Death sentence ss, p.3
Death Sentence (ss),
p.3
The Board Master looked long, and turned away—wearily. “Why didn’t you tell us?”
“Because you took my world away from me. I discovered it—by myself—all by myself. And after I had done all the real work, and invited you in, you threw me out.
All you had for me was complaints that I had landed on the world and might have ruined everything by interference. Why should I tell you? Find out for yourselves if you’re so wise, that you could afford to kick me around.”
The Board Master thought bitterly, “Misfit! Inferiority complex! Persecution mania! Nice! It all fits in now that we’ve bothered to take our eyes off the horizon and see what was under our nose. And now it’s all ruined.”
He said, “All right, Realo, we all lose. Go away.”
Brand Gorla said tightly, “All over? Really all over?”
The Board Master answered, “Really all over. The original experiment as such is over. The distortions created by Realo’s visit will easily be large enough to make the plans we are studying here a dead language. And besides—Murry is right. If they have interstellar travel, they’re dangerous.”
Realo was shouting, “But you’re not going to destroy them. You can’t destroy them. They haven’t hurt anyone.”
There was no answer, and he raved on, “I’m going back. I’ll warn them. They’ll be prepared. I’ll warn them.”
He was backing toward the door, his thin white hair bristling, his red-rimmed eyes bulging.
The Board Master did not move to stop him when he dashed out.
“Let him go. It was his lifetime. I don’t care any more.”
Theor Realo smashed toward the robot world at an acceleration that was half choking him.
Somewhere ahead was the dust-speck of an isolated world with artificial imitations of humanity, struggling along in an experiment that had died. Struggling blindly toward a new goal of interstellar travel that was to be their death sentence.
He was heading toward that world, toward the same city in which he had been “studied” the first time. He remembered it well. Its name was the first words of their language he had learned.
New York!
THE END.
Isaac Asimov, Death Sentence (ss)
