Pebble in the Sky by Isaac Asimov (best novels of all time .txt) 📗

to asylum—or euthanasia? Or were these simply Earthmen?

His neighbor was scowling at him again, and his voice broke in on Arvardan’s thoughts. “Hey fella, where’s ‘back there’?”

“Pardon me?”

“I said—where are you from? You said ‘back there.’ What’s ‘back there’? Hey?”

Arvardan found the eyes of all upon him now, each with its own sudden spark of suspicion in it. Did they think him a member of this Society of Ancients of theirs? Had his questioning seemed the cajolery of an agent provocateur?

So he met that by saying, in a burst of frankness, “I’m not from anywhere on Earth. I’m Bel Arvardan from Baronn, Sirius Sector. What’s your name?” And he held out his hand.

He might as well have dropped an atomic explosive capsule into the middle of the plane.

The first silent horror on every face turned rapidly into angry, bitter hostility that flamed at him. The man who had shared his seat rose stiffly and crowded into another, where the pair of occupants squeezed closely together to make room for him.

Faces turned away. Shoulders surrounded him, hemmed him in. For a moment Arvardan burned with indignation. Earthmen to treat him so. Earthmen! He had held out the hand of friendship to them. He, a Sirian, had condescended to treat with them and they had rebuffed him.

And then, with an effort, he relaxed. It was obvious that bigotry was never a one-way operation, that hatred bred hatred!

He was conscious of a presence beside him, and he turned toward it resentfully. “Yes?”

It was the young man with the cigarette. He was lighting a new one as he spoke. “Hello,” he said. “My name’s Creen. . . . Don’t let those jerks get you.”

“No one’s getting me,” said Arvardan shortly. He was not too pleased with the company, nor was he in the mood for patronizing advice from an Earthman.

But Creen was not trained to the detection of the more delicate nuances. He puffed his cigarette to life in man-sized drags and tapped its ashes over the arm of the seat into the middle aisle.

“Provincials!” he whispered with contempt. “Just a bunch of farmers. . . . They lack the Galactic view. Don’t bother with them. . . . Now you take me. I got a different philosophy. Live and let live, I say. I got nothing against Outsiders. If they want to be friendly with me, I’ll be friendly with them. What the hell—They can’t help being an Outsider just like I can’t help being an Earthman. Don’t you think I’m right?” And he tapped Arvardan familiarly on the wrist.

Arvardan nodded and felt a crawling sensation at the other’s touch. Social contact with a man who felt resentful over losing a chance to bring about his uncle’s death was not pleasant, quite regardless of planetary origin.

Creen leaned back. “Heading for Chica? What did you say your name was? Albadan?”

“Arvardan. Yes, I’m going to Chica.”

“That’s my home town. Best damned city on Earth. Going to stay there long?”

“Maybe. I haven’t made any plans.”

“Umm. . . . Say, I hope you don’t object to my saying that I’ve been noticing your shirt. Mind if I take a close look? Made in Sirius, huh?”

“Yes, it is.”

“It’s very good material. Can’t get anything like that on Earth. . . . Say, bud, you wouldn’t have a spare shirt like that in your luggage, would you? I’d pay for it if you wanted to sell it. It’s a snappy number.”

Arvardan shook his head emphatically. “Sorry, but I don’t have much of a wardrobe. I am planning to buy clothes here on Earth as I go along.”

“I’ll pay you fifty credits,” said Creen. . . . Silence. He added, with a touch of resentment, “That’s a good price.”

“A very good price,” said Arvardan, “but, as I told you, I have no shirts to sell.”

“Well . . .” Creen shrugged. “Expect to stay on Earth quite a while, I suppose?”

“Maybe.”

“What’s your line of business?”

The archaeologist allowed irritation to rise to the surface. “Look, Mr. Creen, if you don’t mind, I’m a little tired and would like to take a nap. Is that all right with you?”

Creen frowned. “What’s the matter with you? Don’t your kind believe in being civil to people? I’m just asking you a polite question; no need to bite my ear off.”

The conversation, hitherto conducted in a low voice, had suddenly amplified itself into a near shout. Hostile expressions turned Arvardan’s way, and the archaeologist’s lips compressed themselves into a thin line.

He had asked for it, he decided bitterly. He would not have gotten into this mess if he had held aloof from the beginning, if he hadn’t felt the necessity of vaunting his damned tolerance and forcing it on people who didn’t want it.

He said levelly, “Mr. Creen, I didn’t ask you to join me, and I haven’t been uncivil. I repeat, I am tired and would like to rest. I think there’s nothing unusual in that.”

“Listen”—the young man rose from his seat, threw his cigarette away with a violent gesture, and pointed a finger—“you don’t have to treat me like I’m a dog or something. You stinking Outsiders come here with your fine talk and standoffishness and think it gives you the right to stamp all over us. We don’t have to stand for it, see. If you don’t like it here, you can go back where you came from, and it won’t take much more of your lip to make me light into you, either. You think I’m afraid of you?”

Arvardan turned his head away and stared stonily out the window.

Creen said no more, but took his original seat once again. There was an excited buzz of conversation round and about the plane which Arvardan ignored. He felt, rather than saw, the sharpened and envenomed glances being cast at him. Until, gradually, it passed, as all things did.

He completed the journey, silent and alone.

The landing at the Chica airport was welcome. Arvardan smiled to himself at the first sight from the air of the “best damned city on Earth,” but found it, nevertheless, an immense improvement over