by Isaac Asimov
'Professor Deering! This is my room. If you are here to bully me, I'll ask you to leave. If you don't go, I'll have you put out.'
'Do you intend to continue this . . . this persecution?'
'I have not been persecuting you. I don't know you, sir.'
'Aren't you the Roger Toomey who wrote me a letter concerning a case of levitation he wanted me to investigate?'
Roger stared at the man. 'What letter is this?'
'Do you deny it?'
'Of course I do. What are you talking about? Have you got the letter?'
Professor Deering's lips compressed. 'Never mind that. Do you deny you were suspending yourself on wires at this afternoon's sessions?'
'On wires? I don't follow you at all.'
'You were levitating!'
'Would you please leave, Professor Deering? I don't think you're well.'
.The physicist raised his voice. 'Do you deny you were levitating?'
'I think you're mad. Do you mean to say I made magician's arrangements in your auditorium? I was never in it before today and when I arrived you were already present. Did you find wires or anything of the sort after I left?'
'I don't know how you did it and I don't care. Do you deny you were levitating?'
'Why, of course I do.'
'I saw you. Why are you lying?'
'You saw me levitate? Professor Deering, will you tell me how that's possible? I suppose your knowledge of gravitational forces is enough to tell you that true levitation is a meaningless concept except in outer space. Are you playing some sort of joke on me?'
'Good heavens,' said Deering in a shrill voice, 'why won't you tell the truth?'
'I am. Do you suppose that by stretching out my hand and making a mystic pass ... so ... I can go sailing off into air?' And Roger did so, his head brushing the ceiling.
Deering's head jerked upwards. 'Ah! There . . . there--'
Roger returned to earth, smiling. 'You can't be serious.'
'You did it again. You just did it.'
'Did what, sir?'
'You levitated. You just levitated. You can't deny it.'
Roger's eyes grew serious. 'I think you're sick, sir.'
'I know what I saw.'
'Perhaps you need a rest. Overwork--'
'It was not a hallucination.'
'Would you care for a drink?' Roger walked to his suitcase while Deering followed his footsteps with bulging eyes. The toes of his shoes touched air two inches from the ground and went no lower.
Deering sank into the chair Roger had vacated.
'Yes, please,' he said, weakly.
Roger gave him the whisky bottle, watched the other drink, then gag a bit. 'How do you feel now?'
'Look here,' said Deering, 'have you discovered a way of neutralizing gravity?'
Roger stared. 'Get hold of yourself, Professor. If I had antigravity, I wouldn't use it to play games on you. I'd be in Washington. I'd be a military secret. I'd be - well, I wouldn't be here! Surely all this is obvious to you.'
Deering jumped to his feet. 'Do you intend sitting in on the remaining sessions?'
'Of course.'
Deering nodded, jerked his hat down upon his head and hurried out.
For the next three days, Professor Deering did not preside over the seminar sessions. No reason for his absence was given. Roger Toomey, caught between hope and apprehension, sat in the body of the audience and tried to remain inconspicuous. In this, he was not entirely successful. Deering's public attack had made him notorious while his own strong defence had given him a kind of David versus Goliath popularity.
Roger returned to his hotel room Thursday night after an unsatisfactory dinner and remained standing in the doorway, one foot over the threshold. Professor Deering was gazing at him from within. And another man, a grey fedora shoved well back on his forehead, was seated on Roger's bed.
It was the stranger who spoke. 'Come inside, Toomey.'
Roger did so. 'What's going on?'
The stranger opened his wallet and presented a cellophane window to Roger. He said, 'I'm Cannon of the FBI.'
Roger said, 'You have influence with the government, I take it, Professor Deering.'
'A little,' said Deering.
Roger said, 'Well, am I under arrest? What's my crime?'
'Take it easy,' said Cannon. 'We've been collecting some data on you, Toomey. Is this your signature?'
He held a letter out far enough for Roger to see, but not to snatch. It was the letter Roger had written to Deering which the latter had sent on to Morton.
'Yes,' said Roger.
'How about this one?' The federal agent had a sheaf of letters.
Roger realized that he must have collected every one he had sent out, minus those that had been torn up. 'They're all mine,' he said, wearily.
Deering snorted.
Cannon said, 'Professor Deering tells us that you can float.'
'Float? What the devil do you mean, float?'
'Float in the air,' said Cannon, stolidly.
'Do you believe anything as crazy as that?'
'I'm not here to believe or not to believe, Dr Toomey,' said Cannon. 'I'm an agent of the government of the United States and I've got an assignment to carry out. I'd co-operate if I were you.'
'How can I co-operate in something like this? If I came to you and told you that Professor Deering could float in air, you'd have me flat on a psychiatrist's couch in no time.'
Cannon said, 'Professor Deering has been examined by a psychiatrist at his own request. However, the government has been in the habit of listening very seriously to Professor Deering for a number of years now. Besides, I might as well tell you that we have independent evidence.'
'Such as?'
'A group of students at your college have seen you float. Also, a woman who was once secretary to the head of your department. We have statements from all of them.'
Roger said, 'What kind of statements? Sensible ones that you would be willing to put into the record and show to my congressman?'
Professor Deering interrupted anxiously, 'Dr Toomey, what do you gain by denying the fact that you can levitate? Your own dean admits that you've done something of the sort. He has told me that he will inform you officially that your appointment will be terminated at the end of the academic year. He wouldn't do that for nothing.'
'That doesn't matter,' said Roger.
'But why won't you admit I saw you levitate?'
'Why should I?'
Cannon said, 'I'd like to point out, Dr Toomey, that if you have any device for counteracting gravity, it would be of great importance to your government.'
'Really? I suppose you have investigated my background for possible disloyalty.'
'The investigation', said the agent, 'is proceeding.'
'All right,' said Roger, 'let's take a hypothetical case. Suppose I admitted I could levitate. Suppose I didn't know how I did it. Suppose I had nothing to give the government but my body, and an insoluble problem.'
'How can you know it's insoluble?' asked Deering, eagerly.
'I once asked you to study such a phenomenon,' pointed out Roger, mildly. 'You refused.'
'Forget that. Look,' Deering spoke rapidly, urgently. 'You don't have a position at the moment. I can offer you one in my department as Associate Professor of Physics, Your teaching duties will be nominal. Full-time research on levitation. What about it?'
'It sounds attractive,' said Roger.
'I think it's safe to say that unlimited government funds will be available.'
'What do I have to do? Just admit I can levitate?'
'I know you can. I saw you. I want you to do it now for Mr Cannon.'
Roger's legs moved upwards and his body stretched out horizontally at the level of Cannon's head. He turned to one side and seemed to rest on his right elbow.
Cannon's hat fell backwards on to the bed.
He yelled, 'He floats.'
Deering was almost incoherent with excitement.
'Do you see it, man?'
'I sure see something.'
'Then report it. Put it right down in your report, do you hear me? Make a complete record of it. They won't say there's anything wrong with me. I didn't doubt for a minute that I had seen it.'
But he couldn't have been so happy if that were entirely true.
'I don't even know what the climate is like in Seattle,' wailed Jane, 'and there are a million things I have to do.'
'Need any help?' asked Jim Sarle from his comfortable position in the depths of the armchair.
'There's nothing you can do. Oh, dear.' And she flew from the room, but unlike her husband, she did so figuratively only.
Roger Toomey came in. 'Jane, do we have the crates for the books yet? Hello, Jim. When did you come in? And where's Jane?'
'I came in a minute ago and Jane's in the next room. I had to get past a policeman to get in. Man, they've got you surrounded.'
'Um-m-m,' said Roger, absently. 'I told them about you.'
'I know you did. I've been sworn to secrecy. I told them it was a matter of professional confidence in any case. Why don't you let the movers do the packing? The government is paying, isn't it?'
'Movers wouldn't do it right,' said Jane, suddenly hurrying in again and flouncing down on the sofa. 'I'm going to have a cigarette.'
'Break down, Roger,' said Sarle, 'and tell me what happened.'
Roger smiled sheepishly. 'As you said, Jim. I took my mind off the wrong problem and applied it to the right one. It just seemed to me that I was forever being faced with two alternatives. I was either crooked or crazy. Deering said that flatly in his letter to Morton. The dean assumed I was crooked and Morton suspected that I was crazy.
'But supposing I could show them that I could really levitate. Well, Morton told me what would happen in that case. Either I would be crooked or the witness would be insane. Morton said that - he said that if he saw me fly, he'd prefer to believe himself insane than accept the evidence. Of course, he was only being rhetorical. No man would believe in his own insanity while even the faintest alternative existed. I counted on that.
'So I changed my tactics. I went to Deering's seminar. I didn't tell him I could float; I showed him, and then denied I had done it. The alternative was clear. I was either lying or he - not I, mind you, but he - was mad. It was obvious that he would sooner believe in levitation than doubt his own sanity, once he was really put to the test. All his actions thereafter, his bullying, his trip to Washington, his offer of a job, were all intended only to vindicate his own sanity, not to help me.'
Sarle said, 'In other words you had made your levitation his problem and not your own.'
Roger said, 'Did you have anything like this in mind when we had our talk, Jim?'
Sarle shook his head. 'I had vague notions but a man must solve his own problems if they're to be solved effectively. Do you think they'll work out the principle of levitation now?'
'I don't know, Jim. I still can't communicate the subjective aspects of the phenomenon. But that doesn't matter. We'll be investigating them and that's what counts.' He struck his balled right fist into the palm of his left hand. 'As far as I'm concerned the important point is that I made them help me.'
'Is it?' asked Sarle, softly. 'I should say that the important point is that you let them make you help them, which is a different thing altogether.'
Introduction to DEATH OF A FOY
Every once in a while, George Scithers of Asimov's likes to publish short and outrageous stories, and, every once in a while, I like to write one. So I wrote 'Death of a Foy' and sent it off to George, hardly able to stop laughing long enough to seal the envelope. You can imagine my indignation when George rejected it. (Actually, it was good that he did. I don't want anyone to think that the appearance in my own magazine of any story I write is a foregone conclusion. George has strict orders to reject anything of mine he doesn't like. He accepts that situation, and so do I.) Making a few cursory remarks under my breath, I sent the story on to Ed Ferman at The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, hereafter to be referred to as F & SF. Fortunately, he managed to stop laughing long enough to write out a cheque, and it appeared in the October 1980 F & SF.
4
Death of a Foy
It was extremely unusual for a Foy to be dying on Earth. They were the highest social class on their planet (with a name which was pronounced - as nearly as Earthly throats could make the sounds - Sortibackenstrete) and were virtually immortal.
Every Foy, of course, came to voluntary death eventually, and this one had given up because of an ill-starred love affair, if you can call it a love affair where five individuals, in order to reproduce, must indulge in a year-long mental contact. Apparently, he himself had not fitted into the contact after several months of trying and it had broken his heart -or hearts, for he had five.
All Foys had five large hearts and there was speculation that it was this that made them virtually immortal.
Maude Briscoe, Earth's most renowned surgeon, wanted those hearts. 'It can't be just their number and size, Dwayne,' she said to her chief assistant. 'It has to be something physiological or biochemical. I must have them.'
'I don't know if we can manage that,' said Dwayne Johnson. 'I've been speaking to him earnestly, trying to overcome the Foy taboo against dismemberment after death. I've had to play on the feeling of tragedy any Foy would have over death away from home. And I've had to lie to him, Maude.'
'Lie?'
'I told him that, after death, there would be a dirge sung for him by the world-famous choir led by Harold J. Gassenbaum. I told him that by Earthly belief this would mean that his astral essence would be instantaneously wafted back, through hyperspace, to his home planet of Sortib-what's its name. - Provided he would sign a release allowing you, Maude, to have his hearts for scientific investigation.'
'Don't tell me he believed that horse excrement!' said Maude.
'Well, you know this modern attitude about accepting the myths and beliefs of intelligent aliens. It wouldn't have been polite for him not to believe me. Besides, the Foys have a profound admiration for terrestrial science and I think this one is a little flattered that we should want his hearts. He promised to consider the suggestion, and I hope he decides soon because he can't live more than another day or so, and we must have his permission by interstellar law. and the hearts must be fresh, and - ah, his signal.'
Dwayne Johnson moved in with smooth and noiseless speed.
'Yes?' he. whispered, unobtrusively turning on the holographic recording device in case the Foy wished to grant permission.
The Foy's large, gnarled, rather tree-like body lay motionless on the bed. The bulging eyes palpitated (all five of them) as they rose, each on its stalk, and turned towards Dwayne. The Foy's voice had a strange tone and the lipless edges of his open, round mouth did not move, but the words formed perfectly. His eyes were making the Foyan gesture of assent as he said:
'Give my big hearts to Maude, Dwayne. Dismember me for Harold's choir. Tell all the Foys on Sortibackenstrete that I will soon be there--'
Introduction to FAIR EXCHANGE?
I am a member of the Gilbert and Sullivan Society of New York, a most enthusiastic one, and never miss a meeting if I can help it. Once, when I was in the apartment of one of the members, rehearsing something we were going to do at one of the meetings, the play Thespis was mentioned. It was the first of the Gilbert and Sullivan collaborations and almost all the music to it is lost. At once I got the thought of weaving the matter into a science fiction story. I got to work on it in January 1978 to the delight of the society generally. There was only one catch. I intended to write a funny story, but, as every writer knows, stories have a bad habit of writing themselves, and you will have to accept the result the story seemed to want. It appeared in the Fall 1979 issue of Asimov's Science Fiction Adventure Magazine (or Asfam), a short-lived (alas!) sister magazine of Asimov's.
'Fair Exchange?' also appeared, in 1981, in a sm
all three-story collection of mine called Three by Asimov. This was published by William Targ in a very limited edition of two hundred and fifty, at sixty dollars a copy. Presumably, they are now all gone, so I see nothing wrong with including it in a collection that will be considerably larger, cheaper, and more available. One of the other two stories in Three by Asimov also appears in this collection, by the way, and I will point it out when I get to it.
5
Fair Exchange?
I kept drifting in and out and every once in a while I'd hear a brief snatch of tune in my head.
The words came. 'While noodles are baroned and earled, there's nothing for clever obscurity.'
I was aware of light, then John Sylva's face bending over me. 'Hello, Herb,' its mouth said.
I didn't hear the words, but I saw the mouth forming them. I nodded and drifted out again.
It was dark when I drifted in once more. A nurse was fussing over me but I lay quietly and she drifted away.
I was in a hospital, of course.
I wasn't surprised. John had warned me and I had taken the risk. I moved my legs, then my arms - very gently. They didn't hurt. They had sensation. My head throbbed but that was to be expected, too.
--While noodles are baroned and earled, there's nothing--
Thespis, I thought jubilantly. I had heard Thespis. I drifted off again.
It was dawn. There was the taste of orange juice on my lips. I sipped at the straw and was grateful.
Time machine!
John Sylva didn't like to have me call it that. Temporal transference, he called it.
I could hear him saying it and I luxuriated in it. My brain seemed perfectly normal. I tried to solve problems in my head and worked away, mentally, at the square root of five hundred and forty-three. Name the Presidents in order! I seemed to be in good mental shape. Could I tell? I assured myself I could.
Brain damage had been the great worry, of course, and I don't think I'd have risked it except for Thespis. You'd have to be a Gilbert and Sullivan fanatic to understand that. I was, and so was Mary. We had met at a G & S Society meeting, wooed each other through further meetings and while attending performances by the Village Light Opera Group. When we married at last, a chorus of our G & S friends sang 'When a Merry Maiden Marries' from The Gondoliers. My brain was normal. I was sure of it and I stared out at the cold grey dawn that coated the window and listened to my steadily strengthening memory of what had happened.