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Copyright © 1979 by Isaac Asimov

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The author wishes to thank the following for permission to quote
selections from the works listed:

Apocalypse: Good Taste. Copyright © 1976 by Isaac Asimov.
Atonic Energy Commission: Worlds Within Worlds.

Thomas Y. Crowell: Earth: Our Crowded Spaceship. Copy-
right © 1974 by Isaac Asimov. A John Day book. Quoted by
permission of Thomas Y. Crowell.

Doubleday & Company, Inc.: Asimoo's Guide to SJwkespeare.
Copyright © 1970 by Isaac Asimov. Asimov's Annotated Don
Juan. Copyright © 1972 by Isaac Asimov. The Cods Themselves.
Copyright © 1972 by Isaac Asimov. The Tragedy of the Moon.
Copyright © 1972 by Mercury Press, Inc. Asimoc's Annotated
Paradise Lost. Copyright © 1974 by Isaac Asimov. Before the
Golden Age. Copyright © 1974 by Doubleday & Company, Inc.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Tales of the Black Widowers. Copyright © 1974 by Isaac Asimov.
By Jupiter and Other Stories. Copyright © 1973 by Saturday
Evening Post Company. Of Matters Great and Small. Copyright
© 1974 by Mercury Press, Inc. The Bicentennial Man and Other
Stories. Copyright © 1976 by Random House, Inc. More Tales of
the Black Widowers. Copyright © 1976 by Isaac Asimov. Murder
at the ABA. Copyright © 1976 by Isaac Asimov. The Beginning
and the End. Copyright © 1974 by Triangle Publications. Inc.
Familiar Poems Annotated. Copyright © 1977 by Isaac Asimov.

Follett Publishing Company: Comets and Meteors. Text copy-
right © 1972 by Isaac Asimov. Light. Test copyright © 1970 by
Isaac Asimov. Used by permission of Follett Publishing Co., a
division of Follett Corporation.

Houghton Mifflin Company: Isaac Asimov's Treasury of Hu-
mor. Copyright © 1971 by Isaac Asimov. The Land of Canaan.
Copyright © 1971 by Isaac Asimov. More Words of 'Science.
Copyright © 1972 by Isaac Asimov. The Shaping of France.
Copyright © 1972 by Isaac Asimov. Please Explain. Copyright ©
1966, 1969, 1972 by the Hearst Corporation. Eyes on the Uni-
verse. Copyright © 1975 by Isaac Asimov. T/ie Golden Door.
Copyright © 1977 by Isaac Asimov. Reprinted by permission.

David McKay Company, Inc.: The Ends of the Earth. Copy-
right © 1975 by Isaac Asimov. Reprinted by permission of the
David McKay Company, Inc.

William Morrow & Company, Inc.: Alpha Centauri, the Near-
est Star. Copyright © 1976 by Isaac Asimov. Reprinted by per-
mission of William Morrow & Company, Inc.

Mysterious Press: Asimoo's Sherlockian Limericks. Copyright
© 1978 by Isaac Asimov.

The Saturday Evening Post Company; "The Dream"; "Ben-
jamin's Dream"; and "Benjamin's Bicentennial Blast." Copyright
© 1973 by the Saturday Evening Post Company. Reprinted by
permission of The Saturday Evening Post Company.

Walker and Company: ABC's of Space. Copyright © 1969 by
Isaac Asimov. The Sensuous Dirty Old Man. Copyright © 1971
by Isaac Asimov. How Did We Find Out About Numbers? Copy-
right © 1973 by Isaac Asimov. How Did We Find Out About
Genus? Copyright © 1974 by Isaac Asimov. How Did We Find
Out About Comets? Copyright © 1975 by Isaac Asimov. Lecher-
ous Limericks. Copyright © 1975 by Isaac Asimov. More Lech-
erous Limericks. Copyright © 1976 by Isaac Asimov. Still More
Lecherous Limericks. Copyright © 1977 by Isaac Asimov. "The

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Thirteenth Day of Christmas." First published in Ellery Queen's
Mystery Magazine and reprinted from The Key -Word and Other
Mysteries by Isaac Asimov, published by Walker and Company,
1977. Copyright © 1977 by Isaac Asimov.

DEDICATION

To fanet
Who saw me through the second hundred

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION
ASTRONOMY
ROBOTS

MATHEMATICS
PHYSICS
CHEMISTRY
BIOLOGY
WORDS
HISTORY
THE BIBLE
SHORT-SHORTS
HUMOB

SOCIAL SCIENCES
LITERATURE
MYSTERIES
AUTOBIOGRAPHY
MY SECOND HUNDRED BOOKS

INTRODUCTION

In October 1969, Houghton Mifflin published my
book Opus 100. It wasn't named at random. It was the
hundredth book of mine to be published.

That hundredth book took its time coming, of
course. It wasn't till I was eighteen, after all, that I
became a professional writer. (To be specific, my
first sale took place on October 21, 1938.) Then, for
eleven years after that, my only sales were to the sci-
ence fiction magazines, so. that I became a well-
known and successful writer (within the highly spe-
cialized and non-numerous ranks of the science fiction
world, anyway) without having a single book to my
name."

Then, on January 19, 1950, just after I had turned
thirty, I finally published my first book. Pebble in the
Sky. It was a science fiction novel.

After that, first slowly (two books in 1950 and two
more in 1951) and then more rapidly (eight books in
1960 and twelve books in 1966), I began to pile them
up.

What with one thing and another, I finally managed
to reach the hundredth book not quite twenty years

* In later years, these early stories were included in various
books, so they didn't go to waste forever, you may be sure.

12

ISAAC ASIMOV

after I had published the first one. That's an average
of five books a vear, wliich isn't bad, at least as far as
quantity is concerned.

With regard to quality, it is perhaps harder to judge,
but even if we disregard my own personal opinion
that my books are great, it remains fair to assume that,
publishers are reasonably sane and would not have
published so many of my books if they didn't think
they were good.

Once a hundred books had come boiling out of my
typewriter ribbons, I could have been forgiven if I
had then retired. I might have considered a hundred
books a reasonable life's work and spent the rest of
my existence doing other things—having a good time,
for instance.

There was a catch, though; two catches, in fact.

In the first place, when mv hundredth book came
out I was still ten weeks on the sunny side of fifty
(which mav not be much of a sunnv side, but where
age is concerned, 1*11 snatch at a hair's breadth), and I
didn't feel old enough to retire.

In the second place, I was already having a good
time and, if I retired, the only thing I would really
want to do in retirement would be to write. So why
retire only to do what I was already doing?

So I kept on working; and to such good effect—for
one gets better (or at least faster) with practice—that
in a surprisingly brief period of time I found I was
reaching my two hundredth book.

The second hundred was completed by 1979, so
that it had only taken me ten years to turn them out,
which is an average of ten books a year.

Naturally, Hougliton Mifflin (stifling who-knows-
how-many-sighs) feels honor-bound to publish Opus
200 now, and I'm perfectly content to let them do so.

OPUS 200                  13

Let me emphasize now that, in publishing first
Opus 100 and then Opus 200, neither I nor Houghton
Mifflin is in any way celebrating the matter of quan-
tity. My two hundred books are far from being a
record.

According to The Guinness Book of World Records,
an Englishman named Charles Hamilton and an
American named Charles Andrews each published
about 100,000,000 words in their lifetimes, whereas
mv published output so far comes to perhaps 15,000,000
words. Even supposing I live out a reasonably long life
and continue writing at a reasonably fast clip, 1 don't
think I can possibly surpass 25,000,000 published
words at most.

Furthermore, Charles Andrews, according to the
Book of Records, wrote 100,000 words a week when at
his peak, and I think I do well if I manage a measly
15,000 words of finished material in one week.

Then, too, the British novelist John Creasey and the
Belgian novelist Georges Simenon each published
over 500 books in the course of their careers, and I
don't see that it is at all likely that even a long and
continually busy life is going to lift me past the 400
mark.

Nevertheless, I do not labor under any sense of fail-
ure because of this. Those authors who surpass me in
quantity have (as far as I know) an only limited
range. Their domain is fiction, and usually but one or
two kinds of fiction, so that they attain speed by roll-
ing down well-oiled tracks.

I, on the other hand, write not only fiction but
nonfiction. I write different kinds of nonfictlon for
different kinds of audiences, and that is the purpose
of my Opus books—to celebrate that variety.

14                    ISAAC ASIMOV

For Opus 100 I took passages from my first
hundred books and carefully divided them into cate-
gories. For Opus 200 I've taken passages from my sec-
ond hundred books and divided them into the same
categories—plus several additional ones.

Nobody who reads my writings, after all, is very
likely to have read all my books, or even most of
them, and many people who do read and are, presum-
ably, fond of some of my books are not aware of some
of the other kinds of writing I do.

In these Opus books, then, the average reader will
get a chance to sample the variety to a fuller extent
than he would otherwise have a chance to do. If he
already likes part of what I write, he may find he also
likes, or is at least curious about, some other parts of
what I write. It might give him additional pleasure to
read those other parts in toto, and that would then
certainly please me.

And if he doesn't already like part of what I write
. . . then he might not buy this book in the first place,
which would be a shame, but there's no law against it.

PART1

ASTRONOMY

To anyone who got his start writing science fiction in
the days before World War II, astronomy was the sci-
ence. No one envisioned space travel outside science
fiction (except for a very few people working on rock-
ets, who were considered 1»f all the "hardheaded"
people around them to he but a half-step removed
from science fiction writers). That meant that some
facets of astronomy used to he the exclusive domain
of those who wrote and read science fiction. For in-
stance, where hut in science fiction could one de-
scribe the surface of the Moon as seen from the sur-
face of the Moon? Astronomy lost some of its
„ exclusivity, where science fiction writers were con-
cerned, by the time my second hundred hooks began
to be written in the late 1960s. Astronauts strove to

- reach the Moon, and in 1969, the year in which Opus
100 was Jmblished, they succeeded. We know the sur-
face of the Moon in great detail now and science fic-
tion has had to come to terms with that.

But we have only reached the Moon; no one has yet
actually lived on it. Therefore, the description of a

. working and viable settlement on the Moon still lies

^y within the province of fiction.

it    For instance, in 1972 (for/ which time several space-
If ships had landed on the Moon and returned safely),

18

ISAAC ASIMOV

my science fiction novel The Gods Themselves (Book
121) was published by Doul)leday. It won both the
Nebula (the award of the Science Fiction Writers of
America) and the Hugo (the award of the fans gath-
ered in a world convention)." The third part of the
novel is set on the Moon, which is pictured as an elab-
orate human settlement. Here is a passage in which
Selene, the young woman Iwrn and bred on the Moon,
teaches Ben, who arrived from Earth but a month be-
fore, how to maneuver on the Moon's surface.

from THE GODS THEMSELVES (1972)

Selene laughed, and the sound was metallic in Deni-
son's earpiece. Her Bgure was lost in the spacesuit she

wore.

She said, "Now come, Ben, there's no reason to be
afraid. You're an old hand by now—you've been here a
month."

"Twenty-eight days," mumbled Denison. He felt
smothered in his own suit.

"A month," insisted Selene. "It was well past half-
Earth when you came; it is well past half-Earth now."
She pointed to the brilliant curve of the Earth in the
southern sky.

"Well, but wait. I'm not as brave out here as I am
underground. What if I fall?"

"What if you do? The gravity is weak by your stan-
dards, the slope is gentle, your suit is strong. If you fall,
just let yourself slide and roll. It's almost as much fun
that way, anyhow."

* I mention this for no reason other than that it gives me
pleasure to do so.

OPUS 200                  19

Dension looked about doubtfully. The Moon lay
beautiful in the cold light of the Earth. It was black
and white; a mild and delicate white as compared
with the sunlit views he had seen when he had taken
a trip a week before to inspect the solar batteries that
stretched from horizon to horizon along the floor of
Mare Imbrium. And the black was somehow sorter,
too, through lack of the blazing contrast of true day.
The stars were supemally bright and the Earth—the
Earth was infinitely inviting with its swirls of white
on blue, and its peeping glimpse of tan.

"Well," he said. "do vou mind if I hang on to you?"

"Of course not. And we won't go all the way up. It
will be the beginners' slope for you. Just try to keep in
time with me. I'll move slowly."

Her steps were long, slow, and swinging, and he
tried to keep in synchronization. The up-sloping
ground beneath them was dustv and with each step
he kicked up a fine powder that settled quickly in the
airlessness. He matched her stride for stride, but with
an effort.

"Good," said Selene, her arm locked in his, steady-
ing him. "You're very good for an Earthie—no, I ought
to say Immie."

"Thank you."

"That's not much better, I suppose. Immie for Im-
migrant is as insulting as Earthie for Earthman. Shall
I Just say you're simply very good for a man your
age?"

"No! That's much worse." Denison was gasping a
little and he could feel his forehead moistening.

Selene said, "Each time you reach the point where
you're about to put your foot down, give a little push
with your other foot. That will lengthen your stride
and make it all the easier. No, no—watch me."

20

ISAAC ASIMOV

Dension paused thankfully and watched Selene take
off with low, effortless leaps Somehow, despite the
grotesquery of the suit, she appeared slim and grace-
ful when she moved. She returned and knelt at his
feet.

"Now you take a slow step, Ben, and I'll hit your
foot when I want it to shove."

They tried several times, and Denison said, "That's
worse than running on Earth. I better rest."

"All right. It's just that your muscles aren't used to
the proper coordination. It's yourself you're fighting,
you know, not gravity . . . Well, sit down and catch
your breath. I won't take you up much farther."

Dension said, "Will I do any damage to the pack if I
lie down on my back?"

"No, of course not, but ifs not a good idea. Not on the
bare ground. It's only at 120 degrees absolute—ISO de-
grees below zero, if you prefer—and the smaller the
area of contact the better. I'd sit down."

"All right." Gingerly, Denison sat down with a
grunt. Deliberately, he faced northward, away from
the Earth. "Look at those stars!"

Selene sat perpendicular to him. He could see her
face dimly through the faceplate now and then when
the Earthlight caught it at the proper angle.

She said, "Don't you see the stars on Earth?"

"Not like this. Even when there are no clouds, the
air on Earth absorbs some of the light. Temperature
differences in the atmosphere make them twinkle, and
city lights, even distant city lights, wash them out."

"Sounds disgusting,"

"Do you like it out here, Selene? On the surface?"

'I'm not crazy about it really, but I don't mind it too
much, now and then. It's part of my job to bring tour-
ists out here, of course."

OPUS 200                 21

"And now you have to do it for me."

"Can't I convince you it's not tlie same thing at all,
Ben? We've got a set route for the tourists. It's very
-tame, very uninteresting. You don't think we'd take
them out here to the slide, do you? This is for Lunar-
ites—and Immies. Mostly Immies, actually."

"It can't be very popular. There's no one here but
ourselves."

"Oh, well, there are particular days for this sort of
thing. You should see this place on race days. You
wouldn't like it then, though."

"I'm not sure I like it now. Is gliding a sport for
Immies in particular^"

"Rather. Lunarites don't like the surface generally."

"How about Dr. Neville?"

"You mean. how he feels about the surface?"

"Yes."

"Frankly, I don't think he's ever been up here. He's
a real city boy. Why do you ask?"

"Well, when I asked permissioir to go along on the
routine servicing of the solar batteries, he was per-
fectly willing to have me go, but he wouldn't go him-
self- I rather asked him to, I think, so I could have
someone answer my questions, if there were any, but
his refusal was rather strong."

"1 hope there was someone else to answer your
questions."

"Oh, ves. He was an Immie, too, come to think of it.
Maybe that explains Dr. Neville's attitude toward the
electron pump."

"What do you mean?"

"Well—" Denison leaned back and kicked his legs up
alternately, watching them rise and fall slowly with a
certain lazy pleasure. "Hev, that's not bad. Look, Se-
lene, what I mean is that Neville is so intent on devel-

22

ISAAC ASIMOV

oping a pump station on the Moon when the solar bat-
teries are perfectly adequate for the job. We couldn't
use solar batteries on Earth, where the Sun is never as
unfailing, as prolonged, as bright, as radiant in all
wave lengths. There's not a single planetary body in
the solar system, no body of any size, that is 'more
suitable for the use of the batteries than the Moon is.
Even Mercury is too hot. But the use does tie you to
the surface, and if you don't like the surface—"

Selene rose to her feet suddenly and said, "All right,
Ben, you've rested enough. Up! Up!"

He struggled to his feet and said, "A pump station,
however, would mean that no Lunarite would ever
have to come out on the surface if he didn't want to."

"Uphill we go, Ben. We'll go to that ridge up ahead.
See it, where the Earthlight cuts off in a horizontal
line?"

They made their way up the final stretch silently.
Denison was aware of the smoother area at their
side—a wide swath of slope from which most of the
dust had been brushed.

"That's too smooth for a beginner to work up," Se-
lene said, answering his thoughts. "Don't get too am-
bitious or you'll want me to teach you the kangaroo-
hop next."

She made a kangaroo-hop as she spoke, turned
about-face almost before landing, and said, "Right
here. Sit down and I'll adjust—"

Denison did, facing downhill. He looked down the
slope uncertainly. "Can you really glide on it?"

"Of course. The gravity is weaker on the Moon than
on Earth, so you press against the ground much less
strongly, and that means there is much less friction.
Everything is more slippery on the Moon than on the
Earth. That's why the floors in our corridors and

OPUS 200                  23

^ apartments seemed unfinished to you. Would you like
to hear me give my little lecture on the subject? The
one I give the tourists?"
"No, Selene."

"Besides, we're going to use gliders, of course." She
'.had a small cartridge in her hand. Clamps and a pair
of thin tubes were attached to it.
"What is that?" asked Ben.
"Just a small liquid-gas reservior. It will emit a jet

-^of vapor just under vour boots. The thin gas layer be-
tween boots and ground will reduce friction virtually
to zero. You'll move as though you were in clear
' space."

4  Dension said uneasily, "I disapprove. Surely it's
. wasteful to use t^as in this fashion on the Moon."

"Oh, now. What gas do you think we use in these
gliders? Carbon dioxide? Oxygen? This is waste gas to
jpbegin with. It's argon. It comes out of the Moon's soil
||in ton lots, formed by billions of years of the break-
|sdown of potassium-40 . . . That's-part of my lecture,
^too, Ben . . . The argon has only a few specialized
H.uses on the Moon. We could use it for gliding for a
^million years without exhausting the supply ... All
IJright. Your gliders are on. Now wait till I put mine
ton."

^ "How do they work?"
fef "It's quite automatic. You just start sliding and that

•will trip the contact and start the vapor. You've only
,got a few minutes' supply, but that's all you'll need."
| She stood up and helped him to his feet. "Face
downhill . . . Come^u^ Ben, this is a gentle slope.
Look at it. It looks perrectly level."

"No, it doesn't," said Denison sulkily. "It looks like a
cliff to me."
"Nonsense. Now listen to me and remember what I

24

ISAAC ASIMOV

told you. Keep your feet about six inches apart and
one just a few inches ahead of the other. It doesn't
matter which one is ahead. Keep your knees bent.
Don't lean into the wind because there isn't any. Don't
try to look up or back, but you can look from side to
side if you have to. Most of all, when you finally hit
level, don't try to stop too soon; you'll be going faster
than you think. Just let the glider expire and then fric-
tion will bring you to a slow halt."

"I'll never remember all that."

"Yes, you will. And I'll be right at your side to help.
And if you do fall and I don't catch you, don't try to
do anything. Just relax and let yourself tumble or
slide. There are no boulders anywhere that you can
collide with."

Denison swallowed and looked ahead. The south-
ward slide was gleaming in Earthlight. Minute un-
evennesses caught more than their share of light, leav-
ing tiny uphill patches in darkness so that there was a
vague mottling of the surface. The bulging half-circle
of Earth rode the black sky almost directly ahead.

"Ready?" said Selene. Her gauntfeted hand was be-
tween his shoulders.

"Ready," said Denison faintly.

*Then off you go," she said. She pushed and Deni-
son felt himself begin to move- He moved quite
slowly at first. He turned toward her, wobbling, and
she said, "Don't worry. I'm right at your side."

He could feel the ground beneath his feet—and then
he couldn't. The glider had been activated.

For a moment he felt as though he were standing
still. There was no push of air against his body, no
feel of anything sliding past his feet. But when he
turned toward Selene again, he noticed that the lights

OPUS 200                  25

and shadows to one side were moving backward at a
slowly increasing speed-

"Keep your eyes on the Earth," Selene's voice said
in his ear, "till you build up speed. The faster you go,
the more stable you 11 be. Keep your knees bent . . .
You're doing very well, Ben."

"For an Immie," gasped Denison.

"How does it feel?*'

"Like flying," he said. The pattern of light and dark
on either side was moving backward in a blur. He
looked briefly to one side, then the other, trying to
convert the sensation of a backward flight of the sur-
roundings into one of a forward flight of his own.
Then, as soon as he succeeded, he found he had to
look forward hastily at the Earth to regain his sense of
balance. "I suppose that's not a good comparison to
use to you. You have no experience of flying on the
Moon."

"Now I know, though. Flying must be like gliding—
I know what that is."

She was keeping up with him easily.

Denison was going fast enough now so that he got
the sensation of motion even when he looked ahead.
The Moonscape ahead was opening before him and
flowing past on either side. He said, "How fast do you
get to go in a glide?"

"A good Moon-race," said Selene, "has been clocked
at speeds in excess of a hundred miles an hour—on
steeper slopes than this one, of course. You'll probably
reach a top of thirty-five."

"It feels a lot faster than that somehow."

"Well, it isn't. We're leveling off now, Ben, and you
haven't fallen. Now Just hang on; the glider will die
off and you'll feel friction. Don't do anything to help
it. Just keep going."

26

ISAAC ASIMOV

Selene had barely completed her remarks when Den-
ison felt the beginning of pressure under his boots.
There was at once an overwhelming sensation of
speed and he clenched his fists hard to keep from
throwing his arms up in an almost reHex gesture
against the collision that wasn't going to happen. He
knew that if he threw up his arms, he would go over
backward.

He narrowed his eyes, held his breath till he
thought his lungs would explode, and then Selene
said, "Perfect, Ben, perfect. I've never known an Im-
mie to go through his first slide without a fall, so if
you do fall, there'll be nothing wrong. No disgrace."

"I don't intend to fall," whispered Denison. He
caught a large, ragged breath, and opened his eyes
wide. The Earth was as serene as ever, as uncaring.
He was moving more slowly now—more slowly—more
slowly—

"Am I standing still now, Selene?" he asked. "I'm
not sure."

"You're standing still. Now don't move. You've got
to rest before we make the trip back to town . . .
Damn it. I left it somewhere around here when we
came up."

Denison watched her with' disbelief. She had
climbed up with him, had glided down with him. Yet
he was half-dead with weariness and tension, and she
was in the air with long kangaroo-leaps. She seemed a
hundred yards away when she said, "Here it isl" and
her voice was as loud in his ears as when she was
next to him.

She was back in a moment with a folded, paunchy
sheet of plastic under her arm.

"Remember," she said cheerily, "when you asked on
our way up what it was, and I said we'd be using it

OPUS 200

27

before we came down?" She unfolded it and spread it
on the dusty surface of the Moon.

"A lunar lounge is its full name," she said, "but we
just call it a lounge. We take the adjective for granted
here on this world." She inserted a cartridge and
tripped a lever.

It began to fill. Somehow Denison had expected a
hissing noise, but of course there was no air to carry
sound.

"Before you question our conservation policies
again," said Selene, "this is argon also."

It blossomed into a mattress on six stubby legs. "It
will hold you," she said. "It makes very little actual
contact with the ground and the vacuum all around
will conserve its heat."

"Don't tell me it's hot," said Denison, amazed.

"The argon is heated as it pours in, but only rela-
tively. It ends up at 270 degrees absolute, almost
warm enough to melt ice, and quite warm enough to
keep your insulated suit from losing heat faster than
you can manufacture it. Co ahead. Lie down."

Denison did so, with a sensation of enormous lux-
ury.

"Great!" he said with a long sigh.

"Mama Selene thinks of everything," she said.

She came from behind him now, gliding around
him, her feet placed heel to heel as though she were
on skates, and then let them fiy out from under her, as
she came down gracefully on hip and elbow on the
ground just beside him.

Denison whistled. "How did you do that?"

"Lots of practicel And don't you try it. You'll break
your elbow."

28

ISAAC ASIMOV

Some of the real findings on the Moon tended to de-
stroy a few of the more interesting science fictional
notions. For instance, to the best of our knowledge,
there have always been not more than small traces of
water on the Moon, and even these are vanishing. Our
study of the Moon rocks has shown that. Yet, in the
science fiction written before we reached the Moon, it
was often assumed that there was some water on the
Moon that might be frozen under the soil or chemi-
cally combined with the molecules of the crustal rock.

Even as late as 1972 1 held on to the hope that this
might be so despite the negative findings of the first
astronauts on the Moon. Thus, here is another scene
from The Gods Themselves. This time Selene and Ben
are inside the settlement.

Denison tried to beat down his self-consciousness.

Time and again, he made a groping motion as though         i,
to hitch upward the pants he wasn't wearing. He wore         :•
only sandals and the barest of briefs, which were un-
comfortably tight. And, of course, he carried the blan-        ^
ket.                                                      1

Selene, who was similarly accoutered, laughed.         H
"Now, Ben, there's nothing wrong with your bare        H
body, barring a certain flabbiness. It's perfectly in        ^
fashion here. In fact, take off your briefs if they're
binding you."

"Nol" muttered Denison. He shifted the blanket so
that it draped over his abdomen and she snatched it
from him.

She said, "Now give me that thing. What kind of a
Lunarite will you make if you bring your Earth puri-
tanism here? You know that prudery is only the other

OPUS 200                  29

side of prurience. The words are even on the same
page in the dictionary."

"I have to get used to it, Selene."

"You might start by looking at me once in a while
without having your glance slide off me as though I
were coated with oil. You look at other women quite
efficiently, I notice."

"If I look at you—"

Then you'll seem too interested and you'll be em-
barrassed. But if vou look hard, you'll get used to it,
and you'll stop noticing. Look, I'll stand still and you
stare. I'll take off my briefs."

Denison groaned, "Selene, there are people all
around and you're making intolerable fun of me.
Please keep walking and let me get used to the situa-
tion."

"All right, but I hope you notice the people who
pass us don't look at us."

"They don't look at you. They look at me all right.
They've probably never seen so old-looking and ill-
shaped a person."

"They probably haven't," agreed Selene cheerfully,
"but they'll just have to get used to it."

Denison walked on in misery, conscious of every
gray hair on his chest and of every quiver of his
paunch. It was only when the passageway thinned out
and the people passing them were fewer in number
that he began to feel a certain relief.

He looked about him curiously now, not as aware of
Selene's conical breasts as he had been, nor of her
smooth thighs. The corridor seemed endless.

"How far have we come?" he asked.

"Are you tired?" Selene was contrite. "We could
have taken a scooter. I forget you're from Earth."

30

ISAAC ASIMOV

"I should hope you do. Isn't that the ideal for an
immigrant? I'm not the least bit tired. Hardly the least
bit tired at anv rate. What I am is a little cold."

"Purely your imagination, Ben," said Selene firmly.
"You just think you ought to feel cold because so
much of vou is bare. Put it out of vour head."

"Easv to sav," he sighed. "I'm walking well, I hope."

"Very well. I'll have vou kangarooing yet."

"And participating in glider races down the surface
slopes. Remember, I'm moderately advanced in years.
But really, how far have we come?"

"Two miles, I should judge."

"Good Lord! How many miles of corridors are there
altogether?"

"I'm afraid I don't know. The residential corridors
make up comparatively little of the total. There are
the mining corridors, the geological ones, the in-
dustrial, the mvcological . . . I'm sure there must be
several hundred miles altogether."

"Do you have maps?"

"Of course there are maps. We can't work blind."*

1 mean you, personally."

"Well, no, not with me, but I don't need maps for
this area; it's quite familiar to me. I used to wander
about here as a child. These are old corridors. Most of
the new corridors—and we average two or three miles
of new corridors a-year, I think—are in the north. I
couldn't work my wav through them, without a map,
for untold sums. Mavbe not even with a map."

"Where are we heading?"

"I promised you an unusual sight—no, not me, so
don't say it—and you'll have it. It's the Moon's most
unusual mine and it's completely off the ordinary
tourist trails."

"Don't tell me you've got diamonds on the Moon?"

OPUS 200                 31

''Better than that."

The corridor walls were unfinished here—gray rock,
dimly but adequately lit by patches of electrolumi-
nescence. The temperature was comfortable and at a
steady mildness, with ventilation so gently effective
there was no sensation of wind. It was hard to tell
here that a couple of hundred feet above was a sur-
face subjected to alternate trying and freezing as the
Sun came and went on its grand biweekly swing from
horizon to horizon and then underneath and back.

"Is all this airtight?" asked Denison, suddenly un-
comfortably aware that he was not far below the bot-
tom of an ocean of vacuum that extended upward
through infinity.

"Oh, yes. Those walls are impervious. They're all
booby-trapped, too. If the air pressure drops as much
as ten percent in any section of the corridors there is a
hooting and howling from sirens such as you've never
heard and a flashing of arrows and blazing signs di-
recting you to safety such as you've never seen."

"How often does this happen?"

"Not often. I don't think anyone has been killed
through air-lack in at least five years." Then, with sud-
den defensiveness, "You have natural catastrophes on
Earth. A big quake or a tidal wave can kill thou-
sands."

"No argument, Selene." He threw up his hands. "I
surrender."

"All right," she said. "I didn't mean to get excited
. . . Do you hear that?"

She stopped in an attitude of listening.

Denison listened, too, and shook his head. Sud-
denly, he looked around. "It's so quiet. Where is every-
body? Are you sure we're not lost?"

"This isn't a natural cavern with unknown passage-

32

ISAAC AS1MOV

ways. You have those on Earth, haven't you? I've seen
photographs."

"Yes, most of them are limestone caves formed by
water. That certainly can't be the case on the Moon,
can it?"

"So we can't be lost," said Selene, smiling. "If we're
alone, put it down to superstition."

To what?" Denison looked startled and his face
creased in an expression of disbelief.

"Don't do that." she said. "You get all lined. That's
right- Smooth out. You look much better than you did
when you first arrived, you know. That's low gravity
and exercise."

"And trying to keep up with nude young ladies who
have an uncommon amount of time off and an un-
common lack of better things to do than to go on bus-
men's holidays."

"Now you're treating me like a tourist guide again,
and I'm not nude," Selene retorted.

"At that, even nudity is less frightening than Intui-
tionism . . . But what's this about superstitition?"

"Not really superstition, I suppose, but most of the
people of the city tend to stay away from this part of
the corridor complex."

"But why?"

"Because of what I'm going to show you." They
were walking again. "Hear it now?"

She stopped and Denison listened anxiously. He
said, "You mean that small tapping sound? Tap—tap.
Is that what you mean?"

She loped ahead with the slow-motion movement of
the Lunarite in unhurried flight. He followed her, at-
tempting to ape the gait.

"Here—here—"

Denison's eye followed Selene's eagerly pointing fin-

OPUS 200                  33

ger. "Good Lord," he said. "Where's it coming from?"

There was a drip of what was clearly water; a slow
dripping, with each drip striking a small ceramic
trough that led into the rock wall.

"From the rocks. We do have water on the moon,
you know. Most of it we can bake out of gvpsum;

enough for our purposes, since we conserve it pretty
well."

"I know- I know. I've never yet been able to man-
age one complete shower. How you people manage to
stay clean I don't know."

"I told you. First, wet yourself- Then turn off the
water and smear just a little detergent on you. You
rub it— Oh, Ben, I'm not going through it yet again.
And there's nothing on the Moon to get you all that
dirty anyway . . . But that's not what we're talking
about. In one or two places there are actually water
deposits, usually in the form of ice near the surface in
the shadow of a mountain. If we locate it, it drips out.
This one has been dripping since the corridor was
first driven through, and that was eight years ago."
"But why the superstition?"
"Well, obviously, water is the great material re-
source on which the Moon depends. We drink it, wash
with it, grow our food with it, make our oxygen with
it, keep everything going with it. Free water can't
help but get a lot of respect. Once this drip was dis-
covered, plans to extend the tunnels in this direction
were abandoned till it stopped. The corridor walls
were even left unfinished."

"That sounds like superstition right there."
"Well—a kind of awe, maybe. It wasn't expected to
last for more than a few months; such drips never do.
But after this one had passed its first anniversary, it
began to seem eternal. In fact, that's what it's called:

34

ISAAC ASIMOV

The Eternal. You'll even find it marked that way on
the maps. Naturally people have come to attach im-
portance to it, a feeling that if it stops it will mean
some sort of bad fortune."

Denison laughed.

Selene said warmly, "No one really believes it, but
.everyone part-believes it. You see, it's not really eter-
nal; it must stop sometime. As a matter of fact, the
rate of drip is only about a third of what it was when
it was first discovered, so that it is slowly drying. I
imagine people feel that if it happened to stop when
they were actually here, they would share in the bad
fortune. At least, that's the rational way of explaining
their reluctance to come here."

"I take it that you don't believe this."

"Whether I believe it or not isn't the point. You see,
I'm quite certain that it won't stop sharply enough for
anyone to be able to take the blame. It will just drip
slower and slower and slower and no one will ever be
able to pinpoint the exact time when it stopped. So
why worry?"

"I agree with you."

At the start, my writing consisted almost entirely of
science fiction. Of my first hundred books, nearly one
third is science fiction. That fell off with time, how-
ever. Of my second hundred books, only thirteen can
be considered science fiction under even the most lib-
eral interpretation.

That did not end my concern with astronomy, how-
ever, for 1 continued to deal with it in my nonfiction
and for every age level.

I wrote some picture books for Walker 6- Company,
for instance, at the suggestion of Beth Walker. They

OPUS 200

35

were ABC hooks, actually, in which two words were
defined for each letter of the alphabet. The idea was
that an ei^ht-year'old could read the definitions {or,
at least, have an adult read it to him) and then be
fascinated by the pictures.

The first and mo-vt successful of these was ABC's of
Space (Book 10J), which was published in 1969.
Here, for instance, are the definitions of the two
words under 0:

from ABC's OF SPACE (1969)

0 is for Ocean of Storms

a dark, smooth area on the Moon where the first
unmanned spaceship landed in 1966. It is not
really an ocean, because tliere is probablv no wa-
ter on the Moon. There are no storms either, but
we still use the name.

o is for orbit

the path a small world takes around a larger one.
The Moon moves in an orbit around the Earth.
The Earth moves in an orbit around the Sun.
Both orbits are almost like circles. An orbit is also
the path a spaceship takes around the Earth or
Moon.

I was not particularly fond of the ABC books, of
which three others were ]mblished by Walker by 1972.
These wereABC's of the Ocean (Book 107), ABC's of
the Earth (Book 117), and ABC's of Ecology (Book
124). The ABC format didn't leave me enough scope.

36

ISAAC ASIMOV

I did, however, start another series of books for
Walker is- Company with which I had a good deal
more fun.

The title of each book in the series, which was orig-
inally suggested by mi/ editor, Millicent Selsam, was
to begin How Did We Find Out. They were to deal
with science history on a Junior high school level.

The first one of these was How Did We Find Out
the Earth Is Round? (Book 133), which Walker pub-
lished in 1973. Writing the book was sheer pleasure,
and I knew I had something I would continue. In-
deed, of my second hundred hooks, no fewer than
thirteen are members of fhe How Did We Find Out
series.

One of the things that made the series pleasurable
for me was that the books varied widely in subject
matter_Three of them dealt with astronomy, four with
physics, two with biology, one with mathematics, one
with chemistry, one with geology, and one with an-
thropology.

One of the "astronomicaU" was How Did We Find
Out About Comets? {Book 162}, which was pub-
lished in 1975. Millie requested that topic during the
hullabaloo concerning the then forthcoming comet
Kohoutek. Though, alas, the comet fizzled, the book
certainly remained valid. Here's how I handled the
way in which cometary orbits were finally worked
out.

from How Dro WE FIND Our ABOUT COMETS (1975}

A German astronomer, Johannes Kepler, who had
been one of Tycho's assistants, disagreed with part of
Copemicus's theory. After studying the motions of the

OPUS 200                 37

planets in the sky, Kepler said, in 1609, that the plan-
ets moved around the sun in orbits that were not
circles. Each planet moved around the sun in an
"ellipse."

An ellipse looks like a flattened circle. It can be so
slightly flattened that you cannot tell it from a circle.
It can be more flattened, so that you can see at a
glance that it is not a circle. Or it can be very flat-
tened, so that it looks long and thin, something like a
cigar.

The orbit of the earth around the sun is an ellipse
that is only very slightly flattened. It is almost circu-
lar. The moon's orbit around the earth is more flat-
tened, and Mercury's orbit around the sun is still more
flattened. Even Mercury's orbit, which is more flat-
tened than that of any other planet known in Kepler's
time, is not very flattened. Its orbit still looks like a
circle.

The sun is not at the very center of the elliptical
orbits of the planets around it. The flatter the ellipse,
the closer one end of it is to the sun.

When the earth moves around the sun, it is only
91,500,000 miles from the sun at one end of its orbit, but
94,500,000 miles from the sun at the other end. The
farther distance is less than 4 percent greater than the
nearer distance.

Mercury's orbit around the sun is more elliptical, so
there is a bigger difference. When Mercury is at the
end of the ellipse nearer the sun, it is only 28,000,000
miles away. At the other end, it is 44,000,000 miles
from the sun. The farther distance is about 50 percent
greater than the nearer distance.

Kepler was able to work out elliptical orbits for all
the planets, but what about the comets? If thev were
heavenly bodies, did that mean they had orbits, too?

38 ISAAC ASIMOV

Kepler carefully studied the reports he had about
the changing positions of comets in the sky. Finally,
he decided that comets must move in straight lines.
He thought they came from far out in space, passed
near the sun, then traveled onward far out in space in
the other direction.

They could only be seen when they were close to
the sun and reflected its light. Before they came close
enough to the sun, they could not be seen. After they
moved far enough from the sun, they again could not
be seen. According to Kepler's view, comets were not
part of the solar system. Each comet just passed
tlirough the solar system once and was never seen
again.

An Italian astronomer, Giovanni Alfonso Borelli,
carefully studied the positions of a comet that ap-
peared in the sky in 1664. He found he had to dis-
agree with Kepler.

The only way to make sense out of the path the
comet took across the sky, Borelli said, was to suppose
that it changed direction as it passed the sun. It came
closer and closer to the sun, along a line that was
nearly straight. Then it moved around the sun, and
left along a line that was again nearly straight but had
changed direction.

The way Borelli explained this was to point out that
ellipses could be very flattened indeed. They could be
so flattened that they would resemble a very long,
thin cigar. In fact. if you imagined an ellipse that was
more and more flattened, and longer and longer, you
could eventually imagine one that was so flattened it
Just went on and on forever. Such an ellipse would be
closed only at one end. In the other direction, it would
never be closed, but would just go on and on. A one-

OPUS 200                  39

ended ellipse that goes on and on forever is called a
"parabola."

Borelli decided that a comet's orbit was a para-
bola, with the sun very near the closed end. The com-
et came in at one side of the parabola, went whizz-
ing around the sun, and theu moved outward along
the other side of the parabola.

Borelli's view was like that of Kepler, except that
the orbit he conceived was not a straight line. Like
Kepler, Borelli thought a comet was originally so far
away it could not be seen. As it came closer and closer
to the sun, it grew bright enough to be seen, and then
as it went farther and farther from the sun, it once
more became too dim to be seen. In Borelli's view, as
in Kepler's, the comets were not members of the solar
system. Each comet just passed through the solar sys-
tem once and never returned.

Kepler's notion of elliptical orbits worked very well
for the planets, but there were fots of questions left.
Why did the planets go around the sun in ellipses in-
stead of circles (or some other curve)? Why did plan-
ets move faster when they were nearer the sun than
when they were farther away?

These questions and many others were answered by
the English scientist Isaac Newton. In 1687, he pub-
lished a book in which he described his theory of uni-
versal gravitation. According to this theory, every
body in the universe attracted every other body. The
strength of the attraction between two particular bod-
ies depended on. the "mass" or each body (how much
matter it contained) and on how far apart the two
bodies were. The strength of the attraction could be
calculated by a simple mathematical equation.

Newton showed how to use the equation to work

40

ISAAC ASIMOV

out the exact orbit of the moon around the earth and
of the planets around the sun.

The same equation explained why each planet
moved quickly at some times and slowly at other
times, and why some planets moved faster than oth-
ers. It explained little changes in the motion of tne
planets that were produced by the tiny pulls of one
planet on another even as all were caught in the gi-
gantic pull of the much larger sun. It explained the
tides on the earth and many other things, too.

But comets were the one set of heavenly bodies that
remained puzzling. If comets traveled in orbits that
were parabolas, Newton's theory could account for
that fact Suppose, though, the orbits were not quite
parabolas. Suppose the orbits were Just very long
ellipses and were closed at the other end.

We can only observe the comet at the end of the
orbit near the sun. The shape of that small part of the
enormous orbit would be a narrow curve if the ellipse
were very long. The shape would be slightly wider, if
the ellipse were even longer, and still wider if the el-
lipse never closed at all and were a parabola.

The differences in the shapes of the small bit of
orbit we could see, as predicted by Newton's theory,
were so tiny that astronomers in Newton's time could
not tell them apart. They couldn't really say whether
the orbit or a comet was a very long ellipse or
whether it was a parabola,

It made a difference. If a comet's orbit were a para-
bola, it would visit the solar system once and would
never be seen again. If the orbit were a very, very
long ellipse, then eventually the comet would come to
the other end of the ellipse, turn around, and begin to
approach the sun again. The comet would return.

In fact, if astronomers could calculate the exact

OPUS 200

41

length of the orbit, they could even predict when the
comet would return. That would be a big victory for
Newton's theory.

Newton had a young friend, Edmund Halley, who
had helped Newton publish his book and who was in-
terested in the comet problem.

In 1682, a comet appeared and Halley very care-
fully studied its positions and the way it moved across
the sky. From the part of the orbit he could see, he
couldn't tell whether it would ever return.

It seemed to him, though, that if a comet did return
it should do so at regular periods—every so many
years—and that it should always trace the same curve
across the sky. He therefore began to collect all the
reports on the positions of earlier comets that he could
find- By 1705, he had collected good reports on two
dozen comets of the past and began to compare them.

He noticed that the comet of 1682, which he had
himself observed, followed the -same curve across the
sky that the comet of 1607 had. The same curve had
also been followed by the comet of 1532 (which Fra-
castoro and Apian had studied) and the comet of
1456.

These comets had come at seventy-Hve- or seventy-
six-year periods. Could it be that it was a single comet
that returned every seventy-five years or so? Could it
be that it was a "periodic comet"?

Halley worked out the orbit for a comet that re-
turned every seventy-five years and followed the same
curve in the sky that the comet of 1682 had followed.

The results were quite amazing. Saturn, the planet
farthest from the sun (as far as was known in Halley's
time) was never farther from the sun than 930,000,000
miles. The comet of 1682, however, moved out as far

42

ISAAC ASIMOV

as 3,200,000,000 miles from the sun before it reached
the other end of its ellintical orbit and began moving
inward again. The comet moved over three times as
far awav from the sun as Saturn ever moved.

On the other hand, when the comet passed along
the end of the ellipse that was near the sun, it came as
close as 54,000,000 miles from the sun. This was only
about half of earth's distance from the sun.

After Halley had calculated the orbit, he announced
that the comet of 1682 would return some time in 1758
and would follow a particular path across the sky.

Halley did not live long enough to see the comet's
return. He was eightv-six years old when he died in
1742, but that was much too soon to see the return.

There were. however, others who were watching for
it. A French astronomer, Alexis Claude Clairault, con-
sidered the orbit as outlined bv Hallev. He realized
that the gravitational pull of the large planets, Jupiter
and Saturn, would delav the comet a little bit. It
would not pass around the sun till some time in 1759.

In 1758, astronomers eagerly watched that part of
the sky in which Hallev had said the comet should
appear. They did not have to depend only on their
eyes as Tycho and earlier astronomers had done. The
telescope had been invented in 1609.

On December 25, 1758, Christmas Day, a German
farmer named Johann Georg Palitzch, who was an
amateur astronomer, spotted the comet. The comet of
1682 appeared in the sky where Halley had said it
would and proceeded to move along the path Halley
had predicted for it. It moved around the sun quite
close to the time Clairaulrtiad predicted.

There was no question that it was the comet of 1682
and that it had returned. That meant that some of the

OPUS 200                 43

mystery of comets was cleared up. They followed the
same rules -as the other bodies of the solar system ex-
cept that their oibits were more elliptical.

Naturally, the comet of 1682 that returned and
passed around the sun in 1759 came to be called "Hal-
ley's comet."

Halley's comet is the most famous comet there is.
It happens to be the one that was in the sky in 1066
when William of Normandy was preparing to invade
England. It was also in the sky in 11 B.C., about the
time when Jesus may have been born. Some people
think it may have been the Star of Bethlehem.

Halley's comet has returned twice since Palitzch
saw it. It came back in 1835 and was glowing in the
sky when Mark Twain was born. Then it came back
in 1910 and Mark Twain died when it was glowing in
the sky. It will come back yet again in 1986.

Writing for different age levels has its problems, of
course, .-since the boundaries (ire not clear. I let myself
be guided by instinct, and if I must err, I prefer to err
on the side of difficulty. I like to think that the kind of
youngster who is interested in my books would rather
stretch a little and stand on his mental tiptoes than
stoop to something he might consider babyish.

Thus, for Follett Publishing Company, I did a series
of eight books on science that were intended for an
age level higher than that .of my ABC books and
lower than that of my How Did We Find Out books.

The first four of the Follett series were published
among my first hundred books, but the second four,
including three on astronomy, were in my second
hundred books. They are Comets and Meteors (Book

44

ISAAC ASIMOV

134), The Sun {Book 735), and The Solar System
{Book 160). Here is how I handled the matter of com-
etary orbits in Comets and Meteors:

from COMETS AND METEOBS (1873)

Comets go around the sun the way planets do, but with
a difference. Planets move in paths, called "orbits,"
that are nearly circles. Thev stav almost the same dis-
tance from the sun all the time. Comets move in orbits
that are long and narrow. Both comets and planet or-
bits are "ellipses."

At one end of the orbit, comets pass near the sun,
perhaps only a few million miles away. At the other
end, they are much farther awav, sometimes farther
than any planet. At this point, they are billions of
miles away from the sun.

A comet has no light of its own. To be seen, it must
be near a large bright object, like the sun. Sunlight
makes a comet shine.

Comets get very little sunlight at the far end of
their orbits. They are small and dim then. They can-
not be seen even with a telescope- As they move
closer to the sun, they get more sunlight. They be-
come bright enough to be seen.

People see comets only at the end of their orbits
close to the sun. Tlien thev are close to the earth, too.

Centuries ago, people believed that comets came
from nowhere. They couldn't tell when another comet
might come.

About three hundred years ago, an English astrono-
mer, Edmund Hallev, studied records of comets that
had been seen. He found that every seventy-six years

OPUS 200                 45

or so, a comet crossed a certain part of the sky. He
decided it must be a single comet that came close to
the sun every seventv-six vears.

Hallev said the comet would come back in 1758 and
cross the same part of the skv- Bv then, Halley was
dead. But the comet returned just as he said it would.
It is known as Halley's comet tor that reason.

This business of aiming high for each age group
means that almost no effort is involved if I aim for the
teenage market. I always assume that a teenager is as
intelligent as an adult and has the vocabulary of one.
What he lacks is merely the opportunity to have read
as widely as an adult. {Naturally, I am talking of an
intelligent, well-read adult.)

Consequently, in writing for teenagers, I take par-
ticular care to make no assumptions of precious
knowledge and to explain everything that doesn't
come within the range of common experience—hut I
make sure I use a full vocabulary to do so. Teenagers
are sensitive {and rightly so) to any hint of conde-
scension.

Included among my second hundred books are
three on astronomy for teenagers, which I wrote at the
suggestion of Chaucy Bennetts of I^othrop, Lee 6-
Shepard Company. She is a very capable editor who,
coincidentally, became my cousin by marriage after
the series started. The three books are Jupiter, the
Largest Planet {Book 139); Alpha Centauri, the Near-
est Star {Book 179); and Mars, the Red Planet {Book
188). Here are two excerpts from Alpha Centauri:

46                   ISAAC ASIMOV

from ALPHA CENTAUM, THE NEAREST STAB (1976)

In the case of the Alpha Centauri system, the average
separation of the two stars Alpha Centauri A and Al-
pha Centauri li is greater than that of Uranus and the
sun, and less than that of Neptune and the sun. If the
Alpha Centauri sv.stem were suoerimposed on the so-
lar system, however, with Alpha Centauri A in place
of our sun, Alpha Centauri B would not take up a cir-
cular orbit between those of Uranus and Neptune.
Things would be a little more complicated than that.

If the orbit of an object moving around a star were
an exact circle, the star would remain at the precise
center of the orbit and that would represent a very
simple situation. Actually, the orbit is always an el-
lipse, a kind of flattened circle. An ellipse has a major
axis (its longest diameter) and a minor axis (its short-
est diameter). The center of the ellipse is at the point
where the two axes cross.

There are two focus points, or foci, in the ellipse.
They are located on the major axis, one on each side
of the center and at an equal distance from it. The
more flattened the ellipse, the farther the foci are
from the center and the closer they are to the ends.

These foci are located in such a way that if a
straight line is drawn from one focus to any point on
the ellipse, and another straight line is drawn from
that point to the other focus, the sum of the lengths of
the two straight lines is always the same and always
equal in size to the major axis.

As it happens, when an object moves about a star in
an elliptical orbit, the star is always at one of the foci
and is, therefore, nearer to one end of the orbit than
to the other. If the ellipse is very flattened, the star is

OPUS 200                  47

far to one end and the orbiting object is very close to
tlie star at that end of the orbit and very far from it at
the other end.

The point of closest approach is called the "peri-
astron," from Greek words meaning "near the star." The
farthest point is the "apastron," from Greek words
meaning "awav from the star."

In a binary system both stars, under the pull of
gravity, move in orbits around a point between them
called the "center of gravity." As they move, both
stars always remain on opposite sides of the center
of gravity, and the larger star is always closer to it
This means tliat although both stars have orbits that
are ellipses of the same shape, the larger star always
moves through the smaller orbit

When one object in a binary system is very much
larger than the other, it makes such a small ellipse
about the center of gravity that it is practically sta-
tionary. This is true of the sun and Earth, for instance,
where the sun scarcely moves at'all while tiny Earth
moves in a large ellipse.

It is always possible, however, to suppose that the
larger of two obiects in a binarv system is standing
still and to calculate the orbit of the smaller about it.
This distorts the situation relative to observers in
other planetary systems—relative to us, for instance.
However, if we could imagine ourselves observing the
binary system from the larger of the two stars, what
we would observe would be the smaller star moving
about a motionless larger one.

When astronomers observe a binary system, they
are not at all likely to be viewing it from directly
above, so to speak, so as to see the elliptical orbits
marked out exactly as they are. They usually view the

48

ISAAC ASIMOV

orbits from a tilted position, so that the ellipses they
see are not the ellipses marked out bv the orbiting
stars. What thev see are ellipses that are more flat-
tened, sometimes verv much more flattened. In these
distorted ellipses, however, the larger star, which is
supposed to be stationary, is not at the focus of the
smaller star's orbit. If astronomers tilt the orbit, in imag-
ination, until the star moves into the focus, they get
the true ellipse.

The degree of flattening of an ellipse is measured as
its "eccentricity" (from Greek words meaning "out of
center"), since the greater the eccentricity, the farther
the foci are from the center. The eccentricity of a cir-
cle, which is not flattened at all, is 0. For an ellipse,
the eccentricity is alwavs between 0 and 1. If an el-
lipse has a low eccentricity, say, less than 0.1, it is so
slightly flattened that to the eye it looks very much
like a circle. The flatter an ellipse is, the more it ap-
proaches a value of 1. An orbit with an eccentricity of
0.9, then, looks quite cigar-shaped,

An example of a high degree of eccentricity in a
binary system is Gamma Virginis, where the eccen-
tricity is 0.88. This means that the distance from the
center of the ellipse to the focus is 0.88 times the dis-
tance from the center of the ellipse to the end. With
the larger star at one focus, the end of the orbit of the
other star in the direction of that. focus (the peri-
astron) is only 0.12 times the distance from the center
and only 0.06 times the entire width of the ellipse
from end to end. The other end of the ellipse (the
apastron) is distant from the larger star by an amount
equal to 0.94 times the entire width of the ellipse.

In the case of Gamma Virginis, then, although the
average distance separating the two stars of the

OPUS 200                  49

binary is 6,800,000,000 kilometers (4,200,000,000
miles), at periastron the distance of separation is onlv
810,000,000 kilometers (500,000,000 miles) while at
apastron it is 12,800,000,000 kilometers (7,900,000,000
miles).

In other words, the two stars of Gamma Virginis, as
they circle each other, swoop together to a separating
distance equal to that of Jupiter and the sun, and then
move apart to a distance more than twice that be-
tween Pluto and the sun. (The system was at apastron
in 1920 and the two stars have been moving closer
ever since. Thev will be at periastron in 2006.)

In general, stars separated by quite a large average
distance are likely to have large eccentricities, A bi-
nary like Caoella with an average separation of only
84,000,000 kilometers (52,000,000 miles) has quite a
low eccentricity, one of only 0.0086. This means that
the distance between the two stars of the Capella svs-
tem varies from 83,300,000 , kilometers (51,600,000
miles) at periastron to 84,700,000 kilometers (52,400,000
miles) at apastron.

This is so small a change that from the standpoint
of one of the stars of the Capella system, the other
would scarcely seem to change in brightness during
the 104-day period of revolution. In the case of
Gamma Virginis, on the other hand, an observer near
one of the stars would see the other as 250 times
brighter at periastron than at apastron.

The eccentricities of the planetary orbits of the so-
lar system, by the way, are much more like those of
the Capella stars than those of the Gamma Virginis
stars. -The eccentricities of the orbits of Venus and
Neptune are just about those of the Capella system,
while that of Earth (0.017) is only a little higher. This
15 a good thing, too, for a highly eccentric orbit would

50

ISAAC ASIMOV

introduce such changes in temperature in the course
of the vear that a planet with even a suitable average
distance from its sun might prove uninhabitable.

Let us take, now, a group of binaries that have av-
erage separations of about 3.0 to 3.5 billion kilometers
(1.9 to 2.2 billion miles), a group that includes the
Alpha Centauri system. In the table below, the eccen-
tricity and the distances at periastron and apastron are
given tor this group.

Eccentricities of Binary Systems

		KILO-	OF	KILO-	OF
		METERS	MILES	METERS	MILES
70 Ophiuchi Zeta Sagittarii Alpha Centauri Eta Ophiuchi Zeta Cancri	0.50 0.2 0.521 0.90 0.31	1750 2700 1700 320 2200	11001700 1000200 1350	52504300 53006080 4100	3300 2700 34003800 2570
Sinus	0.575	1280	800	4720	3000
Xi Scorpii	0.74	780	500	5200	3300

As you see, the apastrons are not extraordinarily dif-
ferent, varying from 4100 to 6080 million kilometers
(2570 to 3800 million miles), a difference of only
about 50 percent. The periastrons differ, however,
from 320 to 2700 million kilometers (200 to 1700
miles), a difference of 800 percent.

The Alpha Centauri system is rather intermediate

OPUS 200                 51

with respect to eccentricity. The orbits of the two
stars Alpha Centauri A and B are more eccentric than
those or the planets of our solar system, but less ec-
centric than those of some of the comets, asteroids,
and satellites of our solar system.

If Alpha Centauri A were in the place of our
sun, then Alpha Centauri B at its farthest would be
5,300.000,000 kilometers (3,400,000,000 miles) away,
or just about at the average distance of Pluto from our
sun. From Earth's position -near Alpha Centauri A,
Alpha Centauri B would seem a starhke point, but it
would be far brighter than anv star we see in our own
sky. It would shine with a brilliance about 100 times
greater than our full moon, though it would still be only
1/4500 as bright as Alpha Centauri A or our sun.

From its farthest point, however, Alpha Centauri B
would slowly decrease its distance to Alpha Centauri
A (and ourselves) as it moved along its orbit, until
after forty years it would be at periastron and only
1,700,000,000 kilometers (1,000;000,000 miles) from
Alpha Centauri A. At that point it would be a little
farther from Alpha Centauri A than Saturn is from the
sun. And when Earth would be on the side of its orbit
toward Alpha Centauri B, th6 companion star would
be only 1,550,000,000 kilometers (900,000,000 miles)
from us.

At that distance. Alpha Centauri B would be a little
over 14 times as bright as at apastron. It would be
1400 times as bright as the full moon, but still only
1/326 as bright as Alpha Centauri A.

Suppose Alpha Centauri B were in place of our sun,
and that we calculated the orbit of Alpha Centauri A
on the assumption that Alpha Centauri B was motion-
less. Alpha Centauri A would then seem to move in

52

ISAAC ASIMOV

the same orbit that Alpha, Centauri B had in the other

case."

Viewed from an Earth that was circling Alpha Cen-
tauri B instead of our own sun, Alpha Centauri A
would go through the same period of brightening as it
moved from apastron to periastron, and the same pe-'
riod of dimming as it moved back to apastron. How-
ever, since Alpha Centauri A is 3)1 times as bright as
Alpha Centauri B, Alpha Centauri A would seem that
much brighter at everv point in its orbit. At its bright-
est, it would be 5000 times brighter than our full
moon now, and 1/100 as bright as our sun appears to
us. Since Alpha Centauri B would appear dimmer
than the sun, if we imagined the former in the latter's
place, Alpha Centauri A at its closest approach would
appear 1/30 as bright as Alpha Centauri B.

* Because Alpha Centauri B is the smaller of the two stars,
it seems to move in the larger orbit of the two when viewed
from outside the system. When viewed from inside the sys-
tem, however, an observer on each star would see the other
moving in the same orbit. Thus, on Earth, if we pretend that
the Earth is motionless, the sun moves in an orbit about the
Earth that is just like the orbit that the Earth (in reality)
moves in as it circles the sun.

OPUS 200                  53

The Orbit of Alpha Centauri B
superimposed on our solar system

If we were circling Alpha Centauri A instead of the
sun, the presence of Alphil Centauri B would cause us
no trouble. Despite the eccentricity of its orbit, which
allows Alpha Centauri B to swoop in and pull out in
forty-year alternations, it would remain so far away at
all times that its gravitational pull would never be
strong enough to affect Earth's orbit seriously. What's
more, its addition to the light and heat delivered by
Alpha Centauri A would never be more than a third
of 1 percent. And think of what a marvelous spectacle
it would make in the sky.

54

ISAAC ASIMOV

If we were circling Aipha Centauri B, the superior
brightness of Alpha Centauri A would be more dis-
turbing. but if we imagined Eaith pulled in closer to
Alpha Centauri B in order to receive as much heat and
light from that smaller sun as we receive from our own
sun, the interference of Alpha Centauri A would net
be too disturbing.

And what about Alpha Centauri C—Proximo Cen-
tauri—which is the distant companion of the Alpha
Centauri A/B binary? Even though it would be far
nearer to us, if Earth were circling either Alpha Cen-
tauri A or Alpha Centauri B, than any star is to us in
our own solar system, it would not be at all bright. It
would be a fairly dim star of magnitude 3.7. What's
more, its proper motion, as a result of its 1,300,000-
year-long revolution around the center of gravity of
the system, would be just about exactly 1 second o£
arc per year.

Neither its brightness nor its proper motion would
attract much attention, and stargazers might look at
the sky forever and not suspect this dim star of be-
longing to their own system. The only giveaway
would come when astronomers decided to make a rou-
tine check of the parallaxes of the various visible stars
in the sky. After a month or so, they would begin to
get a hint of an extraordinarily large parallax and in
the end they would measure one of 20 seconds of arc,
which would be so much higher than that of any other
star that they would at once suspect it of being a
member of their own system.

Can there be a dim star somewhere out there that
belongs to our own solar system? Can it be that we
remain unaware of it because astronomers haven't
happened to study it closely enough to detect an un-

OPUS 200                  55

usually high parallax? It isn't very likely—but it is con-
ceivable.

In general, the hotter a star is, the brighter it is. It's no
surprise, therefore, that so manv of the bright stars in
the sky are hotter than the sun is, or that so many of
the dim stars we see are cooler than the sun is.

What is surprising is that some stars are cool and yet
are very bright. The two prime examples of this are
Antares and Betelgeuse. Both are in spectral class M
and are therefore possessed of a surface temperature
of only 3000° C or so and, what's more, neither one is
particularly close to us—and yet each is among the
brightest stars in the sky.

In 1905 a Danish astronomer, Ejnar Hertzsprung,
reasoned that a cool star must have a dim surface, but
if it had a very large surface, the dimness of each bit
would add up to a great total brightness. In other
words, a bright star that was cool and red had to be a
very large star indeed in order to be bright.

Hertzsprung published this idea in a Journal of pho-
tography, and astronomers didn't notice it. Then, in
1914, the American astronomer Henry Norris Russell
had the same idea independently, and this time the
idea stuck. Both astronomers are usually given credit.

The Hertzsp rung-Russell reasoning led to the con-
cept of "red giants" among the stars. When attempts
were made to calculate hov^ large these red giants
would have to be in order to be as bright as they were
despite their low surface temperature, the results
seemed almost unbelievable. In 1920, however, the
German-American physicist Albert Abraham Michel-
son was able to check the matter directly.

To do this, he made use of an instrument he had

56

ISAAC ASIMOV

invented twenty years earlier, an instrument he called
an interferometer. It was capable of measuring, with
great delicacy, the manner in which two trains of light
waves, which were not quite parallel to each other,
interfered with each other. When such trains of light
waves were not quite parallel, the waves as they
merged sometimes reinforced each other and some-
times canceled each other, setting up patterns of alter-
nate light and dark. From the details of such an inter-
ference pattern, the exact angle at which the light
waves met could be deduced.

Such an instrument can be applied to the stars. A
star is so small, as seen from Earth, that it is virtually
a dot of light. The light rays coming from the two
opposite edges of so tiny a dot seem to come to us
almost from the same direction, and are therefore al-
most parallel—almost, but not quite. The light rays
come from very slightly different directions as they
reach us from opposite sides of a star; they converge
just a tiny bit, enough to produce an interference pat-
tern if the interferometer is large enough.

Michelson made use of a twenty-foot interferome-
ter, the largest he had constructed up to that time. He
attached it to the new hundred-inch telescope that
had just been put into use at Mount Wilson in Califor-
nia, and which was then the largest telescope in the
world. He turned this instrument on the star Betel-
geuse.

From the nature of the interference pattern, Michel-
son could determine the apparent diameter of Betel-
geuse. It turned out to be 0.045 seconds of arc. This is
a very small width, for it would take 41,500 little dots
of reddish light |ust like Betelgeuse, placed side by
side, to stretch across the width of the moon.

OPUS 200                  57

Yet, Betelgeuse has the largest apparent diameter of
any star. Anv star that has a true size greater than
Betelgeuse is so far away as to have a smaller appar-
ent size. Then, too, any star that is closer than Betel-
geuse is so much smaller in true size that its apparent
size never comes up to the Betelgeuse mark.

To be even 0.045 seconds in diameter—tiny though
that angle is—at the vast distance of Betelgeuse, the
star must have an enormous real diameter. In fact, it
turns out that the diameter of Betelgeuse is at least
800 times that of the sun-

The interferometer result showed that the reasoning
of Hertzsprung and Russell was correct and there
really were red giant stars, with Betelgeuse, large as it
is, not the largest in actual size. In the table on the next
page, the diameters of some of the giant stars are given.

The large red giants would seem to be impressive
objects indeed. Imagine Betelgeuse in place of our
sun. We could not see it from Earth, because there
would be no Earth. The place where Earth would be,
if it existed, would be within Betelgeuse. The diame-
ter of Betelgeuse is so large that, if substituted for the
sun, it would include the orbits of Mercury, Venus,
Earth, Mars, and Jupiter.

Epsilon Aurigae B would do better than that. It
would swallow up the orbit of Satum as well, and its
surface would be nearly at the orbit of Uranus. What's
more, that supergiant Epsilon Aurigae B is part of a
binary system, with the other star, Epsilon Aurigae A,
considerably smaller but still large enough to swallow
up the orbit of Mars. What a view those stars must be
from not too nearby.

58

ISAAC ASIMOV

Giant Stars

DIAMETER

STAB

MILLIONS OF MILLIONS OF
KILOMETEBS    MILES    SUN = 1

Epsilon Aurigae B	2800	1700	2000
W Cephei A	1700	1200	1400
Betelgeuse	1100	700	800
Mira (Oinicron Ceti)	550	350	400
Antares	550	350	400
Xi Aurigae A	420	260	300
Epsilon Aurigae A	280	170	200
Beta Pegasi	150	95	110
Aldebaran	61	38	44
Arctums	37	23	27

Another way of emphasizing the size of the red
giants is to imagine a hollow sphere the size of Beta
Pegasi, which is only a moderate-sized giant. It would
still be large enough to hold 1,300,000 objects the size
of our sun. A hollow sphere the size of Betelgeuse
would hold nearly 43,000,000 objects the size of our
sun, and one the size of Epsiloq Aurigae B would hold
8,000,000,000 suns.

And yet, for all that, the, red giants are perhaps not
as impressive as they seem from their size alone. They
are more massive than the sun, but not very much
more massive. Betelgeuse might take up 43,000,000
times as much space as the sun does, but the red giant
is only about 20 times as massive as the sun; it con-
tains only 20 times as much matter.

If the mass of Betelgeuse (not so very great) is
spread over the enormous volume taken up by Betel-
geuse that mass must be spread very, very thin.

The sun's average density is 1.41 grams per

OPUS 200                  59

cubic centimeter, but Betelgeuse's average density is
1/10,000,000 of that. If the sun were only as dense,
on the average, as Betelgeuse is, it would have a mass
of not more than 1/30 that of the Earth, and only 2.7
times that of the moon.

Epsilon Aurigae B would be far less dense. The red
giants are thin collections of gas that stretch out over
enormous distances and glow red-hot, but on an
earthly scale they are almost vacuums. The average
density of Epsilon Aurigae B is only 1/1000 that of
Earth's atmosphere, and in its outer regions the dens-
ity is far less even than that. (Like all objects, red
giants get denser as one approaches their centers, and
in the core they can get very dense indeed. This must
be true of all stars, since only in a very dense core can
the nuclear conflagration that powers them be ig-
nited. )

A situation the reverse of the red giants' arose in
connection with Sirius B. That was known to be a
very dim star with a magnitude of 10 and a luminosity
only 1/130 that of our sun. It was taken for granted
that it had to be both small and cool to deliver only
1/130 as much light as our sun.

In 1915, however, the American astronomer Walter
Sydney Adams succeeded in taking the spectrum of
Sirius B and found it to be just as hot as Sirius A and,
therefore, considerably hotter than our sun.

Yet, if Sirius B were that hot, its surface should
blaze with white light, and the only way of explaining
its dimness was to suppose that it had very little sur-
face.

Sirius B had to have so little surface as to be a
dwarf star, far smaller than anyone then had believed
a star could be. Because of its white-hot temperature,
it was called a "white dwarf." To account for its dim-

60

ISAAC ASIMOV

ness, its diameter had to be only 30,000 kilometers
(19,000 miles) atross, so that it was about as targe as
a medium-sized planet and took up only about 13
times as much volume as the Earth. Sirius B has only
1/100 the volume of the laige planet Jupiter.

In the relatively small volume of Sirius B, however,
is packed |ust as much mass as in the sun—as we can
teli from the strength of its gravitational pull on Sirius
A, If red giants have very low densities, white dwarfs
have very high ones. The average density of Sirius B
is about 90,000 times that of the sun, or 6000 times
that of platinum.

This would have seemed ridiculous only a couple of
decades earlier, but by 1915 it had been discovered
that atoms were made up of still smaller "subatomic
particles," with almost all the mass concentrated in a
very tiny "atomic nucleus" at the center of the atom.
In white dwarfs, then, matter didn't exist as ordinary
atoms, but as a chaotic mixture of subatomic particles
squeezed much more closely together than they are in
atoms as we know them.

There are white dwarfs smaller and denser than Sir-
ius B, and in recent years astronomers have discov-
ered new types of stars that are much smaller than
white dwarfs and correspondingly more dense. These
are "neutron stars" in which the subatomic particles
are practically in contact, and in which the mass of a
star like our sun would be compacted into a tiny body
only a dozen kilometers across.

Then, of course, there is writing for the general
reader, or, if you choose, for "adults."

It does not seem to me that there is much differ-
ence between writing for adults and writing for teen-

OPUS 200                 61

agers. In my general hooks, I don't question the use of
an unusual word or of an extra convolution in a sen-
tence. I allow the syllables and clauses to lie as they
fall. Then, too, if there are literary allusions to make, I
make them and assume the general reader—or at least
anyone likely to read my books—is literate enough to
get them. And I suspect that the intelligent teenager
has no trouble following my "adult" books.

Among my second hundred books is one on astron-
omy for the general reader. It is called The Collapsing
Universe: The Story of Black Holes (Book 182}. Beth
Walker of Walker b- Company persistently urged me
to write the Iwok. She was almost a Cato the Elder
about it. (See what 1 mean by literary allusions?)
Whenever I visited Walker 6- Company, and whatever
the topic of conversation, she would always end by
saying "Think black holes, Isaac."

I had no real objection. In the first place, 1 was in-
terested in black holes and wanted to write about
them. In the second, it would' give me a chance to
update an earlier book. The Universe, which was
among nuf first hundred books and which was also
published by Walker. (My favorite method of updat-
ing a book is to write a new one centered upon a facet
of the subject which flowered only after the earlier
book was written.)

It was Just a matter of time, therefore, and finally I
got to it. In early 1977, The Collapsing Universe was
finally pul)lished, and it proved, at once, to be the
most popular astronomy book I had ever done. My
delight was second only to that of the Walkers.

Here I would like to include the final pages of The
Collapsing Universe, in which the wildest speculations
are to be found. It is just possible that you cant get
their true flavor without having read the rest of the

62

ISAAC ASIMOV

book, but that's all right. Opus 200 is intended to give
you a potpourri of this book and that, which you may
then follow up at your leisure in whatever direction
pleases you.

from THE COLLAPSING UNIVERSE (1977)

In theory, up to 30 percent of the entire energy of a
rotating black hole can be milked out of it by care-
fully sending objects through the stationary limit and
collecting them on the way out, and this is another
way in which some advanced civilizations might use
black holes as an energy source." Once all the rota-
tional energy is gone, the black hole has only mass;

the stationary limit coincides, with the Schwarzschild
radius. The black hole is then said to be "dead," since
no further energy can be obtained from it directly
(though some can be obtained from matter as it spi-
rals into it).

Even stranger than the possibility of stripping rota-
tional energy from the black hole is that the Ken-
analysis offers a new kind of end for matter entering a
black hole. This new kind of end was foreshadowed
by Albert Einstein and a co-worker named Rosen
some thirty vears earlier.

The matter crowding into a rotating black hole
(and it is very likely that there is no other kind) can,
in theory, squeeze out again somewhere else, like

* Not all astronomers agree with this concept of stripping
the rotational energy of a black hole. In fact almost anything
some astronomers suggest about a black hole is denied by
other astronomers. We are here at the very edge of knowl-
edge, and everything, one way or the other, is very un-
certain and iffy.

OPUS 200                  63

toothpaste blasting out of a fine hole in a stiff tube
that is brought under the slow pressure of a steam-
roller^

The transfer of matter can apparently take place
over enormous distances—millions or billions of light-
years—in a trifling period of time. Such transfers can-
not take place in the ordinary way, since in space as
we know it the speed of light is the speed limit for
anv obJect with mass. To transfer mass for distances
of millions or billions of light-years in the ordinary
wav takes millions or billions of vears of time,

One must therefore assume that the transfer goes
through tunnels or across bridges that do not, strictly
speaking, have the time characteristics of our familiar
universe. The passageway is sometimes called an
"Einstein-Rosen bridge," or, more colorfully, a "worm-
hole."

If the mass passes through the wormhole and sud-
denly appears a billion light-years away in ordinary
space once more, something must balance that great
transfer in distance. Apparently this impossibly rapid
passage through space is balanced by a compensating
passage through time, so that it appears one billion

years ago.

Once the matter emerges at the other end of the
wormhole, it expands suddenly into ordinary matter
again and, in doing so, blazes with radiated energy—
the energy that had, so to speak, been trapped in the
black hole. What we have emerging, then, is a "white
hole," a concept first suggested in 1964.

If all this is really so, white holes, or at least some of
them, might conceivably be detected.

That would depend, of course, upon the size of the

a This suggestion, too, is denied by some astronomers.

64

ISAAC ASIMOV

white hole and upon its distance from us. Perhaps
mini-black holes form mini-white holes at a vast dis-
tance, and we would surelv never see them. Huge
black holes would form huge white holes, however,
and these we might see. Are there any signs of such
white holes?
There may be-
In the 1950s, sources of radio waves were detected
that on closer inspection seemed to be very compact,
emerging from mere pinpoint sections of the sky. Or-
dinarily, radio sources found in those early days of the
science were from dust clouds or from galaxies and
were therefore more or less spread out over a portion
of the sky.

Among the compact radio sources were those
known as 3C48, 3C147. 3C196, 3C273, and 3C286.
(Many more have been discovered since.) The 3C is
short for Third Cambridge Catalog of Radio Stars, a
list compiled bv the English astronomer Martin Ryle.

In 1960 the areas containing these compact radio
sources were investigated by the American astrono-
mer Allan Rex Sandage, and in each case something
that looked like a dim star seemed to be the source.
There was some indication that they might not be
normal stars, however. Several of them seemed to
have faint clouds of dust or gas about them, and one
of them, 3C273, showed signs of a tiny jet of matter
emerging from it. In fact there are two radio sources
in connection with 3C273, one from the star and one
from the jet-
There was some reluctance, therefore, to call these
objects stars, and they were instead described as
"quasi-stellar (starlike) radio sources." In 1964 Hong-

OPUS 200                 65

Yee Chiu shortened that to "quasar," and that name
has been kept ever since.

The spectra of these quasars were obtained in 1960,
but they had a pattern of lines that were completely
unrecognizable, as though they were made up of
substances utterly alien to the universe. In 1963, how-
ever, the Dutch-American astronomer Maarten
Schmidt solved that problem. The lines would have
been perfectly normal if they had existed far in the
ultraviolet range. Their appearance in the visible-light
range meant they had been shifted a great distance
toward the longer wavelengths.

The easiest explanation for this was that the quasars
are very far away. Since the universe is expanding,
galactic units are separating, and all seem to be reced-
ing from us. Therefore, all distant objects have their
spectral lines shifted toward the longer waves because
that is what is to be expected when a source of light is
receding from us. Furthermore, since the universe is
expanding, the farther an object, the faster it is reced-
ing from us and the greater the shift in spectral lines.
From the spectral shift, then, the distance of an object
can be calculated.

It turned out that the quasars were billions of light-
years away. One of them, OQ172, is about 12 billion
light-years away, and even the nearest, 3C273, is over
a billion light-years away and farther than any non-
quasar object we know about. There may be as many
as 15 million quasars in the universe.

A quasar is a very dim object, as we see it, but, for
it to be visible at all at those enormous distances, it
must be exceedingly luminous. The quasar 3C273 is
five times as luminous as our galaxy, and some quasars
may be up to 100 times as luminous as the average
galaxy.

66

ISAAC ASIMOV

Yet, this being so, if quasars were simply galaxies
with up to a hundred times as many stars as an aver-
age galaxy and therefore that much brighter, they
ought to have dimensions large enough to make tham
appear, even at their vast distances, as tiny patches of
light and not as starlike points. Thus, despite their
brightness, they must be more compact than ordinary
galaxies.

As early as 1963 the quasars were found to be varia-
ble in the energy they emitted, both in the visible-
light region and in the microwave region. Increases
and decreases of as much as three magnitudes were
recorded over the space of a few years.

For radiation to vary so markedly in so short a time,
a body must be small. Such variations must involve
the body as a whole, and, if that is so, some effect
must be felt across the full width of the body within
the time of variation. Since no effect can travel faster
than light, it means that if a quasar varies markedly
over a period of a few years, it cannot be more than a
light-year or so in diameter and may be considerably
smaller.

One quasar, 3C446, can double its brightness in a
couple of days, and it must therefore be not more
than 0.005 light-year (50 billion kilometers) in diame-
ter, or less than Hve times the width of Pluto's orbit
around the sun. Compare this with an ordinary gal-
axy, which may be 100,000 light-years across and in
which even the dense central core may be 15,000
light-years across.

This combination of tiny dimensions and enormous
luminosity makes the quasars seem like a class of ob-
jects entirely different from anything else we know.
Their discovery made astronomers aware of the possi-
bility of hitherto unknown large-scale phenomena in

OPUS 200                 67

the universe and spurred them on, for the first time,
to consider such phenomena, including the black hole.

And it is conceivable that there is a link between
black holes and quasars. The Soviet astronomer Igor
Novikov and the Israeli astronomer Yuval Ne'eman
have suggested that quasars are giant white holes at
the other end of a wormhole from a giant black hole
in some other part of the universe."

But let's take another look at quasars. Are they
really unique, as they seem to be, or are they merely
extreme examples of something more familiar?

In 1943 a graduate student in astronomy, Carl Sey-
fert, described a peculiar galaxy. It is one of a group
now termed Seyfert galaxies. These may make up 1
percent of all known galaxies (meaning as many as a
billion altogether), though actually only a dozen ex-
amples have been discovered.

In most respects Seyfert galaxies seem normal and
are not unusually distant from us. The cores of the
Seyfert galaxies, however, are very compact, very
bright, and seem unusually hot and active—rather
quasarlike, in fact. They show variations in radiation
that imply the radio-emitting centers at their core are
no larger tfaan quasars are thought to be. One Seyfert
galaxy, 3C120, has a core that makes up less than one-
eight the diameter of the galaxy as a whole but is
three times as luminous as the rest of the galaxy com-
bined.

The strongly active center would be visible at
greater distances than the outer layers of the Seyfert
galaxy would be, and if such a galaxy were far
enough, all we would see by either optical or radio

* This is purely speculative, of course. In fact, the remainder
of the book is almost entirely speculation, some of it my own.

68

ISAAC ASIMOV

telescopes would be the core. We would then consider
it a quasar, and the very distant quasars may simply
be the intensely luminous nuclei of very large, very ac-
tive Seyfert galaxies.

But then consider the core of a Sevfert galaxy—very
compact, very hot and active. One Seyfert galaxy,
NGC 4151, may have as many as ten billion stars in a
nucleus only twelve light-vears across.

These are precisely the conditions that would en-
courage the formation of black holes. Perhaps the
mere fact that a certain volume of space is subject to
black hole formation may also make it subject to the
blossoming out of a white hole.

We can imagine black holes forming here and there
in the universe, each producing an enormous strain in
the smooth fabric of space. Wormholes form between
them, and matter may leak across at a rate slow in
comparison with the total quantity in the black hole
serving as source but large enough to produce enor-
mous quantities of radiation in some cases. The rate of
matter flow may vary for reasons we do not as yet
understand, and this may bring about the variations
in the brightness of quasars.

There may be many white holes of all sizes, each
connected to its black hole (which itself may come in
any size), and we may be aware only of the giant-
sized ones. It may be that if all black holes/white
holes were taken into account, it would be seen that
the wormholes connecting them may crisscross the uni-
verse quite densely.

This thought has stimulated the imaginative facul-
ties of astronomers such as Carl Sagan. It is impossi-
ble to think of any way of keeping any sizable piece
of matter intact as it approaches a black hole, let
along having it pass intact through a wormhole and

OPUS 200                 69

out the white hole, yet Sagan does not allow that to
limit his speculations.   •

After all, we can do things that to our primitive fore-
bears would seem inconceivable, and Sagan wonders
if an advanced civilization miglit not devise ways of
blocking off gravitational' and tidal effects so that a
ship may make use of wormholes to travel vast dis-
tances in a moment of time.

Suppose there were an advanced civilization in the
universe right now that had developed a thorough
map on which the wormholes were plotted with their
black hole entrances and their white hole exits. The
smaller wormholes would be more numerous, of
course, and therefore more useful.

Imagine a cosmic empire threaded together through
a network of such wormholes, with civilized centers
located near the entrances and exits. It would be as
important, after all, for a world to be located near a
transportational crossing point of this sort as it is for
an Earth city to be built near an ocean harbor or a
river.

The planets nearest the tunnels might be a safe dis-
tance away, but nearer still would be enormous
space stations built as bases for the ships moving
through the tunnels and as power stations for the
home planets.

And how does the wormhole theory affect the past
and future of the universe? Even though the universe
is expanding, is it possible that the expansion is bal-
anced by matter being shifted into the past through
the wormholes?

Certainly the dozens of quasars we have detected
are all billions of light-years away from us, and we see
them, therefore, as they were billions of years ago.
Furthermore, they are heavily weighted toward the

70

ISAAC AStMOV

greater distances and more remote past. It is esti-
mated that if quasars were evenly spaced throughout
the universe, there would be several hundred of them
/nearer and brighter than 3C273, which is the nearest
and brightest now.

Well, then, do we have an eternal universe after all,'
a kind of continuous creation in another sense?

Has the universe been expanding for countless eons,
through all eternity in fact, without ever having ex-
panded beyond the present level because the worm-
holes create a closed circuit, sending matter back into
the more contracted past to begin expansion all over?

Has the universe never really been entirely con-
tracted, and has there never really been a big bang?
Do we think there was a big bang only because we
are more aware of the expansion half of the cycle in-
volving the galaxies and are not aware of matter
sweeping back through wormholes?

But if there was no big bang, how do we account
for the background radiation that is the echo of the
big bang? Can this radiation be the product of the
overall backward flow of matter into the far past?
Can the white holes or quasars be numerous "little
bangs" that add up to the big bang and produce the
background radiation?

And if all this is so, where does the energy come
from that keeps the universe endlessly recycling? If
the universe runs down as it expands (this is referred
to as an "increase of entropy" by physicists), does it
wind up again ("decreasing entropy") as .it moves
back in time through the wormholes?

There are no answers to any of these questions at
present. All is speculation, including the very exis-
tence of wormholes and white holes.

OPUS 200                 71

.It must be admitted that the notion that the universe
is continually recycling is a rather tenuous specula-
tion.

If we dismiss it, however, we are left with the big
bang—either as a one-time affair if we are living in an
open universe, or as an endlessly repeated phenome-
non if the universe is closed and oscillating. Either
way there is a problem. What is the nature of the
cosmic egg?

When the cosmic egg was first suggested, it was
viewed very much as we now view neutron stars. The
trouble is that a cosmic egg with all the mass of the
universe (equal to the mass of 100,000,000,000 galax-
ies, perhaps) is certainly too large to be a neutron
star. If it is true that anything with more than 3.2
times the mass of our sun must form a black hole
when it collapses, then the cosmic egg was the biggest
of all black holes.

How, then, could it have exploded and yielded the
big bang? Black holes do not explode.

Suppose we imagine a contracting universe, which
would form black holes of varying sizes as it con-
tracted. The individual black holes might bleed away
some of their mass through wormholes, counteracting
the overall contraction but not by enough to stop it
altogether (or neither the expanding universe DOT we
would-be here today).

As the universe compresses, the black holes grow at
the expense of non-black hole matter and, more and
more frequently, collide and coalesce. Eventually, of
course, all the black holes coalesce into the cosmic
egg. It loses matter through its wonnhole at an enor-
mous rate, producing the biggest conceivable white
hole at the other end. It is the white hole of the
cosmic egg. then, that was the big bang that created

72

ISAAC ASIMOV

our expanding universe. This would hold good
whether the universe is open or closed, whether the
cosmic egg formed only once or repeatedly.

Of course, this solution will only work if wormholes
and white holes truly exist, which is uncertain. And
even if they do exist, it will only work if the cosmic'
egg is rotating. But is it?

There is certainly angular momentum in the uni-
verse, but it could have been created, de-spite the con-
servation law, where none had earlier existed.

That is because there are two kinds of angular mo-
mentum, in opposite senses. An object can rotate ei-
ther clockwise or counter-clockwise (positively or neg-
atively, if you prefer). Two objects with equal
angular momentum, one positive and one negative,
will, if they collide and coalesce, end with zero angu-
lar momentum, the energy of the two rotatory motions
being converted into heat. In reverse, an object with
zero angular momentum can, with the addition of ap-
propriate energy, split to form two sub-objects, one
with positive angular momentum and the other with
negative angular momentum.

The objects in the universe may all have angular
momentum, but it is very likely that some of that
angular momentum is positive and some negative. We
have no way of knowing whether one kind is present in
greater quantities than the other. If such lopsidedness
does exist, then when all the matter of the universe col-
lapses into a cosmic egg, that cosmic egg will end up
with an amount of angular momentum equal to the
excess of one kind over the other.

It may be, however, that the amount of angular mo-
mentum of one kind in the universe is equal to the
amount of the other kind. In that case, the cosmic egg,
when it forms, will have no angular momentum and

OPUS 200

73

r

^

l^
+?
'''

a,
^

will be dead. We can't rely on wormholes and white
holes for the big bang, then.

What else?

Just as angular momentum of two opposite kinds
exist, so matter of two opposite kinds exists.

An electron is balanced by an antieiectron, or posi-
tron. When an electron and a positron combine, there
is a mutual annihilation of the two particles. No mass
at all is left. It is converted into energy in the form of
gamma rays. In the same way, a proton and an anti-
proton will combine to lose mass and form energy;

and so will a neutron and an antineutron.

We can have matter built up of protons, neutrons,
and electrons; antimatter built up of antiprotons.
antineutrons, and antielectrons. In that case, any mass
of matter combining with an equal mass of antimatter
will undergo mutual annihilation to form gamma rays.

In reverse, mass can be formed from energy, but
never as one kind of particle only. For every electron
that is formed an antieiectron must be formed, for ev-
ery proton an antiproton, for every neutron an anti-
neutron. In short, when energy is turned into matter,
an equal quantity of antimatter must also be formed.

But if that is so, where is the antimatter that must
have been formed at the same time that the matter of
the universe was formed?

The Earth is certainly entirely matter (except for
small traces of antimatter formed in the laboratory or
found among cosmic rays). In fact the whole solar
system is entirely matter, and, in all probability, so is
the entire galactic unit of which we are part.

Where is the antimatter? Perhaps there are also gal-
actic units that are entirely antimatter. There may be
galactic units and antigalactic units, which because of
the general expansion of die universe never come in

74

ISAAC ASIMOV

contact and never engage in mutual annihilation. Just
as matter forms black holes, antimatter will form an-
ti-black holes. These two kinds of black holes are in
all respects identical except for being made up of
opposite substances.

If the universe was ever, in the past, contracting,'
black holes and anti-black holes formed even more
easily; and as contraction continued, the chances of
collision between two black holes of opposite nature,
and a consequent enormous mutual annihilation, in-
creased. In the final coalescence there was the great-
est of all great mutual annihilations.

The total mass of the universe disappeared and
with it the gravitational field that keeps the black
hole, and the cosmic egg for that matter, in existence.
In its place was incredibly energetic radiation, which
expanded outward. That would be the big bang.

Some period after the big bang the energy, becom-
ing less intense through expansion, would be tame
enough to form matter and antimatter once more—the
two forming separate galactic units by some mecha-
nism that, it must be admitted, has not been worked
out—and the expanding universe would take shape.

From this view of the big bang as the mutual anni-
hilation of matter and antimatter, it doesn't matter
whether the cosmic egg is rotating or not, or whether
it is alive or dead.

Yet we have no evidence that there erist antigalac-
tic units. Can it be that for some reason we do not as
yet understand that the universe consists simply of
matter?

We might argue that this is impossible; the universe
cannot consist simply of matter, as that would make
the big bang impossible. Or we might think of a way
of accounting for the big bang even in a universe of

OPUS 200                 75

matter only, and even if, on contracting, that universe
forms a cosmic egg that is not rotating and is there-
fore a dead black hole.

Well, according to the equations used to explain the
formation of black holes, the size of the Schwarzschild
radius is proportional to the mass of the black hole.

A black hole the mass of the sun has a Schwarzschild
radius of 3 kilometers and is therefore 6 kilometers
across. A black hole that is twice the mass of the sun
is twice as large across—12 kilometers. However, a
sphere that is twice as large across as a smaller sphere
has eight times as much volume as the smaller sphere.
It follows that a black hole with twice the mass of the
sun has that twice the mass spread over eight times
the volume. The density of the larger black hole is
only one-fourth the density of the smaller black hole.

In other words, the more massive a black hole is,
the larger and the less dense it is.

Suppose our entire galaxy, which is about
100,000.000,000 times the mass of our sun, were
squeezed into a black hole. Its diameter would be
600.000,000,000 kilometers, and its average density
would be about 0.000001 gram per cubic centimeter.
The galactic black hole would be more than fifty times
as wide as Pluto's orbit and would be no more dense
than a gas.

Suppose that all the galaxies of the universe, possi-
bly 100,000,000,000 of them, collapsed into a black
hole. Such a black hole, containing all the matter of
the universe, would be 10,000,000,000 light-years
across, and its average density would be that of an
exceedingly thin gas.

Yet no matter how thin this gas, the structure is a
black hole.

Suppose the total mass of the universe is 2.5 times

76

ISAAC ASIMOV

as large as it seems to astronomers to be. In that case
the black hole formed by all the matter of the uni-
verse is 25,000,000,000 light-years across, and that
happens to be about the diameter of the actual uni-
verse we live in (as far as we know).

It is quite possible, then, that the entire universe is
itself a black hole (as has been suggested by the phy-
sicist Kip Thorne).

It is is, then very likely it has always been a black
hole and will always be a black hole. If that is so, we
live within a black hole, and if we want to know
what conditions are like in a black hole (provided it is
extremely massive), we have but to look around,

As the universe collapses, then, we might imagine
the formation of any number of relatively small black
holes (black holes within a black hole!) with very
limited diameters. In the last few seconds of final cat-
astrophic collapse, however, when all the black holes
coalesce into one cosmic black hole, the Schwarzschild
radius springs outward and outward to the extremity
of the known universe

And it may be that within the Schwaraschild radius
there is the possibility of explosion. It may be that as
the Schwarzschild radius recedes billions of light-
years in a flash, the cosmic egg at the very instant of
formation springs outward to follow, and that is the
big bang.

If that is so, we might argue that the universe can-
not be open whatever the present state of the evi-
dence, since the universe cannot expand beyond its
Schwarzschild radius. Somehow the expansion will
have to cease at that point, and then it must inevita-
bly begin to contract again and start the cycle over.
(Some argue that with each big bang, a totally differ-

OPUS 200                 77

ent expanding universe with different laws af nature
gets underway.)

Can it be, then that what we see all about us is the
unimaginably slow breathing cycle (tens of billions
years in and tens of billions of years out) of a
universe-sized black hole?

And can it be that, separated from our universe in
some fashion we cannot as yet grasp, there are many
other black holes of various sizes, perhaps an infinite
number of them, all expanding and contracting, each
at its own rate?

And we are in one of them—and through the won-
ders of thought and reason it may be that, from our
station on a less-than-dust speck lost deep within one
of these universes, we have drawn ourselves a picture
of the existence and behavior of them all.

PART 2

ROBOTS

7n the years in which science fiction was the major
part of my production, robot's were a favorite subject
of mine. In the first twenty years of my writing ca-
reer, I wrote seventeen short stories and three novels
in which robots were a key element in the plots, plus
a few other short stories that involved computers.

Since my hundredth book was pttblished, however,
my science fiction production has decreased a great
deal—yet it has not dwindled to^zero.

In 1976, for instance, Douhleday published The Bi-
centennial Man and Other Stories (Book 176), a col-
lection of eleven stories, three of which involved ro-
bots.

The first of these was "Feminine Intuition" which
first appeared in the October 1969 Fantasy and Sci-
ence Fiction (usually known as F & SF). Jn it, my
favorite psychologist, Susan Calvin, appears. Susan
first appeared in my story "Liar!" which was pub-
lished in the May 1941 issue of Astounding Science
Fiction (usually known as ASF). / fell in love with
her. I didn't portray her in any very attractive way-
she was frozen intellect, and only rarely and secretly
seemed to allow a touch of human feeling to show-
but I loved her anyway. Before "Feminine Intuition,"
she had appeared in nine of my robot stories, the last

82

ISAAC ASIMOV

feeing "Galley Slave" in the December 1957 issue of
Galaxy. Of these nine stories, five appear in I, Robot
and four in The Rest of the Robots, both of which are
among my first hundred books. I had not seriously
considered bringing her back until the managing edi-
tor of Galaxy, Judy-Lynn Benjamin {who later mar-
ried Lester del Rey), casually suggested I write a
story about a woman robot. It was that which led to
"Feminine Intuition," in which I brought back Susan
Calvin as an old woman but with her brain function-
ing as well as ever. It was the tenth story involving
her, and it appeared twenty-eight years after the first.

The second robot story in The Bicentennial Mao
and Other Stories was ". . . That Thou Art Mindful
of Him," which first appeared in the May 1974 issue
of F & SF. This arose because Ed Ferman of ¥ & SF
and Barry Malzberg, the science fiction writer,
wanted to put out an anthology of stories, each of
which would carry a particular category to its ulti-
mate end. They asked me to do a robot story that
would carry my three laws of robotics as far as possi-
ble—and I stretched them. to the point where they
subverted themselves out of their original purpose. In
a way that brought the whole robot saga to a fitting,
and ironic, conclusion—though, of course, it would not
and did not prevent me from writing additional robot
stories.

Finally, there was "The Bicentennial Man," the title
story of the book, which had its genesis in January
. 1975 when 'Naomi Cordon of Philadelphia visited and
urged me to write a story with that title and with any
plot I wished, as long as it was inspired by the title.
It would then be included in an anthology (also with
that title) to be published in the bicentennial year of
1976.

OPUS 200                 83

Alas, the anthology did not come to pass for various
reasons, and "The Bicentennial Man" was left home-
less. It was rescued fry Judy-Lynn del Key and ap-
peared in her anthology of original stories Stellar Sci-
ence Fiction Stories, No. 2, which was published in
February 1976.

And then in 1977, "The Bicentennial Man" won
both the Nebula and the Hugo awards as the best
novelette to appear in 1976. It was the first time any
of my stories shorter than a novel had won these
awards, and I was delighted to be able to demonstrate
that the old man still had it.

Each of the stories strongly appeals to me for one
reason or the other, but 1 only wanted to include one
of them in this book, and, after some hesitation, my
vanity over the awards won out. Here, then, is "The
Bicentennial Man" in fall:

*The Bicentennial Man" (1976)

The Three Laws of Robotics:

1. A robot may not injure a human being or,
through inaction, allow a human being to
come to harm.

2. A robot must obey the orders given it by
human beings except where such orders
would conflict with the First Law.

3. A robot must protect its own existence as
long as such protection does not conflict with
the First or Second Law.

Andrew Martin said. Thank yon,'* and took the seat
offered him. He didn't look driven to the last resort,
but he had been.

He didn't, actually, look anything, for there was a
smooth blankness to his face, except for the sadness

84

ISAAC ASIMOV

one imagined one saw in his eyes. His hair was
smooth, light brown, rather fine, and there was no fa-
cial hair. He looked freshly and cleanly shaved. His
clothes were distinctly old-fashioned, but neat and
predominantly a velvety red-purple in color.

Facing him from behind the desk was the surgeon,
and the nameplate on the desk included a full identi-
fvinc: series of letters and numbers, which Andrew
didn't bother with. To call him Doctor would be quite
enough.                             „.

"When can the operation be carried through. Doc-
tor?" he asked.

The surgeon said softly, with that certain inaliena-
ble note of respect that a robot always used to a hu-
man being, "I am not certain, sir, that I understand
how or upon whom such an operation could be per-
formed." There might have been a look of respectful
intransigence on the surgeon's face—if a robot of his
sort, in lightly bronzed stainless steel, could have such
an expression, or any expression.

Andrew Martin studied the robot's right hand, his
cutting hand, as it lay on the desk in utter tranquillity.
The fingers were long and shaped/ into artistically
metallic looping curves so graceful and appropriate
that one could imagine a scalpel fitting them and be-
coming, temporarily, one piece with them.

There would be no hesitation in his work, no stum-
bling, no quivering, no mistakes. That came with spe-
cialization, of course, a specialization so fiercely de-
sired by humanity that few robots were, any longer,
independently brained. A surgeon, of course, would
have to be. And this one, though brained, was so lim-
ited in his capacity that he did not recognize An-
drew—had probably never heard of him.

OPUS 200                  85

Andrew said, "Have you ever thought you would
like to be a man?"

The surgeon hesitated a moment as though the
question fitted nowhere in his allotted positronic
pathways. "But I am a robot, sir."

"Would it be better to be a man?"

"It would be better, sir, to be a better surgeon. I
could not be so if I were a man, but onlv if I were a
more advanced robot- I would be pleased to be a
more advanced robot."

"Tt does not offend vou that I can order you about?
That I can make you stand up, sit down, move right
or left. bv merelv telling vou to do so?"

"It is my pleasure to please you, sir. If your orders
were to interfere with my functioning with respect to
you or to any other human being, I would not obey
you. The First Law, concerning my duty to human
safety, wouid take precedence over the Second Law
relating to obedience. Otherwise, obedience is my
pleasure . . . But upon whom am I to perform this
operation?"

"Upon me," said Andrew.

"But that is impossible. It is patently a damaging
operation."

"That does not matter," said Andrew calmly.

"I must not inflict damage," said the surgeon.

"On a human being, you must not," said Andrew,
"but I, too, am a robot"

Andrew had appeared much more a robot when he
had first been manufactured. He had then been as
much a robot in aopearance as anv that had ever ex-
isted, smoothly designed and functional.

He had done well in the home to which he had

86

ISAAC ASIMOV

been brought in those davs when robots in house-
holds, or on the planet altogether, had been a rarity.

There had been four in the home: Sir and Ma'am
and Miss and Little Miss- He knew their names, of
course, but he never used them. Sir was Gerald Mar-
tin.

His own serial number was NDR—— He forgot the
numbers. It had been a long time, of course, but if he
had wanted to remember, he could not forget. He had
not wanted to remember-

Little Miss had been the first to call him Andrew
because she could not use the letters, and all the rest
followed her in this.

Little Miss . . . She had lived ninety years and was
long since dead. He had tried to call her Ma'am once,
but she would not allow it. Little Miss she had been
to her last day.

Andrew had been intended to perform the duties of
a valet, a butler, a lady's maid. Those were the experi-
mental days for him and, indeed, for all robots any-
where but in the industrial and exploratory factories
and stations off Earth.

The Martins enfoyed him, and half the time he was
prevented from doing his work because Miss and Lit-
tle Miss would rather play with him.

It was Miss who understood first how this might be
arranged. She said, "We order you to play with us and
you must follow orders."

Andrew said, "I am sorry. Miss, but a prior order
from Sir must surely take precedence."

But she said, "Daddy Just said he hoped you would
take care of the cleaning. That's not much of an order.
I order you."

Sir did not mind. Sir was fond of Miss and of Little
Miss, even more than Ma'am was, and Andrew was

OPUS 200                  87

fond of them, too. At least, the effect they had upon
his actions were those which in a human being would
have been called the result of fondness. Andrew
thought of it as fondness, for he did not know any
other word for it.

It was for Little Miss that Andrew had carved a
pendant out of wood. She had ordered him to. Miss, it
seemed, had received an ivorite pendant with scroll-
work for her birthday, and Little Miss was unhappy
over it. She had only a piece of wood, which she gave
Andrew together with a small kitchen knife.

He had done it quickly and Little Miss said, That's
nice, Andrew. I'll show it to Daddy."

Sir would not believe it. "Where did you really get
this, Mandy?" Mandy was what he called Little Miss.
When Little Miss assured him she was really telling
the truth, he turned to Andrew. "Did you do this, An-
drew?"

"Yes, Sir."                                            «

"The design, too?"

"Yes, Sir."

"From what did you copy the design?"

"It is a geometric representation, Sir, that fit the
grain of the wood."

The next day. Sir brought him another piece of
wood, a larger one, and an electric vibro-knife. He
said, "Make something out of this, Andrew. Anything
you want to."

Andrew did so and Sir watched, then looked at the
product a long time. After that, Andrew no longer
waited on tables. He was ordered to read books on
furniture design instead, and he learned to make cabi-
nets and desks.

Sir said, "These are amazing productions, Andrew."

Andrew said, "I enjoy doing them. Sir."

88                 BAAC ASIMOV

"Enjoy?"

"It makes the circuits of my brain somehow flow
more easily. I have heard you use the word 'enjoy and
the way you use it fits the way I feel. I enjoy doing
them. Sir."

Gerald Martin took Andrew to the regional offices of
United States Robots and Mechanical Men, Inc. As a
member of the Regional Legislature he had no trouble
at all in gaining an interview with the chief robopsy-
chologist. In fact, it was only as a member of the Re-
gional Legislature that he qualified as a robot owner
in the first place—in those early days when robots
were rare.

Andrew did not understand any of this at the time,
but in later years, with greater learning, he could re-
view that early scene and understand it in its proper
light.

The robopsychologist, Merton Mansky, listened
with a gathering frown and more than once managed
to stop his fingers at the point beyond which they
would have irrepressibly drummed on the table. He
had drawn features and a lined forehead and looked
as though he might be younger than he looked.

He said, "Robotics is not an exact art, Mr. Martin. I
cannot explain it to you in detail, but the mathematics
governing the plotting of the positronic pathways is
far too complicated to permit of any but approximate
solutions. Naturally, since we build everything about
the Three Laws, those are incontrovertible. We will, of
course, replace your robot—"

"Not at all," said Sir. "There is no question of failure
on his part. He performs his assigned duties perfectly.
The point is, he also carves wood in exquisite fashion
and never the same twice. He produces works of art."

OPUS 200                  89

Mansky looked confused. "Strange. Of course, we're
attempting generalized pathways these days . . .
Really creative, you think?"

"See for yourself." Sir handed over a little sphere of
wood on which there was a playground scene in
which die boys and girls were almost too small to
make out, yet they were in perfect proportion and
blended so naturally with the grain that that, too,
,seemed to have been carved.

Mansky said, "He did that?" He handed it back
with a shake of his head. "The luck of the draw.
Something in the pathways."

"Can you do it again?"

"Probably not Nothing like this has ever been re-
ported."

"Goodi I don't in the least mind Andrew's being the
only one."

Mansky said, "I suspect that the company would
like to have your robot back for study."

Sir said with sudden grimness, "Not a chance. For-
get it." He turned to Andrew. "Let's go home now."

"As you wish. Sir," said Andrew.

Miss was dating boys and wasn't about the house
much. It was Little Miss, not as little as she once was,
who filled Andrew's horizon now. She never forgot
that the very first piece of wood carving he had done
had been for her. She kept it on a silver chain about
her neck.

It was she who first objected to Sir's habit of giving
away the productions. She said, "Come on. Dad, if any-
one wants one of them, let him pay for it. It's worth
it."

Sir said, "It isn't like you to be greedy, Mandy."

"Not for us. Dad. For the artist"

90

ISAAC ASIMOV

Andrew had never heard the word before and
when he had a moment to himself he looked it up in
the dictionary. Then there was another trip, this time
to Sir's lawyer. -.

Sir said to him, "What do you think of this, John?"

The lawyer was John Feingold. He had white harr
and a pudgy belly, and the rims of his contact lenses
were tinted a bright green. He looked at the small
plaque Sir had given him. "This is beautiful . . . But
I've heard the news. This is a carving made by your
robot. The one you've brought with you."

"Yes, Andrew does them. Don't you, Andrew?"

"Yes, Sir," said Andrew.

"How much would you pay for that, John?" asked
Sir.

"I can't say. I'm not a collector of such things."

"Would you believe I've been offered two hundred
Sfty dollars for that small thing? Andrew has made
chairs that have sold for Bve hundred dollars. There's
two hundred thousand dollars in the bank out of An-
drew's products."

"Good heavens, he's making you rich, Gerald."

"Half rich," said Sir. "Half of it is in an account in
tile name of Andrew Martin."

"The robot?"

"That's right, and I want to know if ifs legal."

"Legal?" Feingold's chair creaked as he leaned back
in it. "There are no precedents, Gerald. How did your
robot sign the necessary papers?"

"He can sign his name, and I brought in the signa-
ture. I didn't bring him in to the bank himself. Is
there anything further that ought to be done?"

"\Jm." Feingold's eyes seemed to turn inward for a
moment. Then he said, "Well, we can set up a trust to
handle all finances in his name, and that will place a

OPUS 200                 91

layer of insulation between him and the hostile world.
Further than that, my advice is you do nothing. No
one is stopping you so far. If anyone objects, let him
bring suit."

"And will you take the case if suit is brought?"

"For a retainer, certainly."

"How much^"

"Something like that," and Feingold pointed to the
wooden plaque.

"Fair enough," said Sir.

Feingold chuckled as he turned to the robot. "An-
drew, are you pleased that you have money?"

a-sr       • »

Yes, sir.

"What do you plan to do with it?"
"Pay for things, sir, which otherwise Sir would have
to pay for. It would save him expense, sir."

The occasions came. Repairs were expensive, and revi-
sions were even more so. Over the years, new models
of robots were produced, and Sir saw to it that An-
drew had the advantage of every new device, until he
was a paragon of metallic excellence. It was all at An-
drew's expense. Andrew insisted on that.

Only his positronic pathways were untouched. Sir
insisted on that.

"The new ones aren't as good as you are, Andrew,**
he said. "The new robots are worthless. The company
has learned to make the pathways more precise, more
closely on the nose, more deeply on the track. The
new robots don't shift They do what they're designed
for and never stray. I like you better."

"Thank you, Sir."

"And it's your doing, Andrew, don't you forget that
I am certain Mansky put an end to generalized path-
ways as soon as he had a good look at you. He didn't

92

ISAAC ASIMOV

like the unpredictability ... Do you know how
many times he asked for you so he could place you
under study? Nine timesi I never let him have you,
though, and now that he's retired, we may have some
peace."

So Sir's hair thinned and grayed and his face grew
pouchy, while Andrew looked rather better than he
had when he first joined the family.

Ma'am had joined an art colony somewhere in Eu-
rope and Miss was a poet in New York. They wrote
sometimes, but not often. Little Miss was married and
lived not far away. She said she did not want to leave
Andrew, and when her child. Little Sir, was born, she
let Andrew hold the bottle and feed him.

With the birth of a grandson, Andrew felt that Sir
had someone now to replace those who had gone. It
would not be so unfair to come to him with the re-
quest.

Andrew said, "Sir, it is kind of you to have allowed
me to spend my money as I wished."

"It was your money, Andrew."

"Only by your voluntary act. Sir. I do not believe
tile law would have stopped you from keeping it all."

The law won't persuade me to do wrong, Andrew."

"Despite all expenses, and despite taxes, too. Sir, I
have nearly six hundred thousand dollars."

"I know that, Andrew."

*'! want to give it to you. Sir."

**I won't take it, Andrew."

*'In exchange for something you can give me, Sir."

"Oh? What is that, Andrew?"

"My freedom. Sir."

"Your-"

"I wish to buy my freedom. Sir."

OPUS 200                 93

It wasn't that easy. Sir had flushed, had said, "For
God's sake!" had turned on his heel, and stalked away.

It was Little Miss who brought him around, de-
fiantly and harshly—and in front of Andrew. For
thirty years, no one had hesitated to talk in front of
Andrew, whether the matter involved Andrew or not.
He was only a robot.

She said, "Dad, why are you taking it as a personal
affront? He'll still be here. He'll still be loyal. He
can't help that. It's built in. All he wants is a form of
words. He wants to be called tree. Is that so terrible?
Hasn't he earned it? Heavens, he and I have been
talking about it for years."

"Talking about it for years, have you?"
"Yes, and over and over again, he postponed it for
fear he would hurt you. I made him put it up to you,"
"He doesn't know what freedom is. He's a robot."
"Dad, you don't know him. He's read everything in
the library. I don't know what^he feels inside but I
don't know what you feel inside- When you talk to him
you'll find he reacts to the various abstractions as you
and I do. and what else counts? If someone else's reac-
tions are like your own, what more can you ask
for?"

"The law won't take that attitude," Sir said angrily.
"See here, you!" He turned to Andrew with a deliber-
ate grate in his voice. "1 can't free you except by
doing it legally, and, if it gets into the courts, you not
only won't get your freedom, but the law will take
official cognizance of your money. They'll tell you
that a robot has no right to earn money. Is this rig-
marole worth losing your money?"

"Freedom is without price. Sir," said Andrew. "Even
the chance of freedom is worth the money."

94

ISAAC ASIMOV

The court might also take the attitude that freedom
was without price, and might decide that for no price,
however great, could a robot buy its freedom.

The simple statement of the regional attorney who
represented those who had brought a class action to
oppose the freedom was this: The word "freedom"
had no meaning when applied to a robot. Only a hu-
man being could be free.

He said it several times, when it seemed appropriate;

slowly, with his hand coming down rhythmically on
the desk before him to mark the words.

Little Miss asked permission to speak on behalf of
Andrew. She was recognized by her full name, some-
thing Andrew had never heard pronounced before:

"Amanda Laura Martin Chamey may approach the
bench."

She said, "Thank you, your honor. I am not a lawyer
and I don't know the proper way of phrasing things,
but I hope you will listen to my meaning and ignore
the words.

"Let's understand what it means to be free in An-
drew's case. In some ways, he is free. I think it's at
least twenty years since anyone in the Martin family
gave him an order to do something that we felt he
might not do of his own accord.

"But we can, if we wish, give him an order to do
anything, couch it as harshly as we wish, because he is
a machine that belongs to us. Why should we be in a
position to do so, when he has served us so long, so
faithfully, and earned so much money for us? He owes
us nothing more. The debt is entirely on the other
side.

"Even if we were legally forbidden to place Andrew
in involuntary servitude, he would still serve us volun-

opus 200                 95

tarily. Making him free would be a trick of words
only, but it would mean much to him. It would give
him everything and cost us nothing."

For a moment the Judge seemed to be suppressing a
smile. "I see your point, Mrs. Charney. The fact is that
there is no binding law in this respect and no prece-
dent. There is, however, the unspoken assumption that
only a human can enjoy freedom. I can make new law
here, subject to reversal in a higher court, but I can-
not lightly run counter to that assumption. Let me ad-
dress the robot. Andrewl"
"Yes, your honor."

It was the first time Andrew had spoken in court
and the judge seemed astonished for a moment at the
human timbre of the voice. He said, "Why do you
want to be free, Andrew? In what way will this matter
to you?"

Andrew said, "Would you wish to be a slave, your
honor?"

"But you are not a slave. You are a perfectly good
robot, a genius of a robot I am given to understand,
capable of an artistic expression that can be matched
nowhere. What more could you do if you were free?"

"Perhaps no more than I do now, your honor, but
with greater joy. It has been said in this courtroom
that only a human being can be free. It seems to me
that only someone who wishes for freedom can be
free. I wish for freedom."

And it was that that cued the judge. The crucial
sentence in his decision was: "There is no right to
deny freedom to any object with a mind advanced
enough to grasp the concept and desire the state."
It was eventually upheld by the World Court

96

ISAAC ASIMOV

Sir remained displeased, and his harsh voice made An-
drew feel almost as though he were being short-
circuited.

Sir said, "I don't want your damned money, An-
drew. HI take it only because you won't feel free oth-
erwise. From now on, you can select your own jobs
and do them as you please. I will give you no orders,
except this one—that you do as you please. But I am
still responsible for you; that's part of the court order.
I hope you understand that."

Little Miss interrupted. "Don't be irascible. Dad.
The responsibility is no great chore. You know you
won't have to do a thing. The Three Laws still hold."

Then how is he free?"

Andrew said, "Are not human beings bound T^y
their laws. Sir?"

Sir said, "I'm not going to argue." He left, and An-
drew saw him only infrequently after that.

Little Miss came to see him frequently in the small
house that had been built and made over for him. It
had no kitchen, of course, nor bathroom facilities. It
had just two rooms; one was a library and one was a
combination storeroom and workroom. Andrew ac-
cepted many commissions and worked harder as a
free robot than he ever had before, till the cost of the
house was paid for and the structure legally trans-
ferred to him.

One day Little Sir came . . . No, Georgel Little Sir
had insisted on that after the court decision. "A free
robot doesn't call anyone Little Sir," George had said.
"I call you Andrew. You must call me George."

It was phrased as an order, so Andrew called him
George—but Little Miss remained Little Miss.

The day George came alone, it was to say that Sir

OPUS 200                  97

was dying. Little Miss was at the bedside but Sir
wanted Andrew as well.

Sir's voice was quite strong, though he seemed un-
able to move much. He struggled to get his hand up.
"Andrew," he said, "Andrew—Don't help me, George.
I'm only dying; I'm not crippled . . . Andrew, I'm
glad you're free, I just wanted to tell you that."

Andrew did not know what to say. He had never
been at the side of someone dying before, but he
knew it was the human way of ceasing to function. It
was an involuntary and irreversible dismantling, and
Andrew did not know what to say that might be ap-
propriate. He could only remain standing, absolutely
silent, absolutely motionless.

When it was over, Little Miss said to him, "He may
not have seemed friendly to you toward the end, An-
drew, but he was old, you know, and it hurt him that
you should want to be free."

And then Andrew found the words to say. He said,
"I would never have been free without him. Little
Miss."

It was only after Sir's death that Andrew began to
wear clothes. He began with an old pair of trousers at
first, a pair that George had given him.

George was married now, and a lawyer. He had
joined Feingold's firm. Old Feingold was long since
dead, but his daughter had carried on and eventually
the firm's name became Feingold and Martin. It re-
mained so even when the daughter retired and no
Feingold took her place. At the time Andrew put on
clothes for the first time, the Martin name had just
been added to the firm.

George had tried not to smile the first time Andrew

98

ISAAC ASIMOV

put on the trousers, but to Andrew's eyes the smile
was clearly there.

George showed Andrew how to manipulate the
static charge so as to allow the trousers to open, wrap
about his lower body, and move shut. George demon-
strated on his own trousers, but Andrew was quite
aware that it would take him awhile to duplicate that
one flowing motion.

George said, "But why do you want trousers, An-
drew? Your body is so beautifully functional it's a
shame to cover it—especially when you needn't worry
about either temperature control or modesty. And it
doesn't cling properly, not on metal."

Andrew said, "Are not human bodies beautifully
functional, George? Yet you cover yourselves."

"For warmth, for cleanliness, for protection, for dec-
orativeness. None of that applies to you."

Andrew said, "I feel bare without clothes. I feel dif-
ferent, George."

"DifferentI Andrew, there are millions of robots on
Earth now. In this region, according to the last census,
there are almost as many robots as there are men."

"I know, George. There are robots doing every con-
ceivable type of work."

"And none of them wears clothes."

"But none of them is free, George."

Little by little, Andrew added to the wardrobe. He
was inhibited by George's smile and by the stares of
the people who commissioned work.

He might be free, but there was built into him a
carefully detailed program concerning his behavior to-
ward people, and it was only by the tiniest steps that
he dared advance. Open disapproval would set him
back months.

Not everyone accepted Andrew as free. He was in-

OPUS 200                  99

capable of resenting that, and yet there was a diffi-
culty about his thinking process when he thought of
it.

Most of all, he tended to avoid putting on clothes-
or too many of them-when he thought Little Miss
might come to visit him. She was old now and was
often away in some warmer climate, but when she re-
turned the first thing she did was visit him.

On one of her returns, George said ruefully, "She's
got me, Andrew. I'll be running for the Legislature
next vear. Like grandfather, she says, like grandson."

"Like grandfather—" Andrew stopped, uncertain.

"I mean that I, George, the grandson, will be like
Sir, the grandfather, who was in the Legislature once."

Andrew said, "It would be pleasant, George, if Sir
were still—" He paused, for he did not want to say, "in
working order." That seemed inappropriate.

"Alive," said George, "yes, I think of the old mon-
ster now and then, too."

It was a conversation Andrew thought about. He
had noticed his own incapacity in speech when talk-
ing with George. Somehow the language had changed
since Andrew had come into being with an innate vo-
cabulary. Then, too, George used a colloquial speech,
as Sir and Little Miss had not. Why should he have
called Sir a monster when surely that word was not
appropriate?

Nor could Andrew turn to his own books for guid-
ance. They were old and most dealt with woodwork-
ing, with art, with furniture design. There were none
on language, none on the way of human beings.

It was at that moment that it seemed to him he
must seek the proper books; and as a free robot, he
felt he must not ask George. He would go to town and
use the library. It was a triumphant decision, and he

100

ISAAC ASIMOV

felt his elech-opotential grow distinctly higher until he
had to throw in an impedance coil.

He put on a full costume, even including a shoulder
chain of wood. He would have preferred the slitter
plastic, but George had said that wood was much more
appropriate and that polished cedar was considerably
more valuable as well.

He had placed a hundred feet between himself and
the house before gathering resistance brought him to a
halt. He shifted the impedance coil out of circuit, and,
when that did not seem to help enough, he returned
to his home and on a piece of notepaper wrote neatly,
"I Have gone to the library," and placed it in clear
view on his worktable.

Andrew never quite got to the library. He had stud-
ied the map. He knew the route but not the appear-
ance of it. The actual landmarks did not resemble the
symbols on the map and he would hesitate. Eventu-
ally he thought he must have somehow gone wrong, for
everything looked strange.

He passed an occasional Beld robot, but at the time
he decided he should ask his way, there was none in
sight. A vehicle passed and did not stop. He stood ir-
resolute, which meant calmly motionless, and then
coming across the field toward him were two human
beings.

He turned to face them, and they altered their
course to meet him. A moment before, they had been
talking loudly; he had heard their voices; but now
they were silent. They had the look that Andrew asso-
ciated with human uncertainty, and they were young,
but not very young. Twenty perhaps? Andrew could
never judge human age.

OPUS 200                 101

He said, "Would you describe to me the route to the
town library, sirs?"

One of them, the taller of the two, whose tall hat
lengthened him still farther, almost grotesquely, said,
not to Andrew but to the other, "It's a robot."

The other had a bulbous nose and heavy eyelids.
He said, not to Andrew but to the first, "It's wearing
clothes."

The tall one snapped his fingers. "It's the free ro-
bot. They have a robot at Martins who isn't owned by
anybody. Why else would it be wearing clothes?"

"Ask it," said the one with the nose.

"Are you the Martin robot?" asked the tall one.

"I am Andrew Martin, sir." said Andrew.

"Good. Take off your clothes. Robots don't wear
clothes." He said to the other, "That's disgusting. Look
at him."

Andrew hesitated. He hadn't heard an order in that
tone of voice in so long that his Second Law circuits
had momentarily jammed.

The tall one said, "Take off your clothes. I order
you."

Slowly, Andrew began to remove them.

"Just drop them," said the tall one.

The nose said, "If it doesn't belong to anyone, he
could be ours as much as someone else's."

"Anyway," said the tall one, "who's to object to any-
thing we do? We're not damaging property . . .
Stand on your head." That was to Andrew.

"The head is not meant—" began Andrew.

"That's an order. If you don't know how, try any-
way."

Andrew hesitated again, then bent to put his head
on the ground. He tried to lift his legs and fell, heav-

ay.

102

XSAAC ASIMOV

The tall one said, "Just lie there." He said to the
other, "we can take him apart. Ever take a robot
apart?"

"Will he let us?"

"How can he stop us?"

There was no way Andrew could stop them if they
ordered him not to resist in a forceful enough manner.
The Second Law of obedience took precedence over
the Third Law of self-preservation. In any case, he
could not defend himself without possibly hurting
them and that would mean breaking the First Law. At
that thought, every motile unit contracted slightly and
he quivered as he lay there.

The tall one walked over and pushed him with his
foot. "He's heavy. I think we'll need tools to do the

job,"

The nose said, "We could order him to take himself

apart. It would be fun to watch him try."

"Yes," said the tall one thoughtfully, "but let's get
him off the road. If someone comes along—"

It was too late. Someone had indeed come along,
and it was George. From where he lay, Andrew had
seen him topping a small rise in the middle distance.
He would have liked to signal him in some way, but
the last order had been, "Just lie there!"

George was running now and he arrived somewhat
winded. The two young men stepped back a little and
then waited thoughtfully.

George said anxiously, "Andrew, has something
gone wrong?"

Andrew said, "I am well, George."

"Then stand up ... What 1' 'illWallJJl' your
clothes?"                                   '*!~"_

The tall young man said, "That your robot, mac?"

OPUS 200                103

George turned sharply. "He's no one's robot. What's
been, going on here?"

"We politely asked him to take his clothes off.
What's that to you if you don't own him?"

George said, "What were they doing, Andrew?"

Andrew said, "It was their intention in some way to
dismember me. They were about to move me to a
quiet spot and order me to dismember myself."

George looked at the two and his chin trembled.
The two young men retreated no further. They were
smiling. The tall one said lightly, "What are you going
to do, pudgy? Attack us?"

George said, "No. I don't have to. This robot has
been with my family for over seventy years. He knows
us and he values us more than he values anyone else.
I am going to tell him that you two are threatening my
life and that you plan to kill me-1 will ask him to defend
me. In choosing between me and you two, he will
choose me. Do you know what will happen to you
when he attacks you?"

The two were backing away slightly, looking un-
easy.

George said sharply, "Andrew, I am in danger and
about to come to harm from these young men. Move
toward theml"

Andrew did so, and the two young men did not
wait. They ran fleetly.

"All right, Andrew, relax," said George. He looked
unstrung. He was far past the age where he could face
the possibility of a dustup with one young man, let

.^..JkAJJ^>_———Jl^^m.Bmm__.

^^^^^^^^HBP't have hurt -them, George. I

!n^^^fl^^^^^enDc.attacking..you." _ ^

"I didn't order you to attack them; I only ,to)d you

104

ISAAC ASIMOV

to move toward them. Their own fears did the rest."

"How can they fear robots?"

"It's a disease of mankind, one of which it is not yet
cured. But never mind that What the devil are you
doing here, Andrew? I was on the point of turning
back and hiring a helicopter when I found you. How
did you get it into your head to go to the library? I
would have brought you any books you needed."

"I am a—" began Andrew.

"Free robot. Yes, yes. All right, what did you want
in the library?"

"I want to know more about human beings, about
the world, about everything. And about robots,
George. I want to write a history about robots."

George said, "Well, let's walk home . . . And pick
up your clothes first. Andrew, there are a million
books on robotics and all of them include histories of
the science. The world is growing saturated not only
with robots but with information about robots."

Andrew shook his head, a human gesture he had
lately begun to make. "Not a history of robotics,
George. A history of robots, by a robot. I want to ex-
plain how robots feel about what has happened since
the first ones were allowed to work and live on
Earth."

George's eyebrows lifted, but he said nothing in di-
rect response.

Little Miss was fust past her eighty-third birthday,
but there was nothing about her that was lacking in
either energy or determination. Shfi flBShtftA^fife- "^
cane more often than she proppficl^BllHl^p^nHlF^

She listened to the story in a fury of indignation.
She said, "George, that's horrible. Who were those
young ruffians?"

OPUS 200                 105

"I don't know. What difference does it make? In the
end they did no damage."

"They might have. You're a lawyer, George, and if
you're well off, it's entirely due to the talent of An-
drew. It was the money he earned that is the founda-
tion of everything we have. He provides the continu-
ity for this family, and I will not have him treated as a
wind-up toy."

"What would you have me do. Mother?" asked
George.

"I said you're a lawyer. Don't you listen? You set up
a test case somehow, and you force the regional courts
to declare for robot rights and get the Legislature to
pass the necessary bills, and carry the whole thing to
the World Court, if you have to. I'll be watching,
George, and I'll tolerate no shirking."

She was serious, and what began as a way of sooth-
ing the fearsome old lady became an involved mat-
ter with enough legal entanglement to make it inter-
esting. As senior partner of Feingold and Martin,
George plotted strategy but left the actual work to his
Junior partners, with much of it a matter for his son,
Paul, who was also a member of die firm and who
reported dutifully nearly every day to his grand-
mother. She, in turn, discussed it every day with An-
drew.

Andrew was deeply involved. His work on his book
on robots was delayed again as he pored over the le-
gal arguments and even, at times, made very diffident
suggestions.

He said, "George told me that day that human
beings have always been afraid of robots. As long as
they are, the courts and the legislatures are not likely
to work hard on behalf of robots. Should there not be
something done about public opinion?"

106

ISAAC ASIMOV

So while Paul stayed in court, George took to the
public platform. It gave him the advantage of being
informal, and he sometimes even went so far as to
wear the new, loose style of clothing that he called
drapery. Paul said, "Just don't trip over it onstage,
Dad."

George said despondently, "I'll try not to."

He addressed the annual convention of holo-news
editors on one occasion and said, in part:

"If, by virtue of the Second Law, we can demand of
any robot unlimited obedience in all respects not in-
volving harm to a human being, then, any human
being, any human being, has a fearsome power over
any robot, any robot. In particular, since the Second
Law supersedes the Third Law. any human being can
use the law of obedience to overcome the law of self-
protection. He can order any robot to damage itself or
even destroy itself for any reason, or for no reason.

"Is this just? Would we treat an animal so? Even an
inanimate object that has given us good service has a
claim on our consideration. And a robot is not insensi-
ble; it is not an animal. It can think well enough to
enable it to talk to us, reason with us, joke with us.
Can we treat them as friends, can we work together
with them, and not give them some of the fruit of that
friendship, some of the benefit of co-working?

"If a man has the right to give a robot any order
that does not involve harm to a human being, he
should have the decency never to give a robot any
order that involves harm to a robot, unless human
safety absolutely requires it WU^i ^FWtJMweet goes
great responsibility, ^u^^^|IS^^p^ ^e^r^e
Laws to protect men, is it too much to ask that men
have a law or two to protect robots?"

Andrew was right It was the battle over public

OPUS 200                 107

opinion that held the key to courts and Legislature

and in the end a law passed which set up conditions
under which robot-harming orders were forbidden. It
was endlessly qualified and the punishments for vio-
lating the law were totally inadequate, but the princi-
ple was established. The final passage by the World
Legislature came through on the day of Little Miss's
death.

That was no coincidence. Little Miss held on to life
desperately during the last debate and let go only
when word of victory arrived. Her last smile was for
Andrew. Her last words were: "You have been good
to us, Andrew."

She died with her hand holding his, while her son
and his wife and children remained at a respectful dis-
tance from both.

Andrew waited patiently while the receptionist disap-
peared into the inner office. It might have used the
holographic chatterbox, but unquestionably it was un-
manned (or perhaps unroboted) by having to deal
with another robot rather than with a human being.

Andrew passed the time revolving the matter in his
mind. Could "unroboted" be used as an analogue of
"unmanned," or had "unmanned" become a meta-
phoric term sufficiently divorced from its original lit-
eral meaning to be applied to robots—or to women,
for that matter?

Such problems came up frequently as he worked on
his book on robots. The trick of thinking out sentences
to express all complexities had undoubtedly increased
his vocabulary.

Occasionally, someone came into the room to stare
at him and he did not try to avoid the glance. He
looked at each calmly, and each in turn looked away.

108

ISAAC ASIMOV

Paul Martin finally came out. He looked surprised,      £,
or he would have if Andrew could have made out his
expression with certainty. Paul had taken to wearing      —
the heavy makeup that fashion was dictating for both      '..
sexes, and though it made sharper and firmer the
somewhat bland lines of his face, Andrew disari-      ,
proved. He found that disapproving of human beings,
as long as he did not express it verbally, did not make      ^
him very uneasy. He could even write the disap-      ||
proval. He was sure it had not always been so.             ?

Paul said, "Come in, Andrew. I'm sorry I made you      ?
wait but there was something I had to finish. Come
in. You had said you wanted to talk to me, but I didn't
know you meant here in town."

"If you are busy, Paul. I am prepared to continue to
wait."

Paul glanced at the interplay of shifting shadows on
the dial on the wall that served as timepiece and said,
"I can make some time. Did you come alone?"

"I hired an automatobile."

"Any trouble?" Paul asked with more than a trace of
anxiety.

1 wasn't expecting any. My rights are protected."

Paul looked the more anxious for that. "Andrew,
I've explained that the law is unenforceable, at least
under most conditions . . , And if you insist on wear-
ing clothes, you'll run into trouble eventually—just like
that first time."

"And only time, Paul. I'm sorry you are displeased.**

"Well, look at it this way; you are virtually a living
legend, Andrew, and you are too valuable in many
different ways for you to have any right to take
chances with yourself . . . How's the book coming?"

"I am approaching th* end, Paul. The publisher is
quite pleased."

OPUS 200                 109

"Good!'

"I don't know that he's necessarily pleased with the
book as a book. I think he expects to sell many copies
because it's written by a robot and it's that that
pleases him."

"Only human, I'm afraid."

"I am not displeased. Let it sell for whatever reason
since it will mean money and I can use some."

"Grandmother left you—"

"Little Miss was crenerous, and I'm sure I can count
on the family to help me out further. But it is the roy-
alties from the book on which I am counting to help
me through the next step."

"What next ste^ is that?"

"I wish to see the head of U. S. Robots and Me-
chanical Men, Inc. I have tried to make an apnoint-
ment, but so far I have not been able to reach him.
The corporation did not cooperate with me in the
writing of the book, so I am not surprised, you under-
stand."

Paul was clearly amused. "Cooperation is the last
thing you can exoect They didn't cooperate with us in
our great fight for robot rights. Quite the reverse, and
you can see why. Give a robot rights and people may
not want to buy them."

"Nevertheless," said Andrew, "if you call them, you
may obtain an interview for me."

"I'm no more popular with them than you are, An-
drew."

"But perhaps you can hint that by seeing me they
may head off a campaign by Feingold and Martin to
strengthen the rights of robots further."

"Wouldn't that be a lie, Andrew?"

"Yes, Paul, and I can't tell one. That is why you
must call."

110

ISAAC ASIMOV

"Ah, you can't lie, but you can urge me to tell a lie,
is that it? You're getting more human all the time, An-
drew."

It was not easy to arrange, even with Paul's suppos-
edly weighted name.

But it was finally carried through and, when it was,
Harley Smythe-Robertson, who, on his mother's side,
was descended from the original founder of the corpo-
ration and who had adopted the hyphenation to indi-
cate it, looked remarkably unhappy. He was ap-
proaching retirement age and his entire tenure as
president had been devoted to the matter of robot
rights. His gray hair was plastered thinly over the top
of his scalp, his face was not made up, and he eyed
Andrew with brief hostility from time to time.

Andrew said, "Sir, nearly a century ago, I was told
by a Merton Mansky of this corporation that the
mathematics governing the plotting of the positronic
pathways was far too complicated to permit of any
but approximate solutions and that therefore my own
capacities were not fully predictable."

"That was a century ago." Smythe-Robertson hesi-
tated, then said icily, "Sir. It is true no longer. Our
robots are made with precision now and are trained
precisely to their jobs."

"Yes," said Paul, who had come along, as he said, to
make sure that the corporation played fair, "with the
result that my receptionist must be guided at every
point once events depart from the conventional, how-
ever slightly."

Smythe-Robertson said, "You would be much more
displeased if it were to improvise."

Andrew said, 'Then you no longer manufacture ro-
bots like myself that are flexible and adaptable."

OPUS 200                 111

"No longer."

"The research I have done in connection with my
book," said Andrew, "indicates that I am the oldest
robot presently in active operation."

"The oldest presently," said Smythe-Robertson,
"and the oldest ever. The oldest that will ever be. No
robot is useful after the twenty-fifth year. They are
called in and replaced with newer models."

"No robot as presently manufactured is useful after
the twenty-fifth year," said Paul pleasantly. "Andrew
is quite exceptional in this respect."

Andrew, adhering to the path he had marked out
for himself, said, "As the oldest robot in the world and
the most flexible, am I not unusual enough to merit
special treatment from the company?"

"Not at all," said Smythe-Robertson freezingly.
"Your unusualness is an embarrassment to the com-
pany. If you were on lease, instead of having been a
sale outright through some mischance, you would long
since have been replaced."

"But that is exactly the point," said Andrew. "I am a
free robot and I own myself. Therefore I come to you
and ask you to replace me. You cannot do this without
the owner's consent. Nowadays, that consent is ex-
torted as a condition of the lease, but in my time this
did not happen."

Smythe-Robertson was looking both startled and
puzzled, and for a moment there was silence. Andrew
found himself staring at the holograph on the wall. It
was a death mask of Susan Calvin, patron saint of all
roboticists. She was dead nearly two centuries now,
but as a result of writing his book Andrew knew her
so well he could half persuade himself that he had
met her in life.

Smythe-Robertson said, "How can I replace you for

112

ISAAC ASIMOV

you? If I replace you as a robot, how can I donate the
new robot to you as owner since in the very act of
replacement you cease to exist?" He smiled grimly.

"Not at all difficult," interposed Paul. "The seat of
Andrew's personality is his positronic brain, and it is
the one part that cannot be replaced without creating
a new robot. The positronic brain, therefore, is An-
drew the owner. Every other part of the robotic body
can be replaced without affecting the robot's person-
ality, and those other parts are the brain's possessions.
Andrew, I should say, wants to supply his brain with
a new robotic body."

That's right," said Andrew calmly. He turned to
Smythe-Bobertson. "You have manufactured androids,
haven't you? Robots that have the outward appear-
ance of humans complete to the texture of the skin?"

Smythe-Robertson said, "Yes, we have. They
worked perfectly well, with their synthetic fibrous
skins and tendons. There was virtually no metal any-
where except for the brain, yet they were nearly as
tough as metal robots. They were tougher, weight for
weight"

Paul looked interested. **I didn't know that How
many are on the market?"

"None," said Smythe-Robertson. They were much
more expensive than metal models and a market sur-
vey showed they would not be accepted. They looked
too human."

Andrew said, "But the corporation retains its exper-
tise, I assume. Since it does, I wish to request that I
be replaced by an organic robot, an android."

Paul looked surprised. "Good Lord," he said.

Smythe-Bobertson stiffened. "Quite impossiblel"

"Why is it impossible?" asked Andrew. "I will pay
any reasonable fee, of course."

OPUS 200                 113

Smythe-Robertson said, "We do not manufacture
androids."

"You do not choose to manufacture androids," inter-
posed Paul quickly. That is not the same as being
unable to manufacture them."

Smythe-Robertson said, "Nevertheless, the manu-
facture of androids is against public policy."

There is no law against it," said Paul.

"Nevertheless, we do not manufacture them, and we
will not."

Paul cleared his throat. "Mr. Smythe-Robertson," he
said, "Andrew is a free robot who is under the pur-
view of the law guaranteeing robots^ rights. You are
aware of this, I take it?"

"Only too well."

This robot, as a free robot, chooses to wear clothes.
This results in his being frequently humiliated by
thoughtless human beings despite the law against the
humiliation of robots. It is difficult to prosecute
vague offenses that don't meet with the general disap-
proval of those who must decide on guilt and inno-
cence."

"U. S. Robots understood that from the start. Your
father's firm unfortunately did not."

"My father is dead now," said Paul, "but what I see
is that we have here a clear offense with a clear tar-
get."

"What are you talking about?" said Smythe-
Robertson.

"My client. Andrew Martin—he has Just become my
client—is a free robot who is entitled to ask U. S. Ro-
bots and Mechanical Men, Inc., for the right of re-
placement, which the corporation supplies anyone
who owns a robot for more than twenty-five years. In
fact, the corporation insists on such replacement."

114

ISAAC ASIMOV

Paul was smiling and thoroughly at his ease. He
went on, 'The positronic brain of my client is the
owner of the body of my client—which is certainly
more than twenty-Bve years old. The positronic brain
demands the replacement of the body and offers to
pay any reasonable fee for an android body as that
replacement. If you-refuse the request, my client un-
dergoes humiliation and we will sue.

"While public opinion would not ordinarily support
the claim of a robot in such a case, may I remind you
that U. S. Robots is not popular with the public gen-
erally. Even those who most use and profit from ro-
bots are suspicious of the corporation. This may be a
hangover from the days when robots were widely
feared. It may be resentment against the power and
wealth of U. S. Robots, which has a worldwide mono-
poly. Whatever the cause may be, the resentment ex-
ists and I think you will find that you would prefer
not to withstand a lawsuit, particularly since my client
is wealthy and will live tor many more centuries and
will have no reason to refrain from fighting the battle
forever."

Smythe-Robertson had slowly reddened. "You are
trying to force me to—"

"I force you to do nothing," said Paul. "If you wish
to refuse to accede to my client's reasonable request,
you may by all means do so and we will leave without
another word . . . But we will sue, as is certainly our
right, and you will find that you will eventually
lose."

Smythe-Robertson said, "Well—" and paused.

"I see that you are going to accede," said Paul. "You
may hesitate but you will come to it in the end. Let
me assure you, then, of one further point. If, in the
process of transferring my client's positronic brain

OPUS 200

115

from his present body to an organic one, there is any
damage, however slight, then I will never rest till I've
nailed the corporation to the ground. I will, if neces-
sary, take every possible step to mobilize public opin-
ion against the coi-noration if one brain path of my
client's platinum-iridium essence is scrambled." He
turned to Andrew and said, "Do you agree to all this,
Andrew?"

Andrew hesitated a full minute. It amounted to the
approval of lying, of blackmail, of the badgering and
humiliation of a human bein^. But not physical harm,
he told himself, not physical harm.

He managed at last to come out with a rather faint
"Yes."

It was like being constructed again. For days, then for
weeks, finally for months, Andrew found himself not
himself somehow, and the simplest actions kept giving
rise to hesitation.

Paul was frantic. "They've damaged you, Andrew.
We'll have to institute suit."

Andrew spoke very slowly. "You mustn't. You'll
never be able to prove— something— m-m-m-m—"

"Malice?"

"Malice. Besides, I grow stronger, better. Ifs the tr-
tr-tr-"

Tremble?"

"Trauma. After all, there's never been such an op-
op-operation before."

Andrew could feel his brain from the inside. No one
else could. He knew he was well, and during the
months that it took him to learn full coordination and
full positronic interplay, he spent hours before the
mirror.

Not quite humani The face was stiff—too stiff—and

116

ISAAC ASIMOV

the motions were too deliberate. They lacked the care-
less free flow of the human being, but perhaps that
might come with time. At least he could wear clothes
without the ridiculous anomaly of a metal face going
along with it.

Eventually he said, "I will be going back to work."

Paul laughed and said, "That means you are well.
What will you be doing? Another book?"

"No," said Andrew seriously. "I live too long for any
one career to seize me by the throat and never let me
go. There was a time when I was primarily an artist
and I can still turn to that. And there was a time when
I was a historian and I can still turn to that. But now I
wish to be a robobiologist"

"A robopsychologist, you mean."

"No. That would imply the study of positronic
brains and at the moment I lack the desire to do that.
A robobiologist, it seems to me, would be concerned
with the working of the body attached to that brain."

"Wouldn't that be a roboticist?"

"A roboticist works with a metal body. I would be
studying an organic humanoid body, of which I have
the only one, as far as I know."

"You narrow your field," said Paul thoughtfully. "As
an artist, all conception was yours; as a historian, you
dealt chiefly with robots, as a robobiologist, you will
deal with yourself."

Andrew nodded. "It would seem so."

Andrew had to start from the very beginning, for he
knew nothing of ordinary biology, almost nothing of
science. He became a familiar sight in the libraries,
where he sat at the electronic indices for hours at a
time. looking perfectly normal in clothes. Those few
who knew he was a robot in no way interfered with
him.

OPUS 200

117

He built a laboratory in a room he had added to his
house, and his library grew, too.

Years passed, and Paul came to him one day and
said, "It's a pity you're no longer working on the his-
tory of robots. I understand U. S. Robots is adopting a
radically new policy,"

Paul had aged, and his deteriorating eyes had been
replaced with photoptic cells. In that respect, he had
drawn closer to Andrew. Andrew said, "What have
they done?"

"They are manufacturing central computers, gigan-
tic positronic brains, really, which communicate with
anywhere from a dozen to a thousand robots by mi-
crowave. The robots themselves have no brains at all.
They are the limbs of the gigantic brain, and the two
are physically separate.

"Is that more efficient?"

"U. S. Robots claims it is. Smythe-Robertson estab-
lished the new direction before he died, however, and
it's my notion that it's a backlash at you. U. S. Robots
is determined that they will make no robots that will
give them the type of trouble you have, and for that
reason they separate brain and body. The brain will
have no body to wish changed; the body will have no
brain to wish anything.

"It's amazing, Andrew," Paul went on, "the influ-
ence you have had on the history of robots. It was
your artistry that encouraged U. S. Robots to make
robots more precise and specialized; it was your freb-
dom that resulted in the establishment of the principle
of robotic rights; it was your insistence on an android
body that made U. S. Robots switch to brain-body
separation."

Andrew said, "I suppose in the end the corporation
will produce one vast brain controlling several billion

118

ISAAC ASIMOV

robotic bodies. All the eggs will be in one basket
Dangerous. Not proper at all."

"I think you're right," said Paul, "but I don't suspect
it will come to pass for a century at least, and I won't
live to see it. In fact, I may not live to see next year."

"Paul!" said Andrew in concern.

Paul shrugged. "We're mortal, Andrew. We're not
like you. It doesn't matter too much, but it does make
it important to assure you on one point. I'm the last ot
the human Martins. There are collaterals descended
from my great-aunt, but they don't count. The money
I control personally will be left to the trust in your
name, and, as far as anyone can foresee the future, you
will be economically secure."

"Unnecessary," said Andrew with difficulty. In all
this time, he could not get used to the deaths of the
Martins.

Paul said, "Let's not argue. That's the way it's going
to be. What are you working on?"

"I am designing a system for allowing androids—
myself—to gain energy from the combustion of hydro-
carbons, rather than from atomic cells."

Paul raised his eyebrows. "So that they will breathe
and eat?"

"Yes."

"How long have you been pushing in that direc-
tion?"

"For a long time now, but I think I have designed
an adequate combustion chamber for catalyzed con-
trolled breakdown."

"But why, Andrew? The atomic cell is surely infi-
nitely better."

"In some ways, perhaps, but the atomic cell is inhu-
man."

OPUS 200

119

It took time, but Andrew had time- In the first place,
he did not wish to do anything till Paul had died in
peace.

With the death of the great-grandson of Sir, Andrew
felt more nearly exposed to a hostile world, and for
that reason was the more determined to continue the
path he had long ago chosen.

Yet he was not really alone. If a man had died, the
firm of Feingold and Martin lived, for a corporation
does not die any more than a robot does. The firm
had its directions and it followed them soullessly. By
way of the trust and through the law firm, Andrew
continued to be wealthy. And in return for their own
large annual retainer, Feingold and Martin involved
themselves in the legal aspects of the new combustion
chamber.

When the time came for Andrew to visit U. S. Ro-
bots and Mechanical Men, Inc., he did it alone. Once
he had gone with Sir and once with Paul. This time,
the third tune, he was alone and manlike.

U. S. Robots had changed. The production plant
had been shifted to a large space station, as was the
case with more and more industries. With them had
gone many robots. The Earth itself was becoming
parktike, with its one-billion-person population stabi-
lized and perhaps not more than 30 percent of its at
least equally large robot population independently
brained.

The director of research was Alvin Magdescu, dark
of complexion and hair, with a little pointed beard
and wearing nothing above the waist but the breast-
band that fashion dictated. Andrew himself was well
covered in the older fashion of several decades back.

Magdescu said, "I know you, of course, and I'm
rather pleased to see you. You're our most notorious

120

ISAAC ASIMOV

product, and it's a pity old Smythe-Robertson was so
set against you. We could have done a great deal with
you."

"You still can," said Andrew.

"No, I don't think so. We're past the time. We*ve }iad
robots on Earth for over a century, but that's chang-
ing. It will be back to space with them and those that
stay here won't be brained."

"But there remains myself, and I stay on Earth."

'True, but there doesn't seem to be much of the ro-
bot about you. What new request have you?"

"To be still less a robot. Since I am so far organic, I
wish an organic source of energy. I have here the
plans—"

Magdescu did not hasten through them. He might
have intended to at Brst, but he stiffened and grew
intent. At one point he said, "This is remarkably ingeni-
ous. Who thought of all this?"

"I did." said Andrew.

Magdescu looked up at him sharply, then said, "It
would amount to a major overhaul of your body, and
an experimental one, since it has never been at-
tempted before. I advise against it Remain as you
are."

Andrew's face had limited means of expression, but
impatience showed plainly in his voice. "Dr. Mag-
descu, you miss the entire point. You have no choice
but to accede to my request. If such devices can be
built into my body, they can be built into human bod-
ies as well. The tendency to lengthen human life by
prosthetic devices has already been remarked on.
There are no devices better than the ones I have de-
signed and am designing.

"As it happens, I control the patents by way of the
6rm of Feingold and Martin. We are quite capable of

OPUS 200                 121

going into business for ourselves and developing the
kind of prosthetic devices that may end by producing
human beings with many of the properties of robots.
Your own business will then suffer.

"If, however, you operate on me now and agree to
do so under similar circumstances in the future, you
will receive permission to make use of the patents and
control the technology of both robots and the prosthe-
tization of human beings. The initial leasing will not
be granted, of course, until after the first operation is
completed successfully, and after enough time has
passed to demonstrate that it is indeed successful."
Andrew felt scarcely any First Law inhibition to the
stern conditions he was setting a human being. He
was learning to reason that what seemed like cruelty
might, in the long run, be kindness.

Magdescu looked stunned. He said, "I'm not the one
to decide something like this. That's a corporate deci-
sion that would take time."

T can wait a reasonable time," said Andrew, "but
only a reasonable time." And he thought with satisfac-
tion that Paul himself could not have done it better.

It took only a reasonable time, and the operation was
a success.

Magdescu said, "I was very much against the opera-
tion, Andrew, but not for the reasons you might think.
I was not in the least against the experiment, if it had
been on someone else. I hated risking your positronic
brain. Now that you have the positronic pathways in-
teracting with simulated nerve pathways, it might be
difficult to rescue the brain intact if the body went
bad."

"I had every faith in the skill of the staff at U. S.
Robots." said Andrew. "And I can eat now."

122

ISAAC ASIMOV

"Well, you can sip olive oil. It will mean occasional
cleanings of the combustion chamber, as we have ex-
plained to you. Rather an uncomfortable touch, I
should think."

"Perhaps, if I did not expect to go further. Self-
cleaning is not impossible. In fact, I am working on a'
device that will deal with solid food that may be ex-
pected to contain incombustible fractions—indigestible
matter, so to speak, that will have to be discarded."

"You would then have to develop an anus."

*The equivalent."

"What else, Andrew?"

"Everything else."

"Genitalia, too?"

"Insofar as they will fit my plans. My body is a can-
vas on which I intend to draw—"

Magdescu waited for the sentence to be completed,
and when it seemed that it would not be, he com-
pleted it himself. "A man?"

"We shall see," said Andrew.

Magdescu said, "It's a puny ambition, Andrew.
You're better than a man. You've gone downhill from
the moment you opted for organicism."

"My brain has not suffered."

"No, it hasn't. I'll grant you that. But, Andrew, the
whole new breakthrough in prosthetic devices made
possible by your patents is being marketed under
your name. You're recognized as the inventor and
you're honored for it—as you are. Why play further
games with your body?"

Andrew did not answer.

The honors came. He accepted membership in sev-
eral learned societies, including one that was devoted
to the uew science he had established; the one he had

i

OPUS 200                 123

called robobiology but which had come to be termed
prosthetology.

On the one hundred fiftieth anniversary of his con-
struction, there was a testimonial dinner given in his
honor at U. S. Robots. If Andrew saw irony in this, he
kept it to himself.

Alvm Magdescu came out of retirement to chair the
dinner. He was himself ninety-four years old and was
alive because he had prosthetized devices that, among
other things, fulfilled the function of liver and kid-
neys. The dinner reached its climax when Magdescu,
after a short and emotional talk, raised his glass to
toast "the Sesquicentennial Robot,"

Andrew had had the sinews of his face redesigned
to the point where he could show a range of emotions,
but he sat through all the ceremonies solemnly pas-
sive. He did not like to be a Sesquicentennial Robot.

It was prosthetology that finally took Andrew off the
Earth. In the decades that followed the celebration of
the Sesquicentennial, the Moon had come to be a
world more Earthlike than Earth in every respect but
its gravitational pull, and in its underground cities
there was a fairly dense population.

Prosthetized devices there had to take the lesser
gravity into account and Andrew spent five years on
the Moon working with local prosthetologists to make
the necessary adaptations. When not at his work, he
wandered among the robot population, every one of
which treated him with the robotic obsequiousness
due a man.

He came back to an Earth that was humdrum and
quiet by comparison and visited the offices of Fein-
gold and Martin to announce his return.

The current head of the firm, Simon DeLong, was

124

ISAAC ASIMOV

surprised. He said, "We had been told you were re-
turning, Andrew" (he had almost said "Mr. Martin"),
"but we were not expecting vou till next week."

"I grew impatient," said Andrew brusquely. He was
anxious to get to the point. "On the Moon, Simon, I
was in charge of a research team of twenty human
scientists. I gave orders that no one questioned. The
Lunar robots deferred td me as they would to a
human being. Why, then, am I not a human being?"

A wary look entered DeLong's eyes. He said, "My
dear Andrew, as you have just explained, you are
treated as a human being by both robots and human
beings. You are therefore a human being de facto."

"To be a human being de facto is not enough. I
want not only to be treated as one, but to be legally
identified as one. I want to be a human being de
jure."

"Now that is another matter," said DeLong. "There
we would run into human prejudice and into the un-
doubted fact that however much you may be like a
human being, you are not a human being."

"In what way not?" asked Andrew. "I have the
shape of a human being and organs equivalent to
those of a human being. My organs, in fact, are identi-
cal to some of those in a prosthetized human being. I
have contributed artistically, literarily, and scientifi-
cally to human culture as much as any human being
now alive. What more can one ask?"

"I myself would ask nothing more. The trouble is
that it would take an act of the World Legislature to
define you as a human being. Frankly, I wouldn't ex-
pect that to happen."

To whom on the Legislature could I speak?"

*To the chairman of the Science and Technology
Committee perhaps."

OPUS 200                 125

"Can you arrange a meeting?"

"But you scarcely need an intermediary. In your po-
sition, you can—"

"No. You arrange it." (It didn't even occur to An-
drew that he was giving a flat order to a human
being. He had grown accustomed to that on the
Moon.) "I want him to know that the firm of Fein-
gold and Martin is backing me in this to the hilt."

"Well, now—"

"To the hilt, Simon. In one hundred seventy-three
years I have in one fashion or another contributed
greatly to this firm. I have been under obligation to
individual members of the firm in times past. I am
not now. It is rather the other way around now and I
am calling in my debts."

DeLong said, "I will do what I can."

The chairman of the Science and Technology Com-
mittee was of the East Asian region and she was a
woman. Her name was Chee Li-Hsing and lipr trans-
parent garments (obscuring what she wanted ob-
scured only by their dazzle) made her look plastic-
wrapped.

She said, "I sympathize with your wish for full hu-
man rights. There have been times in history when
segments of the human population fought for full hu-
man rights. What rights, however, can you possibly

want that you do not have?"

"As simple a thing as my right to life. A robot can
be dismantled at any time."

"A human being can be executed at any time."
"Execution can only follow due process of law.
There is no trial needed for my dismantling. Only the
word of a human being in authority is needed to end
me. Besides—besides—" Andrew tried desperately to

126                ISAAC ASIMOV

allow no sign of pleading, but his carefully designed

tricks of human expression and tone of voice betrayed

him here. "The truth is, I want to be a man. I have       b,-

wanted it through six generations of human beings."

Li-Hsing looked up at him out of darkly sympa-
thetic eyes. "The Legislature can pass a law declaring'
you one—they could pass a law declaring a stone
statue to be defined as a man. Whether they will ac-
tually do so is, however, as likely in the first case as
the second. Congresspeople are as human as the rest
of the population, and there is always that element of
suspicion against robots."

"Even now?"

"Even now. We would all allow the fact that you
have earned the prize of humanity, and yet there
would remain the fear of setting an undesirable pre-
cedent."

"What precedent? I am the only free robot, the only
one of my type, and there will never be another. You
may consult U. S. Robots."

"'Never' is a long time, Andrew—or, if you prefer,
Mr. Martin—since I will gladiv give you my personal
accolade as man. You will find that most congress-
people will not be willing to set the precedent, no
matter how meaningless such a precedent might be.
Mr. Martin, you have my sympathy, but I cannot tell
you to hope. Indeed—"

She sat back and her forehead wrinkled. "Indeed, if
the issue grows too heated, there might well arise a
certain sentiment, both inside the Legislature and out-
side, for the dismantling you mentioned. Doing away
with you could turn out to be the easiest way of re-
solving the dilemma. Consider that before deciding to
push matters."

Andrew said, "Will no one remember the technique

OPUS 200                 127

of prosthetology, something that is almost entirely
mine?"

"It may seem cruel, but they won't. Or if they do, it
will be remembered against you. It will be said you
did it only for yourself. It will be said it was part of a
campaign to roboticize human beings, or to humanity
robots; and in either case evil and vicious. You have
never been part of a political hate campaign, Mr.
Martin, and I tell vou that you will be the object of
vilification of a kind neither you nor I would credit,
and there would be people who'll believe it all. Mr.
Martin, let your life be." She rose and, next to An-
drew's seated figure, she seemed small and almost
childlike.

Andrew said, "If I decide to fight for my humanity,
will you be on my side?"

She thought, then said, "I will be—insofar as I can
be. If at any time such a stand would appear to
threaten my political future,-1 may have to abandon
you, since it is not an issue I feel to be at the very root
of my beliefs. I am trying to be honest with you."

"Thank you, and I will ask no more. I intend to
fight this through whatever the consequences, and I
will ask you for your help only for as long as you can
give it."

It was not a direct fight. Feingold and Martin coun-
seled patience and Andrew muttered grimly that he
had an endless supply of that. Feingold and Martin
then entered on a campaign to narrow and restrict the
area of combat.

They instituted a lawsuit denying the obligation to
pay debts to an individual with a prosthetic heart on
the grounds that the possession of a robotic organ re-

128

ISAAC ASIMOV

moved humanity, and with it the constitutional rights
of human beings.

They fought the matter skillfully and tenaciously,
losing at every step but always in such a way that the
decision was forced to be as broad as possible, and
then carrying it by way of appeals to the World Court.

It took years, and millions of dollars.

When the final decision was handed down, DeLong
held what amounted to a victory celebration over the
legal loss. Andrew was, of course, present in the com-
pany offices on the occasion.

"We've done two things, Andrew," said DeLong,
"both of which are good. First of all, we have estab-
lished the fact that no number of artifacts in the hu-
man body causes it to cease being a human body. Sec-
ondly, we have engaged public opinion in the
question in such a way as to put it fiercely on the side
of a broad interpretation of humanity since there is
not a human being in existence who does not hope for
prosthetics if that will keep him alive."

"And do you think the Legislature will now grant
me my humanity?" asked Andrew.

DeLong looked faintly uncomfortable. "As to that, I
cannot be optimistic. There remains the one organ
that the World Court has used as the criterion of hu-
manity. Human beings have an organic cellular brain
and robots have a platinum-iridium positronic brain if
they have one at all—and you certainly have a posi-
tronic brain . . . No, Andrew, don't get that look in
your eye. We lack the knowledge to duplicate the
work of a cellular brain in artificial structures close
enough to the organic type to allow it to fall within
the Court's decision. Not even you could do it"

"What should we do, then?"

"Make the attempt, of course. Congresswoman U-

OPUS 200                 129

Hsing will be on our side and a growing number of
other congresspeople. The President will undoubtedly
go along with a majority of the Legislature m this
matter."

"Do we have a majority?"

"No, far from it. But we might get one if the public
will allow its desire for a broad interpretation of hu-
manity to extend to you. A small chance, I admit, but
if you do not wish to give up, we must gamble for it."

"I do not wish to give up."

Congresswoman Li-Hsing was considerably older
than she had been when Andrew had first met her.
Her transparent garments were long gone. Her hair
was now close-cropped and her coverings were tubu-
lar. Yet still Andrew clung, as closely as he could
within the limits of reasonable taste, to the style of
clothing that had prevailed when he had first adopted
clothing over a century before. ^

She said, "We've none as far as we can, Andrew.
We'll try once more after recess, but, to be honest, de-
feat is certain and the whole thing will have to be
given up. All mv most recent efforts have only earned
me a certain defeat in the coming congressional cam-
paign."

"I know," said Andrew, "and it distresses me. You
said once you would abandon me if it came to that.
Whv have you not done so?"

"One can change one's mind, you know. Somehow,
abandoning you became a higher price than I cared to
pav for just one more term. As it is, I've been in the
Legislature for over a quarter of a century. It's
enough."

"Is there no way we can change minds, Chee?"

"We've changed all that are amenable to reason.

130                 ISAAC ASIMOV

The rest—the majority—cannot be moved from their
emotional antipathies."

"Emotional antipathy is not a valid reason for vot-
ing one way or the other."

"I know that, Andrew, but they don't advance emo-
tional antipathy as their reason."

Andrew said cautiously, "It all comes down to the
brain, then, but must we leave it at the level of cells
versus positrons? Is there no way of forcing a func-
tional definition? Must we say that a brain is made of
this or that? May we not say that a brain is something—
anything—capable of a certain level of thought?"

"Won't work," said Li-Hsing. "Your brain is man-
made, the human brain is not. Your brain is con-
structed, theirs developed. To any human being who is
intent on keeping up the barrier between himself and
a robot, those differences are a steel wall a mile high
and a mile thick."

"If we could get at the source of their antipathy—
the very source of—"

"After all your years," said Li-Hsing sadly, "you are
still trying to reason out the human being. Poor An-
drew, don't be angry, but it's the robot in you that
drives you in that direction."

"1 don't know," said Andrew. "If I could bring my-
self-"

If he could bring himself—

He had known for a long time it might come to
that. and in the end he was at the surgeon's. He found
one, skillful enough for the job at hand, which meant
a robot surgeon, for no human surgeon could be
trusted in this connection, either in ability or in inten-
tion,

The surgeon could not have performed the opera-

OPUS 200                131

tion on a human being, so Andrew, after putting off
the moment of decision with a sad line of questioning
that reflected the turmoil within himself, put the First
Law to one side by saying, "I, too, am a robot."

He then said, as firmly as he had learned to form
the words even at human beings over these past dec-
ades, "I order you to carry through the operation on
me."

In the absence of the First Law, an order so firmly
given from one who looked so much like a man acti-
vated the Second Law sufficiently to carry the day.

Andrew's feeling of weakness was, he was sure, quite
imaginary. He had recovered from the operation. Nev-
ertheless, he leaned, as unobtrusively as he could
manage, against the wall. It would be entirely too re-
vealing to sit.

Li-Hsing said, "The final vote will come this week,
Andrew. I've been able to delay it no longer, and we
must lose . . . And that will be it, Andrew."

Andrew said, "I am grateful for your skill at delay.
It gave me the time I needed, and I took the gamble I
had to."

"What gamble is this?*' asked Li-Hsing with open
concern.

"I couldn't tell you, or the people at Feingold and
Martin. I was sure I would be stopped. See here, if it
is the brain that is at issue, isn't the greatest differ-
ence of all the matter of immortality? Who really cares
what a brain looks like or is built of or how it was
formed? What matters is that brain cells die; must die.
Even if every other organ in the body is maintained or
replaced, the brain cells, which cannot be replaced
without changing and therefore killing the personal-
ity, must eventually die.

132

ISAAC ASIMOV

"My own positronic pathways have lasted nearly
two centuries without perceptible change and can last
for centuries more. Isn't that the fundamental bar-
rier? Human beings can tolerate an immortal robot,
for it doesn't matter how long a machine lasts. They
cannot tolerate an immortal human being, since their
own mortality is endurable only so long as it is univer-
sal. And for that reason they won't make me a human
being."

Li-Hsing said, "What is it you're leading up to, An-
drew ?"

"I have removed that problem. Decades ago, my
positronic brain was connected to organic nerves.
Now, one last operation has arranged that connection
in such a way that slowly—quite slowly—the potential
is being drained from my pathways."

Li-Hsing's finely wrinkled face showed no expres-
sion for a moment. Then her lips tightened. "Do you
mean you've arranged to die, Andrew? You can't have.
That violates the Third Law."

"No," said Andrew, "I have chosen between the
death of my body and the death of my aspirations and
desires. To have let my body live at the cost of the
greater death is what would have violated the Third
Law."

Li-Hsing seized his arm as though she were about
to shake him. She stopped herself. "Andrew, it won't
work. Change it back."

"It can't be. Too much damage was done. I have a
year to live—more or less. I will last through the hun-
dredth anniversay of my construction. I was weak
enough to arrange that."

"How can it be worth it? Andrew, you're a fool."

"If it brings me humanity, that will be worth it. If it

OPUS 200                 133

doesn't, it will bring an end to striving, and that will
be worth it, too."

And Li-Hsing did something that astonished her-
self. Quietly, she began to weep.

It was odd how that last deed caught at the imagina-
tion of the world. All that Andrew had done before
had not swaved them. But he had finally accepted
even death in order to be human, and the sacrifice
was too great to be rejected.

The final ceremony was timed, quite deliberately,
for the two hundredth anniversary. The World Presi-
dent was to sign the act and make it law, and the cer-
emonv would be visible on a global network and
would be beamed to the Lunar state and even to the
Martian colon v.

Andrew was in a wheelchair. He could still walk,
but only shakily.

With mankind watching, the'Worid President said,
"Fifty years ago, vou were declared a Sesquicen-
tennial Robot, Andrew." After a pause, and in a more
solemn tone, he said, "Today we declare you a Bicen-
tennial Man, Mr. Martin."

And Andrew, smiling, held out his hand to shake
that of the President.

Andrew's thoughts were slowly fading as he lay in
bed.

Desperately he seized at them. Mani He was a man!
He wanted that to be his last thought. He wanted to
dissolve—die—with that.

He opened his eves one more time and for one last
time recognized Li-Hsing waiting solemnly. There were
others, but those were only shadows, unrecognizable

134

ISAAC ASIMOV

shadows. Only Li-Hsing stood out against the deepen-
ing gray. Slowly, inchingly, he held out his hand to her
and very dimly and faintly felt her take it.

She was fading in his eyes, as the last of his
thoughts trickled away.                          ,

But before she faded completely, one last fugitive
thought came to him and rested for a moment on his
mind before everything stopped.

"Little Miss," he whispered, too low to be heard.

PART 3

MATHEMATICS

It takes a lot of ingenuity for me to write about math-
ematics, since I know so little about it.

Why bother to write about it, then? Because I love
it, that's why. What I must do {and here is where the
ingenuity comes in) is find some portion of mathe-
matics so incredibly simple that I can understand it.
Once I've done that, all I have to do is write about it
in such a way (more ingenuity) that no one detects
my essential ignorance.

For children, I wrote How Did We Find Out About
Numbers? {Book 142), and in it I presented a section
on Roman numerals, which I had learned how to use
when I was seven or eight and which, fortunately, I
had never forgotten. Here it is:

from How DID WE FIND OUT ABOUT NUMBERS?

(1973)

About two thousand years ago, large sections of Eu-
rope, Asia, and Africa were ruled from the city of
Rome- The Roman Empire, as it was called, used a
system of numerals based on five.

The Romans used symbols taken from their alpha-
bet. Fortunately, the people of Europe and America

138

ISAAC ASIMOV

use the1 Roman alphabet so the Roman symbols are
familiar to us.

The Romans began by letting the number one be
written as I. For two, three, and four they had II, III,
and IIII. So far it looks like the Egyptian system, bilt
the Romans only allowed four of any symbol to be
used before inventing a new symbol. Instead of writ-
ing five as the Egyptian IIIII they wrote it as V.

Instead of writing six as IIIIII they wrote it VI.
Nine was VIIII. If they wrote ten as VIIIII, that
would mean five of the symbol I and they didn't al-
low that. They used a new symbol for ten, which was
X.

The list of symbols up to one thousand is as fol-
lows:

I == one
V = five
X == ten
L == fifty

C == one hundred
D = five hundred
M ^ one thousand

By using special symbols for five, fifty, and five
hundred, the Romans never had to use more than four
of any of the symbols for one. ten, or one hundred.

To write twenty-two they wrote XXII. Seventy-
three is LXXIII. Four hundred eighteen is
CCCCXVIII. One thousand nine hundred ninety-nine
IS MDCCCCLXXXXVIIII.

If you try to write one thousand nine hundred
ninety-nine by the Egyptian system, you would need
one symbol for thousand, and nine symbols each for
hundred, ten, and one. That would mean twenty-eight

OPUS 200                 139

symbols all together. In Roman numerals only sixteen
symbols are needed.

The Egyptian system uses only four different kinds
of symbols, while the Roman system uses seven. In
the Roman system you need less counting but more
memorizinff.

When these Roman numerals were first developed,
it didn't matter in what order the symbols were
placed. Whether you wrote XVI or XIV or IXV or
VIX, it all came to sixteen. No matter in what order
you add ten, five, and one, you end up with sixteen.

Of course, it is easier to add up a number if you
arrange the symbols according to some convenient
system. The usual way is to put all the symbols of the
same sort together. The largest symbol is on the left
and as you move to the right you write down smaller
and smaller symbols. Thus seventy-eight would al-
ways be written LXXVIII, working down from L to X
to V to I.

The later Romans thought of a way of still further
decreasing the number of a particular symbol that
had to be written down. As long as symbols were al-
ways written from left to right and from large to
small, why not sometimes reverse the order?

When you put the smaller symbol after the larger
one in the usual way you add the two. Therefore, VI
is "five plus one," or six. If on the other hand you put
the smaller symbol before the larger one, you subtract
it from the larger. In this way IV is "five minus one,"
or four.

By writing four as IV instead of IIII you have to
write and read only two symbols instead of four, but
you have to notice the positions and remember to sub-
tract instead of add.

In the same way, XL is forty while LX is sixty and

140

ISAAC ASIMOV

XC is ninetv while CX is one hundred ten and CM is
nine hundred while MC is one thousand one hundred.

The vear nineteen seventy-three can be written
MCMLXXIII instead of MDCCCCLXXIII-eight
symbols instead of twelve. One thousand nine
hundred ninetv-nine can be written MCMXCIX in-
stead of MDCCCCLXXXXVIIH-seven symbols in-
stead of sixteen.

Of course, once vou start using the subtracting no-
tion, vou can't scramble the order of the symbols any-
more. It becomes important to place each symbol ex-
actly.

The western part of the Roman Empire broke up
|ust about one thousand five hundred years ago. The
people of western Europe kept on using Roman nu-
merals for more than seven hundred years after the
Roman Empire had come to an end.

If Roman numerals are easy to grasp and explain, Ara-
bic numerals are even easier, especially since every-
one in our culture over the age of six already knows
about them (or is supposed to}. That means I can un-
derstand them, too, and need only find some aspect of
them that isn't entirely familiar.

Suppose we let the Arabic numerals represent
larger and larger numbers. How can we represent
such very large numl}ers and where do we stop?

To answer questions like that, I have my F & SF
essays. My first F & SF essay appeared in the Novem-
ber 1958 issue, and since then I have continued them
at monthly intervals, without missing an issue, for
twenty years. Six collections of F & SF essays are in-
cluded among my first hundred books, but I did not
stop there. Among my second hundred books are

OPUS 200                 141

seven more collections (plus four additional collec-
tions that included older F & SF essays, rearranged
and updated, from my first hundred books).

One of these new collections. Of Matters Great and
Small (Book 159), which Doubleday published in
1975, contains the following essay on very much larger
numbers:

"Skewered!" (1974)

I don't write many mathematical articles in this series,
and for a very good reason. I don't have a mathemati-
cal mind and I am not one of those who, by mere
thought, finds himself illuminated by a mathematical
concept.

I have, however, a nephew, Daniel Asimov by
name, who does have a mathematical mind. He is the
other Ph.D. in the family and he is now an Assistant
Professor of Mathematics at the University of Minne-
sota.

Some years ago, when he was yet a student at
M.I.T., Danny had occasion to write to Martin Gard-
ner and point out a small error in Gardner's excellent
"Mathematical Recreations" column in Scientific
American. Gardner acknowledged the error and wrote
me to tell me about it and to ask a natural question.
"Am I correct in assuming," said he, "that Daniel Asi-
mov is your son?"

Well! As everyone who knows me knows, I am only
a little past thirty right now and was only a little past
thirty at the time, some years ago, when this was tak-
ing place. I therefore wrote a letter to Gardner and
told him, with some stiff ness: "I am not old enough,

142

ISAAC ASIMOV

Martin, to have a son who is old enough to be going
to M.I.T. Dannv is the son of mv vounger brother."

Friends of mine who have heard me tell this story
keep assuring me that my statement involves a logical
contradiction, hut, as I sav, I do not have a mathemat-
ical mind, and I just don't see that.

And yet I must write another mathematical article
now because over eleven vears ago I wrote one in
which I mentioned Skewe-s* number as the largest fi-
nite number that ever showed up in a mathematical
proof.w Ever since then, people have been asking me
to write an article on Skewes" number. The first re-
quest came on September 3, 1963, almost immediately
after the article appeared. On that date, Mr. R. P.
Boas of Evanston, Illinois, wrote me a long and fasci-
nating letter on Skewes' number, with the clear inten-
tion of helping me write such an article.

I resisted that, along with repeated nudges from
others in the vears that followed, until March 3, 1974,
when, at Boskone 11 (a Boston science fiction con-
vention at which I was guest of honor), I was cor-
nered by a fan and had Skewes' number requested of
me- So I gave in. Eleven years of chivvying is
enough.! I am Skewered.

First, what is Skewes' number? Not the numerical

* See "T-Formation," reprinted in Adding a Dimension
(New York: Doubleday, 1964).

f 111 admit that I've been chivvied longer than that in some
respects. For seventeen years I have been requested, with
varying degrees of impatience, to write another U)e Baley
novel; and for over twenty years to write another Foundation
novel. So please don't anybody write letters that begin with
"If eleven years of chivvying is enough, why don't you——."
Because I'm doing all I can, that's why.

OPUS 200                 143

expression, but the significance. Here's the story as I
got it from Mr. Boas (though I will paraphrase it, and
if I get anything wrong, it's my fault, not his).

It involves prime numbers, which are those num-
bers .that cannot be divided evenly by any number
other than themselves and one. The numbers 7 and 13
are examples.

There are an infinite number of prime numbers,
but as one goes up the list of numbers, the fraction of
these numbers that are prime decreases. There is a
formula that tells you the number of primes to be
found in the list of numbers up to a given number,
but like everything else about prime numbers, the for-
mula is not neat and definite. It only tells you approx-
imately how many primes there will be up to some
limiting number.

Up to the highest limit that has actually been
tested, it turns out that the actual number of primes
that exist is somewhat less than is predicted by the
formula.

In 1914, however, the British mathematician John
Edensor Littlewood demonstrated that if one length-
ened the string of numbers one investigated for
primes, one would find that up to some limits there
would indeed be less than the formula predicted, but
that up to other limits there would be more than the
formula predicted.

In fact. if one continued up the line of numbers for-
ever, the actual total number of primes would switch
from less than the formula prediction to more than the
formula prediction to less than the formula prediction,
and so on—and make the switch an infinite number of
times. If that were not so, Littlewood demonstrated,
there would be a contradiction in the mathematical
structure and that, of course, cannot be allowed.

144

ISAAC ASIMOV

The only trouble is that as far as we have actually
gone in the list of numbers, not even one shift has
taken place. The number of primes is always less than
the formula would indicate. Of course, mathemati-
cians might just go higher and higher up the list of
numbers to see what happens, but that isn't so easy.
The higher one goes, the longer it takes to test num-
bers for primehood.

However, it might be possible to do some theoreti-
cal work and determine some number below which
the first switch from less than the prediction to more
than the prediction must take place- That will at least
set a limit to the work required.

Littlewood set S. Skewes (pronounced in two sylla-
bles, by the way, Skew'ease) the task of finding that
number. Skewes found that number and it proved to
be enormously large; larger than any other number
that ever turned up in the course of a mathematical
proof up to that time, and it is this number that is
popularly known as "Skewes' number."

Mind you, the proof does not indicate that one must
reach Skewes' number before the number of primes
shifts from less than the prediction to more. The proof
merely says that some time before that number is
reached—perhaps long long before—the shift must
have occurred.

A number as large as Skewes' number is difficult to
write. Some shorthand device must be used and the
device used is the excellent one of exponential nota-
tion.

Thus, 1000 = 10 X 10 X 10, so 1000 can be written as
10s (ten to the third power), where the little 3 is
called an "exponent." The little 3 signifies that 1000
can be considered the product of three 10s, or that it
can be written as 1 followed by three zeros. In gen-

OPUS 200                 145

eral, 10s (ten to the xth power) is the product of x 10s
and can be written as a 1 followed bv x zeros.

Since 10,000,000,000 is written as a 1 followed by 10
zeros, it can be written exponentially as 101" (ten to
the tenth power). In the same way, a 1 followed by
ten billion zeros, something that would be imprac-
tical to write, can be expressed exponentially as
lO10-"00-000-"'10 (ten to the ten billionth power). But
since ten billion is itself 1010, lo10.000.000.0"0 can be
written, even more briefly, as 101010.

Writing exponentials is always a strain when an arti-
cle is being written for a nonspecialized outlet- This is
especially so when one is forced to place exponents on
exponents. To avoid driving the Noble Printer crazy
and to make the notation look prettier, I have in-
vented a notation of my own. I make the exponent a
figure of normal size and it is as though it is being
held up by a lever, and its added weight when its size
grows bends the lever down. Thus, instead of writing
ten to the third power as 103, I will write it as
10\3.

In the same way, ten to the ten billionth power can
be written as 10\ 10,000,000,000 or as l0\10^10.

Using this "Asimovian exponential notation,"
Skewes' number becomes 10\10\,10\34.

Now let's see what Skewes' number might be in or-
dinary nonexponential notation. To do that, we must
consider the components of the exponential notation
from right to left. Starting at the right, we know what
34 is, we move leftward and consider 10'\34. This is
ten to the thirty-fourth power and can be written as a 1
followed by 34 zeros thus: 10,000,000,000,000,000,000,-
000,000,000.000,000, or, in words, ten decillion (Ameri-
can style). This means that Skewes' number can

146                ISAAC ASIMOV

be written ten 10\10\10,000,000,000,000.000,000.000,-
000,000,000,000.

So far, so good, if a bit disconcertingly formidable.
The next step is to move one place to the left and ask
how we might write: 10\ 10.000,000,000,000.000,000,-
000,000,000,000,000. Easy. You just put down a 1 and
then follow it by ten million billion billion billion
(or ten decillion, if you prefer) zeros.

If vou were to try to write such a number by begin-
ning with a 1 and then writing ten decillion zeros,
each the size of a hydrogen atom, you would require
nearly exactly the entire surface of the Earth to write
the number. Furthermore, if you wrote each zero in a
trillionth of a second and kept it up at that rate with-
out cessation, it would take a thousand trillion years
to write the entire number.

Anyway, let's call this number the "Earth-number,"
because it takes the Earth as a blackboard to write it.
and imagine that we can write it. Now we can write
Skewes' number as 10\ Earth-number, and this means
we now know how to write Skewes' number in the
usual fashion. We start with a one and then follow it
with an Earth-number of zeros.

This is tremendously more than the ten decillion ze-
ros it took merely to write the Earth-number. A num-
ber itself is much greater than the number of zeros it
takes to write it. It takes only one zero to write 10, but
the result is a number that is ten times greater than
the number ^>f zeros required to write it. In the same
way it takes ten zeros to write 10,000,000,000, but the
number written is ten billion, which is a billion times
greater in size than the number of zeros used to write
it.

Similarly it takes only ten decillion zeros to write

OPUS 200                147

the Earth-number, but the Earth-number itself is
enormously greater than that number or zeros.

To write not ten decillion zeros, but an Earth-
number of zeros, would require far more than the sur-
faces of all the objects in the known universe, even
with each zero the size of a hydrogen atom. A trillion
such universes as ours might suffice, and that is just
to write the Earth-number in a one followed by zeros.
Skewes' number itself, written by a one followed by
an Earth-number of zeros, is enormousiy, ENORMOUSLY
greater than the Earth-number tliat suffices to count
those zeros.

So let's forget about counting zeros; that will get us
nowhere. And if we abandon counting zeros, we don't
need to have our exponents as integers. Every number
can be expressed as a power of ten if we allow deci-
mal exponents. For instance, by using a logarithm ta-
ble, we can see that 34=10\1.53. So instead of writ-
ing Skewes' number as 10^10^10^34, we can write
it as 10\10'\10\10\1.53. (Such fractional expo-
nents are almost always only approximate, however.)

There are some advantages to stretching out the
large numbers into as many tens as is required to
make the rightmost number fall below ten. Then we
can speak of a "single-ten number," a "double-ten
number," a "triple-ten number," and so on. Skewes'
number is a "quadrupie-ten number."

We can't count objects and reach Skewes' number in
any visualizable way. Counting zeros is no help either.
Let us instead try to count permutations and combi-
nations,

Let me give you an example. In the ordinary deck
of cards used to play bridge, there are fifty-two dif-
ferent cards. (The number 52 is itself a single-ten

148

ISAAC ASIMOV

number, as are all the numbers between 10 and
10,000,000,000; 52^10\1.716.)

In the game of bridge, each of four people is dealt
thirteen cards. A player can, with equal probability,
get any combination of thirteen cards, and tlie order
in which he gets them doesn't matter. He rearranges
that order to suit himself. The total number of differ-
ent hands lie can get by receiving anv thirteen cards
out of tlie fifty-two (and I won't bother vou with how
it i.s calculated) is about 635.000,000,000. Since this
number is higher than ten billion, we can be sure it is
beyond tlie single-ten-number stage. Exponentially, it
can lie expressed as 6.35X10\11. Logarithms can
help us remove that multiplier and put its value into
the exponent at the cost of making that exponent a
decimal. Thus 6.35 X10\.11= 10\11.80. Since 11.80 is
over ten, we can express that, exponentially, as
11.80 = 10'\1.07.

Consequently, we can sav that the total number of
different hands a single bridge plaver can hold is
10'\10\J..07. Using onlv thirteen cards, we have, in a
perfectly understandable way, reached a double-ten
number. We might almost feel that we were halfway
to the quadruple-ten number that is Skewes*.

So let's take all fifty-two cards and let's arrange to
have the order count as well as the nature of the
cards. You begin with a deck in which tlie cards are-in
a certain order. You shuffle it and end witli a differ-
ent order. You shuffle it again and end with yet an-
other order. How many different orders are there?
Remember that any difference in order, however
small, makes a different order. If two orders arc iden-
tical except for the interchange of two adjacent cards,
they are two different orders.

To answer that Question, we figure that the first

OPUS 200                149

card can be any of the fiftv-two, the second any of the
remaining fifty-one, the third any of the remaining
fifty, and so on. The total number of different orders
is52X51X50X . . . 4X3X2X1, In other words, the
number of different orders is equal to the product of
the first fifty-two numbers. This is called "factorial
fifty-two" and can be written "521"

The value of 52! is, roughly, a one followed by
sixty-eight zeros; in other words, a hundred decillion
deciltion. (You are welcome to work out the multipli-
cation if you doubt this, but if you try, please be pre-
pared for a long haul.) This is an absolutely terrific
number to get out of one ordinary deck of cards that
most of us use constantly without any feeling of being
overwhelmed. The number of different orders into
which that ordinary deck can be placed is about ten
times as great as all the subatomic particles in our en-
tire Milky Way galaxy.

It would certainly seem that'if making use of thir-
teen cards with order indifferent lifted us high up.
making use of all fifty-two and letting order count
"will do much better still—until we try our exponential
notation. The number of orders into which fifty-two
different cards can be placed is 10\68 == 10\10\1.83.

That may strike you as strange. The number of or-
ders of fifty-two cards is something like a trillion tril-
lion decillion times higher tlian the number of bridge
hands of thirteen cards; yet, while the latter is
10\10\1.07, the former is only 10\10\1.83. Were
still in the "double-ten numbers" and we haven't even
moved up much,

The trouble is that the more tens we add to such
exponential numbers, the harder it is to move that
rightmost component. For instance, a trillion is ten
times as great as a hundred billion, and counting a

150

ISAAC ASIMOV

trillion objects would be an enormously greater task
than counting a hundred billion. Write tliem exponen-
tially, however, and it is 10\.12 as compared with
10\11, and the rightmost components are only a unit
apart. Write the twelve and the eleven as powers of
ten so that vou can make use of double-ten numbers,
and a trillion becomes 10\10\1.08, while a hundred
billion is 10\10\1.04 and the difference is scarcely
noticeable.

Or put it another way. The number'10\3 (which is
1000) is ten times as high as 10\2 (which is 100),
but the degree to which 10\10\3 is greater than
10\10\2 would require a 1 followed by 900 zeros to
be expressed. As for comparing -10\10\10\3 and
10\10\10\2, I leave that to you.

This is disheartening. Perhaps reaching the
quadruple-ten numbers won't be that easy after all.

Let's try one more trick with fifty-two cards. Sup-
pose each of the cards can be any card at all. Suppose
the deck can have two tens of diamonds or three aces
of clubs, or, for that matter, fifty-two threes of hearts.
The total number of orders of such a chameleonic
deck could be calculated by imagining that the first
card could be any one of fifty-two, and the second
card could be any one of fifty-two, and so on for all
fifty-two. To calculate the number of different orders,
you  would  have  to  take  the  product  of
52 X 52 X 52 X ... 52 X 52 X 52; fifty-two 52s. This
product which could be written 52\52 I might call
"superfactorial fifty-two," but if so, I would be using
a term I have just made up, so don't blame the mathe-
maticians.

Superfactorials are immensely larger than factorials.
Factorial fifty-two can be expressed by a one fol-
lowed by sixty-eight zeros, but superfactorial fifty-

OPUS 200                151

two is one followed by ninety zeros—ten billion tril-
lion times higher. Yet express it exponentially and
superfactorial 52 == 10\90 = 10\10'\1.95.

No good. We're still in the double-ten numbers.

Well just have to forget playing cards. We must
have more than fifty-two units to play with, and we
had better go all the way up; all the way up.

A generation or so ago, the British astronomer Ar-
thur S, Eddington calculated that the total number of
electrons, protons, and neutrons in the universe was
10\79, or 10\10\1.90. This number is arrived at if
we suppose that the sun is an average star, that there
are about a hundred billion stars in the average gal-
axy, and that there are a hundred billion galaxies in
the universe.

In addition to electrons, protons, and neutrons, of
course, there are numbers of unstable particles un-
known to Eddington, but their numbers are compara-
tively few. There are, liowever, massless particles such
as neutrinos, photons, and gravitons, which do not gen-
erally behave like particles but which are very numer-
ous in the universe.

If we wisli, we can suppose that the number of
massless particles speeding through space at any time
is nine times the number of massed particles (proba-
bly a grievous overestimate) and make the total num-
ber of subatomic particles in the universe 10\80, or
10\IO\1.903.

Now, at least, we are starting with a double-ten
number and that ought to do it. Skewes' number, here
we come. All we have to do is take the superfactorial
of  ,10\.80,  something  we  can  express  as
(l0\80)\(10\80).

Working tliat out (and I hope I'm doing it cor-
rectly), we get 10\10\81.9, or 10\10\10\1.91.

152

ISAAC ASIMOV

And that lifts us into the "triple-ten numbers" for
the first time. In fact, if we compare the superfac-
torial of the total number of subatomic particles in the
universe (which is IO'VIO'YIO^I.91) -with Skewes*
number  (which,  as  a triple-ten number, ' is
IOVIO^JOV.34), we might think we were almost
there.

We need to begin with something more than the
number of subatomic particles in the universe—how
about the amount of space in the universe?

The smallest unit of space we can conveniently deal
with is the volume of a neutron, a tiny globe that is
about 10'\ —13 centimeters in diameter, or one ten-
trillionth of a centimeter.

The observable universe has a radius of 12.5 bil-
lion light-years, or 1.25 X 10\10 light-years, and
each light-year is equal to just under 10\l3 kilo-
meters. Hence, the observable universe has a ra-
dius of roughly 10\23 kilometers. Since 1 kilo-
meter = 100,000, or 10\5, centimeters, the observable
universe has a radius of roughly 10X28 centimeters.
From this we can calculate the volume of the observ-
able universe to be roughly equal to 4.2 X 10\84 cubic
centimeters.

A neutron, with a diameter of ION.—13 centimeters,
has a volume that is equal to roughly 5 X 10\ — 40 cu-
bic centimeters. That means that the volume of the
observable universe is -roughly 2XlO\124, or
10\.124.3 times the volume of a single neutron.

Suppose we call the volume of space equal to that
of a neutron a "vacuon." We can then say that there
are 10X124.3 vacuous in the universe and call that the
"vacuon-number."

The vacuon-number is nearly a billion billion bil-

OPUS 200                153

lion billion billion times greater than the number of
subatomic particles in the universe, so we can feel
pretty confident about the superfactorial of the
vacuon-number, which is (10^124.3)^(10^124.3).
except that this comes out to 10\10\1Q\2.10...

Despite the vastly greater quantity of empty space
than of matter in the universe, -the rightmost compo-
nent of the triple-ten number went up only from 1.91
to 2.10, with 34 as the goal. That's enough to depress
us, but wait-
In considering the number of vacuons in the uni-
verse, we imagined it as existing at a moment in time.
But time moves, and the universe changes. A sub-
atomic particle that occupies one place at one moment
may occupy another place at another moment. The
most rapidly moving particles are, of course, the mass-
less ones which move at the speed of light.

The speed of light is Just about 3 X 10'\10 centime-
ters per second, and the smallest distance one can
move with some significance is the diameter of a neu-
tron, which is 10\ —13 centimeters. A photon will
flash the width of a neutron, then, in about
3 X 10\ —24 seconds. We can consider this the small-
est unit of time that has physical meaning and call it
the "chronon."0

To imagine a long period of time, let's consider
what we can call the "cosmic cycle," one period of ex-
pansion and contraction of the universe (assuming it
is oscillating). Some have guessed the length of the
cosmic cycle to be 80,000,000,000, or 8 X 10\10, years.

* Stanley G. Weinbaum once imagined ;>pace and time
quantized in this fashion in one of his science fiction stories
and med the word "chronoii" for his ultimate particle of
time.

154

ISAAC ASIMOV

The number of chronons in one cosmic cycle, then,
is roughly l0\42.

In every chronon of time, the universe is slightly
different from what it was in the preceding chronon
or what it will be in the next chronon, because,'if
nothing else, every free-moving photon, neutrino, and
graviton has shifted its position by the width of one
neutron in some direction or other with each chronon
that passes.

Therefore we might consider the total number of
vacuons not only in the present universe, but also in
the one that existed in the last chronon, the one that
will exist in the next chronon, and, in general, all the
universes in all the chronons through a cosmic cycle,
(To be sure, the expansion and contraction of the uni-
verse alters its vacuon content—these increasing in
number with expansion and decreasing with contrac-
tion—but we can suppose that the present size of the
universe is about average.)

In that case, then, the total number of vacuons
through every chronon of the cosmic cycle is just
about l<r\ 166.3. What this means is that if you wish
to place a proton somewhere in the universe at some
instant in time, you have (under the conditions I've
described-) a choice of 10'\166.3 different positions.

But if you take the superfactorial of this enor-
mous "total-vacuon number," you end up with
10\10\10\2.27.

We have hardly moved. I Just can't seem to move
those triple-ten numbers and make progress toward
Skewes* number. I am Skewered.

In fact, it's worse tlian that. According to Mr. Boas,
Skewes' determination of Skewes' number depended
on the supposition that something called the "Rie-

OPUS 200                155

mann- hypothesis" is true. It probably is, but no one
has proved it to be so.

In 1955 Skewes published a paper in which he cal-
culated the value of the number below which the
number of primes must be higher at some point than
the formula would predict, if the Riemann hypothesis
were not true.

tt turns out _that the Riemann-hypothesis-not-true
case yields a number that is far higher than Skewes'
number. The new number, Or what I suggest we call
the Super-Skewes number, is 10\10\10\1000, or
10\10\10\10\3.

The Super-Skewes number and Skewes' number are
both quadruple-ten numbers-10\10\10\10\3 and
10\10\10\10\1.53 respectively-and the differ-
ence in the rightmost component seems to be small.
However, vou saw what difficulty there was in budg-
ing the triple-ten numbers upward. Well, moving the
quadruple-ten numbers upward is far harder still, and
Skewes' number is virtually zero in comparison to the
Super-Skewes number.

If I had reached Skewes' number, I would still have
had the Super-Skewes number ahead of me. I would
have been Super-Skewered.

PART 4

PHYSICS

My major work, as far as physics is concerned, is my
three-volume Understanding Phvsics, which is in-
cluded among my first hundred books. Once that was
done, there was little I could do in physics but forage
about the edges of the subject and approach a differ-
ent audience.

Among the small books for eight-year-olds that I
wrote for Follett, and mentioned earlier, there is one
book on physics— Light (Boo^ 208). From that book,
here is the description of the spectrum:

from LIGHT (1970)

Light energy comes out of atoms in tiny amounts
called photons." Different kinds of atoms give off
different kinds of photons; each kind carries a differ-
ent amount of energy.

Photons of light are said to move up and down rap-
idly as they speed outward. Scientists think of them as
speeding along in a wavy motion. Photons travel as
"light waves."

The photons in light cause our eyes to see certain
colors. Certain low-energy photons make us see the
color red. Those with a little more energy make us see

160                 ISAAC ASIMOV

orange. With still a little more energy we see yellow
. . . then green . . . then blue, and finally violet.

Sunlight is made up of different kinds of light
waves. Each kind has its own length, its own kind of
photons, and its own amount of energy. The light
waves in a sunbeam can be spread out separately. A
special piece of glass with three flat sides will do this.
Such a piece of glass is called a "prism."

When separated light from a prism falls on a white
wall, vou can see a band of assorted colors. These are
made by the sorted-out light waves. Those having the
lowest energy cause you to see the red at one end of
the band. Those having the highest energy cause you
to see violet at the other end. You can also see other
colors in between. A beautiful band is made when
you separate the light waves in sunlight. It is called
the "solar spectrum." Other kinds of light give differ-
ent spectrum patterns.

A rainbow looks like a spectrum because it is a
spectrum. After a rainstorm, the air is still filled with
tiny droplets of water. Each droplet acts like a prism.
When the sun comes out and shines through the drop-
lets, the photons are sorted out. Then we see a rain-
bow, a spectrum in the sky.

Back in 1966, the editor of Science Digest asked if I
would do a small item for him. The magazine had a
department called "Please Explain," in which readers'
questions were answered. One question was a poser
that dealt with how often body cells are replaced..

Knowing the answer wasn't enough; it had to be
given in five hundred words and made both thorough
and clear. Being a cheerful idiot not much given to
worry and introspection, 1 undertook to answer the

OPUS 200                161

question for a reasonably small sum and did so. My
essay was published in the June 1966 issue of the
magazine.

What followed was absolutely predictable—which
doesn't mean to say that I predicted it, for I am often
thoroughly astonished when the predictable comes to
pass. In a couple of months, the magazine asked me to
do another essay on another catchy question, then an-
other, and another, and before the year was out, I
found that what I was doing was, in effect, a monthly
column.

I was fust getting ready to ask the editor if that was
what he really had in mind, when I received an issue
of the magazine in which the department was no
longer headed "Please Explain"; it had become "Isaac
Asimov Explains." That made it clear to the meanest
intelligence (meaning mine, for instance} that indeed
it was a column 1 was writing.

The column continued for over nine years before I
managed to get out of it. In 1974, there was a change
of editor, and when the new editor told me he wanted
to reorganize the magazine, I promptly asked him if
he wanted to end the column. He did.

I didn't consider it a tragic event, because I had
completed a goal I had set myself some years before, I
had written a hundred of these essays, and it had
been my intention to put the essays into book form
once a hundred of them had been done.

Houghton Mifflin published the collection in 1973 as
Please Explain (Book 143). Here are three selections
dealing with physics:

162                  ISAAC AS1MOV

from PLEASE EXPLAIN (2973)

What is the speed of gravitation?

A longer but perhaps clearer way of putting the ques-
tion is this: Suppose the sun suddenly ceased to exist
and vanished into nothingness. How long would it be
before the earth would cease to be held by its gravita-
tional field?

A similar question might be: How long after the
sun disappears would the earth cease receiving its
light?

We know the answer to the second question quite
well. We know that the sun is just under 93 million
miles from earth and we also know that light travels
at 186,282 miles per second through a vacuum. The
last bit of light leaving the sun, just before it disap-
peared, would take 8.3 minutes to reach the earth. In
other words, we would see the sun disappear 8.3 min-
utes after it really disappeared.

The reason it is easy to answer the question about
light is that there are a number of ways of actually
measuring the speed at which light travels. These
measurements are made practical by our ability to de-
tect changes in the very faint light emitted by a dis-
tant heavenly body, and by our own ability to pro-
duce quite strong beams of light.

We don't have these advantages with gravitational
fields. It is very difficult to study faint changes in
weak gravitational fields, and we can't produce strong
gravitational effects extending over long distances
here on earth.

So we have to fall back on theory. There are four
types of interactions known in the universe: (1)

OPUS 200

163

v

strong nuclear, (2) weak nuclear, (3) electromag-
netic, and (4) gravitational. Of these, the first two are
short-range, falling off very rapidly with distance. At
distances greater than the width of an atomic nucleus,
the nuclear interactions are so weak they can be ig-
nored. The electromagnetic and gravitational interac-
tions are long-range, however. They fall off only at
the square of the distance. This means they can make
themselves felt even over astronomical distances.

Physicists believe that everv interaction between
two bodies takes place through the exchange of sub-
atomic particles. The more massive the exchange parti-
cle, the shorter-ranged the interaction. Thus, the
strong nuclear interaction results from the exchange of
pions, which are 270 times as massive as electrons.
The weak nuclear interaction results from the ex-
change of even more massive W-particles (which
haven't been detected yet, by the way).

If an exchange particle has no mass at all, then the
interaction is as long-range as possible, and this is the
case with the electromagnetic interaction. The ex-
change particle there is the massless photon. A stream
of such massless photons makes up a beam of light or
related radiations. The gravitational interaction, ex-
actly as long-range as the electromagnetic one, must
also involve a massless exchange particle—which is
called a graviton.

But physicists have strong reason to suppose that
massless particles can travel through a vacuum only at
the speed of light; that is, at 186,282 miles per second,
neither more nor less.

If this is so, then gravitons travel at exactly the
speed of photons. This means that if the sun were to
disappear, the last gravitons it emits would reach us

164

ISAAC ASIMOV

at just the same time that the last photons would. At
the instant we saw the sun disappear, we would also
cease to be under its gravitational pull.

In other words, gravitation travels at the speed of
light.

Why can't matter travel faster than the speed of light?

Energy added to a body can affect it in a number of
ways. If a hammer strikes a nail in midair, the nail
goes flying off, gaining kinetic energy—in other
words, energy of motion. If a hammer strikes a nail
embedded in hard wood, so that the nail can't move,
the nail still gains energy—but in the form of heat.

Albert Einstein, in his theory of relativity, showed
that mass could be viewed as a form of energy (and
the invention of the atom bomb certainly proved him
correct). If energy is added to a body, that energy
may therefore appear in the form of mass, as well as
in other forms.

Under ordinary conditions, the gain of energy in the
form of mass is so incomprehensibly tiny that no one
could ever measure it. It was only in the twentieth
century, when subatomic particles were observed to
move at speeds of tens of thousands of miles per sec-
ond, that examples of mass increase were found that
were large enough to be detectable. A body moving at
160,000 miles a second relative to ourselves would be
measured by us as having twice as much mass as
when it was at rest relative to ourselves.

If energy is added to any freely moving body, that
energy can enter the body in one of two ways: (1) as
velocity, so that its speed of motion increases, and (2)
as mass, so that it becomes, "heavier." The divison be-

OPUS 200

165

tween these two forms of energy-gain, as measured by
ourselves, depends upon the speed of the body to be-
gin with, again as measured by ourselves.

If the body is going at ordinary velocities, virtually
all the added energy enters the body as velocity, and
the body moves faster and faster with hardly any
change in mass.

As the speed of the moving body increases (and
as we imagine additional energy constantly being
pumped into it), less and less of the energy enters as
velocity and more and more as mass. We note that,
though the body is still moving faster and faster, its
rate of gaining speed is falling off. Instead, we note
that it is becoming more massive at a slightly greater
rate.

As its speed increases still further and gets fairly
close to the 186,282 miles per second that is the speed
of light in a vacuum, almost all the added energy en-
ters as mass. In other words, the speed of motion of
the body increases very slowly, but now it is the mass
that is moving upward bv leaps and bounds. By the
time the speed of light is reached, all the added en-
ergy is appearing as additional mass.

The body cannot go faster than the speed of light
because to make it do so one must impart additional
energy to it and, at the speed of light, all that addi-
tional energy, however great, will merely be converted
into additional mass, and the body will not increase
its speed one iota.

Nor is this "just theory." Scientists have been care-
fully observing the speeding subatomic particles for
years. Cosmic ray particles exist with unimaginably
high energy contents, yet though their mass climbs
high indeed, their speeds never quite reach that of
light in a vacuum. The mass and velocity of subatomic

166

ISAAC ASIMOV

particles work out to just what the theory of relativity
predicts, and the speed of light is a maximum speed as
a matter of observed fact and is not merely specula-
tion.

In the atom bomb, matter is converted into energy. Is
it possible to do the reverse and convert energy into
matter?

It is certainly possible to change energy into matter,
but to do so in large quantities is impractical. Let us
see why.

According to Einstein's special theory of relativity,
e == me2, where e represents energy, measured in ergs,
m represents mass in grams, and c is the speed of light
in centimeters per second.

Light travels through a vacuum with a speed of
very nearly 30 billion (3 X 1010) centimeters per sec-
ond. The quantity c2 represents the product of c X c;

that is, 3 X 1010 X 3 X 1010, or 9 X lO^0. This means that
c2 is equal to 900,000,000.000,000,000,000.

A mass of 1 gram (m=l) can therefore be con-
verted, in theory, into 9 X lO"0 ergs of energy. The av-
erage American is more familiar with the ounce
(equal to 28.35 grams) as a unit of mass. One ounce
of matter represents 2.55 X 10s-'2 ergs of energy.

The erg is a very small unit of energy. The more
familiar kilo-calorie is equal to nearly 42 billion ergs.
An ounce of matter turned into energy would yield
6.1 X1011 (or 610 billion) kilo-calories. You can keep
alive very comfortably on 2500 kilocalories a day, ob-
tained from the food you eat. If you had the energy
available to you that is represented by a single ounce
of matter, you would have a supply that would last

OPUS 200                167

you 670,000 years, which is a lot by anybody's stan-
dards.

To put it another way, if the energy represented by
a single ounce of matter could be turned completely
into electrical energy, it would keep a hundred-watt
electric light bulb burning continuously for 800,000
years.

To put it still another way, the energy represented
by a single ounce of matter is equivalent to that ob-
tained by burning 200 million gallons of gasoline.

It is no wonder, then, that in nuclear bombs, where
sizable quantities of matter are turned into energy, so
much destruction is turned loose in the explosion of
one bomb.

The change works both ways. If matter can be
turned into energy, then energy can be turned into
matter. This can be done anytime in the laboratory. A
very energetic particle of energy—a gamma ray pho-
ton—can be converted into an electron and a positron
without much trouble. The process is thereby re-
versed, and energy is, in this way, turned into matter.

The matter formed, however, consists of two very
light particles, almost vanishingly small in mass. Can
the same principle be used to form more matter—even
enough matter to be seen?

Ah, but you can't beat the arithmetic. If an ounce of
matter can be converted into as much energy as is
produced by burning 200 million gallons of gasoline,
then it will take all the energy produced by burning
200 million gallons of gasoline to manufacture a mere
ounce of matter.

Even if someone were willing to make the demon-
stration and go to all the expense involved in collect-
ing all that energy (and perhaps several times as
much, allowing for inevitable wastage) just to form

168                 ISAAC ASIMOV

an ounce of matter, it still couldn't be done. All that
energy simply could not be produced quickly enough
and concentrated into a small enough volume to pro-
duce an ounce of matter all at once.

Thus, the conversion is possible in theory, but is
completely impracticable. To be sure, the matter of
the universe was once formed presumably from en-
ergy, but certainly not under any set of conditions we
can possibly duplicate in the laboratory today.

The Science Digest column wasn't the only thing my
inability to say a literary no had gotten me into.
Among my first hundred books is a small one I did for
the Atomic Energy Commission called The Genetic
Effects of Radiation, It earned me only a small flat
sum, and there were no royalties since the booklet was
distributed by the AEC, as a public service, to anyone
who asked for it.

Naturally, I couldn't very well argue myself into the
proposition that I must never do a public service, so I
had agreed to do the book. And, naturally, the AEC,
having tasted blood, asked for more. In the course of
my second hundred books, I did two more booklets
for the AEC. One is Electricity and Man {Book 123}
and the other is Worlds Within Worlds {Book 131},
both on physics.

Worlds Within Worlds was to be on the history of
the development of nuclear energy, and it was to be
only ten thousand words long. It ran away with me,
however, as books sometimes do, and by the time I
screeched to a half, panting and lightly perspiring, I
had done thirty thousand. The AEC cheefully put it
out as three booklets, but I listed it in my records as a
single book.

OPUS 200                 169

From Worlds Within Worlds, here is my discussion
of the development of the first nuclear reactor:

from WORLDS WITHIN WORLDS (1972)

Earlier in this history, we discussed chain reactions in-
volving chemical energy. A small bit of energy can ig-
nite a chemical reaction that would produce more
than enough energy to ignite a neighboring section of
the system, which would in turn produce still more—
and so on, and so on. In this way the flame of a single
match could start a fire in a leaf that would bum
down an entire forest, and the energy given off by the
burning forest would be enormously higher than the
initial energy of the match flame.

Might there not be such a thing as a nuclear chain
reaction? Could one initiate a nuclear reaction that
would produce something thafr would initiate more of
the same that would produce something that would
initiate still more of the same and so on?

In that case, a nuclear reaction, once started, would
continue of its own accord, and in return for the tri-
fling investment that would serve to start it—a single
neutron, perhaps—a vast amount of breakdowns
would result with the delivery of a vast amount of en-
ergy, Even if it were necessary to expend quite a bit
of energy to produce the one neutron that would start
the chain reaction, the end profit would be enormous.

What's more, since the nuclear reaction would
spread from nucleus to nucleus with millionths-of-a-
second intervals, there would be, in a very brief time,
so many nuclei breaking down that there would be a
vast explosion. The explosion would be millions of
times as powerful as ordinary chemical explosions in-

170

ISAAC ASIMOV

volving the same quantity of exploding material, since
the latter use only the electromagnetic interaction,
while the former use the much stronger nuclear inter-
action.

The Hrst to think seriously of such a nuclear chain
reaction was the Hungaiian phvsicist Leo Szilard. He
was working in Germany in 1933 when Adolf Hitler
came to power and, since he was Jewish, he felt it
would be wise to leave Germany. He went to Great
Britain and there, in 1934, he considered new types of
nuclear reactions that had been discovered.

In these, it sometimes happened that a fast neutron
might strike a nucleus with sufficient energy to cause
it to emit two neutrons. In that wav the nucleus, ab-
sorbing one neutron and emitting two, would become
a lighter isotope of the same element.

But what would happen if each of the two neutrons
that emerged from the original target nucleus struck
new nuclei and forced the emission of a pair of neu-
trons from each. There would now be a total of four
neutrons flving about, and if each struck new nuclei
there would next be eight neutrons, and so on. From
the initial investment of a single neutron there might
soon be countless billions initiating nuclear reactions.

Szilard, fearing the inevitability of war and fearing
that the brutal leaders of Germany might seek and use
such a nuclear chain reaction as a weapon in warfare,
secretly applied for a patent on a device that could
make use of such a nuclear chain reaction. He hoped
to turn it over to the British government, which might
then use its possession as a way of restraining the Na-
zis and keeping the peace.

However, it wouldn't have worked. It took the im-
pact of a very energetic neutron to bring about the
emission of two neutrons. The neutrons that then

OPUS 200                 171

emerged from the nucleus simply didn't have enough
energy to keep things going. (It was like trying to
make wet wood catch fire.)

But what about uranium fission? Uranium fission
was initiated by slow neutrons. What if uranium fis-
sion produced neutrons as well as being initiated by a
neutron? Would not the neutrons produced serve to
initiate new fissions that would produce new neutrons
and so on endlessly?

It seemed very likely that fission produced neu-
trons, and, indeed, at the conference where fission
was first discussed, Enrico Fermi suggested it at once,
Massive nuclei possessed more neutrons per proton
than less massive ones did. If a massive nucleus was
broken up into two considerably less massive ones,
there would be a surplus of neutrons. Suppose, for
instance, uranium-238 broke down into barium-138
and krypton-86. Barium-138 contains 82 neutrons, and
krypton-86, 50 neutrons, for .a total of 132. The
uranium-238 nucleus, however, contains 146 neutrons.

The uranium fission process was studied at once to
see if neutrons were actually given off, and a number
of different physicists, including Szilard, found that
they were,

Now Szilard was faced with a nuclear chain reac-
tion he was certain would work. Only slow neutrons
were involved and the individual nuclear breakdowns
were far more energetic than anything else that had
yet been discovered. If a chain reaction could be
started in a sizable piece of uranium, unimaginable
quantities of energy would be produced. Just one
gram of uranium, undergoing complete fission, would
deliver the energy derived from the total burning of
three tons of coal and would deliver that energy in a
tiny fraction of a second.

172

ISAAC ASIMOV

Szilard, who had come to the United States in 1937,
clearly visualized the tremendous explosive force of
something that would have to be called a nuclear
bomb. Szilard dreaded the possibility that Hitler
might obtain the use of such a bomb through the
agency of Germany's nuclear scientists.

Partly through Szilard's efforts, physicists in the
United States and in other Western nations opposed to
Hitler began a program of voluntary secrecy in 1940
to avoid passing along any hints to Germany. What's
more, Szilard enlisted the services of two other Hun-
garian refugees, the physicists Eugene Paul Wigner
and Edward Teller, and all approached Einstein, who
had also fled Germany and come to America.

Einstein was the most prestigious scientist then liv-
ing, and it was thought that a letter from him to the
President of the United States would be most persua-
sive. Einstein signed such a letter, which explained
the possibility of a nuclear bomb and urged the
United States not to allow a potential enemy to come
into possession of it first.

Largely as a result of this letter, a huge research
team was put together in the United States, to which
other Western nations also contributed. It had but one
aim—to develop the nuclear bomb.

Although the theory of the nuclear bomb seemed
clear and simple, a great many practical difficulties
stood in the way. In the first place, if only uranium
atoms underwent fission, a supply of uranium had at
least to be obtained in pure form, for if the neutrons
struck nuclei of elements other than uranium, they
would simply be absorbed and removed from the sys-
tem, ending the possibility of a chain reaction. This
alone was a heavy task. There had been so little use
for uranium in quantity" that there was almost no sup-

OPUS 200

173

ply in existence and no experience in how to purify'it.

Secondly, the supply of uranium might have to be a
large one, for neutrons didn't necessarily enter the
first uranium atom they approached. They moved
about here and there, making glancing collisions and
traveling quite a distance, perhaps, before striking
head-on and entering a nucleus. If in that time they
had passed outside the lump of uranium, they were
useless.

As the quantity of uranium within which the fission
chain reaction was initiated grew laiger, more and
more of the neutrons produced found a mark, and the
fission reaction died out more and more slowly. Fi-
nally, at some particular size—the "critical sizes'—the
fission ieaction did not die at all, but maintained it-
self, with enough of the neutrons produced finding
their mark to keep the nuclear reaction proceeding at
a steady rate. At any greater size the nuclear reaction
would accelerate and there would be an explosion.

It wasn't even necessary to send neutrons into the
uranium to start the process. In 1941 the Russian phys-
icist Georgii Nikolaevich Flerov found that every
once in a while a uranium atom would undergo fission
without the introduction of a neutron. Occasionally
the random quivering of a nucleus would bring about
a shape that the nuclear interaction could not bring
back to normal, and the nucleus would then break
apart. In a gram of ordinary uranium, there is a nu-
cleus undergoing such "spontaneous fission" every
two minutes on the average. Therefore, enough ura-
nium need only be brought together to surpass criti-
cal size and it will explode within seconds, for the
first nucleus that undergoes spontaneous fission will
start the chain reaction.

First estimates made it seem that the quantity of

174

ISAAC ASIMOV

uranium needed to reach critical size was extraordi-
narily great. Fully 99.3 percent of the metal is
uranium-238, however, and, as soon as fission was dis-
covered, Bohr pointed out that there were theoretical
reasons for supnosin^ that it was the uranium-235 iso-
tope (making up onlv 0.7 percent of the whole) that'
was the one undergoing fission. Investigation proved
him right. Indeed, the uranium-238 nucleus tended to
absorb slow neutrons without fission, and to go on to
beta-particle production that formed isotopes of nep-
tunium and plutonium. In this way uranium-238 ac-
tually interfered with the chain reaction.

In any quantity of uranium, the more uranium-235
present and the less uranium-238, the more easily the
chain reaction would proceed and the less the critical
size need be. Vast efforts were therefore made to sep-
arate the two isotopes and prepare uranium with a
higher than normal concentration of uranium-235
("enriched uranium").

Of course, there was no great desire for a fearful
explosion to get out of hand while the chain reaction
was being studied. Before any bomb could be con-
structed, the mechanism of the chain reaction would
have to be studied. Could a chain reaction capable of
producing energy (for useful purposes as well as for
bombs) be established? To test this, a quantity of
uranium was gathered in the hope that a controlled
chain reaction of uranium fission could be estab-
lished. For that purpose, control rods of a substance
that would easily absorb neutrons and slow the chain
reaction were used. The metal, cadmium, served ad-
mirably for this purpose.

Then, too, the neutrons released by fission were
pretty energetic. They tended to travel too far too

OPUS 200                 175

soon and get outside the lump of uranium too easily.
To produce a chain reaction that could be studied
with some safetv, the presence of a moderator was
needed. This was a supply of small nuclei that did not
absorb neutrons readily, but absorbed some of the en-
ergy of collision and slowed down any neutron that
struck it. Nuclei such as hydrogen-2. beryllium-9, or
carbon-12 were useful moderators. When the neutrons
produced by fission were slowed, they traveled a
smaller distance before being absorbed in their turn,
and the critical size would again be reduced.

Toward the end of 1942 the initial stage of the pro-
ject reached a climax. Blocks of graphite containing
uranium metal and uranium oxide were piled up in
huge quantities (enriched uranium was not vet avail-
able) in order to approach critical size. This took
place under the stands of a football stadium at the
University of Chicago, with Enrico Fermi (who had
come to the United States in 1938) in charge.

The large structure was called an "atomic pile" at
first because of the blocks of graphite being piled up.
The proper name for such a device, and the one that
was eventually adopted, was, however, "nuclear reac-
tor."

On December 2, 1942, calculations showed that the
nuclear reactor was large enough to have reached crit-
ical size. The only thing preventing the chain reaction
from sustaining itself was the cadmium rods that were
inserted here and there in the pile and that were soak-
ing up neutrons.

One by one the cadmium rods were pulled out. The
number of uranium atoms undergoing fission each
second rose and, finally, at 3:45 P.M., the uranium fis-
sion became self-sustaining. It kept going on its own

176

ISAAC ASIMOV

(with the cadmium rods ready to be pushed in if it
looked as though it were getting out of hand—
something calculations showed was not likely).

News of this success was announced to Washington
by a cautious telephone call from Arthur Holly Comp-
ton to James Bryant Conant. "The Italian navigator
has landed in the New World," said Compton. Conant
asked, "How were the natives?" and the answer was,
"Very friendly."

This was the day and moment when the world en-
tered the "nuclear age." For the first time, mankind
had constructed a device in which the nuclear energy
being given off was greater than the energy poured
in. Mankind had tapped the reservoirs of nuclear en-
ergy and could put it to use.

PART 5

CHEMISTRY

Although chemistry is the field m which I obtained
my degrees (including my Ph.D.) and although I am
still an associate professor of biochemistry at Boston
University School of Medicine (though I haven't
worked at it these past few decades), I do not write
as much in the field of chemistry as I do in physics or
astronomy.

In my first hundred books are such titles as The
Noble Gases, Photosynthesis, and Life and Energy,
which were all strongly chemical in content, but in
the second hundred books not a single full-sized non-
fiction book is devoted to chemistry. This was not on
purpose, 1 assure you.

However, things work out.

In 1975, I received a suggestion from Alan R.
Bechtold of Topeka, Kansas, that I write a science fic-
tion short story for him. He wanted to put out a series
of booklets of about six thousand words apiece, each
to consist of an original story from a well-known sci-
ence fiction writer. The booklets would he put out in
strictly limited editions and would be sold primarily
at fan conventions. When the limited edition was sold
out, the story would revert to the author.

Unexpectedly, the concept appealed to me. For one
thing, I got an idea at once and that always helps. As

180

ISAAC ASIMOV

it happened, the idea resulted in one of the few sci-
ence fiction stories I wrote that centered on chemis-
try. I called it Good Taste, and it was published in
1976, entering my list as Book 174.

1 wish I could report that the envisioned series was
a success, but it wasn't. My hook did well, but waiting
for the next writer to meet his obligation was a long
procedure and Bechtold run out of money, I'm sorry
to say.

Anyway, here is Good Taste in full:

GOOD TASTE (1976)

It was quite clear that it would not have happened—
the family would not have been disgraced and the
world of Gammer would not have been stunned and
horrified—if Chawker Minor had not made the Grand
Tour.

It wasn't exactly illegal to make the Grand Tow-
but, on Gammer at least, it was not really socially ac-
ceptable. Elder Chawker had been against it from the
start, to do him justice, but then Lady Chawker took
the side of her minor, and mothers are, at times, not to
be withstood. Chawker was her second child (both of
them sons, as it happened) and she would have no
more, of course, so it was not surprising that she doted
on him.

Her younger son had wanted to see the Other-
Worlds of the Orbit and had promised to stay away no
longer than a year. She had wept and worried and
gone into a tragic decline and then, finally, had dried
her eyes and spoken stiffly to Elder Chawker—and
Chawker Minor had gone.

Now he was back. one year to the day (he was al-

OPUS 200

181

ways one to keep his word, and, besides. Elder's sup-
port would have ceased the day after, never fear),
and the familv made holiday.

Elder wore a new, black glossy shirt but would not
permit the prim lines of his face to relax, nor would he
stoop to ask for details. He had no interest—no interest
whatever—in the Other-Worlds with their strange
ways and their primitive browsing (no better than the
ways on Earth, of which Cammerpeople never
spoke).

He said, "Your complexion is dirtied and spoiled,
Chawker Minor." (The use of the full name showed
his displeasure.)

Chawker laughed and the clear skin of his rather
thin face crinkled. "I staved out of the sun as much as
I could. Elder-mine, but the Other-Woriders would
not alwavs have it so."

Lady Chawker would have none of Elder's criticism
either. She said warmly, "It isn;t dirtied at all, Elder.
It breathes a warmth."

"Of the Sun," grumbled Elder, "and it would be
next that he would be grubbing in the filth they have
there."

"No farming for me. Elder. That's hard work. I vis-
ited the fungus vats at times, though."

Chawker Major, older than Minor by three years,
wider of face, heavier of body, but otherwise of close
resemblance, was torn between envy of his younger
brother's having seen different worlds of the Orbit
and revulsion at the thought of it. He said, "Did you
eat their Prime, Minor?"

"I had to eat something," said Chawker Minor. "Of
course, there were your packages. Lady-mine—
lifesavers, sometimes."

"I suppose," said Elder Chawker with distaste, "the

182

ISAAC ASIMOV

Prime was inedible there. Who can tell the Eith that
found its way into it."

"Come now. Elder-mine." Chawker paused, as
though attempting to choose words, then shrugged.
"Well, it held body and soul together. One got used to
it. I won't say more than that . . . But, Elder-Lady-
mine, I am so glad to be home. The lights are so warm
and gentle."

"You've enough of the Sun, I take it," said Elder.
"But you woulcJ go. Well, welcome back to the inner
world with light and warmth under our control,
locked away from the patch and blaze of sunshine.
Welcome back to the womb of the people, as the say-
ing goes."

"Yet I'm glad I went," said Chawker Minor. "Eight
different worlds, you know. It gives you a view you
don't have otherwise."

"And would be better off not having," said Elder.

"I'm not sure about that," said Chawker Minor, and
his right eyelid trembled just slightly as he looked at
Major. Chawker Major's lips compressed but he said
nothing.

It was a feast- Anyone would have had to admit that,
and in the end it was Chawker Minor himself, the
greediest to begin with, who was the first to push
away. He had no choice; else Lady would have kept
on supplying him with samples out of what seemed to
be a bottomless larder.

"Lady-mine," he said affectionately, "my tongue
wearies. I can no longer taste anything."

"You not taste?" said Lady. "What kind of nithling
story is that? You have the skill of the Grand-Elder
himself. At the age of six, you were already a Gusta-
tor; we had endless proof of that. There was not an

OPUS 200                 183

additive you could not detect even when you could
not pronounce it right."

'Taste buds bkint when not used," said Elder
Chawker darkly, "and jogging the Other-Worlds can
utterly spoil a man."

"Yes? Well, let us see," said Ladv. "Minor-mine, tell
your doubting Elder what you have eaten."

"In order?" said Chawker Minor.

"Yes. Show him vou remember."

Chawker Minor closed his eyes. "It's scarcely a fair
test," he said. "I so relished the taste I did not pause
to analyze it—and it's been so long."

"He has excuses, See, Ladv?" said Elder.

"But I will trv," Chawker Minor said hastily. "In the
first place, the Prime base for all of them is from the
fungus vats of the East Section and tlie thirteenth cor-
ridor within it, I believe, unless great changes have
been made in my absence."

"No, you are right," said Lady. with satisfaction.

"And it was expensive," said Elder.

'The prodigal returns," said Chawker Major just a
bit acidly, "and we must have the fatted fungus, as
the saying goes . . . Get the additives. Minor, if you
can."

"Well," said Chawker Minor, "the first dab was
strongly Spring Morning with added Leaves A-
Freshened and a touch, not more than a touch, of
Spara-Sprig."

"Perfectly right," said Ladv, smiling happily.

Chawker Minor went on with the list, his eyes still
closed, his taste memory rolling backward and for-
ward luxuriously over the tang and consistency of the
samplings. He skipped the eighth and came back to it.

"That one," he said, "puzzles me."

Chawker Major grinned. "Didn't you get any of it?"

184

ISAAC ASIMOV

"Of course I did. I got most of it. There was Frisk-
ing Lamb—not Leaping Lamb, either, Frisking, even
though it leaned just a little toward Leaping."

"Come on, don't try to make it hard. That's easy,"
said Chawker Major. "What else?"                ,

"Green Mint, with just a touch of Sour Mint—both—
and a dusting of Sparkle-Blood . . . But there was
something else I couldn't identify."

"Was it good?" asked Chawker Major.

"Good? This isn't the day to ask me that. Every-
thing is good. Everything is succulent. And what I
can't identify seems very succulent. It's close to Hedge
Bloom, but better."

"Better?" said Chawker Major delightedly. "It's
mine!"

"What do you mean, yours?" said Chawker Minor.

Elder said with stiff approval, "My stay-at-home
son has done well while you were gone. He devised a
computer program that has designed and produced
three new life-compatible flavor molecules of consid-
erable promise. Grand-Elder Tomasz himself has
given one of Major's constructions tongue-room—the
very one you just tested. Fly-away Minor-mine—and
has given it his approval."

Chawker Major said, "He didn't actually say any-
thing, Elder-mine."

Lady said, "His expression needed no words."

"It is good," said Chawker Minor, rather dashed at
having the play taken away from him. "Will you be
entering for the Awards?"

"It has been in my mind," said Chawker Major,
with an attempt at indifference. "Not with this one—1
call it Purple Light, by the way—but I believe I will
have something else, more worthy of the competition."

Chawker Minor frowned. "I had thought that—"

OPUS 200'                 185

"Yes?"

"—that I am ready to stretch out and think of noth-
ing. Come, half a dab more of Major's construction,
Lady-mine, and let's see what I can deduce concern-
ing the chemical structure of his Purple Light."

For a week, the holiday atmosphere in the Chawker
household continued. Elder Chawker was well known
in Gammer, and it seemed that half the inhabitants of
the world must have passed through his section before
all had had their curiosity sated and could see with
their own eyes that Chawker Minor had returned un-
scathed. Most remarked on his complexion, and more
than one young woman asked if she might touch his
cheek, as though the light tan were a layer that could
be felt.

Chawker Minor allowed the touch with lordly com-
placency, though Lady disapproved of these forward
requests and said so.

Grand-Elder Tomasz himself came down from his
aerie, as plump as a Gammerman ever permits himself
to be and with no sign that age or white hair had
blunted his talents. He was a Master-Gustator such as
Gammer might never have seen before, despite the
tales of Grand-Elder Faron of half a century ago.
There was nothing that Tomasz tongued that did not
open itself in detail to him.

Chawker Minor, who had no great tendency to un-
derrate his own talent, felt no shame in admitting that
what he himself had. innately, could not yet come any-
where near the old man's weight of experience.

The Grand Elder, who, for nearly twenty years
now, had governed the annual Awards festival by
force of his skill, asked closely after the Other-Worlds,
which, of course, he himself had never visited.

186

ISAAC ASIMOV

He was indulgent, though, and smiled at Lady
Chawker. "No need to fret, Lady," he said. "Young
people these days are curious. In my time we were
content to attend to our own cylinder of worth, as the
saying goes, but these are new times and many are
making what they call the Grand Tour. Good, per-
haps, to see the Other-Worlds—frivolous, sun-
drenched, browsive, nongustational, without a taste
bud to content themselves with—makes one appreciate
the eldest brother, as the saying goes."

Grand-Elder Tomasz was the only Gammerman
whom Chawker Minor had ever heard actually speak
of Gammer as "the eldest brother," although you
could find it often enough in the video cassettes. It
had been the third colony to be founded in the
Moon's orbit back in the pioneering years of the
twenty-first century; but the first two. Alter and Bay-
ter, had never become ecologically viable. Gammer
had.

Chawker Minor said with tactful caution, "The
Other-World people never tired of telling me how
much the experience of Gammer meant to all the
worlds that were founded afterward. All had, learned,
they said, from Gammer."

Tomasz beamed. "Certainly. Certainly. Well said."

Chawker Minor said with even greater caution,
"And yet such is self-love, you understand, Grand-
Elder, that a few thought they had improved on Gam-
mer."

Grand-Elder Tomasz puffed his breath out through
his nose ("Never breathe through your mouth any
more than you can help," he would say over and over
again, "for that blunts the Gustator's tongue") and
fixed Chawker with his deep blue eyes that looked

OPUS 200                 187

the bluer for the snow-white eyebrows that curved
above them.

"Improved in what way? Did they suggest a spe-
cific improvement?"

Chawker Minor, skating on thin ice and aware of
Elder Chawker's awful frown, said softly, "In matters
that they value, I gather. I am not a proper judge of
such things, perhaps."

"In matters that they value. Did you find a world
that knows more about food chemistry than we do?"

"No! Certainly not, Grand-Elder. None concern
themselves with that as far as I could see. They all
rely on our findings. They admit it openly."

Grand-Elder Tomasz grunted. "They can rely on us
to know the effects and side effects of a hundred
thousand molecules, and each year to study, define,
and analyze the effects of a thousand more. They rely
on us to work out the dietary needs of elements and
vitamins to the last syllable. Most of all, they rely on
us to work out the art of taste to the final, most subtly
convoluted touch. They do so, do they not?"

"Thev admit all this, without hesitation."

"And where do you find computers more reliable
and more complex than ours?"

"As far as our field is concerned, nowhere."

"And what Prime did they serve?" With heavy hu-
mor, he added, "Or did they expect a young Gammer-
man to browse."

"No, Grand-Elder, they had Prime. On all the
worlds I visited they had Prime; and on all those I did
not visit, I was told, there was also Prime. Even on the
world where Prime was considered fit chiefly for the
lower classes—"

Tomasz reddened. "Idiots!" he muttered.

"Different worlds, different ways," said Chawker

188

ISAAC ASIMOV

Minor rather hurriedly. "But even then, Grand-Elder,
Prime was popular when something was needed that
was convenient, inexpensive, and nourishing. And
they got their Prime from us. All of them had a fungal
strain brought originally from Gammer."

"Which strain?"

"Strain A-5" said Chawker Minor apologetically.
"It's the sturdiest, they said, and the most energy-
sparing."

"And the coarsest," said Tomasz with satisfaction.
"And what flavor additives?"

"Very few," said Chawker Minor. He thought a mo-
ment, then said, "There was, on Kapper, a place
where they had an additive that was popular with the
Kapperpeople and that had . . . possibilities. Those
were not properly developed, however, and when I
distributed tastes of what Lady-mine had sent me,
they were forced to admit that it was to theirs as
Gammer is to a space pebble."

"You had not told me that," said Lady Chawker,
who, till then, had not ventured to interpose in a con-
versation that had the Grand-Elder as one of its par-
ticipants. 'The Other-WorIders liked my preparations,
did they?"

"I didn't often hand it out," said Chawker Minor. "I
was too selfish to do it. But when I did, they liked it a
great deal, Lady-mine."

It was several days before the two brothers managed

to find a way of being alone together.
Major said, "Weren't you on Kee at all?"
Chawker Minor lowered his voice. "I was. Just a

couple of days. It was too expensive to stay long."
"I have no doubt Elder would not have liked even

the two days."

OPUS 200                 189

"I don't intend telling him. Do you?"

"A witless remark. Tell me about it."

Chawker Minor did, in semi-embarrassed detail,
and said, finally, "The point is, Major, it doesn't seem
wrong to them. They don't think anything of it. It
made me think that perhaps there is no real right and
wrong. What you're used to, that's right. What you're
not used to, that's wrong."

'Try telling that to Elder."

"What he thinks is right and what he is used to are
precisely the same. You'll have to admit that."

"What difference does it make what Z admit^ Elder
thinks that all rights and wrongs were written down
bv the makers of Gammer and that it's all in a book of
which there is only one copy and we have it, so that
all the Other-Worlds are wrong forever. I'm speaking
metaphorically, of course."

"I believe that, too, Major—metaphorically. But it
shook me up to see how calmly those Other-World
people took it. I could— watch them browse."

A spasm of distaste crossed Major's face. "Animals,
you mean?"

"It doesn't look like animals when they browse on
it. That's the point,"

"You watched them kill and dissect that—that—**

"No," he said hastily. "I just saw it when it was all
finished. What they ate looked like some kinds of
Prime and it smelled like some kinds of Prime. I imag-
ine it tasted—"

Chawker Major twisted his expression into one of
extreme revulsion, and Chawker Minor said defen-
sively, "But browsing came first, you know. On Earth,
I mean. And it could be that when Prime was first
developed on Cammer it was designed to imitate the
taste of browse food."

190

ISAAC ASIMOV

"I prefer not to believe that," said Chawker Major.

"What you prefer doesn't matter."

"Listen," said Chawker Major. "I don't care what
they browse. If they ever got the chanoe to eat real
Prime—not Strain A-5, but the fatted fungus, as the
saying goes—and if they had the sophisticated addi-
tives and not whatever primitive trash they use, they
would eat forever and never dream of browsing. If
they could eat what J have constructed and will yet
construct—"

Chawker Minor said wistfully, "Are you really
going to try for the Award, Major?"

Chawker Major thought for a moment, then said, "I
think I will. Minor. I really will. Even if I don't win, I
eventually will. This program I've got is different."
He grew excited. "It's not like any computer program
I've ever seen or heard of—and it works. It's all in
the—" But he pulled himself up sharply and said un-
easily, "I hope, Minor, you don't mind if I don't tell
you about it? I haven't told anyone."

Chawker Minor shrugged. "It would be foolish to
tell anyone. If you really have a good program, you
can make your fortune. You know that. Look at
Grand-Elder Tomasz. It must be thirty-five years
since he developed Corridor Song and he still hasn't
published his path."

Chawker Major said, "Yes, but there's a pretty good
guess as to how he got to it. And it's not really, in my
opinion—" He shook his head doubtfully, in prefer-
ence to saying anything that might smack of lese ma-
jeste.

Chawker Minor said, "The reason I asked if you
were going to try for the Award—"

"weiir

OPUS 200                 191

"Is that I was rather thinking of entering myself."

"You'^ You're scarcely old enough."

"I'm twenty-two. But would you mind?"

"You don't know enough, Minor. When have you
ever handled a computer?"

"What's the difference? A computer isn't the an-
swer."

"No? What is?"

"The taste buds."

"Hit and miss and taste buds all the way. We all
know that sound, and I will jump through the zero
axis in a bound, too, as the saying goes."

"But I'm serious, Major. A computer is only the
starting point, isn't it? It all ends with the tongue no
matter where you start."

"And, of course, a Master-Gustator like Minor-lad,
here, can do it."

Chawker Minor was not too tanned to flush.
"Maybe not a Master-Gustator, but a Gustator any-
way, and you know it. The point is that being away
from home for a year I've gotten to appreciate good
Prime and what might be done with it. I've learned
enough. Look, Major, my tongue is all I've got, and I'd
like to make back the money that Elder and Lady
spent on me. Do you object to my entering? Do you
fear the competition?"

Chawker Major stiffened. He was taller and heavier
than Chawker Minor and he didn't look friendly.
"There is no competition to fear. If you Want to enter,
do so, Minor-child. But don't come whimpering to me
when you're ashamed. And I tell you, Elder won't like
your making a no-taste-batch of yourself, as the say-
ing goes."

"Nobody has to win right away. Even if I don't win,

192                 ISAAC ASIMOV

I eventually will, as your saying goes." And Chawker
Minor turned and left. He was feeling a little huffy
himself.

Matters trailed off eventually. Everyone seemed to
have had enough of the tales of the Other-Worlds;

Chawker Minor had described the living animals he
had seen for the fiftieth time and denied he had seen
any of them killed for the hundredth. He had painted
word-pictures of the grain fields and tried to explain
what sunshine looked like when it glinted off men
and women and buildings and fields, through air that
turned a little blue and hazy in the distance. He ex-
plained for the two hundredth time that, no, it was
not at all like the sunshine effect in the outer viewing
rooms of Gammer (which hardly anyone visited any-
way ).

And now that it was all over, he rather missed not
being stopped in the corridors. He disliked no longer
being a celebrity. He felt a little at a loss as he spun
the book film he had grown tired of viewing and tried
not to be annoyed with Lady.

He said, "What's the matter. Lady-mine? You haven't
smiled all day."

His mother looked up at him thoughtfully. "It's dis-
tressing to see dissension between major and minor."

"Oh, come." Chawker Minor rose irritably and
walked over to the air vent. It was jasmine day and he
loved the odor and, as always, automatically won-
dered how he could make it better. It was very faint,
of course, since everyone knew that strong floral
odors blunted the tongue.

"There's notliing wrong, Lady," he said, "with my
trying for the Award. It's the free right of every Gam-
merperson over twenty-one."

OPUS 200                 193

"But it isn't in good taste to be competing with your
brother."

"Good taste! Why not? I'm competing with every-
one. So's he. It's just a detail tliat we're competing
with each other. Whv don't you take the attitude that
he's competing with me?"

"He's three vears older than you, Minor-mine."

"And perhaps he'll win, Lady-mine. He's got the
computer. Has Major asked you to get me to drop
out?"

"No, he did not. Don't think that of your brother."
Lady spoke earnestly, but she avoided his eyes.

Chawker Minor said, "Well, then, he's gone moping
after you and vou've learned to tell what he wants
without his having to say it. And all because I quali-
fied in the opening round and he didn't think I
would."

"Anyone can qualify," came Chawker Major's voice
from the doonvav.

Chawker Minor whirled. "Is that the way it is?
Then why does it upset you? And why did a hundred
people fail to qualify?"

Chawker Major said, "What some small-taste nither-
lings decide means very little. Minor. Wait till it comes
to the board."

"Since you qualified, too, Major, there's no need to
tell me how little importance there is to some small-
taste nitherlings—"

"Young-mine," said Lady rather sharply. "Stop it!
Perhaps we can remember that it is very unusual for
both major and minor of a single unit to qualify."

Neither ventured to break the silence in Lady's
presence for a while thereafter—but their scowls re-
mained eloquent.

194

ISAAC ASIMOV

As the days passed, Chawker Minor found himself
more and more involved in preparing the ultimate
sample of flavored Prime, which his own taste buds
and olfactory area would tell him was to be nothing
like anything that had ever rolled across a Gammer
tongue before.

He took it upon himself to visit the Prime vats
themselves, where the delectably bland fungi grew
out of malodorous wastes and multiplied themselves
at extraordinary speed, under ideal conditions, into
three dozen basic strains, each with its varieties.

(The Master-Gustator, tasting unflavored Prime it-
self—the fungal unalterate, as the saying went—could
be relied upon to pin its source down to the section
and corridor, Grand-Elder Tomasz had more than
once stated, publicly, that he could tell the very vat
itself and, at times, the portion of the vat, though no
one had ever quite put him to the full test.)

Chawker Minor did not pretend to the expertise of
Tomasz, but he lipped and tongued and smacked and
nipped till he had decided on the exact strain and va-
riety he wanted, the one that would best blend with
the ingredients he was mixing in his mind. A good
Gustator, said Grand-Elder Tomasz, could combine
ingredients mentally and taste the mixture in his imagi-
nation. With Tomasz it might, for all one knew, be
merely a statement, but Chawker Minor took it seri-
ously and was sure he could do it.

He had rented out space in the kitchen—another ex-
pense for poor Elder, although Chawker Minor was
making do with less than Major had demanded,
Chawker Minor did not repine at having less, for,
since he was eschewing computers, he didn't require
much. Mincers, mixers, heaters, strainers, and the rest
of the cookery tools took up little room. And at least

OPUS 200                 195

he had an excellent hood for the masking and removal
of all odors. (Everyone knew the horror tales of the
Gustators who had been given away by a single sniff
of odor and then found that some creative mixture
was in the public domain before they could bring it
before the board. To steal someone else's product
might not be, as Lady would say, in good taste, but it
was done and there was no legal recourse.)

The signal light flashed in a code sufficiently well
known. It was Elder Chawker. Chawker Minor felt
the thrill of guilt he had felt as a child when he had
pilfered dabs of Prime reserved for guests.

"One moment. Elder-mine," he sang out, and, in a
flurry of activity, set the hood on high, closed the par-
tition, swept his ingredients off the tabletop and into
the bins, then stepped out and closed the door quickly
behind him.

"I'm sorry, Elder-mine," he said with an attempt at
lightness, "but Gustatorship^is paramount."

"I understand," said Elder stiffly, though his nos-
trils had flared momentarily as though he would have
been glad to catch that fugitive whiff, "but you've
scarcely been at home lately, scarcely more than when
you were on your space folly, and I must come here to
speak to you."

"No problem. Elder, we'll go to the lounge."

The lounge was not far away, and, fortunately, it
was empty. Elder's sharp glances this way and that
made the emptiness seem fortunate for him, and
Chawker Minor sighed inaudibly. He would be lec-
tured, he knew.

Elder said at last, "Minor, you are my son, and I
will do my duty toward you. My duty does not con-
sist, however, of more than paying your expenses and
seeing to it that you have a fair start in life. There is

196

ISAAC ASIMOV

also the matter of reproval in good time. Who wishes
fair Prime must not stint on foul waste, as the saying
goes."

Chawker's eyes dropped. He, along with his
brother, had been among the thirty who had now
qualified for the final awarding to be held in a week,
and the unofficial rumor had it that Chawker Minor
had done so with a somewhat higher score than
Chawker Major had-

"Elder," said Chawker Minor, "would you ask me to
do less than my best for my brother's sake?"

Elder Chawker's eyes blinked in a moment of puz-
zlement and Chawker Minor clamped his mouth shut
He had clearly jumped in the wrong direction.

Elder said, "I do not ask vou to do less than your
best, but rather more than you are doing. Bethink you
of the shaming you have inflicted on us in your little
quarrel with Stens Ma|or last week."

Chawker Minor had, for a moment, difficulty re-
membering what this could apply to. He had done
nothing with Stens Major at all—a silly young woman
with whom he was perfectly content to confine him-
self to mere talk, and not very much of that

"Stens Major? Shaming? How?"

"Do not say you do not remember what you said to
her. Stens Major repeated it to her elder and lady,
good friends of our family, and it is now common talk
in the section. What possessed you. Minor, to assault
the traditions of Gammer?"

"I did not do such a thing. She asked me about my
Grand Tour and I told her no more than I have told
three hundred others."

"Didn't you tell her that women should be allowed
to go on the Grand Tour?"

"Oh."

OPUS 200                 197

"Yes. Oh."

"But, Elder, what I said was that if she would take
the Grand Tour herself there would be no need to ask
questions, and when she pretended to be shocked at
such a suggestion, I told her that, in my opinion, the
more Gammerpeople saw of the Other-Worlds, the
better it would be for all of us. We are too closed a
society, in my opinion, and, Elder, I am not the first
to say so."

"Yes, I have heard of radicals who have said so, but
not in our section and certainly not in our family. We
have endured longer than the Other-Worlds; we have
a stabler and fitter society; we do not have their prob-
lems. Is there crime among us? Is there corruption
among us?"

"But, Elder, it is at the price of immobility and liv-
ing death. We're all so tied in, so enclosed."

"What can they teach us, these Other-Worlds? Were
you not yourself glad to come back to the enclosed
and comfortable sections of Gammer with their corri-
dors lit in the gold light of our own energy?"

"Yes—but, you know, I'm spoiled, too. There are
many things on the Other-Worlds that I would have
very much liked to have made myself accustomed to."

"And just exactly what, Minor-madman-mine?"

Chawker Minor bit back the words. After a pause
he said, "Why simply make assertions? When I can
prove that a particular Other-World way is superior to
Gammerfashion, I will produce the proof. Till then,
what is the use of just talking?"

"You have already been talking idly without end,
Minor, and it has done you so little good that we can
call what it has done you harm outright. Minor, if you
have any respect left for me after your Grand Tour—
which Lady-yours wheedled out of me against my

198

ISAAC ASIMOV

will. Gammer knows—or if you have any regard for
the fact that I still deny you nothing that my credit
can obtain for you, you will keep your mouth shut
henceforward. Think not that I will halt at sending
you away if you shame us. You may then continue on
your Grand Tour for as long as the Orbit lasts—and be
no son of mine thereafter."

Chawker Minor said in a low voice, "As you say,
Elder. From this moment on, unless I have evidence, I
will say nothing."

"Since you will never have evidence," said Elder
grimly, "I will be satisfied if you keep your word."

The annual Finals was the greatest holiday occasion,
the greatest social event, the greatest excitement of
any sort in the course of the year. Each one of thirty
dishes of elegantly flavored Prime had been prepared.
Each one of the thirty judges would taste each dish at
intervals long enough to restore the tongue. It would
take all day.

In all honesty, Gammerpeople had to admit that the
nearly one hundred winners who had taken their prize
and acclaim in Gammer history had not all turned out
dishes that had entered the Great Menu as classics.
Some were forgotten and some were now considered
ordinary. On the other hand, at least two of Gammer's
all-time favorites, combinations that had been best
sellers in restaurants and homes for two decades, had
been also-rans in the years in which they had entered
the contest. Black Velvet, whose odd combination of
chocolate-warm and cherry blossom had made it the
standard sweet, did not even make it to the Finals.

Chawker Minor had no doubt of the outcome. He
was so confident that he found himself in continual
danger of being bored. He kept watching the faces of

OPUS 200                 199

the individual Judges as every once in a while one of
them would scoop up a trifle from one of the dishes
and place it on his tongue. There was a careful blank-
ness to the expression, a heavy-Iiddedness to the eye.
No true judge could possibly allow a look of surprise
or a sigh of satisfaction to escape him—certainly not a
quiver of disdain. They merely recorded their ratings
on the little computer cards they carried.

Chawker Minor wondered if they could possibly re-
strain their satisfaction when they tasted his. In the
last week, his mixture had grown perfect, had reached
a pinnacle of taste glory that could not be improved
on, could not—

"Counting your winnings?" said Chawker Ma|or in
his ear.

Chawker Minor started, and turned quickly.
Chawker Major was dressed entirely in platon and
gleamed beautifully.

Chawker Minor said, "Come, MaJor-mine, I wish
you the best. I really do. I want you to place as high
as possible."

"Second place if you win, right?"

"Would you refuse second place if I win?"

"You can't win, I've checked somewhat. I know
your strain of Prime; I know your ingredients—"

"Have you spent any time on your own work, all
this time you've been playing detective?"

"Don't worry about me. It didn't take long to leam
that there is no way you can combine your ingredients
into anything of value."

"You checked that with the computer, I suppose?"

"I did."

"Then how did I get into the Finals, I wonder? Per-
haps vou don't know all there is to know about my
ingredients. Look, Major, the number of effective

200

ISAAC ASIMOV

combinations of even a few ingredients is astronomi-
cal if we can consider the various possible proportions
and the possible treatments before and after mixing,
and the order of mixing and the—"

"I don't need vour lecture. Minor."

"Then you know that no computer in existence has
been programmed for the complexity of a clever
tongue. Listen, you can add some in^edients in
amounts so small as to be indetectable even by
tongue, and yet they add a cast of flavor that repre-
sents a marked change,"

"They teach you that in the Other-Worlds, youn-
gling?"

"I learned that for myself." And Chawker Minor
walked away before he could be goaded into talking
too much.

There was no question that Grand-Elder Tomasz this
year, as in a large number of previous years, held the
Judging Committee in the hollow of his tongue, as the
saying went.

He looked up and down the long table at which all
the judges had now taken their seats in order of pref-
erence, with Tomasz himself right in the middle. The
computer had been fed; it had produced the result.
There was complete silence in tlie room where the
contestants, their friends, and their families sat wait-
ing for glory or, failing that, for the consolation erf
being able to taste all the contesting samples.

The rest of Gammer, possibly without exceptions,
watched by holo-video. There would, after all, be ad-
ditional batches made up for a week of feasting, and
the general opinion did not always match that of the
judges either, though that did not affect the prize
winning.

OPUS 200                 201

Tomasz said, "I do not recall an awarding in which
there was so little doubt as to the computer decision,
or such general agreement."

There was a nodding of heads, and smiles and looks
of satisfaction.

Chawker Minor thought: They look sincere; not as
| if they're just going along with the Grand-Elder, so it
|- must be mine.

Tomasz said, "It has been my privilege this year to
taste a dish more subtle, more tempting, more ambro-
sial than anything I have ever, in all my time and ex-
perience, tasted. It is the best. I cannot imagine it
being bettered."

He held up the computer cards. "The win is unani-
mous, and the computer was needed only to deter-
mine the order of the runners-up. The winner is—" just
that pause for effect and then, to the utter surprise of
U everyone but the winner, "Chawker Minor, for his
dish entitled Mountain Cap. Young man . . ."

Chawker Minor advanced for the ribbon, the
plaque, the credits, the handshakes, the recording, the
beaming, and the other contestants received their
numbers in the list. Chawker Major was in fifth place.

Grand-Elder Tomasz sought out Chawker Minor after
a while and tucked the young man's arm into his el-
bow.

"Well, Chawker Minor, it is a wonderful day for you
and for all of us. I did not exaggerate. Your dish was
the best I've ever tongued. And yet you leave me cu-
rious and wondering. I identiBed all the ingredients,
but there was no way in which their combinations
could produce what was produced. Would you be
willing to impart your secret to me? I would not

202

ISAAC ASIMOV

blame you if you refused, but in the case of an accom-
plishment so towering by one so young, to—"

"I don't mind telling you, Grand-Elder. I intend to
tell everybody. I told my Elder that I would say noth-
ing till I had proof. You supplied the proof!"

"What?" said Tomasz blankly. "What proof?" '

"The idea for the dish occurred to me, actually, on
the Other-World Kapper, which is why I called it
Mountain Cap, in tribute. I used ordinary ingredients,
Grand-Elder, carefully blended, all but one. I suppose
you detected the Garden Tang?"

"Yes, I did, but there was a slight modification
there, I think, that I did not follow. How did the
Other-World you speak of affect matters?"

"Because it was not Garden Tang, Grand-Elder, not
the chemical. I used a complicated mixture for the
Garden Tang, a mixture whose nature I cannot be en-
tirely certain of."

Tomasz frowned portentously. "You mean, then,
yon cannot reproduce this dish?"

"I can reproduce it; be certain of that, Grand-Elder.
The ingredient to which I refer is garlic."

Tomasz said impatiently, "That is only the vulgar
term for Mountain Tang."

"Not Mountain Tang. That is a known chemical
mixture. I am speaking of the bulb of the plant."

Grand-Elder Tomasz's eyes opened wide and so did
his mouth.

Chawker Minor continued enthusiastically, "No
mixture can duplicate the complexity of a growing
product, Grand-Elder, and on Kapper they have
grown a particularly delicate variety which they use
in their Prime. They use it incorrectly, without any
appreciation of its potentiality. I saw at once that a

OPUS 200

203

true Gammer-person could do infinitely better, so I
brought back with me a number of the bulbs and
used them to good advantage. You said it was the best
dish of Prime you had ever rolled tongue over, and if
there is any better evidence than that for the value of
opening our societv, then—"

But he dwindled to a stop at last and stared at To-
masz with surprise and alarm, Tomasz was backing
away rapidly. He said in a gargling voice, "A growth—
from the dirt—I've eaten—"

The Grand-Elder had often boasted that such was
the steadiness of his stomach that he had never vom-
ited, not even in infancy. And certainly no one had
ever vomited in the great Hall of Judgment. The
Grand-Elder now set a precedent in both respects.

Chawker Minor had not recovered. He would never
recover. If it were exile that Elder Chawker had pro-
nounced, so be it. He would never return.

Elder had not come to see him off. Neither had Ma-
|or, of course. It didn't matter. Chawker Minor swore
inwardly that he would make out, somehow, without
their help, even if it meant serving on Kapper as a
cook.

Lady was there, however—the only one in all the
field to see him off; the only one to dare accept the
nonperson he had become. She shivered and looked
mournful and Chawker Minor was filled with the des-
perate desire to justify himself.

"Lady-mine," he said in a fury of self-pity, "it's un-
fair! It was the best dish ever made on Gammer. The
Grand-Elder said so himself. The best. If it had grated
bulb in it, that didn't mean the dish was bad; it meant
the bulb was good. Don't you see it? Look, I must

204

ISAAC ASIMOV

board the ship. Tell me you see it. Don*t you under-
stand it means we must become an open society, leam
from others as well as teach others or we'll wither?"

The platform was about to take him up to the ship's
entrance. She was watching him sadly, as though she
knew she would never see him again.

He began the final rise, leaned over the rail. "What
did I do wrong. Lady-mine?"

And she said in a low, distraught voice, "Can't you
see, Minor-mine, that what you did was not in—"

The clang of the ship's port opening drowned her
last two words, and Chawker Minor moved in and put
the sight of Gammer behind him forever.

Biology suffered in my second hundred hooks, as
chemistry had. Whereas mi/ first books include such
works as The Human Bodv and The Human Brain,
nothing of the sort appears later,

On the other hand, there is mif How Did We Find
Out series for Walker. One of them. How Did We Find
Out About Vitamins? (Book 158}, published in 1974,
is on the borderline between biology and chemistry.
Another item in the series, .How Did We Find Out
About Dinosaurs? (Book 145), published in 1973, is
on the borderline between biology and geology. A
third. How Did We Find Out About Germs? (Book
153), published in 1974, is clearly about biology. Here
is a passage from that book on the first medical vic-
tory over infectious disease.

from How Dm WE FIND Our ABOUT GERMS?
(2974)

Disease is a subject that concerns everyone. No one
can ever be sure that he or she might not suddenly fall
sick. A person can at any time begin to feel bad, de-
velop a fever, or break out in a rash. Eventually, he or
she might even die of a disease.

208

ISAAC ASIMOV

When one person falls sick, others might also. A dis-
ease can suddenly spread over a whole town or a
whole region, and some diseases can be very deadly.

In the 1300s, for instance, a disease called the Black
Death spread all over Europe, Asia, and Africa and
killed millions of people. It was the greatest disaster
in human history. One-third of all the people in Eu-
rope died.

At this time nobody in the world knew what caused
disease. Some people thought demons or evil spirits
took over the body. Some people thought it was bad
air of some sort or another. Some people thought it
was a punishment from Heaven for evil deeds.

Whatever it was, though, no one imagined the dis-
eases could be stopped and no one knew when an-
other Black Death might strike.

One hopeful thing about disease was that some dis-
eases only hit a person once. If someone got measles
or mumps or chicken pox and got well, that person
would never get that particular disease again. He or
she was "immune." His or her body had fought off the
disease and had developed some kind of defense that
would continue to work for many years.

One particularly dreadful disease that only struck
once was smallpox. The trouble was that very often
once was quite enough. Many people who got small-
pox died. Many others recovered, but their faces and
bodies were covered with scars left over from the ter-
rible blisters they had had. Every once in a while,
though, someone had only a light case that did not
scar him or her much. When that happened, the per-
son was Just as immune afterward as if he or she had
had a terrible case.

Naturally, it was much better to have a light case of
smallpox than to have none at all. With a light case,

OPUS 200                209

you were safe for life; with none at all, vou could
never be sure you might not get it at anv moment.

People knew that if vou were near a person with
smallpox you might catch it. Would it not be a good
idea, then, to hang around a person with a light case?
You might catch the light case and then be safe. To
make sure, you might scratch vour skin with a needle
that had been dipped in some of the fluid in the
smallpox blisters of the sick man. This was called "in-
oculation."

The trouble was, though, that a person might have
a light case of smallpox, yet another person catching
it might get a severe case. Inoculation just was not safe.

In the 1770s, an English doctor, Edward Jenner,
grew interested in a disease called cowpox. It was
called that because it was found in cows and in other
farm animals. The diease was something like a very
mild smallpox. It a person caught cowpox from a cow,
he or she would get a blister or two and that was it
People would hardly ever know they were sick.

The country people where Jenner lived thought it
was good luck to get cowpox because then you never
got smallpox- Most doctors thought this was Just a su-
perstition, but Jenner wondered. He did notice that
people who worked with farm animals a good deal
hardly ever got smallpox.

After twenty years of study, Jenner decided to try a
very dangerous experiment. On May 14, 1796, he
found a milkmaid who had Just developed cowpox.
He dipped a needle into the fluid inside a blister on
her hand and scratched the skin of a boy who had
never had either cowpox or smallpox. The boy got
cowpox and developed a blister in the place where he
had been scratched.

Jenner then waited for two months to make sure the

210

ISAAC ASIMOV

boy was completely recovered. He was now immune
to cowpox, but was he also immune to smallpox? Tak-
ing an enormous chance, Jenner deliberately
scratched the boy with a needle that had been dipped
in the fluid of a real smallpox blister. The boy did not
catch smallpox.

Jenner tried the whole thing again two years later
when he found another girl with cowpox. He again
found he could make someone immune to smallpox by
giving them fluid from a cowpox blister.

The medical name for cowpox is "vaccinia," from a
Latin word for "cow." Jenner's system for giving peo-
ple cowpox to save them from smallpox was therefore
called "vaccination." When Jenner announced his find-
ings, vaccination was quickly adopted all over the
world. Smallpox disappeared from places where vacci-
nation was used.

Of course, a hook need not be entirely about biology
in order to deal with biology. In 1975, a book of mine
appeared entitled The Ends of the Earth {Book 168),
published by Weybright and Talley. It was about the
polar regions, and I tried to cover every aspect of the
subject, including the biological part.

from THE ENDS OF THE EARTH (7975)

The smallest living organisms of the ocean float pas-
sively in the surface layers. The German physiologist
Viktor Hensen, in 1889, called this floating life of the
ocean "plankton," from a Creek word meaning "wan-
dering," and this expression has been used ever since.
Most of the plankton are microscopic in size, but the

OPUS 200                211

name is used also for such large plant organisms as
seaweed and such large animal organisms as giant jelly-
fish.

The microscopic plant cells of the plankton ("phyto-
plankton," the prefix from a Greek word meaning
"plant") are the basic food of all ocean animal life. All
sea animals either eat phytoplankton or eat other ani-
mals that have eaten phytoplankton, or other animals
that have eaten other animals that have eaten other
animals—and so on, until we come to an animal that
has eaten phytoplankton. This "food chain" can be of
varying lengths.

The small animals of the surface ("zooplankton,"
the prefix from a Greek word meaning "animal") feed
on the phytoplankton. The most common of the zoo-
plankton are small Crustacea called "copepods." There
are six thousand species of copepods, with lengths
varying from 0.5 millimeter (barely visible to the na-
ked eye) to 1 centimeter. They make up about 70 per-
cent of all the zooplankton and can sometimes turn
the ocean pink with their numbers. A somewhat larger
variety of shellfish is the small, shrimplike "krill,"
which is up to 5 centimeters in length.

Larger animals, such as young fish, feed on the zoo-
plankton, and themselves serve as food for larger or-
ganisms.

Food is not converted into the tissues of the eater
with perfect efficiency. There is roughly a 90 percent
loss, so that, in general, the total mass of a species can
only be about 10 percent that of the species it feeds
upon.

Since plant life in general is the food of animal life
in general, the mass of plant life on earth must be ten
times that of animal life, and the total mass of the
phytoplankton in the ocean must be roughly ten times

212

ISAAC ASIMOV

that of all the animal life there. (Animal life in the
ocean exists at all levels, but plant life is conBned to
the euphotic zone.)

Because each step upward in the food chain means
a decrease in total mass of the organism by a factor of
ten, the actual number of larger animals decreases

drastically.

Thus, the white shark, which is the largest sea verte-
brate with gills (12 meters long) that lives on other
large organisms, is a relatively rare creature. The sea
cannot support white sharks in the myriads that it can
support herring, for instance, which live on plankton.

Large animals can be supported in large numbers if
they cut through the food chain by living on plankton
directly. The whale shark and basking shark are even
larger than the white shark (up to 15 meters long)
but can be supported in surprising numbers because
they live on plankton.

There are land animals that live primarily on sea
life, and the distribution of these animals differs from
that of land animals that live primarily on land life.
Land plants grow stunted and sparse as one ap-
proaches the poles, and consequently land animals
that live on them grow fewer, too. The sparseness of
land life on the tundra and the virtual absence of land
life in Antarctica have already been mentioned.

Sea life is, however, richer in the polar regions than
in the tropics, thanks to the greater supply of oxygen
and nutrients in cold water than in warm water. As a
result, the polar regions are rich in land animal life
that finds its food in the ocean.

Land life that depends on the sea for its food roust
be adapted to ocean feeding, and this takes place to
a greater or lesser extent. In some cases, the adaptation
is so extreme that the land animals are no longer

OPUS 200                 213

really land animals, having adapted themselves to
continuous life in the oceans, even to the point of de-
veloping the streamlined fish shape for more rapid
motion.

The best known of the extremely adapted organ-
isms are the whales and their smaller relatives the dol-
phins, which breathe by means of lungs, bring forth
living young, and are, by every criterion, as fully
mammalian as we ourselves, but which spend all their
lives in the water.

The smallest dolphins are about 1.2 meters long and
weigh about 45 kilograms. The largest dolphin is the
killer whale, with males as long as 10 meters. The
killer whale is an example of an organism that is at
the top of the food chain. There are no other large
organisms for whom the killer whale is a regular arti-
cle of diet. A killer whale will die of disease, accident,
or old age, not by ordinary predation.

The one exception to this in the case of the killer
whale and of all other organisms that exist at the top
of the food chain rests in the activity of man. In his
natural physical state, man is no match for the larger
animals, but armed with the products of the technol-
ogy produced by his restless mind, he can destroy
them all and is, indeed, in the process of doing so.

Another large dolphin, the narwhal, up to 5 meters
long, is an Arctic animal. It inhabits the sea among
tile loose ice of the Arctic beyond 65° N, migrating
farther northward as the pack ice melts and recedes in
the polar summer. The most unusual characteristic of
the narwhal is that one tooth on the left side of its Jaw
forms a straight, spiral tusk up to 2.5 meters long. Its
appearance is exactly that of the fabled horn of the
unicorn, which was supposed to have miraculous med-
ical properties—and no wonder, since sailors brought

214

ISAAC ASIMOV

home pieces of narwhal tooth and, claiming it to be
unicorn horn, sold them for large sums.

The largest truly carnivorous whale is the sperm
whale. The male sperm whale can be as long as 20
meters and may weigh as much as 60 tons. It lives
largely on giant squid. It, too, is at the top of the'food
chain and is threated onlv bv man.

Still larger whales, like the largest sharks, must cut
through the food chain if they are to be supported in
any numbers. The largest of all whales (and, indeed,
the largest animal that has ever lived) is the blue
whale, which can be 30 meters long and weigh 135
tons. It feeds largely on krill, eating 3 tons per dav.
Whales that feed on plankton have fringes of homy
plates, up to 3 meters long, extending down from the
roof of tile mouth and frayed and brushlike at the
end. These, called "baleen" or "whalebone," trap and
strain out the plankton.

Whales are worldwide in their distribution, but nat-
urally they are most common where the food supply is
richest, and this means the polar regions; and the Ant-
arctic far more than the Arctic.

Whalers, hunting the whale for meat, oil, and whale-
bone, ventured into Arctic and Antarctic waters, and
a great deal of the early exploration of the polar re-
gions was performed by whalers and by those who
hunted other sea mammals.

The search for whales was ruthless, however, and
without any thought for preserving the species. In the
eighteenth century, the large baleen whales of the
Arctic were reduced to such small numbers that it was
simply not worthwhile hunting them anymore.

With the passing of the baleen whales of the north,
attention turned to the sperm whale when it was dis-
covered that quantities of sperm oil could be obtained

OPUS 200                 215

from the head of that organism and that such oil was
particularly useful in oil lamps. The sperm whale was
a more difficult and savage target (Moby Dick in
Herman Melville's great novel was a sperm whale),
but they would have been wiped out also if the elec-
tric light and the growing use of petroleum had not
eased the need for sperm oil.

Whaling is now almost entirely confined to the Ant-
arctic, where the food supply of the oceans is the rich-
est in the world thanks to the Antarctic Convergence.
Some 70 percent of the whales killed are hunted down
in the Antarctic and, of these, 70 percent are the fin
whale- Even now 35,000 whales are being killed each
year, and these great animals will be wiped out if
mankind does not manage to control the whalers.

Stepping down a notch in the extent of adaptation
to the sea, we come to the seals. They, too, are typi-
cally polar in distribution because of the richness of
the cold regions of the ocean.

Like the whales, the seals have been hunted down
and slaughtered. Where the whales are bare skinned
and depend on retaining warmth against the cold wa-
ter of the polar oceans by thick layers of fat ("blub-
ber") under the skin, seals have, in many cases, devel-
oped thick coats of hair. The coats of these "hair seals"
have been coveted and have very nearly proved the
doom of those animals.

The ones that yield the best "sealskins" are the
Alaska fur seals. These gathered in huge hordes on the
Pribilof Islands (discovered'by the Russian navigator
Gerasim Pribilof in 1786) in the Bering Sea. At the
time of the discovery, some 5,000,000 seals formed
the herd. They began to wither under the attack
of the sealers until the Russian government exerted
protection.

216

ISAAC ASIMOV

The Pribilof Islands, along with all of Alaska,
passed to the United States in 1867, and at once the
sealers began to make destructive inroads until only
125,000 seals remained in 1911. There seemed no way
of making men forgo short-term profits in favor of a
careful conservation that would, in the long run, yield
greater returns.

Finally, when the United States and other nations
imposed rigorous controls on sealing activities, the
seal herds began to be restored. By now the herds are
back up to 3,000,000 despite the fact that since 1911,
under carefully rationed culling of the herds, 1,500,000
seals have been taken for their fur.

The most northerly of the seals is the ringed seal,
which lives almost exclusively on and under the ice of
the Arctic Ocean.

The largest of the seals is the elephant seal, so
called more because of its trunklike nasal protuber-
ance than its size- Species are found in both the Arctic
and the Antarctic, with the latter somewhat the larger.
The Antarctic males reach a length of 6.5 meters and
a weight of nearly 4 tons.

The next largest seal is the walrus, which can reach
a length of 3.5 meters and a weight of 1.4 tons. It dif-
fers from the other members of the seal family by pos-
sessing a pair of downward pointing tusks (the two
upper canine teeth), which can be as long as 40 centi-
meters. The walruses are to be found only in the Arc-
tic. Once 500,000 were to be found on the Arctic ice
floes, but hunting has reduced their numbers to less
than 50,000.

Of the forty-seven species of seals, five are native to
the Antarctic. The largest of these (and third only to
the elephant seal and the walrus) is the leopard seal.
It is well named, for it is the most ferocious carnivore

OPUS 200                217

of the family. It needs to fear no other animal but the
killer whale—and, of course, man.

The crab-eater seal, despite its name, lives on krill.
It is the most common of the Antarctic seals* and num-
bers 5,000,000 to 8,000,000.

The most thoroughly Antarctic of the seals, how-
ever, is the Weddell seal. It sticks close to the shores
of Antarctica, while the other seals range well out to
sea. The Weddell seal finds safety beneath the coastal
ice, breaking holes in it to breathe through. It can
dive to a depth of 600 meters and can remain sub-
merged for nearly an hour. Ordinarily, however, it
comes up for air every ten to thirty minutes. (The
female spends considerable time on top of the ice. for
only there can she feed her voung.)

Another notch downward in adaptation to the sea,
we come to what would seem so completely a land
animal as the bear. Two species of bears are charac-
teristic of the Arctic regions and they are the two larg-
est: the Kodiak brown bear and the polar bear.

The more northerly of the two is the polar bear.
Creamy white in fur, it is not noticeable against the
snow and ice it lives among. It can be 2 meters or
more in length and may weigh over 700 kilograms.
The polar bear lives on fish and seals and is capable
of swimming miles out to sea. It can also roam the
Arctic ice all the way to the North Pole—followed by
the Arctic fox, which scavenges the polar bear kills.
(The polar bear's liver is so rich in vitamin A as to be
actually poisonous to man.)

And while we're talking of land mammals adapted
to seeking food by sea, we should mention man, too.
The Eskimos, at least, live very well in the apparently
bleak Arctic world by learning to turn to the rich sea
for their food.

218

ISAAC ASIMOV

There are important sea birds in the polar regions.
In the Arctic, the most typical examples are the mem-
bers of the auk family. These are not strong fliers but
are very well adapted to diving into water for the fish
they eat. They are capable of swimming underwater
by making the same wing movements they maker in
flight. One of the better-known auks is the puffin,
which has a large head and a multicolored parrotlike
beak.

The most tragic member of the family was the great
auk, which stood about a meter high and was the
most completely adapted to water life of any species
of the family. It could swim underwater expertly, but
its wings were paddles only, and it could not fly with
them.

What with its nonflight, its habit of congregating in
great numbers on the islands in the Atlantic section of
the Arctic, its single egg laid on bare ground without
protection, and its inability to recognize the presence
of danger, the great auk was an easy prey. They were
killed wantonly in huge numbers and the last mem-
bers of the species were killed on June 4, 1844.

Not all polar sea birds are poor fliers. The gull-like
Arctic tern is, in some way, a flying champion. It
nests in the Arctic (as far north as 82.°5N) but evades
the winter by flying 17,500 kilometers to the Antarc-
tic; then evades the Antarctic winter by flying back to
the Arctic. It spends seven months of the year travel-
ing, and at each end of its journey experiences some
two and a half months of continuous sunlight.

Another Arctic bird, the golden plover, also under-
goes a long migratory flight, much of it being over tile
ocean and therefore nonstop, since the plovers don't
swim well. A fhree-month-old golden plover can make
it successfully from its birthplace in Alaska down to

OPUS 200                219

Hawaii (some 3500 kilometers) in two days of fiving.

Although the Antarctic region has no mammals ex-
cept for whales and seals, which remain in the waters
off the shores of Antarctica, there are birds that make
their wav across portions of the continent itself. Con-
sidering that the birds usually possess the ability to
fly, this is perhaps not so unusual.

Of the fifteen species of flying birds that are found
in the Antarctic region the most southerly is a preda-
tory gull-like bird called the skua. It seems verv likely
that skuas have ranged over all Antarctica and that
thev are the onlv species of living creature that has
reached the South Pole independently of man,

There are two Antarctic petrels, and one of these,
the giant petrel, is the largest of the Antarctic flying
birds—with a wing-spread of 2 meters and a weight of
over 4 kilograms.

The most characteristic birds of Antarctica, how-
ever, are species incapable of flight, birds that ac-
tually walk extensively over the barren ice of that
frozen continent. They are penguins, which adapted
to the same kind of life and have developed a smiliar
form to the great auk of the Arctic.

Penguins are as closely adapted to sea life as the
great auk was, maybe more so. Their wings are pad-
dles that are useless for flying but that give them an
almost unmatched speed (almost 50 kilometers an
hour) and turning ability underwater. Such is the
force of their swimming that they can leap out of the
water to twice their own height. On land, however,
the best they can do is waddle in ungainly fashion.
(Their upright posture, their humorous waddle, and
their black and white coloration, as though they were
wearing suits, have endeared them to men and spared
them carnage.)

220

ISAAC ASIMOV

There are seventeen species of penguins altogether
all of them native to the Southern Hemisphere. Of
these, two species actually live on Antarctica. The
smaller of the Antarctic penguins is the Adelie pen-
guin, so called because it is found in Adelie Land.
The Adelie penguins congregate in crowded nesting
sites inland ("rookeries"). They are about 45 centime-
ters tall and weigh 6 to 7 kilograms.

The skua is always waiting to eat the eggs and the
penguin chicks, while in the ocean the leopard seal
waits for the adults. As long as man does not interfere,
however, enough survive to keep the species going.

More astonishing is the emperor penguin, the larg-
est of all living penguins, standing over a meter high
(twice the height of the Adelie) and weighing as
much as 35 kilograms. (There are fossils of penguins,
now extinct, that stood 1.6 meters high and weighed
as much as 110 kilograms.)

Unlike the Adelie penguins, the emperors did not
seem to possess rookeries. Edward Wilson, one of
those fated to die later with Scott in the tragic at-
tempt to reach the South Pole and return, was particu-
larly interested in finding the eggs of the emperor
penguin. He believed the emperor penguin to be the
most primitive of all birds, and the species most
closely related to the reptiles. (He was wrong in this.)
He thought that a study of the embryos of these birds
might clarify their position in the animal kingdom.

In 1902, he was the first to discover an emperor
penguin rookery. (There are fourteen known rookeries
now, sheltering perhaps 160,000 emperor penguins al-
together.) For the first time, Wilson saw emperor
chicks on the feet of adults. From their size, he real-
ized the hatching of those chicks must have taken

OPUS 200                221

place quite awhile before, during what was then win-
ter.

In fact, it was discovered that the female emperor
penguin laid her single egg in the middle of the Ant-
arctic winter, so that the egg had to be incubated un-
der worse conditions, by far, than those experienced
by any other bird in the world. The emperor penguin
is the onlv bird that does not nest on bare land. It
nests on ice, and the emperor penguin may, indeed,
never feel bare land but find itself always on or in
water in solid or liquid form. (The Adelie penguin
nests on exposed land along the rim of the continent
and lays its eggs at the beginning of summer.)

The emperor penguin rookeries are located inland,
some 80 to 130 kilometers from the coast. (Emperor
penguins are occasionally found as far as 400 kilome-
ters from the nearest coast, stubbornly trudging along—
the farthest south any nonfiying vertebrate has ever
reached independently of man.) „

It takes a month for the emperor penguins to travel
from the shores of Antarctica, where food can be ob-
tained, to the inland rookeries where no food exists
(but where, except for man and skua, isolation and
security are absolute). The emperor penguins fast
during this trek.

There, in the interior, in winter, the female lays her
single egg. TTiere is no nest and no nesting territory,
something that only the emperor penguin, of all birds,
lacks. The single egg is taken by the male and placed
on his feet, immediately under a bare and unfeathered
patch of the abdomen. A flap of skin covers the egg,
which is then incubated against the father's body and
on his feet, so that the nesting territory is, so to speak,
the ground on which the birds stands.

222

ISAAC ASIMOV

The male emperor penguins can waddle about
clumsily without losing the eggs, and most of them
huddle together for warmth, which they need, for
the icy Antarctic midwinter temperatures go as low
as—60° C, and the gales whistle past the birds at speeds
of up to 150 kilometers per hour.                 '

Once the egg is transferred, the female takes off for
food and the sea again—another month's journey. The
male, however, stands his ground for sixty days, still
fasting. Prior to the trek to the rookery, the male em-
peror penguin has eaten enough to lay by a sizable
quantity of fat—attaining a weight of 35 kilograms—but
this begins to melt away during the long fast.

Finally, when the chicks are near to hatching, the
females return an4 ^^ over. At last the males can
head for the sea, which they finally reach after a four-
month fast during which they lose 25 to 40 percent of
their weight.

When the chick hatches, the mother feeds it with
food she had stored in her crop, but this won't last.
The father must return, and for a while the parents
take turns walking to the sea, eating their fill, and re-
turning to feed the chick. Fully one quarter of the
chicks don't survive the rigors of that first winter—but
by the time the Antarctic summer arrives and the
coastal ice begins breaking up, those that have sur-
vived can make it to the sea and go out to feed on
their own.

Words are of natural interest to writers, and certainly
to me. It is a source of delight to me that English is
my first language, for no other language consists of so
many words, so many madly spelled and madly pro-
nounced words, so many lawless words. In no other
language, I firmly believe, can you have such fun
with words.

What one-syllable word becomes two syllables if
you subtract two letters?

What word changes pronunciation when it is capi-
talized?

What word has a spelling pattern xyzxyzx?

There are four common English words ending with
"dous." Three of them are "tremendous" "stupen-
dous^ and "horrendous" What is the fourth?

What common words contain the following letters in
order somewhere in their spelling: pefr, wsp, ckc, ufi,
ufa?

I'll give you the answers at the end of this section.
Meanwhile, you can have fun with them.

My chief pleasure has always been the origin and
etymology of words My first hundred books include
no less than six {all published by Houghton Miffiin)
that deal exclusively with etymology. These are Words

226

ISAAC ASIMOV

of Science, Words from the Mvths, Words in Genesis,
Words from the Exodus, Words on the Map, Words
from History.

These cover the subject rather thoroughly and there
are no such easy pickings in the second hundred. I did
manage one more with Houghton Mifflin, however.
That was More Words of Science (Book 122), pub-
lished in 1972. Here are three essays from that hook:

one on a chemical word, one on a biological word,
and one on a physical word.

from MORE WORDS OF SCIENCE (1972)

HALLUCINOGENS

The brain, like every other part of the body, performs
its functions through certain chemical reactions. These
are produced by stimuli brought to the brain through
die senses. It is possible to change the brain chemistry
by taking substances that interfere with these chemi-
cal reactions. In that case, the body will respond to
stimuli that don't relate to the outside world. Objects
that are not really there seem to be sensed, while ob-
jects that are really there may be ignored. The results
are "hallucinations," from a Latin word meaning "to
wander in the mind."

Certain plants contain chemicals that can produce
hallucinations. The peyote cactus and a mushroom
called Amanita muscaria contain such chemicals.
Sometimes these plants are eaten in primitive religious
celebrations because the hallucinations are thought to
be glimpses of another world (or an escape from this
one). Another substance that produces hallucinations
is hashish, one form of which is marijuana.

OPUS 200                 227

In 1943, a Swiss chemist, Albert Hofmann, was
studying an organic compound called "lysergic acid
diethylamide" and accidentally got a few tiny crystals
of it on his fingers. He happened to touch his fingers to
his Ups and was soon overcome by odd hallucinations.
It took him a full day to regain normality. He began
careful studies and found that very small doses of the
chemical could always produce hallucinations. The
name was soon reduced to an abbreviation of the
three words. Since the German word for "acid" is
Saure, and Hofmann spoke German, the abbreviation
isLSD.

Since many young people foolishly began to play
games with their minds by taking LSD and other such
substances, hallucination-producing drugs became im-
portant to study. They are now lumped together un-
der the general name "hallucinogens" (producers of
hallucinations).

PHEBOMONE

Human beings can communicate by talking. Through
sounds, gestures, and written symbols, abstract ideas
can be transmitted from one person to another. Hu-
man beings are unique in this respect.

Yet other creatures must be able to communicate in
some fashion, if only so that there can be cooperation
between two individuals of a species in order that
they might reproduce. Within a body, the different
parts are made to behave in some cooperative fashion
by means of chemical messenger's called "hormones."
Is it possible that chemical messages can be carried
on, not only within an organism, but from one organ-
ism to another?

Such hormonal effects, carried through water or air

228

ISAAC ASIMOV

Y,.

from one member of a species to another, are called
"pheromones," the prefix coming from a Greek word
meaning "to carry." They are hormones carried over a
distance.

Insect pheromones are the most dramatic. A female
moth can liberate a compound that will act as a pow-
erful sexual attractant on a male moth of the same
species a mile away. Each species must have its own
pheromone, for there is no point in affecting a male of
another species. Each species must have receiving de-
vices of tremendous delicacy because they must be
able to react to Just a few molecules in the air.

Pheromones are also used in interspecies conflict.
Certain ants raid the nests of other ant species to kid-
nap the young, which they rear as slaves. The raiders
use trails of pheromones which not only aid them to
keep together and coordinate their attacks, but also
act to alarm and scatter the ant species they are at-
tacking.

Biologists are laboring to use insect pheromones to
lure members of troublesome species to destruction.
In this way, they can be absolutely specific, doing no
direct harm to any other species.

SYNCHROTRON

In the 1930s, physicists developed methods for accel-
erating subatomic particles in order to give them high
energies and send them smashing into atomic nuclei.
The most successful of these was invented by the
American physicist Ernest 0. Lawrence in 1931. It
whirled particles around and around, thanks to the
driving force of a magnetic field, and it was therefore
called a "cyclotron,"

By making larger and larger magnets, one could

OPUS 200                 229

whirl the particles to greater and greater energies.
The device only works well, however, if the mass of
the particles doesn't change. As the particles go faster,
their mass increases considerably (as Albert Einstein
predicted they would in his special theory of relativity).
This lowers the efficiency of the cyclotron and limits
the energies it can produce.

In 1945, the Soviet physicist Vladimir I. Veksler and
the American physicist Edwin M. McMilIan inde-
pendently worked out a wav to alter the strength of a
magnetic field so as to match the increase in mass.
The two effects were "synchronized" (from Greek
words meaning "same time") and the efficiency re-
mained high. Such a modified cyclotron was called a
"synchrocyclotron."

In cyclotrons, the whirling particles spiral outward
and eventually pass beyond the limits of the magnet.
If the particles could be held in a tight circle, they
could be whirled many more times before being re-
leased and still higher energies would be attained.

The English physicist Marcus L. E. Oliphant
worked out a design for such a device in 1947, and in
1952 the first of the kind was built in Brookhaven Na-
tional Laboratory on Long Island. It still made use of
a synchronized increase in the strength of the field,
but the spiraling of the particles, as in a cyclotron,
was gone. The new device was therefore called simply
a "synchrotron."

As for the puzzles I set you at the beginning of the
section—

1. The one-syllable word "plague" loses the first two
letters and becomes the two-syllable "ague."

2. Capitalize the word polish" and it becomes "Pol-
ish."

230

ISAAC ASIMOV

3. The most common word with the pattern xyzxyzx
is "alfalfa." Second is "entente," but that is more
French than English. There was once a breath
freshener with the name "Sen-Sen."

4. The fourth common English word ending in "dous"
is "hazardous."                          , '

5. The letter combinations and the words containing
them are:

pefi—grapefruit
'wsp—newy{wper (Less good, because less common,

is "bowsprit."}
ckc—sackcloth or cockcrow
v&—genuflect

uf a—manufacture (Oddly enough, this is the only
common word with that combination.)

In the course of my first hundred hooks, I wrote a
history hook for Hom'hton Mifflin entitled The
Greeks. I enjoyed dome that so much thtit I embarked
on a whole series of histories, and In) the time I had
reached my hundredth book, Houghton Mifflin had
published seven of them, all on ancient and medieval
history.

In the course of my second hundred books I did
seven more histories for Houston Mifflin. One of
them. The Land of Canaan (Book 116}, was on an-
cient history. In this book, piil}lished in 1971, I told
the tale of the Maccabean revolt.

from THE LAND OF CANAAN (1971)

The high priests of the old line of Zadok, which dated
back to Solomon's Temple, still held their state in Je-
rusalem. In 219 B.C., during the last years of Ptolemaic
dominion, Onias II died and Simon II became high
priest. He is known to later generations as Simon the
Just and received an eloquent tribute in the fiftieth
chapter of the apocryphal biblical book Ecclesiasti-
cus. In 196 B.C., at about the time Judea passed under
Seleucid dominion, Simon's son Onias III became

234

ISAAC ASIMOV

high priest He, too, is pictured as having been pious
and devout.

Judea itself was confined to a small inland region
bordering on the northwestern shores of the Dead
Sea, with Jerusalem as its only city of note and with a
total area of only about 750 square miles. To its north,
where once Israel had been, was Samaria, and with
the Samaritans the Jews maintained a deadly hostility,
each group considering the other to be pernicious he-
retics. To the south of Judea lived the descendants of
the Edomites, who had moved northward into land
that had once been southern Judah and which was
now Idumea. Between Jews and Idumeans there was
also a deadly enmity.

To be sure, the Jews were not confined to Judea.
Many of them colonized Galilee, the region north of
Samaria. It had once made up northern Israel but in
these days was so full of non-Jews that it was called
Galilee of the Gentiles by the conservative and disap-
proving Jews of Judea itself. Then, of course, there
were the Jews of the Diaspora (Greek for "disper-
sion"); that is, those who dwelt outside the borders of
the land that had once been promised to Abraham.
There were the Jews of the Tigris-Euphrates, of Alex-
andria, of the Greek cities in Asia Minor and else-
where.

To all Jews, however, wherever located, Jerusalem
and its Temple remained at the center of their na-
tional consciousness. At the time of the great festivals,
Jerusalem was crowded with Jews from all over the
Near East, coming to sacrifice. The development of
Judaism was by this time almost complete. Virtually
all the books of the Old Testament had by now been
written.

OPUS 200                235

Yet Judaism faced a new danger. The old Canaanite
idolatries were long gone, but a new and even more
attractive idolatry existed. Since the time of Alexan-
der, Greeks had penetrated all the Mediterranean
world and wherever they went they carried Greek cul-
ture with them. They were a city people, too, and
wherever they went they founded cities. In Judea arid
surrounding lands, the penetration by the Greeks had
been slow under the Ptolemys, but when the Greek-
loving Seleucid kings took over, the trend accelerated.

And those who were not Greeks by race (or Hel-
lenes, as the Greeks called themselves) nevertheless
hastened to adopt Greek culture. They became Hel-
lenized and the process of HeIIenization became a
dominating force in all the Mediterranean. Even the
rough Romans of the west felt the force of HeIIeniza-
tion; and Scipio himself, the conqueror of Hannibal,
was a leader of those who would adopt Greek ways.

The Jews were not immune. Many Jews, not only in
Greek cities far from Jerusalem but even in Judea it-
self, adopted Greek ways of life while paying lip ser-
vice to the older and less sophisticated notions of Juda-
ism. Other Jews, however, particularly in Judea itself,
clung entirely to the old ways and abhorred Greek no-
tions.

The stage was set for a quarrel between these two
lands of Judaism, but anvone looking at the world in
183 B.C. could not possibly have foreseen that such a
struggle could have any importance or that it could
have any possible effect outside Judea. The thought
that the struggle would have world-shaking effects
and that it would dictate the nature of the religions
that would dominate the world in centuries to come
would have seemed utterly unbelievable.

236

ISAAC ASIMOV

Yet it happened; but so slowly that for centuries no
one could possibly have noticed that anything impor-
tant was taking place.

It began with the failure of Antiochus III- The large
indemnity he had agreed to pay the Roman's follow-
ing his defeat was more than he had in his treasury. J
To get the money, lie liad to squeeze the rich temples
of his land- It was while he was trying to carry the
gold out of one of the temples in a far province that
the rioting peasantry killed him in 187 B.C.

He was succeeded by his son Seleucus IV, who
found the Seleucid realm weakened by defeat and
plunder and the far-eastern provinces, so painstak-
ingly retaken by Antiochus III, falling away again,
this time permanently."

Seleucus IV attempted to maintain a quiet and un-
adventurous reign, since the land needed time for re-
covery. He still needed money, however, as his father
had, and one of the obvious sources was the Temple
in Jerusalem. Seleucus sent an official named Helio-
dorus to see what could be done in that direction.

The tale of what follows is told in the apocryphal
book of Second Maccabees in a garbled fashion. What
may very likely have happened was that Onias III, the
high priest, managed to make a deal with Heliodorus.
He bribed Heliodorus generously, giving the under-
ling a part in order to avoid having to give the master
the whole. Heliodorus knew that he risked his neck if
what he had done was discovered, so he arranged to
have Seleucus IV assassinated in 175 B.C.

But Seleucus IV had a younger brother Antiochus,
who had been born in Athens and who, after his fa-

* For the subsequent history of these eastern provinces, see
my book The Near East (Houghton Mifflin, 1968).

OPUS 200                237

ther's defeat, had been sent as a hostage to Rome. The
younger Antiochus was treated kindly there and con-
ceived an admiration for Rome. He was also (perhaps
because of his pride in his Athenian birth) an enthusi-
ast of Greek culture. On hearing of his older brother's
assassination, Antiochus left Rome and made his way
to Antioch. Once there, he had no trouble seizing con-
trol and beginning his reign as Antiochus IV.

Antiochus IV was a capable man who dreamed of
restoring the Seleucid Empire to the power from
which the defeat by the Romans had toppled it. To do
this—the old story—he needed money. Among the
sources of funds was still the Temple at Jerusalem.
Onias III, who represented the more conservative fac-
tions of Judaism, was still high priest and Antiochus
IV viewed him with disfavor. This might have been
simply the result of the old man's stubborn refusal to
part with Temple money, or perhaps Antiochus had
heard rumors of the deal with Heliodorus. Then, too,
Antiochus may well have thought his kingdom would
be stronger if all its people were united in Hellenic
culture, and the stubborn adherence of Onias III to
conservative Judaism may have bothered him.

In any case, when Onias' brother Joshua ap-
proached Antiochus with suggestions of a deal, Anti-
ochus listened. The suggestion was that Antiochus ap-
point Joshua as high priest in place of his brother.
Joshua would then allow Antiochus a generous supply
of the Temple funds. (In return, Joshua would have
the prestige and power of the high priesthood and—as
both men knew—a chance to enrich himself, as any
high priest could do if he were a little unscrupulous.)
To tempt Antiochus further, Joshua played up to his
known pro-Greek proclivities by offering to encour-
age the Hellenization of the Jews. As a demonstration

238

ISAAC ASIMOV

of his sincerity in this direction, he had changed his
name from the Hebrew "Joshua" to the Greek "Jason."

Antiochus agreed to the deal. Onias III was taken
off to house arrest in Anfrioch, and Joshua-Jason be-
came high priest. Joshua-Jason promptly began to live
up to his part of the bargain. Antiochus got his money
and Joshua-Jason established a gymnasium in Jerusa-
lem, At the gymnasium young men could exercise,
Greek fashion, in the nude, and the more modish of
the young Jews flocked to it. (And Joshua-Jason, who
controlled the gymnasium financially, reaped gener-
ous profits.)

The conservative Jews were horrified by the arrest
of Onias III and by the rifling of the treasury, but the
gymnasium shocked them most of all. Not only was
public nudity considered an abomination, but young
Jews who wished to exercise often wore false foreskins
to avoid advertising the fact that they were circum-
cised—thus denying the very mark of Judaism.

But Joshua-Jason had merely taught others to take
the same route as himself. A cousin of his named On-
ias, who took the Greek name of Menelaus, offered
Antiochus a still higher bribe ^f he were made high
priest in his turn. Antiochus obliged in 172 B.C. and in
succeeding years the Temple and the people were
looted indeed.

When the depredation of Onias-Menelaus became
plain, old Onias III, who was looked upon by all con-
servative Jews as the only legitimate high priest, had
the courage to denounce the matter publicly, and then
took sanctuary in a Creek temple in a suburb of Anti-
och. Onias-Menelaus, however, seems to have per-
suaded the Seleudd commander in the district (with
bribes, perhaps) to induce Onias III to leave the sanc-
tuary by giving an oath for his safety. Once Onias III

OPUS 200                239

was out of the temple, he was promptly murdered.
This was in 170 B.C.

There was chaos in Judea among those factions sup-
porting this high priest or that, but this was of little
moment to Antiochus IV. The Hellenization of the
land seemed to be progressing favorably and he had
the money he needed from the Temple at Jerusalem
and from other sources. He could now buy arms, pay
soldiers, and begin the Seleucid comeback. He in-
tended to begin the comeback by taking over Egypt,
which was now under the rule of Ptolemy VI, an ami-
able person but a complete incompetent.

Antiochus IV had no trouble at all. He was a good
general and he had a good army. Brushing aside feeble
Ptolemaic resistance, he marched to Memphis, the an-
cient capital of the Egyptians, and in 170 B.C. had
himself declared king of Egypt. He then took his army
to the Ptolemaic capital of Alexandria and, in 169 B.C.,
placed it under siege.

While the siege was under way, however, news
reached Antiochus that in his absense Joshua-Jason
had attempted to take the high priesthood from
Onias-Menelaus by force. Jerusalem was in a state of
civil war and the Seleucid army, almost 350 miles west
of its own borders, could not afford to have its line of
communications threatened.

Furious, Antiochus IV hastened back to Judea and
punished the troublesome Jews by occupying the city,
entering the Temple himself at the head of an armed
contingent, and dragging off all the valuables he
could find. For the moment, Jerusalem was stricken
and quiet.

In 168 B.C., then, Antiochus IV returned to Egypt,
where he had as little trouble as before and where he
once again resumed the siege of Alexandria. By now,

240

ISAAC ASIMOV

however, the Ptolemys had squealed for help to
Rome, which promptly answered the call. Outside the
walls of Alexandria a Roman ambassador approached
Antiochus IV. Antiochus recognized him as an old
friend and approached gladiv to greet him; but the
old friend was an official emissary from Rome now
and he had only one thing to say: Antiochus was ei-
ther to leave Egypt or to accept war with Rome.
Thunderstruck, Antiochus IV asked for time to con-
sider. The Roman drew a circle in the ground around
the king and said, "Decide before you leave the cir-
cle."

Antiochus dared not face Rome. Though his entire
army was around him and though it had marched vic-
toriously through Egypt, and though it was sure to
take Alexandria, he and all his men had to back down
in the face of a single unarmed Roman. There are few
humiliations in history as dramatic as this one.

We can imagine Antiochus' angry frustration as he
retreated, his need to get back at something or some-
one. Perhaps the news reached him that the Jews were
jubilant over the state of his affairs, as well they
might be in view of the troubles he had visited on
them by his manipulation of the high priesthood and
by his looting of the Temple.

In any case, Antiochus IV determined that, though
the Romans might humiliate him, the Jews would not.
On his return to Antioch in 167 B.C. he resolved to put
an end to Judaism altogether. Let the Jews become
Greeks and loyal subjectsl It did not seem to him
(probably) to be much of a task. Men such as Joshua-
Jason and Onias-Menelaus seemed only too eager to
be Greek, and they commanded sizable factions
among the Jews.

Consequently, Antiochus ordered that the Temple

OPUS 200                241

in Jerusalem be made Greek and that within it there
be erected a statue representing Zeus (with whom
Yahweh was to be identified) and that on its altar
there be sacrifices offered in Greek fashion. What's
more, copies of the Tewish Scriptures were to be de-
stroyed, Jewish dietarv regulations ended, the Sab-
bath abolished, and the practice of circumcision for-
bidden. Those Jews who accented Hellenization were
to be left in peace as loyal subjects of Antiochus- For
the first time in history a persecution began that was
religious, not national, in character.

Words cannot describe the horror felt by the conserva-
tive Jews. Nebuchadnezzar, four centuries before, had
merely destroyed the Temple, but Antiochus had des-
ecrated it with idols and swine's flesh. Nebuchadnez-
zar had merely taken away the Jewish land, but •Anti-
ochus was taking awav their ideal. The conservative
Jews prepared to resist and to retain their way of life,
even to death by torture.

Such deaths took place, according to the tales told
later in Second Maccabees. Grisly tales of martyrdom,
of Jews dying under torture rather than agreeing to
taste swine's flesh, are recorded there. These were the
first martyr tales in the Judeo-Christian tradition and
they formed a precedent.

It was during this period of trial that the books of
Daniel and of Esther were written with their (fic-
tional) tales of the dangers and sufferings undergone
by Jews under previous oppressors and of how these
were overcome by faith and courage. The apocryphal
books of Tobit and Judith were written in similar
fashion. These were intended to serve, not as sober
history (though they were taken as such by the pious
of later ages), but as devices for stimulating and en-

242

ISAAC ASIMOV

couraging resistance. And eventually, the resistance
ceased being that of passive acceptance of torture and
death and became the active return of violence for
violence.

This new turn of events began with an aged priest,
Mattathias. He and his five sons left Jerusalem and
retired to the comparative safety of a small town
named Modin, seventeen miles to the northwest, out-
side Judea proper. According to Josephus, the great-
great-grandfather of Mattathias was named Hashmon,
so that Mattathias and his descendants are sometimes
called the Hasmoneans. On the other hand, the third
of his five sons, who was to turn out to be the most
famous of them, was Judah Makkabi, or in Greek
form, Judas Maccabeus. The surname may mean the
Hammerer, from his later victories. In any case, the
family has come to be better known as the Macca-
bees, and the apocryphal books written about the
events of this time, whether sober history in the case
of First Maccabees, dramatized history in the case of
Second Maccabees, or fiction in the case of Third
Maccabees, all received this name.

The spark that initiated the Jewish rebellion against
the Seleucids was set off by an officer of Antiochus
who came to Modin to enforce the new laws. He
asked Mattathias, as a prominent Jewish leader, to set
a good example and to carry through a sacririce to
Zeus in the manner required. Mattathias refused.
When another Jew offered to fulfill the royal com-
mand, Mattathias, in a rage, killed the Jew and the
Seleucid officer.

There was then nothing to do but to leave Modin
hastily. Mattathias and his sons made for the Cophna
hills, some dozen miles northeast of Modin. Other
Jews who resented the new laws came to join him

OPUS 200                 243

there, and in no time a guerrilla band had been
formed. Mattathias died very soon after the flight to
the hills and the band came under the command of
Judas Maccabeus.

Joining the Maccabee standard were bands of Has-
sidim (or, in the Greek version of the name, Hasi-
deans), a term which means "the pious ones." Their
sole concern lay in religion and they were uninter-
ested in politics. It was onlv when the practice of Ju-
daism was outlawed that they were willing to resort to
violence, but under those conditions they were fanati-
cal fighters indeed.

The Gophna hills lay in Samaritan territory, and the
Seleucid governor of the region, Apollonius, moved
quickly to nip the revolt before it got very far. Apol-
lonius was, in all likelihood, overconfident. He must
have been convinced he could easiiv handle a few
rebels and he marched forward carelessly. Judas' men
lay in ambush and swarmeA down at the proper time.
Apollonius' men were scattered, Apollonius himself
was killed, and Judas took Apollonius' sword for use
in later battles.

This victory encouraged the conservative Jews in
Jerusalem and placed the pro-Hell enizers there in dif-
ficulties. Matters grew still worse for the latter. A
larger Seleucid force was sent out in 166 B.C. to oc-
cupy Jerusalem and end the annoying revolt. Again
Judas Maccabeus and his men lay in ambush, this
time at Bethhoron, twelve miles northwest of Jerusa-
lem. The second Seleucid force was also trapped and
destroyed.

By now the Jewish guerrillas had made a first-class
nuisance of themselves, but Antiochus IV could not
turn his full attention to them. He needed money,
money, money, and he had to get that somewhere in

244

ISAAC ASIMOV

the east, where the provinces had declared themselves
independent and where tax collections had dried up.
Off he marched eastward, leaving the small Jewish
war band to the attention of his minister, Lysias.

In 165 B.C. Lysias assembled a strong army at Em-
maus, fifteen miles west of Jerusalem and eleven
miles west of the Maccabean stronghold at Mizpeh.
Judas held his ground and remained on the defensive.
With only three thousand men he had to.

But the Seleucid army could not wait. If the rebels
would not come out to fight, they would have to be
flushed out. Its commander made a mistake, however;

he divided his forces and sent only part to Mizpeh.
That was what Judas was hoping for. With the enemy
divided, Judas raced his men to Emmaus, where he
attacked and defeated the part of the Seleucid army
that had remained there- With that done, Judas
whirled on the contingent that was returning fruit-
lessly from Mizpeh. For the third time, the Seleucids
were defeated.

Later in the year Lysias tried once more, sending a
troop around Judea into the friendly land of Idumea
and then attacking toward Jerusalem from the south.
The watchful Judas stopped him at Beth-zur, sixteen
miles southwest of Jerusalem, and defeated him again.

By now, successive victories had brought enough of
the Jews to the side of the Maccabees to make if" pos-
sible for the guerrillas to enter Jerusalem. Seleucid
forces and their Hellenized Jewish sympathizers still
controlled the fortified portions of the city, but the
Maccabees were able to seize the Temple.

Judas Maccabeus proceeded to rededicate the Tem-
ple, purifying it from its Seleucid profanation. He
chose priests who had never compromised with the
Seleucid authorities, tore down the altar on which

OPUS 200

245

swine had been sacrificed to Zeus, and buried the
stones. A new altar was built, new vessels supplied,
and proper sacrifices performed. The anniversary of
the dedication of the Temple in 165 B.C. is celebrated
to this day by the Jews as the eight-day feast of
Hanukkah ("dedication").

Judas Maccabeus bv no means considered this a fi-
nal victory. It was merely an item. He had as his am-
bition the liberation of all Jews everywhere in the
land that had once been Canaan. He led his army
across the Jordan and northward, while his brother Si-
mon, with another troop, took the route northward
along the coast. Both defeated Seleucid contingents,
enrolled fighters from among the Jewish population,
and established strongpoints. By 163 B.C. the Seleucid
power south of Damascus had been reduced to tatters,
and far off, in what is now central Iran, Antiochus IV
died, possibly from tuberculosis. Despite his very real
ability, his reign had been a disaster.

The death of Antiochus IV did not end Seleucid at-
tempts to repress the Maccabean revolt Antiochus'
nine-year-old son reigned as Antiochus V, with Lysias
as his minister. In 162 B.C. yet another Seleucid army
advanced to the attack. It was the strongest yet, and
once again it attacked from the south, moving through
Beth-zur. It had at least one elephant moving with it.

In a battle at Beth-zecfaariah, Bve miles north of
Beth-zur, the Maccabeans were forced back. Eleazar,
one of the brothers of Judas, fought his way to the
elephant, thinking that it carried the king in person.
He stabbed it in the abdomen and killed it, but the
dying elephant fell on Eleazar and crushed him—and
it did not after all, carry the young king.

Eleazar's feat did not turn the tide of battle, and for
the first time, in the face of overwhelming strength,

246

ISAAC ASIMOV

Judas was defeated. He brought what he could save
of his forces back to the Gophna hills, where he and his
family had first sought refuge five years before, and
the Seleucid forces reoccupied Jerusalem. This time,
however, they were careful to make no attempt to in-
terfere with the Temple services. Lysias' moderation
was the result of trouble at home. Other generals were
trying to seize control of the kingdom from Lysias,
while Demetrius, a nephew of Antiochus IV, was
grabbing at the tlirone itself.

Lysias therefore, in an effort to end the Judean re-
volt which was sapping his strength, offered a compro-
mise. He would grant the Jews complete religious free-
dom if they would accept Seleucid political sover-
eignty. The Hassidim, who were interested only in
Judaism as a religion, accepted this and retired from
the battle. This meant that Lysias had gained his
point, for, without the Hassidim, Judas' remaining
forces were too weak to offer resistance and he could
only maintain himself in the Gophna hills and await
events.

In the Seleucid wars that followed, both Antiochus
V and Lysias were killed, and Demetrius I ruled in
their place. With Judea quiet, he attempted to restore
the situation as it had once been, with the appoint-
ment of a high priest who would control Judaism in
the Seleucid interest—at least to a reasonable degree.
He appointed Eliakim as high priest; Eliakim, a Hel-
lenizer, preferred to be known by the Greek name of
Alcimus. Since Eliakim-Alcimus was of the old Za-
dokite line of priests, the Hassidim accepted him.

Now there was left only the small band of irrecon-
cilables in the Gophna hills. Demetrius might have ig-
nored them, but apparently Judas was attempting to
interest Rome in the Jewish plight, and the Seleucid

OPUS 200

247

•j       king decided to clean them out before it occurred to

Rome to interfere. Demetrius therefore sent his sen-
^       eral Bacchides with a strong force from Jerusalem to-
i       ward the Cophna hills.

^        Battle was Joined eight miles north of Jerusalem in
^,       161 B.C. Judas, whose forces now were less than a
?       thousand strong, was overwhelmed. He himself died
,''       on the battlefield and the few survivors scattered.
|       Two of his brothers, Jonathan and Simon, who were
? -       among those survivors, managed to take Judas' body
^      away from the battlefield and bury him in the family
^      tomb at Modin. Thus died the most remarkable Jew-
ish fighter since the time of David eight centuries be-
fore.

The Maccabean revolt appeared over. A few men
lurked in the southern desert with Jonathan, the
younger brother of Judas Maccabeus, but they were
powerless and could be ignored. The moderate policy
of Lysias and Demetrius I* had worked where the
stern force of Antiochus IV had failed.

The revolt had nevertheless accomplished one pur-
pose: the Temple was Jewish again and the Seleucids
made no attempt ever again to interfere with the rit-
ual. This meant that Judaism had been saved and
that—alone—meant that Judas' stand, though it had
ended in defeat and death, was nevertheless of crucial
importance to world history.

On the other hand, the danger was not entirely
over. Judaism might have been saved only to die more
slowly. The high priest, Alcimus, did all he could to
Hellenize the religion. He died in 159 B.C.—the last
high priest who was in any way Zadokite—but Hellen-
ization continued after him. And it might have suc-
ceeded had the Seleucid kingdom remained a stable

248

ISAAC ASIMOV

and effective governing force. What prevented the
withering of Judaism was not so much what the sur-
viving Maccabees could do, but the continuing dynas-
tic struggle among the Seleucids. Demetrius I was
constantly fighting rivals for the throne, and, when he
was forced to pull soldiers out of Judea, Jonathan and
his small band automatically began to increase in
numbers and expanded to fill the vacuum.

Demetrius made the best of it. In 157 B.C. he ap-
pointed Jonathan to the post of royal governor and al-
lowed him to enter Jerusalem and rule Judea, pro-
vided he acknowledged Seleucid sovereignty. Jona-
than agreed to that, accepting the reality of power
and letting the appearance go.

In 152 B.C. an imposter, Alexander Balas, who
claimed to be a son of Antiochus IV, obtained the
backing of Ptolemaic Egypt and launched a civil war
against Demetrius I. Jonathan remained shrewdly un-
committed for a while, allowing both sides to bid for
his services. Demetrius offered Jonathan rule over
wider areas, and Balas offered to appoint him high
priest. Jonathan accepted both offers.

In that year of 152 B.C., then, Jonathan donned the
robes of the high priesthood, and for the first time in
nine centuries an individual who was not descended
from Solomon's high priest, Zadok, officiated in the
Temple.

Finally, when Jonathan had to choose, he came
down on the side of Balas. The choice seemed a good
one, for in 150 B.C., in a final battle between the two
claimants, Balas was victorious and Demetrius I was
killed.

In 147 B.C., however, the son of Demetrius arrived
in Syria and attacked Balas. The son was Demetrius II
and he, of course, was hostile to the Maccabeans, who

OPUS 200                249

had supported—and were, perforce, continuing to sup-
port—Balas- An army loyal to Demetrius encamped in
what was once the land of the Philistines and chal-
lenged Jonathan to battle. Jonathan, in that same year,
accepted the challenge, and the battle was fought in
Azotus, the Biblical Ashdod.

For the first time the Maccabean army was large
enough to fight as something more than a guerrilla
force—to fight an organized battle rather than institut-
ing a surprise attack from ambush—and it won. The
Maccabees under Jonathan now controlled land on
both sides of the Jordan over an area of some 800
square miles.

In 145 B.C. Demetrius II finally defeated Balas in
battle and drove him to flight and eventual death, but
by then the Seleucid monarchy was a worthless toy.
The civil wars that had been nearly continuous since
the death of Antiochus IV, eighteen years before, had
seen a steady shrinkage of the dominions of Antioch.
All the east, including the Tigris-Euphrates valley,
was now part of the independent kingdom of Parthia
(ruled by a people akin to the Persians). Only Syria
remained to the Seleucids.

Demetrius II found his power so limited that he
could no longer mount a real offensive against the
Maccabean forces. In fact, he needed help against his
own enemies. Jonathan offered such help, suggesting
he would send a band of seasoned Jewish mercenaries
to serve Demetrius if the king would hand over the
fortified posts surrounding Jerusalem. Demetrius
agreed, accepted the forces, used them to establish his
power firmly in Antioch, and then refused to give up
the fortified posts.

The angry Jonathan waited for the inevitable—more
dynastic troubles. In 143 B.C. a general named Try-

250

ISAAC ASIMOV

phon, making use of a young bov who was hailed as
the son of Balas and given the title Antiochus VI, re-
belled against Demetrius II. Jonathan threw his sup-
port to the new claimant at once-
But Tryphon wearied of the indirection of having to
act under cover of a bov and planned to kill Anti-
ochus VI. To do so, however, might have risked the
good will of Jonathan, who was, at the moment, his
strongest supporter. Tryphon therefore planned to
plunge the Maccabean power into confusion in the
most direct possible way Hrst. He invited Jonathan to
a conference in the royal city of Ptolemais, eighty-five
miles north of Jerusalem. Jonathan, apparently flat-
tered to be treated with considerable respect by the
Seleucid power; allowed himself to be lured into the
city with a very small band of men. He was captured
and killed in 142 B.C.

But one Maccabean brother remained—Simon. He
reclaimed Jonathan's bodv and buried it in the family
tomb, then once more approached Demetrius II, who
still maintained a force against Tryphon. Simon of-
fered him an alliance against Tryphon in exchange tor
recognition of complete Judean independence. The
deal was made. and 142 B.C. marked the moment
when, for the first time since Nebuchadnezzar's de-
struction of Jerusalem, 445 years before, there was an
independent Jewish state- Simon ruled both as king
(though he did not use the title) and high priest.

Almost at once Simon began to strengthen himself.
In 141 B.C, he took over the fortified posts in Jerusa-
lem so that at least the capital city was entirely free of
the foreign soldiery. He also took the coastal city of
Joppa to give the newly independent kingdom a foot-
hold at sea.

OPUS 200                251

From a material standpoint my history books do not
do particularly well. For instance, they have never
moved into paperback editions. That doesn't matter to
me, however, since I enjoy writing them, and my in-
come is high enough to let me please myself in this
respect.

Houghton Mifflin might object, to be sure, but they
don't. Perhaps that is because they dont want to hurt
my feelings and see a look of troubled sadness come
into my eyes ... So, among the second hundred,
they loyally published two books of mine on medieval
history: Constantinople {Book 106) in 1970, and The
Shaping of France (Book 126) in 1972.

From the latter book, here is a passage in which
France, having suffered disastrous defeats at the
hands of the smaller nation of England, meets with an
even worse enemy.

from THE SHAPING OF FRANCE (1972)

But once disasters begin to come, they come in battal-
ions. France had suffered a disaster at sea at the Bat-
tle of Sluys, and a far worse disaster on land at the
Battle of Crecy. Now there came a disaster worse than
either, worse than both together, worse than anything
mere medieval armies could do; something that
placed not only France but England, too, and all Eu-
rope under a terror beyond that which mere armies
could create.

It was the plague.

The plague is essentially a disease of rodents and is
spread from rodent to rodent by fleas. Every once in a
while, however, when the fleas spread the disease to
rodents such as house rats, which live in close coa-

252

ISAAC ASIMOV

Junction with human beings, the disease spreads also
to men. Sometimes it affects the lymph nodes, partic-
ularly in the groin and the armpits, causing them to
swell into painful "buboes"—hence "bubonic plague."
Sometimes the lungs are affected ("pneumonic
plague") and that is even worse, for then contagion
proceeds from man to man via the air and there is no
need for the intervention of rats and fleas.

Sometime in the 1330s, a new strain of plague bacil-
lus made its appearance somewhere in central Asia; a
strain to which human beings were particularly sus-
ceptible. Men began to die, and even while Edward
and Philip fought their trivial battle over who was to
rule France, the grinning specter of death was striding
closer to Europe. By the time Calais fell, the plague
had reached the Black Sea.

In the Crimea, the peninsula jutting into the north-
central Black Sea, there was a seaport called Kaffa
where the Genoese had established a trading post. In
October 1347, a fleet of twelve Genoese ships Just
managed to make it back to Genoa from Kaffa. The
few men on board who were not already dead were
dying—and thus the plague entered western Europe.
In early 1348 it was in France and in mid-1348 it had
reached England.

Sometimes one caught a mild version of the disease,
but very often it struck virulently. In the latter case,
the patient was almost always dead within one to
three days after the first symptoms. Because the ex-
treme stages were marked by hemorrhagic spots that
turned dusky, the disease was called the Black Death.

In a world innocent of hygiene, the Black Death
spread unchecked. It is thought to have killed some 25
million people in Europe before it died down (more
because all the most susceptible people were dead

OPUS 200                 253

than because anyone did anything) and many more
than that in: Africa and Asia. About a third of the pop-
ulation of Europe died, perhaps more, and it took a
century and a half before natural multiplication re-
stored European population to what it had been at
the time of the Battle of Crecy- It was the greatest
natural disaster to strike mankind in recorded history.

Its short-term effects were marked by the abject
terror it inspired among the populace. It seemed as
though the world were coming to an end, and every-
one walked in fear. A sudden attack of shivering or
giddiness, a mere headache, might mean that death
had marked you for its own and had given you a cou-
ple dozen hours to live.

. Whole towns were depopulated, with the first to
'die lying unburied while the initial survivors fled—
only to spread the disease to wherever it was they
fled to. Farms lay untended; domestic animals (who
also died by the millions) wandered about uncared
for. Whole nations (Aragon, for instance) were af-
flicted so badly that they never truly recovered.

Distilled liquors (alcoholic drinks produced by dis-
tilling wine, thus producing a stronger solution of al-
cohol than could be formed by natural fermentation)
had first been developed in Italy about 1100. Now,
two centuries later, they grew popular. The theory
was that strong drink acted as a preventive against
contagion. It didn't, but it made the drinker less con-
cerned, which was something. The plague of drunken-
ness settled down over Europe to match the plague of
disease and remained behind after the disease was
gone.

Everyone suffered, with those who lived in
crowded quarters the worst, of course. Towns suf-
fered more than the countryside, and indeed the grad-

254

ISAAC ASIMOV

ua] urbanization of the west received a setback from
which it did not recover for a century. Monastic com-
munities were also particularly hard hit, and the qual-
ity of monastic life in some ways never recovered.

Even the highest were vulnerable. In 1348 and
1349, three archbishops of Canterbury died of the
plague. In the papal capital of Avignon, five cardinals
and a hundred bishops died. A daughter of Edward
III, Joan, was on her wav to Castile to marry the son
of King Alfonso XI. She died of plague in Bordeaux
on her way there. And in Castile, so did King Alfonso.
In France, Philip's queen, Joan of Burgundy, died.

The terrified populace had to take action. Knowing
nothing of the germ theorv or of the danger of fleas, un-
able to keep clean in a culture which was rather suspi-
cious of cleanliness and considered it unholy, they
could do nothing useful. They could, however, find a
scapegoat, and for that there were always Jews avail-
able.

The theory arose that the Jews had deliberately poi-
soned wells in order to destroy Christians. The fact
that Jews were dying of the plague on equal terms
with Christians was not allowed to interfere with the
theory, and the Jews were slaughtered without mercy.
Of course this did nothing at all to diminish the scourge.

Viewed from a longer range, the Black Death
(which kept recurring at intervals—though never
again as bad—after the first attack had died out in
1351) destroyed the medieval optimism of the thir-
teenth century. It placed a kind of gloom on the world
and bred a growth of fatalistic mysticism that took a
long time to dispel.

It also helped destroy the economic structure of feu-
dalism. There had never been a surplus of labor in the
fields and the towns, but with the devastation of the

OPUS 200                 255

plague (which fell more violently upon the low-born
than upon the aristocracy} there was a sudden ex-
treme shortage. Savage laws were promulgated by
governments in order to keep serfs and artisans from
taking advantage of the suddenly increased value of
their muscles and skills, but no laws could counter the
economic facts of life.

Serfs who recognized the great need for their serv-
ices dickered for better treatment and greater privi-
leges and often got them. Artisans charged higher
prices. Prices and wages rose, and to the difficulties
produced by war and plague were added those of eco-
nomic dislocation and inflation.

Under the double blow of the Battle of Crecy and
the Black Death, the very basis of feudalism, both
military and economic, was destroyed. In western Eu-
rope, it had to die. It took its time, but there was
never a question of its surviving after the mid-
fourteenth century; only of how long it would take be-
fore human beings realized that it was dead.

Then, half a century later, after the French had sttf-
fered civil war and additional defeats and the ever-
victorious English were lai/ing siege to Orleans with
final victory at hand, here is what happened:

' from THE SHAPING OF FRANCE (2972)

On February 12, 1429, when the siege was completing
its fourth month, a column of French tried to inter-
cept a wagon train being sent to the English from
Paris. This included many barrels of dried herrings,
for it was the Lenten season and fish was in high de-

256

ISAAC ASIMOV

mand. The supply train was under the command of
Sir John Fastoife, who had fought well at Agincourt
and in Normandy.

As soon as Fastoife was aware of the oncoming
French, he took vigorous measures for the defense. He
drew his wagons into a line that served as an im-
promptu fortification. From behind the shelter of
those wagons, he placed his English longbowmen at
one flank, and Parisian crossbowmen (the Parisians
were still hotly pro-Burgundy and anti-Armagnac) on
the other.

The French fought well, but there was little they
could do against the wagon-protected bowmen, and
the English won again. Burst barrels strewed herring
all over the field, so the action is known as the Battle
of the Herrings.

The French relieving forces were particularly dis-
heartened at this repulse because it seemed one more
in an endless string of victories won in the field by
the English. There seemed no use in fighting at all, so
what was left of those forces marched hastily away.
No other forces were sent with any intention of battle.
Orleans was left to its fate, and, after two more
months had passed, it seemed that Orleans must fall
and that the Bastard, whatever his resolution and abil-
ity, would simply have to surrender.

And then a very strange thing happened, one of the
strangest in history, and something that would have
been derided as incredible if it had appeared in a
work of fiction.

A peasant girl appeared on the scene.

Her name was Jeanne Dare and she was born about
1412 at the village of Domremy, at the eastern borders
of France, 160 miles east of Paris. After the Treaty of
Troyes, Domremy lay in that part of France which

OPUS 200                257

had been handed over to the overlordship of the En-
glish king.

• Jeanne Dare, or Joan Dare in English, is never
known by that name. Her last name has been mis-
spelled as d'Arc, as though she were of the nobility, so
that in English she is invariably known as Joan of Arc,
although there is no place called Arc from which she
came or over which she had some claim.

In her teens she was experiencing visions, hearing
voices and imagining herself called on to save France.
In 1429, these visions and voices finally drove her to
action. Charles VII had still not been crowned at
Reims, though six full vears had passed since the
death of his father. What's more, the siege of Orleans
might end in another English victory, and that might
defeat him forever. It seemed to Joan that her mission
had to start at once, that she had to relieve the siege
and crown Charles.

In January 1429, Joan left for Vaucouleurs, twelve
miles north of Domremy, wliere there was a fortified
outpost that still held out for Charles VII. Its captain
was sufficiently impressed by her (or perhaps suffi-
ciently eager to get rid of her) to send her on to
Charles VII with an escort of six men. Charles VII
was then at Chinon, 90 miles southwest of Orleans
and 270 miles from Domremy. Joan had to cross
English-controlled territory to reach Chinon, and so
she dressed in a man's costume to avoid the kind of
trouble a young girl might have if encountered by sol-
diers. She arrived at Chinon on February 24, 1429,
two weeks after the Battle of the Herrings had ended
French attempts to do anything active about the siege
of Orleans.

It was a superstitious age. When a girl announced
herself as a miraculous maid sent by God, she might

258

ISAAC ASIMOV

be taken for exactly that—or as a dangerous witch sent
by the Devil for the ensnarement of men. It was not
easy to tell which. Charles VII actually received Joan,
and she was then questioned by learned theologians
for three weeks in order to determine whether she was
of divine or diabolical inspiration.

It may well be that some of the worldly men around
Charles were not reallv concerned with which she
was, and perhaps didn't believe she could be either.
They might have been trying to decide whether she
would be accepted by the soldiers as a miracle maid
or not. If the French and (even more) the English
could be made to believe that God was fighting on
the side of the French, that could have an important
effect on morale on either side.

The decision arrived at was (theologically) that Joan
was sent by Cod and (practically/politically) that
this attitude would carry conviction. She was there-
fore sent to Orleans with an escort of about three
thousand soldiers under John, Duke of Alencon, who
had led the French forces at the lost Battle of Ver-
neuil and had been in captivity for a while as a result.
On April 29, 1429, Joan and her escort slipped into the
city.

It is important to understand that by now the de-
fending force within the city was quite substantial
and, indeed, they outnumbered the thin line of be-
sieging English. What kept the French from emerging
to do battle was not the lack of means, but the lack of
.will. The French were simply unable to believe they
could win. What's more, the English had suffered con-
siderably in the course of a half-year siege, and all
that kept them to their task was that they were simply
unable to believe they could lose.

OPUS 200                 259

It was only a matter of morale that kept the situa-
tion going, against the military sense of it all. Once
the news arrived that a miraculous maid was coming
to the aid of the French, the situation with respect to
morale changed suddenly and dramatically and what
followed was almost inevitable. While few events in
history have seemed so miraculous as what Joan of
Arc accomplished, it is not really as miraculous as it
seemed.

Very likely, the Bastard of Orleans counted on
Joan's effect on the morale on both sides, and, within
a week of her arrival, he launched an attack, on May
4, on the fortified posts set up by the English at the
eastern approaches of the citv. He did not even bother
telling her about it. On learning of the fighting, how-
ever, Joan hastened to the eastern walls. The French
soldiers, heartened at her appearance, fought the more
savagely, and the English fell back.

The first sign of French victory set in motion a vi-
cious cycle for the English. If the French advanced
more than was their wont, it was a sign that Joan was
heaven-sent or hell-sent but, in either case, of miracu-
lous help to the French and not something mere men
could fight against. The English were all the readier
to retreat further, and to accept that further retreat as
further evidence.

When Joan was struck by an arrow, the English
cheered, but it was a superficial wound and, when she
appeared on the battlements again, it was easy to be-
lieve that she was invulnerable. And the English fell
back still more readily.

By May 8, the English had abandoned the siege,
leaving their strongpoints, their artillery, their dead
and wounded. The made all haste to get out of the
reach of Joan's influence.

260

ISAAC ASIMOV

Orleans was the Stalingrad of the Hundred Years'
War. The siege of Orleans had been the high point of
the English advance into France. The myth of English
invincibility was broken, the hot glare of Agincourt
dimmed; and from here on in, there could be only re-
cession for the English forces.

Then, having written about ancient and medieval his-
tory, on and off, for about ten years, I grew eager to
tackle modern history. Since by now the bicentennial
year of 1976 was approaching, why not a history of
the United States?

It seemed a shrewd idea to me, hut I forgot to
count words in my eagerness to write. Houghton
Mifflin had provided that the histories run no more
than 75,000 to 80,000 words each, since they were pri-
marily aimed at a teenage audience (though adults, I
am firmly convinced, can also profit from reading my
histories}.

I began my history of the United States with the
Indians and with the discovery and settling of North
America by Europeans, and when the allotted word-
age was done, I was dismayed to find I was only up
to 1763. I stopped, called the book The Shaping of
North America (Book 137), and it was published in
1973

I continued, then, with a second book but found I
could only squeeze some fifty years into that . . .
and another fifty years into a third . . . and another
fifty years into a fourth. The Birth of the United
States (Book 149), published in 1974, took the history
from 1763 to 1816; Our Federal Union (Book 161),
published in 1975, took it from 1816 to 1865; and The
Golden Door (Book 189), published in 1977, took it

OPUS 200                261

from 1865 to 1918. I had passed the bicentennial year
and I had at least one more volume to do.

From the last of these books, here is my description
of the Spanish-American War, perhaps the least im-
portant war we fought:

from THE GOLDEN DOOB (2977)

The Americans had fewer ships than the Spanish, but
those ships were new and beautifully designed. For
once, the United States was ready for war, at least on
the seas.

This was partly because of the work of the Ameri-
can naval officer Alfred Thaver Mahan (bom in West
Point, New York, on September 27, 1840). The son of
a professor at West Point, he himself went to the Na-
val Academy at Annapolis. He served on blockade
duty during the Civil War and remained in the Navy
till his retirement as a rear admiral in 1896-

He was a great military theoretician, writing The
Influence of Sea Power upon History, 1660-1783 in
1890, The Influence of Sea Power upon the French
Revolution and Empire, 1793-1812 in 1892, and The
Interest of America in Sea Power, Present and Future
in 1897.

The thesis was this: The ocean is continuous and
worldwide; the land, discontinuous and consisting of
isolated portions. A landlocked military power can oc-
cupy regions adjacent to the home base, but must stop
at the coast if it lacks a navy. A naval power, if sepa-
rated from the military power by the ocean, can iso-
late itself and, by means of its navy, attack the enemy
at every coastal point, safeguard its trade, and block-
ade its enemy. A sea power would have the world as

262

ISAAC ASIMOV

its supply source and would, in the end, defeat a con-
tinental power. It was in this way, Mahan pointed out,
that Great Britain had finally defeated all her ene-
mies, including Napoleon, and had gained her world
empire.

No nation could grow strong any longer without a'
navy, Mahan said. As for the United States, which
had no powerful nations sharing land boundaries
with it and which had two wide oceans on either side,
it could be particularly strong, even invulnerable, if it
had an effective navy. Mahan pointed out the neces-
sity of a base in Hawaii and coaling stations on smaller
islands since the Pacific Ocean was so much wider
than the Atlantic. He also advocated the building of a
canal across the isthmus of Panama, so that the
United States could, in need, quickly concentrate its
navy in either ocean.

Following Mahan, the Americans worked hard at
developing an efficient navy, and though at the time
the war with Spam came, there was no canal across
the isthmus, there were American ships in each ocean.

The Pacific Fleet was particularly well placed
through a historical accident. The secretary of the
navy, John Davis Long (born in Buckfield, Maine,
October 27, 1838) was away from his desk, and his
assistant secretary served briefly in his place as acting
secretary. That assistant secretary was Theodore
Roosevelt, who was a great admirer of Mahan's" and

* Another admirer of Mahan's was Kaiser Wilhelm II of
Germany. A month before the Spanish-American War
started, Germany, aware of Mahan"s theories, began the
building of a modern navy designed eventually to surpass
that of Great Britain. Great Britain was already suspicious of
German ambitions, and this hit at the very heart of its
strength. Great Britain and Germany became deadly ene-

OPUS 200                263

very keen on using the navy properly. He ordered six
warships in the Pacific to proceed to Hong Kong in
order to be ready to act against the Philippines the
moment war was declared. Secretary Long, when he
returned, was furious, but he did not countermand the
order,

If the United States had a serviceable navy, it had
virtually no army at all. Spain had 155,000 soldiers in
Cuba at the time, while the United States had a total
of 28,000 soldiers altogether, and these had fought no
one but Indians for a generation.

Volunteers were called up, but the new, enlarged
army units were not stiffened by scatteiing veterans
throughout them. Instead, the veterans were kept in-
tact and the rookies were left to themselves. Further-
more, the supply organization of botli food and medi-
cal care was abysmally poor—the last war in which
the United States permitted itself this disgrace.!

As soon as news of the declaration of war was re-
ceived in Hong Kong, the American squadron, under
Commodore George Dewey (born in Montpelier, Ver-
mont, on December 26, 1837), a veteran of the Civil
War, had to leave, as otherwise Hong Kong's status as
a neutral port would be in question. That suited

mies and sixteen years later they were on the opposite sides
of a great war.

+ It was also the last major war fought with gunpowder,
which had been the mainstay of battle for five centuries and
had fouled the guns, choked the gunners, and hidden the
battlefield with its endless smoke. In 1891, the British chem-
ists James Dewar and Frederick Augustus Abel had invented
cordite, the first of the smokeless powders and a substance
more powerful and shattering than gunpowder. Future wars
would be fought with such smokeless powders.

264

ISAAC ASIMOV

Dewey. His orders were to go to Manila, 1050 kilome-
ters to the southeast.

Dewey had six ships under his command—four
cruisers and two gunboats—and on April 27, 1898,
after having put all his ships in complete battle readi-
ness, he sailed for Manila Waiting for him were ten
Spanish ships together with Spanish shore batteries.
The Europeans in Hong Kong, imagining the Span-
iards to be what they once had been, were certain
that Dewey was steaming to his destruction; but there
was really no chance of that. Dewey's ships were of
the latest design and in tiptop shape The Spanish
ships were little more than hulks, and the Spanish ad-
miral was expecting defeat.

The Spanish admiral lines up seven of his ships just
off Manila in order to protect the city, but there was
nothing to protect the ships. Dewey reached Manila
Bay, saw nothing to prevent his entering, did so, and
reached the neighborhood of Manila itself on the
night of April 30.

When daybreak of May 1, 1898, revealed the two
opposing fleets to each other, the Spaniards fired high
and did no damage. At 5:40 A.M. Dewey said quietly
to Captain Charles Vemon Gridley (born in Logans-
port, Indiana, on November 24, 1844), captain of the
flagship, Olympia, "You may fire when ready, Gri-
dley."

The American ships paraded back and forth before
the Spanish fleet, firing steadily. They pulled off
briefly at 7:30 so that the men could have a quiet
breakfast, then returned to work. By 11:00 A.M. the
Spainish fleet was destroyed. Every ship had been
sunk or beached and 381 Spaniards had been killed.
In the process, Dewey lost not a man. Eight sailors

OPUS 200                265

had received minor wounds, that was all And when
the American ships moved in to bombard Manila it-
self, the Spaniards agreed to silence the shore batteries.
Despite the total victory at sea, Dewey could not
take Manila For that he needed a land force, and he
^ had none. On May 19, he brought in Aguinaldo from
. Hong Kong so that he might lead his Filipino insur-

I gents against the Spaniards on land and keep them

occupied and incapable of taking any aggressive ac-
^ tion against the ships Even that didn't give Dewey
^ the wherewithal to take the city, and he had to wait

for the arrival of American soldiers.
^ The wait wasn't particularly comfortable. He was
^ Isolated and far from any friendly port, and, by June
^T12, British, French, and German ships had arrived.
•HThey were there, ostensibly, to guard the lives and
^ properties of their nationals but were clearly hoping
H to pick up some pieces if the fall of Spanish power in

II the Philippines created a vacuum there- The Germans
^were especially aggressive in thetr provocations, and
'H'at one point the desperate Dewey was forced to tell a
^iCerman officer, "Tell your admiral if he wants war I
^. am ready."

H- But the Germans didn't actually want war; they just
Unwanted whatever they could get without war. With
I'Dewey ready (and the worth of his ships having been
; dramatically exhibited), and with the United States
^finally making it clear that, whatever happened to the
S; Philippines, no other nations would be allowed a look-
,in, the German ships sailed off. Dewey settled down
?to maintain his blockade and wait for his soldiers.

Meanwhile, in the Atlantic, Spain's fleet had
|reached the West Indies, and by that time they were
roompletely out of fuel. They could not possibly fight
fisefore getting into some Cuban port in order to load

266

ISAAC ASIMOV

coal. The American Navy knew this, and it was only a
matter of finding the fleet while it was in port and
keeping it there. (From their Florida base, the Ameri-
can ships had to go only a few hundred kilometers to
reach any part of the Cuban coast, so they had no fuel
problem*)                                     ,

On May 19, the Spanish fleet reached Santiago, on
Cuba's southeastern coast, and entered. On May 29,
the American fleet, under Rear Admiral William
Thomas Sampson (born in Palmyra, New York, on
February 9, 1840)—who had been head of the board
of inquiry in connection with the sinking of the
Maine—located the Spanish fleet there and instantly
blockaded the harbor.

If the American fleet could have entered the har-
bor, as Dewey had entered Manila Bay, they would
surely have destroyed the Spanish ships. However, the
channel entrance was narrow and was littered with
mines, and the United States did not wish to lose any
of its modem and expensive ships if that could be
avoided. Yet something had to be done, for as long as
the Spanish ships were intact, there was always the
possibility that they might do some damage.

It was decided to leave the American fleet outside
the harbor and to invade Cuba with a land force that
could attack Santiago from the rear. On June 10, ma-
rines landed in Guantanamo Bay, sixty-five kilometers
east of Santiago, to establish a foothold. (During
some preliminary skirmishes, one American com-
mander—a Confederate veteran—forgot who the en-
emy was and shouted, "Come on, boys, we've got the
damn Yankees on the run.")

More than that was needed though, and the main
American army, gathering in Tampa, Florida, had
been ordered to Cuba on May 30. It was under Gen-

OPUS 200                 267

eral William Rufus Shatter (born in Galesburg, Michi-
gan, on October 16, 1835). He was a veteran of the
Civil War and had fought bravely and well, but he
now weighed 310 pounds and did not know how to
organize a large command.

It took eleven davs before embarkation could get
started and four days to complete the embarkation—
everything done in complete chaos, with Shatter
doing virtually nothing. By June 20, the transports
reached the vicinity of Santiago. Shatter decided not
to attempt a direct attack on the city but to land at a
point thirty kilometers east of Santiago. In this, he fol-
lowed the advice of General Calixto Garcia,0 who
commanded the Cuban rebels in this area.

The disembarkation was even more ragged and dis-
organized than the embarkation had been, and had the
Americans faced an efficient and well-commanded
enemy, most of them would probably have met their
end. As it was, the Spanish command was bad enough
to make even Shafter look good, and the Americans
were placed on Cuban soil without opposition and
without casualties resulting from enemy action.

By June 30, the Americans were ready to march on
Santiago. On July 1, two battles were fought—one at

e In the course of the war, an American officer. Lieutenant
Andrew Summers Rowan, had made contact with Garcia in
order to coordinate action. In 1899, the American journalist
Elbert Green Hubbard wrote a moralistic essay entitled "A
Message to Garcia," exalting this action and using it as a

-lesson to "get things done" through what seems suspiciously
like mindless obedience. The essay gained tremendous popu-

. larity and was read and memorized by uncounted hordes of
schoolchildren—including the author of this book, who, even
as a child, disagreed with its simplistic philosophy, but
thought it the better part of valor not to say so.

268

ISAAC ASIMOV

El Coney, 8 kilometers northeast of Santiago, and the
other at San Juan Hill, about 1.5 kilometers east of
Santiago. Both were American victories, and it was in
the latter that Theodore Roosevelt distinguished him-
self.

At the outbreak of the war Roosevelt resigned and
Joined the First Volunteer Cavalry unit, as a lieuten-
ant colonel. He wasn't its commander, but he was al-
ways spectacularly visible, and in the popular mind
the unit was Roosevelt's Rough Riders. At San Juan
Hill, the Americans were pinned by fire from Span-
iards holding the heights and the Rough Riders
weren't riding, roughly or otherwise, for they were dis-
mounted. Fighting on foot, they led the charge under
enemy fire, though it wasn't actually much of a
charge since they moved up the heights slowly and
with difficulty. But they moved, and drove the Span-
iards off.

It was Roosevelt's only chance at the military glory
he longed for. (As he said, "It wasn't much of a war,
but it was all we had.") And it was better than noth-
ing, for he made the most of it in later years. The
American satirist Finley Peter Dunne (born in Chi-
cago on July 10, 1867) had his famous Irish-dialect
hero, Mr. Dooley, remark that when Roosevelt wrote
up his Spanish-American experiences he should have
entitled it "Alone in Cuba."

Once on the heights, the Americans were in a posi-
tion to bombard the city of Santiago and the Spanish
fleet from land. The Spanish admiral, whose orders
forbade surrender, had no choice but to try to break
out of the harbor. On July 3, he made the attempt and
the American ships pounced at once. In four hours,
every Spanish ship was destroyed, 474 Spaniards were

OPUS 200                 269

Ikuled or wounded, and 1750 were taken prisoner. The
lAmerican loss was 1 killed and 1 wounded.

"Straight" history is not the only history there is, of
course, and one of my interests has long been the his-
t^tory of science. In my first hundred books, the most
'^sbnportant example of that is Asimov's Biographical
jtEncyclopedia of Science and Technology (published
^hy Doubleday}, which covered all of science from the
^4ime of ancient Egypt to the present in a thousand
^biographical entries.

F In the course of writing my second hundred hooks,
p revised and enlarged that book to the point where I
^considered the result, published in 1972, the equiva-
Ifent of a new book and listed it as Book 118.

1 also did a history of the telescope for Houghton
tifflin-Eyes on the Universe {Book 165). Here is the
ile of the invention of the telescope from it:

EYES ON THE UNIVERSE (1975)

|You might even imagine a piece of glass that was sym-
Itnetrical, a convex surface on both sides meeting in a
gine all around the edge. You can image it best, per-
piaps, as two plano-convex pieces of glass placed to-
Jgether flat side to flat side. The result is a "biconvex"
Jtpiece of glass.

| The biconvex piece of glass has the shape of a lentil
fseed, and it came to be called by the Latin version of
l&at name. It was a "lens." Strictly speaking, only the
priconvex piece of glass has a right to the name, but its
|use has spread to all kinds of transparent objects with
loothly curved surfaces. You can speak of a "plano-

270

ISAAC ASIMOV

convex lens," for instance, even though there are no
lentil seeds with a plano-convex shape-
Crude lenses have been unearthed in Crete and in
Asia Minor, and some may date as far back as 2000
B.C. Alhazen's writing op light and refraction men-
tioned lenses and his books began to be translated
into Latin about 1170. They served to stimulate
thought and experiment in a Europe that was begin-
ning to grow interested in science.

The first systematic studies of lenses in Europe
were made by the English scholar Robert Grosseteste
(1175-1253) and his pupil Roger Bacon (1220-1292).
Neither knew what was happening to light, but they
could observe the magnification. Bacon used lenses to
magnify letters on a page and to aid himself in read-
ing. He suggested the wearing of lenses to aid vision,
and about 1300 spectacles came into use in Italy.

The first spectacles were made of biconvex lenses,
which enlarged objects and which were particularly
useful to old people, who are often far-sighted.

It is also possible to have a "biconcave" lens—one in
which the glass is thick at the edge of the lens all
around and in which the curve on each side bellies
inward, so that the glass is thinner as one moves in-
ward from the edge and is thinnest at the center. With
such a lens, light is bent away from the center and the
effect is Just the opposite of that of a biconvex lens.
Objects viewed through it seem smaller.

It may seem that such a lens is useless. What is the
good in seeing things smaller? The fact is, however,
that biconcave lenses are useful in correcting near-
sightedness, and spectacles for that purpose began to
be used about 1450.

The making of spectacles became an important in-
dustry in early modem times, particularly in the Neth-

OPUS 200                271

erlands, where men grew skilled in the manufacture of
lenses.

Thus, rather than making lenses either biconvex or
biconcave, men could make them convex on one side
and concave on the other, so that the resulting
; "concavo-convex lens" is thinner and more delicate
' than either the biconcave or the biconvex lenses. If
the curves are so chosen that the center of the
concavo-convex lens is thinner than the edges, such a
lens will correct near-sightedness; if the center is
thicker than the edges it will correct far-sightedness.

The shop of a Dutch spectacles-maker, with lenses
of every variety lying about, is an invitation to play
games, for no one has ever had lenses available to him
without at once beginning to peer through them at
various objects. A magnification effect is most inter-
esting, and it is only natural to attempt to make the
magnification as great as possible.

Two English mathematicians,. Leonard Digges
^ (1510P-1571?) and John Dee (1527-1608), even expe-
rimented with combinations of lenses in an attempt to
increase the magnifying effect, but reported no suc-
cesses.

; When the discovery came, according to the most of-
' ten repeated version of the story, it came bv accident.
^ Hans Lippershey (1570P-1619?) was a spectacles-
' maker in the city of Middelburg, in the Dutch prov-
since of Zeeland, about eighty miles southwest of Am-
'sterdam. What is supposed to have happened is that
,an apprentice of his, idling away his time in the ab-
sence of his master, amused himself by looking at the
|world through the lenses that had been left in his
tcare. Eventually, he took two lenses and held them
|both before his eyes, one nearby and one far off, and

272

ISAAC ASIMOV

found, to his astonishment, that a distant weathervane
appeared to be much larger and closer.

With considerable excitement, he showed this to
Lippershey when he returned to the shop. It may be
that the apprentice was not beaten for wasting time,
for Lippershey seems to have caught the significance
of the finding at once.

Lippershey realized that one could not expect to
stand about holding two lenses in appropriate posi-
tions, one in each hand. He therefore devised a metal
tube into which the two lenses could be fitted in the
proper place, and he had what he called (in Dutch) a
"looker," something one could look through.

It came to be called, more pretentiously, an "optic
tube" or "optic glass" or "perspective glass." In the
first book of Paradise Lost, published in 1667, John
Milton still refers to such a device as an optic glass. In
1612, however, a Greek mathematician, loannes Dimi-
siani, who was secretary to an Italian cardinal, sug-
gested the word "telescope," from Greek words mean-
ing "to see at a distance." By about 1650 this word
began to gain ground and eventually drove out all
others. We can say, then, that Lippershey had in-
vented the first telescope.

But did he? Once the instrument became famous,
other Dutchmen lay claim to having been first in the
field. This is very possible, for given a supply of len-
ses, anyone could invent it by accident One with a
particularly good case is another optician of Middel-
burg, a neighbor of Lippershey's named Zacharias
Janssen (1580-1638?). He claimed to have con-
structed a telescope in 1604, and he may have; Lip-
pershey may have borrowed the idea and made up the
story of his apprentice to cover the theft.

Nevertheless, Lippershey deserves credit whether

OPUS 200                 273

he originated the telescope in the strict sense of the
word or not. All his competitors for the honor did
nothing with their telescopes, as far as we know, ex-
cept indulge in viewing for their own amusement.
Lippershey made the world conscious of the instru-
ment by offering it to the Dutch government as a war
weapon.

At that time, the Netherlands had been fighting a
bitter war of independence against Spain for forty
years, and all that was keeping the small nation alive
against the superior military power of Spain was the
Dutch navy. An instrument that would allow ships of
the Dutch fleet to see the approach of an enemy long
before that enemy could be aware of the Dutch would
place the Netherlands in a strong position.

Maurice of Nassau, the capable man who was then
stadholder of the Dutch republic, was interested in
science and saw the importance of the device at once.
He paid Lippershey 900 flonns and ordered him to
produce for the government telescopes of a binocular
variety, ones that could be looked through with both
eyes at once.

Maurice tried to keep the telescope a secret, but
that was impossible; the device was too simple. The
mere rumor that such a thing existed meant that any
ingenious man could duplicate it at once. Telescopes
were offered to Henry IV of France before 1608 was
over, but King Henry, while amused, was not inter-
ested.

The secret war weapon, then, was no secret—but
the Dutch did not lose too much. In 1609, a truce with
Spain was worked out and the Dutch were never in
real danger (from Spain, at least) thereafter. The tele-
scope could go its way, then, with not even the
sketchiest attempt to keep it secret—and it did.

274

ISAAC ASIMOV

*     *     •

By all odds, though, the most unusual bit of history
included in my second hundred books is fictional. In
1973, the Saturday Evening Post, aware of the coming
bicentennial, suggested that 1 write a fantasy about
Benjamin Franklin, one in which I would talk to him,
perhaps, and get the advice of the wise old sage with
respect to our contemporary problems.

I thought it was a fascinating idea, and I felt I
could handle it since I had already written The Shap-
ing of North America and The Birth of the United
States in addition to The Kite That Won the Revolu-
tion, a book specifically on Franklin, which was in-
cluded in my first hundred.

I therefore wrote a story called "The Dream" and it
was published in the January-February 1974 Saturday
Evening Post.

As so often happens, though, the publishers' appe-
tite was only whetted and they came after me again.
They wanted more dream conversations with Frank-
lin, and I wrote three more before mounting one of
my all-too-rare rebellions against such things and re-
fusing to do any more.

I called the additional stories simply "Second
Dream," "Third Dream," and "Fourth Dream," but the
Saturday Evening Post called them "Benfamin's
Dream," "Party by Satellite," and "Benjamins Bicen-
tenial Blast."

Then, in January 1976, the printers' union of New
York held its annual banquet on Franklins birthday
(he being the patron saint of American printers). It
was their Custom to put out a small booklet of Frank-
liniana, and on this occasion, with my permission they

OPUS 200                275

put out a collection of three of the Dreams. (For some
reason, they left out the third.)

It was a privately printed book, beautifully done,
and longer than some of my children's hooks. What's
more, it contained stories of mine that were not other-
wise collected in book form, so I placed it on my list as
Book 170 (with the most inconvenient name of all the
books in my entire two hiin(lred). From it, here is
"The Dream," the first in the series, in its entirety:

"The Dream" (1974)

"I'm dreaming," I said. It seemed to me that I had
said it aloud. I know that I was in bed. I was aware of
the bedclothes. I was aware of the scattered city lights
peeping through the slats of the Venetian blinds.

Yet he was tliere. As alive—as living—as real—

I could reach out and touch him, but I dared not
move.

I recognized him. I've seen enough pictures of him,
and so has everyone. He did not look quite like his
pictures, for he was old, very old. White hair fringed
his head. I recognized him. I simply knew who he
was.

He said, "I'm dreaming."

We stared at each other and all the world faded
away—the bed and the bedclothes and the room. I
said, "You're Benjamin Franklin,"

He smiled slowly and said, "It may be that this is
not a dream only. I stand close to death and perhaps
the dying may have their wishes answered, if the wish
be sufficiently earnest. Of what year are you?"

I felt panic rise. It might be a dream, but it might
be madness. "I am dreamingF I insisted wildly.

276

ISAAC ASIMOV

"Of course, you are, after a fashion, dreaming," said
Franklin—what else could I call him^ "And I as well-
How is it conceivable that you and I could speak but
by something outside reality? And how does man
transcend reality but in dreams? Of what year are
you, my good sir?"

I was silent. He waited patiently and then shook his
head.

"Then I will speak first," he said. "I am old enough
to have naught to fear. It is New Year's Eve of the
Year of our Lord 1790, in the fourteenth year of the
Independence of the United States, and in the first
year of the presidency of George Washington. And in
the last year of poor Benjamin Franklin, too. I will not
last the new year. I know that.

"I do not die prematurely. In a fortnight and a few
days I will mark my eighty-fourth birthday. A good
old age, for it has made my life long enough to see my
native land become a new nation among the nations
of the earth, and I have had something to do with
that. We have a Constitution that was hammered out,
not without pain, and will perhaps serve. And General
Washington is spared to lead us.

"Yet will our nation last? The great monarchies of
Europe remain hostile and there are dissensions
among ourselves. British forces still hold our frontier
posts; Spain threatens in the south; our trade lan-
guishes; the party spirit grows. Will our nation last?"

I managed to nod my head.

He chuckled almost noiselessly. "Is that all you can
say? A nod? I asked for two hundred years. With this
new year coining in, my last year, I asked what the
United States might be like on its two hundredth
birthday. Are these, then, the only tidings I am vouch-
safed?"

OPUS 200                277

"Almost," I managed to say. "Almost. It is almost
the bicentennial."

Franklin nodded. "For you two centuries is a long
time. It is two centuries since the first Englishmen
stepped ashore on Roanoke Island; two centuries since
Spain's invincible Armada was smashed. I fear the
many inevitable changes two more centuries will
bring."

He paused and then his voice seemed stronger, as
though (ie were prenaring to face whatever might be.
"You speak of the bicentennial as though you accept
the idea casually. The United States, then, still exists
in your time?"

"YesI"

"In what condition? Still independent? Still with the
princely domain we won from Great Britain?"

"Still independent," I said, and I felt myself grow
warm with the pleasure of bringing great news. "And
far larger. It is a land as large as all of Europe, with a
population of more than two hundred million drawn
from every nation. Fiftv states stretch from the Atlan-
tic to the Pacific, with the fiftieth leaping the sea to
the Hawaiian Islands of the mid-Pacific."

His eyes lightened with joy. "And Canada?"

"Not Canada. That remains under the British
crown."

"Great Britain is still a monarchy then?"

"Yes. Queen Elizabeth II is on the throne, but Great
Britain is our friend and lias been for a long time."

"Let the Creator be praised for that Does the na-
tion prosper?"

"The richest on earth. The strongest"

Now Franklin paused. Then: "You say that because
you think to please me, perhaps. Richer than Great
Britain? Stronger than France?"

~t'.

278

ISAAC ASIMOV

"If you asked to have the future revealed to you,        f
would it be lies you would hear? The time has not
been all bliss. If we are a mighty union of states now,
under our thirty-seventh President in unbroken suc-
cession from George Washington, it is because we        ''
have survived a long and bloody war between the '
states. In this present century, we have fought war
after war overseas. We have had periods of economic
disaster and periods of political corruption. It has not
been the best of all possible worlds, but we have sur-
vived, and, as we approach the bicentennial, we are
the richest and strongest nation on earth."

The old man seemed restless. He stirred in his bed
and said, "I feel that I would like to walk about. I am        ^
not yet so old as to be bedridden. Yet I fear it will
break the vision. It grows stronger, do you not feel
that?"

"Yes," I said. It was as though we two alone, sepa-        ^
rated by two centuries, were all that existed in a uni-        ^
verse closed tightly about us.                                '^

Franklin said, "I feel your thoughts without asking.        ^-
1 begin to grow in you, or you in me. I sense your        •-'
world—the world that is to come."                           ^

There was a tickling in my skull—not a tickling, ei-        S
ther—a sensation I could not describe and still cannot.        <t
It was another mind which, even in great old age, was        ^
more powerful than my own and had gently inserted        t
itself into the interstices of my own.                         ^

Franklin said, with infinite satisfaction, "Yours is an         t'
age in which natural philosophy, then, is highly ad-         t
vanced, I see."                                               a,

"We call it science now," I said, "and you are right.        "A
We fly through the air and can circle the globe in less
time than it took you to go from Boston to Philadel-
phia. Our words streak at the speed of light and reach

OPUS 200                279

any comer of the globe in a fraction of a second. Our
carriages move without horses and our buildings
tower a quarter of a mile into the air."

He was silent and for a time seemed to be attempt-
ing to absorb what might have seemed like wild fan-
tasy.

I said, "Much of it stems from you. You were the
first to penetrate the nature of electricity, and it is
electricity that now powers our society. You invented
the lightning rod, the first device, based on the find-
ings of pure science, to defeat a natural calamity. It
was with the lightning rod that men first turned to
science for help against the universe."

He said, "You make it unnecessary for an old man
to praise himself. I am too old to play at the game of
modesty. I look back at my life and my eyes are not so
blind as to fail to show me something of my true
worth. Do you think, then, the lightning rod is my
greatest invention?"

"One of them, certainly," I said.

"Not at all," said Franklin seriously, "for my great-
est invention is the United States, which I see is fated
to increase so mightily in strength and wealth. But
you think I exaggerate?"

"Well," I said, "you were a member of the commit-
tee that wrote the Declaration of Independence—"

"Tom Jefferson did the writing," interupted Frank-
lin, "though I suggested a passage or two."

"And you were a member of the Constitutional
Convention—"

"Where I devoted myself to quieting tempers. None
of that. I invented the United States over a score of
years before it was born. Have you forgotten that in
your time?"

"I am not certain—"

280

ISAAC ASIMOV

"The French!" he said, impatiently. "Have the
Americans of the future forgotten the day when
France controlled Canada and Louisiana and reached
out to take the Ohio Valley, too. The day when they
would have penned us between the mountains and the
sea, to take us at their leisure later?"               ,

"We remember," I said. "We remember Wolfe and
the capture of Quebec."

"But that was victory, in 1759. Cast your mind back
to 1754. The French were at Fort Duquesne, only two
hundred fifty miles from Philadelphia. Young George
Washington's mission to the French—and he was
Young George then, a lad of twenty-one—had failed.
Yet the colonies would not take action against the
menace. The Pennsylvania proprietary government
was torpid. The British were concerned with Europe,
not with us. And even the Iroquois, our old Indian
allies, were threatening to transfer their friendship to
the French. Do you remember all that?"

"Only dimly, sir."

"So Governor De Lancey of New York called a con-
gress of the colonies to meet and confer about the
common danger. On June 19, 1754, twenty-five dele-
gates from seven colonies—the four of New England,
plus New York, Pennsylvania, and Maryland-met at
Albany. We comforted the Iroquois and held them
firm, and then, on June 24, I presented my plan of
union to the Albany congress."

He paused dramatically, then said, "I suggested the
colonies be governed by a governor-general, appoint-
ed and paid by the British crown. Partner with
him was to be a grand council in which delegates
from the various colonies, in number proportional to
population, would sit. The grand council would deal

OPUS 200                281

with American affairs, and the govenor-general would
see to it that the interests of the empire were pre-
served. The congress accepted it—on July 4. It might
have saved the colonies for Great Britain."

I nodded. "It might have. Canada finally came to
much the same arrangement and is still under the
British crown, though it rules itself."

"Ah! But the colonies ignored my plan because it
gave too much power to the crown, and Parliament
ignored it because it gave too much power to the colo-
nies. But the idea of union, which was mine, did not
die. you see. And what I suggested, molded into modi-
fied form by time, came to pass, so that my intention
became the United States of America. And," he added
with deep satisfaction, "I lived to see it and to play
my small—no, my large part."

I nodded again.

"And now," he said, "you live in a great world that
has grown curiously small, a world far smaller than
my thirteen colonies of 1754. Around the world in a
day, you say? Words at the speed of light? The astron-
omer royal, Mr. Bradley, had worked that out to be
some 180,000 miles per second."

"That is right; 186,282 miles per second."

"Even to the exact mile? And yet your world is as
divided as our American states once were."

"More divided, I fear."

"I catch a dim view of devices that make war
deadly," he said.

"We have bombs that can destroy—"

But old Franklin waved his hand. "Do not tell me. I
see enough. And yet with the chance of universal de-
struction, there remains no certainty of peace?"

"The nations are armed and hostile."

282

ISAAC ASIMOV

"The United States arms also?"                       ^
"Certainly. It is the strongest nuclear power.**          ^

*Then man does not advance in wisdom as he does   ^

'y                                            e"
m power.''                                            ^

I shrugged. What could I say?                       ||

Franklin said, "Are there no enemies against which    ^
the nations can unite? We tried to unite against
France, but relied too greativ on Great Britain to feel
the absolute need. We did unite against Great Britain,
at last, when we stood alone."

I said, "There is no power against whom the nations
of the world feel the need to unite. There is no enemy
from beyond the earth to threaten us with universal
defeat and slavery."

"Are there no enemies other than those who are liv-
ing beings?" asked Franklin angrily. "Is there not ig-
norance? Is there not miserv? Is there not hunger and
disease, hatred and bigotry, and disorder and crime?
Has your world changed so much that these things do
not exist?"

"No. We have them. Not all of man's, material ad-
vance has ended the threat of those things you men-
tion. We multiply still in great number—nearly four
billion the world over—and that multiplies our prob-
lems and may even destroy us all."

"And mankind will not combine against this imma-
terial foe?"

I said, "No more than the colonies combined against
France or even against Great Britain until bloodshed
in New England brought them a clear and present
danger."

Franklin said, "Can you wait for a clear and present
danger? What you call a nuclear war would make it
too late at once. If matters advanced to the point
where your complex society broke down, then even

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283

in the absence of war you could not prevent catas-
trophe."

"You are correct, sir."

"Is there no way, then, to dramatize the—" His head
bent in thought. He said, "You spoke of a war be-
tween the states. Are the states still at enmity? Is the
nation still divided?"

"No, the wounds are healed."

"How? In what manner?"

"That is not easy to explain. For one thing, in the
years after that war, the nation was engaged in build-
ing the West. In this great colonizing venture, all the
states, north and south, combined. In that common
task. and in the further task of strengthening the na-
tion, smaller enmities were forgotten."

"I see," said Franklin. "And is there no great ven-
ture in which the world is engaged in your time. Is
there nothing so grand that in it all the nations may
find a common goal and, as you say, forget the
smaller enmities?"

I thought for a moment. "Space, perhaps."

"Space?"

"Both ourselves and the Soviet Union—which used
to be the Russian Empire—have sent out exploring
vessels as far as the planets Mars and Jupiter."

For a moment Franklin seemed speechless. Then he
said, "With men on board?"

"No, unmanned. But six vessels, carrying three men
each, have traveled to the moon. Twelve Americans
have walked on the moon. A seventh vessel miscarried
but brought its crew safely back to earth."

Franklin said, "And with so majestic a feat at the
disposal of mankind, the nations of the world can yet
quarrel?"

"I am sorry, but it is so."

284

ISAAC ASIMOV

"Is the venture, perhaps, merely a useless show?"
"No. Not at ail. Vessels bearing instruments circle
earth. They help in our planetary communications.
They serve as navigational aids. They report on our
cloud cover and help us predict the weather. They in-
vestigate the properties of space and help us under-
stand our universe. Through their observations we can
plot earth's resources, pinpoint earth's physical prob-
lems of pollution, understand the planet as a whole in
ways we never could before. We can add to our

knowledge in an as yet unsuspected fashion that will
help us in—"

"And still the nations quarrel?"
"Yes."

Franklin's eyes began to blaze at this. One arm
reached out tremblinglv toward me. 'Then there must
be further dramatization. Tell me, is it an American
venture only—those vessels to the moon—or are other
nations involved?"

"It is strictly American."

"Ah. And the bicentennial approaches. Then cannot
the United States establish a birthday party that will
be the greatest birthday of all time by making it a
celebration for mankind?"

"In what way, sir?"

"Launch one of your vessels on the bicentennial,"
he said energetically. "Or, if there is not time for that,
announce one to be launched by the united aid of all
the nations of the world. Let there be a celebration of
the Fourth, not as the bicentennial of a single nation,
but as a glorification of the principle of the union of

political entities against a common foe and for a com-
mon purpose.

"Let there be the largest birthday cake in the world,
if you will; the decoration of whole cities; the saluting

OPUS 200

285

'; of a thousand guns; the playing of ten thousand
bands—but let it be for mankind. Let the leaders of all
nations assemble to praise the union of mankind. Let
them all plan their own part in the launching of ves-
sels into space under the auspices of a united planet.
; Let the conquest of space be the source of pride for

nothing smaller than mankind. Let it be that in which
, all men can find a common glory, and in which all
men can forget enmities."

I said, "But the problems of mankind will remain.
They will not disappear."

Franklin's figure seemed to waver, grow less sub-
stantial. "Do you want everything at once? The Amer-
ican union did not solve all problems for Americans.
But it made it possible for solutions to be sought, and
sometimes found."

He grew dimmer still, wraithlike, and then vanished
in a fading smoke. And I woke up.

If it were a dream, it was Franklin's dream, too.
And a greater dream still—of a union beyond our Un-
ion.

But what could I do? I do not make policy.
Yet I am a writer. With help, I might make myself
heard. With help!

So I picked up the telephone and called a certain
editor, for, in addition to the lightning rod and the
United States, hadn't Benjamin Franklin also invented
the Saturday Evening Post?

PART 9

THE BIBLE

Among my first hundred books is the two-volume Asi-
mov's Guide to the Bible. What could I do for an en-
core?

One thing J could do was to write articles on bibli-
cal subjects for people who were impressed with the
Guide. Reader's Digest Books asked me to contribute
essays to an elaborate book they were compiling
about men and women in the Bible. 1 wrote articles
for them on Jacob, Ruth, and so on.

Although 1 was well paid, I didn't particularly enjoy
the task since the editors had their ideas and they
were not mine. Eventually, when the book came out, I
found that everyone who had had anything to do with
the book was carefully acknowledged—the editors,
photographers, paper cutters, office boys, garbage col-
lectors—everyone but the writers. The written words,
it could only be assumed, had been carved on Sinai
by direct revelation.

I was furious. Although I had contributed a sub-
stantial portion of the book, I refused to include it in
my list—not if my authorship were in no way acknowl-
edged. In fact, I didn't even keep the book.

It was not, however, an effort that had been en-
tirely wasted. My biography on Ruth got me to think-
ing about the subject, and for Doubleday I wrote a

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ISAAC ASIMOV

book for young people called The Story of Ruth
(Book 127). It was published in 1972.

I repeated the thesis of this book in an F & SF es-
say, "Lost in Non-Translation" which appeared in
March 1972 and was then included in my essay collec-
tion The Tragedy of the Moon {Book 144), published
by Doubleday in 1973. The essay is included here in
full.

"Lost in Non-Translation'* (2972)

At the Noreascon (the Twenty-ninth World Science
Fiction Convention), which was held in Boston on the
Labor Day weekend of 1971, I sat on the dais, of
course, since, as the Bob Hope of science fiction, it is
my perennial duty to hand out the Hugos. On my left
was my daughter, Robyn—sixteen, blond, blue-eyed,
shapely, and beautiful. (No, that last adjective is not a
father's proud partiality. Ask anyone.)

My old friend Clifford D. Simak was guest of honor,
and he began his talk by introducing, with thoroughly
justified pride, his two children, who were in the au-
dience. A look of alarm instantly crossed Robyn's face.

"Daddy," she whispered urgently, knowing full well
my capacity for inflicting embarrassment, "are you
planning to introduce me?"

"Would that bother you, Robyn?" I asked.

"Yes, it would."

"Then I won't," I said, and patted her hand reassur-
ingly.

She thought awhile. Then she said, "Of course,
Daddy, if you have the urge to refer, in a casual sort
of way, to your beautiful daughter, that would be all
right."

OPUS 200

291

So you can bet I did fust that, while she allowed her
eyes to drop in a charmingly modest way.

But I couldn't help but think of the blond, blue-eyed
stereotype of Nordic beautv that has filled Western lit-
erature ever since the blond, blue-eyed Germanic
tribes took over the western portions of the Roman
Empire, fifteen centuries ago, and set themselves up
as an aristocracy.

. . , And of the manner in which that stereotype has
been used to subvert one of the clearest and most im-
portant lessons in the Bible—a subversion that con-
tributes its little bit to the serious crisis that today
faces the world, and the United States in particular.

In line with my penchant for beginning at the be-
ginning, come back with me to the sixth century B.C.
A party of Jews had returned from Babylonian exile to
rebuild the Temple at Jerusalem, which Nebuchad-
nezzar had destroyed seventy years before.

During the exile, under the guidance of the prophet
Ezekfel, the Jews had firmly held to their national
identity by modifving, complicating, and idealizing
their worship of Yahweh into a form tliat was directly
ancestral to the Judaism of today. (In fact Ezekiel is
sometimes called "the father of Judaism.")

This meant that when the exiles returned to Jerusa-
lem, they faced a religious problem. There were peo-
ple who, all through the period of the exile, had been
living in what had once been Judah, and who wor-
shiped Yahweh in what they considered the correct,
time-honored ritual. Because their chief city (with Je-
rusalem destroyed) was Samaria, the returning Jews
called them Samaritans.

The Samaritans rejected the newfangled modifica-

292

ISAAC ASIMOV

tions of the returning Jews, and the Jews abhorred the
old-fashioned beliefs of the Samaritans. Between them
arose an undying hostility, the kind that is exacer-
bated because the differences in belief are compara-
tively small-
In addition there were, also living in the land, those'
who worshiped other gods altogether—Ammonites,
Edomites, Philistines, and so on.

The pressures on the returning band of Jews were
not primarilv military, for the entire area was under
the more or less beneBcent rule of the Persian Em-
pire; they were social pressures, and perhaps even
stronger for that. To maintain a strict ritual in the face
of overwhelming numbers of nonbelievers is difficult,
and the tendency to relax that ritual was almost irre-
sistible. Then, too, young male returnees were at-
tracted to the women at hand and there were inter-
marriages. Naturally, to humor the wife, ritual was
further relaxed.

But then, possibly as late as about 400 B.C., a full
century after the second Temple had been built, Ezra
arrived in Jerusalem. He was a scholar of the Mosaic
law, which had been edited and put into final form in
the course of the exile. He was horrified at the back-
sliding and put through a tub-thumping revival. He
called the people together, led them in chanting the
law and expounding on it, raised their religious fervor,
and called for confession of sins and renewal of faith.

One thing he demanded most rigorously was the
abandonment of all non-Jewish wives and their chil-
dren. Only so could the holiness of strict Judaism be
maintained, in his view. To quote the Bible (and I
will use the recent New English Bible for the pur-
pose ):

"Ezra the priest stood up and said, *You have com-

OPUS 200                 293

mitted an offense in marrying foreign wives and have
added to Israel's guilt. Make vour confession now to
the Lord the God of vour fathers and do his will, and
separate yourselves from the foreign population and
from vour foreign wives.' Then all the assembled peo-
ple shouted in reply, 'Yes; wte must do what vou say
. . . (Ezra 10:10-12).

From that time on, the Jews as a whole began to
practice an exclpsivi.sm, a voluntary separation from
others, a multiplication of peculiar customs that fur-
ther emphasized their separateness; and all of this
helped them maintain their identity through all the
miseries and catastrophes that were to come, through
all the crises, and through exiles and persecutions that
fragmented them over the face of the earth.

The exclusivism, to be sure, also served to make
them socially indigestible and imparted to them a
high social visibility that helped give rise to condi-
tions that made exiles and persecutions more iikely.

Not everyone among the Jews adhered to this pol-
icy of exclusivism. There were some who believed
that all men were equal in the sight of God and that
no one should be excluded from the community on
the basis of group identity alone.

One who believed this (but who is forever name-
less) attempted to present this case in the form of a
short piece of historical fiction. In this fourth-century-
B.C. tale the heroine was Ruth, a Moabite woman.
(The tale was presented as having taken place in the
time of the judges, so the traditional view was that it
was written by the prophet Samuel in the eleventh
century B.C. No modem student of the Bible believes
this.)

Why a Moabite women, by the way?

It seems that the Jews, returning from exile, had

294

ISAAC ASIMOV

traditions concerning their initial arrival at the bor-
ders of Canaan under Moses and then Joshua, nearlv a
thousand vears before. At that time, the small nation
of Moab, which lay east of the lower course of the
Jordan and of the Dead Sea, was understandably
alarmed at the incursion of tough desert raiders and
took steps to oppose them. Not only did they prevent
the Israelites from passing through their territory, but,
tradition had it, they called in a seer, Balaam, and
asked him to use his magical abilities to bring misfor-
tune and destruction upon the invaders.

That failed, and Balaam, on departing, was sup-
posed to have advised the king of Moab to let the
Moabite girls lure the desert raiders into liaisons,
which might subvert their stem dedication to then-
task. The Bible records the following:

"When the Israelites were in Shittim, the people be-
gan to have intercourse with Moabite women, who in-
vited them to the sacrifices offered to their gods; and
they ate the sacrificial food and prostrated themselves
before the gods of Moab. The Israelites joined in the
worship of the Baal of Peor, and the Lord was angry
with them" (Numbers 25:1-3).

As a result of this, "Moabite women" became the
quintessence of the type of outside influence that by
sexual attraction tried to subvert pious Jews. Indeed,
Moab and the neighboring kingdom to the north, Am-
mon, were singled out in the Mosaic code:

"No Ammonite or Moabite, even down to the tenth
generation, shall become a member of the assembly of
the Lord . . . because they did not meet you with
food and water on your way out of Egypt, and be-
cause they hired Balaam ... to revile you . . , You
shall never seek their welfare or their good all your
life long" (Deuteronomy 23:3-4, 6).

OPUS 200                 295

And yet there were times in later history when
there was friendship between Moab and at least some
men of Israel, possibly because they were brought to-
gether by some common enemy.

For instance, shortly before 1000 B.C., Israel was
ruled by Saul. He had held off the Philistines, con-
quered the Amalekites, and brought Israel to its great-
est pitch of power to that point. Moab naturally
feared his expansionist policies and so befriended any-
one rebelling against Saul. Such a rebel was the Ju-
dean warrior David of Bethlehem. When David was
pressed hard by Saul and bad retired to a fortified
stronghold, he used Moab as a refuge for his family.

"David . . . said to the king of Moab, 'Let my fa-
ther and motlier come and take shelter with you until
I know what God will do for me.' So he left them at
the court of the king of Moab, and they stayed there
as long as David was in his stronghold" (1 Samuel
22:3-4).

As it happened, David eventually won out, became
king first of Judah, then of all Israel, and established
an empire that took in the entire east coast of the
Mediterranean, from Egypt to the Euphrates, with the
Phoenician cities independent but in alliance with
him. Later, Jews always looked back to the time of
David and his son Solomon as a golden age, and Da-
vid's position in Jewish legend and thought was unas-
sailable. David founded a dynasty that ruled over Ju-
dah for four centuries, and the Jews never stopped
believing that some descendant of David would yet
return to rule over them again in some idealized fu-
ture time.

Yet, on the basis of the verses describing David's
use of Moab as a refuge for his family, there may have
arisen a tale to the effect that there was a Moabite

296

ISAAC ASIMOV

strain in David's ancestry. Apparently, the author of
the Book of Ruth determined to make use of this tale
to point up the doctrine of nonexclusivism by using
the supremely hated Moabite woman as his heroine.

The Book of Ruth tells of a Judean family of Bethle-
hem—a man, his wife, and two sons—who are driven
by famine to Moab. There the two sons marry Moa-
bite girls, but after a space of time all three men die,
leaving the three women—Naomi, the mother-in-law,
and Ruth and Orpah, the two daughters-in-law—as
survivors.

Those were times when women were chattels, and
unmarried women, without a man to own them and
care for them, could subsist only on charity. (Hence
the frequent biblical injunction to care for widows
and orphans.)

Naomi determined to return to Bethlehem, where
kinsmen might possibly care for her, but urged Ruth
and Orpah to remain in Moab. She does not say, but
we might plausibly suppose she is thinking, that Moa-
bite girls would have a rough time of it in Moab-
hating Judah.

Orpah remains in Moab, but Ruth refuses to leave
Naomi, saying, "Do not urge me to go back and desert
you . . . Where you go, I will go, and where you stay,
I will stay. Your people shall be my people, and your
God my God. Where you die I will die, and there I
will be buried. I swear a solemn oath before the Lord
your God: nothing but death shall divide us" (Ruth
1:16-17).

Once in Bethlehem, the two were faced with the
direst poverty, and Ruth volunteered to support her-
self and her mother-in-law by gleaning in the fields. It
was harvest time, and it was customary to allow any
stalks of grain that fell to the ground in the process of

OPUS 200

297

gathering to remain there to be collected bv the poor.
This t^leanin^ was a kind of welfare program for those
in need. It was, however, backbreaking work, and any
young woman, particularly a Moabite, who engaged
in it underwent certain obvious risks at the hands of
the lusty young reapers. Ruth's offer was simply he-
roic.

As it happened, Ruth gleaned in the lands of a rich
Judean farmer named Boaz, who, coming to oversee
the work, noticed her working tirelessly. He asked
after her, and his reapers answered, "She is a Moabite
girl . . . who has Just come back with Naomi from
the Moabite country" (Ruth 2:6).

Boaz spoke kindly to her and Ruth said, "Why are
you so kind as to take notice of me when I am only a
foreigner?" (Ruth 2:10). Boaz explained that he had
heard how she had forsaken her own land for love of
Naomi and how hard she worked to take care of her-

As it turned out, Boaz was a relative of Naomi's
dead husband, which must be one reason why he was
touched bv Ruth's love and fidelity. Naomi, on hear-
ing the story, had an idea. In those days. if a widow
was left childless, she had the right to expect her dead
husband's brother to marry her and offer her his pro-
tection. If the dead husband had no brother, some
other relative would fulfill the task.

Naomi was past the age of childbearing, so she
could not qualify for marriage, which in those days
centered about children; but what about Ruth? To be
sure, Ruth was a Moabite woman and it might well be
that no Judean would marry her, but Boaz had proven
kind. Naomi therefore instructed Ruth how to ap-
proach Boaz at night and, without crudely seductive
intent, appeal for his protection.

Boaz, touched by Ruth's modesty and helplessness,

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ISAAC ASIMOV

promised to do his duty, but pointed out that there
was a kinsman closer than he and that, by right, this
other kinsman had to have his chance first.

The verv next day, Boaz approached the other kins-
man and suggested that he buy some property in
Naomi's charge and, along with it, take over another
responsibility. Boaz said, "On the day when you ac-
quire the field from Naomi, you also acquire Ruth the
Moabitess, the dead man's wife . . ."(Ruth 4:5).

Perhaps Boaz carefully stressed the adjectival
phrase "the Moabitess," for the other kinsman drew
back at once. Boaz therefore married Ruth, who in
time bore him a son. The proud and happy Naomi
held the child in her bosom and her women friends
said to her, "The child will give you new life and
cherish you in your old age; for your daughter-in-law
who loves vou, who has proved better to you than
seven sons, has borne him" (Ruth 4:15).

In a society that valued sons infinitely more than
daughters, this verdict of Judean women on Ruth, a
woman of the hated land of Moab, is the author's
moral—that there is nobilitv and virtue in all groups
and that none must be excluded from consideration in
advance simply because of their group identification.

And then, to clinch the argument for any Judean so
nationalistic as to be impervious to mere idealism, the
story concludes: "Her neighbors gave him a name:

'Naomi has a son,' they said; 'we will call him Obed.'
He was the father of Jesse, the father of David" (Ruth
4:17).

Where would Israel have been, then, if there had
been an Ezra present to forbid the marriage of Boaz
with a "foreign wife"?

Where does that leave us? That the Book of Ruth is
a pleasant story, no one will deny. It is almost always

OPUS 200

299

referred to as a "delightful idyll," or words to that ef-
fect. That Ruth is a most successful characterization
of a sweet and virtuous woman is beyond dispute.

In fact everyone is so in love with the storv and
with Ruth that the whole point is lost. It is, by right, a
tale of tolerance for the despised, of love for the
hated, of the reward that comes of brotherhood. By
mixing the genes of mankind, by forming the hybrid,
great men will come.

The Jews included the Book of Ruth in the canon
partly because it is so wonderfully told a tale but
mostly (I suspect) because it gives the lineage of the
great David, a lineage that is not given beyond Da-
vid's father, Jesse, in the soberly historic books of the
Bible that anteceded Ruth. But the Jews remained, by
and large, exclusivistic and did not leam the lesson of
universalism preached by the Book of Ruth.

Nor have people taken its lesson to heart since. Why
should they, since every effort is made to wipe out
that lesson? The story of Ruth has been retold any
number of ways, from children's tales to serious nov-
els. Even movies have been made of it. Ruth herself
must have been pictured in hundreds of illustrations.
And in every illustration I have ever seen, she is pre-
sented as blond, blue-eyed, shapely, and beautiful—
the perfect Nordic stereotype I referred to at the be-
ginning of the article.

For goodness' sake, why shouldn't Boaz have fallen
in love with her? What great credit was there in
marrying her? If a girl like that had fallen at your feet
and asked you humbly to do your duty and kindly
marry her, you would probably have done it like a
shot.

Of course she was a Moabite woman, but so what?
What does the word "Moabite" mean to you? Does it

300

ISAAC ASIMOV

arouse any violent reaction? Are there many Moabites
among vour acquaintances? Have vour children been
cha-sed bv a bunch of lousv Moahites latelv? Have
thev been reducing property values in vour neighbor-
hood? When was the last time vou heard someone sav,
"Got to get those rotten Moabites out of here. They
just fill un the welfare rolls"?

In fact, judging by the way Ruth is drawn, Moa-
bites are English aristocrats and their presence would
raise property values.

The trouble is that the one word that is not trans-
lated in the Book of Ruth is the kev word "Moabite,"
and as long as it is not translated, the point is lost; it is
lost in non-translation.

The word "Moabite" reallv means "someone of a
group that receives from us and deserves from us
nothing but hatred and contempt." How should this
word be translated into a single word that means the
same thing to, sav, many modern Greeks? . . . Why,
Turk." And to manv modem Turks? . . . Why,
"Greek." And to many modern white Americans? . . .
Why, "black."

To get the proper flavor of the Book of Ruth, sup-
pose we think of Ruth not as a Moabite woman but as
a black woman.

Reread the story of Ruth and translate "Moabite" to
"black" every time you see it. Naomi (imagine) is
coming back to the United States with her two black
daughters-in-law. No wonder she urges them not to
come with her. It is a marvel that Ruth so loved her
mother-in-law that she was willing to face a society
that hated her unreasoningly and to take the risk of
gleaning in the face of leering reapers who could not
possibly suppose they need treat her with any consid-
eration whatever.

OPUS 200                 301

And when Boaz asked who she was, don't read the
answer as, "She is a Moabite girl," but as, "She is a
black girl." More likely, in fact, the reapers might have
said to Boaz something that was the equivalent of (if
you'll excuse the language), "She is a nigger £?rl."

Think of it that way and you find the whole point is
found in translation and only in translation. Boaz' ac-
tion in being willing to marry Ruth because she was
virtuous (and not because she was a Nordic beauty)
takes on a kind of nobility. The neighbors' decision
that she was better to Naomi than seven sons becomes
something that could have been forced out of them
only by overwhelming evidence to that effect. And
^. the final stroke that out of this miscegenation was
I-born none other than the great David is rather breath-
k taking.

\.

; We get something similar in the New Testament. On
one occasion a student of the law asks Jesus what
^must be done to gain eternal life, and he answer? his
, own question by saying, "Love the Lord your God
^with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your
r strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor
r&s yourself (Luke 10:27).

These admonitions are taken from the Old Testa-
ment, of course. That last bit about your neighbor

• comes from a verse that says, "You shall not seek re-

-venge. or cherish anger towards your kinsfolk; you
shall love your neighbor as a man like yourself' (Leviti-
cus 19; 18).

(The New English Bible translation sounds better
to me here than the King James's: "Thou shalt love
thy neighbor as thyself." Where is the saint who can
truly feel another's pain or ecstasy precisely as he feels
own? We must not ask too much. But if we simply

302

ISAAC ASIMOV

grant that someone else is "a man like yourself," then
he can be treated with decency at least It is when we
refuse to grant even this, and talk of another as our
inferior, that contempt and cruelty come to seem nat-
ural, and even laudable.)

Jesus approves the lawyer's saying, and the lawyer
promptly asks, "And who is my neighbor?" (Luke 10:-
29). After all, the verse in Leviticus first speaks of
refraining from revenge and anger toward kinsfolk;

might not, then, the concept of "neighbor" be re-
stricted to kinsfolk, to one's own kind, only?

In response, Jesus replies with perhaps the greatest
of the parables—of a travel&r who fell in with robbers,
who was mugged and robbed and left half dead by
the road. Jesus goes on, "It so happened that a priest
was going down by the same road; but when he saw
him, he went past on the other side. So too a Levite
came to the place, and when he saw him went past on
the other side. But a Samaritan who was making the
Journey came upon him, and, wh^n he saw him, was
moved to pity. He went up and bandaged his wounds,
bathing them with oil and wifie. Then he lifted him
onto his own beast, brought Mm to an inn, and looked
after him there" (Luke 10:31-34).

Then Jesus asks who the traveler's neighbor was,
and the lawyer is forced to say, "The one who showed
him kindness" (Luke 10:37).

This is known as the Parable of the Good Samari-
tan, even though nowhere in the parable is the rescuer
called a good Samaritan, merely a Samaritan.

The force of the parable is entirely vitiated by the
common phrase "good" Samaritan, for that has cast a.
false light on who the Samaritans were. In a free-
association test, say "Samaritan" and probably every
person being tested will answer, "Good." It has be-

OPUS 200

303

come so imprinted in all our brains that Samaritans
are good that we take it for granted that a Samaritan
would act like that and wonder why Jesus is making a
point of it.

We forget who the Samaritans were, in the time of
Jesus!

To the Jews, they were not good. They were hated,
despised, contemptible heretics with whom no good
Jew would have anything to do. Again, the whole
point is lost through non-translation.

Suppose, instead, that it is a white traveler in Mis-
sissippi who has been mugged and left half dead. And
suppose it was a minister and a deacon who passed by
and refused to "become involved." And suppose it was
a black sharecropper who stopped and took care of
the man.

Now ask yourself: Who was the neighbor whom you
must love as though he were a man like yourself if
you are to be saved?

The Parable of the Good Samaritan clearly teaches
that there is nothing parochial in the concept "neigh-
bor," that you cannot confine your decency to your
own group and your own kind. All mankind, right
down to those you most despise, are your neighbors.

Well, then, we have in the Bible two examples—in the
Book of Ruth and in tlie Parable of the Good Samari-
tan—of teachings that are lost in non-translation, yet
are terribly applicable to us today.

The whole world over, there are confrontations be-
tween sections of mankind denned by a difference of
race, nationality, economic philosophy, religion, or
language, so that one is not "neighbor" to the other.

These more or less arbitrary differences among
peoples who are members of a-single biological spec-

304

ISAAC ASIMOV

ies are terribly dangerous, and nowhere more so than
here in the United States, where the most perilous
confrontation (I need not tell you) is between white
and black.

Next to the population problem generally, mankind
faces no danger greater than this confrontation, par-
ticularly in the United States.

It seems to me that more and more, each year, both
whites and blacks are turning, in anger and hatred, to
violence. I see po reasonable end to the steady escala-
tion but an actual civil war.

In such a civil war, the whites, with a preponder-
ance of numbers and an even greater preponderance
of organized power, would in all likelihood "win."
They would do so, however, at an enormous material
cost and, I suspect, at a fatal spiritual one.

And why? Is it so hard to recognize that we are all
neighbors, after all? Can we, on both sides—on both
sides—6nd no way of accepting the biblical lesson?

Or if quoting the Bible sounds too mealy-mouthed,
and if repeating the words of Jesus seems too pietistic,
let's put it another way, a practical way:

Is the privilege of feeling hatred so luxurious that it
is worth the material and spiritual hell of a white'
black civil war?

If the answer is really yes, then one can only de-
spair.

PART 10

SHORT-SHORTS

Tee always liked short-short stories.

First, since they are brief and can be read quickly,
you can get the value of one even if you only have
five minutes to spare—while waiting for a telephone
call or while drinking a cup of coffee. It can fill in. a
disregarded corner of the day.

Second, there can be no frills. Youce sot to have
the story distilled down to 1500 words or less, and ide-
ally that leaves room only for the point; and that
point, when the story is well done, can jab itself into
your mind and never be forgotten.

Third, writing one is a challenge, and I enfoy c1wl-
lenges.

In May 1973, the Saturday Evening Post asked me
to write a short-short science fiction story for them
and I did. I meant to write a lighthearted robot story
and even called it "Light Verse," intending o. pun.
Alas, the story squirmed in my hands (even short-
shorts can do that) and became rather more tragic
than I had intended,

I included it eventually in my short-story collection
Buy Jupiter and Other Stories (Book 164), which Dou-
bleday published in 1875. Here it is in full:

308                 ISAAC ASIMOV

"Light Verse" (1973)

The very last person anyone would expect to be a
murderer was Mrs. Avis Lardner. Widow of the great
astronaut-martyr, she was a philanthropist, an art col-
lector, a hostess extraordinaire, and, everyone agreed;

an artistic genius. But above all, she was the gentlest
and kindest human being one could imagine.

Her husband, William J. Lardner, died, as we all
know, of the effects of radiation from a solar flare,
after he had deliberately remained in space so that a
passenger vessel might make it safely to Space
Station 5.

Mrs. Lardner had received a generous pension for
that, and she had then invested wisely and well. By
late middle age she was very wealthy.

Her house was a showplace, a veritable museum,
containing a small but extremely select collection of
extraordinarily beautiful jeweled objects. From a
dozen different cultures she had obtained relics of al-
most every conceivable artifact that could be embed-
ded with jewels and made to serve the aristocracy of
that culture. She had one of the first jeweled wrist-
watches manufactured in America, a jeweled dagger
from Cambodia, a jeweled pair of spectacles from It-
aly, and so on almost endlessly.

All was open for inspection. The artifacts were not
insured, and there were no ordinary security provi-
sions. There was no need for anything conventional,
for Mrs. Lardner maintained a large staff of robot ser-
vants, all of whom could be relied on to guard every
item with imperturbable concentration, irreproach-
able honesty, and irrevocable efficiency.

Everyone knew of the existence of those robots, and
there is no record of any attempt at theft, ever.

OPUS 200

309

And then, of course, there was her light-sculpture.
How Mrs. Lardner discovered her own genius at the
art, no guest at her many lavish entertainments could
guess. On each occasion, however, when her house
was thrown open to guests, a new symphony of light
shone throughout the rooms; three-dimensional curves
and solids in melting color, some pure and some fus-
ing in startling, crystalline effects that bathed every
guest in wonder and somehow always adjusted itself
so as to make Mrs. Lardner's blue-white hair and soft,
unlined face gently beautiful.

It was for the light-sculpture more than anything
else that the guests came. It was never the same twice
and never failed to explore new experimental avenues
of art. Many people who could afford light-consoles
prepared light-sculptures for amusement, but no one
could approach Mrs. Lardner's expertise. Not even
those who considered themselves professional artists.

She herself was charmingly, modest about it. "No,
she would protest when someone waxed lyrical.

no

'I wouldn't call it 'poetry in light.' That's far too kind.
At most, I would say it was mere light verse."" And
everyone smiled at her gentle wit

Though she was often asked, she would never cre-
ate light-sculpture for any occasion but her own par-
ties. "That would be commercialization," she said.

She had no objection, however, to the preparation
of elaborate holograms of her sculptures so that they
might be made permanent and reproduced in mu-
seums of art all over the world. Nor was there ever a
charge for any use that might be made of her light-
sculptures.

"I couldn't ask a penny," she said, spreading her
arms wide. "It's free to all. After all, I have no further

310

BAAC ASIMOV

use for it myself." It was true! She never used the
same light-sculpture twice.

When the holograms were taken, she was coopera-
tion itself. Watching benignly at every step, she was
always ready to order her robot servants to help.
"Please, Courtney," she would say, "would you be so
kind as to adjust the stepladder?"

It was her fashion. She always addressed her robots
with the most formal courtesy.

Once, years before, she had been almost scolded by
a government functionary from the Bureau of Robots
and Mechanical Men. "You can't do that," he said se-
verely. "It interferes with their efficiency. They are
constructed to follow orders, and the more clearly you
give those orders, the more efficiently they follow
them. When you ask with elaborate politeness, it is
difficult for them to understand that an order is being
given. They react more slowly."

Mrs. Lardner lifted her aristocratic head. "I do not
ask for speed and efficiency," she said. "I ask good-
will. My robots love me."

The government functionary might have explained
that robots cannot love, but he withered under her
hurt but gentle glance.

It was notorious that Mrs. Lardner never even re-
turned a robot to the factory for adjustment. Their
positronic brains are enormously complex, and once in
ten times or so the adJustment is not perfect as it
leaves the factory. Sometimes the en-or does not show
up for a period of time, but whenever it does, U.S.
Robots and Mechanical Men, Inc., always makes the
adjustment free of charge.

Mrs. Lardner shook her head. "Once a robot is in
my house," she said, "and has performed his duties,

OPUS 200

311

any minor eccentricities must be bome. I will not
have him manhandled."

It Was the worst thing possible to try to explain that
a robot was but a machine. She would -<ay very
stiffly, "Nothing that is as intelligent as a robot can
ever be but a machine. I treat them like people."

And that was thati

She kept even Max, although he was almost help-
less. He could scarcely understand what was expected
of him. Mrs. Lardner denied that strenuously, how-
ever. "Not at all," she would say firmly. "He can take
hats and coats and store them very well, indeed. He
can hold objects for me. He can do many things."

"But why not have him adjusted?" asked a friend
once.

"Oh, I couldn't He's himself. He's very lovable, you
know. After all, a positronic brain is so complex that
no one can ever tell in just what way it's off. If he
were made perfectly normal there would be no way to
adjust him back to the lovabittty he now has. I won't
give that up."

"But if he's maladjusted," said the friend, looking at
Max nervously, "might he not be dangerous?"

''Never," laughed Mrs. Lardner. "I've had him for
years. He's completely harmless and quite a dear."

Actually he looked like all the other robots—smooth,
metallic, vaguely human, but expressionless.

To the gentle Mrs. Lardner, however, they were all
individual, all sweet, all lovable. It was the kind of
woman she was.

How could she commit murder?

The very last person anyone would expect to be mur-
dered would be John Semper Travis. Introverted and

312

ISAAC ASIMOV

gentle, he was in the world but not of it. He had that
peculiar mathematical turn of mind that made it pos-
sible for him to work out in his head the complicated
tapestry of the myriad positronic brainpaths in a ro-
bots mind.

He was chief engineer of U.S. Robots and Mechani-
cal Men,Inc.

But he was also an enthusiastic amateur in light-
sculpture. He had written a book on the subject,
trying to show that the type of mathematics he used
in working out positronic brain-paths might be modi-
fied into a guide to the production of aesthetic light-
sculpture.

His attempt at putting theory into practice was a
dismal failure, however. The sculptures he himself
produced, following his mathematical principles, were
stodgy, mechanical, and uninteresting.

It was the only reason for unhappiness in his quiet,
constrained, and secure life, and yet it was reason
enough for him to be very unhappy indeed. He knew
his theories were right, yet he could not make them
work. If he could but produce one great piece of
light-sculpture—

Naturally, he knew of Mrs. Lardner^s light-
sculpture. She was universally hailed as a genius, yet
Travis knew she could not understand even the sim-
plest aspect of robotic mathematics. He had corre-
sponded with her, but she consistently refused to ex-
plain her methods, and he wondered if she had any at
all. Might it not be mere intuition? But even intuition
might be reduced to mathematics. Finally he man-
aged to receive an invitation to one of her parties. He
simply had to see her.

Mr. Travis arrived rather late. He had made one

OPUS 200                313

last attempt at a piece of light-sculpture and had
failed miserably.

He greeted Mrs. Lardner with a kind of puzzled re-
spect and said, "That was a peculiar robot who took
my hat and coat."

"That is Max," said Mrs. Lardner.

"He is quite maladjusted, and he's a fairly old
model. How is it you did not return it to the factory?"

"Oh, no," said Mrs Lardner. "It would be too much
trouble."

"None at all, Mrs. Lardner," said Travis. "You
would be surprised how simple a task it was. Since I
am with U.S. Robots, I took the liberty of adjusting
him myself. It took no time and you'll find he is now
in perfect working order."

A queer change came over Mrs. Lardner*s face.
Fury found a place on it for the first time in her gen-
tle life, and it was as though the lines did not know
how to form.

"You adjusted him?" she shrieked. "But it was he
who created my light-sculptures. It was the maladjust-
ment, the maUidjustment, which you can never re-
store, that—that—"

It was really unfortunate that she had been showing
her collection at the time and that the Jeweled dagger
from Cambodia was on the marble tabletop before
her.

Travis's face was also distorted. "You mean if I had
studied his uniquely maladjusted positronic brain-
paths I might have learned—"

She lunged with the knife too quickly for anyone to
stop her and he did not try to dodge. Some said he
came to meet it—as though he wanted to die.

314

ISAAC ASIMOV

Short-shorts need not he fiction. On occasion I am
asked to do short nonfiction articles for one outlet or
another, and I particularly enjoy doing them for TV
Guide, since there the opportunity exists for immers-
ing myself in any of a wide variety of subjects.

There was a television special on carious reputed
monsters, for instance, such as the abominable snow-
man, Bigfoot, the Loch Ness monster, and so on. 1
view reports of such objects with the deepest scepti-
cism, and when TV Guide asked for a "backgrounder"
on the program, I produced an article entitled "The
Monsters We Have Lived With," which brought me
angry letters from some readers who didn't want their
monsters taken away from them Just because they
didn't exist.

As it happens, Douhleday occasionally publishes
collections of miscellaneous essays of mine that have
appeared in places other than F & SF. My second
hundred books contain three of these collections, of
which the latest is The Beginning and the End (Book
187), published in 1977. It includes my monster back-
grounder, which is here reproduced in full.

"The Monsters We Have Lived With" (7974)

Mankind has always lived with monsters. That fact
dates back, no doubt, to the time when the early
ancestors of man moved about in constant fear of the
large predators around them. Fearful as the mam-
moths, saber-toothed tigers, and cave bears may have
been, it is the essence of the human mind that still
worse could be imagined.

The dread forces of nature were visualized as super-
animals. The Scandinavians imagined the sun and the

OPUS 200                 315

moon to be pursued forever by gigantic wolves, for
instance. It was when these caught up with their prey
that eclipses took place.

Relatively harmless animals could be magniBed
into terrors. The octopuses and squids, with their writh-
ing tentacles, were elaborated into the deadly Hy-
dra, the many-headed snake destroyed by Hercules;

into Medusa with her snaky hair and her glance that
turned living things to stone; into Scylla with her six
heads, whom Ulysses encountered.

Perhaps the most feared animal was the snake.
Slithering unseen through the underbrush, it came
upon its victim unawares. Its lidless eyes, its cold and
malignant stare, its sudden strike, all served to terror-
ize human beings. Is it any wonder that the snake is
so often used as the very principle of evil—as, for in-
stance, in the tale of the Garden of Eden.

But imagination can improve even on the snake.
Snakes can be imagined who kill not by a bite, but
merely by a look, and this is the "basilisk" (from the
Greek word meaning "little king").

Or else make the snake much larger, into what the
Greeks called Python, and it can represent the original
chaos which had to be destroyed by a god before the
orderly universe could be created. It was Apollo who
killed the Python in the early days of the earth, ac-
cording to the Greek myths, and who then established
the oracle of Delphi on the spot.

Another Greek word for a large snake was "drakon,"
which has become our "dragon." To the snaky length
of the dragon were added the thicker body and
stubby legs of that other dread reptile, the crocodile.
Now we have the monster Tiamat, which the Baby-
Ionian god Marduk had to destroy in order to or-
ganize the universe.

316

ISAAC ASIMOV

Symbolize the burning bite of the venomous snake
and you have the dragon breathing fire. Dramatize
the swift and deadly strike of the snake and you have
the dragon flying through the air.

Some monsters are, of course, animals that have
been misunderstood into beauty rather than horrqr,
The one-homed rhinoceros may have contributed to
the myth of the unicorn, the beautiful one-horned
horse. And the hom of the mythical unicorn is exactly
like the tooth of the real-life narwhal.

The ugly sea cow with its flippered tail, rising half
out the sea and holding a newborn young to its breast
in the human position, may have dazzled shortsighted
sailors into telling tales of beautiful mermaids.

Throughout history, of course, man's greatest enemy
was man, so it is not surprising that man himself
served as the basis for some of the most fearful mon-
sters—the giants and cannibalistic ogres of all sorts.

It may well he that the origin of such stories lies in
the (act that various groups of human beings made
technological advances in different directions and at
different times. A tribe of warriors armed with stone
axes, meeting an army of soldiers in bronze armor and
carrying bronze-tipped spears, will be sent flying in
short order with many casualties. The Stone Age sur-
vivors may well have the feeling that they have met
an army of man-eating giants.

Thus, the primitive Israelite tribes, on first ap-
proaching Canaan and encountering walled cities and
well-armed soldiers, felt the Canaanites to be a race of
giants. Traces of that belief remain in the Bible.

Then, too, a high civilization may fall and those
who follow forget the civilization and attribute its
works to giants of one kind or another. The primitive
Greeks, coming across the huge, thick walls that encir-

OPUS 200                317

cled the cities of the earlier, highly civilized Mycen-
aeans, imagined those walls to have been built by
giant Cyclopes.

Such Cyclopes were later placed in Sicily (where
Ulysses encountered them in the tales told in the Od-
yssey) and were supposed to have but one eye. They
may have been sky gods, and the single eye may rep-
resent the sun in heaven. It may also have arisen from
the fact that elephants roamed Sicily in prehuman
times. The skull of such an elephant, occasionally
found, would show large nasal openings in front
which might be interpreted as the single eye of a
giant.

There can be giants in ways other than physical.
Thus medieval Englishmen had no notion of how or
why the huge monoliths of Stonehenge had been
erected. They blamed it on Merlin's magic. He caused
the stones to fly through the air and land in place.
(The Greeks also had tales of musicians who played
so beautifully that, captivated *by the sweet strains,
rocks moved into place and built a wall of their own
accord.)

But as man's knowledge of the world expanded, the
room available for the dread or beautiful monsters he
had invented shrank, and belief in them faded. Large
animals were discovered—giant whales, moose, Komodo
lizards, okapis, giant squids, and so on. These were,
however, merely animals and lacked the super-terror
our minds had created.

What is left then?

The giant snakes and dragons that once fought with
the gods and terrorized mankind have shrunk to a
possible sea serpent reported to be cowering at the
bottom of Loch Ness.

The giants, the ogres, the monstrous one-eyed can-

318

BAAC ASIMOV

' nibals that towered over our puny race of mortals,
have diminished to mysterious creatures that leave
footprints among the snows of the upper reaches of
Mount Everest or show their misty shapes fugitively in
the depths of our shriveling forests.

Even if these exist (which is doubtful), what a
punv remnant thev represent of the glorious hordes
man's mind and imagination have created.

"I discussed in Opus 100 my struggles to achieve a bit
of humor in my writing. 1 may have succeeded there,
for reviewers often mentioned my sense of humor (as
revealed in my writing) and seemed to do so with ap-
proval.

That may be, hut it was not till my second hundred
books that I produced volumes that dealt with humor
per se or that were specifically humorous books rather
than other kinds of books that fust happened to have a
bit of humor as seasoning.

The first book of this sort that I wrote was Isaac
Asimov's Treasury of Humor (Book 114), a large
compendium of jokes and comments on humor and
joke-telling. Houghton Mifflin published it in 1971.

How I came to write it is described in the introduc-
tion to that book, and this is given here:

from ISAAC ASIMOV*S TREASURY OF HUMOR (1971)

For nearly all my life I have been swapping jokes. At
almost every friendly gathering that I have attended,
there have been two or three people present with a
large repertoire of funny stories and the ability to tell
them with finesse, and so joke-swapping was almost

322

ISAAC ASIMOV

inevitable. Modesty compels me to refrain from saying
that of all those present I generally had the largest
repertoire of jokes and could tell them with the most
finesse, but if I weren't modest I would say so.

This has led to my having been asked, on occasion,
why someone like myself, with pretensions to intellect,
should content himself with endless Joke-telling while
shunning the ardent discussions of politics, philoso-
phy, and literature that might be proceeding in an-
other comer of the room.

To this my answer is threefold, in order of increas-
ing importance:

1) I spend most of my day being intellectual at my
typewriter, and telling jokes on an evening now and
then helps balance the situation.

2) Jokes of the proper kind, properly told, can do
more to enlighten questions of politics, philosophy,
and literature than any number of dull arguments.

3) I like to.

Then, too, as it happens, this whole business of
Joke-telling saved my life not too long ago—

In June 1969, my wife and I, along with another
couple, Howard and Muriel Hirt, were off on a motor
trip that was to end in a vacation. As it happens, vaca-
tions send me into deep melancholy and I had been
achingly apprehensive of this one for weeks. It was
only to last for a weekend but it was to be at an elab-
orate hotel of a type that I detested beyond measure.

With doom hastening closer at every turn of the
whirling wheels, I tried to fight off my gathering mis-
ery by telling Jokes in feverish succession.

Muriel was kind enough to laugh quite a bit, and
then she said, "Listen, Isaac, why don't you write a
jokebook?"

OPUS 200                 323

That made it my turn to laugh.

"Who would publish it?" I asked.

She said, "I thought you said you could get someone
or other to publish anything you wrote."

I do say things like that when I am feeling more
than ordinarily megalomaniac, but that was not what
suddenly began to circle wildly through the tortuous
meshes of my mind.

A new thought arose—

Suppose that while I was ostensibly vacationing,
and while everyone around me was going through the
horrifying ritual of lying in the sun and volleyballing
and hiking and doing whatever other forms of refined
torture are supposed to be fun, I was secretly writing
down Jokes and, in that wav, working on a book.

I would then be having no vacation at alii (Oh,
magic words!)

As soon as we had registered and unpacked, there-
fore, I approached the desk and said, "I would like to
check out a typewriter for the weekend."

This hotel, you must understand, is marvelously
equipped. I do not remember the exact figures, but
the impression I have is that the hotel possesses three
swimming pools, four golf links, seventeen tennis
courts, twenty-eight miles of hiking trails, and
seventy-five thousand beach chairs in serried ranks
and files, each one laden with a vacationer slowly
frying in his own juice. It also has an enormous night-
club, fourteen buildings, and sixty miles of corridors.

With a hotel that has everything, I had no hesitation
in asking for a typewriter.

I was quickly disabused. The desk clerk said, "You
want to check out a what^9

"A typewriteri" I said.

324

ISAAC ASIMOV

He looked blank, and I could see he was wondering
if a typewriter might be anything like a set of golf
clubs.

I said, "Well, then, do you have writing paper?"

He handed me a sheet of writing paper in which
the monogram of the hotel took up half the area, leav-
ing just enough room to write a message to a friend
that might go: "Here I am at the X Hotel, dying."

I said, "Give me about fifty."

He handed them over, and for the next two and a
half days, wherever we were—tramping the corridors,
lying in the sun, sitting in the shade, waiting for food
at the table, enduring the unbelievable, dinning may-
hem at the nightclub—I quietly scribbled jokes on pa-
per while carefully maintaining a fixed smile on my
face to indicate how much I was enjoying the vaca-
tion.

Occasionally, I would overhear someone at a neigh-
boring table say, "Watch out, Sadie, and be careful
what you say. That fellow there is writing down every
word he hears."

It was undoubtedly all that kept me alive.

I finished the vacation with a sheaf of handwritten
Jokes, which I converted into typescript and brought
to Houghton Miffiin as a sample,

And eventually the book was completed and pub-
lished, and here it is!

It would scarcely be suitable to let it go at that. The
book contains 640 jokes {almost all of them quite
clean), and I include several of them here.

OPUS 200               325
from ISAAC ASIMOV'S TBEASUBY OF HUMOR (1971)

Moskowitz had bought a parrot and one morning
found the bird at the eastern side of the cage, with a
small prayer shawl over its head, rocking to and fro
and mumbling. Bending low to listen, Moskowitz was
thunderstruck to discover the parrot was intoning
prayers in the finest Hebrew.

"You're Jewish?" asked Moskowitz.

"Not only Jewish," said the parrot, "but Orthodox.
So will you take me to the synagogue on Rosh Ha-
shanah?"

Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, was indeed
only two days off, and it would as always usher in the
high-holiday season which would end with Yom Kip-
pur, the Day of Atonement, ten days later.

Moskowitz said, "Of course, I'll take you, but can I
tell my friends about you? It isn't a secret, I hope?"

"No secret at all. Tell anyone you want to." And the
parrot returned to his praying.'

Moskowitz went to all his friends, full of the story
of his Jewish parrot. Of course no one believed him,
and in no time at all Moskowitz was taking bets. By
Rosh Hashanah, he had a hundred dollars, all told,
riding on the parrot,

Grinning, Moskowitz brought the parrot to the syn-
agogue in its cage. He put him in a prominent place
and everyone turned to watch, even as they mumbled
their prayers. Even the rabbi watched, for he had
seven dollars that said the parrot could not pray.

Moskowitz waited. Everyone waited. And the par-
rot did nothing. Moskowitz carefully arranged the
prayer shawl over the bird's head, but the parrot
ducked and the shawl fell off.

After the services, Moskowitz's friends, with much

326

ISAAC ASIMOV

mockery, collected their money. Even the rabbi snick-
ered as he took his profit of seven dollars.

Utterly humiliated, Moskowitz returned home,
turned viciously on the parrot, and said, "Perpare to
die, you little monster, for I'm going to wring your
neck. If you can pray, now's the time."           '

Whereupon the parrot's voice rang out clearly:

"Hold it, you dumb jerk. In ten days it's Yom Kinpur,
when all Jews will sing the tragic, haunting Kol Nidre.
Well, bet everybody that I can sing the Kol Nidre."

"Why? You didn't do anything today."

"Exactly! So for Yom Kippur, just think of the odds
you'll getl"

A young man is reported to have approached the re-
nowned composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (one of
the great musical prodigies of all time) and asked,
"Herr Mozart, I have the ambition to write sympho-
nies, and perhaps you can advise me how to get
started."

Mozart said, 'The best advice I can give you is to
wait until you are older and more experienced, and
try your hand at less ambitious pieces to begin with."

The young man looked astonished. "But, Herr Moz-
art, you yourself wrote symphonies when you were
considerably younger than I."

"Ah," said Mozart, "but I did so without asking ad-
vice."

Young Leah, in the old days of eastern Europe, was
the sole support of her mother, and had been fortu-
nate enough to marry a substantial young man, despite

OPUS 200

327

the miserable state of her dowry. Leah was happy and
her mother was ecstatic.

Imagine her mother's shock, then, when, on the
morning after the wedding, Leah returned in misery
and announced she would not return to her husband.
"I love him madly," she said, "but I had to leave him."

Stubbornly, she refused to give the reason, but
from what she said, it was apparent that the young
man had made some rather sophisticated sexual de-
mands on her.

As the days passed, both mother and daughter grew
more and more miserable, the former out of frustrated
finances, the latter out of frustrated love. Finally, the
mother suggested that they visit the town rabbi, the
beloved Rabbi Joshua of Khaslavich. After all, in such
matters one needed guidance-

They were granted an audience, and when the
rabbi demanded the details and Leah hung back,
Rabbi Joshua said kindly, "Whisper it into my ear, my
daughter. No one will know" but we ourselves and
God/-
She did so, and as she whispered, the rabbi's kindly
brow furrowed, and lightning flashed from his mild
eyes.

"My daughter," he thundered, "it is not fitting for a
Jewish girl to submit to such vile indignities- It would
be a deadly sin, and because of it a curse would be
laid on our whole town."

Back went mother and daughter, disconsolate, and
after a week of continued privation, the mother said,
"You know, our rabbi is a wonderful man, but it is
sometimes wise to get a second opinion. Why not con-
sult Rabbi Samuel of Krichev? He is very highly spo-
ken of as a man of learning."

328

ISAAC ASIMOV

Why not, indeed? They got into the wagon and
bumped their way to the next town. As Leah whis-
pered the tale into Rabbi Samuel's ear, the old man's
earlocks uncurled and turned distinctly grayer. He
said in strangled tones, "My daughter, it was for sins
such as this that the Holy One, blessed be He, sent
down upon the earth a flood in days of yore. You
must not agree to his demands."

Again mother and daughter returned, and now, for
a long time, the dreary round of day-to-day living con-
tinued, until the mother said, "Let us make one final
attempt to obtain guidance. Let us go to the Grand
Rabbi of Vilna. There is no one in the whole world as
wise as he and as learned. And whatever he says we
may accept as the final word."

They bought their railway tickets, which seriously
depleted their meager savings, and rode to Vilna. For
the third time, Leah whispered her story into a rab-
binical ear. The Grand Rabbi listened with equanim-
ity and then said, "My daughter, be guided by your
husband. He is a young and vigorous man, and it is
fitting that you both enjoy yourselves. Have no
qualms concerning this thing."

Leah was thunderstruck. She said, "But, Grand
Rabbi, how can you say this? Rabbi Joshua of Khas-
lavich said it would bring a curse upon our town.
Rabbi Samuel of Krichev said such sins caused the
flood."

But the Grand Rabbi merely stroked his white
beard and smiled. "My daughter," he said, "what do
those small-town rabbis know about big-city sex?"

Among the Germans, Berlin is considered the very
epitome of Prussian brusqueness and efficiency, while

OPUS 200                329

Vienna is the essence of Austrian charm and slipshod-
dery.

The tale is told of a Berliner visiting Vienna who
was lost and in need of directions. What would such a
Berliner do? He grabbed at the lapel of the first pass-
ing Viennese and barked out, "The post office? Where
is it?"

The startled Viennese carefully detached the other's
fist, smoothed his lapel, and said in a gentle manner,
"Sir, would it not have been more delicate of you to
have approached me politely and to have said, 'Sir, if
you have a moment and happen to know, could you
please direct me to the post office?*"

The Berliner stared in astonishment for a moment,
then growled, "I'd rather be losti" and stamped away.

That very same Viennese was visiting Berlin later
that year, and it turned out that now it was he who
had to search for the post office. Approaching a Ber-
liner, he said politely, "Sir, if you have a moment and
happen to know, could you please direct me to the
post office?"

With machinelike rapidity, the Berliner replied,
"About face, two blocks forward, sharp turn right, one
block forward, cross street, half-right under arch,
sharp left over railroad tracks, past newsstand, into
post office lobby."

The Viennese, more bewildered than enlightened,
nevertheless murmured, "A thousand thanks, kind sir—"

Where upon the Berliner snatched furiously at the
other's lapel and shouted, "Never mind the thanksl
Repeat the instructional"

Pierre was celebrating his silver wedding, and while
all were unrestrainedly merry over the ample liquor

330

ISAAC ASIMOV

provided by the host, Pierre himself remained in the
comer, nursing a drink and following one of the
guests with baleful eyes.

A friend noticed this strange action, all the more
strange on so happy an occasion, and said, "At whom
are you glaring, Pierre my friend?"                '

"At my lawyer, may his soul rot."

"But why are you so angry with him?"

"It is a sad tale. After I had been married ten years,
I decided I had had enough and that the cleanest so-
lution would be to kill my wife. Painlessly, of course,
for I am no monster. Being a methodical man, I ap-
proached my lawyer—that one there—and asked him
of the possible consequences. He told me that
whereas killing a husband is, here in France, a mere
misdemeanor, killing a wife is a felony, and that even
with a most skillful defense I would have to count on
fifteen years in jail. He urged me not to do it and I let
myself be guided by his advice."

"Well, then, why are you angry?**

"Because," said Pierre, "if I had not listened, to his
idiotic advice, on this very day I would have been a
free man at last."

Although Isaac Asimov's Treasury of Humor was the
first humorous book I wrote, it was not the first I
published.

On March 12, 1971, I had lunch with Beth Walker
and Millicent Selsam of Walker and Company to dis-
cuss my ABC's of the Earth. When that was done, the
two editors talked shop and the conversation veered
to The Sensuous Woman and The Sensuous Man, two
sleazy books that were making money out of pruri-
ence.

OPUS 200                331

Beth turned to me and said, "Why don't you write a
dirty book, Isaac?'

I thought of my own propensities and said dryly,
"What do you want me to write? The Sensuous Dirty
Old Man?"

That turned out to be a dreadful thing to say, for
Beth fell in love with the title and hounded me into
doing the hook. She then raced it into print and it
appeared less than ninety days after my original
mocking suggestion, appearing as Book 112.

In no way, of course, way The Sensuous Dirty Old
Man merely sex, I should hope that I don't have to
stoop to try to write and sell a book on the basis of
salacity alone: It was satire and was intended, at all
points, to be more humorous than salacious.

Don't get me wrong. I don't eschew the salacious. 1
merely insist that humor be primary. Thus:

from THE SENSUOUS DIRTY OLD MAN (1971)

Sometime during the 1930s, women, having stripped
off enough layers of frontal textile, discovered that in-
sufficent material was left to protect the delicate tis-
sues of the bosom. To protect these, modem engineer-
ing devised a structure that served to compress the
bosom into firm cone-shaped objects which, far from
requiring protection, could allow unlimited maneuver
without danger. Unavoidably it caught the masculine
eye—or some other part of the male anatomy if he
weren't careful, leaving a nasty bruise.

The service performed to womankind by this new
garment can not easilv be exaggerated. It was first de-
signed by an organization of bioengineers who, al-
though individually anonymous, have become world

332

ISAAC ASIMOV

famous by the corporate title of Bosom Rehabilitation
Associates. The garment they engineered possessing
the small initials BRA on the strap quickly became
known, in consequence, as the "bra."

The gentlemen of B.R.A. carefully labored to give
each woman that firmly jutting profile one would nat-
urally associate with strength of will and character,
and it worked. Manv a woman who in her natural un-
protected state would have slunk into a room, abashed
and uncertain, could, with her bra firmly in place,
walk in, shoulders back and chest thrown out, proudly
aware that every man in the place would at once note
and admire her strength of character.

Every woman felt uplifted by the experience, so the
industry began to speak of the "uplift bra.**

And yet the uplift bra had its troubles. For one
thing, the designers had unaccountably placed its
hooks in the back. In addition, the straps cut the
shoulders, and in hot weather there were such matters
as heat, perspiration, and skin rashes.

Little by little the thought came that it might be
possible to eliminate the bra and allow the contents to
find their natural level; or, as President Nixon so suc-
cinctly put it in discussing this very problem, the time
had come for America to adopt a lower profile.

Certain of the more excitable women determined
not merely to eliminate the bra but to bum it as a
gesture of contempt. The slogan arose: LET'S IGNITE
BRAS. This was abbreviated to L.I.B. and in no time at
all Women's Lib was a power in the land.

The result was, in the light of hindsight, inevitable.
The ladies found themselves back where they had
been in the 1930s and, indeed, worse off than ever.
The sturdier fabrics of a much earlier day, the taffeta
dress and corduroy blouse, had given way to sheer

OPUS 200                 333

synthetics. What had earlier been hidden and pro-
tected by the bra was hidden and protected no longer
by virtually anything. Indeed, the tender caress of the
soft synthetic irritated the delicate bosom surface till
every unevenness was accentuated and softly re-
vealed.

At a time when President Nixon was making one
point very, very clear, the average young girl on the
streets of New York was doing exactly twice as well.

And dirty old men, on those same streets, found
that they had a new target—and new hazards. Without
the constriction of the bra, the average young lady,
moving forward in a healthy free-swinging stride, pre-
sents what can only be described as a moving target.

It is therefore difficult for the dirty old man to get
to the point; for the point shifts. It moves wildly at
the slightest bodily motion. It Jiggles, wobbles, and
dangles; heaves, yaws, and rolls; vibrates, oscillates,
and undulates.

The dirty old man may find himself trying to follow
every movement by use of eye muscles, head muscles,
or both. This is not advisable. Aside from the fact that
in the attempt to concentrate too entirely on the target
he may walk into a wall, the constant movement of
eyes or head or both will induce dizziness, headache,
nausea, and even that dread affliction of the inveter-
ate leerer, watering eyes. The whole complex of symp-
toms makes up the syndrome of "mammamobilism."

Mammamobilism is known to the medical profes-
sion by the euphemistic phrase "nipple shock," but in
this book I have no use for euphemisms and do not
intend to employ them. The general public, the taxi
driver, the construction worker, everyone, says "mam-
mamobilism," and that's what I shall say, too.

The Italians, far wiser than we in their attitude to-

334

ISAAC ASIMOV

ward sex, have no compunctions about using the
phrase. You will recall that in the great opera Rigo-
letto the Duke, when Gilda runs past him jiggling,
claps his hand to his brow and begins the brilliant
tenor aria: "Oh, mammamobile—"

Although you can see that the disease played so nn-
portant a part in the opera written by Joe Green* a
century and a quarter ago, thanks to the extraordinary
equipment of the pasta-consuming coloratura soprano
of his day, it did not strike the American public till
just a few short years ago. Mammambolism is not
amenable to penicillin or to any of the other antibiot-
ics. Prevention, then, is the key. Do not try to follow
the moving target. Fix the eye rather upon some key
portion of the dress pattern and allow the sense of
sight to be titillated sporadically.

Oddly enough, a new career (if you want to caU it
that} started for me quite unexpectedly in 1Q74.

I was returning by ship (I don't fty) from a visit to
Great Britain, and things were a little dull. At the ta-
ble at luncheon, as conversation lagged and as I
looked aimlessly at the ocean outside the window
from my seat in the Queens CriU of the Queen Eliza-
beth II, a limerick occurred to me.

I had made up an occasional limerick in my life but
had never paid much attention to them. This time,
though, the limerick flowed into my mind so easily
that I found myself unable to resist quoting it. 1 he-

B Green, having emigrated to Italy, adopted the Italian
version of his name, Giuseppe Verdi. For reasons known
only to opera huffs, the Italian same is actually better known
today than the name he was bom with in Poughkeepsie,
New York.

OPUS 200                335

gan, without warning, by saying, "There was a young
girl from Decatur."

What conversation there was stopped, and everyone
at the table turned to look at me.

"What went out to sea on a freighter" I said, and
now attention was focused on me with an almost pain-
ful intensity.

"She was screwed by the Master—an utter disaster,"
said I, and paused a little to let the suspense gather,
and then 1 added, "But the crew all made up for it
later."

There was an explosion of laughter.

1 was very pleased and, for the first time, took the
trouble to write down one of my own limericks.

That was fatal, for from that moment on, every time
1 made up a limerick I wrote it down. 'What's more, I
began to concentrate on constructing them. By the
time I had sixteen, I brought them to Walker and
Company with the glad tidings that when I had a
hundred I would make a book out of them, which
Walker might then publish. Sam Walker winced at
that but, like a good sport, agreed.

1 then got to work seriously, using the same crite-
rion 1 had used for The Sensuous Dirty Old Man. A
limerick could be as salacious as necessary, provided
it was more funny than salacious. And 1 added an-
other rule: it could never be physically repulsive.

Before I was through, I had not only a hundred lim-
ericks and a published book (complete with lengthy
introduction and commentary on each limerick) but
four hundred and forty-four limericks and four pub-
lished books.

These were: Lecherous Limericks {Book 166), in
2975; More Lecherous Limericks {Book 177), in 1976;

Still More Lecherous Limericks {Book 185), in 1977;

336

ISAAC ASIMOV

and Limericks: Too Gross (Book 196), in 1978. The
limericks were numbered consecutively through the
three volumes, from 1 to 300, and the happy tale of
the young girl from Decatur was, very appropriately,
given pride of place as number 1.

Here are two limericks from each of the first three
books:

from LECHEROUS LIMERICKS (1975)

Well, Hardly Ever

There was an old maid of Peru
Who swore that she never would screw

Except under stress

Of forcefuLduress
Like, "I'm ready, dear, how about you?"

Impatience

There was a young couple from Florida
Whose passion grew steadily torrider.

They were planning to sin

In a room in an inn.
Who can wait? So they screwed in the corridor.

from MORE LECHEROUS LIMERICKS (1976)

Shutting the Barn Door

There was an effete lazy fop
Who preferred all his women on top.
He said, "I'm no Jerk,
Let them do the work,
But if I get pregnant, I'll stop.**

OPUS 200
You Mean

A. young fellow, divinely endowed,
Once said, very haughty and proud,
When a girl, much too free,
Placed her hand on his knee,
*That isn't my knee. Miss McCloud."

from STILL MORE LECHEROUS LIMERICKS (J977)

Reasons Enough

The virginal nature of Donna
Had for many long years been a goner.

When asked whv she screwed,

She replied, "Gratitude,
Politeness—and just 'cause I wanna."

Emily Post

There was a young man of Connecticut
Who tore off a voung woman's petticoat
Said she, with a grin,
"You will have to get in.
For to do nothing more isn't etiquette."

PART 12

SOCIAL SCIENCES

Until now I Juice carefully followed the order of the
sections as originally given in Opus 100: from Part 1,
Astronomy, to Part 11, Humor.

I would hate, though, to have you think that, having
established a certain diversity in my writings in my
first hundred books, I would allow that diversity to
stand, that I would seek out no new fields for my sec-
ond hundred. That is not so. There are no less than
four additional sections in this present book.

First, the social sciences. This, I must admit, is not
my forte, and consequently I have done very little
writing in this field. It is important, after all, for any
versatile writer to have a keen perception of his limi-
tations. Otherwise, the ease with which he may hop
from subject to subject, and his vanity over being able
to do so, may lure him to write on something he
knows nothing about with diastrous consequences.

To be sure, some of my F & SF essays deal with one
aspect or another of the social sciences—the essays
that I refer to as "controversials" in my correspon-
dence with my editor, Edward L. Ferman. There, how-
ever, I am writing informally to an audience of friends
and giving only my opinions, making no pretense of
speaking authoritatively.

In one instance during my second hundred books,

342

ISAAC ASIMOV

however, I allowed myself to be talked into doing a
book that edges rather far into the social.

Frances Schwartz of Abelard-Schuman phoned me
in 1973 and asked me to do a book on population
aimed at an audience of young people. It is a subject
near to my heart, for I firmly believe that if the world
does not master the population problem, civilization is
very likely going to collapse within half a century..

I agreed to do the book therefore, and it appeared
in 1974 under the imprint of the ]ohn Day Company,
which by then was. a sister house of Abelard-
Schuman. The title is Earth: Our Crowded Spaceship
and it is Book 156. Here is an excerpt:

from EARTH: OUR CROWDED SPACESHIP (1974)

There are many people who are educated and who
know about the world population and the way it is
growing but think there is no danger. They tell them-
selves that people who talk of the danger are foolish
and wrong.

People who don't believe there is a crisis can point
to the Netherlands, for instance. They say that the
Netherlands is prosperous and yet is much more
densely populated than the world average. They say
that it would do no harm to let the whole world be-
come that densely populated. They don't seem to real-
ize that the Netherlands is prosperous because it has
fertile soil and much water; that it makes use of a great
deal of industrial products like fertilizer and insecti-
cides; that it imports a great deal of oil and that it has
no forests to speak of.

There just isn't enough fertile soil and enough water
to make the entire world into one gigantic Nether-

OPUS 200                 343

lands. There isn't enough fertilizer and insecticides
and oil, and we don't really want to cut down all the
forests. Besides, it won't take very long for the earth
to be as densely populated all over as the Netherlands
is now, and if it could be done, how would we stop
the population increase at that point?

Some people think that science will solve all prob-
lems. They say that more people will Just mean more
scientists working on those problems. They don't real-
ize that the problems get worse and worse, faster and
faster, and that sooner or later—probably sooner—
science just won't be able to keep up the pace.

Some people even think that population means
strength. They think that large nations with many
people can conquer neighboring nations with fewer
people. They think that if their own nation does not
increase its population, a neighboring nation which
does increase its population will conquer them. For
this reason, some nations think that thev must have
more and more babies, more and more people, if they
are to remain strong and free.

Even if war is not involved, some people think a
nation with a large population can keep its own cus-
toms, languages, and attitudes better than a nation
with a small population. If a neighboring nation
grows faster, they think, that neighboring nation
might impose its customs, language, and attitudes on
the smaller one, just by outnumbering them.

Actually, this is not so. Very often in history, small
nations have conquered large ones. It's not so much
the size of the army as its organization and the techni-
cal level of its weapons. Thus, Greece took over Persia
in the 300s B.C., Mongolia took over China in the
1200s, and Great Britain took over India in the 1700s,
even though Persia, China, and India were far more

I

344

ISAAC ASIMOV

populous than Greece, Mongolia, and Great Britain.

Then, too, the Greek language and culture in an-
cient times and the English language and culture in
modem times spread over the world even though
those languages were spoken by few people to begin
with.

If a nation wishes to avoid being dominated by its
neighbors, its best chance is to raise its standard of
living and its level of technology. This can be done
best by not allowing its population to grow to such a
point that it is sunk in misery and poverty. In fact,
the worst way in which a nation can try to avoid
being dominated by its neighbor is to increase its pop-
ulation to the point of misery and poverty.

If every nation tries to compete with its neighbors
by raising its population, then the whole world will be
sunk in misery, and poverty. The nations will all de-
cline in a catastrophe that will leave nothing behind
that is worth dominating. No one will have gained any-
thing. Everyone will have lost everything.

Once all this is understood, and people generally
agree that population growth must not be allowed to
continue, they must also come to understand how that
growth can be stopped. Population grows because
more people are being bom than are dying. There are
two ways, then, in which the growth can be stopped.
You can increase the number of people who die until
it matches the number of people who are being born.
Or else you can decrease the number of people who
are born until it matches the number of people who
are dying.

The Brst method—increasing the death rate—is the
usual way in which population is controlled in all
species of living things other than ourselves. It is the
method by which human populations have been con-

OPUS 200                 345

trolled in the past. It is the "natural" method. If there
are too many people, some starve or die of disease or
by violence. If we don't do anything now, it will be
the way population will be controlled in the future.
Billions will die.

Must we let that happen because it is the "natural"
way?

Through all the history of mankind, the human
brain has been bending nature to its will. If we had
really decided that the "natural" way was the right
way, we would never have begun to make tools or
build fires or develop agriculture or study science. It
is because mankind has bent nature to its will that
there are now many, many people who live more com-
fortably and better than people ever have before. We
must continue to work out ways to be more comfort-
able by using the intelligent way, and not just the "nat-
ural" way.

The "natural" way to control population is by rais-
ing the death rate, but we don't want that, for castas-
trophe lies that way. The intelligent way is to reduce
the birth rate. If, say, 40,000,000 people die each year,
then not more than 40,000,000 people should be bom
each year. If fact, we may want to reduce the world
population to some reasonable value, in which case, if
40,000,000 people die each year, we may want only
30,000,000 people to be bom, or only 20,000,000, till
the desired population level is reached.
But how can the birth rate be reduced?
One way is for people to stop mating. This, how-
ever, is not very practical, since people enjoy it too
much to stop. A better way is to let mating continue
but to use methods that keep it from resulting in ba-
bies-
There are a number of different ways in which the

346

ISAAC ASIMOV

birth rate can be made to drop without interfering
with people's pleasure. In the last twenty years, the
birth rate in the United States and in some other
countries has dropped because more and more women
are using pills to keep from having babies they don't
want.

To make sure that mating doesn't result in babies is
called "birth control." It is by adopting methods of
birth control that population growth can be stopped
with the least damage.

There are many difficulties here. Certain religious
organizations are against birth control. Many groups
of people have ways of life that would not fit in easily
with birth control. Then, too, even if birth control
were desired, there are many places in the world
where people are so poor they can't afford to buy the
materials that make it possible.

So you see, it comes down to education again. Peo-
ple not only have to be taught that a problem exists,
they have to be taught exactly how to solve it by birth
control and why it is right to do so. And they must be
given the necessary materials without charge.

PART 13

LITERATURE

Perhaps the most outrageous books among my second
hundred are my annotations of literary classics.

In the first place, it does take a certain amount of
overweening self-assurance for a person whose intel-
lectual expertise is in the sciences to decide to do
large and complicated books on a subject that may
easily be mistaken for literary criticism. Literary cri-
tics (who are bound to be asked to review the books)
are sure to be annoyed at this invasion of their home
turf.

Secondly, the books tend to be elaborate and ex-
pensive and Doubleday (whom I stuck with the publi-
cation thereof) was sure to be forced to risk consider-
able sums on them that they might not earn back.
(Doubleday has never uttered a word of complaint in
the matter, but that doesn't stop me from worrying
about it.)

After my two-volume Asimov's Guide to the Bible,
it was inevitable that I would plan Asimov's Guide to
Shakespeare.

What I did, in the latter case, was to take up each of
Shakespeare's plays in turn, go through it carefully,
describing as much of the plot as was necessary for
my purposes, and quoting those passages that con-
tained historical, mythological, biographical, or geo-

350

ISAAC ASIMOV

graphical allusions. Since these might not he plain to
the reader and might get in the way of a proper un-
derstanding of the text, 1 explained each one.

I did not in the least attempt to discuss the plays as
dramatic vehicles or indulge in true literary criticism.

Asimov's Guide to Shakespeare appeared in ^wo
volumes in 1970 as Books 104 and 105, and here is my
treatment of the opening soliloquy from Richard III,
in volume 2:

from ASIMOV'S GUIDE TO SHAKESPEARE (1970)

Richard III deals with events that immediately follow
Henry VI, Part 3 and it is very likely that Shakespeare
began work on it as soon as he was through with the
Henry VI trilogy. It was probably completed by 1593
at the latest

At that time Shakespeare was still at the beginning
of his career. He had written two narrative poems, a
number of sonnets, a couple of light comedies, and
the Henry VI trilogy, all popular and successful, but
none, as yet, a blockbuster. With Richard til Shake-
speare finally made it big.

It is a play after the manner of Seneca, like Titus
Andronicus, which Shakespeare was also working on
at the time, but infinitely more successful.

Indeed, Richard III was so full of harrowing and
dramatic episodes, and Richard III himself was so
successful a character, so wonderful a villain, with so
much bravery and dry humor mingled with his mon-
strous behavior, that the play pleased all and made it
quite plain that Shakespeare was a new star of bril-
liant magnitude on the literary scene. Indeed, despite

OPUS 200                351

the fact that the play is quite raw compared to the
polished mastery of Shakespeare's later plays, it is still
one of his most popular and successful plays today.

The play opens with Richard of Gloucester, young-
est brother of King Edward IV, alone on the stage. He
sets the time of the scene by saying:

Now is the winter of our discontent
Made glorious summer by this sun of 'York;

(Act 1, scene I, lines 1-2)

This ties in well with the final speech in Henry VI,
Part 3, in which Edward IV says happily that the
troubles are all over and that only joy is left.

It was in 1471 that the last serious Lancastrian
threat was smashed at Tewkesbury. Old King Henry
VI and his son. Prince Edward, were dead immedi-
ately after that battle, and no one was left to dispute
the right of King Edward to the throne.

The "sun of York" (and a sun was one of the sym-
bols of the Yorkist house) was indeed shining.

The sun of York does not satisfy Richard, however.
In a speech that resembles one he had made in the
earlier play, he explains that he is so physically de-
formed that the joys of peace, such as dancing and
lovemaking, are beyond him. He will therefore con-
fine himself to the joys of ambition, and labor to
make himself a king. After all, in Henry VI, Part 3, he
waxed lyrical over the joys of being a king, and it is
not to be wondered at that he should want those joys.

In order to become a king, he must get out of the
way those who have a prior right to the throne.
Among them, of course, is his older brother George of
Clarence. Richard explains in his soliloquy:

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ISAAC ASIMOV

Plots have I laid, inductions [beginnings] dangerous^
By drunken prophecies, libels, and dreams,
To set my brother Clarence and the king
In deadly hate the one again/it the other;

And if King Edward he as true and fust
As I am subtle, false, and treacherous,          '
This day should Clarence closely he mewed up
About a prophecy which says that G
Of Edward's heirs the murderer shall be.

(Act 1, scene 1, lines 32-40)

Shakespeare is here condensing time, for George of
Clarence's final break with his royal brother came in
1477, six years after the climactic Battle of Tewkes-
bury, despite the appearance in the Brst two lines of
the soliloquy that it is the very morrow of the battle
that is in question.

Why did the break between the brothers come?
Well, it required no plot on the part of Richard, really,
for George of Clarence had some of the characteristics
in reality that Richard was later slanderously de-
scribed as having.

It was George who was ambitious and faithless. He
had deserted Edward and sided with Warwick in
1469, and had come back to his allegiance to York, we
may be sure, only out of a feeling that Warwick was
going to lose and that he himself would gain more by
a second double-cross.

Edward had forgiven the twice faithless George,
but that did not prevent George from continuing to
scheme for his own aggrandizement in such a way
that the king was bound, eventually, to suspect his
brother of aiming at the throne.

George did his best, for instance, to keep his hands
on the whole enormous Warwick estate. This may

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353

have been out of mere avarice, but it may also have
been out of a realization of how useful wealth would
be in planning a revolt. He had married Warwick's
elder daughter, Isabella, in the days when he and
Warwick had been friends and allies. The younger
daughter, Anne, had been married to Edward, prince
of Wales, the son of old King Henry. Prince Edward
was now dead and Anne was a widow; and George
was determined to keep her a widow, lest some new
husband insist on a half share in the Warwick estate.
While Anne remained a widow, George controlled it
all, and he kept the poor lady a virtual prisoner to see
to it that the situation would continue.

This intentness on wealth at all costs would natu-
rally disturb Edward.

Then there arose a new matter. Charles the Bold of
Burgundy died in battle in 1477, leaving behind a
twenty-year-old daughter, Mary, as his onlv heir.
(Charles's wife had been Margaret of York, the sister
of George of Clarence, but Mary was his daughter by
a previous wife.)

Burgundy had, for over half a century, been the
wealthiest nation in Europe, and under Charles it had
reached its political peak, for Charles had almost de-
feated France and made an independent kingdom of
his land. Now, with only a young woman to rule Bur-
gundy, its days seemed numbered under the pressure
of France to the west and the Holv Roman Empire to
the east- Unless, that is, some strong independent prince
quickly married Mary and carried on where Charles
the Bold had left off. George of Clarence was now a
widower and he saw himself as husband of Mary and
as the new duke of Burgundy.

King Edward thoroughly disapproved of this
scheme. It seemed to him that if his ambitious, faith-

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ISAAC ASIMOV

less brother became duke of Burgundy, with all the
resources of Burgundy at his call, he would be a
source of endless trouble. He would have the money
to finance plots against Edward and scheme at a dou-
ble throne.

Edward therefore forbade the marriage and the two
brothers became open enemies. It did not take much
more for Edward to begin to suspect George of plot-
ting his death. Two of George's henchmen were ac-
cused of trying to bring about that death by sorcery.
and when George insisted they were innocent, Ed-
ward angrily had his brother arrested and thrown in
the Tower of London.

Whether George was actually plotting Edward's
death we cannot say, but certainly his past and his
character gave cause for suspicion, and in those trou-
bled times that was enough.

And what had been Richard's record through all
this? Well, for one thing, he had remained utterly
faithful to Edward in the hard times when Warwick
had temporarily hurled him from the throne. He had
fought with bravery and distinction at the battles of
Barnet and Tewkesbmy. He had done Edward's dirty
work (probably) in arranging the death of old King
Henry VI in the Tower. In all respects, Richard was
as much the loyal brother as George was the faithless
one.

This helps explain the frustrating manner in which
the characters in Richard 111 fall prey to villainous Rich-
ard, though his villainy is made to appear patent to
all In actual history, you see, he wasn't a villain.

Thus, consider the prophecy that helped set the
king against his brother: that someone with the initial
G would be a traitor to him. (Undoubtedly, there
were prophecies extant of this sort, and of every other

OPUS 200                 355

too, for there are astrologers and prophets everywhere
and at all times, even m our own country now, and
only those prophecies that come true or seem to come
true are later remembered.) The king felt this applied
to George of Clarence; but why not to RiChard of
Gloucester? The king suspected George because
George deserved it; he did not suspect Glouce^er be-
cause the real Gloucester's unshakable loyalty left no
room for suspicion.

We can also ask ourselves whether Richard really
had a hand in raising Edward's suspicions against
George. There is no evidence of that at all until the
later anti-Richard polemicists got to work. They say
that he spoke openly in favor of his brother to the
king in order to hide his secret maneuverings. The
"maneuverings," however, are a later invention pre-
sented even by the polemicists as onlv a matter of sus-
picion, whereas the one fact they admit is that Rich-
ard defended his brother Clarence openly—which
took courage.

By the time Asimov's Guide to Shakespeare had come
out, my marriage had broken up and I found myself
in New fork in a two-room hotel suite and rather at a
loss.

For the first time in my life I needed to consult no
one's taste but my own, so I went to lower Fourth
Avenue to poke around the secondhand bookstores,
something I had always wanted to do.

I came across a Modem Library edition of Lord By-
ron's great'comic epic Don Juan, which I had read (or
had, at least, begun to read} in my college days. I
brought it home in triumph, feeling that I could now
haw something to read at night when I couldn't sleep

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ISAAC ASIMOV

{and I wasn't sleeping eery well in my lonely hotel
apartment).

The first night, I had hardly managed to read the
seventeen-stanza dedication and the very beginning of
the first "canto before all was lost. I put the book aside
and spent the rest of the night in restless waiting ffff
the morning so that I could begin to annotate it.

I did annotate it, and, unlike my treatment of the
Bible and Shakespeare, 1 quoted the entire epic along
with the annotations. I managed to persuade Double-
day to publish it (which they eventually did—their
own idea—in a very beautiful and expensive edition}.

Asimov's Annotated "Don Juan" (Book 130) was
published in 1972, and I have rarely had such fun
writing a book. Here is the first verse of the first
canto wst to give you a notion of what I was doing:

from ASIMOV'S ANNOTATED "DON JUAN" (1972)

I want a hero: an uncommon want,

When every year and month sends forth a

new one,
Till, after cloying the gazettes with cant,1

The age discovers he is not the true one:

Of such as these I should not care to vaunt,

111 therefore take our ancient friend Don

Juan2—

We all have seen him, in the pantomime,
Sent to the devil somewhat ere his time.8

Canto 1 was written between September 6 and

November 1, 1818, in Venice, Italy.

1. The gazettes were not then, as now in the Ameri-
can sense of the word, amply newspapers. They were

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official weekly journals, publishing statistics of gov-
ernmental interest: movements of the royal family,
lists of honors granted, those killed in battle, and so
on. Byron refers to the gazettes now and then in Don
Juan, chiefly in order to bestow a sardonic glance at
their role as a mmtary obituary list.

2. Don Juan is an "ancient friend" because he was a
well-known figure out of Spanisli folklore. He first re-
ceived recognized literary presentation in the drama
El Bwlador de SecUJa, written in 1630 by the Spanish
dramatist Gabriel Tellez (who wrote under the pseu-
donym Tirso de Molina).

In the original folk tale, Don Juan was the epitome
of the licentious man, who aspired (usually success-
fully) to make love to every woman he met, and who
did so with utter disregard for any law. The climax of
his story is his liaison with a noblewoman and its con-
sequences. He kills the woman's father in a duel. The
father is buried and an effigy.of him is placed over
the tomb. Don Juan, seeing that effigy, mockingly in-
vites it to dinner. The stone figure duly arrives at the
meal and drags the rake and blasphemer to Hell.

Various versions of this legend had already ap-
peared in Spain and elsewhere by Byron's time- Mo-
liere had written a play on the theme and Mozart, an
opera. Byron, with no compunction whatever, utterly
altered the plot in his own version. In fact, all that
Byron left of the traditional Don Juan is his name and
birthplace; nothing more! Don Juan's character is ut-
terly changed. From a heartless blasphemer, seducer,
and libertine (as the world viewed Byron), he be-
comes an innocent, far more sinned against than sin-
ning (as Byron viewed himself). Even the hero's
name was tampered with, for Byron abandoned the
universal "Don Wahn" and called him, with sturdy

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ISAAC ASIMOV

English disregard for the eccentric pronunciations of
foreigners, "Don Joo'un," as we can tell by the fact
that he rhymed Juan with "new one" and "true one."

3. Don Juan was also a favorite in pantomimes and
puppet shows, particularly one adapted from the play
The Libertine by Thomas Shadwell, The climax of/
such shows invariably came at the point where Don
Juan, defiant to the last, is dragged down to Hell by
the devil to the screaming enthusiasm of the audience.

NOT did working on Don Juan in the least sate me.
While it was in press, I did the same for Milton's great
tragic epic Paradise Lost, throwing in Paradise Re-
gained for good measure. In this case, too, I quoted
the entire work along, with the annotations.

Douhledftff did Asimov's Annotated "Paradise Lost"
also, and without a murmur. It was published in 1974
as Book 154.

1 had thought, when I first began to work on Para-
dise Lost, that it would be hard work since I was un-
der the firm impression that I didn't like Milton's
style. I changed my mind, however. Once I immersed
myself in it, I found I loved the long and rolling son-
orittf of those magnificent Latinate sentences of his.
Here's the very first sentence in the epic, one that
rumbles on for sixteen lines of iambic pentameter—
together with my annotations, of course.

from ASIMOV'S ANNOTATED "PARADISE LOST" (1974)

Of Man's First disobedience,1 and the Fruit
Of that Forbidden Tree,2 whose mortal taste
Brought Death into the World, and all our woe,

OPUS 200                 359

With loss of Eden,3 till one greater Man*

Restore us, and regain the blissful Seat,

Sing, Heav'nly Muse,5 that on the secret top

Of Oreb, or of Sinai,6 didst inspire

That Shepherd, who first taught the chosen Seed,7

In the Beginning how the Heav'ns and Earth8

Rose out of Chaos:9 Or if Sion Hill10

Delight thee more, and Siloa's Brook that flow'd

Fast by the Oracle of God;" I thence

Invoice thy aid to my advent'rous song,

That with no middle flight intends to soar

Above th* Aonian Mount,12 while it pursues

Things unattempted yet in Prose or Rhyme.

1. The epic poem Paradise Lost begins immediately
with a statement of purpose. Its story is that told in
the second and third chapters of the biblical book of
Genesis: that of Eve's, then Adam's, disobedience to
God and their violation of the one negative command
given them after their creation. Since Adam and Eve
were the first (and, till then, the onlv) human beings
to exist, according to the biblical account, and since
this was their first disobedience, it was the first dis-
obedience of mankind generally.

2. It was this tree that was involved in the one nega-
tive command given to Adam: "And the Lord God
commanded the man, saying, 'Of every tree of the gar-
den thou mayest freely eat: But of the tree of the
knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it;

for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt
surely die'" (Genesis 2:16-17).

The quotation I have just given is from the Author-
ized Version of the Bible (generally known as the
King James Bible), which was first published in 1611,
fifty-six years before the publication of Paradise Lost.

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ISAAC ASIMOV

It has been the traditional Bible of EngUsh-spealdng
Protestants, both in Milton's time and now, so I will
use it for quotations throughout these notes.

3. It was the land of Eden in which Adam and Eve
existed before their disobedience and from which they
were evicted afterward, as the poem will describe in-
great detail. Specifically it was in a garden in that region
in which they dwelt: "And the Lord God planted a gar-
den eastward in Eden; and there he put the man
whom he had formed" (Genesis 2:8).

It is common, but not correct, to refer to the garden
itself as Eden, as Milton does here. This is not to say
that Milton did not know better, of course. In the con-
stricting bounds of poetry, the necessities of rhyme,
rhythm, or imagery may require a certain departure
from strict accuracy. This is tolerated as "poetic li-
cense."

4. The "greater Man" is Jesus. The New Testament
worked out the doctrine that there was a symmetry in
the story of man. By the sin of one man, Adam. all
mankind was condemned, and by the virtue of one
man, Jesus, all mankind was saved again: "For as by
one man's disobedience many were made sinners, so
by the obedience of one shall many be made right-
eous" (Romans 5:19).

5. Milton draws his sources not only from the Bible
but from Greek and Latin literature, primarily the
great epic poems: Homer's lliad and Odyssey and
Vergil's Aeneid. Paradise Lost is quite obviously and
undeniably an imitation of all of these, particularly
the last. Indeed, so densely packed with classical allu-
sions is Milton's epic, so reverent is its treatment of
classical myths, and so slavish (almost) is its picture
of angels as Homeric heroes, that we are bound to

OPUS 200                361

consider Paradise Lost a pagan translation (and a glo-
riously majestic one) of the biblical creation tale.

It was customary for the pagan epic poets to invoke
the Muse at the start of their poem, the Muse being
the spirit of poetic inspiration. Homer and Vergil both
did so and Milton does so as well.

6. There is a limit, of course, to how pagan the rig-
idly Puritan Milton can allow himself to be. The Muse
must therefore be identified with the revealing and
inspiring Spirit of Cod.

One place where the divine Spirit revealed itself
was at "the secret top of Oreb" (Mount Horeb). Thus
the Bible tells us that Moses, while still in exile in
Midian, "led the flock to the backside of the desert,
and came to the mountain of God, even to Horeb.
And the angel of the Lord appeared unto him in a
flame of fire out of the midst of a bush" (Exodus
3:1-2).

After Moses went to Egypt, at the behest of God,
and then led the Israelites out of Egypt, he brought
them to Mount Sinai; "And the Lord came down upon
Mount Sinai, on the top of the mount: and the Lord
called Moses up to the top of the mount; and Moses
went up" (Exodus 19:20).

Many biblical commentators decided that Horeb
and Sinai are alternate names for the same mountain,
and that is how Milton treats them here.

7. It is Moses who is "that Shepherd" who received
the message of God on Mount Horeb, or Sinai.
Though raised in the palace of Egypt's pharaoh, he
had killed an Egyptian and been forced to flee the
land. He reached Midian and married the daughter of
an important man of the region, one with large herds
of sheep. "Now Moses kept the flock of Jethro his fa-
ther in law, the priest of Midian" (Exodus 3:1).

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ISAAC ASIMOV

The teachings of Moses were addressed to the Isra-
elites, who believed themselves divinely chosen to
keep God's commandments and to worship him in. the
correct manner. Thus: "0 ye seed of Israel his servant,
ye children of Jacob, his chosen ones" (1 Chronicles
16:13). Hence the reference to "the chosen Seed."

8. It was Moses, according to a Jewish tradition
adopted by the Christians, who wrote the Brst five
books of the Bible, under the inspiration of God. In
particular, he was supposed to have written the first
verse, which opens with the phrase used here by Mil-
ton: "In the beginning God created the heavens and
the earth" (Genesis 1:1).

9. In the Hebrew tradition, it is stated in the very
first biblical verse that heaven and earth were cre-
ated. The implication was that, before the creation,
nothing existed.

In the Greek tradition, however, chaos existed to
begin with, and even antedated the gods. Chaos was
viewed as matter in formless disorder, so the creation
of the universe in the Greek view consisted of impos-
ing form on formlessness and extracting order out of
disorder.

Milton accepts the pagan view when he speaks of
**how die Heav'ns and Earth/Rose out of Chaos." He
is not, however, entirely without biblical authority, for
the Bible goes on to say after the initial verse, "And
the earth was without form, and void'* (Genesis 1:2).
In other words, even though heaven and earth were
created out of nothing, they appeared as chaos to be-
gin with, and it was out of that that God, in six days,
extracted form and order.

10. "Sion hill" is Mount Zion, which was the height
about which the citv of Jerusalem was built. It was
the fortified center of the city, the site of the ruler s

OPUS 200

363

palace, the place of last defense. It was David's cap-
ture of Mount Zion that placed Jerusalem in Israelite
hands: "Nevertheless David took the strong hold of
Zion" (2 Samuel 5:7). It was on Mount Zion that Da-
vid's son, Solomon, built the Temple. Zion therefore be-
came the religious center of the kingdom as well. It
was on Mount Zion, with its Temple, that the Spirit of
Cod might be thought to be resting.

11. Siloa ("Siloam," in the Greek form) is a tunnel
in Mount Zion through which water was conducted.
The water formed a pool at the base of the mountain
and served as a water supply. Its connection with di-
vine inspiration comes in a tale of the manner in
which Jesus cured a blind man by placing saliva-
caked soil on his eyes, "And said unto him, 'Go, wash
in the pool of Siloam'" (John 9:7). Since the pool was
at the base of the mount on which the Temple stood,
it "flow'd Fast by the Oracle of God."

12. Milton never stays long with biblical allusions,
but always finds himself irresistibly drawn back to
the classical. He moves now from biblical to pagan
sources of inspiration. Aonia is an alternate name for
the Greek district known as Boeotia. The "Aonian
Mount" is Helicon, a mountain in Boeotia sacred to
the Muses and therefore symbolizing a source of po-
etic inspiration.

7n 1975,1 had lunch with James Fixx of Horizon over
the possibility of my doing a piece for it. Fixx was
astonished at the variety of my writing, and since I
don't suffer from overdeveloped humility, I cheerfully
described some of the books I had done and rather
emphasized my annotations—of which I am inordi-
nately proud.

He hadn't heard of them and asked if I could anno-

364

ISAAC ASIMOV

tote a poem for Horizon. I agreed readily, ecen jubi-
lantly, and decided to do Rudyard Kipling's ''Reces-
sional."

Alas Horizon rejected it with, I suspect, something
akin to horror. Fixx had gotten the idea, 1 think, that
my annotations were satirical or humorous and,' of
course, they are completely serious.

I shrugged off the rejection, and since J am strongly
averse to lettinv am/thing I have written go (o waste, I
annotated three dozen other poems and persuaded
Doubled^i to publish Familiar Poems Annotated in
2977 (Book 181). From that book, here is my origi-
nally rejected annotation of "Recessional":

from FAMILIAR POEMS ANNOTATED (J977)

Recessional1
by RUDYARD KiPLiNG2

God of our fathers, known of old,3

Lord of our far-flung battle line,4
Beneath whose awful hand we hold

Dominion over palm and pine—®
Lord God of Hosts,6 be with us yet,
Lest we forget—lest we forget!7

The tumult and the shouting dies,

The captains and the kings depart:8
Still stands Thine ancient sacrifice,

An humble and a contrite heart.9
Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet,
Lest we forget—lest we forgetl

Far-called, our navies melt away;10
On dune and headland sinks the fire:11

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365

, all our pomp of yesterday
Is one with Nineveh13 and Tyre!1'
Judge of the Nations,14 spare us yet,
Lest we forget—lest we forget!

Lest we forget—lest we forget!

If, drunk with sight of power, we loose

Wild tongues that have not Thee in awe,
Such boostings as the Gentiles15 use,

Or lesser breeds without the Law—16
Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet,
Lest we forget—lest we forget!

For heathen heart17 that puts her trust

In reeking tube and iron shard,18
All valiant dust'" that bmlds on dust,20

And, guarding, calls not Thee to guard—
For frantic boast and foolish word,
Thy Mercy on Thy People, LordI21

1. By 1897, the year "Recessional" was written,
Great Britain was at the peak of her power. Victoria
had been queen for sixty years—sixty years that had
seen the nation advancing steadily in population,
prosperity, prestige, and power. Now the nation was
celebrating the Diamond Jubilee, the sixtieth anniver-
sary of Victoria's accession to the throne.

Great Britain ruled over an empire that had been
expanding throughout the nineteenth century and was
still expanding. To symbolize British glory and suc-
cess, Victoria had been promoted to a higher title
and had been made empress of India in 1876. Small
though Great Britain might be in area, she ruled
nearly a quarter of the world directly, and dominated
virtually all the rest financially.

And yet the most famous literary work to emerge
from this ecstatic celebration turned out to be this

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ISAAC ASIMOV

somber poem. Its very name indicates the manner in
which its mood went precisely contrary to that of the
happy nation.

A recession is an act of retiring or withdrawing,
and a recessional is a piece of music plaved at the end
of some performance or ceremony, as the audience is
leaving. The poem, therefore, deals with the possible
decline of the empire; its departure, so to speak, from
the stage of history.

2. Joseph Rudyard Kipling was bom in Bombay, In-
dia, on December 30, 1865, and India was the very
epitome of imperial success. It was India that was the
most populous, the most historic, the most exotic, and
the most impressive of all British possessions. It was
of India that the British monarch became empress. In
the years Kipling spent in India, he grew interested in
Indian life and culture but always from the viewpoint
of a member of a master race.

Kipling came to be viewed as the outstanding liter-
ary spokesman for imperialism—that is, for the view
that men of European descent (and of British descent
in particular) had a kind of natural right to rule over
non-Europeans, and that it was even their duty to do
so. Yet in the midst of the frantic Jubilee celebration,
a chill foretaste of the nemesis of imperialism seemed
to come over him.

He died in London on January 18,1936.

3. The poem is biblical in tone and flavor. The Brit-
ish, in Kipling's view, were God's chosen people, des-
tined for worid rule, and it was impossible for him not
to hark back to that other chosen people, the Israel-
ites. Throughout the poem, the British are made into
the contemporary equivalent of biblical Israel-

Thus, when Moses came to the Israelite slaves in
Egypt with the news that God would rescue them, he

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367

had to assure them that it was no invention of his own
that he was bringing, no unknown deity, but an ances-
tral God of proven work, one that was known of old.
God's instructions to Moses were: "Thus shalt thou
say unto the Children of Israel, the Lord God of Isaac,
and the God of Jacob, hath sent me unto you" (Exo-
dus 3:15).

And so Kipling, in addressing God, stresses the
same historic continuity, the same ancestral respect-
ability, to lend a more somber note to the prayer.

4. "Far-Sung" indeed! The empires of the past had
been limited in size. The largest had been that of the
Mongols, who from 1240 to 1340 had ruled over most
of Asia and half of Eruope. Even that empire had
been contiguous, however, with all parts land-
connected; it was not truly intercontinental; not truly
a world empire.

. It was only after the opening of the age of explora-
tion that world empires became possible. In the
course of the sixteenth century, Portugal and Spain
each established trading posts on every continent and
took over large land areas in the Americas. Indeed,
from 1580 to 1640 Spain took over Portugal and com-
bined both empires. These Iberian empires could only
be held together feebly, however, in the days of sail-
ing ships, especially since the home nations were in
the grip of a depressed and declining economy.

It was with the coming of industrialization that a
real gap opened between those nations that could im-
pose colonialization and those that must suffer it.
Great Britain, which was the first to industrialize.
forged on to outstrip tile earner world empires in ex-
tent, far outstrip them in population, and far, far out-
strip them in power.

Of the previous world empires, it had been said

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ISAAC ASIMOV

that the sun never set upon them. At every moment
during earth's rotation some region forming part of
the empire was on the day-lit portion of the globe.
The earlier examples were forgotten, however, in the
greater example of the newer empire. Throughout
the nineteenth century, it was common to say that "thfe
sun never set upon the British Empire." And it was
easy to begin to believe this in the figurative sense,
too—that the sun of history and power would never set
and that the British Empire would remain basking in
an eternal noon.

5. Again a reference to the wide extent of the Brit-
ish Empire. The palm is a characteristic tree of the
tropics, and the pine the characteristic tree of the north-
ernmost forests. The palm trees of India and the pine
forests of Canada were both under the rule of the
government in London. (Canada had dominion status
and considerable self-rule, to be sure.)

6. The ancient peoples all had war gods, lords of the
hosts (armies), and why not? When did a people need
their god more than when they were meeting their en-
emies in battle (and when, presumably, the enemies
were busily calling upon their gods for help). Kipling
specifically recognizes the role of God as generalis-
simo when he refers to him earlier as "Lord of our
far-flung battle line."

In the Bible, the Creator is sometimes spoken of as
"God of hosts" or "Lord of hosts" when the divine role
on the battlefield, or as an agent of destruction, is to
be emphasized. Thus, when the Bible describes the
manner in which God will inflict military defeat upon
the Egyptians, it says, "And the Egyptians will I give
over into the hand of a cruel lord; and a fierce king
shall rule over them, saith the Lord, the Lord of hosts"
(Isaiah 19:4).

OPUS 200                 369

Again, in a plea to reverse the civil war that is giv-
ing the enemy an opportunity to destroy Israel, we
have, "Turn us again, 0 Lord God of hosts, cause thy
face to shine; and we shall be saved" (Psalms 80:19).

7. To the biblical writers, the military defeat and
physical destruction of a land are the direct result of
forgetting what is due to God, since God's people can-
not suffer defeat except as punishment by an angry
and forgotten Cod. Thus, the Bible quotes God as say-
ing: "For Israel hath forgotten his Maker, and build-
eth temples; and Judah hath multiplied fenced cities,
but I will send a fire upon his cities, and it shall de-
vour the palaces thereof (Hosea 8:14).

8. Tumult and shouting evoke a picture of the
clamor of battle, and "captains" and "kings" are the
leaders of armies. There is a biblical passage describ-
ing the war horse that is reminiscent of these lines:

"He saith among the trumpets. Ha, ha; and he smel-
leth the battle afar off, the thunder of the captains
and the shouting" (Job 39:25).

But the noise dies and the warriors depart. Military
glory alone is insufficient, for the wars end and there
must be something to maintain the nation afterward.

These two lines also evoke the "tumult and the
shouting" of the Jubilee, the gathering of royalty and
of military notables from every European nation.
The noise of the Jubilee has to die, too, and the cele-
brants must depart, and what then?

9. It is a common biblical notion that it is not the
proud, the powerful, and the arrogant who are cared
for by God, but the humble, the repentant, and the
unassuming. The former are too apt to be tempted
into feeling they have no need of God and are there-
fore likely to forget Him. The latter cannot forget
Him because they have nowhere else to turn.

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ISAAC AS1MOV

Thus: 'The Lord is nigh unto them that are of a
broken heart; and saveth such as be of contrite spirit"
(Psalms 34;18). Again: "The sacrifices of God are a
broken spirit: a broken and a contrite heart, 0 God,
thou wilt not despise" (Psalms 51:17).

10. Great Britain's prime defense was its navy. It was'
through its navy's defeat of the Spanish Armada in
1588 that England became an important power on the
stage of the modern world. It was because its navy
patrolled and controlled the waters about itself that
Great Britain was held inviolate from the armies of
Philip II of Spain and of Louis XIV and Napoleon of
France—armies that would have destroyed the nation,
could they have but set foot on it.

What's more, it was British control of the sea be-
yond its own waters that controlled the trade of the
world, poured wealth into the unblockaded island,
and, in the end, wore out and frustrated all the Conti-
nental conquerors and left their land victories useless.

But what if Great Britain, foolishly vainglorious, at-
tempted tasks too great for her, or entered into tasks
without careful forethought and planning? The navy,
"far-called" (that is, spread thin over the waters of a
worldwide empire, too thin) would melt away. The
links binding the empire would be broken, and the
homeland itself would be left defenseless before the
attack of armies that could not be prevented from
landing.

11. Dunes are sandy ridges common along sea-
shores. Headlands are spits and capes, bits of land jut-
ting out into the sea. Lighthouses on such places
guide incoming ships at night or in fogs. They are
necessary for a maritime nation, whose ships are its
life line. They are unnecessary once a navy no longer
exists, since trade can no longer be protected once the

OPUS 200                371

life line is cut And with the life line cut, the sinking
of the fire in the lighthouses becomes a symbolic way
of representing the dying of the nation.

12. Nineveh was the capital of the Assyrian Empire
in the seventh century B.C. during the days of its
greatest glory. Under Ashurbanipal, it became not
only the military center of western Asia, but the cul-
tural center as well. It might have seemed to the
proud warrior caste of Assyria that their power and
rule were eternal, yet Ashurbanipal died in 627 B.C.
with his empire essentially intact, and •within twenty-
five years it was all gone, forever.

Nineveh fell to Chaldean rebels from within the
empire and to Median horsemen from without in 612
B.C. It was never rebuilt, and two centuries later,
when a Creek army passed that way, they had to ask
what the mounds were.

13. Tyre is a particularly close approximation to
Great Britain. It, too, was a naval power, with a citadel
on an island that could not be forced while its ships
controlled the seas about it. Tyre, too, built up a vast
network of trading posts and flung its merchantmen
and warships far out, from end to end of the Mediter-
ranean and even into the Atlantic.

Tyre's prosperity declined slowly as it adjusted to
the realities of the mighty Asian empires of Assyria
and its successors. Finally, in 323 B.C., Tyre was be-
seiged by Alexander the Great, who filled in the sea
between the island and the coast. He took the city
after nine months and destroyed it. It exists to this
day as a small coastal city in Lebanon, but no shadow
of its former glory remains.

14. This title, given to God, harks back to the bibli-
cal passage in which Abraham attempts to dissuade
God from destroying Sodom with indiscriminate anger

372

ISAAC ASIMOV

against its inhabitants. After all, there may be some
people of Sodom who are righteous. Abraham said,
"That be far from thee to do after this manner, to slay
the righteous with the wicked; and that the righteous
should be as the wicked, that be far from thee: Shall
not the Judge of all the earth do right?" (Genesis
18:25).

15. It is the wild overweening pride, the "hubris" of
the Jubilee, that makes Kipling uneasy. The behavior
is not British in his opinion, but is more suited to
other and inferior people (a viewpoint which is itself
an example of hubris, of course).

"Gentiles" are, strictly speaking, related members of
a tribe or clan (from the Latin word "gens," meaning
tribe or clan). Any group that considers itself in a spe-
cial relationship to God, or as having a special signifi-
cance in history, is likely to lump all other people as
Gentiles, as members of the (other) tribes. Thus, to
Jews, all non-Jews are Gentiles; and to Mormons, all
non-Mormons are Gentiles.

To Kipling, with his attitude that the British are the
modem Israelites and the new-chosen of Cod, all non-
British are Gentiles, and therefore inferior beings who
know no better than to indulge in vainglorious boast-
ings. That the British should do that as well would be
shameful.

16. The agreement, or covenant, by which the Isra-
elites became the chosen of God, required that, in ex-
change, they obey the Law as delivered to Moses on
Mount Sinai. Thus, God says, "Now, therefore, if ye
will obey my voice indeed, and keep my covenant,
then ye shall be a peculiar treasure unto me above all
people" (Exodus 19:5).

To be "without the Law," then, is not to be of the
elect. Again, there is the flavor of inferiority about

OPUS 200

373

those not chosen. They are not British (Israelite), and
therefore they are "lesser breeds."

17. The word "heathen" is used in the English trans-
lation of the Bible for those who did not worship the
God of Israel: "Why do the heathen rage—" (Psalms
2:1). The word means those of the heath, or back-
woods, who are unsophisticated and cling to primitive
traditions and worship,

18. The "reeking tube" is the gun barrel generally,
of all sizes, and the "iron shard" is the bullet or other
ob'ect fired from it. The trust in force exclusively,
without regard to moral justification, is exemplified
in a Jingle that became current in Great Britain after
the invention of a new and improved machine gun by
the American inventor Hiram Stevens Maxim in 1884:

Whatever happens, we have got
The Maxim-gun, and they have not

Ironically enough, even as Kipling wrote, the word
"reeking" became obsolete.

For six hundred years the chemical explosive used
on the battlefield to prooel bullets and balls had been
gunpowder. That had produced smoke, soot, and reek-
ing odors that fouled the pms, choked the gunners,
and obscured the battlefield. In the last decades of
the nineteenth centurv, however, smokeless powders
were developed. In the wars of the twentieth century,
various smokeless powders were used, and though the
"tube" grew steadily more deadly, it was no longer
"reeking."

19. From the biblical view, man was a creature
compounded of dust: "And the Lord God formed man
of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nos-
trils the breath of life" (Genesis 2:7). In battle, man

374

ISAAC ASIMOV

might display valor, but that did not dignify his ori-
gins; he was merely "valiant dust," a phrase William
Shakespeare uses in Much Ado About Nothing.

20. This is a reference to the biblical parable of the
"foolish man, who built his house upon the sand: And
the rain descended, and the Roods came, and the'
winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell"
(Matthew 7:26-27).

21. The last plea is, or course, biblical: "Be merci-
ful, 0 Lord, unto thy people Israel—" (Deuteronomy
21:8), and Kipling here directly equates the British
with Israel.

Yet God chose not to have mercy, for immediately
after 1897, the year of the Diamond Jubliee, the Brit-
ish Empire began its decline.

Even while the Jubilee was being celebrated, Brit-
ish imperialism was pressing hard on the independent
Boer territories north of British dominions in South
Africa. In 1899 this turned into open war, which, to
British surprise and humiliation, lasted nearly three
years. The British won in the end after they had suffi-
ciently reinforced their armies, but world sympathy
was with the Boers.

The British, surprised at being cast in the role of
villains, and cast down at finding they had not a
friend in the world, lost the euphoria of 1897, and it
was never, quite, to return.

One more hH of literature remains to be mentioned,
something rather widely removed from the great liter-
ary classics 1 have referred to.

Somehow, almost accidentally, 1 found myself in-
volved with the Baker Street Irregulars, a group of
lovable eccentrics who find no pleasure greater than

opus 200

375

reading, rereading analyzing, and discussing the sixty
stories and novels that involve Sherlock Holmes plus
all the simple and arcane side-issues thereof.

Drawn in, I found myself producing items of Sher-
lockian interest.

Otto Penzler, a hook collector and the proprietor of
Mysterious Press, a small house given over to items of
specialized interest to mystery fans, suggested in July
1977 that I write sixty limericks, one for each of the
items in the Sherlock Holmes canon. Since I was
about to make a small trip on the Queen Elizabeth II
and wanted desperately to keep myself busy while
doing so (I have an aversion to pure vacationing], I
agreed.

The sixty limericks that resluted, all written on the
QE II, were put together as Asimov's Sherlockian
Limericks {Book 19l}, which was published on Janu-
ary 6, 2978, Sherlock Holmess one hundred twenty-
fourth birthday (by BSI reckoning) and the day of
that year's meeting of the Bakef Street Irregulars.

Here is the last of my Sherlockian limericks:

from ASIMOV'S SHERLOCKIAN LIMERICKS (1978)

Farewell, Sherlock! Farewell, Watson, too.
First to last, you've been loyal and true.

Of the human totality

Who've lived in reality
There've been none quite as real as you.

PART 14

MYSTERIES

Although the list of mif second hundred hooks is dis-
turbingly short on science fiction, things aren't alto-
gether bad. At least, I have begun to write fiction in
addition.

This is not to say I was a complete stranger to the
mystery story in my first hundred books. A number^of
my science fiction stories were mysteries, including
my two novels The Caves of Steel and The Naked
Sun.

1 wrote only one "straight" mystery among my first
hundred books. The Death Dealers, but that involved
scientists and science all the way through. Even the
gimmick was a chemical one. The small number of
straight mystery short stories 1 wrote were similarly
I-   saturated with science and scientists.

From 1971 onward, however, I have written no less
than thirty straight mystery short stories that had
nothing to do with science—rather old-fashioned mys-
teries in the ratiocinative tradition of Agatha Christie
and John Dickson Carr. The first twelve of them were
collected in Tales of the Black Widowers {Book 155},
which Doubleday published in 1974, and the next
twelve in More Tales of the Black Widowers (Book
178), which they published in 1976. The remaining

380

ISAAC ASIMOV

six, along with six more yet to he written, will some-
day (f hope) be included in a third hook.

How I came to write these mysteries T explain in
the introduction to Tales of the Black Widowers.

from THE TALES OF THE BLACK WIDOWERS (1976)

But then, back in 1971, I received a letter from that
gorgeous blond young ladv Eleanor Sullivan, who is
managing editor of EUery Queen's Mystery Magazine
(or EQMM, for short), asking if I would consider
writing a short story for the magazine. Of course, I
Jubilantly agreed, because I thought that if they asked
for one, they couldn't possibly have the cruelty to re-
ject it once written, and that meant I could safely
write my own kind of storv—very cerebral.

I began revolving plot possibilities in my head
rather anxiously, for I wanted something with a rea-
sonable twist to it and Agatha Christie, all by herself
had already used virtually all possible twists.

While the wheels were slowly turning in the recesses
of my mind, I happened to be visiting the actor David
Ford (who was in both the Broadway and Hollywood
versions of 1776). His apartment is filled with all
kinds of interesting oddities, and he told me that he
was convinced once that someone had taken some-
thing from his apartment, but he could never be sure
because he couldn't tell whether anything was miss-
ing.

I laughed and all the wheels in my head, heaving a
collective sigh of relief, stopped turning. I had my
twist.

I then needed a background against which to dis-
play the twist, and here we have something else.

OPUS 200                381

Back in the early 1940s, legend has it, a man mar-
ried a lady who found his friends unacceptable, and
vice versa. In order to avoid breaking off a valued
relationship, those friends organized a club, without
officers or bylaws, for the sole purpose of having a
dinner once a month. It would be a stag organization
so that the husband in question could be invited to
join and his wife legitimately requested not to attend.
(Nowadays, with women's lib so powerful, this might
not have worked.)

The organization was named the Trap-Door Spiders
(or TDS, for short) probably because the members
felt themselves to be hiding.

Thirty years have passed since the TDS was organ-
ized, but it still exists. It is still stag, though the mem-
ber whose marriage inspired the organization is long
since divorced. (As a concession to male nonchauvin-
ism, a cocktail party was given on February 3, 1973, at
which the TDS wives could meet one another—but
this did not become an annual custom.)

Once a month the TDS meets, always on a Friday
night, almost always in Manhattan, sometimes in a
restaurant, sometimes in a member's apartment. Each
meeting is co-hosted by two volunteers who bear all
the expenses for the occasion and who may each bring
a guest. The average attendance is twelve. There are
drinks and conversation from 6:30 to 7:30 P.M.; food
and conversation from 7:30 to 8:30 P.M.; and just con-
versation thereafter.

After the meal each guest is grilled on his interests,
his profession, his hobbies, his views, and the results
are almost always interesting, often fascinating.

The chief among the general eccentricities of the
TDS are these: (1) Ever)' member is addressed as
"Doctor" by the others, the title going along with the

382

ISAAC ASIMOV

membership, and (2) each member is supposed to try
to arrange for a mention of the TDS in his obituary.

I had been a guest myself on two different occa-
sions, and when I moved to New York in 1970, I was
elected to membership.

Well, then, thought I, why not tell my mystery story
against the background of the meeting of an organiza-
tion something like the TDS? My club would be called
the Black Widowers and I would cut it in half to make
it manageable—six people and one host

Naturally, there are differences. The members of
the TDS have never, in real life, attempted to solve
mysteries, and none of them is as idiosyncratic as the
members of the Black Widowers. In fact, the members
of the TDS are, one and all, lovable people, and there
is a mutual affection that is touching to see. There-
fore, please be assured that the characters and events
in the stories in this book are my own invention and
are not to be equated with anyone or anything in the
TDS, except insofar as they may seem intelligent or
lovable.

In particular. Henry, the waiter, is my own inven-
tion and has no analogue, however remote, in the TDS.

Most of the Black Widowers stories appeared in EUery
Queen's Mystery Magazine (EQMM) and a few in
F & SF. Three of the stories in each book, however, did
not see prior publication, and I will choose one of
them to include here, complete, as a sampling of the
group. It is "Earthset and Evening Star."

OPUS 200
"Earthset and Evening Star" (1976)

383

Emmanuel Rubin, whose latest mystery novel was
clearly proceeding smoothly, lifted his drink with sat-
isfaction and let his eyes gleam genially through his
thick-Iensed glasses.

"The mystery story," he pontificated, "has its rules,
which, when broken, make it an artistic failure, what-
ever success it may have in the marketplace."

Mario Gonzalo, whose hair had been recently cut to
allow a glimpse of- the back of his neck, said, as
though to no one, "It always amuses me to hear a
writer describe something he scrawls on paper as
'art.'" He looked with some complacency at the car-
toon he was making of the guest for that month's ban-
quet session of the Black Widowers.

"If what vou do is the definition of art," said Rubin,
"I withdraw the term in connection with the writer's
craft. One thing to avoid, for instance, is the idiot
plot."

"In that case," said Thomas Trumbull, helping him-
self to another roll and buttering it lavishly, "aren't
you at a disadvantage?"

Rubin said loftily, "By 'an idiot plot,' I mean one in
which the solution would come at once if an idiot in-
vestigator would but ask a logical question, or if an
idiot witness would but tell something he knows and
has no reason to hide."

Geoffrev Avalon, who had left a neatly cleaned
bone on his plate as the only evidence of the slab of
roast beef that had once rested there, said, "But no
skilled practitioner would do that, Manny. What you
do is set up some reason to prevent the asking or tell-
ing of the obvious."

"Exactly," said Rubin. "For instance, what I've been

384

ISAAC ASIMOV

writing is essentially a short story, if one moves in a
straight line. The trouble is the line is so straight, the
reader will see its end before I'm halfway. So I have
to hide one crucial piece of evidence, and do it in such
a way that I don't make an idiot out of it So I invent
a reason to hide that piece, and in order to make the'
reason plausible I have to build a supporting structure
around it—and I end with a novel, and a damn good
one." His sparse beard quivered with self-satisfaction.

Henry, the perennial waiter at the Black Widowers'
banquets, removed die plate from in front of Rubin
with his usual dexterity. Rubin, without turning, said,
"Am I right. Henry?"

Henry said softly, "As a mystery reader, Mr. Rubin,
I find it more satisfying to have the piece of informa-
tion delivered to me and to find that I have been in-
sufficiently clever and did not notice."

"I fust read a mystery," said James Drake in his
softly hoarse smoker's voice, "in which the whole
point rested on character one being really character
two, because the real character one was dead. I was
put on to it at once because, in the list of characters at
the start, character one was not listed. Ruined the
story for me."

"Yes," said Rubin, "but that wasn't the author's
fault Some flunky did that. I once wrote a story that
was accompanied by one illustration that no one
thought to show me in advance. It happened to give
away the point."

The guest had been listening quietly to all this. His
hair was just light enough to be considered blond, and
it had a careful wave in it that looked, somehow, as
though it belonged there- He turned ras rather narrow
but clearly good-humored face to Roger Halsted, his
neighbor, and said, "Pardon me, but since Manny

OPUS 200                385

Rubin is my friend, I know he is a mystery writer. Is
this true of the rest of you as well? Is this a mystery
writers' organization?"

Halsted, who had been looking with somber ap-
proval at the generous slab of Black Forest torte that
had been placed before him as dessert, withdrew his
attention with some difficulty and said, "Not at all.
Rubin is the only mystery writer here. I'm a mathe-
matics teacher myself; Drake is a chemist; Avalon is a
lawyer; Gonzalo is an artist; and Trumbull is a code
expert with the government.

"On the other hand," he went on, "we do have an
interest in this sort of thing. Our guests often have
problems they bring up for discussion, some sort of
mystery, and we've been rather lucky—"

The guest leaned back with a small laugh. "Nothing
of the sort here, alas. Of the mystery, the murder, the
fearful hand clutching from behind the curtain, there
is nothing in my life. It is all very straightforward,
alas; very dull. I am not even married." He laughed
again.

The guest had been introduced as Jean Servais, and
Halsted, who had attacked the torte with vigor and, in
consequence, felt a friendly glow filling him, said,
"Does it matter to you if I call you John?"

"I would not strike you, sir, if you did, but I pray
you not to. It is not my name. Jean, please."

Halsted nodded. "I'll try. I can manage that zh
sound, but getting it properly nasal is another thing.
Zhohng," he said.

"But that is excellent. Most formidable."

"You speak English very well," said Halsted, return-
ing the politeness.

"Europeans require linguistic talent," said Servais.
"Besides, I have lived in the United States for nearly

386

ISAAC ASIMOV

ten years now. You are all Americans, I suppose. Mr.
Avalou looks British somehow."

"Yes, I think he likes to look British," said Halsted.
And with a certain hidden pleasure he said, "And it's
Avalon. Accent on the first syllable and nothing nasal
at the end."

But Servais only laughed. "Ah, yes, I will try. When
I first knew Manny, I called him 'Roo-bang,' with the
accent on the last syllable and a strong nasalization.
He corrected me very vigorously and at great length.
He is full of pepper, that one."

The conversation had grown rather heated by this
time over a general dispute concerning the relative
merits of Agatha Christie and Raymond Chandler,
with Rubin maintaining a rather lofty silence, as
though he knew someone who was better than either
but would not mention the name out of modesty.

Rubin seemed almost relieved when, with the cof-
fee well in progress and Henry ready to supply the
postprandial brandy, the time came for him to tap the
water glass with his spoon and say, "Cool it, cool it,
gentlemen. We are coming now to the time when our
guest, Jean Servais, is to pay for his dinner. Tom, it's
all yours."

Tom scowled and said, "If you don't mind, Mr. Ser-
vais," giving the final s fust enough of a hiss lo make
his point, "I'm not going to try to display my French
accent and make the kind of Jackass of myself that my
friend Manny Rubin does. Tell me, sir, how do you
justify your existence?"

. "Why, easily," said Servais pleasantly. "Did I not
exist, you would be without a guest today."

"Please leave us out of it Answer in more general
terms."

In general, then, I build dreams. I design things

OPUS 200

387
things

that cannot be built, things I will never see,
that may never be."

"AU right," said Trumbull, looking glum, "you're a
science fiction writer like Manny's pal what's-his-
name—uh—Asimov."

"No friend of mine," said Rubin swiftly. "I just help
him out now and then when he's stuck on some ele-
mentary scientific point."

Gonzalo said, "Is he the one you once said carried
The Columbia Encyclopedia around with him be-
cause he was listed there?"

"It's worse now," said Rubin. "He's bribed someone
at the Britannica to put him into the new, fifteenth
edition, and these days he drags the whole set with
him wherever he goes."

The new, fifteenth edition—," began Avalon.

"For God's sake," said Trumbull, "will you let our
guest speak?"

"No, Mr. Trumbull," said Servais, as though there
had been no interruption at a!I, "I am no science fic-
tion writer, though I read it sometimes. I read Ray
Bradbury, for instance, and Harlan Ellison." (He
nasalized both names.) "I don't think I have ever read
Asimov."

"I'll tell him that," muttered Rubin. "He'll love it."

"But," continued Servais, "I suppose you might call
me a science fiction engineer."

"What does that mean?" asked Trumbull.

"I do not write of lunar colonies. I design them."

"You design theml"

"Oh yes, and not lunar colonies only, though that is
our major task right now. We work in every field of
imaginative design for private industry, Hollywood,
even NASA."

388

ISAAC ASIMOV

Gonzalo said, "Do you really think people can live
on the Moon?"

"Why not? It depends on what mankind is willing to
do, how large an initial investment it is ready to make.
The environment on the Moon can be engineered to
the precise equivalent of Earth's, over restricted un-
derground areas, except for gravity. We must be con-
tent with a lunar gravity that is one sixth our own.
Except for that, we need only allow for original sup-
plies from Earth and for clever engineering—and that
is where we come in, my partner and I."

"You're a two-man Snn?"

"Essentially. While my partner remains my partner,
of course."

"Are you breaking up?"

"No, no. But we quarrel over small points. It is not
surprising. It is a bad time for him. But no, we will
not break up. I have made up my mind to give in to
him, perhaps. Of course, I am entirely in the right and
it is a pity to lose what I would have."

Trumbull leaned back in his chair, folded his arms,
and said, "Will you tell us what the argument is all
about? We can then state our own preferences,
whether for you or for your partner."

"It would" not be a hard choice, Mr. Trumbull, for
the sane," said Servais. "I swear it ... This is the
way it is. We are designing a full lunar colony, in com-
plete detail. It is for a motion picture company and it
is for a good fee. They will make use of some of it in a
grand science fiction spectacle they are planning. We
naturally supply far more than they can use, but the
idea is that if they have an overall picture of what
may be—and for a wonder thev want it as scientifi-
cally accurate as possible—they can choose what they
wish to use of it."

OPUS 200                389

"III bet they bollix it up," said Drake pessimisti-
cally, "no matter how careful you are. They'll give the
Moon an atmosphere."

"Oh, no," said Servais, "not after six lunar landings.
That error we need not fear. Yet I have no doubt they
will make mistakes. They will find it impossible to
handle low gravity effects properly throughout, and
the exigencies of the plot will force some infelicities.

"Still that cannot be helped and our job is merely to
supply them with the most imaginative material possi-
ble. This is my point, as vou will see in a moment . . .
We plan a citv, a small citv, and it will be against the
inner iip of a crater. This is unavoidable because the
plot of the movie demands it. However, we have our
choice as to the identity and location of the crater,
and my partner, perhaps because he is an American,
goes for the obvious with an American directness. He
wishes to use the crater Copernicus.

"He says that it is a name that is familiar; so if the
city is called Camp Copernicus, that alone will
breathe the Moon, exotic adventure, and so on- Every-
one knows, he savs, the name of the astronomer who
first placed, the Sun at the center of the planetary sys-
tem, and moreover it is a name that sounds impres-

sive.

"I, on the other hand, am not impressed with this.
As seen from Copernicus, the Earth is high in the sky
and stays there. As you all know, only one side of the
Moon always faces the Earth, so that from any spot on
that side of the Moon's surface the Earth is always
more or less in the same spot in the sky."

Gonzalo said suddenly, "If you want the lunar city
to be on the other side of the Moon so that the Earth
isn't in the sky, you're crazy. The audience will abso-
lutely want the Earth there."

390

ISAAC ASIMOV

Servais held up his hand in agreement. "Absolutely!
I agree. But if it is always there, it is almost as though
it is not there. One gets too used to it. No, I choose a
more subtle approach. I wish the city to be in a crater
that is on the boundary of the visible side. From
there, of course, you will see the Earth at the horizon.

"Consider what this introduces. The Moon does not
keep the same side to the Earth exactly. It swings
back and forth by a very small amount. For fourteen
days it swings one way and then for fourteen days it
swings back. This is called 'iibration.'" He paused
here as though to make sure he was pronouncing it
correctly in English. "And it comes about because the
Moon does not move in a perfect circle about the
earth.

"Now, you see, if we establish Camp Bahyee in the
crater of that name, the Earth is not only at the hori-
zon but it moves up and down in a twenty-eight-day
cycle. Properly located, the lunar colonists will see the
Earth rise and set, slowly, of course. This lends itself
to imaginative exploitation. The characters can ar-
range for some important action at Earthset, and the
different positions of the Earth can indicate the pas-
sage of time and raise the suspense. Some terrific spe-
cial effects are possible, too. If Venus is near the
Earth and Earth is in a fat crescent stage, Venus will
then be at its brightest; and when Earth sets, we can
show Venus, in the airless sky of the Moon, to be a
very tiny crescent itself."

"Earthset and evening star, and one clear call for
me," muttered Avalon.

Gonzalo said, "Is there really a crater called Bah-
yee?"

"Absolutely," said Servais. "It is, in fact, the largest

OPUS 200                391

crater that can be seen from the Earth's surface. It is
290 kilometers across—180 miles."

"It sounds like a Chinese name," said Gonzalo.

"French!" said Servais solemnly. "A French astrono-
mer of that name was mayor of Paris in 1789 at the
time of the Revolution."

"That wasn't a good time to be mayor," said Gon-
zalo.

"So he discovered," said Servais. "He was guillo-
tined in 1793."

Avalon said, "I am rather on your side, Mr. Servais.
Your proposal lends scope. What was your partner's
objection?"

Servais shrugged in a gesture that was more Gallic
than anything he had yet said or done. "Foolish ones.
He says that it will be too complicated for the movie
people. They will confuse things, he says. He also
points out that the Earth moves too slowly in the
Moon's sky. It would take days for the Earth to lift its
entire globe above the horizon, and days for it to
lower entirely below the horizon."

"Is that right?" asked Gonzalo.

"It's right, but what of that? It will still be
interesting."

Halsted said, "They can fudge that. Make the Earth
move a little faster. So what?"

Servais looked discontented. "That's no good. My
partner says this is precisely what the movie people
will do and this alteration of astronomical fact will be
disgraceful. He is very violent about it, finding fault
with everything, even with the name of the crater,
which he says is ridiculous and laughable so that he
will not endure it in our report. We have never had
arguments like this. He is like a madman."

392

ISAAC ASIMOV

"Remember," said Avalon, "you said you would give

in.

"Well, I will have to," said Servais, "but I am not
pleased. Of course, it is a bad time for him."

Rubin said, "You've said that twice now, Jean. I've
never met your partner, so I can't judge the personali-
ties involved. Why is it a bad time?"

Servais shook his head. "A month ago, or a little
more, his wife killed herself. She took sleeping pills-
My partner was a devoted husband, most uxorious.
Naturally, it is terrible for him and, just as naturally,
he is not himself."

Drake coughed gently. "Should he be working?"

"I would not dare suggest he not work. The work is
keeping him sane."

Halsted said, "Why did she kill herself?"

Servais didn't answer in words but gestured with
his eyebrows in a fashion that might be interpreted in
almost any way.

Halsted persisted. "Was she incurably ill?"

"Who can say?" said Servais, sighing. "For a while,
poor Howard—" He paused in embarrassment. "It was
not my intention to mention his name."

Trumbull said, "You can say anything here. What-
ever is mentioned in this room is completely confiden-
tial. Our waiter, too, before you ask, is completely
trustworthy."

"Well," said Servais, "his name doesn't matter in any
case. It is Howard Kaufman. In a way, work has been
very good for him. Except at work, he is almost dead
himself. Nothing is any longer important to him."

"Yes," said Trumbull, "but now something is impor-
tant to him. He wants his crater, not your crater."

"True," said Servais. "I have thought of that. I have
told myself it is a good sign. He throws himself into

OPUS 200                393

something. It is a beginning. And perhaps all the more
reason, then, that I should give in- Yes, I will. It's set-
tled, I will. There's no reason for you gentlemen to try
to decide between us. The decision is made, and in his
favor."

Avalon was frowning. "I suppose we should go on
to question you further on the work you do and I sup-
pose, moreover, that we should not intrude on a pri-
vate misfortune. Here at the Black Widowers, how-
ever, no questions are barred, and there is no Fifth
Amendment to plead. I am dissatisfied, sir, with your
remarks concerning the unfortunate woman who com-
mitted suicide. As a happily married man, I am puz-
zled at the combination of love and suicide. You said
she wasn't ill?"

"Actually, I didn't," said Servais, "and I am uncom-
fortable at discussing the matter."

Rubin struck the empty glass before him with his
spoon. "Host's privilege," he said vigorously. There
was silence.

"Jean," he said, "you are my guest and my friend.
We can't force you to answer questions, but I made it
clear that the price of accepting our hospitality was
the grilling. If you have been guilty of a criminal act
and don't wish to discuss it. leave now and we will say
nothing. If you talk, then, whatever you say, we will
still say nothing."

"Though if it is indeed a criminal act," said Avalon,
"we would certainly strongly advise confession."

Servais laughed rather shakily. He said, "For one
minute there, for one frightened minute, I thought I
had found myself in a Kafka novel and would be tried
and condemned for some crime you would drag out of
me against my will. Gentlemen, I have committed no
crime of importance. A speeding ticket, a bit of crea-

394                ISAAC ASIMOV

tive imagination on my tax return—al] that is, so I hear
it said, as American as apple pie. But if you're think-
ing I killed that woman and made it look like suicide-
please put it out of your heads at once. It was suicide.
The police did not question it."

Halsted said, "Was she ill?"                      -;

"All right, then, I will answer. She was not ill as far
as I know. But after all, I am not a doctor and I did
not examine her."

Halsted said, "Did she have children?"*

"No. No children. Ah, Mr. Halsted, I suddenly re-
membered that you spoke earlier that your guests had
problems that they brought up for discussion, and I
said I had none. I see vou have found one anyway.'7

Trumbull said, "If vou're so sure it was suicide, I
suppose she left a note."

"Yes," said Servais, "she left one."

"What did it say?"

**I couldn't quote it exactly. I did not myself see it
According to Howard, she merely apologized for caus-
ing unhappiness but said that she could not go on. It
was quite banal and I assure you it satisfied the po-
lice."

Avalon said, "But if it was a happy marriage, and
there was no illness and no complications with chil-
dren, then—Or were there complications with chil-
dren? Did she want children badly and did her hus-
band refuse—"

Gonzalo interposed. "People don't kill themselves
because they don't have kids."

"People kill themselves for the stupidest reasons,"
said Rubin. "I remember—"

Trumbull cried out with stentorian rage, "Damn it,
you guys, Jeff has the floor."

OPUS 200                395

Avalon said, "Was the lack of children a disturbing
influence?"

"Not as far as I know," said Servais. "Look, Mr.
Avalon. I am careful in what I say, and I did not say it
was a happy marriage."

"You said your partner was devoted to his wife,"
said Avalon gravelv, "and you used that fine old word
'uxorious' to describe him."

"Love," said Servais, "is insufficient for happiness if
it flows but one way. I did not say that she loved
him."

Drake lit another cigarette. "Ah," he said, "the plot
thickens."

Avalon said. "Then it is your opinion that that had
something to do with the suicide."

Servais looked harassed. "It is more than my opin-
ion, sir. I know it had something to do with the sui-
cide."

"Would you tell us the details?" asked Avalon, un-
bending just slightly from his usual stiff posture as
though to convert his question into a courtly invita-
tion.

Servais hesitated, then said, "I remind you that you
have promised me all is confidential. Mary—Madame
Kaufman and my partner were married for seven
years and it seemed a comfortable marriage, but who
can tell in affairs of this sort?

"There was another man. He is older than Howard
and to my eyes not as good-looking—but again, who
can tell in affairs of this sort? What she found in him
is not likely to be there on the surface, for all to see."

Halsted said, "How did your partner take that?'

Servais looked up and flushed distinctly. "He never
knew. Surelv, you are not of the opinion that I told
him this? I am not the type, I assure you. It is not for

396

ISAAC ASIMOV

me to interfere between husband and wife. And
frankly, if I had told Howard, he would not have be-
lieved me. It is more likelv he would have attempted
to strike me. And then what was I to do? Present
proof? Was I to arrange matters so as to have them
caught under conditions that could not be mistaken?
No, I said nothing."

"And he really didn't know?" asked Avalon, clearly
embarrassed.

"He did not. It had not been going on long. The
pair were excessively cautious. The husband was
blindly devoted. What can I say?"

"The husband is always the last to know," said Gon-
zaio sententiously.

Drake said, "If the affair was so well hidden, how
did you find out, Mr. Servais?"

"Purest accident, I assure vou," said Servais. "An in-
credible stroke of misfortune for her, in a way. I had a
date for die evening. I did not know the girl well and
it did not, after all, work out. I was anxious to be rid
of her, but first—what would you have, it would not
be gentlemanly to abandon her—I took her home in an
odd comer of the city. And, having said good-by in a
most perfunctory manner, I went into a nearby diner
to have a cup of coffee and recover somewhat And
there I saw Mary Kaufman and a man.

"Alas, it jumped to the eye. It was late; her hus-
band, I remembered at once, was out of town, her at-
titude toward the man—Accept my assurances that
there is a way a woman has of looking at a man that is
completely unmistakable, and I saw it then. And if I
were at all unsure, the expression on her face, when
she looked up and saw me frozen in surprise, gave it
all away.

"I left at once, of course, with no greeting of any

OPUS 200                 397

kind, but the damage was done. She called me the
next day, in agony of mind, the fool, fearful that I
would carry stories to her husband, and gave me a
totally unconvincing explanation. I assured her that it
was a matter in which I did not interest myself in the
least, that it was something so unimportant that I had
already forgotten it. I am glad, however, I did not
have to face the man. Him, I would have knocked
down."

Drake said, "Did you know the man?"

"Slightly," said Servais. "He moved in our circles in
a very distant way. I knew his name; I could recog-
nize him. It didn't matter, for I never saw him after
that. He was wise to stay away."

Avalon said, "But why did she commit suicide? Was
she afraid her husband would find out?"

"Is one ever afraid of that in such a case?" de-
manded Servais, with a slight lifting of his lip. "And if
she were, surely she would engi the affair. No, no, it
was something far more common than that. Something
inevitable. In such an affair, gentlemen, there are
strains and risks which are great and which actually
add an element of romance. I am not entirely unaware
of such things, I assure you.

"But the romance does not continue forever, what-
ever the story books may say, and is is bound to fade
for one faster than for the other. Well, then, it faded
for the man in this case before it did for the woman,
and the man took the kind of action one sometimes
does in such affairs. He left—went—disappeared. And
so the lady killed herself."

Trumbull drew himself up and frowned ferociously.

"For what reason?"

"I assume for that reason, sir. It has been known to
happen. I did not know of the man's disappearance,

398

ISAAC ASIMOV

you understand, till aftenvard. After the suicide I went
in search of him, feeling he was in some way responsi-
ble, and rather promising myself to relieve my feel-
ings by bloodying his nose—I have a strong affection
for my partner, you understand, and I felt his suffer-
ings—but I discovered the fine lover had left tw6
weeks before and left no forwarding address. He had
no family and it was easy for him to leave, that black-
guard. I could have tracked him down, I suppose, but
my feelings were not strong enough to push me that
far. And yet, I feel the guilt—"

"What guilt?" asked Avalon.

"It occurred to me that when I surprised them—
quite unintentionally, of course—the element of risk to
the man became unacceptablv high. He knew I knew
him. He may have felt that sooner or later it would
come out and he did not wish to await results. If I had
not stumbled into that diner they might still be to-
gether, she might still be alive, who knows?"

Rubin said, 'That is far-fetched, Jean. You can't
deal rationally with the ifs of history. But I have a
thought—"

"Yes, Manny?"

"After the suicide your partner was very quiet,
nothing was important to him. I think you said that.
But now he's quarreling with you violently, though he
has never done that before, I gather. Something may
have happened in addition to the suicide. Perhaps
now he has discovered hs wife's infidelity and the
thought drives him mad."

Servais shook his head. "No, no. If you think I have
told him, you are quite wrong. I admit I think of tell-
ing him now and then. It is difficult to see him, my
dear friend, wasting away over a woman who, after
all, was not worthy of him. It is not proper to pine

OPUS 200

399

away for one who was not faithful to him in life.
Ought I not tell him this? Frequently, it seems to me
that I should and even must. He will face the truth
and begin life anew. But then I think and even know
that he will not believe me, that our friendship will be
broken, and he will be worse off than before."

Rubin said, "You don't understand me. Might it not
be that someone else has told him? How do you know
you were the only one who knew?"

Servais seemed a bit startled. He considered it and
said, "No. He would, in that case, certainly have told
me the news. And I assure you, he would have told it
to me with the highest degree of indignation and in-
formed me that he at once attempted to strike the vil-
lain who would so malign his dead angel."

"Not," said Rubin, "if he had been told that you
were his wife's lover. Even if he refused to believe it,
even if he beat the informant to the ground, could he
tell you the tale under such circumstances? And could
he be entirely certain? Would he not Snd it impossi-
ble to avoid picking fights with you in such a case?"

Servais seemed still more startled. He said slowly,
"It was, of course, not I. No one could possibly have
thought so. Howard's wife did not in the least appeal
to me, you understand." He looked up and said
fiercely, "You must accept the fact that I am telling
you the truth about this. It was not I, and I will not
be suspected. If anyone had said it was I, it could only
be out of deliberate malice."

"Maybe it was," said Rubin. "Might it not be the
real lover who would make the accusation—out of fear
you would give him away? By getting in his story
first-"

"Why should he do this? He is away. No one sus-
pects him. No one pursues him."

400

ISAAC ASIMOV

"He might not know that," said Rubin.

"Pardon me." Henry's voice sounded softly from the
direction of the sideboard. "May I ask a question?"

"Certainly," said Rubin, and the odd silence fell
that always did when the quiet waiter, whose pres-
ence rarely obtruded on the festivities, made himself
heard.                                     "

Servais looked startled, but his politeness held. He
said, "Can I do anything for you, waiter?"

Henry said, "I'm not sure, sir, that I quite under-
stand the nature of the quarrel between yourself and
your partner. Surely there must have been decisions of
enormous complexity to make as far as the technical
details of the colony were concerned."

"You don't know even a small part of it," said Ser-
vais indulgently.

"Did your partner and you quarrel over all those
details, sir?"

"N-no," said Servais. "We did not quarrel. There
were discussions, of course. It is useless to believe that
twotoen, each with a strong will and pronounced opin-
ions, will agree everywhere, or even anywhere, but it
all worked out reasonably. We discussed, and eventu-
ally we came to some conclusion. Sometimes I had the
better of it, sometimes he, sometimes neither or both."

"But then," said Henry, "there was this one argu-
ment over the actual location of the colony, over the
crater, and there it was all different He attacked even
the name of the crater fiercely and, in this one case,
left no room for the slightest compromise."

"No room at all. And you are right. Only in this one
case."

Henry said. Then I am to understand that at this
time, when Mr. Rubin suspects that your partner is
being irritated by suspicion of you, he was completely

OPUS 200                401

reasonable and civilized over every delicate point of
lunar engineering and was wildly and unbearably
stubborn only over the single matter of the site—over
whether Copernicus or the other crater was to be the
place where the colony was to be built?"

"Yes," said Servais with satisfaction. "That is pre-
cisely how it was and I see the point you are making,
waiter. It is quite unbelievable to suppose that he
would quairel with me over the site out of ill humor
over suspicion that 1 have placed homs on him, when
he does not quarrel with me on any other point. As-
suredly, he does not suspect me of ill dealing. I thank
you, waiter."

Henry said, "May I go a little further, sir?"

"By all means," said Servais,

"Earlier in the evening," said Henry, "Mr. Kubin
was kind enough to ask my opinion over the tech-
niques of his profession. There was the question of de-
liberate omission of details by witnesses."

"Yes," said Servais, "I remember the discussion. But
I did not deliberately omit any details."

"You did not mention the name of Mrs. Kaufman's

lover."

Servais frowned. "I suppose I didn't, but it wasn't
deliberate. It is entirely irrelevant."

"Perhaps it is," said Henry, "unless his name hap-
pens to be Bailey."

Servais froze in his chair. Then he said anxiously, "I
don't recall mentioning it, Sacred-I see your point
again, waiter. If it slips out now without my remem-
bering it, it is possible to suppose that, without quite
realizing it, I may have said something that led How-
ard to suspect—"

Gonzalo said, "Hey, Henry, I don't recall Jean giv-
ing us any name."

402                   ISAAC ASIMOV

"Nor I," said Henry. "You did not give the name,
sir."

Servais relaxed slowly and then said, frowning,
"Then how did you know? Do you know these peo-
ple?"

Henry shook his head. "No, sir, it was just a notion'
of mine that arose out of the story you told. From
your reaction, I take it his name is Bailey?"

"Martin Bailey," said Servais. "How did vou know?"

"The name of the crater in which you wished to
place the site is Bahyee; the name of the city would
be Camp Bahyee."

"Yes."

"But that is the French pronounciation of the name
of a French astronomer. How is it spelled?"

Servais said, "B-a-M-I-y. Great Cod, Bailly!"

Henry said, "In English pronunciation, pronounced
like the not uncommon surname Bailey. I am quite
certain American astronomers use the English pro-
nunciation, and that Mr. Kaufman does too. You hid
that piece of information from us, Mr. Servais. because
you never thought of the crater in any other way than
Bahyee. Even looking at it, you would hear the French
sound in your mind and make no connection with
Bailey, the American surname."

Servais said, "But I still don't understand."

"Would your partner wish to publicize the name,
and place the site of a lunar colony in Bailly? Would
he want to have the colony called Camp Bailly, after
what a Bailey had done to him?"

"But he didn't know what Bailey had done to him,"
said Servais.

"How do you know that? Because there's an old saw
that says the husband is always the last to know? How
else can you explain his utterly irrational opposition to

OPUS 200                 403

this one point, even his insistence that the name itself
is horrible? It is too much to expect of coincidence,"

"But if he knew—if he knew—he didn't tell me. Why
fight over it? Why not explain?"

"I assume," said Henry, "he didn't know you knew.
Would he shame his dead wife by telling you?"

Servais clutched at his hair. "I never thought—Not
for a moment."

'There is more to think," said Henry sadly.

"What?"

"One might wonder how Bailey came to disappear,
if your partner knew the tale. One might wonder if
Bailev is alive. Is it not conceivable that Mr. Kauf-
man, placing all the blame on the other man, con-
fronted his wife to tell her he had driven her lover
away, even killed him, perhaps, and asked her to
come back to him—and the response was suicide?"

"No," said Servais- 'That is impossible."

"It would be best, then, to find Mr. Bailey and
make sure he is alive. It is the one way of proving
your partner's innocence. It may be a task for the po-
lice."

Servais had turned very pale. "I can't go to the po-
lice with a story like that."

"If you do not," said Henry, "it may be that your
partner, brooding over what he has done—if indeed he
has done it—will eventually take justice into his own
hands."

"You mean kill himself?" whispered Servais. "Is that
the choice you are facing me with: accuse him to the
police or wait for him to kill himself?"

"Or both," said Henry. "Life is cruel."

I have also been writing mystery stories for the junior
high school age level at the instigation, originally, of

404

ISAAC ASIMOV

an editor at Boys* Life. Naturally, 1 made a junior
high school boy the detective, and when I had written
five of them, I put them together as a collection enti-
tled The Key Word and Other Mysteries {Book 190).
It was published by Walker and Company in 1977.

The story I choose for inclusion here was rejected'
by Boys' Life but was snapped up at once by EQMM.
I cant explain these things.

"The Thirteenth Day of Christmas" (J977) ,

This was one year we were glad when Christmas Day
was over.

It had been a grim Christmas Eve and I had stayed
awake as long as I could, half listening for bombs.
And Mom and I stayed up until midnight on Christmas
Day, too. Then Dad called and said, "Okay, it's over.
Nothing's happened. I'll be home as soon as I can."

Mom and I danced around as if Santa Claus had
just come and then, after about an hour. Dad came
home and I went to bed and slept fine.

You see, it's special in our house. Dad's a detective
on the force and these days, with terrorists and bomb-
ings, it can get pretty hairy. So, when on December
20, warning reached headquarters that there would be
a Christmas Day bombing at the Soviet offices in the
United Nations, it had to be taken seriously.

The entire force was put on the alert and the FBI
came in, too. The Soviets had their own security, I
guess, but none of it satisfied Dad.

The day before Christmas was the worst.

"If someone is crazy enough to want to plant a
bomb and if he's not too worried about getting caught
afterward, he's likely to be able to do it no matter

OPUS 200                405

what precautions we take." Dad's voice had a grim-
ness we rarelv heard.

"I suppos,e there's no way of knowing who it is,"
Mom said.

Dad shook his head. "Letters from newspapers
pasted on paper; no fingerprints; onlv smudges. Com-
mon stuff we can't trace and a threat that it would be
the only warning we'd get. What can we do?"

"Well, it must be someone who doesn't like the Rus-
sians, I guess," Mom said.

Dad said, "That doesn't narrow it much. Of course,
the Soviets say it's a Zionist threat, and we've got to
keep an eye on the Jewish Defense League."

"Gee, Dad," I said. "That doesn't make much sense.
The Jewish people wouldn't pick Christmas to do it,
would they? It doesn't mean anything to them; and it
doesn't mean anything to the Soviet Union, either.
They're officially atheistic."

"You can't reason that out with the Russians," Dad
said. "Now why don't you turn in, because tomorrow
may be a bad day all round, Christmas or not"

Then he left. He was out all Christmas, and it was
pretty rotten. We didn't even open any presents—just
sat listening to the radio, which was tuned to the news

station.

Then at midnight when Dad called and nothing had
happened, we could breathe again, but I still forgot to

open my presents.

That didn't come till the morning of the twenty-
sixth. We made that day Christmas. Dad had a day oft
and Mom baked a turkey a day late. It wasn't till after
dinner that we talked about it at all.

Mom said, "I suppose the person, whoever it was,
couldn't find any way of planting the bomb once the
Department drew the security strings tight"

406

ISAAC ASIMOV

Dad smiled, as if he appreciated Mom's loyalty. "I
don't think you can make security that tight," he said,
"but what's the difference? There was no bomb.
Maybe it was a bluff. After all, it did disrupt the city
a bit and it gave the Soviet people at the United Na-
tions some sleepless nights. 111 bet. That might have
been almost as good for the bomber as letting the
bomb go off."

"If he couldn't do it on Christmas," I said, "maybe
he'll do it another time. Maybe he just said Christmas
to get everyone keyed up and then, after they relax,
he'll . . ."

Dad gave me one of his little pushes on the side of
my head- "You're a cheerful one, Larry . . . No, I
don't think so. Real bombers value the sense of power.
When they say something is going up at a certain time,
it's got to be that tune or it's no fun for them."

I was still suspicious, but the days passed and there
was no bombing and the Department gradually went
back to normal. The FBI left and even the Soviet peo-
ple seemed to forget about it, according to Dad.

On January 2, the Christmas-New Year's vacation
was over and I went back to school. We started re-
hearsing our Christmas pageant. We didn't call it that,
of course, because we're not supposed to have reli-
gious celebrations at school, what with the separation
of church and state. We Just made an elaborate show
out of the song 'The Twelve Days of Christmas,"
which doesn't have any religion to it—Just presents.

There were twelve of us kids, each one singing a par-
ticular line every time it came up and then coming in
all together on the partridge in a pear tree. I was
number five, singing "five gold rings" because I was
still a boy soprano and could still hit that high note
pretty nicely, if I do say so myself.

OPUS 200                 407

Some kids didn't know why Christmas had twelve
davs. but I exniained that if we count Christmas Day
as one, the twelfth dav is Januarv 6. when the Three
Wise Men arrived with sifts for the Christ child. Natu-
rallv. it was on January 6 that we put on the show in
the auditorium, with as many parents there as wanted
to come.

Dad "ot a few hours off and was sitting in the audi-
ence with Mom. I could see him getting set to hear his
son's high note for the last time because by next year
mv voice would have changed.

Did vou ever get an idea in the middle of a stage
show and have to continue, no matter what?

We were onlv on the second day with its "two
turtle-doves" when I thought, "Oh my, it's the thir-
teenth dav of Christmas." The whole world was shak-
ing about me and I couldn't do a thing but stay on the
stage and sing about five gold rings.

I didn't think they'd ever get to those stupid "twelve
drummers drumming." It waslike having itching pow-
der on instead of underwear. I couldn't stand still.
Then, when the last note was out, while they were
still applauding, I broke away, went jumping down
the steps from the platform and up the aisle calling,
"Dad!"

He looked startled, but I grabbed him, and I think I
was babbling so fast, he could hardiv understand.

I said, "Dad, Christmas isn't the same day every-
where. It could be one of the Soviet's own people.
They're officially atheist, but maybe one of them is
religious and he wants to place the bomb for that
reason. Onlv he would be a member of the Russian
Orthodox Church. Thev don't go by our calendar."

"What?" said Dad. looking as if he didn't under-
stand a word I was saying.

408

ISAAC ASIMOV

"It's so. Dad. I read about it. The Russian Orthodox
Church is still on the Julian calendar, which the West
gave up for the Gregorian calendar centuries ago. The
Julian calendar is thirteen days behind ours. The Or-
thodox Christinas is on their December 25, which is
our January 7. It's tomorrow."

He didn't believe me just like that. He looked it up
in the almanac; then he called up someone in the De-
partment who was Russian Orthodox.

He was able to get the Department moving again.
Thev talked to the Soviets, and once the Soviets
stopped talking about Zionists and looked at them-
selves, they got the man. I don't know what they did
with him, but there was no bombing on the thirteenth
day of Christmas, either.

The Department wanted to give me a new bicycle
for Christmas after that, but I turned it down. I was
just doing my duty.

Which brings me to my favorite book of all two
hundred I have written so far.

In April 1975, Lorry Ashmead, then at Doubleday,
suggested I attend the seventh-fifth annual meeting of
the American Booksellers Association (ABA), which
was to be held in New Yorfe over the Memorial Day
weekend. 1 said I had to be there in any case since 1
had agreed to autograph books there for Fawcett
Books.

Lorry said he wanted me to attend all the sessions
so that I might gather background information for a
mystery he wanted me to write that was to be entitled
Murder at the ABA.

I attended, and when it was over. Lorry asked me if

OPUS 200                409

•I could write the book. I said, yes, I already had a
:. plot in mind.

"Good," said Larry. "We need it by next year's con-
vention."

"foull have the manuscript by then," I said.

"Not the manuscript," he said. "The finished
^book."

" I said, horrified, "Then when do you want the man-
, uscript?"

"By August."

"But it's June 1 already."

"By early August, if possible."

Fortunately, the hook went with incredible ease
and rapidity and I finished it on August 3. It was
published in 1976 as Book 172.

One of the reasons I loved the book was this:

Though it was told in the first person by my character
Darius Just (based distantly on my good friend Har-
lan Elliwn), I introduced myself as a character in the
third person, describing myself Quite accurately, I
think, through the not entirely sympathetic eyes of
Darius (pronounced "duh-RY-us"),

Here is how I enter the story:

from MURDER AT THE ABA (1976)

I found myself a table that had not yet collected any-
one at any of its four chairs and sat down with a little
sigh. If I were left alone, if I were allowed to eat in
peace, I might yet brush away all the implacably hu-
miliating events of the day. Some people dissolve their
woes in wine; I'm quite likely to assuage my sadness
in spiced sausage.

410

ISAAC ASIMOV

It wasn't to be. Nothing broke right that Sunday. I
hadn't completed my first mouthful when a cheerful
voice boomed out, "Good old Darius Dust Mind if I
join you?"

I've got to explain about the name Darius. It was
wished upon me by a self-educated father. You oan't
trust self-education—it goes too far, gets too bloated,
knows no moderation. My father's name was Alexan-
der and he knew that Alexander the Great had de-
feated Darius III of Persia, and that was it. Perhaps
he had the feeling that even though he would see to it
I had a thorough education (he did) I would never
be able to surpass him. Since he was five feet ten, I
guess I never did.

My mother, a very little woman whose genes, in
that respect, I inherited, went along with it. She had
no choice. No one ever had a choice within hearing
distance of my father.

To be the smallest kid in class is not exactly a pass-
port to happiness. To be any kid named Darius, sur-
rounded by Jims, Toms, and Bills, produces little |oy.
To be the smallest kid in class and named Darius, too,
is something like sitting under a neon sign that flashes
on and off with the message, "Kick me!"

It wasn't until I was in college that my name
stopped serving as an insult to everyone my age I ever
me(, an insult to be personally avenged at once.

I hated that name at first, but held on to it with a
wretched obstinacy. No one was going to force me out
of it. By the time I acquired a coterie of friends old
enough and sophisticated enough to be able to pro-
nounce it and feel at home with it, I began to like it.

Correct pronunciation helps. Even among relatively
sophisticated adults, it isn't a familiar name. Outside
Herodotus, one is only likely to come across it in an

OPUS 200                411

\, old chestnut of a poem called "Darius Green and His
.Flying Machine," by John Townsend Trowbridge,
written a little over a hundred years ago. I hated that
poem. Naturally the onlv Darius in popular literature
^was served up as comic relief.

; I'm not sure what proportion of the general popula-
Ition knows how to pronounce the name, but even in
^•the rarefied circles within which I have my being
(God help me), I hear it more often mispronounced
than pronounced. The first impulse is to pronounce
the name so as to rhyme it with "various," but that's
not right. The accent is on the second syllable, with a
long i, so that it rhymes with "pious" and "bias."

That has its disadvantages, too, for once you leam
to say Darius properly, vou are bound to notice that it
sounds something like "dry as." Then, if you have a
particularly feeble mind, it occurs to you that if you
change Just to Dust, the name becomes "Dry as
Dust," which is not exactly ideal for a writer.

Actually, only one person I know has the kind of
perverted sense of humor that thinks this is funny.
When I heard someone say "Good old Dry as Dust.
Mind if I join you?" I knew, without looking up, that
it was Isaac Asimov. Word'play is his idea of the em-
pyrean heights of wisdom.

I didn't let it bother me. I Just said, "Hello, Ikey. Of
course I mind having you join me, but sit down any-
way."

As it happens, there's nothing that Asimov can pos-
sibly call me that I would hate as much as he hates
being called Ikey. So one of these times, when it fi-
nally dawns on him that every "Dry as Dust" will
elicit an "Ikey" without fail, he will quit. Anyone else
would quit after two tries. I give Asimov twenty
years.

412

ISAAC ASIMOV

Since this book is rather in the nature of a collabo-
ration, with his name on it as sole author, however, I
had better be particular about describing him.

He's five feet nine inches tall, rather fat, and more
than rather grinnin". I^e wears his hair long, and it's
clear he does it out of laziness rather than out of any
desire for a splendid leonine effect (which is how I've
heard him describe it), because it never seems more
than sketchily combed. The hair is somewhat gray
and the sideburns, which run down to the angle of his
jaw and which have been aptly described as looking
I&e Brillo, are nearlv white. He's got a bulbous nose,
blue eyes, a bolo tic, and glasses with black frames.
He has to remove his glasses to read or eat because he
won't admit his age long enough to get bifocals.

He's like me in some respects. He doesn't smoke or
drink any more than I do. Like me, he also likes to
eat, but I don't get fat on it and he does. He thinks
the difference is metabolism, which is funnv for a guy
who claims to be a biochemist. I know the difference
is exercise. I work out in a gym nearlv every day—but
once Asimov has managed to lift himself out of bed in
the morning, that is his exercise for the day. Except
for typing, of course. His fingers are in good shape.

He had his plate heaped much higher than mine,
but he couldn't stop himself from glancing anxiously
at what I had retrieved, as though J might perhaps
have found a goodie he had overlooked-

"What's the score now, Isaac?" No use calling him
Ikey except under provocation.

He knew what I meant. "A hundred sixty-three at
the moment," he said with his mouth full, "but who's
counting?"

"You are," I said.

He swallowed and said in an aggrieved tone, "I

OPUS 200

413

have to. That's my shtick. Everyone wants to know
how many books I've published, and if I don't tell
them they're disappointed. What's more, if they ask
me the question in two successive months and the fig-
ure doesn't go up by at least one, they feel cheated.

,Look, there's no need for you to be resentful. You've
had a movie made out of one of your books. I haven't."

I winced. The matter had been profitable, but it
was easily the worst movie ever made by the worst set
of idiots you could find even in Hollywood, I kept
hoping no one would see it.

A hundred sixty-three books is no record, of course,
but I never met anyone for whom writing is as pain-
less as it is for Asimov. And he's aware of it, and his
pleasure over it can be rather disgusting to see.

Once he crossed the room at a book-and-author
luncheon, and someone muttered in my ear, "There
goes Asimov pushing his self-assurance ahead of him

-like a wheelbarrow." (The same might be said of his
abdomen, of course.) Someone else once said that Asi-
mov walked as though he expected the air to part in

front of him.

Actually, my own theory is that he lives so much of
the time inside his own head that he is unaware of the
outside world. So when he seems to be utterly self-
possessed, it's just that he's unaware that there's any-
thing to be disturbed about.

I said to him, "What are you doing here, Isaac? Why
aren't you home writing a book?"

He groaned. "In a way that's what I'm doing here.
Doubleday wants me to write a mystery novel entitled
Murder at the ABA. I don't know what I was thinking
of when I signed up."

"Why did you sign?"

*"What did you expect me to do? I've signed so many

414

ISAAC ASIMOV

contracts, it's-a reflex action with me. And they want
a completed manuscript by August I've got three
months at the outside."

"That's all right It will only take you a weekend,
won't it?"

Asimov made himself a cold-cut sandwich on'a
giant scale and demolished half of it at a bite. With
most of the bite gone, he said, 'The worst of all my
literary troubles is the fact that I'm not allowed to
have any literary troubles. If you said you had to do a
book faster than you could do it, everyone would soak
your jacket with sympathetic tears. When I say it, I
get cheap jokes. The same cheap joke every time, I
might add."

This from a man who thinks Darius Dust is epi-
grammatic wit

I didn't break down in tears. "Just the same youTI
do it. You've done mysteries before, haven't you?"

It was a pretty safe assumption. The man has writ-
ten on every subject imaginable and if ever anyone
didn't look if it's Asimov. He looks stupid at first
sight. And when you hear him tell endless jokes, hug
every girl in reach, and never by any chance say any-
thing thoughtful, you're convinced of it. It takes con-
siderable time before you find out that the man is so
secure in his intelligence that he never troubles to dis-
play it

Which annoys the hell out of me, actually.

"Of course I've done mysteries before," he said in-
dignantly. "I've written straight mysteries and science
fiction mysteries; novels and short stories; for adults,
for teenagers, and for grade-schoolers."

"Then what's the trouble?"

"I've got to give this local color. I've got to hang
around here for four days and see what's happening."

OPUS 200                415

"You're doing it, aren't you?"

"But I can't see what's happening. In my whole life,
I've never seen anything that goes on around me."
"Then how have you written a hundred sixty-three

books."

"Published," he said. "I have eleven in press . . .
Because my books are without description. I have an
unomamented style."

"In that case, get someone to help you."

It was odd that I should say that, for at that mo-
ment I couldn't possibly have supposed that matters
would end up in such a way that / would help him.

After all, he did manage to do the book in time.
You're reading it—Murder at the ABA, by Isaac Asi-
mov.

It's fust that it's my story and I am first-person
while he is third-person. And since I've left the writ-
ing entirely in his hands and don't entirely trust him,
the agreement is that I am to be allowed to add any
comments of my own (within reason) in the form of
footnotes where I consider him too far off base.*

He had finished his platter, and by that time the
room was considerably more crowded than it had

B For instance, I can point out that while Asimov is sticking
to the outline, he's dramatizing me into total distortion. I
am five feet five and not five feet two. The subtle (or not so
subtle) saturation of the story with my supposed pygmy
complex is Just designed to make him shine by contrast.— D.J.

Just is five feet five if you count his platform shoes! I'm
not supposed to be literal here anyway. This is a work of fic-
tion and I will take any liberties I choose with the facts. And
as for making myself shine, I ask anyone who knows me to
read these last few pages, in which I figure, and testify that
I am sticking to Just's ridiculous attitudes vis-a-vis myself
at some considerable cost to my self-respect.— I.A.

416                  ISAAC ASIMOV

been when we had entered. It was quite hopeless to
expect to see Giles in that mess. The noise level had
become uncomfortable and the Eith of cigarette
smoke hung in the air. There was still time to leave,
and then Asimov would have had to make up his own
story—but I didn't budge because I hadn't had my
coffee yet. There was always something to prevent
the evasion of fate.

I said, "Do vou want some coffee, Isaac?"

"Sure, but let me go get it. I need the exercise."

That wasn't it at all, of course. He-came back with
coffee for both of us and five assorted cookies for
himself. At least he didn't offer me any of them.

He dipped the chocolate-covered one in the coffee,
transferred it expertly to his mouth without losing a
drop, and said, "And what are you doing here, Dar-
ius? You don't look particularly ecstatic."

"I've no reason to look ecstatic," I said, "I've had a
hell of a day and I don't intend to go into details."

"Considering that you have no family responsibili-
ties at all and write only -one book every three years,
what can possibly give you a hell of a day?"

I could almost believe he was serious in that ques-
tion, but I ignored it anyway and said, "You haven't
by any chance seen Giles Devore at the convention?"

"Yes, I have."

I was astonished. I was not expecting that answer.
"In here?"

"No, at the registration booth. He's autographing
books tomorrow morning. At the same time as I, in
fact."

"I know he's autographing boolcs," I said. I swear I
said it in the flattest possible way, without any hint of
hidden meanings. In fact, I was cooling down and—
who knows?—everything might have come to nothing,

OPUS 200                 417

when Asimov stirred up mv resentment against Giles
for no reason I could see except to amuse himself, and
laid his flagstone.

His blue eyes glittered and his eyebrows lifted and
fell rapidly. (For someone who claims to see nothing
of the world outside himself, he can have an unerring
touch for the sore spot on the soul.)

He said, "I'm glad he's your protege and not mine. I
don't know about you, but I would find it sickening to
have a protege zoom past me."

"He's not my protege," I said.

"Listen, that first book of his was written out of
your vest pocket. Everyone knows it—and die more
fool, you."

"Why? For helping?"

"No, of course not. For expecting gratitude."

I shrugged but, inside, where he couldn't see, I
burned. Damn it, I htid expected gratitude, and
whether that made me a fool or not, the lack of it
made me furious.

I said, lying through my teeth, "I never expected

anything."

But Asimov's eyes were no longer on me. They were
straining across the room and I didn't have to follow
them to know he was looking at a girl. I forgot to say
that despite his general inability to see anything in the
outside world, he has an odd capacity to see every girl
within two hundred feet.

PART 15

AUTOBIOGRAPHY

The longer I ker>t writin" hooks, and the more hooks I
published, the more publishers were willing to let me do
as I pleased, even when what I pleased was unorthodox.

It has alwatfs pleased me to talk about myself, and
little by little I let that creep into my books—and my
publishers permitted it.

To begin with, my F & SF essays grew more and
more highly personal, and eventually I took to begin-
ning each with an autobiographical essay. Then I be-
gan to he highly personal in my introductions to sto-
ries in the anthologies I edited, then in the collections
of my own stories.

Inevitably, I thought of doing a collection of my
early stories against an autobiographical background
of my life in those years. Doubleday published it as
The Early Asimov (Book 125) in 1972.

When that did well, I was simply confirmed in this
tendency of mine and had Doubleday publish Before
the Golden Age (Book 151) in 1974. This was a long
book of nearly half a million words in which I anthol-
ogized my favorite stories from the 1930s against an
autobiographical background of my life before I be-
came a writer.

And, just to show you that this tendency toward auto-
biography is no recent phenomenon, let me quote a

422

ISAAC ASIMOV

passage from Before the Golden Age, in which I man-
aged to find and reprint my first published literary
production—and it was autobiographical.

from BEFORE THE GOLDEN AGE (1974)

In February 1934, I entered "sixth term" at Boys*
High. As a startling innovation, the school offered a
special course in creative writing for those who chose
to take it, and I Jumped at the chance, I had been
writing, on and off, ever since I had worked on the
Greenville Chums. I don't remember any of the de-
tails at all, except that I remember being occasionally
driven to attempt to write poetry.

Now there seemed a chance for me to demonstrate
my literary prowess. (Somehow I saw the class only as a
chance to shine. It never occurred to me that I might
leam something. I felt I already knew how to write.)

The result was a fiasco. Surely few young men have
had so marvelous a chance to make fools of them-
selves and then took advantage of the chance as liber-
ally as I did. Everything I wrote was laughable, and it
was all laughed at thoroughly, both by the teacher
and by the other students.

I mentioned this in The Early Asimov and men-
tioned further that the one useful result of the course
was that I wrote a humorous essay entitled "Little
Brothers," which was published in the Boys' High
School literary semiannual.

Until I mentioned the essay, I had never thought of
it particularly, but once The Early Asimov appeared,
I began to wonder if I ought to try to get a copy. In
February 1973, I gave a talk to a group of librarians
from the New York metropolitan area, and attending
was the present librarian of Boys' High School. When

OPUS 200                423

she introduced herself, I asked at once if there was
any chance she might perhaps locate a copy of the
literary semiannual in some of the dusty storage bins
of the school.

In June 1973, she succeeded, and sent me a copy.
This book had already been put together but was still
in an early stage of production, so I could make the
necessary revision.

When the magazine came—its name was Boys' High
Recorder, incidentally, and the issue was spring 1934—
I turned to "Little Brothers" at once and read it ea-
gerly. I was sure I would find in it the clear signs of
writing talent                         ,

Alas, I didn't It sounds exactly as any essay would
that was written by a precocious fourteen-year-old.
How disappointingi And yet, in order to keep the rec-
ord complete and to prevent myself from receiving a
horde of letters demanding to see it (presumably in
order that all my readers have the same chance to
laugh at me as the members'of the damnable writing
class did), here it is:

Little Brothers

My mission in life right now is to express the venom-
ous feelings that we "big" brothers have for the bane
of our lives, the "little" brothers.

When I first received the news that I Had a little
brother, on July 25, 1929, I felt slightly uncomfortable.
As for myself, I knew nothing about brothers, but
many of my friends had related at great length the
inconveniences (to say the least) of attending babies.

On August 3, my little brother came home. All I
could see was a little bundle of pink flesh, with ap-
parently no ability to do the slightest mischief.

424

ISAAC ASIMOV

That night, I suddenly sprang out of bed with goose
flesh all over me and my hair on end. I had heard a
shriek apparently made by no earthly being. In re-
sponse to my frenzied questions, my mother informed
me in a commonplace manner that it was just the
baby. Just the baby! I was almost knocked uncon-
scious. A puny, nine-pound baby, ten days old, to
make such a screami Why, I was convinced that no
less than three men together could have strained their
vocal cords to such an extent.

But this was only the beginning. When he began
teething, the real torture came. I did not sleep a wink
for two months. I only existed by sleeping with my
eyes open in school.

And still it wasn't all. Easter was coming, and I was
feeling Joyous at the prospect of a trip to Rhode Is-
land, when that kid brother of mine got the measles
and everything went up in smoke.

Soon he reached the age when his teeth had cut,
and I hoped to obtain a little peace, but no, that could
not be. I had yet to leam that when a child learns to
walk, and talk baby-language, he is rather more of an
inconvenience than a cyclone, with a hurricane
thrown in for good measure.

His favorite recreation was that of falling down the
stairs, hitting each step with a resounding bump. This
occurred on the average of once every other minute
and always brought on a scolding from my mother
(not for him, but for me for not taking care of him).

This "taking care" of him is not as easy as it sounds.
The baby usually shows his devotion by grabbing
generous Sstfuls of hair and pulling with a strength
that you would never have thought possible in a one-
year-old. When, after a few minutes of excruciating
torture, you persuade him to let go, he seeks diversion

OPUS 200                425

in hitting your shins with a heavy piece of iron, pref-
erably a sharp or pointed one.

Not only is a baby a pest when awake; it is doubly
so when taking its daily nap.

This is a typical scene I am sitting in a chair next to
the carriage, deeply immersed in The Three Muske-
teers, and my little brother is apparently sleeping
peacefully; but he really isn't. With an uncanny in-
stinct, in spite of his closed eyes and inability to read,
he knows exactly when I reach an exciting point and
with a malicious grin selects that very moment to
awake. With a groan I leave my book and rock him till
my arms feel as if they will fall off any minute. By the
time he does go back to sleep, I have lost interest in
the famous trio and my day is ruined.

Now my little brother is four and a half years old
and most of these aggravating habits have disap-
peared, but I feel in my bones that there is more to
come. I shudder to think of the_day when he'll enter
school and place a new burden upon my shoulders. I
feel absolutely sure that not only will I be afflicted with
the homework that my hardhearted teachers will give
me, but I will also be responsible for my little brother's.

I wish I were deadi

Needless to say, this essay is completely fictional ex-
cept that the dates of my little brother's birth and his
arrival home are correct. Actually, my brother Stan
was a model child, who gave me very little trouble. I
did wheel him about in his carriage an awful lot, but
that was always with a book open on the handlebar,
so it didn't matter to me. I also sat by the carriage
when he was sleeping, but again I invariably read—
and he rarely disturbed me. What's more, he always
did his own homework when it came time for that.

426

ISAAC ASIMOV

One fiwil comment concerning this tendency of

mine.

As the time approached for my two hundredth book
to appear, Douhleday let me know they would like to
do it. I explained that this was impossible since
Houghton Miff tin, having done Opus 100, was sure'to
feel condemned to do Opus 200 as well.

Doubleday, which understands the warmth of my
feeling for Houghton Mifflin (as Houghton Mifflin
understands the warmth of my feeling for Double-
day), argued no further but cast about for some other
project to mark this milestone.

We agreed that I would write an autobiography, a
formal autobiography of all aspects of my life and not
only of my literary productions. I pointed out that
nothing much had ever happened to me, but they said
they didn't care.

So I sat down, and between March 9 and December
31, 1977, I turned out 640,000 words of autobiogra-
phy. Poor Cathleen Jordan, who is now my editor at
Doubleday, turned pale when 1 brought in the manu-
script and muttered something about how much I
might have written if something ever had happened to
me. The only conclusion possible was to put it out in
two volumes.

The first volume is coming out simultaneously with
this book. I wouldn't dream of putting pressure on
any of my gentle readers, hut if you would like to buy
my autobiography and read it, you have my permis-
sion to do so.

Indeed, if this book has so fascinated you with its
samplings that you feel the urge to ^o out and buy all
two hundred books—do so with my blessings.

APPENDIX

^
i   .*•

1 ^

MY SECOND
HUNDRED BOOKS

	TITLE	PUBLISHER	DATE
101	ABC's of Space	Walker	1969
102	Great Ideas of Science	Houghton Munin	1969
103	The Solar System and Back	Doubleday	1970
104	Asimov's Guide to		
	Shakespeare, Volume 1	Doubleday	1970
105	Asimov's Guide to		
	Shakespeare, Volume 2	Doubleday	1970
106	Constantinople	Houghton Munin	1970
107	ABC's of the Ocean	Walker	1970
108	Light	Follett	1970
109	The Stars in Their Courses	Doubleday	1971
110	Where Do We Go from Here?	Doubleday	1971
111	What Makes the Sun Shine?	Little, Brown	1971
112	The Sensuous Dirty Old Man	Walker	1971
113	The Best New Thing	World	1971
114	Isaac Asimov's Treasury of		
	Humor	Houghton Mifflin	1971
115	The Hugo Winners,		
	Volume 2	Doubleday	1971
116	The Land of Canaan	Houghton Mifflin	1971
117	ABC's of the Earth	Walker	1971

118 Asimov's Biographical

Encyclopedia of Science
and Technology (revised)

119 The Left Hand of the
Electron

120 Asimov's Guide to Science

121 The Gods Themselves

122 More Words of Science

123 Electricity and Man

Doubleday

Doubleday
Basic Books
Doubleday
Houghton Mifflin
AEC

1972

1972
1972
1972
1972
1972

430

ISAAC ASIMOV

124 ABCTs of Ecology

125 The Early Asimov

126 The Shaping of France

127 The Story of Ruth

128 Ginn Science Program-
Intermediate A

129 Ginn Science Program—

Intermediate C
180 Asimov's Annotated

"Don Juan"

131 Worlds Within Worlds

132 Ginn Science Program-
Intermediate B

133 How Did We Find Out the
Earth Is Round?

134 Comets and Meteors

135 The Sun

136 How Did We Find Out
About Electricity?

137 The Shaping of North

America-
138 Today and Tomorrow and—

139 Jupiter, the Largest Planet

140 Ginn Science Program-
Advanced A

141 Ginn Science Program-
Advanced B

142 How Did We Find Out
About Numbers?

143 Please Explain

144 The Tragedy of the Moon

145 How Did We Find Out
About Dinosaurs?

146 The Best of Isaac Asimov

147 Nebula Award Stories Eight

148 Asimov on Astronomy

149 The Birth of the United
States

150 Have You Seen These?

151 Before the Golden Age

152 Our World in Space

153 How Did We Find Out
About Germs?

154 Asimov's Annotated
"Paradise Lost"

Walker 1972

Doubleday 1972

Houghton Mifflin 1972

Doubleday 1972

Ginn 1972

Ginn 1972

Doubleday 1972

AEC 1972

Ginn 1972

Walker 1973

Follett 1973

FoUett 1973

Walker 1973

Houghton Mifflin 1973

Doubleday 1973

Lothrop 1973

Ginn 1973

Cinn 1973

Walker 1973

Houghton MiBUn 1973

Doubleday 1973

Walker 1973

Sphere 1973

Harper 1973

Doubleday 1974

Houghton Mifflin 1974

NESFA T 1974

Doubleday 1974

New York Graphic 1974

Walker 1974

Doubleday 1G74

OPUS 200                431

155 Tales of the Black Widowers    Doubleday        1974

156 Earth: Our Crowded

Spaceship                 John Day          1974

157 Asimov on Chemistry         Doubleday        1974

158 How Did We Find Out

About Vitamins?            Walker            1974

159 Of Matters Great and SmaH

Doubleday 1975

Follett 1975

Houghton Mifflin 1975

Walker 1975

Doubleday 1975

Doubleday 1975

Houghton Mifflin 1975

Walker 1975

Walker 1975

Weybright & Talley 1975

160 The Solar System

161 Our Federal Union

162 How Did We Find Out
About Comets?

163 Science Past—Science Future

164 Buy Jupiter and Other Stories

165 Eyes on the Universe

166 Lecherous Limericks

167 The Heavenly Host

168 The Ends of the Earth

169 How Did We Find Out

About Energy?             Walker           1975

170 The Dream; Benjamin's
Dream; and Benjamin's
Bicentennial Blast          ————            1976

171 Asimov on Physics            Doubleday        1976

172 Murder at the ABA           Doubleday        1976

173 How Did We Find Out

About Atoms?              Walker           1978

174 Good Taste                  Apocalypse        1976

175 The Planet That Wasn't        Doubleday        1976

176 The Bicentennial Man and

Other Stories              Doubleday        1976

177 More Lecherous Limericks     Walker            1976

178 More Tales of the Black

Widowers                Doubleday        1976

179 Alpha Centauri, the Nearest

Star                       Lothrop           1976

180 How Did We Find Out

About Nuclear Power?      Walker           1976

181 Familiar Poems Annotated     Doubleday        1976

182 The Collapsing Universe       Walker            1977

183 Asimov on Numbers          Doubleday        1977

184 How Did We Find Out

About Outer Space?         Walker            1977

185 Still More Lecherous

Limericks                Walker           1977

432

ISAAC ASIMOV

186 Hugo Winners, Volume 3

187 The Beginning and the End

188 Mars, the Red Planet

189 The Golden Door

190 The Key Word and Other
Mysteries

191 Asimov's Sherlockian
Limericks

192 One Hundred Great Science
Fiction Short-Short Stories

193 Quasar, Quasar, Burning
Bright

194 How Did We Find Out
About Earthquakes?

195 Animals of the Bible

196 Limericks; Too Gross

197 How Did We Find Out
About Black Holes?

198 Life and Time

199 Saturn and Beyond
'Opus 200
J.a Memory Yet Green

Doubleday Doubleday Lothrop Houghton Mifflin	19771977 1977 1977
Walker	1977
Mysterious	1977
Doubleday	1978
Doubleday	1978
Walker Doubleday Norton	1978 1978 1978
Walker Doubleday Lothrop Houghton MifiUn Doubleday	1978 1978 1979 1979 1979