by Isaac Asimov
“Boys,” he told them, “that was the best joke I ever heard. You can consider your pay doubled, both of you.” He was still grinning away like clockwork and had developed a beautiful case of hiccoughs.
The two pilots were left cold at the handsome proposal. “What’s so killingly funny?” Jimmy wanted to know, “I don’t see anything to laugh at, myself.”
McClutcheon’s voice dripped honey, “Now, fellows, before I left I gave each of you several mimeographed sheets containing special instructions. What happened to them?”
There was sudden embarrassment in the air.
“I don’t know. I must have mislaid mine,” gulped Roy.
“I never looked at mine; I forgot about it.” Jimmy was genuinely dismayed.
“You see,” exclaimed McCutcheon triumphantly, “it was all the fault of your own stupidity.”
“How do you figure that out?” Jimmy wanted to know. “Major Wade told us all we had to know about the ship, and besides, I guess there’s nothing you could tell us about running one.”
“Oh, isn’t there? Wade evidently forgot to inform you of one minor point which you would have found on my instructions. The strength of the Deflection Field was adjustable. It happened to be set at maximum strength when you started, that’s all.” He was now beginning to chuckle faintly once more. “Now, if you had taken the trouble to read the sheets, you would have known that a simple movement of a small lever,” he made the appropriate gesture with his thumb, “would have weakened the Field any desired amount and allowed as much radiation to leak through as was wanted.”
And now the chuckle was becoming louder. “And you froze for a week because you didn’t have the brains to pull a lever. And then you ace pilots come here and blame me. What a laugh!” and off he went again while a pair of very sheepish young men glanced askance at each other.
When McCutcheon came around to normal, Jimmy and Roy were gone.
Down in an alley adjoining the building, a little ten-year-old boy watched, with open mouth and intense absorption, two young men who were engaged in the strange and rather startling occupation of kicking each other alternately. They were vicious kicks, too.
***
When I wrote “Ring Around the Sun” I was much taken by the two protagonists. Turner and Snead. It was in my mind, I recall, to write other stories about the pair. This was a natural thought, for in the late 1930s there were a number of “series” of stories about a given character or characters. Campbell himself had written some delightful stories featuring two men named Penton and Blake, and I longed to do a Penton-Blake imitation.
There was a practical value to writing a “series.” For one thing, you had a definite background that was carried on from story to story, so that half your work was done for you. Secondly, if the “series” became popular, it would be difficult to reject new stories that fit into it.
I didn’t make it with Turner and Snead. In fact, I never tried. The time was to come, two years later, when I was to have a pair of very similar characters, Powell and Donovan, who were to be in four stories and who were to be part of a very successful “series” indeed.
By the end of August 1938, then, I had written five stories, of which three were eventually published. Not bad!
However, there followed a dry spell. I was finishing my third year of college and was trying, without success, to get admission into medical school. The situation in Europe was disturbing. It was the time of the surrender at Munich, and for a Jewish teen-ager there was something unsettling about the rapid, sure-fire victories of Hitler.
The next three stories took not one month, as had the previous three, but three months. And all were clearly well below the limits of salability even in the most permissive market. They were “The Weapon,” “Paths of Destiny,” and “Knossos in Its Glory.” Campbell rejected each one in very short order, and all made the rounds without luck. There came a time, nearly three years later, when Astonishing seemed interested in “The Weapon,” but that fell through and the other two didn’t even come that close.
All three stories are now gone forever. I remember nothing at all about two of them, but “Knossos in Its Glory” was an ambitious attempt to retell the Theseus myth in science fiction terms. The minotaur was an extraterrestrial who landed in ancient Crete with only the kindliest of intentions, and I remember writing terribly stilted prose in an attempt to make my Cretans sound as I imagined characters in Homer ought to sound. Campbell, always kind, said in rejecting it that my work “was definitely improving, especially where I was not straining for effect.”
By the time I was writing “Knossos in Its Glory” I had just received my check for “Marooned off Vesta” and I was a professional. My spirits rose accordingly, and toward the end of November I wrote “Ammonium,” which was another attempt (like “Ring Around the Sun”) at humor.
I had a pretty good notion that Campbell wouldn’t like it, however, and I never showed it to him. I sent it to Thrilling Wonder Stories instead. When they rejected it, I lost heart and retired it. It was only after Future Fiction had taken “Ring Around the Sun” that I thought I would chance this other one, too.
On August 23, 1939, I sent it in to Future Fiction , which took it, altering its name to “The Magnificent Possession.”
The Magnificent Possession
Walter Sills reflected now, as he had reflected often before, that life was hard and joyless. He surveyed his dingy chemical laboratory and grinned cynically-working in a dirty hole of a place, living on occasional ore analyses that barely paid for absolutely indispensable equipment, while others, not half his worth perhaps, were working for big industrial concerns and taking life easy.
He looked out the window at the Hudson River, ruddied in the flame of the dying sun, and wondered moodily whether these last experiments would finally bring him the fame and success he was after, or if they were merely some more false alarms.
The unlocked door creaked open a crack and the cheerful face of Eugene Taylor burst into view. Sills waved and Taylor’s body followed his head and entered the laboratory.
“Hello, old soak,” came the loud and carefree hail. “How go things?”
Sills shook his head at the other’s exuberance. “I wish I had your foolish outlook on life. Gene. For your information, things are bad. I need money, and the more I need it, the less I have.”
“Well, I haven’t any money either, have I?” demanded Taylor. “But why worry about it? You’re fifty, and worry hasn’t got you anything except a bald head. I’m thirty, and I want to keep my beautiful brown hair.”
The chemist grinned. “I’ll get my money yet. Gene. Just leave it to me.”
“Your new ideas shaping out well?”
“Are they? I haven’t told you much about it, have I? Well, come here and I’ll show you what progress I’ve made.”
Taylor followed Sills to a small table, on which stood a rack of test tubes, in one of which was about half an inch of a shiny metallic substance.
“Sodium-mercury mixture, or sodium amalgam, as it is called,” explained Sills pointing to it.
He took a bottle labeled “Ammonium Chloride Sol.” from the shelf and poured a little into the tube. Immediately the sodium amalgam began changing into a loosely-packed, spongy substance.
“That,” observed Sills, “is ammonium amalgam. The ammonium radical (NH4) acts as a metal here and combines with mercury.” He waited for the action to go to completion and then poured off the supernatant liquid.
“Ammonium amalgam isn’t very stable,” he informed Taylor, “so I’ll have to work fast.” He grasped a flask of straw-colored, pleasant-smelling liquid and filled the test-tube with it. Upon shaking, the loosely-packed ammonium amalgam vanished and in its stead a small drop of metallic liquid rolled about the bottom.
Taylor gazed at the test-tube, open-mouthed. “What happened?”
“This liquid is a complex derivative of hydrazine which I’ve discovered and named Ammonaline. I haven’t
worked out its formula yet, but that doesn’t matter. The point about it is that it has the property of dissolving the ammonium out of the amalgam. Those few drops at the bottom are pure mercury; the ammonium is in solution.”
Taylor remained unresponsive and Sills waxed enthusiastic. “Don’t you see the implications? I’ve gone half way towards isolating pure ammonium, a thing which has never been done before! Once accomplished it means fame, success, the Nobel Prize, and who knows what else.”
“Wow!” Taylor’s gaze became more respectful. “That yellow stuff doesn’t look so important to me.” He snatched for it, but Sills withheld it.
“I haven’t finished, by any means, Gene. I’ve got to get it in its free metallic state, and I can’t do that so far. Every time I try to evaporate the Ammonaline, the ammonium breaks down to everlasting ammonia and hydrogen… But I’ll get it-I’ll get it!”
Two weeks later, the epilogue to the previous scene was enacted. Taylor received a hurried and emphatic call from his chemist friend and appeared at the laboratory in a flurry of anticipation.
“You’ve got it?”
“I’ve got it-and it’s bigger than I thought! There’s millions in it, really,” Sills’ eyes shone with rapture.
“I’ve been working from the wrong angle up to now,” he explained. “Heating the solvent always broke down the dissolved ammonium, so I separated it out by freezing. It works the same way as brine, which, when frozen slowly, freezes into fresh ice, the salt crystallizing out. Luckily, the Ammonaline freezes at 18 degrees Centigrade and doesn’t require much cooling.”
He pointed dramatically to a small beaker, inside a glasswalled case. The beaker contained pale, straw-colored, needlelike crystals and, covering the top of this, a thin layer of a dullish, yellow substance.
“Why the case?” asked Taylor.
“I’ve got it filled with argon to keep the ammonium (which is the yellow substance on top of the Ammonaline) pure. It is so active that it will react with anything else but a helium-type gas.”
Taylor marveled and pounded his complacently-smiling friend on the back.
“Wait, Gene, the best is yet to come.”
Taylor was led to the other end of the room and Sills’ trembling finger pointed out another airtight case containing a lump of metal of a gleaming, yellow that sparkled and glistened.
“That, my friend, is ammonium oxide (NH420), formed by passing absolutely dry air over free ammonium metal. It is perfectly inert (the sealed case contains quite a bit of chlorine, for instance, and yet there is no reaction). It can be made as cheaply as aluminum, if not more so, and yet it looks more like gold than gold does itself. Do you see the possibilities?”
“Do I?” exploded Taylor. “It will sweep the country. You can have ammonium jewelry, and ammonium-plated tableware, and a million other things. Then again, who knows how many countless industrial applications it may have? You’re rich, Walt-you’re rich.”
“ We’re rich,” corrected Sills gently. He moved towards the telephone, “The newspapers are going to hear of this. I’m going to begin to cash in on fame right now.”
Taylor frowned, “Maybe you’d better keep it a secret, Walt.”
“Oh, I’m not breathing a hint as to the process. I’ll just give them the general idea. Besides, we’re safe; the patent application is in Washington right now.”
But Sills was wrong! The article in the paper ushered in a very, very hectic two days for the two of them.
J. Throgmorton Bankhead is what is commonly known as a “captain of industry.” As head of the Acme Chromium and Silver Plating Corporation he no doubt deserved the title; but to his patient and long-suffering wife, he was merely a dyspeptic and grouchy husband, especially at the breakfast table… and he was at the breakfast table now.
Rustling his morning paper angrily, he sputtered between bites of buttered toast, ‘This man is ruining the country.” He pointed aghast at big, black headlines. “I said before and I’ll say again that the man is as crazy as a bedbug. He won’t be satisfied…”
“Joseph, please,” pleaded his wife, “you’re getting purple in the face. Remember your high blood pressure. You know the doctor told you to stop reading the news from Washington if it annoys you so. Now, listen dear, about the cook. She’s…”
“The doctor’s a damn fool, and so are you,” shouted J. Throgmorton Bankhead. “I’ll read all the news I please and get purple in the face too, if I want to.”
He raised the cup of coffee to his mouth and took a critical sip. While he did so, his eyes fell upon a more insignificant headline towards the bottom of the page: “Savant Discovers Gold Substitute.” The coffee cup remained in the air while he scanned the article quickly. “This new metal,” it ran in part, “is claimed by its discoverer to be far superior to chromium, nickel, or silver for cheap and beautiful jewelry. The twenty-dollar-a-week clerk,’ said Professor Sills, ‘will eat off ammonium plate more impressive in appearance than the gold plate of the Indian Nabob.’ There is no…”
But J. Throgmorton Bankhead had stopped reading. Visions of a ruined Acme Chromium and Silver Plating Corporation danced before his eyes; and as they danced, the cup of coffee dropped from his hand, and splashed hot liquid over his trousers.
His wife rose to her feet in alarm, “What is it, Joseph; what is it?”
“Nothing,” Bankhead shouted. “Nothing. For God’s sake, go away, will you?”
He strode angrily out of the room, leaving his wife to search the paper for anything that could have disturbed him.
“Bob’s Tavern” on Fifteenth Street is usually pretty well filled at all times, but on the morning we are speaking of, it was empty except for four or five rather poorly-dressed men who clustered about the portly and dignified form of Peter Q. Hornswoggle, eminent ex-Congressman.
Peter Q. Hornswoggle was, as usual, speaking fluently. His subject, again as usual, concerned the life of a Congressman.
“I remember a case in point,” he was saying, “when that same argument was brought up in the House, and which I answered as follows: The eminent gentleman from Nevada in his statements overlooks one very important aspect of the problem. He does not realize that it is to the interest of the entire nation that the apple-parers of this country be attended to promptly; for, gentlemen, on the welfare of the apple-parers depends the future of the entire fruit industry and on the fruit-industry is based the entire economy of this great and glorious nation, the United States of America.’ “
Hornswoggle paused, swallowed half a pint of beer at once, and then smiled in triumph, “I have no hesitation in saying, gentlemen, that at that statement, the entire House burst into wild and tumultuous applause.”
One of the assembled listeners shook his head slowly and marvelled. “It must be great to be able to spiel like that, Senator. You musta been a sensation.”
“Yeah,” agreed the bartender, “it’s a dirty shame you were beat last election.”
The ex-Congressman winced and in a very dignified tone began, “I have been reliably informed that the use of bribery in that campaign reached unprecedented prop…” His voice died away suddenly as he caught sight of a certain article in the newspaper of one of his listeners. He snatched at it and read it through in silence and thereupon his eyes gleamed with a sudden idea.
“My friends,” he said turning to them again, “I find I must leave you. There is pressing work that must be done immediately at City Hall.” He leant over to whisper to the barkeeper, “You haven’t got twenty-five cents, have you? I find I left my wallet in the Mayor’s office by mistake. I will surely repay you tomorrow.”
Clutching the quarter, reluctantly given, Peter Q. Hornswoggle left.
In a small and dimly lit room somewhere in the lower reaches of First Avenue, Michael Maguire, known to the police by the far more euphonious name of Mike the Slug, cleaned his trusty revolver and hummed a tuneless song. The door opened a crack and Mike looked up.
“That you, Slappy?”
>
“Yeh,” a short, wizened person sidled in, “I brung ye de evenin’ sheet. De cops are still tinkin’ Bragoni pulled de job.”
“Yeh? That’s good.” He bent unconcernedly over the revolver. “Anything else doing?”
“Naw! Some dippy dame killed herself, but dat’s all.”
He tossed the newspaper to Mike and left. Mike leaned back and flipped the pages in a bored manner.
A headline attracted his eye and he read the short article that followed. Having finished, he threw aside the paper, lit a cigarette, and did some heavy thinking. Then he opened the door.
“Hey, Slappy, c’mere. There’s a job that’s got to be done.”
Walter Sills was happy, deliriously so. He walked about his laboratory king of all he surveyed, strutting like a peacock, basking in his new-found glory. Eugene Taylor sat and watched him, scarcely less happy himself.
“How does it feel to be famous?” Taylor wanted to know.
“Like a million dollars; and that’s what I’m going to sell the secret of ammonium metal for. It’s the fat of the land for me from now on.”
“You leave the practical details to me, Walt. I’m getting in touch with Staples of Eagle Steel today. You’ll get a decent price from him.”
The bell rang, and Sills jumped. He ran to open the door.
“Is this the home of Walter Sills?” The large, scowling visitor gazed about him superciliously.
“Yes, I’m Sills. Do you wish to see me?”
“Yes. My name is J. Throgmorton Bankhead and I represent the Acme Chromium and Silver Plating Corporation. I would like to have a moment’s discussion with you.”
“Come right in. Come right in! This is Eugene Taylor, my associate. You may speak freely before him.”
“Very well.” Bankhead seated himself heavily. “I suppose you surmise the reason for my visit.”
“I take it that you have read of the new ammonium metal in the papers.”