that I could write at all without him. So the story limped

and there were dry spells. I didn't finish the first draft till March 5, and the final version wasn't ready for mailing till April 4, 1943.

It had taken me nearly three months to write the story. To be sure, it was twelve thousand words long, but 'Bridle and Saddle,' which was half again as long, had

taken me only three weeks.

Perhaps if 'Author! Author!' had been rejected, it might have been a long time before I would have had the courage to try again. Fortunately, that was never put

to the test. I mailed the story to Campbell on April 6, 1943 (the first time I ever mailed him a story instead of handing it to him), and on the twelfth the check of

acceptance arrived. There was not even a revision requested, and what's more, Campbell paid me a bonus for the first time since 'Nightfall.' I received one and a

quarter cents a word, or $ 150 in all. My sixth try at Unknown had succeeded.

It was the equivalent of three weeks' pay at the N.A.E.S. for something that had taken me, off and on, three months. How-ever, the three months' work on

'Author! Author!' had been

of a totally different kind than the three weeks' work at the N.A.E.S. would have been, and the receipt of the $150 check was infinitely more exciting than picking up

a similar check, or even a larger.one, earned in the course of a punch-the-time-clock job. (Yes, indeed, I punched a time clock at the N.A.E.S.)

As it happened though, the happy excitement with which I greeted the sale was premature. I had scaled the heights of Unknown too late, and though I had the

money, I didn't have the magazine. Robert Heinlein brought me the sad news on August 2, less than four months after the sale.

Unknown had been having a difficult time of it. Sales weren't high enough, and after its first two years of operation it had had to switch from monthly to

bimonthly issues. Now the war had introduced a paper shortage and Street & Smith Publications decided to save what paper it could receive for the more

successful Astounding and let Unknown go.

At the time I made my sale, there were only three more issues of Unknown fated to be issued and there was no room in any of them for 'Author! Author!' The

story remained in the vaults of Street & Smith indefinitely; a story sold, but not published; and the $150 check was deprived of most of its fun as a result.

There is, however, a happy ending. Twenty years later, Don Bensen of Pyramid Publications was publishing a paperback anthology of stories from Unknown, he

asked me for an intro-duction. With glad nostalgia I complied, writing it on January 15, 1963, almost twenty years to the day after I had started writing the only

story I ever sold to the magazine. In the course of the introduction, I referred to the sad story of my at-tempts to write for Unknown.

The 1960s were not the 1940s. In 1963, the mere mention of an existing Asimov story that had never been published pro-duced excitement, and Bensen wrote to

me within three days, asking to see the story. I dug out the manuscript (I saved them now, you see, even for twenty years) and sent it to him.

He asked permission to include it in a second anthology of Unknown stories (pointing out that it had been accepted by the magazine). I explained he would also

need permission from Campbell and the publisher. They very kindly granted the per-mission, and in January 1964, twenty-one years after it was written, 'Author!

Author!' was finally published and I finally - after a fashion, and glancingly - made Unknown.

Author! Author!

It occurred to Graham Dorn, and not for the first time, either, that there was one serious disadvantage in swearing you'll go through fire and water for a girl,

however beloved. Sometimes she takes you at your miserable word.

This is one way of saying that he had been waylaid, shang-haied and dragooned by his fiancee into speaking at her maiden aunt's Literary Society. Don't laugh!

It's not funny from the speaker's rostrum. Some of the faces you have to look at!

To race through the details, Graham Dorn had been jerked onto a platform and forced upright. He had read a speech on 'The Place of the Mystery Novel in

American Literature' in an appalled tone. Not even the fact that his own eternally pre-cious June had written it (part of the bribe to get him to speak in the first

place) could mask the fact that it was essentially tripe.

And then when he was weltering, figuratively speaking, in his own mental gore, the harpies closed in, for lo, it was time for the informal discussion and assorted

feminine gush.

—Oh, Mr. Dorn, do you work from inspiration? I mean, do

you just sit down and then an idea strikes you - all at once?

And you must sit up all night and drink black coffee to keep

you awake till you get it down?

—Oh, yes. Certainly. (His working hours were two to four in the afternoon every other day, and he drank milk.)

—Oh, Mr. Dorn, you must do the most awful research to

get all those bizarre murders. About how much must you do

before you can write a story?

— About six months, usually. (The only reference books he ever used were a six-volume encyclopedia and year-before-last's World Almanac.)

1Oh, Mr. Dorn, did you make up your Reginald de

Meister from a real character? You must have. He's oh, so

convincing in his every detail.

2He's modeled after a very dear boyhood chum of mine.

(Dorn had never known anyone like de Meister, He lived in

continual fear of meeting someone like him. He had even a cunningly fashioned ring containing a subtle Oriental poison for use just in case he did. So much for de

Meister.)

Somewhere past the knot of women, June Billings sat in her seat and smiled with sickening and proprietary pride.

Graham passed a finger over his throat and went through the pantomime of choking to death as unobtrusively as pos-sible. June smiled, nodded, threw him a

delicate kiss, and did nothing.

Graham decided to pass a stern, lonely, woman-less life and to have nothing but villainesses in his stories forever after.

He was answering in monosyllables, alternating yesses and noes. Yes, he did take cocaine on occasion. He found it helped the creative urge. No, he didn't think

he could allow Hollywood to take over de Meister. He thought movies weren't true expressions of real Art. Besides, they were just a passing fad. Yes. he would

read Miss Cram's manuscripts if she brought them. Only too glad to. Reading amateur manu-scripts was such fun, and editors are really such brutes.

And then refreshments were announced, and there was a sudden vacuum. It took a split-second for Graham's head to clear. The mass of femininity had

coalesced into a single speci-men. She was four feet ten and about eighty-five pounds in weight. Graham was six-two and two hundred ten worth of brawn. He

could probably have handled her without difficulty, especially since both her arms were occupied with a pachy-derm of a purse. Still, he felt a little delicate, to say

nothing of queasy, about knocking her down. It didn't seem quite the thing to do.

She was advancing, with admiration and fervor disgustingly clear in her eyes, and Graham felt the wall behind him. There was no doorway within armreach on

either side.

'Oh, Mr. de Meister - do, do please let me call you Mr. de Meister. Your creation is so real to me, that I can't think of you as simply Graham Dorn. You don't mind,

do you?'

'No, no, of course not,' gargled Graham, as well as he could through thirty-two teeth simultaneously set on edge. 'I often think of myself as Reginald in my more

frivolous moments.'

'Thank you. You can have no idea, dear Mr. de Meister, how I have looked forward to meeting you. I have read all your works, and I think they are wonderful.'

'I'm glad you think so.' He went automatically into the 17

modesty routine. 'Really nothing, you know. Ha, ha, ha! Like to please the readers, but lots of room for improvement. Ha, ha, ha!'

'But you really are, you know.' This was said with intense earnestness. 'I mean good, really good. I think it is wonderful to be an author like you. It must be

almost like being God.'

Graham stared blankly. 'Not to editors, sister.'

Sister didn't get the whisper. She continued, 'To be able to create living characters out of nothing; to unfold souls to all the world; to put thoughts into words; to

build pictures and create worlds. I have often thought than an author was the most graciously gifted person in creation. Better an inspired author starving in a

garret than a king upon his throne. Don't you think so?'

'Definitely,' lied Graham.

'What are the crass material goods of the world to the won-ders of weaving emotions and deeds into a little world of its own?'

'What, indeed?'

'And posterity, think of posterity!'

'Yes, yes. I often do.'

She seized his hand. There's only one little request. You might,' she blushed faintly, 'you might give poor Reginald - if you will allow me to call him that just once

- a chance to marry Letitia Reynolds. You make her just a little too cruel to him. I'm sure I weep over it for hours together sometimes. But then he is too, too real to

me.'

And from somewhere, a lacy frill of handkerchief made its appearance, and went to her eyes. She removed it, smiled bravely, and scurried away. Graham Dorn

inhaled, closed his eyes, and gently collapsed into June's arms.

His eyes opened with a jerk. 'You may consider,' he said severely, 'our engagement frazzled to the breaking point. Only my consideration for your poor, aged

parents prevents your being known henceforward as the ex-fiancee of Graham Dorn.'

'Darling, you are so noble.' She massaged his sleeve with her cheeks. 'Come, I'll take you home and bathe your poor wounds.'

'All right, but you'll have to carry me. Has your precious, loveable aunt got an axe?'

'But why?'

'For one thing, she had the gall to introduce me as the brain-

father, God help me, of the famous Reginald de Meister.'

'And aren't you?'

'Let's get out of this creep-joint. And get this. I'm no relative by brain or otherwise, of that character. I disown him. I cast him into the darkness. I spit upon him. I

declare him an ille-gitimate son, a foul degenerate, and the offspring of a hound, and I'll be damned if he ever pokes his lousy patrician nose into my typewriter

again.'

They were in the taxi, and June straightened his tie. 'All right, Sonny, let's see the letter.'

'What letter?'

She held out her hand. 'The one from the publishers.'

Graham snarled and flipped it out of his jacket pocket. 'I've thought of inviting myself to his house for tea, the damned flintheart. He's got a rendezvous with a

pinch of strychnine.'

'You may rave later. What does he say? Hmm - uh-huh -"doesn't quite come up to what is expected - feel that de Meister isn't in his usual form - a little revision

perhaps to-wards - feel sure the novel can be adjusted - are returning under separate cover—"'

She tossed it aside. 'I told you you shouldn't have killed off Sancha Rodriguez. She was what you needed. You're getting skimpy on the love interest.'

'You write it! I'm through with de Meister. It's getting so club-women call me Mr. de Meister, and my picture is printed in newspapers with the caption Mr. de

Meister. I have no individuality. No one ever heard of Graham Dorn. I'm al-ways: Dorn, Dorn, you know, the guy who writes the de Meister stuff, you know.'

June squealed, 'Silly! You're jealous of your own detective.'

'I am not jealous of my own character. Listen! I hate detec-tive stories. I never read them after I got into the two-syllable words. I wrote the first as a clever,

trenchant, biting satire. It was to blast the entire false school of mystery writers. That's why I invented this de Meister. He was the detective to end all detectives.

The Compleat Ass, by Graham Dorn.

'So the public, along with snakes, vipers and ungrateful children takes this filth to its bosom. I wrote mystery after mystery trying to convert the public —'

Graham Dorn drooped a little at the futility of it all.

'Oh, well.' He smiled wanly, and the great soul rose above adversity. 'Don't you see? I've got to write other things. I can't

waste my life. But who's going to read a serious novel by Graham Dorn, now that I'm so thoroughly identified with de Meister?'

'You can use a pseudonym.'

'I will not use a pseudonym. I'm proud of my name.'

'But you can't drop de Meister. Be sensible, dear.'

'A normal fiancee,' Graham said bitterly, 'wou'd want her future husband to write something really worthwhile and be-come a great name in literature.'

'Well, I do want you to, Graham. But just a little de Meister once in a while to pay the bills that accumulate.'

'Ha!' Graham knocked his hat over his eyes to hide the sufferings of a strong spirit in agony. 'Now you say that I can't reach prominence unless I prostitute my

art to that unmen-tionable. Here's your place. Get out. I'm going home and write a good scorching letter on asbestos to our senile Mr. MacDun-lap.'

'Do exactly as you want to, cookie,' soothed June. 'And tomorrow when you feel better, you'll come and cry on my shoulder, and we'll plan a revision of Death on

the Third Deck together, shall we?'

'The engagement,' said Graham, loftily, 'is broken.'

'Yes, dear. I'll be home tomorrow at eight.'

That is of no possible interest to me. Good-bye!'

Publishers and editors are untouchables, of course. Theirs is a heritage of the outstretched hand and the well-toothed smile; the nod of the head and the slap of

the back.

But perhaps somewhere, in the privacy of the holes to which authors scurry when the night falls, a private revenge it taken. There, phrases may be uttered where

no one can overhear, and letters may be written that need not be mailed, and perhaps a picture of an editor, smiling pensively, is enshrined above the typewriter to

act the part of bulls-eye in an occasional game of darts.

Such a picture of MacDunlap, so used, enlightened Graham Dorn's room. And Graham Dora himself, in his usual writing costume (street-clothes and typewriter),

scowled at the fifth sheet of paper in his typewriter. The other four were draped over the edge of the waste-basket, condemned for their milk-and-watery mildness.

He began:

20'Dear Sir —' and added slowly and viciously, 'or Madam, as the case may be.'

He typed furiously as the inspiration caught him, disregard-ing the faint wisp of smoke curling upward from the over-heated keys:

'You say you don't think much of de Meister in this story. Well, I don't think much of de Meister, period. You can hand-cuff your slimy carcass to his and jump

off the Brooklyn Bridge. And I hope they drain the East River just before you jump.

'From now on, my works will be aimed higher than your scurvy press. And the day will come when I can look back on this period of my career with the loathing

that is its just —'

Someone had been tapping Graham on the shoulder during the last paragraph. Graham twitched it angrily and ineffect-ively at intervals.

Now he stopped, turned around, and addressed the stranger in his room courteously: 'Who the devilish damnation are you? And you can leave without

bothering to answer. I won't think you rude.'

The newcomer smiled graciously. His nod wafted the deli-cate aroma of some unobtrusive hair-oil toward Graham. His lean, hard-bitten jaw stood out keenly, and

he said in a well-modulated voice:

'De Meister is the name. Reginald de Meister.'

Graham rocked to his mental foundations and heard them creak.

'Glub,' he said.

'Pardon?'

Graham recovered. 'I said, "glub," a little code word mean-ing which de Meister.'

'The de Meister,' explained de Meister, kindly.

'My character?- My detective?'

De Meister helped himself to a seat, and his finely-chiseled features assumed that air of well-bred boredom so admired in the best circles. He lit a Turkish

cigarette, which Graham at once recognized as his detective's favorite brand, tapping it slowly and carefully against the back of his hand first, a man-nerism equally

characteristic.

'Really, old man,' said de Meister. 'This is really excruciat-inly funny. I suppose I am your character, y'know, but let's not work on that basis. It would be so

devastatin'ly awkward.' 21

'Glub,' said Graham again, by way of a rejoinder.

His mind was feverishly setting up alternatives. He didn't drink, more, at the moment, was the pity, so he wasn't drunk. He had a chrome-steel digestion and he

wasn't overheated, so it wasn't a hallucination. He never dreamed, and his imagina-tion - as befitted a paying commodity - was under strict con-trol. And since, like

all authors, he was widely considered more than half a screwball, insanity was out of the ques-tion.

Which left de Meister simply an impossibility, and Graham felt relieved. It's a very poor author indeed who hasn't learned the fine art of ignoring impossibilities in

writing a book.

He said smoothly, 'I have here a volume of my latest work. Do you mind naming your page and crawling back into it. I'm a busy man and God knows I have

enough of you in the tripe I write.'

'But I'm here on business, old chap. I've got to come to a friendly arrangement with you first. Things are deucedly un-comfortable as they are.'

'Look, do you know you're bothering me? I'm not in the habit of talking to mythical characters. As a general thing, I don't pal around with them. Beside which, it's

time your mother told you that you really don't exist.'

'My dear fellow, I always existed. Existence is such a sub-jective thing. What a mind thinks exists, does exist. I existed in your mind, for instance, ever since you

first thought of me.'

Graham shuddered. 'But the question is, what are you doing out of my mind? Getting a little narrow for you? Want elbow room?'

'Not at all. Rather satisfact'ry mind in its way, but I achieved a more concrete existence only this afternoon, and so I seize the opportunity to engage

you face to face in the afore-mentioned business conversation. You see, that thin, senti-mental lady of your society —'

'What society?' questioned Graham hollowly. It was all aw-fully clear to him now.

'The one at which you made a speech' - de Meister shud-dered in his turn - 'on the detective novel. She believed in my existence, so naturally, I exist.'

He finished his cigarette and flicked it out with a negligent twist of the wrist.

'The logic,' declared Graham, 'is inescapable. Now, what do

you want and the answer is no.'

'Do you realize, old man, that if you stop writing de Meister stories, my existence will become that dull, wraithlike one of all superannuated fictional detectives.

I'd have to gibber through the gray mists of Limbo with Holmes, Lecocoq and Dupin.'

'A very fascinating thought, I think. A very fitting fate.' Reginald de Meister's eyes turned icy, and Graham sud-denly remembered the passage on page 123 of The

Case of the Broken Ashtray:

His eyes, hitherto lazy and unattentive, hardened into twin pools of blue ice and transfixed the butler, who staggered back, a stifled cry on his lips,

Evidently, de Meister lost none of his characteristics out of the novels he adorned.

Graham staggered back, a stifled cry on his lips.

De Meister said menacingly, 'It would be better for you if the de Meister mysteries continue. Do you understand?'

Graham recovered and summoned a feeble indignation. 'Now, wait a while. You're getting out of hand. Remember: in a way, I'm your father. That's right. Your

mental father. You can't hand me ultimatums or make threats. It isn't filial. It's lacking in the proper respect and love.'

'And another thing.' said de Meister, unmoved. 'We've got to straighten out this business of Letitia Reynolds. It's gettin' deucedly borin', y'know.'

'Now you're getting silly. My love scenes have been widely heralded as miracles of tenderness and sentiment not found in one murder mystery out of a

thousand. - Wait, I'll get you a few reviews. I don't mind your attempts to dictate my actions so much, but I'm damned if you'll criticize my writing.'

'Forget the reviews. Tenderness and all that rot is what I don't want. I've been driftin' after the fair lady for five vol-umes now, and behavin' the most insufferable

ass. This has got to stop.'

'In what way?'

'I've got to marry her in your present story. Either that, or make her a good, respectable mistress. And you'll have to stop making me so damned Victorian and

gentlemanly towards ladies. I'm only human, old man.' 23

'Impossible!' said Graham, 'and that includes your last re-mark.'

De Meister grew severe. 'Really, old chap, for an author, you display the most appallio' lack of concern for the well-bein' of a character who has supported you

for a good many years.'

Graham choked eloquently. 'Supported me? In other words, you think I couldn't sell real novels, hey? Well, I'll show you. I wouldn't write another de Meister

story for a million dollars. Not even for a fifty percent royalty and all television rights. How's that?'

De Meister frowned and uttered those words that had been the sound of doom to so many criminals: 'We shall see, but yon are not yet done with me.'

With firmly jutting jaw, he vanished.

Graham's twisted face straightened out, and slowly - very slowly - he brought his hands up to his cranium and felt care-fully.

For the first time in a long and reasonably ribald mental life, he felt that his enemies were right and that a good dry cleaning would not hurt his mind at all.

The things that existed in it!

Graham Dorn shoved the doorbell with his elbow a second time. He distinctly remembered her saying she would be home at eight.

The peep-hole shoved open. 'Hello!'

'Hello!'

Silence!

Graham said plaintively, 'It's raining outside. Can't I come in to dry?'

'I don't know. Are we engaged, Mr. Dorn?'

'If I'm not,' was the stiff reply, 'then I've been turning down the frenzied advances of a hundred passion-stricken girls -beautiful ones, all of them - for no apparent

reason.'

'Yesterday, you said —'

'Ah, but who listens to what I say? I'm just quaint that way. Look, I brought you posies.' He flourished roses before the peep-hole.

June opened the door. 'Roses! How plebeian. Come in, cookie, and sully the sofa. Whoa, whoa, before you move a step, what have you got under the other arm?

Not the manu-

script of Death on the Third Deck?'

'Correct. Not that excrescence of a manuscript. This is something different.'

June's tone chilled. 'That isn't your precious novel, is it?'

Graham flung his head up, 'How did you know about it?'

'You slobbered the plot all over me at MacDunlap's silver anniversary party.'

'I did not. I couldn't unless I were drunk.'

'Oh, but you were. Stinking is the term. And on two cock-tails too.'

'Well, if I was drunk, I couldn't have told you the right plot.'

'Is the setting a coal-mine district?'

'-Uh-yes.'

'And are the people concerned real, earthy, unartificial, down-to-earth characters, speaking and thinking just like you and me? Is it a story of basic economic

forces? Are the human characters lifted up and thrown down and whirled around, all at the mercy of the coal mine and mechanized industry of today?'

'-Uh-yes.'

She nodded her head retrospectively. 'I remember distinctly. First, you got drunk and were sick. Then you got better, and told me the first few chapters. Then I

got sick.'

She approached the glowering author. 'Graham.' She leant her golden head upon his shoulder and cooed softly. 'Why don't you continue with the de Meister

stories? You get such pretty checks out of them.'

Graham writhed out of her grasp. 'You are a mercenary wretch, incapable of understanding an author's soul. You may consider our engagement broken.'

He sat down hard on the sofa, and folded his arms. 'Unless you will consent to read the script of my novel and give me the usual story analysis.'

'May I give you my analysis of Death on the Third Deck first?'

'No.'

'Good! In the first place, your love interest is becoming sickening.'

'It is not.' Graham pointed his finger indignantly. 'It breathes a sweet and sentimental fragrance, as of an older day. I've got the review here that says it.' He

fumbled in his wallet. 25

'Oh, bullfeathers. Are you going to start quoting that guy in the Pillsboro (Okla.) Clarion? He's probably your second cou-sin. You know that your last two

novels were completely be-low par in royalties. And Third Deck isn't even being sold.'

'So much the better - Ow!' He rubbed his head violently. 'What did you do that for?'

'Because the only place I could hit as hard as I wanted to, without disabling you, was your head. Listen! The public is tired of your corny Letitia Reynolds. Why

don't you let her soak her "gleaming golden crown of hair" in kerosene and get familiar with a match?'

'But June, that character is drawn from life. From you!'

'Graham Dorn! I am not here to listen to insults. The myst-ery market today is swinging toward action and hot, honest love and you're still in the sweet,

sentimental stickiness of five years ago.'

'But that's Reginald de Meister's character.'

'Well, change his character. Listen! You introduce Sancha Rodriguez. That's fine. I approve of her. She's Mexican, flam-ing, passionate, sultry and in love with

him. So what do you do? First he behaves the impeccable gentleman, and then you kill her off in the middle of the story.'

'Hmm, I see — You really think it would improve things to have de Meister forget himself. A kiss or so —'

June clenched her lovely teeth and her lovely fists. 'Oh, darl-ing, how glad I am love is blind! If it ever peeked one tiny little bit, I couldn't stand it. Look, you

squirrel's blue plate special, you're going to have de Meister and Rodriguez fall in love. They're going to have an affair through the entire book and you can put

your horrible Letitia into a nunnery. She would probably be happier there from the way you make her sound.'

'That's all you know about it, my sweet. It so happens that Reginald de Meister is in love wifh Letitia Reynolds and wants her, not this Rodriguez person.'

'And what makes you think that?'

'He told me so.'

'Who told you so?'

'Reginald de Meister.'

'What Reginald de Meister?'

'My Reginald de Meister.'

'What do you mean, your Reginald de Meister?'

26 'My character, Reginald de Meister.'

June got up, indulged in some deep-breathing and then said in a very calm voice, 'Let's start all over.'

She disappeared for a moment and returned with an aspirin. 'Your Reginald de Meister, from your books, told you, in per-son, he was in love with Letitia

Reynolds?'

'That's right.'

June swallowed the aspirin.

'Well, I'll explain, June, the way he explained it to me. All characters really exist - at least, in the minds of the authors. But when people really begin to believe in

them, they begin to exist in reality, because what people believe in, is, so far as they're concerned, and what is existence anyway?'

June's lips trembled. 'Oh, Gramie, please don't. Mother will never let me marry you if they put you in an asylum.'

'Don't call me Gramie, June, for God's sake. I tell you he was there, trying to tell me what to write and how to write it. He was almost as bad as you. Aw, come on,

Baby, don't cry.'

'I can't help it. I always thought you were crazy, but I never thought you were crazy!'

'All right, what's the difference? Let's not talk about it any more. I'm never going to write another mystery novel. After all' - (he indulged in a bit of indignation) -

'when it gets so that my own character - my own character - tries to tell me what to do, it's going too far.'

June looked over her handkerchief. 'How do you know it was really de Meister?'

'Oh, golly. As soon as he tapped his Turkish cigarette on the back of his hand and started dropping g's like snowflakes in a blizzard, I knew the worst had come.'

The telephone rang. June leaped up. 'Don't answer, Gra-ham. It's probably from the asylum. I'll tell them you're not here. Hello. Hello. Oh, Mr. MacDunlap.' She

heaved a sigh of relief, then covered the mouthpiece and whispered hoarsely, 'It might be a trap.'

'Hello, Mr. MacDunlap! ... No, he's not here Yes, I

think I can get in touch with him __ At Martin's tomorrow,

noon.... I'll tell him ... With who? ... With who???' She hung up suddenly.

'Graham, you're to lunch with MacDunlap tomorrow,'

'At his expense! Only at his expense! '

Her great blue eyes got greater and bluer, 'And Reginald de 27

Meister is to dine with you."

'What Reginald de Meister?'

'Your Reginald de Meister.'

'My Reg—'

'Oh, Gramie, don't.' Her eyes misted, 'Don't you see, Gramie, now they'll put us both in an insane asylum - and Mr. MacDunlap, too. And they'll probably put us

all in the same padded cell. Oh, Gramie, three is such a dreadful crowd.'

And her face crumpled into tears.

Grew S. MacDunlap (that the S. stands for 'Some' is a vile untruth spread by his enemies) was alone at the table when Graham Dorn entered. Out of this fact,

Graham extracted a few fleeting drops of pleasure.

It was not so much, you understand, the presence of Mac-Dunlap that did it, as the absence of de Meister.

MacDunlap looked at him over his spectacles and swal-lowed a liver pill, his favorite sweetmeat.

'Aha. You're here. What is this corny joke you're putting over on me? You had no right to mix me up with a person like de Meister without warning me he was

real. I might have taken precautions. I could have hired a bodyguard. I could have bought a revolver.'

'He's not real. God damn it! Half of him was your idea.'

That,' returned MacDunlap with heat, 'is libel. And what do you mean, he's not real? When he introduced himself, I took three liver pills at once and he didn't

disappear. Do you know what three pills are? Three pills, the kind I've got (the doctor should only drop dead), could make an elephant disappear - if he weren't real.

I know.'

Graham said wearily, 'Just the same, he exists only in my mind.'

'In your mind, I know he exists. Your mind should be in-vestigated by the Pure Food and Drugs Act.'

The several polite rejoinders that occurred simultaneously to Graham were dismissed almost immediately as containing too great a proportion of pithy

Anglo-Saxon expletives. After all -ha, ha - a publisher is a publisher however Anglo-Saxony he may be.

Graham said, 'The question arises, then, how we're to get rid of de Meister.'

'Get rid of de Meister?' MacDunlap jerked the glasses off 28

his nose in his sudden start, and caught them in one hand. His voice thickened with emotion. 'Who wants to get rid of him?'

'Do you want him around?'

'God forbid,' MacDunlap said between shudders. 'Next to him, my brother-in-law is an angel.'

'He has no business outside my books.'

'For my part, he has no business inside them. Since I started reading your manuscripts, my doctor added kidney pills and cough syrups to my medicines.' He

looked at his watch, and took a kidney pill. 'My worst enemy should be a book pub-lisher only a year.'

'Then why,' asked Graham patiently, 'don't you want to get rid of de Meister?'

'Because he is publicity.'

Graham stared blankly.

'Look! What other writer has a real detective? All the others are fictional. Everyone knows that. But yours - yours is real. We can let him solve cases and have

big newspaper write-ups. He'll make the Police Department look silly. He'll make —'

'That,' interrupted Graham, categorically, 'is by all odds the most obscene proposal I have ever had my ears manured with.'

'It will make money.'

'Money isn't everything.'

'Name one thing it isn't ---- Shh!' He kicked a near-fracture

into Graham's left ankle and rose to his feet with a convulsive smile, 'Mr. de Meister!'

'Sorry, old dear,' came a lethargic voice. 'Cou'dn't quite make it, you know. Loads of engagements. Must have been most borin' for you.'

Graham Dom's ears quivered spasmodically. He looked over his shoulder and reeled backward as far as a person could reel while in a sitting position. Reginald

de Meister had sprouted a monocle since his last visitation, and his monocular glance was calculated to freeze blood.

De Meister's greeting was casual. 'My dear Watson! So glad to meet you. Overjoyed deucedly.'

'Why don't you go to hell?' Graham asked curiously.

'My dear fellow. Oh, my dear fellow.'

MacDunlap crackled, 'That's what I like. Jokes! Fun! Makes everything pleasant to start with. Now shall we get down to business?'

'Certainly. The dinner is on the way, I trust? Then I'll just order a bottle of wine. The usual, Henry.' The waiter ceased hovering, flew away, and skimmed back

with a bottle that opened and gurgled into a glass.

De Meister sipped delicately, 'So nice of you, old chap, to make me a habitue of this place in your stories. It holds true even now, and it is most convenient. The

waiters all know me. Mr. MacDunlap, I take it you have convinced Mr. Dorn of the necessity of continuing the de Meister stories."

'Yes,' said MacDunlap.

'No,' said Graham.

'Don't mind him,' said MacDunlap. 'He's temperamental. You know these authors.'

'Don't mind him,' said Graham. 'He's microcephalic. You know these publishers.'

'Look, old chappie. I take it MacDunlap hasn't pointed out to you the unpleasanter side of acting stubborn.'

'For instance what, old stinkie?' asked Graham, courte-ously.

'Well, have you ever been haunted?'

'Like coming behind me and saying, Boo!"

'My dear fellow, I say. I'm much more subtle than that. I can really haunt one in modern, up-to-date methods. For in-stance, have you ever had your individuality

submerged?'

He snickered.

There was something familiar about that snicker. Graham suddenly remembered. It was on page 103 of Murder Rides the Range:

His lazy eyelids flicked down and up. He laughed lightly and melodiously, and though he said not a word, Hank Marslowe cowered. There was hidden

menace and hidden power in that light laugh, and somehow the burly rancher did not dare reach for his guns.

To Graham it still sounded like a nasty snicker, but he cow-ered, and did not dare reach for his guns.

MacDunlap plunged through the hole the momentary sil-ence had created.

'You see, Graham. Why play around with ghosts? Ghosts aren't reasonable things. They're not human! If it's more royalties, you want —'

Graham fired up. 'Will you refrain from speaking of money? From now on, I write only great novels of tearing human emotions.'

MacDunlap's flushed face changed suddenly.

'No,' he said.

'In fact, to change the subject just a moment' - and Graham's tone became surpassingly sweet, as the words got all sticky with maple syrup - 'I have a manuscript

here for you to look at.'

He grasped the perspiring MacDunlap by the lapel firmly. 'It is a novel that is the work of five years. A novel that will grip you with its intensity. A novel that will

shake you to the core of your being. A novel that will open a new world. A novel that will —'

'No,' said MacDunlap.

'A novel that will blast the falseness of this world. A novel that pierces to the truth. A novel—'

MacDunlap, being able to stretch his hand no higher, took the manuscript.

'No,' he said.

'Why the bloody hell don't you read it?' inquired Graham.

'Now?'

'Well, start it.'

'Look, supposing I read it tomorrow, or even the next day. I have to take my cough syrup now.'

'You haven't coughed once since I got here.'

'I'll let you know immediately —'

'This,' said Graham, 'is the first page. Why don't you begin -it? It will grip you instantly.'

MacDunlap read two paragraphs and said, 'Is this laid in a coal-mining town?'

'Yes.'

'Then I can't read it. I'm allergic to coal dust.'

'But it's not real coal dust, Macldiot.'

'That,' pointed out MacDunlap, 'is what you said about de Meister.'

Reginald de Meister tapped a cigarette carefully on the back of his hand in a subtle manner which Graham immediately recognized as betokening a sudden

decision.

'That is all devastatin'ly borin', you know. Not quite gettin' to the point, you might say. Go ahead, MacDunlap, this is no time for half measures.'

MacDunlap girded his spiritual loins and said, 'All right Mister Dorn, with you it's no use being nice. Instead of de Meister, I'm getting coal dust. Instead of the

best publicity in fifty years, I'm getting social significance. All right, Mister Smartaleck Dorn, if in one week you don't come to terms with me, good terms, you will

be blacklisted in every reputable pub-lishing firm in the United States and foreign parts.' He shook his finger and added in a shout, 'Including Scandinavian.'

Graham Dorn laughed lightly, 'Pish,' he said, 'tush. I hap-pen to be an officer of the Author's Union, and if you try to push me around I'll have you blacklisted.

How do you like that?'

'I like it fine. Because supposing I can prove you're a plagi-arist.'

'Me,' gasped Graham, recovering narrowly from merry suffocation. 'Me, the most original writer of the decade.'

'Is that so? And maybe you don't remember that in each case you write up, you casually mention de Meister's note-books on previous cases.'

'So what?'

'So he has them. Reginald, my boy, show Mister Dorn your notebook of your last case. - You see that. That's Mystery of the Milestones and it has, in detail,

every incident in your book - and dated the year before the book was published. Very authentic.'

'Again so what?'

'Have you maybe got the right to copy his notebook and call it an original murder mystery?'

'Why, you case of mental poliomyelitis, that notebook is my invention.'

'Who says so? It's de Meister's handwriting, as any expert can prove. And maybe you have a piece of paper, some little contract or agreement, you know, that

gives you the right to use his notebooks?'

'How can I have an agreement with a mythical personage?'

'What mythical personage?'

'You and I know de Meister doesn't exist.'

'Ah, but does the jury know? When I testify that I took three strong liver pills and he didn't disappear, what twelve men will say he doesn't exist?'

'This is blackmail.'

'Certainly. I'll give you a week. Or in other words, seven days.'

32Graham Dorn turned desperately to de Meister. 'You're in on this, too. In my books I give you the keenest sense of honor. Is this honorable?'

De Meister shrugged. 'My dear fellow. All this - and haunt-ing, too."

Graham rose.

'Where are you going?'

'Home to write you a letter.' Graham's brows beetled de-fiantly. 'And this time I'll mail it. I'm not giving in. I'll fight to the last ditch. And, de Meister, you let loose

with one single little haunt and I'll rip your head out of its socket and spurt the blood all over MacDunlap's new suit.'

He stalked out, and as he disappeared through the door, de Meister disappeared through nothing at all.

MacDunlap let out a soft yelp and then took a liver pill, a kidney pill, and a tablespoon of cough syrup in rapid succes-sion.

Graham Dorn sat in June's front parlor, and having long since consumed his fingernails, was starting on the first knuckles.

June, at the moment, was not present, and this, Graham felt, was just as well. A dear girl; in fact, a dear, sweet girl. But his mind was not on her.

It was concerned instead with a miasmic series of flashbacks over the preceding six days:

3Say, Graham, I met your side-kick at the club yesterday.

You know, de Meister. Got an awful shock. I always had the

idea he was a sort of Sherlock Holmes that didn't exist. That's

one on me, boy. Didn't know — Hey, where are you going?

4Hey, Dorn, I hear your boss de Meister is back in town.

Ought to have material for more stories soon. You're lucky

you've got someone to grind out your plots ready-made —

Huh? Well, good-bye.

5Why, Graham, darling, wherever were you last night?

Ann's affair didn't get anywhere without you; or at least, it

wouldn't have, if it hadn't been for Reggie de Meister. He

asked after you; but then, I guess he felt lost without his Wat-

son. It must feel wonderful to Watson for such— Mister

Dorn! And the same to you, sir!

6You put one over on me. I thought you made up those

wild things. Well, truth is stranger than fiction, ha, ha!

7Police officials deny that the famous amateur crimin-

ologist Reginald tie Meister has interested himself in this case. Mr. de Meister himself could not be reached by our reporters for comment. Mr. de Meister is best

known to the public for his brilliant solutions to over a dozen crimes, as chronicled in fiction form by his so-called 'Watson,' Mr. Grayle Doone.

Graham quivered and his arms trembled in an awful desire for blood. De Meister was haunting him - but good. He was losing his individuality, exactly as had

been threatened.

It gradually dawned upon Graham that the monotonous ringing noise he heard was not in his head, but, on the con-trary, from the front door.

Such seemed likewise the opinion of Miss June Billings, whose piercing call shot down the stairs and biffed Graham a sharp uppercut to the ear-drums.

'Hey, dope, see who's at the front door, before the vibration tears the house down. I'll be down in half an hour.'

'Yes, dear!'

Graham shuffled his way to the front door and opened it.

'Ah, there. Greetin's,' said de Meister, and brushed past.

.Graham's dull eyes stared, and then fired high, as an animal snarl burst from his lips. He took up that gorilla posture, so comforting to red-blooded American

males at moments like this, and circled the slightly-confused detective.

'My dear fellow, are you ill?'

'I,' explained Graham, 'am not ill, but you will soon be past all interest in that, for I am going to bathe my hands in your heart's reddest blood.'

'But I say, you'll only have to wash them afterwards. It would be such an obvious clue, wouldn't it?'

'Enough of this gay banter. Have you any last words?'

'Not particularly.'

'It's just as well. I'm not interested in your last words."

He thundered into action, bearing down upon the unfortu-nate de Meister like a bull elephant. De Meister faded to the left, shot out an arm and a foot, and

Graham described a parabolic arc that ended in the total destruction of an end table, a vase of flowers, a fish-bowl, and a five-foot section of wall.

Graham blinked, and brushed away a curious goldfish from his left eyebrow.

'My dear fellow,' murmured de Meister, 'oh, my dear fel-low.' 34

Too late, Graham remembered that passage in Pistol Parade:

De Meister's arms were whipcord lightning, as with sure, rapid thrusts, he rendered the two thugs helpless. Not by brute force, but by his expert knowledge of

judo, he defeated them easily without hastening his breath. The thugs groaned in pain.

Graham groaned in pain.

He lifted his right thigh an inch or so to let his femur slip back into place.

'Hadn't you better get up, old chap?'

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IsaacAsimovTheEarlyAsimovor,ElevenYearsofTryingVolume3GranadaPublishingLimitedPublishedin1974byPantherBooksLtdFrogmore,StAlbans,HertsAL22NFReprinted1975TheEarlyAsimovfirstpublishedinGreatBritain(inonevolume)byVictorGollanczLtd1973Copyright©IsaacAsimov1972MadeandprintedinGreatBritainbyRichardClay(The...

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