Foundation's Friends - Martin H Greenberg, Ed

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FOUNDATION’S FRIENDS

Stories in Honor of Isaac Asimov

Edited by Martin H. Greenberg

To Isaac, with love

Contents

Preface

The Nonmetallic Isaac or It’s a Wonderful Life

Strip-Runner

The Asenion Solution

Murder in the Urth Degree

Trantor Falls

Dilemma

Maureen Birnbaum After Dark

Balance

The Present Eternal

PAPPI

The Reunion at the Mile-High

Plato’s Cave

Foundation’s Conscience

Carhunters of the Concrete Prairie

The Overheard Conversation

Blot

The Fourth Law of Robotics

The Originist

A Word or Two from Janet

Fifty Years

Preface

by Ray Bradbury

ONE OF MY FAVORITE STORIES AS A CHILD WAS THE ONE ABOUT the little boy who got a

magical porridge machine functioning so wildly that it inundated the town with three feet of

porridge.

In order to walk from one house to the other, or head down-street, one had to head out

with a large spoon, eating one’s way to destinations near or far.

A delightful concept, save that I imagined tomato soup and a thick slush of crackers.

Going on a journey and making a feast, all in one!

I imagine the name of the little boy in that tale should have been Isaac Asimov. For it

seems to me that since first we met at the First World Science Fiction Convention in New York

City the first week in July 1939, Isaac has been journeying and feasting through life, now at the

Astronomical tables, now in a spread of other sciences, now in religion, and again in literature

over a great span of time. One could call him a jackdaw, but that wouldn’t be correct. Jackdaws

focus on and snatch bright objects of no particular weight. Isaac is in the mountain-moving

business, but he does not move but eat them. Hand him a book and a few hours later, like that

above-mentioned porridge, Isaac comes tunneling out the far side, still hungry. Is there a body of

literature he hasn’t taken on? I severely doubt it.

And now here, with this book, we have Asimov’s honorary sons and daughters. Their

machines may not run amok and inundate a city, but they are producing, nevertheless, and

looking to Papa Asimov and us for approval, which will not be withheld.

To say more would be to call attention to my comparable size, a mole next to a fortress or

a force of nature. I would add only a final note. People have said Isaac is a workaholic. Nonsense.

He has gone mad with love in ten dozen territories. And there are a few dozen virgin territories

left out there. There will be few such virgins left, when Isaac departs earth and arrives Up There

to write twenty-five new books of the Bible. And that’s only the first week!

One night two years ago, I dreamed I was Isaac Asimov. Arising the next day, it was

noon before my wife convinced me that I should not run for President.

Bless you, Isaac. Bless you, Isaac’s children, found herein.

February 21, 1989

The Nonmetallic Isaac or It’s a Wonderful Life

by Ben Bova

ASTROPHYSICISTS (TO START WITH A SCIENTIFIC WORD) CLASSIFY the universe into

three chemical categories: hydrogen, helium, and metals.

The first two are the lightest of all the hundred-some known elements. Anything heavier

than helium, the astrophysicists blithely call “metals.” Hydrogen and helium make up roughly

ninety-eight percent of the universe’s composition. To an astrophysicist, the universe consists of a

lot of hydrogen, a considerable amount of helium, and a smattering of metals.

Now, although Isaac Asimov is known throughout this planet (and possibly others, we

just don’t know yet) as a writer of science fiction, when you consider his entire output of written

material--all the four-hundred-and-counting books and the myriads of articles, columns,

limericks, and whatnots--his science fiction is actually a small percentage of the total. As far as

Asimov’s production is concerned, science fiction tales are his “metals.”

Science fact is his mettle.

It is the “nonmetallic” Asimov that I want to praise.

Remember the classic movie It’s a Wonderful Life!? The one where an angel shows suicidal

James Stewart what his hometown would be like if Jimmie’s character had never been born?

Think of what our home planet would be like if Isaac Asimov had never turned his mind

and hand to writing about science.

We narrowly missed such a fate. There was a moment in time when a youthful Isaac

faced a critical career choice: go on as a researcher or plunge full-time into writing. He chose

writing and the world is extremely happy with the result.

Knowing that science fiction, in those primeval days, could not support a wife and

family, Isaac chose to write about science fact and to make that his career, rather than biomedical

research.

But suppose he had not?

Suppose, faced with that career choice, Isaac had opted for the steady, if unspectacular,

career of a medium-level research scientist who wrote occasional science fiction stories as a

hobby.

We would still have the substantial oeuvre of his science fiction tales that this anthology

celebrates. We would still have “Nightfall” and “The Ugly Little Boy,” the original Foundation

trilogy and novels such as Pebble in the Sky. We would, to return to the metaphor we started with,

still have Isaac’s “metallic” output.

But we would not have his hydrogen and helium, the huge number of books that are

nonfiction, mainly books about science, although there are some marvelous histories, annotations

of various works of literature, and lecherous limericks in there, too.

If Isaac had toiled away his years as a full-time biomedical researcher and part-time

science fiction writer, we would never have seen all those marvelous science books. Probably a

full generation of scientists would have chosen other careers, because they would never have

been turned on to science by the books that Isaac did not write. Progress in all fields of the

physical sciences would have slowed, perhaps disastrously.

Millions of people allover the world would have been denied the pleasure of learning

that they could understand the principles of physics, mathematics, astronomy, geology,

chemistry, the workings of the human body, the intricacies of the human brain--because the

books from which they learned and received such pleasures would never have been written.

Entire publishing houses would have gone into bankruptcy, no doubt, without the

steady, sure income that Isaac’s science books have generated for them over the decades. And

will continue to generate for untold decades to come. The wood pulp and paper industry would

be in a chronic state of depression if Isaac had not turned out all those hundreds of books and

thousands of articles. Canada might have become a Third World nation, save for Dr. Isaac

Asimov.

To make it more personal, I would have never started to write popularizations of science

if it had not been for Isaac’s works--and for his personal encouragement and guidance. The gods

themselves are the only ones who know how many writers have been helped by Isaac, either by

reading his books or by asking him for help with science problems that had them stumped.

Blighted careers, ruined corporations, benighted people wandering in search of an

enlightenment that they cannot find--that is what the world would be like if Isaac had not poured

his great energies and greater heart into nonfiction books about science.

A final word about a word: popularization.

In the mouths of certain critics (including some professional scientists) “popularization”

is a term of opprobrium, somewhat akin to the sneering “pulp literature” that is still sometimes

slung at science fiction. “Popularizations” of science are regarded, by those slandering bastards,

as beneath the consideration of dignified persons.

Such critics regard themselves as among the elite, and they disdain “popularizations” of

science with the same lofty pigheadedness that George III displayed toward his American

subjects.

To explain science is probably the most vital task any writer can attempt in today’s

complex, technology-driven society. To explain science so well, so entertainingly, that ordinary

men and women all over the world clamor for your books--that is worthy of a Nobel Prize. Too

bad Alfred Nobel never thought about the need to explain science to the masses. I’m certain he

would have created a special prize for it.

Isaac Asimov writes about science (and everything else) so superbly well that it looks

easy. He can take any subject under the sun and write about it so lucidly and understandably

that any literate person can grasp the subject with hardly any strain at all.

For this incredible talent he is sometimes dismissed as “a mere popularizer.” As I have

offered in the past, I offer now; anyone who thinks that what Isaac does is easy is welcome to try

it. I know I have, with some degree of success. But easy it is not!

Thanks be to the forces that shape this universe, Isaac decided not to be a full-time

researcher. He became a full-time writer instead. While he is famous for writing science fiction,

his “nonmetallic” output of science fact is far larger and far more important--if that word can be

applied to writing--than his deservedly admired and awarded fiction.

If all this adds up to the conclusion that Isaac Asimov is a star, well, by heaven, he is!

One of the brightest, too.

Strip-Runner

by Pamela Sargent

THE THREE BOYS CAUGHT UP WITH AMY JUST AS SHE REACHED the strips. “Barone-

Stein,” one boy shouted to her. She did not recognize any of them, but they obviously knew who

she was.

“We want a run,” the smallest boy said, speaking softly so that the people passing them

could not hear the challenge. “You can lead and pick the point.”

“Done,” she said quickly. “C-254th, Riverdale localway intersection. “

The boys frowned. Maybe they had expected a longer run. They seemed young; the

tallest one could not be more than eleven. Amy leaned over and rolled up the cuffs of her pants a

little. She could shake all of them before they reached the destination she had named.

More people passed and stepped onto the nearest strip. The moving gray bands stretched

endlessly to either side of her, carrying their human cargo through the City. The strip closest to

her was moving at a bit over three kilometers an hour; most of its passengers at the moment were

elderly people or small children practicing a few dance steps where there was space. Next to it,

another strip moved at over five kilometers an hour; in the distance, on the fastest strip, the

passengers were a multicolored blur. All the strips carried a steady stream of people, but the

evening rush hour would not start for a couple of hours. The boys had challenged her during a

slower period, which meant they weren’t that sure of themselves; they would not risk a run

through mobs of commuters.

“Let’s go,” Amy said. She stepped on the strip; the boys got on behind her. Ahead,

people were stepping to the adjoining strip, slowly making their way toward the fastest-moving

strip that ran alongside the localway platform. Advertisements flashed around her through the

even, phosphorescent light, offering clothing, the latest book-films, exotic beverages, and yet

another hyperwave drama about a Spacer’s adventures on Earth. Above her, light-worms and

bright arrows gleamed steadily with directions for the City’s millions: THIS WAY TO JERSEY

SECTIONS; FOLLOW ARROW TO LONG ISLAND. The noise was constant. Voices rose and fell

around her as the strip hummed softly under her feet; she could dimly hear the whistle of the

localway.

Amy walked up the strip, darted past a knot of people, then crossed to the next strip,

bending her knees slightly to allow for the increase in speed. She did not look back, knowing the

boys were still behind her. She took a breath, quickly stepped to the next strip, ran along it

toward the passengers up ahead, and then jumped to the fourth strip. She pivoted, jumped to the

third strip again, then rapidly crossed three strips in succession.

Running the strips was a lot like dancing. She kept up the rhythm as she leaped to the

right, leaned into the wind, then jumped to the slower strip on her left. Amy grinned as a man

shook his head at her. The timid ways of most riders were not for her. Others shrank from the

freedom the gray bands offered, content to remain part of a channeled stream. They seemed deaf

to the music of the strips and the song that beckoned to her.

Amy glanced back; she had already lost one of the boys. Moving to the left edge of the

strip, she feinted, then jumped to her right, pushed past a startled woman, and continued along

the strips until she reached the fastest one.

Her left arm was up, to shield her from the wind; this strip, like the localway, was

moving at nearly thirty-eight kilometers an hour. The localway was a constantly moving

platform, with poles for boarding and clear shields placed at intervals to protect riders from the

wind. Amy grabbed a pole and swung herself aboard.

There was just enough room for her to squeeze past the standing passengers. The two

remaining boys had followed her onto the localway; a woman muttered angrily as Amy shoved

past her to the other side.

She jumped down to the strip below, which was also moving at the localway’s speed,

hauled herself aboard the platform once more, then leaped back to the strip. One boy was still

with her, a few paces behind. His companion must have hesitated a little, not expecting her to

leap to the strip again so soon. Any good striprunner would have expected it; no runner stayed

on a localway or expressway very long. She jumped to a slower strip, counted to herself, leaped

back to the faster strip, counted again, then grabbed a pole, bounded onto the localway, pushed

past more people to the opposite side, and launched herself at the strip below, her back to the

wind, her legs shooting out into a split. Usually she disdained such moves at the height of a run,

but could not resist showing her skill this time.

She landed about a meter in front of a scowling man.

“Crazy kids!” he shouted. “Ought to report you--” She turned toward the wind and

stepped to the strip on her left, bracing herself against the deceleration as the angry man was

swept by her on the faster strip, then looked back. The third boy was nowhere to be seen among

the stream of people behind her.

Too easy, she thought. She had shaken them all even before reaching the intersection that

led to the Concourse Sector. She would go on to the destination, so that the boys, when they got

there, could issue another challenge if they wished. She doubted that they would; she would

have just enough time to make her way home afterward.

They should have known better. They weren’t good enough runners to keep up with

Amy Barone-Stein. She had lost Kiyoshi Harris, one of the best strip-runners in the City, on a

two-hour run to the end of Brooklyn, and had reached Queens alone on another run after shaking

off Bradley Ohaer’s gang. She smiled as she recalled how angry Bradley had been, beaten by a

girl. Few girls ran the strips, and she was better than any of the others at the game. For over a

year now, no one she challenged had ever managed to shake her off; when she led, nobody could

keep up with her. She was the best girl strip-runner in New York City, maybe in all of Earth’s

Cities.

No, she told herself as she crossed the strips to the expressway intersection. She was

simply the best.

Amy’s home was in a Kingsbridge subsection. Her feeling of triumph had faded by the

time she reached the elevator banks that led to her level; she was not that anxious to get home.

Throngs of people moved along the street between the high metallic walls that enclosed some of

the City’s millions. All of Earth’s Cities were like New York, where people had burrowed into the

ground and walled themselves in; they were safe inside the Cities, protected from the emptiness

of the Outside.

Amy pushed her way into an elevator. A wedding party was aboard, the groom in a dark

ruffled tunic and pants, the bride in a short white dress with her hands around a bouquet of

flowers made of recycled paper. The people with them were holding bottles and packages of

rations clearly meant for the reception. The couple smiled at Amy; she murmured her

congratulations as the elevator stopped at her level.

She sprinted down the hall until she came to a large double door with glowing letters

that said PERSONAL--WOMEN. Under the sign, smaller letters said SUBSECTIONS 2H-2N;

there was also a number to call in case anyone lost a key. Amy unzipped her pocket, took out a

thin aluminum strip, and slipped it into the key slot.

The door opened. Several women were in the pleasant rose-colored antechamber, talking

as they combed their hair and sprayed on makeup by the wall of mirrors. They did not greet

Amy, so she said nothing to them. Her father, like most men, found it astonishing that women

felt free to speak to one another in such a place. No man would ever address another in the Men’s

Personals; even glancing at someone there was considered extremely offensive. Men would never

stand around gossiping in a Personal’s antechamber, but things were not quite as free here as her

father thought. Women would never speak to anyone who clearly preferred privacy, or greet a

new subsection resident here until they knew her better.

Amy stood by a mirror and smoothed down her short, dark curls, then entered the

common stalls. A long row of toilets, with thin partitions but no doors, lined one wall; a row of

sinks faced them on the other side of the room.

A young woman was kneeling next to one toilet, where a small child sat on a training

seat; Amy could not help noticing that the child was a boy. That was allowed, until a boy was

four and old enough to go to a Men’s Personal by himself or with his father, an experience that

had to be traumatic the first time around. She thought of what it must be like for a little boy,

leaving the easier, warmer atmosphere of his mother’s Personal for the men’s, where even

looking in someone else’s direction was taboo. Some said the custom arose because of the need to

preserve some privacy in the midst of others, but psychologists also claimed that the taboo grew

out of the male’s need to separate himself from his mother. No wonder men behaved as they did

in their Personals. They would not only be infringing on another’s privacy if they behaved

otherwise, but would also be displaying an inappropriate regression to childhood.

Amy kept her eyes down, ignoring the other women and girls in the common stalls until

she reached the rows of shower heads. Two women were entering the private stalls in the back.

Amy’s mother had been allowed a private stall some years ago, a privilege her husband had

earned for both of them after a promotion, but Amy was not allowed to use it. Other parents

might have granted such permission, but hers were stricter; they did not want their daughter

getting too used to privileges she had not earned for herself.

She would take her shower now, and put her clothes in the laundry slot to be cleaned; the

Personal would be more crowded after dinner. Amy sighed; that wasn’t the only reason to linger

here. Her mother would have received the message from Mr. Liang by now. Amy was afraid to

go home and face her.

Four women were leaving the apartment as Amy approached. She greeted them

absently, and nodded when they asked if she was doing well in school. These were her mother’s

more intellectual friends, the ones who discussed sociology and settled the City’s political

problems among themselves before moving on to the essential business of tips for stretching

quota allowances and advice on child-rearing.

Amy’s mother stepped back as she entered; the door closed. Amy had reached the

middle of the spacious living room before her mother spoke. “Where are you going, dear?”

“Er--to my room.”

“I think you’d better sit down. We have something to discuss.”

Amy moved toward one of the chairs and sat down. The living room was over five

meters long, with two chairs, a small couch, and an imitation leather ottoman. The apartment had

two other rooms as well, and her parents even had the use of a sink in their bedroom, thanks to

her father’s Civil Service rating. They both had a lot to protect, which meant that they would

scold her even more for her failures.

“You took longer than usual getting home,” her mother said as she sat down on the

couch across from Amy.

“I had to shower. Oh, shouldn’t we be getting ready to go to supper? Father’ll probably

be home any minute. “

“He told me he’d be late, so we’re not eating in the section kitchen tonight. “

Amy bit her lip, sorry for once that her family was allowed four meals a week in their

own apartment. Her parents wouldn’t have been able to harp at her at the section kitchen’s long

tables in the midst of all the diners there.

“Anyway,” her mother continued, “I felt sure you’d want to speak to me alone, before

your father comes home.”

“Oh.” Amy stared at the blue carpet. “What about?”

“You know what about. I had a message from your guidance counselor, Mr. Liang. I

know he told you he’d be speaking to me.”

“Oh.” Amy tried to sound unconcerned. “That.”

“He says your grades won’t be good at the end of the quarter.” Her mother’s dark eyes

narrowed. “If they don’t improve soon, he’s going to invite me there for a conference, and that’s

not all.” She leaned back against the couch. “He also says you’ve been seen running the strips.”

Amy started. “Who told him that?”

“Oh, Amy. I’m sure he has ways of finding out. Is it true?”

“Um.”

“Well, is it? That’s even more serious than your grades. Do you want a police officer

picking you up? Did you even stop to think about the accidents you might cause, or that you

could be seriously injured? You know what your father said the first time he heard about your

strip-running. “

Amy bowed her head. That had been over two years ago, and he had lectured her for

hours, but had remained unaware of her activities since then. I’m the best, she thought; every

runner in the City knows about me. She wanted to shout it and force her mother to acknowledge

the achievement, but kept silent.

“It’s a stupid, dangerous game, Amy. A few boys are killed every year running the strips,

and passengers are hurt as well. You’re fourteen now--I thought you were more mature. I can’t

believe--”

“I haven’t been running the strips,” Amy said. “I mean, I haven’t made a run in a while.”

Not since a couple of hours ago, she added silently to herself, and that wasn’t a real run, so I’m

not really lying. She felt just a bit guilty; she didn’t like to lie.

“And your grades--”

Amy seized at the chance to avoid the more hazardous topic of strip-racing. “I know

they’re worse. I know I can do better, but what difference does it make?”

“Don’t you want to do well? You used to be one of the best math students in your school,

and your science teacher always praised--”

“So what?” Amy could not restrain herself any longer. “What good is it? What am I ever

going to use it for?”

“You have to do well if you want to be admitted to a college level. Your father’s status

may make it easier for you to get in, but you won’t last if you’re not well prepared.”

“And then what? Unless I’m a genius, or a lot better than any of the boys, they’ll just

push me into dietetics courses or social relations or child psychology so I’ll be a good mother

someday, or else train me to program computers until I get married. I’ll just end up doing

nothing anyway, so why should I try?”

“Nothing?” Her mother’s olive-skinned face was calm, but her voice shook a little. “Is

what I do nothing, looking after you and your father? Is rearing a child and making a pleasant

home for a husband nothing?”

“I didn’t mean nothing, but why does it have to be everything? You wanted more once--

you know you did. You--you--”.

Her mother was gazing at her impassively. Amy jumped up and fled to her room.

She lay on her narrow bed, glaring up at the soft glow of the ceiling. Her mother should

have been the first to understand. Amy knew how she once had felt, but lately, she seemed to

have forgotten her old dreams.

Amy’s mother, Alysha Barone, was something of a Medievalist. That wasn’t odd; a lot of

people were. They got together to talk about old ways and historical bookfilms and the times

when Earth had been humanity’s only home. They dwelled nostalgically on ancient periods

when people had lived Outside instead of huddling together inside the Cities, when Earth was

the only world and the Spacers did not exist.

Not that any of them could actually live Outside, without walls, breathing unfiltered air

filled with microorganisms that bred disease and eating unprocessed food that had grown in dirt;

Amy shuddered at the thought. Better to leave the Outside to the robots that worked the mines

and tended the crops the Cities demanded. Better to live as they did, whatever the problems, and

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FOUNDATION’SFRIENDSStoriesinHonorofIsaacAsimovEditedbyMartinH.GreenbergCopyright©1989ToIsaac,withloveContentsPrefaceTheNonmetallicIsaacorIt’saWonderfulLifeStrip-RunnerTheAsenionSolutionMurderintheUrthDegreeTrantorFallsDilemmaMaureenBirnbaumAfterDarkBalanceThePresentEternalPAPPITheReunionattheMile-Hi...

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