Robert Silverberg - The Science Fiction Hall of Fame

THE SCIENCE FICTION HALL OF

FAME

Volume One, 1929-1964

The Greatest Science Fiction Stones of All Time

Chosen by the Members of The Science Fiction Writers of

America

Edited by Robert Silverberg

v3.0 - Fixed broken paragraphs, garbled text, formatting; by peragwinn 2004-10-09

® TOR

® A Tom Doherty Associates Book New York

This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in the stories in this

collection are either fictitious or are used fictitiously.

THE SCIENCE FICTION HALL OF FAME, VOLUME ONE, 1929-1964

Edited by Robert Silverberg

any form.

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Publications, Inc. Reprinted by permission of Forrest J. Ackerman on behalf of

the author's estate.

Inc. Reprinted by permission of the author's agents, Scott Meredith Literary

Agency, Inc.

Inc. Reprinted by permission of the author's agents, Scott Meredith Literary

Agency, Inc.

Publications, Inc. Copyright renewed 1967 by Robert A. Heinlein. Reprinted by

permission of the author and his agent, Lurton Blassingame.

Publications, Inc. Reprinted by permission of the author and his agent, Robert P.

Mills.

Copyright renewed 1968 by Isaac Asimov. Reprinted by permission of the author.

Publications, Inc. Reprinted by permission of the author's agent, Forrest J.

Ackerman.

Publications, Inc. Reprinted by permission of Harold Matson Company, Inc.

Publications, Inc. Reprinted by permission of the author and his agent, Robert P.

Mills.

Reprinted by permission of the author's agents, Scott Meredith Literary Agency,

Inc.

Inc. Reprinted by permission of Scott Meredith Literary Agency, Inc.

Publications, Inc. Reprinted by permission of the author.

Publishing Co., Inc. Reprinted by permission of the author's agents, Scott

Meredith Literary Agency, Inc.

Company, Inc. Reprinted by permission of Harold Matson Company, Inc.

Publications, Inc. Reprinted by permission of Robert P. Mills on behalf of the

author's estate.

House, Inc. Reprinted by permission of Harold Matson Company, Inc.

Reprinted by permission of the author and his agent, Robert P. Mills.

Co. Reprinted by permission of the author's agents, Collins-Knowlton-Wing, Inc.

Corporation. Reprinted by permission of the author and his agent, Robert P. Mills.

Books, Inc. Reprinted by permission of the author's agents, Scott Meredith

Literary Agency, Inc.

Reprinted by permission of the author's agent, Forrest J. Ackerman.

Publications, Inc. Reprinted by permission of the author's agents, Scott Meredith

Literary Agency, Inc.

Reprinted by permission of the author and his agent, Robert p. Mills.

Inc. Reprinted by permission of the author and his agent, Robert P. Mills.

Reprinted by permission of the author and his agent, Robert P. Mills.

Reprinted by permission of Ace Books, Inc.

CONTENTS

Introduction: Robert Silverberg

A MARTIAN ODYSSEY, Stanley G. Weinbaum

TWILIGHT, John W. Campbell

HELEN O'LOY, Lester del Rey

THE ROADS MUST ROLL, Robert A. Heinlein

MICROCOSMIC GOD, Theodore Sturgeon

NIGHTFALL, Isaac Asimov

THE WEAPON SHOP, A. E. van Vogt

MIMSY WERE THE BOROGOVES, Lewis Padgett

HUDDLING PLACE, Clifford D. Simak

ARENA, Fredric Brown

FIRST CONTACT, Murray Leinster

THAT ONLY A MOTHER, Judith Merril

SCANNERS LIVE IN VAIN, Cordwainer Smith

MARS IS HEAVEN!, Ray Bradbury

THE LITTLE BLACK BAG, C. M. Kombluth

BORN OF MAN AND WOMAN, Richard Matheson

COMING ATTRACTION, Fritz Leiber

THE QUEST FOR SAINT AQUIN, Anthony Boucher

SURFACE TENSION, James Blish

THE NINE BILLION NAMES OF GOD, Arthur C. Clarke

IT'S A GOOD LIFE, Jerome Bixby

THE COLD EQUATIONS, Tom Godwin

FONDLY FAHRENHEIT, Alfred Bester

THE COUNTRY OF THE KIND, Damon Knight

FLOWERS FOR ALGERNON, Daniel Keyes

A ROSE FOR ECCLESIASTES, Roger Zelazny

INTRODUCTION

This is as nearly definitive an anthology of modern science fiction stories as is

likely to be compiled for quite some time. Its contents were chosen by vote of the

membership of the Science Fiction Writers of America, an organization of some three

hundred professional writers whose roster includes virtually everyone now living who

has ever had science fiction published in the United States. The book you now hold

represents the considered verdict of those who themselves have shaped science

fiction—a roster of outstanding stories selected by people who know more intimately

than any others what the criteria for excellence in science fiction should be.

SFWA—the Science Fiction Writers of America—was founded in 1965 "to

inform science fiction writers on matters of professional interest, to promote their

professional welfare, and to help them deal effectively with publishers, agents,

editors, and anthologists." Though other special writers' organizations, such as the

Mystery Writers of America and the Western Writers of America, had come into

existence long before, all previous attempts to create a professional science fiction

writers' group had been abortive. However—thanks in large measure to the energy

and devotion of the first president of SFWA, Damon Knight, and its first secretary-

treasurer, Lloyd Biggie—all but a few writers in this notoriously individualistic field

quickly joined. For greater cohesiveness, membership was limited to writers whose

work had appeared m the United States, but no restrictions were placed on a writer's

own residence or citizenship. Thus SFWA has a large British contingent as well as

members from Australia, Canada, and several other Commonwealth countries.

In 1966 SFWA held the first of its annual awards banquets, at which handsome

trophies nicknamed Nebulas were presented to the authors of 1965's outstanding

science fiction stories, as chosen by vote of the membership. These awards have been

presented in each subsequent year in four categories: short story, novelet, novella, and

novel.

During my term of office (1967-68) as SFWA's second president, it was decided

to extend the concept of awards retroactively into the period prior to SFWA's

inception. Members would be asked to nominate and vote for the best science fiction

stories of the era ending on December 31, 1964: that is, the period up to the point

covered by the Nebula awards. No trophies would be given, but the stories chosen

would be republished in a showcase anthology spanning several volumes—the

Science Fiction Hall of Fame.

This is the first of those anthologies. It embraces the categories of short story and

novelet; arbitrarily, stories over 15,000 words in length were excluded from

nomination and reserved for consideration in the volumes to come. Nominations

remained open for more than a year, during which time a significant proportion of the

membership suggested favorite stories, each writer giving no consideration to his own

work. Eventually, 132 stories by seventy-six different writers found places on the

final ballot. Then the members of SFWA were asked to choose ten stories from this

list. They were limited to the choice of one story by any author, and were asked to

keep historical perspective in mind. That is, it was hoped that they would distribute

their votes in such a way as to give representation to each of the evolutionary stages

of modern science fiction. (The stories on the ballot had originally been published

between 1929 and 1964.)

As editor of the book, I exercised certain limited prerogatives of selection after

the counting of the votes. No editorial discretion whatever was invoked upon the

fifteen most popular stories as shown by the vote tally; their inclusion in the book was

regarded as obligatory. Those fifteen, in order of the number of votes they received,

were:

1. Nightfall, Isaac Asimov

2. A Martian Odyssey, Stanley G. Weinbaum

3. Flowers for Algernon, Daniel Keyes

4. Microcosmic God, Theodore Sturgeon(tie) First Contact, Murray Leinster

6. A Rose for Ecclesiastes, Roger Zelazny

7. The Roads Must Roll, Robert A. Heinlein(tie) Mimsy Were the Borogoves,

Lewis Padgett (tie) Coming Attraction, Fritz Leiber (tie) The Cold Equations,

Tom Godwin

11. The Nine Billion Names of God, Arthur C. Clarke

12. Surface Tension, James Blish

13. The Weapon Shop, A. E. van Vogt(tie) Twilight, John W. Campbell

15. Arena, Fredric Brown

(Arthur C. Clarke's The Star would have been the fifteenth story on this list if it

had not been disqualified by the presence of another Clarke story in eleventh place.

Clarke was the only writer to place two stories in the top fifteen, although both Robert

A. Heinlein and Ray Bradbury had two stories in the top twenty.)

Beyond the first fifteen, some selectivity had to be imposed to keep the book from

growing to infinite length. As far as possible, I attempted to follow the dictates of the

tallied vote, eliminating only those stories whose authors were represented by a story

higher on the list. But there were some obvious injustices requiring remedies. One

important and highly respected author had had four stories on the original ballot,

including two from the same cycle. As a result of this competition with himself, no

one of his stories finished within the top twenty, although the aggregate of his vote

placed him well up among the leaders. Eliminating a man whose career had been so

distinguished from a book of this nature seemed improper; and so I gave preference to

one of his four stories over that of another writer whose only nominated piece had

finished slightly higher on the list. In this case recognition of an entire body of work

was deemed more important than recognition of a single story.

In another instance, two of a writer's stories made the second fifteen, one vote

apart; but the story with the higher number of votes was not the story that the writer

himself wished to see included in the book. I chose to regard the one-vote differential

as statistically insignificant, and reversed the order of finish of that writer's stories so

that I might use the one that he (and I) regarded as superior.

There were several other minor modifications of this sort, made necessary by

considerations of length, balance, and over-all career contributions. Strictly speaking,

then, the table of contents of the present anthology does not reflect a rigid tally of the

SFWA vote. Rather, it offers the fifteen stories of the pre-1965 period that were

selected as best by the SFWA, plus all but a few of the second fifteen. I regret the

necessities of publishing reality that forced me to omit some of the stories in that

second fifteen, amounting to over 50,000 words of fiction; but in view of the need to

keep the book within manageable size I think it does offer a definitive group of stories

by the writers who have done most to give form and substance to modern science

fiction—a basic one-volume library of the short science fiction story.

Robert Silverberg

THE SCIENCE FICTION HALL OF FAME Volume One, 1929-1964

A MARTIAN ODYSSEY

by Stanley G. Weinbaum

First published in 1934

Jarvis stretched himself as luxuriously as he could in the cramped general quarters

of the Ares.

"Air you can breathe!" he exulted. "It feels as thick as soup after the thin stuff out

there!" He nodded at the Martian landscape stretching flat and desolate in the light of

the nearer moon, beyond the glass of the port.

The other three stared at him sympathetically—Putz, the engineer, Leroy, the

biologist, and Harrison, the astronomer and captain of the expedition. Dick Jarvis was

chemist of the famous crew, the Ares expedition, first human beings to set foot on the

mysterious neighbor of the earth, the planet Mars. This, of course, was in the old

days, less than twenty years after the mad American Doheny perfected the atomic

blast at the cost of his life, and only a decade after the equally mad Cardoza rode on it

to the moon. They were true pioneers, these four of the Ares. Except for a half-dozen

moon expeditions and the ill-fated de Lancey flight aimed at the seductive orb of

Venus, they were the first men to feel other gravity than earth's, and certainly the first

successful crew to leave the earth-moon system. And they deserved that success when

one considers the difficulties and discomforts—the months spent in acclimatization

chambers back on earth, learning to breathe the air as tenuous as that of Mars, the

challenging of the void in the tiny rocket driven by the cranky reaction motors of the

twenty-first century, and mostly the facing of an absolutely unknown world.

Jarvis stretched and fingered the raw and peeling tip of his frostbitten nt>se. He

sighed again contentedly.

"Well," exploded Harrison abruptly, "are we going to hear what happened? You

set out all shipshape in an auxiliary rocket, we don't get a peep for ten days, and

finally Putz here picks you out of a lunatic ant-heap with a freak ostrich as your pal!

Spill it, man!"

"Speel?" queried Leroy perplexedly. "Speel what?"

"He means 'spiel'," explained Putz soberly. "It iss to tell."

Jarvis met Harrison's amused glance without the shadow of a smile. "That's right,

Karl," he said in grave agreement with Putz. "Ich spiel es!" He grunted comfortably

and began.

"According to orders," he said, "I watched Karl here take off toward the North,

and then I got into my flying sweat-box and headed South. You'll remember, Cap—

we had orders not to land, but just scout about for points of interest. I set the two

cameras clicking and buzzed along, riding pretty high—about two thousand feet—for

a couple of reasons. First, it gave the cameras a greater field, and second, the under-

jets travel so far in this half-vacuum they call air here that they stir up dust if you

move low."

"We know all that from Putz," grunted Harrison. "I wish you'd saved the films,

though. They'd have paid the cost of this junket; remember how the public mobbed

the first moon pictures?"

"The films are safe," retorted Jarvis. "Well," he resumed, "as I said, I buzzed

along at a pretty good clip; just as we figured, the wings haven't much lift in this air at

less than a hundred miles per hour, and even then I had to use the under-jets.

"So, with the speed and the altitude and the blurring caused by the under-jets, the

seeing wasn't any too good. I could see enough, though, to distinguish that what I

sailed over was just more of this grey plain that we'd been examining the whole week

since our landing—same blobby growths and the same eternal carpet of crawling little

plant- animals, or biopods, as Leroy calls them. So I sailed along, calling back my

position every hour as instructed, and not knowing whether you heard me."

"I did!" snapped Harrison.

"A hundred and fifty miles south," continued Jarvis imperturbably, "the surface

changed to a sort of low plateau, nothing but desert and orange-tinted sand. I figured

that we were right in our guess, then, and this grey plain we dropped on was really the

Mare Cimmerium which would make my orange desert the region called Xanthus. If I

were right, I ought to hit another grey plain, the Mare Chronium in another couple of

hundred miles, and then another orange desert, Thyle I or II. And so I did."

"Putz verified our position a week and a half ago!" grumbled the captain. "Let's

get to the point."

"Coming!" remarked Jarvis. "Twenty miles into Thyle—believe it or not—I

crossed a canal!"

"Putz photographed a hundred! Let's hear something new!"

"And did he also see a city?"

"Twenty of 'em, if you call those heaps of mud cities!"

"Well," observed Jarvis, "from here on I'll be telling a few things Putz didn't see!"

He rubbed his tingling nose, and continued. "I knew that I had sixteen hours of

daylight at this season, so eight hours—eight hundred miles—from here, I decided to

turn back. I was still over Thyle, whether I or II I'm not sure, not more than twenty-

five miles into it. And right there, Putz's pet motor quit!"

"Quit? How?" Putz was solicitous.

"The atomic blast got weak. I started losing altitude right away, and suddenly

there I was with a thump right in the middle of Thyle! Smashed my nose on the

window, too!" He rubbed the injured member ruefully.

"Did you maybe try vashing der combustion chamber mit acid sulphuric?"

inquired Putz. "Sometimes der lead giffs a secondary radiation —"

"Naw!" said Jarvis disgustedly. "I wouldn't try that, of course—not more than ten

times! Besides, the bump flattened the landing gear and busted off the under-jets.

Suppose I got the thing working—what then? Ten miles with the blast coming right

out of the bottom and I'd have melted the floor from under me!" He rubbed his nose

again. "Lucky for me a pound only weighs seven ounces here, or I'd have been

mashed flat!"

"I could have fixed!" ejaculated the engineer. "I bet it vas not serious."

"Probably not," agreed Jarvis sarcastically. "Only it wouldn't fly. Nothing serious,

but I had my choice of waiting to be picked up or trying to walk back—eight hundred

miles, and perhaps twenty days before we had to leave! Forty miles a day! Well," he

concluded, "I chose to walk. Just as much chance of being picked up, and it kept me

busy."

"We'd have found you," said Harrison.

"No doubt. Anyway, I rigged up a harness from some seat straps, and put the

water tank on my back, took a cartridge belt and revolver, and^some iron rations, and

started out."

"Water tank!" exclaimed the bttle biologist, Leroy. "She weigh one- quarter ton!"

"Wasn't full. Weighed about two hundred and fifty pounds earth- weight, which is

eighty-five here. Then, besides, my own personal two hundred and ten pounds is only

seventy on Mars, so, tank and all, I grossed a hundred and fifty-five, or fifty-five

pounds less than my everyday earth-weight. I figured on that when I undertook the

forty-mile daily stroll. Oh—of course I took a thermo-skin sleeping bag for these

wintry Martian nights.

"Off I went, bouncing along pretty quickly. Eight hours of daylight meant twenty

miles or more. It got tiresome, of course—plugging along over a soft sand desert with

nothing to see, not even Leroy's crawling biopods. But an hour or so brought me to

the canal—just a dry ditch about four hundred feet wide, and straight as a railroad on

its own company map.

"There'd been water in it sometime, though. The ditch was covered with what

looked like a nice green lawn. Only, as I approached, the lawn moved out of my

way!"

"Eh?" saidLeroy.

"Yeah, it was a relative of your biopods. I caught one—a little grass- like blade

about as long as my finger, with two thin, stemmy legs."

"He is where?" Leroy was eager.

"He is let go! I had to move, so I plowed along with the walking grass opening in

front and closing behind. And then I was out on the orange desert of Thyle again.

"I plugged steadily along, cussing the sand that made going so tiresome, and,

incidentally, cussing that cranky motor of yours, Karl. It was just before twilight that I

reached the edge of Thyle, and looked down over the grey Mare Chronium. And I

knew there was seventy-five miles of that to be walked over, and then a couple of

hundred miles of that Xanthus desert, and about as much more Mare Cimmerium.

Was I pleased? I started cussing you fellows for not picking me up!"

"We were trying, you sap!" said Harrison.

"That didn't help. Well, I figured I might as well use what was left of daylight in

getting down the cliff that bounded Thyle. I found an easy place, and down I went.

Mare Chronium was just the same sort of place as this—crazy leafless plants and a

bunch of crawlers; I gave it a glance and hauled out my sleeping bag. Up to that time,

you know, I hadn't seen anything worth worrying about on this half-dead world—

nothing dangerous, that is."

"Did you?" queried Harrison.

"Did I! You'll hear about it when I come to it. Well, I was just about to turn in

when suddenly I heard the wildest sort of shenanigans!"

"Vot iss shenanigans?" inquired Putz.

"He says, 'Je ne sais quoi,' " explained Leroy. "It is to say, 'I don't know what.' "

"That's right," agreed Jarvis. "I didn't know what, so I sneaked over to find out.

There was a racket like a flock of crows eating a bunch of canaries—whistles,

cackles, caws, trills, and what have you. I rounded a clump of stumps, and there was

Tweel!"

"Tweel?" said Harrison, and "Tveel?" said Leroy and Putz.

"That freak ostrich," explained the narrator. "At least, Tweel is as near as I can

pronounce it without sputtering. He called it something like 'Trrrweerrlll.' "

"What was he doing?" asked the captain.

"He was being eaten! And squealing, of course, as any one would."

"Eaten! By what?"

"I found out later. All I could see then was a bunch of black ropy arms tangled

around what looked like, as Putz described it to you, an ostrich. I wasn't going to

interfere, naturally; if both creatures were dangerous, I'd have one less to worry about.

' 'But the bird-like thing was putting up a good battle, dealing vicious blows with

an eighteen-inch beak, between screeches. And besides, I caught a glimpse or two of

what was on the end of those arms!" Jarvis shuddered. "But the clincher was when I

noticed a little black bag or case hung about the neck of the bird-thing! It was

intelligent! That or tame, I assumed. Anyway, it clinched my decision. I pulled out

my automatic and fired into what I could see of its antagonist.

"There was a flurry of tentacles and a spurt of black corruption, and then the

thing, with a disgusting sucking noise, pulled itself and its arms into a hole in the

ground. The other let out a series of clacks, staggered around on legs about as thick as

golf sticks, and turned suddenly to face me. I held my weapon ready, and the two of

us stared at each other.

"The Martian wasn't a bird, really. It wasn't even bird-like, except just at first

glance. It had a beak all right, and a few feathery appendages, but the beak wasn't

really a beak. It was somewhat flexible; I could see the tip bend slowly from side to

side; it was almost like a cross between a beak and a trunk. It had four-toed feet, and

four-fingered things— hands, you'd have to call them, and a little roundish body, and

a long neck ending in a tiny head—and that beak. It stood an inch or so taller *an I,

and—well, Putz saw it!"

The engineer nodded. "Ja/1 saw!"

Jarvis continued. "So—we stared at each other. Finally the creature went into a

series of clackings and twitterings and held out its hands toward me, empty. I took

that as a gesture of friendship."

"Perhaps," suggested Harrison, "it looked at that nose of yours and thought you

were its brother!"

"Huh! You can be funny without talking! Anyway, I put up my gun and said 'Aw,

don't mention it,' or something of the sort, and the thing came over and we were pals.

"By that time, the sun was pretty low and I knew that I'd better build a fire or get

into my thermo-skin. I decided on the fire. I picked a spot at the base of the Thyle

cliff, where the rock could reflect a little heat on my back. I started breaking off

chunks of this desiccated Martian vegetation, and my companion caught the idea and

brought in an armful. I reached for a match, but the Martian fished into his pouch and

brought out something that looked like a glowing coal; one touch of it, and the fire

was blazing—and you all know what a job we have starting a fire in this atmosphere!

"And that bag of his!" continued the narrator. "That was a manufactured article,

my friends; press an end and she popped open—press the middle and she sealed so

perfectly you couldn't see the line. Better than zippers.

"Well, we stared at the fire a while and I decided to attempt some sort of

communication with the Martian. I pointed at myself and said 'Dick'; he caught the

drift immediately, stretched a bony claw at me and repeated 'Tick.' Then I pointed at

him, and he gave that whistle I called Tweel; I can't imitate his accent. Things were

going smoothly; to emphasize the names, I repeated 'Dick,' and then, pointing at him,

Tweel.'

"There we stuck! He gave some clacks that sounded negative, and said something

like 'P-p-p-root.' And that was just the beginning; I was always 'Tick,' but as for

him—part of the time he was 'Tweel,' and part of the time he was 'P-p-p-proot,' and

part of the time he was sixteen other noises!

"We just couldn't connect. I tried 'rock,' and I tried 'star,' and 'tree,' and 'fire,' and

Lord knows what else, and try as I would, I couldn't get a single word! Nothing was

the same for two successive minutes, and if that's a language, I'm an alchemist!

Finally I gave it up and called him Tweel, and that seemed to do.

"But Tweel hung on to some of my words. He remembered a couple of them,

which I suppose is a great achievement if you're used to a language you have to make

up as you go along. But I couldn't get the hang of his talk; either I missed some subtle

point or we just didn't think alike—and I rather believe the latter view.

"I've other reasons for believing that. After a while I gave up the language

business, and tried mathematics. I scratched two plus two equals four on the ground,

and demonstrated it with pebbles. Again Tweel caught the idea, and informed me that

three plus three equals six. Once more we seemed to be getting somewhere.

"So, knowing that Tweel had at least a grammar school education, I drew a circle

for the sun, pointing first at it, and then at the last glow of the sun. Then I sketched in

Mercury, and Venus, and Mother Earth, and Mars, and finally, pointing to Mars, I

swept my hand around in a sort of inclusive gesture to indicate that Mars was our

current environment. I was working up to putting over the idea that my home was on

the earth.

"Tweel understood my diagram all right. He poked his beak at it, and with a great

deal of trilling and clucking, he added Deimos and Phobos to Mars, and then

sketched in the earth's moon!

"Do you see what that proves? It proves that Tweel's race uses telescopes—that

they're civilized!"

"Does not!" snapped Harrison. "The moon is visible from here as a fifth

magnitude star. They could see its revolution with the naked eye."

"The moon, yes!" said Jarvis. "You've missed my point. Mercury isn't visible!

And Tweel knew of Mercury because he placed the Moon at the third planet, not the

second. If he didn't know Mercury, he'd put the earth second, and Mars third, instead

of fourth! See?"

"Humph!'' said Harrison.

"Anyway," proceeded Jarvis, "I went on with my lesson. Things were going

smoothly, and it looked as if I could put the idea over. I pointed at the earth on my

diagram, and then at myself, and then, to clinch it, I pointed to myself and then to the

earth itself shining bright green almost at the zenith.

"Tweel set up such an excited clacking that I was certain he understood. He

jumped up and down, and suddenly he pointed at himself and then at the sky, and then

at himself and at the sky again. He pointed at his middle and then at Arcturus, at his

head and then at Spica, at his feet and then at half a dozen stars, while I just gaped at

him. Then, all °f a sudden, he gave a tremendous leap. Man, what a hop! He shot

straight up into the starlight, seventy-five feet if an inch! I saw him silhouetted against

the sky, saw him turn and come down at me head first, and land smack on his beak

like a javelin! There he stuck square m the center of my sun-circle in the sand—a

bull's eye!"

"Nuts!" observed the captain. "Plain nuts!"

That's what I thought, too! I just stared at him open-mouthed while ne pulled his

head out of the sand and stood up. Then I figured he'd nussed my point, and I went

through the whole blamed rigamarole again, and it ended the same way, with Tweel

on his nose in the middle of my picture!"

"Maybe it's a religious rite," suggested Harrison.

"Maybe," said Jarvis dubiously. "Well, there we were. We could exchange ideas

up to a certain point, and then—blooey! Something in us was different, unrelated; I

don't doubt that Tweel thought me just as screwy as I thought him. Our minds simply

looked at the world from different viewpoints, and perhaps his viewpoint is as true as

ours. But— we couldn't get together, that's all. Yet, in spite of all difficulties, I liked

Tweel, and I have a queer certainty that he liked me."

"Nuts!" repeated the captain. "Just daffy!"

"Yeah? Wait and see. A couple of times I've thought that perhaps we—" He

paused, and then resumed his narrative. "Anyway, I finally gave it up, and got into my

thermo-skin to sleep. The fire hadn't kept me any too warm, but that damned sleeping

bag did. Got stuffy five minutes after I closed myself in. I opened it a little and bingo!

Some eighty-below-zero air hit my nose, and that's when I got this pleasant little

frostbite to add to the bump I acquired during the crash of my rocket.

"I don't know what Tweel made of my sleeping. He sat around, but when I woke

up, he was gone. I'd just crawled out of my bag, though, when I heard some

twittering, and there he came, sailing down from that three-story Thyle cliff to alight

on his beak beside me. I pointed to myself and toward the north, and he pointed at

himself and toward the south, but when I loaded up and started away, he came along.

"Man, how he traveled! A hundred and fifty feet at a jump, sailing through the air

stretched out like a spear, and landing on his beak. He seemed surprised at my

plodding, but after a few moments he fell in beside me, only every few minutes he'd

go into one of his leaps, and stick his nose into the sand a block ahead of me. Then

he'd come shooting back at me; it made me nervous at first to see that beak of his

coming at me like a spear, but he always ended in the sand at my side.

Robert Silverberg - The Science Fiction Hall of Fame - Vol 1, 1929-1964

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