How could I refuse? The next day I showed up at the designated place in downtown Boston and was ushered into a large auditorium which, I estimated, could hold something like five hundred people.

  When the faculty member rose to introduce me, however, what it did hold was nineteen. That was the exact count, and it included myself and the introducer. There had been no time to make the announcement of the change in speaker so that the audience I got was the one that the Labrador physician would have gotten had he been there.

  What’s more, when the announcement was made that I would speak, three people who had come to hear the physician and would accept no substitute rose and walked out.

  I gave my talk, as best I could, to the emptiest hall I had ever addressed, and to silence, discomfort, and embarrassment all around. The organizers of the lecture series paid me my fee on the spot and took me out to a good dinner afterward, but it didn’t help much.

  5

  Winston Churchill died on January 24, 1965, at the age of ninety. My comment in my diary was that he was “probably the last romantic hero of a major war in history. From now on there will be only two kinds of wars: (1) petty, inglorious ones and (2) quick, mutual suicide, also inglorious.”

  Despite the fact that Goldwater had been defeated, the Vietnam War was steadily heating up and showed every sign of continuing to do so, so that my disillusionment with Johnson was already beginning. The Vietnam War was exactly what I meant by a “petty, inglorious” war, and I kept repeating to people Joseph Fouché’s famous epigram on the assassination of the Duc d’Enghien: “It is worse than a crime; it is a blunder.”

  6

  I had a small bump on my left forearm, just about halfway between elbow and wrist. It didn’t hurt or bother me in any way, but one day I showed it to my physician. He studied it for a moment and said, “Probably a lipoma—just a little growth of fatty tissue and completely harmless—but check it with a dermatologist.”

  I showed it to a dermatologist on February 2, who studied it and said, “Probably a lipoma—completely harmless—but check it with a surgeon.”

  So I went to a surgeon that same day, and he studied it and said, “Probably a lipoma—completely harmless—when do you want to have it taken out?”

  “If it’s completely harmless,” I said, reasonably, “why do I have to have it taken out?”

  “Oh well,” said the surgeon, smiling cozily, “we can never tell, can we?”

  And, rather to my indignation, he made an appointment for the operation on February 11.

  There followed a rather uneasy period in which I made a trip to New York and worked hard on my various projects yet remained always aware that I was about to be operated on. On the evening of the tenth, in fact, I watched television with a painful intensity, until I grew aware that I somehow had the feeling that I was watching each program for the last time—that I was saying farewell to life . . .

  The next morning I left at 8:30 a.m. and drove to the hospital. The operation, which I can really scarcely dignify by the name, took place between 10:40 and 10:55 a.m. under a local anesthetic. The only pain or discomfort was the prick of the needle that gave me the anesthetic. Afterward, eight stitches were taken to close the incision.

  I said to the surgeon when it was over, “Well, what is it?”

  And he said, “Just a lipoma—completely harmless—as I told you. But we’ll have the laboratory check it, just in case.”

  They wanted me to stay overnight, but by 2:00 p.m. I was overcome with boredom, got dressed, walked out, and went home.

  On February 19 (Robyn’s tenth birthday) I returned to the surgeon to have the stitches removed. By that time the lab report was in and I asked what had been reported.

  “Just a lipoma,” said the surgeon. “Completely harmless.”

  “Let me see the actual report,” I said.

  There it was: “Lipoma.”

  I watched television that night like a man reborn.

  7

  On February 18, I finished the book on the slide rule and took it in to Austin on the twenty-third. My title for it was Realm of the Slide Rule but Austin changed it to An Easy Introduction to the Slide Rule. On March 8, Austin agreed to do my Scholastic series Great Ideas of Science, which by now was completed, as a book.

  8

  On February 27, I passed two milestones. Gertrude and I went with David to the Boston Museum of Science and left Robyn at home entirely on her own. She remained alone for five hours in what was apparently complete comfort.

  On that same day, I bought a tuxedo all my own for those inevitable occasions, once a year or so, when I would have to wear one. It was, specifically, for the upcoming ACS convention and my Grady Medal award, but I did take it, rather sadly, as a sign that I was growing old and stuffy.

  9

  Roy Fisher was in Boston on March 3, and asked to have dinner with me. I assumed it was in order to tell me, formally, that I was not part of the group at the Year Book any longer. Well, that was so, but it was not what he had come to tell me. He was after my agreement to do an article on the genetic code for the new year book, Science Year. The payment would be at the usual World Book level, but I disregarded that. I asked if any trips were involved, and when he assured me that none were, I agreed to do it.

  10

  On March 10, I was in New York and gave my talk to the Chemistry Department at Columbia University. I saw Dawson for the first time in years and asked him if he had read The Death Dealers. He said he had but when I asked him if he liked it, he said (honest as always) that he did not. I was a little abashed and decided not to tell him that I had modeled the hero on him.

  Pop Nelson was there, too. I had been so certain’, seven years before when I had written the book, that he was dead that I had not hesitated to model the murderer on him. He had already seemed to be an old man in 1939 when I was in his class, but I suppose he must only have been sixtyish then.

  He was well in his eighties now and he seemed quite pleased to see me though I couldn’t be certain that he knew who I was or that he was quite clear as to his role in the book. I told him how much I had valued my class with him and I think he got that. I certainly hope so, for he was dead before another year had passed.

  The talk went very well (Stanley was in the audience and it was the first time he had ever heard me speak, I think) but I refused all payment, even for my travel expenses. Somehow I felt I owed them that much for having used the department in my book without permission.

  11

  It was still possible to get me to write a science-fiction story.

  The fifteenth anniversary of Galaxy was coming up and Fred Pohl wanted a story out of me for it, and the cover story at that. In March he sent me a proof of the cover he planned to use and suggested that with the cover as inspiration, it would be easy to write the story.

  It wasn’t. I looked at the cover, which featured a large, sad, space-helmeted face, with several crude crosses in the background and with a space helmet balanced on each cross. I could make nothing of it at first, and I had to rattle the contents of my skull for hours before I could come up with something satisfactory.

  On March 15 and 16, I wrote the story, the first fiction I had written in over a year, and decided it wasn’t bad. I called it “The Last Tool,” sent it in, and Fred took it at once.

  When it appeared in the October 1965 Galaxy, however, Fred, as was always his wont, had changed the title to “Founding Father.”136 For once, though, the change was for the better. It harked back to the book by the same name about Joseph Kennedy, the head of the Kennedy clan, and it fit the story perfectly, and with even sadder irony than “The Last Tool.”

  12

  I finished The Neutrino on March 24, and promptly started The Noble Gases for Basic Books.

  Then, on April 2, the entire family took off for Detroit. We planned to drive by way of Niagara Falls, our second visit there, and our third April in a row that would see us in Canada. At 2 p.m. on the fourth, we had completed our trip across the Canadian shore north of Lake Erie and were in Detroit. There we visited Gertrude’s Aunt Sophie, Henry’s younger sister. It was the first time I had ever met her, and the family resemblance was strong.

  April 5 was the big day. I gave a luncheon talk, the first I ever gave with the children in the audience. David, in particular, enjoyed himself, and after that he pushed hard to attend any talk I gave. I never knew how much he understood of my more esoteric talks, but he always laughed heartily in the right places.

  This was a puzzle to me, for though he had grown interested in science fiction, he would never read any of my books. He would shrug with embarrassment when I questioned him about this and would say, “I don’t know. They just sound too much like you.” Yet when I pointed out that he liked my talks when I certainly sounded like me, that didn’t help.

  What I remember best about that luncheon was the fact that I suddenly became aware that Robyn had a nearly full glass of chocolate milk right at her elbow and very nearly at the end of the table. I was in agony, expecting each moment to have the glass crash with a spray of chocolate milk over everyone around. Yet I couldn’t stand up and shout to her lest she startle and knock over the glass. Nor could I bring myself to get up, walk over, and humiliate her by moving the glass.

  I stared in her direction, therefore, till she looked my way. Catching her eye, I then lifted my own glass ostentatiously and placed it in a different spot and Robyn, instantly taking my meaning, moved her glass to the middle of the table.

  Robyn did read my books on occasion. I remember the first time she did so, when she was not very much older. She came to me, one time, with the sad announcement that she had nothing to read.

  “Read one of my stories,” I said.

  “Your stories aren’t for kids,” she said.

  “I have a story about a little boy,” I said. “How about that?” “Where?”

  I got a copy of Nine Tomorrows for her, opened it to the story “The Ugly Little Boy,” and said, “Here, Robyn, read this.”

  Off she went to her room, from which she emerged on several occasions to tell me that she was on page so-and-so and it was great. Then there was quite a long lapse, and when she finally emerged, her face was red and swollen and tear-streaked, and she fixed me with a woeful look and said, “You didn’t tell me the ending was sa-a-a-ad!”

  As a father, I hugged her and consoled her, but as a writer I was delighted.

  Anyway, that night in Detroit, I donned my tuxedo, left the kids with Aunt Sophie, and took Gertrude to the formal dinner at which I received my gold medal.

  The next day, we left Detroit and stopped off in the Rochester area so I could give another talk. Then, on the eighth, I managed to get a ticket for speeding on the New York Thruway.

  13

  An Easy Introduction to the Slide Rule was different from most of the other books I had written in that it had to have illustrations. To be sure, my textbooks, as well as The World of Carbon, The World of Nitrogen, and The Genetic Code all had to contain chemical formulas, but these could be set up in type, or they could be drawn by any amateur with a drafting set.

  For the slide-rule book there had to be a number of illustrations of the slide rule, one or more to every page almost, and it had to involve photography.

  I had made rough sketches of what the illustrations would have to look like, and I bought a slide rule that was particularly clear and would lend itself to photography. Then, on April 20, 1965, along with Walter Lorraine, the art director at Houghton Mifflin, I went to a place where photographs of the slide rule could be taken, with only those portions showing that were absolutely necessary.

  I adjusted the slide rule to the positions desired and, for three hours, photo after photo was taken. It was interesting at first, but the interest quickly wore away.

  14

  A science-fiction movie was in the process of being made, one called Fantastic Voyage. It dealt with a device that shrank normal objects to microscopic size. A submarine and five crew members are then placed in the bloodstream of a human being (an important scientist) so that an operation can be carried through from within, saving his life.

  Bantam Books had obtained the rights to a paperback novelization of the movie and they got in touch with me to do the job. They would supply me with the screenplay and I could use that as the basis for the novelization. They would pay me a flat sum of five thousand dollars for the job. No royalties.

  I turned down the proposal out of hand. Hackwork, I said. Beneath my dignity.

  They kept after me and, on April 21, I had lunch with Marc Jaffe and Marcia Nassiter of Bantam Books. When enough flattery had been expended on me, I agreed at least to read the screenplay. That was fatal, for I liked it and felt the urge to write the novel. To be specific, I didn’t want anyone else to write the novel because there was going to be a chance to make use of a lot of anatomy and physiology and I was afraid that anyone else Bantam might get would ruin the job.

  One thing bothered me. The ending, as it was to appear in the movie, was fatally flawed. The crew had to get out of the body within an hour because the miniaturization would only last that long. Expansion to normal size would kill the patient, of course. The crew did manage to get out at the very last second, but the submarine was left inside.

  At a subsequent meeting, I told Jaffe I would have to change the ending.

  “Why?”

  “It leaves the submarine inside,” I said. “The sub will expand and kill the patient.”

  “But the submarine is eaten by a white cell.”

  “So it expands inside the white cell.”

  “But the submarine is digested.”

  “A white cell can’t digest metal, and if it could, that would only rearrange the atoms and—Marc, trust me, that submarine has to get out.”

  Marc said, unhappily, “All right.”

  I said, “And there has to be an understanding that the Hollywood people won’t change the ending back, or interfere with any other changes I make.”

  Marc said he would see to it, and on that basis I agreed to do the novelization.

  It was a lucky thing I made that stipulation, for there were numerous inadmissible points in the movie as it was made. There was no consideration of surface tension or even of the fact that air was made up of atoms and molecules and wasn’t a continuous fluid.

  I did my best to correct the worst of the flaws, but there were some that were intrinsic in the whole notion of miniaturization, which is, of course, basically impossible even in theory, in my opinion.

  Before I began the book, I had to have Doubleday’s permission, since I had never done a science-fiction book for anyone but them. On April 29, when I took the completed manuscript of The Neutrino to Brad, I broached the subject of Fantastic Voyage and found there was no trouble at all. In fact, it was Doubleday that had suggested my name as a possible author to Bantam.

  And on May 5, I finished The Noble Gases. It had been an easy book to do.

  15

  I met an enthusiastic young man, Richard Hoagland, at about this time. Our first contact was by phone. He was anxious to see me and had all sorts of plans and projects in mind. He had an eager spirit that was very contagious.

  When we finally made personal contact, I was taken aback to find him a thin, narrow-chinned youngster of nineteen; extraordinarily bright, though, and filled with enthusiasm for space.

  Somehow he persuaded me to do a television show in Springfield, and I drove out there on May 6, taking David with me. Hoagland, who ran the planetarium at Springfield, showed it to us in detail (to David’s great delight). Hoagland also talked a good deal about Mariner 4, which was on its way to Mars to take photographs as it flashed by.

  I avoided becoming overcommitted at that time, for I sensed even then that Hoagland, like many utterly enthusiastic people, might have a reach that slightly exceeded his grasp.

  16

  In New York, on May 13, I was visiting Bob Mills, out of friendship rather than business, and listened to him talk to one of his clients who apparently needed money badly.

  When Bob got off the phone I said, smugly, “Aren’t you glad, Bob, that I’m just here as a friend and cause you no trouble?”

  “You cause me plenty of trouble,” said Bob.

  “What trouble?” I demanded.

  “Listen, Ted Sturgeon has been trying to have the job of novelizing Fantastic Voyage for months, and only last week I found out you had the job.”

  I said, “But Bob, how did I know that Ted was after it? I wouldn’t have dreamed of taking the job if I knew Ted wanted it. Call him up, Bob, call him up.”

  Bob called him and I got on the phone. “Ted,” I said, “I didn’t know you were after Fantastic Voyage. As far as I’m concerned, you can have it. I’ll call Bantam Books right away and tell them you’ll do it and that’s okay with me.”

  I then called up Bantam Books right there in Bob’s office, so he could hear exactly what I said. I got Marc Jaffe.

  “Marc,” I said, “I don’t think I ought to do Fantastic Voyage.”

  “Why not?”

  “I wasn’t aware that Theodore Sturgeon wanted to do the novelization.”

  “Who says he does?”

  “He does. I’ve just spoken to him on the phone and I would like you to let him have the job. I’ll be glad to sign over the contract.”