Isaac Asimov - The Best of Isaac Asimov

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The Best

Isaac Asimov

ISAAC ASIMOV

Contents

Introduction

Marooned Off Vesta

Nightfall

C-Chute

The Martian Way

The Deep

The Fun They Had

The Last Question

The Dead Past

The Dying Night

Anniversary

The Billiard Ball

Mirror Image

Introduction

I must admit the title of this book gives me pause. Who says the enclosed

stories are my 'best'? Do I? Does the editor? Or some critic? Some reader? A

general vote among the entire population of the world?

And whoever says it--can it be so? Can the word 'best' mean anything at

all, except to some particular person in some particular mood? Perhaps not--so

if we allow the word to stand as an absolute, you, or you, or perhaps you, may

be appalled at omissions or inclusions or, never having read me before, may

even be impelled to cry out, 'Good heavens, are those his best?'

So I'll be honest with all of you. What is included here in this book

are a dozen stories chosen in such a way as to span a third of a century of

writing, with two early samples, two late samples, and eight from the gold

decade (for me) of the Fifties. Those presented are as nearly representative

as is consistent with the careful selection of good stories (i.e. those the

editor and I like), and as nearly the best of my stories as is consistent with

making them representative.

I suppose we ought really call the book, 'The Pretty Good and Pretty

Representative Stories of Isaac Asimov', but who would then buy it? So 'best'

it is.

As to the individual stories--

(1) 'Marooned Off Vesta' was the very first story I ever published, so

its inclusion is virtually a necessity. It wasn't the first I ever wrote with

the hope of publication. Actually, it was the third. The first was never sold

and no longer exists; the second was sold a couple of years after it was

written, but is not very good.

Far be it from me to crave indulgence, but I think it is important to

understand that at the time I wrote and sold the story (in 1938) I was

eighteen years old and had spent all the years I could remember in a

city-slum. My vision of strong adventurers bravely facing danger in distant

vastnesses was just that--visionary.

(2) 'Nightfall', written two and a half years later, was the

thirty-second story I had written (what else did I have to do in those days

except work in my father's candy store and study for my college degrees) and

perhaps the fourteenth story published.

Yet within less than three years of the start of my career it turned out

that I had written the best of Asimov. At least, 'Nightfall' has been

frequently reprinted, is commonly referred to as a 'classic', and when some

magazine, or fan organization, conducts a vote on short stories, it frequently

ends up on the top of the list--not only of my stories but of anybody's. One

of its advantages is that it has a unique plot. There was nothing resembling

it ever published before (as far as I know) and of course, it is now so well

known that nothing like it can be published again. It's nice to have one story

like that, anyway.

Yet I was only twenty-one when I wrote it and was still feeling my way.

It isn't my favorite. Later on, I'll tell you what my favorite is and you can

then judge for yourself.

(3) 'C-Chute' comes after a ten-year hiatus, as far as the stories

included in this book are concerned. I hadn't quit writing of course, don't

think that. To be sure, I had slowed down a bit, what with the war and the

time-consuming effort toward the doctorate, but the real reason for the gap is

that I spent most of the Forties writing the stories collected in my books I,

Robot and The Foundation Trilogy. It seemed inadvisable to amputate portions

of either for this collection.

'C-Chute' comes near the beginning of my 'mature' period (or whatever

you want to call it). I had my Ph.D.; I was an Assistant Professor of

Biochemistry at Boston University School of Medicine; I had published my first

three books, and I was full of self-confidence. What's more I had broken away

from exclusive dependence on Astounding Science Fiction. New magazines had

arisen to challenge its leadership, notably Galaxy, and also Fantasy and

Science Fiction. 'C-Chute' appeared in Galaxy. So did the next two stories in

the collection.

(4) 'The Martian Way' represents my reaction to the McCarthy era, a

time, in the early fifties, when Americans seemed to abandon their own history

and become, in some cases, witch-hunters; in some cases, victims; and in most

cases, cowards. (Brave men remained, fortunately, which is why we pulled out

of it.) 'The Martian Way', written and published at the height of the McCarthy

era, was my own personal statement of position. I felt very brave at the time

and was disappointed that no one ever as much as frowned at me in consequence.

I must have been too subtle--or too unimportant.

A second point about the story is that I managed to foresee something

accurately, Science fiction writers are often assumed to be keen-eyed

peerers-into-the-future who see things others don't. Actually, few writers

have much of a record in this respect and mine, at best, can only be said to

attain the abysmally-low average. Just the same, in 'The Martian Way', I

described the euphoric effects of the spacewalk fifteen years before anyone

had space-walked--and then, when they did, euphoria is apparently what they

experienced.

(5) 'The Deep' is the sleeper of the collection. Every once in a while I

wrote a story which, though good in my opinion (and I don't like all my

stories), seems to stir up no reaction. This is one of them. Perhaps it's

because I deliberately chose to describe a society in which mother-love was a

crime and the world wasn't ready for that

(6) 'The Fun They Had' is probably the biggest surprise of my literary

career. A personal friend asked me to write a little science fiction story for

a syndicated boys-and-girls newspaper page he edited and I agreed for

friendship's sake. I expected it would appear in a few newspapers for one day

and would then disappear forever.

However, Fantasy and Science Fiction picked it up and, to my surprise,

the reprint requests began to come in. It has been reprinted at least thirty

times, and there has been no time in perhaps fifteen years (including right

now) when new reprints haven't been pending.

Why? I don't know why. If I had the critic's mentality (which I

emphatically don't) I would sit down and try to analyze my stories, work out

the factors that make some more successful than others, cultivate those

factors, and simply explode with excellence.

But the devil with that. I won't buy success at the price of

self-consciousness. I don't have the temperament for it. f11 write as I

please. and let the critics do the analyzing. (Yesterday, someone said to me

that a critic was like a eunuch in a harem. He could observe, study, and

analyze--but he couldn't do it himself.)

(7) 'The Last Question' is my personal favorite, the one story I made

sure would not be omitted from this collection.

Why is it my favorite? For one thing I got the idea all at once and

didn't have to fiddle with it; and I wrote it in whiteheat and scarcely had to

change a word. This sort of thing endears any story to any writer.

Then, too, it has had the strangest effect on my readers. Frequently

someone writes to ask me if I can write them the name of a story, which they

think I may have written, and tell them where to find it. They don't remember

the title but when they describe the story it is invariably 'The Last

Question'. This has reached the point where I recently received a

long-distance phone call from a desperate man who began, 'Dr. Asimov, there's

a story I think you wrote, whose title I can't remember--' at which point I

interrupted to tell him it was 'The Last Question' and when I described the

plot it proved to be indeed the story he was after. I left him convinced I

could read minds at a distance of a thousand miles.

No other story I have written has anything like this effect on my

readers--producing at once an unshakeable memory of the plot and an

unshakeable forgettery of the title and even author. I think it may be that

the story fills them so frighteningly full, that they can retain none of the

side-issues.

(8) 'The Dead Past' was written after I had been teaching for seven

years. I was as saturated as could be with the world of scientific research.

Naturally, anyone who writes is going to reveal the world in which he is

immersed, whether he wants to or desperately wants not to. I've never tried to

avoid letting my personal background creep into my stories, but I must admit

it has rarely crept in quite as thickly as it did in this one.

As an example of how my stories work out, consider this--

I had my protagonist interested in Carthage because I myself am a great

admirer of Hannibal and have never quite gotten over the Battle of Zama. I

introduced Carthage, idly, without any intention of weaving it into the plot.

But it got woven in just the same.

That happens to me over and over. Some writers work out the stories in

meticulous detail before starting, and stick to the outline. P. G. Wodehouse

does it, I understand, and I worship his books. But just the same I don't. I

work out my ending, decide on a beginning and then proceed, letting everything

in-between work itself out as I come to it.

(9) 'The Dying Night' is an example of a mystery as well as a science

fiction story, I have been a mystery reader as long as I have been a science

fiction reader and, on the whole, I think I enjoy mysteries more.

I'm not sure why that is. Perhaps it was that after I became an

established science fiction writer I was no longer able to relax with science

fiction stories. I read every story keenly aware that it might be worse than

mine, in which case I had no patience with it, or that it might be better, in

which case I felt miserable.

Mysteries, especially the intellectual puzzle variety (ah, good old

Hercule Poirot), offered me no such stumbling blocks. Sooner or later, then, I

was bound to try my hand at science fiction mysteries and 'The Dying Night' is

one of these.

(10), Anniversary' was written to fulfill a request--that I write a

story for the March, 1959, issue of Amazing Stories as a way of celebrating

the twentieth anniversary of the March, 1939, issue, which had contained my

first published story, 'Marooned Off Vesta', So (inevitably) I wrote a story

dealing with the characters of 'Marooned Off Vesta' twenty years later. The

magazine then ran both stories together, and I was sure someone would send me

a letter saying that my writing was better in the first story, but no one did.

(Perhaps a reader of this book will decide it would be humorous to do so, but

if so, please restrain yourself.)

(11) 'The Billiard Ball' comes, in this collection, after an eight-year

hiatus and is an example of my 'late' style. (That is, if there is such a

thing. Some critics say that it is a flaw in my literary nature that I haven't

grown; that my late stories have the same style and aura of my early stories.

Maybe you'll think so, too, and scorn me in consequence--but then, I've

already told you what some people think of critics.)

The reason for the hiatus is that in 1958 I quit the academic life to

become a full-time writer. I at once proceeded to write everything under the

sun (straight science, straight mystery, children's books, histories, literary

annotations, etymology, humor, etc., etc.) except science fiction. I never

entirely abandoned it, of course--witness 'The Billiard Ball'.

(12) 'Mirror Image' is a particularly recent science fiction short story

I've written for the magazines and, unlike the first eleven stories, has not

yet had time to be reprinted.

One of the reasons for writing it was to appease those readers who were

forever asking me for sequels; for one more book involving characters who have

appeared in previous books. One of the most frequent requests was that I write

a third novel to succeed The Caves of Steel and The Naked Sun, both of which

dealt with the adventures of the detective, Elijah Baley, and his

robot-assistant, R. Daneel Olivaw. Unable to find the time to do so, I wrote a

short story about them--'Mirror-Image'.

Alas, all I got as a result were a spate of letters saying, 'Thanks, but

we mean a novel.'

Anyway, there you are. Turn the page and you can begin a representative,

and possibly a more or less 'best', 115,000 words or so out of the roughly

2,000,000 words of science fiction I have written so far. I hope it amuses

you. And if it doesn't, remember that I have also written about 7,500,000

words of non-science-fiction, and you are at least spared any of that.

ISAAC ASIMOV

Marooned Off Vesta

"Will you please stop walking up and down like that?" said Warren Moore from

the couch. "It won't do any of us any good. Think of our blessings; we're

airtight, aren't we?"

Mark Brandon whirled and ground his teeth at him. "I'm glad you feel

happy about that," he spat out viciously. "Of course, you don't know that our

air supply will last only three days." He resumed his interrupted stride with

a defiant air.

Moore yawned and stretched, assumed a more comfortable position, and

replied. "Expending all that energy will only use it up faster. Why don't you

take a hint from Mike here? He's taking it easy."

"Mike" was Michael Shea, late a member of the crew of the Silver Queen.

His short, squat body was resting on the only chair in the room and 'his feet

were on the only table. He looked up as his name was mentioned, his mouth

widening in a twisted grin.

"You've got to expect things like this to happen sometimes," he said.

"Bucking the asteroids is risky business. We should've taken the hop. It takes

longer, but it's the only safe way. But no, the captain wanted to make the

schedule; he would go through"--Mike spat disgustedly--"and here we are."

"What's the 'hop'?" asked Brandon.

"Oh, I take it that friend Mike means that we. should have avoided the

asteroid belt by plotting a course outside the plane of the ecliptic,"

answered Moore. "That's it, isn't it, Mike?"

Mike hesitated and then replied cautiously, "Yeah--I guess that's it."

Moore smiled blandly and continued, "Well, I wouldn't blame Captain

Crane too much. The repulsion screen must have failed five minutes before that

chunk of granite barged into us. That's not his fault, though of course we

ought to have steered clear instead of relying on the screen." He shook his

head meditatively. "The Silver Queen just went to pieces. It's really

miraculously lucky that this part of the ship remained intact, and what's

more, airtight."

"You've got a funny idea of luck, Warren," said Brandon. "Always have,

for as long as I've known you. Here we are in a tenth part of a spaceship,

comprising only three whole rooms, with air for three days, and no prospect of

being alive after that, and you have the infernal gall to prate about luck."

"Compared to the others who died instantly when the asteroid struck,

yes," was Moore's answer.

"You think so, eh? Well, let me tell you that instant death isn't so bad

compared with what we're going to have to go through. Suffocation is a damned

unpleasant way of dying."

"We may find a way out," Moore suggested hopefully.

"Why not face facts!" Brandon's face was flushed and his voice trembled.

"We're done, I tell you! Through!"

Mike glanced from one to the other doubtfully and then coughed to

attract their attention. "Well, gents, seeing that we're all in the same fix,

I guess there's no use hogging things." He drew a small bottle out of his

pocket that was filled with a greenish liquid. "Grade A Jabra this is. I ain't

too proud to share and share alike."

Brandon exhibited the first signs of pleasure for over a day. "Martian

Jabra water. Why didn't you say so before?"

But as he reached for it, a firm hand clamped down upon his wrist. He

looked up into the calm blue eyes of Warren Moore.

"Don't be a fool," said Moore, "there isn't enough to keep us drunk for

three days. What do you want to do? Go on a tear now and then die cold sober?

Let's save this for the last six hours when the air gets stuffy and breathing

hurts--then we'll finish the bottle among us and never know when the end

comes, or care."

Brandon's hand fell away reluctantly. "Damn it, Warren, you'd bleed ice

if you were cut. How can you think straight at a time like this?" He motioned

to Mike and the bottle was once more stowed away. Brandon walked to the

porthole and gazed out.

Moore approached and placed a kindly arm over the shoulders of the

younger man. "Why take it so hard, man?" he asked. "You can't last at this

rate. Inside of twenty-four hours you'll be a madman if you keep this up."

There was no answer. Brandon stared bitterly at the globe that filled

almost the entire porthole, so Moore continued, "Watching Vesta won't do you

any good either."

Mike Shea lumbered up to the porthole. "We'd be safe if we were only

down there on Vesta. There're people there. How far away are we?"

"Not more than three or four hundred miles judging from its apparent

size," answered Moore. "You must remember that it is only two hundred miles in

diameter."

"Three hundred miles from salvation,'~ murmured Brandon, "and we might

as well be a million. If there were only a way to get ourselves out of the

orbit this rotten fragment adopted. You know, manage to give ourselves a push

so as to start falling. There'd be no danger of crashing if we did, because

that midget hasn't got enough gravity to crush a cream puff."

"It has enough to keep us in the orbit, " retorted Brandon. "It must

have picked us up while we were lying unconscious after the crash. Wish it had

come closer; we might have been able to land on it."

"Funny place, Vesta," observed Mike Shea. "I was down there two-three

times. What a dump! It's all covered with some stuff like snow, only it ain't

snow. I forget what they call it."

"Frozen carbon dioxide?" prompted Moore.

"Yeah, dry ice, that carbon stuff, that's it. They say that's what makes

Vesta so shiny."

"Of course! That would give it a high albedo."

Mike cocked a suspicious eye at Moore and decided to let it pass. "It's

hard to see anything down there on account of the snow, but if you look

close"--he pointed--"you can see a sort of gray smudge. I think that's

Bennett's dome. That's where they keep the observatory. And there is Calorn's

dome up there. That's a fuel station, that is. There's plenty more, too, only

I don't see them."

He hesitated and then turned to Moore. "Listen, boss, I've been

thinking. Wouldn't they be looking for us as soon as they hear about the

crash? And wouldn't we be easy to find from Vesta, seeing we're so closer'

Moore shook his head, "No, Mike, they won't be looking for us. No one's

going to find out about the crash until the Silver Queen fails to turn up on

schedule. You see, when the asteroid hit, we didn't have time to send out an

SOS"--he sighed--"and they won't find us down there at Vesta, either. We're so

small that even at our distance they couldn't see us unless they knew what

they were looking for, and exactly where to look."

"Hmm." Mike's forehead was corrugated in deep thought. "Then we've got

to get to Vesta before three days are up."

"You've got the gist of the matter, Mike. Now, if we only knew how to go

about it, eh?"

Brandon suddenly exploded, "Will you two stop this infernal

chitter-chatter and do something? For God's sake, do something."

Moore shrugged his shoulders and without answer returned to the couch.

He lounged at ease, apparently carefree, but there was the tiniest crease

between his eyes which bespoke concentration.

There was no doubt about it; they were in a bad spot. He reviewed the

events of the preceding day for perhaps the twentieth time.

After the asteroid had struck, tearing the ship apart, he'd gone out

like a light; for how long he didn't know, his own watch being broken and no

other timepiece available. When he came to, he found himself, along with Mark

Brandon, who shared his room, and Mike Shea, a member of the crew, sole

occupants of all that was left of the Silver Queen.

This remnant was now careening in an orbit about Vesta. At present

things were fairly comfortable. There was a food supply that would last a

week. Likewise there was a regional Gravitator under the room that kept them

at normal weight and would continue to do so for an indefinite time, certainly

for longer than the air would last. The lighting system was less satisfactory

but had held on so far.

There was no doubt, however, where the joker in the pack lay. Three

days' air! Not that there weren't other disheartening features. There was no

heating system--though it would take a long time for the ship to radiate

enough heat into the vacuum of space to render them too uncomfortable. Far

more important was the fact that their part of the ship had neither a means of

communication nor a propulsive mechanism. Moore sighed. One fuel jet in

working order would fix everything, for one blast in the right direction would

send them safely to Vesta.

The crease between his eyes deepened. What was to be done? They had but

one spacesuit among them, one heat ray, and one detonator. That was the sum

total of space appliances after a thorough search of the accessible parts of

the ship. A pretty hopeless mess, that.

Moore shrugged, rose, and drew himself a glass of water. He swallowed it

mechanically, still deep in thought, when an idea struck him. He glanced

curiously at the empty cup in his hand.

"Say, Mike," he said, "what kind of water supply have we? Funny that I

never thought of that before."

Mike's eyes opened to their fullest extent in an expression of ludicrous

surprise. "Didn't you know, boss?"

"Know what?" asked Moore impatiently.

"We've got all the water there was." He waved his hand in an

all-inclusive gesture. He paused, but as Moore's expression showed nothing but

total mystification, he elaborated, "Don't you see? We've got the main tank,

the place where all the water for the whole ship was stored." He pointed to

one of the walls.

"Do you mean to say that there's a tank full of water adjoining us?"

Mike nodded vigorously, "Yep' Cubic vat a hundred feet each way. And

she's three-quarters full."

Moore was astonished. "Seven hundred and fifty thousand cubic feet of

water." Then suddenly: "Why hasn't it run out through the broken pipes?"

"It only has one main outlet, which runs down the corridor just outside

this room. I was fixing that main when the asteroid hit and had to shut it

off. After I came to I opened the pipe leading to our faucet, but that's the

only outlet open now."

"Oh." Moore had a curious feeling way down deep inside. An idea had

half-formed in his brain, but for the life of him he could not drag it into

the light of day. He knew only that there was something in what he had just

heard that had some important meaning but he just could not place his finger

on it.

Brandon, meanwhile, had been listening to Shea in silence, and now he

emitted a short, humorless laugh. "Fate seems to be having its fill of fun

with us, I see. First, it puts us within arm's reach of a place of safety and

then sees to it that we have no way of getting there.

"Then she provides us with a week's food, three days' air, and a year's

supply of water. A year's supply, do you hear me? Enough water to drink and to

gargle and to wash and to take baths in and--and to do anything else we want.

Water--damn the water!"

"Oh, take a less serious view, Mark," said Moore in an attempt to break

the younger man's melancholy. "Pretend we're a satellite of Vesta--which we

are. We have our own period of revolution and of rotation. We have an equator

and an axis. Our 'north pole' is located somewhere toward the top of the

porthole, pointing toward Vesta, and our 'south' sticks out away from Vesta

through the water tank somewhere. Well, as a satellite, we have an atmosphere,

and now, you see, we have a newly discovered ocean.

"And seriously, we're not so badly off. For the three days our

atmosphere will last, we can eat double rations and drink ourselves soggy.

Hell, we have water enough to throw away--"

The idea which had been half-formed before suddenly sprang to maturity

and was nailed. The careless gesture with which he had accompanied the last

remark was frozen in mid-air. His mouth closed with a snap and his head came

up with a jerk.

But Brandon, immersed in his own thoughts, noticed nothing of Moore's

strange actions. "Why don't you complete the analogy to a satellite," he

sneered, "or do you, as a Professional Optimist, ignore any and all

disagreeable facts? If I were you, I'd continue this way." Here he imitated

Moore's voice: "The satellite is at present habitable and inhabited but, due

to the approaching depletion of its atmosphere in three days, is expected to

become a dead world.

"Well, why don't you answer? Why do you persist in making a joke out of

this? Can't you see--What's the matter?"

The last was a surprised exclamation and certainly Moore's actions did

merit surprise. He had risen suddenly and, after giving himself a smart rap on

the forehead, remained stiff and silent, staring into the far distance with

gradually narrowing eyelids. Brandon and Mike Shea watched him in speechless

astonishment.

Suddenly Moore burst out, "Hal I've got it. Why didn't I think of it

before?" His exclamation degenerated into the unintelligible.

Mike drew out the Jabra bottle with a significant look, but Moore waved

it away impatiently. Whereupon Brandon, without any warning, lashed out with

his right, catching the surprised Moore flush on the jaw and toppling him.

Moore groaned and rubbed his chin. Somewhat indignant, he asked, "What

was the reason for that?"

"Stand up and I'll do it again," shouted Brandon, "I can't stand it

anymore. I'm sick and tired of being preached at, and having to listen to your

Pollyanna talk. You're the one that's going daffy."

"Daffy, nothing! Just a little overexcited, that's all. Listen, for

God's sake. I think I know a way--"

Brandon glared at him balefully. "Oh, you do, do you? Raise our hopes

with some silly scheme and then find it doesn't work. I won't take it, do you

hear? I'll find a real use for the water--drown you--and save some of the air

besides."

Moore lost his temper. "Listen, Mark, you're out of this. I'm going

through alone. I don't need your help and I don't want it If you're that sure

of dying and that afraid, why not have the agony over? We've got one heat ray

and one detonator, both reliable weapons. Take your choice and kill yourself.

Shea and I won't interfere." Brandon's lips curled in a last weak gesture of

defiance and then suddenly he capitulated, completely and abjectly. "All

right, Warren, I'm with you. I--I guess I didn't quite know what I was doing.

I don't feel well, Warren. I--I--"

"Aw, that's all right, boy." Moore was genuinely sorry for him. "Take it

easy. I know how you feel. It's got me too. But you mustn't give in to it.

Fight it, or you'll go stark, raving mad. Now you just try and get some sleep

and leave everything to me. Things will turn out right yet."

Brandon, pressing a hand to an aching forehead, stumbled to the couch

and tumbled down. Silent sobs shook his frame while Moore and Shea remained in

embarrassed silence nearby.

At last Moore nudged Mike. "Come on," he whispered, "let's get busy.

We're going places. Airlock five is at the end of the corridor, isn't it?"

Shea nodded and Moore continued, "Is it airtight?"

"Well," said Shea after some thought, "the inner door is, of course, but

I' don't know anything about the outer one. For all I know it may be a sieve.

You see, when I tested the wall for airtightness, I didn't dare open the inner

door, because if there was anything wrong with the outer one--blooey!" The

accompanying gesture was very expressive.

"Then it's up to us to find out about that outer door right now. I've

got to get outside some way and we'll just have to take chances. Where's the

spacesuit?"

He grabbed the lone suit from its place in the cupboard, threw it over

his shoulder and led the way into the long corridor that ran down the side of

the room. He passed closed doors behind whose airtight barriers were what once

had been passenger quarters but which were now merely cavities, open to space.

At the end of the corridor was the tight-fitting door of Airlock 5.

Moore stopped and surveyed it appraisingly. "Looks all right," he

observed, "but of course you can't tell what's outside. God, I hope it'll

work." He frowned. "Of course we could use the entire corridor as an airlock,

with the door to our room as the inner door and this as the outer door, but

that would mean the loss of half our air supply. We can't afford that--yet."

He turned to Shea. " All right, now. The indicator shows that the lock

was last used for entrance, so it should be full of air. Open the door the

tiniest crack, and if there's a hissing noise, shut it quick."

"Here goes," and the lever moved one notch. The mechanism had been

severely shaken up during the shock of the crash and its former noiseless

workings had given way to a harsh, rasping sound, but it was still in

commission. A thin black line appeared on the left-hand side of the lock,

marking where the door had slid a fraction of an inch on the runners.

There was no hiss! Moore's look of anxiety faded somewhat. He took a

small pasteboard from his pocket and held it against the crack. If air were

leaking, that card should have held there, pushed by the escaping gas. It fell

to the floor.

Mike Shea stuck a forefinger in his mouth and then put it against the

crack. "Thank the Lord," he breathed, "not a sign of a draft."

"Good, good. Open it wider. Go ahead."

Another notch and the crack opened farther. And still no draft. Slowly,

ever so slowly, notch by notch, it creaked its way wider and wider. The two

men held their breaths, afraid that while not actually punctured, the outer

door might have been so weakened as to give way any moment. But it held! Moore

was jubilant as he wormed into the spacesuit.

"Things are going fine so far, Mike," he said. "You sit down right here

and wait for me. I don't know how long I'll take, but I'll be back. Where's

the heat ray? Have you got it?"

Shea held out the ray and asked, "But what are you going to do? I'd sort

of like to know."

Moore paused as he was about to buckle on the helmet. "Did you hear me

say inside that we had water enough to throwaway? Well, I've been thinking it

over and that's not such a bad idea. I'm going to throw it away." With no

other explanation, he stepped into the lock, leaving behind him a very puzzled

Mike Shea.

It was with a pounding heart that Moore waited for the outer door to

open. His plan was an extraordinarily simple one, but it might not be easy to

carry out.

There was a sound of creaking gears and scraping ratchets. Air sighed

away to nothingness. The door before him slid open a few inches and stuck.

Moore's heart sank as for a moment he thought it would not open at all, but

after a few preliminary jerks and rattles the barrier slid the rest of the

way. He clicked on the magnetic grapple and very cautiously put a foot out

into space. Clumsily he groped his way out to the side of the ship. He had

never been outside a ship in open space before and a vast dread overtook him

as he clung there, flylike, to his precarious perch. For a moment dizziness

overcame him.

He closed his eyes and for five minutes hung there, clutching the smooth

sides of what had once been the Silver Queen. The magnetic grapple held him

firm and when he opened his eyes once more he found his self-confidence in a

measure returned.

He gazed about him. For the first time since the crash he saw the stars

instead of the vision of Vesta which their porthole afforded. Eagerly he

searched the skies for the little blue-white speck that was Earth. It had

often amused him that Earth should always be the first object sought by space

travelers when stargazing, but the humor of the situation did not strike him

now. However, his search was in vain. From where he lay, Earth was invisible.

It, as well as the Sun, must be hidden behind Vesta.

Still, there was much else that he could not help but note. Jupiter was

off to the left, a brilliant globe the size of a small pea to the naked eye.

Moore observed two of its attendant satellites. Saturn was visible too, as a

brilliant planet of some negative magnitude, rivaling Venus as seen from

Earth.

Moore had expected that a goodly number of asteroids would be

visible--marooned as they were in the asteroid belt--but space seemed

surprisingly empty. Once he thought he could see a hurtling body pass within a

few miles, but so fast had the impression come and gone that he could not

swear that it was not fancy.

And then, of course, there was Vesta. Almost directly below him it

loomed like a balloon filling a quarter of the sky. It floated steadily, snowy

white, and Moore gazed at it with earnest longing. A good hard kick against

the side of the ship, he thought, might start him falling toward Vesta. He

might land safely and get help for the others. But the chance was too great

that he would merely take on a new orbit about Vesta. No, it would have to be

better than that.

This reminded him that he had no time to lose. He scanned the side of

the ship, looking for the water tank, but all he could see was a jungle of

jutting walls, jagged, crumbling, and pointed. He hesitated. Evidently the

only thing to do was to make for the lighted porthole to their room and

proceed to the tank from there;

Carefully he dragged himself along the wall of the ship. Not five yards

from the lock the smoothness stopped abruptly. There was a yawning cavity

which Moore recognized as having once been the room adjoining the corridor at

the far end. He shuddered. Suppose he were to come across a bloated dead body

in one of those rooms. He had known most of the passengers, many of them

personally. But he overcame his squeamishness and forced himself to continue

his precarious journey toward its goal.

And here he encountered his first practical difficulty. The room itself

was made of non-ferrous material in many parts. The magnetic grapple was

intended for use only on outer hulls and was useless throughout much of the

ship's interior. Moore had forgotten this when suddenly he found himself

floating down an incline, his grapple out of use. He grasped and clutched at a

nearby projection. Slowly he pulled himself back to safety..

He lay for a moment, almost breathless. Theoretically he should be

weightless out here in space--Vesta's influence being negligible--but the

regional Gravitator under his room was working. Without the balance of the

other Gravitators, it tended to place him under variable and suddenly shifting

stresses as he kept changing his position. For his magnetic grapple to let go

suddenly might mean being jerked away from the ship altogether. And then

what? Evidently this was going to be even more difficult than he had thought.

He inched forward in a crawl, testing each spot to see if the grapple

would hold. Sometimes he had to make long, circuitous journeys to gain a few

feet's headway and at other times he was forced to scramble and slip across

small patches of non-ferrous material. And always there was that tiring pull

of the Gravitator, continually changing directions as he progressed, setting

horizontal floors and vertical walls at queer and almost haphazard angles.

Carefully he investigated all objects that he came across. But it was a

barren search. Loose articles, chairs, tables had been jerked away at the

first shock, probably, and now were independent bodies of the Solar System. He

did manage, however, to pick up a small field glass and fountain pen. These he

placed in his pocket. They were valueless under present conditions, but

somehow they seemed to make more real this macabre trip across the sides of a

dead ship.

For fifteen minutes, twenty, half an hour, he labored slowly toward

where he thought the porthole should be. Sweat poured down into his eyes and

rendered his hair a matted mass. His muscles were beginning to ache under the

unaccustomed strain. His mind, already strained by the ordeal of the previous

day, was beginning to waver, to play him tricks.

The crawl began to seem eternal, something that had always existed and

would exist forever. The object of the journey, that for which he was

striving, seemed unimportant; he only knew that it was necessary to move. The

time, one hour back, when he had been with Brandon and Shea, seemed hazy and

lo~ in the far past. That more normal time, two days' age, wholly forgotten.

Only the jagged walls before him, only the vital necessity of getting at

some uncertain destination existed in his spinning brain. Grasping, straining,

pulling. Feeling for the iron alloy. Up and into gaping holes that were rooms

and then out again. Feel and pull--feel and pull--and--a light.

Moore stopped. Had he not been glued to the wall he would have fallen.

Somehow that light seemed to clear things. It was the porthole; not the many

dark, staring ones he had passed, but alive and alight. Behind it was Brandon.

A deep breath and he felt better, his mind cleared.

And now his way lay plain before him. Toward that spark of life he

crept. Nearer, and nearer; and nearer until he could touch it. He was there!

His eyes drank in the familiar room. God knows that it hadn't--any happy

associations in his mind, but it was something real, something almost natural.

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摘要：

TheBestOfIsaacAsimovISAACASIMOVCopyright(c)1973ContentsIntroductionMaroonedOffVestaNightfallC-ChuteTheMartianWayTheDeepTheFunTheyHadTheLastQuestionTheDeadPastTheDyingNightAnniversaryTheBilliardBallMirrorImageIntroductionImustadmitthetitleofthisbookgivesmepause.Whosaystheenclosedstoriesaremy'best'?Do...

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Isaac Asimov - The Best of Isaac Asimov

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