Isaac Asimov - Nightfall (novel)

“I know how you revere that man,” Theremon said. “But what does all this have to do with—”

“I’m getting to the point.” Beenay rose and walked to the edge of the terrace, carrying his second drink with him. He stood there in silence for a time, looking out at distant Trey and Patru. It seemed to Theremon that Beenay was growing agitated again. But the newspaperman said nothing. After a time Beenay took a long gulp of his drink. Standing with his back still turned, he said finally, “The problem is this. A few months ago I began working on a recalculation of the motions of Kalgash around Onos, using the big new university computer. I provided the computer with the last six weeks’ actual observations of Kalgash’s orbit and told it to predict the orbital movements for the rest of the year. I didn’t expect any surprises. Mainly I just wanted an excuse to fool around with the computer, I guess. Naturally, I used the gravitational laws in setting up my calculations.” He swung around suddenly. His face had a bleak, haunted look. “Theremon, it didn’t come out right. ”

“I don’t understand.”

“The orbit the computer produced didn’t match up with the hypothetical orbit I was expecting to get. I don’t mean that I was simply working on the basis of a pure Kalgash-Onos system, you realize. I took into account all perturbations that the other suns would cause. And what I got—what the computer was claiming to be the true orbit of Kalgash—was something very different from the orbit that is indicated by Athor’s Theory of Gravitation.”

“But you said you used Athor’s gravitational laws in setting things up,” said Theremon, puzzled.

“I did.”

“Then how—” Suddenly Theremon’s eyes brightened. “Good lord, man! What a story! Are you telling me that the brand-new supercomputer at Saro University, installed at a cost of I don’t want to think how many millions of credits, is inaccurate ? That there’s been a gigantic scandalous waste of the taxpayers’ money? That—”

“There’s nothing wrong with the computer, Theremon. Believe me.”

“Can you be sure of that?”

“Positive.”

“Then—what—”

“I might have given the computer erroneous figures, maybe. It’s a terrific computer, but it can’t get the right answer from the wrong data.”

“So that’s why you’re so upset, Beenay! Listen, man, it’s only human to make an error once in a while. You mustn’t be so harsh on yourself. You—”

“I needed to be completely certain that I had fed the right numbers into the computer, first of all, and also that I had given it the right theoretical postulates to use in processing those numbers,” said Beenay, clutching his glass so tightly that his hand shook. The glass was empty now, Theremon noticed. “As you say, it’s only human to make an error once in a while. So I called in a couple of hotshot young graduate students and let them work on the problem. They had their results for me today. That was the meeting I had that was so important, when I said I couldn’t see you. Theremon, they confirmed my findings. They got the same deviation in the orbit that I did.”

“But if the computer was right, then—then—” Theremon shook his head. “Then what? The Theory of Universal Gravitation is wrong? Is that what you’re saying?”

“Yes.”

The word appeared to have come from Beenay at a terrible price. He seemed stunned, dazed, devastated.

Theremon studied him. No doubt this was confusing for Beenay, and probably very embarrassing. But the journalist still couldn’t understand why the impact of all this on him was so powerful.

Then abruptly he understood everything.

“It’s Athor! You’re afraid of hurting Athor, aren’t you?”

“That’s it exactly,” said Beenay, giving Theremon a look of almost pathetic gratitude for having seen the true situation. He threw himself down in his chair, shoulders hunched, head lowered. In a muffled voice he said, “It would kill the old man to know that someone’s poked a hole in his wonderful theory. That I , of all people, had poked a hole in it. He’s been like a second father to me, Theremon. Everything I’ve accomplished in the past ten years has been done under his guidance, with his encouragement, with—with, well, his love, in a manner of speaking. And now I repay it like this. I wouldn’t just be destroying his life’s work—I’d be stabbing him, Theremon, him. ”

“Have you considered simply suppressing your findings?”

Beenay looked astonished. “You know I couldn’t do that!”

“Yes. Yes, I do know. But I had to find out whether you were thinking of it.”

“Whether I was thinking of the unthinkable? No, of course not. It never entered my mind. But what am I going to do, Theremon?—I suppose I could just throw all the papers away and pretend I never looked into the whole subject. But that would be monstrous. So what it comes down to is, I have a choice between violating my own scientific conscience and ruining Athor. Ruining the man I look upon not simply as the head of my profession but as my own philosophical mentor.”

“He can’t have been much of a mentor, then.”

The astronomer’s eyes widened in astonishment and fury. “What are you saying, Theremon!”

“Easy. Easy.” Theremon spread his hands wide in a conciliatory gesture. “It seems to me you’re being awfully condescending to him, Beenay. If Athor’s really the great man you think he is, he’s not going to put his own reputation above scientific truth. Do you see what I mean? Athor’s theory is not cast-iron. No theory is and there is always room for improvement. Isn’t that so? Science is constructed out of approximations that gradually approach the truth, you told me a long time back, and I’ve never forgotten it. Well, that means all theories are subject to constant testing and modification, doesn’t it? And if it eventually turns out that they’re not quite close enough to the truth, they need to be replaced by something that’s closer. Right, Beenay? Right?”

Beenay was trembling now. He looked very pale.

“Could you get me another drink, Theremon?”

“No. Listen to me: there’s more. You say that you’re so worried about Athor—he’s old; I suppose he’s pretty frail—that you don’t have the heart to tell him you’ve found a flaw in his theory. All right. That’s a decent and loving position to take. But think about this, will you? If calculating the orbit of Kalgash is all that important, somebody else is likely to stumble across the same flaw in Athor’s theory sooner or later, and that other person isn’t likely to be as tactful in letting Athor know about it as you’d be. He might even be a professional rival of Athor’s, an outright enemy of his—every scientist has enemies, you’ve told me so plenty of times. Wouldn’t it be better for you to go to Athor and tell him, gently, carefully, of what you’ve discovered, than for him to find out about it one morning in the Chronicle ?”

“Yes,” Beenay whispered. “You’re completely right.”

“You’ll go to him, then?”

“Yes. Yes. I have to, I suppose.” Beenay bit his lip. “I feel miserable about this, Theremon. I feel like a murderer.”

“I know you do. But it isn’t Athor you’ll be murdering, it’s a defective theory. Defective theories must never be allowed to persist. You owe it to Athor as well as yourself to let the truth emerge.” Theremon hesitated. A sudden startling new idea had occurred to him. “Of course, there’s one other possibility. I’m only a layman, you know, and you’ll probably laugh.—Is there any chance that the Theory of Gravitation might be correct despite everything, and that the computer’s figures for Kalgash’s orbit are right also, and that some other factor entirely, something altogether unknown, might be responsible for the discrepancy in your result?”