The World Beyond the Hill: Science Fiction and the Quest for Transcendence (91 page)

The inventor of this “interstellar cruiser” expects to find every normal star accompanied by its own family of planets, even though planet-formation seems contrary to the processes presently at work in the universe. He accounts for his expectation with an argument expressing a favorite Williamson proposition—that natural law may not be the same in all times and places. He says:

“The old cosmologists went wrong because they didn’t know their own universe. They thought their constants of mass and energy were really constant. Now we know that the only real constant is the unitron itself—a basic underlying unit common to both the subatomic particles of mass and the quanta of energy. I’ve been working with the unitron equations that treat mass and energy as changing functions of time. They show that our universe was a very different place, five or six billion years ago—a sort of place the old astronomers never imagined. Processes worked then that would be impossible now.”
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When he finished this novel in August, Williamson was pleased with what he had done. It occurred to him then that he might write another story that was doubly related to it. This novel, the working title of which would be
Star of Empire,
would follow “Breakdown” in time, depicting the long-term results of its intended seeding of the stars. It would also be a further exploration of the theme of “Breakdown,” in that it would tell of the simultaneous coming to completion and collapse of a human empire that spans the galaxy.

Here, in two stories, Williamson’s
Star of Empire
and Asimov’s “Foundation,” we can see an index of change in SF. Back in the Romantic Era, the urge to write a story of science-beyond-science might overcome a rare writer once or twice in a lifetime. But now, in the early Atomic Age, there were so many dedicated writers of science fiction at work on the same set of problems that it was possible for two of them to conceive stories with the same new idea at the very same time.

And this wasn’t the only occasion during the Golden Age when such a coincidence of inspiration and effort would take place. It was almost as though the One Great Big Writer imagined by van Vogt as producing the science fiction printed in
Astounding
were tuned in to One Common Wavelength, so that if one writer didn’t express a particular story idea, another surely would.

In the case of this novel of galactic downfall,
Star of Empire,
Campbell didn’t undercut Williamson’s effort by informing him that Asimov, too, was at work on the subject, and had already delivered a short novelet, with more soon to follow. Rather, he made a suggestion to Williamson much like the one he had made to Asimov—that he should broaden his canvas and turn his novel into “ ‘the chronological background for a dozen or two dozen shorts and novelettes.’ ”
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As it happened, at the time that Campbell and Williamson were exchanging their notes concerning
Star of Empire
and what Williamson must do to make himself into a modern science fiction writer, Asimov had not yet begun to work on the sequel to “Foundation” that he had bound himself to write. Through the remainder of September and most of October, he took it easy and busied himself with other things.

He registered for the new term at Columbia and settled into a course in food analysis that he needed in order to pass his Ph.D. Qualifying Exams. He was feeling so chipper this fall that his professor received a number of complaints about Asimov’s incessant singing and joking in the lab. Asimov offset these by telling his teacher that although he might make his living by writing, it was chemistry that was the delight of his heart and he just couldn’t help showing it.

Then, when he did return to the typewriter early in October, it still wasn’t to work on the story that Campbell was waiting to see. Instead, as though he needed to prove to himself that he really did have two different series established with the editor, Asimov devoted the first three weeks of the month to turning out a new robot story entitled “Runaround.”

In itself, this story would be relatively trivial. An expensive robot named Speedy is being field-tested on Mercury when it gets stuck going round and round a pool of molten selenium in an endless approach/avoidance pattern, and nothing that our old friends Greg Powell and Mike Donovan can do will snap it out of its funk.

At last, however, Powell puts himself in danger of too much exposure to the Sun, and then calls upon the robot to save him. So powerful is the grip of the First Law—“ ‘A robot may not injure a human being, or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm’ ”
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—that Speedy is compelled to respond, thereby breaking him free of his futile round and restoring him to rationality.

“Liar!,” Asimov’s previous robot story, had served to show that one of his mechanical men would short out and do nothing at all rather than cause even psychic distress to a human being. Now, in “Runaround,” he demonstrated that his law-abiding robots would ignore previous orders, put aside the impulse to protect themselves, and even overcome mental imbalance in order to save a human being from peril. What firmer assurance of robotic reliability and subservience to man could be asked for?

As the first story in which the Three Laws of Robotics were explicitly stated, “Runaround” was immediately acceptable to John Campbell. The editor may have hesitated for a full week before he bought “Foundation” with its inconclusive ending, but he put through a check for “Runaround” on the very same day he received the story.

It was only then, at the beginning of the last week in October 1941, that Asimov finally took up the problem of writing the sequel to “Foundation” that he had been putting off for a month and a half. The new story was called “Bridle and Saddle,” and at the outset it went very smoothly. After just three days of writing, Asimov had accumulated seventeen pages of manuscript.

In this story, thirty years have passed since the events of “Foundation,” but Salvor Hardin is still Mayor of Terminus City and director of the affairs of the planet. Early in the novelet—in that portion which had just come so easily to Asimov—Hardin at last offers an answer to the question of how the threat posed to Terminus by Anacreon was countered and the first crisis resolved. Hardin says:

“What I did . . . was to visit the three other kingdoms, one by one; point out to each that to allow the secret of atomic power to fall into the hands of Anacreon was the quickest way of cutting their own throats; and suggest gently that they do the obvious thing. That was all. One month after the Anacreonian force had landed on Terminus, their king received a joint ultimatum from his three neighbors. In seven days, the last Anacreonian was off Terminus.”
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Ever since then, the Foundation/Terminus has been performing a delicate balancing act. It preserves its existence by making itself indispensable to the rulers of the Four Kingdoms—Anacreon, Smyrno, Konom and Daribow—but not so useful as to allow any one of them to gain advantage over the others.

Because advanced science is regarded with awe by the ordinary populace of the Four Kingdoms, the Foundation offers its technical, economic, medical and educational assistance under the guise of a new religion of the Galactic Spirit. In each of the Four Kingdoms, the most promising young men are picked out to travel to Terminus and be educated in the priesthood.

The best of the best are brought within the Foundation as genuine scientific researchers. The second-raters are trained in technology, but not in science, and then sent back to their home worlds to run the new atomic power plants, give support to the current rulers, and minister to the people.

However, there are political firebrands on Terminus—the Actionist Party—who despise this religion as flummery and perceive the provision of any kind of assistance to the Four Kingdoms as craven truckling that in the long run must be dangerous to the security of the planet. They would prefer to build up the military strength of Terminus and impose their will on the Four Kingdoms before the time comes when the barbarians have learned too much and launch their own inevitable attack.

Salvor Hardin’s response to their contempt for his presumed weakness and their transparent greed for power is to repeat his favorite slogan: “ ‘Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent.’ ”
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This was about as far as Asimov had managed to move “Bridle and Saddle” along when he went to pay one of his regular visits to John Campbell. This time the editor greeted him by finally declaring, “ ‘I want that Foundation story.’ ”
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And that was sufficient to throw Asimov completely off balance.

For the next five days, nothing he tried would convince the novelet to move ahead another inch. Asimov was completely stymied.

By a synchronicity of the kind we’ve encountered so often, the other Fall of Galactic Empire story,
Star of Empire,
was running into trouble during October, too. In fact, so badly stuck did his novel get that Jack Williamson would at last find it necessary to set it aside and go on to other things. A dozen years later, with the aid of a co-writer, James E. Gunn, he would be able to start the story moving again, and it would finally see publication as a book in 1955 under the title
Star Bridge.

Asimov would get over his own block more easily, but by much the same method—bringing an outside judgment to bear on the problem. On Sunday, the second of November, he went to Lower Manhattan to visit his friend and age-mate, Fred Pohl, who at different times had been his editor, his agent, and his collaborator.

They had first gotten to know each other in 1938 as two of the founding members of the Futurians, a small pack of hungry, bright and radical young New York City SF fans. As it turned out, Asimov was too busy trying to be an “A” student, a candy store clerk, and a science fiction professional all at once to have the time to be an active fan. But his peripheral participation in this group did lead to an abiding friendship with Pohl.

The two were drawn together by their commonalities of age, intelligence and ambition—but also by their extreme differences in background, temperament, education and experience. Pohl was a cool young fellow, a self-taught high school dropout who was already making his own way in the world by bluff and wit and luck. By 1940, he was a married man at a time when Asimov, the wiseacre immigrant kid become precocious chemistry grad student, was still living at home with his parents.

But Pohl had respect for the self-discipline and diligence that permitted Asimov to work and to succeed within the tight parameters of his life situation, and he envied Asimov’s ability to sell stories to
Astounding.
And Asimov, for his part, admired Pohl’s ability to deal with his own more chancy path in life with self-reliance and nerve, and counted Pohl’s science fiction judgment second only to John Campbell’s among the people he knew.

The two would exchange visits. When Pohl walked over to Brooklyn, he would hang around the candy store and be treated to free milk shakes by Asimov’s mother. But it was a different situation when Asimov went to see Pohl. Although Asimov was never made aware of it, Pohl’s then-wife was unfond of him and didn’t like having him around the apartment. Pohl’s solution was to take him for strolls around nearby Chinatown—which Asimov in his own way found a treat.

On this occasion, they wound up walking out onto the Brooklyn Bridge. There they talked over this story of Asimov’s that had gotten stuck but absolutely had to be finished at the earliest possible moment. In later years, neither man would be able to recall the details of what they said to each other, but a grateful Asimov would swear that it was the suggestions Pohl made to him here that settled his case of nerves and freed up his imagination again.

Asimov came off the Brooklyn Bridge knowing just where his tale needed to go next. “Bridle and Saddle” would prove to be the longest story he had yet written—half again longer than “Foundation”—but it would only take him another two weeks to see it finished.

In “Bridle and Saddle,” the balance of power that has allowed Terminus to survive for the past thirty years is in the process of being overturned. Anacreon—which has never surrendered its ambitions to rule the Periphery and as much more of the universe as it can manage to bring within its grip—has stumbled upon a centuries-old Imperial Navy battle cruiser, an immense and powerful ship constructed back in the days when “ ‘they could build,’ ”
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drifting abandoned in space. And now Wienis, the Prince Regent of Anacreon, has presented a formal request that the Foundation use its knowledge to put the cruiser back in fighting condition, and then give the ship over to the Anacreonian Navy.

It is plain that if the cruiser actually is repaired, it is the intention of Anacreon to turn the ship’s atom blasts against Terminus and against the three rival kingdoms. But if the Foundation should refuse to repair the cruiser, that, too, would be sufficient excuse for a suspicious and power-hungry Prince Regent to pick the fight he wants.

Terminus is in a double bind. Whether it chooses to cooperate with Anacreon’s wishes or not, it seems that a war is going to come that the Foundation cannot win. And if Anacreon isn’t able to get the war started all on its own, the Actionist Party on Terminus seems committed to doing the job for it.

Beyond this, Salvor Hardin, the one person who desires to avoid war, appears to be caught in the grip of a double bind all his own. However he elects to act, whatever he chooses to do, it would seem that either the Actionists or Wienis will succeed in finding reason and means to have him thrown out of office, and then oversee the ruination of the work of thirty years and more.

When Salvor Hardin was young, he was not unwilling to take direct action—as he is frequently reminded. Now, however, in his maturity, he is content to wait and wait and wait. By agreeing to the repair of Anacreon’s battle cruiser, he is able to buy himself six months of time. Through this period, he works to stall and confuse the Actionists, all the while assuring them that the government is of the opinion that it knows what it is doing.