ISAAC ASIMOV

  The Martian Way and Other Stories

  Copyright

  HarperVoyager

  An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd

  1 London Bridge Street

  London SE1 9GF

  www.harpercollins.co.uk

  This eBook edition 2024

  First published in Great Britain as

  The Complete Stories Volume II (Part One) by

  HarperCollinsPublishers 1994

  Copyright © Nightfall, Inc. 1992

  Individual story copyright details appear here.

  Cover design by Mike Topping

  Cover illustration © Mike Topping

  Isaac Asimov asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

  A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.

  This collection of short stories is entirely fictional. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

  All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

  Source ISBN: 9780008610524

  eBook Edition © June 2024 ISBN: 9780008610531

  Version: 2024-06-24

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Introduction

  Not Final!

  The Hazing

  Death Sentence

  Blind Alley

  Evidence

  The Red Queen’s Race

  Day of the Hunters

  The Deep

  The Martian Way

  The Monkey’s Finger

  The Singing Bell

  The Talking Stone

  Each an Explorer

  Let’s Get Together

  Pâté de Foie Gras

  Galley Slave

  Lenny

  A Loint of Paw

  A Statue for Father

  Obituary

  Copyright Information

  Also by Isaac Asimov

  About the Publisher

  Introduction

  In the first two volumes of my collected stories, I have almost fifty stories printed, and there are still plenty more for future volumes.

  I must admit that it fills even me with a kind of awe. I say to myself, ‘Where did I find the time to write all these stories?’—considering that I have also written hundreds of books and thousands of nonfiction essays. The answer is that I’ve been at it for fifty-two years without pausing, so what all these stories mean is that I’ve now gotten to be a rather elderly person.

  Another question is, ‘Where did I get all the ideas for these stories?’ I am asked that all the time.

  The answer is that in the course of more than half a century of thinking up ideas, the process becomes automatic and, indeed, unstoppable.

  I was in bed with my wife last night, and something or other spurred my imagination and I said to her, ‘I’ve just thought of a brand-new frustrated-wish story.’

  ‘What is it?’ said she.

  ‘Our hero, who is blessed with a plain wife, asks a genie to grant him a different, beautiful young woman in bed with him every night. He gets it on condition that at no time must he touch, caress, or even just casually bump the young lady’s backside. If he does, the young lady turns into his wife. Each night, in the course of lovemaking, he finds himself unable to stay away entirely from the backside, and the result is that every night he finds himself making love to his wife.’*

  The point is that everything reminds me of a story.

  For instance, I was going over a complex set of galley proofs of a book of mine when I received a call from an editor. He wanted a science fiction story in a hurry.

  ‘I can’t,’ I said, ‘I’m all wrapped up in galleys.’

  ‘Put them aside.’

  ‘No,’ I said, and hung up. Still, I couldn’t help but think, as I hung up, how convenient it would be if I owned a robot that could do my galleys for me. At once I did put them aside because I suddenly had a story. You’ll find it here as ‘Galley Slave.’

  A fellow writer died young in 1958 and got a nice obituary in the New York Times. Those were early years and no one expected anyone to pay attention to science fiction writers in those days. I took to brooding. When I passed on to the great typewriter in the sky, would the New York Times make mention of that fact, too? Nowadays I know they will but in those days I didn’t. So after I had brooded sufficiently over the matter, I wrote ‘Obituary.’

  I had an argument with an editor once, hot and heavy. He wanted me to make a specific change in a story of mine, and I did not want to make it—not out of laziness, but because I thought it would spoil the story. In the end, he had his way (editors usually do) but I got even by writing ‘The Monkey’s Finger,’ which is a good description of what went on.

  Sometimes stories arise because other people make some casual remark. ‘Let’s Get Together’ is an example. I don’t feel guilty about lifting ideas from the statements of other people. They’re not going to do anything with them, so why shouldn’t I?

  But the point is that stories arise out of anything. You just have to keep your ·eyes and ears open and your imagination working. Once during a train trip, my first wife asked me where I got my ideas from. I said, ‘From anywhere. I can write a story about this train trip.’ And I started writing it longhand. That story does not appear in this collection, however.

  —Isaac Asimov

  New York City

  1991

  * Since my dear wife, Janet, is to me the most beautiful woman in the world-and she knows it-she did not take umbrage at this story, aside from telling me that I had a sick mind.

  Not Final!

  Nicholas Orloff inserted a monocle in his left eye with all the incorruptible Briticism of a Russian educated at Oxford and said reproachfully, ‘But, my dear Mr Secretary! Half a billion dollars!’

  Leo Bimam shrugged his shoulders wearily and allowed his lank body to cramp up stiU farther in the chair, ‘The appropriation must go through, commissioner. The Dominion government here at Ganymede is becoming desperate. So far, I’ve been holding them off, but as secretary of scientific affairs, my powers are small.’

  ‘I know, but – ‘ and Orloff spread his hands helplessly.

  ‘I suppose so,’ agreed Birnam. ‘The Empire government finds it easier to look the other way. They’ve done it consistently up to now. I’ve tried for a year now to have them understand the nature of the danger that hangs over the entire System, but it seems that it can’t be done. But I’m appealing to you, Mr Commissioner. You’re new in your post and can approach this Jovian affair with an unjaundiced eye.’

  Orloff coughed and eyed the tips of his boots. In the three months since he had succeeded Gridley as colonial commissioner he had tabled unread everything relating to ‘those damned Jovian D. T.’s.’ That had been according to the established cabinet policy which had labeled the Jovian affair as ‘deadwood’ long before he had entered office.

  But now that Ganymede was becoming nasty, he found himself sent out to Jovopolis with instructions to hold the ‘blasted provincials’ down. It was a nasty spot.

  Bimam was speaking, ‘The Dominion government has reached the point where it needs the money so badly, in fact, that if they don’t get it, they’re going to publicize everything.’

  Orloff’s phlegm broke completely, and he snatched at the monocle as it dropped, ‘My dear fellow!’

  ‘I know what it would mean. I’ve advised against it, but they’re justified. Once the inside of the Jovian affair is out; once the people know about it; the Empire government won’t stay in power a week. And when the Technocrats come in, they’ll give us whatever we ask. Public opinion will see to that.’

  ‘But you’ll also create a panic and hysteria – ‘

  ‘Surely! That is why we hesitate. But you might call this an ultimatum. We want secrecy, we need secrecy; but we need money more.’

  ‘I see.’ Orloff was thinking rapidly, and the conclusions he came to were not pleasant. ‘In that case, it would be advisable to investigate the case further. If you have the papers concerning the communications with the planet Jupiter – ‘

  ‘I have them,’ replied Bimam, dryly, ‘and so has the Empire government at Washington. That won’t do, commissioner. It’s the same cud that’s been chewed by Earth officials for the last year, and it’s gotten us nowhere. I want you to come to Ether Station with me.’

  The Ganymedan had risen from his chair, and he glowered down upon Orloff from his six and a half feet of height.

  Orloff flushed, ‘Are you ordering me?’

  ‘In a way, yes. I tell you there is no time. If you intend acting, you must act quickly or not at all.’ Bimam paused, then added, ‘You don’t mind walking, I hope. Power vehicles aren’t allowed to approach Ether Station, ordinarily, and I can use the walk to explain a few of the fa
cts. It’s only two miles off.’

  ‘I’ll walk,’ was the brusque reply.

  The trip upward to subground level was made in silence, which was broken by Orloff when they stepped into the dimly lit anteroom.

  ‘It’s chilly here.’

  ‘I know. It’s difficult to keep the temperature up to norm this near the surface. But it will be colder outside. Here!’

  Birnam had kicked open a closet door and was indicating the garments suspended from the ceiling. ‘Put them on. You’ll need them.’

  Orloff fingered them doubtfully, ‘Are they heavy enough?’

  Bimam was pouring into his own costume as he spoke. ‘They’re electrically heated. You’ll find them plenty warm. That’s it! Tuck the trouser legs inside the boots and lace them tight.’

  He turned then and, with a grunt, brought out a double compressed-gas cylinder from its rack in one corner of the closet. He glanced at the dial reading; and then turned the stopcock. There was a thin wheeze of escaping gas, at which Bimam sniffed with satisfaction.

  ‘Do you know how to work one of these?’ he asked, as he screwed onto the jet a flexible tube of metal mesh, at the other end of which was a curiously curved object of thick, clear glass.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘Oxygen nosepiece! What there is of Ganymede’s atmosphere is argon and nitrogen, just about half and half. It isn’t particularly breathable.’ He heaved the double cylinder into position, and tightened it in its harness on Orloff ‘s back.

  Orloff staggered, ‘It’s heavy. I can’t walk two miles with this.’

  ‘It won’t be heavy out there,’ Bimam nodded carelessly upward and lowered the glass nosepiece over Orloff’s head. ‘Just remember to breathe in through the nose and out through the mouth, and you won’t have any trouble. By the way, did you eat recently?’

  ‘I lunched before I came to your place.’

  Bimam sniffed dubiously, ‘Well, that’s a little awkward.’ He drew a small metal container from one of his pockets and tossed it to the commissioner. ‘Put one of those pills in your mouth and keep sucking on it.’

  Orloff worked clumsily with gloved fingers and finally managed to get a brown spheriod out of the tin and into his mouth. He followed Birnam up a gently sloped ramp. The blind-alley ending of the corridor slid aside smoothly when they reached it and there was a faint soughing as air slipped out into the thinner atmosphere of Ganymede.

  Bimam caught the other’s elbow, and fairly dragged him out.

  ‘I’ve turned your air tank on full,’ he shouted. ‘Breathe deeply and keep sucking at that pill.’

  Gravity had flicked to Ganymedan normality as they crossed the threshold and Orloff after one horrible moment of apparent levitation felt his stomach tum a somersault and explode.

  He gagged, and fumbled the pill with his tongue in a desperate attempt at self-control. The oxygen-rich mixture from the air cylinders burned his throat, and gradually Ganymede steadied. His stomach shuddered back into place. He tried walking.

  ‘Take it easy, now,’ came Birnam’s soothing voice. ‘It gets you that way the first few times you change gravity fields quickly. Walk slowly and get the rhythm, or you’ll take a tumble. That’s right, you’re getting it.’

  The ground seemed resilient. Orloff could feel the pressure of the other’s arm holding him down at each step to keep him from springing too high. Steps were longer now – and flatter, as he got the rhythm. Birnam continued speaking, a voice a little muffled from behind the leather flap drawn loosely across mouth and chin.

  ‘Each to his own world,’ he grinned. ‘I visited Earth a few years back, with my wife, and had a hell of a time. I couldn’t get myself to learn to walk on a planet’s surface without a nosepiece. I kept choking – I really did. The sunlight was too bright and the sky was too blue and the grass was too green. And the buildings were right out on the surface. I’ll never forget the time they tried to get me to sleep in a room twenty stories up in the air, with the window wide open and the moon shining in.

  ‘I went back on the first spaceship going my way and don’t ever intend returning. How are you feeling now?’

  ‘Fine! Splendid!’ Now that the first discomfort had gone, Orloff found the low gravity exhilarating. He looked about him. The broken, hilly ground, bathed ip. a drenching yellow light, was covered with ground-hugging broad-leaved shrubs that showed the orderly arrangement of careful cultivation.

  Birnam answered the unspoken question, ‘There’s enough carbon dioxide in the air to keep the plants alive, and they all have the power to fix atmospheric nitrogen. That’s what makes agriculture Ganymede’s greatest industry. Those plants are worth their weight in gold as fertilizers back on Earth and worth double or triple that as sources for half a hundred alkaloids that can’t be gotten anywhere else in the System. And, of course, everyone knows that Ganymedan green-leaf has Terrestrial tobacco beat hollow.’

  There was the drone of a strato-rocket overhead, shrill in the thin atmosphere, and Orloff looked up.

  He stopped – stopped dead – and forgot to breathe!

  It was his first glimpse of Jupiter in the sky.

  It is one thing to see Jupiter, coldly harsh, against the ebon backdrop of space. At six hundred thousand miles, it is majestic enough. But on Ganymede, barely topping the hills, its outlines softened and ever so faintly hazed by the thin atmosphere; shining mellowly from a purple sky in which only a few fugitive stars dare compete with the Jovian giant – it can be described by no conceivable combination of words.

  At first, Orloff absorbed the gibbous disk in silence. It was gigantic, thirty-two times the apparent diameter of the Sun as seen from Earth. Its stripes stood out in faint washes of color against the yellowness beneath and the Great Red Spot was an oval splotch of orange near the western rim.

  And finally Orloff murmured weakly, ‘It’s beautiful!’

  Leo Birnam stared, too, but there was no awe in his eyes. There was the mechanical weariness of viewing a sight often seen, and besides that an expression of sick revulsion. The chin flap hid his twitching smile, but his grasp upon Orloff ‘s arm left bruises through the tough fabric of the surface suit.

  He said slowly, ‘It’s the most horrible sight in the System.’

  Orloff turned reluctant attention to his companion, ‘Eh?’ Then, disagreeably, ‘Oh, yes, those mysterious Jovians.’

  At that, the Ganymedan turned away angrily and broke into swinging, fifteen-foot strides. Orloff followed clumsily after, keeping his balance with difficulty.

  ‘Here, now,’ he gasped.

  But Birnam wasn’t listening. He was speaking coldly, bitterly, ‘You on Earth can afford to ignore Jupiter. You know nothing of it. It’s a little pin prick in your sky, a little flyspeck. You don’t live here on Ganymede, watching that damned colossus gloating over you. Up and over fifteen hours-hiding God knows what on its surface. Hiding something that’s waiting and waiting and trying to get out. Like a giant bomb just waiting to explode!’

  ‘Nonsense!’ Orloff managed to jerk out. ‘Will you slow down. I can’t keep up.’

  Bimam cut his strides in half and said tensely, ‘Everyone knows that Jupiter is inhabited, but practically no one ever stops to realize what that means. I tell you that those Jovians, whatever they are, are born to the purple. They are the natural rulers of the Solar System.’

  ‘Pure hysteria,’ muttered Orloff. ‘The Empire government has been hearing nothing else from your Dominion for a year.’

  ‘And you’ve shrugged it off. Well, listen! Jupiter, discounting the thickness of its colossal atmosphere, is eighty thousand miles in diameter. That means it possesses a surface one hundred times that of Earth, and more than fifty times that of the entire Terrestrial Empire. Its population, its resources, its war potential are in proportion.’

  ‘Mere numbers – ‘

  ‘I know what you mean,’ Birnam drove on, passionately. ‘Wars are not fought with numbers, but with science and with organization. The Jovians have both. In the quarter of a century during which we have communicated with them, we’ve learned a bit. They have atomic power and they have radio. And in a world of ammonia under great pressure – a world in other words in which almost none of the metals can exist as metals for any length of time because of the tendency to form soluble ammonia complexes – they have managed to build up a complicated civilization. That means they have had to work through plastics, glasses, silicates and synthetic building materials of one sort or another. That means a chemistry developed just as far as ours is, and I’d put odds on its having developed further.’