Isaac Asimov - The Gods Themselves

“Congratulations,” said Bronowski, dryly, “so do I. Listen, you’re not expecting an early death, are you? Your doctor hasn’t told you you’re hiding a fatal cancer?”

“No, no,” groaned Lamont.

“Well, then?”

“Never mind,” said Lamont, and he walked away hurriedly.

When he had first tried to get Bronowski to join forces with him, Lament’s grievance had concerned only Hallam’s mean-minded obstinacy concerning the suggestion that the para-men were the more intelligent. It was in that respect and that respect only that Lamont was striving for a breakthrough. He intended nothing beyond that—at first.

But in the course of the following months, he had been subjected to endless exasperation. His requests for equipment, for technical assistance, for computer time were delayed; his request for travel funds snubbed; his views at interdepartmental meetings invariably overlooked.

The breaking point came when Henry Garrison, junior to himself in point of service and definitely so in point of ability, received an advisory appointment, rich in prestige, that, by all rights, should have gone to Lamont. It was then that Lament’s resentment built up to the point where merely proving himself right was no longer sufficient. He yearned to smash Hallam, destroy him utterly.

The feeling was reinforced every day, almost every hour, by the unmistakable attitude of everyone else at the Pump Station. Lamont’s abrasive personality didn’t collect sympathy, but some existed nevertheless.

Garrison himself was embarrassed. He was a quiet-spoken, amiable young man who clearly wanted no trouble and who now stood in the doorway of Lamont’s lab with an expression that had more than a small component of apprehension in it.

He said, “Hey, Pete, can I have a few words with you?”

“As many as you like,” said Lament, frowning and avoiding a direct eye-to-eye glance.

Garrison came in and sat down. “Pete,” he said, “I can’t turn down the appointment but I want you to know I didn’t push for it. It came as a surprise.”

“Who’s asking you to turn it down? I don’t give a damn.”

“Pete. It’s Hallam. If I turned it down, it would go to someone else, not you. What have you done to the old man?”

Lamont rounded on the other. “What do you think of Hallam? What kind of man is he, in your opinion?”

Garrison was caught by surprise. He pursed his lips and rubbed his nose. “Well—” he said, and let the sound fade off.

“Great man? Brilliant scientist? Inspiring leader?”

“Well—”

“Let me tell you. The man’s a phony! He’s a fraud! He’s got this reputation and this position of his and he’s sitting on it in a panic. He knows that I see through him and that’s what he has against me.”

Garrison gave out a small, uneasy laugh, “You haven’t gone up to him and said—”

“No, I haven’t said anything directly to him,” said Lamont, morosely. “Some day I will. But he can tell. He knows I’m one person he isn’t fooling even if I don’t say anything.”

“But, Pete, where’s the point in letting him blow it? I don’t say I think he’s the world’s greatest, either, but where’s the sense in broadcasting it? Butter him up a little. He’s got your career in his hands.”

“Has he? I’ve got his reputation in mine. I’m going to show him up. I’m going to strip him.”

“How?”

“My business!” muttered Lamont, who at the moment had not the slightest idea as to how.

“But that’s ridiculous,” said Garrison. “You can’t win. Hell just destroy you. Even if he isn’t an Einstein or an Oppenheimer really, he’s more than either to the world in general. He is the Father of the Electron Pump to Earth’s two-billion population and nothing you can possibly do will affect them as long as the Electron Pump is the key to human paradise. While that’s true, Hallam can’t be touched and you’re crazy if you think he can. What the hell, Pete, tell him he’s great and eat crow. Don’t be another Denison!”

“I tell you what, Henry,” said Lament, in sudden fury. “Why not mind your own business?”

Garrison rose suddenly and left without a word. Lamont had made another enemy; or, at least, lost another friend. The price, however, was right, he finally decided, for one remark of Garrison had set the ball rolling in another direction.

Garrison had said, in essence, “... as long as the Electron Pump is the key to human paradise... Hallam can’t be touched.”

With that clanging in his mind, Lamont for the first time turned his attention away from Hallam and placed it on the Electron Pump.

Was the Electron Pump the key to human paradise? Or was there, by Heaven, a catch?

Everything in history had had a catch. What was the catch to the Electron Pump?

Lamont knew enough of the history of para-theory to know that the matter of “a catch” had not gone unexplored. When it was first announced that the basic over-all change in the Electron Pump was the Pumping of electrons from the Universe to the para-Universe, there had not been wanting those who said immediately, “But what will happen when all the electrons have been Pumped?”

This was easily answered. At the largest reasonable rate of Pumping, the electron supply would last for at least a trillion trillion years—and the entire Universe, together, presumably, with the para-Universe, wouldn’t last a tiny fraction of that time.

The next objection was more sophisticated. There was no possibility of Pumping all the electrons across. As the electrons were Pumped, the para-Universe would gain a net negative charge, and the Universe a net positive charge. With each year, as this difference in charge grew, it would become more difficult to Pump further electrons against the force of the opposed charge-difference. It was, of course neutral atoms that were actually Pumped but the distortion of the orbital electrons in the process created an effective charge which increased immensely with the radioactive changes that followed.

If the charge-concentration remained at the points of Pumping, the effect on the orbit-distorted atoms being Pumped would stop the entire process almost at once, but of course, there was diffusion to take into account. The charge-concentration diffused outward over the Earth, and the effect on the Pumping process had been calculated with that in mind.

The increased positive charge of the Earth generally forced the positively charged Solar wind to avoid the planet at a greater distance, and the magnetosphere was enlarged. Thanks to the work of McFarland (the real originator of the Great Insight according to Lament) it could be shown that a definite equilibrium point was reached as the Solar wind swept away more and more of the accumulating positive particles that were repelled from Earth’s surface and driven higher into the exosphere. With each increase in Pumping intensity; with each additional Pumping Station constructed, the net positive charge on Earth increased slightly, and the magnetosphere expanded by a few miles. The change, however, was minor, and the positive charge was, in the end, swept away by the Solar wind and spread through the outer reaches of the Solar system.

Even so—even allowing for the most rapid possible diffusion of the charge—the time would come when the local charge-difference between Universe and para-Universe at the points of Pumping would grow large enough to end the process, and that would be a small fraction of the time it would take really to use up all the electrons; roughly, a trillion-trillionth of the time.

But that still meant that Pumping would remain possible for a trillion years. Only a single trillion years, but that was enough; it would suffice. A trillion years was far longer than man would last, or the Solar system either. And if man somehow did last that long (or some creature that was man’s successor and supplanter) then no doubt something would be devised to correct the situation. A great deal could be done in a trillion years.