by Isaac Asimov
The other nodded doubtfully, 'I guess so. I guess so. But using imaginary quantities in psychological equations stretches my faith in science just a little bit. Square root of minus one!'
He shuddered…
The seniors' lounge in Psychology Hall was crowded and a-buzz with activity. The rumor of Porus's solution to the now-classic problem of the squid had spread fast, and conversation touched on nothing else.
At the center of the thickest group was Lor Haridin. He was young, with but newly acquired Senior status. But as Porus's assistant he was, under present conditions, master of the situation.
'Look, fellows - just exactly what it's all about I don't know. That's the old man's secret. All I can tell you is that I've got the general idea as to how he solved it.'
The others squeezed closer. 'I hear he had to make up a new mathematical notation for the squid,' said one, 'like that time we had trouble with the humanoids of Sol.'
Lor Haridin shook his head. 'Worse! What made him think of it, I can't imagine. It was either a brainstorm or a nightmare, but anyway he introduced imaginary quantities - the square root of minus one.'
There was an awful silence and then someone said, 'I don't believe it!'
'Fact!' was the complacent reply.
'But it doesn't make sense. What can the square root of minus one represent, psychologically speaking? Why, that would mean' - he was doing rapid calculation in his head, as were most of the others - 'that the neural synapses were hooked up in neither more nor less than four dimensions!'
'Sure,' broke in another. 'I suppose that if you stimulate the squid today, it will react yesterday. That's what an imaginary would mean. Comet gas! That's what I say.'
'That's why you're not the man Tan Porus is,' said Haridin. 'Do you suppose he cares how many imaginaries there are in the intermediate steps if they all square out into minus one in the final solution. All he's interested in is that they give him the proper sign in the answer - an answer which will explain that sleep business. As for its physical significance, what matter? Mathematics is only a tool, anyway.'
The others considered silently and marveled.
Tan Porus sat in his stateroom aboard the newest and most luxurious interstellar liner and gazed at the young man before him happily. He was in amazing good humour and, for perhaps the first time in his life, did not mind being interviewed by the keen, efficient employees of the Ether Press.
The Ethereporter on his side wondered in silence at the affability of the scientist. From bitter experience, he had found out that scientists, as a whole, detested reporters - and that psychologists, in particular, thought it fun to practice a bit of applied psych on them and to induce killingly amusing - to others - reactions.
He remembered the time that the old fellow from Canopus had convinced him that arboreal life was the greatest good. It had taken twenty men to drag him down from the tree-tops and an expert psychologist to bring him back to normal.
But here was the greatest of them all, Tan Porus, actually answering questions like a normal human being.
'What I would like to know now, Professor,' said the reporter, 'is just what this imaginary quantity is all about. That is,' he interposed hastily, 'not the mathematics of it - we'll take your word on that - but just a general idea that the ordinary humanoid can picture. For instance, I've heard that the squid has a four-dimensional mind.'
Porus groaned, 'Oh, Rigel! Four-dimensional poppycock! To tell the honest truth, that imaginary I used - which seems to have caught the popular fancy - probably indicates nothing more than some abnormality in the squid's nervous system, but just what, I don't know. Certainly, to the gross methods of ecology and micro-physiology, nothing unusual has been found. No doubt, the answer would lie in the atomic physics of the creature's brain, but there I have no hope.' There was a trace of disdain in his voice. 'The atomic physicists are too far behind the psychologists to expect them to catch up at this late date.'
The reporter bore down furiously on his stylus. The next day's headline was clear in his mind: Noted Psychologist Blasts Atomic Physicists!
Also, the headline of the day after: Indignant Physicists Denounce Noted Psychologist!
Scientific feuds were great stuff for the Ether Press, particularly that between psychologists and physicists, who, it was well known, hated each other's guts.
The reporter glanced up brightly. 'Say, Professor, the human-oids of the galaxy are very interested, you know, in the private lives of you scientists. I hope you don't mind if I ask you a few questions about your trip home to Rigel IV.'
'Go ahead,' said Porus, genially. Tell them it's the first time I'm getting home in two years. I'm sort of looking forward to it. Arcturus is just a bit too yellow for my eyes and the furniture you have here is too big.'
'It's true, isn't it, that you have a wife at home?'
Porus coughed. 'Hmm, yes. Sweetest little woman in the galaxy. I'm looking forward to seeing her, too. Put that down.'
The reporter put it down. 'How is it you didn't bring her to Arcturus with you?'
Some of the geniality left the Rigellian's face. 'I like to be alone when I work. Women are all right - in their place. Besides, my idea of a vacation is one by myself. Don't put that down."
The reporter didn't put it down. He gazed at the other's little form with open admiration. 'Say, Prof, how did you ever get her to stay home, though? I wish you'd tell me the secret.' Then, with a wealth of feeling he added, 'I could use it!'
Porus laughed. 'I tell you, son. When you're an ace psychologist, you're master in your own home!'
He motioned the interview to an end and then suddenly grasped the other by the arm. His green eyes were piercingly sharp. 'And listen, son, that last remark doesn't go into the story, you know.'
The reporter paled and backed away. 'No, sir; no, sir! We've got a little saying in our profession that goes: "Never monkey around with a psychologist, or he'll make a monkey of you."'
'Good! I can do it literally, you know, if I have to.'
The young press employee ducked out hastily after that, wiped the cold perspiration from his brow and left with his story. For a moment, towards the last, he had felt himself hanging on the ragged edge. He made a mental note to refuse all future interviews with psychologists - unless they raised his pay.
Tens of billions of miles out, the pure white orb of Rigel had reached Porus's eyes, and something in his heart uplifted him.
Type B reaction - nostalgia; conditioned reflex through association of Rigel with happy scenes of youth -
Words, phrases, equations spun through his keen brain, but he was happy in spite of them. And in a little while, the human triumphed over the psychologist and Porus abandoned analysis for the superior joy of uncritical happiness.
He sat up past the middle of the sleep period two nights before the landing to catch first glimpse of Hanlon, fourth planet of Rigel, his home world. Some place on that world, on the shores of a quiet sea, was a little two-story house. A little house - not those giant structures fit only for Arcturians and other hulking humanoids.
It was the summer season now and the house would be bathed in the pearly light of Rigel, and after the harsh yellow-red of Arcturus, how restful that would be.
And - he almost shouted in his joy - the very first night he was going to insist on gorging himself with broiled tryp-tex. He hadn't tasted it for two years, and his wife was the best hand at tryptex in the system.
He winced a little at the thought of his wife. It had been a dirty trick, getting her to stay home the last two years, but it had had to be done. He glanced over the papers before him once more. There was just a little nervousness in his fingers as they shuffled the sheets. He had spent a full day in calculating her reactions at first seeing him after two years' absence and they were not pleasant.
Nina Porus was a woman of untamed emotions, and he would have to work quickly and efficiently.
He spotted her quickly in the crowd. He smiled. It was nice
to see her, even if his equations did predict long and serious storms. He ran over his initial speech once more and made a last-minute change.
And then she saw him. She waved frantically and broke from the forefront of the crowd. She was on Tan Porus before he was aware of it and, in the grip of her affectionate embrace, he went limp with surprise.
That wasn't the reaction to be expected at all! Something was wrong!
She was leading him dexterously through the crowd of reporters to the waiting stratocar, talking rapidly along the way.
'Tan Porus, I thought I'd never live to see you again. It's so good to have you with me again; you have absolutely no idea. Everything here at home is just fine, of course, but it isn't quite the same without you.'
Porus's green eyes were glazed. This speech was entirely uncharacteristic of Nina. To the sensitive ears of a psychologist, it sounded little short of the ravings of a maniac. He had not even the presence of mind to grunt at proper intervals. Frozen mutely in his seat, he watched the ground rush downwards and heard the air shriek backwards as they headed for their little house by the sea.
Nina Porus prattled on gaily - the one normal aspect of her conversation being her ability to uphold both ends of a dialogue with smooth efficiency.
'And, of course, dear, I've fixed up an entire tryptex, broiled to a turn, garnished with sarnees. And, oh yes, about that affair last year with that new planet - Earth, do you call it? I was so proud of you when I heard about it. I said -'
And so on and on, until her voice degenerated into a meaningless conglomeration of sounds.
Where were her tears? Where were the reproaches, the threats, the impassioned self-pity?
Tan Porus roused himself to one great effort at dinner. He stared at the steaming dish of tryptex before him with an odd lack of appetite and said, This reminds me of the time at Arcturus when I dined with the President Delegate -'
He went into details, dilating on the gayety and abandon of the affair, waxing lyrical over his own enjoyment of it, stressing, almost unsubtly, the fact that he had not missed his wife, and finally, in one last wild burst of desperation, mentioning casually the presence of a surprising number of Rigellian females in the Arcturian system.
And through it all, his wife sat smiling. 'Wonderful, darling,' she'd say. 'I'm so glad you enjoyed yourself. Eat your tryptex.'
But Porus did not eat his tryptex. The mere thought of food nauseated him. With one lingering stare of dismay at his wife, he arose with what dignity he could muster and left for the privacy of his room.
He tore up the equations furiously and hurled himself into a chair. He seethed with anger, for evidently something had gone wrong with Nina. Terribly wrong! Even interest in another man - and for just a moment that had occurred to him as a possible explanation - would not cause such a revolution in character.
He tore at his hair. There was some hidden factor more startling than that - but what it was he had no idea. At that, moment Tan Porus would have given the sum total of his worldly possessions to have his wife enter and make one - just one - attempt to snatch his scalp off, as of old.
And below, in the dining room, Nina Porus allowed a crafty gleam to enter her eye.
Lor Haridin put down his pen and said, 'Come in!' The door opened, and his friend, Eblo Ranin, entered, brushed off a corner of the desk and sat down.
'Haridin, I've got an idea.' His voice was uncommonly like a guilty whisper.
Haridin gazed at him suspiciously.
'Like the time,' he said, 'you set up the booby trap for old man Obel?'
Ranin shuddered. He had spent two days hiding in the ventilator shaft after that brilliant piece of work. 'No, this is legitimate. Listen, Porus left you in charge of the squid, didn't he?'
'Oh, I see what you're getting at. It's no go. I can feed the squid, but that's all. If I as much as clapped my hands at it to induce a color-change tropism, the boss would throw a fit.'
To space with him! He's parsecs away, anyway.' Ranin drew forth a two-month-old copy of the J.G.P. and folded the cover back. 'Have you been following Livell's experiments at Procyon U.? You know - magnetic fields applied with and without ultra-violet radiation.'
'Out of my field,' grunted Haridin. 'I've heard of it, but that's all. What about it?'
'Well, it's a type E reaction which gives, believe it or not, a strong Fimbal Effect in practically every case, especially in the higher invertebrates.' 'Hmm!'
'Now, if we could try it on this squid, we could -' 'No, no, no, no!' Haridin shook his head violently. 'Porus would break me. Great stars and little meteors, how he would break me!'
'Listen, you nut - Porus can't tell you what to do with the squid. It's Frian Obel that has final say. He's head of the Psychological Board, not Porus. All you have to do is to apply for his permission and you'll get it. Just between us, since that Homo Sol affair last year, he can't stand the sight of Porus anyway.'
Haridin weakened. 'You ask him.'
Ratlin coughed. 'No. On the whole, perhaps I'd better not. He's sort of got a suspicion that I set that booby trap, and I'd rather keep out of his way.'
'Hmm. Well -all right!'
Lor Haridin looked as if he had not slept well for a week -which shows that sometimes appearances are not deceiving. Eblo Ranin regarded him with patient kindliness and sighed.
'Look! Will you please sit down? Santin said he would have the final results in today, didn't he?'
'I know, I know, but it's humiliating. I spent seven years on higher math. And now I make a stupid mistake and can't even find it!'
'Maybe it's not there to find.'
'Don't be silly. The answer is just impossible. It must be impossible. It must be.' His high forehead creased. 'Oh, I don't know what to think.'
He continued his concentrated attempt to wear out the nap of the rug beneath and mused bitterly. Suddenly he sat down.
'It's those time integrals. You can't work with them, I tell you. You look 'em up in a table, taking half an hour to find the proper entry, and they give you seventeen possible answers. You have to pick the one that makes sense, and - Arcturus help me! - either they all do, or none do! Run up against eight of them, as we do in this problem, and we've got enough permutations to last us the rest of our life. Wrong answer! It's a wonder I lived through it at all.'
The look he gave the fat volume of Helo's Tables of Time Integrals did not sear the binding, to Ranin's great surprise.
The signal light flashed, and Haridin leaped to the door.
He snatched the package from the messenger's hand and ripped open the wrappings frantically.
He turned to the last page and stared at Santin's final note:
'Your calculations are correct. Congratulations - and won't this knock Porus's head right off his shoulders! Better get in touch with him at once.'
Ranin read it over the other's shoulder, and for one long minute the two gazed at each other.
'I was right,' whispered Haridin, eyes bulging. 'We've found something in which the imaginary doesn't square out. We've got a predicted reaction which includes an imaginary quantity!'
The other swallowed and brushed aside his stupefaction with an effort. 'How do you interpret it?'
'Great space! How in the galaxy should I know? We've got to get Porus, that's all.'
Ranin snapped his fingers and grabbed the other by the shoulders. 'Oh, no, we won't. This is our big chance. If we can carry this through, we're made for life.' He stuttered in his excitement. 'Arcturus! Any psychologist would sell his life twice over to have our opportunity right now.'
The Draconian squid crawled placidly about, unawed by the huge solenoid that surrounded its tank. The mass of tangled wires, the current leads, the mercury-vapor lamp up above meant nothing to it. It nibbled contentedly at the fronds of the sea fern about it and was at peace with the world.
Not so the two young psychologists. Eblo Ranin scurried through the complicated set-up in a last-minute effort at checking everything. Lor H
aridin helped him in intervals between nail-biting.
'Everything's set,' said Ranin, and swabbed wearily at his damp brow. 'Let her shoot!'
The mercury-vapor!amp went on and Haridin pulled the window curtains together. In the cold red-less light, two green tinted faces watched the squid closely. It stirred restlessly, its warm pink changing to a dull black in the mercury light.
'Turn on the juice,' said Haridin hoarsely.
There was a soft click, and that was all.
'No reaction?' questioned Ranin, half to himself. And then he held his breath as the other bent closer.
'Something's happening to the squid. It seems to glow a bit -or is it my eyes?'
The glow became perceptible and then seemed to detach itself from the body of the animal and take on a spherical shape of itself. Long minutes passed.
'It's emitting some sort of radiation, field, force - whatever you want to call it - and there seems to be expansion with time.'
There was no answer, and none was expected. Again they waited and watched.
And then Ranin emitted a muffled cry and grasped Hari-din's elbow tightly. 'Crackling comets, what's it doing?'
The globular glowing sphere of v/hatever it was had thrust out a pseudopod. A gleaming little projection touched the swaying branch of the sea-fern, and where it touched the leaves turned brown and withered!
'Shut off the current!'
The current clicked off; the mercury-vapor lamp went out; the shades were parted and the two stared at each other nervously.
'What was it?'
Haridin shook his head. 'I don't know. It was something definitely insane. I never saw anything like it.'
'You never saw an imaginary in a reaction equation before, either, did you? As a matter of fact, I don't think that expanding field was any known form of energy at -'
His breath came out in one long whistling exhalation and he retreated slowly from the tank containing the squid. The mollusc was motionless, but around it half the fern in the tank hung sere and withered.