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

a complete fool? Does Earth look as if it’s boss of anything?” There was a smooth whir as Grew’s wheel chair circled the table. Schwartz felt grasping fingers on his arm.

“Look! Look there!” Grew’s voice was a whispered rasp. “You see the horizon? You see it shine?”

“Yes.”

“That is Earth—all Earth. Except here and there, where a few patches like this one exist.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Earth’s crust is radioactive. The soil glows, always glowed, will glow forever. Nothing can grow. No one can live—You really didn’t know that? Why do you suppose we have the Sixty?”

The paralytic subsided. He circled his chair about the table again. “It’s your move.”

The Sixty! Again a Mind Touch with an indefinable aura of menace. Schwartz’s chess pieces played themselves, while he wondered about it with a tight-pressed heart. His King’s Pawn took the opposing Bishop’s Pawn. Grew moved his Knight to Queen 4 and Schwartz’s Rook side-stepped the attack to Knight 4. Again Grew’s Knight attacked, moving to Bishop 3, and Schwartz’s Rook avoided the issue again to Knight 5. But now Grew’s King’s Rook’s Pawn advanced one timorous square and Schwartz’s Rook slashed forward. It took the Knight’s Pawn, checking the enemy King. Grew’s King promptly took the Rook, but Schwartz’s Queen plugged the hole instantly, moving to Knight 4 and checking. Grew’s King scurried to Rook 1, and Schwartz brought up his Knight, placing it on King 4. Grew moved his Queen to King 2 in a strong attempt to mobilize his defenses, and Schwartz countered by marching his Queen forward two squares to Knight 6, so that the fight was now in close quarters. Grew had no choice; he moved his Queen to Knight 2, and the two female majesties were now face to face. Schwartz’s Knight pressed home, taking the opposing Knight on Bishop 6, and when the now-attacked White Bishop moved quickly to Bishop 3, the Knight followed to Queen 5. Grew hesitated for slow minutes, then advanced his outflanked Queen up the long diagonal to take Schwartz’s Bishop.

Then he paused and drew a relieved breath. His sly opponent had a Rook in danger with a check in the offing and his own Queen ready to wreak havoc. And he was ahead a Rook to a Pawn.

“Your move,” he said with satisfaction.

Schwartz said finally, “What—what is the Sixty?”

There was a sharp unfriendliness to Grew’s voice. “Why do you ask that? What are you after?”

“Please,” humbly. He had little spirit left in him. “I am a man with no harm in me. I don’t know who I am or what happened to me. Maybe I’m an amnesia case.”

“Very likely,” was the contemptuous reply. “Are you escaping from the Sixty? Answer truthfully.”

“But I tell you I don’t know what the Sixty is!”

It carried conviction. There was a long silence. To Schwartz, Grew’s Mind Touch was ominous, but he could not, quite, make out words.

Grew said slowly, “The Sixty is your sixtieth year. Earth supports twenty million people, no more. To live, you must produce. If you cannot produce, you cannot live. Past Sixty—you cannot produce.”

“And so . . .” Schwartz’s mouth remained open.

“You’re put away. It doesn’t hurt.”

“You’re killed?”

“It’s not murder,” stiffly. “It must be that way. Other worlds won’t take us, and we must make room for the children some way. The older generation must make room for the younger.”

“Suppose you don’t tell them you’re sixty?”

“Why shouldn’t you? Life after sixty is no joke. . . . And there’s a Census every ten years to catch anyone who is foolish enough to try to live. Besides, they have your age on record.”

“Not mine.” The words slipped out. Schwartz couldn’t stop them. “Besides, I’m only fifty—next birthday.”

“It doesn’t matter. They can check by your bone structure. Don’t you know that? There’s no way of masking it. They’ll get me next time. . . . Say, it’s your move.”

Schwartz disregarded the urging. “You mean they’ll—”

“Sure, I’m only fifty-five, but look at my legs. I can’t work, can I? There are three of us registered in our family, and our quota is adjusted on a basis of three workers. When I had the stroke I should have been reported, and then the quota would have been reduced. But I would have gotten a premature Sixty, and Arbin and Loa wouldn’t do it. They’re fools, because it has meant hard work for them—till you came along. And they’ll get me next year, anyway. . . . Your move.”

“Is next year the Census?”

“That’s right. . . . Your move.”

“Wait!” urgently. “Is everyone put away after sixty? No exceptions at all?”

“Not for you and me. The High Minister lives a full life, and members of the Society of Ancients; certain scientists or those performing some great service. Not many qualify. Maybe a dozen a year. . . . It’s your move! ”

“Who decides who qualifies?”

“The High Minister, of course. Are you moving?”

But Schwartz stood up. “Never mind. It’s checkmate in five moves. My Queen is going to take your Pawn to check you; you’ve got to move to Knight 1; I bring up the Knight to check you at King 2; you must move to Bishop 2; my Queen checks you at King 6; you must move to Knight 2; my Queen goes to Knight 6, and when you’re then forced to Rook 1, my Queen mates you at Rook 6.

“Good game,” he added automatically.

Grew stared long at the board, then, with a cry, dashed it from the table. The gleaming pieces rolled dejectedly about on the lawn.

“You and your damned distracting chatter,” yelled Grew.

But Schwartz was conscious of nothing. Nothing except the overwhelming necessity of escaping the Sixty. For though Browning said:

Grow old along with me!

The best is yet to be . . .

that was in an Earth of teeming billions and of unlimited food. The best that was now to be was the Sixty—and death.

Schwartz was sixty-two.

Sixty-two . . .

12

The Mind That Killed

It worked out so neatly in Schwartz’s methodical mind. Since he did not want to die, he would have to