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

hoax, one that had taken in the Secretary as well as himself? If so, why?

But Ennius spoke. “Quickly, man. Your meaning.”

“It’s not complicated,” said Schwartz. “When we were here last night I knew I could do nothing by simply sitting and listening. So I worked carefully on the Secretary’s mind for a long time. . . . I dared not be detected. And then, finally, he asked that I be ordered out of the room. This was what I wanted, of course, and the rest was easy.

“I stunned my guard and left for the airstrip. The fort was on a twenty-four-hour alert. The aircraft were fueled, armed, and ready for flight. The pilots were waiting. I picked one out—and we flew to Senloo.”

The Secretary might have wished to say something. His jaws writhed soundlessly.

It was Shekt who spoke. “But you could force no one to fly a plane, Schwartz. It was all you could do to make a man walk.”

“Yes, when it’s against his will. But from Dr. Arvardan’s mind I knew how Sirians hated Earthmen—so I looked for a pilot who was born in the Sirius Sector and found Lieutenant Claudy.”

“Lieutenant Claudy?” cried Arvardan.

“Yes—Oh, you know him. Yes, I see. It’s quite clear in your mind.”

“I’ll bet. . . . Go ahead, Schwartz.”

“This officer hated Earthmen with a hate that’s difficult to understand, even for me, and I was inside his mind. He wanted to bomb them. He wanted to destroy them. It was only discipline that tied him fast and kept him from taking out his plane then and there.

“That kind of a mind is different. Just a little suggestion, a little push, and discipline was not enough to hold him. I don’t even think he realized that I climbed into the plane with him.”

“How did you find Senloo?” whispered Shekt.

“In my time,” said Schwartz, “there was a city called St. Louis. It was at the junction of two great rivers. . . . We found Senloo. It was night, but there was a dark patch in a sea of radioactivity—and Dr. Shekt had said the Temple was an isolated oasis of normal soil. We dropped a flare—at least it was my mental suggestion—and there was a five-pointed building below us. It jibed with the picture I had received in the Secretary’s mind. . . . Now there’s only a hole, a hundred feet deep, where that building was. That happened at three in the morning. No virus was sent out and the universe is free.”

It was an animal-like howl that emerged from the Secretary’s lips—the unearthly screech of a demon. He seemed to gather for a leap, and then—collapsed.

A thin froth of saliva trickled slowly down his lower lip.

“I never touched him,” said Schwartz softly. Then, staring thoughtfully at the fallen figure, “I was back before six, but I knew I would have to wait for the deadline to pass. Balkis would have to crow. I knew that from his mind, and it was from his own mouth, only, that I could convict him. . . . Now there he lies.”

22

The Best Is Yet to Be

Thirty days had passed since Joseph Schwartz had lifted off an airport runway on a night dedicated to Galactic destruction, with alarm bells shrilling madly behind him and orders to return burning the ether toward him.

He had not returned; not, at least, until he had destroyed the Temple of Senloo.

The heroism was finally made official now. In his pocket he had the ribbon of the Order of the Spaceship and Sun, First Class. Only two others in all the Galaxy had ever gotten it nonposthumously.

That was something for a retired tailor.

No one, of course, outside the most official of officialdom, knew exactly what he had done, but that didn’t matter. Someday, in the history books, it would all become part of a bright and indelible record.

He was walking through the quiet night now toward Dr. Shekt’s house. The city was peaceful, as peaceful as the starry glitter above. In isolated places on Earth bands of Zealots still made trouble, but their leaders were dead or captive and the moderate Earthmen, themselves, could take care of the rest.

The first huge convoys of normal soil were already on their way. Ennius had again made his original proposal that Earth’s population be moved to another planet, but that was out. Charity was not wanted. Let Earthmen have a chance to remake their own planet. Let them build once again the home of their fathers, the native world of man. Let them labor with their hands, removing the diseased soil and replacing it with healthy, seeing the green grow where all had been dead and making the desert blossom in beauty once again.

It was an enormous job; it could take a century—but what of that? Let the Galaxy lend machinery; let the Galaxy ship food; let the Galaxy supply soil. Of their incalculable resources, it would be a trifle—and it would be repaid.

And someday, once again, the Earthman would be a people among peoples, inhabiting a planet among planets, looking all humanity in the eye in dignity and equality.

Schwartz’s heart pounded at the wonder of it all as he walked up the steps to the front door. Next week he left with Arvardan for the great central worlds of the Galaxy. Who else of his generation had ever left Earth?

And momentarily he thought of the old Earth, his Earth. So long dead. So long dead.

And yet but three and a half months had passed . . .

He paused, his hand on the point of signaling at the door, as the words from within sounded in his mind. How clearly he heard thoughts now, like tiny bells.

It was Arvardan, of course, with more in his mind than words alone could ever handle. “Pola, I’ve waited and thought, and thought and waited. I won’t any more. You’re coming with me.”

And Pola, with a mind as eager as his, yet with words of the purest reluctance, said, “I couldn’t, Bel. It’s