Isaac Asimov - The Stars, Like Dust

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Isaac Asimov, noted biochemist and professor and the Boston University School
of Medicine, is not only recognized as one of the greatest science fiction
writers of our time, but also has been praised for the excitement he brings to
the writing of scientific fact.
In THE STARS, LIKE DUST, Dr. Asimov's probing imagination has created a
fascinating tale set in a terrifying world of tomorrow--an adventure that
could change from fiction to fact any day now...
isaac asimov
THE STARS,
LIKE DUST
THIS BOOK CONTAINS THE COMPLETE TEXT OF THE ORIGINAL HARDCOVER EDITION
Copyright (c) 1951 by Isaac Asimov
ONE:
The Bedroom Murmured
The bedroom murmured to itself gently. It was almost below the limits of
hearing--an irregular little sound, yet quite unmistakable, and quite deadly.
But it wasn't that which awakened Biron Farrill and dragged him out of a
heavy, unrefreshing slumber. He turned his head restlessly from side to side
in a futile struggle against the periodic burr-r-r on the end table.
He put out a clumsy hand without opening his eyes and closed contact.
"Hello," he mumbled.
Sound tumbled instantly out of the receiver. It was harsh and loud, but
Biron lacked the ambition to reduce the volume.
It said, "May I speak to Biron Farrill?"
Biron said, fuzzily, "Speaking. What d'you want?"
"May I speak to Biron Farrill?" The voice was urgent.
Biron's eyes opened on the thick darkness. He became conscious of the
dry unpleasantness of his tongue and the faint odor that remained in the room.
He said, "Speaking. Who is this?"
It went on, disregarding him, gathering tension, a loud voice in the
night. "Is anyone there? I would like to speak to Biron Farrill."
Biron raised himself on one elbow and stared at the place where the
visiphone sat. He jabbed at the vision control and the small screen was alive
with light.
"Here I am," he said. He recognized the smooth, slightly asymmetric
features of Sander Jonti. "Call me in the morning, Jonti."
He started to turn the instrument off once more, when Jonti said,
"Hello, Hello. Is anyone there? Is this University Hall, Room 526? Hello."
Biron was suddenly aware that the tiny pilot light which would have
indicated a live sending circuit was not on. He swore under his breath and
pushed the switch. It stayed off. Then Jonti gave up, and the screen went
blank, and was merely a small square of featureless light.
Biron turned it off. He hunched his shoulder and tried to burrow into
the pillow again. He was annoyed. In the first place, no one had the right to
yell at him in the middle of the night. He looked quickly at the gently
luminous figures just over the headboard. Three-fifteen. House lights wouldn't
go on for nearly four hours.
Besides, he didn't like having to wake to the complete darkness of his
room. Four years' custom had not hardened him to the Earthman's habit of
building structures of reinforced concrete, squat, thick, and windowless. It
was a thousand-year-old tradition dating from the days when the primitive
nuclear bomb had not yet been countered by the force-field defense.
But that was past. Atomic warfare had done its worst to Earth. Most of
it was hopelessly radioactive and useless. There was nothing left to lose, and
yet architecture mirrored the old fears, so that when Biron woke, it was to
pure darkness.
Biron rose on his elbow again. That was strange. He waited. It wasn't
the fatal murmur of the bedroom he had become aware of. It was something
perhaps even less noticeable and certainly infinitely less deadly.
He missed the gentle movement of air that one took so for granted, that
trace of continuous renewal. He tried to swallow easily and failed. The
atmosphere seemed to become oppressive even as he realized the situation. The
ventilating system had stopped working, and now he really had a grievance. He
couldn't even use the visiphone to report the matter.
He tried again, to make sure. The milky square of light sprang out and
threw a faint, pearly luster on the bed. It was receiving, but it wouldn't
send. Well, it didn't matter. Nothing would be done about it before day,
anyway.
He yawned and groped for his slippers, rubbing his eyes with the heels
of his palms. No ventilation, eh? That would account for the queer smell. He
frowned and sniffed sharply two or three times. No use. It was familiar, but
he couldn't place it.
He made his way to the bathroom, and reached automatically for the light
switch, although he didn't really need it to draw himself a glass of water. It
closed, but uselessly. He tried it several times, peevishly. Wasn't anything
working? He shrugged, drank in the dark, and felt better. He yawned again on
his way back to the bedroom where he tried the main switch. All the lights
were out.
Biron sat on the bed, placed his large hands on his hard-muscled thighs
and considered. Ordinarily, a thing like this would call for a terrific
discussion with the service staff. No one expected hotel service in a college
dormitory, but, by Space, there were certain minimum standards of efficiency
one could demand. Not that it was of vital importance just now. Graduation was
coming and he was through. In three days he'd be saying a last good-by to the
room and to the University of Earth; to Earth itself, for that matter.
Still, he might report it anyway, without particular comment. He could
go out and use the hall phone. They might bring in a self-powered light or
even rig up a fan so he could sleep without psychosomatic choking sensations.
If not, to Space with them! Two more nights.
In the light of the useless visiphone, he located a pair of shorts. Over
them he slipped a one-piece jumper, and decided that that would be enough for
the purpose. He retained his slippers. There was no danger of waking anybody
even if he clumped down the corridors in spiked shoes, considering the thick,
nearly soundproof partitions of this concrete pile, but he saw no point in
changing.
He strode toward the door and pulled at the lever. It descended smoothly
and he heard the click that meant the door release had been activated. Except
that it wasn't. And although his biceps tightened into lumps, nothing was
accomplished.
He stepped away. This was ridiculous. Had there been a general power
failure? There couldn't have been. The clock was going. The visiphone was
still receiving properly.
Wait! It could have been the boys, bless their erratic souls. It was
done sometimes. Infantile, of course, but he'd taken part in these foolish
practical jokes himself. It wouldn't have been difficult, for instance, for
one of his buddies to sneak in during the day and arrange matters. But, no,
the ventilation and lights were working when he had gone to sleep.
Very well, then, during the night. The hall was an old, outmoded
structure. It wouldn't have taken an engineering genius to hocus the lighting
and ventilation circuits. Or to jam the door, either. And now they would wait
for morning and see what would happen when good old Biron found he couldn't
get out. They would probably let him out toward noon and laugh very hard.
"Ha, ha," said Biron grimly, under his breath. All right, if that's the
way it was. But he would have to do something about it; turn the tables some
way.
He turned away and his toe kicked something which skidded metallically
across the floor. He could barely make out its shadow moving through the dim
visiphone light. He reached under the bed, patting the floor in a wide arc.
He brought it out and held it close to the light. (They weren't so smart.
They should have put the visiphone entirely out of commission, instead of just
yanking out the sending circuit.)
He found himself holding a small cylinder with a little hole in the
blister on top. He put it close to his nose and sniffed at it. That
explained the smell in the room, anyway. It was Hypnite. Of course, the boys
would have had to use it to keep him from waking up while they were busy with
the circuits.
Biron could reconstruct the proceedings step by step now. The door was
jimmied open, a simple thing to do, and the only dangerous part, since he
might have wakened then. The door might have been prepared during the day,
for that matter, so that it would seem to close and not actually do so. He
hadn't tested it. Anyway, once open, a can of Hypnite would be put just
inside and the door would be closed again. The anesthetic would leak out
slowly, building up to the one in ten thousand concentration necessary to put
him definitely under. Then they could enter--masked, of course. Space! A
wet handkerchief would keep out the Hypnite for fifteen minutes and that would
be all the time needed.
It explained the ventilation system situation. That had to be
eliminated to keep the Hypnite from dispersing too quickly. That would have
gone first, in fact. The visiphone elimination kept him from getting help;
the door jamming kept him from getting out; and the absence of lights induced
panic. Nice kids!
Biron snorted. It was socially impossible to be thin-skinned about
this. A joke was a joke and all that. Right now, he would have liked to
break the door down and have done with it. The well-trained muscles of his
torso tensed at the thought, but it would be useless. The door had been built
with atom blasts in mind. Damn that tradition!
But there had to be some way out. He couldn't let them get away with it.
First, he would need a light, a real one, not the immovable and unsatisfactory
glow of the visiphone. That was no problem. He had a self-powered flashlight
in the clothes closet.
For a moment, as he fingered the closet-door controls, he wondered if
they had jammed that too. But it moved open naturally, and slid smoothly into
its wall socket. Biron nodded to himself. It made sense. There was no reason,
particularly, to jam the closet, and they didn't have too much time, anyway.
And then, with the flashlight in his hand, as he was turning away, the
entire structure of his theory collapsed in a horrible instant. He stiffened,
his abdomen ridging with tension, and held his breath, listening.
For the first time since awakening, he heard the murmuring of the
bedroom. He heard the quiet, irregular chuckling conversation it was holding
with itself, and recognized the nature of the sound at once.
It was impossible not to recognize it. The sound was "Earth's death
rattle." It was the sound that had been invented one thousand years before.
To be exact, it was the sound of a radiation counter, ticking off the
charged particles and the hard gamma waves that came its way, the soft
clicking electronic surges melting into a low murmur. It was the sound of a
counter, counting the only thing it could count--death!
Softly, on tiptoe, Biron backed away. From a distance of six feet he
threw the white beam into the recesses of the closet. The counter was there,
in the far corner, but seeing it told him nothing.
It had been there ever since his freshman days. Most freshmen from the
Outer Worlds bought a counter during their first week on Earth. They were very
conscious of Earth's radioactivity then, and felt the need of protection.
Usually they were sold again to the next class, but Biron had never disposed
of his. He was thankful for that now.
He turned to the desk, where he kept his wrist watch while sleeping. It
was there. His hand was shaking a little as he held it up to the flashlight's
beam. The watch strap was an interwoven flexible plastic of an almost liquidly
smooth whiteness. And it was white. He held it away and tried it at different
angles. It was white.
That strap had been another freshman purchase. Hard radiation turned it
blue, and blue on Earth was the color of death. It was easy to wander into a
path of radiating soil during the day if you were lost or careless. The
government fenced off as many patches as it could, and of course no one ever
approached the huge areas of death that began several miles outside the city.
But the strap was insurance.
If it should ever turn a faint blue, you would show up at the hospital
for treatment. There was no argument about it. The compound of which it was
made was precisely as sensitive to radiation as you were, and appropriate
photoelectric instruments could be used to measure the intensity of the
blueness so that the seriousness of the case might be determined quickly.
A bright royal blue was the finish. Just as the color would never change
back, neither would you. There was no cure, no chance, no hope. You just
waited anywhere from a day to a week, and all the hospital could do was to
make final arrangements for cremation.
But at least it was still white, and some of the clamor in Biron's
thoughts subsided.
There wasn't much radioactivity then. Could it be just another angle of
the joke? Biron considered and decided that it couldn't. Nobody would do that
to anyone else. Not on Earth, anyway, where illegal handling of radioactive
material was a capital offense. They took radioactivity seriously here on
Earth. They had to. So nobody would do this without overpowering reason.
He stated the thought to himself carefully and explicitly, facing it
boldly. The overpowering reason, for instance, of a desire to murder. But why?
There could be no motive. In his twenty-three years of life, he had never made
a serious enemy. Not this serious. Not murder serious.
He clutched at his clipped hair. This was a ridiculous line of thought,
but there was no escaping it. He stepped cautiously back to the closet. There
had to be something there that was sending out radiation; something that had
not been there four hours earlier. He saw it almost at once.
It was a little box not more than six inches in any direction. Biron
recognized it and his lower lip trembled slightly. He had never seen one
before, but he had heard of them. He lifted the counter and took it into the
bedroom. The little murmur fell off, almost ceased. It started again when the
thin mica partition, through which the radiation entered, pointed toward the
box. There was no question in his mind. It was a radiation bomb.
The present radiations were not in themselves deadly; they were only a
fuse. Somewhere inside the box a tiny atomic pile was constructed. Short-lived
artificial isotopes heated it slowly, permeating it with the appropriate
particles. When the threshold of head and particle density was reached, the
pile reacted. Not in an explosion, usually, although the heat of reaction
would serve to fuse the box itself into a twist of metal, but in a tremendous
burst of deadly radiation that would kill anything living within a radius of
six feet to six miles, depending on the bomb's size.
There was no way of telling when the threshold would be reached. Perhaps
not for hours, and perhaps the next moment. Biron remained standing
helplessly, flashlight held loosely in his damp hands. Half an hour before,
the visiphone had awakened him, and he had been at peace then. Now he knew he
was going to die.
Biron didn't want to die, but he was penned in hopelessly, and there was
no place to hide,
He knew the geography of the room. It was at the end of a corridor, so
that there was another room only on one side, and, of course, above and below.
He could do nothing about the room above. The room on the same floor was on
the bathroom side, and it adjoined via its own bathroom. He doubted that he
could make himself heard.
That left the room below.
There were a couple of folding chairs in the room, spare seats to
accommodate company. He took one. It made a flat, slapping sound when it hit
the floor. He turned it edgewise and the sound became harder and louder.
Between each blow, he waited; wondering if he could rouse the sleeper
below and annoy him sufficiently to have him report the disturbance.
Abruptly, he caught a faint noise, and paused, the splintering chair
raised above his head. The noise came again, like a faint shout. It was from
the direction of the door.
He dropped the chair and yelled in return. He crushed his ear up against
the crack where door joined wall, but the fit was good, and the sound even
there was dim.
But he could make out his own name being called.
"Farrill! Farrill!" several times over, and something else. Maybe "Are
you in there?" or "Are you all right?"
He roared back, "Get the door open." He shouted it three or four times.
He was in a feverish sweat of impatience. The bomb might be on the point of
letting loose even now.
He thought they heard him. At least, the muffled cry came back, "Watch
out. Something, something, blaster." He knew what they meant and backed
hurriedly away from the door.
There were a couple of sharp, cracking sounds, and he could actually
feel the vibrations set up in the air of the room. Then there followed a
splitting noise and the door was flung inward. Light poured in from the
corridor.
Biron dashed out, arms flung wide. "Don't come in," he yelled. "For the
love of Earth, don't come in. There's a radiation bomb in there."
He was facing two men. One was Jonti. The other was Esbak, the
superintendent. He was only partly dressed.
"A radiation bomb?" he stuttered.
But Jonti said, "What size?" Jonti's blaster was still in his hand, and
that alone jarred with the dandyish effect of his ensemble, even at this time
of night.
Biron could only gesture with his hands.
"All right," said Jonti. He seemed quite cool about it, as he turned to
the superintendent. "You'd better evacuate the rooms in this area, and if you
have leadsheets anywhere on the university grounds, have them brought out here
to line the corridor. And I wouldn't let anyone in there before morning."
He turned to Biron. "It probably has a twelve-to-eighteen-foot radius.
How did it get there?"
"I don't know," said Biron. He wiped his forehead with the back of his
hand. "If you don't mind, I've got to sit down somewhere." He threw a glance
at his wrist, then realized his wrist watch was still in the room. He had a
wild impulse to return after it.
There was action now. Students were being hustled out of their rooms.
"Come with me," said Jonti. "I think you had better sit down too. "
Biron said, "What brought you out to my room? Not that I'm not thankful,
you understand."
"I called you. There was no answer, and I had to see you."
"To see me?" He spoke carefully, trying to control his irregular
breathing. "Why?"
"To warn you that your life was in danger."
Biron laughed raggedly. "I found out."
"That was only the first attempt. They'll try again."
"Who are 'they'?"
"Not here, Farrill," said Jonti. "We need privacy for this. You're a
marked man, and I may already have endangered myself as well."
TWO:
The Net Across Space
The student lounge was empty; it was dark as well. At four-thirty in the
morning it could scarcely have been otherwise. Yet Jonti hesitated a moment as
he held the door open, listening for occupants.
"No," he said softly, "leave the lights out. We won't need them to
talk."
"I've had enough of the dark for one night," muttered Biron.
"We'll leave the door ajar."
Biron lacked the will to argue. He dropped into the nearest chair and
watched the rectangle of light through the closing door narrow down to a thin
line. Now that it was all over, he was getting the shakes.
Jonti steadied the door and rested his little swagger stick upon the
crack of light on the floor. "Watch it. It will tell us if anyone passes, or
if the door moves."
Biron said, "Please, I'm not in a conspiratorial mood. If you don't
mind, I'd appreciate your telling me whatever it is you want to tell me.
You've saved my life, I know, and tomorrow I'll be properly thankful. Right
now, I could do with a short drink and a long rest."
"I can imagine your feelings," Jonti said, "but the too-long rest you
might have had has been avoided, momentarily. I would like to make it more
than just momentarily. Do you know that I know your father?"
The question was an abrupt one, and Biron raised his eyebrows, a gesture
lost in the dark. He said, "He has never mentioned knowing you."
"I would be surprised if he did. He doesn't know me by the name I use
here. Have you heard from your father recently, by the way?"
"Why do you ask?"
"Because he is in great danger."
"What?"
Jonti's hand found the other's arm in the dimness and gripped it firmly.
"Please! Keep your voice as it has been." Biron realized, for the first time
that they had been whispering.
Jonti resumed, "I'll be more specific. Your father has been taken into
custody. You understand the significance?"
"No, I certainly don't understand. Who has taken him into custody, and
what are you getting at? Why are you bothering me?" Biron's temples were
throbbing. The Hypnite and the near death had made it impossible to fence with
the cool dandy sitting so close to him that his whispers were as plain as
shouts.
"Surely," came the whisper, "you have some inkling of the work your
father is doing?"
"If you know my father, you know he is Rancher of Widemos. That is his
work."
Jonti said, "Well, there is no reason you should trust me, other than
that I am risking my own life for you. But I already know all that you can
tell me. As an example, I know that your father has been conspiring against
the Tyranni."
"I deny that," said Biron tensely. "Your service to me this night does
not give you the right to make such statements about my father."
"You are foolishly evasive, young man, and you are wasting my time.
Don't you see that the situation is beyond verbal fencing? I'll say it
outright. Your father is in the custody of the Tyranni. He may be dead by
now."
"I don't believe you." Biron half rose.
"I am in a position to know."
"Let's break this off, Jonti. I am in no mood for mystery, and I resent
this attempt of yours to--"
"Well, to what?" Jonti's voice lost some of its refined edge. "What do I
gain by telling you this? May I remind you that this knowledge of mine, which
you will not accept, made it plain to me that an attempt might be made to kill
you. Judge by what has happened, Farrill."
Biron said, "Start again and tell it straight. I'll listen."
"Very well. I imagine, Farrill, that you know me to be a fellow
countryman from the Nebular Kingdoms, although I've been passing myself off as
a Vegan."
"I judged that might be a possibility by your accent. It didn't seem
important."
"It's important, my friend. I came here because, like your father, I
didn't like the Tyranni. They've been oppressing our people for fifty years.
That's a long time."
"I'm not a politician."
Again Jonti's voice had an irritated edge to it. "Oh, I'm not one of
their agents trying to get you into trouble. I'm telling you the truth. They
caught me a year ago as they have caught your father now. But I managed to get
away, and came to Earth where I thought I might be safe until I was ready to
return. That's all I need to tell you about myself."
"It is more than I have asked for, sir." Biron could not force the
unfriendliness out of his voice. Jonti affected him unfavorably with his too-
precise mannerisms.
"I know that. But it is necessary to tell you so much at least, for it
was in this manner that I met your father. He worked with me, or, rather, I
with him. He knew me but not in his official capacity as the greatest nobleman
on the planet of Nephelos. You understand me?"
Biron nodded uselessly in the darkness and said, "Yes."
"It is not necessary to go into that further. My sources of information
have been maintained even here, and I know that he has been imprisoned. It is
knowledge. If it were merely suspicion, this attempt on your life would have
been sufficient proof."
"In what way?"
"If the Tyranni have the father, would they leave the son at large?"
"Are you trying to tell me that the Tyranni set that radiation bomb in
my room? That's impossible."
"Why is it impossible? Can't you understand their position? The Tyranni
rule fifty worlds; they are outnumbered hundreds to one. In such a position,
simple force is insufficient. Devious methods, intrigue, assassination are
their specialties. The net they weave across space is a wide one, and close-
meshed. I can well believe that it extends across five hundred light-years to
Earth."
Biron was still in the grip of his nightmare. In the distance there were
the faint sounds of the lead shields being moved into place. In his room the
counter must still be murmuring.
He said, "It doesn't make sense. I am going back to Nephelos this week.
They would know that. Why should they kill me here? If they'd wait, they'd
have me." He was relieved to find the flaw, eager to believe his own logic.
Jonti leaned closer and his spiced breath stirred the hairs on Biron's
temple. "Your father is popular. His death--and once imprisoned by the
Tyranni, his execution becomes a probability you must face--will be resented
even by the cowed slave race the Tyranni are trying to breed. You could rally
that resentment as the new Rancher of Widemos, and to execute you as well
would double the danger for them. To make martyrs is not their purpose. But if
you were to die in a faraway world, by accident, it would be convenient for
them."
"I don't believe you," said Biron. It had become his only defense.
Jonti rose, adjusting his thin gloves. He said, "You go too far,
Farrill. Your role would be more convincing if you pretended to no such
complete ignorance. Your father has been shielding you from reality for your
own protection, presumably, yet I doubt that you could remain completely
uninfluenced by his beliefs. Your hate for the Tyranni cannot help being a
reflection of his own. You cannot help being ready to fight them."
Biron shrugged.
Jonti said, "He may even recognize your new adulthood to the point of
putting you to use. You are conveniently here on Earth and it is not unlikely
you may be combining your education with a definite assignment. An assignment,
perhaps, for the failure of which the Tyranni are ready to kill you."
"That's silly melodrama."
"Is it? Let it be so, then. If the truth will not persuade you now,
events will later. There will be other attempts on your life, and the next one
will succeed. From this moment on, Farrill, you are a dead man."
Biron looked up. "Wait! What's your own private interest in the matter?"
"I am a patriot. I would like to see the Kingdoms free again, with
governments of their own choosing."
"No. Your private interest. I cannot accept idealism only, because I
won't believe it of you. I am sorry if that offends you." Biron's words
pounded doggedly.
Jonti seated himself again. He said, "My lands have been confiscated.
Before my exile it was not comfortable to be forced to take orders from those
dwarfs. And since then it has become more imperative than ever to become once
again the man my grandfather had been before the Tyranni came. Is that enough
of a practical reason for wanting a revolution? Your father would have been a
leader of that revolution. Failing him, you!"
"I? I am twenty-three and know nothing of all this. You could find
better men."
"Undoubtedly I could, but no one else is the son of your father. If your
father is killed, you will be Rancher of Widemos, and as such you would be
valuable to me if you were only twelve and an idiot besides. I need you for
the same reason the Tyranni must be rid of you. And if my necessity is
unconvincing to you, surely theirs cannot be. There was a radiation bomb in
your room. It could only have been meant to kill you. Who else would want to
kill you?"
Jonti waited patiently and picked up the other's whisper.
"No one," said Biron. "No one would want to kill me that I know of. Then
it's true about my father!"
"It is true. View it as a casualty of war."
"You think that would make it better? They'll put up a monument to him
someday, perhaps? One with a radiating inscription that you can see ten
thousand miles out in space?" His voice was becoming a bit ragged. "Is that
supposed to make me happy?"
Jonti waited, but Biron said nothing more. Jonti said, "What do you
intend doing?"
"I'm going home."
"You still don't understand your position, then."
"I said, I'm going home. What do you want me to do? If he's alive, I'll
get him out of there. And if he's dead, I'll--I'll--"
"Quiet!" The older man's voice was coldly annoyed. "You rave like a
child. You can't go to Nephelos. Don't you see that you can't? Am I talking to
an infant or to a young man of sense?
Biron muttered, "What do you suggest?"
"Do you know the Director of Rhodia?"
"The friend of the Tyranni? I know the man. I know who he is. Everyone
in the Kingdoms knows who he is. Hinrik V, Director of Rhodia."
"Have you ever met him?"
"No."
"That is what I meant. If you haven't met him, you don't know him. He is
an imbecile, Farrill. I mean it literally. But when the Ranchy of Widemos is
confiscated by the Tyranni--and it will be, as my lands were--it will be
awarded to Hinrik. There the Tyranni will feel them to be safe, and there you
must go."
"Why?"
"Because Hinrik, at least, has influence with the Tyranni; as much
influence as a lickspittle puppet may have. He may arrange to have you
reinstated."
"I don't see why. He's more likely to turn me over to them."
"So he is. But you'll be on your guard against it, and there is a
fighting chance you may avoid it. Remember, the title you carry is valuable
and important, but it is not all-sufficient. In this business of conspiracy,
one must be practical above all. Men will rally about you out of sentiment and
respect for your name, but to hold them, you will need money."
Biron considered. "I need time to decide."
"You have no time. Your time ran out when the radiation bomb was planted
in your room. Let us take action. I can give you a letter of introduction to
Hinrik of Rhodia."
"You know him so well, then?"
Your suspicion never sleeps very soundly, does it? I once headed a
mission to Hinrik's court on behalf of the Autarch of Lingane. His imbecile's
mind will probably not remember me, but he will not dare to show he has
forgotten. It will serve as introduction and you can improvise from there. I
will have the letter for you in the morning. There is a ship leaving for
Rhodia at noon. I have tickets for you. I am leaving myself, but by another
route. Don't linger. You're all through here, aren't you?"
"There is the diploma presentation."
A scrap of parchment; Does it matter to you?"
"Not now."
"Do you have money?"
"Enough."
"Very well. Too much would be suspicious." He spoke sharply. "Farrill!"
Biron stirred out of what was nearly a stupor. "What?"
"Get back to the others. Tell no one you are leaving. Let the act
speak."
Biron nodded dumbly. Far away in the recesses of his mind there was the
thought that his mission remained unaccomplished and that in this way, too, he
failed his dying father. He was racked with a futile bitterness. He might have
been told more. He might have shared the dangers. He should not have been
allowed to act in ignorance.
And now that he knew the truth, or at least more of it, concerning the
extent of his father's role in conspiracy, there was an added importance to
the document he was to have obtained from Earth's archives. But there was no
time any longer. No time to get the document. No time to wonder about it. No
time to save his father. No time, perhaps, to live.
He said, "I'll do as you say, Jonti."
Sander Jonti looked briefly out over the university campus as he paused
on the steps of the dormitory. Certainly there was no admiration in his
glance.
As he stepped down the bricked walk that wound unsubtly through the
pseudo-rustic atmosphere affected by all urban campuses since antiquity, he
could see the lights of the city's single important street gleam just ahead.
Past it, drowned in daytime, but visible now, was the eternal radioactive blue
of the horizon, mute witness of prehistoric wars.
Jonti considered the sky for a moment. Over fifty years had passed since
the Tyranni had come and put a sudden end to the separate lives of two dozen
sprawling, brawling political units in the depths beyond the Nebula. Now,
suddenly and prematurely, the peace of strangulation lay upon them.
The storm that had caught them in one vast thunderclap had been
something from which they had not yet recovered. It had left only a sort of
twitching that futilely agitated a world here and there, now and then. To
organize those twitchings, to align them into a single well-timed heave would
be a difficult task, and a long one. Well, he had been rusticating here on
Earth long enough. It was time to go back.
The others, back home, were probably trying to get in touch with him at
his rooms right now.
He lengthened his stride a bit.
He caught the beam as he entered his room. It was a personal beam, for
whose security there were as yet no fears and in whose privacy there was no
chink. No formal receiver was required; no thing of metal and wires to catch
the faint, drifting surges of electrons, with their whispered impulses
swimming through hyperspace from a world half a thousand light-years away.
Space itself was polarized in his room, and prepared for reception. Its
fabric was smoothed out of randomness. There was no way of detecting that
polarization, except by receiving. And in that particular volume of space,
only his own mind could act as receiver; since only the electrical
characteristics of his own particular nerve-cell system could resonate to the
vibrations of the carrier beam that bore the message.
The message was as private as the unique characteristics of his own
brain waves, and in all the universe, with its quadrillions of human beings,
the odds against a duplication sufficiently close to allow one man to pick up
another's personal wave was a twenty-figured number to one.
Jonti's brain tickled to the call as it whined through the endless empty
incomprehensibility of hyperspace.
"...calling...calling...calling...calling..."
摘要：

ABOUTTHEAUTHORIsaacAsimov,notedbiochemistandprofessorandtheBostonUniversitySchoolofMedicine,isnotonlyrecognizedasoneofthegreatestsciencefictionwritersofourtime,butalsohasbeenpraisedfortheexcitementhebringstothewritingofscientificfact.InTHESTARS,LIKEDUST,Dr.Asimov'sprobingimaginationhascreatedafascin...

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