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THE EARLY ASIMOV

The quintessence of modem science fiction is thought by many to be contained in the novels and short stories of Isaac

Asimov, and this new collection of twenty-seven of his early stories again confirms his inexhaustible imagination and

compelling style.

Each story is prefaced by Dr. Asimov with fascinating, and frequently amusing biographical details about how and

when he came to write it as well as his own critical evaluations of it. The result is a doubly rich science fiction treat--an

assortment of tales that are thoroughly entertaining in their own right besides providing a first-hand look at the

development of the young author and promises of the things yet to come from this master writer.

The

Early Asimov

or,

Eleven Years

of Trying

Isaac Asimov

To the memory of John Wood Campbell, Jr. (1910-71) for reasons that this book will make amply obvious

Stories Included:

The Callistan Menace

Ring Around the Sun

The Magnificent Possession

Trends

The Weapon Too Dreadful to Use

Black Friar of the Flame

Half-Breed

The Secret Sense

Homo Sol

Half-Breeds on Venus

The Imaginary

Heredity

History

Christmas On Ganymede

The Little Man on the Subway

The Hazing

Super-Neutron

Not Final!

Legal Rites

Time Pussy

Author! Author!

Death Sentence

Blind Alley

No Connection

The Endochronic Properties of Resublimated Thiotimoline

The Red Queen’s Race

Mother Earth

Appendix-The Sixty Stories of the Campbell Years

Although I have written over a hundred and twenty books, on almost every subject from

astronomy to Shakespeare and from mathematics to satire, it is probably as a science fiction writer that I am

best known.

I began as a science fiction writer, and for the first eleven years of my literary career I wrote

nothing but science fiction stories, for magazine publication only-and for minute payment. The thought of

actually publishing honest-to-goodness books never entered my essentially humble mind.

But the time came when I did begin to produce books, and then I began to gather together the

material I had earlier written for magazines. Between 1950 and 1969, ten collections appeared (all of which

were published by Doubleday). These contained eighty-five stories (plus four pieces of comic verse)

originally intended for, and published in, the science fiction magazines. Nearly a quarter of them came

from those first eleven years.

For the record, these books are:

I, ROBOT (1950)

FOUNDATION (1951)

FOUNDATION AND EMPIRE (1952)

SECOND FOUNDATION (1953)

THE MARTIAN WAY AND OTHER STORIES (1955)

EARTH IS ROOM ENOUGH (1957)

NINE TOMORROWS (1959)

THE REST OF THE ROBOTS (1964)

ASIMOV’S MYSTERIES (1968)

NIGHTFALL AND OTHER STORIES (1969)

It might be argued that this was quite enough, but in arguing so, one is omitting the ravenous

appetites of my readers (bless them!). I am constantly getting letters requesting lists of ancient stories out of

me so that the letter writers can haunt secondhand shops for old magazines. There are people who prepare

bibliographies of my science fiction (don’t ask me why) and who want to know all sorts of half-forgotten

details concerning them. They even grow distinctly angry when they find that some early stories were never

sold and no longer exist. They want those, too, apparently, and seem to think I have negligently destroyed a

natural resource.

So when Panther Books, in England, and Doubleday suggested that I make a collection of those of

my early stories not already collected in the ten books listed above, with the literary history of each, I could

resist no further. Everyone who has ever met me knows just how amenable to flattery I am, and if you think

I can withstand this kind of flattery for more than half a second (as a rough estimate), you are quite wrong.

Fortunately I have a diary, which I have been keeping since January 1, 1938 (the day before my

eighteenth birthday); it can give me dates and details. [The diary began as the sort of thing a teen-ager would

write, but it quickly degenerated to a simple kind of literary record. It is, to anyone but myself, utterly boring-so boring,

in fact, that I leave it around for anyone who wishes, to read. No one ever reads more than two pages. Occasionally

someone asks me if I have never felt that my diary ought to record my innermost feelings and emotions, and my answer

is always, “No. Never!” After all, what’s the point of being a writer if I have to waste my innermost feelings and

emotions on a mere diary?]

I began to write when I was very young-eleven, I think. The reasons are obscure, I might say it

was the result of an unreasoning urge, but that would just indicate I could think of no reason.

Perhaps it was because I was an avid reader in a family that was too poor to afford books, even the

cheapest, and besides, a family that considered cheap books unfit reading. I had to go to the library (my

first library card was obtained for me by my father when I was six years old) and make do with two books

per week.

This was simply not enough, and my craving drove me to extremes. At the beginning of each

school term, I eagerly read through every schoolbook I was assigned, going from cover to cover like a

personified conflagration. Since I was blessed with a tenacious memory and with instant recall, that was all

the studying I had to do for that school term, but I was through before the week was over, and then what?

So, when I was eleven, it occurred to me that if I wrote my own books, I could then reread them at

my leisure. I never really wrote a complete book, of course. I would start one and keep rambling on with it

till I outgrew it and then I would start another. All these early writings are forever gone, though I remember

some of the details quite clearly.

In the spring of 1934 I took a special English course given at my high school (Boys’ High School

in Brooklyn) that placed the accent on writing. The teacher was also faculty adviser for the semiannual

literary magazine put out by the students, and it was his intention to gather material. I took that course.

It was a humiliating experience. I was fourteen at the time, and a rather green and innocent

fourteen. I wrote trifles, while everyone else in the class (who were sixteen apiece) wrote sophisticated,

tragic mood pieces. All of them made no particular secret of their scorn for me, and though I resented it

bitterly there was nothing I could do about it.

For a moment I thought I had them when one of my products was accepted for the semiannual

literary magazine while many of theirs were rejected. Unfortunately the teacher told me, with callous

insensitivity, that mine was the only item submitted that was humorous and that since he had to have one

non-tragic piece he was forced to take it.

It was called “Little Brothers,” dealt with the arrival of my own little brother five years earlier, and

was my first piece of published material of any kind. I suppose it can be located in the records at Boys’

High, but I don’t have it

Sometimes I wonder what happened to all those great tragic writers in the class. I don’t remember

a single name and I have no intention of ever trying to find out-but I sometimes wonder.

It was not until May 29, 1937 (according to a date I once jotted down-though that was before I

began my diary, so I won’t swear to it), that the vague thought occurred to me that I ought to write

something for professional publication; something that would be paid for! Naturally it would have to be a

science fiction story, for I had been an avid science fiction fan since 1929 and I recognized no other form of

literature as in any way worthy of my efforts.

The story I began to compose for the purpose, the first story I ever wrote with a view to becoming

a “writer,” was entitled “Cosmic Corkscrew.”

In it I viewed time as a helix (that is, something like a bedspring). Someone could cut across from

one turn directly to the next, thus moving into the future by some exact interval but being incapable of

traveling one day less into the future. My protagonist made the cut across time and found the Earth

deserted. All animal life was gone; yet there was every sign that life had existed until very shortly before-

and no indication at all of what had brought about the disappearance. It was told in the first person from a

lunatic asylum, because the narrator had, of course, been placed in a madhouse after he returned and tried

to tell his tale.

I wrote only a few pages in 1937, then lost interest. The mere fact that I had publication in mind

must have paralyzed me. As long as something I wrote was intended for my own eyes only, I could be

carefree enough. The thought of possible other readers weighed down heavily upon my every word. -So I

abandoned it.

Then, in May 1938, the most important magazine in the field. Astounding Science Fiction,

changed its publication schedule from the third Wednesday of the month to the fourth Friday. When the

June issue did not arrive on its accustomed day, I went into a decline.

By May 17, I could stand it no more and took the subway to 79 Seventh Avenue, where the

publishing house. Street & Smith Publications, Inc., was then located. [I told this story in some detail in an

article entitled “Portrait of the Writer as a Boy,” which was included as Chapter 17 of my book of essays Science,

Numbers and I (Doubleday, 1968). In it, relying on memory alone, I said that I had called Street & Smith on the phone.

When I went back to my diary to check actual dates for this book, I was astonished to discover that I had actually made

the subway trip-an utterly daring venture for me in those days, and a measure of my desperation.] There, an official

of the firm informed me of the changed schedule, and on May 19, the June issue arrived.

The near brush with doom, and the ecstatic relief that followed, reactivated my desire to write and

publish. I returned to “Cosmic Corkscrew” and by June 19 it was finished.

The next question was what to do with it. I had absolutely no idea what one did with a manuscript

intended for publication, and no one I knew had any idea either. I discussed it with my father, whose

knowledge of the real world was scarcely greater than my own, and he had no idea either.

But then it occurred to me that, the month before, I had gone to 79 Seventh Avenue merely to

inquire about the nonappearance of Astounding. I had not been struck by lightning for doing so. Why not

repeat the trip, then, and hand in the manuscript in person?

The thought was a frightening one. It became even more frightening when my father further

suggested that necessary preliminaries included a shave and my best suit. That meant I would have to take

additional time, and the day was already wearing on and I would have to be back in time to make the

afternoon newspaper delivery. (My father had a candy store and newsstand, and life was very complicated

in those days for a creative writer of artistic and sensitive bent such as myself. For instance, we lived in an

apartment in which all the rooms were in a line and the only way of getting from the living room to the

bedroom of my parents, or of my sister, or of my brother, was by going through my bedroom. My bedroom

was therefore frequently gone through, and the fact that I might be in the throes of creation meant nothing

to anyone.)

I compromised. I shaved, but did not bother changing suits, and off I went. The date was June 21,

1938.

I was convinced that, for daring to ask to see the editor of Astounding Science Fiction, I would be

thrown out of the building bodily, and that my manuscript would be torn up and thrown out after me in a

shower of confetti. My father, however (who had lofty notions) was convinced that a writer-by which he

meant anyone with a manuscript-would be treated with the respect due an intellectual. He had no fears at

all- but I was the one who had to go into the building.

Trying to mask panic, I asked to see the editor. The girl behind the desk (I can see the scene in my

mind’s eye right now exactly as it was) spoke briefly on the phone and said, “Mr. Campbell will see you.”

She directed me through a large, loftlike room filled with huge rolls of paper and enormous piles

of magazines and permeated with the heavenly smell of pulp (a smell that, to this day, will recall my youth

in aching detail and reduce me to tears of nostalgia). And there, in a small room on the other side, was Mr.

Campbell.

John Wood Campbell, Jr., had been working for Street & Smith for a year and had taken over sole

command of Astounding Stories (which he had promptly renamed Astounding Science Fiction) a couple of

months earlier. He was only twenty-eight years old then. Under his own name and under his pen name, Don

A. Stuart, he was one of the most famous and highly regarded authors of science fiction, but he was about

to bury his writing reputation forever under the far greater renown he was to gain as editor.

He was to remain editor of Astounding Science Fiction and of its successor, Analog Science Fact-

Science Fiction, for a third of a century. During all that time, he and I were to remain friends, but however

old I grew and however venerable and respected a star of our mutual field I was to become, I never

approached him with anything but that awe he inspired in me on the occasion of our first meeting.

He was a large man, an opinionated man, who smoked and talked constantly, and who enjoyed,

above anything else, the production of outrageous ideas, which he bounced off his listener and dared him to

refute. It was difficult to refute Campbell even when his ideas were absolutely and madly illogical.

We talked for over an hour that first time. He showed me forthcoming issues of the magazine

(actual future issues in the cellulose-flesh). I found he had printed a ‘fan letter of mine in the issue about to

be published, and another in the next-so he knew the genuineness of my interest.

He told me about himself, about his pen name and about his opinions. He told me that his father

had sent in one of his manuscripts to Amazing Stories when he was seventeen and that it would have been

published but the magazine lost it and he had no carbon. (I was ahead of him there. I had brought in the

story myself and I had a carbon.) He also promised to read my story that night and to send a letter, whether

acceptance or rejection, the next day. He promised also that in case of rejection he would tell me what was

wrong with it so I could improve.

He lived up to every promise. Two days later, on June 23,

I heard from him. It was a rejection. (Since this book deals with real events and is not a fantasy-

you can’t be surprised that my first story was instantly rejected.)

Here is what I said in my diary about the rejection:

“At 9:30 I received back ‘Cosmic Corkscrew’ with a polite letter of rejection. He didn’t like the

slow beginning, the suicide at the end.”

Campbell also didn’t like the first-person narration and the stiff dialog, and further pointed out that

the length (nine thousand words) was inconvenient-too long for a short story, too short for a novelette.

Magazines had to be put together like jigsaw puzzles, you see, and certain lengths for individual stories

were more convenient than others.

By that time, though, I was off and running. The joy of having spent an hour and more with John

Campbell, the thrill of talking face to face and on even terms with an idol, had already filled me with the

ambition to write another science fiction story, better than the first, so that I could try him again. The

pleasant letter of rejection-two full pages-in which he discussed my story seriously and with no trace of

patronization or contempt, reinforced my joy. Before June 23 was over, I was halfway through the first

draft of another story.

Many years later I asked Campbell (with whom I had by then grown to be on the closest terms)

why he had bothered with me at all, since that first story was surely utterly impossible.

“It was,” he said frankly, for he never flattered. “On the other hand, I saw something in you. You

were eager and you listened and I knew you wouldn’t quit no matter how many rejections I handed you. As

long as you were willing to work hard at improving, I was willing to work with you.”

That was John. I wasn’t the only writer, whether newcomer or oldtimer, that he was to work with

in this fashion. Patiently, and out of his own enormous vitality and talent, he built up a stable of the best s.f.

writers the world had, till then, ever seen.

What happened to “Cosmic Corkscrew” after that I don’t really know. I abandoned it and never

submitted it anywhere else. I didn’t actually tear it up and throw it away; it simply languished in some desk

drawer until eventually I lost track of it. In any case, it no longer exists.

This seems to be one of the main sources of discomfort among the archivists-they seem to think

the first story I ever wrote for publication, however bad it might have been, was an important document.

All I can say, fellows, is that I’m sorry but there was no way of my telling in 1938 that my first try might

have historic interest someday. I may be a monster of vanity and arrogance, but I’m not that much a

monster of vanity and arrogance.

Besides, before the month was out I had finished my second story, “Stowaway,” and I was

concentrating on that. I brought it to Campbell’s office on July 18, 1938, and he was just a trifle slower in

returning it, but the rejection came on July 22. I said in my diary concerning the letter that accompanied it:

“. . . it was the nicest possible rejection you could imagine. Indeed, the next best thing to an

acceptance. He told me the idea was good and the plot passable. The dialog and handling, he continued,

were neither stiff nor wooden (this was rather a delightful surprise to me) and that there was no one

particular fault but merely a general air of amateurishness, constraint, forcing. The story did not go

smoothly. This, he said, I would grow out of as soon as I had had sufficient experience. He assured me that

I would probably be able to sell my stories but it meant perhaps a year’s work and a dozen stories before I

could click. . . .”

It is no wonder that such a “rejection letter” kept me hotly charged with enormous enthusiasm to

write, and I got promptly to work on a third story.

What’s more, I was sufficiently encouraged to try to submit “Stowaway” elsewhere. In those days

there were three science fiction magazines on the stands. Astounding was the aristocrat of the lot, a monthly

with smooth edges and an appearance of class. The other two. Amazing Stories and Thrilling Wonder

Stories, were somewhat more primitive in appearance and printed stories, with more action and less-

sophisticated plots. I sent “Stowaway” to Thrilling Wonder Stories, which, however, also rejected it

promptly on August 9, 1938 (with a form letter).

By then, though, I was deeply engaged with my third story, which, as it happened, was fated to do

better-and do it faster. In this book, however, I am including my stories not in the order of publication but

in order of writing-which I presume is more significant from the standpoint of literary development. Let me

stay with “Stowaway,” therefore.

In the summer of 1939, by which time I had gained my first few successes, I returned to

“Stowaway,” refurbished it somewhat, and tried Thrilling Wonder Stories again. Undoubtedly I had a small

suspicion that the new luster of my name would cause them to read it with a different attitude than had been

the case when I was a complete unknown. I was quite wrong. It was rejected again.

Then I tried Amazing, and again it was rejected.

That meant the story was dead, or would have meant so were it not for the fact that science fiction

was entering a small “boom” as the 1930s approached their end. New magazines were being founded, and

toward the end of 1939, plans were made to publish a magazine to be called Astonishing Stories, which

would retail for the price of ten cents. (Astounding cost twenty cents an issue.)

The new magazine, together with a sister magazine. Super Science Stories, were to be edited on a

shoestring by a young science fiction fan, Frederik Pohl, who was then just turning twenty (he was about a

month older than myself), and who, in this way, made his entry into what was to be a distinguished

professional career in science fiction.

Pohl was a thin, soft-spoken young man, with hair that was already thinning, a solemn face, and a

pronounced overbite that gave him a rabbity look when he smiled. The economic facts of his life kept him

out of college, but he was far brighter (and knew more) than almost any college graduate I’ve ever met.

Pohl was a friend of mine (and still is) and perhaps did more to help me start my literary career

than anyone except, of course, Campbell himself. We had attended fan-club meetings together. He had read

my manuscripts and praised them -and now he needed stories in a hurry, and at low rates, for his new

magazines.

He asked to look through my manuscripts again. He began by choosing one of my stories for his

first issue. On November 17, 1939, nearly a year and a half after “Stowaway” was first written, Pohl

selected it for inclusion in his second issue of Astonishing. He was an inveterate title changer, however,

and he plastered “The Callistan Menace” on the story and that was how it was published.

So here it is, the second story I ever wrote and the earliest story to see professional publication.

The reader can judge for himself whether Campbell’s critique, given above, was overly kind and whether

he was justified in foreseeing a professional writing career for me on the basis of this story.

“The Callistan Menace” appears here (as will all the stories in this volume) exactly as it appeared

in the magazine with only the editing and adjustment required to correct typographical errors.

The Callistan Menace

“Damn Jupiter!” growled Ambrose Whitefield viciously, and I nodded agreement.

“I’ve been on the Jovian satellite run,” I said, “for fifteen years and I’ve heard those two words

spoken maybe a million times. It’s probably the most sincere curse in the Solar System.”

Our watch at the controls of the scoutship Ceres had just been relieved and we descended the two

levels to our room with dragging steps.

“Damn Jupiter-and damn it again,” insisted Whitefield morosely. “It’s too big for the System. It

stays out there behind us and pulls and pulls and pulls! We’ve got to keep the Atomos firing all the way.

We’ve got to check our course- completely-every hour. No relaxation, no coasting, no taking it easy!

nothing but the rottenest kind of work.”

There were tiny beads of perspiration on his forehead and he swabbed at them with the back of his

hand. He was a young fellow, scarcely thirty, and you could see in his eyes that he was nervous, and even a

little frightened.

And it wasn’t Jupiter that was bothering him, in spite of his profanity. Jupiter was the least of our

worries. It was Callisto! It was that little moon which gleamed a pale blue upon our visiplates that made

Whitefield sweat and that had spoiled four nights’ sleep for me already. Callisto! Our destination!

Even old Mac Steeden, gray mustachioed veteran who, in his youth, had sailed with the great

Peewee Wilson himself, went about his duties with an absent stare. Four days out- and ten days more ahead

of us-and panic was reaching out with clammy fingers.

We were all brave enough in the ordinary course of events. The eight of us on the Ceres had faced

the purple Lectronics and stabbing Disintos of pirates and rebels and the alien environments of half a dozen

worlds. But it takes more than run-of-the-mill bravery to face the unknown; to face Callisto, the “mystery

world” of the Solar System.

One fact was known about Callisto-one grim, bare fact. Over a period of twenty-five years, seven

ships, progressively better equipped, had landed-and never been heard from again. The Sunday

supplements peopled the satellite with anything from super-dinosaurs to invisible ghosts of the fourth

dimension, but that did not solve the mystery.

We were the eighth. We had a better ship than any of those preceding. We were the first to sport

the newly-developed beryl-tungsten hull, twice as strong as the old steel shells. We possessed super-heavy

armaments and the very latest Atomic Drive engines.

Still-we were only the eighth, and every man jack of us knew it.

Whitefield entered our quarters silently and flopped down upon his bunk. His fists were clenched

under his chin and showed white at the knuckles. It seemed to me that he wasn’t far from the breaking

point. It was a case for careful diplomacy.

“What we need,” said I, “is a good, stiff drink.”

“What we need,” he answered harshly, “is a hell of a lot of good, stiff drinks.”

“Well, what’s stopping us?”

He looked at me suspiciously, “You know there isn’t a drop of liquor aboard ship. It’s against

Navy regulations!”

“Sparkling green Jabra water,” I said slowly, letting the words drip from my mouth. “Aged

beneath the Martian deserts. Melted emerald juice. Bottles of it! Cases of it!”

“Where?”

“I know where. What do you say? A few drinks-just a few-will cheer us both up.”

For a moment, his eyes sparkled, and then they dulled again, “What if the Captain finds out? He’s

a stickler for discipline, and on a trip like this, it’s liable to cost us our rating.”

I winked and grinned, “It’s the Captain’s own cache. He can’t discipline us without cutting his

own throat-the old hypocrite. He’s the best damn Captain there ever was, but he likes his emerald water.”

Whitefield stared at me long and hard, “All right. Lead me to it.”

We slipped down to the supply room, which was deserted, of course. The Captain and Steeden

were at the controls; Brock and Charney were at the engines; and Harrigan and Tuley were snoring their

fool heads off in their own room.

Moving as quietly as I could, through sheer habit, I pushed aside several crates of food tabs and

slid open a hidden panel near the floor. I reached in and drew out a dusty bottle, which, in the dim light,

sparkled a dull sea-green.

“Sit down,” I said, “and make yourself comfortable.” I produced two tiny cups and filled them.

Whitefield sipped slowly and with every evidence of satisfaction. He downed his second at one

gulp.

“How come you volunteered for this trip, anyway, Whitey?” I asked, “You’re a little green for a

thing like this.”

He waved his hand, “You know how it is. Things get dull after a while. I went in for zoology after

getting out of college-big field since interplanetary travel-and had a nice comfortable position back on

Ganymede. It was dull, though;

I was bored blue. So I joined the Navy on an impulse, and on another I volunteered for this trip.”

He sighed ruefully, “I’m a little sorry I did.”

“That’s not the way to take it, kid. I’m experienced and I know. When you’re panicky, you’re as

good as licked. Why, two months from now, we’ll be back on Ganymede.”

“I’m not scared, if that’s what you’re thinking,” he exclaimed angrily. “It’s-it’s,” there was a long

pause in which he frowned at his third cupful. “Well, I’m just worn out trying to imagine what the hell to

expect. My imagination is working overtime and my nerves are rubbing raw.”

“Sure, sure,” I soothed, “I’m not blaming you. It’s that way with all of us, I guess. But you have to

be careful. Why, I remember once on a Mars-Titan trip, we had-”

Whitefield interrupted what was one of my favorite yarns- and I could spin them as well as anyone

in the service-with a jab in the ribs that knocked the breath out of me.

He put down his Jabra gingerly.

“Say, Jenkins,” he stuttered, “I haven’t downed enough liquor to be imagining things, have I?”

“That depends on what you imagined.”

“I could swear I saw something move somewhere in the pile of empty crates in the far corner.”

“That’s a bad sign,” and I took another swig as I said it. “Your nerves are going to your eyes and

now they’re going back on you. Ghosts, I suppose, or the Callistan menace looking us over in advance.”

“I saw it, I tell you. There’s something alive there.” He edged towards me-his nerves were plenty

shot-and for a moment, in the dim, shadowy light even I felt a bit choked up.

“You’re crazy,” I said in a loud voice, and the echoes calmed me down a bit. I put down my empty

cup and got up just a wee bit unsteadily. “Let’s go over and poke through the crates.”

Whitefield followed me and together we started shoving the light aluminum cubicles this way and

that. Neither of us was quite one hundred per cent sober and we made a fair amount of noise. Out of the

corner of my eye, I could see Whitefield trying to move the case nearest the wall.

“This one isn’t empty,” he grunted, as it lifted very slightly off the floor.

Muttering under his breath, he knocked off the cover and looked in. For a half second he just

stared and then he backed away slowly. He tripped over something and fell into a sitting position, still

gaping at the case.

I watched his actions with raised eyebrows, then glanced hastily at the case in question. The

glance froze into a steady glare, and I emitted a hoarse yell that rattled off each of the four walls.

A boy was sticking his head out of the case-a red-haired dirty-faced kid of thirteen or thereabouts.

“Hello,” said the boy as he clambered out into the open. Neither of us found the strength to answer

him, so he continued, “I’m glad you found me. I was getting a cramp in my shoulder trying to curl up in

there.”

Whitefield gulped audibly, “Good God! A kid stowaway! And on a voyage to Callisto!”

“And we can’t turn back,” I reminded in a stricken voice, “without wrecking ourselves. The

Jovian satellite run is poison.”

“Look here,” Whitefield turned on the kid in a sudden belligerence. “Who are you, you young nut,

and what are you doing here?”

The kid flinched. “I’m Stanley Fields,” he answered, a bit scared. “I’m from New Chicago on

Ganymede. I-I ran away to space, like they do in books.” He paused and then asked brightly, “Do you think

we’ll have a fight with pirates on this trip, mister?”

There was no doubt that the kid was filled to the brim with “Dime Spacers.” I used to read them

myself as a youngster.

“How about your parents?” asked Whitefield, grimly.

“Oh, all I got’s an uncle. He won’t care much, I guess.” He had gotten over his first uneasiness

and stood grinning at us.

“Well, what’s to be done?” said Whitefield, looking at me in complete helplessness.

I shrugged, “Take him to the Captain. Let him worry.”

“And how will he take it?”

“Anyway he wants. It’s not our fault. Besides, there’s absolutely nothing to be done about the

mess.”

And grabbing an arm apiece, we walked away, dragging the kid between us.

Captain Bartlett is a capable officer and one of the deadpan type that very rarely displays emotion.

Consequently, on those few occasions when he does, it’s like a Mercurian volcano in full eruption-and you

haven’t lived until you’ve seen one of those.

It was a case of the final straw. A satellite run is always wearing. The image of Callisto up ahead

was harder on him than on any member of the crew. And now there was this kid stowaway.

It wasn’t to be endured! For half an hour, the Captain shot off salvo after salvo of the very worst

sort of profanity. He started with the sun and ran down the list of planets, satellites, asteroids, comets, to the

very meteors themselves. He was starting on the nearer fixed stars, when he collapsed from sheer nervous

exhaustion. He was so excited that he never thought to ask us what we were doing in the storeroom in the

first place, and for that Whitefield and I were duly grateful.

But Captain Bartlett is no fool. Having purged his system of its nervous tension, he saw clearly

that that which cannot be cured must be endured.

“Someone take him and wash him up,” he growled wearily, “and keep him out of my sight for a

while.” Then, softening a bit, he drew me towards him, “Don’t scare him by telling him where we’re going.

He’s in a bad spot, the poor kid.”

When we left, the old soft-hearted fraud was sending through an emergency message to

Ganymede trying to get in touch with the kid’s uncle.

Of course, we didn’t know it at the time, but that kid was a Godsend-a genuine stroke of Old Man

Luck. He took our minds off Callisto. He gave us something else to think about. The tension, which at the

end of four days had almost reached the breaking point, eased completely.

There was something refreshing in the kid’s natural gayety; in his bright ingenuousness. He would

meander about the ship asking the silliest kind of questions. He insisted on expecting pirates at any

moment. And, most of all, he persisted in regarding each and every one of us as “Dime Spacer” heroes.

That last flattered our egos, of course, and put us on our mettle. We vied with each other in chest-

puffing and tale-telling, and old Mac Steeden, who in Stanley’s eyes was a demi-god, broke the all-time

record for plain and fancy lying.

I remember, particularly, the talk-fest we had on the seventh day out. We were just past the

midpoint of the trip and were set to begin a cautious deceleration. All of us (except Harrigan and Tuley,

who were at the engines) were sitting in the control room. Whitefield, with half an eye on the Mathematico,

led off, and, as usual, talked zoology.

“It’s a little slug-like thing,” he was saying, “found only on Europa. It’s called the Carolus Europis

but we always referred to it as the Magnet Worm. It’s about six inches long and has a sort of a slate-grey

color-most disgusting thing you could imagine.

“We spent six months studying that worm, though, and I never saw old Mornikoff so excited

about anything before. You see, it killed by some sort of magnetic field. You put the Magnet Worm at one

end of the room and a caterpillar, say, at the other. You wait about five minutes and the caterpillar just curls

up and dies.

“And the funny thing is this. It won’t touch a frog-too big; but if you take that frog and put some

sort of iron band about it, that Magnet Worm kills it just like that. That’s why we know it’s some type of

magnetic field that does it-the presence of iron more than quadruples its strength.”

His story made quite an impression on us. Joe Brock’s deep bass voice sounded, “I’m damn glad

those things are only four inches long, if what you say is right.”

Mac Steeden stretched and then pulled at his grey mustachios with exaggerated indifference, “You

call that worm unusual. It isn’t a patch on some of the things I’ve seen in my day-.” He shook his head

slowly and reminiscently, and we knew we were in for a long and gruesome tale. Someone groaned

hollowly, but Stanley brightened up the minute he saw the old veteran was in a story-telling mood.

Steeden noticed the kid’s sparkling eyes, and addressed himself to the little fellow, “I was with

Peewee Wilson when it happened-you’ve heard of Peewee Wilson, haven’t you?”

“Oh, yes,” Stanley’s eyes fairly exuded hero-worship. “I’ve read books about him. He was the

greatest spacer there ever was.”

“You bet all the radium on Titan he was, kid. He wasn’t any taller than you, and didn’t scale much

more than a hundred pounds, but he was worth five times his weight in Venusian Devils in any fight. And

me and him were just like that. He never went anyplace but what I was with him. When the going was

toughest it was always me that he turned to.”

He sighed lugubriously, “I was with him to the very end. It was only a broken leg that kept me

from going with him on his last voyage-”

He choked off suddenly and a chilly silence swept over all of us. Whitefield’s face went gray, the

Captain’s mouth twisted in a funny sort of way, and I felt my heart skid all the way down to the soles of my

feet.

No one spoke, but there was only one thought among the six of us. Peewee Wilson’s last trip had

been to Callisto. He had been the second-and had never returned. We were the eighth.

Stanley stared from one to the other of us in astonishment, but we all avoided his eyes.

It was Captain Bartlett that recovered first.

“Say, Steeden, you’ve got an old spacesuit of Peewee Wilson’s, haven’t you?” His voice was calm

and steady but I could see that it took a great deal of effort to keep it so.

Steeden brightened and looked up. He had been chewing at the tips of his mustachios (he always

did when nervous) and now they hung downwards in a bedraggled fashion.

“Sure thing. Captain. He gave it to me with his own hand, he did. It was back in ‘23 when the new

steel suits were just being put out. Peewee didn’t have any more use for his old vitri-rubber contraption, so

he let me have it-and I’ve kept it ever since. It’s good luck for me.”

“Well, I was thinking that we might fix up that old suit for the boy here. No other suit’ll fit him,

and he needs one bad.”

The veteran’s faded eyes hardened and he shook his head vigorously, “No sir. Captain. No one

touches that old suit Peewee gave it to me himself. With his own hand! It’s-it’s sacred, that’s what it is.”

The rest of us chimed in immediately upon the Captain’s side but Steeden’s obstinacy grew and

hardened. Again and again he would repeat tonelessly, “That old suit stays where it is.” And he would

emphasize the statement with a blow of his gnarled fist.

We were about to give up, when Stanley, hitherto discreetly silent, took a hand.

“Please, Mr. Steeden,” there was just the suspicion of a quaver in his voice. “Please let me have it.

I’ll take good care of it. I’ll bet if Peewee Wilson were alive today he’d say I could have it.” His blue eyes

misted up and his lower lip trembled a bit. The kid was a perfect actor.

Steeden looked irresolute and took to biting his mustachio again, “Well-oh, hell, you’ve all got it

in for me. The kid can have it but don’t expect me to fix it up! The rest of you can lose sleep-I wash my

hands of it.”

And so Captain Bartlett killed two birds with one stone. He took our minds off Callisto at a time

when the morale of the crew hung in the balance and he gave us something to think about for the remainder

of the trip-for renovating that ancient relic of a suit was almost a week’s job.

We worked over that antique with a concentration out of all proportion to the importance of the

job. In its pettiness, we forgot the steadily growing orb of Callisto. We soldered every | last crack and

blister in that venerable suit. We patched the inside with close-meshed aluminum wire. We refurbished the

tiny heating unit and installed new tungsten oxygen-containers.

Even the Captain was not above giving us a hand with the suit, and Steeden, after the first day, in

spite of his tirade at the beginning, threw himself into the job with a will.

We finished it the day before the scheduled landing, and Stanley, when he tried it on, glowed with

pride, while Steeden stood by, grinning and twirling his mustachio.

And as the days passed, the pale blue circle that was Callisto grew upon the visiplate until it took

up most of the sky. The last day was an uneasy one. We went about our tasks abstractedly, and studiously

avoided the sight of the hard, emotionless satellite ahead.

We dived-in a long, gradually contracting spiral. By this maneuvre, the Captain had hoped to gain

some preliminary knowledge of the nature of the planet and its inhabitants, but the information gained was

almost entirely negative. The large percentage of carbon dioxide present in the thin, cold atmosphere was

congenial to plant life, so that vegetation was plentiful and diversified. However, the three per cent oxygen

content seemed to preclude the possibility of any animal life, other than the simplest and most sluggish

species. Nor was there any evidence at all of cities or artificial structures of any kind.

Five times we circled Callisto before sighting a large lake, shaped something like a horse’s head.

It was towards that lake that we gently lowered ourselves, for the last message of the second expedition-

Peewee Wilson’s expedition-spoke of landing near such a lake.

We were still half a mile in the air, when we located the gleaming metal ovoid that was the

Phobos, and when we finally thumped softly on to the green stubble of vegetation, we were scarcely five

hundred yards from the unfortunate craft.

“Strange,” muttered the Captain, after we had all congregated in the control room, waiting for

further orders, “there seems to be no evidence of any violence at all.”

It was true! The Phobos lay quietly, seemingly unharmed. Its old-fashioned steel hull glistened

brightly in the yellow light of a gibbous Jupiter, for the scant oxygen of the atmosphere could make no

rusty inroads upon its resistant exterior.

The Captain came out of a brown study and turned to Charney at the radio.

“Ganymede has answered?”

“Yes, sir. They wish us luck.” He said it simply, but a cold shiver ran down my spine.

Not a muscle of the Captain’s face flickered. “Have you tried to communicate with the Phobos?”

“No answer, sir.”

“Three of us will investigate the Phobos. Some of the answers, at least, should be there.”

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THEEARLYASIMOVThequintessenceofmodemsciencefictionisthoughtbymanytobecontainedinthenovelsandshortstoriesofIsaacAsimov,andthisnewcollectionoftwenty-sevenofhisearlystoriesagainconfirmshisinexhaustibleimaginationandcompellingstyle.EachstoryisprefacedbyDr.Asimovwithfascinating,andfrequentlyamusingbiogra...

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