The Early Asimov. Volume 2

by Isaac Asimov

  Also mentioned in the story are 'the tiny "Drops of Death," the highly-publicized radioactive bombs that noiselessly and inexorably ate out a fifteen-foot crater wherever they fell.'

  By the time I wrote the story, uranium fission had been discovered and announced. I had not yet yeard of it, however, and I was unaware that reality was about to outstrip my prized science fictional imagination.

  On October 23, 1940, I visited Campbell and outlined to him another robot story I wanted to write, a story I planned to call 'Reason.' Campbell was completely enthusiastic. I had trouble writing it and had to start over several times, but eventually it was done, and on November 18 I submitted it to John. He accepted it on the twenty-second, and it appeared in the April 1941 issue of Astounding.

  It was the third story of mine that he had accepted and the first in which he did not ask for a revision. (He told me, in fact, that he had liked it so well, he had almost decided to pay me a bonus.)

  With 'Reason,' the 'positronic robot' series was fairly launched, and my two most successful characters yet, Gregory Powell and Mike Donovan (improvements on Turner and Snead of 'Ring Around the Sun') made their appearance. Eventually, 'Reason' and others of the series that were to follow, together with 'Robbie,' which Campbell had rejected, were to appear in I, Robot.

  The success of 'Reason' didn't mean that I was to have no further rejections from Campbell.

  On December 6, 1940, influenced by the season and never stopping to think that a Christmas story must sell no later than July in order to make the Christmas issue, I began 'Christmas on Ganymede.' I submitted it to him on the twenty-third, but the holiday season did not affect his critical judgment. He re- jected it.

  I tried Pohl next, and, as was happening so often that year, he took it. In this case, for reasons I will describe later, the acceptance fell through. I eventually sold it the next summer (June 27, 1941, the proper time of year) to Startling Stories, the younger, sister magazine of Thrilling Wonder Stones.

  Christmas on Ganymede [6]

  Olaf Johnson hummed nasally to himself and his china-blue eyes were dreamy as he surveyed the stately fir tree in the corner of the library. Though the library was the largest single room in the Dome, Olaf felt it none too spacious for the occasion. Enthusiastically he dipped into the huge crate at his side and took out the first roll of red-and-green crepe paper.

  What sudden burst of sentiment had inspired the Gany-medan Products Corporation, Inc. to ship a complete collection of Christmas decorations to the Dome, he did not pause to inquire. Olaf's was a placid disposition, and in his self-imposed job as chief Christmas decorator, he was content with his lot.

  He frowned suddenly and muttered a curse. The General Assembly signal light was flashing on and off hysterically. With a hurt air Olaf laid down the tack-hammer he had just lifted, then the roll of crepe paper, picked some tinsel out of his hair and left for officers quarters.

  Commander Scott Pelham was in his deep armchair at the head of the table when Olaf entered. His stubby fingers were drumming unrhythmically upon the glass-topped table. Olaf met the commander's hotly furious eyes without fear, for nothing had gone wrong in his department in twenty Gany-medan revolutions.

  The room filled rapidly with men, and Pelham's eyes hardened as he counted noses in one sweeping glance.

  'We're all here. Men, we face a crisis!'

  There was a vague stir. Olaf's eyes sought the ceiling and he relaxed. Crises hit the Dome once a revolution, on the average. Usually they turned out to be a sudden rise in the quota of oxite to be gathered, or the inferior quality of the last batch of karen leaves. He stiffened, however, at the next words.

  'In connection with the crisis, I have one question to ask.' Pelham's voice was a deep baritone, and it rasped unpleasantly when he was angry. 'What dirty imbecilic troublemaker has been telling those blasted Ossies fairy tales?"

  Olaf cleared his throat nervously and thus immediately became the center of attention. His Adam's apple wobbled in sudden alarm and his forehead wrinkled into a washboard. He shivered.

  'I - I-' he stuttered, quickly fell silent. His long fingers made a bewildered gesture of appeal. 'I mean I was out there yesterday, after the last - uh - supplies of karen leaves, on account the Ossies were slow and -'

  A deceptive sweetness entered Pelham's voice. He smiled.

  'Did you tell those natives about Santa Claus, Olaf?'

  The smile looked uncommonly like a wolfish leer and Olaf broke down. He nodded convulsively.

  'Oh, you did? Well, well, you told them about Santa Claus! He comes down in a sleigh that flies through the air with eight reindeer pulling it, huh?'

  'Well - er - doesn't he?' Olaf asked unhappily.

  'And you drew pictures of the reindeer, just to make sure there was no mistake. Also, he has a long white beard and red clothes with white trimmings.'

  'Yeah, that's right,' said Olaf, his face puzzled.

  'And he has a big bag, chock full of presents for good little' boys and girls, and he brings it down the chimney and puts presents inside stockings.'

  'Sure.'

  'You also told them he's about due, didn't you? One more revolution and he's going to visit us.'

  Olaf smiled weakly. 'Yeah, Commander, I meant to tell you. I'm fixing up the tree and -'

  'Shut up!' The commander was breathing hard in a whistling sort of way. 'Do you know what those Ossies have thought of?'

  'No, Commander.'

  Pelham leaned across the table toward Olaf and shouted:

  They want Santa Claus to visit them!'

  Someone laughed and changed it quickly into a strangling cough at the commander's raging stare.

  'And if Santa Claus doesn't visit them, the Ossies are going to quit work!' He repeated, 'Quit cold - strike!'

  There was no laughter, strangled or otherwise, after that. If there were more than one thought among the entire group, it didn't show itself. Olaf expressed that thought:

  'But what about the quota?'

  'Well, what about it?' snarled Pelham. 'Do I have to draw pictures for you? Ganymedan Products has to get one hundred tons of wolframite, eighty tons of karen leaves and fifty tons of oxite every year, or it loses its franchise. I suppose there isn't anyone here who doesn't know that. It so happens that the current year ends in two Ganymedan revolutions, and we're five per cent behind schedule as it is.'

  There was pure, horrified silence.

  'And now the Ossies won't work unless they get Santa Claus. No work, no quota, no franchise - no jobs! Get that, you low-grade morons. When the company loses its franchise, we lose the best-paying jobs in the System. Kiss them good-bye, men, unless -'

  He paused, glared steadily at Olaf, and added:

  'Unless, by next revolution, we have a flying sleigh, eight reindeer and a Santa Claus. And by every cosmic speck in the rings of Saturn, we're going to have just that, especially a Santa!'

  The faces turned ghastly pale.

  'Got someone in mind, Commander?' asked someone in a voice that was three-quarters croak.

  'Yes, as a matter of fact, I have.'

  He sprawled back in his chair. Olaf Johnson broke into a sudden sweat as he found himself staring at the end of a pointing forefinger.

  'Aw, Commander!' he quavered.

  The pointing finger never moved.

  Pelham tramped into the foreroom, removed-his oxygen nosepiece and the cold cylinders attached to it. One by one he cast off thick woolen outer garments and, with a final, weary sigh, jerked off a pair of heavy knee-high space boots.

  Sim Pierce paused in his careful inspection of the latest batch of karen leaves and cast a hopeful glance over his spectacles.

  'Well?' he asked.

  Pelham shrugged. 'I promised them Santa. What else could I do? I also doubled sugar rations, so they're back on the job - for the moment.'

  'You mean till the Santa we promised doesn't show up.' Pierce straightened and waved a long karen leaf at the commander's face f
or emphasis. 'This is the silliest thing I ever heard of. It can't be done. There ain't no Santa Claus!'

  Try telling that to the Ossies.' Pelham slumped into a chair and his expression became stonily bleak. 'What's Benson doing?'

  'You mean that flying sleigh he says he can rig up?' Pierce held a leaf up to the light and peered at it critically. 'He's a crackpot, if you ask me. The old buzzard went down to the sub-level this morning and he's been there ever since. All I know is that he's taken the spare lectro-dissociator apart. If anything happens to the regular, it just means that we're without oxygen.'

  'Well,' Pelham rose heavily, 'for my part I hope we do choke. It would be an easy way out of this whole mess. I'm going down below.'

  He stumped out and slammed the door behind him.

  In the sub-level he gazed about in bewilderment, for the room was littered with gleaming chrome-steel machine parts. It took him some time to recognize the mess as the remains of what had been a compact, snugly built lectro-dissociator the day before. In the center, in anachronistic contrast, stood a dusty wooden sleigh atop rust-red runners. From beneath it came the sound of hammering.

  'Hey, Benson!' called Pelham.

  A grimy, sweat-streaked face pushed out from underneath the sleigh, and a stream of tobacco juice shot toward Benson's ever-present cuspidor.

  'What are you shouting like that for?' he complained. 'This is delicate work.'

  'What the devil is that weird contraption?' demanded Pel-ham.

  'Flying sleigh. My own idea, too.' The light of enthusiasm shone in Benson's watery eyes, and the quid in his mouth shifted from cheek to cheek as he spoke. 'The sleigh was brought here in the old days, when they thought Ganymede was covered with snow like the other Jovian moons. All I have to do is fix a few gravo-repulsors from the dissociator to the bottom and that'll make it weightless when the current's on. Compressed air-jets will do the rest.'

  The commander chewed his lower lip dubiously.

  'Will it work?'

  'Sure it will. Lots of people have thought of using repulsors in air travel, but they're inefficient, especially in heavy gravity fields. Here on Ganymede, with a field of one-third gravity and a thin atmosphere, a child could run it. Even Johnson could run it, though I wouldn't mourn if he fell off and broke his blasted neck.'

  'All right, then, look here. We've got lots of this native purple-wood. Get Charlie Finn and tell him to put that sleigh on a platform of it. He's to have it extend about twenty feet or more frontward, with a railing around the part that projects.'

  Benson spat and scowled through the stringy hair over his eyes.

  'What's the idea, Commander?'

  Pelham's laughter came in short, harsh barks.

  'Those Ossies are expecting reindeer, and reindeer they're going to have. Those animals will have to stand on something, won't they?'

  'Sure… But wait, hold on! There aren't any reindeer on Ganymede.'

  Commander Pelham paused on his way out. His eyes narrowed unpleasantly as they always did when he thought of Olaf Johnson.

  'Olaf is out rounding up eight spiny backs for us. They've got four feet, a head on one end and a tail on the other. That's close enough for the Ossies.'

  The old engineer chewed this information and chuckled nastily.

  'Good! I wish the fool joy of his job.'

  'So do I,' gritted Pelham.

  He stalked out as Benson, still leering, slid underneath the sleigh.

  The commander's description of a spinyback was concise and accurate, but it left out several interesting details. For one thing, a spinyback has a long, mobile snout, two large ears that wave back and forth gently and two emotional purple eyes. The males have pliable spines of a deep crimson color along the backbone that seem to delight the female of the species.

  Combine these with a scaly, muscular tail and a brain by no means mediocre, and you have a spinyback - or at least you have one if you can catch one.

  It was just such a thought that occurred to Olaf Johnson as he sneaked down from the rocky eminence toward the herd of twenty-five spinybacks grazing on the sparse, gritty undergrowth. The nearest spinies looked up as Olaf, bundled in fur and grotesque with attached oxygen nosepiece, approached. However, spinies have no natural enemies, so they merely gazed at the figure with languidly disapproving eyes and returned to their crunchy but nourishing fare.

  Olaf's notions on bagging big game were sketchy. He fumbled in his pocket for a lump of sugar, held it out and said:

  'Here, pussy, pussy, pussy, pussy, pussy! '

  The ears of the nearest spinie twitched in annoyance. Olaf came closer and held out the sugar again.

  'Come, bossy! Come, bossy!'

  The spinie caught sight of the sugar and rolled his eyes at it. His snout twitched as he spat out his last mouthful of vegetation and ambled over. With neck stretched out, he sniffed. Then, using a rapid, expert motion, he struck at the outheld palm and flipped the lump into his mouth. Olaf's other hand whistled down upon nothingness.

  With a hurt expression, Olaf held out another piece.

  'Here, Prince! Here, Fido!'

  The spinie made a low, tremulous sound deep in his throat. It was a sound of pleasure. Evidently this strange monstrosity before him, having gone insane, intended to feed him these bits of concentrated succulence forever. He snatched and was back as quickly as the first time. But, since Olaf had held on firmly this time, the spinie almost bagged half a finger as well.

  Olaf's yell lacked a bit of the nonchalance necessary at such times. Nevertheless, a bite that can be felt through thick gloves is a bite!

  He advanced boldly upon the spinie. There are some things that stir the Johnson blood and bring up the ancient spirit of the Vikings. Having one's finger bitten, especially by an unearthly animal, is one of these.

  There was an uncertain look in the spinie's eyes as he backed slowly away. There weren't any white cubes being offered any more and he wasn't quite sure what was going to happen now. The uncertainty vanished with a suddenness he did not expect, when two glove-muffled hands came down upon his ears and jerked. He let out a high-pitched yelp and charged forward.

  A spinie has a certain sense of dignity. He doesn't like to have his ears pulled, particularly when other spinies, including several unattached females, have formed a ring and are looking on.

  The Earthman went over backward and remained in that position for awhile. Meantime, the spinie backed away a few feet in a gentlemanly manner and allowed Johnson to get to his feet.

  The old Viking blood frothed still higher in Olaf. After rubbing the hurt spot where he had landed on his oxygen cylinder, he jumped, forgetting to allow for Ganymedan gravity. He sailed five feet over the spinie's back.

  There was awe in the animal's eye as he watched Olaf, for it was a stately jump. But there was a certain amount of bewilderment as well. There seemed to be no purpose to the maneuver.

  Olaf landed on his back again and got the cylinder in the same place. He was beginning to feel a little embarrassed. The sounds that came from the circle of onlookers were remarkably like snickers.

  'Laugh!' he muttered bitterly. 'I haven't even begun to fight yet.'

  He approached the spinie slowly, cautiously. He circled, watching for his opening. So did the spinie. Olaf feinted and the spinie ducked. Then the spinie reared and Olaf ducked.

  Olaf kept remembering new profanity all the time. The husky 'Ur-r-r-r-r' that came out the spinie's throat seemed to lack the brotherly spirit that is usually associated with Christmas.

  There was a sudden, swishing sound. Olaf felt something collide with his skull, just behind his left ear. This time he turned a back somersault and landed on the nape of his neck. There was a chorused whinny from the onlookers, and the spinie waved his tail triumphantly.

  Olaf got rid of the impression that he was floating through a star-studden unlimited space and wavered to his feet,

  'Listen,' he objected, 'using your tail is a foul!'

  He l
eaped back as the tail shot forward again, then flung himself forward in a diving tackle. He grabbed at the spinie's feet and felt the animal come down on his back with an indignant yelp.

  Now it was a case of Earth muscles against Ganymedan muscles, and Olaf became a man of brute strength. He struggled up, and the spinie found himself slung over the stranger's shoulders.

  The spinie objected vociferously and tried to prove his objections by a judicious whip of the tail. But he was in an inconvenient position and the stroke whistled harmlessly over Olaf's head.

  The other spinies made way for the Earthman with saddened expressions. Evidently they were all good friends of the captured animal and hated to see him lose a fight. They returned to their meal in philosophic resignation, plainly convinced that it was kismet.

  On the other side of the rocky ledge, Olaf reached his prepared cave. There was the briefest of scrambling struggles before he managed to sit down hard on the spinie's head and put enough knots into rope to hold him there.

  A few hours later, when he had coralled his eighth spiny-back, he possessed the technique that comes of long practice. He could have given a Terrestrial cowboy valuable pointers on throwing a maverick. Also, he could have given a Terrestrial stevedore lessons in simple and compound swearing.

  'Twas the night before Christmas - and all through the Ganymedan Dome there was deafening noise and bewildering excitement, like an exploding nova equipped for sound. Around the rusty sleigh, mounted on its huge platform of purplewood, five Earthmen were staging a battle royal with a spinie.

  The spinie had definite views about most things, and one of his stubbornest and most definite views was that he would never go where he didn't want to go. He made that clear by flailing one head, one tail, three spines and four legs in every possible direction, with all possible force.

  But the Earthmen insisted, and not gently. Despite loud, agonized squeaks, the spinie was lifted onto the platform, hauled into place and harnessed into hopeless helplessness.