I had said, with my usual braggadocio, “Any student who can bear to read a newspaper while I’m talking is welcome to do so.”

  But then as I watched the students walking to the convocation hall in boots and other wet-weather gear, my heart sank. Being compelled to attend in weather like this must surely be several notches beyond student endurance.

  I got to the hall with considerable difficulty myself and was amazed to find it filled. Facing an audience that might be unrelievedly hostile, I began with a stirring encomium on spring, the rebirth of nature, the season green and perfumed, the epitome of hope, the welcome release from winter’s icy grip—making the whole thing more and more lyrical until I greeted the coming of the vernal equinox that day in a veritable Everest of floral gush.

  The audience caught what I was doing, went on with me to the peak in happy irony, and I was home safe. I could do anything I wanted for the remainder of the speech.

  After it was over, I despairingly tried to drive home though mountains of standing slush. I had to maneuver through streets that were flooded in some places, nearly barred by fallen branches in others.

  I managed to make it to the New Jersey Turnpike and may have been among the last cars to be allowed on, for I hadn’t traveled on it long before the radio informed me that the turnpike was closed. I drove through what seemed a double row of stalled cars, with hapless families standing by each. I thought gloomily that if my car stalled, I wouldn’t even have the dubious comfort of having someone with whom to share my misery.

  The gas stations were closed; the restaurants were closed. When I stopped to urinate, there was no place to do so.

  A woman, noting the uncertainty with which I surveyed the sad panorama, said to me, “The men have gone behind the building.”

  I went behind the building and there they were, lined up. Necessity makes a joke of civilization. I took my place in line.

  When I came back, I said to the woman who had directed me, “What do the women do?” She gestured an I-don’t-know very unhappily.

  It took me six hours to get to New York, a trip that ought to have taken me two hours.

  17

  I spent the night at the Blugermans’, and the next day, March 21, I made my rounds.

  Almost the first thing I discovered was that the snowstorm that had given me such trouble on the New Jersey Turnpike had been fatal to my Futurian friend Cyril Kornbluth. He had shoveled snow, then gone to the station to catch a train, had a heart attack there, and died. He was only thirty-four.

  I delivered my manuscript of The World of Nitrogen to Abelard-Schuman, and visited Horace to pick up my manuscript of “The Ugly Little Boy.”

  “The Ugly Little Boy” was giving me a great deal of trouble. After Infinity had sent it back, Campbell rejected it, and now Horace, inevitably, wanted changes. On principle, I objected, for I had already included the story in Nine Tomorrows, and Brad had praised it highly.

  Horace, however, pointed out that the ending was ridiculously high-pitched. I had my ugly little boy, the Neanderthal child, taken out of time and then not properly returned, and it turned out that he had been the discoverer of fire. Human history was delayed about twenty-five centuries and all of modern Earth was suddenly converted into a parallel time-track in which it was still in the Paleolithic Period. Horace said that this was like solving the crisis set up by Edward VIII’s love for Wallie Simpson by having the British Isles slide into the ocean.

  Unwilling to make me angry (he was having enormous troubles with authors by now), Gold stressed that I would have to make only minor changes—but I shook my head.

  I said, “No, you’re right. I’ll rewrite the whole damned thing!”

  I spent the last week of March rewriting, and the rewritten version (with some additional minor changes) was taken by Horace with great delight. And I was delighted, too, for the ending had now become very touching and underwritten, one I like a great deal. Brad, too, admitted that the story was improved.

  Years later, when the Science Fiction Writers of America published the letters of some writers recalling their troubles with Horace and the difficulty of enduring his nasty letters, I wrote in order to agree that he was troublesome and wrote nasty letters. But, I said, he was, nevertheless, a good editor, whose requests for revision were sometimes justified. And I gave the case of “The Ugly Little Boy,” which, ever since, has been one of my favorite stories.

  18

  On April 4, I received the official note telling me that my salary would end as of June 30.

  And then, as I was girding myself despairingly to continue the battle at all costs, Soutter asked to see me. When I went to his office, he told me that Keefer was willing to let me keep my title.

  I couldn’t imagine what had made him change his mind, since only three weeks before, Sinex had reported him to be totally intransigent. Had Soutter argued in my favor? Had there been the feeling of a faculty revolt?

  I didn’t know, and I decided not to ask. I told Soutter that retention of my title alone was acceptable. Of course, it was to be understood that without a salary I would fulfill no duties except those that I chose to fulfill, and Soutter nodded.

  I told Sinex that I was keeping my title and he, rather to my surprise, grew furious. Up to that point, I had felt he was only allowing himself to be used as a cat’s paw, but now he seemed more eager even than Keefer to get rid of me. Perhaps Sinex had not been informed of this sudden turnabout and he felt his position as department head had been compromised. In any case, he incautiously warned me that he had an appointment to see Keefer on Tuesday, April 8.

  On Monday, April 7, I anticipated this by seeing Soutter and asking that the satisfactory’ settlement of the dispute not be upset now. Soutter spoke to Sinex at once, and Sinex rather grumblingly accepted my continuing hold on my title. I had won the third round.

  On April 10, I visited the main campus and was part of a panel on communication and death headed by Karl Menninger of the Menninger Clinic. I did well, and afterward attended a tea hosted by President Case of Boston University.

  To my astonishment, he asked me how I was coming along in my fight with Keefer.

  With my usual lack of aplomb, I said, “How do you know about that, President Case?”

  He said, “I’m president. I’ve got to know these things.”

  I said, “My salary will be stopped on June 30, but that doesn’t matter. I agreed to that long ago. I will keep my title, and that was what I was fighting for.”

  “Good!” he said. “If Keefer had managed to take away your title, I assure you I would have replaced it.”

  “Really?” I said, again astonished. “I’m glad I didn’t know that. It would have spoiled my fun.”

  So it may have been subtle pressure from above that forced Keefer to back down.

  9

  Full-time Writer

  1

  I had not forgotten my poor mystery. It had been rejected by five publishing houses, the fifth being Random House, which handed it back to me on April 21, 1958.

  I passed it on to Avon Books, the soft-cover publishing firm. They were interested in having science fiction from me, but there was no way in which I could write science fiction without showing it first to Brad. Nevertheless, I didn’t stress that fact as hard as I might have and, without actually telling a lie, I managed to let Avon believe they might get science-fiction originals from me.

  Avon then accepted the mystery on June 4, but I found I got no pleasure out of the sale. It seemed to me they took the book not for its own sake but as an earnest of my future patronage, so to speak, which I couldn’t really deliver. I felt like a crook.

  2

  The May 1958 Venture contained a little story of mine called “Buy Jupiter.”70 The title was Bob Mills’, and was one of those with which I wholeheartedly agreed, and I was sorry I hadn’t thought of it myself. I had called the story “It Pays” originally, a much poorer title. All things being equal, I’ll go for the play on words every time. The issue also contained my third article, “The Big Bang.”

  Unfortunately, Venture was not a success. The next issue, July 1958, was its tenth and last. That last issue contained my fourth science column, “The Clash of Cymbals,” which was about colliding galaxies, and then I was out of a job, at least as far as my science column was concerned.

  I was very disappointed. I was, at that time, doing numerous articles for the various magazines Bob Lowndes was editing, but those magazines were very shaky ones as well, and each article was a one-shot to be accepted or rejected.

  What I wanted was a column, and that had vanished.

  On May 9, something else vanished. I gave my last lecture to the freshman class at Boston University School of Medicine as a fully salaried member of the department, just about nine years after I had arrived in Boston. In round numbers, I think I had given a hundred lectures.

  3

  The fact that I was going to be a full-time writer after June 30 was not something I could view with complete indifference. For twenty years I had written in my spare time only—twenty hours a week at most.

  Could I do more than that?

  I could, of course, stay physically at the typewriter for forty hours a week or for seventy hours, for that matter, but would I be producing?

  There was no way I could tell, of course, without actually trying, and it was the thought of possible “empty time” that had been one of the factors impelling me to take on long-term jobs. My work on derivations for the Stedman Medical Dictionary was one such job. Another was a physical-science survey I undertook to write for Macmillan earlier in the year. Still another was a column of book reviews of science books for children, which I agreed that spring to write for the magazine Hornbook (it being understood I would review only those books I could write of favorably).

  The work on the derivations was limited, of course; there were only so many to do. The physical-science survey fell through. It was too much like a textbook, and I talked Macmillan into letting me go. The science-book review column, however, continued for years, though I found it a steadily increasing burden.

  4

  On May 27, I sat through the grading session on the biochemistry class, and my last regularly paid teaching duty was over.

  5

  With my teaching duties over, I threw myself into project after project:

  First, I finished my book of derivations for Houghton Mifflin (Words of Science), and that meant I would have to start on the children’s mathematics book for them next (Realm of Numbers).

  Second, I planned a new book for Abelard-Schuman on timekeeping, which I planned to call The Clock We Live On.

  Third, unaware as yet of the extent to which my interests were shifting, I obtained a contract from Doubleday for the third book in the trilogy involving Lije Baley and R. Daneel, who had so far starred in The Caves of Steel and The Naked Sun. This third book was to be The Bounds of Infinity (a deliberate balance in title to The End of Eternity).

  Fourth, I agreed to do a series of sixteen short biographies of scientists for Scholastic, a magazine that was distributed to high-school students.

  I was determined to keep myself busy and to fill that “full time” I was now to have.

  (It would be nice if circumstances co-operated fully, but they never do. On May 31, just as I was squaring myself into mounting my literary horse and riding off in all directions, David came down with the chicken pox, and I knew that Robyn would follow down the path, loyally, within a few days.)

  6

  I had lunch with Austin Olney on June 2 and handed in the manuscript of Words of Science. Within a few days, he called me to tell me how much he enjoyed it.

  I knew at once that I could have the kind of faith in Houghton Mifflin that I had in Doubleday. Austin, even more than Brad, had become a personal friend of mine, always kind and even loving, for such was his nature.

  Times had changed. Even if every science-fiction magazine ceased publication (which I did not expect to happen), I felt certain I could keep going very well with Doubleday and Houghton Mifflin alone. It was no longer the way it had been a decade before in 1948, when the thought of the suspension of Astounding seemed to herald the end of my writing career.

  7

  David was back in school on June 6, 1958, having recovered from the chicken pox, but was flat on his back on June 8, having come down with the measles. And as soon as his fever and other symptoms vanished on June 15, Robyn came down with the chicken pox. On June 25, she showed signs of measles but got away (I hope) with a subclinical case.

  Naturally, the children came through all this fine, but it was a near squeak as to whether Gertrude and I would survive.

  8

  In the midst of the siege of sicknesses, I had to take the train to New York, because I had agreed to speak at the Brooklyn Public Library on June 12, 1958. This was the first time I was able to play my role as celebrity with my mother and father watching. It was almost twenty years to the day after I had taken in my first story to Campbell.

  My mother and father were already there when I arrived, and the librarians were making much of them—something my parents already accepted as their due. They were given seats in the front row and sat there, haughtily, as I gave my talk on science fiction.

  It was quite an adequate talk but would undoubtedly have been better if I could have made myself unaware of my mother’s eyes fixed proudly on me. Then, when I was through and was trying to acknowledge the applause, my mother came up and threw her arms around me. Applause changed to laughter and I turned pink—partly from the viselike grip around my ribs.

  “Mamma, sit down—sit down—thank you, thank you—if you don’t sit down, Mamma—thank you, all—I’ll hit you.”

  She finally sat down. Thank goodness, I didn’t have to hit her.

  9

  At home, I found the July 1958 F & SF with “The Up-to-date Sorcerer”71 in it.

  On June 16, I began my mathematics book for Houghton Mifflin. No book I had ever written proved as easy to write as Realm of Numbers. I had all the facts in my head and in the right order, and I had only to put them down. The whole thing—first draft, final copy, and all—took me thirteen days. By June 28, I was finished and I had a thirty-three-thousand-word book all done.

  Gertrude warned me it might be a mistake to submit it at once. A book that had obviously been written so quickly might not seem very good. It was good advice, but I was simply unable to follow it. It would have burned a hole in my soul if I had left it sitting around.

  On June 30, I took it to Austin. He looked astonished, but he didn’t dislike the book because it had been written over-quickly. In fact, he liked it.72

  10

  On June 30, my medical school salary came to an end after nine years and one month.

  Ever since I was five years old, I had been either in school, in the Army, or on a job. Not one day had been spent otherwise. Now it all came to an end—and I wasn’t worried. The end of a steady paycheck meant nothing.

  My school earnings for the first half of 1958 were $3,250. My writing and lecturing earnings for that same half year, including five sevenths of the $2,500 for my book The Living River, were just under $17,500. It was the best half year I had ever had. In fact, I had earned more money though writing and lecturing in the first half of 1958 than I had ever earned in any previous full year.

  As I ended my school career, I was making five times as much money in my writing as in my teaching. What’s more, I had now reached the stage of mass production that has characterized my literary life ever since. As of the time the med school cut me loose, I had six books in press with three different publications and six in various stages of preparation.

  In fact, it was quite obvious that Sinex, Lemon, and Keefer had, by their action, done me the most enormous favor. Had they been willing to let things be as they were, I would have had to quit on my own within the space of a year or so, or watch my literary career be aborted.

  Indeed, my freedom from the bonds of my teaching position seemed to be joined by a freedom from the bonds of chemistry as the subject of my nonfiction.

  As of June 30, I had written articles for a variety of learned journals and science-fiction magazines—but every one of them had been on chemistry or biochemistry or nuclear chemistry. The same was true of the nonfiction books I had written. All were well within the expertise one would expect of my specialized education.

  But then, entirely by coincidence (but perhaps highly symbolic just the same), on July 1, 1958, the very first day of my new jobless status, I began The Clock We Live On, which was to be entirely on astronomy and chronometry. These were subjects in which I had never taken a single course at any stage in my school career.

  You might say that, having cut free, I could now afford to take my chances. I had no formal academic standing to endanger, no colleagues to offend.

  However, I was not being foolhardy either. I was not blithely launching myself onto a sea of ignorance. The fact is that I had now been reading science fiction for nearly thirty years and had been writing it for twenty. One cannot be a serious reader and writer of science fiction without getting a broad smattering of many aspects of science and a surprisingly deep understanding of some. And astronomy is, preeminently, the science most clearly associated with science fiction.