Short Stories Vol.1

by Isaac Asimov

  Omani shook his head. "Everyone who comes here insists it's a mistake. I thought you'd passed that stage."

  "Don't call it a stage," said George violently. "In my case, it's a fact. I've told you-"

  "You've told me, but in your heart you know no one made any mistake as far as you were concerned."

  "Because no one will admit it? You think any of them would admit a mistake unless they were forced to?-Well, I'll force them."

  It was May that was doing this to George; it was Olympics month. He felt it bring the old wildness back and he couldn't stop it. He didn't want to stop it. He had been in danger of forgetting.

  He said, "I was going tobe aComputerProgrammerandlcanbeone. I could be one today, regardless of what they say analysis shows." He pounded his mattress. "They're wrong. They must be."

  "The analysts are never wrong."

  "They must be. Do you doubt my intelligence?"

  "Inteffigence hasn't one thing to do with it. Haven't you been told that often enough? Can't you understand that?"

  George rolled away, lay on his back and stared somberly at the ceiling.

  "What did you want to be, Hali?"

  "I had no fixed plans. Hydropomcist would have suited me, I suppose."

  "Did you think you could make it?"

  "I wasn't sure."

  George had never asked personal questions of Omani before. It struck him as queer, almost unnatural, that other people had had ambitions and ended here. Hydroponicist!

  He said, "Did you think you'd make this?"

  "No, but here I am just the same."

  "And you're satisfied. Really, really satisfied. You're happy. You love it. You wouldn't be anywhere else."

  Slowly, Omani got to his feet. Carefully, he began to unmake his bed. He said, "George, you're a hard case. You're knocking yourself out because you won't accept the facts about yourself. George, you're here in what you call the House, but I've never heard you give it its full title. Say it, George, say it. Then go to bed and sleep this off."

  George gritted his teeth and showed them. He choked out, "No!"

  "Then I will," said Omani, and he did. He shaped each syllable carefully.

  George was bitterly ashamed at the sound of it. He turned his head away.

  For most of the first eighteen years of his life, George Platen had headed firmly in one direction, that of Registered Computer Programmer. There were those in his crowd who spoke wisely of Spationautics, Refrigeration Technology, Transportation Control, and even Administration. But George held firm.

  He argued relative merits as vigorously as any of them, and why not? Education Day loomed ahead of them and was the great fact of their existence. It approached steadily, as fixed and certain as the calendar- the first day of November of the year following one's eighteenth birthday.

  After that day, there were other topics of conversation. One could discuss with others some detail of the profession, or the virtues of one's wife and children, or the fate of one's space-polo team, or one's experience in the Olympics. Before Education Day, however, there was only one topic that

  unfailingly and unwearyingly held everyone's interest, and that was Education Day.

  "What are you going for? Think you'll make it? Heck, that's no good. Look at the records; quota's been cut. Logistics now-"

  Or Hypermechanics now- Or Communications now- Or Gravitics now- Especially Gravitics at the moment. Everyone had been talking about Gravitics in the few years just before George's Education Day because of the development of the Gravitic power engine.

  Any world within ten light-years of a dwarf star, everyone said, would give its eyeteeth for any kind of Registered Gravitics Engineer.

  The thought of that never bothered George. Sure it would; all the eyeteeth it could scare up. But George had also heard what had happened before in a newly developed technique. Rationalization and simplification followed in a flood. New models each year; new types of gravitic engines; new principles. Then all those eyeteeth gentlemen would find themselves Out of date and superseded by later models with later educations. The first group would then have to settle down to unskilled labor or ship out to some backwoods world that wasn't quite caught up yet.

  Now Computer Programmers were in steady demand year after year, century after century. The demand never reached wild peaks; there was never a howling bull market for Programmers; but the demand climbed steadily as new worlds opened up and as older worlds grew more complex.

  He had argued with Stubby Trevelyan about that constantly. As best friends, their arguments had to be constant and vitriolic and, of course, neither ever persuaded or was persuaded.

  But then Trevelyan had had a father who was a Registered Metallurgist and had actually served on one of the Outworlds, and a grandfather who had also been a Registered Metallurgist. He himself was intent on becoming a Registered Metallurgist almost as a matter of family right and was firmly convinced that any other profession was a shadeless than respectable.

  "There'll always be metal," he said, "and there's an accomplishment in molding alloys to specification and watching structures grow. Now what's a Programmer going to be doing. Sitting at a coder all day long, feeding some fool mile-long machine."

  Even at sixteen, George had learned to be practical. He said simply, "There'll be a million Metallurgists put out along with you."

  "Because it's good. A good profession. The best."

  "But you get crowded out, Stubby. You can be way back in line. Any world can tape out its own Metallurgists, and the market for advanced Earth models isn't so big. And it's mostly the small worlds that want them. You know what percent of the turnout of Registered Metallurgists get tabbed for worlds with a Grade A rating. I looked it up. It's just 13.3 percent. That means you'll have seven chances in eight of being stuck in some world that

  just about has running water. You may even be stuck on Earth; 2.3 percent are."

  Trevelyan said beffigerently, "There's no disgrace in staying on Earth. Earth needs technicians, too. Good ones." His grandfather had been an Earth-bound Metallurgist, and Trevelyan lifted his finger to his upper lip and dabbed at an as yet nonexistent mustache.

  George knew about Trevelyan's grandfather and, considering the Earthbound position of his own ancestry, was in no mood to sneer. He said diplomatically, "No intellectual disgrace. Of course not. But it's nice to get into a Grade A world, isn't it?

  "Now you take Programmers. Only the Grade A worlds have the kind of computers that really need first-class Programmers so they're the only ones in the market. And Programmer tapes are complicated and hardly any one fits. They need more Programmers than their own population can supply. It's just a matter of statistics. There's one first-class Programmer per million, say. A world needs twenty and has a population often million, they have to come to Earth for five to fifteen Programmers. Right?

  "And you know how many Registered Computer Programmers went to Grade A planets last year? I'll tell you. Every last one. If you're a Programmer, you're a picked man. Yes, sir."

  Trevelyan frowned. "If only one in a million makes it, what makes you think you'll make it?"

  George said guardedly, "I'll make it."

  He never dared tell anyone; not Trevelyan; not his parents; of exactly what he was doing that made him so confident. But he wasn't worried. He was simply confident (that was the worst of the memories he had in the hopeless days afterward). He was as blandly confident as the average eight-year-old kid approaching Reading Day-that childhood preview of Education Day.

  Of course, Reading Day had been different. Partly, there was the simple fact of childhood. A boy of eight takes many extraordinary things in stride. One day you can't read and the next day you can. That's just the way things are. Like the sun shining.

  And then not so much depended upon it. There were no recruiters just ahead, waiting and jostling for the lists and scores on the coming Olympics. A boy or girl who goes through the Reading Day is just someone who has ten more years of und
ifferentiated living upon Earth's crawling surface; just someone who returns to his family with one new ability.

  By the time Education Day caine, ten years later, George wasn't even sure of most of the details of his own Reading Day.

  •Most clearly of all, he remembered it to be a dismal September day with a mild rain falling. (September for Reading Day; November for Education

  Day; May for Olympics. They made nursery rhymes out of it.) George had

  dressed by the wall lights, with his parents far more excited than he himself was. His father was a Registered Pipe Fitter and had found his occupation on earth. This fact had always been a humiliation to him, although, of course, as anyone could see plainly, most of each generation must stay on Earth in the nature of things.

  There had to be farmers and miners and even technicians on Earth. It was only the late-model, high-specialty professions that were in demand on the Outworlds, and only a few millions a year out of Earth's eight billion population could be exported. Every man and woman on Earth couldn't be among that group.

  But every man and woman could hope that at least one of his children could be one, and Platen, Senior, was certainly no exception. It was obvious to him (and, to be sure, to others as well) that George was notably intelligent and quick-minded. He would be bound to do well and he would have to, as he was an only child. If George didn't end on an Outworld, they would have to wait for grandchildren before a next chance would come along, and that was too far in the future to be much consolation.

  Reading Day would not prove much, of course, but it would be the only indication they would have before the big day itself. Every parent on Earth would be listening to the quality of reading when his child came home with it; listening for any particularly easy flow of words and building that into certain omens of the future. There were few families that didn't have at least one hopeful who, from Reading Day on, was the great hope because of the way he handled his trisyllabics.

  Dimly, George was aware of the cause of his parents' tension, and if there was any anxiety in his young heart that drizzly morning, it was only the fear that his father's hopeful expression might fade out when he returned home with his reading.

  The children met in the large assembly room of the town's Education hall. All over Earth, in millions of local halls, throughout that month, similar groups of children would be meeting. George felt depressed by the grayness of the room and by the other children, strained and stiff in unaccustomed finery.

  Automatically, George did as all the rest of the children did. He found the small clique that represented the children on his floor of the apartment house and joined them.

  Trevelyan, who lived immediately next door, still wore his hair childishly long and was years removed from the sideburns and thin, reddish mustache that he was to grow as soon as he was physiologically capable of

  it.

  Trevelyan (to whom George was then known as Jaw-joe) said, "Bet you're scared."

  "I am not," said George. Then, confidentially, "My folks got a hunk of printing up on the dresser in my room, and when! come home, I'm going to read it for them." (George's main suffering at the moment lay in the fact

  that he didn't quite know where to put his hands. He had been warned not to scratch his head or rub his ears or pick his nose or put his hands into his pockets. This eliminated almost every possibility.)

  Trevelyan put his hands in his pockets and said, "My father isn't worried."

  Trevelyan, Senior, had been a Metallurgist on Diporia for nearly seven years, which gave him a superior social status in his neighborhood even though he had retired and returned to Earth.

  Earth discouraged these re-immigrants because of population problems, but a small trickle did return. For one thing the cost of living was lower on Earth, and what was a trifling annuity on Diporia, say, was a comfortable income on Earth. Besides, there were always men who found more satisfaction in displaying their success before the friends and scenes of their childhood than before all the rest of the Universe besides.

  Trevelyan, Senior, further explained that if he stayed on Diporia, so would his children, and Diporia was a one-spaceship world. Back on Earth, his kids could end anywhere, even Novia.

  Stubby Trevelyan had picked up that item early. Even before Reading Day, his conversation was based on the carelessly assumed fact that his ultimate home would be in Novia.

  George, oppressed by thoughts of the other's future greatness and his own small-time contrast, was driven to beffigerent defense at once.

  "My father isn't worried either. He just wants to hear me read because he knows I'll be good. I suppose your father would just as soon not hear you because he knows you'll be all wrong."

  "I wifi not be all wrong. Reading is nothing. On Novia, I'll hire people to read to me."

  "Because you won't be able to read yourself, on account of you're dumb!"

  "Then how come I'll be on Novia?"

  And George, driven, made the great denial. "Who says you'll be on Novia? Bet you don't go anywhere."

  Stubby Trevelyan reddened. "I won't be a Pipe Fitterlike yonrold man."

  "Take that back, you dumbhead."

  "You take that back."

  They stood nose to nose, not wanting to fight but relieved at having something familiar to do in this strange place. Furthermore, now that George had curled his hands into fists and lifted them before his face, the problem of what to do with his hands was, at least temporarily, solved. Other children gathered round excitedly.

  But then it all ended when a woman's voice sounded loudly over the public address system. There was instant silence everywhere. George dropped his fists and forgot Trevelyan.

  "Children," said the voice, "we are going to call out your names. As each child is called, he or she is to go to one of the men waiting along the

  side walls. Do you see them? They are wearing red unifonns so they will be easy to find. The girls will go to the right. The boys will go to the left. Now look about and see which man in red is nearest to you-"

  George found his man at a glance and waited for his name to be called off. He had not been introduced before this to the sophistications of the alphabet, and the length of time it took to reach his own name grew disturbing.

  The crowd of children thinned; little rivulets made their way to each of the red-clad guides.

  When the name "George Platen" was finally called, his sense of relief was exceeded only by the feeling of pure gladness at the fact that Stubby Trevelyan still stood in his place, uncalled.

  George shouted back over his shoulder as he left, "Yay, Stubby, maybe they don't want you."

  That moment of gaiety quickly left. He was herded into a line and directed down corridors in the company of strange children. They all looked at one another, large-eyed and concerned, but beyond a snuffling, "Quitcher pushing" and "Hey, watch out" there was no conversation.

  They were handed little slips of paper which they were told must remain with them. George stared at his curiously. Little black marks of different shapes. He knew it to be printing but how could anyone make words out of it? He couldn't imagine.

  He was told to strip; he and four other boys who were all that now remained together. All the new clothes came shucking off and four eightyear-olds stood naked and small, shivering more out of embarrassment than cold. Medical technicians came past, probing them, testing them with odd instruments, pricking them for blood. Each took the little cards and made additional marks on them with little black rods that produced the marks, all neatly lined up, with great speed. George stared at the new marks, but they were no more comprehensible than the old. The children were ordered back into their clothes.

  They sat on separate little chairs then and waited again. Names were called again and "George Platen" came third.

  He moved into a large room, filled with frightening instruments with knobs and glassy panels in front. There was a desk in the very center, and behind it a man sat, his eyes on the papers piled before
him.

  He said, "George Platen?"

  "Yes, sir," said George in a shaky whisper. All this waiting and all this going here and there was making him nervous. He wished it were over.

  The man behind the desk said, "I am Dr. Lloyed, George. How are you?"

  The doctor didn't look up as he spoke. It was as though he had said those words over and over again and didn't have to look up any more.

  "I'm all right."

  "Are you afraid, George?"

  "N-no, sir," said George, sounding afraid even in his own ears.

  "That's good," said the doctor, "because there's nothing to be afraid of, you know. Let's see, George. It says here on your card that your father is named Peter and that he's a Registered Pipe Fitter and your mother is named Amy and is a Registered Home Technician. Is that right?"

  "Y-yes, sir."

  "And your birthday is February 13, and you had an ear infection about a year ago. Right?"

  ''Yes, sir."

  "Do you know how I know all these things?"

  "It's on the card, Ithink, sir."

  "That's right." The doctor looked up at George for the first time and smiled. He showed even teeth and looked much younger than George's father. Some of George's nervousness vanished.

  The doctor passed the card to George. "Do you know what all those things there mean, George?"

  Although George knew he did not he was startled by the sudden request into looking at the card as though he might understand now through some sudden stroke of fate. But they were just marks as before and he passed the card back. "No, sir."

  "Why not?"

  George felt a sudden pang of suspicion concerning the sanity of this doctor. Didn't he know why not?

  George said, "I can't read, sir."

  "Would you like to read?"

  ''Yes, sir.''

  "Why, George?"

  George stared, appalled. No one had ever asked him that. He had no answer. He said falteringly, "I don't know, sir."

  "Printed information will direct you all through your life. There is so much you'll have to know even after Education Day. Cards like this one will tell you. Books will tell you. Television screens will tell you. Printing will tell you such useful things and such interesting things that not being able to read would be as bad as not being able to see. Do you understand?"