Short Stories Vol.1

by Isaac Asimov

  "Satisfied?"

  "No, but I'm helpless."

  Gabriel smiled. A trumpet appeared in space, in shape like an earthly trumpet, but its burnished gold extended from Earth to sun. It was raised to Gabriel's glittering beautiful lips.

  "Can't you let me have a little time to take this up with the Council?" asked Etheriel desperately.

  "What good would it do you? The act is countersigned by the Chief, and you know that an act countersigned by the Chief is absolutely irrevocable.

  And now, if you don't mind, it is almost the stipulated second and I want to be done with this as I have other matters of much greater moment on my mind. Would you step out of my way a little? Thank you."

  Gabriel blew, and a clean, thin sound of perfect pitch and crystalline delicacy filled all the universe to the furthest star. As it sounded, there was a tiny moment of stasis as thin as the line separating past from future, and then the fabric of worlds collapsed upon itself and matter was gathered back into the primeval chaos from which it had once sprung at a word. The stars and nebulae were gone, and the cosmic dust, the sun, the planets, the moon; all, all, all except Earth itself, which spun as before in a universe now completely empty.

  The Last Trump had sounded.

  R. E. Mann, (known to all who knew him simply as R.E.) eased himself into the offices: of the Billikan Bitsies factory and stared somberly at the tall man (gaunt but with a certain faded elegance about his neat gray mustache) who bent intently over a sheaf of papers on his desk.

  R.E. looked at his wristwatch, which still said 7:01, having ceased running at that time. It was Eastern standard time, of course; 12:01 P.M. Greenwich time. His dark brown eyes, staring sharply out over a pair of pronounced cheekbones, caught those of the other.

  For a moment, the tall man stared at him blankly. Then he said, "Can I do anything for you?"

  "Horatio J. Billikan, I presume? Owner of this place?"

  "Yes."

  "I'm R. E. Mann and I couldn't help but stop in when I finally found someone at work. Don't you know what today is?"

  "Today?"

  "It's Resurrection Day."

  "Oh, that! I know it. I heard the blast. Fit to wake the dead. . . . That's rather a good one, don't you think?" He chuckled for a moment, then went on. "It woke me at seven in the morning. I nudged my wife. She slept through it, of "course. I always said she would. 'It's the Last Trump, dear,' I said. Hortense, that's my wife, said, 'All right,' and went back to sleep. I bathed, shaved, dressed and came to work."

  "But why?'"

  "Why not?"'

  "None of yoour workers have come in."

  "No, poor sjouls. They'll take a holiday just at first. You've got to expect that. After all, it isn't every day that the world comes to an end. Frankly, it's just as well. It: gives me a chance to straighten out my personal correspondence without interruptions. Telephone hasn't rung once."

  He stood u;,p and went to the window. "It's a great improvement. No blinding sun amy more and the snow's gone. There's a pleasant light and a

  pleasant warmth. Very good arrangement. . . . But now, if you don't mind, I'm rather busy, so if you'll excuse me-"

  A great, hoarse voice interrupted with a, "Just a minute, Horatio," and a gentleman, looking remarkably like Billikan in a somewhat craggier way, followed his prominent nose into the office and struck an attitude of offended dignity which was scarcely spoiled by the fact that he was quite naked. "May I ask why you've shut down Bitsies?"

  Billikan looked faint. "Good Heavens," he said, "it's Father. Wherever did you come from?"

  "From the graveyard," roared Billikan, Senior. "Where on Earth else? They're coming out of the ground there by the dozens. Every one of them naked. Women, too."

  Billikan cleared his throat. "I'll get you some clothes, Father. I'll bring them to you from home."

  "Never mind that. Business first. Business first."

  R.E. came out of his musing. "Is everyone coming out of their graves at the same time, sir?"

  He stared curiously at Billikan, Senior, as he spoke. The old man's appearance was one of robust age. His cheeks were furrowed but glowed with health. His age, R.E. decided, was exactly what it was at the moment of his death, but his body was as it should have been at that age if it functioned ideally.

  Billikan, Senior, said, "No, sir, they are not. The newer graves are coming up first. Pottersby died five years before me and came up about five minutes after me. Seeing him made me decide to leave. I had had enough of him when . . . And that reminds me." He brought his fist down on the desk, a very solid fist. "There were no taxis, no busses. Telephones weren't working. I had to walk. I had to walk twenty miles."

  "Like that?" asked his son in a faint and appalled voice.

  Billikan, Senior, looked down upon his bare skin with casual approval. "It's warm. Almost everyone else is naked. . . . Anyway, son, I'm not here to make small talk. Why is the factory shut down?"

  "It isn't shut down. It's a special occasion."

  "Special occasion, my foot. You call union headquarters and tell them Resurrection Day isn't in the contract. Every worker is being docked for every minute he's off the job."

  Billikan's lean face took on a stubborn look as he peered at his father. "I will not. Don't forget, now, you're no longer in charge of this plant. I am."

  "Oh, you are? By what right?"

  "By your will."

  "All right. Now here I am and I void my will."

  "You can't, Father. You're dead. You may not look dead, but I have witnesses. I have the doctor's certificate. I have receipted bills from the undertaker. I can get testimony from the pallbearers."

  Billikan, Senior, stared at his son, sat down, placed his arm over the back of the chair, crossed his iegs and said, "If it conies to that, we're all dead, aren't we? The world's come to an end, hasn't it?"

  "But you've been declared legally dead and 1 haven't."

  "Oh, we'll change that, son. There are going to be more of us than of you and votes count."

  Billikan, Junior, tapped the desk firmly with the flat of his hand and flushed slightly. "Father, I hate to bring up this particular point, but you force me to. May I remind you that by now 1 am sure that Mother is sitting at home waiting for you; that she probably had to walk the streets-uh- naked, too; and that she probably isn't in a good humor."

  Billikan, Senior, went ludicrously pale. "Good Heavens!"

  "And you know she always wanted you to retire."

  Billikan, Senior, came to a quick decision. "I'm not going home. Why, this is a nightmare. Aren't there any limits to this Resurrection business? It's -it's-it's sheer anarchy. There's such a thing as overdoing it. I'm just not going home."

  At which point, a somewhat rotund gentleman with a smooth, pink face and fluffy white sideburns (much like pictures of Martin Van Buren) stepped in and said coldly, "Good day."

  "Father," said Billikan, Senior.

  "Grandfather," said Billikan, Junior.

  Billikan, Grandsenior, looked at Billikan, Junior, with disapproval. "If you are my grandson," he said, "you've aged considerably and the change has not improved you."

  Billikan, Junior, smiled with dyspeptic feebleness, and made no answer.

  Billikan, Grandsenior, did not seem to require one. He said, "Now if you two will bring me up to date on the business, I will resume my managerial function."

  There were two simultaneous answers, and Billikan, Grandsenior's, florid-ity waxed dangerously as he beat the ground peremptorily with an imaginary cane and barked a retort.

  R.E. said, "Gentlemen."

  He raised his voice. "Gentlemen!"

  He shrieked at full long-power, "GENTLEMEN!"

  Conversation snapped off sharply and all turned to look at him. R.E.'s angular face, his oddly attractive eyes, his sardonic mouth seemed suddenly to dominate the gathering.

  He said, "I don't understand this argument. What is it that you manufacture?"

  "Bitsies," said Billikan,
Junior.

  "Which, I take it, are a packaged cereal breakfast food-"

  "Teeming with energy in every golden, crispy flake-" cried Billikan, Junior.

  "Covered with honey-sweet, crystalline sugar; a confection and a food- growled Billikan, Senior.

  "To tempt the most jaded appetite," roared Billikan, Grandsenior.

  "Exactly," said R.E. "What appetite?"

  They stared stolidly at him. "I beg your pardon," said Billikan, Junior.

  "Are any of you hungry?" asked R.E. "I'm not."

  "What is this fool maundering about?" demanded Billikan, Grandsenior, angrily. His invisible cane would have been prodding R.E. in the navel had it (the cane, not the navel) existed.

  R.E. said, "I'm trying to tell you that no one will ever eat again. It is the hereafter, and food is unnecessary."

  The expressions on the faces of the Billikans needed no interpretation. It was obvious that they had tried their own appetites and found them wanting.

  Billikan, Junior, said ashenly, "Ruined!"

  Billikan, Grandsenior, pounded the floor heavily and noiselessly with his imaginary cane. "This is confiscation of property without due process of law.

  I'll sue. I'll sue."

  "Quite unconstitutional," agreed Billikan, Senior.

  "If you can find anyone to sue, I wish you all good fortune," said R.E. agreeably. "And now if you'll excuse me I think I'll walk toward th" graveyard."

  He put his hat on his head and walked out the door.

  Etheriel, his vortices quivering, stood before the glory of a six-winged

  cherub.,

  The cherub said, "If I understand you, your particular universe r"as been

  dismantled." 111 "Exactly."

  1 "Well, surely, now, you don't expect me to set it up again?" "'*• "I don't expect you to do anything," said Etheriel, "except to arrange an appointment for me with the Chief."

  The cherub gestured his respect instantly at hearing the word. Two wing-tips covered his feet, two his eyes and two his mouth. He restored hi tnself to normal and said, "The Chief is quite busy. There are a myriad score of matters for him to decide."

  "Who denies that? I merely point out that if matters stand as *ney are now, there will have been a universe in which Satan will have won *he final victory."

  "Satan?"

  "It's the Hebrew word for Adversary," said Etheriel impatiently. 1 could say Ahriman, which is the Persian word. In any case, I mean the Adversary."

  The cherub said, "But what will an interview with the Chief accomplish? The document authorizing the Last Trump was countersigned by the Chief,

  and you know that it is irrevocable for that reason. The Chief would never limit his own omnipotence by canceling a word he had spoken in his official capacity."

  "Is that final? You will not arrange an appointment?"

  "I cannot."

  Etheriel said, "In that case, 1 shall seek out the Chief without one. I will invade the Primum Mobile. If it means my destruction, so be it." He gathered his energies. . . .

  The cherub murmured in horror, "Sacrilege!" and there was a faint gathering of thunder as Etheriel sprang upward and was gone.

  R. E. Mann passed through the crowding streets and grew used to the sight of people bewildered, disbelieving, apathetic, in makeshift clothing or, usually, none at all.

  A girl, who looked about twelve, leaned over an iron gate, one foot on a crossbar, swinging it to and fro, and said as he passed, "Hello, mister."

  "Hello," said R.E. The girl was dressed. She was not one of the-uh- returnees.

  The girl said, "We got a new baby in our house. She's a sister I once had. Mommy is crying and they sent me here."

  R.E. said, "Well, well," passed through the gate and up the paved walk to the house, one with modest pretensions to middle-class gentility. He rang the bell, obtained no answer, opened the door and walked in.

  He followed the sound of sobbing and knocked at an inner door. A stout man of about fifty with little hair and a comfortable supply of cheek and chin looked out at him with mingled astonishment and resentment.

  "Who are you?"

  R.E. removed his hat. "I thought I might be able to help. Your little girl outside-"

  A woman looked up at him hopelessly from a chair by a double bed. Her hair was beginning to gray. Her face was puffed and unsightly with weeping and the veins stood out bluely on the back of her hands. A baby lay on the bed, plump and naked. It kicked its feet languidly and its sightless baby eyes turned aimlessly here and there.

  "This is my baby," said the woman. "She was born twenty-three years ago in this house and she died when she was ten days old in this house. I wanted her back so much."

  "And now you have her," said R.E.

  "But it's too late," cried the woman vehemently. "I've had three other children. My oldest girl is married; my son is in the army. I'm too old to have a baby now. And even if-even if-"

  Her features worked in a heroic effort to keep back the tears and failed.

  Her husband said with flat tonelessness, "It's not a real baby. It doesn't

  cry. It doesn't soil itself. It won't take milk. What will we do? It'll never grow. It'll always be a baby."

  R.E. shook his head. "I don't know," he said. "I'm afraid I can do nothing to help."

  Quietly he left. Quietly he thought of the hospitals. Thousands of babies must be appearing at each one.

  Place them in racks, he thought, sardonically. Stack them like cordwood. They need no care. Their little bodies are merely each the custodian of an indestructible spark of life.

  He passed two little boys of apparently equal chronological age, perhaps ten. Their voices were shrill. The body of one glistened white in the sunless light so he was a returnee. The other was not. R.E. paused to listen.

  The bare one said, "I had scarlet fever."

  A spark of envy at the other's claim to notoriety seemed to enter the clothed one's voice. "Gee."

  "That's why I died."

  "Gee. Did they use pensillun or auromysim?"

  "What?"

  "They're medicines."

  "I never heard of them."

  "Boy, you never heard of much."

  "I know as much as you."

  "Yeah? Who's President of the United States?"

  "Warren Harding, that's who."

  "You're crazy. It's Eisenhower."

  "Who's he?"

  "Ever see television?"

  "What's that?"

  The clothed boy hooted earsplittingly. "It's something you turn on and see comedians, movies, cowboys, rocket rangers, anything you want."

  "Let's see it."

  There was a pause and the boy from the present said, "It ain't working."

  The other boy shrieked his scorn. "You mean it ain't never worked. You made it all up." f. R.E. shrugged and passed on.

  The crowds thinned as he left town and neared the cemetery. Those who were left were all walking into town, all were nude.

  A man stopped him; a cheerful man with pinkish skin and white hair who had the marks of pince-nez on either side of the bridge of his nose, but no glasses to go with them.

  "Greetings, friend."

  "Hello," said R.E.

  "You're the first man with clothing that I've seen. You were alive when the trumpet blew, I suppose."

  "Yes, I was."

  "Well, isn't this great? Isn't this joyous and delightful? Come rejoice with me."

  "You like this, do you?" said R.E.

  "Like it? A pure and radiant joy fills me. We are surrounded by the light of the first day; the light that glowed softly and serenely before sun, moon and stars were made. (You know your Genesis, of course.) There is the comfortable warmth that must have been one of the highest blisses of Eden; not enervating heat or assaulting cold. Men and women walk the streets unclothed and are not ashamed. All is well, my friend, all is well."

  R.E. said, "Well, it's a fact that I haven't seemed to mind the feminine display all abou
t."

  "Naturally not," said the other. "Lust and sin as we remember it in our earthly existence no longer exists. Let me introduce myself, friend, as I was in earthly times. My name on Earth was Winthrop Hester. I was bom in 1812 and died in 1884 as we counted time then. Through the last forty years of my life I labored to bring my little flock to the Kingdom and I go now to count the ones I have won."

  R.E. regarded the ex-minister solemnly, "Surely there has been no Judgment yet."

  "Why not? The Lord sees within a man and in the same instant that all things of the world ceased, all men were judged and we are the saved."

  "There must be a great many saved."

  "On the contrary, my son, those saved are but as a remnant."

  "A pretty large remnant. As near as 1 can make out, everyone's coming back to life. I've seen some pretty unsavory characters back in town as alive as you are."

  "Last-minute repentance-"

  "/ never repented."

  "Of what, my son?"

  "Of the fact that I never attended church."

  Winthrop Hester stepped back hastily. "Were you ever baptized?"

  "Not to my knowledge."

  Winthrop Hester trembled. "Surely you believe in God?"

  "Well," said R.E., "I believed a lot of things about Him that would probably startle you."

  Winthrop Hester turned and hurried off in great agitation.

  In what remained of his walk to the cemetery (R.E. had no way of estimating time, nor did it occur to him to try) no one else stopped him. He found the cemetery itself all but empty, its trees and grass gone (it occurred to him that there was nothing green in the world; the ground everywhere was a hard, featureless, grainless gray; the sky a luminous white), but its headstones still standing.

  On one of these sat a lean and furrowed man with long, black hair on his

  head and a mat of it, shorter, though more impressive, on his chest and upper arms.

  He called out in a deep voice, "Hey, there, you!"

  R.E. sat down on a neighboring headstone. "Hello."

  Black-hair said, "Your clothes don't look right. What year was it when it happened?"

  "1957."

  "1 died in 1807. Funnyl I expected to be one pretty hot boy right about now, with the 'tamal flames shooting up my innards."