“Well,” began Stan patiently, “a three-dimensional space turns things into their mirror image if they are carried around the vortex point of the Mobius twist. Since right and left shoes are mirror images of one another, you can turn a right shoe into a left shoe, or vice versa, by carrying it around that vortex point in the upper Amazon. That’s probably what had happened to the snails migrating in that vicinity. From now on, you can produce only rightfoot shoes, and turn half of them into left-foot shoes by sending the lot up the Amazon River and around the vortex point. Think of the saving on machinery, and the perfect fit of shoe pairs!”
“My boy!” exclaimed Mr. Sapognikoff, jumping up from his chair and shaking the hand of the young mathematician. “If you can really do that, I will give you my daughter’s hand and make you a junior partner in my business.
“But,” he added after a short reflection, “Mobius or no Mobius, there will be no wedding until you return from the first Amazon trip with the load of converted shoes. I will, though, give you a preliminary partnership contract which you can study during your trip and which we’ll sign as soon as you come back with the proof. My secretary will deliver to you that contract and an assortment of rightfooted shoes at the airport. Good-by, and good luck!”
Stan walked out of Sapognikoff’s office beaming, and full of hopes.
“It is not the heat, it is the humidity.” The sentence was hammering into the young mathematician’s head through the entire exhausting trip up the Amazon River.
Although the description of all the perils of that trip, first by a small steamboat, and then by foot through tropical jungles surrounding the vortex point, does not fall within the scope of the present article, one cannot leave unmentioned such important items as: alligators, heat, humidity, mosquitoes, more humidity, and more mosquitoes. Besides all that, Stan suffered badly from an allergy to some tropical plant which almost cost him his life. But, sick as he was, he was leading the way, and a little caravan of a handful of Indian porters carrying shoe boxes was proceeding along the route which was supposed to bring them around the vortex point. Stan’s head was swirling around because of the fever in his body, and later on he could never figure out whether the lopsided landscape, with some of the trees growing at most unusual angles, and certain sections of the forest hanging practically upside down, was his imagination or the actual fact. On the way back to the river he became delirious, and had to be carried by the porters. When he finally recovered consciousness, the boat was steaming smoothly down the river back to civilization, the weather was more tolerable, and numerous tropical birds were saturating the air with a gamut of shrill sounds. Rising to his feet, Stan walked to the stern of the boat where the shoe boxes were piled in disorder, and opened one of them marked: “Lady’s Oxford. White. Size 6D, Right shoe.” And, oh horror, it was the right shoe, and not the left one into which it was supposed to be turned! Apparently his theory was completely wrong, and all his efforts would never earn him Vera’s hand!
Frantically he went on opening other boxes. There was a man’s patent leather shoe, a lady’s velvet shoe boot, a tiny pink baby shoe … But, they all were rightfooted as they were when he inspected them before departure. In despair, he threw all overboard to the great delight of the alligators.
When Stan stepped out of the Pan American airliner, both Vera and her father were there to greet him.
“Where are the shoes?” asked Mr. Sapognikoff anxiously.
“I fed them to the alligators,” answered Stan grimly. “I don’t know what was wrong, but they all remained rightfooted. I must have made some basic mistake in my calculations, and there isn’t such a thing as a three-dimensional Mobius twist.”
“Oh, no!” murmured Vera faintly.
“I am very sorry, Sir.” continued Stan, “for causing you all this trouble with my fantastic theory. I think it would be only fair if I returned to you unsigned our partnership contract.”
And, producing a rather battered document from the pocket of his traveling jacket, he handed it over to the old man.
“Very strange,” said Mr. Sapognikoff, glancing at the document. “I cannot even read it.”
“Mirror writing!” exclaimed Vera, looking at it, too. “It is mirror writing, so the things did change after all.”
At a flash the explanation of his alleged failure, which wasn’t a failure at all, dawned in Stan’s head. Nothing was wrong, and every single rightfooted shoe he carried with him turned into a left-footed one. But he also became left-footed and left-handed, and having changed himself into his mirror image, he naturally could not notice the same change in the shoes.
“Feel my heart,” said Stan to Vera. “No, not here; my heart is now on the other side.”
“I will love you just the same,” smiled Vera happily.
“Too bad about the shoes,” said Sapognikoff. “But I guess this document, and maybe an X-ray picture of your chest, can be considered as a definite proof. Thus, we will sign the partnership agreement as soon as this document is retyped in a proper way, if you practice writing your name again from left to right. And, of course, you and Vera may go ahead with your wedding plans.”
But things were still not right. Ever since his return from Brazil, Stan’s health was deteriorating and, although he ate healthy meals, he seemed to be suffering from malnutrition. A famous dietitian who was called in for consultation diagnosed his trouble as due to a complete inability to digest any protein food; in fact, the bacon and eggs he ate at breakfast and the most tasty dinner steaks were passing through him as if they were made of sawdust. Having learned about Stan’s adventure in South America, and after having checked the fact that his heart was really displaced to the opposite side of his chest, the dietitian came out with the complete explanation of the mysterious sickness.
“The trouble with you,” he said, “is that your digestive enzymes, as well as all others, turned from levo—to dextra-variety, and are helpless in their task of assimilating any proteins in ordinary foodstuffs which all possess levo-symmetry.”
“What do you mean by levo—and dextra-proteins?” asked Stan, who was never strong in chemistry.
“It is very simple,” said the dietitian, “and very interesting, too. The proteins, which are the most important constituents of all living organisms, and an important part of any diet, are complex chemical substances composed of a large number of rather simple units known as amino acids. There are twenty different kinds of amino acids, and the way they are put together to form a protein molecule determines whether one gets gastric juice, muscle fiber, or the white of an egg. Each amino acid contains a so-called amino-group, an acid group and a hydrogen atom, attached to the main body of the molecule, known as residue, which determines its chemical and biological properties. Imagine that the palm of your hand represents the residue of some particular amino acid. Stick an amino group on your thumb, an acid group on your index finger, a hydrogen atom on your middle finger, and you will have a fairly good idea of how these basic units of all living matter look.”
“Oh, I see now,” said Stan. “One gets levo, and dextra varieties of these molecular models depending on whether one uses his left or right hand. Isn’t that correct?”
“Quite correct. But, although chemically both molecules are identical, because of their opposite mirror symmetry, they act differently on polarized light, and can be distinguished by optical methods.
“Now the great mystery of nature is that, although in ordinary chemical synthesis carried out in a laboratory both levo-and dextra-varieties are produced in equal amounts, only levo-variety is used by living organisms. All the proteins, in me, in you, in a dog, in a fish, in an oak tree, in an amoeba, or in influenza virus, are built exclusively by the levo-variety of amino acids.”
“But why?” asked Stan in surprise. “Does the levo-variety have any advantage from the biological point of view?” “None whatsoever. In fact, one can imagine two coexisting organic worlds, levo and dextra, which may, or may not, have gon
e through the same process of organic evolution. The possibility is not excluded that such two organic worlds actually could have existed during the early history of our planet, and that, just by chance, the levo-organisms developed some improvement, giving them an advantage in the struggle for existence over the dextra ones who then became extinct.”
“And you mean that after traveling around the Mobius vortex point, I belong now to this nonexisting dextra world?” “Exactly so,” said the dietitian, “and although you can get some benefit from such foodstuff as fats and starches the molecules of which do not possess mirror asymmetry, ordinary protein diet is out of the question for you at the moment. But, I am sure, your father-in-law will subsidize a special biochemical laboratory which will synthesize for you dextra-varieties of all common food proteins. In the meantime we can feed you on antibiotics—such as penicillin, for example.”
“Antibiotics?” repeated Stan with surprise. “Why should antibiotics be good for me?”
“I forgot to tell you that there are a few living organisms, mostly molds, which use, at least partially, dextra amino acids in their bodies.”
“You mean they are the survivals of this extinct dextra world?”
“Most probably not. It is more likely that these molds have developed the ability to synthesize, and to use, dextra amino acids as a defense against the bacteria which are their worst enemies. This defense is good against all kinds of bacteria, since all bacteria are levo-organisms and develop bad indigestion when fed on dextra food. But it will be good for you.”
“Fine,” said Stan, smiling. “Order me a large dish of penicillin au gratin. I am starved. And send Vera along to see me—I want to tell her the good news!”
LENNY
ISAAC ASIMOV
Isaac Asimov is one of those who graduated from the science fiction fraternity into the wider world of science. He began as a fan, and very shortly thereafter, as a writer, while still in his teens. Candidates for a doctorate customarily have to defend their theses orally before a faculty board; when Asimov met his board only half the questions concerned the enzyme reactions he had written up. The other half were questions about various concepts he had employed in the science fiction stories for which he was already well known.
As a scientist, Asimov divided his time between research into the biochemistry of cancer cells and teaching, as an associate professor at Boston University. For the past five years his principal efforts have gone into writing nearly two dozen scientific books, from texts for medical students to the best-sellingr two volume The Intelligent Man’s Guide to Science. But he still has time for an occasional science fiction story like this one . . .
United States Robots and Mechanical Men, Inc., had a problem. The problem was people.
Peter Bogert, Senior Mathematician, was on his way to Assembly when he encountered Alfred Lanning, Research Director. Lanning was bending his ferocious white eyebrows together and staring down across the railing into the computer room.
On the floor below the balcony, a trickle of humanity of both sexes and various ages was looking about curiously, while a guide intoned a set speech about robotic computing.
“This computer you see before you,” he said, “is the largest of its type in the world. It contains five million three hundred thousand cryotrons and is capable of dealing simultaneously with over one hundred thousand variables. With its help, U. S. Robots is able to design with precision the positronic brains of new models.
“The requirements are fed in on tape which is perforated by the action of this keyboard—something like a very complicated typewriter or linotype machine, except that it does not deal with letters but with concepts. Statements are broken down into the symbolic logic equivalents and those in turn converted to perforation patterns.
“The computer can, in less than one hour, present our scientists with a design for a brain which will give all the necessary positronic paths to make a robot . .
Alfred Lanning looked up at last and noticed the other. “Ah, Peter,” he said.
Bogert raised both hands to smooth down his already perfectly smooth and glossy head of black hair. He said, “You don’t look as though you think much of this, Alfred.”
Lanning grunted. The idea of public guided tours of U. S. Robots was of fairly recent origin, and was supposed to serve a dual function. On the one hand, the theory went, it allowed people to see robots at close quarters and counter their almost instinctive fear of the mechanical objects through increased familiarity. And on the other hand, it was supposed to interest at least an occasional person in taking up robotics research as a life work.
“You know I don’t/’ Lanning said finally. “Once a week, work is disrupted. Considering the man-hours lost, the return is insufficient.”
“Still no rise in job applications, then?”
“Oh, some, but only in the categories where the need isn’t vital. It’s research men that are needed. You know that. The trouble is that with robots forbidden on Earth itself, there’s something unpopular about being a roboticist.”
“The damned Frankenstein complex,” said Bogert, consciously imitating one of the other’s pet phrases.
Lanning missed the gentle jab. He said, “I ought to be used to it, but I never will. You’d think that by now every human being on Earth would know that the Three Laws represented a perfect safeguard; that robots are simply not dangerous. Take this bunch.” He glowered down. “Look at them. Most of them go through the robot assembly room for the thrill of fear, like riding a roller coaster. Then when they enter the room with the MEC model—damn it, Peter, a MEG model that will do nothing on God’s green Earth but take two steps forward, say ‘Pleased to meet you, sir,’ shake hands, then take two steps back—they back away and mothers snatch up their kids. How do we expect to get brain-work out of such idiots?”
Bogert had no answer. Together, they stared down once again at the line of sightseers, now passing out of the computer room and into the positronic brain assembly section. Then they left. They did not, as it turned out, observe Mortimer W. Jacobson, age 16—who, to do him complete justice, meant no harm whatever.
In fact, it could not even be said to be Mortimer’s fault. The day of the week on which the tour took place was known to all workers. All devices in its path ought to have been carefully neutralized or locked, since it was unreasonable to expect human beings to withstand the temptation to handle knobs, keys, handles and push-buttons. In addition, the guide ought to have been very carefully on the watch for those who succumbed.
But, at the time, the guide had passed into the next room and Mortimer was tailing the line. He passed the keyboard on which instructions were fed into the computer. He had no way of suspecting that the plans for a new robot design were being fed into it at that moment, or, being a good kid, he would have avoided the keyboard. He had no way of knowing that, by what amounted to almost criminal negligence, a technician had not inactivated the keyboard.
So Mortimer touched the keys at random as though he were playing a musical instrument.
He did not notice that a section of perforated tape stretched itself out of the instrument in another part of the room—soundlessly, unobtrusively.
Nor did the technician, when he returned, discover any signs of tampering. He felt a little uneasy at noticing that the keyboard was live, but did not think to check. After a few minutes, even his first trifling uneasiness was gone, and he continued feeding data into the computer.
As for Mortimer, neither then, nor ever afterward, did he know what he had done.
The new LNE model was designed for the mining of boron in the asteroid belt. The boron hydrides were increasing in value yearly as primers for the proton micro-piles that carried the ultimate load of power production on spaceships, and Earth’s own meager supply was running thin.
Physically, that meant that the LNE robots would have to be equipped with eyes sensitive to those lines prominent in the spectroscopic analysis of boron ores and the type of li
mbs most useful for the working up of ore to finished product. As always, though, the mental equipment was the major problem.
The first LNE positronic brain had been completed now. It was the prototype and would join all other prototypes in
U. S. Robots’ collection. When finally tested, others would then be manufactured for leasing (never selling) to mining corporations.
LNE-Prototype was complete now. Tall, straight, polished, it looked from outside like any of a number of not-too-specialized robot models.
The technician in charge, guided by the directions for testing in the Handbook of Robotics, said, “How are you?”
The indicated answer was to have been, “I am well and ready to begin my functions. 1 trust you are well, too,” or some trivial modification thereof.
This first exchange served no purpose but to show that the robot could hear, understand a routine question, and make a routine reply congruent with what one would expect of a robotic attitude. Beginning from there, one could pass on to more complicated matters that would test the different Laws and their interaction with the specialized knowledge of each particular model.
So the technician said, “How are you?” He was instantly jolted by the nature of LNE-Prototype’s voice. It had a quality like no robotic voice he had ever heard (and he had heard many). It formed syllables like the chimes of a low-pitched celeste.
The Expert Dreamers (1962) Anthology Page 7