Asimov, Isaac - Pebble in the sky

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7 Conversation with madmen?

8 Convergence at chica

9 Conflict at Chica

10 Interpretation of events

11 The mind that changed

11 The mind that killed

12 Spider web at Washenn

13 Second meeting

14 The odds that vanished

15 Choose your side!

16 Change your side!

17 Duel

18 The deadline that approached

19 The deadline that was reached

10 The deadline that passed

21 The best is yet to be

exactly what he was: a retired tailor, thoroughly lacking in what the sophis-

ticates of today call a "formal education." Yet he had expended much of an

inquisitive nature upon random reading. By the sheer force of indiscrimi-

nate voracity, he had gleaned a smattering of practically everything, and by

means of a trick memory had managed to keep it all straight.

For instance, he had read Robert Browning's Rabbi Ben Ezra twice

when he was younger, so, of course, knew it by heart. Most of it was ob-

scure to him, but those first three lines had become one with the beating of

his heart these last few years. He intoned them to himself, deep within the

silent fortress of his mind, that very sunny and very bright early summer

day of 1949:

"Grow old along with me!

The best is yet to be,

The last of life,

for which the first was made.

Schwartz felt that to its fullness. After the struggles of youth in Europe

and those of his early manhood in the United States, the serenity of a com-

fortable Old age was pleasant. With a house of his own and money of his

own he could, and did, retire. With a wife in good health, two daughters,

speedy and not too difficult ride through youth to the peace of the best that

was yet to be.

He lifted his foot to, step, over a Raggedy Ann doll smiling through its

neglect as it lay there in the middle of the walk, a foundling not yet missed.

He had not quite put his, foot down again ...

In another art of Chicago stood the Institute for Nuclear Research, in

which men may have had theories upon the essential worth of human na-

ture but were, half ashamed of them, since no quantitative instrument had

yet been designed to measure it. When they thought about it, it was often

enough to wish that some stroke from heaven would prevent human nature

(and damned human ingenuity) from turning every innocent and I interest-

ing discovery into a deadly weapon.

Yet, in a pinch, the same man who could not find it in his conscience to,

curb his curiosity into, the nuclear studies that might someday kill half of

Earth would risk his life to save that of an unimportant fellow man.

It was the blue glow behind the chemist's back that first attracted the at-

tention of Dr. Smith.

He peered at it as he passed the half-open door. The chemist, a cheerful

youngster, was, whistling as he tipped up a volumetric flask, in which the

solution had already been made up, to volume. A white powder tumbled

very metal had already frozen in thin splash marks. They still radiated heat

strongly.

He said faintly, "What happened?"

Dr. -Smith shrugged. He wasn't quite himself either. "I don't know. You

tell me. What's been doing here?"

"Nothing's been doing here," the, chemist yammered. "That was just a

sample of crude uranium. I'm making an electrolytic copper determination.

I don't know what could have happened."

"Whatever happened, young, man, I can tell you what I saw. That plati-

num crucible was showing a corona. Heavy radiation was taking place.

Uranium, you say?"

"Yes, but crude uranium, and that isn't dangerous. I mean, extreme pu-

rity is, one of the, most important qualifications for fission, isn't it?" He

touched his tongue to his lips quickly. "Do you think it was fission, sir? It's

not plutonium, and it wasn't being bombarded."

"And," said Dr. Smith thoughtfully, "it was below the critical mass. Or,

at least, below the critical masses we think we know." He stared at the

soapstone desk, at the burned and blistered paint of the cabinets and the

silvery streaks along the concrete floor. "Yet uranium melts at about 1.800

degrees Centigrade, and nuclear phenomena, are not so, well known that

spot the older man indicated. It was a tiny, hole, one that might have been

made by a thin nail driven into the wall and withdrawn-but driven through

plaster and brick for the full thickness of the building's wall, since daylight

could be seen through it.

The chemist shook his head, "I never saw that before." But I never

looked for it, either, sir."

Dr. Smith said nothing. He stepped back slowly and passed the thermo-

stat, a parallelopiped of a box made out of thin sheet iron. The water in it

moved swirlingly as the stirrer turned in motor-driven monomania, while

the electric bulbs beneath the water, serving as heaters, flicked on and off

distractingly, in time, with the, clicking of the mercury relay.

"Well, then, was, this here?" And Dr. Smith Scraped gently with his fin-

gernail at a 'spot near the top of the wide side of the thermostat. It was a

neat, tiny circle drilled through the metal. The water did not quite reach it.

The chemist's eyes widened. "No, sir, that wasn't there ever before. I'll

guarantee that."

"Hmm. Is there one on the other side?"

"Well, I'll be damned. I mean, yes, sir!"

"All right, come round here and sight through the holes.

You're looking at the exact place, aren't you?"

Reluctantly, "I think so, sir."

Dr. Smith said frostily, with a quick glance at the name plate, on the

still-open door, "Mr. Jennings, this is absolutely top-secret. I don't want you

ever to speak about this to anyone. Do you understand?"

"Absolutely, sir!

"Then let's get out of here. We'll send in the radiation men to check the

place, and you and I will spend a siege in the infirmary."

"Radiation burns, you mean?" The, chemist paled.

"We'll find out."

But there were no serious signs of radiation burns in either. Blood

counts were normal and a study of the hair roots revealed nothing. The

nausea that developed was eventually tabbed as psychosomatic and no

other symptoms appeared.

Nor, in all the Institute, was anyone found, either then or in the future, to

explain why a crucible of crude uranium, well below critical size, and un-

der no direct neutronic bombardment, should suddenly melt and radiate that

deadly and significant corona.

The only conclusion was that nuclear physics had queer and dangerous

crannies left in it.

Earth's curvature made the surface fall away from it sufficiently to, prevent

further damage, and then it would be ten feet across. After that, flashing

emptily into space, expanding and weakening, a queer strain in the fabric of

the cosmos.

He never told anyone of that fancy.

He never told anyone that he called for the morning papers next day,

while still in the infirmary, and searched, the columns with a definite pur-

pose in mind.

But so, many people in a giant metropolis disappear every day. And no-

body had gone screaming to the police, with vague tales of how, before his

eyes, a man (or would it be half a man?) had disappeared. At least no such

case was reported.

Dr. Smith forced forgetfulness, eventually.

To, Joseph Schwartz it had happened between one, step and the next. He

had lifted his right foot to clear the Raggedy Ann doll and for a moment he

had felt dizzy as though for the merest trifle of time a whirlwind had lifted

him and turned him inside out. When he placed his right foot down again,

all the breath went out of him in a gasp and he felt himself slowly crumple

and slide down to the grass.

He waited a long time with his eyes closed-and then he opened them.

That was when the, worst shock of all came, because the leaves on those

trees were ruddy, some of them, and in the curve of his hand he felt the dry

brittleness of a dead leaf. He was a city man, 'but he, knew autumn when he

saw it.

Autumn! Yet when he had lifted his right foot it had been a June day,

with everything afresh and glistening green.

He looked toward his feet automatically as he, thought that and, with a

sharp cry, reached toward them. . . . The little cloth doll that he, had

stepped over, a little, breath of reality, a---

Well, no! He turned it over in his trembling hands, and it was not whole.

Yet it was not mangled; it was sliced. Now wasn't that queer! Sliced

lengthwise very neatly, so, that the waste-yarn stuffing wasn't stirred a hair.

It lay there in interrupted threads, ending flatly.

The glitter on his left shoe caught Schwartz's eye. Still clutching the

doll, he forced his foot over his raised knee. The extreme tip of the sole, the

part that extended forward past the, uppers, was smoothly sliced off. Sliced

off as, no earthly knife in the hand of an earthly cobbler could have dupli-

cated. The fresh surface, gleamed, almost liquidly in its unbelievable

smoothness.

would I? No-----" Inside, he felt the hysteria rise and forced it down. "There

must be something else possible."

He considered, "A dream, maybe? How can I tell if it's a dream or not?"

He: pinched himself and felt the nip, but shook his head. "I can always

dream I feel a pinch. That's no, proof."

He looked about him despairingly. Could dreams be so clear, so de-

tailed, so lasting? He had read once that most dreams last not more than

five, seconds, that they are induced by trifling disturbances to the sleeper,

that the apparent length of the dreams is an illusion.

Cold comfort! He shifted the cuff of his shirt upward and stared at his

wrist watch. The second hand turned and turned and turned. If it were a

dream, the five seconds was going to stretch madly.

He looked away and wiped futilely at the cold dampness of his fore-

head. "What about amnesia?"

He did not answer himself, but slowly buried his head in both hands.

If he had lifted his foot and, as he did so, his mind had slipped the well-

worn and well-oiled tracks it had followed so faithfully for so long ... If

three months later, in the autumn, or a year and three months later, or ten

years and three months later, he had put his foot down in this strange place,

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摘要：

7Conversationwithmadmen?8Convergenceatchica9ConflictatChica10Interpretationofevents11Themindthatchanged11Themindthatkilled12SpiderwebatWashenn13Secondmeeting14Theoddsthatvanished15Chooseyourside!16Changeyourside!17Duel18Thedeadlinethatapproached19Thedeadlinethatwasreached10Thedeadlinethatpassed21The...

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