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

But then, in the department store, just before that big man had reached out and trapped him—just before that—he had become conscious of the coming snatch. The warning had not been soon enough to save him, but it was a definite indication of the change.

And, since then, the headaches. No, not quite headaches. Throbbings, rather, as though some hidden dynamo in his brain had started working and, with its unaccustomed action, was vibrating every bone of his skull. There had been nothing like it in Chicago—supposing his fantasy of Chicago had meaning—or even during his first few days here in reality.

Had they done something to him that day in Chica? The machine? The pills—that had been anesthetic. An operation? And his thoughts, having reached that point for the hundredth time, stopped once more.

He had left Chica the day after his abortive escape, and now the days passed easily.

There had been Grew in his wheel chair, repeating words and pointing, or making motions, just as the girl, Pola, had done before him. Until one day Grew stopped speaking nonsense and began talking English. Or no, he himself—he, Joseph Schwartz—had stopped speaking English and had begun talking nonsense. Except that it wasn’t nonsense, any more.

It was so easy. He learned to read in four days. He surprised himself. He had had a phenomenal memory once, in Chicago, or it seemed to him that he had. But he had not been capable of such feats. Yet Grew did not seem surprised.

Schwartz gave it up.

Then, when the autumn had become really golden, things were clear again, and he was out in the fields working. It was amazing, the way he picked it up. There it was again—he never made a mistake. There were complicated machines that he could run without trouble after a single explanation.

He waited for the cold weather and it never quite came. The winter was spent in clearing ground, in fertilizing, in preparing for the spring planting in a dozen ways.

He questioned Grew, tried to explain what snow was, but the latter only stared and said, “Frozen water falling like rain, eh? Oh! The word for that is snow! I understand it does that on other planets but not on Earth.”

Schwartz watched the temperature thereafter and found that it scarcely varied from day to day—and yet the days shortened, as would be expected from a northerly location, say as northerly as Chicago. He wondered if he was on Earth.

He tried reading some of Grew’s book films but gave up. People were people still, but the minutiae of daily life, the knowledge of which was taken for granted, the historical and sociological allusions that meant nothing to him, forced him back.

The puzzles continued. The uniformly warm rains, the wild instructions he received to remain away from certain regions. For instance, there had been the evening that he had finally become too intrigued by the shining horizon, the blue glow to the south . . .

He had slipped off after supper, and when not a mile had passed, the almost noiseless whir of the biwheel engine came up behind him and Arbin’s angry shout rang out in the evening air. He had stopped and had been taken back.

Arbin had paced back and forth before him and had said, “You must stay away from anywhere that it shines at night.”

Schwartz had asked mildly, “Why?”

And the answer came with biting incision, “Because it is forbidden.” A long pause, then, “You really don’t know what it’s like out there, Schwartz?”

Schwartz spread his hands.

Arbin said, “Where do you come from? Are you an—an Outsider?”

“What’s an Outsider?”

Arbin shrugged and left.

But that night had had a great importance for Schwartz, for it was during that short mile toward the shiningness that the strangeness in his mind had coalesced into the Mind Touch. It was what he called it, and the closest he had come, either then or thereafter, to describing it.

He had been alone in the darkling purple. His own footsteps against the springy pavement were muted. He hadn’t seen anybody. He hadn’t heard anybody. He hadn’t touched anything.

Not exactly . . . It had been something like a touch, but not anywhere on his body. It was in his mind. . . . Not exactly a touch, but a presence—a somethingness there like a velvety tickle.

Then there had been two—two touches, distinct, apart. And the second—how could he tell them apart?—had grown louder (no, that wasn’t the right word); it had grown distincter, more definite.

And then he knew it was Arbin. He knew it five minutes, at least, before he caught the sound of the biwheel, ten minutes before he laid eyes on Arbin.

Thereafter it occurred again and again with increasing frequency.

It began to dawn on him that he always knew when Arbin, Loa, or Grew was within a hundred feet of himself, even when he had no reason for knowing, even when he had every reason to suppose the opposite. It was a hard thing to take for granted, yet it began to seem so natural.

He experimented, and found that he knew exactly where any of them were, at any time. He could distinguish between them, for the Mind Touch differed from person to person. Not once had he the nerve to mention it to the others.

And sometimes he would wonder what that first Mind Touch on the road to the Shiningness had been. It had been neither Arbin, Loa, nor Grew. Well? Did it make a difference?

It did later. He had come across the Touch again, the same one, when he brought in the cattle one evening. He came to Arbin then and said:

“What about that patch of woods past the South Hills, Arbin?”

“Nothing about it,” was the gruff answer. “It’s Ministerial Ground.”

“What’s that?”

Arbin seemed annoyed. “It’s of no importance to you, is it? They call it Ministerial Ground because it is the property of the High Minister.”

“Why isn’t it cultivated?”

“It’s not intended for that.” Arbin’s voice was shocked. “It was a great Center. In ancient